SmilingGengar t1_ja8ly53 wrote on February 27, 2023 at 5:31 PM

The problem here is that there are irreconcilable divisions among people with regards to the ontological foundations for what is considered good. Some people derive their ethics from an essentialist or teleological understanding of the world, while another subset of people believes ethics is derived from measurement of utility, and other believes ethics are nothing more than expressions of personal preferences (emotivism), etc. If we cannot even agree on what makes something ethical in the first place, then I doubt we would be able to establish an effective universal curriculum to teach what is ethical.

That said, maybe an alternate way to approach this proposal would be to simply create a council comprised of moral philosophers representing each ethical perspective. Nations would submit ethical issues that would be accepted or denied by the council. If accepted into the docket, members would simply write opinions on ethical issues submitted by nations. The opinions would be non-binding, but nations would be obligated as part of submitting the request to provide a response to the opinion in terms of how they plan to action on recommendations.

gobbo t1_ja90xct wrote on February 27, 2023 at 7:05 PM

And yet, some laws are trending toward universal without enforcement by a monopoly on violence. There's a global alignment under way, which is hopeful considering that we are struggling with planning alignment strategies for impending AGI.

For instance, the elimination of slavery proceeds, with a few holdouts like prison systems and regressive states. Incest rules and age of consent rules are becoming more standard. Fraud rules and awareness of conflicts of interest are becoming increasingly prevalent.

These are arguably the international effects of humanism riding the coattails of trade, and wars being won by democratic governments, but there's also a zeitgeist related to the growth of universal education, I think.

SmilingGengar t1_ja9gr1x wrote on February 27, 2023 at 8:45 PM

I cannot deny that there is an upward trend towards universal alignment on some goods. The tricky part is making sure we don't equate universal agreement on what is good with what is good and so ought to be universally agreed to. If we reduce universal morality to just consensus without clearly defining what the good is, we could see universal agreement around things that may not actually be good in the future, especially if there is a reversal of democratization, access to education, and higher standards of living that contribute to certain goods being adopted over others.

gobbo t1_ja9s9n4 wrote on February 27, 2023 at 9:57 PM

Yep, any ethics that doesn't involve reflexivity and rigorous questioning is likely to go off the rails.

so_much_mirrors t1_ja9gh1o wrote on February 27, 2023 at 8:43 PM

The idea sounds wonderful, however i feel that such a body would be an embodiment for a totalitarist scarecrow - "anything that doesn't comply to our best nation's sacred tradition is a rotten progressive effort to eradicate our identity"... Eastern eu (and seemingly uk) governments get a wonderful piece of the vote pie with this rethoric, only the boogeymen are progressive and mostly reasonable EU institutions. Enough to say that lawful and peaceful foreign institutions make the best beating boy, as they by default do not fight back..