First principles

^^ I'm beginning to think that Rott can't hold beliefs that are mutually contradictory, and that because we're saying contradictory things in the same posts, he's assuming that one belief must override another rather than leaving us paralyzed in decision. (If I'm right, then this makes him arguably saner than the rest of us.)

edited 29th Mar '11 9:51:42 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I had that theory at one point too. Like I think Rottweiler sort of honestly wonders why liberal tropers aren't off raping and killing.

Hodor

Those belief aren't necessarily 1 or 0 things, though. It's a careful balance. You'd simply have to weigh them carefully and make decisions according to the situation at hand.

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

@OTOH:

Confucius upheld the same principle. What would you do if you had a liberal state where Confucians had become popular enough to win national elections? Submit to the peaceful abolition of liberalism, or whip your side into a violent frenzy against their philosophical leaders?

@feo:

You are correct!

@Jordan:

The reforming and revolutionary paths to socialism have always competed for adherents. What I'd honestly find baffling is if no progressives were off killing.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Am I allowed to peacefully leave into some state that will not require me to submit to their philosophy? I have no objections to them following Confucian principles if they so choose, but will resist it being enforced upon me.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

ummm... Can anyone tell me what in the hell this thread is supposed to be about? :-S

edited 29th Mar '11 11:40:49 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

I'll admit, after the second page or so I got pretty confused by where this went. So I'll just go back to that:

Well, I could think of some elaborate hypothetical "moral dilemma" question designed to challenge this, but I really despise those things. Instead I'll just raise some blunt objections:

• Nobody wants to just be alive without experiencing any joy. That would, to put it mildly, suck.
  • Similarly, nobody wants to live through a whole life of misery and suffering.

Two undesirable outcomes that your First Principle does not do anything to counteract.

This, I think, pretty much lies at the heart of the disagreement-you seem to think existence itself is valuable, more valuable than anything else, and I (and perhaps others?) do not. Me personally, I took up "minimize harm, maximize happiness" after trying to come up with a purpose for life. Just existing is not enough.

Now, I take it you are not a pacifist? Seems like a pretty safe assumption.

I'll leave the rest of my reply until you answer that question, because even if I'm reasonably sure it would be rude to assume the answer.

You wouldn't AIM for a zero maximum, however, especially if the current levels are greater than 0. Actually, wait-0 can't be a maximum if we're already above 0!

Ending up with everyone dead for the sake of nobody suffering/being killed is just the kind of crappy scenario you get if you only work with one variable. Which is why most people seem to be professing two, and probably actually have closer to a hundred. (Face it, almost nobody uses these criteria for every decision. Your own needs/happiness take precedence over others, as evidenced by the fact that you haven't sold the computer you're using to assist those in need.)

edited 30th Mar '11 12:16:35 AM by deathjavu

Look, you can't make me speak in a logical, coherent, intelligent bananna.

But having the computer is not actively causing anyone any suffering. I've been interpreting "Maximize Happiness, Minimize Suffering" as "Make yourself as happy as you can without interfering with someone else's well-being. Going out of your way to maximize someone else's happiness is good too."

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?

And by that same arguement, why are you not selling the computer to go out and save peoples lives?

We don't always act according to our "principles" when there is nothing in immediate (or larger) range to use them on. We tend to do stuff like this or other minor things because our own survival and relative comfort tend to be as important to us (at the moment) as our principles.

"Is good too." =/= "A top priority." It simply means "you could do this without violating your principles."

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?

edited 25th Nov '12 3:56:02 PM by JosefBugman

"Confucius upheld the same principle. What would you do if you had a liberal state where Confucians had become popular enough to win national elections? Submit to the peaceful abolition of liberalism, or whip your side into a violent frenzy against their philosophical leaders?"

This is why I'm an egoist, rather than an utilitarian or democratist.

Enjoy the Inferno...

I...think this is the same thing I was saying?

My point was that we profess to having 2 or 3 core principles, but we also have a bunch of hidden ones that slant our priorities towards ourselves.

And yes, there is a near 100% chance that something you have done has contributed to killing/harming someone else, so it's not just the "maximizing happiness" bit that I am talking about.

Which ties into my eventual response to Rott, when he eventually answers my question about pacifism. Not that the answer makes a difference in the point I'll make, but it will make the point easier to argue.

edited 30th Mar '11 2:31:57 AM by deathjavu

Look, you can't make me speak in a logical, coherent, intelligent bananna.

That is true if, and only if, you assume that a moral system has to be consistent. Now, of course, if your effort is to create a moral system, then this is true. However, I think that most people don't do that in their lives. We rarely stop to think, "wait, this would be a lie, and because my moral system includes honesty as a value derived from XX other value, I can't do that, so I don't." In most cases, we more or less go from instinct, intuition, and some vague understanding of our own values.

I also think that a rule can never account for every possible future circumstance. "Don't kill" - well, what if I'm a doctor who has to decide between a mother and her unborn child (and she's unconscious)? "Don't lie" - what if I were a german in 1939 and had Jews hidden in my cellar?

Thus, I think that moral rules need a certain flexibility. Yes, that means possible conflict in every single case. Yes, it's a mess. I think it's good to learn to deal with that.

Because of all this, I try to make empathy my guiding principle as much as possible - because it's not an ethical rule, but a feeling I have that helps me decide on a case-to-case basis.

edited 30th Mar '11 3:12:04 AM by vijeno

@Rott: I do not believe in democracy. I believe in liberty.

Those who would use democray to abolish liberty should be stopped by any means neccessary.

edited 30th Mar '11 3:52:53 AM by SavageHeathen

You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.

^^ It's actually all about rationality. Morality is HARD. It's quite difficult. It's trying to balance different interests all at the same time and understand when compromise is needed and when compromise can go and bugger off. And it's something we need to be talking about. But often we don't.

We rely far too much on arbitrary moral structures, like authoritarianism. And that's the problem. It makes people less able to balance those things, so they can't judge the grey areas as well.

Take what I'm guessing is the original debate. Euthanasia. Or to be more precise, the ability of someone to end their life if they do desire. Assisted suicide. Who does this hurt? Well, I'm assuming the core issue is the devaluing of human life. But does it really do this? I don't think so. Does it hurt family and friends who don't understand the pain the person is going through (or worse)? Possibly. Is this a hurt we should care about? I would say probably no.

Now there are concerns, that this shouldn't be a decision that people make on the spur of the moment, and that coercion is a real problem with this. But these are not arguments against assisted suicide, these are arguments about the implementation. And they're important arguments! But one should not be mistaken for the other.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Two things.

One, on-topic: I dislike allowing 'pleasure' and 'pain' into my first principles given the subjectivity of their experience. (How would we make ethical decisions about masochists?) And life is only a good in that it enables action and experience; death isn't innately evil, so minimizing it can't be innately good.

For a first principle, I like to go with "maximize insightful learning" (the kind you see in psychological phenomena like Flow experiences) and roll from there. It's a complicated demand, but that works in its favour. You need people to live, but if they become too attached to life they won't learn certain insights. You can't have them distracted by pain, but without the experience of suffering they won't learn certain things. I can derive just about every other ethical position I hold from there.

-

Two, off topic: Rott, please don't perpetrate the fabrication that Chomsky was a fan of the Khmer Rouge. I've read and listened to a lot of Chomsky. I've never heard him praise the Khmer Rouge. I've heard him say stuff to the effect of "based on the U.S. military intelligence I've looked up, they didn't quite kill that many people" although I think those numbers were later overturned with grave counts and are out of date. If that's praising the Khmer Rouge, then the U.S. government was a bigger fan of them. I've heard him say stuff to the effect of "we the U.S. have done worse things than they have", which is hardly a lie. That's only praising the Khmer Rouge if you think comparison to the U.S. in terms of kill count is automatically a good thing, and I highly doubt that's Chomsky's position.

I've gone through Manufacturing Consent. I've read what he wrote. He's clarified it in interviews (search for "khmer") and others have done the analysis and found he was working with old data, at worst. He's said they killed tons of people. I'll thank you not to perpetuate the meme.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

This, too. Democracy is not an end, it's a mean (and not too effective one, by the way). Although this one is wary of "by any means necessary" sentiment and thinks that there are actions that cannot be justified by any goal whatsoever

edited 30th Mar '11 4:21:57 AM by Beholderess

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

Vijeno said what I wanted to express better than I could myself.

Hodor

It's Rottweiler basing his arguments off of the writings of old dead people instead of what people are actually saying.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

@Beholderess:

Sure, I don't see why not.

@Taoist: Have you read this?

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

I also think that a rule can never account for every possible future circumstance. "Don't kill" - well, what if I'm a doctor who has to decide between a mother and her unborn child (and she's unconscious)? "Don't lie" - what if I were a german in 1939 and had Jews hidden in my cellar?

Then you adopt a Consequentialist philosophy. Not hard.

Anyway, first principles:

Reality exists.

I can know things about reality, at least in part, through interacting with it.

Examining reality and understanding it is... important. Maybe moral.

I can understand morality by examining aspects of reality. (To an extent not to exceed my understanding of those aspects)

edited 30th Mar '11 11:40:26 AM by Roman

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That's one solution, yes. But I'm not quite in favour of adopting any one specific philosophy with regard to ethics. I think every abstract system hits its limits here pretty fast. Like, for instance, it is obvious that I can only see the most direct consequences of my actions, and that there are a lot of unforeseen consequences further down the road - what if the doctor manages to save both mother and child, but it was Hitler, etc. etc....

That's one reason why I think there can never be any system of thought covering all ethics. The other is that I'm pretty convinced that we take a lot of decisions unconsciously - for example in conversations, it's pretty much impossible to really think about every word you say. So if someone claims that some philosophy governs their actions, that's really far from the truth.

Empathy, however, is something that we always practice anyway, and rather effortlessly. We often don't dare listen to it, and it's far from perfect, but I believe it's pretty much the best option we have. That's why I'm so fiercely advocating its use.

I'm not saying rules and systems are bad. We should all confront ourselves with moral dilemmas and try to find solutions. But I don't believe that the rules are enough - or that any "first principles" are really needed. We survived as a species long before we were advanced enough to create such principles, so at best they are philosophical abstractions of what biology solved million years before anyway. Once I "realize", "feel", or "know" in any way, shape or form that you are a feeling thinking being equal to myself, everything else is really more a matter of practical possibilities than philosophical riddle-solving.

edited 30th Mar '11 12:04:57 PM by vijeno

Utilitarian hedonist.

Because I cannot imagine a situation where a superior pain:pleasure ratio—all factors considered to an impossible degree—is bad. I can see where "Less death" is.
The technology for painless death exists, yes, but unless everyone suddenly decides to become a utilitarian hedonist on the spot, firmly believes in the philosophy on an emotional level, and has come to the conclusion that net pleasure will always be lesser than net pain, that is irrelevant.
On the other hand, avoiding the "impossible technology" argument, according to "less killing" philosophy, the painless, silent, unpublicized, unforeseen-by-the-victims death of eleven unknown bums would be worse than giving ten Gandhis and Einsteins the Vlad III treatment. And yes, I know that such people can encourage less killing among the masses and thus may be more valuable than the bums, but if you want to bring that up, just make them sports stars or something.

Personally, as a hedonist, I don't sell my computer and everything for others because... I'm lazy, and weak.

... Not entirely. The number of people that selling my computer could save would be generally inversely correlated with how happy said people would be for the rest of their lives. I cannot do much with a single chunk of $400. However, a home PC appears to be the easiest means for me to advance my own knowledge and situation, that I may eventually get a job where I can influence, directly or indirectly, dozens or hundreds or thousands of people, depending on what I do and how well. Yes, I could be spending time studying rather than TV Troping... but my failings are part of reality. That's not changing... though I can work on reducing them, which I am.

edited 30th Mar '11 12:26:12 PM by Garbeld

^^

It sounds like you already have adopted consequentialism i.e. adoptinng empathy for the greater good.

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