<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px">The old view of perfect rationality and perfect introspection is pretty clearly not a good model for how people actually act and think morally. anders</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Exactly so. If that idea is not dead yet it is high time it is.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">In some moral experiments a hypothetical dilemma is presented and the person picks an action he would take. Similar dilemmas are presented later to get some idea of the reliability of answers.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Reliability is never found to be perfect. In fact, if you change the dilemma a bit you can get entirely different answers. This challenges the idea that there is some fixed moral system in a person. Going even further, change the externals: put the same dilemma in a less personal or more personal situation and you can find that the situation changes the behavior. This is an old problem: the causes of behavior stem from both external and internal variables.</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Thus this is a possibility: a person who has committed murder would not have done so earlier or later in the day, if they had not been angry, or drunk, or had just come from another frustrating experience. Is this person a 'murderer', implying a personality that would do the same thing even if circumstances were different? Or is this a person who would commit murder only in the circumstance he faced?</span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">We have to look outward as well as inward to understand morality. If we get unreliability of answers to moral questions, then it could be that the measurements are unreliable and we need to better them. It could also be that the thing being measured is not, in fact, unchangeable, and the unreliability of the measurements reflects the unreliability of the thing itself. In fact, it could be so unreliable that it is a mistake to call it a thing. </span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-size:12.8px">bill w</span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 3:08 AM, Anders Sandberg <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" target="_blank">anders@aleph.se</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<div>I think he is stretching the theory too
far. That our ability to introspect doesn't cover 100% of our
minds, nor is 100% perfect doesn't mean there are no detectable
thoughts or beliefs. These exceptions do not have to be minor
"limited exceptions". Similarly, that we might use a mindreading
system inwards does not mean it is limited by sensory input:
contents of working memory clearly seem accessible to it. <br>
<br>
The "new" view that the mind is fairly opaque, embodied, and has a
lot of biases *is* a challenge to a lot of moral philosophy. My
colleagues are happily scanning brains and arguing how integrated
mental subsystems have to be before we can properly say that a
person is responsible (or that there is a person there, as in
minimally conscious states). The old view of perfect rationality
and perfect introspection is pretty clearly not a good model for
how people actually act and think morally.<br>
<br>
The next question is how to enhance it. Just because a moral
system might not be implementable in a current human brain might
not mean it is not morally better than the implementable ones, and
if we could update ourselves to be able to follow it we should. <br><div><div class="h5">
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2016-05-27 21:37, William Flynn Wallace wrote:<br>
</div></div></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div><div class="h5">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default">excerpt from
link below:</div>
<div class="gmail_default"><br>
</div>
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<p>If our
thoughts and decisions are all unconscious, as the ISA
theory implies, then moral philosophers have a lot of work
to do. For we tend to think that people can’t be held
responsible for their unconscious attitudes. Accepting the
ISA theory might not mean giving up on responsibility, but
it will mean radically rethinking it.</p>
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<div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/whatever-you-think-you-don-t-necessarily-know-your-own-mind?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=13a95dde3e-Weekly_Newsletter_27_May_20165_27_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-13a95dde3e-68993993" target="_blank">https://aeon.co/ideas/whatever-you-think-you-don-t-necessarily-know-your-own-mind?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=13a95dde3e-Weekly_Newsletter_27_May_20165_27_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-13a95dde3e-68993993</a></font><br>
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<div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="comic sans ms, sans-serif"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default"><font color="#000000" face="comic sans ms, sans-serif">bill w</font></div>
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<pre cols="72">--
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University
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