Strict dentology as tamper-proofing.

Strict moral rules along the lines optimization problems are okay. "Act in such a way as to maximize X under the set of constraints Z" is fine. All they do is affair what moral goods we value and how much we value them in relation to one another. Moral rules such as "never do S" seem to be stupid. Surely there are cases where we would trade away doing S, which incurs some badness, for the sake of gaining a great deal of goodness from other sources or at least preventing a greater evil from coming to pass. For example, murder may be wrong but if a single murder would save the human race, surely it would be a good trade to make?

There are two defenses of non-optimizing (new concept handle) moral rules. The first is that we are incapable of optimizing well and following poor rules well leads to better outcomes than following better rules poorly. This is Eliezer's point Ends Don't Justify the Means (Among Humans).The second defense is that strict rules which do not require any processing by the user are tamper-proof whereas more open, optimizing rules are not. Thou shalt not kill is simple and hard to misconstrue. Thou shalt not kill unless doing so is absolutely necessary is far, far easier to misconstrue. Sometimes this may happen by accident or as a product of an individual corruption or desire to benefit themselves, as Eliezer argues. My issue is that in many cases a conscious external force can easily manipulate a person following such an open moral rule into committing evil. I can convince a crowd of strongly left-leaning PHD students that we should not accept refugees in the space of a 30 minute public panel. It is a very simple matter for a gifted politician or a small team of intelligence officers/PR people to construct narratives which the average person will find persuasive. What this leads to is wars and hate. It contributed to the ovens in Auschwitz and to the 500'000 dead in Iraq and the destruction of Syria and Libya. A strict moral system which permits little interpretation seems likely to be far more resistant to these kinds of problems.