I'm curious what you make of this conversation. It began with Sam's argument that moral values can be derived from science and reason... and then morphed into an intense discussion about how to communicate across religious borders. We have to figure this out, right?https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/1057411009474781184 …
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And I never claim that we can know that we are on a peak...
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So peaks are ontological Platonic ideals in a sense? If so, & something like a placeholder for "attaining absolute moral perfection" (akin to mathematical truth) & climbing towards them is consistent with infinite progress -very well. But in that case, there's identically one. :)
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But if a peak is actually reachable - obtainable by fallible humans - then there must be a way of knowing that we're on a peak as well as not. Fallibly as always.
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Ah, in order for it to be obtainable to arbitrary accuracy we have to be able to detect and correct for the error of being moved off the peak? Then the impossibility of knowing when you're on a peak implies peaks are physically impossible states.
End of conversation
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The 'worst possible misery for everyone' plays the logical role of a foundation in your theory, which is why you often say the phrase, "That's all I need to get this started". We start with moral problems and theories we already have, not from a kind of self-evident intuition.
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And when two competing theories are proposed to solve a moral problem, on what basis do you evaluate them?
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We evaluate using reason. Objective criteria. Always fallible, always subject to new information and liable to errors and improvements. In general it involves criticising both until one remains.
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Exactly. And in that same vein, we do it by criticizing both theories *against the conditions of the problem situation* they both aim to address, as well as against the logical and explanatory constraints imposed by all our other best knowledge, seeking contradictions.
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What do you call an intuition that keeps winning these contests, and about which you have to see a coherent criticism?
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What we *call* these things is less important than what they are. You may call it an intuition. Or assumption. I just call that kind of claim “knowledge”. It depends on context. But not possibly a foundation. :)
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This calls to mind and old philosophy joke: if you call a horse’s tail a leg, how many legs does it have? . . . . . 4! It has 4. . . You can *call* the tail whatever you like. A horse has 4 legs.
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There’s only one moral imperative from which all others follow: To safeguard the means of error-correction. That entails there being one, infinitely high mountain in the moral landscape - and progress consists of climbing (and creating) it.
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'Foundational in a weaker sense' -- "is" 'Higher spot' -- "ought" Claiming you can't know you're on a peak but claiming you're in a better or 'higher' position still implies an ought. You can't make that leap.
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Nice to see Sam is putting arguments forward that I conjectured he would when we had this discussion with regards to peak analogy etc.
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