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Lumifer comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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A personal "should" is "I should" -- as opposed to "everyone should". If I think I should, say, drink more, that "should" is not binding on anyone else.
But the original context was "we should". Sophronius obviously intended the sentence to refer to everyone. I don't see anything relative about his use of words.
<sorry, mixed up two sub-threads>
Correct, and that's why I said
I'm struggling to figure out how to communicate the issue here.
If you agree that what Sophronius intended to say was "everyone should" why would you describe it as a personal "should"? (And what does "binding on someone" even mean, anyway?)
Well, perhaps you should just express your point, provided you have one? Going in circles around the word "should" doesn't seem terribly useful.
Well, to me it's obvious that "People should be allowed to do in their bedroom whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone." was a logical proposition, either true or false. And whether it's true or false has nothing to do with whether anyone else has the same terminal values as Sophronius. But you seem to disagree?
Do you mean it would be true or false for everyone? At all times? In all cultures and situations? In the same way "Sky is blue" is true?
But the sky isn't blue for everyone at all times in all situations!
Yes. Logical propositions are factually either true or false. It doesn't matter who is asking. In exactly the same way that "everyone p-should put pebbles into prime heaps" doesn't care who's asking, or indeed how "the sky is blue" doesn't care who's asking.
Well then, I disagree. Since I just did a whole circle of the mulberry bush with Sophronius I'm not inclined to do another round. Instead I'll just state my position.
I think that statements which do not describe reality but instead speak of preferences, values, and "should"s are NOT "factually either true or false". They cannot be unconditionally true or false at all. Instead, they can be true or false conditional on the specified value system and if you specify a different value system, the true/false value may change. To rephrase it in a slightly different manner, value statements can consistent or inconsistent with some value system, and they also can be instrumentally rational or not in pursuit of some goals (and whether they are rational or not is conditional on the the particular goals).
To get specific, "People should be allowed to do in their bedroom whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm anyone" is true within some value system and false within some other value systems. Both kinds of value systems exist. I see no basis for declaring one kind of value systems "factually right" and another kind "factually wrong".
As a example consider a statement "The sum of the triangle's inner angles is 180 degrees". Is this true? In some geometries, yes, in others, no. This statement is not true unconditionally, to figure out whether it's true in some specific case you have to specify a particular geometry. And in some real-life geometries it is true and in other real-life geometries it is false.
Well, I'm not trying to say that some values are factual and others are imaginary. But when someone makes a "should" statement (makes a moral assertion), "should" refers to a particular predicate determined by their actual value system, as your value system determines your language. Thus when people talk of "you should do X" they aren't speaking of preferences or values, rather they are speaking of whatever it is their value system actually unfolds into.
(The fact that we all use the same word, "should" to describe what could be many different concepts is, I think, justified by the notion that we mostly share the same values, so we are in fact talking about the same thing, but that's an empirical issue.)
Hopefully this will help demonstrate my position. I would say that when being fully rigorous is it a type error to ask whether a sentence is true. Logical propositions have a truth value, but sentences are just strings of symbols. To turn "The sum of the triangle's inner angles is 180 degrees" into a logical proposition you need to know what is meant by "sum", "triangle", "inner angles", "180", "degrees" and indeed "is".
As an example, if the sentence was uttered by Bob, and what he meant by "triangle" was a triangle in euclidean space, and by "is" he meant "is always" (universally quantified), then what he said is factually (unconditionally) true. But if he uttered the same sentence, in a language where "triangle" means a triangle in a hyperbolic space, or in a general space, then what he said would be unconditionally false. There's no contradiction here because in each case he said a different thing.
Value systems are themselves part of reality, as people already have values.
Yes they are, but the same sentence can state different logical propositions depending on where, when and by whom it is uttered.
They can. But when a person utters a sentence, they generally intend to state the derelativized proposition indicated by the sentence in their language. When I say "
P", I don't mean ""P"is a true sentence in all languages at all places", I meanP(current context).Which is why it's useless to say "I have a different definition of 'should'", because the original speaker wasn't talking about definitions, they were talking about whatever it is "should" actually refers to in their actual language.
(I actually thought of mentioning that the sky isn't always blue in all situations, but decided not to.)
Well, if you should drink more because you're dehydrated, then you're right to say that not everyone is bound by that, but people in similar circumstances are (i.e. dehydrated, with no other reason not to drink). Or are you saying that there are ultimately personal shoulds?
Yes, of course there are.
'Of course' nothing, I find that answer totally shocking. Can you think of an example? Or can you explain how such shoulds are supposed to work?
So far as I understand it, for every 'should' there is some list of reasons why. If two people have the same lists of reasons, then whatever binds one binds them both. So there's nothing personal about shoulds, except insofar as we rarely have all the same reasons to do or not do something.
Doesn't take much to shock you :-)
Sure. Let's say there is a particular physical place (say, a specific big boulder on the shore of a lake) where I, for some reason, feel unusually calm, serene, and happy. It probably triggers some childhood memories and associations. I like this place. I should spend more time there.
No two people are the same. Besides, the importance different people attach to the same reasons varies greatly.
And, of course, to bind another with your "should" requires you to know this other very very well. To the degree I would argue is unattainable.
So say this place also makes me feel calm, serene, and happy. It also triggers in me some childhood memories and associations. I like the place. I also have (like you) no reasons not to go there. Lets say (however unlikely it might be) we have all the same reasons, and we weigh these reasons exactly the same. Nevertheless, it's not the case that I should spend more time there. Have I just told you a coherent story?
So lets say you're very thirsty. Around you, there's plenty of perfectly potable water. And lets say I know you're not trying to be thirsty for some reason, but that you've just come back from a run. I think I'm in a position to say that you should drink the water. I don't need to know you very well to be sure of that. What am I getting wrong here?
That's a rather crucial part. I am asserting that not only two people will not have the same reasons and weight them exactly the same, but you also can't tell whether a person other than you has the same reasons and weights them exactly the same.
You're basically saying "let's make an exact copy of you -- would your personal "shoulds" apply to that exact copy?"
The answer is yes, but an exact copy of me does not exist and that's why my personal shoulds don't apply to other people.
You can say, of course. But when I answer "no, I don't think so", is your "should" stronger than my "no"?
Ahh, okay, it looks like we are just misunderstanding one another. I originally asked you whether there are ultimately personal shoulds, and by this I meant that shoulds that are binding on me but not you for no reason other than you and I are numerically different people.
But it seems to me your answer to this is in fact 'no', there are no such ultimately personal shoulds. All shoulds bind everyone subject to the reasons backing them up, it's just that those reasons rarely (if ever) coincide.
Yes. You're wrong that you shouldn't drink. The only should on the table is my correct one. Your 'no' has no strength at all.
What's "numerically different"?
And what did you mean by "ultimately", then? In reality all people are sufficiently different for my personal shoulds to apply only to me and not necessarily to anyone else. The set of other-than-me people to which my personal should must apply is empty. Is that insufficiently "ultimately"?
I beg to disagree. Given that you have no idea about reasons that I might have for not drinking, I don't see why your "should" is correct. Speaking of which, how do you define "correct" in this situation, anyway? What makes you think that the end goals you imagine are actually the end goals that I am pursuing?
I just mean something like 'there are two of them, rather than one'. So they can have all the same (non-relational) properties, but not be the same thing because there are two of them.
Well, that's an empirical claim, for which we'd need some empirical evidence. It's certainly possible that my personal 'should' could bind you too, since it's possible (however unlikely) that we could be subject to exactly the same reasons in exactly the same way.
This is an important point, because it means that shoulds bind all and every person subject to the reasons that back them up. It may be true that people are subject to very different sets of reasons, such that in effect 'shoulds' only generally apply to one person. I think this empirical claim is false, but that's a bit beside the point.
It's part of the hypothetical that I do know the relevant reasons and your aims: you're thirsty, there's plenty of water, and you're not trying to stay thirsty. Those are all the reasons (maybe the reality is never this simple, though I think it often is...again, that's an empirical question). Knowing those, my 'you should drink' is absolutely binding on you.
I don't need to define 'correct'. You agree, I take it, that the above listed reasons can in principle be sufficient to determine that one should drink. That's all I mean by correct: that it's true to say 'if X, Y, Z, then you should drink'.