The Nonlinear Library LW - [Valence series] 2. Valence & Normativity by Steven Byrnes
Dec 8, 2023
44:03
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: [Valence series] 2. Valence & Normativity, published by Steven Byrnes on December 8, 2023 on LessWrong.
2.1 Post summary / Table of contents
Part of the
Valence series.
The previous post explained what I mean by the term "valence". Now in Post 2, I'll discuss the central role of valence in the "normative" domain of desires, preferences, values, and so on. In case you're wondering, there is also a relation between valence and the "positive" domain of beliefs, expectations, etc. - but we'll get to that in Post 3.
The role of valence in the normative domain can scarcely be overstated: I think valence is the very substance out of which all normativity is built.
To be clear, that does not mean that, once we understand how valence works, we understand absolutely everything there is to know about the whole normative universe. By analogy, "atoms are the very substance out of which all bacteria are built"; but if you want to understand bacteria, it's not enough to just understand what atoms are and how they work. You would still have a lot more work to do! On the other hand, if you don't know what atoms are, you'd have an awfully hard time understanding bacteria! So it is, I claim, with valence and normativity.
The post is organized as follows:
Section 2.2 discusses the misleading intuition that valence seems to be attached to real-world things, actions, plans, and so on. We say "That's a bad idea", as opposed to "When I hold that idea in my brain, it evokes a negative-valence 'badness' feeling". This is important context for everything that follows.
Section 2.3 discusses situations where a valence assessment corresponds directly to a meaningful (albeit snap) normative assessment. For example, if I have a thought that corresponds to a concrete plan ("I will stand up"), then my brain is saying that this is a good plan or bad plan in accordance with whether the valence of that thought is positive or negative respectively - and if it's a good plan, I'm likely to actually do it.
Likewise, if I imagine a possible future state of the world, the valence of that thought corresponds to an assessment of whether that state would be good or bad - and if it's good, my brain is liable to execute plans that bring it about, and if it's bad, my brain is liable to execute plans to avoid it. Thus, we get the expected direct connections between valence signals, felt desires, and our actions and decisions.
Section 2.4 discusses a different case: the valence of concepts. For example, if I "like" communism, then a thought involving the "communism" concept is liable to be positive-valence. I argue that this cannot be directly interpreted as making a meaningful normative assessment about anything in particular, but instead we should think of these as learned normative heuristics that help inform meaningful normative assessments. I then talk about vibes-based "meaningless arguments", like arguing about whether to be "for" or "against" Israel.
Section 2.5 discusses how valence gets set and adjusted, with a particular emphasis on innate drives (e.g., a drive to eat when hungry) as the ultimate grounding of valence assessments.
Section 2.6 discusses the valence of metacognitive thoughts and self-reflective thoughts, including the distinction between ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic tendencies, and what people are talking about when they talk about their "values".
Section 2.7 briefly covers how moral reasoning fits into this framework, first descriptively (when people are doing "moral reasoning", what are they doing?), and then musing on the implications for metaethics.
Section 2.8 is a brief conclusion.
2.2 The (misleading) intuition that valence is an attribute of real-world things
Recall from §1.3 of the previous post that, in my proposed model:
Part of our brain "thinks a thought" which might involve thi...
2.1 Post summary / Table of contents
Part of the
Valence series.
The previous post explained what I mean by the term "valence". Now in Post 2, I'll discuss the central role of valence in the "normative" domain of desires, preferences, values, and so on. In case you're wondering, there is also a relation between valence and the "positive" domain of beliefs, expectations, etc. - but we'll get to that in Post 3.
The role of valence in the normative domain can scarcely be overstated: I think valence is the very substance out of which all normativity is built.
To be clear, that does not mean that, once we understand how valence works, we understand absolutely everything there is to know about the whole normative universe. By analogy, "atoms are the very substance out of which all bacteria are built"; but if you want to understand bacteria, it's not enough to just understand what atoms are and how they work. You would still have a lot more work to do! On the other hand, if you don't know what atoms are, you'd have an awfully hard time understanding bacteria! So it is, I claim, with valence and normativity.
The post is organized as follows:
Section 2.2 discusses the misleading intuition that valence seems to be attached to real-world things, actions, plans, and so on. We say "That's a bad idea", as opposed to "When I hold that idea in my brain, it evokes a negative-valence 'badness' feeling". This is important context for everything that follows.
Section 2.3 discusses situations where a valence assessment corresponds directly to a meaningful (albeit snap) normative assessment. For example, if I have a thought that corresponds to a concrete plan ("I will stand up"), then my brain is saying that this is a good plan or bad plan in accordance with whether the valence of that thought is positive or negative respectively - and if it's a good plan, I'm likely to actually do it.
Likewise, if I imagine a possible future state of the world, the valence of that thought corresponds to an assessment of whether that state would be good or bad - and if it's good, my brain is liable to execute plans that bring it about, and if it's bad, my brain is liable to execute plans to avoid it. Thus, we get the expected direct connections between valence signals, felt desires, and our actions and decisions.
Section 2.4 discusses a different case: the valence of concepts. For example, if I "like" communism, then a thought involving the "communism" concept is liable to be positive-valence. I argue that this cannot be directly interpreted as making a meaningful normative assessment about anything in particular, but instead we should think of these as learned normative heuristics that help inform meaningful normative assessments. I then talk about vibes-based "meaningless arguments", like arguing about whether to be "for" or "against" Israel.
Section 2.5 discusses how valence gets set and adjusted, with a particular emphasis on innate drives (e.g., a drive to eat when hungry) as the ultimate grounding of valence assessments.
Section 2.6 discusses the valence of metacognitive thoughts and self-reflective thoughts, including the distinction between ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic tendencies, and what people are talking about when they talk about their "values".
Section 2.7 briefly covers how moral reasoning fits into this framework, first descriptively (when people are doing "moral reasoning", what are they doing?), and then musing on the implications for metaethics.
Section 2.8 is a brief conclusion.
2.2 The (misleading) intuition that valence is an attribute of real-world things
Recall from §1.3 of the previous post that, in my proposed model:
Part of our brain "thinks a thought" which might involve thi...