Without commenting on whether this presentation matches the original metaethics sequence (with which I disagree), this summary argument seems both unsupported and unfalsifiable.
Would this be an accurate summary of what you think is the meta-ethics sequence? I feel that you captured the important bits but I also feel that we disagree on some aspects:
V(Elves, ) = Christmas spirity
V(Pebblesorters, ) = primality
V(Humans, _ ) = morality
If V(Humans, Alice) =/= V(Humans, ) that doesn't make morality subjective, it is rather i...
Unpacking "should" as " morally obligated to" is potentially helpful, so inasmuch as you can give separate accounts of "moral" and "obligatory".
The elves are not moral. Not just because I, and humans like me happen to disagree with them, no, certainly not. The elves aren’t even trying to be moral. They don’t even claim to be moral. They don’t care about morality. They care about “The Christmas Spirit,” which is about eggnog and stuff
That doesn't generalise to the point that non humans have no morality. You have m...
Morality binds and blinds. People derive moral claims from emotional and intuitive notions. It can feel good and moral to do amoral things. Objective morality has to be tied to evidence what really is human wellbeing; not to moral intuitions that are adaptions to the benefit of ones ingroup; or post hoc thought experiments about knowledge.
Maybe we should be abandoning the objectivity requirement as impossible. As I understand it this is in fact core to Yudkowsky's theory- an "objective" morality would be the tablet he refers to as something to ignore.
I'm not entirely on Yudkowsky's side in this. My view is that moral desires, whilst psychologically distinct from selfish desires, are not logically distinct and so the resolution to any ethical question is "What do I want?". There is the prospect of coordination through shared moral wants, but there is the prospect of coordination through shared selfish wants as well. Ideas of "the good of society" or "objective ethical truth" are simply flawed concepts.
But I do think Yudkowsky has a good point both of you have been ignoring. His stone tablet analogy, if I remember correctly, sums it up.
"I think Eliezer is correct in showing that the only solution is avoiding contact at all.": Assumes that there is such a thing as an objective solution, if implicitly.
"The difference is not between two cars, yours and mine, but between a passegner ship and a cargo ship, built for two different purpose and two different class of users.": Passenger and cargo ships both have purposes within human morality. Alien moralities are likely to contradict each other.
"There's not much objectivity in that.": What if objectivity in the sense you describe is impossible?
"Why is it so important that our morality is the one that motivates us? People keep repeating it as though its a great revelation, but its equally true that babyeater morality motivates babyeaters, so the situation comes out looking symmetrical and therefore relativistc.": If it isn't, then it comes back to the amoralist challenge. Why should we even care?
Maybe we should also consider in parallel the question of whether objectivity is necessary. If objectivity is both necessary to morality and impossible, then nihilism results.
The basic, pragmatic argument for the objectivity or quasi-objectivity of ethics is that it is connected to practices of reward and punishment, which either happen or not.
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