To avoid Omelas, equality would have to be fairly heavily weighted
I think a possible solution would be to have equality and the other values have diminishing returns relative to each other. So in a society with a lot of other good things there is a great obligation to increase equality, whereas in a society with lots of suffering people it's more important to do whatever it takes raise the general level of happiness and not worry as much about equality. So a place as wondrous as Omelas would have a great obligation to help the child.
one possible failure mode for overvaluing equality is an equality of wretchedness, a state of "we're all equal because we all have nothing and no hope"
I think one possible way to frame equality to avoid this is to imagine, metaphorically, that positive things give a society "morality points" and negative things give it "negative morality points." Then have it so that a positive deed that also decreases equality gets "extra points," while a negative deed that also exasperates inequality gets "extra negative points." So in other words, helping the rich isn't bad, it's just much less good than helping the poor.
This also avoids another failure mode: Imagine an action that hurts every single person in the world, and hurts the rich 10 times as much as it hurts the poor. Such an action would increase equality, but praising it seems insane. Under the system I proposed such an action would still count as "bad," though it would be a bit less bad than a bad action that also increased inequality.
Huh. I think we're defining 'morality' slightly differently here.
My definition of 'morality' would be 'a set of rules, decided by some system, such that one can feed in a given action and (usually) get out whether that action was a good or a bad action'.
I don't think that's that different from what I'm saying, I may be explaining it poorly. I do think that morality is essentially like a set of rules or an equation that one uses to evaluate actions. And I consider it objective in that the same equation should produce the same result each time an identical action is fed into it, regardless of what entity is doing the feeding. Then it is up to our moral emotions to motivate us to take actions the equation would label as "good."
Describing it like that sounds a bit clinical though, so I'd like to emphasize that moral rules and equations, are ultimately about people's wellbeing and increasing the good things in life. If you feed an action that improves these values into a rule-set and it comes out labelled "bad" then those rules probably don't even deserve to be called morality, they are some other completely different concept.
Implicit in that definition is the idea that two people may disagree on what those rules actually are - that there might be better or worse moralities, and that therefore the answers given by a randomly chosen morality need not be objectively correct.
This relates to Eliezer's metaethics again, he basically describes morality as an equation or "fixed computation" related to wellbeing that is so complex that it's impossible to wrap your mind about it, so you have to work in approximations. So what you would label a "better" morality is one that more closely resembles the "ideal equation."
To take an example; certain ancient cultures may have had the belief that human sacrifice was necessary, on Midwinter's Day, to persuade summer to come back and let the crops grow.
It seems to me that this is more a disagreement about certain facts of nature than about morality per se. It seems to me that if there really was some sort of malevolent supernatural entity that wouldn't let summer come unless you made sacrifices to it, and it was impossible to stop such an entity, that sacrificing to it might be the only option left. If the choice is "everyone dies of starvation" vs. "one person dies from being sacrificed, everyone else lives" it seems like any worthwhile set of moral rules would label the second option as the better one (though it would not be nearly as good as somehow stopping the entity). The reason that sacrificing people is bad is because such entities do not exist, so such a sacrifice tortures someone, but doesn't save anyone elses' life.
If there is an objectively correct morality, that can apply to all situations, then I don't know what it is
I think the problem is that an objectively correct set of moral rules that could perfectly evaluate any situation would be so complicated no one would be able to use it effectively. Even if we obtained such a system we would have to use crude approximations until we managed to get a supercomputer big enough to do the calculations in a timely manner.
A lot of these, I'd think, are attributable to a lack of empathy; a person who sees other people as non-people
I count empathy as one of the "moral emotions" that motivates people to act morally. So a lack of empathy would be a type of lack of motivation towards moral behavior.
I think a possible solution would be to have equality and the other values have diminishing returns relative to each other.
That seems to work very well. So the ethical weight of a factor can be proportional to the reciprocal thereof (perhaps with a sign change). Then, for any number of people, there is a maximum happiness-factor that the equation can produce.
So. This can be used to make an equation that makes Omelas bad for any sized population. But not everyone agrees that Omelas is bad in the first place; so is that necessarily an improvement to your ...
In response to a request, I am going to do some basic unpacking of second-order desire, or "metawanting". Basically, a second-order desire or metawant is a desire about a first-order desire.
Example 1: Suppose I am very sleepy, but I want to be alert. My desire to be alert is first-order. Suppose also that there is a can of Mountain Dew handy. I know that Mountain Dew contains caffeine and that caffeine will make me alert. However, I also know that I hate Mountain Dew1. I do not want the Mountain Dew, because I know it is gross. But it would be very convenient for me if I liked Mountain Dew: then I could drink it, and I could get the useful effects of the caffeine, and satisfy my desire for alertness. So I have the following instrumental belief: wanting to drink that can of Mountain Dew would let me be alert. Generally, barring other considerations, I want things that would get me other things I want - I want a job because I want money, I want money because I can use it to buy chocolate, I want chocolate because I can use it to produce pleasant taste sensations, and I just plain want pleasant taste sensations. So, because alertness is something I want, and wanting Mountain Dew would let me get it, I want to want the Mountain Dew.
This example demonstrates a case of a second-order desire about a first-order desire that would be instrumentally useful. But it's also possible to have second-order desires about first-order desires that one simply does or doesn't care to have.
Example 2: Suppose Mimi the Heroin Addict, living up to her unfortunate name, is a heroin addict. Obviously, as a heroin addict, she spends a lot of her time wanting heroin. But this desire is upsetting to her. She wants not to want heroin, and may take actions to stop herself from wanting heroin, such as going through rehab.
One thing that is often said is that what first-order desires you "endorse" on the second level are the ones that are your most true self. This seems like an appealing notion in Mimi's case; I would not want to say that at her heart she just wants heroin and that's an intrinsic, important part of her. But it's not always the case that the second-order desire is the one we most want to identify with the person who has it:
Example 3: Suppose Larry the Closet Homosexual, goodness only knows why his mother would name him that, is a closet homosexual. He has been brought up to believe that homosexuality is gross and wrong. As such, his first-order desire to exchange sexual favors with his friend Ted the Next-Door Neighbor is repulsive to him when he notices it, and he wants desperately not to have this desire.
In this case, I think we're tempted to say that poor Larry is a gay guy who's had an alien second-order desire attached to him via his upbringing, not a natural homophobe whose first-order desires are insidiously eroding his real personality.
A less depressing example to round out the set:
Example 4: Suppose Olivia the Overcoming Bias Reader, whose very prescient mother predicted she would visit this site, is convinced on by Eliezer's arguments about one-boxing in Newcomb's Problem. However, she's pretty sure that if Omega really turned up, boxes in hand, she would want to take both of them. She thinks this reflects an irrationality of hers. She wants to want to one-box.
1Carbonated beverages make my mouth hurt. I have developed a more generalized aversion to them after repeatedly trying to develop a taste for them and experiencing pain every time.