"Sometimes morality conflicts with other values and it needn’t always win." This seems nuts to me. What is ethics if it's not how-you-choose-between-values or how-you-make-choices? You seem to be saying something like "well, I think I'll make a moral decision now, but maybe I'll make an aesthetic decision later, and a hedonistic decision after that, and so forth... Each has its place." But then what do you call the process or system by which you decide which space each decision-making process has?
Nice write up, Chris. I do note, however, that you didn’t address the opening issue from the quote. The person turning meal prices into people he is letting die isn’t focused on quality but quantity, how much he is obligated to give vs enjoying himself. That seems to be an entirely open question, not solved by maximizing the quality of what you do give.
Hi Chris, I think there's an unfortunate ambiguity in ethical theory between this "narrow" conception of morality (as just one kind of value amongst many) vs the broader notion of *how one ought to live*, all things considered.
The latter question is clearly more important. So if you do think of utilitarianism as only a correct account of *narrowly* moral normativity, how much this matters will depend significantly on the further question of how much weight the narrowly-moral receives in the correct account of all-thing-considered practical normativity.
What's your theory of what we ought to do in the broader sense?
On quality versus quantity of giving, a useful analogy from some EA book or other (sorry, I forgot which) is to investing your money for your own profit: you don’t have to invest all your money, but the money you do invest should be in the best investment vehicles possible.
On utilitarianism competing with other values, it’s hard not to interpret “watching the Eagles game” as giving yourself hedons instead of giving potentially more hedons to others. The worry is that the utilitarian can (does?) convert literally everything you might do into a hedonic calculation like this, and describing some activities as promoting “non-moral” values just obfuscates this.
Maybe living a balanced and harmonious life in accord with the virtues of humor, justice, charity, art, science, and love is morality, and maximizing good for others is just part of that hard to achieve balance... that "morality must be balanced against other things" strikes me as an abuse of language.
I agree with David Gross - you can't really be a utilitarian with this perspective. You're trying to preserve the label "utilitarian" by redefining "morality" to be "whatever utilitarianism says is good". But that is an illegitimate way to argue that utilitarianism is moral. Morality, as understood by everyone else who speaks English, is the system that tells you which actions are better than which other actions. If you believe that it's better to occasionally buy sports tickets than to donate all your money to the Maximum Impact Fund, _and_ you believe that utilitarianism says the opposite, then you are saying that utilitarianism is not a correct system of morality, that the moral prescriptions of utilitarianism are wrong.
Morality cannot conflict with other values - morality defines what your values are. A value that conflicts with your morality is a value that you don't have.
Knowing myself, I have come to favor giving to people in need in my community, NYC. I want to to be able to see and monitor the effect of my giving. I will give more if this criterion is satisfied. That breaks rules of effective altruism, I know. Although in combatting food insecurity, one can get a 3:1 or more ban fro your book by supporting food pantries, which typically get a lot of food donated or at cost.
"Sometimes morality conflicts with other values and it needn’t always win." This seems nuts to me. What is ethics if it's not how-you-choose-between-values or how-you-make-choices? You seem to be saying something like "well, I think I'll make a moral decision now, but maybe I'll make an aesthetic decision later, and a hedonistic decision after that, and so forth... Each has its place." But then what do you call the process or system by which you decide which space each decision-making process has?
It's wrong to give money to the opera house but right to buy tickets to the Philadelphia Eagles game. I'm having trouble detecting a principle here.
"A six-figure earner does some good by volunteering at a soup kitchen"
A six-figure earner does a lot of good working. That's the reason he/she is paid a six-figure salary.
It is the non-earner living on welfare the one that should be looking for some good to do ... for a change
Nice write up, Chris. I do note, however, that you didn’t address the opening issue from the quote. The person turning meal prices into people he is letting die isn’t focused on quality but quantity, how much he is obligated to give vs enjoying himself. That seems to be an entirely open question, not solved by maximizing the quality of what you do give.
Hi Chris, I think there's an unfortunate ambiguity in ethical theory between this "narrow" conception of morality (as just one kind of value amongst many) vs the broader notion of *how one ought to live*, all things considered.
The latter question is clearly more important. So if you do think of utilitarianism as only a correct account of *narrowly* moral normativity, how much this matters will depend significantly on the further question of how much weight the narrowly-moral receives in the correct account of all-thing-considered practical normativity.
What's your theory of what we ought to do in the broader sense?
On quality versus quantity of giving, a useful analogy from some EA book or other (sorry, I forgot which) is to investing your money for your own profit: you don’t have to invest all your money, but the money you do invest should be in the best investment vehicles possible.
On utilitarianism competing with other values, it’s hard not to interpret “watching the Eagles game” as giving yourself hedons instead of giving potentially more hedons to others. The worry is that the utilitarian can (does?) convert literally everything you might do into a hedonic calculation like this, and describing some activities as promoting “non-moral” values just obfuscates this.
Maybe living a balanced and harmonious life in accord with the virtues of humor, justice, charity, art, science, and love is morality, and maximizing good for others is just part of that hard to achieve balance... that "morality must be balanced against other things" strikes me as an abuse of language.
> Postscript: Am I really a utilitarian?
I agree with David Gross - you can't really be a utilitarian with this perspective. You're trying to preserve the label "utilitarian" by redefining "morality" to be "whatever utilitarianism says is good". But that is an illegitimate way to argue that utilitarianism is moral. Morality, as understood by everyone else who speaks English, is the system that tells you which actions are better than which other actions. If you believe that it's better to occasionally buy sports tickets than to donate all your money to the Maximum Impact Fund, _and_ you believe that utilitarianism says the opposite, then you are saying that utilitarianism is not a correct system of morality, that the moral prescriptions of utilitarianism are wrong.
Morality cannot conflict with other values - morality defines what your values are. A value that conflicts with your morality is a value that you don't have.
See also Scott Alexander's "Infinite Debt": https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/10/infinite-debt/
Knowing myself, I have come to favor giving to people in need in my community, NYC. I want to to be able to see and monitor the effect of my giving. I will give more if this criterion is satisfied. That breaks rules of effective altruism, I know. Although in combatting food insecurity, one can get a 3:1 or more ban fro your book by supporting food pantries, which typically get a lot of food donated or at cost.