poll - racist post or not?

(original post title: my main maint of morality)

----------------------------------------------

ok. forget blacks. bad example. (real life, the kind of thing that might happen in real life, but ok, bad)


one waiter W1 doesnt discriminate (against group A).


one waiter W2 is does discriminate.


at the end of the year, W2 makes 20% more than W1.


now if the actions we are talking about are central to life, then by definition W2's actions will be termed good.


------------------------

'I'm not arguing why things happen. I'm arguing that reasonably intelligent people KNOW instinctively when they do something, whether it's right or wrong. '


now remember, this is what i was responding to. i guess my main point is that *the exact same action can be right at one point in time and wrong in another*.


so here goes. lets say that in say 1960 group A didnt tip. waiters in general give them poor service. (and thereby maximize their EV)


fast forward 1990. a few older waiters still give poor service to group A. (but now they damage their EV, as the reasons for poor service no longer apply).


so you see what i mean. morals (a guide to EV) arent instinctive.


brad

certain thresholds need to be understood when considering these porportions. at a certain point, the waiter's EV cannot be helped any more by giving bad service. he's still wasting time on customers who arent tipping him. assuming that this is justified still doesn't correlate to any quantitaitve EV that you speak of. How does it improve? the point is, no matter what our waiter buddy does, he's not getting a tip from them, so bad service is worse to his EV than no service at all!! (except that this could get you fired, very bad for the old EV) he can give excellent service, mediocre service, substandard service, or outlandishly rude service, and he aint gettin squat. you can't divide by zero, no matter how you go about it...

not true. he can have more time to spend on people who *will* leave a larger tip for good service.


in any case do you agree with me that not all moral decisions are instinctive?


brad

absolutely. i would go so far as to say that morality is necessarily NOT instinctive. i would contend that any course of action which is instinctual is necessarily amoral.

well that was what i was trying to get at. from now on im definitely adding a level of indirection to all my posts so i wont have to specify any kind of group that may be offended.


brad