The Nonlinear Library EA - Varieties of minimalist moral views: Against absurd acts by Teo Ajantaival
Nov 7, 2023
27:32
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Varieties of minimalist moral views: Against absurd acts, published by Teo Ajantaival on November 7, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
(A standalone part of
Minimalist Axiologies: Alternatives to 'Good Minus Bad' Views of Value
.)
1. Introduction
What are minimalist views?
Minimalist views of value (axiologies) are evaluative views that define betterness solely in terms of the absence or reduction of independent bads. For instance, they might roughly say, "the less suffering, violence, and violation, the better". They reject the idea of weighing independent goods against these bads, as they deny that independent goods exist in the first place.
Minimalist moral views are views about how to act and be that include a minimalist view of value, instead of an
offsetting ('good minus bad') view of value. They reject the concept of independently positive moral value, such as positive virtue or pleasure that could independently counterbalance bads.[1]
Minimalist views are sometimes alleged - at least in their purely consequentialist versions - to recommend absurd acts in practice, such as murdering individuals to prevent their suffering, or opposing life-extending interventions lest we prolong suffering. My aim in this essay is to broadly outline the various reasons why the most plausible and well-construed versions of minimalist moral views - including their purely consequentialist versions - do not recommend such acts.Sequence recap
For context, below is a chronological recap of the present series on minimalist views so far.
1. "
Positive roles of life and experience in suffering-focused ethics":
Even if we assume a purely suffering-focused view, it's wise to recognize the highly positive and often necessary roles that various other things may have for the overall goal of reducing suffering.
These include the positive roles of autonomy, cooperation, nonviolence, as well as our personal wellbeing and valuable skills and experiences.
Suffering-focused moral views may value these things for different reasons, but not necessarily any less, than do other moral views.
2. "
Minimalist axiologies and positive lives":
Minimalist axiologies define goodness in entirely relational or 'instrumental' terms, namely in terms of the minimization of bads such as suffering.
These views avoid many problems in population ethics, yet the minimalist notion of (relationally) positive value is entirely excluded by the standard, restrictive assumption of treating lives as isolated value-containers.
Minimalist views become more intuitive when we adopt a relational view of the overall value of individual lives, that is, when we don't track only the causally isolated "contents" of these lives, but also their (often far more significant) causal roles.
3. "
Peacefulness, nonviolence, and experientialist minimalism":
For purely experience-focused and consequentialist versions of minimalist views, an ideal world would be any perfectly peaceful world, including an empty world.
When it comes to
theoretical implications about the cessation and replacement of worlds, one can reasonably argue that offsetting ('good minus bad') views have
worse implications than do minimalist views.
Zooming out from unrealistic thought experiments, it's crucial to be mindful of the
gap between theory and practice, of the
pitfalls of misconceived consequentialism, and of how minimalist consequentialists have
strong
practical
reasons to pursue a nonviolent approach and to cooperate with people who hold different values.
4. "
Minimalist extended very repugnant conclusions are the least repugnant":
It has been argued that certain "repugnant conclusions" are an inevitable feature of any plausible axiology.
Yet based on a 'side-by-side' comparison of different views, it appears that offsetting views
share all the most "repugnant" ...
(A standalone part of
Minimalist Axiologies: Alternatives to 'Good Minus Bad' Views of Value
.)
1. Introduction
What are minimalist views?
Minimalist views of value (axiologies) are evaluative views that define betterness solely in terms of the absence or reduction of independent bads. For instance, they might roughly say, "the less suffering, violence, and violation, the better". They reject the idea of weighing independent goods against these bads, as they deny that independent goods exist in the first place.
Minimalist moral views are views about how to act and be that include a minimalist view of value, instead of an
offsetting ('good minus bad') view of value. They reject the concept of independently positive moral value, such as positive virtue or pleasure that could independently counterbalance bads.[1]
Minimalist views are sometimes alleged - at least in their purely consequentialist versions - to recommend absurd acts in practice, such as murdering individuals to prevent their suffering, or opposing life-extending interventions lest we prolong suffering. My aim in this essay is to broadly outline the various reasons why the most plausible and well-construed versions of minimalist moral views - including their purely consequentialist versions - do not recommend such acts.Sequence recap
For context, below is a chronological recap of the present series on minimalist views so far.
1. "
Positive roles of life and experience in suffering-focused ethics":
Even if we assume a purely suffering-focused view, it's wise to recognize the highly positive and often necessary roles that various other things may have for the overall goal of reducing suffering.
These include the positive roles of autonomy, cooperation, nonviolence, as well as our personal wellbeing and valuable skills and experiences.
Suffering-focused moral views may value these things for different reasons, but not necessarily any less, than do other moral views.
2. "
Minimalist axiologies and positive lives":
Minimalist axiologies define goodness in entirely relational or 'instrumental' terms, namely in terms of the minimization of bads such as suffering.
These views avoid many problems in population ethics, yet the minimalist notion of (relationally) positive value is entirely excluded by the standard, restrictive assumption of treating lives as isolated value-containers.
Minimalist views become more intuitive when we adopt a relational view of the overall value of individual lives, that is, when we don't track only the causally isolated "contents" of these lives, but also their (often far more significant) causal roles.
3. "
Peacefulness, nonviolence, and experientialist minimalism":
For purely experience-focused and consequentialist versions of minimalist views, an ideal world would be any perfectly peaceful world, including an empty world.
When it comes to
theoretical implications about the cessation and replacement of worlds, one can reasonably argue that offsetting ('good minus bad') views have
worse implications than do minimalist views.
Zooming out from unrealistic thought experiments, it's crucial to be mindful of the
gap between theory and practice, of the
pitfalls of misconceived consequentialism, and of how minimalist consequentialists have
strong
practical
reasons to pursue a nonviolent approach and to cooperate with people who hold different values.
4. "
Minimalist extended very repugnant conclusions are the least repugnant":
It has been argued that certain "repugnant conclusions" are an inevitable feature of any plausible axiology.
Yet based on a 'side-by-side' comparison of different views, it appears that offsetting views
share all the most "repugnant" ...