This is based on Stefan Molyneux ethical theory “Universally Preferable Behavior” (shortened to UPB) which I highly recommend reading, and fully support. Please visit www.freedomainradio.com for more information. If you are not familiar with the theory this blog might not make much sense to you… sorry.
Also this is a response to a youtube user by the user name of luke12000 posted below
Essentially the “will/power” proposal that supposedly debunks UPB goes something like this: “The ethical theory that people should do both what they have the will and power to do can be applied consistently to every person independent of time, geography, etc… For example: A man may want to rape a woman, and he may have both the will and power to do so, the woman does not have the power to resist therefore UPB justifies rape, therefore UPB is not a valid ethical theory.”
The first problem that I notice is that both criteria are not being applied consistently.The man both has the will and power to rape the women, the woman on the other hand only meets the criteria of power. So the question is: Why bother making two criteria (will and power) if you are only going to apply one consistently (power)?
The second problem that I noticed is that “power” in the sense that it is used is meaningless. Perhaps this is more clear if we put the proposal in the form of a null hypothesis: “you should not do what you do not have the power to do.” What does that even mean? What exactly would it look like if you did something you didn’t have the power to do? It is impossible to do something that you do not have the power to do, otherwise you would have to power to do it. I might as well put forward an ethical proposal that “people should both do what they will and be made carbon”. I would get the same result (assuming we reject my first contention, and the will/power proposal is valid).
Adding “power” to the end of this ethical proposal is doing nothing other then making the argument seem universal by tacking on a property of human nature (or nature in general, all things can only do what they have the power to do) and calling it ethical. However if being made of carbon is “ethical” then ethics are a completely meaningless field. There is no “should” about being made of carbon it is simply a matter of fact. In the same way that I do not say 2+2 should be 4. I simply say 2+2 is 4
In Summery: 1) If you are putting forward an ethical theory with two criteria then both of those criteria need to be applied consistently. Will and power cannot be applied consistently therefore UPB does not validate the will/power proposal 2) Power in the sense that it is being used is saying a whole lot of nothing, considering that it is impossible to do something I don’t have the power to do, it doesn’t make much sense to say that “I should do what I have to the power to do”.
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1 comments:
It also violates UPB in the sense that *IF it were* validating something like 'murder is moral' (which it would do if it were not already self-detonating before that point, as you have shown here), THEN it would contain subsets which violate UPB and thus self-detonate anyway. Since UPB clearly invalidates murder, rape etc, and IF that proposition *could* contain those subsets, then it could never be a valid proposition.
The YouTubers are kinda creepy and some are just using linguistic tricks (i.e manipulation) to avoid implementing ethics - and they'll get hostile when picked up on this (like we saw again on the boards recently - a sure sign of a weak position). This isn't real philosophy to me, and UPB remains perfectly in tact - there's just no way to escape UPB, frankly. It's kind of embarassing to watch some of them go at it though.
They are essentially trying to change someone's mind, which means either they are subjectively making stuff up (likely, in which case changing someone's mind is just completely insane) or they are appealing to a universal standard of truth to correct someone's behaviour (ah, this is UPB!)! Rather amusing objections.
Good post anyway, man!
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