mwengler comments on Two arguments for not thinking about ethics (too much) - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Kaj_Sotala 27 March 2014 02:15PM

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Comment author: mwengler 01 April 2014 03:31:21PM 0 points [-]

The presence of modern outputs of a moral philosophy would seem to suggest the existence of a modern moral philosophy.

Or if they are free floating intuitions, it is remarkable how they seem consistent with a fairly complicated view where the individual humans have great value and significant rights against the collective or other random strangers. And how different this modern view of the individual is then hundreds of years ago or more when moral theories revolved around various authoritarian institutions or supernatural beings rather than individuals.

Comment author: blacktrance 01 April 2014 05:34:34PM 0 points [-]

The presence of modern outputs of a moral philosophy would seem to suggest the existence of a modern moral philosophy.

The presence of outputs of a moral philosophy need not mean that the moral philosophy is still present, or even that there's one moral philosophy. For example, imagine a world in which for centuries, the dominant moral philosophy was that of fundamentalist Christianity, and popular moral ideas are those derived from it. Then there is a rise in secularism and Christianity retreats, but many of its ideas remain, disconnected from their original source. Temporarily, Christianity is replaced by some kind of egalitarianism, which produces some of its own moral ideas, but then it retreats too, and then there isn't any dominant moral philosophy. You would find that in such a society, there would be various scattered ideas that can be traced back to Christianity or egalitarianism, even though it's possible that no one would be a Christian or an egalitarian.

if they are free floating intuitions, it is remarkable how they seem consistent with a fairly complicated view where the individual humans have great value and significant rights against the collective or other random strangers

If you put it that broadly, it's not concrete enough to be called a moral philosophy. Utilitarians, Kantians, and others would all agree that individuals have great value, but they're very different moral philosophies.