Good catch; reason cannot determine our end goals. Eliezer covers that a just a few essays down the road.
If I believe that my dead brother has been discovered alive, I will be happy.
This was actually a personal statement, not a general hypothetical; his brother died three years before he wrote that essay, and wasn’t a serial killer. But Eliezer would agree that death is just plain bad; that’s a terminal value that doesn’t have—or need—rational justification.
Good catch; reason cannot determine our end goals. Eliezer covers that a just a few essays down the road.
This was actually a personal statement, not a general hypothetical; his brother died three years before he wrote that essay, and wasn’t a serial killer. But Eliezer would agree that death is just plain bad; that’s a terminal value that doesn’t have—or need—rational justification.