But plenty of people see retribution as an end in itself. — Pfhorrest

Again, It's these 'plenty of people' who I've never heard of. Retributions as an end in itself - really? I find that very hard to believe, that no amount of probing would get these people to admit that a society with retributive justice is one in which people are overall better off than one in which there's none. I think this goes to what I said about underestimating the intelligence off your interlocutors. Someone extolling the virtue of retributive justice for it's own sake, isn't literally saying that there's no element of being 'better off' as a whole resulting from it, they take that for granted so it drops out of the conversation. The matter at had is always how to get universal 'goods' like prosperity, liberty etc. What's odd about your contributions is that you assume people have missed this important foundation because they don't explicitly refer to it. In reality people don't explicitly refer to it because it's too trivially obvious, we've moved on to the more contentious stuff and our mode of negotiating has moved on too to accommodate that. I'm not even suggesting that everyone is aware of this, we often just engage using whatever mode we've picked up from our social environment, but it's implicit in most of those modes.

Then the argument would be that they have an incoherent conception of liberty — Pfhorrest

Yes, absolutely - which would be the interesting argument to have. That 'liberty' is a good thing is just common ground so trivial that it doesn't even need mentioning. The important argument is about what we can and cannot coherently say about it.

Because I’m here for casual philosophical discourse, to share my thoughts with anyone to whom they are new and interesting, and to find out if there are any related things that are new and interesting to me that I can mull over and evolve my own thoughts with. I don’t care to fight interminable fights with people who are saying nothing new to me and who find nothing I’m saying new to them, when there’s nothing on the line that we must reach agreement on soon. — Pfhorrest

That all sounds very charming (although utterly pointless) but not at all the purpose of a forum. As I said, it think you've mistaken it for you personal blog - where we can read your thoughts if we're interested in them, or some kind of compendium of random opinion. What makes a forum different from either of these is that once a topic is created it is created to be the mutually available topic a community can use to debate the merits of or issues with. You seem to see this space rather as a supply of free web space anyone can dip into if they want a soapbox. Maybe that's what the creators and maintainers intended, I don't know, but it's not what a public forum means to me. Once you open a thread it's not 'your' thread, you haven't rented the space as a publishing platform, it's public space into which you put an idea.

We circle back (thankfully) to the start of this whole sub-thread. The deep suspicion people naturally have of these 'grand systems'. And here we find that suspicion well-grounded. what you describe sounds more like a recruitment drive, not a community venture - put your theory out there, see if anyone bites, if there's any trouble just ignore it, move on and try again later. It's a good scheme. If someone complains about a lack of engagement with the issues you can play the casual, carefree Cassandra of ideas "oh well, if they don't believe me, no bother, move on", but if someone disrupts your sermon with their own ideas you can play the Coeus on your passionate quest for truth so that the dissenter's 'bad faith' in repeatedly disrupting 'your' quest can be held against them.

[@Pfhorrest] doesn't seem to care whether his theory of morality actually has the potential for ever being applied by humans. — baker

Well then, he's in good company: e.g. Kant.

Again, It's these 'plenty of people' who I've never heard of. Retributions as an end in itself - really? — Isaac

I'll let @SophistiCat field this one in particular as he seems on board with this point and I'm tired of staying up way too late every night because of this.

I will just say on the broader theme of people implicitly agreeing with my point and it thus being trivial, that I do expect that people generally start off thinking something at least in the ballpark of agreement with my principles, but then end up philosophizing themselves into wacky nonsense that runs counter to those things, and my aim is to disabuse them of such nonsense. Like I've said before, I think I'm defending a kind of common sense here against bad philosophy, showing that that bad philosophy is not actually superior to the common sense, but rather vice versa, in a way that they then understand why to stick with the common sense and not be tempted by the bad philosophy.

I love a quote from Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism: "Before one studies, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters."

That means that the general view of the world that one ends up with after truly mastering philosophy is one that is not radically different from the naive pre-philosophical view that people start out with; but on the way from that naive beginning to the masterful end, one's whole worldview gets turned upside down and inside out as one questions everything. The only thing the master has in the end that the beginner does not is an understanding of why those "obvious" answers are as they are, and why all the craziness they explored along the way was wrong.

That all sounds very charming (although utterly pointless) but not at all the purpose of a forum. As I said, it think you've mistaken it for you personal blog - where we can read your thoughts if we're interested in them, or some kind of compendium of random opinion. What makes a forum different from either of these is that once a topic is created it is created to be the mutually available topic a community can use to debate the merits of or issues with. You seem to see this space rather as a supply of free web space anyone can dip into if they want a soapbox. Maybe that's what the creators and maintainers intended, I don't know, but it's not what a public forum means to me. Once you open a thread it's not 'your' thread, you haven't rented the space as a publishing platform, it's public space into which you put an idea.

We circle back (thankfully) to the start of this whole sub-thread. The deep suspicion people naturally have of these 'grand systems'. And here we find that suspicion well-grounded. what you describe sounds more like a recruitment drive, not a community venture - put your theory out there, see if anyone bites, if there's any trouble just ignore it, move on and try again later. It's a good scheme. If someone complains about a lack of engagement with the issues you can play the casual, carefree Cassandra of ideas "oh well, if they don't believe me, no bother, move on", but if someone disrupts your sermon with their own ideas you can play the Coeus on your passionate quest for truth so that the dissenter's 'bad faith' in repeatedly disrupting 'your' quest can be held against them. — Isaac

It sounds like you read only the first half of the first sentence of the bit you quoted, and overlooked the second half: "...and to find out if there are any related things that are new and interesting to me that I can mull over and evolve my own thoughts with." I absolutely do want to have community discussions here; the two-way exchange of ideas is very important to me, and if anything I'm disappointed at the one-sidedness I've mostly experienced thus far (in that very little anyone has said on this forum in the time I've been here has been something new to me).

My point is only that I'm not here for competitive discussions, where we're fighting to convince each other that "I'm right and you're wrong", but rather cooperative ones, where we're sharing our views and reasons for holding them, but not caring whether or not anyone in particular is persuaded to change their mind because of that, only caring whether anyone in the discourse got any new ideas to chew on. If someone shares an idea that's not new to someone else, then there's no point in going back and forth on that over and over again... unless you're only here to win fights, not exchange new ideas.

That's my issue with the way you engage. It feels like I'm being pelted with the same familiar contrary points of view over and over again, never something new. And I'm not interested in pelting you with my point of view over and over again in retaliation. That's intellectually boring and emotionally tiresome.

What I loved about formally studying philosophy at university, and what I hoped to replicate some semblance of here, was how I was getting exposed to interesting new ideas and the arguments both for and against them without anybody caring whether or not any argument either way on any issue actually convinced me or not. It was all just a bunch of delicious food for thought. And then I could take ingredients from those things and mix my own creative dishes out of them, and share those and see if anyone else liked how they tasted, or better yet, inspired them to cook up something along similar lines.

So far the experience here has been pretty far from that.

FWIW Baker misrepresents that I don't care whether my methodology "actually has the potential for ever being applied by humans". It's an aspirational methodology, an ideal to strive toward, and doing anything closer to it is still better than doing things farther from it (IMO, of course), even if it does turn out that we're so irreparably flawed that we'll never do it perfectly. We definitely can apply my methodology at least sometimes, at least to some degree, and that's fine enough for me.

:up:

I love a quote from Dogen, the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism: "Before one studies, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters." — Pfhorrest

Funnily enough, I often repeat the same aphorism. I have no problem at all with the sentiment, only the enaction.

It sounds like you read only the first half of the first sentence of the bit you quoted, and overlooked the second half: "...and to find out if there are any related things that are new and interesting to me that I can mull over and evolve my own thoughts with." — Pfhorrest

No, I included that. Reading other thoughts to 'mull over' is what we do with books (and the blogs of other people), it's not a forum (again, not to me anyway). What exactly do you see different about this place to a series of personal blogs? You write what you want, others write what they want, you each read and say "oh, that's interesting...". That's not a forum, that's Wordpress.

My point is only that I'm not here for competitive discussions, where we're fighting to convince each other that "I'm right and you're wrong", but rather cooperative ones, where we're sharing our views and reasons for holding them, but not caring whether or not anyone in particular is persuaded to change their mind because of that, only caring whether anyone in the discourse got any new ideas to chew on. — Pfhorrest

Again, that's not co-operative, you're mixing your narratives. You've drawn 'co-operative' from the Coeusian search for truth storyline, but the laissez-faire scattergun of ideas from the Cassandrian one. Standing on a soapbox preaching is not co-operative, even if you give everyone a fair go on the box. Co-operation is about a shared part in a shared objective, it's not just a synonym for 'lots of people involved'.

If your 'quest for truth' is already filtered and screened by your own proclivities (what seems right to you), then it can't be a shared, co-operative quest, can it? We can't share in a process that results from your personal filters, that's your quest. You say "A follows from B" and your interlocutor says "No A does not follow from B". You can see if that seems right to you, but unless your claim 'A follows from B' is something you pulled out of your arse (as I believe you Americans put it), then it's opposite is obviously not going to be something that seems right to you, we have to presume you've at least given it that much thought. So anything which calls into question whether A does in fact follow from B is going to be either part of a Web of Beliefs that's radically different to yours, that's going to take some serious work to understand, or it's going to be based off some empirical data you're not aware of and so seems wrong on the face of it. A rare third way might be that someone shares your general Web of Beliefs, and your empirical knowledge, but is wise enough (or you daft enough) for them to spot a fatal error in the logic by which you've connected those beliefs. Holding out for that (and only that) on a public forum like this is vagary.

That's my issue with the way you engage. It feels like I'm being pelted with the same familiar contrary points of view over and over again, never something new. And I'm not interested in pelting you with my point of view over and over again in retaliation. That's intellectually boring and emotionally tiresome. — Pfhorrest

It seems odd that you would follow this with...

What I loved about formally studying philosophy at university, and what I hoped to replicate some semblance of here, was how I was getting exposed to interesting new ideas and the arguments both for and against them — Pfhorrest

I'm broadly an indirect realist, my morality is part ethical naturalism, part semantic, I take a broadly Wittegnsteinean view of most philosophical issues, I'm mostly deflationist about truths, have a Ramseyan approach to both belief and knowledge... plus whatever I've missed. There's not a thousand different aproaches out there. You post something about morality, I'm going to give a semantic/naturalist response. You post something about epistemology, I'll give a Quinean underdertimism response. Others' will give virtue-based, deontological, egoist, or possibly religious responses... and then that's it. Because that's all there is. You either engage with that to see where it's coming from on that particular issue, or you don't engage at all. We're not going to invent a completely new philosophy every time you post something.

What you seem to be looking for is this goldilocks perfection of an approach that's not so different from yours that it's hard work to understand, but not so similar that it's somehting you've already encountered. All of this in a field that's been around for over 2000 years! Is it any wonder you're disappointed? Back at university it would have all been new, but there's less and less new stuff to choose from as you get older, all that's left, if you want to expand your horizons further, is the hard slog of trying to understand those positions which seemed opaque at first glance.

What exactly do you see different about this place to a series of personal blogs? — Isaac

We can ask each other questions, and respond to those. "I don't understand your view, can you clarify?" - "Sure, I'm saying X, as opposed to Y or Z." etc. That's still friendly and cooperative, not trying to win against each other.

If your 'quest for truth' is already filtered and screened by your own proclivities (what seems right to you), then it can't be a shared, co-operative quest, can it? We can't share in a process that results from your personal filters, that's your quest. You say "A follows from B" and your interlocutor says "No A does not follow from B". You can see if that seems right to you, but unless your claim 'A follows from B' is something you pulled out of your arse (as I believe you Americans put it), then it's opposite is obviously not going to be something that seems right to you, we have to presume you've at least given it that much thought. So anything which calls into question whether A does in fact follow from B is going to be either part of a Web of Beliefs that's radically different to yours, that's going to take some serious work to understand, or it's going to be based off some empirical data you're not aware of and so seems wrong on the face of it. A rare third way might be that someone shares your general Web of Beliefs, and your empirical knowledge, but is wise enough (or you daft enough) for them to spot a fatal error in the logic by which you've connected those beliefs. Holding out for that (and only that) on a public forum like this is vagary. — Isaac

On one hand, I want to respond that we can't help but see things "filtered and screened by our own proclivities". We have no point of view to see things from but our own, so to see things in a new way requires that we be presented with a view from our own perspective first and then walked from there to a new one (and usually people aren't going to follow along on too long of a walk, so at best you can judge them a little). This is what that whole Russell quote about starting with trivial premises to get to paradoxical conclusions is about: you walk someone from where they already are to somewhere that seems really strange and unfamiliar.

On the other hand, though, we also have our memories of our own past points of view, and this I think is where you see my reactions here differently than I do. It's not that I can't imagine why you would possibly think the things that you think. Over the course of the first 20-30 years of my life I went through a lot of perspective changes, I was religious as a kid, almost a nihilist by my late-mid 20s, had communist and (right-)libertarian phases in the middle there, I was an ethical naturalist and then later a non-cognitivist, a utilitarian then a Kantian, a materialist and then an idealist, I've zig-zagged all over the place and tried on a ton of different views.

So usually when someone disagrees with me it's not that I can't comprehend why they would think that, because I used to think something much like that myself. Instead, it's that I have since realized the faults in my own past positions, and now I can't un-see them. So if you ask me to "try on" a position like that again, I don't see anything new, and I see the faults with it that I already found back when that was my own position, so of course I'm not persuaded. I'll give an attempt at walking from that position over toward my own but if the other person doesn't want to come along on that walk, I'm not going to put in the effort to convince them to. If they just need a hand held on that walk, I'm happy to lend it. If they're happy to stay where they are and let me walk back to where I've moved on to, that's okay with me too. It's when they keep insisting that I come look at this view that I'm already quite familiar with as though it's something new and persuasive that I start getting annoyed.

What you seem to be looking for is this goldilocks perfection of an approach that's not so different from yours that it's hard work to understand, but not so similar that it's somehting you've already encountered. — Isaac

Mostly I'm just looking for anything I haven't already encountered. And to share things others haven't already encountered. If I'm really up in the rarefied enough heights that there's just not much new for me to find, that's disappointing. I assume my own education is not comprehensive and that someone else as well-versed in philosophy as me would either have learned about views I haven't, or come up with their own novel views like I did. But at least I would hope to find out if any of my own positions that are new to me (as in, not things I picked up from someone else, but something I came up with myself) have actually been covered by someone else before (so I can go read about the debates surrounding them), and if nothing else, maybe something I say will be new to someone else, whether it's something I came up with on my own or just a pre-existing position that's not well-known to everyone. Just so long as someone is getting exposed to something new.

hi. One can conclude alot of weird things about hedonism.

The best Ive seen yet is Locke's which was that acting for the greatest good yields the greatest pleasure. That was really good, I'll look up the quote if you like, because it totally implodes the entire concept of 'ethical hedonism.' lol.

Have a nice day )

It's not that I can't imagine why you would possibly think the things that you think. — Pfhorrest

it's not that I can't comprehend why they would think that, because I used to think something much like that myself. — Pfhorrest

I don't see anything new, and I see the faults with it that I already found back when that was my own position — Pfhorrest

when they keep insisting that I come look at this view that I'm already quite familiar with as though it's something new and persuasive — Pfhorrest

And here I though we might be dealing with something more interesting than the boring old internet messiah.

My primary objection to your hedonism-as-emprical-data-points approach comes from Bayesian modelling approaches to neuroscience applied to affect states. It was only published a few years ago, and then only in the cognitive science papers. I'm truly impressed that you've read it, understood it, and already rejected it years before it was even published despite having no qualifications in the field at all and there being very few objections to it even now... Truly the work of genius, I'm obviously out of my league even talking to you.

I'd be interested to hear the quote you mean, yeah. Thanks. :-)

I think I broadly agree that "acting for the greatest good yields the greatest pleasure", inasmuch as I think a feeling of meaningfulness is one of the highest pleasures (and a feeling of meaninglessness conversely one of the worst kinds of suffering), and helping people is one of the primary ways to cultivate that feeling of meaningfulness (along with teaching, learning, and being helped in turn).

I don't quote follow what you mean that that "totally implodes the entire concept of 'ethical hedonism'", though.

And here I though we might be dealing with something more interesting than the boring old internet messiah. — Isaac

And here we are back to boring old name-calling again. This is the kind of thing that makes me eager to conclude bad faith on your part. Just when it seemed like we were actually having an actual polite conversation and coming to at least a productive sharing of thoughts on a topic (if only the meta-topic of how to conduct a conversation on a philosophy forum), you go and say something confrontational like this again.

This kind of thing really gives an air of you just looking to shoot down anyone who is insufficiently meek in your eyes, anyone who's not afraid to say that they think they might have anything new to contribute. You seem to twist that into arrogance. If I was arrogant I would be trying to get real philosophy journals to publish my thoughts. I know I'm not good enough for that. But I also know that I'm not some phil101 freshman just now thinking about these things for the first time. I'm here looking for people on around my level -- not so far above it like a real journal's peer review panel would be, but not so far below it as your random other place on the internet -- hoping we can all get better together.

Your kind of attitude seems to suggest that you think that if someone's not on the level of a professional academic journal, they shouldn't talk to anyone about their thoughts at all; or, if they do, they should treat everyone they talk to as their betters, do as they're told, and never let themselves entertain the possibility that maybe something that looks like a familiar position they've already examined in detail and rejected might be just that.

My primary objection to your hedonism-as-emprical-data-points approach comes from Bayesian modelling approaches to neuroscience applied to affect states. It was only published a few years ago, and then only in the cognitive science papers. I'm truly impressed that you've read it, understood it, and already rejected it years before it was even published despite having no qualifications in the field at all and there being very few objections to it even now... Truly the work of genius, I'm obviously out of my league even talking to you. — Isaac

You already know this, but of course I haven't studied that; and yet nevertheless I can readily say it's not relevant to a philosophy of ethics (any, not just mine), because philosophy is supposed to be logically prior to empirical data. If you're trying to appeal to empirical data in doing philosophy, what you're doing isn't actually philosophy. I don't claim to be doing psychology, or anything where that sort of research would be relevant, and I would be quite ready to defer to the expertise of someone like you if I was talking about that kind of field, because it's not something in which I have any amount of confidence about my knowledge or abilities. Unlike philosophy.

No doubt that research would be useful in the application of any philosophical method of ethics that cared about affect (like mine does), where specific, contingent, empirical facts matters.

I'm not clear if what you're referring to here is the same thing you were talking about before, about the target valence levels people seek to maintain changing over time and with context, and changing those target valence levels being just as if not more effective at satisfying them than changing the external events they're subjected to. If that is what you're referring to, I've already said before that that all sounds perfectly consistent with my ethical principles, which only care that target valences and those effected by external events match.

Changing the target valences to match the external events is a perfectly fine way of achieving that match, on my account. And if one were to take a change-the-external-events approach anyway, and the target valences were unpredictable in advance, one obvious strategy would be to enable the subject to better adjust their environment in real time as their target valences change, i.e. to grant them more positive liberty. (This is pretty much Mill's utilitarian justification for liberalism, and though I have other more logically prior justifications for it myself, that I just posted a thread about yesterday, Mill's argument works fine to illustrate the compatibility of liberal means with utilitarian ends).

These are all specific means to the ends of minimizing suffering, and in debating those means, empirical psychological research is totally relevant, and I'm happy to defer to your expertise in that matter. But none of that is the kind of thing I've been talking about, so if you think I've been saying anything against it then you've misunderstood me. And I would be happy to take time to clarify myself better, for someone who didn't have such a confrontational, unpleasant attitude as yours; for someone who seemed actually curious just to understand what I think and why, rather than someone who's just looking for any way to shoot down someone he thinks isn't spineless enough.

I don't quote follow what you mean that that "totally implodes the entire concept of 'ethical hedonism'", though. — Pfhorrest

well, if the definition of 'hedonism' is extended to include 'acting for the greater good' it isnt really hedonism any more, it's virtue instead.

well, if the definition of 'hedonism' is extended to include 'acting for the greater good' it isnt really hedonism any more, it's virtue instead. — ernest meyer

If the "good" part of "greater good" is people feeling good, then it is. Hedonism isn't egotism.

Also if the only reason you're acting for the greater good (in any sense) is the pleasure you get from it, that's full-on egotistic hedonism.

maybe happiness is a virtue, but virtue isn't happiness. lol.

Sure; it is good to be happy, but you being happy isn't all there is to being good. (Other people being happy, or generally not suffering, is important too.)

I agree with what you are saying, but people don't NORMNALLY think of hedonism as being something one does for other people. It's considered generally to be more self-oriented pleasure. But if you have reasoned that the greatest pleasure is acting for the greatest of good, then I'd agree, but I'd say, you're getting as weird as Locke. lol.

I'm aware that in common parlance people take "hedonism" to imply egotism, but that's not the way it's used in philosophy, and hasn't been for thousands of years. Utilitarianism is explicitly a form of hedonism, for example.

Uilitarianism refers to maximization of 'happiness,' not 'pleasure,' and the definition of happiness is deliberately avoided. The semantic confusions over semantic pleasure versus higher order pleasures led to the choice of happiness over pleasure.

Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that our behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decrease pain.[1][2] Normative or ethical hedonism, on the other hand, is not about how we actually act but how we ought to act: we should pursue pleasure and avoid pain.[2] Axiological hedonism, which is sometimes treated as a part of ethical hedonism, is the thesis that only pleasure has intrinsic value.[1][3][4] Applied to well-being or what is good for someone, it is the thesis that pleasure and suffering are the only components of well-being.[5] — wikipedia

Hedonism strictly referred to pleasure, and avoidance of pain, in classical times, including by Epicurus. Locke was rather unique in saying that the greatest happiness arises from acting for the common good. It was the reason Jefferson included the right to pursue happiness as a natural right, but despite over a decade now trying to point that out, all universities and politicians deny it because, as Locke also pointd out, acting for the greater good rarely gives rise to happiness in this life. One must accept the existence of an afterlife for it to be justly rewarded. Therefore to accept Jefferson's original definition of pursuit of happiness as a natural right, one has to accept the right exists as a consequence of the USA being a Christian nation. That is too objectionable for many to accept, so now 'the pursuit of happiness' is considered more hedonistic, or if you are Epicrus, egoistically hedonistic.

Just when it seemed like we were actually having an actual polite conversation and coming to at least a productive sharing of thoughts on a topic... — Pfhorrest

No, we were nowhere near there... same old, same old...

This kind of thing really gives an air of you just looking to shoot down anyone who is insufficiently meek in your eyes — Pfhorrest

Yes, pretence pisses me off far more than perhaps it has any right to - one of my many flaws.

If I was arrogant I would be trying to get real philosophy journals to publish my thoughts. — Pfhorrest

You're confusing arrogance with blind denial. Abandoning one's chances of being lionised by one group isn't an indicator of humility in one's attempts with another.

because philosophy is supposed to be logically prior to empirical data. — Pfhorrest

Logical priority is irrelevant. As is whether you choose to call what you're doing 'philosophy' or not. You are making prescriptions for human beings, who are cold hard biological entities. 'Good' is a thought in a brain, as is 'pleasure', 'pain' and any other metric you seek to use. Are you suggesting that a doctor is dealing with a different subject when he prescribes pain medicine than you are when you say that 'suffering' is bad and should be avoided? Like it or not, you're dealing with states of a human being, and that means biology, neuroscience, psychology...

But then you know that really; you're not slow to correct dodgy physics when it's part of playing a role in some philosophical enquiry.

There's simply no way you can claim that one could construct an entire approach to morality based on hedonic values like affect without actually knowing how affect works in the brain. It's like writing a treatise of foxes without knowing what a fox is.

Changing the target valences to match the external events is a perfectly fine way of achieving that match, on my account. And if one were to take a change-the-external-events approach anyway, and the target valences were unpredictable in advance, one obvious strategy would be to enable the subject to better adjust their environment in real time as their target valences change — Pfhorrest

No. What you're missing is that we are part of that environment, including your philosophy, Mill's philosophy, this internet forum... you can't have a philosophy that stands apart from the environmental variables that effect our target valences such that it can be merely 'about them'. The very act of having philosophy will affect your target valences.

But not only that, the very affects you're modelling are themselves models of physiological states which, prior to that modelling, stand uninterpreted. One's philosophical view will be a significant part of what forms that interpretation.

Your system relies on static data points of hedonic value (in context) such that a world maximising those values (or minimising negative ones) can be imagined such as to act as an answer to moral dilemmas. I'm telling you that those data points are not static, they change over time (and, most importantly with the culture - including the moral philosophy - one is brought up with). As such the 'right' world to aim for (which satisfies them) will change over time too. All of which means that there is no answer to the moral dilemma. You can say what the answer was yesterday, but by the time you've worked out what the answer is today it's already not the answer any more.

But in any case, the breadth or fundamentality I'm talking about here is relative to the sets of intuitions we're discussing, and is basically a measure of how interconnected that intuition is to all the others, as in, how many others depend on that being true, and would have to be rejected along with it if we rejected it. — Pfhorrest

You can only talk about how moral beliefs are interconnected with and depend upon other beliefs after you put them into a theoretical framework. But we haven't agreed on a framework - that is still your argument to make as a theorist. We haven't even agreed that there must be a framework (your attempt to beg that question notwithstanding).

With empirical beliefs we have shared ways of establishing facts and validating theories. We have shared intuitions about the object of study, such as its objectivity and permanence, and that allows us to agree on how to conduct investigations, make progress and settle conflicts. None of that seems to apply to moral beliefs. We certainly share a good deal of our moral beliefs and tendencies, we have shared ways of transmitting and enforcing our morals, but I don't think that we have anything like shared intuitions about metaethics.

There are people whose moral beliefs conflict with yours (e.g. they value retribution, regardless of whether it increases your hedonistic metric of good). What are you going to tell them? That they are wrong because their beliefs don't fit into your moral theory? But they aren't buying your moral theory - why should they?

Uilitarianism refers to maximization of 'happiness,' not 'pleasure,' — ernest meyer

Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is to in some sense maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as "that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness...[or] to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered."

[...]

...the seeds of the theory can be found in the hedonists Aristippus and Epicurus, who viewed happiness as the only good...

[...]

...Bentham introduces a method of calculating the value of pleasures and pains, which has come to be known as the hedonic calculus... — Wikipedia on Utilitarianism

Bentham, an ethical hedonist, believed the moral rightness or wrongness of an action to be a function of the amount of pleasure or pain that it produced. — Wikipedia on Hedonic Calculus

Are you suggesting that a doctor is dealing with a different subject when he prescribes pain medicine than you are when you say that 'suffering' is bad and should be avoided? — Isaac

A doctor (rightly IMO) takes as given that reducing pain and suffering is an end goal, and then concerns himself with the means to do so. If someone was self-harming because they thought they morally deserved it, a doctor would see that as a sign of poor mental health, because it's causing them to suffer, and someone who thinks they morally ought to suffer is just wrong (and wrong in a practically harmful way, not just some intellectual disagreement) according to the doctor's presumed end-goal of reducing the patient's suffering.

A doctor would not debate the patient about whether he (or anyone) actually morally deserved to suffer. If he did that, he would no longer be practicing medicine, but philosophy. And though the means of alleviating pain and suffering obviously depend on particular contingent facts, whether or not to aim for that as an end cannot. The doctor qua doctor needs to appeal to contingent facts to achieve the ends of reducing pain and suffering, but the doctor qua philosopher (were he to deign to be such) could not appeal to them to decide whether to take that as an end or not.

The very act of having philosophy will affect your target valences. — Isaac

Sure, and like you just quoted me saying:

Changing the target valences to match the external events is a perfectly fine way of achieving that match — Pfhorrest

I completely acknowledge that certain kinds of philosophies dramatically change one's target valences. A large part of the last thread in this series I have planned is about that: how making "what is the meaning of life?" a philosophically meaningful question to yourself actually generates unpleasant feelings of meaninglessness and vice versa in a vicious cycle, and conversely just feeling pleasantly meaningful (regardless of philosophy) makes that "what is the meaning of life?" type of question seem pointless, and vice versa not caring about that question better allows one to feel pleasantly meaningful.

Your system relies on static data points of hedonic value — Isaac

I literally just said otherwise in my last post, and you even quoted it:

if one were to take a change-the-external-events approach anyway, and the target valences were unpredictable in advance, one obvious strategy would be to enable the subject to better adjust their environment in real time as their target valences change — Pfhorrest

I'm absolutely not saying that we need to be able to predict perfectly exactly what everyone's target valence will be so as to preemptively prepare a static, unchanging world that will perfectly satisfy everyone's target valences. You're reading that static-ness in where I don't mean to imply it. A world that dynamically responds to people's changing target valences is perfectly consistent with my views.

You can only talk about how moral beliefs are interconnected with and depend upon other beliefs after you put them into a theoretical framework. — SophistiCat

Sure, and as I just said:

the breadth or fundamentality I'm talking about here is relative to the sets of intuitions we're discussing — Pfhorrest

We're talking about whatever theoretical framework our interlocutors already have. Whatever beliefs they have, some will be logically related to others, such that changes to some would logically require changes to others, and some changes would require subsequent changes to many more other beliefs than other changes would. The beliefs that, if changed, logically require more changes to other beliefs, are the more fundamental ones, out of whatever set of beliefs the person we're talking to has.

With empirical beliefs we have shared ways of establishing facts and validating theories. We have shared intuitions about the object of study, such as its objectivity and permanence, and that allows us to agree on how to conduct investigations, make progress and settle conflicts. None of that seems to apply to moral beliefs. We certainly share a good deal of our moral beliefs and tendencies, we have shared ways of transmitting and enforcing our morals, but I don't think that we have anything like shared intuitions about metaethics. — SophistiCat

I agree that we have much broader social agreement on the methods of investigating reality than we do on the methods of investigating morality, but that isn't even close to absolute consensus even today, and historically was even further from it, in pre-scientific eras. And if anything we're now once again getting further from social consensus on how to investigate reality lately; there's a reason it's sometimes said that we're living in a "post-truth era" now.

I hope you would agree that those post-truth type of people are epistemically wrong, and that in principle philosophical arguments could be given as to why they're wrong, and why the scientific method is better than their unsorted mess of relativism mixed with dogmatism. And that those arguments hold sound even if it comes to pass that most of the world abandons science and devolves into epistemic chaos.

I view my arguments about ethics as like that. I know there's not broad consensus on them, but that's beside the point, just like it would be beside the point of arguments for science to say that most of the world rejects science. What's philosophically right or wrong, true or false, sound or unsound, etc, is not dependent on how many people accept it.

There are people whose moral beliefs conflict with yours (e.g. they value retribution, regardless of whether it increases your hedonistic metric of good). What are you going to tell them? — SophistiCat

I try to appeal to things that they and I already agree on that are more fundamental (in the sense further clarified just above) in their set of beliefs than the ones we disagree on, and show how those beliefs of theirs that I disagree with are logically contrary to their own more fundamental beliefs. If I can actually convince them of that logical relationship successfully (and that's the big "if" that everything hinges on), they've then got the choice to either reject the belief I'm arguing against, or else reject another belief they already hold much more dearly, that many other of their beliefs depend upon.

A doctor (rightly IMO) takes as given that reducing pain and suffering is an end goal, and then concerns himself with the means to do so. If someone was self-harming because they thought they morally deserved it, a doctor would see that as a sign of poor mental health — Pfhorrest

You've misunderstood the analogy. I'm saying that the 'pain' a doctor deals with is psycho-physiological and responds to medicines based on it's psycho-physiological properties. Those properties are facts of biology and psychology.

If you claim, as a philosopher, to be dealing with the reduction of 'suffering' you're either dealing with something entirely different, or the subject of your enquiry is a physiological event with biological properties. If you don't know what those properties actually are you're philosophising about an entity you know nothing about. If that seems fine to you, then you crack on, build your air castles as grotesque or grandiose as you like, but they will have no more normative force than a rival book about the natural history of unicorns.

Your system relies on static data points of hedonic value — Isaac


I literally just said otherwise in my last post, and you even quoted it: — Pfhorrest

I'm not disputing what you said, I'm disputing the soundness of it. You understand that merely making a claim is not sufficient to have other assume it's soundness, yes? The point I'm arguing, which you've failed to answer is quite clearly written...

You can say what the answer was yesterday, but by the time you've worked out what the answer is today it's already not the answer any more. — Isaac

I'm saying that the 'pain' a doctor deals with is psycho-physiological and responds to medicines based on it's psycho-physiological properties. Those properties are facts of biology and psychology.

If you claim, as a philosopher, to be dealing with the reduction of 'suffering' you're either dealing with something entirely different, or the subject of your enquiry is a physiological event with biological properties. — Isaac

You understand the difference between first-person experience of mental phenomena and third-person observation of the physical processes correlated with (and [rightly IMO] assumed to cause) those mental phenomena, right?

I'm saying that philosophy only needs to deal with suffering as a first-person experience: we don't need to know anything about brains to discuss whether or not it is the case that suffering and suffering alone (as a kind of experience, in the first person) is intrinsically a bad state of affairs.

But of course we need to know about brains to properly discuss how to reduce suffering, since it turns out upon third person observation of the physical world that the experience of suffering is a product of brain function.

The first is a philosophical matter, the latter is a scientific matter. You'll find that in pretty much all of my philosophical views, the philosophy is just laying the groundwork for why and how to go do a science of some kind, rather than some ineffectual non-science that will at best yield non-answers.

The point I'm arguing, which you've failed to answer is quite clearly written...

You can say what the answer was yesterday, but by the time you've worked out what the answer is today it's already not the answer any more. — Isaac — Isaac

I directly responded to that, immediately after the bit you quoted:

I'm absolutely not saying that we need to be able to predict perfectly exactly what everyone's target valence will be so as to preemptively prepare a static, unchanging world that will perfectly satisfy everyone's target valences. — Pfhorrest

I'm simply not advocating that we should aim to do the thing you say we can't do, so there's no problem there. You're just assuming that I mean that, even after I've clarified that I don't, which as usual just seems like a purposefully uncharitable reading.

the breadth or fundamentality I'm talking about here is relative to the sets of intuitions we're discussing

We're talking about whatever theoretical framework our interlocutors already have. — Pfhorrest

Unstructured sets don't have such relational properties. And even if they are structured, they can be structured differently from yours, as evidenced by every other moral theory in existence. Absent shared epistemic standards for evaluating such structures, how can you argue for yours?

I hope you would agree that those post-truth type of people are epistemically wrong, and that in principle philosophical arguments could be given as to why they're wrong, and why the scientific method is better than their unsorted mess of relativism mixed with dogmatism. And that those arguments hold sound even if it comes to pass that most of the world abandons science and devolves into epistemic chaos. — Pfhorrest

I don't know if empiricism can be philosophically justified - I doubt it. Fortunately for empiricists, there isn't much need for that, despite what you just said. Empirical intuitions are deeply ingrained, and social institutions for conducting investigations and accumulating knowledge will emerge and persist in the right circumstances.

Moral theorists are not so fortunate. We don't have much in the way of shared epistemic standards for evaluating moral theories, besides simply comparing particular first-order beliefs.

I view my arguments about ethics as like that. I know there's not broad consensus on them, but that's beside the point, just like it would be beside the point of arguments for science to say that most of the world rejects science. What's philosophically right or wrong, true or false, sound or unsound, etc, is not dependent on how many people accept it. — Pfhorrest

So what is philosophically right about your moral theory, as opposed to others, besides its being your theory?

Unstructured sets don't have such relational properties. — SophistiCat

Propositions have logical relations to each other whether or not the person assenting to all of them is aware of that. The process of argumentation is all about highlighting such relations that had previously been overlooked. If they hadn't been overlooked then there wouldn't be anything to argue about.

So what is philosophically right about your moral theory, as opposed to others, besides its being your theory? — SophistiCat

If all the inferences making up my theory are correct, what makes it right is that to do otherwise ends up implying merely giving up on trying to answer moral questions, in one way or another; so every attempt at answering moral questions is at least poorly or halfheartedly doing the same things I advocate, and what I advocate is to do what's already being done some and working some, just better and more consistently, and avoid altogether the parts that, if people were consistent about them, would conclude with just giving up.

FWIW that is the same way that I justify critical empirical realism, i.e. the scientific method.

we don't need to know anything about brains to discuss whether or not it is the case that suffering and suffering alone (as a kind of experience, in the first person) is intrinsically a bad state of affairs. — Pfhorrest

Of course we do. 'Bad' is not synonymous with 'feels bad currently'. So in order to know whether first person experiences of suffering are 'badly we need to know something of the future consequences of first person suffering. These are not given as part of the first person experience but rather as results of empirical investigations.

But of course we need to know about brains to properly discuss how to reduce suffering, since it turns out upon third person observation of the physical world that the experience of suffering is a product of brain function. — Pfhorrest

Right. And any moral theory (of your negative hedonistic type) is a means of reducing suffering. If you start any proposition with "One ought to..." you're talking about a method, not simply a logical fact.

the philosophy is just laying the groundwork for why and how to go do a science of some kind, rather than some ineffectual non-science that will at best yield non-answers. — Pfhorrest

What you think you're doing is immaterial to issue.

I directly responded to that, immediately after the bit you quoted:

I'm absolutely not saying that we need to be able to predict perfectly exactly what everyone's target valence will be so as to preemptively prepare a static, unchanging world that will perfectly satisfy everyone's target valences. — Pfhorrest

No. You responded as if to a suggestion that we could not achieve perfection in our predictions. That's not the issue I raised. I didn't say "We shan't be able to get it perfect", I said we shan't be able to do it at all.

Edit (for clarity) -

The affect resulting from finding oneself in some set of circumstances changes with the model that each person has of those circumstances and the likely affect they would cause. This model is itself effected by one's own moral thinking and that of one's culture. To resolve a moral dilemma (using positive affect in all people in all circumstances as a target) one would need to know what affect each option of the dilemma was likely to result in, not just now (that would be the cliched hedonism you deny) but in the future and for future generations. At least to a level of probability capable of significantly distinguishing between options.

But the feedback inherent in the fact that your decision will change the affects felt in the future means that you cannot possibly have a clue in any but the most obvious of cases. Anything remotely complex and the chaos effects of the multiple feedbacks would quickly render the likelihood incalculable. So only simple, clear cut cases could be decided this way.

And then you remind us that your model is not meant for simple clear cut cases as we've already worked these out.

You might argue that the rate of change in affect is slower than the rate at which we could discover the effects of acting on such a change... But the rate of change in affect (and the rate at which we can calculate the effects) are both empirical matters, and you've assured us that your approach here does not rely on empirical data for its soundness.

FWIW Baker misrepresents that I don't care whether my methodology "actually has the potential for ever being applied by humans". It's an aspirational methodology, an ideal to strive toward, and doing anything closer to it is still better than doing things farther from it (IMO, of course), even if it does turn out that we're so irreparably flawed that we'll never do it perfectly. We definitely can apply my methodology at least sometimes, at least to some degree, and that's fine enough for me. — Pfhorrest

The problem with idealistic ideologies like yours is that they are an all-or-nothing, now-or-never kind of deal. Anything that is less than the perfect application of an idealistic ideology is still a complete failure.

You and your comrades definitely can apply your methodology at least sometimes, at least to some degree, and as long as that is viewed by some people as wrong/aberrant/defective/pathological, and those people are in positions of enough power, then those applying your methodology will simply be deemed criminals, losers, or at least defective in some way -- and you, because of your commitment to equality, will have to value their judgment. If you don't, you yourself have failed to apply your methodology.

Define "suffering".
— baker

A phenomenal experience with negative world-to-mind fit. — Pfhorrest

I don't understand what this means.
What is a "negative world-to-mind fit"?

Of course we do. 'Bad' is not synonymous with 'feels bad currently'. So in order to know whether first person experiences of suffering are 'badly we need to know something of the future consequences of first person suffering. These are not given as part of the first person experience but rather as results of empirical investigations. — Isaac

I didn't say anything about only considering present first-person experiences. Future suffering or enjoyment is still a first-person experience. True, we can't know the relationship between present and future experiences entirely in the first person, we have to do a third-person study of the world to establish that, but that's once again a question of particular means, not of general ends, and so not something I'm saying anything about here when doing philosophy, but a subject for some logically posterior scientific investigation.

Right. And any moral theory (of your negative hedonistic type) is a means of reducing suffering. If you start any proposition with "One ought to..." you're talking about a method, not simply a logical fact. — Isaac

This whole paragraph seems confused. The part of moral theory we're discussing here is deciding on what are good ends. That's not in itself a means to achieving those ends, it's just deciding what ends to try to achieve. How to achieve them is a separate, later question. And "method or logical fact" is a strange and false dichotomy. The dichotomy here is between ends and means: a means is a method, sure, but an end isn't just a "logical fact", whatever you mean by that.

What you think you're doing is immaterial to issue. — Isaac

So you get to tell me what my views are, and I don't get to clarify that what you think I'm saying or doing isn't actually what I'm trying to say or do?

For someone who hates pretense as much as you say you do, you sure seem to practice it a lot. (Projecting much?)

No. You responded as if to a suggestion that we could not achieve perfection in our predictions. That's not the issue I raised. I didn't say "We shan't be able to get it perfect", I said we shan't be able to do it at all. — Isaac

You're taking too much emphasis on the "perfect" part, unless you want to deny that even something so vague as "certain kinds of people in certain contexts will tend to find certain things pleasant and certain other things unpleasant" is impossible to predict, which it doesn't sound like you mean in your clarification.

The intended target of emphasis was on the "predict" part, and how that relates to static vs dynamic solutions to the problem of satisfying all appetites. I've already said it but I'll say it again: I'm not suggesting that we have to make the world one exact unchanging way that will make everyone satisfied forever, and so figure out exactly what exact unchanging static state of the world that would be. Just that we have to (do our best to) ensure that the world and people's target valences always align, which can (and probably would best) be done in a dynamic way, enabling people to adjust the part of the world around them to satisfy their appetites in real time.

The problem with idealistic ideologies like yours is that they are an all-or-nothing, now-or-never kind of deal. Anything that is less than the perfect application of an idealistic ideology is still a complete failure. — baker

I just can't comprehend how you could say that in response to this:

doing anything closer to it is still better than doing things farther from it (IMO, of course), even if it does turn out that we're so irreparably flawed that we'll never do it perfectly. We definitely can apply my methodology at least sometimes, at least to some degree, and that's fine enough for me. — Pfhorrest

I'm explicitly saying not to make perfect the enemy of good. Do whatever we can, and even if that's not doing it all, that's still better than doing nothing. All I've laid out is what direction "doing it all" lies in, so that we know what we're trying to get closer to. Even if we can't get all the way there, that's no reason to not go as far as we can. You are the one who seems to be saying "we can't possibly get all the way there, so let's not try". Would you have us pick some more accomplishable goal, try to get there, and then if we do get there, just stop trying to improve? Or wouldn't you have us keep trying to improve as much as we can? The latter is what I advocate, and I wouldn't have even thought it needed to be specified if you hadn't implied that you think to the contrary. All I've specified is what direction "improvement" is.

because of your commitment to equality, will have to value their judgment — baker

Commitment to equally valuing everyone's experiences is not the same as equally valuing everyone's judgements.

I've said this a lot before to clarify the difference: in doing physical sciences, we absolutely do not just take a poll on what people believe. Nevertheless, every replicable observation counts. Observations are a kind of experience, and beliefs are a kind of judgement. That someone disbelieves something is no evidence against it at all, but any replicable observation to the contrary is.

Define "suffering".
— baker

A phenomenal experience with negative world-to-mind fit. — Pfhorrest

I don't understand what this means.
What is a "negative world-to-mind fit"? — baker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_of_fit

If all the inferences making up my theory are correct, what makes it right is that to do otherwise ends up implying merely giving up on trying to answer moral questions, in one way or another; so every attempt at answering moral questions is at least poorly or halfheartedly doing the same things I advocate, and what I advocate is to do what's already being done some and working some, just better and more consistently, and avoid altogether the parts that, if people were consistent about them, would conclude with just giving up. — Pfhorrest

Well, all you've told me so far is "if I am right, then I am right." I still don't have any idea of where your moral philosophy gets its purchase.

I didn't say anything about only considering present first-person experiences. Future suffering or enjoyment is still a first-person experience. True, we can't know the relationship between present and future experiences entirely in the first person, we have to do a third-person study of the world to establish that, but that's once again a question of particular means, not of general ends, and so not something I'm saying anything about here when doing philosophy, but a subject for some logically posterior scientific investigation. — Pfhorrest

I'm talking about the defence of @baker's accusation that

he doesn't seem to care whether his theory of morality actually has the potential for ever being applied by humans. — baker

To counter that you'd have to show that your system is, in fact, possible to apply. A system which relies, for its execution, on facts which are impossible to obtain with sufficient accuracy to yield results better than guesswork is not applicable. This third-party data on which your system relies changes too rapidly with too strong a feedback from the system itself for any scientific-like investigation to yield its answers in time for their enaction to bring about the desired result. Hence your system is not one that can be applied by humans.

The part of moral theory we're discussing here is deciding on what are good ends. That's not in itself a means to achieving those ends, it's just deciding what ends to try to achieve. How to achieve them is a separate, later question. — Pfhorrest

That's where your system fails. What's the point in deciding that Xs are 'good ends' if later analysis of how to achieve those ends shows us that doing so is impossible? We have a choice here, we can set up our 'good ends' such that they are practically achievable, or we can set them up such that they are entirely useless at any pragmatic level. If you ignore the issues with method, you are just building pointless sky castles. Ethics is about real action among real humans.

What you think you're doing is immaterial to issue. — Isaac


So you get to tell me what my views are, and I don't get to clarify that what you think I'm saying or doing isn't actually what I'm trying to say or do? — Pfhorrest

Again, what you're trying to say is immaterial, this is a not a database of things people think, so the accuracy of your personal entry is not the main concern. You said (in the paragraph to which I responded "philosophy is just laying the groundwork for why and how to go do a science of some kind, rather than some ineffectual non-science that will at best yield non-answers." That is an empirical claim. Either your philosophy does lay such groundwork, leading to effective science, or it does not. That you think it will has no bearing on that fact. I'm not questioning your motives, I'm questioning the pragmatism of your methods. Hence what you think you're doing is irrelevant to the argument. It's not about pretence here, I'm making no claim to have all the answers about the pragmatism of your methods, I'm only making th point that the relevant debate is there, not in this pointless theorising.

You're taking too much emphasis on the "perfect" part, unless you want to deny that even something so vague as "certain kinds of people in certain contexts will tend to find certain things pleasant and certain other things unpleasant" is impossible to predict, — Pfhorrest

No, That is possible to predict, already has been predicted, and is something no-one but a psychopath generally struggles with. So no new method is required to assist with it.

I've already said it but I'll say it again: I'm not suggesting that we have to make the world one exact unchanging way that will make everyone satisfied forever, and so figure out exactly what exact unchanging static state of the world that would be. Just that we have to (do our best to) ensure that the world and people's target valences always align, which can (and probably would best) be done in a dynamic way, enabling people to adjust the part of the world around them to satisfy their appetites in real time. — Pfhorrest

You've just completely ignored the argument I've already given against the pragmatism of this. I'll just repeat it, in case you're confused into thinking that ignoring it makes it go away.

The affect resulting from finding oneself in some set of circumstances changes with the model that each person has of those circumstances and the likely affect they would cause. This model is itself effected by one's own moral thinking and that of one's culture. To resolve a moral dilemma (using positive affect in all people in all circumstances as a target) one would need to know what affect each option of the dilemma was likely to result in, not just now (that would be the cliched hedonism you deny) but in the future and for future generations. At least to a level of probability capable of significantly distinguishing between options.

But the feedback inherent in the fact that your decision will change the affects felt in the future means that you cannot possibly have a clue in any but the most obvious of cases. Anything remotely complex and the chaos effects of the multiple feedbacks would quickly render the likelihood incalculable. So only simple, clear cut cases could be decided this way.

And then you remind us that your model is not meant for simple clear cut cases as we've already worked these out.

You might argue that the rate of change in affect is slower than the rate at which we could discover the effects of acting on such a change... But the rate of change in affect (and the rate at which we can calculate the effects) are both empirical matters, and you've assured us that your approach here does not rely on empirical data for its soundness. — Isaac

I'm not sure I can make it much simpler, but

Clear cut cases are already clear and no new method is needed to decide them. Only complex cases currently yield dissimilar strategies we need to choose between.

Responses to complex cases affect the long-term satisfaction brought about by the strategies themselves in difficult to predict ways (that's why they're complex cases).

The time it takes to work out how every person would react, in real time, to the execution of some strategy, is longer (by a long way) than the time it takes for that reaction to move on to some new difficult-to-predict state.

As such, a meta-strategy of working out how every person would react to individual moral strategies in order to inform them is unworkable in complex cases.