This seems a bit inaccurate to me in a few ways, but I'm unsure how accurate we want to be here.
First, when the entry talks about "consequentialism" it seems to identify it with a decision procedure: "Consequentialists are supposed to estimate all of the effects of their actions, and then add them up appropriately". In the literature, there is usually a distinction made between consequentialism as a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure, and it seems to me like many endorse the latter and not the former.
Secondly, it seems to identify consequentialism with act-consequentialism, because it only refers to consequences of individual actions as the criterion for evaluation.
Cool. There are a number of existing or projected entries with names of the form 'x vs. y', such as 'criteria of rightness vs. decision procedures', 'broad vs. narrow interventions', 'near vs. far thinking', etc. Alternative forms for these entries are 'x versus y' and 'x and y' (e.g. 'broad versus narrow interventions' and 'broad and narrow interventions', respectively). In addition, sometimes using just one of these terms may be most appropriate, though I don't think this is always the case. I don't have a clear preference for one form over the others, but I do think we should follow one form consistently. Thoughts?
I think there's no substantial reason to prefer "versus" over "vs." or "vs", so I prefer the latter options for brevity
Brevity also pushes in favour of "adjective1 vs adjective2 noun", rather than "adjective1 noun vs adjective2 noun", and I don't see a strong push in the other direction, so now I prefer the first approach
E.g., "Naive vs. sophisticated consequentalism" rather than "Naive consequentialism vs. sophisticated consequentialism"
I've now updated this tag's name to reflect that
Brevity also pushes in favour of just picking one or the other term rather than using both, but I think that can be outweighed in many cases
E.g., I think the primary topic of the broad vs narrow interventions entry really will be the distinction itself, not just broad interventions or narrow interventions, so the name should keep both
Whereas this entry might be primarily basically about "What is naive consequentialism, why is it bad, and how can you avoid it?", with sophisticated consequentialism only really coming into play as part of answering those questions
At least that's how I might see it
But it's not clear-cut in this case, which is why I kept both terms in the name for now
I think "vs." vs "and" should just be a matter of what's clearer and more appropriate for the case at hand?
E.g., "broad and narrow interventions" seems confusing; when I read that, I initially think we're describing one set of interventions that meets both criteria
This seems a bit inaccurate to me in a few ways, but I'm unsure how accurate we want to be here.
First, when the entry talks about "consequentialism" it seems to identify it with a decision procedure: "Consequentialists are supposed to estimate all of the effects of their actions, and then add them up appropriately". In the literature, there is usually a distinction made between consequentialism as a criterion of rightness and a decision procedure, and it seems to me like many endorse the latter and not the former.
Secondly, it seems to identify consequentialism with act-consequentialism, because it only refers to consequences of individual actions as the criterion for evaluation.
I think we should have an entry on something like this, so I grabbed the related EA Concepts title and text.
But maybe the entry should be called just Naive consequentialism, or maybe just Sophisticated consequentialism or something else.
Cool. There are a number of existing or projected entries with names of the form 'x vs. y', such as 'criteria of rightness vs. decision procedures', 'broad vs. narrow interventions', 'near vs. far thinking', etc. Alternative forms for these entries are 'x versus y' and 'x and y' (e.g. 'broad versus narrow interventions' and 'broad and narrow interventions', respectively). In addition, sometimes using just one of these terms may be most appropriate, though I don't think this is always the case. I don't have a clear preference for one form over the others, but I do think we should follow one form consistently. Thoughts?
Some quick thoughts:
Cool, that all seems sensible. I'll update the guide to reflect this.