This is a revealing story about the double-binds in influence and persuasion. To me, your hypothetical form of influence probably would have been “Dark Arts,” but not just for the reasons you describe.
Actually, I’d prefer to taboo the term “Dark Arts” for a while, because I feel it’s poisoned the well on the subject of influence and persuasion (like the word “manipulation”). The problem with the term “Dark Arts” is that it conflates both ethical and unethical forms of influence, and creates an “Ugh Field” around the subject of influence in general. Let’s talk about how influence and persuasion work, and then later we will decide what’s ethical and what’s unethical.
The irony of a post criticizing the Dark Arts is that this post is full of rhetoric and persuasion itself, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I’d like to examine some of the language you use in this post (“Dark Arts”, “Jedi Mind Tricks”, “hacking”, “Murder Pill”). In general, I consider these forms of emotive language about influence and persuasion to inhibit understanding these topics.
When you take advantage of the Dark Arts, you’re not simply tricking people into giving you what you want; you’re making them want to give it to you.
Yes, changing what people want is an important component of influence and persuasion. But it is not inherently unethical, so I don’t think this entire category of behavior deserves the epithet “Dark Arts.”
You’re hacking into their brain
I think the “influence as brain-hacking” analogy is revealing in some ways, but confusing in others. People engaging in social influence rarely have powers over others comparable to root access to a computer. Perhaps a better analogy is someone giving you an account in their brain with limited privileges.
Brains have firewalls. Unless the brain is in an altered state where its defenses are disabled, there is only so much that an intruder has access to.
The way I look at things, the only time you can justify using the Jedi Mind Trick on somebody is when your ethics would stand clean with murdering them as well.
There is no such thing as Jedi Mind Tricks.
and inserting a Murder Pill;
In the Gandhi thought experiment, the Murder Pill changes someone’s higher order preferences. Gandhi know that the Murder Pill will make him want to start killing people, so he refuses to take the Pill.
Yet most examples of influence probably act on a much lower order of preferences. If you influence someone to buy your product, or go out with you, I guess you are changing their preference to engage in those actions with you in particular, from “no” to “yes.” But you are really influencing their preferences about what behavior they engage in, rather than their preferences about what values they hold, unlike the Murder Pill scenario.
At such a behavioral level of taking a specific action, people’s default preference is generally “no”, because it has to be. People can’t buy every product in the world or go out with every person. For them to want to buy something or go out with someone, their default “no” must change to “yes” at some point (except, perhaps, for “love at first sight” situations). If you succeed in influencing someone to change their mind in this way, you haven’t actually changed someone’s fundamental values; rather, you have shown them that you are offering something that satisfies their values.
That doesn’t sound like a Murder Pill, unless by “Murder Pill” you mean anything that might change what someone wants to do in any way.
Another important part of the Gandhi thought experiment is that the preference-changing pill is offered to him, and he is given a choice. The thought experiment is to show that if the pill is so counter to his own preferences, he won’t choose it. That’s pretty similar to what happened in your actual case: she refused the method of influence you were attempting.
And yet there’s no clear distinction between using these skills and regular social interaction. Manipulation works best when you’re sincere about it. Ethically speaking it’s a grey, wavy line.
You are quite correct that it’s difficult to distinguish various supposedly controversial forms of influence from regular social interaction, like pickup.
Sexual dynamics are similar
Yes. But the interesting thing about sexuality is that it’s a practically universal want. You can start with pretty high priors that someone is interested in sex and relationships than you can for assuming that they like to donate to charities.
Neither Sheila nor the PUA is responsible for the ensuing infidelity. If the husband and wife didn’t want it in the first place, they would have never availed themselves to the temptation. If, on the other hand, you meet somebody at a Neighbourhood Watch meeting, and spend the next three months seducing them… that’s when you’ve got to start questioning your ethics. Anybody is going to be vulnerable at some time or another.
I don’t think the time frame makes a difference. If a married person chooses to expose themselves to people who want to seduce them, and allow that kind of interaction to occur, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s for one night, or over a period of months. If anything, the more time the seduction takes, the more ethical the seducer is being, because of removing the argument that the married person was just acting out of impulse. I don’t buy the idea of people having consensual sex with someone they normally don’t want merely out of eventual vulnerability.
While the Dark Arts are a Power, it’s how you use them that matters, like any other tool. I’m running mind-games on people, but I usually won’t; I’m also good at fighting, but I don’t assault people for no reason. I find both concepts repulsive.
In this post, you recount an example of hypothetical influence which would probably be unethical, and you also acknowledge that other forms of influence are ethical. If you frame this in terms of the “Dark Arts,” then you indeed end up with the somewhat contradictory conclusion that the “Dark Arts” are a tool that can be used in ethical ways. But if it can be used in ethical ways, we are we calling it Dark? If we translate back to neutral terminology and say that social influence is a tool that can be used for good or evil, that makes more sense.
So what distinguishes ethical influence from unethical influence? I think that’s the secret ingredient that’s missing from your analysis.
That ingredient is consent to being influenced. In your story, the other person attempts to withdraw consent. (“Oh God, don’t show me these. I’m such a Rescuer” … “I’m sorry – I can’t look at these children,” she handed back the photographs, “Not right now. I’ve been crying all day and I just can’t deal with those emotions...”). She clearly didn’t want to take your influence pill, and you didn’t force it on her. Even though she wasn’t in a state where she could be assertive enough to slam the door in your face, she was clearly attempting to withdraw consent.
There have been some other arguments in the comments that comforting her and soliciting the donation would have been a win-win. I think that would be the case of she was merely distraught and not also protesting your influence. But the combination of those two things should have caused too much doubt that proceeding was the right thing to do.
Influence is powerful yes, but brains aren’t so malleable and defenseless as a lot of the metaphors in this post would suggest. That means that if you are influencing someone, you should have a higher prior that they are letting you. For the specific example of your story, you were actually dealing with someone who’s mental defenses were down, and I think it’s correct that you held back from using your full arsenal of influence… even though such influence could be ethical with someone who wasn’t emotionally distraught.
How do we evaluate evidence that someone is consenting to influence? What evidence for consent is required for different levels of influence? That’s a subject for another time.
This is a revealing story about the double-binds in influence and persuasion. To me, your hypothetical form of influence probably would have been “Dark Arts,” but not just for the reasons you describe.
Actually, I’d prefer to taboo the term “Dark Arts” for a while, because I feel it’s poisoned the well on the subject of influence and persuasion (like the word “manipulation”). The problem with the term “Dark Arts” is that it conflates both ethical and unethical forms of influence, and creates an “Ugh Field” around the subject of influence in general. Let’s talk about how influence and persuasion work, and then later we will decide what’s ethical and what’s unethical.
The irony of a post criticizing the Dark Arts is that this post is full of rhetoric and persuasion itself, whether intentionally or unintentionally. I’d like to examine some of the language you use in this post (“Dark Arts”, “Jedi Mind Tricks”, “hacking”, “Murder Pill”). In general, I consider these forms of emotive language about influence and persuasion to inhibit understanding these topics.
Yes, changing what people want is an important component of influence and persuasion. But it is not inherently unethical, so I don’t think this entire category of behavior deserves the epithet “Dark Arts.”
I think the “influence as brain-hacking” analogy is revealing in some ways, but confusing in others. People engaging in social influence rarely have powers over others comparable to root access to a computer. Perhaps a better analogy is someone giving you an account in their brain with limited privileges.
Brains have firewalls. Unless the brain is in an altered state where its defenses are disabled, there is only so much that an intruder has access to.
There is no such thing as Jedi Mind Tricks.
In the Gandhi thought experiment, the Murder Pill changes someone’s higher order preferences. Gandhi know that the Murder Pill will make him want to start killing people, so he refuses to take the Pill.
Yet most examples of influence probably act on a much lower order of preferences. If you influence someone to buy your product, or go out with you, I guess you are changing their preference to engage in those actions with you in particular, from “no” to “yes.” But you are really influencing their preferences about what behavior they engage in, rather than their preferences about what values they hold, unlike the Murder Pill scenario.
At such a behavioral level of taking a specific action, people’s default preference is generally “no”, because it has to be. People can’t buy every product in the world or go out with every person. For them to want to buy something or go out with someone, their default “no” must change to “yes” at some point (except, perhaps, for “love at first sight” situations). If you succeed in influencing someone to change their mind in this way, you haven’t actually changed someone’s fundamental values; rather, you have shown them that you are offering something that satisfies their values.
That doesn’t sound like a Murder Pill, unless by “Murder Pill” you mean anything that might change what someone wants to do in any way.
Another important part of the Gandhi thought experiment is that the preference-changing pill is offered to him, and he is given a choice. The thought experiment is to show that if the pill is so counter to his own preferences, he won’t choose it. That’s pretty similar to what happened in your actual case: she refused the method of influence you were attempting.
You are quite correct that it’s difficult to distinguish various supposedly controversial forms of influence from regular social interaction, like pickup.
Yes. But the interesting thing about sexuality is that it’s a practically universal want. You can start with pretty high priors that someone is interested in sex and relationships than you can for assuming that they like to donate to charities.
I don’t think the time frame makes a difference. If a married person chooses to expose themselves to people who want to seduce them, and allow that kind of interaction to occur, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s for one night, or over a period of months. If anything, the more time the seduction takes, the more ethical the seducer is being, because of removing the argument that the married person was just acting out of impulse. I don’t buy the idea of people having consensual sex with someone they normally don’t want merely out of eventual vulnerability.
In this post, you recount an example of hypothetical influence which would probably be unethical, and you also acknowledge that other forms of influence are ethical. If you frame this in terms of the “Dark Arts,” then you indeed end up with the somewhat contradictory conclusion that the “Dark Arts” are a tool that can be used in ethical ways. But if it can be used in ethical ways, we are we calling it Dark? If we translate back to neutral terminology and say that social influence is a tool that can be used for good or evil, that makes more sense.
So what distinguishes ethical influence from unethical influence? I think that’s the secret ingredient that’s missing from your analysis.
That ingredient is consent to being influenced. In your story, the other person attempts to withdraw consent. (“Oh God, don’t show me these. I’m such a Rescuer” … “I’m sorry – I can’t look at these children,” she handed back the photographs, “Not right now. I’ve been crying all day and I just can’t deal with those emotions...”). She clearly didn’t want to take your influence pill, and you didn’t force it on her. Even though she wasn’t in a state where she could be assertive enough to slam the door in your face, she was clearly attempting to withdraw consent.
There have been some other arguments in the comments that comforting her and soliciting the donation would have been a win-win. I think that would be the case of she was merely distraught and not also protesting your influence. But the combination of those two things should have caused too much doubt that proceeding was the right thing to do.
Influence is powerful yes, but brains aren’t so malleable and defenseless as a lot of the metaphors in this post would suggest. That means that if you are influencing someone, you should have a higher prior that they are letting you. For the specific example of your story, you were actually dealing with someone who’s mental defenses were down, and I think it’s correct that you held back from using your full arsenal of influence… even though such influence could be ethical with someone who wasn’t emotionally distraught.
How do we evaluate evidence that someone is consenting to influence? What evidence for consent is required for different levels of influence? That’s a subject for another time.