Comment on Open Thread: January 2010

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:00:22 GMT

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?

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

Discuss