Honestly I think you should not be afraid to say that saving your own child is the moral thing to do
What do you mean by “should not”?
and that is OK.
What do you mean by “OK”?
For some reason you’ve called making decisions in favor of self-serving drives “preferences” and decisions in favor of social drives “morality.” But the underlying mechanism is the same.
Show me the neurological studies that prove it.
But that cannot work because there is not, and cannot be a universal morality that satisfies everyone—every one of those thousand other children have parents that want their kid to survive and would see your child dead if need be.
Yes, and yet if none of the children were mine, and if I wasn’t involved in the situation at all, I would say “save the 1000 children rather than the 1”. And if someone else, also not personally involved, could make the choice and chose to flip a coin instead in order to decide, I’d be morally outraged at them.
You can now give me a bunch of reasons of why this is just preference, while at the same time EVERYTHING about it (how I arrive to my judgment, how I feel about the judgment of others) makes it a whole distinct category of its own. I’m fine with abolishing useless categories when there’s no meaningful distinction, but all you people should stop trying to abolish categories where there pretty damn obviously IS one.
I suspect that he means something like ’Even though utilitarianism (on LW) and altruism (in general) are considered to be what morality is, you should not let that discourage you from asserting that selfishly saving your own child is the right thing to do”. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
I’m fine with abolishing useless categories when there’s no meaningful distinction, but all you people should stop trying to abolish categories where there pretty damn obviously IS one.
I’ve explained to you twice now how the two underlying mechanisms are unified, and pointed to Eliezer’s quite good explanation on the matter. I don’t see the need to go through that again.
What do you mean by “should not”?
What do you mean by “OK”?
Show me the neurological studies that prove it.
Yes, and yet if none of the children were mine, and if I wasn’t involved in the situation at all, I would say “save the 1000 children rather than the 1”. And if someone else, also not personally involved, could make the choice and chose to flip a coin instead in order to decide, I’d be morally outraged at them.
You can now give me a bunch of reasons of why this is just preference, while at the same time EVERYTHING about it (how I arrive to my judgment, how I feel about the judgment of others) makes it a whole distinct category of its own. I’m fine with abolishing useless categories when there’s no meaningful distinction, but all you people should stop trying to abolish categories where there pretty damn obviously IS one.
I suspect that he means something like ’Even though utilitarianism (on LW) and altruism (in general) are considered to be what morality is, you should not let that discourage you from asserting that selfishly saving your own child is the right thing to do”. (Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)
Yes that is correct.
So you explained “should not” by using a sentence that also has “should not” in it.
I hope it’s a more clear “should not”.
I’ve explained to you twice now how the two underlying mechanisms are unified, and pointed to Eliezer’s quite good explanation on the matter. I don’t see the need to go through that again.