army1987 comments on What Is Optimal Philanthropy? - Less Wrong

24 Post author: alyssavance 12 July 2012 12:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (35)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 July 2012 10:11:45AM 1 point [-]

humans are exactly as moral (and as rational) as they can by given their own brains

I'm not sure of that (unless you use a very restrictive definition of can which in a deterministic universe would make it synonymous with are, but down that path Fatalistic Decision Theory (“choice is futile”) lies).

Comment author: Grognor 12 July 2012 11:58:17AM *  0 points [-]

Nope, I'm talking about the humans' in questions subjective "nows", not their futures. Although if a person isn't particularly rational and has never heard of rationality and if you mentioned it to him he wouldn't feel particularly motivated to become more rational has a pretty irrational-looking future, and in such case there's no choice to make, no will, only a default path.