how do you decide your purposes?Turns out...there's a whole branch of philosophy about purpose ... it's usually called ethics. Most folks incorrectly assume that Ethics can be treated AFTER Metaphysics/Epistemology, in a strict ordering. My take is that it's far more complicated than that. I've been arguing on this blog for years that purpose is before truth. However, I've been lying for purposes of simplification.
The more correct response, given Aretae's First Commandment: "Go forth and Iterate!" is that ethics and epistemology (and metaphysics) are all bound up tightly in a spiral of iterative development. Having said that...Ethics is the topic of how to choose one's actions, and Meta-Ethics is (roughly) the topic of how to choose your ethics.
It should surprise no one that meta-ethics is high on my list of interesting topics.
How does one choose an ethics? Well...pretty high on the list of figuring out HOW to choose an ethics is the business of figuring out WHAT an ethics is.
Pick a resource...dictionary, wikipedia, etc ...Ethics is the topic of how to choose correct (right/good) behavior. Of course, "right/good" behavior is also definitionally kinda fishy, and potentially circular with ethics.
Without spending forever on the topic...there are at least 3 large early questions in Meta-Ethics. The first:
- Do I wish to address this question at all, or do I wish to outsource it. It's far easier to just do ethics based on what others say.
The only difficulty (HUGE, though it is) in this approach is choosing WHO to get one's ethics from. Of course one can bypass this question as well...and just get it from the parents/peers/group you want to be accepted by/general culture. The audience will note that Aretae finds this approach both boring and unilluminating. However, given the large commonalities observed between ethical systems...the method: "accept your parents' ethics" probably runs as well as any other.
The second question:
- Is it meaningfully different from prudence, which appears to be the other topic that discusses correct action?
The Ancient Greeks, many of the Eastern Religions, and Ayn Rand answer this question simply: NO.
The good and the prudent are identical. Indeed...some of the confusion in the word Good (Good moral vs. Good competent) goes back to the Ancient Greek word I transliterate as Aretae, which doesn't distinguish between the two at all. The moral good is identical to the practical good. In that case...one needs only to determine the prudent...
If you follow this path....I recommend David Schmidtz's work Rational Choice and Moral Agency. I have yet to find a more lucid explanation of prudential meta-ethics. Roughly...If you are a rational agent with goals...what is required? Largely, the standard rule- or virtue- (not act-) prudent (long-term-aware) rational egoist ethic. Everything your mom used to say about what was good for your future...except where she was wrong.
If you don't just suppose that ethics is prudence...then we have another question?
If you chase this path (Ethics is a feeling)...I'd suggest that (A) is the subject of ethical anthropology, (B) turns out to be "a lot in broad strokes, but not TOO much in fine details"...and (C) to ignore evolution as a guide to ethics would be crazy. The meta-ethical position that is most interesting in this space USED to be Ethical Intuitionism, which I've been exposed to via David Friedman, Michael Huemer, and Bryan Caplan.
The current 2nd most interesting stuff in this space is Jon Haidt's 6 ethical axes (Harm, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity) and such...wherein the actual ethical impulses of different folks are being mapped...and even more interestingly, mapped to levels of activity in various areas of the brain. It does seem that there is an inbuilt moral faculty, much like Chomsky's inbuilt language faculty...that was evolved in, but which has no specific facts. Said faculty learns (Aretae theory) via social fear the morality of the neighbors...but all moralities appear to have SOME amount of the 6 axes..and indeed the human brain seems designed to handle those. If you play in this direction...then Ethics is a descriptive field, probably describing evolution's solution to the fact that monkey-brains short-term thinking is highly error-prone...since long-term uncertain-end play of potentially rivalrous games recommends not being an evil bastard....even though short term thinking might...evolution built in (yes, teleological evolution explanation ... easier words to say) a mechanism wherein the surviving humans did what was actually smart, rather than what their stupid monkeybrains THOUGHT was smart. Voila...Ethical Intuitionism arrives at (evolved) prudence as well.
If you pursue the idea that ethics is not prudence, and ethics is not a feeling....that instead ethics describes something about the world, rather than something internal to (but maybe somewhat common across) people...and that it's not just prudence...you've got a lot of justifying to do.
The MOST interesting stuff I have seen recently on internal-centric ethics is the combination of Robin Hanson and Robert Kurzban (Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite). Ethics appears to be a distinct brain-module or six...evolved partially for the purpose of communal living. As per any proper Kurzbanite brain-module, circumstances matter hugely to WHEN the module gets recruited...and as per Hanson...the primary question around how strongly the module gets recruited is WHO is acting. For self...the ethics model has very low utilization, whereas for ENEMY, the ethics module is on overdrive. Friends/Allies are in the middle. It is obvious (to the most casual observer -- said the math-prof.) that this variance in when ethics judgements are recruited, and how much strength they have is indeed present, and varies substantially based on who is being judged. Further...one's level of allied-ness is a (the?) primary source of variance in what ethics get applied. The sane evolutionist notes this, says: no coincidence...and observes that this is very likely an adaptation...and that hypocrisy is clearly part of the function of ethics.
Of course...if your purpose isn't analysis, but persuasion (to your ethics)...then you'll need to find some way to attack my position, because it's rather corrosive to the claim that your ethics is right and other ethicses are wrong.
If you don't just suppose that ethics is prudence...then we have another question?
- What KIND of thing is an ethics? Is it a description of some feature of the (external) world...or is it a description of an internal state of affairs.
If you chase this path (Ethics is a feeling)...I'd suggest that (A) is the subject of ethical anthropology, (B) turns out to be "a lot in broad strokes, but not TOO much in fine details"...and (C) to ignore evolution as a guide to ethics would be crazy. The meta-ethical position that is most interesting in this space USED to be Ethical Intuitionism, which I've been exposed to via David Friedman, Michael Huemer, and Bryan Caplan.
The current 2nd most interesting stuff in this space is Jon Haidt's 6 ethical axes (Harm, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity) and such...wherein the actual ethical impulses of different folks are being mapped...and even more interestingly, mapped to levels of activity in various areas of the brain. It does seem that there is an inbuilt moral faculty, much like Chomsky's inbuilt language faculty...that was evolved in, but which has no specific facts. Said faculty learns (Aretae theory) via social fear the morality of the neighbors...but all moralities appear to have SOME amount of the 6 axes..and indeed the human brain seems designed to handle those. If you play in this direction...then Ethics is a descriptive field, probably describing evolution's solution to the fact that monkey-brains short-term thinking is highly error-prone...since long-term uncertain-end play of potentially rivalrous games recommends not being an evil bastard....even though short term thinking might...evolution built in (yes, teleological evolution explanation ... easier words to say) a mechanism wherein the surviving humans did what was actually smart, rather than what their stupid monkeybrains THOUGHT was smart. Voila...Ethical Intuitionism arrives at (evolved) prudence as well.
If you pursue the idea that ethics is not prudence, and ethics is not a feeling....that instead ethics describes something about the world, rather than something internal to (but maybe somewhat common across) people...and that it's not just prudence...you've got a lot of justifying to do.
The MOST interesting stuff I have seen recently on internal-centric ethics is the combination of Robin Hanson and Robert Kurzban (Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite). Ethics appears to be a distinct brain-module or six...evolved partially for the purpose of communal living. As per any proper Kurzbanite brain-module, circumstances matter hugely to WHEN the module gets recruited...and as per Hanson...the primary question around how strongly the module gets recruited is WHO is acting. For self...the ethics model has very low utilization, whereas for ENEMY, the ethics module is on overdrive. Friends/Allies are in the middle. It is obvious (to the most casual observer -- said the math-prof.) that this variance in when ethics judgements are recruited, and how much strength they have is indeed present, and varies substantially based on who is being judged. Further...one's level of allied-ness is a (the?) primary source of variance in what ethics get applied. The sane evolutionist notes this, says: no coincidence...and observes that this is very likely an adaptation...and that hypocrisy is clearly part of the function of ethics.
Of course...if your purpose isn't analysis, but persuasion (to your ethics)...then you'll need to find some way to attack my position, because it's rather corrosive to the claim that your ethics is right and other ethicses are wrong.
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