I believe the word for “goals which fundamentally clash with my goals” is not “insane” or “irrational”, but “evil”. Someone who has goals I consider evil may well be quite intelligent, sane, and rational.
I don’t think “goals which fundamentally clash with my goals” is quite what you mean, here.
For example, if I want the last cookie, and you also want the last cookie, our goals clash, but neither of us is necessarily evil (nor insane, nor irrational).
It sounds to me like the word konkvistador wants is “alien.”
Perhaps “fundamentally” was too opaque. We both want a cookie, but it’s not a top level goal for either of us. Given that, either of us might be argued out of wanting a cookie by rational means. If acquiring a cookie were a top level goal for both of us, and there were no other ways to acquire cookies than to take the last cookie, then we would each be evil in the value system of the other.
Evil has the unfortunate baggage of implying that there is something “objectively” wrong with what the “evil” guys are doing, not just wrong as judged by say my or your values.
I’m perfectly satisfied with pursuing my values even when they are as arbitrary as my opponents, I don’t need to consider my value set something special beyond it being mine.
It only implies “objectively wrong” if you believe in objective morality. But even if you do, the term “evil” also implies that your top goals and theirs conflict, so it works even then. The alternative, it seems, is to have “evil” be a term we can’t use under any circumstances, which just means some other word or phrase will come to mean what “evil” meant before we stopped using it, and it looks like you’re using “alien” for that purpose in the other branch of this thread.
The 19 hijackers (or Hitler, as originally mentioned) were not (necessarily) irrational, stupid, insane, or otherwise mentally damaged. Nor were their motivations completely opaque or untranslatable, as “alien” implies—any human could understand their position given the effort to do so, unpleasant though it might be. Their goals were just incompatible with our goals, and only one set of goals could win. It seems to me that evil is exactly what that means.
I wouldn’t have a problem with describing a system whose motivations I understand, but which lead it to make decisions I can’t imagine myself ever making or endorsing, as “alien.”
But I agree that this has nothing to do with whether our goal-systems motivate mutually exclusive states of the world. (For which I usually use the word “opponent.”)
But even if you do, the term “evil” also implies that your top goals and theirs conflict, so it works even then.
That definition doesn’t work, because for starters it deprives you of the possibility to declare some of your own goals as evil.
Also the way I normally use the word, ‘evil’ goals certainly conflict with my own (I want to think), but not all goals that conflict with my own are evil.
‘Evil’ can be much more precisely defined in a way customarily understood if you consider it to be “the intentional pursuit of disutility”.
If I’m doing something that incidentally hurts someone else, that may be wrong but it’s not evil.
If I’m doing something that hurts someone else, because I want them hurt, so that if they stop hurting by this action I’ll have to find some other way to hurt them, that’s evil.
If you want to destroy a beautiful forest in order to build a powerplant, that’s not evil.
If you want to destroy a beautiful forest because you want people to stop loving its beauty, that’s evil.
If you don’t believe evil exists, you’ve never heard of sadistic and spiteful people.
But most people do work with a implicit belief in objective morality even if they seldom do stop to think about it. Isn’t it a bit misleading to use it in another sense without clarification? Though of course the kind of person who typically visits LW would probably not be confused.
Also let me point out that “evil” has a whole host of associations in Western popular culture and especially in fiction, saying something is evil can in certain circumstances be like saying something is Elvish. Sure most of these don’t ever make it into serious thinking, but they are there and can be employed in say propaganda.
Nor were their motivations completely opaque or untranslatable, as “alien” implies—any human could understand their position given the effort to do so, unpleasant though it might be.
Well baby eaters aren’t really that hard to understand. Looking back it seems that I may have affirmed the use of alien to describe this without thinking about it too much, a tendency to complete patterns in familiar ways I suppose .
I don’t think the question of whether one’s top goal(s) rely on an objective morality would really change the sense of “evil” for most people.
It’s unclear to me whether your second paragraph was intended as disagreement, since evil in fiction is often even more relative than I would argue. :)
Thinking Mass-murder is a good thing is not insane as in being irrational its insane as in “these values make as much sense as baby eaters to me!”.
I believe the word for “goals which fundamentally clash with my goals” is not “insane” or “irrational”, but “evil”. Someone who has goals I consider evil may well be quite intelligent, sane, and rational.
I don’t think “goals which fundamentally clash with my goals” is quite what you mean, here.
For example, if I want the last cookie, and you also want the last cookie, our goals clash, but neither of us is necessarily evil (nor insane, nor irrational).
It sounds to me like the word konkvistador wants is “alien.”
Yes.
Perhaps “fundamentally” was too opaque. We both want a cookie, but it’s not a top level goal for either of us. Given that, either of us might be argued out of wanting a cookie by rational means. If acquiring a cookie were a top level goal for both of us, and there were no other ways to acquire cookies than to take the last cookie, then we would each be evil in the value system of the other.
I hope I’ve been clearer. :)
A paperclipper has a top level goal that clashes with my own, but I wouldn’t call it evil.
If there was a species of aliens whose top level goal was the extermination of all happiness in the universe, I would call that evil.
Evil is not just the clashing of goals. I would probably define it as “the intentional pursuit of disutility”.
Or if you want an even more technical description, evil is “a utility function that incorporates a negative factor for the utility of others”.
As the paperclipper cares zero for mankind, that’s not innately evil. Hatred of others is evil, sadism is evil, spitefulness is evil.
Evil has the unfortunate baggage of implying that there is something “objectively” wrong with what the “evil” guys are doing, not just wrong as judged by say my or your values.
I’m perfectly satisfied with pursuing my values even when they are as arbitrary as my opponents, I don’t need to consider my value set something special beyond it being mine.
BTW This topic made me reread: Are your enemies innately evil?
It only implies “objectively wrong” if you believe in objective morality. But even if you do, the term “evil” also implies that your top goals and theirs conflict, so it works even then. The alternative, it seems, is to have “evil” be a term we can’t use under any circumstances, which just means some other word or phrase will come to mean what “evil” meant before we stopped using it, and it looks like you’re using “alien” for that purpose in the other branch of this thread.
The 19 hijackers (or Hitler, as originally mentioned) were not (necessarily) irrational, stupid, insane, or otherwise mentally damaged. Nor were their motivations completely opaque or untranslatable, as “alien” implies—any human could understand their position given the effort to do so, unpleasant though it might be. Their goals were just incompatible with our goals, and only one set of goals could win. It seems to me that evil is exactly what that means.
I wouldn’t have a problem with describing a system whose motivations I understand, but which lead it to make decisions I can’t imagine myself ever making or endorsing, as “alien.”
But I agree that this has nothing to do with whether our goal-systems motivate mutually exclusive states of the world. (For which I usually use the word “opponent.”)
That definition doesn’t work, because for starters it deprives you of the possibility to declare some of your own goals as evil.
Also the way I normally use the word, ‘evil’ goals certainly conflict with my own (I want to think), but not all goals that conflict with my own are evil.
‘Evil’ can be much more precisely defined in a way customarily understood if you consider it to be “the intentional pursuit of disutility”.
If I’m doing something that incidentally hurts someone else, that may be wrong but it’s not evil. If I’m doing something that hurts someone else, because I want them hurt, so that if they stop hurting by this action I’ll have to find some other way to hurt them, that’s evil.
If you want to destroy a beautiful forest in order to build a powerplant, that’s not evil. If you want to destroy a beautiful forest because you want people to stop loving its beauty, that’s evil.
If you don’t believe evil exists, you’ve never heard of sadistic and spiteful people.
But most people do work with a implicit belief in objective morality even if they seldom do stop to think about it. Isn’t it a bit misleading to use it in another sense without clarification? Though of course the kind of person who typically visits LW would probably not be confused.
Also let me point out that “evil” has a whole host of associations in Western popular culture and especially in fiction, saying something is evil can in certain circumstances be like saying something is Elvish. Sure most of these don’t ever make it into serious thinking, but they are there and can be employed in say propaganda.
Well baby eaters aren’t really that hard to understand. Looking back it seems that I may have affirmed the use of alien to describe this without thinking about it too much, a tendency to complete patterns in familiar ways I suppose .
I don’t think the question of whether one’s top goal(s) rely on an objective morality would really change the sense of “evil” for most people.
It’s unclear to me whether your second paragraph was intended as disagreement, since evil in fiction is often even more relative than I would argue. :)