7 ms·

Appeals to Consequences

55 points by luu 7y ago

umvi 7y ago
> How do we leave open the possibility of the first two outcomes while avoiding the third? It seems to me if the first outcome is true, then the third outcome is unavoidable
- DougBTX 7y ago
  You seem to be demonstrating how miscommunication is very easy in the example shown! In the example, the idea is that there is one new drug that was shown to be unsafe, but that there is a risk that the results will be misinterpreted to suggest that lots of other drugs are unsafe too. If the communication is handled well, then use of the new drug will never start, and people can continue to use other drugs which are safe. > then the third outcome is unavoidable Alternatively, if you mean that incorrect and misleading headlines are unavoidable... then yes, that is a persistent problem, agreed.
  - umvi 7y ago
    If you develop a new vaccine, and if you confirm through repeated tests that it causes elevated levels of autism, then yes, you can now say "vaccines can cause autism." Or rather, in order to now claim that vaccines don't cause autism you will need to say "rigorously tested vaccines don't cause autism"
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  An alternative explanation (especially common in a small study) is that the control group and test group were actually biased in a way that the experimenters didn't detect, and had the experiment not been run, these two groups would still have the same rates of autism that the experimenters observed. This is why audience matters in communication; the previous is obvious to people familiar with medical trials (and population sample trials in general) and counter-intuitive to the general public unfamiliar with the mathematics of sampling. One thing that the modern communications era has changed is that it's much easier to find oneself talking to the general public without intending to. The common tools for mass-communication default open.
mannykannot 7y ago
In which the author presents an appeal-to-consequences argument against taking a hard line against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments. At least that is self-consistent, while an appeal-to-consequences argument against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments would not be. But what sort of argument against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments would be self-consistent? After rolling that one around for a while, I would tentatively suggest that it is self-serving appeal-to-consequences arguments that we should be most suspicious of, while genuinely greater-good ones deserve consideration. That did not take long to 'go meta.' Maybe it is a sign that this, like many other ethics issues, is resistant to doctrinaire solutions, which is pretty much where the author ends up.
- jefftk 7y ago
  The fallacy of appealing to consequences is not "you should do this thing because it has better consequences" (that's Consequentialism) but instead the clearly false "you should think this thing because if it were true that would be good". Here I'm responding to Taylor's broader use of it, where she's also including the idea that if saying X would have bad consequences you should avoid saying X. Examples: * Consequentialism: we should evaluate vaccines based on the effect they have on people * Appeal to Consequences: it would be horrible if vaccines were actually net-negative, so they can't be * Taylor's extended Appeal to Consequences: see the post
  - prostheticvamp 7y ago
    It seems that the “extended” appeals to consequences, per the post, -is- consequentialism. Consequentialism: evaluate X based on its consequences Extended: evaluate X, where X is the verb “to speak”, based on its consequences Appeal to Consequences: evaluate X based on desired consequences rather than predicted consequences Am I misunderstanding?
    - jefftk 7y ago
      You're not misunderstanding. Taylor is arguing, from a consequentialist perspective, that trying to evaluate the consequences of speaking counterintuitively leads to bad outcomes and so we shouldn't do it. This is a consequentialist argument, but a bit of an ironic one! My post is responding by saying that it's important to have some situations where you can speak fully freely, but there are also times when you really do need to consider what might happen in response to your words.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
barrkel 7y ago
Consequences are at the foundation of why we have ethics at all. All normative arguments are appeals to consequences when you look closely enough. The practical differences emerge from where and how far into the future you look for the consequences. (The discussion seems ill-founded to me, without a lot more qualification on exactly which consequences one is looking to.)
- jefftk 7y ago
  You're describing Consequentialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism), which is a popular view, especially among technically minded people, but there are also other widely held views that work differently: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    I think the parent poster's claim (if I may put words in their mouth) is that, despite the protestations of these other schools of thought, the only reason their rulesets/virtues exist are because of the general case consequences of those rulesets and virtues. They may not explicitly denote their appeal to consequences, but those ethical systems would not exist in their given forms of the actions they proscribe actions did not have consequences. For example, a virtue ethicist might claim that honesty is a virtue, and thus we should try to be honest. But why is honesty a virtue? I'm not familiar with how virtue ethics deals with infinite regress. However, whatever the philosopher might claim, the real answer is because we evolved in a context where dishonesty was punished. This punishment shaped our sociological and neural landscapes such that we have a dim view of dishonesty in others. The virtue ethicist dresses that up one way, the deontologist might dress it up another, but the actual fact is that the human view of honesty arose from the consequences.
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      Put another way: I find virtue ethics and other systems are often fine practical approaches to consequentialism.
kerkeslager 7y ago
The fundamental problem with the appeal to consequences argument is that it's a willingness to hide or ignore the truth, or outright lie. I've said before that I think the ends do justify the means (consequentialism), but you should be extremely skeptical of "ends justify the means" arguments because people rarely look at the complete consequences. If you're willing to hide or ignore the truth, or lie, then I'm extremely skeptical that your motivations are actually prosocial, and I'm skeptical that the results will actually be good.
- mcguire 7y ago
  The ends don't justify the means. Instead, the means used define the ends achieved.
  - mech1234 7y ago
    The reasonably expected ends justify the well-considered means, if and only if they are net good.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- MadWombat 7y ago
  The general problem with "ends justify the means" arguments, as I see it, is not as much completeness of the consequences, but rather the risk analysis. A lot of "ends justify the means" points of view involve doing certain harm now for uncertain good in the future. Like "lets execute a few thousand class traitors today, so we can build a socialist paradise tomorrow" or "lets lower the taxes for the rich and in a few years the wealth will trickle down". At this point it is kinda hard to be a consistent consequentialist. How certain do you have to be about the paradise of tomorrow to justify an execution today?
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    But our theory says that the good outcome is certain! /s The problem is that true believers in the correctness of their theory are horrible at risk analysis, because they assign 100% probability to the success of their program.
roenxi 7y ago
A culture that is consistently truthful will develop a substantial advantage over one that isn't; over time they will have better information and make better decisions. The example in the article is a really good example of the problem with the fallacy - they couldn't come up with something that makes sense. The ends are unjustifiable; money is being routed to a charity that is ineffective at saving drowning puppies. There are presumably charities that can save 200 puppies for $1.2 million that should be getting the money instead. People who could save puppies for $1,000/puppy will not bother trying because they will think they are inefficient. The argument in the original (Jessica Taylor) argument rests heavily on the idea that there is nobody who could do better out there. In a world of 7 billion people that is a bad assumption. And that is the problem with lies - we have the technical capability to solve a dizzying array of problems the the point where and the major challenge is working out what the problems are then prioritising improving our handling of them. There needs to be an appeal to consequences example that makes more sense for the argument to start. The consequences of lying about capability in a world with highly refined knowledge, research and development systems are substantially greater than the short term consequences of this particular example. Suppressing facts will not help save puppies, it will numb the response.
friendlybus 7y ago
'Appeals to consequences' as used by Quinn are a fallacy because the decisions rest on the desirability and emotional judgement of the consequence. That's an obvious fallacy we can agree in the context of business. There are more ways to evaluate consequences than their emotional viability. Taking a teological stance or a protection from death stance can lead to nailing the puppy charity to the wall on exactly how much of a lie is necessary to prevent death of puppies, the truth, people's bank accounts and the charity itself. Using the appeal to consequences fallacy to disregard an entire category of philosophical thought is a bit silly.

55 points by luu 7y ago

umvi 7y ago

> How do we leave open the possibility of the first two outcomes while avoiding the third? It seems to me if the first outcome is true, then the third outcome is unavoidable

DougBTX 7y ago
You seem to be demonstrating how miscommunication is very easy in the example shown! In the example, the idea is that there is one new drug that was shown to be unsafe, but that there is a risk that the results will be misinterpreted to suggest that lots of other drugs are unsafe too. If the communication is handled well, then use of the new drug will never start, and people can continue to use other drugs which are safe. > then the third outcome is unavoidable Alternatively, if you mean that incorrect and misleading headlines are unavoidable... then yes, that is a persistent problem, agreed.
- umvi 7y ago
  If you develop a new vaccine, and if you confirm through repeated tests that it causes elevated levels of autism, then yes, you can now say "vaccines can cause autism." Or rather, in order to now claim that vaccines don't cause autism you will need to say "rigorously tested vaccines don't cause autism"
shadowgovt 7y ago
An alternative explanation (especially common in a small study) is that the control group and test group were actually biased in a way that the experimenters didn't detect, and had the experiment not been run, these two groups would still have the same rates of autism that the experimenters observed. This is why audience matters in communication; the previous is obvious to people familiar with medical trials (and population sample trials in general) and counter-intuitive to the general public unfamiliar with the mathematics of sampling. One thing that the modern communications era has changed is that it's much easier to find oneself talking to the general public without intending to. The common tools for mass-communication default open.

mannykannot 7y ago

In which the author presents an appeal-to-consequences argument against taking a hard line against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments. At least that is self-consistent, while an appeal-to-consequences argument against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments would not be. But what sort of argument against accepting appeal-to-consequences arguments would be self-consistent? After rolling that one around for a while, I would tentatively suggest that it is self-serving appeal-to-consequences arguments that we should be most suspicious of, while genuinely greater-good ones deserve consideration. That did not take long to 'go meta.' Maybe it is a sign that this, like many other ethics issues, is resistant to doctrinaire solutions, which is pretty much where the author ends up.

jefftk 7y ago
The fallacy of appealing to consequences is not "you should do this thing because it has better consequences" (that's Consequentialism) but instead the clearly false "you should think this thing because if it were true that would be good". Here I'm responding to Taylor's broader use of it, where she's also including the idea that if saying X would have bad consequences you should avoid saying X. Examples: * Consequentialism: we should evaluate vaccines based on the effect they have on people * Appeal to Consequences: it would be horrible if vaccines were actually net-negative, so they can't be * Taylor's extended Appeal to Consequences: see the post
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  It seems that the “extended” appeals to consequences, per the post, -is- consequentialism. Consequentialism: evaluate X based on its consequences Extended: evaluate X, where X is the verb “to speak”, based on its consequences Appeal to Consequences: evaluate X based on desired consequences rather than predicted consequences Am I misunderstanding?
  - jefftk 7y ago
    You're not misunderstanding. Taylor is arguing, from a consequentialist perspective, that trying to evaluate the consequences of speaking counterintuitively leads to bad outcomes and so we shouldn't do it. This is a consequentialist argument, but a bit of an ironic one! My post is responding by saying that it's important to have some situations where you can speak fully freely, but there are also times when you really do need to consider what might happen in response to your words.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

barrkel 7y ago

Consequences are at the foundation of why we have ethics at all. All normative arguments are appeals to consequences when you look closely enough. The practical differences emerge from where and how far into the future you look for the consequences. (The discussion seems ill-founded to me, without a lot more qualification on exactly which consequences one is looking to.)

jefftk 7y ago
You're describing Consequentialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism), which is a popular view, especially among technically minded people, but there are also other widely held views that work differently: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_ethics
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  I think the parent poster's claim (if I may put words in their mouth) is that, despite the protestations of these other schools of thought, the only reason their rulesets/virtues exist are because of the general case consequences of those rulesets and virtues. They may not explicitly denote their appeal to consequences, but those ethical systems would not exist in their given forms of the actions they proscribe actions did not have consequences. For example, a virtue ethicist might claim that honesty is a virtue, and thus we should try to be honest. But why is honesty a virtue? I'm not familiar with how virtue ethics deals with infinite regress. However, whatever the philosopher might claim, the real answer is because we evolved in a context where dishonesty was punished. This punishment shaped our sociological and neural landscapes such that we have a dim view of dishonesty in others. The virtue ethicist dresses that up one way, the deontologist might dress it up another, but the actual fact is that the human view of honesty arose from the consequences.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    Put another way: I find virtue ethics and other systems are often fine practical approaches to consequentialism.

kerkeslager 7y ago

The fundamental problem with the appeal to consequences argument is that it's a willingness to hide or ignore the truth, or outright lie. I've said before that I think the ends do justify the means (consequentialism), but you should be extremely skeptical of "ends justify the means" arguments because people rarely look at the complete consequences. If you're willing to hide or ignore the truth, or lie, then I'm extremely skeptical that your motivations are actually prosocial, and I'm skeptical that the results will actually be good.

mcguire 7y ago
The ends don't justify the means. Instead, the means used define the ends achieved.
- mech1234 7y ago
  The reasonably expected ends justify the well-considered means, if and only if they are net good.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
MadWombat 7y ago
The general problem with "ends justify the means" arguments, as I see it, is not as much completeness of the consequences, but rather the risk analysis. A lot of "ends justify the means" points of view involve doing certain harm now for uncertain good in the future. Like "lets execute a few thousand class traitors today, so we can build a socialist paradise tomorrow" or "lets lower the taxes for the rich and in a few years the wealth will trickle down". At this point it is kinda hard to be a consistent consequentialist. How certain do you have to be about the paradise of tomorrow to justify an execution today?
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  But our theory says that the good outcome is certain! /s The problem is that true believers in the correctness of their theory are horrible at risk analysis, because they assign 100% probability to the success of their program.

roenxi 7y ago

A culture that is consistently truthful will develop a substantial advantage over one that isn't; over time they will have better information and make better decisions. The example in the article is a really good example of the problem with the fallacy - they couldn't come up with something that makes sense. The ends are unjustifiable; money is being routed to a charity that is ineffective at saving drowning puppies. There are presumably charities that can save 200 puppies for $1.2 million that should be getting the money instead. People who could save puppies for $1,000/puppy will not bother trying because they will think they are inefficient. The argument in the original (Jessica Taylor) argument rests heavily on the idea that there is nobody who could do better out there. In a world of 7 billion people that is a bad assumption. And that is the problem with lies - we have the technical capability to solve a dizzying array of problems the the point where and the major challenge is working out what the problems are then prioritising improving our handling of them. There needs to be an appeal to consequences example that makes more sense for the argument to start. The consequences of lying about capability in a world with highly refined knowledge, research and development systems are substantially greater than the short term consequences of this particular example. Suppressing facts will not help save puppies, it will numb the response.

friendlybus 7y ago

'Appeals to consequences' as used by Quinn are a fallacy because the decisions rest on the desirability and emotional judgement of the consequence. That's an obvious fallacy we can agree in the context of business. There are more ways to evaluate consequences than their emotional viability. Taking a teological stance or a protection from death stance can lead to nailing the puppy charity to the wall on exactly how much of a lie is necessary to prevent death of puppies, the truth, people's bank accounts and the charity itself. Using the appeal to consequences fallacy to disregard an entire category of philosophical thought is a bit silly.