I haven't explicitly thought of it as a named principle, but something like the Strong Principle of Charity is what I generally try to follow. Though my version isn't as much about labeling people good or bad, but rather about eschewing the label entirely and just thinking about the reasons for why people do what they do, understanding those reasons and avoiding moral judgment.

I suspect that "good" and "bad" are both labels that might bias our models of people, as they are so strongly laden with various connotations. If you label someone as fundamentally good, even if just for the purpose of avoiding judgment, it might make you predict that he does things otherwise than he actually will.

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1) It would be easier to be charitable toward Mr Gingrich if he were not so strongly tied to a political party whose vocal members often imply, or state outright, that poverty and joblessness are the result of laziness. This belief is strikingly pervasive in recent Republican rhetoric, and I think the charitable interpretation of his remarks is unlikely to be the right one given this background.

2) Disney movies and R&J do not so easily fit the stalker analogy at all. Lovers, even if they be star-crossed, come in pairs. Stalkers don't know how to take a hint. And that's being charitable.

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What else do you call aladdin? He falls in love with a girl who has no interest in him, and then goes to extraordinary lengths to be near her.

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untrue.

Jasmine does like Aladdin, just not in the buffoonic 'Prince' persona he takes on. The Genie is aware of this, and tries to guide him through it.

The moral of that version is not 'stalker gets the girl', but be yourself. Aladdin is successful only when he gives up everything and returns to his natural state, which Jasmine recognises.

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Obviously, Hitler was merely trying to do what was best for its country, ensure its survival and power, and sincerely thought what he did was the best way to achieve it.

Our judgment of other people must not be based on unknowable intentions of theirs, but on what they say, and, much more importantly, what they do.
That should include our judgments toward ourselves, of course.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Typhon

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^ This.

I mean I generally agree with the Principle of Charity (in its weaker version), but sometimes...people just suck. The trick is to apply the Principle of Charity consistently, instead of immediately writing off people you disagree with as sucking/being kind of evil.

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with the minor caveat that he was an insane Syphilitic who turned genocidal.


Hitler had many positive qualities. It is critically unfortunate that his sickness caused so much damage.

meanwhile, Stalin really was just a complete cunt.

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I think there is a great deal of wisdom in this, but the way you put it makes it sound like you're saying "I've decided to believe X", which doesn't sound like you. I think that the point of view you're putting forward here should be taken seriously not because it's nice or charitable but because it is largely factually accurate, while thinking that your enemies are innately evil is simply wildly, ludicrously mispredictive.

However, I also think that Robin Hanson is largely right! It's nuts to think that the question "are people really good deep down" is going to have an answer. People are a weird mix of drives; happily some of those drives push them towards acting for the greater good - for whatever reason - and so a key question for an altruistic rationalist is how to get the best out of those drives.

Also, everyone should read Joshua Greene's The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth About Morality and What To Do About It.

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I am phrasing it as "I've decided to believe X", because I consider this a matter of perspective rather than a matter of fact.

I think the cynic's view that everything originates from bad motives (like donating to charity from a desire to be recognized) is true at some level, and the optimist's view that even evil acts come from a desire to do good is true at another - in the same way that it's true that people have sex because of a desire to perpetuate the species, even if they're wearing a condom or only doing it monogamously with someone they love very much. It's a question of different motives on different mental levels.

What I'm suggesting isn't a matter of fact about what people are thinking, it's a matter of at what level we say "Yeah, that's the real person, I'm going to model them there."

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It sounds more like an operating principle.

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Yep! The human brain is designed to prove whatever it is you've decided to believe. So it's very much the truth that you see what you look for in life.

You can see that someone who spends much of their time and energy caring about and being interested in someone else as being "stalking and obsessive" and an "unhealthy failure" or you can see that they are "in passionate love" with that other person. (For the record, my husband followed me around and focused very much on me, and it was awesome, and I love him for it, rather than being scared or a "burden". So if you want to call it stalking, that's cool, as long as you realize that for those of us who are romantic, it's the best way to show someone you love them. And even in the case of someone who I didn't end up falling in love with, I very much appreciated the attention and admiration from, why wouldn't I? So while you might not appreciate love and attention, remember that humans are diverse, and we all have different details in our brains, so we all want and fear different things, at least on the more specific levels, beyond the basic needs.)

And yeah, looking for the good things in people is always useful, if your goal is to find more good things in life.

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Since I believe that enlightened self-interest is the noblest of motives, I've got a bit of a problem with this. That having been said, I'll grant that assuming everybody's essentially good at heart is going to achieve better results overall than the opposite. I'd have a hard time applying it to active pedophiles, though.

~

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Well, there are some pedophiles who don't think that the things they are doing are essentially any different from ordinary romance - they just choose to "date" people who are quite young.

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I think wrt paedophiles, the charitable interpretation would run along the lines of "someone who has unhealthy/bad sexual urges that they desperately try to fight", and "someone who is too scared to ask for the help they need, because of the high chance any confidant will turn against them". You don't have to view their acts charitably, but seeing a paedophile as someone who needs urgent help (rather than an evil sotb that gets a kick out of destroying lives) may possibly be a lot more socially constructive in the long term than forming a lynch mob.

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I think a more charitable interpretation of paedophiles would be that they simply wish to extend the same respect of personhood to children that society affords adults, that is, the ability to make mature choices and experience mature joys.</p>

Of course, this only applies to the sort of cradle robber who expects consent from his underage partners; I'm unsure of a charitable explanation for the motives of blatant rapists (whose victims actually resist)--though I'm sure there are plenty of hentai stories with perspectives on that matter.

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I think it is a good idea. There is far too much impugning of others' motives today, when what one needs is to focus on effects.

Accusations of evil intent are essentially accusations of sociopathy. There simply aren't that many sociopaths. (I hope.) Even among people who disagree with me.

I don't care whether Gingrich is a racist, or bigot, or - whatever. I care that he's proposing a return to the days of child labor. I care about the effects. I don't care whether he's sincere; I care about the bad proposal.

Racism (or any other such infacility) is not about intending to cause harm to some other group, or even about believing that one or another group is inferior. It is about talking or acting in ways that have the effect of furthering institutional and cultural disprivilege.

It is not what a person thinks that is important, for I can't see into their head. Their intentions might be good - and indeed it is best to assume that they are. If their actions cause harm, focus on their actions.

Racism, bigotry, oppression, and most other evils of the world are not about what someone thinks; they are about what someone does. They may be informed by mistaken ideas, but - yes yes yes - they are not, mostly, charged by socipathy.

While people hate, they generally hate because they fear. And generally, they fear because they do not understand.

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"Racism (or any other such infacility) is not about intending to cause harm to some other group, or even about believing that one or another group is inferior. It is about talking or acting in ways that have the effect of furthering institutional and cultural disprivilege."

I'm not sure I agree with this. It certainly doesn't accord with how most people use the word, and all other uses of "-ism" usually denote a belief structure, not a set of actions. For example, atheism is believing there's no God, not acting against God's commandments or anything like that.

It would probably make life much clearer if there were two different words describing these two different ideas.

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I'm reminded of the Ferrett's recent post of acting racist vs. being racist. That might be a useful division, though he implied that "being" was worse, and here "acting" is worse.

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"Racist" and "racism" are both horrible words, in the sense that "wiggin" is a horrible word, and most of the popular discourse and controversy around "racism" could be done away with if we just used better terms. I wrote an essay on this, but decided not to post it because discussing racism on the Internet turns you into one of those people who discuss racism on the Internet (and attracts some of the wrong sort of people).

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Maybe post it, lock the comment thread, and announce you will never say anything more about it?

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Given the loose-goosey meaning of "privilege" among those who use the term, I would say that's not a useful definition of racism.

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I don't think Gingrich is actually proposing a return to the days of child labor, I think he's proposing a compromise of equality and economic fairness on the matter of child labour.</p>

Children in rural families already are brought up with an expectation of work ethic, as living on a farm, there is more work to be done than adults can manage on their own in addition to raising children. This ability to have job-like chores is a luxury that those who live in urban communities literally cannot afford. The household chores (being the only legal manner of child labour) are by far less demanding in a small and crowded apartment without even room for a garden. Parents in these poorer families simply don't have the resources to provide their children with productive activities outside of school, which is why after-school programs are so necessary in urban communities to keep children away from building unproductive (and counterproductive) habits.

Allowing children in poorer families to work outside the family for pay provides three great benefits: support of productive habits for the children, relief of financial burden on the household, and decreased dependency of urban communities on taxpayer-funded after-school programs for the sole purpose of reducing juvenile delinquency and crime.

There was an article on NPR's Talk of the Nation yesterday on proposed legislation that would even further restrict child labour in agriculture, which really got me thinking on this subject.

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I've been trying to apply this principle for about twelve hours. The result is already very clear-cut: AIIIEEE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?

I'm surrounded by idiots. Everyone, absolutely everyone, is trying as hard as they possibly can to do good, and failing miserably. They make preposterous mistakes, destroy everything around them, and then they don't notice and they do it again.

I'm an ignorant fool. People refuse to admit mistakes, are mean to each other, rack up Godwin points, and I can't just say "Did all the asshats take a break from 4chan today?". And so I stare and go "Buh?" all day.

And those empathy failures concern such mild jerkishness. Extremely scummy people I can understand just fine; they fight all-out for their ideals, like the heroes they are. So I find myself liking them more than regular annoying people and their shroud of mystery.

On top of all that, I have to *like* that crowd of incomprehensible, incompetent goody-two-shoes. Where did the magnificient, cruel, scheming bastards go?

I want to go back to Hanson's world where it's a given that everyone will stab everyone from all sides and I don't even have to feel bad when I'm a jerk. But I'm not sure I can. Make it stop!

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I would probably assume Newt's comments are probably racist because he's an old rich white man and I assume most people - especially most old rich white men - are at least moderately racist. But being a racist doesn't make you a supervillian. Even greedy self-centered people often sincerely care about some of the people close to them. Humans are notoriously sloppy, often to the point of incompetent - they do not pay attention to details nor accurately perceive consequences (or even stop to consider consequences).

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I reallly enjoyed this post.

I found my ability to understand people who I disagreed politically was helped when I started routinely thinking that they had a few different values from mine and quite often different weightings to the values we shared. It wasn’t that they didn’t value civil liberties for example, they just valued law abiding communities more.

Therefore they were incompetently trying to achieve the realisation of my values. Nor were they bent on destroying my value set they just had different priorities.

I still think they are wrong but I now have a toolkit to begin to understand why they are coming from the place they coming from and why they think the place they are going to is a good place.

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