4 ms·

It just comes from a focus on marginal effects (my replacement at evilcorp will probably do roughly as good a job, and probably not give a large fraction of his

It just comes from a focus on marginal effects (my replacement at evilcorp will probably do roughly as good a job, and probably not give a large fraction of his/her income to charity) and caring about actual outcomes for the people you're trying to help, rather than your own personal purity. Like everything, the approach can be abused (I feel fine about taking this high-paying morally dubious job, because I'm earning to give... but oh wait, now I have a family to support, and the cost of living is surprisingly high here, and I've got to wear good suits and drive a decent car or my professional reputation might suffer...) but a lot of people are sincere about it, and it does make sense.

senderista 7y ago
It makes sense only if you’re already a convinced utilitarian. Not all of us are.
- retsibsi 7y ago
  It's consequentialist reasoning, not necessarily utilitarian. And you don't have to be a thoroughgoing consequentialist to agree that in a world full of preventable misery, it's best to focus on actually preventing it, rather than on keeping your own hands as clean as possible. (And realistically we're talking about working for an oil company or a casino or something, not being a Nazi prison guard.)
- CathedralBorrow 7y ago
  Maybe the adherents you mentioned are? I'm missing the requirement that the advice apply to "all of us".
Middleclass 7y ago
Do you know of models of utilitarianism that maintain strict lines of cause and consequence? What bothers me about some utilitarian perspectives is the lumping outcomes together of outcomes, based on vague definitions of benefit and harm, instead of keeping the effects strongly tied to their causes. If you take that approach joining a company, you better know how much of the company money passes through you, and you better spend it very ethically and keep track of the development of the ethics of the company. "Knowing a tree by its fruits" and all. AFAICT it's the philosophical blind spot that got us parallel construction (an illegal US police practice), manufacturing evidence based on desired convictions, to reach a desired monetary, political or personal end. There's also a New Age concept for it, it's called "spiritual bypass". "If only I'm spiritual enough, I can do whatever I want", or "if the Lord wanted my garden to bloom he'd water it, I did my part praying". In psychological terms it's called "rationalization". I don't think it's an avoidable abuse as long as you don't do your own bookkeeping.
- retsibsi 7y ago
  Sorry, I only saw this today. I don't think I fully understand your question, though -- can you clarify? I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'keeping the effects strongly tied to their causes'/maintaining 'strict lines of cause and consequence', vs. 'lumping outcomes together'. So the rest of the comment is obscure to me, because I can't follow the connections you're making. Is part of your point that we should be as precise as we can about the effects of our actions, tracing lines of causality at the highest possible resolution? I agree with this in principle (allowing for the fact that improving our knowledge isn't costless, so it will rarely be worthwhile to literally maximise it), but I think usually all we realistically have is a best guess, maybe a rough probability distribution for the outcome of each action. And throwing that out because it's uncertain would be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, IMO.
  - Middleclass 7y ago
    No problem, thank you for your response. What I meant to say was this: "The lumping together of outcomes in roughly two boxes, while also discarding information about the specific actions that lead to the outcomes." Once this has been done, there is no longer a line back from the outcomes ("buying food") to the actions that led to it ("receiving a salary"). Or "finding a job for some or other purpose", which leads to "working for company X", and then "receiving salary from company X", and then assuming part of the responsibility for the actions of "company X" by spending the money earned there. I know almost no one who considers where their money comes from, and then actually implements steps to make their spending habits congruent with that. Ethical use of money does not just involve spending it at the right places, it also involves earning it in a way congruent with where you spend it, e.g. keeping track of where the money originates from. Companies do not create money and everyone who works for them knows this. For instance, if I receive money from place A which is involved in studying agriculture, if I then spend it in a place which is agriculturally underdeveloped, anything I accidentally reveal about agriculture to the place where I spend my money is well placed. In the same vein, if I'm part of a criminal underworld involved in child trafficking and prostitution, I should not be spending it on schools, even if it were possible to keep the two worlds completely isolated in all my other actions. Thinking such a total isolation is implementable by hand without actually knowing you can do it and how, is highly unwise and a sure sign of an overgrown ego. Taking money from one place and moving it to another just creates an undeniable and indestructible trace from place A to place B. If you are not a perfect filter to things which are at place A and should never be at place B, you are responsible for any and all harm caused, through willful ignorance of the fact that companies make money in cooperation with the society they function in. To give you a simpler example, if I'm developing software that pushes some kind of social frontier, it makes sense for me to import my food from the most socially backwards countries, so that I don't accidentally mistake the actual problem space for "just my backyard". Because then I literally owe my food to the support of a country which has bigger social problems than I do personally. Ideally this makes the software I develop less complex, I get a wider picture of the problem which makes it harder to even consider complicating the solution, and it helps aim my attention more precisely in ways which are known-good. However, if I only were to consider the outcomes of my actions, such as great software or great tasting food, I may be effective at producing sharp weapons but not so much at producing tools for peaceful ends.

senderista 7y ago

It makes sense only if you’re already a convinced utilitarian. Not all of us are.

retsibsi 7y ago
It's consequentialist reasoning, not necessarily utilitarian. And you don't have to be a thoroughgoing consequentialist to agree that in a world full of preventable misery, it's best to focus on actually preventing it, rather than on keeping your own hands as clean as possible. (And realistically we're talking about working for an oil company or a casino or something, not being a Nazi prison guard.)
CathedralBorrow 7y ago
Maybe the adherents you mentioned are? I'm missing the requirement that the advice apply to "all of us".

Middleclass 7y ago

Do you know of models of utilitarianism that maintain strict lines of cause and consequence? What bothers me about some utilitarian perspectives is the lumping outcomes together of outcomes, based on vague definitions of benefit and harm, instead of keeping the effects strongly tied to their causes. If you take that approach joining a company, you better know how much of the company money passes through you, and you better spend it very ethically and keep track of the development of the ethics of the company. "Knowing a tree by its fruits" and all. AFAICT it's the philosophical blind spot that got us parallel construction (an illegal US police practice), manufacturing evidence based on desired convictions, to reach a desired monetary, political or personal end. There's also a New Age concept for it, it's called "spiritual bypass". "If only I'm spiritual enough, I can do whatever I want", or "if the Lord wanted my garden to bloom he'd water it, I did my part praying". In psychological terms it's called "rationalization". I don't think it's an avoidable abuse as long as you don't do your own bookkeeping.

retsibsi 7y ago
Sorry, I only saw this today. I don't think I fully understand your question, though -- can you clarify? I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'keeping the effects strongly tied to their causes'/maintaining 'strict lines of cause and consequence', vs. 'lumping outcomes together'. So the rest of the comment is obscure to me, because I can't follow the connections you're making. Is part of your point that we should be as precise as we can about the effects of our actions, tracing lines of causality at the highest possible resolution? I agree with this in principle (allowing for the fact that improving our knowledge isn't costless, so it will rarely be worthwhile to literally maximise it), but I think usually all we realistically have is a best guess, maybe a rough probability distribution for the outcome of each action. And throwing that out because it's uncertain would be letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, IMO.
- Middleclass 7y ago
  No problem, thank you for your response. What I meant to say was this: "The lumping together of outcomes in roughly two boxes, while also discarding information about the specific actions that lead to the outcomes." Once this has been done, there is no longer a line back from the outcomes ("buying food") to the actions that led to it ("receiving a salary"). Or "finding a job for some or other purpose", which leads to "working for company X", and then "receiving salary from company X", and then assuming part of the responsibility for the actions of "company X" by spending the money earned there. I know almost no one who considers where their money comes from, and then actually implements steps to make their spending habits congruent with that. Ethical use of money does not just involve spending it at the right places, it also involves earning it in a way congruent with where you spend it, e.g. keeping track of where the money originates from. Companies do not create money and everyone who works for them knows this. For instance, if I receive money from place A which is involved in studying agriculture, if I then spend it in a place which is agriculturally underdeveloped, anything I accidentally reveal about agriculture to the place where I spend my money is well placed. In the same vein, if I'm part of a criminal underworld involved in child trafficking and prostitution, I should not be spending it on schools, even if it were possible to keep the two worlds completely isolated in all my other actions. Thinking such a total isolation is implementable by hand without actually knowing you can do it and how, is highly unwise and a sure sign of an overgrown ego. Taking money from one place and moving it to another just creates an undeniable and indestructible trace from place A to place B. If you are not a perfect filter to things which are at place A and should never be at place B, you are responsible for any and all harm caused, through willful ignorance of the fact that companies make money in cooperation with the society they function in. To give you a simpler example, if I'm developing software that pushes some kind of social frontier, it makes sense for me to import my food from the most socially backwards countries, so that I don't accidentally mistake the actual problem space for "just my backyard". Because then I literally owe my food to the support of a country which has bigger social problems than I do personally. Ideally this makes the software I develop less complex, I get a wider picture of the problem which makes it harder to even consider complicating the solution, and it helps aim my attention more precisely in ways which are known-good. However, if I only were to consider the outcomes of my actions, such as great software or great tasting food, I may be effective at producing sharp weapons but not so much at producing tools for peaceful ends.