by Magnus Vinding. First published in 2020.
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Summary
There are many reasons to adopt a cooperative approach to altruism. A cooperative approach can enable positive-sum compromises, make people more willing to join our efforts, and promote collaboration with others toward shared ends. Last but not least, greater cooperation can help reduce some of the main risk factors for s-risks.
Definition
What I mean by a “cooperative approach” in this context includes both common decency — i.e. being friendly and respectful toward others — as well as being willing to strike compromises with people who hold different values. These two notions of “cooperative” are distinct, yet closely related. For example, being friendly toward others is often a prerequisite for gainful compromises.
Gains from compromise
Agents with different values can often achieve mutual gains if they are willing to compromise, also known as gains from moral trade.
For example, rather than engaging in zero-sum competition to achieve 100 percent of one’s aims, it may be possible for competing factions to engage in a positive-sum compromise that enables both sides to achieve 80 percent of their respective aims, whereas they might otherwise have achieved far less (e.g. if they engaged in zero-sum competition).
The potential gains from compromise represent one of the many reasons to promote compromise and to try to be considerate of other people’s values in our deliberations. Brian Tomasik has explored some ways to promote compromise here.
Movement building
People will likely be less inclined to join altruistic efforts or movements if these are associated with uncooperative and unfriendly attitudes. In contrast, a movement thoroughly imbued with cooperativeness and friendliness invites people in, and makes potential contributors more willing to be associated with that movement. After all, most people will probably feel that it reflects more positively on them to be involved with a project that explicitly endorses cooperation compared to being associated with projects that stand for the opposite.
This latter consideration is important given how concerned most people are, quite rationally, about the signaling effects of their behavior. A cooperative approach can mean the difference between newcomers deciding to contribute to or oppose the efforts of a given movement.
Cooperation also benefits altruistic movements internally: it enables better collaboration and helps foster a healthy environment in which individuals can remain sustainably motivated and productive.
Many of the aims we care about are also shared by other people, even if other people do not prioritize those aims quite as highly as we do. For example, everyone can agree that the worst s-risks would be worth avoiding. Likewise, most people can agree that it is worth preventing intense suffering if it can be achieved at a trivial cost, and would thus be willing to give at least weak support toward this end.
This considerable degree of agreement on values represents a vast potential resource that a cooperative approach can help us capitalize on. Conversely, a hostile approach — e.g. being shaming and unfriendly — risks pushing people away, and thus risks throwing away this vast potential resource. (I say a bit more on this in Vinding, 2020, sec. 10.2.)
Emphasizing the substantial common ground among us instead of focusing mainly on our disagreements seems a good strategy for advancing our shared aims.
Avoiding conflicts
There are some reasons to think that the most worrying s-risks are agential in nature, and most agential s-risks likely result from conflicts or animosity of some kind.
Specifically, increased polarization, hatred, and retribution may be among the main risk factors for agential s-risks. How to best mitigate these risk factors is an open question, yet it is probably helpful if altruists adopt and endorse a cooperative and conciliatory approach.
In contrast, if altruists are needlessly provocative and antagonistic, this increases the risk that altruistic values will be the target of ill will and revenge. This is dangerous in a world where most agents do not care enough to strongly protect the value entities that altruists care about.
Why don’t we cooperate?
One reason we may fail to cooperate is that we are biased against it. For example, a drive to signal commitment to one’s favorite cause may push one toward posturing behavior that berates those who diverge even slightly from the supposedly ideal path. In other words, there often is a conflict between 1) trying to appear sincerely dedicated to one’s cause, and 2) doing that which is strategically optimal. And our hidden motives will often pull us toward the former.
Tribal biases may also play a role: it lies deep in human psychology to be opposed to the (perceived) outgroup, and to conspicuously showcase opposition to the outgroup in a way that is visible to one’s ingroup. This can prevent us from engaging in positive-sum compromises with other groups, and may impede effective collaboration toward shared ends.
(Note that this kind of tribal dynamic is often just as strong among agents who agree on values yet who disagree on empirical matters; here too, it is necessary that we strike compromises and suppress primitive impulses, Vinding, 2020, sec. 10.4.)
There may, of course, also be genuinely good reasons not to cooperate (further) in many cases — for example, when other agents are aggressive, or if our level of cooperation has become harmfully overaccommodating (Tomasik, 2014; Vinding, 2020, sec. 10.2). Additionally, there may be biases that push our behavior toward too much cooperation, such as drives toward social conformity and fear of confrontation.
There is a balance to be struck between standing up for one’s principles on the one hand, and being cooperative on the other. The considerations outlined above do not suggest that we should stop standing by our principles or cease to defend victims of extreme suffering. We most certainly should not. But the considerations reviewed here do suggest that we will be better able to prevent extreme suffering if we pursue principled compassion through a cooperative approach.
Acknowledgments
For helpful comments, I’m grateful to Michael Aird, Tobias Baumann, Anthony DiGiovanni, and Rupert McCallum.
References
Baumann, T. (2018). A typology of s-risks. Ungated
Baumann, T. (2019). Risk factors for s-risks. Ungated
Baumann, T. (2020). Common ground for longtermists. Ungated
Ord, T. (2015). Moral Trade. Ethics, 126, pp. 118-138. Ungated
Schubert et al. (2017). Considering Considerateness: Why communities of do-gooders should be exceptionally considerate. Ungated
Tomasik, B. (2013a). Gains From Trade Through Compromise. Ungated
Tomasik, B. (2013b). Possible Ways to Promote Compromise. Ungated
Tomasik, B. (2014). Reasons to Be Nice to Other Value Systems. Ungated
Vinding, M. (2020). Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications. Ratio Ethica. Ungated