Lean proofs can't settle moral philosophy: the dispute lives in the axioms
AndrewSchmidtFC · x · 2026-10-12
In an ISI debate, OpenAI's Dean Ball was asked whether Lean-like proofs for moral philosophy might follow AI solving Millennium Problems. Brad Carson rebuts: Lean proofs derive conclusions from stated axioms by fixed inference rules and never prove the axioms — and in moral philosophy the axioms are the entire dispute. Formal methods can show which moral premises cannot be jointly held, but not which you should abandon.
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