lukeprog comments on Pluralistic Moral Reductionism - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Peterdjones 02 June 2011 03:02:03PM *  1 point [-]

You haven't that in any way

Or you simply haven't understood.

Haven't understood what? Please repeat whatever argument you believe I have missed.

And your point would have be relevant if I was condemning the use of morality rather than describing them for the sake of giving a straight answer to a rhetorical question.

Your comments about reality read like a contentious claim to me. Retroactively calling a contentious claim a "description" does nothing to remove the need for argumentative support.

Comment author: wedrifid 02 June 2011 03:31:59PM 0 points [-]

Your comments about reality read like a contentious claim to me. Retroactively calling a contentious claim a "description" does nothing to remove the need for argumentative support.

This is still not making sense as a reply in the context. If you had expressed disagreement with a claim of mine then we could use arguments to try to persuade people about the subject. But if you present a refutation of something I didn't say then it is an error for me to present arguments for whatever straw man you happened to to attack.

The following is the claim I do make:

One of the points of engaging in extensive debate about systems of morality is that while doing so you have the opportunity to influence the way your community thinks about how people should behave. This allows you to gain practical advantages for yourself and cause harm to your rivals.

I'm not going to provide an extended treatise on that subject here - it isn't appropriate for the context. But if you do actually disagree with me then that gives you a clear position to argue against and I will leave you to do so without refutation.

Comment author: Peterdjones 02 June 2011 07:09:51PM *  1 point [-]

One of the points of engaging in extensive debate about systems of morality is that while doing so you have the opportunity to influence the way your community thinks about how people should behave. This allows you to gain practical advantages for yourself and cause harm to your rivals.

I disagree your original claim that gaining advantage is the point of engaging in moral debate. Your revised claim, that it is only one of the points, is uninteresting, since any tool can be misused.