Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

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

Clinton
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:36 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Clinton »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 12:12 pm
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:37 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:47 am Thanks for an interesting discussion.

In my opinion, consequentialism just kicks the deontological can down the road. In other words, whether X is the act or its consequences, judgement as to X's moral rightness or wrongness - and as to the moral rightness of a goal, such as maximising pleasure and minimising pain for a group - is ineluctably subjective. There are no moral facts.
I would argue that my above example involving the question of whether it's better to have my arm torn off by a gorilla, or get a typical paper cut, refutes that statement. I think there are moral facts...and if there can be simple moral facts like it's better to get the paper cut than have my arm torn off by a gorilla, we should be able to extend those simple concepts outward to form more complex moral facts...which is the foundation of my view of the truest form of morality existing as a giant utilitarian math formula.

So...in other words, I think you could say there are no moral facts. I also, however, think it if I make that claim, that would be comparable to saying that it is not a fact that 1+1=2. I'd argue that, there is no inherent reason why 1+1=2, but based off the rules we use to determine math equations, it does. In that same way, I'd argue it's basically a moral fact that getting my arm torn off by a gorilla is worse than getting a paper cut. If that's not true...we're living in a world with a different system of rules than I'm familiar with, I'd say.

-------------------------------------------------------

I'm not especially knowledgeable about deontology, and Kant wrote a lot of confusing stuff about it. So far as I can tell it seems to focus on achieving consistency...so it doesn't advocate moral rules that you would just use in one situation. You have to apply them universally, as I understand it...and that seems like a good goal if we're to avoid hypocrisy.

However, here's my criticism of non-consequentialist moral codes like deontology: How do I know that the moral codes are good without contemplating the consequences of those moral codes? Normally, I'd argue we adopt moral codes due to the impacts of those moral codes on the world around us. We adopt them to help us achieve consequences we've cared about before adopting the moral code.

Even if a moral code focuses on consistency...I'm not sure what that necessarily has to do with what I'd describe as the real goals of humanity. I don't know why consistency is necessarily a good thing. I do know why pleasure is a good thing, and suffering is a bad thing...at least to me...but I don't know why I'd care about any opinions that claim pleasure is not a good thing, because of how important it is to me.

So, I'd say any moral code that matches up much with what humanity really cares about most is going to be consequentialist, and focus on maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering at bare minimum for someone or something...and utilitarianism and hedonism do that and deontology does neither.
Okay, and thanks. I think that morality is about the moral rightness or wrongness of behaviour. So a moral assertion is one that says something is morally right or wrong, or that we should do something because it's morally right, or not do it because it's morally wrong.

It follows that the assertion 'it's better to have a paper cut than to have your arm torn off by a gorilla' is not a moral assertion, because it says nothing about moral rightness or wrongness. And a non-moral assertion can't assert a moral fact. In other words, 'better' in that assertion is not 'morally better'. It just means less painful and consequential.

Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions, because a deductive conclusion can't contain information not present in the premise or premises of an argument.

So...if you don't factor in consequences based on how to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering...I don't think you can have a means of determining what is morally right or wrong besides your fairly random opinion...like rolling the dice or believing X is morally true based on what your next door neighbor says it is. You're not determining morality based off what I'd describe you as caring about...if you're not using consequentialist reasoning focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering.

You inevitably care about not feeling pain and feeling pleasure. There are no specific systems of rules you have any reason to care about that don't have that goal.

I would say that my proposed answer to the question of whether it would be better to get one's arm torn off by a gorilla or get a paper cut is a moral assertion...because I can think of no better way to define that which is morally wrong as that which produces more suffering and less pleasure than alternative options...so I'd say it would be morally wrong to choose to get your arm torn off by the gorilla, rather than get the paper cut.

That's keeping in mind that in that specific gorilla/paper cut example, I stated that we're only concerned with how to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering over the next thirty seconds. Now there could be some sort of long term effect on society that would somehow render the getting the arm torn off by the gorilla somehow more beneficial than the paper cut...but we don't have any reason to believe that yet, so I'd say there's a pretty plain answer of it being morally wrong to choose to get one's arm torn off by the gorilla.
Clinton
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2023 9:36 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Clinton »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:14 pm
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am It seems that you and I have a disagreement on the source of morality.
The way I see it (and I'm in the process of writing a possibly lengthy book on this, so there's no way for me to fully encompass my worldview here) is that the source of what would be best described as true morality is that pleasure is good and suffering is bad. I don't see how we can possibly have any other goals besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering. That is to say, I would not describe anything that is not an attempt to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering as an actual goal of ours...so much as us being tricked somehow into believing that behavior is our goal.
We certainly do have highly divergent views. But at least this thread is a discussion of moral philosophy and those that surround it in the moral philosophy sub do not, so that's something in your favour. The sub has been taken over by an autistic guy who is currently obsessed with discussing generalised ant-realism and the apparent divide between noumena and phenomena - but not the synthetic/analyutic one for some reason.

Why introduce that odd little segue? Because the journey that ended up with him ploughing that deceased furrow began with his attempts to do very much the same stuff that you are doing (although I can predict with certainty that you would complete that book of years much sooner than he will complete the one he's spent about a decade on thus far). That is the background info that will help you make sense of some instances where I suddenly just replace your terminology with his, where the sentiment appears to match. Also he is the only living person apart from yourself that I have ever known to take the concept of hedonoic calculus literally, and one of exceptionally few to suppose that there might be an actual quanatitive measure for such things, but I'll address that point shortly.

The first of thise is your phrase "true morality", which henceforth shall be morality-proper. It accompanies something that will crop up later where your term is "false morality", his I think might be "naive or vulgar morality" and a term that philosophers might use for the same thing would likely be "folk morality".

In your search for morality-proper, you are focussing to begin with on that which you can conceive of as possible. Phrases such as "I don't see how..." leave one open to accusations of argument from incredulity, or in other words, substituting the limits of your imagination for the output of reasoned investigation. Where possible, it makes life easier if you fcan point to a solid reason why something is inconceivable such as a contradiction with the meaning of the very term needed to describe it or something.

In this para, you appear to be referencing the a goal derived ought, aka a hypothetical imperative (neither term coes from VA this time, one is modern philosophy wording, the other is Kant). So the thing you cannot conceive of is that the goal we want to acheive via our choices is feeling good in some way, and therefore the thing we ought to do is to secure that objective.

It is not common to argue that hypothetical imperatives are the true object of moral regard. If you want to, you can deal with the objection by arguing that a single non hypothecated imperative (categorical imperative) justifies the pursuit of some specific hypothecated objective by making it universally proper at all times and in all possible worlds to pursue.... but you won't get there by just noticing that there is thing we call nice and the nicest thing is to feel all nice all the time.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am I don't see how we could possibly care about anything except for the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering. Also, I can think of no conclusion besides our feelings producing quantities of pleasure and suffering that are just as real as concrete and my shoes...because we can feel that certain feelings are more or less pleasant or unpleasant than other feelings, which implies there being specific quantities of hedons (units of pleasure) produced, because I don't know how there could be more or less of something than something else if there is not some specific quantity of the thing.
What is the basis for asserting that pleasure exists in the same way that a pair of shoes does? I would genuinely say that of course it doesn't because mental objects are not worldy objects that occupy spaces and weigh either more or less than the real world objects that they are "about" and quite how a real world object would be semantically about another.

When we say that the Mona Lisa is more <insert any art term you want here> than this picture of epic comics badass The Goon... what exactly did we measure?
Image

It seems to me that there is nothin automatically problematic in the suggestion that we speak only metaphorically in spacial terms when we say a computer has disk space, and only metaphorically in physical terms when we say that a certain book is weighty - even if we say one is weightier than another, that was still purely metaphorical. And thus if we say that eating delicious cake is nicer than eating diet diet sadness cake we could only possibly be speaking metaphorically if we argue about whether it is 50% nicer or 67%.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am Now, we can't be entirely sure what the quantity of hedons is that are produced by any given feeling...but we don't need to know the specifics, we can estimate that, and we have to, if we're to behave rationally, because we have no other sensible goals in life besides the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering...so far as I can tell.
We would definitely be needing those specifics, or at least some viable roadmap to get us there. Given the scope for doubt that this talk of existence for joy and despair and art and goodness amounts to anything more than the reification of metaphors, this guestimation talk is not viable at all.

Your counterpart likes to suppose he can assemble a measurement by projection. He believes he can assign a group of experts who can collectively estimate quantities for these things and then if he gifts himself a 5% margin of error then that's all sorted out. His method is not good, but yours is to trust to a leap of faith perhaps accompanied by some sort of gentlemen's agreement.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am Now...regarding the difference between science and moral philosophy you mentioned...is science really less subjective than moral philosophy? I'm not sure it is. For example, if we live in a computer simulation everything we think we know about the laws of physics could be wrong, and I'd definitely say that we have no way to prove that we don't live in a computer simulation. Let's compare that to simple type of utilitarian calculus I can do. That thought process will consist of: When only considering my feelings over the course of the next thirty seconds...would it be better for me to have my arm torn off by a gorilla (assuming I have traditional pain receptors), or to get a small, average, paper cut?

Well, I'd argue that if getting my arm torn off by a gorilla in this instance can possibly be described as less painful than the paper cut, the meaning of pain in no way resembles its traditional meaning, so we have to say that the paper cut would be less painful. Going back to what I claimed our goal to be...the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering, I think I'd have to say it would be just flat out better to get the paper cut than have my arm torn off by a gorilla...and what's more, that pain would exist whether or not we live in a computer simulation. We could feel that pain, and therefore be far more certain of its realism than any law of physics.

In that sort of way, I'd actually argue that moral philosophy can often be a much more precise means of determining truth than the physical sciences.
We got a few things going on there. In this little section though, you have moved in seemingly ordinary way of reasoning from a discussion of what is and is not to one of that which ought and ought not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xEcdJHNdZE.

Aside from the is-ought thing going on there, the measurability of the pain is a real problem for your example. Suppose that a gorilla's brain is natually more attuned to the feeling of pain and elation than is the human organ, let us assume for the sake of arg that it is so by two orders of magnitude. Where your positive and negative joys are measured merely in hedons and nega-hedons, his are megahedons, and meganega-headons, that's how much more the gorilla feels than you do because he just has bigger feelings than a human has. If this gorilla has a lifelong ambition to rip off a human arm (cause: mistreatment at a zoo that was nothing to do with you) and wipe his own arse with it, his need is greater than yours, you greedy 2 armed bastard. You won't even feel most of the pain, you're a weak human and will pass out.

But a more important side note than either of those is the general direction of the argument you are presenting. It's a mistake, consider it the opening move in a chess game where you are sacrificing your bishop to take a pawn. Downgrading science such that it resembles the thing you want to elevate to a peer of the same sciences is a bad sacrifice, VA made that move years ago, some utter fucknut who calls himself Prof did the same, those guys are shit, don't follow their lead.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, to expand upon my previous ideas, if our goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering, by default I'd say that should be to maximize all pleasure and minimize all suffering, because we didn't specify otherwise...which means the default system would be to strive to think up some way to maximize the pleasure and minimize the suffering of all life in all universes for all of time. So, the next step would be to think up some formula to do this.

I don't know how any system except for utilitarianism could compose such a math formula that focuses on maximizing quantities of pleasure and minimizing quantities of suffering.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So wrapping up the previous stuff I wrote into a more compact and helpful unit: Any moral requirement to maximise pleasure on such a universifiable basis would be a requirement only if it were an imperative of the categorical sort, which isn't compatible with consequentialism and thus not something that you are presently able to argue in support of. The goal to do so just because it seems consistent is a mirage. Once you find yourself even desiring to ahve a mathematical formula for moral rightness you are liekly to be in some trouble, but to need it is to be hopelessly adrift.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am So, I'd say that's how we should look at the truest form of morality, and while doing so it's vital to keep in mind that the goal is not to seek consensus, but to come as close to that true form of morality that really does maximize pleasure and minimize suffering as possible.

So, in many ways I think this process would ideally be treated as any problem in physical science...such as how to go to the moon most efficiently. I'd say if we limit ourselves to persuasion, we're ignoring the goal.

There are of course purely descriptive types of morality achieved through nothing but consensus. I feel like a good description of them is "false morality" though, although that's not an official title that has been popularized. Those forms of morality don't necessarily strive to achieve the only goal I think we actually have...so I wouldn't describe them as true morality.
The problem with making a division between folk morality and morality-proper is that-morality proper is an ersatz substitute. I liken it to Genuine American Cheese, the food adjacent substance that needs the word cheese in its name because otherwsise there would be no reason to suppose that word applied at all.

Folk morality is about right and wrong, good and bad, that which is honourable versus that which is despicable, fairness, justice, sportsmanship and all that shit. All the "improvements" we keep getting offered have proven lacking, they are eliminatively reductive because there is no natural reduction from fairness to pleasure and pain unless you try to sneak fair pleasure and unfair pain into a previously quanititative analysis and I've just cut that line of arguement off here.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 9:24 am --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd argue the types of moral codes I'm trying to develop may be flawed...but the important thing is that I'm trying to get as close to truth as possible. The physical sciences have similar goals. You can't know the laws of physics are true, but so far they seem to be, so they're as close as we can get to truth, and we build our assumptions off that because we have to...because it's the goal of science to close in on truth, and we have no better path to do so than working from these assumptions about reality and building atop them.
It's somewhat presumptuous to assume there is a moral truth to which your investigation can aproximate.

The reason why this whole sub barely discusses morality these days is because VA triend the downgrade of science move in order to upgrade his morality-proper to scientific status and then needed to descide whether his analogous connection between morality and science would be based on there being a similar pattern of approximation to truth within science and and morality. If you are going to go down that road, I would at least suggest taking the sane option and being a scientific realist beasue that other guy is doing my brain in. If you wanna go that way, and you want to save some time, you could try reading this guy he hasd some moves that might help you out.
*What I like about the phrase "I don't see how" is that if someone does see how, they can simply explain to me how X might be the case which I haven't seen. It's not an argument that X is true though. It does save a lot of wordage if I've used it after some argument that I think points to a sound conclusion, as opposed to spending many more paragraphs delving into why all other possible conclusions are likely incorrect. I'd say avoiding unnecessary language is a vital aspect of these types of conversations. So, I'd say, when I make statements like "I don't see how," it's best not to see that as an argument X is true...just as what it is...a request for others to explain to me why I'm incorrect, and an admission of the limits of my cognitive abilities. This does, unfortunately result in more work for people who are not me...but it would also result in more work for them to have to read a much longer explanation of my thought process, so I don't think it's a bad solution, oftentimes.


*I've read about the "hypothetical imperative." I have yet to understand what that means yet. This may go best if you avoid attempting to teach me. I'm wondering if that would just lead to a pointlessly lengthy conversation.


* You stated: So the thing you cannot conceive of is that the goal we want to acheive via our choices is feeling good in some way, and therefore the thing we ought to do is to secure that objective

I think I see what the problem might be. You and I may be defining "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" differently.
You seem to be saying that another goal besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering would be the goal of "feeling good in some way and striving to secure that objective." I'm not sure why you seem to perceive that stated goal of your's as not "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" though. Surely, if feeling good in some way would be an ideal goal...feeling the most good possible would be a better goal, wouldn't it? Now...that would be maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for just you. I think it's worth noting that it'd also be pretty safe to say I can't imagine what other goal you could have besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for all feeling life in existence throughout all of time though...because I think if that's not your goal, it has to be due to confusion, and you don't really know what your goals are. So, regardless of which translation of "maximize pleasure and minimize suffering" we're using, I think it works fine.

In other words, I don't think what you really want is anything besides the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering for all life in the universe which is determined by a utilitarian math formula. That's because, if we'd think about it enough and contemplate ourselves living in the shoes of any other life forms, we'd realize we'd detest any suffering they feel and like any pleasure they feel, and we'd realize all life are just clockwork fated to engage in the actions they've engaged in by their environments and genetics...and we'd end up behaving exactly the same way those life forms would had we not been the ones living their lives...and so I'd say the inevitable conclusion we'll all have if we think about reality enough is to strive to make all these life forms that we might as well be live as ideal of lives as possible.


*I wouldn't say pleasure exists in the same way a pair of shoes does...and if I did that was probably poor wording. I would say that pleasure is just as real as a pair of shoes. My argument for this was that we can feel different amounts of pleasure from different experiences, and I don't know how that could be possible without there being some real quantity of pleasure produced by each feeling we experience. I don't think it matters of it's composed of anything physical or not...because we can feel the impact of it. It would likely be a different kind of real than shoes...but also interact with reality in concrete manner that purely mental concepts like math do not.


*When we say the Mona Lisa is more (insert value estimation here) than another picture...we're measuring a great many different feelings. We're analyzing our feelings and estimating the quantity of different ones and essentially doing the math to determine whether or not it's a good picture. We're thinking to ourselves, "How many units of goodness is this inducing in me, or is likely to induce in others?" with goodness tending to relate to things like...does it give us some special, interesting feeling? Is it some kind of useful social commentary? Is it pretty? Is it rare? etc.


*When it comes to topics like disk space...I'd say the difference between metaphorical language and being literal becomes pretty irrelevant, oftentimes. The disk itself is not being filled up with physical matter...but the disk still contains a certain amount of space for information, and that can be filled. That's how I see concepts like pleasure. You can call my description of it as being real a metaphor...just so long as you keep in mind I think it's about as real as disk space is. I think it's a mistake to focus too much on what's real and not real. It's the impacts of these things that matter. Heck, I'm not really sure why thought is any less of a "real" substance than my keyboard, or why I'd think of it as not a real substance. Both impact the world around me. Both, if I look deep enough, become about as equally confusing. It's just that with my keyboard it doesn't immediately appear to be as confusing as thought. If I look deep enough though...most of my keyboard (and some people would argue all of it) is empty space...and yet it feels very sturdy to me. So, I'd say thought is as real as my shoes too.


*I claimed that we do not need to know the specifics of how much pleasure is produced by actions. You responded by saying "We would definitely be needing those specifics...or at least a roadmap to get there." My response is...we do not need to know exactly how much pleasure is produced by certain actions. All we need to do is have a good idea of how much more pleasure and suffering certain actions produce than other actions. For example, I'll feel a certain amount of pleasure from petting a dog. Knowing how many units of pleasure are produced by that would be totally pointless. All that matters is how that compares to other actions...so this utilitarian math formula I've been talking about would not involve specific numerical values. It would rather, probably, contain a lot of algebra problems, with X's and Y's replacing numbers and such...so I'd think about how much pleasure petting a dog might result in me having. Then I'd think of a situation that is a certain amount more pleasurable than that, and I'd say "However much pleasure petting the dog results in, petting the other dog with the more silky fur that wags their tail is that times 2" or whatever.
That's the main way we don't need to know the specific numerical values of pleasure produced by actions...and the main way we can figure out how the formula works.


*You say my system relies on leaps of faith and gentlemen's agreements. I'm thinking that's because you've not seen any of my arguments for the specifics of how the utilitarian calculus behind my views would work. That's always an extremely lengthy process. I've delved into that with some of my fellow utilitarians before...but not everyone here is a utilitarian, so that would seem a waste of time right now. I've had giant essays arguing utilitarian calculus over single issues...that were still pretty vague. My ideal vision for the field of philosophy would be, I'd say, everybody following my exact same brand of utilitarianism, and then all the rest of philosophy is just endless discussions of how utilitarian calculus should work in different scenarios...just people endlessly trying to convince each other why certain behaviors are better than others through a discussion of math and sociology and psychology and neurology and anything else that would impact how much pleasure and suffering certain behaviors are likely to cause.


*I'd say we care about nothing but maximizing pleasure and suffering...so more pleasure automatically = better (at least as far as all of humanity and all feeling life is concerned) and more suffering/pain automatically = worse (at least as far as all of humanity...and all feeling life...is concerned). I'd say that's a fine way of bridging the gap between the is/ought problem.


*Regarding the gorilla example...then yes...it would be best to have the gorilla tear your arm off. You appear to have thought that was a refutation of my views. I disagree. I'm fully willing to bite the bullet and say that, ideally, the gorilla would tear my arm off in that example...if the gorilla experienced such massive amounts more suffering from not doing so than I'd experience from having my arm torn off...or something like that....if you couldn't just kill the gorilla. Realistically, killing the gorilla would probably be the best solution. His pain would end then. Or...if it's the gorilla's pleasure from tearing off my arm that would be so massive, then I'd say we should probably keep the gorilla alive and let him tear my arm off...in this isolated circumstance. Really, I've thought up a sci-fi civilization that would work similarly. The civilization is ruled over by a small minority of brilliant, yet chronically depressed persons whos job is to care for an ever-expanding population of euphoric idiots who are too dumb to care for themselves. The misery of the intelligent leaders, through their endless work, allows the euphoric idiots to remain euphoric, and to me this sounds like an ethically sound civilization.


*I don't think I'm downgrading science. I, rather, think it's rather odd that people don't perceive pain and pleasure as more important. Really...what's more important? Millions of starving children who are being ignored...or trust in science? I don't like that society has this very common, bizarrely inconsistent outlook that all moral codes are fairly equal. That kind of outlook leads to things I'd say we inevitably wouldn't like if we thought about it enough. So, I'd say this thought process that says all morality is equal is an illusion...and I want it crushed out and replaced with something more in line with what we really want in life if we thought about it more.


*I'd say that, if the stated goal is the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering...we've already established a universal goal. After all, if my goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering...that implies all of it, and the reason for wanting that would be a form of rule-based consequentialism, so far as I can tell. We're doing that because the consequences of not doing so would be bad feelings and less good feelings.


*You say that all the "improvements" to folk morality have proven lacking. Well, I can think of strong arguments in favor of abortion, and even destroying most life on Earth that nobody would agree with without what I'd argue is more of a logical thought process. If we don't destroy animal life on Earth, we're talking about potential billions more years of the probably equivalent of homeless, severely retarded human beings having endless sex with each other and cannibalizing each other. We just call those organisms nonhuman animals...but they may, in many ways, feel pain very similar to human beings. In that sort of way, I'd say "folk morality" totally ignores what I see as that greatest possible duty of humanity...because it feels icky to destroy life to us. So, I'd definitely say folk morality is inferior to mine.


*I don't know what scientific realism means yet. I've heard of it. I've not looked into it much yet though.

Thanks for the response.
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6213
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *I've read about the "hypothetical imperative." I have yet to understand what that means yet. This may go best if you avoid attempting to teach me. I'm wondering if that would just lead to a pointlessly lengthy conversation.
Ok then, but we have an issue that you aren't currently equipped to grasp a point that both Pete and I have made because you don't understand why Kant was in search of a categorical imperative in place of mere hypothetical ones. Your entire project is predicated on simply assuming that a Benthamite pleasure pain principle fulfills the role of CI, but that argument was a washout two hundred years ago for reasons.

Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm * You stated: So the thing you cannot conceive of is that the goal we want to acheive via our choices is feeling good in some way, and therefore the thing we ought to do is to secure that objective

I think I see what the problem might be. You and I may be defining "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" differently.
You seem to be saying that another goal besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering would be the goal of "feeling good in some way and striving to secure that objective." I'm not sure why you seem to perceive that stated goal of your's as not "maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering" though. Surely, if feeling good in some way would be an ideal goal...feeling the most good possible would be a better goal, wouldn't it? Now...that would be maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for just you. I think it's worth noting that it'd also be pretty safe to say I can't imagine what other goal you could have besides maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering for all feeling life in existence throughout all of time though...because I think if that's not your goal, it has to be due to confusion, and you don't really know what your goals are. So, regardless of which translation of "maximize pleasure and minimize suffering" we're using, I think it works fine.
No we're fine there, I am a bad and clumsy typist, sometimes I simply ommit entire words, there I must have missed out half the sentence. I understand your principle fine assuming it's the same as Singer's modern version of the Benthamite plan - and the other things you write here suggest that is broadly the case.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm In other words, I don't think what you really want is anything besides the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering for all life in the universe which is determined by a utilitarian math formula. That's because, if we'd think about it enough and contemplate ourselves living in the shoes of any other life forms, we'd realize we'd detest any suffering they feel and like any pleasure they feel, and we'd realize all life are just clockwork fated to engage in the actions they've engaged in by their environments and genetics...and we'd end up behaving exactly the same way those life forms would had we not been the ones living their lives...and so I'd say the inevitable conclusion we'll all have if we think about reality enough is to strive to make all these life forms that we might as well be live as ideal of lives as possible.
There's a huge chunk of missing argument here and I don't see anywhere else that you've filled it in. Sure everyone wants max pleasure and min pain, but what's the basis for there being nothing else to want? What makes this pleasure pain principle the sole categorical imperative?

Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *I wouldn't say pleasure exists in the same way a pair of shoes does...and if I did that was probably poor wording. I would say that pleasure is just as real as a pair of shoes. My argument for this was that we can feel different amounts of pleasure from different experiences, and I don't know how that could be possible without there being some real quantity of pleasure produced by each feeling we experience. I don't think it matters of it's composed of anything physical or not...because we can feel the impact of it. It would likely be a different kind of real than shoes...but also interact with reality in concrete manner that purely mental concepts like math do not.


*When we say the Mona Lisa is more (insert value estimation here) than another picture...we're measuring a great many different feelings. We're analyzing our feelings and estimating the quantity of different ones and essentially doing the math to determine whether or not it's a good picture. We're thinking to ourselves, "How many units of goodness is this inducing in me, or is likely to induce in others?" with goodness tending to relate to things like...does it give us some special, interesting feeling? Is it some kind of useful social commentary? Is it pretty? Is it rare? etc.


*When it comes to topics like disk space...I'd say the difference between metaphorical language and being literal becomes pretty irrelevant, oftentimes. The disk itself is not being filled up with physical matter...but the disk still contains a certain amount of space for information, and that can be filled. That's how I see concepts like pleasure. You can call my description of it as being real a metaphor...just so long as you keep in mind I think it's about as real as disk space is. I think it's a mistake to focus too much on what's real and not real. It's the impacts of these things that matter. Heck, I'm not really sure why thought is any less of a "real" substance than my keyboard, or why I'd think of it as not a real substance. Both impact the world around me. Both, if I look deep enough, become about as equally confusing. It's just that with my keyboard it doesn't immediately appear to be as confusing as thought. If I look deep enough though...most of my keyboard (and some people would argue all of it) is empty space...and yet it feels very sturdy to me. So, I'd say thought is as real as my shoes too.


*I claimed that we do not need to know the specifics of how much pleasure is produced by actions. You responded by saying "We would definitely be needing those specifics...or at least a roadmap to get there." My response is...we do not need to know exactly how much pleasure is produced by certain actions. All we need to do is have a good idea of how much more pleasure and suffering certain actions produce than other actions. For example, I'll feel a certain amount of pleasure from petting a dog. Knowing how many units of pleasure are produced by that would be totally pointless. All that matters is how that compares to other actions...so this utilitarian math formula I've been talking about would not involve specific numerical values. It would rather, probably, contain a lot of algebra problems, with X's and Y's replacing numbers and such...so I'd think about how much pleasure petting a dog might result in me having. Then I'd think of a situation that is a certain amount more pleasurable than that, and I'd say "However much pleasure petting the dog results in, petting the other dog with the more silky fur that wags their tail is that times 2" or whatever.
That's the main way we don't need to know the specific numerical values of pleasure produced by actions...and the main way we can figure out how the formula works.


*You say my system relies on leaps of faith and gentlemen's agreements. I'm thinking that's because you've not seen any of my arguments for the specifics of how the utilitarian calculus behind my views would work. That's always an extremely lengthy process. I've delved into that with some of my fellow utilitarians before...but not everyone here is a utilitarian, so that would seem a waste of time right now. I've had giant essays arguing utilitarian calculus over single issues...that were still pretty vague. My ideal vision for the field of philosophy would be, I'd say, everybody following my exact same brand of utilitarianism, and then all the rest of philosophy is just endless discussions of how utilitarian calculus should work in different scenarios...just people endlessly trying to convince each other why certain behaviors are better than others through a discussion of math and sociology and psychology and neurology and anything else that would impact how much pleasure and suffering certain behaviors are likely to cause.
It really does matter though, whether you like it or not. When we speak metaphorically of a thing under terms that don't properly apply to it, we commit a category mistake when we fail to notice that and apply the logic of the real thing to the metaphorical one. Category Mistake is an important concept here and you're going to need to know that one.

So what I am arguing here is that you are commiting a category mistake by treating that which is entirely insubstantial as if it had physical, measurable properties on the basis of allegorical talk about it having magnitude.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *I'd say we care about nothing but maximizing pleasure and suffering...so more pleasure automatically = better (at least as far as all of humanity and all feeling life is concerned) and more suffering/pain automatically = worse (at least as far as all of humanity...and all feeling life...is concerned). I'd say that's a fine way of bridging the gap between the is/ought problem.

*Regarding the gorilla example...then yes...it would be best to have the gorilla tear your arm off. You appear to have thought that was a refutation of my views. I disagree. I'm fully willing to bite the bullet and say that, ideally, the gorilla would tear my arm off in that example...if the gorilla experienced such massive amounts more suffering from not doing so than I'd experience from having my arm torn off...or something like that....if you couldn't just kill the gorilla. Realistically, killing the gorilla would probably be the best solution. His pain would end then. Or...if it's the gorilla's pleasure from tearing off my arm that would be so massive, then I'd say we should probably keep the gorilla alive and let him tear my arm off...in this isolated circumstance. Really, I've thought up a sci-fi civilization that would work similarly. The civilization is ruled over by a small minority of brilliant, yet chronically depressed persons whos job is to care for an ever-expanding population of euphoric idiots who are too dumb to care for themselves. The misery of the intelligent leaders, through their endless work, allows the euphoric idiots to remain euphoric, and to me this sounds like an ethically sound civilization.
There's biting the bullet, and there's jumping the shark. There is no rational way to morally justify violence for the sheer enjoyment of the hurting. It's a misjudgment to attempt to provide one.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *I don't think I'm downgrading science. I, rather, think it's rather odd that people don't perceive pain and pleasure as more important. Really...what's more important? Millions of starving children who are being ignored...or trust in science? I don't like that society has this very common, bizarrely inconsistent outlook that all moral codes are fairly equal. That kind of outlook leads to things I'd say we inevitably wouldn't like if we thought about it enough. So, I'd say this thought process that says all morality is equal is an illusion...and I want it crushed out and replaced with something more in line with what we really want in life if we thought about it more.
None of that amounts to an actual argument. Apropos of nothing, something that most people on philosophy forums don't understand (I learned recently) is that just as there is a problem with copulation of incompatible types of proposition when we attempt to derive an ought from an is, there is an identical problem - for the exact same copulatory reason - with any move from ought to is. So for instance the feeling that if morality isn't both real and strictly hierarchical then that just means the situation isn't morally satisfactory.... wouldn't work as any sort of basis to justify a move to presume that therefore morality must be understood as both real and hierarchical. It would only amount to a complaint that would be subject to a reponse of the sad trombone variety.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *I'd say that, if the stated goal is the maximization of pleasure and minimization of suffering...we've already established a universal goal. After all, if my goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering...that implies all of it, and the reason for wanting that would be a form of rule-based consequentialism, so far as I can tell. We're doing that because the consequences of not doing so would be bad feelings and less good feelings.
I fear you have not quite grasped why philosophers so require a foundational moral principle to be universifiable at all, and by extension how that move needs to work. One guy just announcing that he doesn't understand why anyone cares about anything else doesn't do the necessary.
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 8:32 pm *You say that all the "improvements" to folk morality have proven lacking. Well, I can think of strong arguments in favor of abortion, and even destroying most life on Earth that nobody would agree with without what I'd argue is more of a logical thought process. If we don't destroy animal life on Earth, we're talking about potential billions more years of the probably equivalent of homeless, severely retarded human beings having endless sex with each other and cannibalizing each other. We just call those organisms nonhuman animals...but they may, in many ways, feel pain very similar to human beings. In that sort of way, I'd say "folk morality" totally ignores what I see as that greatest possible duty of humanity...because it feels icky to destroy life to us. So, I'd definitely say folk morality is inferior to mine.
What a dark and ironic sense of humour you have.
Leontiskos
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2023 5:57 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Leontiskos »

Hello, it seems your posts are worth reading, and that's surely a strange occurrence on a philosophy forum.
FlashDangerpants wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:14 pmSo wrapping up the previous stuff I wrote into a more compact and helpful unit: Any moral requirement to maximise pleasure on such a universifiable basis would be a requirement only if it were an imperative of the categorical sort, which isn't compatible with consequentialism and thus not something that you are presently able to argue in support of.
It seems to me that a problem with modern moral philosophy is that there is an undue assumption that each system fits neatly within the single genus of "prescriptive, universally rationally-accessible moral propositions." Whereas in the old days it was well-known that the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics were playing at different games, nowadays we tend to assume that not only are the Kantians, Consequentialists, and Virtue Ethicists playing at the same game, but so were the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics.

If I am right in viewing Clinton as something of a naive consequentialist--someone who has not read much in ethics or metaethics--then he probably follows others like himself in holding to a set of propositions similar to the following:
  1. Pleasure and pain are the sole motivations of human action, and if push comes to shove we can simply define 'pleasure' as positive motivation and 'pain' as negative motivation.
  2. All other putative motivations are therefore reducible to pleasure and pain.
  3. Morality is primarily about human psychology and human motivation; it is not primarily about 'oughtness'.
  4. Even if difficulties attend utilitarianism, none are insuperable simply because utilitarianism is the only true option. For example, a concrete calculus may feel absurd, but yet there is no less absurd option available.
To hearken back to that original point, it seems to me that what utilitarians like Clinton are doing is not what we conceive traditional ethics to be doing, and this is because their view involves a significant blurring of the line between a descriptive theory of psychological motivation and a prescriptive theory of human action. The idea is apparently that it is a fact of human existence that everyone seeks pleasure and avoids pain, and the only question is, "What is the best means to this predetermined end?" For such a utilitarian the question, "Ought we seek pleasure?", is purely academic, much like the question, "Do humans have noses?"
Leontiskos
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2023 5:57 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Leontiskos »

Missed this -
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:39 am Thanks Leontiskos.

I have very little formal education in philosophy. It's almost exclusively consisted of several new vocabulary terms I've learned from a philosophy teacher in a club I'm in, and the ensuing reading I've done after that...so there's a lot I don't know.
There's nothing wrong with that. In fact it probably means that you have more interesting philosophical investigations in your future than many of us do. :D
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:39 amAside from that, I've done a pretty hearty amount of thinking about my personal moral code though, which is definitely a brand of utilitarianism. I probably spent about a decade thinking up the concept of utilitarianism and hedons and hedonism myself and only figured out that those were existing terms after the philosophy professor I know told me the formal names of those concepts...so I'm still kind of focused on my views, moreso than the specifics of how other people's pre-existing ideas work.

I'm thinking how this is probably going to work out is that...I periodically think up mini formulas that tell the specifics of how certain forms of utilitarian calculus will work. I'm thinking act-based utilitarianism will remain the default system, because I see it as a much more specific and nuanced way of determining things than rule-based utilitarianism, unless the circumstances it would lead to would result in the kinds of fear-based reactions and distrust and chaos that would defeat the primary goal of the system...which is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering. Under these circumstances, and these circumstances alone, we'd accept that there is no way for the path to be ideally nuanced, and we'd adopt rule-based utilitarianism temporarily just to deal with these circumstances...and I don't think it would be enough to lie about doing so. We'll have to truly adopt the rules of rule-based utilitarianism to be "good" people, according to the system of morality. Otherwise, we'd end up having strong reasons to distrust each other, which could lead to the breakdown of society, and to more of the types of suffering we're trying to avoid. Reasoning like those "best" arguments I listed would still be important to take into consideration though, because they, I'd say, can provide more convincing arguments to individuals who just don't agree with following the rules of rule-based utilitarianism.
Fair enough. I didn't realize you were working all of this out on your own. Your logical rigor is admirable, but given what you say I would follow FlashDangerpants in suggesting that you verify that your starting point is firm. Your conclusions follow clearly from your starting point, but if that utilitarian starting point is unstable then the conclusions will be valid but unsound. As far as testing your own thought, there's still nothing better than Plato's dialogues.

Also, for context, the reason your OP wouldn't get many bites even on a busier forum is because moral philosophy has largely become focused on debates between the different schools. Most utilitarians are more focused on converting deontologists than on working out the details of their own system.
Peter Holmes
Posts: 3711
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Peter Holmes »

Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:40 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 2:36 pm What Flash just said. And I'd add the following.

1 That pleasure is 'better than' or 'preferable to' pain is a matter of opinion. An opinion held by everyone is still an opinion. And it's possible to hold the opposite opinion, and some people (such as ascetics) do - sometimes for moral reasons: 'it's morally right to endure pain and eschew pleasure'.

2 The choice of a goal - such as maximising pleasure and minimising pain - is always subjective, And the consistency of an action with a goal, even if it's objectively demonstrable, doesn't confer objectivity on the moral rightness of the action or goal - which is always a matter of opinion.

3 But 'pleasure is better than/preferable to pain is not a moral assertion anyway, unless 'better than/preferable to' means 'morally better than/preferable to' - which begs the question. An is can't entail an ought.
I'm going to comment on this before getting into the other comments, because is rather concise and It hones in a major issue of importance regarding an inevitable source of disagreement me and many responders to this thread will have.

I don't believe it's possible to truly enjoy pain. If we enjoy it, I'd say, by definition, that can't be pain. What I'd say we enjoy when we say we enjoy pain is either hearing about other people's pain we can't feel, or enjoying the pleasure that results from certain types of pain...such as what masochists experiences, or what people like myself enjoy from eating spicy food. So, if a masochist claims to enjoy pain...they dislike the pain. It's just that the pleasure they experience from the pain is greater than the unpleasantness from the pain.

So far as I can tell pain was evolved purely as negative feedback. We don't want it by default. So, yeah, you could look at it like that's just an opinion...but I'd say it would be a universally agreed upon opinion of everyone who experiences pain, whether they know it or not.

If someone claims to believe that it's morally right to endure pain and eschew pleasure, I'm going to ask them why. I figure there are a limited number of explanations they can have to that that I can think of. One plausible explanation could be a belief in some kind of divine command theory advocating their belief. If that's the case, I have no idea why that belief would make sense unless it pleases God for humanity to endure pain and eschew pleasure...in which case the goal is still increasing pleasure...they've just attached a higher value to God's pleasure, for some reason. The other options I can think of is that the person believes that we should avoid extremes (like in Buddhism) or sacrifice to assist others...both of which really also are going to have long term goals of maximizing pleasure. So, for example, I might want to avoid experiencing massive amounts of joy so as to avoid future suffering feeling worse in comparison...or I might want to go jogging in order to live longer to complete more goals that would please me or benefit society.

Now, regarding people believing it's good for other people to experience pain...I'd say that's hypocritical. We're all born based off the clockwork of the universe, and our fates are sealed without our consent, so far as I can tell, so vengeance makes no sense except as negative feedback to prevent some future harmful action from occurring again...so it's a form of suffering used to avoid more suffering. I don't think we really want others to suffer either...it's just that we get confused a lot because of our aggressive instincts. If we thought about it more, we'd realize we could have been born into Hitler's body, and due to our environment and genetics we'd have made the exact same decisions, and then we'd feel miserable regarding any suffering someone dealt is as punishment. So...should we have tried to kill Hitler? Sure...because the alternative in which he lived was likely worse...but even Hitler's suffering was still a bad thing.

So, I don't think we have a choice regarding what we really want. We inevitably want to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering, and I'd say, because of the above kind of reasoning involving Hitler, if we don't think we want to develop a utilitarian math formula that strives to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering for all feeling life for all of time in all universes...it's because we're confused about how reality works and we don't really know what we want.

So yeah, you could say morality is subjective and it's all just people's opinions...and I would say, I don't think that matters much because I think I know what everyone reading this really wants, whether they know it or not, and I think it's inevitable that you all want that, and if you think you don't...I'd say that's because you don't understand reality well enough to really know what you do want. I would say what everyone reading this really wants is to maximize pleasure and minimizing suffering through behaving in a way a utilitarian math formula that works to achieve that for all feeling life says to achieve.
Thanks, but your argument here amounts to this: what all of us want is morally right, and what all of us don't want is morally wrong. For example:

Premise: Everybody wants to experience pleasure, and nobody wants to experience pain.
Conclusion: Therefore, causing pleasure is morally right, and causing pain is morally wrong.

Even if the non-moral premise is true - a true factual assertion - the moral conclusion doesn't follow. There's no way around the impossibility of non-moral premises entailing moral conclusions.

Like all moral objectivists, you want to segue casually from an is to an ought, and ignore the question-begging assumption.
Leontiskos
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2023 5:57 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Leontiskos »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:58 pm
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:40 pmI'm going to comment on this before getting into the other comments...
Thanks, but your argument here amounts to this: what all of us want is morally right, and what all of us don't want is morally wrong. For example:

Premise: Everybody wants to experience pleasure, and nobody wants to experience pain.
Conclusion: Therefore, causing pleasure is morally right, and causing pain is morally wrong.

Even if the non-moral premise is true - a true factual assertion - the moral conclusion doesn't follow. There's no way around the impossibility of non-moral premises entailing moral conclusions.

Like all moral objectivists, you want to segue casually from an is to an ought, and ignore the question-begging assumption.
This is a basic and common misunderstanding of consequentialism. There are two papers where Robert Mckim and Peter Simpson refute the error rather conclusively:
  • "On the Alleged Incoherence of Consequentialism," by Robert Mckim and Peter Simpson (link)
  • "Incoherence and Consequentialism (or Proportionalism) -- A Rejoinder," by Joseph Boyle, Germain Grisez, and John Finnis (link)
  • "Consequentialism, Incoherence and Choice: Rejoinder to a Rejoinder," by Peter Simpson and Robert McKim (link)
Peter Holmes
Posts: 3711
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Peter Holmes »

Leontiskos wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 6:30 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:58 pm
Clinton wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 6:40 pmI'm going to comment on this before getting into the other comments...
Thanks, but your argument here amounts to this: what all of us want is morally right, and what all of us don't want is morally wrong. For example:

Premise: Everybody wants to experience pleasure, and nobody wants to experience pain.
Conclusion: Therefore, causing pleasure is morally right, and causing pain is morally wrong.

Even if the non-moral premise is true - a true factual assertion - the moral conclusion doesn't follow. There's no way around the impossibility of non-moral premises entailing moral conclusions.

Like all moral objectivists, you want to segue casually from an is to an ought, and ignore the question-begging assumption.
This is a basic and common misunderstanding of consequentialism. There are two papers where Robert Mckim and Peter Simpson refute the error rather conclusively:
  • "On the Alleged Incoherence of Consequentialism," by Robert Mckim and Peter Simpson (link)
  • "Incoherence and Consequentialism (or Proportionalism) -- A Rejoinder," by Joseph Boyle, Germain Grisez, and John Finnis (link)
  • "Consequentialism, Incoherence and Choice: Rejoinder to a Rejoinder," by Peter Simpson and Robert McKim (link)
My criticism of Clinton's position isn't about consequentialism - which I think is merely deontology deferred.

So please can you explain the error, and the refutation? I assume that can be done concisely.
Leontiskos
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2023 5:57 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Leontiskos »

Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:09 pm So please can you explain the error, and the refutation? I assume that can be done concisely.
Actually, feel free to disregard those papers. I was in a rush earlier, but I now see that you are drawing a different conclusion than the one that Mckim and Simpson address.

We once argued on a different forum, and after some time I realized that you are a no-ought-from-is dogmatist. That is, when presented with arguments against that axiom you were unable to do more than re-assert the axiom. Given this, I am not really planning to substantially engage you on this forum. I don't believe it could go anywhere.

That said:
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:58 pmPremise: Everybody wants to experience pleasure, and nobody wants to experience pain.
Conclusion: Therefore, causing pleasure is morally right, and causing pain is morally wrong.

Even if the non-moral premise is true - a true factual assertion - the moral conclusion doesn't follow. There's no way around the impossibility of non-moral premises entailing moral conclusions.
It seems to me that the utilitarian venture is rooted in the idea that <a desire to experience pleasure is itself justification for seeking pleasure>. If you like, desire involves its own manner of 'oughtness'. Your own position could then be boiled down to the idea that <a desire for pleasure does not in itself create any sort of justification for attempting to fulfill that pleasure>. I am not a utilitarian, but in this case it is clear to me that the utilitarian has the better part of the argument.

(Someone like yourself will generally then respond by attempting to distinguish "moral" 'oughts' from "non-moral" 'oughts', but I rather doubt that the utilitarian cares whether someone conceives of their 'ought' as "moral" or "non-moral." As long as it is an 'ought', it will suffice.)
User avatar
FlashDangerpants
Posts: 6213
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2016 11:54 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Leontiskos wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 11:32 pm It seems to me that a problem with modern moral philosophy is that there is an undue assumption that each system fits neatly within the single genus of "prescriptive, universally rationally-accessible moral propositions." Whereas in the old days it was well-known that the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics were playing at different games, nowadays we tend to assume that not only are the Kantians, Consequentialists, and Virtue Ethicists playing at the same game, but so were the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics.
So far as I can tell (and I'm no expert on the ancients) the oldey timey Greeks were primarily looking at the ideal good life eudaimonia and flourishing thing, with correct moral judgment being a side issue to that? I'm sure that's over simplifying, but bear with me while I layer on additional confusion and error.... Somewhere along the line (I really want to blame the Christians for this one) the whole deal with universals that was Plato's thing got twisted up and when Platonic Forms went out of fashion.

So I'm kind of wondering aloud here because I genuinely never thought about the subject history before, but obviously the Greeks had scepticism by the bucket load, and they had Pyrrhonian moral skepticism which took aim at the fundamental justification for any moral knownledge claim. But I really only know of Plato for the other side of that precise debate about foundations rather than directions.

So I guess I just sort of assumed, with little justification, that the philosophers who did away with Plato's approach to universals sort of inherited an obligation to find new ways to answer the questions that he was trying to answer by reference to Forms. So one of those would be how we can know what is good.
Leontiskos wrote: Sat Jun 03, 2023 11:32 pm If I am right in viewing Clinton as something of a naive consequentialist--someone who has not read much in ethics or metaethics--then he probably follows others like himself in holding to a set of propositions similar to the following:
  1. Pleasure and pain are the sole motivations of human action, and if push comes to shove we can simply define 'pleasure' as positive motivation and 'pain' as negative motivation.
  2. All other putative motivations are therefore reducible to pleasure and pain.
  3. Morality is primarily about human psychology and human motivation; it is not primarily about 'oughtness'.
  4. Even if difficulties attend utilitarianism, none are insuperable simply because utilitarianism is the only true option. For example, a concrete calculus may feel absurd, but yet there is no less absurd option available.
To hearken back to that original point, it seems to me that what utilitarians like Clinton are doing is not what we conceive traditional ethics to be doing, and this is because their view involves a significant blurring of the line between a descriptive theory of psychological motivation and a prescriptive theory of human action. The idea is apparently that it is a fact of human existence that everyone seeks pleasure and avoids pain, and the only question is, "What is the best means to this predetermined end?" For such a utilitarian the question, "Ought we seek pleasure?", is purely academic, much like the question, "Do humans have noses?"
I probably misjduged him early on when I assumed that he would (if prompted to think about it) take the same derisory view of the whole concept of hedonic calculus that I do. But I couldn't have been more wrong, and I think that it is very likely that the calculus element is an important plus point for Clinton*. I assume he has a mathematical background and uses mathematical modelling for systems other than morality and that he is comfortable in doing so at a level that frankly I wouldn't get. I see your point though, it certianly seems to be the case that whenever somebody makes a science of moral choice they tend to either grant themselves a permit to ignore the basis in reason for their axioms or else just accept vicious circularity as the cost of doing business.

* We may have to make him argue some stuff in the philosophy of maths sub, throwing him into the ring with Olcott and Skepdick might seem unfair, but I'm backing our new guy cos those other two are pure mental.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Skepdick »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:10 pm it certianly seems to be the case that whenever somebody makes a science of moral choice they tend to either grant themselves a permit to ignore the basis in reason for their axioms or else just accept vicious circularity as the cost of doing business.
It's probably because mathematical reasoning is beyond you that you don't understand the isomorphism between "vicious circularity", recursion and induction. They are the exact same concept as seen from different perspectives.

Mathematics is generative/tautological.

That's a feature, not a bug.
Peter Holmes
Posts: 3711
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Peter Holmes »

Leontiskos wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 3:17 am
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 8:09 pm So please can you explain the error, and the refutation? I assume that can be done concisely.
Actually, feel free to disregard those papers. I was in a rush earlier, but I now see that you are drawing a different conclusion than the one that Mckim and Simpson address.

We once argued on a different forum, and after some time I realized that you are a no-ought-from-is dogmatist. That is, when presented with arguments against that axiom you were unable to do more than re-assert the axiom. Given this, I am not really planning to substantially engage you on this forum. I don't believe it could go anywhere.

That said:
Peter Holmes wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2023 2:58 pmPremise: Everybody wants to experience pleasure, and nobody wants to experience pain.
Conclusion: Therefore, causing pleasure is morally right, and causing pain is morally wrong.

Even if the non-moral premise is true - a true factual assertion - the moral conclusion doesn't follow. There's no way around the impossibility of non-moral premises entailing moral conclusions.
It seems to me that the utilitarian venture is rooted in the idea that <a desire to experience pleasure is itself justification for seeking pleasure>. If you like, desire involves its own manner of 'oughtness'. Your own position could then be boiled down to the idea that <a desire for pleasure does not in itself create any sort of justification for attempting to fulfill that pleasure>. I am not a utilitarian, but in this case it is clear to me that the utilitarian has the better part of the argument.

(Someone like yourself will generally then respond by attempting to distinguish "moral" 'oughts' from "non-moral" 'oughts', but I rather doubt that the utilitarian cares whether someone conceives of their 'ought' as "moral" or "non-moral." As long as it is an 'ought', it will suffice.)
Thanks. Perhaps applying the rules of deductive validity to refute an argument can be called 'dogmatic'. So be it. Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. The end.

And, on reflection, it doesn't matter if the 'ought' is moral or not. Non-'ought' premises can't entail 'ought' conclusions. A desire for X doesn't entail the conclusion that X ought to be pursued or attained. Try X = patriarchy, for example. There's no way out for utilitarians, or any other foundationalists.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Skepdick »

Peter Holmes wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:28 pm Thanks. Perhaps applying the rules of deductive validity to refute an argument can be called 'dogmatic'. So be it. Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. The end.

And, on reflection, it doesn't matter if the 'ought' is moral or not. Non-'ought' premises can't entail 'ought' conclusions. A desire for X doesn't entail the conclusion that X ought to be pursued or attained. Try X = patriarchy, for example. There's no way out for utilitarians, or any other foundationalists.
Just as well that I have to explain it to you also...

P1. Murder is wrong.
P2. Murder is wrong.
C. Murder is wrong.

Queue up some knee-jerk unjustifiable rejection of a sound and valid argument.
Peter Holmes
Posts: 3711
Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Peter Holmes »

Here's a supposedly valid and sound argument:

P1. Murder is wrong.
P2. Murder is wrong.
C. Murder is wrong.

This is offered by someone who doesn't understand logical validity and soundness - or who doesn't care about them.

And this is one example of the desperation of moral objectivists. No evidence. No sound argument. Nothing.
Skepdick
Posts: 14347
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:16 am

Re: Act based Utilitarianism and sex crimes and moral solutions

Post by Skepdick »

Skepdick wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:34 pm Queue up some knee-jerk unjustifiable rejection of a sound and valid argument.
Peter Holmes wrote: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:43 pm Here's a supposedly valid and sound argument:

P1. Murder is wrong.
P2. Murder is wrong.
C. Murder is wrong.

This is offered by someone who doesn't understand logical validity and soundness - or who doesn't care about them.

And this is one example of the desperation of moral objectivists. No evidence. No sound argument. Nothing.
Q.E.D
validity, In logic, the property of an argument consisting in the fact that the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the conclusion
The form of the argument is such that the premises and the conclusion are identical.
This logically guarantees the impossibility of a false conclusion given true premises.

Furthermore it's true (by virtue of being a definitional tautology* ) that murder is wrong. Therefore the argument is sound.
Tautology (logic), in formal logic, a statement that is true in every possible interpretation
Last edited by Skepdick on Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply