Here is how I would have edited the first three paragraphs of your post on consequentialism:
The simple idea that we ought to choose actions according to their probable consequences, ever since it was formulated, has garnered a rather shocking amount of dissent. Part of this may be due to causes other than philosophical objections, and some of the objections get into the metaphysics of metaethics. But there’s a fair amount of opposition on rather simple grounds: that consequentialist reasoning appears to endorse bad decisions, either in the long run or as an effect of collective action.
Consequentialism, the simple idea that we ought to select among our possible actions according to their probable consequences, has garnered a surprising amount of criticism ever since it was first proposed.
As lukeprog discusses here, some of these objections are likely to be mere superficial rationalisations of intuitive moral judgements, which are easily dispensed with in the philosophical arena. Other objections may be metaphysical in nature; needless to say, most Lesswrongians would consider metaphysical objections to a metaethical principle, or indeed any metaphysical argument, to be a priori incoherent. However, a significant proportion of opponents of consequentialism argue that consequentialist reasoning appears to endorse bad decisions, in the long term and when multiple consequentialist agents produce collective action; this criticism seems more worthy of our consideration.
Every so often, you’ll hear someone offer a reductio ad absurdum of the following form: “Consider dilemma X. If we were consequentialists, then we would be forced to choose Y. But in the long run (or if widely adopted) the strategy of choosing Y leads to horrible consequence Z, and so consequentialism fails on its own terms.”
Occasionally, a critic will offer a reductio ad absurdum of the following form: “Consider dilemma X. Consequentialists are forced to choose strategy Y to deal with the dilemma. But in the long run or if widely adopted, strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, therefore consequentialism fails on its own terms.
There’s something fishy about the argument when you lay it out like that: if it can be known that the strategy of choosing Y has horrible consequence Z, then why do we agree that consequentialists choose Y? In fact, there are two further unstated assumptions in every such argument I’ve heard, and it is those assumptions rather than consequentialism on which the absurdity really falls. But to discuss the assumptions, we need to delve into a bit of decision theory.
This argument seems suspect. If a consequentialist knows in advance that strategy Y is likely to produce horrible consequence Z, then why should we expect him to choose strategy Y? In fact such an argument relies on two unstated assumptions, and since I believe these assumptions to be invalid the argument fails to refute consequentialism. In order to discuss these assumptions, we will need to delve into a bit of decision theory.
Some of this is just my preferred way of phrasing things. In other places I do feel that it’s an improvement (for example, “if it can be known” is passive voice, which is generally considered to be both dull and unclear in comparison to active voice, therefore only to be used if there’s a good reason to do so).
I like the original version slightly more, mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer. I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm; “if it can be known” is bad, but it is because “can” is superfluous there rather than because of the passive voice.
I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer
It does say more. The content of the link is actually explained, clarifying things for people who don’t like to follow links (perhaps because they tend to end up with millions of tabs and hours wasted) and saving time and mental energy for the rest. The mention of “metaphysics of metaethics” is just thrown out there in the original—this might be sort of OK for a purely Lesswrongian audience, but it’s confusing to readers who aren’t able easily to guess the author’s opinion on metaphysical arguments*.
Although less problematic, I’m not keen on “rather shocking” or the use of the word dissent. “Dissent” implies that consequentialism is dogma, and “rather shocking” is a borderline oxymoron; the word “shocked” suggests to me a necessarily extreme emotion or state of mind.
*OK I did say “needless to say”. But that’s really just a bunch of syllables, the kind one includes to (hopefully) improve the rhythm of a sentence.
“Dull to read” is a subjective evaluation I don’t share. Moreover, it is exactly the sort of justification which is given (1) to arbitrary norms. When people are told (2) that they shouldn’t do X, they easily convince themselves that X feels dull, even if there wouldn’t be such a feeling without the (arbitrary) social norm. I don’t know for certain whether this is the case of the passive voice, but I am generally skeptical about subjective justifications of existing norms.
As for obscuring reality and the Orwell’s essay, see Vladimir_M’s comment and the links included therein. One of the more interesting points is that the critics of passive voice generally don’t use passive voice less often than the rest of the writers. Maybe I have been careful in this comment and thus am not entirely fair, but I have used passive constructions twice (numbered above) in positions where the active alternative would be much longer, while in the parent comment you have put three instances of passive voice (“justifications are attached”, “link is explained”, “mention is thrown”; two of them only to spare a short personal pronoun “I”).
“Metaphysics of metaethics” is indeed confusing for me, but I usually don’t understand anything containing the word “metaphysics”, so I am not sure whether the alternative is any better. I agree with your objection to “shocking” and, to a lesser extent, “dissent”. No problem with “needless to say”.
My objection to this class of stylistic advices is that they use tricky arguments to prove their point. Usually the authors choose an extraordinarily ugly piece of text (or even make it up, as is probably the case with the description of bicycles in your link) that abounds in the word or grammatical category they despise and want to argue against, then reformulate it in normal language, taking care to avoid the undesired thing, then pretend having proven a general rule that the despised part of language never should be used, save of course few exceptions which they rarely bother explicitly describing. The readers see two pieces of text, one ugly and one readable, and usually accept that the ugliness is caused by the expression they are advised to purge from their writing (which is even not always the case) and that the less they use it, the better (which doesn’t follow).
Good writing is not achieved by avoiding everyday expressions and regularly used grammatical features. There are things to be avoided in writing or speech, for sure. But if you are going to ban the most frequent verb which also plays the role of copula and is part of passive and progressive constructions, you are constraining the expressive power of the language, limiting the effectivity of communication, and even making your writing harder to read. It has as much sense as saying you should never use the prepositions “in” and “on”; certainly you can rewrite any text so that the rule is satisfied—and since you are forced to search for alternatives interesting and novel expressions may appear as a by-product—but ultimately, because of artificial limits you have put on yourself, you are not free to say exactly what you want to say.
You are right. However, I don’t think the advice was meant to be used to evaluate weather or not a given essay is boring. I found it helpful because it provided a simple rule that I used to change my writing habits. I had a vague sense that some of my sentences were stilted, but I didn’t know how to remedy that problem. Not everyone will get the same utility from creative restrictions, but I find them inspiring.
I agree that part of the problem with “if it can be known” is that “if it be known” is strictly superior.
On the other hand, an important fact in the critic’s argument is that the consequentialist agent knows that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z. If he is simply unaware of this fact (but “it be known” by other people), then we would be entirely unsurprised to see him choose strategy Y—he is still a consequentialist, just a misinformed one—so no argument materialises.
Therefore I think that the use of active voice is clearer in this instance, because passive voice obscures the distinction between our knowing that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, and the hypothetical consequentialist in question knowing this. Admittedly this distinction is not difficult to infer in the original piece, but numerous small inclarities can add up to make tedious prose.
On reflection, what you have said about the passive voice in general is true. Misuse of the passive voice to obscure agency when agency is politically or socially important is Orwellian; passive voice in general does not necessarily obscure anything.
Passive constructions change the focus. Sometimes they’re better. It’s only when they’re used to obfuscate lack of specific evidence that I object. It’s advised to mix in some passives when describing research, at least.
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
Passive voice is not necessarily any more obscure than active. You convey the same information with the statement “Z has been Yed by X” as with the statement “X Yed Z.” As it happens, this is the argument that Jonathan_Graehl used when I advocated revising to use active voice. If you carry the assumption that passive voice is vague or obscure, it can lead you to simply not notice passive constructions that are precise.
I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm
All things equal, prefer active—but if there is any benefit to using passive voice (eg the sentence is a few words shorter), things aren’t equal, so use passive! I think that the voice being changed between active and passive helps make a sentence flow, but I’ve never read anything enlightening on the matter.
Ooh, my turn to try a rewrite of the first paragraph.
Consequentialism: “We should choose actions based on their probable consequences.”
Ever since that idea was formulated, it has earned a surprising amount of criticism. The most interesting objections are ones which argue that consequentialist reasoning appears to endorse bad decisions, either in the long run or as an effect of collective action.
Here is how I would have edited the first three paragraphs of your post on consequentialism:
Consequentialism, the simple idea that we ought to select among our possible actions according to their probable consequences, has garnered a surprising amount of criticism ever since it was first proposed. As lukeprog discusses here, some of these objections are likely to be mere superficial rationalisations of intuitive moral judgements, which are easily dispensed with in the philosophical arena. Other objections may be metaphysical in nature; needless to say, most Lesswrongians would consider metaphysical objections to a metaethical principle, or indeed any metaphysical argument, to be a priori incoherent. However, a significant proportion of opponents of consequentialism argue that consequentialist reasoning appears to endorse bad decisions, in the long term and when multiple consequentialist agents produce collective action; this criticism seems more worthy of our consideration.
Occasionally, a critic will offer a reductio ad absurdum of the following form: “Consider dilemma X. Consequentialists are forced to choose strategy Y to deal with the dilemma. But in the long run or if widely adopted, strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, therefore consequentialism fails on its own terms.
This argument seems suspect. If a consequentialist knows in advance that strategy Y is likely to produce horrible consequence Z, then why should we expect him to choose strategy Y? In fact such an argument relies on two unstated assumptions, and since I believe these assumptions to be invalid the argument fails to refute consequentialism. In order to discuss these assumptions, we will need to delve into a bit of decision theory.
Some of this is just my preferred way of phrasing things. In other places I do feel that it’s an improvement (for example, “if it can be known” is passive voice, which is generally considered to be both dull and unclear in comparison to active voice, therefore only to be used if there’s a good reason to do so).
I like the original version slightly more, mainly because of the first paragraph which is significantly longer in the edited version without saying more or being clearer. I regard the rejection of passive voice as quite an arbitrary norm; “if it can be known” is bad, but it is because “can” is superfluous there rather than because of the passive voice.
Feel free, but it is not arbitrary as I understand the word, because justifications are attached: generally speaking passive voice is dull to read, and passive voice obscures reality.
It does say more. The content of the link is actually explained, clarifying things for people who don’t like to follow links (perhaps because they tend to end up with millions of tabs and hours wasted) and saving time and mental energy for the rest. The mention of “metaphysics of metaethics” is just thrown out there in the original—this might be sort of OK for a purely Lesswrongian audience, but it’s confusing to readers who aren’t able easily to guess the author’s opinion on metaphysical arguments*.
Although less problematic, I’m not keen on “rather shocking” or the use of the word dissent. “Dissent” implies that consequentialism is dogma, and “rather shocking” is a borderline oxymoron; the word “shocked” suggests to me a necessarily extreme emotion or state of mind.
*OK I did say “needless to say”. But that’s really just a bunch of syllables, the kind one includes to (hopefully) improve the rhythm of a sentence.
“Dull to read” is a subjective evaluation I don’t share. Moreover, it is exactly the sort of justification which is given (1) to arbitrary norms. When people are told (2) that they shouldn’t do X, they easily convince themselves that X feels dull, even if there wouldn’t be such a feeling without the (arbitrary) social norm. I don’t know for certain whether this is the case of the passive voice, but I am generally skeptical about subjective justifications of existing norms.
As for obscuring reality and the Orwell’s essay, see Vladimir_M’s comment and the links included therein. One of the more interesting points is that the critics of passive voice generally don’t use passive voice less often than the rest of the writers. Maybe I have been careful in this comment and thus am not entirely fair, but I have used passive constructions twice (numbered above) in positions where the active alternative would be much longer, while in the parent comment you have put three instances of passive voice (“justifications are attached”, “link is explained”, “mention is thrown”; two of them only to spare a short personal pronoun “I”).
“Metaphysics of metaethics” is indeed confusing for me, but I usually don’t understand anything containing the word “metaphysics”, so I am not sure whether the alternative is any better. I agree with your objection to “shocking” and, to a lesser extent, “dissent”. No problem with “needless to say”.
I found this discussion of the passive voice helpful.
My objection to this class of stylistic advices is that they use tricky arguments to prove their point. Usually the authors choose an extraordinarily ugly piece of text (or even make it up, as is probably the case with the description of bicycles in your link) that abounds in the word or grammatical category they despise and want to argue against, then reformulate it in normal language, taking care to avoid the undesired thing, then pretend having proven a general rule that the despised part of language never should be used, save of course few exceptions which they rarely bother explicitly describing. The readers see two pieces of text, one ugly and one readable, and usually accept that the ugliness is caused by the expression they are advised to purge from their writing (which is even not always the case) and that the less they use it, the better (which doesn’t follow).
Good writing is not achieved by avoiding everyday expressions and regularly used grammatical features. There are things to be avoided in writing or speech, for sure. But if you are going to ban the most frequent verb which also plays the role of copula and is part of passive and progressive constructions, you are constraining the expressive power of the language, limiting the effectivity of communication, and even making your writing harder to read. It has as much sense as saying you should never use the prepositions “in” and “on”; certainly you can rewrite any text so that the rule is satisfied—and since you are forced to search for alternatives interesting and novel expressions may appear as a by-product—but ultimately, because of artificial limits you have put on yourself, you are not free to say exactly what you want to say.
You are right. However, I don’t think the advice was meant to be used to evaluate weather or not a given essay is boring. I found it helpful because it provided a simple rule that I used to change my writing habits. I had a vague sense that some of my sentences were stilted, but I didn’t know how to remedy that problem. Not everyone will get the same utility from creative restrictions, but I find them inspiring.
Upvoted for precise thinking.
I agree that part of the problem with “if it can be known” is that “if it be known” is strictly superior.
On the other hand, an important fact in the critic’s argument is that the consequentialist agent knows that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z. If he is simply unaware of this fact (but “it be known” by other people), then we would be entirely unsurprised to see him choose strategy Y—he is still a consequentialist, just a misinformed one—so no argument materialises.
Therefore I think that the use of active voice is clearer in this instance, because passive voice obscures the distinction between our knowing that strategy Y leads to horrible consequence Z, and the hypothetical consequentialist in question knowing this. Admittedly this distinction is not difficult to infer in the original piece, but numerous small inclarities can add up to make tedious prose.
On reflection, what you have said about the passive voice in general is true. Misuse of the passive voice to obscure agency when agency is politically or socially important is Orwellian; passive voice in general does not necessarily obscure anything.
Passive constructions change the focus. Sometimes they’re better. It’s only when they’re used to obfuscate lack of specific evidence that I object. It’s advised to mix in some passives when describing research, at least.
Passive voice is not necessarily any more obscure than active. You convey the same information with the statement “Z has been Yed by X” as with the statement “X Yed Z.” As it happens, this is the argument that Jonathan_Graehl used when I advocated revising to use active voice. If you carry the assumption that passive voice is vague or obscure, it can lead you to simply not notice passive constructions that are precise.
(Justifications don’t matter at all, they can only communicate the reasons, which would be the same even in the absence of justification.)
All things equal, prefer active—but if there is any benefit to using passive voice (eg the sentence is a few words shorter), things aren’t equal, so use passive! I think that the voice being changed between active and passive helps make a sentence flow, but I’ve never read anything enlightening on the matter.
Ooh, my turn to try a rewrite of the first paragraph.
Consequentialism: “We should choose actions based on their probable consequences.”
Ever since that idea was formulated, it has earned a surprising amount of criticism. The most interesting objections are ones which argue that consequentialist reasoning appears to endorse bad decisions, either in the long run or as an effect of collective action.