denis_bider2 comments on Ethical Inhibitions - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 October 2008 08:44PM

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Comment author: denis_bider2 20 October 2008 12:18:19PM 0 points [-]

Eliezer: if the "ethical override" differs from culture to culture, and some people don't even have it, what's universal about it?

I'm not saying the phenomenon does not exist, but calling it an "ethical override" seems a misnomer. It might be more accurate to regard it as a form of hypnosis. If you're familiar with how hypnosis works, this seems similar to the environment impressing on you, as a child, that some arbitrary things should / should not be done. Since generally such instructions relay accumulated knowledge which one cannot earn or safely test in one's lifetime, it increases an individual's genetic fitness to heed such instructions, i.e. be "hypnotizable".