DSherron comments on Bad Concepts Repository - Less Wrong

20 Post author: moridinamael 27 June 2013 03:16AM

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Comment author: DSherron 27 June 2013 07:32:54PM *  -2 points [-]

The accusation of being bad concepts was not because they are vague, but because they lead to bad modes of thought (and because they are wrong concepts, in the manner of a wrong question). Being vague doesn't protect you from being wrong; you can talk all day about "is it ethical to steal this cookie" but you are wasting your time. Either you're actually referring to specific concepts that have names (will other people perceive of this as ethically justified?) or you're babbling nonsense. Just use basic consequentialist reasoning and skip the whole ethics part. You gain literally nothing from discussing "is this moral", unless what you're really asking is "What are the social consequences" or "will person x think this is immoral" or whatever. It's a dangerous habit epistemically and serves no instrumental purpose.