Circuar reasoning in Ethics

[Peron]

Let's say that we have a simple moral theory that goes like this:

It is wrong to harm people. From there we can build a moral frame work. But my question is why do it be wrong to harm a person? The answer seems to be that it is wrong to harm a person because it harms the person! I would say that this is a problem for ethics. Or I might be misunderstanding something here.

 

(This particular moral theory comes from Shelly Kagen.)

[imatfaal]

Most logical arguments have axioms (if you wanna be swanky axiomata) - they are not proven and deemed to be self-evident. the whole of the argument is subject to the axiom being true - of course, what one person sees as self evident and plainly true in all situations another person might think is simply false or contingent on other facts.

 

You might start an argument on harm with the axiom that "no one likes to be harmed' - and then try to make progress to 'it is wrong to harm other people'.

[Edtharan]

Well, as a social species, if we harmed people just because we felt like it, and if everyone did that, the trust that is needed for the society to remain together would disintegrate. So, the reason it is wrong to harm people is that we are a social species and we want the society we are in to continue.

 

Actually, in ethics, it can generally be brought down to that. Interestingly these axioms can be taken to be true because they are necessary to be social. If you don't agree with the axioms, then you are antisocial (and the question is really in terms of ethics in a society).

 

Another way to approach this is with this question: Is there a species that does kill each other?

 

There are actually many examples of this in life, and in all cases they are not social species. And, with social species they all have the "don't kill each other" rule (at least within that particular group).

 

If you have a look at game theory (specifically the "ultimatum Game" as played in groups), then you mill see there is a mathematical basis for the "no kill" rule, and this is because there is a social group and the desire for that group to continue.

[Mr Skeptic]

Everything that is not a theorem will turn out to be an unprovable axiom. Any attempt to support an axiom can only be circular. This goes not just for ethics but for things like "water is wet" or "this is a rock" -- logically, such things will reduce to an unprovable axiom or definition. Yet somehow we all seem to agree. Odd, eh?

[Edtharan]

Everything that is not a theorem will turn out to be an unprovable axiom.

What about axioms that are true because they must be?

 

Such as: I want a hot chocolate.

 

If I want a hot chocolate, then it is true I want a hot chocolate.

 

If I am using this as the basis of an argument (such as why I need to go buy some milk), then the axiom is true because it must be true (If I don't want a hot chocolate, then I don't desire a hot chocolate).

 

The most famous of these is: I think therefore I am.

 

To be able to think you must exist. Something that does not exist can not have thoughts.

[imatfaal]

What about axioms that are true because they must be?

 

Such as: I want a hot chocolate.

 

If I want a hot chocolate, then it is true I want a hot chocolate.

 

If I am using this as the basis of an argument (such as why I need to go buy some milk), then the axiom is true because it must be true (If I don't want a hot chocolate, then I don't desire a hot chocolate).

 

The most famous of these is: I think therefore I am.

 

To be able to think you must exist. Something that does not exist can not have thoughts.

 

axiomata that are true in and of themselves are as rare as hen's teeth. your statement relies on the axiom that you are a true reporter of your own feelings (what you really want is an excuse to see the cute girl/boy at the corner shop where you buy milk) at the very least. Descartes cogito is almost the arch-example of circularity (or possibly recursivity) that Mr S mentioned above; I believe I am an entity which is able to believe it is an entity because I am able to beleive that I am an entity which is able to believe it is an entity

[Edtharan]

Descartes cogito is almost the arch-example of circularity (or possibly recursivity) that Mr S mentioned above; I believe I am an entity which is able to believe it is an entity because I am able to beleive that I am an entity which is able to believe it is an entity

Yes, if you analyse it as an algorithm, then yes you end up with recursitivty and circular reasoning. But, if you take a step back, then the fact that you are experiencing that means that there must be something real to experience that. Thus, if you are capable of experiencing "thinking" then you can conclude that you are real (of course, this does not prove you are real to anyone else. It only proves that you are real to you).

[imatfaal]

my insistence that it is circular is not necessarily a fault with the idea. to get ab initio reasoning going, you need a basis - which kinda defeats the object of the game. I do not agree with your second sentence at all; the fact that I can experience something has very little connexion with the reality of that event - I know exactly what it is like to grow up in paris and combray in the early years of last century, to be the son of a traitorous jedi knight, or a mad danish prince but then I remember that was a book, a film, and a play. This is flirting with solipsism - but in my mind there is a clear divide between the walk from my house to combray (via Swanns house) and the walk from my house to chigwell (via the fruit farm), and my mind clearly marks one as fictional and the other as real; however I would really struggle to find a way to prove which was real to an outside observer without recourse to the argument that one of them was real. the reality or not is imposed from within - not from without.

[Edtharan]

I think you missed my point. My point was not that an experience of an event means that the event was real (or not). But that for you to experience anything means that you can prove to yourself that you are real.

 

Not the experience, but that because there is a you to experience something, then you must be real.

[imatfaal]

No - that was my point entirely. without an assumption, we cannot be sure that our belief that we are experiencing/thinking/rationalising is anything other than a hiccup in another entity's thought process. i illustrated this point by showing that my conscious mind (as it encompasses me) can be easily fooled into placing another's experience into the tray that holds my experiences - how can you show that your experience of thinking is anything other than that.

[Edtharan]

What you have done is to misrepresent the experiences you are having.

 

Such as with this: "I know exactly what it is like to grow up in paris and combray in the early years of last century, to be the son of a traitorous jedi knight, or a mad danish prince but then I remember that was a book, a film, and a play"

 

Your experiences of each of these is as the book or as the play. Your experience was sitting there watching or reading them. Then your experience was of imagining them to be real.

 

Note, just because you think something, it does not make it real. Even if you use Solipsism reducto ad absurdum, my point still stands. Even if you were the only mind in existence: Just because you think something does not make it true.

 

So, even if your experience was that you believed something to be true (say being a traitorous jedi) and believed that you really did live that, this does not make it true (or false) in any way. However, it does mean that you did experience the belief or thought that it was true (and not that the subject of that thought was true).

 

Even if all we are is the belief, or thought (a hiccup or even delusion if you will) in another entities mind, this does not counter my argument. It still means that there is someone experience it, and that this entity (which you would be a part of) exists.

[imatfaal]

But the whole point of the cogito is the fact that it isn't cogitare ergo esse (to think therefore to be) it is first person singular - cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am, je pense donc je suis. The processes of thinking must in the extreme require some form of entity - but you cannot narrow it down to yourself.

 

My whole argument is about misrepresenting experiences and that there is no barrier beyond which we can say truth lies, everything is contingent upon the circumstances even the identity of the first person

[Edtharan]

I can imagine a person and that person would have experiences and could even utter "cogito ergo sum". But just saying those words do not mean that there is any inner experience that that entity has. Nor does it mean that that entity actually experiences anything.

 

But, if that entity did experience something, and because it is a part of me, then I experience something, even if all that experience is, is the experience of something else experiencing something.

 

I am not so much focusing on "thinking" therefore being, but that for the speaker to be able to know they are thinking, they must be able to experience the act of thinking. Experience is the key here.

 

Something that does not exist can not experience anything. Therefore if you can experience something, then you must therefore exist. However, the only person that can know this is the person experiencing it.

 

For your arguments to be valid, something would have to be part of me and at the same time be completely separate from me. This is impossible so any argument based on this assumption must be wrong.

 

In a way, I am not really stating that there are true propositions, but that there exist propositions where by then being false is impossible (specifically in this case: That something that doesn't exist can have experiences).

[imatfaal]

I don't think either of us is going to convince the other - you accept a sort of grund state in which no further recursion is possible and experience is simply that, and moreover you see as self-evident the existence of "me". I think both these points are axiomatic - I cannot see how these can be reconciled

[Edtharan]

Even if you assume an infinite recursion, the fact remains that you can not have that infinite recursion without there being something to be recursive.

 

Mathematically, it is the "Set" of recursions that I am interested in. It doesn't matter if it is a finite set or an infinite set, the fact still remains that the set exists.

 

So, instead of trying to see when the recursions end up (which if it is infinite is a pointless activity), I step back and acknowledge that it doesn't matter if the set is infinite or not, but that the set exists.

 

Yes, if you take the statement "I think, therefore I am" and try to work out the relationships between the words, then you will end up in an infinite recursion and circular reasoning. However, if there is something that can ask truly make that statement (that is can experience "thinking"), and despite it maybe being a fragment of a larger entity, then because it can experience, then it exists. Not because of the unravelling of an infinite recursive loop, but because there is a loop at all.

[John Cuthber]

Something thinks it is me. I choose to define myself as whatever is having that thought or,if that thing doesn't exist then I choose to define myself as that abstract thought.

Whichever of those two definitions I choose for "me", I exist.

It may not be much of an existence, but I can be sure it is real.