donjoe comments on Terminal Values and Instrumental Values - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 November 2007 07:56AM

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Comment author: donjoe 13 May 2012 07:21:47AM 0 points [-]

"instrumental values have some strange life of their own, even in a normative sense. That, once you say B is usually good because it leads to C, you've committed yourself to always try for B even in the absence of C. People make this kind of mistake in abstract philosophy"

... not to mention economics, where some people confuse the instrumental goal of "maximizing profit" with a terminal goal - instead of using something like "maximizing the total Human Quality of Life" - and end up opening car doors obsessively, all day every day, and preaching that everyone should do the same, no matter what pathological consequences that leads to or how far that takes them from any higher purpose they might agree with when pressed with enough "but why?" questions.