nshepperd comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: nshepperd 24 May 2011 03:30:49PM 1 point [-]

Again, I find it incredible that natural facts have no relation to morality. Morality would be very different in women laid eggs or men had balls of steel.

I take the position that while we may well have evolved with different values, they wouldn't be morality. "Morality" is subjunctively objective. Nothing to do with natural facts, except insofar as they give us clues about what values we in fact did evolve with.

Comment author: Peterdjones 24 May 2011 04:25:02PM 1 point [-]

I take the position that while we may well have evolved with different values, they wouldn't be morality.

How do you know that the values we have evolved with are moral? (The claim that natural facts are relevant to moral reasoning is different to the claim that natually-evolved behavioural instincts are ipso facto moral)

Comment author: nshepperd 25 May 2011 03:51:00AM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure what you want to know. I feel motivated to be moral, and the things that motivate thinking machines are what I call "values". Hence, our values are moral.

But of course naturally-evolved values are not moral simply by virtue of being values. Morality isn't about values, it's about life and death and happiness and sadness and many other things beside.