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TheAncientGeek comments on On Terminal Goals and Virtue Ethics - Less Wrong
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I'm not sure I'm prepared to make the stronger claim that I don't believe other people have terminal goals. Maybe they do. They know more about their brains than I do. I'm definitely willing to make the claim that people trying to help me rewrite my brain is not going to prove to be useful.
There is no evidence that most or all people have terminal goals. TV's should not be assumed by default or used as a theoretical framework.
Survival is a terminal goal that most people have.
Is it though, or do people want to survive in order to achieve other goals? Many people (I think) wouldn't want to continue living if they were in a vegetative state with ultra-low probability of regaining their ability to live normally (and therefore, achieve other goals).
I am pretty sure people have a biologically hardwired desire to survive. It is terminal X-D
Yes, but do note the difference between "I survive" and "my brain-dead body survives".
If someone is persuaded to sacrifice themsself for a cause X, is cause X then more-than-terminal?
I suppose you you could say that, survival was never their terminal goal. But, to me that has a just so quality. You can identify a terminal goal from any life history, but you can't predict anything.
Humans have multiple values, including multiple terminal values. They do not necessary form any coherent system and so on a regular basis conflict with one another. This is a normal state of being for human values. Conflicts get resolved in a variety of ways, sometimes by cost-benefit analysis, and sometimes by hormonal imbalance :-)
If there is no coherence or stability in the human value system, then there are no terminal values, in any sense that makes a meaningful distinction. Anarchies don't have leaders either.
"Terminal" does NOT mean "the most important". It means values which you cannot (internally) explain in terms of other values, you have them just because you have them. They are axioms.
That explains why there are no such things as armies or wars, why no-one has ever risked their life for another, why no-one has ever chosen dying well above living badly, and why no-one has ever considered praiseworthy the non-existent people who have done these things. No-one would dream of engaging in dangerous sports, nor has the saying "live fast, die young" ever meant anything but a condemnation.
To repeat myself, terminal goals do not have to be important, it's a different quality.
For me, for example, the feeling of sun on my skin is a terminal value. It's not a very important terminal value :-)
That only shows that survival isn't the only terminal goal, not necessarily that it's not a terminal goal at all.