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Moral externalization may precede, not follow, subjective preferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2018

Artem Kaznatcheev  and
Thomas R. Shultz
Artem Kaznatcheev
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QD, United Kingdom. [email protected]://egtheory.wordpress.com/ Department of Translational Hematology & Oncology Research, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195.
Thomas R. Shultz
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, H3A 1G1, Canada. [email protected] School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, H3A 0E9, Canada.
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Abstract

We offer four counterarguments against Stanford's dismissal of moral externalization as an ancestral condition, based on requirements for ancestral states, mismatch between theoretical and empirical games, passively correlated interactions, and social interfaces that prevent agents’ knowing game payoffs. The fact that children's externalized phenomenology precedes their discovery of subjectivized phenomenology also suggests that externalized phenomenology is an ancestral condition.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e107
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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