40 Comments

Robin:I certainly see that there are biases that are more likely to affect the young than the old, but don't see any evidence that I am particularly suffering from them here. Obviously we can't be sure that we have eliminated all relevant biases in making a decision, but paralysing ourselves by refusing to make decisions in all such cases is clearly the worst of all ways forward. In this case, I'm not really claiming that my relevant beliefs are more likely to be true than those of my future self, but that he is more likely to have an immoral (or less moral) preference on this matter. I would therefore be happy to coerce my future self in this way. There are related issues which are closer to your original concern, such as if I was doing this because I thought not that my future self would act in a way that he sees as less moral, but that he would actually believe that to be moral. I think there is some chance of this, as we are biased to believe moral claims which help us out and don't hinder us. Such a conflict seems closer to the type you were originally writing about here and the weighing of young and old biases would seem more important. However I am mainly hedging against preference change rather than belief change.

Note also that I'm not making a contract that would completely bind me. I am instead making a pledge that I would feel bad about breaking for poor reasons and other people would look down on me breaking for poor reasons. There would also be poor externalities if I broke it for poor reasons (it would do less to inspire or motivate others). If something unforseen happened, such as my needing to pay a year's salary to avoid death, then obviously I would do so, as this would allow me to do more good in the long run. If I were binding myself such that I had to die in such unforeseen cases, then it would be much more open to claims that I was overconfident. I'm happy to make a pledge like mine that would only be worthwhile breaking for very good reasons.

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Robin: Overconfidence is a bias, but pursuit of glory is a preference.

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Toby, I said: Perhaps you suffer from young male biases toward overconfidence and the pursuit of glory. I was trying to refer to biases that are especially strong in young males, as opposed to the old male you will someday become. You seem to be able to imagine biases that might especially afflict the old rich male you may someday become. Have you no concept that there could be biases especially likely to afflict the person you are today?

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Robin:I'm not sure in what sense you think I might be biased. I'm sure I suffer from a number of epistemic and moral biases (as do we all unfortunately), but you seem to be getting at something in particular. I think this is a pretty rational choice given my aims.

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Toby:You sound serious enough to be worth prolonged discussion. I'd like to meet with you while I'm in the UK at the end of this May. You can reach me to make plans (I suggest jajah.com) at the US phone number six one zero, two one three, two four eight seven. I'm pretty sure that by pooling our informational and strategic resources we can be significantly more effective than we could be otherwise.

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Toby, so you are dismissing the possibility that you are biased on the basis of the fact that you do not feel biased?

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Michael:

I appreciate your concerns on the motivation front. I'm actually in a rather unusual situation in that I am very motivated towards helping the poor and am probably more motivated to do that than to help myself. In fact I think I'd work harder to get $100 for the poor than $10 for me and $90 for them. My work is in ethics at Oxford and I believe I can do more good here in total than by going elsewhere and earning more to give it away. I'm open to suggestions though -- if I thought it would be better, then I'd do it.

I should also mention that I'm setting up an organization called Giving What We Can for people who want to commit to give more. The idea is that in order to join, you need to commit to give at least 10% of your income to wherever you think it will do most to fight extreme poverty. We can pool resources on investigating the efficiency of different charities (a very important topic), challenge each other to give more (fighting weakness of will) and so forth. Indeed it is something of a support network for utilitarians itself (though of course members need not be utilitarians). With enough members, we could pressure NGOs to be more efficient (as they will be more likely to get our money and that of visitors to our site), pressure the government to give a little more, provide a welcoming community for those who want to do more for the world and so forth.

I've got quite a few people interested in joining (including some high profile members) and it should officially launch later this year. I expect it to raise (lifetime) pledges of between $100 million and $500 million within the first few years (obviously the amount actually raised would be lower as not everyone would be able to keep the pledge). To put this in context, my wife and I alone pledge about $6 million and people have contacted me pledging a total of $8 million together. The above targets don't need that many members to be met, and there is a surprisingly large amount of people willing to join.

Robin:

I'm not especially concerned about glory. I suppose that all versions of myself could be admired for going without, although there are differences: the young self chooses to sacrifice which is often considered impressive, the older self perhaps suffers more by going without against his will and this can be more unpleasant.

However, in reality, I've thought enough about ethics and giving that I honestly don't mind much whether I or another gets a benefit, so long as it is as large a benefit as possible. Perhaps this is just me, but I imagine that if other people seriously considered such things for long enough, they would also readjust their psychologies to be less self-interested. I'm not sure. In any event, while I'm making a large financial sacrifice, I don't think I'm sacrificing all that much happiness, for I already have a loving wife, warmth, shelter, access to all works of literature ever written, beautiful music, great friends, rich conversation etc. None of that is particularly expensive: those parts that can be bought can fairly easily be bought for 10,000 pounds a year in Oxford (a generally expensive place to live). I've been doing it on less than 7,000 for the past three years, leaving room to save money too. I don't think there is much need for praise.

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Toby, you have considered that your future self might be biased by a weak will, but have you considered that you might be biased, such as by an excessively strong will? Perhaps you suffer from young male biases toward overconfidence and the pursuit of glory. Won't it be the young you who is celebrated for his great devotion, while the old you does the actual paying?

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Toby: I really appreciate such dedication, but I think that it's probably somewhat short-sighted. It is possible to be happy on 10,000 pounds per year, but it isn't possible to value your time very much. You are almost sure to be able to donate more money if you value your time more highly and spend it making money. I don't know your abilities, though I would love to find out (Utilitarians and their ilk have so little social support, please e-mail me at michael.vassar at google dot com) but simply the level of dedication you are proclaiming is rare. It would be a tremendous shame to waste a potential Zell Kravinsky by encouraging them to earn a middle class salary and give it away. You should probably look at http://felicifia.com/ for more discussion.

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Perhaps I could shed some light on the 'Toby Ord' example. The last comment from albatross was closest to the mark. I think that giving my money where it is much more efficiently spent is a greater good. For example, 17 pounds can buy me a much nicer dinner, or cure someone of blindness (I've checked this one, and it holds up). Now the latter of these things is clearly at least 100 times as good. If I were blind, I would certainly give up 100 dinner upgrades to be cured of blindness. Indeed, I would give this up for even just one year of sight. All the more so if I was extremely poor and had trouble even surviving without being able to see. This is rather obvious and I highly doubt my future self will disagree.

However, it is possible that my future self will become more self interested. I might have difficulty doing what I believe is right. I have observed this phenomenon in others and even though I doubt I will become much more selfish, I think it is more likely than that I will rationally decide my dinner is better for the world than someone else's ability to see. Thus, in aiming to promote the greater good, I should constrain my future self, just as I should constrain others in a minor way to produce an obvious global benefit. I can commit the resources of others by voting for more government aid to the poor (via taxation) but I can commit the resources of my future self much more effectively. The 'tax is theft' types are unlikely to agree with this argument, but I think that most people would.

I should add that I also agree with the comments about the ratcheting effects on expectations and weakness of will that come with increasing income. Much better to make a decision like this now. Though there is a chance that my future self will be unhappy about it, the world's poor certainly will not be.

Oh, and one final point: I'm not commiting to give 10%, but to give all my income above an (inflation adjusting) figure of 10,000 pounds, which should free up over a million pounds (in today's figures) for the developing world, which I could use to cure 58,000 people of blindness or perhaps something even better.

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Robin, are you saying that you are no more rational now than when you were young?

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Robin: I completely agree with you. May the filthy lucre flow our way! I was simply proposing that someone who did feel that way about money could conceivably make such a calculation logically.

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James, being an older person with more money than my younger self had, I don't personally find it plausible that more money makes you less irrational.

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Robin: re: your remarks about "meta-paternalism" -- I agree with what you have to say, which leaves me wondering if you feel that perhaps this holds the answer to your initial puzzle?

If the benefits from a rationality-reducing choice are not great enough to offset the net present predicted costs in following the "advice about how best to preserve" future rationality, then a choice against the more apparent immediate interest is the rational one. Thus, if money will undermine your future rationality, and if retaining future rationality will have a future cost that more than offsets the money received, than foregoing the money is the rational choice. Do you agree this solves the puzzle?

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There are two different things going on here:

a. We may think we know what's right and want to constrain our future selves. That is, we think we know the right values now, and that our future selves will not.

b. We may think we can act now in ways that will benefit our future selves, even at the cost of also binding them to some extent. That is, we think we share values with our future selves.

Most examples I can think of for constraining future behavior fall into (b)--getting married, buying a house, enrolling in school, all involve a commitment that constrains future choices, but in a direction you expect your future self to appreciate.

The best examples of (a) I can think of involve addiction. I don't want to start smoking, partly because I expect that the future me will find it both necessary and very difficult to stop. I wouldn't normally expect the future mes to be less moral, or to have radically different beliefs, than I do. But addiction is an example. Another might be a decision by a very hotheaded person, or one subject to serious depression, not to keep firearms in the house. This involves recognizing that the local me might not hold quite the same values as the global me over time. (Similarly, many alcoholics don't take that first drink, married men don't go hang out in their female co-worker's hotel room on trips, etc. Because they figure that their local selves, in the heat of the moment, may do something their global selves will regret.)

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James, we might call the motive you describe "meta-paternalism", limiting choices not because irrationality makes their choices are bad, but because such choices will lead to reduced rationality which will then make other choices bad. Of course meta-paternalism is just paternalism at the meta level. After all, you could just give them your advice about how best to preserve their rationality.

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