Can there be shared community values?

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

Moderators: AMod, iMod

prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

.

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed and condemned.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

---Arthur Schopenhauer (1n 1818)
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:01 pm
All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed and condemned.
I see what you mean.... when I pointed out a series of logical flaws in your work, You didn't respond with any reasoned argument, you ridiculed and condemned me with "Don't try to tell us these Dimension of Value are useless and are just "nonsense" or "'rubbish'"...to use your sophisticated philosophical vocabulary."
prof wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:01 pm
Second, it is violently opposed.
Yep, got that covered with the bit where you wrote "There cannot be a Science of Ethics because Pants says so. And he persistently says so dogmatically and emphatically". Again, instead of attempting to make any rational point of merit.
prof wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 10:01 pm
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
---Arthur Schopenhauer (1n 1818)
Can't see that happening though. You have wasted your life in promotion of an obviously absurd pseudo-science and you are clearly so over-invested in it that you absolutely fall apart when challenged.

Now you are deploying quotes pilfered from a Facebook meme with clouds in the background and text up front. One which, incidentally is both notorious for being a favourite of pseudo-science babble maniacs such as you and all those guys who think kale cures cancer... and also is probably misattributed to Schopenhauer
Jeffrey Shallit wrote: Science, Pseudoscience, and The Three Stages of Truth
This dubious Schopenhauer citation has been used to support non-mainstream or controversial
views on such diverse topics as the feelings of fish [3], megadose vitamin C therapy
[32], drug legalization [25], network marketing [12], acupuncture [33], supranational government
[24], repressed memory [28], libertarianism [35], anti-vaccination [9], and human
cloning [23]. It has even been cited in a court case in Florida [18]. A common feature of all
these citations is the lack of any reference to where in Schopenhauer’s work the quotation
can be found.
So well done you, you are really doing as well as I could possibly expect of you.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

.

Achieving a big worthwhile goal is always "impossible"
---- until it's done !
---Nelson Mandella


.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:56 am .

Achieving a big worthwhile goal is always "impossible"
---- until it's done !
---Nelson Mandella


.
So you are surrendering, you cannot explain why this thing you are selling is a science, and you are still resoorting to nothing better than facebook memes with dubiously attributed quotations?
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/05/done/

This is the summit of your talent?
User avatar
-1-
Posts: 2888
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:08 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by -1- »

prof wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2017 3:34 am
The values which emerged (as those upon which there is a global-wide consensus that this is what "ethics" is about) are these:

Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Compassion, Self-control, Commitment, Fairness, Moral Courage, and Cooperation.


If Ethics means anything it is a concern with these values.
This reminded me of an old Dilbert cartoon. Dogbert teaches a team-building seminar at Dilbert's work place. Dogbert first asks the seminar attendees to each sign a blank cheque payable to him. Then Doigbert says, "In this seminar, you'll learn that trust is an excellent virtue for others to have."

In other words, the list you presented sounds more like brain-washing, and a method of controlling others, because the qualities listed are useful for the community only under special circumstances. Practicing those values indiscriminately and at all times, as you suggest, make the practicants as well as the community vulnerable and defenseless.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

-1- wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:18 am
prof wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2017 3:34 am
The values which emerged (as those upon which there is a global-wide consensus that this is what "ethics" is about) are these:

Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Compassion, Self-control, Commitment, Fairness, Moral Courage, and Cooperation.


If Ethics means anything it is a concern with these values.

. Practicing those values indiscriminately and at all times, as you suggest
, make the practicants as well as the community vulnerable and defenseless.

Where and when did I suggest this?

You wouldn't put words in my mouth, would you?
User avatar
-1-
Posts: 2888
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:08 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by -1- »

prof wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:15 am
"""". Practicing those values indiscriminately and at all times, as you suggest
, make the practicants as well as the community vulnerable and defenseless.""""

Where and when did I suggest this?

You wouldn't put words in my mouth, would you?
By now you've become jittery, from all the negative criticism, methinks.

Okay, to answer your question:

You did not suggest otherwise, did you?

Here's a reminder of what you wrote, and you can pick and choose any part and point it out to us, that tells your readers that you suggest otherwise.
prof wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:15 amThe values which emerged (as those upon which there is a global-wide consensus that this is what "ethics" is about) are these:

Honesty, Respect, Responsibility, Compassion, Self-control, Commitment, Fairness, Moral Courage, and Cooperation.

If Ethics means anything it is a concern with these values.

[Incidentally, centering in on values avoids all the unnecessary difficulties that arise when "action" is made the central focus. For that results in grappling with such pseudo-issues as "Is a lie wrong because of the results that may ensue, or because it is a lie - and lies are always forbidden?" To phrase it another way: "Is a lie permissible when it leads to some good outcome (as a Consequentialist would argue), or is it forbidden just because the act is a lie?" (and Deontology explains why a lie is always wrong since it can't be universalized without ending all civilization.)

Philosophers have been known to dispute these matters, while slipping easily among usage of the terms "consequence," "act," "action," and "activity," without defining any of these words, or bothering to differentiate them.]


:idea: :arrow: It is logical, for theoretic convenience, to divide Ethics into two branches: Individual Ethics and Social Ethics. Then the question arises, How classify the shared community values? In what branch do each of them belong?

It seems to me that it is sensible to regard Honesty, Compassion, Fairness and Cooperation as concerns where others are involved, and thus I would put them in the Social Ethics department of Ethical Theory.

Furthermore, Commitment and Self-control are best classified as belonging to Individual Ethics as topics for analysis and explication.

There are however values that overlap both fields. Here I would say belong: Respect, Responsibility, and Moral Courage {and maybe even Honesty, since we can lie to ourselves.} An individual can have Self-Respect and can respect others. There is Responsibility assumed by the person as part of a commitment to be a moral individual of good character who wants to live ethically; and there definitely is also Social Responsibility (which includes a quest for social justice, and an extension of human rights (to gays, women, those of dark complexion, those of 'foreign' national origin, or who hold 'strange' religious ideas, etc.)

Moral Courage, when it takes the form of an individual being a whistle-blower who unearths and reveals corruption in an institution, in government, or in a corporation or business falls into the intersection of Individual and Social Ethics. It is inter-departmental - interdisciplinary, so to speak.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

Research conducted by The Institute for Global Ethics found that when people around the globe were asked, "What does "ethics" mean to you?" they responded usually by naming one or more of the values cited in the original post.

Nowhere have I suggested that one can adhere to, or put into practice, all of these values ALL THE TIME :!:

Is it possible that the critics may engage in faulty perception, or faulty reasoning?

I know I often do.

I'd like to take a poll: How many here believe, given the way I define "Ethics" and how I define "science," that some day there could be a Science of Ethics? {To learn how I exactly define these terms, see http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf } pp.20 ff.

Would this reference to an article in The Scientific American help?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... of-babies/

Also see these citations:
:Stephanie Preston and Frans de Waal,[53] Jean Decety,[54][55] and Vittorio Gallese[56][57] and Christian Keysers[3] have independently argued that the mirror neuron system is involved in empathy. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron#Empathy

S. A.; Carlo, G. (2011). "Moral identity: What is it, how does it develop, and is it linked to moral action?". Child Development Perspectives. 5 (3): 212–218. doi:10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00189.x.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract

Please participate in the Poll.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

The Scientific American report. which includes an interview with Dr. Paul Bloom, begins this way:
Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. It is from these beginnings, he argues in his new book Just Babies, that adults develop their sense of right and wrong, their desire to do good — and, at times, their capacity to do terrible things.


As I said in several of my writings, the experimental branch of the new Science of the moral sense (the Science of Ethics) is today known as Moral Psychology.


So, readers, where do you stand in the Poll?
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:03 am The Scientific American report. which includes an interview with Dr. Paul Bloom, begins this way:
Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. It is from these beginnings, he argues in his new book Just Babies, that adults develop their sense of right and wrong, their desire to do good — and, at times, their capacity to do terrible things.


As I said in several of my writings, the experimental branch of the new Science of the moral sense (the Science of Ethics) is today known as Moral Psychology.


So, readers, where do you stand in the Poll?
Just so we are clear, is Dr. Bloom aware that you are claiming he is a proponent of your 'scientific' methodology?
Or are you sneakily trying to bask in reflected glory via somebody who has nothing to do with your stuff and has no interest in your science of values?
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:09 pm
prof wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 10:03 am The Scientific American report. which includes an interview with Dr. Paul Bloom, begins this way:
Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. It is from these beginnings, he argues in his new book Just Babies, that adults develop their sense of right and wrong, their desire to do good — and, at times, their capacity to do terrible things.


As I said in several of my writings, the experimental branch of the new Science of the moral sense (the Science of Ethics) is today known as Moral Psychology.


So, readers, where do you stand in the Poll?
Just so we are clear, is Dr. Bloom aware that you are claiming he is a proponent of your 'scientific' methodology?
>>>Am not claiming anything about proponents.....

If one wants to know what Dr. Bloom is aware of,it would be appropriate to ask him. I am at a loss as to why you put(the concept) scientific in quotes, since in an earlier post you concurred with my definition and description of science and scientific method, as cited in an early chapter of: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
In Appendix 1 of that treatise, the HVP - a powerful measuring instrument - is described. Since the time of that writing it has proven its accuracy and utility time and again, used by more than 100 counselors, around the planet, who administered it to over twenty thousand testees. Still and all, its inventors believed that the science that suggested it is of more-profound value than the measuring instrument. Among other qualities it measures Empathy. It also measures with some precision many of the "virtues" and "vices" discussed in modern Virtue Theory.

Dangerpants, please inform us: Do you teach a course in Moral Philosophy or in Ethics? If so, where? Who is your favorite Writer in Ethics?

At times I have read sloppily, too cursorily, and thereby I missed the opportunity to understand what the writer was driving at. Do you agree that it is possible that one who on occasion fails to read carefully may have missed the point that Formal Value Theory [Formal Axiology] inquires as to the degree of attention and involvement a judge-of-value gives to what is being valued, and that this is what is being measured. {"Empathy" may be defined with rigor as (one application of) Intrinsic Value composed by Intrinsic Value. Do you believe that most Psychologists or Social Scientists have a rigorous definition of the term "empathy"?}

As it explains in the Science of Value entry in Wikipedia, it is not necessary, in practice, to count the properties in an item or individual considered to be of value. They are though sometimes mentioned in theory; for system purposes only.

I am confident to a high degree that you are able to grasp this simple point.



To all Readers and Forum members: How would you vote in the poll?
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:28 am I am at a loss as to why you put(the concept) scientific in quotes, since in an earlier post you concurred with my definition and description of science and scientific method, as cited in an early chapter of: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
You are becoming forgetful. I didn't. I concurred only with the start where you cut and pasted a perfectly standard definition of science. But your thing doesn't have the potential to meet that standard, so you moved the goalposts by stating that engineering is science (not agreed) and subjective at that.
prof wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:28 am In Appendix 1 of that treatise, the HVP - a powerful measuring instrument - is described. Since the time of that writing it has proven its accuracy and utility time and again, used by more than 100 counselors, around the planet, who administered it to over twenty thousand testees. Still and all, its inventors believed that the science that suggested it is of more-profound value than the measuring instrument. Among other qualities it measures Empathy. It also measures with some precision many of the "virtues" and "vices" discussed in modern Virtue Theory.
In Appendix 1, HVP is not described. I have read the appendix and have not been informed in the least about what HVP is or how it is done. It is just a weird list of boasts about it being used to make floorplans for supermarkets and stuff. It certianly has the appearance of being based on self assessment questionnaire forms to be honest. I'm not saying those are never useful, but they should only be used with awareness of the limitations and would be a terrible thing to use as the only source of data for an actual science.

100 counsellors?

And would you like to stop and have a think about whether the thing is measures is actually empathy itself? Is it not more true to say that it measures behavioural indicators which are assumed to track empathy?
prof wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:28 am Dangerpants, please inform us: Do you teach a course in Moral Philosophy or in Ethics? If so, where? Who is your favorite Writer in Ethics?
No.
Berlin.
What was the point of the question?
prof wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:28 am At times I have read sloppily, too cursorily, and thereby I missed the opportunity to understand what the writer was driving at. Do you agree that it is possible that one who on occasion fails to read carefully may have missed the point that Formal Value Theory [Formal Axiology] inquires as to the degree of attention and involvement a judge-of-value gives to what is being valued, and that this is what is being measured. {"Empathy" may be defined with rigor as (one application of) Intrinsic Value composed by Intrinsic Value. Do you believe that most Psychologists or Social Scientists have a rigorous definition of the term "empathy"?}
That's a mess. Of course if people read sloppily they miss the point - the question is loaded that way.
Terms such as empathy are usually rather hard to define with rigour, are you telling me that it has been done, and is not controversial at all?

Is the bit about formal axiology requiring lots of attention another attempt on your part to grant objectivity to what is still clearly subjective data?
prof wrote: Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:28 am As it explains in the Science of Value entry in Wikipedia, it is not necessary, in practice, to count the properties in an item or individual considered to be of value. They are though sometimes mentioned in theory; for system purposes only.

I am confident to a high degree that you are able to grasp this simple point.
The theory is explicitly quantitative in claim (an attempt to make it look like a science), but qualitative by sleight of hand (claiming that one sort of property is more numerous than another based on subjectively derived importance). Not counting properties is how you achieve that sleight of hand because it is of course objectively absurd. I am less confident that you can grasp that point. You should be smart enough to, but you are obviously desperate not to address this issue.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

As I understand it, Dr. Pants' chief objection to my theory is based on the first paragraph on p. 17 in

BASIC ETHICS: a systematic approach (2014)
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf [It is safe to open this paper.]

In that paragraph I was endeavoring to argue that individual people are deep and complex, that if one begins to describe a person, one could go on and on, because there is so much there. If one knows his/her Ethics one may care to do this, to list many properties in a description if one is requested to do so, or if an appropriate occasion arises to do so. Why?

Because one gives attention and consideration to those he regards as a brother or a sister, a member of his family, namely an instance of the human species; those who know their Ethics are inclusive, tolerant, generous, authentic human beings. They are transparent; they have integrity. They are optimistic, kind, ready to be of service. They respect themselves and they freely give respect to others. See also the first two paragraphs on page 15 of that paper for a better understanding.

Dr. Pants' contention is that having countless properties [and thus, as you know, countless value - since the latter is a function of properties to which we give our attention] applies not only to individuals but also to everything, since (in his mind) one theoretically could list infinite properties of EVERYTHING, even, say, dog poo- poo.
His counter-argument to what I wrote is that everything has an infinity of properties.

I failed to make myself clear in that passage from Basic Ethics. What I ought to have said is that if we are interested in x, we will be able to list properties of x, we will gladly describe it, expanding upon it beyond its bare definition. We will go into its exposition (as they say in Intensional Logic) and even its connotations. This is a reference to the intension of a concept.

If we care about something, or some project, we give it attention, we get involved. This applies to our hobbies, our goals to which we have made a commitment, and to those we love and/or identify with. The more we look, the more [properties] we find!

So I thank Dangerpants for calling my attention to how I could better explain what I meant. He performed a service; and in the next edition pf Basic Ethics the argument will be clarified as stated above.

Your comments are welcomed.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

It's a shame you learned nothing from this new information though. My objection is that you are using language relating to quantities of properties to imply that the measuring of the properties is a quantitative analysis, and therefore potentially the basis of an objective science. But you are misusing that language and misdirecting a gullible audience.

In order to make some properties more infinite than the other infinite properties of any object, you are layering a load of subjective concerns throught the mechanism of attention. You are nullifying the quantitative aspect of the analysis without acknowledging the resulting change of status. this is simple stuff, I don't need to be Dr Pants to tell you that, a simple layman can see your error.

There's no moral grounds for you to condescend to me yet again, it's just a rude attempt to bully me. And whatever credentials you actually have aren't impressive to me, because I can see you aren't really all that good. You've wasted a lot of my time trying to persuade you of some simple logic that you should have learned as a student, long before you became a teacher.

Let me try and make it easier still though, just so you have a chance of getting the point....

THIS IS A QUANTITATIVE CLAIM (objective):
The amount of value, by definition and by observation, is based on the amount of properties
Page 17
THIS IS A QUALITATIVE CLAIM (subjective):
prof wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:09 amIf we care about something, or some project, we give it attention, we get involved. This applies to our hobbies, our goals to which we have made a commitment, and to those we love and/or identify with. The more we look, the more [properties] we find!
Your whole argument is blatant sleight of hand.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: Can there be shared community values?

Post by prof »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:24 pm It's a shame you learned nothing ... potentially the basis of an objective science. But you are misusing that language and misdirecting a gullible audience.

In order to make some properties more infinite than the other infinite properties of any object, you are layering a load of subjective concerns throught the mechanism of attention.

you aren't really all that good.

THIS IS A QUANTITATIVE CLAIM (objective):
The amount of value, by definition and by observation, is based on the amount of properties
Page 17
THIS IS A QUALITATIVE CLAIM (subjective):
prof wrote: Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:09 amIf we care about something, or some project, we give it attention, we get involved. This applies to our hobbies, our goals to which we have made a commitment, and to those we love and/or identify with. The more we look, the more [properties] we find!
Your whole argument is blatant sleight of hand.

There is no sleight of hand
in the argument I contributed. The 'attention' of which I spoke is measured by the number of features mentioned in the intension of the relevant concept. It is where you happen to break off the description when you speak of that with which you are involved, that which you are valuing.

Another problem with this criticism by Dangerpants - leaving aside all the Argumentum ad Hominem fallacies - is that the critic does not define his key terms: "objective" and "subjective."

He has not shown the difference between these concepts. What makes anything "objective"? Doesn't the human mind always enter in to any claim? Don't we need a consensus of observers, each of which is a subject being subjective?

Can anyone study the history of the development of Quantum Theory - see the masterpiece work by Banesh Hoffman of The Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies "The Strange Story of the Quantum" - and conclude that no subjectivity entered into it?!

Isn't it true that 'The more we look, the more we find" assuming that we are really searching. Of course, qualities are entailed; and so, of course one may call the quoted passage related to our hobbies "qualitative" ...as if that's a dirty word.

Are you philosophers who are reading this discussion actually "a gullible audience" as he claims you are?

Is it possible that this critic has not studied Phenomenology and thus does not grasp the profound insights it has to offer.
Post Reply