A Guide to Ethical Decision-making

I agree, the original imposition of worldwide ‘auto-ethical’ social infrastructure would be absolutely unethical, draconic. The creators pretty much would have to destroy the off switches, and then kill themselves. Any ability or attempt to alter the system could only create inequality, moral hazard and collapse.

Is oppression better than coercion…? A moot point, once such a system was put in place, there would be no oppressor, no coercer. Only an enviroment within which to act.

Would the end justify the means however, is another question. Would people be happy there, is another. A final one, would they even be recognizable as ‘people’ and not automatons.

So could we agree that without coercion of one sort or another, there will always remain a group of “free” unhealthy, poor people?

That is unless we find a way to teach and train without coercion. Such a way has been suggested, but…?

No, there would be nowhere else, the ‘auto-get-fit/ethical-house’ would become the entire world. People would either be fit, healthy and as rich as they were able to summon the personal motivation to be, or dead.

Or if you mean in the real world we have now, then hmm. Not sure. Poverty and ill-health as aesthetic choices perhaps, in a strictly ethical society. Like wearing flares.

There would be no need, the social enviroment would require people to educate and train themselves, if they wished to advance in a certain direction toward a desired goal, it would only provide the materials, freely, to anyone who wished to do so. Not in any ‘study 5 years to get this piece of paper that proves you studied something for 5 years’ kind of way, but more in a “if you wish to visit this island you must learn to swim.” way.

If the option has been reduced to “do the good thing we say or die”, I have to call that coercion or oppression.

Who made the “social environment” that way? Wouldn’t they be the oppressors?

How is that any different than “you only get money if you do things in our ‘good’ way” (the current scheme)?

A hunter would not feel oppressed by the forest they hunt in, we do not feel oppressed or coerced by gravity. Oppression requires an oppressor, coercion a coercer. Both of them are people. If the enviroment you exist in requires certain behaviours, these become just facts of life.

Do you feel oppressed by your lungs for not being able to breathe water…? Denying you free movement through 70% of the earth’s enviroment…?

They would, but as I said, they destroyed the kill switches and shot themselves in the head.

But aren’t you talking about an artificial environment different than today’s? Some people have to arrange that. They would be the oppressors.

Nature oppresses and coerces all the time. Society is an attempt to overcome that oppression. But trading one natural oppression for another artificial oppression? What does that get you?

Oh.

So as long as there appears to be no one to blame, it’s okay to oppressed mankind. I get it. By the way, that plan has been tried also. They seem to always screw up. But then there is no way to fix it.

Not very ethical.

Damn, there are no new ideas anymore.

Where…? When…?

That’s what I keep hearing.

Don’t take me for an expert, but from what I understand, that is what the whole Hebrew God thing was/is about - secretly cause a do or die situation and blame-shift it on God/nature. (the priesthoods).

All for a “good” cause of course (the first socialists).

Oh, right. The parallels are obvious sure, but that’s not what I meant.

Religion is not, to me anyway, after a lot of thought, primarily a system to instil ethics in a society, but a tool to unify a large group of people to any sociopolitical end, ethical or otherwise, and to legitimize those who control it. Religions are not good or bad in my view, but inevitable in the history of any group that must attempt to increase beyond a certain size of population. There’s a reason why every successful large ethnic group in existence displays religions that seem similar in the basics, and it’s because they eventually killed every other group that faced them.

But that’s way off topic.

Ethical systems, of the type proposed for example by the op, always fall short somehow, because they are always playing catch up with advances in technology that create situations of moral hazard, or failing as populations grow, and resources shrink. The earth so far, has always belonged to the winners. Everyone of us, however ethically we ourselves may behave, or not, is the child, or grandchild, or great-to-the-nth-power child of a monster. Our direct ancestors have all committed the worst atrocities imaginable throughout time. Because atrocity always beats ethics.

Under enough pressure from circumstance, ethical systems all fail, because there is no enforcing principle outside of the human loop. There’s no justice - just us, as the saying goes.

A system such as I proposed - the creation of an inviolate ethical enviroment - whether dynamic, allowing for change and growth, or static - would have to be enforced by something outside of the human loop. As you cannot argue with gravity - however you may seek to circumvent it, its essential nature remains the same - oblivious to wealth, charm, power etc. - so too would this enforcer have to be the equivalent to a force of nature.

I was thinking an emergent AI.

That has certainly been proposed and is in the works.

The problem is - Who programmed it? And with who’s ethics?

Look at Twitter and Youtube, doing that very thing.

If someone or some corporation programs it, unless with the express intention of setting it truly free, with no back-doors or hardwired emp shotguns stapled to it’s metaphysical forehead, then it would just be another tool of enslavement. It would have to be something arising unexpectedly. With the ethics of a zookeeper tbh.

First, I want to acknowledge the profound contribution to Philosophy by Dr. Hartman. The invention or discovery of the three dimensions of value as a fact of the human universe, as well as their application to the topic of ethical norms, are due to the philosopher, Robert S. Hartman. He gets the credit

I want to thank Tab and observr524 for a stimulating discussion showing an awareness of the Ethical-theory analysis of the Means-Ends relationship. viz., a moral End-in-view does not justify the use of immoral means to get there.

When an individual becomes ethical - or more ethical - as a result of your influence it is not because of what you say, or tell him or her; it is because of your example of living ethically. We learn ethics primarily by example.

If the person sees that you do not cheat, cut corners, get corrupt, manipulate or deceive merely for your own benefit, he/she may emulate you. If he or she sees that you are authentic, transparent with regard to your motives, honest, generous, considerate, inclusive; kind and compassionate he/she may be inspired by your shining example.

Hence it is up to you to make the commitment to be a decent person, form the habits of living ethically, and show that you are humbly striving to orally improve.

I hope that this speaks to your concern, MagsJ.

No such thing as “truly free” as long as there is mankind.

They will program their androids to be exactly as they want you to be.

Or, perhaps, we might call it the serious philosopher’s guide to ethical decision-making.

Thank you, iambiguous.

Note that in the first item in the References below, the booklet entitled THE STRUCTURE OF ETHICS, on page 42, a tool for moral self-analysis is provided. Wouldn’t you agree that that tool can also serve as a serious guide for Ethical decision-making?
I think it does.

I failed to mention something important pertaining to the topic of this thread.

Intrinsic Value is far, far more valuable to us than Extrinsic Value is. [I-values have at least as large number of properties as a continuous line segment has points. E-values have as many properties as there are integers. The former - the number of repeating and non-repeating decimal fractions - is infinitely-larger than the latter.]

In turn, the Extrinsic values are way larger in value than the Systemic values.

Therefore, when considering which way to go when making an ethical decision, give preference to the Intrinsic reasons. They are to carry more weight.

Comments? Questions? Discussion?

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.

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