Like Emile, I am not sure how the funding through pledge system works. That said, let me break down a few scenarios:
If the radio is supported by contributions of its audience, and there are enough of them that your contribution would make a negligible difference to the existence and quality of it, we are in a standard Tragedy of the Commons situation, where you are better by defecting and not contributing regardless of what the others do, but you would prefer everyone to contribute rather than everyone not to (and the radio to disappear). TDT would say, I guess, that you should “cooperate” and donate if and only if you are similar enough to the rest of the audience that you can expect (most of) them to decide the same as you. (How many is most of them would depend on the details of how much you value money vs. the radio.)
If the radio is primarily funded through some other medium, like public funds or private advertisement, and even if all the audience decided together to donate or not to donate this would not make a big difference to the quality of the programming, then consequentalist morality coupled to any plausible decision theory would say not to donate. However, there might be non-consequentialist reasons to donate, such as affiliation with a cause you agree with, or a sense that justice requires paying for what you get.
This is something I’m confused by. Musicians perform on the street for donations. I enjoy this enough that if they played with magical instruments that I could only hear after making a donation. I would gladly pay. And if no one donated, the street musicians would not play. Therefore, by Kantian/timeless considerations, I should donate. But when I go into Kantian/timeless mode, it seems much more important to give that money to the Against Malaria Foundation. Should I donate to street musicians or not?
This is an instance of the more general question of whether I want to apply timeless reasoning to my selfish goals.
And if no one donated, the street musicians would not play. Therefore, by Kantian/timeless considerations, I should donate.
This doesn’t follow. Other people do, in fact, pay street musicians. Their decision to do so is not at all related to your decision. They are not modelling your decision or executing any algorithm remotely like TDT.
Going “timeless” is orthogonal to arbitrarily being nice. TDT would not preclude making such donations but if a TDT agent did make them (in the circumstances described) it would be out of intrinsically valuing the altruistic act or some other additional nuance of it’s utility function unrelated to the “it will make me get to hear music” term.
Should I donate to street musicians or not?
Perhaps. It comes out of your “warm fuzzies” budget.
An interesting complication is if the radio is supported by large private donations. Then a non-wealthy listener might want to donate so that wealthy listeners would donate. Then the question is how much to donate. If wealthy donors behave like you, you could donate a fraction x of your income such that donations of x of wealthy donors’ income would suffice to support the radio. If wealthy donors behave like you in deciding whether or not to donate, but behave differently from you when deciding how much to donate, you could adopt the policy of making a minimum donation in the hopes that wealthy donors will similarly make donations, and that enough of them will decide for their own reasons to donate substantially.
Like Emile, I am not sure how the funding through pledge system works. That said, let me break down a few scenarios:
If the radio is supported by contributions of its audience, and there are enough of them that your contribution would make a negligible difference to the existence and quality of it, we are in a standard Tragedy of the Commons situation, where you are better by defecting and not contributing regardless of what the others do, but you would prefer everyone to contribute rather than everyone not to (and the radio to disappear). TDT would say, I guess, that you should “cooperate” and donate if and only if you are similar enough to the rest of the audience that you can expect (most of) them to decide the same as you. (How many is most of them would depend on the details of how much you value money vs. the radio.)
If the radio is primarily funded through some other medium, like public funds or private advertisement, and even if all the audience decided together to donate or not to donate this would not make a big difference to the quality of the programming, then consequentalist morality coupled to any plausible decision theory would say not to donate. However, there might be non-consequentialist reasons to donate, such as affiliation with a cause you agree with, or a sense that justice requires paying for what you get.
This is something I’m confused by. Musicians perform on the street for donations. I enjoy this enough that if they played with magical instruments that I could only hear after making a donation. I would gladly pay. And if no one donated, the street musicians would not play. Therefore, by Kantian/timeless considerations, I should donate. But when I go into Kantian/timeless mode, it seems much more important to give that money to the Against Malaria Foundation. Should I donate to street musicians or not?
This is an instance of the more general question of whether I want to apply timeless reasoning to my selfish goals.
This doesn’t follow. Other people do, in fact, pay street musicians. Their decision to do so is not at all related to your decision. They are not modelling your decision or executing any algorithm remotely like TDT.
Going “timeless” is orthogonal to arbitrarily being nice. TDT would not preclude making such donations but if a TDT agent did make them (in the circumstances described) it would be out of intrinsically valuing the altruistic act or some other additional nuance of it’s utility function unrelated to the “it will make me get to hear music” term.
Perhaps. It comes out of your “warm fuzzies” budget.
Ah. Do you disagree generally with Gary Drescher’s thesis that human morality is an approximation to timeless reasoning?
Not as a decision theoretic prerogative. I do see certain parallels.
An interesting complication is if the radio is supported by large private donations. Then a non-wealthy listener might want to donate so that wealthy listeners would donate. Then the question is how much to donate. If wealthy donors behave like you, you could donate a fraction x of your income such that donations of x of wealthy donors’ income would suffice to support the radio. If wealthy donors behave like you in deciding whether or not to donate, but behave differently from you when deciding how much to donate, you could adopt the policy of making a minimum donation in the hopes that wealthy donors will similarly make donations, and that enough of them will decide for their own reasons to donate substantially.