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An objective ethical first principle
David Hume was quite wrong when he claimed that all statements regarding ethics/morality merely reflected emotional preferences and denied that there could be any purely rational , intellectual , NON-emotive basis for ethics .
There, indeed, can be and are ethical first principles and precepts NOT based on emotion (though the right uses of emotion can be welcomed as a secondary overlay) ...which are objective and are based on the entailments of sound reason .
Often , however, the demonstration of such objective , rational precepts is rather attenuated , involving lengthy long-winded arguments . There is though at least one ethical first principle that can be demonstrated without as many long-winded sentences and paragraphs .
The two-fold first principle being referred to in this present essay is none other than the precept that teaches (number 1 ) that one should always at least attempt to find some justification for a belief or disposition and , concurrently, that it is always wrong for a being (barring the being in question is greatly addled by severe stress or neurological problems which would rightly excuse them) --- to reject the duty to at least try to find a consistent /rational justification for persisting in some belief or disposition ,and (number 2.) that it is always wrong to refuse to *specifically evaluate* (when one has the spare time to do so) any new arguments presented against that belief or disposition, in terms of the previous attempt at justification (or any supplermentary justification or supplementary attempts at justification) .
In light of that first principle statements made by people when asked why they are watching some particular t.v. show who say , "there's nothing else on " are always totally wrongheaded .
Similarly if a person affirms that they dislike some other person (or other consicous agent like an animal ) and then when asked why they don't like them respond with , "I just don't like them" --and make no effort to evaluate whether or not such dislike for that person ect. is justified or not ---the person who expresses such arbitrary dislike is guilty of a totally wrong disposition .
Similarly, if a person when asked why they dislike another person or being responds , "there's just something about them I don't like", yet does NOT set about to find any consistent criteria that they can clearly define as to why they dislike them ---is also guilty of a totally wrong disposition if they persist in disliking that person or being without any attempt at rational evaluation and justification .
For a basic law of epistemic logic (epistemic logic which is an enterprise that seeks to find which beliefs and dispositions of thought are justified ) is an *epistemic duty* (a normativity) basic to the very enterprise of epistemic logic as an enterprise, that one should attempt to find out if beliefs and dispositions of thinking are justified or not before one chooses to continue supporting those beliefs and ways of thinking .
David Hume was quite wrong when he claimed that all statements regarding ethics/morality merely reflected emotional preferences and denied that there could be any purely rational , intellectual , NON-emotive basis for ethics .
There, indeed, can be and are ethical first principles and precepts NOT based on emotion (though the right uses of emotion can be welcomed as a secondary overlay) ...which are objective and are based on the entailments of sound reason .
Often , however, the demonstration of such objective , rational precepts is rather attenuated , involving lengthy long-winded arguments . There is though at least one ethical first principle that can be demonstrated without as many long-winded sentences and paragraphs .
The two-fold first principle being referred to in this present essay is none other than the precept that teaches (number 1 ) that one should always at least attempt to find some justification for a belief or disposition and , concurrently, that it is always wrong for a being (barring the being in question is greatly addled by severe stress or neurological problems which would rightly excuse them) --- to reject the duty to at least try to find a consistent /rational justification for persisting in some belief or disposition ,and (number 2.) that it is always wrong to refuse to *specifically evaluate* (when one has the spare time to do so) any new arguments presented against that belief or disposition, in terms of the previous attempt at justification (or any supplermentary justification or supplementary attempts at justification) .
In light of that first principle statements made by people when asked why they are watching some particular t.v. show who say , "there's nothing else on " are always totally wrongheaded .
Similarly if a person affirms that they dislike some other person (or other consicous agent like an animal ) and then when asked why they don't like them respond with , "I just don't like them" --and make no effort to evaluate whether or not such dislike for that person ect. is justified or not ---the person who expresses such arbitrary dislike is guilty of a totally wrong disposition .
Similarly, if a person when asked why they dislike another person or being responds , "there's just something about them I don't like", yet does NOT set about to find any consistent criteria that they can clearly define as to why they dislike them ---is also guilty of a totally wrong disposition if they persist in disliking that person or being without any attempt at rational evaluation and justification .
For a basic law of epistemic logic (epistemic logic which is an enterprise that seeks to find which beliefs and dispositions of thought are justified ) is an *epistemic duty* (a normativity) basic to the very enterprise of epistemic logic as an enterprise, that one should attempt to find out if beliefs and dispositions of thinking are justified or not before one chooses to continue supporting those beliefs and ways of thinking .
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