Positive Psychology as Normative Ethics

Quoting schopenhauer1

Should positive psychology be the standard for Normative Ethics?

There seems something contradictory (or circular?) about asking what should be used as the standard to determine what we should do.

Empirical studies can only give you non-valued information. You can then use that to figure out how to be more likely to achieve your subjective aims. But the empirical stuff isn't going to tell you what you should do without you already having subjective goals.

So the backers of this view would say that this has empirical evidence on its side and being that we use empirical evidence for improving aspects of technology and science, wouldn't a normative ethics that claims to base itself on empirical studies be the one that we should embrace rather than ones expounded about in armchair fashion?

Doesn't it tend to homogenize the essence of individuality? I am not saying it cannot be effective, but doesn't reliance the goals that are "normatively" given leave us with just 'normal' individuals.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy works, the military use it to treat PTSD because it works quickly. The problem (I think) is that in it you accept the goals set by the therapist (at least as I understand it), they become the way you behave, which is not to say that such therapy does not provide symptom relief.

If Freud's fluid dynamic theory of the self holds any water (ha) then by creating premises for living, accepting 'normative' values may lead to a 'normal' life but, since it does not treat the cause of the disturbances, those disturbances becomes sublimated and they may reappear as something else, which could be just as bad if not worse for the person. It treats the symptoms not the causes.

Quoting Michael

There seems something contradictory (or circular?) about asking what should be used as the standard to determine what we should do.

Yeah I guess it is.. So I guess it would be stated:
1) If happiness is inherently valuable
2) Happiness is achieved via positive psychology therapies

Then, in order to achieve the inherently valuable state of happiness, one should follow positive psychology therapy.

I have not voiced my criticisms yet.. Just putting forth apokrisis claim that this is the case.

Quoting Terrapin Station

Empirical studies can only give you non-valued information. You can then use that to figure out how to be more likely to achieve your subjective aims. But the empirical stuff isn't going to tell you what you should do without you already having subjective goals.

Well that is my main objection as well.. This is all hypothetical imperative.. First we must justify why the goals of positive psychology should be a goal other than personal preference. Secondarily, we can evaluate whether positive psychology's aims, methods, and assumptions are even correct.

Quoting Cavacava

Doesn't it tend to homogenize the essence of individuality? I am not saying it cannot be effective, but doesn't reliance the goals that are "normatively" given leave us with just 'normal' individuals.

I had similar objections as well. It seems a bit robotic to have a given set of aims that are supposed to be optimal. But, apokrisis seems to claim that individualism is just a romantic notion that leads to unhappiness.

I think Apo uses the "romantic notion" argument whenever he doesn't have a notion, a la LGU. :D

Quoting Terrapin Station

Empirical studies can only give you non-valued information. You can then use that to figure out how to be more likely to achieve your subjective aims. But the empirical stuff isn't going to tell you what you should do without you already having subjective goals.

Bingo.

Reply to Cavacava You don't seem to understand the way that positive psychology is different from how you describe CBT.

The whole point is empowering individuals to figure it out for themselves after discovering how much of what they are doing has been unthinking - an internalisation of social or familial tropes.

And as for Freud, the whole bloody point about him was how he romanticised psychology. That is why he was such a big cultural hit. He regurgitated the mythology people wanted to hear.

And then I trace cultural attitudes to Romanticism's history (as the reaction to the Enlightenment) because it is a subject I have studied and understand.

If you want to dispute my interpretations, you are welcome to have a go. But you might have to be prepared to do some background reading by the looks of it.

What are you saying. That CBT is different from Positive Psychology, or different as I have described it, unsure from what you said. They sound the same to me. Martin Seligman's is a big in both areas.

Freud was a neurologist and psychologist and he is still being studied by neurologists and psychologists. He didn't romanticize psychology, that's your spin.

Quoting Cavacava

What are you saying. That CBT is different from Positive Psychology, or different as I have described it, unsure from what you said. They sound the same to me. Martin Seligman's is a big in both areas.

You misdescribe CBT in relation to PTSD in that it sounds like you are thinking of desensitisation or exposure therapy. And the idea of "accepting the therapist's goals" is expressedly not how positive psychology works.

Quoting Cavacava

Freud was a neurologist and psychologist and he is still being studied by neurologists and psychologists. He didn't romanticize psychology, that's your spin.

He was a coke head and a charlatan. And I've studied what he wrote - even the early neurological speculation he abandoned. So if you want to talk about omega and psi neurons, or this mysteriously oozing Q fluid that needs its psychic discharge, we could go there, have a laugh.

I disagree about how CBT is administered. Here is a summary:

1)pragmatic – it helps identify specific problems and tries to solve them
2)highly structured – rather than talking freely about your life, you and your therapist discuss specific problems and set goals for you to achieve
3)focused on current problems – it's mainly concerned with how you think and act now rather than attempting to resolve past issues
4)collaborative – your therapist won't tell you what to do; they'll work with you to find solutions to your current difficulties

And, as I said it works.

My problem with this approach are not the results, its the longevity of these results. The therapist that helps the patient form his goals sits in the position of power with the patient. He does what he thinks the patient needs, but it's the therapist's conception of how you ought to be behaving, feeling etc. are constituted in the goals the patient forms. I think it is a form of brain washing. The symptoms are treated but not their causes.

In regards to you on Freud, more ad hominems. His work is still being studied, with plenty of professional work being generated based on his theories.

Quoting Cavacava

In regards to you on Freud, more ad hominems. His work is still being studied, with plenty of professional work being generated based on his theories.

Freud's theories are more often rejected than accepted, but he legacy spawned a quite respectable psychodynamic field that is systematically misinterpreted and compared to Freudian psychoanalysis.

He did lie many times, but so do a lot of people. I'm not a big fan of Freud in general because of this. Everything he says I take with a grain of salt.

The theories of Jung, Rank, and Becker, on the other hand... 8-)

Quoting Cavacava

I think it is a form of brain washing. The symptoms are treated but not their causes.

And this is where psychodynamic theory excels more than most other psychological perspectives.

Quoting Cavacava

. The therapist that helps the patient form his goals sits in the position of power with the patient. He does what he thinks the patient needs, but it's the therapist's conception of how you ought to be behaving, feeling etc. are constituted in the goals the patient forms. I think it is a form of brain washing. The symptoms are treated but not their causes.

That's nonsense. But you are free to make up what you like.

Quoting Cavacava

In regards to you on Freud, more ad hominems. His work is still being studied, with plenty of professional work being generated based on his theories.

More vague and uninformed comment. But you believe what you like.

I thought Positive Psych started with Martin Seligman who was then head of the American Psychological Association. (I know this because my spouse had the book of that name some time back.) It seemed to me that he was trying to re-orient psychology as a 'science of human flourishing' instead of making it purely concerned with treatment of disorders. I can't see anything too much wrong with that idea; there have been previous schools that have tried something similar, like Albert Ellis' rational-emotive therapy (which has been combined with Stoic principles by Jules Evans, to good effect) and even Carl Rogers' Humanistic Psychology. So I thought, overall, it was a positive development, but I don't know how deep it's philosophical roots are, or should be expected to be. As for it being 'empirical', unless something is somehow qualified as 'empirical' nowadays, then nobody will regard it as scientific, so it's practically de riguer.

Quoting schopenhauer1

First we must justify why the goals of positive psychology should be a goal other than personal preference. Secondarily, we can evaluate whether positive psychology's aims, methods, and assumptions are even correct.

I don't think that the idea of goals makes any sense outside of personal preference. (Cooperative goals are just a matter of people having the same personal preferences or agreeing to help others with personal preferences.)

And aims (another word for goals) can't be correct.