My preferred division: - [[Ethics is about how to live well]] - [[Morality is about what we owe to each other]] - [[Other-centred morality is based as much as possible on the needs and wants of others]] - [[Metamorality is about how groups with different moral codes can get along]] - [[Value theory (aka axiology) is about what makes the world better or worse.]] Notes on metaethics: - [[Moral epistemology]] - [[Moral intuitionism]] - [[Moral realism]] - [[Consequentialism]] - [[Subjectivism]] - [[Relativism]] - [[Ethical theory]] - [[Moral progress]] - [[Meta-ethics affects longtermist macro-strategy]] - [[Naturalism]] - [[Naturalism blurs the descriptive and the normative]] - [[Naturalist accounts of normativity are grounded on adaptiveness]] - [[Norms emerge from competition and selection, not universal reason]] - [[Naturalists think of morality as a system that enables us to realise gains from cooperation]] - [[Moral ideals are constrained by selection pressures]] - [[Domination, the exercise of power by some over others, is inexorable]] - [[=Henry Sidgwick]] - [[Philosophical methods]] - [[Judgements of beauty may be at the heart of ethics]] - [[Non-religious ethics]] - [[Sexual Selection for Morality]] Moral anthropology and sociology: - [[Moral entrepreneurs seek to influence groups to adopt or maintain a norm]] - [[Moral entrepreneurs probably have quite some scope to re-shape the local fitness landscape]] I put most credence on subjectivism about value, i.e. the view that states of affairs are valuable or disvaluable relative to the attitudes of particular agents. I have a hard time making sense of the idea that states of affairs are valuable or disvaluable in themselves, or from the "point of view" of the Universe: valuing strikes me as something that agents do. I think that value claims can be true or false—the truth conditions lie in the attitudes of the relevant agents. The relatively high similarity between humans underrwrites much of our agreement about what is valuable (e.g. it's why hedonistic utilitarianism—a focus on pleasure and suffering—works well as a common currency). An alien species would value differently to us. According to me, [[Theory of value does not entail theory of right action]], which means that I am not a straightforward maximising consequentialist. I do think that, in many circumstances, the maximising consequentialist lens offers the best answer. Like [[=Tyler Cowen]] and [[=Nick Beckstead]], I am keen on the position Tyler calls [[Two-thirds utilitarianism]]. My main concern about subjectivism is that it commits us to lots of unreasoned choices about how we develop our cares and capabilities. This freedom is attractive, but also mysterious. A couple of days per month I am tempted to put more credence on non-naturalist moral realism. My favourite kind of non-naturalist moral realism is pluralistic hedonistic utilitarianism along the lines of [[=Sharon Hewitt Rawlette]]. --- Assorted notes #todo: [[What is the point of moral philosophy]] [[Two-thirds utilitarianism]] [[Common sense morality]] [[Transhumanism]] [[Naturalists think of morality as a system that enables us to realise gains from cooperation]] [[The moral ecology perspective says that morality evolves like an ecosystem.]] [[Domain separatism takes a variety of domains as cognitive, and says each domain is evaluated by different standards. Moral realists use this claim to resist naturalism.]] [[Contractarianism says that moral principles have legitimate authority only if they are or could be consented to by most of the population]] [[Moral entrepreneurs seek to influence groups to adopt or maintain a norm]] [[Common sense morality has made major errors on the past, so it probably makes major errors now]] [[Moral grandstanding is the use of moral talk for self-promotion]] [[The Principle of Sacrifice says that if we can stop something bad happening at small cost to ourselves, we should do it]] [[People who uphold the act-omission distinction say that passively allowing something bad to happen is less bad than actively causing it to happen]] [[Maximising consequentialism may constrain individual liberty to an unacceptable degree]] ## Notes Karl Rove: We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.’