File this under “things that could probably be said better, but which might be better said than not said given I won’t action it for later”.
Whenever I see a post or question of the type “is X moral”, I have an instinctual aversive reaction because such questions seem to leave so much that still needs to be asked, and the important questions are not even addressed, so even taking a potshot at the question requires wheeling some rather heavy equipment up to do some rather heavy digging as to the values, priorities, risk tolerance, etc of the person asking the question.
Re “the important questions are not even addressed”: Fundamentally, are you trying to satisfice or maximize here? Are you trying to figure out the “optimal” action per those values that you group in the “morality” category, or are you trying to figure out which actions have an acceptable impact in terms of those values (such that you’re then going to choose between the acceptable possibilities with a different set of values?) Once the meta’s taken care of, what are the actual things that you value? Inferential distance is often pretty humongous in this regard, so more explicit often is better.
Maybe a more concrete example will be useful. If I ask you “what computer should I buy?”, I should not take an immediate answer seriously with no further info, because I know you have no way of knowing what my decision criteria are (and its kinda hard for your recommendation to align with them by chance.) As such, I would probably want to give you a decent amount of information regarding my relevant preferences if I ask for such a recommendation...am I going to play games? Office work? Might even be useful to specify the type of games I’m playing and whether graphics are a biggie for me, etc.
When I don’t see this type of info flow occurring, it feels like a charade, because if I were the one asking the question I would have to discard any answers that I got in the absence of such info about preferences, etc.
Again, apologies for going meta + possibly abrasive tone at the same time. Just trying to help discussions like this get started off on the right foot, as it feels like I see them more and more lately. Probably tapping out.
File this under “things that could probably be said better, but which might be better said than not said given I won’t action it for later”.
Whenever I see a post or question of the type “is X moral”, I have an instinctual aversive reaction because such questions seem to leave so much that still needs to be asked, and the important questions are not even addressed, so even taking a potshot at the question requires wheeling some rather heavy equipment up to do some rather heavy digging as to the values, priorities, risk tolerance, etc of the person asking the question.
Re “the important questions are not even addressed”: Fundamentally, are you trying to satisfice or maximize here? Are you trying to figure out the “optimal” action per those values that you group in the “morality” category, or are you trying to figure out which actions have an acceptable impact in terms of those values (such that you’re then going to choose between the acceptable possibilities with a different set of values?) Once the meta’s taken care of, what are the actual things that you value? Inferential distance is often pretty humongous in this regard, so more explicit often is better.
Maybe a more concrete example will be useful. If I ask you “what computer should I buy?”, I should not take an immediate answer seriously with no further info, because I know you have no way of knowing what my decision criteria are (and its kinda hard for your recommendation to align with them by chance.) As such, I would probably want to give you a decent amount of information regarding my relevant preferences if I ask for such a recommendation...am I going to play games? Office work? Might even be useful to specify the type of games I’m playing and whether graphics are a biggie for me, etc.
When I don’t see this type of info flow occurring, it feels like a charade, because if I were the one asking the question I would have to discard any answers that I got in the absence of such info about preferences, etc.
Again, apologies for going meta + possibly abrasive tone at the same time. Just trying to help discussions like this get started off on the right foot, as it feels like I see them more and more lately. Probably tapping out.
ETA punctuation.