Help Me Understand UPB

[David Foster]

I apologize in advance if my ignorance is irritating to the members of this board, who have no doubt answered these questions multiple times before, but I would be very grateful for the intellectual company.  Thank you for your time.BACKGROUND: Let me start by saying that I will be a junior in high school in 3 days, and that I am about as amateur as a person can be as far as morality and philosophy goes, but I am greatly attracted to Objectivism as I've always valued the scientific method and empiricism.  I have given much time over the past months to researching objective philosophy, reading Stefan's material, and also listening to his podcasts.  I grasp all that he is explaining, and the NAP also seems to be what I've based my life around up to this point without knowing about it.  However, when I try to build these ideas from the ground up, I just can't seem to do it, and I fear that in the future I may not be able to convince anyone in my school or life because I don't understand these concepts thoroughly enough myself.QUESTIONS #1 - THE IS/OUGHT PROBLEM:In Universally Preferable Behavior, Stef admits the prevalence of the Is/Ought Problem, which is the inconsistency between a descriptive statement and a prescriptive statement.Descriptive: "When not pressured, humans tend to dislike killing." or "Without outside influence, humans tend to dislike killing."Prescriptive: "Therefore, humans should not kill." or "Therefore, humans ought not to kill."If this is the case, then how can an objective system of morality be measured?  If the jump between these two statements is logically impossible, then isn't a system of morality that strives for empirical consistency on the level of biology virtually impossible?I have also read the review that Danny Shahar did on UPB, and I will continue to read this in order to absorb more of it.  As I was reading some of the comments, Stefan said that UPB is not an ethical conclusion, but a methodology for deriving truth from falsehood in a moral debate.  Is there any simple outlined system where one can plug in a moral idea to see if it "works," in the same way of the scientific method?  Basically, what is the moral test that UPB proposes as its holy grail of philosophy that "slays the beast" of Post-modern relativism?I will simply leave this at 1 question, as I will not articulate my other ideas at this time, but I would appreciate some assistance in my thinking, as God knows public school doesn't help it.  Thank you so much for your time, I hope to better understand this.

[Wesley]

In reference to the Is/Ought dichotomy and UPB, this thread may help:

 

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/15156-upb-and-the-isought-dichotomy/

 

Which also links to this:

 

http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed//FDR_1218_Sunday_Show_Nov_23_2008_UPB.mp3

(The relevant section begins around 13:30 or so)

 

Basically, UPB does not violate the is/ought dichotomy because it relies on the other person putting forward an argument as to a moral theory. When they put forward a moral theory in the same way that science attempts to validate or invalidate a scientific theory. Through the act of debating UPB and moral theories as a whole, people use a massive amount of givens from which you can build a case for morality by merely asking for consistency.

 

Science does not exist and does not need to be used (you can pray to mr. invisible man if you want to), however if you want to determine if a scientific theory is true, you need to use science.

 

UPB does not exist and doesn't need to be used (you can pray to mr. invisible man if you want to), however if you want to determine if a moral theory is true, then you need to use UPB. 

 

UPB is the test of moral theories you request, not a moral theory in itself. It achieves this by simply demanding consistency, possibility, the coma test, and several other things as a basic run-through for moral theories. Morality is in such a sorry state, that most people violate all of these in the most basic moral claims and are completely unaware of it. You could always run through Appendix A in the UPB book and make sure that the premises make sense. If any step does not make sense, then we can work on the proof of that step.

[Tadas]

In my opinion this UPB is designed as apologetic excuse to justify current beliefs as:

i think that murder is wrong however in certain situation murder is ok so we create some theory which will explain why it is so and it can be used for indoctrination of other people

so the whole idea is how to swap from Descriptive to Prescriptive without being noticed

 

Morality in all sense is rules of interaction between different persons who are seeking private goals. 

so naturally we should start by defining these goals checking their compatibility and creating most efficient model to fulfill them what will always force tradeoffs as in every design.

[PatrickC]

Here's a helpful blog post, that breaks down UPB rather well in my opinion.

 

http://www.economicsjunkie.com/universally-preferable-behaviour-a-rational-proof-of-secular-ethics/

[TDB]

In my opinion this UPB is  

I think I hear Stef saying, is it your opinion or is it true?