In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6” (IE, your “purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both”)?
Do you agree or disagree with “it’s obvious that not all hypocrisy is due to hostile agency in the sense of #6”?
IE, to what extent is hostile agency universal to hypocrisy, vs a strong heuristic?
In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6″ (IE, your ”purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both“)?
Separately from the points I raise in my other reply, I think this proposal is problematic, because it does not at all fit the pattern of usage of “akrasia”. As far as I’ve seen, the word “akrasia” is used to explain divergence between expressed intent or desire and action; this is different from divergence between advice and action, or advocacy of norms and action, or prudential claims and action, etc. The latter is hypocrisy, the former is what rationalist-type folks call “akrasia”. The two may co-occur, but they are not identical.
Now, perhaps this was your intent…? But if so, I don’t think it’s a good idea; for all that I disagree with the concept of akrasia (as employed on Less Wrong and in similar places), I don’t think that appropriating the word for an entirely different purpose is wise.
I agree that it doesn’t fit the usual definition; I was asking about the modified definition since it is what’s actually relevant to your argument (and as you noted, the argument I actually made in the post there is not very relevant to the view you’re putting forward).
That’s very much not how I use words or think they should be used. Words can be understood in terms of their use in the context of a discussion, and that’s often them at their most useful.
If you look back to my comment in question, you may note that I did not offer “hostile agency” as a causal explanation for hypocrisy, but as an assumption on which to base evaluation of the hypocrite’s words. Given this, it makes little sense to speak of hypocrisy being, or not being, “due to hostile agency”—even if you mentally perform the proper transformation, the explicitly causal language will inevitably put you in the mind of thinking about malicious intent, when in fact that’s not what we’re talking about. (The admittedly-awkward phrase I would substitute for “hostile agency” is “motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which makes it clear that we’re not in fact imputing any deliberate malice to anyone—not necessarily, anyway.)
That being said, if what you mean by this is indeed something like “will this assumption sometimes lead you drastically astray”, then the answer is clearly “yes” in a strict sense—but “sometimes” in this case is “not very often at all”. As I mentioned in another comment—first, there are degrees of hypocrisy; and second, that the stigma attaches even to, in some sense, “innocent” hypocrisy, is a good thing—a feature, not a bug. (This latter consideration would seem to be a non sequitur in a strictly epistemic discussion; but (a) we are also talking about norms here, and (b) norms of this type can affect group epistemics—so unless the discussion is not only strictly epistemic, but strictly individual-level epistemic, the latter consideration is, in fact, quite relevant.)
(I also have another, unrelated, objection, which I’ll deal with in a sibling comment.)
Ok. I agree with your clarifications (I didn’t have in mind a literal “due to hostile agency”, but rather “due to motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which is what “due to hostile agency” would have to mean in the context of what we’ve already clarified about #6).
I was asking just to make sure whether you thought the connection was absolue or a heuristic, and didn’t really plan to continue this particular line of inquiry beyond that, but now it seems possibly good to discuss the frequency question which you raised. After all, the quality of a heuristic does depend on how frequently it is right.
My model is that in most contexts, it already makes sense to infer “hostile agency” in this sense, IE, agency which is not necessarily out to get you but which isn’t particularly looking out for your interests in the interaction and needs to be watched for that reason. However, with respect to the specific intentions behind hypocritical words, I can only think of a few examples concentrated in certain individuals where it was really associated with that. To my memory, it seems like hypocrisy tends to be either incidental to a preexisting hostile agency, or basically meaningless (easily explained by other reasons).
In that case, what about the following tabooing of Akrasia: “divergence between words and actions which is not due to hostile agency in the sense of #6” (IE, your “purpose that is self-serving (possibly at our expense, though without harming us being the explicit goal), or actively hostile, or both”)?
Do you agree or disagree with “it’s obvious that not all hypocrisy is due to hostile agency in the sense of #6”?
IE, to what extent is hostile agency universal to hypocrisy, vs a strong heuristic?
Separately from the points I raise in my other reply, I think this proposal is problematic, because it does not at all fit the pattern of usage of “akrasia”. As far as I’ve seen, the word “akrasia” is used to explain divergence between expressed intent or desire and action; this is different from divergence between advice and action, or advocacy of norms and action, or prudential claims and action, etc. The latter is hypocrisy, the former is what rationalist-type folks call “akrasia”. The two may co-occur, but they are not identical.
Now, perhaps this was your intent…? But if so, I don’t think it’s a good idea; for all that I disagree with the concept of akrasia (as employed on Less Wrong and in similar places), I don’t think that appropriating the word for an entirely different purpose is wise.
I agree that it doesn’t fit the usual definition; I was asking about the modified definition since it is what’s actually relevant to your argument (and as you noted, the argument I actually made in the post there is not very relevant to the view you’re putting forward).
Then my comment stands—I think it is unwise to appropriate the term for this meaning. It can only serve to confuse us, and everyone we talk to.
That’s very much not how I use words or think they should be used. Words can be understood in terms of their use in the context of a discussion, and that’s often them at their most useful.
Ok. I think that’s an absolutely horrible way to use words, though this is probably not the best context to discuss that.
I made a post specifically about the disagreement.
We could discuss it on the post I cited.
If you look back to my comment in question, you may note that I did not offer “hostile agency” as a causal explanation for hypocrisy, but as an assumption on which to base evaluation of the hypocrite’s words. Given this, it makes little sense to speak of hypocrisy being, or not being, “due to hostile agency”—even if you mentally perform the proper transformation, the explicitly causal language will inevitably put you in the mind of thinking about malicious intent, when in fact that’s not what we’re talking about. (The admittedly-awkward phrase I would substitute for “hostile agency” is “motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which makes it clear that we’re not in fact imputing any deliberate malice to anyone—not necessarily, anyway.)
That being said, if what you mean by this is indeed something like “will this assumption sometimes lead you drastically astray”, then the answer is clearly “yes” in a strict sense—but “sometimes” in this case is “not very often at all”. As I mentioned in another comment—first, there are degrees of hypocrisy; and second, that the stigma attaches even to, in some sense, “innocent” hypocrisy, is a good thing—a feature, not a bug. (This latter consideration would seem to be a non sequitur in a strictly epistemic discussion; but (a) we are also talking about norms here, and (b) norms of this type can affect group epistemics—so unless the discussion is not only strictly epistemic, but strictly individual-level epistemic, the latter consideration is, in fact, quite relevant.)
(I also have another, unrelated, objection, which I’ll deal with in a sibling comment.)
Ok. I agree with your clarifications (I didn’t have in mind a literal “due to hostile agency”, but rather “due to motivations and behavior such that assumption of hostile agency yields correct analysis”, which is what “due to hostile agency” would have to mean in the context of what we’ve already clarified about #6).
I was asking just to make sure whether you thought the connection was absolue or a heuristic, and didn’t really plan to continue this particular line of inquiry beyond that, but now it seems possibly good to discuss the frequency question which you raised. After all, the quality of a heuristic does depend on how frequently it is right.
My model is that in most contexts, it already makes sense to infer “hostile agency” in this sense, IE, agency which is not necessarily out to get you but which isn’t particularly looking out for your interests in the interaction and needs to be watched for that reason. However, with respect to the specific intentions behind hypocritical words, I can only think of a few examples concentrated in certain individuals where it was really associated with that. To my memory, it seems like hypocrisy tends to be either incidental to a preexisting hostile agency, or basically meaningless (easily explained by other reasons).