[Cross-posted from Medium, written for a pretty general audience]
There are many words that could describe my political positions. But there’s one fundamental label for me: I am a consequentialist.
Consequentialism is a term from ethics; there, it means the position that consequences are what truly make an action right or wrong, rather than rules or virtues. What that means is that for me, the most essential questions about policy aren’t things like “what is fair” or “what rights do people have”, although these are good questions. For me, it all boils down to “how do we make people’s lives better?”
(There are some bits of nuance to the previous paragraph, which I’ve kept as a long endnote.)
“Make people’s lives better” isn’t a platitude- there’s a real difference here! To explain, I want to point out that there are both consequentialists and non-consequentialists within different political camps. Let’s consider socialists first and then libertarians second.
Many socialists believe both that (A) the world is headed for plutocratic disaster unless capitalism is overthrown, and that (B) labor markets and massive wealth disparities would be crimes even if they did not doom others to suffering. The difference is that some are more motivated by beliefs like (A), and could thus change their positions if convinced that e.g. the Nordic model was much better for future growth than a marketless society; while others are more motivated by beliefs like (B), and would continue to support pure socialism even if they were convinced it would mean catastrophe.
And many libertarians believe both that (A’) the only engine that can consistently create prosperity for all is a free market with no interference, and that (B’) taxation is a monstrous act of aggression and theft. The difference is that some are more motivated by beliefs like (A’), and thus could change their position if convinced that e.g. progressive taxation and redistribution would not destroy the incentives behind economic growth; while others are more motivated by beliefs like (B’), and would continue to support pure libertarianism even if they were convinced it would mean catastrophe.
I find it fruitful to talk with the first kind of socialist and the first kind of libertarian, but not the second kind of either. The second type just isn’t fundamentally interested in thinking about the consequences (except insofar as they can convince others by arguing for certain consequences). But among the first type, it’s possible to figure out the truth together by arguing about historical cases, studying natural experiments in policy, and articulating different theories.
I hope it’s been helpful to draw out this distinction; I’d encourage you to first find fellow consequentialists among your natural allies, and expand from there when and if you feel comfortable. There’s a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, and those of us who care most about making the world better can achieve more once we find each other!
P.S. The above focuses on the sort of political questions where most people’s influence is limited to voting and convincing others to vote with them. But there’s more ways to have an effect than that; I’d like to take one last moment to recommend the effective altruism movement, which investigates the best ways for people to have a big positive impact on the world.
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Nuance section:
the position that consequences are what truly make an action right or wrong
There’s a naive version of this, which is that you should seize any good immediate outcome you can, even by doing horrific things. That’s… not a healthy version of consequentialism. The way to be less naive is to care about long-term consequences, and also to expect that you can’t get away with keeping your behavior secret from others in general. Here’s a good account of what non-naive consequentialism can look like.
the most essential questions about policy aren’t things like “what is fair” or “what rights do people have”, although these are good questions
In particular, fairness and rights are vital to making people’s lives better! We want more than just physical comforts; we want autonomy and achievement and meaning, we want to have trustworthy promises about what the world will ask of us tomorrow, and we want past injustices to be rectified. But these can be traded off, in extreme situations, against the other things that are important for people. In a massive emergency, I’d rather save lives in an unfair way and try to patch up the unfairness later, than let people die to preserve fairness.
how do we make people’s lives better?
This gets complicated and weird when you apply it to things like our distant descendants, but there are some aspects in the world today that seem fairly straightforward. Our world has built an engine of prosperity that makes food and goods available to many, beyond what was dreamt of in the past. But many people in the world are still living short and painful lives filled with disease and starvation. Another dollar of goods will do much more for one of them than for one of us. If we can improve their lives without destroying that engine, it is imperative to do that. (What consequentialists mostly disagree on is how the engine really works, how it could be destroyed, and how it could be improved!)
Virtue ethics seems less easily applicable to the domain of “what governmental policies to support” than to the domain of personal behavior, so I had a hard time thinking of examples. Can you?
On politics, virtue ethics might say: “try to have leaders that are good”*, “accepting bribes is wrong”, and perhaps “seek peace and shared ground rather than division and fear.” (Working towards peace seems more virtuous than fear mongering.)
*and if they’re not good, try and change that—gradual progress is better than no progress at all.
[Cross-posted from Medium, written for a pretty general audience]
There are many words that could describe my political positions. But there’s one fundamental label for me: I am a consequentialist.
Consequentialism is a term from ethics; there, it means the position that consequences are what truly make an action right or wrong, rather than rules or virtues. What that means is that for me, the most essential questions about policy aren’t things like “what is fair” or “what rights do people have”, although these are good questions. For me, it all boils down to “how do we make people’s lives better?”
(There are some bits of nuance to the previous paragraph, which I’ve kept as a long endnote.)
“Make people’s lives better” isn’t a platitude- there’s a real difference here! To explain, I want to point out that there are both consequentialists and non-consequentialists within different political camps. Let’s consider socialists first and then libertarians second.
Many socialists believe both that (A) the world is headed for plutocratic disaster unless capitalism is overthrown, and that (B) labor markets and massive wealth disparities would be crimes even if they did not doom others to suffering. The difference is that some are more motivated by beliefs like (A), and could thus change their positions if convinced that e.g. the Nordic model was much better for future growth than a marketless society; while others are more motivated by beliefs like (B), and would continue to support pure socialism even if they were convinced it would mean catastrophe.
And many libertarians believe both that (A’) the only engine that can consistently create prosperity for all is a free market with no interference, and that (B’) taxation is a monstrous act of aggression and theft. The difference is that some are more motivated by beliefs like (A’), and thus could change their position if convinced that e.g. progressive taxation and redistribution would not destroy the incentives behind economic growth; while others are more motivated by beliefs like (B’), and would continue to support pure libertarianism even if they were convinced it would mean catastrophe.
I find it fruitful to talk with the first kind of socialist and the first kind of libertarian, but not the second kind of either. The second type just isn’t fundamentally interested in thinking about the consequences (except insofar as they can convince others by arguing for certain consequences). But among the first type, it’s possible to figure out the truth together by arguing about historical cases, studying natural experiments in policy, and articulating different theories.
I hope it’s been helpful to draw out this distinction; I’d encourage you to first find fellow consequentialists among your natural allies, and expand from there when and if you feel comfortable. There’s a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, and those of us who care most about making the world better can achieve more once we find each other!
P.S. The above focuses on the sort of political questions where most people’s influence is limited to voting and convincing others to vote with them. But there’s more ways to have an effect than that; I’d like to take one last moment to recommend the effective altruism movement, which investigates the best ways for people to have a big positive impact on the world.
---
Nuance section:
There’s a naive version of this, which is that you should seize any good immediate outcome you can, even by doing horrific things. That’s… not a healthy version of consequentialism. The way to be less naive is to care about long-term consequences, and also to expect that you can’t get away with keeping your behavior secret from others in general. Here’s a good account of what non-naive consequentialism can look like.
In particular, fairness and rights are vital to making people’s lives better! We want more than just physical comforts; we want autonomy and achievement and meaning, we want to have trustworthy promises about what the world will ask of us tomorrow, and we want past injustices to be rectified. But these can be traded off, in extreme situations, against the other things that are important for people. In a massive emergency, I’d rather save lives in an unfair way and try to patch up the unfairness later, than let people die to preserve fairness.
This gets complicated and weird when you apply it to things like our distant descendants, but there are some aspects in the world today that seem fairly straightforward. Our world has built an engine of prosperity that makes food and goods available to many, beyond what was dreamt of in the past. But many people in the world are still living short and painful lives filled with disease and starvation. Another dollar of goods will do much more for one of them than for one of us. If we can improve their lives without destroying that engine, it is imperative to do that. (What consequentialists mostly disagree on is how the engine really works, how it could be destroyed, and how it could be improved!)
It seems to me that your examples of B are mostly deontological, so it would be nice to have some C which represented virtue ethics as well.
Virtue ethics seems less easily applicable to the domain of “what governmental policies to support” than to the domain of personal behavior, so I had a hard time thinking of examples. Can you?
On politics, virtue ethics might say: “try to have leaders that are good”*, “accepting bribes is wrong”, and perhaps “seek peace and shared ground rather than division and fear.” (Working towards peace seems more virtuous than fear mongering.)
*and if they’re not good, try and change that—gradual progress is better than no progress at all.