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There's only a truth to the matter if you can get people to agree on a premise. Two libertarians who adopt the same premises can have a meaningful debate This

by curi 19y ago

There's only a truth to the matter if you can get people to agree on a premise. Two libertarians who adopt the same premises can have a meaningful debate This is the myth of the framework. See Popper's book by that name: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Framework-Defence-Science-Rationality/dp/0415135559/ http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Framework-Defence-Science-Rationa... Besides the issue of whether productive debate is possible across frameworks, there is also your (possibly accidental) assertion that what premises people believe affects what statements about reality are true (beyond statements about who believes what). That's solipsism.

dfranke 19y ago
your (possibly accidental) assertion that what premises people believe affects what statements about reality are true None of the statements in question have to do with reality, only with abstract ideas. Libertarians believe that property ownership is a right; communists believe that it is an offense. Neither of these assertions is empirically testable. If the debate is about what policies will make us wealthier rather than what policies are ethical, then that's a different matter. But in that case, both sides are sharing the common framework of utilitarianism.
- curi 19y ago
  You give a good example: which policies towards the market create more wealth (on average, various things being equal) is a matter of fact. But I think this sort of non-arbitrary approach to thinking has much wider applicability, and indeed that all interesting subjects can be approached in a careful, meaningful way not based on personal taste. Which policies are ethical, with "ethics" rightly construed, is also a matter of fact. Morality is about how to live, and it's not a religious concept. The notion that morality is (and must be) religious is unfortunately a bad, religious idea, that (oddly) most atheists still believe. Just to get started, we can consider which lifestyles do and do not accomplish their own internal goals. Lifestyles that do not are bad ways to live -- they are "immoral". We don't have to use moral terminology; that isn't important. But whatever you call it, there are objective facts about how we should or shouldn't live. And there's better than that. You can take a very wide variety of goals, and examine how to achieve them. And you can find common points -- certain ways of life are good for achieving many goals, while others are not. These common points, which make people powerful and able to accomplish things in general, are an important, useful, and objective find the field of morality.
  - lg 19y ago
    It's funny that you think a lifestyle is immoral if it doesn't accomplish its own "internal goals." I think that's wrong, and not just in pathological cases. I might be an ultracompetitive misanthrope who lives to be on top (gordon-gecko-ish capitalist). But the way I get there (startup? investing?) might end up helping lots of people; maybe helping them surpass me. Was I immoral, because I didn't accomplish my goal to be number one? I'd rather have more of those people than more couch potatoes complaining about the immorality of powerful people.
    - curi 19y ago
      That was a brief summary and one can say it more carefully. Most importantly, immorality is not a boolean thing. If you aren't accomplishing a goal, it'd be an improvement (more moral, a better way of life) to either change your approach, or change your goal. It is less moral (a worse way of life, immoral) to continue with a lifestyle that is failing by its own criteria of success and failure. That needs the caveat that we only mean goals you actually intend to accomplish. We don't mean vague goals, and we definitely don't mean the sort of goal you would be happy to partially achieve -- in that case, the real goal is just making progress towards ... your "goal". (It's the same word, but it's a different concept than the one I mean). Back to your points, you say that even if you fail by your own standards, you might help others, and the net effect of your life may be positive. That's absolutely true. However, it'd be even better (more moral) if you did the same actions, but had wiser goals, which those actions were achieving. Then you'd help others, but also consider your own life successful.
      - lg 19y ago
        I was saying that failing to achieve your goals can be moral. I'll add that it can be morally better than succeeding at them. Now you say, well yes but it'd be better if you had better goals in the first place. So I think the lesson is: it's not consistency between goals and outcomes that matters for morality; what matters is the morality of those goals and outcomes.
        19y ago

by curi 19y ago

dfranke 19y ago

your (possibly accidental) assertion that what premises people believe affects what statements about reality are true None of the statements in question have to do with reality, only with abstract ideas. Libertarians believe that property ownership is a right; communists believe that it is an offense. Neither of these assertions is empirically testable. If the debate is about what policies will make us wealthier rather than what policies are ethical, then that's a different matter. But in that case, both sides are sharing the common framework of utilitarianism.

curi 19y ago
You give a good example: which policies towards the market create more wealth (on average, various things being equal) is a matter of fact. But I think this sort of non-arbitrary approach to thinking has much wider applicability, and indeed that all interesting subjects can be approached in a careful, meaningful way not based on personal taste. Which policies are ethical, with "ethics" rightly construed, is also a matter of fact. Morality is about how to live, and it's not a religious concept. The notion that morality is (and must be) religious is unfortunately a bad, religious idea, that (oddly) most atheists still believe. Just to get started, we can consider which lifestyles do and do not accomplish their own internal goals. Lifestyles that do not are bad ways to live -- they are "immoral". We don't have to use moral terminology; that isn't important. But whatever you call it, there are objective facts about how we should or shouldn't live. And there's better than that. You can take a very wide variety of goals, and examine how to achieve them. And you can find common points -- certain ways of life are good for achieving many goals, while others are not. These common points, which make people powerful and able to accomplish things in general, are an important, useful, and objective find the field of morality.
- lg 19y ago
  It's funny that you think a lifestyle is immoral if it doesn't accomplish its own "internal goals." I think that's wrong, and not just in pathological cases. I might be an ultracompetitive misanthrope who lives to be on top (gordon-gecko-ish capitalist). But the way I get there (startup? investing?) might end up helping lots of people; maybe helping them surpass me. Was I immoral, because I didn't accomplish my goal to be number one? I'd rather have more of those people than more couch potatoes complaining about the immorality of powerful people.
  - curi 19y ago
    That was a brief summary and one can say it more carefully. Most importantly, immorality is not a boolean thing. If you aren't accomplishing a goal, it'd be an improvement (more moral, a better way of life) to either change your approach, or change your goal. It is less moral (a worse way of life, immoral) to continue with a lifestyle that is failing by its own criteria of success and failure. That needs the caveat that we only mean goals you actually intend to accomplish. We don't mean vague goals, and we definitely don't mean the sort of goal you would be happy to partially achieve -- in that case, the real goal is just making progress towards ... your "goal". (It's the same word, but it's a different concept than the one I mean). Back to your points, you say that even if you fail by your own standards, you might help others, and the net effect of your life may be positive. That's absolutely true. However, it'd be even better (more moral) if you did the same actions, but had wiser goals, which those actions were achieving. Then you'd help others, but also consider your own life successful.
    - lg 19y ago
      I was saying that failing to achieve your goals can be moral. I'll add that it can be morally better than succeeding at them. Now you say, well yes but it'd be better if you had better goals in the first place. So I think the lesson is: it's not consistency between goals and outcomes that matters for morality; what matters is the morality of those goals and outcomes.
      - 19y ago