In which Forbes Mag. becomes indistinguishable from parody

[energiewende]

This article is basically right; in fact it is stupendous to consider the positive externalities that the small percentage of people who discovered and invented pretty much everything have 'given' to the world.

Like Nicola Tesla, who died poor?

...in a 5 star Manhattan hotel room. There's a difference between being poor and being a rich guy who slurges all his money as fast as he earns it.

Perhaps things could be even better, but I've nonetheless internalised a massive benefit without working harder or producing more things, by direct consequence of someone else's effort and ingenuity.

By the direct consequence of everyone's effort. Surplus product is the only thing that allows us to maintain an advanced division of labour; were it not so, all people would be preoccupied with simple subsistence, as it was in agrarian societies, and the number of those who invent and discover would be pathetically small.

Modern agriculture is productive because of point innovations that are cheap to disperse widely - exactly the same mechanism! You should take off the Marxist blinkers and the world wouldn't seem like such a depressing place.

[K. A. Pital]

...in a 5 star Manhattan hotel room. There's a difference between being poor and being a rich guy who slurges all his money as fast as he earns it.

Just meant to set an example that being smart does not equal being obscenely rich.

Modern agriculture is productive because of point innovations that are cheap to disperse widely - exactly the same mechanism! You should take off the Marxist blinkers and the world wouldn't seem like such a depressing place.

Modern agriculture is productive because of the Green revolution. Productivity in general rises due to the employment of vast division of labour; if division of labour did not bring a huge productive benefit, there would be no such thing and people would still be all-around subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers. That was the core point, which you did not refute at all. Instead you said that things which could only be invented and mass-produced in an advanced economy employing an extreme division of labour are the cause of greater productivity. Without the division of labour none of these things would have ever came to exist in the first place.

[Simon_Jester]

I laud Terralthra's efforts to explain to Carinthium the problem, but wish to pick up where I left off:

Simon_Jester, I'm guessing you're the kind of naturalised epistemologist who doesn't believe in an analytic-synthetic distinction, nor a dichotomy between ethics and epistemology. That's part of the problem.

1. Ethics is the field of philosophy concerned with how we ought to live. [Definition]

2. Humans live in the experiential world. [I'd argue that this is an analytic truth, implied by the definition of "experiential"]

3. Therefore, ethics makes statements about the experiential world. [Analytic statement, self-explanatory and self-justifying given (2) and (1); if you have to ask what I mean by this, or seriously entertain the idea of disputing it, you're a babbling idiot]

4. Therefore, ethics as a field and ethical arguments in particular must contain synthetic propositions, because there are things about ethics that can only be known and understood experientially, and there is no such thing as an a posteriori analytic truth. [Analytic; this statement follows directly from the last one, plus knowledge about analytic propositions]
_____________

I am perfectly well aware of the difference between "analytical" (self-explanatory) statements (which do not require experience to justify them) and "synthetic" statements (whose truth is contingent on experiential facts).

On the contrary, my argument is that it follows analytically from the very definition of ethics that ethics must contain synthetic statements.

Therefore, it is necessary to be sure that ethics is aligned with experiential truth- and that there be some experiential frame of reference for defining the "should" in "how should we live?" That there be some way to define what it means to "we should live this way." And that this definition is subject to discussion and examination in its own right, rather than being something you can pull out of your ass whenever you don't like the way people are behaving.
_____________

On a side note, you are yet again displaying exactly what's wrong with your debating style. You lead off by trying to pigeonhole me as a thinker, rather than by answering the damn question. Then you shrug, say "I guess you're just a naturalized epistemologist, then. I am too much of a rationalist to care about what you're saying" and proceed as if that gives you a license to ignore what I'm saying.

Philosophical debate doesn't work that way.

---

My viewpoint is more rationalistic- only arguments matter. You need an argument to DEMONSTRATE that consequences matter rather than merely assuming it...

If consequences don't matter, why do arguments matter? Can you construct an argument for why your arguments should matter? I've asked for one repeatedly, although you may not have noticed.

Usually, people justify "listen to my ethical advice" by saying "if this happens, we will lead good/happy/whatever" lives." Certainly that's a major part of the Aristotelianism you're trying to monkey around with by claiming to be a "neo-Aristotelian:" Aristotle's ethics begins with the question "how can man find happiness?"

Which means that at the very least, he could attract listeners; Aristotle didn't have to convince anyone that seeking happiness was a good idea.

So yes, normally people start their argument by saying "follow my ethical advice, it will make the world better." You can't do that. You've already established that you don't give a damn whether following your advice is wise or foolish.

So you need some other, entirely different reason why we should listen to you. Saying "this is the right thing to do" isn't going to cut it. By breaking the connection between "doing the right thing" and "good outcomes for the world," you have also broken the idea that anyone should ever do the right thing according to your definition of "right."

You are the one assuming here- you ASSUME that consequences must matter for a system of ethics. I don't assume that, so in lieu of argument I assume they don't.

If consequences don't matter, pray explain why ethics matter in the first place.

As long as ethicists assert that consequences matter, they don't have to answer that question. You, by striking off boldly into the realm of meaninglessness, have now found a place where you are forced to do so.

---

Your example of the two motorists doesn't make sense because you simply assume that the result is morally unfair. It isn't. Therefore you lack a case on this point.

Your ignorance is showing. Note that in the case of the two motorists, I used the word "desirable" and "undesirable," not "fair" and "unfair."

See, you're still starting by alleging "if X is fair and Y is fair, X+Y is fair."

There are two ways to justify that.
1) You can use a general observation that "if X is Z and Y is Z, X+Y iz Z" will hold for all intangible qualities Z.
2) You can prove that while the observation (1) may not hold in general, it at least holds for Z equals "fairness."

I have disproven (1) by counterexample: "if X is desirable (or neutral) and Y is desirable (or neutral), we find that Z is undesirable." Desirability does not follow the statement in (1). Since desirability and fairness are closely related abstract concepts, this undermines your claim that fairness follows the statement in (1).

This leaves you with course (2). You can if you wish prove that "if X is fair and Y is fair, X+Y is fair." But you cannot simply assume it without further justification and proceed as if it were unquestionably obvious.

---

There is a fundamental difference in your examples. A doctor's purpose is health- the implicit assumption of the patient is that he is there to support the patient's health. There is a meta-philosophical assumption here. An ethicist CANNOT have meta-philosophical assumptions and still be anything more than a crap ethicist.

An ethicist's purpose is to answer the question "how should we live?" That is the only purpose I'm even bothering to refer to.

If my answer to the question "how should we live" is a way we should not, in fact, live... I have failed at ethics.

Now, many people, me not least among them, have argued that you have done that. You have made prescriptions saying we should do A, B, and C. Others reply that A, B, and C are stupid ideas, that they are morally revolting. Or that we should not do them because they lead to disasters.

You reply "whether A, B, and C lead to disasters, and seem wrong in the eyes of all civilized men, has nothing to do with whether you should do them."

Which is a very bold, and rather foolish, position for you to stake out. As long as you at least implicitly stuck to the argument "act ethically, or disaster will follow," or "act ethically, or your actions will be revolting," you didn't have to explain why people should act ethically. Everyone desires to avoid disasters and revolting actions, after all.

But now, you have discarded this presumption. To you, ethical action may lead to even worse outcomes than unethical action, to even more revolting outcomes and this is totally fine. In which case, are we not entitled to ask, "what is the point of acting ethically? Why is ethical action more desirable than unethical action?"


A competent virtue ethicist can talk about why virtuous action is good for the character, in light of the human purpose. You are not a competent virtue ethicist because your basic assumptions about the human purpose are a swamp of ignorance.

A competent deontologist can talk about why the rules we are to follow are good. You are not a competent deontologist because your universal "laws" are these random nonsense things you pull out of your ass to justify inaction, cowardice, and hypocrisy. Chief among them is a love of "freedom," which is wildly at odds with the basic principle of deontology, which is that we ought to act out of respect to moral laws. "Freedom" is nowhere evident in this kind of philosophy- which doesn't bother me, but should really bother you a lot more.

A consequentialist has no trouble with this question "why should we be good," obviously. We already know you're not a consequentialist.

What you are, or at least appear to be, is a gibbering loony.

[K. A. Pital]

How do you get from "Everybody is inter-dependent" to "People have moral obligations to each other"?

In a pretty obvious way: being more or less informed (and yes, people are informed about not just the local, but also the global consequences of their decisions not only for themselves, but also for others), they have no excuse if they know their actions will injure the freedom, survival or health of a fellow human, don't they?

[Terralthra]

Maybe you should think about that for, like, five minutes. Every thread you post in turns into a shitfest of people telling you that you're spouting bullshit. Consider what possible conditions allow this situation to arise so repeatedly.

The fact that, metaphorically speaking, this forum is a clash of cultures. I live in a metaphorical world who agree with me, and who taught me to be the way I am.

I question whether or not this is actually true. Do you really live in a world which is full of people who agree with you, or do you self-select only those who agree you with, and the rest have decided it's not worth arguing with you?

He would have to demonstrate that two people dying unnecessarily and pointlessly is morally undesirable?

The logical thing to say would be that you can't simply claim something is so "just because". You need to establish it with rational argument. The problem is that there are three incompatible intuitions:

-It is morally undesirable for people to die unnecessarily and pointlessly
-If something is morally undesirable, there is an obligation to prevent it
-People are free to live their own lives

The problem here is obvious. The first principle also conflicts with the fact that people do not embrace Immortalism (the viewpoint that massive amounts of money should be spent to get rid of death of old age one way or another), nor donate massive amounts of money to the Third World (see Peter Singer). It is the logical choice to get rid of.

First, that we don't hold to a view that increased money should be spent to treat conditions associated with old age is questionable at best. We frequently do spend large amounts of money on caring for the elderly. People over 65 represent ~13% of the population, but consume roughly 36% of the health care expenditures in the US. If you break the population down by their spending on medical care, the top 5% of those spenders spend half of all health care dollars. Of that 5%, 29% are ages 65-79, and another 19% are 80 years or older.

Second, "we don't donate lots of money to the Third World"? OXFAM has a yearly income of $300 million. The US Fund for UNICEF has an income of over $400 million (not counting other UNICEF funds). Médecins Sans Frontières has an annual budget of around $400 million, not counting the doctors who donate their time when they could be making six figure salaries working in the first world. Private charity not doing it for you? The US federal government spent $23 billion in foreign aid last year. The EU's foreign aid budget (over and above the individual countries' foreign aid budgets) is €57 billion. Most countries in the first world spend a little under 1% of their annual budget on foreign aid. That's not "lots of money"? It's more than we spend on plenty of other things.

Lastly, despite the strength with which you assert that it's obvious that from an ethical perspective, telling people which side of the road to drive on is the unethical choice, since it unacceptably constrains our "freedom", there isn't a single culture or government in the world which has not adopted a standard for which side of the road people in that country (or subdivision of a country) should drive on. Doesn't the fact that your "obvious moral conclusion" has in reality not been adopted by anyone, anywhere give you the slightest pause?

I haven't said anything about rejecting "one true system". What I said is that you have yet to lay out any particular evidence justifying your belief that there is one. That's not the same as saying there isn't one, that's saying "show me." Which you have not, in this confused mishmash. Deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics as three systematic approaches to ethical reasoning are neither of them perfect, but each offers a different set of analytical features which may be more or less useful to a particular ethical decision than the other two may be.

Like Newtonian dynamics, SR, and QM, each of which is best suited to approaching some problems and coming up with an acceptably accurate answer, but not other problems. There are some domains where they overlap, and within those domains, usually their answers agree (somewhat tautologically, as when their answers do not agree, we can be assured at least one of the systems does not extend to that domain particularly well). And yet, even with these three (excellent) systems of modeling the dynamics of interactions amongst energy, matter, and fields, there are situations we can not accurately model, e.g. turbulent flow. Do we reject the three systems we have developed, each of which have problem domains within which they provide excellent and accurate analysis, because they do not extend to every problem domain? Do we reject all three of them because there are as yet unsolved problem domains?

If your answer to these is "yes," you're not a very pragmatic person; by this, I mean - regardless of the rigour of your intellectual enterprises - they are not particularly applicable to solving problems in the world. If your analytical approach doesn't help solve problems that actually exist, it's only good for attacking made-up problems, and is thus largely a waste of my time, if not yours.

If the answer is "no," then you have already fundamentally disagreed with your own "one true system" hypothesis.

We do not consider Newtonian dynamics, Quantum mechanics, or SR to be true- we consider them to be useful sets of assumptions to be pragmatically adopted in certain circumstances. By contrast, this entire debate is about what is TRUE in ethics.

No, it's been about what is desirable. To the extent that we've been talking about the "truth" of anything, it's been about the "truth" of the statment "x is desirable" based on how the results conform to our ethical instincts and sets of outcomes based on the precepts offered. Just as much, we could talk about how "true" a statement it is that "Newtonian dynamics are useful in such and so situation," with reference to the outcomes it engenders.

In empirical matters we have our senses to guide us. We don't have anything nearly as reliable in ethics. Therefore, without an approximation of the True system it is impossible to make any real judgements.

Frequently, in empirical matters, we do not have our senses, or our senses lie to us. It's not really simple at all, and frequently relying solely on sensory data would lead us very much astray. In ethics, we have a history of the entire world's varying solutions to ethical problems, as well as a variety of post hoc analyses by ethical philosophers from a variety of traditions, and theoretical musings of the same. We have reactions to various ethical situations by individuals and aggregates, and analysis of that. Indeed, given a set of circumstances and an "ethical dilemma", research has shown that the majority of participants come to the same conclusion about the least bad choice (or most good), or at least the best two, with a staggering frequency.

To clarify slightly- I am a nominalist about everything. Does that final clue solve the puzzle for you? If you're as intelligent as you think you are, it should.

It does not, not really.

No, I do not agree to that. That there are ethical choices in the world without clear answers can be seen by looking around. It may be that there is no ethical system which can answer every question put to it.

Then that means ethics is incoherent. Which means the only two plausible options are moral nihilism and "The entire study of ethics is bunk".

No, it means ethics might be incoherent. In which case the plausible options are moral nihilism, "ethics are bunk", or the less extreme answer that the study of ethics isn't a perfect science which can provide an easy answer to every possible question from a single unified framework. Why you reject that third option seemingly without even considering it is beyond me. And there are probably more possible answers besides those three!

No, that's one purpose of ethics. Another might be to help determine what action one should take, not because any of the set of possible actions is right, or that any is wrong, but that they exist on a spectrum from more to less desirable.

This ultimately comes down to the One True System dispute. The One True System would have one or several courses of action which are morally acceptable and one or several that are morally unacceptable. There would be no shades of grey.

Where did you get the idea that ethics are so binary? Like I said, in some decisions, it may simply be that there are no good or acceptable choices, and you're left choosing from the unacceptable choices which is least unacceptable. In other decisions, all of the possible choices may be good or acceptable, and ethics will help you pick which choice is the best. "Some choices are acceptable and some choices are unacceptable" is a childlike way to look at ethical decision-making.

If you simply want to know what action to take, why not simply flip a coin?

Because I generally care more about the impact I have on others than random probability would allow. If that's all you care about your impact on others, that does explain a lot, though.

[Carinthium]

This is going to take time, so I will post in stages.

Simon Jester:
I disagree with you on a lot of points. Ethics is the area of determining what objectively Is Right or Wrong morally, including what it means for something to be Right or Wrong.

Even if I accept 1 and 2 ad arguendum, I dispute 3- statements about how we ought to act in the experimental world are not the same as statements about the experimental world.

If consequences don't matter, why do arguments matter? Can you construct an argument for why your arguments should matter? I've asked for one repeatedly, although you may not have noticed.

Arguments are self-justifying if legitimate at all- at the very least a legitimate argument shows how you must, if you accept the starting premises, accept the result.

To simply assume that seeking happiness is Good undermines this whole system by introducing unjustified premises.

If consequences don't matter, pray explain why ethics matter in the first place.

As long as ethicists assert that consequences matter, they don't have to answer that question. You, by striking off boldly into the realm of meaninglessness, have now found a place where you are forced to do so.

So-called ethicists like you are the ones with the problem. Like those who dismiss philosophical skepticism "just because", you make blind assertions and call it a case.

Your ignorance is showing. Note that in the case of the two motorists, I used the word "desirable" and "undesirable," not "fair" and "unfair."

See, you're still starting by alleging "if X is fair and Y is fair, X+Y is fair."

There are two ways to justify that.
1) You can use a general observation that "if X is Z and Y is Z, X+Y iz Z" will hold for all intangible qualities Z.
2) You can prove that while the observation (1) may not hold in general, it at least holds for Z equals "fairness."

I have disproven (1) by counterexample: "if X is desirable (or neutral) and Y is desirable (or neutral), we find that Z is undesirable." Desirability does not follow the statement in (1). Since desirability and fairness are closely related abstract concepts, this undermines your claim that fairness follows the statement in (1).

This leaves you with course (2). You can if you wish prove that "if X is fair and Y is fair, X+Y is fair." But you cannot simply assume it without further justification and proceed as if it were unquestionably obvious.

Fair is a nominalist quality, defined by humans. It is not some objective quantity out of the aether. I am arguing pragmatically that if X+Y is unfair, it is best for humans to define X and Y as having low levels of unfairness to begin with.

An ethicist's purpose is to answer the question "how should we live?" That is the only purpose I'm even bothering to refer to.

If my answer to the question "how should we live" is a way we should not, in fact, live... I have failed at ethics.

How we should live is a subset of what is Right and Wrong. Case closed.

But now, you have discarded this presumption. To you, ethical action may lead to even worse outcomes than unethical action, to even more revolting outcomes and this is totally fine. In which case, are we not entitled to ask, "what is the point of acting ethically? Why is ethical action more desirable than unethical action?"

ANYBODY WHO REJECTS CONSEQUENTIALISM WOULD AGREE WITH ME. Refer to the many, many deontological arguments on why ends do not justify means.

A competent virtue ethicist can talk about why virtuous action is good for the character, in light of the human purpose. You are not a competent virtue ethicist because your basic assumptions about the human purpose are a swamp of ignorance.

The problem with that is the question of "What is good"? Unless a virtue ethicist can define good, they have a problem.

A competent deontologist can talk about why the rules we are to follow are good. You are not a competent deontologist because your universal "laws" are these random nonsense things you pull out of your ass to justify inaction, cowardice, and hypocrisy. Chief among them is a love of "freedom," which is wildly at odds with the basic principle of deontology, which is that we ought to act out of respect to moral laws. "Freedom" is nowhere evident in this kind of philosophy- which doesn't bother me, but should really bother you a lot more.

My deontology is based on taking human intuitions to their logical conclusions, even if intuitive. Those conclusions are the moral laws. One happens to be a respect for freedom.

If you're going to dispute my laws, get some empirical evidence, get some arguments that they are not intuitively good principles, or shut up!

[Carinthium]

Another important argument: Any system which incorporates starting assumptions that are not self-evident automatically leads to subjectivism.

Why? Because somebody can simply dispute your starting assumptions!

Stas Bush:

In a pretty obvious way: being more or less informed (and yes, people are informed about not just the local, but also the global consequences of their decisions not only for themselves, but also for others), they have no excuse if they know their actions will injure the freedom, survival or health of a fellow human, don't they?

Let's go back a step- why should people have active obligations not to indirectly injure the freedom, survival, or health of fellow humans?

Terralthra:

First, that we don't hold to a view that increased money should be spent to treat conditions associated with old age is questionable at best. We frequently do spend large amounts of money on caring for the elderly. People over 65 represent ~13% of the population, but consume roughly 36% of the health care expenditures in the US. If you break the population down by their spending on medical care, the top 5% of those spenders spend half of all health care dollars. Of that 5%, 29% are ages 65-79, and another 19% are 80 years or older.

I am talking about a CURE FOR AGING, not AGED CARE. If we really feel obliged to stop people dying, why aren't people investing more into curing aging?

Second, "we don't donate lots of money to the Third World"? OXFAM has a yearly income of $300 million. The US Fund for UNICEF has an income of over $400 million (not counting other UNICEF funds). Médecins Sans Frontières has an annual budget of around $400 million, not counting the doctors who donate their time when they could be making six figure salaries working in the first world. Private charity not doing it for you? The US federal government spent $23 billion in foreign aid last year. The EU's foreign aid budget (over and above the individual countries' foreign aid budgets) is €57 billion. Most countries in the first world spend a little under 1% of their annual budget on foreign aid. That's not "lots of money"? It's more than we spend on plenty of other things.

I refer to Peter Singer and the drowning child case.

Lastly, despite the strength with which you assert that it's obvious that from an ethical perspective, telling people which side of the road to drive on is the unethical choice, since it unacceptably constrains our "freedom", there isn't a single culture or government in the world which has not adopted a standard for which side of the road people in that country (or subdivision of a country) should drive on. Doesn't the fact that your "obvious moral conclusion" has in reality not been adopted by anyone, anywhere give you the slightest pause?

Argument ad populum. Besides, these are culturally influenced intuitions, not genetic intuitions, from people who value "Practicality" without a legitimate argument for doing so.

The problem with the assumption of practicality is that it contradicts A LOT of other intuitions.

No, it's been about what is desirable. To the extent that we've been talking about the "truth" of anything, it's been about the "truth" of the statment "x is desirable" based on how the results conform to our ethical instincts and sets of outcomes based on the precepts offered. Just as much, we could talk about how "true" a statement it is that "Newtonian dynamics are useful in such and so situation," with reference to the outcomes it engenders.

If you're really talking about desirability only, your arguments are reducible to subjectivism. You cannot refute the ethical subjectivist because actual desires differ greatly.

Frequently, in empirical matters, we do not have our senses, or our senses lie to us. It's not really simple at all, and frequently relying solely on sensory data would lead us very much astray. In ethics, we have a history of the entire world's varying solutions to ethical problems, as well as a variety of post hoc analyses by ethical philosophers from a variety of traditions, and theoretical musings of the same. We have reactions to various ethical situations by individuals and aggregates, and analysis of that. Indeed, given a set of circumstances and an "ethical dilemma", research has shown that the majority of participants come to the same conclusion about the least bad choice (or most good), or at least the best two, with a staggering frequency.

That's not the research I've seen. Ethical dilemnas can be affected by such things as gender, culture, race(in cultures which aren't race-blind), personality, life experiences, genetic code, etc etc. They've done studies on those.

It does not, not really.

Then you are an idiot! What that means is that on Simon Jester's dilemna of whether two fair things can add up to an unfair, it is a matter of good classification!

No, it means ethics might be incoherent. In which case the plausible options are moral nihilism, "ethics are bunk", or the less extreme answer that the study of ethics isn't a perfect science which can provide an easy answer to every possible question from a single unified framework. Why you reject that third option seemingly without even considering it is beyond me. And there are probably more possible answers besides those three!

Where did you get the idea that ethics are so binary? Like I said, in some decisions, it may simply be that there are no good or acceptable choices, and you're left choosing from the unacceptable choices which is least unacceptable. In other decisions, all of the possible choices may be good or acceptable, and ethics will help you pick which choice is the best. "Some choices are acceptable and some choices are unacceptable" is a childlike way to look at ethical decision-making.

Imagine I'm a person who belives in the "ethics are bunk" posistion, that ethics is not worth doing, and that we should just use our gut on absolutely every ethical question no matter what our gut feeling is and no matter what logical contradictions we see in our gut feeling. Once you start getting to this point, they will walk off as you've proved THEIR point! Do you really have any argument that could persuade them otherwise?

My ethics at least approximates an objective truth- the logical conclusions of intuitions. Your ethics approximates nothing at all.

Because I generally care more about the impact I have on others than random probability would allow. If that's all you care about your impact on others, that does explain a lot, though.

That's not a rational argument.

[Knife]

Why is that not a rational answer? Granted, the generally understated second half of that is usually; care for the betterment of society means both a selfish and selfless affect upon myself as well. As society is healthy and prospers, so to does it's people, including me. Why is that not a rational answer? To care for your society in which you are a part?

You kind of sound like that one kid in college who took his first philosophy class and are kind of thrashing around with constructs you think are new and cool.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I've been resisting the urge to get into this but...


Carinithium, is your basic argument that the results do not matter? It doesn't matter how horrible the results are, all that matters is if the people involved consented to a course of action being taken?

[Carinthium]

Knife:
The best interests of an individual and society do not always coincide. It is a myth to claim that self-interest and being moral are completely compatible. Besides, if they did ethics would be pointless as people could simply focus on acting in their own self interest.

So the question "why be moral" remains on the table.

Napoleon the Clown:
Results not mattering is one of the things I argue. What matters is not the results (if I cared about results I'd be a consequentialist), but whether anybody's rights have been breached.

[K. A. Pital]

Let's go back a step- why should people have active obligations not to indirectly injure the freedom, survival, or health of fellow humans?

Why should they not? Why should they have an obligation not to directly injure the same, then? There's no difference.

[Metahive]

Just FYI but Carinthium has admitted before that he's suffering from an autism spectrum disorder and therefore deficient when it comes to things like empathy and abstract thinking. You should keep that in mind when discussing matters like this with him.

[bilateralrope]

What matters is not the results (if I cared about results I'd be a consequentialist), but whether anybody's rights have been breached.

How do you decide if something is a right or not ?

[Carinthium]

Stas Bush- One is a core human intuition, the other has severe problems.

Metahive- I disagree on the abstract thinking section. The evidence in this link is about autistics in general but:

http://oilf.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/aut ... nking.html

bilateralrope- Human intuitions.

[K. A. Pital]

Just because you think it is a "core" human intuition (how'd you determine that anyway?), it does not mean anything, sorry.

[Carinthium]

You assume I don't have evidence to back it there. Why are you so sure?

[Vehrec]

Well, first you need to define a 'core human intuition' but I think I can guess the rough outlines-you think it's a universifiable principle that anyone can understand from any culture, arising naturally from the universal human condition, independent of socialization or culture.

I'll bet you can't actually find such a thing though. People in very different cultures frequently have very different responses to things that you as a privileged westerner might think are obviously and intuitively done in a certain way. Even optical illusions about parallel lines and lines of short and long length like this one are more effective on westerners than on hunter-gatherers like the Bushmen.

If your core human intuitions are not applicable to hunter gatherers as well as elite westerners, they can hardly be said to be core. And they must also apply to collectivist cultures as well, like traditional Chinese. Basically, you seem about to run into the problem of the Philosopher's Walk-Kant took his walk at 3 PM every day for Dentological reasons, based on the time shown on the town clock, which was set by the time he took his walk. You're going to have to show that your intuitions aren't just your own.

[Carinthium]

Just to be clear, I have already taken some of that into account- only intutions rooted in genetics, not culture, are applicable.

[Knife]

Knife:
The best interests of an individual and society do not always coincide. It is a myth to claim that self-interest and being moral are completely compatible. Besides, if they did ethics would be pointless as people could simply focus on acting in their own self interest.

So the question "why be moral" remains on the table.

You are dealing in absolutes then, why must that be so? Why must they be 'completely compatible' to be right/good? So again, being moral means more benefit for society, which in turns means more benefit to myself. Or do you demand physical returns for morality to return. Just the benefits from living in a stable society, not having to worry over much of brigands and wild predators, benefits myself without really getting a daily ration of something from the town square.

[Simon_Jester]

Stas Bush- One is a core human intuition, the other has severe problems.

Metahive- I disagree on the abstract thinking section. The evidence in this link is about autistics in general but:

http://oilf.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/aut ... nking.html

Whether you're mentally ill or otherwise, you personally show about as much aptitude for abstract thinking, analogical reasoning, and general ability to grasp other people's abstract points as a sack of wet concrete.

This is going to take time, so I will post in stages.

Simon Jester:
I disagree with you on a lot of points. Ethics is the area of determining what objectively Is Right or Wrong morally, including what it means for something to be Right or Wrong.

Even if I accept 1 and 2 ad arguendum, I dispute 3- statements about how we ought to act in the experimental world are not the same as statements about the experimental world.

READ.

"Experimental" and "experiential" are not the same thing. If you were anything but ignorant of the philosophy you're trying to use to obscure the issue, you'd know what "experiential" means. Yes, statements about how we ought to act in the (experiential) world are statements about the (experiential) world. Just like statements about how to drive a rover on Mars are statements about Mars.

You cannot talk about driving rovers on Mars without knowing anything about Mars. You cannot make ethical prescriptions for human beings without being aware that, for example, human beings are not hermaphroditic methane-breathers who can make things appear out of thin air by wishing for them.

Given the staggering level of deliberate ignorance* you show, that is basically your problem. You understand human behavior so poorly that you are not able to make intelligent statements about it, or what it should be. And for this purpose I don't care if you have a mental condition or not; the alternative is that you're simply dumb as a box of rocks, and I find that quite credible since you don't listen even when the problem is patiently explained to you.

*I think we need a new definition of 'ignorance' just to cover you: the condition of ignoring things, and of knowing nothing whatsoever because one ignores things.

---

If consequences don't matter, why do arguments matter? Can you construct an argument for why your arguments should matter? I've asked for one repeatedly, although you may not have noticed.

Arguments are self-justifying if legitimate at all- at the very least a legitimate argument shows how you must, if you accept the starting premises, accept the result.

Why? What's the point?

You've repeatedly told me that there is no reason to prefer good outcomes to bad outcomes; what matters is that the arguments are correct. If you're allowed to ignore outcomes, why am I not allowed to ignore arguments? What positive reason do you have for saying "you should follow arguments," instead of saying "you should do whatever the hell you like?"

[This isn't a view I actually ascribe to, but it's the obvious question to ask someone as aggressively ignorant as you, because you set the precedent. If you want to ignore things that other people consider important to the construction of an ethical system, don't be surprised if other people turn that around and propose to ignore what you consider important.]

To simply assume that seeking happiness is Good undermines this whole system by introducing unjustified premises.

I fail to understand why you consider "you should follow a logical argument" more self-evident than "you should do that which will bring you good results."

If consequences don't matter, pray explain why ethics matter in the first place.

As long as ethicists assert that consequences matter, they don't have to answer that question. You, by striking off boldly into the realm of meaninglessness, have now found a place where you are forced to do so.

So-called ethicists like you are the ones with the problem. Like those who dismiss philosophical skepticism "just because", you make blind assertions and call it a case.

Are you refusing to answer my question?

Then you are an idiot! What that means is that on Simon Jester's dilemna of whether two fair things can add up to an unfair, it is a matter of good classification!

...

Fair is a nominalist quality, defined by humans. It is not some objective quantity out of the aether. I am arguing pragmatically that if X+Y is unfair, it is best for humans to define X and Y as having low levels of unfairness to begin with.

And yet when Stas attempts to do exactly that, you argue with him. So no, I don't think you're arguing pragmatically, I think you're bullshitting. You have no idea what 'fairness' actually means in the context of a larger civilized society, you just steal from your list of libertarian talking points and assume that Ayn Rand's idea of "fair" matches up with everyone else's.

An ethicist's purpose is to answer the question "how should we live?" That is the only purpose I'm even bothering to refer to.

If my answer to the question "how should we live" is a way we should not, in fact, live... I have failed at ethics.

How we should live is a subset of what is Right and Wrong. Case closed.

Why? Why do Right and Wrong matter, if not because of some outcome like 'good character' or 'good results?'

Can you present a coherent argument for why that which is Right should be done, why it is good in and of itself, for your own definition of Right?

But now, you have discarded this presumption. To you, ethical action may lead to even worse outcomes than unethical action, to even more revolting outcomes and this is totally fine. In which case, are we not entitled to ask, "what is the point of acting ethically? Why is ethical action more desirable than unethical action?"

ANYBODY WHO REJECTS CONSEQUENTIALISM WOULD AGREE WITH ME. Refer to the many, many deontological arguments on why ends do not justify means.

No, you're full of shit.

The virtue ethicists have no problem with my question, because they have an answer. Acting ethically is consistent with good character. Much as a knife would aspire to be 'good' in the form of 'sharp,' a human being would aspire to be 'good' in the form of 'ethical.' Easy. Aristotle handled this one, and he couldn't even count a woman's teeth and get the right answer.

The deontologists usually have no problem with my question, because their philosophical systems contain an explanation of why their rules are worthwhile. The exception is really crappy fake-deontology like yours.

So, are you going to answer my question or not? What is the point of acting "ethically" for your definition of "ethically?"

The problem with that is the question of "What is good"? Unless a virtue ethicist can define good, they have a problem.

If you had even read Aristotle, let alone anything more recent, you would know perfectly well that virtue ethicists have been and continue to be doing exactly that.

Your ignorance, it burns!

My deontology is based on taking human intuitions to their logical conclusions, even if intuitive. Those conclusions are the moral laws. One happens to be a respect for freedom.

If you're going to dispute my laws, get some empirical evidence, get some arguments that they are not intuitively good principles, or shut up!

On the contrary. YOU are the one claiming they are intuitively good, not me. YOU are the one who has something to prove.

Explain to me how I know that your 'human intuitions' are the actual intuitions of actual humans, rather than being a set of bizarro intuitions better suited for a bunch of hermaphroditic methane breathers.

Another important argument: Any system which incorporates starting assumptions that are not self-evident automatically leads to subjectivism.

Why? Because somebody can simply dispute your starting assumptions!

In case you haven't noticed, I've been disputing YOUR starting assumptions ever since you started, for a simple reason.

You are wrong about what "self-evident" means. Things that are "self-evident" to you are not self-evident to the rest of the world, very often. Therefore, you are using "self-evident truth" when you mean "my personal opinion," which is pretty much the exact opposite.

Argument ad populum. Besides, these are culturally influenced intuitions, not genetic intuitions, from people who value "Practicality" without a legitimate argument for doing so.

You wouldn't recognize a genetic intuition if it walked up to you and punched you in the nose. You'd probably just dismiss it as irrational emotionalism.

You would then turn around and call "intuitively obvious" some random gibberish you believe because you were dropped head-first on a stack of Rush Limbaugh tapes as a baby.

That's not the research I've seen. Ethical dilemnas can be affected by such things as gender, culture, race(in cultures which aren't race-blind), personality, life experiences, genetic code, etc etc. They've done studies on those.

Doesn't that make it hard for you to identify which ethical ideas are instinctive to all humans, as opposed to those which differ from culture to culture?

Imagine I'm a person who belives in the "ethics are bunk" posistion, that ethics is not worth doing, and that we should just use our gut on absolutely every ethical question no matter what our gut feeling is and no matter what logical contradictions we see in our gut feeling. Once you start getting to this point, they will walk off as you've proved THEIR point! Do you really have any argument that could persuade them otherwise?

Actually, "ethics are bunk" means not going with one's gut, it means not caring.

You, on the other hand, are pulling 'fundamental values' out of your ass without even bothering to check whether they are fundamental or valuable.

[Vehrec]

Just to be clear, I have already taken some of that into account- only intuitions rooted in genetics, not culture, are applicable.

A nice sentiment, but you can't really prove that intuitions are of biological as opposed to cultural origin, can you? Your position has become somewhat muddled, but you seriously contend that there is no difference between giving a man one dollar and giving him 60, despite the vastly different inclinations of people across the world to part with money or divvy it up as per the article I linked. So I highly doubt that you have some special insight into just what features of the human mind are cultural, which are biological, and which are mixed.

And since biological impulses to breed, to eat, to live, are all so easily subverted and ignored by modern cultural impulses, I hardly think that they should carry as much weight as you think.

[bilateralrope]

Just to be clear, I have already taken some of that into account- only intutions rooted in genetics, not culture, are applicable.

Which intuitions are these ?

Please provide a list. Then prove they are rooted in genetics.

[slebetman]

Carinthium, you said:

Just to be clear, I have already taken some of that into account- only intutions rooted in genetics, not culture, are applicable.

Yet, your core assumption which is:

People are free to do whatever they want with their lives

is rooted in culture, not nature. The other assumptions have much stronger natural roots:

- It is desirable to minimize harm

The natural root of this is survival. Different species evolved different mechanisms of survival. For some, minimizing harm to others does not affect the survival of the species at all. For others, especially humans and other social animals, it does. But for all, minimizing harm in one's self and progeny appears to be universal.

Only once harm is minimized is one free to consider other "freedoms".

This should be self-evident. The proof is simply how evolution works - those that survive are simply those that gets out of harm's way.

What is not self-evident is the argument that an organism is free to do what it wants because that's not how it started in nature.

You need to prove, logically, why "people are free to do what they want" because that intuition certainly didn't come from genetics. Indeed, that notion "free will" is fairly modern and humans have evolved entire cultures that holds the opposite view (fatalism).

[slebetman]

You assume I don't have evidence to back it there. Why are you so sure?

To be clear, I don't think anybody assumes you don't have evidence to back it up.

Instead everybody is certain that you have not shown any evidence to back it up.

If you have evidence, post it.

If you don't post it it's proof that you don't have any.

[Metahive]

Metahive- I disagree on the abstract thinking section. The evidence in this link is about autistics in general but:

*snip*

So you insist that your utter inability to grasp abstractions and therefore ineptitude at any sort of nuanced discussion is fully a personal failure of yours?

"I'm not mentally deficient, I'm just rock stupid and stubbornly oblivious of it"

Hey, I tried throwing you a life-line but if you'd rather drown that's your decision, Christian Weston Chandler.