Oscar_Cunningham comments on [SEQ RERUN] The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Loading…
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (25)
Does my edit help? I can't see how it's very unlikely, it's how I've understood the whole of the meta-ethics sequence.
Well, it helps, in that it clarifies your reasoning. Thanks.
That said, I continue to think that EY would reject a claim like "p-morality is h-inferior to h-morality" to the extent that its symmetrical counterpart, "h-morality is p-inferior to p-morality" is considered equivalent; I expect he would reply with some version of "No, p-morality is inferior to h-morality, which is right."
IOW, my own understanding of EY's position is similar to shminux's, here: that human morality is right, and other moralities (supposing they exist at all) are not right. It seems to follow that other moralities are inferior.
But I don't claim to be any sort of expert on the subject of EY's beliefs, and it's ultimately not a very important question; I'm content to agree to disagree here.
Oh, I think I get it now.
He's saying that he uses "right" to mean the same thing everyone else does — because the "everyone else" he cares about are human and share human values. Words like "right" (and "inferior") don't point to something outside of human experience; they point to something within it. We are having this conversation within human experience, not outside it, so words have their human meanings — which are the only meanings we can actually refer to.
Saying "h-right" is like saying "h-Boston". The meaning of "Boston" is already defined by humanity; you don't have to put "h-" in front of it.
It's just a fact about us that we do not respond to p-rightness in the same way that we respond to h-rightness, and our word "right" refers to the latter. You wouldn't go out and do things because of those things' p-rightness, after all. Rightness, not p-rightness, is what motivates us..
It's part of what we are — just as we (usually) have particular priors. We don't say "h-evidence" for "the sort of evidence that we find convincing" and contrast this with "y-evidence" which is the sort of evidence that a being who always believes statements written in yellow would find convincing. "h-evidence" is just what "evidence" means.
I think I agree with you, which is strange because it looks like TheOtherDave also agrees with you, but disagrees with me.
In general, it's not strange at all for A and B to both agree completely with C, but disagree with each other. For example, if C says "Pie is yummy!", B says "Pie is yummy and blueberry is the best!" and A says "Pie is yummy and cherry is the best!"
In this case, I disagree with your assertion that EY does not believe that Pebblesorter morality is inferior to human morality, an assertion fubarobfusco does not make.
I do think Eliezer is saying that Pebblesorter morality is inferior to human morality, specifically insofar as the only thing that "inferior" can refer to in this sense is also "h-inferior" — all the inferiorness that we know how to talk about is inferiorness from a human perspective, because hey, that's what perspective we use.
(nods) I agree. If Oscar_Cunningham agrees as well, then we all agree.
I also agree. Yay!
I think so too. I really like the way you explained this.
Well, again, I suspect he would instead say that he uses "right" the right way, which is unsurprisingly the way all the other people who are right use it. But that bit of nomenclature aside, yes, that's my understanding of the position.