timtyler comments on What is Metaethics? - Less Wrong

31 Post author: lukeprog 25 April 2011 04:53PM

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Comment author: timtyler 27 April 2011 05:02:07PM *  0 points [-]

Wants are fairly straighforwads, but oughts are often tangled up with society, manipulation and signalling. You appear to be presuming some other definition of ought - without making it terribly clear what it is that you are talking about.

Comment author: XiXiDu 27 April 2011 07:15:44PM -1 points [-]

Wants are fairly straighforwads, but oughts are often tangled up with society, manipulation and signalling.

When it comes to goals then in a sense an intelligent agent is similar to a stone rolling down a hill, both are moving towards a sort of equilibrium. The difference is that intelligence is following more complex trajectories as its ability to read and respond to environmental cues is vastly greater than that of a stone. And that is the reason why we perceive oughts to be mainly a fact about society, you ought not to be indifferent about the goals of other agents if they are instrumental to what you want.

"Ought" statements are subjectively objective as they refer to the interrelationship between your goals and the necessary actions to achieve them. "Ought" statements point out the necessary consistency between means and ends. If you need pursue action X to achieve "want" Y you ought to want to do Y.