Bentham's Mugging (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#71

Post by roenxi » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 8:17 PM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #22

roenxi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is that the counterargument is contrived to the point where it is stupid. This article isn't identifying a problem in theory or practice. In theory a utilitarian is likely comfortable with the in-principle idea that they might need to sacrifice themselves for a greater good. Pointing that out isn't a counterargument against utilitarianism. In practice, no utilitarian would fall for something this dum…

> In practice, no utilitarian would fall for something this dumb. This is the penultimate conclusion of the dialogue as well, that even Bentham would need to admit so many post-hoc deviations from the general rules of Utilitarianism that it ends up being a form of deontology instead. The primary takeaway is then that Utilitarianism works as a rule-of-thumb, but not as an underlying fundamental truth.

No it isn't, the dialog is strawmaning and claims that Bentham would have to abandon utilitarianism.

I'm claiming that the initial scenario where Bentham caves is reasonable, but in practice will never occur. A utilitarian could reasonably believe Bentham's response was correct (I mean, seriously, would you look at someone and refuse to spend $10 to save their finger? You'd be a monster. As the article points out, we're talking literally 1 person). There is no theoretical problem in that scenario. Bentham has maximised utility based on the scenario presented. It was a scenario designed where the clear-cut utility maximisation choice was to sacrifice $10.

The issue is this scenario is an insane hypothetical that cannot occur in practice. There are no deontologists that strict and there are no choices that binary. So we can conclude in alternate universes that we do not inhabit utilitarianism would not work because these muggers would end up with all the money. Alright. Case closed. Not a practical problem. The first act plays out then the article should end with the conclusion concludes "if that could happen then utilitarianism would have a problem. But it can't so oh well. Turns out utilitarianism is a philosophy that works out really equitably in this universe!"

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#72

Post by tylerhou » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 8:18 PM UTC

Micaiah_Chang wrote: post #69

tylerhou wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if Bentham becomes an agent that goes for C, he also explicitly discourages the mugger How is this different from saying that if Bentham decides to not adhere to utilitarianism, he is no longer vulnerable to such a mugging? If Bentham always responds C, even when actually confronted with such a scenario (the mugger was not deterred by Bentham's claim), then Bentham is not a utilitarianist. In other words, the GP is…

My wording is wrong, because it sounds like I'm saying that Bentham is adopting the policy ad hoc. A better way to state this is that Bentham starts out as an agent that does not give into brinksmanship type games, because a world where brinksmanship type games exist is a substantially worse world than ones where they don't (because net-negative situations will end up happening, it takes effort to set up brinksmanshi…

> It's different because by adopting C, Bentham prevents the mugger from mugging, which is a better world than one where the mugger goes on mugging.

This assumption is wrong. You are assuming that the mugger is also a utilitiarian, so will do cost-benefit analysis, and thus decide not to mug. But that is not necessarily true.

If the mugger mugs anyway, despite mugging being "suboptimal," Bentham ends up in a situation where he has exactly the same choice: either lose $10, or have the mugger cut off their own finger. If Bentham is to follow (act-)utilitarianism precisely, he must pay the mugger $10. (Act-)utilitarianism says that the only thing that matters is the utility of the outcome of your action. It does not matter that Bentham previously committed to not paying the mugger; the fact is, after the mugger "threatens" Bentham, if Bentham does not pay the mugger, total utility is less than if he does pay. So Bentham must break his promise, despite "committing" not to. (Assuming this is some one-off instance and not some kind of iterated game; iteration makes things more complicated.)

(In fact, this specific objection -- that utilitarianism requires people to "give up" their commitments -- is at the foundation of another critique of utilitarianism by Williams: https://123philosophy.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/bernard-wi...)

If everyone were a utilitarian, then there would be far fewer objections to utilitarianism. (E.g. instead asking people in wealthy countries to donate 90% of their income to charity, we could probably get away with ~5-10%.) Bentham's mugging is a specific objection to utilitarianism that shows how utilitarians are vulnerable to manipulation by people who do not subscribe to utilitarianism.

Also, to be precise, Bentham's mugging does not show a contradiction. It's showing an unintuitive consequence of utilitarianism. That's not the same thing as a contradiction. (If you want to see a contradiction, Stocker has a different critique: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2025782.)

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#73

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 8:45 PM UTC

ameliaquining wrote: post #17

The problem here isn't with the main character's moral philosophy, but with his decision theory. He'd be dealing with exactly the same predicament if the mugger were threatening to harm him . The solution is indeed "don't give in to muggers", but it's possible to define this in a workable way. Suppose the mugger can choose between A (don't try to mug Bentham) or forcing Bentham to choose between B (give in) or C (don…

[deleted]

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#74

Post by erostrate » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 8:51 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #66

erostrate wrote: post #65

I used to be a utilitarian, but it made me morally repulsive, which pushed my friends away from utilitarianism. I had to stop since this had negative utility. More seriously, any moral theory that strives too much for abstract purity will be vulnerable to adversarial inputs. A blunt and basic theory (common sense) is sufficient to cover all practical situations and will prevent you from looking very dumb by endorsing…

I'm not sure that SBF being a crook shows that effective altruism failed.

One main idea of EA is that you should make a lot of money in order to give it away. The obvious problem is that this can serve as a convenient moral justification for greed. SBF explicitly endorsed EA, Will MacAskill vouched for him, and I understand he was widely admired in EA circles. And he turned out to be the perfect incarnation of this problem, admitting himself he just used EA as a thin veil.

What would you count as evidence that effective altruism fails?

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#75

Post by robertlagrant » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:04 PM UTC

thecyborganizer wrote: post #42

jefftk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why the utilitarian should trust a mugger's promises of secrecy or non-replicability though?

The mugger is a deontologist, right? We're already assuming that he'll keep his promises.

I mean, he's a mugger. Clearly doesn't take his deontology too seriously.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#76

Post by mminer237 » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

throwaway101223 wrote: post #27

> Here's the thing: there is, clearly, more utility in me keeping my finger than in you keeping your measly ten pounds. How is this clear? This is one of the things I find strange about academic philosophy. For all the claims about trying to get at a more rigorous understanding of knowledge, the foundation at the end of the day seems to just be human intuition. You read about something like the Chinese Room or Mary’s…

If I offered to pay £10 for each fresh human finger brought to me, what moral system would say the right thing to do is cut off as many fingers as possible‽ Would you sell your own fingers for £10 each? I think it's very fair to say that any person ever would value their own fingers more than £10.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#77

Post by schoen » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:16 PM UTC

robertlagrant wrote: post #75

thecyborganizer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mugger is a deontologist, right? We're already assuming that he'll keep his promises.

I mean, he's a mugger. Clearly doesn't take his deontology too seriously.

But notably not threatening or committing violence toward anyone else!

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#78

Post by schoen » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #59

dragonwriter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It requires a total ordering and an aggregation function (and to be useful in the real world rather than purely abstract, a reliable and predictive measuring mechanism, but that's a different issue.) I’m pretty sure (intuitively, haven’t considered a formal argument) if both exist, then there is a representation where utilities can be represented as (a subset of) the reals.

> It requires a total ordering and an aggregation function Yes. And note that this is true even for just a single person's utilities, i.e., without even getting into the issues of interpersonal comparison. For example, a single person, just to compute their own overall utility (never mind taking into account other people's), has to be able to aggregate their utilities for different things. > if both exist, then there…

Can you explain the "for any reasonable treatment" part here? How is the least upper bound property (or something equivalent to it) getting used in quantitative ethical theories?

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#79

Post by schoen » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #31

alphazard wrote: post #29

The most pressing problem facing utilitarians has never been choosing between principled vs. consequentialist utilitarianism. It's how to take a vector of utilities, and turn it into a single utility. What function do I use? Do I sum them, is it the mean, how about root-mean-squared? Why does your chosen function make more sense than the other options? Can I perform arithmetic on utilities from two different agents,…

> What function do I use? Traditionally you use sum, which gets you total utilitarianism. Some have advocated avg which gets you average utilitarianism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_and_total_utilitariani... > root-mean-squared Why? > Can I perform arithmetic on utilities from two different agents? This is called "interpersonal utility comparison", and there's a ton of literature on it. Traditionally utilita…

I think the people you're responding to are taking the modus ponens for your modus tollens, saying that interpersonal utility comparisons are not obviously possible or meaningful, and so aggregating utilities across persons is also not obviously possible or meaningful.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#80

Post by jfengel » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 9:28 PM UTC

ertgbnm wrote: post #26

The underlying assumption is that Bentham is a true act utilitarian yet simultaneously has 10 pounds in his pocket that he can stand to lose without much harm. If he truly were an act utilitarian, the utility of the 10 pounds remaining in Bentham's possession must be so high that it outweighs the mugger losing their finger, otherwise Bentham would have already spent it on something similarly utility maximizing. Clear…

It's for this reason that I find all forms of Utilitarian less edifying than I would hope. They can put intuitively moral choices on a clear, explicit footing, but they produce counterintuitive results in less clear cases. Those less clear cases are precisely what you'd want a Utilitarian system to solve, since you don't really need to make much effort to justify clear cases.

They tend to look best on the moral equivalent of PowerPoint slides. But if you look beyond toy examples, nearly everything is too complex to believe that you've really formed a decent model of the situation. Without that model you're stuck where you were without the Utilitarian principles.

It's fun to argue about but I don't think it makes for a pragmatic moral system. And it's easily subverted by people claiming to present a moral case that is in fact incomplete, leading to abhorrent conclusions that they feel rigorously bound by.