Defining “wrong” helps because it provides a universal principled basis for others to intervene in the conflict.
Yes, it definitely helps to define “wrong” as a rough acceptable behavior boundary in a certain group. But promoting it from a convenient shortcut in your models into something bigger is hardly useful. Well, it is useful to you if you can convince others that your definition of “wrong” is the one true one and everyone else ought to abide by it or burn in hell. Again, we are out of philosophy and into psychology.
I’m glad we agree that defining “wrong” is useful, but I’m still confused how you think we go about defining “wrong.” One could assert:
Wrong is what society punishes.
But that doesn’t tell us how society figures out what to punish, or whether there are constraints on society’s classifications. Psychology doesn’t seem to answer these questions—there once were societies that practiced human sacrifice or human slavery.
In common usage, we’d like to be able say those societies were doing wrong, and your usage seems inconsistent with using “wrong” in that way.
In common usage, we’d like to be able say those societies were doing wrong, and your usage seems inconsistent with using “wrong” in that way.
No, they weren’t. Your model of objective wrongness is not a good one, it fails a number of tests.
“Human sacrifice and human slavery” is wrong now in the Westernized society, because it fits under the agreed definition of wrong today. It was not wrong then. It might not be wrong again in the future, after some x-risk-type calamity.
The evolution of the agreed-upon concept of wrong is a fascinating subject in human psychology, sociology and whatever other natural science is relevant. I am guessing that more formerly acceptable behaviors get labeled as “wrong” as the overall standard of living rises and average suffering decreases. As someone mentioned before, torturing cats is no longer the good clean fun it used to be. But that’s just a guess, I would defer to the expert in the area, hopefully there are some around.
Some time in the future a perfectly normal activity of the day will be labeled as “wrong”. It might be eating animals, or eating plants, or having more than 1.0 children per person, or refusing sex when asked politely, or using anonymous nicks on a public forum, or any other activity we find perfectly innocuous.
Conversely, there were plenty of “wrong” behaviors which aren’t wrong anymore, at least not in the modern West, like proclaiming that Jesus is not the Son of God, or doing witchcraft, or marrying a person of the same sex, or...
The definition of wrong as an agreed upon boundary of acceptable behavior matches observations. The way people come to such an agreement is a topic eminently worth studying, but it should not be confused with studying the concept of wrong as if it were some universal truth.
Your position on moral realism has a respectable pedigree in moral philosophy, but I don’t think it is parallel to your position on physical realism.
As I understand it, your response to the question “Are there electrons?” is something like:
This is a wrong question. Trying to find the answer doesn’t resolve any actual decision you face.
By contrast, your response to “Is human sacrifice wrong?” is something like:
Not in the sense you mean, because “wrong” in that sense does not exist.
I don’t think there are philosophical reasons why your positions on those two issues should be in parallel, but you seem to think that your positions are in parallel, and it does not look that way to me.
I don’t think there are philosophical reasons why your positions on those two issues should be in parallel, but you seem to think that your positions are in parallel, and it does not look that way to me.
Without a notion of objective underlying reality, shminux had nothing to cash out any moral theory in.
As I understand it, your response to the question “Are there electrons?” is something like: This is a wrong question. Trying to find the answer doesn’t resolve any actual decision you face. By contrast, your response to “Is human sacrifice wrong?” is something like: Not in the sense you mean, because “wrong” in that sense does not exist.
Not quite.
“Are there electrons?” “Yes, electron is an accurate model, though it it has its issues.”
“Does light propagate in ether?” “Aether is not a good model, it fails a number of tests.”
“is human sacrifice an unacceptable behavior in the US today?” “Yes, this model is quite accurate.”
“Is ‘wrong’ independent of the group that defines it?” “No, this model fails a number of tests.”
Seems pretty consistent to me, with all the parallels you want.
You are not using the word “tests” consistently in your examples. For luminiferous aether, test means something like “makes accurate predictions.” Substituting that into your answer to wrong yields:
No, this model fails to make accurate predictions.
Which I’m having trouble parsing as an answer to the question. If you don’t mean for that substitution to be sensible, then your parallelism does not seem to hold together.
But in deference to your statement here, I am happy to drop this topic if you’d like me to. It is not my intent to badger you, and you don’t have any obligation to continue a conversation you don’t find enjoyable or productive.
I suggest editing in additional line-breaks so that the quote is distinguished from your own contribution. (You need at least two ‘enters’ between the end of the quote and the start of your own words.)
I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I think shminux is claiming that this set of characteristics changes dynamically, and thus it is more useful to define “wrong” dynamically as well. I disagree, but then we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
Is shiminux a native English speaker? Because that’s certainly not how the term is usually used. Ah well, he’s tapped out anyway.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Oh, I can see why it failed—they were using the same term in different ways, each insisting their meaning was “correct”—I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I understand. I’m suggesting it in that context.
That is, I’m asserting now that “if I find myself in a conversation where such terms are being used and I have reason to believe the participants might not share implicit arguments, make the argumentsexplicit” is a good rule to follow in my next conversation.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
Sorry. I guess I was feeling too cynical and discouraged at the time to think that such a thing would be helpful.
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
In this case I meant to refer to only shminux, who calls himself an instrumentalist and does not like to talk about the territory (as opposed to AIXI-style predictive models).
No, they weren’t. Your model of objective wrongness is not a good one, it fails a number of tests.
“Human sacrifice and human slavery” is wrong now in the Westernized society, because it fits under the agreed definition of wrong today. It was not wrong then. It might not be wrong again in the future, after some x-risk-type calamity.
[...]
The definition of wrong as an agreed upon boundary of acceptable behavior matches observations. The way people come to such an agreement is a topic eminently worth studying, but it should not be confused with studying the concept of wrong as if it were some universal truth.
This concept of “wrong” is useful, but a) there is an existing term which people understand to mean what you describe—“acceptable”—and b) it does not serve the useful function people currently expect “wrong” to serve; that of describing our extrapolated desires—it is not prescriptive.
I would advise switching to the more common term, but if you must use it this way I would suggest warning people first, to prevent confusion.
You or TimS are the ones who introduced the term “wrong” into the conversation, I’m simply interpreting it in a way that makes sense to me. Tapping out due to lack of progress.
You or TimS are the ones who introduced the term “wrong” into the conversation
That would be TimS, because he’s the one discussing your views on moral realism with you.
I’m simply interpreting it in a way that makes sense to me.
And I’m simply warning you that using the term in a nonstandard way is predictably going to result in confusion, as it has in this case.
Tapping out due to lack of progress.
Well, that’s your prerogative, obviously, but please don’t tap out of your discussion with Tim on my account. And, um, if it’s not on my account, you might want to say it to him, not me.
Yes, it definitely helps to define “wrong” as a rough acceptable behavior boundary in a certain group. But promoting it from a convenient shortcut in your models into something bigger is hardly useful. Well, it is useful to you if you can convince others that your definition of “wrong” is the one true one and everyone else ought to abide by it or burn in hell. Again, we are out of philosophy and into psychology.
I’m glad we agree that defining “wrong” is useful, but I’m still confused how you think we go about defining “wrong.” One could assert:
But that doesn’t tell us how society figures out what to punish, or whether there are constraints on society’s classifications. Psychology doesn’t seem to answer these questions—there once were societies that practiced human sacrifice or human slavery.
In common usage, we’d like to be able say those societies were doing wrong, and your usage seems inconsistent with using “wrong” in that way.
No, they weren’t. Your model of objective wrongness is not a good one, it fails a number of tests.
“Human sacrifice and human slavery” is wrong now in the Westernized society, because it fits under the agreed definition of wrong today. It was not wrong then. It might not be wrong again in the future, after some x-risk-type calamity.
The evolution of the agreed-upon concept of wrong is a fascinating subject in human psychology, sociology and whatever other natural science is relevant. I am guessing that more formerly acceptable behaviors get labeled as “wrong” as the overall standard of living rises and average suffering decreases. As someone mentioned before, torturing cats is no longer the good clean fun it used to be. But that’s just a guess, I would defer to the expert in the area, hopefully there are some around.
Some time in the future a perfectly normal activity of the day will be labeled as “wrong”. It might be eating animals, or eating plants, or having more than 1.0 children per person, or refusing sex when asked politely, or using anonymous nicks on a public forum, or any other activity we find perfectly innocuous.
Conversely, there were plenty of “wrong” behaviors which aren’t wrong anymore, at least not in the modern West, like proclaiming that Jesus is not the Son of God, or doing witchcraft, or marrying a person of the same sex, or...
The definition of wrong as an agreed upon boundary of acceptable behavior matches observations. The way people come to such an agreement is a topic eminently worth studying, but it should not be confused with studying the concept of wrong as if it were some universal truth.
Your position on moral realism has a respectable pedigree in moral philosophy, but I don’t think it is parallel to your position on physical realism.
As I understand it, your response to the question “Are there electrons?” is something like:
This is a wrong question. Trying to find the answer doesn’t resolve any actual decision you face.
By contrast, your response to “Is human sacrifice wrong?” is something like:
Not in the sense you mean, because “wrong” in that sense does not exist.
I don’t think there are philosophical reasons why your positions on those two issues should be in parallel, but you seem to think that your positions are in parallel, and it does not look that way to me.
Without a notion of objective underlying reality, shminux had nothing to cash out any moral theory in.
Not quite.
“Are there electrons?” “Yes, electron is an accurate model, though it it has its issues.”
“Does light propagate in ether?” “Aether is not a good model, it fails a number of tests.”
“is human sacrifice an unacceptable behavior in the US today?” “Yes, this model is quite accurate.”
“Is ‘wrong’ independent of the group that defines it?” “No, this model fails a number of tests.”
Seems pretty consistent to me, with all the parallels you want.
You are not using the word “tests” consistently in your examples. For luminiferous aether, test means something like “makes accurate predictions.” Substituting that into your answer to wrong yields:
Which I’m having trouble parsing as an answer to the question. If you don’t mean for that substitution to be sensible, then your parallelism does not seem to hold together.
But in deference to your statement here, I am happy to drop this topic if you’d like me to. It is not my intent to badger you, and you don’t have any obligation to continue a conversation you don’t find enjoyable or productive.
It’s worth noting that most people who make that claim are using a different definition of “wrong” to you.
I suggest editing in additional line-breaks so that the quote is distinguished from your own contribution. (You need at least two ‘enters’ between the end of the quote and the start of your own words.)
Whoops, thanks.
I expected that this discussion would not achieve anything.
Simply put, the mistake both of you are making was already addressed by the meta-ethics sequence. But for a non-LW reference, see Speakers Use Their Actual Language. “Wrong” does not refer to “whatever ‘wrong’ means in our language at the time”. That would be circular. “Wrong” refers to some objective set of characteristics, that set being the same as those that we in reality disapprove of. Modulo logical uncertainty etc etc.
I expected this would not make sense to you since you can’t cash out objective characteristics in terms of predictive black boxes.
Congratulations on a successful prediction. Of course, if you had made it before this conversation commenced, you could have saved us all the effort; next time you know something would fail, speaking up would be helpful.
I think shminux is claiming that this set of characteristics changes dynamically, and thus it is more useful to define “wrong” dynamically as well. I disagree, but then we already have a term for this (“unacceptable”) so why reurpose “wrong”?
Who does “you” refer to here? All participants in this discussion? Sminux only?
Presumably shminux doesn’t consider it a repurposing, but rather an articulation of the word’s initial purpose.
Well, OK.
Using relative terms in absolute ways invites communication failure.
If I use “wrong” to denote a relationship between a particular act and a particular judge (as shminux does) but I only specify the act and leave the judge implicit (e.g., “murder is wrong”), I’m relying on my listener to have a shared model of the world in order for my meaning to get across. If I’m not comfortable relying on that, I do better to specify the judge I have in mind.
Is shiminux a native English speaker? Because that’s certainly not how the term is usually used. Ah well, he’s tapped out anyway.
Oh, I can see why it failed—they were using the same term in different ways, each insisting their meaning was “correct”—I just meant you could use this knowledge to help avoid this ahead of time.
I understand. I’m suggesting it in that context.
That is, I’m asserting now that “if I find myself in a conversation where such terms are being used and I have reason to believe the participants might not share implicit arguments, make the argumentsexplicit” is a good rule to follow in my next conversation.
Makes sense. Upvoted.
Sorry. I guess I was feeling too cynical and discouraged at the time to think that such a thing would be helpful.
In this case I meant to refer to only shminux, who calls himself an instrumentalist and does not like to talk about the territory (as opposed to AIXI-style predictive models).
You might have been right, at that. My prior for success here was clearly far too high.
This concept of “wrong” is useful, but a) there is an existing term which people understand to mean what you describe—“acceptable”—and b) it does not serve the useful function people currently expect “wrong” to serve; that of describing our extrapolated desires—it is not prescriptive.
I would advise switching to the more common term, but if you must use it this way I would suggest warning people first, to prevent confusion.
You or TimS are the ones who introduced the term “wrong” into the conversation, I’m simply interpreting it in a way that makes sense to me. Tapping out due to lack of progress.
That would be TimS, because he’s the one discussing your views on moral realism with you.
And I’m simply warning you that using the term in a nonstandard way is predictably going to result in confusion, as it has in this case.
Well, that’s your prerogative, obviously, but please don’t tap out of your discussion with Tim on my account. And, um, if it’s not on my account, you might want to say it to him, not me.