Just to build on what Pablo has been saying, the term “cluelessness” goes back to at least 2000 where James Lenman used it specifically as an argument against consequentialism. Hilary in her 2016 paper was responding specifically to Lenman’s critique, so it seems fair that she used the term cluelessness there, and in this particular talk. She was indeed the first person to draw a distinction between “simple” and “complex” cluelessness.
By the way, in that paper Hilary has a footnote saying:
Here I am in agreement with Smart (1973, p.34), Kagan (1998, p.63) and Mason (2004), each of whom initially raises the issue of cluelessness in the context of consequentialism, but then notes that in fact the problem affects a much wider class of moral theories. In contrast, many others appear to regard the problem as peculiar to consequentialism (including: Norcross (1990), Lenman (2000), Cowen (2006), Feldman (2006), Dorsey (2012), Burch-Brown (2014)).
So the term may go all the way back to Smart in 1973 but I can’t be certain as I can’t access the specific text cited.
Regarding other terms such as Knightian Uncertainty. I’m far from sure about all this, but Knightian uncertainty seems something that we can work around and account for within a particular ethical framework (say consequentialism) through various tools—as you imply. However, cluelessness is an argument against ethical frameworks themselves, including consequentialism. In this case these seem very different concepts that rightly are referred to differently. (EDIT: although admittedly cluelessness has become something we are trying to work around within a consequentialist framework so you’re not entirely wrong...).
Sure, “cluelessness” is a long standing philosophical term that is “an argument against ethical frameworks themselves, including consequentialism”. Very happy to accept that.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case here in this talk. Hilary says “how confident should we be really that the cost-effectiveness analysis we’ve got is any decent guide at all to how we should be spending our money? That’s the worry that I call ‘cluelessness’”. This seems to be a practical decision making problem.
Which is why it looks like to me that a term has been borrowed from philosophy, and used in another context. (And even if it was never the intent to do so it seems to me that people in EA took the term to be used as pointing to the practical decision making challenges of making decisions under uncertainty.)
Borrowing terms happens all the time but unfortunately in this case it appears to have caused some confusion along the way. It would have been simpler to use the keep the philosophy term in the philosophy box to talk about topics such as the limits of knowledge and so on, and to use one of the terms from decision making (like “deep uncertainty”) to talk about practical issues like making decisions about where to donate given the things we don’t know, and kept everything nice and simple.
But also it is not really a big deal. Kind of confusing / pet peeve level, but no-one uses the right words all the time, I certainly don’t. (If there is a thing this post does badly it is the reinventing the wheel point, see my response to Pablo above, and the word choice is a part of that broader confusion about how to approach uncertainty).
Just to build on what Pablo has been saying, the term “cluelessness” goes back to at least 2000 where James Lenman used it specifically as an argument against consequentialism. Hilary in her 2016 paper was responding specifically to Lenman’s critique, so it seems fair that she used the term cluelessness there, and in this particular talk. She was indeed the first person to draw a distinction between “simple” and “complex” cluelessness.
By the way, in that paper Hilary has a footnote saying:
So the term may go all the way back to Smart in 1973 but I can’t be certain as I can’t access the specific text cited.
Regarding other terms such as Knightian Uncertainty. I’m far from sure about all this, but Knightian uncertainty seems something that we can work around and account for within a particular ethical framework (say consequentialism) through various tools—as you imply. However, cluelessness is an argument against ethical frameworks themselves, including consequentialism. In this case these seem very different concepts that rightly are referred to differently. (EDIT: although admittedly cluelessness has become something we are trying to work around within a consequentialist framework so you’re not entirely wrong...).
Hi Jack, lovely to get your input.
Sure, “cluelessness” is a long standing philosophical term that is “an argument against ethical frameworks themselves, including consequentialism”. Very happy to accept that.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case here in this talk. Hilary says “how confident should we be really that the cost-effectiveness analysis we’ve got is any decent guide at all to how we should be spending our money? That’s the worry that I call ‘cluelessness’”. This seems to be a practical decision making problem.
Which is why it looks like to me that a term has been borrowed from philosophy, and used in another context. (And even if it was never the intent to do so it seems to me that people in EA took the term to be used as pointing to the practical decision making challenges of making decisions under uncertainty.)
Borrowing terms happens all the time but unfortunately in this case it appears to have caused some confusion along the way. It would have been simpler to use the keep the philosophy term in the philosophy box to talk about topics such as the limits of knowledge and so on, and to use one of the terms from decision making (like “deep uncertainty”) to talk about practical issues like making decisions about where to donate given the things we don’t know, and kept everything nice and simple.
But also it is not really a big deal. Kind of confusing / pet peeve level, but no-one uses the right words all the time, I certainly don’t. (If there is a thing this post does badly it is the reinventing the wheel point, see my response to Pablo above, and the word choice is a part of that broader confusion about how to approach uncertainty).
Thank you Pablo. Have edited my review. Hopefully it is fairer and more clear now. Thank you for the helpful feedback!!