As a light thought experiment, what if Alice’s belief X was “People called Bob are secret evil aliens who I should always try to physically attack and maim if I get the opportunity” ? Bob would understandably be put off by this belief, and have a pretty valid reason to not attend an event if he knew someone who believed it were present. Does it seem reasonable that Bob would ask that Alice (or people who hold the attack-secret-alien-Bobs belief) not be invited as speakers? Is that a heckler’s veto, and contrary to free expression and intellectual enquiry? Is Bob’s decision not to attend just a matter of his own feelings? If answers to the above questions are ‘no’, it suggests it’s possible for a belief to be an ‘exclusionary belief’, on your terms.
In this case, I think the “physically attack and maim” part makes it much more than just a belief. So far as I am aware, nobody thinks anyone under discussion in relation to Manifest was ever likely to physically attack anybody.
Yes I’m not saying anyone was—this is a thought experiment to see if exclusionary beliefs can be a coherent concept. We can stipulate that Alice has this sincere belief, but no history of such attacks (she’s never met a Bob), and hasn’t made any specific threats against Bob. It’s just a belief - a subjective attitude about the world. If Bob does not attend due to knowing about Alice’s belief, is that reasonable in your view?
Bob can attend or not attend for whatever reasons he wishes. I’m not trying to judge that at all. The question seems to be whether Bob can reasonably ask the organizers to deplatform or uninvite or ban Alice. In your scenario, I think the answer is “yes”, though I would frame that as being about Alice’s likely future criminal behavior, not directly about the belief that precipitates that behavior.
Thanks. Given Alice has committed no crime, and everything else about her is ‘normal’, I think organizers would need to point to her belief to justify uninviting or banning her. That would suggest that an individual’s beliefs can (in at least one case) justify restricting their participation, on the basis of how that belief concerns other (prospective) attendees.
I think you’d be a lot more successful with a hypothetical that wasn’t about whether someone would follow the law and/or conference rules.
I would also expect, for example, a conference under Chatham House Rules to reject participants who believed this kind of rule did not bind them. Even if the organizers otherwise were quite committed to free expression. Organizers can and should be willing to consider expressed beliefs even without a history of acting on them.
I also think it being about “people named Bob” messes with our intuitions, since it’s so silly, but ok.
Perhaps better hypothetical would be if Alice believed people named Bob were not moral patients (that had a bunch of nasty views downstream from this on what law and social norms should be) but still confirmed (and organizers trusted) that she would follow the law and treat him respectfully at the conference?
The point wasn’t to motivate intuitions on the broader issue, but demonstrate that exclusionary beliefs could be a coherent concept. I agree your version is better for motivating broader intuitions
Does advocating the anti-Bob position in any way constitute not “treat[ing] him respectfully,” even if he is not in earshot? As a practical reality, very few people would feel psychologically safe attending a conference at which people were having anti-Bob conversations after checking the participants’ comfort level with euphemisms and/or slurs, or inviting people to an off-site anti-Bob party.
Also: While I think the Alice hypo is too related to non-speech actions, I think the anti-Bob hypo is too divorced from them in the abstract. We’d need to consider a context in which anti-Bobism and adjacent thoughts—at a minimum—had been used to deny fundamental human rights to Bobs over an extended period of time. And where (at least) a number of people preaching anti-Bobism would favor rights denial against Bob and other Bobs (e.g., prohibition/restriction on procreation, deportation) should they come into power.
Does advocating the anti-Bob position in any way constitute not “treat[ing] him respectfully,” even if he is not in earshot?
Let’s say that Alice is going to advocate for her anti-Bob position even when Bob is in the discussion. And that this is a carve out from “treat Bob respectfully”.
Bonus questions: Is the answer the same in this related hypo—Charlie thinks Delana Dixon, and only her among all human beings, is not a moral patient. In other words, does it matter if the belief and advocacy are targeted at an individual person vs. a group based on an immutable characteristic?
Also, does the organizer’s assessment of Alice and Charlie’s reasons for holding their beliefs matter here? Should they give less tolerance to the extent they conclude a belief is based on bigotry, delusion, a bad breakup with a Bob or with Delana Dixon, etc?
I think the problem with making the hypo more concrete in the ways you suggest is that then whether the hypo represents reality becomes highly contestable, and we devolve into object level debates. To take one example, despite being very pro-immigration myself, I find your suggestion that deportation of non-citizens somehow violates fundamental human rights to be absolutely ridiculous. If you set up a hypothetical about Alice wanting to deport non-citizen Bobs, you won’t convince me of anything. I’m guessing a lot of the disagreement here is less about event norms and more about people in the EA community being intolerant of those they disagree with politically. One reason for choosing such an abstract hypothetical was to try to separate out the two.
Note that I didn’t actually say “deportation of non-citizens somehow violates fundamental human rights” as you assert. The reference to fundamental rights was in the past tense: “had been used to deny fundamental human rights.” Certainly slavery involves the denial of a fundamental human right. The e.g. that references deportation follows the broader term “rights denial.”
That being said, I would characterize at least severe discriminatory treatment by the government on the basis of race as denial of a fundamental human right.
In any event, I recognize the concern you identify—but using only abstract hypotheticals is going to systematically bias the hypo in favor of the scientific racists by stripping away important context. If adding certain context changes the results of the hypo, then we’re stuck with an object-level debate on which hypo better reflects reality.
As a light thought experiment, what if Alice’s belief X was “People called Bob are secret evil aliens who I should always try to physically attack and maim if I get the opportunity” ?
Bob would understandably be put off by this belief, and have a pretty valid reason to not attend an event if he knew someone who believed it were present. Does it seem reasonable that Bob would ask that Alice (or people who hold the attack-secret-alien-Bobs belief) not be invited as speakers? Is that a heckler’s veto, and contrary to free expression and intellectual enquiry? Is Bob’s decision not to attend just a matter of his own feelings?
If answers to the above questions are ‘no’, it suggests it’s possible for a belief to be an ‘exclusionary belief’, on your terms.
In this case, I think the “physically attack and maim” part makes it much more than just a belief. So far as I am aware, nobody thinks anyone under discussion in relation to Manifest was ever likely to physically attack anybody.
Yes I’m not saying anyone was—this is a thought experiment to see if exclusionary beliefs can be a coherent concept. We can stipulate that Alice has this sincere belief, but no history of such attacks (she’s never met a Bob), and hasn’t made any specific threats against Bob. It’s just a belief - a subjective attitude about the world. If Bob does not attend due to knowing about Alice’s belief, is that reasonable in your view?
Bob can attend or not attend for whatever reasons he wishes. I’m not trying to judge that at all. The question seems to be whether Bob can reasonably ask the organizers to deplatform or uninvite or ban Alice. In your scenario, I think the answer is “yes”, though I would frame that as being about Alice’s likely future criminal behavior, not directly about the belief that precipitates that behavior.
Thanks. Given Alice has committed no crime, and everything else about her is ‘normal’, I think organizers would need to point to her belief to justify uninviting or banning her. That would suggest that an individual’s beliefs can (in at least one case) justify restricting their participation, on the basis of how that belief concerns other (prospective) attendees.
I think you’d be a lot more successful with a hypothetical that wasn’t about whether someone would follow the law and/or conference rules.
I would also expect, for example, a conference under Chatham House Rules to reject participants who believed this kind of rule did not bind them. Even if the organizers otherwise were quite committed to free expression. Organizers can and should be willing to consider expressed beliefs even without a history of acting on them.
I also think it being about “people named Bob” messes with our intuitions, since it’s so silly, but ok.
Perhaps better hypothetical would be if Alice believed people named Bob were not moral patients (that had a bunch of nasty views downstream from this on what law and social norms should be) but still confirmed (and organizers trusted) that she would follow the law and treat him respectfully at the conference?
The point wasn’t to motivate intuitions on the broader issue, but demonstrate that exclusionary beliefs could be a coherent concept. I agree your version is better for motivating broader intuitions
Does advocating the anti-Bob position in any way constitute not “treat[ing] him respectfully,” even if he is not in earshot? As a practical reality, very few people would feel psychologically safe attending a conference at which people were having anti-Bob conversations after checking the participants’ comfort level with euphemisms and/or slurs, or inviting people to an off-site anti-Bob party.
Also: While I think the Alice hypo is too related to non-speech actions, I think the anti-Bob hypo is too divorced from them in the abstract. We’d need to consider a context in which anti-Bobism and adjacent thoughts—at a minimum—had been used to deny fundamental human rights to Bobs over an extended period of time. And where (at least) a number of people preaching anti-Bobism would favor rights denial against Bob and other Bobs (e.g., prohibition/restriction on procreation, deportation) should they come into power.
Let’s say that Alice is going to advocate for her anti-Bob position even when Bob is in the discussion. And that this is a carve out from “treat Bob respectfully”.
Bonus questions: Is the answer the same in this related hypo—Charlie thinks Delana Dixon, and only her among all human beings, is not a moral patient. In other words, does it matter if the belief and advocacy are targeted at an individual person vs. a group based on an immutable characteristic?
Also, does the organizer’s assessment of Alice and Charlie’s reasons for holding their beliefs matter here? Should they give less tolerance to the extent they conclude a belief is based on bigotry, delusion, a bad breakup with a Bob or with Delana Dixon, etc?
I think the problem with making the hypo more concrete in the ways you suggest is that then whether the hypo represents reality becomes highly contestable, and we devolve into object level debates. To take one example, despite being very pro-immigration myself, I find your suggestion that deportation of non-citizens somehow violates fundamental human rights to be absolutely ridiculous. If you set up a hypothetical about Alice wanting to deport non-citizen Bobs, you won’t convince me of anything. I’m guessing a lot of the disagreement here is less about event norms and more about people in the EA community being intolerant of those they disagree with politically. One reason for choosing such an abstract hypothetical was to try to separate out the two.
Note that I didn’t actually say “deportation of non-citizens somehow violates fundamental human rights” as you assert. The reference to fundamental rights was in the past tense: “had been used to deny fundamental human rights.” Certainly slavery involves the denial of a fundamental human right. The e.g. that references deportation follows the broader term “rights denial.”
That being said, I would characterize at least severe discriminatory treatment by the government on the basis of race as denial of a fundamental human right.
In any event, I recognize the concern you identify—but using only abstract hypotheticals is going to systematically bias the hypo in favor of the scientific racists by stripping away important context. If adding certain context changes the results of the hypo, then we’re stuck with an object-level debate on which hypo better reflects reality.