Don't ask me why. Here.

Bravo Danny. I can not wait to read this!

Don't ask me why. Here.
Because 1) you're a geek and 2) you probably had nothing better to do.

Also, sometimes it's fun to critique something really bad.

Well done dude.

It's ever more weird to read about UPB, trying to see what Stef is actually trying to get at. I guess it's especially because here you really try to summarize the essence that the weirdness comes out, namely that there is nothing more to it in essence than that, that this is basically the argument stripped down from metaphors, tangents, etc.

I don't, however, understand point #4 nor your critique of it, nor how it would save UPB. In essence I still don't understand how Stefan tries to get an 'ought' from his 'scientific framework' without its becoming a mere 'means-subjective ends' kind a thing. The only constraint i think is that it should be possible for an action that a moral theory says is good to be carried out by everybody at the same time. But even that requirement seems doubtful.

Don't know, will read your summary again. Will print and read it

Claim 4 wouldn't save UPB; it would just complete it as a theory. It would also make the theory one of the dumbest ideas advanced by a human being in the history of ideas and human beings. I didn't want to spend my time attacking Stefan on the basis of Claim 4, because I'd think that a defender of the theory would want to reject it rather quickly. But I guess I can see where my critique of it may have been a little hasty; I just really don't want to have to break down every step in Stefan's horrible argument and show how the whole thing is broken. Hopefully Claim 4 is ridiculous enough to be rejected out of hand, and that will be enough.

Finally? Haven't you been critiquing UPB for some time now?

Well I've been critiquing it, but I hadn't fully spelled out my central criticisms in one place until now.

You did a good job!

I agree. When confronted with a rational analysis of UPB, it seems ludicrous to conceive of those who would continue to use it as the singular framework for their personal approach to ethics.

Thank you both!

Thanks a lot, man; I really appreciate it!

I now understand UPB better than I ever did when Holy Moly and his minions tried to explain it. Thanks, Danny!

Haha I'm very glad to hear it; my pleasure!

Yo Danny (and folks):

One of the reasons it's a little hard to debunk UPB, is because it's rather difficult to infer how stef is defining his terms (since he doesn't define many of his terms).

For the longest time, I've been trying to figure out how UPB defines "moral" and "immoral", since I believe that stef's "application" of UPB can easily be shown to be fallacious, once those terms have been defined.

So yeah... how does UPB define "moral" and "immoral"? That's the question!

For instance, stef will claim that people who claim that "murder" is moral, are contradicting themselves. However, are said people REALLY defining the word "moral" the way stef is? Are people REALLY arguing that murder can be practiced by all people, all the time? I don't think so.

However, in order to show that stef is essentially straw manning people, and that UPB has no power to validate anything, we would need to deduce how stef is defining "moral" and "immoral".

I have a feeling that it's something like the following:

"Moral" is a quality ascribed to any type of violent or coercive behavior that can be practiced by all people, all the time.

However, I'm not sure if there is more to it than that.

I also suspect that he is defining the term (implicitly) in two contradictory ways.

I believe sometimes, he defines "moral" in such a way as to render the circumstances under which an action is committed to be irrelevant.

Other times, I think his definition depends upon the circumstances.

I suspect that things he approves of, depend on the circumstances, while things he doesn't approve of are "immoral" regardless.

Anyways, I would appreciate some help in determining how stef is defining his terms. That would make it sooooooo much easier to debunk UPB.

This by no means is to say that Danny did not succeed at debunking UPB. He did in fact succeed, and did a great job. However, there are many ways to debunk UPB, and there are different ways in which stef tries to apply UPB.