TheOtherDave comments on Is Morality a Valid Preference? - Less Wrong

13 Post author: MinibearRex 21 February 2011 01:18AM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 22 February 2011 11:34:42PM 1 point [-]

After reading this several times, I have to conclude that I don't understand what "comparable" means in this comment. Otherwise, I have no idea how one could thinking both that A and B aren't comparable and that A > B.

Comment author: MBlume 23 February 2011 08:54:35AM 0 points [-]

even an infinite amount of dust specks are worse than a single person being tortured or dying. People arbitrarily place some bad things into a category that's infinitely worse than another category.

I mean "comparable" as the negation of this line of thought.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 23 February 2011 02:09:30PM 0 points [-]

Ah.

So, you meant something like: if I think A is worse than B, but not infinitely worse than B, and I don't have some kind of threshold (e.g., a threshold of probability) below which I no longer evaluate expected utility of events at all, then my beliefs about B are irrelevant to my decisions because my decisions are entirely driven by my beliefs about A?

I mean, that's trivially true, in the sense that a false premise justifies any conclusion, and any finite system will have some threshold for which events not to evaluate.

But in a less trivial sense... hm.

OK, thanks for clarifying.