Daniel McKay Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 Hello, my name is Daniel McKay and I'm a philosopher from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. I am offering a prize of $10,000 to anyone who can solve a philosophy problem that I have spent the better part of a decade working on. The problem of how to weigh freedom over different things within the normative theory of freedom consequentialism. This challenge is open to everyone, so feel free to share this around your departments and to anyone else who might be interested. The rules for receiving the money are listed below, and the problem itself is detailed in an attached word document. Rules: All solutions to the problem of weighing freedom over different things must adhere to these rules in order to be eligible for the prize money. All solutions must be compatible with freedom consequentialism and associated assumptions, as outlined in the freedom consequentialism primer provided and its referenced sources. All solutions must be sent to fcphilosophyprize@gmail.com Any questions and clarifications can also be sent to fcphilosophyprize@gmail.com Whether a solution is successful will be determined exclusively by me and my decision is final. If multiple people send in a successful solution, the prize money will go to the first person to do so. Partial solutions or referrals will receive a partial payout based on how helpful they are. The prize is $10,000 in total. If partial solutions are provided and paid out, that will reduce the total prize pool by the corresponding amount. Information on how much money is remaining will be provided in an auto reply to emails sent to fcphilosophyprize@gmail.com As I live in New Zealand, the $10,000 is in New Zealand Dollars. I will reassess the prize money, both whether to keep offering it and how much it is, each year. Current information will be in an auto reply to emails sent to fcphilosophyprize@gmail.com Solutions do not need to follow the Preferential Order Method outlined in the primer as my current preferred method of solving the problem of weighing freedom, but solutions that follow a different method should explain why that method is better and how it solves the problem of weighing freedom over different things. Any other problems or comments are welcome, but will not receive any money. Freedom consequentialism primer.docx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 8 hours ago, Daniel McKay said: I am offering a prize of $10,000 to anyone who can solve a philosophy problem that I have spent the better part of a decade working on. The problem of how to weigh freedom over different things within the normative theory of freedom consequentialism. You wiegh your so called freedom against the lifestyle you choose to live; for instance the imagined freedom of a billionaire is being able to do exactly what he wants, within the boundaries of their self-imposed prison; while a mountain man's imagined freedom is to do exactly what he wants to, in the dark and cut off from the world of help if they need it, bc they'll be spending every hour of daylight in the summer, preparing for winter; most of us think we're free, but we've all gotta walk to the shop's when we need something to eat and pay the water-rates when we need to drink/wash/water... Did I win? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 10 hours ago, Daniel McKay said: All solutions to the problem of weighing freedom over different things must adhere to these rules in order to be eligible for the prize money. I didn't read the rules, but I'll happily argue why they're probably wrong, if you can point to the one that specifically says why I shouldn't be paid for my solution... 🤞😣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel McKay Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 Most of them do, not least the one where all solutions need to be submitted by email. Also, you appear to be using "freedom" in quite a different sense to how it is outlined in the primer provided, which suggests the rules weren't the only thing that you didn't read 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 1 minute ago, Daniel McKay said: Most of them do, not least the one where all solutions need to be submitted by email. Also, you appear to be using "freedom" in quite a different sense to how it is outlined in the primer provided, which suggests the rules weren't the only thing that you didn't read Oh well, buggered by the small print; although it doesn't state that the email couldn't be post hoc. I answered the question asked, I'm not required to read a PDF, by the law of this site... 🙄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sensei Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 10 minutes ago, Daniel McKay said: Most of them do, not least the one where all solutions need to be submitted by email. Also, you appear to be using "freedom" in quite a different sense to how it is outlined in the primer provided, which suggests the rules weren't the only thing that you didn't read Nobody read. 0 downloads... Which is expectable on our science forum.. as people here are slightly above average.. 4 minutes ago, dimreepr said: I answered the question asked, I'm not required to read a PDF, by the law of this site... 🙄 It's not a PDF. Worse. Some Windows/Microsoft crap.. https://www.google.com/search?q=docx+exploit If somebody does not update system, it is pretty fresh exploit from 2021, hacker can use this to hack in Windows using docx format: https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/50577 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel McKay Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 Okay, all cheek aside, yes, you're very welcome to send an email at any time. However, since "freedom" can refer to a lot of things, and in this context refers to quite a specific thing, then not reading the primer is going to make it difficult to understand what question is being asked. Also, as much as I would like to hang out and discuss philosophy, I did post this challenge to a few places and sent it to quite a few philosophy departments besides, so there is a real chance I won't check back here very often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 10 hours ago, Daniel McKay said: Whether a solution is successful will be determined exclusively by me and my decision is final. I have to admit that's a tricky one to argue against, but then I didn't expect to get paid by that Nigerian prince either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel McKay Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 2 minutes ago, Sensei said: It's not a PDF. Worse. Some Windows/Microsoft crap.. https://www.google.com/search?q=docx+exploit If somebody does not update system, it is pretty fresh exploit from 2021, hacker can use this to hack in Windows using docx format: https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/50577 If you would prefer it as a PDF for security reasons, I'm happy to provide. Freedom consequentialism primer.pdf 2 minutes ago, dimreepr said: I have to admit that's a tricky one to argue against, but then I didn't expect to get paid by that Nigerian prince either... Much lower chance of me asking for your bank details though. Or for a "processing fee" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sensei Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 1 minute ago, Daniel McKay said: If you would prefer it as a PDF for security reasons, I'm happy to provide. I guess everyone would prefer to, copy and paste of the text of this document instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 6 minutes ago, Sensei said: Nobody read. 0 downloads... Which is expectable on our science forum.. as people here are slightly above average.. It's not a PDF. Worse. Some Windows/Microsoft crap.. https://www.google.com/search?q=docx+exploit If somebody does not update system, it is pretty fresh exploit from 2021, hacker can use this to hack in Windows using docx format: https://www.exploit-db.com/docs/50577 Thanks, it's a good job that I didn't need the money... 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel McKay Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 Sure, can do: Introduction Some years ago, I set out to create/discover the correct normative theory and get at the truth of morality. In this, I would say I was partially successful. I wrote a theory called freedom consequentialism, and it has numerous advantages over other moral theories. It applies to all moral agents, rather than only those capable of experiencing certain emotions; it protects persons’ ability to pursue different ends, rather than asserting that everyone is pursuing the same end even if they do not know it; it could be used as a value system to solve the AI control problem with far less risk of tyranny or perverse instantiation than existing moral theories; and it avoids many of the classic objections to consequentialist theories, including the demandingness objection. However, there is a significant problem at the core of freedom consequentialism: the problem of how to weigh freedom. This is the problem I am hoping you can solve or help to solve, and this is why I am asking for your help in the first place. What follows is a description of freedom consequentialism and the core problem of weighing freedom over different things. A sort of freedom consequentialism primer, as it were. The goal here is to bring you up to speed on the theory and the core problem sufficiently for you to be able to contribute meaningfully to its resolution. I have attempted to be as brief as possible while still explaining the core features of the theory and the state of the problem as it stands. Because of this, some of my reasoning is not explained as fully as it might be in other circumstances. Most of the material here is also available in my doctoral thesis, In Defence of Freedom Consequentialism, and my paper, Solving Satisficing Consequentialism. If you want more detail, you can find it in these older works. I have left links in footnotes[1]. However, there are cases where what I wrote in these earlier works is incorrect or incomplete. When this is the case, I have endeavoured to explain the discrepancy in a footnote. I have also assumed a reasonable amount of knowledge about philosophy since this is being sent to philosophers. Non-philosophers are certainly welcome to read this and try to solve the problem of weighing freedom, but they may find this primer a bit esoteric at times. So, without further ado, let us begin. Assumptions and theory-selection criteria First, I think it is worth being explicit about the assumptions I am making and the theory-selection criteria I think are important to determining which moral theories are most persuasive. It always bothered me that moral theories would treat their core assumptions as if they were obviously the case. For example, the assumption that a great many moral theories make that making an exception of yourself is irrational. Whether or not you agree with this assumption, it would be better to be explicit about making it from the off. So, here are both the assumptions that I am making and the specific theory-selection criteria that I think are relevant to selecting moral theories. First and most obviously, I wanted this theory to be true. I was aiming at accurately describing the truth of morality. This may not seem worth mentioning, but it is worth noting since it means that any potential solutions to the problem discussed later should not be internally inconsistent or require us to assume the truth of any propositions that are false. This assumption also implies that either moral realism or moral error theory is correct, so solutions rooted in subjectivism or relativism will not be considered. On a related note, I have also assumed that morality is the way that moral agents ought to be or act, where “ought” is understood in an objective and universal way. This brings me to my next two theory-selection criteria: that freedom consequentialism ought to be universal and objective. The principles it describes should apply at all times and in all places, across all possible worlds, regardless of culture or personal views. I also assumed that morality is about how moral agents act, and I take moral agents to be free, rational agents. By “agent” I mean a conscious entity capable of taking some action[2]. By “free, rational agent” I mean agents that possess free will and the capacity for rationality. Because of this, the next of my theory-selection criteria is that freedom consequentialism should apply to all free, rational agents[3]. Another assumption that I have made is that ought implies can. I take it to be true that in order for it to be the case that some agent ought to do something, it must be the case that they are able to do that thing. For this reason, freedom consequentialism must not require agents to do things that it is impossible for them to do. Further, I assumed that morality is intended to be action-guiding. Because of this, freedom consequentialism should be able to provide moral guidance in specific circumstances. This criterion is particularly relevant to the core problem that you are (presumably) attempting to solve. One of the more controversial assumptions I am making is that consequentialism is the correct way to approach morality. While I am always happy to discuss consequentialism, solutions to the problem under discussion that require giving up consequentialism are unlikely to be seriously considered. These seven theory-selection criteria are the most important ones used in the creation of freedom consequentialism. However, there are two more that are worth mentioning as well. First, in line with Occam’s Razor, I assumed that a theory that postulates more entities is generally, all else being equal, worse than one that postulates fewer. Obviously, there are some issues with this idea, but as a general principle, it works well enough in most circumstances. Because of this, simplicity has been sought when possible. Finally, I have attempted to ensure freedom consequentialism is at least somewhat in line with commonly held moral intuitions. I am not assuming that moral intuitions are a good guide to truth and, in fact, I think they are largely unreliable. However, we must work with what we have, and there are at least some pragmatic benefits to aligning with commonly held moral intuitions. So, any proposed solutions should aim to be at least somewhat in line with our moral intuitions, but a reasonable amount of divergence from these intuitions is acceptable. To summarize, these theory-selection criteria are: 1. Likelihood of truth (including internal consistency and not relying on propositions that we have good reason to believe are false) 2. Universality 3. Objectivity 4. Applicability to all free, rational agents 5. Action-guidingness 6. Achievableness (possible to live up to) 7. Consequentialism 8. Simplicity (in the sense of not postulating entities beyond necessity) 9. Extent to which the theory is in line with commonly held moral intuitions As well as being in line with freedom consequentialism generally, any solution proposed should fit these criteria. Measure of value The “measure of value” is the term I use for the thing that a consequentialist theory treats as valuable. So, for classical utilitarianism, the measure(s) of value would be happiness and lack of unhappiness. For freedom consequentialism, the measure of value is, unsurprisingly, freedom. However, since “freedom” can mean a lot of different things, I should explain what I mean by it here. When I use the word “freedom” in this context, I mean the ability of free, rational agents to understand and make the choices that belong to them. The reason this is used as the measure of value for freedom consequentialism is that it allows the theory to apply to and take account of every possible moral agent (freedom consequentialism can also take account of moral patients such as infants, as discussed in chapter five of In Defence of Freedom Consequentialism[4]). Many normative theories are not capable of this. To use the above example of classical utilitarianism, any free, rational agent that does not experience happiness or unhappiness is presumably not morally relevant according to the classical utilitarian. There might well be an entire planet, or many planets, of free, rational agents that cannot experience these emotions, and classical utilitarianism seems to write the inhabitants of these possible planets off as not morally relevant. However, free, rational agents by definition have free will, so can freely make choices. Rationality can also be understood as the ability to understand one’s own choices and the reasons for making one over another, so a free, rational agent also has the capacity to understand their choices. Because of this, the ability to understand and make choices is something that is shared by all free, rational agents, by all moral agents, in all possible worlds[5]. So, by using this as the measure of value, freedom consequentialism can take account of all moral agents in all possible worlds. However, the measure of value here is not merely the ability to understand and make choices. It is specifically the ability to understand and make choices that belong to the person in question. This is for a few reasons, such as irresolvable conflict occurring if everyone has an equal claim to all choices. For example, if your choice to keep your car in your driveway were morally equivalent to my choice to steal your car, we would quickly have an irresolvable conflict. This would also heavily conflict with moral intuitions. So, the kind of freedom that freedom consequentialism is concerned with is specifically freedom over those choices that belong to the person in question. The choices that belong to a person, or the choices a person has a “right” to make if you prefer, are the ones over those things that they own, specifically their mind, body, and property. Owning one’s own mind and body is fairly easy to establish because this is essentially just self-ownership, especially in the case of the mind. Owning property is a bit harder to establish, and it is a bit of an odd concept generally, but certainly if we can own property, then it is something we ought to have freedom over, so we will assume that we can own property and include it on the list of things we can have freedom over. So, freedom consequentialism’s measure of value is the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices, specifically those choices regarding what to do with their mind, body, and property. It is generally best to think of this kind of freedom as to be protected rather than promoted. So long as a person is able to understand and make their own choices, they have their freedom. It is only the freedom over things that already belong to a person that matters, so getting more stuff over which a person can have freedom is not morally valuable. Things are bad, on this measure of value, when they prevent a person from being able to understand and make their own choices. Doing good—which I will discuss more in the following section—using this measure of value, is just a matter of preventing or reducing bad things from happening. This will be important in the next section, as it allows freedom consequentialism to avoid the demandingness objection. It is also worth noting that there is sometimes a distinction drawn between positive and negative freedom, where positive freedom is freedom to do, have, or be something, whereas negative freedom is freedom from some external constraint. I do not think this distinction is particularly helpful, and personally prefer thinking in terms of Gerald MacCallum’s triadic relationship of freedom, but I will say that the freedom being used as the measure of value here can certainly be limited/violated/reduced in a morally relevant way by not just the actions of other people but also by many other things. If a person’s choice to continue living, which is theirs to make as a choice about one’s own mind and body, is taken away from them as a result of murder, that is a morally bad thing. However, it is morally bad in the same way and for the same reasons for that choice to be taken away from that person due to a tiger, or a virus, or simply ignorance (for example, the person in question believes they are able to fly and jumps off a building because of that belief, but they cannot, and they fall to their death). What is important is that the person in question is able to understand the choice they are making such that they are able to apply their rationality to it[6], and are able to make it for themselves. It is also worth noting that coercion can take someone’s choice away from them in a morally relevant way if the threat they are being coerced with would itself take their choice away. The classic example of this is robbing someone at gunpoint. The person’s choice to keep their money is being taken away from them by force in that they are presented with a choice to lose their money or lose their life. This coercion would still be morally bad in the same way if the gun in question was fake (so long as the person being threatened does not know this), as the person is still giving up their money under threat of losing their life, even if that threat turns out to be hollow. Determining the right thing to do While I have now explained the measure of value that freedom consequentialism uses, that does not tell us how we ought to act. We still need to know how to determine the right thing to do. In this, freedom consequentialism is a kind of satisficing consequentialism[7], but one that avoids the objections that Ben Bradley raises against existing forms of satisficing consequentialism as well as the demandingness objection. This form of satisficing consequentialism, which I call counterfactual agent-central satisficing consequentialism, or CASC, is somewhat complicated, but I will attempt to explain it as clearly as possible. So, when determining how we ought to act, first we must determine which of our potential actions are good, bad, or neutral. The way we do this is by comparing two scenarios to determine whether your actions were better than if you were not “in play” as a moral agent. Scenario one: You perform the action. Scenario two: You have a mental blank, as if you had briefly stopped existing as a moral agent, rather than perform that specific action[8]. An action is bad if scenario one has worse consequences than scenario two. An action is good if scenario one has better consequences than scenario two. And it is good to the extent that it either causes no bad consequences (“causes” in the sense that they do not happen in scenario two) or the good consequences it produces could not have occurred without producing at least that much bad[9]. All other actions are morally neutral[10]. This method allows us to demarcate good, bad, and neutral actions from one another, which then allows us to determine which actions are permissible, impermissible, obligatory, and supererogatory. To start with, performing bad actions is generally impermissible. There are some exceptions, and discussions to be had on how exactly we should think about small risks to others or the moral cost of just living but, suffice to say, one should generally not perform bad actions if one has the option. Of course, one may find themselves in a situation where only bad actions are available. In situations like this, one should choose the least bad option. So, in situations where a person can only perform bad actions, that person is required to perform the best available action(s). All non-optimal actions in situations like this are impermissible, and the optimal action (or performing one of the optimal actions) is obligatory. In short, when all options are bad, the agent must act in order to maximize value[11]. When one has performed a bad action in the past, they ought to rectify that action to the extent that they can. If it is possible to alleviate the violations of freedom one caused in the past, one has a moral obligation to do so as long as this causes no other bad consequences or those consequences are outweighed by the good produced and that good could not be produced without producing at least that much bad. A person has this moral obligation because the world is worse off due to their existence as a moral agent and they are morally responsible for this state of affairs[12]. Determining which good or neutral actions are “good enough” to be permissible and when actions are obligatory rather than supererogatory is more difficult. Just because an action is “good” in the sense described above does not mean it is morally permissible to perform that action, as it may be obligatory to perform a better one. What we need to determine is the minimum amount of good an agent needs to do. To do this, we use three factors. The first is the amount of good that needs doing, by which I mean the amount of good that is required before the world is in such a state that no one has any moral obligation to improve it. This is an area where the freedom that freedom consequentialism aims to protect has the advantage over other measures of value, in that there is a theoretical world in which no one has any moral obligations to improve the state of that world. In the case of, for example, happiness, there is no clear limit on how much happiness we could create, so the amount of good that needs doing is essentially infinite. Only theories with finite amounts of good that need doing can really use CASC, which in the consequentialist landscape amounts to freedom consequentialism and perhaps negative utilitarianism. The next factor we need to consider when determining an agent’s minimum goodness threshold is their own ability to do good. Because of the connection between ability to do good and obligation to do good, in that the latter cannot exist without the former if we assume that ought implies can, we can reason that the amount of good a person is obligated to do is dependent upon the amount of good they are capable of doing. Consequentialist theories, at least consequentialist theories that make demands, assume or directly claim that the amount of good one is morally obligated to bring about is related to that person’s ability to bring about good. For example, according to classical utilitarianism, the amount of good a person is obligated to bring about is the maximum that person is able to bring about. This factor will help us to “parcel out” the amount of good that is required of each person, as it will be a function of how much good is required in total and their particular ability to bring about good. The third and final factor in this process is the uniqueness of a person’s position to bring about some particular good. It seems reasonable to assume that those who are in a unique position to do some particular good have a greater obligation to bring about that good, all else being equal, than those in a relatively common position to do a particular good, as it seems that those in a relatively common position to do a particular good share in that responsibility and thereby lessen their portion of it. For example, it seems intuitively obvious that if a person comes across a man dying in the street, they have the training necessary to save him, and no one else is around to assist, then they have a greater obligation to do so than they do to donate the amount of money required to save a person on the other side of the world. So, when determining how much good one is obligated to do, one needs to consider how much good needs doing, one’s ability to do good, and how unique one’s position to do that good is (or how many people are in a similar position to do that good). We can use these three factors like X, Y, and Z coordinates to locate the minimum required threshold of good a person is obligated to do. Performing at least that much good and remedying past wrong actions to the extent that you can, so long as this does not create any bad consequences (or any bad consequences are outweighed by the good produced and that good could not be produced without at least that much bad), is obligatory; performing more is supererogatory; performing bad actions (so long as good or neutral actions are available) or failing to perform the minimum required amount of good is impermissible; and performing neutral actions (so long as the minimum goodness threshold is met) is permissible. CASC, as I have just described it, does not fall prey to the demandingness objection because it rarely requires people to maximize the good. It also does not allow for what Ben Bradley calls the “gratuitous prevention of goodness” because it does not allow people to perform supposedly good actions that actively prevent more good from occurring, as Bradley is concerned satisficing consequentialism would allow for. It is through this method that freedom consequentialism determines the right thing for agents to do in specific circumstances. The problem in question So, hopefully you now have a reasonable understanding of freedom consequentialism. You know that it is a form of satisficing consequentialism that treats the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices as the measure of consequences’ moral value. Which brings me to the core problem: that of weighing freedom. Freedom consequentialism includes freedom over multiple things, our minds, bodies, and property, but it is not clear how much weight we should give each of those things in our moral decision-making. When faced with a decision between funding a drug that saves one life every ten years and a drug that restores eyesight to five blind people within the same timeframe, how do we know which to fund? The obvious answer is “whichever protects the most freedom,” but how do we know which that is? We might reason that the freedom over one’s eyes is less important than the freedom to live, but the question is how much less important. Five times? A hundred times? A thousand? Presumably, there is a number, and it seems unlikely that it would be morally correct to blind the world to save one life, but it is not clear what that number is. This is further complicated when we take into account that in many cases that violate someone’s freedom, there are also issues of duration and intensity to consider. For example, imprisoning someone for a year is much worse than imprisoning them for a day, burning someone’s house to the ground is worse than smashing their window. So this is the problem: how do we determine the value of freedom over different things? It could be suggested that the freedom over different things is incommensurable in the sense of not being able to be weighed against each other at all, but it seems like that is not the case. After all, it is all the same thing: the ability of free, rational agents to understand and make their own choices. So it seems that this should be solvable. I have considered several possible solutions, of which one seems to be clearly the best, but I will detail each so that you know what ground has already been trod. Perhaps the most obvious method for determining what to do in cases where we must weigh freedom over one thing against freedom over another is to simply claim that each choice is worth the same as each other choice. We could say that for each choice a person ought to be able to make that they are denied, we can count that as one unit of value. Then, we could determine what the right thing to do is by the number of choices a person ought to have that have been denied them. I call this the Choice Counting Method (CCM). There are some significant problems with CCM. One is that it is not clear how to “count” choices, as it is not clear what qualifies as “one choice.” This may make it hard to be precise enough to be action-guiding. Also there is the issue of duration and intensity, which both complicate the idea of counting choices further. Another problem is that it seems, at least intuitively, that the freedom to make some choices is more important than others. It would be deeply counterintuitive to say that someone’s freedom over their arm is of equal importance to their freedom over their cheese grater. Another possible solution to this problem is to rank freedom over different things by objective importance. Then, when there is a choice to be made between violating freedom over two different things, we can say that one ought to breach the less important one. I call this position the Objective Order Method (OOM). OOM has the advantage of resolving dilemmas relatively easily. Once one has determined the objective order of importance of different freedoms, one can easily determine which freedoms one should choose to protect at the cost of which others in would-be moral dilemmas. Because freedom consequentialism aims to be objective and universal, it seems that it should rank freedom over different things in an objective manner. For this reason, OOM seems to be an attractive position. However, there is a significant problem with OOM. It is not clear how we would determine the objective order of importance of different things that a person ought to have freedom over. All we could do is guess at a method to do so. Worse, it is not clear that even were we to stumble upon the correct method, we would recognize it. Another problem with OOM is that even if we were to know the order of importance of all the different things we should have freedom over, that would not necessarily tell us how much of one is worth how much of another. If, for example, we knew that freedom over whether we live or not is more important than freedom over whether we keep our eyesight, we could not tell from that how many persons’ eyesight are worth one person’s life. An objective order, even if we could determine one, is not enough. What we need is a method of weighing freedom over these different things. A method that is something of a hybrid of these two approaches is the Freedom Subsumption Method (FSM). This method suggests that freedom over some things subsumes freedom over other, less important things. For example, the freedom to live might be said to subsume all other choices a person ought to have freedom over. If this is the case, then these lesser choices could be thought of as a portion of these greater choices, and be weighed by reference to how big of a portion they are. One problem with FSM is that there appear to be plenty of choices that are more important than others without subsuming them in any way. For example, the choice to refuse sexual consent appears to be much more important than the choice to not have your cutlery stolen, but the one does not subsume the other. We could potentially avoid that problem by reference to some larger choice that subsumes them both, such as the choice to continue living, but this may cause more problems than it solves. First, it is not clear how great a “proportion” of the choice to continue living any individual choice can be. The choice to continue living seems to subsume almost infinitely many other choices and, while it seems some of them are obviously more important than others, it is not clear that those choices necessarily make up a greater proportion of the choice to continue living. This has the potential to become unacceptably subjective and also faces the issue of how we determine what proportion of one choice another choice is with enough specificity for FSM to be action-guiding. There is also the possibility of using our moral intuitions to guide our weighing of the freedom over different things. We could use these intuitions to determine the importance of different freedoms. In circumstances where we need to choose between breaching one kind of freedom or another, we could fall back on what is best supported by commonly held moral intuitions. I call this method the Intuitive Order Method (IOM). However, IOM has significant problems. The most obvious of these is that we do not have good reason to think our moral intuitions are a good guide to the truth, so we do not have good reason to rely on them. Which brings me to the method that I think is most promising, that of determining the relative importance of freedom over different things by reference to a preferred order of wrongs[13]. That is, we could rank freedom over different things by the order in which the individual in question would choose to have that freedom violated. For example, we can imagine that one person would prefer to be imprisoned for a few days than to receive a beating, while another person would prefer the opposite. In the case of the former person, that person’s freedom to not be beaten would be more important than their freedom to not be imprisoned for a few days. In the case of the latter person, the reverse would be true. I call this the Preferential Order Method (POM). POM has the advantage of determining the value of freedom to make different choices by reference to the choice of the individual which, given freedom consequentialism is all about the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices, seems appropriate. One might object that POM introduces an additional measure of value, that of preferences, and so does not align with the goal of simplicity, but this is not the case. Preferences need not be valuable in order to use them to rank the order of freedom over different things. Rather, preferences are being used to determine which of the things a person should have freedom over they value the most. As the morally relevant kind of freedom here is the ability of persons to understand and make the choices that belong to them, persons ought to be able to choose which of their freedoms are breached. POM allows persons to rank their own freedoms in order of value, and uses their preferences as a way of determining the order they are in. So, as it allows persons to choose the order of importance of their own freedoms, POM seems like an attractive method[14]. POM even allows us to resolve some conflicts between different groups[15], because we can use preference for a chance of something occurring as a proxy for preference for a percentage of that thing. If we use the example of funding a drug that saves one life every ten years or a drug that restores five people’s eyesight during the same period, we could simply ask all those involved whether they would accept a 20% chance of death to restore their eyesight (this can be asked hypothetically of the person who is not blind). If everyone involved agrees that restoring one’s eyesight is worth a 20% risk of death, but not a 21% risk of death, then we can treat one life as equivalent to five people’s eyesight for that group. If they would all only accept a 10% risk of death to restore their eyesight, then we can treat one life as equivalent to ten people’s eyesight for that group. But, and it is a rather large but, this does not tell us what to do when preferences conflict. If, for example, the people who want their eyesight restored and the people who want their lives saved do not agree on what chance of death it is worth risking to restore one’s eyesight, then POM does not give us a way of determining what we should do. Remember that the preferences themselves are not important, so we cannot simply determine this by majority. The strength of one person’s preferences, or indeed many persons’ preferences, is not relevant to the moral importance of the freedom to make a specific choice that belongs to a different person. Also, it is persons’ actual choices that matter, not what their choices might be if they were smarter or considered the issue more carefully, so referring to ideal preferences does not help either. We simply do not have a way to resolve cases where preferences conflict regarding which choices we ought to have freedom over are most important. So, I think POM is the way forward to resolving the problem of weighing freedom over different things, but I do not have a good answer to how to resolve conflicting preferences within the context of freedom consequentialism. Hopefully, someone reading this is able to solve this last piece of the problem where I have failed (or else is able to find some other method that works even better). I think freedom consequentialism is the best normative theory we have available, the closest we have to a representation of moral truth. It has the potential to resolve all moral dilemmas and provide the ideal value system to solve the AI control problem. However, until this problem is solved, it is a tiger without teeth, and not a fully functional, action-guiding normative theory. So please, help me. [1] In defence of freedom consequentialism is archived and available through the University of Canterbury. Link: https://research.ebsco.com/c/g6lqvo/search/details/oaawob6lvn?q=freedom%20consequentialism Solving satisficing consequentialism is published in Philosophia. Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-021-00382-y [2] Including actions that are wholly mental. [3] In In Defence of Freedom Consequentialism, I also included the criterion that the theory should apply to only free, rational agents. I am omitting that here as it is likely to lead people to think I mean that moral patients cannot exist, which is not what I intend to claim at all. In the interest of stating my assumptions though, I am assuming that things that are not moral agents are not subject to moral demands. [4] This is done by using consciousness as the basis for personal identity and granting moral considerability to infants on the basis that they are the same individuals who will be free, rational agents in the future. This could have all been covered in a footnote, but I am aware that not everyone reads them, and I think it is worth mentioning that freedom consequentialism does not treat small children as morally irrelevant. [5] It might be objected that freedom consequentialism cannot take account of entities incapable of action but, since “capable of acting” includes actions that are wholly mental, an entity would only count as incapable of action if it could not perform even a voluntary mental action, in which case taking account of it morally seems strange. [6] This is intentionally quite a low bar to set for understanding, and means that people need not be well-informed in order to be free. They only need to understand what choices they are making and what it means to make those choices, such that they are able to apply their rationality to them. [7] In In Defence of Freedom Consequentialism I resisted using the term “satisficing consequentialism,” largely because I wanted to separate freedom consequentialism from existing types of satisficing consequentialism. In Solving Satisficing Consequentialism I articulate the method of determining what actions are permissible, impermissible, obligatory, and supererogatory more clearly and properly refer to this as a form of satisficing consequentialism. [8] This can either be a mental blank that only applies to whether you perform the action in question or a complete mental blank where you are entirely not a moral agent until after you would have performed that action. If the latter, then an additional criterion is required in determining the goodness, badness, or neutrality of the action in question. Specifically, that the action is bad if: it causes a net bad consequence that would not have occurred if you continued being a moral agent, stipulating that your stopping being a moral agent would cause no bad consequences that would not have occurred if you continued to be a moral agent. [9]“Good to the extent that” introduces the concept of goodness as a matter of degree, but this is not relevant to the recommendation of CASC and is barely relevant to the evaluation of actions by CASC. It is just a matter of calling some actions that produce net good consequences but do so imperfectly in a way that produces some unnecessary bad consequences somewhat good, rather than neutral. [10] This method of defining good, bad, and neutral actions is a significant departure from what I have written previously. In the past, I used the counterfactual of the agent not existing at all, rather than simply not existing mentally. This idea of using not existing mentally as the relevant counterfactual was developed after a lot of discussion with Doug Campbell, and it seems like it avoids some weird features of the original counterfactuals. The original version had already undergone a lot of revisions to avoid various problems, but I think this version avoids those problems and also some stranger ones, like how scientists might react to a person suddenly and temporarily ceasing to exist. In both cases, the core idea is to consider what the world would be like if the agent in question were not “in play” as a moral agent, but that agent briefly ceasing to be a moral agent appears to be a cleaner way of doing this than the agent briefly ceasing to exist entirely. [11] This sort of scenario is much less likely to occur using the new method of defining actions as good, bad, or neutral than it was using the old, so this point may only be relevant in very strange, niche circumstances. [12] This is another addition from previous work. Originally, I compared actions to the counterfactual of the agent never having existed as well, but this caused problems, such as considering seemingly good actions to be bad because of past events, even if those events were not the fault of the actor. So that was cut in favour of an obligation to right past wrongs, which seems a more sensible approach. [13] I am not suggesting anyone make an actual list, as that list would presumably be infinite and in constant flux. Rather, we would compare different options by reference to those affected’s preferences. [14] It is worth noting here that POM is not preference utilitarianism. The preferences of those involved are not themselves morally important. They are only used to order the importance of freedom over choices that belong to the persons in question. For example, if the whole world would prefer that a great artist did not set fire to a work they had just painted (and owned), that would not count against them burning it at all, as the choice would belong to that person alone. [15] This is different from what I said in In Defence of Freedom Consequentialism because of further work I have done on this since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 11 minutes ago, Daniel McKay said: Also, as much as I would like to hang out and discuss philosophy Well, that's ten year's of wasted thought, good luck in the next ten... 🤒 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sensei Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 7 minutes ago, dimreepr said: Thanks, it's a good job that I didn't need the money... 😉 Send it to hungry Nigerian orphans.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted July 19 Share Posted July 19 6 minutes ago, Daniel McKay said: Some years ago, I set out to create/discover the correct normative theory That's your first problem, assuming it's solvable... If your premise is wrong at the start, I don't need to read the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: Hi Daniel, I'm working my way through and came across this; On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: This assumption also implies that either moral realism or moral error theory is correct, so solutions rooted in subjectivism or relativism will not be considered Now I can understand completely where you are coming from with both subjectivism and most forms of relativism. However, my approach would be arguing for moral realism through objectively derived context relativism. Which is termed as new relativism in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: On a related note, I have also assumed that morality is the way that moral agents ought to be or act, where “ought” is understood in an objective and universal way. This brings me to my next two theory-selection criteria: that freedom consequentialism ought to be universal and objective. The principles it describes should apply at all times and in all places, across all possible worlds, regardless of culture or personal views. Rounding back to context relativism, it isn't a theory of what ought to be, it's a theory of what is already the case and is more of a statement on the observable truth of our moral psychology. The ought in context relativism, is that we ought to explicitly figure out the nature of our context dependent value attributions so we can understand how we already view morality and truth, understand contention, confusion and disagreement. Like I said however, I do understand where you are coming from and if I decide to take a crack at your challenge once I've finished the primer, I will. But definitely need to address the rejection of all relativism and I will make a case in a submission for why context relativism should not be a cause for exclusion, based on it's merits as a form of objective moral realism, that adheres not only to moral sentiment but discoveries made about the physical nature of the universe. It also deconstructs why other forms of relativism, like cultural relativism are incorrect, by identifying non-uniformity of moral thought within nearly every given culture. I'll leave it there and maybe you can let me know if there can be an exception for this relativism, as ultimately what really separates moral realism and moral subjectivism when it comes to relativism, is what we are saying things are relative to. I'll probably add more questions as I continue reading btw. Hope you are well and thanks, this has been pretty engaging so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 (edited) On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: So, when determining how we ought to act, first we must determine which of our potential actions are good, bad, or neutral. The way we do this is by comparing two scenarios to determine whether your actions were better than if you were not “in play” as a moral agent. Scenario one: You perform the action. Scenario two: You have a mental blank, as if you had briefly stopped existing as a moral agent, rather than perform that specific action[8]. An action is bad if scenario one has worse consequences than scenario two. An action is good if scenario one has better consequences than scenario two. And it is good to the extent that it either causes no bad consequences (“causes” in the sense that they do not happen in scenario two) or the good consequences it produces could not have occurred without producing at least that much bad[9]. Firstly; scenario two is a lot of language just to say "You do nothing." But there is a problem with freedom consequentialism as laid out in the primer. You've tried to define, good, bad and neutral in terms of "better" and "worse" which are both still value attributions but as yet undefined by freedom consequentialism/You. In short, you've not bridged the is/ought gap because you've not described what good or bad is to start with and your definition was circular. What is better? More good? What is good? Better than bad? Is bad better than worse? Earlier you mentioned moral intuition and later coercion. You didn't relate the two but moral intuition, or intuition more broadly is most likely a psychological phenomena relating to partially recalled memory. It's like a mental calling card for "This is so because it fits with a past experience of mine." And since we can never engage in moral learning from a clean slate, from birth to now, what we were taught about it, informs our intuitions. Stealing feels intuitively wrong to me and you, because that is what we were taught all along. Facts about quantum mechanics feel weird and counterintuitive because we've all spent our lives using our eyeballs observing how matter moves around at our level, all our lives. Literally spooky action at a distance is Einstein having a wtf reaction to quantum entanglement and how an apparent information exchange between two entangled particles can seem to happen faster than the speed of light. Why? Because he'd always observed nothing can break the speed of light. Rounding back to why I related this to coercion; our moral intuitions are essentially coercions by our past experiences and the fallibility of human recall. When I feel intuition, I ask myself what I'm forgetting, then from there I figure out whether or not the original root memory was correct and if it was useful intuition or just bias coming out. On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: First, in line with Occam’s Razor, I assumed that a theory that postulates more entities is generally, all else being equal, worse than one that postulates fewer. Obviously, there are some issues with this idea, but as a general principle, it works well enough in most circumstances. Because of this, simplicity has been sought when possible. On 7/19/2024 at 10:03 AM, Daniel McKay said: First and most obviously, I wanted this theory to be true. Are you making simplicity a criteria for simplicity's sake or are you implying that the truth is not complex? Okay, having now read everything, I'm going to be honest, I won't be entering this competition. It's not because I believe freedom isn't something to value, it is, and context relativism definitely gives limelight to consequentialism but it doesn't drop everything. Context relativism is actually a response really to the rut philosophers find themselves in based on "Moral intuition." This, "there can be only one" mentality. A monopoly on moral thought where everything can only be viewed through one lens or that one moral framework that is supposed to guide and get everyone through everything, morally and physically unscathed and that itself is just not based on reality. There is such a thing as moral ecology and context relativism isn't a normative theory about right and wrong, it's the set of all theories of right and wrong together, in a linguistic toolbelt, designed to help people figure out the rights and wrongs of their own moral thoughts in relation to other living beings doing the same, how to grow, change and adapt and recognize that in some situations, putting any one value, in this case freedom, isn't always going to lead you to good consequences in every situation and may lead to a failure or a tragedy of sorts. I'm a parent so honestly I've had about 1001 thought scenarios of all the things that could go wrong for my kids as they grow up and plenty of those scenarios are possible and for some of them the right choice is me lying about committing a crime and taking a fall for my kids, in the scenarios where they are about to be a victim of a broken justice system. So about 5 years ago, I came to the realization that moral philosophers and ethicists, when you ignore all the arguing and the tribalism and just, listen, without assuming, you realize that these old squabbling dead and living philosophers are discovering more and more about all the different ways humans think about right and wrong and I've yet to meet a single person who can really be called just a utilitarian, consequentialist, deontologist or even a pragmatist. A lot of philosophers are arguing about the right one or most true one and the answer is that it will always be context dependent. Our planet, our world, it's a context. On this planet, if I dropped you from a cliff you might die, if I drop you from a cliff on a different celestial body, with far weaker gravity, you might just get to experience what it would be like to be a feather. And yes, I realize the irony in that I still came up with a paradigm where I can say everyone is really a contextualist, so there is almost a "There can be only one" type vibe, the difference is that you are arguing for which is the best colour on the human moral tapestry, while I'm calling the tapestry a tapestry and really just avoiding the debate altogether because what we are looking at just wouldn't be the same without the majority of all the colours present (except for the parasitic one, a topic for another day. Freedom consequentialism is true... Until it's not. It is true that some people will think about right and wrong in these terms, weighing up freedom is a real phenomenon but... It's just not a complete normative theory because it doesn't, like many others, explain why all these disagreements exist in the first place, nor does it acknowledge the existence of moral situations and problems where different outcomes wouldn't relate to freedom threats. Contextualism does. Contextualism also acknowledges the inherent complexity of existence and while having epistemic tools to try and make things easier, it never ever makes them simple. There are only two simple facts; Nothing is ever simple and there are two simple facts.... That's it. Phew, sorry if I sounded overly polemical toward the end there, was just getting into the flow of these kinds of debates again. Keep it coming! Oh, last thing, when we care about truth, it's best to offer a prize for changing your mind too, else we aren't acknowledging the truth that we can always be mistaken because we are all fallible. My prize can just be more conversation though, keep your money. Seriously why are you offering a prize of 10k for this? Edited August 2 by MSC Correction Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 9 hours ago, MSC said: Firstly; scenario two is a lot of language just to say "You do nothing." But there is a problem with freedom consequentialism as laid out in the primer. You've tried to define, good, bad and neutral in terms of "better" and "worse" which are both still value attributions but as yet undefined by freedom consequentialism/You. In short, you've not bridged the is/ought gap because you've not described what good or bad is to start with and your definition was circular. What is better? More good? What is good? Better than bad? Is bad better than worse? Earlier you mentioned moral intuition and later coercion. You didn't relate the two but moral intuition, or intuition more broadly is most likely a psychological phenomena relating to partially recalled memory. It's like a mental calling card for "This is so because it fits with a past experience of mine." And since we can never engage in moral learning from a clean slate, from birth to now, what we were taught about it, informs our intuitions. Stealing feels intuitively wrong to me and you, because that is what we were taught all along. Facts about quantum mechanics feel weird and counterintuitive because we've all spent our lives using our eyeballs observing how matter moves around at our level, all our lives. Literally spooky action at a distance is Einstein having a wtf reaction to quantum entanglement and how an apparent information exchange between two entangled particles can seem to happen faster than the speed of light. Why? Because he'd always observed nothing can break the speed of light. Rounding back to why I related this to coercion; our moral intuitions are essentially coercions by our past experiences and the fallibility of human recall. When I feel intuition, I ask myself what I'm forgetting, then from there I figure out whether or not the original root memory was correct and if it was useful intuition or just bias coming out. Are you making simplicity a criteria for simplicity's sake or are you implying that the truth is not complex? Okay, having now read everything, I'm going to be honest, I won't be entering this competition. It's not because I believe freedom isn't something to value, it is, and context relativism definitely gives limelight to consequentialism but it doesn't drop everything. Context relativism is actually a response really to the rut philosophers find themselves in based on "Moral intuition." This, "there can be only one" mentality. A monopoly on moral thought where everything can only be viewed through one lens or that one moral framework that is supposed to guide and get everyone through everything, morally and physically unscathed and that itself is just not based on reality. There is such a thing as moral ecology and context relativism isn't a normative theory about right and wrong, it's the set of all theories of right and wrong together, in a linguistic toolbelt, designed to help people figure out the rights and wrongs of their own moral thoughts in relation to other living beings doing the same, how to grow, change and adapt and recognize that in some situations, putting any one value, in this case freedom, isn't always going to lead you to good consequences in every situation and may lead to a failure or a tragedy of sorts. I'm a parent so honestly I've had about 1001 thought scenarios of all the things that could go wrong for my kids as they grow up and plenty of those scenarios are possible and for some of them the right choice is me lying about committing a crime and taking a fall for my kids, in the scenarios where they are about to be a victim of a broken justice system. So about 5 years ago, I came to the realization that moral philosophers and ethicists, when you ignore all the arguing and the tribalism and just, listen, without assuming, you realize that these old squabbling dead and living philosophers are discovering more and more about all the different ways humans think about right and wrong and I've yet to meet a single person who can really be called just a utilitarian, consequentialist, deontologist or even a pragmatist. A lot of philosophers are arguing about the right one or most true one and the answer is that it will always be context dependent. Our planet, our world, it's a context. On this planet, if I dropped you from a cliff you might die, if I drop you from a cliff on a different celestial body, with far weaker gravity, you might just get to experience what it would be like to be a feather. And yes, I realize the irony in that I still came up with a paradigm where I can say everyone is really a contextualist, so there is almost a "There can be only one" type vibe, the difference is that you are arguing for which is the best colour on the human moral tapestry, while I'm calling the tapestry a tapestry and really just avoiding the debate altogether because what we are looking at just wouldn't be the same without the majority of all the colours present (except for the parasitic one, a topic for another day. Freedom consequentialism is true... Until it's not. It is true that some people will think about right and wrong in these terms, weighing up freedom is a real phenomenon but... It's just not a complete normative theory because it doesn't, like many others, explain why all these disagreements exist in the first place, nor does it acknowledge the existence of moral situations and problems where different outcomes wouldn't relate to freedom threats. Contextualism does. Contextualism also acknowledges the inherent complexity of existence and while having epistemic tools to try and make things easier, it never ever makes them simple. There are only two simple facts; Nothing is ever simple and there are two simple facts.... That's it. Phew, sorry if I sounded overly polemical toward the end there, was just getting into the flow of these kinds of debates again. Keep it coming! Oh, last thing, when we care about truth, it's best to offer a prize for changing your mind too, else we aren't acknowledging the truth that we can always be mistaken because we are all fallible. My prize can just be more conversation though, keep your money. Seriously why are you offering a prize of 10k for this? Firstly, he isn't going to reply. But you've put a lot words into your effort and I've got a short attention span; so if you want an answer, would you be so kind as to summarise your main point, and we'll go from there. 🙂 -1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 2 hours ago, dimreepr said: Firstly, he isn't going to reply. But you've put a lot words into your effort and I've got a short attention span; so if you want an answer, would you be so kind as to summarise your main point, and we'll go from there. 🙂 You having a short attention span, explains a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 1 minute ago, MSC said: You having a short attention span, explains a lot. It certainly gives you an excuse to not answer my question... 🙄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 2 Share Posted August 2 59 minutes ago, dimreepr said: It certainly gives you an excuse to not answer my question... 🙄 I'm not helping you duck out on reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 22 hours ago, MSC said: I'm not helping you duck out on reading. Why not? All of your word's were a critique of the op, which I did in my first reply with many less word's. I was wondering if you had something for us to discuss. Bc I read very slowly and have a limited time to indulge in the practise, I thought it was a reasonable request; but if you've got nothing to add to my 1st post, then I'm glad I didn't waste my time, reading all those unnecessary word's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 (edited) 12 hours ago, dimreepr said: Why not? All of your word's were a critique of the op, which I did in my first reply with many less word's. I was wondering if you had something for us to discuss. Bc I read very slowly and have a limited time to indulge in the practise, I thought it was a reasonable request; but if you've got nothing to add to my 1st post, then I'm glad I didn't waste my time, reading all those unnecessary word's. Oh fine. Very simply, in the primer he used one value attributive word (better) to define another value attŕibutive word (good). In metaethics this is a nono. Your root value word has to be cleary defined. In Humes terms, the dude built a bridge, claiming it could cross an ocean and he made it about 10 miles from shore. The rest is mostly just me egoicly mirroring his own attitude and talking about how my moral normative theory, is his moral theories daddy! The irony being that folk within philosophical acadamia are as tribalistic as everyone else is, their tribes just have more nuance. I'm a cosmopolitan who's never stepped foot in a formal philosophy class so I always find it hilarious that they need clear answers from the outside looking in. They claim to care about truth, then put limits on how the truth is allowed to present itself to them, which gets them further away from what is true and probably makes Wittgenstein and many others turn in their graves that these folk are given the chance to get PHDs. On 7/18/2024 at 11:18 PM, Daniel McKay said: Hello, my name is Daniel McKay and I'm a philosopher from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand I also take issue with how the OP mislead us into thinking he was a member of faculty when really he meant he went to this school at one point. He's not faculty and this is just his little pursuit. Can't figure out his own theory, so he's crowdsourcing it. Edited August 4 by MSC Correction Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimreepr Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 10 hours ago, MSC said: The rest is mostly just me egoicly mirroring his own attitude and talking about how my moral normative theory, is his moral theories daddy! The irony being that folk within philosophical acadamia are as tribalistic as everyone else is, their tribes just have more nuance. I'm a cosmopolitan who's never stepped foot in a formal philosophy class so I always find it hilarious that they need clear answers from the outside looking in. They claim to care about truth, then put limits on how the truth is allowed to present itself to them, which gets them further away from what is true and probably makes Wittgenstein and many others turn in their graves that these folk are given the chance to get PHDs. By tribalistic I'm assuming you mean a philosopher's tendency to cite previous philosophical thinking to bolster their arguments? A PHD is awarded to those that extend our knowledge and understanding, and there's a bloody good chance that Wittgenstein wouldn't have a clue about what a modern philosopher is talking about; but he would understand why you're wrong "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSC Posted August 4 Share Posted August 4 12 minutes ago, dimreepr said: tribalistic I'm assuming you mean a philosopher's tendency to cite previous philosophical thinking to bolster their arguments? No, that part is all well and good, as is citing previous philosophical thinking to critique it. The tribalistic component revolves around school of thought and institutional narrative/politics. Simply put, if I am an advocate for theory X but the school I study at tends to be an advocate for theory Y, the institutional bias may see me suffer academically not for the actual quality of my work, but just for what the work is about. 20 minutes ago, dimreepr said: PHD is awarded to those that extend our knowledge and understanding, and there's a bloody good chance that Wittgenstein wouldn't have a clue about what a modern philosopher is talking about; but he would understand why you're wrong "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein" Or to those that safely agree with their mentors... And there is more than a strong chance that most modern philosophers still don't understand Wittgenstein. Also, how would you gauge whether or not I know of what I speak, when you won't commit to reading for nuance and detail and instead want everything in bite sized slices where some points invariably have to be left out. Do me a favor Dim, stop assuming. If you don't know what I mean by a word, ask. The actual meaning is based on the use of the word, not your interpretation of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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