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thomblake comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (July 2012) - Less Wrong
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Thanks for that. I guess that means I'm not a rationalist! I try my best to practice (1). But I only contingently practice (2). Even if I didn't care one jot about increasing happiness and decreasing suffering in the world, then I think I still ought to increase happiness and decrease suffering. I.e. I do what I do not because it's what I happen to value, but because I think it's objectively valuable (and if you value something else, like promoting suffering, then I think you're mistaken!) That is, I'm a moral realist. Whereas the definition given in Eliezer's post suggests that being a rationalist presupposes moral anti-realism. When I talk with other LW-ers, this often seems to be a point of disagreement, so I hope I'm not just being pedantic!
Not at all. (Eliezer is a sort of moral realist). It would be weird if you said "I'm a moral realist, but I don't value things that I know are objectively valuable".
It doesn't really matter whether you're a moral realist or not - instrumental rationality is about achieving your goals, whether they're good goals or not. Just like math lets you crunch numbers, whether they're real statistics or made up. But believing you shouldn't make up statistics doesn't therefore mean you don't do math.
Could you provide a link to a blog post or essay where Eliezer endorses moral realism? Thanks!
Sorting Pebbles Into Correct Heaps notes that 'right' is the same sort of thing as 'prime' - it refers to a particular abstraction that is independent of anyone's say-so.
Though Eliezer is also a sort of moral subjectivist; if we were built differently, we would be using the word 'right' to refer to a different abstraction.
Really, this is just shoehorning Eliezer's views into philosophical debates that he isn't involved in.
"It doesn't really matter whether you're a moral realist or not - instrumental rationality is about achieving your goals, whether they're good goals or not."
It seems to me that moral realism is an epistemic claim - it is a statement about how the world is - or could be - and that is definitely a matter that impinges on rationality.