Reminds me of “The Proper Use of Humility”. With artificial humility, a human pretends to have no strong beliefs, so they can socially display humility about any of their beliefs. In this case, with articifial consistency, a human pretends to have no difficult-to-achieve values, so they can socially display consistency between their values and behavior.
Acting according to your values is a virtue, but pretending to have no nontrivial values is cheating (or perhaps admitting to psychopathy if that really happens to be true).
It does not make sense to compare how much person X acts according to X-values with how much person Y acts according to Y-values (where X-values and Y-values are the professed values, not necessarily the ones truly felt). Those are two different scales.
Acting according to your values is a virtue, but pretending to have no nontrivial values is cheating (or perhaps admitting to psychopathy if that really happens to be true).
I don’t think that’s true. I think this because I am pretty clearly not a psychopath (I’ve checked), and consciously decided to have no nontrivial moral values a year or two back. I had a mild anxiety disorder and was feeling constantly guilty, and as part of dealing with that I threw out all explicit moral codes.
I have more or less held to this standard; I do good things for people, when it is easy for me to do so (reputational benefits are real), or for people I like. I don’t commit crime because I don’t think the benefits are worth the risks; if I thought I had an excellent chance of getting away with it for a reward I found particularly appealing, and it wasn’t hurting anyone I liked, I probably would. In the non-iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, I defect every time. In the iterated Dilemma, though, that’s just stupid.
Reminds me of “The Proper Use of Humility”. With artificial humility, a human pretends to have no strong beliefs, so they can socially display humility about any of their beliefs. In this case, with articifial consistency, a human pretends to have no difficult-to-achieve values, so they can socially display consistency between their values and behavior.
Acting according to your values is a virtue, but pretending to have no nontrivial values is cheating (or perhaps admitting to psychopathy if that really happens to be true).
It does not make sense to compare how much person X acts according to X-values with how much person Y acts according to Y-values (where X-values and Y-values are the professed values, not necessarily the ones truly felt). Those are two different scales.
I don’t think that’s true. I think this because I am pretty clearly not a psychopath (I’ve checked), and consciously decided to have no nontrivial moral values a year or two back. I had a mild anxiety disorder and was feeling constantly guilty, and as part of dealing with that I threw out all explicit moral codes.
I have more or less held to this standard; I do good things for people, when it is easy for me to do so (reputational benefits are real), or for people I like. I don’t commit crime because I don’t think the benefits are worth the risks; if I thought I had an excellent chance of getting away with it for a reward I found particularly appealing, and it wasn’t hurting anyone I liked, I probably would. In the non-iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, I defect every time. In the iterated Dilemma, though, that’s just stupid.