Robin:

Hello, Agnes.

Agnes:

Hi, Robin.

Robin:

Long time no talk. Been a busy end of the semester for us.

Agnes:

Uh, that's not true, we've talked. We just haven't had a podcast.

Robin:

Right, well, we haven't had the time to do a podcast, yes.

Agnes:

You haven't heard us talk.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

Okay, um, uh, we're gonna talk about whether you can doubt your values, right?

Robin:

Sure, so-

Agnes:

So you start with-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... the project.

Robin:

Um, your mind is full of crap, uh, that you rely on for your life and all the choices you make. Um, lots of the stuff was thrown there relatively hastily, uh, sloppily, without careful consideration. So in some sense, all of it should be, uh, the stuff you should wonder, uh, how sloppy it was, and whether you... It was the sort- the thing you want to be there in your mind. You should just generically have a lot of doubt about everything in your head, 'cause it's full of stuff, it's huge, and you, you acquired it in a relatively short lifetime. And each point at which you threw something in your head or something got in your head from a movie, or your parents, or whatever, it was a fast event. You weren't thinking through all the context and possible choices. You, you... It's a pretty fast and dirty process by which you filled your head with stuff. So when we think of, uh, standard decision theory, we, we, we divide your head into two kinds of stuff, to the extent that abstraction applies. So we talk about one part of your head is full of beliefs about the world, and another part of your head is full of your priorities, uh, utilities, values, and you combine your utilities and beliefs to make actions. That's a reasonable approximation. For the purpose of our conversation, I don't think we especially need to challenge that, although it's an approximation that, in fact, you know, falls apart a bit when you push it too hard. But still, for the purpose of the conversation, let's say some of the stuff in your head is more like values, others more like beliefs. Then, uh, all of it is stuff you know was pretty sloppily tossed in there, mixed around and bouncing around pretty sloppily in a quick life, so it should all be open to, uh, doubt. The only question might be: do you have tools to actually doubt effectively? And, uh, we certainly have tools for beliefs to doubt effectively. That is, we have ways in which we have consistency across different kinds of beliefs, consistency with evidence. You should have the same beliefs as other people if you have similar evidence. We have then a bunch of tools to help you question and doubt your beliefs, and then the only other question might be, well, do you have similar sorts of tools to doubt values? But I might think one tool you have is just consistency of your values across your different choices across time. That's at least one place to start to doubt your values, is, uh... Now, you m- you, you could, in principle, say, "Well, no, my values are just really context-dependent, so they shouldn't be consistent. They... It's just fine for me today to want the blue pen and tomorrow to want the red pen, and I don't need to have consistency there." So if you go far enough in insisting that your values shouldn't have any structure, there's no particular structure to expect from them, then we can't use some sort of consistency of the structure as a leverage. But anyway-

Agnes:

Here's another way you might put that. There's a q- Do you value consistency? It's the question, right? Uh, and I mean, suppose you do, and so now you're gonna criticize your values. You're doing it from the point of view of a value that you're holding-

Robin:

Of course

Agnes:

... seemingly, your valuing of consistency that you're not questioning. Um, and in fact, as you're, you're suggesting, you know, some of your values might, um... You have a bunch of stuff in your head, right? And some of it might be wrong. Um, and so you should doubt your values, 'cause they might be wrong. That presupposes that you value them being right, and, um, and so it-- Like, one thing that I think you clearly can do is ask whether your pursuit of a given value is conducive to another value that you're holding fixed, right? So let's say, um, you know, I love buying pretty dresses, but I also want there to be space in my bedroom for me. Um, and so I can ask myself the question: Is my love of continuously acquiring more and more dresses consistent with, um, another desire that I have? Um, uh, that is, does it, does it conduce to my having space in my room? Um, that, I agree that that's a thing you can do.

Robin:

Uh-

Agnes:

But that doesn't tell you which way to go, um, 'cause you're still gonna have to decide, like, w- you know, say which value is fundamental to you. And maybe you'll do that in the light of a yet higher value, but then that's the one precisely that you're not questioning.

Robin:

So the, the situation you gave there, when reframed in terms of standard decision theory, we might make the distinction you've made a strategy of choosing many clothes-

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

... and that's different from a value. So the usual idea is you have values and facts, and then on the basis of that, you choose strategies, you choose actions. And just the basic structure there, you could criticize a action on the basis of it failing to match your beliefs and values, which would be somewhat different than questioning the values themselves. So we-- I, but I think we could come up with other examples of more directly conflicting values. Uh, like-

Agnes:

Okay, I mean, so you've complicated your... You said you were gonna use this simple framework of-

Robin:

Sure

Agnes:

... values and beliefs. You now complicate it by adding strategies to the mix. So now that we've had that complication, then I want to introduce my complication, which is, um, I, I think we can say something more about what, what values are. Um, uh, here's, here, here... I'm just gonna give-- This isn't a view that I have... It's a view that I think is correct, but I don't, I'm not going to camp with it, but I don't think it matters. Um, you could think of a, a value as a collection of dispositions. So when I value something, I have some dispositions to hold beliefs about it, in particular, beliefs that it's valuable. So when I value a thing, I tend to think that it's valuable.... um, that's not the same thing as valuing, because-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

- I can believe that something is valuable, um, like, um, square dancing or something. Like, I'm glad the world contains square dancing. I think it's valuable, but I have no interest in square dancing, right?

Robin:

Sure.

Agnes:

And we might value it. Okay, so the belief is a part, but it's not the whole thing, and then the other two parts are, um, a motivational component. So I have a disposition to form desires in relation to the thing, like a disposition to go square dancing, um, to engage in the corresponding activity, whatever. Depends on what kind of thing you value. Um, so there's a motivational disposition in addition to the cognitive one of having beliefs, motivational one. And then, finally, there is an affective or emotional disposition. That is, when you value something, you are liable to feelings of loss, jealousy, betrayal, anger, et cetera, which is not quite the same thing as desire, so it's different from the motivation.

Robin:

Yeah.

Agnes:

Okay, so let's say now that, that... To, to value something is to have that set of dispositions in relation to it, re- um, dispositions to belief-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... the desire to engage in it or with it or whatever, and to feel certain things in relation to it. And then, I mean, maybe one thing we might say at that point is, well, um, what kinds of things can be doubted? Um, can you doubt motivations? Can you doubt emotions? Maybe the only things we can doubt are beliefs. That is, to doubt something is to doubt whether it is true. And so maybe one issue about doubting your values is that only one part of the value is the cognitive part, and, um, so it's, you know, the value is- has a foot in the door of belief, but it isn't a belief. And, um, and so you can't straightforwardly doubt it.

Robin:

Uh, so, uh, previously you were making a point about, um, you know, that you couldn't, if... You know, you could only pursue a value in light of another value.

Agnes:

Yeah.

Robin:

And I just wanted to notice that there is a parallel thing with beliefs there.

Agnes:

Mm.

Robin:

Many people have noted that in order to question any one belief, you'll have to rely on other beliefs in the background to question the belief, so that y- you know, all, all skepticism is local in that sense. Uh, it's very hard to be globally skeptical about beliefs, and therefore, plausibly also hard to be globally skeptical about values. Let's just accept your stipulation that, in fact, questioning will be done, uh, locally, holding some other things fixed and focusing intention on a particular thing-

Agnes:

I mean, that's not obviously correct. Like, Descartes thought that was wrong, right? So Descartes' whole project is to say, "No, you can actually come to the, the one thing that can't be doubted, which is that I think..." And what I'm saying is that's just, uh, inconceivable in relation to. There's no such project in relation to value. So-

Robin:

So-

Agnes:

There is such a thing as... You, you're describing co- coherentism in belief.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

Not everyone's a coherentist. Some people are foundationalists, like Descartes, and those people think the thing you just said about beliefs is wrong.

Robin:

Okay.

Agnes:

But there's no one who claims to think about desires, so I, I still do-

Robin:

Well, so if we might say doubt is a meta-belief-

Agnes:

Mm-hmm

Robin:

... it's a belief about a belief, and then we could talk about meta desires and meta attitudes.

Agnes:

What's a meta belief? Uh, like, like, that is, um, like, what is the content of the meta belief gonna be? Something like, um-

Robin:

My degree of belief in this belief is this limited amount that isn't full. So a degree of belief, you could think of as a meta belief, a, a elaboration of a belief.

Agnes:

But like, let's say I think that it is, um, not snowing outside right now, and, um, my credence in that is not super high. Like, it would be, like, 80%.

Robin:

Yeah. Okay.

Agnes:

I can't go out there.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

Um, but the, the claim that I have a credence level and that it... I'm not at probability one for it's not snowing outside, um, it doesn't seem like the same as that I doubt it, like, that I doubt whether it's snowing. I don't doubt it. I think it's not, but at 70%. And so, so, like, is the thought-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... well, if you're not doubting, then all of your credences are set at one. You think it's a logical tr- everything you think is a logical truth if you're not doubting, and so that's the condition-

Robin:

Yeah

Agnes:

... that we're with our values, is we think they're all logical truths? That seems crazy. So I, I guess I don't think that we can cash out doubt just as having some credence level that isn't one, or that's below 90% or something.

Robin:

Well, I, I would think that, in fact, they're coextensive, that whenever you have a credence less than 100%, you do have the capacity to have doubt. That is-

Agnes:

That might be true-

Robin:

You-

Agnes:

... but we're trying to say what the doubt is, and it can't be identical to the credence.

Robin:

I, I was thinking we were talking about just the capacity for doubt. That is, I would say-

Agnes:

Well, you think doubt is a meta belief, that it's a belief, and I, and I think it's not a belief. I think it's an activity. Like, it's a, an activity of questioning, where you're asking yourself a question like: Wait a minute, is this belief even true, or am I right? That's, that's that.

Robin:

Okay. In your head is all this stuff.

Agnes:

Yeah.

Robin:

Some of that stuff is beliefs-

Agnes:

Mm-hmm

Robin:

... and you've said, uh, in some degree, we can doubt that. I, I think what I mean is-

Agnes:

We can call our beliefs into question, yes.

Robin:

Right. Now, I might say-

Agnes:

Engage in the activity of doubt.

Robin:

The, the idea that they are in doubt is the idea that we could sensibly call them into question. We don't have to actually be calling them into question at that moment to say that they are in doubt.

Agnes:

I mean, your point about values is that people should be doubting them more. They're already in doubt in the sense that they could be called into question.

Robin:

Right, but, right, but so-

Agnes:

Good.

Robin:

So-

Agnes:

But we're talking about what is it to be doubting something?

Robin:

But-

Agnes:

What is the doubt itself?

Robin:

But-

Agnes:

Is it a belief-

Robin:

But

Agnes:

... or is it activity?

Robin:

I wanted to make the parallel that if you have a attitude toward a value-

Agnes:

Mm-hmm

Robin:

... a desire for a value, you might also have a desire about that desire.

Agnes:

Mm.

Robin:

And therefore, what it is to doubt a desire is your desire about the desire. That is, you have desires about the desire to fit in a certain way in the rest of your plans and actions, and the-... what it would mean to question your desire is that you have other desires that are more meta about the nature of your desires and their relationship to behavior and, and evidence, and the rest of the world. That's the same way what it means to have doubts about a belief, is that you have meta considerations about how you think your beliefs ought to be related to other beliefs, and your actions, and evidence, and things like that. So there's this background structure within which you would doubt a belief, and I would say there'd be a background structure within which you would doubt a desire.

Agnes:

Right, but your- so your analogy re- relied on the thought that doubting a belief is having a belief about a belief, and doubting a desire would be having a desire about a desire. And I, and, like, I guess I think neither of those really work. That is, I don't think we doubt beliefs by having beliefs about the beliefs, not beliefs about our credence levels. Um, we, we doubt our beliefs by engaging in some thinking about those beliefs, calling them into question. But that's not the same thing as having a belief about it. In fact, I think it presupposes not having a settled belief about it. That is, you're, it's- you don't have a belief, but you're, like, wondering about it.

Robin:

We ought to be able to find words for these two terms, whether the word belief or doubt is the right word. Still, I wanna set aside what's the right word and say there is this concept that we can name, which whatever... I'm happy to pick whatever name you want for them. The one-

Agnes:

Well, what I'm saying is that you think there's something clear in your head, but there's nothing clear there. There's just a bunch of fuzziness, and you're going for the wrong words because you don't know what you're saying, and so we have to figure out what you're saying. We have to- when you say there's a thing, I'm like: I don't know what that thing is. We've gotta figure that out. Labeling it as a belief is a mistake, and is already a sign that we don't know what the thing is, so we can't just proceed happily on the basis of-

Robin:

Let's walk slowly. Your head is full of stuff. We decided you could somewhat approximately distinguish, in this head of stuff, beliefs and values.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

That that was a provisional distinction.

Agnes:

Right.

Robin:

And now-

Agnes:

Though, as I say, beliefs are part of values, on my understanding, right? Values entail dispositions to believe, so they're not that separate. Um, that's... I mean, I just think if we're gonna say something true about values, we have to include that. It's important that value-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... value something, you believe that it's valuable.

Robin:

And then I started out with this observation that the, your knowledge of how your things in your head came to be there, should-- and how sloppy and, and ill-considered that was, should make you open to reconsidering most all of them. Uh-

Agnes:

I just, I think you're not, you're not quite considering any of it. That is, you have a sort of considering operator that I think goes with belief. But l- look, let's take the desire to desire case, okay? Let's go with the, you know, you might want something, but you might not want to want it. Um, uh, and in fact, I think you might want, you might want to want it, but not want it, right? Um, uh, so, um, I might, um, uh, you know, want to buy, um, a lot of... So many dresses they fill my room, but I might wish that I didn't have that desire. Or let's pick, a, a-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... I think it's actually clear if we pick an appetitive case, right? Um, um, I might want to, like, stay up really late every night. This is, like, um, myself.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

Okay, um-

Robin:

Sure

Agnes:

... stay up really late and not go to bed, but I might wish that I didn't want that. That is, I might not want to want that. Um, um, but there's no sense in which I don't want it. Um, I do want it, right? In this example, I want to stay up really late. I don't want to want to stay up really late. Um, uh, and, um, um, but, like, that's not- a- and sometimes I'm not doubting my wanting. My wanting is there. It's not, it's not doubtful. Um, I just wish it weren't there.

Robin:

Well, what you're-

Agnes:

I don't wanna want it.

Robin:

So I... Part of the presumption of this, the initial setup is your head is full of lots of stuff. You have to realize most of that stuff came there relative- somewhat randomly, not very carefully considered. So that should make you open to possibly changing a lot of the stuff in your head, and that's gonna presume some ability to change stuff in your head.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

Uh, and maybe we could- you'll come to realize some things can't be changed, even though you might want to. But once we have things that are presumed to be possibly changeable, now there becomes a question of: Do you wanna try to change them? That's what I would mean by doubting them, is: Do you want to keep them, or would you like to change them? Doubt is-

Agnes:

Right, so-

Robin:

... with respect to the possibility of swapping them for an alternative s- thing in that spot in your head.

Agnes:

Okay, so maybe, maybe the point is, I think that doubt is a mechanism for possibly changing your beliefs that is relegated to beliefs because it has a, a very distinctive format that is gonna be cognitive. Um, and it is based on truth. Um, that is, to doubt is to doubt whether something is true. That's the only way you can doubt anything. Um, and that is how we, um, test our beliefs, is we test them for truth. Um, on some theories of truth, namely coherentist theories of truth, we're gonna test them for truth by seeing whether they follow from others of our beliefs. But that's, that's to add a theory of truth, and we don't need to add that. What we're saying is, that's what doubting is. And then, you might, um, say: Well, when we look into the question of whether we should change our values, is what we're doing doubting our values? And I think the answer is no, 'cause we're not just asking ourselves the question, i- are our values true? Um-

Robin:

Well, well, this is what I meant by the word doubt. I'm happy to give another word for it.

Agnes:

Yeah.

Robin:

But again, the simple structure here is there's stuff in your head. You should consider whether you wanna keep all of it or swap it for other things, and when you're doing that, you're going to be evaluating the choice to keep or swap by some standards.... as you point out, for some kinds of beliefs, you'll have a truth standard, but there are actually many kinds of standards people hold to their beliefs, and many kinds of standards they can hold their values to. And, uh, we- this discussion doesn't have to privilege any particular one of those in order to-

Agnes:

So, but I-

Robin:

- point out that you might well want to revise those.

Agnes:

I think there isn't a generic activity of revising your mental states. There are some specific ones, and it's not clear we can do it if there isn't some specific mode. So doubting is a specific mode of revising me- mental states, by holding themself up to this... holding them up to the standard of truth, however you think we can do that. And then the question is, what would be the means for revising, let's say, our values? And my own view is, so we can't do it with truth, and so we have to ask, "Well, how can we do it?" Um, and, um, I don't think that we can hold them up to any normative standard, because the normative standards would be the thing that we're, um... Like, are my values, like, gonna lead to a flourishing life? Well, I mean, should I, uh, be aiming at a flourishing life? Um-

Robin:

I don't think that works as a critique. That is, just as with beliefs, you may need to hold some beliefs constant to evaluate other ones. With respect to values, you may need to hold some values constant while evaluating other ones. That's not incoherent, that's just how we q- question anything and consider whether to swap it. Almost all considerations of whether to keep or swap something are going to be done in some context, where we hold a bunch of things constant and don't consider them in the evaluation. And we can do that for values as well as beliefs. Uh, I mean, I think we could just list a lot of the standards here that you could use.

Agnes:

I think we, I think we probably can do that. So like, I don't wanna sort of, um... You know, like I can just sort of say, "Well, um, there's something that I value, but does it really help me get this other thing that I also value or not?" Um, but, um, I, I guess I think that there is another more radical thing we might mean by adjusting our values, where the more radical thing is something like, um, we're adjusting them, not in the light of whether they satisfy other values of ours, um, but somehow in, like, are they good or the right values to have? And, um, it seems to me that we do have a mode of doing that. That is, there is a thing you can do to change your values by way of improving them, but it, it doesn't involve doubting them. It involves trying to come more fully to value something that you already value, the result of which is, um, likely to be that maybe some other things that you value are gonna fade into the background. So this is why I said it's important to distinguish from doubting, because doubting fundamentally is about subtractive.

Robin:

I, I forever refute the use of doubt in the conversation. I'm never gonna use the word again. I just misunderstood-

Agnes:

I'm not criticizing your use of the word doubting. What I'm doing is I'm using that to make a point, so, so, so stop-

Robin:

But I didn't mean doubt by the sense you mean.

Agnes:

Right, right, right.

Robin:

You keep using a different sense of the word doubt.

Agnes:

Let me use it-

Robin:

I'm, I'm trying to say I'm not using that sense.

Agnes:

But I, I'm... And I insist that we use it that way, so that I can make a point, 'cause there's a useful point I can make by using the word doubting that way. What I want to say is that there's a cognitive activity of belief change. I'm using the word doubting for that. Doubting. And that's a, uh, a negative or a paring away activity. That is, what we do is we are looking at our beliefs, and we're trying to decide whether we should throw them out the window or not. Is this a good one? No, throw this one away. And the way we do that is by way of truth. That is, if it's not true, you gotta get rid of it. Um, and so that's, um, the active mental state change when applied to the cognitive. And what I'm claiming is that I think active mental state change, when applied to the conative, is not negative, it's positive. It's, are there things that I don't care enough about? Are there things where I could come to appreciate them more or more fully? Where the idea is not, um, well, if I came to enjoy exercise more, I'd be healthier, so I could try that, right? No, the point is, maybe exercise is really genuinely good, but I'm not- I'm only dimly apprehending its goodness, and I could apprehend it more fully. So my thought is that whether you were intending to or whatever or not, the framework of doubting sort of implies that with respective values, we're gonna take the same negative, paring away approach that we would take with beliefs, and I think that that's not the way that we change our values. We change our values by adding, not by subtracting.

Robin:

Both belief and value changes can be framed either as taking away or as adding. That's just a way of framing the same process.

Agnes:

I don't think so.

Robin:

Um-

Agnes:

I think those are different processes.

Robin:

So for example, in a standard probabilistic framework of beliefs, you will just up some probabilities and lower others, and you can... Ni- that doesn't have to be adding or subtracting, that's just adjusting the numbers, and that's a perfectly reasonable way to think about changing beliefs. It's neither adding nor subtracting, it's a recalibrating, re-estimating, and same for values. I think we can focus on the values we will be emph- making stronger, and talk about adding, or we can emphasize the values that were getting weaker, and we could talk about that as subtracting. But in both cases, uh, we can think about the process of changing them, so to-

Agnes:

I, I don't think that's right. So let me object before you go on, because you're resting what you're about to say on the thing you just said. Um, so remember at the beginning, you were like, "Well, there's a bunch of stuff in your head," right? And our framework is, there's a bunch of stuff in your head. Should it be there? And one way to think about the problem of the stuff in your head is that there's some stuff in there that shouldn't be there, so you've got to get rid of it. That's the subtracting. And then another way to think about it is, there's stuff that should be in there that's not in there, and so you've got to insert it. That's the adding. Those are different processes. Um, and one way that they're different is that if you want to figure out what you should subtract, you can just look at what you have, right? And be like, "Are, are these okay?" And so, for example, with your beliefs, you might find there's a bunch of things that I believe-... Let's say that I believe that it's snowing out- it's not snowing outside, at 70%, and I'm like, "Wait a minute, how did I form that belief? Um, why do I believe that?" Um, and I might discover, oh, wait, I had no reason to believe that. I might then, later, after doubting, okay, I might adjust, uh, you know, form a new credence. Um, but as I said, I don't think the doubting is a belief. It's not the belief that it is now at 50%, it's the belief that there's something wrong with the, um, um, inhabitant of my mind. One of the- one of the things that inhabits my mind is screwed up, maybe, and in doubting it, I'm trying to figure out how it's screwed up. So that's negative, 'cause it has to start with that I believe something, and then it has to call that belief into question. And I'm not- doubting is not a matter of, what do I add into my head that's out there? Um, I can engage in that activity, but it's not... It's not doubting. Um, uh, for instance, I might engage in the activity by, by, like, reading books or going places I haven't been before and be like, try to acquire beliefs. Um, so I, I, I, I think the adjusting of the probability is s- a thing that can happen after doubt has come to its completion, but first you have to have a reason to think that your initial probability was wrong, and it's the throwing out of that, of your earlier probability estimate, that's what the doubting produces, and that's negative.

Robin:

We, we have many formal representations of beliefs and utilities, and those formal representations can have a constant complexity of the structure while various weights are changing. That's true for both probabilities and utilities. So you are, I guess, claiming that those are invalid representations of what's in our head, because your- you insist that representations of beliefs must only be subtractive and of values must only be additive. Um, but it seems to me that we just have standard formal representations of these things that don't require that assumption, and that assumption d- just seems to be distracting us from, from the more key question here, which is, can you have or do you have principled ways to try to change your values in addition to ways to change your beliefs? And I would think the key issue there is, can we define standards? Can we identify standards by which many people will often want to use to evaluate their values?

Agnes:

Whether they want to or not, the question is whether they should or whether they're good, and we can't answer that question except if we have some values, so-

Robin:

But again, that's the claim, that you can't change them all at once. And I've repeatedly said, yes, we- you'll have to hold some of them constant while you change others, but, uh, once we are able to hold some of them constant, you can't have that objection, that, uh, you can't change any values without having some values. I'm agreeing, yes, you'll have some values when you change other values, but we could talk about standards by which you might do that and whether those make sense.

Agnes:

Right. So, um, my thought was that if your question is, "What is the mental activity by which we modify our own mental states?" Um, then, um, the answer is going to be different for beliefs and for, um, values. Um, that's not to say that we can't come to acquire beliefs, um, positively. We can. It's just that we can't set out to do it, um, where like, "Let me come to acquire the belief that, um, it's snowing outside." It's like, well, what, what basis would I use to... Right, I, what could happen is that I could go outside, and then there's snow-

Robin:

We-

Agnes:

... and I'm like, "Oh!"

Robin:

I mean, clearly if you pick up a Wikipedia article and start to read it, and you have the usual stance of believing most of what you read in there, you will, one by one, each sentence, acquire beliefs, and that's an intentional thing you can do-

Agnes:

I think that's right-

Robin:

And there you're acquiring beliefs.

Agnes:

So I think, sort of, in, i-i-in generically, like, you could just be read a bunch of Wikipedia articles and know that you will have more beliefs afterwards. Um, and-

Robin:

Right, and you can intend to do that and intend that effect.

Agnes:

Absolutely. Um, but I think that there's a different thing you can do, and a more targeted thing you can do negatively, which is that you can take a given belief that you have, and you can call it into question and wonder whether you should believe this thing, and there's no way to do that on the positive side.

Robin:

There's no way to call into question a particular value?

Agnes:

No, no. So I, I meant, um, to acquire a belief like that, but, um-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... let's go to the value side. So I think on the value side, you can lose values. That is, you can become disaffected, you can stop caring about someone, et cetera.

Robin:

And you can acquire them, too, so but the question is, how-

Agnes:

But what I, what I think is that your agency, that is, the stuff where you can make choices in relation to it and shape it in a kind of direct way, is more directly tied to the positive side. That is, to coming to value more fully things, to, um, uh, coming-

Robin:

Why do I care about this more positive characterization? The, the topic we started with-

Agnes:

About how we change our values. So, so there's-

Robin:

You're saying there's only one... You're- you've repeatedly listed your approved few ways to change, and I would say there's a vast pace, possible ways to change, and you can't exclude all of those other ways-

Agnes:

There-

Robin:

... by merely declaring the few ways you like.

Agnes:

The word change can be like, um, how does, how does something get changed? Or it can be, how do you change it? And those are different. So I think, um, if we wanna know, like, um, how can beliefs get changed, like, they can get changed in all sorts of ways. You can get hit on the head, right, and your beliefs can get changed that way. Um, but I thought-

Robin:

The same for values. There are many ways-

Agnes:

A-

Robin:

... that your values would change.

Agnes:

Absolutely, but I thought we were asking about, not about change in general, but about how can you change your own values? That is, how can you exercise agency in relation to your own values? And not all changes are possible in that route.

Robin:

Most are.... That is, any process that does change your values, if you purposely initiate or halt that process anticipating that effect, you are, in effect, using that process to change your values.

Agnes:

Um, I think that, um, like, like-

Robin:

If you know that movies change your values when you watch a movie, then you choose to watch the movies-

Agnes:

Yes

Robin:

... you'll be choosing to change your values by the process of the movies changing your values.

Agnes:

I, I guess I think, um, there's an important difference. Like, one way that you could change your values is that if you died, all of your values would be eliminated, and so you could choose to die and thereby eliminate all of your values. Yes, true, and the same thing is true with your beliefs, right? But I don't think dying is a way to change your beliefs or your values, even though it's true that this change will occur if you commit suicide. Um, and so what I mean is that there is a form of changing where you're actually exercising your agency more directly on the mental state by guiding it more towards its proper end. So like, when you're trying to change your values, what you're trying to do is more fully appreciate things for the value that they have.

Robin:

That's one of many ways. You- I don't... Are you implying that that's the only legitimate way to change your values?

Agnes:

I think that's-

Robin:

I mean, surely there are thou- hundreds of other ways to change values-

Agnes:

... Let me say this about-

Robin:

-that all should be legitimate.

Agnes:

Um, right, so, um, um-

Robin:

That might be a nice way. It might be a nice time to focus on it sometimes about how to do it, but the, the broad claims you seem to be making, as if that's the only legitimate way to change values, just seem way too strong. I mean, for example, obviously, young people, and even old people, acquire changes in their values just by being around other people who have different values, and then we do naturally tend to assimilate the value of people around us.

Agnes:

Right.

Robin:

And that's a common process by which we change our values. So often, we can choose who to be around-

Agnes:

I would say that-

Robin:

... in order to-

Agnes:

-that's the process by which our values change, and we can do things where the result will be that our values will change.

Robin:

That's what I mean. That's what we're talking about here. The question is, where- how do you want to change... How do you want to try to cause to change your values? Yes, that, that, that was the key question we started with. Um, you have all this stuff in your head, and might you wanna change some of it? Obviously, that has to be with respect to the processes you could invoke that would cause values to change-

Agnes:

Right, that's a little bit like-

Robin:

-or beliefs to change.

Agnes:

If you wanna say, how are you gonna change your beliefs? We might th- think... Like, suppose there was a pill that would get you to believe something or not believe something. Um, and so we could say, like, "Oh, well, which of these pills should you take?" Um, and, um, that's one kind of belief change. But in referencing doubt, in beginning with doubt, you were putting us in the framework of the kinds of belief change where beliefs are being evaluated in some sense on their truth, and thereby, um, being tested. And similarly, I think, the, the, um, value change proper, that is, the kind that's analogous to doubting with your beliefs and is not analogous to taking a pill to eliminate certain beliefs, um, is the kind of value change where what you're trying to do is get your values to be more accurately representing what's valuable.

Robin:

You are saying that is the only proper kind of value change? You're saying there's one, only one kind of proper belief change, and this is the analogous, the only one proper kind of value change, and all other kinds of value changes are improper, or unagentic, or something?

Agnes:

Yeah, unagentic. Like, in the way that taking-

Robin:

So what if I don't care if they're agentic? We... I can just talk about, do I wanna change my values? And your name of agentic for a particular thing you like doesn't carry that much weight for me. I, I, I, I'm happy to use other mechanisms-

Agnes:

Right, so-

Robin:

-if they're effective.

Agnes:

Well, let's say we're asking the question, like, "What pills should you take to change your beliefs?" Um, supposing that there were such pills. Um-

Robin:

We're, we're being very abstract here. Like, I could t- think of a lot more con... So for example, if I see that a value of mine leads to some very distasteful, unfortunate outcomes, that will be a process that will in fact make me push... pull back from that value.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

And I can then anticipate that process, and then, then for my values, I can start to ask, what do I... have I not thought about or considered with respect to the implications of those values, the consequences they will have? And I can anticipate that that process, if it discovers consequences, that will, on the negative side, be horrific, that will make me pull back, or on the positive side, be glorious, that will make me double down, and that's a process that I can anticipate will change my values. That's not the same as the process you mentioned, but it seems a perfectly reasonable process. Seems to me agentic, but you don't, you don't wanna call it agentic, fine, but why can't it be the process?

Agnes:

I think that's, by the way, that's very, very different from who do I associate with, 'cause then I'll change my values. That's also associating-

Robin:

Like, there are dozens of processes.

Agnes:

Yes.

Robin:

That's my point. There are lots of processes that can change your values and your... lots of processes that change your belief, and-

Agnes:

Right

Robin:

... you should-

Agnes:

I agree that there's lots that can change it. There's a question of, when are you doing the changing? And so in that case, I think, um, I would say that that one is... It's sort of like, oh, you could sort of speed something up that would've happened anyway, right? So you're saying, look, it would happen of itself. That is, once I notice these unattractive consequences, I would just become less attracted to the thing.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

And then try to like, um, you know, like, like, uh, uh, uh, think more clearly so that I can anticipate those things more.

Robin:

Try to see the consequences, yes.

Agnes:

And then the, and then the, the j- advice would just be try to do more thinking. Um, sure, like, do I think people should be doing more thinking? I mean, I, I mean, maybe they're do- You know, we should probably think people are probably doing roughly the right amount of thinking. Um, but, um, um-

Robin:

But, but that wasn't the topic here. It wasn't about, are we estimating people's rough overall-

Agnes:

... Right, that's what I'm saying, is that this isn't exactly the agentic process. This is just, like, we're all already always thinking about what are gonna be the results of this, and pulling back-

Robin:

But we could say that about your aspirational process, that you wanna centralize.

Agnes:

Well, but I-

Robin:

We could say people are already doing that, and they could already do the right amount of it.

Agnes:

I think doubting is like an activity that you can undertake, and you can decide to undertake it.

Robin:

Yes.

Agnes:

And-

Robin:

And you can do doubting by-

Agnes:

And that's not-

Robin:

-asking what are the consequences

Agnes:

... It's not just the question of estimating the consequences of thus and such. It's like calling something into question. That's a thing you can do. It's not just working out consequences. And I think, so it's like, um, there's like an, an added thing that you can do or not do, that you weren't already doing independently. And I si- I similarly think that aspiration is something that you can add on. It's not a thing you were already doing, and you, you shouldn't do it all the time.

Robin:

But I'd say there are hundreds of things you could add on that you aren't already doing, and the question is, consider them all.

Agnes:

Well, you keep saying there's thousands and hundreds-

Robin:

But-

Agnes:

... you're giving me examples that I think don't actually fit.

Robin:

What is the cons- so I said, what's the constraint you want to impose that's violated by my c- example of think of the consequences?

Agnes:

Um, it's that, um, that isn't a, um, uh, it's a thing that we are all already doing. Um, uh-

Robin:

We're already doing all of the things on the list. It's a question of the weight.

Agnes:

No, I don't think so. That is, I don't think that, um, uh, I don't think that we're all always doubting everything that we think. I think we can sort of choose to engage in doubting for some specific reason or not.

Robin:

And can't we choose to engage in this considering the consequences for a specific reason or not?

Agnes:

I think we are always considering consequences to the degree that we think we should be considering consequences, right? A-a with the, where there's the-

Robin:

Well, let's talk... There are lots of other standards. One standard would be a degree of coherence, as we mentioned before.

Agnes:

Yeah.

Robin:

That is, you could say, "I want my preferences and my values to have a certain degree of coherence, and then if I notice a much lower degree of coherence, I will want to revise them to be more coherent." Uh, that is, if I think about cases, and ver- what seem to be very similar cases, and whether I make different choices in different cases, I might look at a divergence of choices and cases and find that repulsive in the sense that that is too incoherent for my taste. And then I will then want to revise my choices in those cases, and therefore revise my values in order to make them more coherent with each other. That's another common standard people use. People are doing it to some extent, but you can certainly initiate doing it to a larger extent by, in fact, considering a larger set of concrete cases and their degree of coherence. We often don't notice how much, how coherent they are until we collect a set of examples and then compare them.

Agnes:

Right. But, um, I g- I guess I think that with those sorts of examples, the level of possible change is pretty shallow, because, um, you know, you're gonna come up against what you more fundamentally value, and then you're gonna have a feeling of distaste at the thought of changing that. And, um, so really what you're talking about is, um, kind of making the math of your desires work out, and, um, even that is something you might not care as much about as certain given desires. And so at the end of this whole process, you won't have really changed what matters most to you.

Robin:

So we can distinguish all the different ways that you might try to engage in reconsidering your values-

Agnes:

Mm-hmm

Robin:

... and distinguish them by their degree of potential for large changes.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

And then you might say that the val- the process you highlight as the one you favor has the most potential for large value changes.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

I- is that the claim you wanna make? Is that, is that what it is? 'Cause I would say there, there are just hundreds of processes, but you're gonna focus on this particular one. Uh, your initial claim was that certain kinds of value changes aren't possible, and then you're gonna claim only this one is possible. But now you might retreat to the claim that this one has the largest potential for big changes, and realize that the others do have potential for big changes, maybe just a lower potential for big changes that would happen less often. And then we, of course, have to ask about, do people want to choose the processes that have the largest potential for big value changes? How big of value changes do they think they were going for? And that would have to depend on just how wrong they think their values might be. Uh, if you think your values are pretty close, but you wanna get them a little closer, then you will go for processes that seem to make modest editing and modifications. If you think you might be just really far wrong, then you'll be more interested in the processes that could make the biggest changes. But even then, I'm still not convinced that this particular one you highlight is, in fact, the one that has the greatest potential for value changes.

Agnes:

But what could be your basis for thinking that, um, you could be very far wrong? Like, I- I have an answer to that, namely, you think there are super important things that you haven't yet learned how to care about. Um, but-

Robin:

But what would be the basis for thinking that?

Agnes:

Um, you kind of have an inkling that some of the things you care about are actually way more important than you've given them credit for. And this is partly 'cause, like, let's say, you used to think they were less important, and you've come to appreciate them more-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... and that takes a lot more room.

Robin:

So I think you could... If you have a history of investigating and then changing in response to investigations, that could give you a distribution over the expected size changes to have in the future, based on the size changes you've seen in the past. And if those changes in the past have been large, then you should expect large ones in the future to be possible, and then you should be looking for methods that will help you find those larger changes. Um, but again, aspiration doesn't seem to be the obvious only, or even maximal way, to reconsider y- your, you know, to... In a way that would have the biggest potential for large changes.... I mean, for example, w- another way would just be to find somebody who has very different values from you, and just be around them a lot, and see what they might be able to show you about-

Agnes:

We tend to hate such people.

Robin:

You could do it anyway. Because, again-

Agnes:

You valued something else, fundamentally, and you're not gonna let that go. Okay, what's a- what's the biggest value change you've experienced in your life?

Robin:

Um, I don't know. Um-

Agnes:

A big one, let's just say. Let's just limit ourselves with that.

Robin:

Uh, I, I mean, it's been a while, 'cause I think I make my changes slowly. Um, I cer-

Agnes:

It can be something that happens slowly over a long period.

Robin:

Right. I, I do think that I initially was, you know, trying to achieve the more usual status markers to gain success in the usual way, and I think over time I have decided that other concepts of success that are less correlated with the usual status markers are, in fact, what I care more about. That's-

Agnes:

So you... What happened is, you gave those things up because you came to care about other things-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... and so you appreciate the importance of those other things.

Robin:

And maybe also just to less care about the status markers-

Agnes:

Do you think that-

Robin:

... just more directly.

Agnes:

W- right, so do you think that the, that it would've been possible for you to just stop caring about the status markers?

Robin:

I, I think both things happened. That is, on the one hand, I met people who were high status, and I saw what they were getting out of it, and that seemed less than I would have hoped to get out of the huge effort and luck that they managed to put in to achieve that.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

And on the other hand, there were other things that I saw, and saw value in, by getting, you know, some modest degrees of them, and seeing how that felt and seemed, and those other things seemed more attractive. It was a combination of, you know, pushing away from the previous things and moving toward other things. Um-

Agnes:

Yes, I would just describe you slightly differently. Um, I would say you care a lot about the usual status markers, but you care about them conditionally. You only want to achieve them for things that are actually good, so you never stop caring about them, and you're, like, a bit unhappy about not having-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... some of them. But you wouldn't just want them-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... matched, right? So the process of you stopping to care about them never happened. What happened was, that you came to care more fundamentally about the things for which you were being awarded status, like, actually-

Robin:

Okay

Agnes:

... insights.

Robin:

I mean, I'm happy to say that, uh, when you value something unconditionally and then come to later value it more conditionally, that is a way of valuing it less. That is, the, under the other conditions, you are valuing it far less. There's just a-

Agnes:

Right

Robin:

... set of conditions in which-

Agnes:

It seems to value less, but what I'm saying is that mode of valuing less is predicated on coming... That what the more fundamental change is, you found out what was actually important, namely, having insights. That was the change that happened to you. You came to see what was important, and then the other thing receded. It wasn't like you really-

Robin:

So you're focused on the positive versus negative framing of these-

Agnes:

Right

Robin:

... but I don't see that's very useful here to- 'cause we can frame it either way, but I don't see why I should care which way I frame it. The point is-

Agnes:

Well, but like, I asked you to tell me the story of it, and you told it to me that way. You told it to me as a story of-

Robin:

The combination of less of one and more of another. But that's neither addition nor subtraction in a, in that sort of language. It's a re-weighting. What would you s- offer as a big value change in your life? I mean, I, I would say, as a parent, which probably also for you, I think you primarily find how much you love your children by your contact and experience with them in ways that you just couldn't have anticipated ahead of time, and that's a case where it's seeing the positive that's the main change. But there are other cases where seeing the negative is the main change. Learning about something you thought you liked, and finding out you like it less than you thought, is w- is a negative, seeing the negative. But s- finding a thing, like parenting, that you f- realize you like a lot more than you realized is seeing a positive.

Agnes:

So I, I, I want... I agree that the negative ones can happen. It's not that I, I doubt that. Um, um, and, um, like, like I used to care about books a long time ago, okay? So like, in high school, so not a really long time ago. Like, I w- I would buy books. I would go to bookstores-

Robin:

Yeah

Agnes:

... buy books, and I would collect them, and I would... And, uh, and then over, you know, the course of, like, college, I realized, "No, I actually just like the things that were in the books," like, the ideas-

Robin:

Concepts, yeah

Agnes:

... in the books. And the books didn't matter at all.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

I either throw them out after I read them, and then buy another copy later if I wanted to read it again.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

And so I, like, I genuinely think I sincerely valued books for a while, like, the physical objects. Um, b- but, um-

Robin:

I-

Agnes:

... I can't tell the story of coming to disvalue books, except by way of the story of realizing that what I really valued were something like the ideas in the books.

Robin:

I think I might say that I presumed that most of the interesting stuff in, say, social science, was in economics, where I was placed-

Agnes:

Uh-huh

Robin:

... but then chose to read elsewhere anyway, to see what value I could find there, and realized that a lot of other social scientists, sciences have a lot of insight-

Agnes:

I-

Robin:

... that I value.

Agnes:

I agree. I've had that experience, and more recently than you- ... because I basically just read philosophy for, like, eh, you know, and novels and stuff, right? And then in the past, like, five years, I've been reading social science and discovering that, like, yeah, there's actually, like, tons of really important ideas. Uh, and, uh, uh, it's, uh... I think it's interesting, so a thing I've noticed is-... when I, um, bring up sociological claims and arguments and whatever, philosophers, like, tense up. They don't like bringing in sociology. And I asked a friend of mine, I'm like, "But philosophers love interdisciplinary stuff. They love when it's, like, philosophy and cognitive-

Robin:

Prestigious disciplines.

Agnes:

Experiments. No, but I mean, I think sociology, it's not, like, unprestigious. I think it's that it's a competitor.

Robin:

Ah.

Agnes:

Sociology's too similar. What they're doing is kind of like philosophy, but not following-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... the correct methodology.

Robin:

Different rules.

Agnes:

And so... Right.

Robin:

Yeah.

Agnes:

So, like, there's this question: Can you value both philosophy and sociology? Are you allowed to value both of those things, or are they somehow like loving someone and hating them, um, where they take up the same space?

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

Um-

Robin:

But this is a intentional activity that we can use to change our values, just explore. Experience a wider range of things that are correlated with these other possible values.

Agnes:

I think it's great exploration, though. I think that, um, like, I think that when I'm, um... You know, what I'm doing is I'm finding stuff where I think that there is some value there, and I'm trying to see the value in it. I'm not just, I'm not just looking... I'm not just doing a flat search. It's different. Um, I'm kind of giving it a bit of the benefit of the doubt.

Robin:

Well, all search should be complicated. Simple search is clearly not the best search, so certainly. Um-

Agnes:

Well, what I mean is that, like, if I'm looking for my keys, right, and I think they might be on my desk, I scan my desk. And I scan my desk with the kind of presupposition that I know what my keys look like. And so once my eye comes across a thing that sufficiently resembles my keys, it will stop there and say, "Oh, okay, that's it." And I think that, like, if I'm, like, reading Foucault, and I'm not a historian, and I'm not, you know, versed in this world, I, I don't feel confident in the same way that I'm like, "Well, I know what a good idea looks like. I'll see if Foucault has one." I'm sort of open to the thought, "Well, I'm gonna have to relearn what good idea means, partly by reading this text," and because it has something to say about what a good idea is that I don't yet grasp. I, I have a malformed conception of what a good idea is, and I'm gonna get closer to the truth by reading this text that knows more than I do.

Robin:

Um-

Agnes:

And that's different from searching for my keys.

Robin:

So I don't know how you'll categorize this. I think I've become substantially less libertarian in the last few years.

Agnes:

Yes.

Robin:

Libertarianism was, was a substantial-

Agnes:

For my eyes

Robin:

... value of me, mine, and then mainly learning about cultural evolution, I came to realize how many of the familiar packages of values seem at risk of declining and fading in the world for being so insufficiently adaptive, and that made me care more about adaptiveness. And then when I looked at libertarian policy, I said, "Oh, well, the, all the adaptive cultures in history weren't very libertarian." That should be a big warning sign about how adaptive libertarian policy would be now, and then I've gotta go, "If I'm gonna put a high priority on adaptiveness, I can't be putting that high a priority on libertarianism, uh, at the same time, if there is this plausible conflict," so that makes me-

Agnes:

Do you think that your valuing of adaptiveness, adaptiveness has changed over time? Or is it that you valued adaptiveness a huge amount before, and you valued libertarianism a huge amount before-

Robin:

I just assumed they were compatible.

Agnes:

You just weren't thinking about how they came into conflict.

Robin:

I, I mean, I probably just presumed that most of the other things I valued were adaptive, therefore I didn't have to think about how much I valued it, 'cause it wasn't in conflict. So often we have values that we don't actually rank relative to each other very much, because we don't... It's only when we see conflicts, concrete conflicts, that force us to choose between them, that we have to rank them. And so whenever you see something you think is just gonna go along with everything else anyway, you don't have to... You don't actually have to value. That's one of the standard stories about, say, taking a person for granted in your life or something, right?

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

If you s- if you think they're just always gonna be there, and, and it's always gonna be nice, then you take them for granted, and then in some sense, you don't value them very much, because you're not really thinking about, "How much would I sacrifice to keep them?" 'Cause you're not thinking that's actually something you're gonna have to do. And then sometimes people force you to make such choices, so then you suddenly have to think about how much you value them.

Agnes:

Right. So we could say we take our values for granted, at least some of them, maybe.

Robin:

Indeed.

Agnes:

Uh, and that we don't-

Robin:

I think that's right.

Agnes:

Uh, we, uh, we don't call them to attention. Um-

Robin:

I mean, I value breathing, I value sunlight, but the world is, has air and sunlight in plentiful, so I, I value having water to drink. Without water, I would quickly die, but because there's plenty of water, I don't actually think very much about it. So now economists say this is about-

Agnes:

I didn't realize that I wanted to drink water right now.

Robin:

There you go. Now, we often s- talk about the marginal value of things as economists, so yes, if value... If water were in short supply, you would notice and value it more highly coherently, because, in fact, the marginal value would've gone up, but... And the same way for your relationship partner. Another minute with your relationship partner might not be valued that highly if you've already got plenty of them, and they feel very secure and safe to you. But, uh, if they are threatening to go away, now all of a sudden, the marginal value will rise, because you in fact, the quantity might be much lower.

Agnes:

Right. So that's, that's a way to understand the mechanism of how the threat calls them to attention, is that it raises their marginal value.

Robin:

By threatening a lower quantity.

Agnes:

Right. Right.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

That's probably not gonna work for the, uh, adaption libertarianism case, 'cause it's more just that-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... you assumed that a bunch of stuff was consistent, that maybe you later discover isn't consistent.

Robin:

Right. I, I guess a related thing is, many people seem to really value humanity, hu- distinctive human styles.

Agnes:

Mm-hmm.

Robin:

And then when they imagine AIs or other sorts of things showing up that they imagine being s- substantially non-human, they are really quite, you know, repulsed by those scenarios.

Agnes:

And maybe those people who value humanity, maybe they think that those of us who aren't repulsed by AI, we're making the mistake that you are making with adaption. I mean, we don't realize how much... We're taking humanity for granted.

Robin:

Right.

Agnes:

It's like a thing that we all value, but we don't think it comes into conflict with anything. And they're like, "No, no, no, this thing is very fragile, this humanity of yours." Um, and so maybe they're just like-... you have your adoption, they have their humanity. Um, and at some point you realize, well, this thing that I value is maybe in tension with something else. And so then there's just a question: How do you have a conversation between people who have that about different things?

Robin:

Right, and I think, like, often a conservative stance in politics is something like, 'You're risking this thing we value going away.' You know, I- I've lived a whole life, and this thing has been part of my world, what it is to be an American or whatever, and here you are seeming, you know, flippant about it and willing to risk it easily. And the truth might be, well, the younger generation just might not care as much as you do about it. They're no longer as- uh, they're not so attached to it. Yes, you've spent a whole lifetime being an American and wanting to preserve the America you always loved, but they haven't. They're in a different America, and maybe they don't care so much about yours.

Agnes:

Right, and now, um, on my model, where you can come to care more about things that you cared just a little bit about on the thought that maybe you don't care enough about it, there's a potential solution to that problem. But on the, 'We just have to make our values consistent with each other,' you're gonna be screwed. 'Cause unless you can show them that-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... it's inconsistent for them to not care about that thing, there's no way to-

Robin:

Right

Agnes:

... bump that up.

Robin:

And I would just think we should collect a portfolio of tools that we can use to reconsider both beliefs and values, and even their joint strategies and combination. And I feel much less dogmatic, as perhaps I would've been 20 years ago as an economist, about th- the wide range of these possibilities. I, I certainly do think our values do, in fact, change. I mean, a standard acci- you know, standard decision theory analysis just assumes your values don't change.

Agnes:

Right.

Robin:

And I gotta say, well, yes, they do. And so I'll have to engage with thinking about how would I manage that, because clearly they, they are changing. That's just a thing happening.

Agnes:

We should probably stop there.

Robin:

All right. Uh, t- till we talk again.

Agnes:

Okay. Bye.