The answer to the question “what is right?” is: Whatever action will save the most people/create the most happiness/etc.
As I understand it, it’s not that the latter is the answer to that question, it’s that they’re the same question.
It’s not that it just happens to be Right to do what a certain Huge Blob of Computation tells you to do; the idea is that moral words like “right” and “should” are pointers to that Huge Blob and nothing else. Beyond that, there’s no separable essence of morality such that it’s anything other than a tautology to say “What is right? Whatever action will save the most lives, create the most fun, …” The feeling of separable epiphenomenal essences is a common (not just about morality) fallacy that’s discussed in several posts in the Words sequence, IIRC.
As I understand it, it’s not that the latter is the answer to that question, it’s that they’re the same question.
It’s not that it just happens to be Right to do what a certain Huge Blob of Computation tells you to do; the idea is that moral words like “right” and “should” are pointers to that Huge Blob and nothing else. Beyond that, there’s no separable essence of morality such that it’s anything other than a tautology to say “What is right? Whatever action will save the most lives, create the most fun, …” The feeling of separable epiphenomenal essences is a common (not just about morality) fallacy that’s discussed in several posts in the Words sequence, IIRC.
That’s a good way to explain it. Thank you.