Freedomain Radio

After reading the book and listening to the podcasts I have a question on UPB. In the book and the podcast there is a statement on theft. It falsifies thievery and therefore not stealing is upb.

As an hypothesis it would look like this.

H0: you should steal

H1: you should not steal

H0 leads to all kinds of logical complications and is therefore not upb. It cannot be universalized. Two people in a room cannot uphold this rule. Therefore H0 is false. H1 is a consistent claim without any contradictions. Because H0 is not UPB it therefore follows that H1 is UPB.  In my opninion this is the way in which it is stated in the book and the podcasts.  

Now I will introduce another claim. It goes like this.

H0: you should drive a car

H1:you should not drive a car

H0 is clearly not upb. You can not drive a car all the time. There are not enough cars at present to let everybody follow this rule. So H0 is not true. H1 does not have any logical inconsistancies. It can be applied to everybody in a consistent way. So therefore it follows that H1 is UPB.

(Maybe it is not clear that you should drive a car should be the null hypothesis. But changing H0 to H1 and vice versa does not solve the problem.)

This problem arises when you state a hypothesis as follows.

H0: you should do ….

H1: you should not do …..

In most (or all?) cases an ought statement will fail the UPB test. What remains is that not doing as stated is UPB. Therefore H1 will be true in many cases. But this will lead to renouncing all kinds of acts as immoral, like for example driving a car. Because driving a car like stealing is not UPB. And if both are not UPB, than why is it so that stealing is evil while driving a car is not.

I could be wrong, but I think UPB is not a methodology for divining positive actions (one 'should' or 'should not' do X)-- rather, it is a system for determining the validity of potential moral theories. So, for the above-mentioned actions, UPB shows the invalidity, or illogic of, the potential truth statement 'it is moral to steal'.

A proposition like driving or not driving a car, is only a moral issue if violence is involved. If no violence is involved it's an aesthetic issue.

So yes, the proposition that everyone should drive a car is a paradox, and cannot be a moral rule. However it is not immoral for someone to drive a car, as no force / violence is involved.

Does that help?

edit: I always go back to this summary (thanks economics junkie!)

http://www.economicsjunkie.com/universally-preferable-behaviour-a-rational-proof-of-secular-ethics/

"9. Morality is defined as all rules about universally preferable behavior where avoidance of the effects of at least one of the choices would have to occur via the use of violence or considerable effort, for example “It is universally preferable to refrain from murder.”

Thanks for the responses.

@Dave Stefan often uses the example of using english when making the argument against upb. By using english you are showing upb so upb must exist. "You should use english when you want to communicate to english speaking people" is a positive statement. And it is often used as an example of upb. So I think that Stefan does want to use it as a tool to make positive statements. 

If UPB can only be used for negative statements it would not be valid to test the statement "you should steal". And Stefan uses this example extensively. So that leads me to think that the testing of positive statements is allowed within UPB.  

@rpfellow It is somewhat helpfull but my question was on upb and not morality. You state that it is only a moral issue when violence is involved. UPB is also used when no violence is involved. For example the above mentioned example of using english in conversations with english speaking persons. Maybe it is not a moral claim but is a claim about an action being upb. So because driving a car is not a violent act does not imply that I cannot make claims about it being upb or not.

Let me take a try.

 If you wanted to put forward the moral theory that driving cars could be suppressed by violence, I think UPB would invalidate it.  Since driving cars is not the initiation of force, it would be an initiation to violently suppress driving.  Speaking English to English speakers is generally an APA, even if you intended to communicate something you considered important.  I can't think of a situation in which violence could be used to enforce it.

If you can peacefully convince everyone to stop driving, more power to ya.  So to speak.

UPB is a validating process for morality, meaning it only applies towards theories and not specific actions/situations. It's like applying the gravity to stock prices and saying, "The stocks are going up but gravity says everything must fall down." Gravity has nothing to do with stock prices of course, just as in the same way UPB has nothing to do driving cars. UPB is a way of validating that violence is irrational.

Brilliant

Thanks for the replies. 

On the top page 37 "As a result of the above arguments, we can see that it is impossible to enter into any debate without accepting the premise that certain behaviours are universally preferable."

I might be missing something here but this sounds to me like UPB is being applied to a specific case. The persons who enters the debate knows that it is a UPB to speak english and therefore he speaks english. By entering in to the debate he is showing that for using english is preferable instead of talking his own personal language. 

Wether the preferences are enforcable or non-enforcable ie moral or aestethic is not my question. UPB can apply to both (for example most of the rules for entering into a debate are aesthetic and not moral). On page 48 Stefan describes UPB as an umbrella term. In the given list on page 48 ethics is one of six disciplines that UPB covers.

I am aware that UPB is most often applied to morality. But to get a better grasp of UPB I approached UPB as a general tool. In the beginning of the book UPB is used in debating to prove the existence of UPB. If you add another rule later on that UPB can only be used to validate ethical theory that would imply that certain behaviours in debatting are not under the premisse of UPB. Speaking english in a debate is not an ethical issue and therefore not UPB. So that would imply I can enter the debate and be speaking english without the premisse of UPB. And than the proof of the existence of UPB as stated on page 37 would become problematic. When UPB was proved it is the same thing as when it is applied to moral issues (A=A and UPB=UPB). If you would change it midway it would lead to contradictions and confusion.

Looking forward to your replies and thanks for the help on this issue.

meijer1973:

On the top page 37 "As a result of the above arguments, we can see that it is impossible to enter into any debate  without accepting the premise that certain behaviours are universally preferable."

I might be missing something here but this sounds to me like UPB is being applied to a specific case. The persons who enters the debate knows that it is a UPB to speak english and therefore he speaks english. By entering in to the debate he is showing that for using english is preferable instead of talking his own personal language. 

UPB shows that it is objectively preferable to use precise language and to accept a standard of truth, logic, reason and evidence when debating. It is not mere personal opinion or an individual instance which it applies to. If we choose to speak in Random Gibberish & Noises, a debate objectively, universally cannot work. 

meijer1973:

I am aware that UPB is most often applied to morality. But to get a better grasp of UPB I approached UPB as a general tool. In the beginning of the book UPB is used in debating to prove the existence of UPB. If you add another rule later on that UPB can only be used to validate ethical theory that would imply that certain behaviours in debatting are not under the premisse of UPB. Speaking english in a debate is not an ethical issue and therefore not UPB. So that would imply I can enter the debate and be speaking english without the premisse of UPB. And than the proof of the existence of UPB as stated on page 37 would become problematic. When UPB was proved it is the same thing as when it is applied to moral issues (A=A and UPB=UPB). If you would change it midway it would lead to contradictions and confusion.

It is not a moral issue to use the same language for debate, any more than it's immoral to try to fly to the moon by flapping one's wings when one absolutely cannot defy physical laws. But it is objectively required, i.e. universally preferable, to use the same language to debate, else a debate cannot work. Thus you absolutely cannot choose to enter into a debate without accepting UPB. 

@fingolfin I completly agree with you. It sounds like you restated my argument in other words. It is UPB to use certain standards in a debate. When you say to someone that when you argue against UPB you are using UPB than you are applying UPB to a specific case. Daeyeth responded that UPB can only be used to validate theories and should not be used for specific behaviours. If that were the case how about the specific case of the person making the argument against UPB.  In that specific case that person is contradicting himself because he is using upb. Furthermore in the applications section of the book some examples of behaviours are reviewed (stealing, murder, lying etc.). Therefore I think that upb is not only applicable to theories but also to specific behaviours.

On the morality I also agree. Old Whig made the argument that upb can only be used when violence is involved because upb is about morality. But upb is used in debating and not only in situation where violence is involved (in the book lying is also reviewed).

Can we now agree that we can use upb towards certain behaviours like speaking english in a debate or stealing? Can we also agree that upb can be applied to situations where there is no violence involved like the case with the debating? 

If we can agree on that how should the case of driving a car be handled. How is it invalidated using upb.

meijer1973:

If we can agree on that how should the case of driving a car be handled. How is it invalidated using upb.

This was explained very well before. It is a valid aesthetic preference not to drive cars (i.e. passes a coma test), but it cannot be enforced through violence so you can't prescribe it. It's not a moral issue; it leads to insurmountable contradictions if it's proposed as such. 

@Fingolfin Thank you for the response. You state that it is a valid aesthetic preference not to drive cars. Can I restate this as follows. Not driving a car is universally preferable behaviour because it passes all the tests and because it is not enforcable it falls into the subcategory of aesthetic preferences (see page 48).

This is similar to the problem dealt with in the book about not eating fish on Fridays - a "car" is not a universal statement, i.e. why a car and not a truck or a horse?

It's like saying "all lizards are cold-blooded except blue lizards." The color of a lizard has nothing to do with the temperature of its blood, it is an inconsequential specific, and so is not universal.

If it is not universal, it cannot be UPB'd.

@Stefan I think I understand now. I read the part about the fish. It is about the action and not about the fish. So driving a car is not a valid statement. It should then be about moving or any form of transportation. Then it would be you should move or you should not move. Both have contradictions so neither are upb.

It is like saying you should murder someone with a knife. That is not a upb. But not murdering with a knife is still not a satisfactory moral behaviour. It can only be about behaviour and not the specific objects that are used.

I think that clarifies it. Thanks for the reply.