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Dorikka comments on Social ethics vs decision theory - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (33)
I think that such a topic for discussion would be best introduced by proposing a reason why discussing it would be useful for us. Discussing optimal strategies for pursuing utility functions is useful to us for obvious reasons -- why do you suggest we should talk about "the social meaning of ethics?"
I am curious about how best to model utilitarianism. Several possible models spring to mind:
One is that it is a signalling device: selfishness is bad, utilitarianism is ultimate unselfishness - and so it signals goodness.
Another is that it is a manipulation device. Some utilitarianism advocates run causes that benefit from donations.
Another point of interest is exactly how bad utilitarianism is for the individual. One might think - like many memetic hijckings - it would typically lead to sterility. However, the famous utilitarian Peter Singer - for example - is married, with three daughters and three grandchildren. Similarly, Yudkowsky's fastest possible escape route wound up landing him a girlfriend. What gives? Is talking about helping others actually just a thinly-veiled way of helping yourself?
There are a lot of different sorts of utilitarianism, and I'm not sure that all of them would lead to choosing not to have children. What's your line of thought that utilitarianism would lead to sterility?
Also, it wouldn't surprise me if many people who call themselves utilitarians actually mean they're more utilitarian than most people rather than that they're absolutely utilitarian. People (especially non-geeks) are very good at resilience in the face of memes.
Signaling might be even cruder and stupider than you imagine. How about "it's better to sound as though one has a highly intellectual system of ethics"?
If you have a choice between feeding your kids and feeding someone elses, usually the other person's needs will be greater than your own. Even if you want to make more utilitarians, much the same applies.
More generally, the "memetic hijcking" model diverts resources from genes to memes - often leading to compromised fertility.
Something like that probably explains a lot of interest in morality in general. There are also things like: look how much time I have to spend on things not involving finding my next meal.
Are you talking about "assigning everyone's welfare equal utility" utilitarianism or "models one's world-state preferences and subjective preferences using a utility function?" I think that you could be the latter and a complete egoist at the same time. (I am the latter, not the former.)
As tim pointed out, 'the latter' just isn't utilitarianism. It is a different brand of consequentialism. Utilitarianism itself is a mixture of obviously stupid and kind of evil (to the extent that it is taken seriously).
That is what the dictionary says "utilitarianism" means. See the "summed among all sentient beings" bit.
It would be nice if "utilitarianism" meant that - but it usually doesn't.
We have to call that sort of system "utility-based" at the moment. Come the revolution...
Many around here would call that "consequentialism".
Mmkay; I yield to the dictionary.
Maybe because it could help us figure out how to better manipulate the system? Or maybe some of us would just find it interesting? I don't have any particular reason to believe that such a discussion would be useful, but as I couldn't think of any compelling argument that it could not be useful, it seemed at least worth bringing up, if not necessarily worth following through on.