I wonder if anyone has ever written a manifesto for moral uncertainty, maybe something along the lines of:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are very confused about morality. That these confusions should be properly reflected as high degrees of uncertainty in our moral epistemic states. That our moral uncertainties should inform our individual and collective actions, plans, and policies. … That we are also very confused about normativity and meta-ethics and don’t really know what we mean by “should”, including in this document...
Yeah, I realize this would be a hard sell in today’s environment, but what if building Friendly AI requires a civilization sane enough to consider this common sense? I mean, for example, how can it be a good idea to gift a super-powerful “corrigible” or “obedient” AI to a civilization full of people with crazy amounts of moral certainty?
Non-dualist philosophies such as Zen place high value on confusion (they call it “don’t know mind”) and have a sophisticated framework for communicating this idea. Zen is one of the alternative intellectual traditions I alluded to in my controversial post about ethical progress.
The Dao De Jing 道德经, written 2.5 thousand years ago, includes strong warnings against ontological certainty (and, by extension, moral certainty). If we naïvely apply the Lindy Effect then Chinese civilization is likely to continue for thousands more years while Western science annihilates itself after mere centuries. This may not be a coincidence.
I wonder if anyone has ever written a manifesto for moral uncertainty, maybe something along the lines of:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are very confused about morality. That these confusions should be properly reflected as high degrees of uncertainty in our moral epistemic states. That our moral uncertainties should inform our individual and collective actions, plans, and policies. … That we are also very confused about normativity and meta-ethics and don’t really know what we mean by “should”, including in this document...
Yeah, I realize this would be a hard sell in today’s environment, but what if building Friendly AI requires a civilization sane enough to consider this common sense? I mean, for example, how can it be a good idea to gift a super-powerful “corrigible” or “obedient” AI to a civilization full of people with crazy amounts of moral certainty?
Non-dualist philosophies such as Zen place high value on confusion (they call it “don’t know mind”) and have a sophisticated framework for communicating this idea. Zen is one of the alternative intellectual traditions I alluded to in my controversial post about ethical progress.
The Dao De Jing 道德经, written 2.5 thousand years ago, includes strong warnings against ontological certainty (and, by extension, moral certainty). If we naïvely apply the Lindy Effect then Chinese civilization is likely to continue for thousands more years while Western science annihilates itself after mere centuries. This may not be a coincidence.
Here is the manifesto you are looking for:
Unfortunately, the duality of emptiness and form is difficult to translate into English.