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Douglas Knight's avatar

It is true that moral talk is reason and not just manipulation. But some moral talk is manipulation. Sometimes what people claim is game theory is actually manipulation, just as some of what is accused of manipulation is actually game theory.

An awful lot of moral talk is both game theory and manipulation. It game theory between coalitions, hiding the question of whether the individual gets a good deal joining the coalition.

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Noah Birnbaum's avatar

First of all, this post is really nicely written so great job! Second, I have a few concerns with some of your points:

1) It seems like people have enough differences in thought (and are not correlated enough) for your thoughts to not acausally influence other peoples’ thoughts. Should you go around giving people money because that will acausally increase the chances of you getting money. If you do think so, can I be first?

2) even if you showed that it’s good for people to think moral realism is true and that people should cooperate accordingly, does not mean that it is actually true. Acting in this way would still be in one’s self interest. Similarly, telling someone that they should be honest because they will be more happy if they do, does not make honesty a moral thing…

Tell me where you think I’m going wrong!

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