My "Triumvirate Moral System" is Logically Sound

In passing, looking at debates, I completely missed this one. On the surface, just reading the description, it looks like a fascinating debate. I'll read through the arguments and plan on voting. It's a well structured proposal. Congrats!

No, my point was that these supposed categorical imperatives are useless. "Stealing is wrong" that can not be a categorical imperative. Let's say you and your family are starving, then should you steal? Or should you let your children starve? They are based on a binary view of moral works, no good will is good without a means. That does not work fundamentally. Nothing exists in a vacume, if anything, your "categorical" imperatives are more hypothetical than the "hypothetical" imperatives. I don't know which example of a scientists your talking about, nothing is universal! You can have widely applicable rules, but trying to determine something as universal will fail, because almost nothing can be universal. There are actions that are universally bad, but a lot of these actions even have nuance themself.

Its a moral action because it determines the suffering or pleasure of individuals, let the earth suffer through overpopulation, or stop it and let the entire world die out. Literally all moral principles are based on ends. Now, standards may or may not have wide applicability, and then you can extrapolate from there.

You know lets look at this in depth for a bit: "act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law" Therefore if there is a single instance of inconsistency, that action is immoral. Having children is then immoral, having sex is immoral, deciding to drive on the highway is immoral, etc, etc... If a maxim has to be universal in order to be "good" then so many things aren't I suppose you shouldn't even be on the computer right now.

Again, you're attempting to qualify good will that's good in itself with ends. But good will as a means and good will that's good in itself are different. Any moral principle cannot be qualified by the satisfaction of perceived ends, because then it would be a hypothetical imperative of morality rather than a categorical one. A categorical imperative is a principle of morality that tells you what's right without qualification. Please give an example of a good intention that brings about bad things and how that intention is no longer good. I wager you're going to give another example of an ends based motivation.

How is having sex for reproduction a moral action? Also, you didn't answer my question about the scientist. Would you say that the scientist acted morally?

And I'm not saying hypothetical imperatives dont exist, but that their "goodness" is always qualified by the context of the particular case, and can never lead to universal principles for this reason. The particular case is the lowest level of ethical discussion, and ends-based ethics can never have a discussion at the level of principle. Hypothetical imperatives of moral action are always predicated on the satisfaction of an end or inclination. Suppose a shopkeeper has the idea to shortchange his customers. But then he says to himself "if I do that, then I'll lose business." And decides not to. While he made a good decision, as I'm sure we agree, his motivation was selfish. This selfish motivation devoids the action of moral value. It's an amoral decision at best.

That moral value, devoid of means or ends, is practically worthless. Yes, it's good to have them, but only basing what is good and what is not good off of that small amount of moral value is not only dangerous but logically inconsistent. In order to say that this intent is actually "good" you have to think about the multiple aspects that make something good or not good, the intent itself, the means of accomplishing that intent, and the results, otherwise you are leaving such a wide void open.

Okay, "People should have sex for reproduction" you apply that as a universal law and bada boom, that will lead to overpopulation at this rate, so people should just stop having sex? Well no, you might say, "People should have sex to a degree?" Well what degree, is that arbitrary, and my entire point is how messy it is, because it's only looking at one dimension of moral theory, and doing that limits your actual moral understanding of something.

News flash, hypothetical imperatives as you like to call them, is what 95% of moral debate, philosophy, and even real-world practicality, we only use the other sort to test things that have happened, and those sorts of things we can look at the results, means, and intent, so that isn't needed.

People can do bad things with good intentions, but their intentions still have moral value. Their good will doesn't need to satisfy some end to be qualified as good, unless their good will is good as a means. The only other good will is a will that's good in itself, or without qualifications.

In my example of the scientist, would you say that the scientist was acting morally?

What are you talking about when you say "if this super specific thing works universally, then it's moral"? The whole idea is to take a maxim like, "lie to get what you want" and imagine that it was a universal moral law. If it undermines itself, then it cannot possibly be a universal moral principle. It doesn't discriminate against minorites to say "stealing is wrong," unless those minorities are stealing. But the concept of "wrongness" is an a priori principle that is applied to the empirical input of the act of stealing when making the ethical judgement.

You are completely missing the point, people can do bad things with good intentions, especially practically speaking. Moral rules have dimensions and scales, they are ever so rarely binary.

"Goodwill should be good because it doesn't need a qualification to be good"
No that's asserting that because that if this super-specific thing works universally than it's moral. I think someone brought up an excellent point, by that logic a lot of minorities would be acting immorally, a lot of things would be considered moral that isn't, etc, etc, morals aren't universal.

I did, the good will should be considered good in itself because it doesn't need qualifications to be good.

The moral value of an action comes from the maxim. Imagine if there was a scientist that created a weather machine to control the weather and intended to hold the world hostage, but when he turns it on, the machine malfunctions and creates perfect weather everywhere. It is one of the best things to happen to humanity. Would you consider the scientist to be acting morally? The moral value of his action, while producing good results, is found in his motivation.

If something brings about bad results, it is not good, maybe it was intended to be good, but that doesn't mean it is good. Good must be demonstrated like anything else, you have to actually prove that x should be ascribed as good, that's how logic works

Why must all goods be qualified? What qualifies a good will as being good, if it's not seeking the satisfaction of some preference? I say its good without the need of qualification because it is good no matter what ends it brings about.

No no no, all good's must be "qualified" i.e, shown to actually be good, something is not intrinsically good, ascribing the adjective "good" to the front it is like me saying, "Blue water is blue." I didn't notice.

So no, I'm not assuming the conclusion, it's just a reasonable inference.

There is a distinction between a will that's good in itself and a will that's good as a means. It's good in itself because it's goodness isn't qualified by the satisfaction of inclinations.

"X will is x because will is x in itself" ..... Does that sound like begging the question to anyone else?

The good will is good without qualification, because it is good in itself. All other good things are qualifiedly good and therefore not categorical.

No, you use logic and an axiom that people agree to, you can apply logical conclusions, for example: if we assume a standard of x, then using x we can apply y and z. These situations aren't black and white they aren't binary, they are more often than not a scale. As all moral systems are. There is nothing that is "good" without qualification, that doesn't exist. You have to find a shared good.

And if you have to qualify the good, then how can you even determine what is good outside of your perception of how it will satisfy some end? You need some thing that is good without qualification, which is the good will.

Universal principles of morality are how you attribute goodness or wrongness to empirical inputs in the first place. So if you have to qualify what is good by the context of the particular situation, then you are stuck with hypothetical imperatives of morality, rather than categorical ones. And in this way, what's good will shift and change and can never ascertain moral principle

That's not how that works, I could care less if its "in line with universal principles" I care about getting to the most good result with the most good means.

Moral principles are necessarily universal. They have to be unqualifiedly good, or else they aren't principles of morality. You can't possibly know if your reason for moral action is in line with universal principles of morality unless you universalize the maxim.

Universalizing moral principals is a bad idea in most cases. And you don't need to universalize a maxim to see if it's applicable.

Universalizing motives of moral action is logically necessary to determine what a universal moral principle would look like

Indeed. which is why I don't like Kantian Theory, universalizing something is rarely a good approach to anything, much less moral systems.

I know You asked TheWeakerEdge, but Kantian Theory universalizes maxims of moral action, rather than the action itself to determine if the maxim contradicts itself when universalized. That's why it's opposed to utilitarianism. I'm going to make the distinction as clear as I can when I respond to undefeatable

thoughts?