Why would murderers what to subscribe to the “no murder” social contract?
Game-theoretically, because it’s usually better to forgo killing your enemies in exchange for not being killed yourself, unless you’re in a position of relative power. Evolutionarily, because we’re executing the adaptation of not murdering members of the in-group without a valid reason our friends would accept, and modern culture is conductive to very large in-groups.
Your question also mixes up things a bit. Being a murderer is not a personal quality, it’s a fact about a past action. A person who subscribes to the “no murder” contract doesn’t murder, so they aren’t a murderer. A murderer obviously found a reason not to subscribe to the contract, although they may want to re-subscribe to it, may regret their actions, may find excuses, etc.
The whole point of having objective ethics (in any sense worth the name) is that it applies to people whether they want it to or not.
Similarly, the whole point of having an objective religion is that God judges people whether they want Him to or not. But this isn’t an argument for such a God in fact existing.
Ethics is always consensual. What does it mean to say that a theory of ethics “applies” to me if I don’t believe in it and don’t act accordingly? What objective test will reveal a theory of ethics to be true, if no person in the world believes in it?
What does it mean to say that a theory of ethics “applies” to me if I don’t believe in it and don’t act accordingly?
Well, if you use a rigid-designator based definition of “ethical” like e.g. EY does, then “murder is not ethical, even when committed by a pebblesorter” is like “a nine-pebble heap does not contain a prime number of pebbles, even when made by a human”—they are both technically true, but (in absence of enforcement systems using ethics or primality as their Schelling points) not particularly useful for either predicting or affecting pebblesorters’ or humans’ actions respectively.
I’ve always felt that EY’s wording ends up using words like “ethical” and “objective” in a different sense from most everyone else, which invariably confuses discussions more than it helps.
The sentence “murder is not ethical, even when committed by a pebblesorter” has two implicit assumptions.
First, that “ethical” means “human!ethical”, which causes confusion because other people (not just me) would naively read the sentence as a claim of moral realism, which is a different thing.
And secondly, that “human!ethics” is a nontrivial set that contains such statements as “do not murder”—which is effectively a claim that all possible human cultures in the past or future (a hugely varied set!) share much the same ethics, or else that people who don’t are “not human”. I disagree with this empirical claim, and find the latter normative one pointless.
So if I don’t consent to your no murder rule, it doesn’t apply to me and I can murder whoever I want?
Yes, though the police “can” arrest you after you do so, people “can” stop associating with you once you’ve announced you don’t consent to that rule, and so on.
Say we’re talking about Nazi Germany so it’s required to report Jews. If someone refuses to follow the rule does that make him an outlaw? Would you say he should follow the law? If he doesn’t, in what sense is he different from my “I can murder whoever I want” example?
If someone refuses to follow the rule does that make him an outlaw?
Yes, of course.
Would you say he should follow the law?
Not sure why my personal opinion is relevant, but he has the option of following the law or not.
If he doesn’t, in what sense is he different from my “I can murder whoever I want” example?
At sufficiently high levels of abstraction he is not different. Once you descend to breathable altitudes, other interesting concepts like “harm” and “autonomy” come into play.
Being a murderer is not a personal quality, it’s a fact about a past action.
How’s this distinction relevant here.
You say, “why would murderers subscribe to the no-murder social contract”? I reply, this is tautological: to call them murderers means they have murdered; at the time they did so, they did not follow the contract.
A better question is why would anyone subscribe to the contract (which I answered), and why would anyone choose not to subscribe, and murder someone.
So if I don’t consent to your no murder rule, it doesn’t apply to me and I can murder whoever I want?
By consensual I mean that a person only follows an ethical or moral rule if they choose to. Morality and ethics involves choices and decisions. True laws of nature or of mathematics are amoral.
I, like others, hold that it’s wrong for everyone to murder, and I act accordingly. You can decide differently and murder whoever you want: this is a fact of physics, not of morality. (Up to determinism, imperfect knowledge, etc.)
By consensual I mean that a person only follows an ethical or moral rule if they choose to.
A person also only believes in something if they choose to. Nevertheless, someone who chooses to believe that 2+2=3 is objectively wrong. Would you say the same thing about someone who chooses not to consent to the no murder rule?
2+2=3 is a statement based on explicit shared assumptions (definitions, axioms), so there’s a sense in which it’s objectively wrong independent of whoever makes it.
Not murdering is not an empirical or mathematical statement; it is a description or prescription of behavior. The only objective way to be wrong about it is to say “DanArmak doesn’t consent to the no-murder rule”; that is objectively wrong. The rule itself isn’t right or wrong any more than any other goal or value. Similarly, preferring a trip to the sea instead of climbing mountains isn’t objectively right or wrong; it can only be wrong in respect to someone’s goals, values, etc.
I don’t, and I feel I might not even understand the question or the position of those who disagree with me. There’s no way I could “believe” in such a concept; it’s not an empirical or mathematical claim which could turn out to be true. What kind of evidence would you count for or against such a concept?
Normative rules or preferences “exist” in the same way that values do. For instance, “don’t murder” is a normative preference. “Maximize the number of paperclips” is another. Neither of them has any special or privileged status of itself. No normative preference is inherently special or interesting or “true”. We’re only interested in the normative preferences we happen to hold, and hold in common with other people.
This disagreement (or possibly misunderstanding) feels like it might be a kind of joy in the merely real. I realize there are no objectively true ethics or morals, but that doesn’t mean I believe my own ethics and morals any less strongly than the average human, or that they are extremely unusual.
Game-theoretically, because it’s usually better to forgo killing your enemies in exchange for not being killed yourself, unless you’re in a position of relative power. Evolutionarily, because we’re executing the adaptation of not murdering members of the in-group without a valid reason our friends would accept, and modern culture is conductive to very large in-groups.
Your question also mixes up things a bit. Being a murderer is not a personal quality, it’s a fact about a past action. A person who subscribes to the “no murder” contract doesn’t murder, so they aren’t a murderer. A murderer obviously found a reason not to subscribe to the contract, although they may want to re-subscribe to it, may regret their actions, may find excuses, etc.
Similarly, the whole point of having an objective religion is that God judges people whether they want Him to or not. But this isn’t an argument for such a God in fact existing.
Ethics is always consensual. What does it mean to say that a theory of ethics “applies” to me if I don’t believe in it and don’t act accordingly? What objective test will reveal a theory of ethics to be true, if no person in the world believes in it?
Well, if you use a rigid-designator based definition of “ethical” like e.g. EY does, then “murder is not ethical, even when committed by a pebblesorter” is like “a nine-pebble heap does not contain a prime number of pebbles, even when made by a human”—they are both technically true, but (in absence of enforcement systems using ethics or primality as their Schelling points) not particularly useful for either predicting or affecting pebblesorters’ or humans’ actions respectively.
I’ve always felt that EY’s wording ends up using words like “ethical” and “objective” in a different sense from most everyone else, which invariably confuses discussions more than it helps.
The sentence “murder is not ethical, even when committed by a pebblesorter” has two implicit assumptions.
First, that “ethical” means “human!ethical”, which causes confusion because other people (not just me) would naively read the sentence as a claim of moral realism, which is a different thing.
And secondly, that “human!ethics” is a nontrivial set that contains such statements as “do not murder”—which is effectively a claim that all possible human cultures in the past or future (a hugely varied set!) share much the same ethics, or else that people who don’t are “not human”. I disagree with this empirical claim, and find the latter normative one pointless.
How’s this distinction relevant here.
So if I don’t consent to your no murder rule, it doesn’t apply to me and I can murder whoever I want?
Yes, though the police “can” arrest you after you do so, people “can” stop associating with you once you’ve announced you don’t consent to that rule, and so on.
Sure. Such people are called “outside of the law” and the usual approach is to kill them first.
Would you apply the same to logic to the social contract I mentioned here?
Do you have something specific in mind? Generally speaking, yes, I would.
Say we’re talking about Nazi Germany so it’s required to report Jews. If someone refuses to follow the rule does that make him an outlaw? Would you say he should follow the law? If he doesn’t, in what sense is he different from my “I can murder whoever I want” example?
Yes, of course.
Not sure why my personal opinion is relevant, but he has the option of following the law or not.
At sufficiently high levels of abstraction he is not different. Once you descend to breathable altitudes, other interesting concepts like “harm” and “autonomy” come into play.
You say, “why would murderers subscribe to the no-murder social contract”? I reply, this is tautological: to call them murderers means they have murdered; at the time they did so, they did not follow the contract.
A better question is why would anyone subscribe to the contract (which I answered), and why would anyone choose not to subscribe, and murder someone.
By consensual I mean that a person only follows an ethical or moral rule if they choose to. Morality and ethics involves choices and decisions. True laws of nature or of mathematics are amoral.
I, like others, hold that it’s wrong for everyone to murder, and I act accordingly. You can decide differently and murder whoever you want: this is a fact of physics, not of morality. (Up to determinism, imperfect knowledge, etc.)
A person also only believes in something if they choose to. Nevertheless, someone who chooses to believe that 2+2=3 is objectively wrong. Would you say the same thing about someone who chooses not to consent to the no murder rule?
No, I wouldn’t.
2+2=3 is a statement based on explicit shared assumptions (definitions, axioms), so there’s a sense in which it’s objectively wrong independent of whoever makes it.
Not murdering is not an empirical or mathematical statement; it is a description or prescription of behavior. The only objective way to be wrong about it is to say “DanArmak doesn’t consent to the no-murder rule”; that is objectively wrong. The rule itself isn’t right or wrong any more than any other goal or value. Similarly, preferring a trip to the sea instead of climbing mountains isn’t objectively right or wrong; it can only be wrong in respect to someone’s goals, values, etc.
So you don’t believe in any concept of the normative independent of individual subjective preferences?
I don’t, and I feel I might not even understand the question or the position of those who disagree with me. There’s no way I could “believe” in such a concept; it’s not an empirical or mathematical claim which could turn out to be true. What kind of evidence would you count for or against such a concept?
Normative rules or preferences “exist” in the same way that values do. For instance, “don’t murder” is a normative preference. “Maximize the number of paperclips” is another. Neither of them has any special or privileged status of itself. No normative preference is inherently special or interesting or “true”. We’re only interested in the normative preferences we happen to hold, and hold in common with other people.
This disagreement (or possibly misunderstanding) feels like it might be a kind of joy in the merely real. I realize there are no objectively true ethics or morals, but that doesn’t mean I believe my own ethics and morals any less strongly than the average human, or that they are extremely unusual.