[Forum Repost] Didn’t catch this until just now, but happy to see the idea expanded a bit more! I’ll have to sit down and think on it longer, but I did have some immediate thoughts.
I guess at its core I’m unsure what exactly a proper balance of thinking about folk ethics[1] (or commonsense good) and reasoned ethics[2] (or creative good) is, when exactly you should engage in each. You highlight the content, that reasoned ethics should be brought in for the big decisions, those with longevity generally. And Ana starts to map this out a bit further, saying reasoned ethics involves an analysis of “the small set of decisions that are worth intensive thought/effort/research” But even if the decision set is small, if it’s just these really big topics, the time spent implementing major decisions like these is likely long and full of many day to day tradeoffs and choices. Sure, eating vegan is now a system one task for me, but part of what solidified veganism for me was bringing in my discomfort from reasoned ethics into my day to day for awhile, for months even. The folk ethics there (for me) was entirely in the opposite direction, and I honestly don’t think I would have made the switch if I didn’t bring reasoned ethics into my everyday decisions.
I guess for that reason I’m kind of on guard, looking for other ways my commonsense intuitions about what I should do might be flawed. And sure, when you set it up like “folk ethics is just sticking to basic principles of benevolence, of patience, honesty and kindness” few will argue adherence to this is flawed. But it’s rarely these principles and instead the application of them where the disagreement comes in. My family and I don’t disagree that kindness is an important value, we disagree on what practicing kindness in the world looks like.
In light of this, I think I’d propose the converse of Anna’s comments: stick to folk ethics for most of the day to day stuff, but with some frequency[3] bring the reasoned ethics into your life, into the day to day, to see if how you are living is in accord with your philosophical commitments. This could look like literally going through a day wearing the reasoned ethics hat, or it could even look like taking stock of what what has happened over a period of time and reflecting on whether those daily decisions are in accord. Maybe this community is different, but I agree with Eccentricity that I generally see way to little of this in the world, and really wish people engaged in it more.
I’ll use reasoned ethics in place of creative good because I think this set (folk ethics and reasoned ethics) feels more intuitive. Sorry for changing the language, it just made it easier for me to articulate myself here.
Really unsure what’s best here so I’m leaving it intentionally vague. If I had to suggest something, at least an annual review and time of reflection is warranted (I like to do this at the end of the calendar year but I think you could do it w/e) and at most I think checking in each week (running through a day at the end of the week really thinking if the decisions and actions you are taking make sense) might be good.
a) Relatively thoughtless application of heuristics; (system-1integrated + fast)
b) Taking time to reflect and notice how things seem to you once you’ve had more space for reflection, for taking in other peoples’ experiences, for noticing what still seems to matter once you’ve fallen out of the day-to-day urgencies, and for tuning into the “still, quiet voice” of conscience; (system-1-integrated + slow, after a pause)
c) Ethical reasoning (system-2-heavy, medium-paced or slow).
The brief version of my position is that (b) is awesome, while (c) is good when it assists (b) but is damaging when it is acted on in a way that disempowers rather than empowers (b).
--
The long-winded version (which may be entirely in agreement with your (Tristan’s) comment, but which goes into detail because I want to understand this stuff):
I agree with you and Eccentricity that most people, including me and IMO most LWers and EAers, could benefit from doing more (b) than we tend to do.
I also agree with you that (c) can assist in doing (b). For example, it can be good for a person to ask themselves “how does this action, which I’m inclined to take, differ from the actions I condemned in others?”, “what is likely to happen if I do this?”, and “do my concepts and actions fit the world I’m in, or is there a tiny note of discord?”
At the same time, I don’t want to just say “c is great! do more c!” because I share with the OP a concern that EA-ers, LW-ers, and people in general who attempt explicit ethical reasoning sometimes end up using these to talk themselves into doing dumb, harmful things, with the OP’s example of “leave inaccurate reviews at vegan restaurants to try to save animals” giving a good example of the flavor of these errors, and with historical communism giving a good example of their potential magnitude.
My take as to the difference between virtuous use of explicit ethical reasoning, and vicious/damaging use of explicit ethical reasoning, is that virtuous use of such reasoning is aimed at cultivating and empowering a person’s [prudence, phronesis, common sense, or whatever you want to call a central faculty of judgment that draws on and integrates everything the person discerns and cares about], whereas vicious/damaging uses of ethical reasoning involve taking some piece of the total set of things we care about, stabilizing it into an identity and/or a social movement (“I am a hedonistic utilitarian”, “we are (communists/social justice/QAnon/EA)”, and having this artificially stabilized fragment of the total set of things one cares about, act directly in the world without being filtered through one’s total discernment (“Action A is the X thing to do, and I am an X, so I will take action A”).
(Prudence was classically considered not only a virtue, but the “queen of the virtues”—as Wikipedia puts it “Prudence points out which course of action is to be taken in any concrete circumstances… Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness, mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism.” Folk ethics, or commonsense ethics, has at its heart the cultivation of a total faculty of discernment, plus the education of this faculty to include courage/kindness/humility/whatever other virtues.)
My current guess as to how to develop prudence is basically to take an interest in things, care, notice tiny notes of discord, notice what actions have historically had what effects, notice when one is oneself “hijacked” into acting on something other than one’s best judgment and how to avoid this, etc. I think this is part of what you have in mind about bringing ethical reasoning into daily life, so as to see how kindness applies in specific rather than merely claiming it’d be good to apply somehow?
Absent identity-based or social-movement-based artificial stabilization, people can and do make mistakes, including e.g. leaving inaccurate reviews in an attempt to help animals. But I think those mistakes are more likely to be part of a fairly rapid process of developing prudence (which seems pretty worth it to me), and are less likely to be frozen in and acted on for years.
(My understanding isn’t great here; more dialog would be great.)
[Forum Repost] Didn’t catch this until just now, but happy to see the idea expanded a bit more! I’ll have to sit down and think on it longer, but I did have some immediate thoughts.
I guess at its core I’m unsure what exactly a proper balance of thinking about folk ethics[1] (or commonsense good) and reasoned ethics[2] (or creative good) is, when exactly you should engage in each. You highlight the content, that reasoned ethics should be brought in for the big decisions, those with longevity generally. And Ana starts to map this out a bit further, saying reasoned ethics involves an analysis of “the small set of decisions that are worth intensive thought/effort/research” But even if the decision set is small, if it’s just these really big topics, the time spent implementing major decisions like these is likely long and full of many day to day tradeoffs and choices. Sure, eating vegan is now a system one task for me, but part of what solidified veganism for me was bringing in my discomfort from reasoned ethics into my day to day for awhile, for months even. The folk ethics there (for me) was entirely in the opposite direction, and I honestly don’t think I would have made the switch if I didn’t bring reasoned ethics into my everyday decisions.
I guess for that reason I’m kind of on guard, looking for other ways my commonsense intuitions about what I should do might be flawed. And sure, when you set it up like “folk ethics is just sticking to basic principles of benevolence, of patience, honesty and kindness” few will argue adherence to this is flawed. But it’s rarely these principles and instead the application of them where the disagreement comes in. My family and I don’t disagree that kindness is an important value, we disagree on what practicing kindness in the world looks like.
In light of this, I think I’d propose the converse of Anna’s comments: stick to folk ethics for most of the day to day stuff, but with some frequency[3] bring the reasoned ethics into your life, into the day to day, to see if how you are living is in accord with your philosophical commitments. This could look like literally going through a day wearing the reasoned ethics hat, or it could even look like taking stock of what what has happened over a period of time and reflecting on whether those daily decisions are in accord. Maybe this community is different, but I agree with Eccentricity that I generally see way to little of this in the world, and really wish people engaged in it more.
I’ll use folk ethics in place of commonsense good hereafter because I find the term compelling
I’ll use reasoned ethics in place of creative good because I think this set (folk ethics and reasoned ethics) feels more intuitive. Sorry for changing the language, it just made it easier for me to articulate myself here.
Really unsure what’s best here so I’m leaving it intentionally vague. If I had to suggest something, at least an annual review and time of reflection is warranted (I like to do this at the end of the calendar year but I think you could do it w/e) and at most I think checking in each week (running through a day at the end of the week really thinking if the decisions and actions you are taking make sense) might be good.
Thanks for this response; I find it helpful.
Reading it over, I want to distinguish between:
a) Relatively thoughtless application of heuristics; (system-1integrated + fast)
b) Taking time to reflect and notice how things seem to you once you’ve had more space for reflection, for taking in other peoples’ experiences, for noticing what still seems to matter once you’ve fallen out of the day-to-day urgencies, and for tuning into the “still, quiet voice” of conscience; (system-1-integrated + slow, after a pause)
c) Ethical reasoning (system-2-heavy, medium-paced or slow).
The brief version of my position is that (b) is awesome, while (c) is good when it assists (b) but is damaging when it is acted on in a way that disempowers rather than empowers (b).
--
The long-winded version (which may be entirely in agreement with your (Tristan’s) comment, but which goes into detail because I want to understand this stuff):
I agree with you and Eccentricity that most people, including me and IMO most LWers and EAers, could benefit from doing more (b) than we tend to do.
I also agree with you that (c) can assist in doing (b). For example, it can be good for a person to ask themselves “how does this action, which I’m inclined to take, differ from the actions I condemned in others?”, “what is likely to happen if I do this?”, and “do my concepts and actions fit the world I’m in, or is there a tiny note of discord?”
At the same time, I don’t want to just say “c is great! do more c!” because I share with the OP a concern that EA-ers, LW-ers, and people in general who attempt explicit ethical reasoning sometimes end up using these to talk themselves into doing dumb, harmful things, with the OP’s example of “leave inaccurate reviews at vegan restaurants to try to save animals” giving a good example of the flavor of these errors, and with historical communism giving a good example of their potential magnitude.
My take as to the difference between virtuous use of explicit ethical reasoning, and vicious/damaging use of explicit ethical reasoning, is that virtuous use of such reasoning is aimed at cultivating and empowering a person’s [prudence, phronesis, common sense, or whatever you want to call a central faculty of judgment that draws on and integrates everything the person discerns and cares about], whereas vicious/damaging uses of ethical reasoning involve taking some piece of the total set of things we care about, stabilizing it into an identity and/or a social movement (“I am a hedonistic utilitarian”, “we are (communists/social justice/QAnon/EA)”, and having this artificially stabilized fragment of the total set of things one cares about, act directly in the world without being filtered through one’s total discernment (“Action A is the X thing to do, and I am an X, so I will take action A”).
(Prudence was classically considered not only a virtue, but the “queen of the virtues”—as Wikipedia puts it “Prudence points out which course of action is to be taken in any concrete circumstances… Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness, mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism.” Folk ethics, or commonsense ethics, has at its heart the cultivation of a total faculty of discernment, plus the education of this faculty to include courage/kindness/humility/whatever other virtues.)
My current guess as to how to develop prudence is basically to take an interest in things, care, notice tiny notes of discord, notice what actions have historically had what effects, notice when one is oneself “hijacked” into acting on something other than one’s best judgment and how to avoid this, etc. I think this is part of what you have in mind about bringing ethical reasoning into daily life, so as to see how kindness applies in specific rather than merely claiming it’d be good to apply somehow?
Absent identity-based or social-movement-based artificial stabilization, people can and do make mistakes, including e.g. leaving inaccurate reviews in an attempt to help animals. But I think those mistakes are more likely to be part of a fairly rapid process of developing prudence (which seems pretty worth it to me), and are less likely to be frozen in and acted on for years.
(My understanding isn’t great here; more dialog would be great.)