(Disclaimer: I absolutely promise that I am not evil.)
The first one is that I don’t actually value my life equally to that of everyone else’s life, and that it’s inconsistent to appeal to that when I don’t appeal to it in my life in general.
Question: why the hell not? My brain processed this kind of question for the first time around fourth grade, when wanting special privileges to go on a field trip with the other kids despite having gotten in trouble. The answer I came up with then is the one I still use now: “why me? Because of Kant’s Categorical Imperative” (that is, I didn’t want to live in a world where nobody went on the field trip, therefore I should get to go on it—though this wasn’t exactly clear thinking regarding the problem I really had at the time!). I would not want to live in a world where everyone kept their own and everyone else’s lifestyle to an absolute minimum in order to act with maximal altruism. Quite to the contrary: I want everyone to have as awesome a life as it is physically feasible for them to have!
I also do give to charity, do pay my taxes, and do support state-run social-welfare programs. So I’m not advocating total selfishness. I’m just proposing a heuristic: before advocating a certain level of altruism, check whether you’re ok with that level of altruism becoming a Categorical Imperative, such that the Altruism Fairy brainwashes everyone into that level precisely.
In which case, yes, one should value one’s own life over charity levels. After all, it’s exactly what the charity recipients will do!
I would not want to live in a world where everyone kept their own and everyone else’s lifestyle to an absolute minimum in order to act with maximal altruism. Quite to the contrary: I want everyone to have as awesome a life as it is physically feasible for them to have!
I think that the argument you’re going for here (though I’m not entirely sure, so do correct me if I’m misinterpeting you) is “if everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, and thus a dedication to full altruism that makes you miserable is counterproductive to being altruistic”.
And I agree! I think every altruist should take care of themselves first—for various reasons, including the one you mentioned, and also the fact that miserable people aren’t usually very effective at helping others, and because you can inspire more people to become altruistic if they see that it’s possible to have an awesome time while being an altruist.
But of course, “I should invest in myself because having an awesome life lets me help me others more effectively” is still completely compatible with the claim of “I shouldn’t place more intrinsic value on others than in myself”. It just means you’re not being short-sighted about it.
I think that the argument you’re going for here (though I’m not entirely sure, so do correct me if I’m misinterpeting you) is “if everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, and thus a dedication to full altruism that makes you miserable is counterproductive to being altruistic”.
More like, “If everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, therefore total altruism is an incoherent value insofar as you expect anyone (including yourself) to ever actually follow it to its logical conclusion, therefore you shouldn’t follow it in the first place.”
Or, put simply, “Your supposed all-altruism is self-contradictory in the limit.” Hence my having to put a disclaimer saying I’m not evil, since that’s one of the most evil-villain-y statements I’ve ever made.
Of course, there are complications. For one thing, most people don’t have the self-destructive messiah complex necessary for total altruism, so you can’t apply first-level superrationality (ie: the Categorical Imperative) as including everyone. What I do endorse doing is acting with a high-enough level of altruism to make up for the people who don’t act with any altruism while also engaging in some delta of actual non-superrational altruism.
How to figure out what level of altruistic action that implies, I have no idea. But I think it’s better to be honest about the logically necessary level of selfishness than to pretend you’re being totally altruistic but rationalize reasons to take care of yourself anyway.
“If everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, therefore total altruism is an incoherent value insofar as you expect anyone (including yourself) to ever actually follow it to its logical conclusion, therefore you shouldn’t follow it in the first place.”
Sorry, I don’t follow. If the logical result of accepting full misery to oneself would be everyone being miserable, why wouldn’t the altruists just reason this out and not accept full misery to themselves? “Valuing everyone the same as yourself” doesn’t mean you’d have to let others treat you any way they like, it just means you’d in principle be ready for it, if it was necessary.
(I think we’re just debating semantics rather than disagreeing now, do you agree?)
I think we have slightly different values, but are coming to identical practical conclusions, so we’re agreeing violently.
EDIT: Besides, I totally get warm fuzzies from being nice to people, so it’s not like I don’t have a “selfish” motivation towards a higher level of altruism, anyway. SWEAR I’M NOT EVIL.
Serious answer: Even if I don’t endorse it, I do feel a pang of guilt/envy/low-status at being less than 100% a self-impoverishing Effective Altruist, which has been coming out as an urge to declare myself not-evil, even by comparison.
Okay, in that case you should stop feeling those negative emotions right now. :) Nobody here is a 100% self-impoverishing EA, and we ended up agreeing that it wouldn’t even be a useful goal to have, so go indulge yourself in something not-at-all-useful-nor-altruistic and do feel good about it. :)
“if everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable,”
How confident of this are we?
I mean, there are many tasks which can lead to my happiness. If I perform a large subset of those tasks for my own benefit, they lead to a certain happiness-level for me… call that H1. If I perform a small subset of those tasks for everyone’s benefit, they lead to a different happiness-level, H2, for everyone including me. H2 is, of course, much lower than H1… in fact, H2 is indistinguishable from zero, really, unless I’m some kind of superstar. (I’m not aggregating across people, here, I’m just measuring how happy I am personally.)
So far, so good.
But if everyone else is also performing a small subset of those tasks for everyone’s benefit, then my happiness is N*H2. H2 is negligible, but N is large. Is (N*H2) > H1?
I really have no idea. On the face of it, it seems implausible. On the other hand, comparative advantage is a powerful force. We’ve discovered that when it comes to producing goods and services, for example, having one person performing a single task for everyone does much better than having everyone do everything for themselves.
Perhaps the same is true for producing happiness?
Which is not necessarily an argument for altruism in the real world, but in this hypothetical world where everyone acts with maximal altruism, maybe the end result is everyone is having a much more awesome life… they’re simply having it thanks to the efforts of a huge community, rather than entirely due to their own efforts.
Then again, that sounds like a pretty good description of the real world I live in, also.
(Disclaimer: I absolutely promise that I am not evil.)
Question: why the hell not? My brain processed this kind of question for the first time around fourth grade, when wanting special privileges to go on a field trip with the other kids despite having gotten in trouble. The answer I came up with then is the one I still use now: “why me? Because of Kant’s Categorical Imperative” (that is, I didn’t want to live in a world where nobody went on the field trip, therefore I should get to go on it—though this wasn’t exactly clear thinking regarding the problem I really had at the time!). I would not want to live in a world where everyone kept their own and everyone else’s lifestyle to an absolute minimum in order to act with maximal altruism. Quite to the contrary: I want everyone to have as awesome a life as it is physically feasible for them to have!
I also do give to charity, do pay my taxes, and do support state-run social-welfare programs. So I’m not advocating total selfishness. I’m just proposing a heuristic: before advocating a certain level of altruism, check whether you’re ok with that level of altruism becoming a Categorical Imperative, such that the Altruism Fairy brainwashes everyone into that level precisely.
In which case, yes, one should value one’s own life over charity levels. After all, it’s exactly what the charity recipients will do!
(Again, disclaimer: I swear I’m not evil.)
I think that the argument you’re going for here (though I’m not entirely sure, so do correct me if I’m misinterpeting you) is “if everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, and thus a dedication to full altruism that makes you miserable is counterproductive to being altruistic”.
And I agree! I think every altruist should take care of themselves first—for various reasons, including the one you mentioned, and also the fact that miserable people aren’t usually very effective at helping others, and because you can inspire more people to become altruistic if they see that it’s possible to have an awesome time while being an altruist.
But of course, “I should invest in myself because having an awesome life lets me help me others more effectively” is still completely compatible with the claim of “I shouldn’t place more intrinsic value on others than in myself”. It just means you’re not being short-sighted about it.
More like, “If everyone decided to dedicate their lives to altruism while accepting full misery to themselves, then everyone would be miserable, therefore total altruism is an incoherent value insofar as you expect anyone (including yourself) to ever actually follow it to its logical conclusion, therefore you shouldn’t follow it in the first place.”
Or, put simply, “Your supposed all-altruism is self-contradictory in the limit.” Hence my having to put a disclaimer saying I’m not evil, since that’s one of the most evil-villain-y statements I’ve ever made.
Of course, there are complications. For one thing, most people don’t have the self-destructive messiah complex necessary for total altruism, so you can’t apply first-level superrationality (ie: the Categorical Imperative) as including everyone. What I do endorse doing is acting with a high-enough level of altruism to make up for the people who don’t act with any altruism while also engaging in some delta of actual non-superrational altruism.
How to figure out what level of altruistic action that implies, I have no idea. But I think it’s better to be honest about the logically necessary level of selfishness than to pretend you’re being totally altruistic but rationalize reasons to take care of yourself anyway.
Sorry, I don’t follow. If the logical result of accepting full misery to oneself would be everyone being miserable, why wouldn’t the altruists just reason this out and not accept full misery to themselves? “Valuing everyone the same as yourself” doesn’t mean you’d have to let others treat you any way they like, it just means you’d in principle be ready for it, if it was necessary.
(I think we’re just debating semantics rather than disagreeing now, do you agree?)
I think we have slightly different values, but are coming to identical practical conclusions, so we’re agreeing violently.
EDIT: Besides, I totally get warm fuzzies from being nice to people, so it’s not like I don’t have a “selfish” motivation towards a higher level of altruism, anyway. SWEAR I’M NOT EVIL.
You said you’d prefer everyone to live awesome lives, I’m not sure how that could be construed as evil. :)
Serious answer: Even if I don’t endorse it, I do feel a pang of guilt/envy/low-status at being less than 100% a self-impoverishing Effective Altruist, which has been coming out as an urge to declare myself not-evil, even by comparison.
Joke answer: eyes flash white, sips tea. SOON.
Okay, in that case you should stop feeling those negative emotions right now. :) Nobody here is a 100% self-impoverishing EA, and we ended up agreeing that it wouldn’t even be a useful goal to have, so go indulge yourself in something not-at-all-useful-nor-altruistic and do feel good about it. :)
How confident of this are we?
I mean, there are many tasks which can lead to my happiness. If I perform a large subset of those tasks for my own benefit, they lead to a certain happiness-level for me… call that H1. If I perform a small subset of those tasks for everyone’s benefit, they lead to a different happiness-level, H2, for everyone including me. H2 is, of course, much lower than H1… in fact, H2 is indistinguishable from zero, really, unless I’m some kind of superstar. (I’m not aggregating across people, here, I’m just measuring how happy I am personally.)
So far, so good.
But if everyone else is also performing a small subset of those tasks for everyone’s benefit, then my happiness is N*H2. H2 is negligible, but N is large. Is (N*H2) > H1?
I really have no idea. On the face of it, it seems implausible. On the other hand, comparative advantage is a powerful force. We’ve discovered that when it comes to producing goods and services, for example, having one person performing a single task for everyone does much better than having everyone do everything for themselves.
Perhaps the same is true for producing happiness?
Which is not necessarily an argument for altruism in the real world, but in this hypothetical world where everyone acts with maximal altruism, maybe the end result is everyone is having a much more awesome life… they’re simply having it thanks to the efforts of a huge community, rather than entirely due to their own efforts.
Then again, that sounds like a pretty good description of the real world I live in, also.