RE: Ethical Investment Gone Wild

From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2003 - 15:20:53 MDT

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    On 7/19/2003, Spike wrote:
    > > http://psych.unm.edu/faculty/moral_vision.htm
    > > There's something broken about this idea, but its hard to say
    > > exactly what it is...
    >
    >I can say exactly what it is. Miller presumes
    >everyone's sense of ethics matches his own. ...

    This is a serious issue with ethical analysis in general. Most ethical
    discussions presume that the answer to each dispute is a matter of fact,
    not values, in the sense that with enough discussion and analysis and
    rationality everyone would eventually agree on the same answer. If this is
    not true, and each person/agent would arrive at a different ethics with
    enough discussion/analysis/rationality, then ethics doesn't seem the best
    framework for social analysis. Perhaps better is a "deal making"
    framework, where we look for win/win deals that can give each party to a
    negotiation as much as possible of what they want, including whatever
    ethics they want to achieve.

    Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
    Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
    MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
    703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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