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Peterdjones comments on Pluralistic Moral Reductionism - Less Wrong
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My thought process on sources of normativity looks something like this:
There's a lot of kinds of normative/"ought" statements. Some relate to games, some to rationality, and so on. Hypothetical "ought" statements do not require any special metaphysical apparatus to explain them, they just require rules and payoffs. Categorical imperatives are another story.
One man's conventional linguistic practice is another's analytical truth.
Rules and payoffs explain "ought" statements only if you assume that the rules are worth following and the payoffs worth pursuing. But if hypothetical imperatives can help themselves to such assumptions (assuming e.g. that one's own desires ought to be satisfied), then categorical imperatives can help themselves to such assumptions (assuming e.g. that everyone's desires ought to be satisfied, or that everyone's happiness ought to be maximized, or that everyone ought to develop certain character traits).
I don't think so. You ought to use a hammer to drive in nails even if you don't want to dive in nails. Anyone who is playing chess should move the bishop diagonally.That doesn't mean you are playing chess.
Of course those are hypothetical, and non-ethical. It might wll be the case that the only categorical imperatives are moral categorical imperatives; that. ethics is the only area where you should do things or refrain form things unconditionally.
Again, you're assuming that the rule 'if you're driving in nails, use a hammer' is worth following, and that the rule 'if you're playing chess, move bishops diagonally' is worth following. A nihilist would reject both of those rules as having any normative authority, and say that just because a game has rules it doesn't mean that game-players ought to follow those rules, at most it means that lots and lots of rule-violations make the game go away.