Re: Philosophy's lack of proofs

[chokhmah@xxxxxxxxxx]

I have finished 40% of Mill's Utilitarianism.

There are two questionable premises. The first is JS Mill assumes people
prefer intellectual pleasure over sensual ones. The overwhelming
experience of history is the exact contrary. People spend more money on
beer in a single day than they have ever spent, in all of history, on
philosophy books.

The second questionable premise is that intellectual pleasures are
inherently superior to physical ones. This is actually the opposite
position adopted by Adam Smith, who labored tediously to argue that
commodities were the true wealth of nations.

Smith defined commodities like coal and lumber to be the objects which
society should maximie in a society. These involve essentially sensual
pleasures like houses and furniture. Mill prefers to maximize
intellectual pleasures like aesthetics, which includes art and poetry.
Smith boorishly rejects these as being unproductive.  Mill prizes the
intellect above the physical, Smith the physical above intellectual.

Here again we have two rational people with different axioms, and so the
two ethical systems are contradictory.

MILL: "The desire of it is not a different thing from the desire of
happiness, any more than the love of music, or the desire of health.
They are included in happiness. They are some of the elements of which
the desire of happiness is made up. Happiness is not an abstract idea,
but a concrete whole; and these are some of its parts."

MILL: "A cultivated mind--I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any
mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has
been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties--finds
sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the
objects of nature, the achievements of art, the imaginations of poetry,
the incidents of history..."

SMITH: "In the same class must be ranked, some both of the gravest and
most important, and some of the most frivolous professions: churchmen,
lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons,
musicians, opera-singers, opera-dancers, etc."

SMITH: "Music and dancing are the great amusements of almost all
barbarous nations..." ""The magnificence of a man whose expense at least
consists in such durable commodities [like buildings or furniture], is
always continually increasing... [whereas the other] is consumed in
frivolous consumptions."

All these ethical systems are not universal truths but merely the
subjective opinions and preferences of their authors. The simplest
explanation is one man likes art and another man likes coal and wood.
It's their personal opinion, not universal truths.

chokhmah

On Wed, Jul 08, 2026 at 05:44:06PM -0700, chokhmah wrote:
> The problem with philosophy in general is the inability to verify or
> prove its conclusions. This was discussed in the past with idealism vs
> realism; there is no way to prove, without resorting to some authority
> or tradition, which is true. The Ship of Theseus paradox regarding
> identity is another.
> 
> In this thread, let us discuss ethics. How do you *prove*, in a way
> convincing manner, that behavior XYZ is ethical? Take the hypothetical
> statement: "Killing X is wrong".
> 
> X could represent a human, an animal, a plant, a cell, a robot, etc.
> Most people agree killing a human is wrong. Some believe killing an
> animal is wrong. A tiny minority believe killing a plant is wrong.
> Without religious tradition, how do you prove that Killing X is wrong,
> or that Killing X is ethically acceptable?
> 
> As another example, take the ethical statement, "Y requires permission
> from Z". For example, Y could be taking a photo, which would require
> permission from Z the person in the photo. Or Y could be dumping
> pollution in a river, which would require permission from Z the
> municipality that owns the river. How do you *prove* that these actions
> are ethical or unethical?
> 
> Plato thought that censorship of the arts and literature was ethical to
> achieve his goal of a harmonius, beautiful city. He believed deceiving
> the public was ethical to enforce an efficient caste system. He thought
> forced marriages and infanticide was ethical to achieve superior human
> breeds. Without resorting to tradition, how do you prove that what he
> believed was unethical?
> 
> For these questions, there has been almost zero consensus amongst
> philosophers for over two thousand years. This is why ethics (and
> philosophy in general) appears to many to be a fruitless field. It is
> not because I do not desire to learn the truth. The problem is no hard
> proofs can ever be offered, so no consensus can ever be reached. The
> result is no truth is to be found.
> 
> It is not like this in other fields like mathematics where proofs can be
> demonstrated, consistency and logic is systematic and methodical be
> demonstrated, and sometimes empirical experiments can even be used to
> confirm the truth of claims.
> 
> chokhmah
> 
>