I get the sense you’re starting from the position that rejecting the Mugging is correct, and then looking for reasons to support that predetermined conclusion. Doesn’t this attitude seem dangerous? I mean, in the hypothetical world where accepting the Mugging is actually the right thing to do, wouldn’t this sort of analysis reject it anyway? (This is a feature of debates about Pascal’s Mugging in general, not just this post in particular.)
That’s just how it is when you reason about reason; Neurath’s boat must be repaired while on the open sea. In this case, our instincts strongly suggest that what the decision theory seems to say we should do must be wrong, and we have to turn to the rest of our abilities and beliefs to adjudicate between them.
Well, besides that thing about wanting expected utilities to converge, from a rationalist-virtue perspective it seems relatively less dangerous to start from a position of someone rejecting something with no priors or evidence in favor of it, and relatively more dangerous to start from a position of rejecting something that has strong priors or evidence.
I get the sense you’re starting from the position that rejecting the Mugging is correct, and then looking for reasons to support that predetermined conclusion. Doesn’t this attitude seem dangerous? I mean, in the hypothetical world where accepting the Mugging is actually the right thing to do, wouldn’t this sort of analysis reject it anyway? (This is a feature of debates about Pascal’s Mugging in general, not just this post in particular.)
That’s just how it is when you reason about reason; Neurath’s boat must be repaired while on the open sea. In this case, our instincts strongly suggest that what the decision theory seems to say we should do must be wrong, and we have to turn to the rest of our abilities and beliefs to adjudicate between them.
Well, besides that thing about wanting expected utilities to converge, from a rationalist-virtue perspective it seems relatively less dangerous to start from a position of someone rejecting something with no priors or evidence in favor of it, and relatively more dangerous to start from a position of rejecting something that has strong priors or evidence.