When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
I'm curious how he skewered virtue ethics. While I used to think lots of what these tech people espouse is a form of vulgar utilitarianism, I think a good chunk of the ai systems are actually being encoded with a form of virtue ethics.
Like Antropic's “Constitution” https://www.anthropic.com/constitution
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I'm curious how he skewered virtue ethics. While I used to think lots of what these tech people espouse is a form of vulgar utilitarianism, I think a good chunk of the ai systems are actually being encoded with a form of virtue ethics.
Like Antropic's “Constitution” https://www.anthropic.com/constitution
I took the class 31 years ago, so I remember a few points with great clarity, but many of the details are lost in the midst of time.
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I took the class 31 years ago, so I remember a few points with great clarity, but many of the details are lost in the midst of time.
Highly relateable. I took a linguistics class like 25 years ago. All I remember was the last lecture where he said this is all antiquated BS that no working linguist believes anymore. Then he wished us a happy summer and walked out
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Highly relateable. I took a linguistics class like 25 years ago. All I remember was the last lecture where he said this is all antiquated BS that no working linguist believes anymore. Then he wished us a happy summer and walked out
When I was visiting the uni as a highschool student, I sat in on the class for one lecture, which he gave entirely without lecture notes.
That day, he was talking about whether normative systems are a good basis for ethics and he gave the example of wearing a green hat. We can imagine a society where nobody would wear a green hat as it's not normative, but _obviously_ wearing a green hat isn't unethical.
One of the students raised her hand and said in her culture, wearing a green hat signified that your wife was cheating on you. Her boyfriend was a fan of the Oakland As and when her parents came to visit, they were concerned about his ball cap!
So I signed up for the class the next year as a student and we got to that day of the course and he gave _exactly_ the same lecture, but instead of talking about green hats, talked about using a salad fork for the main course. Etiquette is not ethics, but both are normative.
Which I think about occasionally, especially as I was learning about Jewish ethics, which are in many ways based on normativity. Etiquette mostly doesn't have material impacts, but rudeness motivated by bigotry does, so maybe there's not a huge bright line between the two. And while we can imagine a society with signifiers that are solely custom, we live in a society full of signifiers. If we sometimes confuse custom and ethics, maybe that's just an unavoidable given.
And is it ethical to wear a red baseball cap? I'd say no.
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When I was visiting the uni as a highschool student, I sat in on the class for one lecture, which he gave entirely without lecture notes.
That day, he was talking about whether normative systems are a good basis for ethics and he gave the example of wearing a green hat. We can imagine a society where nobody would wear a green hat as it's not normative, but _obviously_ wearing a green hat isn't unethical.
One of the students raised her hand and said in her culture, wearing a green hat signified that your wife was cheating on you. Her boyfriend was a fan of the Oakland As and when her parents came to visit, they were concerned about his ball cap!
So I signed up for the class the next year as a student and we got to that day of the course and he gave _exactly_ the same lecture, but instead of talking about green hats, talked about using a salad fork for the main course. Etiquette is not ethics, but both are normative.
Which I think about occasionally, especially as I was learning about Jewish ethics, which are in many ways based on normativity. Etiquette mostly doesn't have material impacts, but rudeness motivated by bigotry does, so maybe there's not a huge bright line between the two. And while we can imagine a society with signifiers that are solely custom, we live in a society full of signifiers. If we sometimes confuse custom and ethics, maybe that's just an unavoidable given.
And is it ethical to wear a red baseball cap? I'd say no.
@raf Also: dick move by your linguistics lecturer.
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When I was visiting the uni as a highschool student, I sat in on the class for one lecture, which he gave entirely without lecture notes.
That day, he was talking about whether normative systems are a good basis for ethics and he gave the example of wearing a green hat. We can imagine a society where nobody would wear a green hat as it's not normative, but _obviously_ wearing a green hat isn't unethical.
One of the students raised her hand and said in her culture, wearing a green hat signified that your wife was cheating on you. Her boyfriend was a fan of the Oakland As and when her parents came to visit, they were concerned about his ball cap!
So I signed up for the class the next year as a student and we got to that day of the course and he gave _exactly_ the same lecture, but instead of talking about green hats, talked about using a salad fork for the main course. Etiquette is not ethics, but both are normative.
Which I think about occasionally, especially as I was learning about Jewish ethics, which are in many ways based on normativity. Etiquette mostly doesn't have material impacts, but rudeness motivated by bigotry does, so maybe there's not a huge bright line between the two. And while we can imagine a society with signifiers that are solely custom, we live in a society full of signifiers. If we sometimes confuse custom and ethics, maybe that's just an unavoidable given.
And is it ethical to wear a red baseball cap? I'd say no.
Yea, I also think there are things like this in high context cultures. Where everyone expects you to know this already. Where willingly choosing to violate the norm communicates something.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh I’ve been looking for a (or many) book(s) that cover exactly that. Do you remember any of the material your prof suggested at the time?
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@celesteh I’ve been looking for a (or many) book(s) that cover exactly that. Do you remember any of the material your prof suggested at the time?
No, it's been quite some time. I tried to see if the course page was captured by archive.org, but I think the prof retired before it became normal to post reading lists this way.
I tried searching for him and found a news article that indicates he's 94 now: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Professor-attacked-by-bear-on-Muir-trail-3104504.php
Since I can't find an obituary, he's probably still alive. Since I only took the one class from him, I think I should probably not try emailing him.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh Any philosophy class that does not give you the tools for tearing apart arguments, any philosophy class that purports to teach a "correct" philosophy, is not a philosophy class. Same goes for philosophers, IMO.
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No, it's been quite some time. I tried to see if the course page was captured by archive.org, but I think the prof retired before it became normal to post reading lists this way.
I tried searching for him and found a news article that indicates he's 94 now: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Professor-attacked-by-bear-on-Muir-trail-3104504.php
Since I can't find an obituary, he's probably still alive. Since I only took the one class from him, I think I should probably not try emailing him.
Comrade, you could, and you should email him.
Imagine being him, and being remembered by a student who only took one class from you and still remembers you decades later.
That would make a person's heart sing.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
It's crazy how effective altruism gave us groups teaching doctors in remote communities how to fix cleft pallets instead of funding foreign doctors in traveling all over. (Actually a good thing.) To it morphing into the bull crap of not investing in saving the planet (because in their mind it's doomed) and pouring money into what they believe will help humanity after the downfall, such as AI.
Crazy thinking.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh man! That's much better than my CS program's (mandatory) ethics course, which was a philosophy professor who didn't really know what he was doing giving us a long list of obvious (usually criminal) ethics violations and saying "well, don't do that"
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From a professor: absolutely
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@idealpoint @celesteh @jlink I've just emailed a college history professor to thank her for her influence on me. I've tried before to write to a high school math teacher but never reached her. Ah well. The writing is also meaningful to me.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh I took "business ethics" and it was totally not about being ethical. Rather, it was about being afraid of and deferential to corporate lawyers.
Ughghjhhh
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@idealpoint @celesteh @jlink You should absolutely email him and tell him the exact story you put up here! That's amazing to hear from a former student.
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@idealpoint @celesteh @jlink You should absolutely email him and tell him the exact story you put up here! That's amazing to hear from a former student.
@victorgijsbers @idealpoint @jlink
I get emails like this occasionally and then I don't respond and then I feel guilty for not responding.....
He did seem more on it than me, though.
I looked up his publication record yesterday and he has some paper from 50 years ago about 'how the earth is flat' which is blowing my mind a bit. Like when we use a spirit level to ensure a table or whatever is flat, if we extended the flat table infinitely to the left, it would eventually circumnavigate the earth and join itself on the right. And if its level - that is, flat - is is actually followers the curvature of the earth. This is also (theoretically) true for much smaller tables. Everything we think of as flat isn't. The paper is slightly silly but he males a good point about how language is sloppy and how we actually experience the earth as having flat places.
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@celesteh I took "business ethics" and it was totally not about being ethical. Rather, it was about being afraid of and deferential to corporate lawyers.
Ughghjhhh
Out of college I was pointed in the direction of 'professional engineering exam' (or something like that). In my field it wasn't really a critical thing for getting a job, but I took a look. What passed for 'ethics' at the time seemed to be: don't undercut others in your profession, or otherwise interfere with them doing the job the way they see fit.
I didn't bother to even study (any further) for the test.
Much more recently I was studying for a cyber security certification, and was glad to see that they emphasized safety of people over watching out for you colleagues and bosses.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh critical thinking. Practice. Practice. Practice.
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When I was studying CS (and music) I took one single philosophy class, in Ethics. But it was offered by the philosophy department to philosophy majors,so it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics.
We had two class meetings per week. In the first class meeting, the professor would tell us about a system of ethics. Who came up with it and why. How it solved problems. And we could ask questions about what seemed to be shortcomings and he would give us the answers developed by people working on that system. It was finally the answer to all of our conundrums.
Then in the second session, he would tear it to shreds. He would raise a problem with it, maybe a problem we had raised, and show how the answer given was actually a tautology or logically confused or wrong in some other way. This system did not solve ethics and was in fact an incoherent mess!
The last week of the term, he got into the system popular now with tech oligarchs. They do actually have a system of ethics! (Which I don't recall the name of.) And boy, was it obviously a mess of scientific racism.
All during the term, I would get excited during the intro week and try to find holes. But this one was so obviously going to be eviscerated on Thursday, I didn't even try to point out how it was full of shit. I was llokinf forward to the coming destruction.
Thursday was the course review for the paper or exam or whatever. He let the last one stand.
At the time I thought he might actually be endorsing it and was upset. Later, I thought maybe because it was current rather than historical, counter arguments hadn't solidified.
Only much later did I realise that he had given us the tools to rip it apart ourselves. Indeed, it was the weakest and most poorly constructed of all the systems and we were certainly up to tearing it down.
So when I say CS students should take ethics, I mean, they should take a class like that, where they aren't left with a perfect framework to apply, but the tools to critique frameworks they encounter. They need to be able to spot bullshit. Right now, they are way too credulous of bullshit.
Edit: Effective altruism didn't exist yet. It was the racism stuff left as an exercise.
@celesteh " it wasn't what I think most people mean when they say programmers should study ethics."
No - this is *exactly* what I mean when I say programmers (and everyone, really) should study ethics. *Precisely* this.
