There’s a pretty chunky literature on some of these issues in metaethics, e.g.:
Moral fictionalism, or why it could make sense to talk in terms of moral truths even if there aren’t any
Moral antirealism/constructivism, or why there can be moral “shoulds” and “oughts” even if these are just mental attitudes
Why even if you’re a pluralist, utilitarian considerations dominate your reasoning on a range of psychologically typical value systems given how much welfare matters to people compared to other things, and how much we can affect it given effective altruism
How there can be different ways of valuing things, some that you endorse and some that you don’t (especially among constructivists like Street, Korsgaard, and Velleman), and why it could make sense to only act on values you endorse acting on
Relatedly, how your moral theory might be different from your spontaneous sentiments because you can think through these sentiments and bring them into harmony (e.g. the discussion of reflective equilibrium)
Obviously it would be a high bar to have to have a PhD level training on these topics and read through the whole literature before posting on the EA Forum, so I’m not suggesting that! But I think it would be useful to talk some of these ideas through with antirealist metaethicists because they have responses to a bunch of these criticisms. I know Spencer and I chatted about this once and probably we should chat again! I could also refer you to some other EA folks who would be good to chat to about this, probably over DM.
All of that said, I do think there are useful things about what you’re doing here, especially e.g. part 2, and I do think that some antirealist utilitarianism is mistaken for broadly the reasons you say! And the philosophers definitely haven’t gotten everything right, I actually think most metaethicists are confused. But especially claims like those made in part 3 have a lot of good responses in existing discussion.
ETA: Actually if you’re still in NYC one person I’ll nominate to chat with about this topic is Jeff Sebo.
Hi Tyler, thanks for your thoughts on this! Note that this post is not about the best philosophical objections, it’s about what EAs actually believe. I have spoken to many EAs who say they are utilitarian but don’t believe in objective moral truth (or think that objective moral truth is very unlikely) and what I’m responding to in this post is what those people say about what they believe and why. I also have spoken to Jeff Sebo about this as well!
In point 1 and 2 in this post, namely, “1. I think (in one sense) it’s empirically false to say that “only utility is valuable” and “2. It can be psychologically harmful to deny your intrinsic values” I’m making a claim about human psychology, not about philosophy.
So it sounds like you’re mainly respoding to this point in my essay: “3. I think (in one sense) it’s incoherent to only value utility if you don’t believe in moral realism”
That’s totally fair, but please note that I actually solicited feedback on that point from tons of people, including some philosophers, and I wrote a whole essay just about that claim in particular which is linked above (of course, I wouldn’t have expected you to have read it, but I’m just pointing that out). Here is that essay:
I will update the post slightly to make it clearer that I have a whole essay discussing objections to that point.
Note that at the bottom of that other essay I discuss every single reasonable-ish objection I’ve heard to that argument, including some from philosophers. Perhaps you have other objections not mentioned there, but I do delve into various objections and have sought a lot of feedback/criticism on that already!
I would be very happy to discuss this topic more with you, and hear your more detailed objections/points you think I am getting wrong—let me know if you’d like to do that!
Finally, I will note though that most of the objections you mention in your comment above are NOT the many EAs I’ve spoken to use to defend their beliefs, so even if they are strong arguments I don’t think they are doing work in why most EAs (who deny objective moral truth but say they are utilitarians) believe what they do.
I’ve only skimmed the essay but it looks pretty good! Many of the ideas I had in mind are covered here, and I respond very differently to this than to your post here.
I don’t know what most EAs believe about ethics and metaethics, but I took this post to be about the truth, or desirability of these metaethical, ethical, and methodological positions, not whether they’re better than what most EAs believe. And that’s what I’m commenting on here.
Hi Spencer and Amber,
There’s a pretty chunky literature on some of these issues in metaethics, e.g.:
Moral fictionalism, or why it could make sense to talk in terms of moral truths even if there aren’t any
Moral antirealism/constructivism, or why there can be moral “shoulds” and “oughts” even if these are just mental attitudes
Why even if you’re a pluralist, utilitarian considerations dominate your reasoning on a range of psychologically typical value systems given how much welfare matters to people compared to other things, and how much we can affect it given effective altruism
How there can be different ways of valuing things, some that you endorse and some that you don’t (especially among constructivists like Street, Korsgaard, and Velleman), and why it could make sense to only act on values you endorse acting on
Relatedly, how your moral theory might be different from your spontaneous sentiments because you can think through these sentiments and bring them into harmony (e.g. the discussion of reflective equilibrium)
Obviously it would be a high bar to have to have a PhD level training on these topics and read through the whole literature before posting on the EA Forum, so I’m not suggesting that! But I think it would be useful to talk some of these ideas through with antirealist metaethicists because they have responses to a bunch of these criticisms. I know Spencer and I chatted about this once and probably we should chat again! I could also refer you to some other EA folks who would be good to chat to about this, probably over DM.
All of that said, I do think there are useful things about what you’re doing here, especially e.g. part 2, and I do think that some antirealist utilitarianism is mistaken for broadly the reasons you say! And the philosophers definitely haven’t gotten everything right, I actually think most metaethicists are confused. But especially claims like those made in part 3 have a lot of good responses in existing discussion.
ETA: Actually if you’re still in NYC one person I’ll nominate to chat with about this topic is Jeff Sebo.
Hi Tyler, thanks for your thoughts on this! Note that this post is not about the best philosophical objections, it’s about what EAs actually believe. I have spoken to many EAs who say they are utilitarian but don’t believe in objective moral truth (or think that objective moral truth is very unlikely) and what I’m responding to in this post is what those people say about what they believe and why. I also have spoken to Jeff Sebo about this as well!
In point 1 and 2 in this post, namely, “1. I think (in one sense) it’s empirically false to say that “only utility is valuable” and “2. It can be psychologically harmful to deny your intrinsic values” I’m making a claim about human psychology, not about philosophy.
So it sounds like you’re mainly respoding to this point in my essay: “3. I think (in one sense) it’s incoherent to only value utility if you don’t believe in moral realism”
That’s totally fair, but please note that I actually solicited feedback on that point from tons of people, including some philosophers, and I wrote a whole essay just about that claim in particular which is linked above (of course, I wouldn’t have expected you to have read it, but I’m just pointing that out). Here is that essay:
https://www.spencergreenberg.com/2022/08/tensions-between-moral-anti-realism-and-effective-altruism/
I will update the post slightly to make it clearer that I have a whole essay discussing objections to that point.
Note that at the bottom of that other essay I discuss every single reasonable-ish objection I’ve heard to that argument, including some from philosophers. Perhaps you have other objections not mentioned there, but I do delve into various objections and have sought a lot of feedback/criticism on that already!
I would be very happy to discuss this topic more with you, and hear your more detailed objections/points you think I am getting wrong—let me know if you’d like to do that!
Finally, I will note though that most of the objections you mention in your comment above are NOT the many EAs I’ve spoken to use to defend their beliefs, so even if they are strong arguments I don’t think they are doing work in why most EAs (who deny objective moral truth but say they are utilitarians) believe what they do.
I’ve only skimmed the essay but it looks pretty good! Many of the ideas I had in mind are covered here, and I respond very differently to this than to your post here.
I don’t know what most EAs believe about ethics and metaethics, but I took this post to be about the truth, or desirability of these metaethical, ethical, and methodological positions, not whether they’re better than what most EAs believe. And that’s what I’m commenting on here.
Cool, thanks for checking it out! I’ll update the post slightly to make it clearer that I’m talking about beliefs rather than the truth.