Comment by jychang
6 hours ago
Well, now that's just moving the goalposts >:( I had a whole paragraph prepared in my head about how NBA players actually optimize for a greater goal (winning a tournament) than just sport (enjoying the game) when they play a sport.
Anyways, I actually think your statement is incoherent as stated, if we presume moral naturalism. There's clearly different levels set points for "you", so "sole reason" is actually neurologically inconsistent as a statement. It's impossible for "sole reason" to exist. This radically alters your framework for self, but eh it's not impossible to modernize these structural frameworks anyways. Steelmanning your argument: if you try to argue set point hierarchy, then we're back to the NBA player playing for a championship example. He's still playing even if he's not playing for fun. Similarly, hunting a baby for pleasure can still be hunting for a village, as The Most Dangerous Game shows.
More generally (and less shitposty), the refined principle is now quite narrow and unfalsifiable in practice, as a no true scotsman. How would you ever demonstrate someone's "sole or primary" reason? It's doing a lot of work to immunize the principle from counterexamples.
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