Comment by deeplearner on The Act Itself: Exceptionless Moral Norms · 2024-01-01T17:05:59.014Z · LW · GW

Long-time reader, totally new commenter here. A grain of salt is advised as I'm not sure I even respect the basic rules of posting (moderators feel free to rewrite, delete). That said .. This is pre-uni memories but may really be of help to this topic

I don’t know what the exceptionless moral norms are

Last year before uni, Philosophy class, we were taught that (maybe surprisingly), very few "moral" norms are absolutely universal. There is one that stands : No r*ping or any s*xual activity with the young(est) generation. Even the (very few) civilizations or tribes that tried "educating" the young before marriage age stopped (a few early maoris if I remember correctly). Verifiability : probably in a standard philosophy course.

The act must be acceptable in itself [...] it preserves the essential character of the good intention [...] his I simply will not do, and no argument or circumstance will make me do it

This is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative . The specificity I can't see in your thinking is that the act must be acceptable by the actor. It may seem completely unacceptable to the rest of the world without affecting the good intention (think Galileo declaring that orbits are not perfect circles)

2cents - a newcomer