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Exactly. Malice is a legal, quasi-religious concept. A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't j

Exactly. Malice is a legal, quasi-religious concept. A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious - because we don't attribute concsiousness to it in the same way we attribute it to humans. To have "malice", you need "intent", for which you need need "consciousness", in the classical folk understanding of the term: taking "selfhood", "free will", and "adequate theory of mind" as axioms. Whatever the scientific consensus on those, they seem to have little explanatory power in the domain of business. They're also a pretty high bar, so to speak - certainly higher than we give 'em credit for. If those words really meant what they purported to mean, we'd be functioning in a much more humane economy; but for whatever reason these concepts just don't "stick" to what's really going on in the day-to-day. They're just the wishful thinking of Western humanist authors who were trying to set an example, i.e. mold the world in their own image a little bit. > Functionally, though, your experiences may be very similar on the receiving end of incompetence vs malice. Precisely. And since we're just people who just have objectives to accomplish, and our understanding of the consciousness of others takes at best a pragmatic role in pursuing those, our response to others failing us ends up being essentially the same: looking for ways to enforce compliance so that the counterparty delivers. At the end of the day, "attributing malice" vs. "attributing incompetence" is about saving face - for the counterparty as well as for ourselves. Either way, dedicating effort to saving face detracts from the effort of understanding the problem at hand, which like you said is fundamentally structural.

tpxl 4y ago
I'm going to disagree with you. > A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious A tiger is not malicious when it harms prey, because the intent is survival, and it cannot have that without harm. The survival of abusive CEOs and managers does not require harm to be done to anyone, yet they do it (sometimes for no tangible benefit). > To have "malice", you need "intent" You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. This is why "I didn't know what I was doing was harming people" defense doesn't fly, not in the legal sense and not in the moral. At some point it is your duty to determine the consequences of your actions, and something being your job is definitely over that threshold.
- svnt 4y ago
  > You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. I think this is almost the same point as parent, albeit slightly askew from that one. The hint is in your use of the word “willfully” — that is, you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway. A difference is that “intending to harm” may be a differently intractable behavior because it is effectively sadism. That is a tighter reward loop than “pretending it doesn’t harm” which can just be avoidance. Of course whether or not you can ever learn which of those (if it isn’t both) you’re dealing with is an entirely different matter. We agree on the tiger, though I do wonder what she would say if she could explain her actions.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    > you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway No, you _don't know_ the consequences and you don't bother finding out before doing it.

tpxl 4y ago

I'm going to disagree with you. > A tiger can also quite actively exploit weaknesses and imbalances for the harm of its prey, yet we don't judge the animal as malicious A tiger is not malicious when it harms prey, because the intent is survival, and it cannot have that without harm. The survival of abusive CEOs and managers does not require harm to be done to anyone, yet they do it (sometimes for no tangible benefit). > To have "malice", you need "intent" You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. This is why "I didn't know what I was doing was harming people" defense doesn't fly, not in the legal sense and not in the moral. At some point it is your duty to determine the consequences of your actions, and something being your job is definitely over that threshold.

svnt 4y ago
> You need not intend for your actions to be malicious, for them to be. If you are willfully ignorant of malicious consequences of your actions, your actions are still malicious. I think this is almost the same point as parent, albeit slightly askew from that one. The hint is in your use of the word “willfully” — that is, you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway. A difference is that “intending to harm” may be a differently intractable behavior because it is effectively sadism. That is a tighter reward loop than “pretending it doesn’t harm” which can just be avoidance. Of course whether or not you can ever learn which of those (if it isn’t both) you’re dealing with is an entirely different matter. We agree on the tiger, though I do wonder what she would say if she could explain her actions.
- tpxl 4y ago
  > you know what you are doing will result in harm, and you choose to do it anyway No, you _don't know_ the consequences and you don't bother finding out before doing it.