Effective altruism is a growing intellectual movement at the intersection of academia and the public world. It seeks to use insights from ethical theory, economics, and related disciplines to identify the best means to secure and promote the most important values, and to advocate for their adoption.Speakers include Nick Bostrom, Norman Daniels, Rachel Glennerster, Toby Ord, Derek Parfit, and Thomas Pogge. This will be a great opportunity to meet with the leaders of an exciting new social movement. Hope to see you there!
The aim of this conference is to bring together leading thinkers to address issues related to effective altruism in a shared setting.
Aron's blog
Good Done Right
I just registered for Good Done Right, a conference on effective altruism to be held at All Souls College on July 7-9. From the conference website:
Recent reads
- Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions. Borges' non-fiction is just as lucid and enjoyable as his fiction. Many of the major themes of his fiction are present in his essays as well. This volume contains a wide selection of pieces.
- Friedrich Hölderlin, Kom nu, eld. A new edition of Hölderlin in Swedish, selected and translated by Aris Fioretos, himself a prominent writer. I hadn't read much Hölderlin before, and my slim knowledge of Greek mythology and German geography no doubt prevents me from grasping some essential aspects. But even so, some of these poems are truly wonderful. There is an amazing energy here, and one often gets a sense of bumping against something unspoken and perhaps unspeakable.
- Henri Michaux, Varje kung återvänder till spegeln. An old Michaux selection in Swedish. Several nuggets here.
- Ian Hacking, The Emergence of Probability. Hacking surveys the early history of probability theory. I found his argument that probability theory couldn't have been developed without a fairly modern conception of evidence to be particularly interesting.
- Lars Gustafsson, Ett minnespalats: Vertikala memoarer. Autobiography. Primarily interesting for its perspective on the Swedish literary climate.
Effective Altruism and Cryonics
Over at the Effective Altruism blog, William MacAskill recently noted that effective altruists should have much greater incentives than egoists to stay alive. This made me think about how effective altruists should approach cryonics. Cryonics – having your body or brain frozen immediately after death, in the hope that future medicine will someday be able to revive you – is sometimes seen as a paradigm case of selfishness. "Why spend thousands of dollars on some speculative medical technology when millions of people are starving?" is a common reaction. However, as Robin Hanson points out, one could ask the same question of many currently widespread medical practices. Hanson has further argued that cryonics is actually a form of charity, because it has many large scale effects.
I don't intend to evaluate that argument here. Instead, I want to see whether MacAskill's point can be extended to cryonics. My basic thought is this: if you expect to be more of an effective altruist than the average person alive at the time of your revival, cryonics should make sense. Even if the chances of cryonics working aren't very high, the prospect of thousands or perhaps even millions of years of life should more than weigh up the costs. So if the expected utility calculation comes out in favor of cryonics for an egoist, it should do so for an effective altruist as well. However, the effective altruist has to deal with a lot more uncertainty. The egoist only has to consider whether he expects post-revival life to be on net positive for himself. The effective altruist, on the other hand, also has to consider whether her skills and resources can be put to good use in a world that might be very different from our own. The fact that she has certain comparative advantages today doesn't imply that she will have those same advantages in the future.
Of course, many of the negative effects associated with cryonics are multiplied for the effective altruist as well. For instance, if cryonics were to become widespread within the community, what was for the egoist only a minor social stigma runs the risk of damaging the credibility of the whole movement.
These were only my first, off-hand thoughts on the topic. Next, I should set up a simple model and do a Fermi calculation. But perhaps some of you have something to add before that?
I don't intend to evaluate that argument here. Instead, I want to see whether MacAskill's point can be extended to cryonics. My basic thought is this: if you expect to be more of an effective altruist than the average person alive at the time of your revival, cryonics should make sense. Even if the chances of cryonics working aren't very high, the prospect of thousands or perhaps even millions of years of life should more than weigh up the costs. So if the expected utility calculation comes out in favor of cryonics for an egoist, it should do so for an effective altruist as well. However, the effective altruist has to deal with a lot more uncertainty. The egoist only has to consider whether he expects post-revival life to be on net positive for himself. The effective altruist, on the other hand, also has to consider whether her skills and resources can be put to good use in a world that might be very different from our own. The fact that she has certain comparative advantages today doesn't imply that she will have those same advantages in the future.
Of course, many of the negative effects associated with cryonics are multiplied for the effective altruist as well. For instance, if cryonics were to become widespread within the community, what was for the egoist only a minor social stigma runs the risk of damaging the credibility of the whole movement.
These were only my first, off-hand thoughts on the topic. Next, I should set up a simple model and do a Fermi calculation. But perhaps some of you have something to add before that?
Blogging Philosophy
Often when reading philosophy papers, I get the sense that they contain one or two main insights that could be expressed in a paragraph or two. Most of the paper is devoted to context-setting, clarification, and dealing with objections. What's more, the contents of these other parts typically follow quite naturally from the spirit of the main insights. One can often anticipate how the author will deal with certain objections.
Of course, academic publishing is a very conservative institution which is unlikely to change in the near future. And I do think that finished papers are a useful way of presenting a kind of "canonical" formulation of particular insights.
But I also think that philosophy can usefully be done in short blog posts. The format allows one to test out new ideas in a way that is much less time-consuming. The intended audience is typically already familiar with the background, which can therefore be kept to a minimum without much loss of understanding. (And if they aren't, one can always provide links.)
So, among other things, this blog will be a way of collecting small, philosophical (quasi-)insights.
Of course, academic publishing is a very conservative institution which is unlikely to change in the near future. And I do think that finished papers are a useful way of presenting a kind of "canonical" formulation of particular insights.
But I also think that philosophy can usefully be done in short blog posts. The format allows one to test out new ideas in a way that is much less time-consuming. The intended audience is typically already familiar with the background, which can therefore be kept to a minimum without much loss of understanding. (And if they aren't, one can always provide links.)
So, among other things, this blog will be a way of collecting small, philosophical (quasi-)insights.
Recent reads
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. It is of course quite a daunting task to comment on such an influential text. I don't have much familiarity with ancient philosophy, but I found this to be a very agreeable read, even though I'm still a shameless consequentialist.
- Thomas Hurka, The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters. Hurka presents his perfectionist theory of well-being for a popular audience. It strikes me that many of the values he advocates (knowledge, achievement, etc) are probably often good on purely hedonistic terms as well.
- Robert Sternberg & Jennifer Jordan (eds.), A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives. I didn't read all the chapters, but those I did read were generally very good. Though at times I felt the discussion didn't get very far. I was surprised to find that there is so much psychology research on wisdom (I should have kept Cowen's first law in mind).
- Paul B. Baltes, Wisdom as Orchestration of Mind and Virtue. This is an unfinished book draft written shortly before the author's death, and I suppose it will never be properly published. In contrast with most other writings on wisdom I've come across, this book contains a wealth of resources on ancient wisdom, starting not with the Greeks, but rather with Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China.
- Günter Eich, Angina Days: Selected Poems. Eich was one of the founding members of Gruppe 47. I enjoyed this selection but felt I missed out on many nuances.
The Two Cultures On Hidden Motives
A common theme on Robin Hanson's Overcoming Bias blog is that we often do things for reasons other than we think or say we do. Of course, this idea isn't new. Paul Ricoeur coined the phrase "the hermeneutics of suspicion" to refer to a similar tendency in the works of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud (see Leiter 2004 for a recent overview). And Hanson himself draws on much research in psychology and economics to support his claims.
Once one comes to believe that our true motives are often hidden, it's easy to feel smug and superior. "Oh, you think that's why you did it? Wrong. I know why you really did it." In the past, I occasionally noticed and felt annoyed by this smugness in people enthralled by the works of, say, Foucault. Now, having come to find many of Hanson's points convincing, I sometimes notice the same smugness in myself.
While the idea is roughly the same, my reaction when "Continental" philosophers propound it, and when Hanson propounds it, is very different. Why is that? The idealistic explanation is that Hanson's reasoning is based on sound science, and I – enlightened being that I am – recognize this. The cynical explanation is more tribal. I already share some of Hanson's interests and views, and consequently it's much easier for me to identify with his claims.
In reality, I think there's some truth to both explanations. It does seem very plausible to me that Hanson has more robust science (e.g. evolutionary and social psychology, signaling theory) to back his claims up. At the same time, shared background and terminology makes it much easier for me to understand him.
But perhaps I'm just fooling myself?
Once one comes to believe that our true motives are often hidden, it's easy to feel smug and superior. "Oh, you think that's why you did it? Wrong. I know why you really did it." In the past, I occasionally noticed and felt annoyed by this smugness in people enthralled by the works of, say, Foucault. Now, having come to find many of Hanson's points convincing, I sometimes notice the same smugness in myself.
While the idea is roughly the same, my reaction when "Continental" philosophers propound it, and when Hanson propounds it, is very different. Why is that? The idealistic explanation is that Hanson's reasoning is based on sound science, and I – enlightened being that I am – recognize this. The cynical explanation is more tribal. I already share some of Hanson's interests and views, and consequently it's much easier for me to identify with his claims.
In reality, I think there's some truth to both explanations. It does seem very plausible to me that Hanson has more robust science (e.g. evolutionary and social psychology, signaling theory) to back his claims up. At the same time, shared background and terminology makes it much easier for me to understand him.
But perhaps I'm just fooling myself?
Whitcomb on Wisdom
For my summer job I'm writing a report on wisdom (yes, really). As most of the few philosophers who write on wisdom today remark, there are few philosophers who write on wisdom today. But there are some, and today's post was spurred by an article by one of them, Dennis Whitcomb. In his piece on wisdom for the Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Whitcomb surveys the available theories, criticizes a few of them, and advocates his preferred alternative. According to one kind of theory, wisdom consists in knowing how to live well. Whitcomb criticizes this theory on the basis that two people may well have the same amount of such practical knowledge and nevertheless differ in their degree of wisdom. What he has in mind is a difference in non-practical knowledge (e.g., metaphysical, scientific, historical). Surely, Whitcomb says, we would think that a person with more non-practical knowledge is wiser, all else equal.
My worry here is that there may be some kind of holism: in many cases it seems as though your non-practical knowledge will inform your practical knowledge. Perhaps greater non-practical knowledge will lead you to better appreciate the complexities and difficulties of life. Thus Whitcomb's example may be harder to imagine accurately than one would initially think. I suppose he could retort that surely it's metaphysically possible for two agents to have exactly the same degree of practical knowledge yet differ in their degree of non-practical knowledge. But I wonder whether we should require that the concept of wisdom is applicable across all possible worlds.
That said, I don't think trying to define wisdom in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is a very fruitful project. Much of the psychological work on wisdom is done under the aegis of prototype theory, which strikes me as a more promising approach.
My worry here is that there may be some kind of holism: in many cases it seems as though your non-practical knowledge will inform your practical knowledge. Perhaps greater non-practical knowledge will lead you to better appreciate the complexities and difficulties of life. Thus Whitcomb's example may be harder to imagine accurately than one would initially think. I suppose he could retort that surely it's metaphysically possible for two agents to have exactly the same degree of practical knowledge yet differ in their degree of non-practical knowledge. But I wonder whether we should require that the concept of wisdom is applicable across all possible worlds.
That said, I don't think trying to define wisdom in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is a very fruitful project. Much of the psychological work on wisdom is done under the aegis of prototype theory, which strikes me as a more promising approach.
Recent reads
- James D. Miller, Singularity Rising. This book covers many of the standard arguments and beliefs, without spending much time trying to justify them. As such, I didn't learn much new from it, and someone who is new to the field might have trouble taking it seriously. At times, the book feels very disorganized. I found the chapter on intelligence and economics to be the most interesting.
- William Bronk, Selected Poems. Intellectual yet sensuous, abstract but warm, universal though personal. I love this kind of poetry. By now I'm certain that there must be several minor American poets out there I would absolutely adore.
- Daniel Dennett, Intutition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. Dennett is almost always fun to read, and this book is no exception. However, the book recycles quite a lot of old material, and I consequently skimmed or skipped many parts. His style of writing is often very engaging, but sometimes makes him come across as arrogant, which can be distracting. All in all, this book is probably better suited for someone less familiar with the topics discussed than I am.
- Roberto Bolaño, Monsieur Pain. The Savage Detectives and 2666 are both among the finest novels I've read in recent years, and I've enjoyed many of his shorter novels as well. This one didn't catch on to me in the same way, though it does occasionally manage to convey Bolaño's distinctive eeriness.
- Julia Annas, Intelligent Virtue. This is, I suppose, a good introduction to virtue ethics, an approach I don't know all that much about. However, I found the book a bit repetitive, and also felt that it didn't spend enough time addressing certain objections.
Formal Coherence Theory and Contradictory Beliefs
It seems plausible that most of us mere humans have some contradictory beliefs. However, according to most formal measures of coherence, if a set of beliefs contains a contradiction, its degree of coherence is zero. (The two measures discussed in chapter 6 of Olsson (2005) both contain the probability of the conjunction of the propositions in the numerator. I should note that I'm not all that familiar with the literature on coherence, so I may well have missed some proposals that avoid this problem.) Thus the beliefs of an actual human, when taken all together, has zero coherence. Is this a problem for such formal coherence theories? There are a few different ways one might respond.
First, we could say that formal coherence theory is concerned with idealized agents, and such agents don't have contradictory beliefs, so the problem never arises. Of course, if one actually holds a coherence theory of justification, this response will not be appealing, because it would follow that none of our beliefs are justified. One way around this might be to specify an idealization procedure, and claim that the degree of coherence of your actual beliefs is given by the degree of coherence of your idealized beliefs. This response leads us to the next possible solution.
Second, we could limit ourselves to a contradiction-free subset of an agent's beliefs. My main worry about this is that I don't know how to choose a subset in a non-arbitrary way. But perhaps this can be done. (Maybe something like AGM theory could help here?)
Third, we could introduce a new measure of coherence which allows that two distinct sets of beliefs which both contain contradictions may nevertheless have different degrees of coherence. I haven't tried to do this myself, so I've no idea if it could actually work.
Fourth, we could claim that, in general, humans actually don't have contradictory beliefs. This doesn't strike me as very promising, but perhaps one could muster an argument to this effect based on work on the individuation of beliefs.
First, we could say that formal coherence theory is concerned with idealized agents, and such agents don't have contradictory beliefs, so the problem never arises. Of course, if one actually holds a coherence theory of justification, this response will not be appealing, because it would follow that none of our beliefs are justified. One way around this might be to specify an idealization procedure, and claim that the degree of coherence of your actual beliefs is given by the degree of coherence of your idealized beliefs. This response leads us to the next possible solution.
Second, we could limit ourselves to a contradiction-free subset of an agent's beliefs. My main worry about this is that I don't know how to choose a subset in a non-arbitrary way. But perhaps this can be done. (Maybe something like AGM theory could help here?)
Third, we could introduce a new measure of coherence which allows that two distinct sets of beliefs which both contain contradictions may nevertheless have different degrees of coherence. I haven't tried to do this myself, so I've no idea if it could actually work.
Fourth, we could claim that, in general, humans actually don't have contradictory beliefs. This doesn't strike me as very promising, but perhaps one could muster an argument to this effect based on work on the individuation of beliefs.
Online Courses, Summer 2013
I've found that online courses are a great way of getting to know the basics of a new field. Below is a list of the online courses I intend to start this summer.