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The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? - LessWrong

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Followup to: Is Fairness Arbitrary?, Joy in the Merely Good, Sorting Pebbles Into Correct Heaps Yesterday, I presented the idea that when only five people are present, having just stumbled across a pie in the woods (a naturally growing pie, that just popped out of the ground) then it is fair to give Dennis only 1/5th of this pie, even if Dennis persistently claims that it is fair for him to get the whole thing. Furthermore, it is meta-fair to follow such a symmetrical division procedure, even if Dennis insists that he ought to dictate the division procedure. Fair, meta-fair, or meta-meta-fair, there is no level of fairness where you're obliged to concede everything to Dennis, without reciprocation or compensation, just because he demands it. Which goes to say that fairness has a meaning beyond which "that which everyone can be convinced is 'fair'". This is an empty proposition, isomorphic to "Xyblz is that which everyone can be convinced is 'xyblz'". There must be some specific thing of which people are being convinced; and once you identify that thing, it has a meaning beyond agreements and convincing. You're not introducing something arbitrary, something un-fair, in refusing to concede everything to Dennis. You are being fair, and meta-fair and meta-meta-fair. As far up as you go, there's no level that calls for unconditional surrender. The stars do not judge between you and Dennis—but it is baked into the very question that is asked, when you ask, "What is fair?" as opposed to "What is xyblz?" Ah, but why should you be fair, rather than xyblz? Let us concede that Dennis cannot validly persuade us, on any level, that it is fair for him to dictate terms and give himself the whole pie; but perhaps he could argue whether we should be fair? The hidden agenda of the whole discussion of fairness, of course, is that good-ness and right-ness and should-ness, ground out similarly to fairness. Natural selection optimizes for inclusive genetic fitness. This is no

x The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? — LessWrong Fairness Ethics & Morality Personal Blog 26 The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary? by Eliezer Yudkowsky 14th Aug 2008 7 min read 119 26 Followup to : Is Fairness Arbitrary? , Joy in the Merely Good , Sorting Pebbles Into Correct Heaps Yesterday, I presented the idea that when only five people are present, having just stumbled across a pie in the woods (a naturally growing pie, that just popped out of the ground) then it is fair to give Dennis only 1/5th of this pie, even if Dennis persistently claims that it is fair for him to get the whole thing.

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