I'm leaving felicifia and Utilitarianism-related discussions permanently, for two reasons:

1) I've come think publicly endorsing utilitarianism causes more social harm than good. Practically, a real utilitarian shouldn't publicly identify with utilitariansim, but instead support libertarian and animal (including human) rights policies and advocacy. In theory, smart utilitarians can do more good than harm, but it seems to me that a lot of people take from utilitarianism only the "end justifies the means" part without doing a thorough analysis whether their actions are really optimal or even beneficial. It is too small a step from there to endorsing violence and oppression which causes more harm than good. The latest example I've encountered came from Robert Wiblin, who declares that people shouldn't even have the right to bodily autonomy and ending their own lives, because he cares more about their future selves than they do. Typically, this kind of statement is combined with some anecdotal stories of people who are "grateful" that they had their options taken away from them by force, without any quantitaive evidence-based calculus and without any methodology to include unintended consequences, hidden downsides or any assssment of a control group of people who are not in the anecdotal reference class.

Other examples are Tim Tyler, Robin Hanson etc. declaring that it is good for non-human animals to exist in almost all adverse circumstances because they are evolved creatures that are supposed to be happy to exist by the magic of evolution, and therefore we can use them as meat or endorse spreading Darwinian wildlife etc. Basically, the pattern is "we're doing the non-consenting individuals a favor by making them suffer against their will, or at least we cause positive externalities in doing so, and that makes it okay". While I do not generally disagree with this logical pattern as such, it cannot be overlooked how surprisingly poor the associated analyses typically are, how often they engage in motivated stopping, and how often specific counter-arguments and questions are simply ignored. It also cannot be overlooked that there are fallacies like the just world fallacy and the fundamental attribution error, as well as self-serving biases that twist the utilitarian-type thinking into justifying any practical action the person happened to like for whatever emotional reason. And that is the part for which utilitarianism provides too easy an excuse to socially get away with. In short, I think the utilitarian thing to do is to stop endorsing utilitarian memes and instead increase social insistence on institutions like individual rights and heuristics like the non-aggression principle.

2) I've come to realize I don't have the extent of intrinsic altruistic motivation required to fulfill utilitarian demandingness levels, even though I cognitively endorsed them for years now. The "demandingness objection" isn't really an objection against utiltiarianism, but it is an objection to self-identifying with utilitarianism if you're not willing to donate practically all of your disposable income. I value consistency, and I find that I don't have the psychological motivation to fully act as a utiltiarian would, so the logical thing to do is to drop utilitarianism. Being a "half utilitarian" may still be more useful (from the POV of utilitarianism) than not being a utilitarian at all, but it's still a mismatch between endorsed philosophy and practical action, and on pain of being a hypocrite, the right thing to do is to drop the self-identification.

It is absurd and hypocritical to endorse a consequentialist philosophy whose demands you're not going to fulfill anyway, and whose public endorsement causes more harm than good within the philosophy's own value system!

I now draw the conclusion and avoid all "utilitarian" topics, communities and discussions from here on. For any of you who do actual practical work of altruistic value, I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for the interactions.

D: !

Is there anywhere we can still reach you? There are some really exciting projects starting soon relating to antispeciesist activism, spreading concern about dystopic futures, researching dystopic futures, etc, I've seen your name mentioned several times as someone who it would be great to have involved.

I can't remember if I'm connected with you on facebook or by email but make sure to contact me or Brian Tomasik if you're interested in projects of this kind.

My facebook

My email is rd5683@hotmail.com

Best of luck in your life and I hope you further utilitarian goals even if you don't identify as such! !

Sorry to see you go, HT!

Hedonic Treader wrote:Practically, a real utilitarian shouldn't publicly identify with utilitariansim, but instead support libertarian and animal (including human) rights policies and advocacy.

I respectfully hold the opposite view, because the highest-value things to work on are usually weird ideas that only make sense if you apply bullet-biting utilitarianism: e.g., caring about wild-animal suffering is something people usually try to avoid cognitively, and they can do so unless they're rigorous utilitarians. Once the wild-animal idea becomes more mainstream, that won't be true, but you need the utilitarians to get the ball rolling. Another example is utilitronium; very few people are going to support that unless they're hard-core utilitarians. And so on.

Indeed, Ruairi and I have discussed how promoting (negative-leaning) utilitarianism may actually be close to the best thing we can do, because the bullet-biters have many times the expected value of good people with more mainstream ideas about what "good" means.

Hedonic Treader wrote:In theory, smart utilitarians can do more good than harm, but it seems to me that a lot of people take from utilitarianism only the "end justifies the means" part without doing a thorough analysis whether their actions are really optimal or even beneficial.

Well, that's why we need insightful people like you to tell the utilitarians this so that they don't end up hurting their cause so much.

As far as dangerous reasoning, if you disagree with these arguments, you could stay and tell people why they're dangerous. Rob, for example, is willing to listen to arguments about why such-and-such ideas can be bad to talk about.

Hedonic Treader wrote:and instead increase social insistence on institutions like individual rights

What would individual rights say about wild-animal suffering?

Hedonic Treader wrote:I value consistency, and I find that I don't have the psychological motivation to fully act as a utiltiarian would, so the logical thing to do is to drop utilitarianism. Being a "half utilitarian" may still be more useful (from the POV of utilitarianism) than not being a utilitarian at all, but it's still a mismatch between endorsed philosophy and practical action, and on pain of being a hypocrite, the right thing to do is to drop the self-identification.

No! Not at all! Just as economics has bounded rationality, so utilitarianism has bounded willpower. I like a common phrase that I picked up from Holly Morgan: "Don't let the best be the enemy of the good." And while it's not strictly accurate, this quote from Edmund Burke expresses a similar sentiment: "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

Say you're driving to the hospital, and a police car is behind you. You know that theoretically, you should go above the speed limit to get there faster, but if you do, the police car will stop you, and it'll make you even slower than if you kept your current speed. Similarly, if you demand too much of yourself, you'll burn out. This is not what the suffering minnows want.

Carl Shulman:

However, sometimes people caught up in thoughts of the good they can do, or a self-image of making a big difference in the world, are motivated to think of themselves as really being motivated primarily by helping others as such. Sometimes they go on to an excessive smart sincere syndrome, and try (at the conscious/explicit level) to favor altruism at the severe expense of their other motivations: self-concern, relationships, warm fuzzy feelings.

Usually this doesn't work out well, as the explicit reasoning about principles and ideals is gradually overridden by other mental processes, leading to exhaustion, burnout, or disillusionment. The situation winds up worse according to all of the person's motivations, even altruism. Burnout means less good gets done than would have been achieved by leading a more balanced life that paid due respect to all one's values. Even more self-defeatingly, if one actually does make severe sacrifices, it will tend to repel bystanders.

I would add that the value you have provided has been nontrivial even if you don't donate, do activism, etc. There's a need for smart commenters like you for the "brain trust" arm of utilitarianism, and I personally have learned a good deal from you, as have many others. In any event, I hope you can continue providing value in your alternate venues.

Anyway, you are more than welcome to leave for whatever reason -- none of us will stop you. Many thanks for all you've done!

I respectfully hold the opposite view, because the highest-value things to work on are usually weird ideas that only make sense if you apply bullet-biting utilitarianism: e.g., caring about wild-animal suffering is something people usually try to avoid cognitively, and they can do so unless they're rigorous utilitarians. Once the wild-animal idea becomes more mainstream, that won't be true, but you need the utilitarians to get the ball rolling. Another example is utilitronium; very few people are going to support that unless they're hard-core utilitarians. And so on.

I think, Brian is right. If you do anything more practical and if you are going to support libertarian and animal (including human) rights policies and advocacy then you will increase global utility a lot but I think it's too pessimistic to think that advocating utilitarianism will be contraproductive on the long run. I hope that some day, utilitarianism will become the ethical mainstream. I think we can only do large amounts of good in the long run, if we try to convince more people to become utilitarians.
I aknowledge that it can be very hard always to focus on theorethical discussions without seeing any positive results but I think, there will be some, even if it isn't obvious yet!
Personally, I am also not able to fulfill the demands of my ethical belief but I don't think it is a reason to change it. I don't feel very content only to discuss about utilitatrianism so I also want to do something for liberitarian and animal/human rights policies, because I need to do something more specific and because I want to see the result of my(and the others) involvement!
I wish you a sucessfull time as animal/human rights activist, Hedonic Trader!
Best Regards,
Humphrey

Normally I think seconding is generally a waste of space, but in this case, I think there is a lot to be gained by saying that I second everything Brian said. You're welcome to go, but we need you.

I don’t know Tim Tyler, but Rob’s views are quite unusual among utilitarians. As for Hanson, he’s emphatically (both my emphasis and his) not a utilitarian, and worse, someone who uses its reasoning just enough to make himself sound erudite. I absolutely agree that his arguments are awful and have *huge* potential for harm (eg his pro-factory farming stuff), and it’s people like him who use just that sort of muddled consequentialism that help me reach the exact opposite conclusion to yours – that proper utilitarianism is important to spread, because it keeps people honest about their reasoning.

Elijah wrote:"Don't stay away from church because there are so many hypocrites. There's always room for one more." -Arthur R. Adams

I'm a lousy utilitarian too, for what it's worth. You can still contribute to our cause even if you are a hypocrite. Who isn't?

Same here. I wish I had more empathy. I have it for my dogs and some people but otherwise I can be quite self-focused. I still think it's worthwhile to be here and try to contribute to our cause.

but instead support libertarian and animal (including human) rights policies and advocacy.

I'm curious why you seem to believe that libertarian policies are the best. In my own experience, Libertarians often advocate very Deontological moral frameworks that arrive at very different conclusions about the right thing to do than a true Utilitarian framework.

Darklight wrote:

but instead support libertarian and animal (including human) rights policies and advocacy.

I'm curious why you seem to believe that libertarian policies are the best. In my own experience, Libertarians often advocate very Deontological moral frameworks that arrive at very different conclusions about the right thing to do than a true Utilitarian framework.

I'd agree with your comment. Libertarians usually want to maximize individual freedom rather than total well-being. They would never let the government do anything that would advance well-being. They'd rather let the for profit corporate sector entirely handle things, which is disastrous for well-being.

I share Hedonic Treader's interest in libertarian ideas, although I do not endorse some of the philosophies that underlie libertarianism. The outcome of all utilitarian analysis can depend upon the value that people place on liberty (which often counts as zero in utilitarian arguments), and the arbitrary nature of that valuation and the corresponding possibility of changing a proposed outcome to its opposite leads me to a more conservative approach that is closer to libertarianism than utilitarianism. I also question the capacity of humans to calculate what is actually a good idea as opposed to a terrible idea. Example: Sending tonnes of food to drought-stricken Africa might make me feel happy self-congratulatory today, but as the population of poor grows and the next economic crisis happens, and the free food stops, then famine could kill many times the people who are hungry today (because the population of half-naked, dirt-poor people living on free gruel grew over time).

I perceive no intrinsic value in tripling the global population of rats, monkeys, or humans, and to forcibly take property from one person to fund such activities seems unwise and counter productive in the long run. If somebody falls onto the railroad tracks, I will strive to help the person. I volunteer and donate money, but I cannot condone taking money from one person to give to another.

One of the primary challenges of utilitarianism is the measurement problem--it has been discussed many times on this board, but people who post here are not in agreement about how to address the problem. When I make decisions that affect only me, it is often possible for me to access my gut feelings and choose what will make me happiest (which is often focused on the long term). When I make political decisions, the actions necessarily affect others, and my accuracy in belittling the liberty of others is no more accurate than another person's belittling of my liberty, so I would prefer that we keep our hands in our own wallets and help others as we individually see fit to do so without stealing from one person to help another.

Update: I find it harder to ban myself from the internet as I thought. It would probably more productive and healthy if I really stuck with it, but old habits die hard...

So I might just as well keep participating in some discussions now and then.

Brian Tomasik wrote:What would individual rights say about wild-animal suffering?

I have used this argument successfully in debates with environmentalists who had the intuition that humans were wrong in destroying wildlife, because other species have the right to exist. The logical link is then to point out that rights are individualistic, and if wild animals have rights, this is a call for interventions when they would naturally be violated.

As far as dangerous reasoning, if you disagree with these arguments, you could stay and tell people why they're dangerous.

If people would change their minds as often as they technically should, this would make more sense. But it seems sometimes you just have to switch back to naive moralizing, insisting on ordinary boundaries. Given enough motivation, you can make up a utilitarian justification for almost any transgression.

Another example is utilitronium; very few people are going to support that unless they're hard-core utilitarians. And so on.

This is true, however people who can't empathize with a concept as abstract as utilitronium may be more persuaded by an outcome that results from individuals using their own resources in a way that comes close to utilitronium, rather than some kind of central planning that wants to make it happen. There might even be people who want to ban such technologies, and invoking a rights-based approach may prevent that. Maybe you can buy computation and run pleasure versions of you - then you can argue this should be your right, even if Luddites disagree.

Elijah wrote:You can still contribute to our cause even if you are a hypocrite.

Maybe a partial hypocrite with partial donations, depending on how my health develops. The problem is that my mind wants to be consistent and then I feel cognitive dissonance when I decide to be only partially altruistic/egoistic. There's just no real reason to be arbitrarily in the middle. Maybe I will use the anti-rationality technique of just-not-thinking-too-much about the inconsistency.

Darklight wrote:I'm curious why you seem to believe that libertarian policies are the best. In my own experience, Libertarians often advocate very Deontological moral frameworks that arrive at very different conclusions about the right thing to do than a true Utilitarian framework.

There are 2 parts: One part is just me rationalizing my negative emotions about the utiltiarian-type justifications of non-voluntary transgressions against my own self-determination. I've had this in multiple discussions and it is really unpleasant. The quality is often low, but even if it weren't, I would probably be rationalizing negative emotions against them.

The other part is a genuine belief that, as William Easterly would express it, Planners fail where Seekers succeed: Many problems are so complex that we need dynamic multilateral bottom-up solutions instead of top-down impositions. A related post expresses this thought nicely here. Of course, a sane utilitarian could simply integrate this. The problem is that rationality is hard to come by and people use pseudo-utilitarian arguments to rationalize all kinds of coercion for all kinds of motivations. This is a real problem for actual utilitarianism.

myacct wrote:When I make political decisions, the actions necessarily affect others, and my accuracy in belittling the liberty of others is no more accurate than another person's belittling of my liberty, so I would prefer that we keep our hands in our own wallets and help others as we individually see fit to do so without stealing from one person to help another.

Yes. For what it's worth, I am not against any and all taxation or redistribution. But there are anti-market biases and there's this rhetoric that government is a benevolent force that can create value out of thin air. It is surprising how many people use this, often brushing over the true costs and indirect effects of such policies.

There is also a pro-government bias of the following sort: Let's say there's an asymmetry of wealth or power, and within this asymmetry there are voluntary exchange forms that are seen as undignified or exploitative even if they make both sides better off. Examples are voluntary prostitution, sweatshops or organ trade. Government then often steps in on paternalistic grounds without compensating either side for the loss of options. Surprisingly often, this is seen as a good thing even though it made everyone worse off. In addition, the rhetoric usually frames the government intervention as a legitimate restriction but not as the violence and aggression that it clearly is (after all, government ultimately relies on the threat of physical force). In all these cases, it would be good to point out the violence and be very skeptical of overrides of people's choices.

Of course, none of these are about "absolute freedom" vs. "absolute tyranny". I'm just seeing a bias and it should be compensated.

Elijah wrote:Hooray! You're back!!

Wow, thanks! Not reliably, though.

EDIT: Better that than totally gone! !:D!!

I find it good that you still keep being involved in Felicifia discussion. Especially if you think that other utilitarians try to do good in a non-effective way, it is the right thing not to stay away but to try to convince us that promoting ideas of liberty and rights can maximize utility. Personally, I don't really know how it should work (I find it hard to belive in the power of ideas I am not convinced of myself), but I am relatively new here and I try to be open-minded so I hope to learn something from you nevertheless.

"The latest example I've encountered came from Robert Wiblin, who declares that people shouldn't even have the right to bodily autonomy and ending their own lives, because he cares more about their future selves than they do. "

I did not say that, I only meant to point out that this was a coherent reason for a consequentionalist to potentially prevent people from committing suicide, especially if it was being done on the basis of a (likely ephemeral) impulse. Of course, there may be other considerations that weigh in favour of permitting suicide. Personally, I would guess the compassionate policy is permitting and even facilitating suicide, but only after someone shows a sustained preference for it.

I'm curious to know what you are getting up to pursuing liberal ideas for instrumental reasons. Do you have a facebook account so we can discuss this career path more?

RobertWiblin wrote:I did not say that, I only meant to point out that this was a coherent reason for a consequentionalist to potentially prevent people from committing suicide, especially if it was being done on the basis of a (likely ephemeral) impulse. Of course, there may be other considerations that weigh in favour of permitting suicide. Personally, I would guess the compassionate policy is permitting and even facilitating suicide, but only after someone shows a sustained preference for it.

The problem with this potential consequentialist reasoning is its actual implementation, motivated of course by religious and other authoritarian ideology. A simple test of sincere benevolence is the paternalist's readiness for financially compensating the loss of options. I have met several people, including doctors and other academics who insisted that no one should have a right to die because they must be protected from themselves - but when pressed for an answer, not one of these paternalists showed any readiness to pay even the costs of living to strangers. Funny how one can demand obedience and obligation from people one has never met, without even offering something as mundane as covering the financial cost that is created as a result, and then call that benevolence.

It's the same pattern seen in slavery: The deal has to be non-consensual because it is a bad deal, but to sugarcoat this, it is labelled as benevolent and paternalistic. It's a pure PR trick, and a cheap one at that.

In principle, I agree with you - you can make people better off by reducing their options, under certain rare circumstances. If I ingest a hallucinogen, think I can fly and proceed to jump off a roof, you can certainly stop me (if you are reasonably sure I can't indeed fly).

In practice, I would much rather live in the world of Futurama instead of this one (i.e. I would prefer suicide booths on the street corner, usable by anyone at any time, over the hypocritical paternalism that is forced down everyone's throat in our current so-called free societies)