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MugaSofer comments on Hacking the CEV for Fun and Profit - Less Wrong
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Well, psychopaths don't share our moral terminal values, and I would still expect them to get shouted down. Dr Evil's clones outnumber us. I guess it comes down to how small a minority still holds human values, doesn't it?
You know, I keep hearing this said on LW as though it were a foregone conclusion. Is there an argument you can point me to that makes the case for believing this?
My (faulty) memory claims it's from an interview with a psychopath I saw on TV (who had been working on a project to help identify violent psychopaths, and had been unaware of his condition until he tested himself as a control.) He described being aware of what other people considered "right" or "moral", but no particular motivation towards it. His example was buying icecream instead of going to his grandmother's funeral, as I recall.
However, I also recall feeling confirmation, not surprise, on watching this interview, so I probably have source amnesia on this one. Still, data point.
It's worth noting that your classic "serial killer" almost certainly has other issues in any case.
Hm.
I infer you aren't asserting that going to one's grandmother's funeral rather than buying icecream is a moral terminal value for non-psychopaths, but rather that there's some moral terminal value implicit in that example which the psychopath in question demonstrably doesn't share but the rest of us do.
Is that right?
If so, can you say more about how you arrive at that conclusion?
Well, it was his example. The idea is that they can model our terminal values (as well as anybody else can) but they aren't moved by them. Just like I can imagine a paperclipper that would cheerfully render down humans for the iron in our blood, but I'm not especially inclined to emulate it.
I still don't see how you get from observing someone describing not being moved by the same surface-level social obligations as their peers (e.g., attending grandma's funeral) to the conclusion that that person doesn't share the same moral terminal values as their peers, but leaving that aside, I agree that someone doesn't need to be moved by a value in order to model it.
Oh, it was only an example; he described his experience in much more detail. I guess he didn't want to use a more, well, disturbing example; he had been studying violent psychopaths, after all. (He also claimed his murderous predispositions had probably been curbed by a superlative home life.)
Wait a sec, there are three different claims that have seemed to gotten confused in this thread.
- Psychopaths don't have a moral sense as we'd recognize it.
- Psychopaths have a different moral sense than most people.
- Psychopaths have pretty much the same moral sense as us, but it doesn't drive them nearly as much as most people.
The difference in the above is between the absense of a moral push, a moral push in a different direction, or a push in the same direction but feebler than is felt by most people.
And I think distinguishing between the three is probably significant in discussions about CEV...
I think that knowing what people mean by "right" and actually having it as a terminal value are different things, but I'm not sure if 3 means regular garden-variety akrasia or simply terminal values with different weighing to our own.
If Dr Evil's clones outnumber us, clearly they're the ones who hold human values and we're the psychopaths.
In which case it would be nice to find a way to make sure our values are treated as "human" and his as "psychopath", wouldn't it?