steven0461 comments on Pluralistic Moral Reductionism - Less Wrong

33 Post author: lukeprog 01 June 2011 12:59AM

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Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 02:43:59AM *  2 points [-]

Wikipedia defines motivational internalism as the belief that:

there is an internal, necessary connection between one's conviction that X ought to be done and one's motivation to do X.

I want to view this as a morally necessary connection. One should do what one ought to do, and this serves as the definition of "ought".

You will note that I am using circular definitions. That is because I can't define "should" except in terms of things that have a hidden "should" in there. But I am trying to access the part of you that understands what I am saying.

The useful analogue is this:

modus ponens: "If you know 'A', and you know 'If A, then B", then you know B"

It's a circular definition getting at something which you can't put into words. I would be wrong to define "If-then" as something else, like maybe "If A, then B" means "75% of elephants with A written on them believe B" because it's already defined.

Does that make any sense?

Comment author: steven0461 01 June 2011 03:43:52AM *  1 point [-]

That is because I can't define "should" except in terms of things that don't have a hidden "should" in there.

I think you meant to leave out either the "except" or the "don't"?

Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 10:57:13AM 0 points [-]

Correct.