Eliezer objects to being called a relativist, but I think that this is just semantics.
The third bullet goes so far beyond relativism that it seems quite justified to deny the word. If just about everyone everywhere is observed to have a substantial commonality in what they think right or wrong (whether or not genetic heritage has anything to do with it), then that’s enough to call it objective, even if we do not know why it is so, how it came to be, or how it works. Knowledge may be imperfect, and people may disagree about it, but that does not mean that there is nothing that it is knowledge about.
We can imagine Paperclippers, Pebblesorters, Baby Eaters, and Superhappies, but I don’t take these imagined beings seriously except as interesting thought experiments, to be trumped if and when we actually encounter intelligent aliens.
(BTW, regarding accessibility to newcomers: I just made four references that will be immediately obvious to any long-time reader, but completely opaque to any newcomer. A glossary page would be a good idea.)
The third bullet goes so far beyond relativism that it seems quite justified to deny the word. If just about everyone everywhere is observed to have a substantial commonality in what they think right or wrong (whether or not genetic heritage has anything to do with it), then that’s enough to call it objective, even if we do not know why it is so, how it came to be, or how it works. Knowledge may be imperfect, and people may disagree about it, but that does not mean that there is nothing that it is knowledge about.
We can imagine Paperclippers, Pebblesorters, Baby Eaters, and Superhappies, but I don’t take these imagined beings seriously except as interesting thought experiments, to be trumped if and when we actually encounter intelligent aliens.
(BTW, regarding accessibility to newcomers: I just made four references that will be immediately obvious to any long-time reader, but completely opaque to any newcomer. A glossary page would be a good idea.)
Paperclippers
Pebblesorters
Baby Eaters and Superhappies