loqi comments on Quantifying ethicality of human actions - Less Wrong

-14 Post author: bogus 13 October 2009 04:10PM

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Comment author: Jack 13 October 2009 11:57:36PM *  5 points [-]

Pythagoras and Plato sought to combine moral and mathematical elements of reality in their work on ontology. This was very influential and the work of both is still consulted to this day, although, the social and political implications of their methods are often rejected by more modern philosophers.

Pythagoras isn't really consulted in this regard except by those doing work in Ancient History of Philosophy. Also, I don't really know what the first sentence means. Honestly, in some of these cases maybe arguments could be made in favor of the writer's assertions but a lot of these claims are so unclear and unusual that anyone new to these issues would come away with wrong ideas.

Some consider the debate to continue to this day in economics, with the neoclassical economics based firmly on Aristotle's methods via Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper,

"Methods of Aristotle" goes undefined throughout. This really could mean nearly anything. But whatever the interpretation I know of no insightful way to distinguish neoclassical economics from Islamic or feminist economic by referencing Aristotle.

Islamic economics and feminist economics which reject some aspects of Aristotle's logic, e.g. law of excluded middle, and seek to build on some intuitive and morally defensible ontology, as Plato did.

Wtf? I'm not an expert in Islamic or Feminist economics but... they reject the law of the excluded middle? They deny that all propositions are either true or not true? Maybe there is a keen insight here, if so someone explain it to me. I reads like a non-sequitur.

Buddhism also stresses notions of right livelihood which seem to be possible to measure and compare in a quasi-formal manner.

They're not.

The Noble Eightfold Path is a set of priorities, ordinal not cardinal, not strictly quantities, but still, a useful framework for any more formal or weighted value theory.

The Eightfold Path is neither an ordinal nor cardinal set of priorities- its a conceptual division. And I have no idea how one would use it as a framework in this regard.

During The Enlightenment the various traditions became more unified:

No. The Enlightenment took us from one major tradition (Thomistic Scholasticism) to three or four different theories (utilitarianism, Kantianism, natural rights, self-interest/ contractualism). While there was certainly diversity among scholastics (some favoring Plato, Some Thomas/Aristotle etc.) there was little to no inventiveness in moral philosophy, every theory was just a different way of relating morality to the Christian God.

Immanuel Kant, in his "categorical imperative", sought to define moral duty reflectively, in that everyone was obligated to anticipate and limit the impacts of one's own actions, and "not act as one would not have everyone act.". This can be seen as a restated Golden Rule.

You could see it that way but you would be seeing it wrong. I can explain in detail why this is wrong if need be. Suffice to say that the CI tells you to do different things in some circumstances and is motivated by an entirely different set of concerns than the Golden Rule. Also, the CI has nothing to do with the "impacts" of one's actions.

Anyway, those are the areas I feel most confident commenting on. Others might have more to say.

Comment author: loqi 14 October 2009 12:46:24AM 1 point [-]

Wtf? I'm not an expert in Islamic or Feminist economics but... they reject the law of the excluded middle? They deny that all propositions are either true or not true? Maybe there is a keen insight here, if so someone explain it to me.

I could be mistaken, but I think that's just imported postmodern claptrap: "Truth is relative. What's true for me might not be true for someone else. Therefore some propositions are both true and not true." Not exactly keen or insightful.

Comment author: thomblake 14 October 2009 01:07:05AM 2 points [-]

No, there are good reasons to reject the law of excluded middle other than that particular flavor of relativism. I think the jury's still out on whether anything of worth can come out of paraconsistent logic (or intuitionism that disallows the law for infinite sets, or other such logics) but trying to reject the principle of explosion and resolving the liar's paradox seem like the sorts of things a professional logician might reasonably spend time on.

Comment author: loqi 14 October 2009 02:18:04AM *  0 points [-]

I completely agree. But do you think it's reasonable for economists to reject the results of other economists on the grounds that the result depends on the law of the excluded middle?

Comment author: Jack 14 October 2009 02:34:47AM 2 points [-]

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't have a problem with an intuitionist/constructivist economist who rejected the formal deductive validity of proof that relied on the LoXM. But it wouldn't follow from that that the predictions the other economist were wrong, and frankly thats the criteria by which economic theories should be evaluated anyway since perfect deductive validity isn't important when your axioms aren't always true either.

As a point of historical curiosity, I'd be interested to know if there ever was an explicitly constructivist economist.

Comment author: thomblake 14 October 2009 01:14:54PM 0 points [-]

Does this guy count?

Comment author: Jack 14 October 2009 05:48:27PM 1 point [-]
Comment author: Johnicholas 14 October 2009 08:43:20PM 3 points [-]

Of course there are. If I understand the abstract correctly, this paper argues for a particular formalization of game theory (often a branch of economics) on the grounds that the players (intuitionistically) play strategies that are computable from only a bounded amount of lookahead.

www.math.wisc.edu/~lempp/conf/wroc/stecher.pdf

Comment author: Jack 14 October 2009 10:21:03PM 0 points [-]

Not sure that justifies an "Of course there are", but very nice find.

Comment author: Johnicholas 14 October 2009 10:29:55PM 0 points [-]

Rule 34!

If I couldn't find one, I'd have been compelled to become one.