Phil_Boncer 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: Phil_Boncer 17 October 2008 12:31:00AM 0 points [-]

Stuart Armstrong wrote: "Still disagreeing with the whole "power corrupts" idea.

A builder, or a secratary, who looks out for his friends and does them favours is... a good friend.
A politician who does the same is... a corrupt politician.

A sad bastard who will sleep with anyone he can is a sad bastard.
A politician who will sleep with anyone he can is a power-abusing philanderer.

As you increase power, you become corrupt just by doing what you've always done."

I disagree here. The thing about power is that it entails the ability to use coercion. What is wrong is not the act of helping your friends, or sleeping around, in themselves; what is wrong is the use of power coercively over others to further these ends. In a sense, it is not so much that "power corrupts" as that "power makes corruption possible to execute". This does not tell us whether the powerless are relatively uncorrupt due to moral superiority, or simply due to inability.

PhilB