You are assuming moral relativism, which I do not accept and have argued against at length in my post arguing for moral realism. Here it is, if you’d like to avoid having to search for the link again and find it. https://benthams.substack.com/p/moral-realism-is-true
Moral relativism doesn’t seem to require any assumptions at all because moral objectivism implies I should ‘just know’ that moral objectivism is true, if it is true. But I don’t.
not at all. nothing guarantees that discovering the objective nature of morality is easy. if it’s derived from game theory, then there’s specific reason to believe it would be hard to compute. evolution has had time to discover good patterns in games, though, which hardcodes patterns in living creatures. that said, this also implies there’s no particular reason to expect fast convergence back to human morality after a system becomes superintelligent, so it’s not terribly reassuring—it only claims that some arbitrarily huge amount of time later the asi eventually gets really sad to have killed humanity.
The math behind game theory shaped our evolution in such a way as to create emotions because that was a faster solution for evolution to stumble on then making us all mathematical geniuses who would immediately deduce game theory from first principles as toddlers. Either way would have worked.
ASI wouldn’t need to evolve emotions for rule-of-thumbing game theory.
Game theory has little interesting to say about a situation where one party simply has no need for the other at all and can squish them like a bug, anyway.
Game theory has little interesting to say about a situation where one party simply has no need for the other at all and can squish them like a bug, anyway.
Yup. A super-paperclipper wouldn’t realize the loss until probably billions of years later, after it has time for its preferred shape of paperclip to evolve enough for it to realize it’s sad it can’t decorate the edges of the paperclips with humans.
But if moral relativism were not true, where would the information about what is objectively moral come from? It isn’t coming from humans is it? Humans, in your view, simply became smart enough to perceive it, right? Can you point out where you derived that information from the physical universe, if not from humans? If the moral information is apparent to all individuals who are smart enough, why isn’t it apparent to everyone where the information comes from, too?
It’s not from the physical universe. We derive it through our ability to reflect on the nature of the putatively good things like pleasure. It is similar to how we learn modal facts, like that married bachelors are impossible.
What is a ‘good’ thing is purely subjective. Good for us. Married bachelors are only impossible because we decided that’s what the word bachelor means.
You are not arguing against moral relativism here.
You are asserting controversial philosophical positions with no justification while ignoring a 10,000 or so word post I wrote arguing against that view. Married bachelors are not impossible based on definition. We have defined bachelor to mean unmarried man, but the further fact that married bachelors can’t exist is not something that we could change by redefinition.
Suppose I am stranded on a desert island full of indigestible grass, and a cow. The cow can survive indefinitely off the grass. I will starve if I don’t slaughter and eat the cow. What’s the right thing to do?
If you think “slaughter the cow, obviously”… well, of course the human would say that!
Net utility to whom? Certainly not to the cow. Which entity, precisely, is acting as the objective gauge of what is just the “right” moral law? What if instead of a human and a cow it was two humans on the island, what does the correct moral law say about which one is supposed to cannibalize the other?
Moral realism doesn’t make sense because morals are just about what is good for which sentient entity. If there is no collective universal consciousness that experiences All Of The Utility at once, then there is no point in expecting there to be an objective moral code.
Natural laws aren’t just laws the way human laws are. If I exceed the speed of light I don’t get a speeding ticket. I don’t even go to Hell. I just physically can’t. Where’s the feedback of Nature for violations of the natural moral code? What should I empirically measure to test it?
Even if there was an entity such as a God, it might be wise to comply with its will, but we wouldn’t necessarily accept it as correct by definition. You can work out a full moral theory from an extremely small number of very simple axioms, yes. That’s IMO the more rational way of doing it: take a kernel of principles as small as possible, derive everything else as a coherent system using evidence. But you do need that kernel. There is no fundamental measurable rule about things even such as “life is better than death”. We just like it better that way.
Do “all parties” include bacteria? Ants? Plankton? How are they to be weighed?
If you’re a moral relativist, you’re free to weigh these issues however you like best and then simply motivate your choice. If you’re a moral realist you’re claiming that there are somewhere real laws and constants of the universe defining these problems precisely. How are we supposed to discover them?
It would include them, but they don’t matter because they’re not conscsious. I don’t think there is a law of the universe—the moral facts are necessary like mathematical, modal, or logical ones.
Even mathematics require axioms. What are your moral axioms? In what way are they self-evident?
Every instance of moral realism I’ve ever seen is just someone who has opinions like everyone else, but also wants to really stress that theirs are correct.
You are assuming moral relativism, which I do not accept and have argued against at length in my post arguing for moral realism. Here it is, if you’d like to avoid having to search for the link again and find it. https://benthams.substack.com/p/moral-realism-is-true
Moral relativism doesn’t seem to require any assumptions at all because moral objectivism implies I should ‘just know’ that moral objectivism is true, if it is true. But I don’t.
not at all. nothing guarantees that discovering the objective nature of morality is easy. if it’s derived from game theory, then there’s specific reason to believe it would be hard to compute. evolution has had time to discover good patterns in games, though, which hardcodes patterns in living creatures. that said, this also implies there’s no particular reason to expect fast convergence back to human morality after a system becomes superintelligent, so it’s not terribly reassuring—it only claims that some arbitrarily huge amount of time later the asi eventually gets really sad to have killed humanity.
The math behind game theory shaped our evolution in such a way as to create emotions because that was a faster solution for evolution to stumble on then making us all mathematical geniuses who would immediately deduce game theory from first principles as toddlers. Either way would have worked.
ASI wouldn’t need to evolve emotions for rule-of-thumbing game theory.
Game theory has little interesting to say about a situation where one party simply has no need for the other at all and can squish them like a bug, anyway.
Yup. A super-paperclipper wouldn’t realize the loss until probably billions of years later, after it has time for its preferred shape of paperclip to evolve enough for it to realize it’s sad it can’t decorate the edges of the paperclips with humans.
It does not imply that any more than thinking that the sun is a particular temperature means all people know what temperature it is.
But if moral relativism were not true, where would the information about what is objectively moral come from? It isn’t coming from humans is it? Humans, in your view, simply became smart enough to perceive it, right? Can you point out where you derived that information from the physical universe, if not from humans? If the moral information is apparent to all individuals who are smart enough, why isn’t it apparent to everyone where the information comes from, too?
It’s not from the physical universe. We derive it through our ability to reflect on the nature of the putatively good things like pleasure. It is similar to how we learn modal facts, like that married bachelors are impossible.
What is a ‘good’ thing is purely subjective. Good for us. Married bachelors are only impossible because we decided that’s what the word bachelor means.
You are not arguing against moral relativism here.
You are asserting controversial philosophical positions with no justification while ignoring a 10,000 or so word post I wrote arguing against that view. Married bachelors are not impossible based on definition. We have defined bachelor to mean unmarried man, but the further fact that married bachelors can’t exist is not something that we could change by redefinition.
We decide that “poison” means “what kills us”, but the universe decides what kills us.
Suppose I am stranded on a desert island full of indigestible grass, and a cow. The cow can survive indefinitely off the grass. I will starve if I don’t slaughter and eat the cow. What’s the right thing to do?
If you think “slaughter the cow, obviously”… well, of course the human would say that!
I think slaughter the cow, because you’re capable of producing more net utility—not sure I see the relevance.
Net utility to whom? Certainly not to the cow. Which entity, precisely, is acting as the objective gauge of what is just the “right” moral law? What if instead of a human and a cow it was two humans on the island, what does the correct moral law say about which one is supposed to cannibalize the other?
Moral realism doesn’t make sense because morals are just about what is good for which sentient entity. If there is no collective universal consciousness that experiences All Of The Utility at once, then there is no point in expecting there to be an objective moral code.
Natural laws aren’t just laws the way human laws are. If I exceed the speed of light I don’t get a speeding ticket. I don’t even go to Hell. I just physically can’t. Where’s the feedback of Nature for violations of the natural moral code? What should I empirically measure to test it?
Even if there was an entity such as a God, it might be wise to comply with its will, but we wouldn’t necessarily accept it as correct by definition. You can work out a full moral theory from an extremely small number of very simple axioms, yes. That’s IMO the more rational way of doing it: take a kernel of principles as small as possible, derive everything else as a coherent system using evidence. But you do need that kernel. There is no fundamental measurable rule about things even such as “life is better than death”. We just like it better that way.
I disagree with your claim about morals being just about prudence. Net utility looks at utility to all parties.
Do “all parties” include bacteria? Ants? Plankton? How are they to be weighed?
If you’re a moral relativist, you’re free to weigh these issues however you like best and then simply motivate your choice. If you’re a moral realist you’re claiming that there are somewhere real laws and constants of the universe defining these problems precisely. How are we supposed to discover them?
It would include them, but they don’t matter because they’re not conscsious. I don’t think there is a law of the universe—the moral facts are necessary like mathematical, modal, or logical ones.
Even mathematics require axioms. What are your moral axioms? In what way are they self-evident?
Every instance of moral realism I’ve ever seen is just someone who has opinions like everyone else, but also wants to really stress that theirs are correct.
I think utilitarianism is right, but even conditional on utilitarianism not being right, moral realism is true.