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blacktrance comments on Open thread, July 21-27, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: polymathwannabe 21 July 2014 01:15PM

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Comment author: blacktrance 22 July 2014 07:43:14AM -1 points [-]

You are aware that there is, for example, a quite large corpus of world literature which has rather thoroughly and seriously engaged the subject of values other than pleasure and pain?

Of course, I can't say that I've read absolutely everything that has ever been written on the subject, but I've read enough to identify certain families of arguments, and find none of them persuasive.

Emotional states and terminal values have no justification and need no justification.

True, but when you're doing something instrumental, you should be sure that what you're doing is justified by your terminal values, and people can be mistaken about whether what they do has the effects they prefer.