simplicio comments on Surface syllogisms and the sin-based model of causation - Less Wrong

13 Post author: PhilGoetz 19 June 2010 04:40PM

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Comment author: simplicio 27 June 2010 05:43:57PM 0 points [-]

I would attribute the moral virtue of the Canadian society to the Canadian society itself and not to the government. The government merely processes the influence of the people, the money and the power and outputs decisions.

Okay, but I can give you a counterexample. Desegregation in the US happened in the teeth of much contemporary popular support for segregation, and without any salient financial motive.

I can see how your model might be a better first approximation in most cases, though, than a 'moral agent' model.

Comment author: wedrifid 27 June 2010 09:06:45PM 0 points [-]

Okay, but I can give you a counterexample. Desegregation in the US happened in the teeth of much contemporary popular support for segregation, and without any salient financial motive.

That is a good example (accepting for the sake of the discussion the premises based on US history that I am not excessively interested in). It is evidence that the individual leaders are other than amoral power maximizers and somewhat weaker evidence that the government could be usefully modeled as a moral agent.

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