Why destroy placebo effects? According to some stuff Robin Hanson points to, it seems that most of medicine might consist of placebos. Aren’t you fighting what wins in favor of the truth?
Why would we regard an effective placebo as a victory? Why would we want our enemies to profit?
I can think of all sorts of reasons to oppose the existence of a type of person who is made more fit by delusion. Simple eugenics combined with long-term thinking would seem to suggest that we should encourage the destruction of such people.
If you regard those who are not rational as ‘our enemies’, then I suppose that reasoning holds.
a Utilitarian, considering what’s best in the long-term, would certainly prefer people who’ve managed to be made more fit by the truth—delusion is clearly more costly ceteris paribus.
Anyone who accepts an egoistic ethics should accept that the mere fact of them being ‘enemies’ is enough to want them less fit.
Kantians value truth for obvious reasons. Lying is probably the only act to which Kant successfully applied the categorical imperative.
Of course, a certain sort of Altruist might think that making people feel nice now is worth… well, they’d probably stop thinking at that point.
But even given all this, as it turns out I’m one of the ordinary humans that’s aided by placebos, and don’t regard humans as the ‘enemy’. So I’m in favor of placebos, for now. Though I’m doubly in favor of altering human cognitive architecture so that the truth works even better.
Why destroy placebo effects? According to some stuff Robin Hanson points to, it seems that most of medicine might consist of placebos. Aren’t you fighting what wins in favor of the truth?
There is evidence that placebos work even if you know that they contain no active ingredients, so we may be spared this interesting dilemma!
Why would we regard an effective placebo as a victory? Why would we want our enemies to profit?
I can think of all sorts of reasons to oppose the existence of a type of person who is made more fit by delusion. Simple eugenics combined with long-term thinking would seem to suggest that we should encourage the destruction of such people.
If you regard those who are not rational as ‘our enemies’, then I suppose that reasoning holds.
a Utilitarian, considering what’s best in the long-term, would certainly prefer people who’ve managed to be made more fit by the truth—delusion is clearly more costly ceteris paribus.
Anyone who accepts an egoistic ethics should accept that the mere fact of them being ‘enemies’ is enough to want them less fit.
Kantians value truth for obvious reasons. Lying is probably the only act to which Kant successfully applied the categorical imperative.
Of course, a certain sort of Altruist might think that making people feel nice now is worth… well, they’d probably stop thinking at that point.
But even given all this, as it turns out I’m one of the ordinary humans that’s aided by placebos, and don’t regard humans as the ‘enemy’. So I’m in favor of placebos, for now. Though I’m doubly in favor of altering human cognitive architecture so that the truth works even better.