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TimS comments on Litany of Instrumentarski - Less Wrong
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Comments (43)
You said:
This implies that you'd like to find a diamond in the box. That desire to find a diamond has nothing to do with physical pragmatism.
But if you say I've misread the emphasized portion of your quote, then I believe you. Not sure what it changes about my point that the physical realism debate exists in part to provide a firmer underpinning for other debates (like morality or preference).
Only if I believe that I will find one. Actually not even that. It's the other way around. I desire to believe that I will find a diamond if and only if I will find the diamond.
I guess I sort of see where the confusion is coming from. Maybe I should rephrase it. I have edited the OP.
EDIT:
Are you saying that I must subscribe to the physical realism because of moral considerations?
No. But your position (or any position) on physical realism has implications in meta-ethics. Personally, those implications are the only reason I find the physical realism debate interesting at all.
In other words, a moral realist who is a physical anti-realist is very confused. In general, the desire of all realists is to have a consistent definition of "real" for both physical entities and moral facts. (Probably, we all desire it, but realists believe the characteristic "real" is a worthwhile label to try to apply).
I'm confused by your stance because you seem to think one's position on physical realism has no bearing on one's moral position. Whereas I think most of the motivation for (interesting) arguments about physical realism are outgrowths of disputes in other kinds of realism debates.
Not quite. I assert that instrumentalism/physical pragmatism gives you a cleaner path to moral considerations than physical realism. The resulting positions may or may not be the same, depending on other factors (not all physical realists have the same set of morals, either). But not getting sidetracked into what exist and what doesn't and instead concentrating on accurate and inaccurate models of past, present and future inputs lets you bypass a lot of rubbish along the way. Unfortunately, it does not let you avoid being strawmanned by everyone else.
Suffice it to say that I don't agree. Having a consistent definition of exists would help immeasurably in clarifying positions on the moral realism / anti-realism debate. And you don't do a good job of noting when you are using a word in a non-standard way (and your other interlocutors are not great at noticing that your usage is non-standard).
You do realize that the standard understandings in the moral realism debate would say that referencing wrongness to a particular (non-universal) source of judgment is an anti-realist position?
Saying that right and wrong are meaningful only given a particular social context is practically the textbook definition of moral relativism, which is an anti-realist position.
That's a position, not an argument.
Boooring... I care about accurate models, not choosing between two equally untestable positions.
Why should I care what a particular school of untestables says?
Again, I don't care about the labels, I care about accurate beliefs.