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wedrifid comments on Rationality quotes: August 2010 - Less Wrong
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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.