Ted Hoffman

No, the title of my OP is not misleading - my main interest is in the case of the utilitarian sheriff.

I am currently reading part VIII of Alonzos personal journey. I intend to write a more comprehensive "review" later but a few issues have been "concerning" me and perhaps I could clear them up with AF as I mull over his "journey".
(I read the writings as I travel to work daily - so forgive me if I sometimes appear to have comprehension problems - you know how hectic "public means" can be).
For whatever its worth, I think its a generally good piece of work and I am sure I will learn a lot from it.

Part I

AF writes about Hume’s is/ought dichotomy and posits 3 options: (a) Metaphysical dualism, (b) eliminativism and (c) material reductionism.

Before I go further (and I am not an expert in this field), I find it a bit incongruous to try to find a harmony between two diametrically different "concepts".

I have participated in scientific discussions that address the question of Cartesian dualism (and I am a physicalist/materialist) where people discuss such questions as mind/matter with respect to monism or dualism.

But these are questions about reality itself. About our cosmos. Not about morality. I think you are giving a moral question a scientific treatment. Ought is immanent and value systems are not subject to scientific investigations - ordinarily. While is can be investigated.

For example, at one point AF says: "People living in the material somehow have the capacity to sense this 'ought' property, and in sensing it make choices and decide upon different courses of action. Through our-ought perception, this ought property can alter the course of physical matter"

The fallacy here is clear: he treats the "ought" as a force. This is not the case. One would think AF is addressing the question of dualism and monism. Though men are physical matter, they are not physical matter per se. They are sentient beings and are driven to action as opposed to being acted upon as a force would on a rock. AF addresses the ability of an ought and its effect upon men as he would kinetic energy upon a rock - which is misleading because other forces come to play - physical forces for example.

So AF has equivocated.

Even if the ought property existed, we cant justifiably juxtapose it with the is property.
Its like juxtaposing justice (something non-material) and throwing shot-put (a physical act) and trying to close the gap between them. So we can see that AF has reified the ought property so as to treat it as something with an independent existence - capable of initiating action. Ought is like software - it has to be interpreted.

It's existence is contingent upon the existence of an intelligent being - in that sense, I don’t think it can be compared to "is" which exists even without an intelligent being.

"She was raped" and "one ought not rape another" are two statements that are very different. One is factual while the other one could have moral underpinnings.

Oh, by the way AF - have you read about the "problem of Mary"? (its about the nature of qualia and its the story of a woman - a physicist who is brought up in a black and white room and she knows all the wavelengths of all the colors and that if she never leaves the room, she will never know how it "feels" like to see red, or blue or pink). Sorry for digressing - I am not satisfied that AF has demonstrated the falsity of (a) (b) (c) above. And I can address his arguments later but at this point, I would just like to know which one among the three AF subscribes to.

Part II

AF, it’s not clear to me about whether or not you believe life has an intrinsic value (I would like to know). You give the example of the person who wants freedom from extreme pain, when every living moment is filled with such agony. You write that this person who has pain and cant be saved from pain by virtue of being alive shows that life has no intrinsic value.

I think this is a false and simplistic argument. It’s like arguing that since one with cancer cant be healed by medicine, then medicine has no healing power. The example is inadequate to be used to justifiably test the value of life. It doesn’t prove that life can lack value - it just proves that sometimes in life, pain can make life unbearable - a painful life is not a useless life. You AF, have to be alive first to state that life has no intrinsic value. In any case, even someone in pain can still warn a child to get off the path of an oncoming train.
I think you should define value and define life when addressing this issue because its easy to make arguments that seem valid in the absence of that: the meaning of value will be arbitrary and can be made to suit any argument.

Then there is the example of the father who must die rescuing his kids from a fire or who has to distract a villain and get killed by the villain - thus he saves them through death and not through life. Then you give the false analogy against a defense to this argument which you equate to being like saying "a piece of garbage has value because in order to get rid of it, you must first have the garbage in order to throw it away".

Garbage, by definition, has no value (this is, generally speaking - not an absolute statement) - and to posit it as a counterexample to death is false and is caricaturing the argument. If you can use garbage to block the path of a car a terrorist is driving to the city then garbage has value.

You proceed to explain that life has no value as an end but only as a tool for pursuing an objective. I think you are quibbling there. Its like saying that since we use plates for food but we dont eat plates, plates are only useful as a means, not as an end. Why does it matter whether its a means or an end - its still useful.

Why is value as an end more useful (by your implication) than value as a means? If not, why your keenness in bringing out the distinction?

I am satisfied with your treatment of "the virtue of selfishness" and I think you have falsified the idea that people are always selfish. I think it would do your readers a helluva lot of good if you perhaps delved more into Ayn Rands objectivism then clearly presented how David Humes is/ought distinction floored objectivism (if you can provide links, I will be happy to delve into them myself) - I haven’t read a Treatise on Human Nature - perchance we have it at secweb library?

Part III
You talk about the Personal Happiness Theory (is it a libertarian theory?) and state that you would prefer suffering with the false belief that you have condemned a child to harm than gleefully enjoying the false knowledge that you had kept the child from harm. I dont find your illustrations adequate - they seem like caricatures. And on euthanasia and suicide, I think you ought to perharps investigate some more on the philosophical reasons for theists objecting to them. The idea of enduring suffering based on "life after death" concept sounds like you are hitting theists below the belt unless you want to provide quotations and evidence of the thoughts of leading xstian thinkers/theologians on the matter. I doubt that its as simplistic as you have put it.

You state "An injury that produces nothing but good for the afflicted person is as incomprehensible as a square circle"
What about amputation to get rid of gangrene or cancer? Still square circle? And "injury that produces nothing but good" is an oxymoron (a contradiction in terms) - or a strawman.

I think you need to define "real" when talking about metaphysical dualism. Personally, I view "ought" as something that guides the courses of action of intelligent beings - provides guidance on how to meet desires and avoid pain. Nothing more, nothing less. Hitler thought he ought to kill Jews, Bush thought he ought to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

I think you ought to make a finer point in your arguments in this section, but like I said, this is just a summary.

Part IV

Huh huh. Too much D & D. I am interested in the serious stuff.

Part V

Logic... informal fallacies, your struggle with shyness and extroverts. I think you delve too much into war on Iraq. I think you should discuss more "perennial" issues to do with the human psyche vis-a-vis ethics.

Part VI

I misplaced this one; perhaps I will print another copy. Is this where you introduce the Utilitarian sheriff?

Part VII

The most interesting part so far according to me. Very thought provoking. This part made me interrupt my reading and prompted me to write this before some thoughts "escape" me.
I watch West Wing whenever I happen to be in front of my TV and its showing. It’s interesting that you mentioned it because there are moral dimensions to the decisions the police chief has to make. Anyway, about the veil of ignorance and reflective equilibrium I find it interesting but I think you are making an emotive appeal when you say that when re "..includes arguments that our moral sentiments are nothing more than our personal prejudices...". And I've seen lots of emotional appeals in your arguments - perhaps I will point them out later.
I like the pink elephants story. Its simple, clear and works to bring out your meaning.
I disagree with you on evolution of morality and I think you resort to making emotional appeals like when you say " If we link morality to evolution, then no matter how we evolved, that would define moral" then you resort to a reductio ad absurdum when saying if we were to discover a disposition to rape, then raping would be moral.

AF, morality is NOT a disposition. Indeed, morality has to be taught and enforced - by law, by fear of God. Its a conditioned concept.

Just a few months ago, I faced a situation where one had a woman who needed to have sex Take a peek here . He too needed sex because his spouse was working far away. The disposition here would be to get down andget it over with. But he did not.
Morality, by and large, helps us deal with/against our dispositions.
Just a week ago, I came to learn the true meaning of the statement "man is not a rational animal" because what drives us are our emotions and hormones and sometimes, if we dont recognize this, we may delude ourselves into thinking what we want/ what we do is right and resort to all sorts of rationalizations yet we are just being irrational. I will come to that later.

I think you need to do a finer job on evolution of morality having both biological and social origins. But I think the two are intertwined and not necessarily mutually exclusive as you seem to treat them. I think its a huge topic.

Now, about the utilitarian sheriff:

Sorry if I am asking a question you have answered but what would you have done AF if you were in the sheriff’s shoes?
More importantly, which moral system would you employ in the situation?
How differently would a sheriff who subscribes to Kantian categorical imperatives be expected to handle the situation?

On another note, I think you ought to define "good" when you describe utilitarianism as the ethic that seeks the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Is a good feeling inside 100 people worth a human life? Can you kill a man to please 1 million others who are deeply unhappy?
Per your previous handling of reductio ad absurdum, you dont find this utilitarian sheriff dilemma as a form of reductio ad absurdum?

Ted Hoffman

Admittedly, I havent read the complete series. The part VII from which I have got the extract of the utilitarian sheriff looks more "comprehensive" in the treatment you have given it. If you find my OP premature, just point that out - I just wanted to write something down.

Alonzo Fyfe

WOW!

I am pleased and honored that you would consider my journey to be worth so much of your time and effort.

For what it's worth, I write the elements of this Journey under the same conditions that you read it. I take my laptop to the back of the bus and write each section during my 40 minute commute. If you can use this as an excuse for your comprehension problems, I reserve the right to use it as an excuse for when my writing becomes incomprehensible.

Anyway, you have a lot of stuff in this post. I hope you don't mind if I cut it up into byte-sized pieces.

Alonzo Fyfe

I did not mean to imply that "ought" was some sort of force, only that it has the capacity to interact in some way with physical matter. At least at the start, I do not want to put any limits on what that interaction may be. It could be a force. It could be a thing. For example, if a person explains his broken foot in terms of dropping his television set on it, neither the concept of "dropping" or "television set" refer to a force (though the concept of 'dropping' includes within it the concept of 'gravity').

That is all I want to say about 'ought' at this point -- but I think it is enough. Whether like 'gravity' or 'television set' or 'to drop', the word 'ought' -- if it has some influence on the motion of physical matter through space -- must exist in some sense in the world of 'is'.


There are some 'is' things that exist only in a universe with intelligent beings, of which, the most obvious are 'intelligent beings'. The fact that no 'intelligent being' exists except in a universe which contains intelligent beings does not imply that 'intelligent being' refers to something outside of the 'is' universe. 'Intelligent beings' are no less real -- no less a part of the world of 'is' -- in virtue of the fact that cannot be found in a univserwe without an 'intelligent being'.

So, it seems to me that we are going to need a different test for 'is-ness' (or 'beingness') than 'exists even without an intelligent being'.

Ultimately, I am going to argue that moral properties -- indeed, all values -- are relational properties, like 'bigger than' or 'three feet away from' or 'in the middle of'. Values describe relationships between states of affairs and desires. The desires provide the causal connection to action. But desires can only exist in a desiring mind, so value ceases to exist if desirers cease to exist. Yet, desires are still as real as the neurons into which they are encoded. They are still as much a part of the world of 'is' as the cerebral cortex.

Alonzo Fyfe

I tend to subscribe to a functionalist theory of mind, and handle the problem of qualia this way . . .

Assume I take a database, and in it I store all of the information about WordPerfect 9.0 -- what happens, when, and under what circumstances. When I am done, I still do not have a WordPerfect 9.0 program, I simply have a list of facts about the program.

"Seeing red" uses the same type of distinction. Mary can learn all of the facts about seeing red, and store them in her mental database. Yet, this will never be the same as actually running the 'seeing red' program.

Yet, this does not imply that running the 'seeing red' program involves any special qualia. The person running the 'seeing red' program is clearly in a different state than Mary accessing her database of 'seeing red' facts, and that is all that is needed.

[Note: This does not handle Searle's 'chinese room' example where running the 'speaking Chinese' program is disconnected from understanding Chinese. Yet, Searle's argument itself falls to -- dang, what is the name of that fallacy again, it has something to do with opacity. It has to do with the fact that his argument has to do with our powers of imagination, and incorrectly inferring that what we can imagine is true as well of the thing imagined.]

Ted Hoffman

The honour is mine since I am the one who has a lot to learn.
Huh, huh, thats cool. Kinda allows us to invoke excuses whenever convenient, no problem for me.

By all means, cut away all you want

I can believe this, but do you agree that an untrained eye might not detect your shift from human beings to physical matter? If you do, I would appreciate it if you could rephrase your argument so that we see how it stands in its new "suit" - unless you deem this trivial?

In principle, this sounds okay since you are still refining your work, but there you are...

A force is a thing. Anything is a thing - including nothing.

I think its important to get a handle on this ought and its rightful place in the cosmos - if any. If its immanent, then its like a fantasy - fantasies can lead people to act - or even a mirage. A mirage can get one dying of thirst to keep walking until they die - does the mirage exist as it is perceived?

There are things we perceive that exist and there are those we perceive that dont exist. Ought can be perceived but ought does not exist in the strict sense of the word.

dropping a TV involves a force - but I am more concerned with existence and what forces as far as ought is concerned.

"Ought", by your own admission (when discussing about free will and leaving the 0.5 margin in your paper), is a product of many forces including biochemical make-up, mental state, social background and the task at hand.

A native who has no idea what a grenade is can use the grenade to crack nuts while you know you ought not to do that. So, what is this ought and who has it and when does it exist? and where is it?
Is ought a feeling? is it a thought? is it an emotion? is it a motive? is it a concept?

Whats clear is that ought is intangible and subjective.
See, when I look at opposites like good and evil, mind and matter, the distinction is clear but between is and ought...its like one is a fact while the other is not a prescription and a fact - what exactly is the diference between the two to justify examining them as components of reality or life?

I think ought should be juxtaposed with "ought not" and not "is".
I think its a misfit but people have always accepted it as a valid dichotomy because it came from a great thinker.

What do you think?

Why?
Ought is not a force so it cannot influence any matter - ought is a judgement. An intelligent agent must exist to interpret and act accordingly.
An elephant is approaching me at a fast speed. A gun is lying next to me but I am terrified, legs shaking, eyes bulging, sweating. I turn and flee when its close and it crashes me to death. I ought to have taken the gun and shot it.
When I am fleeing or when I am frozen in terror, does the ought exist? If it does, where is it?(assuming there is no observer).

I find a man in bed with my wife. Temporary insanity. Enraged and provoked beyond reason, beat him with a club to death. I ought to have asked him to leave and talked to my wife about it. When I am smashing that guys brains to pulp, where is the ought?

I am encouraged when you say:
How different would that be from subjectivism?

A mind without a desire can be made to desire. When you start shouting next to me, I will desire for you to shut up.

My point is, value can be awakened or created - look at economics - utility, artificial shortages and demand. I dont know that value only exists in a desiring mind - perhaps we can say it exists all the time, but is sometimes dormant?

Alonzo Fyfe

Disclaimer: I am in a bit of a rush and somewhat guilty about having neglected to post a further response yesterday, so the items below were written in a bit of a rush.

I am grateful for your comments. Many of the things that you wrote below will definitely figure in to the rewrite, when I get to it. And I am really honored that you took the time you did.



There ain't no such thing as 'intrinsic value'. The only way to make a true value claim is by describing relationships between the object(s) of evaluation and one or more desires. Life, like everything else that exists, has value only insofar as it fulfills (or is useful in fulfilling) one or more desires.



The argument was not meant to prove that 'life has no intrinsic value'. It was meant to prove that the claim, "no matter what one wants, one has to be alive to get it" is false.

If somebody were to claim "all ducks are green", all I would need is one example of a duck that was not green to prove the statement false. Similarly, all I need to prove the above claim false is one example of something that can be better obtained by being dead than by being alive.

In the broader context, the argument is not meant to prove that life does not have intrinsic value. My argument that life (and, indeed, nothing in the universe) has intrinsic value is an Occam's Razor argument -- intrinsic value is a bizarre entity that has no explanatory or predictive power in explaining real-world events. Value, understood as relationships between states of affairs and desires, is sufficient to explain all relevant real-world phenomena.

The purpose of the more general argument in this part of the essay was to prove that a Libertarian argument for intrinsic argument is invalid. This Libertarian argument states that 'reason dictates that life has value no matter what one may want, therefore life has intrinsic value.'

However, But, life does not have value no matter what one may want (q.e.d.). Furthermore, even if it did this would only allow one to infer that life had universal instrumental value, it would not justify the further claim that life had intrinsic value.

So, the libertarian argument fails on two crucial levels.


The question remains, what follows from this. You have to have a piece of paper to make a paper airplane, but this does not prove that paper has intrinsic value. It only proves that paper is useful for the construction of paper airplanes.



Pehaps, but at this point in my own career all I had to go on was the common-sense definitions of 'life' and 'value'. I get to defining value somewhere around Part X!!. Life . . . I never define . . . but neither does anybody else. I think the common-sense understanding is sufficient for these purposes.




The purpose of this argument is to construct a reductio ad absurdum against a common libertarian argument, and in order to construct a reductio ad absurdum one needs an absurdity.

The argument that I am criticizing has the form, "If you use X, in doing Y, then X has value, because you can't do Y without having X." Well, saying that "X = garbage" the above argument is invalid.

Now, it is true that garbage has no value by definition, but this is a part of the point. The form of the argument is invalid, because it would yield the absurd conclusion that garbage has positive value.


Actually, I do not believe that life has value only as a means. What I do believe is that one cannot infer from evidence that life has a value as a means that it has intrinsic value. The only thing that one can infer from the fact that life has value as a means, is that life has value as a means.

As to why it is important. Libertarians infer from this that one should preserve life at all costs. It would be like arguing that since plates are useful for serving food, that one should devote one's entire life to doing nothing but making sure that the plates are safe and well cared for. And from this they make all sorts of inferences about 'rights' that ultimately yield to greater and greater absurdities. They say that these 'absuridities' are dictated by reason, but in fact it is the reasoning that is flawed, not the 'absurdities'.