[extropy-chat] In defense of moral relativism

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Fri Apr 29 12:19:32 UTC 2005


On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 11:26:29PM -0700, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

> >This is, indeed, the main reason why I don't like the very concepts of
> >absolute truth, or objective morality: the "I Am The Champion Of The

I don't like these terms either, because apart from evolutionary artefacted
fuzzy consensus (with many an outlier) there is no such animal. 

> >Truth" stance leads to gassing people for thinking different.
> 
> That's a complete non-sequitur.  Morality exists within a human mind. 
> Reality, as best we can figure out how it works, was around at least 13 
> billion years before ever humans showed on the scene.  I'm not sure what 
> "absolute truth" is but if you define it in such a way that it equates to 
> "external reality" then I'm all for external reality.

External reality does not put a lot of bounds on behaviour algorithms.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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