rationalizations, egoism, population ethics, and the problem-solving problem

From Rationalizationsto the

Problem-Solving Problem...

How to spot a rationalization

• Example situation:Suppose you spot a nice person and ask yourself whether you should approach him/her.

• Reason against: I‘ve got homework to do!

• Question:Is that your true rejection? Is it consistent with otherthings you believe? Does it make sense?


• General technique: VARY THE SITUATION !

More generally: THINK THE OPPOSITE !

• Situation: Suppose you spot a nice person and ask yourself whether you should approach him/her.

• Variation: Suppose the nice person approached you.

• Reason against:I’ve got homework to do?


• Stated reason: HomeworkSuspected real reason: Your approach (anxiety)

• More specific techniques to spot a rationalization:

(1) Change the stated reason.(2) Change the suspected real reason.

(1): If the conclusion stands, the stated reason was fake.(2): If the conclusion falls, the stated reason was fake.


• Example: Animal ethics

Claim: Cows don‘t have a right to life.

Stated reason: Cows are not intelligent enough.

Suspected real reason: „Wrong“ species, not human.

(2): „Not intelligent enough“ humans don‘t have a right to life.

=> Rationalization.


• Example: General ethics, WHY CARE?

Claim: I know it‘s terrible. I just don‘t care.

Stated reason: I‘m an egoist.

• VARY THE SITUATION and see what else follows:


• VARY THE SITUATION and see what else follows if you‘rea true egoist:

(i) Would you push a button that gave you $100 andinflicted a painful disease on a child?

Follow-up question (action/omission bias):

(ii) If you wouldn‘t take those $100, then why do youkeep $100 instead of preventing a painful disease in a child?

The Practical Master Argument for a Caring Life-Career

for all Non-100%-Assholes

(1) Your degree of caring is not 0, i.e. some goals you in factpursue (however low priority) are not egoistic

(2) For almost all egoistic preferences there is a caring life-career that‘s as good as the best non-caring careers

(3) => All non-100%-assholes win by going for a caring life-career

A theoretical argument against partial altruism/egoism

(1) Model for partial altruism/egoism: Starting out as a 100% egoist, you take a pill (deal!) thatturns you into a 90% egoist and 10% altruist.

(2) If the (-10% egoism, +10% altruism) deal is goodonce, why not twice? Why not take the pill a second time?

(3) => Either 100% egoism or 100% altruism.

(Reversal Test: 100% altruism, taking 10% egoism pills?)

Populations in good worlds

World_1: 1 billion hungry, 3 billion happyWorld_2: 1 billion hungry, 6 billion happy

What‘s your metric? Where do you even want to go?What‘s your goal (ethically caring agent)?

Disagreement: Catastrophe!





World_5: 0World_6: 1 billion happy

World_5: 0World_7: 1 hungry (or tortured), 1 billion happy


If we are not going to postulate a moral duty to turn rocksinto happiness...

...we‘ll have to go for some prior existence view:

(1) sufficiently happy being = non-existence(2) very, very happy being = non-existence

(3) => sufficiently happy = very, very happy being ?


Prior existence world-comparisons (personal identity?):

Individual_1 Individual_2

World_1: 2 0World_2: 3 1World_3: 0 2World_4: 1 3World_5: 2 0



Steven Pinker, „The Better Angels of ourNature, Why Violence has Declined“:

Obvious progress, right?

(1) Relative/Average Metric(2) Absolute (Happiness – Suffering) Metric



(1) Relative/Average Metric:

World_a: 1 billion torturedWorld_b: 1 billon tortured + 100 hungry



(2) Absolute (Happiness – Suffering) Metric

World_a: 1 billion torturedWorld_b: 1 billon tortured + 10 (or 100)

billion happyWorld_c: 0.1 billion tortured



(3) Negative Metric: minimize problematic lives

World_a: 1000 people, 100 crime victimsWorld_b: 1000 people, 50 crime victimsWorld_c: 333 people, 33 crime victims



(3) Negative Metric: minimize problematic lives

World_a: 999 good lives, 1 terribleWorld_b: 0

World_a: 1 child with P(good life) = 99.9% P(terrible life) = 0.1%

World_b: 0 children


Examples:

• Animal Ethics

• X-Risks

How to create a better world?

(i) In case of ethical uncertainty: safe bets

(ii) Promising: Don‘t solve problems directly, but solve the problem-solving problem

The Problem-Solving Problem

“The world has an abundance of serious ethical problems, causing human and animal suffering, and delays or risks to our future. Wild animals suffer gruesome fates, farmed animals are tortured, humans endure diseases, war, poverty, torture, slavery... These problems could be called villains to be defeated.

The biggest villain is a sort of all powerful meta-villain, called insufficient intelligence to solve our problems instantly. Imagine that an advanced extraterrestrial group of cyborgs, having evolved for millions of years with superintelligence, reached Earth and contacted our world leaders in order to help us solve our problems. Does anybody honestly think that they would follow the same inefficient strategies that we do to solve our problems, such as distributing nets to prevent malaria in Africa, or encouraging people to donate to it?

Their solutions would be much faster, they might rapidly develop a gene therapy suited to our needs, that would spread in a highly contagious virus or some other method of delivery and turn us into more evolved and ethically efficient beings. They might develop cultured animal products such as meat, eggs, milk, and leather that would cost very cheap and instantly substitute abusive animal farming. Their solutions would be extremely different and more efficient.

Why are we not as efficient as these aliens? The only thing preventing us from being like them is not being intelligent enough. Therefore, intelligence enhancement or defeating the villain of insufficient intelligence is very important, perhaps the most important thing of all. It is the chief of all the other villains.” – Jonatas Müller

The Problem-Solving Problem

• Meta-Problems: (i) not enough intelligence/rationality(ii) not enough empathy/altruism

• Cultural engineering: - rationality skills- good values, caring people

• Transhumanism

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

rationalizations, egoism, population ethics, and the problem-solving problem

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