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One perspective: The universe is indifferent to your ethics and whether they are self-consistent or inconsistent. Choices "matter" insofar as they have observa

One perspective: The universe is indifferent to your ethics and whether they are self-consistent or inconsistent. Choices "matter" insofar as they have observable effects that somebody cares about, but ultimately all morality is constructed. And so, why not a draw a line here, or over there, or instead way out there?

deutschewelle 5y ago
It's similar to a lot of the ideological absurdities being unleashed by the political establishment in the West. Some of which are supported wholeheartedly by companies supported by YC so rather than risk getting banned for holding "dangerous" ideologies that run counter to that side of the spectrum, I will just chalk this under ephemeral arguments that will go nowhere edit: as suspected it seems I am no longer able to comment freely on HN ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ after posting this, really bizarre experience
- nefitty 5y ago
  It's not a novel idea. Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism? I personally subscribe to the idea that moral truths can be discovered from principals we can derive on inspecting our own preferences and experiences. We can than radiate that practice out to uncover more, and it historically happens by dint of physical/genetic proximity, eg prioritizing the wellbeing of family and friends and so on. An interesting aspect of the internet is that it makes the determinant lines fuzzier and clearly arbitrary. Objectively, why would the life of a child in one country matter more or less than one from the other side of the planet? It's completely arbitrary, but the entrenched human social structures have been built around physical proximity and so we end up donating money to feed a relatively healthy child instead of donating to the distant one on the verge of dying from malnutrition.
  - rectang 5y ago
    > Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism? To me, "the universe is indifferent" is ethical relativism but not at all fatalistic. If there is no deliberate outside guidance, then we are free to construct an ethics by "inspecting our own preferences and experiences", as you put it. Isn't that liberating and wonderful? Doesn't it allow for creativity and constant rejuvenation? However, I distrust your labeling of those discoveries as "moral truths". Is there one objectively correct philosophy of octopus farming?
    - nefitty 5y ago
      I agree in regards to the universe's indifference! Cradling that understanding had a big part in my conclusion of moral objectivity. The freedom I gained from that is what allowed me to discover what I know now. My basic formula for moral truth is: starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind, would I prefer to have or recoil from 'X' experience? With that in mind, could I reasonably conclude that sentient others around me would arrive at the same conclusion as me? How about strangers? Other animals? An extraterrestrial? A synthetic being? Humans in a million years? If my chain of reasoning doesn't break at any point as I expand the set of sentient beings to check against, then it is likely that I now have clear guidance on engaging in actions that produce experience 'X'. Here is an example: Should I break my friend's arm against his will? I would not want that to happen to me. Most people I know prefer not to have their arms broken. My dog would not want that. A cow would not want that. A fish would not want his tail snapped off. People in the future won't want their arms broken if it feels how I imagine it feels. I don't imagine that a sentient robot would like its gripping mechanism broken. Whatever sorts of appendages extraterrestrials have, they probably don't want to lose the ability to use them. I can then extract the generalizable term from "I shouldn't break my friend's arm against his will" to, "I shouldn't hurt sentient beings when it's counter to their overriding preferences." It now follows that if I were able to poll every sentient creature through all time (sentient according to a rubric), I would expect the majority to share the uncovered preference or aversion in question. I now have a positive statement about morality that is universalizable, apparently akin to Kantian philosophy, which I have some bare surface knowledge of. The exercise seems pretty robust to me insofar as language and idea-derived conclusions hold up. For example, culturally dependent preferences, idiosyncrasies, aesthetic preferences, etc, fail the test easily.
      - rectang 5y ago
        Thanks, I thoroughly enjoyed your reasoned example! > starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind This stage-setting phrase seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because of course "I should not break the arm of X" is situational: under certain circumstances, such as defending yourself or something you care about, you absolutely should break the arm of an adversary if necessary. Fully exploring the space of possible situations to find a "truth" is at least difficult and maybe impossible. I speculate that the theoretical limit you could approach is the scientific approximation described by Karl Popper, and explored by Thomas Kuhn in _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_, which means that you're never completely certain and your model is still subject to paradigm shifts. But because ethics is squishier than falsifiable scientific propositions, it will be hard to asymptotically approach that limit. This is why a lot of the discussion about octopus farming has left me cold: many ethical propositions are being presented as absolute truths, but are almost certainly situationally incomplete. (What is sentience? What is pain? To what degree can we practically spare sentient creatures from pain? Under what circumstances does minimizing pain backfire and increase it in the end? And so on.)
  - deutschewelle 5y ago
    I was talking about three letter acronyms being taught in American schools that many of the people in this industry support (obviously not all) to align with their political biases to put downward pressure on wages but I will be honest here and say I have no fucking clue what you are talking about.
challenger-derp 5y ago
Another perspective: people are not indifferent to the set of ethics their community subscribes to. Ethics help form a common understanding about what it means to be a part of a community. Sure, morality is constructed and observable choices matter more. But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts". Ditch morality and some get that much closer to considering atrocities -- e.g. enslavement of weaker groups, authoritarianism over entire populations -- because after all, "the universe is indifferent to your ethics [...]". > why not a draw a line here, or over there, or instead way out there? Do people who are sensitive to/ take into consideration the pains of weaker beings sound/feel like a pleasant group to be a part of? And yes, there are trade-offs.
- rectang 5y ago
  > But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts". Over the course of human history, claims of moral superiority habitually accompany great atrocities. Give me a humble ethics which seeks to change that which can be observed, while not claiming absolute righteousness.
Tomis02 5y ago
This type of moral relativism is what leads to world wars, at which point people come back to their senses and proceed to behave, until the next generation comes along to repeat the same mistakes.
- rectang 5y ago
  I hold the opposite perspective: world wars are brought about by those who are convinced that there is only one correct moral system — theirs — and who therefore have no compunction about inflicting it on others. The belief that the no moral system is objectively correct, and yet choices matter because they have tangible effects, inoculates against dehumanizing those who do not share your ethics.
  - Tomis02 5y ago
    Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people. The point of view you expressed is not opposite from mine, as you can have multiple moral systems that can live side by side without issues. My original idea is that some moral systems are bad (in regards to those "tangible effects" you mentioned), and your assertion induces the idea that all moral systems are more or less the same.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - rectang 5y ago
      > Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people. Well, I admit I'm finding the exchange increasingly unpleasant as well. I'd like to think that if we were speaking in person with the benefit of tone of voice and body language it would feel less combative. There does seem to be significant overlap in how we both allow for multiple moral systems. We appear to differ on what leads to world wars.

deutschewelle 5y ago

It's similar to a lot of the ideological absurdities being unleashed by the political establishment in the West. Some of which are supported wholeheartedly by companies supported by YC so rather than risk getting banned for holding "dangerous" ideologies that run counter to that side of the spectrum, I will just chalk this under ephemeral arguments that will go nowhere edit: as suspected it seems I am no longer able to comment freely on HN ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ after posting this, really bizarre experience

nefitty 5y ago
It's not a novel idea. Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism? I personally subscribe to the idea that moral truths can be discovered from principals we can derive on inspecting our own preferences and experiences. We can than radiate that practice out to uncover more, and it historically happens by dint of physical/genetic proximity, eg prioritizing the wellbeing of family and friends and so on. An interesting aspect of the internet is that it makes the determinant lines fuzzier and clearly arbitrary. Objectively, why would the life of a child in one country matter more or less than one from the other side of the planet? It's completely arbitrary, but the entrenched human social structures have been built around physical proximity and so we end up donating money to feed a relatively healthy child instead of donating to the distant one on the verge of dying from malnutrition.
- rectang 5y ago
  > Isn't it just a fatalistic coloring of ethical relativism? To me, "the universe is indifferent" is ethical relativism but not at all fatalistic. If there is no deliberate outside guidance, then we are free to construct an ethics by "inspecting our own preferences and experiences", as you put it. Isn't that liberating and wonderful? Doesn't it allow for creativity and constant rejuvenation? However, I distrust your labeling of those discoveries as "moral truths". Is there one objectively correct philosophy of octopus farming?
  - nefitty 5y ago
    I agree in regards to the universe's indifference! Cradling that understanding had a big part in my conclusion of moral objectivity. The freedom I gained from that is what allowed me to discover what I know now. My basic formula for moral truth is: starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind, would I prefer to have or recoil from 'X' experience? With that in mind, could I reasonably conclude that sentient others around me would arrive at the same conclusion as me? How about strangers? Other animals? An extraterrestrial? A synthetic being? Humans in a million years? If my chain of reasoning doesn't break at any point as I expand the set of sentient beings to check against, then it is likely that I now have clear guidance on engaging in actions that produce experience 'X'. Here is an example: Should I break my friend's arm against his will? I would not want that to happen to me. Most people I know prefer not to have their arms broken. My dog would not want that. A cow would not want that. A fish would not want his tail snapped off. People in the future won't want their arms broken if it feels how I imagine it feels. I don't imagine that a sentient robot would like its gripping mechanism broken. Whatever sorts of appendages extraterrestrials have, they probably don't want to lose the ability to use them. I can then extract the generalizable term from "I shouldn't break my friend's arm against his will" to, "I shouldn't hurt sentient beings when it's counter to their overriding preferences." It now follows that if I were able to poll every sentient creature through all time (sentient according to a rubric), I would expect the majority to share the uncovered preference or aversion in question. I now have a positive statement about morality that is universalizable, apparently akin to Kantian philosophy, which I have some bare surface knowledge of. The exercise seems pretty robust to me insofar as language and idea-derived conclusions hold up. For example, culturally dependent preferences, idiosyncrasies, aesthetic preferences, etc, fail the test easily.
    - rectang 5y ago
      Thanks, I thoroughly enjoyed your reasoned example! > starting from a non-maladaptive state of mind This stage-setting phrase seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. Because of course "I should not break the arm of X" is situational: under certain circumstances, such as defending yourself or something you care about, you absolutely should break the arm of an adversary if necessary. Fully exploring the space of possible situations to find a "truth" is at least difficult and maybe impossible. I speculate that the theoretical limit you could approach is the scientific approximation described by Karl Popper, and explored by Thomas Kuhn in _Structure of Scientific Revolutions_, which means that you're never completely certain and your model is still subject to paradigm shifts. But because ethics is squishier than falsifiable scientific propositions, it will be hard to asymptotically approach that limit. This is why a lot of the discussion about octopus farming has left me cold: many ethical propositions are being presented as absolute truths, but are almost certainly situationally incomplete. (What is sentience? What is pain? To what degree can we practically spare sentient creatures from pain? Under what circumstances does minimizing pain backfire and increase it in the end? And so on.)
- deutschewelle 5y ago
  I was talking about three letter acronyms being taught in American schools that many of the people in this industry support (obviously not all) to align with their political biases to put downward pressure on wages but I will be honest here and say I have no fucking clue what you are talking about.

challenger-derp 5y ago

Another perspective: people are not indifferent to the set of ethics their community subscribes to. Ethics help form a common understanding about what it means to be a part of a community. Sure, morality is constructed and observable choices matter more. But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts". Ditch morality and some get that much closer to considering atrocities -- e.g. enslavement of weaker groups, authoritarianism over entire populations -- because after all, "the universe is indifferent to your ethics [...]". > why not a draw a line here, or over there, or instead way out there? Do people who are sensitive to/ take into consideration the pains of weaker beings sound/feel like a pleasant group to be a part of? And yes, there are trade-offs.

rectang 5y ago
> But morality is an aspect that separates humans from "beasts". Over the course of human history, claims of moral superiority habitually accompany great atrocities. Give me a humble ethics which seeks to change that which can be observed, while not claiming absolute righteousness.

Tomis02 5y ago

This type of moral relativism is what leads to world wars, at which point people come back to their senses and proceed to behave, until the next generation comes along to repeat the same mistakes.

rectang 5y ago
I hold the opposite perspective: world wars are brought about by those who are convinced that there is only one correct moral system — theirs — and who therefore have no compunction about inflicting it on others. The belief that the no moral system is objectively correct, and yet choices matter because they have tangible effects, inoculates against dehumanizing those who do not share your ethics.
- Tomis02 5y ago
  Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people. The point of view you expressed is not opposite from mine, as you can have multiple moral systems that can live side by side without issues. My original idea is that some moral systems are bad (in regards to those "tangible effects" you mentioned), and your assertion induces the idea that all moral systems are more or less the same.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - rectang 5y ago
    > Logical fallacies are why I dislike talking to people. Well, I admit I'm finding the exchange increasingly unpleasant as well. I'd like to think that if we were speaking in person with the benefit of tone of voice and body language it would feel less combative. There does seem to be significant overlap in how we both allow for multiple moral systems. We appear to differ on what leads to world wars.