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wedrifid comments on Rationality quotes: August 2010 - Less Wrong
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No, that isn't implied. There are all sorts of coherent value systems which make ethical distinctions between killing things that kill other things and killing things that don't kill other things. Maybe Franklin was confabulating, but again, that moral does not inspire me. In most cases the reasoning is sound and does move the values a step towards coherency.
There is a difference between dastardly rationalisation and updating your ethical position by eliminating obviously poor thinking.
A lot of people are good at not reflecting ethically too, and it does help them get away with stuff (via more effective signalling). This is not a feature of the universe over which I rejoice and nor is it one that I encourage via my ethical signalling.
His comment on the matter suggests he thought he was.
The context does not record whether he returned to vegetarianism once away from the temptation.
Yes. Hence the lack of inspiration. It's the same old moral: "Thoughts and ethical intuitions are enemies. Ethical intuitions are good and you should follow them. Thinking your ethics through is bad. Submit to the will of the tribe!"
I say if subjecting your ethical intuitions to rational analysis doesn't lead you to change them in some way then you are probably doing it wrong.
How subject ethical intuitions should be to rational analysis (in the sense of being changed by them) depends on how much you endorse the fact-value distinction and how fundamental the intuition is.
Reason leads me (though perhaps my reasoning is flawed) to conclude that "others' abject suffering is bad" isn't any more justified a desire than "others' abject suffering is good;" they're as equivalent as a preference for chocolate or vanilla ice cream. But so what? I don't abandon my preference for vanilla just because it doesn't follow from reason. Morality works the same way, except that ideally, I care about it enough to force my preferences on others.
Yes. It is non-terminal ethical intuitions that I expect to be updated. "Should not do X because Y" should be discarded when it becomes obvious that Y is bullshit.