X-Message-Number: 8950
From: Ettinger <>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 09:26:57 EST
Subject: "ought" from "is"

Ben Best is free to use my recent posting, and this one, for Canadian Cryonics
News. For that matter, anything I post on Cryonet is public, and I see no
reason to attempt to limit distribution.

In extreme brevity, I disagree with Ben's assertion that one cannot, in
general, derive "ought" from "is."  I claim that values are right or wrong,
based on biology and logic.

There is just one basic value (or perhaps set of values; we don't yet know the
anatomy/physiology of feeling). That basic value is what I call, roughly,
feel-good. The fundamental goal of the individual is to maximize good feelings
(and minimize bad feelings) over future time. 

Nothing new here; countless philosophers have said essentially the same thing
for thousands of years--but in the past they all got bogged down attempting to
apply the precept. Recent developments allow us to do better.

The subtleties, complexities, and feedbacks are so formidable that only a very
extended discussion can hope to be persuasive. (I am working on such a
discussion.) One of the main ideas is that the use of logic, including
probability theory and decision theory, applied to our underlying biological
needs or wants or values, can allow us to find derivative values that make
sense. One cannot change onself too drastically too rapidly, but one can
eventually rationalize oneself in the pursuit of happiness.

Robert Ettinger 

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