It’s really difficult to ‘shut up and multiply’ in some cases.
I mean, I’m going to get personal here because it feels like the best way to articulate my problems with mathematical utilitarianism. But right now, I don’t produce anything like what I cost my society (in terms of socialized medicine, and support I receive from my parents).
I feel very strongly that I shouldn’t value myself more than a random African. But there are charities that claim I could save at least one life with what I spend on prescription fees every month. In terms of pure utilitarianism, unless I’m certain that I’m going to produce a lot more in the future and give some of that away, I probably ought to persuade my parents to give the help they give me with the rent to effective charities, borrow a bunch of money and give that to effective charities, then give the money I spend on my meds to effective charities until I basically kill myself.
That doesn’t feel right, but it’s what I get from shutting up and multiplying.
That is sort of what I meant by it being the “logical thing”. I don’t expect many people to actually manage it. You have to work around your emotions. But it’s still a useful first approximation for what you should be doing.
[Jodika] I probably ought to persuade my parents to give the help they give me with the rent to effective charities, borrow a bunch of money and give that to effective charities, then give the money I spend on my meds to effective charities until I basically kill myself.
[DanielLC] it’s still a useful first approximation for what you should be doing.
I don’t think that’s true? I think that, in practice, people value themselves more. But I think that it’s a fairly common tenet of normal peoples’ moralities that people are equal in value, and that if you asked random people, most of them would not say that they consider themselves to be more valuable or important than everyone else.
Which, yes, means that there’s a discrepancy between what people say they believe and what their actions say they believe, but that’s pretty normal too.
Most people don’t analyze things much at all. It’s possible to ask a random person and be told he values everyone equally, and that’s in some literal sense not saying what he believes. But if you just rephrased the question as “do you care more about yourself than someone else—would you pay my mortgage as readily as your own”, he would answer “oh, if that’s what you mean, then of course I care about myself more”. Technically he’s inconsistent, but it’s a very shallow sort of inconsistency based mostly on the fact that he doesn’t analyze things much; it isn’t some kind of hypocrisy or denial.
Maybe I am amoral, but I don’t value myself the same as a random person even in a theoretical sense. What I do is I recognize that in some sense I am no more valuable to humanity than any other person. But I am way more valuable to me—if I die, that brings utility to 0, and while it can be negative in some circumstances (aka Life is not worth living), some random person’s death clearly cannot do so, people are constantly dying in huge numbers all the time, and the cost of each death is non-zero to me, but must be relatively small, else I would easily be in the negative territory, and I am not.
It’s really difficult to ‘shut up and multiply’ in some cases.
I mean, I’m going to get personal here because it feels like the best way to articulate my problems with mathematical utilitarianism. But right now, I don’t produce anything like what I cost my society (in terms of socialized medicine, and support I receive from my parents).
I feel very strongly that I shouldn’t value myself more than a random African. But there are charities that claim I could save at least one life with what I spend on prescription fees every month. In terms of pure utilitarianism, unless I’m certain that I’m going to produce a lot more in the future and give some of that away, I probably ought to persuade my parents to give the help they give me with the rent to effective charities, borrow a bunch of money and give that to effective charities, then give the money I spend on my meds to effective charities until I basically kill myself.
That doesn’t feel right, but it’s what I get from shutting up and multiplying.
That is sort of what I meant by it being the “logical thing”. I don’t expect many people to actually manage it. You have to work around your emotions. But it’s still a useful first approximation for what you should be doing.
Really?
Maybe this means your feelings are wrong, and you should value yourself more than a random African.
If you go outside LW and EA, the idea that anyone values themselves only as much as a random other person would be considered bizarre.
I don’t think that’s true? I think that, in practice, people value themselves more. But I think that it’s a fairly common tenet of normal peoples’ moralities that people are equal in value, and that if you asked random people, most of them would not say that they consider themselves to be more valuable or important than everyone else.
Which, yes, means that there’s a discrepancy between what people say they believe and what their actions say they believe, but that’s pretty normal too.
Most people don’t analyze things much at all. It’s possible to ask a random person and be told he values everyone equally, and that’s in some literal sense not saying what he believes. But if you just rephrased the question as “do you care more about yourself than someone else—would you pay my mortgage as readily as your own”, he would answer “oh, if that’s what you mean, then of course I care about myself more”. Technically he’s inconsistent, but it’s a very shallow sort of inconsistency based mostly on the fact that he doesn’t analyze things much; it isn’t some kind of hypocrisy or denial.
Maybe I am amoral, but I don’t value myself the same as a random person even in a theoretical sense. What I do is I recognize that in some sense I am no more valuable to humanity than any other person. But I am way more valuable to me—if I die, that brings utility to 0, and while it can be negative in some circumstances (aka Life is not worth living), some random person’s death clearly cannot do so, people are constantly dying in huge numbers all the time, and the cost of each death is non-zero to me, but must be relatively small, else I would easily be in the negative territory, and I am not.