Universally Preferable Behaviour: Is Ethics Rational?

[Mole]

The importance of rational ethics

We are born into the world not simply to learn facts about the world but also to make choices. These choices are conscious and deliberate, therefore when we make them we are trying to base them off something we have consciously learned. Some kind of knowledge that allows for this decision making must exist, even if this knowledge is simply that we should follow our instincts. The knowledge for choices that are within our rational self-interest is called ethics. Naturally, we must find what ethics is if we are to be rational. What is essential to ethics is that it is rational, and any alternative is irrational or non-rational. If we are arguing for ethics, we are arguing that it is within peoples' rational self-interest to follow ethics. If our ethical system cannot be proven to be rational, it is not an ethical system. Indeed, people have criticised UPB for supposedly failing to prove ethics is rational (1, 2, 3). This is why when I read Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB; 4) it was my intention to focus on why UPB is rational. It is imperative to prove that it is rational to follow ethics, as this is the only defence against nihilism.

My understanding of rational ethics after reading UPB (UPeB)

After reading UPB four times, I came to a specific understanding of ethics which I think makes a slightly different argument to UPB, but nevertheless works from the similar axioms. I mistakenly took 'universally preferable' to be synonymous with 'universally permissible'. A universally permissible behaviour (UPeB) is a behaviour that I can prefer and it doesn't necessarily conflict with any other person's preferences. In that sense, they are permitting my behaviour. E.g., I prefer jazz and everyone else could permit that I prefer jazz, therefore jazz is UPeB. I prefer murder but my victim necessarily does not permit the murder, therefore murder is not UPeB.

My argument is laid out here in syllogistic form:

1. Preferred behaviours are deliberate.
    (Conscious, voluntary, etc.)
2. Deliberation requires beliefs.
    (Propositions, truth statements, etc.)
3. Preferred behaviours are based on beliefs.
    (E.g. I should listen to jazz, I should murder)

1. Preferred behaviours are based on beliefs.
2. Beliefs must be universally permissible to be true.
    (Reality is objective. Therefore, beliefs cannot be true for some people and false for others. Therefore, true beliefs are permissible as being true by everyone.)
3. Preferred behaviours that are not universally permissible must be based on false beliefs.

1. Preferred behaviours that are not universally permissible are based on false beliefs.
2. Falsehood is irrational.
    (I cannot think or deliberate without knowledge. That would be like trying to sail without a compass.)
3.  Preferred behaviours that are not universally permissible are irrational.
    (Murder, rape, theft, fraud, lying, etc are irrational.)
    
Stefan's understanding of ethics (UPB)

When I skimmed the book recently, I realised I made a mistake. Stefan makes clear on page 51 that 'preferable' means preferences that are required for some individual to attain an end, and 'universally preferable' means required for any individual (objectively required) to attain an end. E.g., if you want to lose weight (end) it is objectively required (universally preferable) that the output of calories is greater than the input of calories. This meaning of 'universally preferable' seems to differ to my original understanding. UPB proper seems to deal with essential means to an end. My UPeB seems to deal with the objectivity of true beliefs.

Is UPB rational ethics?

The big question is, can UPB be proven to be rational? I.e., is someone who doesn't follow UPB being irrational? Stefan argues for why UPB exists in syllogistic form (page 55), but doesn't seem to argue for why UPB is rational in syllogistic form. However, he does mention that moral theories must be rational to be true (page 63), thus he implies that if UPB exists, it must be rational.

I suspect that the proof of the rationality of UPB is similar to my argument for the rationality of UPeB. The proof of the rationality of UPB in syllogistic form would look something like this:

1. All rational beliefs have an argumentative form.
    (If I believe something, I should be able to argue for it.)
2. Rational preferred behaviours are based on rational beliefs.
3. All rational preferred behaviours have an argumentative form.

1. All rational preferred behaviours have an argumentative form.
2. The act of argumentation asserts UPB.
    (UPB are the preference for truth over falsehood, that we exist, that the best way to solve conflicts is peacefully, etc. This is similar to Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics; 5.)
3. Any preferred behaviour that conflicts with UPB is irrational.

Looking at page 211 'UPB in a Nutshell', Stefan seems to be making the argument that UPB is asserted in any argument (premise 2 of syllogism 2 above). Further on page 65, moral theories are kind of theories about UPB. People who propose moral rules are proposing they are UPB, presumably because in the act of arguing for a moral rule, they are asserting UPB. This is the same as assuming the moral rule is UPB(!?). Stefan doesn't seem to make this explicit, which is why I have to do some guesswork to come up with this syllogism. I am not quite sure if Stefan would argue that ethics can be proven to be rational, ethics cannot be proven to be rational but only that ethics exists, or something else altogether. I would not be surprised by the second outcome as he says he fully accepts Hume's is-ought distinction (as do I; page 12). 

The differences and similarities between UPB and UPeB

Argumentation asserts universally permissible beliefs. In this way, premise 2 of the second syllogism is similar premise 2 of the third syllogism in my original argument. The conclusions of my argument might be different to Stefan's. He might only mean that preferred behaviours that are in conflict with those UPB such as 'truth is better than falsehood' and 'we exist' are irrational while mine is perhaps broader but also perhaps more problematic.

A problem with UPeB

UPeB might be problematic because any preferred behaviour that is not universally permissible could be deemed to be so. E.g., I am not murdering you because you ought to permit me killing you, in fact you are the irrational one and not me. It begs the question, what ought a person permit? Perhaps UPB solves this by saying the preferred behaviour could not be deemed to be universally permissible because the action itself conflicts with the requisites of argumentation?

UPB and consequences

I believe that an ethical framework people ought to follow must be able to at least theoretically explain different consequences of unethical behaviour. UPB the book lacks in this regard. He does make some consequential arguments for UPB (page 66), but he doesn't make an explicit argument of explaining how they are causally linked. According to UPeB, irrational beliefs cannot be within one's rational self-interest.

UPeB and consequences

An explanation about why UPeB will lead to positive personal consequences goes like this: Having irrational beliefs (including irrational preferred behaviours) means you seize conscious control over those beliefs. These beliefs must stem from some unconscious part of your psyche which seems to be particularly resistant to rationality. That which is resistant to your conscious awareness is painful and destructive to your conscious awareness.

I'd like to know if I've made a correct evaluation of UPB with the syllogism I used and my understanding of preferability and what people think about UPeB and how morality can be proven to be rational.

 

References
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viZYL3ceh9U
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGYendXNjGg
3. https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/46332-why-be-moral-answered/
4. Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics by Stefan Molyneux Paperback
5: https://mises.org/wire/primer-hoppes-argumentation-ethics

[ofd]

Quote

Having irrational beliefs (including irrational preferred behaviours) means you seize conscious control over those beliefs. These beliefs must stem from some unconscious part of your psyche which seems to be particularly resistant to rationality.

And for a good reason. Many of these irrational beliefs had a function. They create false positives that made it more likely that you survived. Hearing something rustle behind you doesn't mean in 99 out of 100 cases that there is a predator behind you. But in the one case it may have helped an ancestor to survive.
If you take group selection into account, you have a good case explainging morality on a biological basis. Those groups that were altruistic towards each other had a higher chance of surviving as a group than groups that didn't behave like that. Over time, those moralistic genes became dominant and that's where we are today.

[RichardY]

I think being Irrational is something that it would be good to avoid, being irrational to perhaps be in error, but what if being irrational is like outputing an irrational number, causing a crash in consciousness? Maybe if you used a cattleprod or something, you could make a makeshift human computer for outputting irrational numbers or information, maybe patterns to the irrationality, perhaps like a Trojan Cassandra(Prophet) or the movie "knowing".

Plenty of actors and politicians exhibit double speak, even within the same sentence! And they have successful careers and seem happy. Purely being rational though seems like being a computer? What might arational influences involve.

Thou shalt not Kill. Or a Thou shalt not Murder? 
What's the difference? Is it that one is sanctioned or approved by society, and the other not? 

----------------------

Just as we have to remember the gods of antiquity in order to appreciate the psychological value of the anima /animus archetype, so Christ is our nearest analogy of the self and its meaning. It is naturally not a question of a collective value artificially manufactured or arbitrarily awarded, but of one that is effective and present per se, and that makes its effectiveness felt whether the subject is conscious of it or not. Yet, although the attributes of Christ (consubstantiality with the Father, co-eternity, filiation, parthenogenesis, crucifixion, Lamb sacrificed between opposites, One divided into Many, etc.) undoubtedly mark him out as an embodiment of the self, looked at from the psychological angle he corresponds to only one half of the archetype.

The other half appears in the Antichrist. The latter is just as much a manifestation of the self, except that he consists of its dark aspect. Both are Christian symbols, and they have the same meaning as the image of the Saviour crucified between two thieves. This great symbol tells us that the progressive development and differentiation of consciousness leads to an ever more menacing awareness of the conflict and involves nothing less than a crucifixion of the ego, its agonizing suspension between irreconcilable opposites. 

Naturally there can be no question of a total extinction of the ego, for then the focus of consciousness would be destroyed, and the result would be complete unconsciousness. The relative abolition of the ego affects only those supreme and ultimate decisions which confront us in situations where there are insoluble conflicts of duty. This means, in other words, that in such cases the ego is a suffering bystander who decides nothing but must submit to a decision and surrender unconditionally.

--------------------------------- Aion - Carl G Jung.

Why not go down the antichrist route? They're both Christ as the Archetype of the ideal self. One moral, the other not. You can't be moral and not moral. Didn't finish the book yet so at any rate something to fiddle around with.

Something that did stick out as odd from reading UPB a long while a go was pushing someone off a cliff because, they told you to do it. Taking A is A to extreme? (if; he dies, he dies. - Ivan Dragov Rocky 4) Made me think of the movie "The Jackal" the scene with Jack Black holding out a pack of cigarettes. "Ugh told you it was off. Quick stand over by the car before you pass out." Still in terms of mental health probably followiing the example of christ and morality(if you like people) is better then a brain destroying neurosis, though how to change. Perhaps; musing mostly.

[Jsbrads]

Ethics are rational in that we can see causal collisions of following ethics leading to better lives, but starting from a tabula rasa there would be no way to unerringly formulate an entire system of ethics without trial and error evolutionary incremental improvement.