I shouldn't have said it like that. I'm certainly not declaring any sort of real purpose for the universe derived from some outside force
Ok, glad to hear it =) . It's perhaps better put as the "fundamental ought" from which all other oughts can be derived. Or more pedagogically, "how can I determine what I should do with my time?", and if you work backwards from that, you eventually need something(s) that serve as axioms.
I would say the answer to the question "how can I determine what I should do with my time" is simple... just listen to your heart. That's where the source of all values is, not in some externally imposed axiomatic system. How do you justify any of the actions you take?
Why would you want to justify actions you take? I just take whatever actions I feel like taking, I don't see any need to justify them. It does seem like you have a more external view of where morality comes from, whereas I have an entirely internal view. And in Sam Harris's case, he used the example of "creating a thriving global civilization" as the thing we should assume to be correct, our fundamental ought.
I've probably made this clear by now, but just to reiterate--I think there are many fundamental oughts, not one fundamental ought... and those oughts are different for different people, because each person has a different set of things they consider important. There just happens to be a lot of overlap for cases like "thriving of the global civilization" so it's to our mutual benefit to work together on it. But as anyone can tell you, values change based on your experiences, and with new information you need to re-evaluate your stance. How do we go about evaluating the information available and arriving at a value?
This is one thing I ended up saying a little bit wrong in my post, I should have clarified this more. I said something about people only ever reaching a consensus on values if they start out close together. This sort of implied that values cannot change over time and just are fixed from birth. I do think they can change over time as you have new experiences, but I think your values are shaped a lot by genetics and by your personal history. And probably they can change a lot more early in life than later in life. But my main point is, you don't arrive at values through some kind of reasoning, your values are what motivates you, they're your emotions. They're not determined by logic, they're determined by emotions which is why I said "listen to your heart". It has nothing to do with a system of axioms or logical deduction.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-12-03 08:30 pm (UTC)I shouldn't have said it like that. I'm certainly not declaring any sort of real purpose for the universe derived from some outside force
Ok, glad to hear it =)
. It's perhaps better put as the "fundamental ought" from which all other oughts can be derived. Or more pedagogically, "how can I determine what I should do with my time?", and if you work backwards from that, you eventually need something(s) that serve as axioms.
I would say the answer to the question "how can I determine what I should do with my time" is simple... just listen to your heart. That's where the source of all values is, not in some externally imposed axiomatic system.
How do you justify any of the actions you take?
Why would you want to justify actions you take? I just take whatever actions I feel like taking, I don't see any need to justify them. It does seem like you have a more external view of where morality comes from, whereas I have an entirely internal view.
And in Sam Harris's case, he used the example of "creating a thriving global civilization" as the thing we should assume to be correct, our fundamental ought.
I've probably made this clear by now, but just to reiterate--I think there are many fundamental oughts, not one fundamental ought... and those oughts are different for different people, because each person has a different set of things they consider important. There just happens to be a lot of overlap for cases like "thriving of the global civilization" so it's to our mutual benefit to work together on it.
But as anyone can tell you, values change based on your experiences, and with new information you need to re-evaluate your stance. How do we go about evaluating the information available and arriving at a value?
This is one thing I ended up saying a little bit wrong in my post, I should have clarified this more. I said something about people only ever reaching a consensus on values if they start out close together. This sort of implied that values cannot change over time and just are fixed from birth. I do think they can change over time as you have new experiences, but I think your values are shaped a lot by genetics and by your personal history. And probably they can change a lot more early in life than later in life. But my main point is, you don't arrive at values through some kind of reasoning, your values are what motivates you, they're your emotions. They're not determined by logic, they're determined by emotions which is why I said "listen to your heart". It has nothing to do with a system of axioms or logical deduction.