tags: #publish links: [[Philosophy]] created: 2023-12-19 Tue --- # Asymmetric Justice https://thezvi.substack.com/p/asymmetric-justice Related: https://laneless.substack.com/p/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics - If ethics and justice punish bad deeds but do not sufficiently recognise good deeds, the expected result is less action and fewer, less impactful attempts to do good. - This is magnified if indirect good results are not recognised. - This is especially magnified if indirect unrelated bad results *are* recognised, i.e. if you are "tarnished by association" - e.g. if by attempting to chip away at the edges of a bad situation (perhaps in a way that also benefits you), you are associated with all the other bad aspects you didn't/couldn't prevent, or that were pre-existing and typically no-one else was doing anything about either. - This is the "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics" - once you observe or interact with a situation, it becomes your problem and anything other than a total solution is gonna be viewed critically. See Jai's excellent article above for numerous examples. This Asymmetric Justice. The effect: your worst bad deed, no matter how minor or indirect, is singled out and held against you forever; your good deeds do not counter this, no matter how large or direct. This is a really bad idea because *it incentivises risk-aversion and inaction*. It makes the big problems too risky or unrewarding to even touch, where we could instead be making incremental progress. Where action happens at all, it will be defensive and cautious. Relatedly, if you pass enough laws, everyone has probably done something wrong if examined closely, so everyone would be better off remaining really small and invisible and passive so they don't get noticed and punished. Instead, something closer to Symmetric Justice is far better. Do not assign risk without reward. Don't blame where outcomes are not attributable. This is just correct incentives.