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byrnema comments on Open Thread: January 2010 - Less Wrong
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Aren't you just asserting with this statement, without argument, that there is no objective ethics? Isn't it the question at hand whether or not human imperatives are specific or universal?
(Though I wouldn't exclude the higher order possibility that there could be an objective ethical system defined around imperatives in general; for any arbitrary imperatives that a subsystem defines for itself, there is an objective imperative to have them satisfied.)
Well, it's not clear to me that that's what AaronBensen meant by "objective ethics". But I do believe that human ethics are not universal, because:
Human ethics aren't even universal among humans. Plenty of humans live and have lived who would think I should rightly be killed - for not obeying some religious prescription, for instance. On the other hand some humans believe no-one should be killed and no-one has the right to kill anyone else, ever. Many more opinions exist.
I know of no reason why an AI couldn't be built with different ethics from ours, or with no ethics at all. A paperclipper AI could be very intelligent, conscious (whatever that means), but sill - unethical by our lights. If anyone believes that such unethical minds literally cannot exist, the burden of proof is on them.
Careful. We need to distinguish between ethical beliefs and 'factual' beliefs. Someone might have an ethics that says: If there is a God, do what he says. Else, do not murder. This person might want to kill Dan because he believes God wants to heathens to die. Others might have the same ethical system but not believe in God and therefore default to not murdering anyone. I'm not saying there aren't ethical disagreements but eliminating differences is factual knowledge might eliminate many apparent ethical differences.
Also, I'm not sure your second point matters. You can probably program anything. If all evolved, intelligent and social beings had very similar ethics I would consider that good enough to claim universality.
I think plenty of ethical differences remain even if we eliminate all possiblee factual disagreements.
As regards religion, (many) religious people claim that they obey god's commands because they are (ethically) good and right in themselves, and just because they come from god. It's hard to dismiss religion entirely when discussing the ethics adopted by actual people - there's not much data left.
But here's another example: some people advocate the ethics of minimal government and completely unrestrained capitalism. I, on the other hand, believe in state social welfare and support taxing to fund it. Others regard these taxes as robbery. And another: many people in slave-owning countries have thought it ethical to own slaves; I think it is not, and would free slaves by force if I had the opportunity.
I think enough examples can be found to let my point stand. There is little, if any, universal human ethics.
That is underspecified. Evolved how? If I set up evolution in a simulation, or competition with selection between outright AIs, does that count? Can I choose the seeds or do I have to start from primordial soup?
Some people support unrestrained capitalism because they think it provides the most economic growth which is better for the poor. This is obviously a factual disagreement. Of course there are those who think wealth redistribution violates their rights, but it seems plausible that at least many of them would change their mind if they knew what the country would look like without redistribution or if they had different beliefs about the poor (perhaps many people with this view think the poor are lazy or intentionally avoid work to get welfare).
Slavery (at least the brutal kind) is almost always accompanied by a myth about slaves being innately inferior and needing the guidance of their masters.
Now I think there probably are some actual ethical differences between human cultures I just don't want exaggerate those differences-- especially since they already get most of our attention. All the vast similarities kind of get ignored because conflicts are interesting and newsworthy. We have debates about abortion not about eating babies. But I think most possible human behavior is the obvious, baby-eating category and the area of disagreement is relatively small.
Moreover there is considerably evidence for innate moral intuitions. Empathy is an innate process in humans with normal development. Also see John Mikhail on universal moral grammar. I think there is something we can call "human ethics" but that there is enough cultural variability within it to allow us to also pick out local ethical (sub)systems.
Er forget this. When we say "human ethics is universal" we need to finish the sentence with "among... x". Looking up thread I see that the context for this discussion finishes that sentence with "among conscious beings" or something to that effect. I find that exceedingly unlikely. That said, I'm not at all bothered by Clippy the way I would be bothered by the Babyeaters (and not just because eating babies is immoral and paper clips pretty much neutral). The Babyeaters fall into a set of "the kind of things that should abide by my ethics". "Evolved, intelligent and social" was an ill-designed attempt to describe the parameters of that set. Whether or not human morality is universal among things in this set is an important, noteworthy question for me.
Not so obvious to me. The real disagreement isn't over "what generates the most economic growth" but over "what is best for the poor" (even if we ignore the people who simply don't want to help the poor, and they do exist). After all, the poor want social support now, not a better economy in a hundred years' time. Deciding that you know what's best for them better than they do is an ethical matter.
Some slave systems were as you desribe (U.S. enslavement of blacks, general European colonial policies, arguably Nazi occupation forced labor). But in many others, anyone at all could be sold or born into slavery, and slaves could be freed and become citizens, thus there was no room for looking down on slaves in general (well, not any more than on poor but free people). Examples include most if not all ancient cultures - the Greek, Roman, Jewish, Middle and Near Eastern, and Egyptian cultures, and the original Germanic societies at least.
That's true.
A lot of people are advocating a position that women are not allowed to abort, ever. Or perhaps only to save their own lives. To me that's no better than advocating the free eating of unwanted newborn babies.
I think for almost all possible human behavior that is long-term beneficial to the humans engaging in it, there is or was a society in recorded history where it was normative. Do you have counterexamples?
So these two positions differ ethically in that the poor support one but not the other? I guess espousing bizarre ethical views is one way to make your point :-). Perhaps you can explain this better. I take it this doesn't apply to social policy, like abortion and gay marriage?
Thus the "brutal" qualifier in the original comment. The practice of slavery in general might be an ethical difference between cultures, I'll grant. Though it is worth noting that such societies considered compassion toward slaves to be virtuous and cruelty a vice.
This looks like information relevant to the question of universal human ethics but it isn't.
Not fair. Any particular ethical system only comes about when it dictates or allows behavior that is long-term beneficial to those who engage in it. Thats how cultural and biological evolution work. The thing is, the same kinds of behavior were long-term beneficial for every human culture.
Yes, and the reason this is relevant is because the positions are about things to be done to the poor.
You said:
There is a factual disagreement about how to best help the poor. The poor themselves generally support one of the two options: social support. They may, factually, be wrong. There is then a further decision: do we help them in the way we think best, or do we help them in the way they think best? This is a tradeoff between helping them financially, and making them feel good in various ways (by listening to them and doing as they ask). This tradeoff requires an ethical decision.
It does apply, and in much the same way (inasfar as these issues are similar to wealth redistribution policy).
For instance, there are two possible reasons to support giving women abortion rights. One is to make their lives better in various ways - place them in greater control of their lives, let them choose non-child-rearing lives reliably, let them plan ahead, let them solve medical issues with pregnancy. This relies in part on facts, and disagreements about it are partly factual disagreements: what will make women happiest, what will place them in control of their lives, etc.
The other possible reason is simply: the women want abortion rights, so they should have them - even if having these rights is bad for them by some measure. They should have the freedom and the responsibility. (Personally, I espouse this reasoning and I also don't think it's bad for them somehow). This is ethical reasoning, and disagreements about it are ethical, not factual.
I think this compassion on the part of society-at-large tends to be more a matter of signalling than of practice.
Er, why not? It's an example of an ethical disagreement among different people.
It's true that every behaviour which occurs, is evolutionarily beneficial. But I'm suggesting that the opposite is also true: every behaviour that is possible (doesn't require a brilliant insight to invent), and that is evolutionarily beneficial, is practiced.
If indeed there is a universal human ethics, which humans obey, I'd expect some beneficial behaviours to nevertheless be shunned because they are unethical. Otherwise your entire ethics comes down to, "do whatever is in your own interest".
You're ignoring the tradeoff between helping the current poor and future poor. The current poor would naturally favor the former, but I don't think that's an argument for it over the latter.
Class is fairly heritable. To the extent to which we think people ought to make decisions for their descendants, it may make sense to let current poor make decisions that affect the future poor.
If that's the only issue, we could choose whatever policy helps the most and then compensate current folks by borrowing. Economic growth will be lower and future folks will be poorer, but the policy will be efficient.
As an aside, we don't really know how wealthy future folks will be. If a Singularity is imminent, it's probably efficient to liquidate a lot of capital and help current folks more.
Are we breaking some rule if this discussion gets a little political?
OK. But they're also about things to be done to the rich.
This is a such a dismal way of looking at the issue from my perspective. Once you decide that the policy should just be whatever some group wants it to be you throw any chance for deliberation or real debate out the window. I realize such things are rare in the present American political landscape but turning interest group politics into an ethical principle is too much for me.
I read this as "this is a trade-off between helping them financially, and patronizing them" :-).
If most women opposed abortion rights (as they do in many Catholic countries) you would be fine prohibiting it? Even for the dissenting minority? Saying people should be able to have abortions, even if it is bad for them makes sense to me. Saying some arbitrarily defined group should be able to define abortion policy, (regardless) if it is bad for them, does not.
Also, almost all policies involve coercing someone for the the benefit of someone else. How do you decide which group gets to decide policy?
Maybe, though I don't know if we have the evidence to determine that. But they're signaling because they want people to think they are ethical. There being some kind of universal human ethics and most people being secretly unethical is a totally coherent description of the world.
What I meant was that the fact that you think something ethically controversial is as bad as something ethically uncontroversial doesn't tell us anything. Also, I know I used it as an example first but the abortion debate likely involves factual disagreements for many people (if not you).
But ethics are product of biological and cultural evolution! Empathy was probably an evolutionary accident (our instincts for caring for offspring got hijacked). If there is a universal moral grammar I don't know the evolutionary reason, but surely there is one. The cultural aspects likely helped groups and helped individuals within groups survive. In general ethics are socially beneficial norms (social benefits aren't the evolutionary cause for compassion but they are the cause for thinking of compassion as a virtue).
So it isn't "do what is in your own interest" but "do whatever is in your group's interest". I think there there are individually beneficial behaviors that I suspect have never been normative. In-group murder? In-group theft? That said I don't know what you mean by "your entire ethics comes down to". The causal story for ethics probably does come down to "things that were in your group's interest" but that doesn't mean you can just follow that principle and turn out ethical.
Just as an aside, lots of women go ahead and get abortions even if they assent to statements to the effect that it shouldn't be allowed. Which preference are you more inclined to respect?
Only if it gets political in the sense of "politics, the mind-killer" :-)
Certainly, and the rich's opinion and interests should be consulted as well. I wasn't talking about what the best policy is, anyway; I was just analyzing the position of those rich (or rather non-poor) who you said want to help the poor by improving the economy.
If your goal is ultimately to please that group, then why not? This isn't a debate about working together with another group to achieve a common goal or to compromise on something. This is a debate on how best to help another group. "Making them happy" and "doing whatever they want" (to the extent of the resources we agree to commit) is a valid answer, even if many people won't agree.
The fact that you don't agree is what I was pointing out - that legitimate ethical disputes exist. I don't even really want to argue for this particular policy - I haven't thought it through very deeply; it was just an example of a disagreement. But I do believe it's reasonable enough to at least be considered.
No I would not be fine with that. I'm not fine with any individual prohibiting abortion for another individual. Any women who are against abortions are free not to have abortions themselves, and everyone else should be free to have abortions if they wish. Note that my argument didn't rely on majority opinion or on using the class of "all women". The freedom to have abortions is a personal freedom, not a group freedom.
Many policies involve no coercion. Or at least some of the policy options involve no coercion.
For instance, allowing abortions to everyone involves no coercion. Unless you consider "knowing other people get abortions and not being able to stop them" a coerced state.
I never said that personal freedom and responsibility can solve all ethical issues. Sometimes all policy options are tradeoffs in coercion, and there isn't aways a "right" option. That only reinforces my point that many ethical disputes exist and there is no universal human ethics.
I think there's even more variation in the signaling - in the stories that people tell one another - than in the practice. For one thing, the practice is constrained to be mostly evolutionarily beneficial, but the storytelling can be completely divorced from reality.
Case in point: in many times and places religion has been a big part of the "publically signalled" ethics. Religions, of course, often contradict one another on behavioural guidelines, but more than that, they often contradict what is possible in practice. Imagine a world where the scriptures of (some verisons of) Christianity really held sway: sex is sinful, money and property are sinful, taking interest in this world is sinful, trying to change the world for the better is sinful, science and questioning authority are sinful...
I do not believe all humans, let alone all evolved intelligences, would independently derive an ethics that says changing the world, studying nature, and reproducing are all wrong.
What kind of disagreements? About what god wants? Or about what's best for women? Or about what our terminal values "should" be?
If they are solely the product of evolution, then there can't be a universal human ethics among different cultures. Did I misunderstand something about your argument?
I concur with Jack that most ethical disputes are about facts, and if not then about relative weights for values. Freedom verses existence, etc.
What I would call a real difference in ethics would be the introduction of a completely novel terminal value (which I can hardly imagine) or differences in abstract positions such as whether it is OK to locally compromise on ethics if it results in more global good (i.e., if the ends justify the means), etc.
There is a confusion that results when you consider either system (objective or subjective ethics) from the viewpoint of the other.
(The objective ethical system viewpoint of human ethics.) Suppose that there is an objective ethical system defining a set of imperatives. Also, separately, we have subjectively determined human ethics. The subjective human ethics overlapping with the objective imperatives are actual imperatives; the rest are just preferences. It is possible that the objective imperatives are not known to us, in which case, we may or may not be satisfying them and we are not aware of our objective value (good or bad).
(The subjective ethical system viewpoint of human ethics.) In the case of no objective ethical system, imperatives are subjectively collectively determined. We are bad or good -- to whatever extent it is possible to be 'bad' or 'good' -- if we think we are bad or good. This is self-validation.
Now, to address your objections:
Right, human ethics do seem very inconsistent. To me, this is a challenge only to the existence of subjective ethics. In the case of objective ethics, there is no contradiction if humans disagree about what is ethical; humans do not define what is objectively ethical. In the case of a subjective ethical system, inconsistencies in human ethics is evidence that there is no well-defined notion "human ethics", only individual ethics.
Nevertheless, in defense of 'human ethics' for either system, perhaps it is the case that human ethics are actually consistent, in a way that matters, but the terminal values are so higher order we don't easily find them. All the different moral behaviors we see are different manifestations of common values.
Of course, minds could evolve or be constructed with different subjective ethical systems. Again, they may or may not be objectively ethical.
This redefinition of the word "imperative" goes counter to the existing meaning of the word (which would include all 'preferences'), so it's confusing. I suggest you come up with a new term or word-combination.
You defined objective ethics as something every rational thinking being could derive. Shouldn't it also have some meaning? Some reason why they would in fact be interested in deriving it?
If this objective ethics can be derived by everyone, but happens to run counter to almost everyone's subjective ethics, why is it even interesting? Why would we even be talking about it unless we either expected to encounter aliens with subjective ethics similar to it; or we were considering adopting it as our own subjective ethics?
That definitely requires proof. Have you got even a reason for speculating about it, any evidence for it?
Actually, I didn't. I would be interested in AaronBenson's answers to the questions that follow.
Here, I was just suggesting a solution. I don't have much interest in the concept of 'human' ethics. (Like Jack, I would be very interested in what ethics are universal to all evolved, intelligent, social minds.)
... Yet I didn't suggest it randomly. My evidence for it is that whenever someone seems to have a different ethical system from my own, I can usually eventually relate to it by finding a common value.
Right, sorry, that was AaronBensen's definition.
I was using the the meaning of imperative as something you 'ought' to do, as in moral imperative. This does not include preferences unless you feel like you have a moral obligation to do what you prefer to do.