A little Help on an Ethical belief please?

[wolveraptor]

Intelligence isn't the only measure of worth. After all, you can be an intelligent sociopath, and then you are worthless to everyone. Worth is a very vague an ambiguous term, but can best be measured in one's contribution to humanity. However, one must recognize that without the masses of mediocrity, there would be no humanity to improve.

[Zero]

I'm just going to work with my idea that morals and moral beliefs can't really be based in logic. Any moral code you use can only be good by its own definitions. If there were to be any logical moral code, it ought to be based on what we individually would prefer for ourselves, and attempts to extend this to everyone.

[wolveraptor]

How does one determine what is good? Because Pastor Heywood Jablome said so?

[Kuroneko]

Intelligence isn't the only measure of worth. After all, you can be an intelligent sociopath, and then you are worthless to everyone. Worth is a very vague an ambiguous term, but can best be measured in one's contribution to humanity.

No one here claimed that it was. From one of the beginning posts: "[a human being has value] due to the kinds of experiences the individual (and those around her or him) has (have) throughout life." This, if vague, is actually better than your definition, since it then follows that a human being has at least some value even if the contribution of humanity to zero--e.g., an ascetic hermit is still a valuable human being. It has the further advantage for being far less antropocentric--if a certain species is capable of humanlike experiences, then a member of that species should have a right to life just as well as a human being. The only claim about intelligence present here is that a certain minimal level of intelligence is a pre-requisite for those experiences, which is completely unproblematic.

I'm just going to work with my idea that morals and moral beliefs can't really be based in logic. Any moral code you use can only be good by its own definitions.

This is a rather empty tautology. Just about every system whatsoever defines itself as true, including logic itself. The real test is whether the system achieves its goals. What are you really saying?

[wolveraptor]

Intelligence isn't the only measure of worth. After all, you can be an intelligent sociopath, and then you are worthless to everyone. Worth is a very vague an ambiguous term, but can best be measured in one's contribution to humanity.

No one here claimed that it was. From one of the beginning posts: "[a human being has value] due to the kinds of experiences the individual (and those around her or him) has (have) throughout life." This, if vague, is actually better than your definition, since it then follows that a human being has at least some value even if the contribution of humanity to zero--e.g., an ascetic hermit is still a valuable human being. It has the further advantage for being far less antropocentric--if a certain species is capable of humanlike experiences, then a member of that species should have a right to life just as well as a human being. The only claim about intelligence present here is that a certain minimal level of intelligence is a pre-requisite for those experiences, which is completely unproblematic.

I concede that my definition is flawed, but how do the kinds of experiences a human has give it worth? Keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that we begin taking away rights from people that are determined to have less "worth". Regardless of what we reason, humans will always have the urge to conserve themselves.

[Kuroneko]

I don't know, and moreover I find it very dubitable that even if the full range of positive human experiences can be enumerated and categorized, that the venture will even prove worthwhile in the end. Certainly, certain principles come to mind, such as utilitarianist happiness or Kantian rationality, but in the end they seem to prove to be a bit too narrow. However, I do not see this a real problem here--there is always an intuitive notion of human-like experience, so it is more of a case that if one has evidence of it in a certain being, that is enough evidence for granting the right to life. The original point of this account was to extend this notion a little bit beyond athropocenrism and value by fiat (`people are valuable because they declared themselves to be'), at least to the extent it can be given that we have little else to go on. For this purpose, I think it succeeds fairly well, although of course not perfectly.

As to you suggesting to take away rights from people, I wouldn't think of it. In fact, my impression from (the intent of) your previous criticism in regards to intelligence is that this is exactly what you're trying to prevent. At this point, I once again re-iterate my disclaimer that I do not hold the potential-future account as necessarily the only means a being could gain the right to life, just a sufficient one.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

[This is a rather empty tautology. Just about every system whatsoever defines itself as true, including logic itself. The real test is whether the system achieves its goals. What are you really saying?[/quote]

I think I understand what he's trying to get at here. There are many people who run around and say they cannot ever be wrong, beause their moral system defines right/wrong,and you cannot critique a moral system in any just manner, because it itself defines right/wrong. To try to do so would be trying to apply another moral system's guidelines to critique it, which itself is based off of only normative principles held up by normative principles.

Or at least that's what I think he said.

[Zero]

Yeah, that works for what I think about things. But he too is right that any system defines its own goals, so if I were to design a moral code around personal happiness of others, I could gauge my system's success by seeing how happy it actually makes people, or, in my case, guessing. However, you also must take into consideration that some moralistic codes will have faulty goals in the first place. For instance, if your moral code is designed so that the highest ideal is belief in God, and that God should be above the self, and you guage your moral code by how many people you convert, and how many infidels you slay, then there are obviously some disagreements that are bound to occur. Of course, I must admit, whatever moral system I subscribe to, I will likely continue on the way I always have. At the least, it's very entertaining to be me the way I be me.

[st. mark]

...this debate is a almost scary.

If religion is to not to be dragged into this debate, "value" is a difficult term in general. If value depends exclusively on intelligence or the ability to experience, it is really a unneccesary term. If it depends on a mix of many factors, how theese facors are weighted or "valued" by a subject, or by his/her ethical system, will affect the use of the term - and may create a unstable and unpredictable system.

Without some Platonic idea of what a human is, or some stringent philosophical ethical system (like: "right is good and good is always better than evil"), any debate is likely to end up with something like "All animals are equal - but some are more equal than others." If "usefullness" is added as a parameter, intelligent people who use their full potential should be considered as "übermensch" while handicapped or dysfunctional people are worthelss. (?)

Human value must be defined independent of intelligence, usefullness, influence or human characteristics. Personally i think life in itself has a value, and I would use a religous system to give humans, animals and plants different value. Outside a religious context "value" need to be somehow filled with another content, and as you have understood, I think that could be morally "unstable" and politically dangerous.

Politically, the idea is that the pluralism of democracy will make acceptable compromises to make societies work like a self-adjusting unstable system. History however proves that even majorities can fill terms like "value" with a content that can be used to justify ethnical cleansing, war and murder.

We could argue about the differences between muslim, hindu or christian values, but I am not sufficiently intelligent to understand how anyone else can tell which system is better or more correct unless they have somehow allready chosen a point of view just like any religious belief would be.

....and if my lack of intelligence make me a worthless person - I really don't care.

[General Brock]

Human beings have human value because they are human beings; it is a loyalty to the species thing that most people have by combination of learning and hardwire, to ameliorate antisocial behavior. If we didn't, we wouldn't be the species we are today.

What you are suggesting seems more along the lines of utilitarian value, value to self and to others, in which case the value of a human being is measured in a positive or negative magnitude relative to a balance of objective and subjective values.

A mental deficient has value to friends and relatives, and perhaps to him/her self, depending on the degree and nature of disability. More neutral persons, like professional caregivers, may value them as a job or object of study. Measured by objective standards, a mental deficient enjoys value only insofar as society subjectively values a human being beyond utilitarian potential.

A baby has great positive subjective value, especially to people capable of empathy. They further have utilitarian value as future participants in society. A healthy, normal or above normal baby's objective potential is nearly limitless. Levar Burton had a touching scene in Roots, when he held his newborn child up to the night sky and proclaimed: "Behold, the only thing greater than yourself".


...Getting late and starting to get hazy..

[wolveraptor]

I don't know, and moreover I find it very dubitable that even if the full range of positive human experiences can be enumerated and categorized, that the venture will even prove worthwhile in the end. Certainly, certain principles come to mind, such as utilitarianist happiness or Kantian rationality, but in the end they seem to prove to be a bit too narrow. However, I do not see this a real problem here--there is always an intuitive notion of human-like experience, so it is more of a case that if one has evidence of it in a certain being, that is enough evidence for granting the right to life. The original point of this account was to extend this notion a little bit beyond athropocenrism and value by fiat (`people are valuable because they declared themselves to be'), at least to the extent it can be given that we have little else to go on. For this purpose, I think it succeeds fairly well, although of course not perfectly.

As to you suggesting to take away rights from people, I wouldn't think of it. In fact, my impression from (the intent of) your previous criticism in regards to intelligence is that this is exactly what you're trying to prevent. At this point, I once again re-iterate my disclaimer that I do not hold the potential-future account as necessarily the only means a being could gain the right to life, just a sufficient one.

Er, I speciffically said I would NOT take away rights from people if in this thread we determined that certain people had less rights through logic. My point was that regardless of our debates, we will NOT go out and start killing the mentally deficient. It cannot be done without a terrible beating to one's conscience.

Anyways, I see a bit of the reasoning behind the "Human experiences" thing. Anyone who suffers, lives and dies as we do will have some bonding with us. That's why we could never relate to an omnipotent, all-powerful God figure. He hasn't lived the human experience. Even a retard (and I don't mean that offensively) can feel joy, sorrow, boredom, excitement, and a whole range of other things. If not, then they're probably in a coma, maybe even PVS, and that's a different matter.

[Kuroneko]

Er, I speciffically said I would NOT take away rights from people if in this thread we determined that certain people had less rights through logic. My point was that regardless of our debates, we will NOT go out and start killing the mentally deficient.

I know. That's exactly why I said I wouldn't think of you suggesting such a thing, since my impression from one of your previous posts was that you were trying to prevent that kind of thing.

[wolveraptor]

Oy. Haven't had enough sleep. Been trying to reach the last level of Halo on legendary. Damn near impossible, if you ask me.