wedrifid comments on The 5-Second Level - Less Wrong

111 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 07 May 2011 04:51AM

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Comment author: Peterdjones 07 May 2011 05:27:46PM -1 points [-]

If it's purely personal, why call it moral?

Comment author: wedrifid 07 May 2011 06:47:59PM 0 points [-]

If it's purely personal, why call it moral?

Why not? (A somewhat quirky twist that seems to crop up is that of having a powerful moral intuition that people's morals should be personal. It can sometimes get contradictory but morals are like that.)

Comment author: Peterdjones 07 May 2011 06:50:10PM 0 points [-]

Usual reasons...for one things, there are other ways of describing it, such as "personal code". For another, it renders morality pretty meaningless if someone can say "murders' OK for me".

Comment author: eugman 08 May 2011 06:52:17PM 0 points [-]

I think it makes sense in the negative sense, as things that aren't OK. What's wrong with holding oneself to a higher standard? What's wrong with saying "It'd be immoral for ME to murder?"

Comment author: wedrifid 07 May 2011 07:28:11PM 0 points [-]

for one things, there are other ways of describing it, such as "personal code". For another, it renders morality pretty meaningless if someone can say "murders' OK for me".

And yet if the same neurological hardware is being engaged in order to make social moves of a similar form 'morality' still seems appropriate. Especially since morals like "people should not force their view of right and wrong on others" legitimate instances of moralizing even when the moralizer tends to take other actions which aren't consistent with the ideal. Because, as I tend to say, morals are like that.

Comment author: a363 08 May 2011 12:04:27PM -1 points [-]

What about "war is OK for me"?

It really gets to me that when a bunch of people gather together under some banner then it suddenly becomes moral for them to do lots of things that would never be allowed if they were acting independently: the difference between war and murder...

The only morality I want is the kind where people stop doing terrible things and then saying "they were following orders". Personal responsibility is the ONLY kind of responsibility.