“this attitude triggers a disgust response in me, therefore it’s incorrect
Ironically I was partly worried about being accused of offering a straw (wo)man so wanted to distance my self from it.
Does your answer to her stay the same?
Good analogy. I think I’m basically concerned that this is not the sort of reasoning we can accept from fallible humans, not that it is inherently wrong, so I would be much more tolerant of the android. I Earn to Give, so vaguely similar considerations come up—some activities which are generally self-serving, but are transformed into altruistic resulting donations. In general I think the potential for personal self-deception is sufficiently high that I don’t endorse such activities in myself. I guess perhaps I think we’re less serious about altruism than we often like to think we are.
You have a good point about second-order compartmentalization.
If women are morally obligated to carry unwanted babies to term, are they also obligated to pump out as many babies as possible during their fertile years? My moral intuitions suggest they are.
Yeah I think this is also credible, albeit slightly less so. I frequently feel guilty about not having had children yet. Nor can I simply defend myself by arguing they are too expensive as:
I think Bryan Caplan’s argument that children can be raised with dramatically less effort than most middle-class westerners put in is correct.
Jeff and Julia’s recent accounts do suggest it can be done.
I know my friends and family would be supportive, or even actively pleased.
I reject this argument in the abortion case
I am a consequentialist and am not very keen on making an omissions-act distinction.
It’s also an unusual case because it’s one where I am actually falling morally short of the majority of women throughout history. I guess this is how people who think that the 20th century was a disaster because of factory farming feel.
When people like Jeff, Julia, Bryan say childrearing is cheap, they’re saying that it shouldn’t stop someone from doing it if they want to. Not that it’s the cheapest way to make there be more people. That honour would go to existential risk reduction, or failing that to global health measures. Noone is trying to get effective altruists to have kids if they don’t want to.
I think I’m basically concerned that this is not the sort of reasoning we can accept from fallible humans, not that it is inherently wrong, so I would be much more tolerant of the android.
Cool. I don’t know how I feel about Eliezer’s ethical injunctions sequence. I’d say I basically agree with it, with the caveat that I’m maybe half as concerned about it as he is. I’m happy to pirate books, leave lousy tips, “forget” to put away dishes so non-EA roommates do it, etc. in the service of EA, but I’d think very hard before, say, murdering someone.
That said, I’m glad that Eliezer is as concerned as he is… it does a good job of making up for the fact that he’s so willing to disregard the opinions of others (to his discredit, in my opinion). You’ve got to have some kind of safeguard. I guess maybe in my case I feel like I’m well safeguarded by thinking carefully before straying outside the bounds of what friends & society regard as non-horrible ethical behavior, which is why I’m not concerned about aborting a baby leading to some kind of slippery slope of unethicalness… it’s on the “sufficiently ethical” side of my “publicly regarded as non-horrible” fence.
I frequently feel guilty about not having had children yet.
I think you’re only morally obligated to have kids insofar as they’re the cheapest way to purchase QALYs with your time, energy, and money. I expect existential risk reduction is the cheapest way to do this if you think future lives have value comparable to present lives.* I’m not sure how it compares to Givewell’s top charities. If it turns out having kids really is the cheapest way to purchase QALYs, I wonder if you’re best off focusing on efforts to get other people to have kids (or improving gender relations so people get married more, or something like that), and only have kids to facilitate your advocacy and make it clear that you aren’t a hypocrite.
* This is the strongest argument I’ve seen for this perspective from a valuing-future-life perspective, but others have argued that decreased fertility and a slowing economy will be good for x-risk reduction—the issue seems complicated.
One final point: I tend to think that even in well-developed countries, many people live lives that are full of misery (I’m wealthy and privileged and employed with hundreds of facebook friends and I still feel intense misery much more often than I feel intense joy). That’s part of the reason why I’m so bullish on H+ causes.
Ironically I was partly worried about being accused of offering a straw (wo)man so wanted to distance my self from it.
Good analogy. I think I’m basically concerned that this is not the sort of reasoning we can accept from fallible humans, not that it is inherently wrong, so I would be much more tolerant of the android. I Earn to Give, so vaguely similar considerations come up—some activities which are generally self-serving, but are transformed into altruistic resulting donations. In general I think the potential for personal self-deception is sufficiently high that I don’t endorse such activities in myself. I guess perhaps I think we’re less serious about altruism than we often like to think we are.
You have a good point about second-order compartmentalization.
Yeah I think this is also credible, albeit slightly less so. I frequently feel guilty about not having had children yet. Nor can I simply defend myself by arguing they are too expensive as:
I think Bryan Caplan’s argument that children can be raised with dramatically less effort than most middle-class westerners put in is correct.
Jeff and Julia’s recent accounts do suggest it can be done.
I know my friends and family would be supportive, or even actively pleased.
I reject this argument in the abortion case
I am a consequentialist and am not very keen on making an omissions-act distinction.
It’s also an unusual case because it’s one where I am actually falling morally short of the majority of women throughout history. I guess this is how people who think that the 20th century was a disaster because of factory farming feel.
When people like Jeff, Julia, Bryan say childrearing is cheap, they’re saying that it shouldn’t stop someone from doing it if they want to. Not that it’s the cheapest way to make there be more people. That honour would go to existential risk reduction, or failing that to global health measures. Noone is trying to get effective altruists to have kids if they don’t want to.
Cool. I don’t know how I feel about Eliezer’s ethical injunctions sequence. I’d say I basically agree with it, with the caveat that I’m maybe half as concerned about it as he is. I’m happy to pirate books, leave lousy tips, “forget” to put away dishes so non-EA roommates do it, etc. in the service of EA, but I’d think very hard before, say, murdering someone.
That said, I’m glad that Eliezer is as concerned as he is… it does a good job of making up for the fact that he’s so willing to disregard the opinions of others (to his discredit, in my opinion). You’ve got to have some kind of safeguard. I guess maybe in my case I feel like I’m well safeguarded by thinking carefully before straying outside the bounds of what friends & society regard as non-horrible ethical behavior, which is why I’m not concerned about aborting a baby leading to some kind of slippery slope of unethicalness… it’s on the “sufficiently ethical” side of my “publicly regarded as non-horrible” fence.
I think you’re only morally obligated to have kids insofar as they’re the cheapest way to purchase QALYs with your time, energy, and money. I expect existential risk reduction is the cheapest way to do this if you think future lives have value comparable to present lives.* I’m not sure how it compares to Givewell’s top charities. If it turns out having kids really is the cheapest way to purchase QALYs, I wonder if you’re best off focusing on efforts to get other people to have kids (or improving gender relations so people get married more, or something like that), and only have kids to facilitate your advocacy and make it clear that you aren’t a hypocrite.
* This is the strongest argument I’ve seen for this perspective from a valuing-future-life perspective, but others have argued that decreased fertility and a slowing economy will be good for x-risk reduction—the issue seems complicated.
One final point: I tend to think that even in well-developed countries, many people live lives that are full of misery (I’m wealthy and privileged and employed with hundreds of facebook friends and I still feel intense misery much more often than I feel intense joy). That’s part of the reason why I’m so bullish on H+ causes.