There are plenty of unanswerable questions, which “Free Will” is unless it can be shown to have consequences outside of our own heads. Attempting to answer them hardly seems like “eliminating muddled reasoning and mysticism.”
You can’t say with any certainty what the “real probabilities” are. Probabilities as we estimate them are merely a measure of our information, and unfortunately priors are just as subject to scrutiny as the information we derive from them. Thus, the degree of determinism which exists in natural processes is of no consequence.
My apologies if I’m not making any sense, I should probably get some sleep.
I am not begging the question. All deductive statements are, at bottom, tautological as the conclusion must be ultimately contained within the premise. This shouldn’t be controversial.
If a normative conclusion can be derived from a proposition, then the proposition must have entailed or contained that conclusion. Hence, the premise is, by necessity, normative. To believe otherwise is a confusion of logic.
Of course, if normativity is somehow a property of the object then every positive statement is implicitly normative. Such a belief in the immeasurable and untestable which is not necessary to explain any phenomena whatsoever would surely be dislodged by Occam’s Razor if consistently applied.
Secondly, logical truths cannot be deduced without premises, regardless of how ‘necessary’ you think they are. They can be asserted as foundational premises within an axiomatic system, but they certainly aren’t deduced from anything.
Thirdly, inductive reasoning
Doesn’t exists (or shouldn’t be called reasoning). It is logically fallacious to move from a set of specifics to a general statement. We do it anyways, and it works well for us. However, it should not be confused with logic.
Doesn’t apply to ethics as there is no way of measuring or falsifying ethical premises (this should answer your fourth statement). Ethics is the string theory of philosophy – building logically consistent models that have no testable propositions.
Appeal to ignorance. Almost all (in some views, all) questions can be collapsed into an unanswerable form, as almost all questions are inductive in nature. If they aren’t, but are analytic in nature, then they rely on the ‘truth value’ of the rules of deductive interference which are axioms and cannot be justified in a non-circular way.
'You can’t say with any certainty what the “real probabilities” are. Probabilities as we estimate them are merely a measure of our information, and unfortunately priors are just as subject to scrutiny as the information we derive from them.
Thus, the degree of determinism which exists in natural processes is of no consequence.’
non sequitur -
I think you are confusing Bayesian probability. Probabilities that are the result of Bayes’ Theorem are not actual properties of whatever it is being questioned. If I get a 99.98% probability of God existing given my priors and conditions, it does not follow that God actually has a 99.98% probability of not existing. Bayesian probability deals with belief under uncertainty, and that is all. To posit the existence of a deterministic universe does not require probability calculation at all. Believing in determinism would.
Nothing you said here responds to my first piont. You are assuming that ethical propositions are nonfactual, and then using that to prove that ethical propositions cannot be deduced from factual propositions. If you are just saying that ethical statements cannot be deduced from non-ethical premises, then even if true, so what? If statements of class A cannot be deduced from statements of class B, so what? That does not prove that all statements of A are non-factual.
I would modify this to say that the conclusion is entailed in the premises. plural. entailed in the conjunction. There is no need for it to be contained in a single (non-conjunctive) premise. Suppose statement X and statement Y were both outside the class of statements A. It could still be the case that the conjunction (“X & Y”) is a member of A (or entails a proposition that is in A).
I had a link to a website with a good explanation of this and several examples, but the link is not working. I’ll try to make up my own example:
The statement “if x implies y and x is true, then y is true” (modus ponens, “((x → y) & x) → y” ) is a logical truth, deducible with no premises:
Subproof: Suppose (x->y) & x
(~x or y) & x By definition
(~x & x) or (y & x) By distributivity
~(~x & x) By logical contradiction
y & x By process of elimination
y
(end of subproof)
Therefore ((x->y) & x) → y
I agree induction is not deduction, and produces only probable arguments, not deductively valid ones. But practically we must go on such things. Deduction is only the study of the relationships among propositions. It doesn’t tell us the truth of any particular proposition. We have to have propositions we already believe to be true before deduction is of any use to us. (Except, perhaps, in the case of logical truths.)
But you didn’t address my fourth point at all. There are ethical statements (and arguments) that can and have been falsified. Suppose I said, “You should be an ostrich.” If we can show that your being an ostrich is conceptually impossible and meaningless by being contrary to the nature of actual things, then therefore it cannot be a fact that you should be an ostrich. At least some ethical statements can be shown by observation to be contrary to the nature of man. Or if an ethical proposition can be shown to be self-contradictory, then it has been proven to be false.
Perhaps I was not being clear. The above is clearly validly deduced, without premises in the formal sense. However, it still relies on (what I meant when I used the word premise) the rules of deductive inference, the law of identity, and the law of the excluded middle. These may not be premises within the structured argument, but the truth of the above conclusion is predicated on those previously discussed axioms.
“You should be an ostrich” is not falsifiable nor is it contradictory, although it may be meaningless (as are all ethical statements). The possibility of achievement might be a good practical heuristic for deciding your moral principles, but it is not a prerequisite. “You should reject your human nature” (I grew up in a Protestant family) is not incorrect because it is impossible, as it is a normative, counter-factual statement (describing what is right to be, not what is).
Certainly ethical arguments can be contradictory, and thus falsified. Of course, if you read my post thoroughly you would see that I specified normative premises as being infallible. An argument may be logically invalid, but even valid deductions rely on the truth of their premises.
I could qualify my argument by stating that there is no way of verifying or falsifying validly deduced ethical systems. There are infinitely many logically consistent ethical systems, which diverge according to the chosen axioms.
Actually, Bayes’ Theorem is mathematically derived from frequency analysis. It deals only with quantifiable frequencies. Any assignment of numerical probabilities to anything but frequencies is arbitrary and invalid. (Let alone multiplying and dividing those numbers.) But then (in the only cases to which it applies) the results of the theorem are actual properties of the thing.
For example, consider a tub of marbles, multiple colors, some opaque and some translucent.
Suppose you know that:
60% of the opaque marbles are green,
30% of all the marbles are opaque, and
40 % of all the marbles are green.
Then Bayes’ Theorem would tell us what percentage of the green marbles are opaque:
(60% * 30%)/40% = 45%
And this is an actual property of the tub of marbles, of which we can have certain knowledge. (Thus the 45% does not represent any uncertainty.)
Likewise with die rolls, the percentage numbers are the measurable average frequencies of outcomes (e.g., on average, a particular face will come up one sixth of the time).
Numerical probability deals with actual properties of large classes of things (marbles, die rolls, etc.). The uncertainty in such cases lies not with the whole class, but with particular cases. Thus the probability numbers do not represent our uncertainty about particular cases, but our knowledge (certainty) about the class.
I still have no idea how it has anything to do with determinism.
I don’t understand this. You said ethics is meaningless, but then point out that there are, I would drop infinitely because impossible is still part of the human condition, but you say “many logically consistent ethical systems”. Thereby you identify that there are ethical systems and to do that, that would mean a qualifier to identify these various ethical systems has to be present to denote the meaning of each one being distinctly one of the “many logically consistent ethical systems”.
ok. And I leave this discussion with a reminder in the understanding of why economics historically started in the ethics department because the argument over property scarcity is not only an ethical but an economic argument.
Sure, Ok, but Bayesian probability is often used with regards to rational belief in the face of uncertainty. I know I have read Caplan, Taleb, and Yudkowsky from lesswrong use it in this manner. Perhaps this is a misuse of Bayes’ Theorem but that’s how it goes, and that’s how it was being used in this discussion.
That seems a strange way of putting things, but I don’t think it matters for what we are saying (if we can consider the rules of inference to be ‘non-ethical’?). Deducing without premises (other than inference) can still be useful. There are some statements that we cannot deny or disprove without assuming it to be true, thus establishing itself as an axiom by something like reductio ad absurdum. (E.g., “Reality exists.”)
Consider the following hypothetical form of argument that might deduce a conclusion of class A from premises not of class A:
Premise P1 (not in class A)
Premise P2 (not in class A)
Subproof:
Suppose ~X (a statement of class A)
… (deduction steps)
~P1
~X → ~P1 (from subproof)
X (modus tollens, given premise P1)
Then X has been deduced from P1 & P2. I think Ayn Rand’s argument for objective ethics is similar to this. We can point out that if anything cannot rationally be denied by any rational being who has the relevant facts, then we can consider it as being objectively true. So we can search for and find ethical propositions that cannot be rationally denied by a rational being with the relevant facts. (e.g., denying it would entail denying that you are a rational being.)
The end being meaningless or impossible tells us that it cannot be a moral end, because to pursue the end would be absurd/irrational. And if there are true ethics, then they must be rational/logical.
(I consider myself “Protestant.” That’s not exactly the teaching of the N.T.) Your statement taken literally is false because it entails a contradiction. It can be proven false by reductio ad absurdum.
Rather than go point by point through your post, I’ll just say that I understand your position and that myself and others have discussed it in detail in other threads. I just don’t have the energy or desire to get into another (this would be the 4th!) detailed discussion on the possibility of proving ethical statements via performative contradiction. I recommend you dive into one of those threads, both AJ and Brainpolice offer substantive critiques of Argumentation ethics and estoppel, and I have written about Rand and other forms of objective ethics.
to let you know, AJ, Brainpolce, and zefreak simply go on and on saying there are no ethics but never are able to say anything that makes sense when it boils down to the ‘why’ of their assertion. I mean it simply could be they’re unable to type how they feel into words, which is something one or all of them have used as an argument before and then simply throw up their hands and declare they’ve refuted ethics. Simply by saying that..lol. so i wouldn’t waste my time on this
Ethics, free will, determinism, and praxeology don’t have to be incompatible.
Determinism is just a bigger word for causality. Humans do not act arbitrarily (unless they are specifically trying to just to be difficult… but then that would be your “why” right there). Think of any action you’ve ever taken, and you can think of the reasons you took it. Young children are notorious for making adults aware of this fact (think of the unending chain of “Why?”). From this vantage point it’s really not much of a stretch to suggest that the human mind is a big input/output machine (especially if you’ve read Dennett).
Nevertheless, if free will is an illusion as determinism suggests, it’s still an important illusion. Take two people, one who says “Well there is no free will so I don’t really know why I do anything so I’m not gonna do anything” while the other says “Yes, I am in control of my actions and I must be conscientious to be successful.” Who’s more likely to succeed and who’s more likely to end up a loser? If free will is an illusion, it’s one we cannot escape, and one we attempt to escape only to our own detriment.
Ethics, seemingly dependent on free will but really workable also in the face of an inescapable illusion of free will, is perfectly compatible here.
Praxeology, as others here have pointed out, is kind of a whole other thing. Mises himself in Human Action stressed repeatedly that all that matters is that man acts and that he reveals his value structure in his actual realized actions, and that the psychologists and philosophers cannot change this.
I’m personally skeptical of the a priori infallibility of praxeology as Mises presents it, because I’ve never seen it expressed in the syllogistic language of logic, which theoretically must be possible of any valid deductive system. Either that’s something nobody’s bothered to do yet, something I’ve just never found (not for lack of searching), or praxeology has some holes.
[quote=“Murray Rothbard, From “Man, Economy, and State”, Chapter 1”]
The suggestion has been made that, since praxeology and economics are logical chains of reasoning based on a few universally known premises, to be really scientific it should be elaborated according to the symbolic notations of mathematical logic.[44] This represents a curious misconception of the role of mathematical logic, or “logistics.” In the first place, it is the great quality of verbal propositions that each one is meaningful. On the other hand, algebraic and logical symbols, as used in logistics, are not in themselves meaningful. Praxeology asserts the action axiom as true, and from this (together with a few empirical axioms—such as the existence of a variety of resources and individuals) are deduced, by the rules of logical inference, all the propositions of economics, each one of which is verbal and meaningful. If the logistic array of symbols were used, each proposition would not be meaningful. Logistics, therefore, is far more suited to the physical sciences, where, in contrast to the science of human action, the conclusions rather than the axioms are known. In the physical sciences, the premises are only hypothetical, and logical deductions are made from them. In these cases, there is no purpose in having meaningful propositions at each step of the way, and therefore symbolic and mathematical language is more useful.
Simply to develop economics verbally, then to translate into logistic symbols, and finally to retranslate the propositions back into English, makes no sense and violates the fundamental scientific principle of Occam’s razor, which calls for the greatest possible simplicity in science and the avoidance of unnecessary multiplication of entities or processes.
Contrary to what might be believed, the use of verbal logic is not inferior to logistics. On the contrary, the latter is merely an auxiliary device based on the former. For formal logic deals with the necessary and fundamental laws of thought, which must be verbally expressed, and logistics is only a symbolic system that uses this formal verbal logic as its foundation. Therefore, praxeology and economics need not be apologetic in the slightest for the use of verbal logic—the fundamental basis of symbolic logic, and meaningful at each step of the route.[45]
[/quote]
I think, though, that we will, at some point, have to abandon the unsystematic, ambiguous system of colloquial english.
Honestly, that strikes me as a cop-out. Rothbard here has not provided a convincing reason that such a logical exposition is impossible. It sounds more like he is saying “Here’s why I’m not going to give you one.”
He really misuses Occam’s Razor to this end, using it as an excuse to avoid what would be a useful elaboration. The Razor is supposed to just be a heuristic for making a tentative decision between plausible alternatives.
I’m not saying it’s all bogus. I’m an Austrian School adherent. I’m just saying praxeology is not the reason I am.
Okay, lets put to rest the bullshit that causality is determinism, because it’s not. Determinism is a special because it’s two-way causality. That a cause has an effect and an effect has a cause, this makes their relationships absolute, which is why in physics they’re trying to figure out if it’s reversible or in simpler terms DETERMINISTIC. If physics is not reversible in any capacity, then causality flows one way, unhindered by backward linkage, which would prevent any sort of determinism to be formed.
In essence, the appeal of determinism is that it’s god-like, that some how the Universe works like a perfect clock. But since the Universe at the quantum scale has no such backward linkage to make the forward movement of time the only consequence of the cause/effect links so far, that means there’s other possibilities that can be expressed either logically or physically (in an alternative universe), but none of this proves freewill either. Quite the contrary, you can be an indeterminist and still reject freewill. This means the current debate of in/determinism crap doesn’t even answer the questions of what is freewill and does some creature on Earth have it, because the quality of self-determination or self-control is in itself not necessarily defined by external states of the Universe.
Anyways, my point is causality isn’t determinism, but determinism can be called a kind of causality. You all dig?
He did not intend to claim that “such a logical exposition is impossible”. He merely intended to claim that “such a logical exposition” would be round-a-bout.
My contention is that such a system, of which Rothbard opposes the utilization, would depart from common, colloquial english in just two ways: (a) it would be contextless, use variables, like “A”, instead of categories, like “entrepreneur” or “individual”, and (b) it would be systematic, entirely regular and unambiguous. But praxeology, atleast once it introduces its first empirical assumptions, consistently refers to and requires those categories. For praxeology does not refer to A, it refers to entrepreneur A, it does not refer to 1, it refers to 1 good.
So the answer is to develop a system which would depart from colloquial english in just the second way, b, not also the first way, a. Such a system would basically be a systematized, entirely regularized, disambiguated version of any natural language.
Note that, contrary to what our associations often suggest, a symbol like “||” is not necessarily any more “scientific” than a symbol like “or”. The only reason why the symbol “||” happens to be more “scientific” than the symbol “or” is that the meaning of the symbol “||” is entirely regular and unambiguous whereas the meaning of “or” is not.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think what it really means is essentially an admission that praxeology does not actually possess the deductive rigor it is often claimed to. But I’ll have to think about it some more because I don’t entirely wrap my head around what you’re saying.
As for notation, I in fact originally had in mind the “English” syllogistic language, you know, “Premise A, Relation B, therefore Conclusion C”. I do not know the symbols but I figure they’re just for brevity’s sake; I’d be happy to see praxeological theorems expressed either way.