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irrational comments on Not By Empathy Alone - Less Wrong
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Comments (108)
It is also unclear to me that these should be subject to any moral judgement.
I'm going to judge based on the destruction of the environment. Do what you want with your dead sister.
I think destruction of the environment, even unpopulated, is indeed not a victimless crime, since it can have various external consequences.
Indeed. Destruction of an environment, in a way that will never affect directly (because they would visit it and delight on the view) or indirectly (because it purifies the air they breath) any sentient being (humans, transhumans or aliens) doesn't call any strong moral judgment to me.
The only reason for which I would make a moral judgment in that case is because I do have a limited form of empathy towards animals, not as strong as towards humans, but that empathy towards animals makes me judge as unethical the destruction of their environment. But then, it's again empathy.
Yeah, there's a distinction there that seems to have gotten lost. Nuking the moon seems about as good an example of environmental destruction without short-term externalities as I can think of, and indeed it doesn't trigger the same moral instincts in me as, say, nuking a national park would.
That doesn't seem to bear directly on the OP's main point, but a lot of the other supporting examples seem to show similarly sloppy reasoning.
Thanks for the link; I didn't know about Project A119. Probably a good thing they didn't do it, though.
Yeah -- necrophilia strikes me as more a normative transgression than one whose a priori immorality is obvious or defensible; quite a bit moreso consenesual sibling incest.
I know of no places in "the environment" (at least on Earth) that aren't populated; I feel a fair bit of empathy for living things generally (even plants), but even if one assumes that it's all meat-automata with no moral weight as so many LWers do, the negative externalities and oft-unrecognized-but-real value of biodiversity to human endeavors makes this seem like less of a victimless transgression.
It is at best as victimless as destroying a great work of art that is rarely seen.
The playa of the Black Rock Desert appears to be completely lifeless. I haven't checked for microbes. (And I don't care if anybody destroys it; it is too simple to be interesting or beautiful. No great work of art, that. Ironic that that barren, boring, lifeless mud flat is taken better care of by burners than are most places on Earth.)
It's not -- lots of encysting macroinvertebrates there, some of them probably endemic. Nothing too charismatic to the average human, I suppose, but it's not nearly as lifeless as it looks -- and their seasonal population booms are important to migratory fauna that pass through each year, such as birds. The ecology there responds to seasonal flooding, so if you've only gone during Burning Man, appearances will be deceiving.
How do they tolerate the alkaline pH?
One part periodic diapause (aestivation in response to hostile conditions), one part biochemistry being more flexible than you probably think.
You don't find deserts beautiful?
Some deserts. Not this one. There are no Joshua trees, no grasses, no lizards, no snakes, no rocks, no valleys, no hills, no birds, no insects. Nothing but miles of silent, flat, dry mud, a burning sun, burning alkali dust, and frequent dust storms. If it's beautiful, it's only the way a blank sheet of paper is beautiful.
Well, this isn't really something we can argue about, but I can't say I find deserts beautiful because of how lively they are. Seems to me like eerie, silent vastness is exactly what I find appealing about them.
Seconded.
It seems in that section the author was talking about moral judgments that actually occur, not what moral judgments should occur.
He certainly should've been clearer about that.
It is inconsistent to list the destruction of "unpopulated" environment as a victimless crime, since the main reason for calling it a crime is the belief that its victims matter (it is not "unpopulated"). He seems unaware that he's promoting two opposing viewpoints at the same time.
That you, I and lots of people here share a morality that de-emphasizes or abandons judgments that stem from the purity/sanctity pillar does not mean that those moral judgments do not need to be accounted for by a theory of morality. Note that wedrifid's popular reply to your comment defends one of the few purity-based moral judgments common among the liberal/cosmopolitan demographic cluster.
The problem is Prinz actively conflates metaethical concerns -- concerns about the adequacy of a theory of morality based centrally on empathy-- and normative concerns about whether our moral system does a good job at making the world a better place, or something. The above examples of victimless transgressions are good evidence for his metaethical thesis but irrelevant for the normative thesis.