Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

Post by prof »

Greetings creativesoul

Yes, you are correct, cs, a "frame-of-reference" is a Systemic Value, an S-value.

As to your first question, see Ch. 5 at this link:
http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
The title of that chapter is "What is Science?"

Yes, while the theory of a science is usually valued systemically, when that theory is applied to the world or the universe it is often valued Intrinsically, which as explained in Basic Ethics, is a valuation equivalent to the power of the continuum. S-value is merely finite, but elastic. See pp. 2-11 in the above link. It tells how the dimensions are appropriately measured. Yes, life is indeed "larger than logic." There is no contradiction. The polymath creative genius, Robert Hartman, the founder of Value Science, employed systems to put systems in their place ...in terms of the priority we should give them in life. Fractional value, the value of transpositions (confused combinations) is even lower than S-value. All this is explained in the early pages of ETHICS; A College Course.

See also pp. 5-8 here: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf
for another presentation outlining the dimensions of value - which form a spectrum analogous to the electromagnetic spectrum. The 2014 explanation is more compact, and assumes earlier study, such as that in the college course manual. The Kindle (look inside for free) pages of the 2017 book gives similar details about these dimensions of value.

Your second inquiry is about how the science defines "Morality." In the link offered in the previous paragraph, a link to Basic Ethics: a systematic approach, see pp. 29-35 for a thorough treatment of this issue. The symbolic logic symbols - not given there - are x epsilon X, which signify the class-membership relation of a self to a Self. It is all explicated clearly in the passage to which we refer: Pages 29-35 in the booklet Basic Ethics.

I understand that Philosophers don't read books any more.....?! due to the influence of the internet-shaped attention spans; but a little bit of study is necessary if one is to comprehend the latest in paradigm shifts and concept breakthroughs. Consider it as "Breaking news!!" :wink:
prof
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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:) Does anyone here care about the advancement of Ethics, either as

I) a body of knowledge; or

II) as a discipline

or both :?:

and if you do, what are you doing about it :!: :?:
:) 8)

As a service, I shall now announce for those who are interested [-and if you read the book cited in the o.p. you will know why this is relevant-] the development ofa new Ethical Technology, which uses earth-friendly materials for its anode and for its electrolyte, and it is solid-state, with all the advantages that implies: see
https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/good ... technology

Thus the widespread introduction of electric cars can now become a reality.

Connecting the dots......: less air pollution means less illness, less brain-damage, means less stupid conduct, viz., less-immoral conduct, means less chaos, friction and/or needless conflict, means possibly more harmony in this world.

And more harmonious human relations brings us closer to living in an ethical world.
This is Applied Ethics at its best.

.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Still talking to yourself Prof?
Walker
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

Post by Walker »

What distinguishes morality from opinion?
creativesoul
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

Post by creativesoul »

prof wrote:Greetings creativesoul

Yes, you are correct, cs, a "frame-of-reference" is a Systemic Value, an S-value.

As to your first question, see Ch. 5 at this link:
http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
The title of that chapter is "What is Science?"

Yes, while the theory of a science is usually valued systemically, when that theory is applied to the world or the universe it is often valued Intrinsically, which as explained in Basic Ethics, is a valuation equivalent to the power of the continuum. S-value is merely finite, but elastic. See pp. 2-11 in the above link. It tells how the dimensions are appropriately measured. Yes, life is indeed "larger than logic." There is no contradiction. The polymath creative genius, Robert Hartman, the founder of Value Science, employed systems to put systems in their place ...in terms of the priority we should give them in life. Fractional value, the value of transpositions (confused combinations) is even lower than S-value. All this is explained in the early pages of ETHICS; A College Course.

See also pp. 5-8 here: http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf
for another presentation outlining the dimensions of value - which form a spectrum analogous to the electromagnetic spectrum. The 2014 explanation is more compact, and assumes earlier study, such as that in the college course manual. The Kindle (look inside for free) pages of the 2017 book gives similar details about these dimensions of value...
Nice post.

There's much to be said here. I read up to the title page of the second chapter. Prior to continuing, some clarification seems necessary.

First, I expressed(perhaps poorly) the following concern:Applying this framework to the fact of their being but one means(language) of explaining unorganized data, we arrive at the unavoidable conclusion that something with the lowest of three basic value dimensions best explains unorganized data. That concern bears repeating, but this time I'll say it just a bit differently:According this framework, the lowest of three basic value dimensions is being attributed to systems-in-general when they are the only means possible to explain otherwise unorganized data.

I sit here and ask myself:How can it be the case(what linguistic framework does it make sense to say) that the sole means of explaining raw data has the lowest value? When/where there is no plurality, there can be no comparative value assessment. When there can be no comparison there is no such thing as higher and/or lower.

Thus, it makes no sense to say that systems-in-general have "the lowest possible value dimension". That borders on incoherency when the aim is to persuade others to place higher value upon ethics by virtue of arguing how it is a science.<-----That sentence expresses the thought/belief which spawned the original question regarding the taxonomy(categorizing things in such a way that language has the lowest value when the very framework you're putting to use is itself a construct thereof). Again, I feel compelled to ask...

Are you ok with that?

It seems to me the taxonomy, particularly regarding the triad of value dimensions put forth, is incapable of properly categorizing(evaluating) language.




Your second inquiry is about how the science defines "Morality." In the link offered in the previous paragraph, a link to Basic Ethics: a systematic approach, see pp. 29-35 for a thorough treatment of this issue. The symbolic logic symbols - not given there - are x epsilon X, which signify the class-membership relation of a self to a Self. It is all explicated clearly in the passage to which we refer: Pages 29-35 in the booklet Basic Ethics.

I understand that Philosophers don't read books any more.....?! due to the influence of the internet-shaped attention spans; but a little bit of study is necessary if one is to comprehend the latest in paradigm shifts and concept breakthroughs. Consider it as "Breaking news!!" :wink:
I'm in the process of reading both of these links. This philosopher reads books all the time.

:wink:
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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Walker wrote:What distinguishes morality from opinion?
Morality is an opinion about how people ought to treat each other.
prof
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

Post by prof »

creativesoul wrote:

I sit here and ask myself:How can it be the case(what linguistic framework does it make sense to say) that the sole means of explaining raw data has the lowest value?

Are you ok with that?
:wink:
I'm o.k. with that, and as you read further you will understand why. You will be able to answer your own questions and concerns.

Scientists usually I-value their theories, see beauty in their models, and (due to their personal tastes) select the area in which they choose to do research ...all of which are instances of Intrinsic valuation. [I-value.] They compose the value of the mere mental conceptions by Intrinsically-valuing them: the value-calculus symbol for this is: S-to-the-I-power ....a case of exponentiation. This also illustrates value composition. All this will become quite clear as you peruse with care the documents cited. I admire your open-mindedness in giving the science a chance, and admire your healthy curiosity in wanting to learn more.
And, as a bonus, by the time you complete the BASIC ETHICS paper, reading carefully all the while, and re-reading a passage if necessary, you will see the convergence with your views in Political Philosophy, and a confirmation of them. :!: 8)

The intellectual values are S-values; the socio-economic, worldly values are E-values; and emphasis, emotion, feelings, inspiration, enthusiasm, satori, empathy etc. are I-values.

And,by the Hartman/Katz definition, Ethics is the result of applying I-value to life :!: As you no doubt have found out by no - since you are reading the documents - Ethics is an Intrinsic-value perspective. ...with all that that suggests and implies.

So one may thus conclude that I do not disagree with Hobbes' characterization of Ethics as the intersection of feelings with actual realities. Though, as you will notice, the scientists differ with Hobbes on the meaning of the term "morality." They give it a special meaning specific to the science. This is the same as happens with the term "force" in Physics. When the layperson to natural science uses the word, he or shes likely is not thinking of the intension "Mass times acceleration" but the Physicist is alluding to that definition. And a "group" in the science of Mathematics is not a "group" in ordinary common usage. The latter is used in the street more in the sociological sense of a bunch of people. "

Morality" to the Ethicist is a technical term which connotes authenticity as well as the opposite of hypocrisy and phoneyness. It denotes that you practice what you preach: your observable self corresponds to your ideal self-image, as you gain in ethical insight; that is to say, your behavior (conduct) corresponds to your continuously-improving self-identity.

Yes, Hobbes, everything written by anyone in English begs questions; and every definition in every tongue is circular and will have you chasing rhrough the dictionary. The exception to this is technical language, symbols, formulas ...the language of science. Philosophical discussion is vague and ambiguous. When the concepts are precise we are in the realm of science.

Happy reading!!!

Let's hear some feedback when you are all done with checking out the two references to which links were given.
Londoner
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote: When the concepts are precise we are in the realm of science.
They are precise because they are restricted to that realm. When we stray into another realm, like ethics, they lose that precision.
prof
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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So far, yes, Londoner, most ethical concepts are vague.

As ambiguous concepts are sharpened up they get ready to be part of science; as they become precise, and interrelated, it is not much of a stretch to say that a new science has come into existence. I would respectfully disagree that restriction is involved. Review the history of how the known sciences came into being; they gradually evolved from Philosophy.

Philosophy is the "Mother of the sciences." Philosophy of Mind became the Science of Psychology; Astrology became Astronomy and Cosmology; Natural Philosophy became Physics; the philosophical ideas named "Politics" became Political Science. Cultural philosophy became Anthropology which later became part of the discipline Sociology. The philosophy of curing became the Science of Medicine today with its various branches: Anatomy; Physiology; Ophthalmology; Neurology; etc. So we see that before there was science there was philosophy as its precursor. The sciences were generated by Philosophy. Now it is Ethics turn to begin to emerge from Moral Philosophy - which latter will still have plenty to do.

Ethics was held back as long as its major concern was "action." Instead it will advance when its orientation is "the moral health of the individual" or "the person of good character." The challenge for education, life-coaching, and therapy is for each of us to become, and to be, an ethical role model ...to set the example of a considerate, empathic human being, one who adds value in a relationship or an interaction with others.
.
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote:So far, yes, Londoner, most ethical concepts are vague.

As ambiguous concepts are sharpened up they get ready to be part of science; as they become precise, and interrelated, it is not much of a stretch to say that a new science has come into existence. I would respectfully disagree that restriction is involved. Review the history of how the known sciences came into being; they gradually evolved from Philosophy.
As did maths, and geometry and logic. And the way they emerged from general thought is through a process of refinement. The meaning of concepts in Euclidean geometry can be precise because they only apply in the realm of two dimensions. The meaning of concepts within logic can be precise because they only deal with relationships, not the empirical. And the same is true for science; science only deals with the quantifiable, with shared empirical experience. And so on. If we try to take a concept from one of these areas and use it in another then it will lose its meaning.

For example, Euclidean geometry does not work with three dimensional objects, logic does not tell us about the empirical and science does not seek to account for subjective experiences. My purely personal feelings about the world certainly exist, but they are not part of science. To use a term which has a meaning within one field in a different field is to make what is described as a 'category mistake'.
Ethics was held back as long as its major concern was "action." Instead it will advance when its orientation is "the moral health of the individual" or "the person of good character." The challenge for education, life-coaching, and therapy is for each of us to become, and to be, an ethical role model ...to set the example of a considerate, empathic human being, one who adds value in a relationship or an interaction with others.
The trouble is that these notions are all circular. Who is a 'considerate, empathic human being'? Answer: Those with moral health. How do we know they have 'moral health'? Answer: They are a 'person of good character'. How do we tell a 'person of good character'? Answer: They are a ''considerate, empathic human being'...If this is ethics, then we could find complete moral guidance in a thesaurus!

The point about "action" is that it involves choice. When we choose, we have to relate values to actions. We can no longer just say we are in a general way 'empathetic', we have to say why we are more empathetic to X than to Y, which means linking empathy to some perceived quality in X and Y. At which point ethical terms start to have a meaning.

But the quality we have identified in X or Y is simply what it is is. It is not moral in itself. The morality only arises because we, the actor, have decided to identify that quality with morality. When we do that, we are not doing science.
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote:So far, yes, Londoner, most ethical concepts are vague.
.
So far - over thousands of years. Yeah!!
Maybe there is a reason for that?
prof
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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Londoner wrote:
prof wrote: As ambiguous concepts are sharpened up they get ready to be part of science; as they become precise, and interrelated...
Ethics was held back as long as its major concern was "action." Instead it will advance when its orientation is "the moral health of the individual" or "the person of good character." The challenge for education, life-coaching, and therapy is for each of us to become, and to be, an ethical role model ...to set the example of a considerate, empathic human being, one who adds value in a relationship or an interaction with others.
The trouble is that these notions are all circular. Who is a 'considerate, empathic human being'? ...
It is a matter of degree, but some individuals are obviously more considerate and empathic than others. A consensus of their neighbors and peers would judge this to be so.

Anything said in a native tongue [in our case, in English] is circular - in that to define the words one can chase all around a dictionary, defining the words in the definition. The scientific theory will employ logical symbols, such as I did when I expressed "morality" as x∈X.

"It certainly would help if we defined our terms so as to improve communication.

What I mean by "science" -- and I am perhaps using the word in a Continental sense -- is this: The scientists note a collection of data lacking order - just a jumble of data. They devise a frame-of-reference capable of making sense of that data; and bridge laws (=standards of interpretation).

The frame-of-reference when applied to the unordered data explains and orders the data [and if a time-factor is introduced, predicts what will, or is likely to, occur.] Then, when you have these three components and you employ scientific methods you have a science.

For ethics, Moral Psychology [also know as the Science of the Moral Sense] supplies the experimental aspects of it; it can test the hypotheses which the Science of Ethics produces.

Ethical data are good deeds, incidents of kindness; harmonious cooperation toward a constructive end-in-view; and examples of corruption, violence, abuse, etc.

The problem, as I see it, is that the critics here are not familiar with the Science of Ethics - but that doesn't stop them from finding fault with something they haven't even read. E.g., they claim the science has "rules for living" - which it doesn't. They protest that it imposes morals on people - which it doesn't.

The word "atom" was vague for nineteen centuries before Planck, Bohr, de Broglie, and J.J. Thompson tightened it up. Then it wasn't. The same can occur with the word "morality" and other words of ethics as a community of workers in the field use the word as a term in their system; and as their system is effective in explaining and ordering the chaos.

Let us avoid rigidity and dogmatism, and let's take advantage of the best ideas that come along.
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote: It is a matter of degree, but some individuals are obviously more considerate and empathic than others. A consensus of their neighbors and peers would judge this to be so.g.
What is TOO empathic, and what is not empathic enough? And upon what issues is empathy suppose to impinge and what are the issues where one ought not feel obliged to empathise?

This is ALL subjective; not objective; not science. Just absurd.
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote: Let us avoid rigidity and dogmatism, and let's take advantage of the best ideas that come along.
"Best", by whose judgement?
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Re: Announcing a new science - its name is ETHICS

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prof wrote: It is a matter of degree, but some individuals are obviously more considerate and empathic than others. A consensus of their neighbors and peers would judge this to be so.
Are you saying that whatever a society thinks is moral, is moral? Leaving aside the obvious problem that anyone who attempts to change the consensus must then be, by definition, immoral, that begs the question of; Who are my neighbours and peers? If morality is something that is defined by the opinions of only a limited circle, then it would not be universal. If that was the case, I could say 'slavery is moral as long as me and my friends are not enslaved' without self-contradiction. Is that the intention?

If you equate morality with 'what that group thinks' then indeed 'morality' has a quasi-scientific meaning; it is a sociological observation. But then it has lost its meaning as an imperative. To observe 'the group thinks X' does not imply 'and they are right' or 'and so should you'. Either the group is moral simply because it is a group and has certain attitudes in common - or the group is moral because its members are 'considerate' and 'empathetic'. If you go for the first understanding, you have to drop the second - and vice versa.
Anything said in a native tongue [in our case, in English] is circular - in that to define the words one can chase all around a dictionary, defining the words in the definition. The scientific theory will employ logical symbols, such as I did when I expressed "morality" as x∈X.
A dictionary just records usage. If a word is used in many and contradictory ways it will record them impartially. Just expressing one of those meanings using a Greek letter will not somehow make that particular meaning 'scientific'. You need to assert why that particular meaning is right and the other meanings are wrong.
What I mean by "science" -- and I am perhaps using the word in a Continental sense -- is this: The scientists note a collection of data lacking order - just a jumble of data. They devise a frame-of-reference capable of making sense of that data; and bridge laws (=standards of interpretation).

The frame-of-reference when applied to the unordered data explains and orders the data [and if a time-factor is introduced, predicts what will, or is likely to, occur.] Then, when you have these three components and you employ scientific methods you have a science.
We have no data. Data are measurements and we do not know what we are measuring. There are no quantities of 'good', such that we can order them or compare one to the other. If you are going to find this data, then you have first got to equate 'good' to something objectively measurable.
For ethics, Moral Psychology [also know as the Science of the Moral Sense] supplies the experimental aspects of it; it can test the hypotheses which the Science of Ethics produces.

Ethical data are good deeds, incidents of kindness; harmonious cooperation toward a constructive end-in-view; and examples of corruption, violence, abuse, etc.
That is back to listing synonyms. Consider an actual ethical issue, like abortion. Everyone can agree what the abortion consists of, yet they quantify the 'ethical data' differently. When faced with the yes/no choice about abortion, saying there should be 'harmonious cooperation toward a constructive end-in-view' is no help at all. Both sides of the argument would agree, and say that this desire was promoted by their own views and contradicted by their opponents.
The problem, as I see it, is that the critics here are not familiar with the Science of Ethics - but that doesn't stop them from finding fault with something they haven't even read. E.g., they claim the science has "rules for living" - which it doesn't. They protest that it imposes morals on people - which it doesn't.

The word "atom" was vague for nineteen centuries before Planck, Bohr, de Broglie, and J.J. Thompson tightened it up. Then it wasn't. The same can occur with the word "morality" and other words of ethics as a community of workers in the field use the word as a term in their system; and as their system is effective in explaining and ordering the chaos.

Let us avoid rigidity and dogmatism, and let's take advantage of the best ideas that come along.
The objection to the 'Science of Ethics' is the one that I have given; that we have no data, that there is no possibility of having data. Nor can we test a hypothesis experimentally. If the Science of Ethics declared abortion was moral, what scientific experiment would disprove that? Or the contrary?
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