I am not one of those who thinks non-consequentialist ethics are inherently nonsense. Reflecting on my position slightly, I was saying:
1) A “decent” moral system will very likely have the property that misleading others about one’s preferences will be advantageous to the individual, but bad for the group.
2) Telepathy makes misleading others about one’s preferences more difficult. That assumes telepathy is essentially involuntary mind-reading. If it is more like reliable cell phone service, then I’m not sure telepathy would make any moral system easier to implement.
Telepathy that’s more like reliable cellphone service would make a lot of general societal things, including any widely-agreed-upon moral system, easier to implement because transaction cost reductions benefit everyone involved.
I am not one of those who thinks non-consequentialist ethics are inherently nonsense. Reflecting on my position slightly, I was saying:
1) A “decent” moral system will very likely have the property that misleading others about one’s preferences will be advantageous to the individual, but bad for the group.
2) Telepathy makes misleading others about one’s preferences more difficult. That assumes telepathy is essentially involuntary mind-reading. If it is more like reliable cell phone service, then I’m not sure telepathy would make any moral system easier to implement.
Telepathy that’s more like reliable cellphone service would make a lot of general societal things, including any widely-agreed-upon moral system, easier to implement because transaction cost reductions benefit everyone involved.
I expect that if telepathy of this sort were common, self-deception would be even more common than it already is.