Thank you for this point, I tend to agree that at the very least people should be more surprised if they think a position is obviously correct but also think a sizable portion of people studying it for a living disagree. I haven’t gotten around to reading the paper doing concrete comparisons with the general public, but I also stand by my older claim that how different these views are from those of the general public is exaggerated. I see no one in the comments, for instance, pointing out areas they think bioethicists differ from the general public in a direction EAs tend to agree with more, for instance I would guess from these results that they are unusually in favor of trading off human with non-human welfare, treating children without parental approval, and assisted euthanasia. Some of the cited areas where people dislike where bioethicists lean also seem like areas they are just closer to the general public than us, for instance I think if you ask an average person on the street about the permissibility of paying people for their organs, or IVF embryo selection, they will also lean substantially more bioconservative than EAs.
I have finally gotten around to reading the paper, and it looks like I was wrong about almost every cited example of public opinion. On euthanasia and non-human/human tradeoffs bioethicists seem to have similar views to the public, and on organ donor compensation the general public seems to be considerably more aligned with the EA consensus than bioethicists. The public view on IVF wasn’t discussed and I would guess I am right about this (though considering the other results, not confidently). The only example I gave that seems more or less right is treatment of minors without parental approval. This paper updates me away from my previous views, and more towards “the general public is closer to EAs than bioethicists are on most of these issues” with the caveat that mostly they seem either similar to the general public or to the left of them on most of these issues. I still agree with aspects of my broad points here, but my update is substantial enough and my examples egregious enough that I am unendorsing this comment.
Thank you for this point, I tend to agree that at the very least people should be more surprised if they think a position is obviously correct but also think a sizable portion of people studying it for a living disagree. I haven’t gotten around to reading the paper doing concrete comparisons with the general public, but I also stand by my older claim that how different these views are from those of the general public is exaggerated. I see no one in the comments, for instance, pointing out areas they think bioethicists differ from the general public in a direction EAs tend to agree with more, for instance I would guess from these results that they are unusually in favor of trading off human with non-human welfare, treating children without parental approval, and assisted euthanasia. Some of the cited areas where people dislike where bioethicists lean also seem like areas they are just closer to the general public than us, for instance I think if you ask an average person on the street about the permissibility of paying people for their organs, or IVF embryo selection, they will also lean substantially more bioconservative than EAs.
I have finally gotten around to reading the paper, and it looks like I was wrong about almost every cited example of public opinion. On euthanasia and non-human/human tradeoffs bioethicists seem to have similar views to the public, and on organ donor compensation the general public seems to be considerably more aligned with the EA consensus than bioethicists. The public view on IVF wasn’t discussed and I would guess I am right about this (though considering the other results, not confidently). The only example I gave that seems more or less right is treatment of minors without parental approval. This paper updates me away from my previous views, and more towards “the general public is closer to EAs than bioethicists are on most of these issues” with the caveat that mostly they seem either similar to the general public or to the left of them on most of these issues. I still agree with aspects of my broad points here, but my update is substantial enough and my examples egregious enough that I am unendorsing this comment.