In response to this argument, pledge taker Rob Wiblin said that, if he changed his mind about donating 10% every year being the best choice, he would simply un-take the pledge. However, this is certainly not encouraged by the pledge itself, which says “for the rest of my life” and doesn’t contemplate leaving.
I think this is a pretty strong argument. We would expect CEA leaders to be the people who take the pledge the most seriously; it is a very negative sign if they regard it as an artifice that can be discarded for convenience.
I’ve taken the pledge because I think it’s a morally good thing to do and it’s useful to have commitment strategies to help you live up to what you think is right. I expect to follow through, because I expect to believe that keeping the pledge is the right thing for me to do.
If it turns out to be bad, I will no longer do it, because there’s no point having a commitment device to prompt you to follow through on something you don’t think you should do. That’s the only sensible way to act.
You wouldn’t give (or would give less) if you hadn’t signed the pledge
You will would give (more) because you have signed the pledge.
I think a disconnect here is that for many people, including myself, saying “I will do this for life” literally means “I will do this for life”, with the compromise position being “I will do this unless it will end my life.” It’s not a commitment device, it’s a commitment, and if you take it giving less than 10% becomes morally wrong, even if absent the pledge giving 10% would be a bad idea.
Easy—if some year I feel like spending the money on myself; or I’m just too lazy to figure out where to give and do it; or maybe I even forget about giving. Then the pledge reminds me that I thought in the past—and probably also on reflection think now—that I ought to donate the money, and makes me more likely to follow through. Just as if I’d agreed to go to the gym with a friend, etc.
For me, being highly involved in the EA community, this commitment device is probably redundant, but it also doesn’t do any harm.
It’s clear people have different attitudes to how bad it is to break a promise, and how strongly they take the pledge to bind them. For me it’s a statement of my ideals, which I expect to be quite stable. But it’s not a commitment that forces me to act against my better judgement at any future time. Nor would I want it to have that effect on others.
I disagree with this reasoning. The point of a commitment device is to, you know, commit you. If you can break a pledge whenever you want, it’s not actually a pledge. If you commit yourself to something, it’s because you think there’s a possibility that you will change your mind in the future and you want to prevent that from happening. So the commitment serves no purpose if it doesn’t actually prevent you from changing your mind.
Perhaps there’s value in publicly registering “I plan on donating 10%” without explicitly committing to it, in which case it shouldn’t be framed as a commitment.
There are different levels and types of commitment devices. One could use a pledge to bind oneself to continue giving even if in future you think it’s the wrong thing to do—but I’m more skeptical that that is a good idea, for the reasons people have given. And I don’t think most pledgers see themselves as binding their future behaviour this way.
It’s also not how I’m using it, and it is still useful to me as a more gentle reminder of what I think is morally desirable behaviour. Just as agreeing to go to meet your friends at the gym is helpful even though it won’t (and isn’t designed to) force you to go to the gym even if you are e.g. injured or decide that gymming actually harms your health.
I think this is a pretty strong argument. We would expect CEA leaders to be the people who take the pledge the most seriously; it is a very negative sign if they regard it as an artifice that can be discarded for convenience.
I’ve taken the pledge because I think it’s a morally good thing to do and it’s useful to have commitment strategies to help you live up to what you think is right. I expect to follow through, because I expect to believe that keeping the pledge is the right thing for me to do.
If it turns out to be bad, I will no longer do it, because there’s no point having a commitment device to prompt you to follow through on something you don’t think you should do. That’s the only sensible way to act.
What is the situation where:
Giving is the correct thing to do
You wouldn’t give (or would give less) if you hadn’t signed the pledge
You will would give (more) because you have signed the pledge.
I think a disconnect here is that for many people, including myself, saying “I will do this for life” literally means “I will do this for life”, with the compromise position being “I will do this unless it will end my life.” It’s not a commitment device, it’s a commitment, and if you take it giving less than 10% becomes morally wrong, even if absent the pledge giving 10% would be a bad idea.
Easy—if some year I feel like spending the money on myself; or I’m just too lazy to figure out where to give and do it; or maybe I even forget about giving. Then the pledge reminds me that I thought in the past—and probably also on reflection think now—that I ought to donate the money, and makes me more likely to follow through. Just as if I’d agreed to go to the gym with a friend, etc.
For me, being highly involved in the EA community, this commitment device is probably redundant, but it also doesn’t do any harm.
It’s clear people have different attitudes to how bad it is to break a promise, and how strongly they take the pledge to bind them. For me it’s a statement of my ideals, which I expect to be quite stable. But it’s not a commitment that forces me to act against my better judgement at any future time. Nor would I want it to have that effect on others.
I disagree with this reasoning. The point of a commitment device is to, you know, commit you. If you can break a pledge whenever you want, it’s not actually a pledge. If you commit yourself to something, it’s because you think there’s a possibility that you will change your mind in the future and you want to prevent that from happening. So the commitment serves no purpose if it doesn’t actually prevent you from changing your mind.
Perhaps there’s value in publicly registering “I plan on donating 10%” without explicitly committing to it, in which case it shouldn’t be framed as a commitment.
There are different levels and types of commitment devices. One could use a pledge to bind oneself to continue giving even if in future you think it’s the wrong thing to do—but I’m more skeptical that that is a good idea, for the reasons people have given. And I don’t think most pledgers see themselves as binding their future behaviour this way.
It’s also not how I’m using it, and it is still useful to me as a more gentle reminder of what I think is morally desirable behaviour. Just as agreeing to go to meet your friends at the gym is helpful even though it won’t (and isn’t designed to) force you to go to the gym even if you are e.g. injured or decide that gymming actually harms your health.
I think I’d be quite happy to have a public thing of the sort that Rob describes, but I don’t feel that’s what the GWWC pledge is.