thomblake comments on Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Will_Newsome 04 June 2010 04:08PM

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Comment author: thomblake 09 June 2010 01:47:46PM *  2 points [-]

Good point! But that would only be an excess concern for direct paperclip production. That doesn't describe a vice of excess for "making paperclips, accounting for all impediments to making paperclips", such as the impediments you list above.

Indeed, Aristotle would call that generalized production of paperclips "the greatest good", that towards which all other goods aim, which he called eudaimonia.

Well, that might be a liberal reading of Aristotle.

Comment author: Jack 09 June 2010 02:03:18PM 2 points [-]

Aristotle actually makes a lot more sense to a paper clip maximizer, the telos being so well defined and all. The question is, how would you explain Sartre to Clippy? "But obviously essence precedes existence!"