The obvious, and trivially true, answer is that he who does both does more good than either. But that’s not what you asked.
So. It can be hard to compare the two options when considering the actions of a single person, since the beneficiaries of the actions do not overlap. Therefore I shall employ a simple heuristic; I shall assume that the option which does the most good when one person does it is also the option that does the most good when everyone does it.
So, the first option; everyone (who can afford it) makes large donations to efficient charities, while everyone avoids those nearby and is unpleasant when forced to deal with someone else directly.
If I make a few assumptions about the effectiveness (and priorities) of the charities and the sum of the donations, I find myself considering a world where everyone is sufficiently fed, clothed, sheltered, medically cared for and educated. However, the fact that everyone is unpleasant to everyone else leads to everyone being grumpy, irritated, and mildly unhappy.
Considering the second option; charitable donations drastically decrease, but everyone is pleasant and helpful to everyone they meet face-to-face. In this possible world, there are people who go hungry, naked, homeless. But probably fewer than in our current world; because everyone they meet will be helpful, aiding if they can in their plight. And because everyone’s pleasant and tries to uplift the mood of those they meet, a large majority of people consider themselves happy.
Therefore I shall employ a simple heuristic; I shall assume that the option which does the most good when one person does it is also the option that does the most good when everyone does it.
This assumption seems trivially false to me, and despite being labeled as a mere ‘heuristic’, it is the crucial step in your argument. Can you explain why I should take it seriously?
Well, for most choices between “is this good?” and “is this bad?” the assumption is true. For example, is it good for me to drop my chocolate wrapper on the street instead of finding a rubbish bin? If I assume everyone were to do that, I get the idea of a street awash in chocolate wrappers, and I consider that reason enough to find a rubbish bin.
Furthermore, and more importantly, the aim here is not to produce an argument that one action is better than the other in a single, specific case; rather, it is to produce a general principle (whether it is generally better to be charitable to those nearby, or to those further away).
And if option A is generally better than option B, then I think it is very probable that universal application of A will remain better than universal application of B; and vice versa.
When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
It’s tempting to reply to this by saying “‘doing the same thing’ means removing all self-serving qualifiers, so the correct question is whether you would like it if people dropped wrappers wherever they wanted, not specifically on your neighbor’s lawn”. This reply doesn’t work, because there are are plenty of situations where you want the qualifier—for instance, putting criminals in jail when the qualifier “criminal” excludes yourself.
(And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.)
When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
I do need to be careful to define “that” as a generally applicable rule. In this case, the generally applicable rule would be, is it okay to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people one finds annoying?
So I need to consider the world in which everyone drops chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people they find annoying. Considering this, the chances of someone dropping a wrapper on my lawn becomes dependent on the probability that someone will find me annoying.
So, in short, I can put as many qualifiers on the rule as I like. However, I have to be careful to attach my qualifiers to the true reason for my formulation of the rule; I cannot select the rule “it is acceptable to drop chocolate wrappers on that exact specific lawn over there” without referencing the process by which I chose that exact specific lawn.
I can’t attach a qualifier to a specific person; but I can attach a qualifier to a specific quality, like being annoying, when considering a proposal.
And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.
Well, what’s your stance on forcing homosexuals to breed heterosexually to save humanity from extinction? Or forcing all homosexual women and a few men chosen by lottery, since we have an overabundance of sperm?
I don’t think people should be forced to breed, but I wasn’t arguing that people should be forced to breed, I was pointing out that the above argument (would you like if everyone did that) means that it is wrong to refuse to breed. Pointing out that an argument I oppose leads to an uncomfortable conclusion is a reductio ad absurdum and does not mean that I endorse that conlusion myself.
And if everyone were to breed, that would exacerbate the problems that are due to overpopulation. This implies that there should be some process that one follows when deciding whether or not to breed; it should be a process that has a nonzero chance of making the decision either to breed or not.
Exactly what the optimal process is, I do not know.
A tricky question.
The obvious, and trivially true, answer is that he who does both does more good than either. But that’s not what you asked.
So. It can be hard to compare the two options when considering the actions of a single person, since the beneficiaries of the actions do not overlap. Therefore I shall employ a simple heuristic; I shall assume that the option which does the most good when one person does it is also the option that does the most good when everyone does it.
So, the first option; everyone (who can afford it) makes large donations to efficient charities, while everyone avoids those nearby and is unpleasant when forced to deal with someone else directly.
If I make a few assumptions about the effectiveness (and priorities) of the charities and the sum of the donations, I find myself considering a world where everyone is sufficiently fed, clothed, sheltered, medically cared for and educated. However, the fact that everyone is unpleasant to everyone else leads to everyone being grumpy, irritated, and mildly unhappy.
Considering the second option; charitable donations drastically decrease, but everyone is pleasant and helpful to everyone they meet face-to-face. In this possible world, there are people who go hungry, naked, homeless. But probably fewer than in our current world; because everyone they meet will be helpful, aiding if they can in their plight. And because everyone’s pleasant and tries to uplift the mood of those they meet, a large majority of people consider themselves happy.
This assumption seems trivially false to me, and despite being labeled as a mere ‘heuristic’, it is the crucial step in your argument. Can you explain why I should take it seriously?
Well, for most choices between “is this good?” and “is this bad?” the assumption is true. For example, is it good for me to drop my chocolate wrapper on the street instead of finding a rubbish bin? If I assume everyone were to do that, I get the idea of a street awash in chocolate wrappers, and I consider that reason enough to find a rubbish bin.
Furthermore, and more importantly, the aim here is not to produce an argument that one action is better than the other in a single, specific case; rather, it is to produce a general principle (whether it is generally better to be charitable to those nearby, or to those further away).
And if option A is generally better than option B, then I think it is very probable that universal application of A will remain better than universal application of B; and vice versa.
When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
It’s tempting to reply to this by saying “‘doing the same thing’ means removing all self-serving qualifiers, so the correct question is whether you would like it if people dropped wrappers wherever they wanted, not specifically on your neighbor’s lawn”. This reply doesn’t work, because there are are plenty of situations where you want the qualifier—for instance, putting criminals in jail when the qualifier “criminal” excludes yourself.
(And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.)
I do need to be careful to define “that” as a generally applicable rule. In this case, the generally applicable rule would be, is it okay to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people one finds annoying?
So I need to consider the world in which everyone drops chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people they find annoying. Considering this, the chances of someone dropping a wrapper on my lawn becomes dependent on the probability that someone will find me annoying.
So, in short, I can put as many qualifiers on the rule as I like. However, I have to be careful to attach my qualifiers to the true reason for my formulation of the rule; I cannot select the rule “it is acceptable to drop chocolate wrappers on that exact specific lawn over there” without referencing the process by which I chose that exact specific lawn.
I can’t attach a qualifier to a specific person; but I can attach a qualifier to a specific quality, like being annoying, when considering a proposal.
Well, what’s your stance on forcing homosexuals to breed heterosexually to save humanity from extinction? Or forcing all homosexual women and a few men chosen by lottery, since we have an overabundance of sperm?
I don’t think people should be forced to breed, but I wasn’t arguing that people should be forced to breed, I was pointing out that the above argument (would you like if everyone did that) means that it is wrong to refuse to breed. Pointing out that an argument I oppose leads to an uncomfortable conclusion is a reductio ad absurdum and does not mean that I endorse that conlusion myself.
And if everyone were to breed, that would exacerbate the problems that are due to overpopulation. This implies that there should be some process that one follows when deciding whether or not to breed; it should be a process that has a nonzero chance of making the decision either to breed or not.
Exactly what the optimal process is, I do not know.
Yvain in these two old blog posts of his makes the case that it’s not clear that a world with grumpy people is worse than a world with hungry people.
You are correct. It is by no means clear which is better.