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I think that the thing that most people don't realize about ethics is the meta-ethical problem that axioms are by definition arbitrary. When we really think ab

• eynsham 3y ago
  I think you’re confusing epistemic problems for metaphysical problems. It’s quite plausible that any axioms we come up with are merely ‘based on feel', but there can be a truth ‘based on feel’ ultimately inaccessible to us except ‘[by] feel’. That inaccessibility does not make the underlying truth arbitrary; it merely makes our attempts to work it out arbitrary.
  • afwef 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • Liminal_Ledge 3y ago
    There is no truth coming from "feel". Our brain chemicals are designed in a way that suits evolution best, not to mention that there is absolutely no consistence in these feelings on an individual level (to a smaller degree) and on the the temporal and cultural level. What you are saying assumes that brain chemical reactions have an ability to hint at some sort of truth. The idea itself sounds closer in nature to religious arguments. And I think if this was indicating a truth of some sorts, the differences morals doesnt sell this idea to me personally.
• Natsu 3y ago
  Some axioms are more useful than others, though. For example, Peano axioms can be used to formalize parts of math which we use to make models of physics which enable engineering that makes all sorts of technology. Many others can't get to that point.
  • xenocratus 3y ago
    Sure, but usefulness is itself an arbitrary criterium.
    • Natsu 3y ago
      Only in the weakest sense where one can emit other noises from their mouth instead. That criteria is an outgrowth from our drive to fulfill our own material needs, without which one does not do philosophy or anything else, which in turn are dictated by the natural world we live in. And none of that is something where you can just plug in so many other ideas or axioms and get a similar result. Those and similar axioms were used to develop science & technology that provides our ability to even have this conversation. Whereas if you give someone a Foucault book and ask them to make similar practical use of it, perhaps they might keep warm for a night.
• riversflow 3y ago
  > axioms are by definition arbitrary. That is very reductive view of what constitutes most axioms. Merriam-Websters has:[1] >2: an established rule or principle or a self-evident truth Etymonline has:[2] >"statement of self-evident truth," late 15c., from French axiome, from Latin axioma, from Greek axioma "authority," literally "that which is thought worthy or fit,"... So, no, not arbitrary at all. Which particular axioms do you find arbitrary? Is game theory arbitrary? [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/axiom https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/axiom [2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/axiom https://www.etymonline.com/word/axiom
  • diogenes4 3y ago
    > So, no, not arbitrary at all. Nothing you say conflicts with being arbitrary. Axioms are arbitrarily self-evident—they are "arbitrary" because they are the result of some person's judgement, not somehow produced with some other processes, and they are self-evident because they provide the basis for reasoning and cannot be contradicted within reasoning parameterized by the axioms.
  • lossolo 3y ago
    What OP likely intended is that our Western axioms, such as considering human life as the most important value, may be arbitrary because there are other cultures where it holds a lower position in the hierarchy of values. In Western cultures, the belief in the intrinsic value and sanctity of human life is often considered a foundational and self-evident moral principle. It underlies many ethical and legal frameworks, including principles related to human rights, the value of individual lives, and the importance of protecting life. An axiom, in this context, is a fundamental and self-evident belief or principle that serves as a basis for other beliefs and actions within a particular culture or belief system.
  • jumpman500 3y ago
    Yea a lot of game theory is built on the arbitrary axioms like that people will follow a given strategy with given information, or that there’s common knowledge. In reality people don’t necessarily follow the axioms of the theory.
  • 3y ago
• emptysongglass 3y ago
  This is really silly and largely a result of our Western desire to turn everything into an impartial science when the experience of life is anything but. Ethics are not arbitrary. If you do violence to me, that causes me suffering. If you have sex with my husband or my wife without my consent, that's gonna cause me suffering. Both of these things are also highly likely to cause you suffering because most people who are not sociopaths do not enjoy the direct experience of causing someone suffering and suffer guilt for bad actions. The cycle of suffering is universal to all living things. There's absolutely nothing arbitrary about it. Don't do things that are shitty to other people does not need a postmodern deconstruction to be understood.
  • harperlee 3y ago
    Well those are very simple scenarios, but very quickly you get to a place where things are not so clear. For example, as soon as you need to compare two sufferings, you find trouble: is it ethical to kill before being killed? is it the same to have your neighbour suffer vs. someone whose suffering is far away and you don't perceive? It it better to have a child suffer, an adult, or an old man? Two people suffering less vs. one people more? Future people vs. current people? What's the relationship of not being alive / not being born / dying, to the avoidance of suffering? Different people have different ethical opinions, so it is not so clear cut.
    • emptysongglass 3y ago
      You're wrapping yourself up in mental games here, exactly what I was criticizing. The majority of people the vast majority of time are not encountering trolley problems. Start with the basics of not choosing to inflict what is harmful to others you encounter in your life.
      • harperlee 3y ago
        As an example, surely you are aware about the ongoing discussions about whether abortion is ethical? Do you think people are just playing mental games for fun when they discuss that? Do you really think that it is not two different ethical systems clashing?
• alphazard 3y ago
  Axioms are only arbitrary in terms of the logical system they are involved in. If they conflict with other axioms, one of them has to go. So the choice of axioms isn't totally arbitrary, even at the level of logic. When it's time to take an idealized theory and use it to make predictions about the real world, we first have to check that the axioms match our sense data. If they don't, it's not an applicable theory. That removes another degree of arbitrariness when putting any theory into practice. "Feeling" good or bad is the bedrock of morality. From the vantage point of the human mind, our entire experience is colored with judgement. e.g. This is net good, that is net bad, etc. There are interesting questions to ask about how that evolved, or why it presents itself in consciousness, but it is first and foremost just a fact about the human experience. That isn't arbitrary. A human cannot will their experience to stop containing judgements. So yes, many people have come up with many theories about morality, ethics, and meta-ethics, but we can and should discard any of them that don't have their axioms satisfied by ground truth.
  • afwef 3y ago
    You're assuming a logical system, but these "axioms" aren't like math, trying to find a contradiction is itself a moral judgement. So you're just arguing in circles. None of the grounding in reality is actually connected to moral judgements in the sense of proving them wrong or right.
    • x86x87 3y ago
      I would say math has the same problem. Math is based on a bunch of axioms. Here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompletenes...
  • noobermin 3y ago
    >Axioms are only arbitrary in terms of the logical system they are involved in. If they conflict with other axioms, one of them has to go. So the choice of axioms isn't totally arbitrary, even at the level of logic. We aren't logic systems, and neither are systems of ethics. People change their minds and are self-contradictory. Things vary from time to time. Kantian style ethics are a rareity and are almost a caricature people critique to make a point or argument in parable.
• simonh 3y ago
  He’s not saying we have instinctual ethical views. He’s saying we have a biologically determined interpretive framework we use to evaluate ethical questions. This is what he was talking about when he said we make a leap from scattered data to specific conclusions, and we all do this in a similar way. We all just have different data. However when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions. The interpretive framework sets that reference frame for human ethics. The comparison to visual systems is apt. Intelligent spiders would have a different biologically determined ethical interpretive framework in the same way that they would have a different visual system. Within the range set by our biology there is a considerable degree of arbitrariness, for sure. He spells this out clearly at the beginning. He’s not arguing there is no relativism. He’s arguing against the absolute unlimited relativism espoused by Foucault because that’s what he was asked about.
  • bambax 3y ago
    > when we have very similar data, such as living in a particular culture, we mostly come to the same conclusions That's not my take from the interview, but in any case this is provably false. People living in a given "culture" don't come to the same conclusions: they come to different conclusions -- usually opposite ones. Politics wouldn't exist otherwise. Or most wars, which are almost always between neighbors sharing more or less the same "culture" but having values so different they're willing to die to defend them.
    • wubrr 3y ago
      I mean if you recursively generate 'opposite' conclusions you still only end up with 2 different conclusions?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • noobermin 3y ago
      How about "similar enough?" People, particular people who've never lived in another culture overemphasize differences within their own culture between themselves and others in their own culture. They often overestimate similarities between themselves and other cultures.
• lisper 3y ago
  > all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms But they aren't. Morality -- like all animal behavior -- is grounded in evolution.
  • nmz 3y ago
    Morality is set around cultural norms not animal behavior.
    • lisper 3y ago
      But cultural norms -- indeed, culture itself -- is grounded in evolution. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation
      • afwef 3y ago
        Only partly, there is still a large degree of arbitrariness based on the social environment within the biologically constrained bounds
        • lisper 3y ago
          Sure, all behavior exhibits variation within evolutionary constraints. But it is still not the case that "all of our ethical theories are based on arbitrary axioms". That is no more true than that the weather is "based on arbitrary axioms".
      • nmz 3y ago
        Culture has social conventions that are not based at all around survival of the fittest, fashion and language for one are different between cultures. I do not see how they maximize survival, if anything they create needless competition.
        • lisper 3y ago
          You don't understand how evolution works. You need to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.
• scns 3y ago
  Well, since i shed the shackles of religion and am diametrically opposed to simply following leaders, i had to find my own definition of ethically correct behaviour. The question i ask myself: "Is my action beneficial to mankind and nature as a whole?"
  • AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    I share your vector However the point/problem is that our position has exactly the same epistemic grounding as to what is “right” as “my philosophy is to Kill all but 10 humans” does.
  • afwef 3y ago
    That question is not resolvable in any meaningful way. You can justify anything with a rationalization
    • mensetmanusman 3y ago
      Yeah, especially if you mix in long termism :)
  • rufus_foreman 3y ago
    >> Is my action beneficial to mankind and nature as a whole You're going to have to make choices between those two. Mankind has destroyed how many other species now?
  • esafak 3y ago
    What is beneficial can be debated, as can how to weight the pros and cons of any action. Still, it is a good question to ask!
  • vacuity 3y ago
    So, you'll imminently lead a mob to kill executives of companies that majorly contribute to climate change?
  • bluGill 3y ago
    Many people have kept slaves, even beating them to death - and still answered yes to your question. Many criminals in prison will tell you their victim deserved whatever. I don't know how to define morality, but yours is not helpful.
• nmz 3y ago
  Whatever raises survivability and QOL is ethical. Though there is a feeling/emotion when dealing with QOL, it is measurable.
• bluGill 3y ago
  To put out two examples: Abortion and Guns are very hot topics where people with otherwise similar ethics some on the opposite side and refuse to understand how anyone could take the other position because whichever side they are on is so obviously correct. Please think about the above next time topics like those come up. Once you take a moment to understand the different axioms someone puts higher in priority the better you can understand what is going on. And that there is no universal means you cannot call the someone who takes a different stance things like stupid, unreasonable or wrong (they might be - but not in relation to this topic). Maybe the world will learn to get along a little better if more people will try to understand each other. (I'm not holding my breath)
• sebastianconcpt 3y ago
  The complete sentence is "same meta-ethical problem exists as a possibility" but from all possibilities only a portion have any chance to be adjusted to reality. Hence, a natural selection of all theoretical ideas comes into place and excludes most of them (the ones that diverge the reality tests).
• OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Far from being completely impossible, subjective ethics are entirely more consistent than the alternative. The important thing about analyzing ethical systems is to find axioms that you actually believe. An unanalyzed moral system tends to have false axioms: things that the speaker says are fundamental tenets, but on further analysis simply don't stand muster. For example, the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is anything but an axiom. All but the most unreasonable followers will be able to produce some circumstance where killing is moral. That's not an axiom, that's a guideline. So why find one's axioms? Ultimately, the entire study of ethics boils down to one simple question: "What ought I do?". When faced with a dilemma, what should I choose? With the understanding of your beliefs, you can make a reasoned decision, consistent with your broader choices. If you exist in a society, then you will inevitably be forced to react to the actions of others, which, in of itself, is a forced action on your part. If you don't have some framework with which to judge the actions of others, then your ethical framework is utterly incomplete.
  • afwef 3y ago
    > For example, the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is anything but an axiom. All but the most unreasonable followers will be able to produce some circumstance where killing is moral. That's not an axiom, that's a guideline. So can you give an example of an actual "moral axiom"
    • mech765 3y ago
      Kant's categorical imperative is a decent attempt at one. Also (closely related)- "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." They both have holes and edge cases though.
      • PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        > "do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This one doesn't just have edge cases, it has a hole large enough to float an aircraft carrier through it. My grandparents (all deceased at this point) did not want to be treated in the same way I want(ed) to be treated. The much less absurd version is: "treat other people the way they would like to be treated". Still edge cases, but the holes are much smaller.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• firecall 3y ago
  For further reading, see Kant’s Categorical Imperative.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• inquirerGeneral 3y ago
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• samirillian 3y ago
  > the founding axiom that most folks will have is that the "normal" ethical view is the "correct" view. I half-see your point here, and there are many other points to be made about ethics (which I still think Nietzsche does best) but I feel like you're brushing away Chomsky's argument. He looks at morality like language. It's just that normal does indeed have an apparently wide range, which according to his theory is actually quite limited. I like this idea. Similar to the limits of reason itself; from one perspective the human condition limits us to a frustratingly small territory of what is thinkable at all. Morality is narrow because humans are alike. This is a claim about the human condition itself, not about the moral majority. The only real exception i can think of is psychopaths, but I think that they do live up to their name.
• gnramires 3y ago
  Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37696482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37696482 (I mention how it's possible to define a notion of universality of ethics, and why!)
• fsckboy 3y ago
  > axioms are by definition arbitrary sorry, the axioms of Euclidean Geometry are not arbitrary. They are axioms by the definition of axioms, but not by the definition of arbitrary.
  • scoofy 3y ago
    I’m a bit overwhelmed with the pushback on this point. The fact that axioms are, again, by definition arbitrary, should be anything but controversial. The axioms of Euclidean geometry are very obviously arbitrary, in that, we can create other forms of geometries should we choose to. The fact that we are attempting, with Euclidean geometry, to create a model of the phenomena we experience is good and useful, but that does not change the fact that we could create a geometry of any other fashion, to map to any other phenomena we could imagine. If we found that all minds feel the same with regard to an ethical mapping we created (I see this as Chomsky’s point) then we have effectively created a physics of ethics. The problem is that it is quite obvious that this is not the world we live in. In fact, if it were, I would hardly think we would have much disagreement about anything of moral substance. Thus, we are living in a world where two people measure the same geometric line, and find two different results, form two different axioms to model their measurements, and then try to enforce their measurements with threats of violence. Again, I consider myself a fairly ethical person, I have an moral theory, I just don’t pretend that my theory can be universalizable, and don’t think that moral judgments, in a philosophical sense, have much foundation. The reason I fight for what I fight for is that I feel that doing what we can to help each other is the way we should live. I just know there are plenty of people who will inherently disagree, and there is little way to reason with them. I’m not a moral relativist in that sense, I just refuse to pretend that I can create an ethical theory in any moral sense beyond what makes good sense to me.
    • fsckboy 3y ago
      a million monkeys on typewriters typing arbitrarily will ultimately type out every known work of literature. But the known works of literature were not created arbitrarily.
      • 3y ago
• galdosdi 3y ago
  > Now, Chompsky here is basically saying Heh, reminds me of how once I knew someone who named their dog Chompsky after Noam Chomsky
• Molotokoto 3y ago
  There are few thought experiments which would force you to a 'better' behaviour. You don't know for example, if death is real or not (deah not real -> afterlife) which could bring up a few scenarios like you currently are supervised if you are 'good' enough. Or the old idea of hell vs sky. The best bet for you is always to be 'good' weird thing is people don't get it. The same issue with people getting asked if we should increase taxes for the rich people and they say no because they think they are affected by this. Or a sentence someone once said: Don't teach kids playing footbal to win, teach them to play so that others want to play with them.
• tnecniv 3y ago
  In my undergraduate engineering ethics class, our professor (who had an engineering and legal background) pointed this out in one of the first lectures and said “this is the first reason why I am not going to pretend to teach you ethics in this course. The second reason is that, even if there was clear set of ethics to follow, I am not going to pretend that this mandatory class will convince an unethical person to be ethical. What I will teach you is that decisions have consequences, and many of those consequences are bad for more than one party.”
• Aerbil313 3y ago
  Say the truth for once. I’m so sick of all the people thinking their standpoints are ultimately based on anything other than just that they “feel” they are correct. The only exception I know of is the case for religious morality. It comes directly from God, so the believer only needs to believe in one axiom, that the scripture and the prophet is really from God, as opposed to many axioms, “feels”, and source-of-truths a non-believer may have.