“Good Judgment with Numbers” by Richard Y Chappell🔸

This is a link post. Summary: I critique the view that the role of quantitative tools in practical decision-making must be "all or nothing". On the critiqued view, either you’re committed to blindly following a simple algorithm come what may (a la naive instrumentalism), or you dismiss “soulless number-crunching” as entirely irrelevant to ethics. I think both options are bad, and moral agents should instead use good judgment informed by quantitative considerations. Getting this balance right is crucial to the project of effective altruism. Introduction A general theme of my writing is that people are often too quick to “read off” practical differences from theoretical ones. A classic example: whereas pluralistic views tend to leave unspecified the relative weights of their varied moral reasons, utilitarian reasons have precise weights (in theory), determinately fixing what ought to be done in any given situation. But people often infer from this that we [...] ---Outline:(00:38) Introduction(01:59) The ‘All or Nothing’ Assumption(04:18) Don’t Blindly Trust Numbers(06:54) Don’t Blindly Trust Formalisms(08:06) Don’t Blindly Dismiss All Numbers(10:54) Fallacies to Watch Out ForThe original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: September 23rd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JuGhpwTJxbeGt5GhH/good-judgment-with-numbers --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.