Adriano_Mannino comments on CEV: a utilitarian critique - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Pablo_Stafforini 26 January 2013 04:12PM

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Comment author: Adriano_Mannino 28 January 2013 12:05:50PM 7 points [-]

As a matter of fact, I will of necessity treat them as I want to treat them. But I should of course treat them (and it would be good) to treat them as they want to be treated or as I'd want to be treated in their place.

What makes the values of individual humans important? What makes their frustration a bad thing? It seems that we can basically either hold that not getting what one (really) wants is bad tout court; or we can attempt a further reduction and only incorporate what feels bad/good when we (don't) get it.

In both cases, the focus on human minds is an arbitrary and irrational bias. For to the extent that non-human minds have equally strong wants or experience equally bad/good feelings when they (don't) get what they want, their values (or the values that they can instantiate) are no less important than the values of humans.