The Real Life Important Point about Being Moral or Ethical.

"He can hold to his "always wrong" principle and say that it's even more wrong not to fight the war."PTB

No he can not without lying to himself. If this person ever supports any war then he must admit, or realize that his other belief is wrong.

"A lot of people will say, "War is wrong", yet trump that with the competing principle that "sometimes war is necessary"."PTB

Notice that YOU have changed this persons principles, thus making his position quite tenable. A "war is ALLWAYS wrong" principle can not, by definition, be trumped.

"That's where I think you're missing the point with your logic. I think it's perfectly proper to hold the principles, "war is wrong" and "this war is necessary" simultaneously."PTB

That is perfectly proper. However you again changed his position from "war is ALLWAYS wrong" to "war is wrong" and that is what makes all the difference.

[PairTheBoard]

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chrisnice --
That is perfectly proper. However you again changed his position from "war is ALLWAYS wrong" to "war is wrong" and that is what makes all the difference.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I replied to David, I don't see the difference. "War is Wrong". Why do you need to add the word "always"?

It's a choice between two evils kind of thing. So you choose what you think is the lesser evil. By that choice are you then logically compelled to say it is no longer evil?

PairTheBoard

[ QUOTE ]

As I replied to David, I don't see the difference. "War is Wrong". Why do you need to add the word "always"?

It's a choice between two evils kind of thing. So you choose what you think is the lesser evil. By that choice are you then logically compelled to say it is no longer evil?

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

How can you not see the difference. Competing principles is not the same as contradicting principles. Most people hold the general principle that war is wrong but can be justified by certain circumstances. There is without a doubt a much smaller group who maintain that war is NEVER justified. Its not a strawman argument, these are actual accurate differing positions that people hold.

[PairTheBoard]

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[ QUOTE ]

As I replied to David, I don't see the difference. "War is Wrong". Why do you need to add the word "always"?

It's a choice between two evils kind of thing. So you choose what you think is the lesser evil. By that choice are you then logically compelled to say it is no longer evil?

PairTheBoard

[/ QUOTE ]

How can you not see the difference. Competing principles is not the same as contradicting principles. Most people hold the general principle that war is wrong but can be justified by certain circumstances. There is without a doubt a much smaller group who maintain that war is NEVER justified. Its not a strawman argument, these are actual accurate differing positions that people hold.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok, Now you're being clear. If the person holds the principle that "War is Never Justified" then he can't hardly argue that This War is justified. But it's not clear that the principle "War is Wrong" equates to "War is Never Justified" and it's not clear that adding the word "always" to the principle "war is wrong" changes it. For that matter, it's not clear what you mean by the word "justified". A person might hold that "War is never Justified" therefore This war isn't "justified", this war is "wrong" yet still maintain that the war is necessary. It's the lesser of two evils but evil nevertheless.

Trying to force Your Way with logic in these matters is a little like pushing on a string.

PairTheBoard

[DavidC]

Hey Dave,

Just want to say that you'd probably be pretty freaked out if you started reading Ram Dass. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[xniNja]

Wow. I guess this is an old post, but my first time reading it. I think it is excellent and agree 100%, quite possibly the first time in my experience on 2+2 with any post.

It would be nice if some of the posters here decided to actually read about deductive logic because of it.

[Kripke]

[ QUOTE ]
The same goes for ethics and morality. Sometimes people will disagree on an issue because of a basic difference in values or axioms that forces that disagreement. But more often it is because at least one of those debating doesn't think straight. The fact is that whether you get your set of moral principles from God, once and future king, empathatic feelings, or just common sense, you will find yourself in agreement about those principles with almost all others almost all of the time, at least in this country. Which means when you find yourself disagreeing with others about a particular question, it is probably NOT because of a basic value difference but rather because at least one of you is not well enough versed in formal logic to accurately come to the conlusion that your initial principles actually imply.

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I think this an absolutely ridicolous post and that you, David, should stick to arguing poker stuff rather than ethics, which you are obviously not trained in.

I would like you to answer just one question. Which type of formal logic is it that you consider essential to the discussion of moral issues. I'm very curious to know how you have decided whether sentential logic, first-order predicate logic, modal logic, epistemic logic, deontic logic, inductive logic and so on is the correct logic to use for reasoning about moral issues. Furthermore, what are the logical constants in this logic, and which operators should be included. What is the semantics for the operators in this logic and how do you define the notion of logical consequence. Hopefully it is quite obvious that you need a definite answer to this question in order to argue that if only we were all trained in formal logic we would reach the same conclusions. Hopefully you already know that arguments that clearly invalid in e.g. sentential logic are valid in e.g. predicate logic and so on. Thus if we were trained in different formal logics (both sound and complete I might add) we would reach quite different conclusions from identical premises.

Furthermore, your claim that most people agree on basic moral principles is flat out false. Within the philosophical community there is widespread disagreement about what the basic moral principles are and this is also reflected in the general population.

You keep insisting that if we settle on some basic set of moral principles, we should simply deduce from these principles all the correct answers to moral questions. There is a great deal of problems with this view. Unfortunately it would be very tedious to go into such a discussion here as it becomes quite technical and fairly complicated. But rest assured, I have written a paper that touches on one of the problems with this view which you are more than welcome to read.

http://www.legenden.dk/weblog/papers/reflekteret.pdf

- Kripke

[Kripke]

So, when you say formal logic you are referring to Aristotle's syllogisms? A logic that weak will get you no where.

- Kripke

[xniNja]

If you assume we have similar morals, deduction. If you assume we don't, induction. You clearly are versed in logic, did it really need to be that complicated?

[David Sklansky]

"So, when you say formal logic you are referring to Aristotle's syllogisms? A logic that weak will get you no where"

I am assuming the logic you need to do geometry and the logic you need to realize analogies are flawed. What's the name for that?

You may be right that people disagree on initial moral principles more than I think they do. That doesn't change my basic point. Which is that the average person, (not philosophers), will often come to conclusions that contradict his original principles because he doesn't deduce properly. And that accounts for a good portion of disagreements among average people about those conclusions.