Thom_Blake comments on True Ending: Sacrificial Fire (7/8) - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 February 2009 10:57AM

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Comment author: Thom_Blake 05 February 2009 10:45:00PM 0 points [-]

Nick,

There is a tendency for some folks to distinguish between descriptive and normative statements, in the sense of 'one cannot derive an ought from an is' and whatnot. A lot of this comes from hearing about the "naturalistic fallacy" and believing this to mean that naturalism in ethics is dead. Naturalists in turn refer to this line of thinking as the "naturalistic fallacy fallacy", as the strong version of the naturalistic fallacy does not imply that naturalism in ethics is wrong.

As for the fallacy you mention, I disagree that it's a fallacy. It makes more sense to me to take "I value x" and "I act as though I value x" to be equivalent when one is being honest, and to take both of those as different from (an objective statement of) "x is good for me". This analysis of course only counts if one believes in akrasia - I'm really still on the fence on that one, though I lean heavily towards Aristotle.