the reason why 5 minor toothaches spread among 5 people is equivalent to 5 minor toothache had by one person is DIFFERENT from the reason for why 5 minor headaches had by one person is equivalent to 1 major toothache had by one person.
No, both equivalencies are justified by the fact that they involve the same amount of base units of pain.
So you're saying that just as 5 MiTs/5 people is equivalent to 5 MiTs/1 person because both sides involve the same amount of base units of pain, 5 MiTs/1 person is equivalent to 1 MaT/1 person because both sides in...
I was trying to keep the discussions of 'which kind of pain is morally relevant' and of your proposed system of giving people a chance to be helped in proportion to their suffering sperate. It might be that they are so intertwined as for this to be unproductive, but I think I would like you to response to my comment about the latter before we discuss it further.
I think I see the original argument you were going for. The argument against my approach-minus-the-who-suffers-matters-bit is that it renders all resulting states of affairs equally bad, morally ...
Hey Alex! Sorry for the super late response! I have a self-control problem and my life got derailed a bit in the past week >< Anyways, I'm back :P
How much would you be willing to trade off helping people verses the help being distributed fairly? e.g. if you could either have a 95% chance of helping people in proportion to their suffering, but a 5% chance of helping no one, verses a 100% chance of only helping the person suffering the most.
This is an interesting question, adding another layer of chance to the original scenario. As you know, if (t...
I certainly did not mean to cause confusion, and I apologize for wasting any of your time that you spent trying to make sense of things.
By "you switched", do you mean that in my response to Objection 1, I gave the impression that only experience matters to me, such that when I mentioned in my response to Objection 2 that who suffers matters to me too, it seems like I've switched?
And thanks, I have fixed the broken quote. Btw, do you know how to italicize words?
Thanks for the exposition. I see the argument now.
You're saying that, if we determined "total pain" by my preferred approach, then all possible actions will certainly result in states of affairs in which the total pains are uniformly high with the only difference between the states of affairs being the identity of those who suffers it.
I've since made clear to you that who suffers matters to me too, so if the above is right, then according to my moral theory, what we ought to do is assign an equal chance to any possible action we could take, sin...
So you're suggesting that most people aggregate different people's experiences as follows:
FYI, I have since reworded this as "So you're suggesting that most people determine which of two cases/states-of-affairs is morally worse via experience this way:"
I think it is a more precise formulation. In any case, we're on the same page.
Basically I think sentences like:
"I don't think what we ought to do is to OUTRIGHT prevent the morally worse case"
...are sufficiently far from standard usage (at least in EA circles) you should flag up
Yes. I bring up that most people would accept this different framing of P3 (even when the people involved are different) as a fundamental piece of their morality. To most of the people here this is the natural, obvious and intuitively correct way of aggregating experience. (Hence why I started my very first comment by saying you are unlikely to get many people to change their minds!)
...I think thinking in terms of 'total pain' is not normally how this is approached, instead one thinks about converting each persons experience into 'utility' (or 'moral badn
Hey Alex,
Thanks again for taking the time to read my conversation with kbog and replying. I have a few thoughts in response:
(Indeed I think many people here would explicitly embrace the assumption than your P3 in your second reply to kblog, typically framed as 'two people experiencing the same pain is twice as bad as one person experiencing that pain' (there is some change from discussing 'total pain' to 'badness' here, but I think it still fits with our usage).)
When you say that many people here would embrace the assumption that "two people expe...
Hey kbog, if you don't mind, let's ignore my example with the 5000 pains because I think my argument can more clearly be made in terms of my toothache example since I have already laid a foundation for it. Let me restate that foundation and then state my argument in terms of my toothache example. Thanks for bearing with me.
The foundation:
Suppose 5 minor toothaches had by one person is experientially just as bad as 1 major toothache had by one person.
Given the supposition, you would claim: 5 minor toothaches spread among 5 people involves the same amount o...
Hey Alex,
Thanks for your reply. I can understand why you'd be extremely confused because I think I was in error to deny the intelligibility of the utilitarian sense of "more pain".
I have recently replied to kbog acknowledging this mistake, outlining how I understand the utilitarian sense of "more pain", and then presenting an argument for why my sense of "more pain" is the one that really matters.
I'd be interested to know what you think.
Hi kbog,
Sorry for taking awhile to get back to you – life got in the way... Fortunately, the additional time made me realize that I was the one who was confused as I now see very clearly the utilitarian sense of “involves more pain than” that you have been in favor of.
Where this leaves us is with two senses of “involves more pain than” and with the question of which of the two senses is the one that really matters. In this reply, I outline the two senses and then argue for why the sense that I have been in favor of is the one that really matters.
The two ...
Only my response to Objection 1 is more or less directed to the utilitarian. My response to Objection 2 is meant to defend against other justifications for saving the greater number, such as leximin or cancelling strategies. In any case, I think most EAs (even the non-utilitarians) will appeal to utilitarian reasoning to justify saving the greater number, so addressing utilitarian reasoning is important.
Hey Alex, thanks for your comment!
I didn't know what the source of my disagreement with EAs would be, so I hope you can understand why I couldn't structure my post in a way that would have already taken into account all the subsequent discussions. But thanks for your suggestion. I may write another post with a much simpler structure if my discussion with kbog reaches a point where either I realize I'm wrong or he realizes he's wrong. If I'm wrong, I hope to realize it asap.
Also, I agree with kbog. I think it's much likelier that one of us is just confused...
Hi bejaq,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I think your first paragraph captures well why I think who suffers matters. The connection between suffering and who suffers it is to strong for the former to matter and for the latter not to. Necessarily, pain is pain for someone, and ONLY for that someone. So it seems odd for pain to matter, yet for it not to matter who suffers it.
I would also certainly agree that there are pragmatic considerations that push us towards helping the larger group outright, rather than giving the smaller group a chance.
hey kbog, I didn't anticipate you would respond so quickly... I was editting my reply while you replied... Sorry about that. Anyways, I'm going to spend the next few days slowly re-reading and sitting on your past few replies in an all-out effort to understand your point of view. I hope you can do the same with just my latest reply (which I've editted). I think it needs to be read to the end for the full argument to come through.
Also, just to be clear, my goal here isn't to change your mind. My goal is just to get closer to the truth as cheesy as that might sound. If I'm the one in error, I'd be happy to admit it as soon as I realize it. Hopefully a few days of dwelling will help. Cheers.
You'll need to read to the very end of this reply before my argument seems complete.
In both cases I evaluate the quality of the experience multiplied by the number of subjects. It's the same aspect for both cases. You're just confused by the fact that, in one of the cases but not the other, the resulting quantity happens to be the same as the number provided by your "purely experiential sense".
Case 1: 5 minor headaches spread among 5 people
Case 2: 1 major headache had by one person
Yes, I understand that in each case, you are multiplying a cer...
Just because two things are different doesn't mean they are incommensurate.
But I didn't say that. As long as two different things share certain aspects/dimensions (e.g. the aspect of weight, the aspect of nutrition, etc...), then of course they can be compared on those dimensions (e.g. the weight of an orange is more than the weight of an apple, i.e., an orange weighs more than an apple).
So I don't deny that two different things that share many aspects/dimensions may be compared in many ways. But that's not the problem.
The problem is that when you say t...
The fact that they are separate doesn't mean that their content is any different from the experience of the one person. Certainly, the amount of pain they involve isn't any different.
Yes, each of the 5 minor headaches spread among the 5 people are phenomenally or qualitatively the same as each of the 5 minor headaches of the one person. The fact that the headaches are spread does not mean that any of them, in themselves, feel any different from any of the 5 minor headaches of the one person. A minor headache feels like a minor headache, irrespective of ...
1) "The point is that the subject has the same experiences as that of having one headache five times, and therefore has the same experiences as five headaches among five people."
One subject-of-experience having one headache five times = the experience of what-it's-like-of-going-through-5-headaches. (Note that the symbol is an equal sign in case it's hard to see.)
Five headaches among five people = 5 experientially independent experiences of what-it's-like-of-going-through-1-headache. (Note the 5 experiences are experientially independent of each o...
1) "But you are trying to argue about what makes one state of affairs morally worse than another. That is what you are trying to do in the first place. So it's not, and cannot be, preliminary. And if you started from the ground up then it would have contained something that carried force to utilitarians for instance.
If you disagree, try to sketch out a view (that isn't blatantly logically inconsistent) where someone would have agreed with you on Amy/Susan/Bob but disagreed on the headaches."
Arguing for what factors are morally relevant in determi...
Hi Telofy, nice to hear from you again :)
You say that you have no intuition for what a subject-of-experience is. So let me say two things that might make it more obvious:
1.Here is how I defined a subject-of-experience in my exchange with Michael_S:
"A subject of experience is just something which "enjoys" or has experience(s), whether that be certain visual experiences, pain experiences, emotional experiences, etc... In other words, a subject of experience is just something for whom there is a "what-it's-like". A building, a rock ...
Hi kbog, glad to hear back from you.
1) "But I don't have an accurate appreciation of what it's like to be 5 people going through 5 headaches either. So I'm missing out on just as much as the amnesiac. In both cases people's perceptions are inaccurate."
I don't quite understand how this is a response to what I said, so let me retrace some things:
You first claimed that if I believed that 5 minor headaches all had by one person is experientially worse than 5 minor headaches spread across 5 people, then I would be committed to "believing that i...
Hi Brian,
I think the reason why you have such a strong intuition of just saving Amy and Susie in a choice situation like the one I described in my previous reply is that you believe Amy's burning to death plus Susie's sore throat involves more or greater pain than Bob's burning to death. Since you think minimizing aggregate pain (i.e. maximizing aggregate utility) is what we should do, your reason for just Amy and Susie is clear.
But importantly, I don't share your belief that Amy's burning to death and Susie's sore throat involves more or greater pain tha...
Hey Brian,
I just wanted to note that another reason why you might not want to use the veil-of-ignorance approach to justify why we should save the greater number is that it would force you to conclude that, in a trade off situation where you can either save one person from an imminent excruciating pain (i.e. being burned alive) or another person from the same severe pain PLUS a third person from a very minor pain (e.g. a sore throat), we should save the second and third person and give 0 chance to the first person.
I think it was F. M. Kamm who first rais...
Hi Michael,
I removed the comment about worrying that we might not reach a consensus because I worried that it might send you the wrong idea (i.e. that I don't want to talk anymore). It's been tiring I have to admit, but also enjoyable and helpful. Anyways, you clearly saw my comment before I removed it. But yeah, I'm good with talking on.
I agree that experiences are the result of chemical reactions, however the nature of the relations "X being experientially worse than Y" and "X being greater in number than Y" are relevantly different...
1) "But if anyone did accept that premise then they would already believe that the number of people suffering doesn't matter, just the intensity. In other words, the only people to whom this argument applies are people who would agree with you in the first place that Amy and Susie's suffering is not a greater problem than Bob's suffering. So I can't tell if it's actually doing any work. If not, then it's just adding unnecessary length. That's what I mean when I say that it's too long. Instead of adding the story with the headaches in a separate counte...
1) "Well I can see how it is possible for someone to believe that. I just don't think it is a justified position, and if you did embrace it you would have a lot of problems. For instance, it commits you to believing that it doesn't matter how many times you are tortured if your memory is wiped each time. Because you will never have the experience of being tortured a second time."
I disagree. I was precisely trying to guard against such thoughts by enriching my first reply to Michael_S with a case of forgetfulness. I wrote, "Now, by the end of...
1) "Because I don't have any reason to feel different."
Ok, well, that comes as a surprise to me. In any case, I hope after reading my first reply to Michael_S, you at least sort of see how it could be possible that someone like I would feel surprised by that, even if you don't agree with my reasoning. In other words, I hope you at least sort of see how it could be possible that someone who would clearly agree with you that, say, 5 minor headaches all had by 1 tall person is experientially just as bad as 5 minor headaches all had by 1 short person...
1) "You simply assert that we would rather save Emma's major headache rather than five minor ones in case 3. But if you've stipulated that people would rather endure one big headache than five minor ones, then the big headache has more disutility. Just because the minor ones are split among different people doesn't change the story. I just don't follow the argument here."
I DO NOT simply assert this. In case 3, I wrote, "Here, I assume you would say that we should save Emma from the major headache or at least give her a higher chance of being...
1) "But that involves arbitrarily saving fewer people. I mean, you could call that non-arbitrary, since you have some kind of reason for it, but it's fewer people all the same, and it's not clear how reason or empathy would generally lead one to do this. So there is no prima facie case for the position that you're defending."
To arbitrarily save fewer people is to save them on a whim. I am not suggesting that we should save them on a whim. I am suggesting that we should give each person an equal chance of being saved. They are completely different...
1) The reason that the conclusions made in such a scenario have a bearing on reality is that the conclusions are necessarily both fair and rational.
The conclusions are rational under the stipulation that each person has an equal chance of being in anybody's position. But it is not actually rational given that the stipulation is false. So you can't just say that the conclusions have a bearing on reality because they are necessarily rational. They are rational under the stipulation, but not when you take into account what is actually the case.
And I don't se...
1) "Reason and empathy don't tell you to arbitrarily save fewer people."
I never said they tell me to arbitrarily save fewer people. I said that they tell us to give each person an equal chance of being saved.
2) "This doesn't answer the objection."
That premise (as indicated by "P1."), plus my support for that premise, was not meant to answer an objection. It was just the first premise of an argument that was meant to answer objection 1.
3) "There is more suffering when it happens to two people, and more suffering is mora...
Hey kbog,
Thanks for your comment. I never said it was up for debate. Rather, given that it is stipulated, I question whether agreements reached under such stipulations have any force or validity on reality, given that the stipulation is, in fact, false.
Please read my second response to brianwang712 where I imagine that Bob has a conversation with him. I would be curious how you would respond to Bob in that conversation.
Hey gworley3,
Here's the comment I made about the difference between effective-altruism and utilitarianism (if you're interested): http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1ll/cognitive_and_emotional_barriers_to_eas_growth/dij
Hey gworley3,
I decided to delete the post seeing that it wasn't getting many responses. Thanks for replying anyways!
Hey Khorton,
Thanks for sharing! For some reason, I totally did not expect faith/religion to come up. Clearly I have not thought broadly in enough ><. If I included a new option like
10) I donate/plan to donate because I am of a particular faith/religion that calls on me or requires me to do charitable deeds
do you think that would be more true of you than 1)? How important is it to you that doing charitable deeds is morally good or right? In other words, what if God did not create morality and simply requested that you help others without it being morally good or bad? Do you think you would still do it?
REVISED TO BE MORE CLEAR ON MAR 19:
You also write, "There is more pain (more of these chemical reactions based experiences) in the 5 headaches than there is in the 1 whether or not they occur in a single subject. I don't see any reason to treat this differently then the underlying chemical reactions."
Well, to me the reason is obvious: when we say that 5 minor pains in one person is greater than (i.e. worse than) a major pain in one person" we are using "greater than" in an EXPERIENTIAL sense. On the other hand, when we say that 10 ...
Just to make sure we're on the same page here, let me summarize where we're at:
In choice situation 2 of my paper, I said that supposing that any person would rather endure 5 minor headaches of a certain sort than 1 major headache of a certain sort when put to the choice, then a case in which Al suffers 5 such minor headaches is morally worse than a case in which Emma suffers 1 such major headache. And the reason I gave for this is that Al's 5 minor headaches is more painful (i.e. worse) than Emma's major headache.
In choice situation 3, however, the 5 min...
Hey Brian,
No worries! I've enjoyed our exchange as well - your latest response is both creative and funny. In particular, when I read "They have read your blog post on the EA forum and decide to flip a coin", I literally laughed out loud (haha). It's been a pleasure : ) If you change your mind and decide to reply, definitely feel welcome to.
Btw, for the benefit of first-time readers, I've updated a portion of my very first response in order to provide more color on something that I originally wrote. In good faith, I've also kept in the response...
Hey RandomEA (nice to chat again in a different setting lol),
Thanks for linking me to that. I understand moral duty and obligation to mean the same. Do you know what difference they had in mind? And 'opportunity' sounds very vague. It doesn't tell us much about the psychology of the surveyees.
Hey adamaero,
I agree that reasons change! But I would be curious what your current reason is :P (don't worry if you don't want to say)
Also, can you tell me which count as justifications and which count as reasons for you, and the difference between a reason and a justification for you?
I understand myself to be using the word 'reason' to mean cause here, but 'reason' can also be used to mean justification since in everyday parlance, it is a pretty loose term. Something similar can be said for the words 'why' and 'because'.
As I see it, the real distinction ...
1) A subject of experience is just something which "enjoys" or has experience(s), whether that be certain visual experiences, pain experiences, emotional experiences, etc... In other words, a subject of experience is just something for whom there is a "what-it's-like". A building, a rock or a plant is not a subject of experience because it has no experience(s). That is, for example, why we don't feel concerned when we step on grass: it doesn't feel pain or feel anything. On the other hand, a cow is a subject-of-experience - it presumab...
Hey Cassidy,
Very well written post! I didn't read his book, but just going off your summary of his view where you characterize him as "asserting that knowledge and technology will alleviate most of our persisting worries in time" and where you quote him saying, “… there is no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing.”, I am curious how much weight Pinker as well as you give to
1) empathy (i.e. the ability to imagine oneself in the shoes of another - to imagine what it might be like for...
Hey RandomEA,
Sorry for the late reply. Well, say I'm choosing between the World Food Programme (WFP) and some other charity, and I have $30 to donate. According to WFP, $30 can feed a person for a month (if I remember correctly). If I donate to the other charity, then WFP in its next operation will have $30 less to spend on food, meaning someone who otherwise would have been helped won't be receiving help. Who that person is, we don't know. All we know is that he is the person who was next in line, the first to be turned away.
Now, you disagree with this. ...
1) I agree that the me today is different from the me yesterday, but I would say this is a qualitative difference, not a numerical difference. I am still the numerically same subject-of-experience as yesterday's me, even though I may be qualitatively different in various physical and psychological ways from yesterday's me. I also agree that the me today is different from the you today, but here I would say that the difference is not merely qualitative, but numerical too. You and I are numerically different subjects-of-experience, not just qualitatively dif...
Hi Telofy,
Thanks for this lucid reply. It has made me realize that it was a mistake to use the phrase "clear experiential sense" because that misleads people into thinking that I am referring to some singular experience (e.g. some feeling of exhaustion that sets in after the final headache). In light of this issue, I have written a "new" first reply to Michael_S to try to make my position clearer. I think you will find it helpful. Moreover, if you find any part of it unclear, please do let me know.
What I'm about to say overlaps with som...
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for directing me to Scanlon's work. I am adequately familiar with his view on this topic, at least the one that he puts forward in What We Owe to Each Other. There, he tried to put forward an argument to explain why we should save the greater number in a choice situation like the one involving Bob, Amy and Susie, which respected the separateness of persons, but his argument has been well refuted by people like Michael Otsuka (2000, 2006).
Regarding your second point, what reason can you give for giving each person less than the maximum ...
Where in supposition or the line of reasoning that I laid out earlier (i.e. P1) through to P5)) did I say that 1 major headache involves the same amount of pain as 5 minor toothaches?
I attributed that line of reasoning to you because I thought that was how you would get to C) from the supposition that 5 minor toothaches had by one person is experientially just as bad as 1 major toothache had by one person.
B... (read more)