From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!norton!brian Mon May 25 14:04:57 EDT 1992
Article 5603 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!psinntp!norton!brian
>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Subject: Re: AI failures
Message-ID: <1992May12.081742.22060@norton.com>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
References: <MORAVEC.92May10004528@turing.think.com>
Date: Tue, 12 May 1992 08:17:42 GMT
Lines: 130

In comp.ai.philosophy article <MORAVEC.92May10004528@turing.think.com> you wrote: 
> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes: 
> > You imply that societal decisions will always be moral ones.  What about
> > South Africa?  What about slavery in the U.S.?

...and the USSR, and China, and Cuba, and Cambodia, and Nazi Germany, and 
Ethiopia, and Uganda, and North Korea...

> > Well, your parents were *your* creator, and presumably until you were
> > about 18 your sole means of support.  Does this mean that infanticide
> > is "moral"?
>  ...
> > And so presumably those who are using heart-lung machines or dialysis
> > machines who go into arrears can *morally* be unplugged...
 
> I didn't imply that social rules are by any measure perfect: they're
> more like the cultural equivalent of genes: some work better than others,
> and its often hard to tell in the short run: it takes constant trail and
> error to keep thing reasonably functional.
 
On what basis do you claim that morality is an issue of *social* rules?  
Doesn't morality have anything to say to people living on desert islands 
all alone?  Things like "Don't be lazy!" and "Don't take foolish risks!".

What you seem to be saying here is that trial and error is that reason 
should not be used to evaluate moral consequences, but rather, we shoces out 
the window.  If anything, the fact that morality is a matter of life or 
death means that we ought to use our best tools to address the questions at 
hand (ie. reason rather than unidentified emotions or traditions).kept 
enormous numbers of people from developing their powers fully and resulted 
in arrested development of civilization.  Are you saying that because it 
existed it must have been good or must have served a purpose (and a 'good' 
one at that!)?   Incredible!

> Other means of population control, increasing wealth and
> mechanization gradually displaced them.  Saying that the old solutions were
> "immoral" is just name calling.  

So what you are saying is that such practices were morally good then, but 
not now, right?  Look at where that kind of social subjectivism leads 
you...In 1996 David Duke is elected by 51% of the population and they claim 
the right to redefine morality, and viola...it is perfectly moral to 
persecute people because of race.  Would you condone that?  How could you 
argue otherwise?

If you think that discussions of morality is just a matter of "name 
calling" then what makes any particular name better or worse than any 
other?  You seem very chose to saying that morality is irrelevant and 
illusory.  This directly contradicts your earlier position that it is a 
factual matter of life and death.

> Of course, name calling is an effective tool in political debate, and sways 
> opinions.

"Useful" for what?  Deceit?  Do you think that morality is just a con game 
for politicians who want to gain power?  You certainly seem to.

> What is considered moral behavior changes with time and circumstance,

As have theories on the orbits of planets and where babies come from, but 
that doesn't lead anyone (well, anyone sensible) to the conclusion that 
there is no such thing aGive me 
a break!

> > "Tribally-forged instincts"?!
> > And whatever our *instincts* may (or may not) be, this tells me *nothing*
> > about what our morality should be - unless you believe that it should
> > simply follow our instincts, which, in other words, denies a place for
> > morality at all.
 
> My point was that our instincts were forged over a long period, at least
> several hundred thousand years, when we lived in small tribes, 

Aside from a few primitive reflexes (like the suckling reflex in infants) 
human beings HAVE NO INSTINCTS.  Unlike animals, we have conscious control 
of what we do.  How do you propose to demonstrate that these "instincts" 
exist?  If you could somehow show that instincts (rather than choice) 
determined our actions in some context, that would remove that area from 
the field of morality, since morality deals specifically with matters of 
choice.  If you have no choice about your actions, it makes no sense to 
evaluate the morality of that situation.

> and most
> of our instincts are tuned to that way of life.  For instance, wiping out
> the weaker neighboring tribe if they were crowding you too much was
> probably a basic survival strategy: otherwise the territory couldn't
> provide enough food, and both tribes would slowly die.  

Why do you think that such behaviors must be instinctual?  Couldn't they be 
matters of choice?  Remember though, if there's no choice then there's no 
morality involved.

> But in the last
> paltry few thousand years, we've invented agricultural megacivilizations,
> working around our no-longer-quite-appropriate tribal instincts.  Part of
> the solution was a behavior-altering conditioning process, modulating our
> instinctive behavior.  Under it, some things are RIGHT!, and some things
> are WRONG!, and if we're taught well enough, especially at an early age, we
> become fine upstanding MORAL citizens.  Exactly what's right and what's
> wrong keeps changing, 

Do you mean that they keep changing because the specific applications keep 
changing (eg. there was no need for moral positions on issues like drug 
abuse before the drugs were invented), or because society can just choose 
to make this or that behavior "moral"?

> and is the subject of continuing debate.
> Some religous (and later humanist) windbags come along, who claim
> that these rules are somehow fundamental to the cosmos. That's
> their debating strategy.
 
How do you know that this is just a "debating strategy"?  To draw such a 
conclusion don't you have to prove they are wrong?

> I'll take E.O. Wilson over your favorite dead humanist windbag any day.

I'm not familiar with Wilson.  What's his story?

> Nobody has all the answers, but at least the scientific approach has 
> effective way of checking out opinions.
 
What's yours" Taking a public opinion poll?

--Brian

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