Yes, I’m familiar with the term. But what of it? Just because I can run some procedure (whether once or iteratively) on my preferences and get some output, which may be some altered set of preferences… doesn’t mean… well, anything. Yes, I can do this, if I were so inclined. (Or, alternatively, I could also… not do this.) What of it? How does that mean that I currently don’t have the preferences that I do, in fact, have? How does it prevent my current, actual preferences from being inconsistent?
Seeking reflective equilibrium isn’t meant to change your preferences. It is meant to refine or alter cached thoughts, which play a role in the production of stated preferences.
E.g. if in ask ‘is it okay to kill someone?’ And you say “no, never” with conviction. Then I follow with ‘what about self-defense?’ And you reply “ok, in self defense or the defense of others, but only if there is no other option.” Did your preferences change?
What I’m arguing is that you didn’t change your preferences, but rather updated your stated preferences based on a cache flush I initiated with my line of questioning.
The output is necessarily a single consistent set of preferences in practice.
This doesn’t seem necessary at all, to me. Why do you say it is?
In fact, in practice—to take an immediate example—the output of reflection in my case has been to demonstrate that my preferences do not conform to the VNM axioms (and therefore cannot be represented with a utility function). Indeed this reflection process did not change my preferences, as you say. And yet the output was not ‘consistent’ in the way we’re discussing!
Would you say that I just haven’t reflected enough, and that further reflection would reveal that actually, my real preferences are, and have always been, ‘consistent’ in this way? But how would we verify this claim? (How much more reflection is ‘enough’?) Or how else would you resolve this apparent falsification of your claim?
I would like to give you a longer response, but I’m on the go and about to enter a long week of work meetings. Remind me if you don’t get a longer reply (and you still care).
I think it would help though to clarify: what do you mean by: “feels inconsistent?“ I hope it is okay to ask you a short question about the meaning of a common word :) It would help to have an example.
Oh—I wasn’t saying anything new there; I was just referring back to the first sentence of that paragraph:
In fact, in practice—to take an immediate example—the output of reflection in my case has been to demonstrate that my preferences do not conform to the VNM axioms (and therefore cannot be represented with a utility function).
Yes, I’m familiar with the term. But what of it? Just because I can run some procedure (whether once or iteratively) on my preferences and get some output, which may be some altered set of preferences… doesn’t mean… well, anything. Yes, I can do this, if I were so inclined. (Or, alternatively, I could also… not do this.) What of it? How does that mean that I currently don’t have the preferences that I do, in fact, have? How does it prevent my current, actual preferences from being inconsistent?
Seeking reflective equilibrium isn’t meant to change your preferences. It is meant to refine or alter cached thoughts, which play a role in the production of stated preferences.
E.g. if in ask ‘is it okay to kill someone?’ And you say “no, never” with conviction. Then I follow with ‘what about self-defense?’ And you reply “ok, in self defense or the defense of others, but only if there is no other option.” Did your preferences change?
What I’m arguing is that you didn’t change your preferences, but rather updated your stated preferences based on a cache flush I initiated with my line of questioning.
I see. But then, whence this claim:
This doesn’t seem necessary at all, to me. Why do you say it is?
In fact, in practice—to take an immediate example—the output of reflection in my case has been to demonstrate that my preferences do not conform to the VNM axioms (and therefore cannot be represented with a utility function). Indeed this reflection process did not change my preferences, as you say. And yet the output was not ‘consistent’ in the way we’re discussing!
Would you say that I just haven’t reflected enough, and that further reflection would reveal that actually, my real preferences are, and have always been, ‘consistent’ in this way? But how would we verify this claim? (How much more reflection is ‘enough’?) Or how else would you resolve this apparent falsification of your claim?
I would like to give you a longer response, but I’m on the go and about to enter a long week of work meetings. Remind me if you don’t get a longer reply (and you still care).
I think it would help though to clarify: what do you mean by: “feels inconsistent?“ I hope it is okay to ask you a short question about the meaning of a common word :) It would help to have an example.
Er, sorry, but I didn’t use the phrase “feels inconsistent” (nor any other construction involving “feel”)… what are you referring to?
Sorry that was sloppy of me:
Oh—I wasn’t saying anything new there; I was just referring back to the first sentence of that paragraph: