But that’s clearly not true, except in the sense that it’s “arbitrary” to prefer life over death. It’s a pretty safe generalization that actions which are considered to be immoral are those which are considered to be likely to cause harm to others.
From an reproductive fitness point of view, or a what-humans-prefer point of view, there’s nothing at all arbitrary about morality. Yes, it does mostly contain things that avoid harm. But from an objective point of view, “avoid harm” or “increase reproductive fitness” is as arbitrary as “make paperclips” or “pile pebbles in prime numbered heaps”.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still would prefer living in a utopia of freedom and prosperity to being converted to paperclips, as does probably everyone else in the human race. It’s just not written into the fabric of the universe that I SHOULD prefer that, or provable by an AI that doesn’t already know that.
But that’s clearly not true, except in the sense that it’s “arbitrary” to prefer life over death. It’s a pretty safe generalization that actions which are considered to be immoral are those which are considered to be likely to cause harm to others.
From an reproductive fitness point of view, or a what-humans-prefer point of view, there’s nothing at all arbitrary about morality. Yes, it does mostly contain things that avoid harm. But from an objective point of view, “avoid harm” or “increase reproductive fitness” is as arbitrary as “make paperclips” or “pile pebbles in prime numbered heaps”.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still would prefer living in a utopia of freedom and prosperity to being converted to paperclips, as does probably everyone else in the human race. It’s just not written into the fabric of the universe that I SHOULD prefer that, or provable by an AI that doesn’t already know that.