I think this piece mostly misunderstands Ord’s argument, through confusing reductios with revealed preferences. Although you quote the last sentence of the work in terms of revealed preferences, I think you get a better picture of Ord’s main argument from his description of it:
The argument then, is as follows. The embryo has the same moral status as an adult human (the Claim). Medical studies show that more than 60% of all people are killed by spontaneous abortion (a biological fact). Therefore, spontaneous abortion is one of the most serious problems facing humanity, and we must do our utmost to investigate ways of preventing this death—even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues (the Conclusion).
Note there’s nothing here about hypocrisy, and the argument isn’t “Ord wants us to interpret people’s departure from their stated moral beliefs, not as moral failure or selfishness or myopia or sin, but as an argument against people’s stated moral claims.”
This wouldn’t be much of an argument anyway: besides the Phil-101 points around “Even if pro-lifers are hypocrites their (pretended) belief could still be true”, it’s still very weak as an abductive consideration. If indeed pro-lifers were hypocritical this gives some evidence their (stated) beliefs are false (through a few mechanisms I’ll spare elaborating), this counts for little unless this hypocrisy was of a remarkably greater degree than others. As moral hypocrisy is all-but-universal, and merely showing (e.g.) that stereotypical Kantians sometimes lie, utilitarians give less than they say they ought to charity (etc. etc.) is not much of a revelation, I doubt this (or the other extensions in the OP) bear much significance in terms of identifying particularly discrediting hypocrisy.
The challenge of the Scourge is that a common bioconservative belief (“The embryo has the same moral status as an adult human”) may entail another which seems facially highly implausible (“Therefore, spontaneous abortion is one of the most serious problems facing humanity, and we must do our utmost to investigate ways of preventing this death—even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues”). Many (most?) find the latter bizarre, so if they believed it was entailed by the bioconservative claim would infer this claim must be false. Again, this reasoning is basically orthogonal to any putative hypocrisy among those asserting its truth: even if it were the case (e.g.) the Catholic Church was monomaniacal in its efforts to combat natural embryo loss, the argument would still lead me to think they were mistaken.
Ord again:
One certainly could save the Claim by embracing the Conclusion, however I doubt that many of its supporters would want to do so. Instead, I suspect that they would either try to find some flaw in the argument, or abandon the Claim. Even if they were personally prepared to embrace the Conclusion, the Claim would lose much of its persuasive power. Many of the people they were trying to convince are likely to see the Conclusion as too bitter a pill, and to decide that if these embryo-related practices are wrong at all, it cannot be due to the embryo having full moral status.
The challenge of the Scourge is that a common bioconservative belief (“The embryo has the same moral status as an adult human”) may entail another which seems facially highly implausible (“Therefore, spontaneous abortion is one of the most serious problems facing humanity, and we must do our utmost to investigate ways of preventing this death—even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues”). Many (most?) find the latter bizarre, so if they believed it was entailed by the bioconservative claim would infer this claim must be false.
I don’t really see how this helps, because it seems a similar thing applies to EAs, regardless of whether the issue is hypocrisy or a modus ponens / modus tollens. We use common moral beliefs (future people have value) to entail others which seem facially highly implausible (we should spend vast sums of money on strange projects, even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues). Many (most?) find the latter bizarre, so if they believed it was entailed by the future-people-have-value claim would infer this claim must be false. In both cases the argument is using common ‘near’ moral views to deduce sweeping global moral imperatives.
Sure—I’m not claiming “EA doctrine” has no putative counter-examples which should lead us to doubt it. But these counter-examples should rely on beliefs about propositions not assessments of behaviour: if EA says “it is better to do X than Y”, yet this seems wrong, this is a reason to doubt EA, but whether anyone is actually doing X (or X instead of Y) is irrelevant. “EA doctrine” (ditto most other moral views) urges us to be much less selfish—that I am selfish anyway is not an argument against it.
One could really draw parallels with future people and Longtermism here. If the conclusion from caring about all potential future people is that we need to pay AI researchers with money that would’ve otherwise gone to save African children, then most people who’d find this conclusion hard to swallow should reject the premise.
I just find the form of the argument really unconvincing. It reads as a general argument against demanding moral theories. He has the points that
Valuing embryos would require a lot of work regarding spontaneous abortion and people don’t want to do what that entails.
People don’t act like they value embryos.
If this argument works, it also seems like we should say caring about animal welfare is absurd (how many people think we should modify the environment to help wild animals), caring about the far future is absurd, and so forth. I think in function this is a general anti-EA argument, although in practice Ord obviously did a lot to start and support EA and promote concern for the future.
I agree this form of argument is very unconvincing. That “people don’t act as if Y is true” is a pretty rubbish defeater for “people believe Y is true”, and a very rubbish defeater for “X being true” simpliciter. But this argument isn’t Ord’s, but one of your own creation.
Again, the validity of the philosophical argument doesn’t depend on how sincerely a belief is commonly held (or whether anyone believes it at all). The form is simply modus tollens:
If X (~sanctity of life from conception) then Y (natural embryo loss is—e.g. a much greater moral priority than HIV)
¬Y (Natural embryo loss is not a much greater moral priority than (e.g.) HIV)
¬X (The sanctity of life from conception view is false)
Crucially, ¬Y is not motivated by interpreting supposed revealed preferences from behaviour. Besides it being ~irrelevant (“Person or group does not (really?) believe Y -->?? Y is false”) this apparent hypocrisy can be explained by ignorance rather than insincerity: it’s not like statistics around natural embryo loss are common knowledge, so their inaction towards the Scourge could be owed to them being unaware of it.
¬Y is mainly motivated by appeals to Y’s apparent absurdity. Ord (correctly) anticipates very few people on reflection would find Y plausible, and so would find if X indeed entailed Y, this would be a reason to doubt X. Again, it is the implausibility on rational reflection, not the concordance of practice to those who claim to believe it, which drives the argument .
I think this piece mostly misunderstands Ord’s argument, through confusing reductios with revealed preferences. Although you quote the last sentence of the work in terms of revealed preferences, I think you get a better picture of Ord’s main argument from his description of it:
Note there’s nothing here about hypocrisy, and the argument isn’t “Ord wants us to interpret people’s departure from their stated moral beliefs, not as moral failure or selfishness or myopia or sin, but as an argument against people’s stated moral claims.”
This wouldn’t be much of an argument anyway: besides the Phil-101 points around “Even if pro-lifers are hypocrites their (pretended) belief could still be true”, it’s still very weak as an abductive consideration. If indeed pro-lifers were hypocritical this gives some evidence their (stated) beliefs are false (through a few mechanisms I’ll spare elaborating), this counts for little unless this hypocrisy was of a remarkably greater degree than others. As moral hypocrisy is all-but-universal, and merely showing (e.g.) that stereotypical Kantians sometimes lie, utilitarians give less than they say they ought to charity (etc. etc.) is not much of a revelation, I doubt this (or the other extensions in the OP) bear much significance in terms of identifying particularly discrediting hypocrisy.
The challenge of the Scourge is that a common bioconservative belief (“The embryo has the same moral status as an adult human”) may entail another which seems facially highly implausible (“Therefore, spontaneous abortion is one of the most serious problems facing humanity, and we must do our utmost to investigate ways of preventing this death—even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues”). Many (most?) find the latter bizarre, so if they believed it was entailed by the bioconservative claim would infer this claim must be false. Again, this reasoning is basically orthogonal to any putative hypocrisy among those asserting its truth: even if it were the case (e.g.) the Catholic Church was monomaniacal in its efforts to combat natural embryo loss, the argument would still lead me to think they were mistaken.
Ord again:
I don’t really see how this helps, because it seems a similar thing applies to EAs, regardless of whether the issue is hypocrisy or a modus ponens / modus tollens. We use common moral beliefs (future people have value) to entail others which seem facially highly implausible (we should spend vast sums of money on strange projects, even if this is to the detriment of other pressing issues). Many (most?) find the latter bizarre, so if they believed it was entailed by the future-people-have-value claim would infer this claim must be false. In both cases the argument is using common ‘near’ moral views to deduce sweeping global moral imperatives.
Sure—I’m not claiming “EA doctrine” has no putative counter-examples which should lead us to doubt it. But these counter-examples should rely on beliefs about propositions not assessments of behaviour: if EA says “it is better to do X than Y”, yet this seems wrong, this is a reason to doubt EA, but whether anyone is actually doing X (or X instead of Y) is irrelevant. “EA doctrine” (ditto most other moral views) urges us to be much less selfish—that I am selfish anyway is not an argument against it.
One could really draw parallels with future people and Longtermism here. If the conclusion from caring about all potential future people is that we need to pay AI researchers with money that would’ve otherwise gone to save African children, then most people who’d find this conclusion hard to swallow should reject the premise.
I just find the form of the argument really unconvincing. It reads as a general argument against demanding moral theories. He has the points that
Valuing embryos would require a lot of work regarding spontaneous abortion and people don’t want to do what that entails.
People don’t act like they value embryos.
If this argument works, it also seems like we should say caring about animal welfare is absurd (how many people think we should modify the environment to help wild animals), caring about the far future is absurd, and so forth. I think in function this is a general anti-EA argument, although in practice Ord obviously did a lot to start and support EA and promote concern for the future.
I agree this form of argument is very unconvincing. That “people don’t act as if Y is true” is a pretty rubbish defeater for “people believe Y is true”, and a very rubbish defeater for “X being true” simpliciter. But this argument isn’t Ord’s, but one of your own creation.
Again, the validity of the philosophical argument doesn’t depend on how sincerely a belief is commonly held (or whether anyone believes it at all). The form is simply modus tollens:
If X (~sanctity of life from conception) then Y (natural embryo loss is—e.g. a much greater moral priority than HIV)
¬Y (Natural embryo loss is not a much greater moral priority than (e.g.) HIV)
¬X (The sanctity of life from conception view is false)
Crucially, ¬Y is not motivated by interpreting supposed revealed preferences from behaviour. Besides it being ~irrelevant (“Person or group does not (really?) believe Y -->?? Y is false”) this apparent hypocrisy can be explained by ignorance rather than insincerity: it’s not like statistics around natural embryo loss are common knowledge, so their inaction towards the Scourge could be owed to them being unaware of it.
¬Y is mainly motivated by appeals to Y’s apparent absurdity. Ord (correctly) anticipates very few people on reflection would find Y plausible, and so would find if X indeed entailed Y, this would be a reason to doubt X. Again, it is the implausibility on rational reflection, not the concordance of practice to those who claim to believe it, which drives the argument .