AdeleneDawner comments on The Wannabe Rational - Less Wrong
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It is much closer to what I'm talking about.
Orthonormal writes that in the absence of a Framework of Objective Value, he found he still cared about things (the welfare of friends and family, the fate of the world, the truth of my his beliefs, etc).
In contrast, I find my caring begins fading away. Some values go quickly and go first -- the fate of the world, the truth of my own beliefs -- but other values linger, long enough for me to question the validity of a worldview that would leave me indifferent to my family.
Orthonormal also writes that in response to my hypothetical question about purpose,
And none of these are terminal values for me. Existence, happiness, fun and beauty are pretty much completely meaningless to me in of themselves. In fact, the something which causes me to hesitate when I might feel indifference to my family is a feeling of responsibility.
It occurs to me that satisfying my moral responsibility might be a terminal value for me. If I have none; if it really is the case that I have no moral responsibility to exist and love, I'd happily not exist and not love.
Orthonormal, yourself, Eliezer, all seem to argue that value nihilism just doesn't happen. Others concede that nihilism does happen, but that this doesn't bother them or that they'd rather sit with an uncomfortable truth than be deluded. So perhaps it's the case that people are intrinsically motivated in different ways, or that people have different thresholds for how much lack of meaning they can tolerate. Or other 'solutions' come to mind.
This might turn out to be vacuous, but it seems useful to me. Here goes nothing:
Do you have a favorite color? Or a favorite number, or word, or shirt, or other arbitrary thing? (Not something that's a favorite because it reminds you of something else, or something that you like because it's useful; something that you like just because you like it.)
Assuming you do, what objective value does it have over other similar things? None, right? Saying that purple is a better color than orange, or three is a better number than five (to use my own favorites) simply doesn't make sense.
But, assuming you answered 'yes' to the first question, you still like the thing, otherwise it wouldn't be a favorite. It makes sense to describe such things as fun or beautiful, and to use the word 'happiness' to describe the emotion they evoke. And you can have favorites among any type of things, including moral systems. Rationality doesn't mean giving those up - they're not irrational, they're arational. (It does mean being careful to make sure they don't conflict with each other or with reality, though - thinking that purple is somehow 'really' better than orange would be irrational.)
Reminds me of Wittgenstein's "Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same". Not literally true I don't think, but I found it enlightening all the same.