This is an explanation of Yudkowsky’s idea from the metaethics sequence. I’m just trying to make it accessible in language and length with lots of concept handles and examples.
Technically, you could believe that people are equally allowed to be enslaved. All people equal + it’s wrong to make me a slave = it’s wrong to make anyone a slave.
“All men are created equal” emerges from two or more basic principles people are born with. You might say: “Look, you have value, yah? And your loved ones? Would they stop having value if you forgot about them? No? They have value whether or not you know them? How did you conclude they have value? Could that have happened with other people, too? Would you then think they had value? Would they stop having value if you didn’t know them? No? Well, you don’t know them; do they have value?
You take “people I care about have value” (born with it) and combine it with “be consistent” (also born with), and you get “everyone has value.”
That’s the idea in principle, anyway. You take some things people are all born with, and they combine to make the moral insights people can figure out and teach each other, just like we do with math.
Technically, you could believe that people are equally allowed to be enslaved.
In a sense, the ancient Romans did believe this. Anyone who ended up in the same situation—either taken as a war captive or unable to pay their debts—was liable to be sold as a slave. So what makes you think your position is objectively better than theirs?
“All men are created equal” emerges from two or more basic principles people are born with. You might say: “Look, you have value, yah? And your loved ones? Would they stop having value if you forgot about them? No? They have value whether or not you know them? How did you conclude they have value? Could that have happened with other people, too? Would you then think they had value? Would they stop having value if you didn’t know them? No? Well, you don’t know them; do they have value?
This assumes without argument that “value” is something people intrinsically have or can have. If instead you view value as value-to-someone, i.e. I value my loved ones, but someone else might not value them, then there is no problem.
And it turns out that yes, most people did not have an intuition that anyone has intrinsic value just by virtue of being human. Most people throughout history assigned value only to ingroup members, to the rich and powerful, and to personally valued individuals. The idea that people are intrinsically valuable is historically very new, still in the minority today globally, and for both these reasons doesn’t seem like an idea everyone should naturally arrive at if they only try to universalize their intuitions a bit.
Technically, you could believe that people are equally allowed to be enslaved. All people equal + it’s wrong to make me a slave = it’s wrong to make anyone a slave.
This is an explanation of Yudkowsky’s idea from the metaethics sequence. I’m just trying to make it accessible in language and length with lots of concept handles and examples.
Technically, you could believe that people are equally allowed to be enslaved. All people equal + it’s wrong to make me a slave = it’s wrong to make anyone a slave.
“All men are created equal” emerges from two or more basic principles people are born with. You might say: “Look, you have value, yah? And your loved ones? Would they stop having value if you forgot about them? No? They have value whether or not you know them? How did you conclude they have value? Could that have happened with other people, too? Would you then think they had value? Would they stop having value if you didn’t know them? No? Well, you don’t know them; do they have value?
You take “people I care about have value” (born with it) and combine it with “be consistent” (also born with), and you get “everyone has value.”
That’s the idea in principle, anyway. You take some things people are all born with, and they combine to make the moral insights people can figure out and teach each other, just like we do with math.
In a sense, the ancient Romans did believe this. Anyone who ended up in the same situation—either taken as a war captive or unable to pay their debts—was liable to be sold as a slave. So what makes you think your position is objectively better than theirs?
This assumes without argument that “value” is something people intrinsically have or can have. If instead you view value as value-to-someone, i.e. I value my loved ones, but someone else might not value them, then there is no problem.
And it turns out that yes, most people did not have an intuition that anyone has intrinsic value just by virtue of being human. Most people throughout history assigned value only to ingroup members, to the rich and powerful, and to personally valued individuals. The idea that people are intrinsically valuable is historically very new, still in the minority today globally, and for both these reasons doesn’t seem like an idea everyone should naturally arrive at if they only try to universalize their intuitions a bit.
You realise that’s a reinvention of Kant?