As you say, there are certainly negative things that hypocrisy can be a signal of, but you recommend that we should just consider those things independently. I think trying to do this sounds really really hard. If we were perfect reasoners this wouldn’t be a problem; the anti-hypocrisy norm should indeed just be the sum of those hidden signals. However, we’re not; if you practice shutting down your automatic anti-hypocrisy norm, and replace it with a self-constructed non-automatic consideration of alternatives, then I think you’ll do worse sometimes.
This has sort of a “valley of bad rationality” feel to me; I imagine trying to have legible, coherent thoughts about alternative considerations while ignoring my gut anti-hypocrisy instinct, and that reliably failing me in social situations where I should’ve just gone with my instinct.
I notice the argument I’m making applies generally to all “override social instinct” suggestions, and I think that you should sometimes try to override your social instincts—but I do think that there’s huge valleys of bad rationality near to this, so I’d take extreme care about it. My guess is I think you should override them much less than you do—or I have a different sense of what “overriding” is.
Can you give a typical example, for yourself (maybe look out for examples in daily life and give one when it comes up)?
I think, for myself, the anti-hypocrisy flinch is causing me problems in almost every case where I consciously notice it. So my position is really more like “notice that this response is mostly useless/harmful. Also, in every case I can think of where it’s not, you could replace it with something more specific.”
For example, it’s often happened that a friend is giving advice and admits that they don’t do the thing themselves. I notice that in the social context, this feels something like a 50% decline in the credence given to the advice—it feels very real. But, when I notice this, it usually doesn’t seem valid on reflection.
Or, maybe a friend said something and I later start thinking about ways in which that friend doesn’t live their life in accordance with such a statement, and I start experiencing righteous indignation. Usually, when I reflect on this, it isn’t very plausible. I’m actually stretching the meaning of their statement, and also stretching my interpretation of how they live their life, in order to paint a picture where there’s a big mismatch. If I talked to them about it, they would predictably be able to respond by correcting those misinterpretations—and if I held on to my anger, I would probably double down, accusing them of missing the point and not trying to charitably understand what I’m saying. There’s usually some real reason for the annoyance I’m feeling with my friend, which has only a little to do with the hypocrisy accusation.
I will see if I can catch a fresh one in the wild and share it. I recognize your last paragraph as something I’ve experienced before, though, and I endorse the attempt to not let that grow into righteous indignation and annoyance without justification—with that as the archetype, I think that’s indeed a thing to try to improve.
Most examples that come to mind for me have to do with the person projecting identity, knowledge, or an aura of competence that I don’t think is accurate. For instance holding someone else to a social standard that they don’t meet, “I think person X has negative attribute Y” when the speaker has also recently displayed Y in my eyes. I think the anti-hypocrisy instinct I have is accurate in most of those cases: the conversation is not really about epistemics, it’s about social status and alliances, and if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
Ok yeah, I think my concern was mostly with the status version—or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
I was definitely unclear; my perception was the speaker’s claiming “person X has negative attribute Y, (therefore I am more deserving of status than them)” and that, given a certain social frame, who is deserving of more status is an epistemic question. Whereas actually, the person isn’t oriented toward really discussing who is more deserving of status within the frame, but rather is making a move to increase their status at the expense of the other person’s.
I think my sense that “who is deserving of more status within a frame” is an epistemic question might be assigning more structure to status than is actually there for most people.
[...] or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
That’s a good point. Given that I didn’t even think of the distinction explicitly until engaging with comments, it seems really easy to confuse them.
As you say, there are certainly negative things that hypocrisy can be a signal of, but you recommend that we should just consider those things independently. I think trying to do this sounds really really hard. If we were perfect reasoners this wouldn’t be a problem; the anti-hypocrisy norm should indeed just be the sum of those hidden signals. However, we’re not; if you practice shutting down your automatic anti-hypocrisy norm, and replace it with a self-constructed non-automatic consideration of alternatives, then I think you’ll do worse sometimes.
This has sort of a “valley of bad rationality” feel to me; I imagine trying to have legible, coherent thoughts about alternative considerations while ignoring my gut anti-hypocrisy instinct, and that reliably failing me in social situations where I should’ve just gone with my instinct.
I notice the argument I’m making applies generally to all “override social instinct” suggestions, and I think that you should sometimes try to override your social instincts—but I do think that there’s huge valleys of bad rationality near to this, so I’d take extreme care about it. My guess is I think you should override them much less than you do—or I have a different sense of what “overriding” is.
Can you give a typical example, for yourself (maybe look out for examples in daily life and give one when it comes up)?
I think, for myself, the anti-hypocrisy flinch is causing me problems in almost every case where I consciously notice it. So my position is really more like “notice that this response is mostly useless/harmful. Also, in every case I can think of where it’s not, you could replace it with something more specific.”
For example, it’s often happened that a friend is giving advice and admits that they don’t do the thing themselves. I notice that in the social context, this feels something like a 50% decline in the credence given to the advice—it feels very real. But, when I notice this, it usually doesn’t seem valid on reflection.
Or, maybe a friend said something and I later start thinking about ways in which that friend doesn’t live their life in accordance with such a statement, and I start experiencing righteous indignation. Usually, when I reflect on this, it isn’t very plausible. I’m actually stretching the meaning of their statement, and also stretching my interpretation of how they live their life, in order to paint a picture where there’s a big mismatch. If I talked to them about it, they would predictably be able to respond by correcting those misinterpretations—and if I held on to my anger, I would probably double down, accusing them of missing the point and not trying to charitably understand what I’m saying. There’s usually some real reason for the annoyance I’m feeling with my friend, which has only a little to do with the hypocrisy accusation.
I will see if I can catch a fresh one in the wild and share it. I recognize your last paragraph as something I’ve experienced before, though, and I endorse the attempt to not let that grow into righteous indignation and annoyance without justification—with that as the archetype, I think that’s indeed a thing to try to improve.
Most examples that come to mind for me have to do with the person projecting identity, knowledge, or an aura of competence that I don’t think is accurate. For instance holding someone else to a social standard that they don’t meet, “I think person X has negative attribute Y” when the speaker has also recently displayed Y in my eyes. I think the anti-hypocrisy instinct I have is accurate in most of those cases: the conversation is not really about epistemics, it’s about social status and alliances, and if I try to treat it as about epistemics (by for instance, naively pointing out the ways the other person has displayed Y) I may lose utility for no good reason.
I think I may agree with the status version of the anti-hypocrisy flinch. It’s the epistemic version I was really wanting to argue against.
… That doesn’t seem like treating it as being about epistemics to me. Why is it epistemically relevant? I think it’s more like a naive mix of epistemics and status. Status norms in the back of your head might make the hypocrisy salient and feel relevant. Epistemic discourse norms then naively suggest that you can resolve the contradiction by discussing it.
Ok yeah, I think my concern was mostly with the status version—or rather that there’s a general sensor that might combine those things, and the parts of that related to status and social management are really important, so you shouldn’t just turn the sensor off and run things manually.
I was definitely unclear; my perception was the speaker’s claiming “person X has negative attribute Y, (therefore I am more deserving of status than them)” and that, given a certain social frame, who is deserving of more status is an epistemic question. Whereas actually, the person isn’t oriented toward really discussing who is more deserving of status within the frame, but rather is making a move to increase their status at the expense of the other person’s.
I think my sense that “who is deserving of more status within a frame” is an epistemic question might be assigning more structure to status than is actually there for most people.
That’s a good point. Given that I didn’t even think of the distinction explicitly until engaging with comments, it seems really easy to confuse them.