Morality. It's a one way street.

[WorBlux]

Well I'll try to take this one part at a time, as it's something difficult to express clearly.

eye2i2hear Wrote:

WorBlux Wrote:UPB's something that comes up on that board all the time, and is more or less the same every time.
My contribution, (And I just point back to it whenever the topic comes up.
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If I may ask, a bit point blank, do you find UPB (the theory/the book) convincing/satisfying?

I don't find a whole lot objectionable about the 13-15 premises of UPB, but I don't think that much of the book itself. I think it focuses on the wrong parts, instead of the essential ones. Also most of the explanation redundant/tedious or to be self-aggrandizement, or to continue from those essential point, but being nearly useless because the essential point was only one or two sentences.

Really his (Stefan Molyneux's) best non-fictional work was "On Truth: The Tyranny of Illusion". If you weren't really aware of the ideals of reciprocation in relationships and logic in ethics, but are even the slightest bit open, then it's like being hit by a car. (Yes I've both been hit by a car and read the book.) If you aren't its like touching a hot stove. His God of Ethics is also quite good, but it's non-fiction.

eye2i2hear Wrote:[FWIW, I no longer do; and not so much that it's total bunk to me, as much as it isn't consistantly LRR (logical+reasoned+rational). And as a sidebar, it has nothing to do with the author having banned me from his website-- which in retrospect/re-evaluation, was a [strike]godsend[/strike] [strike]dogsend[/strike] goodsend]

Ah, I'm still around, but don't hang out a whole lot there anymore. I still listen and enjoy the podcasts though. It's nice to have a real conversation where you don't get a lot posts saying the same thing without having seemed to have read any of the posts between your first one and their most recent one.

eye2i2hear Wrote:

Quote:The thing I'd point out about Dustin's post is that morality is not just about what is valued, but about what is valuable (in the scope of human action) Good is to be done and pursued.

Could you expound a bit more on this? I'm finding it, as written, a bit circular.

It's an observation of how people use the term. Saying X is morally good carries a different meaning than saying I want or like X. It carries general rather than specific denotation. That this is the ordinary practice suggests that there really is something general by which these determinations are made. The common usage has no idea what this something is, but nonetheless suggests that it is indeed there.

For a good work on ethics, Roderick Long's "Nature of Law" part 4.
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eye2i2hear Wrote:One side bar share with it, is that for me here was the first time I connected the words 'good' and 'goods'; where with the latter followed the expression "goods and services". And goods and services are but... evaluation's results aka each one's individual values?

Let me share too, that on this (grey)matter of morality/ethics, I'm presently befuddled regarding the objective versus subjective aspect of/argument over it. But on a scale, I'm way on the side of it being subjective. In a bit of a ying&yang sense (?), I can see that for human beings, 'good' is objective-- but only in the [strike]sense[/strike] intuitiveness akin to the ethereal "gut hunch" that it's some[strike]thing[/strike] feeling We all [strike]'know'[/strike] experience as an inclination, but that is totally subjective when it comes to the specifics of what is and isn't. There seems to be "The Good" that each intuits, but that can only be "a good" in the reality of given time and space shared --individually and socially. The "Good is to be done and pursued." (period!) specifically still ultimately gets down to each and everyone's opinion, no? Even where UPB's "universally" really is not much more than "majority rule"/democracy?

It's not objective as in there's something you can set your finger on and settle the matter, and it's not subjective as in any answer is as good as any other, or dependent completely on opinion.

It's not just talking about a good as a benefit, but also as a perfection. Something that adds to or aids the essential characteristics of men. Things that function to make man function more like he is inclined to function. It's not exactly tail chasing, but definitely approaching navel staring. Something fairly subtle that can only really be approached in fractions and gestures.

And yes men have essential characteristics or a nature that make them men as opposed to trees, goats, or mere apes. They are the things that tend to also be the most explanatory about men as well.

eye2i2hear Wrote:And opinions are either logically, rationally reasoned (LRR) evaluations, or not so much-- with typically a bunch of grey (matter) even with LRR? [and how much a perpetuation of the specific memes as thought-habit, dogma, to indoctrination, transfers them as be(come)ing objective rather than subjective is still up for settlement].

Not necessarily. Even the basics of math, describable in algorithmic terms still depend on a few assumption made from the prima facie seemingness of something other than rigorous proof. Indeed Godel's incompleteness therom states that if math and physics is self-consistent, no proof can be made from those disciplines of themselves. Note that this comment is not meant to question the reliability of physics, but the standard and methods of logical positivism which are unreasonably high and introduce doubt rather than certainty.

There are also other areas where the subject is unclear and there is much disagreement (economics, psychology, sociology) but is is uncommon for someone to call the whole field a study of spooks. There is a lot of uncertainty in medicine. Syndrome is just a synonym for we didn't or don't know why.

The main method to check ethics is the dialectic, which is where you trace implications to see where there is conflict and try to figure out which is more likely. You can sometimes check against experience but that's really only clear when things are either perfectly right or horribly wrong. Part of it's also that essence or nature isn't something you can put your finger on, and is itself ambivalent or open at times.

For example marriage and the rasing of children was one of the basic goods listed by Aquainas, but I believe that the form will change. Technology is going to make the world much more akin to the world of pre-history than of recent history. In pre-history skills and knowledge were all you had to go on in the world. A group of people was much better at imparting this than just two. With an increase of technology today, skills, both social and technical, will become more important than any property that you might start with.

eye2i2hear Wrote:For my present state/peace of mind, the notorious is/ought matter is simply a consonant shift to: the if/ought matter. Wherein, if one values such and such, then the most logically, rationally reasoned approach ought to be the way. If not, then you ought to do what value aka what you want to. [how anothers value, arrived at via their evaluation, will address it, well, that's what is called 'society' (2 individuals to 6 billion individuals) --and 'history']

Quote: As a child one experiences the inclination to ask questions, and to greet apparently satisfactory answers with satisfaction and failure to answer as a disappointment. At some point one comes to understand -- has the insight -- that such answers are instances of a quite general standing possibility, namely knowledge, coming to know and overcoming ignorance. By a distinct though often well nigh simultaneous further insight one comes to understand that this – knowledge -- is not merely a possibility but also a good [bonum], that is to say an opportunity, a benefit, something desirable as a kind of improvement (a perfectio) of one's or anyone's condition, and as to be pursued.

This connects for me (as LRR) ; particularly the part where it's expressed as "a good [bonum]" (i.e. as amongst goods and services) and as such it is defined as something desirable... as a kind of-- hence something evaluated, then valued as valuable (to their self)... in time and space aka an instance (that may or may not change in the next/another aka the next evalueation...).

Yes, I think the forms and approaches may change. Marriage and raising of children as I've already said. Also thinks like how property is set apart may change in form as circumstances change.

However I think that the perfections or essential characteristics the practices are aimed at can't or won't change without creating something other than homo sapiens. For example, if in the future we were to become something where knowledge was not a sort of perfection and desirable on those grounds, then we would have become something else. And iin fact a something else almost entirely alien to what we are now.


As I final note, I would like to commend your commentary and objections as stimulating. I found it much easier than usual to fish the good ideas about this topic out of my muddled mind.