Distinguish: (i) philosophically-informed ethical practice, vs (ii) âerod[ing] the boundary between [fantastical thought experiments] and real-world decision-makingâ
I think that (i) is straightforwardly good, central to EA, and a key component of what makes EA distinctively good. You seem to be asserting that (ii) is a common problem within EA, and Iâm wondering what the evidence for this is. I donât see anyone advocating for implementing the repugnant conclusion in real life, for example.
I think that effective altruism centrally involves taking the ideas of philosophers and using them to inform real-world decision-making. I am very glad weâre attempting this, but we must recognise that this is an extraordinarily risky business.
I think this is conflating distinct ideas. The ârisky businessâ is simply real-world decision-making. There is no sense to the idea that philosophically-informed decision-making is inherently more risky than philosophically ignorant decision-making. [Quite the opposite: it wasnât until philosophers raised the stakes to salience that x-risk started to be taken even close to sufficiently seriously.]
Philosophers think about tricky edge cases which others tend to ignore, but unless youâve some evidence that thinking about the edge cases makes us worse at responding to central casesâand again, Iâm still waiting for evidence of thisâthen it seems to me that youâre inventing associations where none exist in reality.
EAs should not be encouraged to grant themselves practical exception from âthe rules of morality for the multitudeâ if they think of themselves as philosophers.
Of course. The end of the Mill quote is just flagging that traditional social norms are not beyond revision. We may have good grounds for critiquing the anti-gay sexual morality of our ancestors, for example, and so reject such outmoded norms (for everyone, not just ourselves) when we have truly âsucceeded in finding betterâ.
there is a notable minority of âphysics and philosophyâ folks who should not be made kings, because their âneed for systematisationâ is so dominant as to be a disastrous impediment for that role.
Do you take yourself to be disagreeing with me here? (Me: âPeople shouldnât be kingsâ. You: âsystematizing philosophers shouldnât be kings!â You realize that my claim entails yours, right?) Iâm finding a lot of this exchange somewhat frustrating, because we seem to be talking past each other, and in a way where you seem to be implicitly attributing to me views or positions that Iâve already explicitly disavowed.
My sense is that we probably agree about which concrete things are bad, you perhaps have the false belief that I disagree with you on that, but actually the only disagreement is about whether philosophy tells us to do the things we both agree are bad (I say it doesnât). But if that doesnât match your sense of the dialectic, maybe you can clarify what it is that you take us to disagree about?
[12/â15: Edited to tone down an intemperate sentence.]
There is no sense to the idea that philosophically-informed decision-making is inherently more risky than philosophically ignorant decision-making. [Quite the opposite: it wasnât until philosophers raised the stakes to salience that x-risk started to be taken even close to sufficiently seriously.]
I strongly disagree with this. The key reason is: most of the time, norms that have been exposed to evolutionary selection pressures beat explicit ârational reflectionâ by individual humans. One of the major mistakes of Enlightenment philosophers was to think it is usually the other way around. These mistakes were plausibly a necessary condition for some of the horrific violence thatâs taken place since they started trending.
I often run into philosophy graduates who tell me that relying on intuitive moral judgements about particular cases is âarrogantâ. I reply by asking âwhere do these intuitions come from?â The metaphysical realists say âthey are truths of reason, underwritten by the non-natural essence of rationality itselfâ. The naturalists say: âthese intuitions were transmitted to you via culture and genetics, itself subject to aeons of evolutionary pressureâ. I side with the naturalists, despite all the best arguments for non-naturalism (to my mind, theyâre mostly bad!).
One way to think about the 21st century predicament is that we usually learn via trial and error and selection pressures, but this dynamic in a world with modern technology seems unlikely to go well.
it wasnât until philosophers raised the stakes to salience that x-risk started to be taken even close to sufficiently seriously.
I agree that philosophers, especially Derek Parfit, Nick Bostrom and Tyler Cowen*, have helped get this up the agenda. So too have many economists, astronomers, futurists, etc. Philosophers donât have a monopoly on identifying what matters in practiceâin fact theyâre usually pretty bad at this.
Same thing goes if we look at social movements instead of individuals: the anti-nuclear bomb and environmental folks may have done more for getting catastrophic risk up the agenda than effective altruism has so farâespecially in terms of generating a widespread culture concern and sense of unease, which certainly warmed up the audience for Bostrom, Parfit, and so on.
Effective altruism movement is only just getting started (hopefully), and it has achieved remarkable successes already. So I do think weâre on track to play a critical role, and we have Bostrom and Parfit and Ord and Sidgwick and Cowen to thank for thatâalong with many, many others.
*Those who donât see Tyler Cowen as fundamentally a philosopherâperhaps one of the greats, certainly better than Parfit (with whom he collaborated early on)âare not following carefully.
Iâm not going to respond to the âshow me the evidenceâ requests for now because Iâm short on time and itâs hard to do this well. Also: I think you and most readers can probably identify a bunch of evidence in favour of these takes if you take a while to look.
Iâm sorry to hear youâre finding this frustrating. Personally Iâm enjoying our exchange because itâs giving me a reason to clarify and write down a bunch of things Iâve been thinking about for a long time, and Iâm interested to hear what you and others make of them.
On Twitter I suggested we arrange a time to call. Would you be up for this? If yes, send me a DM.
Distinguish:
(i) philosophically-informed ethical practice, vs
(ii) âerod[ing] the boundary between [fantastical thought experiments] and real-world decision-makingâ
I think that (i) is straightforwardly good, central to EA, and a key component of what makes EA distinctively good. You seem to be asserting that (ii) is a common problem within EA, and Iâm wondering what the evidence for this is. I donât see anyone advocating for implementing the repugnant conclusion in real life, for example.
I think this is conflating distinct ideas. The ârisky businessâ is simply real-world decision-making. There is no sense to the idea that philosophically-informed decision-making is inherently more risky than philosophically ignorant decision-making. [Quite the opposite: it wasnât until philosophers raised the stakes to salience that x-risk started to be taken even close to sufficiently seriously.]
Philosophers think about tricky edge cases which others tend to ignore, but unless youâve some evidence that thinking about the edge cases makes us worse at responding to central casesâand again, Iâm still waiting for evidence of thisâthen it seems to me that youâre inventing associations where none exist in reality.
Of course. The end of the Mill quote is just flagging that traditional social norms are not beyond revision. We may have good grounds for critiquing the anti-gay sexual morality of our ancestors, for example, and so reject such outmoded norms (for everyone, not just ourselves) when we have truly âsucceeded in finding betterâ.
Do you take yourself to be disagreeing with me here? (Me: âPeople shouldnât be kingsâ. You: âsystematizing philosophers shouldnât be kings!â You realize that my claim entails yours, right?) Iâm finding a lot of this exchange somewhat frustrating, because we seem to be talking past each other, and in a way where you seem to be implicitly attributing to me views or positions that Iâve already explicitly disavowed.
My sense is that we probably agree about which concrete things are bad, you perhaps have the false belief that I disagree with you on that, but actually the only disagreement is about whether philosophy tells us to do the things we both agree are bad (I say it doesnât). But if that doesnât match your sense of the dialectic, maybe you can clarify what it is that you take us to disagree about?
[12/â15: Edited to tone down an intemperate sentence.]
I strongly disagree with this. The key reason is: most of the time, norms that have been exposed to evolutionary selection pressures beat explicit ârational reflectionâ by individual humans. One of the major mistakes of Enlightenment philosophers was to think it is usually the other way around. These mistakes were plausibly a necessary condition for some of the horrific violence thatâs taken place since they started trending.
I often run into philosophy graduates who tell me that relying on intuitive moral judgements about particular cases is âarrogantâ. I reply by asking âwhere do these intuitions come from?â The metaphysical realists say âthey are truths of reason, underwritten by the non-natural essence of rationality itselfâ. The naturalists say: âthese intuitions were transmitted to you via culture and genetics, itself subject to aeons of evolutionary pressureâ. I side with the naturalists, despite all the best arguments for non-naturalism (to my mind, theyâre mostly bad!).
One way to think about the 21st century predicament is that we usually learn via trial and error and selection pressures, but this dynamic in a world with modern technology seems unlikely to go well.
I agree that philosophers, especially Derek Parfit, Nick Bostrom and Tyler Cowen*, have helped get this up the agenda. So too have many economists, astronomers, futurists, etc. Philosophers donât have a monopoly on identifying what matters in practiceâin fact theyâre usually pretty bad at this.
Same thing goes if we look at social movements instead of individuals: the anti-nuclear bomb and environmental folks may have done more for getting catastrophic risk up the agenda than effective altruism has so farâespecially in terms of generating a widespread culture concern and sense of unease, which certainly warmed up the audience for Bostrom, Parfit, and so on.
Effective altruism movement is only just getting started (hopefully), and it has achieved remarkable successes already. So I do think weâre on track to play a critical role, and we have Bostrom and Parfit and Ord and Sidgwick and Cowen to thank for thatâalong with many, many others.
*Those who donât see Tyler Cowen as fundamentally a philosopherâperhaps one of the greats, certainly better than Parfit (with whom he collaborated early on)âare not following carefully.
Iâm not going to respond to the âshow me the evidenceâ requests for now because Iâm short on time and itâs hard to do this well. Also: I think you and most readers can probably identify a bunch of evidence in favour of these takes if you take a while to look.
Iâm sorry to hear youâre finding this frustrating. Personally Iâm enjoying our exchange because itâs giving me a reason to clarify and write down a bunch of things Iâve been thinking about for a long time, and Iâm interested to hear what you and others make of them.
On Twitter I suggested we arrange a time to call. Would you be up for this? If yes, send me a DM.