Update on Mar 21: I have completely reworked my response to Objection 1 to make it more convincing to some and hopefully more clear. I would also like to thank everyone who has responded thus far, in particular brianwang712, Michael_S, kbog and Telofy for sustained and helpful discussions.
Update on Apr 10: I have added a new objection (Objection 1.1) that captures an objection that kbog and Michael_S have raised to my response to Objection 1. I'd also like to thank Alex_Barry for a sustained and helpful discussion.
Update on Apr 24: I have removed Objection 1.1 temporarily. It is undergoing revision to be more clear.
Hey everyone,
This post is perhaps unlike most on this forum in that it questions the validity of effective altruism rather than assumes it.
A. Some background:
I first heard about effective altruism when professor Singer gave a talk on it at my university a few years ago while I was an undergrad. I was intrigued by the idea. At the time, I had already decided that I would donate the vast majority of my future income to charity because I thought that preventing and/or alleviating the intense suffering of others is a much better use of my money than spending it on personal luxuries. However, the idea of donating my money to effective charities was a new one to me. So, I considered effective altruism for some time, but soon I came to see a problem with it that to this day I cannot resolve. And so I am not an effective altruist (yet).
Right now, my stance is that the problem I've identified is a very real problem. However, given that so many intelligent people endorse effective altruism, there is a good chance I have gone wrong somewhere. I just can’t see where. I'm currently working on a donation plan and completing the plan requires assessing the merits of effective altruism. Thus, I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
Below, I state the problem I see with effective altruism, some likely objections and my responses to those objections.
Thanks in advance for reading!
B. The problem I see with effective altruism:
Suppose we find ourselves in the following choice situation: With our last $10, we can either help Bob avoid an extremely painful disease by donating our $10 to a charity working in his area, or we can help Amy and Susie each avoid an equally painful disease by donating our $10 to a more effective charity working in their area, but we cannot help all three. Who should we help?
Effective altruism would say that we should help the group consisting of Amy and Susie since that is the more effective use of our $10. Insofar as effective altruism says this, it effectively denies Bob (and anyone else in his place) any chance of being helped. But that seems counter to what reason and empathy would lead me to do.
Yes, Susie and Amy are two people, and two is more than one, but were they to suffer (as would happen if we chose to help Bob), it is not like any one of them would suffer more than what Bob would otherwise suffer. Indeed, were Bob to suffer, he would suffer no less than either Amy or Susie. Susie’s suffering would be felt by Susie alone. Amy’s suffering would be felt by Amy alone. And neither of their suffering would be greater than Bob’s suffering. So why simply help them over Bob rather than give all of them an equal chance of being helped by, say, tossing a coin? (footnote 1)
Footnote 1: A philosopher named John Taurek first discussed this problem and proposed this solution in his paper "Should the Numbers Count?" (1977)
C. Some likely objections and my responses:
Objection 1:
One might reply that two instances of suffering is morally worse than one instance of the same kind of suffering and that we should prevent the morally worse case (e.g., the two instances of suffering), so we should help Amy and Susie.
My response:
I don’t think two instances of suffering, spread across two people (e.g. Amy and Susie), is a morally worse case than one instance of the same kind of suffering had by one other person (e.g. Bob). I think these two cases are just as bad, morally speaking. Why’s that? Well, first of all, what makes one case morally worse than another? Answer: Morally relevant factors (i.e. things of moral significance, things that matter). Ok, and what morally relevant factors are present here? Well, experience is certainly one - in particular the severe pain that either Bob would feel or Susie and Amy would each feel, if not helped (footnote 2). Ok. So we can say that a case in which Amy and Susie would each suffer said pain is morally worse than a case in which only Bob would suffer said pain just in case there would be more pain or greater pain in the former case than in the latter case (i.e. iff Amy’s pain and Susie’s pain would together be experientially worse than Bob’s pain.)
Footnote 2: In my response to Objection 2, it will become clear that I think something else matters too: the identity of the sufferer. In other words, I don't just think suffering matters, I also think who suffers it matters. However, unlike the morally relevant factor of suffering, I don't think it's helpful for our understanding to understand this second morally relevant factor as having an effect on the moral worseness of a case, although one could understand it this way. Rather, I think its better for our understanding to accommodate its force via the denial that we should always prevent the morally worst case (i.e. the case involving the most suffering). If you find this result deeply unintuitive, then maybe its better for your understanding to understand this second morally relevant factor as having an effect on the moral worseness of a case, which allows you to say that what we should always do is prevent the morally worse case. In any case, ignore the morally relevant factor of identity for now as I haven't even argued for why it is morally relevant.
Here, it's helpful to keep in mind that more/greater instances of pain does not necessarily mean more/greater pain. For example, 2 very minor headaches is more instances of pains than 1 major headache, but they need not involve more pain than a major headache (i.e., they need not be experientially worse than a major headache). Thus, while there would clearly be more instances of pain in the former case than in the latter case (i.e. 2 vs 1; Amy's and Susie's vs Bob's), that does not necessarily mean that there would be more pain.
So the key question for us then is this: Are 2 instances of a given pain, spread across two people (e.g. Amy and Susie), experientially worse (i.e. do they involve more/greater pain) than one instance of the same pain had by one person (e.g. Bob)? If they are (call this thesis “Y”), then a case in which Amy and Susie would each suffer a given pain is morally worse than a case in which only Bob would suffer the given pain. If they aren’t (call this thesis “N”), then the two cases are morally just as bad, in which case Objection 1 would fail, even if we agreed that we should prevent the morally worse case.
Here’s my argument against Y:
Suppose that 5 instances of a certain minor headache, all experienced by one person, are experientially worse than a certain major headache experienced by one person. That is, suppose that any person in the world who has an accurate idea/appreciation of what 5 instances of this certain minor headache feels like and of what this certain major headache feels like would prefer to endure the major headache over the 5 minor headaches if put to the choice. Under this supposition, someone who holds Y must also hold that 5 minor headaches, spread across 5 people, are experientially worse than a major headache had by one person. Why? Because, at bottom, someone who holds Y must also hold that 5 minor headaches spread across 5 people are experientially just as bad as 5 minor headaches all had by one person.
So let's assess whether 5 minor headaches, spread across 5 people, really are experientially worse than a major headache had by one person. Given the supposition above, consider first what makes a single person who suffers 5 minor headaches experientially worse off than a person who suffers just 1 major headache, other things being equal.
Well, imagine that we were this person who suffers 5 minor headaches. We suffer one minor headache one day, suffer another minor headache sometime after that, then another after that, etc. By the end of our 5th minor headache, we will have experienced what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches. After all, we went through 5 minor headaches! Note that the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-headaches consists simply in the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-first-minor-headache then the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-second-minor-headache then the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-the-third-minor-headache, etc. Importantly, the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-headaches is not whatever we experience right after having our 5th headache (e.g. exhaustion that might set in after going through many headaches or some super painful headache that is the "synthesis" of the intensity of the past 5 minor headaches). It is not a singular/continuous feeling like the feeling we have when we're experiencing a normal pain episode. It is simply this: the what-it’s-like of going through one minor headache, then another (some time later), then another, then another, then another. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Now, by the end of our 5th minor headache, we might have long forgotten about the first minor headache because, say, it happened so long ago. So, by the end of our 5th minor headache, we might not have an accurate appreciation of what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches even though we in fact have experienced what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches. As a result, if someone asked us whether we’ve been through more pain due to our minor headaches or more pain through a major headache that, say, we recently experienced, we would likely incorrectly answer the latter.
But, if we did have an accurate appreciation of what it’s like to go through 5 minor headaches, say, because we experienced all 5 minor headaches rather recently, then there will be a clear sense to us that going through them was experientially worse than the major headache. The 5 minor headaches would each be “fresh in our mind”, and thus the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches would be “fresh in our mind”. And with that what-it’s-like fresh in mind, it seems clear to us that it caused us more pain than the major headache did.
Now, a headache being “fresh in our mind” does not mean that the headache needs to be so fresh that it is qualitatively the same as experiencing a real headache. Being fresh in our mind just means we have an accurate appreciation/idea of what it feels like, just as we have some accurate idea of what our favorite dish tastes like.
Because we have appreciations of our past pains (to varying degrees of accuracy), we sometimes compare them and have a clear sense that one set of pains is worse than another. But it is not the comparison and the clear sense we have of one set of pains being worse than another that ultimately makes one set of pains worse than another. Rather, it is the other way around: it is the what-it’s-like-of-having-5-minor-headaches that is worse than the what-it’s-like-of-having-a-major-headache. And if we have an accurate appreciation of both what-it’s-likes, then we will conclude the same. But, when we don’t, then our own conclusions could be wrong, like in the example provided earlier of a forgotten minor headache.
So, at the end of the day, what makes a person who has 5 minor headaches worse off than a person who has 1 major headache is the fact that he experienced the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches.
But, in the case where the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 people, there is no longer the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches because each of the 5 headaches is experienced by a different person. As a result, the only what-it’s-like that is present is the what-it’s-like-of-experiencing-one-minor-headache. Five different people each experience this what-it’s-like, but no one experiences what-it’s-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches. Moreover, the what-it’s-like of each of the 5 people cannot be linked to form the what-it’s-like-of-experiencing-5-minor-headaches because the 5 people are experientially independent beings.
Now, it's clearly the case that the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-1-minor-headache is not experientially worse than the what-it’s-like-of-going-through-a-major-headache. Given what I said in the previous paragraph, therefore, there is nothing present that could be experientially worse than the what-it’s-like-to-go-through-a-major-headache in the case where the 5 minor headaches are spread across 5 people. Therefore, 5 minor headaches, spread across 5 people, cannot be (and thus, is not) worse, experientially speaking, than one major headache.
Indeed, five independent what-it's-likes-of-going-through-1-minor-headache is very different from a single what-it's-like-of-going-through-5-minor-headaches. And given a moment's reflection, one thing should be clear: only the latter what-it's-like can plausibly be experientially worse than a major headache.
Thus, one should not treat 5 minor headaches spread across 5 people as being experientially just as bad as 5 minor headaches all had by 1 person. The latter is experientially worse than the former. The latter involves more/greater pain.
We can thus make the following argument against Y:
P1) If Y is true, then 5 minor headaches spread across 5 people is experientially just as bad 5 minor headaches all had by 1 person.
P2) But that is not the case (since 5 minor headaches all had by 1 person is experientially worse than 5 minor headaches spread across 5 people).
C) Therefore Y is false. And therefore Objection 1 fails, even if it's granted that we should prevent the morally worse case.
Objection 1.1: (Improving it)
Objection 1.2:
One might reply that experience is a morally relevant factor, but when the amount of pain in each case is the same (i.e. when the cases are experientially just as bad), the number of people in each case also becomes a morally relevant factor. Since the case in which Amy and Susie would each suffer involves more people, therefore, it is still the morally worse case.
My response:
I will respond to this objection in my response to Objection 2.
Objection 1.3:
One might reply that the number of people involved in each case is a morally relevant factor in of itself (i.e. completely independent of the amount of pain in each case). That is, one might say that the inherent moral relevance of the number of people involved in each case must be reconciled with the inherent moral relevance of the amount of pain in each case, and that therefore, in principle, a case in which many people would each suffer a relatively lesser pain can be morally worse than a case in which one other person would suffer a relatively greater pain, so long as there are enough people on the side of the many. For example, between helping a million people avoid depression or one other person avoid very severe depression, one might have the intuition that we should help the million, i.e. that a case in which a million people would suffer depression is morally worse.
My response:
I don’t deny that many people have this intuition, but I think this intuition is based on a failure to recognize and/or appreciate some important facts. In particular, I think that if you really kept in the forefront of your mind the fact that not one of the million would suffer worse than the one, and the fact that the million of them together would not suffer worse than the one (assuming my response to Objection 1 succeeds), then your intuition would not be as it is (footnote 3).
Nevertheless, you might still feel that the million people should still have a chance of being helped. I agree, but this is not because of the sheer number of them involved. Rather, it is because which individual suffers matters. (Please see my response to Objection 2.)
Footnote 3: For those familiar with Derk Pereboom’s position in the free will debate, he makes an analogous point. He doesn’t think we have free will, but admits that many have the intuition that we do. But he points out that this is because we are generally not aware of the deterministic psychological/neurological/physical causes of our actions. But once we become aware of them – once we have them in the forefront of our minds – our intuition would not be that we are free. See pg 95 of “Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life” (Pereboom, 2014)
Objection 2:
One might reply that we should help Amy and Susie because either of their suffering neutralizes/cancels out Bob’s suffering, leaving the other’s suffering to carry the day in favor of helping them over Bob.
My response:
I don’t think one person’s suffering can neutralize/cancel out another person’s suffering because who suffers matters. Which individual it is that suffers matters because it is the sufferer who bears the complete burden of the suffering. It is the particular person who ends up suffering that feels all the suffering. This is an obvious fact, but it is also a very significant fact when properly appreciated, and I don’t think it is properly appreciated.
Think about it. The particular person(s) who suffers has to bear everything. If we save Amy and Susie, it is Bob – that particular vantage point on the world - who has to feel all of the suffering (which it bears remembering is suffering that would be no less painful than the suffering Amy and Susie would each otherwise endure). The same, of course, is true of each of Amy and Susie were we to save Bob.
I fear that saying anymore might make the significance of the fact I’m pointing to less clear. For those who appreciate the significance of what I’m getting at, it should be clear that neither Amy’s or Susie’s suffering can be used to neutralize/cancel out Bob’s suffering and vice versa. Yes, it’s the same kind of suffering, but it’s importantly different whether Amy and Susie each experiences it or Bob experiences it, because again, whoever experiences it is the one who has to bear all of it.
Notice that this response to objection 2 is importantly compatible with empathizing with every individual involved (e.g., Amy, Susie and Bob). Indeed, to empathize with only select individuals is biased. Yet, it seems to me that many people are in fact likely to forget to empathize with the group containing the fewer number. Note that as I understand it, to empathize with someone is to imagine oneself in their shoes and to care about that imagined perspective.
Also, notice that this response to objection 2 also deals with Objection 1.2 since this response argues against (what seems to me) the only plausible way in which the number of people involved might be thought to be relevant when the amount of pain involved in each case is the same: when the amount of pain involved in each case is the same, it might be thought that one person's pain can neutralize or cancel out another person's pain, e.g. that the suffering Amy would feel can neutralize or cancel out the suffering Bob would feel, leaving only the suffering that Susie would feel left in play, and that therefore the case in which Amy and Susie would suffer is morally worse than the case in which Bob would suffer. But if my response to Objection 2 is right, then this thought is wrong.
Just to be clear, this is not to say that I think one person’s suffering can not balance (or, in the case of greater suffering, outweigh) another person’s equal (or lesser) suffering such that the reasonable and empathetic thing to do is to give the person who would face the greater suffering a higher chance of being helped. In fact, I think it can. But balancing is not the same as neutralizing/canceling out. Bob’s suffering balances out Amy’s suffering and it also independently balances out Susie’s suffering precisely because Bob’s suffering does not get neutralized/cancelled out by either of their suffering.
My own view is that we should give the person who would face the greater suffering a higher chance of being saved in proportion to how much greater his suffering would be relative to the suffering that the other person(s) would each otherwise face. We shouldn't automatically help him just because he would face a greater suffering if not helped. After all, who suffers matters, and this includes those who would be faced with the lesser suffering if not helped (footnote 4).
Footnote 4: My own view is slightly more complicated than this, but those details aren't important given the simple sorts of choice situations discussed in this essay.
Going back to Objection 1.3, this then explains why I agree that we should still give those who would each suffer a less serious depression a chance of being helped, even though the one other person would suffer more if not saved. Importantly, the number of people who would each suffer the less serious depression is irrelevant. I would give them a chance of being saved whether they are 2 persons or a million or a billion. How high of a chance would I give them? In proportion to how their depression compares in suffering to the single person’s severe depression. So, if it involves slightly less suffering, I would give them around 48% of being helped. If it involves a lot less suffering, then I would give them lot lower of a chance (footnote 5).
Footnote 5: Notice that with certain types of pain episodes, such as a torture episode vs a minor headache, there is such a big gap in amount of suffering between them that any clear-headed person in the world would rather endure an infinite number of minor headaches (i.e. live with very frequent minor headaches in an immortal life) than to endure the torture episode. This would explain why in a choice situation in which we can either save a person from torture or x number of persons from a minor headache (or 1 person from x minor headaches), we would just save the person who would be tortured rather than give the other(s) even the slightest chance of being helped. And I think this accords with our intuition well.
Objection 3:
One might reply that from “the perspective of the universe” or “moral perspective” or “objective perspective”, either of their suffering neutralizes/cancels out Bob’s suffering, leaving the other’s suffering to carry the day in favor of helping them over Bob.
My response:
As I understand it, the perspective of the universe is the impartial or unbiased perspective where personal biases are excluded from consideration. As a result, such a perspective entails that we should give equal weight to equal suffering. For example, whereas I would give more weight to my own suffering than to the equal suffering of others (due to the personal bias involved in my everyday personal perspective), if I took on the perspective of the universe, I would have to at least intellectually admit that their equal suffering matters the same amount as mine. Of course, it doesn’t matter the same amount as mine from my perspective. It matters the same amount as mine from the perspective of the universe that I have taken on. We might say it matters the same amount as mine period. However, none of this entails that, from the perspective of the universe, which individual suffers doesn’t matter – that whether it is I who suffers X or someone else who suffers X doesn’t matter. Clearly it does matter for the reason I gave earlier. Giving equal weight to equal suffering does not entail that who suffers said suffering doesn’t matter. It is precisely because it matters that in a choice situation in which we can either save person A from suffering X or person B from suffering X we think we should flip a coin to give each an equal chance of being saved, rather than, say, choosing one of them to save on a whim. This is our way of acknowledging that A suffering is importantly different from B suffering - that who suffers matters.
Even if I'm technically wrong about what the perspective of the universe - as understood by utilitarians - amounts to, all that shows is that the perspective of the universe, so understood, is not the moral perspective. For who suffers matters (assuming my response to Objection 2 is correct), and so the moral perspective must be one from which this fact is acknowledged. Any perspective from which it isn't therefore cannot be the moral perspective.
D. Conclusion:
I therefore think that according to reason and empathy, Bob should be accorded an equal chance to be helped (say via flipping a coin) as Amy and Susie. This conclusion holds regardless of the number of people that are added to Amy and Susie’s group as long as the kind of suffering remains the same. So for example, if with a $X donation we can either help Bob avoid an extremely painful disease or a million other people from the same painful disease, but not all, reason and empathy would say to flip a coin – a conclusion that is surely against effective altruism.
E. One final objection:
One might say that this conclusion is too counter-intuitive to be correct, and that therefore something must have gone wrong in my reasoning, even though it may not be clear what that something is.
My response:
But is it really all that counter-intuitive when we bear in mind all that I have said? Importantly, let us bear in mind three facts:
1) Were we to save the million people instead of Bob, Bob would suffer in a way that is no less painful than any one of the million others otherwise would. Indeed, he would suffer in a way that is just as painful as any one among the million. Conversely, were we to save Bob, no one among the million suffering would suffer in a way that is more painful than Bob would otherwise suffer. Indeed, the most any one of them would suffer is the same as what Bob would otherwise suffer.
2) The suffering of the million would involve no more pain than the pain Bob would feel (assuming my response to Objection 1 is correct). That is, a million instances of the given painful disease, spread across a million people, would not be experientially worse - would not involve more pain or greater pain - than one instance of the same painful disease had by Bob. (Again, keep in mind that more/greater instances of a pain does not necessarily mean more/greater pain.)
3) Were we to save the million and let Bob suffer, it is he – not you, not me, and certainly not the million of others – who has to bear that pain. It is that particular person, that unique sentient perspective on the world who has to bear it all.
In such a choice situation, reason and empathy tells me to give him an equal chance to be saved. To just save the millions seems to me to completely neglect what Bob has to suffer, whereas my approach seems to neglect no one.
One additional objection that one might have is that if Bob, Susie, and Amy all knew beforehand that you would end up in a situation where you could donate $10 to alleviate either two of them suffering or one of them suffering, but they didn't know beforehand which two people would be pitted against which one person (e.g., it could just as easily be alleviating Bob + Susie's suffering vs. alleviating Amy's suffering, or Bob + Amy's suffering vs. Susie's suffering, etc.), then they would all sign an agreement directing you to send a donation such that you would alleviate two people's suffering rather than one, since this would give each of them the best chance of having their suffering alleviated. This is related to Rawls' veil of ignorance argument.
And if Bob, Susie, Amy, and a million others were to sign an agreement directing your choice to donate $X to alleviate one person's suffering or a million peoples' suffering, again all of them behind a veil of ignorance, none of them would hesitate for a second to sign an agreement that said, "Please donate such that you would alleviate a million people's suffering, and please oh please don't just flip a coin."
More broadly speaking, given that we live in a world where people have competing interests, we have to find a way to effectively cooperate such that we don't constantly end up in the defect-defect corner of the Prisoner's Dilemma. In the real world, such cooperation is hard; but in an ideal world, such cooperation would essentially look like people coming together to sign agreements behind a veil of ignorance (not necessarily literally, but at least people acting as if they had done so). And the upshot of such signed agreements is generally to make the interpersonal-welfare-aggregative judgments of the type "alleviating two people's suffering is better than one", even if everyone agrees with the theoretical arguments that the suffering of two people on opposite sides don't literally cancel out, and that who's suffering matters.
Bob, Susie, Amy, and the rest of us all want to live in a world where we cooperate, and therefore we'd all want to live in a world where we make these kinds of interpersonal welfare aggregations, at the very least during the kinds of donation decisions in your thought experiments.
(For a much longer explanation of this line of reasoning, see this Scott Alexander post: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/24/the-invisible-nation-reconciling-utilitarianism-and-contractualism/)
Hi Brian,
Thanks for your comment and for reading my post!
Here's my response:
Bob, Susie and Amy would sign the agreement to save the greater number if they assumed that they each had an equal chance of being in any of their positions. But, is this assumption true? For example, is it actually the case that Bob had an equal chance to be in Amy's or Susie's position? If it is the case, then saving the greater number would in effect give each of them a 2/3 chance of being saved (the best chance as you rightly noted). But if it isn't, then why should an agreement based on a false assumption have any force? Suppose Bob, in actuality, had no chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position, then is it really in accordance with reason and empathy to save Amy and Susie and give Bob zero chance?
Intuitively, for Bob to have had an equal chance of being in Amy's position or Susie's position or his actual position, he must have had an equal chance of living Amy's life or Susie's life or his actual life. That's how I intuitively understand a position: as a life position. To occupy someone's position is to be in their life circumstances - to have their life. So understood, what would it take for Bob to have had an equal chance of being in Amy's position or Susie's position or his own? Presumably, it would have had to be the case that Bob was just as likely to have been born to Amy's parents or Susie's parents or his actual parents. But this seems very unlikely because the particular “subject-of-experience” or “self” that each of us are is probably biologically linked to our ACTUAL parents' cells. Thus another parent could not give birth to us, even though they might give birth to a subjective-of-experience that is qualitatively very similar to us (i.e. same personality, same skin complexion, etc).
Of course, being in someone's position need not be understood in this demanding (though intuitive) way. For example, maybe to be in Amy's position just requires being in her actual location with her actual disease, but not e.g. being of the same sex as her or having her personality. But insofar as we are biologically linked to our actual parents, and parents are spread all over the world, the odds of Bob having had an equal chance of being in his actual position (i.e. a certain location with a certain disease) or in Amy's position (i.e. a different location with an equally painful disease) is highly unlikely. Think also about all the biological/personality traits that make a person more or less likely to be in a given position. I, for example, certainly had zero chance of being in an NBA position, given my height. Of course, as we change in various ways, our chances to be in certain positions change too, but even so, it is extremely unlikely that any given person, at any given point in time, had an equal chance of being in any of the positions of a trade off situation that he is later to be involved in.
UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 18): I have added the above two paragraphs to help first-time readers better understand how I understand "being in someone's position" and why I think it is most unlikely that Bob actually had an equal chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position. These two paragraphs have replaced a much briefer paragraph, which you can find at the end of this reply. UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 21): Also, no need to read past this point since someone (kbog) made me realize that the question I ask in the paragraph below rests on a misunderstanding of the veil-of-ignorance approach.
Also, what would the implications of this objection be for cases where the pains involved in a choice situation are unequal? Presumably, EA favors saving a billion people each from a fairly painful disease than a single person from the excruciating pain of being burned alive. But is it clear that someone behind the veil of ignorance would accept this?
-
Original paragraph that was replaced: "Similarly, is it actually the case that each of us had an equal chance of being in any one of our positions? I think the answer is probably no because the particular “subject-of-experience” or “self” that each of us are is probably linked to our parents' cells."
I do think Bob has an equal chance to be in Amy's or Susie's position, at least from his point of view behind the veil of ignorance. Behind the veil of ignorance, Bob, Susie, and Amy don't know any of their personal characteristics. They might know some general things about the world, like that there is this painful disease X that some people get, and there is this other equally painful disease Y that the same number of people get, and that a $10 donation to a charity can in general cure two people with disease Y or one person with disease X. But they don't know anything about their own propensities to get disease X or disease Y. Given this state of knowledge, Bob, Susie, and Amy all have the same chance as each other of getting disease X vs. disease Y, and so signing the agreement is rational. Note that it doesn't have to be actually true that Bob has an equal chance as Susie and Amy to have disease X vs. disease Y; maybe a third party, not behind the veil of ignorance, can see that Bob's genetics predispose him to disease X, and so he shouldn't sign the agreement. But Bob doesn't know that; all that is required for this argument to work is that Bob, Susie, and Amy all have the same subjective probability of ending up with disease X vs. disease Y, viewing from behind the veil of ignorance.
Regarding your second point, I don't think EA's are necessarily committed to saving a billion people each from a fairly painful disease vs. a single person being burned alive. That would of course depend on how painful the disease is, vs. how painful being burned alive is. To take the extreme cases, if the painful disease were like being burned alive, except just with 1% less suffering, then I think everybody would sign the contract to save the billion people suffering from the painful disease; if the disease were rather just like getting a dust speck in your eye once in your life, then probably everyone would sign the contract to save the one person being burned alive. People's intuitions would start to differ with more middle-of-the-road painful diseases, but I think EA is a big enough tent to accommodate all those intuitions. You don't have to think interpersonal welfare aggregation is exactly the same as intrapersonal welfare aggregation to be an EA, as long as you think there is some reasonable way of adjudicating between the interests of different numbers of people suffering different amounts of pain.
It would be a mistake to conclude, from a lack of knowledge about one's position, that one has an equal chance of being in any one's position. Of course, if a person is behind the veil of ignorance and thus lacks relevant knowledge about his/her position, it might SEEM to him/her that he has an equal chance of being in any one's position, and he/she might thereby be led to make this mistake and consequently choose to save the greater number.
In any case, what I just said doesn't really matter because you go on to say,
"Note that it doesn't have to be actually true that Bob has an equal chance as Susie and Amy to have disease X vs. disease Y; maybe a third party, not behind the veil of ignorance, can see that Bob's genetics predispose him to disease X, and so he shouldn't sign the agreement. But Bob doesn't know that; all that is required for this argument to work is that Bob, Susie, and Amy all have the same subjective probability of ending up with disease X vs. disease Y, viewing from behind the veil of ignorance."
Let us then suppose that Bob, in fact, had no chance of being in either Amy's or Susie's position. Now imagine Bob asks you why you are choosing to save Amy and Susie and giving him no chance at all, and you reply, "Look, Bob, I wished I could help you too but I can't help all. And the reason I'm not giving you any chance is that if you, Amy and Susie were all behind the veil of ignorance and was led to assume that each of you had an equal chance of being in anyone else's position, then all of you (including you, Bob) would have agreed to the principle of saving the greater number in the kind of case you find yourself in now."
Don't you think Bob can reasonably reply, "But Brian, whether or not I make that assumption under the veil of ignorance is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that I had no chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position. What you should do shouldn't be based on what I would agree to in a condition where I'm imagined as making a false assumption. What you should do should be based on my actual chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position. It should be based on the facts, and the fact is that I NEVER had a chance to be in any of their positions. Look, Brian, I'm really scared. I'm going to suffer a lot if you choose to save Amy and Susie - no less than any one of them would suffer. I can imagine that they must be very scared too, for each of them would suffer just as much as me were you to save me instead. In this case, seeing that we each have the same amount to suffer, shouldn't you give each of us an equal chance of being helped, or at least give me some chance and not 0?"
How would you reply? I personally think that Bob's reply shows the clear limits of this hypothetical contractual approach to determining what we should do in real life.
UPDATE (ADDED ON MAR 21): No need to read past this point since another person (kbog) made me realize that the paragraph below rests on a misunderstanding of the veil-of-ignorance approach.
Regarding the second point, I think what any person would agree to behind the veil of ignorance (even assuming the truth of the assumption that each has an equal chance of being in anybody's position) is highly dependent on their risk-adverseness to the severest potential pain. Towards the extreme ends that you described, people of varying risk-adverseness would perhaps be able to form a consensus. But it gets less clear as we consider "middle-of-the-road" cases. As you said people's intuitions here start to differ (which I would peg to varying degrees of risk-adverseness to the severest potential pain). But the question then is whether this hypothetical contractual approach can serve as a “reasonable way of adjudicating between the interests of different numbers of people suffering different amounts of pain” since your intuition might not be the same as the person whose fate might rest in your hands. Is it really reasonable to decide his fate using your intuition and not his?
Regarding the first point, signing hypothetical contracts behind the veil of ignorance is our best heuristic for determining how best to collectively make decisions such that we build the best overall society for all of us. Healthy, safe, and prosperous societies are built from lots of agents cooperating; unhappy and dangerous societies arise from agents defecting. And making decisions as if you were behind the veil of ignorance is a sign of cooperation; on the contrary, Bob's argument that you should give him a 1/3 chance of being helped even though he wouldn't have signed on to such a decision behind the veil of ignorance, simply because of the actual position he finds himself in, is a sign of defection. This is not to slight Bob here -- of course it's very understandable for him to be afraid and to want a chance of being helped given his position. Rather, it's simply a statement that if everybody argued as Bob did (not just regarding charity donations, but in general), we'd be living in a much unhappier society.
If you're unmoved by this framing, consider this slightly different framing, illustrated by a thought experiment: Let's say that Bob successfully argues his case to the donor, who gives Bob a 1/2 chance of being helped. For the purpose of this experiment, it's best to not specify who in fact gets helped, but rather to just move forward with expected utilities. Assuming that his suffering was worth -1 utility point, consider that he netted 1/2 of an expected utility point from the donor's decision to give everyone an equal chance. (Also assume that all realized painful incidents hereon are worth -1 utility point, and realized positive incidents are worth +1 utility point.)
The next day, Bob gets into a car accident, putting both him and a separate individual (say, Carl) in the hospital. Unfortunately, the hospital is short on staff that day, so the doctors + nurses have to make a decision. They can either spend their time to help Bob and Carl with their car accident injuries, or they can spend their time helping one other indivdual with a separate yet equally painful affliction, but they cannot do both. They also cannot split their time between the two choices. They have read your blog post on the EA forum and decide to flip a coin. Bob once again gets a 1/2 expected utility point from this decision.
Unfortunately, Bob's hospital stay cost him all his savings. He and his brother Dan (who has also fallen on hard times) go to their mother Karen to ask for a loan to get them back on their feet. Karen, however, notes that her daughter (Bob and Dan's sister) Emily has also just asked for a loan for similar reasons. She cannot give a loan to Bob and Dan and still have enough left over for Emily, and vice versa. Bob and Dan note that if they were to get the loan, they could both split that loan and convert it into +1 utility point each, whereas Emily would require the whole loan to get +1 utility point (Emily was used to a more lavish lifestyle and requires more expensive consumption to become happier). Nevertheless, Karen has read your blog post on the EA forum and decides to flip a coin. Bob nets a 1/2 expected utility point from this decision.
What is the conclusion from this thought experiment? Well, if decisions were made to your decision rule, providing each individual an equal chance of being helped in each situation, then Bob nets 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 3/2 expected utility points. Following a more conventional decision rule to always help more people vs. less people if everyone is suffering similarly (a decision rule that would've been agreed upon behind a veil of ignorance), Bob would get 0 (no help from the original donor) + 1 (definite help from the doctors + nurses) + 1 (definite help from Karen) = 2 expected utility points. Under this particular set of circumstances, Bob would've benefitted more from the veil of ignorance approach.
You may reasonably ask whether this set of seemingly fantastical scenarios has been precisely constructed to make my point rather than yours. After all, couldn't Bob have found himself in more situations like the donor case rather than the hospital or loan cases, which would shift the math towards favoring your decision rule? Yes, this is certainly possible, but unlikely. Why? For the simple reason that any given individual is more likely to find themselves in a situation that affects more people than a situation that affects few. In the donor case, Bob had a condition where he was in the minority; more often in his life, however, he will find himself in cases where he is in the majority (e.g., hospital case, loan case). And so over a whole lifetime of decisions to be made, Bob is much more likely to benefit from the veil-of-ignorance-type approach.
Based on your post, it seems you are hesitant to aggregate utility over multiple individuals; for the sake of argument here, that's fine. But the thought scenario above doesn't require that at all; just aggregating utility over Bob's own life, you can see how the veil-of-ignorance approach is expected to benefit him more. So if we rewind the tape of Bob's life all the way back to the original donor scenario, where the donor is mulling over whether they want to donate to help Bob or to help Amy + Susie, the donor should consider that in all likelihood Bob's future will be one in which the veil-of-ignorance approach will work out in his favor moreso than the everyone-gets-an-equal-chance approach. So if this donor and other donors in similar situations are to commit to one of these two decision rules, they should commit to the veil of ignorance approach; it would help Bob (and Amy, and Susie, and all other beneficiaries of donations) the most in terms of expected well-being.
Another way to put this is that, even if you don't buy that Bob should put himself behind a veil of ignorance because he knows he doesn't have an equal chance of being in Amy's and Susie's situation, and so shouldn't decide to sign a cooperative agreement with Amy and Susie, you should buy that Bob is in effect behind a veil of ignorance regarding his own future, and therefore should sign the contract with Amy and Susie because this would be cooperative with respect to his future selves. And the donor should act in accord with this hypothetical contract.
I would respond to the second point, but this post is already long enough, and I think what I just laid out is more central.
I will also be bowing out of the discussion at this point – not because of anything you said or did, but simply since it took me much more time to write up my thoughts than I would have liked. I did enjoy the discussion and found it useful to lay out my beliefs in a thorough and hopefully clear manner, as well as to read your thoughtful replies. I do hope you decide that EA is not fatally flawed and to stick around the community :)
Hey Brian,
No worries! I've enjoyed our exchange as well - your latest response is both creative and funny. In particular, when I read "They have read your blog post on the EA forum and decide to flip a coin", I literally laughed out loud (haha). It's been a pleasure : ) If you change your mind and decide to reply, definitely feel welcome to.
Btw, for the benefit of first-time readers, I've updated a portion of my very first response in order to provide more color on something that I originally wrote. In good faith, I've also kept in the response what I originally wrote. Just wanted to let you know. Now onto my response.
You write, "In the donor case, Bob had a condition where he was in the minority; more often in his life, however, he will find himself in cases where he is in the majority (e.g., hospital case, loan case). And so over a whole lifetime of decisions to be made, Bob is much more likely to benefit from the veil-of-ignorance-type approach."
This would be true if Bob has an equal chance of being in any of the positions of a given future trade off situation. That is, Bob would have a higher chance of being in the majority in any given future trade off situation if Bob has an equal chance of being in any of the positions of a given trade off situation. Importantly, just because there is more positions on the majority side of a trade off situation, that does not automatically mean that Bob has a higher chance of being among the majority. His probably or chance of being in each of the positions is crucial. I think you were implicitly assuming that Bob has an equal chance of being in any of the positions of a future trade off situation because he doesn't know his future. But, as I mentioned in my previous post, it would be a mistake to conclude, from a lack of knowledge about one's position, that one has an equal chance of being in any one's position. So, just because Bob doesn't know anything about his future, it does not mean that he has an equal chance of being in any of the positions in the future trade off situations that he is involved in.
In my original first response to you, I very briefly explained why I think people in general do not have an equal chance of being in anybody's position. I have sense expanded that explanation. If what I say there is right, then it is not true that "over a whole lifetime of decisions to be made, Bob [or anyone else] is much more likely to benefit from the veil-of-ignorance-type approach [than the equal-chance approach]."
All the best!
It's a stipulation of the Original Position, whether you look at Rawls' formulation or Harsanyi's. It's not up for debate.
Hey kbog,
Thanks for your comment. I never said it was up for debate. Rather, given that it is stipulated, I question whether agreements reached under such stipulations have any force or validity on reality, given that the stipulation is, in fact, false.
Please read my second response to brianwang712 where I imagine that Bob has a conversation with him. I would be curious how you would respond to Bob in that conversation.
The reason that the conclusions made in such a scenario have a bearing on reality is that the conclusions are necessarily both fair and rational.
My reply to Bob would be to essentially restate brianwang's original comment, and explain how the morally correct course of action is supported by a utilitarian principle of indifference argument, and that none of the things he says (like the fact that he is not Amy or Susie, or the fact that he is scared) are sound counterarguments.
1) The reason that the conclusions made in such a scenario have a bearing on reality is that the conclusions are necessarily both fair and rational.
The conclusions are rational under the stipulation that each person has an equal chance of being in anybody's position. But it is not actually rational given that the stipulation is false. So you can't just say that the conclusions have a bearing on reality because they are necessarily rational. They are rational under the stipulation, but not when you take into account what is actually the case.
And I don't see how the conclusion is fair to Bob when the conclusion is based on a false stipulation. Bob is a real person. He shouldn't be treated like he had an equal chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position, when he in fact didn't.
2) "My reply to Bob would be to essentially restate brianwang's original comment..."
Sorry, can you quote the part you're referring to?
3) "...and explain how the morally correct course of action is supported by a utilitarian principle of indifference argument."
Can you explain what this "utilitarian principle of indifference argument" is?
4) "and that none of the things he says (like the fact that he is not Amy or Susie, or the fact that he is scared) are sound counterarguments."
Please don't distort what I said. I had him say, "The fact of the matter is that I had no chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position.", which is very different from saying that he was not Amy or Susie. If he wasn't Amy or Susie, but actually had an equal chance of being either of them, then I would take the veil of ignorance approach more seriously.
I added the part that he is said because I wanted it to sound realistic. It is uncharitable to assume that that forms part of my argument.
The argument of both Rawls and Harsanyi is not that it just happens to be rational for everybody to agree to their moral criteria; the argument is that the morally rational choice for society is a universal application of the rule which is egoistically rational for people behind the veil of ignorance. Of course it's not egoistically rational for people to give anything up once they are outside the veil of ignorance, but then they're obviously making unfair decisions, so it's irrelevant to the thought experiment.
Stipulations can't be true or false - they're stipulations. It's a thought experiment for epistemic purposes.
The reason we look at what they would agree to from behind the veil of ignorance as opposed to outside is that it ensures that they give equal consideration to everyone, which is a basic principle that appeals to us as a cornerstone of any decent moral system.
Also, to be clear, the Original Position argument doesn't say "imagine if Bob had an equal chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position, see how you would treat them, and then treat him that way." If it did, then it would simply not work, because the question of exactly how you should actually treat him would still be undetermined. Instead, the argument says "imagine if Bob had an equal chance of being in Amy's or Susie's position, see what decision rule they would agree to, and then treat them according to that decision rule."
The first paragraph of his first comment.
This very idea, originally argued by Harsanyi (http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Harsanyi1975.pdf).
Hey Brian,
I just wanted to note that another reason why you might not want to use the veil-of-ignorance approach to justify why we should save the greater number is that it would force you to conclude that, in a trade off situation where you can either save one person from an imminent excruciating pain (i.e. being burned alive) or another person from the same severe pain PLUS a third person from a very minor pain (e.g. a sore throat), we should save the second and third person and give 0 chance to the first person.
I think it was F. M. Kamm who first raised this objection to the veil-of-ignorance approach in his book Morality, Mortality Vol 1. (I haven't actually read the book). Interestingly, kbog - another person I've been talking with on this forum - accepts this result. But I wonder if others like yourself would. Imagine Bob, Amy and Susie were in a trade off situation of the kind I just described, and imagine that Bob never actually had a chance to be in Amy's or Susie's position. In such a situation, do you think you should just save Amy and Susie?
Yes, I accept that result, and I think most EAs would (side note: I think most people in society at large would, too; if this is true, then your post is not so much an objection to the concept of EA as it is to common-sense morality as well). It's interesting that you and I have such intuitions about such a case – I see that as in the category of "being so obvious to me that I wouldn't even have to hesitate to choose." But obviously you have different intuitions here.
Part of what I'm confused about is what the positive case is for giving everyone an equal chance. I know what the positive case is for the approach of automatically saving two people vs. one: maximizing aggregate utility, which I see as the most rational, impartial way of doing good. But what's the case for giving everyone an equal chance? What's gained from that? Why prioritize "chances"? I mean, giving Bob a chance when most EAs would probably automatically save Amy and Susie might make Bob feel better in that particular situation, but that seems like a trivial point, and I'm guessing is not the main driver behind your reasoning.
One way of viewing "giving everyone an equal chance" is to give equal priority to different possible worlds. I'll use the original "Bob vs. a million people" example to illustrate. In this example, there's two possible worlds that the donor could create: in one possible world Bob is saved (world A), and in the other possible world a million people are saved (world B). World B is, of course, the world that an EA would create every time. As for world A, well: can we view this possible world as anything but a tragedy? If you flipped a coin and got this outcome, would you not feel that the world is worse off for it? Would you not instantly regret your decision to flip the coin? Or even forget flipping the coin, we can take donor choice out of it; wouldn't you feel that a world where a hurricane ravaged and destroyed an urban community where a million people lived is worse than a world where that same hurricane petered out unexpectedly and only destroyed the home of one unlucky person?
If so, then why give tragic world A any priority at all, when we can just create world B instead? I mean, if you were asked to choose between getting a delicious chocolate milkshake vs. a bee sting, you wouldn't say "I'll take a 50% chance of each, please!" You would just choose the better option. Giving any chance, no matter how small, to the bee sting would be too high. Similarly, giving any priority to tragic world A, even 1 in 10 million, but be too high.
Hi Brian,
I think the reason why you have such a strong intuition of just saving Amy and Susie in a choice situation like the one I described in my previous reply is that you believe Amy's burning to death plus Susie's sore throat involves more or greater pain than Bob's burning to death. Since you think minimizing aggregate pain (i.e. maximizing aggregate utility) is what we should do, your reason for just Amy and Susie is clear.
But importantly, I don't share your belief that Amy's burning to death and Susie's sore throat involves more or greater pain than Bob's burning to death. On this note, I have completely reworked my response to Objection 1 a few days ago to make clear why I don't share this belief, so please read that if you want to know why. On the contrary, I think Amy's burning to death and Susie's sore throat involves just as much pain as Bob's burning to death.
So part of the positive case for giving everyone an equal chance is that the suffering on either side would involve the same LEVEL/AMOUNT of pain (even though the suffering on Amy's and Susie's side would clearly involve more INSTANCES of pain: i.e. 2 vs 1.)
But even if the suffering on Amy's and Susie's side would involve slightly greater pain (as you believe), there is a positive case for giving Bob some chance of being saved, rather than 0. And that is that who suffers matters, for the reason I offered in my response to Objection 2. I think that response provides a very powerful reason for giving Bob at least some chance, and not no chance at all, even if his pain would be less great than Amy's and Susie's together. (My response to Objection 3 makes clear that giving Bob some chance is not in conflict with being impartial, so that response is relevant too if you think doing so is being partial)
At the end of the day, I think one's intuitions are based on one's implicit beliefs and what one implicitly takes into consideration. Thus, if we shared the same implicit beliefs and implicitly took the same things into consideration, then we would share the same intuitions. So one way to view my essay is that it tries to achieve its goal by doing two things:
1) Challenging a belief (e.g. that Amy's burning to death plus Susie's sore throat involves more pain than Bob's burning to death) that in part underlies the differences in intuition between me and people like yourself.
2) Reminding people of another important moral fact that should figure in their implicit thought processes (and thus be reflected in their intuitions): that who suffers matters. This moral fact is often forgotten about, which skews people's intuitions. Once this moral fact is seriously taken into account, I bet people's intuitions would not be the same. Importantly, I bet the vast majority of people (including yourself) would feel that giving Bob some chance of being saved is more appropriate than none, EVEN IF you still thought that Amy's pain and Susie's pain involve slightly more pain than Bob's.