EA - Naïve vs Prudent Utilitarianism by Richard Y Chappell

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Naïve vs Prudent Utilitarianism, published by Richard Y Chappell on November 11, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum.Critics sometimes imagine that utilitarianism directs us to act disreputably whenever it appears (however fleetingly) that the act would have good consequences. Or whenever crudely calculating the most salient first-order consequences (in isolation) yields a positive number. This “naïve utilitarian” decision procedure is clearly daft, and not something that any sound utilitarian actually advocates. On the other hand, critics sometimes mistake this point for the claim that utilitarianism itself is plainly counterproductive, and necessarily advocates against its own acceptance. While that’s always a conceptual possibility, I don’t think it has any empirical credibility. Most who think otherwise are still making the mistake of conflating naïve utilitarianism with utilitarianism proper. The latter is a much more prudent view, as I’ll now explain.Adjusting for BiasImagine an archer, trying to hit a target on a windy day. A naive archer might ignore the wind, aim directly at the target, and (predictably) miss as their arrow is blown off-course. A more sophisticated archer will deliberately re-calibrate, superficially seeming to aim “off-target” but in a way that makes them more likely to hit. Finally, a master archer will automatically adjust as needed, doing what (to her) seems obviously how to hit the target, though to a naïve observer it might look like she was aiming awry.Is the best way to be a successful archer on a windy day to stop even trying to hit the target? Surely not. (It’s conceivable that an evil demon might interfere in such a way as to make this so — i.e., so that only people genuinely trying to miss would end up hitting the target — but that’s a much weirder case than what we’re talking about.) The point is just that naïve targeting is likely to miss. Making appropriate adjustments to one’s aim (overriding naive judgments of how to achieve the goal) is not at all the same thing as abandoning the goal altogether.And so it goes in ethics. Crudely calculating the expected utility of (e.g.) murdering your rivals and harvesting their vital organs, and naively acting upon such first-pass calculations, would be predictably disastrous. This doesn’t mean that you should abandon the goal of doing good. It just means that you should pursue it in a prudent rather than naive manner.Metacoherence prohibits naïve utilitarianism“But doesn’t utilitarianism direct us to maximize expected value?” you may ask. Only in the same way that norms of archery direct our archer to hit the target. There’s nothing in either norm that requires (or even permits) it to be pursued naively, without obviously-called-for bias adjustments.This is something that has been stressed by utilitarian theorists from Mill and Sidgwick through to R.M. Hare, Pettit, and Railton—to name but a few. Here’s a pithy listing from J.L. Mackie of six reasons why utilitarians oppose naïve calculation as a decision procedure:Shortage of time and energy will in general preclude such calculations.Even if time and energy are available, the relevant information commonly is not.An agent's judgment on particular issues is likely to be distorted by his own interests and special affections.Even if he were intellectually able to determine the right choice, weakness of will would be likely to impair his putting of it into effect.Even decisions that are right in themselves and actions based on them are liable to be misused as precedents, so that they will encourage and seem to legitimate wrong actions that are superficially similar to them.And, human nature being what it is, a practical working morality must not be too demanding: it is worse than useless to set standards so high that there is ...