Ishaan comments on P/S/A - Sam Harris offering money for a little good philosophy - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Benito 01 September 2013 06:36PM

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Comment author: Ishaan 03 September 2013 05:53:13AM *  -1 points [-]

this begs questions of why human brains are the only ones that are taken into account.

Harris has decided to define "good" as "that thing in human brains which typically corresponds to the word good".

Under this definition, an agent using orange/blue compass rather than a black/white compass doesn't have a different morality - rather, it's simply unconcerned with moral questions. "Good" and "Moral" are defined as the human-specific-value-thingies. That is why only human brains are taken into account - because they are embedded in his definition of "good".

Comment author: Carinthium 03 September 2013 06:51:16AM 0 points [-]

Yes, but he's effectively ignoring a significant number of ethical questions regarding Why Humans? In addition, the principle that all humans are about equally weighted appears to be significant in his morality.