An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version)

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Nick_A
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

Post by Nick_A »

Daniel McKay wrote:There is a great deal of knowledge to be gained without being able to experience the thing you are gaining knowledge of. Mathematical knowledge for a example, and, I think, ethical knowledge as well. So, how would we determine objective moral truth except through a reliable "moral sense"? Through philosophical investigation.
True, we can appreciate the value of ideas. But if our appetites are dominant, hypocrisy is the end result. We say one thing and do another. Philosophy can only retain its value if you have a cure for hypocrisy. Do you have one?
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
Daniel McKay
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

Post by Daniel McKay »

We are not slaves to our desires. We have the choice to live up to our ideals or not to.
Nick_A
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

Post by Nick_A »

Daniel McKay wrote:We are not slaves to our desires. We have the choice to live up to our ideals or not to.
I see you have yet to come up against that sly demonic entity known innocently as chocolate cake. Many men and women have come up against it and lost as they participated in the great battle of "Ten Pounds." They have looked at themselves in the mirror and made the choice to live up to a desired weight as an ideal. Then, exercising their freedom of choice, they decide to diet. The sly demon known as chocolate cake just laughs. He calls his associates who all resemble delicious goodies and put temptation in front of the dieter who finally gives in. The demon laughs. Choice! it says: They never learn. I am not a high ranking member of the hierarchy of hypocrisy for nothing. Members of the association of demonic chocolate cake all chant in admiration: "All hail chocolate cake."
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
GE Morton
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

Post by GE Morton »

>> I take as my starting assumption that morality, if it exists at all, is the way in which persons (by which I mean free, rational, conscious agents) ought to be or act, where ought is understood in a categorical and universal sense.<<

That is a pretty enormous task you're taking on. Surely morality does not cover all human action. Surely I need not ponder any moral considerations before I tie my shoe or change the channel on the teevee. I think you need to narrow the scope of the inquiry substantially --- perhaps to actions which will, or can, adversely effect the interests of other moral agents and perhaps "moral subjects" (i.e., animals, fetuses, etc.).

To be sure, many philosophers construe the task as expansively as you seem to be doing. They sometimes read like mass market self-help books: "Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And greatness in every virtue would seem to be characteristic of a proud man. And it would be most unbecoming for a proud man to fly from danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or to wrong another; for to what end should he do disgraceful acts, he to whom nothing is great? . . . . Further, a slow step is thought proper to the proud man, a deep voice, and a level utterance; for the man who takes few things seriously is not likely to be hurried, nor the man who thinks nothing great to be excited . . . ." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics).

We might do well to limit the task to devising a workable and defensible theory of *public morality* --- a set of rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting --- and leave all non-other-effecting actions to the sole discretion of the acting agent and deem them morally permitted. Crusoe on his island has no need of an ethical theory prior to the arrival of Friday (unless there are some animals there who qualify as moral subjects).

>> With this assumption in hand, we can begin to ask what that way might be, or to put it another way, what is of moral value, by considering what it is to be a person. As a way in which persons ought to be or act would apply to all potential persons, not merely us as humans, we cannot use contingent facts about ourselves as humans as the basis for moral value. So moral value cannot be grounded in something like happiness, as we can imagine persons that do not experience happiness. What then could be a basis for moral value? We can consider what is shared by all persons in order to come up with possible candidates and what we find is that all persons have free will, so the capacity to make choices, and also understanding, the capacity to understand their choices.<<

While at some early point we need to decide what is and is not a moral agent, or "person," I think it advisable to avoid presuming them or their defining properties to have "value." That immediately inserts a subjective element into the discussion, because value is an *assigned property* of things which denotes the desirability or importance of a thing to some person, the valuer. Unless a valuer is specified or at least implied, value claims are non-cognitive.

But the capacity to make choices and envision the consequences of them are certainly among the defining characteristics of moral agents.

>> However, if the freedom that matters is the freedom to make one's own choices, the choices that relate to those things that belong to the person; their mind, their body and their property, then morality would be functional. Also, there is something conceptually odd about the idea of being free to make someone else's choices for them, against their will.<<

We can handle this with an "Equal Agency" postulate --- all persons covered by the theory are presumed to be of equal moral status, which rules out *a fortiori* domination of some by others. That presumption is justified when we have a definition of "moral agent" and when all the creatures within the intended scope of the theory satisfy that definition. (Saying everyone has equal moral status doesn't imply they are all equally moral, of course).

>> As a quick note on property, I should say that I have not yet seen a really good justification for how we come to own unowned property in the first place.<<

That is fairly obvious. We become the owner of some article of property if we acquire it without inflicting loss or injury on any other moral agent, i.e., we acquired it innocently. Assuming the article in question confers some benefit to us, others would injure us by taking it from us; while we, by hypothesis, injured no one by our own acquistion. This principle is reflected in the common-law *first possession rule* --- we *own* an article of property if we are either its first possessor, or we acquired it via a *chain of consent* from the first possessor. Being the first possessor means that prior to our acquisition no other person benefited from that thing, and hence no one suffered a loss or injury when we acquired it. One can become a the first possessor of a thing by discovering it (a gold nugget in a stream, the apples on a hitherto unknown tree), by producing it (a painting, a bushel of corn, a house), or by bringing it with us into the world (our lives, our bodies, our various talents and powers).

Note that this justification for property follows from the limits we placed on the scope of the theory --- actions which do not adversely affect the interests of other agents are always *morally permitted*.

>> So, we have a consequentialist theory with the ability of persons to understand and make their own decisions as the measure of moral value.<<

All moral theories are ultimately consequentialist. But that doesn't mean they cannot also be deontological. A theory is deontological if adverse consequences can be expected if the rules it prescribes are not followed by most people, most of the time.

>> * Lying can be wrong in some circumstances such as fraud where it denies the person the ability to understand the choice they are making, but it is not wrong in most circumstances.
* Adultery (assuming there aren't any STIs involved) is a personal issue, not a moral one.
* Parents do not have a right to decide what happens to their children, rather they have an obligation to protect their child until it is capable of making its own choices and to act in its best interests when they must make decisions for it in the interim.
* The role of a government is to first protect its people and then to act in their interests especially when making decisions regarding shared property.
* Nothing can ever be offensive enough that we ought to violate the freedom of a person to say it.<<

A lie is an utterance meant to mislead or deceive. While that would not be wrong in all circumstances, surely it is in many (some loss or injury will be suffered by the person who believes the lie).

Adultery is a violation of a promise, or contract. Is that not a moral issue?
GE Morton
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

Post by GE Morton »

Ace9 wrote:"...all persons have free will, so the capacity to make choices, and also understanding, the capacity to understand their choices..."

I would challenge this premise. Many thought leaders in the both the philosophical and scientific communities are moving away from the notion that humans have agency and therefore free will. Based on our current knowledge of how our particular expanding universe works, the concept of free will is improbable at best.
Gertie wrote: Not free to exercise free will is particularly problematic, as free will is a contentious philosophical issue with huge implications for morality.
The traditional, "metaphysical" concept of free will is not necessary for moral theory. The legal conception, per which a person has "acted of his own free will" if he has not been coerced by another moral agent, is all that is required.
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Daniel McKay wrote:I didn't say nothing else has free will. I would be inclined to think your dog probably does have free will. I don't think it is a rational agent. Free will was not the only criteria I used to identify persons.
Daniel McKay wrote:This joint capacity for both understanding and making choices, which I will from now on be referring to as freedom, is not only shared by all persons, it is also not shared by anything that is not a person.
A dog is not a person.

In your first quote you claim that dogs have (or are not excluded ab ovo from having) free will.

In your second quote you claim dogs have no free will.

Consistency is big when argumenting.
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Daniel McKay
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Freedom is not the same as free will. By freedom I meant what I said I meant in the quote you have there. In this case the dog has free will but not rationality and therefore not freedom as defined in said quote. I was being entirely consistent.
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Daniel McKay wrote:Freedom is not the same as free will. By freedom I meant what I said I meant in the quote you have there. In this case the dog has free will but not rationality and therefore not freedom as defined in said quote. I was being entirely consistent.
Freedom: understanding and making choices.

Free will: ???

You supplied no definition of free will, so I plugged in the most easily extant one: understanding and making choices.

If you want to make sure your readers will not mix up the two, you must also define what you mean by free will, since it is different from the definition of "freedom".

You claimed now that the dog has no freedom. It has no freedom, despite having a free will, because the dog lacks rationality. However, a dog does have the capacity to be rational, albeit to a degree which is less complex than that of man.

An example of Dog's rationality: If I bark, I will alert my master that there is a stranger nearby.

Another example of Dog's rationality: if a person attacks my master, I will bite the person.

ETC.

Dogs clearly are capable of rational thought and decide a course of action on that.

You may say these actions that I described involves no choice on the dog's part, they are automatic, instinctive reactions. I say how do you know that. You say because there is no variation in the reaction.

I say give a man a choice between happiness and utter despair. I say the man will always choose happiness. Is that a choice of instinctive no-choice? No, it is not, it is a considered choice. Yet it's always the same.

So the same and very same consistent reaction on one hand is instinctive reaction, without rational choice, the same and very same consistent reaction on the other hand is rational choice, not instinctive reaction.

How do you tell the two apart? If the mechanism is IFF A is given, then always B is the reaction, consistently, across the board, then how do you know in which subset of all of its cases it is a conscious choice, and in which other subset it is an instinctive reaction?

Please also define "free will", as understood by your system.
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Fair enough: Free will is the capacity to make choices which are 1) not wholly determined by events preceding the choice but at least partly determined by the agent themselves, 2) in principle not predictable with complete certainty before they are made and 3) could have been different than how they actually were. Does that clear up the distinction?

I would say a man could indeed choose utter despair over happiness, and I suspect we could find an example of someone doing so.

I would also say that dogs do not have the capacity to understand their own choices in such a way as we would want to call them rational. However, I am not suggesting that only humans could be called rational, and I would be happy to change my mind with regards to dogs if sufficient evidence comes to light to suggest they are rational agents and, therefore, probably (given we don't have much reason to suspect we have free will but they don't and it seems very likely they are conscious) moral agents.
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Daniel McKay wrote:Free will is the capacity to make choices which are 1) not wholly determined by events preceding the choice but at least partly determined by the agent themselves, 2) in principle not predictable with complete certainty before they are made and 3) could have been different than how they actually were.
This is fair enough. According to my understanding you are saying that free will is the capacity to make choices not based on rational considerations. This summarization is supported by the 1. indeterministic nature of free will (if it were rational, any rational mind could predict the choices of a free will, but it's not rational); and it is different from freedom, where in freedom there is a rational choice, in free will there is a choice, but it's different from freedom, and the only difference that is possible is that it is not rational.

So free will is a willing which makes choices other than rational. And you say this is a property of both humans and dogs, or more generally, of persons and of non-persons; while freedom is not a property of dogs, but only of persons, of which only humans are extant specimens.

The above has been distilled by criticism and refutation of criticism.

On one hand you have freedom, in which an agent makes decisions based on understanding, and therefore it is a rational decision, code-named freedom. On the other hand there are decisions that are irrational, free, free from the bounds and restrictions of rationality, and they are made by a free will. Not to be confused by freedom.

Please juxtapost the above with what you wrote in the opening post (thesis):
Daniel McKay wrote:This joint capacity for both understanding and making choices, which I will from now on be referring to as freedom, is not only shared by all persons, it is also not shared by anything that is not a person. There are no things which are not persons, free, rational, conscious agents, which can understand choices and make them freely. This capacity is, in a very real way, what it means to be a person, a moral agent.".

This troubles me. In most particular, the last qualifier in the second sentence: "rational .... agents, which undernstand choices and make them freely." Freely? Freely of what? Freely of freedom? Freely of rationality? Rationality certainly takes away freedom. If you are rational, and your choices are rational, your choices are not free. This is what you suggested when you defined free will, and attributed it to all humans, persons, and non-humans and non-persons. Then in one fell swoop you declare that rational decisions, a function of persons, are made freely.

This is what I was trying to point out in the first place. You can't have your freedom and eat it too. So to speak. If you are free, you are not rational; if you are rational, you are not free; you proposed this also in your own assertions. But then you claim that persons make choices by rationality freely. And that is not possible to do.

So there is this claim as part of the thesis, which asks for something impossible to occur. This renders the thesis not very useful.

In my opinion, and according to my analysis, the only improvement needed in your essay to solve this conundrum is to take out the clause "and make them freely" in the second sentence in the second quote by you in this post of mine. Your self-contradiction stems from trying to attribute "freely made" to rational choices by the will.

You are still left with having to deal with the criticism of what the actions ensuing from decisions can entail, once one recognizes that actions can only be applied over the domain of those things, which belong to the person.
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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We seem to be having some issues with use of terms. I think a lot of this stuff is better explained in the actual chapter. Would you like to have a read of that?
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Re: An argument for a new normative theory (abridged version

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Thanks for your kind offer to let me read your thesis, but no thank you, I regret I have to turn down your offer.

I instead suggest that you do the examination of the terms yourself.

I also suggest that you pay attention to another critical observation I made in the other thread of the identically worded opening post. My critical note is on the third page, with longer (5-10 lines' worth) paragraphs in heavy bold. I wish you could look at that as well, because it got drowned in some esoteric discussion by others. I drew even more pertinent points that may be unmasking the thesis in more forceful logic.
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