Other propositions, while true and important, are derivative, reducible — not axiomatic:
“#Wellbeing matters”
…insofar as there’s (some degree of) consciousness/sentience. Because only sentient entities can suffer. And suffering is what matters.
eg, relieving a horse of a toothache is more important than preventing the annihilation of a sterile galaxy. There’s no “wellbeing” in a corner of the universe where there are no conscious creatures, no matter how vast that chunk of space-time be.
(If putting “destruction of an entire galaxy” lower in your list of worries than “someone somewhere breaks his little finger” sounds alarming to you, it’s only because it is extremely improbable that we could know for sure that the galaxy is entirely devoid of sentience, is incapable of developing or hosting consciousness ever in the future, and is not and will not provide shelter or resources to any creature. Very little confidence in that, therefore too much risk in prioritising a toothache over the fate of a billion stars in practice.)
“#Pleasure is good”
This is true only because (or to the extent that) pleasure is incompatible with suffering, or that pleasure means that whatever the level of suffering it is being offset by a greater amount of the opposite stuff.
“#Freedom matters”
Very often more freedom means individuals accomplish more of their stated preferences, and very often those preferences point towards less suffering for them (and sometimes for others, too).
Freedom is (usually) good because it (usually) reduces suffering. But it’s not a given.
(Needless to say, this is not a justification for despots or kidnappers, who do not reduce but increase suffering.)
That is what “reasoning from first principles” means to me.
The causal chain may be long sometimes, with many logical steps involved. And there is room for uncertainty and for epistemic humility. But the ultimate goal is to evaluate ideas and to make decisions reducing them all to lower-level equivalents based on a few core propositions.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing summarises best what’s “good” or “bad” or “important” than #suffering (avoiding it, preventing it, reducing it).
Not wellbeing, pleasure, flourishing, happiness, freedom, transcendence, detachment, or love.
And nothing seems better to me to measure and describe reality, what reality could be like, and how exactly it can be changed, than #math (rationality, logic, science).
Its contenders all look clearly inferior: intuition, empathy, revelation, tradition, authority, serendipity, chance, art, anecdote…
@tripu is that an axiom? 😁
@tripu Would it not make sense to take a closer look at what freedom means?
From the top of my head, i would list:
- Freedom as practical abilities. My body is able to do certain things but not others. I can walk, but i cannot jump to the moon.
- Freedom as in “not being stopped by others”. Depending on where you are and what your social status is, you will be stopped from doing certain things. Some are stopped from using violence against others, some are stopped from going out to the street without specific garments.
- Freedom as a function of cooperation. Some things i can only do if others cooperate. Even if i can communicate and nobody stops me, if nobody engages i am not able to have a discussion about ethics.
Some of those are at odds with each other. If i do not cooperate in a discussion, the other does not have this last kind of freedom, but if i am forced to, i am stopped from whatever else i wanted to do.
Definitely! Freedom is complex and multi-faceted.
What I meant is that, whatever the definition of “freedom”, I suspect “suffering” takes precedence.
Some anecdotal evidence:
I (think I) would prefer to live under a tyranny or behind bars, than in excruciating pain. A higher proportion of people living in excruciating pain (be it physical or psychological) want to end their lives, and do end their lives, than prisoners for life or citizens in autocracies do, right?
Punching someone in the face (ie causing suffering) feels worse, and I think is punished more severely, than holding them for an hour or keeping them locked inside a room the whole morning (restricting freedom).
Think what we do in advanced nations to reduce our #suffering in contrast to what we do to increase our #freedom — individually and as a society. I would argue that more of our public spending, R&D, political discourse, economic activity, social advocacy, individual decisions, purchases, etc is aimed at suffering less than at having more liberty.
WDYT?
@tripu I completely agree in principle, but would call what you provided examples, not anecdotal evidence.
To go one step further, i would say while we made a big step forward by replacing corporal punishment with curtailing of freedom of movement, there are still issues.
For one, curtailing of freedom would let us compensate unfairly punished better by giving them money compared to a thief which had his hand hacked off never regaining even anything even close.
Another item would be in how far we actually protect prisoners - heard good things about Finland there.
To get back to the underlying issue, i would say that the actual protection prisoners have from suffering (by wardens or other prisoners) determines if we actually made progress there:
If more harm is inflicted to prisoners than offenders of the relevant category of crime become repeat offenders if not punished, we did not gain anything. And if we get those numbers and can agree, this would be an example where i would actually see the use of math (even if only temporarily until the problem with lacking protection of prisoners is solved).
Come to think of it, would you call yourself a utilitarian?
@tripu
Just in passing a few points from me...
Mathematics, Numbers, Money are all flawed when used in valuing humans or many parts of life.
I see it as incompatible or only taken in a narrow lenses what people can't see overall as sapience and instead focus from what they want from people as generations rolling in (people want their labour for example and don't care or think there is much more or it's easiest for maths when it comes to this kind of power for life) and kind of a bad system is done across the board seems to make a big machine work... at the cost of de-humanising people and subsidising it as it can't even calculate how the whole supply chain is doing with it's many factors also human related... so blame is people and tool here for thinking it works or still works... which could say to itself "I, Maths, work best for machines not so well for humans that like and value other things more hidden / not work trying to calc and momentary..., and they can't work like a machine etc despite the matrix chart you put them in.
Perhaps valuing life itself is an error numerically past very simple counting basics as it's an opinion or application which is biased beyond real human use and acceptance when at the end it's planet and plants even on the most raw and anti-maths level - still it might d better.
[ Ok I do wonder why I'm writing this - perhaps to also find out why I'm writing, so bear with me ]
The application of numbers etc is itself needed by people and this puts importance and mixes up bias in the 'who', 'why', 'which' group, when it applies them or which part of what etc... so you see already it's too politically mixing maths, too global, too uncaring and erroneous / incompatible with many parts of nature and life ( How much is your child worth might be a good question if GDP is for adults- sickening - quite like pimping people only for their body mostly and for profit ) though some people accept that readily-
After a while or when they can't pay their heating this winter they will soon cry out in pain or try fight others for something... and that's just more obvious inaccuracies and cheating people, many things are just not measured and cut out...
What you can't see happening can kill you or cheat you of energy in some other realm of economics (i.e. not taking care of planet type of economics) so maybe I think 'why bother so hard, why not find a way general satisfaction can be found, including people who can different levels of satisfaction). I live in a hut it's ok.
But the further arbitrary numbers and layers on top which buys and sells everyone taking care of planet and NOT each other properly NOT even at least working towards it or getting rid of such baggage and even training better is my problem... the mentality from this is also from numbers / money approach which is like a light to moths or doesn't require intelligence or tries to be too clever and steps on a rake in the garden of a million maths equations- humans being the 'problem' if it's expected to calc it all. (which I wouldn't mind but there is not much intention or respect for these things and not humans to be also excluded from - much like people trying to make everything in blockchain format when there is no needed).
To go on life representing things with number also avoids valuing the non-number human things like how passionate or creative or caring people are...
what all mums do 100x the value of any money they see...
and instead these numbers even grow as negative numbers, as
we see with banks growing negative maths or maths going towards the negative spectrum
x = [x + %] or x = x + debt on top
[ sickening basic equation for life ]
all instead of positive mentality as humans to be grown... not some sub-container as a number... which probably highlights faults of mankind more than number BUT the context can't be used in many ways so when you have tools that demand perfection or certain context then it can't handle imperfect subjects (people) and THAT IS THE PROBLEM OFTEN. Sound a bit like Hitler forcing a system on people and not far from it.
Humans are imperfect... I'm not even sure why I'm half saying this ! And on top I wonder how much you care about the human sides... I see the post after seems to include some of this
If we don't know our creator or the why, we can still make it our own reasoning to solve all toothaches more properly than the overcharging of dentists and respect ourselves as mini-gods or part of god or whatever we don't know created us tht we can respect as far as we know which is plenty.... that respect is by not valuing everything as numbers but as human respect instead.
I'll revisit this later - feel free to fight for my cause in whatever way while I'm away...
Just don't hang on to numbers only or too strongly, it can be a type of absolute or fascist type of order not compatible with humans - and much of
@tripu > Math is the only #epistemology that I trust. And math is behind everything.
I struggle to see how math alone could be an epistemology. We need to build some kind of model of the world to arrive at anything accessible by math.
Maybe we need examples to clarify what is meant here? What fields qualify for interesting ethical problems to you?
I admit I used “epistemology” there in a loose way. Perhaps #math is not an epistemology, stricto sensu.
I’m interested in using #mathematics to solve problems, in general. In particular I defend a numerical, analytical approach to ethical questions, well-being, and personal day-to-day decisions.
I have elaborated in other toots, eg:
Off the top of my head, strong candidates for that set are:
“#Suffering is bad”
That’s the only thing that I’m certain is bad. My foundation for #ethics.
“#Mathematics is true”
Math is the only #epistemology that I trust. And math is behind everything.
“I matter. Others matter, too.”
This guards against the polar opposites of egotism and immolation — both mistaken.
[…]