Podcasts about consequentialist

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Is AlphaGo actually a consequentialist utility maximizer?, published by faul sname on December 8, 2023 on LessWrong. TL;DR: does stapling an adaptation executor to a consequentialist utility maximizer result in higher utility outcomes in the general case, or is AlphaGo just weird? So I was reading the AlphaGo paper recently, as one does. I noticed that architecturally, AlphaGo has A value network: "Given a board state, how likely is it to result in a win". I interpret this as an expected utility estimator. Rollouts: "Try out a bunch of different high-probability lines". I interpret this as a "consequences of possible actions" estimator, which can be used to both refine the expected utility estimate and also to select the highest-value action. A policy network: "Given a board state, what moves are normal to see from that position". I interpret this one as an "adaptation executor" style of thing -- it does not particularly try to do anything besides pattern-match. I've been thinking of AlphaGo as demonstrating the power of consequentialist reasoning, so it was a little startling to open the paper and see that actually stapling an adaptation executor to your utility maximizer provides more utility than trying to use pure consequentialist reasoning (in the sense of " argmax over the predicted results of your actions"). I notice that I am extremely confused. I would be inclined to think "well maybe the policy network isn't doing anything important, and it's just correcting for some minor utility estimation issue", but the authors of the paper anticipate that response, and include this extremely helpful diagram: The vertical axis is estimated Elo, and the dots along the X axis label represent which of the three components were active for those trials. For reference, the following components are relevant to the above graph: The fast rollout policy pπ: a small and efficient but not extremely accurate network that predicts the probability that each legal move will be the next move, based on examining a fixed set of properties of the last move (e.g. "is this move connected to the previous move", "does the immediate neighborhood of this move/the previous move match a predetermined pattern"). Accuracy of 24.2%. The tree rollout policy pτ: like the fast rollout policy, but adds three more features "move allows stones to be captured", "manhattan distance to last 2 moves", and a slightly larger pattern (12 point diamond instead of 3x3 pattern) around this move. Details of both pπ and pτ are given in extended data table 4 if you're curious. The SL policy network pσ: a giant (by the standards of the time) 13 layer NN, pretrained on human games and then further trained through, if I'm reading the paper correctly, learning to imitate a separate RL policy network that is not used anywhere in the final AlphaGo system (because the SL policy network outperforms it) The value network vθ: Same structure as the SL policy network except it outputs what probability the current board state has of being a win for the current player. Rollouts: Pretty standard MCTS So my question: Why does the system with the SL policy network do so much better than the system without it? A couple hypotheses: Boring Answer: The SL policy network just helps to narrow the search tree. You could get better performance by running the value network on every legal move, and then transforming the win probability for each legal move into a search weight, but that would require running the value network ~19x19=361 times per move, which is a lot more expensive than running the SL policy network once. Policy network just adds robustness: A second, separately trained value network would be just as useful as the policy network. Bugs in the value network: the value network will ever-so-slightly overestimate the value of some p...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Is AlphaGo actually a consequentialist utility maximizer?, published by faul sname on December 8, 2023 on LessWrong. TL;DR: does stapling an adaptation executor to a consequentialist utility maximizer result in higher utility outcomes in the general case, or is AlphaGo just weird? So I was reading the AlphaGo paper recently, as one does. I noticed that architecturally, AlphaGo has A value network: "Given a board state, how likely is it to result in a win". I interpret this as an expected utility estimator. Rollouts: "Try out a bunch of different high-probability lines". I interpret this as a "consequences of possible actions" estimator, which can be used to both refine the expected utility estimate and also to select the highest-value action. A policy network: "Given a board state, what moves are normal to see from that position". I interpret this one as an "adaptation executor" style of thing -- it does not particularly try to do anything besides pattern-match. I've been thinking of AlphaGo as demonstrating the power of consequentialist reasoning, so it was a little startling to open the paper and see that actually stapling an adaptation executor to your utility maximizer provides more utility than trying to use pure consequentialist reasoning (in the sense of " argmax over the predicted results of your actions"). I notice that I am extremely confused. I would be inclined to think "well maybe the policy network isn't doing anything important, and it's just correcting for some minor utility estimation issue", but the authors of the paper anticipate that response, and include this extremely helpful diagram: The vertical axis is estimated Elo, and the dots along the X axis label represent which of the three components were active for those trials. For reference, the following components are relevant to the above graph: The fast rollout policy pπ: a small and efficient but not extremely accurate network that predicts the probability that each legal move will be the next move, based on examining a fixed set of properties of the last move (e.g. "is this move connected to the previous move", "does the immediate neighborhood of this move/the previous move match a predetermined pattern"). Accuracy of 24.2%. The tree rollout policy pτ: like the fast rollout policy, but adds three more features "move allows stones to be captured", "manhattan distance to last 2 moves", and a slightly larger pattern (12 point diamond instead of 3x3 pattern) around this move. Details of both pπ and pτ are given in extended data table 4 if you're curious. The SL policy network pσ: a giant (by the standards of the time) 13 layer NN, pretrained on human games and then further trained through, if I'm reading the paper correctly, learning to imitate a separate RL policy network that is not used anywhere in the final AlphaGo system (because the SL policy network outperforms it) The value network vθ: Same structure as the SL policy network except it outputs what probability the current board state has of being a win for the current player. Rollouts: Pretty standard MCTS So my question: Why does the system with the SL policy network do so much better than the system without it? A couple hypotheses: Boring Answer: The SL policy network just helps to narrow the search tree. You could get better performance by running the value network on every legal move, and then transforming the win probability for each legal move into a search weight, but that would require running the value network ~19x19=361 times per move, which is a lot more expensive than running the SL policy network once. Policy network just adds robustness: A second, separately trained value network would be just as useful as the policy network. Bugs in the value network: the value network will ever-so-slightly overestimate the value of some p...

 Born in Beirut, Lebanon and emigrated to Montreal, Canada after the Lebanese Civil War, Gad Saad is a renowned evolutionary psychologist, author, and professor, known for being an insightful academic contributor to the fields of consumer behavior, marketing, and evolutionary psychology. In this episode, he talks all about how to be happy and what makes life happy: wholeness, gratitude, honesty, serendipity, variety, and spirituality.00:00:00 00:00:53 Introducing Gad 00:03:58 The Lighter Side of Happiness 00:06:25 How To Not Things Personally 00:10:18 What is Happiness? 00:12:09 Feeling Wholeness 00:15:46 How Much Truth is Too Much Truth? 00:18:10 Authentic Expression 00:21:40 Choosing the Right Mate 00:30:25 Being Open in Serendipity 00:32:39 Ego and Critical Thinking VS God and Spirituality 00:35:00 The James Webb Space Telescope and “Variety is the Spice of Life” 00:44:22 Changes in Education 00:46:19 Gad and Regrets 00:54:00 Where to Find GadWhat is Happiness?According to the academic literature, there are all kinds of debates on the difference between happiness, contentment, wellbeing, and even some people confusing pleasure and dopamine hits as happiness. We conflate pleasure with happiness and the external rush that comes with it, but that's not what it truly means. In the endocrinological framework, it's all about the serotonin system: feeling contentment and existential happiness that defines true happiness. Do you find yourself waking up and saying, “I have a great life?” or “Am I at a place where I am happy?”. If the answer is yes, then that's where the grand existential sense of the meaning of happiness can be truly found. How Much Truth is Too Much Truth?There are two ethical systems when it comes to telling the truth, the ontological ethics versus consequentialist ethics. The way that Gad is able to gauge truth-telling is whether it's ontological or consequentialist. Consequentialist ethics is when you massage the truth because the consequences of telling the truth are not necessarily worth it. On the other hand, ontological ethics is all about the pursuit of science where there is no such thing as “I believe in free speech, but…”. This automatically violates the ontological principle, or the absolute truth and for the pursuit of science, a person should always be in pursuit of the truth.Links and ResourcesPre-order Gad's upcoming book “The Saad Truth About Happiness” at AmazonOfficial WebsiteCatch him at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco at August 8 plus many more dates and venues to come!Meta-DescriptionPsychologist, author, and professor Gad Saad beams on about how to live a life of happiness, wholeness, and gratitude.Support the show

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Deontology and virtue ethics as "effective theories" of consequentialist ethics, published by Jan Kulveit on November 17, 2022 on LessWrong. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Deontology and virtue ethics as "effective theories" of consequentialist ethics, published by Jan Kulveit on November 17, 2022 on LessWrong. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.

In part 3 of the Political Philosophy Reading Group series, Adam, Giffin, and I discuss the paper "Co-Reactive Attitudes and the Making of Moral Community" by Victoria McGeer, wherein she links an adoption of P.F. Strawson's thesis about the reactive attitudes directly to the practice of restorative justice. Here's any links you'll need to dive deeper: https://www.princeton.edu/~vmcgeer/papers/McGeer2010CoreactiveMS.pdf https://platoscave.fireside.fm/33 Twitter: @JordanCMyers Personal Website: https://jordanmyers.org/ Email: platoscavepodcast@gmail.com Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD1RiH1j-M6C59z1upPXkWw?disable_polymer=true Plato's Cave Website: https://platoscave.fireside.fm/ Special Guests: Adam (Reading Group Discussions) and Giffin (Reading Group Discussions).

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: [ASoT] Consequentialist models as a superset of mesaoptimizers, published by leogao on April 23, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. TL;DR: I split out mesaoptimizers (models which do explicit search internally) from the superset of consequentialist models (which accomplish goals in the world, and may or may not use search internally). This resolves a bit of confusion I had about mesaoptimizers and whether things like GPT simulating an agent counted as mesaoptimization or not. Editor's note: I'm experimenting with having a lower quality threshold for just posting things even while I'm still confused and unconfident about my conclusions, but with this disclaimer at the top. Thanks to Vivek Hebbar, Ethan Perez, Owain Evans, and Evan Hubinger for discussions. What do I mean by consequentialist models? By consequentialist models I mean models which optimize the world in the Alex Flint sense of optimization; i.e narrowing world states to some goal in a way robust to some perturbations. In other words, it's able to achieve consequences. The model doesn't have to be fully consequentialist either, it just has to have some kernel of consequentialist structure by virtue of actually achieving its goals sometimes. Of course, the degree to which a model is consequentialist is more of a scalar quantity than a discrete yes/no thing; for my purposes it really doesn't matter where to draw a dotted line that dictates when a model "becomes consequentialist". (For what it's worth I would totally have called "consequentialist models" just mesaoptimizers and what other people call mesaoptimizers as like "searching mesaoptimizers" or something, but that would only create even more confusion than already exists) For instance, the policy network of alphago alone (i.e none of the MCTS) is consequentialist, because it consistently steers the world into states where it's winning, despite my attempts to make it not win. Basically any RL policy is a fairly consequentialist model by this definition, since they channel the set of all states to the set of states that achieve high reward. I think of mesaoptimizers as a subset of consequentialist models, in that they are consequentialist, but they implement this consequentialism using explicit search rather than some other random thing. Explicit search is a kind of optimization, but not all optimization has to be search. Why do we care about consequentialist models? Consequentialist models are scary because when they are learned imperfectly resulting in a goal that is misaligned with ours, they competently pursue the wrong thing, rather than failing outright (other terms for this phenomenon coined by various people: objective misgeneralization, malign failure). This is often stated as a danger of mesaoptimization, but I think this property is slightly more general than that. It's not the search part that makes this dangerous, it's the consequentialism part. Search is just one way that consequentialism can be implemented. Another way of thinking about this: instrumental convergence (and as a result, deception) is not exactly a result of search, or even utility maximization. Those things are ways of implementing consequentialism, but other ways of implementing consequentialism would result in the exact same problems. These non-searching consequentialist models might function internally as a pile of heuristics and shallow patterns that are just extremely competent at steering world states. Of course this is also a continuous thing, where you can do varying ratios of search to heuristics. My intuition is that humans, for instance, do very little search (our System 2), and rely on a huge pile of heuristics (our System 1) to provide a very powerful “rollout policy” to make the most of the little search we do. (My intuition is that GPT, for instance, does little...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Some reasons why a predictor wants to be a consequentialist, published by Lauro Langosco on April 15, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. Here's an exercise I've found very useful for intuition-building around alignment: Propose a solution to the alignment problem. Dig into the details until you understand why the proposal fails. If there is an obvious fix, go back to step 2 and iterate. In this post I'll go through an example of this type of exercise applied to oracle AI. The ideas in here are fairly standard, but I haven't seen them written up all together in one place so I'm posting this for easy reference. Some obvious-to-mention other posts on this topic are Dreams of Friendliness, The Parable of Predict-O-Matic, and Why Tool AIs want to be Agent AIs. Predictors Proposal: Instead of building a system that acts in the world, build a system that just tries to make good predictions (a type of oracle). This should avoid existential risk from AGI, because the system will have no agency of its own and thus no reason to manipulate or otherwise endanger us. There are many things that can go wrong with this approach. Broadly, the common thread of the problems I list here is that instead of "just" making good predictions, the system acts as a consequentialist.[1] By this I mean that it 1) pursues its objective like an expected utility maximizer and 2) considers a large space of possible actions and doesn't ignore any particular pathway towards optimizing its objective (like producing manipulative outputs or hacking the hardware it's running on). First problem: 'pick out good predictions' is a problematic objective. For example, imagine a model that is trained to predict camera inputs, and scored to maximize predictive accuracy. The model that actually maximizes predictive accuracy is one that takes control of the camera inputs and provides a null input forever. This produces all the problems that come up with agents that maximize expected utility, such as the instrumental goal of killing of all humans to defend the camera setup. Fix: we can define a notion of 'predictive accuracy' that doesn't have this problem. A candidate: predict what would have happened if the model only ever outputs a null prediction, and doesn't otherwise affect the world. (ETA: in addition, the predictor needs to be myopic, i.e. care only about the current prediction. Otherwise it will still be incentivized to return outputs that manipulate humans into e.g. given the model more resources, or make future questions easier to answer). This type of system is called a counterfactual oracle. But this has its own problems: Second problem: By default the predictor can influence the world via other routes than its input-output behavior, for example by modifying its activations to hack the computer it's running on. So outputting a null prediction is not enough. We have to assume the system is successfully boxed, or that the objective forbids affecting the world through other pathways other than the output. This is infeasible. Fix: It shouldn't matter that we cannot precisely formalize an objective, because in practice we'll be simply training the system via SGD to make predictions on some data set. If we want to be extra careful, we can never act on what the system outputs during training, so there should be no reason for it to learn to manipulate humans. We also shouldn't expect other bad behavior such as breaking out of the box, since such behavior is too different from the kind of behavior that is reinforced by gradient descent at sub-AGI capability levels. Third problem: The fix assumes that since manipulating humans is never an option during training, the predictor will never learn to manipulate humans. Similarly it should never learn to hack the hardware its running on or try any other weird tricks. If the...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Searching for Consequentialist Structure, published by leogao on March 27, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. Editor's note: I'm experimenting with having a lower quality threshold for just posting things even while I'm still confused and unconfident about my conclusions, but with this disclaimer at the top. Thanks to Kyle and Laria for discussions. In “Searching for Bayes Structure”, Eliezer argues that things which arrive at the truth must be doing something Bayes-like somewhere in there, even if it's extremely inefficient or accidental or filtered through some process that looks very different from the outside. If it has no Bayes structure, it literally cannot arrive at the truth. I think it's plausible that Bayes is to epistemic rationality as consequentialism is to instrumental rationality. Here, by consequentialism I mean the ability to get to some goal from a broader set of initial states, which is how I understood Elliezer's use of the term in the dialogues. It does not have to be an EUM/VNM-rational. Importantly, to be good at consequentialism comes with all the stuff like instrumental convergence (and consequently self preservation, power seeking, etc). In other words, there's some minimal amount of consequentialism you need to achieve a given goal, and there's no getting around this lower bound. Of course, some agents do a lot more consequentialism than is necessary, but I interpret some people (i.e Eliezer) as arguing that even this lower bound is too much consequentialism for, say, performing a pivotal action, because it's fundamentally very difficult to do. As an analogy, if your goal is to buy an apple for $1, any plans which fail to collect at least $1 will simply not be able to acquire an apple, and even though there also exist plans which collect $100 (which is more dangerous than collecting $1), if even collecting $1 is too dangerous by default, then even lobotomizing a $100-collecting agent to only collect $1 is scarcely comforting. The main lesson I draw from this is that if we want to do something consequentialist then we have to somehow figure out how to align consequentialists, and that making the agent worse at consequentialism isn't a solution. I think it also seems productive to figure out where the lower bound of how much consequentialism we need (for, i.e a pivotal action) and the upper bound of how much consequentialism is safe are relative to each other. I think there's also a way in which this applies to tool AI type arguments as well. Ultimately, the reason we want tools is they help us accomplish some goal (for instance, performing a pivotal action). So, we can view the entire human+tool system as an agent that is trying to get to some goal, where there's some human oversight to ensure that the plans pass muster. This system, to get to goals, will have to do consequentialism. While having the human provide the glue between the model and the real world does add some safety, I would argue that this is approximately as safe as just humans vetting plans from an agent, which is itself not really sufficient because many plans which seem non suspicious to us are actually dangerous in some unforeseen way (diving into whether this is most plans or vanishingly few plans seems like a useful avenue - on the one hand one would think that making a plan sound useful while still doing something bad might require a lot of optimization, on the other hand "I can't see anything going wrong with this" is a hugely lower bar than "nothing will go wrong with this" resulting in most plans that satisfy the former not satisfying the latter). While the human providing the "outer loop" so to speak does allow the human a little bit more control in that they have control over the particular reasoning processes used to arrive at the action, I don't think this is a ver...

This week Eric Kohn, Sam Gregg, and Dan Hugger discuss the retirement of Stephen Breyer from the Supreme Court. Will he have an enduring legacy, or will he be largely forgotten? How should we evaluate his jurisprudence? He is often thought of as a moderate liberal but was frequently deferential to state power. Can we expect any fireworks from the confirmation hearing of his successor, or will it be a far duller affair compared to those of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett? Then the Acton gang discuss what action the Federal Reserve is likely to take to combat inflation. How much of a shock to the economic system would an increase in interest rates be, and what's the likely political fallout? Finally, they consider Eric's recent Detroit News op-ed, arguing for COVID-19 risk assessment and decision making to be made on a personal and family level. How long can “COVID Zero” approaches endure? And how much longer will we continue masking kids in schools? Subscribe to our podcasts Business Matters 2022 — 50% off registration with promo code PODCASTBM22 Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from Supreme Court, paving way for Biden appointment | NBC News Justice Breyer's Retirement May Not Be All Bad News for Conservatives | National Review Fed likely to hike rates in March as Powell vows sustained inflation fight | Reuters Fed seen as hiking interest rates seven times in 2022, or once at every meeting, BofA says | MarketWatch It's time individuals, not the government, make choices about COVID-19 risk | Eric Kohn, Acton Institute Maryland county school CEO suggests students will be required to wear masks until 'COVID no longer exists' | Fox News See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Eric Kohn, Sam Gregg, and Dan Hugger discuss the retirement of Stephen Breyer from the Supreme Court. Will he have an enduring legacy, or will he be largely forgotten? How should we evaluate his jurisprudence? He is often thought of as a moderate liberal but was frequently deferential to state power. Can we […]

This week Eric Kohn, Sam Gregg, and Dan Hugger discuss the retirement of Stephen Breyer from the Supreme Court. Will he have an enduring legacy, or will he be largely forgotten? How should we evaluate his jurisprudence? He is often thought of as a moderate liberal but was frequently deferential to state power. Can we expect any fireworks from the confirmation hearing of his successor, or will it be a far duller affair compared to those of Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett? Then the Acton gang discuss what action the Federal Reserve is likely to take to combat inflation. How much of a shock to the economic system would an increase in interest rates be, and what's the likely political fallout? Finally, they consider Eric's recent Detroit News op-ed, arguing for COVID-19 risk assessment and decision making to be made on a personal and family level. How long can “COVID Zero” approaches endure? And how much longer will we continue masking kids in schools? Subscribe to our podcasts Business Matters 2022 — 50% off registration with promo code PODCASTBM22 Justice Stephen Breyer to retire from Supreme Court, paving way for Biden appointment | NBC News Justice Breyer's Retirement May Not Be All Bad News for Conservatives | National Review Fed likely to hike rates in March as Powell vows sustained inflation fight | Reuters Fed seen as hiking interest rates seven times in 2022, or once at every meeting, BofA says | MarketWatch It's time individuals, not the government, make choices about COVID-19 risk | Eric Kohn, Acton Institute Maryland county school CEO suggests students will be required to wear masks until ‘COVID no longer exists' | Fox News See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Rhetorical Abusability is a Poor Counterargument, published by Cullen OKeefe on January 8, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This post is a bit less polished than ideal, but I wanted to get it out of my drafts Introduction One sometimes sees the following type of objection to consequentialism or utilitarianism: P1. Consequentialist reasoning would justify X. P2. X is not justifiable. C. Therefore, consequentialism is wrong. Similar argument structures can also be applied to any number of ideologies/philosophies: P1. Libertarianism would justify X. P2. X is not justifiable. C. Therefore, Libertarianism is wrong. Call this general argument format the Justifiability Argument. Some recent criticisms of longtermism arguably follow this structure. We can also call the ideology in P1 the "target ideology" for generic purposes. However, note the potential ambiguity of "justify" as used in the Justifiability Argument. Depending on the sense in which it is used, P1 could mean either of the following: A. Consequentialism, properly applied, implies X is justifiable. B. A speaker can use consequentialist reasoning (e.g., consequentialist argumentation, consequentialist phraseology) to make a rhetorically convincing case for X. A. is a normal premise in a modus tollens. A lot has been said on when and whether moral arguments of this form are compelling, especially where P2 is supported by ethical intuitions alone. I will not add to that discussion here. B., however, is much more interesting. For the Justifiability Argument above to work under interpretation B., one needs an additional premises or argumentation. This post explores the Justifiability Argument under interpretation B, which I will call the Rhetorical Abusability Argument. To focus solely on that question, for the sake of argument we can assume that P2. is true, though in reality we may also disagree with it. Supplying the Missing Premises Rhetorical Abusability To make the Rhetorical Abusability Argument work, one could try to insert a premise like: P3. It should not be possible for a speaker to make a rhetorically convincing case fora false conclusion using the reasoning of the true moral theory. Call this the "Rhetorical Abusability Premise." I think most people who make the Justifiability Argument implicitly assume something like the Rhetorical Abusability Premise. Unfortunately, the Rhetorical Abusability Premise seems incredibly weak to me. For one thing, what is rhetorically convincing to people is a product of moral psychology, not of moral truth. It would be very odd if first-order moral truth depended on the contingencies of how convincing different rhetoric is to different audiences. Different people will find different things rhetorically convincing, and different speakers are differently skilled at rhetoric. It should not be surprising if there are many false (by supposition) moral conclusions that a skilled rhetorician could make some number of people believe. Laypeople's moral beliefs are not especially coherent, and for most of history (and possibly still now) people have believed morally unjustifiable things. So, the mere fact that someone can rhetorically abuse some theory to convince some listener of a false moral conclusion cannot be a good reason to reject that theory. There are other reasons to reject the Rhetorical Abusability Argument as formulated here. One advantage to the person using the Rhetorical Abusability Argument is that the Rhetorical Abusability Argument imposes no obligation to present the criticized moral theory correctly. What's important to the Rhetorical Abusability Argument is that the cited arguments or phraseology merely purport to apply the target ideology. This is beneficial to the person making the Justifiability Argument for a number of reasons. One is that it simply ...

French sub deal finger pointing, G20 high tech thingymabobs and a character left wanting. Join Dennis Atkins and Malcolm Farr to find out what's happening in Australian politics.

You can find Andrew's books here (among other places): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Andrew-Doyle/e/B001K8AWRC/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 Andrew's show, Free Speech Nation, can be found here: https://www.gbnews.uk/shows/free-speech-nation For Jonathan Pie (co-written with Tom Walker) see: https://www.youtube.com/user/tomwalker78 Follow Andrew on Twitter: @andrewdoyle_com Further References For more on Marcus Meechan (Count Dankula): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFraBEwucEY Helen Pluckrose's review of Free Speech and Why It Matters for Areo Magazine: https://areomagazine.com/2021/03/03/defending-the-key-liberal-value-andrew-doyles-free-speech-and-why-it-matters/ Greg Lukianoff, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (2014) Nigel Warburton, Free Speech: A Very Short Introduction (2009) Nadine Strossen, HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) Jeonmi Park's interview with Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4 Jordan Peterson, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief (1999) Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (1976) Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928) Compton Mackenzie, Extraordinary Women (1928) E. M. Forster, Maurice (1971) Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages (2010) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/how-british-cops-became-the-literal-speech-police (Your host, Iona, on UK hate speech laws) Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning, The Rise of Victimhood Culture: Microaggressions, Safe Spaces, and the New Culture Wars (2018) Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (2018) Timestamps 9:41 A primer on free speech 14:10–22:42 The new conformity: excerpt from Andrew's book 22:52 Cancel culture vs. political correctness 24:53 Consequentialist arguments vs. human rights arguments for free speech 27:10 How easily influenced are we by media? 36:20 The influence of postmodern ideas of language as power on the free speech debate 38:45 Homosexuality: a social construct? 49:16 Censorship from the left 55:26 Self-censorship 56:28 Censorship by the Tory government, including social media censorship 01:08:43 Trade offs of free speech. The dangers of restricting freedoms. The Scottish Hate Speech Bill.

In this episode, Dr. Tutlam discusses his research work on chronic diseases, mental health and youth violence.

In this our second revision podcast we've created a quick, under 5 minute, summary of duty based ethics. We look at it's advantages, disadvantages and its applications in healthcare. For more information on the topic visit our website: https://www.healthcareethicsandlaw.co.uk/intro-healthcare-ethics-law Or on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healthcare_ethics_and_law/?igshid=znwsjiusjakl Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthcareethicsandlaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/HealthcareEthi1

Dr. Craig defines Consequentialism in response to an article that quotes him.

As nearly half the world's population is now under some form of quarantine or lockdown, it seems like an apt time to consider the ethics of infectious disease control measures of this sort. In this episode, I chat to Jonathan Pugh and Tom Douglas, both of whom are Senior Research Fellows at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics in Oxford, about this very issue. We talk about the moral principles that should apply to our evaluation of infectious disease control and some of the typical objections to it. Throughout we focus specifically on some of different interventions that are being applied to tackle COVID-19.You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher and a range of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show NotesTopics covered include: Methods of infectious disease controlConsequentialist justifications for disease controlNon-consequentialist justificationsThe proportionality of disease control measuresCould these measures stigmatise certain populations?Could they exacerbate inequality or fuel discrimination?Must we err on the side of precaution in the midst of a novel pandemic?Is ethical evaluation a luxury at a time like this?Relevant LinksJonathan Pugh's HomepageTom Douglas's Homepage'Pandemic Ethics: Infectious Pathogen Control Measures and Moral Philosophy' by Jonathan and Tom'Justifications for Non-Consensual Medical Intervention: From Infectious Disease Control to Criminal Rehabilitation' by Jonathan and Tom'Infection Control for Third-Party Benefit: Lessons from Criminal Justice' by TomHow Different Asian Countries Responded to COVID 19    #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Subscribe to the newsletter

A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/ Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751  The 80% (My Book): https://www.amazon.com/80-Conservative-Evangelicals-Prove-Relativists-ebook/dp/B07RDPW2NZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=j.g.+elliot&qid=1573560697&sr=8-1 Various reflections related to consequentialism: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/category/pragmatism-and-consequentialism The House Wins song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Uvq9SMNHQ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/ Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751  The 80% (My Book): https://www.amazon.com/80-Conservative-Evangelicals-Prove-Relativists-ebook/dp/B07RDPW2NZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=j.g.+elliot&qid=1573560697&sr=8-1 Various reflections related to consequentialism: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/category/pragmatism-and-consequentialism When Helping Hurts book: https://www.amazon.com/When-Helping-Hurts-Alleviate-Yourself/dp/0802409989/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1574185196&sr=8-2 Greek Orthodox Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-spyridon/id980578028 Revolution of Values: https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Values-Reclaiming-Public-Common-ebook/dp/B07V7YY2MV/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=revolution+of+values&qid=1589546203&sr=8-1 From "Revolution of Values:" I strongly recommend chapter two which hits very hard at the heart of our discussion on grace and generosity. " The Bible in the hands of rich men became divorced from it's social and political context. Key to avoiding its prophetic challenge of economic inequality and the exploitation of poor people in ancient economies, was a focus on the Bible's spiritual message. On this reading, all of Hebrew scripture with its prophets with long beards and hair shirts confronting greedy kings, its message becomes a morality play meant to demonstrate each individual's need of redemption from sin. If wealth is the visible sign you are blessed, then poor people are spiritually needy.When rich men gather to read a spiritualized Bible, their thoughts turn not towards repentance, but charity. Thus the Bible's concern for justice towards all people and a concern for the poor became a reminder to rich men that it was important to sit on non-profits and charity boards. Helping poor people wasn't only about making sure they had food to eat or a place to sleep. It was ultimately about imparting spiritual blessing on them, holding out the hope that they too may pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be saved. 'When you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me,' wasn't Jesus's summary statement about how the nations of the earth would be judged on the last day. It was instead a reminder that industrialists must also be philanthropists. Great men who prove their spiritual greatness by offering to bestow it on anyone who aspires to be just like them.   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

*I realized that my statement on hospitality may not be taken graciously or with a full attempt to understand, so I felt the need to have an extended explanation here. It's important to note that I am not saying the only sin of Sodom was lacking hospitality, but simply that it was one aspect of the problem. Ezekiel 16:49 perhaps encompasses this idea the best, as it declares the sin of Sodom to be, at least in part, their lack of concern and assistance for the poor and needy. Unfortunately, many conservative Christians feel they can't allow both/and answers here, as they feel it undercuts their ability to use this verse as a proof text against homosexuality. Hospitality was a huge issue in the ANE, and even more specifically in the Bible. You can see this in a passage which has several similarities to the Sodom passage, found in Judges 19. There we see that a man enters another city within Israel, and it is emphasized that no one takes him in for the night. Finally, an old man takes him in, but then the men of the city come along and seek to rape the male traveler. The owner of the house shows disgust, emphasizing that it is vile to consider doing this to him because he is a guest. Rape doesn't seem to be as much the issue for the owner, as he's willing to throw out the guest's concubine and even his own daughter to be raped, and when the concubine is thrown out, the men are contented to rape her instead of the male guest. While the rape may be a part of the emphasis of perversion, the aspect which seems to put the icing on the cake is that such a thing would be done to a guest. Again, I am not saying that a lack of hospitality is the biggest aspect of either story, but that a lack of hospitality is a part of the problem. Lacking hospitality may not in and of itself seem abhorrent, but just as lust is a prerequisite for adultery and hate a prerequisite for murder, it seems that being inhospitable is a prerequisite (or accompanying attitude) for at least certain forms of injustice and abhorrent sin. We see many other references to God's desire for ancient Israel to be hospitable, especially to the most vulnerable (strangers, foreigners, orphans, widows, those in need, etc). Hospitality in this sense is a justice issue - a justice issue for which Israel goes into exile (concomitant with idolatry). We also see in the New Testament that hospitality is a requirement for both elders and deacons (even preceding teaching as a characteristic), and is also an important emphasis in Romans 12, where Paul is describing what the Christian life should look like at its core. For a good overview of ideas, check out the following source. https://www.christianity.com/newsletters/features/a-meal-says-more-than-you-think-the-importance-of-hospitality-11631555.html  A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/ Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751  The 80% (My Book): https://www.amazon.com/80-Conservative-Evangelicals-Prove-Relativists-ebook/dp/B07RDPW2NZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=j.g.+elliot&qid=1573560697&sr=8-1 Various reflections related to consequentialism: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/category/pragmatism-and-consequentialism ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/ Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo: https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/ Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751  The 80% (My Book): https://www.amazon.com/80-Conservative-Evangelicals-Prove-Relativists-ebook/dp/B07RDPW2NZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=j.g.+elliot&qid=1573560697&sr=8-1 Various reflections related to consequentialism: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/category/pragmatism-and-consequentialism Les Miserables Priest/Bishop Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhpwV4cwB4o Stories from my early stories of struggling with grace towards those requesting need: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-ministry-in-romania/category/perspectives Some of my reflections on grace: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/category/grace-and-mercy Revolution of Values: https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Values-Reclaiming-Public-Common-ebook/dp/B07V7YY2MV/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=revolution+of+values&qid=1589546203&sr=8-1 From "Revolution of Values:" I strongly recommend chapter two which hits very hard at the heart of our discussion on grace and generosity. " The Bible in the hands of rich men became divorced from it's social and political context. Key to avoiding its prophetic challenge of economic inequality and the exploitation of poor people in ancient economies, was a focus on the Bible's spiritual message. On this reading, all of Hebrew scripture with its prophets with long beards and hair shirts confronting greedy kings, its message becomes a morality play meant to demonstrate each individual's need of redemption from sin. If wealth is the visible sign you are blessed, then poor people are spiritually needy.When rich men gather to read a spiritualized Bible, their thoughts turn not towards repentance, but charity. Thus the Bible's concern for justice towards all people and a concern for the poor became a reminder to rich men that it was important to sit on non-profits and charity boards. Helping poor people wasn't only about making sure they had food to eat or a place to sleep. It was ultimately about imparting spiritual blessing on them, holding out the hope that they too may pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be saved. 'When you did it to the least of these, you did it unto me,' wasn't Jesus's summary statement about how the nations of the earth would be judged on the last day. It was instead a reminder that industrialists must also be philanthropists. Great men who prove their spiritual greatness by offering to bestow it on anyone who aspires to be just like them.   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Does the end justify the means? Should the outcome matter more than the process? In this episode, we go over two ethical stances, deontological and consequentialist, and we compare the pros and cons of both. I reveal which one I'd rather use on a daily basis (not case-by-case for simplicity), and I invite listeners to let me know what they think of both stances and where they'd stand if they could only pick one. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/indomaudible/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/indomaudible/support

This is a long ride. How does shitting on UBI and a jobs guarantee lead to the core divide between deontological anarchists and consequentialist libertarians???? Try our cebiche!

Part of the Sacrifice Revisited event TORCH's Crisis, Extremes, and Apocalypse network hosted a seminar on the topic of sacrifice where they revisited the concept of Sacrifice in late modernity in its various configurations, philosophical and ideological. This talk on 'Consequentialist Extremism: Present Sacrifices for Future Dreams in the Justification of Violence' was given by Jonathan Leader Maynard (University of Oxford).

Consequentialism vs. Deontological Ethics. In the Deep Space Nine episode "In the Pale Moonlight," was Captain Sisko justified in using less-then-honorable means to bring the Romulans into the war with the Dominion in order to end the war and save lives? Or were Sisko's actions unjustified because they violated universally valid moral rules and principles?  In this episode of Meta Treks, hosts Mike Morrison and Zachary Fruhling analyze "In the Pale Moonlight" from the contrasting ethical theories of consequentalist ethics (or utilitarianism) and deontological ethics (or rule-based ethics). Mike and Zachary consider the applicability of different forms of consequentialism, such as Jeremy Bentham's quantitative approach to utilitarianism, John Start Mill's more qualitative approach to utilitarianism, and rule utilitarianism as a middle-ground between ethics emphasizing consequences and ethics emphasizing rules. This episode of Meta Treks covers the crucial concepts of deontological/Kantian ethics, such as Kant's Categorical Imperative, the notion that some actions are intrinsically right or wrong regardless of consequences, and treating others as ends in themselves and not merely as means to your own ends. Mike and Zachary wrap up the conversation with a discussion of whether the justification for the Prime Directive is chiefly consequentialist or whether the Prime Directive, as the Federation's highest law or rule, is grounded in the intrinsic worth of the natural development of other worlds and cultures. Chapters Welcome to Episode 6 (00:01:06) Discussing the CBS Star Trek Announcement (00:02:22) Introducing the Topic (00:15:10) Consequentialism (00:16:40) Example - In The Pale Moonlight (00:19:31) Utilitarianism (00:32:09) Deontological Ethics (00:44:00) Kantian Ethics (00:44:40) The Categorical Imperative (00:49:00) The Prime Directive (01:05:38) Rule Utilitarianism (01:10:05) Virtue Based Ethics (01:17:46) Final Thoughts (01:20:06) Hosts Mike Morrison and Zachary Fruhling   Production Dennis Castello (Editor and Producer) Norman C. Lao (Executive Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Charlynn Schmiedt (Executive Producer) Will Nguyen (Content Manager) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)   Send us your feedback! Twitter: @trekfm  Facebook: http://facebook.com/trekfm  Voicemail: http://www.speakpipe.com/trekfm  Contact Form: http://www.trek.fm/contact  Visit the Trek.fm website at http://trek.fm/  Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.com/trekfm Support the Network! Become a Trek.fm Patron on Patreon and help us keep Star Trek talk coming every week. We have great perks for you at http://patreon.com/trekfm

Why should we blame the blameworthy? Wouldn't it be better to foreswear blame, embracing an ethic of unrelenting forgiveness and mercy? Christopher Franklin, assistant professor of philosophy at Grove City College (PA), discusses these questions and more during his lecture as part of the 2014-2015 Philosophy Speaker Series. Franklin argues that we should promote, enjoy, contemplate, and be for what is good. The defends the value of blame by arguing that cultivating a disposition to blame is an essential mode of being "for the good".

Professor Angie Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. She created the UK's first Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy in 2009 and is the Honorary Patron of The Philosophy Foundation.

Consequentialist ethical theories focus on the outcomes of an action in determining whether it is right or wrong, good or bad. Dr Jeremy St John looks at the theories of Psychological and Ethical Egoism as well as Utilitarianism, and discusses their application to organisational decision making and business practices. Find out more about the online Masters of Business Administration at http://online.latrobe.edu.au Copyright 2014 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.

What is consequentialist ethics / consequentialism? Does the consequence determine if something is ethical? What is the basis of consequentialist ethics / consequentialism?

After a clip from The Third Man, Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler’s TED talk envy, inappropriate acts with trees, and make a plea for more listener feedback. The second segment begins with the long-awaited return of the ‘eat the poo-poo’ clip, but this time in a somewhat relevant context. Dave and Tamler then discuss the role that emotions play in moral judgment and the role they should play. If we feel disgust at someone’s behavior,  does that mean the behavior is morally wrong? Tune in to find out…LinksThe Third Man Ferris Wheel Scene (maybe Dave will see this movie one day) Dave’s TEDx talk, bumped up to TED (129,000 views)Tamler’s TEDx talk, not as much bumping up.  (676 views) “Consequentialist are Psychopaths” The Splintered Mind  blog postEat the poo pooYuck by Dan Kelly"Grime and Punishment." Brief review of disgust and moral judgment from The Jury Expert by Yoel Inbar (the brains--and brawn--behind all the disgust work) and David P.

On this week's show we explain the only system of morality we really need (all in less than a half hour)! Comment on this podcast or download the music you hear in the podcast for free at http://www.abscondo.com