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skeptical_lurker comments on Non-standard politics - Less Wrong
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Its a nice idea, although when making decisions regarding the live and death of many people, an empathic person might simply shut down, so it might be good to include some more dispassionate people who can shut up and multiply.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure there exist tests that can measure these things without being faked. Maybe you could measure empathy by looking at oxytocin levels? But more oxytocin=more empathy is a huge simplification.
Do you have any good ideas for a goal/empathy/altruism/duty test?
I think you're right that the relationship is complex and you probably wouldn't want to optimise just around empathy/altruism. In particular highly empathetic people can sometimes run into problems with cognitive bias around large abstract concepts or numbers. I'm guessing there might be a "sweet spot" for leaders of having enough empathy to want to do the right thing, but not to be overwhelmed by emotion and unable to make difficult decisions.
I'm very interested in possiblities for that sort of test, but it could be tough finding something that can't be gamed. Perhaps some research looking at a range of candidates for (perhaps multivariant) correlations with morally good and effective leadership decisions needs to be done. Actually... surely someone would have done that... though I haven't run into it so far...
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn't easy.
A good idea might be to have a mix of cognitive styles so that you can approach a problem from different sides. Of course, you need to be able to decide between these different viewpoints, otherwise you just create arguements.
The first problem is to identify morally good and effective leadership decisions. This isn't easy.
Yes that's a fairly good point and I don't know any easy way around it either. Looking in the world of business, government, politics etc etc. would be a matter of fairly subjective ideas about moral goodness.
I suppose you could formulate an approach along the lines of experimental psychology, where you could deliberately design experiments with clearcut good/bad group outcomes. So get a bunch of people to be leaders in an experiment where their goal was to minimise their group members (including themselves) getting hit in the head with something unpleasant, build-in some selfish vs unselfish options, and then look at the correlations between leadership behaviours and oxytocin or whatever else you wanted to measure as an input. With a robust range of experiments you could perhaps develop something broadly useful.
I don't think that's the case. EQ seems to make people both empathic and also able to keep a clear head when it comes to tough decisions.