Do you really think continued experiences like that won’t increase the frequency of the behavior “Run an errand even when I don’t want to”?
I think it depends a lot on her intention. If she says ‘thank you’ for the purposes of positive reinforcement, I mean if she thinks about her ‘thank you’s’ that way, then I think she’s being manipulative.
If she says ‘thank you’ to say what those words mean, namely, that she’s grateful, then even if this does have the effective positive reinforcement there’s nothing wrong about her behavior.
I find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it’s manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
It strikes me as similar to saying that hurting people is OK as long as I don’t know I’m hurting them. No, it isn’t. If hurting people is not OK, then it follows that I ought not hurt people, and learning to recognize when I’m hurting people is part of that, and I ought to learn to recognize it. The behavior doesn’t suddenly become “not OK” the moment I learn to recognize it… it never was OK, and now I know it and can improve.
Conversely, if hurting people is OK, then it’s OK whether I know I’m doing it or not.
The same goes for manipulating people. Whether I know I’m doing it or not isn’t the determiner of whether I’m doing good or ill.
To my mind, the determiner of whether I’m doing good or ill is whether, when I’m done doing it, we’re all better off or worse off.
I agree with your point, but I think that “manipulate” needs to be tabooed. If we define manipulate as “acts that tend to change the behavior of others” then I agree with your implicit point that it is impossible to interact with others without changing their behaviors, and there is nothing wrong with thinking about how I would like someone else to behave when considering how I interact with them.
That said, there are connotations of manipulate as the word is ordinarily used that are not captured by the way you (and I) are using the word.
I find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it’s manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
Awareness of side effects isn’t equivalent to intentionality. You can thank someone to express genuine feelings of gratitude. If you wouldn’t do that in a counterfactual world in which the gratitude was absent, then I wouldn’t call that behavior intentionally manipulative regardless of whether you know about positive reinforcement.
If you wouldn’t do that in a counterfactual world in which the gratitude was absent, then I wouldn’t call that behavior intentionally manipulative regardless of whether you know about positive reinforcement.
Suppose I am not in the habit of expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me. Never mind why… maybe I was raised wrong. For whatever reason, I’m not in that habit. I feel gratitude, certainly, I just don’t express it.
Then one Monday, I learn that expressing gratitude to people for doing nice things for me will increase the odds that they will do it again. Suppose I want people to do nice things for me, and I therefore conclude that I ought to expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, in order to get them to do it more, and I therefore start expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, whether I feel gratitude or not.
Then on Wednesday, I learn that this only works when I genuinely do feel gratitude… when I express gratitude I don’t actually feel, I get bad results. (Again, it doesn’t matter why. Maybe I’m a lousy liar.) So I stop expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me when I don’t feel gratitude, but I continue doing so when I do, since that still gets me stuff I want.
If I’ve understood you correctly, you would call me intentionally manipulative on Tuesday, but not on Thursday. I’m happy to restrict the term “intentionally manipulative” to Tuesday behavior and not Thursday behavior, if that makes communication easier, though I don’t use those words that way myself.
Regardless of what words we use, presumably we agree that on both Tuesday and Thursday, I am doing something with the intention of causing changes in other people’s behavior, and am doing so without their awareness or consent. Yes?
Do you endorse this on Tuesday? Do you endorse this on Thursday?
For my own part, I find the idea of endorsing that behavior on Thursday but not on Tuesday deeply troubling, for many of the reasons I listed before.
find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it’s manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
If you don’t know you’re manipulating someone, you’re not manipulating someone. Manipulation is an intentional behavior, like lying, or congratulating, or taking a vow. Knowing what you’re doing is part of doing it.
That’s… incredible to me. Do you disagree that there is such a category (i.e. actions you have to know you’re doing in order to be doing them at all), or that manipulation falls under it?
I agree that manipulation can be intentional, certainly.
I agree that the examples Luke is talking about are intentional ones, but I suspect that’s rather incidental. To talk about it as “the intentional kind of manipulation” strikes me as misleading in the same sense that, while I agree that his example of Anna and Alicorn manipulating Eliezer was manipulation of a man by women, I would consider it misleading to refer to it as “the heterosexual kind of manipulation.”
For example, if I practiced positive-reinforcement conditioning so assiduously that I started doing it without having to form explicit intention to do it (in the same way that I don’t always form the explicit intention to catch a ball flying at my face before catching it), I expect that Luke would endorse doing it just the same; the fact that it’s intentional in one case and not the other just wouldn’t matter.
Actually, now that I think about it, what’s your take on that? That is, if I practice modifying others’ behavior until I reach the point where I can do it instinctively, without an overt intention-forming stage, does it suddenly become ethically acceptable for me to do so? (Since, after all, it’s no longer manipulation, on your account.)
I would consider it misleading to refer to it as “the heterosexual kind of manipulation.”
I didn’t follow this at all.
For example, if I practiced positive-reinforcement conditioning...
Say I practiced my swing so assiduously that I could hit a 90mph fastball without thinking (indeed, there is no time to think). Would you say that every time I knock such a pitch into the outfield, I’ve done so unintentionally? The fact that I don’t go through an explicit thought process (if such a category is intelligible) every time doesn’t make a difference. A practiced liar and a pathological liar could both lie without thinking, but the former is doing something typically unethical (unless they’re like a spy or something) while the latter is just, well, pathological.
The way I’d put your point here is that one can practice a behavior to the point where it becomes a basic action, something which requires no deliberation as to how it is done, like walking or taking a drink or saying a sentence in your native language. I don’t think the basic vs. non-basic action distinction (if you think this is a fair way to put it) tracks the intentional vs. unintentional action distinction.
And the unintentional manipulations I’d exclude from this discussion are cases where you, say, ask how someone’s kids are because you care, and this happens to make them feel good (largely because they think you care), as opposed to cases where you ask about their kids in order to make them feel good. Those unintentional cases fall outside the conventional use of ‘manipulation’, but I won’t stand on semantics.
Would you say that every time I knock such a pitch into the outfield, I’ve done so unintentionally?
Nope. If you intentionally put yourself into a situation where you’re going to have 90mph fastballs thrown near you, with the intention of hitting them with a baseball bat, I would not say that your subsequent hitting of a 90mph fastball with a bat was unintentional.
I’m going to drop this thread here, because I feel like you’re sidestepping my questions rather than addressing them, and it’s beginning to get on my nerves. (You are, of course, under no obligation to answer my questions. I’m also perfectly prepared to believe that you aren’t intentionally sidestepping them.)
Well, I am sidestepping, because I think the point about practice is tangential to our discussion. Habitual insincerity is not therefore unintentional in the relevant sense.
I think it depends a lot on her intention. If she says ‘thank you’ for the purposes of positive reinforcement, I mean if she thinks about her ‘thank you’s’ that way, then I think she’s being manipulative.
If she says ‘thank you’ to say what those words mean, namely, that she’s grateful, then even if this does have the effective positive reinforcement there’s nothing wrong about her behavior.
I find the idea of endorsing manipulative behavior if and only if I remain unaware of the fact that it’s manipulative behavior deeply troubling.
It strikes me as similar to saying that hurting people is OK as long as I don’t know I’m hurting them. No, it isn’t. If hurting people is not OK, then it follows that I ought not hurt people, and learning to recognize when I’m hurting people is part of that, and I ought to learn to recognize it. The behavior doesn’t suddenly become “not OK” the moment I learn to recognize it… it never was OK, and now I know it and can improve.
Conversely, if hurting people is OK, then it’s OK whether I know I’m doing it or not.
The same goes for manipulating people. Whether I know I’m doing it or not isn’t the determiner of whether I’m doing good or ill.
To my mind, the determiner of whether I’m doing good or ill is whether, when I’m done doing it, we’re all better off or worse off.
I agree with your point, but I think that “manipulate” needs to be tabooed. If we define manipulate as “acts that tend to change the behavior of others” then I agree with your implicit point that it is impossible to interact with others without changing their behaviors, and there is nothing wrong with thinking about how I would like someone else to behave when considering how I interact with them.
That said, there are connotations of manipulate as the word is ordinarily used that are not captured by the way you (and I) are using the word.
Sure. I’m perfectly happy to drop the word altogether and instead talk about changing the behavior of others.
Awareness of side effects isn’t equivalent to intentionality. You can thank someone to express genuine feelings of gratitude. If you wouldn’t do that in a counterfactual world in which the gratitude was absent, then I wouldn’t call that behavior intentionally manipulative regardless of whether you know about positive reinforcement.
Suppose I am not in the habit of expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me. Never mind why… maybe I was raised wrong. For whatever reason, I’m not in that habit. I feel gratitude, certainly, I just don’t express it.
Then one Monday, I learn that expressing gratitude to people for doing nice things for me will increase the odds that they will do it again. Suppose I want people to do nice things for me, and I therefore conclude that I ought to expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, in order to get them to do it more, and I therefore start expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me, whether I feel gratitude or not.
Then on Wednesday, I learn that this only works when I genuinely do feel gratitude… when I express gratitude I don’t actually feel, I get bad results. (Again, it doesn’t matter why. Maybe I’m a lousy liar.) So I stop expressing gratitude when people do nice things for me when I don’t feel gratitude, but I continue doing so when I do, since that still gets me stuff I want.
If I’ve understood you correctly, you would call me intentionally manipulative on Tuesday, but not on Thursday. I’m happy to restrict the term “intentionally manipulative” to Tuesday behavior and not Thursday behavior, if that makes communication easier, though I don’t use those words that way myself.
Regardless of what words we use, presumably we agree that on both Tuesday and Thursday, I am doing something with the intention of causing changes in other people’s behavior, and am doing so without their awareness or consent. Yes?
Do you endorse this on Tuesday?
Do you endorse this on Thursday?
For my own part, I find the idea of endorsing that behavior on Thursday but not on Tuesday deeply troubling, for many of the reasons I listed before.
Obvious remark is obvious: you might disapprove of the behavior on Tuesday because it involves lying.
If you don’t know you’re manipulating someone, you’re not manipulating someone. Manipulation is an intentional behavior, like lying, or congratulating, or taking a vow. Knowing what you’re doing is part of doing it.
Yeah, I pretty much disagree with this statement completely.
That’s… incredible to me. Do you disagree that there is such a category (i.e. actions you have to know you’re doing in order to be doing them at all), or that manipulation falls under it?
I disagree that manipulation falls under it.
Do you agree that manipulation can be intentional (lets call this Imanipulation) And that what Luke is advising is the intentional kind?
I agree that manipulation can be intentional, certainly.
I agree that the examples Luke is talking about are intentional ones, but I suspect that’s rather incidental. To talk about it as “the intentional kind of manipulation” strikes me as misleading in the same sense that, while I agree that his example of Anna and Alicorn manipulating Eliezer was manipulation of a man by women, I would consider it misleading to refer to it as “the heterosexual kind of manipulation.”
For example, if I practiced positive-reinforcement conditioning so assiduously that I started doing it without having to form explicit intention to do it (in the same way that I don’t always form the explicit intention to catch a ball flying at my face before catching it), I expect that Luke would endorse doing it just the same; the fact that it’s intentional in one case and not the other just wouldn’t matter.
Actually, now that I think about it, what’s your take on that? That is, if I practice modifying others’ behavior until I reach the point where I can do it instinctively, without an overt intention-forming stage, does it suddenly become ethically acceptable for me to do so? (Since, after all, it’s no longer manipulation, on your account.)
I didn’t follow this at all.
Say I practiced my swing so assiduously that I could hit a 90mph fastball without thinking (indeed, there is no time to think). Would you say that every time I knock such a pitch into the outfield, I’ve done so unintentionally? The fact that I don’t go through an explicit thought process (if such a category is intelligible) every time doesn’t make a difference. A practiced liar and a pathological liar could both lie without thinking, but the former is doing something typically unethical (unless they’re like a spy or something) while the latter is just, well, pathological.
The way I’d put your point here is that one can practice a behavior to the point where it becomes a basic action, something which requires no deliberation as to how it is done, like walking or taking a drink or saying a sentence in your native language. I don’t think the basic vs. non-basic action distinction (if you think this is a fair way to put it) tracks the intentional vs. unintentional action distinction.
And the unintentional manipulations I’d exclude from this discussion are cases where you, say, ask how someone’s kids are because you care, and this happens to make them feel good (largely because they think you care), as opposed to cases where you ask about their kids in order to make them feel good. Those unintentional cases fall outside the conventional use of ‘manipulation’, but I won’t stand on semantics.
Nope. If you intentionally put yourself into a situation where you’re going to have 90mph fastballs thrown near you, with the intention of hitting them with a baseball bat, I would not say that your subsequent hitting of a 90mph fastball with a bat was unintentional.
I’m going to drop this thread here, because I feel like you’re sidestepping my questions rather than addressing them, and it’s beginning to get on my nerves. (You are, of course, under no obligation to answer my questions. I’m also perfectly prepared to believe that you aren’t intentionally sidestepping them.)
Well, I am sidestepping, because I think the point about practice is tangential to our discussion. Habitual insincerity is not therefore unintentional in the relevant sense.
This exchange may be helpful to understand TheOtherDave’s point.
Thanks, that is helpful.
.… And what about helping other people without knowing you helped them? /sly look/
Similarly, if helping people is OK, it’s OK whether I know I’m doing it or not, and if it’s not OK, it’s not OK whether I know I’m doing it or not.
Yes. But maybe there is a correlation that people who know what they are doing, are doing it more.
If that’s true, then it would make sense to criticize intentional manipulation more.
Well, only if doing it is worth criticizing in the first place.