Theme: Decidability

PHILOSOPHY FOR GROWN UPS PART ONE AND PART TWO

1. The only truths we know for certain are falsehoods. Everything that is not false is a truth candidate. This is the inverse of the fallacy of justificationism and the central insight of the sciences: the means by which we invent or grasp an idea contribute nothing to whether or not it is true or false. Only exhaustive falsification and survival from criticism deliver confidence that actions produce anticipated outcomes due to our comprehension of cause, effect, and the operations that are possible. Otherwise we are forever justifying whatever it is we seek to justify by any set of excuses we can imagine. This is why astrology, numerology, theology, philosophy, and the pseudosciences are so common – justification means absolutely nothing.

2. The only preference we know is the one we demonstrate. The only good we know is the one we mutually demonstrate by acting upon. People report very differently from what they demonstrate. The only morality we know that is we must avoid criminal(material), ethical(direct), and moral (indirect) imposition of costs upon one another. The only moral actions then are those that are not criminal, unethical, and immoral, and that means the only moral actions consiste of productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary exchange, free of imposition of costs upon the investments of others by externality. Ergo, all moral actions are those that are not immoral. There is no recipe for moral action other than that which is not immoral.

3. People always and everywhere demonstrate that they are neither moral or immoral but amoral and rational, doing what they must in all circumstances that they exist in. it is just disproportionately advantageous to act morally for the simple reason that the returns of cooperation always and everywhere defeat the returns on individual action. This is why exhaustive forgiveness of ‘cheaters’ in all walks of life will generally reform them. Because it is in their self interest. This is why we demonstrate altruistic punishment also (high cost of punishing cheaters), because the returns on cooperation are so valuable that we evolved to pay the high cost of punishment in order to preserve the high value of cooperation.

4. People notoriously think they are right and in the right, and acting morally, which is why we have courts of one kind or another among all peoples at all stages of development. And while rules of decidability in courts in matters of conflict vary from the poor and underdeveloped where interests in things, kin, and relationships are rare and collectively owned, to the wealthy and developed where things, interests, kin, relationships, and contracts are universally allocated to individuals and individually owned, the means of decidability in every single civilization is RECIPROCITY.

5. There exist then only one negative moral rule and one universal test of morality: “Do not unto others as they would not have done unto them”. There is only one positive moral rule: the extension of trust to non kin that we extend to kin, until it is no longer empirically possible to trust. – this optimizes cooperation by continuously training malcontents that it is in their interest to cooperate, and ostracizes (punishes) those who do not.

6. There are no conflicts that are not decidable by tests of reciprocity. None. This is why all international law is limited exclusively to the test of reciprocity. So logically(rational choice) and empirically (demonstrated action), and universally (all laws domestica and international at all scales) morality is anything that is not immoral unethical or criminal in that it imposes costs upon the efforts already expended to obtain a non-conflicting interest, in a good, relationship, or opportunity.

As far as I know no argument can defeat this that is not in and of itself an attempt at reciprocity (theft, freeriding, parasitism, conspiracy).

PHILOSOPHY FOR GROWNUPS PART TWO

This is not so much a philosophy as the results of science that I can no longer deny, and so I live according to the science – in large part because it is advantageous.

1. We are an expensive life form. Particularly our brains.

2. We must acquire, and we acquire at cost to ourselves. we acquire experiences, things, kin, relations, interests, opportunities.

3. All our emotions are nothing but reflections in state of that which we plan to, are in the process of, or have acquired an interest.

4. Cooperation is logarithmically more productive than any action an individual can take, and therefore we must cooperate to survive -or at least not encourage retaliation against us. (Possibly as much as ten thousand times as productive.)

5. People are purely rational, not moral or immoral but amoral: they cheat and try to acquire disproportionately from cooperation, they free ride, steal from, and prey upon others. This is why we demonstrate altruistic punishment of cheaters in all walks of life, even at high personal cost: to prevent defectors from cheating.

6. The optimum algorithm (really) for developing cooperation is to exhaust every opportunity for cooperation even from cheaters. They almost always come around, because it is always an advantage to come around. This was the entire message of christianity which was lost in the dogma. But it’s just science.

7. All our speech is merely a dance of negotiation so that we may create opportunities to acquire, do acquire, or preserve what we acquire. All of it is just signaling.

8. We are entirely incognizant of these behaviors because it is evolutionarily disadvantageous for us to be intuitively honest, honest with ourselves, and honest with others. This is the same reason we have many cognitive, social, and probabilistic biases in our genes. To keep us going when evidence would overwhelm us.

9. Most of the joy in life is playing this set of word games, cooperative games, and acquisition games with others so that we all acquire what we want as best we can without making others avoid us so that we can’t acquire what we want and need. This is why people commit suicide when they are lonely, and do not commit suicide when they are not.

10. Therefor the only rule of cooperation, of morality, and of law, is reciprocity: productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntary cooperation with each other, and the only immoral actions are those that violate that moral rule by free riding, parasitism, theft, or predation. And that is why reciprocity is the basis of all traditional laws (and why it is not the basis of legislation).

This little list is the answer to nearly all of metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, sociology, ethics, and politics.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine