I’m a moral non-realist and for that reason I find (and when in college- found) normative moral theories to be really silly. Just as a class on theology seems pretty silly to someone who doesn’t believe in God so does normative moral theory to someone who doesn’t think there is anything real to describe in normative theory. But I think such courses can still be productive if you translate all the material in natural/sociological terms. I.e. it can still be interesting to learn how people think about “God”—not the least of which is that God bares some resemblance to actually possible entities. Similarly, you can think about the normative theory stuff you encounter in philosophy departments as attempts by relatively intelligent people to theorize about their own moral intuitions—like extremely crude attempts at coherent extrapolated volition.
It might be helpful to think about what an AGI would do if programmed with the different normative theories you encounter and that might give you some insight into the complexity of the problem. But in general, I recommend metaethics if you’re going to take ethics classes.
“LW rationalists” tend to be consequentialists and often utilitarians (though that is not universally so) but no one has a robust and definitive theory of normative ethics—and one should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to have.
Similarly, you can think about the normative theory stuff you encounter in philosophy departments as attempts by
relatively intelligent people to theorize about their own moral intuitions—like extremely crude attempts at coherent
extrapolated volition.
That’s sort of like saying the internal combustion engine is an extremely crude attempt at a perpetual motion machine. Is there anything concrete published on CEV? Is there any evidence this is a well-defined/possible problem? Is there anything except a name?
Without evidence, the default on “grand theories” should be “you are a crank and don’t know what you are talking about.”
My comment said absolutely zero about the extent to which I think CEV is possible.
That’s sort of like saying the internal combustion engine is an extremely crude attempt at a perpetual motion machine.
I don’t think this analogy get’s the levels of analysis of these two things right or accurately conveys my position on them. When I said normative theory was a extremely crude attempt at coherent extrapolated volition I was definitely not saying that all moral philosophy until now was a footnote to Eliezer Yudkowsky, or anything like that. I was not comparing normative theory with the theory of CEV. I was comparing moral theorizing to the actual act of determining the coherent extrapolated volition of a group of people. CEV isn’t a normative theory, it’s much more like a theory for how to find the correct normative theory (in the tradition of reflective equilibrium or, say, Habermasian discourse ethics). When people do normative theory on their own they are making extremely crude attempts at the ideals of the above.
I can see why you disagree w/ grandparent, but please note that CEV isn’t supposed to be a grand new ethical theory. Somewhere in the background of ‘why do CEV rather than something else’ is a metaethical theory most closely akin to analytic descriptivism / moral functionalism—arguably somewhat new in the details, arguably not all that new, but at any rate the moral cognitivism part is not what CEV itself is really about. The main content of CEV looks like reflective equilibrium or a half-dozen other prior ethical theories and is meant to be right, not new.
Sorry, my point was not that CEV was a normative theory, but that one cannot be compared unfavorably with “vaporware.” The worry is that CEV might be like Leibniz’s “Characteristica Universalis”.
Well, I stopped taking ethics classes and focused on metaphysics and philosophy of science. But that was more just a matter of interests. I got more frustrated with professors tolerating the epistemic relativism popular among students.
I’m worried that the ideas presented in my ethics classes are misguided and “conceptually corrupt”
No need to worry about it—have no doubt that they’re conceptually corrupt.
From your comments, I think you would appreciate Stirner:
Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole
world of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that
beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!
Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher,
and (because the vast majority belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable fools, fools
in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called a “fixed idea”? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When
you recognize, with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave up in an asylum. And is the
truth of the faith, say, which we are not to doubt; the majesty of (e. g.) the people, which we are not to strike at
(he who does is guilty of – lese-majesty); virtue, against which the censor is not to let a word pass, that morality
may be kept pure; – are these not “fixed ideas”? Is not all the stupid chatter of (e. g.) most of our newspapers the
babble of fools who suffer from the fixed idea of morality, legality, Christianity, etc., and only seem to go about free
because the madhouse in which they walk takes in so broad a space?
You write:
I’m a moral non-realist and for that reason I find (and when in college- found) normative moral theories to be really silly. Just as a class on theology seems pretty silly to someone who doesn’t believe in God so does normative moral theory to someone who doesn’t think there is anything real to describe in normative theory. But I think such courses can still be productive if you translate all the material in natural/sociological terms.
Isn’t it strange that the people who believe in fantasy commands from existence are the ones called moral “realists”?
But I think there is something real to describe in normative theory—one can describe how the moral algorithms in our heads work, and the distribution of different algorithms through the population. Haidt has made progress in turning morality from an exercise in battling insanities to a study of how our moral sense works, in the same way one might study how our sense of taste or smell works. Then given any particular set of moral algorithms, one can derive normative claims from that set.
I’m a moral non-realist and for that reason I find (and when in college- found) normative moral theories to be really silly. Just as a class on theology seems pretty silly to someone who doesn’t believe in God so does normative moral theory to someone who doesn’t think there is anything real to describe in normative theory. But I think such courses can still be productive if you translate all the material in natural/sociological terms. I.e. it can still be interesting to learn how people think about “God”—not the least of which is that God bares some resemblance to actually possible entities. Similarly, you can think about the normative theory stuff you encounter in philosophy departments as attempts by relatively intelligent people to theorize about their own moral intuitions—like extremely crude attempts at coherent extrapolated volition.
It might be helpful to think about what an AGI would do if programmed with the different normative theories you encounter and that might give you some insight into the complexity of the problem. But in general, I recommend metaethics if you’re going to take ethics classes.
“LW rationalists” tend to be consequentialists and often utilitarians (though that is not universally so) but no one has a robust and definitive theory of normative ethics—and one should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to have.
.
Tee hee.
That’s sort of like saying the internal combustion engine is an extremely crude attempt at a perpetual motion machine. Is there anything concrete published on CEV? Is there any evidence this is a well-defined/possible problem? Is there anything except a name?
Without evidence, the default on “grand theories” should be “you are a crank and don’t know what you are talking about.”
My comment said absolutely zero about the extent to which I think CEV is possible.
I don’t think this analogy get’s the levels of analysis of these two things right or accurately conveys my position on them. When I said normative theory was a extremely crude attempt at coherent extrapolated volition I was definitely not saying that all moral philosophy until now was a footnote to Eliezer Yudkowsky, or anything like that. I was not comparing normative theory with the theory of CEV. I was comparing moral theorizing to the actual act of determining the coherent extrapolated volition of a group of people. CEV isn’t a normative theory, it’s much more like a theory for how to find the correct normative theory (in the tradition of reflective equilibrium or, say, Habermasian discourse ethics). When people do normative theory on their own they are making extremely crude attempts at the ideals of the above.
I can see why you disagree w/ grandparent, but please note that CEV isn’t supposed to be a grand new ethical theory. Somewhere in the background of ‘why do CEV rather than something else’ is a metaethical theory most closely akin to analytic descriptivism / moral functionalism—arguably somewhat new in the details, arguably not all that new, but at any rate the moral cognitivism part is not what CEV itself is really about. The main content of CEV looks like reflective equilibrium or a half-dozen other prior ethical theories and is meant to be right, not new.
Sorry, my point was not that CEV was a normative theory, but that one cannot be compared unfavorably with “vaporware.” The worry is that CEV might be like Leibniz’s “Characteristica Universalis”.
Thanks Jack. Is it ever frustrating, (or is it more often fun) to be on a forum with such a large percentage of realists?
I like the theological analogy. I need to think about it some more because I think there are some important differences.
I think the percentage of moral “realists” is lower here than in the general population.
Well, I stopped taking ethics classes and focused on metaphysics and philosophy of science. But that was more just a matter of interests. I got more frustrated with professors tolerating the epistemic relativism popular among students.
I completely understand.
No need to worry about it—have no doubt that they’re conceptually corrupt.
From your comments, I think you would appreciate Stirner:
You write:
Isn’t it strange that the people who believe in fantasy commands from existence are the ones called moral “realists”?
But I think there is something real to describe in normative theory—one can describe how the moral algorithms in our heads work, and the distribution of different algorithms through the population. Haidt has made progress in turning morality from an exercise in battling insanities to a study of how our moral sense works, in the same way one might study how our sense of taste or smell works. Then given any particular set of moral algorithms, one can derive normative claims from that set.
There is lots of exciting descriptive work to do. But that isn’t normative theory, it’s descriptive moral psychology.
You can still have normative theory in the axiomatic sense—if (these moral algorithms), then these results.