(That's a little joke referring to the other Peter Singer).

that was the most rapid fire, chock-full vlog i've seen yet. so...utilitarian. Actually, it's really great to really see how someone like Singer thinks and processes and works through problems that are presented to him. Also, how willing this Princeton professor is to take seriously a thought experiment that involves his genetically altered progeny giving away their progeny in order to increase utility

That was a very entertaining vlog.

Agree with the above -- this was entertaining. Perhaps the most clear lesson obtained was the exposure of the limits of insisting that one is any sort is -ian or believes in any sort of -ism. It's hard to say whether Tyler was just playing a role (and maybe even for this very purpose), but I could not help but think that by the end, Peter was feeling the same sort of welling impatience one feels when talking to a four-year-old who keeps asking, "But why?" [Added] Another good lesson from this diavlog may be: beware of people who try to apply too much of what they've gleaned from reading science fiction to the real world. Some of Tyler's hypothetical questions were sort of fun to contemplate, in a middle-of-the-bongathon way, but really, lurking underneath was the implicit statement, "This could actually work, if only people were much different from the way that they actually are."

Peter Singer is terrifying.

Quoting sugarkang: Peter Singer is terrifying.

What makes you say that?

Peter mentioned a couple of sites not linked in the sidebar. One is GIVEWELL.net, and the other was something like Teva or Tiva. Perhaps someone else can provide the link. This was a great conversation and although I disagree with Tyler on quite a few points, I thought he conducted a terrific interview, asking great questions as only a very intelligent reader of Singer could do. I'm delighted that both these guys are at major universities, raising very thought-provoking questions for that hypothetical 18-year-old they mentioned.

By the way it's Kiva.org and its pretty effective apparently: http://www.kiva.org/

But Tyler is using the occasion to rather 'bait' Peter Singer with a series of questions to which The Great Singer must respond impromptu. I know it would take a little self-denial from Tyler, but it would have been better to have more discussion of the book at hand.

Interesting take on how charitable some politicians are when it's their own money they are giving away. Also the NYTimes on Obama's charitable donations: "The Obamas’ returns are striking on a number of levels. They show that the couple made very few charitable contributions, sometimes less than 1 percent of taxable income, until Mr. Obama began his run for the White House. " I certainly wouldnt blame Obama's or Biden's lack of compassion on genetics.

The main thing I got of this diavlog is that Tyler should have wrote The Life You Save.

I second Wonderment's praise of Tyler's interviewing skills. He is smart and forceful but not at the expense of mischaracterizing his partner's viewpoint. I am more motivated to read about Singer's preference utilitarianism after this interview.

the gist of the discussion tyler: if you make bunch of ridiculous assumptions that have no relationship to reality, wouldn't you have to agree with "X", "X" being something that sounds ridiculous. Peter: given all those stupid assumptions, umm yes.
Tyler needs a good smack up side the head for that interview.

Great interview by Tyler. I didn't find Singer that impressive. I found it very telling that he didn't think it necessary for us to get richer as a country, except to get back to where we were a year ago. My god, what ignorance! It would have been great if Tyler had had the time to get deeper into the problems with utilitarianism with Singer. Considering that institutional problems are the biggest cause of poverty, I am a little surprised that Singer doesn't focus more on that issue. I wonder if there are creative ways of conditioning aid or more UN level interventions in the governance of a country that would reform govt behavio. It would be nice to put more thought into that issue rather than just throw up our hands when there is another coup or kleptocracy that destroys the gains made by citizens. It would also be interesting to have a utilitarian analysis of whether making ourselves richer and having free trade has a better impact on world poverty than giving away money to poor people. If we had had an alternative universe where

Quoting bjkeefe: beware of people who try to apply too much of what they've gleaned from reading science fiction to the real world. Some of Tyler's hypothetical questions were sort of fun to contemplate, in a middle-of-the-bongathon way, but really, lurking underneath was the implicit statement, "This could actually work, if only people were much different from the way that they actually are."

Science fictionish hypotheticals are a pretty standard feature of analytic philosophy. I'm sure Singer is used to it.

Quoting Blackadder: Science fictionish hypotheticals are a pretty standard feature of analytic philosophy. I'm sure Singer is used to it.

Learn something new every day. Thanks.

I hereby sentence Peter Singer to 30 days of hard reading of the Wall Street Journal editoral page!!! http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/184...7:18&out=07:25

Quoting Blackadder: Science fictionish hypotheticals are a pretty standard feature of analytic philosophy. I'm sure Singer is used to it.

He is used to it.... because utilitarianism is itself science fiction. No matter how often philosophers (analytic or other) demolish the arguments for utilitarianism, no matter how often utilitarians modify the original doctrine to make it more palatable or less paradoxical, it always springs back to life, eternally youthful and bizarrely beautiful, like some extraterrestrial being just visiting our planet for the fun of mocking its inhabitants. Still I enjoyed the dialogue.

This Diavlog was excellent. The rapid series of questions from Tyler was an outstanding method of drawing out many of the premises underlying Singer's conclusions. A key part of this was Tyler's willingness to move on, when further discussion of a prior question would not have been as informative as posing a new question. I thought the questions were challenging, but certainly respectful and I wish more journalists would take this approach to interviews!

Quoting Francoamerican: He is used to it.... because utilitarianism is itself science fiction. No matter how often philosophers (analytic or other) demolish the arguments for utilitarianism, no matter how often utilitarians modify the original doctrine to make it more palatable or less paradoxical, it always springs back to life, eternally youthful and bizarrely beautiful, like some extraterrestrial being just visiting our planet for the fun of mocking its inhabitants.

Still I enjoyed the dialogue.

These are pretty much my feelings as well. People like their parsimony, I guess! I enjoyed the diavlog, though every so often Cowen bugged me with the way he pushed for a kind of 'gotcha' answer, like in the line of questioning about cutting taxes for the rich.

Thanks for the link. They also referenced Collier's great book "The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It" and again no sidebar link.

The reason this diavlog is so good is because neither participant is arguing in bad faith. Most of the political diavlogers tend to - as they're defending their partisan position it's not surprising, but it does become rather tedious. I'd suggest getting Tyler Cowen on more often - he's pretty funny, and always enjoyable.

Here's another work that I wish had been brought into the discussion of extreme utilitarianism and world poverty. Peter Unger argues that we should basically give away all our money, not just 1 - 10% to combat starvation and curable childhood diseases.

Quoting pampl: These are pretty much my feelings as well. People like their parsimony, I guess!

I'm a little confused about that word. It was my understanding the parsimony is similar to the use of Occam's Razor. "Parsimony is the use of logic to choose a hypothesis that would not change previously known rules." Which I consider to be a positive thing. The dictionary also says parsimony is "the act of being stingy." Which way were you using it, and what does this have to do with science fiction? -TB

"Cool" (for a lack of the better word) diavlog. This is an important subject that deserves more attention, and I commend Peter Singer for publicizing it. Interesting to see Prof. Singer hedging a bit on his usually relentless application of utilarianism. (Taken to nearly grotesque - if not parodical - levels in Animal Liberation.) His response to T. Cowen's question regarding Singer's hypothetical grandaughter vs. 10 Haitan children was an example of this; Prof. Singer's answer was weak and unsatisfactory. Regardless, I'm a great admirer of him, and I thank both participants of this diavlog.

Here Peter Singer answers a hard question, saying a life of charity is better lived by becoming filthy rich, then doing good works. I teach at a school here in New York sometimes, and when I ask 18-year-olds what they want to do with themselves, I am shocked by how often I get this response: I want to make loads of money so I can do good things with it. I believe that response is self-serving 100% of the time I hear it. Sure, you want to do good things, but really what you want is to be rich and powerful. It's acceptable justification to give if you're an overachieving, insecure 18-year-old, and they know that. That doesn't mean it's wrong. My response is always to laugh and say sure, sure, and then be supportive. I just think kids need to hear something else than this utilitarian argument. I think in 100 years people will make fun of us because we said things like that. I know Peter isn't defending that, though. That's why he wanted us to cover our ears when he said it. You should have resisted, Peter.

To Tyler's question with respect to the benefits of colonialism and whether or not a utilitarian has to argue that colonialism was good: Utilitarianism always has a horizon problem. In terms of numbers of lives saved up to this point, is it likely that that African nations would have suffered less under colonial powers? Probably. But that doesn't mean the answer to Tyler's question is a simple 'yes.' For one thing there is, as in every utilitarian question, no way to tell what the future will bring or what the very long term effects of colonialism might have been. Additionally - Tyler assumes that the correct utilitarian metric is number of lives saved... many utilitarians would, I think, pick a more complex metric.

Not to rain on Peter's parade, but the reason people don't feel the same urgency to help a dieing child across the globe as they do a child in a pond is because the responsibility for taking action rests differently in each scenario. In the case of the drowning child in a pond, when you're the only witness the obligation falls squarely on you. Whereas the dieing children in the Indian slums exert an onus that is collectively born by society and thereby diluted on an individual level.

Glaurunge, excuse me for saying this, but as far as I can tell you are an internet nobody like myself. Nevertheless, you were able to effectively refute the basis of Singer's newest book (and indeed the basis of many of his past books) in three simple sentences. Thank you for your service.

Not to get all hedonist on ya'll, but an important element of happiness is counting your blessings. This diavlog is one of them. Keep up the good work.

This is the second Tyler Cowen diavlog I've watched. Why does he talk like a reading primer?

Glaurange does make a point, but I think it is not the refutation you declare it to be. There is nothing about the analogy that requires one to be a sole witness to a situation for that situation to motivate one to act. It seems unlikely, to me at least, that given ten people or whatever number you like seeing a drowning child that they would all sit around and do nothing because they decide that their moral responsibility is lessened by a factor of 1/N where N is the number of observers. Their emotional response would cause them to act. I will spot you the Kitty Genovese counter example and attempt to get to my point. I would posit that the difference between the situations Singer describes is that one actually observes the first case and has an immediate emotional reaction to it and feels morally impelled to act, while we are all aware of the other but are less impacted emotionally since it occurs far away and we do not have to personally witness the suffering. The morality we act upon tends to

Quoting thornybranch: I'm a little confused about that word. It was my understanding the parsimony is similar to the use of Occam's Razor. "Parsimony is the use of logic to choose a hypothesis that would not change previously known rules." Which I consider to be a positive thing. The dictionary also says parsimony is "the act of being stingy." Which way were you using it, and what does this have to do with science fiction?

The first way, but maybe my understanding of parsimony is different from that definition: that it's the simplest explanation that doesn't contradict the evidence. I was kidding, though, because utilitarianism (like other proposed moral codes) is supposed to sometimes contradict what we think is right. Otherwise it's not really doing any work. Utilitarianism does it so often and to such a high degree that it stops bearing any resemblance to reality for many people, though. I think Cowen's ant hive comparison was pretty apt. Glaurunge: that's the psychology of it. Singer isn't trying to understand the psychology but instead persuade his audience that all of us bear a responsibility for helping each other. He knows how and presumably why people feel

Not to rain on Peter's parade, but the reason people don't feel the same urgency to help a dieing child across the globe as they do a child in a pond is because the responsibility for taking action rests differently in each scenario. In the case of the drowning child in a pond, when you're the only witness the obligation falls squarely on you. Whereas the dieing children in the Indian slums exert an onus that is collectively born by society and thereby diluted on an individual level.

Of course, Singer realizes that people don't PERCEIVE the responsibility as being the same (i.e., individual), but that's his whole point: it is the same, appearances notwithstanding. If you fail to contribute your 100 bucks (the price of the pair of shoes), a child will die. You don't need to have a photograph of this child or her date of death for that to be true. It's demonstrably true. Oxfam and similar agencies can prove it. For the argument to be effective, all Singer and others have to do is demonstrate that a) the $100 would actually save a life and b) that all

Quoting pampl: I enjoyed the diavlog, though every so often Cowen bugged me with the way he pushed for a kind of 'gotcha' answer, like in the line of questioning about cutting taxes for the rich.

I think what you call "gotcha" questioning is what I meant by this diavlog showing the limits of saying one is any sort of -ian; i.e., it seems that no matter how skillfully one puts one's beliefs in terms of an announced belief system, a literal enough questioner can make the adherent either sound or feel ridiculous. Sounded to me like Peter is a good man and does good work, and (apologies for the cliché) has his heart exactly in the right place. I couldn't tell from this diavlog whether it was unfair to grill him under the assumption that all of his views must consistently flow from being a utilitarian or whether he, elsewhere, too often makes his pitches in these terms, and so it was therefore worth challenging that.

The interview only really gets going at minute 24. Prior to that Cowen asks Singer about implementing his moral scheme, which is the kind of question to ask economists, political scientists, or sociologists. After that he moves onto probing the premises of Singer's moral view. These are the right kind of questions to ask a philosopher such as Singer, and where he can shed most light. On how to implement these go talk to someone at the World Bank.

Quoting Wonderment: Of course, Singer realizes that people don't PERCEIVE the responsibility as being the same (i.e., individual), but that's his whole point: it is the same, appearances notwithstanding.

If you fail to contribute your 100 bucks (the price of the pair of shoes), a child will die. You don't need to have a photograph of this child or her date of death for that to be true. It's demonstrably true. Oxfam and similar agencies can prove it.

For the argument to be effective, all Singer and others have to do is demonstrate that a) the $100 would actually save a life and b) that all arguments to the contrary are rationalizations (i.e., Oh, that agency will just spend my check on advertising or an administrative salary).

Wonderment, The two cases are the same only if you evaluate them from an exclusively utilitarian perspective. And human morality is not simply an exercise in utility maximization. To illustrate, consider the following examples: 1)You are at a train track and see five people tied to the track ahead. A switch is in front of you which will divert the train, but as you look down you see a man is strapped to

Quoting osmium: Here Peter Singer answers a hard question, saying a life of charity is better lived by becoming filthy rich, then doing good works.

I teach at a school here in New York sometimes, and when I ask 18-year-olds what they want to do with themselves, I am shocked by how often I get this response: I want to make loads of money so I can do good things with it.

I believe that response is self-serving 100% of the time I hear it. Sure, you want to do good things, but really what you want is to be rich and powerful. It's acceptable justification to give if you're an overachieving, insecure 18-year-old, and they know that.

I don't doubt that you're right about a lot of this or them, but there is at least one other factor at play, I think. It is often hard to give small amounts of charity, be it one's money or time, because it is usually hard to see an immediate benefit from that action. There is a desire to be able to make a big enough contribution at one time so that there will be an observable result. As with other activities, like, say, voting (which youth tend to

Imagine Tyler grilling politician the way he did Peter. The difference is I felt bad for Peter at times.

wtf do poor people keep having kids if they can't afford them and they live terrible lives of suffering?

When answering, most people demonstrate they are not mere utility maximizers by saying 'yes' to #1 and 'no' to #2.

That's okay. There's always room for discussing the differences between the situations, but the outcome of 1 life saved for 5 lives lost is a salient fact. It might not determine everything, but it counts for something. Ditto for the case of drowning child/expensive shoes vs. starving child/$100 donation to Oxfam.

Quoting Titstorm: wtf do poor people keep having kids if they can't afford them and they live terrible lives of suffering?

Well, one factor is the desire to partake in sexual intercourse is a base instinct that largely bypasses much of our higher thinking, combine that with them being too poor to afford proper contraceptives and you have a recipe for disaster. Another factor is that the high child mortality rates in alot of parts of the third world paradoxically drives population booms. Let's say you have a relationship with someone and you want to be sure you will have some offspring that survive, in a developed country you can have just one or two and can be reasonably assured that will happen, but in a third world country that is not the case, and you are probably better off having more then you can afford. Making sure you have at least one successful offspring is probably more important in the third world where you can't rely on the gov't to take care of you when you are older and must

Quoting Flaw: Imagine Tyler grilling politician the way he did Peter. The difference is I felt bad for Peter at times.

There is no reason to feel sorry for someone whose ideas are being critiqued honestly, honestly pointing out the flaws in someone's ideas is one of if not the best ways to distill a great idea from a merely good idea. See: Einstein and quantum mechanics, Philip Kelland and some of Fourier's thermodynamic work, Kamal Fara and Ibn-al-Haytham's optics work, etc.

and your example was developed to illustrate that our Moral values are governed by emotion, not governed by some "higher" morality that is explainable, or rational, or consistent. Peter Singer wants us to move from that type of morality to a type of morality that is "rational" (as far as i understand his objectives). so, if your point is that most people's moral intuitions are not the same as Peter Singer's philosophy, then you are correct. and that fact is probaly what motivates Mr. Singer to try and spread his philosophy.

That is one of the stupidest things (i almost put "thoughts" but that gives your statement far too much credit) i've ever seen anyone post on this board. please don't breed, regardless of your income, TS.

I think that's right. Singer was suggesting that if you don't accept sort brand of utilitarianism, you are left with what? Moral absolutes? Your own intuitions? Nihilism? Some philosophers DO argue well for other systems, but you can't simply say that extreme utilitarianism is unviable and then fail to provide some other way to arrive at moral decisions and behavior.

Quoting Wonderment: I think that's right. Singer was suggesting that if you don't accept sort brand of utilitarianism, you are left with what? Moral absolutes? Your own intuitions? Nihilism?

Some philosophers DO argue well for other systems, but you can't simply say that extreme utilitarianism is unviable and then fail to provide some other way to arrive at moral decisions and behavior.

People by default arrive at moral decisions and behavior. I reject as misguided the project to replace that morality with some codified system, so I'm not sure why I'd have to propose an alternative. I don't think there could be any adequate alternative!

Quoting pampl: I reject as misguided the project to replace that morality with some codified system, so I'm not sure why I'd have to propose an alternative. I don't think there could be any adequate alternative!

Hear, hear. I think systems can be a good starting point, but so far, every one I've ever heard about has unacceptable limitations, as Tyler handily, Socratically demonstrated with utilitarianism.

Quoting Flaw: Imagine Tyler grilling politician the way he did Peter. The difference is I felt bad for Peter at times.

Which is precisely why Tyler was the perfect person to call Peter out on his bullshit. His criticisms were intellectual rather than personal, and boy did Peter look uncomfortable. I won't go so far as to say that it looked like Peter bailed at the end, but it was an "abrupt" ending. Ooh. I just can't wait for someone like Peter to force me to sell my child in order to help five others. Seriously, keep your morals to yourself.

Quoting pampl: People by default arrive at moral decisions and behavior. I reject as misguided the project to replace that morality with some codified system, so I'm not sure why I'd have to propose an alternative. I don't think there could be any adequate alternative!

What's attractive about Utilitarianism, conceptually (at least to me) is that the act of creating some sort of rational standard by which the morality of an act can be measured implies a need, at one level, to examine what it means to for an action to be "moral," and at another level it provides a sieve - that is, a way judge the degree of caprice implicit in extant sets of moral beliefs; and so, by my lights, a way to judge them (or at least begin to do so.) Obviously, there are real issues with Utilitarian systems. But, my view is that it's a lot better to begin analytically, and try to find answers to some of the boundary issues that such systems leave open, than it is to inherit one of the (IMHO) wildly arbitrary, generally religiously based systems that seem to provide most of the viable alternatives.

People by default arrive at moral decisions and behavior.

Either "default" is arbitrary or it's based on some system or a mix of systems. If a decision is to be classified as "moral" it has to be based on something. To reject that is to claim something like "I speak fine, only I don't use grammar. I speak by default." Most people have not articulated the grammar of their language, but without grammatical rules you can't speak.

Quoting bjkeefe: Sounded to me like Peter is a good man and does good work, and (apologies for the cliché) has his heart exactly in the right place. I couldn't tell from this diavlog whether it was unfair to grill him under the assumption that all of his views must consistently flow from being a utilitarian or whether he, elsewhere, too often makes his pitches in these terms, and so it was therefore worth challenging that.

Utilitarians, historically, have done much to improve the world, in the sense that they have sought to relieve misery, or, as they prefer to put it, to increase happiness. Their hearts, however, are better than their heads. Because it has always been both a theory about morality and a plan of political action, utilitarianism has come under fire both from philosophers who believe the theory fallacious (or superficial) and from conservatives who object to utilitarian political goals. The two critiques may converge, but they are separate.

Quoting Wonderment: Either "default" is arbitrary or it's based on some system or a mix of systems.

If a decision is to be classified as "moral" it has to be based on something. To reject that is to claim something like "I speak fine, only I don't use grammar. I speak by default."

Most people have not articulated the grammar of their language, but without grammatical rules you can't speak.

"If a decision is to be classified as 'moral' it has to be based on something."
This is incorrect. "without grammatical rules you can't speak"
Disagree here too. Rules don't exist until we make them up. They're just mental constructs. Grammatical rules are made up to describe how a native speaker usually communicates. Moral codes are slightly different, they're partially descriptive and partially prescriptive, and part of their sales pitch is having a relatively accurate descriptive half. There's no structural difference between the prescriptions of utilitarianism and a sadistic anti-utilitarianism, the only difference is how closely they correspond to how people generally feel about causing pain and pleasure - how well they describe. The problem is that utilitarianism does such a bad job descriptively that to many (most, I think) people

Quoting pampl: "If a decision is to be classified as 'moral' it has to be based on something."
This is incorrect.

"without grammatical rules you can't speak"
Disagree here too.

Studying utilitarianism is moral philosophy, studying a 'natural' morality is psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. There's also the mutual exclusivity of morals

I agree with most of what you say. Obviously, one can speak a natural language without knowing its grammar (although "performance" will vary enormously according to upbringing, social milieu and intelligence), just as one can be moral without knowing anything about moral philosophy (although here too "performance" will vary enormously, as we all know only too well!) However, I don't think you can draw such an absolute distinction between moral philosophy and such disciplines as psychology, sociology and anthropology that study "natural" morality, or one of the many existing versions of natural morality, i.e. historically existing moralities. For one, none of these social sciences or, as they are sometimes called in France, "human sciences," has a scientific status...unless you happen to be a "positivist" in the tradition of Auguste Comte and think that the title of science can be bestowed by philosophical fiat. The problem, as many have pointed out in the past 150 years or so, is that

This was an excellent interview. Tyler did a nice job of pressing Singer on a number of issues. I wish he had pressed a little further on the matter of ethical intuition.
Utilitarians like Singer seem to imagine that they have found some royal road to ethical truth that doesn't pass through moral intuition. Yet utilitarianism is based on ethical intuitions as well. If Singer doesn't believe in moral intuition, then I think he should be challenged to reveal his demonstration of the truth of Act Utilitarianism from completely non-moral assumptions. Of course, he doesn't really claim to have such a demonstration. What he means is that he's suspicious of the intuitions that tend to cut against Act Utilitarianism. But there is nothing more "foundational" about the Act Utilitarian's intuitions, and utilitarians are just as much the product of evolution as rule utilitarians or Kantians. It's interesting that Tyler sees a tension between Singer's Act Utilitarianism and his sense of personal responsibility. This is a matter of how you look at it. Act Utilitarianism makes a radical division between the first person and third person points of

Quoting AemJeff: Obviously, there are real issues with Utilitarian systems. But, my view is that it's a lot better to begin analytically, and try to find answers to some of the boundary issues that such systems leave open, than it is to inherit one of the (IMHO) wildly arbitrary, generally religiously based systems that seem to provide most of the viable alternatives.

Utilitarians get a lot of mileage by pretending that these are our only two choices. By all means, let's be rational about morality, but utilitarianism is not the only rational alternative. The utilitarian models impartial moral choice on the choice of a single individual prioritizing his own preferences and making an individual choice. But this model is not the only one (though utilitarians would like us to think so). The contractarian tradition provides a different model for impartial, moral choice. Rawls (in his early work) for example, suggests we'd do better to think about it as a collective choice from behind a "veil of ignorance", which allows us to know all about the world, but not to know who we are within that world. This model is no less rational than

Noggin: A bunch of great points. I would like to have seen more discussion of Williams' points as well. Regarding the idea of fairness as a value to be maximized: Here's where I see Singer-style worries about intuition having bite. I agree that there's no way to ground Benthamite utilitarianism without intuition, either. But its austerity does help us resist the ad hoc influence of our contingent socialization. If we add "fairness" what's the halting principle? Why not every other single value our culturally conditioned intuition advises?

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Utilitarians get a lot of mileage by pretending that these are our only two choices. By all means, let's be rational about morality, but utilitarianism is not the only rational alternative. The utilitarian models impartial moral choice on the choice of a single individual prioritizing his own preferences and making an individual choice. But this model is not the only one (though utilitarians would like us to think so). The contractarian tradition provides a different model for impartial, moral choice. Rawls (in his early work) for example, suggests we'd do better to think about it as a collective choice from behind a "veil of ignorance", which allows us to know all about the world, but not to know who we are within that world. This model is no less rational than the utilitarian model. And Rawls suggests that it is actually superior, since it recognizes the "separateness of persons" -- the fact that if you take money from me in order to produce a greater benefit, it matters whether it is me or someone else who gets the greater benefit.

Also, we shouldn't confuse the fact that utilitarianism offers a

Rules don't exist until we make them up. They're just mental constructs. Grammatical rules are made up to describe how a native speaker usually communicates.

Grammars are not "made up." God didn't sit down and say, "I think we need a past perfect tense in English and it should be expressed with the past conjuntion of "have" and the participle. No human being did this either for any language except Esperanto (which you mention) and similar artificial language efforts. Grammar is an inherent feature of all human languages, just as morality is an inherent feature of all human societies. Both are rule-based. Both are hard-wired. Just as you can go into a previously unknown society and learn the grammar of the inhabitants language, you can also go into their society and decode their morality. You will discover things like how many verb tenses they have, how many noun genders; and you will discover why it is forbidden to eat cows or covet thy neighbor's spouse. You will also learn how to resolve ethical conflicts: If God tells me to sacrifice my only beloved son Isaac, should I do it, and if so why?

If

Quoting Will Wilkinson: Noggin: A bunch of great points. I would like to have seen more discussion of Williams' points as well.

Regarding the idea of fairness as a value to be maximized: Here's where I see Singer-style worries about intuition having bite. I agree that there's no way to ground Benthamite utilitarianism without intuition, either. But its austerity does help us resist the ad hoc influence of our contingent socialization. If we add "fairness" what's the halting principle? Why not every other single value our culturally conditioned intuition advises?

Hi Will,
Thanks for your reply. Nice to see you here in what Ann Althouse once described as "the sewers"! From a certain point of view, your argument above seems to have a good deal of bite.
But if you look at it my way, it's rather like somebody pointing out the problems with sense perception and concluding that he should rely only on sight from now on, because that will limit his exposure to sensory error. To my coherentist intuitions, that seems like exactly the wrong route. If sensory perception is fallible, you want to rely on as many different senses as possible (not only different modalities, but the sense

Quoting Wonderment: Grammars are not "made up." God didn't sit down and say, "I think we need a past perfect tense in English and it should be expressed with the past conjuntion of "have" and the participle. No human being did this either for any language except Esperanto (which you mention) and similar artificial language efforts.

Grammar is an inherent feature of all human languages, just as morality is an inherent feature of all human societies. Both are rule-based. Both are hard-wired.

Some human being actually did sit down and say "we'll call this thing in these circumstances a 'past perfect tense'" etc. Grammatical rules don't float out there in the metaphysical ether waiting for people to discover them, they're mental constructs that have only ever been made after the fact as a way of describing how people have been speaking. If you're saying that morality is an inherent feature, then you're directly contradicting your original point that there's no inherent morality to default to if you reject artificially constructed moral codes.

I don't think anyone seriously argues for the mass "adoption" of utilitarianism, as they might for conversion to a religion. It's

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: If sensory perception is fallible, you want to rely on as many different senses as possible (not only different modalities, but the sense perceptions of different people). You don't conclude that they are all correct, of course -- they are going to look contradictory. But the rational strategy is, not to throw up your hands at the "contradictions", but rather to exploit them in finding a deep explanation of them all. The mere biases will, one hopes, be weeded out by this process. It's possible that even this strategy won't work, but I don't see any other that is better or more rational -- certainly not the strategy of throwing out a whole lot of the evidence.
I don't want to press the analogy of moral intuition to sense perception too far. My point is that if you're going to have a moral point of view at all, you have to accept SOME moral intuition as evidence. To the degree that you dismiss all intuitions beyond your own favored intuition as mere cultural (or biological) bias, you're undermining your own reason for trusting your favored intuition. Any reason for rejecting the fairness intuition out

Quoting pampl: Some human being actually did sit down and say "we'll call this thing in these circumstances a 'past perfect tense'" etc. Grammatical rules don't float out there in the metaphysical ether waiting for people to discover them, they're mental constructs that have only ever been made after the fact as a way of describing how people have been speaking.
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Somebody decided to name a particular mode "past perfect." It seems pretty clear that most language elements must have evolved long before a general structure was analyzed and assigned a nomenclature.

Some human being actually did sit down and say "we'll call this thing in these circumstances a 'past perfect tense'" etc. Grammatical rules don't float out there in the metaphysical ether waiting for people to discover them, they're mental constructs that have only ever been made after the fact as a way of describing how people have been speaking.

No matter what people may say about their language, they can't talk without syntax (rule-governed) phonology (rule-governed) and semantics (rule-governed). The rules don't have to exist in the ether or be codified by human beings; they are inherent features of natural language.

If you're saying that morality is an inherent feature, then you're directly contradicting your original point that there's no inherent morality to default to if you reject artificially constructed moral codes.

No, what I'm saying is that there is no human society without moral sensibilities -- right and wrong, fair and unfair. Human beings will always explain (when pressed) WHY something is right or wrong. When that happens, you as an observer can classify that explanation as utilitarian or absolutist/authoritarian, nihilistic, hedonistic or whatever, just as you can classify any utterance in

Actually, Singer feels the same way as Unger, and announced as much in his famous 1971 article which, along with Judy Thomson's article on abortion, pretty much started what we nowadays think of as applied philosophy.

Quoting AemJeff: BN, I'm glad you've checked in. I am, I think, conflating "contractarianism" and utilitarianism on some level, and there's a lot to know about Rawls' "veil of ignorance" before I could possibly understand what that implies - but your main point is well taken. I don't really care if a particular ethical system flies the Utilitarian banner or not, I just care that there's a rational basis for the system. And I've generally thought of "Utilitarian" and "rational," in this sense, as interchangeable terms.

The conflation you mentioned at the end of your comment is an incredibly common one, probably thanks to economists. That said, I want to expand on one of BN's points, which is to show *how* Rawls's theory, though rational, leads to different results from utilitarianism. If you're choosing behind a veil of ignorance, that means you're choosing the principles society should operate with without knowing your race, religion, sexual orientation, income, wealth, or social standing. Indeed, you don't even know what kinds of things make you, in particular, happy (though you do know what makes people, and so you, happy in general). Now, the question to ask is: if you had to choose principles in such a condition--behind the veil of ignorance--what kind of principles would you choose? Well, says Rawls, if you're self-interested

Quoting Bobby G: ...
It's not obvious to me how to settle the debate between Rawls and Harsanyi, but if there's no obvious way to settle the debate, then you can't go around saying that utilitarianism is obviously the more rational position.

From where I sit, settling that debate isn't the most interesting goal. I don't care whether we can eventually agree that a particular system of morals is the correct one. (I don't really believe that that would be a good thing if it did occur.) I would like to see some agreement on the meta level - at the very least it would be useful to define a set of standards allowing some relatively universal basis for a standard on which to judge competing ethical systems. (Merely achieving rationality is, IMHO, necessary but not sufficient.) Thanks, BTW, for explaining the idea of the "veil of ignorance." That was helpful.

Quoting Flaw: Imagine Tyler grilling politician the way he did Peter. The difference is I felt bad for Peter at times.

That was the only major drawback in an otherwise interesting interview. Rather than a grilling, the image I have is someone undergoing a brain MRI.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I don't want to press the analogy of moral intuition to sense perception too far. My point is that if you're going to have a moral point of view at all, you have to accept SOME moral intuition as evidence. To the degree that you dismiss all intuitions beyond your own favored intuition as mere cultural (or biological) bias, you're undermining your own reason for trusting your favored intuition. Any reason for rejecting the fairness intuition out of hand (before confronting all the apparent contradictions) will be as good a reason for rejecting the welfare intuition out of hand too.

I have never understood what philosophers, especially in the Anglo-American tradition, mean by "moral intuition." Is it the infallible revelation of what is right? fair? beneficial? Or is it the wellspring of action, i.e. the motive for doing what is right, fair, beneficial? In other words, is it knowledge or inspiration? You say that moral intuitions grounded in culture or biology are ipso facto undermined. But then you say this:

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I like Neurath's anti-Cartesian image of us as sailors who must rebuild their ship while still at sea in the case of both science and morality. Singer's approach

I thought Tyler's style was over-the-top. It reminded one of a quiz show with a "lightning round." The difficulty is that philosophy is supposed to be the opposite kind of thing. I fully realize that Singer is someone who has thought through a number of things and therefore can be plausibly assumed to have settled positions. In principle, he can say, "Yes, I agree, that's consistent with my position. No, that's not what I said," and we can address 50 questions in an hour this way. The only thing I really care about here is whether Tyler was being disingenuous when he said how much he had learned from Singer. I have no idea whether the praise which preceded the next rapid-fire question was genuine or not. It was ironic that the ostensibly hard-headed Tyler wants to give money away to strangers with no strings attached on the grounds that by eliminating overhead he's doing more good than he would by going through an intermediary who does follow-ups. So there goes the entire insurance industry (perhaps not a bad thing, in light of recent events). Which brings us to this Harsanyi v. Rawls point. As soon

Quoting Francoamerican: I have never understood what philosophers, especially in the Anglo-American tradition, mean by "moral intuition." Is it the infallible revelation of what is right? fair? beneficial? Or is it the wellspring of action, i.e. the motive for doing what is right, fair, beneficial? In other words, is it knowledge or inspiration?

You say that moral intuitions grounded in culture or biology are ipso facto undermined. But then you say this:

While I agree that utilitarians like Singer are likely to drown, I wonder whether your ship will fare any better. Without the knowledge we can gain from culture and biology, or history and evolution, how do we continue to rebuild the ship? If I were the captain or the crew, I would certainly not want to rely on intuition.

I can understand your confusion on what we mean by "intuition" because the meaning has shifted about a great deal over the last century. The intuitionists did apparently regard "intuitions" as infallible perceptions of moral reality -- things that could play the role of Descartes' Cogito in a Cartesian-style reconstruction of moral knowledge. I don't think much of anyone uses the term this way any more. I think most philosophers use the term "moral intuition" to stand for something

Quoting pampl: To play devil's advocate, if one 'sense' is both much more compelling and much more commonly shared then others it would make sense to stick with it and toss the rest. If you hear a babbling brook and your neighbor hears a roaring lion but you both see the same thing, then it would make sense to only use vision when you're discussing the outside world. Maybe after a while you'd even feel compelled to toss it out in your private understanding of how things are. I don't think the utilitarian style empathy has the kind of primacy that sight does or is very universal, but those seem to me to be subjective judgments.

Hello pampl, I think your response is actually a case of what I'm talking about, not a counterexample. You are taking all the sensory data together and looking for the best explanation of the whole, not a priori throwing out everything but sight. For example if you and I see water in the desert, but are unable to feel it or slake our thirst with it, I don't suppose you would recommend we nevertheless believe

Nicely explained, Bobby! Thank you for the explication! Regarding Harsanyi, I see the overall issue as follows. Most of us agree that morality is essentially impartial. What does that mean? Well, the Golden Rule and admonitions to "walk a mile in the other man's moccasins" etc. give us a first approximation. Kant attempted an improvement with the categorical imperative -- one that can seem so abstract as to tell us nothing (though I disagree with this charge myself). The utilitarian tries a different approach -- the "ideal observer" as a kind of model. We have some grasp of individual choice and individual goods. How do we formulate a conception of social choice and social goods? The utilitarian suggests that we treat the latter on the model of the former: imagine a perfectly sympathetic observer who identifies equally with all people and has no interests of his own. From that background assumption, utilitarianism seems to "fall out" as the obviously rational solution. Yet Utilitarianism seems intuitively to be getting something wrong. Its justifications seem intuitively unsatisfying from a moral point of view. Suppose you are a slave. It's possible that the utilitarian can condemn your slavery, but it's also conceivable

Quoting AemJeff: BN, I'm glad you've checked in. I am, I think, conflating "contractarianism" and utilitarianism on some level, and there's a lot to know about Rawls' "veil of ignorance" before I could possibly understand what that implies - but your main point is well taken. I don't really care if a particular ethical system flies the Utilitarian banner or not, I just care that there's a rational basis for the system. And I've generally thought of "Utilitarian" and "rational," in this sense, as interchangeable terms.

Hi Jeff, I think using "utilitarianism" to mean "secular ethics" is extremely misleading, and will result in a lot of confusion -- especially in the context of a discussion of Singer, who regards any intrinsic concern for fairness (beyond considerations of decreasing marginal utility) as irrational. Consequentialists in general (those who think the aim of moral action is the best overall state of the universe) regard deontologists as irrational when the deontologists say they would not kill one innocent person in order to prevent someone else from killing two other innocent people. Did you mean to be taking sides in that debate?
If not, I'd suggest choosing some other term, like "secular ethics".

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: I think most philosophers use the term "moral intuition" to stand for something that makes no controversial claim for its epistemic status. It stands now (at least in my usage) for "spontaneous moral judgment" -- the kind of judgment we make immediately, without conscious deliberation, when presented either with a hypothetical or a real action or agent. They are those moral judgments that feel like moral perception -- you see something and you think "that's just wrong!" or "that's unfair." These reactions are definitely NOT infallible, but they do sometimes cut against what we've been taught to believe. (For example, in a book called "My Son Eric", Emily Borhek reports her reaction to meeting her son's new boyfriend. She was a fundamentalist at the time and firmly believed that homosexuality was wrong. Yet she found herself relieved that he'd found someone to look out for him besides her. This reaction and others were in obvious tension with her church's teachings. Working through these tensions gradually caused her to reject those teachings.).

Now I am even more confused. The example of a mother accepting her son's homosexuality and rejecting Christian teachings on the subject, may be

Quoting Francoamerican: Now I am even more confused. The example of a mother accepting her son's homosexuality and rejecting Christian teachings on the subject, may be the result of a "spontaneous moral judgment" or moral intuition, but it would be more accurate, I think, to see it as the mellow fruit of a particular civilisation (that of the modern west) in which toleration of homosexuality has gradually become the social norm and religious strictures on sex, unorthodox or not (Christianity used to have quite a few!), are no longer taken seriously by educated or even half-educated people. This toleration is itself the outcome of a long development that began in the 18th and 19th centuries with enlightened philosophes and utilitarian reformers like Jeremy Bentham (who was one of the first thinkers to advocate the decriminalization of homosexuality, though not publicly). Like Bentham we no longer condemn conduct if we think it does no harm to anyone else, but judge conduct permissible if it contributes to happiness--the greatest good of the greatest number. I might add that the motive you attribute to the mother (relief that there is someone else

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Hi Jeff,

I think using "utilitarianism" to mean "secular ethics" is extremely misleading, and will result in a lot of confusion -- especially in the context of a discussion of Singer, who regards any intrinsic concern for fairness (beyond considerations of decreasing marginal utility) as irrational. Consequentialists in general (those who think the aim of moral action is the best overall state of the universe) regard deontologists as irrational when the deontologists say they would not kill one innocent person in order to prevent someone else from killing two other innocent people. Did you mean to be taking sides in that debate?
If not, I'd suggest choosing some other term, like "secular ethics".

I wasn't, certainly, advertising a preference for one side or the other in that debate. If I were addressing your question directly, I think I'd say that duty strikes me as a relatively poor basis for an overall system of ethical judgment; and the world is, in my opinion, far too strange and random to assume that a priori judgments about consequences are going to be the best possible guide to right actions. Despite that, some hybrid of utilitarianism and a contractual approach is

Quoting pampl: Some human being actually did sit down and say "we'll call this thing in these circumstances a 'past perfect tense'" etc.

Names are mental constructs, and rules need not be named to exist, or even to be used. "Unspoken rules" are perhaps more common than named rules. I think that I agree with Wonderment, but it's hard to tell because the semantics are so hard to decipher here, using words like "needs to be", "rules" to describe rules, and using loose grammar to talk about "grammar rules", using "grammar" to infer what a system that infers "what needs to be." I think that it's most accurate to describe rules within language or morality as being emergent. (Neither inherent nor constructed) When talking about morals, not only are moral rules emergent, but morals themselves are a metaphysical conundrum. Meaning, to explain the foundation of morals, one would need to explain everything . Anyways, wasn't Wonderment's original point that Utilitarianism is a lens to view morality, instead of a rulebook to obey? -TB

One version of this conversation, and another version.

Quoting Bloggin' Noggin: Some culturally transmitted beliefs are true and believed ultimately because they are true. Others (e.g., the belief that cold causes colds) persist even though they aren't true. And individual thought and observation and experiment can gradually improve the picture of the world that our culture passes on. I would say the same about moral beliefs. I get the impression that you would not say the same, but I don't know why.

It is unfortunate that many English-speaking philosophers use the word "belief" to talk about both science and morality. While it is true that our beliefs about reality, our "picture" of the world, can improve (=reflect better what is) and that education then passes on these improved beliefs to the next generation, our beliefs about what is right and wrong, fair and unfair, beneficial and harmful, are inculcated rather than taught, "picture" nothing and evolve much more slowly than scientific beliefs. Moral philosophy, since the 17th century, has been struggling to articulate exactly how we should conceive of morality (as self-interest? as obedience to the law? as justice, as utility? as fairness?) and what motivates us to be moral, on the assumption that morality is something independent of religion (the Islamic world

All of this enlightening conversation about the attributes of the various moral philosophies is very interesting, but rather abstract. I'm curious as to who believes that there is a moral distinction between spending $200 on a nonessential pair of shoes versus donating that $200 to OXFAM, by way of which moral philosophy/theory (or some other route) do you make (or not make) such a distinction, and does (would) the existence of such a distinction imply an action and why?