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Rationalists subscribe to utilitarianism, which in and of itself is incoherent moral philosophy. It has two main problems:
Inability to define utils. Utils are mired with inconsistencies, it is hard to put against each other suffering vs pleasure. Many rationalists evade this as principle of minimizing suffering, but even then there is a problem of comparison: is sand grain in an eye of 1,000 people worse than broken arm of one person?
Time inconsistency of utils. Actions that decrease utils today may increase them tomorrow. Existential comics has a good example for trolley problem in that vein.
The word "rationally" does a lot of heavy lifting here, as it assumes utilitarianism. Let's say I subscribe to virtue ethics, which says that I cannot commit murder. But then a rationalist comes and says "hey, if you kill Hitler in his crib, you will prevent countless murders in the future". Wrong, this is not going rationally about my moral assumptions, it is assuming completely different moral system.
Ok, then I am incorrectly interpreting the term rationalism. I hadn't really understood that it came with moral commitments like utilitarianism. I thought it was more related to ways of thinking and analyzing, as opposed to a moral outlook.
Like here, on the motte, there are many people who vehemently oppose utilitarianism and adhere to other moral outlooks but in general the guiding principles of this forum are that one is open to rational argument. I assumed that was what rationalism refers too. Not just being someone with the same moral principles as Scott Alexander.
Not as I intended to use it. I was using the term "rationally" to mean logically extended from your moral principles - whatever those are.
Agreed. So does rationalism refer to "going rationally about my moral assumptions" or "utilitarianism by way of Scott Alexander" - when used here?
You are not the first one to point this out, rationalism is a terrible name for the movement. Mostly because rationalism already exists as a philosophical system, partially defined as opposition to empiricism. This form of rationalism is the belief, that the basis of all eternal truth comes from reason alone. Hence Descartes argument of cogito ergo sum which comes from total critique of validity of senses. Which is exactly the opposite to what Yud/Alexander "rationalists" espouse. Rationalists are really empiricists in this way.
First, this is silly. Rationalists were not the first ones to invent logic, this is too broad a definition. On practical level famoust rationalists are obsessed with movements like Effective Altruism, which is rabidly utilitarian. Scott Alexander described himself as consequentialist utilitarian. Alexander described also Robin Hanson as total utilitaian. Yudkowsky is not very clear writer on this, he often espouses consequentialist and utilitarian thinking, but he complicates stuff. I find this short tweet as a very good summary:
So 2 and a half or two and three quarters for three are team utilitarianism. So I do not think I misjudged that.
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A bit of a tangent, but I can't really read existential comics anymore after seeing his twitter.
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