Simon Paynton

Unseen wrote:
Do you agree with Rawls’s “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override”?

I’m not sure what the welfare of society means.  If it means “what my society wants me to do” or “what is in the interests of a possibly corrupt society”, then that may be attemp…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
And yet, you seem to imply that joint goals are ipso facto good. If joint goals are better than individual goals, then ultimately the only goal worth putting our minds to is the one that benefits the entire human community, even if it dooms our own component community. Well, how do you convince me to bury my family, friends,…

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But then, the questions of why people are cruel for emotional gain, and deceptive for material gain, are interesting in themselves.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-04765-0

Unseen wrote:
Philosophy isn’t a fact-based science.

It kind of is.  Philosophy means love of knowledge, not love of bullshit.

There is a difference between what something is worth and what makes something worthy or worthwhile. A person’s and even a community’s goals are not necessarily worthwhile. A person may place a lot of worth on making…

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Unseen wrote:
So, you are now arguing that there is some sort of moral “reality,” with facts and where assertions are subject to practical testing.

Well, a philosophy can either be accurate, or it can be bullshit.  Which is better?

The Good, it seems to me, is inescapably what someone has convinced him/herself is The Good and that some other equa…

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Unseen wrote:
What is the point of solving a problem with “no practical implications”? LOL

Simon Paynton wrote:

Yes, that has practical implications. That’s a good thing. It indicates that my philosophy is close to reality.

Deontology

Deontology is simple to apply. It just requires that people follow the rules and do their duty. This approach tends to fit well with our natural intuition about what is or isn’t ethical.  …

Despite its strengths, rigidly following deontology can produce results that many people find un…

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Unseen wrote:
Give an example of a philosophical moral question with no practical implications that your system “solves.”

https://academic.oup.com/book/3167/chapter-abstract/144058658

Parfit, like Sidgwick, believes that there are objective normative reasons. Yet Sidgwick found himself unable, in The Methods of Ethics, to put ethics on a rat…

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Unseen wrote:
Philosophy is not a body of knowledge, though it is taught as if it is, because a university doesn’t know how else to build a course around it and assign credits.

You could say it’s a system of asking questions.  In order to answer the questions, we need information.

Unseen wrote:
Who does the answer satisfy? Mmm… Probably Simon Paynton. Your system is descriptive at best. How does it answer a conundrum some of us are facing: Should I register as a Republican for the upcoming primary in hopes of helping to keep Donald Trump off the ballot, even though I won’t vote for anyone the GOP puts forth for the 202…

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Davis wrote:
Deontological moral systems are complex in moral rule building, that is the opposite of crude or simplistic. They are only unrealistic when pushed to the furthest extreme.

I think it’s possible that the moral system I have worked out, functions as a version of deontology in its normative scheme.  Evolutionary deontology.  It r…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Once again, the dictates of a moral system are advice, not facts, so the result isn’t a truth. There is no constraint on them necessitating they be realistic.

And once again, for the moral system to give advice that’s worth listening to, the moral system has to be realistic.  You wouldn’t wire a plug according to a false diagram.

Unseen wrote:
Like I said, moral systems aren’t true or false. They are helpful or they are not.

“Helpful” implies “true” or “realistic”.  Humans have morality: how does it work?  That’s what the Kantians and Utilitarians are also trying to work out.

Davis wrote:
How does your moral system solve this without avoiding all the challenges of other moral systems?

I can see the point you’re making, or rather, the question you’re asking: the appeal of these faulty moral systems is that they tell us what to do.  We should maximise well being in some way (which I agree with); we should act as if…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Simon’s system explains things (to his mind) so well that there are no problems that cause him to lose sleep at night. He couldn’t think of even one. That is very suspicious.

You’re right, I misunderstood your question.  You were talking about actual real-life moral questions; I was talking about moral philosophical ques…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Outside of its potential sociological value, which I’m unqualified to assess, your system is irrelevant as moral philosophy.

The reason I take a sociological, descriptive approach is that this is the only valid way to proceed.  Moral realists assert that “you morally ought to X because X is factually right”.  According to the is/…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
We must be able to philosophize internally, within our own minds first. To do that we must understand the history of Philosophy, the problems it has had and how our own understanding of it (or our own subjective interpretation of it, if you prefer) has shaped our own ways of thinking.

We need to be able to follow our…

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Unseen wrote:
Real moral systems go beyond that. Mill suggested doing the greatest good for the greatest number. Kant posited that we should only act in ways that we could universalize as a law for everyone. In other words, we should ask ourselves if we would be willing for everyone to act in the same way in similar circumstances. If the answer…

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Unseen wrote:
That hardly qualifies as a hard case.

It’s not meant to be a hard case; it’s an illustration of how a value that aims to achieve mutual benefit, works.

I think your ideas about morality are not very helpful to people in everyday life facing actual moral dilemmas.

I’ve always said that things are right or wrong according to…[Read more]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I was thinking of Hume too.

That’s an interesting article.

The bigger problem in moral philosophy is what happens if someone does not want to be good, whatever its origins?  Put simply, in what sense ought we to hold the goal of being good?  It seems one can ask “how am I rationally required to hold ‘good’ as a v…

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