I would like to see sequences of top level postings providing semi-technical tutorials on topics of interest to rationalists.
As one example of a topic: Moral Philosophy
EY has commented that his MetaEthics sequence is one of his least successful. Can anyone else do better? The ‘official’ ethical position here seems to be a kind of utilitarianism, but we ought (for some values of ‘ought’) to also know something about competing approaches to ethics, including deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and naturalistic ethics (Nozick, Gauthier, and Binmore, for example).
I know almost nothing about virtue ethics, for example, but it is intriguing because it seems to provide the most natural solution to the Parfit’s hitchhiker problem and other decision problems where ‘good reputation’ is involved.
EY has commented that his MetaEthics sequence is one of his least successful. Can anyone else do better? The ‘official’ ethical position here seems to be a kind of utilitarianism, but we ought (for some values of ‘ought’) to also know something about competing approaches to ethics, including deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and naturalistic ethics (Nozick, Gauthier, and Binmore, for example).
We have deontological ethics covered. At least one post by Alicorn and the actual direct moral assertions around here are usually significantly deontological in nature.
EY has commented that his MetaEthics sequence is one of his least successful. Can anyone else do better?
I started a post and fizzled about 2/3rds of the way through. I may approach it again with a fresh mind, and another topic I’m thinking about touches on it by the fringes, and so may be a good introduction.
I would like to see sequences of top level postings providing semi-technical tutorials on topics of interest to rationalists.
As one example of a topic: Moral Philosophy
EY has commented that his MetaEthics sequence is one of his least successful. Can anyone else do better? The ‘official’ ethical position here seems to be a kind of utilitarianism, but we ought (for some values of ‘ought’) to also know something about competing approaches to ethics, including deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and naturalistic ethics (Nozick, Gauthier, and Binmore, for example).
I know almost nothing about virtue ethics, for example, but it is intriguing because it seems to provide the most natural solution to the Parfit’s hitchhiker problem and other decision problems where ‘good reputation’ is involved.
We have deontological ethics covered. At least one post by Alicorn and the actual direct moral assertions around here are usually significantly deontological in nature.
I started a post and fizzled about 2/3rds of the way through. I may approach it again with a fresh mind, and another topic I’m thinking about touches on it by the fringes, and so may be a good introduction.