posted
Right, I largely believe that too, Bok, but it is a belief rooted in my own personal morality. As a result, said respect is a moral choice, and my asking others to live by it is a proposed imposition of part of my moral code on them, which potentially flies in the face of that respect, creating a paradox or at the very least a tricky dilemma.
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quote: As it stands now, wanting to die without a disability or terminal disease is taken almost as prima facia proof that one is incompetent to decide. The flip side is that wanting to die with a disability or terminal disease is seen as a "rational" choice. It's a small step from being "a" rational choice to "the" rational choice.
I know I'm kind of late to comment on this, but right after sndrake posted his review I was thinking about this issue and why it is right or wrong, and this suddenly occured to me- I'd never thought of this way before, I am ashamed to admit.
If someone who is perfectly healthy wants to commit suicide we will do everything to comfort them, to stop them, to make them seek help. A disabled person feels the same way and we say "it's your choice" instead of treating a disabled person as merely someone who's mentally and in most cases temporarily unable to deal with the situation.
I think that most people do not actually think of it this way and that that is the problem. I know it was the problem with me- until I thought, and realised.
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posted
I didn't think of it this way until I started reading Stephen's posts. I was against it for other reasons (and still am) prior to that, but Stephen changed the way I look at the world in this regard.
Now if I could get the Catholic writers on the subject to start discussing it from this perspective as well as the perspective they usually write from.
posted
Thank you, David Bowles, for saying exactly what I've been trying to say, only much much better and less partisan-sounding
And now, saxon:
quote:You're sort of arguing against yourself here. If it really is the case that the only way to pass a ban is to claim that you are saving lives then other values, like individualism and self-determination, must be working to oppose the ban.
My point is that different people prioritize their values in different ways. However, recently, certain sets of priorities that emphasize the extension of life have become more persuasive than others in our public discourse.
So I'm not sure where I'm arguing against myself. I think that the people who were originally in favor of smoking bans took that position for reasons other than a threat to their lives from secondhand smoke, but then developed and adopted that strategy because they found that the "saving lives" value was prioritized more highly within the systems espoused by some people who might have otherwise opposed them.
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posted
" think that the people who were originally in favor of smoking bans took that position for reasons other than a threat to their lives from secondhand smoke, but then developed and adopted that strategy because they found that the "saving lives" value was prioritized more highly within the systems espoused by some people who might have otherwise opposed them."
Yup. A good persuasive argument finds what the person you are trying to persuade values, and then targets the argument to those values.
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posted
And there's nothing dishonest about that, even if those reasons aren't the main reason the advocate has for supporting the proposal, as long as the advocate believes the information underlying the "new" reasons.
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quote:My point is that different people prioritize their values in different ways.
I see. I would agree with that. It's a very different statement, though, from "It's like all the other values have disappeared," hence my misunderstanding.
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quote:And there's nothing dishonest about that, even if those reasons aren't the main reason the advocate has for supporting the proposal, as long as the advocate believes the information underlying the "new" reasons.
There is something a little bit dishonest about it.
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posted
No there's not. If you pretend this is the only reason for it, then maybe. But if you say "Policy X will provide Benefit Y" to a group that desires Benefit Y, and you actually believe it will provide Benefit Y, then you haven't been dishonest. Even if the reason you want Policy X is to obtain Benefit Z.
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posted
Maybe if the consequences are the only relevant issues.
If it's important for a group to choose Policy X, then there is a reason why it's important for a group to choose Policy X, and that reason is at least as important as the consequence, and should be treated as such.
I saw a sign that said, "DUIs, you can't afford them." Signs like that make me wonder if there is something wrong with the state catering to people who find the most compelling reason not to drink and drive the possibility of a DUI. If we indulge in people doing the right thing for the wrong reason, even if the reason is both correct and amoral, then it seems that we have lost our way.
posted
This assumes that the issue is being presented to multiple subgroups of a pluralistic decision-making body - either the citizenry or a legislature.
No such group should adopt a policy without investigating all the implications. But a single advocate is not responsible for presenting all those issues in a single persuasive event.
quote:I saw a sign that said, "DUIs, you can't afford them." Signs like that make me wonder if there is something wrong with the state catering to people who find the most compelling reason not to drink and drive the possibility of a DUI. If we indulge in people doing the right thing for the wrong reason, even if the reason is both correct and amoral, then it seems that we have lost our way.
I don't have a problem with that campaign. It depresses the hell out of me that there are people who will cease drunk driving for this reason rather than the safety and responsibility reasons. But, one of the classic purposes of the criminal law is to raise the cost of undesirable behavior (deterrence). Advertising that increased costs seems in line with that to me.
posted
"Thank you, David Bowles, for saying exactly what I've been trying to say, only much much better and less partisan-sounding."
One quibble I have with David's reasoning here -- and the conclusions you seem to be applying to it -- is that I don't think that all things which are arbitrary are necessarily equally arbitrary.
It's true that people necessarily have to agree on basic precepts in order to have conversations, especially about ethics. But that doesn't mean that agreeing with the concept "that which exists can be observed" or "that which is harmful should be avoided" is necessarily of the same order, or that "what this alien being wants us to do, as according to this book, is in fact what we should do" is equivalent to "we should seek to maximize the most utilitarian good."
Now, I'm not advocating any one of these precepts as being particularly workable. But they're precepts that people DO take as starting points for conversations, in many places, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to observe that some of them are many orders of complexity less "simple" than others, and therefore less reasonable.
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posted
"I don't think that all things which are arbitrary are necessarily equally arbitrary."
Neither do I... you may recall my favorite concept as concerns morality: "virtual goodness/truth/value etc." I think there is a whole set of morality-related memes that have proven themselves over millenia to be more or less universal and happiness-maximizing, and these, I feel, are the sensible starting points from which to construct any modern ethical code.
However, I don't buy the "maximize the most utilitarian good" or "sustain complexity" foundation for ethical codes, because these are attempts to reset morality rather than permitting its natural (if nudged from time to time) evolution along with the culture.
quote:Now, I'm not advocating any one of these precepts as being particularly workable. But they're precepts that people DO take as starting points for conversations, in many places, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to observe that some of them are many orders of complexity less "simple" than others, and therefore less reasonable.
I reject this notion (derived from your own esthetic and moral idiosphere, Tom) entirely as irrelevant. The simplicity of a moral starting point cannot be, I think (from my own personal moral stance), the deciding factor in its rejection or inclusion in the formulation of a moral framework or discussion. My own preference, as I think I've made clear, is for a hisorical and comparative study of moral systems and a distillation of these to their essential elements, etc.
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posted
But it's precisely the identification of those essential elements which makes a moral concept "simple." If we have to agree to disagree on precepts, surely a moral framework built on the most basic precepts we agree to share -- the lowest common denominator, as it were -- is by definition the most universal.
This does not necessarily mean that it's the most "effective," or even necessarily the "best," since of course those terms are ones which must first be defined with a moral framework before they have any meaning. But "universal" is a term which has a meaning independent of moral value, and can therefore stand alone as a yardstick.
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posted
I certainly would agree with that... cultural universality, in my book, is the hallmark of the virtually true.
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posted
David, I've always had a problem with your explanation because it makes morals accidents of culture or even biology. Biology I can stomach, as long as we presuppose that everyone's moral chemistry is the same, but there is something unnecessarily weak about placing morals as dependent upon culture as opposed understanding morals as determined by the faculties by which we take in the world.
Take truth for example. We can't even talk without presupposing the existence of truth. The existence of truth is a function of how we take in the world as human beings. It doesn't mean that truth is subjective, it means that the world has truth in it as a function of the constitution of our intellect. It's not a matter of culture, rather it's a function of human comportment in the world. *whew*
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posted
"Biology I can stomach, as long as we presuppose that everyone's moral chemistry is the same, but there is something unnecessarily weak about placing morals as dependent upon culture as opposed [to]understanding morals as determined by the faculties by which we take in the world."
Well, the latter case ("determined by the faculties by which we take in the world") is basically biology, unless you believe in spirit stuff which apprehends the universe. But your postulates aren't as far from mine as you might imagine. In my estimation, culturally universal ethical memes are so because of some basic function they serve for humans' happiness and survival, either as individuals or in groups. As a result, they have their origin in many things, including biology, the exigencies of hierarchical social frameworks, the environmental contours we've historically thrived in, etc.
"We can't even talk without presupposing the existence of truth." Ah, now here we will probably have to agree to disagree. If you mean capital-T Truth, i.e., statements about behavior that are cosmically or transcendentally true, then I *don't* believe such a thing exists. I believe in truthful, objective statements about the physical realities of objects, but not about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of their behavior.
"The existence of truth is a function of how we take in the world as human beings. It doesn't mean that truth is subjective, it means that the world has truth in it as a function of the constitution of our intellect. It's not a matter of culture, rather it's a function of human comportment in the world." Okay, this I would term "virtual truth" (or "little-t truth") in that it applies only to human beings. Again, this truth is derived, as are any moral codes that exist, from evolved patterns of "comportment," and cannot be easily extricated from the cultural sphere (the memosphere) in which they developed. Hence the need for comparative studies of little-t truth and moral codes to get at what most humans would agree is "virtually true" and "virtually good."
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quote:Well, the latter case ("determined by the faculties by which we take in the world") is basically biology, unless you believe in spirit stuff which apprehends the universe.
If by spirit stuff you mean beings, then yeah. I'm sitting on a "chair," typing at at "computer" while reading a "book." My world is populated with beings, and the being of beings doesn't reduce to biology. Beings reduce to responsibility, and the "chair," I'm sitting on is fulfilling its responsibility of holding my butt very nicely. One can even say that this is a "good" chair.
quote:Hence the need for comparative studies of little-t truth and moral codes to get at what most humans would agree is "virtually true" and "virtually good."
That's spotty and sloppy. That's like going through a library and picking books at random to find out which one is good, rather than sitting down with a good book and thinking out why that particular book is good.
quote: the being of beings doesn't reduce to biology. Beings reduce to responsibility
That's a Platonic argument which will ultimately make you cynical before your time, Irami.
The problem with this approach is the same problem you're going to have with the "sitting down with a good book" one, Irami. Until I trust your opinion of a book, or until I have faith that you are able to properly articulate my responsibilities, why the heck should I not play the field, so to speak?
In other words, how do you know the book is good before you read it? (Note that this analogy is actually pretty good; I've given the answer to this question some thought, and it actually seems to map pretty closely to the way most people settle on an ethical system.)
posted
Tom, could you articule the analogy you are making a little more directly? I THINK I know what you are talking about, but not fully clear.
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quote:In my estimation, culturally universal ethical memes are so because of some basic function they serve for humans' happiness and survival, either as individuals or in groups. As a result, they have their origin in many things, including biology, the exigencies of hierarchical social frameworks, the environmental contours we've historically thrived in, etc.
This is kind of a strange version of evolutionary thinking. Traits don't evolve because they make organisms happy, nor do they necessarily foster the survival of organisms. Traits evolve to ensure the passing on of genes.
One reason I've always had a problem with evolution as a foundation for ethics.
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I don't agree. Propagation of genes depends upon fitness of organism. Organisms with conscious minds live not only in a biological world, but in a mental one and a social one. In order to be fit in such worlds, conscious beings need a feeling of contentment with their mental and social states. Seems sensible to me. Also explains religions and other moral systems: they exist to maximize the contentment conscious organisms feel in their quotidian existence.
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posted
Getting back to Rat's first argument, why doesn't the left use "Good & Evil"
The answer is that those terms are unprovable and highly pliable. There hasn't been a dictator or genocidal effort in the past 200 years that wasn't rationalized as being "Good".
If you ask anyone what should prevail, Good or Evil, they will say Good.
But when you get to the details of what is Good and what is Evil you have uncertainty.
Of all things, Murder is considered the most evil by the most people. The more death, the more evil. So when the left says something saves lives, they are using the ideas of Good, but not the word.
Good and Evil also have a moral component that applies blame to the evil doer. The left is not strong on laying blame. It is more about solving the problems of those who have them.
A man is poor and hungry. The left sees this and wants to feed the man.
The right sees this and blames the man for his poverty and tells him to get a job or starve.
There may be many reasons why this man is poor. He may not be physically able to work, or his job may have gone over seas, or he may just be having a run of bad luck. In these cases the Right's demand that he "Get a job" seems heartless. On the other hand, he may just be lazy and not want to work but would rather be a leach on the efforts of others. In these cases the Left's demand that he is fed and supported until he gets a job is seen as encouraging bad morality with the work of good people.
The compromise of the two extremes is to help the man get a job, but feed him until he can work.
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posted
"Tom, could you articule the analogy you are making a little more directly?"
Sure. How do I decide that a book is worth reading before I read it?
1) People I trust tell me it's good. 2) I see people I respect reading it. 3) I have liked other books by the same author, or on the same topic. 4) I flip through the book, sampling it before fully committing, and see several elements -- a powerful writing style, etc. -- that I find intriguing. 5) The book is so overwhelmingly popular that society practically demands that it be read in order to fit in. 6) The book is well-marketed and has a compelling cover, and is sold to me in a way that suggests I might enjoy it.
I would submit that most people pick a pre-existing belief system in exactly the same way. Those who come up with their own belief systems, under the same analogy, write fanfic. (And this, too, is not a flippant analogy. Like fanfic authors, most people who come up with their "own" system start by addressing the flaws they perceive in an existing one, rewriting "bad" plots and "fixing" the romantic relationships of the main cast.)
posted
I like the analogy, with the caveat that, on the whole, people read the books they inherit from their parents.
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posted
The problem with the analogy is that the limiting clause ("before I read it") denotes a situation that is very likely to be overcome by your reading the book. And after the book is read, the answer relies on none of the secondary methods.
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posted
"The problem with the analogy is that the limiting clause ("before I read it") denotes a situation that is very likely to be overcome by your reading the book."
Yep. Except that, in the case of living by an ethical system, it's pretty much not possible to "read the book" all the way through. We're all in the position of having to pick one without "reading" it completely.
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"I like the analogy, with the caveat that, on the whole, people read the books they inherit from their parents."
Yep. I figured #1 and #2 covered that. But you might also argue that parents read to their children, instilling a love of, say, Goodnight Moon in their offspring that will cause those same offspring to read the same book to their children.
quote:Yep. Except that, in the case of living by an ethical system, it's pretty much not possible to "read the book" all the way through. [Smile] We're all in the position of having to pick one without "reading" it completely.
Exactly. So there's a serious lack of urgency in refining your book-liking-prediction skill as compared to selecting an ethical system.
Plus, whether you'll like a book truly is subjective - even the definition of "liking" the book can be radically different for each person.
The analogy seems to beg the question of whether one ethical system can be more or less objectively right thatn another.
posted
As soon as you all start talking about mixing and matching systems, I think you've lost your way and given yourself over to cybernetics instead of thinking.
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posted
Irami believes that one book can be objectively better than the other. Do you disagree with him?
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posted
I do disagree with him. I think that may be true for a given definition of "better." But I don't think there's an objectively better definition of the word "better" as applied to books.
posted
"Objectively better" is a meaningless phrase. Objectivity rules out value judgments altogether, because value judgments are based in values, which come from moral systems, which, as we have shown again and again, have no transcendental or cosmic basis. They derive from humans' interaction with their own minds, their environments, and their fellow humans.
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posted
Having said that, I should point out that I believe a moral system can be "virtually better" than others in that it maximizes human contentment (this is different from the utilitarian basis that Tom espouses) for a maximum number of humans.
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posted
David, you are disallowing for the possibility that there is an objective, absolute morality, and that human-articulated ethical and moral systems could be objectively better or worse insofar as how closely they reflect this absolute Morality.
You certainly have not shown again and again that Morality has no transcendental or cosmic basis, merely that the human-articulated moral systems are influenced by non-transcendental and non-cosmic issues.
posted
"this is different from the utilitarian basis that Tom espouses"
Hey, I specifically mentioned that I wasn't espousing any of the premises I listed as examples above precisely because I don't espouse utilitarianism. In fact, the Pixiest and I have gotten into some impressive arguments over what I consider the depravity of utilitarian arguments.
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That said, Dag, in a system like the one you describe, the moral argument you make IS utilitarian. If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
quote:You certainly have not shown again and again that Morality has no transcendental or cosmic basis, merely that the human-articulated moral systems are influenced by non-transcendental and non-cosmic issues.
I agree.
quote:If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
Not as much practical as appropriate.
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quote:That said, Dag, in a system like the one you describe, the moral argument you make IS utilitarian. If there's a "cosmic" basis for morality that transcends human understanding, adhering to this cosmic morality is merely sensible and practical.
Not necessarily. You presume an enforcement mechanism of some kind.
posted
Dagonee, this is a very ancient subject with Tom, Irami and others, so I kind of used a short-hand expression to mean "in every other discussion we've ever had, you've failed to provide any convincing proof that there is a transcendent moral code apart from one handed down from on High, which you know I'd reject because I'm an atheist."
Sorry for the confusion.
And you, Irami, show me where this moral code exists. What is the transcendental measuring stick that isn't rooted in arbitrary human definitions and systems? I don't think you know of one. I think you *believe* in one, and that's nice and all, but if you're going to convince anyone else that your moral code is "objectively better" you'll have to start by proving that such a thing is possible.
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posted
If you put the Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals and fill in the gaps with the Critique of Pure Reason, you get a trancendental deduction of morals that is dependent upon the constitution of human reason.
It's not a matter of belief or faith in anything. You do have to accept beings, though, as in, "I'm sitting at a chair" as distinction from, "I'm sitting at an organization of atoms." Not that there is anything wrong with the latter sentence, it just doesn't tell you anything about what it is to be a chair.
posted
Dagonee, I'm afraid that just won't fly with me. Why should I live by a code that you assert exists, but which you can't be bothered to show to me?
Irami, the fact that this "trancendental deduction of morals" is "dependent upon the constitution of human reason" is the very problem. Human reason is not transcendental. I will cede that it is a sensible tool for establishing human morality, but that doesn't make morality any more reified and transcendent than basing it on divine revelation or historical trends.
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quote:Dagonee, I'm afraid that just won't fly with me. Why should I live by a code that you assert exists, but which you can't be bothered to show to me?
I'm not asking you to do that. We're talking about the nature of reality, not trying to decide which particular moral theory is correct. If there is an overarching objective Morality, you and I chopping logic doesn't change the nature of that truth.
posted
Irami, I'd hesitate to accept Kant's reasoning, especially as a starting place; his assumption that good intentions are in fact the definition of good has always seemed too much like a tautology to me.
"Not necessarily. You presume an enforcement mechanism of some kind."
Nope. I assume that this cosmic morality provides a genuine benefit. If it does not, then it's largely irrelevant.
posted
"Relevance would need to be answered using premises from within the moral system. So how could it be irrelevant?"
If you can answer the question of relevance using premises from within the system, the system is not one of "cosmic morality" at all.
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posted
Can you explain how it wouldn't be? I mean, we're basically talking about axiomatic systems here, right? Even if you're positing the existence of a non-axiomatic system, that assumption is an axiom itself.
Seriously, in this case, it ceases to be "cosmic" once it becomes of practical application.
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