Jeffhe

Karma: 24

Jeffhe 11 Mar 2018 22:45 UTC
4 points
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on: Cognitive and emotional barriers to EA’s growth
On slide 10 (EA challenge 1), I think you meant “that” rather than “than”.

Good luck! Also, I’m new to this forum and would appreciate it if I could get some likes so that I could make a post! Thanks.

Jeffhe 12 Mar 2018 6:06 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Arepo’s comment on: Cognitive and emotional barriers to EA’s growth
You write, “Agree with others that overusing the word ‘utilitarianism’ seems unnecessary and not strictly accurate (any moral view that included an idea of aggregation is probably sufficient, which is probably all of them to some degree).”

One thing I am sure about effective altruism is that it endorses helping the greater number, all other things being equal (by which I am here only concerned with the quality of pain being equal, for simplicity’s sake). So, for example, if $10 can be used to either save persons A and B each from some pain or C from a qualitatively identical pain, EA would say that it is morally better to save the two over the one.

Now, this in itself does not mean that effective altruism believes that it makes sense to
1. sum together certain people’s pain and to compare said sum to the sum of other people’s pain in such a way as to be able to say that one sum of pain is in some sense greater/equal to/lesser than the other, and
2. say that the morally best action is the one that results in the least sum of pain and the greatest sum of pleasure (which is more-or-less utilitarianism)
(Note that 2. assumes the intelligibility of 1.; see below)

The reason is because there are also non-aggregative ways to justify why it is better to save the greater number, at least when all other things are equal. For a survey of such ways, see “Saving Lives, Moral Theory, and the Claims of Individual” (Otsuka, 2006) However, I’m not aware that effective altruism why it’s better to save the greater number, all else equal, via these non-aggregative ways. Likely, it is purposely silent on this issue. Ben Todd (in private correspondence) informed me that “effective altruism starts from the position that it’s better to help the greater number, all else equal. Justifying that premise in the first place is in the realm of moral philosophy.” If that’s indeed the case, we might say that all effective altruism says is that the morally better course of action is the one that helps more people, everything else being equal (e.g. when the suffering to each person involved in the choice situation is qualitative the same), and (presumably) also sometimes even when everything isnt equal (e.g. when the suffering to each person in the bigger group might be somewhat less painful than the suffering to each person in the smaller group).

Insofar as effective altruism isn’t in the business of justification, then perhaps moral theories shouldn’t be mentioned at all in a presentation about effective altruism. But inevitably people considering joining the movement are going to ask why is it better to save the greater number, all else equal (e.g. A and B instead of C), or even sometimes when all else aren’t equal (e.g. one million people each from a relatively minor pain instead of one other person from a relatively greater pain)? And I think effective altruists ask themselves that question too. The OP might have and thought utilitarianism offers the natural justification: it is better to save A and B instead of C (and the million instead of the one) because doing so results in the least sum of pain. So, utilitarianism clearly offers a justification (though one might question if it is an adequate justification). On the other hand, it is not clear to me at all how other moral theories propose to justify saving the greater number in these two kinds of choice situations. So it is not surprising that OP has associated utilitarianism with effective altruism. I am sympathetic.

A bit more on utilitarianism: Roughly speaking, according to utilitarianism (or the principle of utility), among all the actions we can undertake at any given moment, the right action (ie the action we ought to take) is the one that results in the least sum of pain and the greatest sum of pleasure.

To figure out which action is the right action among a range of possible actions, we are to, for each possible action, add up all its resulting pleasures and pains. We are then to compare the resulting state of affairs corresponding to each action to see which resulting state of affairs contains the least sum of pain and greatest sum of pleasure. For example, suppose you can either save one million people each from a relatively minor pain or one other person from a relatively greater pain, but not both. Then you are to add up all the minor pains that would result from saving the single person, and then add up all the major pains (in this case, just 1) that would result from saving the million people, and then compare the two states of affairs to see which contains the least sum of pain.

From this we can clearly see that utilitarianism assumes that it makes sense to aggregate distinct people’s pains and to compare these sums in such a way as to be able to say, for example, that the sum of pain involved in a million people’s minor pains is greater (in some sense) than one other person’s major pain. Of course, many philosophers have seriously questioned the intelligibility of that.
What links here?
- Jeffhe's comment on Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed? by Jeffhe (19 Mar 2018 18:15 UTC; 0 points)

Jeffhe 12 Mar 2018 19:41 UTC
6 points
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on: Reading group guide for EA groups
Hi Risto,

You’ve done such a thorough job, well done!

One tip I would add under “How to read philosophy” is to read on when something in the book isn’t making sense, instead of spending a lot of time trying to make sense of things on the spot. The reason is because, oftentimes, later passages help to clarify what the writer meant by earlier passages, where these earlier passages can be hopelessly hard to understand or precise-ify without having read those later passages.

P.S. I’m new to this forum and would appreciate it if I could get some likes so that I could make a post! Thanks.

Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?

Jeffhe13 Mar 2018 2:18 UTC

2 points

124 comments15 min readEA link

Jeffhe 13 Mar 2018 22:03 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Brian Wang’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi Brian,

Thanks for your comment and for reading my post!

Here’s my response:

Bob, Susie and Amy would sign the agreement to save the greater number if they assumed that they each had an equal chance of being in any of their positions. But, is this assumption true? For example, is it actually the case that Bob had an equal chance to be in Amy’s or Susie’s position? If it is the case, then saving the greater number would in effect give each of them a ²⁄₃ chance of being saved (the best chance as you rightly noted). But if it isn’t, then why should an agreement based on a false assumption have any force? Suppose Bob, in actuality, had no chance of being in Amy’s or Susie’s position, then is it really in accordance with reason and empathy to save Amy and Susie and give Bob zero chance?

Intuitively, for Bob to have had an equal chance of being in Amy’s position or Susie’s position or his actual position, he must have had an equal chance of living Amy’s life or Susie’s life or his actual life. That’s how I intuitively understand a position: as a life position. To occupy someone’s position is to be in their life circumstances—to have their life. So understood, what would it take for Bob to have had an equal chance of being in Amy’s position or Susie’s position or his own? Presumably, it would have had to be the case that Bob was just as likely to have been born to Amy’s parents or Susie’s parents or his actual parents. But this seems very unlikely because the particular “subject-of-experience” or “self” that each of us are is probably biologically linked to our ACTUAL parents’ cells. Thus another parent could not give birth to us, even though they might give birth to a subjective-of-experience that is qualitatively very similar to us (i.e. same personality, same skin complexion, etc).

Of course, being in someone’s position need not be understood in this demanding (though intuitive) way. For example, maybe to be in Amy’s position just requires being in her actual location with her actual disease, but not e.g. being of the same sex as her or having her personality. But insofar as we are biologically linked to our actual parents, and parents are spread all over the world, the odds of Bob having had an equal chance of being in his actual position (i.e. a certain location with a certain disease) or in Amy’s position (i.e. a different location with an equally painful disease) is highly unlikely. Think also about all the biological/personality traits that make a person more or less likely to be in a given position. I, for example, certainly had zero chance of being in an NBA position, given my height. Of course, as we change in various ways, our chances to be in certain positions change too, but even so, it is extremely unlikely that any given person, at any given point in time, had an equal chance of being in any of the positions of a trade off situation that he is later to be involved in.

UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 18): I have added the above two paragraphs to help first-time readers better understand how I understand “being in someone’s position” and why I think it is most unlikely that Bob actually had an equal chance of being in Amy’s or Susie’s position. These two paragraphs have replaced a much briefer paragraph, which you can find at the end of this reply. UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 21): Also, no need to read past this point since someone (kbog) made me realize that the question I ask in the paragraph below rests on a misunderstanding of the veil-of-ignorance approach.

Also, what would the implications of this objection be for cases where the pains involved in a choice situation are unequal? Presumably, EA favors saving a billion people each from a fairly painful disease than a single person from the excruciating pain of being burned alive. But is it clear that someone behind the veil of ignorance would accept this?

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Original paragraph that was replaced: “Similarly, is it actually the case that each of us had an equal chance of being in any one of our positions? I think the answer is probably no because the particular “subject-of-experience” or “self” that each of us are is probably linked to our parents’ cells.”

Jeffhe 13 Mar 2018 22:43 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: Dawn Drescher’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi Telofy,

Thanks for your comment, and quoting oneself is always cool (haha)/

In response, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that if I don’t prefer saving many similar, though distinct, people each from a certain pain than another person from the same pain, then I have no reason to prefer saving myself from many of those pains than just one of them.

I certainly wouldn’t agree with that. Were I to suffer many pains, I (just me) suffers all of them in such a way that there is a very clear sense how they, cumulatively, are worse to endure than just one of them. Thus, I find intra-personal aggregation of pains intelligible. I mean, when an old man reminiscing about his past says to us, “The single worst pain I had was that one time when I got shot in the foot, but if you asked me whether I’d go through that again or all those damn’ed headaches I had over my life, I would certainly ask for the bullet.”, we get it. Anyways, I think the clear sense I mentioned supports the intra-personal aggregation of pains and if pains intra-personally aggregate, then more instances of the same pain will be worse than just one instance, and so I have reason to prefer saving myself from more of them.

However, in the case of many vs one other (call him “C”), the pains are spread across distinct people rather than aggregate in one person, so they cannot in the same sense be worse than the pain that C goes through. And so even if I show no preference in this case, I still have reason to show preference in the former case.

Jeffhe 13 Mar 2018 23:41 UTC
0 points
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in reply to: JanB’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi Jan,

Thanks a lot for your response.

I wonder if it is too big of a concession to make to say that “This conclusion seems correct only for clear-cut textbook examples.” My argument against effective altruism was an attempt to show that it is theoretically/fundamentally flawed, even if (per your objection) I can’t criticize the actual pattern of donation it is responsible for (e.g. pushing a lot of funding to GiveDirectly), although I will offer a response to your objection.

I remember listening to a podcast featuring professor MacAskill (one of the presumed founders of EA) where he was recounting a debate he had with someone (can’t remember who). That someone raised (if I remember correctly) the following objection: If there was a burning house and you could either save the boy trapped inside or a painting hanging on the wall which you could sell and use that money to save 100 kids in a third world country from a similar pain that the boy would face, you should obviously save the boy. But EA says to save the painting. Therefore EA is false. Professor MacAskill’s response (if I remember correctly) was to bite the bullet and say that while it might be hard to stomach, that is really what we should do.

If professor MacAskill’s view represents EA’s position, then I assume that if you concede that we should flip a coin in such a case, then there is an issue.

Regarding whether my argument recommends anything in the real world, I think it does.

First, just to be clear, since we cannot give each person a chance of being helped that is proportionate to what they have to suffer, I said that I personally would choose to use my money to help anyone among the class of people who stands to suffer the most (see Section F.). Just to be clear, I wouldn’t try to give each of the people among this class an equal chance because that is equally impossible. I would simply choose to help those who I come across or know about I guess. Note that I didn’t explain why I would choose to help this class of people, but the reason is simply that were it possible to give each person a chance of being helped proportional to their suffering, those who stand to suffer the most have the highest chance of winning. (I have since updated the post to include this explanation, thanks.)

I think, now that I have clarified my position, it should be clear that my way of things can recommend actions. There are many opportunities where donating almost certainly prevents or alleviates a certain extreme suffering to someone. Maybe depression is not one of those cases, but I would imagine that severe malnutrition is very painful. So is torture (which oftentimes can be prevented if a ransom is paid). Since the pattern of donation that EA promotes is likely very different from the pattern of donation that arises from my way of things, my way of things provides a real alternative practically speaking (but maybe up to a limit before the patterns of donations would converge).

Btw, I would not be absolutely against giving to GiveDirectly if there is a statistically good chance that they will prevent or alleviate at least one person from one of the worst kinds of suffering AND there wasn’t any other cheaper practical way to help that very person (which is likely the case because we don’t even know who that person is). However, I would personally donate to charities where there is a near certainty of prevention of alleviation simply because at the end of the day my donation actually helped someone, whereas a statistically good chance may not pan out, in which case I haven’t helped the worst off

Yes, by doing so, I perhaps end up allowing someone to suffer in one of the worst ways who otherwise wouldn’t have suffered had I (and everyone else) given to GiveDirectly. But, as I made more clear in Section F., there is no way to give each person an appropriate chance of being helped, not even if we just considered those people who stand to suffer the worst. And so, at the end of the day, I am forced to make a choice to help a particular person anyways.

Jeffhe 13 Mar 2018 23:52 UTC
−1 points
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in reply to: Michael_S’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi Michael,

Thanks very much for your response.

UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 16):

I have shortened the original reply as it was a bit repetitive and made improvements in its clarity. However, it is still not optimal. Thus I have written a new reply for first-time readers to better appreciate my position. You can find the somewhat improved original reply at the end of this new reply (if interested):

To be honest, I just don’t get why you would feel the same if the 5 minor headaches were spread across 5 people. Supposing that 5 minor headaches in one person is (experientially) worse than 1 major headache in one person (as you request), consider WHAT MAKES IT THE CASE that the single person who suffers 5 minor headaches is worse off than a person who suffers just 1 major headache, other things being equal.

Well, imagine that we were this person who suffers 5 minor headaches. We suffer one minor headache one day, suffer another minor headache sometime after that, then another after that, etc. By the end of our 5th minor headache, we will have experienced what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches. After all, we went through 5 minor headaches! Note that the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-headaches consists simply in the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-first-minor-headache then the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-second-minor-headache then the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-third-minor-headache, etc. Importantly, the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-headaches is NOT whatever we experience right after having our 5th headache (e.g. exhaustion that might set in after going through many headaches or some super painful headache that is the “synthesis” of the intensity of the past 5 minor headaches). It is NOT a singular/continuous feeling like the feeling we have when we’re experiencing a normal pain episode. It is simply this: the what-it’s-like of going through one minor headache, then another (sometime later), then another, then another, then another. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Now, by the end of our 5th minor headache, we might have long forgotten about the first minor headache because, say, it happened so long ago. So, by the end of our 5th minor headache, we might not have an accurate appreciation of what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches even though we in fact have experienced what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches. As a result, if someone asked us whether we’ve been through more pain due to our minor headaches or more pain through a major headache that, say, we recently experienced, we would likely incorrectly answer the latter.

But, if we did have an accurate appreciation of what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches, say, because we experienced all 5 minor headaches rather recently, then there will be a clear sense to us that going through them was (experientially) worse than the major headache. The 5 minor headaches would each be “fresh in our mind”, and thus the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches would be “fresh in our mind”. And with that what-it’s-like fresh in mind, it seems clear to us that it caused us more pain than the major headache did.

Now, a headache being “fresh in our mind” does not mean that the headache needs to be so fresh that it is qualitatively the same as experiencing a real headache. Being fresh in our mind just means we have an accurate appreciation/idea of what it felt like, just as we have some accurate idea of what our favorite dish tastes like.

Because we have appreciations of our past pains (to varying degrees of accuracy), we sometimes compare them and have a clear sense that one set of pains is worse than another. But it is not the comparison and the clear sense we have of one set of pain being worse than another that ultimately makes one set of pains worse than another. Rather, it is the other way around. It is the what-it’s-like-of-having-5-minor-headaches that is worse – more painful – than the what-it’s-like-of-having-a-major-headache. And if we have an accurate appreciation of both what-it’s-likes, then we will conclude the same. But, when we don’t, then our own conclusions could be wrong, like in the example provided earlier of a forgotten minor headache.

So, at the end of the day, what makes a person who has 5 minor headaches worse off than a person who has 1 major headache is the fact that he experienced what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches.

But, in the case where the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 people, there is no longer the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches because each of the 5 headaches is experienced by a different person. As a result, the only what-it’s-like present is the what-it’s-like-of-experiencing-one-minor-headache. Five different people each experience this what-it’s-like, but no one experiences what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches. Moreover, the what-it’s-like of each of the 5 people cannot be linked to form the what-it’s-like-of-experiencing-5-minor headaches because the 5 people are experientially independent beings.

Now, it’s clearly the case that the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-minor-headache is not worse than the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-a-major-headache. Given what I said in the previous paragraph, therefore, there is nothing present that could be worse than the what-it’s-like-to-go-through-a-major-headache in the case where the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 people. Therefore, 5 minor headaches, spread across 5 people, cannot be (and thus is not) worse (experientially speaking) than one major headache.

Therefore, “conditional on agreeing 5 minor headaches in one person is worse than 1 major headache in one person, … [one should not] feel exactly the same if it were spread out over 5 people.”!

Finally, since 5 headaches, spread across 5 people, is not EXPERIENTIALLY worse than another person’s single major headache, therefore the case in which Emma would suffer a major headache is MORALLY worse than the case in which 5 different people would each suffer a minor headache. (If you disagree with this, please see Objection 1.2 and my response to it) Therefore what I said in choice situation 3 holds.

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The somewhat improved though sub-optimal original reply:

To be honest, I just don’t get why you would feel the same if the pains were spread out over 5 people. I mean, when the 5 minor headaches occur in a single person, then FOR that person, there is a very clear sense how the 5 headaches are worse to endure than 1 major headache. But once the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 different people, that clear sense is lost because each of the 5 people only experiences at most 1 minor headache. In each experiencing only 1 minor headache, NOT ONE of the 5 people experience something worse than a major headache (e.g., what Emma would go through). So none of them would individually be worse off than Emma. Are you really ready to say that the 5 of them together are worse off than Emma? But in what sense? Certainly not in any experiential sense (since none of them individually experiences anything worse than a major headache and they are experientially independent of each other). But then I don’t see what other sense there are that matters.

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 0:00 UTC
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in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi gworley3,

Thanks for your comment.

I don’t think I’m conflating EA with utilitarianism. In fact, I made a comment a few days ago specifically pointing out how they might differ under the post “Cognitive and emotional barriers to EA’s growth”. If you still think I’m conflating things, please point out what in specific so I can address it. Thanks.

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 0:25 UTC
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in reply to: RandomEA’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi RandomEA,

First of all, awesome name! And secondly, thanks for your response.

My view is that we should give each person a chance of being helped that is proportionate to what they each have to suffer. It is irrelevant to me how many people there are who stand to suffer the lesser pain. So, for example, in the first choice situation you described, my intuition is to give the single person roughly slightly over a 50% chance of being saved and the others slightly under 50% of being saved. This is because the single person would suffer slightly worse than any one of the others, so the single person gets a slightly higher chance. It is irrelevant to me how many people have 90% to lose in quality of life, whether it be 5 or 5 billion.

So if 760 billion people have 10% to lose where the single person has 90% to lose, my intuition is to give the single person roughly a 90% chance of being saved and the other 760 billion a 10% of being saved.

In my essay, I in effect argued that everyone would have this intuition if properly appreciated the following two facts:
1. That were the 760 billion people to suffer, none of them would suffer anywhere near the amount the single person would. Conversely, were the single person to suffer, he/she would suffer so much more than any one of the 760 billion.
2. Which individual suffers matters because it is the particular individual who suffers that bears all the suffering.
I assume that we should accept the intuitions that we have when we keep all the relevant facts at the forefront of our mind (i.e. when we properly appreciate them). I believe the intuitions I mentioned above (i.e. my intuitions) are the ones people would have when they do this.

Regarding your second point, I have to think a little more about it!

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 0:54 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Evan_Gaensbauer’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Wow, their name says it all. I didn’t know about OPIS—I’ll definitely check them out. Will potentially be very useful for my own charitable activities.

Also, thanks for the link to Animal Charity Evaluators—didn’t know about them either. Although, given that the numbers don’t matter to me in trade off cases, I don’t know if it will make a difference. It would if it showed me that donating to another animal charity would help the EXACT same animals I’d help via donating to PETA AND then some (i.e. even more animals). If donating to another animal charity helped different animals (e.g. a different cow than a cow I would have helped by donating to PETA), then even if I can help more animals by donating to this other charity, I would have no overwhelming reason to, because the cow who I would thereby be neglecting would end up suffering no less than any one of the other animals otherwise would, and as I argued in response to Objection 2, who suffers matters.

Thanks for both suggestions though, Evan!

Note, I have since removed PETA from my post because the point of my post was just to question EA and not to suggest charities to donate to. Thanks for making me realize this.

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 3:33 UTC
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in reply to: Michael_S’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
I assume we agree that we determine the points of disutility of the minor and major headache by how they each feel to someone. Since the major headache hurts more, it’s worth more points (5 in this case).

But, were a single person to suffer all 5 minor headaches, he would end up having felt what it is like to go through 5 headaches—a feeling that would make him say things like “Going through those 5 minor headaches is worse/more painful than a major headache” or “There was more/greater/larger pain in going through those 5 minor headaches than a major headache”.

We find these statements intelligible. But that is because we’re at a point in life where we too have felt what it is like to go through multiple minor pains, and we too can consider (i.e. hold before our mind) a major pain in isolation, and compare these feelings: the what-it’s-like of going through multiple minor pains vs the what-it’s-like of going through a major pain.

But once the situation is that the 5 minor headache are spread across 5 people, there is no longer the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches, just 5 independent what-it’s-likes-of-going-through-1-minor-headache. As a result, in this situation, when you say “the total amount of pain [involved in 5 minor headaches] is worse [one major headache]”, or that “the total amount of pain [involved in 5 minor headaches] is larger [than one major headache], there is nothing to support their intelligibility.

So, I honestly don’t understand these statements. Sure, you can use numbers to show that 10 > 5, but there is no reality that that maps on to (i.e. describes). I worry that representing pain in numbers is extremely misleading in this way.

Regarding personhood, I think my position just requires me to be committed to there being a single subject-of-experience (is that what you meant by person?) who extends through time to the extent that it can be the subject of more than one pain episode. I must admit I know very little about the topic of personhood. On that note, any further comments that help your position and question mine would be helpful. Thanks.

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 19:15 UTC
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in reply to: Michael_S’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
I agree with the first half of what you said, but I don’t agree that “there’s no reason you can’t apply these estimates more broadly (e.g. to a situation where 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 persons).

Sure, a person who has felt only one minor headache and one major headache can say “If put to the choice, I think I’d rather receive another major headache than 5 more minor headaches”, but he says this as a result of imagining roughly what it would be like for him to go through 5 of this sort of minor headache and comparing that to what it was like for him to go through the one major headache.

Importantly, what is supporting the intelligibility of his statement is STILL the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches, except that this time (unlike in my previous reply), the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches is imagined rather than actual.

But in the situation where the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 people, there isn’t a what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches, imagined or actual, to support the intelligibility of the claim that 5 minor headaches (spread across 5 people) are worse or more painful than a major headache. What there is are five independent what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-minor-headache, since

1) the 5 people are obviously experientially independent of each other (i.e. each of them can only experience their own pain and no one else’s), and

2) each of the 5 people experience just one minor headache.

But these five independent what-it’s-likes can’t support the intelligibility of the above claim. None of these what-it-likes are individually worse or more painful than the major headache. And they cannot collectively be worse or more painful than the major headache because they are experientially independent of each other.

The what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches is importantly different from five independent what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-minor-headache, and only the former can support the intelligibility of a claim like 5 minor headaches are worse than a major headache. But since the former what-it’s-like can only occur in a single subject-of-experience, that means that, more specifically, the former what-it’s-like can only support the intelligibility of a claim like 5 minor headaches, all had by one person, is worse than a major headache. It cannot support a claim like 5 minor headaches, spread across 5 people, are worse than a major headache.

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 20:24 UTC
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in reply to: Brian Wang’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
It would be a mistake to conclude, from a lack of knowledge about one’s position, that one has an equal chance of being in any one’s position. Of course, if a person is behind the veil of ignorance and thus lacks relevant knowledge about his/her position, it might SEEM to him/her that he has an equal chance of being in any one’s position, and he/she might thereby be led to make this mistake and consequently choose to save the greater number.

In any case, what I just said doesn’t really matter because you go on to say,

“Note that it doesn’t have to be actually true that Bob has an equal chance as Susie and Amy to have disease X vs. disease Y; maybe a third party, not behind the veil of ignorance, can see that Bob’s genetics predispose him to disease X, and so he shouldn’t sign the agreement. But Bob doesn’t know that; all that is required for this argument to work is that Bob, Susie, and Amy all have the same subjective probability of ending up with disease X vs. disease Y, viewing from behind the veil of ignorance.”

Let us then suppose that Bob, in fact, had no chance of being in either Amy’s or Susie’s position. Now imagine Bob asks you why you are choosing to save Amy and Susie and giving him no chance at all, and you reply, “Look, Bob, I wished I could help you too but I can’t help all. And the reason I’m not giving you any chance is that if you, Amy and Susie were all behind the veil of ignorance and was led to assume that each of you had an equal chance of being in anyone else’s position, then all of you (including you, Bob) would have agreed to the principle of saving the greater number in the kind of case you find yourself in now.”

Don’t you think Bob can reasonably reply, “But Brian, whether or not I make that assumption under the veil of ignorance is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that I had no chance of being in Amy’s or Susie’s position. What you should do shouldn’t be based on what I would agree to in a condition where I’m imagined as making a false assumption. What you should do should be based on my actual chance of being in Amy’s or Susie’s position. It should be based on the facts, and the fact is that I NEVER had a chance to be in any of their positions. Look, Brian, I’m really scared. I’m going to suffer a lot if you choose to save Amy and Susie—no less than any one of them would suffer. I can imagine that they must be very scared too, for each of them would suffer just as much as me were you to save me instead. In this case, seeing that we each have the same amount to suffer, shouldn’t you give each of us an equal chance of being helped, or at least give me some chance and not 0?”

How would you reply? I personally think that Bob’s reply shows the clear limits of this hypothetical contractual approach to determining what we should do in real life.

UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 21): No need to read past this point since another person (kbog) made me realize that the paragraph below rests on a misunderstanding of the veil-of-ignorance approach.

Regarding the second point, I think what any person would agree to behind the veil of ignorance (even assuming the truth of the assumption that each has an equal chance of being in anybody’s position) is highly dependent on their risk-adverseness to the severest potential pain. Towards the extreme ends that you described, people of varying risk-adverseness would perhaps be able to form a consensus. But it gets less clear as we consider “middle-of-the-road” cases. As you said people’s intuitions here start to differ (which I would peg to varying degrees of risk-adverseness to the severest potential pain). But the question then is whether this hypothetical contractual approach can serve as a “reasonable way of adjudicating between the interests of different numbers of people suffering different amounts of pain” since your intuition might not be the same as the person whose fate might rest in your hands. Is it really reasonable to decide his fate using your intuition and not his?

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 21:17 UTC
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in reply to: RandomEA’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
The situations I focus on in my essay are trade-off choice situations, meaning that I can only choose one party to help, and not all parties to various degrees. Thus, if you have an objection to my argument, it is important that we focus on such kinds of situations. Thanks!

Jeffhe 14 Mar 2018 23:49 UTC
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in reply to: RandomEA’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Not true. Trade off situations are literally everywhere. Whenever you donate to some charity, it is at the expense of another charity working in a different area and thus at the expense of the people who the other charity would have helped. Even with malaria, if you donate to a certain charity, you are helping the people who that charity helps at the expense of other people that another charity against malaria helps. That’s the reality.

And if you’re thinking “Well, can’t I donate some to each malaria fighting charity?”, the answer is yes, but whatever money you donate to the other malaria fighting charity, it comes at the expense of helping the people who the original malaria fighting charity would have been able to help had they got all your donation and not just part of it. The trade off choice situation would be between either helping some of the people residing in the area of the other malaria fighting charity or helping some additional people residing in the area of the original malaria fighting charity. You cannot help all.

In principle, as long as one doesn’t have enough money to help everyone, one will always find oneself in a trade off choice situation when deciding where to donate.

Jeffhe 15 Mar 2018 2:27 UTC
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in reply to: RandomEA’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
My apologies. After re-reading your second set of hypothetical, I think I can answer your questions.

In the original choice situation contained in my essay, the device I used to capture the amount of chance each group would be given of being helped was independent of the donation amount. For example, in the choice situation between Bob, Amy, and Susie, the donation was $10 and the device used to give each a 50% chance of being saved from a painful disease was a coin.

However, it seems like in your hypotheticals, the donation is used as the device too. That confused me at first. But yeah, at the end of the day, I would give person A a roughly 90% of being saved from his/her suffering and roughly a 10% to each of the billions of others, regardless of what the dollar breakdown would look like. So, if I understand your hypotheticals correctly, then my answer would be yes to both your original questions.

I don’t however see the point of using the donation to also act as the device. It seems to unnecessarily over complicate the choice situations.

If your goal is to try to create a choice situation in which I have to give a vast amount of money to give person A around a 90% chance of surviving, and the objection you’re thinking of raising is that it is absurd to give that much to give a single person around a 90% of being helped, then my response is:

1) Who suffers matters

2) What person A stands to suffer is far worse than what any one of the people from the competing group stands to suffer.

I think if we really appreciate those two facts, our intuition is to give person A 90% and each of the others a 10%, regardless of the $ breakdown that involves. Thanks.

Just noticed you expanded your comment. You write, “It’s quite rare that you choosing to fund one person over another will result in the other person having no chance at all of being helped.” This is not true. There will always be a person in line who isn’t helped, but who would have been helped had you funded the charity working in his area. He may not be the first in line, but he is somewhere in the line waiting to be helped by that charity.

Jeffhe 16 Mar 2018 1:46 UTC
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in reply to: Michael_S’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
If I’m understanding you correctly, you essentially deny that there is a metaphysical difference (i.e. a REAL difference) between

A. One subject-of-experience experiencing 5 headaches over 5 days (say, one headache per day), and

B. Five independent subjects-of-experience each experiencing 1 headache over 5 days (say, each subject has their 1 headache on a different day, such that on any given day, only one of them has a headache).

And you deny this BECAUSE you think that, in case A for example, there simply is no fact of the matter as to how many subjects-of-experience there were over those 5 days IN THE FIRST PLACE, and NOT because you think one subject-of-experience going through 5 headaches IS IDENTICAL to five independent subjects-of-experience each going through 1 headache.

Also, you are not simply saying that we don’t KNOW how many subjects of experience there were over those 5 days in case A, but that there actually isn’t an answer to how many there were. The indeterminate-ness is “built into the world” so to speak, and not just existing in our state of mind.

You therefore think it is arbitrary to say that one subject-of-experience experienced all 5 headaches over the 5 days or that 5 subjects-of-experience each experienced 1 headache over the 5 days.

But importantly, IF there is a fact of the matter as to how many subjects-of-experience there is in any given time period, you would NOT continue to think that there is no metaphysical difference between case A and B. And this is because you agree that one subject-of-experience going through 5 headaches is not identical to five independent subjects-of-experience each going through 1 headache. You would say, “Obviously they are not identical. The problem, however, is that—in case A, for example—there simply is no fact of the matter as to how many subjects-of-experience there were over those 5 days IN THE FIRST PLACE so saying that one subject-of-experience experienced all 5 headaches is arbitrary.”

I hope that was an accurate portrayal of your view.

Let us then try to build some consensus from the ground up:

First, there is surely experience. That there is experience, whether it be pain experience or color experience or whatever, is the most obvious truth there is. I assume you don’t deny that. Ok, so we agree that

1) there is experience.

Second, well, each experience is clearly SOMEONE’S experience—it is experience FOR SOMEONE. Suppose there is a pain experience—a headache. Someone IN PARTICULAR experiences that headache. Let’s suppose you’re not experiencing it and that I am. Then I am that particular someone. I assume you don’t deny any of that. Ok, so we agree that

2) there is not just experience, but that for every experience, there is also a particular subject-of-experience who experiences it, whether or not a particular subject-of-experience can also extend through time and be the subject of multiple experiences.

That’s all the consensus building I want to do right now.

Now, let me report something about myself (for the sake of argument, just assume it’s true): I felt 5 headaches over the past 5 days. Here (just as in case A) you would say that there is no fact of the matter whether one subject-of-experience felt those 5 headaches or five different subjects-of-experience felt those 5 headaches, even though the “I” in “I just felt 5 headaches” makes it SOUND LIKE there was only one subject-of-experience.

If I then say that, “no no, there was just one subject-of-experience who felt those 5 headaches”, your question (and challenge) to me is what is my criteria for saying that there was just one subject-of-experience and not five. More specifically, you ask whether memory-continuity and personality-continuity are necessary conditions for being the same subject-of-experience over the 5 days, “same” in the sense of being numerically identical and not qualitatively identical.

Here’s my answer:

I’m sure philosophers have tried to come up with various criteria. Presumably that’s what philosophers engaged in the field called “personal identity” in part do, though I don’t know much about that field. Anyways, presumably they are all trying to come up with a criteria that would neatly accommodate all our intuitive judgements in specific (perhaps imagined) cases concerning personal identity (e.g., split brain cases). A criteria that succeeded in doing that would presumably be regarded as the “true” or “correct” criteria. In other words, the ONLY way philosophers have for testing their criteria is presumably to see if their criteria would yield results that accord with our intuitions. Moreover, if the “correct” criteria is found, philosophers are presumably going to say that it is correct not merely in the sense that it accurately describes the implicit/sub-conscious assumptions that we hold about personal identity which have led us to have the intuitions we have. Indeed, presumably, they are going to say that the criteria is correct in the stronger sense that it accurately describes the conditions under which a subject-of-experience IN REALITY is the same numerical subject over time. Insofar as they would say this, philosophers are assuming that our intuitive judgements represent the truth (i.e. the way things actually are). For only if the intuitions represented the truth would it be the case that a criteria that accommodated all of them would thereby be a criteria that described reality.

But then the question is, do our intuitions represent the truth? I don’t know, and so even if I were able to give you a criteria that accommodated all our intuitions and that, according to this criteria, there was only one subject-of-experience who experienced all 5 headaches over those 5 days, I would not have, in any convincing way, demonstrated that there was in fact only one subject-of-experience who experienced all 5 headaches over those 5 days, instead of 5 independent subjects-of-experience who each experienced 1 headache. For you can always ask what reasons I have for taking our intuitions to represent the truth. I don’t think there is a convincing answer. So I don’t think presenting you with criteria will ultimately satisfy you, at least I don’t think it should.

Of course, that’s not to say that we wouldn’t know what would have to be the case for it to be true that one subject-of-experience experienced all 5 headaches over the 5 days: That would be true just in case one subject-of experience IN FACT experienced all 5 headaches over the 5 days. We just don’t know if that is the case. And I have just argued above that providing a criteria that accords with all our intuitions won’t really help us to know if that is the case either.

So, what reason can I give for believing that there really was just one subject-of-experience who experienced all 5 headaches over those 5 days? Well, what reason can YOU give for saying that there isn’t a fact of the matter as to whether there was one subject-of-experience who experienced all 5 headaches over those 5 days or give independent subjects-of-experience who each experienced only 1 headache over those 5 days?

Are we at a standstill? We would be if neither of us can provide reasons for our views. Your view attributes a fundamental indeterminate-ness to the world itself, and I wonder what reason you have for such a view.

I have a reason for believing my view. But this reply is already very long, so before I describe my reason, I would just like some confirmation that we’re on the same page. Thanks.

P.S. I’ll just add (as a more direct response to the first paragraph of your response): Yes, I can imagine 5 headaches by either imagining myself in the shoes of one person for 5 days or imagining myself in the shoes of 5 different people for one day each. In both cases, I imagine 5 headaches. True. BUT. When I imagine myself in the shoes of 5 different people for one day each, what is going on is that one subject-of-experience (i.e. me), takes on the independent what-it’s-likes (i.e. experiences) associated with the 5 different people, and IN DOING SO, LINKS THESE what-it’s-likes—which in reality are experientially independent of each other—TOGETHER IN ME. So ultimately, when I imagine myself in the shoes of 5 different people for one day each, I am, in effect, imagining what it’s like to go through 5 headaches. But in reality, there is no such what-it’s-like among the 5 different people. The only what-it’s-like present is the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-headache, which each of the 5 different people would experience.

In essence, what I am saying is that when you or I imagine ourselves in the shoes of 5 different people for a day each, we do end up with the (imagined) what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-headaches, but there is no such what-it’s-like in reality among those different 5 people. But there needs to be in order for their 5 independent headaches to be worse than a major headache. I hope that made sense. If it didn’t, then I guess you can ignore these last two paragraphs.

P.S.S. As a more direct response to your questions in the second paragraph of your response: it would still be possible IF the person is still the same subject-of-experience after the radical change in personality and loss of memory. It is impossible between two different people because they are numerically different subjects-of-experience.

Jeffhe 16 Mar 2018 3:36 UTC
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in reply to: Dawn Drescher’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Imagine you have 5 headaches, each 1 minutes long, that occur just 10 seconds apart of each other. From imagining this, you will have an imagined sense of what it’s like to go through those 5 headaches.

And, of course, you can imagine yourself in the shoes of 5 different friends, who we can suppose each has a single 1-minute long headache of the same kind as above. From imagining this, you will again have an imagined sense of what it’s like to go through 5 headaches.

If that’s what you mean when you say that “the clear experiential sense is just as clear or unclear to me no matter whether I think about the person moments of the same person or of different people”, then I agree.

But when you imagine yourself in the shoes of those 5 friends, what is going on is that one subject-of-experience (i.e. you), takes on the independent what-it’s-likes (i.e. experiences) associated with your 5 friends, and IN DOING SO, LINKS THOSE what-it’s-likes—which in reality would be experimentally independent of each other—TOGETHER IN YOU. So ultimately, when you imagine yourself in the shoes of your 5 friends, you are, in effect, imagining what it’s like to go through 5 headaches. But in reality, there would be no such what-it’s-like among your 5 friends. The only what-it’s-like that would be present would be the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-headache, which each of your friend would experience. No one would experience the what it’s like of going through 5 headaches. But that is what is needed for it to be the case that 5 such headaches can be worse than a headache that is worse than any one of them.

Please refer to my conversation with Michael_S for more info.

Jeffhe 16 Mar 2018 18:11 UTC
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in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?
Hi Kaj,

Thanks for your response. Please refer to my conversation with brianwang712. It addresses this objection!

Jeffhe

Is Effec­tive Altru­ism fun­da­men­tally flawed?

Is Effective Altruism fundamentally flawed?