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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 4:18 am 
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My opinion has already been stated here (Murder is right only in defense of life), probably more articulately then I could state it, so I wont bother parroting someone.

However, Abunai, how is there no moral logic? I believe Iam a sentient being and therefore have the right to live unmolested, so by extension I believe anyone else who is a sentient being like me has the right to live unmolested. I see value in my existance, so people of equal existance must therefore have value. Seems perfectly logical to me. Iam, of course, assuming that all you people have the same brand of sentience (Which I define as "self awareness" and "capacity for moral awareness and sympathy",) as I do, and that you arnt just a bunch of robots or insects. No way I can know for sure if you are sentient like me, but I have no reason to suspect otherwise and I have to give you the benefit of the doubt.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:06 pm 
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To believe you have a right to live unmolested because of your status as a sentient being is slightly different than merely holding some value to your own life, and it was the latter that I was responding to (as I had not heard the full logic), admittedly.

There is possibly a leap from morals ot ethics in the belief that equal beings deserve just as much concern as one's own life.

However, I see no reason an amoral being would feel a need to place value on the lives of any other being (superior, inferior, or equal) other than itself. Indeed, I cannot think of any logical reason (aside from morals, ethics) that one should value anything not in their own self-interest. As you claim not to have morals (or rather, imply right and wrong do not objectively exist), I suppose that I simply do not understand.

Nor do I see how a capacity for moral awareness and sympathy enters into what is commonly known as sentience (people with antisocial disorder have less of a claim to sentience than those without it?).

Okay, end of thinking time for Abunai.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:25 pm 
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Abunai! wrote:
Indeed, I cannot think of any logical reason (aside from morals, ethics) that one should value anything not in their own self-interest.


But how is valuing one's own interest's any more logical than valuing the interests of others? I mean, sure, self-interest is often considered a more fundamental instinctual drive in humans, but how does that make acting in one's self-interest "rational" in a way acting in the interest of others is not?


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 Post subject: In the end, I suppose, it all comes down to what one considers "good." Which is a moral decision?
PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:46 pm 
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The entity I call "me" has concluded that its own pleasure and happiness is good. On the other hand, it hasn't been able to find any utility in others' happiness.

As it cannot experience other's happiness, etc., there is a lower likelihood, an uncertainty of that other's happiness being something it finds to be "good."

In other words, good point.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 6:52 pm 
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The more people think, the more they retreat into barbarianism... or at least they would, if they wern't too pussy to put their nhilistic theories into practice.


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PostPosted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 7:25 pm 
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Forevergrey wrote:
The more people think, the more they retreat into barbarianism... or at least they would, if they wern't too pussy to put their nhilistic theories into practice.


Are you implying you don't think? :-O shock!

[size=0]Another one of my theories, Grey, is that cooperation and ethics are in my own interest. It's in my own interest to keep order. Ethically, it makes perfect sense. Oh, wait, that's not my own theory; it's been around for centuries, and is popular enough that I'd get smacked if I tried to claim it as own.[/size]


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:28 am 
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Another one of my theories, Grey, is that cooperation and ethics are in my own interest. It's in my own interest to keep order. Ethically, it makes perfect sense. Oh, wait, that's not my own theory; it's been around for centuries, and is popular enough that I'd get smacked if I tried to claim it as own.


Hmmm... I dont like the idea of being a moral person solely for self interest, though.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:41 am 
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But if not self-interest, then what?

It should be abundantly clear to most of us at least that we are not each individually the center of the universe. However, we are each assuredly the center of our own reality. Try as I might, I cannot possibly be Cenwood, or ForeverGrey. I can at most be Hasufin-acting-as-Cenwood, or Hasufin-acting-as-ForeverGrey. Nonetheless, I am still limited to myself and my own perceptions. Intellectually I am aware that other very real individuals share this existence, but I cannot know their interests and so cannot act in their interests.

Since I woudl prefer to act in *someone's* best interests, I will act in my own. I do not think that this must, as Grey suggests, degenerate into barbarism. Ethical/moral/legal action is part of the social contract that allows a civilization to function. I believe that I gain more from being a part of civilization than I lose and so I choose to act to support it. That my actions are rooted in my own best interests does not change their results.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:17 am 
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You can act in the interests of multiple people, even if their interests directly contrast with your own, by being generous or selfless.

The argument that "We can never truely see through someones eyes" is solid, but not when you use it to justify complete self-obsorbtion. I can put myself in someones place, and either requerst clarification and see first hand what they want or make an educated guess. Understanding of this nature is the root of all human goodness.

Honestly, I believe that viewing all generosity or equality purely as things that are only done to benefit yourself in the long run, isnt quite the answer. I was hoping we'd moved out of the self-obsessed, "every man for himself" stage of development.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:36 am 
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Most forms of group activity are simply a matter of complex application of self-interest. In many cases, being a psrt of a group confers such benefits that it is beneficial to act in the good of the group even at individual expense, because overall the individual still has net benefit. In extreme cases where the individual is sacrificed, one might consider that the individual ego had been submersed in that of the group.

Alternatively, consider intangible benefits. Humans are complex animals: we do not solely base our values on feeding and fucking. The most notable instances of supposedly selfless behaviour come from those whose were acting in the expectation of reward in the afterlife; on a less extreme scale selfless actions may contribute to self-esteem or ranking within a group.

Further, I believe you are being extraneously judgmental about cultural development: to my observation, there is not truly "more" and "less" evolved. There is more and less complex, to be sure, but I prefer the simple metric of success in biological terms: sustainment and growth. There are successful cultures and unsuccessful cultures. "Good" and "Bad" are arbitrary, or at least too subjective to be used as objective measures.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:43 am 
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I think we need to define "self-interest". After all, if "self-interest" means "the things that I desire for myself", then I always by definition act in self-interest. Hell, even those with a purely altruistic moral system act in their self-interest; it just so happens that they believe that their happiness (defined in the broadest sense, as opposed to pleasure) or fulfillment can be best achieved by serving others.

If, on the other hand, "self-interest" means those desires I have for myself that are directly connected to preserving my life and my health, I don't see how these desires are any more logical than the desires I have for the preservation of others.

It simply doesn't make sense to say that wanting one thing is more or less logical than wanting another. Sure, one can show that wanting one particular thing may conflict with a more fundamental want in the long run (i.e. my desire for heroin may conflict with my more fundamental desire for life and health), but when it comes to basic, foundational drives, there's no way to justify one as "better" than another.

In the end, morality cannot be rational; rather, morality is fundamentally based upon emotion. That's why debates about morality (such as this one) are so thoroughly idiotic, except as a means to prove that one moral system cannot be proven "better" than another. (And that's exactly the reason I started this debate in the first place, BTW.)

Where does that leave us? Well, I'll explain how my personal "morality" (if one could even call it that) works. I have certain desires; I try to fulfill those desires as much as possible. Period. Simple as that. The desires themselves are a given; they simply cannot be questioned. Some of those desires involve things that might affect other people, and some do not.

For example, let's say I was alive during World War II. Seeing what Hitler was doing, I would probably have a desire to stop him, so I would act on it through whatever means I would judge best. Given my goal of stopping Hitler in a way that doesn't also violate more fundamental desires (e.g. that the human race not be destroyed), there are ways of going about achieving this goal that would be more effective than other ways. I can question whether a particular method will actually achieve the desired results. What I cannot question, however, is whether I should desire a different result than the one I do.

I generally take a somewhat Taoist attitude toward morality; i.e. that the abstract concept of morality gets in the way of being morall.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:47 am 
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Cenwood wrote:
Honestly, I believe that viewing all generosity or equality purely as things that are only done to benefit yourself in the long run, isnt quite the answer. I was hoping we'd moved out of the self-obsessed, "every man for himself" stage of development.


everything is self interest, be it self interest in helping others or self interest in abstract higher ideals (religion, social/political concepts etc) all are done to aid personal survival, being above all social animals our survival instincts make us cooperate witheach other in order to get by, 'morality' is the set of rules that peopel go by in order to work within the current social framework, anyone who claims to be doing something 100% not out of self interest is ignoring the clear facts

any example of an instinctive/sentient action can be clearly shown to made out of self interest, to "not like to think" of this as the basis for morality is a purely selfish action for instance, as it makes it easy to not have to examine your naturally selfish motives and lets you believe you're a "good" person, surely self delusion is the ultimate self centered act?

[edit] frikkin' Z and Has get in and post before me... [/edit]

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 3:49 pm 
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Zarathustra wrote:
In the end, morality cannot be rational; rather, morality is fundamentally based upon emotion. That's why debates about morality (such as this one) are so thoroughly idiotic, except as a means to prove that one moral system cannot be proven "better" than another. (And that's exactly the reason I started this debate in the first place, BTW.)


What is emotion, then? Isn't emotion simply an evolved response to certain triggers? You are correct, emotions - what we feel - guide our actions, but what defines those emotions? We are all born with the emotion of humor, for example; every culture in the world interprets the bared teeth and rhythmic noise of laughing as a sign that the individual is responding to something that makes them happy. This is not a learned response to happy stimuli, or the signals would not be universal; that response is encoded in our genes. Other emotions act the same way - life-threatening situations cause fear which in turn causes adrenaline to be released, increasing the likelihood that the threatening situation can be escaped or averted.
What I'm trying to say is that our emotions are nothing more than the middleman of tens of thousands of years of evolution. Stimulus causes emotion causes appropriate response (not in all cases of stimuli, but in cases when the subconcious responses were not appropriate (hand in fire)).
Death causes hatred causes revenge, removal of the object that caused the death, improving survivability for all potentially affected by that object (whether that object be a faulty bridge, a lion, or another human).
The need for successfully raised young causes love causes an attachment to the mate, yielding emotionally balanced and trained offspring.
Sadness indicates a need for support from the rest of the community.
In my opinion, our emotions can be distilled down into responses that have yielded the best survivability and are thus rational in nature. Emotional responses that were inappropriate - such as a lack of revenge following wrongful death - yielded communities that were unable to compete with faster-growing communities with emotions that yielded better survivability.
Thus the root causes of emotions are rational needs. Morals based on emotions in conjunction with evolved logic therefore are rational.

(I would define "better", when applied to morals, as meaning "yielding a higher rate of survival and growth." I find the idea that morals which cause a society to extinguish itself are just as valid to be remarkably silly.)

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 7:20 pm 
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Keles wrote:
Thus the root causes of emotions are rational needs.


How is the need for survival "rational"? No need can be "rational", whether created by evolutionary conditioning or not. I can make up reasons for my desires all I want, they are still my desires.

The thing you don't seem to understand is that "science", in the broadest sense of the word (i.e. empirically-based rationality), is only descriptive, not prescriptive. We can can use reason to deduce how things are, but not to deduce how things should be, because should-ness is fundamentally arational (but not irrational).

Let's say I harbor desires that are evolutionarily counter-productive. How does this make them irrational? Evolution is a matter of fact. Those that do not act in such a way as to further their genetic lineage won't further their genetic lineage. This doesn't mean that they're any "better" or "worse" than those who do.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 11:12 pm 
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Survival is a basic trait of living creatures - those that don't survive are, unsurprisingly, not living.
Hence it follows logically that living creatures will tend to make choices that enhance their chances of living. For the most part I would resist calling this "rational" because it implies a decision-making process that simply does not occur at the individual level.

A desire, however, can be rational or irrational. That is, it can be the result of a logical thought process - i.e., "I like sweet things. Candy is sweet. I desire candy." Please note that the original like, for sweet thigns, is not necessarily rational as it is in all likleihood simply the result of evolution, and that part could be validly called arational. The resultant desire, however, is rational.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 11:19 pm 
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Hasufin wrote:
A desire, however, can be rational or irrational. That is, it can be the result of a logical thought process - i.e., "I like sweet things. Candy is sweet. I desire candy." Please note that the original like, for sweet thigns, is not necessarily rational as it is in all likleihood simply the result of evolution, and that part could be validly called arational. The resultant desire, however, is rational.


When I use the term "desire", I'm referring to the initial, arational, motivation. So, in this case, the desire is for sweetness, and the means to this desire is candy.

Also, never underestimate the power culture has alongside evolution in creating our desires.


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 11:29 pm 
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I seem to be confused as to your definition of the word "rational." It appears by what you are saying is that no action can ever be considered rational - so where do we get a basis to define rational from?

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 12:34 am 
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I cheated - I punched up old dictionary.com and l felt the 3rd definition the most relevant:
Quote:
Consistent with or based on reason; logical

In my earlier example, initial motivation is arational (or can be - let us not forget the endless layers of coplexity that can be created). It is also, however, amorphous. You may be hungry, or horny, or tired... but the biology does not itself suggest a solution. To develop a solution and thus a an action requires thought. Once thought occurs we have the option for rational or irrational. Therefore the only part that is arational is the intial motivation.

Further, it is possible to apply reason to motivations. My body gives me the signals indicating that I am hungry; I feel hungry. However, I know perfectly well that I just ate and it will take a while for the food to register. Therefore I opt to resist the biological urges and not overeat. I have applied reason and developed a rational set of desires.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 12:35 pm 
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Hasufin wrote:
Further, it is possible to apply reason to motivations. My body gives me the signals indicating that I am hungry; I feel hungry. However, I know perfectly well that I just ate and it will take a while for the food to register. Therefore I opt to resist the biological urges and not overeat. I have applied reason and developed a rational set of desires.


Not really. All you've done is use reason to show that eating more food at that moment would not be the best way to achieve your overall complex of desires, which include not being sick (since sickness=pain), for example. It's still a matter of logic determining the best way to fulfill the desires that are given. Your desire for health is a greater desire than your desire for food; therefore, if you're hungry after you've just eaten, you can use reason to determine that pursuing this lesser desire would conflict with your more fundamental one. The fundamental desires themselves(*1), as well as their relative importance in comparison to each other, exist before any rational calculation and are fundamentally arational(*2). Reason simply determines the best way to fulfill one particular desire in a way that does not conflict with a more important one.

Keles wrote:
I seem to be confused as to your definition of the word "rational." It appears by what you are saying is that no action can ever be considered rational - so where do we get a basis to define rational from?


Rationality is a method of organization. It takes a certain initial set of relations and, using the rules of logic (the principle of noncontradiction, the law of the excluded middle, etc.) elaborates upon these initial relationships. In the context of geometry and mathematics, these initial relationships are the geometric/mathematical postulates; in the context of "ethics", they are our fundamental drives or desires; in the context of science, they are the information gained via our sensory perception. Underlying all these assumptions are the most fundamental assumptions, the philosophical assumptions, without which thought in general, and philosophical thought in particular (the most fundamental, bare-bones form of thought) could not exist. These are things like the continuity of time and space, the existence of substance (in the broadest sense of the term), etc.

In other words, reason is not a self-sufficient entity. Rationality(*3) depends fundamentally on the arational, in the form of assumptions.


(*1) Keep in mind that these desires need not be predominantly instinctual. Culturally-created desires are just as powerful, if not more so.

(*2)Granted, these desires as well as their positions relative to each other, can change, but when this happens it's not due to reason; rather, it's due to experience and emotion.

(*3) And by extension irrationality, since it can only be defined in opposition to rationality.


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 Post subject: Why must every debate devolve into a discussion of the incompleteness theorem?
PostPosted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 4:20 pm 
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The trick with evolution is that while it is certainly not absolute, it is both stochastic and contextual. Behaviors that yield a certain probability of genetic propagation in one situation may yield a different (perhaps lower, perhaps higher) probability in another situation.

Zarathustra wrote:
The thing you don't seem to understand is that "science", in the broadest sense of the word (i.e. empirically-based rationality), is only descriptive, not prescriptive. We can can use reason to deduce how things are, but not to deduce how things should be, because should-ness is fundamentally arational (but not irrational).

Let's say I harbor desires that are evolutionarily counter-productive. How does this make them irrational? Evolution is a matter of fact. Those that do not act in such a way as to further their genetic lineage won't further their genetic lineage. This doesn't mean that they're any "better" or "worse" than those who do.

Also, I really don't see how you can categorize all value judgments on the grounds that they are arational, yet refuse to define the quantity (should-ness) that is being measured.


Let me try to be clear. The initial propositions (base desires) are taken as givens. If they are consistent, any derivations from them will be consistent and the system will be rational. If they are inconsistent, derivations from the initial propositions may possibly be inconsistent and the system will be irrational.

In our case, our desires often conflict to varying degrees. We cannot simultaneously fulfill all of our desires, so we trade off degrees fulfillment of one desire for another[1]. (Yes, I know this has been said above).

Now depending upon how much weight (importance) we attach to each desire, some traidoffs may achieve a greater total fulfillment than others. The system that achieves the maximum possible fulfillment will be the most consistent one[2] possible <i>given the starting assumptions.</i>

So given the same initial set of desires, relative importances and situational context, some moral systems ARE better[3] than others.


[1.] If you're familiar with the math, picture a constrained optimization problem.
Otherwise don't worry about it. You get the idea anyway.

[2.] Possibly not unique.

[3.] When viewed from within the framework of that system.

EDIT: A much less wordy way to put this would be to say: Under identical situations, different (moral, evolutionary) strategies to achieve the same goals can be compared in terms of how well they meet these goals. In this context, we CAN say that one system is better than another.

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