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TheOtherDave comments on Logical Pinpointing - Less Wrong
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Well, since you ask: identifying right actions.
But, as I say, I don't want to get into a discussion of this.
I certainly agree with you that if there exists some thing whose purpose is to regulate interactions between individuals, then it's important that that thing be compelling to all (or at least most) of the individuals whose interactions it is intended to regulate.
Is that an end in itself?
Well, the law compells those who arent compelled by exhortation. But laws need justiication.
Not for me, no.
Is regulating interactions between individuals an end in itself?
Do you think it is pointless? Do you think it is a prelude to something else>?
I think identifying right actions can be, among other things, a prelude to acting rightly.
Is regulating interactions between individuals an end in itself?
What does that concept even mean? Are you asking if there's a moral obligation to improve one's own understanding of morality?
The justification for laws can be a combination of pragmatism and the values of the majority.
Does it serve a purpose by itself? Judging actions to be right or wrong is ususally the prelude to hadnig out praise and blame, reward and punishment.
if the values of the majority arent justified, how does thast justify laws?
Also, sometimes it's a prelude to acting rightly and not acting wrongly.
Nope. An agent without a value system would have no purpose in creating a moral system. An agent with one might find it intrinsically valuable, but I personally don't. I do find it instrumentally valuable.
Laws are justified because subjective desires are inherently justified because they're inherently motivational. Many people reverse the burden of proof, but in the real world it's your logic that has to justify itself to your values rather than your values that have to justify themselves to your logic. That's the way we're designed and there's no getting around it. I prefer it that way and that's its own justification. Abstract lies which make me happy are better than truths that make me sad because the concept of better itself mandates that it be so.
What you need to justfy is imprisoning someone for offending against values they don't necessarily subsribe to. That you are motivated by your values, and the criminal by theirs, doens't give you the right to jail them.
Clarification: From the perspective of a minority, the laws are unjustified. Or, they're justified, but still undesirable. I'm not sure which. Justification is an awkward paradigm to work within because you haven't proven that the concept makes sense and you haven't precisely defined the concept.
Proof is a strong form of justification. If i don;t have justification, you don''t have proof.
Why would the majority regard them as justifed just because they happen to have them?
They're justified in that there are no arguments which adequately refute them, and that they're motivated to take those actions. There are no arguments which can refute one's motivations because facts can only influence values via values. Motivations are what determine actions taken, not facts. That is why perfectly rational agents with identical knowledge but different values would respond differently to certain data. If a babykiller learned about a baby they would eat it, if I learned about a baby I would give it a hug.
In terms of framing, it might help you understand my perspective if you try not to think of it in terms of past atrocities. Think in terms of something more neutral. The majority wants to make a giant statue out of purple bubblegum, but the minority wants to make a statue out of blue cotton candy, for example.
Well, it's ike proof, but weaker.
Lack of counterargument is not justification, nor is motivation from some possible irraitonal source.
Or the majority want to shoot all left handed people, for example. Majority verdict isn't even close to moral justification.
In utilitarian terms, motivation is not "I'm motivated today!". The utilitarian meaning of motivation is that a program which displays "Hello World!" on a computer screen has for (exclusive) motivation to do the exact process which makes it display those words. The motivation of this program is imperative and ridiculously simple and very blunt - it's the pattern we've built into the computer to do certain things when it gets certain electronic inputs.
Motivations are those core things which literally cause actions, whether it's a simple reflex built into the nervous system which always causes some jolt of movement whenever a certain thing happens (such as being hit on the knee) or a very complex value system sending interfering signals within trillions of cells causing a giant animal to move one way or another depending on the resulting outcome.
Motivation is the only thing that causes actions, it's the only thing that it makes sense to talk about in reference to prescriptive statements. Why do you define motivation as irrational? At worst, it should be arrational. Even then, I see motivation as its own justification and indeed the ultimate source of all justifications for belief in truth, etc. Until you can solve every paradox ever, you need to either embrace nihilism or embrace subjective value as the foundation of justification.
The majority verdict isn't moral justification because morality is subjective. But for people within the majority, their decision makes sense. If I were in the community, I would do what they do. I believe that it would be morally right for me to do so. Values are the only source of morality that there is.