Utopia on earth and morality without guilt (with Joe Carlsmith)

1. Adopt Wholehearted Moral Frame

Instead of viewing moral demands as external ’taxes’ that require sacrifice, cultivate a ‘wholehearted’ frame by asking what you would truly care about most if you fully understood a situation. This approach bypasses defensiveness and connects with your direct care for things in the world, making altruistic action an expression of your values.

2. Distinguish Non-Clinging from Indifference

Understand that the goal of non-clinging in practices like meditation is not to become indifferent or blank, but to shed the contracted, tight feeling of clinging while continuing to care deeply about things. This resolves the confusion that spiritual practices require abandoning all values and investments in the world.

3. Practice Non-Clinging in Meditation

Use meditation to build the mental muscle of noticing the ‘clinging’ flavor of experience—which feels contracted, tight, and pushy—and learning to let go of it. This practice helps promote a more open, fluid relationship with what’s happening internally and externally.

4. Reduce Clinging to Alleviate Suffering

Actively work to reduce clinging in your life, especially in relationships, as it often leads to suffering for yourself (e.g., anxiety, control) and others (e.g., restriction, compromised relationships). A non-clinging mental space fosters openness, freedom, and more skillful engagement with reality.

5. Skepticism Towards Totalizing Ideologies

Exercise skepticism towards arguments that demand radical life alteration or totalizing ideologies, especially those requiring extreme sacrifices. Your hesitations might be valid forms of resistance or healthy balance, not signs of moral defect, as many such arguments can lead in very bad directions.

6. Prioritize Healthy Moral Orientation

Recognize the risk of psychological harm and self-destructive responses when engaging with moral demands. Pragmatically choose orientations towards ethical issues that are most healthy and appropriate for you, as internal psychological friction can hinder effectiveness and lead to burnout.

7. Mind Your Moral Set Point

Be aware that your psychological ‘set point’ for moral comparison (e.g., moral perfection, average person, past self) significantly impacts your self-perception and well-being. While there isn’t one ‘right’ answer, it’s possible to make mistakes by misunderstanding your own values or the world.

8. Balance Trust and Skepticism

Navigate life’s irreversible commitments and choices by balancing trust (in people, communities, ideas, yourself) with appropriate skepticism. Avoid both excessive hesitation (being ’too cool to believe’) and believing ‘way too hard’ in a way that leads to irreversible negative outcomes.

9. Defer to Future Wisdom

When facing deeply uncertain philosophical questions (e.g., consciousness, morality), recognize our current ignorance and try to defer irreversible actions. Make room for future generations to gain more wisdom and understanding before making definitive, unchangeable decisions.

10. Abandon ‘Start from Scratch’ Philosophy

Recognize that you cannot build your worldview or philosophical understanding from a blank slate or ‘out of nothing.’ Instead, acknowledge that you are always ‘in motion,’ using your existing brain and frameworks, and avoid the frustrating project of trying to build everything from scratch philosophically.

11. Extrapolate from Peak Experiences

To envision utopia, identify moments of profound goodness (joy, love, beauty, connection) in your life, relationships, or community, and then imagine extrapolating much, much further in that direction. This provides substantive evidence of what’s possible and helps connect emotionally with the idea of utopia.

12. Embrace Sublime Utopian Vision

Cultivate a more sublime vision of utopia, being conscious of just how radically different and good the best possible world could be, rather than limiting it to concrete, human-scale terms. This helps avoid the failure modes of concrete visions, such as objections to specific details or feeling small and parochial.

13. Envision Dynamic Utopia

When imagining utopia, incorporate a dynamic quality of ever-deepening journeys, increasing intensity, beauty, and understanding, rather than a static state. This can make the vision more compelling and less prone to feeling boring or repetitive.

14. Acknowledge Future People’s Importance

Recognize that actions affecting future, non-existent people (e.g., setting a bomb that will harm them) are morally wrong, which implies that non-existent beings matter to some extent. This challenges the view that only existing beings have moral standing.

15. Improve Life for Existing Beings

If you have the option to give a created being a better life, it is wrong not to do so, regardless of the initial conditions of their creation. This implies a continuous ethical obligation to enhance well-being for those who exist.

16. Use Intuition Pumps for Dilemmas

When grappling with complex moral dilemmas, like population ethics, try to find a relatable ’equivalent’ (e.g., puppies instead of lizards) that evokes a clearer emotional or intuitive response. This can help you better understand your own moral pulls and the tensions in the argument.