There is a defense of ideas related to your position here
For the record I also don’t find that post compelling, and I’m not sure how related it is to my point. I think you can coherently think that the moral truth is consistent (and that ethics is likely to not be consistent if there is no moral truth), but be uncertain about it. Analogously I’m pretty uncertain what the correct decision theory is, and think that whatever that decision theory is, it would have to be self-consistent.
Yeah that makes sense to me. To be clear, the fact that two smart people have told me that they disagree with my sense that moral realism pushes against consistency seems like good evidence that my intuitions shouldn’t be taken too strongly here.
My impression is that realism isn’t a majority view among EAs, but is way higher than the general non-religious public / greater tech and policy communities that lots of EAs come out of.
Though I think this is something I want to see critiqued regardless of realist-ness.
Could you say more about this? (My anecdata suggest that EAs typically embrace anti-realism)
Also, moral realism seems more predictive of ethics being consistent, not less. (Not consistent with our unreflected intuitions, though.)
My spouse shared this view when reading a draft of this post, which I found interesting because my intuitions went somewhat strongly the other way.
I don’t really have strong views here, but it seems like are three possible scenarios for realists:
Morality follows consistent rules and behave according to a logic we currently use
Morality follow consistent rules but doesn’t behave according to a logic we currently use
Morality doesn’t follow consistent rules
And in 2⁄3 of those, this problem might exist, so I leaned toward saying that this was an issue for realists.
There is a defense of ideas related to your position here that I didn’t find it particularly compelling personally.
For the record I also don’t find that post compelling, and I’m not sure how related it is to my point. I think you can coherently think that the moral truth is consistent (and that ethics is likely to not be consistent if there is no moral truth), but be uncertain about it. Analogously I’m pretty uncertain what the correct decision theory is, and think that whatever that decision theory is, it would have to be self-consistent.
Yeah that makes sense to me. To be clear, the fact that two smart people have told me that they disagree with my sense that moral realism pushes against consistency seems like good evidence that my intuitions shouldn’t be taken too strongly here.
I’d be interested in a survey on this.
My impression is that realism isn’t a majority view among EAs, but is way higher than the general non-religious public / greater tech and policy communities that lots of EAs come out of.
Though I think this is something I want to see critiqued regardless of realist-ness.