PhilGoetz comments on Morality is not about willpower - Less Wrong

9 Post author: PhilGoetz 08 October 2011 01:33AM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 08 October 2011 08:44:42PM *  1 point [-]

In that case, I call that part of my mind "my mind".

The post could be summarized as arguing that the division of decisions into moral and amoral components, if it is even neurally real, is not notably more important than the division of decisions into near and far components, or sensory and abstract components, or visual and auditory componets, etc.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 08 October 2011 09:33:29PM 2 points [-]

Notice I said mind not brain. So I'm not arguing that it necessarily always takes place in the same part of the brain.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 08 October 2011 09:28:27PM 2 points [-]

Oh yes, I should probably state my position. I want to call the judgement about whether a particular action is good or evil the "moral component", and everything else the "amoral" component. Thus ethics amounts to two things:

1) making the judgement about whether the action is good or evil as accurate as possible (this is the "wisdom" part)

2) acting in accordance with this judgement, i.e., performing good actions and not performing evil actions (this is the "willpower" part)

Comment author: PhilGoetz 10 October 2011 10:41:15PM 0 points [-]

Why do you want to split things up that way? As opposed to splitting them up into the part requiring a quick answer and the part you can think about a long time (certainly practical), or the part related to short-term outcome versus the part related to long-term outcome, or other ways of categorizing decisions?