I don’t really route my moral reasoning through EA principles (impartiality and welfarism) and I don’t claim it is great. I own up to my moral commitments, which are undeniably based on my life experiences. I am Indian. I’m not going to be convinced that the world would be better if children around me were dead. I’m just not! If that’s motivated reasoning, then so be it.
The purpose of my comment was to engage with Vasco’s argument in the way that is most resonant with me, and I suspect with other people who prioritize GHD. You’re saying it’s discouraging that people aren’t engaging with the argument analytically. I’m saying that analytical engagement is not the only legitimate kind of engagement.
In fact, I think that when analytical disagreement is the only permitted form of disagreement, that encourages much more motivated reasoning and frustrating argumentation. Imagine I had instead made a comment questioning whether GiveWell beneficiaries are really eating factory farmed meat, and Vasco then did a bunch of careful work to estimate how much that was a concern. I would be wasting their time by making an argument that doesn’t correspond to my actual beliefs. Is that a better discursive norm?
Thanks. I take you to say roughly that you have certain core beliefs that you’re unwilling to compromise on, even if you can’t justify those beliefs philosophically. And also that you think it’s better to be upfront about that than invent justifications that aren’t really load-bearing for you. (Let me know if that’s a misrepresentation.)
I think it’s virtuous that you’re honest about why you disagree (“I place much lower weight on animals”) and I think that’s valuable for discourse in that it shows where the disagreement lies. I don’t have any objection to that. But I also think that saying you just believe that and can’t/won’t justify it (“I cannot give a tight philosophical defence of that view, but I am more committed to it than I am to giving tight philosophical defences of views”) is not particularly valuable for discourse. It doesn’t create any opening for productive engagement or movement toward consensus. I don’t think it’s harmful exactly, I just think more openness to examining whether the intuition withstands scrutiny would be more valuable.
(That is a question about discourse. I think there’s also a separate question about the soundness of the decision procedure you described in your original comment. I think it’s unsound, and therefore instrumentally irrational, but I’m not the rationality police so I won’t get into that.)
Thanks for the transparency, Karthik! I wish more people simply admitted they are not aiming to be impartial whenever they deep down think that is the case.
I don’t really route my moral reasoning through EA principles (impartiality and welfarism) and I don’t claim it is great. I own up to my moral commitments, which are undeniably based on my life experiences. I am Indian. I’m not going to be convinced that the world would be better if children around me were dead. I’m just not! If that’s motivated reasoning, then so be it.
The purpose of my comment was to engage with Vasco’s argument in the way that is most resonant with me, and I suspect with other people who prioritize GHD. You’re saying it’s discouraging that people aren’t engaging with the argument analytically. I’m saying that analytical engagement is not the only legitimate kind of engagement.
In fact, I think that when analytical disagreement is the only permitted form of disagreement, that encourages much more motivated reasoning and frustrating argumentation. Imagine I had instead made a comment questioning whether GiveWell beneficiaries are really eating factory farmed meat, and Vasco then did a bunch of careful work to estimate how much that was a concern. I would be wasting their time by making an argument that doesn’t correspond to my actual beliefs. Is that a better discursive norm?
Thanks. I take you to say roughly that you have certain core beliefs that you’re unwilling to compromise on, even if you can’t justify those beliefs philosophically. And also that you think it’s better to be upfront about that than invent justifications that aren’t really load-bearing for you. (Let me know if that’s a misrepresentation.)
I think it’s virtuous that you’re honest about why you disagree (“I place much lower weight on animals”) and I think that’s valuable for discourse in that it shows where the disagreement lies. I don’t have any objection to that. But I also think that saying you just believe that and can’t/won’t justify it (“I cannot give a tight philosophical defence of that view, but I am more committed to it than I am to giving tight philosophical defences of views”) is not particularly valuable for discourse. It doesn’t create any opening for productive engagement or movement toward consensus. I don’t think it’s harmful exactly, I just think more openness to examining whether the intuition withstands scrutiny would be more valuable.
(That is a question about discourse. I think there’s also a separate question about the soundness of the decision procedure you described in your original comment. I think it’s unsound, and therefore instrumentally irrational, but I’m not the rationality police so I won’t get into that.)
Thanks for the transparency, Karthik! I wish more people simply admitted they are not aiming to be impartial whenever they deep down think that is the case.
I think this is an alternative way of rejecting the conclusions without dropping impartiality.