99Percent

That is an "argument from ignorance" fallacy. To argue that "I do not know that I will remain unpunished, therefore I should assume that I would be punished" carries just as much rational weight as "I do not know that I will be punished, therefore I should assume that I will not get caught."

It is not an argument from ignorance fallacy. When you kill someone for monetary gain you can either hope that no one will notice that you did so, of which you do not know beforehand if this will be the "happy" result or not (in effect having faith), or let it be freely known that you did of which you will enter a state of violence for the rest of your life. That you know that you cannot know for sure what the result is is the actual argument.

Second, when I bought shares of stock on Monday AM, I did not know that the share price will not go down. It does not follow from this that it is always irrational to make such an investment.

When you invest you are putting at risk part of your own property, not your whole life. This would be very different from gambling with everything you have or even your own life if it is Russian roulete that would certainly be irrational.

An investment in a crime is no different -- its ratinality depends entirely on a risk assessment of the potential benefits and costs.

It is very different. A crime that is not successful in the sense that you get caught carries an unwanted stigma for the rest of your life as a thief, liar or murderer, no matter how much punishment you receive or not. Where as an unsuccessful gamble at worst you only lose some money at your own cost. It is the consequences that are significant in each. In one it is a partial loss, in the other it is always an all or nothing proposition - like Russian roulette.

Comparably, a parachutist, mountain climber, or racecar driver does not know for certain that they will complete their next event safely. It does not follow that it is always irrational to parachute, climb mountains, or race cars.

Again, it is very different. You choose to risk your life at a given moment in the pursuit of exciting activities of which you have reasonable control of. When you murder someone you put your life at uncontrolled and irrational risk for the rest of your life since others will be wary of any dealings with you, be on guard or even kill you before you decide to kill again, etc.

Third, there are cases where a person risks the same punishments as a murderer would face. What of a person hiding Jews in the attic in NAZI Germany or working in the Underground Railroad in 1860 USA, or attempting to escape slavery, or a woman going without a Burka in Afghanistan last year? If immoral acts are always irrational, then these acts are similarly irrational, not because they are immoral, but because they are treated as such.

Unfortunately in a state of violence or at the threat of violence actions cease to be moral or immoral because to have volition you need to be free of coercion. All these example you just stated are the result of of a state of violence and therefore are unintentionally irrational.

Fourth, we need to look at the same situation from the opposite direction -- what about immoral acts which are not punished in a society -- such as selling disease-infested blankets to the native Americans, enslaving Africans, laws making it legal to beat one's wife with a stick so long as it was less than the diameter of the thumb, the inquisition, the Japanese Internment, and countless other examples. Where is the irrationality of immoral acts where those actions are permitted?

In this case irrationality reflects on the society as whole. Such a society should quickly perish in the face of a more rational and therefore objectively morally stronger society as history has demostrated countless of times.

Alonzo Fyfe

I'll try rephrasing the objection.

The simplified formula for rationality in the face of risk is that an act is rational iff:

S * P > F * (1 - P).

S = Utility of success
F = Utility of failure
P = Probability of success

Note 1: This is an idealized formula but, like formulas presuming massless strings and frictionless pullies in physics, is the preferred type of formula to use in an illustration.

Note 2: Opportunity costs (the value of any alternative action one could have performed) are presumed to be included in S and F.

Note 3: Neither S nor F is infinite. A being that places infinite value in any one end is incapable of doing anything but pursue that one end -- he is under the effect of a compulsion and is not a true decision-maker.

The claim that immoral acts are always irrational means for all immoral acts, it is never the case that S * P > F * (1 - P).

Why not?

(1) In performing an immoral act, you do not know if you will be caught.

This has no bearing on the formula above. It is already incorporated into the formula through the variable P. To say that the mere existence of P means that an act is irrational would imply that all decision making is irrational, because every action involves some uncertainty in outcome.


(2) For all immoral acts, F is extremely high.

For any finite F, there exists an infinite number of S combinations whereby the formula is still true. Or, in other words, the condition required by an immoral act, that the above formula is "always false" can never be met.

I also find that rationalists often try to support their case by deflating P and F beyond all reason. (You have no chance of getting away with it and the punishments will be severe beyond measure.) Typically, a discussion of the merits of moral rationalism begins with some type of example. "Assume I am in a situation where I can kill Smith and take his wallet."

Through a rhetorical technique of arguing the example, the moral rationalist makes any number of assertions about the possibility of getting caught and facing severe punishment. Yet, these points do not handle the true objection -- which is "why should I not perform this immoral act if I can get away with it?"

(The desire to avoid the rhetorical trick of "arguing against an example" is why I am presenting the case this time without using an example.)

Often, the moral rationalist will respond to these cases by saying, "but you can never know that you will get away with it," a response which has already been dealt with in point 1 above.

Often, the moral rationalist inserts the assumption into the argument that one exists in a society where all and only immoral acts are punished in order to inflate the costs of immorality. Much of the case breaks down in cases where immoral acts are legal and protected by the government, as well as cases where perfectly moral acts are prohibited and punished by the government.

Both types of cases create serious problems for the moral rationalists.


(3) Immoral acts are to be understood as those actions where the above formula is false (that are irrational). Thus, irrational acts are immoral by definition.

If this is the case, every decision becomes a moral decision. A decision to invest in stocks, where the benefits of a successful investment may not exceed the costs of an unsuccessful investment, becomes a moral decision.

Furthermore, harmful acts (murder, torture, theft, rape, slavery) then become moral whenever the above formula happens to be true.


(4) Prisoners' Dilemma

Contemporary moral rationalists use game theory and defend what is called a "tit for tat" strategy to prove the irrationality of immoral actions.

But game theory inserts a number of assumptions that significantly inflate the costs of immorality (or 'defection' in game terms). Namely:

The two most significant are:

(a) P = 0 (all defections are immediately known to the other other player).
(b) F is deflated by the assumption that the other player always has a finite but unknown number of opportunities to retaliate.


(5) Additional principles of rationality.

Another move that rationalists often make is to add a second condition to rationality. It is not sufficient that S * P > F * (1 - P).

Another principle of rationality is requires, such as some form of universalizability -- act so that you can will the principle of your action to be a universal law, or act as you would act if you had to make your decision under a veil of ignorance, or some such addendum.

The problem with this maneuver rests in the question "Why should I care if the princple of my action is a universal law or is that which would be adopted under a veil of ignorance, or some such addendum?"

Certainly, I care that S * P > F * (1-P) because S and F are, literally, what I care about. But, when it comes to some hypothetical about whether the maxim of my action can be willed as a universal law, I see no reason why I should not simply shrug and say "I don't care."

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Jamie_L

An interesting thing about morality, I think, which rarely gets touched on is the fact that our brains are function in such a way that through upbringing our emotions can be tied to our actions and to our sense of morality. It's basically a function of parental programming.

If we have been programmed through childhood in a certain way, we will "feel good" when we do certain acts (typically ones our parents believed were moral) and we "feel bad" or guilty when we commit certain other acts (typically ones our parents felt were not moral).

This creates an interesting situation in which part of the "utility of success" of commiting a particular act is just "it makes us feel good". And committing some other act, though seemingly valuable to us, may have less value because it instills guilt, which makes our lives more stressful.

Obviously, these feelings are entirely subjective, based simply on how we were raised, and some people can be raised in monstrous ways that produce a response entirely opposite to general, societal morality. My point is that its something that must be considered when talking about how random person A will benefit from some act.

So, it may be rational to commit seemingly immoral acts, but probably only if you are programmed to be able to handle committing such acts. And if you are such a person, you are probably already on a crash-course with societal morality at large.

Jamie

Alonzo Fyfe

This is precisely correct.

For a good person, the equation:

S * P &gt; F * (1 - P)

Is never true for an immoral act, precisely because, for the good person, "S" is lower than F for all immoral acts. A good person derives no satisfaction from actions that are harmful to others; an evil person does.

Ultimately, one of the problems I have with moral rationalism is the ease at which it can be turned back on itself and be used as a rationalization for evil.

Because if you accept the proposition that "If X is immoral, then X is irrational", then logic dictates that the proposition "If X is not irrational, then X is not immoral" must also be true.

Which, I think, just makes it that much easier for people to program themselves into thinking that "If I end up better off, then that's all that matters."

MadMordigan

Because if you accept the proposition that "If X is immoral, then X is irrational", then logic dictates that the proposition "If X is not irrational, then X is not immoral" must also be true.

Logic dictates no such thing. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Laera

Yes it does. It's called the counter-positive or some such. If X then Y. =&gt; If not Y then not X. Because if X (and not "not X"), Y.

Clear as mud?

Alonzo Fyfe

In response to my claim:

Because if you accept the proposition that "If X is immoral, then X is irrational", then logic dictates that the proposition "If X is not irrational, then X is not immoral" must also be true.

MadMordigan wrote:

Logic dictates no such thing.


Actually, yes it does. It's a restatement of the principle of logic known as modus tollens which states

P implies Q
not Q
Therefore, not P.

(Or, given P implies Q, then not Q implies not P)

As in:

All squares are rectangles
X is not a rectangle
Therefore, X is not a square

(Or, if X is not a rectangle, then X is not a square)

All immoral acts are irrational
X is not irrational
Therefore, X is not immoral.

(Or, if you believe that all immoral acts are irrational, then if X is not irrational, then X is not immoral.)

Which is precisely why I reject rationalist moral theories specifically, and all internalist moral theories generally. They all run into significant problems right around here.

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Jamie_L

Alonzo:

Not a criticism, but a desire for further discussion:

I just went back and read your first post in this thread again (long post - I often glaze over for long posts and miss critical info). Now I think I grasp it better.

It all flows very well, but essentially all flows from not doing harm. This is where your moral theory gets subjective, isn't it? Why should we do no harm? Why is that central to most morality?

Isn't this where rational morality can be blended in? One can create a rational arguement that, in general, not causing harm creates benefits for the individual and the society at large. From that rational basis, one then flows down into the interaction of desires, etc., etc.

Otherwise, what is the basis for "do no harm"?

I'm only just starting to think seriously about the source of morality, so bear with me.

Jamie

Alonzo Fyfe

We?

Let's not talk about us. Let's talk about you. Why should you do no harm?

Should...

That's the important word here.

The thing is, there are two different meanings of the word 'should'; practical-should and moral-should.

These two meanings are distinguished by the set of reasons that are relevant in making the judgment. Practical-should looks only at the reasons that an agent has for performing or not performing some action. Moral-should looks at all of the reasons that exist for performing or not performing that action.

If that action is murdering somebody, practical-should may well suggest to a person that "you have no reason to keep him alive, and every reason to kill him, so you practial-ought to kill him."

Moral-should takes whatever reasons you may have for killing this person and adds to it the reasons that the victim has to not be killed, and the reasons that society has to oppose murder. In which case, what you practical-should do might be quite different from what you moral-should do.

Some people can see the difference more easily when we switch the question from active-voice to passive-voice. Instead of asking "Why should I do no harm (to X)?", rephrase the question and ask "Why should X not be harmed by me?" Put this way, it is easier to see how a should question can incorporate all of the reasons that X has not be killed, and all of the reasons that society has to oppose murder.

There is even a reason why this shift in perspective works -- active voice presupposes an actor (which leads the mind to think in terms of practical-should), while passive voice presupposes no actor (which puts the mind in the proper mode for moral-should).

It is quite possible that the two shoulds, each dependent as they are on two different sets of reasons, can yield different answers. It may well be the case that a person, in a position to kill somebody and take his money, has no practical-reason not to do so. If he asks, "Why practical-should I not take the money and run?" the answer may very well be "You have no practical-reason not to."

And yet it still remains an undeniable fact that the world is populated with more reasons than those that exist in the mind of the murder-thief. The reasons that the victim has not to be killed also exist. The reasons that society has to be opposed to murder and theft also exist. And when we include all of the reasons that exist we can get a very different answer to the question of why moral-should I not take the money and run?"

The complaint often offered to objectivists is: "If you cannot provide me with a rational argument as to why I should not take the money and run, then your moral claim is subjective."

I reject the implication. I may not be able to provide you with a rational argument as to why should not take the money and run -- an argument that looks at your reasons alone and ignores everybody else's. But morality is not about you, it is about all of us. And the fact that you may not actually have a practical-ought reason to do the morally right thing does not argue against its being the morally right thing.

Morality is not about what benefits you or makes you happy. It's about all of us. It's not about the reasons that exist in your single individual mind and your single individual life, its about all of our lives. And so it is not be founded merely on the reasons that you have to do or not do some action, but on all of the reasons that exist -- in all of us.

And that actually brings us back to your original question (before I changed it).

"Why should we do no harm?"

Well, moral-should is the sum of all of the reasons that exist -- all of the reasons that we have. Not just yours (as would be the case if I were trying to answer the question of why you practical-should not do harm), and not just mine, but the sum of both of ours and everybody else.

What more reason can we have?

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

99Percent

Alonzo Fyfe: Your posts are very interesting and I have so much to respond to. Alas, I don't have much time right now. I hope to have more time during the weekend.