The_Duck comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: DaFranker 27 August 2012 09:15:26PM *  5 points [-]

This implies that there is an intrinsic "wrongness" somewhere inside "theft" itself. Where, then, does the human hand reach into the vast void of existence to retrieve this wrongness to which theft is associated?

"Theft", the word, does not have any wrongness. Otherwise, we could use "Borbooka" instead. Let's do that. Does Borbooka have inherent wrongness? Well, what is Borbooka?

Borbooka is, apparently, when an item, which some animals apparently say verbally and apparently implicitly mutually agree is for the exclusive use of "one particular" animal, is moved from one point in spacetime to another point in spacetime such that another animal gains implicit exclusive use of this item without there being an apparent verbal exchange between animals that would apparently make them all understand that both animals "wanted" this item to be displaced thus.

Where, in the Borbooka defined above, is this mystical "wrongness" you insinuate? Are these not all simple conventions and agreements between said animals? Does Borbooka somehow create or destroy matter, or anything at all? If these conventions were not there and all the animals never had the implicit agreement that one item "belonged" to one animal, would Borbooka still be wrong? Would it still even exist?

I thought this was completely covered by a conjunction of the Metaethics and Guide to Words sequences.

Comment author: The_Duck 28 August 2012 12:00:07AM *  2 points [-]

He's not implying that theft is intrinsically wrong, but rather that some people really might have something like "all theft is bad, period" as a terminal value. In this case it may not help to point out the differences between taxation and archetypal theft. Probably your best bet in trying to get such a person to support taxation would be argue to them that the benefits of taxation should outweigh the negative utility they assign all instances theft.

Comment author: DaFranker 28 August 2012 12:17:14AM 2 points [-]

I didn't understand his message like that. What you're saying is exactly the core problematic that makes this the Worst Argument In The World. People will assign terminally bad value to something, simply because it is part of X and in their model all X is bad, despite that something only having part of X's "badness".

I have a strong urge to reject the "all theft is bad" terminal value as being stupid, incomplete, unworthy, etc., but this urge is Type 1 and I have no idea where the intuition comes from. I don't have enough information, but I'm confident that, in some way, assigning terminal value to such a virtual concept and social norm is either detached from reality, a "floating node" so to speak, or otherwise generates net negative utility somehow, including for the person holding this value. I'll have to think and learn more on this.