Dynamically_Linked comments on Is Morality Given? - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 July 2008 08:12AM

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Comment author: Dynamically_Linked 07 July 2008 04:06:00AM 0 points [-]

Constant, if moral truths were mathematical truths, then ethics would be a branch of mathematics. There would be axiomatic formalizations of morality that do not fall apart when we try to explore their logical consequences. There would be mathematicians proving theorems about morality. We don't see any of this.

Isn't it simpler to suppose that morality was a hypothesis people used to explain their moral perceptions (such as "murder seems wrong") before we knew the real explanations, but now we find it hard to give up the word due to a kind of memetic inertia?