You have to consider that humans don’t have perfect utility functions. Even if I want to be a moral utilitarian, it is a fact that I am not. So I have to structure my life around keeping myself as morally utilitarian as possible. Brian Tomasik talks about this. It might be true that I could reduce more suffering by not eating an extra donut, but I’m going to give up on the entire task of being a utilitarian if I can’t allow myself some luxuries.
This is actually just the sort of thing that I’m trying to say. I’m saying that when you understand guilt as a source of information, and not a thing that you need to carry around with you after you’ve learned everything you can from it, then you can take the weight off of your shoulders. I’m saying that maybe if more people did this, it wouldn’t be as hard to do extraordinary kinds of good, because you wouldn’t constantly be feeling bad about what you conceivably aren’t doing. Most of what people consider conceivable would require an unrealistic sort of discipline. Punishing people likely just reduces the amount of good that they can actually do.
I think I agree with what you’re saying for the most part. If your goal is, say, reducing suffering, then you have to consider the best way of convincing others to share your goal. If you started killing people who ran factory farms, you’re probably going to turn a lot of the world against you, and so fail in your goal. And, you have to consider the best way of convincing yourself to continue performing your goal, now and into the future, since humans goals can change depending on circumstances and experiences.
In terms of guilt, finding little tricks to rid yourself of guilt for various things probably isn’t a good way to make you continue caring and doing as much as you can for a certain issue. I can know that something is wrong, but if I don’t feel guilty about doing nothing, I’m probably not going to exert myself as hard in trying to fix it. If I can tell myself “I didn’t do it, therefore it’s none of my concern, even though it is technically a bad thing” and absolve myself of guilt, it’s simply going to make me less likely to do anything about the issue.
In terms of guilt, finding little tricks to rid yourself of guilt for various things probably isn’t a good way to make you continue caring and doing as much as you can for a certain issue. I can know that something is wrong, but if I don’t feel guilty about doing nothing, I’m probably not going to exert myself as hard in trying to fix it. If I can tell myself “I didn’t do it, therefore it’s none of my concern, even though it is technically a bad thing” and absolve myself of guilt, it’s simply going to make me less likely to do anything about the issue.
Ah, I assumed the guilt would demotivate on net. Maybe it depends on how strongly you identify with utilitarian ideas.
You have to consider that humans don’t have perfect utility functions. Even if I want to be a moral utilitarian, it is a fact that I am not. So I have to structure my life around keeping myself as morally utilitarian as possible. Brian Tomasik talks about this. It might be true that I could reduce more suffering by not eating an extra donut, but I’m going to give up on the entire task of being a utilitarian if I can’t allow myself some luxuries.
This is actually just the sort of thing that I’m trying to say. I’m saying that when you understand guilt as a source of information, and not a thing that you need to carry around with you after you’ve learned everything you can from it, then you can take the weight off of your shoulders. I’m saying that maybe if more people did this, it wouldn’t be as hard to do extraordinary kinds of good, because you wouldn’t constantly be feeling bad about what you conceivably aren’t doing. Most of what people consider conceivable would require an unrealistic sort of discipline. Punishing people likely just reduces the amount of good that they can actually do.
Am I right that we seem to agree on this?
I think I agree with what you’re saying for the most part. If your goal is, say, reducing suffering, then you have to consider the best way of convincing others to share your goal. If you started killing people who ran factory farms, you’re probably going to turn a lot of the world against you, and so fail in your goal. And, you have to consider the best way of convincing yourself to continue performing your goal, now and into the future, since humans goals can change depending on circumstances and experiences.
In terms of guilt, finding little tricks to rid yourself of guilt for various things probably isn’t a good way to make you continue caring and doing as much as you can for a certain issue. I can know that something is wrong, but if I don’t feel guilty about doing nothing, I’m probably not going to exert myself as hard in trying to fix it. If I can tell myself “I didn’t do it, therefore it’s none of my concern, even though it is technically a bad thing” and absolve myself of guilt, it’s simply going to make me less likely to do anything about the issue.
Ah, I assumed the guilt would demotivate on net. Maybe it depends on how strongly you identify with utilitarian ideas.