Effective Altruism for Antinatalists
There is a charity organization in the US called Project Prevention which pays drug addicts $300 to use long term contraception which often includes sterilization. The organization is usually supported by relatively conservative individuals who feel that voluntary eugenics is an effective and ethically acceptable means to improve our society. Sterilizing drug addicts can reduce absolute poverty and tax burdens in our society. As well as suffering for opioid addicted infants and abuse by the foster care system. It can also reduce abortions and many supporters of this organization are against abortion and wish to prevent pregnancies of drug addicts to prevent abortions. Given that Antinatalists often feel that even ordinary lives are bad, I would imagine that a charity like Project Prevention would also be attractive to them. I suppose that there might be a minority of very Kantian Antinatalists who might not even think that donating to this organization is good but for the majority it seems that it would be viewed as an extra or supererogatory good. But, what about cases where an individual procreates but also donates money to Project Prevention? Consider the following 2 cases:
1. Bob thinks that life is bad and procreation is prima facie immoral. Because of this, he avoids procreating and donates his spare money to Project Prevention. But, he has very wealthy parents and they want grandchildren. Those parents would only allow him to have their inheritance if he procreates. Bob knows that receiving the inheritance money would allow him to get far more drug addicts sterilized. So, he decides to have just 1 child to receive the inheritance money and he gives his only child a privileged lifestyle while still ensuring that he can donate very large sums of money to Project Prevention.
2. Mary also thinks that life is bad and procreation is prima facie immoral. But, she really wants to have children. She reasons that as long as she donates enough money to Project Prevention that prevents more people from being born than the people that she creates, it is ok for her to have children.
For the antinatalists in the forum, do you think that the actions of Bob are justified? What about the actions of Mary? For all the non-antinatalists, do you consider donating to Project Prevention as a good action, a neutral action, or a bad action?
1. Bob thinks that life is bad and procreation is prima facie immoral. Because of this, he avoids procreating and donates his spare money to Project Prevention. But, he has very wealthy parents and they want grandchildren. Those parents would only allow him to have their inheritance if he procreates. Bob knows that receiving the inheritance money would allow him to get far more drug addicts sterilized. So, he decides to have just 1 child to receive the inheritance money and he gives his only child a privileged lifestyle while still ensuring that he can donate very large sums of money to Project Prevention.
2. Mary also thinks that life is bad and procreation is prima facie immoral. But, she really wants to have children. She reasons that as long as she donates enough money to Project Prevention that prevents more people from being born than the people that she creates, it is ok for her to have children.
For the antinatalists in the forum, do you think that the actions of Bob are justified? What about the actions of Mary? For all the non-antinatalists, do you consider donating to Project Prevention as a good action, a neutral action, or a bad action?
Comments (110)
I’m a non-antinatalist. I’ve never heard of this before but it’s very interesting. Is donating a good thing? I think it’s worth the effort to see what the outcome is. It’s also, to me, interesting that it’s supported by relatively conservative supporters. It seems a more pragmatic approach to things which I generally associate with conservative thinkers.
No. Bob procreated in order to use the child to bribe his parent not to disinherit him. No end justifies using the child as the means.
I don't see anything wrong with her following that strong, biopsychological programming. And then encouraging others for whom it's not so strong not to procreate.
Not good. Even as an antinatalist I can see that targeting addicts clearly exploits their joneses and is wrong. If the choice not to procreate is coerced in any way, then it's not freely chosen and thereby inflicts harm on the "already born". The end doesn't justify the means especially where 'prevention of inevitable harm' is an end brought about by doing harm in the first place.
Agreed.
Most antinatalists are not straight-up (and to me insane) "Greatest Good" utilitarians. There is a deontological (Kantian) element of not using people. In fact, there is strong sense in the antinatalist logic that people should not be used for any X reason (society's, the parents, etc.). Morals are at margins- where people actually effect other individuals (or prevent effecting/affecting them in the case of antinatalism).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
They are still affecting a future person's life. That individual should not be used for some greater agenda (or in this case simply the parent's agenda).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think selective antinatalism is simply eugenics. While, I agree that situational anti-procreation is justified (debilitated drug addicts shouldn't have kids), antinatalism as I see it is mainly about not causing harm or aggression towards a future person. In other words, you can perfectly respect the autonomy of the individual by not enabling conditions of harm for a future person, and by not "forcing their hand" and violating non-aggression by affecting an individual by bringing them into the world in the first place.
This is a common criticism that Project Prevention receives. Their counter-argument to this criticism is to point out that if you think that drugs addicts are unable to make clear-headed decisions to get paid to get sterilized then why would you think that they can make a clear headed decision to procreate. It seems that the vast majority of drug addicts have children on accident and then those children get taken away from them and they end up in a terrible foster home while suffering from opioid withdrawal. It also costs the taxpayer $500,000 to treat one infant with opioid withdrawal plus the costs of foster care.
Quoting 180 Proof
I’m surprised that you support the actions of Mary but not the actions Bob. Though, can you make a stronger argument for why the ends do not justify the means for those who are not convinced of this principle?
But, why do you think that there’s a greater reason to not cause harm rather than alleviate the harm of others? I’m curious because many people including myself do not find these claims to be obvious and feel that there needs to be a stronger defense of these claims. I’m also willing to provide a stronger defense of the actions of Bob and Mary. Mathematically speaking, it’s intuitive to suppose that if someone prevents 5 lives from existing and causes only 1 to exist, then they made a better impact on the world than a “passive” antinatalist who simply doesn’t reproduce. The existence of the “passive” antinatalist probably made an overall bad impact on the world. This is because even if the passive antinatalist tries his best to avoid harming sentient beings, he probably has done at least some harm to the world. He probably ate meat before becoming a vegan for example. This led to the birth of possibly thousands of animals(especially if he liked chicken). It would be hard to justify that harm with any good deed except if he donates money to prevent another person from being born or if he donates to cultured meat research. The notion of atonement of sin is also quite popular and intuitive in our society. It’s refreshing to know that if you had done awful things in the past, then there’s something you can do to make up for that. “Active” antinatalists like Bob and Mary have not only atoned for their sins but also greatly benefited the world in addition to that. In the case of Bob, even though he used his child as a means to an end, why not view this as a good thing that Bob’s child should be proud of? After all, if my existence helped prevent countless of suffering children from being born, I would be proud to be the tool that let that happen. What I’m not proud of is the fact that my existence was probably an accident in the bedroom and there was no deliberation about bringing me into existence at all. I think that’s a much more humiliating circumstance to be born under and it applies to slightly more than 50 percent of all people born.
This may be what @schopenhauer1 was getting at, but isn't Mary in an ends justifying means situation as well?
For Bob, having a child is the means to the end of his satisfied desire for money (or maintaining his lifestyle, or funding anti-natal propaganda, or whatever that money represents).
For Mary, having a child is the means to the end of her satisfied desire for a child.
Am I wrong in thinking that both would be driven by biopsychological programming... (wouldn't biopsychological include EVERYTHING that goes into our decision making process?)? If men don't have the strong push to have a child (or as strong as suggested for women), then whatever "weaker" biopsychological programming they have will take priority.
And in case my philosophical position matters...I don't believe that the ends always justify the means. However, I certainly consider it to be possible for the ends to justify the means (In Bob's case it would be a matter of how the child is treated).
I think I am in between, personally, I plan to have NO children. But I do not feel an urge to convince others. And intellectually, I can see merits to both sides of the argument.
I think Bob is fine as long as the child is well taken care of.
Mary is going to have some serious cognitive dissonance. What else has she labelled as unquestionably immoral that she still wants to do? But other than her internal contradictions, I don't have a problem with the actions.
I would think donating to this project is equal to many of the other "projects" that people donate to. If someone believes fewer births is a good thing, then this seems a worthy use of funds. I think your point here:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Is enough justification that this donation is not harmful. It is just a person using money to push their opinions on the world. Personally I prefer The Philosophy Forum and the occasional face-to-face interaction to push my opinions...but they are equally justified to spread their opinions in whatever way they see fit (should be persuasive not coercive - notice that bribery seems to fall somewhere in between?).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I am not sure we can always simplify moral decisions with math...but I have to run and have not thoroughly reviewed your last two posts...so don't take that criticism seriously until I have time to read everything :smile:
Fair enough, I think it’s reasonable to argue that one doesn’t really have a duty to promote what they believe to be good and sometimes it’s better to have a high degree of confidence that what you think is good is actually good before you act on what you think is good. Some people are too quick to act on their beliefs without properly reflecting on them first. On the other hand, it might be argued that the point of moral reflection is to eventually help make the world a better place. If preventing people from being born is considered by someone to be the best way to make the world a better place, then it would seem appropriate for one to make donating to PP their top priority.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, I actually wrote that Mary thought that having children was only prima facie immoral which means it only appeared unquestionably immoral to her at first before further philosophical examination. After philosophical examination, Mary realized that it’s only immoral if she creates more lives than she prevents. So, it seems that there wouldn’t be an internal contradiction. Though, I suppose that some moral psychologists might argue that humans generally cannot view their actions in such calculating mathematical terms and thus the utilitarians might feel guilty and ashamed about some of the things that they had done in their “ends justify the means” approach to morality. Though, this would apply to Bob as much as it does for Mary.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Fair enough, this is something that most people agree with you on. I would have to go into a pretty deep explanation myself to explain why I tend to view all normative decision making in quasi-mathematical terms whether it is moral or everyday prudential decision making or an interesting cross between the two which aims at deciding if you should benefit yourself or others. I tend to think of morality as the element of decision making theory which explores the benefits and harms that a decision option has for someone other than yourself. Prudentiality is an element that explores the benefits and harms for yourself. Sometimes there might also be conflicts between prudentiality and morality and this is a different element of decision making which I have not named yet. It is the element that is explored in the debate between ethical egoists and altruists and all the positions in between. I tend to exclude using Deontic language(ie words such as “permissible”, “prohibited”, and “obligatory”) when talking about decision making theory because I view decision making as being purely evaluative and never Deontic in nature. Evaluation is a quasi-mathematical activity which relies on the creation of a hierarchy of things which are on a spectrum of better and worse. For example, if I’m evaluating a group of songs, I’m putting them into quasi-mathematical categories such as “great songs”, “good songs”, “decent songs”, “bad songs” and “terrible songs”. Similarly, letter grades given at school are quasi-mathematical evaluative categories designed to create a hierarchy of betterness and worseness. Of course, there is often ambiguity in the hierarchy if 2 things fall within the same quasi-mathematical categories. For example, if I put both Song A and Song B in the category of “decent songs” then it might be hard for me to say which song is better. Decision options seem to work the same way. There are better and worse ways that I could spend my next hour. This involves all the possible actions or decision options that I could take during the hour. Of course, we would have to decide what evaluative criteria we should use to determine which of the possible ways of spending my next hour are superior and inferior. This would get us into the discussion of what types of things are intrinsically good or good in a final sense by which they can be used as appropriate quasi-mathematical points for the evaluation of decision option outcomes. This is a complicated topic which I will refrain from addressing to avoid making this post wayy too long.
AHHHHHHHHHH. Well you're not wrong but that's not all of us.Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Thats called "license to sin" in psychology and it makes no sense. She could've donated the same amount if not more if she didn't have a child
I think Bob's case is moral though
Fair enough, though “license to sin” utilitarianism could be thought of as a more egoistic version of “agent neutral” utilitarianism but not completely egoistic one. Bob could be described as an agent neutral utilitarian since he believes that he should strive to minimize suffering in the world as much as possible. This can be starkly contrasted with a purely egoistic form of utilitarianism which is usually called something like Prudential Hedonism or Egoistic Hedonism. These views were mostly popularized by the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus who was mostly concerned with only minimizing suffering in his own life. Epicurus was a major influence on Jeremy Bentham who was the father of agent neutral Utilitarianism. Bentham agreed on the focus on pleasure and suffering that Epicurus had but decided that we should not prioritize our own interests above anyone else’s interests. This led to the radical conclusion that we have no reason to prioritize the interests of our loved ones or ourselves above the interests of a stranger. Mary’s “license to sin” utilitarianism could be though of as a compromise between Agent Neutral Utilitarianism and Prudential Hedonism. It argues that one only has a duty to have their existence produce a positive impact on the world overall. Mary doesn’t think that she has a duty to prevent as many people from being born as possible(unlike Bob). She thinks that it’s rational for her to only benefit herself and avoid harming herself as long as she does more good than bad for the world. Her only moral requirement is to atone for the harms that she causes to the world. Of course, there are many people that would find such a view repugnant. I’m personally unconvinced by this view and I’m also unconvinced by Agent Neutral Utilitarianism but I support the actions of both Bob and Mary. My view is yet another version of Hedonism/Utilitarianism and it’s probably repugnant to many people as well. I consider minimizing suffering in my own life to be my primary goal. Maximizing my own pleasure is my secondary goal. Minimizing the suffering of others and maximizing my own life satisfaction are my tertiary goals. So, I would usually prioritize my higher order goals over my minor goals but if I can make a bigger impact on my tertiary goals than on my primary goal with a particular action then I would think that it’s rational for me to prioritize the tertiary goal over a primary goal. So, it’s kinda like a complicated version of hedonism/utilitarianism and there are many different and interesting versions of hedonist and utilitarian ethics that one could devise.
Not much of a counter because it misses the broader social point, namely that no politician or bureaucrat or committee is "clear-headed" enough to decide upon and implement sterilization policies of a marginalized demographic or community especially if they don't also belong to that targetted group. Plenty of recent historical evidence bears this out.
So-called "clear-headed" arguments like these are like arguments for adversely classifying members of out-groups worthy of being coerced or deprived of XYZ on the basis of "illiteracy"-based or "low IQ score"-based or "psychiatric history"-based or "non/religious affiliation"-based rationalizations which insinuate, if not explicitly, questions of fitness for XYZ. Fascist dung! :shade:
[quote=TheHedoMinimalist]It seems that the vast majority of drug addicts have children on accident ...[/quote]
And the vast majority of homo insapiens (& hominin cousins) for the last 2.5 million years too and currently still do. So?
[quote=TheHedoMinimalist]... and then those children get taken away from them and they end up in a terrible foster home while suffering from opioid withdrawal. It also costs the taxpayer $500,000 to treat one infant with opioid withdrawal plus the costs of foster care.[/quote]
Well, you're right, something must be done; what's proffered here, however, causes as many or more problems than it solves.
[quote=TheHedoMinimalist]I’m surprised that you support the actions of Mary but not the actions Bob.[/quote]
I'm surprised you're surprised. Bob's a grifter exploiting a child. Mary's satisfying a species need to procreate as well as a personal desire to parent children.
[quote=TheHedoMinimalist]Though, can you make a stronger argument for why the ends do not justify the means for those who are not convinced of this principle?[/quote]
I don't accept "ends justify means" arguments in ethics. Means and ends [s]must[/s] [can] be adjusted to one another so that the latter is not undermined or invalidated by the former while the former is calibrated to enact the latter. A version of reflective equilibrium.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Atrocities are what "mathematically speaking" gets you:
“If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”
~Uncle Joe of Georgia
or more familiarly
"Explain to me why it is more noble to kill 10,000 men in battle than a dozen at dinner."
~Lord Tywin of Casterly Rock
:yawn:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Mary's decision to fulfill a species need to procreate and a personal desire to parent children wagers on her being able to (as much as possible) protect from harm as well as nurture her child(ren) in order to give them the best of odds of living with the least suffering while simultaneously working to support the antinatalist movement. She's not "justifying" her decision to procreate, rather she's trying to precede in a way that doesn't invalidate or undermine either the prospect of parenting or working for the movement.
[quote=ZhouBoTong]Am I wrong in thinking that both would be driven by biopsychological programming ...[/quote]
Yeah, that's wrong. Bob doesn't have a species need - biopsych programming - to live any better than his ancestors did during the last great ice age. He's a freeloading, child-exploiting, grifter. Also, he doesn't have a fundamental need to promote antinatalism (or any abstract notion). Maybe some neurological issues there (e.g. sociopathy) ... but not a fundamental drive, shared by almost every other (nonpathological) human being, that would disable or kill him if not satisfied or periodically maintained.
[quote=ZhouBoTong]... (wouldn't biopsychological include EVERYTHING that goes into our decision making process?)[/quote]
Yes, but "EVERYTHING" doesn't equally determine or drive us to decide whether or when or with whom or even how to fulfill our species need - programming, or hormonal drive - to procreate. If more fundamental drives like metabolic, procreative, fight or flight, intentional agency attribution (e.g. theory of mind), etc weren't primary, and social or personal desires secondary, the current human species would very likely be extinct today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5zRTd1nf4
I am not a fan of this type of moralizing. One could define their behavior to be perfectly moral no matter how one behaves. Murder is wrong. Unless the person deserves it.
This mindset could lead to every negative that @180 Proof mentioned. Only the poor, stupid, and weak are denied children while "I" as a valued citizen can reproduce at will.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think this is great...unfortunately most of the world has their morality dictated to them from magical books....but now reading your objection to deontology, maybe you still view those people as choosing their morality?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think this is the problem that would be seen a lot...however, the more complicated the math equation, the more factors it could include (and therefor the less ambiguity it would have).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
While you could find a lot of agreement on these points, it would almost never be unanimous. I do not think this invalidates your ideas, it just suggests a type of limited usefulness (and to be fair nothing has universal usefulness, so that is not necessarily a substantial problem).
Well in this case it was just a charity that would encourage people to not have kids. Surely their are many organizations in our society (businesses, religions, charities, schools, etc) that attempt to encourage certain behaviors? Why are they fine, but this is not?
Quoting 180 Proof
Doesn't an awareness of this downside largely prevent it from occurring (assuming people actually want to prevent it)? But I admit, it is a MAJOR problem.
Quoting 180 Proof
Does this mean that any attempt to convince people not to have kids is wrong? Can I only attempt to convince intellectual equals or else I am being manipulative? (I think your quote above reminded me of these questions...I am not sure that what I wrote here is actually a direct response to your quote).
Quoting 180 Proof
We never said Bob was not doing this also. His scenario made him LESS LIKELY to do this, but it was not prohibitive.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is what I was getting at when I said that ends justifying means in Bob's case had to do with how he treated the child.
Quoting 180 Proof
She absolutely undermined the child reduction movement. The phrase practice what you preach comes to mind. No one is going to listen to an antinatalist that talks about how much she loves her child. She will just sound like anyone in history that wants the "lesser" people to not reproduce.
Quoting 180 Proof
Is there any scenario where a "species need" gives men a pass on their thoughtful action like it is giving women a pass in this scenario? Notice I can't be sitting in front of the judge for assault, and be like "what? it was fight or flight. my hormones took over." I suppose as a white guy in this country, maybe it would work :grimace: ...but rule of law would rightly send me to jail.
Also, this thread is on antinatalism...haven't we left the realm of "species need" far behind:razz:?
As I pointed out (here - last paragraph), its M.O. is to "encourage" by exploitation: bribing addicts with money for their fix if they submit to being (medically) sterilized.
:roll:
Hobgoblin of foolish consistency aside, Mary can support the antinatalist movement in ways other than "spokesperson" or "preacher" ... just as a non-pacifist war veteran can support an Antiwar / Peace movement as many did during (e.g.) the "Vietnam War" ... without dishonoring their military service or undermining the goal.
E.g. (a) cannibalising dead people iff starving ... (b) breaking into an empty house to shelter in place from a hurricane or other extreme weather ... (c) self-defensive violence or killing, etc
Even so, I don't give Mary "a pass"; I simply acknpwledge that her apparent inconsistency can still work without undermining either of her objectives. Not perfect, or "ideologically pure", but good enough so long as she juggles the trade-offs conscientiously.
Depends on whether or not there was mitigating circumstances ...
Btw, ever hear of "roid rage" - anabolic steroid (additional testosterone) use that triggers extreme anger or a psychotic break due to an undiagnosed psychiatric disorder?
No doubt.
Antinatalism is contrary to nature from the level of species functioning down to the genome: the sine qua non of (population) survival, after all, is procreation. How can we talk about basic aspects of being human absent consideration of our species needs (i.e. drives, or what Philippa Foot calls 'functional defects')? Certainly not morally.
Well, it seems that we trust politicians and bureaucrats to make all kinds of policies that potentially harm a marginalized demographic. For example, we lock pedophiles up for child molestation. Pedophiles are a marginalized demographic. We are willing to use direct force as punishment for their actions. Wouldn’t it be better to pay pedophiles to get castrated before they commit a crime instead? Similarly, we lock up drug addicts for mistreating or neglecting their children. Are we not just protecting them from legal consequences by paying them to get sterilized? Also, you mentioned that there is historical evidence that sterilization didn’t work or had negative consequences. Would you mind showing me some links to that historical evidence? In addition, does this evidence only apply to legally mandated sterilization or does it also apply to paying a willing drug addict? PP has already got over 3,000 drug addicts sterilized and there haven’t been any negative consequences yet it seems.
Quoting 180 Proof
There are 3 important differences here:
1. Drug addicts are more likely to have their procreation be accidental and thus it is really rare for them to intentionally reproduce.
2. Drug addicts do not adequately take care of their accidental offsprings
3. Drug addicts are known to have litters of offsprings. I think if someone reproduces 4 times and abandons every one of their offspring then this is an act that is more harmful than murder and child molestation. Given this, it is justified to lock them up in prison for a long time. If it justified to lock them up in prison then it justified to pay them not to reproduce.
Quoting 180 Proof
So, would you say that arresting criminals is justified? It seems to me that throwing people in prison is never a good means to prevent harm but it’s justified given the positive ends.
Quoting 180 Proof
Well, we are already dealing with an atrocity. Is it not an atrocity that we have suffering children created by drug addicts? If you consider individuals like Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin to be mathematical utilitarians then there’s much to be criticized. I would challenge their value theory and their speculation that their starvation plans would eventually pay off. Just because there are bad mathematics utilitarians doesn’t mean that there are no good mathematical utilitarians. Bad mathematical utilitarians sometimes commit atrocities but non-utilitarians are good at preventing us from preventing and alleviating atrocities. Non-utilitarians are the reason why we spend $700,000 a year on a comatose patient rather than spending that money to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of sentient creatures. Non-utilitarians are good at making themselves look innocent though while pointing the finger at the mathematical utilitarians and blaming them for every atrocity.
Quoting 180 Proof
What are the problems that are caused? What’s the worst that could happen if PP becomes a hundred times more popular and sterilizes 300,000 drug addicts instead of 3,000 drug addicts? It seems to me that you are mostly concerned with legally mandated sterilization of drug addicts. So, why would the consequences of PP paying drug addicts to get sterilized be bad in any way? Are you afraid of some kind of a slippery slope that eventually leads to mandated sterilization?
Quoting 180 Proof
I know this comment wasn’t intended for me but it’s related to our discussion. Mary could fulfill her desire to parent children by adopting them instead of reproducing. Given this, why is it not wrong for her to procreate given that she could fulfill her parenting needs by adopting a child. If she also wants to fulfill her reproductive needs then she should not use her child as a means to an end to do so(unless you agree with me that the ends of her preventing people from being born gives her a license to sin.)
Quoting 180 Proof
So, reproduction is justified if you have a strong biological urge to reproduce? What if a pedophile also has a strong biological urge to molest children? Does this justify his child molestation?
Quoting 180 Proof
I think it’s safe to say that the sexual drive of a pedophile is as “primary” as the need to reproduce for someone who has that desire. Both sexual and procreative desires are considered to be physiological needs under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs model(I’m assuming that this is the model that you prefer.). Both pedophiles and people who wish to procreate are often willing to sacrifice their safety to do so. Thus, there’s no reason to suppose that pedophilia is less programmed into pedophiles as the desire to procreate.
Well yes, one could define their moral behavior to be perfectly moral no matter how one behaves. But, I don’t see how this an exclusive critique of “License to Sin” Utilitarianism. One could develop a deontological Divine Command Theory in which God allows you to murder certain individuals who you happen to dislike. In addition, one could develop a virtue ethics theory in which murdering bad people is virtuous. Even Kantians do not seem to be completely immune(although, I’ll grant that they are more immune than the other theories.). A “golden rule” Kantian may justify murdering someone by reasoning that they would want to get murdered too if they were as disgusting as the person that they want to murder. Thus, they wouldn’t be violating the golden rule if they murder “disgusting” individuals. My point being is that we can’t single out “license to sin” utilitarians here. I’ll grant that there might be a greater danger involved but this would only be an argument against promoting the theory to others. One could be a “license to sin” utilitarian themselves while being careful about making sure that the benefit does indeed appear to outweigh the harm.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, it’s actually not clear to me if magical books dictate morality to religious people or if religious people dictate their magical books to their morality. I think it’s a bit of both. On one hand, it’s undeniable that magic books influence some of the moral principles that are held by the societies that adhere to them. Circumcision is a perfect example. I doubt anybody is instinctually drawn to the idea of cutting off the foreskin off of the penis or the hood of a clitoris. Those ideas seem to be influenced by the magic books. On the other hand, there are plenty of beliefs that religious folks have that are not mentioned in their magic books. For example, there’s no explicit prohibition of abortion or suicide in the Bible. Nonetheless, Christians are often strongly opposed to those things while atheists are more likely to be
pro-choice on these matters. My theory for why this is so is that some people have been biologically selected by evolution to have a strong sentiment towards survival and reproduction. This is often encapsulated into the belief in “The Sanctity of Life”. If one has a strong sentiment towards anything then they are more likely to promote that thing on a sociocultural level. This is why you see so many suicide hotlines and posters of dead fetuses. Though, I actually think that my explanation might be flawed since it’s not clear why abortion is considered more immoral than sterilization or simply choosing not to reproduce. Though, in the past, I think abortion was as controversial as any other form of contraception. All contraception used to be extremely controversial in the past. So, it kinda supports my theory. So, why are people who believe in the sanctity of life more likely to be religious? Well, it’s pretty difficult to defend their views through secular reasoning since it’s not clear why life should be valued for its own sake. The Bible is vague enough that it can be used as an easy defense for this view. Sometimes one might use a metaphysical theory to defend their beliefs about value and ethics that they refuse to abandon. I suspect that the Bible is often used as a convenient way of explaining and justifying one’s already deeply held intuitions about certain values.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I actually don’t think that it’s particularly important to resolve the ambiguity in those cases. If 2 decision option are pretty close in goodness then you might as well just flip a coin and not over-analyze the decision. It will save you a lot of needless worry :smile:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree that my decision theory is highly unpersuasive and extremely exclusive. I make a ton of controversial claims and try my best to defend all of them. This marginalizes any audience that I might have. But, my specific ideas are more designed for my own life and deciding what decisions I should make. On this thread, I defended theories that I don’t fully support like Agent Neutral Utilitarianism and “License to Sin” Utilitarianism because they are close relatives to my complicated theory. So, I need not only promote my specific theory.
To be fair, I felt that you were making false equivalences of my ideas to the Nazis (you did call certain ideas that I kinda supported as “nazi bs” .) I don’t think that the language that I used was more harsh than the language that you used. I generally match the tone of the person that I’m speaking to on this forum. If someone is trying to be really nice then I’m guaranteed to be really nice back. But, you were making some fiery comments in your response so I felt it was appropriate for me to do the same. I wasn’t trying to score points either. I was honestly trying to have an intellectually honest discussion with you. I’m sorry if it didn’t appear that way to you. My analogy to pedophilia was not meant as an insult to your position or a straw man of it. I’m honestly having a difficulty of understanding why reproduction by a drug addict which is accompanied by abandonment of the child is considered less harmful than child molestation. I’m not even sure if normal reproduction is less harmful than child molestation. A lifetime of suffering could certainly be considered more significant than one single really bad period of suffering like in the case of child molestation. Maybe this view is just too radical for you to consider but it was not meant to be a dismissal of yout position. I was trying to explain why I consider your ideas to be counterintuitive and I probably didn’t do a very good job of showing appropriate respect for our disagreement. In my defense, I’m was pretty tired from work when I wrote my comment to you and this caused me to rush in my thinking and wording. It took me a long time to respond to your long and thought provoking comments and also to the comments of Zhou. So, I was a bit overloaded on this thread. I apologize if you feel that I wasted your time but I promise you that I only had the best intentions for our discussion.
Fair enough, but I would imagine there are some people out there whose thinking is not much better than an addict's (not much clearer or less tied to their next "fix"). For example, businesses exploit me for my labor because of my need to eat and play playstation. I get these are not identical scenarios, but I would consider there to be some (a lot) overlap (this is related to my question of can we "convince" people far dumber than us or is that just exploitation? - what about people with a natural chemical imbalance in their brain?)
Quoting 180 Proof
thanks for these. Might there be people who THINK they are in a survival situation? Given the level of emotion on display, it seems some people actually believe that immigrants are an immediate threat to their families and their livelihood.
Quoting 180 Proof
So if bob takes good care of the child then he is ok too?
No.
I agree. When I said "this type" I meant any system that allowed for those sorts of justifications. I am happy to admit that I will never live up to my own ideal morality. Once I identify an ideal, I am not going to lower it just because I am not sure if anyone can live up to the ideal. That is why it is an ideal, not "how we normally act". So I agree that each of the systems you named is similarly flawed.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That's fair. I think I even started typing something about..."if the dictated morals are too repulsive then they would not be accepted", but then I thought it would be more accurate to say..."if the dictated morals are too repulsive, then they will gradually be phased out over a few centuries"...which suggests that culture changed that caused people to view things as repulsive that were previously just accepted (like stoning adulterers). But I will certainly agree with a bit of both.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think you kind of answered your own question (which I think is good as it is more support for your theory). Religion definitely assigns value to life. Secular reasoning gives no such simple answers. And very few humans will be critical when they get the exact answer they are looking for.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
This actually captures a lot of my views on morality. Most of it is either grey area or so insignificant that the "right" decision doesn't matter. I enjoy philosophy and testing my decisions in hypothetical situations with the hope that I will make the "correct" moral decision in the one or two moments of my life where there is a difficult and important moral decision.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Well, you are obviously at a higher level, but it sounds like we do this philosophy stuff for similar reasons :smile:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Feel free to point out (i will just view it as a learning experience) any time I misrepresent or misunderstand established theories. I have almost zero formal philosophy education (shocking, I know). I do take the time to look up definitions, but some of these ideas require a deep understanding before they really make sense.
So attitude/intention matters more than action? Their actions are identical. Bob has the baby for money. Mary has the baby for biological drive reasons. But their actions are identical. If we did not know their thoughts/circumstances we couldn't tell the difference.
I assume you are tired of trying to teach me, but what am I missing? Is it just the difference between me valuing consequentialism more and you valuing virtue ethics more? (I am probably wrong in naming these ethical stances, but it will show what I am getting at)
I think because their "actions are identical" context - to the extent intention can be plausibly surmised - matters in determining the merits of those actions respectively.
But we do know enough about the respective circumstances, or conditions, of their decisions (though you oversimplify them, leaving out the telling details, I assume, for sake of brevity).
Bob doesn't want to be disinherited.
Mary doesn't want to be childless.
Bob procreates in order to use his offspring to bribe his parents not to disinherit him; no other interest in his offspring's welfare is evident.
Mary procreates in order to fulfill a biological need; and personal, motivated, desire to parent suggests interest in the welfare of her offspring.
Bob procreates for an extrinsic benefit (i.e. means-to-an-end).
Mary procreates for an intrinsic benefit (i.e. end in itself).
Bob's offspring is a means for Bob to gain inheritance and a means for Bob's parents to be grandparents; exploiting junkies' habits by buying them junk in exchange for sterilizing themselves is just a self-serving excuse, or rationalization.
Mary's offspring is a consequence of exercising the fundamental, biological, drive - which is an end in itself (since nature isn't intentional) - to procreate; once born, the child isn't just, or primarily, a means for Mary to 'be a parent' but also manifests an obligation to commit herself to the child's welfare (re: attachment-bonding) which entails Mary voluntarily suffering to parent - as well as suffer with - her child; and, lastly, Mary (unlike Bob) procreates despite rather than because of her evident commitment to the antinatal cause in general (or that predatory-exploitative "Project Prevention" racket in particular).
Need I go on any further, ZBT?
Only that I'm not "trying to teach" but rather give my reasons for disapproving of Bob and approving of Mary.
I 'marry' virtue to consequentialism in a 'naturalistic agent-based negative utilitarian / consequentialist ethics' which I summarize here (with a few more embedded links). Put another way, I conceive of "virtue" as being developed by judgments or conduct which strive to prevent mitigate or relieve as much foreseeable harm (i.e. personal pain/deprivation or social frustration/conflict) as possible.
With respect to Mary and Bob, he at minimum, harms his offspring (not by procreating itself but by using his offspring as a means-to-an-end extraneous to his offspring's welfare), harms his parents (he's complicit in their extorting him for a grandchild and thereby facilitating their use of his offspring as a means to being grandparents rather than as an end itself) & harms the junkies by exploiting their fiending habit (& perhaps his community too), whereas she strives to mitigate (& relieve) the harms her child will suffer as the downside risk of her procreative tradeoff. I fail to see how Bob's proximate end (avoid disinheritance) in any way justifies the means he's chosen (bribe parents give him an inheritance by procreating - we are, if I'm not mistaken, impeaching a president later today for this sort of nakedly basic quid pro quo, aren't we?). Mary's proximate end (procreating), though not justificatory, seems to support, or validate, by her chosen means (motivated interest in her child's welfare by committing to parenting that (& not just any other e.g. "adopted") child).
As an antinatalist myself, I don't agree with Bob or Mary, and don"t approve of that predatory racket pimped as the "Prevention Project" either, because my ethical commitments, the concerns of which being more proximate than promissary, precede and inform - rather than follow from (and are constrained by) - my antinatalist commitments.
I agree that we should not be discouraged from thinking that an action is good just because we can’t find the mental strength to perform the action. For example, I would consider sacrificing my life in a relatively painless manner to rescue many people from suffering to be a good decision option but it’s unlikely that I will have the bravery to act on that decision option. I don’t think this should be construed as evidence that I actually don’t think that it’s a good decision option deep inside. I think we might be psychologically unable to act on what we honestly consider good because of incontinence.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
It’s actually an interesting point that I haven’t thought about yesterday. Why were Christians supporting capital punishment in the past and continue to do so
today? Wouldn’t this suggest that my theory that Christians are using the Bible to support life affirmation be wrong? Well, ironically enough, I actually think that capital punishment is strangely life affirming. To imply that bad people should be killed is to imply that life is valuable and death is harmful. Suicide, on the other hand, is like a philosophical rebellion against the affirmation of life. This is why I think it was more offensive to Life Affirming Christians than killing bad people as a punishment. Ironically enough, having a botched suicide attempt used to be a crime and it was punishable by death! You can’t make this shit up :lol: !
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree. I’m actually more interested in prudential decision making than moral decision making. I’m trying to figure out if I should rent or buy a house once I move out of my mom’s place. I’m also trying to figure out if I should ever go back to school considering that I graduated with an Associate’s Degree that I never ended up using. These are very interesting and difficult philosophical questions for me. My preferred method for making progress on those issues is a pros and cons list which I continuously review and adjust for perceived inaccuracies. I also devised other decision making methods but I never managed to use them in an actual life decision. I also learned a thing or two about decision making by reading books by Nassim Taleb who I strongly recommend. I recently started a philosophical YouTube channel called Hedonic Minimalist in which I plan to eventually discuss all of my ideas on prudential theory and other topics. So far, I only have 8 videos made which average about 30 minutes in length but I should be able to release many more since making a 30 minute YouTube video usually only takes me like 50 minutes.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, thank you :blush: . I appreciate the compliment!
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I actually think you have a pretty good grasp of many ideas. You understood my very wordy comments quite well. I kinda have a bad habit of using too much philosophical jargon. Though, I actually also never took a real class on philosophy in an actual university in my life. I mostly learned this stuff by listening to lectures on YouTube and reading academic philosophical journals on philarchive.org. Though a lot of jargon that I use was just created by me but often influenced by existing jargon. I think Philosophy is more about philosophizing than studying philosophy though. I spend a lot more time pacing around my house and thinking about certain ideas than actually studying the ideas of others. I often use philosophical journals as mere thought provokers when I have nothing to think about. I think you have quite a talent for philosophizing though. I was quite impressed by the objections that you gave for 180 Proof’s arguments :smile:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I am an antinatalist of Bob's kind (that is, I think procreation is prima facie immoral, but may nevertheless be justified in many cases). But I am doubtful that Bob's act would be justified, given just how serious a wrong procreation is. I agree that it is good if others do not breed, and so I agree that Bob's act would promote more good than bad. But that's not all that matters. It is also important to show respect for others in one's behaviour, and respect for free choice.
Here's what seems to me to be a relevantly analogous case. Bullying is prima facie wrong. But imagine that Bob knows that if he starts bullying Sarah, his behaviour towards her will so revolt others who witness it that those others will resolve not to be bullies themselves. And thus, by bullying Sarah, Bob knows that overall he will bring about a reduction in bullying. Sarah will be bullied. But there will be less bullying overall if Sarah is bullied by Bob.
Is it right for Bob to start bullying Sarah? Well, I'd say not. Yes, if he does so there will be less bullying overall. But the rightness or wrongness of an action is not solely determined by its consequences. We also ought to show respect for others, and that means not using them as tools. Bob would be using Sarah as a tool - an anti-bullying tool - and that seems wrong, despite the fact that fewer people will be bullied as a result.
Likewise, if Bob were to procreate then he'd be using his child as a tool to reduce procreation. And that, I think, is wrong. Not necessarily, of course. An antinatalist who is a pure consequentialist - which is rare, because pure consequentialism is implausible - would disagree. And other antinatalists might disagree because they may judge that in this kind of a case the good consequences outweigh the badness of the disrespect shown by performing the act.
Well that is entirely fair. My brain gets stuck in a certain perspective sometimes, and stops considering obvious things like this :grimace:
Quoting 180 Proof
This is the main our real area of contention. Likely due to my own emotional propensities, I don't care if my family or friends actually love me. I care about how I am treated. If I am treated well, then they are good in my book. So, if I am 70, and learn that 2 of my friends have actually hated me the whole time, I would say thank you for the courtesy and good times, and move on with life. Those "wasted" years of kindness harmed them a lot more than me.
Perhaps you are suggesting that someone in Bob's position could never raise the child well?
Quoting 180 Proof
I would think we are impeaching the pres because his quid pro quo is illegal, I have traded a lot of back scratching with no seeming immoral downside to quid pro quo. I also do not have a moral belief that it is immoral to avoid inheritance (it is not an admirable quality, but not itself problematic - how about the parents manipulating their child by offering an inheritance if he procreates?). IF the means were negative (poor treatment of the child) then even neutral ends are unjustified. However, if the child is treated well, and the grandparent get to love and adore it, then no negative behavior occurs. So I don't need to worry about justifying a neutral end.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is the where all the "teach me" comes from (not suggesting you should actually try to do it, haha). I don't have any degrees in philosophy and both this sentence and your summarized philosophy would seem to require years (or hundreds of hours - maybe only dozens to be fair) to truly understand. I would need a total (not just a definition) understanding of each of the concepts or schools of thought you mention. Now we are on a philosophy site so there is no reason you should feel the need to dumb things down (I have read enough of your posts to know you do not feel bogged down by this obligation, haha), but I just want to be sure I am not missing something more obvious.
Is this like advanced physics or something where there is no simplifying?...could a teenager embrace your philosophical views or does it require years of deep knowledge to adopt?
100% agree. One of my biggest fears is that I will freeze in the one moment I get to truly show moral conviction (I'd even LIKE TO THINK that I would accept a painful death if it saved other people). And beyond freezing or emotional problems, some situations will require a certain level of physical fitness (the more nervous you are, the quicker you feel the cardiovascular effects). I used to do martial arts and play soccer, but it has now been a few years and I wonder if that could be a problem some day.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
This makes sense. But for christians...judge not lest ye be judged. They are making the penultimate judgement (I was about to say ultimate but I guess that would be the eternal state of their soul - "ultimate" in their physical lives). But ignoring christian dogma, your point seems entirely reasonable.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I can only agree with the hilarity :lol:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I like the sound of this...but then realized I am not exactly sure what that means (likely my fault ). I would think that one could make moral decisions in a prudential manner? Perhaps you are viewing moral decisions as more dogmatic or as a list of rules/maxims....that doesn't seem quite right. I think I will just wait for your explanation as my guesses are likely to do us both a disservice.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I thought I had heard of him, but don't know why, so I just googled him. The Black Swan sounds interesting...although the summary seems a little over my head. Do I need to understand finances, markets, trading, etc to a high level before reading him? Most likely I will end up searching around for good summaries...the part I understood certainly sounded promising:
"The book focuses on the extreme impact of rare and unpredictable outlier events — and the human tendency to find simplistic explanations for these events, retrospectively." - wikipedia
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Nice. I think it would take me 10 days to even write a script for a 30 minute video. And my neurosis would never allow to make a video without entirely planning every word I was going to say. I will try to check them out, but I am unlikely to vastly improve your "hits" as I generally prefer learning from text...those incredible astronomy shows on the science channel(s) and any of the "Planet Earth" style nature shows are the exception...If you can do philosophy with that sort of production value, I may end up a regular viewer :grin: In any case, it is a worthy endeavor.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
haha, you use a good bit. But there are a few people on this site who are even more jargon heavy...I still fail to understand quite a bit...and then somehow come across as a dick when I don't get it (I expect an explanation that I would find boring if I was in their position)...see my current conversation with 180proof in this thread, haha.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Well I must need to more of both...I will definitely check out the philarchive.org.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I certainly think so. In fact I am always trying to find the useful bits of "advanced" philosophy. But it seems they can't be explained to the uninitiated...which makes me question their practical value?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Wait, I am just here to argue...how did we start trading compliments? :rofl:
That’s interesting, in what cases do you think that procreation is justified?
Quoting Bartricks
Fair enough, we can say that showing respect for other’s behavior is important. But, in the case of Bob, the consequence of his actions is REALLY good. It only costs about $400 to give a drug addict long term contraception. PP pays drug addicts $300 and also probably takes some of the money to cover administrative costs. $400 is meant to be a pretty conservative estimate I think. If Bob donates like 2 million dollars to the organization, then he would be responsible for applying long term contraception to about 5000 drug addicts. The average drug addict that signs up for this program usually gets pregnant or gets someone else pregnant about once every 2 years or so. But, they are usually women who are already in their late 20s or early 30s. So, I would make a conservative estimate that each implementation of long term contraception would prevent 2 children from being born. Thus, Bob likely prevented around 10,000 children from being born to drug addicted parents. These are children that are often born addicted to drugs and they get taken away to abusive foster homes. So, their lives probably contain more suffering than average. They are also less likely to be vegan and avoid the consumption of countless of factory farm animals(this is because veganism is more common among the privileged in western countries.). This leads to more reproduction of sentient beings and more suffering. In addition, they are more likely to grow up as drug addicts and create drug addicted children of their own. So, Bob is probably preventing like a million of sentient beings from coming into existence(if we include factory farm animals.). It’s possible that factory farming will soon be obsolete with the creation of affordable cultured meat. Nonetheless, Bob probably prevented around 100,000 miserable people from being born across multiple generations while only potentially creating like 10 privileged people across multiple generations(though this estimate is almost certainly wrong if the human species survives uninterrupted for more than a hundred years. The difference would be even larger then). Given the magnitude of Bob’s positive impact, wouldn’t this justify violating the rights of just 1 person who is his child? I don’t think we have to be pure consequentialist to think that an enormously good consequence could justify one pretty bad action.
I'm suggesting that Bob isn't committed to the welfare of his offspring whom he's using to bribe his parents with in exchange for an inheritance (i.e. ca$h).
No. The president was impeached, in part, because this particular quid pro quo had violated the public trust (i.e. jeopardizing national security in exchange for personal political gain) as stipulated in Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. Impeachment is a political 'checks and balances' proceeding and not a criminal prosecution; in other words, a constitutional officer (e.g. a president) can be impeached for lawful as well as unlawful conduct.
Not remotely.
Both.
What about
Quoting 180 Proof
is so difficult to grasp?
Apparently we're both negative consequentalists; I take a further step by proposing that the goal of minimizing harm / conflict consists in the skills learned & habits formed by such judging or conduct.
Just as a healthcare provider learns skills & forms habits for diagnosing & providing care by reflectively doing both and thereby improving / developing by repetition over the course of her career, so too, I think, a moral agent improves / develops over the course of her moral life through moral exercise & experience (i.e. reflection). That's the "virtue" part you referred to previously which I reformulate as "agent-based".
In my understanding, a 'moral system' that doesn't - or is not (reflectively) designed to - improve / develop moral agency (i.e. skills & habits - what function do "virtues" serve if not these?) via moral practices (e.g. preventing, mitigating or relieving (increases in) harm) is inadequate (i.e. susceptible to being akratic), merely arbitrary, & undisciplined.
Well, I actually use somewhat unconventional definitions of terms “prudential” and “moral”. Prudentially is the element of decision making that I identify with self-interest while morality is the element of decision making concerned with the interests of others. I consider whether or not I should go to college as a prudential issue since it mostly concerns maximizing well being in my own life. Though, this might not be true in many cases. People who are trying to better support their family might have moral reasons to go to college since their decision now concerns people other than themselves. So, there’s actually a lot of overlap. Another decision that is normally treated as a prudential issue is whether or not one should have children. Most people mostly have selfish considerations when deciding whether or not to have children. This is true for both Pronatalists and Antinatalists. A prudential Antinatalist is kinda like a normal “child free” person who simply doesn’t want to have kids because they think it would be harmful to their own life interests. A moral Antinatalist is someone who thinks having children is bad mostly because it harms the child or other people in the world. I’m actually more interested in the selfish/prudential arguments for having children and against having children rather than the moral/selfless arguments(even though I made a thread on moral Antinatalism this time.). So basically, prudential decision theory is just the more selfish aspects of decision theory while morality is the more selfless aspect. I hope that made sense to you.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I used to try to write a script and was over concerned with making minor mistakes. But, I realized that I’m actually about as good talking off the cuff as I am at writing a good script. I’m not the best writer but I tend to have pretty good improvisational public speaking skills. So, I just improvise my talks while occasionally pausing the recording to think. I don’t think it strongly impacts the quality of my videos but it greatly improves my productivity. I also save time by having my videos only include a slide that I made with the program Paint with the title of the video written on it. So, my videos definitely don’t have much production value. Oftentimes, I think the best way to create quality is with quantity. This is because a large number of videos created with minimum effort are often more likely to have a really interesting video in it than a small number of videos that are over-analyzed and over-produced. I suppose I’m more likely to say something stupid though. I had stopped even reviewing all of my own videos. But, I reviewed a couple and was satisfied with them. I also have a love for astronomy videos btw :smile:
As someone who is very happy to see this particular president being impeached, I feel like this is a problem. Most of the people who currently support trump (it seems at least 30% of the country) would have said that Obama violated public trust. They don't trust black people so...? Libertarian types would have impeached FDR as they didn't trust his expansion of the size of government?
Violating public trust seems far too subjective.
Quoting 180 Proof
I get this. And I know that "high crimes and misdemeanors" does not have to mean actual crimes. However, if we say we are impeaching the president purely for a violation of public trust then the half (or nearly) of the country that does trust the president is going to cry witch hunt. (don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching them writhe, but I worry the next group in power can then use similar justification for egregious actions)
Quoting 180 Proof
I think I get that part, but that does not seem to be the entirety of your philosophy. Don't worry too much, I have had troubles in the past due to taking things over literally (I am not saying that is my problem here, but it could be a related problem of mine), for example, I absolutely refuse to believe that I can "imagine myself in someone else's shoes". I get the general sentiment of the statement, but in any philosophical discussion I would say that I have no clue what that means because it is impossible.
Quoting 180 Proof
Thank you for taking the time to do this. It does help me understand. Now I think our big difference is your faith in all of mankind to reach your level of moral reasoning. Despite my idiocy on display in this thread, I am confident (based on past experience) that I will score in the top 10% of the population on any general knowledge test (yes, as part of the dominant culture - raised as upper middle class white male - I will be a bit "privileged" with the cultural knowledge portions...but that still places my brain as capable of absorbing more information than most). I would also point out that we (everyone on sites like this) are very interested in morals and moralizing. Many people want to be "good" people, but are bored and annoyed by detailed discussions of why anything is "good".
Ok, that makes a lot more sense than some of my guesses :smile:
I think you are onto something in that I think most of the world is more interested in making good decisions for their personal lives. This could bode well for the youtube material. Unfortunately for me, people's personal lives are very uninteresting to me; but I do find most people to be the exact opposite (social media is a testament to this), so I think you will find plenty of interest.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Entirely agreed, although Pro-natalist will often not even be aware that there is a choice to be made and anyone who actually calls them self an anti-natalist at least believes they are doing it for societal reasons...I am not exactly sure how this matters, but felt the need to say it anyway:grimace:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Well that's me, so I fit nicely into one of your categories at least :grin:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think most people that actually call themselves an anti-natalist would be in this category.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I will give you my reason(s) just because I think it will highlight why I am uninterested in the purely personal side of things:
Without children, life is easy and pleasant. I know all sorts of things that I enjoy doing and without kids, I can choose to do any of them, any time I want. I also have social inadequacies, so I struggle to treat humans differently based on who they are. A 7 year gets talked to just like a 47 year old. From that perspective, kids suck. They are dumb and have nothing interesting to say. Finally, IF I did have kids it would be all about molding them into some incredible figure...which seems borderline immoral. Worse than that, when the kid hits age twelve and says "screw you dad, I don't want your life", I can only agree that it is free to live its life any way it sees fit...but I am bored. I love you, I will support you, but leave me alone I am watching TV.
Notice there is basically zero morality in the decision, and very few factors to analyze. I don't want kids BECAUSE I don't want kids (I think deciding whether or not to go to college actually is more complicated). There is an acknowledge that once I have them, I am morally obligated to treat them well...but I can just choose to not have them.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, after that paragraph I feel like I get it perfectly :up: Examples and everything :grin: Definitely let me know if my responses suggest I am not getting it, haha.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Sounds good to me. And I get what you are saying about creating quality through quantity. After you have been doing the channel for years, you can go through your masses of content and hone it down into what you think is best. Just writing is often a good way to get ideas out that can then be fine tuned (so just recording a video should work similarly :smile:). Additionally, the parts that you think are most beneficial may be different from what a certain viewer finds beneficial, so just putting a lot of content out can have benefits.
I don't doubt that, but I don't think the rightness of an act is a always a function of the goodness of its consequences. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. Sometimes respect has to compete with outcomes, but sometimes respect prevents outcomes from mattering at all - it all depends on the context.
For instance, let's say we could make everyone happy forever after if we subject one person - Tom - to a life of endless torture. Should we do that? Is there some number of happy people that would justify it? 1million? 1 billion? 1 trillion?
No, the numbers don't matter. It'd be wrong to subject Tom to that life to give 10 others a life of pure happiness, and just as wrong to do so if it gave 10,0000 people a life of pure happiness.
Applying this to procreation: let's say that if Maddy has a child then the child will have a life of endless suffering because it will have a ghastly disease, however the disease in question is one that will - without causing the symptoms it causes in Maddy - sterilize all the rest of humanity, thus stopping the wrong of procreation from occurring in the future. Should Maddy have that child? I think not. That case seems relevantly analogous to the Tom case above. I agree that it would be good - extremely good - for 10,000 people to have lives of unalloyed happiness, but it is nevertheless wrong to subject Tom to a life of suffering in order to secure it; likewise I agree that it would be good - extremely good - if all humans ceased to procreate, but I think it would be wrong to subject one person to a life of suffering to secure it.
The case you describe is not quite like the above, but it seems relevantly similar.
So sometimes the numbers don't matter. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. I don't think we can formulate a rule that will tell us when they do - and by how much - and when they don't. We have to trust our reason.
I don't think "reason" is the right word here. I think "intuition" is better. Reason makes it sound like there is a correct answer (and you're saying there isn't)
Quoting khaled
There is a correct answer. How could there not be?
Quoting Bartricks
These statements seem to contradict
These contradict: the numbers always matter. The numbers never matter.
These contradict: the numbers always matter. Sometimes the numbers do not matter.
But these don't: the numbers sometimes matter; the numbers sometimes do not matter.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
For an analogy: there is a correct answer to the question "what is Bartricks thinking right now". But I do not think we could formulate any rule about it - that is, that on a Thursday at 5pm Bartricks thinks about butter".
Ok. But do you think we can formulate some function with respect to time to get what Bartricks is thinking? Example:
F(2019/12/20 1:11 pm) = walruses
In other words, do you think there is some method by which we can say "X is right" depending on some parameters, be it time or anything
Ok. This to me sounds like "There is no right answer" which is why I was confused. So your position as far as I understand is: There is a right moral answer for situations, but you're not sure if there is some law or function that can give us these answers
Fair enough, I think the main reason why I got interested in mundane personal decision making is because I always felt that my philosophizing lacked any useful application in my own life. I always felt like being good at philosophy was more similar to being good at trivia than being good at fixing cars. It doesn’t help that I sometimes get mocked by my family for being bad at practical tasks like working on cars, doing basic home repairs, and cooking complicated meals. My family also knows that I’m like a walking encyclopedia of somewhat useless knowledge. This just makes me seem like a time waster who can’t be bothered to study things that might actually help me get a better job , save me money, and improve the quality of my life. Unfortunately, I just don’t enjoy learning practical skills. Even as a musician, I don’t like to hone my guitar and piano playing abilities. Instead, I prefer to hone my songwriting abilities instead and record the instruments in my songs with an app like Garage Band. This allows me to compose music with minimal technical ability. To get back to the topic at hand, I wanted to figure out how to make my philosophizing more like a useful skill than useless knowledge. I figure that I could probably make better decisions in life if I philosophized about them as much as I philosophized about less useful topics. I still enjoy doing more trivial philosophy but I try to have my philosophy be more than just a way to kill time.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yep I agree, but it’s not clear to me why this term has adopted an exclusively moralized meaning though.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
This is one of the big reasons why I’m not a fan of having children either. My life philosophy strongly revolves around keeping my own life relatively pleasant. Though, I would say that life is pretty difficult and unpleasant even if you don’t have kids. But, it’s even more unpleasant with kids.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, I think you probably have pretty good social skills. People with bad social skills are usually unaware of their problems. Lots of people don’t know how to talk to children. I agree that they are not the most interesting people to talk to. I usually play sports or board games with them instead if I’m in a situation where I have nothing better to do.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yeah, that’s bound not to work out well. Kids tend to be resistant to this sort of molding.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I would disagree that there’s only a few factors to analyze. I had already made 3 videos on the prudence of reproduction and I’m planning on making at least 7 more. The first video was about the financial pros and cons of having children. This video mostly points out the costs of having children but also addresses some attempts by the Pro-Natalists that try to minimize the financial costs. This includes the argument that children might pay back some of the cost by supporting you when you get old. It also includes the argument that having children gives you great tax deductions and thus offsets some more of the cost. Finally, I also mention the argument that raising children will prompt you to be more responsible and work harder for their sake and this will have financial benefits. In addition, I point out the possibility that one also might have to raise their grandchildren if their children are unable to. In my second video, I talk about the social aspects of having children. This mainly includes the argument that having children alleviates a great deal loneliness. I argued that the impact on loneliness is only mildly in favor of the Pro-Natalist position for most people. Then, I talked about the social dysphoria which may come with having children and argued that for more introverted people or people who prefer the company of adults the dysphoria might be a serious consideration. Next, I talked about how having children will impact your ability to make adult friends, find a new romantic partner, or maintain a relationship with your current romantic partner. Then, I talked about the peak positive experiences that come with watching the birth of your child and forming precious memories with children. Then, I talked about the possibility of something tragic occurring to your child and how this might cause you to greatly suffer. In my third video, I talked about the pain and discomfort of pregnancy and why I think this is one of the strongest arguments against having children for women. I’m planning to make my fourth video about the argument that one should have children to be remembered after one dies. I will talk about why I’m not convinced that this a good reason for anyone to consider. So, as you can see, there’s definitely a lot of interesting things to analyze regarding this topic. I agree that analyzing the prudence of going to college is even more difficult though.
I would like to start by biting the bullets on the thought experiments that you had introduced to me. I actually think that it would be justified to subject Tom to a life of endless torture if it minimizes the combined suffering of
sentient beings in the long term. In addition, the procreation of Maddy is also justified it seems. So, how should we continue this discussion if I have different intuitions than you do? What reason do I have to consider your intuitions as being more reliable than mine? In addition, what reason do you have to abandon your moral intuitions in favor of mine? I can only try to answer the first and third question, but I would ask you to try to answer the second question for me. To answer the first question, I think we should continue this discussion by trying to give deeper reasons and better explanations for our intuitions. My intuitions revolves around the notion that every possible normative aim has some probability of being a good normative aim, and some probability of being a neutral or bad normative aim. The task is to make a hypothesis on which normative aims are more likely to be good to focus on. I believe that normative aims with superior comeasurability are more likely to be non-trivial aims to pursue. That is to say, normative aims which seem to have more non-arbitrary ways of figuring out how to formulate a basic hierarchy of outcomes in relation to the normative aim in question have better explanatory power and thus have a superiority as a theory. To give a concrete example, consider the normative aim of “minimizing suffering in the lives of sentient beings”. This is the normative aim which is pursued by Bob above any other normative aim. Does this normative aim have a high degree of comeasurability? To figure this out, we first need to figure out what we are comparing and measuring. In this case, we are measuring suffering. Suffering has some measurable properties like the intensity of the suffering, the frequency of the suffering, and the duration of the suffering. This means that it has some significant amount of comeasurability. Of course, we can never measure suffering precisely like we could with something simple like measuring the amount of water in a cup. But, we can formulate an elementary hierarchy of various actions which cause suffering by intuitively comparing the intensity of the suffering caused and the duration and frequency of the moments of suffering. So, there is some commeasurabilty and thus some non-arbitrary way of determining which actions are better at alleviating suffering and which action are better to avoid because they cause more suffering. On the other hand, let’s turn to the normative aim of “showing respect for others in one’s behavior”. Does this aim have a high degree of comeasurability? We first need to figure out what we are comparing or measuring. Well, it seems that we are comparing and measuring the wrongness of not showing respect for others in one’s behavior in various cases where the principle is violated. So, we would likely postulate that each action which violates the principle of showing respect has an intensity of violation, a duration of the violation, and the frequency of violation. This is the only way we could make valid intuitive judgements to distinguish cases of severe violations of the principle from the more mild violations. But, this is where problems arise for me. Does a case of violation of the principle really have an intensity of violation or a frequency of violation or a duration of violation? It’s certainly not as obvious as in the case of measuring suffering. I know from experience that some moments of suffering in my life are more intense than others. I also know that some moments of suffering last longer and some of my actions led to more frequent moments of suffering. Mental states seem to have measurable properties of this sort. On the other hand, it doesn’t appear that violations of a principle have an intensity that we can observe or a duration or a frequency. But, why do people believe that they have measurable properties then? Well, we usually measure the intensity of a principle violation by the intensity of the offense that we experience from thinking about the violation occurring. The mental state of being offended is comeasurable just like suffering is. This is a problematic comeasurability though. This is because we are not interested in measuring the offensiveness of a principle violation but rather the actual intensity of the violation. I imagine that you would think that Bob has wrongfully violated the principle of respecting others even if he lived in a world where no one would get offended at his principle violation. But, how could you determine the intensity of his principle violation without simply appealing to the intensity of the offensiveness that you experience from reading about Bob? I don’t have an answer to this problem and thus I’m inclined to be skeptical of your view. Without an ability to form even the most basic hierarchy of wrongness of cases in which the violation of the principle occurs, it seems like all claims of wrongness are simply arbitrary and have no normative significance. The explanatory difficulty of your view is just too great for me. Thus, I feel that the normative aim of minimizing suffering in the lives of sentient beings has a greater epistemic certainty of being a good normative aim to pursue. Though, I actually think there are even better normative aims to pursue but I won’t go into that. I apologize for the extreme wordiness and complexity of my comment but I have no simpler way of explaining my intuitions to you.
Someone had probably said something like this when e.g. Aristarchus proposed that the earth went around the sun or Eratosthenes, by measuring the earth's circumference, demonstrated it's not flat.
This is what I think about psychological questions as well - there are correct answers to questions about what psychological state someone is in, but I do not think there are any rules about what psychological state person is in, only rough and ready generalizations.
The evidence that morality is like this is that it appears to be. Sometimes consequences matter, sometimes they don't. Sometimes numbers matter, sometimes they don't. That is, sometimes an act is right because it brings about more good than the alternative; but sometimes an act is right regardless of whether it brings about more good than the alternative. It all depends on the situation.
That's not the example I gave. Preventing suffering is different to promoting happiness and is typically much more important (which is partly why antinatalism is correct - more important to prevent the pain that a life contains than to promote its pleasures). So it may well be that torturing one person to prevent others from similar torture 'is' justified (though again, it would all depend and we must resist the urge the formulate a cast iron rule and trust our judgement instead).
In my example what we can do is maximise happiness by torturing one person. And now it seems to many that this would not be justified, and it really doesn't matter the number of people whose happiness will be maximised. A thousand, a million, a billion - keep adding noughts, and it makes no difference.
The example shows that sometimes the numbers don't count and so figuring out what's right is not - or not necessarily - a simple matter of summing the good versus the bad outcomes.
I agree, then, that it would be good if people stopped breeding, but my intuitions say that it would be wrong to subject a person to life here even if one knew that by doing so one could prevent others from doing so.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Because morality isn't something we make up. It isn't made of your intuitions, or mine. It is something we have intuitions 'about'.
Now, most people do not share your intuitions about the kind of case I described (and note - you changed the example and told me your intuitions about the changed case, not the original). How do I know that? Because it is a common example used in the philosophical literature - it's taken from a book called 'The ones who left Omelas' or something like that - plus I've asked lots of people for their intuitions about such cases and they confirm that it seems to them wrong to subject one to endless torture even if will result in maximising the happiness of others.
Note, even those - such as hard-line utilitarians - who think one ought to torture the one to maximise the happiness of the many - accept that majority intuitions say otherwise (and they seek instead to discredit those specific intuitions).
So, it is beyond a reasonable doubt that most people's intuitions - most people who think soberly about such matters, are capable of understanding, and who are not in the grips of a dogma - deliver the verdict that it would be wrong to torture one to maximise the happiness of the many.
That doesn't mean they're right. But it is very good evidence that they're correct.
So how do you proceed? Well, first, conceding is proceeding. A true philosopher will change their view in light of reasoned argument. Many philosophers thought the 'justified true belief' view about when an agent has knowledge was true until counter-examples were developed that challenged that idea.
But anyway, what you need to do is try and discredit the intuitions I am appealing to. Not all intuitions. That's silly. But the specific intuitions I am appealing to. It is not enough simply to say you don't share them. The majority do share them, and so unless you think your intuitions are special, you need to provide good reason to think their intuitions do not count (as opposed to just appealing to your own).
Well, I would still bite the bullet here and say that it would justified to torture Tom.
Quoting Bartricks
It seems to me that thought experiments about applied ethical issues cannot show that sometimes numbers don’t count. I think you need to have a deeper epistemic foundation that could demonstrate the reason why your intuitions about morality are more plausible than mine or anyone else’s. It seems that you can’t use an unpopular viewpoint in Applied Ethics as an argument against a Normative Ethical Theory. You could only rely on deeper metaphysical and epistemological theories. To use an analogy, a theoretical discipline like Physics could help us understand more about an applied discipline like Engineering. Engineering, on the other hand, cannot help us understand physics any better. So, more theoretical branches of philosophy supersede over the more applied branches. Thus, the applied ethical question of whether or not the torture of Tom is justified cannot be used as evidence against normative ethical theories like consequentialism. We could only use value ontology and value epistemology to argue for theories of normative ethics. So, we must go deeper instead of going more shallow into applied ethics.
Quoting Bartricks
In what way does the popularity of a viewpoint make the viewpoint more plausible? I would like to point out that you also believe in many things that are counterintuitive to most people that you would regard as ”reasonable”. For example, antinatalism is itself counterintuitive to most people. In fact, it is sometimes used in thought experiments to argue against other viewpoints. For example, suppose that Frank and Susie are having a debate about the value ontology of life. They are trying to figure out if life contains more goodness or more badness. Frank makes an argument that life contains more badness than goodness and starts that argument by making an argument for Axiological Hedonism which states that the goodness of life should be defined only as the combined pleasure of life and the badness of life should be defined as the combined suffering. Then, he uses thought experiments relating to the phenomenology of pleasure and suffering to illuminate why he thinks that there is more suffering in life than pleasure. Susie responds to him by agreeing that his phenomenological thought experiments provide evidence that there’s more suffering in life than pleasure and she agrees with his hedonic theory of value but she argues that his viewpoint has a counterintuitive implication. Susie argues that Frank’s view implies that reproduction is usually a bad action and this implies that we either shouldn’t reproduce ourselves or we should prevent the reproduction of others. Susie argues that the vast majority of reasonable people would be unwilling to accept such an implication and thus this is evidence against Frank’s viewpoint. I think we can both agree that the unpopularity of Antinatalism doesn’t provide any evidence against it. On the other hand, Frank’s phenomenological thought experiments could count as evidence. Even if Susie bites the bullet on those thought experiments, Frank could speculate that the reason why she bit the bullet was because she doesn’t observe her experience of pleasure and suffering with enough accuracy. Even if his speculation is wrong, it would merely suggest that he has a reason to think that life is bad but Susie has a reason to think that life is good. Phenomenological disagreements are usually irreconcilable. This is because Frank cannot know anything about how Susie experiences pleasure and suffering. Similarly, Susie cannot know how Frank is experiencing his pleasures and suffering. Of course, it’s also possible to have superior and inferior ability to introspect about one’s own pleasure and suffering in life. Thus, it’s impossible to know who’s right about phenomenological issues and the disagreement cannot be resolved. Nonetheless, it seems that we have more reason to trust our own phenomenological intuitions.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, I have accepted your challenge of discrediting the intuitions that you are appealing to. You can find my arguments in the top part of my comment. To summarize what I said above, I’m not trying to argue against all intuitions. Rather, I’m trying to argue that the intuitions about applied ethics cannot inform us about normative ethical questions. Rather, we may only use deeper Metaphysical and Epistemic intuitions as arguments for Normative Ethical Theories. Of course, it is possible for 2 people to have different intuitions about the deepest parts of epistemology and metaphysics. In that case, the 2 people would have an irreconcilable disagreement. This means that they should agree to disagree at that point since they both have a reason to doubt each other’s deepest intuitions. Of course, one of them may indeed be right and the other one may indeed be wrong, but intuition is too unreliable to give a definitive answer. We use intuition in philosophy for the same reason we use language in philosophy: there is simply no better alternative. Of course, we should be careful about not ending philosophical discussions prematurely due to a perceived irreconcilable disagreement. If we are talking about the morality of the actions of Bob, then we shouldn’t end this discussion until we reach the core of our Epistemic disagreement. I think we are getting closer to it since this discussion is getting more Epistemic in nature. But, I will have to wait and see if you are willing to bite the bullet on several of the thought experiments that I had given you. The first thought experiment is the case of Frank and Susie. Do you think that the unpopularity of antinatalism could be used as an argument against Frank’s view that life contains more badness than goodness? In addition, do you think that an applied discipline like Engineering could tell us something about a more theoretical discipline like Physics? Unless you are willing to say yes to both questions, it seems that you would have reason to abandon your intuition that thought experiments that relate to applied ethics can be used as evidence against normative ethical questions. If you are willing to say yes to both questions, then I will attempt to go even deeper with my intuitions but it might be an irreconcilable disagreement at that point unless you could make me concede. If you would like me to concede that thought experiments that relate to applied ethics can be used as evidence against normative ethical questions, then you should provide me with some more thought experiments that can better explain why you hold such an intuition.
you keep attacking a straw man. Where on earth - where - did I say, or imply, that my intuitions are more plausible than anyone else's? That's clearly not - not - my view. I described my view. I explained how the intuitions are widely shared. That's why they count. Not because they occur in my mind. But because they occur in my mind and are widely shared by others who reflect on the same cases. It's you - you - who seems to think that if you don't share the intuitions then that's sufficient to raise a reasonable doubt about their probative force.
There's a difference between trying to figure out what's true, and trying to figure out what your own opinions are. Now, what's actually true - that it is morally right to torture one person if that's the only way to maximise the happiness the others, or that it is wrong to do so?
Well, if the bulk of people who reflect on this kind of case in a disinterested way get the rational intuition that it is wrong, then that's extremely good evidence that it is wrong. If you get the intuition that it is right, then that's good evidence your faculty of intuition isn't 100% reliable (which is surely something you knew already because none of our faculties of intuition are 100% reliable).
This is the standard way of proceeding in matters ethical. What's your alternative? Arbitrarily alight on a principle that sounds good and then just apply it to cases?
But where is your argument? It sounds like an article of faith. When it comes to any normative ethical theory, its credibility depends on how well it accords with our rational intuitions. Of course, some of those intuitions may be ones we have reason to be sceptical about. But then the credibility of a normative ethical theory will depend on how well it accords with those rational intuitions that we have no reason to be sceptical about.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I do not know what you mean by this. Again, our main source of insight into an act's morality are our rational intuitions. Some things seem, virtually to everyone, to be wrong. That's our evidence they're wrong. What other evidence could there be? You don't need to have read any Kant to know that rape is wrong and that it is wrong in no small part due to the fact the other person has not consented to what's being done to them. You don't need to be acquainted with utilitarianism to know that it is generally good to maximise happiness, and generally bad to promote pain.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I would need to hear the argument. What's the argument? "Unpopular" doesn't mean "wrong", or even "appears wrong". So I am not clear what you're arguing.
Note too, antinatalism is not the view that life contains more bad than good. Some antinatalists may believe that. But it is not essential to the view and so you're attacking a straw man if you equate the two. For the record: I think life (in the main, anyway) contains more good than bad. But I still think it is wrong to breed.
Not many things and not most people. I believe in free will. So do most people. I believe in the soul. So do most people. I believe in a god. So do most people. I believe in morality. So do most people. I admit, I also believe that it is wrong to procreate, whereas most people - if they think anything about its morality at all - believe it is permissible to procreate.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, I agree. That is, I agree that the intuitions of most people probably represent procreation to be morally okay. Now, I don't think those particular intuitions count for very much. But I accept that it is reasonable to appeal to them and I accept that I have the burden of proof on this issue, precisely becusae procreation appears morally okay to most people.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Frank's case will not be a very powerful one. Hedonism isn't very plausible.
But again, I stress, antinatalism is the view that procreation is prima facie wrong. It is not the view that life contains more bad than evil.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes. Although you seem to be equating 'unpopular' with 'counterintuitive'. Antinatalism is counterintuitive. And that - that, not its unpopularity - is prima facie evidence against it.
I should emphasise a few things. I am an antinatalist. But I am not a hedonist and I do not believe that life contains more bad than good. On the contrary, I think that - on the whole - it contains more good than bad.
I am an antinatalist on the basis of numerous pieces of evidence, not one. And although I accept that most people have rational intuitions that conflict with my antinatalist conclusion, I think those intuitions can be discredited.
Right here:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You never responded to this part of my comment earlier so I assumed that you had difficulty understanding it. Feel free to ask me questions about this argument.
Quoting Bartricks
Ok, I will accept the burden of proof if you like in the cases of Tom and Maddy. Did I not fulfill that burden in the argument above? Does my above argument not deserve a refutation? If I did not fulfill my burden of proof requirement, then what would I need to do to fulfill that requirement?
Quoting Bartricks
I was talking about the argument that Susie made here:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Quoting Bartricks
I would like to point out that the intuitions that are commonly shared differ across different periods of time. In the past, people widely shared the intuition that homosexual sex was wrong. Today, much fewer people share that intuition. If you lived in the past, would it be your burden of proof to show that homosexual sex is not wrong? I would also like to point out that in the future, it is possible that most people will believe that it is justified to procreate Maddy or torture Tom. So, why should we assume that the intuitions of Homo sapiens living in the 21st century are more reliable than the intuitions of Homo sapiens living in the past or the possible intuitions of future Homo sapiens or the possible intuitions of intelligent aliens that are capable of moral reasoning?
Quoting Bartricks
What is the difference between unpopular and counterintuitive regarding cases of applied ethics?
Quoting Bartricks
How do you go about discrediting their intuitions then?
Quoting Bartricks
I wasn’t trying to equate the two. I’m perfectly aware that there are other types of antinatalists out there. The view that life contains more bad than good was used in a context of my thought experiment with Frank and Susie. The 2 fictional people were debating whether or not life contains more bad than good. Susie argues that life must contain more good than bad because it’s too counterintuitive to think that having children is wrong. I then argued that this isn’t a very good argument.
Ok. I'm just curious what basis you would have to disagree with someone on a moral question then. If there are no hard rules, only rough and ready generlizations then how can you tell someone "Murder is wrong" if they just disagree. What basis do you have to have an arugment upon
:death: :flower:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I agree with Aristotle who suggests (fuck if I can cite chapter & verse ... in the Nichomedean Ethics) that 'phronesis absent arete is insufficient for eudaimonia'. In other words, prudence, being a virtue, requires ethics as a method of reflective practice where the end is well being; prudence alone, or primarily, is an instrumental means of expedience - without an end of its own - thereby arbitrarily coopted by or captive to any goal that comes along whether that goal promotes or eviscerates well being. The stuff "end justifies means" & "just following orders" & "what they don't know won't hurt them" & "everybody does it" -type rationalizations are made of.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
So ... amoral egotism. :chin:
[quote=Ursula Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" (1973)] In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect ... They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery.[/quote]
[quote=William James, "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" (1891)] ... if the hypothesis were offered of a world in which Messrs Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris' utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture.[/quote]
[quote= Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1880)]Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?[/quote]
In the light of the above, reconsider this exchange:
Quoting 180 Proof
Arbitrary (thus, plutocratic/fascistic) scapegoating (re: "lifeboat" ethics / moral "triage" without the warrant of exigent circumstances). :eyes:
I do not see any reason to think that's true. You're assuming from the get go that morality is 'measurable'. Why make that assumption? Is it a self-evident truth of reason?
When it comes to any normative theory, if it is to be defensible it needs to appeal to our moral intuitions and show how it respects and unifies a large number of them. But then - and here's the rub - there will (for there has always been to date) some that it cannot accommodate. Either at that point you dismiss those intuitions on the grounds that they do not fit with your favourite theory (in which case the theory has taken over from the evidence), or you accept that the theory is false (and to date the majority of moral philosophers have considered every proposed theory false, and false precisely because of a failure to accommodate important and clear moral intuitions).
If one accepts that the theory is false on the basis of moral intuitions, then we didn't need the theory. We can just follow our moral intuitions. Normative theories are, then, at best redundant, and at worst positively misleading (for there will always be some - often many - who are seduced by the theory and the desire for neatness and so start following it, rather than the evidence).
So, again, why not just follow the intuitions? Why decide in advance that morality is neat, predicable, and amendable to codification? Those assumptions seem explicable in terms of human psychology, but they do not seem to be ones for which any good evidence can be provided.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You need to find a rational basis for dismissing the widely shared intuitions I was appealing to. Consider a ufo sighting. A lot of people report seeing a UFO in the sky. Well, it would be dogmatic to insist that their visual faculties are malfunctioning on the grounds that 'there are not any UFOs'. But what if one found out that due to some error at the waterworks everyone in that area had just ingested drugged water, likely to induce hallucinations and to make people extremely suggestible? Well, now we have good reason to doubt the reliability of those visual reports, because although there are lots of them we have a better explanation of why they occurred.
Not all moral intuitions are created equal, and so when encountering some that seem incompatible with one's theory then what one needs to do is provide independent reason for being sceptical about their probative force.
Now my own view - that it is prima facie wrong to procreate - is one that I accept is counterintuitive. Most people, I think, have the rational intuition that there is nothing wrong with procreation, at least in regular cases. However, I think a good case exists for thinking those intuitions are of doubtful credibility. I accept that I 'owe' such a case, but I think there is one.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, moral intuitions have varied across different periods of time. That's the basis upon which I believe morality has varied over time. If 'acting in manner X' seemed wrong to most people in 1800, but seems right to most people now, then that's good evidence that it was wrong in 1800, but right today.
Obviously in many cases the intuitions that vary are ones whose probative force is doubtful. For instance, I would not argue that homosexuality was wrong in the 1950s but morally fine today. This is because I think the anti-homosexuality intuitions are ones we have independent reason to be sceptical about (the same kind of independent reason as casts doubt on the probative force of people's intuitions about procreation). So, I think that - most likely - homosexuality has always been fine, and intuitions to the contrary are of doubtful probative force.
The larger point, however, is that we should follow evidence, not theories. The idea that morality is fixed across time is a theory. The evidence indicates that it varies across time.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
An intuition is a mental representation. But for something to be unpopular is simply for people to be adopting a negative attitude towards it. My dislike for torture is not evidence torture is wrong. My intuition that torture is wrong is evidence it is wrong.
Our intuitions can be influenced by our feelings and vice versa. But they're distinct kinds of mental state.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I appeal to their adaptive value. Humans who have the moral intuition that procreation is morally okay will most likely procreate. That, I think, is the best explanation of why most humans have the moral intuition that procreation is morally okay.
This seems to pose a contradiction to your argument though. This is because the view that something like slavery was permissible in 1800 but not permissible today is highly counterintuitive to the vast majority of people living in the 21st century. Most people living today have a moral intuition that people living in the past were morally misguided. Thus, according to your past comments, this is strong evidence that it is not the case that something could be permissible in 1800 and not permissible today. It is either the case that the moral intuitions of modern people that “the morality of the past was misguided” is wrong or the intuition that people living in the 1800s had that “slavery was permissible” is wrong. It can’t be both since that would be a contradiction. So, which one of the intuitions is wrong?
Quoting Bartricks
I would like to point out that a similar type of explanation could be given for the view that the torture of Tom is unjustified. In some countries like China, Colombia, and North Korea, most people would likely think that the torture of Tom is justified. This is because in those countries, the concept of human rights is much less respected by people. I could then say that the best explanation for why westerners report that they think the torture of Tom is unjustified is because they had been indoctrinated by the individualistic culture of the western world into believing in human rights. Thus, we have reason to doubt those intuitions. If you think that my argument here against the intuitions of people who are against the torture of Tom is weaker than your argument against the intuitions of most people regarding procreation, then what exactly makes my argument weaker?
Quoting Bartricks
I’m still not understanding the distinction. It seems that negative attitudes are also mental representations.
Quoting Bartricks
I think you are misunderstanding my argument. I’m saying that all moral theories must make evaluative judgements. This is also true of deontological and other non-consequentialist theories. For example, A non-consequentialist philosopher like yourself likely does not believe that all wrong actions are equally wrong. This means that there must be a non-arbitrary way for you to say that some actions are more wrong than others. Comeasurability is defined by me as a non-arbitrary way to distinguish between moral actions, rules, virtues, or outcomes. I argued that you do not have a non-arbitrary way of saying that the wrongness of torturing Tom is more wrong than the wrongness of something like lying to your boss about being sick to avoid work. This is because there is no way to measure or compare the wrongness of different actions in relation to one another. You seem to think that there is though. You seem to think that the extent of wrongness of an action could be reasonably hypothesized by a weird mixture of people’s combined intuitions and a possible dismissal of some intuitions if they gave our ancestors an advantage in replicating their DNA in the past. I explained in my comments above why I am not convinced of this hypothesis.
Quoting Bartricks
Why should we consider conflicts with intuitions about issues in applied ethics as evidence that a normative moral theory is wrong instead of using intuitions about value theory as evidence? I consider intuitions about cases in value theory to be a more reliable evidence than intuitions about cases in applied ethics. Value theory is the study of the basic nature of goodness, badness, betterness, and worseness. Before we could figure out an answer to a complicated question like whether or not it is better to torture Tom or not, we must first be able to answer simple questions about value like the question of what makes something better than another thing. I argued that this requires a well defined notion of extent which implies the presence of a quasi-mathematical comeasurability between 2 things which are being put into a relation of betterness and worseness to each other. So, I’m using a bottom up approach to moral philosophy where basic intuitions about value supersede and determine answer to specific moral questions and any intuition held about a specific moral question prior to reflection on intuitions about basic values should be dismissed. You seem to be using a top down approach though. So, I’m curious why you think your approach to moral philosophy is better than mine. I think my approach is better because I think there needs to be a deeper explanation for why the torture of Tom is wrong. On the other hand, there doesn’t need to be a deeper explanation for why evaluation is quasi-mathematical. It’s just a basic observation about our understanding of the concept of evaluation.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, I would like to point out that you are also following a normative ethical theory. Your normative ethical theory states that the morality of an action is determined by its ability to respect and unify our intuitions about cases in applied ethics. I don’t recall ever seeing an explanation from you about why we should be trying to unify and respect intuitions about cases in applied ethics instead of intuitions about basic value theory questions.
Well the 'controversial' cases are, by their very nature, ones about which we have conflicting moral intuitions. For example, torturing an innocent person for fun is intuited to be wrong by virtually everyone, which is why there is no serious dispute about its morality. But abortions, for example, are cases about which people have no very clear intuitions and thus are cases where people typically appeal to theories rather than intuition. As equally plausible theories deliver conflicting verdicts about such cases, disagreement reigns.
What to do? Well, we can't appeal to intuition, because intuitions are not clear. But we can appeal to imaginary cases (or real cases) that seem sufficiently similar and that elicit from us clearer intuitions. We can then infer from their similarity a conclusion about the controversial case.
First, I'd want to say that I think slavery has probably never been morally ok, but as I take the point and do not want emotive issues to get in the way, I will talk about 'activity X' instead (where 'activity X' refers to some activity that was once judged right by virtually everyone - and where we have no special reason to think that everyone's intuitions about that matter were mistaken - and is now judged wrong by virtually everyone, and we have no special reason to think our intuitions are mistaken).
So, by hypothesis, Xing seems wrong to virtually everyone today. Now - given my view (the view that morality can and does change over time) - that is excellent evidence that it is wrong today. Note, then, that I am not dismissing contemporary intuitions about the morality of xing - far from it, I am respecting them.
Note too that our moral intuitions give us insight into the current morality of actions. Just as my eyesight tells me about what's around me 'at the moment' and not last century, likewise our moral intuitions give us insight into what's right and wrong today, not right and wrong last century. To deny this is to beg the question. That is, it is to just assume - as an unargued for datum - that morality is fixed and thus that old intuitions are as good today as contemporary ones.
Most people, of course, are likely to insist that Xing was 'always' wrong. But here, I think, they are simply giving expression to how obviously wrong Xing currently is. Words like 'always' typically function in that way. We say "it is 'never' acceptable to behave in that way" as a way of emphasising our opposition to it. Likewise, when an activity is obviously wrong - and by hypothesis, Xing is obviously wrong - then we can expect most people to express this by saying "it's always wrong". After all, what harm is done by saying this? The bottom line, after all, is doing what's right now, not in the past. So although what they are saying is strictly speaking false, it doesn't particularly matter.
There's another way of bringing this out. Take my view. Many people, upon hearing it, ask me about slavery and homosexuality - examples that you too have used. And they point out to me that, given my view, it would seem I'm committed to having to say that slavery was morally ok in the past, and that homosexuality was morally wrong in the past.
That's false, of course. But even if it were true - I mean, let's imagine I agree and insist that slavery was indeed fine in the past, and that homosexuality was wrong in the past - most are going to think that this implies that I am not that opposed to slavery, and that I am a bit homophobic. That is, if you admit to thinking that morality changes, then people think you are not as opposed to things as if you'd said instead that they were 'always' wrong, or 'always' right.
So, I think slavery is wrong and that homosexuality is fine. I am very confident about both matters. But if I admit to thinking that slavery used to be fine, and homosexuality used to be wrong, most people will not think I am confident about their current moral status. How, then, do I transmit to others my confidence in the wrongness of slavery and the moral benignity of homosexuality? I say "slavery is wrong today and has always been wrong!!" and likewise "homosexuality is morally benign and has always been so!!"
The fact, then, that many people will agree that Xing is 'always' wrong is not good evidence that it is always wrong. It is good evidence that it is currently clearly and distinctly wrong.
So that's what I'd say. But now consider what 'you' have to say - or what someone who thinks morality is fixed has to say, if that's not you.
In the past it was intuitively obvious to virtually everyone that Xing was right. Now it is intuitively obvious to virtually everyone that Xing is wrong. Now, given your view one group is mistaken. Which one? Well, it would be quite arbitrary to just assume the past group was the mistaken one. I mean, why think that?? It is just as likely to be those around today who are mistaken. After all, given this variation across time - variation about something fixed - we know that our moral intuitions are quite unreliable. So, you - it seems to me - are now committed to having to say that it is just as likely that Xing today is wrong as it is that it is right.
Applied to something more emotive, then, such as slavery - if it was true that slavery appearing right to those in the past, but wrong to us today, then you must judge, if you are epistemically responsible, that it is just as likely right as wrong today. You are certainly not justified in being confident that it is wrong. For if morality is fixed, then a) you know from the variability of people's intuitions that intuitions are unreliable and b) you know that about this very issue entire populations got the intuition it was right, populations whose moral intuitions you've no reason to think any less reliable than ours today.
So, you have to be open minded about the morality of slavery under these circumstances. Compare that to me. Because I think morality varies, I am entitled to be confident that slavery is wrong. For it appears to virtually everyone today to be wrong. And although people in the past may have had the intuition it was right, those intuitions are completely irrelevant.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, but if that's true then that's good evidence that morality varies across space too. Now I'm sure we can debunk those intuitions. But let's imagine we can't. I stress, I think we can. But let's imagine we can't. That is, let's assume there is no reason whatsoever for thinking their intuitions about the morality torture are any less reliable than ours. That is, let's imagine that most of those in North Korea get the intuition that torture is justified in a far richer variety of circumstances than we in the west do. Okay, if that's true then I think that's evidence that torture isn't as wrong in some places as it is in others.
But what does someone who insists morality is fixed have to say? Well, they could just dismiss the intuitions of the North Koreans. But on what basis? Looks like a prejudice, plain and simple. By hypothesis, there is no more reason to think their intiuitions are unreliable than to think ours are. So, if morality is fixed and you are epistemically responsible you will have to conclude that torture may well be far more justified than we in the west typically think.
Ok. I would have decribed this as "There is no answer to moral questions" but I see we effectively agree even though we use different words for it
There are answers to all of them. Some are clear, some not.
For instance, there is an answer to the question "what was Caesar's favorite breakfast" even though we may never be able definitively to answer it. Some moral questions may be like this too.
A mental representation 'represents' something to be the case, and is thereby capable of being accurate or inaccurate. By contrast 'disliking' something can't be accurate or inaccurate. So, although negative attitudes - such as dislike - are mental states, they are not 'representations'.
An 'intuition' is a representation. Moral theorizers are not appealing to feelings - for that would make moral philosophy a branch of psychology - but to intuitions.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It is intuitions - rational representations - that provide the non-arbitrary basis for my theory. My theory, note, is an anti-theory. (And a highly respectable one at that - it is known as 'moral particularism'). Those other theories arbitrarily alight on some moral intuitions and then ignore others (namely, those with which their theories conflict). I don't arbitrarily ignore any, I just non-arbitrarily resist the temptation for formulate moral rules. So moral particularism is an anti-theory normative theory: it is a theory that has no substantial normative content, for we resist the urge to impose ourselves on the moral landscape and instead we just urge people to observe it.
So, what's the best evidence that killing an innocent for fun is wrong? Is it that so-and-so theory says it is wrong? no, it is that it appears to be wrong. I have arrived at the conclusion that killing an innocent for fun is wrong on a non-arbitrary basis, then. I have appealed to no theory, just to intuitions (which is what any normative theory worth its salt will do as well, it is just that the theory will 'arbitrarily' appeal to some and ignore others).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I take it I have just answered that. Yes I do - I appeal to intuitions, which is non-arbitrary. It is those who theorise who are guilty of being arbitrary, for they arbitrarily appeal to some intuitions and not others.
Having a nice neat theory does not prevent one from being guilty of arbitrariness. Here's a theory: if it is Tuesday, it is wrong to kill innocents. If it is Wednesday it is right to do so. Now, that's a theory and it delivers consistent verdicts, but it is doing so in an arbitrary fashion.
I think you are assuming that until or unless one appeals to some kind of principle or rule one's judgements will be 'arbitrary'. That's just false. Rules do nothing whatsoever to prevent one's judgements from being arbitrary.
I am being non-arbitrary precisely because I appeal to intuitions about cases, not arbitrary rules.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
The word 'weird' in there is expressive. You're not arguing against my thesis, just expressing your disapproval or surprise at it.
Also, that's not my view. The wrongness of an action is not made of intuitions. It is rather something our intuitions give us insight into. Our faculty of intuition, however, is not infallible. And sometimes we have good reason to be sceptical about what our intuitions represent to be the case.
Now, that's not a 'weird' thesis. It is sensible. It is the thesis any reasonable person has about other faculties, such as 'sight'. Our sight gives us insight into our sensible surroundings, yes? But it is not infallible and sometimes we have reason to think that what our sight is telling us is not accurate. If, for instance, everyone has just taken a hallucinogen, then the subsequent reports of our sight are not likely to be accurate. So, although visual representations provide prima facie evidence of what they represent to be the case, they do not invariably do so and circumstances can arise in which it would be quite irrational to accord them any eight.
Apply that to moral intuitions. Moral intuitions provide prima facie evidence of what they represent to be the case (if an act appears wrong, that is prima facie evidence that it is wrong). But sometimes - not always and not by default, but sometimes - we have reason to think that a moral intuition, though widely shared, does not have any probative force.
Note, no theory is needed here. And most people - I mean, everyone I have met to date - lack normative theories, yet seem perfectly good moral judges.
Anyway, getting back to what might discredit a moral intuition: it is widely (though not universally) acknowledged that if we can provide a wholly evolutionary explanation of why we are subject to certain intuitions, then this casts doubt on their probative force. Again, that's not a weird thesis, but is rather one that is capable of sophisticated defence. I did not provide that defence, I merely gestured at it.
But here is the basic idea. Take a sense of the divine. It's near universal among humans. Why? Well, one explanation is that being disposed to get the impression there's a divine purpose to things confers an evolutionary advantage upon those who have it. Those who believed in such things would be happier and thus more reproductively successful. Thus the disposition to get the impression of a divine purpose is passed on.
Do we have to posit any actual gods in order to explain why a sense of the divine conferred an advantage? No, it would seem not (maybe we do - but I am just going to assume we do not for the sake of illustration). Thus, this evolutionary explanation - if accurate (and I am not saying it is) - would serve to discredit the sense of the divine. It might - might - still be accurate, but it would be pure luck if it was.
We can apply this to the hallucinogen example as well. Imagine everyone has just taken a hallucinogen and then everyone starts seeing monsters. Well, in this case the best explanation of why everyone is seeing monsters is not that there are monsters, but that their sight is malfunctioning due to the hallucinogen.
Now apply this to some moral intuitions. A moral intuition that procreation is morally okay is one that is likely to be selected for (as those - such as myself - who get the intuition that it is not okay, tend not to procreate). If - if - that is the full explanation of why most humans get that intuition, then it serves to undermine it. Why? Because the act's actual morality plays no role in the explanation. The intuition may be accurate, but it would be pure chance if it was. And thus it no longer has any evidential force.
This does not, I think, apply to all moral intuitions, just some (just as it would be ludicrous to dismiss all visual reports just because 'some' are unreliable). And thus it enables a moral particularist such as myself non-arbitrarily to dismiss some moral intuitions and not others.
I understand that you wish to avoid talking about the emotive issues but I’m actually kinda curious about what reason would you have to dismiss the intuitions of past people regarding slavery. You managed to dismiss the intuitions that people have about procreation being permissible and the intuition that people had in the past about homosexuality by appealing to something akin to an evolutionary bias explanation for why people hold that intuition. It seems that you can’t use the evolutionary bias explanation for dismissing the past intuitions that people had about slavery. At the very least, it is not entirely obvious that thinking that slavery is permissible has evolutionary advantages.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, if we are going to make an analogy between eyesight and “moral sight” then morality is not only relative to the time period and the culture in which you live but also the immediate space around you. This would imply individual moral relativism instead of cultural relativism. This is because you only have moral sight about your own moral intuition and you might not understand the moral intuitions of others. This implies that you only have insight about your own intuitions and you can’t actually have any idea about what others believe unless you take the time to read surveys that people answer about their moral opinions. This would imply that a person who is living under a rock would have no reason to consider the intuitions of others since he only “has sight” about his own intuitions. This would imply that our own intuitions are accurate representations of right and wrong for us but not for anyone that disagrees with us. I actually consider individual relativism to be a superior theory to the cultural relativism which you implied later in your comment. Though, I do not support this theory completely, I think it has no problem that your culturally relative theory doesn’t have. I would like to proceed this discussion by trying to convince you that maybe you should consider adopting this closely related theory instead of your current theory. It would be a philosophical improvement on your part in my opinion.
Quoting Bartricks
I have another hypothesis that could explain why different people might have different intuitions about Xing and the case of Tom. It is possible that this simply implies that individual relativism instead of cultural relativism is true. You have a certain way of seeing moral actions and I have a different way of seeing moral actions. This implies that the torture of Tom is justified for me but not justified for you. Just as it can be justified for a North Korean and not justified for an American. It seems that you had opened up this door for individual relativism to be true by arguing that morality is relative to space as well. Why not argue that morality is relative to the immediate space around you instead of being relative to nationality? After all, the isn’t a technically correct way to divide up space and cultures. Within a “main” culture there could be sub-cultures and sub-sub-cultures. Eventually, we can simply argue that each individual has his own unique “culture”. It could be argued that I’m not just an American but also a Russian American and I’m also part of the culture of my extended and nuclear family. But, I also have disagreements with my family on certain moral intuitions so maybe I just have my own unique culture that is different from everyone else’s culture. Thus, the concept of culture could only be divided ultimately to the individual himself.
Quoting Bartricks
I would disagree. It is not uncommon for people to hold time specific intuitions about cases of applied ethics. For example, most modern people might think that an action called “Ying” is wrong at Time A but not Time B. So, what would be an example of such “Ying” type action? Well, most people might think that it’s wrong for me to force an employee of mine to come to work during Christmas unexpectedly and have him do non-urgent work he could easily complete the day after. Even if the employee agreed to those conditions prior to accepting his job offer, it might be wrong for the boss to unexpectedly have the employee come to work and do trivial tasks during the most important time of the year for him. Because people are usually able to consider timing as a factor for their intuition, I don’t think it’s plausible to interpret the expression that “Xing is always wrong” to “Xing is obviously wrong today”. It may be argued that people are simply unable to imagine themselves growing up in the 1800s and thus their moral intuitions about Xing in the 1800s are simply unreliable. But, this logic could be applied to every individual case as well. I might argue that most people do not know what it’s like to be me and have my intuitions and thus their intuitions about my moral beliefs are simply unreliable. When someone says that it would be wrong for TheHedoMinimalist to torture Tom to make everyone happy, they are really just saying that it’s obviously wrong to them. Thus, it would be more plausible for you to say that people’s intuitions are reliable for their own moral judgements but not reliable for the moral judgements of others.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, you seem to be assuming that intuitions about cases of applied ethics are the most important cases for determining morality. I had already given you my argument that certain normative aims are more plausible than others if they have better comeasurabity. If my argument for “The Comeasurability Requirement” is plausible then any moral position which is incompatible with that value theory intuition is false. Of course, you might be wondering what if some people have different intuitions than me on value theory? Well, I tend to think that value theory is a pretty technically complicated topic more so than applied ethics. Because of this, most people have little to no intuitions about value theory. If the majority of philosophers with a strong interest in value theory disagrees with me on value theory, then this is not necessarily strong evidence that my views are wrong. This is because value theory is a pretty complicated topic and it’s possible for even an expert to be mistaken about their own intuitions. The vagueness of language also makes it difficult to make the implicit intuitions that we hold about basic values explicit. Thus, it’s entirely possible that there are universal intuitions about value theory which suggests that some normative aims are better than others. We simply do not have complete access to them and must form theories to help better understand them. It’s also possible that if people fully understood that their intuitions about cases of applied ethics contradict their intuitions about value theory cases, then they would be willing to change their mind about their intuitions about cases of applied ethics.
Quoting Bartricks
Fair enough, but this would also suggest that we shouldn’t dismiss the intuitions of individuals who are renegades towards the morality of their own culture. If I disagree with some of the intuitions of my society, then why assume that I’m probably wrong for doing so? After all, if there’s a North Korean who dislikes the moral intuitions of the people living in his country, then we wouldn’t say that the intuitions of the people living in his country are evidence against his own moral intuition. Similarly, why would you imply that the fact that my intuitions about Tom are counterintuitive to most people living in the west that this gives someone strong reason to reject my intuitions? To borrow your phrase, I think this is simply a prejudice, plain and simple :wink: . It seems that individual relativism would make more sense than cultural relativism here. I actually used to be an individual relativist in the past and I still consider the theory to be somewhat plausible so I definitely can’t be sure that there is a fixed and universal morality. But, I think “time period” relativism and cultural relativism are far less plausible viewpoints.
I would argue that people do not actually have prima facie mental representations or intuitions as you call them about moral cases in applied ethics like the case of whether or not the torture of Tom is justified. Rather, they either hold attitudes or beliefs about the case. This is because most people would likely give a deeper explanation for why the torture of Tom is wrong. For example, they might say that it violates God’s will or it violates Tom’s inalienable rights or it is not something that a virtuous person would do or even as simple as saying that it is always wrong to harm people. All these deeper reasons could be argued to constitute a normative ethical theory. Even if their theories are contradictory and not well developed, they are still theoretical reasons that people give for thinking that an action is wrong. I would define a normative ethical theory as a framework of explanations for why some actions are better than others. But, what if someone doesn’t give a deeper explanation for why they think that the torture of Tom is unjustified? In those cases, it seems more plausible for me to suppose that they simply hold a negative attitude about the torture of Tom. This is because mental representations can only exist in 2 forms: sensory perception and imagination. There is no sensory perception that can be responsible for “seeing” that the torture of Tom is wrong. Otherwise, we would be saying that there are 6 senses instead of 5(though, there’s technically more than 5 senses but none of them relate to moral beliefs either way.). We could also have mental representations through our imagination. Imagining something involves us creating a mental representation of that thing. It also doesn’t appear that people who give no deeper explanation for their disapproval of Tom’s torture are imagining Tom getting tortured and everyone being happy as a result in a relatively impartial manner and then concluding that it “appears” wrong. Rather, it seems that they are imagining those things and that imagination prompts them to have an emotional response which forms into a positive or negative attitude towards the case of Tom. Thus, I would argue that without a deeper reason given for disapproval of Tom’s case, we should assume that the disapproval is emotive and fundamentally non-cognitive.
Quoting Bartricks
How does it “appear” wrong? Most people have a deeper reason for why they think that killing is wrong. If they don’t have a deeper reason, then it just “feels” wrong to them. I don’t think the intuitions that you think that people have about murder really exist in reality. People only have beliefs or attitudes that certain actions are wrong. People could only have rational intuitions about the deeper reasons for why they might think an action is wrong.
Quoting Bartricks
I think you have a different definition of normative ethical theories than me. Normative ethical theories are frameworks of reasons that one gives for thinking that certain actions are wrong. Most people do have normative ethical theories. They are just not as comprehensive, coherent, well informed or well articulated as the theories of your typical moral philosopher. A perfect example of a simple normative ethical theory is saying that something is wrong because it harms someone. A person might say that murder is wrong because it harms someone. Of course, this is a bad explanation for why murder is wrong. This is because there are plenty of cases where harming someone is justified. But, someone might think that the simple normative theory that simply says “harming is bad” is prima facie correct. Note that saying that murder is wrong because it harms someone implies that one believes that murder is wrong. Whereas, stating that murder is wrong because it appears wrong seems to imply that one only holds an attitude that murder is wrong. I also disagree that most people are perfectly good moral judges without a good foundation in value theory and a well developed normative ethical theory.
To say too much on this would be off topic, but there are all manner of debunking explanations possible, not just evolutionary ones. For instance, if something is very much in someone's interests, then there is likely to be strong tendency to ignore intuitions that represent it to be wrong, and in time such intuitions may disappear altogether. Consider that most contemporary people think there's nothing wrong with buying meat, despite the fact the practice of rearing animals to kill them for fun (which is what killing them in order to eat them is) is quite clearly wrong upon reflection. I am sure that future generations will look back at our meat eating practices with horror, just as we do upon the slaving practices of our ancestors.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It was only an analogy, designed to reveal the odd nature of most people's reasoning about variation in moral intuitions across history (we don't, for instance, think that because rivers exist externally to our own subjective states that therefore they are fixed across time; yet many think that if morality exists externally, then part and parcel of that externality involves it being fixed, such that evidence of a lack of fixity somehow implies that morality exists in our own minds - bonkers reasoning). So the point of the analogy was to show that there is no necessary connection between morality being 'fixed' and morality being 'external'. Morality is external - whether an act is right or wrong is not a individually or collectively subjective - but this does not mean it is fixed, and if we find that rational intuitions about what's right and wrong have changed over time, then this is prima facie evidence that morality itself has changed.
Anyway, there are important differences between how our faculty of reason - the source of rational intuitions - works and how our sensible faculties work. To borrow an example from Bertrand Russell, take a library catalogue. A library catalogue tells you what works are in a library. It may - almost certainly will - contain some mistakes. Nevertheless, if you want to find out whether a work is in the library, consulting it is a good bet. However, let's say I go to the library and steal a book. Well, the catalogue won't immediately change to reflect the change in the contents of the library.
Now, I suggest that this is how our faculty of reason works. It is equivalent to the library catalogue, and the moral norms and values are equivalent to works in the library. It is not a sensible faculty. For a sensible faculty provides one with direct - or near direct - reports about one's surroundings. But our faculty of rational intuition does not provide us with direct reports on our normative and evaluative surroundings. Nevertheless, if you want to find out whether a work is in the library, it is still a good bet to consult the catalogue. And in this particular case, our catalogue and the catalogues of others are the only things we have to go on.
Imagine that the catalogues from our era represent the moral library - a library we can never visit directly - to have slightly different contents from those from a previous era. What should we conclude? Well, if the representations are systematic - so virtually everyone's catalogue from one era represents a certain book to be present, whereas virtually everyone's catalogue from another era represents it to be absent - then a reasonable conclusion to draw would be that the book used to be in the library but is no longer there.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It doesn't imply it, it merely allows this possibility to be one we can confirm. Note too, I am not arguing for cultural relativism - I am arguing that it is possible that morality varies over space and time. I am not - absolutely not - arguing that if a group thinks Xing is right, then Xing is right.
Imagine a detective says that his approach is to look at the crime scene and follow the evidence. Does that approach imply that everyone is guilty? No, of course not. But it does not foreclose the possibility that anyone is guilty, that's all. Not foreclosing such a possibility is not at all equivalent to implying it.
My approach - which is just to use our moral intuitions as our guide (except where we have good independent reason to discount the moral intuitions in question) - is like the detective's. It is true that such an approach does not foreclose the possibility that some form of individual moral relativism may be true. But that is not equivalent to it 'implying' it.
And in fact it is a great virtue of my approach that it permits the truth of such views to be discovered, if true they be. Compare that to your approach - you have assumed such views are false, and so your whole approach will never be able to recognise their truth. That's a serious flaw. Not because individual relativism is true - I am not saying it is true - but because it 'may' be, and your approach has put its falsity beyond negotiation.
Is individual relativism true? Well, not for the most part. But sometimes it does seem to be, precisely because the relationships we come to share with others can give rise to us as individuals having moral responsibilities that others do not. This is something our intuitions tell us. But many norms are universal in nature, as our intuitions themselves tell us. So, by following our intuitions and resisting the urge to formulate rules, we do not commit ourselves to individual relativism at all - we merely open ourselves us to recognising when and where individual relativism applies.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I just don't think that's very plausible. Again, I don't deny that it is 'possible' that it is morally ok for you to torture people and wrong for the rest of us to - for I don't decide in advance what shape morality has. But if we stick to the actual evidence, rather than hypothetical evidence, then it is fairly obvious to most that we 'all' have a moral obligation not to torture innocents for fun. Some may not have that intuition - but then it is more reasonable to think that's because their catalogue contains an error than to think that the catalogues of the rest of us contains the error and that theirs is the correct edition.
So, again, a) why assume that Xing must be wrong for everyone if it is wrong for anyone? b) follow the actual evidence: if the evidence (the intuitions) represent Xing to be wrong for everyone - that is, if the moral intuition does not mention anyone by name - then that's good evidence that it is wrong for everyone.
I think you are once again confusing what a theory permits, with what it implies. Many of our moral intuitions represent the norms they tell us about to apply universally, not individually. Morality does not 'have' to be universal - it's prescriptions do not have to apply to us all - but most of them do seem to have that character, and the evidence that they do is that they appear to.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It isn't plausible and I've already argued for my view. You must just make an assumption - an assumption that there is a fixed pattern to morality - and go from there, but that assumption is precisely what I dispute. There is no evidence that there is such a pattern (if there was a fixed pattern, why has no one discovered it?). There is, by contrast, prima facie evidence that morality is unpatterned. Namely, it appears not to be patterned. The appearances in question are 'intuitions'.
I do not 'assume' that intuitions are our most important source of evidence. I have argued for this. Here is that argument. First, it is by intuition that we are aware of moral norms and values in the first place. We do not see, touch, smell, taste or hear morality, do we? It is by reason that we are aware of it. That is to say, by rational intuition. So, given that this is how we are primarily aware of morality, this is our most important source of evidence into the morality of an action.
I don’t think it is necessarily a good bet to consult a library catalog. It is possible for a library catalog to be so disorganized and out of date that you would be better off not consulting it. For example, suppose that a library catalog’s software has a bug in it which excludes results between the letters M and Z. You come to the library looking to get a book that starts with the letter R. You decide that the catalog is reliable enough that you only need to consult it and you need not search through the whole library itself. But, it turns out that the software is actually extremely misleading because it tells you that the book you wanted to get isn’t there but it actually was there all along. In that case, we would say that the catalog is far more misleading than helpful. Going back to your analogy between the library catalog and what you see as “rational intuitions” about moral cases, why assume that people’s moral intuitions are like a relatively good library catalog instead of an extremely misleading one? Of course, I actually don’t think that people even have intuitions about cases like the torture of Tom. Rather, they either have intuitions about the deeper reasons for why they think Tom’s torture is unjustified or they simply have a negative gut reaction towards it. There doesn’t seem to be any kind of a “rational mental representation” that people have towards moral cases of Applied Ethics.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, to make an analogy between your approach and the approach of a detective, it is possible for a detective to confuse his gut instinct or the gut instincts of other people that someone is guilty as evidence that someone is guilty. Similarly, I believe that you are likely confusing the gut instincts that other people have against the torture of Tom as evidence when it is really just a moral dislike that most people share.
Quoting Bartricks
I think we shouldn’t confuse my approach regarding normative ethics with my approach regarding meta-ethics. I have never assumed that individual relativism is false. Rather, my views against individual relativism are influenced by my views on Axiology which are influenced by my views on the philosophy of mind and epistemology. I believe that individual relativism is most likely false because I think that Axiological Hedonism is true. I have made several arguments for Axiological Hedonism which are influenced by my philosophy of mind and views on epistemology. If my arguments for Hedonism do not work to make my theory plausible, then I might also be wrong about individual relativism. So far, I have never heard a good objection to my views on Axiology so I have no reason to suppose that my arguments do not work to properly support Hedonism.
Quoting Bartricks
But, how do we know that universally held moral norms are not simply biologically programmed attitudes against certain moral cases? It’s possible that people have moral disgust towards the torture of Tom because human beings evolved to experience moral empathy towards someone getting tortured while not evolving to experience extra strong happiness towards billions of happy people that come as a result. This is because our pre-historic ancestors had no survival advantage by being happy about a world full of billions of happy people who are not their relatives. On the other hand, they had evolved a capacity for empathy towards the pain of a stranger because it made them better at forming cooperative relationships. So, there could actually even be an evolutionary explanation for the disapproval of Tom’s torture as well. Even if there isn’t an evolutionary explanation, we could argue that the gut instinct was simply what Steven Jay Gould might call a spandrel or an accidental by product of the right genes coming together at the right time to form the dislike of using Tom to make everyone happy. As long as this dislike is not harmful to survival and reproduction, it’s possible that an accidental evolutionary trait ends up lasting. There are plenty of human traits that appear completely accidental. For example, I think the enjoyment that humans have for art, music, philosophy, and even oral sex is probably just accidental and has no survival advantage. Yet, those things are still universal to human nature. So, why not assume that people simply have a lot of accidental moral attitudes?
Quoting Bartricks
Why is it more reasonable to think that one person’s intuitions are mistaken than to think that everyone’s intuitions are mistaken? There are certainly plenty of cases where one person got it right and everyone else got it wrong. In fact, every great scientist from Galileo to Issac Newton to Albert Einstein to Charles Darwin have argued for theories that almost every other scientist thought was wrong at the time. I think your approach to morality actually makes it very difficult for a Galileo of moral philosophy to come along and challenge everyone else’s gut instincts towards moral cases. This is because he will be continuously dismissed by philosophers like you for arguing for an unpopular opinion regardless of how good his own arguments are.
Quoting Bartricks
I’m not understanding how they “appear” to have universal character on your view. I think it would be quite easy for a moral non-cognitivist to argue that people hold attitudes towards moral cases without actually having a rational intuition that says anything about the actual morality of the action. Given this, they could argue that what’s right and wrong is simply relative to our personal taste. I think the best way to argue against non-cognitivism is to argue that certain actions can be good or bad based on how it impacts people’s hedonic well being. This seems like a more plausible claim to me than claiming that people have some kind of a rational intuition towards the case of Tom without being able to even provide a deeper reason for why they are against the torture of Tom.
Quoting Bartricks
When did I say that there is a fixed pattern to morality? Would you mind showing me a quote that I wrote which suggested that I believe that there is a fixed pattern to morality. First of all, I’m not sure what you even mean by pattern here. I would define a pattern as being something that allows us to make inferences about something else. In that sense, I do think that there is a pattern to morality but you seem to think that there is a pattern in that sense as well. You seem to think that you can make inferences about moral cases by learning about people’s intuitions. I would call that a type of pattern recognition on your part. So, how is my pattern recognition different from yours here?
Quoting Bartricks
It seems that your view does not argue that morality is unpatterned. If it was truly unpatterned then I don’t think it would be possible for you to formulate a moral hypothesis. This is because the formulation of an educated guess requires some sort of pattern recognition. Are you not observing patterns in the intuitions of other people regarding moral cases?
Quoting Bartricks
I would argue that most people have sometimes rational and sometimes irrational intuitions about value theory and form beliefs about applied ethics on the basis of these intuitions. Some people simply hold attitudes about morality and their opposition to cases like the torture of Tom is entirely emotive in nature. So, I think you are making an assumption that you haven’t defended that people have moral intuitions about cases in applied ethics directly instead of holding intuitions about the reasons for why they hold the opinion that they do in those moral cases. I also think you are overly quick to dismiss the possibility of many of these so-called “rational intuitions” simply being emotional gut reactions.
Because the only rational basis upon which one could distrust the catalogue, is on the basis of something in the catalogue.
All cases for anything and everything must appeal to rational intuitions. I mean, how else do you argue for something?
So, it is incoherent to think that one could ever have a rational basis for doubting the catalogue's reliability wholesale. It is only because the catalogue itself tells us not to trust our own copies infallibly, that we see reason sometimes to doubt what our catalogues say.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I do not understand you here. The intuitions about 'deeper reasons' are going to be rational intuitions, and I do not know what you mean by 'deeper' in this context.
Most of us do have rational intuitions and moral philosophers are always referring to them and designing thought experiments with the sole end of eliciting them. So it is simply false that there do not seem to be such representations. Humans are subject to rational representations - we understand the language of reason because we have a faculty of reason (most of us, that is). And among its representations are representations about what to do - about how to behave and what sort of person to be.
If you think that all we have are feelings then that's both false (it may be true of 'you', but it clearly isn't true of most people as most philosophers - now and throughout the history of the subject - have appealed to such intuitions and it is beyond implausible to think that there are no such appearances), and it also means that you're no longer doing moral philosophy, instead you'll just be describing feelings.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Your argument simply assumes that morality is patterned, it does not establish it.
Axiological hedonism is easily refuted - there are abundant refutations of it. For instance, here's one:
1. If Axiological hedonism is true, then it is as wrong for me to cause myself harm as it is to cause someone else an equal amount of harm
2. It is not as wrong for me to cause myself harm as it is to case someone else an equal amount of harm. (For instance, if I hit myself in the face that's not as wrong as hitting someone else in the face, even if the amounts of pain the act causes - both physical and emotional - happen to be identical)
3. Therefore axiological hedonism is false.
Here's another:
1. If axiological hedonism is true, then equal amounts of pleasure matter equally
2. Equal amounts of pleasure do not matter equally (for example, if two people - one innocent and the other guilty of horrific crimes - are equally happy, their happiness is not equally good, indeed the happiness of the guilty party is arguably positively bad)
3. Therefore, axiological hedonism is false
I think it is undeniable that in both cases the second premises enjoy overwhelming intuitive support and the only basis you are going to find to reject those intuitions is that they conflict with axiological hedonism (which is question begging).
So axiological hedonism is easily refuted. The same is going to be true of any other normative theory that attempts to reduce morality to one simple principle.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I have not done that. I take a 'normative theory' to be a theory about what all morally right/wrong acts (and good/bad deeds, traits and states of affair) have in common - if anything - apart from being right/wrong. My moral particularism is the view that they have nothing in common apart from being right/wrong. That's a normative theory, at least on my usage. By contrast a 'metaethical' theory would be a theory about what the rightness itself is.
For an analogy: we can ask "is there anything all tasty things have in common apart from being tasty?" and we can ask "what is tastiness?" - these are quite distinct questions.
So, anyway, my moral particularism is the view that there is nothing all right acts have in common apart from being right. I have made a case for it. Take any feature you like, apart from 'moral rightness' and we can - with a bit of imagination - conceive of a case in which that feature seems to be operating as a moral positive, and a case in which it seems to be operating as a moral negative.
That is prima facie evidence that moral particularism is true.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You just did that - if you are not a moral particularist, then you think that morality has a fixed pattern, for your normative theory is an attempt at describing it.
To clarify what I mean by a 'pattern' to morality: you believe there is a 'pattern' to morality if you think that there must be something that all right acts have in common apart from being right.
For instance, a utilitarian believes that what all right acts have in common apart from being right is that they maximise happiness.
A Rawlsian deontologist believes that what all right acts have in common apart from being right is that they are acts that could be rationally consented to by relevantly ignorant impartial deliberators.
And so on.
A moral particularist believes there is nothing all right acts have in common apart from being right.
So, there is no more a pattern to morality than there is to, say, colour. Some things are blue. Is there anything all blue things have in common apart from being blue? Nope.
Note, we can still make inferences about the colour of things we cannot see on the basis of those we can. If there is an object that I can feel but not see, and the object feels square - and to date all the square things I have seen have been blue - then it is reasonable, at least as a default, to assume that the object I am feeling is probably blue. In making that inference I am not committed to accepting the principle "If an object is square, then it is blue". So, we do not need to assume rigid patterns in order to be able to make reasonable inferences. All we need in order to be able to make inferences is a faculty of reason - and we can just trust it to tell us when and what inferences are justified.
Anyway, if, then, you think that there just must be something - some underlying feature or features - that all right acts have in common apart from being right (and you clearly do, for otherwise in what sense are you an 'axiological hedonist'?), then you believe in a pattern.
If you do not, then you are a moral particularist and we agree and our disagreement has been merely apparent, not real.
If you are a moral particularist, then you should agree that the best method for finding out whether an act is actually right or wrong is to consult our rational intuitions.
If you're not a moral particularist, then you're going to adopt a bizarre two-step procedure instead, in which one first assumes that there is must be a fixed pattern to morality and then one infers from some selection of our moral intuitions what that pattern is - in your case 'axiological hedonism'. And then one simply applies that principle to a situation and bingo you find out what's right in any and all situations.
Like I say, I think that's wholly unjustified and just bizarre. The core assumption is unjustified. Why assume that all right acts will have something in common apart from being right? They may do - by why assume it as an article of faith at the outset? And given that any pattern one thinks there may be is going to be justified - to the extent that it is justified - by its being implied by some of our intuitions, it is bizarre to then subsequently ignore the probative force of those that do not imply it.
So, I think your axiological hedonism is false on its face - it flies in the face of powerful and widely shared moral intuitions that we have no reason to discount. Furthermore, the whole approach - the approach of assuming there must be a pattern and then doing one's best to describe it - is unjustified and bizarre. Or so I have argued.
This post is becoming too long, so I will write another addressing what you've said about evolution.
I am not assuming that morality is patterned, but my approach is one that can recognise a pattern if pattern there be. So, there certainly appears to be a rough-and-ready pattern. But there does not 'have' to be, and my evidence that there is a pattern-of-sorts is that there appears to be. We can make fairly reliable generalisations, such as that if an act is one that will significantly affect another party and the other party has not consented to it, then it's probably wrong. For most acts that have that feature do seem to be wrong, or at least worse than they would be if they lacked it.
So again, I do not 'assume' a rigid pattern, but that's not equivalent to denying patterns if patterns there appear to be.
When we look at the evidence - and look at it 'assumption-free' so to speak - then morality appears to be roughly patterned, but not rigidly so. It doesn't 'have' to have a pattern, but it seems to have a pattern of sorts.
Now that's very different from assuming that it must have a pattern and then setting about describing it. Someone who does that - someone who assumes the task of moral theorising is to describe some once and for all moral rules or principles - is someone who has positively rendered themselves morally blind to a distinct possibility: namely that morality has no rigid pattern. For all the evidence in support of that thesis - and there's an abundance of it - will be rejected on the question-begging ground that it simply conflicts with the rule or principle.
Again, that strikes me as a bizarre way of doing normative ethics. It is 'the' standard way, of course. But it is no less bizarre for that.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That's clearly false - I am your evidence for the falsity of that statement. I am and have argued that antinatalism is true. That is a view that flies in the face of most people's moral intuitions. Yet here I am defending it! How ironic! You think that unless we cleave to moral rules no moral radicals will emerge. Yet here I am, denying moral rules and arguing for a view - antinatalism - that is about as morally radical as it gets.
Yes, I agree with all of that. But I said that if the 'sole' explanation for why we get a moral intuition is an evolutionary one, then that debunks the intuition. If, however, the evolutionary explanation is only partial, then the intuition may retain its probative force.
For example, imagine a divine command theory is true (which it is). That is, imagine that moral rightness and wrongness are prescriptions of a god, prescriptions that our rational intuitions give us some insight into.
Now imagine that the god is benevolent (which she is). Well, it seems reasonable to suppose that a benevolent god would issue prescriptions that would benefit us: that is, that she'd want us to do thrive and form meaningful relationships and all that stuff. If we follow prescriptions of that sort, then we're also likely to be more reproductively successful than those who did not.
In this case, then, we have a divine explanation for why it might be that living in accordance with many moral prescriptions has, in the main, proved to be adaptive. And in this case the explanation does not debunk the intuitions at all.
Ok, imagine that John thinks that the torture of Tom is unjustified. The deeper reason he gives for believing this is because he thinks that God would disapprove of it. He believes that God would disapprove of it because of some argument that he gives that God exists and some argument that he gives that the existent God would likely disapprove of torturing Tom. We’ll refer the former argument that he gives for the existence of God as “Argument A” and the latter argument that he gives for why God disapproves of Tom’s torture as “Argument B”. John then uses “Argument C” to explain why he thinks “Argument A” works to show that God exists. Then he uses “Argument D” to show that “Argument B” works to support his hypothesis that God disapproves of the torture of Tom. Since he doesn’t have any arguments to explain why he thinks Arguments C and D work to properly support Arguments A and B, he can simply say that it’s intuitive for him to think that Arguments C and D adequately defend Arguments A and B. So, intuitions are designed to mark a stopping point for someone’s explanation for why they don’t support the torture of Tom to avoid an infinite regress. The argument that God disapproves of Tom’s torture is John’s level 1 argument. Arguments A and B are his level 2 arguments. Argument C and D are his level 3 arguments. Beyond this, he relies on his intuition. Now, let’s imagine that another person named Jack also thinks that the torture of Tom is unjustified and he also thinks that it’s because God disapproves of it. He also defends this claim with the same Arguments A and B that John uses. But, unlike John, he doesn’t have deeper arguments to support Arguments A and B. So, he says that it’s simply intuitive to him that Arguments A and B work to demonstrate his point. Well, John seems to be the superior moral philosopher here compared to Jack because his arguments appear to be more well developed and he doesn’t have to rely on his intuitions until he reaches a deeper level of explanation. Both John and Jack share their L1 and L2 arguments but John also has L3 arguments. John’s post-L3 intuitions are likely more reliable than Jack’s post-L2 intuitions. Now, let’s imagine that Tiffany thinks that the torture of Tom is unjustified but she gives no argument for why she thinks that it’s the case. In that case, if she simply says that she has an intuition that it’s wrong then her intuitions are so under-developed that they are pretty much just attitudes. So, here’s an argumentation graph for John, Jack, and Tiffany:
John: Main God argument -> Arguments A and B -> Arguments C and D -> (pretty reliable intuitions unless Arguments A through D are opposed by good counter-arguments)
Jack: Main God arguments -> Arguments A and B -> (decent intuitions unless Arguments A and B are opposed by good counter-arguments )
Tiffany: (crappy intuitions that are pretty much just attitudes)
I hope it makes sense now what I mean by intuitions about deeper reasons being more reliable. Now, here is what my argumentation graph looks like for the justification for Tom’s torture compared to what I think your graph looks like:
Me: (L1) Argument for the Comeasurability Requirement. In addition, The Degree of Confidence Argument and The Demonstration Argument for Axiological Hedonism which I haven’t yet introduced. -> (L2) Thought experiments that describe why my Comeasurability Requirement should be intuitive to you and the Stock Options analogy that I use to defend both the Epistemic Certainty Argument and The Demonstration Argument for Hedonism -> (My L2 arguments aren’t supported by what appears to be pretty good rational intuitions that I hold but these intuitions may be irrational if there is a good argument against either my L1 or L2 arguments)
You: (L1) Argument that most people find it counterintuitive that the torture of Tom is justified and this gives us strong reason to think it probably isn’t -> (L2) Argument that intuitions that other people have about cases of applied ethics is the only type of evidence that we have to answer questions about cases of applied ethics -> (Your L2 arguments are supported by what appears to be pretty good rational intuitions that you hold but these intuitions may be irrational if there is a good argument against either your L1 and L2 arguments. I have argued against your L1 arguments just now with my John, Jack, and Tiffany thought experiment and with all the argumentation charts which are designed to show that intuitions can operate on different levels of argumentation and I argued that they are more reliable if they operate on that deeper level. Ironically enough, your argumentation is actually just as deep as mine if not more and so you also seem to think that your beliefs about Tom’s torture are probably better than that of other people if you have deeper arguments to support them. So, it seems to me that if you thought that intuitions are just as reliable at L1 then you would of just said that there’s no deeper reason for why you disapprove of Tom’s torture and this is just an intuition that you hold. But, you seem to recognize that L1 intuitions would amount to nothing more than an attitude and thus you felt that you needed to give a deeper explanation to me for why you think that the torture of Tom is unjustified and I respect you for doing that.)
Quoting Bartricks
I would argue that both premise 1 and 2 of your argument are false. This is because nothing can be said to be morally right or wrong. Rather, there is only a spectrum of better and worse actions that one could take at any given time. One factor that determines betterness or worseness of an action is the degree of confidence by which a person could say that an action is instrumentally bad. Actions can only be instrumentally bad if they cause something that is intrinsically bad or eliminate something that is intrinsically good. Something is intrinsically bad if it is bad in a final sense rather than bad because it leads to something else that is bad. For example, having a disease is usually thought of as being instrumentally bad. This is because having a disease is only bad because it leads to something else that is bad like it causes you to suffer for example. The most obvious candidate for something that is intrinsically bad is your own suffering from your own point of view. This is because the suffering of a particular person is bad from the point of view of that same particular person in the most obvious way imaginable and there isn’t a deeper explanation for why it is bad. It is just bad for its own sake. The suffering of a particular person is more obviously bad to that particular person than the suffering of other people. It is possible for an extremely skeptical person to doubt that the suffering of others should be consider bad from their point of view but even the most skeptical people cannot deny that their own suffering is intrinsically bad for them and that they have reason not to hurt themselves pointlessly. Thus, any action that causes you to suffer pointlessly has the greatest degree of confidence of being an instrumentally bad action to some extent. Any action that causes others pointless suffering, on the other hand, has a smaller degree of confidence of being an instrumentally bad action to some extent. Thus, we have more reason to minimize suffering in our own lives than we do to minimize suffering in the lives of others. But, in cases where we could either reduce the suffering in our own lives by a little bit or reduce the suffering of the world by a lot, it may be rational to choose to benefit the world. This is why I have donated to Project Prevention despite the fact that I’m mostly an egoist. I might have more reason to prevent the existence of an entire lifetime of suffering than to reduce a little bit of my own suffering with the money that I donated. But, ultimately, I have more reason to minimize my own suffering all things consider equal.
Quoting Bartricks
Once again, both premises are false. The first premise is false because my own pleasure counts for more than the pleasure of others since I’m mostly an egoistical hedonist. The second premise is false because no person is more deserving of pleasure than another person. This is because the extent to which someone deserves a pleasure is completely incomeasurable(remember my comeasurability requirement that I explained earlier) and therefore it is impossible to even formulate a reasonable non-arbitrary hypothesis of what kinds of people deserve pleasure more and what kinds of people deserve pleasure less.
Quoting Bartricks
I don’t think my degree of confidence argument and my comeasurability requirement argument are question begging so I would have to disagree.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, in your moral particularism, there’s something else that you think all wrong actions have in common: they are all “intuitively considered wrong by the rational intuitions of at least one person”. Is that not something that all wrong actions share? If that’s the case, then I don’t understand how my theory is more pattern based than your theory.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, your phrase here that hedonism “flies in the face of “powerful” and widely shared moral intuitions that we have “no reason to discount”” seems to demonstrate why I think your approach to moral philosophy is extremely prejudice against unpopular opinions like the one I happen to uphold. It’s almost like I have to fight an uphill battle for you to even consider my arguments. First of all, how could a group of people who have never even heard of my degree of confidence argument or my comeasurability requirement argument have “powerful” objections to arguments they never even heard. It’s possible that if I could convince the entire world to sit down and study all of my arguments for an hour a day for a year and also give them a pill that makes them smart enough to understand my arguments perfectly then a lot of people might agree with me. Alas, I cannot do that and I don’t really want to. My point here is that most people are simply not even familiar with the best arguments in support of hedonism just as many hedonists might not be aware of the best arguments against hedonism. I have studied the topic of Axiology extensively by reading lots of academic journals on the topic and related topics. I have also spent about 2-3 hours a day in the last 4 years philosophizing about this topic and other philosophical topics. I’m not even claiming to be right about my views on Hedonism though. There are plenty of really good Axiologists who are more dedicated than I am who might have really good objections to my arguments. But, I find it laughable that my arguments could defeated by normal people who never even heard of my arguments or philosophized about the topics that I have philosophized about. It’s kinda like saying that the Multi-Verse theory in physics is false because it’s so counter-intuitive to most people. The Multi-Verse theory might be false and many physicists object to it but you can’t use the intuitions of non-physicists to say that it’s wrong. So, why could we use the intuitions of non-philosophers to say that the premises of your arguments against hedonism are true? They might actually be true but I would want to hear a complicated defense for the truthfulness of those premises by a seasoned philosopher who can provide it.
This post has gotten pretty long so I will address the rest of your post in another post later on.
I think there are other things that all blue things have in common:
1. All blue things are made of atoms
2. All blue things exist in the same universe(if there are no other universes with blue things.)
3. All blue things could be perceived by humans who are not color blind as being blue.
4. All blue things reflect light in a similar manner and this is why they are all blue.
5. All blue things are not mental states
6. All blue things are not mathematical equations
7. All blue things are not red things
If we consider “are not” similarities then there is a near infinite amount of things that all blue things have in common. The same could be applied to wrong actions:
1. All wrong actions are not right actions.
2. All wrong actions are fictional concepts because actions are better understood as being on a spectrum of betterness and worseness.(I know you probably don’t agree with that one.)
3. If wrong actions were not fictional concepts, then all wrong actions would not be a type of object.
4. All wrong actions are not mental states.
5. All wrong actions are actions.
6. All wrong actions are concepts.
I think you get the idea here. My point is that wrong actions have a near infinite amount of things in common and so it’s not clear to me why you think that morality is not pattern based or that color is not pattern based.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, I think I have already answered your questions here above. I don’t think that right acts even exist but if we were talk to about good acts instead and define them as being better than the alternative acts then there’s a near infinite amount of similarities that all good acts have in common.
Quoting Bartricks
As I have stated earlier, I believe that intuitions that occur within a deeper level of argumentation are better than intuitions that occur at more shallow levels. In addition, I’m perfectly willing to change my mind if someone provides a good counter-argument to one of my axiological arguments. A good counter-argument does not simply state that my argument is assuming something to be true since all philosophical arguments have underlying assumptions. A good counter-argument puts the person who holds the argument in a pretty difficult explanatory trap where it becomes very difficult to explain something if someone continues to uphold their argument. I don’t feel like my argument for the comeasurability requirement or my degree of confidence argument has been put into any sort of explanatory trap. Rather, because I just realized that there is obviously an infinite number of things that good actions have in common, this only strengthens my intuition that we can expect to find more things that good actions all have in common. And, it reveals that you haven’t even accurately diagnosed what the assumptions of my arguments are(which is understandable since you haven’t heard some of my arguments yet and I’m sure there are plenty of assumptions that I’m making that you will eventually point out since all philosophical arguments have assumptions.). I don’t deny that I have to rely on intuition at some point but I think that having a longer chain of good arguments can make your intuitions more reliable. I also consider well developed arguments of other people but I end up objecting to them or else I end up seeing them as plausible.
Quoting Bartricks
Is there such a thing as “assumption-free evidence”? Even the most reliable evidence has some assumptions that it relies on. For example, people who say that the theory of evolution has more evidence than the theory of intelligent design assume that the intuitions of scientists to measure the amount of evidence for both theories is reliable. In addition, the evidence that we have that the Earth is the 3rd planet from the Sun assumes that the government is not hiding the existence of a planet between Mercury and Venus. It also assumes that Mercury actually exists and is not merely a hoax perpetrated by the scientific community. So, there’s always some assumption that you can claim that a piece of evidence is making and so there simply isn’t such a thing as “assumption-free evidence”.
Quoting Bartricks
Ok, now I think you just both defeated your arguments for moral particularism and your arguments for antinatalism. Divine Command theory is a normative ethical theory which argues that right and wrong actions are the prescriptions of God. Which means that in addition to the infinite amount of things that all right acts have in common, they all share another crucial thing in common: they are all prescriptions of God. I suppose you would then argue that moral particularism is simply a method of figuring out what God’s prescriptions are. In that case, why couldn’t my degree of certainty argument and my incomeasurability requirement argument be a better method of figuring out God’s prescriptions? Another question I have now is if there is a benevolent God then why would procreation be immoral? Did this God not create mankind with good intentions or is something or someone else responsible for the existence of mankind? Was God not able to prevent the birth of mankind by not creating the universe(or did he even create it?)? Finally, it seems that this may imply that the survival advantage of thinking that procreation is permissible is not the only explanation for why people hold the intuition that procreation is permissible. It’s also possible that this was an intuition that was implanted by God herself and she thought that procreation was a good thing. Thus, this seems to make the intuitions people hold about procreation about as reliable as the intuitions that people hold about the torture of Tom. In fact, I bet you that more people would be willing to support the torture of Tom worldwide than the people who are willing to oppose procreation. There’s not a single country in the world where antinatalism is a popular movement. It seems that people in some countries like China, North Korea, and Colombia are willing to support the torture of one person to make everyone extremely happy. Hell, in Colombia, you have cartels torturing people all the time to make a profit and to simply send a message to their rivals. People living there are probably so desensitized to torture that they can think more rationally about this issue and not let emotive issues get in the way.
This misses the point. For nothing is blue rather than another colour due to these things, and thus you cannot get any principle from them.
I mean, one could point out - trivially - that one thing all right acts have in common apart from being right is that they're all actions, and they all happen in time, and so on. But you can't get a normative theory from that. They're just conceptual truths.
So, of course I agree that all right actions are actions, and all right actions are performed by agents, and so on. But the rightness is not 'supervenient' or resultant from these features, and thus such observations cannot provide a basis for a substantial normative theory.
What you need is to find something that all right acts have in common and from which their rightness can be said to derive. Then and only then will you be able to formulate a normative principle.
The moral particularist denies that there are any such features. The moral particularist does not deny that right actions are all actions, or that they are all identical with themselves, or that they are all performed by agents, rather they deny that their rightness derives from something they all have in common apart from their rightness.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yes, lots. It appears that hurting another for fun is wrong. That is, my reason represents me to have reason not to hurt others for fun. This is not an assumption, but an appearance. And appearances are prima facie evidence in support of their representative contents. That too is a rational appearance.
These are appearances, not assumptions. To illustrate the difference, take one of those well-known optical illusions concerning shapes - you know, the sort where there are two objects that appear to be different sizes but are in fact the same size. Now, because these are familiar to most of us, we 'assume' the two objects are the same size. Yet they 'appear' to be different sizes. I mean, mere familiarity with these illusions does not prevent the objects featuring in them from appearing to be different sizes. Likewise, hurting others for fun appears to be wrong. That's not an assumption. It is how things appear (and appear to virtually everyone). Not everyone believes in the accuracy of such appearances (nihilists do not, for instance). But even those who do not believe in their accuracy - so, nihilists again - still typically get the impression the acts are wrong (they just don't assume they actually are).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
No, that's just plain false and amounts to a form of the most extreme scepticism.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I do not know what you mean by 'deeper' and 'shallower' in this context.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
No I haven't and no it isn't. Divine command theory is a metaethical theory, not a normative ethical theory.
And it is not the theory that morality is the commands of 'God'. That's one particular kind of divine command theory - the kind associated with Christianity and Islam. But divine command theory is the theory that morality is the commands of 'a god or gods'. It isn't a religious view, but a metaethical view - a philosophical theory.
It may help if I point out that I am not religious and neither know nor care what Christianity or any other religious says about anything.
Note too, that a normative theory is a theory about what's right, not about what rightness itself is. A metaethical theory is a theory about what rightness itself is.
As an example, utilitarianism is a normative theory. It says "The right act is the one that maximises happiness". Divine command theory does not contradict this, and is thus not a rival view. For it says that 'a right act is one and the same as a prescription of a god". That says nothing about the content of the prescription. So, it is consistent with utilitarianism (and deontology, and any other normative theory you care to mention).
Having said this, Divine command theory does, I believe, imply moral particularism at the normative level, but that does not make it a normative theory (a theory that has normative implications is not thereby a normative theory; for example, nihilism is a metaethical theory with normative implications - it implies nothing is right or wrong - but that doesn't make it a normative theory).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
No, because it is implausible. Your normative view is entirely compatible with divine command theory, but it nevertheless has no good evidence in its support, I think. If you drop your assumptions and just inspect people's rational intuitions they vary from case to case, yes? There's a rough shape to them, true. But nothing very fixed and definite. So, moral particularism is implied by the actual evidence - by rational intuitions.
Note too how moral particularism - as well as being independently supported by the direct evidence of our rational intuiitons - is also implied by divine command theory. If divine command theory is true, then what's right is determined by a god's commands, yes? Well, are they fixed? No, or at least, there's no good reason to think they would be. I mean, if I command you to do something in one context, I am not thereby committed to commanding you to do it in another, or even in the same context on another occasion. So, what goes for me surely will go for a god as well.
So, if divine command theory is true - and it demonstrably is - then we would expect moral particularism to be true. And moral particularism does appear to be true. All roads lead to moral particularism.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
It's 'a god' rather than 'God'. If you say "God" you associate my views with religious ones that I neither know or care about. Understanding my view requires taking seriously that I am not religious and that I am not talking about 'God'.
Bearing that in mind, why would a benevolent god be opposed to us procreating?
Well, would a benevolent god have created a world like this one and then forced innocent creatures to live in it? No, of course not. Why? Because that would be a shitty thing to do.
There are loads of people who recognise this - who recognise that no good god would have done such a thing. Yet they then do it themselves!! They know how dangerous the world is, they know no benevolent god would have suffered innocents to live in it, yet they then suffer innocents to live in it.
A benevolent person does not bring an innocent person into a world like this one. If you find yourself locked in a prison, it is not okay to force some innocent people into it to keep you company. That's not what a benevolent person does. They do their best to get along with those who are already suffering the same fate as themselves, rather than selfishly summoning others in to join them.
Would a benevolent spectator be in favour of this prisoner forcing innocent others to join them in prison? No, of course not.
So, one major reason why a benevolent person would not be in favour of us procreating is that benevolent people are not in favour of subjecting innocent people to life in a dangerous world. They would be in favour of us being kind to each other, to promoting each other's happiness, and so on. But they would not be in favour - or it seems highly unlikely that they would be anyway - of us making innocent others join us.
Also, it is quite clear from our rational intuitions that the god who exists seems, in the main, to be opposed to imposing things on people without their prior consent. I mean, doing that - even when what one imposes is beneficial - seems wrong in many circumstances, and even in those where it is overall justified, it seems regrettable nevertheless. I find it hard to think of a much more significant thing to impose on someone than a life here. So, given she seems so opposed to imposing significant things on others without their consent, it is reasonable to suppose she'd be very much opposed to procreation on those grounds too.
I have replied to your replies in the wrong order, as I read the last one without realizing there was one before it.
Anyway, I still do not know what you mean by 'deeper' and in your example you seem to be attacking a straw man.
I am not a moral particularist solely because I am a divine command theorist. I think moral particularism is implied by the evidence of our rational intuitions.
There's more than one way to skin a cat and one of my arguments for moral particularism is that it appears to be true. That is, any feature that makes one act right, can be found to make another act wrong. Note, that argument does not appeal to the putative truth of divine command theory, it just appeals to rational appearances.
Anyway, I reiterate that I do not know what you mean by 'deeper' and 'shallower' intuitions in this context. I assume that you probably mean by 'deeper' those intuitions that, if taken in isolation, would imply the truth of a principle and by 'shallower' you mean intuitions about particular cases. But I simply see no reason to accord one more probative force than another.
Note too that the philosophical community seems to be largely on my side, for if someone proposes some moral principle what happens is everyone then tries to imagine a case in which the principle would force us to judge an act wrong that is intuitively obviously right. When such a case is imagined, it is taken to be a counterexample to the principle, and depending on how clear and widely shared the intuitions are, the counterexample will often be held to refute the rule. So, what you would call 'shallow' intuitions that are, in fact, the ultimate test of credibility that any moral rule is held up to.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You haven't provided any evidence that either are false. You have talked about degrees of betterness. But read premise 1 again. It says it is 'as' wrong for me to cause myself a harm as it is to cause someone else an equal amount of harm. So, act X causes person A 10 dolors of harm, and act Y causes person B 10 dolors of harm. As an axiological hedonist how can you possibly insist that one act is more wrong than the other? You're committed to saying they're equally bad, other things being equal. Now, how can it possibly make a difference who the agent of the act is? It can't.
You can bring in other factors, but the whole point of the example is to equalize those. You're not equalizing them - you're changing the example. You need to hold other things equal.
So, Tim knows that if he hits himself it will cause 10 dolors of harm. And Tim knows that if he hits Jane, it will case 10 dolors of harm. Don't insist that Tim's act of hitting Jane will actually cause more dolors of harm - that is to change the example. No, in the example both acts cause exactly the same amount of harm. That's why, as a hedonist, you're committed to having to judge them both equally wrong. Yet they're obviously not. Hence the theory is refuted.
So the first premise cannot be denied. And as for the second, it seems to me that you provide no evidence against it, you just raise the spectre of scepticism.
It is clear, is it not, to the rational intuitions of virtually everyone that hitting someone else is - other things being equal - much worse than hitting yourself? On what rational basis are you rejecting those intuitions? You can't just reject them because they are inconsistent with your theory - for that outs you as a dogmatist rather than a follower of evidence. And you can't selectively use scepticism to reject them, for that is once more arbitrary - you are only a sceptic when it comes to the probative force of intuitions that are inconsistent with your theory, but not otherwise.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Your arguments are simply question begging. You are simply assuming that morality must have a fixed pattern and that you've discovered it.
I have provided arguments against you.
Again, you can't deny the probative force of rational intuitions without giving up on all arguments for anything, including your own view.
So, rational intuitions have prima facie probative force.
Now, as just about everyone will affirm, what makes one act right can make another wrong. Causing pain is sometimes a feature that makes an act wrong, sometimes a feature that makes an act right.
And as just about everyone will also affirm, acts that seem to us today to be wrong, have seemed to others in the past to be right.
So, if rational intuitions have prima facie probative force, and if what makes one act right can just as easily make another wrong, and if what has appeared right to most people in one age has appeared wrong to most people in another, then we have good prima facie evidence that moral particularism is true.
Why? Because that 'just is' moral particularism. So, until or unless you challenge that argument, your view is refuted.
There is also independent reason to reject your view: the refutations I gave, and plenty more besides. You simply denied the premises - but you need to provide actual evidence they're false, not just play the scepticism card and/or reject them due to their conflicting with your theory (that's to render your theory unfalsifiable).
Also how can you possibly say that I am prejudiced against views that fly in the face of popular opinion?!? I am an antinatalist, for goodness sake!
You are confusing moral particularism with moral conservatism. I am a moral particularist, but I am not by any stretch of the imagination a moral conservative, as a moments reflection on the view I am arguing for should reveal!!
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Clever people defend false views all the time. There are umpteen normative theories and umpteen metaethical theories under debate in the literature - they can't all be true. They can all be false, but at best only one normative theory can be true, and only one metaethical theory. So, as things stand, we know already that most clever people's theories about these matters are false.
Now back to my refutations of axiological hedonism - I think it is undeniable that their first premises are true, for they are conceptual truths. And it is undeniable that their second premises are supported by most people's rational intuitions. So, the view is refuted unless, that is, you can provide 'independent' reason to doubt those rational intuitions. Not mere possibilities, note. Just pointing out that it is 'possible' the intuitions are mistaken is lame. It is possible Lee Harvey Oswald didn't assassinate Kennedy, possible that all the 'evidence' implicating him was cooked-up, and so on. But that mere possibility is not good evidence that he didn't do it. Likewise, the mere possibility that the intuitions in support of the second premises are false is not good evidence that they are false.
So I think axiological hedonism has been refuted - refuted by the arguments I gave and refuted as well by the fact that any wrong-making feature can become a right-making feature in another context, or another time.
Ok, but you seem to think that there is at least one similarity that all right and wrong acts have that suggests that your moral particularism is just as much of a normative theory as my mildly egoistic hedonic consequentialist theory— Namely that the rightness and wrongness of an action is determined by the most commonly held intuitions about that action which cannot be explained away as a bias. This seems to be a moral rule that your moral particularism is based off of. It may be a complicated rule but it’s still a moral rule. It’s actually less complicated than the supposed moral rule that my theory follows. I would challenge you to summarize the moral rule that my theory follows in a single sentence like I just summarized the moral rule that your theory follows. My theory says that a decision option(which includes both actions and choosing not to act) is good if it is better than the alternative decision options and what determines if it’s better is a series of competing aims. The most important aim is to minimize suffering in one’s own life. The second most important aim is to maximize pleasure in one’s own life. The third most important aims are to maximize one’s own life satisfaction and to minimize the suffering of the world. The fourth most important aims is to maximize the pleasure of the world and satisfy as many of one’s desires as possible. There are other less important normative aims beyond this but they are not important to mention since it’s extremely unlikely that you would find yourself in a situation where you would need to privilege that minuscule aim above the other more important aims. In the case of Tom, there is actually a conflict between the more important aim of minimizing the suffering of the world and the less important aim of maximizing the pleasure of the world. I think that the less important aim supersedes over the more important aim here due to the magnitude of the pleasure compared to the relatively small contribution that Tom’s torture adds on to the suffering of the world. But, my theory welcomes you to disagree with me. You could accept my theory to be true and still argue that the aim of maximizing pleasure in the world could never supersede over the aim of minimizing suffering in the world. But, this would require you to defend a claim that suffering just has far more value significance than pleasure.
Quoting Bartricks
In my theory, the goodness of an action is also not supervenient on any specific feature. Any action can be good because it minimizing suffering in one’s own life but it can also be good because it maximizes pleasure in one’s own life but it can also be good because it minimizes the suffering of the world but it can also be good because it maximizes my life satisfaction but it can also be good because it maximizes the pleasure in the world. I think you misunderstood my theory as being less pluralistic and diverse than it actually is.
Quoting Bartricks
In that case, why would it not be sufficient for me to simply say that it appears to me that my theories are correct and thus this is assumption-free evidence for me that they are correct? It’s seems that everyone could simply believe what appears true to them. Why should they take the intuitions of other people into account as well? Also, why not also consider the perspective of the nihilist here? Aren’t you making the assumption that the nihilist is wrong?
Quoting Bartricks
Why do you think that extreme skepticism is false? Are you not simply assuming that extreme skepticism is false?
Quoting Bartricks
I don’t see how your divine command theory is not a normative theory but religious divine command theories are. I would like to point out that even your non-religious divine command theory seems to claim that what is right is whatever God or the gods command. How is that different than saying that what is right is what Allah commands? Is it just because your divine command theory doesn’t specify exactly what is right while religious divine command theories do? In that case, my theory also doesn’t specify what is right since there are multiple competing goals in my theory and different people may have different intuitions about what answer my theory implies for cases like the case of Tom. In addition, religious divine command theory also doesn’t specify what is right since different religious people may interpret their holy books differently.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, it’s possible for you to believe in multiple normative theories at once if you somehow glue them together and try to make them perfectly compatible with one another. For example, there is actually a normative ethical theory called “Christian Hedonism”. This theory claims that the Bible teaches us that God wants us to maximize the pleasure in our own life and so that’s what we should do. So, it combines Christian divine command theory with hedonistic ethical egoism. Another good example is Rule Utilitarianism which argues that we should follow moral rules which maximize the happiness of the world instead of performing actions which maximize the happiness of the world. So, a rule utilitarian might argue that we shouldn’t torture Tom because following the rule that we should torture people to maximize pleasure usually leads to a bad consequence so we should stay on the safe side and not violate that moral rule. So, it basically combines Utilitarianism with Deontology. Another example is Trait Utilitarianism which argues that we focus on developing personality traits which maximizes happiness of the world. It basically combines Utilitarianism with Virtue Ethics. So, it’s entirely possible that your normative ethical theory should really be called “Divine Moral Particularism” because it argues that are intuitions about moral cases are often reliable because they were bestowed to us by the divine.
Quoting Bartricks
Actually, I don’t think that Nihilism has normative implications. This is because Moral Error Theory(which is what I’m assuming that you are referring to when you speak of “nihilism” as a meta-ethical theory) argues that all moral claims should be interpreted as claims of objective truth and that this implies that all moral claims are false since moral claims are not objectively true. Many Moral Error Theorists or “Moral Nihilists” as you call them argue that we should just treat morality of as a kind of fantasy game. So, you could have a nihilist pretend as though Utilitarianism is true for fun because he likes the concept of being a utilitarian. He would do all the things that the typical Utilitarian would do but he would simply see it as a game and argue that the “Moral Realist” Utilitarian is taking himself too seriously. So, there doesn’t have to be any normative implications to nihilism. The moral implications of this view is anything that the nihilist wants it to be.
Quoting Bartricks
Once again, you are assuming that there are no different levels of deepness of intuitions. I know you are not understanding my argument that some intuitions are deeper than others on the basis of how long of a chain of arguments one has before they rely on intuition but I already tried explaining my argument to you as simply as I possibly can. I’m also not sure what you mean by “fixed” here. My theory is not fixed onto any singular normative aim so in what way does my theory imply that morality is fixed?
Quoting Bartricks
Why do you assume that god’s commands are not fixed?
Also, why do you assume that my moral theory implies that morality is fixed when it doesn’t follow a singular aim?
Quoting Bartricks
You are not committed to command me to do something in another context but you could command me to something in every context imaginable. god could also do the same. Thus, it is entirely possible that your god or gods would command you to do things that are compatible with the hierarchy of aims that is present in my theory.
So, I have 2 questions:
1. How do you know that god or gods are benevolent?
2. Did god or gods create the universe which allowed for sentient life?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, you understand right here but why do you not think that we should privilege intuitions that imply the truth of a deeper principle? Why assume that intuitions have no levels and could only be dismissed if they are deemed to be as a result of some bias? In addition, why assume that the intuitions of a greater number of people are more likely to be correct than intuitions of a lesser number of people? Could we not posit a possibility that some intuitions are of a higher quality than others even if there’s no explanation for why one of the intuitions should be dismissed? I have an epistemological intuition that deeper intuitions are more reliable than more shallow intuitions. Why should I distrust this intuition?
Quoting Bartricks
What do you mean by “philosophical community” here? Do you mean the community of academic philosophers in universities or the community of online philosophers that we have in this forum? If you are talking about the former, then there’s plenty of good explanations as to why most academic philosophers agree with you more than with me:
1. Academic philosophers often have to protect their reputation with the public to avoid getting fired and to get hired and get promotions. This means they have to “play it safe” and avoid talking about their more controversial opinions. It’s rare to see academic philosophers defend viewpoints in academic papers that are extremely controversial. This is not because most academic philosophers hold 0 extremely controversial viewpoints. I think most people believe in at least one thing that is extremely unpopular. For you, it happens to be antinatalism for example. But, let me ask you a question. Imagine that you just graduated with a PhD in philosophy and you are looking to get a job as a philosophy professor, would you write an academic paper defending your antinatalism and would you put that paper on your resume for your potential future employers to see? If you would then that’s a good way to have your resume end up in the trash. If I was looking to get a job as a philosophy professor, then I would definitely just avoid writing any papers about any topics that might offend anyone. I would probably just specialize in a less controversial field like Metaphysics and Epistemology. So, the reason why academic moral philosophers often use shallow intuitions as arguments against normative ethical theories is because they know that no one can bite the bullet on their thought experiments without risking their career. Really popular philosophers could potentially get away with expressing controversial viewpoints. For example, Peter Singer is a utilitarian philosopher and he would agree with me that the torture of Tom is justified and he’s still a philosophy professor at an acclaimed university. He’s also one of the best selling and most loved philosophers in the world despite also being one of the most hated philosophers. So, you can be loved and hated as a philosopher at the same time. There are non-philosophers who do not even attend his university who have protested outside of his university to try to get him fired from his job. Despite this, his university realizes that many more people would want to go to this university to be taught by their favorite philosopher Peter Singer than those who would boycott the university just because they don’t fire him. But, Peter Singer did not express his most controversial viewpoints until he became popular for his less controversial viewpoints. This is probably because he would of gotten fired if it wasn’t for his prior popularity. The same sort of story could be told about David Benetar who is the most famous antinatalist philosopher. He is one of only 2 academic philosophers that I know of who are brave enough to argue for antinatalism directly. The other philosopher is Christoph Fehige. There is a third philosopher named Seana Shiffrin who wrote a paper that argued children should be allowed to sue their parents for creating them but I’m not sure if she counts as an antinatalist philosopher. Anyways, Benetar didn’t write about his antinatalist views until he moved up the ranks in his university and became the head of the philosophy department of his university. If he did so early in his career, he might of gotten fired. I think my views are even more controversial than that of Benetar and Singer, so I would not get hired for sure. So, it‘s difficult to get a diversity of opinions in a university setting if it impacts your job security.
2. My arguments have been heard and critiqued by very few philosophers. In fact, you are pretty much the only philosopher that has talked to me for long enough for me to get to use these arguments. My most popular YouTube video called “Why I would plug myself in an Experience Machine” only has 16 views. My other videos average at just 1 view. Unless every argument that any moral philosopher has created gets heard and critiqued by every moral philosopher, we cannot accurately gauge the intuitiveness of various viewpoints under ideal circumstances.
3. Most academic philosophers know little about the field of Axiology and this means only a handful of philosophers could adequately critique my arguments without first doing a fair bit of research.
So, why do people on this philosophy forum usually agree with you more than me? Well....
1. I’m actually not sure if they actually do agree with you more here. I think TPF has a decent amount of people who willing to entertain my viewpoints. Like 3 people out of maybe 8 people appeared to agree with me that Bob’s procreation is justified. I’m not sure how many people would agree with me about the case of Tom but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a sizable minority. It’s also worth noting that there’s also a lot more antinatalists on TPF than in any philosophical department of a university. This is probably because anonymity provides a safe space to talk about controversial viewpoints.
2. Philosophers on TPF often read academic books and journals and mimic the argumentation style of academic philosophers. Because acclaimed philosophy professors like to use thought experiments which appeal to shallow intuitions to argue against normative ethical viewpoints, the use of such arguments seems more credible to people. But, as I have stated, this is due to the fact that most academic philosophers are scared of biting bullets.
3. Most people on TPF are not on the same level of philosophical sophistication as an academic philosopher typically is. Obviously, there are exceptions but on average they are closer to a non-philosopher that you might meet on the street than an academic philosopher who has highly sophisticated ideas. So, they are not the authority figure that we are looking for.
So, in conclusion, there really are no authority figures that could give us right and wrong answers to moral questions without significant biases or inadequacies. This is why I think it’s better to trust your own reasons and intuitions and not worry about what other people are saying.
I don’t think that the 2 actions are equally bad. I actually think that it’s worse to harm yourself than it is to harm others. This is because there is a higher probability that someone has some reason to avoid causing themselves to suffer than the probability that someone has some reason to avoid causing others to suffer. This explains why there are some philosophers who are ethical egoists and moral nihilists and think they have no reason to avoid causing others to suffer but there are literally no philosophers that I have seen who think we have absolutely no reason to avoid causing ourselves to suffer pointlessly. This implies that we have a higher degree of confidence that self-harm is bad than the confidence by which we can say that harming others is bad. To give you a thought experiment, imagine that you and a complete stranger get kidnapped by a sadistic torturer. He says that he will either torture you or torture the stranger and you are the one who has to choose who gets tortured. Assuming that the suffering from the torture will be the same for you and the stranger, it’s seems like you would have more reason to have the stranger tortured instead of having yourself get tortured. Of course, you would probably have a different opinion if I gave you a thought experiment where you have to torture someone yourself in order to alleviate your own suffering. But, why would a different opinion be warranted on the latter of those 2 thought experiments?
Quoting Bartricks
No, you misunderstood me here. I’m claiming that Tim has more reason not hit himself. This is because the action of him hitting himself is more likely to be instrumentally bad than the action of him hitting Jane(if we don’t consider that he might go to jail for hitting Jane and suffer more there.)
Quoting Bartricks
Why can’t the first premise be denied? You haven’t provided a single argument to defend the premise. You also haven’t provide any argument that the second premise is true. I have provided an argument against your second premise by insisting that there is intuitively a greater probability that you have reason to cause yourself suffering than the probability that you have reason to avoid causing suffering of others. I used the existence of ethical egoists and nihilists as evidence that some philosophers do not think they have non-selfish reason to avoid harming others. I also argued that there are practically no philosophers who think they have no reason to avoid causing pointless suffering to themselves. Even the most skeptical and nihilistic people are willing to grant that they shouldn’t cause pointless suffering to themselves. Otherwise, they would be willing to put their hand on a hot stove to prove their point. This suggests that the likelihood that self-harm is bad is greater than the likelihood that harming others is bad.
Quoting Bartricks
It is not clear because those intuitions do not exist in an
ideal environment of perfect knowledge. We do not know what a group of omniscient beings would think about my theories. It’s clear that the intuitions of those omniscient beings would be far more reliable than the shallow intuitions of the average person. So, why not assume that the deep intuitions of a really skilled Axiological philosopher would not be much more reliable than that of the average person as well?
Quoting Bartricks
I’m not rejecting them because they are inconsistent with my theory. I’m rejecting them because you provided me with no reason to think these intuitions are rational. You simply assume that they are rational. I think some intuitions are better than others if they follow after a longer chain of arguments. It is an epistemological intuition that I hold and considering that most philosophers actually share this epistemological intuition of mine since most philosophers consider the intuitions of more philosophical people to be more reliable than the intuitions of non-philosophers, why would you reject this rational epistemological intuition that most philosophers hold?
Quoting Bartricks
How am I using selective skepticism?
Quoting Bartricks
Not if you argue that some intuitions are more reliable than others. Why are you consistently ignoring the epistemological intuitions shared by the majority of philosophers?
Quoting Bartricks
How do you know that there is such a thing as “prima facie” evidence? I would argue that all good evidence is difficult to discover and that we can’t trust the average person to do it right. In fact, we can’t even trust skilled philosophers to do it right. Skilled philosophers are also likely to get it wrong. I don’t think that any philosopher has ever proposed a theory that is completely correct about the subject matter that it discusses. In fact, I’m sure that my Mildly Egoistic Hedonic Consequentialism is wrong about a lot of things. It may even be completely wrong. But, I think that there is a greater likelihood that it is correct than any other value theory that I had encountered. But, it’s still probably wrong to some extent and maybe even completely wrong. Humans are just too dumb to know anything resembling the complete truth about good and bad actions. This is true for me as well since I’m only a pathetic human. I’m not a philosophical deity of any sort. But, I don’t think that should discourage me from trying to get it right to the best of my ability. If anything, it encourages me to constantly adjust my viewpoints as soon as I see flaws with it. But, instead of relying on the irrational intuitions of pathetic humans like myself, maybe I should try to see if there are better intuitions that are only available to the best of our species. If you think that humans suck at philosophy, then the commonality of their intuitions towards a particular moral case becomes irrelevant. The fact that most humans hold an intuition that the torture of Tom is unjustified might actually be evidence that it probably is justified since humans are so bad at moral philosophizing. Why are you so optimistic that humans can reason about these things correctly? It seems like this is just an assumption that you hold. Why not think that all philosophical ideas that have been devised are wrong to some extent but some are simply more wrong than others?
Quoting Bartricks
I have challenged your moral particularism above by expressing my pessimism in people’s ability to do philosophy well while arguing that this pessimism doesn’t suggest that we shouldn’t devise philosophical theories. This is because we should be proud to create a theory that was less wrong than any other theory or a theory that is less likely to be completely wrong than other theories. Hell, I’m even proud of you for supporting a divine command theory that is probably less likely to be completely wrong than the religious divine command theory :wink:
Quoting Bartricks
I agree. Every theory on normative ethics and meta-ethics is probably false. But, some of them are more false than others. I think that clever people usually hold more complicated and plausible variations of simple theories. For example, in the 18th Century there was only 2 types of Utilitarianism which was the Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism and John Stewart Mill’s Utilitarianism. Today, I don’t think a single high level moral philosopher thinks those specific versions of Utilitarianism are true. Rather, there is now like 100 different specific Utilitarian theories and theories that are almost Utilitarian and theories that are only somewhat Utilitarian like my own. But, the simple theories of Mill and Bentham are more popular among people with only a mild interest in philosophy. This is because they are not aware of all the modern variations of the Utilitarianism. I think most of the modern variations are better than the traditional variations. Some of the modern theories probably got closer to the truth than others but it’s impossible to know for sure which theories are less bad. But, high level philosophers seem to be in a better position to examine those theories for plausibility if not only because they are familiar with more versions of Utilitarianism and therefore can compare more different theories. The same thing applies across different categories of theories. I tend to think that if your theory doesn’t have a really long name like “Mildly Egoistic Hedonic Consequentialism” then there’s probably a lot of unanswered questions and flaws. Technically, I think my theory should actually be called “Mildly Egoistic and Mostly Hedonistic Consequentialism” since my theory is mostly but not completely hedonistic. My point being is that any theory with even a smallest amount of plausibility would be difficult to call anything with only 1 or 2 words. Philosophy is really complicated and so our theories should be really complicated as well. This is our best chance of not having a terrible theory.
Bob's philosophy: antinatalism
Bob's objective: contribute money to antinatalism
Bob's method: have children to inherit money that he can then contribute towards antinatalism
Mary's philosophy: antinatalism
Mary's objective: to have children
Mary's method: to contribute to antinatalism in order to offset her having children
Bob seems to stay true to his philosophy and him having children can be considered as a requirement to have enough money to give to Project Prevention.
Mary on the other hand wants out of antinatalism i.e. she's given up on it and if she contributes money to Project Prevention then she's doing it only out of guilt or to appease the god of antinatalism.
In short, Bob is justified in his actions because he's still an antinatalist and proving it in practice, somewhat. Mary, on the other hand, is no longer an antinatalist and giving to Project Prevention doesn't and can't make her an antinatalist anymore.
Their seems more focused on delaying pregnancy until the addiction issues have been addressed:
From their website:
"Our mission is to continue to reach out to addicts offering referrals to drug treatment for those interested and to get them on birth control until they can care for the children they conceive. We are lowering the number of children added to foster care, preventing the addicts from the guilt and pain they feel each time they give birth only to have their child taken away, and preventing suffering of innocent children because even those fortunate enough to be born with no medical or emotional problems after placed in foster care face often a lifetime of longing to feel loved and wanted."
Well, by “birth control” they really mean long term contraception. Anything from non-permanent contraception like IUDs all the way to sterilization. They used to pay more money to drug addicts to get sterilized rather than use non-permanent long term methods but they have gotten backlash for it and now they simply pay a fraction of the money up front if a drug addict chooses non-permanent methods but they have to verify that they are still using the method each month to get more of the money. So, it’s still more inconvenient for them to choose the non-permanent route. They are a tax exempt charity so I think this might be the reason they are trying to keep a clean image that doesn’t offend people too much. Though, I’m not sure if it’s possible to lose your tax exempt status for being too controversial of a charity. I would recommend reading their Wikipedia page or reading through their entire website to get a better understanding of what they do and what criticisms they normally get from the public.
In answer to 1, the god is Reason (moral imperatives and values are imperatives and values of Reason - it is just that Reason is a person), and I think we have grounds for believing she's benevolent because of the nature of her injunctions. For example, although our rational intuitions are not infallible, there are some whose accuracy we cannot reasonably doubt. Take the injunction to default believe in the accuracy of appearances. Any attempt to raise a doubt about that injunction of Reason would have to appeal to some other apparent injunctions of Reason, and so would be self-refuting. This rational intuition therefore cannot be debunked and so can safely be taken to be accurate.
The can know, then, that to some extent, the god wants us all to do what is in our individual best interests. That, it seems to me, implies that she is benevolent. For 'being benevolent' essentially involves wanting others to do what is in their best interests, other things being equal. And that's what that rational intuition implies about the god.
In answer to 2 - I am not sure, but it would seem not. For the god is benevolent (see above) and a benevolent being would not have created a world like this one and then forced innocent creatures to live in it. Most humans do that, of course - they're well aware of what the world is like, well aware that they themselves did not choose to live in it, yet think nothing of forcing innocent creatures to live in it, partly, no doubt, out of a desire to be admired and loved and worshipped - but I don't think a truly benevolent being would do that. Hence, I conclude that the god who exists, Reason, has not done so. But I am not sure, of course, it is just what seems to be implied by the evidence.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Because that's the default. If you think some rational intuitions count for more, then you have the burden of proof. Note, I too think some rational intuitions count for more - namely, those that are not exposed to debunking explanations - but I explained why I think that. Those rational intuitions for which a wholly evolutionary explanation seems sufficient to explain why we get them are rational intuitions that lack probative force. This is because we can fully explain why we get them without having to appeal to the actual existence of their accuracy conditions.
By contrast, you want to say - it would seem - that rational intuitions that lend themselves to systemisation by some kind of rule or principle carry more weight than those that do not. I simply see no good reason to think that's true. I can understand that we might want it to be true - it would be damn useful if it were true - but that isn't any kind of evidence that it is true (indeed, if anything it should make us even more wary of its truth, given our tendency to engage in wishful thinking).
Re the philosophical community - I agree that there is a general pressure to be conservative, though it should also be noted that one can do very well in the academic philosophical community by defending very ably extremely controversial views. So, being associated with extremely unpopular views is - in academic philosophy - as likely to be beneficial as harmful. Note too, that such pressure is only going to be acute for young wannabe academic philosophers, not for those with secure positions (which is going to be the majority, I'd have thought).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That's false. He was controversial from the get-go and his first book - Animal Liberation - was written when he had just completed his PhD and was not known or secure academically.
But anyway, the more general point is that whether one is defending a controversial or uncontroversial, the method is basically the same: appeal to rational intuitions. Singer does this as much as anyone (and I agree with a lot of what Singer says and have considerable admiration for him - and note that he thinks that many of our rational intuitions are false and can be debunked by evolutionary explanations of their origins).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Well, I certainly agree with that! I think very few agree with me here about anything. But anyway, there can be widespread intuitive agreement, yet differences of view about what the intuitions imply. For instance, in the debate over Gettier cases in Epistemology virtually no one has the intuition that the agent involved possesses knowledge, but there is disagreement over the correct analysis of why the agent fails to possess knowledge.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I do not see how that's an objection to moral particularism. My case does not assume that people are good at doing philosophy, only that they have fairly reliable faculties of rational intuition (just as I assume people have fairly reliable faculties of sight - and so if the vast bulk of people see a mugging, that's good evidence there was a mugging).
But that's surely not what your intuitions say? Even if it is, it is certainly not what most people's intuitions say. It is normally far, far worse to hit someone else than to hit oneself, other things being equal.
But you've judged that hitting yourself is worse because your theory says so. My whole point is that this is a topsy turvy way of doing moral philosophy. You're appealing to your theory rather than trying to respect intuitions. Yet any credibility your theory has will ultimately rest on how well it respects intuitions. So why not just cut to the chase and appeal to intuitions about each case, rather than appealing to theories?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
See, I just don't understand that. These arguments refute hedonistic theories:
1. if moral hedonism is true, then hitting myself in the face is as bad as hitting someone else in the face, other things being equal.
2. Hitting myself in the fact is not as bad as hitting someone else in the face, other things being equal
3. Therefore moral hedonism is false.
1 is a conceptual truth. I mean, how are you going to deny it? If you're a hedonist, you think happiness is morally valuable, yes? And equal amounts of happiness matter equally, yes? So its location doesn't matter - it doesn't matter whether it is your happiness or someone else's. Now, given those truths, it follows that 1 is true.
And 2 is overwhelmingly well supported by rational intuitions. You can deny the probative force of all rational intuitions if you want, but by definition you'll have no way of arguing that case. You can deny the probative force of these particular intuitions - but then I want a case for denying their probative value, a case that does not - not - appeal to the supposed truth of hedonism (for that would be circular and would therefore express a commitment to the theory, rather than following evidence).
So the theory is decisively refuted by that argument.
And then there's this argument (made by W.D.Ross):
1. If hedonism is true, then two worlds that contain equal amounts of happiness and pain are necessarily equally good
2. Two worlds that contain equal amounts of happiness and pain are not necessarily equally good
3. Therefore hedonism is false.
Once more, premise 1 is a conceptual truth. And premise 2 is supported by intuitions. For example, imagine that in one world all the happy people are virtuous and all the pain is experienced by vicious people, whereas in the other the reverse is true. Now clearly the two worlds are not equally good - if one were a god and one could create one of those worlds but not the other, then clearly a good god would create the first and not the second. If you deny this, it is only because that's what your theory commits you to - that is, your theory commits you to denying the probative force of those intuitions that conflict with it.
And there are lots of other refutations.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
That doesn't follow. Plus it is not at all clear what 'complex' and 'simple' mean in this context. For instance, is moral particularism complex or simple? In one sense it is simple, for it denies the truth of any fixed moral rule. But in another sense it is the most complex of all normative theories, for it allows that anything - anything - can, in principle, be morally relevant, which is precisely why rules - which, by their very nature deny this - should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Well, in that case, you must have very unusual arguments for the existence of god. Most arguments for god’s existence argue that she is needed to explain the existence of the humans and the universe. The 2 most popular arguments for god’s existence are the Kalam Cosmological Argument and The Fine Tuning Argument. The former of which argues that the universe is not infinite and thus it had to be caused by something to exist. The latter arguments argues that the probability of the universe being stable enough for life to exist is so astronomically small that it couldn’t have been an accident. I’m not convinced by either argument because I have a Time Dependence Argument which argues that it’s unlikely that a mind can be eternal. For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to try to tell you the argument because it’s pretty long unless you want me to tell you the argument. But, since you do not think that god created the universe, I’m curious what other good arguments could you make for god’s existence which doesn’t appeal to her being the creator of the universe?
Quoting Bartricks
I think the burden of proof is shared here because almost every philosopher thinks that some intuitions count for more than others(including yourself). We just have different theories about which intuitions count for more. You seem to think that if there is a debunking explanation for an intuition then the intuition becomes irrational. But, how do we determine which explanations for the intuition are debunking? I would like to suggest that there’s one more debunking explanation that you can add to your list of debunking explanations — and that would be that if an intuition contradicts itself with another intuition that most people hold then one of the intuitions must be false. I would argue that the intuition that the torture of Tom is unjustified contradicts itself with an epistemological intuition that most people hold. The epistemological intuition that most people hold is that all actions have deeper explanations for why they are wrong. Most people will try to give you a reason for why they think the torture of Tom is unjustified. They wouldn’t just say “well, it just seems wrong”. Given that most people reject your moral particularism, they would also reject the deeper intuitions of other people that they agree with on the case of Tom. I call these intuitions against the intuitions of other people “meta-intuitions”. So, suppose that a negative utilitarian and a Christian philosopher who gets his moral guidance from the Bible agree that the torture of Tom is unjustified but they give different explanations for why it is unjustified. In this case, they share the intuition that torture of Tom is unjustified but they also share the meta-intuition that the other philosopher has no good reason to agree with them that the torture of Tom is unjustified. So, the Negative Utilitarian might think that the Christian philosopher has no good reason to think that the torture of Tom is unjustified because The Christian God doesn’t exist and if he did then he would probably approve of Tom’s torture because he is a sadistic butcher(in the eyes of the negative utilitarian). The Christian philosopher might also think that the negative utilitarian has no reason to disapprove of Tom’s torture because he might think that without God everything would be morally permissible. So, given that most people share the meta-intuition that there’s no good reason for why so many people agree that the torture of Tom is unjustified, we must either reject the intuition that the torture of Tom is unjustified or we must reject the meta-intuition that most people have no reason to agree on this case given that they have vastly different reasons for doing so. I would choose to reject the first intuition because I have an intuition that meta-intuitions are more important than intuitions about cases of Applied Ethics.
Yes, I do. The argument is simple: there are prescriptions of Reason; only an agent can make a prescription; therefore Reason is an agent. And that agent is a god, because the agent who is Reason has the power and knowledge of Reason, which is more power and knowledge than anyone else.
So, a god definitely exists. Should we attribute the external world to her? Well, like I say, that doesn't seem reasonable given that we have reason to believe she's benevolent and that no benevolent person would create a place like this and then force innocent others to live in it.
My case is, of course, frustrating to most atheists as their standard responses aren't going to work against it!
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
But I have already agreed to that. Anyone who thinks that some intuitions count for more than others has the burden of proof. I have shouldered that burden, though. I have provided a case for thinking some - such as those for which a wholly evolutionary explanation is the most reasonable - lack evidential clout. But so far as I can tell, you have not shouldered the burden - you have not explained why the intiuitions you want to dismiss lack probative force.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
There's no rule for this - by asking me for formulate one you are begging the question. But as a rule of thumb, if the best explanation of why we get some impression or other does not make mention of that impression's accuracy conditions, then the impression lacks probative force. Why? Because we can explain why we get the impression X exists without having to posit X itself.
Let's say Greg has been taught repeatedly that there exists a holy pig who controls all aspects of reality and that this pig will sometimes visit people in dreams and give them messages. Greg subsequently sometimes dreams of a holy pig who gives him messages. Now, the best explanation - surely - of why Greg has started having dreams of a holy pig who is giving him messages is not that there is a holy pig who is using dreams to give Greg messages, but that Greg has been told repeatedly that this will happen and - as we already know - minds are suggestible things. That's the best explanation - and note, it is an explanation that makes no mention of an actual holy pig. Thus, Greg's dream impressions of a holy pig do not constitute good evidence of such a pig's existence.
Likewise, the best explanation of why so many of humans get the impression it is morally alright to procreate is the evolutionary one. That explanation does not have to make mention of the actual morality of procreation, and thus it is an explanation that discredits the impressions in question.
Fair enough, but are you willing to grant that those deeper intuitions matter as well? If you are willing to grant that all types of intuitions matter then it must be pointed out that moral particularism itself is counterintuitive to most people. Of course, most people simply do not know what moral particularism is but even among philosophers who know about the theory there is a small percentage who find it intuitive. So, what debunking explanation would you give for dismissing the intuitions of the majority of philosophers who find moral particularism counterintuitive? In addition, I think the majority of people also find your non-religious divine command theory to be counterintuitive as well. Most people seem to have an intuition that the existence of god or gods either implies that one of the religions is true or it implies that god is indifferent to human concerns. It’s counterintuitive for the vast majority of people to think that god cares about humanity and chose to give us prescriptions but he didn’t give us a religious text to allow us follow those prescriptions. Instead, he gave intuitions which are sometimes unreliable and for some reason there are some people who do not hold some of the most rational intuitions. If most people find this sort of divine command theory counterintuitive, then what is the debunking explanation for the intuitions of the vast majority of people?
That's question begging. They're not 'deeper' - I don't know what that means in this context. There are just rational intuitions. Some are suspect, some are not.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
How can it be when it says no more or less than to listen to your rational intuitions rather than the biddings of a theory? Note, moral particularism makes no claim about which particular acts are right or wrong - so how can it possibly conflict with anyone's intuitions?
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think you are misusing the term 'intuitive'.
Note too that my theory is entailed - logically entailed - by claims that are self evident to reason. If you think otherwise, then you need to tell me which claim is not self-evident to reason - that is, which one does not have intuitions representing it to be true?
For example, there are prescriptions of Reason - that's something our reason (a faculty) tells us. That is, it is intuitively clear that there are prescriptions of Reason.
It is also intuitively clear that for any prescription that exists, there must be a person who has issued it.
It is also intuitively clear that it follows from those two claims that all of the prescriptions of Reason must be the prescriptions of some person or the other.
It is equally intuitively clear that the prescriptions of Reason are not prescriptions that you or I are issuing.
And it is intuitively clear that the prescriptions of Reason have a single source.
It follows from these intuitively clear claims that the prescriptions of Reason are the prescriptions of a single person.
You can't say that that's counter-intuitive until or unless you locate something in the above that is counter-intuitive.
I don’t think that’s true. I had heard that studies in experimental philosophy had revealed that most people in East Asian countries think that the agent has knowledge in Gettier cases. In addition, as many as 25% of people in Western countries claim that the agent had knowledge. I’m using a lecture I heard on YouTube as the source. The lecture is called “Intuition in Philosophy 2” and it is given by a philosopher named Kane B.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, I don’t share your assumption that our intuitions are somewhat close to reliability to our eyesights . Unlike our intuitions, our eyesight doesn’t get influenced by the place and time period that we grew up in and almost nobody sees something that no one else sees. For example, if I had a time machine and brought people from 15th century Japan to look at a basketball, then the basketball would appear the same to them as it would to modern day humans. It would have the same color and the same shape and the stripes of the basketball would appear in the same location for every person with very few exceptions of those who are blind or color blind. But, the intuitions held by the Medieval Japanese would be wildly different from the intuitions held by modern day humans. The Medieval Japanese would likely hold intuitions that the Earth is flat and that killing a peasant to please an aristocrat is morally right. It’s worth pointing out that people in the past did not only hold different moral intuitions than modern day humans but they also held different intuitions about how the world works in general. They had the intuition that the Earth was flat. They also had intuitions that tragedies came about because of black magic performed by witches. They also had intuitions that we could cure diseases with leeches and blood letting and so on. Given that the vast majority of intuitions held throughout history turned out to be inaccurate, why should we expect most intuitions that are held today to be accurate? Of course, I would like to point out that arguing that most intuitions are inaccurate does not imply that we shouldn’t use intuitions in philosophy. We simply have no choice but to use intuitions and other unreliable tools like language in philosophy and this is why humans are so inadequate at doing philosophy. But, there might be a very small minority of humans that have exceptional intuitions and an exceptionally precise use of language. I’m not saying that I belong to that extremely elite minority. I have no way of determining if I do or do not belong in that exceptional minority. Though, I suspect that the odds of me being right about most things are slim to none. But, as a philosopher, I strive to be in that minority of people anyway. Given that the vast majority of people probably have really inaccurate intuitions, this opens up the door for those who hold very strange and wildly unusual intuitions to trust their intuitions as much as most normal people trust their intuitions. So, I think that people with crazy intuitions are just as likely to be right as those with normal intuitions.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Hard to argue with that. I view it as useful for forming our political opinions...but those only matter at rare moments (like voting). I think if I was NOT interested in philosophy, then I would have very little desire to study it...so I can understand (and appreciate) your desire to attach practical application.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
My friends and family have learned that, right or wrong, they better be ready for a long discussion on exactly why I behave the way I do in any situation. Personally, I find philosophy far more useful than automotive repair. Unless I get a job as a mechanic, being skilled at automotive repair might save me a few hundred dollars a year on maintenance...philosophy seems more important than that (even if the only practical purpose is a more informed vote and a bit of self confidence in one's world view).
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
This highlights what I may see as a problem for you (not really a problem, just a lack of confidence...maybe you are still young? - like in your 20s - young for this place, haha).
Shows like "The Voice", "American Idol", etc. have PROVED that the real talent in music is song writing. There are hundreds or thousands of talented, good looking musicians out there. However, very few can write an entertaining piece of music. So don't get too caught up in "practical" skills that you ignore a much more significant talent that you may have.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Yeah, sorry I was a bit quick there. I was just trying to label it as simply personal preference, but I get many factors can go into personal preference.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You have described several things that should be considered in the antinatalist discussion. I still think there is a huge overarching "personal preference" that will be the deciding factor for most people. For example, when analyzing the financial costs, someone who really wants kids will justify any cost while those who don't will view all costs as prohibitive. You are that rare (and admirable) person that does not have a nagging personal feeling and is just analyzing the factors involved. I think there is a lot of value in your video series. Both for the other people out there who attempt to make decisions purely based on objective analysis (I really wish there were a lot more people like this...I though I was close, but can certainly see my personal preferences interfering in this case), and just as an objective overview of the argument. It will be particularly useful for those who are new to the antinatalist discussion and may hear some of those factors for the first time (similar to that stanford.plato website).
And I don't think most people are capable of figuring out what Aristarchus and Eratosthenes did. They can be told the answer that those guys discovered...and if the rest of society accepts these things as obviously true then they have no reason to doubt. Isn't moral reasoning closer to discovering that the earth orbits the sun than it is to accepting that fact when told?
You can't just ask anyone these questions and cultural variation is to be expected to some extent. But among analytic philosophers the overwhelming consensus is that the agent does not have knowledge in such cases.
Now, there is far less reason to think that cultural factors are playing a huge rule among that constituency. Why? Because analytic philosophers are ruthless followers of reason, rather than culture. They know how to think. They know not to simply defer to whatever worldview is dominant in their culture.
You don't just ask anyone their opinion about the mole on your forearm. You ask medical professionals. And you don't just ask anyone's opinion about the epistemic status of the true beliefs of a victim of a Gettier case.
Anyway, all you're really doing is playing the extreme scepticism card. I appeal to intuitions - as must anyone who is arguing for anything at all - and you're now questioning the probative value of all intuitions. All of them.
Intuitions are not default inaccurate. They're default accurate. So, if you think some are inaccurate, you have the burden of proof.
Now, I have explained why we have good independent reason to think some - indeed, vast swathes - of our intuitions are inaccurate. My explanation did not appeal to the theory I am seeking to defend.
But by contrast, you have not provided me with any explanation of why those intuitions that axiological hedonism runs foul of should be discounted. Until or unless you can provide such an explanation - and the explanation needs not to appeal to the supposed truth of axiological hedonism, or to the supposedly fixed character of morality (for that would be circular) - you are simply dismissing intuitions on no justifiable grounds.
Again, it is no good then saying 'no intuitions are reliable' - for that's to give up the investigation into reality in favour of a comfortable dogmatic scepticism. And it is to do so arbitrarily - you are becoming a radical sceptic whenever you're confronted with evidence your theory is false.
This misses the point. I have already explained that our faculty of reason does indeed operate differently to our sight. It is a 'faculty' like our sight, but it doesn't operate in the same way. It is operates like a library catalogue.
And obviously it can be affected by cultural factors. I mean, that's another basis upon which I would discount lots of intuitions.
You asked me to say when an intuition is debunked. I explained that an intuition is debunked when the best explanation of why we have it does not have to presuppose the reality of its accuracy conditions.
So, let's say Boris has been brought up in culture A in which they believe women are inferior to men. Boris is not an analytic philosopher - he has no tradition of ruthlessly applying reason to his beliefs. Like most people, he only applies reason to them in a very limited way, and so is likely to simple accept whichever worldview is prevailing and interpret everything through its lense. And he has been told time and time and time again that women are inferior to men - a widespread belief in his male dominated culture - and he lives in a culture in which women are systematically treated 'as if' they are inferior.
Okay, well, would it be remotely surprising if Boris now has the intuition that women count for less than men? No, of course it wouldn't. We'd positively expect it. For we know that our faculties are corruptible. All of them are. In different ways, granted. But none of them are infallible - including our faculty of intuition.
So, what's the best explanation of why Boris has that intuition about women? Is it that women are actually morally inferior and Boris's faculty of reason is reliably informing him of this? No, of course not. The best explanation is that he is getting that intuition becusae he's been brainwashed. Does that explanation have to say anything about the actual moral status of women? No. So, Boris's intuition is undermined.
That's not a reliable source. It isn't peer reviewed. He could be anyone. It's really no different to using a post here as a source.
That’s perfectly fine :smile:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Fair enough, I suppose that it depends on your relationship to philosophy and your relationship to cars. Some people have a good relationship with philosophy and they find some useful application to it while others seem to use it somewhat trivially. The same goes for working on cars. Some people don’t even own a car and have no intention of becoming a mechanic. In some cases, both knowledge of philosophy and cars could even be harmful. This is usually as a result of stubbornness and arrogance though. There are some mechanics who think that they could fix a problem in their car or someone else’s car that they can’t actually fix and they end up making things worse for the car. Similarly, there are some philosophers who think they have nothing left to learn about philosophy because they happen to know some things about it already and they might end up holding dogmatic viewpoints that are even worse than the viewpoints of most non-philosophers.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree that I should focus more on songwriting than playing instruments in this day and age of superior computerized instrument recording technology which makes the technical aspects of producing a piece of music with a bunch of different instruments much easier. But, I don’t know if there are more good singers than songwriters out there. I actually know plenty of songwriters who wrote really great songs but they only got around 300 views on YouTube. So, there seems to be lots of great songwriters out there who are simply obscure and their content just gets buried by the YouTube algorithm and it’s impossible to even find their work unless you are already aware of their existence. Anyways, I actually think there could be a TV show called “The Songwriter” where unknown songwriters compete to write the best song. I kinda wonder why no one created such a show already.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree. I think the reasons that I had mentioned do not really suggest that the right answer to this question will be the same for everyone but I also tend to think that they might change some minds on both sides of the discussion. I think this sort of pros and cons analysis is most useful for the minority of people who do not hold a strong opinion on the matter and they might have a hard time deciding.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Thank you, I’m flattered by your compliments :blush: . I agree that there is a greater need to inform people about the various arguments rather than try to simply promote one’s own arguments and ignore arguments that you don’t find convincing. I also agree that Stanford.plato website is one of the best sources for getting a good understanding of a particular specialized topic in philosophy. I sometimes read stuff on there too.
Well, I think I need to clarify my opinion on this matter a bit more. First, it might be worse to hit another person if hitting another person also cause you to suffer. Normally, when you hit another person for no reason, you could expect to feel guilty or ashamed about doing so. I might reasonably think that it’s better for me to hit myself than it is to hit someone else because I would be causing the other person to suffering and I would also cause myself to suffer from the guilt caused by my action. In addition, I could get arrested and charged for assault. Being in jail could also cause me to suffer and give me an additional reason not to hit someone. Finally, I might also have the person that I hit decide to hit me back and that would be painful as well.
So, there are both selfish and selfless reasons for why I shouldn’t hit other people but there are only selfish reasons to not hit yourself unless someone else notices you hitting yourself and gets distressed. But, I assumed that you wanted me to isolate away all the selfish reasons for not hitting another person by imagining a case where I wouldn’t feel guilty about hitting them and I’m guaranteed to not be arrested or hit back. In that case, it would still be bad to hit the other person and cause them to suffer but if we imagine a circumstance where me and a stranger get kidnapped by a weird person who tells me that I will be severely tortured unless I either hit myself or hit the stranger, then the only reasons that I would have to choose to hit myself instead of the stranger is that it would cause the stranger suffering and cause me suffering by making me feel guilty. Now, suppose that the kidnapper offers me a magic pill that allows me to avoid feeling guilty about choosing to hit the stranger. In the case, the only reason I would have to not to choose to hit the stranger is that it might cause the stranger to suffer.
So, it might be better for me to hit the stranger in this highly unrealistic scenario. In any realistic scenario, it might be better to allow yourself to get hit since receiving a punch is less unpleasant than a lifetime of guilt that might result from hitting another person. It’s also worth noting that in the scenario with the kidnapper who forces me to hurt someone else or hurt myself, it’s intuitive to most people to view the action of hitting the innocent stranger as self-defense since it’s the only way that you can protect yourself from suffering. Given this, it is entirely possible that choosing to hit the stranger would be viewed as permissible by many people. Though, it’s also worth considering that I can’t realistically know if the kidnapper would not torture me if I hit someone. He might simply be lying and choose to torture me anyways. So, it’s a bit complicated and there are various things to consider.
I also interpreted that you might have wanted me to compare the actions of one agent who chooses to hit himself to another agent who chooses to hit someone else. In that case, it’s worth considering that the person who chooses to hit himself might be a masochist and enjoy the pain. Why else would he be hitting himself? If somebody enjoys their pain then I don’t consider their pain to be a form of suffering since I define suffering as “an unenjoyable experience”. So, in that case, that masochistic person might have a reason to hit themselves and doing so would increase their quality of life.
Yes, but there are many different types of hedonistic theories. Hedonistic Egoism states that only your own happiness matters. Agent Neutral Hedonistic Utilitarianism states that everyone’s happiness matters equally. My theory is somewhere between those 2 extremes. Unlike Hedonistic Egoism, my theory posits that the happiness of others has some positive value. Unlike Agent Neutral Hedonistic Utilitarianism, I don’t think I have as much reason to make a stranger happy as I do to make myself happy. So, premise 1 of your argument seems to only apply to Agent Neutral Hedonistic Utilitarianism which is a theory that I do not support. To use an analogy, you know that there are many different types of divine command theories. There are religious and non-religious divine command theories. Well, there is also many different types of Hedonism. There are literally hundreds of different theories that could be called hedonistic in some regard.
I believe in a very complicated and particular version of hedonism which is difficult for me to even name. My best attempt at naming it would be calling it “Slightly Egoistic Soft Negative Valance Hedonistic Act Consequentialism”. Every word of that name is philosophically controversial. There is a debate between egoistic consequentialist and agent neutral consequentialists about whether or not we should be completely selfish or almost completely selfless. I lean towards ethical egoism but I also think that the happiness of others has some value. This is why I say that I’m “Slightly egoistic”.
There’s also a debate among hedonists about whether or not pleasure has more positive value than suffering has negative value. Soft Positive Hedonists say that pleasure usually counts for more than suffering under most circumstances. Soft Negative Hedonists say that suffering usually counts for more than pleasure. I have also encountered some Hard Negative Hedonists that go as far as to say that pleasure has no positive value at all and we should only focus on minimizing suffering. I have never encountered somebody that argued for Hard Positive Hedonism and claimed suffering had no negative value and we should only try to maximize pleasure. This is part of the reason why I find Soft Negative Hedonism more plausible than Soft Positive Hedonism.
Then, there are also different definitions of pleasure and pain/suffering. My definition of pleasure defines it as any sort of positive valance and defines suffering as any sort of negative valance. Positive and negative valances are experiences that are experienced as being undeniably and unambiguously good and bad respectively. When you know that you are definitely feeling something good, you are experiencing pleasure. The same applies for suffering except it’s bad instead of good. A masochist might enjoy the experience of pain because pain is just a type of sensation. Suffering is the usual reaction to the sensation of pain but it’s not the only reaction that someone might have. The masochist might experience something that he sees as being definitely good while he is in pain and thus he would be experiencing pleasure instead of suffering. He might also experience an ambiguous experience while in pain which seems both good and bad. In that case, the ambiguous experience should be treated like a neutral experience.
Next, there’s also a debate between act consequentialism and rule consequentialism and trait consequentialism. Act consequentialism states that a person should always perform actions that produce the best consequences. Rule consequentialism states that a person should create and follow general life principles that are likely to lead to the best consequences. So, they don’t think that you should try to calculate the goodness or badness of an outcome. Rather, just follow basic principles that tend to lead to best outcomes. Then, there is trait consequentialism which states that someone should focus on developing their character traits in order to produce the best outcome. I think that Act Consequentialism is the most plausible theory. Then finally, there is also a dispute between Consequentialism and non-consequentialist moral theories. So, it’s a bit complicated and there’s lots of disputes.
Thanks for the suggestion! :smile:
Premise 1 is false for my version of hedonism because my theory does not compare the quality of worlds. Since my theory is egoistical to a decent extent, the goodness and badness of an outcome is agent dependent. This means that a particular outcome cannot be simply good from some sort of a neutral perspective. To give an example of what I mean. Imagine that Josh and Tyler made a bet for $100 and Josh won. The outcome of the bet was good for Josh but bad for Tyler. Now, let me give you a more complicated example which now involves causing suffering to others. Suppose that Steve hits Greg in the face. From the perspective of Steve, the outcome was bad because it made him feel guilty for hitting Greg and it also increased the suffering that Greg has to endure. The suffering involved with him feeling guilty counts for something extra from the perspective of Steve because it happens to be suffering that he has to endure. From the perspective of Greg, the guilt experienced by Steve counts for less because it is not suffering that he has to endure. The suffering that Greg felt from being punched in the face does count for more from his perspective though.
Well, there would be a lot of additional factors to analyze here. First, we need to figure out how creating each world would impact god’s happiness. That should be his first consideration. I’m assuming that you want me to imagine a scenario where both worlds would impact god’s happiness equally. Another consideration that should be made is the room for improvement for both worlds. It may be argued that the world where the wicked people get all the happiness must have a much better environment for producing happiness in order to be hedonistically equal to the world where the virtuous people have all the happiness. This is because pleasure and suffering act as incentives for good and bad behavior. In the world where the wicked get all the happiness, the world is very inefficient at maximizing its potential happiness. If it were to be become more efficient in the future by punishing bad behavior, then it might greatly surpass the world where the virtuous are happy. In that latter world, there is only room for things to get worse. That world has arranged their incentives perfectly to promote good behavior and yet it still can’t surpass the inefficient world. This would imply that god could choose to create a world where the environment is much easier to live in but for some reason he could only put people on there that will arrange their societal structure in a really messed up way.
Intuitively many people would not blame god for creating the wrong types of people in that world but rather blame the people in that world for their inability to create the right incentives for good behavior in that world and thus they are to blame for making that world hedonistically inefficient. The fact that god created a better environment for that world which allowed it to be equally happy to the efficient world which seems to have a worse environment is the more relevant factor when it comes to praising and blaming god’s actions of creating both worlds in the eyes of most people. Given that god must create a better environment for happiness in the inefficient world where bad behavior is rewarded, I think most people would intuit that god can only be held responsible for making sure that the environment of a world is pleasant. He cannot be held accountable for the incentives for good and bad behavior which are usually governed by human societies. This is because the famous Free Will Defense could be employed as a justification for why god created people who can’t run their societies properly. It was their choice to make the world hedonistically inefficient rather than god’s choice.
In addition, I’m not sure if we are imagining 2 worlds across their entire span of their existence or if we are imagining 2 worlds across a particular period of time. If you were thinking of the latter scenario, then most people would intuit that the fact that the inefficient world could only get more efficient across time and the efficient world could only get more inefficient across time would imply that we could expect that the inefficient world would be happier in the future. But, if you were imagining the former scenario where the 2 world’s are equally happy by the end of their existence, then I would actually disagree with the intuitions of most people on this. This is because if god knew that the level of happiness of both worlds would be equal in the end, he would have as much responsibility to create wise people that can make their societies efficient as he would to create a pleasant environment for life. I would say that creating the world where the virtuous are happy would be slightly better simply because there is some probability that I’m wrong about my desert eliminativism.
Desert eliminativism is the view that I hold that the concept of fairness and unfairness has no metaphysical reality behind it. That is to say, no one truly deserves anything or fails to deserve anything. An outcome can never be fair or unfair. This is highly counterintuitive to most people but I have a debunking explanation for those intuitions. The reason why most people think that people can deserve or fail to deserve things is because they had evolved to experience the emotions of anger and indignation. The emotion of indignation has provided an adaptive advantage in the past because it made it less likely that someone would get ripped off and manipulated in some manner. This is actually a point that Peter Singer made in his book called The Expanding Circle. Let me give you some examples where indignation is a useful emotion. In prehistoric times, people lived in small tribes of about 100 people and everyone knew everyone else pretty well. This meant that reputation was pretty important for your survival. If people who wanted to trade with you knew that you were the kind of person who would walk away from the trade if you got too much of a low offer, then they are less likely to try to low ball you. People who feel a greater sense of indignation are more likely to avoid getting scammed in environments where people are aware that you would be greatly offended by any attempt made to rip you off. This emotion of indignation could only come about if people believe that certain things are unfair and that they deserve to be treated a certain way.
Another example where indignation would be useful is in cases where somebody has wronged you. People who feel that they didn’t deserve to get wronged are more likely to feel anger and take revenge on the person who wronged them. In small tribal settings, people who have a reputation of taking revenge on people are less likely to be wronged in the first place. This is because people who try to wrong others try to target those who won’t fight back. So, it’s seems pretty likely that the concept of fairness is simply an evolutionary adaptation. It’s also worth noting that perceptions of fairness and unfairness can be highly subjective and dependent on your personality. For example, there have been some slaves in the past who were brutally mistreated by their masters but didn’t feel as though they deserved to not be mistreated. On the other hand, there are some spoiled brats who live with their parents at the age of 30 and they feel that it’s unfair for their parents to not buy them a new car for Christmas. I think the best explanation for why there is such a massive difference in intuitions about fairness across people is that those intuitions are really just emotions of anger and indignation and various people have different levels of those emotions.
But, if you are not convinced by my desert eliminativism, then there is actually another version of hedonism that was first introduced by Fred Feldman called “Desert Adjusted Hedonism”. This form of hedonism argues that the external fact about the deservedness of a particular episode of pleasure and suffering also contributes to its goodness or badness. So, an episode of pleasure that is given to a person who doesn’t deserve it would count for less than an episode of pleasure given to a person who deserves it. This is because those hedonists argue that importance of pleasure is not only about how it feels on the inside but also how it looks from the perspective of an outside observer who is witnessing the behaviors associated with experiencing the pleasure and suffering. Thus, it would entirely possible for some hedonists to say that the extent to which a pleasure matters is dependent on how much a person deserves the pleasure.
The way I was judging a theory to be simple or complex is based on how long it would take for someone to summarize the viewpoint. It takes me at least a good paragraph to summarize my viewpoint briefly. This could be contrasted with a simple theory like Classical Utilitarianisms which simply states that we should maximize the happiness of the world and it takes me just one sentence to summarize it. Though, it’s also worth noting that my intention for that previous comment was not to argue that simple theories should be dismissed just because they are simple but rather that convoluted theories that are counterintuitive to most people because of their complexity shouldn’t be dismissed just because they are convoluted.
By hypothesis the amounts of happiness and suffering are equal in both worlds. So it is no good saying 'ah, but it depends how much happiness and suffering there is'. It's equal. That does for the god too.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
The former. Again, they contain equal amounts of happiness and suffering.
The only difference - only difference - is in its distribution. Distribution, not quantity. It's no good pointing out that distributions can affect quantity - yes, often they can. But by definition, not in this case. In this case the distribution - not the quantity - is the only difference between the worlds.
It's also no good adjusting the theory to deal with the counterexample, for that misses the more general point. Which is this. If you have to adjust your theory to accommodate intuitions, why not just follow intuitions? That is, what's your theory adding?
You can make your hedonism as complex as you like. The complexity will be to accommodate intuitions. And that's what makes the theory pointless. Just consult your intuitions and the intuitions of others, and discount those intuitions that we have good independent reason to think are unlikely to be accurate (such as those for which a wholly evolutionary account would be the best explanation - which applies, of course, to those intuitions that say procreation is morally ok).
Sometimes pleasure matters, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes pain is bad, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes we ought to give someone what they deserve, sometimes we ought not. Sometimes it is more important to be a certain sort of person than it is to bring about a certain state of affairs. Sometimes the reverse is true. And on and on.
How do we figure out what the right thing to do is, then? Well, the method most people actually use: we consult our intuitions.
Of course, that should not be done unthinkingly either. There are - as I have explained - a lot of intuitions that we have good independent reason to doubt are accurate.
But that method - trusting our intuitions until or unless we have reason to doubt a particular deliverance of our intuition - is far superior to assuming (and that's all it is, just a brute assumption) that morality is fixed and patterned and then setting about trying to describe the pattern.
Ok, I need to ask you several clarification questions here. So, what exactly is a prescription of reason? Would you mind explaining that concept a bit more to me. Because it seems rather counterintuitive to me to think of reason as a command or a prescription. The 2nd question I want to ask is what exactly is “the power and knowledge” of reason. I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone saying that someone could have power and knowledge of reason.
Quoting Bartricks
Regarding the case of Tom, I had actually given you a debunking explanation that:
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
You responded to this debunking explanation by saying this:
Quoting Bartricks
So, in this comment above, you said that the debunking explanation has to be the “sole” explanation which means there cannot be any other explanation but now you just wrote another comment that is saying this:
Quoting Bartricks
So, now you seem to be implying that the debunking explanation doesn’t have to be the sole explanation but rather just the best explanation. In that case, why is my debunking explanation for intuitions that people hold about the case of Tom not the best explanation? You responded by saying this:
Quoting Bartricks
So, how exactly do you know that a benevolent god would issue a prescription that we shouldn’t torture Tom? Also, how do you know that benevolent god would issue a prescription against procreation? It’s entirely possible for a pro-natalist to respond to your debunking explanation for their intuitions by just saying this:
I don't think they're spoilt. Parents owe their children everything. I didn't choose to be born. My parents should pay for everything. They had me, they're responsible - if I need a car, they should buy me one. A house - one of them too. All my food. Everything. It's the least they can do. I owe them nothing; they owe me everything. Where's my mistake?
But I didn't say 'reason is a prescription'. Reason is the prescriber. Big difference.
I am a prescriber. I am not a prescription!
There are prescriptions of Reason. They're often called 'norms'.
For instance "if an argument is valid and its premises true, then believe its conclusion is true" is a prescription of Reason.
Laws of logic are prescriptions of Reason.
Epistemic norms are prescriptions of Reason.
Moral prescriptions are prescriptions of Reason.
Instrumental prescriptions are prescriptions of Reason.
They're subtly different, but they're all prescriptions.
A prescription, note, is some kind of a directive, a telling, an expressed favouring.
Again, the claim is not that Reason is a prescription. The claim is that there are prescriptions of Reason. And that isn't counter-intuitive - how could it be? For rational intuitions are themselves about such prescriptions.
I don't really understand your question. If Reason is a person, then by definition she has the power and knowledge of Reason.
What does that consist of? Well, precisely what it is involves is debatable. But what's not debatable is that it is considerable.
For instance, she - Reason - determines what's right and wrong. Now that's considerable power, yes?
Reason determines when a belief is justified (for 'being justified' just involves a belief being one that Reason approves of you holding). That's considerable power too.
I think - but this would need arguing - that Reason determines what's true. If that's correct, then she's omnipotent, for what more power could anyone have than having the power to determine what's true?
You're seeing inconsistency where there is none.
Starting with 'best' - by a 'best' explanation I mean the most reasonable one. I do not mean 'the only possible one'. There may be lots and lots of possible explanations for why X is the case, but they're not necessarily equally reasonable.
When I used the phrase 'sole explanation' I meant something quite different. A 'sole' explanation, as I was using the word (and I am not suggesting it was the best word to use - 'complete' may have been better), contrasts with one that is partial. So, let's say that the explanation of why the match is alight is that it was struck against a matchbox. That is a correct explanation, but it is not complete one. A fuller one would mention that I struck it against the matchbox in order to light a candle.
So, applied to the evolution of our intuitions, if a sole evolutionary explanation of an intuition is best, then that debunks the intuition. I explained as well why this is. It is because the best explanation makes no mention of the intuition's accuracy. But an evolutionary explanation could be correct, yet not complete. It could be more reasonable to think of the evolutionary explanation as partial.
For the record, I think all - all - of our moral intuitions have evolutionary explanations. But I think in many cases the evolutionary explanations in question, though correct, are more reasonably believed to be partial - they are like the 'the match is alight because it was struck against a matchbox' variety) - rather tan sole.
So, when we have good reason to believe that an evolutionary explanation of an intuition is a complete explanation of it, then we have good reason to believe that the intuition lacks probative force.
That doesn't mean that all evolutionary explanations debunk intuitions. It means 'some' do, namely those we have reason to believe are sole.
What you're doing, it seems to me, is thinking that if it is just possible to give an evolutionary explanation, then it is both the best and sole explanation. That's just false
We're going in circles. I have explained why it is reasonable to think the god is benevolent to some extent. And I explained why a benevolent person would not have created a world like this and made innocent people live in it. And I explained why a benevolent person would not want us to do the same - would not want us, who live in it, to force others to join us.
I'll do so again. First, why is it reasonable to believe the god is benevolent? (Note, don't change this to 'know' - I don't 'know' that the god is benevolent, I simply think it is more reasonable than not to believe her to be, given the evidence).
Here's why. This is slightly complex. First step: we know - know - that there are prescriptions of Reason enjoining us to believe what is true. How can we know that? Because we have intuitions representing us to believe what is true and if you try and make a case against the probative force of those intuitions you will have to presuppose that they 'do' have probative force. So, it is self-refuting to try and argue that it is true that there are no prescriptions of Reason enjoining us to believe what is true. The intuition that we have reason to believe what is true is not debunkable, then.
Step 2: we live in a world in which it is extremely useful to believe what is true. Yes, there are occasional exceptions. But they stand out because they are the exceptions. In the main, believing what is true - and applying one's reason to the world to figure out what is true - means you do better than those who do not. If you don't believe me, try it. Stop listening to your reason - stop trying to figure out what's true and just blunder about. I don't think you'd survive 24 hours. So, it is damn useful to believe what's true and to use one's reason to try and figure it out.
Now, given that we know that Reason is a person who is encouraging us to acquire true beliefs, and know as well that this is an extremely beneficial thing for us to do, we can now conclude that she's benevolent to some degree. For that seems to be a benevolent thing to do - to encourage us to believe what's true in a world in which believing it stops you suffering and dying.
I stress: that is not a proof. Maybe she's not benevolent and had some other reason to encourage us to acquire true beliefs about the world we are living in. But it is a reasonable conclusion to draw.
So, it is reasonable to believe Reason is benevolent.
Now, why do I think she doesn't want us to procreate? Numerous reasons, one being: because she's benevolent!
A thought experiment: imagine you wake up one morning to find that you are in a prison. You are surrounded by dangerous people. Some of your fellow inmates are nice, but a lot are not. And this seems like a generally dangerous place. Would a benevolent person bring children into such a place for some company? No, of course not. That's not a benevolent thing to do - it's a selfish thing to do. Would a benevolent person want you - you, the inmate - to do that selfish thing? No.
Benevolent people do not create worlds like this and then force innocent people to live in them. So she - Reason - hasn't.
Benevolent people, upon finding themselves living in worlds like this one, do not selfishly force others to live in it with them. Nor do they approve of others doing so. So Reason, being benevolent, does not approve of us procreating.
Well, I may have gone too far, haha. It seems safe to say that fixing cars is more practical than philosophy. But thanks for understanding my point that individually, what is "practical" can vary quite a bit.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
This is an unfortunate problem that we all need to worry about. I am quick to admit that I have a lot to learn, but I still get stuck in certain opinions that can almost become dogmatic. Those who "know it all" will be even more stuck.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
They (the obscure song writers) just need a pretty person with a relate-able back story to be the front person. Oh and don't forget a few million dollars for promotion.
Youtube creates a new avenue to music stardom, but there is hardly a worn path. I am sure there are more, but I can only name Justin Bieber as a musician who became famous because of youtube....oh and that girl who sang the terrible "It's Friday" song...I still think the only consistent path to music stardom is promotion by a record label...unless you have your own millions.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
I think it is because media does not sell dreams of growing up to write music for a celebrity. They sell dreams of singing in front of 50,000 screaming fans. Similarly, people dream of hitting a home run in the world series, not coaching the guy that hit the home run. I am not saying this is the way things should be, but they are. Remember the movie where the whole world forgets the Beatles music? Why doesn't the guy just write songs? He could have been super rich without all the hassles of celebrity status...but that is not what most people want.
Quoting TheHedoMinimalist
Agreed. And I did not mean to say I do not find this sort of exercise valuable. I definitely like to weigh all of my options similar to how you have described...I just don't think I could predict other people's decisions based on my decision process because they have different values...but that seems separate from your point that analyzing the pros and cons is useful, which must be true.
I agree, exposure takes a lot of money usually.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I agree, I think people are more attracted to the idea of being a performer who is more admired rather than some nerd behind a desk who writes songs for performers. It’s somewhat unfortunate though.
I entirely agree it is unfortunate. As much as people are moved by music, songwriting is a vital talent. I guess I tend to think the people behind the scenes in any industry deserve more of the credit (in the case of songwriting, the writer should get MOST of the credit).
I am more impressed by writing (generally), because for every Heart, Journey, Aretha Franklin, or Janis Joplin (people with powerful AND unique voices that define their songs), there are hundreds of Sinatra types (good voice, but any decent singer can make those songs sound good).