“There are no alien oughts” and “They don’t see morality differently from us”—these seem like more bizarre-sounding views on the subject of morality—and it seems especially curious to hear them from the author of the “Baby-Eating Aliens” story.
Look, it’s not very complicated: When you see Eliezer write “morality” or “oughts”, read it as “human morality” and “human oughts”.
It isn’t that simple either. Human morality contains a significant component of trying to coerce other humans into doing things that benefit you. Even on a genetic level humans come with significantly different ways of processing moral thoughts. What is often called ‘personality’, particularly in the context of ‘personality type’.
The translation I find useful is to read it as “Eliezer-would-want”. By the definitions Eliezer has given us the two must be identical. (Except, perhaps if Eliezer has for some reason decided to make himself immoral a priori.)
Well then, I don’t understand why you would find statements like “There are no alien [human oughts]” and “They don’t see [human morality] differently from us” bizarre-sounding.
“There are no alien oughts” and “They don’t see morality differently from us”—these seem like more bizarre-sounding views on the subject of morality—and it seems especially curious to hear them from the author of the “Baby-Eating Aliens” story.
Look, it’s not very complicated: When you see Eliezer write “morality” or “oughts”, read it as “human morality” and “human oughts”.
It isn’t that simple either. Human morality contains a significant component of trying to coerce other humans into doing things that benefit you. Even on a genetic level humans come with significantly different ways of processing moral thoughts. What is often called ‘personality’, particularly in the context of ‘personality type’.
The translation I find useful is to read it as “Eliezer-would-want”. By the definitions Eliezer has given us the two must be identical. (Except, perhaps if Eliezer has for some reason decided to make himself immoral a priori.)
Um, that’s what I just said: “presumably you are talking about ought”.
We were then talking about the meaning of ought.
There’s also the issue of whether to discuss ought and ought—which are evidently quite different—due to the shifting moral zeitgeist.
Well then, I don’t understand why you would find statements like “There are no alien [human oughts]” and “They don’t see [human morality] differently from us” bizarre-sounding.
Having established EY meant ought, I was asking about ought.
Maybe you are right—and EY misinterpreted me—and genuinely thought I was asking about ought.
If so, that seems like a rather ridiculous question for me to be asking—and I’m surprised it made it through his sanity checker.