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Gabriel comments on The Power of Reinforcement - Less Wrong
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I find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it's manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
It strikes me as similar to saying that hurting people is OK as long as I don't know I'm hurting them. No, it isn't. If hurting people is not OK, then it follows that I ought not hurt people, and learning to recognize when I'm hurting people is part of that, and I ought to learn to recognize it. The behavior doesn't suddenly become "not OK" the moment I learn to recognize it... it never was OK, and now I know it and can improve.
Conversely, if hurting people is OK, then it's OK whether I know I'm doing it or not.
The same goes for manipulating people. Whether I know I'm doing it or not isn't the determiner of whether I'm doing good or ill.
To my mind, the determiner of whether I'm doing good or ill is whether, when I'm done doing it, we're all better off or worse off.
Awareness of side effects isn't equivalent to intentionality. You can thank someone to express genuine feelings of gratitude. If you wouldn't do that in a counterfactual world in which the gratitude was absent, then I wouldn't call that behavior intentionally manipulative regardless of whether you know about positive reinforcement.
Suppose I am not in the habit of expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me. Never mind why... maybe I was raised wrong. For whatever reason, I'm not in that habit. I feel gratitude, certainly, I just don't express it.
Then one Monday, I learn that expressing gratitude to people for doing nice things for me will increase the odds that they will do it again. Suppose I want people to do nice things for me, and I therefore conclude that I ought to expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, in order to get them to do it more, and I therefore start expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, whether I feel gratitude or not.
Then on Wednesday, I learn that this only works when I genuinely do feel gratitude... when I express gratitude I don't actually feel, I get bad results. (Again, it doesn't matter why. Maybe I'm a lousy liar.) So I stop expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me when I don't feel gratitude, but I continue doing so when I do, since that still gets me stuff I want.
If I've understood you correctly, you would call me intentionally manipulative on Tuesday, but not on Thursday. I'm happy to restrict the term "intentionally manipulative" to Tuesday behavior and not Thursday behavior, if that makes communication easier, though I don't use those words that way myself.
Regardless of what words we use, presumably we agree that on both Tuesday and Thursday, I am doing something with the intention of causing changes in other people's behavior, and am doing so without their awareness or consent. Yes?
Do you endorse this on Tuesday?
Do you endorse this on Thursday?
For my own part, I find the idea of endorsing that behavior on Thursday but not on Tuesday deeply troubling, for many of the reasons I listed before.
Obvious remark is obvious: you might disapprove of the behavior on Tuesday because it involves lying.