SilasBarta comments on Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Mass_Driver 09 June 2010 03:18:16AM 5 points [-]

This is a useful dilemma. What are some of the possible motivators for refusing to become a gangster?

  • You don't really care about saving the world; the only consequence that actually matters to you is being a nice person.

  • You don't trust your conclusion that Operation: Gangsta will save the world; you place so much heuristic faith in virtues that you actually expect any calculation that outputs a recommendation to become a gangster to be fatally flawed.

  • You don't trust your values not to evolve away from saving the world if you become a gangster; it might be impossible or extremely risky to save the world by thugging out because being a thug makes you care less about saving the world; you might have a career of evil and then just spend the proceeds on casinos, hitmen, and mansions.

Comment author: SilasBarta 11 June 2010 03:30:49PM 3 points [-]

The second and the third are the most convincing reasons, but EY already explained how those follow from using deontology rather than virtue ethics as a heuristic for handling the fact that you are a consequentialist running on corrupt hardware. This calls into question how much insight Will_Newsome has provided with this article.

His point in that article, if you'll recall, is that deontology is consequentialism, just one meta-level up and with the knowledge that your hardware distorts your moral cognition in predictable ways.