“Utilitarians have unsurprisingly been aware of these issues for a very long time and have answers to them. Happiness being the sole good (for humans at least) is in no way invalidated by the complexity of relationship bonds.” (Toby Ord)
Toby, one can be utilitarian and pluralist, so “happiness” need not be the only good on a utilitarian theory. Right? (I contradict only to corroborate.)
Eliezer, when you say you think morality is “subjectively objective,” I take that to mean that a given morality is “true” relative to this or that agent—not “relative” in the pejorative sense, but in the “objective” sense somewhat analogous to that connoted by relativity theory in physics: In observing moral phenomena, the agent is (part of) the frame of reference, so that the moral facts are (1) agent-relative but (2) objectively true. (Which is why, as a matter of moral theory, it would probably be more fruitful to construe ‘moral relativity’ merely as the denial of moral universality instead of as the denial of normative facts-of-the-matter tout court—particularly since no one really buys moral relativity in the conventional sense.)
“Utilitarians have unsurprisingly been aware of these issues for a very long time and have answers to them. Happiness being the sole good (for humans at least) is in no way invalidated by the complexity of relationship bonds.” (Toby Ord)
Toby, one can be utilitarian and pluralist, so “happiness” need not be the only good on a utilitarian theory. Right? (I contradict only to corroborate.)
Eliezer, when you say you think morality is “subjectively objective,” I take that to mean that a given morality is “true” relative to this or that agent—not “relative” in the pejorative sense, but in the “objective” sense somewhat analogous to that connoted by relativity theory in physics: In observing moral phenomena, the agent is (part of) the frame of reference, so that the moral facts are (1) agent-relative but (2) objectively true. (Which is why, as a matter of moral theory, it would probably be more fruitful to construe ‘moral relativity’ merely as the denial of moral universality instead of as the denial of normative facts-of-the-matter tout court—particularly since no one really buys moral relativity in the conventional sense.)