Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationality Quotes - August 2009 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Vladimir_Nesov 06 August 2009 01:58AM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 August 2009 03:50:52AM 17 points [-]

Consequentialism: The belief that doing the right thing makes the world a better place.

-- DanielLC

Comment author: James_K 06 August 2009 04:57:56AM 0 points [-]

Suitably pithy, but that really should be the other way around shouldn't it?

NB: I recognise the difference between quoting and approving of the quote.

Comment author: Technologos 06 August 2009 05:35:05AM 5 points [-]

My understanding is that the quote is meant to invert the way we normally think of consequentialism (that making the world a better place is doing the right thing). The quote simply puts the logic in causal order, such that we can naturally say "I am doing the right thing if (and only if?) it makes the world a better place."

Comment author: Nominull 06 August 2009 06:44:13AM *  0 points [-]

Well, you need an implicit "and doing the wrong thing does not" before it becomes logically equivalent to consequentialism.