I’m tempted to put it like this: ethics is a rule for producing something called a “total order” that tells you what to do in any and every given situation. Basically, you have a list of all the things that could happen, and then ethics puts them in an order so you have the most ethical conceivable thing at the top and the least ethical conceivable thing at the bottom.
From there, you go to the top and then start chopping off things that you can’t do. For example, maybe your ethics has “give everyone an immortality pill” really high up on the order. But you can’t do that, so you chop it off and keep going down. Eventually you run into something that you can do, so you do it because it’s the most ethical thing remaining.
What the humans, Babyeaters, and Super Happy people all find out when they meet in literature-space is that you can define an ethical rule for producing any total order from the unordered list of all things that could happen. Say that list is really small, just A, B, and C. Well, A < B < C is clearly one valid order. But so is C < B < A. And B < A < C. Etc.
The humans are following one rule, the Babyeaters another, and the Super Happy people yet a third. Because of the way algorithms feel from the inside, they all perceive each other as monstrous.
That’s my initial guess after skimming the set of links given by riceissa. We’ll be discussing orders (albeit usually partial, not total) in my category theory series of posts, so if this interests you, follow along....
Why would you care if you hadn’t? (I wasn’t trying to put forward a robust defense of moral realism, I was trying to find out what the comment was about)
Label the rule producing the order A < B < C as “moral.”
As a way of explaining “The Meaning of Right” that is pretty unhelpful. EY says the true morality is a blob of computation that doens’t vary between persons. But it is capable of varying from other blobs of computation. So is calling that particular computation Moral the recognition of a pre-existing fact about it, or the stipulation of a meaning for the word “morality”?
Likewise—is the label a recognition (not abitrary) , or a stipulation that is arbitrary at the point that it is made.
More relevant to the moral of the story—a number of the reasons the humans thought the baby eaters were evil, were reasons
the super happies thought the humans were evil, though to a lesser extent.
While the humans didn’t find the baby eaters noble w.r.t that different trait, or appreciate their ethos, the humans thought what they did was right, though the main character was shocked by the super happies because he’d never considered that path (the change w.r.t pain, as opposed to just pursuing ‘happiness’.)
I’m tempted to put it like this: ethics is a rule for producing something called a “total order” that tells you what to do in any and every given situation. Basically, you have a list of all the things that could happen, and then ethics puts them in an order so you have the most ethical conceivable thing at the top and the least ethical conceivable thing at the bottom.
From there, you go to the top and then start chopping off things that you can’t do. For example, maybe your ethics has “give everyone an immortality pill” really high up on the order. But you can’t do that, so you chop it off and keep going down. Eventually you run into something that you can do, so you do it because it’s the most ethical thing remaining.
What the humans, Babyeaters, and Super Happy people all find out when they meet in literature-space is that you can define an ethical rule for producing any total order from the unordered list of all things that could happen. Say that list is really small, just A, B, and C. Well, A < B < C is clearly one valid order. But so is C < B < A. And B < A < C. Etc.
The humans are following one rule, the Babyeaters another, and the Super Happy people yet a third. Because of the way algorithms feel from the inside, they all perceive each other as monstrous.
Ethical nihilism is an easy mistake, I think. Label the rule producing the order A < B < C as “moral.” Then it is an objective fact to say that the rule producing C < B < A is “not moral.” It’s also possible that you live in a big universe with lots of stuff in it like chess, genocide, and chocolate, and so your ethics rule is really complicated and so you might not have the order it gives you fully derived. Thus you might find yourself asking questions like “Is it moral to do [insert action here]?” Still, the order that is “moral” is the order that is “moral.”
That’s my initial guess after skimming the set of links given by riceissa. We’ll be discussing orders (albeit usually partial, not total) in my category theory series of posts, so if this interests you, follow along....
Can you do more than just label? Is there a way of finding the one true order?
How would you know if you had?
Why would you care if you hadn’t? (I wasn’t trying to put forward a robust defense of moral realism, I was trying to find out what the comment was about)
As a way of explaining “The Meaning of Right” that is pretty unhelpful. EY says the true morality is a blob of computation that doens’t vary between persons. But it is capable of varying from other blobs of computation. So is calling that particular computation Moral the recognition of a pre-existing fact about it, or the stipulation of a meaning for the word “morality”?
Likewise—is the label a recognition (not abitrary) , or a stipulation that is arbitrary at the point that it is made.
Thank you very much for that explanation, the idea of differing ethical orderings makes a lot of sense especially in relation to the story.
I’ll be sure to check out your category theory posts, sounds very interesting!
More relevant to the moral of the story—a number of the reasons the humans thought the baby eaters were evil, were reasons
the super happies thought the humans were evil, though to a lesser extent.
While the humans didn’t find the baby eaters noble w.r.t that different trait, or appreciate their ethos, the humans thought what they did was right, though the main character was shocked by the super happies because he’d never considered that path (the change w.r.t pain, as opposed to just pursuing ‘happiness’.)