Something feels very off to me about these kinds of speciest arguments. Like the circle of moral concern hasn’t expanded, but imploded, rooting out the very center from which it grew. Yes, there is a sense in which valuing what I value is arbitrary and selfish, but concluding that I should completely forego what I value seems pretty alarming to me, and I would assume, to most other humans who currently exist.
concluding that I should completely forego what I value seems pretty alarming to me
I did not conclude this. I generally don’t see how your comment directly relates to my post. Can you be more specific about the claims you’re responding to?
This view seems implicit in your dismissal of “human species preservationism”. If instead you described that view as “the moral view that values love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friends”, I’m sure Aysja would be less alarmed by your rhetoric (but perhaps more horrified you’re willing to so casually throw away such values).
As it is, you’re ready to casually throw away such values, without even acknowledging what you’re throwing away, lumping it all unreflectively as “speciesism”, which I do think is rhetorically cause for alarm.
I suspect you fundamentally misinterpreted my post. When I used the term “human species preservationism”, I was not referring to the general valuing of positive human experiences like love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friendship. Instead, I was drawing a specific distinction between two different moral views:
The view that places inherent moral value on the continued existence of the human species itself, even if this comes at the cost of the wellbeing of individual humans.
The view that prioritizes improving the lives of humans who currently exist (and will exist in the near future), but does not place special value on the abstract notion of the human species continuing to exist for its own sake.
Both of these moral views are compatible with valuing love, happiness, and other positive human experiences. The key difference is that the first view would accept drastically sacrificing the wellbeing of currently existing humans if doing so even slightly reduced the risk of human extinction, while the second view would not.
My intention was not to dismiss or downplay the importance of various values, but instead to clarify our values by making careful distinctions. It is reasonable to critique my language for being too dry, detached, and academic when these are serious topics with real-world stakes. But to the extent you’re claiming that I am actually trying to dismiss the value of happiness and friendships, that was simply not part of the post.
My intention was not to dismiss or downplay the importance of various values, but instead to clarify our values by making careful distinctions. It is reasonable to critique my language for being too dry, detached, and academic when these are serious topics with real-world stakes. But to the extent you’re claiming that I am actually trying to dismiss the value of happiness and friendships, that was simply not part of the post.
I can’t (and didn’t) speak to your intention, but I can speak of the results, which are that you do in fact down-play the importance of values such as love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friendship in favor of values like the maximization of pleasure, preference-satisfaction, and short-term increases in wealth & life-spans. I can tell because you talk of the latter, but not of the former.
And regardless of your intention you do also dismiss their long-term value, by decrying those who hold their long-term value utmost as “speciesist”.
you do in fact down-play the importance of values such as love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friendship in favor of values like the maximization of pleasure, preference-satisfaction [...] I can tell because you talk of the latter, but not of the former.
This seems like an absurd characterization. The concepts of pleasure and preference satisfaction clearly subsume, at least in large part, values such as happiness and fun. The fact that I did not mention each of the values you name individually does not in any way imply that I am downplaying them. Should I have listed every conceivable value that people think might have value, to avoid this particular misinterpretation?
Even if I were downplaying these values, which I did not, it would hardly matter to at all to the substance of the essay, since my explicit arguments are independent from the mere vibe you get from reading my essay. LessWrong is supposed to be a place for thinking clearly and analyzing arguments based on their merits, not for analyzing whether authors are using rhetoric that feels “alarming” to one’s values (especially when the rhetoric is not in actual fact alarming in the sense described, upon reading it carefully).
Something feels very off to me about these kinds of speciest arguments. Like the circle of moral concern hasn’t expanded, but imploded, rooting out the very center from which it grew. Yes, there is a sense in which valuing what I value is arbitrary and selfish, but concluding that I should completely forego what I value seems pretty alarming to me, and I would assume, to most other humans who currently exist.
I did not conclude this. I generally don’t see how your comment directly relates to my post. Can you be more specific about the claims you’re responding to?
This view seems implicit in your dismissal of “human species preservationism”. If instead you described that view as “the moral view that values love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friends”, I’m sure Aysja would be less alarmed by your rhetoric (but perhaps more horrified you’re willing to so casually throw away such values).
As it is, you’re ready to casually throw away such values, without even acknowledging what you’re throwing away, lumping it all unreflectively as “speciesism”, which I do think is rhetorically cause for alarm.
I suspect you fundamentally misinterpreted my post. When I used the term “human species preservationism”, I was not referring to the general valuing of positive human experiences like love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friendship. Instead, I was drawing a specific distinction between two different moral views:
The view that places inherent moral value on the continued existence of the human species itself, even if this comes at the cost of the wellbeing of individual humans.
The view that prioritizes improving the lives of humans who currently exist (and will exist in the near future), but does not place special value on the abstract notion of the human species continuing to exist for its own sake.
Both of these moral views are compatible with valuing love, happiness, and other positive human experiences. The key difference is that the first view would accept drastically sacrificing the wellbeing of currently existing humans if doing so even slightly reduced the risk of human extinction, while the second view would not.
My intention was not to dismiss or downplay the importance of various values, but instead to clarify our values by making careful distinctions. It is reasonable to critique my language for being too dry, detached, and academic when these are serious topics with real-world stakes. But to the extent you’re claiming that I am actually trying to dismiss the value of happiness and friendships, that was simply not part of the post.
I can’t (and didn’t) speak to your intention, but I can speak of the results, which are that you do in fact down-play the importance of values such as love, laughter, happiness, fun, family, and friendship in favor of values like the maximization of pleasure, preference-satisfaction, and short-term increases in wealth & life-spans. I can tell because you talk of the latter, but not of the former.
And regardless of your intention you do also dismiss their long-term value, by decrying those who hold their long-term value utmost as “speciesist”.
This seems like an absurd characterization. The concepts of pleasure and preference satisfaction clearly subsume, at least in large part, values such as happiness and fun. The fact that I did not mention each of the values you name individually does not in any way imply that I am downplaying them. Should I have listed every conceivable value that people think might have value, to avoid this particular misinterpretation?
Even if I were downplaying these values, which I did not, it would hardly matter to at all to the substance of the essay, since my explicit arguments are independent from the mere vibe you get from reading my essay. LessWrong is supposed to be a place for thinking clearly and analyzing arguments based on their merits, not for analyzing whether authors are using rhetoric that feels “alarming” to one’s values (especially when the rhetoric is not in actual fact alarming in the sense described, upon reading it carefully).