P

pliny

3 karmaJoined Jan 2015

Comments
4

I agree that the core EA tenets make sense also according to most non-consequentialist views.

Like which ones?

I’ve also found that some other anti-realists are extremely confident (though not certain) that consequentialism is true, though it’s an open question how often this is reasonable.

I don't understand this. To quote a guy from LessWrong:

"While I guess this could be logically possible, anyone who is not a moral realist needs to provide some kind of explanation for what exactly a normative theory is supposed to be doing and what it means to assert one if there are no moral facts."

Also, I think positions one, two, and four are in fact compatible with consequentialism. That said, your post is still useful since, whatever terminology we may use to describe them, these issues happen to be important.

I too reject moral realism!

It occurs to me that this has big consequences. For example, some guys talk about being obligated under utilitarianism to give away almost all their income, or devote themselves to far future folks who don't yet exist. Maybe the only barrier, they say, deflecting this crushing weight is that if you push yourself too hard then you might burn out. This never seemed satisfactory to me. But if morality is in our minds, then these obligations don't exist. There is no need to push ourselves even just shy of burning out. I am free.