We do? What does this mean, other than “we know people sometimes don’t do the things they claim to want to do”? It’s not like “akrasia” is something we can find in the territory, right? It’s just a (fairly sloppy and probably pretty harmful) part of our map.
Yeah, that’s a decent point. I’d taboo it here by replacing “we know people have akrasia” with: it isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to malintent—even in cases where a person is aware of the difference between what they say and what they do, and still persist, there are many cases in which no desire to be duplicitous seems to be present. For example, if someone who lives alone keeps forgetting to take out the garbage and keeps saying they should do it.
There’s also some fuzziness in my definition of hypocrisy as a difference between words and actions. Words can accomplish things, and actions can communicate things. The distinction should be more like, a discrepancy between what’s communicated and what’s accomplished.
This is too strong and too specific a reading of what I mean. One need not “desire to be duplicitous”; one need only have an insufficient dedication to truth; or an insufficient level of personal integrity; or an insufficient self-awareness, and perhaps a bit too much desire to be seen as virtuous; or an instinctive tendency (as so many people have) toward status-seeking behavior, and not the moral fortitude, the sense of justice, to counter it. These things are so common as to be near-universal.
The anti-hypocrisy norm guards against these ubiquitous traits; it prevents them (imperfectly, alas) from metastasizing and resulting in exploitation of the honest and the virtuous by the less-honest and less-virtuous.
It is precisely because explicit “desire to be duplicitous” is not necessary, and because mere insufficient virtue suffices, that the eternal vigilance of the anti-hypocrisy norm is so critical.
I wasn’t trying to give a reading of what you meant, there. I was trying to taboo “akrasia” in my argument, in response to your initial point objecting to akrasia as the relevant concept. So the relevant question is whether your objection to my use of “akrasia” in the argument also applies to my use of “isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent” in the implied revised argument. IE, your statement about it not being something in the territory.
The point you are making does make some sense, though. I think my reply along the deeper branch of conversation will probably engage with it more profitably.
I suppose I’m a bit confused, then. Certainly it’s true that it “isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent”. But who is claiming otherwise? I am saying that “hypocrisy” refers to—and guards against—a broader spectrum of behaviors than that. If you say “we know that not every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent”, well, I agree with you, but if I never claimed that in the first place, then what purpose does the objection serve?
To put it another way, “the implied revised argument” doesn’t seem to work as an argument against hypocrisy norms. What am I missing?
For me, this entire conversation has been predicated on the definition of “hypocrisy” I used in the post, IE, divergence of words form actions. You never suggested a different definition, that I caught. All of my objections were, roughly, “divergence of words from actions just doesn’t seem like the right heuristic”.
I don’t know where that puts us with respect to everything else we’ve discussed.
[comment radically edited from a previous version when I realized what was going on here]
Hold on—I think you might’ve misinterpreted my comment. The “that” in “a broader spectrum of behaviors than that” refers to “duplicitous malintent”, not to “divergence between words and actions”.
I think our disagreement is exactly as it has appeared until now. I think that “divergence of words from actions” is the right heuristic.
In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6” (IE, your “purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both”)?
Do you agree or disagree with “it’s obvious that not all hypocrisy is due to hostile agency in the sense of #6”?
IE, to what extent is hostile agency universal to hypocrisy, vs a strong heuristic?
In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6″ (IE, your ”purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both“)?
Separately from the points I raise in my other reply, I think this proposal is problematic, because it does not at all fit the pattern of usage of “akrasia”. As far as I’ve seen, the word “akrasia” is used to explain divergence between expressed intent or desire and action; this is different from divergence between advice and action, or advocacy of norms and action, or prudential claims and action, etc. The latter is hypocrisy, the former is what rationalist-type folks call “akrasia”. The two may co-occur, but they are not identical.
Now, perhaps this was your intent…? But if so, I don’t think it’s a good idea; for all that I disagree with the concept of akrasia (as employed on Less Wrong and in similar places), I don’t think that appropriating the word for an entirely different purpose is wise.
I agree that it doesn’t fit the usual definition; I was asking about the modified definition since it is what’s actually relevant to your argument (and as you noted, the argument I actually made in the post there is not very relevant to the view you’re putting forward).
That’s very much not how I use words or think they should be used. Words can be understood in terms of their use in the context of a discussion, and that’s often them at their most useful.
If you look back to my comment in question, you may note that I did not offer “hostile agency” as a causal explanation for hypocrisy, but as an assumption on which to base evaluation of the hypocrite’s words. Given this, it makes little sense to speak of hypocrisy being, or not being, “due to hostile agency”—even if you mentally perform the proper transformation, the explicitly causal language will inevitably put you in the mind of thinking about malicious intent, when in fact that’s not what we’re talking about. (The admittedly-awkward phrase I would substitute for “hostile agency” is “motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which makes it clear that we’re not in fact imputing any deliberate malice to anyone—not necessarily, anyway.)
That being said, if what you mean by this is indeed something like “will this assumption sometimes lead you drastically astray”, then the answer is clearly “yes” in a strict sense—but “sometimes” in this case is “not very often at all”. As I mentioned in another comment—first, there are degrees of hypocrisy; and second, that the stigma attaches even to, in some sense, “innocent” hypocrisy, is a good thing—a feature, not a bug. (This latter consideration would seem to be a non sequitur in a strictly epistemic discussion; but (a) we are also talking about norms here, and (b) norms of this type can affect group epistemics—so unless the discussion is not only strictly epistemic, but strictly individual-level epistemic, the latter consideration is, in fact, quite relevant.)
(I also have another, unrelated, objection, which I’ll deal with in a sibling comment.)
Ok. I agree with your clarifications (I didn’t have in mind a literal “due to hostile agency”, but rather “due to motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which is what “due to hostile agency” would have to mean in the context of what we’ve already clarified about #6).
I was asking just to make sure whether you thought the connection was absolue or a heuristic, and didn’t really plan to continue this particular line of inquiry beyond that, but now it seems possibly good to discuss the frequency question which you raised. After all, the quality of a heuristic does depend on how frequently it is right.
My model is that in most contexts, it already makes sense to infer “hostile agency” in this sense, IE, agency which is not necessarily out to get you but which isn’t particularly looking out for your interests in the interaction and needs to be watched for that reason. However, with respect to the specific intentions behind hypocritical words, I can only think of a few examples concentrated in certain individuals where it was really associated with that. To my memory, it seems like hypocrisy tends to be either incidental to a preexisting hostile agency, or basically meaningless (easily explained by other reasons).
Yeah, that’s a decent point. I’d taboo it here by replacing “we know people have akrasia” with: it isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to malintent—even in cases where a person is aware of the difference between what they say and what they do, and still persist, there are many cases in which no desire to be duplicitous seems to be present. For example, if someone who lives alone keeps forgetting to take out the garbage and keeps saying they should do it.
There’s also some fuzziness in my definition of hypocrisy as a difference between words and actions. Words can accomplish things, and actions can communicate things. The distinction should be more like, a discrepancy between what’s communicated and what’s accomplished.
This is too strong and too specific a reading of what I mean. One need not “desire to be duplicitous”; one need only have an insufficient dedication to truth; or an insufficient level of personal integrity; or an insufficient self-awareness, and perhaps a bit too much desire to be seen as virtuous; or an instinctive tendency (as so many people have) toward status-seeking behavior, and not the moral fortitude, the sense of justice, to counter it. These things are so common as to be near-universal.
The anti-hypocrisy norm guards against these ubiquitous traits; it prevents them (imperfectly, alas) from metastasizing and resulting in exploitation of the honest and the virtuous by the less-honest and less-virtuous.
It is precisely because explicit “desire to be duplicitous” is not necessary, and because mere insufficient virtue suffices, that the eternal vigilance of the anti-hypocrisy norm is so critical.
I wasn’t trying to give a reading of what you meant, there. I was trying to taboo “akrasia” in my argument, in response to your initial point objecting to akrasia as the relevant concept. So the relevant question is whether your objection to my use of “akrasia” in the argument also applies to my use of “isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent” in the implied revised argument. IE, your statement about it not being something in the territory.
The point you are making does make some sense, though. I think my reply along the deeper branch of conversation will probably engage with it more profitably.
I suppose I’m a bit confused, then. Certainly it’s true that it “isn’t plausible to claim that every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent”. But who is claiming otherwise? I am saying that “hypocrisy” refers to—and guards against—a broader spectrum of behaviors than that. If you say “we know that not every divergence between words and actions is due to duplicitous malintent”, well, I agree with you, but if I never claimed that in the first place, then what purpose does the objection serve?
To put it another way, “the implied revised argument” doesn’t seem to work as an argument against hypocrisy norms. What am I missing?
Ohhhh.
So.
For me, this entire conversation has been predicated on the definition of “hypocrisy” I used in the post, IE, divergence of words form actions. You never suggested a different definition, that I caught. All of my objections were, roughly, “divergence of words from actions just doesn’t seem like the right heuristic”.
I don’t know where that puts us with respect to everything else we’ve discussed.
[comment radically edited from a previous version when I realized what was going on here]
Hold on—I think you might’ve misinterpreted my comment. The “that” in “a broader spectrum of behaviors than that” refers to “duplicitous malintent”, not to “divergence between words and actions”.
I think our disagreement is exactly as it has appeared until now. I think that “divergence of words from actions” is the right heuristic.
In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6” (IE, your “purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both”)?
Do you agree or disagree with “it’s obvious that not all hypocrisy is due to hostile agency in the sense of #6”?
IE, to what extent is hostile agency universal to hypocrisy, vs a strong heuristic?
Separately from the points I raise in my other reply, I think this proposal is problematic, because it does not at all fit the pattern of usage of “akrasia”. As far as I’ve seen, the word “akrasia” is used to explain divergence between expressed intent or desire and action; this is different from divergence between advice and action, or advocacy of norms and action, or prudential claims and action, etc. The latter is hypocrisy, the former is what rationalist-type folks call “akrasia”. The two may co-occur, but they are not identical.
Now, perhaps this was your intent…? But if so, I don’t think it’s a good idea; for all that I disagree with the concept of akrasia (as employed on Less Wrong and in similar places), I don’t think that appropriating the word for an entirely different purpose is wise.
I agree that it doesn’t fit the usual definition; I was asking about the modified definition since it is what’s actually relevant to your argument (and as you noted, the argument I actually made in the post there is not very relevant to the view you’re putting forward).
Then my comment stands—I think it is unwise to appropriate the term for this meaning. It can only serve to confuse us, and everyone we talk to.
That’s very much not how I use words or think they should be used. Words can be understood in terms of their use in the context of a discussion, and that’s often them at their most useful.
Ok. I think that’s an absolutely horrible way to use words, though this is probably not the best context to discuss that.
I made a post specifically about the disagreement.
We could discuss it on the post I cited.
If you look back to my comment in question, you may note that I did not offer “hostile agency” as a causal explanation for hypocrisy, but as an assumption on which to base evaluation of the hypocrite’s words. Given this, it makes little sense to speak of hypocrisy being, or not being, “due to hostile agency”—even if you mentally perform the proper transformation, the explicitly causal language will inevitably put you in the mind of thinking about malicious intent, when in fact that’s not what we’re talking about. (The admittedly-awkward phrase I would substitute for “hostile agency” is “motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which makes it clear that we’re not in fact imputing any deliberate malice to anyone—not necessarily, anyway.)
That being said, if what you mean by this is indeed something like “will this assumption sometimes lead you drastically astray”, then the answer is clearly “yes” in a strict sense—but “sometimes” in this case is “not very often at all”. As I mentioned in another comment—first, there are degrees of hypocrisy; and second, that the stigma attaches even to, in some sense, “innocent” hypocrisy, is a good thing—a feature, not a bug. (This latter consideration would seem to be a non sequitur in a strictly epistemic discussion; but (a) we are also talking about norms here, and (b) norms of this type can affect group epistemics—so unless the discussion is not only strictly epistemic, but strictly individual-level epistemic, the latter consideration is, in fact, quite relevant.)
(I also have another, unrelated, objection, which I’ll deal with in a sibling comment.)
Ok. I agree with your clarifications (I didn’t have in mind a literal “due to hostile agency”, but rather “due to motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which is what “due to hostile agency” would have to mean in the context of what we’ve already clarified about #6).
I was asking just to make sure whether you thought the connection was absolue or a heuristic, and didn’t really plan to continue this particular line of inquiry beyond that, but now it seems possibly good to discuss the frequency question which you raised. After all, the quality of a heuristic does depend on how frequently it is right.
My model is that in most contexts, it already makes sense to infer “hostile agency” in this sense, IE, agency which is not necessarily out to get you but which isn’t particularly looking out for your interests in the interaction and needs to be watched for that reason. However, with respect to the specific intentions behind hypocritical words, I can only think of a few examples concentrated in certain individuals where it was really associated with that. To my memory, it seems like hypocrisy tends to be either incidental to a preexisting hostile agency, or basically meaningless (easily explained by other reasons).
Ah, ok.