randallsquared comments on A wild theist platonist appears, to ask about the path - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Hang 08 May 2012 11:23AM

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Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 16 May 2012 06:40:18AM *  1 point [-]

Game theory, evolutionary biology, and other areas of study can help choose courses of action, and they can explain why we have the goals we have, but they can't explain why we "ought" to have a given goal or goals.

Yeah, that is the dominant view, but Gauthier actually attempts to answer the question "why be moral?" (not only the question of "what is moral?") using game-theoretic concepts. In short, his answer is that being moral is rational. I don't remember whether or not he tries to answer the question "why be rational?"; I haven't read Morals by Agreement in years.

Comment author: randallsquared 16 May 2012 01:09:36PM 0 points [-]

There are (at least) two meaning for "why ought we be moral":

  • "Why should an entity without goals choose to follow goals", or, more generally, "Why should an entity without goals choose [anything]",
  • and, "Why should an entity with a top level goal of X discard this in favor of a top level goal of Y."

I can imagine answers to the second question (it could be that explicitly replacing X with Y results in achieving X better than if you don't; this is one driver of extremism in many areas), but it seems clear that the first question admits of no attack.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 17 May 2012 01:41:38AM 2 points [-]

"Why should an entity without goals choose to follow goals", or, more generally, "Why should an entity without goals choose [anything]",

An entity without goals would not be reading Gauthier's book.

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