NonE, the problem is that there's no ethical content in those observations yet. You need to explain why those facts should motivate us to act in certain ways, or to refrain from acting in certain ways. The mere fact that there are some commonalities to people's basic desires doesn't itself get us there.

Well, Danny,

As Stewart has pointed out, there's no substance there. These things are ideas, not physical properties.

I would say that ethics is a mental construct. It is a structure we can build based upon our understanding of the nature of reality. We build buildings for the betterment of our life experience based upon our understandings of the nature of materials and such.

Same here. Since we can observe that "property" is something we all agree on as evidenced by our actions, if we then build a system which takes that knowledge and creates an environment in which we can better thrive based upon that knowledge, well, we're better off.

Houses aren't inherent in nature, but we pretty universally employ them to our benefit now that we, as a species, have an understanding of how to build them.

If we can examine and understand the nature of humanity's universally preferred behaviors and build social structures based upon this understanding, life will thrive more.

As an example of the opposite, take socialist cultures. They don't understand that their ideas are in contrast to the universally preferred behaviors of people. As a result, these societies either fail or languish. Understanding why they fail, where their ideas have gone wrong, provides a potential for corrections to be made that may lead to superior living. Socialism is an idea, it is not a concrete thing. Nonetheless it has a profound effect on those who practice it's ideas. As it has been said, "Ideas have consequences." Universally preferred behavior, it seems to me, is a valuable concept, and one that we ignore at our loss.


Zat help?

- NonE

Danny and Conrad,

I think where you are confusing things is to equate my claim that "property" is a valid concept - as is "universally preferable behavior" - with the idea of "rights." And this is understandable, as probably MOST people do just that. But I've attempted to make it very clear here on this board and elsewhere that I do not believe that "rights" exist except in the context of a mutual agreement which lays them out and (to be redundant) is agreed to by all parties.

So, if you can factor that into your thinking, I think the ideas of property and universally-preferred-behavior are real, and I think that we can use this understanding to try to develop better methods of relating with each other.

I agree that in Stef's mind it appears as though he believes that this concept gives him a bunch of rights. But I do not follow him in this thinking.

- NonE

okay.

give me examples of universally preferable behavior though

I did.

Breathing.
Freedom. (all caged or restrained animals will show evidence of how badly they want NOT to be restrained, at least up until they have had all of their will destroyed by outside forces)
Procreation.
Human touch. (for humans. and monkeys, and... but not so much for lizards, I don't think, but we ARE talking about humans here.)

and so on...

- NonE

(chocolate???)

some people prefer suicide.
some people prefer slavery.
some people have no sexual desire.

I doubt it. Not as natural beings they don't. They may be in such a position in life that these choices are preferable to what is currently available, but these are not the natural state of the animal.

- NonE

yes, but then again, I'm not claiming any universalizability and exactly argue against that