It doesn’t matter whether Nick Bostrom speculates or wants to implement surveillance globally. In respect to what we talk about (justification of extreme actions) what matters is how readers perceive his work and who the readers are.
There’s some hedging in the article but…
He published in a policy journal, with an opening ‘policy implication’ box
He published an outreach article about in Aeon, which also ends with the sentence: ”If you find yourself in a position to influence the macroparameters of preventive policing or global governance, you should consider that fundamental changes in those domains might be the only way to stabilise our civilisation against emerging technological vulnerabilities.”
In public facing interviews such as with Sam Harris and on TED, the idea of ‘turnkey totalitarianism’ was made the centrepiece. This was not framed as one hypothetical, possible, future solution for a philosophical thought experiment.
The VWH was also published as a German book (why I don’t know…)
It still seems like you have mischaracterised his view. You say “Take for example Bostrom’s “Vulnerable World Hypothesis”17, which argues for the need for extreme, ubiquitous surveillance and policing systems to mitigate existential threats, and which would run the risk of being co-opted by an authoritarian state.” This is misleading imo. Wouldn’t it have been better to note the clearly important hedging and nuance and then say that he is insufficiently cognisant of the risks of his solutions (which he discusses at length)?
Thanks for laying this out so clearly. One frustrating aspect of having a community comprised of so many analytic philosophy students (myself included!) is a common insistence on interpreting statements, including highly troubling ones, exactly as they may have been intended by the author, at the exclusion of anything further that readers might add, such as historical context or ways that the statement could be misunderstood or exploited for ill purposes. Another example of this is the discussion around Beckstead’s (in my opinion, deeply objectionable) quote regarding the (hypothetical, ceteris-paribus, etc., to be clear) relative value of saving rich versus poor lives.[1]
I do understand the value of hypothetical inquiry as part analytic philosophy and appreciate its contributions to the study of morality and decision-making. However, for a community that is so intensely engaged in affecting the real world, it often feels like a frustrating motte-and-bailey, where the bailey is the efforts to influence policy and philanthropy on the direct basis of philosophical writings, and the motte is the insistence that those writings are merely hypothetical.
In my opinion, it’s insufficient to note that an author intends for some claim to be “hypothetical” or “abstract” or “pro tanto” or “all other things equal”, if the claim is likely to be received or applied in the way it was literally written. E.g., proposals for ubiquitous surveillance cannot be dismissed as merely hypothetical, if there’s a appreciable chance that some readers come away as even slightly more supportive of, or open to, the idea of ubiquitous surveillance in practice.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the community shouldn’t conduct or rely on the kind of hypothetical-driven philosophy exemplified in Bostrom’s VWH or in Beckstead’s dissertation. But I do think it’s important, then, to either i) make it clear that a piece of writing is intended as analytic philosophy that generally should be applied with extreme care to the real world orii) to do a much better job at incorporating historical context and taking potential misinterpretations and misapplications extremely seriously.
For VWH, Option i) could look like replacing the journal with one for analytic philosophy and replacing the Policy Implications box with a note clarifying that this is work of philosophy, not policy analysis. Option ii) could involve an even more extensive discussion of downside risks – I genuinely don’t think that the 6 sentences quoted above on how “unprecedentedly intense forms of surveillance, or a global governance institution capable of imposing its will on any nation, could also have bad consequences” constitutes anywhere near the appropriate effort to manage downside risks associated with a policy article on ubiquitous global surveillance. Specifically, that effort would require engaging with the real-world history of totalitarian surveillance and its consequences; outlining in more detail how the surveillance system could go wrong or even itself pose an existential risk; and warning in much more unequivocal terms about the danger of misunderstanding or misapplying this proposal.
For Beckstead’s dissertation quote, Option i) is, to be fair, already somewhat in play, given that the quote is from a dissertation in analytic philosophy and there’s a good amount of ceteris-paribus-hypothetical-pro-tanto-etc. caveating, though the specific passage could maybe do with a bit more. Option ii) could involve embedding the quote in the context of both historical and modern philanthropy, particularly through a postcolonial lens; also discussing hypothetical counterexamples of when the opposite conclusion might hold; and cautioning in the strongest possible terms against specific misunderstandings or misapplications of the principle. Nowadays – though arguably less so in 2013, when it was written – it could also involve a discussion of how the principle under discussion in the paragraph relates to the fact the reallocation of funds that could plausibly have been used for global health towards improving the comfort of affluent individuals in the Global North, such as myself. I understand that this is a philosophy dissertation, so the above might not be easy to include – but then I think we have a difficult challenge of relying a lot on ahistorical, non-empirical philosophy as guidance for a very real, very practical movement.
The bottom line is that certain seminal texts in effective altruism should either be treated as works of analytic philosophy with its afforded bold, and even troubling, speculation, or as policy-guiding with its requirement for extreme caution in the presence of downside risks; they can’t be both at once.
___
[1] For context, here’s the quote in question, from Beckstead’s dissertation, On the overwhelming importance of shaping the far future:
”Saving lives in poor countries may have significantly smaller ripple effects than saving and improving lives in rich countries. Why? Richer countries have substantially more innovation, and their workers are much more economically productive. By ordinary standards—at least by ordinary enlightened humanitarian standards—saving and improving lives in rich countries is about equally as important as saving and improving lives in poor countries, provided lives are improved by roughly comparable amounts. But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal.”
It doesn’t matter whether Nick Bostrom speculates or wants to implement surveillance globally. In respect to what we talk about (justification of extreme actions) what matters is how readers perceive his work and who the readers are.
There’s some hedging in the article but…
He published in a policy journal, with an opening ‘policy implication’ box
He published an outreach article about in Aeon, which also ends with the sentence: ”If you find yourself in a position to influence the macroparameters of preventive policing or global governance, you should consider that fundamental changes in those domains might be the only way to stabilise our civilisation against emerging technological vulnerabilities.”
In public facing interviews such as with Sam Harris and on TED, the idea of ‘turnkey totalitarianism’ was made the centrepiece. This was not framed as one hypothetical, possible, future solution for a philosophical thought experiment.
The VWH was also published as a German book (why I don’t know…)
It still seems like you have mischaracterised his view. You say “Take for example Bostrom’s “Vulnerable World Hypothesis”17, which argues for the need for extreme, ubiquitous surveillance and policing systems to mitigate existential threats, and which would run the risk of being co-opted by an authoritarian state.” This is misleading imo. Wouldn’t it have been better to note the clearly important hedging and nuance and then say that he is insufficiently cognisant of the risks of his solutions (which he discusses at length)?
Thanks for laying this out so clearly. One frustrating aspect of having a community comprised of so many analytic philosophy students (myself included!) is a common insistence on interpreting statements, including highly troubling ones, exactly as they may have been intended by the author, at the exclusion of anything further that readers might add, such as historical context or ways that the statement could be misunderstood or exploited for ill purposes. Another example of this is the discussion around Beckstead’s (in my opinion, deeply objectionable) quote regarding the (hypothetical, ceteris-paribus, etc., to be clear) relative value of saving rich versus poor lives.[1]
I do understand the value of hypothetical inquiry as part analytic philosophy and appreciate its contributions to the study of morality and decision-making. However, for a community that is so intensely engaged in affecting the real world, it often feels like a frustrating motte-and-bailey, where the bailey is the efforts to influence policy and philanthropy on the direct basis of philosophical writings, and the motte is the insistence that those writings are merely hypothetical.
In my opinion, it’s insufficient to note that an author intends for some claim to be “hypothetical” or “abstract” or “pro tanto” or “all other things equal”, if the claim is likely to be received or applied in the way it was literally written. E.g., proposals for ubiquitous surveillance cannot be dismissed as merely hypothetical, if there’s a appreciable chance that some readers come away as even slightly more supportive of, or open to, the idea of ubiquitous surveillance in practice.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the community shouldn’t conduct or rely on the kind of hypothetical-driven philosophy exemplified in Bostrom’s VWH or in Beckstead’s dissertation. But I do think it’s important, then, to either i) make it clear that a piece of writing is intended as analytic philosophy that generally should be applied with extreme care to the real world or ii) to do a much better job at incorporating historical context and taking potential misinterpretations and misapplications extremely seriously.
For VWH, Option i) could look like replacing the journal with one for analytic philosophy and replacing the Policy Implications box with a note clarifying that this is work of philosophy, not policy analysis. Option ii) could involve an even more extensive discussion of downside risks – I genuinely don’t think that the 6 sentences quoted above on how “unprecedentedly intense forms of surveillance, or a global governance institution capable of imposing its will on any nation, could also have bad consequences” constitutes anywhere near the appropriate effort to manage downside risks associated with a policy article on ubiquitous global surveillance. Specifically, that effort would require engaging with the real-world history of totalitarian surveillance and its consequences; outlining in more detail how the surveillance system could go wrong or even itself pose an existential risk; and warning in much more unequivocal terms about the danger of misunderstanding or misapplying this proposal.
For Beckstead’s dissertation quote, Option i) is, to be fair, already somewhat in play, given that the quote is from a dissertation in analytic philosophy and there’s a good amount of ceteris-paribus-hypothetical-pro-tanto-etc. caveating, though the specific passage could maybe do with a bit more. Option ii) could involve embedding the quote in the context of both historical and modern philanthropy, particularly through a postcolonial lens; also discussing hypothetical counterexamples of when the opposite conclusion might hold; and cautioning in the strongest possible terms against specific misunderstandings or misapplications of the principle. Nowadays – though arguably less so in 2013, when it was written – it could also involve a discussion of how the principle under discussion in the paragraph relates to the fact the reallocation of funds that could plausibly have been used for global health towards improving the comfort of affluent individuals in the Global North, such as myself. I understand that this is a philosophy dissertation, so the above might not be easy to include – but then I think we have a difficult challenge of relying a lot on ahistorical, non-empirical philosophy as guidance for a very real, very practical movement.
The bottom line is that certain seminal texts in effective altruism should either be treated as works of analytic philosophy with its afforded bold, and even troubling, speculation, or as policy-guiding with its requirement for extreme caution in the presence of downside risks; they can’t be both at once.
___
[1] For context, here’s the quote in question, from Beckstead’s dissertation, On the overwhelming importance of shaping the far future:
”Saving lives in poor countries may have significantly smaller ripple effects than saving and improving lives in rich countries. Why? Richer countries have substantially more innovation, and their workers are much more economically productive. By ordinary standards—at least by ordinary enlightened humanitarian standards—saving and improving lives in rich countries is about equally as important as saving and improving lives in poor countries, provided lives are improved by roughly comparable amounts. But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal.”