Jef_Allbright comments on Ends Don't Justify Means (Among Humans) - Less Wrong

44 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 October 2008 09:00PM

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Comment author: Jef_Allbright 15 October 2008 06:17:00PM 0 points [-]

@Cyan: Substituting "consider only actions that have predictable effects..." is for me much clearer than "limit the universe of discourse to actions that have predictable effects..." ["and note that Eliezer's argument still makes strong claims about how humans should act."]

But it seems to me that I addressed this head-on at the beginning of my initial post, saying "Of course the ends justify the means -- to the extent that any moral agent can fully specify the ends."

The infamous "Trolley Paradox" does not demonstrate moral paradox at all. It does, however, highlight the immaturity of the present state of our popular framework for moral reasoning. The Trolley problem is provided as if fully specified, and we are supposed to be struck by the disparity between the "true" morality of our innate moral sense, and the "true" morality of consequentialist reasoning. The dichotomy is false; there is no paradox.

All paradox is a matter of insufficient context. In the bigger picture, all the pieces must fit. Or as Eliezer has repeated recently, "it all adds up to normalcy." So in my posts on this topic, I proceeded to (attempt to) convey a larger and more coherent context making sense of the ostensible issue.

Problem is, contexts (being subjective) can't be conveyed. Best that can be done is to try to enrich the (discursive - you're welcome) environment sufficiently that you might form a comprehensibly congruent context in relevant aspects of *your* model of the world.