Iād recommend specifically checking out here and here, for why we should expect unintended effects (of ambiguous sign) to dominate any interventionās impact on total cosmos-wide welfare by default. The whole cosmos is very, very weird. (Heck, ASI takeoff on Earth alone seems liable to be very weird.) I think given the arguments Iāve linked, anyone proposing that a particular intervention is an exception to this default should spell out much more clearly why they think thatās the case.
cluelessness about some effects (like those in the far future) doesnāt override the obligations given to us by the benefits weāre not clueless about, such as the immediate benefits of our donations to the global poor
What makes you think that? Are you embracing a non-consequentialist or non-impartial view to come to that conclusion? Or do you think itās justified under impartial consequentialism?
I have mixed feelings about this. So, there are basically two reasons why bracketing isnāt orthodox impartial consequentialism:
My choice between A and B isnāt exactly determined by whether I think A is ābetterā than B. See Jesseās discussion in this part of the appendix.
Even if we could interpret bracketing as a betterness ranking, the notion of ābetternessā here requires assigning a weight of zero to consequences that I donāt think are precisely equally good under A vs. B.
I do think both of these are reasons to give less weight to bracketing in my decision-making than I give to standard non-consequentialist views.[1]
However:
Itās still clearly consequentialist in the sense that, well, weāre making our choice based only on the consequences, and in a scope-sensitive manner. I donāt think standard non-consequentialist views get you the conclusion that you should donate to AMF rather than MAWF, unless theyāre defined such that they suffer from cluelessness too.
Thereās an impartial reason why we āignoreā the consequences at some locations of value in our decision-making, namely, that those consequences donāt favor one action over the other. (I think the same is true if we donāt use the ālocations of valueā framework, but instead something more like what Jesse sketches here, though thatās harder to make precise.)
E.g. compare (i) āA reduces x more units of disutility than B within the maximal bracket-set Iā, but Iām clueless about A vs. B when looking outside the maximal bracket-setā, with (ii) āA reduces x more units of disutility than B within Iā, and A and B are equally good in expectation when looking outside the maximal bracket-set.ā I find (i) to be a somewhat compelling reason to do A, but it doesnāt feel like as overwhelming a moral duty as the kind of reason given by (ii).
Iād recommend specifically checking out here and here, for why we should expect unintended effects (of ambiguous sign) to dominate any interventionās impact on total cosmos-wide welfare by default. The whole cosmos is very, very weird. (Heck, ASI takeoff on Earth alone seems liable to be very weird.) I think given the arguments Iāve linked, anyone proposing that a particular intervention is an exception to this default should spell out much more clearly why they think thatās the case.
Iāll read those. Can I ask regarding this:
What makes you think that? Are you embracing a non-consequentialist or non-impartial view to come to that conclusion? Or do you think itās justified under impartial consequentialism?
I have mixed feelings about this. So, there are basically two reasons why bracketing isnāt orthodox impartial consequentialism:
My choice between A and B isnāt exactly determined by whether I think A is ābetterā than B. See Jesseās discussion in this part of the appendix.
Even if we could interpret bracketing as a betterness ranking, the notion of ābetternessā here requires assigning a weight of zero to consequences that I donāt think are precisely equally good under A vs. B.
I do think both of these are reasons to give less weight to bracketing in my decision-making than I give to standard non-consequentialist views.[1]
However:
Itās still clearly consequentialist in the sense that, well, weāre making our choice based only on the consequences, and in a scope-sensitive manner. I donāt think standard non-consequentialist views get you the conclusion that you should donate to AMF rather than MAWF, unless theyāre defined such that they suffer from cluelessness too.
Thereās an impartial reason why we āignoreā the consequences at some locations of value in our decision-making, namely, that those consequences donāt favor one action over the other. (I think the same is true if we donāt use the ālocations of valueā framework, but instead something more like what Jesse sketches here, though thatās harder to make precise.)
E.g. compare (i) āA reduces x more units of disutility than B within the maximal bracket-set Iā, but Iām clueless about A vs. B when looking outside the maximal bracket-setā, with (ii) āA reduces x more units of disutility than B within Iā, and A and B are equally good in expectation when looking outside the maximal bracket-set.ā I find (i) to be a somewhat compelling reason to do A, but it doesnāt feel like as overwhelming a moral duty as the kind of reason given by (ii).