Suppose Alex!20 reads about play pumps, and vows to give some money to them every month. Alex!30 learns that actually, this charity is doing harm (on net). If he went back in time and gave Alex!20 a short presentation, Alex!20 wouldn’t make the vow. Alex!20′s actual goal was to make the world a better place, and he thought play pumps did that. Making simple vows that bind your behaviour restricts your freedom to act on the best available evidence. The rational thing to do is to be actively checking that such actions make sense, based on the best available evidence. As soon as some evidence suggests a new charity may be more effective, say oops and switch.
I mean I would say that
Partly because mass is good on rational merits (the utility gained from meeting up with fellow humans, thinking about ethics, meditating through prayer, singing with the congregation).
Is questionable. It reads like the excuse of someone who never really said oops, and decided they had made a mistake. I am sure that there are lots of clubs and knitting groups you could go to. I suspect that the rest of the activities are not helpful to actually getting ethics and rationality right. (It wouldn’t help a mathematician to sing songs about how “2+2=7” every week. ) The human brain is incapable of listening to and singing about obvious nonsense every week without being somewhat influenced by it. And I suspect that influence may not be in a good direction.
The play pump hypothetical/analogy is a bit forced, in that I’ve not heard of people making lifetime commitments to give money to a specific charity. I think there are good reasons for that, one of which you mention. People do sign up for monthly donations but they are free to cancel them at will, legally and ethically.
I wonder, if Austin aged 27 gave a short presentation to Austin aged 17, would this be enough to convince the younger Austin not to be confirmed Catholic? I think the younger Austin would be sympathetic to his older self’s complicated relationship with the church. Maybe he would offer “stop going when it’s no longer good for you”.
Suppose Alex!20 reads about play pumps, and vows to give some money to them every month. Alex!30 learns that actually, this charity is doing harm (on net). If he went back in time and gave Alex!20 a short presentation, Alex!20 wouldn’t make the vow. Alex!20′s actual goal was to make the world a better place, and he thought play pumps did that. Making simple vows that bind your behaviour restricts your freedom to act on the best available evidence. The rational thing to do is to be actively checking that such actions make sense, based on the best available evidence. As soon as some evidence suggests a new charity may be more effective, say oops and switch.
I mean I would say that
Is questionable. It reads like the excuse of someone who never really said oops, and decided they had made a mistake. I am sure that there are lots of clubs and knitting groups you could go to. I suspect that the rest of the activities are not helpful to actually getting ethics and rationality right. (It wouldn’t help a mathematician to sing songs about how “2+2=7” every week. ) The human brain is incapable of listening to and singing about obvious nonsense every week without being somewhat influenced by it. And I suspect that influence may not be in a good direction.
The play pump hypothetical/analogy is a bit forced, in that I’ve not heard of people making lifetime commitments to give money to a specific charity. I think there are good reasons for that, one of which you mention. People do sign up for monthly donations but they are free to cancel them at will, legally and ethically.
I wonder, if Austin aged 27 gave a short presentation to Austin aged 17, would this be enough to convince the younger Austin not to be confirmed Catholic? I think the younger Austin would be sympathetic to his older self’s complicated relationship with the church. Maybe he would offer “stop going when it’s no longer good for you”.