Why Do I Need to Think Through an Objective Function?
You may be thinking “I have a set of beliefs that work for me. Why question them?” or “I just don’t care. This isn’t a question that is important to me.”
“What is your objective function?” is the single most important question in your life. Your answer to this question will be used to judge the fidelity of every decision you make. Whether an action or decision you make is “good” or “bad” from your perspective depends entirely on what you believe is intrinsically good or bad in the world.
Throughout history, there have been many times during which mainstream ethics promoted presently unthinkable actions such as slavery, recreational rape, and genocide.
You may think: “Sure, societies condoned unethical things in the past, but our modern society doesn’t do that anymore.”
Consider that someone in the slaveholding South would have said the exact same thing and 100% believed it. “We live in an age of enlightenment,” this person might proclaim, going on to discuss how unethical people were in the past and how they had risen above those barbaric practices. “In ancient Greece, terrible sins such as homosexuality were allowed,” they might argue, “but we do not allow such things in this modern day.”
Ethics does not move in only one direction as this example demonstrates. Rather than progress incrementally toward acceptance, social norms have wavered between periods of dehumanizing and accepting the LGBT community.
You cannot know if you are a modern version of a nineteenth century slave owner if you are not willing to look at your value system critically. It is tempting to assume that nothing in society’s modern morality is remotely equitable to slavery, but depending on your beliefs about what has intrinsic value, this is not necessarily true.
Many frameworks for understanding the world might view anything from abortion to the industrial slaughter of animals for consumption as horrendously unethical. It is entirely plausible that in a future society capable of synthetic meat production, our present industrial slaughter of animals will be seen as terrifyingly evil on a scale equal to any past atrocity in human history (especially if they don’t see a distinction between the emotional state of humans and animals). Whether we choose to eat meat today depends on our objective functions and how they relate to the lives of animals and plants. If you do not believe the life or experiences of a cow have inherent value, you can enjoy a hamburger with a clear conscience. However, if you do conclude a cow’s feelings have value, you may need to change your actions and lifestyle.
We wish there were more concise way to reason through objective functions while still giving an even shake to a broad range of perspectives. If you find this section tedious, skip it—it is not indicative of the following three steps. Even if you find this type of thing interesting, consider skipping around to the parts that are most relevant to you.