Newtonian Ethics

  • We can refer to morality as a force
  • We can apply the same inverse square rule that we apply to gravity to ethics
  • The closer you are to wretchedness, the more morally reprehensible your refusal to help becomes, by the square of your proximity
  • Calculations using this rule conform well to people’s actual moral actions, like charitable donations

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics

  • When you observe or interact with a moral problem in any way, you will be blamed for not solving it
  • Even if you make the problem slightly better, you’ll be blamed for not solving the problem entirely
  • Examples:
    • New York City decided to track those who were not selected for its Homebase lottery as a control group - they were castigated for experimenting on people
    • Austin: BBH Labs outfitted homeless people with backpacks that provided wifi service and paid them to wander around South by Southwest - they were castigated for exploitation
    • Uber is criticized for using surge pricing, even though it gets more drivers on the road and provides more service overall
    • A company would be criticized for publicly offering women 80% of the pay of men, even though that is a better deal for the women (who get a reduced pay gap) and the company (which still gets to hire labor at below-market rates)
    • PETA was criticized for offering to pay poor Detroiters water bills on the condition that they give up meat
  • We should live in a world where making the problem slightly better is rewarded, and doesn’t make you responsible for the entire problem and all of its later consequences

“Ethics” is Advertising

  • Most “Buddhist” ethics is advertising
  • Consenus “Buddhist ethics” is repackaged left-liberal morality
  • Adopting “Buddhist ethics” is like calling yourself a “god fearing Christian” in the South
  • Adopting Buddhist ethics used to be a costly signal, but much of the signalling value has been lost as Buddhist ethics has become more mainstream
  • Buddhist ethics are a “badge” of left-wing “blue tribe” identity
    • Much of what happens at both left and right-wing cultural events is “badge checking”
    • People are asked about their badges, and are ostracized if it turns out that they hold the “wrong” beliefs
  • Buddhism is also a way for the left to signal moral piety
    • The left gave up Christianity to the Right, so they needed a non-church way to signal moral piety
    • Until the ’80s, mainstream American Buddhism had little to say about ethics
    • Ethics were added on after the fact so that Buddhism could be used as another layer of justification for mainstream secular ethics
  • Buddhism (used to) function as a class signal
    • The American middle class can be modeled as a series of increasingly smaller social clubs with ever more strict criteria for joining
    • Many upper-middle class signals are derived from Protestant Christianity
    • “Buddhist” ethics allow people to flash the same signals without having a Protestant Christian background or affiliation
    • As Buddhism became more widespread, its values lost their ability to signal that one was a member of the upper middle-class - at this point Buddhism is a middle class value, rather than being restricted to the upper middle-class
  • Buddhism functions as a signal of openness
    • Ironically, Buddhism in Asia is a low openness religion
    • However, in the West, because of its novelty, it became a signal of being open to unconventional experiences
    • Again, this signalling value has been diluted by the relative mainstreaming of Buddhism
  • At one point Buddhism was a bold choice; today it is a bland choice
    • Bold choice: signal of upper middle-class (controlled) nonconformity
    • Bland choice: signal of middle-class conformity to values set by the upper-middle class
  • Buddhism signals agreeableness
    • When dealing with non-hostile agents, agreeableness is a good thing
    • The practices of consensus Buddhism train pleasantness and equinaminity, which improve agreeableness
  • At this point, being a Buddhist signals that you’re an ineffectual person incapable of accomplishing any substantial goal
  • We can do better
    • Lets have more than one kind of Buddhism, and free Buddhism from its role as a signal of class
    • More generally, lets have signals that generate positive externalities rather than negative ones

Caring Less

  • Why don’t more attempts at persuasion ask you to care less about a particular topic?
  • People only have a finite amount of time, money and energy - asking them to care more about something is implictly asking them to care less about everything else
  • Asking people to care less about things would make tradeoffs more explicit, and allow greater visibility into what tradeoffs people are willing and not willing to make in order to care more about the topics that you want them to care more about
  • Why don’t we see more calls to care less?
    • Brains can create connections more readily than they can erase connections - easy to care more about something, difficult to care less once you’ve decided to care less
    • Not obvious how one should care less
      • Might be a cultural issue
      • Deliberately allocate fewer resources to an issue and then deliberately not feel guilty about it
    • Asking people to care less might threaten their identity if they’ve made the causes they support part of their identity
    • Calls for people to care less might be less memetically fit than calls for people to care more
    • Maybe by telling people to care less about a particular thing, we’ll make them care less in general
    • We already do tell people to care less - renunciation of earthly attachments/desires is a major part of many religions, such as Buddhism