Moral Realism Explained – Eric Samspon

Part 1 in an interview with Eric Sampson on Moral Realism. Note AI is referenced, but the bulk of the questions about AI are covered in part 2.

Chapters

0:00 Intro
3:03 Why is moral realism attractive to AI Safety Research?
2:02 Background, & Personal reason to choose moral realism
4:00 Describing moral realism – cognitivism vs non-cognitivism
5:00 Non-nihilism
5:49 Stance-independance
7:18 Ideal observers vs ideal advisors/agents
11:12 Epistemic access to moral facts
15:43 Reductive physicalism : y/n?
18:12 Reductive physicalism, patternism and neural networks
22:54 Epistemic humility, conciliationism & courage
26:47 Over-reconciliation & cowardice
29:13 Robust realism vs naturalism
32:38 Peter Singer, consequentialism & the cluelessness objection
37:23 Credences
40:20 What does moral realism make simpler to solve?
46:40 Euthyphro Dilemma
47:16 Inherent vs instrumental badness
49:20 David Pearce ‘experience discloses intrinsic nature of the physical’
53:37 Virtue ethics – can it scale?
57:16 Hero & villain narratives
59:28 Special pleading to reject moral features?
59:28 Psychological reasons for attraction to/repulsion from moral realism
1:06:52 Dealing with disagreement amongst excellent moral enquirers
1:11:44 Importance of the ideal observer: commandingness or idealness?
1:18:27 Future research directions in moral realism – Intuitionism?