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hen comments on Open Thread, May 12 - 18, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Let me rephrase my question: Suppose I presented a series of well-crafted studies which show that people often use the word 'should' without intending to make reference to an assumed set of terminal values. I mean that people often use the word 'should' to ask questions like 'What should my ultimate, terminal values be?'
Would your reaction to these studies be:
1) I guess I was wrong when I said that '"Should" implies a goal according to some set of values'. Apparently people use the word 'should' to talk about the values themselves and without necessarily implying a higher up set of values.
or
2) Many people appear to be confused about what 'should' means. Though it appears to be a well formed English sentence, the question 'what should my ultimate, terminal values be?' is in fact nonsense.
In other words, when you say that 'should' implies a goal according to some set of values, are you making a claim about language, such as might be found in a dictionary, or are you making a claim about meta-ethical facts, such as might be found in a philosophy paper?
Or do you mean something else entirely?
I endorse the answers that TylerJay gave to this question, he's saying basically the same thing as I was trying to get at.
Do you have a response to the question I put to him? If it's true that asking after values or goals or criteria always involves presupposing some higher up goals, values or criteria, then does it follow from this that we can't ask after terminal goals, values, or ultimate criteria? If not, why not?
Yes and no. You could just decide on some definition of terminal goals or ultimate criteria, and ask the genie what we should do to achieve the goals as you define them. But it's up to you (or someone else who you trust) to come up with that definition first, and the only "objective" criteria for what that definition should be like is something along the lines of "am I happy with this definition and its likely consequences".
And you would say that the above doesn't involve any antecedent criteria upon which this judgement is based, say for determining the value of this or that consequence?