From: Mikko Särelä (msarela@cc.hut.fi)
Date: Sat Feb 14 2004 - 15:16:30 MST
On Sat, 14 Feb 2004, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> Hmmm... so you are positing the ethical principle that "ethical systems that
> posit goals and lead to their successful achievement" are good, whereas
> "ethical systems that posit goals and do not lead to their successful
> achievement" are bad.
No, I am not positing that. What I am positing works in one direction of
the implication only. Let me try to explain it in some other manner.
Almost any moral system we can have will have something to say about goals
and means. It tells us what goals are good and what goals are bad and it
tells us what means are good and what means are bad.
Now I'm suggesting when we test the moral system that we can draw certain
conclusions. One, if the system is contradictory, then under that system
good things as defined by that system cannot be achieved. Two, if that
system is self defeating, that is it works in such a way that the goals
set by the system cannot be achieved, because the system itself undermines
them, it cannot be considered a good moral system.
I am saying that a good moral system _must_ avoid those problems and I am
NOT saying that every moral system that avoids those problems is a good
moral system. Please do read implications as implications and not as
equivalence.
-- Mikko Särelä Emperor Bonaparte: "Where does God fit into your system?" Pièrre Simon Laplace: "Sire, I have no need for that hypothesis."
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