As it is probably intended, the more reminders like this I read, the more ethical I should become. As it actually works, the more of this I read, the less I become interested in ethics. Maybe I am extraordinarily selfish and this effect doesn’t happen to most, but it should be at least considered that constant preaching of moral duties can have counterproductive results.
I suspect it’s because authors of “ethical remainders” are usually very bad at understanding human nature.
What they essentially do is associate “ethical” with “unpleasant”, because as long as you have some pleasure, you are obviously not ethical enough; you could do better by giving up some more pleasure, and it’s bad that you refuse to do so. The attention is drawn away from good things you are really doing, to the hypothetical good things you are not doing.
But humans are usually driven by small incentives, by short-term feelings. The best thing our rationality can do is better align these short-term feelings with out long-term goals, so we actually feel happy when contributing to our long-term goals. And how exactly are these “ethical remainders” contributing to the process? Mostly by undercutting your short-term ethical motivators, by always reminding you that what you did was not enough, therefore you don’t deserve the feelings of satisfaction. Gradually they turn these motivators off, and you no longer feel like doing anything ethical, because they convinced you (your “elephant”) that you can’t.
Ethics without understanding human nature is just a pile of horseshit. Of course that does not prevent other people from admiring those who speak it.
Yes. And it works this way even without insisting that more can be done; even if you live up to the demands, or even if the moral preachers recognise your right to be happy sometimes, the warm feeling from doing good is greatly diminished when you are told that philantrophy is just being expected, that helping others is not something one does naturally with joy, but that it should be a conscious effort, a hard work, to be done properly.
Not to mention the remarks of Mark Twain on a fundraiser he attended once:
Well, Hawley worked me up to a great state. I couldn’t wait for him to get through [his speech]. I had four hundred dollars in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But he didn’t pass the plate, and it grew hotter and we grew sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down - $100 at a time, till finally when the plate came round I stole 10 cents out of it. [Prolonged laughter.] So you see a neglect like that may lead to crime.
It might be worth taking a look at Karen Horney’s work. She was an early psychoanalyst who wrote that if a child is abused, neglected, or has normal developmental stages overly interfered with, they are at risk of concluding that just being a human being isn’t good enough, and will invent inhuman standards for themselves.
I’m working on understanding the implications (how do you get living as a human being right? :-/ ), but I think she was on to something.
I wasn’t abused or neglected. Did she check experimentally that abuse or neglect is more prevalent among rationalists than in the general population?
Of course that’s not something a human would ordinarily do to check a plausible-sounding hypothesis, so I guess she probably didn’t, unless something went horribly wrong in her childhood.
Second thought: Maybe I should have not mentioned her theory about why people adopt inhuman standards, and just focused on the idea that inhuman standards are likely to backfire, Viliam_Bur did.
Also—if I reread I’ll check this—I think Horney focused on inhuman standards of already having a quality, which is not quite the same thing as having inhuman standards about what one ought to achieve, though I think they’re related.
I was thinking about prase in particular, who sounds as though he might have some problems with applying high standards in a way that’s bad for him.
Horney died in 1952, so she might not have had access to rationalists in your sense of the word.
When I said it might be worth taking a look at Horney’s work, I really did mean I thought it might be worth exploring, not that I’m very sure it applies. It seems to be of some use for me.
To be clear, I don’t have problems with applying high standards to myself, unless not wishing to apply such standards qualifies as a problem. However I am far more willing to consider myself an altruist (and perhaps behave accordingly) when other people don’t constantly remind me that it’s my moral obligation.
Thanks for the explanation, and my apologies for jumping to conclusions.
I’ve been wondering why cheerleading sometimes damages motivation—there’s certainly a big risk of it damaging mine. The other half would be why cheerleading sometimes works, and what the differences are between when it works and when it doesn’t.
At least for me, I tend to interpret cheerleading as “Let me take you over for my purposes. This project probably isn’t worth it for you, that’s why I’m pushing you into it instead of letting you see its value for yourself.” with a side order of “You’re too stupid to know what’s valuable, that’s why you have to be pushed.”
I’m not sure what cheerleading feels like to people who like it.
The feeling of being forced to pursue someone else’s goals is certainly part of it. But even if the goals align, being pushed usually means that one’s good deeds aren’t going to be fully appreciated by others, which too is a great demotivator.
As it is probably intended, the more reminders like this I read, the more ethical I should become. As it actually works, the more of this I read, the less I become interested in ethics. Maybe I am extraordinarily selfish and this effect doesn’t happen to most, but it should be at least considered that constant preaching of moral duties can have counterproductive results.
I suspect it’s because authors of “ethical remainders” are usually very bad at understanding human nature.
What they essentially do is associate “ethical” with “unpleasant”, because as long as you have some pleasure, you are obviously not ethical enough; you could do better by giving up some more pleasure, and it’s bad that you refuse to do so. The attention is drawn away from good things you are really doing, to the hypothetical good things you are not doing.
But humans are usually driven by small incentives, by short-term feelings. The best thing our rationality can do is better align these short-term feelings with out long-term goals, so we actually feel happy when contributing to our long-term goals. And how exactly are these “ethical remainders” contributing to the process? Mostly by undercutting your short-term ethical motivators, by always reminding you that what you did was not enough, therefore you don’t deserve the feelings of satisfaction. Gradually they turn these motivators off, and you no longer feel like doing anything ethical, because they convinced you (your “elephant”) that you can’t.
Ethics without understanding human nature is just a pile of horseshit. Of course that does not prevent other people from admiring those who speak it.
Yes. And it works this way even without insisting that more can be done; even if you live up to the demands, or even if the moral preachers recognise your right to be happy sometimes, the warm feeling from doing good is greatly diminished when you are told that philantrophy is just being expected, that helping others is not something one does naturally with joy, but that it should be a conscious effort, a hard work, to be done properly.
xkcd reference.
Not to mention the remarks of Mark Twain on a fundraiser he attended once:
It might be worth taking a look at Karen Horney’s work. She was an early psychoanalyst who wrote that if a child is abused, neglected, or has normal developmental stages overly interfered with, they are at risk of concluding that just being a human being isn’t good enough, and will invent inhuman standards for themselves.
I’m working on understanding the implications (how do you get living as a human being right? :-/ ), but I think she was on to something.
I wasn’t abused or neglected. Did she check experimentally that abuse or neglect is more prevalent among rationalists than in the general population?
Of course that’s not something a human would ordinarily do to check a plausible-sounding hypothesis, so I guess she probably didn’t, unless something went horribly wrong in her childhood.
Second thought: Maybe I should have not mentioned her theory about why people adopt inhuman standards, and just focused on the idea that inhuman standards are likely to backfire, Viliam_Bur did.
Also—if I reread I’ll check this—I think Horney focused on inhuman standards of already having a quality, which is not quite the same thing as having inhuman standards about what one ought to achieve, though I think they’re related.
I was thinking about prase in particular, who sounds as though he might have some problems with applying high standards in a way that’s bad for him.
Horney died in 1952, so she might not have had access to rationalists in your sense of the word.
When I said it might be worth taking a look at Horney’s work, I really did mean I thought it might be worth exploring, not that I’m very sure it applies. It seems to be of some use for me.
To be clear, I don’t have problems with applying high standards to myself, unless not wishing to apply such standards qualifies as a problem. However I am far more willing to consider myself an altruist (and perhaps behave accordingly) when other people don’t constantly remind me that it’s my moral obligation.
Thanks for the explanation, and my apologies for jumping to conclusions.
I’ve been wondering why cheerleading sometimes damages motivation—there’s certainly a big risk of it damaging mine. The other half would be why cheerleading sometimes works, and what the differences are between when it works and when it doesn’t.
At least for me, I tend to interpret cheerleading as “Let me take you over for my purposes. This project probably isn’t worth it for you, that’s why I’m pushing you into it instead of letting you see its value for yourself.” with a side order of “You’re too stupid to know what’s valuable, that’s why you have to be pushed.”
I’m not sure what cheerleading feels like to people who like it.
No need to apologise.
The feeling of being forced to pursue someone else’s goals is certainly part of it. But even if the goals align, being pushed usually means that one’s good deeds aren’t going to be fully appreciated by others, which too is a great demotivator.
I think the feeling that one’s good deeds will be unappreciated is especially a risk for altruism.