There's no such thing as Universally Preferable Behaviour

Or at least Stefan Molyneux fails to establish that UPB exists. This video tries to explain why. For a more robust position on the nature of morality in a way that avoids positing metaphysically spooky entities see J. L. Mackie and Richard Joyce.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Stefan Molyneux
• Morality
• Ethics
• UPB

[DoctorCapitalist]

Universally Preferable Behaviour does exist. It's universally preferable to not have people do things to your body against your consent/will.

You can't say "Yeah well what if someone doesn't mind having stuff done to them against their will? Checkmate." because that is a self refuting statement, since not minding something shows will.

[bitbutter]

@DoctorCapitalist "It's universally preferable to not have people do things to your body against your consent/will."

I think you've found a slightly less clear way of saying 'people always prefer not to have things happen that they don't prefer'. This doesn't help us.

Is it universally preferable not _to do_ something to a persons body against their will? I'd say obviously not.

[bitbutter]

@bitbutter A slightly more concise way of phrasing your tautology: "People universally prefer those things that they prefer". I'd agree with that.

[myusernameisluc]

@DoctorCapitalist

People universally prefer that nothing is done to their bodies or property against their consent, I know that.

That also means people universally prefer not to be punished for a crime against their consent. Otherwise it would not be against their consent. Does that mean it is immoral to punish people for a crime?

I don't think so; it tells us nothing about the ethics of a certain action, only that people universally prefer what they prefer.

[L1ber8ted]

Objective basically means we rule out subjective interpretation, i.e. human observers. Objective (i.e. scientific) criterion for a definition might be, "the moon has shape & location, thus EXISTS". We can then use 'exist' objectively, because rocks hopefully don't need human observers (or opinions, measurements, proofs, tests, faith, predictions or belief) to exist! Hopefully if we observe a thing it PRE-exists BY DEFINITION! The question is WHY. We can define words objectively using our reason.

[L1ber8ted]

Good review. I think it's also worth noting that logic is entirely definitional, i.e. based upon agreed assumptions & must resolve to these base assumptions (axioms). As you noted, it's tautologous. Logic is NOT objective. Logic is based on INTERNAL consistency & so remains subjective; i.e. requiring human observation / agreed definitions. 'Truth' is now used as a flaky pseudo-religious term, but relates at best to axiom resolution. 5+5=10 may be provEN (verb) TRUE in base 10. Not so in base 3!

[gdmk1000]

@gdmk1000 And attacking UPB might be fun, but it's like shooting dead ducks who want to die anyway.

[gdmk1000]

Hoppe is completely value free, pure praxeology, see my introduction at:

argumentationethics[.]wordpres­s[.]com/2011/12/25/argumentati­on-ethics/

(do have a look as iv'e written it in light of common misconceptioins)

I share your belief for natural-rights type arguments.

[FreiwilligFrei]

@FreiwilligFrei

but u cant correct somebody without a reference to a universal otherwise it would be like correcting someone on his taste of icecream.

so in that moment u correct somebody it must be to a universal (upb).

so in that moment u correct stef its not about a subjective opinion like taste it should be about a universal.otherwise it makes no sense to correct him.

its also important to check the theory and not instances.

[FreiwilligFrei]

@DoctorCapitalist i would say its more like this: u cant have 2 people rape each other at the same time. like 2 people cant murder each other at the same time thats an objective truth like a stone cant go up and doen at the same time. u cant correct preferences like music taste,( or beeing on time) u can correct things wich are rational and testable like 3+3=7 (or rape) so a moral has to be universal beeing on time is just preferable