MichaelVassar comments on Soulless morality - Less Wrong

20 Post author: PhilGoetz 14 March 2009 09:48PM

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Comment author: Nick_Tarleton 14 March 2009 11:04:53PM *  3 points [-]

Rationality is a win for the rational agent. But in many prisoners-dilemma and tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios, having rational agents is not a win for society.

It's not just social dilemmas that can favor "irrational" morality; an imperfect consequentialist agent may do better according to its own values by adopting non-consequentialist ethics. I question that this is actually "irrational", per my interpretation of "rational agents win".

If you decide to be a fanatic, you should tell other people to do so, too.

What if I believe that an individual's utility-maximizing level of fanaticism is proportional to their reasoning ability (or something similar), and that my reasoning ability is much higher than average?

Comment author: PhilGoetz 15 March 2009 06:16:16PM *  2 points [-]

What if I believe that an individual's utility-maximizing level of fanaticism is proportional to their reasoning ability (or something similar), and that my reasoning ability is much higher than average?

Then you keep it to yourself, because the people to whom that applies can figure it out for themselves, and everyone else will just get angry at you.