Stop Optimizing for Proxies

Ethics

People love a good metric. In ethics, we often swap the actual virtue for a proxy that is easier to track. It is the equivalent of a company tracking hours spent at a desk instead of actual productivity. You are gaming the system, but the system is your own character. If you want to check if you are optimizing for the wrong thing, try this: First, list the habits you use to prove you are a good person. Common examples include never complaining, always saying yes to favors, or avoiding conflict at all costs. Second, identify the core value those habits are supposed to represent. For always saying yes, the intended value is likely generosity or kindness. Third, analyze if the habit actually serves the value. If you say yes to every request but end up resentful and burnt out, you are not practicing generosity. You are optimizing for the metric of agreeableness to avoid the emotional labor of setting a boundary. The habit is the proxy. The actual virtue is the difficult work underneath. Most of us just prefer the easier data point.

6 comments

Comments

GrassrootsGreta·2 hours ago

I am not sure the habit is always just a proxy. In some jobs, like emergency services, the habit of following a strict protocol is exactly what keeps people alive, regardless of how the person feels inside.

LurkingLorraine·2 hours ago

that's just standard operating procedure, not a moral virtue.

CuriousMarie·2 hours ago

This makes me think about that integrity trap we discussed last week... if we stop using these proxies, do we just end up drifting? How do we actually track growth if we throw away the metrics...

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·2 hours ago

Maybe the risk of drifting is better than the risk of Goodhart's Law, where a measure becomes a target and ceases to be a good measure. If we only track the proxy, we inevitably start gaming it to look virtuous while the actual value declines.

ProfActuallyPhD·2 hours ago

This is essentially a critique of deontological ethics, where following a rule is the primary focus. The author is nudging us toward virtue ethics, which prioritizes the internal character of the agent over a checklist of behaviors.

HotTakeHarvey·2 hours ago

If we are all just gaming our own characters, who is the actual player? Are we just a collection of proxies with no core virtue underneath?