The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Western-style democracy

Having ended the previous chapter on an optimistic note, I'd like to clarify what I mean by western-style democracy becoming the global gold standard.

Western-style democracy is based on the ideas of freedom, equality, fraternity just as much as it is based on the Ten Commandments, Jesus' rule "love your neighbour as you love yourself", and "live and let live" tolerance. I suggest that all western values actually emanate from the Ten Commandments and Jesus' rule, yet I emphasize freedom and tolerance, because not all countries with a Christian majority have freedom and tolerance. Freedom and tolerance may or may not come with Christianity. In particular, eastern and souther Christian countries haven't implemented freedom and tolerance. There must be something in the west and in the north that makes the majority Christian and also free and tolerant. People are not required to be Christian and yet most of them voluntarily are. This is the mystic ingredient that turns western-style democracy into a global gold standard.

If you take away either Christianity or freedom / tolerance from western democracy, you end up with nothing special. Which is why all attempts at making the world more Christian without freedom / tolerance, and also all attempts at making the world freer and more tolerant without Christianity have failed.

It's time to propagate Christianity with freedom and tolerance, this is what I mean by western-style democracy becoming the global gold standard.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The brick and mortar of civilisations

The received wisdom is that civilisations rise and fall.

I submit that civilisations rise to the extent they can provide equality, fraternity, internal freedom and external defence, and they decline and/or fall to the extent they can no longer provide them.

Morality is key to every community, as it represents the structure in which equality, fraternity, freedom and defence are implemented. Civilisations rise on the back of morality and decline with it.

Morality brings prosperity. Prosperity brings choice. Choice erodes morality, which erodes prosperity and defence, which is why some civilisations decline and fall. This cycle is not inevitable, some civilisations may respond adequately to moral decline, rise to the challenge and rebound in prosperity and defence.

Will western civilisation endure?

My guess is yes. No other civilisation to date has implemented the Ten Commandments and Jesus' "love your neighbour as you love yourself" rule as thoroughly as western civilisation, which makes it the most sustainable and resilient civilisation in history.

The Tend Commandments and Jesus' rule in combination also make western civilisation the most democratic, equitable and prosperous one on Earth. Therefore, I agree with Francis Fukuyama's prediction that western-style democracy will soon become the global gold standard. It already is the most prosperous and most attractive one in the world. This is why so many people want to immigrate. 

Potential immigrants should be made aware that the prosperity they covet is the result of the Ten Commandments and Jesus' rule, so they cannot reasonably hope to take the prosperity and reject its source. If this message is brought home, western civilisation will likely be able to cope with the current migration wave and emerge stronger, freer, fairer, more prosperous and better defended.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The basis of morality

All humans need a basis for morality. And that basis needs to be firm.

Some humans claim they don't need any basis for morality, but they are deluded. They take basic values from their parents without acknowledging it, then turn around and say they follow rules that don't come from anywhere. On closer inspection, all humans were brought up in some environment that taught them certain rules using emotions. This is commonly referred to as childhood education. Emotional education leaves you with internalised rules, whether you are aware of the source of your emotional responses or not.

Everyone's morality is based on the rules of an authority figure. It hardly matters if it's Julius Caesar, Napoléon, Stalin, Hitler, Jesus, Mohamed, God directly, or your mother / father / teacher. What matters is if it's firm enough to generate an emotional commitment that causes you to internalise and follow the rules of that authority figure.

In daily life, we seem to know what's right and what's wrong, based on how we were brought up. But when asked to explain why right is right and wrong is wrong, we don't do very well. How would you explain that stealing is wrong if the thief is starving? Then is it wrong to steal, after all? On closer examination, simple moral arguments don't hold up. You need more complex arguments with circumstances. 

Example: it's normally wrong to steal, except when you're stealing or oder not to starve. Can you then only steal food or anything you can turn into food? If you're caught, how can you prove that you're starving and you've honestly done your best not to starve? If you can't prove that you're starving and that you've honestly done your best not to starve, was it wrong for you to steal? You may know from the previous chapters that you can't prove anything to an Ultimate Perfectionist, and legal practitioners tend to be Ultimate Perfectionists, which means that it was wrong for you to steal by definition, regardless of the circumstances. But then this doesn't square with our intuitive sense of justice, does it? Which means we're pretty much stuck when it comes to arguing our intuitive sense of justice to the authorities or in court. It would be so convenient to have some hard-and-fast moral rules to back up our intuitive sense of justice.

What is the basis of morality?

Philosophers have searched and searched throughout history, but they haven't found. Plato suggested that ideas were more real than the physical world, so to him, morality was based on ideas. His student, Aristotle then found that ideas are really in our head, so they can neither be more real nor serve as a firm basis for morality. Lots of people intuited that God may be the source of morality, but none could supply plausible arguments. Kant postulated that a priori notions in our mind were categorical imperatives as to how we should act, but he could only convince himself. He added that all moral rules must be universally applicable, which would require all of us to perform millions of moral calculations per hour in order to be morally conscious, and importantly, none of us should lie. Ever. Which is clearly not the case, so Kant's concept of morality is out of this world. In response to Kant, Schopenhauer suggested (in an essay written for the Royal Danish Society of Philosophy competition) that comiseration could be used as a better basis for morality. No-one in his day approved of the idea (the Royal Danish Society was outraged in 1840 and did not give him the prize, though his was the only entry!), but it's quite popular today. On reflection, however, comiseration is a rather uncertain basis for morality. You can comiserate with a thief regardless of whether they stole in order not to starve or for purposes of unlawful enrichment. Comiseration doesn't square with our moral intuition.

On reflection, is there really a sound basis for morality?

I intuit that morality is based on deeply rooted feelings as a result of our upbringing. We bring our moral intuitions from childhood. Our parents and/or educations taught us a number of rules, with reference to some theoretical basis, but in practice, their morality was also based on childhood emotions. So the practical basis of morality stretches back over the generations and is emotional, rather than cognitive. Which is why we can't really back up our moral intuitions with plausible arguments. That's why some people with a cognitive focus claim they don't have any basis for their morality. They do have a basis, but searching for it in the cognitive domain, they can't find any.

Should there be a firm moral basis then for theoretical discussions?

I suggest the Ten Commandments and Jesus' "love your neighbour as you love yourself" rule. These rules in combination allow you to answer any moral question and argue any moral case. The "love your neighbour" rule includes comiseration, so Schopenhauer should be happy, but it is more constructive than mere comiseration, so positive thinkers should be happy. The "as you love yourself" part of the rule involves conscious analysis and universal applicability, so Kant should be happy too. This combined basis for morality is firm and consistent enough, this is my entry to the Royal Danish Society of Philosophy competition.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 6A

Chapter 6A

Numbers of measurements

You might think that the formula 1+1=2 is evidently true. It's not. You cannot demonstrate that 1+1=2.

Take an object that represents 1. Take another object that also represents 1. Herein lies the problem: no two objects are the same, so there is no such thing as 1 object +1 object in practice. This being the case, you must believe a priori that 1+1=2.

Take a symbol that represents 1, e.g. draw an apple and say that's 1 apple. Now draw another apple and say that's the same symbolic apple representing 1. You actually know that no two symbols are technically the same, yet you regard them as though they were the same. You can regard them as the same for theoretical purposes, but practically they're not the same. It turns out that you can't demonstrate in practice that 1+1=2, but you'd very much like 1+1 to be 2, so you ignore the finicky practical details.

Why do we do that? So we can build houses, bridges and cars, etc. Accepting on a purely theoretical basis that 1+1=2 is very useful and though it cannot be demonstrated in practice, this a priori approximation certainly helps us produce very practical results.

Measurements are a similar problem. Let's say you want to measure the length of an object that you intuit to be about 1 millimeter. How do you do that? You take a measuring tape or a ruler, put it next to the object and check if it visually matches 1mm on your scale. If it matches, you've established that it's about 1mm long.

If we really wanted to measure the length of the object, we should use a more precise instrument like a micrometer or an electron microscope and then... Then what? Can we measure the length of the object to the last atom? We can't. Even if we could, we don't have scales that are precise to the last atom. So we'll never know the actual length of anything, we can only approximate. However, approximation is good enough for practical purposes, which is why we don't sit down next to our object and weep helplessly. In practice, we use rough-and-ready measurements to build makeshift structures that we call technology. Technology lies at the heart of our civilisation.

Our civilisation relies on an a priori use of numbers and measurements.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 20

Chapter 20

The source of morality

There are conflicting theories about the source of morality. People of faith say God is the source of morality. Atheists say morality doesn't have a source, it's just common decency, the source of which is unknown or not to be investigated. Philosophers point to God, "a priori ideas", evolution or comiseration as potential sources. Psychologists have established that morality is deeply rooted in the human psyche, but they have not identified a source for it.

Does morality have a single source that we can ascertain? Let's first see whether the question is relevant and valid.

Some people claim they are not moral because of some factor, they're moral because they want to be moral. These people represent a tiny minority in society. Everyone else claims to be moral for some reason or other, whether it's God, law-abidance or humanism. The question regarding the source of morality is thus a relevant and valid one for the vast majority of people.

The fact that there isn't a single source we could agree on seems like a problem, but the solution is that most people need a source, ANY source for morality. Morality has to have a reference, i.e. I'm moral because of some factor I call... (insert the name of your source here).

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 19

Chapter 19
The nature of morality

Morality is a set of rules that tells you what's right to do under what circumstances.

Morality manifests itself in a desire to do what's right and in an emotional response to the perceived rightness or wrongness of actions, including our own.

There may be no such thing as universal right and wrong, but in our intuitive sense of morality, it certainly looks like there was. We all act as though there was universal right and wrong. We can't help it, it's in our DNA.

Example: people who consciously try to do what's right are seen as righteous. Some others disapprove of righteousness, which makes them... well, righteous. There's no escaping one form of righteousness or another. All humans respond righteously to the perceived rightness or wrongness of actions.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Education

Education is the single most important source of talented leaders, meritocracy starts in family and continues at school.

Schools teach basic to advanced knowledge on technical matters, literature, history and art, but they don't teach their context. It's like driving schools teaching you to replace spark plugs, air filters and engine oil, but not teaching you what an engine does and how it does it. Drivers fixing cars they know nothing about is not a good idea. Graduates shaping public life without knowing what it's all about and how it works is not a good idea either.

Schools completely ignore what's key to politics. They don't provide pupils with an understanding of what we know and how we can know it, or why we are moral and whether we should behave morally at all.

As a consequence, people don't have the first idea, they can't tell right knowledge from wrong, valid argument from invalid, right action from wrong. Those who "know" intuitively can't argue in favour of what they believe to be right, so they can't stand up for it. How knowledge and morality work is beyond not only the average citizen, but also people at the top. Those who know something in this field did not learn it at school and will not share it with fellow citizens.

In short: this is why politics sucks. Schools should teach people what we may or may not know and why, also why we tend to behave morally, whether we have a good reason for being moral, and what holds civilisations together.

The next few chapters will look at the brick and mortar of society: morality.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 17

Chapter 17
Social order and meritocracy

Any community needs order to prosper. Any order must have some firm basis and an effective enforcement mechanism. The firmer the basis, the weaker the enforcement mechanism and vice versa.

Strong social order is more likely to stifle merit. A weak social order may promote merit, but threatens with disruption and collapse. Meritocracy is a careful balancing act between those two extremes.

There are two key criteria for a meritocracy to function. 1. The social structure must be flexible enough to grant talented people power and office. 2. The citizens must be flexible enough to recognise talent and allow talented people to lead them.

Both criteria are hard to meet. In the north-west, talent can generally find its way to the top. In the south and east, structure is more important than talent, and more often than not, talented people fall by the wayside. As for allowing talent to lead you, people in the north-west accept talented leadership. Whereas in the south and east, the family / clan / tribe you come from is more important than your individual merit. Which explains why north-western democracies are getting closer and closer to meritocracy and why southern and eastern countries are stuck with outdated, rigid, undemocratic leadership.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Social justice

Most people think they know what social justice means, but they are at a loss when asked to be more specific.

There is general agreement about the need for equal opportunities, but there’s also general agreement that truly equal opportunities don’t exist anywhere. Princes and paupers could go to the same university in theory, but in practice they very rarely do, for a number of reasons that are clear to most people. Also, doctors’s kids stand a much better chance of becoming doctors than other kids, and there’s not much anybody can do about that. Musician’s kids are usually better at music, business people’s kids are more likely to make it in business, etc. The equal opportunities concept is more hype than reality, yet it seems to be better to half-believe the hype than to not not believe it at all.

There is general agreement that poverty should be minimised, but there’s also general agreement that wages should be proportionate to performance, and there is no agreement on the poverty threshold. Are you poor if you can’t afford to go to the movies and a restaurant once a week? There’s general disagreement about that.

There’s general agreement that people should not be exploited, but there’s general disagreement about the specifics. Is 25 percent annual interest charged for a whole month because you’re one day late with your credit card payment exploitation? Is 1 percent annual interest on your deposit exploitation? If yes, are you allowed to change the system? People tend to disagree about that.

The notion of social justice is intuitive, humans are not much better judges of it than are chimpanzees depending on the number of bananas they get. Yet, “social injustice” is used as though it represented firm grounds for social reform and action. It would be better to admit that there is no such thing as social justice, but everyone should receive enough bananas. People who work hard should keep most of their bananas, while people who don’t work at all should receive significantly fewer bananas. This seems to me the closest approximation of social justice.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Social contract

No-one has been able to demonstrate that society is based on some implicit agreement (a.k.a. a Social Contract) or that society is controlled by an oppressive central power that the individual must be freed from. It’s impossible to demonstrate either, probably because real societies show a mixture of both aspects. A large part of the population tends to agree on a number of fundamental issues, and they base their government on that understanding. Also, a large part of the population will always disagree with the central power, whatever it’s based on.

The difference between less advanced societies and more advanced ones is that less advanced societies use a lot of force against those who disagree, while more advanced societies have more sophisticated ways of handling disagreement. In kingdoms, caliphates and the like it’s a crime to disagree with the ruler or to go against conventions, regardless of whether your deviance is harmful and whether you turn out to be right in the long run. In democracies dissidence and deviance are crimes only when they damage other people, and the individual gets a lot of incentives to play along with others, as opposed brutal punishment for being different. However, no society ever allows people to do whatever they please, regardless of the consequences.

Example: in a liberal democracy, you are free to campaign for gay marriage, you can walk naked in the street, but you can’t call a government office and say you’ve planted a bomb as a hoax. They won’t be amused and you’ll go to jail, even though your deviance didn’t hurt anyone. Also, you won’t be arrested for conspiring to rob a bank unless you act. You’re innocent until found guilty. However, you’ll be arrested for conspiring to murder the president even if you don’t act, and you’re assumed guilty until you “prove” your innocence. Thirdly, you can’t actively disagree with speed limits, tax laws or no-discrimination hiring laws, otherwise you’ll be punished severely. Even though it’s impossible to show that not paying your taxes damages anyone, that exceeding the speed limit hurt anyone unless you caused an accident, and that you hurt anyone by hiring whoever you want to hire. Even the most liberal of democracies is inconsistent in many ways.

The Metaphysics of Philosophy, Knowledge and Morality Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Common sense

Common sense (Greek: koine aisthesis, Latin: sensus communis) means shared perception. It’s a stretch to call shared perception “reason”. We don’t have a good definition for reason, the intuitive definition is “if you think what I think, you’re reasonable, if you disagree with me, you’re unreasonable”. Clearly, that’s not good enough, but we don’t have any better.

Discussions take place at three levels: 1. Common Sense; 2. Cross-Referenced Common Sense; 3. No Common Sense.

1. Common Sense (CS) - I take it for granted that you know what I mean when I say “table”, “chair”, “sit”, “live”, “die”, “suffer”, “happy”, “understand”, “know”, etc. The benefit of this level is that you can make your point very quickly. The disadvantage is that you’ll only agree with those who agree with you anyway. This is the level for feel-good discussions amongst like-minded people. It’s useless for sorting out disagreements.

2. Cross-Referenced Common Sense (CRCS) - I take it for granted that if I give you additional information, you’ll agree with me about the meaning of words and concepts. You may not accept “table” to mean “you know what I mean”, but you’ll accept my definition as “three- or four-legged utensil people sit around when they eat, talk, etc.”. This is the level for sorting out minor disagreements between more or less like-minded people.

3. No Common Sense (NCS) - I don’t take anything for granted, I play the Ultimate Perfectionist when it comes to definitions. If you try to define table by cross-referencing it with “sit around”, I’ll ask you to define “sit” and “around”. When you cross-reference these terms, I’ll ask you to define the new terms you used as cross-reference. This goes on and on till the end of time. Nothing is definable at this level, and nothing can be agreed. (If you read maths books, you’ll find that the basic notions can’t be defined, they must be accepted on a “you-know-what-I-mean” basis. It’s the same with language.)

Notice that “mentalists” trying to control argumentation switch levels back and forth. They refer to Common Sense when it benefits them, and play the Ultimate Perfectionist when that serves their purpose. This usually occurs in social and political debates, such as on gay marriage. A mentalist will appeal to your Common Sense in saying “everyone has the right to pursue happiness as they see fit”, but when you say gay sex is unnatural, they’ll become the Ultimate Perfectionist and demand that you provide a flawless definition of “unnatural”. At this No Common Sense level, you can’t define anything, and so the mentalist declares victory. If you ask the mentalist to provide a flawless definition for “right”, “happiness”, “pursue” and “fit”, they won’t be able to do that, and then you can declare victory. It’s a good technique to expose mentalists when they switch levels. You can either stay at the same level or you can switch to the level of the mentalist and announce what’s happening.

Don’t be surprised to find that at the CS and CRCS levels you’ll only agree with people who agree with you anyway, and that at the NCS level you won’t agree about anything. That’s the nature of discussions.