Thread: The Art of Ethics *highbrow alert*

What is right or wrong have very little to do with what people actually do. The tautology that people want what they want, and that they pursue the things they want, is of little help in deciding whether they ought to get it. Considering related questions my illuminate the issue somewhat.

Why does 5+5=10? This might seem a stupid question to any that can count, obviously 5+5=10, but tell me, what is it about these things that make this so. Whether you are Christian or Islamic, Mayan or Pygmy, if you answer 9 or 15 or any other number but 10 to this question, you would be wrong. There is something fundamentally beyond mere human agreement that makes 5+5=10. In a sense, it is rather like the truth that something is there when you stub your toe in the dark. You can keep kicking whatever it is in your way, it's not going to magically disappear because you want it to. Likewise, you can wish all you want that 5+5=anything else, but that's not going to make it so.

Why does it appear that humans are the only creatures that organize what they do, or at least justify it to themselves and others, based on the very idea of morality? It cannot be because fumbling in the dark for reasons to do x rather than y or z is the most effective way to motivate behavior or benefit the individual or species. Nature designs far more efficient and effective means to do these things in the form of instinct and feeling. People are as often mistaken about the reasons to do something as not, and what they believe to be a true and motivating reason can often turn out to be false. Instincts are honed through long trial and error and are much more perfectly adapted to serve the organism and meet its needs in the environments in which it evolved.

It seems clear to me that morality, seeing as how it is an activity of the mind and reason in its practical application, must follow the general rules of reason-giving. What makes something a good reason? This can only be a reason that others would have no reasonable choice but to accept as well, in similar circumstances. I know all this seems a bit vague and that I'm falling back on the idea that morality is mere human agreement, but there is a deeper and more technical point being made here.

The general method of the categorical imperative, Kant's rule for determining if your proposed action is moral or immoral, follows three steps. 1.) You must state clearly the maxim for what it is for you to do. This involves three elements. (a) You must specify the circumstances in which you intend to act. What is it that makes this state of affairs significantly different from others when it comes to what you intend to do. (b)You must state as precisely as possible what it is you intend to do. (c)Finally, you must state what it is you intend to accomplish through your act, or what your goal is. 2.) You must inquire whether your maxim can be a universal rule. This involves a partly logical test, can your maxim be something that everyone, in principle, could follow. There are a few things this doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that the circumstances you specified in step one actually occur to everybody, that may very well be impossible, and it doesn't mean that everyone or even anyone actually attain the goal specified or would even want to. But if your maxim is something that is impossible for everyone to follow, then it is absolutely immoral. 3.) This third step is the most interesting to me, and one which adds a great deal of subtlety to Kant's system of morality, more than even he was able to fully grasp. As he puts it, this test is whether you can will that your maxim be that universal law. The only interpretation of this that makes sense to me has to do with those goals we talked about in step one. If your maxim were a universal law, would it make more perhaps completely unrelated goals really possible, or fewer goals possible, and not just for yourself, but for everyone. If your maxim as a universal law makes fewer goals really possible, then you shouldn't do it unless there is no other way to attain your original goal. Keep in mind that this step only applies if your maxim is something that everyone could in principle do.

As an interesting exercise, apply this method to the 5+5=10 problem above. Give me some circumstances, I don't care what they are. Let's say you're doing your budget. Give me your goal, perhaps you want to save up for a TV or something. Now, you've come across a situation where you have to add 5 and 5. Could the answer of anything but 10 be something that everyone could in principle give? If they did, wouldn't they make their goal unattainable, or at least not reliably so? Wouldn't it also make the very idea of addition impossible, so that, whatever they were doing, we couldn't say they were adding? Since this seems to be so, giving any answer other than 10 would be absolutely wrong. 5+5=10 is even more special because this is true regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in and regardless of the goals for which you act. Consider something like killing another human being, and you will find that there are some circumstances and some goals which make it permissible, perhaps even mandatory, but others which make it absolutely impermissible. Notice also that this method has nothing to do with what we as humans merely agree to be the case or what we believe is true. Whether a maxim can be a universal law is a matter of rigorous logic and the application of meanings. It has a definite answer that cannot be changed based on mere whim. Whether the maxim as universal law would broaden or impoverish the realm of really impossible ends is a matter of the way the world is really organized, and likewise cannot be changed by mere whim. Notice also that it makes no reference to God and requires no more divinity than is required by the mere existence of the world itself. There is no special divine act required to separate right from wrong.

Please, use your own common sense of right and wrong to test these ideas out. See if you can find something that you would agree is right or allowable that this method prohibits. Apply it to morally problematic situations, such as the permissibility of abortion.

Welcome back KP!

Long winded as always, I see!

Originally Posted by JMS

Welcome back KP!

Long winded as always, I see!

When the subject allows for brevity, I can be brief.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

Why does 5+5=10? This might seem a stupid question to any that can count, obviously 5+5=10, but tell me, what is it about these things that make this so. Whether you are Christian or Islamic, Mayan or Pygmy, if you answer 9 or 15 or any other number but 10 to this question, you would be wrong. There is something fundamentally beyond mere human agreement that makes 5+5=10. In a sense, it is rather like the truth that something is there when you stub your toe in the dark. You can keep kicking whatever it is in your way, it's not going to magically disappear because you want it to. Likewise, you can wish all you want that 5+5=anything else, but that's not going to make it so.

Actually, mathematically proving that 1+1=2 is very hard, or so I have been told.
Some things might seem obvious, but that doesn't mean anything.
The square root of -1 doesn't logically exist, but if we just pretend it doesn, then a whole lot of things like frequency response analysis of transmission lines and amplifiers becomes a whole lot easier.

Likewise, division by zero gives meaningless results, but in some cases we can still extract meaningful results if we fudge the division away.
And I read last year that one mathematician had found a way -in some cases- to handle the division by zero by pretending it gives a result (just like with sqrt (-1)).

So it is anything but obvious that 5+5=10. It might seem obvious, but so do a lot of other things.
And 5+5 is only 10 in an assumed field of numbers that is infinite. If 8 is the highest number in a system, then 5+5 is either meaningless, or perhaps the boundary violation crosses back into itself and 5+5=2

I am not a mathematician (I do have a Masters Degree in Engineering), so I can only describe it in layman's terms. Jimbo could explain it much better, but the fundamental idea is correct.
Saying that 5+5 is always 10 is plain wrong. Even in our universe, there are things which are described using math that is based on different assumptions, even if only because that is the easiest way to prove theories and produce results.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Actually, mathematically proving that 1+1=2 is very hard, or so I have been told.
Some things might seem obvious, but that doesn't mean anything.
The square root of -1 doesn't logically exist, but if we just pretend it doesn, then a whole lot of things like frequency response analysis of transmission lines and amplifiers becomes a whole lot easier.

Likewise, division by zero gives meaningless results, but in some cases we can still extract meaningful results if we fudge the division away.
And I read last year that one mathematician had found a way -in some cases- to handle the division by zero by pretending it gives a result (just like with sqrt (-1)).

So it is anything but obvious that 5+5=10. It might seem obvious, but so do a lot of other things.
And 5+5 is only 10 in an assumed field of numbers that is infinite. If 8 is the highest number in a system, then 5+5 is either meaningless, or perhaps the boundary violation crosses back into itself and 5+5=2

I am not a mathematician (I do have a Masters Degree in Engineering), so I can only describe it in layman's terms. Jimbo could explain it much better, but the fundamental idea is correct.
Saying that 5+5 is always 10 is plain wrong. Even in our universe, there are things which are described using math that is based on different assumptions, even if only because that is the easiest way to prove theories and produce results.

While this may all be true.....in Maths....

In the real world, if you have 5 apples....and you add 5 apples....you get ten apples. (assuming the apples are whole apples and no-one eats any during the adding process.

There's no way around this.

I think that's more the direction KP is thinking in.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

While this may all be true.....in Maths....

In the real world, if you have 5 apples....and you add 5 apples....you get ten apples. (assuming the apples are whole apples and no-one eats any during the adding process.

If you are counting apples, you have already made a great deal of assumptions about the field of possible numbers, and the rules that apply to counting them.

maths is the description of reality. There are areas where you need different asumptions / rules in order to get meaningful results. They are more complex than counting apples, but still comprehensible (like wave dynamics in an amplifier).

In your example: suppose I subtract 11 apples. That is impossible. Cannot be done. But we pretend it does and I take out 10 apples and leave my 'logical' box with -1 apples. Then I get 1 more from my supplier, and it fills the -1 spot in the box and leaves me with an empty box.
So in order to deal with an 'impossible' situation we added a rule to pretend that this impossible situation is possible, and it all worked out in the end.

Math IS reality, or rather the description of reality, and the results of 5+5 depends on the context in which the question is posed.

I disagree.

Math may be a description of reality. But that is not the same AS reality.

You may WANT to subtract 11 apples. But you can't. When there are no more apples you simply cannot take any more untill you add more.

In reality it is impossible to subtract something that isn't there.

I can't give you your first apple and take 2 back. It's simply impossible. I could take your first....but I couldn't take anymore because you simply wouldn't have any. Result, I have 1 apple and you have none. Not minus 1. Unless you throw economics in and say, I now have a debt of 1 apple. But that is once again not an apple but the expectation that an apple will be there in the future.

At a point like that Math switches from reality to theory. And is no longer an accurate representation of reality.

Apples would be hard, granted, but at the atom level, quantum physics state otherwise.

I once had a colleague (philips research) who had a Phd in quantum physics. He said that QT was the world's most tested and verified theory. When it was new, the prinicple was sound, but the math behind it predicted tons of phenomena that could not possibly be true. So people set out to test the theory against these 'impossible' predictions. And every single time, the predictions came through.
reality allows negative apples, or water to run upstream, or apples to zap into existence out of nothing.

There is nothing contrived of these examples if you subsitute 'apple' for 'particle'. the universe in which we live does work that way.

particles can appear out of the blue. tunnel diodes (they are used in tv) have a setpoint where they exhibit negative resistance.
anti matter for example is to matter what an apple would be to an anti apple.
there is a whole range of things that are real in the observable sense that do not follow deterministic rules.

That might be true.....apart from the fact that Anti-matter is still a theory that can be neither proven nor disproven.

Even is antimatter could be detected it's reaction to matter would make it exist for such a short time that we couldn't even measure it's existence.

The Theory of reality allows water to run upstream. (although then it would be downstream again because the streaming of the water would be in the opposite direction.) But reality does not. Not running water anyway. And no matter how hard you try....you can not make something out of nothing. Quantum might say that it's possible....but physics say it isn't. Something out of nothing is not an option. At the least Energy is needed....and then it's not nothing anymore.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

That might be true.....apart from the fact that Anti-matter is still a theory that can be neither proven nor disproven.

Anitmatter has been made and observed in particle accelerators. Experiments have been done using it.
beta radiation of radioactive material are positrons -> anti-electrons.
anti particles are a recognized phenomenon for a long time.

anti matter is simply the word for atoms which consist totally out of anti particles. Anti hydrogen is the simplest, and the first one to be made in lab conditions.

EDIT: as for water running upstream, generally not but supercooled hydrogen can, and will run uphill:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfluid