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Yes, the categorical imperative has the problem of deciding on the reference class, as do TDT, the outside view, and every attempt to decide what precedent will be set by some action, or what precedent the past has set for some decision. Eliezer coined the phrase "reference class tennis" to refer to the broken sort of argumentation that consists of choosing competing reference classes in order to reach desired conclusions.
So how do you decide on the right reference class, rather than the one that lets you conclude what you already wanted to for other reasons? TDT, being more formalised (or intended to be, if MIRI and others ever work out exactly what it is) suggests a computational answer to this question. The class that your decision sets a precedent for is the class that shares the attributes that you actually used in making your decision -- the class that you would, in fact, make the same decision for.
This is not a solution to the reference class problem, or even an outline of a solution; it is only a pointer in a direction where a solution might be found. And even if TDT is formalised and gives a mathematical solution to the reference class problem, we may be in the same situation as we are with Bayesian reasoning: we can, and statisticians do, actually apply Bayes theorem in cases where the actual numbers are available to us, but "deep" Bayesianism can only be practiced by heuristic approximation.
"Would you like it if everyone did X" is just a bad idea, because there are some things whose prevalences I would prefer to be neither 0% nor 100%, but somewhere inbetween. That's really an objection to the categorical imperative, period. I can always say that I'm not really objecting to the categorical imperative in such a situation by rephrasing it in terms of a reference class "would you like it if everyone performed some algorithm that produced X some of the time", but that gets far away from what most people mean when they use the categorical imperative, even if technically it still fits.
An average person not from this site would not even comprehend "would you like it if everyone performed some algorithm with varying results" as a case of the golden rule, categorical imperative, or whatever, and certainly wouldn't think of it as an example of everyone doing the "same thing". In most people's minds, doing the same thing means to perform a simple action, not an algorithm.
In that case, the appropriate X is to perform the action with whatever probability you would wish to be the case. It still fits the CI.
Or more briefly, it still fits. But you have to actually make the die roll. What "an average person not from this site" would or would not comprehend by a thing is not relevant to discussions of the thing itself.
In that case, you can fit anything whatsoever into the categorical imperative by defining an appropriate reference class and action. For instance, I could justify robbery with "How would I like it, if everyone were to execute 'if (person is Jiro) then rob else do nothing'". The categorical imperative ceases to have meaning unless some actions and some reference classes are unacceptable.
That's too brief. Because :"what do most people mean when they say this" actually matters. They clearly don't mean for it to include "if (person is Jiro) then rob else do nothing" as a single action that can be universalized by the rule.
The reason that doesn't work is that people who are not Jiro would not like it if everyone were to execute 'if (person is Jiro) then rob else do nothing', so they couldn't justify you robbing that way. The fact that the rule contains a gerrymandered reference class isn't by itself a problem.
Does the categorical imperative require everyone to agree on what they would like or dislike? That seems brittle.
This post discusses the possibility of people “not in moral communion” with us, with the example of a future society of wireheads.
I've always heard it, the Golden Rule, and other variations to be some form of "would you like it if everyone were to do that?" I've never heard of it as "would everyone like it if everyone were to do that?". I don't know where army1987 is getting the second version from.
Doing which is reference class tennis, as I said. The solution is to not do that, to not write the bottom line of your argument and then invent whatever dishonest string of reasoning will end there.
No kidding. And indeed some are not, as you clearly understand, from your ability to make up an example of one. So what's the problem?
What principle determines what actions are unacceptable apart from "they lead to a bottom line I don't like"? That's the problem. Without any prescription for that, the CI fails to constrain your actions, and you're reduced to simply doing whatever you want anyway.
It's not like the issue has never been noticed or addressed:
"Hypothetical imperatives apply to someone dependent on them having certain ends to the meaning:
if I wish to quench my thirst, I must drink something; if I wish to acquire knowledge, I must learn.
A categorical imperative, on the other hand, denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself. It is best known in its first formulation:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.[1] "--WP
This asserts a meta-meta-ethical proposition that you must have explicit principles to prescribe all your actions, without which you are lost in a moral void. Yet observably there are good and decent people in the world who do not reflect on such things much, or at all.
If to begin to think about ethics immediately casts you into a moral void where for lack of yet worked out principles you can no longer discern good from evil, you're doing it wrong.
Look, I have no problem with basing ethics on moral intuitions, and what we actually want. References to right and wrong are after all stored only in our heads.
But in the specific context of a discussion of the Categorical Imperative—which is supposed to be a principle forbidding "categorically" certain decisions—there needs to be some rule explaining what "universalizable" actions are not permitted, for the CI to make meaningful prescriptions. If you simply decide what actions are permitted based on whether you (intuitively) approve of the outcome, then the Imperative is doing no real work whatsoever.
If, like most people, you don't want to be murdered, the CI will tell you not to murder. If you don't want to be robbed, it will tell you not to rob. Etc. It does work for the normal majority, and the abnornmal minority are probably going to be a problem under any system.
Please read the above thread and understand the problem before replying.
But for your benefit, I'll repeat it: explain to me, in step-by-step reasoning, how the categorical imperative forbids me from taking the action "if (I am nshepperd) then rob else do nothing". It certainly seems like it would be very favourable to me if everyone did "if (I am nshepperd) then rob else do nothing".