Great post. A few quick thoughts: 1. Much cynicism seems very selective - excessively cynical about rivals, outsiders, strangers, but insufficiently cynical about oneself, one's allies, etc. 2. I think there is a kind of sophisticated cynicism available, where higher motives are genuine and relatively robust but still powerfully shaped by material and social incentives operating through processes of socialisation and internalisation. That kind of cynicism still seems important to keep in view for certain theoretical, political, and institution design purposes (although one might quibble whether it still deserves the name "cynicism"). 3. I'm not sure the "many bad actions are rooted in morality" lit does such a good job distinguishing moralisation as post hoc rationalisation from morality as cause. In reality I think it's usually a complex mixture of motives but that in people's presentation and self-understanding they spotlight the moral ones..
1) Yes, certainly. But I think people's overall worldview and claims about human behaviour are often more influenced by overly negative cases than by overly positive ones (my penultimate section).
2) Agree, and I touch upon that in the same section. And regarding the naming question, yes, it's non-obvious. I chose the word "cynicism" here because I needed a shorthand. But it's true that you can argue there's a cynical element to such explanations even if they allow for higher motives to exert an independent causal force once we've acquired them.
3) Interesting, I should look into this more. I would agree there's a role for post hoc rationalisation, but that it is still typically powerfully shaped by the content of your moral beliefs. You cannot rationalise them however you please.
Good post on a very frustrating phenomenon. I do think the core is simply that the overwhelming majority of people people are not intelligent enough to properly model the worldview of those who disagree with them (I'm aware there's a slight irony in this comment, but I think it holds). It is an astonishingly, depressingly rare treat to have someone disagree with you and be able to accurately describe the argument you've set out.
Your observations strike me as the exact opposite of my own experience. Generally, speaking in my experience. People have far to optimistic view of human nature and will, for example, dismiss economical models as obvious rubbish. Because obviously modelling humans as self-interested agents, bears, no resemblance to actual human motivation and suggesting that they are themselves primarily motivated by self interest will prompting indignation from people who insist that, for example, they are motivated by concerns like fighting poverty while you can see them every day, bargaining aggressively to avoid having to pay their poor employees more and not donating anything to charity. The average employee for example will reliably have views regarding how the workplace should be managed that our precisely in line with self interest. So that for example, they keep complaining about how their boss is not giving them enough holidays and working them too hard and work. Life balance has gone away. Of course the same people when they are in the employer position will similarly complain about how their employees are demanding ludicrous amounts for substandard work. In actuality, most people don’t give much thought to the interest of their employers or employees and mostly only care about their own interest now, obviously from the inside this does not feel like being a selfish person more like you just don’t think of it from their point of view or care about it that much, but in so far as you’re interested in predicting their behaviour, the cynical model does much better. Indeed from your model, it is very hard to see why the AI race hasn’t ended already sure, collective action problems are difficult, but why the hell haven’t all the AI labs at the frontier which are not that many in number come out against the race, and why do they often fight against attempts to regulate them that would help fight these dynamics for that matter? How often do you think business executives will point out problems with their product as opposed to suppressing such bad information. It appears to me that the cynical model just does way better when it comes to analysing human behaviour. Even though obviously humans are not purely self interested given things like how they expend considerable resources on their children’s upbringing and other such activities.
Great post. A few quick thoughts: 1. Much cynicism seems very selective - excessively cynical about rivals, outsiders, strangers, but insufficiently cynical about oneself, one's allies, etc. 2. I think there is a kind of sophisticated cynicism available, where higher motives are genuine and relatively robust but still powerfully shaped by material and social incentives operating through processes of socialisation and internalisation. That kind of cynicism still seems important to keep in view for certain theoretical, political, and institution design purposes (although one might quibble whether it still deserves the name "cynicism"). 3. I'm not sure the "many bad actions are rooted in morality" lit does such a good job distinguishing moralisation as post hoc rationalisation from morality as cause. In reality I think it's usually a complex mixture of motives but that in people's presentation and self-understanding they spotlight the moral ones..
Thanks, Dan!
1) Yes, certainly. But I think people's overall worldview and claims about human behaviour are often more influenced by overly negative cases than by overly positive ones (my penultimate section).
2) Agree, and I touch upon that in the same section. And regarding the naming question, yes, it's non-obvious. I chose the word "cynicism" here because I needed a shorthand. But it's true that you can argue there's a cynical element to such explanations even if they allow for higher motives to exert an independent causal force once we've acquired them.
3) Interesting, I should look into this more. I would agree there's a role for post hoc rationalisation, but that it is still typically powerfully shaped by the content of your moral beliefs. You cannot rationalise them however you please.
Good post on a very frustrating phenomenon. I do think the core is simply that the overwhelming majority of people people are not intelligent enough to properly model the worldview of those who disagree with them (I'm aware there's a slight irony in this comment, but I think it holds). It is an astonishingly, depressingly rare treat to have someone disagree with you and be able to accurately describe the argument you've set out.
Your observations strike me as the exact opposite of my own experience. Generally, speaking in my experience. People have far to optimistic view of human nature and will, for example, dismiss economical models as obvious rubbish. Because obviously modelling humans as self-interested agents, bears, no resemblance to actual human motivation and suggesting that they are themselves primarily motivated by self interest will prompting indignation from people who insist that, for example, they are motivated by concerns like fighting poverty while you can see them every day, bargaining aggressively to avoid having to pay their poor employees more and not donating anything to charity. The average employee for example will reliably have views regarding how the workplace should be managed that our precisely in line with self interest. So that for example, they keep complaining about how their boss is not giving them enough holidays and working them too hard and work. Life balance has gone away. Of course the same people when they are in the employer position will similarly complain about how their employees are demanding ludicrous amounts for substandard work. In actuality, most people don’t give much thought to the interest of their employers or employees and mostly only care about their own interest now, obviously from the inside this does not feel like being a selfish person more like you just don’t think of it from their point of view or care about it that much, but in so far as you’re interested in predicting their behaviour, the cynical model does much better. Indeed from your model, it is very hard to see why the AI race hasn’t ended already sure, collective action problems are difficult, but why the hell haven’t all the AI labs at the frontier which are not that many in number come out against the race, and why do they often fight against attempts to regulate them that would help fight these dynamics for that matter? How often do you think business executives will point out problems with their product as opposed to suppressing such bad information. It appears to me that the cynical model just does way better when it comes to analysing human behaviour. Even though obviously humans are not purely self interested given things like how they expend considerable resources on their children’s upbringing and other such activities.