I guess I'm not really sure what you even mean when you say "justified".
I take justified to simply mean your action has been arrived at rationally, sourced by your "values" and not contradicting any "principles". Examples:
Me stabbing myself in the foot right now. Not justified, because I derive utility from my health (even though it doesn't necessarily go against any principles I have)
Me going out and stealing some fruit. I am hungry, but theft goes against my principles. Not justified.
Me going out and buying lunch. I am hungry, and this action doesn't go against any principles, so it is justified.
I expect people to act on their beliefs and values.
So those beliefs/values, to me, are the justification for the subsequent actions.
True, there are usually multiple fundamental values that people have. But I'm not sure why that would make such a huge difference
What? That makes the entire difference! One basic assumption to what I am proposing is that we are developing a system of principles of action (see earlier reply about the change to "principles" instead of "values") which would be followed by a group of sentient beings. If they are only each given one fundamental desire and it is in direct conflict with the others, of course there's nothing one can do.
Your new example hits at a different aspect, however. Although, let me change it to make it more sensible (it's quite a stretch to assume an alien race developed a taste for a species from a different planet, and that they couldn't just make something that tastes like us without needing to move between stars, and that there are no roughly equivalent dietary substitutes, etc)
Instead, an advanced alien race arrives at Earth expecting to terraform it for their use, since their homeworld is now uninhabitable. They needed an oxygen-rich environment with water, and found Earth was the closest such, but they need to crank the temperature up to about 85C and introduce some other trace gases that would be toxic to us and all other life. They didn't realize there was an intelligent species on Earth. The point being, it is posed as their survival vs ours.
This is where we get into the question of the "fundamental ought", and whether it naturally applies to all sentients or not. If we take it to apply only to ourselves, then we have to attempt to prevent the aliens from their terraforming. If we take it to apply to all sentients, then assuming they are a more "fit" species, we nominally should yield to them and accept our fate, assuming there is no middle ground or other solution.
In the end, I don't think these examples illustrate a whole lot, because they depend on extremely unlikely scenarios, while I think the more likely scenarios are better handled with this system than our current one.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-12-06 04:53 am (UTC)I take justified to simply mean your action has been arrived at rationally, sourced by your "values" and not contradicting any "principles". Examples:
Me stabbing myself in the foot right now. Not justified, because I derive utility from my health (even though it doesn't necessarily go against any principles I have)
Me going out and stealing some fruit. I am hungry, but theft goes against my principles. Not justified.
Me going out and buying lunch. I am hungry, and this action doesn't go against any principles, so it is justified.
I expect people to act on their beliefs and values.
So those beliefs/values, to me, are the justification for the subsequent actions.
True, there are usually multiple fundamental values that people have. But I'm not sure why that would make such a huge difference
What? That makes the entire difference! One basic assumption to what I am proposing is that we are developing a system of principles of action (see earlier reply about the change to "principles" instead of "values") which would be followed by a group of sentient beings. If they are only each given one fundamental desire and it is in direct conflict with the others, of course there's nothing one can do.
Your new example hits at a different aspect, however. Although, let me change it to make it more sensible (it's quite a stretch to assume an alien race developed a taste for a species from a different planet, and that they couldn't just make something that tastes like us without needing to move between stars, and that there are no roughly equivalent dietary substitutes, etc)
Instead, an advanced alien race arrives at Earth expecting to terraform it for their use, since their homeworld is now uninhabitable. They needed an oxygen-rich environment with water, and found Earth was the closest such, but they need to crank the temperature up to about 85C and introduce some other trace gases that would be toxic to us and all other life. They didn't realize there was an intelligent species on Earth. The point being, it is posed as their survival vs ours.
This is where we get into the question of the "fundamental ought", and whether it naturally applies to all sentients or not. If we take it to apply only to ourselves, then we have to attempt to prevent the aliens from their terraforming. If we take it to apply to all sentients, then assuming they are a more "fit" species, we nominally should yield to them and accept our fate, assuming there is no middle ground or other solution.
In the end, I don't think these examples illustrate a whole lot, because they depend on extremely unlikely scenarios, while I think the more likely scenarios are better handled with this system than our current one.