Doubting Didymus

This thread is a continuation of discussions held on the 'one major flaw with humanity' thread, where I argued that an inability to apply logic was a greater flaw than stupidity.

I would also like to broaden that discussion to include the implications for subjectivity, considering that logic is objective.

Christopher Lord

Hmm, Alright. I'll be playing a bit of devils advocate since I do agree with you on some level. I still do hold that Logic can be VERY cold and immoral without a bit of good old fasioned wisdom applied to the formulas.

The application of valid logic can lead to a 'war' just as quick as anything else. Since it is so rigid, perhaps logic is an accelerant to a long bloody conflicts.

I'll support this with another example that wont be as 'pure' as Person A and B.

First, we'll set up the situation.

1: You (Country A) consider it moral to protect your allies.
2: Country X is allied with your country.
3: Country Z is VERY powerful, and supplies food and medicine to your own country (which has caused the atrophy of those industries in your own country)
4: You and Z share a continent to yourself, and are each responsible for defending the other.
5: Z attacks X in order to stop the flow of drugs from X. These drugs are not illigal in your own country.

What do you do?

If you dont defend your ally, you are being unfaithful in that you have broken off an alliance. This, however, is better than the alternative of letting your own country starve.
But in not taking action against Z, you have in effect joined the 'bad guys'.

Country Z knows you can't defend X, and is counting on you choosing (logically) not to defend them. They are very scared that you will ally with County X, Y, S, D, F, G and J against Z. Since half the coastline would be exposed, Z would be in a bad position in this case. But, they have played their cards well, manipulating the media in your country to sway public opinion away from a United Front against Z in favor of keeping the Status Quo(TM).

Logic leads your country into an alliance with what can be considered an evil country.

The best way to prevent logical traps like this is to NOT BE LOGICAL. If humans did not feel the need to (Quite logically) boost their position in the world by gaining allys, such traps could not form. We would be free from the primary instigator of wars.

I will say that intelligence is a strong ability to use logic in a certain realm of knowledge, and so intelligence and logic carry each other.

I'm not saying it (logic and intelligence) is a bad thing, but its not all good either.

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: Christopher Lord ]</p>

echidna

Here's mine ...

quote:
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Originally posted by Doubting Didymus:
I made them up, but that isn't the point.
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That is the whole point. Once one has a strong set of beliefs or desires (be they moral OR immoral), one will use every ounce of logic to justify them. Surely history has provided enough examples. One doesn’t generate base morality from logic. Coincidence alone that the most logical nation of all is the one synonymous with the worst form of racism ?


quote:
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Originally posted by Doubting Didymus:
Show me a moral code that can't be backed up with logic and I'll show you a moral code that isn't true.
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What do you mean by a moral code that isn’t true ?
Are you suggesting moral objectivism ?


quote:
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Originally posted by Doubting Didymus:
Yes, I sincerely think that the holocaust could have been averted if the Nazis had had the capacity to logically examine racism and alter their views based on the conclusions they found. Unfortunately they did not, and that is why I consider a lack of logic to be a great flaw.
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Well racism is actually far more logically beneficial than racial acceptance. Given one’s primary loyalty is towards one’s family, I can best look after them by persecuting & eradicating competition. The grounds for the hatred which you need to generate might be ethnic, racial, religious, economic or whatever.

The Protestant planting of Ireland, the ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, the Anglo Saxon invasion of England, Hutus & Tutsis, you name it. Hey, how did white Australia logically suffer by persecuting Aborigines 200 years ago for that matter ? Time and time again, its incredible success alone has been the quite sufficient reason for genocide and bigotry. And being quite logical, sadly it is also eminently successful. It’s also more than likely to be the reason homo sapiens survives today. Illogical ? Not at all.

The only logical mistake the Third Reich made was militarily engaging Stalin (and that was just Hitler’s authoritarianism rather than his generals. Without that maybe Europe today might be quite different. Immoral regimes are quite sustainable over long periods of time – witness apartheid, communism.

I hope you’re not suggesting that logical people are more moral than illogical people. An intelligent immoral person is far more capable of using their intelligence to generate far more atrocity than one less intelligent. And in a sense the “evil” is magnified because it is done with full consciousness, consideration and premeditation. “Cold-blooded” is the adjective for immorality committed by intelligence. Irrational violence concerns me little. Logical violence is where our problems lie. And please don’t say that violence is illogical.

I see little if any correlation between intelligence / logic & morality.

Don’t ever underestimate these people by simply calling them stupid. This is the easiest way of dismissing the real problem as though it wasn’t there.

I don’t regard logic as being worthless, but I’d be teaching it second after morality.

Edited to note that references to intelligence can be mofied to logic. I acknowledge a difference, however for the purposes of the argument the difference is trivial.

Would you consider "rational" & "rationality" to be a neutral word ?

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>

Doubting Didymus

you are both making statements that X is illogical, or Y is illogical. You must back this up with actual logic before I can agree that it is logical or not.

for example: echidna suggests:

"racism is actually far more logically beneficial than racial acceptance"

To construct the logical argument:

1) Racism will benifet me
2) I want to benifet
Conclusion: I should be racist.

this argument may be VALID (the conclusion must be accepted if the premises are accepted), but that is not all logic consists of. The argument must also be SOUND, meaning that the premises are actually true. In this case, premise one is an assumption that I don't see is proven at all.

The main problem with this argument is that it it is actually not valid, but a fallacy of bifurcation. It assumes a false dilemma: that the only options for attaining personal benifit are racism or not racism.

Thirdly the argument EXCLUDES COMPLETELY THE MORAL IMPLICATIONS. I have never suggested that logic excludes morals and emotions, in fact i am suggesting just the opposite, that morals must be included in logic.

Why is racism immoral? I don't know what you think is immoral about it, but I think racism is immoral because it contains an illogical assumption: that all members of a given race have a hated feature. This means that discrimination based on race will always discriminate unjustly and it is therefore immoral.

Of course logic does weird things when you take morals out of it. My proposal is that logic and morals must exist together. Morals are just as capable of evil when divorced from logic as is the vice versa. Witness the murder of abortion doctors and the burning of witches.

"The best way to prevent logical traps like this is to NOT BE LOGICAL"

not true. How can you know what decision you will take if you are being illogical? the best way to avoid traps like that is to factor ethics and morals into your logic. Country A must make a logical moral decision as to what the most moral action to take is.

Am I suggesting moral objectivity? I'm not certain. I am suggesting logical objectivity. Logic is the same for all humans just as maths gives the same results for all humans.

If you divorce morals from logic, how can you say that the third reich acted wrongly at all? I can say that they based their decicions on logical fallacies and basic untruths like racism and should have logically considered their morality, but what can you say?

the fact is, most of the time you ARE being logical when you make moral decisions.

Christopher Lord

Its quite easy to make choices without logic. Its simply a list of choices, and certain ones will more likely lead to your survival (or whatever your priorty is). You choose one and your done.

With logic, you must also consider the logic of all those involved in the choice. Country Z considered country A's logic, and used that to predict what they would do and head it off before hand by manipulating their media.

But predicting others motives -- even logical motives -- has a dark side. It is not a science like logic, and so you must enter IMPERFECT data into your moral-logic calculations. This very often leads to a bad situation. A good example of this is the Appeasment of Hitler. But any good logician must consider all variables, and so ignoring imperfect data is worse than using it when in the end it turns out to be wrong.

Because of this, logic is as much a problem as a solution. Which is saying a lot since it solves so much.

Doubting Didymus

That is logic. You have a priority and choose the action that most fulfills it.

Example:
1) I value X more than anything else
2) of all choices, choice A fulfills X most.
Conclusion: I should choose A.

the illogical thing to do would be:

1) I value X more than anything else
2) of all choices, choice A fulfills X most.
Conclusion: I should choose B.

If you are a moral person, X represents the greatest good, in which case the logical choice A will mean the most good causing choice. B could be anything, and this means than not using logic could allow a moral person to commit a moral wrong by following an illogical chain of reasoning.

I know that X could easily be an evil goal, but I just dont think injustices can be backed up successfully with logic. Perhaps I do believe in objective morals after all. I certainly think logic can yield the same moral answers to any person.

Red Expendable

Although I don't agree with racism or nationalism, or anything of the sort. They do benefit the oppressor in some way. But also have a negative side to it as well, not just for the oppressor but for the oppressed as well.

While slavery is morally wrong, logically, slavery - racism, nationalism, from a logical standpoint is beneficial. Slavery, and racism came about as a means for one group of people to gain wealth and resources for little or nothing. It could be seen as logical for Christoper Columbus and settlers from Europe to come and steal land, commit genocide, enslave Africans and use them to work the land that created huge profits for the settlers, Europeans, etc.

Just like Hitler - taking racism to it's Aryan extreme. This was a good way to unite people to his cause and also gave target for peoples hatred. (which there seems to be no shortage of).

On the other hand - as we know from history that there's always a price to pay for these actions (this is a part of nature, I think). The actions of Europeans and now Americans have consequences. People rebel, the hatred turns around onto the aggressor population. Creating enemies through imperialist policies - constantly under threat of attack from other nations?

Slavery - contanst rebellion, which was the real reason for the end of slavery in the U.S.

It became untenable (sp?). Sure it was profitable for white people while it lasted. But it was not socially sound.

All these things, like I said before, also create a hostile enviroment for the aggressor - it causes violence amongst the people of the aggressor nation (or race). Is this a logical way to live?

It seems more likely that each nation and/or race respecting each other's right to self-determination would have more benefit than genocide, theft and slavery.

I'm probably getting way off track. Sorry if I did - but I just had to say it!

RedEx

echidna

Actually you argued that lack of logic was our greatest flaw.

I think my first post said that it was hard to find a single flaw. The tribal benefits of racism & bigotry are quite logical and clear. I guess you can call lack of logic our greatest flaw, but then racism & bigotry remain.

DD, you seem to have turned this into a “is logic good or bad ?” debate. I am not questioning one OR the other, I am reminding that the blade has 2 edges. But by saying that lack of logic is our greatest flaw, and claiming it could solve the Holocaust, you seem to be saying it is a universal good.

I think even you have said that logic is not a panacea for all immorality, that often there will be times when logic fails, for whatever reason. Ultimately our presuppositions & priorities will be different & logic will never solve that impasse.

Your assertion has assumed that these differences will never occur & that ultimately 2 people will always agree. You’ve must be joking. This thread alone will demonstrate the falsity.

DD,
Can you explain why ethnic cleansing is illogical ?
Can you explain why slavery is illogical ?

Doubting Didymus

Logic shows slavery to be immoral, when morality is defined as the greatest possible good (and I know of no other definition)

1) Morality is the greatest good for the greatest number (definition)
2) Slavery causes more total harm that it causes total good. (assertion)
Conclusion: Slavery is immoral.

The same argument applies to ethnic cleansing. This is what I mean when I say that logic supports moral conclusions. We define morality as the greatest good (I am not trying to state an absolute, please feel free to debate this definition) and then, assuming an individual wants to act morally, logic will show that individual what is moral and what is not. I would furthermore assert that no human ever wants to act immorally, and that they cause suffering out of other, deeper reasons that logic would show to be unsupportable.

Doubting Didymus

Again you make an unsupported statement. I have said before that logic will give immoral outcomes when no moral premises are allowed. That should be obvious. It's like saying that math will never exceed zero when no equasions with positive or negative integers are allowed.

Any human that wants to be moral can use logic to give moral outcomes. I would also say that, for reasons such as Red Expendable suggests above, the only truly logical action is neccesarily a moral one, so arguments that use immoral premises will fail if they are further expanded.