Ethics
Discussions of moral philosophy, ethical frameworks, and normative questions.
Posts
- The Physics of Agency, Part 10: The Grand Synthesis and Future Directions - Synthesizes Physics of Agency framework and outlines future research directions.
- The Physics of Agency, Part 8: Meaning, Ethics, and Evolution Under the Physics of Agency - Explores implications of Physics of Agency for meaning, ethics, and evolution.
- Why I’m an Individualist
- Sacred Coherence - Proposes logical coherence as supreme value (“Vulcanism” / Sacred Coherence).
- Universal Alignment - Comprehensive AI alignment analysis.
- From Sovereignty to Slavery - Provocative thesis: Taxation and slavery differ in degree, not kind—both lie on continuous Taxat
- Navigating Moral Realism with Agent-Binding - Agent-binding resolves Humean skepticism about moral realism.
- Against Cosmic Utility - Repugnant Conclusion (Parfit) exposes population ethics flaw. Classical util: World with 10B bar
- Effective Altruism Without Moral Realism - EA = intellectually rigorous moral movement, but assumes objective value (fundamental error). EA
- Rights Are Forged - Rights ≠ self-evident, eternal, or divinely ordained. In subjective value framework where agency
- Sacrifice as Signal - To know what someone values, watch what they sacrifice. Value = pattern of behavior, not feeling
- The Death of Objective Morality - Morality = structured hierarchy of preferences, not special kind of truth. Most believe/act as i
- The Myth of Equal Value - “All human lives equally valuable” = philosophically indefensible. Widely asserted, rarely quest
- The Myth of Objective Value - Core thesis: All value is subjective. Value does not exist independently—it arises only relative
- Virtues, Consequences, and Codes - Three great ethical traditions rebuilt without objectivity illusion. **All assume moral truth gr
- What Counts As Coercion - Precise operational definition of coercion. Used loosely to describe everything from violence to
- Agency, Not Equality - SYNTHESIS POST for entire political applications sequence. Challenged assumptions about inequali
- Immigration Restrictions Are a Form of Harm - Immigration restrictions widely accepted, but crucial ethical dimension overlooked: Restrictions
- Inequality Is Not the Problem—Poverty Is - Inequality debates assume differences in wealth inherently cause harm/injustice (mistaken). Real
- Inequality Is Not the Problem—Poverty Is - Challenges the common focus on inequality reduction in favor of poverty alleviation.
- Reasonable Disagreement - Meta-level insight: Reasonable people can disagree even with same information. Despite rigorous
- The Libertarian Illusion of Equal Opportunity - **Libertarians emphasize “equal opportunity” while rejecting “equal outcomes” (appealing but contrad
- The Myth of Cultural Threat - Common argument against open immigration: perceived threat to culture/stability/safety. While co
- What Counts as Consent - Precise operational definition of consent. Foundational in ethics, law, medicine, sex, governanc
- What Counts as Harm - Rigorous definition filters moral inflation. Used without precision → confusion.
- Why Coercive Redistribution Is Always Harmful - Redistribution defended by compassion/fairness/social justice—but does method itself cause harm?
- The Hidden Power of Principles - Defends principled behavior as strategically optimal, not merely morally admirable.
- IQ: Realities, Misconceptions, and Moral Confusions - Defends IQ as valid cognitive measure while addressing critiques and moral concerns.
- The Ethics of the Unconceived - Defends embryo selection against “murder” accusations.
- Justice After Colonization - Proposes agency-restoring approach to post-colonial justice.
- The Ethics of Immigration vs. Colonization - Counterfactual thought experiment: what if European arrival had been ethical immigration rather than
- Universal Basic Income - This post evaluates Universal Basic Income (UBI) through Axio’s ethical framework: **the integrity o
- Against Positive Rights - This post argues that within Axio’s framework, all valid rights are negative rights.
- Look Where You’re Going - Unpacks the multi-layered wisdom in the simple advice “look where you’re going,” revealing depth fro
- The Highest Good - Applies Conditionalism to the claim “everyone must worship something,” showing truth depends on inte
- Sapientism - Proposes “Sapientism” as evolution beyond humanism: Moral value resides in all sapient minds (biolog
- What Counts as Evil - This post defines evil formally as “intentional harm caused by an agent,” building on precise techni
- The Agency Protection Principle - This essay proposes a refined ethical principle improving upon libertarianism’s traditional Non-Aggr
- What is Suffering? - This essay develops a rigorous technical definition of suffering essential for ethical frameworks, A
- Comparing Value Systems - Proposes using cosine similarity from vector mathematics to quantify alignment between value systems
- Judging Goodness - This post examines how to evaluate moral goodness using Effective Altruism (EA) as case study, empha
- Shrimp Ethics - This post critiques a utilitarian thought experiment claiming we should save 10¹⁰⁰ shrimp over a sin
- The Trolley Problem - This essay deconstructs the famous Trolley Problem beyond its standard utilitarian-versus-deontology
- False Kindness - A sharp, uncompromising critique of the modern tendency to conflate compassion with comfort, this es
- The Edge Cases of Coercion - This comprehensive stress test examines whether the principle “coercion is justified only if pre-con
- Navigating The Multiverse - Agency operates by shifting measure across quantum branches—choosing actions that amplify desired fu
- The Ethics of Affluence - Wealth is morally neutral; its value derives from deployment.
- When All Possibilities Happen - This essay explores the implications of many-worlds quantum mechanics for agency, probability, and e
- Quantum Free Will - This essay resolves the free will vs.
- On What Matters - This essay critiques Derek Parfit’s “On What Matters” through the lens of Conditionalism, arguing Pa
- The Double Helix and the Double Standard - This essay examines the Rosalind Franklin/Watson-Crick DNA discovery controversy as case study in st
- Truth Isn’t Enough - This essay responds to a tweet claiming “smart people obsess over truth at the expense of memetic fi
- Sagency - This essay introduces the neologism “sagency”—fusing “sage” and “agency” to describe power disciplin
- The Quantum Sequence - Major sequence announcement introducing QBU framework in detail.
- The Politics of Envy - This post critiques the modern political tendency to conflate relative inequality with actual harm,
- Agency Conservation - This post resolves the apparent paradox of whether agency maximization can justify parasitism (refus
- The Value Sequence - This comprehensive index organizes Axio’s complete treatment of value theory into five progressive p
- The Value Sequence - This is a comprehensive index post cataloging the entire Value Sequence—Axio’s systematic developmen
- Flourishing and Obligation - This essay critiques Objectivist ethics from an Axionic perspective, acknowledging its strengths (re
- Axionic Agency — Interlude VII - This interlude marks the transition point: after Phases I-VIII, constructing an Axionic Reflective S