The Moist Robot Ethical Code

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015

The problem with Scott Adams’ moist robot view of the world — the one that says we are all animated meat, bouncing around according to the laws of physics — is, he says, that there is no accounting for morality or ethical behavior in that world view:

Is that a problem?

I don’t subscribe to any religious belief and yet I am never tempted to hurt other people for personal gain. Most non-believers would say the same. So there must be something in the operating systems of our brains that provides the equivalent of a moral code no matter what we think of the afterlife. Today I will try to put that moral code for non-believers into words.

My suggestion for a non-believer’s moral code can be reduced to two words:

Be useful.

That’s my personal way of seeing the world. I didn’t invent the notion, but it seems to fit me best.

Or we could all be excellent to each another.

Comments

  1. ASDF says:

    “I am never tempted to hurt other people for personal gain.”

    Seems like a real lack of self awareness.

  2. Slovenian Guest says:

    “Be useful” is still too close to “Do good” for me. I personally stick to the “Do no harm” credo.
    (as in the “Silver rule” over the “Golden rule”):

    See The Silver Rule & Golden Rule vs the Silver Rule.

    The Golden Rule is simply evil. I know this sounds nutty as hell, but it describes perfectly all the evil that has been done out of good intentions. The Silver Rule avoids this by adhering to the dictum “Do no harm.” You may or may not go to Hell, but that is not my doing.

    The reason Golden Rule people despise the Silver Rule is because it puts the value judgments in the hands of the other person instead of their own hands. This is why tyrannical types love the Golden Rule so damn much. In fact, this is the only part of it they love. When I actually put them to the test on their own ethics, they become hypocrites and try to slip the Silver Rule in the backdoor.

    Basically the golden rule is left (think SJW) while the silver rule is libertarian.

    And might is of course right!

  3. Spandrell says:

    I’m also never tempted to admit doing bad things in public.

    Why is it so hard to see that one’s intuition isn’t all there is to human nature. Have they not traveled? Seen foreign movies?

  4. Tim says:

    If there is no moral code then why account for it in any way with a cute phrase? Sounds like a self-contradictory statement which is usually indicates a false premise.

  5. T M says:

    “Sounds like a self-contradictory statement”

    Scott Adams is not genuinely concerned with morals. He is concerned that if people realize how depraved he is, then his books will earn less money.

    Thus, he just wants to shuck and jive. He wants to put on a public, visible display of why he is a good corporate community-member.

    Adams assumes that his superiors in the corporate world are even more psychopathic than he is, and that they will notice and cynically approve, but that the bulk of his customers are stupid cattle who will be fooled and who will buy his books.

  6. Bob Sykes says:

    Nietzsche spent an entire philosophical career analyzing that very question.

  7. Graham says:

    Adams’ reductionism sounds brilliant until one notes that the definition of “useful” is almost infinitely elastic, as is the scale of the other to whom one aims to be useful. Useful to who, and toward what ends, defined by who?

    And what does one say to the other who becomes threatening because his definition of being useful to some group or person of his choosing may require him to do harm to you, or even do something milder you consider to be contra-useful?

    And that’s just for starters.

    Separately, I’m intrigued by the silver rule versus the golden rule. But I learned the golden rule not as “do good” but as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or “do as you would be done by”.

    That still leaves room for competing definitions but it is not quite so blanket an injunction to impose an arbitrary set of moral codes on the world- it at least demands one allow others the same foibles and freedoms one claims for oneself.

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