What do we know about Ethics?

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

What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

What do we know about Ethics?
I have some ideas on the topic. I’d like to hear yours.
User avatar
Necromancer
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30 am
Location: Metropolitan-Oslo, Norway, Europe
Contact:

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by Necromancer »

I only relate to Ethics for real as Kantian ethics (gold standard) beyond the "hysterical" philosophical discussion on ethics. Applied ethics, though, is OK.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

Necromancer wrote: Tue May 22, 2018 8:56 pm I only relate to Ethics for real as Kantian ethics (gold standard) beyond the "hysterical" philosophical discussion on ethics. Applied ethics, though, is OK.
Okay. What did Kant know for sure about Ethics?

Before you make any ethical decision, Necromancer, in your interactions with other people, do you always ask yourself the Categorical Imperative question? Doesn't the answer depend upon how you frame that question?? "What if everyone did what I'm about to do? [And how does one measure what would result??}
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

{I am confident that the following statements are true – or at least more true than false.}

A good moral decision depends upon the facts of the situation.

‘Morality’ is a personal trait; ‘Ethics’ is the name of the entire discipline. (That is how I define these terms.)

A moral person has authenticity to a large degree.

It is ethical to be considerate of others.
It is ethical to help others without being a martyr.
It is ethical to be helpful, to be of service, to want to cooperate.
It is ethical to foster the well-being of others.
It is ethical to help others rise in the quality of their life.
It is ethical to take on some responsibility and to be accountable for it.
All this will add value to the situation. That, in fact, is what Ethics is about: namely, adding value.

When an individual asks himself: ”How can I add some value to this situation?”, she or he is being creative. So creativity plays a role in Ethics.

Hence Ethics is about creating value in human relationships.

Good human relations are harmonious human relations. They are non-judgmental, morally-speaking; they are merciful and forgiving. They are not selfish, nor self-centered. Yes, we are all self-serving, but to be selfish, or (for a mature adult to be) merely self-centered, is to be unethical.

Ethical conduct makes for good human relations. Ethical conduct results in harmony in human affairs. It tends to result in one being more-likely to have a trouble-free life than if one cheats or ‘cuts corners.’

For all the above reasons, when one behaves ethically one is actually pursuing his self-interest.
You can foster the well-being of others by enhancing life, health, knowledge, freedom, abundance, safety, beauty and peace. History shows that when we empathize with others and apply our ingenuity to improving the human condition, we can make progress in doing so, and you can help to continue that progress.
--- ---Stephen Pinker


What say you? Are we on the same page on these matters? What does Ethics mean to you?
Does living ethically have more advantages than disadvantages? Would you, as a result of your philosophical analyses advocate that the people on this planet live ethically?
What can be done to make this more probable?
User avatar
Necromancer
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30 am
Location: Metropolitan-Oslo, Norway, Europe
Contact:

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by Necromancer »

prof wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 10:02 pm
Necromancer wrote: Tue May 22, 2018 8:56 pm I only relate to Ethics for real as Kantian ethics (gold standard) beyond the "hysterical" philosophical discussion on ethics. Applied ethics, though, is OK.
Okay. What did Kant know for sure about Ethics?

Before you make any ethical decision, Necromancer, in your interactions with other people, do you always ask yourself the Categorical Imperative question? Doesn't the answer depend upon how you frame that question?? "What if everyone did what I'm about to do? [And how does one measure what would result??}
Well, for a starter, being lawful under democratic laws and regulations is surely one way to relate to Kant. After that, you may want to enter the applied ethics discussions or political discussion for that matter as a Kantian ethicist... Agree?
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

I asked what, to you, is Kant's ethics?

Your answer is rather limited and not quite clear.

Could you fill in some of the gaps for us? ....Surrely there is more to the Metaphysics of Morals than that! What does it mean to "regard people as ends" when every (so-called) end can be construed as a means to a further end?

How definitely determine an "end."?
User avatar
Necromancer
Posts: 405
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 12:30 am
Location: Metropolitan-Oslo, Norway, Europe
Contact:

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by Necromancer »

prof wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 7:42 pm I asked what, to you, is Kant's ethics?

Your answer is rather limited and not quite clear.

Could you fill in some of the gaps for us? ....Surrely there is more to the Metaphysics of Morals than that! What does it mean to "regard people as ends" when every (so-called) end can be construed as a means to a further end?

How definitely determine an "end."?
You call yourself "prof" and your speciality seems to be ethics and you don't understand what Kant, charitably, writes even for a short text as "Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals" at 80 pages.

Let's have the text linked so that everybody can read it: http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Politica ... essays.pdf.

At least, "for rational beings as ends in themselves", you should (easily) be able to separate between Teleology and Deontology (in which Kantianism is part) to which the term is important.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics

So just read it over again (and I'll get back to you)!
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

Yes, I do understand.

As you know from reading my threads and posts, my ethical theory encompasses a mix of the five or six tradiional schools of ethics. The theory I propose -
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf -
is closer to contemporary Virtue Theory than to a rule-based theory - as mine is character-based. {It is not too far from Kant's emphasis in the Grundlagen [The Groundwork ...for Morals] on motives. Kant really thought deeply about the topic; as he did upon other matters in Philosophy.

Thanks for the Wikipedia references, Necromancer. One citation, one link, led to another, and I enjoyed the reading and may have actually learned something. So I appreciate the references you offered in your recent post !!

I now, as a result, have become familiar with Iain King's theory of Ethics. It is creative. He is a much-better writer than I am. His book on Ethi cs is 256 pages. I did not believe that people would read it if I made my treatise that long, so I cut it off after 100 pp. Then I scribbled this year an even briefer one: http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BREAKT ... %20all.pdf
which does not claim to be scientific ...except in the German sense of the word "science", which is more like the field of Musicology than Physics. My efforts are works of Philosophy.

What people value they care about. What they care about they give attention to. My latest insight is this: How high they value a thing depends upon how many minuites of attention they give it when they describe it, and how many properties of it they list. This is a measure of how meaningful it is to them. Value is a function of meaning. The more meaningful something or someone is to you, the more you value it.

Moral value is a species of the genus Value. Robert S. Hartman, my friend and mentor, in his magnum opus, THE STRUCTURE OF VALUE, had something important to say about the concept "value." His contribution is known as Formal Axiology. He concluded that Ethics has Axiology as its meta-language. He managed to define the term "good" employing formal Logic. No one else had ever done this. His earliest papers were published in the journal, Kant-Studien. Hartman, though, was original - as was Kant and Iain King as well.


Thus my latest breakthrough is that experiments may be divised employing the notion of time-units of attention. In this way, is it possible that Ethics can be ushered into science - in the modern {rather than the old European} sense of the word? And, in suggesting this, am I being "pseudo-scientific" as claimed by the trolls? I trust not.

What do you say?
Would it be progress if Ethics became scientific?
Are people today confused in their values? Do they know how to go about living a moral life? Do they want to? Is ethical theory a mere intellectual exercise? Should it be applied to life? Shall we become more efficient, more adept with know-how, when it comes to being ethical?

Your views??
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:11 am Thus my latest breakthrough is that experiments may be divised employing the notion of time-units of attention. In this way, is it possible that Ethics can be ushered into science - in the modern {rather than the old European} sense of the word? And, in suggesting this, am I being "pseudo-scientific" as claimed by the trolls? I trust not.
Are these passive aggressive tendencies you display ethical Prof?
Is it ethical that you respond to honest criticism with nothing but strong evasion and weak insults?

It is still pseudoscience if you are attempting to use that Hartman Value Profile to make a science out of ethics.
You are still presumably predicating everything on a quantitative claim that the number of properties of an object increases beyond those of other objects when people make a qualitative decision about it. That is unworkable for a science. Attentions per second won't change anything about that.

Also, the thing you propose to measure and codify is not ethics anyway. You are inserting a placeholder and misnaming it. There might be some value to your method if used for purposes it can address. But that all disappears if you pretend it is for the measurement of a phenomenon that it cannot actually inspect. That reduces you to the level of a 21st century phrenologist.





Why did the thread where you announced your important breakthrough get deleted by the way?
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:48 pm
prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:11 am Thus my latest breakthrough is that experiments may be divised employing the notion of time-units of attention. In this way, is it possible that Ethics can be ushered into science - in the modern {rather than the old European} sense of the word? ...

Greetings, DP
:!:

It is still pseudoscience if you are attempting to use that Hartman Value Profile to make a science out of ethics.
That's a joke! That Profile to which you refer, DP, is very widely being used to learn how people think about - and express in their lives - values, including ethical values such as empathy and responsibility. It also measures with precision excesses and deficits of characteristics traditionally regarded as "virtues" and "vices." If you had more experience with it, you would be definitely impressed with the (confirmed) results it obtains!

You are still presumably predicating everything on a quantitative claim that the number of properties of an object increases beyond those of other objects when people make a qualitative decision about it.
No, I am not doing that. I regret I once, failing to communicate it well, gave you that impression. See pp. 7-9 of the COLLEGE COURSE booklet for a cleaer explanation: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
Yes, there is a quantitative claim; namely, that your intension of a thing (or of an individual) may be larger in attributes [descriptors] than mine is on the same item or subject.
If your intension [set of predicates in your meaning] is indeed larger, then when you perceive a bijective [one-to-one] isomorphism - you notice a match - between your conception and the empirical features in something, you will value that item (or individual) more highly than I will. This is true by definition and by observation.


That is unworkable for a science. Attentions per second won't change anything about that.

---If you say so.


In the meantime, creative individuals with a bent for research will 'do their thing' even though you told them it couldn't be done. Some people have a gift for experimental design, and some are good at character assassination; calling others dishonest. The committing of the Fallacy of Ad Hominem doesn't bother them at all. ...I hope this latter description is not referring to you!!!

Also, the thing you propose to measure and codify is not ethics anyway.
What, pray tell, is your exact definition of the concept "ethics"? Many, if not most, philosophical disputes turn on miscommunication due to the use of vague and ambigous words.

You are inserting a placeholder and misnaming it.

Can you be more specific?

I wouldn't want to misname any placeholder
.

There might be some value to your method if used for purposes it can address.
Thank you, young man. I appreciate your appreciation. I really do.

But that all disappears if you pretend it is for the measurement of a phenomenon that it cannot actually inspect.
....Didn't know I was pretending. It is good of you to inform me. Thanks. So please tell us: what is this "phenomenon," and be so kind as to demonstrate for us - with evidence - why "it cannot actually inspect" that "phenomenon."

[Incidentally, it is a fact that the HVP test has massive results; testimonials as to its accuracy, and is used by psychotherapists as a valuable tool in their work. Of that I am confident. If you care to learn the truth of this, by interviewing each tester, report on it, and publish your findings, it can, with a little effort be done. It would be a helpful service on your part. The institute set up in Hartman's honor would help you get started. First, of course, you have to care.]

Beware you do not place yourself in that group with those who asserted emphatically that "man would never be able to fly in a heavy craft!"




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

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:48 pm
prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:11 am Thus my latest breakthrough is that experiments may be divised employing the notion of time-units of attention. In this way, is it possible that Ethics can be ushered into science - in the modern {rather than the old European} sense of the word? ...

Greetings, DP
:!:

It is still pseudoscience if you are attempting to use that Hartman Value Profile to make a science out of ethics.
That's a joke! That Profile to which you refer, DP, is very widely being used to learn how people think about - and express in their lives - values, including ethical values such as empathy and responsibility. It also measures with precision excesses and deficits of characteristics traditionally regarded as "virtues" and "vices." If you had more experience with it, you would be definitely impressed with the (confirmed) results it obtains!
Confirmed results huh? Are these scientifically confirmed results, suitable for a science... or are they the "confirmed" anecdotal evidence of a random number of therapists again? I seem to remember it was 100 last time, but then it became a thousand when the first claim wasn't deemed impressive.

Irrespective, the values aren't actually being measured are they? Those confirmed results come from questionnaires don't they? And ti doesn't actually measure virtue or vice either, it measures behaviour and responses and you substitute those for virtues and vices because virtue and vice are not in any way actually the sorts of things that can be measured.
prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:48 pm You are still presumably predicating everything on a quantitative claim that the number of properties of an object increases beyond those of other objects when people make a qualitative decision about it. [/quot]
No, I am not doing that. I regret I once, failing to communicate it well, gave you that impression. See pp. 7-9 of the COLLEGE COURSE booklet for a cleaer explanation: http://wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ ... Course.pdf
Yes, there is a quantitative claim; namely, that your intension of a thing (or of an individual) may be larger in attributes [descriptors] than mine is on the same item or subject.
If your intension [set of predicates in your meaning] is indeed larger, then when you perceive a bijective [one-to-one] isomorphism - you notice a match - between your conception and the empirical features in something, you will value that item (or individual) more highly than I will. This is true by definition and by observation.
Damn. For a second there I thought you had actually abandoned the worst part of your theory. But unfortunately you are simply forgetting where you wrote it. Anyway, I will refer back to your own ebook BASIC ETHICS for this part because it is clearer than any of your subsequent writings.
And a value that has a nondenumerable (an uncountable) amount of the
property-names (attributes) which are needed to describe something (or
someone) having uncountably-many properties {such as your mother, your
wife, your dear friend, your priceless treasure, a museum-quality artifact,
etc.) …that value dimension we shall dub I-value, wherein I stands for
Intrinsic. Intrinsic values are seen as gestalts, for if asked to list all the
features of one’s girlfriend or mother, a person wouldn’t know where to
begin to enumerate them – there are just so many. Enumeration is
inappropriate and is not necessary.
I think we all agree that the formula 90 > 20 > 4 is true with regard
to arithmetic. It is the same with the three basic dimensions of
value - with regard to valuation: A higher infinity is greater (in size)
than a lesser infinity;1
which in turn is greater than a finite amount.
An infinity of what? In this case, an infinity of meaning. And, as we
are about to explain, value depends upon meaning.
Now, if you are abandoning the entire I > E > S nonsense then that is a decent start and I won't dissuade you from it.
But otherwise, I think you are being evasive again.



prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm That is unworkable for a science. Attentions per second won't change anything about that.

---If you say so.


In the meantime, creative individuals with a bent for research will 'do their thing' even though you told them it couldn't be done. Some people have a gift for experimental design, and some are good at character assassination; calling others dishonest. The committing of the Fallacy of Ad Hominem doesn't bother them at all. ...I hope this latter description is not referring to you!!!
You are supposed to be a professor of philosophy, don't force me to explain the basics of fallacious ad hominem arguments to you.
Also, the passive aggression, it's never worked for you, it just makes you look sad. You should stop it.

prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:48 pm Also, the thing you propose to measure and codify is not ethics anyway.
What, pray tell, is your exact definition of the concept "ethics"? Many, if not most, philosophical disputes turn on miscommunication due to the use of vague and ambigous words.
But Ethics is supposed to be a bit of a vague and ambiguous word. It's a whole mysterious part of human life that isn't easily codified. That's what you are ignoring with your pseudoscientific claims. If I could really nail it down for you without leaving a sea of grey areas then we wouldn't be having this conversation because a science of ethics would have replaced philosophising on the subject centuries ago. therefore my point depends on not being able to provide an adequate definition of ethics, and the fact that you can't either - so help me, if you point me to another of your bloody books and pretend that you have adequately defined this thing, I will refuse to read it. If you claim you can define ethics without leaving out something very important, then you can write a concise definition here instead. I am completely fed up with that system of tactical evasion that you rely upon.


So, to reiterate because we've wasted time on this before.... I am not subject to the same requirements of inspection as you are, I am ok with some of these questions being imponderables. I am ok with ethics never being a science. You are the one who claims you can fix all that. That said, you have some entirely unscientific concepts to try and use in your science here. Right and wrong, just and unjust. There is simply no room for such qualitative concepts in any rigorous science. Only a fake one would take them on.
prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 12:48 pm You are inserting a placeholder and misnaming it.
Can you be more specific?

Well there's irony. I asked you that question a long time ago. I asked you for an example of some practical result that had come from your scientific analysis. Do you remember what you gave me then? You gave me an argument that Universal Basic Income was a bad idea and that instead some dreadful sounding system of subsidies for patriarchally approved art. Since then you seem to have completely changed your mind. I think that's because your fraudulent science lets you arrive at any conclusion you like and offers no reason to change your mind about anything.

I can't offer you any more specific examples from your own stuff because you offer no specificity about anything really. So I will direct you to other examples of people doing something similar to what you propose. One example would be economists who are very interested in the idea of how trusting societies are. In short, lack of trust is very expensive, it makes us as a society invest in a lot of extra courts and lawyers, which raises transaction costs. So they have ways of assessing which societies trust each other a lot (Scandinavia of course) and which ones trust each other relatively less (your country and mine), versus ones where nobody trusts anyone at all (Russia). But of course they cannot actually measure trust itself, that is absurd, so they collect indexes of other things and from those they extrapolate some representative of trust up to a certain point.

But those economists never claim to have actually measured trust. Just as those international happiness rankings don'g really claim to measure happiness, and the Transparency International survey ranks perceptions of corruption, not corruption itself.

Only you are so vain as to redefine the thing you cannot science to be something that you can.


prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
[Incidentally, it is a fact that the HVP test has massive results; testimonials as to its accuracy, and is used by psychotherapists as a valuable tool in their work. Of that I am confident. If you care to learn the truth of this, by interviewing each tester, report on it, and publish your findings, it can, with a little effort be done. It would be a helpful service on your part. The institute set up in Hartman's honor would help you get started. First, of course, you have to care.]

That's a plurality of anecdotes, not a scientific dataset. As I already mentioned, I am not against this thing being used within its limits, I simply don't think you are able to recognise those limits. A tool that is valuable for psychotherapy is not to be dismissed for that purpose just because it is not applicable to some completely different task.

prof wrote: Sat May 26, 2018 5:38 pm
Beware you do not place yourself in that group with those who asserted emphatically that "man would never be able to fly in a heavy craft!"
[/b]
Sure. And you should avoid being the guy hunting for planet Vulcan. This grandiose delusional streak isn't helping you any more than the passive aggression does.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

Even though I can honestly say that I don't know [anyting about anything,] some tentative conclusions with regard to Ethics are to be found here: -
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/ETHICS ... CIENCE.pdf
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BREAKT ... %20all.pdf

"Ethics" is a concept which I define as: the discipline arising when consciousindividuals {having individuality} are Intrinsically valued = seen as nondenumerably-high in value. Every human individual is to be given respect to some degree just for being human.

Can we build further on this foundation? Do you have any ideas as to how to enhance the integrative synthesis which is (in part) offered in the writing cited above?

All constructive ideas are heartily welcomed :!:

Let's make ethics practical, effective, and efficient. Your views?


As I was about to submit this post I heard from the Thought Police who accused me of being "evasive," "unable to recognize limits," and accused me of putting forth an argument to the effect of :
You gave me an argument that Universal Basic Income was a bad idea and that instead some dreadful sounding system of subsidies for patriarchally approved art

Here we note views which of course is something I do not believe and would not advocate. At the Applied Ethics site I initiated an entire thread presenting the advantages and benefits of UBI - Universal Basic Income. [I was later glad to note is a plank in the platform of one of the U.S. political parties in 2016. They lost out to a man who strongly believes and acts upon the concept that 'The End justifies the Means' - a view that I speak and write against on nearly every occasion when appropriate. That man, who some voted into high office, violates virtually every Ethical Principle which I set forth in my books, as well as others I haven't mentioned!]

Although I define my term - {i.e., Ethics =df.= the I-valuing of individuals -} the TP (Thought Police) cannot or won't define how he uses the word. So the reader can decide whose ethical theory they like better -- one that is precise or one who deliberately stays vague and thus untouchable. When communication is vague no one can be sure what is really meant.

On pp. 79-82 of the Living Successfully book - http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf
I offer some studies that were carefully recorded and done with a high degree of correlation with respected scientific method. In order to do more, I need your cooperation as you take up careers in this new field.

Dangerpants did make a worthwhile contribution to our understanding of the ethical field when he wrote:
I will direct you to other examples of people doing something similar to what you propose. One example would be economists who are very interested in the idea of how trusting societies are. In short, lack of trust is very expensive, it makes us as a society invest in a lot of extra courts and lawyers, which raises transaction costs. So they have ways of assessing which societies trust each other a lot (Scandinavia of course) and which ones trust each other relatively less (your country and mine), versus ones where nobody trusts anyone at all (Russia). But of course they cannot actually measure trust itself, that is absurd, so they collect indexes of other things and from those they extrapolate some representative of trust up to a certain point.
... those international happiness rankings don'g really claim to measure happiness, and the Transparency International survey ranks perceptions of corruption, not corruption itself.
Now that was being constructive - which is rare and beautiful when it occurs !!

So thank you, D.P. for that.

As for calling the Existential Logical Hierarchy-of-Value formula "nonsense," that only shows he doesn't comprehend it, or that it touched a nerve violating his dogmatically-held ideology, whatever that may be.

The formula (when interpreted correctly) directs us, in our ranking of value priorities, to place people above things, and material survival above the mere idea of it ... empirical practicality above our mental conceptions.

Our relentless critic certainly doesn't want to encourage the extension of science to other domains. He need not fear that, once ethics has science applied to it, philosophy will have nothing more to do in the moral realm, since, I can predict, there will be a Philosophy of Science treatment of Ethics, or the The Science of the Moral Sense ...whatever its eventual name turns out to be. Right now there are rigorous scientific studies under the rubric Moral Psychology. These deal with aspects traditionally studies as "ethics."


What do the rest of you think on these topics? Let's hear ffrom you.
Last edited by prof on Sun May 27, 2018 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

prof wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 8:38 pm As I was about to submit this post I heard from the Thought Police who accused me of being "evasive," "unable to recognize limits," and accused me of putting forth an argument to the effect of :
You gave me an argument that Universal Basic Income was a bad idea and that instead some dreadful sounding system of subsidies for patriarchally approved art

Here we note views which of course is something I do not believe and would not advocate. At the Applied Ethics site I initiated an entire thread presenting the advantages and benefits of UBI - Universal Basic Income.
And yet here we are, with you describing and then rejecting UBI...
prof wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 8:38 pm It also points to this Applied Ethics concept: Now that robots programmed with Generalized Artificial Intelligence are - or will soon be - taking over, and doing all the jobs, a better solution than A Minimum Basic Guaranteed Annual Income grant for everyone will be [- if we could ever elect a Congress in the U.S.A. willing to even consider passing it -] setting up agencies that in an organized manner will ask all applicants what their talents and interests are, test their capacities and native gifts and aptitudes, and then give them work to do and pay them a (minimum) living wage {much like the federal Works Progress Administration under F.D.R. did} so that they 'earn' their income by their artistic expression, such as painting, stand-up comedy, or story-telling, etc., or by some other line of work that has some value to society.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18345

So as I mentioned, you just use this thing to justify whatever is passing through your mind today, and it does nothing to change your mind because it is not remotely rigorous.

As for the rest of the passive aggressive stunt you pulled there, in which you simply brand me the thought police but fail to address any of my points, this is about what I expect from you. I should be able to expect better, but I have learned not to.

Your definition of Ethics is self serving and incomplete, also as expected.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6264
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Dear me, I never usually resort to this two replies nonsense... but here we go breaking more rules.

Pages 79 to 82 of your treatise in which you claim you have done real science of ethics contains a bunch of stuff like this...
Also we have seen the advent of several versions of a Happiness
Index, and a 'Best Company to work for' Index. Note the fine work
of the Ethisphere Institute which compiles a list of “the world’s
most ethical companies.” Now, in four countries, there are many
practitioners, coaches, and therapists who employ the Hartman
Value Profile (the H.V.P.) in their work. The existence of such
measuring instruments is an encouraging development. In one
study of 5000 cases by Schoof and Demerest it was revealed that
the majority of those tested believe that they should be living up to
their highest potentials and ideals more than they now do. This is
a source of tension for them. Life Coaches and therapists, with
the aid of this research finding are thus aware of an area in which
the counselee needs work; it gives them a clear direction on
which to focus
Now I hadn't actually read that passage, but I totally wasn't surprised by the appearance of happiness indexes, which I already have pointed out don't measure happiness. also the list of most ethical companies does not measure ethics of any companies at all. The list of best companies to work for replaces actual best companies to work for with indicators such as whether staff are happy, and what amount is spent on training.

Nobody in their right mind considers those scientific. Nobody would expect an answer to the question of whether somebody is achieving their potential to ever come back in the affirmitive, except from a few such as President Trump who may not be mentally fit to answer the question.

Life coaching is not a scientific activity, and neither is therapy. even if both are great things. And even if both are really improved by the HVP, that doesn't make it a tool of science.

Likewise, for the rest of those pages. humility cannot be measured any more than happiness can.
The following babble is non-scientific for obvious reasons "Some emotional states are in fact better than others. Selfdiscipline sets us free!! Let us cultivate excellence of character in ourselves. Avoid unnecessary strife. Emphasize constructiveness." And if you are attempting to arrive at such a conclusion through scientific method you will necessarily fail.

Your science is complete pseudery. Your arrogance and dishonesty in dismissing every criticism of it is ethically very questionable.
prof
Posts: 1076
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:57 am

Re: What do we know about Ethics?

Post by prof »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 9:09 pm
... you simply brand me the thought police...
Why do you assume I was talking about you?

If the shoe doesn't fit, one does not have to wear it.
FlashDangerpants wrote: Your definition of Ethics is self serving and incomplete, also as expected.
And are you implying that what you write is not 'self-serving'? Or is this a case of "the pot calling the kettle black"?

Of course it's 'incomplete.' I'd rather be congruent (coherent) than complete; one cannot be both at once, as Kurt Godel demonstrates.
Post Reply