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Wow: "The mathematical verdict of both eigenmoses and eigenjesus is unequivocal: the 98% are almost perfectly good, while the 2% are almost perfectly evil." The

by mrb 12y ago

Wow: "The mathematical verdict of both eigenmoses and eigenjesus is unequivocal: the 98% are almost perfectly good, while the 2% are almost perfectly evil." The author says this diverge violently from most people’s moral intuitions, but actually this result is PRECISELY what moral relativism predicts. See, there are 2 school of thoughts attempting to explain where morality comes from: - either morality is an absolute concept (things are inherently good or evil, theists might say this good/evil is defined by a god or gods). This is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism - or morality is relative, defined by people, defined by cultures (what one culture might consider immoral, another culture will consider it moral, and nobody is inherently right or wrong). This is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_relativism If moral relativism is right, it would be absolutely expected that the 98% are "almost perfectly good", since they do things that the majority consider good. What a fantastic essay...

Eliezer 12y ago
That's... kinda not a very good description of the major contemporary schools of thought on metaethics. I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously as philosophy; you can't ground the foundational meaning of the word 'good' as 'different cultures think different things are good', since there's no base case for the recursion. Well-known mainstream positions in metaethics hold that moral language is not meant to express statements which are either true or false, i.e., it is not semantic or truth-apt; but I have no idea what it would mean for 'good' to be defined as 'different cultures think different things are good'. What's the difference between 'good' and 'fzoom', then? This appears both well-written and standard: http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philosophy/An%20Introduction%20to%20Contemporary%20Metaethics.pdf http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philoso... I'd refer you to my own writings on the subject but I don't think they've been very productive in practice of understanding, so I'll leave you with a reference to the standard literature, and remark that the correct analysis (using standard nomenclature, which is somewhat misleading) is obviously moral cognitivism::strong cognitivism::moral realism::naturalist reductionism.
- baddox 12y ago
  > I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously as philosophy; you can't ground the foundational meaning of the word 'good' as 'different cultures think different things are good', since there's no base case for the recursion. Wouldn't the meaning of "good" be "considered to be good by the given culture, group, or individual"? > Well-known mainstream positions in metaethics hold that moral language is not meant to express statements which are either true or false, i.e., it is not semantic or truth-apt; Do you have any data on the percentage of philosophers who subscribe to various beliefs? It sounds like you're describing non-cognitivism, which I'm fairly familiar with, although I didn't think it was a widely accepted view.
  - wfn 12y ago
    Take a look at PhilPapers Surveys, maybe: http://philpapers.org/surveys/ http://philpapers.org/surveys/ the rough gist (from http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf) seems to be 14. Meta-ethics: moral realism 56.4%; moral anti-realism 17. Moral judgment: cognitivism 65.7%; non-cognitivism 17.0%; other 17.3%. The results are also here: http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl (set response grain to "fine" as the note at the top suggests) correlation results should also be interesting.
- gone35 12y ago
  I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously (...) Well, many contemporary metaethicists argue that forms of moral relativism undergird / best justify non-cognivitism [1,2], for one. Also Gilbert Harman [3] and David Wong [4] have proposed that forms of moral relativism are associated with naturalism (!), and their work overall is an excellent reference I strongly recommend you check out. [1] http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-relativism/ http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-relativism... [2] http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-cognitivism/ http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-cognitivis... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Harman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Harman [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wong_(philosopher) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wong_(philosopher)
baddox 12y ago
There are probably more fundamental classification dichotomies than absolutism vs. relativism. One example is cognitivism, which is the belief that moral statements are propositions and can thus be true or false (absolutism and relativism are both cognitivist theories), vs. non-cognitivism.
cscurmudgeon 12y ago
Don't take this negatively. Your comment is absolutely muddled up. Just because there is an absolute morality does not mean everyone has to agree on it. Why? Ask yourself this question. Physics is absolute. Do physicists have 100% agreement? Nobody takes relativism seriously.

by mrb 12y ago

Eliezer 12y ago

That's... kinda not a very good description of the major contemporary schools of thought on metaethics. I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously as philosophy; you can't ground the foundational meaning of the word 'good' as 'different cultures think different things are good', since there's no base case for the recursion. Well-known mainstream positions in metaethics hold that moral language is not meant to express statements which are either true or false, i.e., it is not semantic or truth-apt; but I have no idea what it would mean for 'good' to be defined as 'different cultures think different things are good'. What's the difference between 'good' and 'fzoom', then? This appears both well-written and standard: http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philosophy/An%20Introduction%20to%20Contemporary%20Metaethics.pdf http://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/thought_and_writing/philoso... I'd refer you to my own writings on the subject but I don't think they've been very productive in practice of understanding, so I'll leave you with a reference to the standard literature, and remark that the correct analysis (using standard nomenclature, which is somewhat misleading) is obviously moral cognitivism::strong cognitivism::moral realism::naturalist reductionism.

baddox 12y ago
> I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously as philosophy; you can't ground the foundational meaning of the word 'good' as 'different cultures think different things are good', since there's no base case for the recursion. Wouldn't the meaning of "good" be "considered to be good by the given culture, group, or individual"? > Well-known mainstream positions in metaethics hold that moral language is not meant to express statements which are either true or false, i.e., it is not semantic or truth-apt; Do you have any data on the percentage of philosophers who subscribe to various beliefs? It sounds like you're describing non-cognitivism, which I'm fairly familiar with, although I didn't think it was a widely accepted view.
- wfn 12y ago
  Take a look at PhilPapers Surveys, maybe: http://philpapers.org/surveys/ http://philpapers.org/surveys/ the rough gist (from http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP.pdf) seems to be 14. Meta-ethics: moral realism 56.4%; moral anti-realism 17. Moral judgment: cognitivism 65.7%; non-cognitivism 17.0%; other 17.3%. The results are also here: http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl (set response grain to "fine" as the note at the top suggests) correlation results should also be interesting.
gone35 12y ago
I don't know if any respected analytic philosophers take moral relativism seriously (...) Well, many contemporary metaethicists argue that forms of moral relativism undergird / best justify non-cognivitism [1,2], for one. Also Gilbert Harman [3] and David Wong [4] have proposed that forms of moral relativism are associated with naturalism (!), and their work overall is an excellent reference I strongly recommend you check out. [1] http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-relativism/ http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-relativism... [2] http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-cognitivism/ http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/moral-cognitivis... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Harman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Harman [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wong_(philosopher) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wong_(philosopher)

baddox 12y ago

There are probably more fundamental classification dichotomies than absolutism vs. relativism. One example is cognitivism, which is the belief that moral statements are propositions and can thus be true or false (absolutism and relativism are both cognitivist theories), vs. non-cognitivism.

cscurmudgeon 12y ago

Don't take this negatively. Your comment is absolutely muddled up. Just because there is an absolute morality does not mean everyone has to agree on it. Why? Ask yourself this question. Physics is absolute. Do physicists have 100% agreement? Nobody takes relativism seriously.