There’s the case that such distinctions are too complex for a not insignificant proportion of the public and therefore utilitarianism should not be promoted at all for a larger audience, since all the textbooks filled with nuanced discussion will collapse to a simple heuristic in the minds of some, such as ‘ends justifying the means’ (which is obviously false).
I don’t think we should be dishonest. Given the strong case for utilitarianism in theory, I think it’s important to be clear that it doesn’t justify criminal or other crazy reckless behaviour in practice. Anyone sophisticated enough to be following these discussions in the first place should be capable of grasping this point.
If you just mean that we shouldn’t promote context-free, easily-misunderstood utilitarian slogans in superbowl ads or the like, then sure, I think that goes without saying.
It’s quite evident people do follow discussions on utilitarianism but fail to understand the importance of integrity in a utilitarian framework, especially if one is unfamiliar with Kant. If the public finds SBF’s system of moral beliefs to blame for his actions, it will most likely be for being too utilitarian rather than not being utilitarian enough – a misunderstanding which will be difficult to correct.
Are you disagreeing with something I’ve said? I’m not seeing the connection. (I obviously agree that many people currently misunderstand utilitarianism, or I wouldn’t spend my time trying to correct those misunderstandings.)
Given the strong case for utilitarianism in theory, I think it’s important to be clear that it doesn’t justify criminal or other crazy reckless behaviour in practice.
Why should we trust you? You’re a known utilitarian philosopher. You could be lying to us right now to rehabilitate EA’s image. That’s what a utilitarian would do, after all. And you have not provided any arguments for this that are even remotely convincing, neither here nor in your post on the topic.
What are you using to justify these conclusions? EV? Is it an empirical claim? How do you know? What kind of justification are you using? And can you show us your justification? Can you show us the EV calculus? Or, if it’s empirical, then can you show us the evidence? No? So far I am seeing no arguments from you. Just assertions.
Anyone sophisticated enough to be following these discussions in the first place should be capable of grasping this point.
Really? SBF seemed pretty sophisticated. But he didn’t get the point. So maybe it’s time to update your “empirical” argument against utilitarianism being self-effacing, then.
If you just mean that we shouldn’t promote context-free, easily-misunderstood utilitarian slogans in superbowl ads or the like
Yeah.… don’t think publius said that. Maybe stop misrepresenting the views of people who disagree with you. You seem to do that a lot.
As a moderator, I think some elements of this and previous comments break Forum norms. Specifically, unsubstantiated accusations of lying or misrepresentation and phrases like “when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense” are unnecessarily rude and do not reflect a generous and collaborative mindset.
We want to be clear that this comment is in response to the tone and approach, not the stance taken by the commenter. As a moderator team we believe it’s really important to be able to discuss all perspectives on the situation with an open mind and without censoring any perspectives.
Was anything I said an “unsubstantiated accusation of lying”?
No. Perhaps it was an accusation. But it was not unsubstantiated. It was substantiated. Because I provided a straightforward argument as to why utilitarians cannot be trusted in this situation.
If you disagree with the conclusion of this argument, that’s fine. But the proper response to that is to explain why you think the argument is unsound. Not to use your mod powers.
So, then, let me ask you: why do you think this argument is unsound (assuming that you do)?
If you cannot answer this question, then you cannot honestly say that my “accusation” was unsubstantiated.
Something similar applies to my other question: “when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense?” If you care to provide examples, I’d be happy to hear you out. Because that is why I asked the question.
But if you cannot find examples (and so do not like what the answer to my question may be), then I fail to see how that is my fault. Is asking critical questions “rude”? If yes, then quite frankly that reflects poorly on the “Form norms”.
As does, by the way, the selective enforcement of these norms. I know that some moderators insist that enforcement of Forum norms has nothing to do with the offender’s point-of-view. But it does not take a PhD in critical analysis to see this as plainly false.
Since, as any impartial lurker on the forum could tell you, there are a handful of high-status dogmatists on here that consistently misrepresent the views of those that disagree with them; misrepresent expert consensus; and are rude, condescending, arrogant, and combative.
(Note: I am not naming names, here, so no accusation is being made. But you know who they are. And if you don’t, that speaks to the strength of the in-group bias endemic to EA.)
But I have yet to see any one of these individuals get a “warning” from a moderator. And no one who I’ve discussed this issue with has either. So, it is genuinely hard to believe that these norms are not being enforced selectively.
In fairness, sometimes the rules are necessary. I get that. You want to keep things civil, and fair enough. But it’s plainly obvious that the rules are often abused, too.
This cycle of abuse is as follows.
Someone disagrees with the predominant EA in-group thinking.
Said person voices their concern with said in-group thinking on the Forum.
Said person is met with character assassinations, misrepresentations and strawmen arguments, ad hominens, and so on. This violates Forum norms, but these norms are not enforced.
Said person is not a saint. So, they respond to this onslaught of hostility with hostility in turn. This time, Forum norms are conveniently enforced.
Said person is now deemed to be arguing “in bad faith”.
Said person’s concerns (expressed in step 2) are now dismissed out of hand on account of the allegation that they were made in bad faith. So the relevant concerns expressed in step 2 go unaddressed. The echo-chamber intensifies. The Overton window narrows.
No one seems to clue into the fact that accusing someone of bad faith is, ironically enough, itself an ad hominen.
EAs continue to go on not knowing what they don’t know, and so thinking that they know everything.
Rinse and repeat for several years.
Hubris balloons to dangerously high levels.
FTX crashes.
And now we are here.
Note that steps 1-7 describe what happened to Emile Torres. Which is a shame, since many of the criticisms he expressed back in step 2 were, as it happens, correct (as, by now, should be obvious).
So perhaps if Torres hadn’t been banned, then we would have taken his concerns seriously. And perhaps if we took his concerns seriously, then none of this would have happened. Whoops. That’s a bad look, don’t you think?
So it’s worth noting, then, that the concerns I am forwarding here aren’t very different from the concerns that got Torres banned all those years ago. So, given what has since transpired, maybe it’s about time we take these concerns seriously. Because it was one thing to use mod powers to silence Torres when he made these critiques back then (please don’t play dumb, we both know it’s true). But to use mod powers to intimidate people for these same criticisms, even now, despite everything… that’s unconscionable.
I know you don’t like to hear that. But quite frankly, you need to hear it, because it’s true. I doubt that will be much comfort to you, though, so you’ll probably ban me for saying that. But once your power trip has ended, consider digging deep. Do some serious critical reflection. And then do better next time.
And I don’t mean, by the way, that you should do better as a moderator (though that is of course part of it). No. My request goes much deeper than this. I am requesting that you be better as a person. Be a better person than this. Be a better person than this.
Be honest with yourself. Have some integrity. Update your beliefs. And then accept your share of the responsibility for this mess.
But, most importantly:have some fucking shame.
Please.
It’s well overdue. Not just for you, but for all of us. Because we all contributed to this mess, in however minor a way.
Anyway. I think that’s everything I needed to say.
So, closing remarks: please don’t mistake my tough love for hostility. I understand that this is a tough time for everyone, and probably the mods especially. So, for that, I wish you all well. Genuinely. I really do wish you guys well. But, after the dust has settled, you all really need to think this stuff through. Reflect on what I said here. Really chew on it. Then do better going forward.
You could be lying to us right now to rehabilitate EA’s image.
I referenced work to this effect from my decade-old PhD dissertation, along with published articles and books from prior utilitarians, none of which could possibly have been written with “rehabilitating EA’s image” in mind.
Randomly accusing people of lying is incredibly jerkish behaviour. I’ve been arguing for almost two decades now that utilitarianism calls for honest and straightforward behaviour. (And anyone who knows me IRL can vouch for my personal integrity.) You have zero basis for making these insulting accusations. Please desist.
What are you using to justify these conclusions? EV? Is it an empirical claim?
My post on naive utilitarianism, like other academic literature on the topic (including, e.g., more drastic claims from Bernard Williams et al. that utilitarianism is outright self-effacing, or arguments by rule consequentialists like Brad Hooker), invokes common-sense empirical knowledge, drawing attention to the immense potential downside from reputational risks alongside other grounds for distrusting direct calculations as unreliable when they violate well-established moral rules.
Again, there’s a huge academic literature on this. You don’t have to trust me personally, I’m just trying to summarize some basic points.
Maybe stop misrepresenting...
What are you talking about? Publius referenced the idea that this may be “too complex for a not insignificant proportion of the public and therefore utilitarianism should not be promoted at all for a larger audience”. This could be interpreted in different (stronger or weaker) ways, depending on what one has in mind by “larger audiences”. My reply argued against a strong interpretation, and then indicated that I agreed with a weaker interpretation.
So let’s restrict our scope to SBF’s decision-making within the past few years. It is an open question: were SBF’s decisions consistent with utilitarian-minded EV reasoning?
And we can start to answer this question. We can quantify the money he was dealing with, and his potential earnings. We can quantify the range of risk he was likely dealing with. We can provide a reasonable range as to the negative consequences of him getting caught. We can plug all these numbers into our EV calculus. It is the results of these equations that we are currently discussing.
So some vague and artificial thought experiments written a decade ago is not especially relevant. Not unless you happened to run these specific EV calculations into your PhD dissertation. But given the fact that you are a mere mortal and so cannot predict the future, I doubt that you did.
My post on naive utilitarianism, like other academic literature on the topic (including, e.g., more drastic claims from Bernard Williams et al. that utilitarianism is outright self-effacing, or arguments by rule consequentialists like Brad Hooker), invokes common-sense empirical knowledge, drawing attention to the immense potential downside from reputational risks alongside other grounds for distrusting direct calculations as unreliable when they violate well-established moral rules.
Your post is hardly “academic literature” (was it peer reviewed? Or just upvoted by many philosophically naive EAs?).
And it is common-sense empirical knowledge that SBF did what he did due to his utilitarianism + EV reasoning. It is currently only on this forum where this incredibly obvious fact is being seriously questioned.
And, besides, when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense?
What are you talking about?
Do you think you represented your opponent’s view in the most charitable way possible? Do you think a superbowl commercial is a charitable example to be giving? Do you think that captures the essence of the critique? Or is it merely a cartoonish example, strategically chosen to make the critique look silly?
You don’t have to trust me personally
It’s not you personally. It’s utilitarians in general. Like I said in my original comment: it is wholly unsurprising that public facing EAs are currently denying that ends justify means. Because they are in damage control mode. They are tying to tame the onslaught of negative PR that EA is now getting. So even if they thought that the ends did justify the means, they would probably lie about it. Because the ends (better PR) would justify the means (lying). So we cannot simply take these people at their word. Because whatever they truly believe, we should expect their answers to be the same.
So why should we have any reason to trust any utilitarian right now? And again, I am referring to this particular situation—pointing to defences of utilitarianism written in the 1970s is not especially relevant, since they did not account for SBFs particular situation, which is what we are currently discussing.
As I’m sure you’ll find, it’s pretty difficult to provide any reason why we should trust a utilitarian’s views on the SBF debacle. Perhaps that’s a problem for utilitarianism. We can add it to the collection.
There’s the case that such distinctions are too complex for a not insignificant proportion of the public and therefore utilitarianism should not be promoted at all for a larger audience, since all the textbooks filled with nuanced discussion will collapse to a simple heuristic in the minds of some, such as ‘ends justifying the means’ (which is obviously false).
I don’t think we should be dishonest. Given the strong case for utilitarianism in theory, I think it’s important to be clear that it doesn’t justify criminal or other crazy reckless behaviour in practice. Anyone sophisticated enough to be following these discussions in the first place should be capable of grasping this point.
If you just mean that we shouldn’t promote context-free, easily-misunderstood utilitarian slogans in superbowl ads or the like, then sure, I think that goes without saying.
It’s quite evident people do follow discussions on utilitarianism but fail to understand the importance of integrity in a utilitarian framework, especially if one is unfamiliar with Kant. If the public finds SBF’s system of moral beliefs to blame for his actions, it will most likely be for being too utilitarian rather than not being utilitarian enough – a misunderstanding which will be difficult to correct.
Are you disagreeing with something I’ve said? I’m not seeing the connection. (I obviously agree that many people currently misunderstand utilitarianism, or I wouldn’t spend my time trying to correct those misunderstandings.)
Why should we trust you? You’re a known utilitarian philosopher. You could be lying to us right now to rehabilitate EA’s image. That’s what a utilitarian would do, after all. And you have not provided any arguments for this that are even remotely convincing, neither here nor in your post on the topic.
What are you using to justify these conclusions? EV? Is it an empirical claim? How do you know? What kind of justification are you using? And can you show us your justification? Can you show us the EV calculus? Or, if it’s empirical, then can you show us the evidence? No? So far I am seeing no arguments from you. Just assertions.
Really? SBF seemed pretty sophisticated. But he didn’t get the point. So maybe it’s time to update your “empirical” argument against utilitarianism being self-effacing, then.
Yeah.… don’t think publius said that. Maybe stop misrepresenting the views of people who disagree with you. You seem to do that a lot.
Do you talk like that to your students?
As a moderator, I think some elements of this and previous comments break Forum norms. Specifically, unsubstantiated accusations of lying or misrepresentation and phrases like “when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense” are unnecessarily rude and do not reflect a generous and collaborative mindset.
We want to be clear that this comment is in response to the tone and approach, not the stance taken by the commenter. As a moderator team we believe it’s really important to be able to discuss all perspectives on the situation with an open mind and without censoring any perspectives.
We strongly encourage all users to approach discussions in good faith, especially when disagreeing—attacking the character of an author rather than the substance of their arguments is discouraged. This is a warning, please do better in the future.
Was anything I said an “unsubstantiated accusation of lying”?
No. Perhaps it was an accusation. But it was not unsubstantiated. It was substantiated. Because I provided a straightforward argument as to why utilitarians cannot be trusted in this situation.
If you disagree with the conclusion of this argument, that’s fine. But the proper response to that is to explain why you think the argument is unsound. Not to use your mod powers.
So, then, let me ask you: why do you think this argument is unsound (assuming that you do)?
If you cannot answer this question, then you cannot honestly say that my “accusation” was unsubstantiated.
Something similar applies to my other question: “when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense?” If you care to provide examples, I’d be happy to hear you out. Because that is why I asked the question.
But if you cannot find examples (and so do not like what the answer to my question may be), then I fail to see how that is my fault. Is asking critical questions “rude”? If yes, then quite frankly that reflects poorly on the “Form norms”.
As does, by the way, the selective enforcement of these norms. I know that some moderators insist that enforcement of Forum norms has nothing to do with the offender’s point-of-view. But it does not take a PhD in critical analysis to see this as plainly false.
Since, as any impartial lurker on the forum could tell you, there are a handful of high-status dogmatists on here that consistently misrepresent the views of those that disagree with them; misrepresent expert consensus; and are rude, condescending, arrogant, and combative.
(Note: I am not naming names, here, so no accusation is being made. But you know who they are. And if you don’t, that speaks to the strength of the in-group bias endemic to EA.)
But I have yet to see any one of these individuals get a “warning” from a moderator. And no one who I’ve discussed this issue with has either. So, it is genuinely hard to believe that these norms are not being enforced selectively.
In fairness, sometimes the rules are necessary. I get that. You want to keep things civil, and fair enough. But it’s plainly obvious that the rules are often abused, too.
This cycle of abuse is as follows.
Someone disagrees with the predominant EA in-group thinking.
Said person voices their concern with said in-group thinking on the Forum.
Said person is met with character assassinations, misrepresentations and strawmen arguments, ad hominens, and so on. This violates Forum norms, but these norms are not enforced.
Said person is not a saint. So, they respond to this onslaught of hostility with hostility in turn. This time, Forum norms are conveniently enforced.
Said person is now deemed to be arguing “in bad faith”.
Said person’s concerns (expressed in step 2) are now dismissed out of hand on account of the allegation that they were made in bad faith. So the relevant concerns expressed in step 2 go unaddressed. The echo-chamber intensifies. The Overton window narrows.
No one seems to clue into the fact that accusing someone of bad faith is, ironically enough, itself an ad hominen.
EAs continue to go on not knowing what they don’t know, and so thinking that they know everything.
Rinse and repeat for several years.
Hubris balloons to dangerously high levels.
FTX crashes.
And now we are here.
Note that steps 1-7 describe what happened to Emile Torres. Which is a shame, since many of the criticisms he expressed back in step 2 were, as it happens, correct (as, by now, should be obvious).
So perhaps if Torres hadn’t been banned, then we would have taken his concerns seriously. And perhaps if we took his concerns seriously, then none of this would have happened. Whoops. That’s a bad look, don’t you think?
So it’s worth noting, then, that the concerns I am forwarding here aren’t very different from the concerns that got Torres banned all those years ago. So, given what has since transpired, maybe it’s about time we take these concerns seriously. Because it was one thing to use mod powers to silence Torres when he made these critiques back then (please don’t play dumb, we both know it’s true). But to use mod powers to intimidate people for these same criticisms, even now, despite everything… that’s unconscionable.
I know you don’t like to hear that. But quite frankly, you need to hear it, because it’s true. I doubt that will be much comfort to you, though, so you’ll probably ban me for saying that. But once your power trip has ended, consider digging deep. Do some serious critical reflection. And then do better next time.
And I don’t mean, by the way, that you should do better as a moderator (though that is of course part of it). No. My request goes much deeper than this. I am requesting that you be better as a person. Be a better person than this. Be a better person than this.
Be honest with yourself. Have some integrity. Update your beliefs. And then accept your share of the responsibility for this mess.
But, most importantly: have some fucking shame.
Please.
It’s well overdue. Not just for you, but for all of us. Because we all contributed to this mess, in however minor a way.
Anyway. I think that’s everything I needed to say.
So, closing remarks: please don’t mistake my tough love for hostility. I understand that this is a tough time for everyone, and probably the mods especially. So, for that, I wish you all well. Genuinely. I really do wish you guys well. But, after the dust has settled, you all really need to think this stuff through. Reflect on what I said here. Really chew on it. Then do better going forward.
I referenced work to this effect from my decade-old PhD dissertation, along with published articles and books from prior utilitarians, none of which could possibly have been written with “rehabilitating EA’s image” in mind.
Randomly accusing people of lying is incredibly jerkish behaviour. I’ve been arguing for almost two decades now that utilitarianism calls for honest and straightforward behaviour. (And anyone who knows me IRL can vouch for my personal integrity.) You have zero basis for making these insulting accusations. Please desist.
My post on naive utilitarianism, like other academic literature on the topic (including, e.g., more drastic claims from Bernard Williams et al. that utilitarianism is outright self-effacing, or arguments by rule consequentialists like Brad Hooker), invokes common-sense empirical knowledge, drawing attention to the immense potential downside from reputational risks alongside other grounds for distrusting direct calculations as unreliable when they violate well-established moral rules.
Again, there’s a huge academic literature on this. You don’t have to trust me personally, I’m just trying to summarize some basic points.
What are you talking about? Publius referenced the idea that this may be “too complex for a not insignificant proportion of the public and therefore utilitarianism should not be promoted at all for a larger audience”. This could be interpreted in different (stronger or weaker) ways, depending on what one has in mind by “larger audiences”. My reply argued against a strong interpretation, and then indicated that I agreed with a weaker interpretation.
I’m not talking about your PhD dissertation.
So let’s restrict our scope to SBF’s decision-making within the past few years. It is an open question: were SBF’s decisions consistent with utilitarian-minded EV reasoning?
And we can start to answer this question. We can quantify the money he was dealing with, and his potential earnings. We can quantify the range of risk he was likely dealing with. We can provide a reasonable range as to the negative consequences of him getting caught. We can plug all these numbers into our EV calculus. It is the results of these equations that we are currently discussing.
So some vague and artificial thought experiments written a decade ago is not especially relevant. Not unless you happened to run these specific EV calculations into your PhD dissertation. But given the fact that you are a mere mortal and so cannot predict the future, I doubt that you did.
Your post is hardly “academic literature” (was it peer reviewed? Or just upvoted by many philosophically naive EAs?).
And it is common-sense empirical knowledge that SBF did what he did due to his utilitarianism + EV reasoning. It is currently only on this forum where this incredibly obvious fact is being seriously questioned.
And, besides, when has a utilitarian ever cared about common sense?
Do you think you represented your opponent’s view in the most charitable way possible? Do you think a superbowl commercial is a charitable example to be giving? Do you think that captures the essence of the critique? Or is it merely a cartoonish example, strategically chosen to make the critique look silly?
It’s not you personally. It’s utilitarians in general. Like I said in my original comment: it is wholly unsurprising that public facing EAs are currently denying that ends justify means. Because they are in damage control mode. They are tying to tame the onslaught of negative PR that EA is now getting. So even if they thought that the ends did justify the means, they would probably lie about it. Because the ends (better PR) would justify the means (lying). So we cannot simply take these people at their word. Because whatever they truly believe, we should expect their answers to be the same.
So why should we have any reason to trust any utilitarian right now? And again, I am referring to this particular situation—pointing to defences of utilitarianism written in the 1970s is not especially relevant, since they did not account for SBFs particular situation, which is what we are currently discussing.
As I’m sure you’ll find, it’s pretty difficult to provide any reason why we should trust a utilitarian’s views on the SBF debacle. Perhaps that’s a problem for utilitarianism. We can add it to the collection.