Conventional Ethics & the new paradigm for Ethics

Greetings, obsrvr524

Thank you for some good questions!

obsrvr524 wrote:

No, it is not okay.

I agree with Rosalind Hursthouse who writes, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Strive to be an honest person if you aim to grow in morality. Then, at the slightest hint of dishonesty in someone you will be 'turned off."

For example, the second that Donald Trump says, “I care about corruption” you would know that something is wrong there. He might add “…in Ukraine.” but then you may think: why not in the United States also. Isn’t it a principle? Do you have any principles? It appears you have no shame

In my theory of Ethics, the Consistency Principle tells us to not have a double standard, one for ourselves, and another for others.

The Principle of Inclusivity says: Extend your ethical radius so that it sweeps in more individuals into your ‘in-group.’ Be cosmopolitan, at least. Identify with the furthest scope you can imagine – even the universe.

Yes, you are right: the system is suggesting that you kill as few people as possible.
It does not make absolute statements. They are all tentative and subject to revision …just as newtonian physics later became a special case within einsteinian physics.

p.s. When, in a previous post I wrote: “Ignorance abounds” I was including myself in that. I have lots to learn.

BTW, earlier you were asking for clarification with regard to credits. I studied under a polymath and philosophical genius named Robert S. Hartman. Wade Harvey, my web-host, studied under John Davis, (Chairman of the Philosophy Department at the Univ. of Tennessee/Knoxville) who studied under Dr. Hartman. The latter proposed that Ethics is what results when Intrinsic Value is applied to an individual, or a group of them.
He conceived of the Dimensions of Value - which you can read more about in Wiki under the caption: Science of Value. You can also find there a biography of him which I entered. He was my teacher and mentor. I met him when he was a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He gets the credit for Formal Axiology. He is not responsible for the Unified Theory of Ethics. That’s my inspiration, my creation; see the name on the title page (of the selections referenced below.)

Perhaps I am just too simple minded but I feel like you sidestepped my question:

In this example we have three parties.

1. a congressman who knowingly creates a lie because he believes he is saving the world.
2. a CIA that orchestrates events so as to help promote the lie not caring if it is a lie.
3. a news media willing to spread the lie without investigating the truth because it is sensational.

Which of each of those are being unethical and to what degree?

I have issues with that statement.

Second example:
Someone accuses you of murder because he believes it. He tells his neighbors. One of his neighbors is a reporter for a TV news media. The news reporter announces the accusation to the world but includes the phrase, “we have yet to verify this yet but according to my sources…”

The neighbor made an accusation based on his unverified suspicion. He didn’t know the truth. The reporter knew that the story was not verified and stated as much.

Both people, according to you, have not lied. When your boss asks you if the reporter lied, you have to say, “no”. He also asks if the reporter’s source lied. Again, you have to say “no”. Your boss then gets an important phone call and you have to leave the room for the rest of the day. During the evening, your boss discusses the issue with corporate. Corporate receives the message that the accusation is true by your own admission. Guess what happens before you get to even find a lawyer.

First example:

With respect to items ((1), (2), and (3) above, I would need much more detail before I could analyze it. Also I would need to know exactly how you define the word “lie.” News media don’t write, individuals write. The CIA does not orchestrate, individuals orchestrate - and they are to be held responsible.

Second example:

When the fellow tells his neighbors that you committed murder, it is their responsibility to be skeptical of what they heard, rather than gullibly accepting it as so.
When the reporter submits the story, Ethics applied to journalism directs that he NOT mention the name of the accused - even after the story receives some confirmation - because Articles Five and Six of our Constitution guarantee that we are to be presumed “innocent” until proven “guilty.”

Unfortunately today, in the U.S. Criminal Courts one is presumed guilty. The judge has full power to dismiss the case if s/he sees fit or to impose some penalty on the defendant accused.

NB: The one who accuses another of murder, if he knew his Ethics, and lived it, would make sure of his facts before making accusations
He would make a habit of creating positive value when interacting or communicating with other persons, hence he would be unlikely to toss out accusations at all. If he had quite strong reasons for believing something negative about another individual, he would be diplomatic about how he handled this purported information; he might hint at it to the proper authorities to investigate further. He would not want to cause harm if at all possible.
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Number 1 isn’t a clear case of “the ends justify the means”? What else would you need to know? Would his political affiliation or religion change the ethics? Social identity perhaps? Would the particular cause that he believed in change the ethics? He believed in his cause.

There can be no proof of whether he was right because once he lies, he alters the succeeding chain of events. If he had not lied it might have been proven to be true or false. But once the person injects his influence, no telling what complex perturbation of events unfolded and altered future events forever.

As to individual versus group, when people act as a team, it is the team that is sued for reparations. Corporations are being sued all of the time for their collective activity. Recently, I think it was CNN (perhaps MSNBC) was successfully sued for over $200,000,000 for doing exactly what the second example illustrates. In that case if the corporation had merely waited one day, evidence toward the innocence of their victim would have been revealed even if they spent no time or money on it. But they had an agenda. That was one very expensive day for them. But only one of many. They promote untruths a lot - as a corporate team.

So what more detail would you need to know concerning those 3 parties?

A different, although related issue–

That is largely and directly due to the influence of George Soros (spending $billions hiring and supporting prosecutors who promote criminality in many nations). It is the effect of a global socialist movement protecting itself against the people, its highest priority and the “good cause” believed in by very many “bad actors”. All prosecutors (the state) are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

And I’d be right, because neither know if I committed the murder. There is a difference between reporting a suspicion or making an accusation - these are just assumptions - and stating as a fact that x did y.

But it gets even more complicated. Even if it were stated as a fact that I did commit the murder, these people still wouldn’t be lying… because they have to know whether or not I did it for such a statement to qualify as a lie.

Spreading/giving false information is not the same as lying.

“He committed the murder.”

Is that a lie?

To bypass the hijacking let us return to the original argument of this thread that there is a better way to view human relations and human development.

Here is a selection that may simplify the new perspectives for you, may make clearer what the new and improved theory is trying to convey. Check it out:

LIVING THE GOOD LIFE (2007)
wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ … _Lifef.pdf

Was it helpful?

Questions? Comments?

Does the person who made that statement believe beyond a Cartesian doubt that he didn’t commit the murder?

If so, then it’s a lie.

“Cartesian doubt” - I had to look that one up. At first Descartes sounded a great deal like James. But I think James had one up on him. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember how he put it but James took the whole, “Cogito, ergo sum” thing to a new level.

Did you say what you intended? That if he believed beyond a Cartesian doubt that you did NOT commit the murder then he did not lie?

Are you trying to say that unless he knows beyond all doubt that it is a lie, then it is not a lie? Ignorance is innocence? That would be a rather condemning excuse. That would require you to prove your innocence beyond all doubt else be found guilty by your own admission.

But I didn’t ask about the person saying it. I asked if the statement itself is a true or false statement. The statement is about you. It doesn’t matter who said it.

Is it true or is it false?

If it is false then it is a lie. And anyone saying it, is spreading a falsehood or a lie. if it is not a false statement then it is true. And therefore you admit to the murder.

And you seem to want to promote dishonesty even at your own expense.

So asking any details of your theory is “hijacking”? I wasn’t even disagreeing.

I have noticed that you don’t participate in any other threads on this board except your own. You seem to preach ethics while advertising your book. And when asked about any details, you either say to go read the book or call it “hijacking”. Unless you are donating money to whoever owns this board, if I was a moderator or the administrator, I would have to declare you to be trolling and proselytizing.

I have to say, for someone preaching ethics, you don’t seem very ethical, certainly not very considerate.

No I just threw the Cartesian comment in there because it sounded good.

Lemme try again. If someone says something that is false, but doesn’t know what is true, they can’t be lying. They’re only stating a falsity here. There has to be the element of intent to deceive in order for there to be a lie, see. Lying is not just ‘not telling the truth’, but something more.

Are you a’pickin up what i’m a’puttin down? 'spose I could elaborate more but I’m on a phone right now… a very ergonomically impractical device when it comes to philosophizing.

I agree with your definition of “a lie.”
When someone tells his neighbor that x is a murderer, and he is not 100% sure, he is doing something unethical. He is spreading a rumor that does harm to x. If he is 100% sure that x did not commit that murder, then the truth-value of that is: False. He is telling a lie.
{When one brings up intent - or degree of intent - one is making a moral judgment about the guy. In effect you are admitting that such judgments are not mere emotional outbursts, nor are they like a sneeze, or the emitting of some gas. You have grown in insight. You gave a role to cognition …and are no longer one of those naive non-cognitivists. Congratulations!}

Many times people lie to save face. For example, if someone in a stern voice asks, “Did you make that mess?!” the temptation is to reply, No the dog (cat) did it. This is known as “protecting the ego.” It is a defense mechanism. it’s very common.

I don’t discuss lying in my theory. What I said about the virtue of honesty in an earlier post above is relevant and may suffice.

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[b]

[/b]
---------Robert Ingersoll

Help others to rise

…e.g. Help them get educated. Help them to know values

Continue to educate yourself.

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[size=91]{In this post I discuss some meta-ethical concepts, at the risk of getting somewhat technical.}[/size]

A lot of people get into ethics by thinking about what’s good, bad, right, wrong, just, unjust etc.? And why?

To attempt to get down to fundamentals, they eventually inquire: Are statements of ethical judgment without meaning, like groans of dismay and roars of approval?
Are ethical judgments merely personal preferences? Are they arbitrary whims?

Once you’ve answered “No” to the above three queries, you may earnestly ask: Are ethical judgments ever true? Can they make sense?

Once – agreeing with me - you reply “Yes! because moral goodness is an objective property that can be detected by experience and experiment” then you see the need for a meta-ethics, along with a theory that results from it, and you really get down to it, and investigate:
Is goodness a property of things (or actions or people) or is it a relation between a thing (action, person) and a ‘beholder’ who makes a judgment?

Finally you discover the G.E. Moore/R. S. Hartman logical definition of ‘good’ as a second-order property: a property OF properties – namely, a quantifier of qualities

You understand then why it was so hard for the philosophers to see this for so many years. They were looking at it as a first-order property, like ‘yellow,’ ’hairy,’ or ‘flat,’ when all the time it was a second-order matter, like the logical quantifiers, ‘all’ and ‘some.’

I’m confident you will fully comprehend all this if you give it some serious study. With the illustrations the College Course textbook offers you’ll gradually (or suddenly if you’re really bright) come to understand the whole picture. See: wadeharvey.myqol.com/wadeharvey/ … Course.pdf

The questions you ask, and for which the Course supplies some suggested answers, have bothered more than a few philosophers. They are relevant to some of the underlying assumptions of ethics. What sort of thing if anything is “goodness”? What kind of judgments are moral judgments and how do they relate to empirical statements and to truth? The best answers may not fit too neatly with the conventional curriculum!

Once good and bad are understood, and once dimensions of value have been worked out, you are in a good position to analyze and answer questions about What is Justice? What names shall we put upon the differing parts of the justice spectrum – just as we name portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, saying one band is visible light, another is radio waves, etc.

You will hit on the insight that what is “right” is to do and be good; and what is “wrong” is to do and be bad, morally speaking. Hence the primary task is to define what value is – since good and bad are species of value.

That is where to begin: what underlying assumption is necessary to define “value”? What, then, is “value”? And what, in context, does “good” mean when we say of an X that it is good? What is a good X?

An answer to these questions is found in the Ethics: A college course booklet referred to earlier, when a safe-too-open link was given.
So check it out — and learn.

Questions? Comments? Critiques? Reviews?

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[b]How To Make The World Work

A world that works is a world that works for everyone without depriving anyone of their opportunities to rise.

Will it take - in order to find the areas of consensus upon which we may focus - a super-computer-that-learns?
Will such a device be able to discover policies beneficial to humankind that we will want immediately to implement in order to solve pressing social problems? I predict it will. This is a confirmable prediction. [Those of you with the skill to do it should shart building such a computer right away.]

Are you aware of the process of continuous value-creation? It works when we ask ourselves: “How can I in this moment create some value that will be mutually beneficial? When I am interacting with others, or when I encounter another person, what can I say, or do, that will create value: so that everyone concerned here will win?”

Try it ! You’ll like it You’ll like it! And in return you may find that others want to emulate you in this: they may return the favor. They may send the value in your direction. Even if they don’t, it is worth doing.

Be a value-creator! You will enjoy seeing the results.[/b]

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Here are some quotes from very wise philosophers:

What are your thoughts on any of these topics? Tell us your views in the area of human relations and/or human development – your views on Ethics.

And please let us know: Did you gain anything of value when you perused, in whole or in part, any of the selections listed below?

According to the new paradigm for Ethics, to be authentic, genuine, and real is to be moral because you are complying with a moral principle: Be true to your own true self.
{See for details the discussion on pp. 30-32 of BASIC ETHICS: A Systematic Approach.
Here is a link to it - myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf
Note the quotation from Shakespeare that is so relevant here.}

To be authentic is to be transparent and honest. One who is transparent “puts all his cards upon the table.” We know where he/she stands. To be authentic is also to be sincere and to have self-respect.

To live by your moral principles over time is to have integrity. One who has integrity has a good character, is authentic, over a period of time, preferably over a lifetime.

To be moral is to keep growing morally, to continue to add new moral principles to those you already live by. It is a dynamic process.

What do you think? Have your say on these matters! Do you like the Unified Theory of Ethics … the new paradigm. Speak up.

If you say that you don’t need to care about others, then you’re also saying that no one needs to care about you. If you want others to treat you morally, then dote yourself to being moral, and strive, with all your might, to reach that goal.

A poll: What is your favorite ethical theory?
Please respond.

I’m a rational egoist. No not that ayn rand crap. rand was a pansy.

I agree with your description of her ‘philosophy.’ Ayn Rand had a sick mind, and was quite hypocritical: She vehemently rejected government in her books and lectures, but then accepted it with open arms when she had health problems. She sought its aid.

So then I take it you mean the Henry Sidgwick variety of “rational egoism.” According to Wiki, in his classic book, The Methods of Ethics, (1872) he explains it as the view that, if rational, “an agent regards quantity of consequent pleasure and pain to himself alone important in choosing between alternatives of action; and seeks always the greatest attainable surplus of pleasure over pain.” In modern language, Wikipedia clarifies this as meaning: “an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one’s self-interest.” Hence the ‘ism’ is oriented about the concept “action.”

As you know, the Unified Theory of Ethics - the new paradigm being proposed - is not about action- except indirectly - but rather is about character; it claims that if one has a good character moral actions will follow as a result.

What did you think about that treatment of character development, on pp. 33-34 of Basic Ethics? The section is entitled “An analysis of the self as it moves through stages.” There you come upon the notion of ‘Enlightened Self-Interest.’ It explains that while we ought pursue our best self-interest, we are aware, we understand that if something helps another individual to have a better character then you inhabit a world with morally-better people …which is, of course, in your true self-interest. [See the fourth selection in the References below.]
To put it succinctly, what really helps you, helps me!

You see, I too care about self-interest. And I too want to be rational. I very much want to have humility also. That means I don’t want to be an egotist; in a sense, I want “to kill the ego.” I believe we can develop morally as we go through life, just as an adolescent can gain maturity, can acquire a sense of responsibility and a concern for the growth and the welfare of others, can learn to be kind and considerate. The new paradigm for Ethics rejects selfishness, as it is the very opposite of being ethical.

Folks, I’d like to hear your ideas about all this.

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Yes, attend to your self-interest! Yet be aware that if you can think of ways to accomplish X (and you will do what you can to contribute to making it happen) then you will live in a world where Z will result in making your life easier. And this will surely enhance your self-interest.

What is X?

For example, X may be reducing poverty to its barest minimum. Or X may be creating a new and better way to distil ocean water; or a way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

And what is Z?

Z stands for: the probabilities are higher that someone – pursuing their hobby – will invent or discover something that, sooner or later, makes your life more comfortable – or gives you more pleasure.

Understanding that X may lead to Z - this consciousness - is known as Enlightened Self-interest.

It is displayed when you ask yourself, as you encounter other human individuals, “How can I create value, so that everyone wins?”
“What can I say or do so that I create the maximum value for all concerned?”

Isn’t it the case that Enlightened Self-interest is superior – has more value for us – than does mere self-centered concern?

Hence, let’s wise up and be unselfish. Let’s consider others. Let’s be considerate. And be kind whenever possible.

…And it’s always possible.