Belief structures do not necessarily have to be internally logically consistent. However, consistent systems are better, for the following reason: belief systems are used for deriving actions to take.
I have a working hypotheses that most evil (from otherwise well-intentioned people) comes from forcing a very complex, context-dependent moral system into one that is “consistent” (i.e., defined by necessarily overly simplified rules that are global rather than context-dependent) and then committing to that system even in doubtful cases since it seems better that it be consistent.
(There’s no problem with looking for consistent rules or wanting consistent rules, the problem is settling on a system too early and applying or acting on insufficient, inadequate rules.)
Eliezer has written that religion can be an ‘off-switch’ for intuitively knowing what is moral … religion is the common example of any ideology that a person can allow to trump their intuition in deciding how to act. My pet example is, while I generally approve of the values of the religion I was brought up with, you can always find specific contexts (its not too difficult, actually) where their decided rules of implementation are entirely contrary to the values they are supposed to espouse.
By the way, this comment has had nothing to say about your friend’s comment. To relate to that, since I understand you were upset, my positive spin would be that (a) your friend’s belief about the relationship between ‘math’ and social justice is not strong evidence on the actual relationship (though regardless your emotional reaction is an indication that this is an area where you need to start gathering evidence, as you are doing with this post) and (b) if your friend thought about it more, or thought about it more in the way you do (Aumann’s theorem), I think they would agree that a consistent system would be “nicest”.
I have a working hypotheses that most evil (from otherwise well-intentioned people) comes from forcing a very complex, context-dependent moral system into one that is “consistent” (i.e., defined by necessarily overly simplified rules that are global rather than context-dependent) and then committing to that system even in doubtful cases since it seems better that it be consistent.
(There’s no problem with looking for consistent rules or wanting consistent rules, the problem is settling on a system too early and applying or acting on insufficient, inadequate rules.)
Eliezer has written that religion can be an ‘off-switch’ for intuitively knowing what is moral … religion is the common example of any ideology that a person can allow to trump their intuition in deciding how to act. My pet example is, while I generally approve of the values of the religion I was brought up with, you can always find specific contexts (its not too difficult, actually) where their decided rules of implementation are entirely contrary to the values they are supposed to espouse.
By the way, this comment has had nothing to say about your friend’s comment. To relate to that, since I understand you were upset, my positive spin would be that (a) your friend’s belief about the relationship between ‘math’ and social justice is not strong evidence on the actual relationship (though regardless your emotional reaction is an indication that this is an area where you need to start gathering evidence, as you are doing with this post) and (b) if your friend thought about it more, or thought about it more in the way you do (Aumann’s theorem), I think they would agree that a consistent system would be “nicest”.