Why didn't people (apparently?) understand the metaethics sequence?

ChrisHallquist

There seems to be a widespread impression that the metaethics sequence was not very successful as an explanation of Eliezer Yudkowsky's views. It even says so on the wiki. And frankly, I'm puzzled by this... hence the "apparently" in this post's title. When I read the metaethics sequence, it seemed to make perfect sense to me. I can think of a couple things that may have made me different from the average OB/LW reader in this regard:

I read Three Worlds Collide before doing my systematic read-through of the sequences.
I have a background in academic philosophy, so I had a similar thought to Richard Chapell's linking of Eliezer's metaethics to rigid designators independently of Richard.

Reading the comments on the metaethics sequence, though, hasn't enlightened me about what exactly people had a problem with, aside from a lot of arguing about definitions over whether Eliezer counts as a relativist.

What's going on here? I ask mainly because I'm thinking of trying to write a post (or sequence?) explaining the metaethics sequence, and I'm wondering what points I should address, what issues I should look out for, etc.

I read Three Worlds Collide before doing my systematic read-through of the sequences.
I have a background in academic philosophy, so I had a similar thought to Richard Chapell's linking of Eliezer's metaethics to rigid designators independently of Richard.

Personally, I remain confused about his claim that morality is objective in some sense in The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary?, no matter how many times i reread it.

I think it all boils down to this quote at the end (emphasis mine):

We are better than the Pebblesorters, because we care about sentient lives, and the Pebblesorters don't.

I agree with you that this claim is confusing (I am confused about it as well). I don't think, however, that he's trying to justify that it's objective. He's merely stating what it is and deferring the justification to a later time.

6Vaniver13y

I think he means that if the pebblesorters came along, and studied humanity, they would come up with a narrow cluster which they would label "h-right" instead of their "p-right", and that the cluster h-right is accessible to all scientifically-minded observers. It's objective in the sense that "the number of exterior columns in the design of the Parthenon" is objective, but not in the sense that "15*2+8*2" is objective. The first is 46, but could have been something else in another universe; the second is 46, and can't be something else in another universe. But... it looks like he's implying that "h-right" is special among "right"s in that it can't be something else in another universe, but that looks wrong for simple reasons. It's also not obvious to me that h-right is a narrow cluster.

23

Why didn't people (apparently?) understand the metaethics sequence?

23

23

23

Why didn't people (apparently?) understand the metaethics sequence?

23

23