Universally Preferable Behaviour

I have recently become interested in an approach to ethics proposed by Canadian philosopher Stefan Molyneux. His book on the matter is Universally Preferable Behaviour - A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.

I’m not certain that I understand the book in the way an academic philosopher would, and I may be misrepresenting the intentions of the author. In any case, here’s what I am proposing as the basis for an ethical system. I’m fairly sure this is the essence of his argument as well.

Removing the ability for an individual or group of people to proclaim a statement to be valid requires proposing a new standard by which statements are judged. Judging the validity of statements about reality (the earth is flat, the heart is the center of thought, mercury cures disease) used to be the province of religion. This was the case until it was proposed that claims about reality be measured against reality to establish their validity.

This seemingly obvious idea had been floating about for a couple thousand years. When the church’s grip faltered and the scientific method was finally applied on a broad scale, it had a tremendous effect, unleashing a wave of human creativity never before seen in history.

In order to remove the authority of individuals and groups to proclaim actions to be ethical or unethical, we must find a new standard by which those actions can be judged. Until a better mechanism is proposed (and I would be very interested in any such proposal), I think the clearly superior candidate is something parallel to the scientific method.

What would that look like in practice?

The basis of the scientific method is so well known to us that I won’t belabor the details. In short: statements about reality must be internally consistent and empirically verifiable. Anything failing either criterion does not accurately describe reality.

Thus, we can throw out any system handed down from divinely inspired desert nomads, or anything else whispered in the ears of prophets by undetectable sources. This is not to say that the contents of their ethical systems won’t be arrived at by our own (“don’t murder” seems like it could come in handy).

Another key aspect of the scientific method that I want to draw attention to is that experiments to determine the validity of a claim should be repeatable. In the case that a second experiment achieves dissimilar results, the experimenter must find the relevant context that caused the difference, or discard the tested claim as invalid.

Our parallel is the oft repeated by rarely understood maxim: “All people are equal.” This claim, much like the claim that no omnipotent god exists, might, in some parallel dimension, be disproven. Until we have access to that information, the biological evidence, which has found no genetic markers for greater ethical capacity, stands.

For our ethical system, this indicates that all proposed ethical rules must be universally applicable. If it is wrong for A to kill B, then it doesn’t matter if A is a man and B is a woman; A is white and B is black; A is a Muslim and B is a Jew; A is an Italian and B is Chinese; A is a cop and B is a “civilian.”

If it is right for B to kill A (say that A is going to kill B), then it is right for all the examples above.

There is nothing ethically relevant, from our scientific method inspired ethical framework, about the gender, race, religion, nationality or outfit of the two participants.

To fast forward a bit, this framework for evaluating ethical systems admits only one rule: the non-aggression principle (no violence except in self-defense). This in itself shouldn't be too surprising--the foundation of most every moral system is something like "The Golden Rule." Of course, they often add "burn the unbelievers," but you have to give credit where credit is due.

I have only seen one cogent review of this idea that was critical of its approach. Danny Shahar blogged about the book. He had some problems with it. Since I think this approach (if not UPB, then something similarly grounded in rationality and empiricism) is critical to the organization of a healthy world, I wanted to start a conversation with him. I hope to understand his concerns and determine whether S. Molyneux's approach is valid or if, perhaps, a more effective formulation might be arrived at.