Here begins the problems. The correlation between the means and the end are not just empirical. Suppose I have a diesel car I know a priori that putting petrol in it is a bad idea. You are taking the concept of methodlogical individualism to point where it says there is no shared nature in man which you have not justified. Further you have the problem of necessary shared norms in the use of language.
You seem to be using means in a purely instrumental way here but it doesn’t impinge on your argument here.
Fine.
Your whole argument is based on this assertion which you have not proved.
Even if it is beyond rational argument I can still burn you house down and see what you say.
Indeed. But what does this have to do with those who do not? And if they do not value their life, I defy them to kill themselves right now, with no excuses made.
Some people believe that suicide leads to a delivery to Hell.
Actually, I am a firm believer in that latter statement too. In other words, I can not even be certain of my own motives. I think I know but, heck, I could be mentally ill or possessed by a super-natural force, for all I know.
I can certainly agree with all of that.
No. I do not believe so.
Nevertheless, for the purposes of this discussion, I do not think any of that matters.
My answers:
Correct. I value their entrance into Heaven higher than their survival on Earth
Yes but it is impossible to avoid risking my own life in everything I do. So, from an outsider’s perspective, I do not see how that furthers the analysis of a “survival is the ultimate goal” belief.
I would like to inject a third, unasked answer: 3) I posit that the vast majority of people who ever walked this Earth have a very similar valuation of their life on Earth vis-a-vis their faith in the after-life. I know an argumentatum ad populum is not the most compelling but it points to the non-universality of the arbitrary belief that survival is the ultimate goal.
Well, it is easy for me to discount survival on Earth because I believe in life after death.
I know that is not a very fashionable belief system in public discourse but I believe it.
So, they don’t kill themselves because it’s incompatible with their desired goal of salvation, meaning they value life as a means to a given end - and if they do not, they should go and kill themselves immediately, - meaning CD’s point remains correct. He stated it as an “ultimate” goal. It need not even be framed that strongly.
Whereas you seem to be utterly confused. I was responding to an objection Scineram raised, then you simply latched onto my response… but that is immaterial to the fact that CD had stated his argument too strongly, more so than would be necessary, and that merely showing it isn’t an “ultimate” goal does not undercut his argument anyway. So any “confusion” you read in my post is of your own imagination.
Can’t do it. My point is NOT a philosophical one, but a PRACTICAL one. As a practical matter, as far as theorizing about society’s resource use under conditions of scarcity, I argue that it is MOST REASONABLE (i.e. relative to other possibilities) to assume that individuals’ ultimate aim is survival.
EDIT: And that, therefore, OP’s argument is incorrect.
Suppose I have a diesel car I know a priori that putting petrol in it is a bad idea.
Here you misunderstand that the only ultimate ‘end’ is satisfaction. The functionining of your deisel is in itself only a means to another ends, ad libitum, until we arrive at the root of teleology, the satisfaction which impels all action. What will satisfy someone is necessarily according to their makeup. For example, we can easily imagine a sentient killer robot whose only aim is murder, while being quite conscious and even emotional. Humans are just as logically distinct as alien species, vampires and robots in this regard; there is no ‘human nature’ because ‘human’ is a classification which exists within the human mind to describe distinct and discrete life forms. It is for convenience sake that we label them thus, we can make no deductions about ‘human nature’ without arbitrarily redefining what ‘human’ is. But why should I care what one person declares ‘human’?
At this level of analysis, I agree. If you constrain your analysis to the level of the mundane activities of a random individual, removed completely from reference to the society he lives in, then your argument holds. But why bother making such an argument?
It seems to me the most useful reason to focus on individual motives is precisely DUE TO his/her relation to society at large. And in this context, my argument that the ultimate aim of the individual is survival is AT LEAST EQUALLY reasonable as yours. Thus, in this context, the argument of your OP doesn’t hold.
Sir, you do not seem to comprehend the logical character of purposive action. Cease to think of psychology so much and consider the facts of cognition and purposeful action as such. It is even nonsensical to say anything ‘ought not’ or ‘ought’ have been done, since anything that has happened must have happened.
Your argument turns on “value” and its “satisfaction”. Speaking of “value” immediately brings into the analysis individual assessments and rankings. Some things are deemed by the individual to be of high value, some of medium value, and some of low.
Presumably, higher value things afford a higher level of satisfaction and are thus sought after with more enthusiasm. Thus, it seems fair to argue that an ethical imperative emerges - with reference to society - which places priority on arrangements or actions which maximize individuals’ realizations of their preferences.
Further, however, one must question how it is that we can know this character of “value” - that not only does value exist as a catalyst for individual action, but it exists in subjectively different magnitudes, and thus serves to differently motivate an individual to act.
How else can we know this character of value but with direct reference to human experience?
I argue that, for purposes of social analysis, since our theory regarding individual action begins at the level of human experience and subjective preference ordering, it is but a small step to presume that the highest ranked preference is survival.
Moreover, this presumption of an individual survival imperative is a more useful explanatory device than is “the ultimate aim of individuals is value realization/satisfaction”. The latter formulation diverts focus away from the central fact of differentially-ranked and motivated actions, while the former directs attention to it.
Um, it’s Aristotle’s logic. Objects, properties, if you have a basic understanding of what teleology is you will realise that this is a logical compenent of it. Frankly, it seems to me that there is a huge lack of metaethics or the logic of what reasons, means and ends really are. And I’m really not caring anymore to argue with logical fallacies.
You should have stated this from the beginning. Had this point - the true thrust of your argument - been made clear from the beginning, this thread could have been of more use.
Instead, it turns out that much back-and-forth has had to take place to finally bring your argument into relief.
The fact that we can communicate proves that we have a shared nature of sorts other wise this would not be possible- if you’re going to go down the uber sceptic line don’t bother because I probably don’t exist. Also your psychologism ignores obvious facts of reality that humans as a group exist. Further even if a mind percieves humanity ina certain way it does not follow that an objective metaphysics is possible.
Again, you misunderstand the entire point. Humans can communicate because we have built in symbolic logic. Humans may have commonalities, but that does not affect that value and teleology of any human is distinctly his own, and not according to some imaginary ‘nature’. If humans are all similar in their goals, as they may be, this is nothing contradictory. But the point is you can not make meaningful statements that a person ‘ought’ to follow a particular goal, or that the means by which they achieve satisfaction are ‘wrong’. If you can not seperate the logic of teleology from empirical commonalities I do not see further argument possible.
Because this forms the whole basis of your argument. I ask you in the support of your theory what is human and how you can deduce that humans are teleogical beings and why this does not a consititute a shared human nature in a limited degree? And if it is why a human nature, such as that of a diesal car, is ruled out? To make it clear this would not fall on under the banner of empirical commonalities but metaphysics.
As is obvious your argument assumes atheism but I need not go there but just to point it out.
i think eventually you ought to be practical. If i started beating you on the head with a tennis racket, i doubt you would start preaching about how my actions are only wrong in a teleological sense
Rothbard said that normative statements on ethics are ok to apply to economic theory, or to consider in economic calculation, despite the desire for value free science of economics-praxeology. Despite the anti-empirical and non deductive validity of ethical statements, its not some deep cosmic truth to the universe that these statements must be completely ignored in praxeology.
The same applies in ethics. Yes, i guess you can philosophize how there is no scientific or deductive reasoning to say that murder is wrong. But it’s not intellectually dishonest or against some deep truth in epistomology to apply statements on ethics in philosophy or everyday life.