Would you really want to ally with Effective Nazism?
Strict value neutrality means not caring about the difference between good and evil. I think the āaltruismā part of EA is important: it needs to be directed at ends that are genuinely good. Of course, thereās plenty of room for people to disagree about how to prioritize between different good things. We donāt all need to have the exact same rank ordering of priorities. But thatās a very different thing from value neutrality.
Iād bite the bullet and say āyesā. I disagree with Nazism, but to be intellectually consistent I have to accept that even beliefs about what is good that I find personally unpalatable deserve consideration. This is very similar to my stance on free speech: people should be allowed to say things that I disagree with, and Iām generally in favor of making it easier for people to say things, including things I disagree with.
To your point about not caring about the difference between good and evil, this sort of misses the point Iād like to make. How do you know what is good and evil? Well, you made some value judgement, and that judgment is yours. Even if youāre a moral realist, the fact remains that youāre discovering moral facts and can be mistaken about the facts. Since all we have access to is what claims people make about what they believe is best, weāre limited in how prescriptive we can be without risking, e.g., punishing ourselves if moral fashion changes.
I disagree with Nazism, but to be intellectually consistent I have to accept that even beliefs about what is good that I find personally unpalatable deserve consideration.
A) No ā to be intellectually consistent, you wouldnāt merely have to claim that Nazism deserves consideration. Youād have to actively support an anti-Semitic person donating to the Nazi Party and ensuring that it functions as efficiently as possible to eradicate Jewish people.[1] Correct me if Iām wrong, but your post didnāt seem to stop at wanting just a discussion of values ā it pushed for action to increase the effectiveness of whatever values someone else held, even if those values are counter to your own.
B) Why do you think beliefs you find personally unpalatable deserve consideration ā or, at least, how much consideration is necessary? Was the Holocaust insufficient consideration of the ideals of Nazism? Do you believe we should leave the Final Solution on the table as a way of pursuing ethical good in the world? These arenāt āgotchaā questions ā given that you responded āyesā to Richardās incisive question, Iād legitimately like to see how far your intellectual consistency will take you.
How do you know what is good and evil?
Agreed. This is a key question, and I think Richard avoids this thorny problem in his comment. However, the fact that the field of ethics hasnāt come to a conclusion over which system of values we should hold doesnāt implicate a free-for-all. We may not (yet?) know what is objectively good and evil, or even if ethics are objective or exist in the first place, but we can still aim for the good and away from the bad.
Iām excited to hear out your answer ā you have a lot of interesting takes, and you have an easy-to-follow writing style.
Iām Jewish. Iām a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My father is a Holocaust scholar. Iām attending a conference on the Holocaust tomorrow. Iām not offended by the employment of the Nazi Party as an example, but if someone else is, Iād be happy to edit this post and change the example to something else ā either shoot me a direct message or simply reply to this chain.
To your footnote, Iām not sure how many people are directly uncomfortable, but I do find arguments that roughly boil down to ābut what about Nazis?ā lazy as they try to run around the discussion by pointing to a thing that will make most readers go āNazis bad, I agree with whatever says āNazis badā most strongly!ā. This doesnāt mean thinking Nazis are bad is an unreasonable position or something, only that it looms so large it swamps many peopleās ability to think clearly.
Rationalists the to taboo comparing things to Nazis or using Nazis as an example for this reason, but not all EAs are rationalists and it is a specific point in idea space that most everyone will agree is bad, but Iām also pretty sure we can cook up worse views even more people would disagree with (cf. the baby eaters of Three Worlds Collide).
Maybe the formatting of your comment cut off the later portions. It seems like your response to my comment only included a discussion of my end note. To be clear, my end note was meant as merely a side-conversation, only tangentially related to the main body of the comment.
Iāll be generous in assuming that it was merely a formatting error ā I wouldnāt hope to assume that you ignored the main points of my comment in favor of writing only about my relatively unimportant end note.
I await your response to the content of my comment! :)
There is (or, at least, ought to be) a big gap between āconsideringā a view and āallyingā with it. If youāre going to ally with any view no matter its content, thereās no point in going to the trouble of actually thinking about it. Thinking is only worthwhile if itās possible to reach conclusions that differ depending on the details of whatās considered.
Of course weāre fallible, but that doesnāt entail radical skepticism (see: any decent intro philosophy text). Whatever premises you think lead to the conclusion āmaybe Nazism is okay after all,ā you should have less confidence in those philosophical premises than in the opposing conclusion that actually, genocide really is bad. So those dubious premises canāt rationally be used to defeat the more-credible opposing conclusion.
Would you really want to ally with Effective Nazism?
Strict value neutrality means not caring about the difference between good and evil. I think the āaltruismā part of EA is important: it needs to be directed at ends that are genuinely good. Of course, thereās plenty of room for people to disagree about how to prioritize between different good things. We donāt all need to have the exact same rank ordering of priorities. But thatās a very different thing from value neutrality.
Iād bite the bullet and say āyesā. I disagree with Nazism, but to be intellectually consistent I have to accept that even beliefs about what is good that I find personally unpalatable deserve consideration. This is very similar to my stance on free speech: people should be allowed to say things that I disagree with, and Iām generally in favor of making it easier for people to say things, including things I disagree with.
To your point about not caring about the difference between good and evil, this sort of misses the point Iād like to make. How do you know what is good and evil? Well, you made some value judgement, and that judgment is yours. Even if youāre a moral realist, the fact remains that youāre discovering moral facts and can be mistaken about the facts. Since all we have access to is what claims people make about what they believe is best, weāre limited in how prescriptive we can be without risking, e.g., punishing ourselves if moral fashion changes.
A) No ā to be intellectually consistent, you wouldnāt merely have to claim that Nazism deserves consideration. Youād have to actively support an anti-Semitic person donating to the Nazi Party and ensuring that it functions as efficiently as possible to eradicate Jewish people.[1] Correct me if Iām wrong, but your post didnāt seem to stop at wanting just a discussion of values ā it pushed for action to increase the effectiveness of whatever values someone else held, even if those values are counter to your own.
B) Why do you think beliefs you find personally unpalatable deserve consideration ā or, at least, how much consideration is necessary? Was the Holocaust insufficient consideration of the ideals of Nazism? Do you believe we should leave the Final Solution on the table as a way of pursuing ethical good in the world? These arenāt āgotchaā questions ā given that you responded āyesā to Richardās incisive question, Iād legitimately like to see how far your intellectual consistency will take you.
Agreed. This is a key question, and I think Richard avoids this thorny problem in his comment. However, the fact that the field of ethics hasnāt come to a conclusion over which system of values we should hold doesnāt implicate a free-for-all. We may not (yet?) know what is objectively good and evil, or even if ethics are objective or exist in the first place, but we can still aim for the good and away from the bad.
Iām excited to hear out your answer ā you have a lot of interesting takes, and you have an easy-to-follow writing style.
Iām Jewish. Iām a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My father is a Holocaust scholar. Iām attending a conference on the Holocaust tomorrow. Iām not offended by the employment of the Nazi Party as an example, but if someone else is, Iād be happy to edit this post and change the example to something else ā either shoot me a direct message or simply reply to this chain.
To your footnote, Iām not sure how many people are directly uncomfortable, but I do find arguments that roughly boil down to ābut what about Nazis?ā lazy as they try to run around the discussion by pointing to a thing that will make most readers go āNazis bad, I agree with whatever says āNazis badā most strongly!ā. This doesnāt mean thinking Nazis are bad is an unreasonable position or something, only that it looms so large it swamps many peopleās ability to think clearly.
Rationalists the to taboo comparing things to Nazis or using Nazis as an example for this reason, but not all EAs are rationalists and it is a specific point in idea space that most everyone will agree is bad, but Iām also pretty sure we can cook up worse views even more people would disagree with (cf. the baby eaters of Three Worlds Collide).
?
Maybe the formatting of your comment cut off the later portions. It seems like your response to my comment only included a discussion of my end note. To be clear, my end note was meant as merely a side-conversation, only tangentially related to the main body of the comment.
Iāll be generous in assuming that it was merely a formatting error ā I wouldnāt hope to assume that you ignored the main points of my comment in favor of writing only about my relatively unimportant end note.
I await your response to the content of my comment! :)
There is (or, at least, ought to be) a big gap between āconsideringā a view and āallyingā with it. If youāre going to ally with any view no matter its content, thereās no point in going to the trouble of actually thinking about it. Thinking is only worthwhile if itās possible to reach conclusions that differ depending on the details of whatās considered.
Of course weāre fallible, but that doesnāt entail radical skepticism (see: any decent intro philosophy text). Whatever premises you think lead to the conclusion āmaybe Nazism is okay after all,ā you should have less confidence in those philosophical premises than in the opposing conclusion that actually, genocide really is bad. So those dubious premises canāt rationally be used to defeat the more-credible opposing conclusion.