I raise the analogy because it seems an obvious one to me, so I don’t see where the confusion is.
Your analysis clearly describes some of my understanding of what EY says. I use “yummy” as a go to analogy for morality as well. But, EY also seems to be making a universalist argument, as least for “normal” humans. Because he talks about abstract computation, leaving particular brains behind, it’s just unclear to me whether he’s a subjectivist or a universalist.
The “no universally compelling argument” applies to Clippy versus us, but is there also no universally compelling argument with all of “us” as well?
“Universalist” and “Subjectivist” aren’t opposed or conflicting terms. “Subjective” simply says that moral statements are really statements about the attitudes or opinions of people (or something else with a mind). The opposing term is “objective”. “Universalist” and “relativist” are on a different dimension from subjective and objective. Universal vs. relative is about how variable or not variable morality is.
You could have a metaethical theory that morality is both objective and relative. For example, you could define morality as what the law says and it will be relative from country to country as laws differ. You could also have a subjective and universal meta-ethics. Morality judgments could be statements about the attitudes of people but all people could have the same attitudes.
I take Eliezer to hold something like the latter—moral judgments aren’t about people’s attitudes simpliciter: they’re about what they would be if people were perfectly rational and had perfect information (he’s hardly the first among philosophers, here). It is possible that the outcome of that would be more or less universal among humans or even a larger group. Or at least it some subset of attitudes might be universal. But I could be wrong about his view: I feel like I just end up reading my view into it whenever I try to describe his.
“Universalist” and “Subjectivist” aren’t opposed or conflicting terms. “Subjective” simply says that moral statements are really statements about the attitudes or opinions of people (or something else with a mind). The opposing term is “objective”. “Universalist” and “relativist” are on a different dimension from subjective and objective. Universal vs. relative is about how variable or not variable morality is.
If morality varies with individuals, as required by subjectivism, it is not at all universal, so the two are not orthogonal.
You could have a metaethical theory that morality is both objective and relative. For example, you could define morality as what the law says and it will be relative from country to country as laws differ.
If morality is relative to groups rather than individuals, it is still relative, Morality is objective when the truth values of moral statements don’t vary with individuals or groups, not when it varies with empirically discoverable facts.
You could also have a subjective and universal meta-ethics. Morality judgments could be statements about the attitudes of people but all people could have the same attitudes.
The link supports what I said. Subjectivism requires that moral claims have truth values which , in principle, dpened on the individual making them. It doesn’t mean that any two people will necessarily have a different morality, but why would I assert that?
Subjectivism requires that moral claims have truth values which , in principle, dpened on the individual making them
This is not true of all subjectivisms, as the link makes totally clear. Subjective simply means that something is mind-dependent; it need not be the mind of the person making the claim—or not only the mind of the person making the claim. For instance, the facts that determine whether or not a moral claim is true could consist in just the moral opinions and attitudes where all humans overlap.
But, EY also seems to be making a universalist argument, as least for “normal” humans.
If you have in mind ‘human universals’ when you say ‘universality’, that’s easily patched. Morality is like preferring ice cream in general, rather than like preferring vanilla ice cream. Just about every human likes ice cream.
Because he talks about abstract computation, leaving particular brains behind, it’s just unclear to me whether he’s a subjectivist or a universalist.
The brain is a computer, hence it runs ‘abstract computations’. This is true in essentially the same sense that all piles of five objects are instantiating the same abstract ‘fiveness’. If it’s mysterious in the case of human morality, it’s not only equally mysterious in the case of all recurrent physical processes; it’s equally mysterious in the case of all recurrent physical anythings.
Some philosophers would say that brain computations are both subjective and objective—metaphysically subjective, because they involve our mental lives, but epistemically objective, because they can be discovered and verified empirically. For physicalists, however, ‘metaphysical subjectivity’ is not necessarily a joint-carving concept. And it may be possible for a non-sentient AI to calculate our moral algorithm. So there probably isn’t any interesting sense in which morality is subjective, except maybe the sense in which everything computed by an agent is ‘subjective’.
I don’t know anymore what you mean by ‘universalism’.
is there also no universally compelling argument with all of “us” as well?
There are universally compelling arguments for all adolescent or adult humans of sound mind. (And many pre-adolescent humans, and many humans of unsound mind.)
Your analysis clearly describes some of my understanding of what EY says. I use “yummy” as a go to analogy for morality as well. But, EY also seems to be making a universalist argument, as least for “normal” humans. Because he talks about abstract computation, leaving particular brains behind, it’s just unclear to me whether he’s a subjectivist or a universalist.
The “no universally compelling argument” applies to Clippy versus us, but is there also no universally compelling argument with all of “us” as well?
“Universalist” and “Subjectivist” aren’t opposed or conflicting terms. “Subjective” simply says that moral statements are really statements about the attitudes or opinions of people (or something else with a mind). The opposing term is “objective”. “Universalist” and “relativist” are on a different dimension from subjective and objective. Universal vs. relative is about how variable or not variable morality is.
You could have a metaethical theory that morality is both objective and relative. For example, you could define morality as what the law says and it will be relative from country to country as laws differ. You could also have a subjective and universal meta-ethics. Morality judgments could be statements about the attitudes of people but all people could have the same attitudes.
I take Eliezer to hold something like the latter—moral judgments aren’t about people’s attitudes simpliciter: they’re about what they would be if people were perfectly rational and had perfect information (he’s hardly the first among philosophers, here). It is possible that the outcome of that would be more or less universal among humans or even a larger group. Or at least it some subset of attitudes might be universal. But I could be wrong about his view: I feel like I just end up reading my view into it whenever I try to describe his.
If morality varies with individuals, as required by subjectivism, it is not at all universal, so the two are not orthogonal.
If morality is relative to groups rather than individuals, it is still relative, Morality is objective when the truth values of moral statements don’t vary with individuals or groups, not when it varies with empirically discoverable facts.
Subjectivism does not require that morality varies with individuals.
No, see the link above.
The link supports what I said. Subjectivism requires that moral claims have truth values which , in principle, dpened on the individual making them. It doesn’t mean that any two people will necessarily have a different morality, but why would I assert that?
This is not true of all subjectivisms, as the link makes totally clear. Subjective simply means that something is mind-dependent; it need not be the mind of the person making the claim—or not only the mind of the person making the claim. For instance, the facts that determine whether or not a moral claim is true could consist in just the moral opinions and attitudes where all humans overlap.
There are people who use “subjective” to mean “mental”, but they sholudn’t.
If you have in mind ‘human universals’ when you say ‘universality’, that’s easily patched. Morality is like preferring ice cream in general, rather than like preferring vanilla ice cream. Just about every human likes ice cream.
The brain is a computer, hence it runs ‘abstract computations’. This is true in essentially the same sense that all piles of five objects are instantiating the same abstract ‘fiveness’. If it’s mysterious in the case of human morality, it’s not only equally mysterious in the case of all recurrent physical processes; it’s equally mysterious in the case of all recurrent physical anythings.
Some philosophers would say that brain computations are both subjective and objective—metaphysically subjective, because they involve our mental lives, but epistemically objective, because they can be discovered and verified empirically. For physicalists, however, ‘metaphysical subjectivity’ is not necessarily a joint-carving concept. And it may be possible for a non-sentient AI to calculate our moral algorithm. So there probably isn’t any interesting sense in which morality is subjective, except maybe the sense in which everything computed by an agent is ‘subjective’.
I don’t know anymore what you mean by ‘universalism’.
There are universally compelling arguments for all adolescent or adult humans of sound mind. (And many pre-adolescent humans, and many humans of unsound mind.)