Re: Ethics (was FAI (aka 'Reality Hacking'))

From: Phil Goetz (philgoetz@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Jan 30 2005 - 23:29:25 MST


--- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
wrote:

> Phil Goetz wrote:
> >> --- "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> If that is how you define morality, then I want
> no part of morality,
> >>> except insofar as it may be my natural
> inclination to be moral.
> >
> > I agree with your sentiment; but what is the
> purpose of a moral system
> > that one is naturally inclined to obey?
>
> What is the point of a moral system that one is
> *not* naturally inclined to
> obey? If I were such an entity that I heard not the
> slightest force in the
> argument that I should sacrifice my comfort and
> convenience to preserve the
> lives of billions, what argument could possibly make
> me otherwise?

I'm a little lost here - I don't understand if you
don't believe in morality, or you have some alternate
notion of morality that you're putting forward.

What I'm saying is along the lines of: "Morality"
is not a useful concept/category if the set of
actions you would do while acting morally is a subset
of those actions you would do without morals.
(Modulo morals specifying actions NOT to do rather
than actions TO do, and actions added in to fill up
your available time.) We probably have another,
better term that you could use for that subset.

- Phil

        
                
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:50 MDT