Thanks for your comment. I’ll try to address each of your points.
“You seem to believe people who don’t share your values are simply ignorant of them… If you think your beliefs are prima facie correct, fine, most people do—but you still have to argue for them.”
In general, no—I do not believe that people who don’t share my values are simply ignorant of them, and I have communicated poorly if that is your impression. Nor do I believe that my beliefs are prima facie correct, and I don’t think I’ve claimed that in any of these comments. I did not post here to argue for my beliefs—I don’t expect anybody on this forum to agree with them—but to point out that the paper under discussion fails to deal with those beliefs adequately, which seemed to me a weakness.
“You mischaracterize utilitarianism in ways that are frankly incomprehensible, and become evasive when those characterizations are challenged.”
I think it’s an exaggeration to say that my characterisation is “frankly incomprehensible” and that I “become evasive” when challenged. My characterisation may be slightly inaccurate, but it’s not as if I am a million miles away from common understanding, and I have tried to be as direct as possible in my responses.
The confusion may arise from the fact that when I claim that effectiveness is an intrinsic value, I am making that claim for effective altruism specifically, rather than utilitarianism more broadly. And indeed effectiveness does appear to be an intrinsic value for effective altruism—because if what effective altruists proposed was not effective, it would not constitute effective altruism.
Your final point has the most traction:
“Bafflingly, given (1), you also don’t seem to feel the need to explain what your values are! You name them (or at least it seems these are yours) and move on, as if we all understood… I’m guessing, having just googled that quote, that you mean something like this”
I was indeed referring to these principles, and you’re right—I didn’t explain them! This may have been a mistake on my part, but as I implied above, my intent was not to persuade anybody here to accept those principles. I am not expecting random people on a message board to even be aware of these principles—but I would expect an academic who writes a paper on the subject that in part intends to refute the arguments of organisations involved in humanitarian action to refer to these principles at least in passing, wouldn’t you?
“you’re almost certainly using “intrinsic value” and “instrumental value” in a very different sense from the people you’re talking to.”
Yes, this may be the case. In another comment in this thread I reconsidered my position, and suggested that humanitarian principles are a curious mix of intrinsic and instrumental. But I’m not sure my usage is that far away from the common usage, is it? I also raised the point that they are in fact contested—partly for the cultural reason you raise—and the way in which they are viewed varies from organisation to organisation. Obviously this will cause more concern for people who prefer their principles much cleaner!
Thanks for your comment. I’ll try to address each of your points.
“You seem to believe people who don’t share your values are simply ignorant of them… If you think your beliefs are prima facie correct, fine, most people do—but you still have to argue for them.”
In general, no—I do not believe that people who don’t share my values are simply ignorant of them, and I have communicated poorly if that is your impression. Nor do I believe that my beliefs are prima facie correct, and I don’t think I’ve claimed that in any of these comments. I did not post here to argue for my beliefs—I don’t expect anybody on this forum to agree with them—but to point out that the paper under discussion fails to deal with those beliefs adequately, which seemed to me a weakness.
“You mischaracterize utilitarianism in ways that are frankly incomprehensible, and become evasive when those characterizations are challenged.”
I think it’s an exaggeration to say that my characterisation is “frankly incomprehensible” and that I “become evasive” when challenged. My characterisation may be slightly inaccurate, but it’s not as if I am a million miles away from common understanding, and I have tried to be as direct as possible in my responses.
The confusion may arise from the fact that when I claim that effectiveness is an intrinsic value, I am making that claim for effective altruism specifically, rather than utilitarianism more broadly. And indeed effectiveness does appear to be an intrinsic value for effective altruism—because if what effective altruists proposed was not effective, it would not constitute effective altruism.
Your final point has the most traction:
“Bafflingly, given (1), you also don’t seem to feel the need to explain what your values are! You name them (or at least it seems these are yours) and move on, as if we all understood… I’m guessing, having just googled that quote, that you mean something like this”
I was indeed referring to these principles, and you’re right—I didn’t explain them! This may have been a mistake on my part, but as I implied above, my intent was not to persuade anybody here to accept those principles. I am not expecting random people on a message board to even be aware of these principles—but I would expect an academic who writes a paper on the subject that in part intends to refute the arguments of organisations involved in humanitarian action to refer to these principles at least in passing, wouldn’t you?
“you’re almost certainly using “intrinsic value” and “instrumental value” in a very different sense from the people you’re talking to.”
Yes, this may be the case. In another comment in this thread I reconsidered my position, and suggested that humanitarian principles are a curious mix of intrinsic and instrumental. But I’m not sure my usage is that far away from the common usage, is it? I also raised the point that they are in fact contested—partly for the cultural reason you raise—and the way in which they are viewed varies from organisation to organisation. Obviously this will cause more concern for people who prefer their principles much cleaner!