Richard Y Chappell🔸

@rychappell.bsky.social

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Philosophy prof. Posts better stuff at www.goodthoughts.blog 🔸10% Pledge #54 with @GivingWhatWeCan

If we ask the question, what decision-procedure (or broader moral mindset) should we expect to have the best consequences? I think it’s clear that the answer is: - Not blindly following naive expected value calculations; but also… - Not completely ignoring numbers. - Rather, take scale (and tractability) into account when trying to do good, in the ways that effective altruists recommend, considering a wide range of potential opportunities and ambitiously pursuing potential “upside”, while… - Taking care to mitigate “downside” risks, e.g. by acting with integrity, respecting moral “guard rails” (e.g. legitimate laws and rights), and avoiding Machiavellian manipulation or deceit (except when validated by common sense). - And generally exercising good judgment throughout! If folks want to argue that EA-style quantification is bad, I’d like to see them go beyond “All or Nothing” reasoning and seriously engage with this far more reasonable intermediate position. In particular, I’d love to see them spell out an alternative decision procedure that they expect would have better consequences for the world, and offer some argument or reasoning in support of that expectation.
I don’t know what should be done if academics fail to self-police against ideological capture and rampant unprofessionalism. Those who prioritize political goals over intellectual integrity would seem to have no basis for complaint if they’re later fired by other political agents. But the rest of us can’t trust political interference to stop at the point where it ceases to be objectively warranted. (We could complain, but that’s scant consolation for being unjustly fired!) So I think all academics have strong reasons of self-preservation to want to restore norms of integrity and professionalism, to earn back the public’s trust. As an added bonus, this would also amount to doing a better job.
Academic freedom lets academics write whatever they think is important and true. That could include your judgment that views XYZ, defended by some in your discipline, are deeply unreasonable and morally atrocious. I think this is true of anti-natalism, for example. But anti-natalists are free to make their case; I’m happy to engage substantively and explain where I think they go wrong. (We can disagree without being disagreeable.) If a colleague wanted to invite an anti-natalist to give a talk, my only concern would be about the opportunity cost—couldn’t we better use that time to hear something less confused? But if they go ahead, that’s fine. It would be absurdly unprofessional—unimaginable, even—for me to protest such an invitation, or try to organize a “counter-event” at the same time to draw away the potential audience. Yet such blatantly unprofessional behavior seems par for the course when the controversial talk concerns social justice issues. I think that’s messed up. Academics who try to undermine or prevent academic discourse that they disapprove of are behaving unprofessionally, and their colleagues should (gently) remind them of the relevant professional norms. It should be as shameful as trying to indoctrinate their students.
Ideally, of course, academics would self-police, to ensure that they are worthy of the public trust. (As a first step, more need to acknowledge the possibility and undesirability of ideological capture, and thus care to promote norms that better ward against it.)6 But what if they don’t? One risk here is that politicians may exploit the resulting social distrust to fire faculty that they view as “too left-wing” and replace them with right-wing ideologues instead. (My sense is that this is indeed what the likes of DeSantis and Rufo are hoping for in Florida. I hope I’m wrong.) Politicians are literally political partisans; it’s their job. So it would seem crazy to trust them to micromanage universities and expect that that would somehow help academic freedom. So, let’s not go that route.