It sometimes amazes me (but only when I forget about evolutionary psychology, which easily explains it) how successful the meme of self-interest has become at persuading otherwise intelligent people that their life has more value than another’s. (Say another intelligent person’s, to head off one common rationalisation.)
It sometimes amazes me how often commenters on LessWrong (who really should know better if they’ve read the sequences) commit the mind projection fallacy, e.g. by assuming that “value” is a single-place function (“value(thing)”) instead of a two-place one (“value(thing, to-whom)”).
I meant for the otherwise intelligent person in question, of course. Sorry for the confusion.
I don’t think you understand me. You said:
persuading otherwise intelligent people that their life has more value than another’s
implying that it is wrong to define one person’s life as having more value than another’s. I was pointing out that this is the mind projection fallacy, because things do not have value. They only have value to someone. Thus it is perfectly sane to speak of one’s life as having more value [implied: to one’s self] than another’s.
It sometimes amazes me how often commenters on LessWrong (who really should know better if they’ve read the sequences) commit the mind projection fallacy, e.g. by assuming that “value” is a single-place function (“value(thing)”) instead of a two-place one (“value(thing, to-whom)”).
I meant for the otherwise intelligent person in question, of course. Sorry for the confusion.
By the way, I interpreted ewbrownv’s comment in precisely the same vein.
I don’t think you understand me. You said:
implying that it is wrong to define one person’s life as having more value than another’s. I was pointing out that this is the mind projection fallacy, because things do not have value. They only have value to someone. Thus it is perfectly sane to speak of one’s life as having more value [implied: to one’s self] than another’s.
Yes, of course it is!
And it is equally sane to speak of one’s life as only having value in its relation to others.
My comment was a reply to the comment to which it was a reply; it does not make sense out of context.
Edit: I have edited the comment in question to be more clear.