= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
John_Maxwell_IV comments on Really Extreme Altruism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (87)
Not only that, but he never generated the wealth in the first place. His savings were his, sure, but the rest of the money was essentially conned from the insurance company.
He did not make the world richer by sacrificing himself, he sacrificed himself to (dishonestly) reallocate resources.
I'd say support his actions iff you would support stealing to give to charity.
How was he dishonest?
Because he didn't disclose to the insurance company that he was planning to commit suicide at the time he took out the policy(!)
So? Not revealing info != dishonesty. Unless he signed a contract that stated that he had no intent to commit suicide, I don't think he ever lied.
Let's say I am a proficient at counting cards while playing blackjack. I go to the casino to gamble and walk away richer--consistently. This case is actually very similar to the insurance one, in that in both cases I am making a bet with some sort of large organization, and I know more about the nature of the bet than the large organization does.
Anyway, is the card counter dishonest? And if not, how is the man who commits suicide different?
Optimizing your decisions so that other people will form less accurate beliefs is dishonesty. Making literally false statements you expect other people to believe is just a special case of this.
If you decide not to reveal info because you predict that info will enable another person to accurately predict your behavior and decline to enter an agreement with you, you are being dishonest.
Hm, I wrote that comment two years ago. My new view is that it's not much worth arguing over the definition of "dishonesty" so figuring out whether the guy is "dishonest" or not is just a word game--we should figure out if others having correct beliefs is a terminal value to us, and if so, how it trades off against other terminal values. (Or perhaps individually not acting in ways that give others incorrect beliefs is a terminal value.)
As a consequentialist, I mostly say the ends justify the means. I am a little cautious due to the issues Eliezer discusses in this post, but I don't think I'm as cautious as Eliezer is--I have a fair amount of confidence in my ability to notice when my brain is going in to a failure mode like he describes.
I'm not entirely comfortable with this line of thinking. Drawing a distinction between withholding relevant information and providing false information is such a common feature of moral systems that I can't help but think any heuristic that eliminates the distinction is missing something important. It all has to reduce to normality, after all.
That said, biases do exist, and if we can come up with a plausible mechanism by which it'd be psychologically important without being consequentially important then I think I'd be happier with the conclusion. It might just come down to how difficult it is to prove.
I agree that a distinction should be drawn but I disagree about where. I think the morally important distinction is not between withholding information and providing false information, but why and in what context you are misleading the other person. If he's trying to violate your rights, for example, or if he's prying into something that's none of his business, then lie away. If you are trying to screw him over by misleading him, then you are getting into a moral gray area, or possibly worse.
Nah, that's just standard deontological vs. consequential thinking. If dishonesty is approached in consequential terms then it becomes just another act of (fully generalized) aggression -- something you don't want to do to someone except in self-defense or unless you'd also slash their tires, to borrow an Eliezer phrase, but not something that's forbidden in all cases. It only becomes problematic in general if there's a deontological prohibition against it.
Looking at it that way doesn't clarify the distinction between lying by commission vs. lying by omission, though. There's something else going on there.
I don't know what you just said. For example you wrote: "that's just standard deontological vs. consequential thinking." What does that mean? Does that mean that I have in a single comment articulated both deontological and consequentialist thinking and set them at odds, simultaneously arguing both sides? Or are you saying I articulated one of these? If so, which one?
For my part, I don't think my comment takes either side. Whether your view is deontological or consequentialist, you should agree on the basics, which includes that you have a right to self-defense. That is the context I am talking about in deciding whether the deception is moral. So I am not saying anything consequentialist here, if that's your point. A deontologisr should agree on the right to self defense, unless his moral axioms are badly chosen.
I think your comment describes a consequentialist take on the subject of dishonesty and implicitly argues that the deontological version is incorrect. I agree with that conclusion, but I don't think it says anything unusual on the subject of dishonesty in particular.
The pragmatic distinction is that lies are easier to catch (or make common knowledge), so the lying must be done more carefully than mere withholding of relevant information. Seeing withholding of information as a moral right is a self-delusion part of normal hypocritic reasoning. Breaking it will make you a less effective hypocrite, all else equal.
I assert that moral right overtly, embracing all relevant underlying connotations. I am in no way deluding myself regarding the basis for that assertion and it is not relevant to any hypocrisy that I may have.
You haven't unpacked anything, black box disagreements don't particularly help to change anyone's mind. We are probably even talking about different things (the idea of "moral right" seems confused to me more generally, maybe you have a better interpretation).
It seems to be your black box. I just claim the right to withhold information - and am not thereby deluded or hypocritical. (I am deluded and hypocritical in completely different ways.)
It isn't language I use by preference, even if I am occasionally willing to go along with it when others are using it. I presented my rejection as a personal assertion for that reason. While I don't personally place much stock in objectively phrased morality I can certainly go along with the game of claiming social rights.
Only if dogs have five legs if you call a tail a leg.
Optimising your decisions so that other people will form less accurate beliefs can only be legitimately construed as dishonest if you say or otherwise communicate that it is your intention to produce accurate beliefs.
That is how I feel.
Now I've thought more about it, if there's nothing in the agreement about suicide being intended at the time of application, then I think you're right.
I think of insurance policies as having clauses in about revealing any information that might affect the likelihood of a claim, but I can understand why that might not apply to life insurance policies.