But much of the material on LW is concerned with rational oughts: a rational agent ought to maximise its utility function (its arbitary set of goals) as efficiently as possible. Rational agents should win, in short. That seems to be an analytical truth arrived at by unpacking “rational”. Generally speaking, where you have rules, your have coulds and shoulds and couldn;t and shouldn’ts. I have been trying to press that unpacking morality leads to the similar analytical truth: ” a moral agent ought to adopt universalisable goals.”
I expressed myself badly. I agree entirely with this.
“Oughts” in general appear wherever you have rules, which are often abstractly defined so that they apply to physal systems as well as anything else.
Again, I agree with this. The position I want to defend is just that if you confine yourself strictly to natural laws, as you should in doing natural science, rules and oughts will not get a grip.
I think LWers would say there are facts about her utility function from which conclusions can be drawn about how she should maximise it (and how she would if the were rational).
And I want to persuade LWers
that facts about her utility functions aren’t naturalistic facts, as facts about her cholesterol level or about neural activity in different parts of her cortex, are,
and
*that this is ok—these are still respectable facts, notwithstanding.
I don’t see why. If a person or other system has goals and is acting to achieve those goals in an effective way, then their goals can be inferred from their actions.
But having a goal is not a naturalistic property. Some people might say, eg, that an evolved, living system’s goal is to survive. If this is your thought, my challenge would be to show me what basic physical facts entail that conclusion.
I expressed myself badly. I agree entirely with this.
Again, I agree with this. The position I want to defend is just that if you confine yourself strictly to natural laws, as you should in doing natural science, rules and oughts will not get a grip.
And I want to persuade LWers
that facts about her utility functions aren’t naturalistic facts, as facts about her cholesterol level or about neural activity in different parts of her cortex, are, and *that this is ok—these are still respectable facts, notwithstanding.
But having a goal is not a naturalistic property. Some people might say, eg, that an evolved, living system’s goal is to survive. If this is your thought, my challenge would be to show me what basic physical facts entail that conclusion.