One thing which I see often which is present in the Paxlovid example is a case that goes like this:
Someone does something which obviously looks bad to a naive onlooker, but might be justifiable for some reason I don’t know.
Although they could easily attempt to explain why they did it, they make no such explanation.
Even when people complain, no explanation that makes sense is ever given.
In these cases, if my neighbor or my coworker was doing this, I would reason: Hey, if this was justifiable, this guy could gain a lot of goodwill with me trivially, and he’s not doing so. Therefore it’s probably not. As a result, I basically notch the probability of “this guy did a bad thing” up to 100%, and I think it is right to do so.
It’s tempting to extend this intuition to “the FDA” or “my congressperson” or “a celebrity”. But I think it’s frequently epistemically questionable to do so. In these cases, there are a lot of reasons that could get in the way of the reasoning:
Maybe the actor is different enough from me and the complainers that they don’t understand that their action looks bad.
Maybe the actor never heard the complaints, so they didn’t know anyone noticed the problem.
Maybe the “reward” of goodwill is very small compared to other concerns, like drawing more attention to the action.
Maybe the actor is made of multiple people and there is a communications breakdown between “the person who made the decision” and “the person who can communicate justifications.”
In the Paxlovid example, I think several of those reasons apply. The FDA probably thinks it doesn’t look bad, because they have a reference class in mind of even slower approvals, and an inside view that highlights all the important things that need to get done in between now and approval. The reward from satisfying a lot of people like us by providing explanations is probably low—most people don’t seem to really notice that there is a problem or that anything could be better. The communications breakdown is probably real, too. So even if there were a pretty good explanation for the delay, I am not confident we would hear it.
That sounds like solid reasoning for the Paxlovid case. However, for the more personal situations, notching the probability up to ~100% doesn’t seem right to me. I get the sense that it isn’t too implausible for the actor to have good reason to “keep quiet”. Or, rather, for the actor to think that they have good reason to keep quiet.
An example of this that comes to mind is the last time I visited my grandparents. They are 90+ years old and should not be driving. Plus, I am particularlycrazy about the dangers of driving. Before the trip we agreed that we would all hang out at home and avoid driving. But then during the trip, they wanted to go out. I would say no. They would ask why. I would say I don’t want to talk about it. They would say I’m being unreasonable by restricting us and not giving a reason why. But if you think a few moves ahead, what happens when I give my explanation? I don’t want them to know I have this anxiety about death (and I don’t want to impose that anxiety on them given that they are close to death, although I think that would be unlikely). And I don’t want to start an argument about how capable they are of driving. We’ve tried that in the past, and it always balloons into a bigger argument. So I sense that the “keep quiet” route is best for all parties.
I like your example. Perhaps I am a little too inclined to update, either due to typical-minding (I am usually very frank and expect others to be) or due to a kind of misplaced irritation (I want others to justify themselves to me, so if they don’t I ascribe bad things to them.)
One thing which I see often which is present in the Paxlovid example is a case that goes like this:
Someone does something which obviously looks bad to a naive onlooker, but might be justifiable for some reason I don’t know.
Although they could easily attempt to explain why they did it, they make no such explanation.
Even when people complain, no explanation that makes sense is ever given.
In these cases, if my neighbor or my coworker was doing this, I would reason: Hey, if this was justifiable, this guy could gain a lot of goodwill with me trivially, and he’s not doing so. Therefore it’s probably not. As a result, I basically notch the probability of “this guy did a bad thing” up to 100%, and I think it is right to do so.
It’s tempting to extend this intuition to “the FDA” or “my congressperson” or “a celebrity”. But I think it’s frequently epistemically questionable to do so. In these cases, there are a lot of reasons that could get in the way of the reasoning:
Maybe the actor is different enough from me and the complainers that they don’t understand that their action looks bad.
Maybe the actor never heard the complaints, so they didn’t know anyone noticed the problem.
Maybe the “reward” of goodwill is very small compared to other concerns, like drawing more attention to the action.
Maybe the actor is made of multiple people and there is a communications breakdown between “the person who made the decision” and “the person who can communicate justifications.”
In the Paxlovid example, I think several of those reasons apply. The FDA probably thinks it doesn’t look bad, because they have a reference class in mind of even slower approvals, and an inside view that highlights all the important things that need to get done in between now and approval. The reward from satisfying a lot of people like us by providing explanations is probably low—most people don’t seem to really notice that there is a problem or that anything could be better. The communications breakdown is probably real, too. So even if there were a pretty good explanation for the delay, I am not confident we would hear it.
That sounds like solid reasoning for the Paxlovid case. However, for the more personal situations, notching the probability up to ~100% doesn’t seem right to me. I get the sense that it isn’t too implausible for the actor to have good reason to “keep quiet”. Or, rather, for the actor to think that they have good reason to keep quiet.
An example of this that comes to mind is the last time I visited my grandparents. They are 90+ years old and should not be driving. Plus, I am particularly crazy about the dangers of driving. Before the trip we agreed that we would all hang out at home and avoid driving. But then during the trip, they wanted to go out. I would say no. They would ask why. I would say I don’t want to talk about it. They would say I’m being unreasonable by restricting us and not giving a reason why. But if you think a few moves ahead, what happens when I give my explanation? I don’t want them to know I have this anxiety about death (and I don’t want to impose that anxiety on them given that they are close to death, although I think that would be unlikely). And I don’t want to start an argument about how capable they are of driving. We’ve tried that in the past, and it always balloons into a bigger argument. So I sense that the “keep quiet” route is best for all parties.
I like your example. Perhaps I am a little too inclined to update, either due to typical-minding (I am usually very frank and expect others to be) or due to a kind of misplaced irritation (I want others to justify themselves to me, so if they don’t I ascribe bad things to them.)