Pretty clearly not. DiGiovanni's argument requires that I not be able to justify a belief that an idealized evaluator would preserve EV(A)>EV(B) long term, given EV(A) > EV(B) short term. Justification is not a remarkably high bar and is certainly not truth-entailing (and on internalist readings needn't even be truth-tracking). My response here was to make three moves: (i) move from arbitrary cases to specific ones (ii) argue that some specific kinds of actions might be value-preserving, and (iii) note that downstream effects of actions are not symmetrical wrt catastrophic vs. non-catastrophic consequences.
(i) is motivated by what seems like a natural assumption (in fact, one you build into your own discussion) -- different action-types have different causal profiles. Consequently, universally quantifying in DiGiovanni's argument over action types actually hides a lot of information that we, in fact, possess. So, we should look at specific action types in order to see if anything about those causal profiles helps to justify non-inversion.
This takes us to (ii). In its weakest form, (ii) merely says that some action types might have the following property: They tend to propagate (at least short term) whatever value they initially have. This is what I called value persistence, and I called these value-persistent actions (VPAs). Value persistence is not merely the result of seeing if, in fact, actions of type A tend to preserve value (near term). We can also consider the nature of those actions to determine if such actions have structural properties (iteration, portability, etc.) that rationally explain it's value-persistent character. If the value-persistence is structural in this way for some action types, then we have reason to believe that whatever value the initial action has will be preserved downstream. In the case of property like iteration, the argument is a bit like mathematical induction: Show that (if A has F, then the successor of A has F). And then show the base case. In any such case, if we can then show that the initial action has good consequences, we have some reason in favor of non-reversal. (I concede that I don't know if this is enough for full justification.)
In my previous response, I noted that some cases -- like some kinds of educational actions -- might not be just VPAs, but might actually be inherently positively valenced. In my own area (philosophy), I tend to think educating students about things like epistemic humility, cognitive bias, the virtues of rational disagreement, etc., might be specific kinds of educational acts that have this feature. If so, then some VPAs are not merely value-persistent, but get the "first step" of the induction built-in (and that iterates).
Finally, (iii). I noted that the causal consequences of many of our actions don't merely play out causally but are selectively filtered through the downstream agency of other actors. Even if we assume human nature is pretty terrible, I noted that even very bad actors do have self-interested or nepotistic reasons for avoiding the worst downstream consequences. Not all, of course. But if we aggregate even weak self-preservation and nepotistic reasons, we have further reason to think that people will act to avoid the most catastrophic downstream effects. This would be a very weak effect, but it again puts pressure in the direction that says VPAs support non-inversion.
Taken together, these ideas provide a template that might make it rational for us to accept non-inversion for at least some action types, implemented in certain ways. And if that is so, then DiGiovanni's premise 2 fails as a universal claim. But the intention was that this is more than just an effort to give a counterexample to that claim. It was an effort to provide a kind of general explanatory framework for how one might develop actions that we have reason to believe support non-inversion.
Perhaps. But the case is considerably less tight here. It works, to the extent it does, because we think this is plausibly a case where we have a grip on long-term EV (though, maybe we don't). And, if that is what is doing the work, then it seems like there is a reason for thinking that the problem is more closely tied to "promoting the total good" because this is what makes course awareness of total consequences in real world conditions likely.
I've been thinking a bit on this reasoning. You write: "consider, e.g., an unrealistic scenario where you could press a button with guaranteed overall catastrophic consequences or one that would get the universe rid of all unwanted suffering forever while keeping everything else equal." I agree that those seem like clear cases, but they are also cases in which the action is specified in terms of its causal consequences. This confounds the discussion a bit because it gives you the long-term value of the act upfront. For instance, consider if you took the case to be "push the button that reads ' guaranteed overall catastrophic consequences'", but didn't assume that the label was veridical. Now the case falls apart. So, the cases seem like they are being driven, not by the fact that they are realistic or unrealistic, but by the fact that they specify the long-term causal consequences. And any action so-described can then be compared against any other so-described; they are no longer incommensurable.
So, I am wondering if your case can be made without building in the long-term consequences upfront. At the moment, I don't see how. But perhaps I am missing something.
RE your first comment, there are two points. Suppose, first, that VPAs merely transmit value forward without being sensitive to its valence (good or bad). This is the worst-case scenario for my proposal. My thought was two part: (i) even in the worst-case scenario, the downstream consequences aren't merely causal but are filtered through human agency; (2) human agency even for non-altruists has an inherent bias against eventuating the absolutely worst consequences of our actions even if we just look narrowly at things like self-interest, nepotism, and the like. So, by and large, if EV(A) > EV(B) near term, value-persistence + bias provides some defeasible reason for thinking EV(A) > EV(B) long term. The magnitude of that effect will be susceptible to the cases. But this is why I suggested that there is a research program here: What can we do as actors to maximize these features so the bias is strongest?
But (second point) let me also note something that didn't come out in the paper. Consider the education case: If one thinks of education in a coarse-grained way (e.g., merely imparting information to people), then the consequences you mention are live alternatives. But if one thinks in a fine-grained manner about the nature of the education, then we have reason to think its value tends to be positive and that this positive value persists. In other words, education isn't simply value neutral. For example, explicitly educating about things like intellectual virtues (epistemic humility, non-dogmatism, etc) and rational biases (confirmation bias, recency effects, etc.) might themselves help ensure positive downstream value. How that plays out in other cases, isn't something I have thought through. But, again, that was why I suggested a research program here, using education as illustrative.
The second argument is aimed at how one articulates the rationality of belief-dependent action, which is what DiGiovanni's normative premise turns on. As stated, this is a really strong premise, implausibly strong (I think) if one were just articulating a principle of rational action per se (not altruistic rational action). So, the goal was, first, to try to charitably explain why the strong principle might be reasonable when restricting to "impartial, altruistic" action. The argument was then designed to show that neither the "impartial" or "altruistic" side of that restriction warrants the strong, normative principle. One can act as an impartial altruist in spite of cluelessness (i.e., without justifiably believing that "if we were idealized agents who could aggregate all of A’s and B’s possible consequences into literal EVs, then we’d say A has higher EV"). I don't think that argument presupposes that P2a is false (Against precise EVs: We shouldn’t represent actions’ degrees of c-preferability with literal precise expected values). But it can be construed as an argument that impartial altruism doesn't require precise long-term EVs, even if (we can grant) it requires precise short term (reachable) EVs.
Pretty clearly not. DiGiovanni's argument requires that I not be able to justify a belief that an idealized evaluator would preserve EV(A)>EV(B) long term, given EV(A) > EV(B) short term. Justification is not a remarkably high bar and is certainly not truth-entailing (and on internalist readings needn't even be truth-tracking). My response here was to make three moves: (i) move from arbitrary cases to specific ones (ii) argue that some specific kinds of actions might be value-preserving, and (iii) note that downstream effects of actions are not symmetrical wrt catastrophic vs. non-catastrophic consequences.
(i) is motivated by what seems like a natural assumption (in fact, one you build into your own discussion) -- different action-types have different causal profiles. Consequently, universally quantifying in DiGiovanni's argument over action types actually hides a lot of information that we, in fact, possess. So, we should look at specific action types in order to see if anything about those causal profiles helps to justify non-inversion.
This takes us to (ii). In its weakest form, (ii) merely says that some action types might have the following property: They tend to propagate (at least short term) whatever value they initially have. This is what I called value persistence, and I called these value-persistent actions (VPAs). Value persistence is not merely the result of seeing if, in fact, actions of type A tend to preserve value (near term). We can also consider the nature of those actions to determine if such actions have structural properties (iteration, portability, etc.) that rationally explain it's value-persistent character. If the value-persistence is structural in this way for some action types, then we have reason to believe that whatever value the initial action has will be preserved downstream. In the case of property like iteration, the argument is a bit like mathematical induction: Show that (if A has F, then the successor of A has F). And then show the base case. In any such case, if we can then show that the initial action has good consequences, we have some reason in favor of non-reversal. (I concede that I don't know if this is enough for full justification.)
In my previous response, I noted that some cases -- like some kinds of educational actions -- might not be just VPAs, but might actually be inherently positively valenced. In my own area (philosophy), I tend to think educating students about things like epistemic humility, cognitive bias, the virtues of rational disagreement, etc., might be specific kinds of educational acts that have this feature. If so, then some VPAs are not merely value-persistent, but get the "first step" of the induction built-in (and that iterates).
Finally, (iii). I noted that the causal consequences of many of our actions don't merely play out causally but are selectively filtered through the downstream agency of other actors. Even if we assume human nature is pretty terrible, I noted that even very bad actors do have self-interested or nepotistic reasons for avoiding the worst downstream consequences. Not all, of course. But if we aggregate even weak self-preservation and nepotistic reasons, we have further reason to think that people will act to avoid the most catastrophic downstream effects. This would be a very weak effect, but it again puts pressure in the direction that says VPAs support non-inversion.
Taken together, these ideas provide a template that might make it rational for us to accept non-inversion for at least some action types, implemented in certain ways. And if that is so, then DiGiovanni's premise 2 fails as a universal claim. But the intention was that this is more than just an effort to give a counterexample to that claim. It was an effort to provide a kind of general explanatory framework for how one might develop actions that we have reason to believe support non-inversion.
Perhaps. But the case is considerably less tight here. It works, to the extent it does, because we think this is plausibly a case where we have a grip on long-term EV (though, maybe we don't). And, if that is what is doing the work, then it seems like there is a reason for thinking that the problem is more closely tied to "promoting the total good" because this is what makes course awareness of total consequences in real world conditions likely.
Just a thought.
I've been thinking a bit on this reasoning. You write: "consider, e.g., an unrealistic scenario where you could press a button with guaranteed overall catastrophic consequences or one that would get the universe rid of all unwanted suffering forever while keeping everything else equal." I agree that those seem like clear cases, but they are also cases in which the action is specified in terms of its causal consequences. This confounds the discussion a bit because it gives you the long-term value of the act upfront. For instance, consider if you took the case to be "push the button that reads ' guaranteed overall catastrophic consequences'", but didn't assume that the label was veridical. Now the case falls apart. So, the cases seem like they are being driven, not by the fact that they are realistic or unrealistic, but by the fact that they specify the long-term causal consequences. And any action so-described can then be compared against any other so-described; they are no longer incommensurable.
So, I am wondering if your case can be made without building in the long-term consequences upfront. At the moment, I don't see how. But perhaps I am missing something.
Hey Jim, Thanks for the comment.
RE your first comment, there are two points. Suppose, first, that VPAs merely transmit value forward without being sensitive to its valence (good or bad). This is the worst-case scenario for my proposal. My thought was two part: (i) even in the worst-case scenario, the downstream consequences aren't merely causal but are filtered through human agency; (2) human agency even for non-altruists has an inherent bias against eventuating the absolutely worst consequences of our actions even if we just look narrowly at things like self-interest, nepotism, and the like. So, by and large, if EV(A) > EV(B) near term, value-persistence + bias provides some defeasible reason for thinking EV(A) > EV(B) long term. The magnitude of that effect will be susceptible to the cases. But this is why I suggested that there is a research program here: What can we do as actors to maximize these features so the bias is strongest?
But (second point) let me also note something that didn't come out in the paper. Consider the education case: If one thinks of education in a coarse-grained way (e.g., merely imparting information to people), then the consequences you mention are live alternatives. But if one thinks in a fine-grained manner about the nature of the education, then we have reason to think its value tends to be positive and that this positive value persists. In other words, education isn't simply value neutral. For example, explicitly educating about things like intellectual virtues (epistemic humility, non-dogmatism, etc) and rational biases (confirmation bias, recency effects, etc.) might themselves help ensure positive downstream value. How that plays out in other cases, isn't something I have thought through. But, again, that was why I suggested a research program here, using education as illustrative.
The second argument is aimed at how one articulates the rationality of belief-dependent action, which is what DiGiovanni's normative premise turns on. As stated, this is a really strong premise, implausibly strong (I think) if one were just articulating a principle of rational action per se (not altruistic rational action). So, the goal was, first, to try to charitably explain why the strong principle might be reasonable when restricting to "impartial, altruistic" action. The argument was then designed to show that neither the "impartial" or "altruistic" side of that restriction warrants the strong, normative principle. One can act as an impartial altruist in spite of cluelessness (i.e., without justifiably believing that "if we were idealized agents who could aggregate all of A’s and B’s possible consequences into literal EVs, then we’d say A has higher EV"). I don't think that argument presupposes that P2a is false (Against precise EVs: We shouldn’t represent actions’ degrees of c-preferability with literal precise expected values). But it can be construed as an argument that impartial altruism doesn't require precise long-term EVs, even if (we can grant) it requires precise short term (reachable) EVs.
Hope that helps clarify!