Principia ethica

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1. hilbert42Feb 2021
   Here's my promised list (note it's only a rough guide). As mentioned, I couldn't post earlier versions as they were too big. Even this new rehash (which was already rehashed from much older posts) is too big, so I'll post the first two thirds now and the remainder later. What's missing (compared to my initial attempt) are large sections of my commentary. For additional details use Wiki (these books are well known, hence they all should have entries). Most are out of copyright so you can download them from the I.A. (Internet Archive).

   1. The Republic (Book 1 only)—Plato Begin study here; it's an excellent intro to formal argument (v. important), as it's the basis of arguing things out in logical ways. It's a dialogue between the philosopher Socrates and a sophist Thrasymachus about the meaning of justice. It's also fun to read, watching Socrates demolish Thrasymachus' selfish stance of 'every-man-for-himself' in logical sequence is like watching a chess game between a master and a cocky arrogant rookie. The book's passed the test of time, it's still in print nearly two half millennia after it was written. Use Jowett's translation, 1892 ed will do. Jowet's info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Jowett

   2. Last Days of Socrates—Plato (Read only if you've time.) It's important in the grand scheme of Greek philosophy and the fact that Plato was affected by the execution of Socrates (his teacher).

   3. Nicomachean Ethics—Aristotle (Likely too long now but essential later). Any Aristotle text is worthy of study, he's a giant in the field, his influence is still stamped all over Western culture today. Phil. is incomplete without studying him. The book's deals with ethics and how people should live their lives.

   4. Meditations on First Philosophy, & etc.—René Descartes Very influential book. Initially, just read Discourse on the Method, it's about finding the truth, especially the sciences. Here, you'll find the famous phrase "I think therefore I exist/am". It also turns up in the 'related' Principles of Philosophy as Cogito, ergo sum. If you advance further, you'll be taught about breakdowns in reasoning/faulty logic and Descartes isn't immune to them either. One of his logical steps is a misstep and is famous for it—no, I won't tell you what its is.

   5. Sir Francis Bacon—Rather than give specific references just get his collected essays (they're all short), select any relevant tiles to read.

   6. The Leviathan—Thomas Hobbes. Herein Hobbes addresses statecraft, society, civil power government (actually very important). Written in the aftermath of the English Civil War when such matters were still raw and fluid. BTW, our modern understanding of the word commonwealth comes from Hobbes, the book's full title is: Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil.

   7 & 8. Two Treatises of Government | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding—John Locke Locke is an English empiricist Enlightenment philosopher, his ideas had a strong influence on governance structures in the U.S. Locke was an early epistemologist, so his words are well chosen and noted for the fact. He had a very influential effect on later philosophers. The Two Treatises of Government deals with civil society, one's rights, property and contracts. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding deals with empiricism, fundamental ideas, innate concepts and notions such as 'color', 'good' etc. Locke had a great influence on philosophers such as Hume, Kant, Berkeley, Moore and many others.

   9. The Prince—Niccolò Machiavelli He gets a bad press although he doesn't deserve it. It's questionable that he was truly 'Machiavellian' himself. Simply, The Prince is sound practical (worldly) advice to a prince about how to conduct oneself and how not be screwed by one's enemies (be wary/aware of likely enemies, avoid situations that could lead to one's dethronement). It's a very short book, just a few hours to read.

   10 & 11. On Liberty | Utilitarianism—John Stuart Mill. Both books were highly influential and still are. On liberty deals with a theory of liberty—re liberty itself, also concerning political rulers, tyrants and tyranny. Utilitarianism is about utility, the notion of the greatest good for the greatest number, it still underpins the philosophy behind the running of most modern cities/states today.

   12, 13 & 14. A Treatise of Human Nature | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals—David Hume It is impossible [I almost said 'almost'] to cover these works in a couple of sentences, so I won't. At least you should know about them and what they are about. Hume is a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and much more. His works are uncannily modern and prescient nearly 300 years after they were written. He's hugely relevant to philosophy, science and culture in general; a true giant in the field. Like Locke, he was not a believer in innate ideas but rather that they come from experience (like George Berkeley's Tree in the quad arguments). He's the principle founder of philosophical induction and much more.

   15. The Social Contract—Jean-Jacques Rousseau This is a great work (and fun to read). The most famous opening sentence of any philosophical work likely ever written, ancient or modern, is at the very beginning of Chapter 1: L'Homme eft né libre, and par-tout il eft dans les fers.—Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Words of great influence and they were in fact so. Those words were much the truth in 1762 and they're still pretty much true nowadays (unfortunately)!

   Frontispiece: https://archive.org/details/jducontractsocia00rous/page/n7/m...

   Chapter 1: https://archive.org/details/jducontractsocia00rous/page/2/mo...

   It's Rousseau's most famous work. He discusses political society and conjectures all people will be free if everyone equally gives up certain rights then all accept the responsibility and obligation thrust upon them in equal measure for their own collective governance. Here, he posits the notion of the The General Will of the Citizenry, it's this that should drive legislative government. The General Will should always hold government to account, especially when it exceeds authority or legitimacy. The Social Contract was revolutionary at the time (1762), only 27 years later the French Revolution took place and Rousseau's ideas, at least in part, were influential in causing the foment that led up to it. It changed governance for the better and today we're its beneficiaries (at least so in democracies).

   16. Critique of Pure Reason—Emmanuel Kant I'm hesitant to mention Kant because he can be so obscure. The trouble is that he's so influential. Kant deals with knowledge, reason, human reasoning, and empirical reason. One cannot ignore Kant or does so at his/her peril, (perhaps this book is better left until you've a fuller grasp of the subject).

   17. Principia Ethica—G. E. Moore (George Edward) Prof of Phil., Cambridge, UK at turn of the 20th Century. Since it was published in 1903 Principia Ethica has had a huge influence on philosophers and still does (incl. yours truly, it was one of my early texts). ;-) It deals with the notion that certain ideas and concepts cannot reduced into simpler terms because they're already irreducible. 'Good' or 'bad' can't be reduced further as we've no way of measuring them. We know/learn what 'good' means intrinsically, so too 'very good' but we cannot measure the amount of 'good', nor can we measure how much 'very' adds to it. Here's another case: normal sighted people and those who've gone blind later in life know the colour 'yellow' as they've physically seen and perceived it, but no amount of trying will convey that perceived notion to a person blind from birth (they'll learn a conceptual understanding but can't actually perceive color as the sighted do). There's much more to Moore too: moral philosophy, etc. He was a trendsetter for much of 20th C. philosophy.

   18. The Problems of Philosophy—Bertrand Russell Russell was one of the last great polymaths and a social reformer, philosopher, logician and much more (I remember him on TV when a kid). The Book discusses past philosophical problems and equates/restates them in his terms. He questions, discusses, countenances and argues over subjects such as 'what we can actually prove', 'what are causal relationships', 'what is knowledge and validation', 'what is their relationship or relative importance when considered along side metaphysics'. He further develops ideas that began (first logically codified) with Locke (or even Bacon) and continued through to Hume, Berkeley etc. He discusses the important notion of the 'sense datum' (along with G.E. Moore, A.J. Ayer, etc.).

   Note: 'The Problems of Philosophy' is only a little book but you are rather unlikely to digest it in just one sitting!

   I'd strongly recommend both Principia Ethica and The Problems of Philosophy to those studying Quantum Physics, as they deal with what is real and what we know about real things—and things that are seemingly ephemeral but are in fact real (e.g.: zero point energy, virtual particles, potentials). Grasping Russell's solid logic also gives us the mindset to tackle the 'awkward' practice—the philosophically worrying 'logic'—of renormalization and perturbation theory (Yang-Mills etc.) in Quantum Field Theory/QFT and its sibling Quantum Electrodynamics/QED.

   (Items 19 through 22 to follow.)

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2. hilbert42Dec 2020
   1. Most of what you want to know has been covered here and it's pretty good advice.

   2. That said, it's not been codified or put into order, so I'll do a tiny list of key/starting points.

   3. Remember, every professional philosopher or anyone who as studied the subject at one stage beyond a Reader's Digest summary has his/her pet subject! They will push you in that direction. This is not good for a beginner (but maybe so later).

   4. Philosophy has and goes through fashions, avoid obvious ones until you're experienced (stick with traditional stuff to begin with).

   5. Try not to study philosophy by yourself. As some others have said, you can skew off course, this may make you set in your ways (which many be difficult if you ever need to go 'mainstream' later).

   6. Philosophy has a long and wonderful lineage. Don't short-circuit the old stuff in the hope of bypassing it for newer ideas. The reasons are: (a) that the best books on certain subjects are the oldest ones, (b) many later books will assume you've read and are familiar with the propositions and arguments in these older books (they're longstanding classics full of good stuff that's stood the test of time). In essence, many of these ancient books are prerequisites.

   7. Philosophy has many threads, however there are some basic ones that are fundamental. You need to understand these. For example:

   (Parts of the list below I've lifted straight from Wiki to save time. However, you don't need all of this stuff listed on this site to begin with (however, I've listed the most essential topics below) https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Philosophy/The...:

   7a. Epistemology - The theory of knowledge. You have to lean the 'alphabet' of philosophy before you can do much.

   7b. Metaphysics - Wiki defines it as meaning 'after physics'. I prefer the one I was taught which is 'above and beyond physics'. It deals with subjects that cannot be solved rationally by science such as first principles, of being (ontology), what reality is, and such. Even questions such as 'does God exist?'

   7c. Logic (formal logic) is essential. This can be a dry and sometimes boring subject but it's absolutely essential if you want to argue, or know the subject of a discussion from its predicate, and best (and most enjoyable) place start is Book 1 of Plato's Republic. No only will you get the structure of formal argument, but this wonderful dialogue between the sophist Thrasymachus and the philosopher Socrates presents one of the most important issues/questions in the world which is What is Justice? Watching Socrates demolish Thrasymachus's 'Every man for himself' argument by formally demolishing every line of it is great stuff (whenever I read it, it sends shivers of excitement down my spine). Remember, this book is about 2.300 years old so it must have something going for it if it's still in philosophy courses! [BTW, probably the best and most well known translation is Benjamin Jowett's version first published in 1881 (there are many copies of it on the net).]

   That's only the beginning. In logic, you'll soon progress to formal nomenclature and truth tables and words such as 'vel' and 'existential quantifier' will become familiar to you. Logic is essential as it provide the means to stop you getting sidetracked by junk arguments and sophistry.

   7d. Ethics is the study of morality, ethical behaviour, morals, etc., (it's sometimes called moral philosophy). It's the study of right and wrong in human endeavours. In today's world where traditional ethics has gone off the rails, the study of ethics is absolutely essential. The key person to study here is the English philosopher G. E. Moore, and the definitive text is Moore's Principia ethica.

   7e. Philosophy of Language. an ancient branch of philosophy which gained prominence in the last century under Wittgenstein. Basically it's concerned with how our languages affect our thought. Classic works include Plato's Cratylus, Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Another book in this class is A.J. Ayer's Language, Truth, and Logic.

   7f. Philosophy of Politics/Government : Closely related to ethics, this is a study of government and nations, particularly how they came about, what makes good governments, what obligations citizens have towards their government, and so on. Classic works include Plato's Republic, Hobbes' Leviathan, Locke's Two Treatises, J.S. Mill's On Liberty and Utilitarianism and Rousseau's Social Contract. Sometimes students skip this one but it's essential to know how our governance came about and the meaning of the Social Contract that exists between the Citizenry and Government.

   There's much more, but the ones I've listed above are the basic/fundamental essentials.

   As mentioned, don't train yourself. Instead, seek out an old fashioned philosophy school that hasn't been corrupted with too many new ideas. As I said, you need to read works such as those directly above—and I mention them again such as Plato's Republic, Hobbes' Leviathan, Locke's Two Treatises, and J.S. Mill's On Liberty and Utilitarianism and Rousseau's Social Contract (these have been in the philosophy corpus for aeons, as they're very substantial works whose propositions are well known and well argued).

   (Others, in the rush, have I missed anything major here?)

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3. dvtApr 2020
   G.E. Moore didn't disappear from history. His Ethics (1907) and Principia Ethica (1903) both remain widely cited. His naturalistic fallacy remains a major tour de force in ethics[1], and his moral "super-objectivism" was studied and critiqued throughout the 1900s by every heavy hitter out there: from Geach, to Anscombe, to Foot, to Lawrence.

   > ... but through the second half of the 20th century interest went into serious decline

   I wish Monk were more clear here. Basically all of non-natural moral theory (virtue ethics, objectivism, Kantian ethics, divine law in theological circles) went into a nosedive. Seriously, read Ansombe's MMP[2] and you'll see how disillusioned she was with the state of moral philosophy -- which was, at the time, mostly interested in linguistic and logical puzzles: is "good" descriptive, predicative, commendatory, attributive, or what-have-you.

   [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/

   [2] https://www.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/mmp.pdf

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4. christudorJun 2025
   G. E. Moore (in his Principia Ethica, 1903) makes a very similar case to this relation to consequentialist ethics:

   "The first difficulty in the way of establishing a probability that one course of action will give a better total result than another, lies in the fact that we have to take account of the effects of both throughout an infinite future. We have no certainty but that, if we do one action now, the Universe will, throughout all time, differ in some way from what it would have been, if we had done another; and, if there is such a permanent difference, it is certainly relevant to our calculation.

   But it is quite certain that our causal knowledge is utterly insufficient to tell us what different effects will probably result from two different actions, except within a comparatively short space of time; we can certainly only pretend to calculate the effects of actions within what may be called an ‘immediate’ future. No one, when he proceeds upon what he considers a rational consideration of effects, would guide his choice by any forecast that went beyond a few centuries at most; and, in general, we consider that we have acted rationally, if we think we have secured a balance of good within a few years or months or days."

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5. hilbert42Mar 2025
   [This requires two goes so I hope it works.]

   As time is running out to post here there are few points I wish to mention.

   Your last reply left some issues dangling and it's clear my comments have left you with an inaccurate view about my position about several matters. Note the problem mainly rests with me for shortcutting explanations, also forums such as HN make it difficult to put complex arguments let alone have them resolve cleanly.

   Second thoughts made me post this late comment. Earlier, just after your post, I made three separate attempts at replying but aborted them because of their excessive length. Each time I had to shorten what could easily pass as a multipart blog and before it was finished it'd become clear it was too long and would have bombed out if I'd tried to post it—and that's after I'd deleted the largest part which was about mathematics† and its relationship to/overlap with philosophy. (Editing comment so that it's difficult to misinterpret its contents and still keep it short and succinct is difficult—at least it is for me.)

   You're probably asking why I would commit so much effort to reply to a comment. There are many reasons and I can't mention them all but I've extracted and précised a few from the longer draft. Perhaps the most significant reason is that whenever I've made a general comment that lacks detail or references there are always those who either misinterpret the message or use its limitations to lever their contrary position.

   There's nothing wrong with protagonists leveraging their propositions but in any discussion it makes sense to put one's points as clear and as succinctly as possible. With mathematics and science/technology putting one's case is comparatively straightforward as equations and accepted facts (scientific evidence/the scientific method) provide a solid framework from which to state one's case. In physics, whilst opinions often differ wildly and despite controversies such as the relevance of the Scientific Method and Popper's Falsifiability/Refutability rage on, consensus is often reached even if it takes decades. There comes the realization the properties of nature are immutable, Nature doesn't give a damn about physicists' opinions. Physicists can't argue when Nature says m(e) = ~9.10938371393×10^−31 kg. In the end it's no-contest, Nature's position always wins out.

   On the orher hand, things are rather different with philosophy for multiple reasons. With philosophy a wide and diverse range of opinions are to be expected due to its inherent nature and structure. In short, philosophical concepts are usually founded on earlier frameworks which of themselves have no universally-accepted 'truths'. Moreover, with philosophy, linguistics, semantics and even its epistemological underpinnings—the theory of knowledge—continue to be subject of argument. In Principia Ethica G.E. Moore questions the foundations of ethics. One can't put a measure on "good", similarly, one can't explain or convey a sense of "yellow" to someone who's been blind from birth. In his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge A. J. Ayer continues in a similar vein to the effect that sentences about ethics and ethical constructs are more emotional than propositional.

   And these issues are still being debated. Simply, if one can't anchor and measure a "notion" or "concept" then one's pretty well stuffed to define it as an axiom. That's not to say we should give up worrying about ethics, as you'd know we don't. You'd also note that arguments about these matters get very messy.

   It's clear my roots are anchored in the analytical tradition. And from what you've mentioned, the factors that have shaped your philosophical views are based more on metaphysical lines, thus I doubt you and I would ever fully agree on certain topics. There's nothing wrong with that and it's to be expected. That's how philosophy works in practice and it's always worked that way (except perhaps in some parts of analytical philosophy such as formal logic which is more akin to mathematics).

   That there's a wide divergence of opinion over philosophical matters is an important aspect of philosophy as it shapes the way the discipline is conducted in practice, it's also a weakness. I've had to omit detailed discussion about that here but it has an important bearing on these comments. Human factors shape one's worldview and here our worldviews are different—they've not only shaped what we've commented upon but also they've influenced the emphasis we've placed on what we've said.

   Some HN stories are such that comments have a clearly defined focus and that attracts those of a certain ilk, they pinpoint and confine comments to within narrow bands. In those situations I'll do likewise. However, that's not the situation with most stories on HN it's why I assume a general audience, I thus take the position that participants hold a broad spectrum of views—from those with little or no understanding of the issues through to experts and professionals.

   The quandry is how best to respond, there's always the dilemma of how to best pitch my post, and my usual solution is to write to the LCD on grounds that everybody will understand what I've written.

   I'm mindful to keep comments short and at a high-level (thus they lack rigor). That's the intention but all too frequently I'll get bogged down in detail. Also, short and simple replies sans detail come with the advantage that they'll capture more readers (very few ever read long posts, I know from experience).

   Unfortunately, the shortcomings of a simplistic, overly-general comment invites criticism from the cognoscente. Here, I'm reminded of the parable Try to please all and you'll please none. Moreover, commenting on political and philosophical topics is to enter a minefield, one cops it from all directions—broad sweeping generalizations are criticized for having no depth, more involved comments (especially those without strong supporting evidence) attract those with contrary views who attack the lack of rigor, and long detailed analyzes are rarely read.

   Essentially, when discussing these topics one can't win. I'll use your posts to illustrate the problem.

   I'll start with how utilitarianism entered the discussion, The HN story wasn't directly about philosophy but rather "The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised", which raised a valid social concern that a section of society would be disadvantaged if apps predominated and "…all the brick and mortar close."

   The retort to that was "Look at it this way: should the rest of us with smartphones pay for that bank office?", which is both a valid argument and an-all-too-common response from those who don't think they've a social obligation and responsibly to help pay for or support society's disadvantaged (this is far from an isolated example).

   My response implied the matter was of ethical concern and that social responsibility was an issue, thus one would need to examine the history and I said many (but not all) issues could be found in utilitarian concepts (which is fact). My comment was of a general nature and in keeping with the granularity of the story and that's when things came off the rails. Your attack on my general comment about utilitarianism sidetracked the key issue. I'm not deliberately singling you out for criticism but I'd contend that what happened here is typical and a commonplace problem on the web and social media.

   Whether I was precicely correct or not in my comment about utilitarianism oughtn't have been an issue because its intention was clear—that about social responsibly and that its history that goes back several hundred years is important for context.

   BTW, as I alluded to in my subsequent post, I was well aware utilitarian principles are hotly contested. What i didn't point out was that the curriculum that I'd studied under spent an inordinate amount time on utilitarianism (too much in my opinion), thus I'm reasonably acquainted with its issues and variations/derivatives. One matter I should have mentioned is that when putting a measure on utilitarianism and valuing its worth in the context of political philosophy one finds large differences of opinion exist between populations (especially so in past decades). Where I live, there was a time when almost every utility was run by government and the majority of the population would have been aghast if it had not been the situation (perhaps that's why our curriculum covered it in such detail). For obvious reasons, utilitarian concepts hold much less sway in the US. ...

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6. hilbert42Feb 2025
   "My philosophy school was a library card."

   There's nothing wrong with that, sometimes it's one's best tutor.

   I'm not a mathematician but I've studied mathematics in conjunction with my bread-and-butter subjects science and engineering. It's thus fair to say the analytical philosophers and their ilk have had a strong influence on my thinking—Frege, Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein, and G.E. Moore—I can even see my copy of Principia Ethica on the bookshelf on the other side of the room from where I'm sitting.

   (BTW, In my world I cannot see any relevant connection between number theory (as mathematicians understand it) and ethics.)

   The analytical strand of philosophy is particularly significant for me as formal logic has a direct bearing on some of my technical work (they're closely related). It also led to me electing to take HPS.

   Philosophy is a remarkably broad church and its analytical strand is only one section, and in no way do I consider myself pigeonholed to just one or two of its strands; Being and Nothingness, The Social Contract, Leviathan, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, (the) Republic are just a few titles from the large compulsory corpus from which I was trained.

   I will not delve further into utilitarianism given what I've already said except to say I have neither the talent of Shakespeare nor am I an APL programmer, so it would be impossible for me to present my rather convoluted views on the matter in a short HN post without some part being misinterpreted. To do it linguistic justice and present a watertight case that precisely and accurately explains my view I'd likely require a dozen pages of typed text, and clearly that's not possible on HN.

   That's not a copout, it's just fact. Moreover, philosophy taught me long ago that précising and brevity can easily lead to misunderstandings unless one's words are very carefully chosen. I was reminded of that again earlier today when you came on the attack.

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