If we consider a human as a group of agents with different values
Things like this is why it looks like a good idea to me to taboo “values”. Human includes many heuristics that together add up to what counts as an “agent”. Separate aspects/parts of a human include fewer heuristics, which makes these parts less like agents, and “values” for these parts become even less defined than for the whole.
So “human as group of agents with different values” translates as “human as a collection of parts with different structure”, which sounds far less explanatory (as it should).
I agree that sometimes it can be useful to taboo “values”. But I’m not sure why it would be helpful to taboo it here. I could rephrase my comment as saying that the subset of heuristics that corresponds to the conscious self, after adopting a new moral system, would cause a large shift in actions if it could (i.e., was given tools to overpower other conflicting heuristics), so it’s not clear that adopting new moral systems should or would have little effect on CEV. Does tabooing “values” bring any new insights to this discussion?
Does tabooing “values” bring any new insights to this discussion?
Probably not, but it lifts the illusion of understanding, which tabooing is all about. It’s good practice to avoid unnecessary imprecision or harmless equivocation.
(Also, I’d include all the heuristics into “conscious self”, not just some of them. They all have a hand in forming conscious decisions, and inability to know or precisely alter the workings of particular heuristics similarly applies to all of them. At least, the same criteria that exclude some of the heuristics from your conscious self should allow including external tools in it.)
Things like this is why it looks like a good idea to me to taboo “values”. Human includes many heuristics that together add up to what counts as an “agent”. Separate aspects/parts of a human include fewer heuristics, which makes these parts less like agents, and “values” for these parts become even less defined than for the whole.
So “human as group of agents with different values” translates as “human as a collection of parts with different structure”, which sounds far less explanatory (as it should).
I agree that sometimes it can be useful to taboo “values”. But I’m not sure why it would be helpful to taboo it here. I could rephrase my comment as saying that the subset of heuristics that corresponds to the conscious self, after adopting a new moral system, would cause a large shift in actions if it could (i.e., was given tools to overpower other conflicting heuristics), so it’s not clear that adopting new moral systems should or would have little effect on CEV. Does tabooing “values” bring any new insights to this discussion?
Probably not, but it lifts the illusion of understanding, which tabooing is all about. It’s good practice to avoid unnecessary imprecision or harmless equivocation.
(Also, I’d include all the heuristics into “conscious self”, not just some of them. They all have a hand in forming conscious decisions, and inability to know or precisely alter the workings of particular heuristics similarly applies to all of them. At least, the same criteria that exclude some of the heuristics from your conscious self should allow including external tools in it.)