An open invitation to stop your misinformed fad and start making an actual difference in the world.

[Mr. Purple]

Why do you choose to value these things rather than interests?
In doing so, you're taking only part of the mind, and you're saying "this is what's valuable", and rejecting the rest without cause.

I don't choose my values any more than i choose my beliefs. I'm not arbitrarily choosing a random aspect of my consciousness and saying this is what i value. It's just a reality of my brain that I actually value it. It's not possible for me to choose your conception of interest instead given this fact. It simply doesn't register in my brain as something that is possible to value. I don't know what that would be like to just arbitrarily choose something and have it gain value that way.

Perhaps you only have an interest in experiencing pleasure, and given all relevant information you accept the "happy pill", but such is not the case for others as demonstrated by behavior.

I honestly don't view the extreme thought experiments like the happy pill example as a good way to demonstrate what someone actually believes regarding their values unless you are willing to talk about subconscious\intuition\bias as influencing peoples decisions, which you seem to reject. But, if we set up a that Imaginary scenario with a rational actor who has all the information and doesn't have specific intuitions or biases, then we can continue, but i don't know how well that would represent an actual person. It would be so much more convincing if you could find a real world example where my values wouldn't break down into pleasure or suffering.

On what basis do you completely reject my account of what I want, and substitute your own?

I won't completely reject your account. I'll take it as a data point. Though I can definitely think of alternate explanations.

You're telling me there's some secret "subconscious" mechanism in my brain that factually shows I only value hedonism, and my brain is creating the illusion that I have other values aside from that?

Point taken. Though it's entirely possible that the "other" values are still made up of pleasure and suffering and you are just not introspective enough to realize it. I won't assume this is the case for you. It's unsolved

It does seem very unlikely that the brain would operate so differently between people with something as fundamental as motivational systems, especially given how similar most other brain functions that are able to be observed are, so it becomes an appealing and seemingly plausible idea to assume that the other person is simply not rigorous enough in examining their experiences. It's unfortunate all we can do is ask people what they experience and hope they can give an accurate account.

But to the contrary of your claims on moral relevance, without those interests morality has no meaning

Your version of interest just doesn't mean anything for me and people like me I guess. I don't see the difference in moral relevance between the two from an objective standpoint other than which is more universal. You get value from relating to the fact that another being has reasons to do things(interest), i get value from relating to another being's positive and negative experiences. I would be willing to bet most people would share the opinion that mine is far more in line with how they see things, but i would have to demonstrate this.

Altruism and Preference Utilitarianism both tend to use an interest framework.
You'll probably find the most material related to preference utilitarianism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarianism
Although I'm not a utilitarian.

Perfect, this is the kind of stuff i was looking for.

I had a lot more written out for other points, but i got logged out when I pressed send. Very frustrating

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't choose my values any more than i choose my beliefs.

Both of which you choose, in so far as you really choose anything.
If you prefer the interest framework, then value interests instead.
99% of the time it's the same result if you have empathy, but it makes worlds of difference on the issue of moral consistency and validity of the framework behind morality.

I don't know what that would be like to just arbitrarily choose something and have it gain value that way.

Try it out. Although this is far from arbitrary.

I honestly don't view the extreme thought experiments like the happy pill example as a good way to demonstrate what someone actually believes regarding their values unless you are willing to talk about subconscious\intuition\bias as influencing peoples decisions, which you seem to reject.

This is very frustrating, because you missed my point entirely.

The ONLY thing we can all objectively determine is behavior. All of this woo-ish nonsense about "consciousness" and subconscious stuff is just your assumption on the matter -- I compared it to a theist making ad hoc assumptions about god being behind everything for a reason.
You can ALWAYS make up whatever to justify your assumptions based on your own preconceptions.

Take a moment to try to prove the Earth is round, and a Flat Earther will contradict every bit of evidence you provide by constructing an ever more elaborate and convoluted model of the universe to dismiss your arguments -- moving the goal post, and making the ever changing model unfalsifiable (which is what your model is).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis

You missed my entire point about this being a model. Models are not reality, they are just one of many possible ways to understand reality. We're talking about a black box here, and you're choosing one model rather than another (when both can as far as you know result in the same outcomes) for no reason (and in spite of reasons to reject it).

Here's an example of modeling:
The situation:
You have a black box (a thing that does something, but that you can't see inside to determine directly how it does it).
This black box takes in green light, and puts out yellow light.
Here are two models of what might be going on:
1. The box absorbs all of the green light, and has a yellow light emitter
2. The box absorbs some of the green light, letting some pass out, and creates some red light to add to it so that the resultant light looks yellow.

(you may need to understand color theory in order to get this example)

Explanation:
Visually, we can't tell the difference from the output (not without a spectrometer), so both models should seem equally plausible as far as we know.

Anybody who asserts model #1 or #2 without reasonable justification is basically just being an asshole.

Even if this were an empirical matter of reality (which it isn't entirely, and I may try to explain why later), we DO have justification for preferring the interest model, because it's useful to a coherent objective standard of morality, and the hedonistic model is useless to that (as I have explained, and will evidently have to explain yet again).
The only people who would prefer the hedonistic model are those who want to argue against moral realism, and show that there is no such thing as morality.

There is no reason for you to prefer the hedonistic model over the interest model, even if you believe they're equally probable and that any behavior can be explained by either model.
At worst, you should regard them as equally plausible, and recognizing that morality only exists in the interest model, you should prefer that one anyway.

But, if we set up a that Imaginary scenario with a rational actor who has all the information and doesn't have specific intuitions or biases, then we can continue, but i don't know how well that would represent an actual person.

No, that would not be a person, and it wouldn't even be a MIND.

We are made up of our preferences (biases). If you exclude those, you no longer have a mind or a person of any kind. You just have a difference engine.

A rational agent does not lack personal preferences AKA interests. Preferences are not irrational, but are non-rational (there is an important distinction).

It would be so much more convincing if you could find a real world example where my values wouldn't break down into pleasure or suffering.

As I explained, if you are a hedonist, your values will always be about pleasure and suffering. The values of people who are not hedonists are not.
Why is this hard to understand?

The interest framework accepts that hedonists can exist too -- where there is only one interest, and that is for pleasure.
The hedonistic framework is the limited framework that rejects anything beyond hedonism.

Though I can definitely think of alternate explanations.

So, too, does a creationist think he can think of alternate explanations for the fossil record. You can make up whatever ad hoc explanations you want, and always save your own drowning hypothesis -- that doesn't make it valid.

What you have is a model, made unfalsifiable by its lack of testable predictions and infinitely extensible nature by appealing to ad hoc hidden motivations.

It does seem very unlikely that the brain would operate so differently between people with something as fundamental as motivational systems, especially given how similar most other brain functions that are able to be observed are

Which is why it's more likely that (to the extent this is empirically real at all) only one model is true, and the other is false. However, if you will read what I explained multiple times now, the interest based system allows for hedonists too -- using the same model, but just having a hedonistic interest.

So, one of these systems explains both plainly, and the other explains only one and flatly denies the reality of the other or rationalizes it away with supposed "hidden motivations".

so it becomes an appealing and seemingly plausible idea to assume that the other person is simply not rigorous enough in examining their experiences.

And insulting, particularly when you're doing it for no reason. There is no reason for you to prefer the hedonistic model over the interest model. I don't deny that hedonists exist, but you do deny that altruists exist.

Your version of interest just doesn't mean anything for me and people like me I guess.

Then maybe we just have to conclude that morality doesn't mean anything to you.

I don't see the difference in moral relevance between the two from an objective standpoint other than which is more universal.

You don't see the difference in moral relevance between these two?

1. Defining evil as a person who would reject the happy pill, or who would save his or her family despite knowingly experiencing more suffering because of it, and who would be willing to help others even if that isn't going to yield the most personal pleasure?
2. Understanding that a person who would take the happy pill is amoral, and lauding as good and heroic a person who would endure net suffering to save others, and help others without net gain in personal pleasure.

Really?

You get value from relating to the fact that another being has reasons to do things(interest), i get value from relating to another being's positive and negative experiences.

False. You are confused. According to your precepts, you only get value from your own personal pleasure, which comes from your empathy which to you has no value in and of itself -- just like hunger or sex drive, it's only incidental to your biology.

You would be forced to admit a sadist who tortures others for personal pleasure is equally moral to you, who helps others for personal pleasure.

Do you not understand this implication of your supposed hedonistic moral framework?

I would be willing to bet most people would share the opinion that mine is far more in line with how they see things, but i would have to demonstrate this.

Give them the above example about a sadist, and see if they agree.

I had a lot more written out for other points, but i got logged out when I pressed send. Very frustrating

When that happens, press the back button. Any modern browser will remember your post content, and you can select all, copy it, then log in and post again and paste it.

[Mr. Purple]

Both of which you choose, in so far as you really choose anything.

I tried really hard to believe in santa again just now. No luck. It simply doesn't work like that. Once i have internalized the evidence, I stop believing. If santa moved in with me and i saw his magic every day, once my brain ruled out tricks, that evidence would force me to believe again. My brain just knows\believes things(has intuition) whether I choose to or not. This can be from evidence, or it can be from my biology.(intuition can be shaped over time, and that shaping can involves choices, but choosing to change an intuition isn't the part that changes it.)

This is part of the reason that the death\electrode example is bad. The person being asked has intuitions about death being the worst thing, and intuition that too much constant pleasure isn't actually pleasurable(and a million other things). You're telling them they know something for the hypothetical, but they don't know just because you told them to. What their brains actually "know" are their internalized intuitions which shouldn't just be taken at face value as the root of their interest.

I think the most accurate way to discover what a person's interests are is to look for the ultimate reason a person would give for why they have an intuition assuming adequate introspection. This is what I did to realize what my interests were.

Try it out. Although this is far from arbitrary.

I have many times. It doesn't work. Are you willing to say that not being able to choose values is possible under your interest theory?

The ONLY thing we can all objectively determine is behavior

Yeah, I guess it's more about collecting data about who has generally like minded brains, and then each group can build a moral system around themselves. Hopefully it turns out there is only one group.

You missed my entire point about this being a model.

I get what you are saying. You are telling me to be less sure that my type of brain can be assumed other people. Though it's still my intuition, I think I am less willing to assert that egoists are all that exist, so success!

Anybody who asserts model #1 or #2 without reasonable justification is basically just being an asshole.

Simply being uninformed isn't a possibility?... You must really hate religious people.

we DO have justification for preferring the interest model, because it's useful to a coherent objective standard of morality,

I should clarify my definitions. I only think prescriptions of moral systems are objective in respect to shared values. Moral good is accomplishing those values and bad is failing at them. When I talk about psychological egoism, i'm talking about the real world, not a conceptual moral system that would be good or bad to follow. From here you find who agree with your values, and create a moral system by proposing ideas and defining standards to hold each other too in order to collectively maximize those values. The extent this moral system's prescription's map to good and bad and carry moral weight for others is to the extent the system's assumptions about their biology(egoism etc) actually map to the given individual. Moral systems are constructed to serve the purpose of fulfilling moral good. Why is this not a coherent objective standard of morality? Or did you mean to say universal standard of morality?

I admit you may just value pleasure -- it's entirely possible to have pleasure as a sole interest. The interest framework allows for and encapsulates the hedonistic framework within it, but only for those beings that are purely hedonistic.

Your interest system is better at including more things by definition, sure. The problem is that those additional things may not actually be things I can value. If your system prescribes valuing the fact that other's have reasons for doing things, then I can't be in your framework. It carries no moral weight in it's prescriptions for me, and that's a pretty essential part of a moral system.

Your equivalent prerequisite biological claim to my egoism is the belief that people can choose their beliefs. The equivalent to my moral system is your prescription that people should value the fact others have reasons for what they do. Would you say that is accurate?
Both systems seem objective and coherent depending on the reality of human biology.

As a side note: In my moral system i would propose to my fellow egoists is that since we value our joy\suffering and we have this empathy thing that makes it so we can feel other beings joy and suffering, it would be a much better way to maximize that value by not systematically torturing animals. Ignorance gets around this, but since people also have a strong drive and interest to know the truth, this can't last forever. Once one person internalizes and feels the pain that this knowledge gives, they will then have an interest in enlightening others to get them to help stop it.

False. You are confused. According to your precepts, you only get value from your own personal pleasure, which comes from your empathy which to you has no value in and of itself -- just like hunger or sex drive, it's only incidental to your biology.

My bad. You are correct here. Easy mistake. If empathy gives the ability to feel what others feel(not literally), then it's not unfair to say I do get value from relating to others positive and negative experiences. But, what you said is more accurate and is the ultimate cause of the interest.

You would be forced to admit a sadist who tortures others for personal pleasure is equally moral to you, who helps others for personal pleasure.

I don't think lions are moral monsters either. As a practical matter I hold other people to my moral system, but if am convinced they are sufficiently different, such as having a mental illness, then of course I won't judge them.

And insulting, particularly when you're doing it for no reason.

I'm sorry that my thoughts are insulting to you. You're pretty sensitive for someone who views the SJW movement so negatively.

[brimstoneSalad]

You missed my entire point about this being a model.

I get what you are saying. You are telling me to be less sure that my view applies to other people.

That's... not what I'm saying.

When there's no way to distinguish between them, except by your faith (which is essentially what you're saying), be less sure of the model itself.
When two models have the same output, and make all of the same predictions about behavior, particularly when they are already abstracted, they can potentially be equally true -- they could both be valid models depending on how you define things, or something else could be true which neither represent very well.

Models are useful, they don't have to be true. In quantum physics, many people still use the Copenhagen interpretation, for example, because the math works out the same, and yet there's good reason to reject it in favor of MWI (reasons that will likely never be substantiated by experiment, but are logical/philosophical in nature).

Anybody who asserts model #1 or #2 without reasonable justification is basically just being an asshole.

Simply being uninformed isn't a possibility?

Note: Reasonable justification. Asserting something when you're ignorant on a topic is kind of a dick move. Humility, and a measure of agnosticism, is appropriate in the context of ignorance.

Though it's still my intuition, I think I am less willing to assert that egoists are all that exist, so success!

Well, that's good.

I admit you may just value pleasure -- it's entirely possible to have pleasure as a sole interest. The interest framework allows for and encapsulates the hedonistic framework within it, but only for those beings that are purely hedonistic.

Your interest system is objectively better at including more things by definition, sure.

Based on Occam's razor, then, if you admit both exist, you should prefer the description that can explain both of them better (that is assuming there are actual empirical differences).

The problem is that those additional things may not actually be things I can value. If your system prescribes valuing the fact that other's have reasons for doing things, then I can't be in your framework. It carries no moral weight in it's prescriptions for me, and that's a pretty essential part of a moral system.

First, your "moral system" is not actually a moral system. You are using the wrong word for it. It's a system you think is a moral system, but is actually a confused pseudo-philosophy; there are holes in it big enough to drive a truck through. More on that later, just try to go with it for now -- you have mislabeled something.

This "problem" is not a problem at all. You don't have to value the fact that others have reasons for doing things as a matter of fact. Many people do not value others in any way at all -- this is not a mandate of human biology. Look into psychopathy (actually quite common).

Your interests are perfectly represented in the interest-based framework.

I have an interest in the interests of others. This is my interest in what is a legitimate morality.

You have an interest in the pleasure and pain of others in so far as empathy for this particular experience provides you pleasure and pain (it is a limited interest, subservient to your hedonism). This is your interest in what is a confused pseudo-philosophy, limited by your hedonistic experiences, but which you mistakenly label as your morality.

Maybe the legitimate morality I have described just isn't for you, and it isn't something you want to find interest in. This is represented just fine in the interest-based system.

The ONLY thing we can all objectively determine is behavior

Yeah, I guess it's more about collecting data about who has generally like minded brains, and then each group can build a moral system around themselves. Hopefully it turns out there is only one group.

...No, not at all. See what I said about a model. A model is not a personal thing. I'm mostly uninterested in people's intuitions or assumptions about how they think their minds work, since it's irrelevant (this is relevant to semantics, but not function questions).

In the absence of any testable predictions which would clearly differentiate the models, they are at least potentially functionally identical and any testing is futile. In that case, they are usually differentiated only by semantics or presentation.

I'm going to have to draw this out for you to show you what I meant earlier about it not necessarily being an empirical question at all.

interestvsegomodels.gif

Can you see that?

What's the difference between these models, exactly? The labels.

I am not a difference engine. I am a collection of interests.

You don't find interests valuable, you see them as mere biases, instinct, preferences, etc. garbage without value. You don't see intrinsic value in those things, only in the difference engine that is influenced by them (which I see as essentially without any moral value, it's just a fucking calculator).

I just tried really hard to believe in santa again just now.

I'm not asking you to believe in Santa. I'm asking you to accept the interest model rather than the egoist one, such as is expressed in that image.

Santa is empirically false. I'm not asking you to believe anything empirically false. I'm asking you to accept a model which is more morally useful, and offers no empirical drawbacks.

no luck. It simply doesn't work like that. Once i have internalized the evidence, I stop believing.

This is also not true. Not by either model. Look into rationalization; it's the mechanism by which people convince themselves of things they want to be true.
See also: cognitive dissonance.

People believe things that are not true because they WANT to do so, and that's all it takes. You can't believe in Santa, because you don't want to -- not on the whole. Your interest in believing in a factually true world, and in critical thinking, is far stronger than your interest to believe in Santa, so you will not do it.

If you actually want to believe something, it's very different.
That's what I'm asking for (for you to want to believe the interest model), but only so you can overcome your biases against it and desire to continue believing in egoism -- I'm not asking you to violate your interest in believing in reality, not by an iota.
I'm not asking you to abandon your interest in critical thinking either.

My brain just knows\believes things(has intuition) whether I choose to or not.

Here, again, you distance yourself from the function of your brain, and you talk about intuition. This is not a productive way to think about these issues. You are using a bad model that is serving you poorly.

This part of the reason that death\electrode example is bad. The person being asked has intuitions about death being the worst thing, and intuition that too much constant pleasure isn't actually pleasurable. You're telling them they know something for the hypothetical, but they don't know just because you told them to. What their brains actually "know" are their internalized intuitions which shouldn't just be taken at face value for what their interests are. (intuition can be shaped over time, and that shaping can involves choices, but choosing to change an intuition isn't the part that changes it.)

You're defending the answer given by appealing to irrational behavior. If you defend "intuition" like this, then you have to surrender any claims about morality because you can no longer ask people to be rational agents or put value in that in your moral system.

I think the most accurate way to discover what a person's interests are is to look for the final reason a person would give for why they have an intuition assuming adequate introspection. Since this is what i did to realize what my interests were.

That's complete bullshit, and again your view is unfalsifiable because it's up to your personal biased interpretation -- what is "adequate introspection"? You can always claim somebody who didn't agree with you just wasn't adequately introspective.
The result depends on the model you fabricate, and this could just be pulled out of your ass; it doesn't result from deep introspection into the correct workings of the brain. Enough ad-hoc modifications will render any model functional.

I have many times. It doesn't work. Are you willing to say that not being able to choose values is possible under your interest theory?

You can be inhibited from forming new values or accepting beliefs if your old interests preclude them. This is how people get trapped into dogmatic thinking. It's also how people acquire beliefs that are untrue: existing values compel the adoption of beliefs despite their untruth, and the brain is forced to rationalize to try to create harmony between various ones in accepting the belief.

Again, look into "cognitive dissonance".

I should clarify my definitions. I only think prescriptions of morality are objective in respect to shared values.

That's not objective, that's subjective. So, you're a moral relativist then? Morality has no real meaning or compulsion in the context of relativism either.

Moral good is accomplishing those values and bad is failing at them.

So, two sadistic psychopaths get together who like kidnapping and raping children to death. They have done good by accomplishing those goals. They have done evil by failing at them. Got it.

Do you actually LIKE admitting this? Do you like a system which makes you agree with things like this? Does it give you more pleasure to think of this as moral, rather than a more sensible definition?

If not, given everything else is equal and there's no actual empirical reason to prefer the egoist model to the interest based one, maybe you should consider using a different model. A model that lets you call these sadistic psychopathic child kidnapper-rapist-murderers what they are -- evil.

When I talk about psychological egoism, i'm talking about the real world, not a conceptual moral system that would be good or bad to follow.

No, you're talking about a model you have chosen to accept for no good reason. A model which has philosophical implications to morality.

Why is this not a coherent objective standard of morality?

It's relativism, it's completely opt in, and can be refined down to the individual (if no two people agree). So, it basically fails to be anything like a standard.
One person can assert this or that is moral for him or her based on his or her own values. Which means everybody can assert he or she is moral based on his or her own values as long as they're pleasing themselves (they don't even have to do it efficiently, since you've defended irrational intuition):
"Pedophile? Moral for me, that's my value! Genocide? Moral for me, that's mine! Drowning kittens? Moral for me!
Saving starving people? That's Immoral because it goes against my personal values!" etc.
"Don't worry, everybody's moral by their own standards! You're a good person and can do whatever you want and you'll always be doing the right thing!"

Morality as a standard has to have utility for judgement. You presented something that instantly decays into trivial meaninglessness.

What you may be trying to define instead is "social contract"; that's a very different thing, and has little to nothing to do with morality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

That is when people agree to obey certain rules because it's better for all of them (the enfranchised). This does not apply to the disenfranchised (those who are not part of the social contract).

As a side note: In my moral system i would propose to my fellow egoists is that since we value our joy\suffering and we have this empathy thing that makes it so we can feel other beings joy and suffering, it would be a much better way to maximize that value by not systematically torturing animals. Ignorance gets around this, but since people also have a strong drive and interest in knowing the truth, this can't last forever. Once even one person internalizes and feels the pain that this knowledge gives, they will then have an interest in enlightening others to get them to help stop it.

That's one of the most optimistically naive things I've ever heard. That's not reality in either respect.

1. The vast majority of humans are not 'naturally' empathetic, particularly to animals. Empathy is largely a learned characteristic. I referenced primitive tribes before, but I feel like you just need to do a lot of reading into psychology generally, and psychopathy, and socialization more specifically. All you need is a society that doesn't teach or promote such empathy, and it will either never form, or atrophy by the time a child reaches adulthood if it was ever (hypothetically) there.
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ME2wmFunCjU

2. Ignorance is very powerful. Most people use a mechanism called rationalization to avoid knowing things they don't want to know. This is how religion still exists. People can believe contradictions, make excuses for them, and avoid thinking about them. Whether you want to understand rationalization in the ego framework (it causes suffering to believe some things, so the brain finds a way not to), or in the interest framework (there are competing interests between knowing truth and believing something else, and the brain finds a way to compromise between them to satisfy both with excuses), cognitive dissonance and rationalization are well established as pillars of psychology.

What you are describing is Randian Objectivism, but with an added emphasis on empathy... which I just demonstrated is not warranted.

Objectivists have long argued against animal rights and welfare (except voluntary, based on personal preference). They have never accepted it as any kind of moral social prerogative.

You would be forced to admit a sadist who tortures others for personal pleasure is equally moral to you, who helps others for personal pleasure.

It depends on if he has a sufficiently similar biology to me. He is either wrong about the way to bring himself happiness, or he has a sufficiently different biology(like an animal) to not be held to my systems prescriptions. I don't think lions are moral monsters either.

It doesn't depend on that. He has the same biology, he just has different values and preferences based on his upbringing. He's not necessarily wrong about the best way to bring himself pleasure; he is repulsed by empathy, and he genuinely enjoys causing others pain. This is not uncommon.

And I mean, really not uncommon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadistic_ ... y_disorder
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/th ... sonalities

Sadism exists on a spectrum, and as an intrinsic motivation (whether you want to call it an intuition/bias/preference or an interest) frequently exceeds empathy.

Read this thread, by a genuine sadist on this forum: https://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=946
...Then tell me you still believe in the inherent empathetic nature of human beings.

Not quite the majority, but a significant percentage of people are monsters, or fight monstrous tendencies every day.

Remember when I was talking about models? For as old as it is, this one is actually pretty decent:

ONE EVENING, AN ELDERLY
CHEROKEE BRAVE TOLD HIS
GRANDSON ABOUT A BATTLE THAT
GOES ON INSIDE PEOPLE.

HE SAID "MY SON, THE BATTLE IS
BETWEEN TWO 'WOLVES' INSIDE US ALL.
ONE IS EVIL. IT IS ANGER,
ENVY, JEALOUSY, SORROW,
REGRET, GREED, ARROGANCE,
SELF-PITY, GUILT, RESENTMENT,
INFERIORITY, LIES, FALSE PRIDE,
SUPERIORITY, AND EGO.

THE OTHER IS GOOD.
IT IS JOY, PEACE LOVE, HOPE SERENITY,
HUMILITY, KINDNESS, BENEVOLENCE,
EMPATHY, GENEROSITY,
TRUTH, COMPASSION AND FAITH."

THE GRANDSON THOUGH ABOUT
IT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN ASKED
HIS GRANDFATHER:

"WHICH WOLF WINS?..."

THE OLD CHEROKEE SIMPLY REPLIED,
"THE ONE THAT YOU FEED"

http://www.nanticokeindians.org/tale_of_two_wolves.cfm

Is it empirically true? What is a wolf? What is feeding?

In terms of the degree to which we are products of environment -- and our own actions as part of that environment that reinforce and self-author our interests -- it's pretty spot on.

You're pretty sensitive for someone who views the SJW movement so negatively.

More impatient. But that's not what the SJW movement is about. I think you missed my point on that, but it's not relevant to this conversation.
Maybe make a thread on it?

[Mr. Purple]

Maybe the legitimate morality I have described just isn't for you, and it isn't something you want to find interest in.

Sure, If you are defining morality in a foreign way to what I have come across, maybe that definition doesn't apply to me. You would have to tell me what this "Legitimate Morality" is though...

People believe things that are not true because they WANT to do so, and that's all it takes.

To change the actual feeling of knowledge\belief(change of intuition) isn't up to a person to just decide. They can put themselves in environments that they think has a greater chance of changing their belief like not looking at evidence against their position, or only having friends who reinforce that particular belief, but that may or may not actually change the intuition depending on that persons biology. They may end up gaining the opposite intuition that the belief is false. You can't know unless you fully know their biology. You have to be more convincing on this point.

You're defending the answer given by appealing to irrational behavior. If you defend "intuition" like this, then you have to surrender any claims about morality because you can no longer ask people to be rational agents or put value in that in your moral system.

I don't view behavior taken based on intuition to be irrational. If the happy pill being bad is what you actually think you know(intuition), instead of simply what you are told to know like in your example, then the rational choice is to reject the happy pill. Being told you know something is not actually knowing it. if you ask them to assume their intuitions are wrong for the example, then the experiment loses it's point.

That's not objective, that's subjective. So, you're a moral relativist then? Morality has no real meaning or compulsion in the context of relativism either.

It's objective within the relevant scope. I can't choose to believe suffering is good and anyone with similar biology to me wouldn't be able to either. Pleasure has value to me because of my biology(objective) and i can't change it on a whim. And as long as the biology is similar, it doesn't matter what culture or tradition they belong to. There may be a little bit of relativism in there in that my morals wouldn't apply to a rabbit for example, but i think most traditionally "objective" moral systems with any sophistication would admit this as well.

So, two sadistic psychopaths get together who like kidnapping and raping children to death. They have done good by accomplishing those goals. They have done evil by failing at them. Got it.

No, i would say they did something terrible if that child is like me and values pain and suffering. It's the same as if a lion were to get loose and rip apart the children. It's a terrible thing to happen(to the child), but the lion itself isn't bad if that's his biology.

Do you actually LIKE admitting this?

I don't feel like i'm admitting anything more than what an supposed "objective" system would be admitting by letting a lion off the hook.

The vast majority of humans are not 'naturally' empathetic, particularly to animals. Empathy is largely a learned characteristic

.
I saw that video a while back, it's very chilling. Of course you can damage that part of your brain and stunt growth, but i wouldn't call that a cultural construction any more than saying having arm muscles or mechanisms for language are a cultural construction in humans because they will both wither if damaging environmental factors causes them to never be used. Of course you need a safe baseline environment for a human not to suffer damage. Malnutrition can also stop some human traits from manifesting fully as well, but i wouldn't claim they weren't innate because of this. Of course biology and environment are both at play to some degree with most human questions,but I think Its fair to say that empathy should not be near the same category as something like Algebra or writing when talking about innate vs learned. Though you will probably fight me on this since i can tell you really into the idea of humans being memetic beings.

-

I think I had a realization. Since I don't care about the moral obligations of beings sufficiently different from me I don't think models in this area have any moral value at all. I have a strong intuition that psychological egoism is true, but my morals or moral systems don't really change if it's true or not, and i can only value those who value what I value anyway, so building models to predict what most people's biology is doesn't seem morally relevant. I just have to hope everyone is hedonist to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict. Since i don't know what good and bad would be outside of pleasure and suffering, I can only give moral consideration to beings that experience pleasure and suffering. A difference engine interest may be as equally valuable as how I view suffering and pleasure, but like that language that nobody can read in your previous example, it would be lost to me.

How i've been using morally relevant is:
Information used to shape the precepts of a moral system or give weight to that system's prescriptions. And, moral facts that are relevant to deciding questions about what is bad and good. Would your interest frame work have this kind of moral relevance for me?

Can you give me a real world example of how the interest model would carry moral weight for beings like me that have a limited scope of things they can value? How would it be used to convince anyone they should value action X over action Y? How does it resolve moral conflicts? I don't see how it can do any of these things unless the person you are talking to is just like you already in that they value your values.

[brimstoneSalad]

Sure, If you are defining morality in a foreign way to what I have come across, maybe that definition doesn't apply to me. You would have to tell me what this "Legitimate Morality" is though...

It's pretty well articulated by the "golden rule".

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And any person would have others do unto him or her as he would have done unto himself based on his or her own preferences -- not that of the other person.

If your preferences are based purely on egoism, it is moral to treat you in that way.
If, as many others, your preferences went beyond egoism, it would be moral to treat you in that way.

Even as an egoist, if being moral (properly, not based on bad philosophy) pleases you, then you should treat others in accordance with their own respective psychologies, not your own.

To change the actual feeling of knowledge\belief(change of intuition) isn't up to a person to just decide.

It may take a little time for well established habits to be updated, but the basic belief can be changed very quickly if you want it to.
If you're saying people can't decide their beliefs, you're out of touch with psychology -- or you're basically saying that people can't really decide anything at all, because everything people do is caused by something else.

You have to be more convincing on this point.

Did you read up on cognitive dissonance?

I feel like you're asking me to convince you that the Earth is round, when this may be better done by just educating yourself more. If you are motivated to do so, you really need to read some books on cognition and psychology.

To the point of this issue: You still have motivations to believe in egoism, or you have failed to understand that egoism is not empirically superior, otherwise you would have changed your belief.
As soon as your desire to continue believing the egoist model is overcome by the contrary and you understand why it is not superior, your belief will change. This is something that, if you understand my arguments fully, you will be able to experience for yourself.

I don't view behavior taken based on intuition to be irrational. If the happy pill being bad is what you actually think you know(intuition), instead of simply what you are told to know like in your example, then the rational choice is to reject the happy pill. Being told you know something is not actually knowing it. if you ask them to assume their intuitions are wrong for the example, then the experiment loses it's point.

The behavior you are describing is inherently irrational -- essentially the definition of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrationality

Irrationality, historically speaking, is an outcome of the ancient Greek separation of rationality (logos) from emotion and sensuality as the sources of "false" assumptions and statements.

This "false intuition" based on emotionally biased interpretation of reality which directly conflicts with known and proven fact is pretty much the definition of irrational. And it goes against the premise of what constitutes a "rational agent".

If you do not accept this behavior as irrational, then you have failed to understand the definition and relevance both of irrationality/rationality, and "rational agent" more specifically. To you, the word "rational" has lost all useful meaning.

In other words, you're not just wrong, you are being irrational in substituting your own useless definition of rationality in favor of the psychologically, historically, and philosophically useful one.

What you are describing is a kind of person who, upon being presented with the Monty Hall problem, explained the mathematics and logic behind it -- FULLY understanding it -- and understanding that luck and supernatural elements are not at play and don't exist, and the psychology of the matter, decides still to follow his or her bad intuition of sticking with the original door.
http://hubpages.com/education/Counterin ... Statistics

This is, by definition, not a rational agent.

If you are asserting that it is morally acceptable to behave irrationally, then that's a completely different assertion than the patently false assertion that overtly and fundamentally irrational behavior doesn't constitute irrational behavior (what, then, do you think does?).

However, as I have explained at least three times by now, if you reject the necessity of rationality in morality, ALL actions become moral, because all actions are based on various beliefs and intuitions (rational and not).

You can't keep avoiding the inevitable conclusion:

Either:

1. The person behaved irrationally in rejecting the happy pill, and thus the decision to do so was Immoral because it shouldn't/didn't maximize pleasure in the brain (based on your hedonistic framework).
2. You reject the value of rationality in moral decision making, thus ALL decisions are inherently moral and everybody is moral -- it's impossible to behave immorally, no matter how irrational and destructive you are to yourself and others (again, based on your framework)
Or:
3. Your framework is wrong. The person acted based on a non-hedonistic interest, because hedonism isn't the metric of morality, and as such did not necessarily act immorally in rejecting the happy pill.

It's objective within the relevant scope.

What are you smoking? Everything is objective within the relevant scope. Chocolate is objectively delicious! Relative to the perceptions of those for whom chocolate is delicious.

When we use the word "objective" that's not what we're talking about. Why do you persist in twisting the definitions of every word beyond any coherent use?

You've done it with rationality and objectivity in this same post.

I can't choose to believe suffering is good and anyone with similar biology to me wouldn't be able to either.

Yes you could, if you wanted to. Anybody could if he or she wanted to.
You were clearly capable of believing the irrational was rational, and that the subjective was objective -- because you wanted to believe it. Both of these are profound reversals of reality and logic.

Pleasure has value to me because of my biology(objective) and i can't change it on a whim.

Have you been paying no attention?

Pleasure has value to me too. It has value to pretty much everybody. In the interest based framework, we ALSO have an interest in feeling pleasure. The only difference is that this is not the ONLY thing we value. Other things, aside from pleasure, may also hold value.
The value of pleasure, the value of self identity, of life, or morality -- these things sit side by side. Some are stronger or weaker than others. Whichever actions satisfy the most and strongest values are the ones we execute.

So, two sadistic psychopaths get together who like kidnapping and raping children to death. They have done good by accomplishing those goals. They have done evil by failing at them. Got it.

No, i would say they did something terrible if that child is like me and values pain and suffering. It's the same as if a lion were to get loose and rip apart the children. It's a terrible thing to happen(to the child), but the lion itself isn't bad if that's his biology.

Somehow you managed to completely misunderstand either what I said, or what you believe as well.

You said objectively moral was that which achieves the desired goals based on a value system giving its holders (the actors) pleasure. Sadism is a value system; it's just like empathy, but in reverse; the pain of others provides personal pleasure. Good being, by definition, linked to morality, and for you, hedonistic pleasure of the ACTORS. If we look at consequence or intent, for the psychopaths, they did something good and moral -- objectively, by your own arguments.

It's irrelevant what the child values to your system, because these people are psychopaths -- they do not feel the pain of the child or empathize. So, they receive only pleasure from this action. Because they maximized their pleasure (intent and consequence), they are good/moral and have done good/acted morally.
You have no argument against this except to abandon your system.

Likewise, you'd have to say the lion behaved morally if it maximized its pleasure in doing what it did, if you're going based on consequences or intent.

It's also true that if the child were to run away and escape, this would have saved the child from suffering, so the child would have done good/acted morally by doing so. And (in terms of consequences only rather than intent) the sadistic psychopaths would have done bad/acted immorally by failing to catch the child and rape it to death.

All you can say is which agents are moral/did good and which agents are immoral/did bad based on the consequences (or intentions) for themselves.

Even if those agents have empathy, still you can only say which were good or bad based on the consequences to themselves (which includes the pain caused by knowledge of suffering to others they care about, not the actual suffering).

You may not like saying those psychopaths were moral/did good, because you have a different value system. But you can not judge them to be immoral, you must judge them to be "objectively moral" (based on your bizarre and useless definitions). You can not argue that their actions are anything other than good relative to their value systems -- "objectively good", as you have argued -- so you must admit that it is good. You certainly have no means of arguing that your value system is superior to theirs; it's just different, and it's only good for YOU to follow in so far as it provides you pleasure to do so.

Do you actually LIKE admitting this?

I don't feel like i'm admitting anything more than what an supposed "objective" system would be admitting by letting a lion off the hook.

Did you mean to say "any"? Because this is not true.

Humans have greater intelligence and capacity to be rational, understanding their choices and alternatives, so have greater moral culpability for actions. Lions are widely regarded as amoral by most moral systems.

Even in terms of broken egoistic systems, like Randian Objectivism, humans are considered to be rational/moral agents, which behave immorally when they behave irrationally instead, and morally when they engage in only rational self interest and maintain a social contract. Lions, having little to no ability to be rational, are not rational/moral agents and can not enter into or violate that contract.

In Classical Utilitarianism, events are judged good or bad by how they affect net pleasure/suffering (Utility). So if a lion received more pleasure than the child suffered (or lost long-term in opportunity cost), it would be good, but it would be bad if the inverse were true. The lion itself isn't necessarily judged, just the event/outcome. In Utilitarianism, moral culpability is usually a distinct exercise because it is a consequentialist system (Objectivism is deontological).

Your system, as you have incoherently presented it, is not a system anybody subscribes to -- and for good reason: it deteriorates to the point of making it impossible to make any moral judgments.

You need to take some time to understand my arguments as to why your system fails, and you need to take some time to look into more established systems like Randian Objectivism and Classical Utilitarianism (which are similar to your claims, but more thought out).
These systems are both problematic (the former much more so than the latter), but at least they're coherent enough that I can address them and their consequences.

Of course biology and environment are both at play to some degree with most human questions,but I think Its fair to say that empathy should not be near the same category as something like Algebra or writing when talking about innate vs learned. Though you will probably fight me on this since i can tell you really into the idea of humans being memetic beings.

In the developed world, literacy rates and rates of empathy are about the same (both around 99%). A significant degree of sadism (it exists on a spectrum, like math ability), however, is far more common than illiteracy or even inability to do basic algebra.
You're making empirically false claims all over the place. You need to do more research into psychology. I'm tired of trying to educate you on this topic if you're dead-set on this assertion. You just need to do your own research.

As long as you accept that Sadism and Psychopathy are prevalent, though, it's irrelevant to the conversation. It doesn't matter if something is nature or nurture -- the fact is that it's there, however it got there. Distinguishing the two in terms of moral value would be an appeal to nature fallacy.

I think I had a realization. Since I don't care about the moral obligations of beings sufficiently different from me I don't think models in this area have any moral value at all.

A theist can make the same dogmatic assertion about atheists. This is just a blanket rejection, based on your own faith and biases, of the validity of everybody else's argument who doesn't agree with you.
This kind of assertion is reprehensible.

I have a strong intuition that psychological egoism is true, but my morals or moral systems don't really change if it's true or not, and i can only value those who value what I value anyway,

Compare: You don't care if the Bible is true or logical or not, you're going to believe it because you want to and you don't care about reality. Good job.

so building models to predict what most people's biology is doesn't seem morally relevant.

You're an expert at completely missing my entire point, even after I took the time to illustrate it (there is literally an illustration).
Are you just trolling?

The models I presented were NOT biology, they were philosophical labels applied to the same structure and function that create superficially different models based on different definitions.

I feel like you're not making an attempt at understanding or being intellectually honest anymore. You need to re-read my post.

I just have to hope everyone is hedonist to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict.

I just have to hope that everyone is Christian to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict.
And if they aren't, well, I'm not going to change my mind, so they better be prepared to die, or kill me first!

The absence of irrational dogma that's immune to logic and sensible argument promoting the only resolution as violent conflict is supposed to be an advantage of atheism -- I guess not, in your case.

Fortunately, people who agree with your hedonistic precepts are outnumbered by altruists, so we will have no problem exterminating you if it comes to it. I should hope that other hedonists are less dogmatic and more accepting of logical argument, though. I have demonstrated several times why your framework is incoherent, and yet you adhere to it anyway out of misplaced trust in your irrational "intuition" a.k.a. mindless faith.

Since i don't know what good and bad would be outside of pleasure and suffering,

You could if you would pay attention and make a serious attempt at understanding my arguments instead of recommitting yourself to your pre-existing dogma.

A difference engine interest may be as equally valuable as how I view suffering and pleasure[...]

A difference engine is not an interest, it's a calculator. The values in green are the interests. The difference engine is the gears that make it churn into action from those values.

How i've been using morally relevant is:
Information used to shape the precepts of a moral system or give weight to that system's prescriptions. And, moral facts that are relevant to deciding questions about what is bad and good.

As I have explained multiple times, you have no moral system. It fails to be a useful "system", and it fails to coincide with any reasonable definition of "moral".

Your beliefs are floating in some incoherent space between Randian Objectivism and Classical Consequentialism. You don't seem to have the cognitive tools or prerequisite knowledge to participate in this conversation, and whenever I try to explain things to you (however carefully) you reject or ignore my explanations -- or misunderstand them so profoundly that you make me think you're just trolling me.

At least get some context. Look into Randian Objectivism, and Classical Consequentialism. Compare your non-system to a couple other problematic systems that are at least coherent enough to address. Maybe you'll learn why you're wrong in the process on your own.

Would your interest frame work have this kind of moral relevance for me?

Nothing has moral relevance to you, because you have no moral system. Your reference frame is broken, and your reasoning unsound. Your 'system' as you presented it is not coherent, and instantly degrades into trivialism upon even the most casual examination.

Can you give me a real world example of how the interest model would carry moral weight for beings like me that have a limited scope of things they can value?

"I value pleasure only, you value survival (even if painful) in addition to pleasure. As a moral person I'll agree to respect your values, and as a moral person you'll agree to respect my values. You may feel free to kill me painlessly if you like, as long as you don't cause me suffering or cost me an opportunity for net future pleasure. I, in turn, with respect to your values, will neither cause you suffering nor kill you painlessly (even in the same situation that I, personally, wouldn't mind being killed) because I know you value survival too."

What, like that?

How would it be used to convince anyone they should value action X over action Y?

Bob doesn't want you to do action Y to him. So, all other things being equal, morally you shouldn't do it. If you do (and you might do) that would be wrong of you (whether you feel empathy for Bob or not).

I can't necessarily convince somebody to do the right thing if that person has no interest in behaving morally.
You have to have an interest in being moral -- in being a good person -- which most people have.
If you don't understand that: In the hedonistic framework, you would explain that interest in being moral in terms of the idea of having done the right thing giving you more pleasure than suffering, and the idea of having done the wrong thing giving more suffering than pleasure.

The value of a moral system is NOT in its ability to force people into certain behaviors, but just to consistently evaluate the morality or immorality of things.

We are social creatures, and the idea of right and wrong is pretty powerful for most of us (more powerful than empathy, which is a much rarer quality), but even if it were not, that would be irrelevant.
Not everybody will be convinced to do the right thing, and that doesn't negate the value of a consistent and objective moral system.
What does negate the value of a system is its failure to provide the ability to judge morality, and resulting in trivialism -- like your views.

How does it resolve moral conflicts?

Against people who use a radically different definition of "morality"? Using logic.
It forces them to conform to the same definition of morality, because their definitions are incoherent and useless (as I have demonstrated of yours). However, this will only work on rational people who value logic and reason. You may not be a rational person, and if that's the case, just like any dogmatic Christian or Muslim mindlessly pursuing his or her concept of good at the expense of anything else, there's not much that can be done (aside from locking them up [ideally to deprogram them] or killing them/waiting for them to die off).

I don't see how it can do any of these things unless the person you are talking to is just like you already in that they value your values.

It's relatively easy to convince a reasonable person, and explain why a broken moral system that results in trivialism or abhorrent declarations is not valid. Why you have failed to understand this so far is puzzling.

Given that a person sees his or herself as a good person (the person values being good/moral), it's relatively easy to explain the proper definition of morality, and thus compel the person to be interested in the interests of others based on that original impulse to be moral.
They don't have to start from the interest based framework, they just have to start from valuing "morality" and also valuing logic/rationality to be convinced.
However, and again, compelling action is not the point of a system of evaluation. That system is just necessary to even start by identifying which actions are moral or immoral.

[Mr. Purple]

Even as an egoist, if being moral (properly, not based on bad philosophy) pleases you, then you should treat others in accordance with their own respective psychologies, not your own.

Im sure I would If I could comprehended them. Once again, you telling me to know that a thermometer has a preference(not that you do) is different than me actually knowing that it has a preference.

If you're saying people can't decide their beliefs, you're out of touch with psychology

People can't decide their beliefs in a way that is binding in making that change . The acting to change a belief is simply another environmental input that may or may not actually change the belief. If a boy that is born into atheism but hasn't thought much about the question of god gains a bunch of friends that are all christian, Despite now wanting to believe because it would satisfy all his social desires, This doesn't make him magically believe in christianity. So he tries everything he can think of to believe(maybe subconsciously) and he fails. While going to church, and surrounding himself with only christians, for some reason(lets say his biology), it seems to him like god just isn't likely to be true. He may still act as if he believes if the benefit of the social group outweighs his discomfort from acting separate from what he believes.

When I try to convince a christian to become an atheist, I understand he is being rational given his worldview, and my attempt at providing evidence is gambling on the fact that he has the biology that is convinced by evidence and values truth(seems like a great majority of humans). If they are convinced by evidence but don't value truth, then they will continue living as they did, you wouldn't know they changed, because they prefer the comfort of their social group. If they are not convinced by evidence but value truth, then they are destined to live in ignorance despite it being better for them if they could be convinced(here is another insult opportunity for you :p). I'll give you another chance to respond before accusing you of not understanding my attempts at explaining this.

but the basic belief can be changed very quickly if you want it to.

No, it can be changed only if their biology happens to be the type that is responsive to that particular environmental influence. Your self actions are just another environmental influence on your biology. It isn't magic.

The behavior you are describing is inherently irrational

As i understand it, an example of irrational action would be something like having your strongest interest be not wanting to die, actually believing you will die if you jump off a cliff, and then jumping off anyway. That doesn't logically make sense and is irrational. If the actor had his strongest interest as not dying, thought jumping off the cliff would kill him, then decided not to, i would call that a rational action whether or not his belief is actually true. There could be a train coming up behind him and jumping would have saved his life. It's still rational not to jump because the actor doesn't know this. Let's say he receives a piece of paper saying "you now know there is a train coming to hit you" like your attempt at telling the person in your thought experiment what they know. That doesn't necessarily change anything. He may believe the paper, or he may not, and that decides if his corresponding action is rational or not. If you are going to insist any sort of bounded rationality should be discussed as irrational and continue to insist that anyone acting without full knowledge is acting irrationally, then sure, it's irrational, but in a trivial way(solipsism\computer simulation). But with this definition it wouldn't have the implications you are implying it would. If you were to say that the belief was irrational rather than the action(you haven't been), then that's probably more fair because it didn't involve any logic or reasoning in appearing in the mind and couldn't be justified.

Even true knowledge gained through a rational process can stop tracking reality once facts change though. You gained the justified(rational) true belief(knowledge) that grandma was alive, but after she died, now you hold a justified untrue belief that doesn't track reality. Would you also call that an irrational belief because it doesn't track reality even though it is justified? Concepts of what is rational and what is knowledge aren't as decided as you suggest. I think my interpretation is fair.

Irrationality, historically speaking, is an outcome of the ancient Greek separation of rationality (logos) from emotion and sensuality as the sources of "false" assumptions and statements.

When i talk about intuition, i don't mean gut feeling. I mean the brain's acceptance of something as a fact. I'm talking about the same feeling you have towards the statement "Rocks exist". It's just something you know. It's information that new information must reference when evaluating truth. There may be a better word that doesn't carry implications of beliefs derived purely from emotion or gut instinct. Feel free to make suggestions. Even when the beliefs don't track reality, that intuition would have the same power of influence over behavior that "rocks exist" would have on you because that is the brain state I have been referencing. This universe could be a computer simulation, and rocks maybe don't exist in the way you thought, but without that knowledge available to you i would say you are rational acting as if they were real You have no choice).

And it goes against the premise of what constitutes a "rational agent"

"always chooses to perform the action with the optimal expected outcome for itself from among all feasible actions" What is expected is based on their intuitions(knowledge). I find it's much more useful to talk about actors in the context of bounded rationality. A definition of rationality like this seems more useful for this conversation "a style of behaviour that is appropriate to the achievement of given goals, within the limits imposed by given conditions and constraints"

What you are describing is a kind of person who, upon being presented with the Monty Hall problem, explained the mathematics and logic behind it -- FULLY understanding it -- and understanding that luck and supernatural elements are not at play and don't exist, and the psychology of the matter, decides still to follow his or her bad intuition of sticking with the original door.

Once again, Just because you hand them the slip of paper that says" you now know the train is coming" Doesn't mean they actually know it. "Fully understanding" would be changing all their intuitions to align with "reality"(maximum enjoyment) which makes the experience machine thought experiment useless. "Fully understanding" the Monty Hall problem(not just being told the answer) and still choosing incorrectly IS irrational behavior. At this rate i'm going to be tempted to break my promise i made to you earlier.

Everything is objective within the relevant scope.

I think the problem here is you not recognizing that every moral system must define it's scope. If morality is defined as self interest, and what is in a beings self interest is objective, i'm not sure where the wiggle room for personal subjective interpretation is. I absolutely see why you have an issue with calling it objective since another being will have different set of moral obligations, and you aren't used to talking about biology specific morals, but what you are wanting would be a universal morality, not an objective one. just because one creature has a different set of moral "obligations", doesn't mean he got those through his personal opinions(irrational beliefs).

Pleasure has value to me too. It has value to pretty much everybody.

That's great, I never denied this. We have shared values to the extent that you value pleasure\suffering. And it is to this degree that your moral reasoning will have pull on me(moral relevance).

It's irrelevant what the child values to your system, because these people are psychopaths -- they do not feel the pain of the child

Yes, their moral "obligation" would be to causing suffering. I would still say that what they do is bad from the perspective of my moral system and assuming most people like you and i have similar values in pain and suffering we can be morally justified in acting against them because of our own moral obligations. Once again, just because the moral obligations(output) change depending on the biology(input) doesn't mean the moral framework(function) is relative and up for interpretation. Understand? Einstein's Special relativity makes objective claims relative to it's observer, but the theory isn't just personal opinion.(not a perfect analogy...)

You just need to do your own research.

Whether or not the common " If you knew what i knew, you would know im right" is accurate or not, it's not a good argument, and is a cop out. You are free to leave this discussion whenever you'd like. No need to get childish about it.

psychological egoism is true, but my morals or moral systems don't really change if it's true or not, and i can only value those who value what I value anyway,

You don't care if the Bible is true or logical or not, you're going to believe it because you want to and you don't care about reality.

Yeah, i thought that the purpose of the models were to try and see if everyone has a certain brain or underlying motives by comparing their actions to the models assumptions. As far as your comparison goes, i don't know what you were trying to show me there. That we have the same model except you are using more vague definitions for yours to make it less likely to be false? Hopefully that isn't the point since that has been what i thought from the very start. Or were you saying it's the same model but you value the interests while i value the "fucking calculator", and i just need to value the right things? that sounds too terrible to be an argument you would make. Enlighten me if you feel like it, or don't. I honestly don't know why you continue since you seem to get so worked up. I'm still having fun and learning though .

I just have to hope everyone is hedonist to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict.

I just have to hope that everyone is Christian to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict.

A better comparison is "i just have to hope not everyone is mentally ill to avoid inevitable unresolvable conflict" , But with some strains of fundamentalist christians or jihadists, this might actually be true.

people who agree with your hedonistic precepts are outnumbered by altruists, so we will have no problem exterminating you if it comes to it.

Whoa there buddy... That doesn't sound like what an altruist would say. Are you sure you are one of them ? Anyway, me and altruists share the common value of helping me realize my pleasure, so i'm not sure why there would be conflict there unless they insist i must be altruistic back, making them egoist....
The conflict i am talking about is some theoretical alternate universe where biologically irredeemable sadists run rampant.( like your sadist focused examples would suggest)

You could if you would pay attention and make a serious attempt at understanding my arguments

I am making a serious attempt. Maybe I am slower than the average human, or maybe you are just a bad teacher(or wrong). I won't suggest which theory I'm leaning towards.

A difference engine is not an interest, it's a calculator. The values in green are the interests. The difference engine is the gears that make it churn into action from those values.

No, i understand this. they are the reasons for why the difference engine chooses one thing over another. A "difference engine interest" as in an interest contained within the difference engine bubble in your diagram is what I was referring to.

You don't seem to have the cognitive tools or prerequisite knowledge

There it is again. " If only you knew what i knew" argument. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but in this context it's a cop out.

"I value pleasure only, you value survival (even if painful) in addition to pleasure. As a moral person I'll agree to respect your values, and as a moral person you'll agree to respect my values. You may feel free to kill me painlessly if you like, as long as you don't cause me suffering or cost me an opportunity for net future pleasure. I, in turn, with respect to your values, will neither cause you suffering nor kill you painlessly (even in the same situation that I, personally, wouldn't mind being killed) because I know you value survival too."

Ok, this is good, thanks. But it sort of missed the point. I was mostly referring to an example where there would actually be conflict of me not recognizing your values. lets say one of your values were that i never say the word "hamster" regardless of if you were around of not(assume we are the only 2 people alive). If i know for a fact that you not being around guarantees you wont suffer, I can't (biologically)comprehend how that could be bad to violate, and since I might suffer if I can't use that word, as a rational agent(remember what we talked about before) I would use it without you knowing. It would feel foolish to worry about violating that incomprehensible interest. I literally can't see it as hurting you even if you tell me it hurts you(Piece of paper theme). Even if 99% of what you care about is pain and suffering, how does your system resolve that one percent difference that my system wouldn't be able to resolve either, but at least recognizes in the other person's biological 1% difference.

The value of a moral system is NOT in its ability to force people into certain behaviors, but just to consistently evaluate the morality or immorality of things.

I think moral systems can serve more purpose than only abstract judgement. So in that example above, all your system does different to mine is label the violation of the interest I couldn't comprehend(relevant to the rational actors discussion) as bad, but it's still going to happen in exactly the same way. I don't know why I would adopt that framework because I agree that saying hamster in that case isn't bad. Your saying I should adopt the framework that labels something as bad that I don't actually think is bad, and labels something as bad that a rational actor in this example would have no choice but to do anyway since there is 0 pressure applied in your system. Why label someone as bad for acting rationally?(only issue here might be your overly narrow definition of rational action)

I can't necessarily convince somebody to do the right thing if that person has no interest in behaving morally.
You have to have an interest in being moral -- in being a good person -- which most people have.
If you don't understand that: In the hedonistic framework, you would explain that interest in being moral in terms of the idea of having done the right thing giving you more pleasure than suffering, and the idea of having done the wrong thing giving more suffering than pleasure.

You seem to understand these 2 can be framed in an equal way, yet you still think your system carries more moral relevance.
I feel like My framework has the added benefit of accurately tracking moral weight(pressure) in it's prescriptions of right and wrong. It also has the added benefit of accurately addressing the difference between moral agents by appropriately changing(function) the moral obligations based on irreconcilable value conflicts.

As a personal preference: I like how the goal of a useful moral system built using my framework would revolve around discovering new information and learning. It also fits nicely with a future "science of morality" that we might use to discover moral truths. (For X type of person, Y is what is the correct action) It seems more elegant to me. (Not that this needs to matter to you)

[brimstoneSalad]

I've been as nice as I could be.
I gave you links to those books, and recommended terms for you to research so you can educate yourself on some of the basics needed to participate in this discussion.
You have failed to do that, and in this last post you have presented almost nothing but strawman arguments, and still failed to understand my essential points from the previous posts. Your profound ignorance is frustrating enough without you misunderstanding basic concepts and twisting words.

But just as I shouldn't be expected to teach somebody who can't speak English the language, I shouldn't need to spend my time teaching you every last thing about Cognitive Dissonance, Human Cognition, Randian Objectivism, and Classical Utilitarianism that you need to know in order to even have the ability to engage in this discussion.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
This is where you stand, currently.

Is it "childish" for me not to spend several years teaching English to somebody who only speaks Chinese just so we can have this discussion?
No, and fuck you for saying so.

You can go fuck off and read a book (several, as the case may be) and come back after you've changed your mind on something and can actually understand the argument well enough to engage in it, or you can apologize and I will keep trying to help you understand this for a few more posts.
If you can't present a little humility to go along with your ignorance, I don't see why I should keep trying to help you.

If you do read up on these things and re-read this discussion, you will understand my frustration at you and your current behavior.

Lacking an apology from Mr. Purple, if anybody else has any questions, I'm glad to answer them.

[Mr. Purple]

But just as I shouldn't be expected to teach somebody who can't speak English the language, I shouldn't need to spend my time teaching you every last thing about Cognitive Dissonance, Human Cognition, Randian Objectivism, and Classical Utilitarianism that you need to know in order to even have the ability to engage in this discussion.

Certainly. If you really have that view, then like i said before, i'm amazed you continued for as long as you did. I'm having that situation with a kid in math I'm tutoring currently :\ . It can be rough.

If you do read up on these things and re-read this discussion, you will understand my frustration at you and your current behavior.

There it is again...

Is it "childish" for me not to spend several years teaching English to somebody who only speaks Chinese just so we can have this discussion?
No, and fuck you for saying so.

I'm clearly not saying that not being able to spend years teaching someone is the childish part. Not even sure where you got that idea. I'm specifically referring to you telling me that if I were to read more, then i would obviously agree with you in this argument. I've never had a situation in my life where a text book was a better way to wrap my head around something than a teacher who actually knew the subject well. Something like " I can't spend any more time, you will have to rely on books from here on" would be the mature way of handling that. That isn't even polite, but at least it's not a bad argument.

You can go fuck off and read a book (several, as the case may be) and come back after you've changed your mind on something and can actually understand the argument well enough to engage in it, or you can apologize and I will keep trying to help you understand this for a few more posts.

I do have a hard time imagining getting genuinely upset through internet text, so I probably incorrectly assume other people are the same. If you are genuinely offended then i probably shouldn't have said some of the things I said. I figured some playful banter makes a long argument more enjoyable, and I thought that was how you were too given your opinions on political correctness and your general persona. You sound very intelligent, and I have misunderstood many things throughout my life, so I wouldn't rule out that i'm missing something here. But If that's the case, then it would appear you simply don't have the tools to inform me. Thanks for the time you were willing to commit to me(and others on this forum) though.

If anyone else reads through this and can see where the confusion might be, i'm always willing to listen and learn.

[Mr. Purple]

Do we value the state of an organism having an interest satisfied? Or the actual content of that interest?

It's true that most of our interests are about wanting the configuration of our neural system to be one way rather than the other, for hedonistic reasons. But there can also be a non-experiential nature to preferences - wanting the external world to be one way rather than the other.

If my friend leaves his phone on the table and exits the room for a while, is it ok for me to read his texts, given that he will never know what I did and I'll be careful not to change my behavior in any way as a result? Obviously he would prefer his texts to be in a state of 'not being read', even if he isn't aware of it.

Is there really a fundamental difference between these two kinds of preferences (experiential/non-experiential)? The difference seems to be mainly about the degree of abstraction.

Yeah, I addressed this a little in my previous post with the word hamster. Assuming the text reader can only comprehend valuing experiences involving joy and suffering, What argument could ever be made that would convince him what he was doing was wrong? Telling him not to read your texts even if you don't know about it(assuming these are the only factors in play) would feel as similar to the hedonist as a fundamentalist telling an atheist not to ever take the lords name in vain(even without people being around) as if there was really a god there to offend. It just can't be compelling to even the most well meaning hedonist\atheist because he literally can't recognize it as an actual harm to anyone. It's a victimless crime given what he can comprehend, and it may make him feel good to do it, so as a rational actor he would do it even if this supposed god would be infinitely offended. The fundamentalist could be right, and god may actually be getting offended, but if the atheist honestly can't comprehend the god existing(lets say because he "disproved" that god exists), he can't change his actions. Being a social creature, he could have a biological mechanism that makes him feel better knowing he respected the other person's wishes regardless of their suffering, but the driving factor for that is just explained by the joy it causes the hedonist\atheist, none of the pull is actually coming from the violation of the interest itself.

I don't think the fundamental difference is the degree of abstraction, i think it's the degree of possible comprehension.