Unfortunately, we aren’t making any progress in our discussion so far. The main issue is that your use of the concepts of ‘to choose’ and ‘to act’ are littered with incoherencies; and that is primarily what I would like you to see.

For example:

I've tried to explain that a choice is what you are going to do, and by consequence, what you actively chose not to do.

I understand that you use “choice” in a looser sense, but what exactly is it under your view? — Bob Ross


A decision to make an action. — Philosophim

Do you see how these two statements are incoherent? If to choose is to decide to make an action (notwithstanding the circularity in the definition), then you cannot claim that one “actively chose not to do” something. There is not such thing as “choosing not to do X” in your view by definition.

EDIT:: Given your terms (and notwithstanding the circularity), when you say "I chose not to do X" that is equivalent to "I decided to perform the action of not doing X".

You need to overcome this problem before we can continue to all your examples.

I think the best way forward is to pause here, and ask you to try and define 'to choose’ again; because anything I point out in your response is going to hinge on your vague and incoherent use of the terms.

Again, to be clear on my side, an ‘action’ is a ‘volition of will’; and to choose is to ‘arrive at a conclusion from rational deliberation’.

I think I understand what you are going for, which is that ‘one must perform an action to avoid another action’. (1) This isn’t true; and (2) even if it was it would not negate my point.

With respect to #1, the problem is that you keep using examples where one coincidentally chooses a different act instead of doing the act in question (e.g., walking away instead of pulling the lever); but this is not always the case. For example, imagine you decide to just stand there and keep watching instead of pulling the lever: continuing to watch is not itself an action—instead, you would be deciding to not do anything and since you are already watching you continue to watch. What you are doing is failing to analyze the inaction in-itself—e.g., choosing to not get up is itself (A) a conclusion reached through thinking and (B) not a choice to do something.

With respect to #2, even if I grant your point it does not follow that one cannot choose to do nothing: even in the case that it is true that “one must perform action X to avoid action Y”, it also true that the choice to not do Y precedes the choice to do X—all you are noting is that not doing Y requires a subsequent action which is not Y for Y to not be done. If this is true, then even under your view it must be conceded that choices can be about inactions—which violates your definition of ‘choice’.

In your view, we end up with a peculiar conclusion that it is false that ‘one can choose to not do Y’; and you get this problem because you are falsely inferring that “one cannot choose to do nothing” because “one cannot lack action”. You are forgetting that deliberation is an act, but that it can be about inaction; and this means that one is technically acting when they are concluding to not do something (in virtue of performing the act of thinking), but that they are performing the act of choosing to not do anything.

I can choose to not respond to the post, but I choose to make some other type of action in my life.

That is not a part of the original choice made—or at least it isn’t per se. You could choose to not respond to the post without, in that act of deliberation, choosing to not do so for the sake of some other action. Whether or not you must choose, after that, to act is a separate and irrelevant question.

You still have failed to give a coherent definition of a ‘choice’, and I think this is what is hindering you from seeing the issues I have exposed (even above).

I would say agency more than thinking, as one can act emotionally, then rationally think about it later.

An emotion is not a result of a choice: you don’t choose what you feel. Choices are cognitive, not conative. Again, you defined ‘choice’ as a ‘making a decision to act’: decisions are cognitive—it makes no sense to include emotions in that other than what emotions are filtered through reason.

"The action they took did not involve pulling the lever, because they thought it more moral to do that action then pull the lever."

This is wrong, because you have conflated a reason one may possibly have for not doing X with it being necessary that they have such a reason for not doing X: do you find it impossible for a person to choose to not pull the lever “because they simply wanted to watch them die”? If not, then your point cannot stand: they are not choosing to not pull the lever for the sake of another action they want to perform.

An action 'simpliciter' is simply what your being is at any moment in time.

I find this inadequate, although I appreciate the elaboration. According to your definition here, a person who is brain dead in a coma is ‘acting’ by not moving their arms; because it is a part of ‘what their being is [at this moment]’. Actions are tied to agency, not being.

A decision to make an action

I see the problem now: as a matter of definition, you must reject the idea of choosing to do nothing.

This is absurd to me, because, again, it is so painfully obvious that you can choose to not do something without choosing to do something else. You can decide, right now, to never respond to this message without choosing to go do something else instead: if that is true, then you made a choice to not make an action—which violates your definition of ‘choice’.

You know me: I hate semantics as much as the next person; but if you define ‘choice’ in this way, then I would note that you must still agree that one can ‘reach a conclusion through the process of thinking’ which results in that ‘conclusion’ being that one should not act; and this then would not, by definition, be a ‘choice’ in your schema—but that’s what I am getting at.

Assuming agency, if you choose to do A, but at the last second, pick B, you changed your choice to B.

What you are noting here, is that ‘if one acts, then they chose those actions’; and if I were to grant your point here, it would not suffice to negate the possibility of being able to choose to not act. All this notes, is that ones actions are necessarily chosen; but not that ones choices are all about actions.

Like I stated before, I do reject that all acts are chosen; because it is impossible to reach a decision other than through rational deliberation; which leads me to my next point:

A decision to make an action

Choosing is the act of deciding: you circularly defined a ‘choice’ here with ‘decision’. I would submit to you that ‘making a decision’, ‘making a choice’, etc. are all the results of the process of thinking; and ‘thinking’ is an act of rational deliberation (even if it is irrational in the sense that one doesn’t have sound argumentation or hasn’t thought it through very robustly). If this is true, then you must accept that one can act without choosing; because one can act without thinking—and surely you agree, semantics aside, with that.

I've already pointed this out once, but I am talking about mutually exclusive scenarios.

Got it: that wasn’t clear to me. You said it was a matter of a logical formula, which was confusing me.

They chose to not pull the lever, and acted on it, because they thought it more moral to do something else

How did they act on it? What you are missing, is that the choosing to not pull the lever is a choice to refrain from acting; and if that is the case then they didn’t act on it.

Omissibility in itself neither necessarily exempts or makes the person responsible

I apologize, I used the terms wrong: moral omissibility is a category of moral thought that revolves around when someone fails to do something good. The point I was making is that an omission is sometimes permissible.

if we had a 50/50 situation, in which you only had two choices and both were equally bad, no one could judge you for your choice.

These examples we are using are not situations where all choices are equally bad. Again, allowing something bad to happen is not as bad as doing something bad. Likewise, to use your negligence example, the worker would be held morally responsible if they should have reasonably known to push that certain button; but if they couldn’t have reasonably known, then they shouldn’t be. The main point would be, though, that this concedes that not even all inactions are equal. E.g., it would not be right to say that the worker in both instances is doing something equally bad.

No, I'm not saying that at all.

We have deeper issues now. If you define a ‘choice’ as ‘a decision to make an action’, then one cannot choose to let something happen—as a matter of definition.

And in the situation of moral choice, 'not acting' is the action you take.

That’s manifestly incoherent: you either have to accept that all moral choices are not instances of ‘not acting’, or you have to concede that your definition doesn’t work.

Good discussion!

@Lionino, I think our conversation went astray because I (or perhaps we) was (or perhaps were) focusing on the pain involved in the vaccination and not the harm. In a complete sense, the harming of the person is necessarily prior to the release of the dead cells (or what not) that will help them build immunity; and so I completely understand and agree with you (now) that this is analogous to the self-defense example I gave: part of the means is harming the person, as opposed to being a side effect of the means.

Your solution to the OP, however, is wrong; because it liberates the discussion into weighing the consequences of actions instead of their natures; and this leads (necessarily) to the bizarre permitting of immoralities for the sake of the greater good.

The solution, I think, is to reject 3: I realized that my theory is eudaimonic and not hedonic, and so I am not committed to the idea that harming someone, in-itself, is bad for them. Likewise, I find nothing wrong, now that I have liberated myself from 3, with deploying a principle of forfeiture whereby one can harm someone for the sake of preventing them from doing something wrong; and this is not a case of an action which is bad in-itself because the action of harming is not in-itself bad and the intention bound-up with the action (of harming), in this case, is good.

I don't know what the phrase "flow of intention" is supposed to mean

I mean what is intended in-itself (at least within the context) and what is intended directly for that per se intention. An archer aims to hit their target, and pulling back the string on the bow (with an arrow in place) is intended for the sake of the intention of hitting the target. The whole motion of placing the arrow in place, pulling the string back, etc. is a part of the intentional flow towards the end; but, e.g., what is not a part of that directional flow is effect of alarming a deer standing nearby.

@Leontiskos

It's not so clear to me that self-defense involves an intent to harm.

It doesn't per se, but a lot of cases do. For example, if I am about to get shot by an aggressor and the only way to stop it is to pull out my gun and shoot them, then, in that case, I must directly intentionally harm them to save myself; for the causal means of saving myself is shooting my gun and the effect necessary to prevent my death or injury is the bullet penetrating the aggressor and harm them sufficiently to stop them from pulling their own trigger. I don't see how, in that case, you could argue that (1) there is not intent to harm nor (2) that the intent is direct.

When we consider self-defense in the context of double effect, and scrutinize the criterion that the bad effect may not be a means to the good effect, it becomes crucial to determine what we mean by a means. Is it a causal or temporal means?

I was meaning a causal means, like pulling a lever. Technically the gun, or my fist (in case of punching), is the means and the effect is the bullet harming the aggressor.

When I look through Aquinas it would seem that he does not view harm as a proper act

This is a really good point that I overlooked; and helped me realize that I am not committed in the slightest to accepting that harm in-itself is bad. An action is a volition of will; and as such cannot be analyzes independently of the per se intention behind it.

Unfortunately, I am still not following exactly what you are arguing. I responded with an analysis of “action” and you responded to that response shifting the goal post towards “action of agency”. I don’t know what “action of agency” is vs. “action” simpliciter.

I understand that you use “choice” in a looser sense, but what exactly is it under your view?

Again, what do you mean by “action”? It doesn’t seem clear what you mean at all, and of which is very clear with this:

An inaction is not an action: this is obvious, so I will leave it there. — Bob Ross

No, I don't think so. If you would, I would like you to explain why the following is wrong.

an inaction is a lack of action — Bob Ross

Yes, on a set of choices.

If an inaction is a lack of action, then an inaction is the negation of an action; and the negation of something cannot be identical to that something.

An inaction is a choice to not act on one or more possible actions. And in this, I am using using the logic that if one acts on A, one is not acting on B. Total inaction, is for all possible letters, you did not act on them. That means the removal of actionable agency. This is if we are using the terms consistently and logically.

I don’t understand what you mean by “if one acts on A, then one is not acting on B”. Again, A could entail B: there’s nothing logically impossible about that. Likewise, do you mean to say “if one performs action A, then one does not perform action B”? Again, action A may be identical or imply or contain B; and nothing about that conditional statement relates to the other statement that “if one does not perform action A, then they have not acted”. Likewise:

"The inaction of A, the action of B".

That isn’t a coherent sentence. What do you mean?

I think what you are trying to note is that, somehow, agents always are doing something; but the point is that not doing something is not itself an action. Not picking up a phone is not itself an action; just as much as:

Of course you did something. You chose not to pull the lever, and did something else.

With respect to the situation of the 1 vs. 5 trolley problem, you didn’t do anything else—that’s the point! You did something insofar as you rationally deliberated (viz., made a decision) to not pull the lever; but not pulling the lever is not itself an action—and this is what I want to see if we agree on or not.

Again, I think 'morally permissible' conveys your intention clearly

Moral omissibility is not the same as moral permissibility; and the former is not standardly the same as “doing something impermissible”: it is separate moral category of thought. This is important for my analysis, because of this:

I have a feeling the real goal here is that you want a person to have a 'get out of jail free card' on moral situations by claiming 'not acting' means they weren't involved

Something that is morally permissible is something which is not bad; whereas something that is morally omissible is bad but is exempt from moral responsibility—that is an important distinction. All else being equal, one should be held responsible for failing to act in a reasonable manner to prevent something bad from happening, because failing to reasonably prevent a bad effect or act is in-itself bad, but in some cases it is exempt from moral scrutiny; and one such example is when one cannot act in any morally permissible way to prevent the bad act or effect from happening. E.g., if I could reasonably and easily grab someone who is starting to drown out of a river into my boat, then me failing to do so would constitute negligence and be punishable; whereas, if I can only reasonably grab that person and put them in my boat if I push you overboard, then that is morally omissible (exactly because I cannot save this person without doing something bad, and doing something bad is worse then letting something bad happen).

The absurdity in your view, so far, is that there is no such thing as allowing or letting something bad happen; as opposed to doing something bad; because you completely lack the vocabulary to notate a choice to not act, since you think inaction is action.

Does it then follow that it is okay to "harm" an attacker who cannot feel pain? And that because the end is still achieved in such a case, therefore the infliction of "harm" is a side effect?

No, because “harm” is more than just physical pain. My point with @Lionino was that the relevant difference between punching someone in self-defense and injecting someone with a needle to provide immunity is that the latter case has a means which has a double effect whereas the former has one effect that produces the other effect. Viz., me punching that perp in the face directly produces only the effect of causing harm and only indirectly (as a subsequence) the effect of preserving myself—which is not a double effect proper. It is the 7 diagram as opposed to the V.

That’s what makes self-defense so tricky in the OP, and I am unsure how to account for it without disbanding from stipulation 2 and replacing it with “it is morally impermissible to directly intend something bad towards an innocent living being—even for the sake of something good”.

The key here is that when it comes to self-defense harm is not a precondition for success.

This is true and I agree: self-defense itself is merely the direct intention to defend oneself from an assault and this does not necessitate causing harm to someone; but I am thinking of cases of self-defense which would require it, as is the case for the vast majority (e.g., punching someone in the face, knocking them out, engaging in a shootout, etc.). In those cases, self-defense requires using physical harm as a means towards a good effect (of saving oneself); and so it seems as though one must either reject that (1) one should not do bad things as means towards good ends or (2) physical harm is not bad in-itself.

For example, one relevant difference between your case and the nurse who vaccinates or the surgeon who makes an incision, is that this is presumably done with consent or at least implied consent on the part of the patient.

That is true as well; but, like I said, the needle is the means and it produces two simultaneous effects: physical harm and immunity. This is NOT the case when one punches someone legitimately in self-defense: the physical harm is effectively the means (by being the effect of the punch) which, in turn, produces the good effect: the good effect is not produces simultaneously with the bad effect. Punching someone legitimately in self-defense is analogous, to an extent, to shoving someone into the train to save the five: the good effect is an effect of the effect of the action.

the categorical (3) should qualified by the innocence of the victim: "Do not harm the innocent."

Yes, this is true: I could say it is not bad in-itself to harm another but, rather, it is bad in-itself to harm an innocent person; and this is honestly probably the solution. The problem is that if we are analyzing harm in-itself, then it does seem bad irregardless—which comes to light when we consider using excessive force in self-defense.

It seems like the best bet is to refactor stipulation 2 and say that doing something bad a means towards a good end is not necessarily impermissible; because the bad action is permissible if it is a proportionate response towards a guilty agent.

They are same thing: what you are referring to is when I refer to a thing as in-itself vs. per accidens bad--e.g., an action that is in-itself bad.

Why is it bound to fail? That is what I want you to elaborate on, and provide justification for. Are you agreeing that self-defense cannot be justified with the OP's stipulations? If so, then which stipulation would you reject and why?

CC: @Leontiskos

I say the above because you seemed to frame rape as being 'bad in-itself' whereas I do not see defending one's self, or others, with a 'bad' act (eg. violence to suppress violence) to be 'bad in-itself'. This is clearly false equivalence.

I see why you would say this, but let’s break down what is the act and what is the effect; because you are lumping them together here.

Let’s take the example that you have to punch someone in the face to defend yourself from getting punched (by them). The punch is the act, and there are (at least) two effects: physical harm to the attacker and (assuming you knock them out before they land any blows) the prevention of physical harm to oneself.

The latter effect is the per se intention, because it is the end which you have in store as the final end; however, unlike a legitimate double effect situation, the former effect is what produces the latter effect—they are not simultaneously produced from the means but, rather, the means (which is your arm and fist swinging in a punch-like fashion) is producing the effect of physical harm and, thereby, producing the effect of preservation of oneself.

It is certainly not morally impermissible to punch someone in the face, but it is without a damn good reason to do so. The REASON adds weigh to the permissibility of an act.

This seems very consequentialist. If punching someone is in-itself, qua action, bad; then it shouldn’t be done for the sake of doing something good—no?

Also, I think I can anticipate the response you may give and I think it may be fruitful for me to anticipate it a bit (;

I think you are going to say that sometimes not doing something requires an act of volition with an intention in mind (such as concentrating to stop one's hand from shaking); and this is the sort of not doing something which you would classify as an action. I think, and correct me if I am wrong, this is what you had in mind with the idea of concentrating on abstaining from eating food.

In some of these cases you would be partially right, insofar as preventing something can be an action (such as concentrating on stopping one's hand from shaking); but this is an action exactly because it actualizes something (such as the hand going from shaking to not shaking). Whereas, truly not doing something doesn't actualize anything; e.g., if I make the decision that my phone should continue to lie on the table exactly where it is, then me not picking it up is not an action. If I were to take measures of protecting it from getting moved (by other people or what not), then those would be actions.

There's not a volition of will (towards my intention of leaving the phone where it is) by not picking it up (all else being equal); but there is in stopping my shaking hands from continuing to shake. Likewise, there's no volition of will in not picking up a sandwich and eating it; but there is in meditating to help calm the appetites.

I apologize Philosophim: I ran out of time to respond earlier.

Your action is to stay in the chair. An action is simply a decision of what to do as a living being from moment to moment.

The biggest problem with your analysis is that you see no difference between making a choice and acting; and if you cannot tell what or simply disagree with making such a distinction between the two, then you will fail to understand how an inaction is treated differently than an action when considering moral responsibility. The best I can do to get the ball rolling, is expound the relevant concepts as I understand them.

An action is a volition of will with an intention; a choice is the decision reached through a process of rational deliberation; an intention is an end set after as the final cause (in the sense of a “why”)(of what is to happen); an inaction is a lack of action; and what is voluntary is what is done in correspondence with one’s will.

Couple’s a things worth noting:

1. Not all actions are choices: some are merely voluntary. One may very well do something that is in correspondence with their will (i.e., do something voluntarily) without rationally deliberating about it (i.e., choose it) (e.g., punching a wall in pure rage).

2. A choice is an action: one is deliberating (viz., thinking), and this is a volition of the will with the intention of contemplation (about something).

3. An inaction is not an action: this is obvious, so I will leave it there.

4. One can choose something (viz., reach a conclusion) without further acting on it. Viz., the action of thinking is separate from any action taken based off of that thinking.

EDIT: (I forgot to add)5. Not all actions are voluntary. E.g., If you hold a gun up to my head and tell me to eat a bowl of ice cream or die and I do it; then I am not doing this because it corresponds to my will in any meaningful sense (if I am doing it to avoid dying).

From your statement that “your action is to stay in the chair” in the case of choosing to not get up from the chair, I find if self-evident that you are lacking a robust analysis of what “action” is. It is manifestly incoherent to posit that not doing something is doing something—which is literally what you said. If I do not get up, then I performed the act of not getting up; which is just to say that I didn’t perform an act at all. In order to not get up, I don’t have to do anything.

An omission is generally understood as "Not doing the right thing"

Not quite; although that is one of the common definitions, and of which is the synonym for “negligence”. I mean it in the more prominent sense of omitting something or someone. E.g., I consider it morally omissible to not do something and let something bad happen if the only way to prevent that bad thing from happening is to do something bad.

If I five people about to get run over by a train and the only way to save them is to push a fat person onto the tracks (knowing that fat person will get run over), then I should do nothing; because it would be immoral for me to (directly) intentionally kill that fat person in order to bring about the good effect of saving the five. I would find this morally omissible, in the sense that they are not going to be held morally responsible for not taking the measures to save the five.

If I didn't choose to act, how did I act?

Again, a choice is an act of rational deliberation. We do things all the time which are not acts of rational deliberation—e.g., wanting more ice cream (without thinking about it all), punching a wall in pure rage, nervously fidgeting, etc.

Some voluntary acts which are not chosen, may be chosen indirectly by means of choosing to instill a habit which tends to produce that act—e.g., one may install the habit of eating healthy by way of choice (i.e., by rationally deliberating about it), and once that habit has a strong hold one may find themselves wanting and eating a healthy meal without thinking about it all.

If I choose to go on a hunger strike, I am acting purposefully not to eat.

It is purposeful, but not an action. Again, there’s nothing being actualized: on the contrary, you are purposefully not actualizing anything to achieve your goal. You are not doing anything; just like if you decide to not pull the lever and let the five get run over by the train: did you do anything by not pulling the lever? No.

Bob

Or how about someone trying to commit rape then becoming the rape victim? Are these equally 'bad'?

A non-consequentialist does not need to accept that all bad acts are equal: that simply doesn't follow from not being a consequentialist. The difference in severity of the immoral act is based off of how severe it is in-itself vs. the other is in-itself. E.g., raping someone, as per its nature, is worse than saying something insulting.

Moreover, to answer your question directly: this just goes back to my earlier statement that I am in no way endorsing the view that self-defense is morally impermissible.

Ethical egoism is a theory that argues for the person who is doing the action -- what is best for this person.
Other consequentialism argues for the common good.

I am not making an argument from ethical egoism: if you would like to import it to explain how one can justify self-defense given the OP’s stipulations, then I am more than happy to entertain it.

And harming the child's skin to immunise it is not a part of the means?

No. A means is something that facilitates the end: causing pain to the child is not a part of what facilitates the end of giving them immunity; which is self-apparent when one considers if the end would still be facilitated properly on a child with an inability to feel pain.

Couldn't harm towards the attacker be called a bad side effect of self-defence?

No, because harming the attacker is what facilitates the end (of saving oneself).

The problem you are having is that you don’t have a refined conceptual understanding of what a means is.

It seems your phrase "directional flow" refers to causal flow?

I mean the flow of intention—e.g., an archer aiming at their target.

If so, I don't think that matters at all.

Whether or not one directly intends something matters, because moral agency is agent-centric. It is about what one ought to or ought not to do.

All else being equal, both are being immoral; but one is an omission and the other a commission, and this can be morally relevant in some circumstances.

I am not beginning with moral principles with respect to my ethical theory: I am a virtue ethicist.

In logic, to choose A, is to choose not B.

This is not a logical truth whatsoever. Choosing A may entail simultaneously choosing B (e.g., if I choose to go to the grocery store in my car and I am aware that my car emits CO2, then I also choosing to emit CO2 to get to the grocery store—albeit the intention is different).

To say that choice isn't an action seems odd to me. If you choose something but don't act on it, did you really choose?

Making a decision is an act, and I may have confused you on that; but you were conflating it with the action that was ethically in question. I can choose to do nothing, and doing nothing is not an action.

The act of rational deliberation is the act of making a choice, and one can certainly rationally deliberate such that they decide not to do anything. E.g., I can choose to not get up from my chair, and not getting up from my chair is NOT an action. This is important in order to understand my theory, because omissions and commissions evaluated differently.

So if I choose not to steal, but then take the action of stealing, what does that mean?

It would mean you are acting irrationally; and that you chose to not act, but acted anyways.

If I choose not to starve, but don't take an action to prevent starvation when that option is presented, didn't I act by not stealing, thus actionably starving?

If you make the decision that you are want to change the fact that you are starving such that you aren’t anymore but don’t actually do anything to change it, then you haven’t acted to change the fact that you are starving.

What I was noting is that not doing something and doing something are nor morally calculated equally; and your response here is full of equivocating the two.

If you are currently in the state of starvation, then choosing to remain in that state produces no action pertaining to it—no different than me choosing to not move doesn’t cause movement.

By choosing one, you will commit an evil act.

Again, you don’t commit an evil act by allowing something bad to continue to happen; exactly no different than how I don’t do anything to not get up from the chair that I am in—there’s a choice being made, but some choices require inaction.

By allowing yourself to continue to starve, you have committed an omission (an inaction); whereas if you steal you have committed a commission (an action). Your entire analysis assumes that something wrong is being done either way, when it is not.

Not at all. Everyone who adheres to an ethical theory imports principles into any moral conversation.

No worries :smile:

That solution has been grave consequences, though--e.g., rape is no longer bad in-itself, which seems absurd. It seems like we can evaluate the ethicality of an action, independently of any accidental circumstances, and note that some of them are bad; and if some of them are bad, then it shouldn't matter what accidental circumstances arise.

Isn't refusing to make an action that would prevent starvation a choice however?

It is a choice, but not an action. There’s no 50/50 decision being made, because it is morally impermissible to do something bad for the sake of something good; and so it is better to choose to not do anything than do something bad.

In the example you gave, it is 100% the case that one should allow themselves to starve; because you have setup the situation where they cannot avoid it without doing something wrong.

I am also assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, that inherent goodness and badness don't have a 'rating'.

I was assuming, for the OP, that they do have degrees. Rape is worse than saying something insulting because rape is more negatively intrinsically valuable than saying something insulting (in terms of the effects they have on the well-being of the victim).

Which if a moral framework claims you can never defend yourself, this seems like the moral framework is unable to handle a fairly common moral scenario that is generally agreed upon by people across the world

I agree. That’s why I am trying to see if anyone knows of a good justification, under the OP’s stipulations, of self-defense. I am not suggesting that self-defense is impermissible; on the contrary, I find it obviously permissible but have found the peculiarity of seeing no real justification for it under my theory—which indicates I messed up somewhere.

2. I don't think one can easily discount that 'not doing something' is 'not a choice'

You are confusing choosing with acting: one can choose to not act.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/926405

I am not suggestion with this OP that self-defense is impermissible: I am questioning how one justifies it with the stipulations made therein.

The vaccination example is disanalogous to the self-defense example: the principle of double effect can easily resolve the dilemma in the case of the former. One vaccinates a child with the good effect of protecting them from harm in mind, and the means is to vaccinate them. The means has a side effect, a bad effect, of causing some immediate harm—this is indirectly intended. The allowance of the bad side effect is permitted because:

1. The action is in-itself neutral or good (viz., injecting someone with something to boost their immune system is good);
2. There is a directly intended good effect (viz., protecting a person from harm from a disease);
3. The good effect cannot be achieved without the bad effect (viz., injecting them with something to boost their immune system simultaneously produces the bad effect of pain);
4. The good effect cannot be achieved with a lesser bad effect (viz., the way they are injecting it is the least painful way); and
5. The good effect significantly outweighs the bad effect (viz., protecting them from a life-threatening disease outweighs avoiding the bad effect of the minor pain they will have from being injected).

One need not reject any of the OP’s stipulations to accept the permissibility of vaccination (of some circumstances).

The reason I don’t make an analogous argument for self-defense, is that it seems like harming the person, unlike in the vaccination example, is a part of the means of achieving the good end; as opposed to being a bad side effect.

Hello Philosophim! I am glad to hear from you again.

1. What is bad? What is bad 'in-itself? Can you give an example of something that is is bad in itself, and why it is bad?

I purposely left out the analysis of the entire ethical framework which I implicitly imported in for the sake of the question (in the OP), because it would require a lot of writing (:

Irregardless, this is a fair and fine question to ask. The question in the OP is operating under the assumption that one accepts that a thing can be bad or good in-itself and simply that the action of harming someone is in-itself bad. There are many ethical theories that are compatible with these two claims, and I think the common man would agree with them (although that isn’t saying much).

In its most generic sense, I mean “bad” and “good” in the common man’s usage of the terms as it relates to morality. In a more technical sense, I would say “badness” is “negative intrinsic valuableness” and “goodness” is “positive intrinsic valuableness”; however, these technical definitions are not required to understand, more generally, what is meant by “bad” and “good” in the OP.

By something being bad or good in-itself, I mean that that something is bad or good all else being equal—i.e., taken by itself in isolation from all other circumstances and factors. An example of this commonly would be rape: rape is bad in-itself, because, when evaluated in isolation from any accidental factors, it is, per se, bad; and it is bad because it violates the autonomy of an individual and inhibits or decreases their well-being. We could say, equally, that it might be good per accidens to rape someone if they have to choose between raping them for 10 seconds or torturing them in a basement for 10 years (and assuming those are the only two options); but this would have no effect on the fact that rape itself is bad, when taken in isolation.

2. This is going to be important, because a person who doesn't have your set definitions can set up this scenario.

I don’t think they really have to: you understand fine, I would imagine, what the commoner means by “bad” and “good” in a morally relevant sense—even if they do not have a robust concept of it.

For me, what is good is what is (positively) intrinsically valuable; and what is most (positively) intrinsically valuable is well-being; because that is what we are physiologically determined to value for itself the most, being simply the result of one’s biological functions working in unison and harmony with one another to fulfill what they are designed to do (in a weak teleological sense). Again, one need not accept my ethical theory to participate in the OP. They just have to understand what is commonly notated as “bad” in a morally relevant sense, what it means for something to be bad in-itself, and to understand the stipulations.

a. It is good to not starve.
b. It is bad to starve.
c. It is bad to steal.
d. It is good to not steal.
e. If you do not steal, you are going to starve.

Therefore if you do not steal and starve, you are doing both a bad and a good thing. But if you steal and don't starve, then you are doing both a good and a bad thing. If things are good or bad 'in themselves' then we reach a situation in which either choice is equally as good and bad as the other. But our intuitions, (and I'm sure deeper argumentation) justify stealing to not starve. So we have a situation by which things in themselves result in a coin flip outcome that I think many of us would not call a coin flip

Stealing is bad in-itself and starving is bad in-itself; but it does not follow that one ends up in a “coin toss” when having to decide whether to continue to starve and not steal or steal and stop starving.

One is not permitted to do something bad in order to achieve something good; and this is the scenario you have setup. E.g., one is actively starving and this is bad; they could perform the act of stealing to remove that bad situation; but they cannot do so because their action would be bad and one cannot do something bad to achieve something good. Moreover, if they starve to death because their only option to avoid it was steal, then they did not do anything bad—just because it is bad to starve it does not follow that one is acting by allowing something to happen. Allowing something to happen is inaction; and not doing anything is preferable to doing something wrong.

Irregardless, I am not entirely following your critique here; because even if I grant your point (that it is a coin toss), then it still would follow that both are bad in-themselves.

Bob

Firstly, you have to clarify what you mean by “happiness”—e.g., hedonic, eudaimonic, autonomistic, etc.

If it has been collectively decided to aim for happiness on an collective level, then what meaning could individual happiness mean to anyone?

If by “happiness” you mean roughly ‘well-being’ and ‘flourishing’ by fulfilling one’s Telos (i.e., eudaimonic happiness), then the collective happiness has no such conflict; for the collective goal is to suit society towards each being’s happiness. This kind of state would ban, like a parent who prohibits their children to do things which the child may not even realize is bad for them, certain unhealthy acts and habits that inhibit the well-being of the citizen—even if the citizen is not harming someone else in partaking in the act or habit.

If by “happiness” you mean roughly ‘self-autonomy’, then you end up with a state which seeks to try to equally provide the most freedom to each person. This is roughly the state which the west has adopted.

If by “happiness” you mean roughly ‘supreme pleasure’ (i.e., hedonic happiness), then you end up with a state which tries to provide the most pleasures to each person.

Etc.

As you can see, no concept of ‘happiness’ has this inherent issue that you speak of where the collective happiness overrides the individual’s happiness; because the state is responsible for the happiness of each citizen. You seem to think that ‘collective happiness’ would be a supervenient happiness upon the society as a whole which overrides the happiness of the citizen itself (viz., the bee can be sacrificed for the hive).

Was the failure of communism mainly due to pursuing happiness not as a methodology or process; but, as the final goal of the system itself?

There’s absolutely nothing communistic per se about a society being oriented towards happiness of each citizen; and, in fact, this is, in the sense of autonomistic happiness, what western societies are geared towards. Likewise, communism failed, and will always fail, because of its methodological approach to securing the well-being of citizens: it tries to do so by inevitably having the government decide what is valuable, how valuable it is, and who should have it.

I think Stalin, for example, failed because he only pursued happiness. That and he killed 40 million people. — Hanover

:lol: :up:

CC: @Fooloso4

How does an essence come into being in the language of Aristotle?

Aristotle says, in the Metaphysics, that an essence, or form, is per se being (as opposed to per accidens being); or, in other words, what-is-was-to-be-that-thing per se with itself, as it applies universally to all cases [of that thing].

The essence comes into being by physical production, and Aristotle gives the example of a man begetting another man. For Aristotle, the forms are not acausal, inert, and atemporal abstract objects but, instead, are manifestations of essences in things in the real world which hold universally insofar as they can be instantiated in different places to imperfect degrees.

Is that your understanding as well?

Now you are catching on! Just as a knife has more than one function, a natural species does as well.

I may have been too loose with my terminology: a knife does not have more than one function—it has one function which is comprised of lesser functions which constitute the sole function (e.g., the function of a knife is for people to cut things, and this function requires the lesser function of being ‘grippable’).

I see your point here, which is, notwithstanding the above critique, that the parts are considered relative to the whole; however, we must be careful by disclosing which whole we are considering. E.g., the atom’s function can be considered separately from the function of an organism which is, in part, that atom.

I don’t think this negates the idea of a “devil species”, because I am analyzing the ‘goodness’ of such a species within the context of their species qua whole and not nature qua whole. You have to demonstrate why I should think of it in terms of nature and not the species; as, for me, both are capable of separate analysis since ‘goodness’ is relativistic.

There is a difference between something that is in a species' nature and what that nature is.

I completely agree insofar as what you are trying to convey is correct. I would just describe it differently: I would say that it is not in human nature, in the sense of ‘nature’ qua essence nor Telos, to have, e.g., hubris—that is not in the species’ nature nor a part of what the nature of that species is.

Any species that has a mind, has more than one function. At a minimum, it has the function of thinking, or reasoning. An intelligent species that is not intelligent is a contradiction.

Firstly, how does this negate the ‘devils species’? It seems perfectly capable with their nature to have rational capacities.

Secondly, I was not defining such a species as solely functioning towards rape, torture, etc.; I was saying that such acts are incorporated into their nature such that they flourish by doing so. It is a hypothetical meant to tease out the consistent conclusion of Aristotle’s concept of ‘good’: you are trying to migrate it to actuality or practicality.

That a species is a proper part of the whole is essential for understanding what a species is, that is, for understanding its nature. It is not as if these are two separate things - its nature apart from nature and its nature as part of nature. We can, when discussing such things, make a distinction, but the distinction does not exist in the nature of things.

They are completely separable: I can analyze the function of a liver in isolation to how the body, as a whole, works. Likewise, if I take your argument seriously, then you would have to go further and analyze everything in terms of the largest context—which would be the good of reality (whatever that may be).

What it is to be a fox or rabbit is not to eat or be eaten by the other.

That’s exactly my point: one can determine the nature of a rabbit without understanding nor determining how rabbits relate to the whole of nature—exactly because the relations to other organisms, lives, and environments is not a part of their essence.

The hypothetical you propose suggests "natures" can be arbitrarily injected into life forms. Aristotle rejected that possibility in De Anima:

I wasn’t talking about ‘injecting’ souls into other bodies: I was talking about the essence of a thing. Likewise, just because a thing has an essence at birth it does not follow that they have fully actualized it. So I completely agree that we tend to need other people to help us realize our full potential.

The need for nurture to become what is our 'special' nature is integral to our place between the beast and the divine.

I am assuming you are referring to our ability to sufficiently reason, correct?

Suppose someone invents a knife.

The problem with your example is that a knife has more than the function of cutting; but let’s hypothesize a new tool which has only the purpose of cutting. You are correct that this tool, let’s call it X, is good in the highest sense IFF it is optimal at cutting, and so an X which could cut through anything whatsoever would, indeed, be the best X.

Now, it does not become a ‘bad’ or lesser ‘good’ X because one cannot grab it; because we stipulated its sole function is cutting. Therefore, this example is not helping demonstrate your point.

A knife would be ‘bad’ if one cannot hold it without getting cut because it is designed to cut a specified thing via a person who wields it with their hands.

However, to be charitable, I think this is really what you are getting at:

The whole is intelligibly prior to the part.

It seems like you are denying that what is good is for a thing to fulfill its nature and instead it is for a thing to fulfill its nature if it is a proper part of the whole.

This doesn’t seem accurate to me; because then a thing could be bad which is fulfilling its nature. For example, imagine a species which is a freak accident and perishes quite abruptly. A member of that species would be good if it is fulfilling its nature, but would not be a fitting member of the whole of Nature. Likewise, for example, a being or tool which cuts through everything would not fit well into the universe (and, in fact, would probably damage a lot of it) but if it did exist then I see no reason to say that it isn’t a good X. See what I mean?

Moreover, the relation of a thing to a bigger whole isn’t necessarily an aspect of its nature: is a part of a rabbit’s nature to get eaten by a fox? No.

So we can further the discussion, please point out what is wrong with this claim within the context of Aristotelianism:

P1: If something is 'good' IFF it fulfills its nature and a species exists which has in its nature the need to torture other species, then a member of that species is 'good' IFF it is, among other things, properly torturing other species.

P2: Something is 'good' IFF it fulfills its nature and a species exists which has in its nature the need to torture other species.

C: A member of that species is 'good' IFF it is, among other things, properly torturing other species.

For intents and purposes, assume there exists such a species; even if it immediately goes extinct for whatever reason. If we can find common ground on the 'good' of this species, then we can move on to how well they would fit into the ecosystem of nature.

You are sidestepping the hypothetical. It is akin to if I asked you "if you had $1,000,000,000,000,000, then what would you buy?" and your response was "that's not actually possible, given how the economy as a whole works.". That's not an answer. I statement was "IF something is 'good' IFF it fulfills its nature and a species exists which has in its nature the need to torture other species, then a member of that species is 'good' IFF it is, among other things, properly torturing other species": to contend with this hypothetical, you will have to point out which antecedent is false and why.

A "devil species" is bad, no matter how good it is at being bad. In fact, the better it is at being bad, the less good is.

The good of a thing cannot be determined apart from what it is to be that thing, apart from its telos
…
We are back again to the absurd notion that a natural thing's telos, its place is the cosmos is to harm other species. Such a cosmos would not be a well-ordered whole.

Whether or not such a species would fit well into the “ordered whole” of nature is irrelevant: if the good of a thing is relative to its telos such that it is good equally to how well it fulfills it, then it plainly follows that a species which has a telos which involves torturing other species is, in fact, good IFF it is excellent, apart from other things, at torturing other species. You are accepting Aristotle’s concept of ‘goodness’ (as underlined) and then turning around and irrelevantly commenting that it is absurd for such a species to exist as a coherent member of nature—that doesn’t address the hypothetical I have presented. You would have to demonstrate how the hypothetical (stated above) is inconsistent or incoherent with Aristotle’s concept of ‘good’. I understand the point is that Aristotle thinks that the telos of each species is well-ordered, but I think it doesn’t help his case because of how he defined goodness.

Aristotle points out that there are various meanings of good. The NE begins by saying that all things aim at some good.

The devil species would be aiming at a perceived good: their well-being.

Form (eidos) and nature (phusis) are not two terms with the same meaning. In Book V, chapter IV, of the Metaphysics he says:
In one sense, nature means the coming into being of things that are born.

Nature encompasses both form (eidos) and matter (hule).

Form is the idea of the essence of a thing; and the nature (in the relevant sense from the many definitions Aristotle gives of ‘nature’) of a thing is “the intrinsic source of the primary process of each growing thing just qua the growing thing that it is” (Metaphysics, Book Delta, IV, p. 118). Form and essence are one: the form of a human being is the essence of a human being.

Likewise, like I stated before, the form, or essence, of a human being includes things which a human being may not have actualized (yet or ever); e.g., the form of a human being includes ‘having two arms’, but not all human beings have two arms. If I take your argument seriously (that a human being’s form is fully realized immediately), then a human being with one arm is not a human being (which is implausible); or, if I don’t, then it follows that the form of a human being is not fully realized in a human being per se.

'Essence' is an English translation of the Latin 'essentia'. A term coined by Cicero to translate 'ousia'. Literally it is the “the what it was to be” of a thing.
…
Its form is what it is to be what it is.

You are just going around in circles, trying to distinguish these terms when they are clearly the same. You literally circled back around to saying that a ‘form’ and ‘essence’ are the same thing without realizing it.

You take what is for Aristotle the question of the Metaphysics, the question of being, and treat it as an answer. Things do not realize their form as if it is something they do not already have, something that they are not already. It's form or eidos is not something that comes after it already is.

The form of a thing is its nature (i.e., its essence), and its nature is not fully realized upon beginning to exist nor arguably ever. The form is its design in terms of its essence, and this design can be realized to different degrees. E.g., not every man has realized their nature to the same degree--some are more excellent at being a human being than others.

Nothing you said addressed anything I said...at all.

I've been reading through Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and I think I understand Aristotle's points enough to start tackling this post you made.

Your problem seems to come up because you are thinking of the good as defined primarily in terms of an organisms' form. This is correct, but then we have to ask "from whence and why this form? You seem to be presupposing a sort of indeterminacy lies prior to form. The form of an organisms just is what it is.

This is exactly where I begin to have my doubts with Arisotle’s ethics: if what is good is just a thing realizing its form, then there cannot be a further question of “why is it good for a thing to realize its form?”. It seems like Aristotle is deploying ‘good’ twofold: a thing fulfilling its nature and its nature being determined by an omnibenevolent God. The problem is that this seems, under an Aristotelian view of ‘good’ qua formal fulfillment, like a nonsensical and internally incoherent question to ask, let alone to answer it with ~”God is omnibenevolent, and is the cause of the form which is good for a being to realize”: if ‘goodness’ is just ‘the fulfillment of one’s form’, then whence is God omnibenevolent other than ‘good’ insofar as God fufills their own form?

It seems like a consistent account would be to say that God is good insofar as God realizes God’s potential; and since God has no potential (being an pure actualization), God necessarily is absolutely realized qua God—but what is good for God, which is to be God, does not entail that whatever form God has for a given being is good for that being, nor the rest of nature, other than that that being, analyzed relative to themselves, is good when it realizes its own potential. You seem to be saying that God being a good God, and being so absolutely and necessarily, somehow adds something morally relevant to the good, e.g., human being: I am failing utterly to see that connection being made there.

The form which is the reality of anything is its limited, imperfect share of what the Unmoved Mover is purely and perfectly, that is, idea.

I’ve never understood why this pure actualizer would have an intellect; nor why it being essentially the ultimate substrate of existing things would make those things imperfect images of itself. Can you explain that further?

If the divine is hostile to what lies outside of it then it will be determined by those things; it will exist in response to them.

This is an interesting thought: if God is affected by, e.g., us, then God is not purely actualized; since, e.g., we have caused God to actualize a potential in themselves. Good point.

Likewise, if the divine is merely indifferent to that which lies outside of it, the divine is nonetheless still defined by "what it is not."

Wouldn’t the first actualizer have to be distinguishable from what is being ‘held up’ by it, though? If not, then everything is the pure actualizer, which undermines the whole argument, doesn’t it?

It seems like this is asymmetrical to the previous quote (above) because God can lack potentials without losing their ability to be purely actual—e.g., God can lack the potential to be me, not be me, and still be purely actual.

All goodness for organisms is filtered through their forms, but the forms themselves are not ordered to nothing at all, but to being itself

Again, by Arisotle’s concept of ‘good’, the goodness of God does not imply any significance to the goodness of an organism even if God is the one that ordered the forms in a particular way; exactly because what is good for one being is not necessarily good for another: so what is good for God is not necessarily good for, e.g., a squirrel.

Let me know what you think.

Physics cannot describe logic: the latter is presupposed for the former. E.g., to describe the physical relations of things, one must first presuppose that whatever is described is true and not also false.

There is no 'the good' in Aristotelian ethics and, consequently, there is no universal good which all species are geared towards. So I don't think Fooloso4's account is actually Aristotelian at all. What they have done is supposed that all the natures of each species are united insofar as they work towards some ultimate good, which is something Aristotle adamantly denies. Good simpliciter does not exist in Aristotelian ethics; and what is 'good' for a thing is for that thing to fulfill its nature: there is no room in Arisotle's ethics, thusly, for a separate 'good' which fulfilling one's nature works towards. By definition, what is 'good' is just for a thing to fulfill its nature.

Perhaps there's a 'good' for nature under his view? But this would not negate the fact that the devils species' 'good' would be to fulfill their nature, even if they are bad for nature. This is what happens when 'goodness' is relativistic like Aristotle claims.

If it is true that 'good' simpliciter simply does not exist (viz., 'the good' does not exist) and 'good' is relativistic to the nature of a being such that a being is good iff it fulfills its nature, then this 'devils species' fits fine into the moral hierarchy. What are the odds of such a species coming into being naturallistically? Not likely at all, which is what I think @Count Timothy von Icarus's response was getting at.

So, what is it that causes this "devil species" to torture, abuse and commit genocide? Do they do these things to their own species, or only to other species? If they do it to other species, what is the explanation for why they do it?

To keep things simple, I was saying they do it to other species; and this is how they are biologically wired to do in order to achieve their own well-being. If it helps, you can think of an entire species of the equivalent of the most brutal of psychopathic humans. Arguably, the particular nature of some human beings is such that they cannot achieve the richest sense of well-being without torturing other people.

The reason I say it is incoherent is because I can't imagine such a species, more intelligent than we are and in possession of symbolic language, not being bedeviled by ideologies, just as we are, which would mean such aberrant behavior would not be universal among them, just as it is not universal with us

I was trying to avoid using humans because Aristotle is going to say that the general nature of humans is such that it is antithetical to the occasional freak-accident psychopath that pops up. To object properly, I have to rise the “evil” to the level of the species, and not any particular member.

This is contrary to Aristotle's understanding of nature

How so?

you should not be avoiding what he says about nature and telos. for when they are taken into account there is no glaring issue that he is avoiding. For Aristotle the nature and telos of a species is in accord with the whole of nature.

I don’t see how a devil species, as outlined, would be contrary to nature anymore than lions eating their prey, diseases killing people slowly & painfully, etc.

:up: