h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think he clears up some false dichotomies nicely. I have heard a few disparaging reactions but nobody has yet come up with anything substantive. Have you a first incision?

Hi psi

I wonder if before I get out my little knife we should consider whether h2g2 is the best place for this as it lacks some of the features of the E & F board.

Another possible reason for opting for the latter is that 'subtitle' of E & F is 'Talk about ethical and philosophical issues' and a discussion about a specific meta-ethical model might be quite philosophical which might improve the 'tone' of the board

Disparage: Whatever anyone else's motives, it is not my intention disparage Fyfe.

I don't see the fact that he is not a 'professional' philosopher as being a problem, indeed it might be an advantage, since he is not obliged to engage in the 'lobster quadrille' of the scholastics.

I might end up disagreeing with you about Fyfe but there is nothing in your link to suggest that he is a 'loon'.

Anyhow, many of the more interesting philosophers of the past had to have a job on the side to support their passion for doing philosophy.

I had not bookmarked your Fyfe link and rather than trawl through MIO I googled and came up with:


http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Desire_Utilitarianism

I have never heard of Wikia and don't know what it's relationship, if any, with Wikipaedia but it seems to suggest that Alonzo could be a contender.

There is a link to an 'Overview' on the page.

Hi Bx4,

Yes perhaps E & F would be better, maybe you could start a thread there when time allows?

Here's the Fyfe link again:
http://www.alonzofyfe.com/article_ose.shtml

hi psi

just about to go off piste.

Since you were last on I have stuck in a couple of posts that are intended to move the 'project'

I have never actually started a thread*** but if I , rather that you, are to do so then we will need to agree the OP.

Clearly it would, If I were to do it, It would have to start ' On another thread a poster suggested....

Whoever does it I think the title should just be 'Desire Utilitariansn'

Apologies for pre-empting any reponse to JT's 288. I was having a rare 'softee' moment and felt his argument though ill expressed did not warrant the broadside from Hume's Vicar on Earth.

I once nearly started on about the contradiction between the universal statement and the somewhat provincial arguments they made but in the end I couldn't be arsked.

must dash

bsy

Hi Bx4,

I've replied now.

Thread: yes I agree the title and format so you have a green light as far as I'm concerned.

Hi psi

Have had several reads of the Fyfe article and with each one I found his 'argument' more problematic.

I want to think some more about this...........

Hi Bx4,

Sorry I didn't get chance to reply on 'moral sense' what with the darned curfew.

Fyfe: that's probably a sign that you are sharpening your filleting knife.

I 've been thinking a bit about this meta-ethics lark a bit more. I have an intuition that I am missing something important. I don't know whether it is a concept or a piece of kit (by 'kit' I mean something like, as an example, possible worlds semantics), or whether something just needs to 'click' but I feel a bit at sea. I wonder whether I haven't quite recovered from reading 'After Virtue' yet. The more I read about different meta-ethical stances, the more I feel that there should be something in between

Oh well...

hi psi

Not ready to fillet...I think it's a bit of a:

http://ndn.newsweek.com/media/31/Outlawed-Food-Banned-Fugu-P-horizontal.jpg

No hurry on the 'moral sense'. We may be the last men standing in MIO. clearbury and The Coach seem to have left the building, the Pope has started his own 'project' on moral rules, and we have an MIO 'lite' from sriram.

I know what you mean about m-e. I have this niggle that the pursuit of a Final Ethical Theory is not about what it says on the tin.....

Interesting recent paper from Gill suggesting the problem is that m-e is not 'fit for purpose':

http://philpapers.org/rec/GILIAV

As for 'moral facts' I may be about to have a Rory moment....

bsy

Should be a 'Rorty moment'

......and so to bed

bsy

Hi Bx4,

Just read the Gill paper which does articulate well some of my own concerns as expressed on the thread. Thanks for the interesting link.

ttfn

hi psi

Must confess I hadn't heard of him. I stumbled across the link by accident

I'm still waiting on a reprint of the paper so I only know it from the abstract.

Have read his one on Loeb on the site I think his argument has merit.

Hi psi

I haven't forgotten Fyfe.

However I am finding his style difficult blanket assertions, unproven assumptions, poorly defined concepts, imprecise arguments, etc.

I see there's a thread been started on E & F on absolute morality.

bsy.

Hi Bx4,

I've only read the page to which I linked. It isn't a paper, more a popular exposition which explodes some common misconceptions I think.
I'd be interested to see your fillet knife in action though.

ttfn

hi psi

Somewhat strangely

www.alonzofyfe.com

seems to have disappeared.

So am I to take it that while you feel that he might explode some common misconceptions this does not imply that your are committed to Desire Utilitarianism?

The Absolute Moral Truth thread seems to be veering to wards a Euthyphro moment.

bsy

Hi Bx4,

It is still here this end.

You are right, I'm not committed to Desire Utilitarianism, I can't see how the desire calculus would work, or even avoid just smuggling in the conclusions we find moral in the first place. But maybe I just haven't thought it through properly.

Ooh Euthyphro, always hard to resist...

hi psi

Been busy in the world

Yes it's back. I was looking quite early in the morning. I guess depending on where AF is located the site might have been down for maintenance or summat.

I think I've worked out an approach that might work for me. I thought I might try a sort of interlinear to the text where I can flag up things that concern me.

The absolute moral truth thread seems to have stalled. I think the argument(assuming the typical theist/atheist knockabout didn't happen) in the end be about true moral propositions and moral facts again.

MIO seems to have stalled with a technical win by the non-cognitivists.

I suppose we could start to argue about which non-cognitivist model works best.

Catch you later

psi

I have a feeling that assumptions and a lack of rigour may what does in *this* leap...

Desire calculus sounds like an appropriation of someone else's
discursive capital

I'll try and make a start over the weekend.

Hi Bx4,

Assumptions and lack of rigour can do things in, but for my purposes of exposing the objective/subjective dichotomy as problematic and drawing some distinctions between absolute and relative and so on, it was fine.

'Desire calculus' was my phrase (though I wouldn't be surprised if it has been used). The sensation of illigitimate appropriation of discursive capital was deliberate on my part, since I was making the point that I can't see how it could work. I can't see a morally neutral way of calculating and evaluating desire aggregates.

But I look forward to your wielding of the knife.

hi psi

The Introduction:

'The dispute between those who claim that morality is subjective, and those who claim that it is objective, as it stands now, has no hope of being resolved.'

OK. 'Moral facts' cannot be mind-dependent and mind-independent. The two positions are mutually exclusive.

'The core problem is that people treat "objectivity v. subjectivity" as a mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive pair of options.'

No. unclear who these 'people' are. OHG perhaps. beginning of a 'straw man' argument?.

'Morality is either ‘subjective’ or ‘objective’ the way that statements are either ‘true’ or ‘false'

Is this a woolly way of saying that the Law of non-contradiction applies to the status of 'moral facts' as mind dependent XOR mind independent?

'There is no way that anything can fit in both categories at the same time (they are mutually exclusive)'

OK. Dealt with above.

'and there is no third option (they are jointly exhaustive)'

No. Petitio principii (or something like it)? Assumes his earlier claim about 'people' is true.

No reason to assume cognitivists are unaware of non-cognitivism. In which case the claim that 'people' treat subjectivism and objectivism as jointly exhaustive falls.

Possibility that cognitivism/non-cognitivism might be a better candidate for a true dichotomy.

'Yet, the things people say as they defend their side in this battle, they way the champions of each option try to 'prove' their view, is not consistent with these assumptions.'

Need to wait and see whether he makes his bones on this one. Stawman stage 2?

'They use these concepts in ways that do not allow for them to be either mutually exclusive, or jointly exhaustive.'

Await evidence of the former. The latter claim has fallen.

'If people do not use these terms consistently, we cannot expect their arguments that morality is either subjective or objective to make sense'

Bones again. Arguments would not make sense unless 'moral facts' with true propositional correlates are shown to exist. Straw man stage 3?

'I will explain some of the problems with how these terms are currently used'
His own usage is not without problems. However judgment deferred till we see where he goes with this.

'then suggest a set of distinctions that will allow us to bypass these inconsistencies and the arguments that spring from them.'

We'll see. But the quality of argument will need to be much improved.



bsy

Hi Bx4,

I'll defer comment until you get past his preamble.

ttfn