FAWS comments on A Thought Experiment on Pain as a Moral Disvalue - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Wei_Dai 11 March 2011 07:56AM

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Comment author: FAWS 11 March 2011 10:13:53PM *  0 points [-]

That is not to say I think everything in ethics reduces to the ethics of wants, while I don't think people do much moralizing about other people suffering pain even though that's what they want they do a lot of moralizing about other people not doing what would make them happy even if it's not what they want, and even more so about other people not reaching their potential. Reaching their potential seems to be the main case where forcing someone to do something against their will is acceptable because "it's for their own good", and not because it's required by for fulfilling the rights of others.