Starting a long debate about moral philosophy would be relevant here, but also out of place, so I’ll refrain myself.
But what do you mean by “Refrain from posting things that assume that consequentialism is true”? That its best to refrain from posting things that assume that values like e.g. justice aren’t ends-in-themselves, or refrain from posting things that assume that consequences and their quantity are important?
If it is something more like the latter, I would ask myself if this would be to pursue the goal of popularity by diminishing a part of the movement that is among the main foundations of what makes it valuable.
Lots of things are philosophically controversial. The question of whether slavery is a bad thing has renowned philosophers on both sides. I haven’t looked much into it much, but I suppose that the anti-slavery movement at some point was going against the majority opinion of the “experts” with nothing speaking in favour of their view except specific arguments concerning the issue in question. I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but I suppose that if being uncontroversial among “experts” is a good measure of reasonableness, then even today we should be more open to the possible importance of acting in accordance with theistic holy texts.
Don’t get me wrong: I am aware of that there is a pluralism of ethical theories that motivate EAs. I appreciate people motivated by other ethical assumptions than my own and their good deeds, and wouldn’t want EA to be considered a narrow-consequentialism-only movement where non-consequentialists aren’t welcomed. That being said: While parts of EAs appeal are independent of the moral theory I agree with, other parts that I consider important are very much not. It’s hard to think of any more fundamental assumptions in the reasoning behind e.g. why far future concerns are important.
While I try to make decisions that aren’t deontologically outrageous, and make sense both from the perspective of “broad” and “not-so-broad” utilitarianism, it’s clearly the case that if Immanuel Kant is right then a lot of the EA-relevant decisions I make are pointless. While Kantians who care about EA should be welcomed into the movement, and that not relying on only consequentialist reasoning when its not necessary, I think that encouraging all EAs to speak as if Kant and other philosophers with a complete disregard for consequentialism might be correct would be asking a lot.
While avoiding unnecessary alienation is good, I observe that the way of a movement to succeed isn’t always to cave in (although it sometimes may be). Proponents of evolutionary theory don’t concede that some species may be created by God, people arguing in favour of vaccines don’t concede that the scientific method may be useless, etc.
I also honestly think that the word rational is a good description of the approach EA takes to doing good in a way that clearly isn’t the case for many other ways of going about it (by most reasonable definitions of the word). The effective altruism way of going about things IS far superior to a lot of alternatives, and while tactfulness is a good thing, avoiding to say things that implies that this is the case does not seem to me like a good strategy. At least not in all cases.
You raise some interesting perspectives about an important topic, and my comment only concerns a fraction of your post. Many of the suggestions you raise seem good and wouldn’t come at the expense of anything important :) I’m not at all certain about any of the strategic concerns that I comment upon here, so take it only as my vague and possibly wrong perspective.
But what do you mean by “Refrain from posting things that assume that consequentialism is true”? That its best to refrain from posting things that assume that values like e.g. justice aren’t ends-in-themselves, or refrain from posting things that assume that consequences and their quantity are important?
Definitely the former. I find it hard to get my head round people who deny the latter. I suspect only people committed to a weird philosophical theories would do it. I thought modern Kantians were more moderate. Let’s remember that most people don’t have a “moral theory” but care about consequences and a cluster of other concerns: it’s these people I don’t want to alienate.
I think that encouraging all EAs to speak as if Kant and other philosophers with a complete disregard for consequentialism might be correct would be asking a lot.
I think philosophers who reject consequentialism (as the claim that consequences are the only morally relevant thing) might be correct, and personally find it annoying when everyone speak assumes that any such philosopher is obviously mistaken. I certainly agree there’s no need to talk as if consequences might be irrelevant!
I’m sympathetic with your comments about rationality. I wonder if an equally informative way of phrasing it would be “carefully investigating about which actions help the most people”. For people who disagree, reading EA’s describe itself as “rational” will be annoying because it implies that they are irrational.
I suppose that if being uncontroversial among “experts” is a good measure of reasonableness, then even today we should be more open to the possible importance of acting in accordance with theistic holy texts.
This is a really interesting point. We could see history as a reductio on the claim that the academic experts reach even roughly true moral conclusions. So maybe the academics are wrong. My worry is the idea we can round this problem by evaluating the arguments ourselves. We’re not special. Academics just evaluate the arguments, like we would, but understand them better. The only way i can see myself being justified in rejecting their views is by showing they’re biased. So maybe my point wasn’t “the academics are right, so narrow consequentialism is wrong” but “most people who know much more about this than us don’t think narrow consequentialism is right, so we don’t know its right”.
My worry is the idea we can round this problem by evaluating the arguments ourselves. We’re not special. Academics just evaluate the arguments, like we would, but understand them better. The only way i can see myself being justified in rejecting their views is by showing they’re biased. So maybe my point wasn’t “the academics are right, so narrow consequentialism is wrong” but “most people who know much more about this than us don’t think narrow consequentialism is right, so we don’t know its right”.
That’s a reasonable worry, but whereas the field of ethics as a whole is concerned I would be much more worried about trusting the judgment of the average ethicist over ours.
I would also agree that the “we are not special”-assumption seems like a reasonable best-guess for how things are in the absence of evidence for or against (although, in fear of violating your not-comming-across-as-smug-and-arrogant-reccomendation, I’m genuinely unsure about whether its correct or not).
I’ve also thought a lot about ethics, I’ve been doing so since childhood. But admittedly, most of the philosophical texts that have been written about these topics have not been read by me (or by most professional ethicists I suppose, but I’ve read far less than them also, for sure). I have read a significant amount though, enough for me to have heard most or all memorable arguments I’ve heard be repeated several times. Also, perhaps more surprisingly; I’m somewhat confident that I’ve never heard an argument against my opinions about ethics (that is, not the specific issues, but the abstract issues) that was both (1) not based on axiomatic assumptions/intuitions I disagree with and (2) something I hadn’t already thought of (of course, I may have forgotten, but it also seems like something that would have been memorable). Examples where criteria #2 was met but #1 wasn’t met includes things like e.g. “the repugnant conclusion” (it doesn’t seem repugnant to me at all, so it never occurred to me that this should be seen as a possible counter argument). Philosophy class was a lot of “oh.. so that argument has a name” (and also a lot of “what? do people find that a convincing argument against utilitarianism?”).
For what I know this could be the experience of many with opinions different from mine also, but if so, it suggests that intuitions and/or base assumptions may be the determining factor for many, as opposed to knowledge and understanding of arguments presented by differing sides. My suspicion is that the main contributor for the current “stale-mate” in philosophical debates is that people have different intuitions and commitments. Some ethicists realize that utilitarianism in some circumstances would require us to prioritise other children to the extent that we let our own children starve, and say “reductio absurdism”. I realize the same thing, and say “yes, of course” (and if I don’t act by that, it’s because I have other urges and commitments beyond doing what I think is best, not because I think that I don’t think doing so could be the best thing from a non-partial point of view).
My best guess would be that most ethicists don’t understand the arguments surrounding my views better than I do, but that they know a lot more than I do about views that are based on assumptions I don’t agree with or am unconfident about (and about specific non-abstract issues they work with). But I’m not a 100% sure about this, and it would be interesting to test.
In the short story Three worlds collide one of the species the space-travelers meet evolved to see the eating of children as a terminal value. This doesn’t seem to me like something that’s necessarily is implausible (after all, evolution doesn’t pass the ethical intuitions it gives us through an ethics review board). I can absolutely imagine alien ethicists viewing hedonistic utilitarianism as a reductio absurdum because it doesn’t allow for the eating of conscious children.
While we have turned out much better than the hypothetical baby-eating aliens, I don’t think its a ridiculous example to bring up. I once talked on Facebook with a person taking a PHD in ethics who disagreed that we should care about the suffering about wildlife animals (my impression was that I was rounding him into a corner where he would have to either change previously stated positions or admit that he didn’t fully believe in logic, but at some point he didn’t continue the discussion). And you’ll find ethicists who see punishment against wrongdoers as a terminal value (I obviously see the use of punishment as an instrumental value).
A reasonable question to ask of me would be; so if you think peoples ethical intuitions are unreliable, isn’t that also true of yourself?
Well, that’s the thing. The views that I’m confident in are the ones that aren’t based on core ethical intuitions (although they overlap with my ethical intuitions), but can be deduced from things that aren’t ethical intuitions, as well as principles such as logical consistency and impartiality (I know I’m being unspecif here, and can extend on this if anyone wants me to). I could have reasoned myself to these views also if I was a complete psychopath. And the views I’m most confident in are the ones that don’t even rely on my beliefs about what I want for myself (that is, I’m much more sure about the conscious experience I have if tortured being inherently bad than I am about e.g. whether it inherently matters if my beliefs about reality correspond with reality). My impression is that this commitment to being sceptical of ethical intuitions in this way is something that isn’t shared among all (or even the majority?) of ethicists.
Anyway, I think it would be stupid of me to go on a lot longer since this is a comment and not something that will be read by a lot of people, but I felt an urge to give at least some account of why I think like I do. To summarize: I’m not so sure that the average ethicist understands the relevant arguments better than the EAs who have reflected the most about this, and would be very unsurprised if the opposite was the case. And I think ethicists having other opinions than ‘narrow consequentialism’ is more about them having a commitment to other ethical intuitions, and lacking some of the commitments to “impartiality” that I suspect narrow consequensialists often have, as opposed to them having arguments that narrow consequensialist EAs haven’t considered or don’t understand. But I’m really not sure about this—if people think I’m wrong I’m interested in hearing about it, and looking more into this is definitely on my todo-list.
It would be interesting if comprehensive studies were done, or tools were made, in order to identify what differences of opinion are caused by, to which degree philosophers belonging to one branch of ethical theory are logically consistent and to which degree they understand the arguments of other branches, etc. Debates about these kinds of things can often be frustrating and inefficient, so I hope that we in the future will be able to make progress.
My basic worries are:
-Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
-Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
The views that I’m confident in are the ones that aren’t based on core ethical intuitions (although they overlap with my ethical intuitions), but can be deduced from things that aren’t ethical intuitions, as well as principles such as logical consistency and impartiality… I can extend on this if anyone wants me to
Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
I’d definitely be interested to hear more :)
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.
Starting a long debate about moral philosophy would be relevant here, but also out of place, so I’ll refrain myself.
But what do you mean by “Refrain from posting things that assume that consequentialism is true”? That its best to refrain from posting things that assume that values like e.g. justice aren’t ends-in-themselves, or refrain from posting things that assume that consequences and their quantity are important?
If it is something more like the latter, I would ask myself if this would be to pursue the goal of popularity by diminishing a part of the movement that is among the main foundations of what makes it valuable.
Would you e.g. suggest for people to refrain from referring to scope insensitivity like its a cognitive bias?: http://lesswrong.com/lw/hw/scope_insensitivity/, http://lesswrong.com/lw/hx/one_life_against_the_world/
Lots of things are philosophically controversial. The question of whether slavery is a bad thing has renowned philosophers on both sides. I haven’t looked much into it much, but I suppose that the anti-slavery movement at some point was going against the majority opinion of the “experts” with nothing speaking in favour of their view except specific arguments concerning the issue in question. I haven’t given it a lot of thought, but I suppose that if being uncontroversial among “experts” is a good measure of reasonableness, then even today we should be more open to the possible importance of acting in accordance with theistic holy texts.
Don’t get me wrong: I am aware of that there is a pluralism of ethical theories that motivate EAs. I appreciate people motivated by other ethical assumptions than my own and their good deeds, and wouldn’t want EA to be considered a narrow-consequentialism-only movement where non-consequentialists aren’t welcomed. That being said: While parts of EAs appeal are independent of the moral theory I agree with, other parts that I consider important are very much not. It’s hard to think of any more fundamental assumptions in the reasoning behind e.g. why far future concerns are important.
While I try to make decisions that aren’t deontologically outrageous, and make sense both from the perspective of “broad” and “not-so-broad” utilitarianism, it’s clearly the case that if Immanuel Kant is right then a lot of the EA-relevant decisions I make are pointless. While Kantians who care about EA should be welcomed into the movement, and that not relying on only consequentialist reasoning when its not necessary, I think that encouraging all EAs to speak as if Kant and other philosophers with a complete disregard for consequentialism might be correct would be asking a lot.
While avoiding unnecessary alienation is good, I observe that the way of a movement to succeed isn’t always to cave in (although it sometimes may be). Proponents of evolutionary theory don’t concede that some species may be created by God, people arguing in favour of vaccines don’t concede that the scientific method may be useless, etc.
I also honestly think that the word rational is a good description of the approach EA takes to doing good in a way that clearly isn’t the case for many other ways of going about it (by most reasonable definitions of the word). The effective altruism way of going about things IS far superior to a lot of alternatives, and while tactfulness is a good thing, avoiding to say things that implies that this is the case does not seem to me like a good strategy. At least not in all cases.
You raise some interesting perspectives about an important topic, and my comment only concerns a fraction of your post. Many of the suggestions you raise seem good and wouldn’t come at the expense of anything important :) I’m not at all certain about any of the strategic concerns that I comment upon here, so take it only as my vague and possibly wrong perspective.
The first talk of this video feels relevant: https://vimeo.com/136877104
Thanks for a thoughtful response.
Definitely the former. I find it hard to get my head round people who deny the latter. I suspect only people committed to a weird philosophical theories would do it. I thought modern Kantians were more moderate. Let’s remember that most people don’t have a “moral theory” but care about consequences and a cluster of other concerns: it’s these people I don’t want to alienate.
I think philosophers who reject consequentialism (as the claim that consequences are the only morally relevant thing) might be correct, and personally find it annoying when everyone speak assumes that any such philosopher is obviously mistaken. I certainly agree there’s no need to talk as if consequences might be irrelevant!
I’m sympathetic with your comments about rationality. I wonder if an equally informative way of phrasing it would be “carefully investigating about which actions help the most people”. For people who disagree, reading EA’s describe itself as “rational” will be annoying because it implies that they are irrational.
This is a really interesting point. We could see history as a reductio on the claim that the academic experts reach even roughly true moral conclusions. So maybe the academics are wrong. My worry is the idea we can round this problem by evaluating the arguments ourselves. We’re not special. Academics just evaluate the arguments, like we would, but understand them better. The only way i can see myself being justified in rejecting their views is by showing they’re biased. So maybe my point wasn’t “the academics are right, so narrow consequentialism is wrong” but “most people who know much more about this than us don’t think narrow consequentialism is right, so we don’t know its right”.
Likewise :)
That’s a reasonable worry, but whereas the field of ethics as a whole is concerned I would be much more worried about trusting the judgment of the average ethicist over ours.
I would also agree that the “we are not special”-assumption seems like a reasonable best-guess for how things are in the absence of evidence for or against (although, in fear of violating your not-comming-across-as-smug-and-arrogant-reccomendation, I’m genuinely unsure about whether its correct or not).
I’ve also thought a lot about ethics, I’ve been doing so since childhood. But admittedly, most of the philosophical texts that have been written about these topics have not been read by me (or by most professional ethicists I suppose, but I’ve read far less than them also, for sure). I have read a significant amount though, enough for me to have heard most or all memorable arguments I’ve heard be repeated several times. Also, perhaps more surprisingly; I’m somewhat confident that I’ve never heard an argument against my opinions about ethics (that is, not the specific issues, but the abstract issues) that was both (1) not based on axiomatic assumptions/intuitions I disagree with and (2) something I hadn’t already thought of (of course, I may have forgotten, but it also seems like something that would have been memorable). Examples where criteria #2 was met but #1 wasn’t met includes things like e.g. “the repugnant conclusion” (it doesn’t seem repugnant to me at all, so it never occurred to me that this should be seen as a possible counter argument). Philosophy class was a lot of “oh.. so that argument has a name” (and also a lot of “what? do people find that a convincing argument against utilitarianism?”).
For what I know this could be the experience of many with opinions different from mine also, but if so, it suggests that intuitions and/or base assumptions may be the determining factor for many, as opposed to knowledge and understanding of arguments presented by differing sides. My suspicion is that the main contributor for the current “stale-mate” in philosophical debates is that people have different intuitions and commitments. Some ethicists realize that utilitarianism in some circumstances would require us to prioritise other children to the extent that we let our own children starve, and say “reductio absurdism”. I realize the same thing, and say “yes, of course” (and if I don’t act by that, it’s because I have other urges and commitments beyond doing what I think is best, not because I think that I don’t think doing so could be the best thing from a non-partial point of view).
My best guess would be that most ethicists don’t understand the arguments surrounding my views better than I do, but that they know a lot more than I do about views that are based on assumptions I don’t agree with or am unconfident about (and about specific non-abstract issues they work with). But I’m not a 100% sure about this, and it would be interesting to test.
In the short story Three worlds collide one of the species the space-travelers meet evolved to see the eating of children as a terminal value. This doesn’t seem to me like something that’s necessarily is implausible (after all, evolution doesn’t pass the ethical intuitions it gives us through an ethics review board). I can absolutely imagine alien ethicists viewing hedonistic utilitarianism as a reductio absurdum because it doesn’t allow for the eating of conscious children.
While we have turned out much better than the hypothetical baby-eating aliens, I don’t think its a ridiculous example to bring up. I once talked on Facebook with a person taking a PHD in ethics who disagreed that we should care about the suffering about wildlife animals (my impression was that I was rounding him into a corner where he would have to either change previously stated positions or admit that he didn’t fully believe in logic, but at some point he didn’t continue the discussion). And you’ll find ethicists who see punishment against wrongdoers as a terminal value (I obviously see the use of punishment as an instrumental value).
A reasonable question to ask of me would be; so if you think peoples ethical intuitions are unreliable, isn’t that also true of yourself?
Well, that’s the thing. The views that I’m confident in are the ones that aren’t based on core ethical intuitions (although they overlap with my ethical intuitions), but can be deduced from things that aren’t ethical intuitions, as well as principles such as logical consistency and impartiality (I know I’m being unspecif here, and can extend on this if anyone wants me to). I could have reasoned myself to these views also if I was a complete psychopath. And the views I’m most confident in are the ones that don’t even rely on my beliefs about what I want for myself (that is, I’m much more sure about the conscious experience I have if tortured being inherently bad than I am about e.g. whether it inherently matters if my beliefs about reality correspond with reality). My impression is that this commitment to being sceptical of ethical intuitions in this way is something that isn’t shared among all (or even the majority?) of ethicists.
Anyway, I think it would be stupid of me to go on a lot longer since this is a comment and not something that will be read by a lot of people, but I felt an urge to give at least some account of why I think like I do. To summarize: I’m not so sure that the average ethicist understands the relevant arguments better than the EAs who have reflected the most about this, and would be very unsurprised if the opposite was the case. And I think ethicists having other opinions than ‘narrow consequentialism’ is more about them having a commitment to other ethical intuitions, and lacking some of the commitments to “impartiality” that I suspect narrow consequensialists often have, as opposed to them having arguments that narrow consequensialist EAs haven’t considered or don’t understand. But I’m really not sure about this—if people think I’m wrong I’m interested in hearing about it, and looking more into this is definitely on my todo-list.
It would be interesting if comprehensive studies were done, or tools were made, in order to identify what differences of opinion are caused by, to which degree philosophers belonging to one branch of ethical theory are logically consistent and to which degree they understand the arguments of other branches, etc. Debates about these kinds of things can often be frustrating and inefficient, so I hope that we in the future will be able to make progress.
Thanks for that.
My basic worries are: -Academics must gain something from spending ages thinking and studying ethics, be it understanding of the arguments, knowledge of more arguments or something else. I think this puts them in a better position than others and should make others tentative in saying that they’re wrong.
-Your explanation for disagreeing with certain academics is that they have different starting intuitions. But does this account for the fact that academics can revise/abandon intuitions because of broader considerations. Even if you’re right, why you think your intuitions are more reliable than theirs?
I’d definitely be interested to hear more :)
Btw, I agree with this in the sense that I’d rather have a random ethicist make decisions about an ethical question than a random person.
Great! I’m writing a text about this, and I’ll add a comment with a reference to it when the first-draft finished :)
A reasonable question, and I’ll try to give a better account of my reasons for this in my next comment, since the text may help in giving a picture of where I’m coming from. I will say in my defence though, that I do have at least some epistemic modesty in regards to this—although not as much as I think you would think is the reasonable level. While what I think of as probably being the best outcomes from an “objective” perspective corresponds to some sort of hedonistic utilitarianism, I do not and do not intend to ever work towards outcomes that don’t also take other ethical concerns into account, and hope to achieve a future that that is very good from the perspective of many ethical viewpoints (rights of persons, fairness, etc) - partly because of epistemic modesty.