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Or Stefan's ParadoxThis problem has really been gnawing at me, and of course Stefan did not respond to the email I sent him, so I cannot work out the issue with the actual originator of the argument. The issue is that it makes logical sense, of the same form as one of my favorite arguments demonstrating the existence of an objective truth: "If the statement, 'no truths exist' is true, then truth exists." You elegantly demonstrate that there is a set called "objective truths" and it always has to be occupied, therefore proving it exists. But Stef's still feels right, but it does not add up on paper. So let us recap: "If the statement 'UPB is wrong' is true, then UPB exists because the statement demonstrates a preference for UPB." Maybe it is a fallacy of four terms:
U <=> UPB A <=> Arguments against UPB D <=> Things which demonstrate UPB V <=> Valid things If this is the case, I can contrast it to the argument I am so partial to: If S, then T S, therefore T. Where: S = Statement of no truths existing T = Set of true things In any case, you can demonstrate that there is a set of truths called objective with an argument of sets:
That is what confuses me. Because, even if I shifted the goal posts to say Stefan's argument contains the fallacy of four terms, we can break it down into agreed upon syllogisms and get the same result from yesterday:
The issue here is that you arrive at a contradiction when you suppose U is V. But you do not get a contradiction assuming the opposite, and the proposition that for some A, V:
I do not have an answer. Because, by implication, it seems that Stefan is relying on the second premise being true to prove the first premise. But the second premise being true would imply that the first premise is untrue. What do you think?
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"Oi mate, I figured out how bloomin' morality works, yeah? So you know this problem what wifs been stumping the greatest moinds for millenia, yeah? I solved it, an' all it is is jus a fouckin' 2x2 square an' all. Good fing I'm brilliant enough to figur dis fing out, you're welcome."
If you think you have solved one of mankind's greatest problems, you probably have not. Think of all the crazy technical problems in mathematics. Men spend their entire lives on one field of math, probably never solving that one problem they struggle over. Think about how specific mathematics are, and then compare it to the monumental task of something as ethereal and soft as morality. Let us not, then, assume that our two years of arguing on the internet allows us to make any serious judgement on big problems like this. Or, How we Know that Molyneux's UPB is Certainly Incorrect:Look, I did not want this blog to turn into a Molyneux hate blog, but I am now making my second serious critique on here, and it is again about Molyneux. Also forgive my writing if it is all over the place, I am actually buzzed off coffee and nicotine at the moment. Part I: The Groundwork: **You can skip this section if you want, it is meant to be referenced rather than read through.** Stefan has several rules about his definitions for morality in the beginning of UPB. I will put the link to his book at the bottom if you want to see it for yourself. These groundworks can be found on page 9 if you want to follow along at home. Rule 1: I fully accept the Humean distinction between “is” and “ought.” Valid moral rules cannot be directly derived from the existence of anything in reality. The fact that human beings in general prefer to live, and must successfully interact with reality in order to do so, cannot be the basis for any valid theory of ethics. Some people clearly do not prefer to live, and steadfastly reject reality, so this definition of ethics remains subjective and conditional. Rule 2: Ethics cannot be objectively defined as “that which is good for man’s survival.” Certain individuals can survive very well by preying on others, so this definition of ethics does not overcome the problem of subjectivism. In biological terms, this would be analogous to describing evolutionary tendencies as “that which is good for life’s survival” – this would make no sense. Human society is an ecosystem of competing interests, just as the rainforest is, and what is “good” for one man so often comes at the expense of another. So my reasoning behind trying to debunk UPB is that video above. The title of it is basically clickbait ("Le UPB debunked epic stlye, lolz1!"), and Stefan is kind of a rude to this kid who is trying to argue from the internet philosopher's favorite arsenal: that chart of informal logical fallacies. There is the lack of self reflection from Stefan when he talks down to this guy as being someone having a big ego at a young age while comparing himself to Socrates at the same time. This just made me want to look at his book and see what this impossibly perfect rational proof of secular ethics was really all about. Part II: The Internet Philosophers' Rebuttals: The next logical step to trying to critique Stefan's UPB was for me to look at what other people had done with it beforehand. I read some rebuttal on the Von Mises Institute, and it was pretty boring. Really I did not even read the whole thing. It just seems to be all about critiquing the minutia and all that. Moving on to something more accessible to me, I found this video: The important thing here was that his supposed disproof of Molyneux's first proof of UPB was not actually correct based on Molyneux's ground work. I left a comment on RR's video which was this: "I have started to read through UPB today after he made a video where he was a douche over some guy who tried to critique it, and I wanted to really go hard on it and maybe attack it on his call in show. And I was wondering if I could get a response from you for some help. I think breaking everything down into informal fallacies is not always the best way to attack these things, which seems to be the formula of your videos. Don't get me wrong, of course many people make mistakes on informal grounds. I just don't think Molyneux falls into this in this specific case, and I want to explain why, and maybe get a response from you: You say you would take falsehood over truth because you value well-being over truth. But in his "ground rules" section, Molyneux says that he accepts a Humean is/ought distinction for moral rules. That is to say, he does not think that you can derive rules from anything existing in reality. (That's his ground rule #1.) In ground rule #2, he says that he rejects subjectivism again by rejecting the definition of moral truths as things existing for man's well-being. To put it more clearly, simply looking at how truth affects you and therefore rejecting or accepting it is not, in his opinion, a moral judgement. Maybe you see the problem here. By saying you would reject truth for falsehood because of a consequentialist argument concerning your well being would therefore be immoral by Molyneux's pre-established framework. This is the same for, say, a utilitarian type of moral thinking. Thus, I think Molyneux could safely make the case that you are not engaging in UPB by making such an appeal. I don't know, tell me what you think of my critique of your critique if you want, and then if you're interested I can ask for your opinion on a different refutation of UPB as I have understood it so far." Part III: The Actual Proof UPB is False: So, in my opinion, that was not a valid attack of Molyneux's first proof of UPB. But it did give me a place to start looking for errors. And it showed that Molyneux put his argument into a way I could understand: a syllogism. If you want to track my argument with the book's, this is on page 40: Here is Stef's proof #1:
We also know that preference of moral theories, from his ground rules, including elements of something like consequentialism would fall under a category to the effect of "anything other than moral" to Stefan. Not "amoral" because he provided an example which was immoral on ground rule #2, but also that would not necessarily imply that the set would be only immoral things. Hence, I will call that set "anything other than moral". So it is not a valid criticism and Stefan's argument would actually fend of this attack quite well. Now here is where I would really like to get Stefan's input. This is his argument broken into categorical statements. The equivalence between this and Stef's proof is what would make or break the argument. I also start with the assumption that UPB is true. This is, for all intents and purposes, totally equal to the major premise of Stef's first proof. I could omit the "suppose" qualifier and still get the same results. This can, though, be thought of as a mathematical proof by contradiction. Here we assume the contrary of my theorem (UPB is invalid), and get a contradiction, therefore proving my theorem correct. Here it is:
Where: U <=> UPB A <=> Arguments against UPB. V <=> Valid things
This conforms to the ground rules, and is a totally rational, deductive proof that Stefan Molyneux's UPB is wrong, accepting that he agrees our two syllogisms are equal. Link to UPB book: bit.ly/1OR9gOt
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