The Hidden Problem of Localizing Ethical Value
Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 6:13 pm
Most discussions go on like this:
"If this-x and this-y then this-a? Or this-b?"
That's ethics and ontology in a nutshell.
But what if we changed the set?
The "result" of a question: "if x and y then a or b or something else?", seems to always be a question of "can you agree that this is true? Or do you think it is false?", in other words it becomes kind of a statistical survey about likes and dislikes, EVEN with "philosophically" grounded arguments, that is, long chains of "true-z, true-n, true-m, true-p, false-h, false-l, true-k", that is, long chains of agreements and disagreements in the end giving a final judgement. There doesn't seem to be, however, anything "measure" it towards.
Foundationalism holds that philosophy is the "science of sciences", or the "ideas beyond or above science", its fundament, and the fundament of all human actions and beliefs.
I am not a foundationalist. It's not that I think it's "incorrect", I just think foundationalism leaves out the interesting parts and makes pointless uninteresting arguments. I am one of those who do not care what you think should be considered true or not true, I am one of those who hold that all things should be measured towards something else, that also holds for philosophy, something objective that we can both fully agree upon and where we decisively will land the same conclusion and where the function of conversation is not to find disagreements but to find the full agreement of things. Of course it's not that straight-forward, but it suffices for my point.
My point is that what should we measure something towards? That should be a basic truth, an indisputable truth, an ontological truth (or logical). What about causality? That "event x" + "event y" = "event p". Okay, we got the first truth. Now comes the interesting part: in the norwegian language our word for "satisfaction" can be split and directly translated as "to-peace-set". Now I'm guessing a fundamental truth about ethics deriving from (but not identical to) Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore): all ethical positions are positions about what should "last", both in time (how long? Repeatedly or once?) and place (where? many places or one place?).
From the basic ethical truth, and the basic ontological truth, we can say that "event x" + "event y" = the lasting of "event p" for "k time(s)" at "q location(s)". Now, about "to-peace-set", wouldn't you say that if there existed "peace" in time that this would be the same as "no change"?, and wouldn't you say that if there existed peace in locality that it is the situation of "no change"?
Since "to-peace-set" is "to position as to be in peace", and positioning both happens in time and locality, I would say that the word "to-peace-set", translated perhaps insufficiently to English as "satisfaction", is the ultimate "method", or "empty template" of all ethical actions, and that the filling of the template merely requires time and locality.
Also, and here I come to my point about "measuring towards", I see that if people share a common goal, which is the basic for all cooperation besides the more artificial way of "postponement" of course, they can kind of measure which causal cases matches the achievement of desired to-peace-set-ing, but not only that, if they disagree on something apparently identical in action, they will still yet have to account for the "entropy" of time. Time is change, without change there is no time, so there is no deep matter to talk about without equalling change with time. This excludes social convenience of course and the philosophy of language (To ask somebody: "what's the change?" doesn't make as much sense as "What's the time?"). With the "entropy of time" is meant the amount of change so much building up that it surpasses the effectively achievable to-peace-set-ing of an order of things (all desires are "an order of things" with the added effect that we want them of course).
My proposition: can we use this measurement: the "entropy of time" and the "causation to achievement of order" to measure ethics and thereby verify our ethical arguments by "localizing" their true value? For individuals who disagree on what should be to-peace-set, they can always refer to who has the right matched towards the "entropy of time", since there remains a goal to always keep the entropy of time down to a minimum.
"If this-x and this-y then this-a? Or this-b?"
That's ethics and ontology in a nutshell.
But what if we changed the set?
The "result" of a question: "if x and y then a or b or something else?", seems to always be a question of "can you agree that this is true? Or do you think it is false?", in other words it becomes kind of a statistical survey about likes and dislikes, EVEN with "philosophically" grounded arguments, that is, long chains of "true-z, true-n, true-m, true-p, false-h, false-l, true-k", that is, long chains of agreements and disagreements in the end giving a final judgement. There doesn't seem to be, however, anything "measure" it towards.
Foundationalism holds that philosophy is the "science of sciences", or the "ideas beyond or above science", its fundament, and the fundament of all human actions and beliefs.
I am not a foundationalist. It's not that I think it's "incorrect", I just think foundationalism leaves out the interesting parts and makes pointless uninteresting arguments. I am one of those who do not care what you think should be considered true or not true, I am one of those who hold that all things should be measured towards something else, that also holds for philosophy, something objective that we can both fully agree upon and where we decisively will land the same conclusion and where the function of conversation is not to find disagreements but to find the full agreement of things. Of course it's not that straight-forward, but it suffices for my point.
My point is that what should we measure something towards? That should be a basic truth, an indisputable truth, an ontological truth (or logical). What about causality? That "event x" + "event y" = "event p". Okay, we got the first truth. Now comes the interesting part: in the norwegian language our word for "satisfaction" can be split and directly translated as "to-peace-set". Now I'm guessing a fundamental truth about ethics deriving from (but not identical to) Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore): all ethical positions are positions about what should "last", both in time (how long? Repeatedly or once?) and place (where? many places or one place?).
From the basic ethical truth, and the basic ontological truth, we can say that "event x" + "event y" = the lasting of "event p" for "k time(s)" at "q location(s)". Now, about "to-peace-set", wouldn't you say that if there existed "peace" in time that this would be the same as "no change"?, and wouldn't you say that if there existed peace in locality that it is the situation of "no change"?
Since "to-peace-set" is "to position as to be in peace", and positioning both happens in time and locality, I would say that the word "to-peace-set", translated perhaps insufficiently to English as "satisfaction", is the ultimate "method", or "empty template" of all ethical actions, and that the filling of the template merely requires time and locality.
Also, and here I come to my point about "measuring towards", I see that if people share a common goal, which is the basic for all cooperation besides the more artificial way of "postponement" of course, they can kind of measure which causal cases matches the achievement of desired to-peace-set-ing, but not only that, if they disagree on something apparently identical in action, they will still yet have to account for the "entropy" of time. Time is change, without change there is no time, so there is no deep matter to talk about without equalling change with time. This excludes social convenience of course and the philosophy of language (To ask somebody: "what's the change?" doesn't make as much sense as "What's the time?"). With the "entropy of time" is meant the amount of change so much building up that it surpasses the effectively achievable to-peace-set-ing of an order of things (all desires are "an order of things" with the added effect that we want them of course).
My proposition: can we use this measurement: the "entropy of time" and the "causation to achievement of order" to measure ethics and thereby verify our ethical arguments by "localizing" their true value? For individuals who disagree on what should be to-peace-set, they can always refer to who has the right matched towards the "entropy of time", since there remains a goal to always keep the entropy of time down to a minimum.
