Despite the limited nature of the revision in our moral conceptual scheme which I am proposing, the revision would, given the extent of both affluence and famine in the world today, have radical implications. These implications may lead to further objections, distinct from those I have already considered. I shall discuss two of these.
One objection to the position I have taken might be simply that it is too drastic a revision of our moral scheme. People do not ordinarily judge in the way I have suggested they should.
Most people reserve their moral condemnation for those who violate some moral norm, such as the norm against taking another person’s property. They do not condemn those who indulge in luxury instead of giving to famine relief. But given that I did not set out to present a morally neutral description of the way people make moral judgments, the way people do in fact judge has nothing to do with the validity of my conclusion.
I understand this to mean that while Singer isn’t (explicitly) saying we should shame or outlaw people who don’t meet the standard he presents, we should morally condemn them (which could be operationalized via shaming, or via the legal system).
Now that I’ve made all these comments, I realize I should have just asked Ben if his post was his true rejection of EA-style giving. My comments have all been motivated by suspicion that Ben just isn’t convinced by arguments about giving enough to give himself, but he feels like he has to prove them wrong on their own terms instead of just acting as he sees fit. (That’s a lot of assumptions on my part.) If that particular scenario happens to be true for him or anyone reading, my message is that you are in charge of these decisions and you don’t have to justify yourself to EAs.
The broader issue that concerns me here is people thinking that the only way to do the things they want to make them is happy is to convince everyone else that those things are objectively right. There are a lot of us here with perilously high need for consistency. When we don’t respect personal freedom and freedom of conscience, people will start to hijack EA ideas to make them more pallatable for them without having to admit to being inconsistent or failing to live up to their ideals. This happens all the time in religious movements.
I can’t promise Ben that no one will judge him morally inferior for not giving. But I can promote respect for people in the community feeling empowered to follow their own judgment within their own domains. EA benefits from debate, but much more so if that debate is restricted to true rejections and not coming from a need for self-justification. Reminding people that all EA lifestyle decisions are choices is thus a means of community epistemic hygiene.
I’m fairly confident, based on reading other stuff Ben Hoffman has written, that this post has much less to do with Ben wanting to justify a rejection of EA style giving, and and much more to do with Ben being frustrated by what he sees as bad arguments/reasoning/deception in the EA sphere.
Other people being mislead is how I read “Claims to the contrary are either obvious nonsense, or marketing copy by the same people who brought you the obvious nonsense. Spend money on taking care of yourself and your friends and the people around you and your community and trying specific concrete things that might have specific concrete benefits. And try to fix the underlying systems problems that got you so confused in the first place.”
I don’t think the two reasons for Ben’s actions you suggested are mutually inconsistent. He may want to emotionally reject EA style giving arguments, think of arguments that could justify this, and then get frustrated by what he sees as poor arguments for EA or against his arguments. This outcome (frustration and worry with the EA community’s epistemic health) seems likely to me for someone who starts off emotionally wanting to reject certain arguments. He could also have identified genuine flaws in EA that both make him reject EA and make him frustrated by the epistemic health of EA.
I don’t feel inclined to get into this, but FWIW I have read a reasonable amount of Ben’s writings on both EA and non-EA topics, and I do not find it obvious that his main, subconscious motivation is epistemic health rather than a need to reject EA.
When you say “you don’t need to justify your actions to EAs”, then I have sympathy with that, because EAs aren’t special, we’re no particular authority and don’t have internal consensus anyway. But you seem to be also arguing “you don’t need to justify your actions to yourself / at all”. I’m not confident that’s what you’re saying, but if it is I think you’re setting too low a standard. If people aren’t required to live in accordance with even their own values, what’s 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), it’s necessary to meet the standards of those individuals or the community as a whole about what’s acceptable.
But you seem to be also arguing “you don’t need to justify your actions to yourself / at all”
Kinda. More like “nobody can make you act in accordance with your own true values—you just have to want to.”
If people aren’t required to live in accordance with even their own values, what’s the point in having values?
To fully explain my position would require a lot of unpacking. But, in brief, no—how could people be required to live in accordance with their own values? Other people might try to enforce value-aligned living, but they can’t read your mind or fully control you—hardly makes it a “requirement.” If what you’re 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 people’s 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 isn’t apparent to others that either his values have changed or he’s 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 it’s 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.)
I think Singer would argue we should shame or lock up people if and only if that did the most good. It’s not at all clear, as a fact of the matter, that would be the best option
I just wanted to point out that he wasn’t arguing against shaming or deploying the legal system. Those routes probably wouldn’t do the most good, in practice, but they’re definitely on the menu of things to be considered.
My point is that Ben is in fact able to do whatever legal thing he wants. He doesn’t need to make us wrong to do so. It’s interesting that he feels the need to. Whether EA or Peter Singer has suggested that it’s morally wrong not to give, Ben is free to follow his own conscience/desires and does not need our approval. If his real argument is that he should be respected by EAs for his decision not to give, I think that should be distinguished from a pseudo-factual argument that we’re deceived about the need to give money.
Quoting from Famine, Affluence, and Morality:
I understand this to mean that while Singer isn’t (explicitly) saying we should shame or outlaw people who don’t meet the standard he presents, we should morally condemn them (which could be operationalized via shaming, or via the legal system).
Now that I’ve made all these comments, I realize I should have just asked Ben if his post was his true rejection of EA-style giving. My comments have all been motivated by suspicion that Ben just isn’t convinced by arguments about giving enough to give himself, but he feels like he has to prove them wrong on their own terms instead of just acting as he sees fit. (That’s a lot of assumptions on my part.) If that particular scenario happens to be true for him or anyone reading, my message is that you are in charge of these decisions and you don’t have to justify yourself to EAs.
The broader issue that concerns me here is people thinking that the only way to do the things they want to make them is happy is to convince everyone else that those things are objectively right. There are a lot of us here with perilously high need for consistency. When we don’t respect personal freedom and freedom of conscience, people will start to hijack EA ideas to make them more pallatable for them without having to admit to being inconsistent or failing to live up to their ideals. This happens all the time in religious movements.
I can’t promise Ben that no one will judge him morally inferior for not giving. But I can promote respect for people in the community feeling empowered to follow their own judgment within their own domains. EA benefits from debate, but much more so if that debate is restricted to true rejections and not coming from a need for self-justification. Reminding people that all EA lifestyle decisions are choices is thus a means of community epistemic hygiene.
I’m fairly confident, based on reading other stuff Ben Hoffman has written, that this post has much less to do with Ben wanting to justify a rejection of EA style giving, and and much more to do with Ben being frustrated by what he sees as bad arguments/reasoning/deception in the EA sphere.
So you think he’s worried about other people being misled?
Other people being mislead is how I read “Claims to the contrary are either obvious nonsense, or marketing copy by the same people who brought you the obvious nonsense. Spend money on taking care of yourself and your friends and the people around you and your community and trying specific concrete things that might have specific concrete benefits. And try to fix the underlying systems problems that got you so confused in the first place.”
Also worried about the overall epistemic health of EA – if it’s reliably misleading people, it’s much less useful as a source of information.
I don’t think the two reasons for Ben’s actions you suggested are mutually inconsistent. He may want to emotionally reject EA style giving arguments, think of arguments that could justify this, and then get frustrated by what he sees as poor arguments for EA or against his arguments. This outcome (frustration and worry with the EA community’s epistemic health) seems likely to me for someone who starts off emotionally wanting to reject certain arguments. He could also have identified genuine flaws in EA that both make him reject EA and make him frustrated by the epistemic health of EA.
I think if you’ve read Ben’s writings, it’s obvious that the prime driver is about epistemic health.
I don’t feel inclined to get into this, but FWIW I have read a reasonable amount of Ben’s writings on both EA and non-EA topics, and I do not find it obvious that his main, subconscious motivation is epistemic health rather than a need to reject EA.
When you say “you don’t need to justify your actions to EAs”, then I have sympathy with that, because EAs aren’t special, we’re no particular authority and don’t have internal consensus anyway. But you seem to be also arguing “you don’t need to justify your actions to yourself / at all”. I’m not confident that’s what you’re saying, but if it is I think you’re setting too low a standard. If people aren’t required to live in accordance with even their own values, what’s 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), it’s necessary to meet the standards of those individuals or the community as a whole about what’s acceptable.
Kinda. More like “nobody can make you act in accordance with your own true values—you just have to want to.”
To fully explain my position would require a lot of unpacking. But, in brief, no—how could people be required to live in accordance with their own values? Other people might try to enforce value-aligned living, but they can’t read your mind or fully control you—hardly makes it a “requirement.” If what you’re 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 people’s 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 isn’t apparent to others that either his values have changed or he’s 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 it’s 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.)
I think Singer would argue we should shame or lock up people if and only if that did the most good. It’s not at all clear, as a fact of the matter, that would be the best option
That accords with my model of Singer’s view.
I just wanted to point out that he wasn’t arguing against shaming or deploying the legal system. Those routes probably wouldn’t do the most good, in practice, but they’re definitely on the menu of things to be considered.
My point is that Ben is in fact able to do whatever legal thing he wants. He doesn’t need to make us wrong to do so. It’s interesting that he feels the need to. Whether EA or Peter Singer has suggested that it’s morally wrong not to give, Ben is free to follow his own conscience/desires and does not need our approval. If his real argument is that he should be respected by EAs for his decision not to give, I think that should be distinguished from a pseudo-factual argument that we’re deceived about the need to give money.