“I also don’t know what it looks like to make commitments “before” having values”
Well, in a world where an almighty god dishes out the 10 Commandments, there’s a list of commitments that might disagree with my values. In such a world, being created is enough to warrant those commitments. The commitments might not even represent God’s values for his human creatures, lol, but instead serve an instrumental purpose. As a matter of fact, I treat marriage contracts as a commitment that I respect others have even if I am not personally bound by the contract. I’m not religious though.
You seem to be looking for a decision theory that demonstrates better returns from its utility functions in some unusual thought experiments that aim to challenge:
causality
reasoning from evidence
the value of commitments
taking action based on personal beliefs
If you find a more practical thought experiment that demonstrates the difference between instrumental care-morality and intrinsic care-morality, you’ll be closer to a solution for a decision theory that justifies care-morality on instrumental (rational) grounds.
A classic evolution in human families is to go from care-morality (as young parents) to cooperation-morality (as older parents) to deference-morality (as aging parents). Your write-up has a lot of insights about parenting in it, I believe. Parenting might serve as a source of such thought experiments.
After browsing the references you gave, I wonder if you would be willing to post your take on the differences between:
trust between agents
predictions among agents of each other
the influence of (shared) commitments on decision-making among agents
Anyway, really interesting post you wrote, thank you.
You wrote:
“I also don’t know what it looks like to make commitments “before” having values”
Well, in a world where an almighty god dishes out the 10 Commandments, there’s a list of commitments that might disagree with my values. In such a world, being created is enough to warrant those commitments. The commitments might not even represent God’s values for his human creatures, lol, but instead serve an instrumental purpose. As a matter of fact, I treat marriage contracts as a commitment that I respect others have even if I am not personally bound by the contract. I’m not religious though.
You seem to be looking for a decision theory that demonstrates better returns from its utility functions in some unusual thought experiments that aim to challenge:
causality
reasoning from evidence
the value of commitments
taking action based on personal beliefs
If you find a more practical thought experiment that demonstrates the difference between instrumental care-morality and intrinsic care-morality, you’ll be closer to a solution for a decision theory that justifies care-morality on instrumental (rational) grounds.
A classic evolution in human families is to go from care-morality (as young parents) to cooperation-morality (as older parents) to deference-morality (as aging parents). Your write-up has a lot of insights about parenting in it, I believe. Parenting might serve as a source of such thought experiments.
After browsing the references you gave, I wonder if you would be willing to post your take on the differences between:
trust between agents
predictions among agents of each other
the influence of (shared) commitments on decision-making among agents
Anyway, really interesting post you wrote, thank you.