7 ms·

I think many are missing the article's thesis since it's very, _very_ poorly written: "I would argue that altruism is really meant to help the altruist, not the

I think many are missing the article's thesis since it's very, _very_ poorly written: "I would argue that altruism is really meant to help the altruist, not the altruee." The critical flaw of the essay is that the only evidence to back this point up is (1) "look, a bunch of people donated to the NY opera!" and (2) "look what some effective altruist said; he must represent all altruists". All in all, the essay's erratic logic is only rendered worse by its incomprehensible thesaurus mangling. Of course, intentional obfuscation is a hedge against criticism. There's poorly-written philosophy and well-written philosophy. This is neither. Edit: My apologies for the caustic comment, but I felt it warranted, given the glib tone of the article

ReadEvalPost 4y ago
The article's thesis is that EA's moral realism stance (which finds it's apotheosis in utilitarian moral calculus) is ill-supported and highly questionable, especially when combined with theological anti-realism. It's definitely not written to win over any EA supporter, that's for sure.
- cedilla 4y ago
  Who is this written for then? It seems to me that the author just builds up a few explicit strawmen and expects that the reader is already on board with the idea that they are obviously idotic.
- ineptech 4y ago
  Is EA predicated on moral realism? That seems like a straw man. I don't see any contradiction between abandoning realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities) and EA. We probably just define EA differently. When I'm elected dictator, it'll be illegal to write an essay like this without supplying your working definition of the thing you're against.
  - telotortium 4y ago
    In my view, EA generally means "taking utilitarian ethics ('the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans, or perhaps of other lifeforms)', with (premature) death as the worst outcome) literally and seriously in philanthropic work, usually to the exclusion of other philanthropic goals (aesthetic, religious, etc.)". Perhaps there is a form of EA that isn't at its core utilitarian, but then it's just reduced to technocratism and seems unlikely to inspire the almost religious devotion that EA current does.
    - ineptech 4y ago
      Religious devotion? No offense, but that sounds like more straw. I think there's an awful lot of people who read about EA, visit some charity ranking websites, rethink their giving, and then don't go on to start a blog. I don't think EA is utilitarian. Or at least, not in any way that requires objective moral realism. EA doesn't say, "moral goodness is quantifiable and I can prove on graph paper that one life saved from malaria is equivalent to 137 meals delivered to hungry people." It says, "I don't know what goodness is or how to measure it, but I need some way to decide where to donate, so..." In other words, EA demands that you actually think about where your money goes and whether that's the best place for it, rather than just donating to whichever charity has the most emotionally moving imagery and music in its TV commercials. Once you do that, it naturally follows that almost any system you use will give the same answer: "Sheesh, I should probably donate less to the animal shelter." And I think 99% of the hate EA gets is rooted from the fact that people like donating to their local animal shelter, but can't really justify it.
      - schoen 4y ago
        EA was definitely founded by reasonably orthodox utilitarian philosophers, like Peter Singer, Peter Unger, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Formal EA organizations and conferences also have a lot of utilitarians heavily involved. So I think it's fair to say that EA is rooted in utilitarianism, although those same utilitarians might say, for utilitarian reasons, that it's a good thing when people think carefully -- or at all! -- about how to be more effective and have a higher impact, regardless of what metaethical views (if any) those people subscribe to.
- archon1410 4y ago
  It's not really against EA then, it's against all morality and ethics as such. Rightly title the article "Against trying to be a decent person" and it's obvious why it's a piece of junk.
golemotron 4y ago
> The critical flaw of the essay is that the only evidence to back this point up is (1) "look, a bunch of people donated to the NY opera!" and (2) "look what some effective altruist said; he must represent all altruists" The book 'The Elephant in the Brain' by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler describes this position and has references to a lot of research.
- kvathupo 4y ago
  Looking at the Amazon blurb, I think you're right. It looks interesting. I'll check it out, thanks!
bee_rider 4y ago
As someone who doesn't read much philosophy, it this article is really weird. Generally I expect glibness to signal that a work will be accessible, "I'm cutting through the bullshit, here are the essential bits." But despite the glibness here, it seems to be completely steeped in lingo and some ongoing argument. It seems to me quite odd that moral philosophy seems always to get so bogged down in lingo. You'd think the study of "how to be good" should be something that values directness and accessibility. What is the point of a moral philosophy that only a couple academics can follow?
- astrange 4y ago
  Philosophy never got over Wittgenstein, who had a point that "most philosophical problems aren't real and are just confusion caused by unclear use of terminology". (Most common example on HN: people talking about "artificial general intelligence" without defining "intelligence".) Analytic (Anglo/UK philosophy) philosophy tries to solve this by being extremely clear about everything to the point of looking like a math paper. This turned out to not work because math can't do that, but it still means there's a lot of specific -isms. Continental (French/German) philosophy seems to just lean into it and can be nearly unreadable; some of this is translation issues, some people say this is because their points are so deep they can't be expressed in clear language, and some people say this is because French people don't respect philosophers unless they don't understand what they're talking about. As for what you can do about this - well, maybe you could just ask them what they meant?
  - PeterisP 4y ago
    > Most common example on HN: people talking about "artificial general intelligence" without defining "intelligence". I'd argue that it is because among people talking about "artificial general intelligence" there is a rough consensus about what "intelligence" means in this context (generally, according to Legg&Hutter 2007, which is a long discussion but the essence is captured by "Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments") and it's counterproductive to explicitly define it in detail (which is very tricky) unless the argument hinges on some nuance of the definition, which it almost never does. In essence, the GAI arguments are unchanged for a whole 'family of definitions' so an attempt to push the debate towards "define intelligence" is just derailing the discussion by provoking to repeat a discussion that's essentially settled 15 years ago. In any GAI-related discussion I can reasonably presume that we have a shared understanding of what we're talking about, there isn't much debate about the terms within the field - and if it seems that someone not from the field is applying a wildly different definition of intelligence (i.e. taking the colloquial understanding or some definition that explicitly refers to humans or one that adds in specific goals as opposed to being good at achieving whatever goals the agent has) then it can be pointed out that no, that's not what we're talking about, but within the field the terminology is clear enough, and also as soon as you're talking about detail, you aren't talking about "intelligence in general" but rather about capabilities for specific kinds of decisonmaking or performance on specific tasks; and if a philosopher says "well, that isn't true intelligence" then I can fully concede it, but just state that for the discussion of AI it doesn't matter if it's "true intelligence" but this is what we're talking about as those properties are considered to be sufficient for the described capabilities and consequences.
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I think that your comment is spot on, and it actually helped me confirm the first impression that I had (but wasn't too sure about).
trough 4y ago
The article is nothing more than a rant. That is absolutely okay as long as it encapsulates some beautifully written outrage and at least some portion of self aware wit. Neither of those were detectable while reading. As a philosopher myself (though I left the university many moons ago), this is unfortunately the de facto standard of internet philosophy, The field seems to attract mostly curious people and overthinkers but also a very vocal minority of people that don’t seek answers or even very good questions but want to ramble in a seemingly eloquent way about very broad topics - so broad that philosophers seldom dare to write books about them without decades of sincere chipping at academic details under their belt. This blog post I just dragged myself to read until the end has nothing to do with philosophy - that’s not a dig at the author, more at the audience which assumes that a post about moral philosophy obviously has to be philosophy. By typing this out I hope to be able to illustrate the logical error that lead to this top comment along its children. It’s just a blog post that was obviously crafted with a certain audience in mind and more of a cheeky rambling than an honest attempt to talk about moral philosophy in a way that transcends the discussion of pretty well read people with too many alcohol in them at the ugly and tired end of a drawn out social event. The rant is at times funny to read because of the use of so many exclamation marks, italics and whatnot. I imagined a person gesturing wildly with a counterpart gasping in the pauses to try for a rebuttal but finally nodding apathetically while swaying his glass of wine. TL,DR: This is not philosophy but a blog post and you guys should keep that in mind while discussing its content.
satisfice 4y ago
I read the tantrum of an article. Then I read your comment and smiled. I like you.
dlkf 4y ago
> many are missing the article's thesis Yourself included, apparently

ReadEvalPost 4y ago

The article's thesis is that EA's moral realism stance (which finds it's apotheosis in utilitarian moral calculus) is ill-supported and highly questionable, especially when combined with theological anti-realism. It's definitely not written to win over any EA supporter, that's for sure.

cedilla 4y ago
Who is this written for then? It seems to me that the author just builds up a few explicit strawmen and expects that the reader is already on board with the idea that they are obviously idotic.
ineptech 4y ago
Is EA predicated on moral realism? That seems like a straw man. I don't see any contradiction between abandoning realism (i.e. admitting that there is no objective way to measure goodness or other moral qualities) and EA. We probably just define EA differently. When I'm elected dictator, it'll be illegal to write an essay like this without supplying your working definition of the thing you're against.
- telotortium 4y ago
  In my view, EA generally means "taking utilitarian ethics ('the greatest good for the greatest number (of humans, or perhaps of other lifeforms)', with (premature) death as the worst outcome) literally and seriously in philanthropic work, usually to the exclusion of other philanthropic goals (aesthetic, religious, etc.)". Perhaps there is a form of EA that isn't at its core utilitarian, but then it's just reduced to technocratism and seems unlikely to inspire the almost religious devotion that EA current does.
  - ineptech 4y ago
    Religious devotion? No offense, but that sounds like more straw. I think there's an awful lot of people who read about EA, visit some charity ranking websites, rethink their giving, and then don't go on to start a blog. I don't think EA is utilitarian. Or at least, not in any way that requires objective moral realism. EA doesn't say, "moral goodness is quantifiable and I can prove on graph paper that one life saved from malaria is equivalent to 137 meals delivered to hungry people." It says, "I don't know what goodness is or how to measure it, but I need some way to decide where to donate, so..." In other words, EA demands that you actually think about where your money goes and whether that's the best place for it, rather than just donating to whichever charity has the most emotionally moving imagery and music in its TV commercials. Once you do that, it naturally follows that almost any system you use will give the same answer: "Sheesh, I should probably donate less to the animal shelter." And I think 99% of the hate EA gets is rooted from the fact that people like donating to their local animal shelter, but can't really justify it.
    - schoen 4y ago
      EA was definitely founded by reasonably orthodox utilitarian philosophers, like Peter Singer, Peter Unger, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Formal EA organizations and conferences also have a lot of utilitarians heavily involved. So I think it's fair to say that EA is rooted in utilitarianism, although those same utilitarians might say, for utilitarian reasons, that it's a good thing when people think carefully -- or at all! -- about how to be more effective and have a higher impact, regardless of what metaethical views (if any) those people subscribe to.
archon1410 4y ago
It's not really against EA then, it's against all morality and ethics as such. Rightly title the article "Against trying to be a decent person" and it's obvious why it's a piece of junk.

golemotron 4y ago

> The critical flaw of the essay is that the only evidence to back this point up is (1) "look, a bunch of people donated to the NY opera!" and (2) "look what some effective altruist said; he must represent all altruists" The book 'The Elephant in the Brain' by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler describes this position and has references to a lot of research.

kvathupo 4y ago
Looking at the Amazon blurb, I think you're right. It looks interesting. I'll check it out, thanks!

bee_rider 4y ago

As someone who doesn't read much philosophy, it this article is really weird. Generally I expect glibness to signal that a work will be accessible, "I'm cutting through the bullshit, here are the essential bits." But despite the glibness here, it seems to be completely steeped in lingo and some ongoing argument. It seems to me quite odd that moral philosophy seems always to get so bogged down in lingo. You'd think the study of "how to be good" should be something that values directness and accessibility. What is the point of a moral philosophy that only a couple academics can follow?

astrange 4y ago
Philosophy never got over Wittgenstein, who had a point that "most philosophical problems aren't real and are just confusion caused by unclear use of terminology". (Most common example on HN: people talking about "artificial general intelligence" without defining "intelligence".) Analytic (Anglo/UK philosophy) philosophy tries to solve this by being extremely clear about everything to the point of looking like a math paper. This turned out to not work because math can't do that, but it still means there's a lot of specific -isms. Continental (French/German) philosophy seems to just lean into it and can be nearly unreadable; some of this is translation issues, some people say this is because their points are so deep they can't be expressed in clear language, and some people say this is because French people don't respect philosophers unless they don't understand what they're talking about. As for what you can do about this - well, maybe you could just ask them what they meant?
- PeterisP 4y ago
  > Most common example on HN: people talking about "artificial general intelligence" without defining "intelligence". I'd argue that it is because among people talking about "artificial general intelligence" there is a rough consensus about what "intelligence" means in this context (generally, according to Legg&Hutter 2007, which is a long discussion but the essence is captured by "Intelligence measures an agent’s ability to achieve goals in a wide range of environments") and it's counterproductive to explicitly define it in detail (which is very tricky) unless the argument hinges on some nuance of the definition, which it almost never does. In essence, the GAI arguments are unchanged for a whole 'family of definitions' so an attempt to push the debate towards "define intelligence" is just derailing the discussion by provoking to repeat a discussion that's essentially settled 15 years ago. In any GAI-related discussion I can reasonably presume that we have a shared understanding of what we're talking about, there isn't much debate about the terms within the field - and if it seems that someone not from the field is applying a wildly different definition of intelligence (i.e. taking the colloquial understanding or some definition that explicitly refers to humans or one that adds in specific goals as opposed to being good at achieving whatever goals the agent has) then it can be pointed out that no, that's not what we're talking about, but within the field the terminology is clear enough, and also as soon as you're talking about detail, you aren't talking about "intelligence in general" but rather about capabilities for specific kinds of decisonmaking or performance on specific tasks; and if a philosopher says "well, that isn't true intelligence" then I can fully concede it, but just state that for the discussion of AI it doesn't matter if it's "true intelligence" but this is what we're talking about as those properties are considered to be sufficient for the described capabilities and consequences.

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I think that your comment is spot on, and it actually helped me confirm the first impression that I had (but wasn't too sure about).

trough 4y ago

The article is nothing more than a rant. That is absolutely okay as long as it encapsulates some beautifully written outrage and at least some portion of self aware wit. Neither of those were detectable while reading. As a philosopher myself (though I left the university many moons ago), this is unfortunately the de facto standard of internet philosophy, The field seems to attract mostly curious people and overthinkers but also a very vocal minority of people that don’t seek answers or even very good questions but want to ramble in a seemingly eloquent way about very broad topics - so broad that philosophers seldom dare to write books about them without decades of sincere chipping at academic details under their belt. This blog post I just dragged myself to read until the end has nothing to do with philosophy - that’s not a dig at the author, more at the audience which assumes that a post about moral philosophy obviously has to be philosophy. By typing this out I hope to be able to illustrate the logical error that lead to this top comment along its children. It’s just a blog post that was obviously crafted with a certain audience in mind and more of a cheeky rambling than an honest attempt to talk about moral philosophy in a way that transcends the discussion of pretty well read people with too many alcohol in them at the ugly and tired end of a drawn out social event. The rant is at times funny to read because of the use of so many exclamation marks, italics and whatnot. I imagined a person gesturing wildly with a counterpart gasping in the pauses to try for a rebuttal but finally nodding apathetically while swaying his glass of wine. TL,DR: This is not philosophy but a blog post and you guys should keep that in mind while discussing its content.

satisfice 4y ago

I read the tantrum of an article. Then I read your comment and smiled. I like you.

dlkf 4y ago

> many are missing the article's thesis Yourself included, apparently