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Will_Newsome comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong
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It almost annoys me, but I feel compelled to vote this up. (I know groundbreaking philosophy is not yet your intended purpose but) I didn't learn anything, I remain worried that the sequence is going to get way too ambitious, and I remain confused about where it's ultimately headed. But the presentation is so good -- clear language, straightforward application of LW wisdom, excellent use of hyperlinks, high skimmability, linked references, flattery of my peer group -- that I feel I have to support the algorithm that generated it.
This comment is for anyone who is confused about where the 'no-nonsense metaethics' sequence is going.
First, I had to write a bunch of prerequisites. More prerequisites are upcoming:
Intuitions and Philosophy
The Neuroscience of Desire
The Neuroscience of Pleasure
Inferring Our Desires
Heading Toward: No-Nonsense Metaethics
What is Metaethics?
Stage One of the sequence intends to solve or dissolve many of the central problems of mainstream metaethics. Stage one includes this post and a few others to come later. This is my solution to "much of metaethics" promised earlier. The "much of" refers to mainstream metaethics, not to Yudkowskian metaethics.
Stage Two of the sequence intends to catch everybody up with the progress on Yudkowskian metaethics that has been made by a few particular brains (mostly at SI) in the last few years but hasn't been written down anywhere yet.
Stage Three of the sequence intends to state the open problems of Yudkowskian metaethics as clearly as possible so that rationalists can make incremental progress on them, ala Gowers' Polymath Project or Hilbert's problems. (Unfortunately, problems in metaethics are not as clearly defined as problems in math.)
Most of your comment looks as though it could apply just as well to the most upvoted post on LW ever (edit: second-most-upvoted), and that's good enough for me. :)
There are indeed many LW regulars, and especially SI folk, who won't learn anything from several posts in this series. On the other hand, I think that these points haven't been made clear (about morality) anywhere else. I hope that when people (including LWers) start talking about morality with the usual conceptual-analysis assumptions, you can just link them here and dissolve the problem.
Also, it sounds like you agree with everything in this fairly long post. If so, yours is faint criticism indeed. :)
*Second most upvoted post. I was a bit sad that Generalizing From One Example apparently wasn't the top post anymore because I really liked it, and while I also liked Diseased Thinking I just didn't like it quite as much. Nope, not the case, Generalizing From One Example is still at the top. Though I do hope it will eventually be replaced by a post that fully deserves to.
Oops, thanks for the correction. I had to pull from memory because the 'Top' link doesn't work in my browser (Chrome on Mac). It just lists an apparently random selection of posts.
Look for the date range ("Links from") in the sidebar - you want "All Time".
Yes, we're fixing the placement of this control in the redesign.
Hey, lookie there!