Hay I Disproved Ethics (please disprove me)

Isn't this just Gödels "any formal system with enough power is either incomplete or inconsistent"?

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which ethical framework will provide the most ethical solution?

Wouldn't this be akin to asking which religion believes in the one true God? Each one believes theirs is the correct God, and though this may seem illogical, people still have faith in their religion.

Nations each have their own laws, religions have their own beliefs, ethical frameworks have their own ethical solutions: each goes their own seperate, mildly disgruntled way :)

"Penultimate" does not mean what you think it means.

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Original post by Sneftel "Penultimate" does not mean what you think it means.

Too much thesaurus... I didn't want to say "FINAL ANSWER" because that sounds like "FINAL SOLUTION" which is :[

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Original post by Trap Isn't this just Gödels "any formal system with enough power is either incomplete or inconsistent"?

Quite possibly, lemmie look it up. That might be something to add into my paper, thanks :D

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Original post by Ceoddyn Wouldn't this be akin to asking which religion believes in the one true God? Each one believes theirs is the correct God, and though this may seem illogical, people still have faith in their religion.

Valid point.

Ethics may be slightly arbitrary, but in practice they are never completely so. For example, no reasonable human believes that murdering innocents for pleasure is ethical. So, there you have a little puzzle: although there seems to be no logical foundation for ethics, there still is a fundamental set of ethics shared by many people. Where does this subset come from? How can it be explained? How can it be understood? And why is it there?

My belief on this is that the veil of ignorance system is promoted by natural selection in social animals, such as primates.

I don't remember anyone ever stating that two "right" choices must be determined as unequally right, that there is no such thing as two seperate choices that are equally right.

You haven't disproven anything, you've applied weak logic to a problem set that defies logic. That's the problem with logiscians, they think that logic can be applied to everything, and it can't. Why do people dance? Why do people like to kiss? Why does a girl tell you she doesn't date when the two of you are so obviously perfect for each other? Logic cannot come close to answering these questions. The fundamental mistake of people that wantonly apply logic to everything is that they completely ignore that life is often times more irrational than it is ever rational.

Which is the right ethical framework? All of them, you should be considering all ethical frameworks when making a decision. Ethics does not state that all decisions must be possible to quantitatively or qualitatively rank in a mutually exclusive continuum of "less-right" to "more-right". Ethical frameworks provide us a tool to methodically evaluate situations to determine how closely they fit our personal value systems, and such systems being chosen arbitrarily.

Wrap your logical noodle around that. How do people decide on their personal value system? With a proper statistical analysis, you will see that personal value systems are essentially random. But logic tells us that decisions are not without reason. So how can rational people come to random decisions? Have I disproven logic? No, I've applied it to an innapropriate problem set, i.e. the rationality (or lack thereof) of the actions of people.

Another example, how do you calculate the square root of a duck? You can't, it is innapropriate to apply mathematics to ducks in such a general manner.

Unless you're talking about moral relativism, the ethical framework that says it is wrong to impose value systems, which is itself an imposition of a value system. ZOMG, paradox!

So basically - life (and therefore ethics) is irrational. Fair enough, killing an implicit fundamental premise of the argument works too, though I'm not sure to what degree I agree with it. Whether I agree or not is a personal issue, so there's no point in debating it :3

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Original post by ToohrVyk Ethics may be slightly arbitrary, but in practice they are never completely so.

Well, I wouldn't say they're arbitrary. They're based on common moral principles which are pretty consistant across most cultures. Probably something related to social-contract theory in there too. I need to read more stuff.

Would you disagree to the proposition that the ethicality of an act is determined by whether the general populance (/society) considers the act to be ethical?

Although not directly related to ethical systems, the linked paper has some very thought provoking ideas about the origins of moral decision making.

Might be of interest to you:

The Immorality of Theft & Amorality of Infringement

An excerpt from paragraph 42:

"Before the advent of neuro-imaging technologies, philosophers and psychologists could only speculate about the nature of moral thinking. Able only to observe the external stimulus and response, researchers were left to simply hypothesize about the nature of the mental process that led from perception (or input) to moral judgment (or output).106 Before the recent advances in cognitive neuroscience, two leading schools of thought had emerged.107 The theory of moral intuitionism, commonly associated with the Scottish philosopher David Hume, held that moral judgments are intuitive, triggered automatically and inaccessible to conscious thought.108 On this theory, any conscious reasoning offered for our moral judgments is merely post hoc rationalization of our immediate moral intuitions. In direct contrast, the theory of moral rationalism, often associated with influential psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg, held that moral judgments derive from conscious reasoning regarding the permissibility of those actions.109"

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Original post by capn_midnight You haven't disproven anything, you've applied weak logic to a problem set that defies logic. That's the problem with logiscians, they think that logic can be applied to everything, and it can't. Why do people dance? Why do people like to kiss? Why does a girl tell you she doesn't date when the two of you are so obviously perfect for each other? Logic cannot come close to answering these questions. The fundamental mistake of people that wantonly apply logic to everything is that they completely ignore that life is often times more irrational than it is ever rational.

I think your definition of logic is much too narrow and you give humans too much credit. Humans are fairly predictable creatures of routine. Logicians apply logic where it is appropriate and in a manner respective to what is being studied. Why people dance and kiss can be explained using logical (which really has more to do with a study of internal consistency than anything) reasoning and an understanding of the variables involved and the results wished by the acting of the particular behaviour.

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Why does a girl tell you she doesn't date when the two of you are so obviously perfect for each other? Logic cannot come close to answering these questions.

It could be that the two of you are not so obviously perfect for each other since for one, obvious and perfect are imaginary notions.

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Wrap your logical noodle around that. How do people decide on their personal value system? With a proper statistical analysis, you will see that personal value systems are essentially random.

I disagree. It will be a function of their environment, upbringing and genetics.

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But logic tells us that decisions are not without reason. So how can rational people come to random decisions?

I can think of no decision that a human can make that is without some kind of motivation and thus, truly random.

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Another example, how do you calculate the square root of a duck? You can't, it is innapropriate to apply mathematics to ducks in such a general manner.

It is not so much mathematics as it is the ambiguity of the notion. If square root were to take up the meaning of optimal home of a given duck (with respect to height, food availability, probability of predator attack etc) when used along with duck then, within that context, it makes sense to find the square root of a duck.

But I do agree that humans often act in a manner that is logically contradictory. However, that doesnt mean that this cannot be studied from within the appropriate logical framework. One which can handle contradictions

You are looking for an objective basis for judging ethical systems.

What is the goal of any species? To continue. Simply because any that didn't have that goal has long since disappeared.

What is the best ethical system for a species? The one that helps a species continue.

For example, altruism seems to be contrary to the idea of darwinism and competition. But the reality is that a society of altruists does better than a society of selfish individuals.

T.

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Original post by tag What is the goal of any species? To continue.

That's a fallacy of division. The fact that the goal of the species as a whole is to propagate the species would not imply that the goal of any particular member of that species would be to propagate the species.

[Edited by - Sneftel on December 10, 2006 6:50:34 PM]

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Original post by Sneftel Quote: Original post by tag What is the goal of any species? To continue. That's a fallacy of division. The fact that the goal of the species as a whole is to propagate the species would not imply that the goal of any particular member of that species would be to propagate the species.

I was going to say the same thing. Maybe this is just me (and my not having kids is probably an important factor in this), but I really don't care what happens to our species after I die. I don't feel a connection to the human population as a whole.


Note that I would like our world to be a nice place to live in while I'm alive, so I'm not driving around a Hummer or burning down forests or anything.

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Original post by Mushu Well, I wouldn't say they're arbitrary. They're based on common moral principles which are pretty consistant across most cultures. Probably something related to social-contract theory in there too. I need to read more stuff. Would you disagree to the proposition that the ethicality of an act is determined by whether the general populance (/society) considers the act to be ethical?

Since you brought up various government/contract things...

Hume says that governments are founded on opinion alone - so, something can be illegal and legitimate depending on the opinions of the people. (Not that everyone agrees with him. Madison thinks that voting is the way to express your opinion, Locke that it's a social contract, Hobbes that it's fear of a leviathan government and powerful sovereign, etc...).

Also, this argument is not wholly correct, though I agree with the conclusion.

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For any action, there is at least one option which is more right than the others. This is an implicit fundamental premise of all ethical theory: if all actions are equal there would be no need for ethical analysis. Thus, we can postulate that an inequality exists; therefore there must be a best option (“most right choice”) for any scenario.

You have not stated to me that there are no equally right options, simply that there are inequally right ones - why not a mixture of the two? If there is a mix, you are, of course, still required to analyze them because all actions are not inherantly equal (which is itself a somewhat arbitrary statement, but one that's necessary).

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Well, I wouldn't say they're arbitrary. They're based on common moral principles which are pretty consistant across most cultures.

There are some pretty significant differences in morals across cultures (less so as cultures are melting into each other in recent history), but I agree that they aren't abitrary (though they may as well be given the difficulty in understanding why or how a particular set of morals came about, though it is theoretically possible).

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Original post by Tag What is the goal of any species? To continue. Simply because any that didn't have that goal has long since disappeared.

What if the one goal of a species is something that, incidentally, requires having sex or having kids? What if it's merely something that would take more than one lifetime to complete? Or, what if a species has several goals, only one of which is reproduction? What if a species does not have the goal of reproduction at all, but merely does so as a means to, say, pass time or enjoy a pleasurable act? Or, what if species have no goals at all and simply exist? All of these are at least as plausible as your statement.

Also, kudos to Daerax for that post.

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Original post by Avatar God You have not stated to me that there are no equally right options, simply that there are inequally right ones - why not a mixture of the two? If there is a mix, you are, of course, still required to analyze them because all actions are not inherantly equal (which is itself a somewhat arbitrary statement, but one that's necessary).

Yeah, that's a concession I guess I have to make.

So the question now is - if the concept of ethics is just the backwash of culture, then why do people (generally) conform and act ethically? Do people generally act ethically (in Western cultures, specifically)?

I think the answer I'd lean towards is, essentially, the desire to improve one's standing in society. Or something, I'm not really sure where I should be going with this.

Basically, I'm 1000 words short of the minimum lols.

Your use of the word penultimate made me lol hard.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think you can make the jump from an ethical framework to a meta-ethical framework. Being that ethics, the 'rightness' of choices, are defined by the framework they exist in, which are essentially defined by people and society, it doesn't really make sense to talk about ethics (or the frameworks), outside of a given framework. That in turn would have to have the 'rightness' evaluated by something (somebody), which is entirely subjective in the first place.

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Original post by Ceoddyn Note that I would like our world to be a nice place to live in while I'm alive, so I'm not driving around a Hummer or burning down forests or anything.

Why not? It's not like you driving a Hummer or burning down forests will be enough to destroy the world while you are here anyway*, these things take time. I think you do care, just a little. Or maybe you just realize driving a Hummer wouldn't actually be that fun anyway.


*If you burn down a forest you'll probably go to jail which really would make your life suck.

What you are concluding would be similar to saying euclidean geometry is more correct than non-euclidean geometry because euclidean geometry is based on common-sense and non-euclidean geometry is not. Neither are universal. Since no systems are universal, there isn't one that is more right than another. It would be more interesting to see you try to construct a universal framework of ethics, and than realize why such a system would fail logically.

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Original post by Rixter Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think you can make the jump from an ethical framework to a meta-ethical framework. Being that ethics, the 'rightness' of choices, are defined by the framework they exist in, which are essentially defined by people and society, it doesn't really make sense to talk about ethics (or the frameworks), outside of a given framework. That in turn would have to have the 'rightness' evaluated by something (somebody), which is entirely subjective in the first place.

Well, the approach I was trying to take was to reduce the 'ethics equation' such that the only determining factor is the framework applied. There are some other examples of this earlier on in the paper, how a consequentialist and deontologist will come to drastically different conclusions given the same set of inputs.

I think the examination of this meta-dilemma is still within the bounds of ethical frameworks, though I have absolutely nothing right now to back this up. Hee.