What we know about the causal origins of our moral intuitions doesn't obviously give us reason to believe they are correlated with moral truth.

But what we know about morality, we know purely thanks to the causal origin. If you see no obvious connection to moral truth, then either it is purely a coincidence that we happen to believe correctly, or else it is not and you're failing to see something. If it is purely a coincidence, then we may as well give up now.

Yet most people in a situation of near simultaneity find it easier (or perhaps just safer?) to assume they had arrived simultaneously and come to agreement on dividing the pie 'fairly', rather than argue over who got there first.

You are claiming it is a common practice. But common practice is common practice - not necessarily "fairness". We often do things precisely because they are commonly done. One common practice which is not equal is, if two cars arrive at the same intersection at right angles, then the car on the right has the right of way. This is the common practice, and we do it because it is common practice, and it is common practice because we do it.

Even if it is not common practice, dividing it into thirds may well be apt to occur to most people. This makes it a likely Schelling point. Schelling points aren't about fairness either. They are about trying to predict what the other guy will predict that you predict, all without communicating with each other. You can use a Schelling point to try to find each other in a large city without a prior agreement on where to meet. Each of you tries to figure out what location the other will choose, keeping in mind that the other guy is trying to pick the location which you're most likely to predict he's going to pick (and you can probably keep recursing).

If all we're trying to do is come to an agreement there is no need to get deeply philosophical about fairness per se.

If you modify the scenario by postulating that the pie is accompanied by a note reading "I hereby leave this pie as a gift to whomever finds it. Enjoy. -- Flying Pie-Baking Monster", how does that make the problem any easier?

If, indeed, it requires that we imagine a flying pie-baking monster in order to come up with a situation in which the concept of 'fairness' is actually relevant (e.g. not immediately trumped by an external factor), then it suggests that the concept of 'fairness' is in the real world virtually irrelevant. I notice also that the three have arrived separately and exactly simultaneously, another rarity, but also important to make 'fairness' an issue.

And then they discover, in the center of the clearing, a delicious blueberry pie.

If the pie is edible then it was recently made and placed there. Whoever made it is probably close at hand. That person has a much better claim on the pie than these three and is therefore most likely rightly considered the owner. Let the owner of the pie decide. If the owner does not show up, leave the pie alone. Arguably the difficulty the three have in coming to a conclusion is related to the fact that none of the three has anything close to a legitimate claim on the pie.

Morality is just a certain innate functionality in our brains as it expresses itself based on our life experiences. This is entirely consistent with the assertion that what most people mean by morality -- an objective standard of conduct that is written into the fabric of reality itself -- does not exist: there is no such thing!

To use Eliezer's terminology, you seem to be saying that "morality" is a 2-place word:

Morality: Species, Act -> [0, Ă˘ÂˆÂž)

which can be "curried", i.e. can "eat" the first input to become a 1-place word:

Homosapiens::Morality == Morality_93745

I think we must conclude that morality is a means, not an end in itself.

Morality is commonly thought of neither as a means nor as an end, but as a constraint. This view is potentially liberating, because the conception of morality as a means to an end implies the idea that any two possible actions can be compared to see which is the best means to the end and therefore which is the most moral. To choose the less moral of the two choices is, on this conception, the very definition of immoral. Thus on this conception, our lives are in principle mapped out for us in the minutest detail, because at each point it is immoral to fail to take the unique most moral path.

An alternative conception is that morality is a set of constraints, and within those constraints you are free to do whatever you like without your choice being immoral. This is potentially liberating, because if the constraints are minimal (and on most conceptions they are) then our lives are not mapped out for us.

Hopefully - "Choice" doesn't seem to enter into it, in my opinion, because the person may be functionally bounded to one, determined pathway, perhaps analogous to the way that I'm bounded from flying to the moon.

He may indeed have a determined path, but as Eliezer has attempted to argue, this is not incompatible with saying that he has a choice.

I think it only adds to the the main economic theories to remain reasonably skeptical about the concept of choice

And I think that it rips them apart, because they are weaved together from the concept of choice. Get rid of the concept of choice and it's like grabbing the thread that it's made of and confiscating it. But the fabric is made from the thread.

If you get rid of choice, what are you left with? You need to get rid of the concept of alternatives as well, because it is the flip side of choice (a person presented with a set of alternatives is presented with a choice between those alternatives, as recognized in the statement, "you have a choice"). Get rid of choice and you need to get rid of the concept of preference, because what a person prefers between A and B is nothing other than what he would choose if given the choice between A and B. Get rid of preference, and you get rid of indifference, so you get rid of indifference curves. Supply and demand are built on indifference curves, so you get rid of supply and demand. Get rid of supply and demand and you get rid of price theory.

Hopefully, you are not addressing an important distinction. You haven't said what is to be done with it. The passage that I quoted includes these words:

while another bundle of goods is affordable

The bundles of goods that are affordable are precisely the bundle of goods among which we choose.

Hopefully writes: constant: buys, eats, etc. Here it's not any more necessary to assert or imply deliberation (which is what I think you mean by saying "choice"

No, it is not what I mean. A person chooses among actions A, B, and C, if he has the capacity to perform any of A, B, or C, and in fact performs (say) C. It does not matter whether he deliberates or not. The distinction between capacity and incapacity takes many forms; in the definition which I quoted the capacity/incapacity distinction takes the form of an affordability/unaffordability distinction.

Joseph - "Choice" is, I should think, more like "fire" and "heat" than like "phlogiston" and "caloric". We have abandoned the last two as outdated scientific theories, but have not abandoned the first two even though they are much older concepts, presumably because they do not represent scientific theories but rather name observable mundane phenomena.

I think the more fundamental reason most physicists working in the foundations of quantum mechanics don't believe in many-worlds is that those who do believe in many worlds consider the foundations problem to be solved, and see no need to work on it anymore.

Bravo. This potential for systematic bias on certain questions can be generalized and ought to have a name. It suggests that we should reduce the weight that we place on expert opinion on certain questions in any field, to the extent that the choice to work in the field will depend on how a person answers those questions.

So when we decide whether to rely on expert opinion, we ought to keep in mind that certain biases will tend to afflict precisely the experts, making non-experts in some cases more reliable guides.