Freedomain Radio

I was thinking that it would be really great to do a video or show or something that listed the criticisms of UPB, organize them, and address them. The format I had in mind was "proofs of god" which is my favorite video, but of course whatever. 

that is a very interesting idea, thank you!

I agree!

If anyone would like to gather such criticisms, I would be most grateful!

It seems that brainpolice has done that for you pretty well on his blog

http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/04/molyneux-criticism-archive.html

Here are some YouTube ones I could find.

LaughingMan0X

ReIgNoFrAdNeSs

Luke12000

brainpolice2

BLOGS

Anti-Academic Philosophy Journal

Common Sense Atheism

Kentucky Packrat

However the most popular it seems is Back to the Drawing Board by David Shahar

[Example of a critique on 'UPB']

'UPB' denies the evolutionairy principle of The Universe :

 

Evolution in its core principle means change(daoism) (also called 'progress')

Behaviour is based upon the circumstances within an evolutionairy process.

So out of 'bad things' may come 'better things' by evolving from one to another.

Morality itself resides first of all in the Realm of Ideas.

The Ideas in the Mind thereby effects the behaviour of The Maintainer of the Ideas.

Universally Preferable Behaviour gives the impression that behaviour can be :

Universal...

That it is so to speak : Applicable or common to all purposes, conditions, or situations... by logical reasoning or deduction...

In Nature (for emperical evidence) we see that survival overrides Ethics;

Most species survive by swift action even while those animals have no reasoning or logic

The behaviour of those animals adapts from generation to generation.

Preferable behaviour for those animals is heavely dependent on different and even unkown situations and circumstances without any reasoning.

This is an example why it is hard to believe that there could be such thing as

Universal Preferable Behaviour : competition requires innovation also in behaviour

Evolution requires perpetual adaption.

Universal behaviour is therefor not preferable

[An other example]

'Logical Ethics' require all people to reason to the same conclusion :

In the same situation and under the same circumstances 'Logical' Ethics/UPB demands people to render the same ethical conclusion otherwise one or the another is un-ethical; there could be war.

It requires reasoning and logical skills at an equivalent level for all 'logical morals'

If someone is not able to reason out 'the preferable' e.g. because of the complexity of the situation the universal preferable ethics & behaviour paradigmas are flawed.

This is an other example why its difficult to uphold 'Logical' Morality

When I saw the anti-FDR websites listed on this thread I felt a lot of anxiety about the thought of going to websites where people might be 'getting their hate on' for a way of thinking I've found very attractive. I'm not sure why yet.

Tess, could be total nonsense and when you were younger how were conflicting opinions dealt with in your household? Like if you had a different perspective or opinion than say one of your parents, how was that handled by them?

Michael.J:

Tess, could be total nonsense and when you were younger how were conflicting opinions dealt with in your household? Like if you had a different perspective or opinion than say one of your parents, how was that handled by them?

Oh yes... that would do it. :)

It's not the opposing views that bother me - even if they're correct. It's not even the possibly antagonistic way in which they might be presented. It's the reaction of churning frustration in myself that I'm scared of - that sense of 'they just don't get it and I'm powerless to do anything'. And yes, that played a huge role in my childhood.

This self-understanding thing is fun! Thanks for helping me out there, Michael.

~Tess

Tess:

This self-understanding thing is fun! Thanks for helping me out there, Michael.

Indeed and you are most welcome. You did all the hard work.

I found another one.

XOmniverse

XepeR:

[Example of a critique on 'UPB']

'UPB' denies the evolutionairy principle of The Universe :

 

Evolution in its core principle means change(daoism) (also called 'progress')

Behaviour is based upon the circumstances within an evolutionairy process.

So out of 'bad things' may come 'better things' by evolving from one to another.

 

Morality itself resides first of all in the Realm of Ideas.

The Ideas in the Mind thereby effects the behaviour of The Maintainer of the Ideas.

Universally Preferable Behaviour gives the impression that behaviour can be :

Universal...

That it is so to speak : Applicable or common to all purposes, conditions, or situations... by logical reasoning or deduction...

 

In Nature (for emperical evidence) we see that survival overrides Ethics;

Most species survive by swift action even while those animals have no reasoning or logic

The behaviour of those animals adapts from generation to generation.

Preferable behaviour for those animals is heavely dependent on different and even unkown situations and circumstances without any reasoning.

This is an example why it is hard to believe that there could be such thing as

Universal Preferable Behaviour : competition requires innovation also in behaviour

Evolution requires perpetual adaption.

Universal behaviour is therefor not preferable

 

 

 

[An other example]

'Logical Ethics' require all people to reason to the same conclusion :

In the same situation and under the same circumstances 'Logical' Ethics/UPB demands people to render the same ethical conclusion otherwise one or the another is un-ethical; there could be war.

It requires reasoning and logical skills at an equivalent level for all 'logical morals'

If someone is not able to reason out 'the preferable' e.g. because of the complexity of the situation the universal preferable ethics & behaviour paradigmas are flawed.

This is an other example why its difficult to uphold 'Logical' Morality

 XepeR. Perhaps I can share my view of what is ment by Universally Preferable Behaviour.

Every statement one can make carries with it embeded sugestions for universal preferences. The first obvious one is the preference of truth over falsehood. And also the preference for correcting wrongs.

UPB is a framework that works by validating or invalidating whatever proposition is atempted to be elevated to universality. We all know the world is plaged by such propositions, (it is wrong to disobey your parents, you should pay taxes, salute the flag, etc.). Moral behaviour is such a powerful drive for people that it has always been target to those who seek to control people. The desire for power over others usually comes along with a disregard for fairness or justice. It is fundamentally motivated by an imposition of the self over others. Thus it is understandable that such powerhungry people put out contradictive or invalid moral statements for self-serving reasons.

We need such a framework to be able to analyze any proposed universally preferable behaviour these con artists try to put forward. This is how UPB comes up. Put out whatever moral theory you want, grind it through the UPB framework and you get to find out its validity. Isn't it handy?

Here are a list of criticisms I've heard when talking with others about UPB:

1. UPB doesn't solve the Maxim Description Problem. The example he gives on the page is "lets say somebody comes to your house looking for your friend but you know he is going to murder your friend. So you either have to lie in order to save your friend or tell the truth but that would leave your friend murdered".

   The way I go about answering this criticism is to instead rephrase the question as "would it be objectively better if I can get the person not to murder my friend without lying?" and when they say "yes" I say "okay, so UPB formalizes why it's objectively better. In other words, instead of saying the MDP is a criticism of UPB, MDP instead becomes a heuristic to show that you're in a messed up situation".

   Also you can point out that his example is incorrect because telling the murderer the location of your friend is actually lying not telling the truth. I'd classify telling the truth to be more along the lines of saying "I don't feel comfortable telling you where my friend is because I suspect you're going to murder him".

2. That Stef never answers the question "so what?". Lets say you validate the proposition "moral agents must not murder". So, what does that do besides being able to classify murdering with the label "immoral"? UPB says that the proposition "moral agents must oppose immoral behavior" is invalid because if this proposition were true it would create an obligation for another person to behave immorally in order to enable my moral behavior. UPB can instead validate the claim "moral agents may oppose immoral behavior" but this creates no obligation for somebody to oppose immoral behavior.

3. Stef's definition of ownership is invalid. If you take intellectual property as an analogy: there is a difference between "authorship" and "ownership" (where "ownership" here is the typical intellectual property rights definition). In a culture that rejects IP, the concept of "ownership" would be complete nonsense and they would use authorship instead. So the phrase "stealing my idea" in a culture that rejected IP would NOT be piracy but more along the lines of incorrectly claiming you're the original author of the idea.

   Similarly, Stef's definition of "property ownership" in UPB is more along the lines of "authorship" above. If you change the definition of "ownership" to something other than the typical ownership as a rights claim definition then the definition of the word "theft" changes to something meaningless. i.e. "I own X" becomes an more along the lines of an informative "I was the original author of X" as opposed to the "I have ownership rights to X and I'm allowed to use force against you to retrieve control of my property again".

   There are two ways I can see to solve this: A. either accept the ownership as a rights claim as axiomatically true which justifies the use of other arbitrary axioms or B. say "if people didn't own items they produced then they wouldn't bother" which justifies consequentialism. Neither of these two solutions are good.

Here are a list of criticisms of UPB that I've come up with:

1. It doesn't solve the classification problem. For example on your chapter on abortion you give a descriptive justification instead of a prescriptive justification. You simply say "people generally agree that if you abort the baby at this point it's not murdering and people generally agree that if you abort the baby at this point it's murdering".

   In other words, UPB validates the claim that "all moral agents must not murder" but it makes no mention of whether or the above people who generally classify abortion as murder is valid or not. Lets say that most people agree that aborting a baby in an embryo stage is not murder and that aborting a baby 8 months in the womb is murder, do we have an objective way of validating whether or not their classifications are correct?

2. Your theory of ethics is biased towards humans instead of the more general "conscious being with the ability to reason". I don't see why a retarded person with the IQ of a dog should be in a greater moral category than a dog. In other words, if it's [not] immoral to farm animals as pets, food, or scientific research then it should also be [not] immoral to do the same thing with homo sapiens with similar levels of intelligence (and vice versa).

Some thinkpaths based upon common sense; sense in common and personal preferred thoughtscapes

*) "Morality is based on a consideration of circumstances - not principles"
(the individual and its environment render the results of behaviour)


*) "Universal Preferable ignores the Personal Individualistic Preferable"
(A universal consensus destroys the personal reasoning and liberty of thinking)


*) "If your UPB doesn't teach you the difference between good and evil, UPB is worse than useless"
(if UPB isn't very sound and clear to practise; it proofs itself to be useless)