I think giving literally zero weight to simplicity is crazy! Huemer has a good paper on this titled "When is parsimony a virtue." The basic idea is that because simpler theories have fewer manipulable parameters, if they're wrong, it's harder for them to explain data. If you can make up infinite rules, of course you'll be able to explain our intuitions, but if you have to stick to just a few, it's unlikely you could. Thus, simpler theories get a bigger boost from explaining data. I also think that you get simplicity being a virtue if you assume that reality isn't most ways it could be, which seems true. All else equal, you shouldn't posit extra particles that do nothing.
Other myths:
Morality is weird: why? I've never heard an explanation of this that isn't obviously question begging. And weird things exist sometimes--e.g. time, space, fields, numbers, sets, modality, and consciousness.
Utilitarians are in the grip of an attractive sounding theory: I think an idea that a lot of non-utilitairans have is that utilitarians find a nice-sounding theory and then dogmatically cling to it in spite of counterexamples. Now, perhaps some do. But when one really examines many of the counterexamples to utilitarianism--like the repugnant conclusion--it becomes really hard to deny them.
SIA says that views according to which there are more people are a priori more likely: No! It doesn't do that. It updates from the fact that I exist, not says they're more likely a priori.
Everything ever said by continental philosophers!
moral knowledge is uniquely strange: it's no stranger than modal, mathematical, or knowledge about various metaphysical facts.
There are no good arguments for hedonism about well-being: the lopsided lives argument is extremely convincing, and there are other arguments in the vicinity that I've written about.
This all looks interesting, but hard to understand. Two of my favorite documents of all time were Scott Alexander's Non-Libertarian and Consequentialism FAQs. Have things been written with similar clarity regarding some of these more esoteric subjects?
"Myth: Aren’t there decent philosophical grounds for denying that there’s anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives?
Reality: Nope. The arguments are all terrible. See here, for example. (But I should stress that substantively terrible arguments can still be philosophically interesting. Just think of Anselm’s ontological argument.)"
This seems like far too strong a claim to make with only one example defending it, and I think there are non-terrible arguments in or based on Frick's work (in a reply to this comment).
I'm also not saying you should show that every individual argument "for denying that there’s anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives" is terrible, but I think this would at least deserve broadly characterizing the types of common views/arguments and pointing out why they're terrible or pointing to writing elsewhere that together does so. I make an attempt to do that for arguments for "anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives" in a reply to this comment.
Utilitarianism might not *need to* devalue individuals, but I think it should. I don't see what's wrong with fungibility, in a way that doesn't sweep under the rug real-world indirect consequences for those with relationships to the "swapped" "individual". Persons seem to be complex aggregations of experiences, not vessels that contain experiences. And unless one accepts some odd belief in pre-existent souls, acceptance of every mundane neutral choice that partially determines which persons come into existence, looks like an acceptance of fungibility already.
You "give literally zero weight to simplicity per se"? I'd like to hear more about that. I wish more philosophers would talk about the (ideally formal) epistemology of moral theory-building, and the connections with phil of science, phil of concepts, and statistics.
[Whoops looks like Bentham's Bulldog wrote something similar below. Oh well.]
I think giving literally zero weight to simplicity is crazy! Huemer has a good paper on this titled "When is parsimony a virtue." The basic idea is that because simpler theories have fewer manipulable parameters, if they're wrong, it's harder for them to explain data. If you can make up infinite rules, of course you'll be able to explain our intuitions, but if you have to stick to just a few, it's unlikely you could. Thus, simpler theories get a bigger boost from explaining data. I also think that you get simplicity being a virtue if you assume that reality isn't most ways it could be, which seems true. All else equal, you shouldn't posit extra particles that do nothing.
Other myths:
Morality is weird: why? I've never heard an explanation of this that isn't obviously question begging. And weird things exist sometimes--e.g. time, space, fields, numbers, sets, modality, and consciousness.
Utilitarians are in the grip of an attractive sounding theory: I think an idea that a lot of non-utilitairans have is that utilitarians find a nice-sounding theory and then dogmatically cling to it in spite of counterexamples. Now, perhaps some do. But when one really examines many of the counterexamples to utilitarianism--like the repugnant conclusion--it becomes really hard to deny them.
SIA says that views according to which there are more people are a priori more likely: No! It doesn't do that. It updates from the fact that I exist, not says they're more likely a priori.
Everything ever said by continental philosophers!
moral knowledge is uniquely strange: it's no stranger than modal, mathematical, or knowledge about various metaphysical facts.
There are no good arguments for hedonism about well-being: the lopsided lives argument is extremely convincing, and there are other arguments in the vicinity that I've written about.
Caspar Hare didn't prove utilitarianism :P
This all looks interesting, but hard to understand. Two of my favorite documents of all time were Scott Alexander's Non-Libertarian and Consequentialism FAQs. Have things been written with similar clarity regarding some of these more esoteric subjects?
"Myth: Aren’t there decent philosophical grounds for denying that there’s anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives?
Reality: Nope. The arguments are all terrible. See here, for example. (But I should stress that substantively terrible arguments can still be philosophically interesting. Just think of Anselm’s ontological argument.)"
This seems like far too strong a claim to make with only one example defending it, and I think there are non-terrible arguments in or based on Frick's work (in a reply to this comment).
I'm also not saying you should show that every individual argument "for denying that there’s anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives" is terrible, but I think this would at least deserve broadly characterizing the types of common views/arguments and pointing out why they're terrible or pointing to writing elsewhere that together does so. I make an attempt to do that for arguments for "anything (non-instrumentally) good about creating future lives" in a reply to this comment.
How is linking to your own previous blog posts and your wife’s papers *conclusive* evidence for anything? The arrogance is staggering.
Utilitarianism might not *need to* devalue individuals, but I think it should. I don't see what's wrong with fungibility, in a way that doesn't sweep under the rug real-world indirect consequences for those with relationships to the "swapped" "individual". Persons seem to be complex aggregations of experiences, not vessels that contain experiences. And unless one accepts some odd belief in pre-existent souls, acceptance of every mundane neutral choice that partially determines which persons come into existence, looks like an acceptance of fungibility already.
You "give literally zero weight to simplicity per se"? I'd like to hear more about that. I wish more philosophers would talk about the (ideally formal) epistemology of moral theory-building, and the connections with phil of science, phil of concepts, and statistics.
[Whoops looks like Bentham's Bulldog wrote something similar below. Oh well.]