Stuntpickle Morality

[Rores28]

Look this is pointless. That the net positive state throughout a person's lifetime could ever be quantified or calculated is absurd.

You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that the net positive state can currently be quantified. The most positive states should be our goal. Incomplete knowledge doesn’t mean that we can say nothing about something.

I may not, for instance, be able to know the perfect way to be healthy, but that doesn’t mean that incomplete knowledge hasn’t served up some good insights. I can pretty safely assume that ingesting cyanide and smoking cigarettes would be bad for my health, and that eating my fruits and veggies and wearing my seatbelt would be good for my health. Of course perhaps I have such a biology that smoking never increases my risk for cancer or the various other ailments with which it is associated, or perhaps I’m allergic to apples. This doesn’t totally invalidate our entire understanding of health. Nor would it if we later found out that carrots actually promoted meningitis or something.



This is precisely the sort of reasoning that could be used to indefinitely justify Stalin's purges and other various murders as long some greater theoretical good could be imagined somewhere over the horizon.


All sorts of philosophies and religious texts have been used in ways that have caused or been used to justify the committing of negative acts. This doesn’t (necessarily) invalidate them.



No discussion between us can be fruitful because a discussion requires that the participants agree on some premise from which to begin. Insofar as morality is concerned we have no such premise. I think persons are intrinsically valuable, and you don't.

I don’t think this is the point of our disagreement though. If we are talking about people as sentient entities than I do find them intrinsically valuable, by the very virtue of their capacity for subjectively positive or negative experiential states. But this point alone wouldn’t have much to say about killing one person in order to save two. If you believe all three lives are intrinsically valuable you would still have to believe that two intrinsically valuable lives are more valuable than one intrinsically valuable life.


I'll address G.E. Moore in a bit.

[stuntpickle]

You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that the net positive state can currently be quantified. The most positive states should be our goal. Incomplete knowledge doesn’t mean that we can say nothing about something.

No, I don't misunderstand you. What YOU misunderstand is that I'm saying quantifying some implausible bunkum like a person's "positive or negative state" is IN PRINCIPLE absurd. It's nothing more than an incoherence.

When you start rationalizing why a possible world of sadists is an unrealistic or "far off" possibility, you demonstrate that you don't quite understand why someone would use "possible world" language. I'm not trying to present some unlikely eventuality, but rather using "possible world" language to demonstrate an incoherence. There is no single possible world in which an apple is not, in fact, an apple. You can try to create any possible world you'd like but as long as you avoid an additional incoherence in your naming of the world--such as a world in which apples are not apples--then you cannot, for a second, cast doubt on whether an apple is an apple. Something is what it is, not what it's not. This is the most fundamental principle in logic.

There's a reason that utilitarian morality has largely been relegated to the status of historical curiosity, and that's because there have been, since Mill, any number of demonstrations that talking about "happiness", "pleasure" or "positive states" is not the same as talking about the good. These things have never been synonymous. Moreover, there is no reason to suppose that talking about one of these unlikely stand ins is any more reasonable than another. I am as justified in saying that the good is that which results in licorice.

You see, the problem with your ridiculous justification of the sadist example, is that no one, including you, would call sadism good. You're basically trying to introduce an incoherence into the example to salvage your position. You're essentially trying to say that the good is no longer recognizable as the good simply because it still coincides with your preposterous standard. No one would deny that a world full of sadism might be filled with pleasure. Most everyone would deny that it could be filled with goodness. The example, or something like it, is by now a staple in any university classroom in which utilitarianism is discussed.

In the sadist example we encounter an orange rather than an apple, and you're just trying to pretend it's still an apple. I agree with you that the sadists might prefer to exercise their sadism. I'm saying that an apple is an apple regardless of which room you put it in. Saying murder is wrong is not dependent on who's sitting in the room. When anyone says you should not murder another, he does not mean under these circumstances and in this milieu; rather he means on mars and in the 12th dimension too. And if there's any world in which your standard does not match up with our understanding of the good, then it becomes obvious that they are not one and the same; thus, to discuss one is not to discuss another.

We can sometimes say that, in this or that instance, the good and the pleasurable coincide, but this does not justify pursuing pleasure as though it were the good. The statement "pleasure is good" might be occasionally true, but the statement "good is pleasure" is never true.


All sorts of philosophies and religious texts have been used in ways that have caused or been used to justify the committing of negative acts. This doesn’t (necessarily) invalidate them.

I think you misunderstand what I meant about the Stalin example. I meant not simply that this sort of thinking could be used to justify Stalin's purges, but rather it could be used APPROPRIATELY. I mean ask yourself: what does utilitarian morality suggest we should do with Jews if anti-Semites far outnumber them, which I think has been the case throughout most of history? Do we get more positive states? And these aren't low blows, but rather fairly standard rebuttals.




I don’t think this is the point of our disagreement though. If we are talking about people as sentient entities than I do find them intrinsically valuable,

Yeah, until they want you to do otherwise.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I think sadism is good.

[Charles Darnay]

Really? I mean....really? This thread needs to exist? What?

[Rores28]

No, I don't misunderstand you. What YOU misunderstand is that I'm saying quantifying some implausible bunkum like a person's "positive or negative state" is IN PRINCIPLE absurd. It's nothing more than an incoherence.

This is already done in psychological studies. You simply ask the person about their subjective state.



When you start rationalizing why a possible world of sadists is an unrealistic or "far off" possibility, you demonstrate that you don't quite understand why someone would use "possible world" language. I'm not trying to present some unlikely eventuality, but rather using "possible world" language to demonstrate an incoherence.

The qualification that it is "improbable" is to buffer against anyone giving our discussion a quick skim and thinking that I am evil. I understand the idea of possible worlds as an investigatory/explanatory/rhetorical tool. Which I thought super unlikely but two other people have responded, though this is probably just because your incendiary name is in the title.



There's a reason that utilitarian morality has largely been relegated to the status of historical curiosity, and that's because there have been, since Mill, any number of demonstrations that talking about "happiness", "pleasure" or "positive states" is not the same as talking about the good.

No but each of those things are typically viewed as good or are typical components of good. Let's throw out the word good though.

Think of it instead as a principle that maximizes the subjective state that each individual wants to be in. Maybe we would call it the "maximization of individual preferred subjective state." I'll call it MIPPS. So you might distill my opinion on the matter as. Our goal should be the achievement of MIPPS


Thus:
Individual one may want to be in a state of intellectual curiosity.
Individual two may want to be in a state of phsyical pain.
Individual three may want to be in a state of phsyical pleasure.

Our goal should be an attempt to get each of those individuals into their preferred states. Or if you find that phrasing problematic: A situation where two individuals had achieved MIPPS would be better than a situation where only one individual had achieved MIPPS.



You see, the problem with your ridiculous justification of the sadist example, is that no one, including you, would call sadism good.

No the point is I would never call anything good or bad outside of a subjective evaluation of it. I don't think that red exists without an agent to have a subjective experience of it. In the same way neither does good. If all known beings had their eyes ripped out, would apples still be red? Of course not. Good is not a property that inheres in the universe. If all sentient entities were gone what could be good? Good is meaningless at this point.



You're basically trying to introduce an incoherence into the example to salvage your position. You're essentially trying to say that the good is no longer recognizable as the good simply because it still coincides with your preposterous standard.

No, good is still the same thing, which is positive subjective states. What is good shifts constantly with the predilections of all sentient entities. What is different here are the proxies by which we typically judge goodness.

Look at a less extreme example:
You have a world of people who love waffles and just kinda like pancakes. In one universe the world is filled with waffles, in the other pancakes. Can we say with a straight face that one of those worlds is not "gooder" than the other.

Can we say that if we had the same waffle predilection that it wouldn't be better to be in one of those worlds than the other?



No one would deny that a world full of sadism might be filled with pleasure. Most everyone would deny that it could be filled with goodness.

Right, my contention is that they'd be incorrect (of course given the circumstances expressed earlier). I think this stems from what I'd term the gator-gazelle problem. Nearly everyone with a TV is familiar with the video clip of the gazelle (or whatever it is), being parched from the hot dry African climate shyly saunters over to the watering hole and takes a few sips. Then, some ominous bubbles from the left of the frame and before you can even process it the gazelles body is flailing around grotesquely with its head smashed between some gator jaws. The amazing thing about this clip is that everyone always says (OMG / holy ****) that's sick. That poor gazelle. Etc.. Etc.. But no one ever cheers for the gator because it was possibly starving/needs the sweet flesh of gazelle to survive.



The example, or something like it, is by now a staple in any university classroom in which utilitarianism is discussed.

Believe me, I know.


I'm saying that an apple is an apple regardless of which room you put it in. Saying murder is wrong is not dependent on who's sitting in the room.
No. Killing someone who does not want to die and is frightened, and would otherwise live an amazing life is different from
Killing someone who wants to die and is excited too, and would otherwise live a horrible life of despair and torture.
What if we killed Hitler before he instigated all manner of atrocity?
It manifestly does matter who is sitting in the room.


When anyone says you should not murder another, he does not mean under these circumstances and in this milieu; rather he means on mars and in the 12th dimension too.
Again I know. My contention is that they would be incorrect.



We can sometimes say that, in this or that instance, the good and the pleasurable coincide, but this does not justify pursuing pleasure as though it were the good. The statement "pleasure is good" might be occasionally true, but the statement "good is pleasure" is never true.

Right which is why saying pursuing pleasure is I guess a bad way to express it. I used to say happiness in my younger days when discussing it and it raises confusion and this point is consistently brought up. I already addressed this a little earlier in this response (MIPPS) but I’ll add something here.
Theoretically good is pleasure could be true. If we have 100 sentient entities and the only thing they judge to be good is pleasure, than pleasure is good. But again the point isn’t that we can pick out some observable goal (like pleasure) and be right %100 of the time about its “goodness” the point is to have the largest number of sentient entities in a subjective state that they like the most or the state they prefer. Pleasure or happiness are convenient terms to express a proxy for a goal. Though for me the word happiness is sufficient to encompass the rest, but of course we all have slightly different ideas about words.



 


I think you misunderstand what I meant about the Stalin example. I meant not simply that this sort of thinking could be used to justify Stalin's purges, but rather it could be used APPROPRIATELY. I mean ask yourself: what does utilitarian morality suggest we should do with Jews if anti-Semites far outnumber them, which I think has been the case throughout most of history? Do we get more positive states? And these aren't low blows, but rather fairly standard rebuttals.

I did misunderstand you. If they were in fact appropriate then they would be appropriate, as a matter of definition.
But… To me a utilitarian morality would suggest that non anti-Semites and Jews try and reform the anti Semites. I mean if all anti-semites were to suddenly kill all Jews, beyond the obvious horror of being killed for such reasons (which its hard to believe in practice would balance out in states of pleasure awarded to the anti-semites) the non Jew non anti semites would experience horrible states of grief and horror. These NJAS’s would probably remain horrified for quite some time afterwards and the story would strike fear into the hearts of future generations. Not to mention the positives lost from the rest of the Jews’ lives that would never be lived and their ancestors and the more incalculable loss suffered by an entire socio-religious-culture being obliterated and probably shut off or obscured from human study/understanding. Furthermore such an attitude to whole classes of people would probably be encouraged and propagate creating a situation that would probably not be sustainable for future happiness.
So I would say that would not be an appropriate use.

[stuntpickle]

This is already done in psychological studies. You simply ask the person about their subjective state.


.... Look, no one pretends this is at all precise. If I said, "On a scale of one to ten, how do you feel?" Your answer of seven would never relate precisely to another's answer of two. And if you're proposing that we make decisions based on manipulating these figures this is an insurmountable problem.

The absurdity of this conversation leaves me feeling at around 2 positive state units or psu.


No but each of those things are typically viewed as good or are typical components of good. Let's throw out the word good though.

Yeah, let's throw out the word good, so there can be absolutely no morality underlying your proposal of hedonistic ethics, and then I can watch you squirm when I ask why we should ever undertake such a thing and you answer "because we want to." Circular logic. Fun.

You are the weakest link. Goodbye.


Think of it instead as a principle that maximizes the subjective state that each individual wants to be in. Maybe we would call it the "maximization of individual preferred subjective state." I'll call it MIPPS. So you might distill my opinion on the matter as. Our goal should be the achievement of MIPPS

You know the opposition is stiff when it can't even get its own acronym right.



Thus:
Individual one may want to be in a state of intellectual curiosity.
Individual two may want to be in a state of phsyical pain.
Individual three may want to be in a state of phsyical pleasure.

Our goal should be an attempt to get each of those individuals into their preferred states. Or if you find that phrasing problematic: A situation where two individuals had achieved MIPPS would be better than a situation where only one individual had achieved MIPPS.

Consider a world in which there are only five people. Four of these people could only ever achieve "MIPPS" (sic) by never utilizing utilitarian morality while the last can only achieve this state by utilizing utilitarian morality. How should we proceed? Seems like either way breaks your ethics.

BTW, when I present a possible world that you don't like, it's a bit tedious for you to pretend that it doesn't work out the way it seems by demonstrating some far flung effect X. Since it's a "possible" world, I can just modify the world so that X never occurs, and as long as it is still logically possible, you still lose. So when you state, oh, but all the later generations blah blah blah..... I can just reform the world so that there are no future generations. Three guys on a desert island, etc.

It seems you don't have much practice with the game.




No the point is I would never call anything good or bad outside of a subjective evaluation of it. I don't think that red exists without an agent to have a subjective experience of it. In the same way neither does good. If all known beings had their eyes ripped out, would apples still be red? Of course not. Good is not a property that inheres in the universe. If all sentient entities were gone what could be good? Good is meaningless at this point.

Your worldview is beginning to seem like a typically toxic mix of subjectivism and skepticism.

How many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb? One realist to actually perform the task and all the skeptics to sit around wondering whether such a thing is truly possible.

Skepticism can be useful methodologically, but as an end in itself, it's a dead one.

You need to read Moore's Proof of an External World. Summary: seeing one's own hand constitutes reliable proof of an external world, which is much more convincing than the skeptics circumlocutions to the contrary.




No, good is still the same thing, which is positive subjective states.

Yeah, everyone understands what "He was such a 'positive subjective states' guy" means. A first grader understands these terms are not synonymous terms.




Look at a less extreme example:
You have a world of people who love waffles and just kinda like pancakes. In one universe the world is filled with waffles, in the other pancakes. Can we say with a straight face that one of those worlds is not "gooder" than the other.

Can we say that if we had the same waffle predilection that it wouldn't be better to be in one of those worlds than the other?

It just now occurs to me that your source material is even less sophisticated than I had originally thought. You're just reciting from Sam Harris's book, aren't you? He makes the same elementary blunder of confusing different senses of the word "good". No one means the pancakes are morally upright when they call them "good". These are really two different words, and you might as well be using "red" as your standard. Seriously, this is what I think the kids call an "epic fail".

And, BTW, the fact that you just presume Hitler's presence in the room completely alters the situation means you aren't quite familiar with deontological ethics and the MAJOR discussion in ethics.

[Scheherazade]

W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments

and

discuss the topics at hand instead of each other.

[Rores28]

Hey Scher, I don't know if you can amend the rule in particular instances, but I don't mind if there are perceived or real personal attacks launched against me. These neither offend me, nor make it less likely that I will visit the boards. Stunt and I are both adults and I think we understand this to be his/her rhetorical style. If you can't I understand, but I figured I'd try.


.... Look, no one pretends this is at all precise. If I said, "On a scale of one to ten, how do you feel?" Your answer of seven would never relate precisely to another's answer of two. And if you're proposing that we make decisions based on manipulating these figures this is an insurmountable problem.

The absurdity of this conversation leaves me feeling at around 2 positive state units or psu.


I mean I've already addressed this but in short. Not being able to precisely determine something doesn't foreclose further investigation, in fact it should stimulate it. Suddenly being able to achieve something that until recently seemed impossible is a consistent theme throughout human innovation. The other thing is that I've explicitly stated that the idea of enhancing the states that people want to be in (MIPSS* :p ) is a goal, not a practical guide to achieving it. Some sort of provisional moral heuristics or rules seem a likely candidate for the goal of achieving MIPSS.



Yeah, let's throw out the word good, so there can be absolutely no morality underlying your proposal of hedonistic ethics, and then I can watch you squirm when I ask why we should ever undertake such a thing and you answer "because we want to." Circular logic. Fun.

You are the weakest link. Goodbye.


No, as you can see from my posts I've responded using the word good, but the term MIPSS is closer to what I have in mind. I use it to give you a better idea of what I'm thinking.

My claim is that MIPSS = good or good = MIPSS, however you like.

You can claim this is a tautology or circular logic or whatever you like. But my claim is, its not turtles all the way down, there is a bottom and subjective experience is it.

Why? Because good, bad, pleasure, pain, hurtful, helpful are meaningless outside of some entity that can experience it. If you have a world full of sand particles and one of them melts, is this good, bad, was it painful? The questions can't get off the ground. You need something that can conceive of and experience good to have it as a goal.

You run into the same issue when talking about this subject in any capacity (theological, deontological, whatever) and really basically any subject.



Consider a world in which there are only five people. Four of these people could only ever achieve "MIPPS" (sic) by never utilizing utilitarian morality while the last can only achieve this state by utilizing utilitarian morality. How should we proceed? Seems like either way breaks your ethics.

I feel as though you're purposely trying to obscure and confuse the argument. But I will respond anyway.

I think this is in part a confusion about a practical prescription and a goal. I'm saying that the goal or best thing should be to achieve MIPSS. Someone could promote MIPSS completely accidentally, or MIPSS could be achieved without any appeal to MIPSS, though this would be unlikely. With the way that I define this goal your question doesn't exactly make sense.

When you say "utilizing utilitarian morality", are they behaving, however imperfectly, based on this underlying goal?

If so I try to behave based on such a goal, but whether or not this will actually increase MIPPS is uncertain, though I think likely, and a goal worth pursuing. The goal is a global one that considers every being throughout time.

So to answer the question the first four shouldn't and the fifth one should "utilize utilitarian morality." The first four will achieve MIPSS by failing to "utilize utilitarian morality, and the fifth one will achieve MIPSS by "utilizing utilitarian morality."

Thus when you say "either way," I'm left wondering what you mean. What I think you mean is "what would I say this world should utilize, as an overarching rule" but I would say that the individuals should utilize whatever behavior leads to MIPSS (and of course this doesn't just mean that of each individual utilizing it). It's okay if the behavior is different for different individuals. Thus the overarching goal is the achievement of MIPSS.




BTW, when I present a possible world that you don't like, it's a bit tedious for you to pretend that it doesn't work out the way it seems by demonstrating some far flung effect X. Since it's a "possible" world, I can just modify the world so that X never occurs, and as long as it is still logically possible, you still lose. So when you state, oh, but all the later generations blah blah blah..... I can just reform the world so that there are no future generations. Three guys on a desert island, etc.

It seems you don't have much practice with the game.


I thought I already put this to rest when I sanctioned the 100 or whatever sadists torturing of a little girl example.

I will make the point again more plainly. If we have a closed system and 1 person torturing another will achieve MIPSS, than I sanction that action.

The thing is you are blending real world and hypothetical examples. When you say Stalin could use this to appropriately kill a bunch of people, I say that is inherent in the definition of appropriate. If it increases MIPSS (which necessarily has a temporal component) than I sanction it.

But it would be easy for someone reading the thread to confuse this with "I sanction Stalin's action historically in the real world."

Again I initially thought this (other people reading this) pretty implausible, but two people actually responded to this thread.





"No one means the pancakes are morally upright when they call them "good".

If you think this is not a misleading representation of what I'm saying, then I think you've misunderstood me greatly.

My source material is my own thought. That I would need a book to come to such a conclusion seems odd. I've held some form of the view since high school. Of course I've read books and articles on morality, Harris's book among them, but what makes you think I cite him. It's been awhile, does he use a pancake example?



And, BTW, the fact that you just presume Hitler's presence in the room completely alters the situation means you aren't quite familiar with deontological ethics and the MAJOR discussion in ethics.

What is the discussion that you're referring to?

____________________

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiJnCQuPiuo&feature=related