Dealism

Abstract

This paper proposes dealism, a moral system based on agreements and deals, arguing that it is the best available attempt to reconcile the desire for morality to be good for the world and for individuals to follow it. Drawing inspiration from superrationality and causal models for Newcomb’s problem, dealism emphasizes broad, cooperative agreements, and the idea that morality consists of rules and agreements that can be universalized. It suggests that as we coordinate better to produce more cooperative deals, we become more civilized. Dealism predicts our tendency to give more importance to our tribe than to distant strangers and animals, but it also suggests that technological progress may enable us to observe more evidence of rule-obeying, potentially shifting our moral systems closer to utilitarian ones. – AI-generated abstract.