“Note, that Peter ignores the following part of the post in his comment: Toby Ord is a trustee at CEA and part of the team at FHI. His 2013 essay against negative utilitarianism (NU) is a one-sided and misleading...”
I’m not going to ask someone to quit being a trustee because they wrote an opinionated essay in 2003. I write one-sided pieces all the time, trying to convince people of a particular view—hopefully people won’t try to remove me from any boards in 2035 because of that!
A careful reader may note that in their comment, Khorton ignores the following part of the quote in my comment above:
He [Toby Ord] describes the academic literature incorrectly in a way that benefits his case. He writes that “A thorough going Negative Utilitarian would support the destruction of the world (even by violent means)” without mentioning that for many years, a published objection to his favoured view (classical utilitarianism) is that it implies that one should kill everyone and replace us, if one could thereby maximize the sum of well-being (see my paper The World Destruction Argument).
I’m not sure what you’re implying. I only copied half of the quote to save reader’s time.
I feel like you’re trying to catch me out, but I don’t understand why.
If you want my views on Toby’s paper, the truth is I haven’t read it. It’s a good thing to represent counterarguments correctly, so that’s too bad if he didn’t do it well in this particular paper? At worst, this sounds like an argument that he made some mistakes in his work as an academic—but I wouldn’t be in a position to judge. It doesn’t sound dishonest.
Well, I do believe that misrepresenting the views you’re arguing against is dishonest. Especially so, if your essay is literally called “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian”
I don’t like Toby’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” essay because I think it doesn’t engage good arguments in favor of NU (to which I am partial). But I don’t think it’s in any way dishonest for him to have written an informal essay describing his views on the matter. I found it immensely helpful in understanding Toby’s writings about the kind of utilitarianism he endorses.
“Note, that Peter ignores the following part of the post in his comment: Toby Ord is a trustee at CEA and part of the team at FHI. His 2013 essay against negative utilitarianism (NU) is a one-sided and misleading...”
I’m not going to ask someone to quit being a trustee because they wrote an opinionated essay in 2003. I write one-sided pieces all the time, trying to convince people of a particular view—hopefully people won’t try to remove me from any boards in 2035 because of that!
Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian was published in 2013, not 2003.
Sorry, my mistake
A careful reader may note that in their comment, Khorton ignores the following part of the quote in my comment above:
I’m not sure what you’re implying. I only copied half of the quote to save reader’s time.
I feel like you’re trying to catch me out, but I don’t understand why.
If you want my views on Toby’s paper, the truth is I haven’t read it. It’s a good thing to represent counterarguments correctly, so that’s too bad if he didn’t do it well in this particular paper? At worst, this sounds like an argument that he made some mistakes in his work as an academic—but I wouldn’t be in a position to judge. It doesn’t sound dishonest.
Well, I do believe that misrepresenting the views you’re arguing against is dishonest. Especially so, if your essay is literally called “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian”
I don’t like Toby’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” essay because I think it doesn’t engage good arguments in favor of NU (to which I am partial). But I don’t think it’s in any way dishonest for him to have written an informal essay describing his views on the matter. I found it immensely helpful in understanding Toby’s writings about the kind of utilitarianism he endorses.