Well, that's the difference between hard relativism and soft relativism. Hard relativism holds that there is no "right", and that's the one I think has to go. Mind you, I think the relativism you describe is still a bit hard for me - I'd argue that whilst what is right is relative in the sense that it's contingent on the situation at hand, within a given situation rightness is fixed and not at all dependent on one's viewpoint. I certainly don't agree that a relativism with any hardness to it follows from naturalism. I say this only to identify my position relative to your own, since this probably isn't the right place for me to start trying to debate against your ethics. Plus it's 2am and I spent all day at uni arguing ethics. I'm burnt out.
I read the baby-eaters story a while ago - I think I disagree with EY on that one, although it's possible I misread it. I share his apparent belief that the baby-eaters had to be stopped: the babies were suffering and suffering=bad. I don't see why the first, "fake" ending was the sad one, though - to me the second, "real" ending was the horrible one and the fake one was close enough to what I would have tried for if I'd been there. I am warning you now, if I ever meet super-intelligent aliens who want to raise the human race up from perdition and erase the need for suffering, I'm going to be on the side of the angels until humanity sorts it's shit out.
If you think the humans should have stopped the Babyeaters, but you don't think the Babyeaters were evil for pursuing the values that evolution gave them, then you agree that naturalism leads to the form of relativism I am defending and that this form of relativism is okay.
An equivalent: the homosexuality "debate".
The next discussion thread is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: