Is there any decent moral theory that wouldn't be easier to implement with reliable telepathy?
Since this is LessWrong and there's a strong leaning towards a certain view of normative ethics, I had better ask this before I go any further. Would you consider any form of deontology or virtue ethics to be a "decent moral theory"? It feels like I should check this before commenting any further. I know, for example, that at least one person here (not naming names) has openly said that all non-consequentialist approaches to ethics are "insane".
Sorry I was unclear... I meant my comment literally. I've never heard anyone making this argument, and I'm curious as to what happens if, in response, one says "Not all laws are constructed by some intelligence." That is, how do the people making this argument respond?
Edit: yeah, what danfly said.
Well, the only time I responded to one such argument, I rejected the second rather than the first premise. Your way might have been easier. I don't think it would have changed the response though.
He wrote the "socrates is man" syllogism right beside it and challenged me to find an example of someone who is immortal (kind of ignoring the fact that it would only prove a premise in that argument false, and not change the logical validity of that particular argument).
You know, maybe the initial argument isn't the worst I've ever seen. Now that I think about it, the response is probably the worst argument I've ever seen.
The person making this argument thinks their argument is watertight because of its structure, and will likely not listen to any suggestion that natural laws are not a component of the laws described in the first premise.
If people think the structure is watertight and that the is argument valid because of that, maybe pointing out the structural flaw in clear terms would get through to them. Specifically, this one's called a fallacy of four terms, though it's in disguise; the word law is used to mean human-designed law in the major premise and any kind of law in the minor premise. The fact that the word also occurs in the phrase natural laws adds to the fun, too.
If going into even deeper detail might help, linguistics has a name for this sort of phenomenon: autohyponymy. It's when a word has a kind of "default general sense" in addition to one or more specific meanings, which occasionally leads to mix-ups. In this case, we have the hypernonym law (=all kinds of laws) and its hyponym law (=piece of human legislation). Another set of examples of the concept of autohyponymy would be the hyperonym dog (=dog of either gender) and its hyponyms dog (=male dog) and bitch (=female dog).
Thanks. I will have to remember that term in future.
What happens if you simply reject the premise that all laws are constructed by some intelligence?
You are quite free to do so, unless you pick the definition of law which is exclusively legal, which is the abuse of language that this argument depends on. If you choose a definition of law under which natural laws or mathematical laws can be counted, then the first premise is indeed false (in a materialist framework anyway).
When you change the definition of law to the legal one, the second premise becomes nonsense.
Regardless of which you pick, any reasoned inference which respects the language involved will generally lead to one premise being true and the other false. Essentially, a materialist can arbitrarily decide which is the true premise and which is the false premise (provided a particular definition has not been made clear beforehand).
I don't know if there is a common definition of law which could make both premises false.
Besides, I didn't mention this because it was a good argument. I mentioned it because it is a shockingly bad argument that I have seen people take seriously.
This is one argument I find particularly irksome...
All laws are constructed by some intelligence
Natural laws are laws
Therefore, natural laws are constructed by some intelligence.
The annoying part is that it is deductively valid if the definition of law is actually the same in both premises. The person making this argument thinks their argument is watertight because of its structure, and will likely not listen to any suggestion that natural laws are not a component of the laws described in the first premise. I can't understand how anyone can fail to see the obvious problem with the argument, whereas the people who tend to make this type of argument fail to see why I am not persuaded by their supposedly "sound logic".
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every time a male has sex with a female, both of their opposite-sex partners rise by one.
Just to ensure clarity, you meant to say; "every time a male has sex with a new female [partner], their opposite-sex partners rise by one. Correct?
One other thing which could skew the statistics is the fact that people that have had many sexual relationships can die, and the dead are not often counted in statistical surveys, while some of their partners might be.
Upvoting to 31, which is quite a fantastic number, since it is both (aptly) a "happy" prime, as well as a "sexy" prime.
1 karma point to go :)
eta: I have 19 karma at the moment.
I upvoted your post to a nice round 20. It's a much nicer number than 19 anyway.
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Leonid: Without a purpose, a man is nothing.
Newton: Yes. But we wonder...do you share our gift? Do you have the necessary vision? Do you know the final fate of man?
Leonid: How could anyone know things like that?
Council: The Greater Science. The Quiet Math. The Silent Truth. The Hidden Arts. The Secret Alchemy.
Newton: Every question has an answer. Every equation has a solution.
Isn't one of the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem that there will always be unanswerable questions?