From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Fri Nov 22 2002 - 15:25:27 MST
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com> Wrote:
> when I say that X is MORALLY WRONG, I mean that X
> seems to me to be wrong regardless of what I think about it,
> and the fact that an alternate Eliezer might be warped to
>think X was right makes no difference in that. Similarly,
>it seems to me that 2 + 2 = 4 whether I > believe that or not
If I think that 2 + 2 = 5 or that Paris is the capital of Italy then I am
wrong in the sense of being incorrect, but if I enjoy murdering people in
horrific ways it is not at all clear what objective fact I am confused
about. Don't misunderstand me, I agree with you that murder is despicable
(although I can imagine unlikely but possible hypothetical scenarios where I
would murder someone and sleep soundly the next night) but our opinion is by
no means unanimous. Unfortunately many of our fellow human beings sincerely
feel that killing is what gives life its zest and that a day without murder
is like a day without sunshine. An even smaller consensus can be found
over exactly what a murder is. Truth has survival value, if murder was
objectively incorrect you would think evolution would have weeded
out those who thought incorrectly long ago.
But in the final analyses who gives a damn? Even if you were to come up with
a logically impeccable proof that inflicting torture is a wonderful
"objective virtue" I'm still not going to start killing innocent people
because subjective virtue is far more important than objective virtue.
Seeing people in pain makes me unhappy, that is a fact, and if I am the
source of that pain then I'm even more unhappy, so I won't do it.
End of story.
It is a subjective fact that John K Clark finds that inflicting pain on
others is totally unacceptable. If you tell me that is just an
objective fact then that's a huge downgrade. I'm more important.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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