Conventional Ethics & the new paradigm for Ethics

Wait, perhaps I misunderstood you.

Are you saying that the U.N. must accept the existing Bill of Rights as its ethical code? Or are you saying that whatever they declare (which will not be the bill of rights as you know it) is what dictates morality?

The U.N. has declared already and long ago that they choose their actions based simply upon, “This is what we want”.

Of course, predictably, the U.N. being almost entirely socialist and communist countries favor anything that brings them more totalitarian power - their only goal.

China, and most Asian countries, completely ignore the restraints, but strongly encourage everyone ELSE to obey. They well know that whoever obeys the U.N. must become socialist and very economically weak while they prosper in the freedom that they never gave up. They are well aware of the game.

Hi there, obsrvr524

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I have respect for your healthy curiosity, and love of wisdom. Since you are focused on certain topics, it would be appropriate for you to start your own thread. You don’t want to be a hijacker. This thread was intended to be about Ethics …viewed as a potential science.
It definitely wants to avoid using words like "socialism,’ which has at least 15 different definitions, but which is not defined in your discussions- so that the reader has no idea which meaning you’re talking about. So I recommend that in your thread you take the trouble to define your terms.

I agree with you about the regrettable lack of liberty in China; and I know its rulers would rationalize that away, citing the need for discipline, or some such excuse. Restrictions on freedom of thought, and of movement, are unethical. As you may have noted, the Unified Theory of Ethics has chapters devoted to the rise of tyranny. I was hoping you would discuss that treatment, by the late Roger Ebert, of the subject. …and that you would offer a critique of his explication.

The theme of this thread is how the new paradigm is able to provide answers, and how every answer results in two-or-more new questions. As in any science, these answers (to conventional questions in conventional ethical theories) are all tentative, highly-tentative, subject to upgrading when seen from new, wider perspectives.

Good luck with your new thread. I wish you well. Have a Quality Life!

I’m sorry if a little sunlight stings but it seems to me that someone exploring or promoting ethics should be aware of what is really going on in the world and why, yet you seem to be oblivious to the fact that it is strictly politics that rules governing bodies such as the UN. They are not a church or temple with allegiance to higher ideals, humanitarian or not, yet you suggest that they are to be the ultimate source of moral rectitude.

You raised the issue of the USC being a foundation for ethics yet the USC implicitly separates religion from government, church from state. Your words lead to the notion that the UN is to be raised and ordained as, in effect, the new Vatican III.

I haven’t changed the subject matter at all. YOU have brought politics, the sole persuader of governing bodies, into your own thread as the very source of your ethical theory.

Are you now suggesting that we not question the source for your ethics theory, just pass the koolaid and shut up?

This shows a total misunderstanding of the new paradigm for ethical theory. I guess I failed to make myself clear, or obsrvr failed to do any homework - or both. By “homework” I meant reading even a single one of the References.

It is completely NOT true that the United Nations or the U.S. Constitution are the foundation of the Unified Theory of Ethics …as even a glance at the Theory would plainly reveal See viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195052&p=2736321#p2736321
and see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195014&p=2732227#p2732227
The frame-of-reference within which this science is a subset is Formal Axiology [a definist approach to value theory which introduces some exactitude into the field.] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_value
Once “value” and “good” have been defined with logical precision by that meta-ethics then it became possible to understand more-adequately the concepts “moral value” and “a good character.” Dr. Katz attempted to explain R.S. Hartman’s legacy in clear, plain English; but his papers need first to be read, n’est pas?

The formal definitions of “Ethics” (the Ethical perspective), and of “morality” are the foundations of this new-yet-very-old theory, along with the Axiom of Ethics. All these are spelled out in The Structure of Ethics booklet. {The current nonfiction best-seller at the top of The New York Times list of books is 600 pages in length! Is it asking too much for a Philosophy student to read a mere 80 pages!!! It seems so.}

[size=87]p.s. I am quite aware that no one has to read anything ![/size]

I gave you two opportunities to correct any misunderstanding concerning what you wrote here in this thread. You have refused suggesting that should read your book. If you won’t clarify misunderstandings of what you write right here, I can just imagine how much you won’t clarify from the book.

As I just explained to someone else here just the other day, unlike most people, before I go read anything of significance, I do a personality dossier on the author to ensure that I misunderstand as little as possible of his intentions. That involves a lot of my time. I’m not seeing sufficient reason to pursue such an endeavor. Have you ever heard a politician, given an opportunity to present his case, say, “If you all will just go read my book, I’m sure that you will vote for me”? And before you declare that you are not a politician, realize that a politician is merely a specific kind of salesman. And you are obviously in the mode of a salesman.

So far the references that you have given have not been impressive. Although you can’t seem to defend your work, I still think that you got the message.

the doc ain’t trying to sell nothing, 524. lighten up man. not everyone here is part of the socialist gestapo.

he’s just psyched about something he’s read, and very enthusiastic about sharing it. i mean that’s what you’re supposed to do at a philosophy forum, right? plus the doc knew skinner personally, which gives him some street cred.

Thank you, promethean. You understand me. Your basis for your ethics, though, is a little shaky.

I have a question for you.

Is a criminal to be held responsible for his hurtful action? Or is everyone innocent of everything that they do, no matter how conscious they are at the time of committing the crime that it is illegal, and that there were good reasons for passing that law?

[Example:] When a second-story thief snatches a diamond necklace off a dresser in the dead of night, and he is later caught, should he be penalized?

Rather than getting hung up in the example, I would prefer an answer to the general question.

how many carats are we talkin about here, and does the thief have a buyer?

i jest.

yes, in theory it would be great if we lived in a society that not only had reasonable laws everyone agreed on which were properly enforced, but also consisted of people who never had the desire to break those laws (for whatever reasons). in practice, however, this has proven to be a very unrealistic expectation.

on the matter of being held ‘responsible’, if you qualify this term pragmatically to mean something like ‘complying with consequences for criminal action’, i would say ‘well yes, criminals are expected to comply with the consequences of their actions’… and this essentially only means ‘you are about to be punished. do you understand the punishment you are about to recieve?’ but note that this condition does not require the criminal to agree on whether or not the punishment is reasonable. the criminal’s ‘compliance’ only means he’ll go quietly into the night on this one, rather than resist.

but if you mean something metaphysically along the lines of - 'you are ‘responsible’ in that you had the freewill to choose what you did, as well being knowledgeable of some intelligeable, objective imperatives like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ - i’d say you’ve lost your marbles.

the peculiar nature of the law is that it has to utilize a specific falsehood in order to avoid having to commit a greater tyranny that is considered worse than the lie it tells; it has to pretend that freewill exists so that it can put the burden on the offender and relieve itself of its own responsibility for controlling the conditions that generate crime.

the state gives a degree freedom to its citizens in the form of not exhibiting control over the circumstances that engender criminal behavior… and then relieves itself of its own responsibility by pretending the criminal is something more than a consequence of his environment. for this it needs the idea of ‘freewill’. so for example, a homeless fellow steals a loaf of bread because he’s hungrier than a mawfucka… and then the state punishes him. a better question would be; why is this fellow homeless and hungrier than a mawfucka. ah, but this question inconveniently interrogates the state and puts into question its authority in enforcing law where it doesn’t exhibit absolute control over the circumstances that contribute to criminal behavior. the state has its cake and wants to eat it too, see. but if the homeless dude has his loaf and wants to eat it too, the states’s like ‘nah fuck that’.

“The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.” - stirner

some will interpret this as a plea to the state to become some kind of monolithic father figure and hold everybody’s hand. i know of one already warming his fingers up to go on another tangent of nonsense. biggs knows who i’m talkin 'bout, doncha biggs?

no sir. as an anarchist, i have no preference either way, and simply offer a disinterested analysis of some of the more concealed aspects of the problem. what i speak of is inherent to this kind of liberal democracy, and no amount of philosophizing will excuse it. the decision one is faced with is this; if you prefer to keep this kind of society, you should expect this problem to continue. there is no getting out of it. it comes with the package.

Really? Did you do your research on Wade Harvey, Marvin Katz, and Robert Hartman?

Who said which? Which ones got their education and thus their opinions from where?

He is most definitely selling something.

Oh there you go with the reputation ad hom again. BF Skinner, seriously? A whole lot of people were not favorably impressed with him. Noam Chomsky argued that Skinner’s attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games. Isn’t Chomsky one of your heroes? And Staddon (The New Behaviorism) has argued that Skinner’s determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed.

Promethean75, you disagree with me on just about everything and yet remain admirably diplomatic. I complete you. But reputation appeal - ethos over logos is the way of group-think, sheeple, smugness, and pomposity. Hardly the demeanor of a deep thinking philosopher.

You support Wittgenstein, who appears to have had problems with rational thinking. You support Silhouette, who apparently has problems with 3rd grade maths. And you support thinkdr, who has problems even mildly defending his pet theories. Is this an underdog thing?

In this thread, thinkdr proposed two grave concerns to me. Issues that I associate with evil: the fear mongering, terrorism protection scheme known as the Climate Change hoax and that the U.N., a strictly political institute, in any way is to be regarded as an authority on morality.

He seems to make no attempt to defend his stance, rather he merely says, “go read my book”.

That isn’t philosophy, is it?

alas, i did not. i completed the ethics triathlon course years ago so i don’t do much ‘reading’ in/or it, anymore.

so you don’t think the doc is even a little cool because he knew big skin? how often do you meet someone who knew a great thinker? the only great thinker i ever knew was richard simmons, and that’s because we had a slight altercation once at a mall where he was doing a seminar for fat people. you don’t wanna know. (true story)

Actually I do a bit. Actually, I am a bit of a Skinnerian myself. I was just bustnya for using reputation again.

But then Skinner died like 30 years ago at age 86.

I reprinted one of his lesser-known papers as Chapter 8 in a book that was published in 1969: M. C. Katz - SCIENCES OF MAN AND SOCIAL ETHICS. Fred gladly gave me permission to reprint it.

The title of his paper is “Contingencies of Reinforcement in the Design of a Culture.” In that paper he deals with the issues of smoking, over-eating that leads to obesity and other health problems, sex without consent, and aggressive behavior. He proposes changes in the environment, and in the cultural practices, as a better solution than conventional ones that are tried but that don’t work.

The world ought to be grateful to him, for his work and research contributes to the Science of Psychology, indicating one way that it can be systematic.

The practice of Behavioral Engineering, though, which followed from Skinner’s work, has had mixed results, and has been misused from an ethical perspective:It has led to some ethically-questionable conduct on the part of some practitioners; a few of which were his former students.

In contrast with Dr, Skinner’s views, and with regard to the moral issue of akrasia (weakness of the will) commented upon by Socrates; and on the issue of how to achieve what you may aspire to as a goal for yourself; see what this prestigious and recognizedd philosopher says.

See: youtube.com/watch?v=iuZTk1hdpMs
Agnes Callard is here interviewed by Robert Wright (who himself is the author of an important book on Ethics, entitled Non-zero.) She teaches at The University of Chicago. She postulates “self-creation.” Introducing agency as against environmental shaping of a person.

Questions? Comments?

In the new paradigm for Ethics one special assumption is made. It asks you to assume that human life is valuable.

Assume that human life is valuable. Then that is why murder is wrong. And that is why slavery, exploitation, manipulation, defrauding, deception, cheating and conning are wrong: they do harm to human beings. They desecrate value instead of enhancing value. They thus are to be avoided.

As we discuss human relations, human development, and ethics, let us make one more assumption: ethical individuals want to make things morally better. This suggests an imperative: Make things better!

The above two assumptions are the axioms for Ethics – just as transformations of energy are axioms for Physics. It is imperative to regard each conscious individual’s life as highly valuable and to make things better. Ethics teaches us to create value in our human interactions.

Hence something else to be avoided is having a double standard, one for yourself and another for others. Also it is wrong to use any means, take any steps, to get to your end-in-view – even if those means are immoral.

To be moral is to live by adherence to moral principles, and over time to be adding more of them to those that you live by. In this new paradigm for Ethics the concept “morality” implies moral development; you are to be making yourself better.

And transparency is a high value in this system for ethics. Have nothing to hide! Be transparent. A person of good character would want that for his government too. The barest minimum of government data is to be stamped “confidential.” Aim to maximize transparency!!! That is true Democracy.

To get further details about the system being proposed for consideration, feel free to consult the essays and papers linked to below.

Comments? Questions? Bright ideas?

Do the ends justify the means?

Sometimes they do.

If you are tired, that could provide a good reason for lying down in bed.

If your land has been invaded and occupied, you have good reasons for making the life of the occupying soldiers uncomfortable; but no amount of rationalization “justifies” shooting to kill. …say, as a member of the Irish Republican Army ready to commit violence on a British soldier. Instead, use nonviolent means to drive out the occupying forces. Keep in mind the Principle that conscious human life is highly valuable

Liberty, for example, is a noble end …a moral end. Employ only moral means to attain it. Else you will not get it – or if you do seem to get it, it won’t be worth it. For in such case, immorality will become the state of affairs, the new cultural standard.

So killing is verboten. What about lying to a large population? And let me categorize lying as “wittingly deceiving or spreading deception” and “unwittingly deceiving or spreading deception”, both in regards merely to large populations (else the minutia could get overwhelming).

Please briefly enumerate for us in what situations it is ethical to lie to a large population in accord with your ethics theory (perhaps one paragraph). And if you could even more briefly explain why each of those situations are ethically sanctioned but not others.

I have a third related question but I’ll hold.

Murder to any degree is ill-advised; it is not likely that you would destroy what you value as a treasure, and according to the very definition of the ethical perspective, a conscious individual is to be regarded as a treasure …as uncountably-valuable.

A love for, and commitment to, the truth is a feature of a good character. Thus, deception, which violates truth-telling, is immoral. It matters not whether it is done to one or to many. I thought I had already made that plain. {I gave two exceptions, a magician’s patter, as s/he entertains to amuse, and I said lying to save a life may be permissible. Now I will add a third exception: bluffing, as in a game, like poker, is also permissible. One is not necessarily immoral if one does that.}

Those who deny the climate crisis are lying to themselves unfortunately for human-kind. Take a look at Glacier National Park in Northwest Montana, for example: when it was founded it had over 100 glaciers. Today it has about 20. Where did those glaciers go? How did they disappear? Does the “Greenhouse Effect” due to man’s discharge of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere have anything to do with it? You bet it does! The crisis is man-made. If we continue to attack Mother Nature she will have her say.

Don’t these severe hurricanes, such as in Long Island and in Puerto Rico, have a cost? …A rather high cost. And don’t run-away forest fires burn down some very-expensive homes? Is leveling the Amazon jungle a good idea …considering that those trees absorb CO2 and breathe out Oxygen. And isn’t all this record-breaking unprecedented flooding costly?

Does the cost exceed the benefit?

Shouldn’t we have policies now that lessen the amount of Carbon we spew into the atmosphere …policies such as a carbon tax; or such as setting up lots of recharging stations everywhere to encourage people to buy inexpensive electric cars and/or other electric vehicles?

Answer for yourself these questions, folks…

Despite prior posts, the climate hoax was not my purpose or focus concerning this question, although easily related. I am more focused at the moment on the extreme degree of political lies that are not merely common, but accepted as the norm with little attention or concern.

And I asked if you could distinguish for us the “witting lie” morality from the “unwitting lie” morality.

You have expressed that except for entertainment purposes, ALL lying is immoral. But does that include unintentional lies where someone just didn’t do enough research or investigation but had no intent to deceive? Perhaps he didn’t have the facilities required to do sufficient research. And also with those who merely pass along false rumors with little or no knowledge of their validity? What is the ethical position they hold within your theory? And is it always just black and white, or are there degrees of immorality or unethical behavior?

[1] There are some encouraging signs of hope:
The work of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg at the United Nations; she effectively shamed the delegates . Also see: bu.edu/articles/2019/youth-c … _today&utm

[2] I did not express that. The science of Ethics does not make absolute statements; its every proposition is tentative, indexed, and dated. I believe Ethics is nearly ready to be ushered into a science. It has its experimental phase known as Moral Psychology. It has a frame-of-reference which almost could be expressed in Symbolic Logic. It will, with a little more sharpening up by those who collaborate on the project be rather exact.

As I define “lying” it is intentional. Hence I don’t know what ‘unintentional lying’ means. One may unwittingly convey falsehoods - such as those who call the the Climate Crisis, “a hoax.” This shows a lack of awareness about the threat to our habitat; or maybe it shows a conscience that is asleep. A lack of awareness must be forgiven.
Ignorance abounds. [size=58]{If the shoe doesn’t fit, please don’t wear it.!!}[/size]
If a conscience is sleeping, wake it up!
The default condition of the human species is goodness. Dr. Paul Bloom’s research with babies - brought in to the Yale TV studio by their mothers - confirms that we are, unless our upbringing and/or our culture ruins us, with very few exceptions, ethical from birth.

[3] This shows a lack of comprehension of material read in the References offered below. Time and again the point was made in the new system of Ethics that black-or-white thinking is a disvalue, worth very, very little, a mere fraction of value close to zero, because life is full of shades of grey and also contains many, many colors.
Time and again therein I stress that morality, moral value, is a matter of degree.

See for yourself.