Amanojack comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong

60 Post author: lukeprog 16 May 2011 06:28AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 22 May 2011 07:07:22PM *  2 points [-]

Eliezer does have a post in which he talks about doing what you call conceptual analysis more-or-less as you describe and why it's worthwhile. Unfortunately, since that's just one somewhat obscure post whereas he talks about tabooing words in many of his posts, when LWrongers encounter conceptual analysis, their cached thought is to say "taboo your words" and dismiss the whole analysis as useless.

Comment author: Amanojack 22 May 2011 08:24:31PM 0 points [-]

Eliezer's point in that post was that there are more and less natural ways to "carve reality at the joints." That however much we might say that a definition is just a matter of preference, there are useful definitions and less useful ones. The conceptual analysis lukeprog is talking about does call for the rationalist taboo, in my opinion, but simply arguing about which definition is more useful as Eliezer does (if we limit conceptual analysis to that) does not.