Freedomain Radio

Nathan, I still don't see how you can derive morality from that.  I agree that you can say that close to all people prefer to be healthy over being unhealthy.  But from that, you can't say that it is moral for any individual to be healthy, because those people might prefer the bundle of eating unhealthy foods, being lazy and being unhealthy, over the bundle of eating healthy foods, exercising and being healthy.  The only thing that can be objectively said is that if we hold all other things constant, it would be welfare harming to do something that would have no other effect than to make someone unhealthy.

But then the principle seems to be that we shouldn't do anything that harms someone else's welfare.  Why is it significant that other people share the same preference?  I mean, we can unequivocally say that people prefer to not have their preferences go unfulfilled.  But I don't see why it is immoral to violate someone else's preferences if and only if the object of that preference is preferred by all humans.  To each person, there would not seem to be any difference between preferences held only by them and preferences shared by everyone else.

I could see there being an argument that it's immoral to intentionally do something which results only in the lessening of another person's overall wellbeing, and because most humans have similar preferences with regard to certain things, there can be rules which tell us what we can reasonably expect to harm someone else's wellbeing without actually having to ask first.  But the rules themselves don't strike me as objects of morality; rather the objective of minimizing harm to others is what is moral.

My problem really lies in saying that people's preferences in relation to nutrition are somehow holier than their preferences in relation to music because they are shared by all humans.  It might be a better rule to not murder someone than to not expose someone to rap music, but that's only because it's difficult to ascertain whether or not they like rap music, and it's easy to assume that they prefer to live.  Once they express a dislike for rap music, it would appear that it would be immoral to force them to listen to it, regardless of whether or not other people share the same preference,

So if Stefan's principle is saying that people universally prefer to be happy, and thus it is immoral to make people unhappy, then I can agree.  But deriving specific moral principles beyond that is not a clear process to me.

 

People do not universally prefer to be happy. Most often, they prefer to be 'right'!

To truly understand UPB, you need to focus on the U, not the P. The 'P' is a quicksand of subjective exceptions. The 'U' comes first!

Nathan, I still don't see how you can derive morality from that.  I agree that you can say that close to all people prefer to be healthy over being unhealthy.  But from that, you can't say that it is moral for any individual to be healthy, because those people might prefer the bundle of eating unhealthy foods, being lazy and being unhealthy, over the bundle of eating healthy foods, exercising and being healthy.  The only thing that can be objectively said is that if we hold all other things constant, it would be welfare harming to do something that would have no other effect than to make someone unhealthy.

This isn't about personal preference.  Regardless of whether people personally prefer to remain healthy or unhealthy or not, does not change the conclusions made in the science of nutrition. Whether they choose to be healthy or unhealthy is not a matter of morality, that was not the point I was making.  The only comparison I was making between morality and nutrition is that like the rules of morality, the rules of nutrition apply to all people at all times. No one can avoid the fact that if he chooses to eat in a way that is contrary to that which is concluded through the science of nutrition that he will become unhealthy.

In the very same way, whether a person chooses to regard universal moral values as a policy to which they must act upon or not does not exclude them from the consequences of acting contrary to universal moral values.

Morality, ethics, manners and even language are all universally preferred behaviors that must apply to all people at all times in all places just as the methodology by which we should eat (nutrition) and the methodology by which we accurately describe the behavior of all matter including life (the scientific method).  Avoiding this universally preferred behavior does not exclude us from the consequences of doing so.

 

Stefan, could you elaborate on that point?  I don't understand what you mean.

Nathan, I understand that cause and effect exist, and rationality is the best tool for achieving effective ends through causal means.  But why is it moral to act in a nutrition enhancing way and immoral to act in a nutrition harming way?  If I eat fast food, it does not imply that I am evading the truth about my actions.  It's fatally Randian to argue that no one could possibly value one's nutrition less than one's palatal enjoyment of food, and so anyone eating fast food is clearly performing an irrational act.  Nor is it true that someone will, by necessity, suffer from a crippling loss of self esteem and pride if they end up being unhealthy due to conscious choices that they made to eat fast food.  Accordingly, it would seem that it is expedient
 to use the best available means for achieving one's ends, whether explicit or unconscious.  But I don't see how that's a moral statement.

 I guess I'm just not seeing where acknowledging the similarity of people's preferences towards certain things allows us to define morality.  Furthermore, I don't see how there can be a non-prescriptive morality.  Isn't that an oxymoron?
 

In the realm of morality, people's preferences mean nothing, just as in any science.

This is as 'bare bones' as I can make it:

• Morality is defined as Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB)..
  
• It is impossible to credibly oppose UPB without using logic, language, preferring truth over falsehood etc (UPB).
• Therefore anyone who opens his mouth accepts UPB.
• After that, it's just a matter of defining logically consistent UPB, or morality.
  

Nathan, I understand that cause and effect exist, and rationality is the best tool for achieving effective ends through causal means.  But why is it moral to act in a nutrition enhancing way and immoral to act in a nutrition harming way?  If I eat fast food, it does not imply that I am evading the truth about my actions.

I'll try one more time to make myself as clear as possible because I don't have a clue why you are still meshing the two together the way you are.

Again,  The only comparison I was making between morality and nutrition is that like the rules of morality, the rules of nutrition apply to all people at all times.  The only comparison I was making was that they are both universally preferred behaviors.  Both language and morality are universally preferred behaviors.  Both the scientific method and ethics are universally preferred behaviors.  Both language and nutrition are universally preferred behaviors. 

That is the only comparison to nutrition that I was making.

Because both nutrition and morality are behaviors independent of one another, it cannot possibly be immoral to eat badly.

In order to take what you have said and say it differently as an example of how NOT to mesh the two together:

Nathan, I understand that cause and effect exist, and rationality is the best tool for achieving effective ends through causal means.  But why is it healthy to act in a language clarifying way and unhealthy to act in a language confusing way?  If I speak badly, it does not imply that I am evading what I should eat.

Do you see my point? Meshing it in that way makes no sense.

A giraffe and a cow are easily compared as both being 4 legged animals. This does not imply that a giraffe is a cow.  In the same way, comparing the UPB nature of morality and nutrition does not mean nutrition is morality.

Woa woa woa woa woa woa...universally PREFERABLE behavior?!  That changes EVERYTHING!  I thought you had been saying universally PREFERRED behavior, as in behavior preferred by everyone!  Okay, so now I understand what you mean.  You're saying that morality must apply to everyone, but NOT defining what constitutes morality.  Right?

Stefan Molyneux:

In the realm of morality, people's preferences mean nothing, just as in any science.

This is as 'bare bones' as I can make it:

• Morality is defined as Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB)..
  
• It is impossible to credibly oppose UPB without using logic, language, preferring truth over falsehood etc (UPB).
• Therefore anyone who opens his mouth accepts UPB.
• After that, it's just a matter of defining logically consistent UPB, or morality.
  

You saying that using logic, language and preferring truth over falsehood is universally preferred..ok
but is it immoral to not use or prefer logic, truth and language?

Well it's wrong to lie, I would never know if someone was 'not using language', and I would say that failing to use logic in moral matters is wrong, like lying, but not evil.

DonnywithanA:

Woa woa woa woa woa woa...universally PREFERABLE behavior?!  That changes EVERYTHING!  I thought you had been saying universally PREFERRED behavior, as in behavior preferred by everyone!  Okay, so now I understand what you mean.  You're saying that morality must apply to everyone, but NOT defining what constitutes morality.  Right?

It is universally preferred - by the moral theory! (Though I agree that the terminology needs some work, I switched to the new word about a month ago, sorry for the confusion!)

it would be wrong, but would it be immoral?
and what about using logic to get to the truth, or to select a future course of action ¿is it immoral to not use logic in other situations?

So please help validate my efforts to explain by telling me that my post was helpful in some way? Yes the term changed from "preferred" to "preferable" sorry.

Well, claiming that something is universally preferred seems like the same thing as claiming that it is preferred by everyone.  Since Stefan claims that exceptions don't disprove the rule, any moral theory derived from universal preferences would seem to be self defeating.  Anything that was determined to be moral because it was preferred by most people couldn't be used to judge anyone who didn't prefer it, because the universe of discourse included only those who agreed with the rule.  However, if "Universally Preferable Behavior" is a description of morality, and not actually a theory of morality in itself, then we're talking about a completely different animal.

In other words, clearly a moral action has to be an action that would be preferred by the moral system for application to all people.  But that doesn't say anything about the content of the moral system.  A moral system could contain any content whatsoever, so long as it was consistent and universal.  But I don't think that any particular system of morality can be derived from that idea.  In other words, saying that all people should be coerced into helping those less fortunate than themselves, is technically consistent and universal, as is saying that all people should have the right to keep anything which was created using their own effort and their own legitimate property.

So Nathan, your posts were correct and intelligent, but they assumed that I understood that the conversation was about the qualities of morality, and not the content of a moral theory.  Of course, since libertarianism is apparently proven by this argument, I am likely misrepresenting it again, but just in a different way.  But if the only thing being discussed is the fact that any moral theory must hold all people as equal, then I agree.

But upon further reflection, I don't see how people valuing the truth plays into this.  I really hope we aren't brought back to the beginning; if someone doesn't value the truth, then arguing will be performatively contradictory, but disvaluing the truth and not arguing won't.

Nathan:

So please help validate my efforts to explain by telling me that my post was helpful in some way?

Well ... maybe, I would have to have the answer to this:

Nathan:

impaler:

Nathan:

I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion, I will guess you mean that if something amoral like nutrition or language is also included as UPB that it can't be called morality or ethics because it is amoral?

More like if you call morality UPB, and there are amoral UPBs (which you agreed) you are imposing a moral judgement to amoral preferences.

Hmm, you got me stumped on this one.  I'll get back to you after 567.

It seems to me that you get the contradiction but are unwilling to accept that defining morality as UPB is incorrect.
Your posts about nutrition make a lot of sense and explain the distinction between UPBs like nutrition and UPBs and the ones like "thou shalt not kill"  , but I don't see how do they fit with Stefan's definition of morality, which is the one seem to defend ¿or am I interpreting you incorrectly?

Nathan:

Yes the term changed from "preferred" to "preferable" sorry.

I don't get the semantic difference. Both terms can be misleading to what is been proposed but in different ways. I dont see why "preferable" would be preferable to "preferred".

I think my four legged animal metaphor answers your question does it not?