Bomb#20 said:
I don't see the Norwegians actually keeping people in prison longer than they deserve.
Again, begging the question that anyone "deserves" prison
You know there's a huge discussion that could be had about moral deserts and corrupt motive of both kinds.
Any time, sir, any time. (Though we ought to take that to M&P.)
The people they've subjected to indefinite preventive detention are generally murderers and rapists. Whether Norwegians are monsters is not determined by how they choose to label their penal practices.
Nobody has claimed here that monstrosity is a function of labeling. It is a function of
whether they have a corrupt motive.
You're missing the point. You advocated 'that incarceration become indefinite and the bar for ending it being that they are considered rehabilitated rather than "suitably punished".' I argued that such a policy would be barbaric because it would allow for extreme harm to perpetrators in response to minor transgressions. You replied "I don't see anyone calling Norwegians monsters." as a counterargument. The point of my reply was not to suggest you claimed monstrosity is a function of labeling; the point of my reply was to propose an alternate explanation for your observation -- that the Norwegians may be labeling their policy with your policy's name but they are not putting it into practice -- thereby showing that your counterargument fails to imply your conclusion.
I put it to you that the reason nobody is calling Norwegians monsters is not because locking criminals up far out of proportion to what they deserve isn't monstrous, but rather because the Norwegians do not actually lock criminals up far out of proportion to what they deserve. When the Norwegians release a person convicted of a minor crime, they might well
label it "We judge him to be rehabilitated" rather than labeling it "He's served the deserved sentence", but what they call it is irrelevant. People are deciding the Norwegians aren't monsters because when the criminal doesn't deserve to be in prison any more, the Norwegians set him free.
So we have two competing explanations for your observation. That means if you want your observation to qualify as supporting evidence for your favored policy not being barbaric, then you'll need to show your explanation is right and mine is wrong, because if my explanation is correct then your observation is perfectly compatible with "the bar for ending it being that they are considered rehabilitated" nonetheless being barbaric. The Norwegians are letting people go once they've been "suitably punished".
I actually read them; the reason you're accusing me of not actually reading them is because you have no moral compunctions about libeling your outgroup.
Again, clearly you did not. Or you are throwing up a massive series of straw man arguments. Just because you dislike being put on the spot for being expected to not hurt people for your own enjoyment doesn't mean I am libeling you.
No, it's the fact that you make up false damaging claims about me with reckless disregard for the truth that means you are libeling me. You have no rational basis for thinking you are an expert witness as to whether I read your posts. It takes a special level of arrogance on your part for you to imagine that your arguments are so spectacularly good that all anyone needs is to read them and he will necessarily recognize them as solving the greatest philosophical conundrums of the ages, and presumably therefore recognize you as the greatest philosopher of all time -- the man who beat Aristotle and Kant and Mill and finally figured out how to derive ethics from pure reason. I read your arguments. I was unimpressed. And you think my not being impressed proves I'm lying about reading them. Oh, for the love of god,
get over yourself.
(And speaking of massive strawman arguments, you are not putting me on the spot "for being expected to not hurt people for my own enjoyment." You are putting me on the spot for favoring justice. Hurting people in order to do justice is not the same thing as hurting people for enjoyment; your willingness to equivocate on this point does not do you credit. When people hurt for the sake of enjoyment, it's okay with them if they're hurting innocent people -- a characteristic which puts them in the same camp with people who hurt for the sake of deterrence, or for the sake of rehabilitation, or for the sake of incapacitation.)
And no, those discussions didn't answer my inane questions -- you did not supply any reason to think your selection of ethical premises isn't based on "aroused emotional drive".
I did. You just don't pay attention, maybe because you don't like to think that someone could possibly get past Hume.
You should probably lay off speculating about other posters' psychology -- you stink at it. Let me remind you that you invoked Hume first; I merely repaid you in like coin. I think it's entirely plausible that someone will "get past Hume" -- the "Is-ought problem" is overrated -- but AM's approach appears to me to have better prospects for success than yours.
I have laid this out a few times, but I guess I'll do it again because you just really seem to like ignoring it. Pay close attention here: I have derived two classes of oughts. You can guess what those classes are pretty easily if you aren't too busy [vulgarity once again imputing to me your own fantasy about] Hume.
First, I pointed out the class of all oughts that can be derived from is.
By "pointed out", you appear to be referring to something you
asserted. You did not supply any evidence that there were no others besides the hypothetical imperatives you exhibited.
Then I pointed out that there is a subclass, the metagoal which are the class of oughts that are not unilaterally asymmetrical, and thus contradictory against a basic moral justification when compared to someone else.
By "contradictory against a basic moral justification" you appear to be referring to their incompatibility with your personal favorite ethical premise. The circumstance that your preferred hypothetical imperative does not contradict some ethical assumption that
you happen to like is not enough to magically transform it into a categorical imperative, and thereby "get past Hume".
You regularly ignore that little fact
I didn't ignore it. Which part of '"To have all that is necessary to do X where X does not deprive anyone else of the same." is a specific goal. Just calling it a "meta-goal" doesn't make your attempt to derive general "oughts" from it a winning battle.' didn't you understand? You deciding you're more impressed by your own verbiage than by my refutation does not give you license to falsely claim I ignored you -- particularly seeing as how you quoted my response back to me, and you swore at me over it. Why don't you have any moral compunctions about just making up garbage about your opponents?
If I AM on one side of a wall, AND it IS my goal to use the least energy to reach the other side, ... I ought do that thing (it is the solution to the problem).
That's an equivocation fallacy. "Ought" has two meanings -- instrumental and moral -- corresponding to what Kant called hypothetical imperatives and categorical imperatives. Adding goals gets you from an "is" to an instrumental "ought", not to a moral "ought".
Have you been influenced by Randroids? Those guys imagine whatever they dislike violates the non-contradiction principle.
...
Jesus said it; you believe it; that settles it?
...
Well then you should never sue anyone.
...
Well then you should never imprison anyone.
...
"unnecessarily" ... [=] ... "undeservedly".
Talk about <expletive deleted> equivocations.
You just put words in my mouth. I didn't say or imply that "unnecessarily" = "undeservedly". I didn't write "[=]" or anything that meant "[=]". "[=]" is completely unreasonable as an attempt at paraphrase. You just made it up and spliced it between two words I did say. That's unethical. What makes you think a person who would do something that unethical to another poster is competent to lecture the rest of us about ethics?
First, we have a discussion that must be had about "the golden rule". You are equivocating the biblical formulation (the "positive formulation") against the negative formulation which is "don't do unto others that which you would not have done into you",
Sorry, my bad. Make that "Confucius said it; you believe it; that settles it?". The distinction between the positive and negative formulations is a quibble. You can't derive either form from pure logic, and both forms are vulnerable to the problems I pointed out.
which has in the invocation of the metagoal been further distilled to "you have no justification for doing something without symmetrical consent to others that you expect others to not do to you without symmetrical consent".
And you have evidence, do you, that we all consent to be locked up if others want to rehabilitate us, but we don't consent to be locked up if we deserve it?
If you want to talk about "useful rules of thumb, maybe we can invoke your unsupported virtues that you invent from your own feelings.
What's your point? Did I claim my own useful rules of thumb get past Hume? You're the one making the big claims here, so you're the one with burden of proof.
At any rate, there's a big difference between "unnecessary" with respect to whether we are talking about extrinsic utility vs intrinsic desert. One says "I'm going to do this because I do not deserve to be violated" vs "I'm going to do this thing to them because they deserve to be hurt." Good job drawing that equivocation.
I made no such equivocation. I simply pointed out that the Golden Rule is inherently ambiguous: in your latest phrasing, it's the word "something" that's ambiguous. Whether what you do to others qualifies as the same thing as the "something" you don't want them to do to you depends entirely on
how you choose to characterize it, and you can characterize the same act in a million different ways. Utility and desert are simply two examples of that ambiguity. I didn't claim they were equal to each other. They're two different tools that people with two different moral judgments can equally well use to shoehorn what they do into satisfying the ambiguous Golden Rule.
All that aside, you have evidence, do you, that we all consent to be locked up if others suspect we will violate them so they think it has extrinsic utility to them, but we don't consent to be locked up if we intrinsically deserve it?
I mean, speaking in terms of a specific goal for the derivation of general "oughts" is a losing battle. There is no specific goal. There is the possibility, though, of discussing a meta-goal to derive general oughts.
To me, that goal is "to have all that is necessary to do X" where X does not deprived anyone else of the same.
That's a special-pleading fallacy... "To have all that is necessary to do X where X does not deprive anyone else of the same." is a specific goal. Just calling it a "meta-goal" doesn't make your attempt to derive general "oughts" from it a winning battle.
That's quite a claim, in the presence of a variable.
You seriously think you can derive philosophy from surface syntax? The goals you call "specific" to distinguish them from your "meta-goals" have variables too. "Maximize total happiness." means "If X leads to more happiness than Y, choose X." "Moderation in all things; seek the Golden mean." means "If X < Y < Z, choose Y."
Also dead <expletive deleted> wrong. Instrumental and moral oughts are only differing in whether they are symmetrically non-contradictory,
Why should anyone take your word for that? Because you say it with a resonant and well modulated voice? Because you have a symmetry boner? Show your work. Instrumental and moral oughts appear prima facie to be differing in that "But I don't want to reach the other side of the wall" is generally perceived to be a good reason for not doing the thing one supposedly ought.
whether they can be invoked without creating a social contradiction.
Is that the same thing as a regular contradiction, or is it something different?
...Social contract theory is logically incapable of delivering that which it exists for the purpose of delivering.
That's one hell of a (<expletive deleted>) claim.
Social contract theory was made up by Thomas Hobbes to justify his claim that we all owe absolute obedience to the King, as a rhetorical device, because the traditional justification -- the Divine Right of Kings -- had stopped impressing people. In the absence of a god to magically prevent infinite regress in justifications for ethical obligation, people were proposing all manner of alternative foundations, or becoming skeptical about ethical claims in general. Whenever somebody made a moral claim, somebody else would say "Why?", and to whatever answer was given, somebody would say "Why?" to that too, so it was getting harder and harder to make the public believe "Because the King said so" was a good reason for anything. Hobbes' solution was to short-circuit all those "Why?s" and all those conflicting theories, by answering "Because you promised to". Nearly everybody agreed that people should keep their promises. But of course, as a matter of logic, this fails. "Why should people keep their promises?" is every bit as good a question as "Why should people take orders from gods?".
In fact, ethics only exists in the context of more than one person. If there is only one person, it is perfectly acceptable to be a solipsist, and all instrumental oughts are in fact ethically justified; nobody else's concerns need to be heeded in that situation because there is nobody else to be concerned with.
AM has refuted this admirably.
In fact if you read my posts like you claim, you would have already noticed that I pointed out the extent of it's function: risk level acceptance and resource allocation for zero- or limited-sum pools.
Yes, certainly. What's your point? You said "by having a common agreement". We don't have a common agreement; and even if we did, having a common agreement wouldn't magically make the "Why should people do what they agreed to?" question go away. To suppose it would is an appeal to magic or an appeal to "aroused emotional drive". The fact that you only want to apply it to risk and resource distribution rather than to every stupid command some Stewart king issues is great -- go you! Big step in the right direction. Just like if you rely on your horoscope only for scheduling your appointments and don't base actual foreign policy on it. Doesn't change the fact that when you wrote "by having a common agreement", you doomed any remaining possibility of having your theory "get past Hume", at least as far as risk acceptance and resource allocation are concerned.
I can easily identify that if I wish to have my meta-goal stay as intact as possible, I must respect the meta-goals of others as much as possible. Punishment for the sake of vengeance rather than only as a last resort in behavior modification fits right into "unnecessary", almost trivially so.
Some people's meta-goal is to have justice done.
No, it is not. Because that metagoal is contradictory; their goal is, I guarantee you, including to not have 'justice' done to them, to be free of 'justice'. Nobody wants to be punished, else it is not "punishment".
And? Nobody wants to be incarcerated for the sake of behavior modification either. People change their minds when their perspective changes; and people are biased in favor of themselves. What somebody thinks satisfies his goals while he hasn't committed a crime, and once he has, are probably going to be two different things no matter what his philosophical stance is. This isn't rocket science. Your double standard is painfully obvious, probably to everyone but you. Your whole meta-goal approach to ethics was pretty thoroughly anticipated by the grand poobah of symmetry, Immanuel "Always act according to that maxim whose universality as a law you can at the same time will" Kant -- and Kant was a dedicated retributivist. Retributive penal principles are every bit as symmetrical as utility-based principles. Deal with it.
So, Gary's goal does not unilaterally invoke bob
Bob's goal unilaterally invokes gary. There you go, it's already not up for debate with the social consensus.
Says you. The social consensus says otherwise.
If I can change the name 'jesus' for 'muhammed' or any other arbitrary thing, it's already disallowed as a contradiction; you are already abusing the role of the social consensus in the model, and invoking special pleading to justify one form of goal over another (jesus as opposed to Muhammed, neither of which is justifiable against the observable reality;
Don't shoot the messenger. I'm doing nothing of the sort; it's the social consensus that's doing that. I'm on your side here -- Gary and you and I and the rabbi will all vote for Gary's right not to go to church; the motion is carried, 996 to 4.
come back to me when you prove jesus and God and all that exist).
The social consensus already voted that Brother Justin the preacher proved it beyond reasonable doubt.
The role of social consensus here is limited to probabilistic outcomes:
The social consensus is impressed by Pascal's Wager. It judges that the risk of Gary going to Hell outweighs the infinitesimal probability that being taught Christianity will make him more dangerous than he is as a Jew. Actually, they figure that the case for Christianity is so strong that he must not have read the pamphlets they gave him.
we accept some probability of being harmed because our actions generate a probability of harming others; the social contract only determines the probabilities and the extents of harm allowed against the metagoal in the context of the risks we generate for others. For instance, I accept the risks of being harmed while others are driving by driving and imposing those risks on others, with consent through action.
Um, no, you accept those risks by writing "I accept the risks". "Consent through action" is another way to say "consent by proxy" -- it is you determining what somebody else consents to. It is every bit as logical as Christianity's sin-by-proxy and atone-by-proxy. Social contract theory is a religion.
Of course, I do invoke a second role of social contract: can also serve to formalize etiquettes for the disposition of limited social resources.
The social consensus votes to dismantle the synagogue to deploy its bricks and lumber to a more socially desired use.
Clearly what's going on here is you picked symmetry as your ethical premise, due to an aroused emotional drive. You transparently have a symmetry boner.
No system based on axioms can tolerate the existence of a contradiction within it. It has nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with the fact that I expect my ethical principles to be logical. I have a logic boner. So should you. So should everyone. Anything else is, well, illogical.
You haven't exhibited an asymmetry in retributive ethical systems, merely a tendency for people to change their minds when it's their own ox being gored. But never mind that -- you haven't even exhibited a logical contradiction in ethical systems that really are asymmetrical. Here, let's make it as easy for you as it could be. Consider the ethical system "King Charles I may do whatever he pleases; everyone else has an ethical duty to obey King Charles I in all things." Go ahead: derive a logical contradiction from that.
Stomping the bread into the ground so you could both die is by definition harming the goals of others, as a goal in and of itself.
It's my bread, not his. His metagoal cannot be harmed because he has no justification to take the bread. The destruction of the bread is, in fact, a product of their own unethical behavior as a result of what was an absolutely fair way to decide what happened to the bread; all other things equal, if might makes right we both die because I will be forced to fight to the death lest I die anyway; we both die. All other things being equal if we play any other game for the bread, it comes down to probabilistics anyway. So no matter what it comes down to probabilistics.
So his goals END as soon as he loses whatever game we decide on. It is by definition not harming them because his goals have already by his own consent been ended.
The only option for either of us was always "get a 50/50 chance at bread"; the cost of accepting a chance of getting that bread without mortal harm is accepting the consequences of cheating (namely mutually assured destruction); I just figure it's better to be starving to death without also being heavily injured in a fight that's likely to destroy the bread anyway.
Maybe you missed the fact that RS in this scenario of stomping the bread is already presumed to have of lost the coin toss. If he wins, he gets bread without violence, and I starve.
At that point, who is being unethical, again? Oh yeah, the person who would create a situation where they may get bread without injury and someone else starves, but they refuse to offer a situation where the other may attain the same. If we both play by the rules, we universally have a better chance at survival.
All that comes under the heading of "everyone is the hero of their own story and people will jump through all kinds of hoops to prove it to themselves." You are killing him, not because it's necessary to prevent a future crime, but because of his past crime. Your justifications -- that he's unethical, that he created the situation, that it's a product of his own unethical behavior, that the goals you consider legitimate for him to have are forfeited due to his cheating -- are all just high-falutin' ways to say you're killing him
because he deserves it.