Blog Post
Reflections on artificial intelligence, ethics, and technology
Reflections on artificial intelligence, ethics, and technology
January 1, 2019
This article is concerned with the “common sense” definition of truth. The writing is straightforward and clear. Roy begins with a simple question: does the phrase “it’s true for me but not for you” have any meaning? He argues that it doesn’t, or rather that when we utter such a phrase, we mean something other than what we seem to to be saying on the surface.
The concept of truth is important for the study of ethics. For example, even if we believe that ethical norms vary from culture to culture, we’d like to be able to say whether ethical variance is actually true; even if we believe our friend shouldn’t act in a particular way, we’d like to know what it would mean to say our belief is true. To make progress, we need to know what truth is.
You might protest that there is no way to define “truth.” But before you commit to the truth of that position, at least consider what Roy has to say. According to him, truth is not as big a mystery as it seems at first glance.
Article (PDF)