Imagine John is going to have kids. He will like his kids. But, depending on random factors he will have different kids in different future timelines.
Omega shows up.
Omega: “hey John, by default if you have kids and then I offer your future self a reward to wind back time to actualize a different timeline where you have different kids, equally good from your current perspective, you will reject it. Take a look at this LessWrong post that suggest your hypothetical future selves are passing up Sure Gains. Why don’t you take this pill that will make you forever indifferent between different versions of your kids (and equally any other aspects of those timelines) you would have been indifferent to given your current preferences?”
John: “Ah OK, maybe I’m mostly convinced, but i will ask simon first what he thinks”
simon: “Are you insane? You’d bring these people into existence, and then wipe them out if Omega offered you half a cent. Effectively murder. Along with everyone else in that timeline. Is that really what you want?”
John: “Oh… no of course not!” (to Omega): “I reject the pill!”
another hypothetical observer: “c’mon simon, no one was talking about murder in the LessWrong post, this whole thought experiment in this comment is irrelevant. The post assumes you can cleanly choose between one option and another without such additional considerations.”
simon: “but by the same token the post fails to prove that, where you can’t cleanly choose without additional considerations relevant to your current preferences, as in pretty much any real-example involving actual human values, it is ‘irrational’ to decline making this sort of choice, or to decline self modifying to so. Maybe there’s a valid point there about selection pressure, but that pressure is then to be fought, not surrendered to!”
In conclusion, virtue ethics is a weakness of the will.
Imagine John is going to have kids. He will like his kids. But, depending on random factors he will have different kids in different future timelines.
Omega shows up.
Omega: “hey John, by default if you have kids and then I offer your future self a reward to wind back time to actualize a different timeline where you have different kids, equally good from your current perspective, you will reject it. Take a look at this LessWrong post that suggest your hypothetical future selves are passing up Sure Gains. Why don’t you take this pill that will make you forever indifferent between different versions of your kids (and equally any other aspects of those timelines) you would have been indifferent to given your current preferences?”
John: “Ah OK, maybe I’m mostly convinced, but i will ask simon first what he thinks”
simon: “Are you insane? You’d bring these people into existence, and then wipe them out if Omega offered you half a cent. Effectively murder. Along with everyone else in that timeline. Is that really what you want?”
John: “Oh… no of course not!” (to Omega): “I reject the pill!”
another hypothetical observer: “c’mon simon, no one was talking about murder in the LessWrong post, this whole thought experiment in this comment is irrelevant. The post assumes you can cleanly choose between one option and another without such additional considerations.”
simon: “but by the same token the post fails to prove that, where you can’t cleanly choose without additional considerations relevant to your current preferences, as in pretty much any real-example involving actual human values, it is ‘irrational’ to decline making this sort of choice, or to decline self modifying to so. Maybe there’s a valid point there about selection pressure, but that pressure is then to be fought, not surrendered to!”
You have shown nothing of the sort.