RichardKennaway comments on When Anthropomorphism Became Stupid - Less Wrong

14 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 16 August 2008 11:43PM

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Comment author: RichardKennaway 17 August 2008 06:49:07PM 5 points [-]

Eliezer: Our current theories of evolutionary psychology holds that moral reasoning arose as a response to more complex social challenges than that - in their full-fledged human form, our moral adaptations are the result of selection pressures over linguistic arguments about tribal politics.

You mentioned that explanation earlier, but neither there nor here did you give any reference to evidence for it. Is there any? I don't mean evidence for the general idea of evolutionary psychology, but evidence for this particular claim.

It is not clear just what you are denying of dogs. "In their full-fledged human form" implies that you think there are more rudimentary non-human forms, and you denied "moral reasoning" of the puppy rather than morality -- but it is not clear if you were making a deliberate distinction there. Is "moral reasoning" anything more than morality engaging language in its service?

What do fish enjoy?