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Lumifer comments on Has LessWrong Ever Backfired On You? - Less Wrong Discussion
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According to my parents, certain behaviors are immoral if you can explain why you're doing them.
Overreacting to a parent listening in on your phone call or using physical coercion (not hitting me, just grabbing me and blocking my movements) when they claim good intentions? Teenage hormones.
Stating that you have a precommitment to react negatively to people who wiretap or use force on me, even when it's costly for me to do so? Morally wrong.
[Yes, I realize that the actual moral here is "Don't tell people you understand the concept of precommitments, just pretend to be an irrational actor". This isn't an example of advice being wrong, just an example of advice needing to be clarified.]
Well, I would read the actual moral as "Parents are likely to phrase their arguments in terms of morality if it suits their purpose, even if it isn't actually their morality".
I think we're using definitions differently here: I was using "moral" to mean "lesson for the reader based on what the main character wishes she had done".
Also, parents in this instance react to events based on their stated moral system, not on their actual moral system.
However, that is the sort of assumption I already make about my parents' statements about morality whenever those statements are suspiciously specific and applicable to a current argument that they would like to win.
So was I :-)