This is the kind of thing that feels compelling, but emphasizes a wrong level of abstraction. Personal experience of suffering is not the reason why suffering is bad. It’s a bit like professing that two plus two is four because the teacher says so. The teacher is right, but there is a reason they are right that is more important than the fact that they are saying this. Similarly, personal suffering is compelling for the abstract conclusion of altruism, but there is a reason it’s compelling that is more important as a consideration for this conclusion than the fact of experience. Someone with no personal experience of suffering should also be moved by that consideration.
I don’t really get EA at an emotional level and this post helps give someone like me an… emotional intuition pump?… in a way that other EA posts do not do for me. I think it’s good that it is at the level of abstraction it is at.
The intuition pump does live at this level of abstraction, but it’s a separate entity from the abstract consideration it’s meant to illustrate, which lives elsewhere. My disagreement is with how the first paragraph of the post frames the rest of it. Personal or vicarious experience of trauma is not itself a good reason for pursuing altruism, instead it’s a compelling intuition pump for identifying the reason to do so. Some behaviors resulting from trauma are undesirable, and it’s the abstract consideration of what motivates various induced behaviors that lets us distinguish justified takeaways of experience from pathological ones. Altruism could’ve been like flinching when people raise a hand, so there should be an opportunity to make this distinction, as opposed to unconditionally going along with the induced behavior.
Someone with no personal experience of suffering should also be moved by that consideration.
That sounds like a fantastic reason for someone with that experience to post it, as occurred here, as a way to explain what it is like to others.
In fact, only the existence of suffering for some concrete individual justifies the abstract conclusion of altruism. Without that concrete level, the abstraction is hypothetical, and should not provide the same level of reason to be altruistic.
I find this sentiment a little confusing, as it seems to me the subjective experience of suffering is the ultimate bedrock of any idea that understands suffering as bad? If I had no personal experience of suffering or wellbeing I can’t imagine how something like utilitarianism might move me.
Or are you saying while yes ultimately an abstract understanding of suffering rests on a subjective experience of it, pumping the understanding of the subjective experience won’t lead to more understanding of it in the abstract in the way EA needs to?
There is never native ultimate bedrock with human minds that has any clarity to it. Concepts for how people think are mostly about cognitive technology that someone might happen to implement in their thinking, they become more reliably descriptive only at that point. All sorts of preferences and especially personal pursuits are possible, without a clear/principled reason they develop. The abstract arguments I’m gesturing at amplify/focus a vague attitude of “suffering is bad”, which is not rare and doesn’t require any particular circumstances to form, into actionable recommendations.
This is the kind of thing that feels compelling, but emphasizes a wrong level of abstraction. Personal experience of suffering is not the reason why suffering is bad. It’s a bit like professing that two plus two is four because the teacher says so. The teacher is right, but there is a reason they are right that is more important than the fact that they are saying this. Similarly, personal suffering is compelling for the abstract conclusion of altruism, but there is a reason it’s compelling that is more important as a consideration for this conclusion than the fact of experience. Someone with no personal experience of suffering should also be moved by that consideration.
I don’t really get EA at an emotional level and this post helps give someone like me an… emotional intuition pump?… in a way that other EA posts do not do for me. I think it’s good that it is at the level of abstraction it is at.
The intuition pump does live at this level of abstraction, but it’s a separate entity from the abstract consideration it’s meant to illustrate, which lives elsewhere. My disagreement is with how the first paragraph of the post frames the rest of it. Personal or vicarious experience of trauma is not itself a good reason for pursuing altruism, instead it’s a compelling intuition pump for identifying the reason to do so. Some behaviors resulting from trauma are undesirable, and it’s the abstract consideration of what motivates various induced behaviors that lets us distinguish justified takeaways of experience from pathological ones. Altruism could’ve been like flinching when people raise a hand, so there should be an opportunity to make this distinction, as opposed to unconditionally going along with the induced behavior.
That sounds like a fantastic reason for someone with that experience to post it, as occurred here, as a way to explain what it is like to others.
In fact, only the existence of suffering for some concrete individual justifies the abstract conclusion of altruism. Without that concrete level, the abstraction is hypothetical, and should not provide the same level of reason to be altruistic.
I find this sentiment a little confusing, as it seems to me the subjective experience of suffering is the ultimate bedrock of any idea that understands suffering as bad? If I had no personal experience of suffering or wellbeing I can’t imagine how something like utilitarianism might move me.
Or are you saying while yes ultimately an abstract understanding of suffering rests on a subjective experience of it, pumping the understanding of the subjective experience won’t lead to more understanding of it in the abstract in the way EA needs to?
There is never native ultimate bedrock with human minds that has any clarity to it. Concepts for how people think are mostly about cognitive technology that someone might happen to implement in their thinking, they become more reliably descriptive only at that point. All sorts of preferences and especially personal pursuits are possible, without a clear/principled reason they develop. The abstract arguments I’m gesturing at amplify/focus a vague attitude of “suffering is bad”, which is not rare and doesn’t require any particular circumstances to form, into actionable recommendations.