Which is naturalistic fallacy in a nutshell. The world must work the way it has been because... well it just must okay.

To contextualise it to this discussion, who exactly says human life must be part of the nature which works out. Perhaps, as the anti-natalist argues, that's the part of working nature which ought to end.

Embedded within Apo's postion is a position of not nature as it functions, but ethics that it ought to function a particular way it does at the moment.

Embedded within Apo's postion is a position of not nature as it functions, but ethics that it ought to function a particular way it does at the moment. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I actually agree with you I think.

But my point refutes what you seem to be saying in regards to the idea that new ideas of morals cannot work if it is not something in the repertoire of what worked before. — schopenhauer1

But I didn't argue that.

What I have argued is that we can expect that in a successful organism, the historical constraints will be well organised. That is, they will reflect the hierarchical structure, the proximity principle, that I have mentioned often enough now.

So the most general constraints will be the ones that are the most resistant to change. While the kinds of things which are most local or personal - like whether I have some standard rule about eating vanilla or chocolate icecream - will be the most susceptible to variation.

So you seem to only give credit to something AFTER it has become the dominant theme, but refute it when it is just starting out, thus making it a circular argument because even current trends started out somewhere. — schopenhauer1

Circularity is a standard problem in mechanical thought. But in organic thought, it gets fixed by hierarchical organisation - a systems logic of constraints and spontaneity.

So it is not a problem if a system spawns local variety while tracking global continuity. It can do both at the same time. If the local variety proves to have value, then its own influence will grow such that it becomes itself an appropriate level of generalised constraint.

But what actual novelty did you have in mind here? Veganism? Antinatalism? What?

My argument is that it is unlikely to be a winner to the degree it tries to swim against the general tide. If it is ill-designed in terms of system fundamentals, it would be given little hope of emerging as a success. So the organic view would never say something was impossible, but it can with reason say why a possibility is vanishingly unlikely.

I've already given that kind of argument against antinatalism. It is simple maths that even if 99 out of 100 couples decided to be childless, it only takes one couple - for whatever transmissible reasons - to start breeding and your antinatalism is toast. Selection acts as a filter to find what works. And what works will replace what doesn't.

So I have no problem with starting out with your "tiny experiments". Organicism take growth/entropification as fundamental. Everything else then follows with natural logic.

To contextualise it to this discussion, who exactly says human life must be part of the nature which works out. Perhaps, as the anti-natalist argues, that's the part of working nature which ought to end. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So the anti-natalist suffers from the ought-isn't fallacy, Nice. :)

Fortunately my own argument is something quite different. I say it is obvious that nature has to "work out". It would be irrational to think otherwise.

And I say morality exists to encode wisdom about the nature of that working out - its generic social-level principles. Morality thus is naturally aligned with nature. By definition it is what persists as what can survive the test of time.

So moral philosophy that doesn't seek to align itself with nature in that fashion is irrational. Or would have to be argued for on the basis of some form of anti-naturalism, like the commandments of a supernatural being, or the preferences of romantic feeling.

So it is not a problem if a system spawns local variety while tracking global continuity. It can do both at the same time. If the local variety proves to have value, then its own influence will grow such that it becomes itself an appropriate level of generalised constraint. — apokrisis

Ok, so this is exactly what I said but using your particular preference for lingo like "global/local" and "variety/constraint". It still amounts to admitting what I said has truth to it- varieties can become the dominant, even if it starts out small/unpopular.

But what actual novelty did you have in mind here? Veganism? Antinatalism? What? — apokrisis

So those are things which apokrisis does not agree with himself... and what of it these ideas?

My argument is that it is unlikely to be a winner to the degree it tries to swim against the general tide. — apokrisis

Now, you are just asserting the opposite what you admitted to briefly above- that local variants can eventually BECOME the general trend.

If it is ill-designed in terms of system fundamentals, it would be given little hope of emerging as a success. So the organic view would never say something was impossible, but it can with reason say why a possibility is vanishingly unlikely. — apokrisis

Eh, I'm sure that was said about a lot of things that no one thought would occur at the time. What it does seem to show is that you may be using your own theories of organic thinking as a way to predict outcomes that are not assured. Again, things have to start somewhere and as Schopenhauer stated: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

I've already given that kind of argument against antinatalism. It is simple maths that even if 99 out of 100 couples decided to be childless, it only takes one couple - for whatever transmissible reasons - to start breeding and your antinatalism is toast. — apokrisis

Now, this isn't even refuting the actual claim of the antinatalist. The antinatalist's end goal (usually) is not to end human existence, but rather preventing harm. So, rather it is the other way around.. even if one person does not have a kid when they could have, one instance of harm is prevented.

Selection acts as a filter to find what works. And what works will replace what doesn't. — apokrisis

What works may be what remains, but what works best is not always the path taken. Contingencies may lead to outcomes which are useful, but not maximally useful. Not all possibilities that have become actualities are the best actualities, they are just the ones that worked out based on the contingencies at that time. While indeed a certain historical projection incrementally may lead certain outcomes to take place, those incremental changes may not have been the most optimal or effective at that time- other routes may have been cut off by events that transpired that could have been otherwise (I guess they would be considered "counterfactual" events as you like to say).

Also, not only are there incremental changes, but there are large contingencies which may effect outcomes greatly, making the counterfactual gap of what could have been much larger.

So I have no problem with starting out with your "tiny experiments". Organicism take growth/entropification as fundamental. Everything else then follows with natural logic. — apokrisis

I guess I have nothing to argue with this one. I can kind of agree with a lot of caveats from the other stuff you seem to attach to this (i.e. naturalistic fallacies and the like).

It does sometimes. Shallow anti-natalist arguments which life ought to end because suffering exists make this mistake. Other ones, which argue life out to end because suffering of life is unethical, do not.

Your argument is nothing more than the naturalistic fallacy. You think because the world ends up "working" a certain way, that it's moral. Often you speak of circular arguments of "romantic feelings," but that's really what you have here. To you, the survival of present relationships in nature "feels" right, it won't just continue, but it ought to continue,which is why we must avoid doing anything new or differently.

By definition what survives the test of time, survives. It's not a measure of who can survive. Many others could have survived, if only people had acted differently. If a number of people had made better decisions over the years, many who've died in the Syrian war would have survived, for example. Ethics are about the immanent value of the world which stands regardless of whether people respect it. The bulwark against essentialism and delusions of superiority by mere existence.

All coherent ethics are argued on an anti-naturalism: ethics themselves. Just becasue the world does something or acts in a particular way, it doesn't mean it ought to be. That's why the occurrence of behaviour (e.g. murder, stealing, et.c, etc. ) cannot be used to morally excuse it, even when it only has a negative impact on a few or the inferior (why not kill all those pesky homeless people? No-one would miss them..., Why not enslave those black people? They're only savages..., etc.,etc.). In the end the are based on nothing. Not feelings, nor orders God, nor the (present order) of nature, but an expression of the world itself. Ethical knowledge.

It still amounts to admitting what I said has truth to it- varieties can become the dominant, even if it starts out small/unpopular. — schopenhauer1

I hardly need to admit what I already say is basic to my position.

Of course, the further notions of hierarchical constraint and propensity are then also basic - indeed more so, in explaining why the small/unpopular must exist, even merely as a fluctuation.

Now, you are just asserting the opposite what you admitted to briefly above- that local variants can eventually BECOME the general trend. — schopenhauer1

Do you not yet understand the difference between the possible and the likely?

So, rather it is the other way around.. even if one person does not have a kid when they could have, one instance of harm is prevented. — schopenhauer1

And I've nothing against this as a rational judgement. Indeed, it seems to me a responsibility to think of whether the world is going to be a good enough place before you do in fact bring children into it these days.

If enough people were collectively making a rational assessment of the state of the world and acting by refusing to breed, then it would quite fast become a political issue. Governments would have to react with policy changes that started to deal with the realistic fears potential parents might have.

But to claim that life is generally "too much suffering" just by being life is - for me, for reasons I've outlined - an irrational line of thought.

What works may be what remains, but what works best is not always the path taken. Contingencies may lead to outcomes which are useful, but not maximally useful. — schopenhauer1

Yes, but over time water finds its way to the lowest level. And the contingent story of how the trickles became the river fade into history. So you are raising objections which are irrelevant.

What actually matters if we are talking about recent human history is that it has now become a far more complex situation where humans themselves are changing the evolutionary landscape. We are affecting the environment so dramatically that it does count as a general phase transition. We are kicking the eco-sphere into a new age - the anthropocene. And to the degree we are actually smart primates, we can get to shape the outcome in some self-conscious fashion.

So it is not my point that nothing is changing or that we have no say in the changes. Instead - in highlighting the thermodynamic imperative of fossil fuels - I seek to focus attention on the deep drivers. Being conscious of the game is really the only way to actually have some control of its direction.

To you, the survival of present relationships in nature "feels" right, — TheWillowOfDarkness

It "feels right" because rational/empirical investigation supports that. So the feeling of which you speak is called a reasoned belief - a demonstrable constraint on uncertainty.

By definition what survives the test of time, survives. It's not a measure of who can survive. Many others could have survived, if only people had acted differently. — TheWillowOfDarkness

As usual you give the impression of typing without thinking.

If it can make a difference that people acted differently, then there was something they were doing wrong.

And what I am doing is focusing on what "doing right" actually looks like. I'm asking the question of what generic principles can we identify that would be useful in redesigning our current moral codes so as to consciously achieve the future outcomes we might prefer.

Rational/empirical investigation into what? Survival as it is now... but what says that our world ought to be seeking such a thing? In terms of your ethical analysis, only your "feelings." And this is no more a "a demonstrable constraint on uncertainty" than anyone else's "feeling." The anti-natalist is a state to nature too.

If it can make a difference that people acted differently, then there was something they were doing wrong.

And what I am doing is focusing on what "doing right" actually looks like. I'm asking the question of what generic principles can we identify that would be useful in redesigning our current moral codes so as to consciously achieve the future outcomes we might prefer. — apokrisis

And you a flying blind because you demonstrate no ethical position others than saying: "Nature (as it survives now) is ethical." You don't have any ethic for which a code would support. All you have are ad hoc assertions of the necessity of survival, of the present direction of entropy, without any sort of analysis of their ethical value. What are these preferred future outcomes? To rationally survive? Survive as what? Bombing civilians in Syria? Ethics are not "general." They are specific. Which outcomes do we prefer? And more importunely, what about when we prefer something that's ethically abhorrent? Your naturalistic fallacies to not address these questions.

It does sometimes. Shallow anti-natalist arguments which life ought to end because suffering exists make this mistake. Other ones, which argue life out to end because suffering of life is unethical, do not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I'm not sure if I follow what you are saying here, Willow.

Why call material arguments for antinatalism shallow? If suffering exists, and we apply a value to suffering (bad), and we see that the prevalence of suffering, on average, vastly outweighs any genuinely positive experiences, we can see how it just is not rational to have children, for their own sake.

This is, from what I can tell, the position held by people like Schopenhauer. They had little use of ethical denouncement.

Configuring the issue as an ethical one, however, forces us to see value not just as good or bad but with the additional imperative aspect - i.e. rules. We go from the purely descriptive to the prescriptive. But I don't see how it is necessary per se to describe birth as immoral to see it as, all things considered, a bad thing, since we could be error theorists and believe morality doesn't even exist to begin with, or non-cognitivists and believe morality is just disguised approval or commands.

In any case it seems strange, to me at least, to say that the suffering of life is unethical, despite being a consequentialist myself. I would instead hold that a state of affairs or a phenomenal experience of suffering is bad, and the action that was most responsible for bringing about this state was unethical. Otherwise it seems like this would lead us to the sinister position that somehow suffering is an offense to a higher power or something like that which makes it unethical, and not merely bad.

Of course, the further notions of hierarchical constraint and propensity are then also basic - indeed more so, in explaining why the small/unpopular must exist, even merely as a fluctuation. — apokrisis

Again, just because it is resistant to change, does not mean it cannot be overcome. For example, in American history, the British had a relatively hands-off policy towards American government from 1640s-1763. Then Britain enacted a series of taxes and laws reacting to the subsequent American dissent which created the situation where Americans were forming militias, protesting in the press, petitioning England, and rioting in general.. committees of correspondence formed state legislatures which sent representatives to Edit: not Washington but Philadelphia!! and thus formed the beginnings of an American counter-government to Britain's rule. This did not take very long to go from relatively stable American colonies, to a full revolt. Much of America was opposed to this revolt however. Some say only 1/3 of Americans at the time supported completely separating from English rule. A small group dominated eventually and won out over time.

Do you not yet understand the difference between the possible and the likely? — apokrisis

Do you not yet understand the difference between projected trends and contingencies which divert these trends? Was the Mongol invasion of China and the Middle East inevitable, if Genghis Khan did not cobble together certain tribal leaders and an identity? Possibly not.. It was pretty quick the rise of the Mongols from pesky barbarians to the world's largest empire. Was the Black Plague a major contributing factor for the rise of wages contributed to the rise of a merchant class? Possibly...

If Abraham Lincoln was not elected but Stephen Douglas perhaps, would the Civil War happen the way it did? Perhaps not..

History is full of events being diverted by contingencies.. so the line of possibility of likelihood and mere possibility (whatever definition you want to give between these two concepts) becomes blurred. More importantly, because things went one way and not another, a whole variety of things were opened up and a whole variety of things were closed off.. Perhaps antinatalism becomes the trend because of such and such, and so and so event.. it is not the trend now.. but not but a handful of people in 1762 would have guessed that a counter-American government would have declared itself a completely separate country by 1776.

History is full of events being diverted by contingencies.. — schopenhauer1

And yet the domestication of the planet, the curve of fossil fuel exploitation, and the overall human population, ride right over all that.

You are telling me that the forest is made up of many trees. I can only nod and say yes, while reminding that you are avoiding the point.

I say it shallow because one is making an ethical argument if value is involved. One is not merely describing the suffering people will encounter nor just pointing out people will hate it. The suffering is bad-- something which ought to be avoided. It means the creation of future life unethical. Our material world expesses value that this suffering ought not be. To insist it's just a question of being "rational" is utterly dishonest. The anti-natalist is making an ethical claim. We are bound to stop creating life, to prevent the horror of future suffering. One is not just trying to stop people to have children. They are attempting to minimising and wipe out human suffering. It not some uncaring postion of rational description.

Yes, I suppose I agree then. Thank you for clarifying. Antinatalism is indeed an ethical position and not a rational hypothetical.

And yet the domestication of the planet, the curve of fossil fuel exploitation, and the overall human population, ride right over all that. — apokrisis

And during a large sequence in the former half of the twentieth century, it looked as though fascism was to become the dominant form of government on the planet.

You are identifying power as the good without justification. What works, works, in virtue of the fact that it is powerful, given the context of its environment. Yet this surely does not mean fascism is good. And surely, if we had the ability to stop the entropic heat death, many of us would do so. But we don't have power over the universe like that, so we accept this. But we typically don't pull a 180 and start calling it moral just because we're personally not powerful enough ourselves.

And yet the domestication of the planet, the curve of fossil fuel exploitation, and the overall human population, ride right over all that.

You are telling me that the forest is made up of many trees. I can only nod and say yes, while reminding that you are avoiding the point. — apokrisis

I think I hit the point clearly on the head about contingencies creating new outcomes that change the projected trend and thus open up new counterfactuals.. but if YOUR point is about fossil fuel exploitation and human population, so be it. You cannot square that circle, however, by doing what Willow is suggesting you are in fact doing- making your own ethical preferences an ought by trying to divine the trend of human activities.

I see three things wrong with this:
1) Even if we are to focus on species-wide survival (which is itself flawed), you focus so narrowly on lessening fossil fuels that it is almost comical.. how about world peace, genocide, gang warfare, police brutality, domestic violence, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, economic disparity, and any other issue that affects survival? You seem to focus on one thing simply because it is related to this very impersonal idea of entropy, which is even more crazy because now you are reifying the concept of entropy into an ethical argument!?! Hell, the "general trend" (as you like to refer to) may be heading to the point where we blow ourselves up way before we die from climate change. I say it is comical not because it is a single issue, but seems like if you wanted to focus on survival, it is one out of many issues that you can choose from, all pretty pertinent.. some still remaining even if climate change was not a threat.

2) What makes survival of the species for its own sake so important? You confuse the outcome of people's general interests for an actual goal.. Most people are not living to keep the species going.. rather the species is going because people choose certain activities. You are reifying survival itself as a goal, but was never even people's actual goal if you are following your "general trend" argument. Rather, more "closer to home" reasons are given such as pleasure, entertainment, relationships, and any number of personal preferences.

3) Taking on a global issue seems more of a political policy argument than an ethical guideline. If this problem is solved, there are other ethical issues that don't go away. It is simply applied ethics.. your metaethics of "general trend" also does not say much because again, that itself has to be justified...What makes survival..and in your bizarre world.. survival "as it has generally been chugging along in the recent past" an ethical guideline? It is not- it is a preference taken from supposed projections based on what we already value... Except for demonstrating that you happen to prefer conservative views on change because (in your world) change only happens incrementally.. it really says nothing

You are still talking right past my naturalistic approach.

For good reason.

Again there is a difference between saying morality just is social organisation that works and taking the stance that morality is somehow optional or a free choice.

Not my problem if you can't understand the argument.

Yep. You want to believe what you believe and being asked to substantiate your claims becomes an inconvenience.

Oh don't even play that game, apo, you're a master at dodging bullets.

What makes it that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard than say a domestic cat?

If we're just animals like them, we shouldn't.

But if we do so "because we can" then the raison d'etre for ethics seems shaky.

I'm going with rights of equality by the way and argue that I'm allowed to eat meat because other animals are allowed too.

It's not about equality, that's ridiculous. There's a wide margin between loving someone so much you'd give your life for them, and not giving a shit at all. It's impossible to treat everyone equally, not actionable.

I care about rock formations, and see no need to destroy them just because I can, and feel more and more repelled by the notion the further up the ladder of self-determination and consciousness. Why do you have that destructive impulse in the first place? What are you sublimating?

It's not about equality, that's ridiculous. — Wosret

Really? Equal rights are ridiculous? Simply stating it isn't about that doesn't quite convince me either.

BTW, I eat meat once a week and consider myself a flexitarian.

Do what you want, I just said what I did, and why.

I didn't just state it, as Kant suggested, "ought" implies "can". When you think about "equality" you think of it in an idealized general kingdom of heaven that is never actualized by angels, but corruptible humans, none of which individually treat people equally, so it cannot reasonably be suggested that it somehow emerges to be so on the macro scale...

I think of "equality" like that? I wasn't talking about equality though, I was talking about the "rights of equality", e.g. the right to be treated the same as others who are the same. If Speciesism is false than I'm just another animal and I can be held to the same standard as a domestic cat, alligator or lion - in other words, nothing wrong with eating meat.

They also rape and kill their own species without repercussions, and often rewards -- are they then cool too? Everyone's got a Trump.

They also rape and kill their own species without repercussions, and often rewards -- are they then cool too? Everyone's got a Trump. — Wosret

So we are different from animals then?

Everything is different, that's what make them different things. Some things are qualitatively different, as it is to break a rock is different than breaking a squirrel. The adrenaline that the predator feels and the fear that the prey does are qualitatively identical, even they know more about what they're doing than the cold, slaughter of billions and billions a year from such a distance.

Then I can conclude speciesism (or any type of discrimination for that matter) is perfectly fine. If done for the right reasons.

So much for the OP.

What are the right reasons though?

From virtue ethicism that's not very hard to argue; compassion and empathy where it concerns eating animals.

A utilitarian though? What reason does he have to include the happiness of animals in his calculus?