Your argument seems to me to conflate judgments that “X-ing is wrong” with predictions that one would not X if faced with a particular choice in real life.
If I say “X-ing is wrong, but actually, if ever faced with this situation I would quite possibly end up X-ing because I’m selfish/weak” (which is what I and others have said elsewhere) then (a) there’s no conflict to resolve; and (b) it doesn’t make much sense to claim that my judgment that “X is wrong” is a cheap signal of altruism. In fact I’ve just signaled the opposite.
Now, if people changing their moral judgments from “X-ing is wrong” to “X-ing is permissible”, then I agree that there’s a conflict to resolve. But it seems that cognitive dissonance provides an explanation of this behavior at least as good as cheap talk.
FWIW, If you want a self-interested explanation of the stated judgment that “X-ing is wrong”, I wonder whether moral censure (i.e. trying to convince others that they shouldn’t X, even though you will ultimately X) would be a better one than signaling. Not necessarily mutually exclusive I guess.
Your argument seems to me to conflate judgments that “X-ing is wrong” with predictions that one would not X if faced with a particular choice in real life.
Judgements that a choice is morally wrong are clearly not the same thing as predictions about whether people would make that choice. The way I view morality though a wide gulf between the two is indicative of a problem to be resolved. I see the purpose of morality as providing a framework for solving something analogous to an iterated prisoners dilemma. If we can all agree to impose certain restrictions on our own actions because we all expect to do better if everyone sticks to the rules then we have a system of morality.
Humans have a complex interplay of instinctive moral intuitions and cultural norms that together form a moral framework that exists because it provides a reasonably stable solution to living in mutually beneficial societies. That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved, just that its very existence implies that it works reasonably well.
The problem then with a moral dilemma that appears to present a wide gap between what people say should be done and what people would actually do is that it suggests a flaw in the moral framework. A stable framework will generally require that decisions that people can agree are right (in that we’d expect on average to be better off if we all followed them) are also decisions that people can plausibly commit to taking if faced with the problem. It’s like the pre-commitment problem discussed before on less wrong. You might wish to argue for an idealized morality that sets standards for what people should do that are not what most people would do but then you have to make a plausible case for why what people actually do is wrong. Further, I’d argue you have to make a case for how your system could actually be implemented with actual people in a stable fashion—an idealized morality that is not achievable with actual people is not very interesting to me.
Ultimately I don’t take a utilitarian view of morality—that what is ‘good’ is what maximizes utility across all agents. I take an ‘enlightened self interest’ view—that what is ‘good’ is what all agents can agree is a framework that will tend to lead to better expected outcomes for each individual if each individual constrains his own immediate self interest in certain ways.
There are heaps and heaps of consequentialist/utilitarian views that don’t maximize utility uncritically across everybody. It sounds like you prefer something in the neighborhood of agent-favoring morality, but ethical egoism is a consequentialist view too.
Based on discussions I’ve had here I get the impression that most people consider ‘utilitarianism’, unqualified, to imply equal weighting for all people in the utility function to be maximized. Even where equal weighting is not implied (the existence of the ‘utility monster’ as a problem for some variants acknowledges that weights are not necessarily equal) it seems that utilitarianism has a unique weighting for all agents and that what is ‘right’ is what maximizes some globally agreed upon utility function. I don’t accept either premise so I’m fairly sure I’m not a utilitarian.
It seems to me that most consequentialist views fail to take into account sufficiently the problem of the implementability and stability of their moral schemes in actual human (or other) societies. I haven’t found a description of an ethical theory that I feel comfortable identifying my views with so far, though ethical egoism seems somewhat close from the little I’ve read on Wikipedia (it’s what I ended up putting down on Yvain’s survey).
It seems to me that most consequentialist views fail to take into account sufficiently the problem of the implementability and stability of their moral schemes in actual human (or other) societies.
If a scheme isn’t implementable or stable, then it doesn’t maximize welfare, so utilitarianism does not recommend it. Utilitarianism describes a goal, not a method.
I don’t consider myself a utilitarian because I don’t agree with the goals of any of the variants I’ve seen described.
I’m not sure whether I consider myself a consequentialist because while I think that ultimately outcomes are important, I don’t see enough attention paid to issues of implementability and stability in many descriptions of consequentialist views I’ve read.
For example, it seems that some (not all) consequentialist ethics consider the ‘rightness’ of an action to be purely a function of its actual consequences, thus making it possible for an attempted murder to be a morally good act because it has an unintended good consequence and an attempt at assistance to be a morally bad act because it has an unintended bad consequence. Other variants of consequentialist ethics (rule consequentialism, which seems closer to something I would feel comfortable identifying with) recognize the impossibility of perfect prediction of outcomes and so associate the ‘good’ with rules that tend to produce good outcomes if followed. Consequentialism doesn’t seem clearly enough defined for me to figure out exactly what variant people are talking about when they use the term.
Consequentialism doesn’t seem clearly enough defined for me to figure out exactly what variant people are talking about when they use the term.
That’s okay, nobody else knows either. (People have guesses, but most of them exclude things that seem like they should be included or vice-versa.) The only way to get a handle on the word seems to be to listen to people use it a lot and sort of triangulate.
Your argument seems to me to conflate judgments that “X-ing is wrong” with predictions that one would not X if faced with a particular choice in real life.
If I say “X-ing is wrong, but actually, if ever faced with this situation I would quite possibly end up X-ing because I’m selfish/weak” (which is what I and others have said elsewhere) then (a) there’s no conflict to resolve; and (b) it doesn’t make much sense to claim that my judgment that “X is wrong” is a cheap signal of altruism. In fact I’ve just signaled the opposite.
Now, if people changing their moral judgments from “X-ing is wrong” to “X-ing is permissible”, then I agree that there’s a conflict to resolve. But it seems that cognitive dissonance provides an explanation of this behavior at least as good as cheap talk.
FWIW, If you want a self-interested explanation of the stated judgment that “X-ing is wrong”, I wonder whether moral censure (i.e. trying to convince others that they shouldn’t X, even though you will ultimately X) would be a better one than signaling. Not necessarily mutually exclusive I guess.
Judgements that a choice is morally wrong are clearly not the same thing as predictions about whether people would make that choice. The way I view morality though a wide gulf between the two is indicative of a problem to be resolved. I see the purpose of morality as providing a framework for solving something analogous to an iterated prisoners dilemma. If we can all agree to impose certain restrictions on our own actions because we all expect to do better if everyone sticks to the rules then we have a system of morality.
Humans have a complex interplay of instinctive moral intuitions and cultural norms that together form a moral framework that exists because it provides a reasonably stable solution to living in mutually beneficial societies. That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved, just that its very existence implies that it works reasonably well.
The problem then with a moral dilemma that appears to present a wide gap between what people say should be done and what people would actually do is that it suggests a flaw in the moral framework. A stable framework will generally require that decisions that people can agree are right (in that we’d expect on average to be better off if we all followed them) are also decisions that people can plausibly commit to taking if faced with the problem. It’s like the pre-commitment problem discussed before on less wrong. You might wish to argue for an idealized morality that sets standards for what people should do that are not what most people would do but then you have to make a plausible case for why what people actually do is wrong. Further, I’d argue you have to make a case for how your system could actually be implemented with actual people in a stable fashion—an idealized morality that is not achievable with actual people is not very interesting to me.
Ultimately I don’t take a utilitarian view of morality—that what is ‘good’ is what maximizes utility across all agents. I take an ‘enlightened self interest’ view—that what is ‘good’ is what all agents can agree is a framework that will tend to lead to better expected outcomes for each individual if each individual constrains his own immediate self interest in certain ways.
There are heaps and heaps of consequentialist/utilitarian views that don’t maximize utility uncritically across everybody. It sounds like you prefer something in the neighborhood of agent-favoring morality, but ethical egoism is a consequentialist view too.
Based on discussions I’ve had here I get the impression that most people consider ‘utilitarianism’, unqualified, to imply equal weighting for all people in the utility function to be maximized. Even where equal weighting is not implied (the existence of the ‘utility monster’ as a problem for some variants acknowledges that weights are not necessarily equal) it seems that utilitarianism has a unique weighting for all agents and that what is ‘right’ is what maximizes some globally agreed upon utility function. I don’t accept either premise so I’m fairly sure I’m not a utilitarian.
It seems to me that most consequentialist views fail to take into account sufficiently the problem of the implementability and stability of their moral schemes in actual human (or other) societies. I haven’t found a description of an ethical theory that I feel comfortable identifying my views with so far, though ethical egoism seems somewhat close from the little I’ve read on Wikipedia (it’s what I ended up putting down on Yvain’s survey).
If a scheme isn’t implementable or stable, then it doesn’t maximize welfare, so utilitarianism does not recommend it. Utilitarianism describes a goal, not a method.
I don’t consider myself a utilitarian because I don’t agree with the goals of any of the variants I’ve seen described.
I’m not sure whether I consider myself a consequentialist because while I think that ultimately outcomes are important, I don’t see enough attention paid to issues of implementability and stability in many descriptions of consequentialist views I’ve read.
For example, it seems that some (not all) consequentialist ethics consider the ‘rightness’ of an action to be purely a function of its actual consequences, thus making it possible for an attempted murder to be a morally good act because it has an unintended good consequence and an attempt at assistance to be a morally bad act because it has an unintended bad consequence. Other variants of consequentialist ethics (rule consequentialism, which seems closer to something I would feel comfortable identifying with) recognize the impossibility of perfect prediction of outcomes and so associate the ‘good’ with rules that tend to produce good outcomes if followed. Consequentialism doesn’t seem clearly enough defined for me to figure out exactly what variant people are talking about when they use the term.
You may find this paper on consequentialism and decision procedures interesting.
That’s okay, nobody else knows either. (People have guesses, but most of them exclude things that seem like they should be included or vice-versa.) The only way to get a handle on the word seems to be to listen to people use it a lot and sort of triangulate.