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lukeprog comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong
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The definition of "right action" is the kind of action you should do.
You don't need to know what "should" means, you just need to do what you should do and not do what you shouldn't do.
One should be able to cash out arguments about the "definition" of "right" as arguments about the actual nature of shouldness.
Defining 'right' in terms of 'should' gets us nowhere; it just punts to another symbol. Thus, I don't yet know what you're trying to say in this comment. Could you taboo 'should' for me?
Only through the use of koans. Consider the dialog in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
Could you explain what "If A, then B" means, tabooing "if/then","therefore",etc.?
Here is another way:
If a rational agent becomes aware that the statement "I should do X" is true, then it will either proceed to do X or proceed to realize that it cannot do X (at least for now).
ETA: Here is a simple Python function (I think I coded it correctly):
def square (x): y=x*x return y
"return" is not just another symbol. It is not a gensym. It is functional. The act of returning and producing an output is completely separate from and non-reducible-to everything else that a subroutine can do.
Rational agents use "should" the same way this subroutine uses "return". It controls their output.