R: Well, why does one type of object look yellow and another look blue? I can more or less give an answer to that thanks to the physicists, and as to why I think one sort of thing good and another evil, probably there is an answer of the same sort, but it hasn't been gone into in the same way and I couldn't give it [to] you.
R: The feeling is a little too simplified. You've got to take account of the effects of actions and your feelings toward those effects. You see, you can have an argument about it if you can say that certain sorts of occurrences are the sort you like and certain others the sort you don't like. Then you have to take account of the effects of actions. You can very well say that the effects of the actions of the Commandant of Belsen were painful and unpleasant.
While here ethical matters are decided according to the effects of our actions: we take into account all possible actions together with all their possible consequences, subtract the unpleasant consequences (NP) from the pleasant (P), sort them by their outcome (P - NP), and pick the action-consequences pairs from the top of the list. — Pussycat
So in both of these ethical theories, the will is either absent (as in the first), or plays a rather non significant role (as in the second). — Pussycat
Why would we do this if we did not will to do or choose what is good or best or just or most fair or most beneficial or least harmful? — Fooloso4
The will is not absent. All such theories have at their basis the will - the wish or desire or want or motivation to do what is right or good. They differ in how they attempt to determine what that is. — Fooloso4
For this theory I said that the will plays a non significant role, since ethical matters are judged according to pleasure. — Pussycat
So if for example our will is to do action A, but it is judged that its consequences will be most unpleasant, then, in order to be ethical, we would refrain from doing it, and do some other action B instead, that causes less discontent and/or more pleasure, so it is not a matter of/for the will, the will succumbs. — Pussycat
I said that the will is absent from the first theory, not from both of them. It is absent from the scientific version of ethics since there a person is supposed to be impaired or have an affliction that causes him to act most unethically, or be gifted with something that makes him most ethical. So the will is completely unimportant, just like a color-blind person won't start seeing colors because he wills it so. — Pussycat
Since we desire pleasure and avoid pain, and move toward the one and avoid the other, it is a matter of will, of what one wishes to pursue or shun.
So if for example our will is to do action A, but it is judged that its consequences will be most unpleasant, then, in order to be ethical, we would refrain from doing it, and do some other action B instead, that causes less discontent and/or more pleasure, so it is not a matter of/for the will, the will succumbs.
— Pussycat
No, the will to do what causes less discontent and/or more pleasure wins out. — Fooloso4
By analogy with color blindness, the ethical person will still will or want what is perceived to be good and avoid what is perceived to be bad. Since they are not able to make the distinction correctly, however, their actions may not be ethical.
The ability to make the distinction correctly, however, does not assure that one will act ethically. Being able to see that 'x' is bad 'y' is good does not mean that one will avoid 'x' and do 'y'. — Fooloso4
This analysis does not need will, neither its approval, for it to be carried through, — Pussycat
which as W - to get him back in the game - says:
6.43 If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the
limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be
expressed in language. — Pussycat
R: Well, why does one type of object look yellow and another look blue? I can more or less give an answer to that thanks to the physicists, and as to why I think one sort of thing good and another evil, probably there is an answer of the same sort, but it hasn't been gone into in the same way and I couldn't give it [to] you.
Fooloso4, can you elaborate on the "will" to do good according to Wittgenstein? I am under the impression that the will to do good is derived from the transcendental self wrt. to the world. Yet, if the self cannot be encapsulated within the bounds of the world, then what can be said about the will? — Wallows
Once again, you have misunderstood Wittgenstein. For W. ethics has nothing to do with what happens in the world. He is quite clear that ethics is not a science. He is also clear that it does have to do with the will. I provided ample evidence of this based on the Tractatus, the Notebooks, and the Lecture on Ethics.You jump from a remark made by Russell to the conclusion that W. held that ethics is a science and has nothing to do with the will, the opposite of what he says. — Fooloso4
R: I don't like the word "absolute." I don't think there is anything absolute whatever. The moral law, for example, is always changing. At one period in the development of the human race, almost everybody thought cannibalism was a duty. — Copleston Debate
"what would happen to ethics if it was found that ethics is one of the natural sciences?". — Pussycat
So again here, what is ethical has nothing to do with willing it or not, but is based on a fact, a scientific fact, which as W - to get him back in the game - says:
6.43 If good or bad willing changes the world, it can only change the limits of the world, not the facts; not the things that can be expressed in language.
So science was able to express in language the ethical, — Pussycat
The topic is the Tractatus but you jump from W. to Kant because both discuss the will and then to a misrepresentation of Russell in order to show that for him the will plays no part in ethics. Based on that misrepresentation you make a dubious claim about a science of ethics, try to tie it back to the Tractatus, and conclude that there are ethical facts and an ethical science. — Fooloso4
What you fail to see is that for W. the will does not make ethical determinations. The will does not make ethical determinations for Kant either. In addition, however ethical determinations are made, to choose and act ethically does require the will. Simply determining that one should choose or do ‘x’ does not mean one will choose or do it. I might decide that I would benefit more by not doing ‘x’ even if it harms others. The will alone is not sufficient but is necessary if one is to choose and act ethically. Simply following the rules is not enough because one might not follow them when he can go undetected and it is to his advantage to not follow them. — Fooloso4
As to a science of ethics: Russell is not claiming the possibility of a science of ethics but a science of perception - just as the physicist can give an answer to why an object looks yellow or blue, he suggests that there is "probably an answer of the same sort" as to why I think one sort of thing good and another evil. That does not mean that there is a science that determines whether it is good or evil but rather a possible science of moral perception. Moral perception, however, is not moral truth: — Fooloso4
Your question which for some reason you were not able to previously articulate: — Fooloso4
What evidence do you have that such a thing is possible? Where in the world are the facts of meaning and value located? How are they known? — Fooloso4
Now I am going to use the term Ethics in a slightly wider sense, in a sense in fact which includes what I believe to be the most essential part of what is generally called Aesthetics. — W
You seem to have moved without making a clear distinction from challenging my interpretation of the Tractatus to what appears to be an ambiguous challenge to the Tractatus itself. From challenging what I said about the role of the will in the Tractatus to challenging the role of the will in ethics to an assertion of ethical facts to speculation about a science of ethics.
..
There is nothing here that indicates that you have distinguished Wittgenstein’s position from your own claim of a science of ethics. Nothing that indicates that they are not seen by you as one and the same. — Fooloso4
4.1121 Psychology is no nearer related to philosophy, than is any other natural science.
The theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology.
Does not my study of sign-language correspond to the study of thought processes which philosophers held to be so essential to the philosophy of logic? Only they got entangled for the most part in unessential psychological investigations, and there is an analogous danger for my method. — W
6.423 Of the will as the bearer of the ethical we cannot speak. And the will as a phenomenon is only of interest to psychology. — W
6.4312 The temporal immortality of the soul of man, that is to say, its
eternal survival also after death, is not only in no way guaranteed,
but this assumption in the first place will not do for us
what we always tried to make it do. Is a riddle solved by the
fact that I survive for ever? Is this eternal life not as enigmatic
as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space
and time lies outside space and time. — W
6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would
doubt where a question cannot be asked.
For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question
only where there is an answer, and this only where something
can be said. — W
but we got sidetracked discussing this question: "is the will fundamental in all ethical theories?". — Pussycat
Is there any ethics that is not based on will - on volition or choice? — Fooloso4
As for Kant, some of the things that Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus, I think that they are directed towards him, so Kant is important here as well. — Pussycat
How are they fundamentally different, since the foundation in the both of them is the will, no? — Pussycat
I would say it's 100% percent Kant — Pussycat
But if ethics, as Wittgenstein says in the lecture, is defined to be the general enquiry into what is good (taken from Moore), or the enquiry into what is valuable, or what is really important, or the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living, then the will may in fact not be fundamental, or be trivial or even redundant. — Pussycat
If Aesthetics is the inquiry into what is beautiful, then we can define Ethics similarly as the inquiry into what is a beautiful life, making thus Ethics part of Aesthetics, defining it in terms of beauty that is, and then there would only be beauty to investigate to get a glimpse of them both. — Pussycat
... you also misunderstood what W was trying to say in the Tractatus, in propositions 6.42 to 6.43: it is not his own opinions on ethics that he is presenting there, but those of conventional ethics, as they have been traditionally discussed. — Pussycat
These unessential psychological investigations point to Kant and his categorical imperative, Kant is not doing philosophy there but psychology. — Pussycat
Philosophy cannot speak of ethics where the will is present, but psychology can. And if we formulate ethics such as we could philosophically speak of it, then it will not do for us what we always tried to make it do ... — Pussycat
Scepticism, however, does not have any sense at all, and is therefore excluded from philosophical investigations: — Pussycat
Ethics is not a theory of ethics, just as music is not a theory of music. The failure to make that distinction results in a failure to understand what Wittgenstein means by ethics. The comparison with music was deliberate because in the Tractatus he links ethics/aesthetics. Someone who has never heard music will not come to understand it via a theory of music. — Fooloso4
The will is fundamental for all ethics in so far as we intend to do what is right or good. When we ask how that is to be accomplished Kant and Wittgenstein part ways. Kant thinks there is a moral science, Wittgenstein rejects this. That does not make it "100% percent Kant". — Fooloso4
So, which is it? Is the will fundamental or not? The basis of your confusion seems to be, once again, the failure to distinguish between ethics and a theory of ethics. — Fooloso4
Now instead of saying "Ethics is the enquiry into what is good" I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important, or I could have said Ethics is the enquiry into the meaning of life, or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living. I believe if you look at all these phrases you will get a rough idea as to what it is that Ethics is concerned with. — W
This should be seen in light of the saying/showing distinction. What answers the inquiry is not something that can be said but something that becomes manifest, something experienced. It is not a matter of defining one in terms of the other. It is not a matter of defining it at all. — Fooloso4
Are you claiming that when he says: — Fooloso4
6.422 The first thought in setting up an ethical law of the form “thou
shalt . . . ” is: And what if I do not do it. But it is clear that
ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the
ordinary sense. This question as to the consequences of an action
must therefore be irrelevant. At least these consequences will not
be events. For there must be something right in that formulation
of the question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and
ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.
(And this is clear also that the reward must be something
acceptable, and the punishment something unacceptable.)
The moral law for Kant was not grounded in psychology and did not appeal to psychology. It is determined a priori by reason. — Fooloso4
Philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, sets the boundaries of what can be thought and said. Ethics is on the side of that boundary that cannot be said or thought. Ethics is transcendental. It is not about theories or propositions or formulations, but rather the life of the "happy man"; life as he knows it via his own experience of the good exercise of his will. — Fooloso4
As late as "On Certainty" skepticism remained central to his investigations. We need to distinguish between two forms of skepticism: 1) knowledge of ignorance and human limits, 2) radical doubt. Wittgenstein accepts the first and rejects the second. — Fooloso4
Yes, which I translated to "is the will fundamental in all ethical theories?". — Pussycat
Your disagreement is with theory? Or with fundamental? I guess with the first. But I lost you there — Pussycat
what do you mean by ethics is not a theory of ethics? — Pussycat
We have something, say X, and to be able to understand it and say a few things about it, we build a theory of X around it. — Pussycat
And when W says something about the musical score in the Tractatus, he does so to link the musical form to the pictorial form, and go from there to the logical form that governs everything in the world. I don't think that this has anything to do with ethics or aesthetics per se. — Pussycat
It's whatever one chooses I guess. — Pussycat
I just copied here what W says in the lecture: — Pussycat
This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it. — Lecture on Ethics
And I will make my point still more acute by saying 'It is the paradox that an experience, a fact, should seem to have supernatural value.' — Lecture on Ethics
There it is again this talk of "experience"... — Pussycat
I think that the main reason you misunderstand the Tractatus is because you are primarily concerned with ethics. — Pussycat
"Transcendental" is so Kant, isn't it? — Pussycat
This I say is the traditional view of ethics, that reward coincides with something acceptable and happiness, which also coincides with good willing, in contrast to punishment and something unacceptable and bad willing. — Pussycat
For there must be something right in that formulation of the question. There must be some sort of ethical reward and ethical punishment, but this must lie in the action itself.
On the other hand, if ethics cannot be expressed in language, then we should remain silent about ethical matters. — Pussycat
6.54
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them
as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak
throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. — Tractatus
However I don't see anywhere in the Tractatus him saying that ethics is about "the life of the "happy man"; — Pussycat
If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts—not what can be expressed by means of language.
In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole.
The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man. — Tractatus
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