Requesting clarification- On the Metaethics

The trouble with this is that it contradicts the Reason for Being Moral In the First Place, as outlined in Elizier's metaethics. Said reason effectively comes down to obeying moral instincts, after all.

WHY said morality came about is irrelevant. What's important is that it's there.

For much the same reason that people who accept gambles based on their intuitions become money pumps (see: the entire field of behavioral economics), people who do ethics entirely based on moral intuitions become "morality pumps".

I think this thought is worth pursuing in more concrete detail. If I prefer certainly saving 400 people to .8 chance of saving 500 people, and prefer .2 chance of killing 500 people to certainly killing 100 people, what crazy things can a competing agent get me to endorse? Can you get me to something that would be obviously wrong even deontologically, in the same way that losing all my money is obviously bad even behavioral-economically?

Consequentialist judgements are based on emotion in a certain sense just as much as deontological judgements- both come from an emotive desire to do what is "right" (for a broad definition of "right") which cannot be objectively justified using a universially compelling argument. It is true that they come from different areas of the brain, but to call consequentialist judgements "inherently rational" or similiar is a misnomer- from a philosophical perspective both are in the same metaphorical boat as both are based on ultimately unjustifiable premises objectively (see Hume Is/Ought).

Assuming a deontological system is based on the premise "These are human instincts, so we create a series of rules to reflect them", then there is no delusion and hence no rationalisation. It is instead a logical extension, they would argue, of rules similiar to those Elizier made for being moral in the first place.

Elizier's metaethics, as I think best summed up in "The Moral Void" is that people have a desire to do what is Right, which is reason enough for moraltiy. This argument cannot be used as an argument for violating moral instincts without creating a contradiction.

Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue ethics are not opposed, and people who argue about them have different assumptions. Basically:

Totally agree. In fact, I go as far as to declare that Deontologic value systems and Consequentialist systems can be converted between each other (so long as the system of representing consequentialist values is suitably versatile). This isn't to say such a conversion is always easy and it does rely on reflecting off an epistemic model but it can be done.

To the extent that you are an agent, you are concerned with the consequences of your actions, because you exist to have an effect on the actual world.

I'm not sure this is true. Why can't we can something that doesn't care about consequences an agent? Assuming, of course, that they are a suitably advanced and coherent person? Like take a human deontologist who stubbornly sticks to the deontological values and ignores consequences then dismiss as irrelevant that small part of them that feels sad about the consequences. That still seems to deserve being called an agent.

To the extent that you are a person (existing in a society), you should follow rules that forbid murder, lying, and leaving the toolbox in a mess, and compel politeness, helping others, and whatnot. A good person does not make a good agent, because what a person should do (for example, help an injured bird) often makes no sense from a consequentialist POV.

I'd actually say a person shouldn't help an injured bird. Usually it is better from both an efficiency standpoint and a humanitarian standpoint to just kill it and prevent short term suffering and negligible long term prospects of successfully recovering to functioning in the wild. But part of my intuitive experience here is that my intuitions for what makes a 'good person' has been corrupted by my consequentialist values to a greater extent that in has for some others. Sometimes my efforts at social influence and behaviour are governed somewhat more than average by my decision-theory intuitions. For example my 'should' advocates lying in some situations where others may say people 'shouldn't' lie (even if they themselves lie hypocritically).

I'm curious Nyan. You're someone who has developed an interesting philosophy regarding ethics in earlier posts and one that I essentially agree with. I am wondering to what extent your instantiation of 'should' makes no sense from a consequentialist POV. Mine mostly makes sense but only once 'ethical inhibitions' and consideration of second order and unexpected consequences are accounted for. Some of it also only makes sense in consequentialist frameworks where having a preference for negative consequences to occur in response to certain actions is accepted as a legitimate intrinsic value.

To the extent that you are human, you are motivated by Virtue and ideas, because that's just how the meat happens to work.

You mean, by habits and instincts, right?

If you were to have a rant, you might have to give more examples, or more thorough ones, because I'm not quite getting your explanation.

I'm just posting this because otherwise there would've been an inferential silence.

Presumably you think that in a case like the fat man case, the human somehow mistakenly believes the consequences for pushing the fat man will be worse? In some cases you have a good point, but that's one of the ones where your argument is least plausible.

Sorry about that. Still, it's less important than the actual content.

No disputes on Paragraph 1, but:

An intuition that morality should be "universial" in your sense is not as common as you might think. In Victorian times there was a hierarchy of responsibilities depending on closeness, which fits modern intutions except that race has been removed. Confucius considered it the fillial duty of a son to cover up their father's crimes. Finally, there are general tribal in-group instincts. All these suggest that the intuition morality should be universial (as opposed to logically coherent, which is more common) is the "weaker" intuition that should give.

In addition, of course, see Elizier's articles about no universially persuasive argument.

In your metaethics, what does it mean for an ethical system to be "true", then (put in quotations only because it is a vague term at the moment in need of definition)? Elizier's metaethics has a good case for following a morality considered "true" in that it fits human intuitions- but if you abandon that where does it get you?

Deontology is not in general incompatible. You could have a deontology that says :God says do exactly what eliezer yudkowsky thinks is correct.

That isn't a deontology. That is an epistemic state. "God says do X" is in the class "Snow is white" not "You should do X". Of course if you add "You should do exactly what God says" then you have a deontology. Well, you would if not for the additional fact "Eliezer Yudkowsky thinks that God saying so isn't a particularly good reason to do it", making the system arguably inconsistent.

"Optimal" by what value? Since we don't have an objective morality here, a person only has their Wants (whether moral or not) to decide what counts as optimal. This leads to problems. Take a Hypothetical Case A.

-In Case A there are several options. One option would be the best from a consequentialist perspective, taking all consequences into accont. However, taking this option would make the option's taker not only feel very guilty (for whatever reason- there are plenty of possibilities) but harm their selfish interests in the long run.

This is an extreme case, but it shows the problem at it's worst. Elizier would say that doing the consequentialist thing would be the Right thing to do. However, he cannot have any compelling reason to do it based on his reasons for morality- an innate desire to act that way being the only reason he has for it.

The problem with what Elizier says there is making it compatible with his reason for being moral. For example:

"And once you realize that the brain can't multiply by eight, then the other cases of scope neglect stop seeming to reveal some fundamental truth about 50,000 lives being worth just the same effort as 5,000 lives, or whatever. You don't get the impression you're looking at the revelation of a deep moral truth about nonagglomerative utilities. It's just that the brain doesn't goddamn multiply. Quantities get thrown out the window."

However, Elizier's comments on "The Pebblesorters" amongst others make clear that he defines morality based on what humans feel is moral. How is this compatible?

In addition, given that the morality in the Metaethics is fundamentally based on preferences, there are severe problems. Take Hypothetical case A, which is broad enough to cover a lot of plausible scenarios.

A- A hypothetical case where there is an option which will be the best from a consequentialist perspective, but which for some reason the person who takes the option would feel overall more guilty for choosing it AND be less happy aftewards than the alternative, both in the short run and the long run.

Elizier would say to take the action that is best from a consequentialist perspective. This is indefensible however you look at it- logically, philsophically, etc.

VNM

(I don't have to like consequentialism to be motivated by considerations it offers, such as relative unimportance of what I happen to like.)

I don't see any link between Platonism and consequentialism.