Now, now. Your preferences might not always reveal you wanting “good” things to the exclusion of “evil” ones, but I guess that you’re socialized and “brainwashed” well enough to value valuing “good” things above the vast majority of selfish or neutral ones. You’ve said before that you’d be scared to self-modify to want what you now want to want… but your moral intuition is fairly ever-present even when you aren’t listening to it, right? Or am I just projecting myself?
Well yes but there is quite a big difference between having moral standards and actually living up to them enough to think of oneself as “good”. At least in my brain truly “good” people are very rare.
Haha, the thing is, I was raised partly on D&D, which was my first source of a metaethical theory, and there, at least in theory, much of alignment is defined by intentions (at least, that’s how I read it in my teenage years). Then again, I might have twisted that a bit to conform to my own beliefs. Either way, I grew up believing that e.g. a witch who has never actually hurt anyone personally but helps an evil tribe and would betray marauding “heroes” to them can indeed be “Lawful Evil”, and, consequentially, a con artist who’s sensitive, guilt-ridden and helps the poor sometimes can indeed be “Chaotic Good” (Oskar Schindler—the real one, not Spielberg’s flat copy—is a hero for me, his case feels incredibly heart-warming). It’s a carticature of my actual feelings, of course, but nonetheless I’m attracted to what is derisively called comic-book morality; I find it, at the very least, better for society than e.g. “rational egoism” informed with Hansonian theory.
That’s a very fair complaint. I’ll edit my previous post.
They are difficult to model and surprisingly volatile.
Feature. Not bug.
I suppose. Objectivists are less worrisome, but admittedly inferior company. And the rare few who by every appearance are as good for goodness sake as you could ask may not cause worry, but there’s always something disquieting about them.
I don’t think I ever claimed to be “good”.
Most people do.
Feature. Not bug.
Now, now. Your preferences might not always reveal you wanting “good” things to the exclusion of “evil” ones, but I guess that you’re socialized and “brainwashed” well enough to value valuing “good” things above the vast majority of selfish or neutral ones.
You’ve said before that you’d be scared to self-modify to want what you now want to want… but your moral intuition is fairly ever-present even when you aren’t listening to it, right? Or am I just projecting myself?
Well yes but there is quite a big difference between having moral standards and actually living up to them enough to think of oneself as “good”. At least in my brain truly “good” people are very rare.
Haha, the thing is, I was raised partly on D&D, which was my first source of a metaethical theory, and there, at least in theory, much of alignment is defined by intentions (at least, that’s how I read it in my teenage years). Then again, I might have twisted that a bit to conform to my own beliefs. Either way, I grew up believing that e.g. a witch who has never actually hurt anyone personally but helps an evil tribe and would betray marauding “heroes” to them can indeed be “Lawful Evil”, and, consequentially, a con artist who’s sensitive, guilt-ridden and helps the poor sometimes can indeed be “Chaotic Good” (Oskar Schindler—the real one, not Spielberg’s flat copy—is a hero for me, his case feels incredibly heart-warming). It’s a carticature of my actual feelings, of course, but nonetheless I’m attracted to what is derisively called comic-book morality; I find it, at the very least, better for society than e.g. “rational egoism” informed with Hansonian theory.
That’s a very fair complaint. I’ll edit my previous post.
I suppose. Objectivists are less worrisome, but admittedly inferior company. And the rare few who by every appearance are as good for goodness sake as you could ask may not cause worry, but there’s always something disquieting about them.