Really? When I read that article, I thought he was ramming home his point that his opponents are secretly deontologists there—hence the title of the post in question. Perhaps I too have failed to apply the principle of charity.
(Insert metahumourous joke about not bothering because of the OP’s topic here.)
I thought he was ramming home his point that his opponents are secretly deontologists there
I think the point was that his opponents are openly deontologists, making openly deontological arguments for their openly deontological position, and therefor they are rightly confused and not moved by Yvain’s refutation of a shoehorning of their position into a consequentialist argument when they never made any such argument, which Yvain now understands and therefor he doesn’t do that anymore.
Well, this is what comes immediately after the quoted paragraph, for context:
And yet without the utilitarian angle, this whole argument falls apart on exactly the “proving too much” grounds pushed by our hypothetical politician above. If you want to ban euthanasia, why not ban health care? If you want to ban prostitution, why not McJobs? If you want to ban BDSM, why not all consensual sex? If you don’t have a good quantitative argument ready, you sure can’t support it on qualitative grounds alone.
Look around you. Just look around you. Have you figured out what we’re looking for yet? That’s right. The answer is sacred values and taboo trade-offs.
So my interpretation doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable. I haven’t finished rereading the whole post yet, though.
Arguing that the consequentialist approach is better than the deontological approach is different than skipping that step and going straight to refuting your own consequentialist argument for the position others were arguing on deontological grounds. Saying they should do some expected utility calculations is different than saying the expected utility calculations the haven’t done are wrong.
Except he isn’t doing that. He’s misrepresenting people’s arguments (due to misunderstanding?), tearing his strawman apart, and then “explaining” the poor quality of this argument by declaring that his opponents are lying about their beliefs, and their actual beliefs consist of simple deontological rules.
What bothers me is when they do this and they pretend they’re making a value-free statement about respecting the rights of others. “Oh, well, we’re a liberal democracy and people should be able to do whatever they like with their own bodies, but I’m just worried about people being euthanized against their will, and that would be a violation of consent, and a good liberal democracy like us wouldn’t want to violate consent, nosirree!”
No. You do not care how many people are kept alive without their consent, just like you do not care how many people work McJobs without their consent, or how many people feel pressured into going to social gatherings they don’t want to attend. You care about consent solely when it serves the purpose of your sacred values. You would gladly violate the consent of a billion people on some unrelated issue rather than risk a single consent violation of your own personal pet project.
… and obviously, an arbitrary set of deontological rules is not an argument, so he no longer has to actually disprove it.
I’m starting to think I need to write a larger deconstruction of his post, actually, but I hope you see what I mean. (Thank Azathoth that Yvain is such a clear writer and thinker so I can show this so simply with quotes like this. Although I suppose he wouldn’t have as many of us caring what he writes if it wasn’t worth reading.)
Yvain says that people claim to be using one simple deontological rule “Don’t violate consent” when in fact they are using a complicated collection of rules of the form “Don’t violate consent in this specific domain” while not following other rules of that form.
And yet, you accuse him of strawmanning their argument to be simple.
Yvain says that people claim to be using one simple deontological rule “Don’t violate consent”
Sort of, yes. I definitely need to write a full post on why I believe his criticism is subtly unfair in various ways—likely because this is an emotional subject for him, so he is somewhat less inclined to pull his punches and steelman opposing views; and he is both a brilliant writer and a brilliant thinker.
in fact they are using a complicated collection of rules of the form “Don’t violate consent in this specific domain” while not following other rules of that form
Actually, he accuses them of claiming to, and advocating following those rules only in those situations where doing so agrees with their agenda—which he characterizes, not unreasonably. A charge of hypocrisy, rather than inconsistency.
And yet, you accuse him of strawmanning their argument to be simple.
I do? I accuse him of strawmanning their arguments to be cartoonishly poor arguments, but simple...?
Ah! Are you perhaps referring to my characterization of simple deontological rules (“thou shalt not kill” etc.)? Yes, I would generally reject those as overly simple—there are many situation where one might be called upon to kill for the greater good, for example.
(There are vast differences between deontological ethics, rule utilitarianism, and the optimal laws for legal systems both real and hypothetical.)
Really? When I read that article, I thought he was ramming home his point that his opponents are secretly deontologists there—hence the title of the post in question. Perhaps I too have failed to apply the principle of charity.
(Insert metahumourous joke about not bothering because of the OP’s topic here.)
I think the point was that his opponents are openly deontologists, making openly deontological arguments for their openly deontological position, and therefor they are rightly confused and not moved by Yvain’s refutation of a shoehorning of their position into a consequentialist argument when they never made any such argument, which Yvain now understands and therefor he doesn’t do that anymore.
Well, this is what comes immediately after the quoted paragraph, for context:
So my interpretation doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable. I haven’t finished rereading the whole post yet, though.
Arguing that the consequentialist approach is better than the deontological approach is different than skipping that step and going straight to refuting your own consequentialist argument for the position others were arguing on deontological grounds. Saying they should do some expected utility calculations is different than saying the expected utility calculations the haven’t done are wrong.
Except he isn’t doing that. He’s misrepresenting people’s arguments (due to misunderstanding?), tearing his strawman apart, and then “explaining” the poor quality of this argument by declaring that his opponents are lying about their beliefs, and their actual beliefs consist of simple deontological rules.
… and obviously, an arbitrary set of deontological rules is not an argument, so he no longer has to actually disprove it.
I’m starting to think I need to write a larger deconstruction of his post, actually, but I hope you see what I mean. (Thank Azathoth that Yvain is such a clear writer and thinker so I can show this so simply with quotes like this. Although I suppose he wouldn’t have as many of us caring what he writes if it wasn’t worth reading.)
Yvain says that people claim to be using one simple deontological rule “Don’t violate consent” when in fact they are using a complicated collection of rules of the form “Don’t violate consent in this specific domain” while not following other rules of that form.
And yet, you accuse him of strawmanning their argument to be simple.
Sort of, yes. I definitely need to write a full post on why I believe his criticism is subtly unfair in various ways—likely because this is an emotional subject for him, so he is somewhat less inclined to pull his punches and steelman opposing views; and he is both a brilliant writer and a brilliant thinker.
Actually, he accuses them of claiming to, and advocating following those rules only in those situations where doing so agrees with their agenda—which he characterizes, not unreasonably. A charge of hypocrisy, rather than inconsistency.
I do? I accuse him of strawmanning their arguments to be cartoonishly poor arguments, but simple...?
Ah! Are you perhaps referring to my characterization of simple deontological rules (“thou shalt not kill” etc.)? Yes, I would generally reject those as overly simple—there are many situation where one might be called upon to kill for the greater good, for example.
(There are vast differences between deontological ethics, rule utilitarianism, and the optimal laws for legal systems both real and hypothetical.)