2 out of 2 comments thus far complaining about this means I have to change it… /sigh. I like the word evil because good/evil and good/bad (depending on context) is how most of the world thinks (at one level of abstraction at least), and in meta-ethics it’s not entirely obvious you’re allowed to just throw away such value judgments as the results of misguided human adaptations.
I feel like the word “evil” is only coherent under absolute morality (which I’m pretty sure is wrong) and falls apart trivially under relative morality. Just because it is regular used as a metaphor by the population doesn’t seem worth the linguistic precision lost by a concept so widely misunderstood.
This post is slightly less interesting with the word evil removed because negative utility is harder to feel for most people, but it makes more sense to me.
I would be interested in hearing you more clearly define the nature of evil as negative utility and having a comment thread descend into various
I feel like the word “evil” is only coherent under absolute morality (which I’m pretty sure is wrong) and falls apart trivially under relative morality. Just because it is regular used as a metaphor by the population doesn’t seem worth the linguistic precision lost by a concept so widely misunderstood.
Do you mean absolute or objective morality? The two are not the same (see the WP articles).
I would be interested in hearing you more clearly define the nature of evil as negative utility
The commitments you have already made, if true, make that impossible. Utility
is clearly relative. You say Evil falls apart under relative interpretations. Therefore,
there can be no interpretation of Evil in terms of utility where it doesn’t fall apart.
2 out of 2 comments thus far complaining about this means I have to change it… /sigh. I like the word evil because good/evil and good/bad (depending on context) is how most of the world thinks (at one level of abstraction at least), and in meta-ethics it’s not entirely obvious you’re allowed to just throw away such value judgments as the results of misguided human adaptations.
I feel like the word “evil” is only coherent under absolute morality (which I’m pretty sure is wrong) and falls apart trivially under relative morality. Just because it is regular used as a metaphor by the population doesn’t seem worth the linguistic precision lost by a concept so widely misunderstood.
This post is slightly less interesting with the word evil removed because negative utility is harder to feel for most people, but it makes more sense to me.
I would be interested in hearing you more clearly define the nature of evil as negative utility and having a comment thread descend into various
Do you mean absolute or objective morality? The two are not the same (see the WP articles).
The commitments you have already made, if true, make that impossible. Utility is clearly relative. You say Evil falls apart under relative interpretations. Therefore, there can be no interpretation of Evil in terms of utility where it doesn’t fall apart.