Morals are Simple Game Theory

[West]

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1) Then you believe in absolute morality to be discovered by humanity.

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To a certain degree, definitely. Do you not agree with my example? But sometimes the right thing to do might not be easy to figure, so whether there is an "absolute morality" all the time, I'm not sure about that.

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2) Pleasure isn't just physical. It is psycological.
Example: When my dad was out of work he refused to accept welfare. Clearly forgoing a needed physical benefit. However, he clearly derived psycological benefit. He felt proud to stand on his own two feet without help. That pride is worth something, worth alot more then the money he turned down.

If you think something is the right thing to do, and you do it as such, you get to feel like your a good person. Feeling like your a good person is a benefit within itself, and a damn huge one in some cases.

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I'm not denying that people derive psychological benefits from acting morally at all (though as an aside, was your father's choice actually a moral one?), but I don't believe that people only act morally when and because it's somehow "+EV" in terms of psychological and physical benefits. This might be true of some people, granted. Going back to your original post, I don't believe that "morality is simple game theory in which the players try to maximize thier own personal gain".

Although it's always possible that in the long run, acting truly morally could maximize your own long run personal gain (depending on what you believe happens when you die), but perhaps not in the way that you mean.

[lehighguy]

1) The man in this case has chosen not to value his neighbors live highly, nor does he value being in the no murder club highly. He has chosen the values he wants to live by. You may choose to condemn him, no one is stoping you. I don't recall saying moral statement are impossible in this framework. However, you as an individual are condemning him, you don't have backup from some absolute morality or god or whatever. Even if you convince all of society he is wrong, you are still only a group of individuals rather then some greater force of truth.

2) I don't see how you can conclude people are making -EV decisions. I see no grounds for that conclusion. Explain the path one might take to arrive at a -EV decision. It seems quite impossible. As soon as the person concludes it's a -EV decision, they won't act on it because of its very nature as -EV.

Imagine a poker game with one round of betting where the players could see eachothers hands. Betting or calling with the inferior hand is clearly -EV, and you won't find a single person that will take that bet. Yet your proposing people do exactly that. It seems absurd.

There is an attempt to agrandize moral actions as though people are being self sacrificial. However, self-sacrifice is impossible. Even those that give up thier lives for a moral crusade are doing what they must do. They have chosen to value whatever they are crusading for highly, so highly they can't live in a world where thier crusade goes unheaded. The psycological needs of the morals we create may even overide our need for life itself, but this is not an act of self sacrifice. It is a logical course of action when one values something higher then thier own life. Living in an immoral world is worse then death to them. Death is the only +EV decision in this case.

And no the afterlife is quite irrelevent to the discussion.

[txag007]

"We all benefit from the increased commerce and security that comes from a society without stealing."

If there is no such thing as "right" and no good and evil acts, how do we know that we benefit from a society without stealing? What makes increased commerce a positive thing? What makes security a positive thing?

[lehighguy]

If your attempting to define any +EV action as moral, I think that was my point in OP.

Consider the following. One nieghbor has wool and the other wood. They also both have guns. They could sit in thier houses trying to shoot eachother to get the others resources, or they could reach an agreement to share resources so they both have warmth and clothing. Clearly the latter is the best option (in most peoples opinion), but does following that course of action make a person moral, or are they simply doing something that is +EV.

Most people define moral actions as a -EV decision simply because it is moral. Such seems a falicy, people can't make -EV moves. It's impossible. As soon as one determines something to be -EV, they will not follow that course of action.

Let us return to the nieghbors. Now let's say only one of them has a gun. However, he doesn't kill the other because he derives some non-material satisfaction from his nieghbor being alive, or he would feel guilty from killing him and the guilt would be overwhelming. In either case, if the man denies himself a physical benefit because of the overwhelming psycological factors that doesn't mean he is making a self sacrifical -EV move because of morality. His moral values are factored into the EV calculation.

[txag007]

Earlier you said that there is no "right". By defining any +EV action as moral, you seem to be saying now that "right" is that which produces the greatest good. Which is it?

[lehighguy]

"Right" as defined in the traditional moral framework is making a -EV decision because it is "moral". I reject that defintion.

Defining "right" as making a +EV decision is what I've attempted to do in OP. If you are making the same definition, I'm not sure where the objection is comming from.

I would further postulate that values (benefits associated with different actions) are not objective numbers set in stone but rather we as humans decide what value to place on things and actions. Perhaps this is where the disagreement comes from. You believe certain actions have set values determined not by man but by some outside force?

[West]

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1) The man in this case has chosen not to value his neighbors live highly, nor does he value being in the no murder club highly. He has chosen the values he wants to live by. You may choose to condemn him, no one is stoping you. I don't recall saying moral statement are impossible in this framework. However, you as an individual are condemning him, you don't have backup from some absolute morality or god or whatever. Even if you convince all of society he is wrong, you are still only a group of individuals rather then some greater force of truth.

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How do you know that I don't "have backup from some absolute morality or god or whatever"?

It seems to me that you are again suggesting that morality, even in a case such as my example, is something subjective, that it is not something that can ever be derived logically. I don't agree.

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2) I don't see how you can conclude people are making -EV decisions. I see no grounds for that conclusion. Explain the path one might take to arrive at a -EV decision. It seems quite impossible. As soon as the person concludes it's a -EV decision, they won't act on it because of its very nature as -EV.

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Well, let me put it this way, I think people may sometimes act in ways that will feel "-EV" to them, but perhaps they act in those ways anyway because they feel it's more "+EV" for someone else than it is "-EV" for themselves. And maybe because they feel that acting in such a way encourages others to do the same, in a prisoner's dilemma kind of way that can benefit everyone in the long haul (if everyone is occasionally willing to take some -EV for themselves to give some greater +EV to others, then sometimes we will be the recipients of the +EV from someone else).

Example: You receive a phone call from an acquaintance who is bored and lonely and just wants someone to listen to some of their troubles for a bit. Say that you do feel some small obligation to lend an ear to this person, but not much of one, and in fact, if you made up an excuse not to talk to them, you wouldn't feel overly guilty about it. You'd probably rather watch paint dry for the next half hour than stay on the phone. But maybe sometimes you decide to suck it up and listen for a bit, even though you don't feel that you have an obligation to do so.

When I think about it, I'm not really disputing that people take actions that they only view as "+EV" in some kind of way, just that the nature of that "+EV" isn't always as simple as a sense of ego, worth or satisfaction/pleasure as your initial posts characterized it.

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And no the afterlife is quite irrelevent to the discussion.

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An afterlife isn't relevent to a discussion about the nature of morality?

[lehighguy]

1) This really goes beyond the scope of this post. Read Nieztche(mispelling likely), Kant, and a host of other modern philosophers. I really couldn't do an arguement against objectivity justice here.

2) You listen to your friend for a reason. If you really didn't care then you wouldn't do it. Maybe you care more then you think you do. Maybe your subconscious cares. Maybe you think about sometime a person hung up on you and guilt takes hold. It really doesn't matter the reason, or collection of reasons, so long as they overide your desire to hang up.

If you do something that "feels" -EV because it's +EV for another you do it because the satisfaction of seeing the other person happy brings you satisfaction, or knowing you did the right thing brings you satisfaction, so the action is actually +EV when you account for those additional inputs.

If you reject the concept of a -EV decision, then it is impossible to say people make -EV decisions because of some kind of moral force. Do they not have control over thier own actions? Do we not have free will? If so, that's a rather distrurbing conclusion.

As for making -EV decisions due to potential future +EV gains from that decision it isn't all that different from a NPV calculation on an investment decision. Let's call the original -EV decision the cost of investment, and the future +EV benefit cashflows. We have some discount rate because we value current pleasure over future pleasure. We discount back the cashflows and then compare that sum to the initial investment. If the NPV of the cashflows is greater then the initial investment, then the decision as a whole is +EV and we make it. If not, we do the opposite.

The afterlife could be seen as a huge +/- EV value at the very end. However, since the existance of the afterlife is so incredibly uncertain (I see no evidence to conclude it exists, and even less to make sweeping judgements of how its governed) we have to use a discount rate approaching infinity to account for the uncertainty. As such, it really doesn't affect our calculations much.

[West]

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If you do something that "feels" -EV because it's +EV for another you do it because the satisfaction of seeing the other person happy brings you satisfaction, or knowing you did the right thing brings you satisfaction, so the action is actually +EV when you account for those additional inputs.

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The action may be +EV when accounting for "additional inputs", but those additional inputs do not have to be "satisfaction", IMHO.

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The afterlife could be seen as a huge +/- EV value at the very end. However, since the existance of the afterlife is so incredibly uncertain (I see no evidence to conclude it exists, and even less to make sweeping judgements of how its governed) we have to use a discount rate approaching infinity to account for the uncertainty. As such, it really doesn't affect our calculations much.

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You say "our calculations", but each individual makes their own "calculations" when deciding how to act, and obviously they all aren't going to discount the possibility of some kind of afterlife in the same way that you do.

[lehighguy]

1) Then what do you propose to substitute for "satisfaction". Surely something has to go there if the equation is going to hold, which you've already agreed to.

2) Well you asked me my opinion of the afterlife, whos opinion we're you expecting.