A reasonable process seems to be: Determine whether the neighbor would do a similar thing for you (or stranger in a similar situation) out of niceness using your highly advanced social modeling software and past experience with them, and mimic their expected answer. Co-operate by default if you have not enough information to simulate them accurately.
The rude/not rude thing is useful as a hint about whether they would agree to do something beyond basic requirements if they were on the other side.
Thus incentivising people to do nice things for each other. If they fake a lot of special needs, they better go out of their way to prove they'll help other people with them.
Co-operate as default if you don't have a good read on whether the other person is co-operative is included in my suggestion, is that not enough for it to feel non-aggressive to you? Tit-for-tat, with co-operate first turn. If they come in at you sufficiently rudely without giving a chance for a reasonable request, you can take that as them playing defect preemptively.
And it's not specifically expected reciprocation I'd look for, but whether the person would be as helpful to a person in general if they were on the other side of the situation.
This is basically just the Coase Theorem. What Coase made clear is that externalities are fundamentally symmetrical; allowing the neighbour (Clarisse?) to have the peace and quiet she wants means that A cannot play the music at the volume she wants, and vice-versa. The "ethical duties," at least in a normal sense, are symmetrical too; why is A obliged to put up with quiet music for C's benefit? Why isn't C obliged to put up with loud music for A's benefit? Indeed, one of the examples cited in Coase's original paper was a confectioner's machine causing shaking in a doctor's surgery, which is essentially analogous to this.
Let's get down to brass tacks. If C doesn't want A to play music so loud, but it's A's right to do so, why should A oblige? What is in it for A? That doesn't mean C necessarily has to make some monetary payment, but is C going to (say) bake cookies for A? Or at the very least, can C credibly promise likely future benefits for A from good-neighbourliness, etc? And note that those benefits need to be greater than the utility A gets from playing the music at such a volume.
On a practical level, I would ask - what is the relationship like between A and C? Is C ...
Interesting question. Not sure I agree with the premise, in that certainly where I live, I don't think there is a clear objective line of acceptable noise dictated by 'social norms'. I'd say that the social expectation should and does include reference to others' preferences and your own situation.
So if someone has a reason to dislike noise, you make more effort to avoid noise. But on the other hand, you're more tolerant of noise if, e.g. someone's just had a baby, than if they just like playing TV at maximum volume. Bit of give and take and all that.
Basic...
The answer can simply be expressed as "don't feed the utility monster". Someone who claims that noise which brings a little utility to you causes an unusually great loss in utility to them, so their gain in utility from you not making the noise is greater than your gain from making the noise, is a step towards being a utility monster.
People demanding you do things because of social justice is the classic real-life case of feeding utility monsters.
The standard concept of compassion is that it's something that people feel. It's not primarily about action but about a mental state.
People with higher empathy usually feel more compassion.
In general I prefer to have friends with high empathy. At the same time I also prefer friends who are clear about their emotional needs and desire and willing to stand for them.
Basically if Alice is a compassionate human being she has a desire not to cause other people to suffer. She might also have a desire to hear her music at a certain loudness. I would expect Alice...
I agree that compassion is a feeling, not a behavior. But it seems that in the modern world, ethical norms have changed. In the past they have been more norms-based, rule-based, today it is more like people are expected to figure out of how each other feel and act in a way to make each other feel good. This is precisely the point of the survey here. A few generations ago, speech was regulated by strict norms of etiquette, and basically people were both expected to talk in a way that conforms to them and also not not feel offended as long as the speech of the other person was within the rules. Today, there are hardly any rules to etiquette, people can call their boss on his first name yet it seems today you are expected to figure out what offends others personally and avoid it.
My point is, that probably we need a new word.
We need a word that roughly means "behavior norms that are not based on rules but on expecting people to be guided by compassion".
We could try to call it empathiquette, i.e. unlike old etiquette, which had formal rules, it is more about an onus to use empathy in every case.
...People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is a
Had a similar situation in college. The fellow in the next room enjoyed having loud sex with his girlfriend at night. The walls were thin enough that I would sometimes have trouble falling asleep through the noise, and we ended up reaching a compromise wherein they'd have loud sex during the day and I'd just have to deal with it. He could have very well argued that he had the right to have sex with his girlfriend and refused to budge, but rather than lead to a solution that sort of approach would have fostered mutual resentment, possible escalation, and an...
Yet the neighbor is still complaining and wants her to turn it down, claiming that she (the neighbor) is unusually sensitive to noise due to some kind of ear or mental condition.
Delicate Daisy should buy ear plugs.
Alice is playing by the rules.
Daisy has a problem, which you correctly point out, won't particularly be solved by Alice stifling herself.
But Daisy doesn't execute any agency to solve her own problems, she doesn't request a favor from Alice, she instead complains. She feels entitled to complain to someone playing by the rules.
One can wonde...
This reads like quite a lot of bile towards a hypothetical person who doesn't like loud music.
You don't know what the neighbour's tried, you're putting a lot of weight on the word 'complained', which can cover a range of different approaches, and you're speculating about her nefarious motivations.
In my experience with neighbours, co-workers, generally other people, it's best to assume that people aren't being dicks unless you have positive reasons to think they are. And to lean towards accommodation.
To Bob, I would point out that:
Contrary to C, it is easy to prove that you have an ear or mental condition that makes you sensitive to noise; a note from a doctor or something suffices.
Contrary to D, in case such a condition exists, "toughening up and growing a thicker skin" is not actually a possible response. In some cases, it appears that loud noises make the condition worse. Even when this is not the case, random exposure to noises at the whim of the environment doesn't help.
I realize that you are appealing to a metaphor, but I think that these points often apply to the unmetaphored things as well.
Even if Alice is legally within her rights to use that volume, she's exposed to quickly losing reputation points in the entire building because she doesn't consider the consequences her actions have on other people. Apart from those who happen to like her music, most of her neighbors will find it harder to trust her in the future.
Bob should suggest that the neighbour should write down the maximum amount she's willing to pay for Alice to stop playing her music (without Alice watching), Alice should write down the minimum amount she's willing to accept to stop playing music (without the neighbour watching), and if the latter amount equals or exceeds the former the neighbour should give the arithmetic mean of the two to Alice and Alice should stop playing and learn to live with it or buy headphones or go live somewhere else, otherwise Alice will keep playing and the neighbour should l...
In all fairness though, your scenario suffers from an continunity problem. Did the neighbor pop out of nowhere? I'll go on that possibility because there's a severe continunity problem if not. I'll mention one continunity issue is that the neighbor doens't have to deal only with your music - there's plenty of other things they'd need to avoid. Washing the dishes? Taking a shower? Playing their own music? There's simply too many things that produce a strong enough sound that your music would be equal if not lower than what the...
In a more ideal case, I think that it's not the individual's responsibility to take care of unusually sensitive people, but the group as a whole.
well within what is allowed by the regulations or social norms.
Then the regulations or social norms are wrong for the real people they're supposed to help and should take the variance of sensitivity into account. Though if that has already been done and someone complains even after the norms have been calculated with kindness, I'd say you are under no obligation to help.
On the flip side, if you're the sensitiv...
Poll 2 The neighbor yells "fuck your noise". Bob argues that Alice should not turn down the volume now, as we seen above there is no ethical duty, and such a rude person deserves no favor. [pollid:851]
I was in this exact situation, and I chose to buy some headphones. If I analyze my decision-making process, I can come up with two reasons:
1). My own personal cost of buying and wearing headphones was much lower than the cost of having pissed-off neighbours who hate me. Obviously, YMMV.
2). My neighbours were polite, and even somewhat deferential, in their request (for me to stop playing loud music). They did not threaten me with coercion, despite the fact that they had plenty of coercion at their disposal -- they could've complained to the building manager...
I like this question. It is a lot less intimidating that a lot of the other posts on this site I've seen in my short time being here, and I feel I can actually contribute using only my philosophy and ability to express myself in the English language, rather than also needing knowledge on other constructs.
In my opinion, emotion starts and ends with the mind, so the notion that for instance a specific human's emotion can exist outside of their mind is completely asinine. As such, listening to music in reality, in itself, is total redundancy. It is not mandat...
When making polls it's useful to have a "Neither" option.
When you want to learn something new, it's useful to expect that some people responses don't fall into the categories you can think of beforehand.
Quick thoughts:
In the US, the federal RFRA law (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) actually has a quasi-relevant test here. RFRA was passed when a ban on certain kinds of drugs kept Native Americans from using peyote in religious rituals, and Congress decided it wanted to re-balance how religious people could seek relief if a law wound up hampering their religious practice. The law wasn't supposed to become a blank check, but it was supposed to give a way to carve out exemptions to neutrally written law (a la Alice doing the "normal" thing without specificall...
Meta: this could do with more clarity about whether the expected answer is at the individual or societal level.
ETA
) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.
For what value of should? If you are trying to rationally motivate a system of ethics then you should (instrumentality, in order to get the job done) make it symmetrical and reciprocal. However , a de facto system of rationality can be motivate in a number of ways, including fear of punishment.
I am of the opinion that everyone always acts in their own self-interest and that pure altruism is a myth. People (including myself) like to think that they are much more virtuous than they actually are. A simple example: would you give your own dinner to a hungry child that is not related to you if you haven't eaten in 14 days? Probably not. Why? The personal need for food outweighs the good feeling that you would give yourself for helping a child that is not related to you. It's an ugly thought but much more realistic than the thought of a starving pers...
My hidden secret goal is to understand the sentiments behind social justice better, however I will refrain from asking questions that directly relate to it, as they can be mind-killers, instead, I have constructed an entirely apolitical, and probably safe thought experiment involving a common everyday problem that shouldn't be incisive.
Alice is living in an apartment, she is listening to music. The volume of her music is well within what is allowed by the regulations or social norms. Yet the neighbor is still complaining and wants her to turn it down, claiming that she (the neighbor) is unusually sensitive to noise due to some kind of ear or mental condition.
Bob, Alice's friend is also present, and he makes a case that while she can turn it down basically out of niceness or neighborliness, this level of kindness is going far beyond the requirements of duty, and should be considered a favor, because she has no ethical duty to turn it down, for the following reasons.
1) Her volume level of music is usual, it is the sensitivity level of the neighbor that is unusual, and we are under no duty to cater to every special need of others.
2) In other words, it is okay to cause suffering to others as long as it is a usual, common, accepted thing to do that would not cause suffering to a typical person.
The reasons for this are
A) It would be too hard to do otherwise, to cater to every special need, in this case it is easy, but not in all cases, so this is no general principle.
B/1) It would not help the other person much, if the other person is unusually sensitive, the problem would not be fixed by one person catering to them. A hundred people should cater to it, after all there are many sources of noise in the neighborhood.
B/2) In other words, if you are unusually rude, reducing it to usual levels of rudeness is efficient, because by that one move you made a lot of people content. But if you are already on the usual levels of rudeness and an unusually sensitive person is still suffering, further reduction is less efficient because you are only one of the many sources of their suffering. And these people are few anyway.
C) Special needs are easy to fake.
D) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.
Polls in comments below
Please explain your view in the comments.