The most important part seems to be missing. You say that shouldness is about actions and consequences. I’m with you there. You say that it is a one-place function. I take that to mean that it encompasses a specific set of values, independent of who is asking. The part that still seems to be missing is: how are we to determine what this set of values is? What if we disagree? In your conclusion, you seem to be saying that the values we are aiming for are self-evident. Are they really?
It so happens that I agree with you about things like happiness, human life, and service to others. I even know that I could elaborate in writing on the ways and reasons these things are good. But—and this is the critical missing part that I can’t find—I do not know how to make these values and reasons universal! I may define “right” in terms of these values, but if another does not, then how are they “wrong” in any sense beyond their disagreement with my values? For example, what could be the reason that another one’s more ruthless pursuit of his own happiness is less right?
What claim could any person or group have to landing closer to the one-place function?
I agree with the concerns of AndyWood and others who have made similar comments, and I’ll be paying attention to see whether the later installments of the metaethics sequence have answered them. Before I read them, here is my own summarized set of concerns. (I apologize if responding to a given part of a sequence before reading the later parts is bad form; please let me know if this is the case.)
Eliezer seems to assume that any two neurologically normal humans would agree on the right function if they were fully rational and sufficiently informed, citing the psychological unity of humankind as support. But even with the present degree of psychological unity, it seems to me fully possible that people’s values could truly diverge in quite a few not-fully-reconcilable ways—although perhaps the divergence would be surprisingly small; I just don’t know. This is, I think we mostly agree, an open question for further research to explore.
Eliezer’s way of viewing morality seems like it would run into trouble if it turns out that two different people really do use two different right functions (such that even their CEVs would diverge from one another). Suppose Bob’s right function basically boils down to “does it maximize preference fulfillment?” (or some other utilitarian function) and Sally’s right function basically boils down to “does it follow a maxim which can be universally willed by a rational agent?” (or some other deontological function). Suppose Bob and Sally are committed to these functions even though each person is fully rational and sufficiently informed—which does not seem implausible.
In this case, the fact that each of them is using a one-place function is of no help, because they are using different one-place functions. Eliezer would then have no immediately obvious legitimate way to claim that his right function is the truer or better one.
To use a more extreme example: What if the Nazis were completely right, according to their own right function? The moral realist in me wants very much to say surely that either (a) the Nazis’ right function is the same as mine, and their normative ethics were mistaken by that very standard (which is Eliezer’s view, I think), or (b) the Nazis’ normative ethics matched their own right function, but their right function is not merely different from our right function, but is outright inferior to it.
If (a) is false AND if we are still committed to saying the Nazis were really wrong (there is also option (c) the Nazis were not wrong; but I’d like to exhaust the alternatives before seriously considering this as possible), then we need some means of distinguishing between better right functions and crummier right functions. I have some extremely vague ideas about how to do this, but I’m very curious to see what other thinkers, including Eliezer, have come up with. If the Nazis’ right function is inferior by some external standard (a standard that is really right) then what is this standard?
(Admittedly, as I understand it, the Nazis had many false beliefs about the Jews, so it may be debatable what their morality would have been if they had been fully rational and sufficiently informed.)
In summary, if we all indeed use the same right function deep down, this would be very convenient—but I worry that it is more convenient than reality really is.
The most important part seems to be missing. You say that shouldness is about actions and consequences. I’m with you there. You say that it is a one-place function. I take that to mean that it encompasses a specific set of values, independent of who is asking. The part that still seems to be missing is: how are we to determine what this set of values is? What if we disagree? In your conclusion, you seem to be saying that the values we are aiming for are self-evident. Are they really?
It so happens that I agree with you about things like happiness, human life, and service to others. I even know that I could elaborate in writing on the ways and reasons these things are good. But—and this is the critical missing part that I can’t find—I do not know how to make these values and reasons universal! I may define “right” in terms of these values, but if another does not, then how are they “wrong” in any sense beyond their disagreement with my values? For example, what could be the reason that another one’s more ruthless pursuit of his own happiness is less right?
What claim could any person or group have to landing closer to the one-place function?
I agree with the concerns of AndyWood and others who have made similar comments, and I’ll be paying attention to see whether the later installments of the metaethics sequence have answered them. Before I read them, here is my own summarized set of concerns. (I apologize if responding to a given part of a sequence before reading the later parts is bad form; please let me know if this is the case.)
Eliezer seems to assume that any two neurologically normal humans would agree on the right function if they were fully rational and sufficiently informed, citing the psychological unity of humankind as support. But even with the present degree of psychological unity, it seems to me fully possible that people’s values could truly diverge in quite a few not-fully-reconcilable ways—although perhaps the divergence would be surprisingly small; I just don’t know. This is, I think we mostly agree, an open question for further research to explore.
Eliezer’s way of viewing morality seems like it would run into trouble if it turns out that two different people really do use two different right functions (such that even their CEVs would diverge from one another). Suppose Bob’s right function basically boils down to “does it maximize preference fulfillment?” (or some other utilitarian function) and Sally’s right function basically boils down to “does it follow a maxim which can be universally willed by a rational agent?” (or some other deontological function). Suppose Bob and Sally are committed to these functions even though each person is fully rational and sufficiently informed—which does not seem implausible.
In this case, the fact that each of them is using a one-place function is of no help, because they are using different one-place functions. Eliezer would then have no immediately obvious legitimate way to claim that his right function is the truer or better one.
To use a more extreme example: What if the Nazis were completely right, according to their own right function? The moral realist in me wants very much to say surely that either (a) the Nazis’ right function is the same as mine, and their normative ethics were mistaken by that very standard (which is Eliezer’s view, I think), or (b) the Nazis’ normative ethics matched their own right function, but their right function is not merely different from our right function, but is outright inferior to it.
If (a) is false AND if we are still committed to saying the Nazis were really wrong (there is also option (c) the Nazis were not wrong; but I’d like to exhaust the alternatives before seriously considering this as possible), then we need some means of distinguishing between better right functions and crummier right functions. I have some extremely vague ideas about how to do this, but I’m very curious to see what other thinkers, including Eliezer, have come up with. If the Nazis’ right function is inferior by some external standard (a standard that is really right) then what is this standard?
(Admittedly, as I understand it, the Nazis had many false beliefs about the Jews, so it may be debatable what their morality would have been if they had been fully rational and sufficiently informed.)
In summary, if we all indeed use the same right function deep down, this would be very convenient—but I worry that it is more convenient than reality really is.