I’ve read some of the metaethics sequence. Is there some particular part of the metaethics sequence that I should focus on that addresses the conceptual integrity of something like “the Good” in a clear and direct manner with logically arranged evidence?
When I read “Three Worlds Collide” about two months ago, my reaction was mixed. Assuming a relatively non-ironic reading I thought that bits of it were gloriously funny and clever and that it was quite brilliant as far as science fiction goes. However, the story did not function for me as a clear “deconstruction” of any particular moral theory unless I read it with a level of irony that is likely to be highly nonstandard, and even then I’m not sure which moral theory it is suppose to deconstruct.
The moral theory it seemed to me to most clearly deconstruct (assuming an omniscient author who loves irony) was “internet-based purity-obsessed rationalist virtue ethics” because (especially in light of the cosmology/technology and what that implied about the energy budget and strategy for galactic colonization and warfare) it seemed to me that the human crew of that ship turned out to be “sociopathic vermin” whose threat to untold joules of un-utilized wisdom and happiness was a way more pressing priority than the mission of mercy to marginally uplift the already fundamentally enlightened Babyeaters.
If that’s your reaction, then it reinforces my notion Eliezer didn’t make his aliens alien enough (which, of course, is hard to do). The Babyeaters, IMO, aren’t supposed to come across as noble in any sense; their morality is supposed to look hideous and horrific to us, albeit with a strong inner logic to it. I think EY may have overestimated how much the baby-eating part would shock his audience†, and allowed his characters to come across as overreacting. The reader’s visceral reaction to the Superhappies, perhaps, is even more difficult to reconcile with the characters’ reactions.
Anyhow, the point I thought was most vital to this discussion from the Metaethics Sequence is that there’s (almost certainly) no universal fundamental that would privilege human morals above Pebblesorting or straight-up boring Paperclipping. Indeed, if we accept that the Pebblesorters stand to primality pretty much as we stand to morality, there doesn’t seem for there to be a place to posit a supervening “true Good” that interacts with our thinking but not with theirs. Our morality is something whose structure is found in human brains, not in the essence of the cosmos; but it doesn’t follow from this fact that we should stop caring about morality.
† After all, we belong to a tribe of sci-fi readers in which “being squeamish about weird alien acts” is a sin.
Is there some particular part of the metaethics sequence that I should focus on that addresses the conceptual integrity of something like “the Good” in a clear and direct manner with logically arranged evidence?
I’ve read some of the metaethics sequence. Is there some particular part of the metaethics sequence that I should focus on that addresses the conceptual integrity of something like “the Good” in a clear and direct manner with logically arranged evidence?
When I read “Three Worlds Collide” about two months ago, my reaction was mixed. Assuming a relatively non-ironic reading I thought that bits of it were gloriously funny and clever and that it was quite brilliant as far as science fiction goes. However, the story did not function for me as a clear “deconstruction” of any particular moral theory unless I read it with a level of irony that is likely to be highly nonstandard, and even then I’m not sure which moral theory it is suppose to deconstruct.
The moral theory it seemed to me to most clearly deconstruct (assuming an omniscient author who loves irony) was “internet-based purity-obsessed rationalist virtue ethics” because (especially in light of the cosmology/technology and what that implied about the energy budget and strategy for galactic colonization and warfare) it seemed to me that the human crew of that ship turned out to be “sociopathic vermin” whose threat to untold joules of un-utilized wisdom and happiness was a way more pressing priority than the mission of mercy to marginally uplift the already fundamentally enlightened Babyeaters.
If that’s your reaction, then it reinforces my notion Eliezer didn’t make his aliens alien enough (which, of course, is hard to do). The Babyeaters, IMO, aren’t supposed to come across as noble in any sense; their morality is supposed to look hideous and horrific to us, albeit with a strong inner logic to it. I think EY may have overestimated how much the baby-eating part would shock his audience†, and allowed his characters to come across as overreacting. The reader’s visceral reaction to the Superhappies, perhaps, is even more difficult to reconcile with the characters’ reactions.
Anyhow, the point I thought was most vital to this discussion from the Metaethics Sequence is that there’s (almost certainly) no universal fundamental that would privilege human morals above Pebblesorting or straight-up boring Paperclipping. Indeed, if we accept that the Pebblesorters stand to primality pretty much as we stand to morality, there doesn’t seem for there to be a place to posit a supervening “true Good” that interacts with our thinking but not with theirs. Our morality is something whose structure is found in human brains, not in the essence of the cosmos; but it doesn’t follow from this fact that we should stop caring about morality.
† After all, we belong to a tribe of sci-fi readers in which “being squeamish about weird alien acts” is a sin.
I think that the single post that best meets this description is Abstracted Idealized Dynamics, which is a follow-up to and clarification of The Meaning of Right and Morality as Fixed Computation.