All of Paal_SK's Comments + Replies
Ah, good! Hmm, then this means that you really find the arguments against normative realism convincing! That is quite interesting, I'll delve into those links you mentioned sometime to have a look. As is often the case in philosophy, though, I suspect the low credence is explained not so much by the strength of the arguments, but by the understanding of the target concept or theory (normative realism). Especially in this case as you say that you are quite unsure what it even means. There are concepts of normativity that I would give a 0.01 cred...
Cool! Thank you for the candid reply, and for taking this seriously. Yes, for questions such as these I think one should act as though the most likely theory is true. That is, my current view is contrary to McAskill's view on this (I think). However, I haven't read his book, and there might be arguments there that would convince me if I had.
The most forceful considerations driving my own thinking on this comes from sceptical worries in epistemology. In typical 'brain in a vat' scenarios, there are typically some slight considerations that tip in favo...
Thank you for this interesting post! In the spreadsheet with additional info concerning the basis for your credences, you wrote the following about the first crucial crux about normativity itself: "Ultimately I feel extremely unsure what this claim means, how I should assess its probability, or what credence I should land on." Concerning the second question in this sentence, about how to assess the probability of philosophical propositions like this, I would like to advocate a view called 'contrastivism'. According to this view, the way to approach the cla...
Interesting! The philosophical debates about the nature of morality in light of evolution is a great literature, which I very much recommend checking out further. However, the main question of contention in those debates is whether studies of the kind you allude to in fact show anything about morality itself. In fact, the mainstream view in metaethics is that the conclusion, which you have included in the title question, that morality emerges from evolutionary and functional pressures, is false. What usually happens in those studies is that some evolutiona...
This is a really useful overview of crucial questions that have a ton of applications for conscientious longtermists!
The plan for future work seems even more interesting though. Some measures have beneficial effects for a broad range of cause-areas, and others less so. It would be very interesting to see how a set of interventions do in a cost-benefit analysis where interconnections are taken into account.
It would also be super-interesting to see the combined quantitative assessments of a thoughtful group of longtermist's answers to some of these qu...
So I agree with you that we should apply expected value reasoning in most cases. The cases in which I don't think we should use expected value reasoning are for hinge propositions. The propositions on which entire worldviews stand or fall, such as fundamental metaethical propositions for instance, or scientific paradigms. The reason these are special is that the grounds for belief in these propositions is also affected by believing them.
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