Disagree. It would be evidence that the creator of the universe believes Kantian ethics is true. It would only be evidence if we have reason to believe that the creator of the universe is especially likely to be right about ethics, which I donât think we do.
Agree that it would be stronger evidence for the creator/âsimulator believing Kantian ethics is true. I, however, also think that the creator believing X is true is some evidence that X is true, since the creator would reasonably have more power and knowledge, which makes me guess that they might be more likely than us to be right (hence the update toward their view).
Compared to the idea of different human philosophers taking different approaches and ultimately agreeing on ethics, it seems to me that this is only different in degree, in that the super-philosophers are better at philosophy.
Partially agree. The median AI super-philosopher would be better at developing and evaluating arguments than the median human philosopher, but that wouldnât be the only differentiator. There would be more AIs, and the entire process would be more systematic, allowing us to ask moral questions and receive higher-quality answers in a much shorter time. This matters because even if human philosophy is enough to reach true answers, there is less of a reason to be âon the searchâ if the rate of learning is too slow for big updates on moral claims to happen during our lifetimes.
If you have the ability to design minds, then it should be trivial to cause those minds to believe any ethical framework you want them to believe.
I think this assumes that moral intuitions are entirely downstream of the design of the mind. Also, having the ability to mostly force ethical frameworks into designed minds does not mean that you canât avoid doing this. The evidence would be weak(er) if we did not try to avoid this failure mode. I think simulating already-existing minds and then trying to idealize their cognition could lessen this distortion from us. Very naive guesses for ways to âscale up cognitionâ while avoiding âhuman influenceâ: scaling up their neural capacity, or simulating millions of generations and letting evolution do its thing.
I, however, also think that the creator believing X is true is some evidence that X is true, since the creator would reasonably have more power and knowledge, which makes me guess that they might be more likely than us to be right (hence the update toward their view).
This is only evidence for moral realism inasmuch as the creator has access to evidence about the true morality. If the creator went to you and said âhere is why I know Kantianism is trueâ and then gave some evidence, then that evidence would be evidence.
Basically, if the creator has good justification for their belief, they should be able to give you that justification. If they canât, then why does their belief mean anything?
I think this assumes that moral intuitions are entirely downstream of the design of the mind.
It is not clear to me that thereâs a way to set up this experiment that doesnât bake in the answer from the beginning.
If you design minds as idealized versions of already-existing minds (a la CEV), then theyâll be starting from the same moral intuitions. At least among extant human minds, moral intuitions donât vary by all that much.
If you run natural selection on highly intelligent minds, they will inevitably converge on the belief that the true morality is to maximize how many descendants they haveâbecause minds that hold that belief will, in the long run, out-compete minds that donât. It does not follow that the true morality is to maximize how many descendants you have.
Basically, if the creator has good justification for their belief, they should be able to give you that justification. If they canât, then why does their belief mean anything?
From a Bayesian perspective: if I hold credence P in X, and the creator says their credence is 100%, I update toward them because they are more reliable. Same way Iâd move toward âvaccines workâ if I were agnostic and learned that 90% of scientists believe they do (i.e. I donât need to see each [or any] scientistâs reasoning/âevidence to update toward their view). So the creatorâs belief can be evidence via reliability.
I agree that if the creator believes X thereâs some evidence for X somewhere; I just donât think that evidence has to be revealed for me to update. (Note: Scientists have a track record and the creator doesnât, but itâs not the track record itself that makes me update, itâs reliability; for scientists I get reliability via their track record, and for the creator itâs a medium-confidence assumption [less-defensible, I know])
Also, âif they canât give you the justificationâ assumes silence = inability. A creator stating a belief without the reasoning/âevidence doesnât mean they canât do so, just that they didnât. Besides, maybe they canât communicate; does that mean there is nothing to communicate? I donât think so. Either way (or other ways I canât think of, beyond choosing not to and not being able to communicate), I think learning about the creatorâs belief warrants an update.
Also, itâs not just the intuitions themselves that could change, but the confidence in them. Our intuitions (esp. when taken to their logical conclusions) contradict each other a lot; however, when doing moral philosophy, we often prioritize the higher-confidence one (e.g., my intuition that harming someone with no benefit to any is bad, beats my intuition that murderers deserve punishment). Confidence seems to vary between people (anecdotally), so if we were to scale up cognitively, I imagine that the intuitions we think will win could change.
Re #2, humans are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers. One of the adaptations we execute is that we believe in and sometimes act in accordance with a notion of morality. Itâs true that we are no longer in the EEA so further evolution could change or even eliminate our current notions of morality, but it doesnât follow that it would change it so that we thought maximizing our inclusive genetic fitness was the true morality. After all, the first time evolution had a chance, it didnât do that.
Weâve only known about evolution for two centuries, and the modern prosperous environment (compared to the ancestral environment), post-demographic-transition, is about equally new. This is the first time in evolutionary history that someone who wants to have a dozen children can pretty much just do that.
In the ancestral environment, the fittest humans werenât the ones who wanted to have the most children, or who thought it was moral to maximize their genetic influence over the future. They were the ones who were good at making tools, or good at making friends with people who make the tools, etc. Thatâs different now. Over millions of generations of simulated evolution, I expect the gene pool to become overwhelmingly dominated by people who want to have a lot of kids.
In the EEA, anyone could have as much sex as they wanted provided they found a willing partner (and sometimes even if they couldnât). It didnât make it so that they thought morality was having as much sex as they could. Morality is more complicated than that. There are more variables to select on than just desire to have sex /â children, and I suspect this will be true in future environments just as it was true in the EEA.
That said, I agree with your last statement that after sufficiently long most people will explicitly want to have a lot of kids. (Note that this isnât a statement about morality though.)
Thank you for the comment! I mostly agree.
Agree that it would be stronger evidence for the creator/âsimulator believing Kantian ethics is true. I, however, also think that the creator believing X is true is some evidence that X is true, since the creator would reasonably have more power and knowledge, which makes me guess that they might be more likely than us to be right (hence the update toward their view).
Partially agree. The median AI super-philosopher would be better at developing and evaluating arguments than the median human philosopher, but that wouldnât be the only differentiator. There would be more AIs, and the entire process would be more systematic, allowing us to ask moral questions and receive higher-quality answers in a much shorter time. This matters because even if human philosophy is enough to reach true answers, there is less of a reason to be âon the searchâ if the rate of learning is too slow for big updates on moral claims to happen during our lifetimes.
I think this assumes that moral intuitions are entirely downstream of the design of the mind. Also, having the ability to mostly force ethical frameworks into designed minds does not mean that you canât avoid doing this. The evidence would be weak(er) if we did not try to avoid this failure mode. I think simulating already-existing minds and then trying to idealize their cognition could lessen this distortion from us. Very naive guesses for ways to âscale up cognitionâ while avoiding âhuman influenceâ: scaling up their neural capacity, or simulating millions of generations and letting evolution do its thing.
This is only evidence for moral realism inasmuch as the creator has access to evidence about the true morality. If the creator went to you and said âhere is why I know Kantianism is trueâ and then gave some evidence, then that evidence would be evidence.
Basically, if the creator has good justification for their belief, they should be able to give you that justification. If they canât, then why does their belief mean anything?
It is not clear to me that thereâs a way to set up this experiment that doesnât bake in the answer from the beginning.
If you design minds as idealized versions of already-existing minds (a la CEV), then theyâll be starting from the same moral intuitions. At least among extant human minds, moral intuitions donât vary by all that much.
If you run natural selection on highly intelligent minds, they will inevitably converge on the belief that the true morality is to maximize how many descendants they haveâbecause minds that hold that belief will, in the long run, out-compete minds that donât. It does not follow that the true morality is to maximize how many descendants you have.
From a Bayesian perspective: if I hold credence P in X, and the creator says their credence is 100%, I update toward them because they are more reliable. Same way Iâd move toward âvaccines workâ if I were agnostic and learned that 90% of scientists believe they do (i.e. I donât need to see each [or any] scientistâs reasoning/âevidence to update toward their view). So the creatorâs belief can be evidence via reliability.
I agree that if the creator believes X thereâs some evidence for X somewhere; I just donât think that evidence has to be revealed for me to update. (Note: Scientists have a track record and the creator doesnât, but itâs not the track record itself that makes me update, itâs reliability; for scientists I get reliability via their track record, and for the creator itâs a medium-confidence assumption [less-defensible, I know])
Also, âif they canât give you the justificationâ assumes silence = inability. A creator stating a belief without the reasoning/âevidence doesnât mean they canât do so, just that they didnât. Besides, maybe they canât communicate; does that mean there is nothing to communicate? I donât think so. Either way (or other ways I canât think of, beyond choosing not to and not being able to communicate), I think learning about the creatorâs belief warrants an update.
On 1, Iâm not sure I understand why moral intuitions wouldnât change in a CEV. Why would intutions not be partly downstream of cognitive capacity? (Also: this is probably cherry-picking (Googled the question), but people with higher cognitive (verabl) abilities seem to have weaker âpurityâ-based moral intutions.)
Also, itâs not just the intuitions themselves that could change, but the confidence in them. Our intuitions (esp. when taken to their logical conclusions) contradict each other a lot; however, when doing moral philosophy, we often prioritize the higher-confidence one (e.g., my intuition that harming someone with no benefit to any is bad, beats my intuition that murderers deserve punishment). Confidence seems to vary between people (anecdotally), so if we were to scale up cognitively, I imagine that the intuitions we think will win could change.
On 2, I agree. Didnât think of this.
Re #2, humans are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers. One of the adaptations we execute is that we believe in and sometimes act in accordance with a notion of morality. Itâs true that we are no longer in the EEA so further evolution could change or even eliminate our current notions of morality, but it doesnât follow that it would change it so that we thought maximizing our inclusive genetic fitness was the true morality. After all, the first time evolution had a chance, it didnât do that.
Weâve only known about evolution for two centuries, and the modern prosperous environment (compared to the ancestral environment), post-demographic-transition, is about equally new. This is the first time in evolutionary history that someone who wants to have a dozen children can pretty much just do that.
In the ancestral environment, the fittest humans werenât the ones who wanted to have the most children, or who thought it was moral to maximize their genetic influence over the future. They were the ones who were good at making tools, or good at making friends with people who make the tools, etc. Thatâs different now. Over millions of generations of simulated evolution, I expect the gene pool to become overwhelmingly dominated by people who want to have a lot of kids.
In the EEA, anyone could have as much sex as they wanted provided they found a willing partner (and sometimes even if they couldnât). It didnât make it so that they thought morality was having as much sex as they could. Morality is more complicated than that. There are more variables to select on than just desire to have sex /â children, and I suspect this will be true in future environments just as it was true in the EEA.
That said, I agree with your last statement that after sufficiently long most people will explicitly want to have a lot of kids. (Note that this isnât a statement about morality though.)