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Dr_Manhattan comments on Why Do We Engage in Moral Simplification? - Less Wrong Discussion

24 Post author: Wei_Dai 14 February 2011 01:16AM

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Comment author: Dr_Manhattan 14 February 2011 06:11:28PM 0 points [-]

Why do we find it natural or attractive to simplify our moral intuitions?

Pragmatically, there is some necessary lossy compression of moral intuitions for these reasons

1) Meta-value of being consistent in different emotional states. E.g. I do not like to kill, but that guy in a BMW who cut me off when it was my right of way... Or not doing things while being drunk that you will regret.

2) Providing instructions to agents acting on your behalf.

3) Comprimise of one's preferences in some collective action context (corporate cultures)

Incidentally Iain Banks cleverly deals with the communication channel problem by having persons send each other mindstate extracts.