Life In 19x19

Many years ago when I was attending class of ethical philosophy, our textbook had a question for us students: "Are human beings equal in value?"

There's nothing special about the question, but I answered it "No, of course not." The follow-up question was to think about ethical implications that response would have. Now there's two ways to understand this question. I understood it as if it was asking for a fact. There's much poverty and injustice in the world, so this doesn't put all the people in equal position. The other way of understanding the question, which may seem more intuitive for intellectuals living in wealthy western countries, is existance of some intrinsic value that all human beings have. This latter way of understanding makes discussion of practical ethics meaningful: what we ought to do.

So here's the radical idea I had. Is there such thing as 'ought'? How can you tell the universe that its laws 'should' work in some other way. How could humans be unbound of nature; how could we tell them what they should be and what they should do? Wouldn't it be much more practical to observe actions and their effects?

I've noticed that people who often assume things tend to be angry. I've noticed it in myself too in situations where I've had expectations. I guess trying to uphold mistaken beliefs like that is frustrating. The crux of the problem is not whether these expectations are true or false, but having them in the first place. It's a mental handicap that prevents experiencing the world.

I would use 'ought' in the sense that "all people are equal in certain ways" is a heuristic with which to maximize average world happiness.

I think it's important to remember that "ought" is spoken from the context of a human being with limited knowledge of the world.

As such, "what ought to be" is always from the perspective of a particular individual's understanding.

Toge wrote:Wouldn't it be much more practical to observe actions and their effects?

What does it mean to be practical? A practical person can make choices and take action (i.e., put ideas into practice.) If one observes, but does nothing, is that practical?

A individual may have expectations of ethical behavior on the part of others. If the expectations are unrealistic, I'd agree that can be frustrating. Does it make the expectations wrong, though?

On one extreme, we have fighting losing battles. On the other, what you describe. Nihilism? I'm not sure.

Neither extreme is particularly practical.

We could be getting into decision theory (which I know nothing about and am probably using the wrong term for) if I suggest that it is practical sometimes, but not always, to act how you want others to act. But we all have different impulses of selfishness, pride...

Toge wrote:... How can you tell the universe that its laws 'should' work in some other way...

I thought that it was the other way around, that the universe would tell us - if we were but to listen and observe.

Toge wrote:There's nothing special about the question, but I answered it "No, of course not."

"Of course" is never a good way to start an argument.

Toge wrote:Is there such thing as 'ought'?

You need to distinguish between several questions. First, is there such a word as "ought"? This is the literal reading of your question, and here I can tell you with some confidence that not only is there a word, "ought", but it has many cognates and is used quite frequently, and there are many established linguistic practices woven about this word; and further, that several other languages have comparable words which are used in analogous ways.

Second, what is the meaning of the word "ought"?

Third (and this, I think, comes closest to your intention in posing the question), when people use the word "ought", are they (knowingly or unknowingly) referring to fictional entities?

In the same way if you asked "Is 'Santa Claus' nonsense?" you would first have to establish that "Santa Claus" is actually, far from being nonsense, a term used very frequently in the English language, in accord with certain customs and rituals; go on to explore what people mean by this term, and conclude that they are referring to a man with definite properties (fat, jolly), a certain uniform, and supernatural present-delivering powers; and finally conclude that the man to whom this description applies does not exist, and so references to him are either lies, mistakes, or fictions.

Within this framework, you should seriously consider whether you are primarily interested in the first, second, or third question. For example, someone with your moral prejudice might accept that people talk about what they "ought to do" in terms of normatively binding rules and obligations, but deny that these normative binds exist; but it is equally possible to argue that "ought" language doesn't refer to rules and obligations at all, and is actually just a reflection of emotional attitudes. Or if you wanted to be really irritating, you could argue that very few people use the word "ought" at all, and that most people's moral feelings are couched in a completely different vocabulary.

Toge wrote: How can you tell the universe that its laws 'should' work in some other way.

As in, "The area of a circle divided by the square of it's radius should equal 3.14, but unfortunately it's transcendental..."? I don't know anyone who makes normative claims about universal laws. There are lots of different competing claims about what "ought" means, but in general people understand "ought" statements to be applicable to agents. You can say to an agent, "If you want a coke, you ought to put two dollars in the machine." You expect that the agent will find this ought-claim compelling in the special case where the agent wants a coke. In the same way, the agent might find "You ought not torture children" compelling under all circumstances, whether or not he wants a coke.

Toge wrote:How could humans be unbound of nature; how could we tell them what they should be and what they should do?

1. I'm not sure what "unbound of nature" means. Humans are not books, and I, at least, don't have a binding. 2. It's actually quite simple. Grammatically speaking, it's called the imperative mood. If you spend time around a parent with a young child, you'll get a sense of how it's done very quickly.

Toge wrote: Wouldn't it be much more practical to observe actions and their effects?

Observing actions and their effects would be a theoretical project, whereas doing something and trying to convince people do do it with you is a practical project. Ironic, that.

Toge wrote: I've noticed that people who often assume things tend to be angry. I've noticed it in myself too in situations where I've had expectations. I guess trying to uphold mistaken beliefs like that is frustrating. The crux of the problem is not whether these expectations are true or false, but having them in the first place. It's a mental handicap that prevents experiencing the world.

I'm not sure how this claim ties into your early speculation about "ought," the laws of the universe, and so on. Could you give an example of what sort of expectations and assumptions you're talking about?

Toge wrote:Many years ago when I was attending class of ethical philosophy, our textbook had a question for us students: "Are human beings equal in value?"

There's nothing special about the question, but I answered it "No, of course not." The follow-up question was to think about ethical implications that response would have. Now there's two ways to understand this question. I understood it as if it was asking for a fact. There's much poverty and injustice in the world, so this doesn't put all the people in equal position. The other way of understanding the question, which may seem more intuitive for intellectuals living in wealthy western countries, is existance of some intrinsic value that all human beings have. This latter way of understanding makes discussion of practical ethics meaningful: what we ought to do.

So here's the radical idea I had. Is there such thing as 'ought'? How can you tell the universe that its laws 'should' work in some other way. How could humans be unbound of nature; how could we tell them what they should be and what they should do? Wouldn't it be much more practical to observe actions and their effects?

I've noticed that people who often assume things tend to be angry. I've noticed it in myself too in situations where I've had expectations. I guess trying to uphold mistaken beliefs like that is frustrating. The crux of the problem is not whether these expectations are true or false, but having them in the first place. It's a mental handicap that prevents experiencing the world.

While you raise interesting points, it's a bit hard to tell exactly what you are talking about, and perhaps following JTS's approach and defining your terms might help.

'Ought' is an auxilliary verb used to express obligation or natural expectation for example, and exists probably because humans see it as a useful concept to express what they perceive.

There are lots of ways we can use the word. I'll try using it in a way that I think you might mean.

"People ought to view others as their equals."

This sort of thing might be said because the speaker recognizes that it is not universally so, and thinks it might be better if it were. He perceives a situation as being sub-optimal. He thinks it could be better. He says so.

I think you are suggesting that it is perhaps a mistake to perceive the world in such a manner. It would be better to to simply see the world as it is. To say: "People do not always view each other as equals," and leave it at that. I don't think we can. I think that it is part of human nature to think about improving whatever it is that we perceive to be inadequate. (like one's ability to play go).

Anyone who argues with the universe about the way it works will lose. The universe doesn't care how clever you or your argument is, it's still allowed to kill you.

But. Worth or value is always a property of the mind ascribing value, not of the thing itself. (A rock could be a thing of beauty for display-- or a weapon. But neither is an inherent property of the rock itself.) With this in mind, if we find that we dislike the way the universe works, then, after we accept that truth, no matter how unpalatable, I see no reason we ought not strive to change it. Death, disease, suffering, pain-- all are bugs, not features. Some bugs we have fixed (e.g., smallpox), some we are fixing (guinea worm), some we can imagine fixing with more technology (disease in general, death). Some things currently appear inviolable (the speed of light), but we do not yet understand the universe completely.

So: "ought" is a property of a mind (I think the universe ought not have disease). "is" is a property of the universe (the universe currently definitely has disease).

I believe that deriving "ought" from "is" is a well known mistake in philosophy, but I could be misinformed.

at snorri:
Observing is closer to finding truths than thinking, and one can only speak about his/her own thoughts. It's not clear to me what actually constructs thoughts e.g. ("I have failed" has no correspondence point in reality). Even observations are skewed so much that scientific research is not possible without being aware of these problems. Expectations are guesswork. If they're not true, the man is more likely to retain the false belief with small correction than discard it.

at Joaz:
That was exactly the idea I was searching.

at jts:
The use of 'ought' is rampant in the field of abstract theories. I think that X, so therefore ­¬X can not be. What do you think about the following idea: "Laws exists so that people would live in harmony". The only way I can understand this is when the speaker has ought-idea. He wants it to be true. The idea has two parts. The part that I've colored blue here deals with existance. Red part tries to give reason, but there's no logical correlation with blue part. Red part is what the speaker tries to convince us of. Blue part is true, so we might as well cut the extra and say "people live in harmony". I've rarely seen people argue like that, however.

Unbound by nature means not being affected by it. All house cats I've seen have done similar things. I guess there's something in the genetic code that constructs the behavior of each individual cat the same way. They are bound by it. Child uses colored pencils to draw on the wall, which triggers the scolding response in parent and the scolding happens. I guess we're inclined to think that this case was totally undetermined. What if this same thing happens ten times in future. Each time child draws on wall and each time parent scolds him. Which party does not learn? Neither! There is some ought-idea going on here, for I don't think either party is oblivious what the causes and responses are. Parent thinks that their words ought to change child's behavior. When the child finally stops drawing on wall, is it because such thing doesn't interest him anymore* or because the parenting has been effective?

*insert your own reason here

Toge wrote:The use of 'ought' is rampant in the field of abstract theories. I think that X, so therefore ­¬X can not be.

Give me an example of an X. What kind of thoughts are we talking about? "I think that it will rain tomorrow, so therefore it can't be the case that it will not rain tomorrow." Or are you talking about normative statements? "I think you ought not torture children, so therefore it can't be the case that you ought to torture children." Either way, you seem to be accusing some unspecified person of making a silly conflation between belief and certainty.

Toge wrote: What do you think about the following idea: "Laws exists so that people would live in harmony". The only way I can understand this is when the speaker has ought-idea. He wants it to be true. The idea has two parts. The part that I've colored blue here deals with existance. Red part tries to give reason, but there's no logical correlation with blue part. Red part is what the speaker tries to convince us of. Blue part is true, so we might as well cut the extra and say "people live in harmony". I've rarely seen people argue like that, however.

There are different accounts of what laws are and whether they have anything to do with morality at all. Indeed, at first blush your statement sounds like a (fairly likely) teleological explanation of the existence of laws, along the lines of "Girafffes have long necks so that they can eat leaves." But regardless, your claim that there's necessarily no connection between the blue and red part of sentences of the sort "If X is Y X ought to be Z" doesn't hold. Consider the following: "A closed and bounded subset S of R^n ought to be compact." It not the case that a first-year mathematics student desperately wants this to be true. Rather, he has defined "closed and bounded set" and "compact set" such that he simply will not recognize any set which is not "compact" as "closed and bounded". Here is one popular approach to the concept of law, which goes back to Roman antiquity: laws are publicly promulgated commands by recognized authorities for the common good. You might think this is funny; you might even be able to cite some laws of your own country that fail to meet one part of the definition. But the exponents of this theory would say that the things you have in mind that contradict this definition are, for that very reason, not laws at all.

Toge wrote: Unbound by nature means not being affected by it. All house cats I've seen have done similar things. I guess there's something in the genetic code that constructs the behavior of each individual cat the same way. They are bound by it. Child uses colored pencils to draw on the wall, which triggers the scolding response in parent and the scolding happens.

So your argument is that in the Pleistocene, there was an evolutionary advantage for children to use their markers to draw on the pristine walls of their caves, and an advantage for the parents to stop them? And that before the age of three children are compelled by their protein structures to draw on walls, and that after that age they lose all interest in using walls as an artistic medium? Someone needs to tell this guy.

Toge wrote:Parent thinks that their words ought to change child's behavior. When the child finally stops drawing on wall, is it because such thing doesn't interest him anymore* or because the parenting has been effective?

You asked "How can we tell people what they should do?", which suggested to me that you had never seen it done before. But it seems to me now that you were being coy, and that you understand perfectly well how we tell people what they should do; you're just concerned that maybe we're not very convincing when we do so. Is that accurate? I just want to pin down what it is you're concerned about before I reply.

Perhaps this may clarify:

'Oughts' are intended to be reasons for behavior. These can be conditional e.g. "If you want to win the lottery, you should buy at least one ticket" or unconditional "You ought not to torture children." They are not facts, though they may reference facts.

To demonstrate, implicit in your entire argument is the question "Ought we to believe in 'ought'?" By trying to give reasons for your argument that maybe we ought to be skeptical about the existence of 'ought', you are appealing to the very notion of an 'ought.' Perhaps you should simply observe that people believe in them, and act accordingly.

Though, there is the question then about what reasons are going to motivate your actions.

jts wrote:Give me an example of an X. What kind of thoughts are we talking about? "I think that it will rain tomorrow, so therefore it can't be the case that it will not rain tomorrow." Or are you talking about normative statements? "I think you ought not torture children, so therefore it can't be the case that you ought to torture children." Either way, you seem to be accusing some unspecified person of making a silly conflation between belief and certainty.

- I guess what I'm trying to say is that there can be no norm that doesn't receive its backing from how the nature works. Sure there can be laws and punishments. They may correspond to reality in some cases, reducing injustice in country. Vast amount of cases, I think, are people who wouldn't act unjustly even without laws and people who act unjustly despite the law.

Our functioning in the world depends on how close our views of the world are to truth. Generally the people with moderately distorted views of the world are those who we think are annoying. Religious fundamentalists and people who discriminate are examples of this category. People with very distorted views (delusions and disintegration of self) are patients in mental hospitals. There's a large group in the center who relies on rules of thumb, educational facts and other "ought to bes". Ceiling is met when it comes to creative, working ideas.

jts wrote:You asked "How can we tell people what they should do?", which suggested to me that you had never seen it done before. But it seems to me now that you were being coy, and that you understand perfectly well how we tell people what they should do; you're just concerned that maybe we're not very convincing when we do so. Is that accurate? I just want to pin down what it is you're concerned about before I reply.

- It may have been poorly phrased by me. Sure we can do something that triggers a response, but existence of such response is not within our control. You can't make the cat understand your talking or make angry person not angry. Yet we habitually talk to our cats and try to deal with angry people.

Talking of value, equal or not, presupposes that human beings are commodities (and thus exchangable). The question offered basically was: Are human beings commodities? Yes or yes?

Toge wrote:I guess what I'm trying to say is that there can be no norm that doesn't receive its backing from how the nature works.

Again, what does it mean "to receive backing from how nature works?" That there must be some connection with "nature" is obvious enough. For example, I keep saying that you ought not to torture children; clearly this wouldn't the case if there weren't neurons configures such that torture is excruciatingly painful. And perhaps treachery wouldn't be quite so abhorrent if we weren't like to stop trusting other people after being betrayed. And murder wouldn't be so bad if we could survive decapitation, shooting, stabbing, etc. But interpreted so loosely, this isn't a limiting constraint on norms.

Toge wrote:There's a large group in the center who relies on rules of thumb, educational facts and other "ought to bes". Ceiling is met when it comes to creative, working ideas.

Again, you seem to be conflating the "ought" of expectation with the "ought" of obligation. This is a very unfortunate equivocation to fall into. I think I see where you're coming from, though. For example, the function of underwear is such that they are only useful if worn under the pants. This gives rise to the general expectation that people will wear underwear under pants, rather than over them. When this expectation is violated, it's rather confusing and disorienting, and we're not sure whether the person wearing his underwear over his pants is schizophrenic, or part of a cult, or in some way trying to mock us. In any event, he who wears his underwear over his pants will strike many people as irritating just by presenting himself as a riddle. Thus the "ought" of function gives rise to the "ought" of expectation, which gives rise to social taboos, which is vaguely connected to morality in people's minds.

Is this what you had in mind? (I worry that I'm putting lots of thought into reconstructing what your position might be, when in fact you may not have a coherent position at all.)

Toge wrote:It may have been poorly phrased by me. Sure we can do something that triggers a response, but existence of such response is not within our control. You can't make the cat understand your talking or make angry person not angry. Yet we habitually talk to our cats and try to deal with angry people.

It should be obvious that if I say "You ought not to torture children" to a rock, the rock will not be convinced. Rocks don't have ears, and in fact they are not conscious. A cat won't either; they have ears, but they're not conscious in the sense that would be required to understand speech. Nor will a baby (they aren't conscious yet), nor will someone who doesn't speak English. The ability to hear words, to understand that they are words, and to process and understand them as speech is a prerequisite to moral reasoning. But that's not a unique feature of moral reasoning; it's true of all reasoning. It's hard to convince enraged people and children to behave morally, but that's not because they're inherently immoral; children have small cortices and enraged people are swamped with neurochemicals. It's also very difficult to convince enraged people and children to use their instrumental reason ("If you want a coke, you should put two dollars in the machine"), or to get them to do math problems, or anything else. The same could be said of people who are drunk, depressed, jubilant, or who have personality disorders.