Will_Sawin comments on Pluralistic Moral Reductionism - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: prase 01 June 2011 03:50:09PM *  0 points [-]

I believe that (almost) everybody things "ought" means the same thing, and that people disagree about the concept that "ought" usually refers to.

What is the difference between what "ought" means and what it refers to?

Edit:

This concept is special because it has a reverse definition. Normally a word is defined by the situations in which you can infer that a statement about that word is true. However, "ought" is defined the other way - by what you can do when you infer that a statement about "ought" is true.

In the above, do you say that "You ought to do X." is exactly equivalent to the command"Do X!", and "I ought to do X." means "I will do X on the first opportunity and not by accident." ?

Is it the case that Katy ought to buy a car? Well, I don't know. But I know that if Katy is rational, and she becomes convinced that she ought to buy a car, then she will buy a car.

Ought we base the definition of "ought" on a pretty complicated notion of rationality?

Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 04:07:52PM 1 point [-]

In the above, do you say that "You ought to do X." is exactly equivalent to the command"Do X!", and "I ought to do X." means "I will do X on the first opportunity and not by accident." ?

To the first one, yes, but they have different connotations.

To the second one, sort of. "I" can get fuzzy here. I have akrasia problems. I should do my work, but I will not do it for a while. If you cut out a sufficiently small portion of my mind then this portion doesn't have the opportunity to do my work until it actually does my work, because the rest of my mind is preventing it.

Furthermore I am thinking about them more internally. "should" isn't part of predicting actions, its part of choosing them.

Ought we base the definition of "ought" on a pretty complicated notion of rationality?

It doesn't seem complicated to me. Certainly simpler than lukeprog's definitions.

These issues are ones that should be cleared up by the discussion post I'm going to write in a second.

Comment author: prase 01 June 2011 04:13:40PM 0 points [-]

These issues are ones that should be cleared up by the discussion post I'm going to write in a second.

It seems that my further questions rather ought to wait a second, then.

Comment author: Peterdjones 01 June 2011 07:04:42PM 0 points [-]

"You ought to do X." is exactly equivalent to the command"Do X!"

It isn't equivalent to a moral "ought", since one person can command another to do something they both think is immoral.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 07:53:09PM 0 points [-]

This would require one of two situations:

a. A person consisting of multiple competing subagents, where the "ought" used by one is not the same as the "ought" used by another.

b. .A person with two different systems of morality, one dictating what is moral and the other how much they will accept deviating from it.

In either case you would need two words because there are two different kinds of should in the mind.

Comment author: Peterdjones 01 June 2011 08:51:49PM 0 points [-]

I gave the situation of one person commanding another. You replied with a scenario about one person with different internal systems. I don't know why you did that.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 09:04:27PM 1 point [-]

It's generally believed that if you shouldn't tell people to do things they shouldn't do.

So your problem reduces to the problem of someone who does things that they believe they shouldn't.

If you're not willing to make that reduction, I'll have to think about things further.

Comment author: Peterdjones 01 June 2011 09:47:54PM 1 point [-]

I think it is obvious that involves someone doing something they think they shouldn't. Which is not uncommon.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 01 June 2011 10:02:46PM 1 point [-]

Which requires either a or b.

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