Hmm, I thought this for much of writing the above, but I just figured out the right way of thinking about it. I’d phrase it as follows.
Eliezer is looking for a replacement for absolute-honesty, and it’s meta-honesty. It’s putting lots of work into being as honest as you can on the object level, and being perfectly honest on the meta-level.
There’s an important sense whereby a ‘meta-honest’ person is just a normal, very honest person who’s thought in detail about what honesty means when talking about your own honesty.
Meta-honesty is not an additional variable, it’s just another point in honesty-space to aim for, alongside things like “be absolutely honest”. It’s not an extra thing on top of being honest, it’s a variant of extreme honesty. If you generally tell lies and think it’s fine, then you’re engaging with none of the types of honesty.
I think this is the right call. Maybe I will try to flesh out why, I think that would be worthwhile, but then again, I already wrote a lot above, and I’m not sure how helpful it was.
Hmm, I thought this for much of writing the above, but I just figured out the right way of thinking about it. I’d phrase it as follows.
Meta-honesty is not an additional variable, it’s just another point in honesty-space to aim for, alongside things like “be absolutely honest”. It’s not an extra thing on top of being honest, it’s a variant of extreme honesty. If you generally tell lies and think it’s fine, then you’re engaging with none of the types of honesty.
I think this is the right call. Maybe I will try to flesh out why, I think that would be worthwhile, but then again, I already wrote a lot above, and I’m not sure how helpful it was.
I also anticipate I’ll write my own review/commentary on the OP, so mayhaps I can expand more on my thoughts and you can have more to respond to.
I look forward to that :)