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Alejandro1 comments on Value evolution - Less Wrong Discussion

14 Post author: PhilGoetz 08 December 2011 11:47PM

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Comment author: Alejandro1 09 December 2011 05:25:44PM 7 points [-]

A good point, but one could reply by distinguishing two situations, disambiguating the idea that "values are decaying":

a) A society believes that the past generations were more virtuous, in the sense of behaving more in accordance to virtue (because of better intrinsic self-control, stronger social punishments for evildoers, or whatever reason), while still having in the present the same standards for virtue, only less observed.

b) A society believes that the past generations had substantially different, and better, standards for virtue than the present one.

The Ages of Man and similar historical decline beliefs seem to fit the first situation, while Phil seems to be arguing that the second one is impossible.