Attention Less Wrong: We need an FAQ

Kevin

Less Wrong is extremely intimidating to newcomers and as pointed out by Academian something that would help is a document in FAQ form intended for newcomers. Later we can decide how to best deliver that document to new Less Wrongers, but for now we can edit the existing (narrow) FAQ to make the site less scary and the standards more evident.

Go ahead and make bold edits to the FAQ wiki page or use this post to discuss possible FAQs and answers in agonizing detail.

We seem to be talking past each other, but I'm not entirely sure where the misunderstanding is, so I'll just lay out my view of what the article says again in different terms.

A morality is subjective iff you have to look at the mind of an agent in order to determine whether they are moral. e.g., morality as preferences. A morality is objective iff you don't look at the mind of an agent in order to determine whether they are moral. For example, a single morality "written into the fabric of the universe," or a morality that says what is moral for an agent depends on where in the universe the agent happens to be (note that the former is not relative and the latter is, but I don't think we're disagreeing on what that means).

In both cases, the only type of thing being called moral is something with a mind (whatever "mind" means here). The difference is whether or not you have to look inside the mind to determine the morality of the agent.

So I'm not saying that mind dependent vs. indenpendent is the difference between having a mind and not having a mind, its the difference between looking at the mind that the agent is assumed to have and not looking at it.

If I understand you correctly this is my interpretation as well. But to clarify: there doesn't even have to be an agent in the judgment itself. Take the proposed judgment: "Black holes are immoral". This can either be subjective or objective. You are an objectivist if you look to something other than a mind to determine it's truth value. If you think the fact about whether or not black holes are immoral can be found by looking at the universe or examining black holes, you're an objectivist. If you ask "How do I feel about black holes", ... (read more)

5byrnema16y

That is more clear, but still describes what I thought I understood of your position. It's rather unconventional, so it took me a while to be certain what you meant. I think that 'subjective' means that a mind is assessing the morality. The key idea is that different minds could assign different moral judgements, so the judgement is mind-dependent. In contrast, any morality that considers the state of an agent's mind in the computation of that agent's morality can be either objective or subjective. For example, suppose it was written on a tablet, "the action of every agent is moral unless it is done with the purpose of harming another agent". The tablet-law is still objective, but the computation of the morality of an action depends on the agent's intention (and mind). I just experienced a flicker of a different understanding, that helps me to relate to your concept of subjective. Suppose there were two tablets: Tablet A: The action of every agent is moral unless it harms another agent. Tablet B: The action of every agent is moral unless it is done with the purpose of harming another agent. Tablet A measures morality based on the absolute, objective result of an action, whereas Tablet B considers the intention of an action. Whereas this is an important distinction between the tablets, we don't say that Tablet A is an objective morality and Tablet B is a subjective morality. There must be other terms for this distinction. I know that Tablet A is like consequentialism, and Tablet B includes, for example, virtue ethics.

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Attention Less Wrong: We need an FAQ

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Attention Less Wrong: We need an FAQ

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