wedrifid, to the extent that your terminal values affect your actions and hence the effect of your actions on the value of my utility function, they are my business (in the same sense that your religion is my business). I generally won’t be an asshole about it, but for instance the extent to which I care about helping you achieve your goals probably depends on the extent to which I think those goals line up with mine.
(FWIW, I’m definitely not a perfect altruist either.)
wedrifid, to the extent that your terminal values affect your actions and hence the effect of your actions on the value of my utility function, they are my business (in the same sense that your religion is my business).
Of course they are your business in the sense that knowledge about my utility function alters your game theoretic incentives when it comes to dealing with me. When it comes down to it you may need to throw down and use social or physical force against me. And yet it remains the case that telling me what my preferences are (in any sense except an assertion that I incorrectly model myself) is a straightforward intellectual error.
In most social environments that aren’t cults it is also considered rather rude to tell other people what their preferences are. If you violate my personal conceptual territory by telling me what I do, or must, intrinsically value then you can should expect to be told to because you are being a . It is (if done particularly aggressively) a rather degrading act, somewhat along the lines of ‘objectification’ - it acts to remove the recipients independent identity and relevance as an agent of personal social-political relevance.
When playing chess and I capture your queen in such a way as I guarantee that I can achieve checkmate in 7 it is ridiculous to tell me that I have just made a bad move. I can be assumed* to be implicitly valuing winning the chess game. It takes a rather esoteric reinterpretation of language to say that I am making a bad move due to it not being a move that achieves your goals. It would just mean that you would have to invent new words for the purpose of communicating with others.
* Barring exceptional external circumstances. I recall, for example, a (cricket) World Cup wherein it was in Australia’s best interest to lose a particular game in order to be in a better place to win the series.
wedrifid, to the extent that your terminal values affect your actions and hence the effect of your actions on the value of my utility function, they are my business (in the same sense that your religion is my business). I generally won’t be an asshole about it, but for instance the extent to which I care about helping you achieve your goals probably depends on the extent to which I think those goals line up with mine.
(FWIW, I’m definitely not a perfect altruist either.)
Of course they are your business in the sense that knowledge about my utility function alters your game theoretic incentives when it comes to dealing with me. When it comes down to it you may need to throw down and use social or physical force against me. And yet it remains the case that telling me what my preferences are (in any sense except an assertion that I incorrectly model myself) is a straightforward intellectual error.
In most social environments that aren’t cults it is also considered rather rude to tell other people what their preferences are. If you violate my personal conceptual territory by telling me what I do, or must, intrinsically value then you can should expect to be told to because you are being a . It is (if done particularly aggressively) a rather degrading act, somewhat along the lines of ‘objectification’ - it acts to remove the recipients independent identity and relevance as an agent of personal social-political relevance.
When playing chess and I capture your queen in such a way as I guarantee that I can achieve checkmate in 7 it is ridiculous to tell me that I have just made a bad move. I can be assumed* to be implicitly valuing winning the chess game. It takes a rather esoteric reinterpretation of language to say that I am making a bad move due to it not being a move that achieves your goals. It would just mean that you would have to invent new words for the purpose of communicating with others.
* Barring exceptional external circumstances. I recall, for example, a (cricket) World Cup wherein it was in Australia’s best interest to lose a particular game in order to be in a better place to win the series.