SBF likely had mixed motives, in that there was likely at least some degree to which he acted in order to further his own well-being or with partiality toward the well-being of certain entities (such as his parents). The reasoning that you mentioned above (privileging your own interests instrumentally rather than terminally such that you as an agent can perform better) is a fraught manner of thinking with extremely high risk for motivated reasoning. However, I think that it is one that serious altruists need to engage with in good faith. To not do so would imply giving until one’s welfare was at the global poverty line, which would probably impair one too much as an agent. Of course, I’m not saying he was engaged in good faith regarding this instrumental privileging argument, but I cannot preclude the possibility.
Regardless, I have been persuaded by everything that I have seen that a significant part of SBF’s motivations were to help advance a world of higher well-being. Of course, from a deontological perspective he did wrong by his dishonest and fraudulent actions. From a consequentialist perspective, the downside risks had such incalculable costs that it was terrible as well.
But the sincere desire of his to make the world a better place makes me sympathetic of him in a way that I probably would not be with similarly sentenced other convicts. Given a deterministic or random world, I understand that all convicts are victims too. But I cannot help but feel more for one who was led to their crime by a sincere desire to better the world, than say, to kill their spouse in a fit of rage, or advance themselves financially without any such altruistic motivation.
SBF likely had mixed motives, in that there was likely at least some degree to which he acted in order to further his own well-being or with partiality toward the well-being of certain entities (such as his parents). The reasoning that you mentioned above (privileging your own interests instrumentally rather than terminally such that you as an agent can perform better) is a fraught manner of thinking with extremely high risk for motivated reasoning. However, I think that it is one that serious altruists need to engage with in good faith. To not do so would imply giving until one’s welfare was at the global poverty line, which would probably impair one too much as an agent. Of course, I’m not saying he was engaged in good faith regarding this instrumental privileging argument, but I cannot preclude the possibility.
Regardless, I have been persuaded by everything that I have seen that a significant part of SBF’s motivations were to help advance a world of higher well-being. Of course, from a deontological perspective he did wrong by his dishonest and fraudulent actions. From a consequentialist perspective, the downside risks had such incalculable costs that it was terrible as well.
But the sincere desire of his to make the world a better place makes me sympathetic of him in a way that I probably would not be with similarly sentenced other convicts. Given a deterministic or random world, I understand that all convicts are victims too. But I cannot help but feel more for one who was led to their crime by a sincere desire to better the world, than say, to kill their spouse in a fit of rage, or advance themselves financially without any such altruistic motivation.