That’s a pretty wild misreading of my post. The main thesis of the post is that we should unequivocally condemn fraud. I do not think that the reason that fraud is bad is because of PR reasons, nor do I say that in the post—if you read what I wrote about why I think it’s wrong to commit fraud at the end, what I say is that you should have a general policy against ever committing fraud, regardless of the PR consequences one way or another.
The main thesis of your post (we should unequivocally condemn fraud) is correct, but the way you defend it is in conflict with it (by saying it’s wrong for instrumental reasons).
Here’s the PR argument:
I think the lasting consequences to EA—and the damage caused by FTX to all of their customers and employees—will likely outweigh the altruistic funding already provided by FTX to effective causes.
This weakens the condemnation, by making it be about the risks of being found out, not the badness of the action.
When you explain that pre-committing to not commit fraud is an advantageous strategy, I read this as another instrumental argument.
It’s hard to condemn things unequivocally from a purely utilitarian point of view, because then all reasons are instrumental. I’m not saying your reasons are untrue, but I think that when non-utilitarians read them, they won’t see an unequivocal condemnation, but a pragmatic argument that in other contexts could be turned in defence of fraud, if the consequences come out the other way.
That said, Jack Malde’s reply to me is a pretty good attempt at unequivocal condemnation from within a utilitarian frame, because it doesn’t talk about conditions that might not hold for some instance of fraud. (But it’s not necessarily correct.)
The portion you quote is included at the very end as an additional point about how even if you don’t buy my primary arguments that fraud in general is bad, in this case it was empirically bad. It is not my primary reason for thinking fraud is bad here, and I think the post is quite clear about that.
That’s a pretty wild misreading of my post. The main thesis of the post is that we should unequivocally condemn fraud. I do not think that the reason that fraud is bad is because of PR reasons, nor do I say that in the post—if you read what I wrote about why I think it’s wrong to commit fraud at the end, what I say is that you should have a general policy against ever committing fraud, regardless of the PR consequences one way or another.
The main thesis of your post (we should unequivocally condemn fraud) is correct, but the way you defend it is in conflict with it (by saying it’s wrong for instrumental reasons).
Here’s the PR argument:
This weakens the condemnation, by making it be about the risks of being found out, not the badness of the action.
When you explain that pre-committing to not commit fraud is an advantageous strategy, I read this as another instrumental argument.
It’s hard to condemn things unequivocally from a purely utilitarian point of view, because then all reasons are instrumental. I’m not saying your reasons are untrue, but I think that when non-utilitarians read them, they won’t see an unequivocal condemnation, but a pragmatic argument that in other contexts could be turned in defence of fraud, if the consequences come out the other way.
That said, Jack Malde’s reply to me is a pretty good attempt at unequivocal condemnation from within a utilitarian frame, because it doesn’t talk about conditions that might not hold for some instance of fraud. (But it’s not necessarily correct.)
The portion you quote is included at the very end as an additional point about how even if you don’t buy my primary arguments that fraud in general is bad, in this case it was empirically bad. It is not my primary reason for thinking fraud is bad here, and I think the post is quite clear about that.