conjectures comments on Reasons for being rational - Less Wrong

57 Post author: Swimmer963 01 July 2011 03:28PM

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Comment author: conjectures 02 July 2011 07:09:33PM 2 points [-]

given the rational alternatives (neurology,psychology) we can employ to discover true concepts about morality.

I'm with you most of the way. On the rational alternatives though, I'm not sure what you suggest works in the way we might imagine.

Neurology and psychology can provide a factual/ontological description of how humans manifest morality. They don't give a description of what morality should be.

There's a deontological kernel to morality, it's about what we think people should do, not what they do do.

Psychology etc. can give great insights into choosing morals that go with the human grain. But those choices are primarily motivated by pragmatism rather than vitue. The virtue you've chosen is to be pragmatic...

Happy to be proven wrong here, but in terms of what virtues we place value on, I think there's going to be an element of arbitrariness in their choice.

Comment author: nshepperd 03 July 2011 06:37:51AM 1 point [-]

The question "what do we think people should do?" is a question about what we think. Thus the relevance of psychology. Note that this is different from "what should people do?" being itself about what we think. But if you want to find out "what should people do?" half the work is pretty much done for you if you can figure out where this "should" idea in your brain is coming from, and what it means.