22 ms·

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics

137 points by ggreer 11y ago

mercurial 11y ago
Oh, good grief. The article is a list of cases where the "improvement" provided by a given group is most often characterized as "taking advantage of someone else when they are in a difficult situation".
- witty_username 11y ago
  But the "improvements" aren't really harming anybody that much, it's not like Scientology or something.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  Thats their point: it is most often (incorrectly) characterised as "taking advantage of some else when they are in a difficult situation". In all cases the people involved could simply choose not to take the offer, and be no worse of. They didn't, so presumably they would be better of taking the offer, regardless of what we think.
  - mercurial 11y ago
    Take the PETA case: their "improvement" is something that these families would not agree to do if they were not in this situation (most likely). Or surge pricing: the net effect is pricing out people with a lower income, while there are other, more fair solutions to the problem. > In all cases the people involved could simply choose not to take the offer, and be no worse of. That's the same kind of logic which gets you social advances like zero-hour contracts.
    - ggreer 11y ago
      You are falling victim to the moral illusion described by the article. Every case was an improvement upon the status quo, yet you criticize PETA and Uber as if they made things worse. Helping a little (even if you benefit) is better than not helping at all.
      - millstone 11y ago
        Should we avoid criticizing brutal dictatorships because they are an improvement over anarchy? With 25 thousand facing water shutoffs, PETA offered help for up to ten people - technically an improvement on the status quo. But they also inserted their own agenda, diverting attention from Detroit's poverty and unemployment issues to the ethics of using animal products. This is definitely a worse outcome for the remaining 25k - 10 Detroit residents. It's fair to consider PETA's hijacking of the issue as a cost imposed on those affected by it.
        ggreer 11y ago
        > Should we avoid criticizing brutal dictatorships because they are an improvement over anarchy? No, and only an incredibly uncharitable reading of my comment could suggest otherwise. What is it about this topic that makes people go crazy? The examples in the article involved: donating to the homeless, paying people's water bills, and taxi pricing. The comments here have brought up slavery, selling drugs to addicts, and avoiding criticism of brutal dictatorships. Please, try to retain a sense of proportion. It could be argued that outrage over PETA brought more attention to the problems of Detroit. I didn't know about the water shutoff until my Facebook feed was full of PETA hate. But it doesn't matter. People didn't get angry at PETA for "diverting attention." They got angry at PETA because PETA only helped a little bit.
      - mercurial 11y ago
        It's more complicated than that. If you look at the "local" outcome of the situation, both participants benefit. However, if this spreads and becomes the "new normal" (eg, zero-hour contracts), this can result in a net diminution of social good compared to alternative outcomes where employers would have offered better terms to their employees. I think that's the issue people have with this kind of "improvement".
        TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        Exactly. This is a "thin end of the wedge" argument. If you agree that certain actions can be moral in limited circumstances, you also agree to support the moral logic they're based on, on principle - even if that moral logic does huge harm elsewhere. It's a superficially clever rhetorical argument, but it's not a very moral one. If you're a poor person, you don't want to be in situation where PETA are offering to interfere in your life to make a political point - you want to be in a situation where you're not poor in the first place. There's no point saying that bandaids can stop people bleeding and people who don't want to use them are bad, if you don't address why there are flesh wounds everywhere you look. Are bandaids better than nothing? They are. But there are still people trying to fix the flesh wounds. Does the author support them, or not?
    - slackson 11y ago
      So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in? All offers and trades are contingent on the circumstances someone's in - you wouldn't take a job with a $20/hour salary if you have the education and skills for something higher-paying than that, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal to offer wages of $20/hour. The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all.
      - mercurial 11y ago
        > So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in? Where does it stop? How is that morally different from a $denomination religious charity offering aid conditioned on your family joining the faith? I find that disgusting and manipulative. And that's not the worst. To take another example, it's like an insurance company offering to lower your costs in exchange for having your driving and dietary habits tracked. It's all voluntary, sure. Except that ten years later, the rest of the market has taken note and it has become mandatory. > The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all. Random assignment would be a fair outcome, where everybody gets paid, and people get a chance of getting a ride.
        golemotron 11y ago
        We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress. People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us.
        mercurial 11y ago
        > We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress. Why do you make the issue into a bizarre dilemma between freedom and fairness? > People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us. What does this have to with anything? Not everybody can have a ride in this situation. The question is only about the system you use to attribute rides.
  - kybernetikos 11y ago
    Slavery also falls under this category. People in desperate enough straits might choose it, since it guarantees them food and lodgings, yet most people have a problem with the concept. Offering jobs at less than the minimum wage is also exactly this too - people accepting those jobs are in a better position than if the jobs weren't available, yet many modern free societies have minimum wages. Selling drugs to addicts falls under this category too, since if they didn't have the drugs easily available, they might do something worse to get them, and clearly they're chosing to buy them so they must be better off having them.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      In the hypothetical that someone agreed to slavery to avoid certain death (and death that would have occurred regardless of the slave owner), then yes - the slave owner has helped the slave. The same applies to your other examples. You and I are currently paying billions of low skill workers exactly $0/hour. Why are we morally blameless, but the person offering $3/hour is a villain?
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      I think slavery is an extreme example and extreme examples are often exceptions, because, unlike your low paying job, a slave can't leave. As for addicts, in a society that didn't outlaw drugs, they wouldn't have much more trouble living a normal life than people who need coffee to function.
    - nine_k 11y ago
      Consider joining an army. By that, you're offered food, lodging, and training. You're also severely limited in what you can do, where to go, somewhat you can talk about. On top of that, you must unconditionally obey orders, even if the orders are clearly putting you in a danger of death. Should this be banned, too?
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >Consider joining an army. By that, you're offered food, lodging, and training. You're also severely limited in what you can do, where to go, somewhat you can talk about. On top of that, you must unconditionally obey orders, even if the orders are clearly putting you in a danger of death. Should this be banned, too? It should obviously be. In fact the army has a long-ass history of setting up recruiting offices and exploting the most poor and desperate with false promises and BS to go do the fighting. From Alabama and Mississipi down to Los Angeles, those recruiting offices are choke full of blacks, latinos and "white trash" sent to die (and kill) while privileged white folks enjoy their "patriotism".
  - scotty79 11y ago
    Ok. So if I approach poor women to have sex with me for money (let's say 20 bock) then I'm good and moral person because I offer them some relief from their hardships and if it wasn't beneficial for them then they'd refuse?
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      No, you are merely not evil.
  - rtpg 11y ago
    people in dire situations do not make rational decisions (hell, people not in dire situations don't either, which is why this[1] exists). [1]:http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-strategies/ http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-strategies/
- coldtea 11y ago
  Yes, and the core idea of the article is what has been used for ages to justify such "taking advantage" by pointing a the marginal improvements. Besides the ethical "taking advantage" thing (treating people in need differently that people not in need), which one might agree or disagree it exists, a core problem is that keeping those people in need is exactly what keeps this machine going. So businesses offering below minimum wage wages to people (e.g. if it's not regulated in their state), would point how these people are better off with those wages than nothing, and that they chose to accept the work because of that. But the same businesses, the politicians they lobby, and the way the vote and affect the market with their influence, also try to ensure that nothing is changed (legaly, infrastructure etc) to deplete their pool of desperate people. E.g. by advocating against minimum wage and other labor protections.
  - Sven7 11y ago
    Fully agree. All I'll add is with the tech industry "keeping people in need" happens at a scale and speed that has never happened before. Hyper efficient scaling does one thing extremely well - inequality.
MIKarlsen 11y ago
"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more." One-way street to an even more individualized society where even more teenagers and students can get stressed out.
- monochromatic 11y ago
  I don't follow.
  - MIKarlsen 11y ago
    I'm a student, and I've been unfortunate enough to experience stress first hand. Not just "Ohh, I'm so busy"-stress, but real stress. The essence of the quote is that if something is not right, it's because you did something wrong. At least that's how I read it. Most of the time during my period with stress, those were the thoughts that ruined me the most. I felt lost in my education and as a result, I blamed myself for not doing "more". I think it's a dangerous mindset to live by, as there are so many things in the world you have absolutely no control over. Not everything is fair, and if you blame yourself for your own or others failures and mistakes all the time, you will most likely run yourself down very fast. Unfortunately, I see this mindset a lot. As a student, you're the only one to blame for your failures - or so it seems in the public debate (at least where I am from). Attempting to help is noble, but in no way would I recommend anyone to try to take the problems of the world they live in on their own shoulders. TL;DR: You can't control everything. Forcing yourself into a mindset where you think you do will be your ruin.
ThomPete 11y ago
You can't look at ethics that way. The general rule about "improving things a little is better than doing nothing" would philosophically require you to take a much broader view of the improvements you think you do and see if they affect other things causally. If you do that you quickly run into problems and things become much more complex. Yet thats what you do when you look at ethics. For instance: "Now instead of having no taxis at all, people can choose between an expensive taxi or no taxi at all – a marginal improvement. Needless to say, Uber has been repeatedly lambasted for doing something instead of leaving the even-worse status quo the way it was." From the perspective of those who can afford surge pricing this is an improvement not for those who cant. Uber is planning on making cars automated, thats great for the consumer but not for those driver who suddenly find themselves out of jobs. People who helped pay for ubers automation of their fleet. The more correct "interpretation" is to not call it ethical or non-ethical. It's both correct and not correct. In other words from an ethical point of view and to stay in the quantum theoretical jargon — it's not been observed.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  I think you've correctly identified an alternate argument against surge pricing - "it's better to randomly distribute a smaller number of taxis than to allocate a larger number of taxis to people willing to pay more". I've never actually seen anyone make that argument - instead, they simply make the Copenhagen critique described in the article. If you know of someone making it, could you link to them?
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    The basic point is simply that ethics isn't a local phenomena and can't be judged in the way the essay do it at least not conclusively.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      No dispute. But the arguments this article is criticizing aren't actually making those non-local arguments. Again - can you link to an Uber critic arguing that random allocation of scarce taxi rides is better than market allocation of plentiful ones?
cousin_it 11y ago
I actually subscribe to this "Copenhagen interpretation". If you profit by making lopsided deals with people who have no other options, you still have an ethical obligation to offer more fair deals. The definition of fairness shouldn't be left up to the market, that would be a case of the is-ought fallacy (assuming that the output of some external process is ethical by definition).
- SilasX 11y ago
  Are you sure you're not equating: A) "It would be [more] ethical to offer a better deal." with B) "The person offering this deal is ethically worse than those who never interacted at all." You can endorse A) without endorsing B), and it's B that the author is criticizing (as the CIE).
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    If the deal is bad enough, I do endorse B.
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  It seems to me the examples showed instances of people who are seen interacting with a problem. The real idea there is, if nobody sees you interacting with the problem, then you get off the hook. But the thing is, merely becoming aware of a problem puts some ethical burden to solve it —or at least solve some other, more important problem. On the other hand, it would be a bit dangerous to vilify people for not doing their best. That tend to cause its own sets of problems, up to and including totalitarianism.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
As an example of the harm that this ethical theory causes, consider the YC startup Markhor. They employ shoe makers in Pakistan and treat them significantly better than other employment options - reasonable hours, higher pay, safe work places, etc. Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973 I doubt the founders of Markhor are unaware of this, they are just coldheartedly appealing to the Copenhagen ethical theories of their customers.
- mercurial 11y ago
  > Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. Is it a question of "exploitation" or is it a question of it being dangerous to their health? If it is actually dangerous for them, then it would be reasonable, IMHO, to treat this the same as when one of your employee is sick.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Even if it is dangerous to their health, is it more dangerous than the alternate options? According to the founders of Markhor, it's safer.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. How about they give her maternity leave and such? Like they would do for their non-shoe-making executives...
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    Why don't you pay for her maternity leave and such? Near as I can tell, you, me and Markhor are all in the same moral boat - none of us are paying for this hypothetical woman to sit at home enjoying pregnancy. You and I have simply never touched or interacted with her, so according to the Copenhagen theory of ethics we get a moral pass.
coldtea 11y ago
For me it's the difference between this: 1st person: These people are starving. I will treat them as I would a non-starving person, say pay them $xx/hour which I calculated is enough to build a profitable business. 2nd person: These people are starving. I will pay them the least I can get away with it, after all it's not like they have many options. Sure, I could make a profit even if I paid them 10 times that, but why go there? Fuck them, they should be grateful that they get anything instead of nothing at all. For me, the 2nd person is a jerk. I wouldn't want them anywhere near my society. Scum of the earth. And the whole "Copehangen" theory BS wants us to believe that it's either (2) or nothing -- that paying people in need the lower you can (near substinence) is the only thing possible. There are several shades between (1) and (2), but most proponents of such ideas go for the full-on (2), and then pretend they are some kind of benefactors too.
- lkbm 11y ago
  > And the whole "Copehangen" theory BS wants us to believe that it's either (2) or nothing Recognizing that disincentivising marginal improvements in behavior leads to a worse behavior is not claiming only those two behaviors exist. It's just saying that perverse incentives lead to worse outcomes.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    How about "encouranging actual improvements in behavior" instead of framing it as "disincentivising marginal improvements in behavior"?
    - Sniffnoy 11y ago
      If it results in worse behavior, then framing it as "encouraging improvements" is misleading. And if it's about encouraging improvements, then it should encourage the improvement from (3) to (2), rather than condemn it for being not (1), thereby actually encouraging (4).
      - coldtea 11y ago
gjm11 11y ago
For another excellent ethics/physics analogy, see: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/17/newtonian-ethics/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/17/newtonian-ethics/
OliverJones 11y ago
Mother Theresa said “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” I'll have the temerity to add something to her advice. Help that person anonymously if you can; it's not about you, it's about her or him. The only reason to break anonymity is if it will help to set a positive example of generosity for others. Breaking anonymity will always burn up your social capital by opening you up to public criticism of this "Copenhagen" variety. The Gates Foundation is a prominent example. They sometimes take heat for the work they choose to do. Nevertheless, they serve as a fine example of willingness to help. You want to do some good and you're busy? Tell your bank to send a monthly payment to a local feeding program. Be a reliable source of support for them, and trust them to do the right thing. And don't brag about it.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I will add to that - if you don't care about a particular person but you want to help someone in general, then pick a charity from GiveWell's list and donate to them instead. The more people do that, the quicker we'll go through problems, solving them in a cost-effective order. Your locals in need of food will have to wait a bit longer, but we'll have much more happy people who would have otherwise died from malaria.
- shaggyfrog 11y ago
  Mother Theresa was more interested in continuing and exploiting the sick than she ever was in treating their illness or helping anyone. She ran a death cult. The myth that sprung up around her has isolated her from criticism because of this principle: "Well you've done nothing, but she did something, therefore, because whatever she did is automatically preferable."
powera 11y ago
My (not-so-charitable) interpretation of their position: Sometimes being a jerk and helping a little is the best way to help people. Therefore, you can always be a jerk and only help people a little. I'm obviously committing a logical fallacy, but I think they are as well. Sometimes when you do something, there are negative consequences as well as positive ones. And if you aggressively count the positive ones and ignore the negative ones, you really aren't helping.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I think your interpretation here is missing the same point most of critical comments here are - the article is not advocating generalizing doing a little as a global moral axiom. Instead, the article is concerned about the problem people (unconsciously) subscribing to Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics cause - by criticizing everyone who does a little (thus inteacting with the problem) instead of not doing anything at all, they're creating an atmosphere where someone who wants to help will be afraid their help will not be enough and will trigger criticism, so it's more likely they'll choose to ignore the opportunity to do good. It's not "doing little" vs. "doing a lot", but "doing as much as we can" vs. "not doing anything, because 'as much as we can' won't be enough to avoid the hate".
shaggyfrog 11y ago
This article really stuck in my craw. Making homeless people into wireless hotspots is such a bad example. It's patronizing at best and dehumanizing at worst. So just because someone gave them $20 doesn't mean it's automatically better than doing nothing.
ggreer 11y ago
In hindsight, I regret submitting this link. The article itself was interesting, but the discussion here was abysmal. Next to the comment box on Jai's blog, there is a gentle reminder: "Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" I'm sure the quality of HN comments could be improved by adding the same message.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

137 points by ggreer 11y ago

Oh, good grief. The article is a list of cases where the "improvement" provided by a given group is most often characterized as "taking advantage of someone else when they are in a difficult situation".

witty_username 11y ago
But the "improvements" aren't really harming anybody that much, it's not like Scientology or something.
tomjen3 11y ago
Thats their point: it is most often (incorrectly) characterised as "taking advantage of some else when they are in a difficult situation". In all cases the people involved could simply choose not to take the offer, and be no worse of. They didn't, so presumably they would be better of taking the offer, regardless of what we think.
- mercurial 11y ago
  Take the PETA case: their "improvement" is something that these families would not agree to do if they were not in this situation (most likely). Or surge pricing: the net effect is pricing out people with a lower income, while there are other, more fair solutions to the problem. > In all cases the people involved could simply choose not to take the offer, and be no worse of. That's the same kind of logic which gets you social advances like zero-hour contracts.
  - ggreer 11y ago
    You are falling victim to the moral illusion described by the article. Every case was an improvement upon the status quo, yet you criticize PETA and Uber as if they made things worse. Helping a little (even if you benefit) is better than not helping at all.
    - millstone 11y ago
      Should we avoid criticizing brutal dictatorships because they are an improvement over anarchy? With 25 thousand facing water shutoffs, PETA offered help for up to ten people - technically an improvement on the status quo. But they also inserted their own agenda, diverting attention from Detroit's poverty and unemployment issues to the ethics of using animal products. This is definitely a worse outcome for the remaining 25k - 10 Detroit residents. It's fair to consider PETA's hijacking of the issue as a cost imposed on those affected by it.
      - ggreer 11y ago
        > Should we avoid criticizing brutal dictatorships because they are an improvement over anarchy? No, and only an incredibly uncharitable reading of my comment could suggest otherwise. What is it about this topic that makes people go crazy? The examples in the article involved: donating to the homeless, paying people's water bills, and taxi pricing. The comments here have brought up slavery, selling drugs to addicts, and avoiding criticism of brutal dictatorships. Please, try to retain a sense of proportion. It could be argued that outrage over PETA brought more attention to the problems of Detroit. I didn't know about the water shutoff until my Facebook feed was full of PETA hate. But it doesn't matter. People didn't get angry at PETA for "diverting attention." They got angry at PETA because PETA only helped a little bit.
    - mercurial 11y ago
      It's more complicated than that. If you look at the "local" outcome of the situation, both participants benefit. However, if this spreads and becomes the "new normal" (eg, zero-hour contracts), this can result in a net diminution of social good compared to alternative outcomes where employers would have offered better terms to their employees. I think that's the issue people have with this kind of "improvement".
      - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
        Exactly. This is a "thin end of the wedge" argument. If you agree that certain actions can be moral in limited circumstances, you also agree to support the moral logic they're based on, on principle - even if that moral logic does huge harm elsewhere. It's a superficially clever rhetorical argument, but it's not a very moral one. If you're a poor person, you don't want to be in situation where PETA are offering to interfere in your life to make a political point - you want to be in a situation where you're not poor in the first place. There's no point saying that bandaids can stop people bleeding and people who don't want to use them are bad, if you don't address why there are flesh wounds everywhere you look. Are bandaids better than nothing? They are. But there are still people trying to fix the flesh wounds. Does the author support them, or not?
  - slackson 11y ago
    So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in? All offers and trades are contingent on the circumstances someone's in - you wouldn't take a job with a $20/hour salary if you have the education and skills for something higher-paying than that, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal to offer wages of $20/hour. The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all.
    - mercurial 11y ago
      > So what if the PETA case offers a deal that is accepted under the circumstances those families are actually in? Where does it stop? How is that morally different from a $denomination religious charity offering aid conditioned on your family joining the faith? I find that disgusting and manipulative. And that's not the worst. To take another example, it's like an insurance company offering to lower your costs in exchange for having your driving and dietary habits tracked. It's all voluntary, sure. Except that ten years later, the rest of the market has taken note and it has become mandatory. > The "more fair" solutions to the problem of surge pricing involve either Uber themselves paying out of pocket, drivers not receiving fair compensation, or neglecting to tackle the problem at all. Random assignment would be a fair outcome, where everybody gets paid, and people get a chance of getting a ride.
      - golemotron 11y ago
        We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress. People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us.
        mercurial 11y ago
        > We keep trying to make a world that is completely fair but as long as we have freedom it won't be. I think it's more important to have freedom because it drives progress. Why do you make the issue into a bizarre dilemma between freedom and fairness? > People don't want a chance at a ride, they want a ride. And that desire is the fuel that drives us. What does this have to with anything? Not everybody can have a ride in this situation. The question is only about the system you use to attribute rides.
- kybernetikos 11y ago
  Slavery also falls under this category. People in desperate enough straits might choose it, since it guarantees them food and lodgings, yet most people have a problem with the concept. Offering jobs at less than the minimum wage is also exactly this too - people accepting those jobs are in a better position than if the jobs weren't available, yet many modern free societies have minimum wages. Selling drugs to addicts falls under this category too, since if they didn't have the drugs easily available, they might do something worse to get them, and clearly they're chosing to buy them so they must be better off having them.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    In the hypothetical that someone agreed to slavery to avoid certain death (and death that would have occurred regardless of the slave owner), then yes - the slave owner has helped the slave. The same applies to your other examples. You and I are currently paying billions of low skill workers exactly $0/hour. Why are we morally blameless, but the person offering $3/hour is a villain?
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    I think slavery is an extreme example and extreme examples are often exceptions, because, unlike your low paying job, a slave can't leave. As for addicts, in a society that didn't outlaw drugs, they wouldn't have much more trouble living a normal life than people who need coffee to function.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    Consider joining an army. By that, you're offered food, lodging, and training. You're also severely limited in what you can do, where to go, somewhat you can talk about. On top of that, you must unconditionally obey orders, even if the orders are clearly putting you in a danger of death. Should this be banned, too?
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >Consider joining an army. By that, you're offered food, lodging, and training. You're also severely limited in what you can do, where to go, somewhat you can talk about. On top of that, you must unconditionally obey orders, even if the orders are clearly putting you in a danger of death. Should this be banned, too? It should obviously be. In fact the army has a long-ass history of setting up recruiting offices and exploting the most poor and desperate with false promises and BS to go do the fighting. From Alabama and Mississipi down to Los Angeles, those recruiting offices are choke full of blacks, latinos and "white trash" sent to die (and kill) while privileged white folks enjoy their "patriotism".
- scotty79 11y ago
  Ok. So if I approach poor women to have sex with me for money (let's say 20 bock) then I'm good and moral person because I offer them some relief from their hardships and if it wasn't beneficial for them then they'd refuse?
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    No, you are merely not evil.
- rtpg 11y ago
  people in dire situations do not make rational decisions (hell, people not in dire situations don't either, which is why this[1] exists). [1]:http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-strategies/ http://www.nickkolenda.com/psychological-pricing-strategies/
coldtea 11y ago
Yes, and the core idea of the article is what has been used for ages to justify such "taking advantage" by pointing a the marginal improvements. Besides the ethical "taking advantage" thing (treating people in need differently that people not in need), which one might agree or disagree it exists, a core problem is that keeping those people in need is exactly what keeps this machine going. So businesses offering below minimum wage wages to people (e.g. if it's not regulated in their state), would point how these people are better off with those wages than nothing, and that they chose to accept the work because of that. But the same businesses, the politicians they lobby, and the way the vote and affect the market with their influence, also try to ensure that nothing is changed (legaly, infrastructure etc) to deplete their pool of desperate people. E.g. by advocating against minimum wage and other labor protections.
- Sven7 11y ago
  Fully agree. All I'll add is with the tech industry "keeping people in need" happens at a scale and speed that has never happened before. Hyper efficient scaling does one thing extremely well - inequality.

MIKarlsen 11y ago

"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more." One-way street to an even more individualized society where even more teenagers and students can get stressed out.

monochromatic 11y ago
I don't follow.
- MIKarlsen 11y ago
  I'm a student, and I've been unfortunate enough to experience stress first hand. Not just "Ohh, I'm so busy"-stress, but real stress. The essence of the quote is that if something is not right, it's because you did something wrong. At least that's how I read it. Most of the time during my period with stress, those were the thoughts that ruined me the most. I felt lost in my education and as a result, I blamed myself for not doing "more". I think it's a dangerous mindset to live by, as there are so many things in the world you have absolutely no control over. Not everything is fair, and if you blame yourself for your own or others failures and mistakes all the time, you will most likely run yourself down very fast. Unfortunately, I see this mindset a lot. As a student, you're the only one to blame for your failures - or so it seems in the public debate (at least where I am from). Attempting to help is noble, but in no way would I recommend anyone to try to take the problems of the world they live in on their own shoulders. TL;DR: You can't control everything. Forcing yourself into a mindset where you think you do will be your ruin.

ThomPete 11y ago

You can't look at ethics that way. The general rule about "improving things a little is better than doing nothing" would philosophically require you to take a much broader view of the improvements you think you do and see if they affect other things causally. If you do that you quickly run into problems and things become much more complex. Yet thats what you do when you look at ethics. For instance: "Now instead of having no taxis at all, people can choose between an expensive taxi or no taxi at all – a marginal improvement. Needless to say, Uber has been repeatedly lambasted for doing something instead of leaving the even-worse status quo the way it was." From the perspective of those who can afford surge pricing this is an improvement not for those who cant. Uber is planning on making cars automated, thats great for the consumer but not for those driver who suddenly find themselves out of jobs. People who helped pay for ubers automation of their fleet. The more correct "interpretation" is to not call it ethical or non-ethical. It's both correct and not correct. In other words from an ethical point of view and to stay in the quantum theoretical jargon — it's not been observed.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
I think you've correctly identified an alternate argument against surge pricing - "it's better to randomly distribute a smaller number of taxis than to allocate a larger number of taxis to people willing to pay more". I've never actually seen anyone make that argument - instead, they simply make the Copenhagen critique described in the article. If you know of someone making it, could you link to them?
- ThomPete 11y ago
  The basic point is simply that ethics isn't a local phenomena and can't be judged in the way the essay do it at least not conclusively.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    No dispute. But the arguments this article is criticizing aren't actually making those non-local arguments. Again - can you link to an Uber critic arguing that random allocation of scarce taxi rides is better than market allocation of plentiful ones?

cousin_it 11y ago

I actually subscribe to this "Copenhagen interpretation". If you profit by making lopsided deals with people who have no other options, you still have an ethical obligation to offer more fair deals. The definition of fairness shouldn't be left up to the market, that would be a case of the is-ought fallacy (assuming that the output of some external process is ethical by definition).

SilasX 11y ago
Are you sure you're not equating: A) "It would be [more] ethical to offer a better deal." with B) "The person offering this deal is ethically worse than those who never interacted at all." You can endorse A) without endorsing B), and it's B that the author is criticizing (as the CIE).
- cousin_it 11y ago
  If the deal is bad enough, I do endorse B.
loup-vaillant 11y ago
It seems to me the examples showed instances of people who are seen interacting with a problem. The real idea there is, if nobody sees you interacting with the problem, then you get off the hook. But the thing is, merely becoming aware of a problem puts some ethical burden to solve it —or at least solve some other, more important problem. On the other hand, it would be a bit dangerous to vilify people for not doing their best. That tend to cause its own sets of problems, up to and including totalitarianism.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

As an example of the harm that this ethical theory causes, consider the YC startup Markhor. They employ shoe makers in Pakistan and treat them significantly better than other employment options - reasonable hours, higher pay, safe work places, etc. Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973 I doubt the founders of Markhor are unaware of this, they are just coldheartedly appealing to the Copenhagen ethical theories of their customers.

mercurial 11y ago
> Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. Is it a question of "exploitation" or is it a question of it being dangerous to their health? If it is actually dangerous for them, then it would be reasonable, IMHO, to treat this the same as when one of your employee is sick.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Even if it is dangerous to their health, is it more dangerous than the alternate options? According to the founders of Markhor, it's safer.
coldtea 11y ago
>Also, when a woman becomes pregnant Markhor will fire her so as not to "exploit" her, thereby making it necessary for her to work unreasonable hours for lower pay in a more unsafe workplace. How about they give her maternity leave and such? Like they would do for their non-shoe-making executives...
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Why don't you pay for her maternity leave and such? Near as I can tell, you, me and Markhor are all in the same moral boat - none of us are paying for this hypothetical woman to sit at home enjoying pregnancy. You and I have simply never touched or interacted with her, so according to the Copenhagen theory of ethics we get a moral pass.

coldtea 11y ago

For me it's the difference between this: 1st person: These people are starving. I will treat them as I would a non-starving person, say pay them $xx/hour which I calculated is enough to build a profitable business. 2nd person: These people are starving. I will pay them the least I can get away with it, after all it's not like they have many options. Sure, I could make a profit even if I paid them 10 times that, but why go there? Fuck them, they should be grateful that they get anything instead of nothing at all. For me, the 2nd person is a jerk. I wouldn't want them anywhere near my society. Scum of the earth. And the whole "Copehangen" theory BS wants us to believe that it's either (2) or nothing -- that paying people in need the lower you can (near substinence) is the only thing possible. There are several shades between (1) and (2), but most proponents of such ideas go for the full-on (2), and then pretend they are some kind of benefactors too.

lkbm 11y ago
> And the whole "Copehangen" theory BS wants us to believe that it's either (2) or nothing Recognizing that disincentivising marginal improvements in behavior leads to a worse behavior is not claiming only those two behaviors exist. It's just saying that perverse incentives lead to worse outcomes.
- coldtea 11y ago
  How about "encouranging actual improvements in behavior" instead of framing it as "disincentivising marginal improvements in behavior"?
  - Sniffnoy 11y ago
    If it results in worse behavior, then framing it as "encouraging improvements" is misleading. And if it's about encouraging improvements, then it should encourage the improvement from (3) to (2), rather than condemn it for being not (1), thereby actually encouraging (4).
    - coldtea 11y ago

gjm11 11y ago

For another excellent ethics/physics analogy, see: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/17/newtonian-ethics/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/05/17/newtonian-ethics/

OliverJones 11y ago

Mother Theresa said “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.” I'll have the temerity to add something to her advice. Help that person anonymously if you can; it's not about you, it's about her or him. The only reason to break anonymity is if it will help to set a positive example of generosity for others. Breaking anonymity will always burn up your social capital by opening you up to public criticism of this "Copenhagen" variety. The Gates Foundation is a prominent example. They sometimes take heat for the work they choose to do. Nevertheless, they serve as a fine example of willingness to help. You want to do some good and you're busy? Tell your bank to send a monthly payment to a local feeding program. Be a reliable source of support for them, and trust them to do the right thing. And don't brag about it.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I will add to that - if you don't care about a particular person but you want to help someone in general, then pick a charity from GiveWell's list and donate to them instead. The more people do that, the quicker we'll go through problems, solving them in a cost-effective order. Your locals in need of food will have to wait a bit longer, but we'll have much more happy people who would have otherwise died from malaria.
shaggyfrog 11y ago
Mother Theresa was more interested in continuing and exploiting the sick than she ever was in treating their illness or helping anyone. She ran a death cult. The myth that sprung up around her has isolated her from criticism because of this principle: "Well you've done nothing, but she did something, therefore, because whatever she did is automatically preferable."

powera 11y ago

My (not-so-charitable) interpretation of their position: Sometimes being a jerk and helping a little is the best way to help people. Therefore, you can always be a jerk and only help people a little. I'm obviously committing a logical fallacy, but I think they are as well. Sometimes when you do something, there are negative consequences as well as positive ones. And if you aggressively count the positive ones and ignore the negative ones, you really aren't helping.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think your interpretation here is missing the same point most of critical comments here are - the article is not advocating generalizing doing a little as a global moral axiom. Instead, the article is concerned about the problem people (unconsciously) subscribing to Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics cause - by criticizing everyone who does a little (thus inteacting with the problem) instead of not doing anything at all, they're creating an atmosphere where someone who wants to help will be afraid their help will not be enough and will trigger criticism, so it's more likely they'll choose to ignore the opportunity to do good. It's not "doing little" vs. "doing a lot", but "doing as much as we can" vs. "not doing anything, because 'as much as we can' won't be enough to avoid the hate".

shaggyfrog 11y ago

This article really stuck in my craw. Making homeless people into wireless hotspots is such a bad example. It's patronizing at best and dehumanizing at worst. So just because someone gave them $20 doesn't mean it's automatically better than doing nothing.

ggreer 11y ago

In hindsight, I regret submitting this link. The article itself was interesting, but the discussion here was abysmal. Next to the comment box on Jai's blog, there is a gentle reminder: "Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?" I'm sure the quality of HN comments could be improved by adding the same message.

deleted 11y ago

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