1) ascribing intent to behavior is one of the best ways to control someone’s behavior, and it’s deeply baked into our reactions. You are much more likely to get someone to conform to your desires if you say “you’re intentionally behaving badly, stop it” than if you say “I don’t like that outcome, but you didn’t mean it”. Your mind is biased toward seeing (and believing, so you can more forcefully make the accusation) much stronger intent than actually exists.
2) intent is a much better predictor of future behaviors than simple observation. It’s far easier to punish or cut off ties to someone with bad intents than with one who’s just a little incompetent but means well. Therefore, your mind is biased toward seeing intent so you can take more forceful actions to protect your interests.
3) Nate doesn’t make the point directly, but “good” and “bad” are massively oversimplified to the point of being misleading. There are many dimensions to evaluate about a person or organization’s likelihood of helping or harming your goals in the future, and in figuring out how best to influence them to be more aligned with your values and beliefs.
4) I’m torn about the object-level objection about statements of value that differ from what behaviors imply. Most humans are not beings of pure thought, and the fact that there are any actions that affect others which are not purely information-sharing doesn’t seem that surprising to me.
Nate doesn’t make the point directly, but “good” and “bad” are massively oversimplified to the point of being misleading. There are many dimensions to evaluate about a person or organization’s likelihood of helping or harming your goals in the future, and in figuring out how best to influence them to be more aligned with your values and beliefs.
This struck me as being such an important oversight that it almost turned Nate’s whole post into an academic exercise.
Any given interpersonal disagreement that culminates in an argument is going to have some kind of difficult-to-reconcile opposition of values and/or mutual knowledge at its core. Both parties are generally going to try to use persuasion in some form to manipulate their opponent’s sense of the relevant values, or their perception of the details of the situation, or their knowledge and interpretation of the facts. From the other side, this will very often look like a bad-faith attempt to undermine your values and beliefs, and you can’t necessarily even say that it isn’t.
In the ideal case, a disagreement can be solved purely by sharing all of the relevant facts. This may be the only case where you can actually expect people to come to an agreement without any tinge of feeling that their opponent is acting in bad faith or being manipulative.
In the less ideal case, all the facts may be shared, but a difference in perspective or weighting of various details necessitates further argument to try to come to an agreement. Since you are trying to address your opponent’s thinking and perceptions, you are by definition attempting to manipulate their mind. This is true regardless of the “goodness” of your intentions.
In the something-like-worst-cast, fundamentally felt values are in opposition, and no amount of sharing of facts and interpretations is going to lead to agreement. At this point it is difficult to even say that you are acting in good faith even if you think that you are, because you’re (perhaps knowingly) trying to persuade someone of something that they believe is wrong and would still believe to be wrong upon indefinite reflection.
The endpoints of “pure good faith” and “pure bad faith” are probably very rare, but the middle ground of muddled manipulativeness and self-justification better describe most arguments.
So, a couple of thoughts:
1) ascribing intent to behavior is one of the best ways to control someone’s behavior, and it’s deeply baked into our reactions. You are much more likely to get someone to conform to your desires if you say “you’re intentionally behaving badly, stop it” than if you say “I don’t like that outcome, but you didn’t mean it”. Your mind is biased toward seeing (and believing, so you can more forcefully make the accusation) much stronger intent than actually exists.
2) intent is a much better predictor of future behaviors than simple observation. It’s far easier to punish or cut off ties to someone with bad intents than with one who’s just a little incompetent but means well. Therefore, your mind is biased toward seeing intent so you can take more forceful actions to protect your interests.
3) Nate doesn’t make the point directly, but “good” and “bad” are massively oversimplified to the point of being misleading. There are many dimensions to evaluate about a person or organization’s likelihood of helping or harming your goals in the future, and in figuring out how best to influence them to be more aligned with your values and beliefs.
4) I’m torn about the object-level objection about statements of value that differ from what behaviors imply. Most humans are not beings of pure thought, and the fact that there are any actions that affect others which are not purely information-sharing doesn’t seem that surprising to me.
This struck me as being such an important oversight that it almost turned Nate’s whole post into an academic exercise.
Any given interpersonal disagreement that culminates in an argument is going to have some kind of difficult-to-reconcile opposition of values and/or mutual knowledge at its core. Both parties are generally going to try to use persuasion in some form to manipulate their opponent’s sense of the relevant values, or their perception of the details of the situation, or their knowledge and interpretation of the facts. From the other side, this will very often look like a bad-faith attempt to undermine your values and beliefs, and you can’t necessarily even say that it isn’t.
In the ideal case, a disagreement can be solved purely by sharing all of the relevant facts. This may be the only case where you can actually expect people to come to an agreement without any tinge of feeling that their opponent is acting in bad faith or being manipulative.
In the less ideal case, all the facts may be shared, but a difference in perspective or weighting of various details necessitates further argument to try to come to an agreement. Since you are trying to address your opponent’s thinking and perceptions, you are by definition attempting to manipulate their mind. This is true regardless of the “goodness” of your intentions.
In the something-like-worst-cast, fundamentally felt values are in opposition, and no amount of sharing of facts and interpretations is going to lead to agreement. At this point it is difficult to even say that you are acting in good faith even if you think that you are, because you’re (perhaps knowingly) trying to persuade someone of something that they believe is wrong and would still believe to be wrong upon indefinite reflection.
The endpoints of “pure good faith” and “pure bad faith” are probably very rare, but the middle ground of muddled manipulativeness and self-justification better describe most arguments.