A reasonable process seems to be: Determine whether the neighbor would do a similar thing for you (or stranger in a similar situation) out of niceness using your highly advanced social modeling software and past experience with them, and mimic their expected answer. Co-operate by default if you have not enough information to simulate them accurately.

The rude/not rude thing is useful as a hint about whether they would agree to do something beyond basic requirements if they were on the other side.

Thus incentivising people to do nice things for each other. If they fake a lot of special needs, they better go out of their way to prove they'll help other people with them.

This is basically just the Coase Theorem. What Coase made clear is that externalities are fundamentally symmetrical; allowing the neighbour (Clarisse?) to have the peace and quiet she wants means that A cannot play the music at the volume she wants, and vice-versa. The "ethical duties," at least in a normal sense, are symmetrical too; why is A obliged to put up with quiet music for C's benefit? Why isn't C obliged to put up with loud music for A's benefit? Indeed, one of the examples cited in Coase's original paper was a confectioner's machine causing shaking in a doctor's surgery, which is essentially analogous to this.

Let's get down to brass tacks. If C doesn't want A to play music so loud, but it's A's right to do so, why should A oblige? What is in it for A? That doesn't mean C necessarily has to make some monetary payment, but is C going to (say) bake cookies for A? Or at the very least, can C credibly promise likely future benefits for A from good-neighbourliness, etc? And note that those benefits need to be greater than the utility A gets from playing the music at such a volume.

On a practical level, I would ask - what is the relationship like between A and C? Is C normally a good neighbour to A, and is now making an unusual request, or is C constantly bombarding A with such requests? Is C respectful of the fact that she is asking A to go out of her way to help, or is she demanding? Is she willing to "sweeten the deal" for A by doing (or refraining from doing) something else to please A, or is C such an exquisite bundle of neuroses that she could never do anything for anyone? Does C bother her neighbours, and how does she respond to similar requests herself? And so on.

Application of this to any other situations is left as an exercise for the reader.

The answer can simply be expressed as "don't feed the utility monster". Someone who claims that noise which brings a little utility to you causes an unusually great loss in utility to them, so their gain in utility from you not making the noise is greater than your gain from making the noise, is a step towards being a utility monster.

People demanding you do things because of social justice is the classic real-life case of feeding utility monsters.

Had a similar situation in college. The fellow in the next room enjoyed having loud sex with his girlfriend at night. The walls were thin enough that I would sometimes have trouble falling asleep through the noise, and we ended up reaching a compromise wherein they'd have loud sex during the day and I'd just have to deal with it. He could have very well argued that he had the right to have sex with his girlfriend and refused to budge, but rather than lead to a solution that sort of approach would have fostered mutual resentment, possible escalation, and an overall unpleasant living experience.

So where does Alice fit in with her music? There's an ethical question and then there's a practical question. Being ethically right doesn't make the social aspects disappear. Whether Alice submits, tries to compromise, or tells the neighbor where to shove it, her response is going to affect her future relationship with that neighbors. A neighbor with a grudge can make your life a living hell. On the other hand, a domineering neighbor whom you permit to control your life leads to a bad situation as well.

I'd say Alice loses nothing by talking to her neighbor and trying get at the root of the problem. There may be an easy solution. If the neighbor refuses to have a discussion and instead just complains or makes demands, then Alice at the very least knows what she's dealing with and can respond appropriately.

Interesting question. Not sure I agree with the premise, in that certainly where I live, I don't think there is a clear objective line of acceptable noise dictated by 'social norms'. I'd say that the social expectation should and does include reference to others' preferences and your own situation.

So if someone has a reason to dislike noise, you make more effort to avoid noise. But on the other hand, you're more tolerant of noise if, e.g. someone's just had a baby, than if they just like playing TV at maximum volume. Bit of give and take and all that.

Basically, I don't think there's really a hard division between 'objective requirement' and 'completely free favour you might choose to do' (unless the objective requirement is REALLY low, like at the legal level. But at that point doing what's 'required' would be seen almost universally as asshattery).

Social interaction is more complicated and blurry like that

Yet the neighbor is still complaining and wants her to turn it down, claiming that she (the neighbor) is unusually sensitive to noise due to some kind of ear or mental condition.

Delicate Daisy should buy ear plugs.

Alice is playing by the rules.

Daisy has a problem, which you correctly point out, won't particularly be solved by Alice stifling herself.

But Daisy doesn't execute any agency to solve her own problems, she doesn't request a favor from Alice, she instead complains. She feels entitled to complain to someone playing by the rules.

One can wonder if Daisy in fact enjoys her problem, and gets real satisfaction out of using it as a club to get others to bend to her will. Because while the degree varies, people do enjoy dominating others.

The standard concept of compassion is that it's something that people feel. It's not primarily about action but about a mental state.

People with higher empathy usually feel more compassion.

In general I prefer to have friends with high empathy. At the same time I also prefer friends who are clear about their emotional needs and desire and willing to stand for them.

Basically if Alice is a compassionate human being she has a desire not to cause other people to suffer. She might also have a desire to hear her music at a certain loudness. I would expect Alice to weigh those two desires and make her decision based on the result.

If I would be in Bob's place than any advice I give would be targeted in helping Alice to get clear about her desires.

D) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.

Having a society where people don't cooperate with each other and disassociate their needs isn't a worthwhile goal. It leads to people defecting and a lot of social problems. People die in wars and having more compassion reduces the amount of wars fought.

Bob should suggest that the neighbour should write down the maximum amount she's willing to pay for Alice to stop playing her music (without Alice watching), Alice should write down the minimum amount she's willing to accept to stop playing music (without the neighbour watching), and if the latter amount equals or exceeds the former the neighbour should give the arithmetic mean of the two to Alice and Alice should stop playing and learn to live with it or buy headphones or go live somewhere else, otherwise Alice will keep playing and the neighbour should learn to live with it or buy earplugs or go live somewhere else. (This reduces to the "politeness" thing when both write down "zero".)

Why should it be the neighbour who should pay Alice to not play rather than Alice who should pay the neighbour to play? Because the rules as they exist now (and were accepted by the neighbour when she came to live here) do allow Alice to play, that's why.

Related: Yvain's (= Scott Alexander's) Offense versus harm minimization from April 2011.

To Bob, I would point out that:

1. Contrary to C, it is easy to prove that you have an ear or mental condition that makes you sensitive to noise; a note from a doctor or something suffices.

2. Contrary to D, in case such a condition exists, "toughening up and growing a thicker skin" is not actually a possible response. In some cases, it appears that loud noises make the condition worse. Even when this is not the case, random exposure to noises at the whim of the environment doesn't help.

I realize that you are appealing to a metaphor, but I think that these points often apply to the unmetaphored things as well.

Even if Alice is legally within her rights to use that volume, she's exposed to quickly losing reputation points in the entire building because she doesn't consider the consequences her actions have on other people. Apart from those who happen to like her music, most of her neighbors will find it harder to trust her in the future.

1. Headphones, problems solved.

In all fairness though, your scenario suffers from an continunity problem. Did the neighbor pop out of nowhere? I'll go on that possibility because there's a severe continunity problem if not. I'll mention one continunity issue is that the neighbor doens't have to deal only with your music - there's plenty of other things they'd need to avoid. Washing the dishes? Taking a shower? Playing their own music? There's simply too many things that produce a strong enough sound that your music would be equal if not lower than what they can perceive.

Also, ome people here said that you'll be cooperating. I say you're being defecated on. Because their situation simply isn't really going anywhere - everyone MUST go down or else.. wahh, my ears.

Least convinient possible world, where my aforementioned continuty problem is not a problem, I'd say that they still need to cover for themselves - it's still their issue. They certainly need to solve it themselves, fair's fair. That doesn't allow you to be a dick, but I see no reason you should bend down while not getting anything in return.

In a more ideal case, I think that it's not the individual's responsibility to take care of unusually sensitive people, but the group as a whole.

well within what is allowed by the regulations or social norms.

Then the regulations or social norms are wrong for the real people they're supposed to help and should take the variance of sensitivity into account. Though if that has already been done and someone complains even after the norms have been calculated with kindness, I'd say you are under no obligation to help.

On the flip side, if you're the sensitive neighbor, don't go asking the loud one directly (you have no power over them and they gain no benefit from helping), call your landlord and complain. At least you have the relation of customer to them and they have some degree of authority.

Yeah, I put the burden of responsibility on the group to have better norms. This works even if the sensitivity is to something you can't control, and gets the benefits of the curb-cut effect (youtube).

(Of course, I am ignoring the difficulties of institutional reform and you can go ahead and still try to be nice, using ete's process above, for example.)

Poll 2 The neighbor yells "fuck your noise". Bob argues that Alice should not turn down the volume now, as we seen above there is no ethical duty, and such a rude person deserves no favor. [pollid:851]

Poll 1 What do you think about Bob's argument? [pollid:850]

I was in this exact situation, and I chose to buy some headphones. If I analyze my decision-making process, I can come up with two reasons:

1). My own personal cost of buying and wearing headphones was much lower than the cost of having pissed-off neighbours who hate me. Obviously, YMMV.

2). My neighbours were polite, and even somewhat deferential, in their request (for me to stop playing loud music). They did not threaten me with coercion, despite the fact that they had plenty of coercion at their disposal -- they could've complained to the building manager, filed a noise complaint with the cops, etc. Instead, they chose to ask me for a favor, thus becoming indebted to me in some small way. In other words, they could've easily defected, but they chose to click that "Cooperate" button, and I responded in kind.

I think that these reasons, when combined, constitute what counts as "not being a jerk" in general society: a reciprocal agreement to make small sacrifices in exchange for future cooperation.

Quick thoughts:

• people will try to use game theory to solve this
• but the usual simple game-theory models are not realistic, because people sometimes care about not hurting other people (which means that the "pain" in my "opponent"'s outcome matrix also translates to a small amount of my "pain") and sometimes they also think long-term so they may give up an unimportant "fight" now in order to increase a chance of better cooperation in the future
• but doing this properly requires me having a good model of my "opponent"'s mind, so I can see how much "pain" various outcomes give them
• but I don't have a direct insight into my "opponent"'s mind, and this gives them an obvious incentive to lie and exaggerate their "pain" (and even if I could read their minds, they could self-modify to actually feel more "pain" if they knew it would make me give up)
• maybe there is a higher level of game theory that can deal with this situation
• but I don't know it.

In Yvain's post (linked here by gjm), Yvain says:

Although people pretending to be offended for personal gain is a real problem, it is less common in reality than it is in people's imaginations. If a person appears to suffer from an action of yours which you find completely innocuous, you should consider the possibility that eir mind is different from yours before rejecting eir suffering as feigned.

Uhm, it depends. My guess is that such people are rare as a fraction of population, but if they are skilled at exploiting other people's empathy, they can lie about their internal "pain" pretty often. So while the probability of "person X randomly chosen from population would do this" is very small, the probability of "a person who replied online on your post, acting offended and citing political arguments and calling in their numerous supporters, would do this" could actually be pretty high. (Prior probability, posterior probability, selection bias.) So I would probably use the way I have received a complaint as an evidence.

Situation A: I play a music I enjoy, and my neighbor says: "Excuse me, my ears hurt, could you please turn down the volume?" I would turn down the volume, and if it is too quite for me to enjoy, they I would simply turn the music off, or consider using headphones.

Situation B: There is an active political or religious movement X with typical modus operandi of finding something they complain about. My neighbor is a very active member of X. This month, their topic is "make your neighbors turn down the music, because our great prophet said music is sinful". I play a music I enjoy, and my neighbor says: "Excuse me, my ears hurt from your sinful music, you should be ashamed of yourself, and you will burn in hell. Could you turn down the volume?" I would ignore them, or offer a trade (something like "I am doing you a big favor here, and I expect some favor in return in the future"), depending on my mood and my estimate of their probability of returning the favor (the more righteous they are, the less likely).

In the US, the federal RFRA law (Religious Freedom Restoration Act) actually has a quasi-relevant test here. RFRA was passed when a ban on certain kinds of drugs kept Native Americans from using peyote in religious rituals, and Congress decided it wanted to re-balance how religious people could seek relief if a law wound up hampering their religious practice. The law wasn't supposed to become a blank check, but it was supposed to give a way to carve out exemptions to neutrally written law (a la Alice doing the "normal" thing without specifically targeting the neighbor).

Here's the test:

You can get an exemption IFF:

• the law represents a "substantial burden" on religious practice
• the law doesn't further a "compelling" state interest
• or, if it does, then the law isn't the "least restrictive means" of serving that interest

I like this test, both for law and for interpersonal issues. So, if Alice were happy to use headphones instead, that might be a less restrictive means and she should do it. If the neighbor dislikes the noise, but isn't "substantially burdened" then Alice might go on as she pleases.

All the terms of art ("substantially burden" "compelling interest" "least restrictive means") have more precise definitions in law than in everyday life, but they give me a few helpful lenses for looking at a disagreement.

I'm unable to measure compassion so i don't.

Meta: this could do with more clarity about whether the expected answer is at the individual or societal level.

ETA

) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.

For what value of should? If you are trying to rationally motivate a system of ethics then you should (instrumentality, in order to get the job done) make it symmetrical and reciprocal. However , a de facto system of rationality can be motivate in a number of ways, including fear of punishment.