A pre-emptive defense of moral egoism
Let us first establish a few things. We are trying to identify what is "right", and not what should be "right". Any attempts to answer the latter question would lead to a circular argument.
Moral egoism is a theory. There is no way you can prove that this is the best ever possible theory of ethical behaviour, and it is possible to disprove it by providing a counter example. Only one counter example is needed.
Here I make one assumption: A person would do something if and only if he thinks he is doing the "right" course of action. By making this assumption, theories of ethics become testable by observation. We can find out what is "right" by observing how people act.
In the next few paragraphs I shall establish that no objective theory of ethics is correct. Suppose there is a certain "ethical" way to live, and everyone agrees with it and obeys it and thus there is no need for enforcement. In this case, would there be any ethics? Everyone is simply doing what they would want to do, and whatever they do is considered ethical. There is no difference whether there is this ethical codes or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society.
Now let us suppose there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but no one obeys it. Everything that people do is "wrong". Because nobody would obey the "ethical" course of action, nobody would enforce it. Thus, everybody would just do what they want to do with no restrictions from that "ethical" code, but whatever they are doing, it is still "wrong". There is, again, no difference whether there is this ethical code or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society either.
Here let us suppose that there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but only half the population agrees with it and obeys it. This half of the population does whatever they want, unresticted by ethics. The other half of the population would also do whatever they want, because they think their course of action is the right course of action. Thus, both halves of the population would think that the other half of the population is "wrong", and would ry to impose it on the other, But what a minute, nothing would change if we consider the other side to be the side that obeys the "ethical" course of action. In this case, if we consider any side to be the "right" side, it makes no difference to whether the other side is "right". Having an objective set of ethical codes have no implications. Thus, by Occam's razor, there is no objective set of ethical codes.
In the following paragraphs, I shall establish that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.
From the point of view of a self, the only things that can affect a person's thoughts are his considerations at that point in time; the considerations of the future are made at that point in time, recalling the past occurs at that point in time of the decision making as well. Thus, the things that the decision maker cannot predict, or the things he forgot do not play a role in his decision of what is right or wrong. The outcome cannot possibly affect his decision as it is something of the future, and we can safely assume that events of the future cannot affect the past.
Since the outcome cannot affect whether a person does something or not, we can also state that the outcome cannot affect whether a person thinks something is right or not. Thus, we can conclude that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.
Although the above arguments don't prove that moral egoism is correct, they pretty much prove everything else incorrect.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Friday, July 14, 2006
Consider this statement, which we can assume to be true.
"The maximum amount of force my spear can exert on you solely depends your armour."
Doesn't sound impressive yet?
Think about it more carefully, and you'll notice that this spear can actually pierce all armour. By Newton's third law, the spear can only exert a force on the wearer of magnitude equal to the wearer's reaction force.
If in a certain case, the spear cannot pierce through the armour, then it would only be able to exert the same force on an even tougher piece of armour. In order for the above statement to be true, the spear must be able to pierce through all armour.
Just a random thought.
"The maximum amount of force my spear can exert on you solely depends your armour."
Doesn't sound impressive yet?
Think about it more carefully, and you'll notice that this spear can actually pierce all armour. By Newton's third law, the spear can only exert a force on the wearer of magnitude equal to the wearer's reaction force.
If in a certain case, the spear cannot pierce through the armour, then it would only be able to exert the same force on an even tougher piece of armour. In order for the above statement to be true, the spear must be able to pierce through all armour.
Just a random thought.
Monday, July 10, 2006
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Not really unexpected.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Today we played with millipedes. GGY tried to catch millipedes with a pair of scissors, but he cut one of them cleanly. So the part with the head was crawling away while the part without the head was squirming, maybe in pain.
So I wondered: If the mind resides in its head, then would it be okay to mash its tail end? But the tail end looks like it is squirming in pain. Maybe it has a mind of its own.
Cool, so if you cut off the arm of a person, you did not kill, because the arm does not have a mind of its own and is not conscious. But if you cut a millipede into half, you probably just created life. Then both lives would die on their own.
It is so strange.
Anyway we placed lots of millipedes in a plastic bottle and put the bottle to 7 bars of pressure. Their bodies are meant to withstand 1 bar but we pressurised them to 7 bars. They looked quite agitated as we went above 4 bars then when we reach 7 bars they were slightly more agitated and eager to get out of the bottle. But they can't get out because the bottle is airtight.
Insects breath through airholes at the side of their bodies (called spiroza if I remember correctly), so at 7 bars, those millipedes that look normal have probably gotten used to having 7 bar pressure air in their air holes. We took about 3 minutes to pressurise the bottle, but only 5 seconds to depressurise them. It was depressurised so fast that the air turned cold and fog formed in the bottle. When the fog evaporated (because the surroundings heated the bottle back up), the millipedes looked somewhat larger and kinked.
Someone suggested shooting the bottle instead so that the millipedes get depressurised in less than 0.1 second, and see what happens to the millipedes. I would have liked to witness that, but nobody wanted to voluteer to shoot it. (the millipede juice would fly into his mouth if he goes "WOAH" ::gulp::)
But imagine if we did shoot it.
millipede: "Oh please, let us get out of here... oh, he's picking up the launcher! hurray! we're getting out! oh wait, he's gonna FIRE it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" *kaboom* *splat*
Okay but we didn't fire it, so not all the millipedes died. One or two escaped after being rapidly decompressed because we dropped the bottle. I can imagine a Wisely show about some supernatural thing happening to the millipede, transforming it into a person that tries to wipe off all human beings off the face of the earth, then he'll recount his traumatizing expereince of being rapidly decompressed with about 100 other millipedes. Maybe as revenge he'll kill all the human beings he catch by rapidly decompressing them. Then the protagonist would find me and ask me "What exactly did you you do the millipedes in rjc 2006?" Then I'll collapse in my armchair in grief and sob and slowly utter, "I decompressed them."
Okay this is getting very weird. I can picture a lousy film about this.
Scene 1: So this guy gets tricked into entering a chamber of a very rich and handsome and infuential guy to do some big business. Then there is this covered big glass window where someone watches the guy. The chamber gets sealed up and slowly starts to get pressurised, but the guy only notices when his eyes, ears and bladder start to hurt. So he asks the host what is happening, then he realised that the host is a robot. Then he starts to panic. Then the window becomes transparent and reveals a shadowy character. The guy begs for mercy in various ways, but the shadowly character only smirks. Then when the guy mentions something about lowering the pressure, when the pressure is about 10 bars, the shadowly would grant his life and decompress the chamber in 0.1 seconds. Then you'll watch his eyes and middle ear and nose pop out, his lungs explode, and the rest of the body remaining fine. Then the shadowly guy laughs an evil laugh.
Okay I can't really be bother with coming up with anything more. Use some imagination.
Damn. I probably shouldn't have let them out alive.
So I wondered: If the mind resides in its head, then would it be okay to mash its tail end? But the tail end looks like it is squirming in pain. Maybe it has a mind of its own.
Cool, so if you cut off the arm of a person, you did not kill, because the arm does not have a mind of its own and is not conscious. But if you cut a millipede into half, you probably just created life. Then both lives would die on their own.
It is so strange.
Anyway we placed lots of millipedes in a plastic bottle and put the bottle to 7 bars of pressure. Their bodies are meant to withstand 1 bar but we pressurised them to 7 bars. They looked quite agitated as we went above 4 bars then when we reach 7 bars they were slightly more agitated and eager to get out of the bottle. But they can't get out because the bottle is airtight.
Insects breath through airholes at the side of their bodies (called spiroza if I remember correctly), so at 7 bars, those millipedes that look normal have probably gotten used to having 7 bar pressure air in their air holes. We took about 3 minutes to pressurise the bottle, but only 5 seconds to depressurise them. It was depressurised so fast that the air turned cold and fog formed in the bottle. When the fog evaporated (because the surroundings heated the bottle back up), the millipedes looked somewhat larger and kinked.
Someone suggested shooting the bottle instead so that the millipedes get depressurised in less than 0.1 second, and see what happens to the millipedes. I would have liked to witness that, but nobody wanted to voluteer to shoot it. (the millipede juice would fly into his mouth if he goes "WOAH" ::gulp::)
But imagine if we did shoot it.
millipede: "Oh please, let us get out of here... oh, he's picking up the launcher! hurray! we're getting out! oh wait, he's gonna FIRE it! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" *kaboom* *splat*
Okay but we didn't fire it, so not all the millipedes died. One or two escaped after being rapidly decompressed because we dropped the bottle. I can imagine a Wisely show about some supernatural thing happening to the millipede, transforming it into a person that tries to wipe off all human beings off the face of the earth, then he'll recount his traumatizing expereince of being rapidly decompressed with about 100 other millipedes. Maybe as revenge he'll kill all the human beings he catch by rapidly decompressing them. Then the protagonist would find me and ask me "What exactly did you you do the millipedes in rjc 2006?" Then I'll collapse in my armchair in grief and sob and slowly utter, "I decompressed them."
Okay this is getting very weird. I can picture a lousy film about this.
Scene 1: So this guy gets tricked into entering a chamber of a very rich and handsome and infuential guy to do some big business. Then there is this covered big glass window where someone watches the guy. The chamber gets sealed up and slowly starts to get pressurised, but the guy only notices when his eyes, ears and bladder start to hurt. So he asks the host what is happening, then he realised that the host is a robot. Then he starts to panic. Then the window becomes transparent and reveals a shadowy character. The guy begs for mercy in various ways, but the shadowly character only smirks. Then when the guy mentions something about lowering the pressure, when the pressure is about 10 bars, the shadowly would grant his life and decompress the chamber in 0.1 seconds. Then you'll watch his eyes and middle ear and nose pop out, his lungs explode, and the rest of the body remaining fine. Then the shadowly guy laughs an evil laugh.
Okay I can't really be bother with coming up with anything more. Use some imagination.
Damn. I probably shouldn't have let them out alive.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
I took some time to study econs, and I got kinda addicted to economic analysis of merit goods and demerit goods. Recall that a possible measure that the government can take to maximise social welfare is FINE. As Singapore is a fine country, there are so many things you could analyse.
Take the MRT station for example. They have two signs to tell you not to go down the track. One says something to the effect of "Value life. Act responsibly." and the other sign says "DO NOT GO DOWN THE TRACK. FINE $5000."
Since it is possible to dare a person to "go down a track" for a sum of money, or to fine someone for "going down the track", "going down the track" could be considered as a tradable service, i.e, a good. Since the government is obviously actively discouraging people from going down the track, I could consider this as a demerit good. There are two things that the government can do to maximise social welfare: 1) Make sure that people are rationally consuming at MPC=MPB; 2) Make sure that the negative externality is considered by the individual in deciding whether to go down the track or not.
By the sign "Value life. Act responsibly.", this is a measure which the government takes so that their assumption of consumer rationality becomes a reasonable one, because if the public is completely clueless that going down the track could cost them their lives, then the government making the individual take the cost difference between the rational level of consumption and the MSC would still not lead to social efficiency. Thus, by putting up this educative slogan, the government is intervening in such a manner that the consumer does not suffer from imperfect information, and thus the assumption of consumer rationality is valid. [Insert graph here]
By the fine of $5000, the government is making sure that the individual takes the negative externalities of going down the track (such as dirtying the track with his intrails, loss of business due to temporary public fear of mrt) into account. Thus, with the fine, the individual would act in his own best interests and at the society's best interests at the same time.
However, I find that the slogan "Value life. Act responsibly." is still not educative enough. People are not not fully aware of the private consequences of going down the track. May I sugggest that they do it the same way as cigarettes. They felt that the health warning (Smoking causes stroke) is not adequate, and so they included a picture of the brain of a stroke victim. Maybe they can include the picture of a dirtied MRT track to further enhance the educativeness of the slogan.
Another demerit good to consider is suicide. If the government wishes to achieve social efficiency, he would want individuals to commit suicide at the amount where MSC=MSB. Since we can see that suicide is highly discouraged, it is a demerit good and thus we can infer that there is too much of suiciding going on. The government would want to lower the overall suicide rate to the number of suicides that would take place when MSC=MSB.
There are 3 approaches that the government can take.
1) Educate the individual to ensure that he/she really knows the private costs and benefits of suiciding
2) Make the individual take the negative externalities into account so that MPC=MSC=MSB=MPB (rationality and social efficiency)
3) Lower the MPB such that the amount consumed when MPB=MPC, MSB=MSC as well.
There is always the possibility of imperfect information. The suicider wouldn't know what it feels like to die, especially if that is his/her first attempt. Not to say that people who haven't succeeded would actually know, but they probably have a better idea. While the roaring sea might look tempting, that could be because the body's survival instinct chemicals haven't kicked in yet. While flying down a building may look cool, that could be because the combined effect of [andrenaline] + [the consideration that you would actually die] hasn't activated the chemicals to make you think "Hey, maybe dying isn't so nice afterall."
Thus, educating the potential suicider about how horrible dying is could help to shift the MPC graph that the person thinks he incurs closer to the MPC graph that he really incurs. This would most likely be an upward shift of the MPC.
Increasing MPC from an already very high amount to an even higher amount would be difficult. While the MSC would certainly exceed MPC, there is no more additional cost that individual can possibly incur. Any additional cost probably doesn't matter much to him anymore.
Lowering the MPB may be quite feasible. A rational person would commit suicide until MPC=MPB. Since a person can only commit suicide once, this means that if the person really wants to commit suicide (not indifferent to living or dying; actively prefers dying), his MPB would be even higher than MPC, which is already very high. So perhaps if a person who wishes to commit suicide so that he may go to heaven, a councellor could tell him that "Well, you probably wouldn't like heaven that much." or his pastor could tell him "Nah, if you do that you'll go to hell." or if he want to rejoin his dead relatives you could tell him "But don't you think your last uncle was a jerk?" Okay a tad insensitive, but you get the idea. Lower the MPB such that when MPB=MPC, MSC=MSB as well.
When all that is done, and people still commit suicide, well, there are two ways I can comment on the persistent suiciders. Using economics jargon, I could say that any additional or less unit of suiciding would lead to a lower social welfare than can possibly be attained. In layman terms, they are the only ones who should die, and their death makes the world a better place.
Take the MRT station for example. They have two signs to tell you not to go down the track. One says something to the effect of "Value life. Act responsibly." and the other sign says "DO NOT GO DOWN THE TRACK. FINE $5000."
Since it is possible to dare a person to "go down a track" for a sum of money, or to fine someone for "going down the track", "going down the track" could be considered as a tradable service, i.e, a good. Since the government is obviously actively discouraging people from going down the track, I could consider this as a demerit good. There are two things that the government can do to maximise social welfare: 1) Make sure that people are rationally consuming at MPC=MPB; 2) Make sure that the negative externality is considered by the individual in deciding whether to go down the track or not.
By the sign "Value life. Act responsibly.", this is a measure which the government takes so that their assumption of consumer rationality becomes a reasonable one, because if the public is completely clueless that going down the track could cost them their lives, then the government making the individual take the cost difference between the rational level of consumption and the MSC would still not lead to social efficiency. Thus, by putting up this educative slogan, the government is intervening in such a manner that the consumer does not suffer from imperfect information, and thus the assumption of consumer rationality is valid. [Insert graph here]
By the fine of $5000, the government is making sure that the individual takes the negative externalities of going down the track (such as dirtying the track with his intrails, loss of business due to temporary public fear of mrt) into account. Thus, with the fine, the individual would act in his own best interests and at the society's best interests at the same time.
However, I find that the slogan "Value life. Act responsibly." is still not educative enough. People are not not fully aware of the private consequences of going down the track. May I sugggest that they do it the same way as cigarettes. They felt that the health warning (Smoking causes stroke) is not adequate, and so they included a picture of the brain of a stroke victim. Maybe they can include the picture of a dirtied MRT track to further enhance the educativeness of the slogan.
Another demerit good to consider is suicide. If the government wishes to achieve social efficiency, he would want individuals to commit suicide at the amount where MSC=MSB. Since we can see that suicide is highly discouraged, it is a demerit good and thus we can infer that there is too much of suiciding going on. The government would want to lower the overall suicide rate to the number of suicides that would take place when MSC=MSB.
There are 3 approaches that the government can take.
1) Educate the individual to ensure that he/she really knows the private costs and benefits of suiciding
2) Make the individual take the negative externalities into account so that MPC=MSC=MSB=MPB (rationality and social efficiency)
3) Lower the MPB such that the amount consumed when MPB=MPC, MSB=MSC as well.
There is always the possibility of imperfect information. The suicider wouldn't know what it feels like to die, especially if that is his/her first attempt. Not to say that people who haven't succeeded would actually know, but they probably have a better idea. While the roaring sea might look tempting, that could be because the body's survival instinct chemicals haven't kicked in yet. While flying down a building may look cool, that could be because the combined effect of [andrenaline] + [the consideration that you would actually die] hasn't activated the chemicals to make you think "Hey, maybe dying isn't so nice afterall."
Thus, educating the potential suicider about how horrible dying is could help to shift the MPC graph that the person thinks he incurs closer to the MPC graph that he really incurs. This would most likely be an upward shift of the MPC.
Increasing MPC from an already very high amount to an even higher amount would be difficult. While the MSC would certainly exceed MPC, there is no more additional cost that individual can possibly incur. Any additional cost probably doesn't matter much to him anymore.
Lowering the MPB may be quite feasible. A rational person would commit suicide until MPC=MPB. Since a person can only commit suicide once, this means that if the person really wants to commit suicide (not indifferent to living or dying; actively prefers dying), his MPB would be even higher than MPC, which is already very high. So perhaps if a person who wishes to commit suicide so that he may go to heaven, a councellor could tell him that "Well, you probably wouldn't like heaven that much." or his pastor could tell him "Nah, if you do that you'll go to hell." or if he want to rejoin his dead relatives you could tell him "But don't you think your last uncle was a jerk?" Okay a tad insensitive, but you get the idea. Lower the MPB such that when MPB=MPC, MSC=MSB as well.
When all that is done, and people still commit suicide, well, there are two ways I can comment on the persistent suiciders. Using economics jargon, I could say that any additional or less unit of suiciding would lead to a lower social welfare than can possibly be attained. In layman terms, they are the only ones who should die, and their death makes the world a better place.
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