Ehitcs revisted

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But I'll answer you question as I think it is important. You can probably measure happiness in the brains pleasure center.

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Actually, can you answer the question for yourself. How YOU (Doug) know when YOU are happy? Surely you don't go get a brain scan? How do you know? And then, how do you think it's best to know? How is happiness best measured?

[DougShrapnel]

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Kip, or anybody else that has an opinion,

How would you counter the argument that happiness is a personal choice? That no person or thing can "make you happy" if you choose to be unhappy, and conversely nothing can make you unhappy if you do not grant permission. In other words, that happiness does not come from ouside your skull.

[/ QUOTE ]There is much to be gleamed from this post.

[chezlaw]

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This post is pruely fascinating. I think I agree in whole. But the issue reagrding ethics with consciousness, is that we have the ability to see thru the evolutionary advangetages and recognize ethics for its original use, and current distorted use. We can determine if that original evolutionary use is correct, or if we wish to instead intently spread a correct ethical approach thru memes. Thus rising above our genes and memes to make correct actions.


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I basically agree, the difference is largly semantic. My major interest here, is to realise that there are two different things (slightly different from my usual two things):

Morality as a value. Its the nature of a human to be a moral creature and value the well-being of others.

Morality as rationality. Its in the nature of a rational creature to cooperate where cooperation serves its values.

The mistake many make (especially the more rational people) is to like the latter so much that they deny the existence of the former. This mistake is aided by the fact that that the former exists primarily because cooperation is useful (and hence rational) and so looks a bit like the latter.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]Chez I think this might spell out the differences quite well. If I may go back to "I can do no better than to follow my own morale feelings" I think this states that one has a moral compass. It also states that this moral compass could malfunction. And if it is malfunctioning I can do no better. And this is where the rational asspect comes in, as well as knowledge. Can one know what the correct moral compass is? Well I'm not sure if we can know entirely the correct moral compass, but we can at least know aspects of it. It may get to the point that we can know a close enough aproxiamtion that any human action has a ethically correct action. It may not matter if the correct action was discovered thru reason or feelings provided it is the correct action. At the point where we recognize that our moral compass(feelings) are found lacking it is then that we must ethical act rationally to correct our moral compass, not instead to say that I can do no better. How does one know of correct actions, in the same way as we gain other knowledge.

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The reason that I can do no better than follow my own moral feelings is that they are situation dependent and reflect my understanding of the situation. If my moral compass point the wrong way then its because I haven't understood the situation properly in which case there is no method that will reliably guide me to a better action.

So its not that my moral compass might malfunction, its that it can only reflect my level of understanding which might be woefully bad e.g. I might think something will make me happy when in fact it doesn't.

I should add to my previous post that morality as rationality is not just cooperation with others. Its also the method by which we decide which action best serves our possibly conflicting goals. This may be different enough from cooperation that it deserves its own catagory.

chez

[chezlaw]

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Are you asking how do I know if I'm happy? I think so... and if so, that's a great question. Chez might say his feelings, and you might say your reasoning. I would say both, probably. Can you and Chez both answer this question? How do you know if you are happy?

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There are things we want. These are our values, I'm not sure happiness is a very helpful term. Things are good if they are what we value.

Its not instant gratification. Smoking is a good example, I might want a cigarette (20+ times a day) but also want to have a healthy future. The 'correct' action must balance these conflicting wants to best effect. This depends on the strength of my values and my understanding of the health effects of smoking. If I understand that smoking has no bearing on my future health that would be very different to if I understood I would lose one year of life for every puff.

Its also not trivial (probably impossible) to balance my different values and calculate a definite correct action (even if I had perfect understanding)

chez

[DougShrapnel]

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There are things we want. These are our values,

[/ QUOTE ] Do you wish to make a case that both values and desires are good compasses for ethical actions, or only values, or do you wish to use them interchangeably?

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There are things we want. These are our values, I'm not sure happiness is a very helpful term. Things are good if they are what we value.

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I think we value things because they make us happy. I think "happiness" would be the prime good, from which are values are based. You might just be using the terms interchangeably, I'm not sure. If not, what criteria do you use to determine if you "value" something? If you keep asking yourself "why" you value something, or "why" it's important... ultimately, I think the answer will be because it makes you happy.

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How do you know if you are happy?

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There are things we want. These are our values, I'm not sure happiness is a very helpful term. Things are good if they are what we value.

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I should rephrase the question, then.

How do YOU (and Doug) know if something makes you happy, how do you know if you value something, how do you know what things you want. In other words, what criteria do you use to measure whatever it is you think is your prime critera of "goodness".

[DougShrapnel]

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How do you know if you are happy?

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There are things we want. These are our values, I'm not sure happiness is a very helpful term. Things are good if they are what we value.

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I should rephrase the question, then.

How do YOU (and Doug) know if something makes you happy, how do you know if you value something, how do you know what things you want. In other words, what criteria do you use to measure whatever it is you think is your prime critera of "goodness".

[/ QUOTE ]This is kinda the question that I'm asking. Which values are worthy of ethics, which values are good for me to pursue. It's easy to just say do what makes you happy, and I do, but are my goals worth purseuing? Which values are the ones that people should consume(internalize) if they wish to act ethically? And if we can find those good values not only should we consume them but we should produce them as well.

[DougShrapnel]

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How do you know if you are happy?

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There are things we want. These are our values, I'm not sure happiness is a very helpful term. Things are good if they are what we value.

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I should rephrase the question, then.

How do YOU (and Doug) know if something makes you happy, how do you know if you value something, how do you know what things you want. In other words, what criteria do you use to measure whatever it is you think is your prime critera of "goodness".

[/ QUOTE ]This is kinda the question that I'm asking. Which values are worthy of ethics, which values are good for me to pursue. It's easy to just say do what makes you happy, and I do, but are my goals worth purseuing? Which values are the ones that people should consume(internalize) if they wish to act ethically? And if we can find those good values not only should we consume them but we should produce them as well.

[/ QUOTE ]The consume/produce of values might be something ascribed to David's Sins of Ommision, Sins Of commision. Davids ethic might treat failure to produce ethical values as the same as not internalizing ehtical vlaues. I don't wish to take it that far in my ethics. Not sure how chez would think of it.

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This is kinda the question that I'm asking. Which values are worthy of ethics, which values are good for me to pursue. It's easy to just say do what makes you happy, and I do, but are my goals worth purseuing? Which values are the ones that people should consume(internalize) if they wish to act ethically?

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I'm not entirely sure we're talking about the same thing... but for sake of discussion, I'll assume that we're on the same page. And that when I ask "what things make me happy", or actually "how do I know that I'm happy", "how do I measure happiness"... it's the same as you asking which values are worthy of ethics. How do I determine worthiness? Something is "worth" something to me, if it increases my happiness. So, I'm back to how do I know if I'm increasing my happiness. What measure or criteria do I use to determine this? I know why people like having the Bible tell them the answers... because there may not be a right or wrong answer. But, I'm not sure.