Meta-ethical relativists, in general, believe that the descriptive properties of terms such as “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong” do not stand subject to universal truth conditions, but only to societal convention and personal preference. Given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms, and one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of evaluation. The latter standard will always be societal or personal and not universal, unlike, for example, the scientific standards for assessing temperature or for determining mathematical truths.
I think that this describes Eliezer’s position. He can adjudicate a disagreement between the pebblesorters and the humans, but he does it in a rather trivial way: he uses the standards of the humans not an independent standard.
Eliezer: “I really don’t consider myself a moral relativist—not even in the slightest!”
Meta-ethical relativism (wikipedia)
Meta-ethical relativists, in general, believe that the descriptive properties of terms such as “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong” do not stand subject to universal truth conditions, but only to societal convention and personal preference. Given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms, and one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of evaluation. The latter standard will always be societal or personal and not universal, unlike, for example, the scientific standards for assessing temperature or for determining mathematical truths.
I think that this describes Eliezer’s position. He can adjudicate a disagreement between the pebblesorters and the humans, but he does it in a rather trivial way: he uses the standards of the humans not an independent standard.