There isn't two scales or value systems. The thing which makes any action good or bad is the extent to which is protects or violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices.
...
I'm happy to answer why this is the best measure of moral value (though I think it is covered in the primer), but I'd like to make sure we have pinned down the misunderstanding you seem to be having with the measure of value first. — Dan
One's own choices often aren't really good or bad. If I choose to key my own car, that isn't good or bad, it just is. These choices certainly aren't "the ideal". What is important is the ABILITY of persons to understand and make their own choices. Their freedom. That is what needs protecting. Since most choices of my own choices don't protect that freedom or violate it, they are generally fairly neutral actions. — Dan
Again, I'm very happy to discuss why I think the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices is the best measure of value we have available, but I really want to make sure you have understood what that is first. — Dan
If protecting the ability to make such choices is the standard whereby other choices are judged as good or bad, than this type of choice is named as the ideal choice, the one which all others are measured against in relation to their capacity to enable that type
This is where the inconsistency lies hidden. You want to protect freedom, because you think that it has some value. However, freedom allows for both good and bad acts, and what you really want out of personal freedom is good acts. So valuing freedom is inherently inconsistent with valuing good acts because freedom allows bad acts As a sort of compromise to "freedom" you posit a "type of freedom", which is the freedom to make one's own choices. This is a type of choice which is generally neutral, removed from good and bad. But, like I already explained, this is not a type of freedom at all. — Metaphysician Undercover
It's a highly compromised, restricted sense of "freedom", specifically formulated so as to make it appear like there is a type of freedom, which the protection of, would be consistent with the desire for good acts. In other words, if true freedom was what your principle sought to protect, this would not be consistent with cultivating good acts, because freedom allows for bad acts. So you posit a false freedom, the freedom to make one's own choices, which is not any type of freedom at all, because it consists of a very restricted, narrow and limited, range of choices
Then you state that one's own choices are neutral choices, to ensure that protecting one's own choices would not result in bad choices, in which case this ability ought not be protected. Therefore you end up with an extremely contrived sense of "freedom" which you are seeking to protect, the freedom to make choices which are neither bad nor good, i.e. choices which are morally irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover
And, if this is supposed to be a form of freedom, what kind of freedom is it really. Is it the freedom from moral principles? If we all made only this type of choice, then we wouldn't have to concern ourselves with good or bad anymore. Is this the ideal? — Metaphysician Undercover
You have specifically designed what you call a "type of freedom", the freedom to make choices which belong to oneself, in an effort to make the value of "freedom" consistent with the value of morality. — Metaphysician Undercover
Now I would like to see you justify the value which you assign to this "type of freedom" — Metaphysician Undercover
The whole idea of these choices being "the ideal type" is an invention of yours. It is not reflected in anything I have said. — Dan
The thing which makes any action good or bad is the extent to which is protects or violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices. — Dan
Again, I'm happy to, but I'm not moving off of this topic while you are still misunderstanding the measure of value under discussion. If you don't understand the measure of value, then I think any conversation about why it is our best candidate for a measure of value is likely to be doomed from the off. — Dan
Also, as to your post replying to Punshhh: Are you suggesting that the freedom to do absolutely anything is valuable? Your freedom to, for example, torture a child to death? — Dan
In your temperature analogy, the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices is not like the boiling point of water or the freezing point of water. — Dan
It would be more like the average amount of kinetic motion per atom (not a perfect analogy here, but certainly closer). Which is to say, it's the thing we are using as the measure of value. — Dan
To your second point, that doesn't answer my question. Is you issue that your don't think freedom can be valuable because you don't think it is coherent to talk about being free to do something but not free to do something else? — Dan
No, I would say that we should judge the morality of choices by reference to their consequences and that the measure of goodness/badness of those consequences is how ability of persons to understand and make their own choices is protected/violated. I feel like I've said this many times, and you are still attempting to interpret what I'm saying to mean anything other than what I am saying. — Dan
It sounds like you are saying that it is not coherent to say that a person is free to choose X but not free to choose Y. Or free to do what you like with X (in this case, your own mind, body and property) but not with Y (other people's). — Dan
Maybe it would help me if you told me what you think it is I am claiming as simply as possible. Then maybe we can get to the bottom of where this misunderstanding is coming from. — Dan
The fact that these choices are not the ones which are often not the ones which are morally praiseworthy has nothing to do with whether it is a good measure of value. — Dan
I would agree that the freedom to choose X includes the freedom not to choose X, but that isn't an issue here because that is entirely consistent with the idea that only freedom over those things which belong to a person ought to be protected. — Dan
A good candidate for a measure of value is one that is likely to be correct. In order to consider what is most likely to be correct, we make some assumptions, or theory selection criteria. — Dan
For example, utilitarianism selects happiness based on the assumption that whatever humans pursue for themselves they should also pursue for others based on the additional assumptions that not doing so would be irrationally making an exception of yourself and doing that would be immoral, and that humans all pursue their own happiness. As I've pointed out before, — Dan
When a tornado changes course and doesn't destroy someone's house, that is morally good, but the tornado isn't morally praiseworthy. — Dan
...but it is reasonable to assume consent to this.. — Dan
There are lots of intentional acts one could make that affect others but are entirely that person's own choice. If I beat you in a contest, I have affected you with my choices, and in ways you would presumably prefer I didn't, but I haven't restricted your ability to understand and make your own decisions. — Dan
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.