5 ms·

A Short Course in Ethics

14 points by twampss 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago
Unfortunately that is far too simplistic. For example eating meat: if you don't eat meat because you love cows, becoming a vegetarian might actually hurt cows. If people weren't eating meat, there would certainly be a lot less cows around than are now. I am all in favor of feeding all hungry people, but once again it is not so simple (note: not trying to pass off hardcore opinions, just thinking and playing devil's advocate). The problem are always the incentives. If you know your children will always be fed, maybe you'll worry less about having kids - you'll just have them. Eventually because of overpopulation it might become impossible to feed everyone. If people worry about having to feed their kids, maybe on average they'll only have kids when they know they can be fed. (I don't know a good solution to this). It get's really bad when he claims that "people who don't want what they should want are usually just deluded". The incentive problem goes further - if people are only allowed to get "equal" things, competition is eliminated, and hence also progress. In former eastern Germany, there was only one kind of car, made from plastic. It is a bit like with the cows - you think you are helping everybody, but suddenly people are forced to drive in shoddy vehicles endangering their health. As I said, it is a dilemma, I don't know the answer. But I suspect that ultimately there will always have to be some competition and struggle. Unfortunately.
- hvs 17y ago
  Agreed. Ethics has been challenging human civilization as long as we can tell and we still don't have any answers (and there probably aren't any). The only people I worry about ethically (besides psychopaths) are those that think they have all the answers. Whether they are religious fundamentalists, political fundamentalists (Communists, fascists, etc), or what have you. I only know one thing: once you think you have ethics figured out for sure, you're wrong.
  - astine 17y ago
    once you think you have ethics figured out for sure, you're wrong. Well then, it seams like we should stop trying. :)
    - hvs 17y ago
      No, simply that if you approach ethics from the standpoint of trying to find the "ultimate truth," you are doing it wrong. If you approach it from the view that ethical dilemmas don't have one right answer and that human society is inherently "fuzzy," real progress can be made.
      - astine 17y ago
        If you are trying to find 'ultimate truth' in ethics you misunderstand the field. (You might like teleology.) My point isn't to say that there is no right answer but that if you can never get to the point where you can definitively say that this one is right, or at least more right than the alternative, then you are wasting your time. I have no patience for moral relativists that dabble in ethics. If you approach the problem from the standpoint that there is no right and wrong answer, then there is no progress to be made. Ethics is a difficult subject as it deals with the entire scope of human action. It ranges from emotional and intellual states, to changing subjective circumstances, to general (dare I say "universal") principles. Wether I should kill one man to save many depends on more than wieght of the collective needs of individuals. Do I have the right to kill even for a good cause? Does it matter if the man to be killed is at fault for the predicament of the many? Is allowing someone to die morally equivallent to actively killing them? These are hard questions, and and I can't answer all of them, but they do have answers. Moral questions aren't 'fuzzy,' they're subtle, and their applications are even subtler. This means that we have to work hard for answers, and sometimes we may have to settle with that we don't always know. But when people take the genuine difficulty of finding good answers as evidence that there are no answers, and present this as wisdom they are wasting everyone's time. I am not sayting that anyone here is guilty of this; I am just expressing a pet pieve of mine. edit: spelling & grammer
        hvs 17y ago
- aaronsw 17y ago
  How does having less cows being born hurt actual cows? It might "hurt" the cow species, but that's a metaphorical point -- surely you don't consider the cow species actually capable of pain. The evidence (look up "demographic transition") shows that the only reliable way to decrease birth rates is to decrease death rates. In practice, people seem to have more kids when they expect some of their kids to die. That's how societies keep from dying out. I don't say people are just deluded, I say they're often confused. I never said people are only allowed to get equal things, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Nobody disputes that things are sometimes complicated. But that just means you need to work a little harder to find out the truth -- not just spout random ideas you have.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Hurting cows - I just wanted to point out that if you love having cows around, you might be in for a surprise. Without a judgment, just that it might be an unexpected consequence - just as a lot of other actions that seem ethical might actually backfire. "The evidence (look up "demographic transition") shows that the only reliable way to decrease birth rates is to decrease death rates." I don't know about that, but I know that in my country (which has a very good welfare system) there is a lot of discussion about the poor and uneducated having more kids than other parts or society. And their kids tend to go the same route, that is, they tend to end up on welfare. That might be sensationalist reporting of our newspapers, though. Also not saying that the solution would be to "curb" the birth rates - you might find a twist to make the kids fare better than their parents or whatever. I don't know - but it makes me wary about incentives and treating everybody equally. People are not equal - I wish for everybody to have a good live and a fair chance (and that includes if you are born dumb - which might mean you can't take advantage of chances, and it is not your fault - but then what if suddenly a lot of people are dumb - a ka idiocracy?). Also, about the demographic curve - how come human history is a history of war, struggle and genocide? So people had kids because they were afraid their kids might die, but then they didn't die so they had to exterminate their neighbors to get more room to live? From my experience, not everybody is friends with everybody. I trust your friends from MIT would feed me if I ended up under a bridge, even if in my previous life I had been a drug dealer? "I don't say people are just deluded, I say they're often confused." Sure, but how can you make sure that you are right? The cookies example seems like a no-brainer, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the world would be a worse place without cookies. "not just spout random ideas you have." That sounds as if you are entitled to an opinion and I am not. Why - because you read more books on the subject than I did? For what it's worth, I suspect trying to create value is probably the best way to make the world a better place. If there is enough food, people don't need to fight over it. Thanks to technology, normal people can live today as kings used to live in former times. So it seems to me advancing technology helps the most.
- cturner 17y ago
  For example eating meat: if you don't eat meat because you love cows, becoming a vegetarian might actually hurt cows. If people weren't eating meat, there would certainly be a lot less cows around than are now. I like books covered in human skin. The best skin comes from babies. This is OK, because if I wasn't supporting the market for baby skin then there would be less babies around than there are now. Phew. Think of all the good work my passion for skin-covered books is doing. I like to start with the rotary mechanism for evaluating the ethics of an action: - Is it based on the truth? - Is it fair? - Will it build goodwill and better relationships? - Will it be beneficial to all concerned? It's not perfect. It tends to give priority to the people in your immediate vicinity over people who are remote. Also, people need to accept responsibility for their actions in some cases, and it's unrealistic to expect that the rest of the world will invest in mind games to overcome your folly. But I like to use that as my starting point.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    "This is OK, because if I wasn't supporting the market for baby skin then there would be less babies around than there are now." Uhm - no it isn't OK. "Is it fair?" What is fair? "Will it be beneficial to all concerned?" How many actions have that property at all?
    - cturner 17y ago
      What is fair? It's a good question. Two months ago I would have said it was completely aribtrary. However, a sense of fairness is wired into humans, so it's a factor we need to consider even though for rational purposes it appears ridiculous. This is the book I've been reading to give me perspectiev on this, _Animal Spirits_ (http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Spirits-Psychology-Economy-Capitalism/dp/0691142335 http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Spirits-Psychology-Economy-Capi...).
      - Tichy 17y ago
        Interesting book, thanks.
mattchew 17y ago
Our rule demands one do everything they can to help the poorest -- not just spending one’s wealth and selling one’s possessions, but breaking the law if that will help. Sounds simply dreadful. Not an attractive way to live and not an attractive society to live in. Not that normal people would ever try to live this way. I suppose you could terrorize them into saying they were trying to live this way. By the way, breaking into buildings, stealing food, and then donating some money to a fashionable cause is thrill seeking and attention whoring, not philanthropy.
astine 17y ago
John Rawls attempts to create an ethical system based on a uiversal sense of fairness. The problem is that such a system is inherently arbitrary. Who decides what's fair? Treating everyone equally isn't necessarily fair: Forcing everyone to live in the same housing regardless of health issues certainly isn't fair but neither is creating a system that tries to balance individual needs into a sort of universal scale a such a thing doesn't exist. Furthermore it misses the point that ethics is ultimately an individual issue as it's individuals who make ethical decisions. The moment that you have a bunch of people in clouds planning what the world should be like you've missed the whole point, which is 'what is justice?' which is an entirely different question, but 'How should I behave?' That is, Ethics is not so much the search for a universal code of action, but the search for a principles in human behavior. With this realize that the search is not for a better means of wealth distribution but for the best set of virtues that a man can embody. Thus the question is not whether Larry Ellison should buy another Yacht or immitate Mother Theresa, but whether he should practice is fortitude or his charity, his temperance or his, decisiveness. Of course such things as universal codes of ethics come into play here, but they are tangential to the key issues.
defen 17y ago
The intellectual arrogance in this post is nauseating. It is extremely rare that a 22 year-old is qualified to speak so authoritatively on such a deep topic as ethics, and this post demonstrates that Aaron Swartz is not one of them. 1) I've never seen a more clear example of Nietzsche's "inversion of values." I'm not a libertarian, but this is straight out of Ayn Rand - the good, the strong, the responsible, owe a moral debt to the weakest, poorest, least able people in the world -- regardless of how they came to find themselves in such a parlous state. 2) Like any totalitarian ideology, it complete ignores the reality of human nature. Instead, it attempts to conform reality to simple, preconceived theories and assumptions. In this case, the assumption is that all humans are equal autonomous individuals, and the theory is that disparate individual or national outcomes are caused by the strong oppressing the weak. It ignores that a community's, society's, or nation's character is an expression of the collective nature of the people who compose it. It ignores the interlocking responsibilities - both wanted and unwanted, asked and unasked - that enable society to work. 3) His entire system of "ethics" is based upon making oneself feel superior to others. It completely ignores the problem of incentives, as Tichy mentioned - what happens when you apply Kant's Categorical Imperative to these prescriptions? There is literally no incentive to do anything productive, because a more-moral person is probably going to unilaterally decide that you, as a filthy kulak, are not morally worthy of possessing the fruits of your labor. Truly a repugnant philosophy.
- rw 17y ago
  Appeal to age? Really? Where's your reliance on merit? The "behind the veil of ignorance" argument from Rawls has a solid basis. The premise is merely that if you were born with a higher a priori chance of living a fulfilled life, why not assist those who didn't get that chance? At the very least, you'll feel good while you're doing it. There are basic human needs that we all share. It's possible to do anything in a totalitarian way, so just avoid doing things in that manner. You can say all you want that helping others causes them to be lazy or weak (after all, you said "There is literally no incentive to do anything productive"), but--let's be frank about the world situation--I'd rather have the problem of widespread abundance, than that of terrifying, indefensible scarcity. I lose sleep worrying about the hundreds of millions of malnourished and undereducated people who are getting completely fucked just because of where, and to whom, they were born. I'm sitting here trying to pay off my student loans, so I can get moving, solving some real problems. Like you, I enjoy the latest and greatest O(log n) distributed social marketplace, but we have to have priorities in life--what is wrong with an egalitarian, humanist priority? Actually, what could be a better priority? That is the ethic I want to strive for, that's my damn imperative. If you're a causal determinist (which is a very defensible position), you can ascribe everything to luck, or nothing, depending on your mood. But nothing inbetween. I don't want to see the word blame or responsibility thrown around without some serious reason to back it up. You want to talk about choice and empowerment and I'll show you a dozen people who have never had reason to believe in their own agency. "Human nature" is a semantic stop sign [1]. What does that phrase even mean? We're sapient apes with tendencies toward the ugly when things get scary, and the beautiful when things get nice. We respond to our environment (this includes other people); in fact, we are merely another part of our environment. There are a few sciences dedicated to studying this phenomenon, e.g. sociology, economics and psychology. The reason you even have a high horse upon which to sit is because you got lucky. You're smart, or well-fed, or connected, or whatever--that's all luck. Good luck or bad luck, that's all it is--probability. And I say: when it comes to living a fulfilled life, fuck probability. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/ EDIT: Obviously, if you disagree, reply.
jgfoot 17y ago
I like Aaron, but this "accomplish the most overall good" philosophy does not go far beyond what Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians gave us in the 18th century. Utilitarianism was thoughtful, but it left a lot unanswered (like, how do you decide what accomplishes the most good?), and there's been a lot of ethical thought in the intervening 100+ years that Aaron doesn't really reflect here. Imagine if a well-respected philosopher were to start blogging about how awesome ProDOS is...
teyc 17y ago
Sometimes it is better not to consider ethics, but instead consider consequences. Sometimes, there are short term bad consequences, then there are consequences that benefits certain groups in the short term, but harm them in the long term. We cannot deny how complex the world is by reducing it to a single ethical axis. For instance, we can examine the ethics of various religions when faced with peril. You have Christendom, who chose to win through losing; then you have Buddhism with it's history of non-violence, even when faced with the prospect of annihiliation of the religion in Tibet; then you have Islam, where the faithful chose to fight and defend their religion. Each of these approaches have short term and long term consequences. In the short run, violence provides for survival, but in the long run, it justifies further violence. We have to recognize also that sometimes there are no good choices. Just the mere fact of our existence requires soil to be tilled, destruction of forests for agriculture, altering the environment. It's always hard to be good.
gcv 17y ago
Read Mill, for an introduction to the basics of consequentialism. Read Kant, for an introduction to the basics of deontology. Read up some more recent work which tries to fix the problems of both. I don't off-hand remember anyone recent who tried to convincingly fix either system, so I don't have any handy references, but: Here's a much better overall introduction to morality: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/ After going through that, I recommend the author's book: http://www.amazon.com/Common-Morality-Deciding-What-Do/dp/0195173716 http://www.amazon.com/Common-Morality-Deciding-What-Do/dp/01...
amalcon 17y ago
We mathematically-inclined folk like elegant systems. We like systems that have a few set of consistent rules. We don't like exceptions. The problem is that we can't make a system like that for ethics. There are too many variables, they don't always fit well together, and often the "correct" ethical decision depends on what ethics others are using. Some ethical systems only work if everyone uses them; others cease to work if everyone uses them; others only work if nobody tries to game the system. It's a messy topic, and not one that can be easily reduced to an elegant ruleset. Not that this should stop anyone from trying. Just do it for the exercise itself. Don't expect a particularly useful result.
Radix 17y ago
I'll just address this bit since it seems fundamental: So how do we decide what good things are? Doesn’t everyone have their own idea of what’s good? Instead of trying to promote one particular person’s notion of what’s good, it seems like we should balance everyone’s good. In most cases, it’s impossible for us to know what’s actually good for a person, so this usually means taking their word for it and trying to give them what they want. How can one balance everyone's good? In order to do so you would need to be able to take the world in its entirety as those in the thought experiment do. We can't do this, so the suggestion is that we trust what people want. The problem is not only do people not have the foresight to know what they want their wants change relative to their haves. 'Need' would have been a better choice with a given definition. Because we can not balance everyone's good I suggest everyone must be chiefly responsible for themselves and their charges. They should be expected to be honest about their desires and, to be fair to others, they should be as little burden as possible. Such that the greatest good is caring for ones own needs first while avoiding hindering others from acquiring their own base needs. The only thing needed now is a definition of 'need', but I would probably just choose a level on Maslow's hierarchy. I probably communicated as poorly as the author, so my point is: communication is an interesting problem, and these are week assumptions and poorly communicated as it is too easy for an alternate, though in my case similar, theory of ethics to be built. I have friends who, to save money, break into buildings on the MIT campus to steal food and drink and naps and showers. They use the money they save to promote the public good. It seems like these criminals, not the average workaday law-abiding citizen, should be our moral exemplars What if every student, faculty member, staff member, alumnus, and donor want food, drink, and grounds to be used in an ordered way. How are their collective wants less important than some few "poor" people? I don't see how that jump was made.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

14 points by twampss 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago

Unfortunately that is far too simplistic. For example eating meat: if you don't eat meat because you love cows, becoming a vegetarian might actually hurt cows. If people weren't eating meat, there would certainly be a lot less cows around than are now. I am all in favor of feeding all hungry people, but once again it is not so simple (note: not trying to pass off hardcore opinions, just thinking and playing devil's advocate). The problem are always the incentives. If you know your children will always be fed, maybe you'll worry less about having kids - you'll just have them. Eventually because of overpopulation it might become impossible to feed everyone. If people worry about having to feed their kids, maybe on average they'll only have kids when they know they can be fed. (I don't know a good solution to this). It get's really bad when he claims that "people who don't want what they should want are usually just deluded". The incentive problem goes further - if people are only allowed to get "equal" things, competition is eliminated, and hence also progress. In former eastern Germany, there was only one kind of car, made from plastic. It is a bit like with the cows - you think you are helping everybody, but suddenly people are forced to drive in shoddy vehicles endangering their health. As I said, it is a dilemma, I don't know the answer. But I suspect that ultimately there will always have to be some competition and struggle. Unfortunately.

hvs 17y ago
Agreed. Ethics has been challenging human civilization as long as we can tell and we still don't have any answers (and there probably aren't any). The only people I worry about ethically (besides psychopaths) are those that think they have all the answers. Whether they are religious fundamentalists, political fundamentalists (Communists, fascists, etc), or what have you. I only know one thing: once you think you have ethics figured out for sure, you're wrong.
- astine 17y ago
  once you think you have ethics figured out for sure, you're wrong. Well then, it seams like we should stop trying. :)
  - hvs 17y ago
    No, simply that if you approach ethics from the standpoint of trying to find the "ultimate truth," you are doing it wrong. If you approach it from the view that ethical dilemmas don't have one right answer and that human society is inherently "fuzzy," real progress can be made.
    - astine 17y ago
      If you are trying to find 'ultimate truth' in ethics you misunderstand the field. (You might like teleology.) My point isn't to say that there is no right answer but that if you can never get to the point where you can definitively say that this one is right, or at least more right than the alternative, then you are wasting your time. I have no patience for moral relativists that dabble in ethics. If you approach the problem from the standpoint that there is no right and wrong answer, then there is no progress to be made. Ethics is a difficult subject as it deals with the entire scope of human action. It ranges from emotional and intellual states, to changing subjective circumstances, to general (dare I say "universal") principles. Wether I should kill one man to save many depends on more than wieght of the collective needs of individuals. Do I have the right to kill even for a good cause? Does it matter if the man to be killed is at fault for the predicament of the many? Is allowing someone to die morally equivallent to actively killing them? These are hard questions, and and I can't answer all of them, but they do have answers. Moral questions aren't 'fuzzy,' they're subtle, and their applications are even subtler. This means that we have to work hard for answers, and sometimes we may have to settle with that we don't always know. But when people take the genuine difficulty of finding good answers as evidence that there are no answers, and present this as wisdom they are wasting everyone's time. I am not sayting that anyone here is guilty of this; I am just expressing a pet pieve of mine. edit: spelling & grammer
      - hvs 17y ago
aaronsw 17y ago
How does having less cows being born hurt actual cows? It might "hurt" the cow species, but that's a metaphorical point -- surely you don't consider the cow species actually capable of pain. The evidence (look up "demographic transition") shows that the only reliable way to decrease birth rates is to decrease death rates. In practice, people seem to have more kids when they expect some of their kids to die. That's how societies keep from dying out. I don't say people are just deluded, I say they're often confused. I never said people are only allowed to get equal things, so I have no idea what you're talking about. Nobody disputes that things are sometimes complicated. But that just means you need to work a little harder to find out the truth -- not just spout random ideas you have.
- Tichy 17y ago
  Hurting cows - I just wanted to point out that if you love having cows around, you might be in for a surprise. Without a judgment, just that it might be an unexpected consequence - just as a lot of other actions that seem ethical might actually backfire. "The evidence (look up "demographic transition") shows that the only reliable way to decrease birth rates is to decrease death rates." I don't know about that, but I know that in my country (which has a very good welfare system) there is a lot of discussion about the poor and uneducated having more kids than other parts or society. And their kids tend to go the same route, that is, they tend to end up on welfare. That might be sensationalist reporting of our newspapers, though. Also not saying that the solution would be to "curb" the birth rates - you might find a twist to make the kids fare better than their parents or whatever. I don't know - but it makes me wary about incentives and treating everybody equally. People are not equal - I wish for everybody to have a good live and a fair chance (and that includes if you are born dumb - which might mean you can't take advantage of chances, and it is not your fault - but then what if suddenly a lot of people are dumb - a ka idiocracy?). Also, about the demographic curve - how come human history is a history of war, struggle and genocide? So people had kids because they were afraid their kids might die, but then they didn't die so they had to exterminate their neighbors to get more room to live? From my experience, not everybody is friends with everybody. I trust your friends from MIT would feed me if I ended up under a bridge, even if in my previous life I had been a drug dealer? "I don't say people are just deluded, I say they're often confused." Sure, but how can you make sure that you are right? The cookies example seems like a no-brainer, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the world would be a worse place without cookies. "not just spout random ideas you have." That sounds as if you are entitled to an opinion and I am not. Why - because you read more books on the subject than I did? For what it's worth, I suspect trying to create value is probably the best way to make the world a better place. If there is enough food, people don't need to fight over it. Thanks to technology, normal people can live today as kings used to live in former times. So it seems to me advancing technology helps the most.
cturner 17y ago
For example eating meat: if you don't eat meat because you love cows, becoming a vegetarian might actually hurt cows. If people weren't eating meat, there would certainly be a lot less cows around than are now. I like books covered in human skin. The best skin comes from babies. This is OK, because if I wasn't supporting the market for baby skin then there would be less babies around than there are now. Phew. Think of all the good work my passion for skin-covered books is doing. I like to start with the rotary mechanism for evaluating the ethics of an action: - Is it based on the truth? - Is it fair? - Will it build goodwill and better relationships? - Will it be beneficial to all concerned? It's not perfect. It tends to give priority to the people in your immediate vicinity over people who are remote. Also, people need to accept responsibility for their actions in some cases, and it's unrealistic to expect that the rest of the world will invest in mind games to overcome your folly. But I like to use that as my starting point.
- Tichy 17y ago
  "This is OK, because if I wasn't supporting the market for baby skin then there would be less babies around than there are now." Uhm - no it isn't OK. "Is it fair?" What is fair? "Will it be beneficial to all concerned?" How many actions have that property at all?
  - cturner 17y ago
    What is fair? It's a good question. Two months ago I would have said it was completely aribtrary. However, a sense of fairness is wired into humans, so it's a factor we need to consider even though for rational purposes it appears ridiculous. This is the book I've been reading to give me perspectiev on this, _Animal Spirits_ (http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Spirits-Psychology-Economy-Capitalism/dp/0691142335 http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Spirits-Psychology-Economy-Capi...).
    - Tichy 17y ago
      Interesting book, thanks.

mattchew 17y ago

Our rule demands one do everything they can to help the poorest -- not just spending one’s wealth and selling one’s possessions, but breaking the law if that will help. Sounds simply dreadful. Not an attractive way to live and not an attractive society to live in. Not that normal people would ever try to live this way. I suppose you could terrorize them into saying they were trying to live this way. By the way, breaking into buildings, stealing food, and then donating some money to a fashionable cause is thrill seeking and attention whoring, not philanthropy.

astine 17y ago

John Rawls attempts to create an ethical system based on a uiversal sense of fairness. The problem is that such a system is inherently arbitrary. Who decides what's fair? Treating everyone equally isn't necessarily fair: Forcing everyone to live in the same housing regardless of health issues certainly isn't fair but neither is creating a system that tries to balance individual needs into a sort of universal scale a such a thing doesn't exist. Furthermore it misses the point that ethics is ultimately an individual issue as it's individuals who make ethical decisions. The moment that you have a bunch of people in clouds planning what the world should be like you've missed the whole point, which is 'what is justice?' which is an entirely different question, but 'How should I behave?' That is, Ethics is not so much the search for a universal code of action, but the search for a principles in human behavior. With this realize that the search is not for a better means of wealth distribution but for the best set of virtues that a man can embody. Thus the question is not whether Larry Ellison should buy another Yacht or immitate Mother Theresa, but whether he should practice is fortitude or his charity, his temperance or his, decisiveness. Of course such things as universal codes of ethics come into play here, but they are tangential to the key issues.

defen 17y ago

The intellectual arrogance in this post is nauseating. It is extremely rare that a 22 year-old is qualified to speak so authoritatively on such a deep topic as ethics, and this post demonstrates that Aaron Swartz is not one of them. 1) I've never seen a more clear example of Nietzsche's "inversion of values." I'm not a libertarian, but this is straight out of Ayn Rand - the good, the strong, the responsible, owe a moral debt to the weakest, poorest, least able people in the world -- regardless of how they came to find themselves in such a parlous state. 2) Like any totalitarian ideology, it complete ignores the reality of human nature. Instead, it attempts to conform reality to simple, preconceived theories and assumptions. In this case, the assumption is that all humans are equal autonomous individuals, and the theory is that disparate individual or national outcomes are caused by the strong oppressing the weak. It ignores that a community's, society's, or nation's character is an expression of the collective nature of the people who compose it. It ignores the interlocking responsibilities - both wanted and unwanted, asked and unasked - that enable society to work. 3) His entire system of "ethics" is based upon making oneself feel superior to others. It completely ignores the problem of incentives, as Tichy mentioned - what happens when you apply Kant's Categorical Imperative to these prescriptions? There is literally no incentive to do anything productive, because a more-moral person is probably going to unilaterally decide that you, as a filthy kulak, are not morally worthy of possessing the fruits of your labor. Truly a repugnant philosophy.

rw 17y ago
Appeal to age? Really? Where's your reliance on merit? The "behind the veil of ignorance" argument from Rawls has a solid basis. The premise is merely that if you were born with a higher a priori chance of living a fulfilled life, why not assist those who didn't get that chance? At the very least, you'll feel good while you're doing it. There are basic human needs that we all share. It's possible to do anything in a totalitarian way, so just avoid doing things in that manner. You can say all you want that helping others causes them to be lazy or weak (after all, you said "There is literally no incentive to do anything productive"), but--let's be frank about the world situation--I'd rather have the problem of widespread abundance, than that of terrifying, indefensible scarcity. I lose sleep worrying about the hundreds of millions of malnourished and undereducated people who are getting completely fucked just because of where, and to whom, they were born. I'm sitting here trying to pay off my student loans, so I can get moving, solving some real problems. Like you, I enjoy the latest and greatest O(log n) distributed social marketplace, but we have to have priorities in life--what is wrong with an egalitarian, humanist priority? Actually, what could be a better priority? That is the ethic I want to strive for, that's my damn imperative. If you're a causal determinist (which is a very defensible position), you can ascribe everything to luck, or nothing, depending on your mood. But nothing inbetween. I don't want to see the word blame or responsibility thrown around without some serious reason to back it up. You want to talk about choice and empowerment and I'll show you a dozen people who have never had reason to believe in their own agency. "Human nature" is a semantic stop sign [1]. What does that phrase even mean? We're sapient apes with tendencies toward the ugly when things get scary, and the beautiful when things get nice. We respond to our environment (this includes other people); in fact, we are merely another part of our environment. There are a few sciences dedicated to studying this phenomenon, e.g. sociology, economics and psychology. The reason you even have a high horse upon which to sit is because you got lucky. You're smart, or well-fed, or connected, or whatever--that's all luck. Good luck or bad luck, that's all it is--probability. And I say: when it comes to living a fulfilled life, fuck probability. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/it/semantic_stopsigns/ EDIT: Obviously, if you disagree, reply.

jgfoot 17y ago

I like Aaron, but this "accomplish the most overall good" philosophy does not go far beyond what Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians gave us in the 18th century. Utilitarianism was thoughtful, but it left a lot unanswered (like, how do you decide what accomplishes the most good?), and there's been a lot of ethical thought in the intervening 100+ years that Aaron doesn't really reflect here. Imagine if a well-respected philosopher were to start blogging about how awesome ProDOS is...

teyc 17y ago

Sometimes it is better not to consider ethics, but instead consider consequences. Sometimes, there are short term bad consequences, then there are consequences that benefits certain groups in the short term, but harm them in the long term. We cannot deny how complex the world is by reducing it to a single ethical axis. For instance, we can examine the ethics of various religions when faced with peril. You have Christendom, who chose to win through losing; then you have Buddhism with it's history of non-violence, even when faced with the prospect of annihiliation of the religion in Tibet; then you have Islam, where the faithful chose to fight and defend their religion. Each of these approaches have short term and long term consequences. In the short run, violence provides for survival, but in the long run, it justifies further violence. We have to recognize also that sometimes there are no good choices. Just the mere fact of our existence requires soil to be tilled, destruction of forests for agriculture, altering the environment. It's always hard to be good.

gcv 17y ago

Read Mill, for an introduction to the basics of consequentialism. Read Kant, for an introduction to the basics of deontology. Read up some more recent work which tries to fix the problems of both. I don't off-hand remember anyone recent who tried to convincingly fix either system, so I don't have any handy references, but: Here's a much better overall introduction to morality: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/ After going through that, I recommend the author's book: http://www.amazon.com/Common-Morality-Deciding-What-Do/dp/0195173716 http://www.amazon.com/Common-Morality-Deciding-What-Do/dp/01...

amalcon 17y ago

We mathematically-inclined folk like elegant systems. We like systems that have a few set of consistent rules. We don't like exceptions. The problem is that we can't make a system like that for ethics. There are too many variables, they don't always fit well together, and often the "correct" ethical decision depends on what ethics others are using. Some ethical systems only work if everyone uses them; others cease to work if everyone uses them; others only work if nobody tries to game the system. It's a messy topic, and not one that can be easily reduced to an elegant ruleset. Not that this should stop anyone from trying. Just do it for the exercise itself. Don't expect a particularly useful result.

Radix 17y ago

I'll just address this bit since it seems fundamental: So how do we decide what good things are? Doesn’t everyone have their own idea of what’s good? Instead of trying to promote one particular person’s notion of what’s good, it seems like we should balance everyone’s good. In most cases, it’s impossible for us to know what’s actually good for a person, so this usually means taking their word for it and trying to give them what they want. How can one balance everyone's good? In order to do so you would need to be able to take the world in its entirety as those in the thought experiment do. We can't do this, so the suggestion is that we trust what people want. The problem is not only do people not have the foresight to know what they want their wants change relative to their haves. 'Need' would have been a better choice with a given definition. Because we can not balance everyone's good I suggest everyone must be chiefly responsible for themselves and their charges. They should be expected to be honest about their desires and, to be fair to others, they should be as little burden as possible. Such that the greatest good is caring for ones own needs first while avoiding hindering others from acquiring their own base needs. The only thing needed now is a definition of 'need', but I would probably just choose a level on Maslow's hierarchy. I probably communicated as poorly as the author, so my point is: communication is an interesting problem, and these are week assumptions and poorly communicated as it is too easy for an alternate, though in my case similar, theory of ethics to be built. I have friends who, to save money, break into buildings on the MIT campus to steal food and drink and naps and showers. They use the money they save to promote the public good. It seems like these criminals, not the average workaday law-abiding citizen, should be our moral exemplars What if every student, faculty member, staff member, alumnus, and donor want food, drink, and grounds to be used in an ordered way. How are their collective wants less important than some few "poor" people? I don't see how that jump was made.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]