We are told by the Chinese classic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, that there was a military strategist called Zhuge Liang, also known as Kongming. It was said he had such an acute sense of strategy that people in his time regarded him as possessing supernatural powers. Not only could he predict his enemies’ movements, but he could also anticipate the weather and harness its power to amplify his plans.
One day, however, Kongming was caught off guard by another grand master, Sima Yi, also known as Zhongda. The story goes that, due to a miscalculation by one of his commanders, Kongming was left with a small army guarding a vulnerable city, Xicheng. Knowing this, Sima Yi dispatched his strongest army to finally exploit the mistake and take the city.
When Sima Yi arrived with hordes of elite soldiers, he found the city gates wide open, with old women sweeping the streets and Kongming sitting on top of the gate, playing a guqin, one of those ancient zither-like instruments whose sound we unmistakably associate with China. Sima Yi halted, surveyed the scene carefully, and concluded that it was a ruse. Kongming, in Sima Yi’s estimation, could not make such a blunder. He turned his troops around and sent spies to survey the little city again, convinced that there was a trap.
Little did Sima Yi know that, had he proceeded, he would have easily taken the city and changed the course of Chinese history. Instead, Kongming won the battle without a bead of sweat, let alone a drop of blood. He harnessed his reputation to avert disaster.
1. The Moral Value of Reputation
Philosophers often speak in terms of means and ends, or of things having intrinsic versus extrinsic value. Money is generally understood as having extrinsic value because it is always traded for something else. Happiness, health, or pleasure, on the other hand, have intrinsic value, many have argued. In other words, we want them for their own sake, and not as a means to yet another end. For this reason, these “goods” with intrinsic value have been regarded as essential for human flourishing and have therefore been placed at the centre of morality.
Reputation, by contrast, has seldom enjoyed similar moral status. I suppose this is because we think of reputation as a means to an end, just like money. Reputation opens doors, prevents fights (as we have already seen), and provides social and political standing. Reputation acts very much like money, to the extent that it can be traded for other goods. However, it does not quite accumulate and deplete in the same way as money. Like a candle lighting another, reputation can be shared and retained at the same time. Moreover, reputation can be gained by sharing it, if those with whom it is shared prove themselves upright. It is for these reasons that I think reputation is worth studying.
Reputation is generally used to recognise the good qualities of a person. Seldom do we attribute it to a criminal, for instance. But I think this is wrong. On its face, reputation carries neither positive nor negative moral quality. Both a criminal and an altruist could be reputable in their own worlds, trusted or perhaps known to behave in a particular way. Therefore, reputation is a measure of consistent behaviour more than it is a recognition of the good qualities in one’s behaviour or character.
Beyond behaviour, I think there is a consequentialist dimension worth associating with reputation. Kongming, whom we met in the preceding story, was famed for never having lost a battle. When rumours spread that he had died and enemies finally readied an assault, his corpse was dressed up and propped on a chair for the invading enemies to see. This bought his army enough time to prepare a retreat. In other words, effectiveness seems to be an important feature of reputation. Likewise, effectiveness need not be read only in terms of the good; one can be effective in the pursuit of evil, as Hitler was.
Reputation, therefore, is a pre-moral word in my view: it is neither good nor bad. Whereas we might use the word colloquially with a bias towards the good (e.g. “this is a reputable store”), I contend that the good is imported from the purpose of the subject. In the case of a store, its purpose would be to serve its customers well. Therefore, speaking about a reputable store quietly imports that purpose and thereby implies the good. However, we can also think about criminals or cartel bosses as having a reputation. Similarly, their purpose within the context of criminal activity is imported into the use of the word, thereby creating a morally negative bias. For instance: “John is reputed for killing and never getting caught.” But if we set aside the importation, we see clearly that reputation is merely descriptive; it carries no moral value.
2. The Practical Relevance of Reputation
Although reputation, as I have argued so far, does not have moral value by itself, its practical relevance is undisputed. George Soros, in his theory of reflexivity, offers an insight into the practical relevance of reputation.¹
Soros posits that the mind has two functions. First, we observe the world and form perceptions. This is what he calls the cognitive function. From perceptions, we formulate intentions and take action to create advantages for ourselves. This is the manipulative function. Given the vastness of experience, and that we consciously experience only a narrow slice of reality, we simply cannot form perceptions without errors or biases. We are fundamentally fallible. It follows that our intentions and actions are themselves error-prone.
Beyond errors due to the limits of consciousness, Soros also reveals an epistemological problem with these two functions, which he calls the lack of an independent variable. If I said, “The tea is hot,” the hotness of the tea would be independent of my mind. Someone else could touch the tea and determine for themselves that it is indeed hot. This independent variable becomes an anchor for establishing a fact or a truth. With the two functions, however, the cognitive function’s perception serves as the independent variable of the manipulative function. Yet, given that perception is itself a representation of reality, subject to correction or further error (perhaps with repeated experience), the manipulative function relies on a variable that is not entirely independent of the mind itself. Therefore, the truth cannot be properly established within the mind, at least not with the same fidelity as in saying, “The tea is hot.” The two functions can thus interfere with one another, providing false or fallible variables and producing undesirable outcomes.
I think this is precisely the practical problem that reputation tries to solve. When interference between cognition and manipulation is high, the subject (i.e. the thinking and active participant) will behave inconsistently in relation to their purpose. Consider someone learning how to ride a bicycle. While they are picking up the skill, interference is high. After they have mastered it, however, interference reduces to an acceptable level: they produce the outcome with acceptable reliability and cost.
Over time, they develop a reputation for, in this instance, riding a bicycle, so that anyone who also wants to learn to ride would choose them as a tutor over someone lacking that reputation. In other words, reputation is in the eye of the observer, and it is a perceived shortcut for achieving one’s ends. In a world with persons of ill repute (and by this I do not mean bad people, but people who have yet to prove themselves consistent and effective in a particular endeavour), one has to pay the price of learning, or, as Soros might put it, the price of calibrating the cognitive and manipulative functions.
It stands to reason, and it is quite evident, that reputable people are attractive. It is for this reason that people endeavour to be both competent and known to be competent. The latter is where reputation is anchored. However, this too is subject to reflexive problems. In the first instance, one could fabricate a reputation to enjoy the spoils. This would be taking advantage of the limits of consciousness to manipulate someone else’s cognitive function. In the second instance, the problem of the missing independent variable still applies, especially in an increasingly abstract world. How is one to know that one is good at strategy? I might have had success in one venture but misunderstood the reasons for my success. I could then unwittingly proffer a framework that does not work.
Whereas reputation solves practical problems in society, it is not clear, given the complications revealed by the theory of reflexivity, that simply following reputable individuals is a panacea for one’s thirst for success. Reputation should be seen only as a guide, a direction in which to enquire and, hopefully, to find answers for oneself.
I will leave this discussion here for today with the following summary. Reputation is pre-moral in my view. We import its moral value from the subject in question. However, if we look closely, we find that even morally problematic subjects can have a reputation. This brings us to the practical value of reputation, which I view as a guide for finding answers. Reputable people give us a sense of where to look for answers, but they might not themselves know the answers, due to the problem of reflexivity.
Therefore, whereas reputation makes life easier, one is enjoined to acquire it responsibly, and to be mindful that it can also be misleading.
Until Next Week,
Vusi.
References
[1] G. Soros, “Fallibility, reflexivity, and the human uncertainty principle,” Journal of Economic Methodology, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 309–329, Dec. 2013, doi: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.859415.
