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Anna2 comments on Consolidated Nature of Morality Thread - Less Wrong
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Comments (68)
Benquo, question #6 was too easy.
Bruce thank you for your point 8, it made me think.
Hal: Individual morality looks at the net impact on oneself as well as the group.
Thanks. Your answer regarding question 4 made me think.
Robin: It is striking to me that people who want to think more carefully about moral issues seem to feel little inclination to read the academic literature on this subject. There are in fact specialists who consider these issues; why reinvent the wheel?
Sometimes even the specialists need to be reviewed:)Maybe law and moral have many things in common?
If anybody has a moment, I am curious to know how morals can exist without faith?
Anna
Sigh, from your last comment. I presume that you are of a religion? Anyway, if you want the Darwinian origin of morality, here it is:
Protohumans that had adapted an altruistic nature had a higher likelihood of survival than those that did not. Over time, this caused morality to be biologically hardwired into the gene pool. I'm not quite sure what you mean by faith, however. If you mean belief, that is, a concept not proven by evidence, then I don't see the correlation between faith and morality. If you mean religion, then I disagree. That would suggest that humanity is by nature amoral, which I do not believe. If you'd prefer factual evidence, then I will add that there is no correlation between a lack of religion and immoral behavior. I think history has shown us that fear is not a good source of morality. Edit: Religion tends to be a detriment to societal morality. In a vein similar to racism, unfounded beliefs will inevitably cause conflict. The moral benefits are only observed in a microcosm.
Note that the user you're responding to hasn't posted on LW since 2008, so is unlikely to read your reply.
Valid point. Thank you.
The sheer diversity of moral theories actually applied by some human society at some point in history makes this claim extremely difficult to accept.
It's likely that most moral positions are consistent with decision theory (i.e. Tit-for-Tat wins many iterated Prisoner's dilemma tournaments). But that doesn't require that morality be "baked in" by evolution. The generalized view of organisms as adaption-executors seems sufficient to explain why basic decision theory bears some resemblance to the relatively uncontroversial moral positions.
The 'relatively uncontroversial' positions are such because of the extent to which they've been permanently wired into human intuition.
No - the "relatively uncontroversial" positions are the ones most consistent with decision theory over repeated iterations.
To the extent that iterated decision theory accurately models historical selection pressures which shaped our intuitions, I agree with you. However, moral positions like "violently victimizing someone from your own tribe for trivial personal gain is bad and should be heavily discouraged" have been uncontroversial since before decision theory was formalized.
Imagine a simple decision game: Should I eat the poisonous fruit: Yes (-100), No (0). Obviously, No is the superior answer, and it didn't take publication of this decision theory result for humans to realize this. Making the decision game is writing the expected payouts of the environment - not setting them.
To take your example, as long as increasing the power of the tribe provides benefits to you (and I agree that it usually will), then reducing inter-tribe squabbling is the better long-term choice. Decision theory doesn't disagree, but isn't necessary for the conclusion. However, the incentive is already there, so there's no reason why evolution would select for a "baked-in" preference.
The fact that the environment rewards certain choices is a sufficient reason for those choices to be favored. I referenced decision theory only to have a way to rigorously identify which choices are favor by pre-existing reward structures.
I was unclear. I apologize. I misrepresented a general inclination to perform conventionally "good" acts as moral and ethical convention. Thank you for your scrutiny. I will ensure to accurately represent my views in the future. Also, "Dilemma" should be capitalized if "Prisoner's" is.