X-VMS-To: in%"ethics-l@polygraf.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Sat, 11 Apr 1992 22:25:00 EST
From:         JIM DOWNEY <JDOWNEY@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      LONG POST!!! Unavoidably delayed response to Ed Nilges
Comments: To: ethics-l%polygraf.bitnet@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

I must apologize for not being able to respond...  The network admin
folks tell me that we lost 6 days of ETHICS-L...

Ed Nilges quoted and said:

>>Either I am missing your point or buying into the idea of incoherence
>>that you have made...  This does not relate to the paragraph
>>preceeding this one (which I deleted), and it starts out with one point
>>and suddenly I'm in Orwell's _1984_...  Can you tell me how I/we got
>>here?

> Your replies lack substance.  Rather than coming to grips with the
> issues raised, they ask "how can you know?"  This is not about meta-
> physical issues or religious questions, mind, but about whether certain
> practical approaches exist in an engineering discipline, meaning that
> your skepticism is out of control.  You are, I contend, on a slippery
> slope which leads you to O'Brien in 1984.

You did not answer my question... We started on a particular train of
thought.  Your response (not quoted in the above) went off on a tangent
about thought and incoherence, then right into a comparision of that idea
and Orwell's 1984 societal structure...

My reply (quoted above) never addressed the TEXT!!!!!!  I asked how did
you make the jump from what we were discussing to this... And then you accuse
me of lacking substance in my response...  I just want to know what in God's
name brought you to the issues of incoherence and Orwell...  Was it something
from out of left field or does it related to our discussion...  I made no
connection...  It did NOT make sense to me...  Asking you to clarify it
brought about the accusation of lacking substance...

And how you arrive at the conclusion that asking you to clarify the point
is taking off on a tangent of metaphysics is beyond me...  You wrote
something...  I responded with a request to clarify... You have not...

We can not debate the points if we can not have them clarified, or if, upon
a challenge of the point, tangential threads develop...  I like sticking to
the TEXT...  It keeps debates from going to far astray..

>>> Because of the structure of the world, computer science has long
>>> known a few things which can be readily taught.  There is a claim,
>>> promulgated by certain feminist writers on logic and computer
>>> science that this is oppressive, and your doubts
>>> remind me of these claims.
>>
>>First, computer science can not know anything.  It is a field of study
>>and not an animate thinking body.

> That's a quibble not an argument.  Okay, computer scientists (and those
> rare computer science students who either (A) stayed awake in class
> or (B) refrained from doing an alcohol-assisted brain flush directly
> after finals) can know more than CEOs (gasp).  I specifically exclude
> those droves of MSCSs who don't know what a Turing Machine is.

No, it's not a quibble...  It is an important point of logic in the debate
process...  If we are struggling to clarify what "ethics" are, then we have
to be clear in our methods and statements...

But I point out to you that you have once again set forth elitist statements.
You practically accuse a majority of computer science majors, graduates,
managers, programmers and professionals of being incompetent because they
do not meet your criteria of the discipline...  You have set yourself and
those of whom you approve above others as a class based solely on your
attitudes (subjectivism) and claim it is "right" and "good."

>> Now, if you are referencing those
>> who have expertise in computer science, then I would ask you to
>> delineate that knowledge...

> It's already been done, I merely refer you to the ACM's work.  As to
> the reply from the hideous trenches of Corporate America, concerning
> the "real world", I find in many cases that what's being done in those
> trenches is nothing more and nothing less than compiler development
> and operating system development under the rose, by people who
> simply don't know (for example) that a client/server application
> raises operating systems issues and that developing a multisite
> general-purpose application or "rule data base" is largely a problem
> in compiler development.  I expect to be flamed from Hell to Hudders-
> field for this view, but 20 years of experience, 15 in corporate
> Amerika, has only reinforced my heterodoxy on this matter.  Details
> on application.

If you were to read the TEXT, you would see that I asked YOU to delineate
the knowledge in question...  My point here is that in the above paragraph
you readily acknowledge that these are views which are NOT consistently
held within the field...  As knowledgeable as you may be, as creative as you
may be, it would appear that, as in all fields of study, some of your views
are (or could be) informed opinions, held firmly by you and those in
agreement... (see next to last sentence).

I don't argue with your views per se...  I argue with your method of applying
them as ethical standards from which all flags must fly.  Your method relies
upon these views as truth and the basis for ethical norms within the entire
field...  I return to my argument that this is subjectivism and ethical egoism,
extended to an elite group (cultural relativism) that then mandates what is
or is not the "greatest good for the greatest number."

The other part of my argument is that individual choice (vision), natural
rights and natural laws exist and form the foundation of ethics within the
U.S....  It is supported by teachings, beliefs and actions around the world
(c.f. the recent events in Russia and Central Eastern Europe) because it
affords natural inherent efforts to facilitate "good."  These principles
and rights are inalienable and belong to each individual without anyone
passing judgement or forming an opinion...  Ethics based on this foundation
ultimately allows for "the greatest good for the greatest number" as a natural
process that is "sui generis."

Your views on ethics depend on the consistency of your views about other
things as well...  If tomorrow your work resulted in a discovery that
demonstrated your previous ideas were all erroneous, then your ethical
views must change with it...  Time and space modify the ethical foundations
upon which your arguments rest...  This is not the case with natural rights,
natural law and individualism.

>>If it is the former, I would appeal to you to make clear the linkages and
>>connections that thrust me into the collective incoherence and joined
>>me to both the feminists and Orwellians of the world.

> Read my numerous references.  And you restate and reify my position.
> I am less interested in what YOU call "feminists and Orwellians" than
> in unholy alliances and other structures.

I have read them and they do not address the questions at hand... How did you
jump from our discussion of Subjectivism + Ethical Egoism + Cultural Relativism
= Elitism to feminists and Orwell and incoherence?

>>I don't know... Tell me, what is your reading of Kant.  (I use this
>>poking-fun tactic, much as did Socrates, to demonstrate that once
>>again you have become the central point, the hub, of the
>>interpretation...  You consistently return to the foundations of
>>subjectivism, ethical egoism and/or cultural relativism to make your
>>points.)

> I've already told you.  You regard Kant as a failure because you
> misread the categorical imperative as a rule rather than a metarule.

Kant spoke to "rules" and only rules in his ethical approach.  His main
theme is deontological, having "duty" (thus obedience, obligation) as the
primary "good."  The Catergorical Imperative is based on a duty to ACT a
certain way, absent of consideration of the end result...  Since morality
is defined by the "good will" (intent), the imperative that is formed becomes
"No matter what you must..."  Kant's position on this is unconditional...
Morality, "the good will" and duty are a priori knowledges that can not be
described by merely describing behavior...

Hence I restate that Kant tells us WHAT to do, but not why... His assumption
is that we shall know our duty, we shall know "the good will" and we shall
know the "moral law" a priori...  No one can tell us... we must know it...
He hints that we can know it from experience, but never delineates exactly
what is meant...

> As to your absurd self-comparision with Socrates, I have found that
> Socrates wannabes don't have the success they expect on the net, for

I never compared myself to Socrates...  I compared my method to the methods
of Socrates...

> the Socratic method is necessarily the public destruction of an
> outsider in the necessary presence of a horde of frightened and
> unimaginative disciples who laugh at appropriate moments (cf. Pirsig's
> Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)  In written network
> conferences, it has been observed, these conditions do not obtain.

Not a bad book, but I doubt the voracity of his/your claims regarding the
Socratic methods...  Socrates exposed the absurdity of arguments that,
on the face, appeared sound because of presentation, passion, etc., but were
faulty generalizations and oversimplifications or distortions to avoid
addressing the points at hand... Such is the case, I fear, with the
challenges made above...  Rather than address the Socratic question you
distort and distract the debate from the issues of subjectivism, relativism,
and egosim (and elitism), to a critique of me comparing myself to Socrates
(which I never did...  I compared my methods to the method of Socrates...
There is a distinct difference.)

In fact, I contend that much of what you have offered has not come to the
point and addressed the questions I have put to you...  I offer an examination
of the debate, as recorded in these several posts, as evidence to my
contention.

>>Right... very few rules pass Kant's test and therefore his ethical
>>theory is impractical...

> You've stumbled, Socrates, on the central issue.  Good going.  This

It is here that you make the comparison, although I doubt it was meant
in complimentary fashion...

> is that precisely BECAUSE "very few rules pass Kant's test" it is
> *** LIBERATING ***.  It is only "impractical" from the standpoint
> of people with a vested interest in making rules: cops, lawyers,
> and the less creative forms of unix systems administrators.

This is like saying that if the law-makers were to pass a law that could
only be enforced on cities beginning with the letter "R" and then only on
Sundays it would be a practical and good law... and that it would free the
citizens of those cities...

Kant's issue of duty is not liberating...  It is constricting because it
takes no notice of rights, competing rights, observable natural laws, or
the freedom of individual choice/vision...  It states that one must ALWAYS
act in a certain way...  So if an authority came knocking at your door and
asked if you were hiding a slave (and you were), the categorical imperative
requires that you adhere to duty without question...  What is the duty in
this case?  Kant states that you know a priori... before it happens...

>>> No, I feel that there's a way of interpreting Kant that is workable.
>>
>>We can re-interpret Kant all we want, but no matter how we try to
>>apply his approach it fails... It is impractical and unworkable in
>>application...  It is a program that has a basic logic but is missing
>>a few loops :)

> As a programmer/philosopher I will state with assurance that philosophy
> and programming differ.

> Kant, in his work on ethical foundations, provides some test applications,
> one of which is paying debts.  If I (for example) get a line of
> credit from Master Card and blow the lot on strong drink, without
> intending to repay Master Card, Kant would say, not that my conduct
> is unethical in some absolute sense, only that the RULE "pay your
> debts, Ed" appears to be a valid ethical rule, if there are any ethical
> rules at all.

But Kant never asks if it is ethical to pay... just pay... We may find
that in a drunken stupor you signed a credit billing for ten rounds of drink
at the insistence of the bartender...  Do you have a right to dispute the
bill...  Not if you follow Kant...  You must always pay... (NOTICE:  No intent
was present to call you an alcoholic or drunk...  It was just an extension
of the circumstance you offered.)

> This is because the system in which I operate demands
> some basic level of honesty, especially as regards future committments;
> otherwise the time value of money would be inordinately skewed
> (Wendell Berry reminds us of the basis in honesty, an altruistic
> virtue, in capitalism, and how this basis deconstructs the self-interest
> theorists including Adam Smith.)

But that duty to basic honesty is a myth... unless it is based on something
other than an imperative or opinions...  If we lay capitalism upon the
foundations of rights, choice and law, Adam Smith doesn't seem so far-
fetched because the utilitarianism of capitalism now stands firm on
ethical principles that cause the SYSTEM to act justly, within defined
rules and expectations, and according to basic rights that are balanced...

> But Kant's critique does not tell me in what manner to pay my debts.
> Many so-called moral rules, including many rules around sexual
> conduct, fail Kant's test because they overprescribe.  It is
> true that if all women killed their children the human race (the
> Kantian basis for existing as a woman able to abort) would cease
> to exist.  But proChoice people are not asking for "abort your
> child" to be a moral rule!  They are instead asking for "let the
> choice be hers" be a moral rule, to which cops, doctors and judges
> must subscribe, and if the choice is hers, the human race would
> flourish, with parents less ambivalent about their committment to
> their children.

Poppycock!  Kant would no sooner approve of the pro-choice position
that you espouse above than commit suicide...  He would see that duty
called for a women to always bear the child...  There is no choice
within Kant's model... You must always!!! that is the imperative...

Like I said, Kant is often mis-read, misunderstood and misrepresented.

>>> You forgot Plato who in reality lurks behind these ideals.  Whose
>>
>>I didn't forget him, I dismissed him... His ABSOLUTE FORMS and
>>inability to perceive the real world makes me nervous to the point
>>where, if I adopted his views, I would question whether or not we are
>>enagaging in discourse... In which case I could just as easily adopt the
>>philosphical (and practical) arguments of Bette Midler when she says
>>in resignation, "Why bother?!" (c.f. Bette Midler, _MUD WILL BE FLUNG
>>TONIGHT_)

> I claim that Platonism enters, in the manner of the police, by the
> back door.  You used the Socratic method; is this not the reentry of
> Platonism?

Using a method of debate does not convey a label upon one... In so far
as I reject Platonism on the whole, and I have offered nothing that
would indict me for being a "closet Platonist," I deny the claim...
Using methods of debate are not the criteria by which my ethics can be
assessed...  Follow the reasoning and the thoughts, there lies my views...
But as of yet, this has been a difficult task in this debate... We seem
forever distracted from the text and the views represented by the TEXT.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU