brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmA mind must have interests, but a meta-cognitive mind can also influence its own interests and choose which interests to have (to some degree).
If practical reasoning begins with something wanted, to show that it is rational to act morally would involve showing that by acting morally we will achieve something we want (most).
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmA mind will favor more substantive and meaningful interests, if it engages in rational reflection upon those interests; interests which are sustained and satisfied more fully in the cosmic narrative.
Not so sure how this applies to psychopaths. Their interests simply are as they are. Following through on some cosmic narrative would bore them to death.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmOf the two options, good seems to be logically preferable to evil because it promotes positive feedback, while evil agents likely have more difficulty not working against their own interests.
It depends on whether the interest in the positive feedback is greater than a particular interest one doesn't want sacrificed. Or if an equal or greater compensation can be expected. In terms of the interest of self-preservation, doing good in some extreme cases (like life and death) would be illogical.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmWe could say that, given a mind that thinks as an assumption, if that mind is rational it should choose to have an interest in good rather than evil or a fleeting hedonistic interest.
I'd say there may be an argument to be made that some desires may be irrational, like in the Future Tuesday Indifference example.
(Have you started checking out the Effective Altruism class btw? This example also shows up in the lectures of the second week).
But it does seem like an unrealistic set of preferences to have. I imagine one would only be disinterested in the pain experienced on a future Tuesday if there was a competing and stronger interest that applied to future Tuesdays. In that case, the disinterest would still be rational.
Or the preference goes against the individual's idealized interests, because he can't seem to recognize his desires on Tuesdays as part of his self existing over (parts of) time. In the end what defines identity anyway if not the continuation of the self over time?
In that case, the individual existing on Tuesdays turns into another person at the strike of midnight. Such a radical change in the configuration of preferences would certainly support this.
OR he simply has a strong belief that he is another person on Tuesdays, which happens to be wrong. If that mistaken belief was corrected, his preference would get closer to his idealized interests.
The only other option is that the individual is continuously indifferent to the pain experienced on Tuesdays, even on Tuesdays. His preferences remain the same. In that case, he is not so obviously irrational.
My thesis is that pain can only be meaningfully constructed as pain, i.e. a negative experience, if there exists an interest to avoid it. Otherwise it's just synapses shooting meaninglessly and there's nothing to even attach these value judgments to.
So I think that, when we talk about a preference like avoiding pain, except the pain on a Tuesday, and the preferences do not change, then the subjective experience on Tuesdays can't really be defined in terms of pain at all.
We could only hypothetically deem basic idealized wants irrational if we operate within the margins of a hedonistic framework, in which interests do not determine the positive or negative value of subjective experiences at all. This is an empirical question and hopefully we'll have an empirical answer as neuroscience evolves.
But even if I were to accept some preferences like this one as being irrational, I'm not sure I could then make the logical leap forward to claim that there's a rational reason for preferring good (other people's interests) over self-interest in cases when the two are incompatible.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmViolating the interests of other sentient beings is in itself bad. Of course, that bad may be outweighed by other good consequences.
I mean this is an initial assumption that has to be made - that violating interests is bad -, from which all other value judgements are derived in a positivist manner.
We could say that everyone would agree that the violation of their own interests is a negative experience, so this general agreement can be used as a basis for the assumption.
But it's not clear why we should make the leap from multiple subjective experiences (a kind of intersubjectivity) to a claim of objective truth.
The only objective truth we can state is that sentient beings do not want their interests violated. The golden rule is then applied, but its rightness is an assumed premise.
And claiming that violating interests that I personally don't experience is in some way
irrational is even harder to prove than saying that violating other interests is objectively
bad.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmI'm not necessarily committed to that argument, but I think it could have merit (this is why I said I am not decided before).
Yes, it does have merit and it should be thought about. But I get the sense that it leads to hedonism, or that it can more likely be accepted within the context of a hedonistic mind.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:29 pmIt's just not an argument I spend much time on since 99% of people already want to be good.
A lot of people either claim there is no good, or they want good to be what they do rather than to do what is good. It's probably why we see such an adherence to moral relativism or to egoistic theories based on self-interested reciproity (contractualism).
Basically, they want to change the concept of good to fit their actions rather than to change their actions to fit the concept of good, within reason.
Even if 99% of people did want to be good, this is still an important question to ask. It can reveal logical fallacies or contradictions in the premises.
