I don’t recall hearing that kind of an argument presented here anywhere. Yes, there have been arguments about your values shifting when you happen to achieve power, as well as seemingly altruistic behavior actually working to promote individual fitness. But I don’t think anybody has yet claimed that whenever somebody feels they have extreme values, they are wrong about them.
Furthermore—if the discussion in those referenced posts is the one you’re referring to—I’d be hesitant to claim that the consciously held values are false values. People might actually end up acting on the non-conscious values more than they do on the conscious ones, but that’s no grounds for simply saying “your declared values are false and not worth attention”. If you went down that route, you might as well start saying that since all ethics is rationalization anyway, then any consequentialist arguments that didn’t aim at promoting the maximum fitness of your genes were irrelevant. Not to mention that I would be very, very skeptical of any attempts to claim you knew someone else’s values better than they did.
I’m not arguing for the supremacy of non-conscious values: in many cases, people have good sense of their actual values and consciously resolve their implications, which is what I see as the topic of Which Parts Are “Me”?. The inborn values are not a fixed form, although they are a fixed seed, and their contradictions need to be resolved.
If you went down that route, you might as well start saying that since all ethics is rationalization anyway, then any consequentialist arguments that didn’t aim at promoting the maximum fitness of your genes were irrelevant.
Human universal (we all share the bulk of our values),
Complexity of value (there is a lot of stuff coded in the inborn values; one can’t explain away huge chunks of this complexity by asserting them not present in one’s particular values),
Fake simplicity (it’s easy to find simple arguments that gloss over a complex phenomenon),
No, Really, I’ve Deceived Myself (it’s not a given that one even appreciates the connection of the belief with the asserted content of that belief)
These obviously don’t form a consistent argument, but may give an idea of where I’m coming from. I’m only declining to believe particularly outrageous claims, where I assume the claims being made because of error and not because of the connection to reality; where the claims are not outrageous, they might well indicate the particular ways in which the person’s values deviate from the typical.
I suspect this community overemphasizes the extent to which human universals are applicable to individuals (as opposed to cultures), and underemphasizes individual variation. I should probably write a post regarding this at some point.
I don’t recall hearing that kind of an argument presented here anywhere. Yes, there have been arguments about your values shifting when you happen to achieve power, as well as seemingly altruistic behavior actually working to promote individual fitness. But I don’t think anybody has yet claimed that whenever somebody feels they have extreme values, they are wrong about them.
Furthermore—if the discussion in those referenced posts is the one you’re referring to—I’d be hesitant to claim that the consciously held values are false values. People might actually end up acting on the non-conscious values more than they do on the conscious ones, but that’s no grounds for simply saying “your declared values are false and not worth attention”. If you went down that route, you might as well start saying that since all ethics is rationalization anyway, then any consequentialist arguments that didn’t aim at promoting the maximum fitness of your genes were irrelevant. Not to mention that I would be very, very skeptical of any attempts to claim you knew someone else’s values better than they did.
There have also been posts specifically arguing that those non-conscious values might not actually be your true values.
I’m not arguing for the supremacy of non-conscious values: in many cases, people have good sense of their actual values and consciously resolve their implications, which is what I see as the topic of Which Parts Are “Me”?. The inborn values are not a fixed form, although they are a fixed seed, and their contradictions need to be resolved.
Genes? The expression of that evil alien elder god? They don’t write a default morality.
The links relevant to my argument:
Human universal (we all share the bulk of our values), Complexity of value (there is a lot of stuff coded in the inborn values; one can’t explain away huge chunks of this complexity by asserting them not present in one’s particular values), Fake simplicity (it’s easy to find simple arguments that gloss over a complex phenomenon), No, Really, I’ve Deceived Myself (it’s not a given that one even appreciates the connection of the belief with the asserted content of that belief)
These obviously don’t form a consistent argument, but may give an idea of where I’m coming from. I’m only declining to believe particularly outrageous claims, where I assume the claims being made because of error and not because of the connection to reality; where the claims are not outrageous, they might well indicate the particular ways in which the person’s values deviate from the typical.
I suspect this community overemphasizes the extent to which human universals are applicable to individuals (as opposed to cultures), and underemphasizes individual variation. I should probably write a post regarding this at some point.