A Guide to Ethical Decision-making

From page 42:

"To be enlightened is to put people first, things next, and dogmatic ideas last. It is to live by the Hierarchy of Value discovered by Robert S. Hartman, the wise philosopher-scientist. "

Hartman is no longer with us. What I would need then is for someone who shares his frame of mind to discuss this given a particular set of circumstances in which there are conflicting assessments of what it means to put people first, things second and dogmatic ideas last.

In other words, without their own moral and political value judgments becoming dogmatic in turn. After all, to propose a “hierarchy of value” would certainly seem to suggest [to me] going in that direction. Imagine, for example, the hierarchies proposed by a libertarian and a socialist. Or a hedonist and an ascetic.

That is why, as a moral nihilist, I still subscribe to moderation, negotiation and compromise as, for all practical purposes, the best of all possible world. Only, even here, “I” am no less fractured and fragmented. Pulled ambivalently in conflicting directions down in my “hole”.

The embodiment of this intellectual contraption:

“If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.”

And here all I can do is to take these words out into the world and describe how they are implicated in my own day to day interactions with others.

I congratulate you, iambiguous, for your intellectual and moral courage in doing the research and following through, actually reading some of the writing in the booklet.The paragraph you quoted at the outset of your comments was indeed on p. 42; but it was not what I intended as a “tool for decision-making.”

The paragraph of which you may have been critical referred to matters discussed at greater length earlier in the document. The applications given in that context were illustrations of the use of the value dimensions. They were only examples, and here they were out of context. Sorry about the confusion; I did not make myself clear enough.

{The value dimensions themselves are rigorously-derived in the first 28 pages of Basic Ethics: a systematic approach.
The entire demonstration there is only Systemic value, and thus worth the least of the three basic dimensions.
Applications of these dimensions to life is worth much more!
And the living of that life, embodying those applications is worth infinitely more!!

Here is another illustration:

I: Dasein, and all it implies to you, and I, and to Heidegger

E: the socio-economic affairs of everyday life

S: systems, theories, ideologies, dogma, creeds and other intellectual
postulations

What I meant to refer to is located in the pdf file at the bottom of p.41 and the top of p. 42 in THE STRUCTURE OF ETHICS treatise.
I shall, upon request, reprint that Tool For Ethical Decision-making in a future post for those who for some reason can’t or won’t do what you did, which is to click on the link and actually look at the booklet.

Thank you again. And thanks in advance to anyone else who is moved to contribute constructively on this thread’s topic.

Again and again and again and again: this [to me] is just another example of a “general description intellectual contraption”. It may or may not be applicable as a guide to ethical decision making.

My own interest however revolves around the extent to which didactic assumptions of this sort are applicable to particular contexts in which human behaviors come into conflict over value judgments. The part where ethics “for all practical purposes” has an actual use value and exchange value.

You note that…

But: I only chose to read that page in the booklet looking for arguments that do bring premises and conclusions of this sort out into the world that we interact in.

I’m looking for arguments able to convince me that the manner in which I construe “I” in the is/ought world [re dasein, conflicting goods and political economy] is not a reasonable frame of mind.

So, sure, if applied ethics is not what you are interested in yourself, we ought to move on to others.

I’ll tell you what Dasein means to me.

It comes from the German word meaning ‘presence.’ [Literally, it says '‘here be.’]
To me it means: BE HERE NOW !!!
Squeeze every drop of meaning out of the present moment.
The past is dead and gone. It is water under the bridge. There is no use brooding over it.
No one I know can see the future. The paradox is that if we give up the need for security, we are secure. We will never leave this world alive. There is no use worrying about the future! Cross a bridge when you come to it. It is all right to make plans now, but don’t let that planning rob from the total enjoyment of the present. Husserl calls it ‘Intentionality.’ Bergson calls it ‘compenetration.’ Robert S. Hartman speaks of it as ‘Intrinsic valuation.’ [size=50]{Those who write a dissertation on what it meant to Heidegger may earn a Ph.D. for a thesis done well.}[/size]

Dasein is a focus on the here and now, avoiding getting distracted. It is interacting with the world in which we live. It is believing strongly in goodness - that it will solve every problem. So be good, and thus merit and facilitate these solutions. Goodness when it is mobilized and organized can be very powerful.

Incidentally, what I wrote in the previous posts definitely can be applied to the lived-in world with which we interact! Think about it.

.

Here is an additional guide to Ethical decision-making, one that is to be used especially when an individual is tempted to become an embezzler, or to engage in a questionable business practice, or succumb to a sleazy opportunistic bargain of some sort. In other words, when you are about to corrupt yourself use this tool:

A tool for moral self-analysis

A person of good character will make the following moral analysis with respect to his or her conduct. He or she will say to himself or herself:

“With regard to the action I am about to take,
[b]Would it cause harm to anyone? And

Would it withstand public scrutiny?

Is there an alternative action I may pursue that would not give pain to anyone?

How can I create a win/win transaction in this situation?”[/b]

…Your views on this topic?

Okay, this is what it means to you. And to them. But, given a particular set of circumstances in which a guide is needed in order to make ethical decisions, how is that meaning translated into an actual reason that propels you to choose this behavior rather than another?

In the manner in which I encompass my own meaning of dasein, “I” here is an existential contraption rooted historically, culturally and interpersonally out in a particular world understood in a particular way.

With respect to a context that revolves around, say, human sexuality, each individual “I” has come to embody his or her own set of experiences out in a particular world. And these experiences go a long way in shaping their moral and political value judgments.

But, taking that into consideration, what then can philosophers ascertain so as to provide us with the most rational guide to ethical decision making.

You will either go there or you won’t. Instead, in my view, you choose to stay here:

Another general description intellectual contraption.

Right, “generally”.

But note a specific set of circumstances and describe in some detail that which guides you to make ethical decisions. In such a way that this reflects your own understanding of dasein. In such a way that you are able to articulate why you believe that your way is more reasonable than mine.

At this site reached via the following link, the reader will find more than 80 cases where the tools and guides I offer would be very relevant; these guides if employed would have prevented the ethically-questionable behavior, the bad conduct. See the videos here:
https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-studies

Also, this book has many moral dilemmas to consider - which my guides would have solved if only they were used. See
Rushworth M. Kidder, HOW GOOD PEOPLE MAKE TOUGH CHOICES (1995, New York,Fireside Books, Simon & Schuster) …available from The Institute for Global Ethics.
To see Reviews, scroll down from here: amazon.com/product-reviews/ … RY5Z79DXW8

Comments? Questions? Suggestions for enhancing the proposed guides?

That’s what guided them. I want to know what guided you. What in particular influenced you in a context in which your value judgments were challenged by another.

As I note time and again, I am interested in exploring the ethical narratives and the political agendas of others in the manner in which I explore my own here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

In other words, the manner in which the life that you lived intertwined both experiences, relationships and access to information, knowledge and ideas such that here and now you are predisposed existentially to think one thing rather than another. With me, on that thread, it was in regard to abortion. With you, it can be anything you choose.

Only after exploring the part I ascribe to dasein, does it make sense [to me] to bring the philosophers into it. Is there in fact a way deontologically to take the components of my own moral assessment into account and still manage to arrive at one’s moral obligation in regard to an issue like abortion?

It’s not about me !

The Ethical Theory proposed has to stand on its own feet. In recent posts – in the thread entitled Hardcore Ethics - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195052&p=2758896#p2758896 - I offer some characteristics of an ethical individual. Those attributes, along with logical reasoning, enable a person to make wise choices …probably guided by the criteria given in the original post, and the subsequent additional tools.

Merely select a case study, either from the many offered by Rush Kidder in his book, HOW GOOD PEOPLE MAKE TOUGH CHOICES; or choose a case from the Behavioral Ethics site of the Univ. of Texas at Austin, and see what you, as an ethical person,would do in that situation. This assumes that you have acquired the qualities listed in that description of ‘an ethical individual.’ It assumes that you, personally, now have those features mentioned.
I I hope and trust that assumption is not unwarranted.

Sorry, but this sort of thing is just not what I am interested in. Instead, my interest revolves around taking the theoretical “in general” conclusions that the people above make out into the world of actual human interactions. A description and exploration of human interactions in which behaviors come into conflict as a result of conflicting value judgments.

It could be a discussion of abortion, or Trump’s Wall, or Brexit or homosexuality or separation of church and state or the role of government or any other particular context in which actual flesh and blood human beings move beyond technical philosophical arguments and bring the definitions and the meaning derived from them out into the world of conflicting goods. The stuff we are bombarded with day in and day out on the various news media.

And my own bottom line here is that an “ethical person” is basically an existential contraption construction – “I” – predisposed to embrace one rather than another set of political prejudices derived more from the life that he or she lives than from anything they might garner from say, this: plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

But that’s just me.

We are both interested in actual human interaction. I, for one, do not want to settle for a description of the chaos and confusion that exists now.

Rather, I would like to focus on how, and in what way, by using the knowledge we can gain from the sciences, we can make the transition to moral clarity and to the setting of wise priorities.

That is why I am grateful that a profound philosopher, Robert S. Hartman (1910-1973) came along. He devised Formal Axiology. He explained clearly value formation, and how the human mind organizes its values. He discovered the existential Hierarchy of Values that was there in the universe all the while but was just not noticed nor appreciated. He brought that HOV to light.

With the aid of that logical-ordering of priorities people can know what goals to work toward, what to aim for, what stands to take, which way to go. That’s where The Guides to better-decision-making come in: they are tools in a toolchest; so that when an issue such as abortion arises one knows what’s important, viz., caring about the woman’s feelings. Caring, not labels. Love, not ideology.

Maybe, at this point, it is helpful to re-read the original post in this thread, realizing that the Intrinsic considerations are more valuable to us human beings than are the Extrinsic, or the Systemic. Recall the formula: I > E > S.

Comments? Questions?

Knowledge, okay. But, given a particular context in which there are conflicting goods, what knowledge is there [scientific or philosophical] that produces the sort of moral clarity and list of priorities able to obviate the components of my own considerably more “fractured and fragmented” moral philosophy: nihilism.

But then this:

From my frame of mind, yet another “general description intellectual contraption”. An abstract assessment those embracing utterly conflicting moral and political and philosophical assumptions can accept — but only by way of having a use value and an exchange value that sustains just their own desired “rules of behavior”. Predicated on their own moral and political prejudices.

Again, we will either settle in on a set of circumstances in which to explore our respective “world of words” or we are wasting each other’s time.

Wouldn’t that acceptance be a good outcome? I should think so. Yet one notes here more “buts” than a ram in heat.

I don’t want to waste anyone’s time. I gave an issue - namely, abortion - and showed how I would deal with it.

{ Ethics teaches that autonomy and individuality are values that everyone is entitled to, and should have. Thus a woman has a right to decide on how her body is used. Intelligent people distinguish between a fetus and a human individual with a unique personality. Such an individual is valued Intrinsically by those who are ethical. In contrast, a growth or a cluster of cells, is valued Systemically by most people who know their values. Recall that Intrinsic valuation is infinitely-more-valuable to us human beings than is Systemic valuation. I > S.}

Furthermore, I gave you more than eighty issues and asked you to select one, say, one where there was a conflict between two positive values - such as loyalty versus community, for example - and you declined to select one of those case-studies for me to which to apply my analysis. {Rush Kidder’s book had plenty of these excellent moral dilemmas!]

Hence, for these reasons I get the impression that a certain nihilist does not want to learn the knowledge about which he expresses curiosity; for if he did, he would read up on Robert Hartman’s contribution, or he would study carefully some of the literature to which links are supplied below.

This is a classic example of someone making certain political assumptions about abortion and then distinguishing between what intelligent people are obligated to think in regard to an unwanted pregnancy and what unintelligent people think instead. One of us/one of them.

Like those on the other side are not able to articulate their own rendition of this relationship in defending the right of the unborn baby to live. Or in defending their own set of assumptions in regard to when human life begins – from the point of conception on.

Recall that obtuse intellectual contraptions like this are precisely what I aim to avoid in regard to our reactions to any particular set of circumstances in which a woman is pregnant and does not want to be.

That’s not where I focus my argument though. My aim is to explore your “analysis” – anyone’s analysis – as an existential contraption rooted in dasein. In any particular context involving a conflict between the individual and the community, there are going to be values/loyalties in conflict. Take conscription for example: connectusfund.org/10-meaningful … ry-service

My argument suggests that any particular individual will derive his or her values more from the sequence of experiences in his or her life [out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially] rather than as an ethicist able to actually pin down [philosophically or otherwise] one’s moral obligation here.

You are here agreeing with me that people learn ethics more often by example rather than by the deduction of a conclusion from a logical, well-reasoned argument. They see conduct by someone they respect, or love, and they copy it. Or, as R. S. Hartman, the philosopher, would put it: I-Value [Intrinsic valuation] is greater than (ttakes priority over) E-value [Extrinsic valuation - or empirical, pragmatic considerations.]

I have no clear idea how this point is related to my point in regard to the morality of abortion as an example of what I construe to be conflicting goods.

Note to others:

You tell me how his point here is related to the point I make above it. He merely asserts that if people approach ethics as a “discipline” it will teach them to “stand up for what is right”. And, in regard to conscription, he did the right thing because it was in sync with his own disciplined ethics. How is that not tautological?

I’m not at all certain that you agree with yourself here. From my frame of mind, you don’t seem to be arguing that “people learn ethics more often by example”, but rather through a disciplined understanding of ethics itself garnered from the books you read.

Whereas I focus more on “I” here as an existential contraption out in a particular world understood from a particular point of view derived circumstantially from dasein.

Thus it depends on who someone comes to respect and love and copy in a particular historical, cultural and experiential context. Accepting that in a world of contingency, chance and change, new experiences, relationships and access to ideas can change their minds about any number of things.

That’s why, in regard to abortion, my interest in ethics revolves around the points I raise on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382

You will either go there yourself in regard to your own value judgments here or attempt further to explain to me how only a disciplined understanding of ethics led you to what I construe to be the political prejudices you take in regard to abortion here and now.

This thread was created to compatibly resonate with those who feel as I do that Ethics has the potential to be treated scientifically, and who appreciate having some reliable guides to making an Ethical decision.

I am not here to dissuade the moral nihilists from their ideology, nor to convert the heathen, nor anything along that line.

Since Moral Psychology is currently the experimental branch of ethics, and the new paradigm for Ethics can serve as the theoretical branch; in that sense Ethics already is a science. [Of course there will always be room for a philosophy of ethical science.]
The proposed new paradigm - “A Unified Theory of Ethics” - is highly-tentative, is in flux, is in the process of being created and continuously upgraded. It is a cooperative project motivated and researched by those who would like to see ethics become even-more scientific.

I read your thread, iambiguous, on "“Moral Philosophy in the Lives…,” and wonder if what you said to Ecmandu might properly be applied to yourself. Recall you words:

I wouldn’t say that (even though to someone of my age you are just a kid) since I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by giving them a parental command {what Dr. Eric Berne would call “a crossed transaction.”}

In other words, the suggestion is: If you are not aware (that a logical theory may serve as a frame-of-reference which when applied to data helps to organize and explain that data; and that this is the way science works) and thus do not see how the new paradigm explains and clarifies life as lived in the moral realm, then please do write some more of YOUR OWN threads, and avoid hijacking this one. Okay?

You said more than once that your interests lie somewhere else than in learning how a model can be applied to offering some useful guides to making ethical decisions. So please go back to seeing John and Mary’s both sides - and by inference all sides of every question - and leave us to do our own thing.

Thinkdr,

I think your name is arrogant. That’s besides the point.

The whole of ethics can be summarized in one short phrase:

Don’t violate anyone’s consent.

Of the Ten Commandments, there should only be one:

Don’t violate anyone’s consent.

Now you know who the false gods are.

[b]Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you / The Silver Rule

Do unto others what you would have them do unto you / The Golden Rule

Avoid harming human beings as much as possible / surreptitious Rule

Avoid consent violation / Ecmandu Rule

All four saying the same thing basically
[/b]

Yes, they are saying basically the same thing. Thank you for your contribution, surreptitious.

As to Ecmandu’s comment about my nickname: I am a Doctor of Philosophy, and I have been known to think once in a while …even my wife would affirm that.
The important thing is that I have self-respect and that I respect you.
And - as noted before - this project is not about me. It’s about all of us getting closer to living in an ethical world; and gaining for each and all a Quality Life.

How about the rest of you Forum participants? Do you believe that the above Principles have been sufficient to keep everyone ethical?

In the STRUCTURE booklet, on pp. 27-28, a few more moral Principles are listed. The booklet makes the case that the more of these Principles we live by, the more moral we are (the higher, so to speak, is our ‘morality score.’)
Morality, it argues, is a concept that expresses our moral development, or our stage of evolution.

What do you think?