I’m fine with that kind of right existing in the legal sense and encourage all the ones you listed. I don’t think anyone has a fundamental moral obligation to feed you or perform abortions for you or conduct a marriage ceremony for you, though you can often get them to agree to it anyway, empirically, with the use of money.
If I may, I’m curious on what basis you consider those rights a good idea? Is it just a whim? Are you worried real rights might be violated?
I’m not usually in favour of calling all these various things “rights”, since it rather confuses things—as you’re probably aware—but I must admit the “right to not-starving-to-death” sounds important.
Are you saying you would be OK with letting people starve to death? Or am I misunderstanding?
I think those rights-in-the-legal-sense are good for political and social reasons. Basically, I think they’re prudent.
I don’t think I am doing something wrong, right now, by having liquid savings while there exist charities that feed the hungry, some of whom are sufficiently food-insecure for that to make a difference to their survival. I bite the bullet if the starving person happens to be nearby: this doesn’t affect their rights, and only rights have a claim on my moral obligations. I might choose to feed a starving person. I will support political policy that seems like it will get more starving people fed. I will tend to find myself emotionally distraught on contemplating that people are starving, so I’d resent the “OK with it” description. Also, when I have children, they will have positive claims on me and I will be morally obligated to see to it that they are fed. Other than that? I don’t think we have to feed each other. It’s super-erogatory.
I think those rights-in-the-legal-sense are good for political and social reasons.
I see. And what are those reasons?
I don’t think I am doing something wrong, right now, by having liquid savings while there exist charities
Yeah, that’s a common problem with consequentialists. Obviously, we have various instincts about this and it’s both hard and dangerous to ignore them.
I bite the bullet if the starving person happens to be nearby: this doesn’t affect their rights, and only rights have a claim on my moral obligations.
I’m actually somewhat pleased to hear that, because it’s not the first time a deontologist has told me that. I was too speechless to respond, and they changed their mind before I could find out more.
I might choose to feed a starving person. I will support political policy that seems like it will get more starving people fed. I will tend to find myself emotionally distraught on contemplating that people are starving, so I’d resent the “OK with it” description.
Ah, here we go. That’s good!
You do realize that sort of thing is usually part of what’s referred to by “morality”? So leaving it out seems … incomplete.
Postscript:
I’m not sure, but it may be that there’s something causing some confusion, by the way. I’ve seen it happen before in similar discussions.
There seem to be two functions people use “morality” for—judging people, and judging actions.
Consequentialists, or at least standard-lesswrong-utilitarian-consequentialists, resolve this by not judging people, except in order to predict them—and even then, “good” or “bad” tend to be counterproductive labels for people, epistemically.
Instead, they focus entirely on judging their actions—asking, which of my options is the correct one?
But I gather you (like a lot of people) do judge people—if someone violates your moral code, that makes them an acceptable casualty in defending the rights of innocents. (Although you’re not a total virtue ethicist, who only judges people, not actions; the polar opposite of LW standard.)
I’m not really going anywhere with this, it just seems possibly relevant to the discussion at hand.
I think those rights-in-the-legal-sense are good for political and social reasons.
I see. And what are those reasons?
I’m gonna decline to discuss politics on this platform. If you really want to talk politics with me we can do it somewhere else, I guess.
I would tend to describe myself as judging actions and not people directly, though I think you can produce an assessment of a person that is based on their moral behavior and not go too far wrong given how humans work.
Oh! Oh, OK. Sorry, I just assumed those were so vague as to avoid mindkilling. Of course we shouldn’t derail this into a political debate.
I would tend to describe myself as judging actions and not people directly
In fairness, you’re clearly smart enough to disregard all the obvious mistakes where we make prisons as awful as possible (or, more likely, just resist making them better) because we Hate Criminals.
This is a more abstract idea, and much more limited. I’m not criticising it (here). Just noting that I’ve seen it cause confusion in the past, if left unnoticed.
Actually, what the heck, while I’m here I may as well criticize slightly.
This is little more than my first thought on reviewing what I think I understand as your moral system.
It’s discovered Hitler’s brain was saved all those years ago. Given a giant robot body by mad scientists, he is rapidly re-elected and repurposes the police force into stormtroopers for rounding up Jews.
You, being reasonably ethical, have some Jews hidden in your house. Since the stormtroopers have violated relevant rights (actually, they could be new on the job, but you can just tell they’re thinging about it—good enough), so their relevant right not to be lied to is waived and you tell them “no Jews hidden here!” quite cheerfully before shutting the door.
However, naturally, they know Baye’s theorem and they’ve read some of your writings, so they know you’re allowed to lie and your words aren’t evidence either way—although silence would be. So they devise a Cunning Plan.
They go around next door and talk to Mrs. Biddy, a sweet old lady who is, sadly, unaware of the recent political shift. She was always told to respect police officers and she’s not going to stop now at her age. The white-haired old grandmother comes around to repeat the question the nice men asked her to.
She’s at the door, with the two stormtroopers standing behind her grinning. What do you do?
I mean, obviously, you betray the Jews and they get dragged off to a concentration camp somewhere. Can’t lie to the innocent old lady, can’t stay silent because that’s strong Bayesian evidence too.
But you’re reasonably intelligent, you must have considered an isomorphic case when constructing this system, right? Casualties in a Just War or something? Two people manipulated into attacking the other while dressed as bears (“so the bear wont see you coming”)? Do you bite this bullet? Have I gone insane from lack of sleep? I’m going to bed.
Why are all these hypothetical people so well-versed in one oddball deontologist’s opinions? If they’re that well-read they probably know I’m half Jewish and drag me off without asking me anything.
Mrs. Biddy sounds culpably ignorant to me, anyway.
You may or may not have gone insane from lack of sleep.
In fairness, you’re clearly smart enough to disregard all the obvious mistakes where we make prisons as awful as possible (or, more likely, just resist making them better) because we Hate Criminals.
Um, the purpose of prisons is to punish criminals, so yes, prisons should be awful, not necessarily “as awful as possible”, but for sufficiently serious crimes quite possibly.
EDIT: Wait, you mean “punish” in the consequentialist sense of punishing defection, right?
Yes, but this does not imply that the current level of awfulness is optimal. It certainly does not mean we should increase the awfulness beyond the optimal level.
But if someone proposes that the current level is too high (whether on consequentialist or legal grounds), one of the arguments they will encounter is “you want to help rapists and murderers?! Why? Those bastards deserve it.”
(The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.)
The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.
If you want to look at optimal awfulness, there is a much better way to test, look at the crime rate. The currant crime rate is extremely high by historic standards. Furthermore, the recent drop from its peak in the 1970′s has accomplished by basically turning major cities into Orwellian surveillance states. I think increasing the awfulness of prisons would be a better solution, at the very least in puts the burden on the criminals rather than the innocent.
That really isn’t a good argument for the current state of US prisons, is it? Clearly, even openly allowing institutional rape has failed to help; yet other, less harsh countries have not seen soaring crime rates by comparison.
I’ve seen studies suggesting that certainty of punishment is much more important for determining behavior than the extremity of it—it’s more a question of a strong justice system, a respect for authority (or fear, one might say), than people performing expected utility calculation in their heads.
It is known that lots of people enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless. Anyone who punishes prisoners because they enjoy doing so is in a conflict of interest, at least if he has any discretion in how to carry out the punishment.
I don’t know if it’s more so because comparing degrees here is hard, but I would say that we should not hire prison guards who enjoy punishing prisoners and have discretion in doing so.
You can rephrase “punishing criminals” in terms of quasi-consequentialist decision theory as deterrent/counter-factual crime prevention. Al the other reasons I’ve heard are little more than rationalizations by people who want to punish/deter criminals but feel icky about the word “punishment”.
What possible reasons there could plausibly be for jailing people, and what actually in fact motivates most people to support jailing people, are not the same thing.
Some possibilities for the former include:
Retribution (i.e., punishing criminals because they deserve it)
Closure/satisfaction for the victim(s), or for family/friends of the victims(s).
Deterrence, i.e. protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect other people to otherwise perpetrate.
Protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect this same criminal to otherwise perpetrate.
Rehabilitation.
… (other things I am not thinking of at the moment)
None of those things are the same as any of the others. Some fit the rather imprecise term “punishment” closely (1, 2), others not so closely (3, 4), still others not at all (5).
I would argue that (1) and (2) are in fact the same thing just formulated at different meta-levels, and that (3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2). Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason, as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
(3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2)
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
That may well be, but that doesn’t make it not an actual good reason to have prisons.
Your comment which prompted me to start this subthread spoke about what should be the case. If you say “this-and-such are the actual motivations people have for advocating/supporting the existance of prisons”, fine and well. But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
Something else, see my reply to hen. For where I go into more detail about this.
But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
See hen’s comment for the problem I have with rehabilitation.
With respect, both hen’s comment and your reply read to me like nonsense. I can neither make sense of what either of you are saying, nor, to the degree that I can, see any reason why you would claim the things you seem to be claiming. Of course, I could merely be misunderstanding your points.
However, I think we have now gone on a tangent far removed from anything resembling the original topic, and so I will refrain from continuing this subthread. (I’ll read any responses you make, though.)
I think Eugine_Nier might be trying to say that the reason we evolved the emotions of anger and thirst for vengeance is because being known to be vengeful (even irrationally so) is itself a good deterrent. And possibly that this therefore makes these the same thing. But I’m not sure about that because that seems to me like a straightforward case of mixing up adaptation executors and fitness maximizers.
To see what I mean by the dignity of moral agents think of a criminal as a moral agent, rather then a defective object to be fixed. The idea of rehabilitation should acquires a certain Orwellian/totalitarian aura, i.e., this is the kind of thing the Ministry of Love does.
As for my statement about deterrence and retribution, I believe we’re having that discussion here.
A datapoint: I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent. In fact, I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
(For the record, it looks like you may not be a consequentialist, but it seems worth asking.)
I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
Um … why not? I mean, when we all agree it’s a good idea, there are reasonable safeguards in place, we’ve checked it really does reduce rapes, murders, thefts, brutal beatings … why not?
I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent.
Is it OK to lock someone in a box because you’re angry? Isn’t that, in fact, evil? Does it become OK if you “respect” them (I’m not sure what this refers to, I admit.)
I more-or-less agree with your world view, with the caveat that I would interpret contrafactual crime prevention as anger translated into decision theory language (it helps to think about the reason we evolved the emotion of anger). Deterrent as applied to other people is a version of the contrafactual crime prevention where we restrict our thinking to other people in this event branch as opposed to all event branches.
I bite the bullet if the starving person happens to be nearby: this doesn’t affect their rights, and only rights have a claim on my moral obligations.
I’m actually somewhat pleased to hear that, because it’s not the first time a deontologist has told me that.
To a VNM consequentialist in every situation there is a unique “best action”, my contrast for a deontologist or virtue ethicist their morality doesn’t specify a single action to take. Thus you are allowed (and possibly encouraged) to help the starving man, but aren’t required to.
Well, since Alicorn’s system does not take account of that, this is in any case biting a bullet for you as well.
[With that acknowledged, I am curious about those intuitions of yours. Is this about punishing defection? The standard “well, if they’re a Bad Person, they deserve what’s coming to them”? Or more “it’s their own fault, they made their bed let them lie in it, why should we be responsible for their foolishness”, that sort of thing?]
Well, since Alicorn’s system does not take account of that
As you may have noticed, I’m not Alicorn.
Is this about punishing defection? The standard “well, if they’re a Bad Person, they deserve what’s coming to them”? Or more “it’s their own fault, they made their bed let them lie in it, why should we be responsible for their foolishness”, that sort of thing?
Both, also I have some more examples, that could fall under one or both depending on how one defines “defection” and “foolishness”. If someone decided that they’d rather not work and rely on my charity to get food, they won’t be getting my charity. Also if CronoDAS comes by my house begging for food, the answer is no.
Another example, is that my response to the famous train dilemma depends on what the people were doing on the track. If they were say picking up pennies, I’m letting them get run over.
Well, since Alicorn’s system does not take account of that
As you may have noticed, I’m not Alicorn.
Well … yeah. Because you’re replying to something I said to Alicorn.
Both, also I have some more examples, that could fall under one or both depending on how one defines “defection” and “foolishness”. If someone decided that they’d rather not work and rely on my charity to get food, they won’t be getting my charity. Also if CronoDAS comes by my house begging for food, the answer is no.
Is this for game-theoretic reasons, or more of a virtue-ethics “lazy people don’t deserve food” thing?
Another example, is that my response to the famous train dilemma depends on what the people were doing on the track. If they were say picking up pennies, I’m letting them get run over.
Are we killing people for stupidity now? I mean, I guess if the numbers were equal, the group drawn from the general population is a better bet to save than the group selected for “plays on train tracks”—but I don’t think that’s what you meant.
Wait, is this a signalling thing? Y’know, sophisticated despair at the foolish masses? If it is, there’s no need to reply to this part; I’ll drop it.
Another example, is that my response to the famous train dilemma depends on what the people were doing on the track. If they were say picking up pennies, I’m letting them get run over.
Are we killing people for stupidity now?
Did you take click on my link? “Picking up pennies on railroad tracks/in front of a steam roller” is a well known metaphor for taking certain types of risks in economic circles.
However, to answer your question: no, I (normally) won’t kill someone for his stupidity, but I see no reason to save them, and certainly no reason to kill other people to save them.
why don’t you care about the suffering and death of someone “stupid”
Why should I?
Would you prefer that others care about your suffering and death, if something happened such that you became (temporarily or permanently) “stupid”?
If they chose to take that kind of risk, they are responsible for its consequences.
In many cases, people are not aware of the risks they are taking; in many other cases, people may not have less-risky alternatives. Should they still be entirely responsible for their consequences? Because that seems to lean towards “just-world hypothesis” thinking, and if that’s where this is going, we may want to just go there and be done with it.
Would you like to be the innocent bystander sacrificed to save an idiot from the consequences of his own stupidity.
Me in particular, or people in general? Because there is a particular class of idiot that most people would GLADLY be sacrificed to save; they’re called “children”.
As for me, personally, that depends on the calculus. Am I saving one idiot, or ten? Are they merely idiotic in this circumstance, or idiotic in general (i.e., in most situations a normal human being might reasonably find themselves in)? Are we talking about a well-medicated version of me with a good chance of contributing meaningfully to society, or a cynical, hopeless, clinically depressed version of me that would gladly take ANY reason to die? Because I think at this point, we’re talking about weighted values, and I quite imagine that there’s a certain number of certain kinds of idiots that I would absolutely consider more worth saving than certain versions of myself, if I was doing the calculus honestly.
And if I’m not doing the calculus honestly, then I’m an idiot.
People do not choose to be children. People do choose to be careless or to refuse to learn. Idiocy that is caused by carelessness or refusal to learn is therefore the person’s fault.
In the unlikely case of someone who has, for instance, been infected by nanobots that force his brain to act carelessly, I would of course not hold him to blame.
In the unlikely case of someone who has, for instance, been infected by nanobots that force his brain to act carelessly, I would of course not hold him to blame.
As opposed to, say, just a reduced capacity for impulse control or learning? Or an ingrained aversion to thinking before acting?
I don’t give children a free pass. If an adult is sufficiently incompetent, I wouldn’t blame him, either.
However, I would not classify an adult as sufficiently incompetent for these purposes unless his impulse control is so bad that he can’t safely live on his own. (There is no inconsistency between this and considering children incompetent, since children cannot safely live on their own either.)
In the example given, I think if people are incompetent enough to risk themselves physical injury or death for the sake of picking up pennies, that’s pretty good evidence that they can’t safely live on their own without supervision.
If they managed to survive long enough to get to the railroad track to pick up the pennies, they’re probably able to live on their own without supervision unless there was an extreme stroke of luck involved (such as having been released from custody fifteen minutes ago).
My feelings about governments are complicated by the guarantee-of-exit thing I mentioned elsethread, but with that understood, I’m not opposed on any level to systematic taxation. If a government were rounding people up to work in agriculture or soup kitchens or what have you against their will, that would be wrong.
No; there doesn’t have to be a society that wants you, or for that matter one that is agreeable to your preferences.
is taxation a violation of people’s rights? If not, why not?
I don’t think so. I think failing to provide guarantee-of-exit is a failing on the part of various governments and it does make some things they do less defensible, but I’m not opposed to taxes. Part of it is actually that it’s not a person collecting taxes.
I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of taxes are not collected in the tax-collector-based way depicted in the Disney version of “Robin Hood”. I do object when force comes to be involved. (I don’t have any suggestions on what to do about it. Something being wrong doesn’t, actually, stop anyone from doing it.)
They’re not collected in the tax-collector-based way because there’s no need to—there’s enough of a threat of force to get people to comply. If it’s a credible threat, the government would use force on non-compliers, presumably thus violating their rights. As you said, something being wrong doesn’t stop anyone from doing it—but it does license you to say that they shouldn’t do it, and it licenses the victims to resist.
Okay. Elsewhere in thread when I was walking through the photography example, I said that if there were a right to not be photographed but it were generally known that the customs were different for public figures, becoming a public figure on purpose might constitute consent. This is why I think guaranteed exit is so important—if it were in place, you could move to whatever country had the taxation setup you could best tolerate if they’d have you, and that would be that.
Even without guaranteed exit, countries can have a price of admission, though. (Sort of like even if there is no universal healthcare, your doctor can charge, and even if there is no food bank, so can the grocery store.)
I really doubt that anyone is waiting for me to license them to tax dodge or pick fights with cops.
This assumes that staying implies consent, which is a questionable assumption. It presupposes that the State has the right to do whatever it wants on its territory as long as it lets people leave (even if the only other state in the world is even more authoritarian). For example, if half of the world were ruled by North Korea and the other half by China, would you say that China’s policies were morally justified because people would be free to leave and move to North Korea?
I really doubt that anyone is waiting for me to license them to tax dodge or pick fights with cops.
No, but they may like morality to license them to avoid taxes or resist cops. (Although I do like the image of someone thinking, “Damn, taxes suck, if only that person who wrote that Twilight fanific said I don’t have to pay them.”)
This assumes that staying implies consent, which is a questionable assumption.
No kidding it’s questionable, hence my thing about guaranteed exit. But likewise the various agents of the government do not necessarily consent to freeloading. If the Red Cross puts out juice and cookies for blood donors, and you are not a donor, and you take some, you are stealing even if there is nowhere else for you to get food.
It presupposes that the State has the right to do whatever it wants on its territory as long as it lets people leave (even if the only other state in the world is even more authoritarian).
No, it does not imply that. They can’t do things suddenly, in particular (because then that particular aspect of the interaction hasn’t been consented to). Consent is also revocable at any time even if standing permission is granted. They also have to stick to contextual relevance in attempting to enforce laws. (Also, a government that was operating under Alicorn Morality couldn’t lie, which I think all by itself would shake some things up.)
For example, if half of the world were ruled by North Korea and the other half by China, would you say that China’s policies were morally justified because people would be free to leave and move to North Korea?
I am unqualified to have an opinion on the details of the political situations in most countries. If I just read this as “Bad Country With Guarantee of Exit” and “Worse Country With Guarantee of Exit”, well, that sounds like a pretty lousy situation to be in, but nothing about this situation means the countries involved have to “charge less” or require different standards of behavior from their citizens.
Imagine that the world is divided between Fascistia and Communistan. One day, the Duce of Fascistia announces that in a year, all the wealth of the residents of Fascistia will be confiscated to build statues of Mussolini, but before then, they’re perfectly free to take their stuff and move to Communistan. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Communistan announces that he’ll happily accept all new immigrants, but warns that in a year, all the wealth of residents of Communistan will be confiscated to build statues of Lenin. In this case, the change is not sudden (if you consider this sudden, change “in a year” to “in ten years”) and it doesn’t prevent either country’s residents from leaving. Is this a rights violation?
Or consider another scenario. One day you’re checking your mail and find a letter from famed thief Arsene Lupin, informing you that in a year he will be breaking into your house to steal a recent painting you’ve acquired. M. Lupin happens to read LessWrong from time to time, so he’s read your writings on morality. He writes that you are free to leave your house and take your possessions with you, thwarting him. Nevertheless, you don’t leave. In doing so, have you consented to the painting being stolen?
Assuming the residents of Fascistia and Communistan have no wherewithal to create separate states (including by declaring subregions independent and declining to accept further services from the parent countries, thereby ending the transactional relationship; forming seasteads; flying to the Moon; etc.) it sure looks like they are in a pickle, unless they manage to use this year to become sculptor suppliers, or attempt to convince the leaders in question to change their minds. This is sort of like my version of the utility monster—sure, in real life, there are large numbers of diverse people and institutions you could choose to interact with, but what if your choices were Bad and Also Bad?! - and I have to bite the bullet here. (I do think it’s probably hard to construct a situation where nobody is, for whatever reason, capable of declaring independence, but if you cut off that route...)
I don’t consent to interact with M. Lupin or allow him into my house on any level. We are not in a transactional relationship of some kind that would imply this.
This is sort of like my version of the utility monster—sure, in real life, there are large numbers of diverse people and institutions you could choose to interact with, but what if your choices were Bad and Also Bad?! - and I have to bite the bullet here.
This seems a strange place to bite the bullet. Why can the state seize property (with ample warning) but M. Lupin can’t? The state is made of people, and if no person is permitted to seize it, then the state isn’t either. Alternatively, if the state is permitted to seize it, then some person must be as well, so it seems that people would then be allowed to make demands that entitle them to to your stuff.
I don’t consent to interact with M. Lupin or allow him into my house on any level. We are not in a transactional relationship of some kind that would imply this.
Why is this different from the state? Is it because it provides services? Would this be any different if M. Lupin broke into your house every day to do your laundry, without your consent, and then claimed that he had a right to the painting as payment for his services?
The services thing is key, but so is consent (of some kind, with guaranteed exit, etc etc caveat caveat). I don’t consent to M. Lupin coming into my house even to do my laundry, you can’t throw a book through somebody’s open window and demand ten dollars for it, if I make a batch of cookies I cannot charge my neighbors for the smell. If the people of Communistan declare independence of Provinceland, and Communistan officials commence visiting Provinceland without permission continuing to maintain the roads even if Provincelanders wish they would go away, then Communistan is conducting a (bizarre) invasion, not a consensual transaction.
How many people does it take to secede? Would it be permissible for California to secede from the US? What about the Bay Area—would it be morally permissible for it to be its own country? What about a small suburb? One house? Can I unilaterally secede, then claim that tax collectors/cops are invading my country of Blacktransylvania?
I don’t have a minimum number in mind, although you’d certainly need a fair number for this to be advisable. I will bemusedly support your solo efforts at secession if that is meaningful to you, provided that the land you’re trying to secede with belongs to you or someone amenable to the project.
Thank you for explaining your position. It’s surprisingly radical, if your last sentence is to be taken literally. I have one last question. Assume a few of my neighbors and I secede, and say that tax collectors are unwelcome. May we then amend our permission to say that tax collectors are welcome, but only if they’re collecting up to X amount of taxes, where X is the amount needed to fund [list of US government services we support], in return for receiving those services?
Assume a few of my neighbors and I secede, and say that tax collectors are unwelcome. May we then amend our permission to say that tax collectors are welcome, but only if they’re collecting up to X amount of taxes, where X is the amount needed to fund [list of US government services we support], in return for receiving those services?
I don’t see why not, but the United States is not obliged to offer the services a la carte.
I’m fine with that kind of right existing in the legal sense and encourage all the ones you listed. I don’t think anyone has a fundamental moral obligation to feed you or perform abortions for you or conduct a marriage ceremony for you, though you can often get them to agree to it anyway, empirically, with the use of money.
If I may, I’m curious on what basis you consider those rights a good idea? Is it just a whim? Are you worried real rights might be violated?
I’m not usually in favour of calling all these various things “rights”, since it rather confuses things—as you’re probably aware—but I must admit the “right to not-starving-to-death” sounds important.
Are you saying you would be OK with letting people starve to death? Or am I misunderstanding?
I think those rights-in-the-legal-sense are good for political and social reasons. Basically, I think they’re prudent.
I don’t think I am doing something wrong, right now, by having liquid savings while there exist charities that feed the hungry, some of whom are sufficiently food-insecure for that to make a difference to their survival. I bite the bullet if the starving person happens to be nearby: this doesn’t affect their rights, and only rights have a claim on my moral obligations. I might choose to feed a starving person. I will support political policy that seems like it will get more starving people fed. I will tend to find myself emotionally distraught on contemplating that people are starving, so I’d resent the “OK with it” description. Also, when I have children, they will have positive claims on me and I will be morally obligated to see to it that they are fed. Other than that? I don’t think we have to feed each other. It’s super-erogatory.
I see. And what are those reasons?
Yeah, that’s a common problem with consequentialists. Obviously, we have various instincts about this and it’s both hard and dangerous to ignore them.
I’m actually somewhat pleased to hear that, because it’s not the first time a deontologist has told me that. I was too speechless to respond, and they changed their mind before I could find out more.
Ah, here we go. That’s good!
You do realize that sort of thing is usually part of what’s referred to by “morality”? So leaving it out seems … incomplete.
Postscript:
I’m not sure, but it may be that there’s something causing some confusion, by the way. I’ve seen it happen before in similar discussions.
There seem to be two functions people use “morality” for—judging people, and judging actions.
Consequentialists, or at least standard-lesswrong-utilitarian-consequentialists, resolve this by not judging people, except in order to predict them—and even then, “good” or “bad” tend to be counterproductive labels for people, epistemically.
Instead, they focus entirely on judging their actions—asking, which of my options is the correct one?
But I gather you (like a lot of people) do judge people—if someone violates your moral code, that makes them an acceptable casualty in defending the rights of innocents. (Although you’re not a total virtue ethicist, who only judges people, not actions; the polar opposite of LW standard.)
I’m not really going anywhere with this, it just seems possibly relevant to the discussion at hand.
I’m gonna decline to discuss politics on this platform. If you really want to talk politics with me we can do it somewhere else, I guess.
I would tend to describe myself as judging actions and not people directly, though I think you can produce an assessment of a person that is based on their moral behavior and not go too far wrong given how humans work.
Oh! Oh, OK. Sorry, I just assumed those were so vague as to avoid mindkilling. Of course we shouldn’t derail this into a political debate.
In fairness, you’re clearly smart enough to disregard all the obvious mistakes where we make prisons as awful as possible (or, more likely, just resist making them better) because we Hate Criminals.
This is a more abstract idea, and much more limited. I’m not criticising it (here). Just noting that I’ve seen it cause confusion in the past, if left unnoticed.
Actually, what the heck, while I’m here I may as well criticize slightly.
This is little more than my first thought on reviewing what I think I understand as your moral system.
It’s discovered Hitler’s brain was saved all those years ago. Given a giant robot body by mad scientists, he is rapidly re-elected and repurposes the police force into stormtroopers for rounding up Jews.
You, being reasonably ethical, have some Jews hidden in your house. Since the stormtroopers have violated relevant rights (actually, they could be new on the job, but you can just tell they’re thinging about it—good enough), so their relevant right not to be lied to is waived and you tell them “no Jews hidden here!” quite cheerfully before shutting the door.
However, naturally, they know Baye’s theorem and they’ve read some of your writings, so they know you’re allowed to lie and your words aren’t evidence either way—although silence would be. So they devise a Cunning Plan.
They go around next door and talk to Mrs. Biddy, a sweet old lady who is, sadly, unaware of the recent political shift. She was always told to respect police officers and she’s not going to stop now at her age. The white-haired old grandmother comes around to repeat the question the nice men asked her to.
She’s at the door, with the two stormtroopers standing behind her grinning. What do you do?
I mean, obviously, you betray the Jews and they get dragged off to a concentration camp somewhere. Can’t lie to the innocent old lady, can’t stay silent because that’s strong Bayesian evidence too.
But you’re reasonably intelligent, you must have considered an isomorphic case when constructing this system, right? Casualties in a Just War or something? Two people manipulated into attacking the other while dressed as bears (“so the bear wont see you coming”)? Do you bite this bullet? Have I gone insane from lack of sleep? I’m going to bed.
Why are all these hypothetical people so well-versed in one oddball deontologist’s opinions? If they’re that well-read they probably know I’m half Jewish and drag me off without asking me anything.
Mrs. Biddy sounds culpably ignorant to me, anyway.
You may or may not have gone insane from lack of sleep.
Um, the purpose of prisons is to punish criminals, so yes, prisons should be awful, not necessarily “as awful as possible”, but for sufficiently serious crimes quite possibly.
EDIT: Wait, you mean “punish” in the consequentialist sense of punishing defection, right?
Yes, but this does not imply that the current level of awfulness is optimal. It certainly does not mean we should increase the awfulness beyond the optimal level.
But if someone proposes that the current level is too high (whether on consequentialist or legal grounds), one of the arguments they will encounter is “you want to help rapists and murderers?! Why? Those bastards deserve it.”
(The consequentialist argument for, say, the current state of US prisons is of course undercut by the existence of other countries with much less awful prisons.)
If you want to look at optimal awfulness, there is a much better way to test, look at the crime rate. The currant crime rate is extremely high by historic standards. Furthermore, the recent drop from its peak in the 1970′s has accomplished by basically turning major cities into Orwellian surveillance states. I think increasing the awfulness of prisons would be a better solution, at the very least in puts the burden on the criminals rather than the innocent.
That really isn’t a good argument for the current state of US prisons, is it? Clearly, even openly allowing institutional rape has failed to help; yet other, less harsh countries have not seen soaring crime rates by comparison.
I’ve seen studies suggesting that certainty of punishment is much more important for determining behavior than the extremity of it—it’s more a question of a strong justice system, a respect for authority (or fear, one might say), than people performing expected utility calculation in their heads.
Personally I’m in favor of corporal punishment, cheaper than prisons and you don’t have the problem of long term prisoners getting used to it.
It is known that lots of people enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless. Anyone who punishes prisoners because they enjoy doing so is in a conflict of interest, at least if he has any discretion in how to carry out the punishment.
Also, it’s possible to take that effect into account when deciding punishment.
More so than existing prison guards?
I don’t know if it’s more so because comparing degrees here is hard, but I would say that we should not hire prison guards who enjoy punishing prisoners and have discretion in doing so.
That is one possible purpose to have prisons, but not the only one.
You can rephrase “punishing criminals” in terms of quasi-consequentialist decision theory as deterrent/counter-factual crime prevention. Al the other reasons I’ve heard are little more than rationalizations by people who want to punish/deter criminals but feel icky about the word “punishment”.
What possible reasons there could plausibly be for jailing people, and what actually in fact motivates most people to support jailing people, are not the same thing.
Some possibilities for the former include:
Retribution (i.e., punishing criminals because they deserve it)
Closure/satisfaction for the victim(s), or for family/friends of the victims(s).
Deterrence, i.e. protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect other people to otherwise perpetrate.
Protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect this same criminal to otherwise perpetrate.
Rehabilitation.
… (other things I am not thinking of at the moment)
None of those things are the same as any of the others. Some fit the rather imprecise term “punishment” closely (1, 2), others not so closely (3, 4), still others not at all (5).
I would argue that (1) and (2) are in fact the same thing just formulated at different meta-levels, and that (3) and (4) are the quasi-consequentialist decision theory “translations” of (1) and (2). Rehabilitation (5) is what I called a fake reason, as can be seen by the fact that the people promoting it are remarkably uninterested in whether their rehabilitation methods actually work.
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
That may well be, but that doesn’t make it not an actual good reason to have prisons.
Your comment which prompted me to start this subthread spoke about what should be the case. If you say “this-and-such are the actual motivations people have for advocating/supporting the existance of prisons”, fine and well. But when you talk about what should happen or what should exist, then people’s actual internal motivations for advocating what should happen/exist don’t enter into it.
Something else, see my reply to hen. For where I go into more detail about this.
See hen’s comment for the problem I have with rehabilitation.
With respect, both hen’s comment and your reply read to me like nonsense. I can neither make sense of what either of you are saying, nor, to the degree that I can, see any reason why you would claim the things you seem to be claiming. Of course, I could merely be misunderstanding your points.
However, I think we have now gone on a tangent far removed from anything resembling the original topic, and so I will refrain from continuing this subthread. (I’ll read any responses you make, though.)
I think Eugine_Nier might be trying to say that the reason we evolved the emotions of anger and thirst for vengeance is because being known to be vengeful (even irrationally so) is itself a good deterrent. And possibly that this therefore makes these the same thing. But I’m not sure about that because that seems to me like a straightforward case of mixing up adaptation executors and fitness maximizers.
You mean hen’s comment about the dignity of moral agents, or my statement about how deterrence is the quasi-consequentialist translation retribution?
Both, I’m afraid.
To see what I mean by the dignity of moral agents think of a criminal as a moral agent, rather then a defective object to be fixed. The idea of rehabilitation should acquires a certain Orwellian/totalitarian aura, i.e., this is the kind of thing the Ministry of Love does.
As for my statement about deterrence and retribution, I believe we’re having that discussion here.
A datapoint: I think the purpose of prisons is the institutional expression of anger, and insofar as they do this, they are an expression of respect for the criminal as a moral agent. In fact, I think that the use of prisons as a deterrent or to modify behavior is downright evil: you’re not allowed to put people in a box and not let them out just to change the way they act, and especially not to communicate something to other people.
(For the record, it looks like you may not be a consequentialist, but it seems worth asking.)
Um … why not? I mean, when we all agree it’s a good idea, there are reasonable safeguards in place, we’ve checked it really does reduce rapes, murders, thefts, brutal beatings … why not?
Is it OK to lock someone in a box because you’re angry? Isn’t that, in fact, evil? Does it become OK if you “respect” them (I’m not sure what this refers to, I admit.)
I should probably mention that hen has answered me via PM, and they are, in fact, basing this on consequentialist (more or less) concerns.
I more-or-less agree with your world view, with the caveat that I would interpret contrafactual crime prevention as anger translated into decision theory language (it helps to think about the reason we evolved the emotion of anger). Deterrent as applied to other people is a version of the contrafactual crime prevention where we restrict our thinking to other people in this event branch as opposed to all event branches.
To a VNM consequentialist in every situation there is a unique “best action”, my contrast for a deontologist or virtue ethicist their morality doesn’t specify a single action to take. Thus you are allowed (and possibly encouraged) to help the starving man, but aren’t required to.
And? I should hope anyone reading this thread has already figured that out—from all the times it was mentioned.
Is there some sort of implication of this I’m too stupid to see?
That it doesn’t require bullet biting to say that you are not moral obligated to help the starving person.
How so? It’s an unpleasant thing to say, and conflicts with our raw intuition on the matter. It sounds evil. That’s all biting a bullet is.
Remember, it’s sometimes correct to bite bullets.
What do you mean our intuition on the matter? My intuition says that at least it depends on how the man came to be starving.
Well, since Alicorn’s system does not take account of that, this is in any case biting a bullet for you as well.
[With that acknowledged, I am curious about those intuitions of yours. Is this about punishing defection? The standard “well, if they’re a Bad Person, they deserve what’s coming to them”? Or more “it’s their own fault, they made their bed let them lie in it, why should we be responsible for their foolishness”, that sort of thing?]
As you may have noticed, I’m not Alicorn.
Both, also I have some more examples, that could fall under one or both depending on how one defines “defection” and “foolishness”. If someone decided that they’d rather not work and rely on my charity to get food, they won’t be getting my charity. Also if CronoDAS comes by my house begging for food, the answer is no.
Another example, is that my response to the famous train dilemma depends on what the people were doing on the track. If they were say picking up pennies, I’m letting them get run over.
Well … yeah. Because you’re replying to something I said to Alicorn.
Is this for game-theoretic reasons, or more of a virtue-ethics “lazy people don’t deserve food” thing?
Are we killing people for stupidity now? I mean, I guess if the numbers were equal, the group drawn from the general population is a better bet to save than the group selected for “plays on train tracks”—but I don’t think that’s what you meant.
Wait, is this a signalling thing? Y’know, sophisticated despair at the foolish masses? If it is, there’s no need to reply to this part; I’ll drop it.
Did you take click on my link? “Picking up pennies on railroad tracks/in front of a steam roller” is a well known metaphor for taking certain types of risks in economic circles.
However, to answer your question: no, I (normally) won’t kill someone for his stupidity, but I see no reason to save them, and certainly no reason to kill other people to save them.
Yes, I clicked the link.
OK, that’s a little scary (or would be, anyway). Um … why don’t you care about the suffering and death of someone “stupid” (or risk-taking)?
What I find scary is that you appear to be willing to sacrifice innocent bystanders to save stupid people from their own stupidity.
Why should I?
If they chose to take that kind of risk, they are responsible for its consequences.
Would you prefer that others care about your suffering and death, if something happened such that you became (temporarily or permanently) “stupid”?
In many cases, people are not aware of the risks they are taking; in many other cases, people may not have less-risky alternatives. Should they still be entirely responsible for their consequences? Because that seems to lean towards “just-world hypothesis” thinking, and if that’s where this is going, we may want to just go there and be done with it.
Would you like to be the innocent bystander sacrificed to save an idiot from the consequences of his own stupidity.
Me in particular, or people in general? Because there is a particular class of idiot that most people would GLADLY be sacrificed to save; they’re called “children”.
As for me, personally, that depends on the calculus. Am I saving one idiot, or ten? Are they merely idiotic in this circumstance, or idiotic in general (i.e., in most situations a normal human being might reasonably find themselves in)? Are we talking about a well-medicated version of me with a good chance of contributing meaningfully to society, or a cynical, hopeless, clinically depressed version of me that would gladly take ANY reason to die? Because I think at this point, we’re talking about weighted values, and I quite imagine that there’s a certain number of certain kinds of idiots that I would absolutely consider more worth saving than certain versions of myself, if I was doing the calculus honestly.
And if I’m not doing the calculus honestly, then I’m an idiot.
I think that here, “idiot” refers to idiocy for which the person is to blame. Children are not generally to blame for being idiots.
Can you describe the mechanism by which children are not to blame for their stupidity, but other beings are?
People do not choose to be children. People do choose to be careless or to refuse to learn. Idiocy that is caused by carelessness or refusal to learn is therefore the person’s fault.
In the unlikely case of someone who has, for instance, been infected by nanobots that force his brain to act carelessly, I would of course not hold him to blame.
As opposed to, say, just a reduced capacity for impulse control or learning? Or an ingrained aversion to thinking before acting?
EDIT: Heh. Actually… It looks like your specific example is more plausible than I thought.
Put more bluntly: are there some classes of people which are less a product of their environments and biologies than others?
(And I’m not merely saying this from the perspective of “why do you hold idiots accountable”; I’m also asking “why do children get a free pass?”)
I don’t give children a free pass. If an adult is sufficiently incompetent, I wouldn’t blame him, either.
However, I would not classify an adult as sufficiently incompetent for these purposes unless his impulse control is so bad that he can’t safely live on his own. (There is no inconsistency between this and considering children incompetent, since children cannot safely live on their own either.)
In the example given, I think if people are incompetent enough to risk themselves physical injury or death for the sake of picking up pennies, that’s pretty good evidence that they can’t safely live on their own without supervision.
If they managed to survive long enough to get to the railroad track to pick up the pennies, they’re probably able to live on their own without supervision unless there was an extreme stroke of luck involved (such as having been released from custody fifteen minutes ago).
They don’t quite choose to live in places with lots of lead, more omega-6 than omega-3 fats, and little lithium either, for that matter.
Would the government not be violating rights (rights-not-in-the-legal-sense) if it forces people to feed those whom they don’t want to feed?
My feelings about governments are complicated by the guarantee-of-exit thing I mentioned elsethread, but with that understood, I’m not opposed on any level to systematic taxation. If a government were rounding people up to work in agriculture or soup kitchens or what have you against their will, that would be wrong.
In the absence of guarantee-of-exit (and guarantee-of-entrance-into-something else?), is taxation a violation of people’s rights? If not, why not?
No; there doesn’t have to be a society that wants you, or for that matter one that is agreeable to your preferences.
I don’t think so. I think failing to provide guarantee-of-exit is a failing on the part of various governments and it does make some things they do less defensible, but I’m not opposed to taxes. Part of it is actually that it’s not a person collecting taxes.
I’m confused. It’s not a person collecting taxes? Are tax collectors, cops (if it comes to force), etc, not people?
I’m pretty sure the overwhelming majority of taxes are not collected in the tax-collector-based way depicted in the Disney version of “Robin Hood”. I do object when force comes to be involved. (I don’t have any suggestions on what to do about it. Something being wrong doesn’t, actually, stop anyone from doing it.)
They’re not collected in the tax-collector-based way because there’s no need to—there’s enough of a threat of force to get people to comply. If it’s a credible threat, the government would use force on non-compliers, presumably thus violating their rights. As you said, something being wrong doesn’t stop anyone from doing it—but it does license you to say that they shouldn’t do it, and it licenses the victims to resist.
Okay. Elsewhere in thread when I was walking through the photography example, I said that if there were a right to not be photographed but it were generally known that the customs were different for public figures, becoming a public figure on purpose might constitute consent. This is why I think guaranteed exit is so important—if it were in place, you could move to whatever country had the taxation setup you could best tolerate if they’d have you, and that would be that.
Even without guaranteed exit, countries can have a price of admission, though. (Sort of like even if there is no universal healthcare, your doctor can charge, and even if there is no food bank, so can the grocery store.)
I really doubt that anyone is waiting for me to license them to tax dodge or pick fights with cops.
This assumes that staying implies consent, which is a questionable assumption. It presupposes that the State has the right to do whatever it wants on its territory as long as it lets people leave (even if the only other state in the world is even more authoritarian). For example, if half of the world were ruled by North Korea and the other half by China, would you say that China’s policies were morally justified because people would be free to leave and move to North Korea?
No, but they may like morality to license them to avoid taxes or resist cops. (Although I do like the image of someone thinking, “Damn, taxes suck, if only that person who wrote that Twilight fanific said I don’t have to pay them.”)
No kidding it’s questionable, hence my thing about guaranteed exit. But likewise the various agents of the government do not necessarily consent to freeloading. If the Red Cross puts out juice and cookies for blood donors, and you are not a donor, and you take some, you are stealing even if there is nowhere else for you to get food.
No, it does not imply that. They can’t do things suddenly, in particular (because then that particular aspect of the interaction hasn’t been consented to). Consent is also revocable at any time even if standing permission is granted. They also have to stick to contextual relevance in attempting to enforce laws. (Also, a government that was operating under Alicorn Morality couldn’t lie, which I think all by itself would shake some things up.)
I am unqualified to have an opinion on the details of the political situations in most countries. If I just read this as “Bad Country With Guarantee of Exit” and “Worse Country With Guarantee of Exit”, well, that sounds like a pretty lousy situation to be in, but nothing about this situation means the countries involved have to “charge less” or require different standards of behavior from their citizens.
Imagine that the world is divided between Fascistia and Communistan. One day, the Duce of Fascistia announces that in a year, all the wealth of the residents of Fascistia will be confiscated to build statues of Mussolini, but before then, they’re perfectly free to take their stuff and move to Communistan. The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Communistan announces that he’ll happily accept all new immigrants, but warns that in a year, all the wealth of residents of Communistan will be confiscated to build statues of Lenin. In this case, the change is not sudden (if you consider this sudden, change “in a year” to “in ten years”) and it doesn’t prevent either country’s residents from leaving. Is this a rights violation?
Or consider another scenario. One day you’re checking your mail and find a letter from famed thief Arsene Lupin, informing you that in a year he will be breaking into your house to steal a recent painting you’ve acquired. M. Lupin happens to read LessWrong from time to time, so he’s read your writings on morality. He writes that you are free to leave your house and take your possessions with you, thwarting him. Nevertheless, you don’t leave. In doing so, have you consented to the painting being stolen?
I am entertained by your examples.
Assuming the residents of Fascistia and Communistan have no wherewithal to create separate states (including by declaring subregions independent and declining to accept further services from the parent countries, thereby ending the transactional relationship; forming seasteads; flying to the Moon; etc.) it sure looks like they are in a pickle, unless they manage to use this year to become sculptor suppliers, or attempt to convince the leaders in question to change their minds. This is sort of like my version of the utility monster—sure, in real life, there are large numbers of diverse people and institutions you could choose to interact with, but what if your choices were Bad and Also Bad?! - and I have to bite the bullet here. (I do think it’s probably hard to construct a situation where nobody is, for whatever reason, capable of declaring independence, but if you cut off that route...)
I don’t consent to interact with M. Lupin or allow him into my house on any level. We are not in a transactional relationship of some kind that would imply this.
This seems a strange place to bite the bullet. Why can the state seize property (with ample warning) but M. Lupin can’t? The state is made of people, and if no person is permitted to seize it, then the state isn’t either. Alternatively, if the state is permitted to seize it, then some person must be as well, so it seems that people would then be allowed to make demands that entitle them to to your stuff.
Why is this different from the state? Is it because it provides services? Would this be any different if M. Lupin broke into your house every day to do your laundry, without your consent, and then claimed that he had a right to the painting as payment for his services?
The services thing is key, but so is consent (of some kind, with guaranteed exit, etc etc caveat caveat). I don’t consent to M. Lupin coming into my house even to do my laundry, you can’t throw a book through somebody’s open window and demand ten dollars for it, if I make a batch of cookies I cannot charge my neighbors for the smell. If the people of Communistan declare independence of Provinceland, and Communistan officials commence visiting Provinceland without permission continuing to maintain the roads even if Provincelanders wish they would go away, then Communistan is conducting a (bizarre) invasion, not a consensual transaction.
How many people does it take to secede? Would it be permissible for California to secede from the US? What about the Bay Area—would it be morally permissible for it to be its own country? What about a small suburb? One house? Can I unilaterally secede, then claim that tax collectors/cops are invading my country of Blacktransylvania?
I don’t have a minimum number in mind, although you’d certainly need a fair number for this to be advisable. I will bemusedly support your solo efforts at secession if that is meaningful to you, provided that the land you’re trying to secede with belongs to you or someone amenable to the project.
Thank you for explaining your position. It’s surprisingly radical, if your last sentence is to be taken literally. I have one last question. Assume a few of my neighbors and I secede, and say that tax collectors are unwelcome. May we then amend our permission to say that tax collectors are welcome, but only if they’re collecting up to X amount of taxes, where X is the amount needed to fund [list of US government services we support], in return for receiving those services?
I don’t see why not, but the United States is not obliged to offer the services a la carte.