labmath2 Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 I certainly agree with most of Stefan's philosophical arguments, but i am struggling to agree with the concept of Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB). To make the statement, "There is no UPB," does not seem to violate UPB because it does not make a claim of behavior, but a claim of preference which is in itself not behavior. To know if there is in fact an instance of UPB, we would have to check every instance of the behavior and see that everyone prefers the same thing. I think George Boole's denial of existential import of universals is based on fairly good reasoning (we cannot know universals because we cannot check every instance of something). Of course, by definition some things are universals. For example, a fish is something that lives in water. My second concern is with the presentation of the non-aggression principle. The NAP is by any account a good rule for any society to follow, but without the assumption in which to base it, it is a prescription without a foundation. Maybe it has foundation, but i am not familiar with the foundation of the argument in the philosophical form. What i mean by its foundation is that philosophers have to site their assumption for proposing an ought statement. Take for example Thomas Hobbes, his philosophy is based on the state of nature (life without government). What is the assumption when we use the NAP? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Beal Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Regarding UPB I may have misunderstood what you meant, but I believe you are mistaken about the problem in denying UPB. That is, by denying UPB you must affirm UPB. The reason is as follows: Universally Preferable Behavior is a meta-framework for evaluating prescriptive statements according to the two standards of logical consistency and universality. By denying UPB you have implicitly appealed to both of these standards and are arguing something prescriptive. Specifically: "you ought not believe that UPB meets the necessary conditions of satisfaction". If it's not logically consistent, then it's false the way any other proposition is false. The sense in which the statement is universal is that it suggests that it is true, not because you prefer it, but rather according to some standard the applies not because I am me or you are you, but because it's just simply true. This is what is called a "self detonating statement" in that saying it affirms it. An analogy is the statement "language has no meaning". In order for this statement to even be comprehensible in the first place, language must have meaning, and thus the opposite proposition "langue does have meaning" is proved logically. In order for the statement "UPB is invalid" to be comprehensible (as in "you ought not believe UPB is valid") then the opposite proposition "UPB is valid" is proved logically. Regarding the NAP The foundation of the NAP is like the foundation of any principle. That is the implications of universalizing it as a principle. When you try to universalize something that is the opposite of the NAP, you necessarily imply a violation of the NAP. That is, initiating force. This cannot be universalized since it necessarily grants the right of initiating to one party while denying it to another. You've immediately run into a break in universalization the second you try to universalize it. This, obviously, is in error. The NAP is valid because it can be universalized while it's opposite cannot. If I respond to force with force, I haven't violated the NAP. But if I am the initiator of force, I have both affirmed and denied something and thus no principle that has this as a basis can be valid. How we can know universals How we know universals is by logically applying them universally. That is by definition as in your example of the fish in water. There are fish who spend more time outside of water than in water, as with fish who hibernate in extreme climates where rain happens for a brief period in the year. So as where the definition is concerned, an exception is not terribly significant. The initiation of force may make sense in some super remote and trivial area, but as far as the principle is concerned and the definition of the terms, it's validly universal. We can see clearly that any universal principle that requires everyone to speak swahili is not going to be universalizable. The fact that we can contrast that with other statements / principles suggests some kind of objective standard. And that is where the definitions of the terms cause a logical contradiction. Take for example I propose that Steve is moral because he's a man, but Bill is immoral because he's a man, then obviously a logical error has occured. The way that we say this is in error is what is meant by universal. If it's a principle, it has to apply to the all people. And UPB as a meta-framework does a fucking awesome job of looking at just these kinds of logical errors and the implications for moral arguments: how they are (in)valid. I could have an interpretation that is not how Stef understands these issues, and I may even be wrong, but does that help to understand the issues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsayers Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 To make the statement, "There is no UPB," does not seem to violate UPB because it does not make a claim of behavior, but a claim of preference which is in itself not behavior. The act of making the statement is a behavior. Also, with the caveat that I'm only familiar with the broad strokes of UPB, I think that there is a difference between preference and preferable. we cannot know universals because we cannot check every instance of something This is to say that we universally cannot know universals. My second concern is with the presentation of the non-aggression principle. The NAP is by any account a good rule for any society to follow, but without the assumption in which to base it, it is a prescription without a foundation. Maybe it has foundation, but i am not familiar with the foundation of the argument in the philosophical form. What i mean by its foundation is that philosophers have to site their assumption for proposing an ought statement. Take for example Thomas Hobbes, his philosophy is based on the state of nature (life without government). What is the assumption when we use the NAP? "The initiation of the use of force is immoral," which is known as the non-aggression principle, is not an ought statement. It is an observation of the real world. Axiomatically, we own ourselves and people are not fundamentally different. Syllogistically, everybody owns themselves. If everybody owns themselves, then theft, assault, rape, and murder are immoral as the require exercising ownership over that which is owned by somebody else. This is why I tend to shy from using the acronym NAP. It's a handy shortcut for people who already accept the proof. For those struggling with it, it's clearer to focus on self-ownership. Because property rights, morality, the NAP, anarchism, and capitalism all flow from self-ownership. We know rape is immoral because the rapist is simultaneously accepting and rejecting property rights. Because threat of murder is a violation of property rights is how we know that logical, reasonable, and necessary counter force is justified even though it's mechanically identical to the threat itself. In other words, what you are talking about is not a prescription, but rather a dictionary. I hope this has been helpful to you. I really enjoy this topic, so feel free to voice any detail you find issue with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
labmath2 Posted March 16, 2014 Author Share Posted March 16, 2014 As far as UPB goes, i am convinced we could know if a behavior is universally preferable (preferable-more desirable or suitable), but wouldn't we still have to ask everyone (everyone alive) to know if any behavior is in fact universally preferable? As for NAP, now i know it follows from self-ownership, so thanks for that input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsayers Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 I don't think so. For example, I don't have to ask you if it would be preferable to you to not be stolen from, assaulted, raped, or murdered. From what little I know of you, I know that you accept property rights because you've used your property to communicate with others on this forum. I also know that the moment you prefer one of those behaviors on the list, it is no longer theft, assault, rape, or murder because those words denote involuntary participation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Beal Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 As far as UPB goes, i am convinced we could know if a behavior is universally preferable (preferable-more desirable or suitable), but wouldn't we still have to ask everyone (everyone alive) to know if any behavior is in fact universally preferable? But that's not the requirement for universality. It's a very understandable a misunderstanding, but "universal" in this sense does not mean every person must accept it. Rather it must apply not because I am me or you are you, but because it's a principle. It's the difference between asking me to do you a favor and asking me to act according to principles that are true regardless of who says it. By saying that I ought not accept the validity of UPB, you do that because people ought believe things that are true and regardless of what I think, UPB is not true. And this appeal to the truth over falsehood applies generally. That is, anytime that you engage in debate both parties implicitly accept UPB since they make this appeal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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