When you say âyou donât need to justify your actions to EAsâ, then I have sympathy with that, because EAs arenât special, weâre no particular authority and donât have internal consensus anyway. But you seem to be also arguing âyou donât need to justify your actions to yourself /â at allâ. Iâm not confident thatâs what youâre saying, but if it is I think youâre setting too low a standard. If people arenât required to live in accordance with even their own values, whatâs the point in having values?
I actually think even justifying yourself only to yourself, being accountable only to yourself, is probably still too low a standard. No-one is an island, so we all have a responsibility to the communities we interact with, and it is to some extent up to those communities, not the individuals in isolation, what that means. If Ben Hoffman wants to have a relationship with EAs (individually or collectively), itâs necessary to meet the standards of those individuals or the community as a whole about whatâs acceptable.
But you seem to be also arguing âyou donât need to justify your actions to yourself /â at allâ
Kinda. More like ânobody can make you act in accordance with your own true valuesâyou just have to want to.â
If people arenât required to live in accordance with even their own values, whatâs the point in having values?
To fully explain my position would require a lot of unpacking. But, in brief, noâhow could people be required to live in accordance with their own values? Other people might try to enforce value-aligned living, but they canât read your mind or fully control youâhardly makes it a ârequirement.â If what youâre getting at is that people **should** live according to their values, then, sure, maybe (not sure I would make this a rule on utilitarian grounds because a lot of peopleâs values or attempts to live up to their values would be harmful).
Suffice to say that, if Ben does not want to give money, he does not have to explain himself to us. The natural consequence of that may be losing respect from EAs he knows, like his former colleagues at GiveWell. He may be motivated to come up with spurious justifications for his actions so that it isnât apparent to others that either his values have changed or heâs failing to live up to them. I would like to create conditions where Ben can be honest with himself. That way he either realizes that he still believes itâs best to give even though the effects or giving are more abstract or he faces up to the fact that his values have changed in an unpopular way but is able to stay in alignment with them. (This is all assuming that his post did not represent his true rejection, which it very well might have.)
When you say âyou donât need to justify your actions to EAsâ, then I have sympathy with that, because EAs arenât special, weâre no particular authority and donât have internal consensus anyway. But you seem to be also arguing âyou donât need to justify your actions to yourself /â at allâ. Iâm not confident thatâs what youâre saying, but if it is I think youâre setting too low a standard. If people arenât required to live in accordance with even their own values, whatâs the point in having values?
I actually think even justifying yourself only to yourself, being accountable only to yourself, is probably still too low a standard. No-one is an island, so we all have a responsibility to the communities we interact with, and it is to some extent up to those communities, not the individuals in isolation, what that means. If Ben Hoffman wants to have a relationship with EAs (individually or collectively), itâs necessary to meet the standards of those individuals or the community as a whole about whatâs acceptable.
Kinda. More like ânobody can make you act in accordance with your own true valuesâyou just have to want to.â
To fully explain my position would require a lot of unpacking. But, in brief, noâhow could people be required to live in accordance with their own values? Other people might try to enforce value-aligned living, but they canât read your mind or fully control youâhardly makes it a ârequirement.â If what youâre getting at is that people **should** live according to their values, then, sure, maybe (not sure I would make this a rule on utilitarian grounds because a lot of peopleâs values or attempts to live up to their values would be harmful).
Suffice to say that, if Ben does not want to give money, he does not have to explain himself to us. The natural consequence of that may be losing respect from EAs he knows, like his former colleagues at GiveWell. He may be motivated to come up with spurious justifications for his actions so that it isnât apparent to others that either his values have changed or heâs failing to live up to them. I would like to create conditions where Ben can be honest with himself. That way he either realizes that he still believes itâs best to give even though the effects or giving are more abstract or he faces up to the fact that his values have changed in an unpopular way but is able to stay in alignment with them. (This is all assuming that his post did not represent his true rejection, which it very well might have.)