And I am not saying that I agree with that majority view. All I am saying is that since you know that, to sort of pretend that it’s not the case is a bit strange.
ArisC
Karma: 30
First impressions...
Evaluating Moral Theories
I suspect you are coming from a “men are actually “less equal” than women” perspective...
Yes, but by the same standard, all metrics are interesting to the extent they are causal to happiness!
Hello from Beijing.
I found out about Less Wrong from Slate Star Codex. I also read HPMOR last year, but hadn’t realised there was a connection between that and Less Wrong.
I am posting here because I have been thinking about morality. I get into a lot of debates that all boil down to the fact that people hold a very firm belief in a particular moral principle, to the extent that they would be happy to force others to live in accordance to that principle, without evaluating whether this principle is subjective or rational.
In response to this, I have come up with a framework for evaluating moral theories, and I would like to hear the rationalist community’s feedback. Briefly, what I propose is that a moral theory needs to meet three criteria: a) the ethical principles that comprise it must not be internally contradictory; b) its ethical principles must be non-arbitrary as far as possible (so, “be good to other people just because” is not good enough); and c) if the theory’s principles are taken to their logical conclusion, they must not lead to a society that the theory’s proponents themselves would consider dystopian.
I would like to hear people’s thoughts on this—if you think it’s intriguing, I am happy to submit an article to expand on my rationale for proposing this framework.
Best, Aris
To be fair, I’m not saying it’s obviously wrong; I’m saying it’s not obviously true, which is what many people seem to believe!
My metrics are likely to be quite different from yours
And that’s fine! If everyone here gave me a list of 5-10 metrics instead of pedantic responses, I’d be able to choose a few I like, and boom, problem solved.
It’s easy to generate tons of metrics, what’s hard is generating a relatively small list that does the job. If you are too lazy to contribute to the discussion, fine. But contributing just pedantic remarks is a waste of everyone’s time.
My parents always told me “we only compare ourselves to the best”. I am only making these criticisms because rationalists self-define as, well, rational. And to be, rationality also has to do with achieving something. Pedantry, sophistry &c are unwelcome distractions.
Jesus Christ. This is beyond derailed. For what it’s worth, gjm is right, people are either purposefully misrepresenting what I wrote (in which case they are pedantic and juvenile) or they didn’t understand what I meant (in which case, you know, go out and interact with people outside your bubble).
And anyway—the reason I want to measure progress towards closing the gap where women have it worse is so that I can fairly evaluate feminist arguments about Trump in 4 years time. If in 4 years time it turns out that women earn more than men across the board, that >50% of governors are women and that women are CEOs of like 80% of the Fortune 500, you will be able to say “rhetoric aside, it looks like Trump actually helped women”.
Going for “aha! Trump improved men’s lot in these fields where they were disadvantaged” will only increase polarisation. Maybe worth tracking, in the name of truth and science; but again, not what I was going for.
Done! Thanks.
I am actually looking for criteria to evaluate any president. I only wrote Trump because it’s whom I had in mind, obviously. Can I edit my own article?
OK that’s not a well thought out response. So if Trump launches a nuclear war, or tanks the economy, or deports all Muslims &c, that’s fine as long as he meets these 3 criteria?!
I am trying to list criteria by which to evaluate any president. I am not trying to set up Trump to fail—else I could just have “appoint a liberal Justice”.
Because what do I care how someone lives their personal life? I care the moment they start telling me how to live mine.
Metrics to evaluate a Presidency
Do you ask the same question of opponents of climate change? Opponents of open borders? Opponents of abortion? Opponents of gun violence?
They’re not the same. None of these are extinction events; if preventing the extinction of the human race doesn’t legitimise violence, what does? (And if you say nothing, does that mean you don’t believe in the enforcement of laws?)
Basically, I can’t see a coherent argument against violence that’s not predicated either on a God, or on humanity’s quest for ‘truth’ or ideal ethics; and the latter is obviously cut short if humans go extinct, so it wouldn’t ban violence to prevent this outcome.
But that’s not general intelligence; general intelligence requires considering a wider range of problems holistically, and drawing connections among them.
Not an explicit map; I’m raising the possibility that capability leads to malleable goals.
You in particular did provide metrics, so I am not complaining! Although, to be perfectly honest, I do think your delivery is sort of passive aggressive or disingenuous… you know that nearly everyone, when discussing gender inequality, use the term to mean that women are disadvantaged. You provide metrics to evaluate improvement in areas where men are disadvantaged—i.e. your underlying assumption/hypothesis is the opposite of everyone else, but you don’t acknowledge it.