... or something...

Seen a couple mentions that no one who claims the infallibility of UPB can explain it. Not sure if I can. But, I can't find any flaws with it and have found the method a useful template to work through some things with.

So... before attempting to do the only thing of major value I can imagine at the moment - seeking as much opportunity as I can to tear down the evil I see saturating this world.... I'd really like to be sure that I'm not going off half cocked with yet another flawed viewpoint. (things I have vociforusly advocated in the past : Rand's arguments for the national state and against international law (still wincing at not seeing that mile wide contradiction), economic protectionism, preemptive military action, Total brutal War, shooting border jumpers.... yeah.... bad track record....)

The one unanswered criticism that comes sharply to mind is Stewart's statement that "moral theories must be universal and empirically verified"is itself not empirically verified. My response to this is that it is the nature of any moral statement that it is universal, it sets up an "absolute truth" statement (or presents itself as an "agent neutral value", if I am using that recently learned term correctly). Therefore it seems to me that the requirement for universality lies within the assumptions made in presenting a moral statement. To the question of empirical confirmation, what can we accept as true without this? A mathematical equation that requires an irrational number? While to my understanding infinite division is impossible in reality, mathematical formulas do not exist in reality, they are an abstraction which can be manipulated beyond the boundaries of possibility, and they are correct within the framework of the mathematical system. If morality was merely meant to be pure abstraction, I could see that empirical verification may be an illogical test, but the fact that moral theories are meant to be enacted in physical reality seems to me to require the empirical validation required before stating them as absolutely true, and consistent empirical failure of a theory would show it to be false.

As far as universality among all people in all places and times - again moral rules are set up as universals among a group. If these groups are not validated by the innate nature of the entities in question, but rather set up in classifications separated by whim, convenient but irrelevant distinctions and chance for the purposes of benefiting those who draw the lines (rulers and ruled, black and white, soldiers and civilians, etc.), the moral theory, it seems, can only be described as a forceful statement of whim, disconnected from reality and therefore false in any sense outside of the framework of the creator. The framework not adhering to reality, the derived morality must also be discarded as something not applicable to reality (or if valid, valid despite the flawed premises, essentially arrived at by accident).

I'm a bit brain fried from sleep deprivation, hopefully what I've typed makes sense.

Hope to get some feedback and questions.

hey BlackAcidLizzard (BAL),

welcome to LM.

re UPB. you write:

Quote:

My response to this is that it is the nature of any moral statement that it is universal, it sets up an "absolute truth" statement (or presents itself as an "agent neutral value", if I am using that recently learned term correctly). Therefore it seems to me that the requirement for universality lies within the assumptions made in presenting a moral statement

I have my doubts about this. this is what I wrote about it before:

Quote:

One of my main points of criticism of UPB concerns Stef's emphasis on universality. Stef makes the analogy with theories in physics: if a law of physics is that rocks fall to the ground, then they must fall to the ground everywhere, not just in the US or in my living room or in the Rocky Mountains. (I reckon that some legitemate criticism of this idea is even possibly in physics once we understand the concept of gravity better) So in physics, a scientific discipline par excellence, there has to be universality and Stef concludes/asserts/associates/? from this that there must be similar universality in ethical theories. I think this is wrong-headed: nowehere does Stef make clear that universality is a condition in all scientific theories. For example, in psychology, and I reckon Stef does see psychology as a science, no such universality can be found, instead we see more or less strong regularities: abused children may pass on the abuse to their own children, but they need not; abused children may have a hard time developing healthy relations with partners but they need not, and so on and so forth. Psychology nowhere says that all abused children will do this or that. Furthermore, Stef uses the idea of universality to derive the non-aggression principle: murder cannot be good because if something is morally good it has to be practicable by all people all the time (universality), but this is impossible since two people can not kill each other at the same time (though with good timing they might); theft cannot be good because if everybody steals of everybody property ceases to have a meaning or it becomes useless to steal since you will just be stolen from again. while there is a lot to criticise in the assumptions underlying these points alone, the deficiencies of the requirement of universality become clear when we say 'cutting off a person's limb is good' because this is universalizable (anybody can cut off anybody else's limb at the same time). Moreover, we don't need our limbs to engage in debates. The problem is that cutting off people's limbs certainly does not sit nicely with our moral intuitions.

as for emprical confirmation: this means that the is/ought dichotomy can somehow be transcended. In science predictions and observations/tests/experiments all fall in the 'is' domain, but in ethics the prescription is an 'ought' and any observation can only be an 'is'.
to be sure, i think moral intutitions play a hell of an important role in ethical reasoning, but because they imo do ethics cannot be seen as a science. Danny made some good points against this position here, but in the end not convincing enough for me

i still don't see how Stef manages to circumvent the is-ought problem (in the book he says that he respects that the dichotomy cannot be transcended, but i don't see how he then circumvents it). his appeal is to contradictions inheremnt in the idea of everybody murdering, raping, defrauding each other at the same time, but other than it doesnt seem that we would want to say that these actions are wrong because of that impossiblity, this doesnt seem to hold for things like hitting or cutting of somebody's limbs.

okay, so this was a somewhat confused and unilateral start to addressing your points, but i reckon I will shape up

in other words, when you write:

'and consistent empirical failure of a theory would show it to be false'

what do you mean by 'empirical failure'?
do you mean when it runs counter to moral intuitions? or if it leads to an inconsistent outcome?
if the former, then what is the primary thing: the theory or the practice

I do dig re your point about 'the fact that moral theories are meant to be enacted in physical reality seems to me to require the empirical validation required before stating them as absolutely true' in the sense of the importance of practice and action in the real world when it comes to assessing moral statements

Blackacidlizzard,

Your deep sleprization not withstanding, you've made a good stab at some questions, in my opinion. Full sentences would help with clarity. Have you been following the tread Danny started on this subject? There has been some good thinking going on in that thread.

- NonE

OK...

Universality-

The working in of recognized "hard" sciences is discussed in UPB, I think, but was not the argument I was working from. As far as this goes, the statement that ethics are sprung from and refer to biological organisms and that biological science is "looser" than physics ("free falling acceleration in a vacuum at X altitude = Y feet per second per second" vs. "what is the exact point where we create a new species classification?") is used to allow for "grey areas". At the moment, I can not apply this aspect of UPB to the initial question of whether moral theories must fit into this framework.

I was working from another aspect raised in UPB, which is to examine the theories which a person making a statement is acting upon. In this case, making a necessarily universal "moral" claim. If the claim is universal, it must be universal: A=A, basic tautology, correct?


Ought from is-

It is my understanding that UPB tests the validity of moral theories, that at the end, when all the wrong moral ideas are buried, the NAP remains as a "valid theory", but not necessarily a moral proscription. Rather than find an "ought", UPB exposes countless theories as not being "oughts", leaving the NAP open as an option for one who wishes to propose an "ought" that can not be struck down, but can not be said to exist in reality.

However, when one proposes an ought (including "one ought to believe what is true" - exhibited by any claim of making a truth statement and acting to disprove a claimed falsehood to others) The only "oughts" which survive the UPB test must be than accepted by that person, or they must give up any claim of "oughts", or they are wrong (by means of self contradiction).


Empiricism -

Actually, the "empirical failure" I refer to is the failure of the moral hypothesis put forward. For example: "Communism will increase the living standard of the worker" or "Authoritarianism makes for an orderly society" or "Military forces not voluntarily supported by the people who pay for it are the best protection for those people."

Hi there! While Stewart is correct, I think, to point out that the statement that moral theories need to be empirically verified cannot be empirically verified, I think it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on that as a problem for Stefan's theory. As I understood it, the point Stewart was trying to make is that Stefan talks as though he has no background in philosophy, and that's a particularly embarrassing example.

But as far as creating a problem for Stefan's actual theory, the question is what role that statement is being asked to play. If Stefan doesn't need that statement in order for his theory to work, then it would be perfectly alright to just say "Yea, well that was a dumb thing to say, but ultimately it doesn't matter. The theory still works anyway."

I've tried to lay out how I think Stefan's theory is supposed to function here:
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/2008/04/universally-preferable-behavior-and.html

In light of that way of understanding Stefan's theory, it's not completely clear what role is being played by the claim that moral theories need to involve universality. Universality is inherently part of Stefan's theory, simply because of the way we're supposed to determine whether a particular ethical statement is correct or not. Perhaps a moral theory constructed in a different way wouldn't need to rely on universality in that way (certain brands of feminism, for example, come to mind -- particularly Karen Warren's eco-feminism). But it's just a part of the structure of Stefan's theory. So whether or not it's actually true that a moral theory needs to involve universality doesn't end up mattering; Stefan's theory relies on universality, and if Stefan's theory works, that's what ultimately matters.

The claim that moral theories need to be empirically verifiable is much more puzzling. If by "empirical verification," Stefan is referring to the process by which ethical statements are tested (universalizing them and searching for problems), then two points would become apparent. The first is that "empirical" would have been a poor choice of words; there's nothing particularly empirical about that approach (unless the "experience" he had in mind is the experience of mentally applying the testing procedure and determining whether the maxim in question was acceptable or not). The second is that the claim that theories must be verifiable in this way plays the same role as universality played above. Stefan's method of verification is a core structural component of his theory, so it doesn't matter whether or not ethical statements need to be verified in this way (a rights-based view relying on inherent value, for example, involves a different method of verification -- that is, does the act in question demonstrate proper respect for the inherent value of the entities affected by it?). So if that's what Stefan means by "empirical verification," then I don't think the statement ends up being particularly important.

However, I think it's conceivable that Stefan does want the claim that theories must be empirically verifiable to do more work for him. In particular, he could mean that we need empirical verification that Stefan's method of judging ethical statements is the correct way for a moral theory to operate. If this is what Stefan is trying to say, then there's a serious problem: namely, it's unclear what kind of empirical evidence could possibly be found for this claim, unless again the "experience" he's relying on is the experience of evaluating ethical statements and recognizing that his account does correctly capture the way that we think about morality. In any case, I think that would be a really bad position for Stefan to take, and hopefully his theory works without it.

Hi Danny,

Well, I found that post easy enough to understand.

How about the understanding I laid out in the post right above yours? Are there flaws in this? Do you think I have strayed from the arguments laid out in UPB?

but then I don't understand what you mean by this, how it relates to the above

Quote:

The working in of recognized "hard" sciences is discussed in UPB, I think, but was not the argument I was working from. As far as this goes, the statement that ethics are sprung from and refer to biological organisms and that biological science is "looser" than physics ("free falling acceleration in a vacuum at X altitude = Y feet per second per second" vs. "what is the exact point where we create a new species classification?") is used to allow for "grey areas". At the moment, I can not apply this aspect of UPB to the initial question of whether moral theories must fit into this framework.

then the grey areas would be children, mentally disabled people etc. since there may be some morally significant differences in the organisms in question

Quote:

I was working from another aspect raised in UPB, which is to examine the theories which a person making a statement is acting upon. In this case, making a necessarily universal "moral" claim. If the claim is universal, it must be universal: A=A, basic tautology, correct?

this i don't understand. can you say more about what you mean here?