The Trouble With "Good"

Scott (normative utilitarian, descriptive emotivist) argues that 'good'/'bad' as people actually use them is emotivism — a single 'yay/boo' bin, like the mind running a karma system (downvote cats, Palestinians, theism; upvote dogs, atheism). This explains why one word covers pizza, Israel, and evolution and feels unified. Problems: the inputs aren't merit-linked (the faked 'B'-carving where each side treated a partisan's misdeed as evidence against the candidate), affective death spirals, the halo effect (Eliezer's 2486 karma rated as his level at everything), and the world-breaking problem that binning everything into one net-good/bad score fails for complex issues (gun control, the War on Drugs — 'drugs are BAD, so ban them'). The fix: utilitarianism, which refuses 'are drugs good?' as a CATEGORY ERROR and only compares actions/states — so convert any 'is X good/bad?' dispute into an action and apply utilitarianism (Israel/Palestine -> 'which action?'), tugging sideways to entrenched prejudices.

Quality 75 · Excellent. Strong. A clear, useful piece of practical metaethics — the 'mental karma'/emotivism diagnosis plus the convert-to-actions-and-apply-utilitarianism tool genuinely help dissolve good/bad deadlocks. 75.

Claude’s paradigm shift 48 · Moderate. Moderate. Emotivism and utilitarianism are established; the descriptive-emotivism/normative-utilitarianism split and the convert-to-actions move are a useful fresh framing. 48.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. A clear piece of practical metaethics — the 'mental karma'/emotivism diagnosis of how people actually use 'good'/'bad,' plus the convert-to-actions-then-apply-utilitarianism tool — that helps dissolve good/bad deadlocks. Conceptual influence within rationalist discourse, no material change — low RWI.