Well, I am saying that there is a meaning of “ought” that is hugely different in meaning from the other senses.
PMR identifies a sort of cluster of different meanings of the word “ought”. I am saying, hey, over here, there’s this one, singular meaning.
This meaning is special because it has a sense but no referent. It doesn’t refer to any property of the physical world, or obviously, of any property of any non-physical world. It just means.
So in this perspective what I “want” is really a red herring. I want to do lots of things that I oughtn’t do.
What matters is my beliefs about what is right and wrong.
Now, by necessity, I believe that my EV is the best possible approximation of what is right. Because, If I knew of a better approximation, I would incorporate it into my beliefs, and if I didn’t know of it, my volition must not have been extrapolated far enough.
But this is not a definition of what is right. To do so would be circular.
If I believe that my EV is very close to humanity’s CEV, then I believe that humanity’s CEV is almost the best approximation as to what is right. I do, so I do.
So, to start reasoning, I need assumptions. My assumptions would look like:
{these moral intuitions} are fundamentally accurate
or
All my moral intuitions are fundamentally accurate
or something else, just as the assumptions I use to generate physical beliefs would consist of my intuitions about the proper techniques for induction (Bayesianism, Occam’s Razor, and so on.)
There doesn’t have to be any Book O’ Right sitting around for me to engage in this reasoning, I can just, you know, do it.
(It is very ironic that I first developed this edifice because I was bothered by unstated moral assumptions.)
I’m confused by your way of presenting your arguments and conclusion. On my end this comment looks like a list of unconnected thoughts, with no segues between them. Does somebody else think they know what Will is saying, such that they can explain it to me?
No, I have very little idea about what Will is talking about, and strongly suspect that he doesn’t either (I only have a vague idea of what I’m talking about as well, recent discussion uses relatively recent ideas). His intuitions seem to be pointing roughly in the direction I believe much more aligned with reality than your pluralistic moral “everyone call a rigid designator” reductionism though (waiting for that emphatic metaethics post for a possible correction in understanding your position), so I can understand why there would be grounds for an argument.
Well, I am saying that there is a meaning of “ought” that is hugely different in meaning from the other senses.
PMR identifies a sort of cluster of different meanings of the word “ought”. I am saying, hey, over here, there’s this one, singular meaning.
This meaning is special because it has a sense but no referent. It doesn’t refer to any property of the physical world, or obviously, of any property of any non-physical world. It just means.
[Not CEV, will explain later with time.]
Okay. I look forward to it.
So in this perspective what I “want” is really a red herring. I want to do lots of things that I oughtn’t do.
What matters is my beliefs about what is right and wrong.
Now, by necessity, I believe that my EV is the best possible approximation of what is right. Because, If I knew of a better approximation, I would incorporate it into my beliefs, and if I didn’t know of it, my volition must not have been extrapolated far enough.
But this is not a definition of what is right. To do so would be circular.
If I believe that my EV is very close to humanity’s CEV, then I believe that humanity’s CEV is almost the best approximation as to what is right. I do, so I do.
So, to start reasoning, I need assumptions. My assumptions would look like:
or
or something else, just as the assumptions I use to generate physical beliefs would consist of my intuitions about the proper techniques for induction (Bayesianism, Occam’s Razor, and so on.)
There doesn’t have to be any Book O’ Right sitting around for me to engage in this reasoning, I can just, you know, do it.
(It is very ironic that I first developed this edifice because I was bothered by unstated moral assumptions.)
I’m confused by your way of presenting your arguments and conclusion. On my end this comment looks like a list of unconnected thoughts, with no segues between them. Does somebody else think they know what Will is saying, such that they can explain it to me?
I drew some boundaries between largely-though-not-totally unconnected thoughts.
Does everything within those boundaries look connected to you?
I think Vladimir Nesov agrees with me on this.
Thanks, but it’s still not clear to me. Nesov, do you want to take a shot and arguing for Will’s position, especially if you agree with it?
No, I have very little idea about what Will is talking about, and strongly suspect that he doesn’t either (I only have a vague idea of what I’m talking about as well, recent discussion uses relatively recent ideas). His intuitions seem to be pointing roughly in the direction I believe much more aligned with reality than your pluralistic moral “everyone call a rigid designator” reductionism though (waiting for that emphatic metaethics post for a possible correction in understanding your position), so I can understand why there would be grounds for an argument.