Osiris comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Thomas 03 June 2013 03:08AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (778)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Osiris 25 June 2013 08:50:01AM 1 point [-]

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." --Isaac Asimov

All too often, an intuition creates mistakes which rationality must remedy, when one is presented with a complex problem in life. No fault of the intuition, of course--it is merely the product of nature.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 30 June 2013 06:12:24AM 0 points [-]

The problem with Asimov's advice, is that without context it seems to be telling people to ignore ethical injunctions, which is actually horrendous advice.

A better piece of advise would be "If you find your morals get in the way of doing what's right, consider that evidence that you're probably mistaken about the rightness of the action in question."

Comment author: wedrifid 30 June 2013 12:51:48PM *  -1 points [-]

The problem with Asimov's advice, is that without context it seems to be telling people to ignore ethical injunctions, which is actually horrendous advice.

Ethical injunctions and morals are similar but not the same thing. Also note that "sense of morals" seems to be referring to intuitions-without-consideration which is different again.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 01 July 2013 05:00:46AM -2 points [-]

Ethical injunctions and morals are similar but not the same thing.

LW jargon. Neither Asimov nor the intended audience would necessarily make that distinction.

Also note that "sense of morals" seems to be referring to intuitions-without-consideration which is different again.

Not really once you consider where said intuitions come from.

Comment author: wedrifid 01 July 2013 05:10:35AM *  0 points [-]

LW jargon. Neither Asimov nor the intended audience would necessarily make that distinction.

The jargon introduction was yours, not Asimov's or mine and your interpretation of his advice to be telling to people to ignore ethical injunctions is uncharitable as a reading of his intent and mistaken as a claim about the how the LW concept applies.

Not really once you consider where said intuitions come from.

Yes, really. I don't know what you are basing this 'consideration' on.

An example of following Asimov's advice would be someone with strong moral sense that homosexuality is wrong but a strong egalitarian philosophy choosing to overcome the moral sense and refusing to stone the homosexual to death despite the instinctive and socially reinforced moral revulsion.

Comment author: RichardKennaway 25 June 2013 12:19:56PM 0 points [-]

Sometimes, rationality creates mistakes which intuition must modify. Rationality, too, is merely a product of nature.

I don't know the context of the Asimov quote, but it is not clear that the two things he is contrasting match up, in either order, to rationality and intuition.