If your standard is “explains human (and animal) behavior”, I think you again can’t make moral progress, because you no longer have any reason to deviate from past human behavior. For example, “we should maximize pleasure and minimize pain” seems terrible at explaining observations like slavery, war, torture, etc.
(For more on this point, see this post, particularly the “Mistakes are fundamental” section.)
If your standard is “explains human (and animal) behavior”, I think you again can’t make moral progress, because you no longer have any reason to deviate from past human behavior. For example, “we should maximize pleasure and minimize pain” seems terrible at explaining observations like slavery, war, torture, etc.
“humans seek out pleasure and avoid pain” is universal, so it seems like a good reason to say that pleasure and the avoidance of pain have absolute value. “humans seek to enslave, war and torture” is not universal and so does not seem like a good reason to say that these things have absolute value; and even if it is some weak evidence that these things have value to some people, it is dwarfed by the very strong evidence that their consequences have significant negative value, since nearly everyone tries to avoid being enslaved, tortured, etc.
(caveat: i happen to think value is necessarily relational, but that is perhaps getting too sidetracked.)
If your standard is “explains human (and animal) behavior”, I think you again can’t make moral progress, because you no longer have any reason to deviate from past human behavior. For example, “we should maximize pleasure and minimize pain” seems terrible at explaining observations like slavery, war, torture, etc.
(For more on this point, see this post, particularly the “Mistakes are fundamental” section.)
thanks—i read christiano’s post.
“humans seek out pleasure and avoid pain” is universal, so it seems like a good reason to say that pleasure and the avoidance of pain have absolute value. “humans seek to enslave, war and torture” is not universal and so does not seem like a good reason to say that these things have absolute value; and even if it is some weak evidence that these things have value to some people, it is dwarfed by the very strong evidence that their consequences have significant negative value, since nearly everyone tries to avoid being enslaved, tortured, etc.
(caveat: i happen to think value is necessarily relational, but that is perhaps getting too sidetracked.)