RobbBB comments on A critique of effective altruism - Less Wrong

64 Post author: benkuhn 02 December 2013 04:53PM

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Comment author: RobbBB 02 December 2013 05:51:56PM *  1 point [-]

(a form of status signalling to one's own ego)

I don't understand what this means. How does one signal to one's 'ego'? What information is being conveyed, and to whom?

Effective altruists claim to really care about doing good with their donations, but theirs could be just a form of status signalling

These could both be true at different explanatory levels. What are we taking to be the site of 'really caring'? The person's conscious desires? The person's conscious volition and decision-making? The person's actions and results?

Difficulties in distinguishing supererogatory actions from morally required actions

What's the import of the distinction? Presumably we should treat actions as obligatory when that makes the world a better place, and as non-obligatory but praiseworthy when that makes the world a better place. Does there need to be a fact of the matter about how mad morality will be at you if you don't help people?

Take two otherwise as-identical-as-possible worlds, and make everything obligatory in one world, nothing obligatory in the other. What physical or psychological change distinguishes the two?

Comment author: V_V 02 December 2013 06:07:52PM *  4 points [-]

I don't understand what this means. How does one signal to one's 'ego'? What information is being conveyed, and to whom?

I'm talking about self-deception, essentially. A perfectly rational agent would not be able to do that, but people aren't perfectly rational agents, and they are capable of self deception, and sometimes they do that deliberately, sometimes it is unconscious. Wishful thinking and Confirmation bias are instances of this.

These could both be true at different explanatory levels. What are we taking to be the site of 'really caring'? The person's conscious desires? The person's conscious volition and decision-making? The person's actions and results?

Consider Revealed preferences. Are someone's actions more consistent with their stated goals or with status seeking and signalling?

What's the import of the distinction? Presumably we should treat actions as obligatory when that makes the world a better place, and as non-obligatory but praiseworthy when that makes the world a better place.

I'm not sure I can follow you here. This looks like circular reasoning.

Comment author: benkuhn 02 December 2013 08:50:23PM 3 points [-]

I'm not sure I can follow you here. This looks like circular reasoning.

I'm not sure what RobBB meant, but something like this, perhaps:

Utilitarianism doesn't have fundamental concepts of "obligatory" or "supererogatory", only "more good" and "less good". A utilitarian saying "X is obligatory but Y is supererogatory" unpacks to "I'm going to be more annoyed/moralize more/cooperate less at you if you fail to do X than if you fail to do Y". A utilitarian can pick a strategy for which things to get annoyed/moralize/be uncooperative about according to which strategy maximizes utility.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 02 December 2013 06:00:19PM 1 point [-]

How does one signal to one's 'ego'? What information is being conveyed, and to whom?

Praising and blaming oneself seems a ubiquitous feature of life to me...but then I am starting from an observation, not from a theory of how egos work.

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