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mwengler comments on Open Thread, Apr. 20 - Apr. 26, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: Gondolinian 20 April 2015 12:02AM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 20 April 2015 06:15:30PM 8 points [-]

I'm inclined to think that policy towards illegal immigration is a result of incoherent moral standards-- some combination of "discourage strangers from showing up in large numbers" and "rescue harmless people who are close to death".

Comment author: mwengler 21 April 2015 10:10:03PM 4 points [-]

I don't think policy is a result of incoherent moral standards. I think it is a result of different people having different moral ideas that they consider important. So some subset of people are concerned enough to be active in discouraging strangers from showing up, and some other subset of people are concerned with rescuing people who are close to death, and the political/legislative system cobbles these things together into something which can pass a vote.

I suspect CEV is unlikely. That is, if one were to extrapolate volition from bunches of different people, the result would not be coherent, it would be incoherent. Because people have different and inconsistent volitions.