army1987 comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong
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Would you say that there are true practical dilemmas? Is there ever a situation where, knowing everything you could know about a decision, there isn't a better choice?
If I know there isn't a better choice, I just follow my decision. Duh. (Having to choose between losing $500 and losing $490 is equivalent to losing $500 and then having to choose between gaining nothing and gaining $10: yes, the loss will sadden me, but that had better have no effect on my decision, and if it does it's because of emotional hang-ups I'd rather not have. And replacing dollars with utilons wouldn't change much.)
So you're saying that there are no true moral dilemmas (no undecidable moral problems)?
Depends on what you mean by “undecidable”. There may be situations in which it's hard in practice to decide whether it's better to do A or to do B, sure, but in principle either A is better, B is better, or the choice doesn't matter.
So, for example, suppose a situation where a (true) moral system demands both A and B, yet in this situation A and B are incomposssible. Or it forbids both A and B, yet in this situation doing neither is impossible. Those examples have a pretty deontological air to them...could we come up with examples of such dilemmas within consequentialism?
Well, the consequentialist version of a situation that demands A and B is one in which A and B provide equally positive expected consequences and no other option provides consequences that are as good. If A and B are incompossible, I suppose we can call this a moral dilemma if we like.
And, sure, consequentialism provides no tools for choosing between A and B, it merely endorses (A OR B). Which makes it undecidable using just consequentialism.
There are a number of mechanisms for resolving the dilemma that are compatible with a consequentialist perspective, though (e.g., picking one at random).
Thanks, that was helpful. I'd been having a hard time coming up with a consequentialist example.
Then, either the demand/forbiddance is not absolute or the moral system is broken.
That one thing a couple years ago qualifies.
But unless you get into self-referencing moral problems, no. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but I suspect that you can find ones among decisions that affect your decision algorithm and decisions where your decision-making algorithm affects the possible outcomes. Probably like Newcomb's problem, only twistier.
(Warning: this may be basilisk territory.)
How are you defining morality? If we use a shorthand definition that morality is a system that guides proper human action, then any "true moral dilemmas" would be a critique of whatever moral system failed to provide an answer, not proof that "true moral dilemmas" existed.
We have to make some choice. If a moral system stops giving us any useful guidance when faced with sufficiently difficult problems, that simply indicates a problem with the moral system.
ETA: For example, if I have completely strict sense of ethics based upon deontology, I may feel an absolute prohibition on lying and an absolute prohibition on allowing humans to die. That would create an moral dilemma for that system in the classical case of Nazis seeking Jews that I'm hiding in my house. So I'd have to switch to a different ethical system. If I switched to a system of deontology with a value hierarchy, I could conclude that human life has a higher value than telling the truth to governmental authorities under the circumstances and then decide to lie, solving the dilemma.
I strongly suspect that all true moral dilemmas are artifacts of the limitations of distinct moral systems, not morality per se. Since I am skeptical of moral realism, that is all the more the case; if morality can't tell us how to act, it's literally useless. We have to have some process for deciding on our actions.
(Double-post, sorry)