The survey results page also lists “Strongest correlations” with other questions. If I’m reading the tables correctly for the Newcomb’s Problem results, there were 17 groups (in the target population who gave a particular answer to one of the other survey questions) in which one-boxing was at least as common as two-boxing. In order (of one-boxers minus two-boxers):
Political philosophy: communitarianism (84 vs 67) Semantic content: radical contextualism (most or all) (49 vs 34) Analysis of knowledge: justified true belief (49 vs 34) Response to external-world skepticism: pragmatic (51 vs 37) Normative ethics: virtue ethics (112 vs 100) Philosopher: Quine (33 vs 22) Arguments for theism: moral (22 vs 12) Hume: skeptic (72 vs 63) Aim of philosophy: wisdom (96 vs 88) Philosophical knowledge: none (12 vs 5) Philosopher: Marx (8 vs 2) Aim of philosophy: goodness/justice (73 vs 69) A priori knowledge: [no] (62 vs 58) Consciousness: panpsychism (16 vs 13) External world: skepticism (20 vs 18) Eating animals and animal products: omnivorism (yes and yes) (168 vs 168) Truth: epistemic (26 vs 26)
I’m guessing this is a case of “views that correlate with being less socially/culturally linked to analytic philosophers, will tend to correlate more with one-boxing”. But it would be wild if something were going on like:
Consequentialists two-box, because thinking about “consequences” primes you to accept the CDT argument that you should maximize your direct causal impact.
Deontologists two-box, because thinking about duties/principles primes you to accept the “I should do the capital-r Rational thing even if it’s not useful” argument.
Virtue ethicists one-box, because (a subset of) one-boxers are the ones talking about ‘making yourself into the right kind of agent’. (Or, more likely, virtue ethicists one-box just because they lack the other views’ reasons to two-box.)
Virtue ethicists one-box, because (a subset of) one-boxers are the ones talking about ‘making yourself into the right kind of agent’.
This seems sort of obvious to me, and I’m kind of surprised that only a bit over half of the virtue ethicists one-box.
[EDIT] I think I was giving the virtue ethicists too much credit and shouldn’t have been that surprised—this is actually a challenging situation to map onto traditional virtues, and ‘invent the new virtue for this situation’ is not that much a standard piece of virtue ethics. I would be surprised if only a bit over half of virtue ethicists pay up in Parfit’s Hitchhiker, even tho the problems are pretty equivalent.
53% of virtue ethicists one-box (out of those who picked a side).
Seems plausible that it’s for kinda-FDT-like reasons, since virtue ethics is about ‘be the kind of person who’ and that’s basically what matters when other agents are modeling you. It also fits with Eliezer’s semi-joking(?) tweet “The rules say we must use consequentialism, but good people are deontologists, and virtue ethics is what actually works.”
Whereas people who give the pragmatic response to external-world skepticism seem more likely to have “join the millionaires club” reasons for one-boxing.
The survey results page also lists “Strongest correlations” with other questions. If I’m reading the tables correctly for the Newcomb’s Problem results, there were 17 groups (in the target population who gave a particular answer to one of the other survey questions) in which one-boxing was at least as common as two-boxing. In order (of one-boxers minus two-boxers):
Political philosophy: communitarianism (84 vs 67)
Semantic content: radical contextualism (most or all) (49 vs 34)
Analysis of knowledge: justified true belief (49 vs 34)
Response to external-world skepticism: pragmatic (51 vs 37)
Normative ethics: virtue ethics (112 vs 100)
Philosopher: Quine (33 vs 22)
Arguments for theism: moral (22 vs 12)
Hume: skeptic (72 vs 63)
Aim of philosophy: wisdom (96 vs 88)
Philosophical knowledge: none (12 vs 5)
Philosopher: Marx (8 vs 2)
Aim of philosophy: goodness/justice (73 vs 69)
A priori knowledge: [no] (62 vs 58)
Consciousness: panpsychism (16 vs 13)
External world: skepticism (20 vs 18)
Eating animals and animal products: omnivorism (yes and yes) (168 vs 168)
Truth: epistemic (26 vs 26)
This is fantastic.
… Virtue ethicists one-box?!
I’m guessing this is a case of “views that correlate with being less socially/culturally linked to analytic philosophers, will tend to correlate more with one-boxing”. But it would be wild if something were going on like:
Consequentialists two-box, because thinking about “consequences” primes you to accept the CDT argument that you should maximize your direct causal impact.
Deontologists two-box, because thinking about duties/principles primes you to accept the “I should do the capital-r Rational thing even if it’s not useful” argument.
Virtue ethicists one-box, because (a subset of) one-boxers are the ones talking about ‘making yourself into the right kind of agent’. (Or, more likely, virtue ethicists one-box just because they lack the other views’ reasons to two-box.)
This seems sort of obvious to me, and I’m kind of surprised that only a bit over half of the virtue ethicists one-box.
[EDIT] I think I was giving the virtue ethicists too much credit and shouldn’t have been that surprised—this is actually a challenging situation to map onto traditional virtues, and ‘invent the new virtue for this situation’ is not that much a standard piece of virtue ethics. I would be surprised if only a bit over half of virtue ethicists pay up in Parfit’s Hitchhiker, even tho the problems are pretty equivalent.
53% of virtue ethicists one-box (out of those who picked a side).
Seems plausible that it’s for kinda-FDT-like reasons, since virtue ethics is about ‘be the kind of person who’ and that’s basically what matters when other agents are modeling you. It also fits with Eliezer’s semi-joking(?) tweet “The rules say we must use consequentialism, but good people are deontologists, and virtue ethics is what actually works.”
Whereas people who give the pragmatic response to external-world skepticism seem more likely to have “join the millionaires club” reasons for one-boxing.
Taking the second box is greedy and greed is a vice. This might also explain one-boxing by Marxists.