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Article 5605 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: AI failures
Message-ID: <1992May12.091534.22317@norton.com>
Date: 12 May 92 09:15:34 GMT
References: <1992May10.184816.19179@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 62

In comp.ai.philosophy article <1992May9.185900.11461@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> you wrote:
> Morality is tricky; I've never been able to make any
> sense of it.

And for good reason, most moral systems are actually just the 
opposite of "moral" and simply don't 'make sense' (a legacy of 2000 years of religious "morality").  The problem is that many 
philosophers jump into morality in midstream without knowing where to 
start or even what they are talking about.  They already know where 
they want to get to (some kind of altruism usually), and if they went 
down to the fundamentals they know they couldn't get there and 
maintain a rational train of argument.

The right place to start thinking about morality is to ask "What is 
morality?" and "What else do I need to know before I can study it?" 
(ie. what is the philosophical foundation on which morality rests?).

What is morality?  It is a set of principles telling you what choices 
ought to be made.  Note that this applies to any moral theory, right, 
wrong, arbitrary, or skeptical.  The goal is to discover what set of 
principles is the right one, and if there is such a thing as a right 
one.

What foundation is necessary to answer such a questionby us?  generated by divine powers?  consistent 
over time?  can facts be changed by thought?), and (after the first 
three) a theory of value.  If morality tells you what to do, it has 
to be in the pursuit of some goal (otherwise it would make no sense 
to say that one course of action was better or worse than some other) 
and that is why you need some kind of value theory (is your highest 
value your own life and happiness?  society's welfare?  the 
biosphere's welfare?  your genetic welfare?  God's welfare? or are 
all value equally good?  equally bad?).  Clearly these last will be 
determined by the metaphysical and epistemological premises, and the 
moral conclusions will flow from the value system it is based on.

Seen from this perspective, it is pretty easy to see that religious 
metaphysics is consistent with revelation in epistemology, religious 
collectivism as the standard of value, religious ethics, and 
theocracy in politics.  Likewise, subjectivism in metaphysics is 
compatible with intuitionism in epistemology, nihilism, altruism, or 
social subjectivism in ethics, and whim-ridden collectivism in 
politics.  And realism (and it's variants) in metaphysics are 
consistent with reason in epistemology, egoism in ethics, and 
capitalism in politics.

As you can imagine, jumping into the middle of this without clearly 
defined premises about metaphysics and epistemology is pretty 
hopeless, particularly when the philosopher usually has some 
pre-destined conclusion in mind before he begins.

The best way I have found to evaluate philosophical claims, and moral 
ones in particular, is to ask "How do I know that." about the claims 
and about my answers to that question.  Usually, within two or three 
steps, a moral system will break down to "Just because.".  That's a 
sure sign it's wrong.

--Brian

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