Freedomain Radio

Hey everyone, I just want to show you guys what I emailed to my friend, and please correct me if I got some points wrong - thanks.

Logical proof of ethics:

1. Our universe is a consistent one.

2. This consistency can be measured with the correct instruments: eyes, scales, rulers, time pieces, etc.

3. Thoughts and concepts are mental constructs.

4. Those mental constructs that we use to describe reality can be true or false.

5. A true concept is one that accurately describes nature.

6. Because our reality is consistent, in order for concepts about reality to be accurate they must also be consistent.

7. This consistency in concepts is logic and rationality.

8. To determine whether a concept has correctly described reality we gather empirical evidence and compare the predicted or described effects to those actually observed.
9. Consistency in our universe leads to objectivity. Gravity is a consistent and object effect of having mass.

10. Objectivity means that the consistent mental concepts about a particular class of thing are the same for all members of that class of thing.

11. When describing living things (the science of biology) then random mutations and free will add a certain excusable level of error in the ‘uniformity of class’ that isn't allowed when talking about non-living things.

12. Humans are apart of reality and are of one class.

13. Humans really don't have to do anything, but if a specific outcome is wanted then they do need to do things in order to achieve that outcome. For example, a human doesn't have to eat, but a human has to eat if it wants to live.

14. For each outcome wanted there are a set of mental concepts and actions that will create that outcome. Because all humans are of the same class then those mental concepts and actions will be consistent and necessary for all humans (if said human wants that outcome). Because these concepts and actions are the same for all humans then they are also objective.

15. These actions are called Universally Preferred Behavior (UPB).

--- Universal because it is consistent and objective for all place, time, and people. Preferred because these are the actions humans should take in order to create the wanted outcome. Behavior because all actions start as thoughts first, though sometimes subconscious.

Definition: Morality/Ethics/Right and Wrong/Rights: All these I will lump together as "mental concepts, or rules, that a group of humans live by in order for that group to survive."

16. Because a group of humans want to survive and thrive, then there is a consistent and objective set of mental concepts they need to follow (or actions they need to take or not take) in order to survive and thrive.
16A. Stated another way: The rules that a group of humans live by (or actions that should be taken or not taken) must be the same rules (or actions) that each human in that group lives by. In one group you can't have some rules that apply to part of the group and then different rules that apply to the rest of the group.

 --- Group and other collective terms are just mental concepts; they are not found in reality. It is not consistent or objective to have rules that apply to the "group" but are not applied to all members of that group; that is treating a mental concept as reality (like believing in unicorns or Santa Claus)

17. To have different rules for different members of the same class is not consistent or objective. Thus, those rules will fail in bringing survival to that group of humans.

Extra:

Some humans can live as parasites to other humans. But, that won’t lead to the long term survival of the parasites because eventually the host group of humans will die, and then the parasites will die.

Bravo. That was a really fantastic post and excellent summary of the logic and syllogy behind UPB / rational ethics.

Edit: Just a few thoughta: firstly, ethics (actions which are moral/good/consistent) are universally preferABLE not preferRED behaviours. I think it's an important if slight distinction. Also, how about adding something to do with how it is not possible to correct UPB without using UPB? Or maybe how UPB is wider than the subset of ethics and morality, but covers theories and truth propositions etc. Inserting something similar to 'if one wants to be moral, then...' could be useful, too.

This is really cool.

I only have one objection to your post:

UPB doesn't validate or invalidate behaviors relative to stated goals. Rather, UPB validates or invalidates normative claims about given behaviors. So, using your example of eating, it may be true that I have to eat at given times if I want to live, but if I wanted to go the next step and try to praise or condemn my "eating" in a moral sense, then UPB would be used to validate or invalidate the ethical requirement or proscription of "eating", as a behavior (i.e., "It is morally good to eat", and "It is morally bad to eat").

Does that help?

Re: -rable/-red

I think I see what you're saying. I get the feeling that using -red implies the best method or concepts have already been discovered; whereas, using -rable opens up traditional methods or concepts to be replaced with those that achieve better results in the future.

Edit:

I see what you're saying, that I didn't explicitly tie UPB to ethics. I should have done like you said or something like the: the mental concepts and actions that a group of humans live by must be UPB compliant (consistant, objective, and verified by emperical evidence) otherwise those rules will not lead to the survival of that group.

Re: normative claims

I thought that UPB validates everything. For example, the scientific method isn't a moral code; it's just the best way to discover the laws of physics, but UPB still validates it; so, anytime a person has a goal they can use UPB to figure out how to reach the goal. If the goal isn't morally aligned then UPB won't give a moral answer. An action can be morally aligned or not. "I want to live so I have to eat" or "I want to live morally so I shouldn't steal the food I'm going to eat". I guess it comes down to what is meant by preferable.

Does preferable mean the most eficient/successful way, or does it mean the most moral way? But 'moral' can't be both in the method and then be a conclusion can it? For example, you can't say "What's the most moral way for people to live morally?"

Edit:

Ooooooor is it that every goal has an unstated or default normative claim. "I want to drive to work." This goal has the unstated normative claim of "... within a reasonable amout of time."

Edit 2 - 4/21/09:

OK, first: my apologies to you Greg, I didn't fully absorb your post. I'm looking back at it now and seeing how I messed up/'straw-man'ed it.

I must be confused about UPB. I thought UPB was simply (ha!) applying consistency in thought and verifying with empirical evidence. Is UPB only applying consistency in thought and verifying with empirical evidence when someone claims their actions are ethical? This seems to be what you're saying.

So, if someone is not making an ethical claim then it's simply CiTavwEE (Consistency in Thought and verifying with Empirical Evidence)? But several times Stef has said that he thinks UPB is more fundamental than everything else, for example its the underlying structure of the scientifc method. Perhaps I misunderstood. Another way to ask the same question: is UPB sinonomous with consistency in thought and verifying with empirical evidence?

I think you're right, frake.  On page 79, in UPB, we can find the following passage:

Although we first focused on UPB in the realm of ethics, UPB can now be seen as an "umbrella term," which includes such disciplines as:

• The scientific method
• Logic
• Empiricism
• Debating
• Language
• Ethics

Ethics is the subset of UPB which deals with inflicted behaviour, or the use of violence.  Any theory that justifies or denies the use of violence is a moral theory, and is subject to the requirements of logical consistency and empirical evidence.

frake:

15. These actions are called Universally Preferred Behavior (UPB).

--- Universal because it is consistent and objective for all place, time, and people. Preferred because these are the actions humans should take in order to create the wanted outcome. Behavior because all actions start as thoughts first, though sometimes subconscious.

It's "Preferable" because even though a human may want the desired outcome, they do not have to take the required action.  If I want to live, I could pray for God to fill my stomach with food.  It won't work, of course, but I could do it.  Hence eating is Universally Preferable Behavior with respect to a desire to live, not Preferred.

Behavior is considered because it is actions that occur in reality that we are concerned with, not the unverifiable subjective thoughts within someone's mind.

frake:

Definition: Morality/Ethics/Right and Wrong/Rights: All these I will lump together as "mental concepts, or rules, that a group of humans live by in order for that group to survive."

 

16. Because a group of humans want to survive and thrive, then there is a consistent and objective set of mental concepts they need to follow (or actions they need to take or not take) in order to survive and thrive.
16A. Stated another way: The rules that a group of humans live by (or actions that should be taken or not taken) must be the same rules (or actions) that each human in that group lives by. In one group you can't have some rules that apply to part of the group and then different rules that apply to the rest of the group.

 --- Group and other collective terms are just mental concepts; they are not found in reality. It is not consistent or objective to have rules that apply to the "group" but are not applied to all members of that group; that is treating a mental concept as reality (like believing in unicorns or Santa Claus)

17. To have different rules for different members of the same class is not consistent or objective. Thus, those rules will fail in bringing survival to that group of humans.

 

 

Extra:

Some humans can live as parasites to other humans. But, that won’t lead to the long term survival of the parasites because eventually the host group of humans will die, and then the parasites will die.

I don't think your "survive and thrive" theory works here.

As you say, groups do not exist.  Individual humans wish to survive and thrive.  That is why, despite this common goal, it is often those humans with the most power (read "capacity for inflicted violence") who have taken as much survival and thriving for themselves and left those without power below them to be their slaves (whether literally or figuratively).

Human history for tens of thousands of years is replete with inconsistent and irrational moral rules.  Since humans are still here, how can you justify your proposition that non-universal rules will cause a failure of survival?  The serfs may not have lived well, but they did live despite the moral inconsistency of their rules with respect to the king and other landed gentry.

What I'm suggesting here is that if a person's outcome is not consistent with respect to ethical rules ("I want as many resources as possible and I'm willing to kill people to get them"), then it makes no sense to define ethical rules with respect to them.  You can say their action is wrong, but it won't matter if that person has a gun pointed at your head, will it?

What I think is required is a set of rational outcomes, much like the eight implicit premises of debating from UPB (pp. 34-36, PDF), that will allow people to coexist on the same ethical plane.  Without those common outcomes, how would a truly peaceful society come about?  (That's also why it's a multi-generational project.)

Hope this helps, let me know what you think

KevinP

 Hey Kevin,

You bring up some good points; I've been wrestling with them for some time now too. Please forgive and correct me if I've misconstrued what you were saying.

"It's "Preferable" because even though a human may want the desired outcome, they do not have to take the required action.  If I want to live, I could pray for God to fill my stomach with food.  It won't work, of course, but I could do it.  Hence eating is Universally Preferable Behavior with respect to a desire to live, not Preferred.

Behavior is considered because it is actions that occur in reality that we are concerned with, not the unverifiable subjective thoughts within someone's mind."

Thanks, I agree that I put too much emphasis on the thought part.

"Human history for tens of thousands of years is replete with inconsistent and irrational moral rules.  Since humans are still here, how can you justify your proposition that non-universal rules will cause a failure of survival?  The serfs may not have lived well, but they did live despite the moral inconsistency of their rules with respect to the king and other landed gentry."

Yes, history is; I say the only reason mankind has survived this long is precisely because societies 'reset' themselves. Societies have always, even now, been slowly ground down to almost dust from the vampiric effects of tyrants (churches, pharoes, kings, governments, etc.) until that society collapses and the few survivers start again or they violently overthrow their tyrants and reset the tyranny a ways back on the scale (scale between liberty and totalitarianism). If these 'resets' didn't happen, I fully believe humanity would have been snuffed out long ago. But humans are still alive despite these things and the quality of live is ever decreasing until technology changes in a way that allows people to escape, even if for a little while, that vampiric effect. Using your example, the serfs: I say the serfs would NOT have survived if not for some change in the society to 'reset' the tyranny or some technological change allowed them to escape the tyranny for a little while; that, if sefdom continued unchanged for the better, then they all, including the Kings and Land Gentry, would have died.

"As you say, groups do not exist.  Individual humans wish to survive and thrive.  That is why, despite this common goal, it is often those humans with the most power (read "capacity for inflicted violence") who have taken as much survival and thriving for themselves and left those without power below them to be their slaves (whether literally or figuratively)."

I disagree. It isn't the 'most power' that made them the slave masters and got them slaves; it is the ethical system in place that allowed the people to stay as slaves and made slaves fight each other instead of the slavemasters."Capacity for inflicted violence" doesn't get people to pay taxes or follow rules. Pure "capacity for/to inflict violence" only gets someone dead. It's the ethical system in place that the victims believe is right and good that gets people to pay taxes and follow rules.

Logical Break Down of my above argument:

For a man to truly live a comfortable lifestyle (whatever that means for the period in question) there has to be devision of labor: somebody has to get food, somebody has to build the castle, somebody has to design the castle, somebody has to make the clothes, somebody has to get the King's concubines, somebody has to cook the food, somebody has to make and do everything that the King wants lavished on him.

Devision of labor only works when there is trade and willing participants. All the things that the King wants he can't get from going around and threatening everybody with his military constantly, this is not cost effective - that is, he would spend more of what he got in giving it to his army and he would spend more of his personal time herassing everyone instead of actually enjoying his spoils.

What the King has to do is either scare enough of the people that they will stop their fellow cattle from trying to rise up OR, much more sadistically, shroud what he is doing with 'goodness' and 'rightness' - "I'm devinely appointed." <- this is where the battle is.

"What I'm suggesting here is that if a person's outcome is not consistent with respect to ethical rules ("I want as many resources as possible and I'm willing to kill people to get them"), then it makes no sense to define ethical rules with respect to them.  You can say their action is wrong, but it won't matter if that person has a gun pointed at your head, will it?"

You're right. But that's not who or what this 'article/UPB Breakdown' was aimed at. That guy you're describing is part of and supported by a system that currently exists. The reason that system currently exists is because people fail to acknowledge objective ethics. And this system is what is leading, ultimately, to the death of mankind, no more individuals will be born in the future. So our fight is with the mental conepts in our fellow man's head and the things they teach their children. On this we agree. The fact that the governments and popes exist is because people don't ostracize them. Yes, those type of  people, ones who such anti-social capacities, will always be born, but they will fail to gain traction and they will not survive in a group of people that acknowledges objective and universal ethics. That individual will not survive.

"What I think is required is a set of rational outcomes, much like the eight implicit premises of debating from UPB (pp. 34-36, PDF), that will allow people to coexist on the same ethical plane.  Without those common outcomes, how would a truly peaceful society come about?  (That's also why it's a multi-generational project.)"

I'm not sure what you mean by 'rational outcomes'. Rationality, Ethics, Anarchy, these are all methods, not outcomes. And, people already exist on the same 'ethical plane', don't they? Ethics and morality are a method for people to choose what actions to take. This ability to choose is universal in the class human; so, any thing that is described as a 'moral rule' must be objective for all humans.

Again, I apologise if I've misconstrued or missed the points entirely of what you were saying.

Thanks and looking forward towards more,

frake

EDIT

Looking back on what I wrote, I feel I used some flower, obfuscative language.

"... and the quality of live is ever decreasing until technology changes in a way that allows people to escape, even if for a little while, that vampiric effect." This may appear incorrect .... more later