consistency and ethical positions
 

One issue that crops up again and again in discussions here is the logical consistency of various ethical "systems." I use the scare quotes because I think most people here do not have anything that resembles a fully fleshed out ethical framework for making decisions that they logically work out from the ground up. It is assumed that such consistency is a good thing in and of itself. But is logical consistency of your ethical beliefs a necessary (it's clearly not sufficient) condition to be ethical? I don't think this is obvious. And if it isn't, then in what way (other than perhaps aesthetically) is a logically consistent ethics superior to one that lacks that feature?

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

Do ethically systems need to be complete and internally consistent?

Goedel might suggest an answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goedel

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

What? What the hell does the incompleteness theorem have to do with anything? Or are you planning on showing me that some ethical scheme is strong enough to prove number theory propositions a la Principia Mathematica? I also am not sure that we should start talking about completeness of moral systems in this context because I don't think you can do so sensibly without begging the question by assuming that we should be talking about morals/ethics as formal systems. Did Goedel do some philosophical work that I'm unaware of (I didn't read the entire Wikipedia link, you're going to have to be more specific) that you're really referencing?

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

Hey I thought I was agreeing with you in a way:

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I think most people here do not have anything that resembles a fully fleshed out ethical framework for making decisions that they logically work out from the ground up.

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formal system??? should we number possible ethical scenarious given a set of moral axioms. perhaps we could use the ten commandments.
I'm sure that whatever set of axioms we use you will encounter a problem statement somewhere along the line.
Just the nature of our fallen logic.

Aesthetic considerations aside, systems that appear logically consistent have some psychological appeal at least to the post-enlightement western mind.
Systems that are at least substantially complete are useful for legislative and social purposes.

I as a biblical scholar use a system that acknowledges its lack of logical consistency. I like the honesty of this.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

Bump, I would like to see some actual arguments.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

If I remember my logic course correctly, if you have a system with two axioms that contradict each other ANYTHING you want can be deduced from that system. If you can deduce A, you can also deduce not A. Someone out there can remind me if this is true. If so that answers your question unequivacobly.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

This is the view I gave here , and expanded on it in other posts on that thread.

There are often moral principles that compete with each other. An example of two, "It is good to help others" and "It is good to help yourself". What people do in practice is apply both principles using their best judgement to find some kind of balance. There may be a whole complex of principles and personal experience that go into that judgement. That's what causes the differences in opinion.

The personal decision process is based on mental processes that aren't even understood, much less modeled mathematically. The fact is that mathematics is a very weak tool when it comes to handling really complex systems. However, human beings can be very good at coming up with workable insights, conclusions, and decisions in the midst of a relatively chaotic mixture of information. They may very well be unable to give a logical line of inferences for how they arrived at their gestalt. If Sklansky induces them to try he can often make short work of them. But that is not because their thinking process is flawed. It is because Sklansky's method of linear logical inferences is inadequate to the task.

PairTheBoard

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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But is logical consistency of your ethical beliefs a necessary (it's clearly not sufficient) condition to be ethical?

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I think you are assuming that being ethical is a yes-no question, which is wrong IMO. But let's assume there is a point on the scale above which we could say a person is ethical. Then I'd say yes it's possible to attain that level with no more than an average amount of logic. But if your aim is to move higher along the scale, then logic can be an important tool, along with other tools like self-awareness, say.

The most important reason for using logic and avoiding hypocrisy, though, is not to attain a higher level of ethics but to simply avoid wasting valuable time and resources running around in circles when you could be using it to improve yourself or whatever part of the world you feel like improving.

As an example, I live in Hungary and we have a large and growing population of gypsies here. Most conservatives here do not like gypsies and don't want tax money going to finance their needs. They are also annoyed by their presence on the streets selling mostly stolen goods constantly shouting loudly to find buyers as fast as possible. Yet they shop from them in large quantities, so in essence they are contributing to the problem.

Then they spend valuable time lobbying their politicians, who in turn work hard to correct the problem by bolstering police patrols etc. If successful a lot of work will have been done just to get back to square one, with all those government resources being used just to protect the conservatives from themselves, their impulsive, irrational tendencies, and their hypocrisy.

If these conservatives would use logic to avoid internal inconsistencies they would either decide

a) Yes, I support the gypsies because while they are annoying, they provide me with good stuff at good prices and stealing really isn't all bad if I get some benefit from it.

or

b) No I don't support them because stealing is wrong and I want to live in country with peace and order, even if it means paying more for stuff that goes through proper channels.

A lot of unnecessary energy could be saved by just using a bit of logic and every citizen of Hungary would be better off for it. This is of course just one example, but it illustrates the main idea.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

I think your example illustrates my view. In the example the conservatives have two Competing principles. One is, "we should control gypsy behavior". The other is, "I want to get the best price available for things". They then use their judgement to balance the two principles - with a whole complex of other principles probably involved as well though not so obviously. Arguing that their balancing process isn't logical is like pushing on a string. Even Sklansky, the Messiah of Logic, agrees that if the two principles are competing there is no logic for automatically determining their correct balance. You can point out to them that their principles are competing, but I suspect they already know that.

PairTheBoard

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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Even Sklansky, the Messiah of Logic, agrees that if the two principles are competing there is no logic for automatically determining their correct balance.

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If they are exactly equal and opposite, then I agree. But what if you can assign values or weights to the various values, like vector forces in cartesian space which go in different directions, but not exactly opposite? Then there is a nondegenerate resultant vector which indicates the appropriate action via logic.

If the two competing values are almost opposite and almost equal in magnitude, but not exactly, then a very precise determination of these values (using logic) is needed to get even approximate information about the resultant vector.

I think the gypsy example is a case in which the two are competing but not exactly opposite and the magnitude is similar, but not exactly the same.

DS was referring to two absolute statements (A) and (not A) exactly, not something close.

Do you not agree that there is a key difference there?

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

Further to the gypsy example I'd say a typical conservative chooses a) on impulse in the heat of the moment (on Thursday during rush hour, tired from a long day's work) but given time to reflect he will choose b) (on Sunday after church with time to relax and reflect)

He "knows" b) is the right answer (for him) but his frailties and imperfections (including lack of ability and willingness to use logic) cause him to choose a) sometimes.

Basically he goes through regular cycles of being strong and weak, and his choice varies depending on what phase he's in.

So while I agree that logic certainly helps to get to one's right answer more often, the main ingredient missing is related to inner peace, self-awareness and strength which are best achieved by deliberately letting go of logic sometimes.

[Edit]

But in this example I cannot accept that there is no right answer for a particular person, or that it is impossible to find.

I do accept, however, that the right answers for different people can be different and if these different right answers crop up often enough between the same groups of people, then the natural consequence is conflict (possibly of the messy, ugly type).

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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PTB --
"My point is that there often is no one well defined "consistent" way to apply a whole complex of competing moral principles. There is no well defined mathematics for the "proper" way to bring them all into balance."
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David Sklansky --
"There is NEVER a way to consistently apply competing moral principles."

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This was the context of David's statement. I think it's clear we were talking about Competing principles, not Contradictory ones.

You can try creating some kind of vector calculus for competing principles if you like. Maybe it sounds good in theory but I think in practice the complexity would overwhelm the math in short order.

PairTheBoard

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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If I remember my logic course correctly, if you have a system with two axioms that contradict each other ANYTHING you want can be deduced from that system. If you can deduce A, you can also deduce not A. Someone out there can remind me if this is true.

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Yes, this is true.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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Darryl_P --
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</font> But in this example I cannot accept that there is no right answer for a particular person, or that it is impossible to find.


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The way I see it, the person is going to come up with his judgement for balancing the competing principles. I don't see the need to label that judgement "right" in any sense, including "right for him". It's just his judgement. You can try to convince him to come to a judgement similiar to yours. But I don't think you will be able to force Your Way with logic. Logic will be a tool in your arguments, but it will not act as a God-Like Authority.

PairTheBoard

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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David Sklansky --
"There is NEVER a way to consistently apply competing moral principles."


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Come to think of it I think I remember reading that. It's surprising he would say that, but there it is in black and white so I have to concede this one to you.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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David Sklansky --
"There is NEVER a way to consistently apply competing moral principles."


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Come to think of it I think I remember reading that. It's surprising he would say that, but there it is in black and white so I have to concede this one to you.

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It was in the high falootin thread.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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Logic will be a tool in your arguments, but it will not act as a God-Like Authority.


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I sure hope I didn't imply anything to this end since I agree with the limitations of logic.

The last thing I would want to do is coerce him to agree with me based on what I say or any force that I may implicitly or explicitly apply.

The only thing I might want to urge him to do (even with coercion) is to dig deeper into the issue to figure out where he really stands. If it's a completely neutral position, so be it. If it's on the opposite side of where I am, so be it.

The larger conflicts emerging from many cases of diverging views are only loosely related to a single incident, apply to both sides equally, and can often be averted via compromise. However, both sides are wise to be aware that there are limits to how much compromise can be made over time before problems arise, and that macro factor should also figure into each person's equations IMO.

That's basically all I'm saying.

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Is it safe to say we've reached a point of divergence in our axioms, ie. that I assume such problems (based on competing, but not contradictory values) have a right answer (for each person), and you assume they don't necessarily (because the whole mishmash of competing values can easily simulate a set of contradictory values, say)?

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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Darryl_P --

Is it safe to say we've reached a point of divergence in our axioms, ie. that I assume such problems (based on competing, but not contradictory values) have a right answer (for each person), and you assume they don't necessarily (because the whole mishmash of competing values can easily simulate a set of contradictory values, say)?


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To begin with, I'm not setting up any axioms here. I'm just trying to describe how I see things actually working.

" that I assume such problems (based on competing, but not contradictory values) have a right answer (for each person), and you assume they don't "

I'm saying each person comes to his best judgement on how to balance all the competing principles involved. I prefer to call it his "judgement" rather than his "right answer".

"and you assume they don't necessarily (because the whole mishmash of competing values can easily simulate a set of contradictory values, say)"

No. I'm not saying anything about them simulating a set of contradictory principles. If the principles are contradictory then like David points out, all conclusions follow logically. As I said in the highfalootin thread, the process by which the person arrives at his judgement is really beyond our understanding because it involves not only an intractable complex of competing principles but the unique life experiences of the individual person.

That's not to say you can't sway his judgement with logical argument. After all, your argument then becomes part of his life experience as well. But you might sway his judgement in other ways too. Like with a good song, or a nice work of art. Or a compelling movie. Or an intriguing mystery novel. etc.

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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I'm saying each person comes to his best judgement on how to balance all the competing principles involved. I prefer to call it his "judgement" rather than his "right answer".


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I think we are talking about two different things because a person can make different judgements on the same exact issue in different frames of mind, after differing amounts of thought, or at different points in time. I'm saying that such a person necessarily violated his own values at least once because, of his differing judgements, only one is "his right answer". Are you saying there is no need to reconcile anything here? Or are you saying it's not for us to judge that? If it's the latter, then do you think I'm doing something wrong if I use coercion to try to convince someone that there is indeed something to reconcile?


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the process by which the person arrives at his judgement is really beyond our understanding because it involves not only an intractable complex of competing principles but the unique life experiences of the individual person.

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OK I can accept that it's beyond our understanding (without significantly more information), but do you think it's beyond HIS understanding?

Re: consistency and ethical positions
 

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PTB --
I'm saying each person comes to his best judgement on how to balance all the competing principles involved. I prefer to call it his "judgement" rather than his "right answer".
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Darryl_P

I think we are talking about two different things because a person can make different judgements on the same exact issue in different frames of mind, after differing amounts of thought, or at different points in time. I'm saying that such a person necessarily violated his own values at least once because, of his differing judgements, only one is "his right answer".



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So you see why I prefer the term "judgement" to "right answer". Of course a person's judgement can change. Whatever process that takes place within him to produce his judgement can be perturbed by new experiences, newly learned principles, and by his organic condition. As is often the case with complex systems, sometimes even a slight perturbation can cause a major shift, like the butterfly effect. To claim that there is a Fixed "right" judgement is just an artificial concept which you are imposing on an organic reality that cares nothing about your theories.


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Darryl_P --

Are you saying there is no need to reconcile anything here? Or are you saying it's not for us to judge that? If it's the latter, then do you think I'm doing something wrong if I use coercion to try to convince someone that there is indeed something to reconcile?


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I'm not sure what you're talking about here. When I used the word "force" above, I was not talking about coercion. I meant it in the sense of being able to force recognition of the answer 4 by showing the argument is 2+2. If you're talking about physical coercion I would point to the old saying, "a person convinced against his will is of the same opinion still". If your talking about something else, it might be worth a new thread.



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PTB --
The process by which the person arrives at his judgement is really beyond our understanding because it involves not only an intractable complex of competing principles but the unique life experiences of the individual person.
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Darryl_P --

OK I can accept that it's beyond our understanding (without significantly more information), but do you think it's beyond HIS understanding?

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I think the Entire process probably is beyond his understanding. A lot of it is going on subconciously. Although who knows. Maybe a completely enlightened Buddah would be aware of his inner workings well enough to know.

But that's not to say you can't pry open Some of the process and apply analytical techniques which may sway his judgement. Like I said before though, you might be more successful by having him watch a good movie instead.

PairTheBoard