Eliezer, thank you for this clear explanation. I’m just now making the connection to your calculator example, which struck me as relevant if I could only figure out how. Now it’s all fitting together.
How does this differ from personal preference? Or is it simply broader in scope? That is, if an individual’s calculation includes “self-interest” and weighs it heavily, personal preference might be the result of the calculation, which fits inside your metamoral model, if I’m reading things correctly.
Eliezer, this explanation finally puts it all together for me in terms of the “computation”. I get it now, I think.
On the other hand, I have a question. Maybe this indicates that I don’t truly get it; maybe it indicates that there’s something you’re not considering. In any case, I would appreciate your explanation, since I feel so close to understanding what you’ve been saying.
When I multiply 19 and 103, whether in my head, or using a pocket calculator, I get a certain result that I can check: In theory, I can gather a whole bunch of pebbles, lay them out in 103 rows of 19, and then count them individually. I don’t have to rely on my calculator—be it internal or electronic.
When I compute morality, though, the only thing I have to examine is my calculator and a bunch of other ones. I would easily recognize that most calculators I come across will give the same answer to a moral question, at least to a limited number of decimal points. But I have no way of knowing whether those calculators are accurate representations of the world—that is, perhaps all of those calculators were created in a way that didn’t reflect reality, and added ten to any result calculated.
If 90% of my calculators say 19 times 103 is equal to 1967, how do I determine that they are incorrect, without having the actual pebbles to count?