Thanks for writing this, a pleasure to read as always.
I must admit I come away being rather confused by what you mean by ‘wholesomeness’. Is wholesomeness basically consequentialism but with more vibes and less numbers? Your account makes it seem quite close to consequentialism. It also seems really close to virtue ethics—you try to differentiate it by saying it rejects “focus[ing] single-mindedly on excelling at one virtue” but my impression was that virtue ethics was all about balance the golden median anyway. And then it seems pretty close to sincerity/integrity also.
I was especially confused by this section:
Clean / traditional living
Working a normal respectable job, going to church on Sundays, staying sober and off drugs, avoiding sexual promiscuity or strange counterculture — these are all kinds of “clean” living that might sometimes be called “wholesome”.
Often they will also be somewhat wholesome on my concept. Over-indulgence in general, and addiction in particular, are unwholesome as they ground in an imbalanced sense of priorities. And, all else equal, there is something wholesome about comporting with the culture around us. However, all else is not always equal. There’s something wholesome about letting people do the things they’re drawn to, and unwholesome about puritanically suppressing that. Moreover, there’s something important and wholesome about people experimenting — both for their own learning, and ultimately to find better ways for things to be.
Apparently the activities I think most people would be most likely to label wholesomeness are only “often… somewhat” wholesome. And I think most people would basically never describe experimenting with drugs as wholesome. Maybe it might be good, but if it is good its good for some other reason (like it’s educational), not because its wholesome.
I think you actually have a really revisionist account of ‘wholesomeness’ - so revisitionist I think you should probably just pick a new word. It seems like you are trying to rely on some of the vibes of the word while giving it a new meaning which fixates on the word ‘whole’ to the neglect of the actual historical denotation. Samwise is one of the most wholesome characters I know, but it’s not because he was attending to the whole of Middle Earth—it’s because of his courage and humility, and his loyalty to Frodo, Rosie and the Shire. A good officer—or Denethor—comes much closer to attending to the whole, but that doesn’t mean his batsman isn’t more wholesome.
I’m not sure how central this is to your point, but for what it’s worth I think you may be overestimating the degree to which I’d disagree with normal judgements about what’s wholesome. I would also basically never describe experimenting with drugs as wholesome. (Maybe I’d make an exception if someone was travelling to a country where they were legal in order to experiment with things that might relieve pain from a chronic condition or something; of course it would depend on the details of their attitude.)
I think that it wouldn’t be unusual, though, to describe it as more wholesome to have got drunk one or two times in college than to have been too straight laced ever to do that. (I say, as someone who has never got drunk.)
Overall I feel like I agree with the normal senses of unwholesome and add some extra things which I regard as unwholesome, which normally might not register. Then in some circumstances the least-unwholesome action on my account will be one that involves some of the regular sense of unwholesomeness.
Is wholesomeness basically consequentialism but with more vibes and less numbers?
I think it’s partially that (where the point of the vibes is often that they’re helpful for tracking things which aren’t directly good/bad, but have an increased chance of causing good/bad things down the line). It’s also a bit like “consequentialism, but with some extra weight on avoiding negative consequences to things you’re interacting with” (where the point of this is that it distributes responsibility in a sensible way across agents).
I think you actually have a really revisionist account of ‘wholesomeness’ - so revisitionist I think you should probably just pick a new word.
I agree that my sense is somewhat revisionist, although I think it’s more grounded in the usual usage than you’re giving it credit for. I did consider choosing a different word, but after talking it through with some folks felt better about “wholesome” than the alternatives. The main way in which I care about the vibes of the existing word is for people putting it into practice. I think if people ask of an action they’re considering “what are the ways in which this might not be wholesome?”, it will be easy to feel answers to that question. If I try to define “holistically-good” and then people ask “what are the ways in which this might not be holistically-good?”, I think they’ll more get caught up in explicit verbal models and not notice things which they might have caught as answers to the first question.
Put another way: one of my guiding principles for this is to try to have an account of things such that I think it could lead to people doing the good ambitious versions of EA, but such that I find it hard to imagine SBF trying to follow it could have made the same mistakes, even if there was motivated cognition towards doing so. Stuff about side constraints doesn’t really feel robust enough to me. If there’s a new term it could be vulnerable to a lot of reinterpretation. Anchoring in the existing term serves to resist that.
Maybe I’m supposed to more explicitly separate out the thing you do felt mental checks for from the thing that you overall choose to pursue? I’m worried that gets contrived.
Thanks for writing this, a pleasure to read as always.
I must admit I come away being rather confused by what you mean by ‘wholesomeness’. Is wholesomeness basically consequentialism but with more vibes and less numbers? Your account makes it seem quite close to consequentialism. It also seems really close to virtue ethics—you try to differentiate it by saying it rejects “focus[ing] single-mindedly on excelling at one virtue” but my impression was that virtue ethics was all about balance the golden median anyway. And then it seems pretty close to sincerity/integrity also.
I was especially confused by this section:
Apparently the activities I think most people would be most likely to label wholesomeness are only “often… somewhat” wholesome. And I think most people would basically never describe experimenting with drugs as wholesome. Maybe it might be good, but if it is good its good for some other reason (like it’s educational), not because its wholesome.
I think you actually have a really revisionist account of ‘wholesomeness’ - so revisitionist I think you should probably just pick a new word. It seems like you are trying to rely on some of the vibes of the word while giving it a new meaning which fixates on the word ‘whole’ to the neglect of the actual historical denotation. Samwise is one of the most wholesome characters I know, but it’s not because he was attending to the whole of Middle Earth—it’s because of his courage and humility, and his loyalty to Frodo, Rosie and the Shire. A good officer—or Denethor—comes much closer to attending to the whole, but that doesn’t mean his batsman isn’t more wholesome.
I’m not sure how central this is to your point, but for what it’s worth I think you may be overestimating the degree to which I’d disagree with normal judgements about what’s wholesome. I would also basically never describe experimenting with drugs as wholesome. (Maybe I’d make an exception if someone was travelling to a country where they were legal in order to experiment with things that might relieve pain from a chronic condition or something; of course it would depend on the details of their attitude.)
I think that it wouldn’t be unusual, though, to describe it as more wholesome to have got drunk one or two times in college than to have been too straight laced ever to do that. (I say, as someone who has never got drunk.)
Overall I feel like I agree with the normal senses of unwholesome and add some extra things which I regard as unwholesome, which normally might not register. Then in some circumstances the least-unwholesome action on my account will be one that involves some of the regular sense of unwholesomeness.
I think it’s partially that (where the point of the vibes is often that they’re helpful for tracking things which aren’t directly good/bad, but have an increased chance of causing good/bad things down the line). It’s also a bit like “consequentialism, but with some extra weight on avoiding negative consequences to things you’re interacting with” (where the point of this is that it distributes responsibility in a sensible way across agents).
I agree that my sense is somewhat revisionist, although I think it’s more grounded in the usual usage than you’re giving it credit for. I did consider choosing a different word, but after talking it through with some folks felt better about “wholesome” than the alternatives. The main way in which I care about the vibes of the existing word is for people putting it into practice. I think if people ask of an action they’re considering “what are the ways in which this might not be wholesome?”, it will be easy to feel answers to that question. If I try to define “holistically-good” and then people ask “what are the ways in which this might not be holistically-good?”, I think they’ll more get caught up in explicit verbal models and not notice things which they might have caught as answers to the first question.
Put another way: one of my guiding principles for this is to try to have an account of things such that I think it could lead to people doing the good ambitious versions of EA, but such that I find it hard to imagine SBF trying to follow it could have made the same mistakes, even if there was motivated cognition towards doing so. Stuff about side constraints doesn’t really feel robust enough to me. If there’s a new term it could be vulnerable to a lot of reinterpretation. Anchoring in the existing term serves to resist that.
Maybe I’m supposed to more explicitly separate out the thing you do felt mental checks for from the thing that you overall choose to pursue? I’m worried that gets contrived.