Maybe the charge of moralizing can permissibly be used when circumstances make one unwilling to challenge the underlying moral beliefs.
For example, I always felt that the charge of "virtue-signaling" was very unfair to woke people. They really believed that the reason Black people are overrepresented in prison was racism, and that racism was so systemically ingrained in American institutions their total destruction was required. If that were actually the case, it would be appropriate to "virtue-signal" about this cause and to try to cancel people opposed to this project.
Obviously, people were unwilling to dispute the underlying belief, but didn't want to be told they were bad people for not wanting to destroy American institutions on the basis of a falsehood: thus the charge of "virtue-signaling."
Similarly, atheists who find Christianity extremely implausible do not wish to be preached at, but most people do not regularly wish to interrogate someone's sacred beliefs; thus it is more convenient and polite to simply request they not break the norm against proselytizing, when the true norm is against proselytizing on the basis of extremely implausible beliefs.
I’m not very religious, but what you said about Christians believing in eternal suffering was a good point. I’m not very religious, but that very point has frequently gnawed at me and given me self-doubt due to Pascal’s Wager. Like, based on the logic of infinite EV of suffering in hell, then shouldn’t we be focused on evangelizing as our primary cause area even if there’s only a tiny probability that Christians fundamentalists are right? And sometimes this logic can go even farther in applying to “what if certain Christians are right that XYZ is the Mark of the Beast and will condemn anyone who accepts it to hell?”
I think this misses the point that it makes sense to have norms which discourage moral condemnation (outside of family etc edit: so applying to most friends and non-immediate family) for behaviors that are within the Overton window [1].
Such norms are important for people from a diverse array of backgrounds to be able to live together for a number of reasons. It's basically the same argument for religious tolerance if you take religion seriously.
1) People are deeply psychologically unable to appreciate how much scolding hurts the adoption of their POV. We react strongly to moral violations -- probably because we evolved in a context where morals where usually shared by the whole group -- and without this counternorm I think the vast vast majority of people actually would hurt their causes.
2) Lots of people just have individual moral views that are wrong and there would be a large cost to them trying to apply them. Especially because once some people do it then everyone feels they are second class if they don't show they will also stand up for their weird cultural/religious moral tradition.
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1: Since this norm is part of generally accepted social behavior enforcing it doesn't trigger itself.
I don't think most instances of alleged preachiness concern random strangers accosting people on the subway and telling them that meat is murder or whatever. They mostly concern people who know each other.
I think this can apply to small issues, but if the moral issue is serious enough then it completely outweighs this point.
Of course, there are the next steps to it: e.g., societal enforcement, economical pressures, government coercion to various degrees and, ultimately, war for the sake of the moral issue. I think the problem of moralization would be doing too much of an overstep, or doing it poorly, to the point that the moral enforcement is overall worse than the original issue (plus the negative points for subpar effectiveness against it).
Well, what is actually the most effective is very context dependent. But it is not like that it is a fixed context nor a fixed Overton window, although it is always difficult to optimally transform it.
Mostly this goes to point 2. Until you actually have a dominant coalition that agrees with you the kind of things people tend to try to do in the absence of said norm usually backfire. But you can't just directly tell members of your coalition: hey STFU you are bad at this.
I think it's basically like Scott Alexander's point about social ostracisation and punishment. Once you assemble a dominant social coalition it might make sense to use it to punish people who behave in ways you think are unacceptable but until you have done that not so much.
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But also it can be good to have the norm and yet good to break it.
Yes, more friendly approaches should be prioritized, especially if you need the active commitment of people, i.e., that they actually are deeply convinced by what you are claiming.
This is right, to the extent that we're moralizing an optimal amount, and most people (me included) are probably below it. If you're not facing any social cost for moralizing, then you're probably moralizing too little. People can respond negatively, neutrally, or positively to moralizing, and to get some positive responses (people adopting the moral behavior) you probably need to get a fair amount of negative ones. And people often perform a kind of amoral indifference as a cover for their own cognitive dissonance, so negative responses are actually OK sometimes.
And we shouldn't underestimate the cumulative effect of being hassled all the time. The decline in cigarette smoking over a few decades is really remarkable, and stigma has a lot to do with it.
I agree that "you're moralizing" is never a refutation on its own, and it gets leveled most often at attacks on accepted practice, which is why nobody calls abolitionists or Bundy's prosecutors preachy. The charge tracks what society already accepts, not whether the underlying claim is true — so warrant has to be settled case by case, on the merits.
Which leads me to a question about the AI comparison. Water use is one holding, and a weak one: it's a contingent harm that can be fixed, which is why moralizing it is miscalibrated (and even more so when compared to much higher water usage from meat). What if you run the comparison holding-to-holding? Autonomous weapons, or systems built to concentrate power past accountability, aren't contingent harms that can be fixed. They're closer to the constitutive wrong you're attributing to factory farming.
So my question is do you think your own method, applied consistently, strengthens the serious AI critiques rather than dissolving them? "It's institutional, so individual choice is exempt" fails for meat — and it fails identically for the person building or using the autonomous weapon or the surveillance system. If multiple causation doesn't excuse the meat-eater, it doesn't excuse them either. Do the serious AI moralizers pass the same test the vegan does?
I agree that moralizing is justifiable. I’d just add that moralizing (in the sermonizing, lecturing sense) isn’t necessarily a great way to advocate for good causes. It might be warranted and still sometimes be counterproductive as persuasion.
If you have a cause you’re passionate about, sometimes beating people over the head with it day in and day out isn’t an optimal strategy, and the more righteous you feel your cause is, the more difficult it can be to recognize this.
That’s not to say moralizing doesn’t ever work (it often does) but if what you really want is adoption over vindication, an important aspect of actually doing what’s right would seem to be tailoring your message to the unconvinced in a way that will best encourage them to accept it.
I think this in large part comes from a conception of common sense morality which in the U.S. is very Kantian. As in its first principle is something like rational autonomy. That what is moral is that which enables people to have the most freedom to live their lives and be free from imposition of the will of others. This it seems to me is why job programs and public healthcare are popular and food stamps aren’t. The former encourages (or enables) one to exercise one’s autonomy as a human being, and the latter makes on at the mercy of the states will such as it is. That’s obviously not the only reason but I do think it’s a part of it. The relevent part here.
So stuff like veganism is supererogatory (a bullshit notion frankly, supererogatory obligations are insane and I’ll fight them till I die) and by “forcing in it down their throats” you threaten to impose your will on others. So they moralize against you.
Also given that common-sense morality in the United States is largely kantian (and when not that it tends to be virtue-ethics like) they just don’t think animals matter.
I think that accusations of moralizing often come from the difference between what I'll hesitantly call social morality and universal morality.
Most people are socially moral. They do moral things, but only so that they can signal to other people around them that they're moral. They'll be nice to their friends, repeat beloved shibboleths, and do things that look good. But ultimately they care about fitting in more than their principles. If everyone in their friend group suddenly started saying things that violated their principles, they'd change their principles. Often times this presents as people espousing the moral virtue of doing whatever it is they were going to do anyway.
A few people are genuinely universally moral. A universally moral person has principles above and beyond group benefit. They are willing to sacrifice their own well-being (and the well-being of the group) for the well-being of others. But this can come across as frustrating. Morality is, after all, meant to lubricate group coordination and justify them doing the things they were already going to do. How dare you attempt to challenge The Way We Do Things?
I'm more socially moral than I'd like. Most people are, which is why vegans and EAs often look like moral aliens.
The only good argument against moralising is that it is often ineffective because people are dumb
Maybe the charge of moralizing can permissibly be used when circumstances make one unwilling to challenge the underlying moral beliefs.
For example, I always felt that the charge of "virtue-signaling" was very unfair to woke people. They really believed that the reason Black people are overrepresented in prison was racism, and that racism was so systemically ingrained in American institutions their total destruction was required. If that were actually the case, it would be appropriate to "virtue-signal" about this cause and to try to cancel people opposed to this project.
Obviously, people were unwilling to dispute the underlying belief, but didn't want to be told they were bad people for not wanting to destroy American institutions on the basis of a falsehood: thus the charge of "virtue-signaling."
Similarly, atheists who find Christianity extremely implausible do not wish to be preached at, but most people do not regularly wish to interrogate someone's sacred beliefs; thus it is more convenient and polite to simply request they not break the norm against proselytizing, when the true norm is against proselytizing on the basis of extremely implausible beliefs.
I’m not very religious, but what you said about Christians believing in eternal suffering was a good point. I’m not very religious, but that very point has frequently gnawed at me and given me self-doubt due to Pascal’s Wager. Like, based on the logic of infinite EV of suffering in hell, then shouldn’t we be focused on evangelizing as our primary cause area even if there’s only a tiny probability that Christians fundamentalists are right? And sometimes this logic can go even farther in applying to “what if certain Christians are right that XYZ is the Mark of the Beast and will condemn anyone who accepts it to hell?”
I talk about this a bit here https://benthams.substack.com/p/philanthropy-with-infinite-stakes
Assuming Christianity, try to find out what is the most likely one.
I think this misses the point that it makes sense to have norms which discourage moral condemnation (outside of family etc edit: so applying to most friends and non-immediate family) for behaviors that are within the Overton window [1].
Such norms are important for people from a diverse array of backgrounds to be able to live together for a number of reasons. It's basically the same argument for religious tolerance if you take religion seriously.
1) People are deeply psychologically unable to appreciate how much scolding hurts the adoption of their POV. We react strongly to moral violations -- probably because we evolved in a context where morals where usually shared by the whole group -- and without this counternorm I think the vast vast majority of people actually would hurt their causes.
2) Lots of people just have individual moral views that are wrong and there would be a large cost to them trying to apply them. Especially because once some people do it then everyone feels they are second class if they don't show they will also stand up for their weird cultural/religious moral tradition.
---
1: Since this norm is part of generally accepted social behavior enforcing it doesn't trigger itself.
I don't think most instances of alleged preachiness concern random strangers accosting people on the subway and telling them that meat is murder or whatever. They mostly concern people who know each other.
Yes, but there is a huge range between immediate family and strangers. The norm applies to everyone outside of a very small inner circle.
I think this can apply to small issues, but if the moral issue is serious enough then it completely outweighs this point.
Of course, there are the next steps to it: e.g., societal enforcement, economical pressures, government coercion to various degrees and, ultimately, war for the sake of the moral issue. I think the problem of moralization would be doing too much of an overstep, or doing it poorly, to the point that the moral enforcement is overall worse than the original issue (plus the negative points for subpar effectiveness against it).
Well, what is actually the most effective is very context dependent. But it is not like that it is a fixed context nor a fixed Overton window, although it is always difficult to optimally transform it.
Mostly this goes to point 2. Until you actually have a dominant coalition that agrees with you the kind of things people tend to try to do in the absence of said norm usually backfire. But you can't just directly tell members of your coalition: hey STFU you are bad at this.
I think it's basically like Scott Alexander's point about social ostracisation and punishment. Once you assemble a dominant social coalition it might make sense to use it to punish people who behave in ways you think are unacceptable but until you have done that not so much.
---
But also it can be good to have the norm and yet good to break it.
Yes, more friendly approaches should be prioritized, especially if you need the active commitment of people, i.e., that they actually are deeply convinced by what you are claiming.
I always like a post where someone else points out how my reply guys are full of it!
This is right, to the extent that we're moralizing an optimal amount, and most people (me included) are probably below it. If you're not facing any social cost for moralizing, then you're probably moralizing too little. People can respond negatively, neutrally, or positively to moralizing, and to get some positive responses (people adopting the moral behavior) you probably need to get a fair amount of negative ones. And people often perform a kind of amoral indifference as a cover for their own cognitive dissonance, so negative responses are actually OK sometimes.
And we shouldn't underestimate the cumulative effect of being hassled all the time. The decline in cigarette smoking over a few decades is really remarkable, and stigma has a lot to do with it.
I agree that "you're moralizing" is never a refutation on its own, and it gets leveled most often at attacks on accepted practice, which is why nobody calls abolitionists or Bundy's prosecutors preachy. The charge tracks what society already accepts, not whether the underlying claim is true — so warrant has to be settled case by case, on the merits.
Which leads me to a question about the AI comparison. Water use is one holding, and a weak one: it's a contingent harm that can be fixed, which is why moralizing it is miscalibrated (and even more so when compared to much higher water usage from meat). What if you run the comparison holding-to-holding? Autonomous weapons, or systems built to concentrate power past accountability, aren't contingent harms that can be fixed. They're closer to the constitutive wrong you're attributing to factory farming.
So my question is do you think your own method, applied consistently, strengthens the serious AI critiques rather than dissolving them? "It's institutional, so individual choice is exempt" fails for meat — and it fails identically for the person building or using the autonomous weapon or the surveillance system. If multiple causation doesn't excuse the meat-eater, it doesn't excuse them either. Do the serious AI moralizers pass the same test the vegan does?
I agree that moralizing is justifiable. I’d just add that moralizing (in the sermonizing, lecturing sense) isn’t necessarily a great way to advocate for good causes. It might be warranted and still sometimes be counterproductive as persuasion.
If you have a cause you’re passionate about, sometimes beating people over the head with it day in and day out isn’t an optimal strategy, and the more righteous you feel your cause is, the more difficult it can be to recognize this.
That’s not to say moralizing doesn’t ever work (it often does) but if what you really want is adoption over vindication, an important aspect of actually doing what’s right would seem to be tailoring your message to the unconvinced in a way that will best encourage them to accept it.
I think this in large part comes from a conception of common sense morality which in the U.S. is very Kantian. As in its first principle is something like rational autonomy. That what is moral is that which enables people to have the most freedom to live their lives and be free from imposition of the will of others. This it seems to me is why job programs and public healthcare are popular and food stamps aren’t. The former encourages (or enables) one to exercise one’s autonomy as a human being, and the latter makes on at the mercy of the states will such as it is. That’s obviously not the only reason but I do think it’s a part of it. The relevent part here.
So stuff like veganism is supererogatory (a bullshit notion frankly, supererogatory obligations are insane and I’ll fight them till I die) and by “forcing in it down their throats” you threaten to impose your will on others. So they moralize against you.
Also given that common-sense morality in the United States is largely kantian (and when not that it tends to be virtue-ethics like) they just don’t think animals matter.
I think that accusations of moralizing often come from the difference between what I'll hesitantly call social morality and universal morality.
Most people are socially moral. They do moral things, but only so that they can signal to other people around them that they're moral. They'll be nice to their friends, repeat beloved shibboleths, and do things that look good. But ultimately they care about fitting in more than their principles. If everyone in their friend group suddenly started saying things that violated their principles, they'd change their principles. Often times this presents as people espousing the moral virtue of doing whatever it is they were going to do anyway.
A few people are genuinely universally moral. A universally moral person has principles above and beyond group benefit. They are willing to sacrifice their own well-being (and the well-being of the group) for the well-being of others. But this can come across as frustrating. Morality is, after all, meant to lubricate group coordination and justify them doing the things they were already going to do. How dare you attempt to challenge The Way We Do Things?
I'm more socially moral than I'd like. Most people are, which is why vegans and EAs often look like moral aliens.