universally preferable behavior -- replacing rights


jts

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Stefan Molyneux has a theory that replaces rights. It's "universally preferable behavior". Maybe it's time to ditch rights. Maybe some of Ayn Rand's philosophy, especially the part about the moral basis of capitalism, needs to be rethunk. Maybe UPB is a correction of a mistake in Objectivism.

For complete information about universally preferable behavior and a whole bunch of other stuff, go to Freedomain Radio. Scroll down a bit and find the book about UPB. You can get the book in pdf form or html form or audio form, all zero price. And a bunch of other stuff, all or most for free.

 

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choose any instance of behavior (of people).  There will be some who favor it and some who disfavor it.  So where does the "universal"  come in? 

The only universally preferable behavior  there is can be found on  island with only one person residing in it.  On a desert island occupied by one there are no rights,  only liberties. 

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4 hours ago, jts said:

Stefan Molyneux has a theory that replaces rights. It's "universally preferable behavior". Maybe it's time to ditch rights. Maybe some of Ayn Rand's philosophy, especially the part about the moral basis of capitalism, needs to be rethunk. Maybe UPB is a correction of a mistake in Objectivism.

For complete information about universally preferable behavior and a whole bunch of other stuff, go to Freedomain Radio. Scroll down a bit and find the book about UPB. You can get the book in pdf form or html form or audio form, all zero price. And a bunch of other stuff, all or most for free.

That's what's going on right now. It's already happened. It describes the world we live in.

And that's how the Nazis dealt with the Jews (after the dehumanization).

You haven't given one good hint why that material is worth perusing.

--Brant

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18 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

choose any instance of behavior (of people).  There will be some who favor it and some who disfavor it.  So where does the "universal"  come in? 

The only universally preferable behavior  there is can be found on  island with only one person residing in it.  On a desert island occupied by one there are no rights,  only liberties. 

Well put.

There are moral rights and legal rights and we try for convergence. On that island there is no one to claim right action against--someone to prevent the fellow's right action.

--Brant

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6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

choose any instance of behavior (of people).  There will be some who favor it and some who disfavor it.  So where does the "universal"  come in? 

The only universally preferable behavior  there is can be found on  island with only one person residing in it.  On a desert island occupied by one there are no rights,  only liberties. 

UPB is not about opinions. Before you comment about UPB learn what it is.

 

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6 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

That's what's going on right now. It's already happened. It describes the world we live in.

And that's how the Nazis dealt with the Jews (after the dehumanization).

You haven't given one good hint why that material is worth perusing.

--Brant

There are no rights except human made.

 

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1 hour ago, jts said:

UPB is not about opinions. Before you comment about UPB learn what it is.

The first post suggested interested OLers should go give Stefan Molyneux's outfall some attention. I took that suggestion and found a blurb and links.  

Universally Preferable Behaviour (UPB) | A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.

For thousands of years, humanity has attempted to enforce ethics through supernatural and secular punishments; this rabid aggression has been both necessary and ridiculous. It has been necessary because a rational proof of secular ethics has never been achieved; it has been ridiculous because it is impossible to imagine any scientific or mathematical argument being advanced in such a hysterical and violent manner.

“Ethics” has been one of the great government programs of history; since kings and priests ruled mankind, only those philosophers who served their interests tended to get promoted to prominence, rather than imprisoned, poisoned or burned. Thus, over 2,500 years since its inception, the discipline of ethics remains largely subjectivist, relativist and cultural – and was not only unable to restrain, but may have played a part in promoting the horrors, wars and genocides of the 20th century, the bloodiest hundred years of history of our species.

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, has written "Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics,” which presents radical and rational arguments for a nonreligious, non-statist, entirely secular set ethical standards which validate the nonaggression principle – thou shalt not initiate force against thy fellow human – and the fundamental logic for respecting property rights.

Rigorous, analytical and challenging, “Universally Preferable Behavior” provides a solid foundation for secular ethics. This book solves the ancient philosopher Petrarch’s dichotomy, which is that it is better to will the good than know the truth. Armed with the arguments in “Universally Preferable Behavior,” you can both know the truth and will the good.

Universally-preferable formats: MP3 | PDF | HTML & pay-to-print services at Lulu | Amazon

Reading or (especially) listening to Stefan Molyneux I consider punishment, so I will probably wait for the movie, beyond giving the schmutz a sniff or two. I do recommend that hopeful readers consult the Amazon customer reviews. The most popular positive review gives a point-by-point explanation of the essential points in the material.  See "Groundbreaking Book on Ethics and Morality," August 10, 2010. Here is a brief excerpt:

Thus, Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) is not a framework for evaluating specific actions, but rather one for evaluating behavioral rules.
Understanding Universally Preferable Behavior

Here is how I understood the chain of reasoning. I am mostly taking this from the book, and injecting my own thoughts where I deem appropriate:

1. Reality is composed of objects in the universe, all of which have certain natures, meaning certain specific, and delimitable inputs on them and certain interactions between them yield certain specific, and delimitable outputs (events). These events are, all other things being equal, reproducible or consistent.

2. Logic is the set of objective and consistent rules derived from the consistency of reality:

- Identity: A = A - An object/event is that object/event and not another object/event. A rock on earth is that rock on earth, and not a tree at the same time.

- Non-Contradiction: A AND non-A is false - A proposition that states that something is a thing/event and not that thing/event at the same time is always false. A thing can't be a tree and not a tree at the same time. An apple can't fall downward and upward at the same time.

- Excluded middle: A OR non-A is true - A proposition about a thing/event is either true or false. A thing is either an apple or not an apple. An apple either falls down or doesn't fall down. There is nothing in-between.

3. Validity: A human's statement about objective reality is a theory. A theory that complies with the 3 laws of logic is valid.

4. Accuracy: A theory that is confirmed by observable evidence in reality is considered accurate.

5. Truth: A theory that is both valid and accurate is true.

6. Preference is the level at which a human being places the desire to perform an action in relation to the desire to perform other actions at any given moment in time. For example at nighttime one prefers sleeping over running. But on the next morning one may prefer running to sleeping. Preferences only exist in people's minds, meaning they are subjective. Observable human actions, however, are the objective manifestations of subjective preferences. When someone can be observed running then he is showing by his very action that he set out to run because he preferred the act to that of sleeping.

7. Preferable Behavior: When somebody says that some other human being should prefer one thing over another he is making a statement about preferable behavior.

8. Universally Preferable Behavior: When somebody says that all people at all times and at all places should prefer one thing over another, then he is making a statement about universally preferable behavior (UPB). Arguing against the validity of UPB implies, from the viewpoint of the person making the argument, that all people at all times and at all places should rather prefer truth to falsehood and submit to universal standards of validity and accuracy when engaging in a debate. The act of arguing implicitly accepts UPB. (I would actually suggest that the commonly known term "Ethics" is a good substitute for the word "UPB". Molyneux, meanwhile, equates "Ethics" to "Morality". This is just about semantics, but it does seem to make sense to me and it helps put existing terminologies into context with this new approach.)

9. Morality is defined as all rules about universally preferable behavior where avoidance of the effects of at least one of the choices would have to occur via the use of violence or considerable effort, for example "It is universally preferable to refrain from murder."

10. Aesthetics is defined as all rules about universally preferable behavior where the effects of all presented choices can be avoided without the use of violence and without considerable effort, for example "It is universally preferable to be on time."

For balance, the full text of the most popular negative review, "Central idea is just a rehash of Kant," May 9, 2016 (I have added emphases):

Molyneux's central idea of determining moral truth by the criteria that a behavior must be "universally preferable" is basically identical to Kant's categorical imperative, one of the most well-known ideas in the history of philosophical ethics, and yet Molyneux seems to be totally unaware of this (there are only two offhand references to Kant in the book, in both of which he is just listed alongside some other 'big names' in philosophy without any specific references to any of his ideas). If you do a search for "categorical imperative" and "philosophypages", you should find a page introducing Kant's ethical philosophy which describes the categorical imperative thusly:

'Constrained only by the principle of universalizability, the practical reason of any rational being understands the categorical imperative to be: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." That is, each individual agent regards itself as determining, by its decision to act in a certain way, that everyone (including itself) will always act according to the same general rule in the future. This expression of the moral law, Kant maintained, provides a concrete, practical method for evaluating particular human actions of several distinct varieties.'

The page then gives some examples like a person who borrows money with no intention of paying it back, and notes that "making this maxim into a universal law would be clearly self-defeating. The entire practice of lending money on promise presupposes at least the honest intention to repay; if this condition were universally ignored, the (universally) false promises would never be effective as methods of borrowing." So you can see this is essentially identical to what Molyneux means by a "universally preferable" moral rule, i.e. one that wouldn't lead to inconsistency/conflict if everyone adopted the rule. And of course there have been many criticisms of the categorical imperative over the years, like the question of whether one can have context-based rules like "in situation A you should take action 1, but in situation B you should take action 2", which would allow for things like "if you're starving it's acceptable to steal small amounts of food from people who have plenty, if you're not then it's unacceptable", but Molyneux doesn't anticipate objections like this to answer them.

In general, Molyneux is one of those thinkers who is supremely confident in the obvious truth of his own positions, and he has a strong tendency towards treating rather facile and over-simplistic arguments as definitive proofs, and imagining rather foolish strawman objections to his arguments that are easy to dispose of, rather than trying to think of the strongest possible objections and respond to those.

For example, anyone who thinks governments might do some useful things is presented as a sort of superstitious belief in a non-existent non-human entity called "government" akin to belief in God, as opposed to a set of rules that a democratic majority have agreed it's useful to enforce, for pragmatic reasons like "building the roads all car-owners need" or "paying a police force to help defend those who can't defend themselves".

And for an example unrelated to morality, he at one point presents a two-line proof that theist belief in God is self-contradictory, which imagines the theist would both agree that whatever exists must be detectable and that God is non-detectable even in principle, neither through the senses nor "through rationality". I'm an atheist but this seems like a very poor argument against the theist position, since theists do often believe in miracles and other sensible signs from God, and also at least attempt to make rational arguments as to why God should exist (like the ontological or first cause arguments--not that I find these at all *convincing* myself, but the fact remains that Molyneux's argument is based on a strawman).

From this book and also viewing some of his podcasts, one gets a sense of someone who has zero interest in any actual dialogue with any views outside of his own hermetically sealed system, but prefers the comforting view that all disagreement arises from hysterical irrationality or moral perversity (and his controversial advocacy of cutting off personal relationships due to philosophical disagreements can be seen as an extension of this attitude--if you're unaware of this background, search for "stefan molyneux" and "defooing", or for a video titled "Cultish Molyneux Tells Followers to Cut Off All Non-Ancap Family & Friends", for example)

Finally, an excerpt from the book itself, the last text before the 'Notes' section of the 133 page PDF version. If listening to Molyneux is punishment, then 'debating' with him is torture, by my lights. Exhibit A:

APPENDIX D: EVERY UPB DEBATE I’VE EVER HAD…

UPB Sceptic: UPB is invalid.
Me: How do you know?
UPB Sceptic: It's not proven!
Me: So “proof” is UPB?
UPB Sceptic: No, nothing is UPB.
Me: Isn't the statement "nothing is UPB" UPB?
UPB Sceptic: No, that's not what I'm saying at all! I'm saying that UPB is invalid!
Me: Why?
UPB Sceptic: Because it's false!
Me: So presenting true arguments is UPB?
UPB Sceptic: No!
Me: So there's nothing wrong with false arguments?
UPB Sceptic: No.
Me: Then why are you opposing a false argument?
UPB Sceptic: Oh, it's just my personal preference. I just dislike falsehood.
Me: So you're arguing for a merely personal preference?
UPB Sceptic: Sure!
Me: So why should your personal preference take precedence over mine? I like UPB, you don't – and why
bother debating personal preferences at all?
UPB Sceptic: Oh - because UPB is invalid!
Me: Why is it invalid?
UPB Sceptic: Because it's self-contradictory!
Me: So consistency is UPB? 
UPB Sceptic: No! And stop repeating the same points over and over! And go read Kant / Hegel / Hume
etc.
etc etc etc... 

Groundbreaking!

Edited by william.scherk
Added quote from last pages of the PDF version.
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It is interesting to see fundamental approaches to the very idea of deriving a morality. 

I really enjoyed Jane Jacob's book, Systems of Survival, which gave an account of discovering that our culture had evolved two moral codes of sorts as suited differing purposes in society. 

There are some forms of Buddhism where a morality is devised not to suit a god or even much of a greater good, but to achieve a kind of inner peace. 

The owner of the Objectivist-oriented "Rebirth of Reason" forum, Joe Rowlands, has a excellent book, "Morality Needs No God", that describes what morality is and takes it out of the religious context and above all, shows its relation to our self-interest. 

And, of course, in the same vein, Ayn Rand's brilliant exposition of Rational Egoism.

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2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Yes. But they aren't arbitrary constructs.

--Brant

Rights and other  social rules are pragma.  They keep the society from flying apart.

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On 2016/07/11 at 8:26 PM, jts said:

There are no rights except human made.

 

Yup, see how far "natural" rights will get you alone on that famed "desert island" - a palm tree, a lump of coral or a Fiddler crab have as much rights as you - and better chances than you for survival, if you haven't a rational morality or will not learn it quickly. "Natural" rights are somewhat mystical; "human" rights have turned into outright "claims" on others; while individual rights are made by man and for a simple, single purpose.

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'Universally preferential behavior': by whose standards? by what standards? How does one know "preferential"? I don't know - except for William's summary - about Molyneux's apparent imitation of the CI, but Kant taught that one's considered act, if one 'imagined' it carried out to the n'th degree by ~everybody~ and without harm perceived to ~anyone's~ "ends" - is the only way of knowing and doing the good. (How effectual is one's ability to project all the universal consequences anyway? No omniscience: fairly dismal I'd think. What is 'the good'? Is it the not-bad?).

Shall I leave my wife? Oh, but imagine if everybody did, the fabric of society would tear apart!! Shall I turn on the hoses to water my garden? And what do you think would happen to the reservoirs if ~everybody~ turned on their taps at this moment!? Should I rob a bank? Clearly, if everyone did, the economy and the Law would collapse and so that is what precludes my action... (!) And so on.

The UFB (and the CI) is hardly a personal ethics but more a collective more, in order to dutifully enforce on oneself a societal code for the 'good' of all. It is strongly consequentialist, drops any context, is a self-imposed obstacle to free action and of course undermines independence, individualism and rationality. My general sense is that it tries to combine two distinct entities, a morality and a system of rights, all in one go.

"Every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in a universal kingdom of ends".(I.K.)

"Nothing in the world--indeed nothing even beyond the world--can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification, except *a good will*."(I.K.)

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On 7/16/2016 at 0:32 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Rights and other social rules are pragma.  They keep the society from flying apart.

Pragmatic generally means going with what works. Thar's okay but not as political philosophy; it's not rooted. Objectivism is not pragma, not with its emphasis on individual rights in the Lockean tradition. It's not a matter of throwing something at the wall to see what sticks even if it does stick.

--Brant

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9 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Pragmatic generally means going with what works. Thar's okay but not as political philosophy; it's not rooted. Objectivism is not pragma, not with its emphasis on individual rights in the Lockean tradition. It's not a matter of throwing something at the wall to see what sticks even if it does stick.

--Brant

Ethical and Moral  rules were invented to make living together possible.  The alternative to living among others is living alone.  In olden times living alone was virtually a death sentence.   That is why exile  and being booted out into the outback was a serious penalty and punishment.  As Rand wrote,  the moral is the practical. 

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