I think that the hope is that by bolstering your intelligence with each successive iteration (honoring the full letter of CEV) you would be thinking more precisely, and more easily spot any errors or fuzziness in your own reasoning. For example, Armstrong 5′s reasoning is incoherent in several ways, most glaringly that he would “value all worthwhile things” which could be written without distortion as “value all valuable things” which is obviously circular. I doubt that Armstrong 1 would make this mistake, so Armstrong 5 should be even more likely to spot it.
Also, I thought that implicit in the “Coherent” part of CEV was the idea that Armstrong 1 would have to in some sense sign off on Armstrong 2 before going further. Maybe give Armstrong 2 a chance to plead his case to Armstrong 1; if his arguments for moral revision are accepted, proceed to Armstrong 3; at no point are you required to delete Armstrong 1, nor should you, because he is the only possible basis for maintaining coherence.
I think that the hope is that by bolstering your intelligence with each successive iteration (honoring the full letter of CEV) you would be thinking more precisely, and more easily spot any errors or fuzziness in your own reasoning. For example, Armstrong 5′s reasoning is incoherent in several ways, most glaringly that he would “value all worthwhile things” which could be written without distortion as “value all valuable things” which is obviously circular. I doubt that Armstrong 1 would make this mistake, so Armstrong 5 should be even more likely to spot it.
Also, I thought that implicit in the “Coherent” part of CEV was the idea that Armstrong 1 would have to in some sense sign off on Armstrong 2 before going further. Maybe give Armstrong 2 a chance to plead his case to Armstrong 1; if his arguments for moral revision are accepted, proceed to Armstrong 3; at no point are you required to delete Armstrong 1, nor should you, because he is the only possible basis for maintaining coherence.