[numinertyuesk]

And Kolmogorov complexity is a wikipedia article away, and one you (and probably even AS) should have no trouble grasping immediately.

I've taken enough math to know what it is, but I happen to be smart enough to know Alby would not have run into it (it's usually an algorithmic complexity concept). You used the term, without reference or explanation, in a discussion with him. The only people who do that kind of **** are people who:
1) Are generally incompletely incapable of empathy (not able to comprehend what others may view or understand things differently)
2) Are trying very hard to sound impressive to compensate for lack of sound reasoning

[Super-Luser]

If there were a way to tell the future, your reasoning would be correct. There is no way, in a teleological ethical system, to determine with certainty that an action is 'right' before it is undertaken.

So? I've never, ever suggested that we have to find out all of the numbers to infinite precision, or always get the right answer - but mechanisms that, to the best of our knowledge, will get us in the right ballpark of the right answer are probably preferable to arbitrary guesswork.

That appraisal can only come after the action is long exercised and the consequences tallied. So instead, your ethical system becomes a matter of statistical probabilities. An action is 'right' under the assumption of a particular expected outcome but if the consequences differ from that outcome, it could become 'wrong'. What is the role of justice in such a system? How is the man who kills to save 2 people treated (net effect positive)? What if he mistakingly thought he could only save those 2 people by killing a person and they all died (net effect negative)? Welcome to the confusion that resulted in the trifurcation of ethics into consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics.

The answer to "what should I do?" is pretty clearly "the thing that, to the best of your knowledge, will produce the best outcome" etc. Unless our knowledge really really sucks, that rule should pretty consistently perform better than other rules, and we'll just have to live with the fact that sometimes our knowledge is wrong.

Of course, sometimes we end up having to adopt rules that produce locally suboptimal outcomes because otherwise we get a globally suboptimal system. e.g. I have to kill those German soldiers (who may be perfectly good people, whatever) so that we can get to Berlin and tear down Nazi Germany. Or I have to throw this guy in prison, even if I don't think he'll commit more crimes, because putting people in prison deters others from committing crimes in the first place. Deontology takes these rules we come up with and ingrain into our social norms and says that they are true in themselves rather than true as necessary results of consequentialism.

Virtue ethics comes about when we decide that we want to encourage people to follow these norms, and so say that people who behave morally are "good people" and people who behave immorally are "bad people". Good people are those that do good things and don't do bad things; we should and do want to be good people, so we do good things and don't do bad things. But, again, these are just constructs on top of consequentialism, not basic axioms of morality.

[SetSnonejog]

So? I've never, ever suggested that we have to find out all of the numbers to infinite precision, or always get the right answer - but mechanisms that, to the best of our knowledge, will get us in the right ballpark of the right answer are probably preferable to arbitrary guesswork.

Given this quote, I bet if we asked people to guess the author's profession, 75% would guess correctly.

[IronpumpedLady]

Did their liberal arts degrees actually help them to obtain their jobs, and if so, were said jobs outside of academia?

Yes. For example, people with English degrees (which is what you have, no?) can be successful in publishing (including new media), advertising, or could get jobs like copy editor for a variety of companies that need to produce written materials - most engineers couldn't write an set of instructions intelligible to anyone else.

At the very least, if you are not adverse to travel, you could make money going overseas to teach English, given that your command of the language is better than most peoples, and knowing English well is certainly a marketable skill.

[ApporpSothe]

There's just no way you can objectively and categorically make ethical determinations especially as there are no objective value judgments. Who is to say that Kuci's economic welfare is any more an appropriate goal and basis for morality than Nietzsche's Will to Power?

Don't start commenting on Nietszche!

[9V42h1eT]

Why wouldn't an empirical examination of our moral senses be best carried out not through mathematical modelling but instead by observation of human beings and our evolutionary kin, since our moral senses are not derived logically, but emotionally?

1) In practice, it is.

2) Our emotions are the object of study; more precisely, our moral sentiments. We're trying to find the simplest set of rules that explains them best. Hell, look at the practice of conducting thought experiments: these are genuine experiments! We hypothesize a rule determining "what we ought to do", then come up with a situation and ask if that rule produces something that agrees with our sentiments or disagrees with them. If a rule says we should do something that we feel strongly is wrong, then that is evidence against the rule.

[kuzbaslachek]

Solely because they're retards.

[Xibizopt]

Solely because they're retards.

So why do you place so much value on ideas based on the presumption that most people are rational actors?

[BritneySpearsFun@@@]

far more intelligent people in government
You have to be remarkably stupid to go into the government.

[derisgun]

Because when it comes to making decisions about their own lives average people manage to do surprisingly well, while the far more intelligent people in government manage to make surprisingly bad decisions about other people's lives.

And if this is the case, why hasn't government gotten smaller over time? We have billions of peoples across the entire planet making daily decisions about their lives, decisions that most of the time not only affect their own person but the lives of others, and nowhere in the globe has all this human activity led to places where you have individuals governed by a systems with very little overall control.

I would posit that the more ability individuals have, the more their decisions about their own lives create issues for other people's lives, forcing the public sphere to play referee. People in "nanny states" are better off than people in less governed places of the world.

[JonnTEN]

And if this is the case, why hasn't government gotten smaller over time?

Because when we choose governments, by far the largest component of that choice has to do with how the government will directly affect OTHER PEOPLE.

If I vote for somebody who is against immigration, my vote is about how the government will interact with millions of people I've never met in the hope that it has some positive effect on myself and others.

This is PRECISELY NOT the situation than is faced by somebody who is presented with a series of unidimensional variables (prices!) and who attempts to maximize his own utility given those prices.

[Imalaycle]

By any objective standard they're smarter than the people they govern.

Smarter than the mean of the people they govern, not smarter than all the people they govern. And as Asher said, there are plenty of people too smart to go into politics or civil service.

[crazuMovies]

Yes. For example, people with English degrees (which is what you have, no?) can be successful in publishing (including new media), advertising, or could get jobs like copy editor for a variety of companies that need to produce written materials - most engineers couldn't write an set of instructions intelligible to anyone else.

At the very least, if you are not adverse to travel, you could make money going overseas to teach English, given that your command of the language is better than most peoples, and knowing English well is certainly a marketable skill. This. Good advice all.

[vicgirl]

Why wouldn't an empirical examination of our moral senses be best carried out not through mathematical modelling but instead by observation of human beings and our evolutionary kin, since our moral senses are not derived logically, but emotionally? 'Observation' is always quantifiable in an empirical examination. You'd have to define, "happy" "sad", etc. Fr'instance if the state of being happy were correlated with the secretion of a neurotransmitter, you could measure that level of the transmitter, and record responses. That is an empirical observation.

[Anatolii]

As for the argument in favour of a broad-based education, I argue like Twain, you ought to be able to walk into any lecture hall and adequately prepare a lecture to cover the topic at hand with no preparation. Is this a skill that is adequately covered/valued/taught? No.

So you pick it up and learn it on your own time. I think all science majors should have a working knowledge and exposure to the main body of philosophy and vice-versa.

Yeah, **** the division of labor, let's all attempt to do everything ourselves

[DownloadADOBEsoftware]

Yeah, **** the division of labor, let's all attempt to do everything ourselves Damn straight.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

[expabsPapsgag]

Then giving money away is also morally neutral.

Well it could save lives. Were you trying to ask whether it would be okay for someone to kill someone else for a large sum of money, and then use that money to save lives?