Philosophy Now Forum

My concern with your theory from the start was that it contains only empty tautologies. You shouldn't backtrack too hard now that it has been used to propose an actual answer to an ethical question.

What you went with originally said "setting up agencies that in an organized manner will ask all applicants what their talents and interests are, test their capacities and native gifts and aptitudes, and then give them work to do".
Now you are claiming that your intention was " It is not me who will decide the profession folks will pursue, but the individuals themselves."

I've only been around this forum a few days, and already I have noticed two self proclaimed messengers of God. I suspect both are terrible wrong about that. The first version of your proposal implies that you have thought about the often wide gulf between people's actual and imagined talent.

The second version implies that you will back away from all controversial claims you accidentally make, retreating back to the comfort of safely saying nothing.

How many people, each declaring themselves God's new chosen one, will you pay when the service they offer is to go internet forums and spread God's glorious word?

FlashDangerpants wrote:
The second version implies that you will back away from all controversial claims you accidentally make, retreating back to the comfort of safely saying nothing.

In my experience this tends to be what the Godies do. They are happy enough to pretend to know the mind of god and waster no time telling everyone the gospel. But when it comes to the detail and the explanation, they go quiet.

FlashDangerpants wrote:My concern with your theory from the start was that it contains only empty tautologies. You shouldn't backtrack too hard now that it has been used to propose an actual answer to an ethical question.

What you went with originally said "setting up agencies that in an organized manner will ask all applicants what their talents and interests are, test their capacities and native gifts and aptitudes, and then give them work to do".
Now you are claiming that your intention was " It is not me who will decide the profession folks will pursue, but the individuals themselves."
...The second version implies that you will back away from all controversial claims you accidentally make, retreating back to the comfort of safely saying nothing.

I am glad to learn that you find the original axiom-set I created to be "tautologies." For that means that they strike you as self-evident. And that is exactly what I wanted; since that is what axioms ideally ought to be. --They are far from "empty," though. They are fertile ideas, part empirical and part theoretical {what Kant called "synthetic a priori}. and are capable of generating an entire cluster of related concepts that imply earch other and form a sound theory. Much of that framework has already been constructed, as shown in the references to which links have been generously offered.

As to the issue in Applied Ethics which will become prominent in the next decade, or sooner, the idea - which may have been poorly communicated by this writer at first - is how to compensate people when their job has been automated by robotic machines?

The federal government will eventually (to avoid rebellion) have to provide some Basic Minimum Annual Income. I put forth the notion -- without any backtracking -- that it is better if the government allows folks to apply for work that the individual himself would create, and the money would be paid out as wages/salaries rather than just a guaranteed check like Social Security is now for seniors. Those under 65 would then feel that they are "earning" their income by playing at what they might do anyway. There would be a wide option of different departments they could select to work in or for - if they showed a capacity for it.

Under the WPA all the workers could do was to clean up National Parks, pave roads, sweep leaves, and do other chores that were socially useful; but under this new proposal the work would be personally-customized to suit the artistic gifts (or latent aptitudes) of the recipients. [It is something like universities giving students credit for their life experiences. This, tough, applies to the future, not the past.]

Your viewpoints?

prof wrote: The federal government will eventually (to avoid rebellion) have to provide some Basic Minimum Annual Income. I put forth the notion -- without any backtracking -- that it is better if the government allows folks to apply for work that the individual himself would create, and the money would be paid out as wages/salaries rather than just a guaranteed check like Social Security is now for seniors. Those under 65 would then feel that they are "earning" their income by playing at what they might do anyway. There would be a wide option of different departments they could select to work in or for - if they showed a capacity for it.

Now they are applying for again rather than choosing. That necessarily gives the govt. the choice rather than the applicant, no? This is definitely something you will need to make up your mind about. If you, the practitioner of this amazing new paradigm of excellent ethical sciences, cannot even decide whether you are promoting positive or negative liberties, it's value becomes somewhat questionable.

As philosophers and philosophy students know from reading the suggested references "For further reading" - such as, especially the last page of Aspects of Ethics: views through a new lens, where a dozen Moral Principles are listed that were implied by the earlier writings - I advocate decentralization of power, and empowering people from the bottom up rather than waiting to be 'trickled down upon.'

One of the axioms in the o.p. called for increased opportunity for upward mobility. This implies that I don't want people to get into a state of dependency. So, along with Hex Hammer, I don't want central government handouts or subsidies which facilitate or encourage dependency. Note that due to what we call 'Crony Capitalism 'so many businesses get federal and state subsidies; so these handouts are not just for the poor' the wealthy get their share Block grants to states, towns and villages with limits on how the money is to be used, may be okay. I prefer decentralization.

We ought to work out solutions BEFORE the robots take over all our jobs. See Martin Ford, THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS. - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PWX ... TF8&btkr=1

See Steven Hill, RAW DEAL. - http://us.macmillan.com/rawdeal/stevenhill

Under the view I proposed, yes, people would apply for paying work, but the granting agency would listen to the choices the applicant makes, and see the results of the tests the person takes (for, as you said, some folks really don't know what they'd be good at doing, for they haven't yet defined themselves sufficiently - like the ones who major in General Studies in college) before paying them the salaries. Not everyone can be an entrepreneur, or a CEO of their own business. {Both Uber and Air Bomb now have failing business models, Hill argues.}

Steven Hill advocates codetermination [ https://www.bing.com/search?q=codetermi ... DB98465239 ] He says we can learn from Europe where it is common for workers to elect 50 percent of the members of the Board of Directors at the companies where they are employed.

Let us hear your solutions, or policies, to head off the situation when robots, programmed by Generalized Artificial Intelligence, will take over virtually everyone's job - as a cost-cutting measure.


Open for comments............

I'm not terribly interested in the dilemma caused by the rise of the robots. It might result in Keynes' 15 hour working week (see Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren); or it may have the more usual effect of freeing up labour which results in new desires and undreamed of jobs (see the agricultural and industrial revolutions etc.).

What it did offer was an opportunity for you to show how your important new paradigm can be used to argue a case with clarity and consistency.

You are providing, so far, a panic based theory. You haven't looked at the 'rise of the robots' as any form of opportunity.
You have sort of grasped that freeing labour from serving lattes in Starbucks, fitting tyres at Kwik Fit, and submitting company accounts at KPMG would free up a large pool of labour for jobs which robots can't do such as teaching and social work. But you approach that with fear.
You aren't looking for gains given that utilizing vastly more automation raises total factor productivity and makes the satisfaction of human desires (which is what the economy does) much cheaper.

In short. You say with your words that you favour 'bottom up' and 'decentralized' approaches. But your argument is not consistent with these stated ideals. You are claiming the right to take too much control over what counts as the right sort of personal development for other people.

You haven't stopped to consider whether economic social mobility counts for much in a cheap new world where nobody buys a car and houses can be built for a fraction of their current cost - perhaps raising the school leaving age to 30 would achieve your aims, or perhaps this free money grant you have fixated upon would actually better represent your own ideology than the solution you have personally cooked up. Using money to drag people towards a better self that you prescribe for them might be a little old economy.

Either way. You have yet to find consistency between your ideals, solutions, and supporting arguments. You should really test yourself more sternly before you declare these things to be radical, world shaping and life changing for other people.

You also ought to hold off on congratulating yourself until it is at least partially earned.

FlashDangerpants wrote:
(1)You are providing..., a panic based theory.
You have sort of grasped that freeing labour from serving lattes in Starbucks, fitting tyres at Kwik Fit, and submitting company accounts at KPMG would free up a large pool of labour for jobs which robots can't do such as teaching and social work. But you approach that with fear.

(2)You aren't looking for gains given that utilizing vastly more automation raises total factor productivity and makes the satisfaction of human desires... cheaper.

(3)In short. You say with your words that you favour 'bottom up' and 'decentralized' approaches. But ... what counts as the right sort of personal development for other people.

(4)You haven't stopped to consider whether economic social mobility counts for much in a cheap new world where nobody buys a car and houses can be built for a fraction of their current cost - perhaps raising the school leaving age to 30 would achieve your aims, or perhaps this free money grant ...would actually ... represent ... the solution .

(1) No, I am not providing a panic-based theory. You need to re-read the whole thing. I am working to make Ethics into a legitimate science -- the opposite of "ideology."

In my second response to you I wrote that a use for this new presentation of the Unified Theory of Ethics (now in axiomatic form) will be, when it is put in age-appropriate vocabulary, to teach ethical concepts to the younger generation now growing up; hence I am certainly not afraid of the prospect of there being more teachers. And yes, robots can teach too.

(2) The first use to which AI has been put has been to take the human being out of the equation when it comes to telephone communication. Now an automated voice comes on with the effect of sparing people from a conversation with a live operator, or help desk person. The latest version is a business-to-business service called Automated Devices, which employs Generalized Artificial Intelligence, and brags about it. It is cost-cutting, but not beneficial "to human desire."

(3) The question is not whether yours truly is poor or well at arguing for ethics as science, as a secular useful body of knowledge, but whether: Empower people from the bottom up - liberating all while taking not away from the super-wealthy - whether that is a sound Moral Principal.

(4) Now who's Utopian? It is up to you, as well as to those in the Zeitgeist movement who need to tell us how 'to get from here to there.'

.

"Empower people from the bottom up without having any unfortunate consequences that might require us to choose between competing goods" isn't a very important ethical conundrum. None of your stuff here answers any remotely challenging questions, nor does it provide any useful guidance for such. Your OP is a collection of fatuous rules of thumb, and you are boringly resistant to any suggestion that you may need to expand on them.

If you weren't a paternalist with a mortal dread of self-recognition you would either get on with it and argue that your paternalism is good. Or you would abandon this whole brain washing theme you have and trust people more to pursue their own happiness without the posturing.

Your benevolent wish for everyone else to realise their own interests by agreeing with you is an old theme with an unhappy ending, not a wonderful new paradigm.

FlashDangerpants wrote:... [T]he rise of the robots.. might result in Keynes' 15 hour working week (see Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren)
- perhaps raising the school leaving age to 30 ....

Greetings, FlashDangerpants

Thank you for your constructive suggestions.

Your input is appreciated.


For some practical applications of the paradigm offered here, see "The Beautiful Simplicity" o.p. HERE: - viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9512
and see BASIC ETHICS: a systematic approach (2014) [safe to open at this link]:
http://bg.ht/nLJfi


---- How about the rest of you? Any comments on the Axiomatic Approach to Ethical Theory? Do you see how the other components of the system with which you are familiar follow from these assumptions? Is this approach worth pursuing? Let's hear your views !