Good points. My entire post assumes that people are interested in figuring out what they would want to do in every conceivable decision-situation. That’s what I″d call “doing ethics”, but you’re completely correct that many people do something very different. Now, would they keep doing what they’re doing if they knew exactly what they’re doing and not doing, i.e. if they were aware of the alternatives? If they were aware of concepts like agentyness? And if yes, what would this show?
I wrote down some more thoughts on this in this comment. As a general reply to your main point: Just because people act as though they are interested in x rather than y doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t rather choose y if they were more informed. And to me, choosing something because one is not optimally informed seems like a bias, which is why I thought the comparison/the term “moral anti-epistemology” has merits. However, under a more Panglossian interpretation of ethics, you could just say that people want to do what they do, and that this is perfectly fine. I depends on how much you value ethical reflection (there is quite a rabbit hole to go down to, actually, having to do with the question whether terminal values are internal or chosen).
The sad thing is it probably will (the rationalist’s burden: aspiring to be more rational makes rationalizating harder, and you can’t just tweak your moral map and your map of the just world/universe to fit your desired (self-)image).
What is it that counts, revealed preferences or stated preferences or preferences that are somehow idealized (if the person knew more, was smarter etc.)? I’m not sure the last option can be pinned down in a non-arbitrary way. This would leave us with revealed preferences and stated preferences, even though stated preferences are often contradictory or incomplete. It would be confused to think that one type of preferences are correct, whereas the others aren’t. There are simply different things going on, and you may choose to focus on one or the other. Personally I don’t intrinsically care about making people more agenty, but I care about it instrumentally, because it turns out that making people more agenty often increases their (revealed) concern for reducing suffering.
What does this make of the claim under discussion, that deontology could sometimes/often be a form of moral rationalizing? The point still stands, but it is qualified with a caveat, namely that it is only a rationalizing if we are talking about (informed/complete) stated preferences. For whatever that’s worth. On LW, I assume it is worth a lot to most people, but there’s no mistake being made if it isn’t for someone.
Good points. My entire post assumes that people are interested in figuring out what they would want to do in every conceivable decision-situation. That’s what I″d call “doing ethics”, but you’re completely correct that many people do something very different. Now, would they keep doing what they’re doing if they knew exactly what they’re doing and not doing, i.e. if they were aware of the alternatives? If they were aware of concepts like agentyness? And if yes, what would this show?
I wrote down some more thoughts on this in this comment. As a general reply to your main point: Just because people act as though they are interested in x rather than y doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t rather choose y if they were more informed. And to me, choosing something because one is not optimally informed seems like a bias, which is why I thought the comparison/the term “moral anti-epistemology” has merits. However, under a more Panglossian interpretation of ethics, you could just say that people want to do what they do, and that this is perfectly fine. I depends on how much you value ethical reflection (there is quite a rabbit hole to go down to, actually, having to do with the question whether terminal values are internal or chosen).
And if making people more informed in this manner makes them worse off?
The sad thing is it probably will (the rationalist’s burden: aspiring to be more rational makes rationalizating harder, and you can’t just tweak your moral map and your map of the just world/universe to fit your desired (self-)image).
What is it that counts, revealed preferences or stated preferences or preferences that are somehow idealized (if the person knew more, was smarter etc.)? I’m not sure the last option can be pinned down in a non-arbitrary way. This would leave us with revealed preferences and stated preferences, even though stated preferences are often contradictory or incomplete. It would be confused to think that one type of preferences are correct, whereas the others aren’t. There are simply different things going on, and you may choose to focus on one or the other. Personally I don’t intrinsically care about making people more agenty, but I care about it instrumentally, because it turns out that making people more agenty often increases their (revealed) concern for reducing suffering.
What does this make of the claim under discussion, that deontology could sometimes/often be a form of moral rationalizing? The point still stands, but it is qualified with a caveat, namely that it is only a rationalizing if we are talking about (informed/complete) stated preferences. For whatever that’s worth. On LW, I assume it is worth a lot to most people, but there’s no mistake being made if it isn’t for someone.