I had you in mind as a good utilitarian when writing :)
Good point that just saying ‘naively optimizing’ utilitarians is probably clearest most of the time. I was looking for other words that would denote high-confidence and willingness to act without qualms.
minor nitpick—this doesn’t seem to capture naive utilitarianism as I understand it. I always thought naive utilitarianism was about going against common sense norms on the basis of your own personal fragile calculations. eg lying is prone to being rumbled and one’s reputation is very fragile, so it makes sense to follow the norm of not lying even if your own calculations seem to suggest that it is good because the calculations will tend to miss longer term indirect and subtle effects. But this is neither about (1) high confidence nor (2) acting without qualms. Indeed one might decide not to lie with high confidence and without qualms. Equally, one might choose to ‘lie for the greater good’ with low confidence and with lots of qualms. This would still be naive utilitarian behaviour
That’s useful—my ‘naive optimizing’ thing isn’t supposed to be the same thing as naive utilitarianism, but I do find it hard to pin down the exact trait that’s the issue here, and those are interesting points about confidence maybe not being the key thing.
I had you in mind as a good utilitarian when writing :)
Good point that just saying ‘naively optimizing’ utilitarians is probably clearest most of the time. I was looking for other words that would denote high-confidence and willingness to act without qualms.
minor nitpick—this doesn’t seem to capture naive utilitarianism as I understand it. I always thought naive utilitarianism was about going against common sense norms on the basis of your own personal fragile calculations. eg lying is prone to being rumbled and one’s reputation is very fragile, so it makes sense to follow the norm of not lying even if your own calculations seem to suggest that it is good because the calculations will tend to miss longer term indirect and subtle effects. But this is neither about (1) high confidence nor (2) acting without qualms. Indeed one might decide not to lie with high confidence and without qualms. Equally, one might choose to ‘lie for the greater good’ with low confidence and with lots of qualms. This would still be naive utilitarian behaviour
That’s useful—my ‘naive optimizing’ thing isn’t supposed to be the same thing as naive utilitarianism, but I do find it hard to pin down the exact trait that’s the issue here, and those are interesting points about confidence maybe not being the key thing.