There are lots of different frames for considering all sorts of different domains. This is good! Other frames can help you see things in a new light, provide new insights, and generally improve your models. True frames should improve each other on contact; there’s only one reality.
That said, notice how in politicized domains, there are many more frames than usual? Suspicious...
Frames often also smuggle values with them. In fact, abstract values supervene on frames: no one is born believing God is the source of all good, for example. By “trying on” someone else’s frame, you’re not merely taking an epistemic action, but a moral one. Someone who gets into a specific frame will very predictably get their values shifted in that direction. Once an atheist gets into seeing things from a religious point of view, it’s no surprise when they’ve converted a year later.
When someone shares a political frame with you, it’s not just an interesting new way of looking at and understanding the world. It’s also a bid to pull your values in a certain direction.
Anyway, here is my suggested frame for you: 1. Think of these sorts of frames as trying to solve the problem of generalizing your existing values. 2. When trying such a frame on, pay attention to the things about it that give you a sense of unease, and be wary of attempts to explain away this unease (e.g. as naïvety). Think carefully about the decision-theoretic implications of the frame too. 3. You’re likely to notice problems or points of unease within your natural frame. This is good to notice, but don’t take it to mean that the other frame is right in its prescriptions. Just because Marx can point out flaws in capitalism doesn’t make communism a good idea. 4. Remember the principle that good frames should complement each other. That should always be the case as far as epistemics go, and even in cases of morals I think there’s something to it still.
Trying Frames on is Exploitable
There are lots of different frames for considering all sorts of different domains. This is good! Other frames can help you see things in a new light, provide new insights, and generally improve your models. True frames should improve each other on contact; there’s only one reality.
That said, notice how in politicized domains, there are many more frames than usual? Suspicious...
Frames often also smuggle values with them. In fact, abstract values supervene on frames: no one is born believing God is the source of all good, for example. By “trying on” someone else’s frame, you’re not merely taking an epistemic action, but a moral one. Someone who gets into a specific frame will very predictably get their values shifted in that direction. Once an atheist gets into seeing things from a religious point of view, it’s no surprise when they’ve converted a year later.
When someone shares a political frame with you, it’s not just an interesting new way of looking at and understanding the world. It’s also a bid to pull your values in a certain direction.
Anyway, here is my suggested frame for you:
1. Think of these sorts of frames as trying to solve the problem of generalizing your existing values.
2. When trying such a frame on, pay attention to the things about it that give you a sense of unease, and be wary of attempts to explain away this unease (e.g. as naïvety). Think carefully about the decision-theoretic implications of the frame too.
3. You’re likely to notice problems or points of unease within your natural frame. This is good to notice, but don’t take it to mean that the other frame is right in its prescriptions. Just because Marx can point out flaws in capitalism doesn’t make communism a good idea.
4. Remember the principle that good frames should complement each other. That should always be the case as far as epistemics go, and even in cases of morals I think there’s something to it still.