Thanks! You’re correct about the standard usage. In “Assume Bad Faith”, I’m arguing that the standard conception of good faith as the norm relative to which bad faith can be detected and punished fails to carve reality at the joints, because a lot of things that are usually considered unintentional should be considered relevantly intentional in a functionalist sense. I wasn’t confused about the standard meaning of the term; I’m explicitly making a weird philosophical argument that the standard meaning embeds confusions about human psychology and the nature of rationality.
Thanks for the clarification! I confess that this is how read your post, and part of my desire here was to get comments like this. I kind of expected that when I wrote a comment on Habryka’s post but I figured I should write the OP when my comment didn’t quite bring that out. Not sure if Habryka would also be of the same mind or if he feels that I’m wrong that this is the “standard” usage.
On the question of whether the standard concept embads a confusion, I don’t think it does but I get why you do. I think part of the problem is that “assume good faith” is subject to multiple interpretations. One can read it as rounding off to saying that you should assume people are generally good/truthful/rational, which I think is what you are getting at. I agree that this is wrong as is a danger of people leaning into “assume good faith” too heavily. On the other hand, I think there is a meaning of “assume good faith” that is more like “have a rebutable presumption of good faith analgous to the presumption of innocence”, that is in fact helpful for similar reasons as Richard Ngo mentions in the comments on that post.
I am generally of the view that following this “rebutable presumption of good faith” idea/norm actually is one of the primary things that helps actually implement your “stick to the object level” advice (which I agree is very good advice). The thing that throws people out of an equlibrium at the object level is often accusations of some type of bad conduct during the discussion, bad faith being a common example. Having a presumption of good faith can create a dynamic that discourages this, and in particulardiscourages the common occurrence where one person making a kind-of accusation quickly escalates as the other person joins in. I give my version of “stick to the object level” type advice here.
Thanks! You’re correct about the standard usage. In “Assume Bad Faith”, I’m arguing that the standard conception of good faith as the norm relative to which bad faith can be detected and punished fails to carve reality at the joints, because a lot of things that are usually considered unintentional should be considered relevantly intentional in a functionalist sense. I wasn’t confused about the standard meaning of the term; I’m explicitly making a weird philosophical argument that the standard meaning embeds confusions about human psychology and the nature of rationality.
Thanks for the clarification! I confess that this is how read your post, and part of my desire here was to get comments like this. I kind of expected that when I wrote a comment on Habryka’s post but I figured I should write the OP when my comment didn’t quite bring that out. Not sure if Habryka would also be of the same mind or if he feels that I’m wrong that this is the “standard” usage.
On the question of whether the standard concept embads a confusion, I don’t think it does but I get why you do. I think part of the problem is that “assume good faith” is subject to multiple interpretations. One can read it as rounding off to saying that you should assume people are generally good/truthful/rational, which I think is what you are getting at. I agree that this is wrong as is a danger of people leaning into “assume good faith” too heavily. On the other hand, I think there is a meaning of “assume good faith” that is more like “have a rebutable presumption of good faith analgous to the presumption of innocence”, that is in fact helpful for similar reasons as Richard Ngo mentions in the comments on that post.
I am generally of the view that following this “rebutable presumption of good faith” idea/norm actually is one of the primary things that helps actually implement your “stick to the object level” advice (which I agree is very good advice). The thing that throws people out of an equlibrium at the object level is often accusations of some type of bad conduct during the discussion, bad faith being a common example. Having a presumption of good faith can create a dynamic that discourages this, and in particulardiscourages the common occurrence where one person making a kind-of accusation quickly escalates as the other person joins in. I give my version of “stick to the object level” type advice here.