orthonormal comments on Open Thread: August 2009 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: taw 01 August 2009 03:06PM

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Comment author: orthonormal 15 August 2009 09:33:45PM *  2 points [-]

Um, he's still emphatically not a moral relativist as usually understood; don't you remember the metaethics sequence? The conclusion that

(A) morality is essentially anthropomorphic rather than universal,

doesn't imply that

(B) we should become indifferent to the content of that morality.

ISTM that strict philosophical definitions of moral relativism tend to center on A, but that most of the conversation around moral relativism assumes it means B.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 August 2009 03:45:03AM 1 point [-]

I suppose that knowing what moral relativism actually is would help. A is a conclusion I can easily live with. B is absurd. Metaphysical moral absolutism ("all intelligent beings will tend toward moral behavior") is something I would believe only with... many decibels of evidence.