Psy-Kosh comments on Convergence Theories of Meta-Ethics - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Perplexed 07 February 2011 09:53PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 February 2011 01:21:23PM 13 points [-]

So we need another word to filter out those kinds of somewhat-arbitrary proposed meta-ethical systems. "Objective" probably is not the best word for the job, but it is the only one I can think of right now.

This is where I stopped reading.

I suggest that you actually read the SEP entry on meta-ethics instead of just linking there - if you did read it, feel free to correct my guess. Metaethics does not mean what you said it did (metaethics is a theory of what morality is, not a way of comparing moralities), moral realism does not mean what you said it did (your belief that morality is a real thing out there constitutes moral realism), naturalistic metaethics do not mean what you said it did, CEV is totally not about convergence in all possible minds, etcetera. I also have to ask whether you read the Metaethics Sequence, but I mostly regard that sequence as having failed so I won't be surprised if the answer is yes.

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 09 February 2011 12:50:14AM 1 point [-]

Just as another data point as far as the metaethics sequence:

Seemed to me to make sense, to "click" with me fairly well when I read it. (A couple bits perhaps were slower/tougher for me, like the injunction stuff and moral responsibility, but overall I feel that I grasped the ideas.)

Just to verify (to avoid (double) illusions of transparency), here's my super hyper summarized understanding of it: Morality is objective, and humans happen (for various reasons) to be the sort of beings that actually care about morality, as opposed to caring about something else (like pebblesorting or paperclipping). Further, we indeed should be moral, where by "should", I am appealing to, well, that particular standard known as "morality". And similarly, it is indeed objectively better (that is, more moral) to be moral.

Further, morality includes such values as happiness, consciousness, novelty, self determination, etc...

(Of course, this skips subtleties like how we're not fully reflective so it's difficult for us to explicitly fully state the core underlying rules we use to judge morality, and the fact that those rules include rules for what sort of arguments to accept to update our present understanding, etc...)

Anyways, take that as a data point (plus or minus, depending on how well my understanding, as represented in the summary, reflects the actual intended concepts.)