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Psychohistorian comments on Quantifying ethicality of human actions - Less Wrong
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Pythagoras and his followers were the first philosophers to clearly state that mathematics (though they were probably referring to what anthropologists call "sacred geometry") is a secure basis for philosophical and moral reasoning. Sacred geometry was Pythagoras's ontology, and his influence on Plato is especially clear in the latter's Meno dialogue, where Meno's slave "recollects" his innate knowledge of the perfect (geometric) Forms. Bertrand Russell confirms that Pythagoras was a key influence on Plato and on Western philosophy overall.
It probably refers to "rationalism" as most pilosophers would define the term (i.e. based on logic and the axiomatic method), contrasted to empiricism and other traditions. This would substantiate the references to Aquinas and to the Mutazilite tradition in Islam.
Ever heard of fuzzy logic? Very little of the reasoning ordinarily used by humans is actually of the "either true or false", "necessary and sufficient conditions" type. If moral reasoning is to be "intuitive", it must refer to the way human beings actually reason, not to formal logic. As neoclassical economics does with its "axioms of rationality" and "proofs of market efficiency"
The references I can find state that the Eightfold Path is an ordered set of priorities, from "wisdom" to "concentration". Some of these priorities even have inner structure with ordered subpriorities.
It most certainly does when you compare it to the way normative ethics as usually practiced distinguishes good from bad actions--normative morals, i.e. "rules".
As Jack also mentions, the very definition of the categorical imperative is that consequences are completely irrelevant. Were consequences relevant, it would be a hypothetical imperative.
"Do not kill," is a CI. "Do not kill if you want to avoid being an evil person" is an HI.
Saying that the CI has something to do with the impacts of one's actions is as accurate as saying that a square has five sides.
That's not entirely fair. Kant said that morality was not determined by consequences; but that statement may be incoherent. Attempts to use the categorical imperative result in looking at consequences in one way or another - even if the user is unaware they are doing so, because they are referencing values evolved into them by their consequences to the user's ancestors (and selected-against non-ancestors).
Again agreeing with Jack; it's true that much of Kant's argument about the CI is based on consequences. Conceptually, however, the CI and its association with objective morality do require it to be purely non-consequence-based. If it were consequence based, then if the consequences were different, it wouldn't necessarily hold, so it would not be "categorical."
I agree that, fundamentally, any intelligible concept of ethics will rest on consequences. But the idea behind the CI is that it is a priori, which is why it's such a terrible and convoluted idea.
Thats a really interesting notion. However, it is more of an objection to Kant's position than it is an objection to Psychohistorian and my interpretation of Kant. It might be the case that you can never get away from the impacts but Kant didn't think that and what Kant thought was what was at issue.