Virge2 comments on The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 August 2008 10:00PM

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Comment author: Virge2 15 August 2008 07:41:48AM 0 points [-]

komponisto: "I'm really having trouble understanding how this isn't tantamount to moral relativism"

I think I see an element of confusion here in the definition of moral relativism. A moral relativist holds that "no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical proposition's truth". However, the word universal in this context (moral philosophy) is only expected to apply to all possible humans, not all conceivable intelligent beings. (Of all the famous moral relativist philosophers, how many have addressed the morals of general non-human intelligences?)

So we can ask two different questions: #1. Is there a standard by which we can assess an ethical proposition's truth that applies to all humans? #2. Is there a standard by which we can assess an ethical proposition's truth that applies to all conceivable intelligent beings?

I expect that Eliezer would answer yes to #1 and no to #2.

If you interpret universal in the broader sense (#2), then Eliezer would indeed be a moral relativist, but I think that distorts the concept of moral relativism, since the philosophy was developed with only humans of different cultures in mind.