Background: As can be seen from some of the comments on this post, many people in the LessWrong community take an extreme stance on lying. A few days before I posted this, I was at a meetup where we played the game Resistance, and one guy announced before the game began that he had a policy of never lying even when playing games like that. It's such members of the LessWrong community that this post was written for. I'm not trying to encourage basically honest people with the normal view of white lies that they need to give up being basically honest.
Mr. Potter, you sometimes make a game of lying with truths, playing with words to conceal your meanings in plain sight. I, too, have been known to find that amusing. But if I so much as tell you what I hope we shall do this day, Mr. Potter, you will lie about it. You will lie straight out, without hesitation, without wordplay or hints, to anyone who asks about it, be they foe or closest friend. You will lie to Malfoy, to Granger, and to McGonagall. You will speak, always and without hesitation, in exactly the fashion you would speak if you knew nothing, with no concern for your honor. That also is how it must be.
- Rational!Quirrell, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
This post isn't about HMPOR, so I won't comment on the fictional situation the quote comes from. But in many real-world situations, it's excellent advice.
If you're a gay teenager with homophobic parents, and there's a real chance they'd throw you out on the street if they found out you were gay, you should probably lie to them about it. Even in college, if you're still financially dependent on them, I think it's okay to lie. The minute you're no longer financially dependent on them, you should absolutely come out for your sake and the sake of the world. But it's OK to lie if you need to to keep your education on-track.
Oh, maybe you could get away with just shutting up and hoping the topic doesn't come up. When asked about dating, you could try to evade while being technically truthful: "There just aren't any girls at my school I really like." "What about _____? Why don't you ask her out?" "We're just friends." That might work. But when asked directly "are you gay?" and the wrong answer could seriously screw-up your life, I wouldn't bet too much on your ability to "lie with truths," as Quirrell would say.
I start with this example because the discussions I've seen on the ethics of lying on LessWrong (and everywhere, actually) tend to focus on the extreme cases: the now-cliché "Nazis at the door" example, or even discussion of whether you'd lie with the world at stake. The "teen with homophobic parents" case, on the other hand, might have actually happened to someone you know. But even this case is extreme compared to most of the lies people tell on a regular basis.
Widely-cited statistics claim that the average person lies once per day. I recently saw a new study (that I can't find at the moment) that disputed this, and claimed most people lie rather less often than that, but it still found most people lie fairly often. These lies are mostly "white lies" to, say, spare others' feelings. Most people have no qualms about those kind of lies. So why do discussions of the ethics of lying so often focus on the extreme cases, as if those were the only ones where lying is maybe possibly morally permissible?
At LessWrong there've been discussions of several different views all described as "radical honesty." No one I know of, though, has advocated Radical Honesty as defined by psychotherapist Brad Blanton, which (among other things) demands that people share every negative thought they have about other people. (If you haven't, I recommend reading A. J. Jacobs on Blanton's movement.) While I'm glad no one here is thinks Blanton's version of radical honesty is a good idea, a strict no-lies policy can sometimes have effects that are just as disastrous.
A few years ago, for example, when I went to see the play my girlfriend had done stage crew for, and she asked what I thought of it. She wasn't satisfied with my initial noncommittal answers, so she pressed for more. Not in a "trying to start a fight" way; I just wasn't doing a good job of being evasive. I eventually gave in and explained why I thought the acting had sucked, which did not make her happy. I think incidents like that must have contributed to our breaking up shortly thereafter. The breakup was a good thing for other reasons, but I still regret not lying to her about what I thought of the play.
Yes, there are probably things I could've said in that situation that would have been not-lies and also would have avoided upsetting her. Sam Harris, in his book Lying, spends a lot of arguing against lying in that way: he takes situations where most people would be tempted to tell a white lie, and suggesting ways around it. But for that to work, you need to be good at striking the delicate balance between saying too little and saying too much, and framing hard truths diplomatically. Are people who lie because they lack that skill really less moral than people who are able to avoid lying because they have it?
Notice the signaling issue here: Sam Harris' book is a subtle brag that he has the skills to tell people the truth without too much backlash. This is especially true when Harris gives examples from his own life, like the time he told a friend "No one would ever call you 'fat,' but I think you could probably lose twenty-five pounds." and his friend went and did it rather than getting angry. Conspicuous honesty also overlaps with conspicuous outrage, the signaling move that announces (as Steven Pinker put it) "I'm so talented, wealthy, popular, or well-connected that I can afford to offend you."
If you're highly averse to lying, I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you to tell white lies more often. But I will implore you to do one thing: accept other people's right to lie to you. About some topics, anyway. Accept that some things are none of your business, and sometimes that includes the fact that there's something which is none of your business.
Or: suppose you ask someone for something, they say "no," and you suspect their reason for saying "no" is a lie. When that happens, don't get mad or press them for the real reason. Among other things, they may be operating on the assumptions of guess culture, where your request means you strongly expected a "yes" and you might not think their real reason for saying "no" was good enough. Maybe you know you'd take an honest refusal well (even if it's "I don't want to and don't think I owe you that"), but they don't necessarily know that. And maybe you think you'd take an honest refusal well, but what if you're lying to yourself?
If it helps to be more concrete: Some men will react badly to being turned down for a date. Some women too, but probably more men, so I'll make this gendered. And also because dealing with someone who won't take "no" for an answer is a scarier experience with the asker is a man and the person saying "no" is a woman. So I sympathize with women who give made-up reasons for saying "no" to dates, to make saying "no" easier.
Is it always the wisest decision? Probably not. But sometimes, I suspect, it is. And I'd advise men to accept that women doing that is OK. Not only that, I wouldn't want to be part of a community with lots of men who didn't get things like that. That's the kind of thing I have in mind when I say to respect other people's right to lie to you.
All this needs the disclaimer that some domains should be lie-free zones. I value the truth and despise those who would corrupt intellectual discourse with lies. Or, as Eliezer once put it:
We believe that scientists should always tell the whole truth about science. It's one thing to lie in everyday life, lie to your boss, lie to the police, lie to your lover; but whoever lies in a journal article is guilty of utter heresy and will be excommunicated.
I worry this post will be dismissed as trivial. I simultaneously worry that, even with the above disclaimer, someone is going to respond, "Chris admits to thinking lying is often okay, now we can't trust anything he says!" If you're thinking of saying that, that's your problem, not mine. Most people will lie to you occasionally, and if you get upset about it you're setting yourself up for a lot of unhappiness. And refusing to trust someone who lies sometimes isn't actually very rational; all but the most prolific liars don't lie anything like half the time, so what they say is still significant evidence, most of the time. (Maybe such declarations-of-refusal-to-trust shouldn't be taken as arguments so much as threats meant to coerce more honesty than most people feel bound to give.)
On the other hand, if we ever meet in person, I hope you realize I might lie to you. Failure to realize a statement could be a white lie can create some terribly awkward situations.
Edits: Changed title, added background, clarified the section on accepting other people's right to lie to you (partly cutting and pasting from this comment).
Edit round 2: Added link to paper supporting claim that the average person lies once per day.
There are certain lies that I tell over and over again, where I'm 99% sure lying is the morally correct answer. Stereotypical example: my patient is lying in a lake of poop, or is ringing the call bell for the third time in 15 minutes to tell me that they're thirsty or in pain or need a kleenex, and they're embarrassed and upset because they're sure I must be frustrated and mad that they're making me do so much work. "Of course I don't mind," I've said over and over again. "This doesn't bother me. I've got plenty of time. I just want you to be comfortable, that's my job." When it's 4 am and I desperately want to go on break and eat something, none of these things are true. But it's my job, and I want to want to do it, so the fact that sometimes I desperately don't want to do it is kind of moot. But the last thing a patient in the ICU needs to hear from their nurse is "yes, I'm pissed that you shat in the bed again because I was about to go on break and now I can't and I'm hungry and cranky." I keep that to myself.
...Other than that, I generally don't lie to friends, although I do lie by omission, especially when it comes to my irrational feelings of fr... (read more)
When a student asks me to write her a letter of recommendation and expresses some concern that this will be a bother for me I have said "Don't worry, that's part of my job" to signal that the request is appropriate.
Upvoted for a rare case of lying where I find myself unable to suggest a good alternative way to not lie, even for people with high verbal SAT scores.
"Don't worry about it."
Imperatives are often a nice fallback.
But is that literally as good for a patient in an ICU who really, really needs to not shut up about these things? i mean, in that situation, it would probably occur to me that the nurse might still be lying... but telling a lie like that is still a kind of permission to bother her which "Don't worry about it" isn't.
Agreed. One of the things I think is wrong with lying in general is that it can mess up the incentives for behaviours you want to see more of (i.e. a white lie to your friend, claiming to like her awful haircut, doesn't do anything to help your friend improve her future haircuts.) In my example, I'm lying with respect to my first-order desires, but telling the truth according to my second-order desires. I may first-order want a few more minutes to drink tea and socialize with the other nurses, but I don't endorse myself wanting that, and I certainly don't want to encourage my patients to not call me because they're worried I'm too busy or tired or cranky. I second-order want to encourage the behaviour where my patients call me for all the little things and 90% of the time it's annoying and stupid but 10% of the time it's super important.
If I ever had a patient with a rationalist background, maybe I could explain all of that, but maybe not even then; most people aren't at their best for following complex logic when they're loopy on drugs or having trouble breathing or whatnot. So I go for the emotional reassurance, because that gets through. Still working on different phrasings, and I don't always succeed; I was helping out another nurse with her patient who had diarrhea, putting her on the bedpan every half hour, and at one point she fell asleep and pooped in the bed while asleep and then cried with frustration the whole time I changed her, and I wasn't able to reassure her.
You can expand "Don't worry about it" to include permission to bother her. "Don't worry about it - please never give it a second thought if you need me for anything. That's what I'm here to do."
Well, that's a good idea right there. You could tell them: "Please don't be embarrassed, and don't hesitate to call me. You're in an ICU and it's very important that you communicate with us, even if it's just a matter of discomfort. You shouldn't assume you can tell the difference between something trivial and something serious, or something that requires immediate attention and not."
I would interpret that as a straightforward confirmation that it was in fact annoying. There would be no resulting awkwardness but it would definitely not make me more likely to speak up again.
Actually, regardless of the reason, they just say that "no suitable donor is available." If pressed, they say they never release potential donors' medical information to recipients, for confidentiality and to protect donors from coercion.
I'm not sure there's a lie happening... it seems to me that in said circumstances the meanings of the sentences are conventionally mapped, like:
"yes, I'm pissed that you shat in the bed again because I was about to go on break and now I can't and I'm hungry and cranky." -> I'm incredibly angry with you and I'm going to find out a way to kill you so you don't bother me again. (Exaggerating a bit here for effect)
"Of course I don't mind" -> of course I do mind but it is not as bad as the example above.
Sentences mean what the listener makes of them, that's why you have to speak a foreign language when talking to a foreigner who doesn't speak your language.
...I feel like a lot of that boils down to stuff out of patients' control, like "don't be confused or delirious." Assuming that my patient is totally with it and can reasonably be expected to try to behave politely, I prefer that patients tell me right away when they need something, listen to my explanation of what I'm going to do about it and when I'll be able to do it, or why I can't do anything about it, and then accept that and not keep bringing up the same complaint repeatedly unless it gets worse. I have had patients who rang the call bell every 5 minutes for hours to tell me that they were thirsty, when I'd already explained that I couldn't give them anything by mouth, or that their biggest concern was being thirsty but I was more concerned that their heart rate was 180 and I really really needed to deal with that first.
I obviously prefer it when patient's aren't embarrassed and I can joke around with them and chat about their grandkids while cleaning their poop. But emotional reactions aren't under most people's control either, so it's not a reasonable thing to ask.
I find it takes a great deal of luminosity in order to be honest with someone. If I am in a bad mood, I might feel that its my honest opinion that they are annoying when in fact what is going on in my brain has nothing to do with their actions. I might have been able to like the play in other circumstances, but was having a bad day so flaws I might have been otherwise able to overlook were magnified in my mind. etc.
This is my main fear with radical honesty, since it seems to promote thinking that negative thoughts are true just because they are negative. The reasoning going 'I would not say this if I were being polite, but I am thinking it, therefore it is true' without realizing that your brain can make your thoughts be more negative from the truth just as easily as it can make them more positive than the truth.
In fact, saying you enjoyed something you didnt enjoy, and signalling enjoyment with appropriate facial muscles (smiling etc) can improve your mood by itself, especially if it makes the other person smile.
Many intelligent people get lots of practice pointing out flaws, and it is possible that this trains the brain into a mode where one's first thoughts on a topic will be ... (read more)
If I am honest without accuracy... if I am proud to report my results of my reasoning as they are, but my actual reasoning is sloppy... then I shouldn't congratulate myself for giving precise info, because the info was not precise; I simply removed one source of imprecision, but ignored another.
Saying "you are annoying" feels like an extremely honest thing, and I may be motivated to stop there.
However, saying "sorry, I'm in a bad mood today; I think it's likely that on a different day I would appreciate what you are trying to do, but today it doesn't work this way, and it actually annoys me" is even more honest, and possibly less harmful to the listener.
A cynical explanation is that while attempting to be extremely honest, we refuse to censor the information that might hurt the listener... but we still censor the information that would hurt us. For example, the short version of "you are annoying" contains the information that may hurt my friend, but conceals the information about my own vulnerability.
Perhaps a good heuristic could be: Don't hurt other people by your honesty, unless you are willing to hurt yourself as much (or 20 % more, to balance for your own biased perception) -- and even this only if they agreed to play by these rules. (Of course you are allowed to select your friends according to their ability and willingness to play by these rules. But sometimes you have to interact with other people, too.)
My own (very limited) observation of trying to be radically honest has been that until I first say (or at least admit to myself) the reaction of annoyance, I can't become aware of what lies beyond it. If I'm angry at my wife because of something else that happened to me, I usually won't know that it's because of something else until I first express (even just to myself) that I am angry at my wife.
Until I actually tried being honest about such things, I didn't know this, and practicing such expression seemed beneficial in increasing my general awareness of thoughts and emotions in the present or near-present moment. I don't even remotely attempt to practice radical honesty even in my relationship with my wife, but we've both definitely benefited from learning to express what we fe... (read more)
This made me think; I may have some luminosity privilege that needs checking...
There are some communities I consider incredibly welcoming where I don't imagine by any means that anything I say will be received well just because it's true. On the other hand, a subculture that not only has idiosyncratic social norms but aggressively shuns anyone who follows mainstream norms, likening violations of their idiosyncratic norms to slashing people's tires... that sounds incredibly unwelcoming to me.
"Hair trigger about mere true facts" is hyperbole. But the truth is that the overwhelming majority of the human race consists of people who sometimes respond badly to being told "mere true facts." Insisting you are an exception is quite a brag. It's possible, but the prior is low. I'd g... (read more)
Not really my business, but a reaction like this may give people an incentive to lie to you.
Good luck with that.
While this is true, it is also true that knowing that a given person won't lie, that they will tell you how bad the acting in your play is, makes their praise even more valuable; because one knows that it is not a white lie.
By allowing yourself the small lies, that is what you are trading away. Whether it's worth it or not, I can't say for sure...
Boy, I sure wouldn't want to date a person like this (your girlfriend-at-the-time). She asked for your opinion; pressed you to actually give it, thus communicating (by any reasonable measure) that she actually wanted your opinion; and then, when you gave it honestly, was unhappy about it? That's horrible.
I don't think I'd ever willingly choose to be close to someone to whom I'd ever regret not lying in response to being asked for my opinion. The thought of living like that, living with the knowledge that honest communication is basically impossible because any time the person asks me (and presses me) about my opinion, I have to consider the possibility that what they actually want is lies — that this person prefers lies both to truths and to no comment — repulses me.
Demand by rational men for rational women exceeds supply, even taking into account that some of the women have harems. If you're one of the lucky men, or a woman, be aware of your privilege and don't criticize men who lack it.
I think the set of women you can be honest with in a relationship is much larger than the set of women who are full on CFAR style rationalists.
As best I can tell, "people who sometimes ask questions they might not want to hear the answer to" are a large majority of the population. "Does this dress make me look fat" is a cliche put-you-on-the-spot question for a reason.
Sometimes is an important word here. Too often, and it might be an issue, but it's not like this was a regular occurrence with her. (A big THANK YOU here to Pablo and hyporational for noticing they shouldn't be making too many assumptions based on one anecdote.)
Now, another approach is to exclusively date people who value total honesty at all times. But (1) there are other qualities I value more in a mate and (2) I suspect such openness to "total honesty at all time" tends to correlate with being social inept and overly honest even with people who don't want that, qualities I'd like to avoid.
To reiterate a point I have made several times in this post's comments:
"Valuing total honesty at all times" and "refraining from pressing someone for an honest answer when what you actually want is a lie" are two very different things.
Correspondingly, being totally honest at all times, unprompted, is not the same as being honest when specifically pressed for an honest answer.
I try to restrict my circle of friends to people who do not ask precisely such put-you-on-the-spot questions. That, among other policies and attitudes, makes my circle of friends small.
Or, to put it another way: people worth being friends with are rare. And those are the only people I want to be friends with.
(BTW, I usually answer that with "you looked better in that other one", so I don't offend her but I still help her choose flattering clothes.)
Depends on the details. I don't think there's anything necessarily unreasonable about the following sequence of events: A wants some information from B, and presses for it despite B's reluctance. When the truth actually comes out, A finds it upsetting. ("Do you love me?" "Yes, of course." "It sometimes doesn't seem that way. Seriously, and honestly, do you really love me?" "Well ... no, not really. I just enjoy having sex with you." "Oh, shit.")
Now, being upset because your boyfriend thinks the acting in a play wasn't much good? Yeah, that seems less reasonable. So I agree that this probably wasn't a great relationship to be in. But I really can't endorse any general claim that it's bad to press for someone's opinion when one of the possible answers would upset you.
Having the truth upset you, and being angry at a person for telling you the unpleasant truth, are two very different things.
But there are times when both are appropriate. Example: "did you strangle my puppy?" It's hardly unreasonable to expect an honest answer and then be angry at the person when the honest answer is "yes."
More generally, it is not inherently contradictory to expect total honesty and to be occasionally angry at what that honesty reveals.
That word always¹ sounds to me like its only point is to sneak in the connotation that what's usual must therefore also be desirable.
“Normal is a cycle on a washing machine.”
Wow. Yeah, see, that's exactly the kind of relationship dynamic of which the very thought horrifies me.
I, too, sometimes make similar comments to people to convey that yes, I really do want their feedback on my cooking/baking, because getting better is important to me. Empty praise is worthless to me.
Ok, that's beyond my ability to keep a chain of models-within-models straight in my head. Could you elaborate?
Actually, you know what — scratch that. The more salient point, I think, is that having to strategize basic conversation to that extent is a) much too hard for my preference, and more importantly, b) something I definitely do not want to be doing with close friends and loved ones. I mean, good god. That sounds exhausting. If someone forces me to go through such knots of reasoning when I talk to them, then I just don't want to talk to them.
This reminds me of something Mark Horstman (I think) said, that people are entitled to honest answers to questions to which they are entitled an answer. He was using it in a workplace context, for example that if one's boss asks about one's sex life it's okay to lie, because she is not entitled to an answer thus she is not entitled to an honest answer. Good post.
I think an important additional concept being invoked in the above example is that the person you are lying to has social power over you. While generally abiding by a wizard's code of speaking the literal truth, I consider there to be a blanket moral exemption on lying to the government. It is not always pragmatically wise to lie to a government official, but in a moral sense the option is at your discretion.
For example, when the TSA asks you if anything in your luggage could be used as a weapon, you just lie.
Certain interactions with the government (assuming you are behaving peacefully) seem like a special case of dealing with an adversarial or exploitative agent. When an agent has social power over you, they might easily be able to harm or inconvenience you if you answer some questions truthfully, whereas it would be hard for you to harm them if you lied. Telling the truth in that case hurts you, but lying harms nobody (aside from foiling the exploitative plans of the other agent, which doesn't really count).
A more mundane example would be if a website form asks you for more personal information than it needs, and requires this information. For instance, let's say the website asks for your phone number or address when there is suspiciously no reason why they should need to call you or ship you anything. If you fill in a false phone number to be able to submit the form, then you are technically lying to them, but I think it's justified. Same thing for websites that require you to fill in a name, but where they don't actually need it (e.g. unlike financial transactions, or social networks that deal with real identities).
The website probably isn't trying to violate your rights, but it's ... (read more)
Or it's just that "lying" implies an attempt to deceive.
Words are meant to communicate meaning. I wouldn't consider it lying if someone communicates in a sense that properly answers the meaning of the question, even if the question is clumsily asked.
Likewise, I would consider it lying if someone uses words which are literally true, but does so in a manner meant to deceive the listener.
I think it's a mistake to interpret "I will sometimes do (extreme thing)" as "my threshhold for doing (extreme thing) is low enough that I'd be likely to do it in everyday situations".
If I visited your house, ate your food, and then you asked me "I want to kill my son by running him over with my car because he told me he's gay. What's the best way to do this without being caught by the police?", depending on circumstances, I might slash your tires, or do things that cause as much damage to you as slashing your tires.
So if you asked me if I would slash your tires if you told me something bad, I'd have to say "yes". But it doesn't mean that if you invited me to your house you would have to watch what you say to me in fear that I might slash your tires, because the kinds of things that would lead me to do that would also imply that you're seriously messed up. Nobody would just say those things by accident.
I see this fallacy a lot in rational idea discussions.,
It seems like this is an example of my new favorite conversational failure mode: trying to map an abstraction onto the reference class of your personal experience, getting a strange result, and getting upset instead of curious.
ChrisHallquist said there are some circumstances in which he feels compelled to lie. It seems like Alicorn assumed both that this must include some circumstances she'd be likely to subject him to, and that what he thinks of as a lie in that circumstance is something that will fall into the category she objects to. Of course, either of those things or both could be true - but the way to find out is to consider concrete examples (whether real or fictional).
Personally I used to make this mistake a lot when women complained (in vague abstract terms) about being approached by strangers in coffeeshops, and talk about how they're not obligated to be polite or nice in those cases. Once I got curious and asked questions, and found out that "approached" meant a guy persistently tried to engage her in conversation w... (read more)
I don't normally like to blather on about myself, but I feel that a bit of self-exposition might help some people with their apparent ... Fundamental Attribution Error, perhaps?
I have an extremely malleable identity in certain types of social situations, to the point that I literally come to believe whatever I need to believe in order to facilitate rapport with whomever I'm talking with.
For example, I normally have a pretty strong aversion to infidelity in relationships, but on a few occasions I've deeply connected through prolonged conversation with friends who were engaged in relationship infidelity. It is sort of a running joke among my closest friends that I can get almost anybody to open up to me and share their deepest darkest secrets, and the way I do it is that I am genuinely nonjudgemental, and the method by which I am genuinely nonjudgemental is that I have a "core" module that has my actual beliefs and then I have my surface chameleon module which is actually talking which just says whatever it needs to say to establish the connection.
All of this babbling is to convey that if you were to interrupt me in the middle of doing this and say, "moridinamael, was... (read more)
Yes, good point.
I agree, and I feel the same way. However, I believe that you and I see conversations somewhat differently from other people.
When you and I engage in conversation (unless I misunderstood your position, in which case I apologize), we tend to take most of the things that are said at face value. So, for example, if you were to ask "did you like my play ?", what you are really asking is... "did you like my play ?" And, naturally, you would feel betrayed if the answer is less than honest.
However, I've met many people who, when asking "did you like my play ?", really mean something like, "given my performance tonight, do you still consider me a a valuable friend whose company you'd enjoy ?" If you answer "no", the emotional impact can be quite devastating.
The surprising thing, though (well, it was surprising to me w... (read more)
I endorse the vast majority of the post. Lying in most of those circumstances seems like an entirely appropriate choice, particularly to people you do not respect enough to expect them to respond acceptably to truth. Telling people the truth when those people are going to screw you over is unethical (according to my intuitive morality which seems to consider 'being a dumbass" abhorrent.)
People have the right to lie. People do not have the right to lie without consequences. I suggest people respond to being lied to in whatever way best meets their own goals and best facilitates their own wellbeing. Those adept at navigating a sea of social bullshit and deception may choose to never treat lies as defections or provide any negative consequences. Those less adept at that kind of thinking may be better served by being less tolerant of lies from those with a given degree of closeness to them.
I implore you to respect other's right to treat lies, liars, and you in whatever way ... (read more)
An emotional response to your statement is not indiscriminate braindumping. I'm not talking about always saying whatever happens to be in my mind at any time. Since I've probably already compromised any chance of going to a rationalist dinner party by being in favor of polite lies, I might as well elaborate: I think your policy is insanely idealistic. I think less of you for having it. But I don't think enough less of you not to want to be around you and I think it's very likely plenty of people you hang out with lie all the time in the style of the top level post and just don't talk to you about it. We know that humans are moist robots and react to stimuli. We know the placebo effect exists. We know people can fake confidence and smiles and turn them real. But consequentialist arguments in favor of untruths don't work on a deontologist. I guess mostly I'm irate at the idea that social circles I want to move in can or should be policed by your absurdity.
I don't think the above constitutes an indiscriminate braindump but I don't think it would be good to say to anyone face to face and I don't actually feel confident it's good to say online.
Has his post offended you or something? You employ pretty strong language, and "this post makes me less interested in inviting you over for dinner again" is a kinda public way of breaking off a friendship, which (regardless of cause) is somewhat socially humiliating for the person on the receiving end. Is that really necessary? Settle such personal details via PM?
I don't see it as a sort of grey fallacy argument to note that "lying" isn't much of a binary property (i.e., either you lie, or you don't). There may be simple enough definitions on the surface level, but when considering our various facets of personality, playing different roles to different people in different social settings, context-sensitivity and so on and so forth, insisting on anything remotely like being able to clearly (or at all) and reliably distinguish between "omitting a truth" and "explicitly lying" versus "telling the truth" loses its tenability. There are just too many confounders; nuances of framing, word choice, blurred lines between honesty and courtesy, the list goes on.
Yes, there are cases in which you can clearly think to yourself that "saying t... (read more)
If you extract the hyperbole this is an entirely valid reasoning. An observed pattern of lies (or an outright declaration of such a pattern) does mean that people should trust everything you say somewhat less than they otherwise would. Reputation matters. Expecting people to trust your word as much when you lie to them as when you don't would be foolish. This is a tradeoff that seems worthwhile but you must acknowledge that it is a tradeoff.
False. It is their problem and yours. People not believing you is obviously a negative consequence to you. Acknowledge it and choose to accept the negative consequence anyway because of the other benefits you get from lies. (Or, I suppose, you could use selective epistemic irrationality as a dominance move and as the typical way to defect on an ultimatum game. Whatever works.)
... (read more)Thanks for telling the truth. But downvoted for "I dislike this position, don't want to hear it defended, and will punish those who defend it." This is a much stronger rationalist anathema than white lies to me.
I think behaviorly I act almost exactly as you do in terms of trying never to lie but often to evade questions. But for some reason the comment I'm responding to rubs me incredibly negatively. I'm reflecting on why, and I think the difference is that you actually have it easy. You're trying to live radically honestly in, if I'm not mistaken, the middle of an enclave that has far more of the sort of people that would appreciate Lesswrong in your immediate vicinity than most people do. So you can basically choose to be extremely choosy about your friends in this regard.
Try holding everyone around to the same standard you live by when most of your neighbors and colleagues are not associated with the rationalist movement at all, and let's see how far you get. Let me tell ya, it's a wee bit harder. For most of us, "be lenient with others and strict with thyself" is a pretty natural default.
I suspect, from Chris' perspective, if his choices are "be invited to Alicorn's parties" and "be friends with other people at all," he may go with the latter.
Usually when I think of "white lies" I think of things that are not primarily intended to produce a belief about the literal content of that sentence at all - they're a totally different type of social move only loosely related to their "meaning". I'm thinking about things like this:
... (read more)There's a fundamental problem with lying unaddressed - it tends to reroute your defaults to "lie" when "lie"="personal benefit."
As a human animal, if you lie smoothly and routinely in some situations, you are likely to be more prone to lying in others. I know people who will lie all the time for little reason, because it's ingrained habit.
I agree that some lies are OK. Your girlfriend anecdote isn't clearly one of them - there may be presentation issues on your side. ("It wasn't the acting style I prefer," vs., "It's nice that you hired actors without talent or energy, because otherwise, where would they be?") But if you press for truth and get it, that's on you. (One my Rules of Life: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to.)
But I think every lie you tell, you should know exactly what you are doing and what your goals are and consciously consider whether you're doing this solely for self-preservation. If you can't do this smoothly, then don't lie. Getting practice at lying isn't a good idea.
I note here that I think that a significant lie is a deliberate or seriously reckless untruth given with the mutual expect... (read more)
My instant urge when you compared polite lies to slashing your tires is to insult you at length. I don't think this would be pleasant for anyone involved. Radical Honesty is bad for brains running on human substrate.
I don't know -- depends on the context. Imagine a relationship that is strongly based on the Guess culture. The interpretation then would be quite different:
Certainly not the best way a conversation can develop, but it's mostly miscommunication, not lack of confidence or being not trustworthy.
Here's one relevant paper: Lying in Everyday Life
I read that paper, and was distressed, so I set about finding other papers to disprove it. Instead I found links to it, and other works that backed it up. I was wrong. Liers are the larger tribe. Thanks for educating me.
That's exactly what I'd say too. And then, I'd commence the lying :-)
'Continue', you mean :-)
You accidentally a verb.
This seems like a wilfully unfair description of Chris's position.
It's a scam if you take someone's money intending to do something other than what you tell them you'll do with it, or (maybe) intending to do it for very different reasons from the ones you give them, or with very different prospects of success. But Chris's hypothetical youngster is doing with the money exactly what his/or her parents expect (getting educated), with the same purpose and the same likely outcomes as if s/he were straight. Where's the scam?
And the donors in question aren't generic "people". They're hypothetical-youngster's parents. Maybe that makes it worse ("you'd lie to your own flesh and blood?"), maybe it makes it better (arguably they owe him/her an education, if they can afford it and s/he would genuinely gain from it), but it certainly makes a difference.
I think there is an argument to be made against Chris's position along those lines, but such tendentious language isn't the way to start it.
There are numerous ways you could have said the same thing (including the same connotations) without alienating parts of your audience. You clearly were aware you were going to alienate part of your audience, so why didn't you use an alternate phrasing?
I can see how a reputation for lying would be a bad thing to have, but I can also see why a reputation for not being capable of lying would be a bad thing (mainly in social contexts). From one of my other comments:
This was hard for me. There've been other times where I've slipped up and forgotten. Usually not in the context of friends explicitly telling me to lie about something, but in the context of Person X them telling me something which, to them, is obviously something that they want to conceal from Person Y because of conflicts it would cause. However, I don't model this–I model Person X and Person Y both as friends who I trust with details about my life, and assume that's commutative. I don't even think about it on a conscious level–it's not "I want to tell this person the truth about the thing this other person did because lying is complicated"–they just ask me a question and I answ... (read more)
If you told me this in person, I wouldn't want to hang out with you any more either.
I think the big thing to remember is that the meaning of something isn't the dictionary definitions of the words combined with the rules of syntax. If someone asks you what you though of a play, wanting to know what you thought of them, and you know this, saying "the acting was bad" is intentionally misinterpreting their question. It is an example of lying with truth.
I would expect someone who presses me for an answer would actually want to know the answer, but maybe I just have bad social skills.
There is one thing I dislike about lying. It's considered rude to tell the truth in certain situations, because it signals that you don't care about that person, because people who care lie, because people who care don't want to appear rude. If people didn't try to signal, things would be better off, but if you lie, you're not only signalling that you care, you're increasing the need everyone else has to signal. You're making things more confusing for other people. It's basically a large-scale prisoner's dilemma. It's like talking in a noisy room, where the other person can hear you if you speak up, but that just makes it noisier for everyone else.
Moreover, the policy signals you have bad social skills and are unlikely to spot lies. This doesn't matter much though if you strongly signal it in other ways already.
Also, if someone wanted to tarnish your reputation, they'd lie to you, get caught and try to make you act hostile when other people are around. You possibly hedge against this already. The other people, unless close friends, will be on the liar's side in a situation like this, no matter how justified you feel.
My policy: if I catch someone lying to me about something significant, I put them in a zero trust zone. I will not confront them about their lies unless absolutely necessary or the person is absolutely useless and I will act friendly or neutral. Since they think they haven't been caught, their lies will get stupider and easier to spot, combine this with my heightened suspicion and they will be relatively harmless. This also enables me to trip them over better if need be since I can plan and time my moves. On top of this I'll still get the benefits of their friendliness if any.
I find the reaction to this comment, both in the downvotes and some of the responses, interesting in light of the recent discussion about Tell Culture. That post was highly upvoted, but some people in the comments expressed the opinion that even the people who claim to endorse Tell culture really don't, and that people who actually consistently operated on Tell Culture would end up getting punished, even in a community where most people claimed to endorse Tell.
As far as I can tell, the reactions to this comment are support for that hypothesis, as I see you as a person who consistently operates on Tell, and then (as in this case) occasionally gets censured for that, even in a community where a lot of people previously claimed that Tell sounds awesome.
I think this is a great post. I fully agree about accepting other people's right to lie... in limited circumstances, of course (which is how I interpreted the post). I figured it was primarily talking about situations of self-defense or social harmony about subjective topics.
I think privacy is very important. Many cultures recognize that some subjects are private or personal, and has norms against asking about people's personal business without the appropriate context (which might depend on friendship, a relationship, consent, etc...). Some "personal" subjects may include:
The ethics of lying when asked about personal subjects seems more complicated. In fact, the very word "lying" may poison the well, as if the default is that people should tell the truth. I do not accept such a default without privacy issues being addressed. I will ... (read more)
Write the bad version now. Don't worry about the good version until you have a complete bad one.
Lies are good. We should evangelize good things. Saying you support white lies signals to everyone who might talk to you that they are more able to trust you to not reveal for example private details about their lives.
By that reasoning if there was some situation where he had to sell himself into slavery to save his sibling's life, similarly disturbing conclusions could be drawn from his refusal to do that.
You're making an awful lot of assumptions, including the assumption that the person is a utilitarian and that their reasons for not wanting to donate don't also involve life or considerations that a wide range of people consider as important as life.
You present a compelling argument that "scamming money out of people because it would be inconvenient not to" can be an entirely ethical and appropriate course of action.
Lumping a particular scenario already analysed on merit seems reasonable into a despised reference class serves to change the reference class, not the instance.
Something perplexes me about the view you describe, and it's this:
What is the point?
That is to say: You say lying is bad. You describe a certain, specifically circumscribed, view of what does and does not count as lying. The set of conditions and properties that define lying (which is bad) vs. things that don't count as lies, in your view, are not obvious to others (as evidenced by this thread and other similar ones)... (read more)
When people misunderstand or misread what I say — as happens sometimes, a couple of comments to this post being examples — my response is usually an attempt to clarify my position, correct the misreading, etc. Most of the people with whom I have engaged here on LessWrong do similarly.
A response to an alleged misreading that consists of saying "That's not what I meant; I won't explain what I meant; and I won't talk to you about this anymore" is not a particularly honorable discussion tactic. If you think I have misread you — as is, of course, possible — please explain how.
It sounds evasive and not like the natural response, and I'm not all that worried about my patients yelling "no, you're a liar!" and getting mad if I tell them I don't mind at all, and I don't have any particular reason to want to not lie in this situation.
(In the role of a hypothetical interlocutor)
"See this here?" (Pulls out his Asperger's Club Card) "I have trouble distinguishing what's socially acceptable to ask from what isn't, and since you're such a welcoming host, I hope you also welcome my honest curiosity. I wouldn't want... (read more)
Can anyone point me to a defense of corrupting intellectual discourse with lies (that doesn't resolve into a two-tier model of elites or insiders for whom truth is required and masses/outsiders for whom it is not?) Obviously there is at least one really good reason why espousing such a viewpoint would be rare, but I assume that, by the law of large numbers, there's probably an extant example somewhere.
Luckily, I have a one strike rule against ultimatums. :)
Why doesn't simply not trusting them work for you? How does being hostile to them further your interests?
I agree that the immediate consequences of lying are sometimes better than telling the truth, however, one big problem is lying then having to tell the truth later or lying then getting caught. The more complex the lie, the bigger the risk. The social conventions surrounding lying - feel free to lie, accept other people's right to lie, the guess culture (don't make your desires and feelings explicit) - are a good solution to interacting with strangers since under those conventions, no one is making and effort to detect your lies. This is useful when you do... (read more)
In addition to mistakes other commenters have pointed out, it's a mistake to think you can neatly divide the world into "defectors" and "non-defectors," especially when you draw the line in a way that classifies the vast majority of the world as defectors.
It is known that lots of people enjoy inflicting pain on the helpless. Anyone who punishes prisoners because they enjoy doing so is in a conflict of interest, at least if he has any discretion in how to carry out the punishment.
No, it's really not.
In fact, it's precisely the opposite. The central feature of rapes we care about is the fact that they are extremely unpleasant, to put it politely. "Consent", when formalized so that it no longer captures the information we care about, is noncentral.
Or at least, I think it is. In fact, I believe this should also be clear to Alicorn, on reflection (and indeed she has an explanation for why her system doesn't fall into this trap.)
Do you disagree?
Not necessarily. You are correct in saying that any given arbitrary utility function can be a lot more complex than any given arbitrary set of rules; so strictly speaking I was wrong. However, in practice, we are not dealing with arbitrary functions or rules; we are dealing with limited subsets of functions/rules which are capable of sustaining a human society similar to ours in at least some way. Of course, other functions and other rules can exist, but IMO ... (read more)
An extended answer to your question is given in the original post - the post is all about answering that question, and it seems very clearly written to me. So I think you're being silly.
yes of course. Someone asks how I'm doing. I'm having a terrible day but say fine because I don't want to talk about it. Is this example clear enough for you?
Thanks very much for writing and posting this.
Here's an excerpt from an attorney disciplinary code:
And from the commentary on that rule:
... (read more)One of the points here is that, as usual, it depends. Let's say someone I know lied to me and I found out that it was a lie. My response would depend on three major factors:
... (read more)The kind of relationship with that person. Relationships have (mostly implicit) rules and promises. A lie may or may not break such a promise. A co-worker lying to you about where he was last weekend is different from your partner lying to you about where he was last weekend.
The motivation behind the lie. A lie to avoid embarrassment is different from a lie to gain some advantage ov
This seems broadly correct, but could you say more about
What does that look like? (A bit of sample dialog or somesuch would be particularly appreciated.)
Another thing I should note that it can simply be a matter of human preferences. I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of having any truely close relationship (lover or close friend) with somebody who would be willing to lie to me. I see no reason why other wants should somehow override this one.
I don't quite understand what are you imploring.
Of course other people have the right to lie to me. And I have a right to change my attitude and my expectations on that basis.
Rephrased in a slightly different way, other people have the right to lie to me but not the right to escape the consequences.
War on Drugs bad. Agreed. But not a More Right point, as it is regularly lambasted on the left.
For profit prisons are a perverse incentive. Ageed. But not a symptom of the decline of western civilisation. Typical country fallacy.
Systems are about coercion. Sure, and that's good. I like people being coerced into not killing and robbing me. I need to be coerced into paying taxes, because I wouldn't do it voluntarily.
Sociopaths. You're looking in the wrong place. Politicians are subject to too much scrutinyto get away with much. The boardroom is a much better hiding place.
As opposed to, say, just a reduced capacity for impulse control or learning? Or an ingrained aversion to thinking before acting?
EDIT: Heh. Actually... It looks like your specific example is more plausible than I thought.
Put more bluntly: are there some classes of people which are less a product of their environments and biologies than others?
(And I'm not merely saying this from the perspective... (read more)
One of the standard thought experiments used to demonstrate and/or explain consequentialism. I'm really just trying to see what your model of consequentialism is based on.
Well, we're adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers - the environment... (read more)
That really isn't a good argument for the current state of US prisons, is it? Clearly, even openly allowing institutional rape has failed to help; yet other, less harsh countries have not seen soaring crime rates by comparison.
I've seen studies suggesting that certainty of punishment is much more important for determining behavior than the extremity of it - it's more a question of a strong justice system, a respect for authority (or fear, one might say), than people performing expected utility calculation in their heads.
Retracted comment
If I may offer one —
Suppose that I am photographed on the street outside a place that has a bad reputation (with some people). The photographer might publish the photo, which could lead viewers to believe bad things of me.
One acquaintance of mine, M, claims that I have a right to forbid the photographer from publishing this photo; I have the right to control publicity about me or the use of my image, even though the picture was taken in public.
Another acquainta... (read more)
A note w.r.t. the quote:
-- The Author, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
As long as enemies exist, secrets must be kept.
My problem with calling these behaviors "evil" is that they don't have to be consciously decided upon - they're just ways that happened to keep our ancestors alive in brutal political environments. Cognitive biases and natural political tendencies may be tragic, but calling them "evil" implies a level of culpability that I think isn't really warranted.
This is a forum for discussing ideas, it's not a forum for playing social games. (I'm saying this as someone who is extremely reluctant about white lies and who hates the idea that they are socially expected to lie. Asking a question when one doesn't want an honest answer is just silly.)
Except when you're looking for the social / mental equivalent of a shibboleth.
Well I think most people are reasonably comfortable with the idea that every adult should have complete discretion over what -- if anything -- is done with his organs.
The more interesting question is what to make of people who lie to conceal decisions in this area, especially physicians.
Because of your predictability. If you are guaranteed to react in a specific way to certain stimuli, that is useful to someone who wants to manipulate you.
To make this point yet again[1], there's a difference between not wanting (or outright forbidding) spontaneous criticism, to forbidding criticism that is provided when asked. In pianoforte611's example, his dad is forbidden from saying the cooking's bad even if he's asked for his opinion.
Telling your girlfriend "Oh, today you look terrible", apropos of nothing, seems like a reasonable thing for said girlfriend to object to. If she asks you "How do I look today? Please be honest", and then you're not allowed to answer honestly, lest you ... (read more)
Mmmnope, that definitely doesn't change the horror.
(I'm not sure how to take what looks to be a correction to a statement about my feelings about something. Regardless, it's misplaced.)
(nods) Well, that's certainly simple.
So it seems to follow that if I offer someone the choice of murdering their child in exchange for greater pleasure, and they turn me down, we can confidently infer that they simply don't believe I'll follow through on the offer, because if they did, they would accept. Yes?
Me in particular, or people in general? Because there is a particular class of idiot that most people would GLADLY be sacrificed to save; they're called "children".
As for me, personally, that depends on the calculus. Am I saving one idiot, or ten? Are they merely idiotic in this circumstance, or idiotic in general (i.e., in most situations a normal human being might reasonably find themselves in)? Are we talking about a well-medic... (read more)
Would you prefer that others care about your suffering and death, if something happened such that you became (temporarily or permanently) "stupid"?
In many cases, people are not aware of the risks they are taking; in many other cases, people may not have less-risky alternatives. Should they still be entirely responsible for their consequences? Because that seems to l... (read more)
Yes, I clicked the link.
OK, that's a little scary (or would be, anyway). Um ... why don't you care about the suffering and death of someone "stupid" (or risk-taking)?
Alicorn, you just acknowledged that most people being punished are not asked whether they consent to it.
Indeed, attempting to use one's "guarantee of exit" in these situations is often itself a crime, and one carrying punishments you classify as "rights violations" if I understand you correctly.
That's sort of why I commented on the potential issues this introduces?
I find that, sometimes, perfectly honest words are interpreted as white lies because they sound like such.
"What are you doing this weekend?" Me (very early in the term) "Studying for midterms."
"Let's be just friends from now on, okay?"
"You're a wonderful person, and I wish you the best of luck."
On another topic, I find myself lying, not to protect others' feelings but out of cowardice, to hide misdeeds, especially those that I irrationally didn't expect anyone to notice. The worst instances have involved frequent and... (read more)
How so? It's an unpleasant thing to say, and conflicts with our raw intuition on the matter. It sounds evil. That's all biting a bullet is.
Remember, it's sometimes correct to bite bullets.
Well, no. Utilitarian systems are based on a utility function (although I'm not aware of any requirement that it be immutable... actually, what do you mean by "immutable", exactly?). Consequentialist systems don't have to be utilitarian.
Even so, the origin of a utility function is not that mysterious. If your preferences adhere to the von Neumann-Morgenstern axioms, then you can construct a utility function (up to positive affine transformation, as I understand it) from your preferences. In general, the idea is that we have some existing values o... (read more)
Sorry, that was uncharitable. Tapping out is a good idea.
I also discovered I was like this as a teenager -- that I had an extremely malleable identity. I think it was related to being very empathetic -- I just accepted whichever world view the person I was speaking with came with, and I think in my case this might have been related to reading a lot growing up, so that it seemed that a large fraction of my total life experience were the different voices of the different authors that I had read. (Reading seems to require quickly assimilating the world view of whomever is first person.)
I also didn't make much disti... (read more)
And the worst argument in the world rears its ugly head once more.
I knew you were a deontologist (I am a cosequentialist), but I had sort of assumed implicitly that our moralities would line up pretty well in non-extreme situations. I realized after reading this how thoroughly alien your morality is to me. You would respond with outrage and hurt if you discovered th... (read more)
I guess one problem that crops up when dealing with the issue of lying is that there is no clear litmus test. It may be possible to give broad guidelines such as "it is ok to lie in situations A,B and C, but most definitely not OK to lie in situations D,E and F." Real life is far more complex and subject to all manner of interpretation (not to mention all manner of bias as well). I strongly suspect that before we can rule on when it is ok to lie, or when it is ok to use a half truth we need to perfect the art of communication i.e. develop a syste... (read more)
To be fair on your reply the original comment is worded rather strongly and without care for precision. As such your reply is valid even if slightly less charitable than it could have been.
Your discussion of Harris's 'Lying' is a little terse, and does miss some of his arguments. I think anyone interested should get his book, its very short and can be read in about half an hour to an hour, depending on your speed. PM me for a PDF copy of the first edition (note: second edition is much updated).
Here's two extended quotes, that I think contains ideas not addressed in the post:
... (read more)I wouldn't count non-literal use of language (“it was okay” when it's obvious to both interlocutors that the actual intended meaning is ‘[it sucked but I don't want to hurt your feelings]’) as lying.
But still, I prefer to be with people to whom I can also say why it sucked (so they get a chance to do better the next time) without hurting their feelings either. I can't choose my own parents and I can't choose whether the Nazis will come to my door, but I can choose whom to interact with in most other situations (excluding NPC-like situations, where topics ... (read more)
I actually prefer the honest types, but don't judge normal people either. This preference is of minor importance. In most situations I can't choose who to interact with and being stubborn about it won't help.
I reject this idea for a fairly simple reason. I want to be in control of my own life and my own decisions, but due to lack of social skills I'm vulnerable to manipulation. Without a zero-tolerance policy on liars, I would rapidly be manipulated into losing what little control of my own life remains.
You seem to be treating lack of social skills as a static attribute rather than a mutable trait. This may not be the most productive frame for the issue.
I suspect this is inaccurate and you would be better off with rules like "I won't do large favors for friends who haven't reciprocated medium favors in the past" or "I won't be friends/romantic partners with people who tell me what to do in areas that are none of their business." Virtually none of the manipulation I've been harmed by in the past has involved actual lies. Though maybe your extended social circle (friends of friends of friends, people at university, etc.) has different preferred methods of manipulation than mine does.
They don't quite choose to live in places with lots of lead, more omega-6 than omega-3 fats, and little lithium either, for that matter.
Well ... yeah. Because you're replying to something I said to Alicorn.
Is this for game-theoretic reasons, or more ... (read more)
As I said, "I can see how someone might pick up this definition from context, based on some of the standard examples."
I don't think it's the intention of those examples, however - at least, not the ones that I'm thinking of. Could you describe the ones you have in mind, so we can compare interpretations?
I ... think this is a misinterpretation, but I'm most definitely not a domain expert, so could you elaborate?
I don't know if it's more so because comparing degrees here is hard, but I would say that we should not hire prison guards who enjoy punishing prisoners and have discretion in doing so.
Huh? We aren't discussing the sibling's decision to give or not give the kidney, we're discussing the doctor's decision, given that the sibling isn't donating the kidney, to tell the patient that the sibling is a match. Are you implying that the doctor should reveal the match, so the patient will pressure the sibling into donating?
Is there a named fallacy of using words which radically downplay or upplay the seriousness of a situation?
Teenagers sometimes get thrown out of their families for coming out. This is more than an inconvenience, and affects more than their educational plans.
Can you expand on what you mean by "final outcome" here, and why it matters?
For my part, I would say that the difference between the world in which a person lives N years and then dies and all the effects of that person's actions during those N years are somehow undone, and the world in which they didn't live at all, is the N years of that person's life.
What you seem to want to say is that those N years aren't a consequence worthy of consideration, because after the person's death they aren't alive anymore, and all that matters is the state o... (read more)
Those are two different consequences.
???
One of these cases involves the consequence that someone gets killed. How is that not morally neutral?
Which moral intuition is that...?
Yes, I studied some of them in college. My assessment of academic philosophers is that most of them are talking nonsense most of the time. There are exceptions, of course. If you want to talk about the positions of any particular philosopher(s), we can do that (although perhaps for that it might ... (read more)
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Are you suggestions that people who advocate (3) and (4) as actual justifications for having prisons do not have those things as their true, internal motivations, but are only claiming them for persuasion purposes, and actually (1) and/or (2) are their real reasons? Or are you saying something else?
... (read more)First of all, I must ask that you stop equating utilitarianism with consequentialism.
Second of all, torturing children is not a new behavior, in the way Bugmaster was using the phrase. A new behavior is something that wasn't available before, wasn't possible, like "copying digital media". You couldn't copy digital media in the year 1699 no matter what your moral beliefs were. You could, on the other hand, torture children all you liked.
It's not usually (though it is sometimes) a preference to be lied to in this particular instance - it's a preference to be told a nice thing regardless of whether that nice thing is factually true. Being told nice things can feel good even if it doesn't cause you to update your beliefs - and sometimes even if you believe the nice statement is false.
... (read more)Likewise. For what it's worth, though, I don't actually think there is a good answer to the epistemological questions you asked; that's one of the reasons I favor consequentialism rather than deontology. Of course, I imagine Alicorn's views on the matter differ, so I, too, would like to see her answer (or that of any other deontologist who cares to respond).
I think Alicorn's answer concerned the ontological status of rights, not the epistemology thereof.
Which totally misses the point of the comment you're responding to. This isn't about whether we are radically honest. It's about whether we insist on everyone we associate with also being radically honest as a condition of our association with them.
In the sequence Armok_GoB mentions I use light as an extended metaphor for self-knowledge.
Not being friends with people you hate is nearly a tautology. I'm saying you shouldn't hate and shun people just for prioritizing your comfort over their own integrity.
If your social circle consists entirely of straight-talkers, where will you go when you need to be comforted? If a putty-person wants to associate with you, but you have a well-established reputation for shunning putty-people and a relatively homogenous social circle... well, then, they'll pretend to be a straight-talker, because blending in is what they do. Eventually the game-theory of thi... (read more)
Indeed. And will be fully justified in feeling insulted; after all, that lie communicates the sentiment "I think there's a non-trivial possibility that you will turn hostile/abusive/violent if I reject your advances". I'd sure feel insulted at having such a sentiment expressed toward me.
Of course, if in this situation the man and woman don't know each other, or are very casual acquaintances, then it's not really a big insult, because hey, rando... (read more)
Other possibilities include some or all of: "I think you'll be hurt by my real reasons for rejecting you. I see no benefit in making those reasons clear, and it makes me uncomfortable to cause other people distress (I don't think you'll get angry! probably just sad). You might prefer the painful truth, but given that we're merely acquaintances, that preference of yours doesn't outweigh my wish to avoid an awkward scene. In fact, I doubt you value the truth about the matter so highly that I'd be fulfilling your real (if not espoused) preferences by delivering a harsh truth. Finally, I think that while you're not partner material, you're fun enough to hang out with on occasion. Telling you that I think you're a 5.5/10 kind of person would make future encounters awkward too, so on balance it seems better to lie and preserve a mildly pleasurable, casual friendship."
Still insulting, I guess, but not for the same reasons. I think the 'hostile/abusive/violent' thing is a lot rarer than the above.
I think of such tactics as Aes Sedai mode :-)
What's wrong with wimp? Wuss might work too if the etymology is obscure enough to people.
I didn't find your comment offensive and pretty much agreed with it, but might care if other people did.
I'd hoped I addressed this in the edit, "cannot not communicate" and such.
You may find yourself in situations (not at your parties, of course) in which you can't sidestep a question, or in which attempts to sidestep a question (ETA: or doing the silent stare) will correctly be assumed to answer the original question by the astute observer ("Do you believe our relationship has a future?" - "Oh look, the weather!").
Given your apparently strong taboo against lying, I was wondering how you'd deal with such a situation (other than fighting the hypothetical by saying "I won't be in such a situation").
Why? Best case scenario is she keeps taking you to unenjoyable plays until you find you have to end the relationship yourself anyway or finally tell her the truth. Out of all the things in a relationship whose end was "a good thing for other reasons", one argument about whether a play was any good seems like a trivial thing to regret.
I can't favour lies as such. I am however on board with people honestly communicating the connot... (read more)
It's kinda funny that one man's joke is another man's righteous indignation. Added a smiley just to be sure.
In the example given, I think if people are incompetent enough to risk themselves physical injury or death for the sake of picking up pennies, that's pretty good evidence that they can't safely live on their own without supervision.
I don't think that's a consequentialist thought experiment, though? Could you give examples of how it's illustrated in trolley problems, ticking time bomb scenarios, even forced-organ-donation-style "for the greater good" arguments? If it's not too much trouble - I realize you're probably not anticipating huge amounts of expected value here.
(I think most LW-style utilitarian consequentialists would agree there is probably an optimal one, but unilaterally deciding that yourself might lead to additional consequences - better to avoid selfish infighting and, most importantly, perceived unfairness, especially when you may be too uncertain about the outcomes anyway. So that's a data point for you.)
In the ordinary course of events, parents are allowed to not support their children in ... (read more)
Let's start with basic definitions: Morality is a general rule that when followed offers a good utilitarian default. Maybe you don't agree with all of these, but if you don't agree with any of them, we differ:
-- Applying for welfare benefits when you make $110K per year, certifying you make no money.
Reason: You should not obtain your fellow citizens' money via fraud.
-- "Officer Friendly, that man right there, the weird white guy, robbed/assaulted/(fill in unpleasant crime here) me.."
Reason: It is not nice to try to get people imprisoned for cr... (read more)
That is the usual meaning; at least, I thought it was. Perhaps what we have here is a sound/sound dispute.
Yeah, I didn't understand your position as well when I asked that.
How about tragedies of the commons, for example?
... (read more)It's less likely that someone will ignore facts that have been recently brought to their attention. You're right, I wasn't quite sure what word to use there, I may have screwed up.
With respect, have you ever said that to someone and... (read more)
I'm starting to get concerned that you have some intractable requirements for completeness of a philosophical theory before one can say anything about it at all. Do you think your ethics would withstand a concerted hammering like this? Do you know how to compare utility between agents? What are your feelings on population ethics? How do you deal with logical uncertainty and Pascal's muggings in complex Omega-related thought ... (read more)
http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth
... and many posts in the Sequences. (The posts/essays themselves aren't an answer to "where does this belief come from", but their content is.)
We made 'em up.
ht... (read more)
With respect, both hen's comment and your reply read to me like nonsense. I can neither make sense of what either of you are saying, nor, to the degree that I can, see any reason why you would claim the things you seem to be claiming. Of course, I could merely be misunderstanding your points.
However, I think we have now gone on a tangent far removed from anything resembling the original topic, and so I will refrain from continuing this subthread. (I'll read any responses you make, though.)
And? I should hope anyone reading this thread has already figured that out - from all the times it was mentioned.
Is there some sort of implication of this I'm too stupid to see?
What possible reasons there could plausibly be for jailing people, and what actually in fact motivates most people to support jailing people, are not the same thing.
Some possibilities for the former include:
- Retribution (i.e., punishing criminals because they deserve it)
- Closure/satisfaction for the victim(s), or for family/friends of the victims(s).
- Deterrence, i.e. protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect other people to otherwise perpetrate.
- Protecting society from counterfactual future crimes we expect this same criminal to other
... (read more)That is one possible purpose to have prisons, but not the only one.
Yes, I know. Hence my question:
... (read more)Well, sure. I did read your explanation(s). I was assuming the worst-case scenario for the hypothetical, where you have to violate someone's rights in order to protect others. For example, the classic lying-to-the-nazis-about-the-jews scenario.
... (read more)I disagree. For example, the potential donor might want to lie to spare the feelings of his sibling. Or to forestall family members from getting annoyed at him.
Lie and say he was incompatible. That's kinda the point of this subthread.
... (read more)What kind of scope of omission are you looking for here? If someone asks "what are you up to today?" or "what do you think of my painting?" I can pick any random thing that I really did do today or any thing I really do think of their painting and say that. "Wrote a section of a book" rather than a complete list, "I like the color palette on the background" rather than "...and I hate everything else about it".
Also, not speaking never counts as lying. (Stopping mid-utterance might, depending on the utterance, again with a caveat for sincere mistake of some kind. No tricks with "mental reservation".)
Interesting. I hadn't thought of that - personally, I have to admit that I think the model of Rational!Quirrell has left me significantly more favorably disposed towards lying than I would have been otherwise.
Heh. "I don't want to talk about that" or "That's personal" don't come anywhere close to working in certain cultures (by which I mean both the unique culture specific to a family, and cultural groups such as e.g. Ashkenazi Jews — the archetypal Jewish mother who says "So, are you meeting any nice girls? What do you mean it's none of my business?? Of course it's my business! I'm your mother!" etc. etc.).
Edit: What's with the downvotes all over this thread...?
Yes, but my friend who is advocating for a welfare state will not be among them. I have nothing to fear from him.
Lying is acceptable when done to protect your life or livelihood, but for most of our lives, most opportunities to tell lies won't be in situations like that. You shouldn't lie to friends or romantic partners, because if you can't communicate with them honestly, they shouldn't be your friends/partners in the first place. And I'm not going to respect other people lying to me. Instead of teaching men to accept lies (as in your date example), teach them to accept a "no".
What's good enough for alleviating discomfort so cheaply as with a few words if there's still better left? Showing you care about the people instead of some abstraction called a job usually works better for making them comfortable.
I've been trying to figure out which group I belong to, and reached the conclusion my strategy is entirely tangential: In between the oversimplification, steelmaning, multilayered metaphor, ambiguus sarchasm, faulty grammar, omission of disclaimers on source of information, bad epistemic standards etc. a truth value is simply not a property sounds coming out of my moth or symbols from my keyboard have. Including this post. Unless I'm making a very specific oath it should be fairly obvius a statement I make is not to be taken as actual knowledge or oppinion, simply brainstorming.
I feel your policy makes you more easily manipulable, not less.
I don't think this will work in practice. Lying is a habit. If you habitual lie in private life I won't you expect you to be completely honest when you are in academia. Even if you try to be honest I doubt you will be so completely. It relatively easy to try to control your data in different ways and then report the way that provided the best p value while not reporting the other ways. Yes, the ... (read more)
This sounds right and is the central idea of you post.
Maybe you should place "accept other people's right to lie to you." as a summary at the top?
What about if she just said: 'duty'?
No?
Sounds to me like that means "throwing paint is extremely funny and pretty much OK".
You presuppose that lying is the most effective way to create political change. Having a reputation as someone who always tells the truth even if that's produces disadvantages for himself is very useful if you want to be a political actor.
The Libertarians absolutist NIoF principle is known not to work,
Our values are psychological drives from a time in our evolutionary history before we could possibly be consequentialist enough to translate a simple underlying value into all the actions required to satisfy it. Which means that evolution had to bake in the "break this down into subgoals" operation, leaving us with the subgoals as our actual values. Lots of different things are useful for reproduction, so we value lots of different things. I would not have found that wiki article convincing either back when I believed as you believe, but have you read "Thou art godshatter?"
But they have no right to depend on that expectation, or to hold their child to that expectation.
The point isn't just that the parents expect their child to be heterosexual; the point is that the parents make it known that they would treat the child poorly if he/she were not heterosexual. The basis for a reasonable expectation of transparency is thereby destroyed regardless of the child's actual orientation.
Separately and unrelatedly: never having noticed signs of homosexuality is not evidence of heterosexuality if:
a) You don't have sufficient experience w... (read more)
Newcomb-like problems: I estimate my confidence (C1) that I can be the sort of person whom Omega predicts will one-box while in fact two-boxing, and my confidence (C2) that Omega predicting I will one-box gets me more money than Omega predicting I will two-box. If C1 is low and C2 is high (as in the classic formulation), I one-box.
Counterfactual-mugging-like problems: I estimate how much it will reduce Omega's chances of giving $10K to anyone I care about if I reject the offer. If that's low enough (as in the classic formulation), I keep my money.
It means that Madoff was claiming he'd invested his clients' money at an annual rate of return of... let's see... a little under 20% (Wikipedia cites 10.5 to 15) when he'd actually had it in the bank at a RoR in the low single digits. Because of that, there would have been... (read more)
Well, I'd agree that there's no special time such that only the state of the world at that time and at no other time matters. To talk about all times other than the moment the world ends as "the world's history" seems a little odd, but not actively wrong, I suppose.
As for counterfactuals... beats me. I'm willing to say that a counterfactual is an attribute of a state of the world, and I'm willing to say that it isn't, but in either case I can't see how a counterfactual could be an attribute of one state of the world and not another. So I can't see why it matters when it comes to motivating a choice between A and B.
Beats me. Why does that matter?
To be more precise: given two possible actions A and B, which lead to two different states of the world Wa and Wb, all attributes of Wa that aren't attributes of Wb are consequences of A, and all attributes of Wb that aren't attributes of Wa are consequences of B, and can motivate a choice between A and B.
Some attributes shared by Wa and Wb might be consequences of A or B, and others might not be, but I don't see why it matters for purposes of choosing between A and B.
Well, fair enough. While I'm disappointed not to be able to further improve my understanding of your beliefs, I treasure the LessWrong custom of tapping out of conversations that are no longer productive.
Have a nice day, and may you continue to improve your own understanding of such matters :)
(I think you were actually downvoted for missing the point of my response, by the way. I certainly hope that's the reason. It would be a great shame if people started downvoting for "tapping out" statements.)
you've completely misread what I said
The imperative to maximize utility is utilitarian, not necessarily consequentialist. I know I keep harping on this point, but it's an important distinction.
Edit: And even more specifically, it's total utilitarian.
The fact that the fundamental laws of physics are time-reversible makes such variations on the 1984-ish theme of "we can change the past" empirically wrong.
I was relying on the framing; obviously I wouldn't expect people to respond the same way in literally any context. (You're right, I didn't make that clear.)
... (read more)That is quite a false equivalency, since the term "fat" is loaded with all sorts of normative connotations and judgments, which the word "short" is not.
If you take "fat" to mean something like "in the Nth percentile of mass to height ratio, for some appropriate N", then you are misunderstanding how most people use the term. When your friend asks you "do I look fat in this dress", she most certainly is not asking you about the physical facts of her weight in pounds, and how that number relates to relevant population measures. If you answer "yes", you have not merely provided your best assessment of a physical measurement.
I'm not really sure what you mean by this.
Why indeed? Mathematics does sometimes examine formal systems that have no direct tie to anything in the physical world, because they are mathematically interesting. Sometimes those systems turn out to be real-world-useful.
What do you mean, "how formal systems should work"? Formal systems are defined in a cer... (read more)
I do not. I think you are entitled to the truth about your partner's opinion of things that are important to you. Your partner's, note; perhaps also your close friends'; not anyone's.
I would feel wronged, if I was said partner. I think that if you're in a relationship with a person who values truth, then yes, you are wronging them by withholding it to spa... (read more)
No, I really don't think that it does.
Consequentialists get their "whatever procedure" from looking at human moral intuitions and shoring them up with logic — making them more consistent (with each other, and with themselves given edge cases and large numbers and so forth), etc., while hewing as close to the original intuitions.
It's a naturalistic process. It's certainly not arbitrarily pulled from nowhere. The fact is that we, humans, have certain moral intuitions. Those intuitions may be "arbitrary" in some abstract sense, but they ce... (read more)
No, I don't, as you're well aware from our many, many lengthy discussions on the point.
I'll note that my prediction in this case was correct, no?
(For the record, it looks like you may not be a consequentialist, but it seems worth asking.)
Um ... why not? I mean, when we all agree it's a good idea, there are reasonable safeguards in place, we've checked it really does reduce rapes, murders, thefts, brutal beatings ... why not?
... (read more)I, personally, find this situation morally repugnant. Psychological unity of mankind leads me to hope Alicorn does too. What more justification could you ask?
However, even though signing a contract does not seem to remove the harm of rape, I of course cannot rule out the possibility that I am picturing the situation incorrectly, or that that the benefits would not outweigh the rape. (Yes, Alicorn has stated that they care about harms outside their framework of rights.)
Alicorn, on the other hand, likely already holds the standard opinion on rape (it is ba... (read more)
EDIT: Wait, you mean "punish" in the consequentialist sense of punishing defection, right?
Yes, but this does not imply that the current level of awfulness is optimal. It certainly does not mean we should increase the awfulness beyond the optimal level.
But if someone proposes that the current level is