News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Formal Models for Ethics. Parent comment

Re:Formal Models for Ethics by RivieraKid on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:05AM (#24678743)
Yeah, ethics is subjective and it's fascinating that many smart people don't realize this. Ultimately it always boils down to "I feel this is right".

Of course, you can have objective claims such as "if all people followed this principle, it would have this outcome".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Formal Models for Ethics by coldtea on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:38AM (#24678949)
>Of course, you can have objective claims such as "if all people followed this principle, it would have this outcome".

Good luck proving the outcome for anything less than very trivial cases...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Formal Models for Ethics by RivieraKid on Sunday October 04, 2020 @12:21PM (#24680149)
Well obviously you can't prove the outcome of making a change in a complex physical system with many biological components. We can barely model a protein.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Formal Models for Ethics by animationwill on Sunday October 04, 2020 @09:33AM (#24678918)
There is a tension between relative/subjective ethics and absolute/objective ethics. Philosophers seek to discover the absolute, but they cannot shake the human condition
[ Parent | on HN ]