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Yoggism, also called Yogg Interest Theory, is a philosophical framework based on the idea that the Fulfillment of Interests is the ultimate value. Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Concepts Conclusions Theories Philosophy Menu More Anti-Abuse Principle Justification Ethics Inherent Interest Theory Normative Will More Concepts Conclusions Theories Yoggism - Yogg Interest Theory Yogg Interest Theory, aka Yoggism, is an individualist philosophical framework built on the Fulfillment of Interests as the source of Ethics. Acts that stop people from doing what they want, and interfere with one's interests, are illegitimate. Defense of interests is the imperative. This is posited as a more rational and individualist alternative to Kantian Ethics , Utilitarianism , the Non-Aggression Principle , and more broadly, Contractarianism and Voluntaryism . --Content Usage-- The Texts, Theories, Ideas, and Info Post ers present on this page, relating to Yoggism, can be freely redistributed with credit to TonyTCB . Page Version: v5.2.4 Details of the Theory - Info Posters Yogg Interest Theory, is the idea that the Fulfillment of Interests, with priority to Inherent Interests, and the defense against Inherently Frustrating Interests, is the most justifiable and universal normative standard that can be defined. It is the logical consequence of Justification Ethics , the idea that accepting the need to rationally justify normative claims presupposes interests as the source of value, as all other standards create arbitrarity. To reject justification is to forfeit all normative force. Inherent Interests as priority is justified by Inherent Interest Theory . Inherent Interests are defined as interests that act as a conduit of other interests, that are casually connected to the capacity to fulfill other interests; I.E. they are intrinsically foundational to interests. Below is a slideshow containing 'Info Posters' that explain overviews of different parts of the philosophy. Step-by-Step Guide Yoggism has various sections that act as justification and answers to different questions of how the framework works. Basic Definitions:: 1. Interest - A preference / goal, that which a sentient being's behavior tends towards. 2. Inherent Interest - An interest that acts as a conduit for other interests, other fundamental interests depend upon it. 3. Normative Will - The capacity for normative and rational claims to be evaluate-able; aka ethical agency. 4. Abusive Interests - Interests that enforce through misaligned interests, active frustration/violation of inherent interests. Anti-Abuse Principle - The core principle of Yoggism, that unjustifiable frustration against inherent interests is illegitimate. [see overview] www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text1_anti-abuse-principle Justification Ethics - The justification for why Interests as a Value is presupposed by any attempt to rationally justify normative claims. [see overview] www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text2_justification-ethics Inherent Interest Theory - The basis of how interests are weighed against each-other, and how 'Inherent Interests' act as conduits for other interests. [see overview] www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text9_inherent-interest-theory Retaliatory Law - Justification of Self-Defense, of defense of inherent interests over 'abusive' interests. www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text6_retaliatory-law Normative Will - This theory justifies what kind of life the framework applies to. Yoggism grants all sentient beings value through Interests. [see overview] www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text5_normative-will Definition of Inherent Interest (from Inherent Interest Theory ): An interest is more inherent than another if the given interest is entangled with other interests, or acts as a conduit for other interests regardless of external factors; in a way the second interest does not, or to a higher extent. For example, an interest in not having food taken away, can depending on circumstance be a very inherent interest, as it acts as a conduit for an interest in not dying; which itself is a conduit for all other interests. Anti-Abuse Principle (AAP) Actions that constitute interference with another's non-abusive fulfillment of their own inherent and non-contradictory interests, are illegitimate. Actions that inherently result in the frustration of interests, through overall frustration by misalignment of interests between parties, or due to conduct that frustrates against inherent interests, are unjustifiable, constitute ‘abuse’, and are thus illegitimate. Actions that prevent abuse, or inhibit otherwise unjustifiable conduct; including conduct that is a product of interest misalignment between parties, and conduct that is inherently frustrating to interests; are legitimate as they constitute resistance to abuse. --- (Inherent Interests vs. Non-Inherent Interests) Inherent Interests are defined as interests that intrinsically act as a conduit for other interests, interests foundational or causally connected to other interests. --- (Simplified Principle) This principle can be stated in essence in a simple sentence: "Do what you want, unless it stops others from doing what they want, unless it constitutes proportionate defense against the latter." This principle is justified by Justification Ethics . The use of "inherent interest" is derived from Inherent Interest Theory . [see full text] [see justification ethics] [see inherent interest theory] Justification Ethics Justification Ethics is a way of proving Yoggism via the claim that the normative value of Interests is implied by rational justification, because any argument that is a rational justification of normative force requires an appeal to the interests of whomever you are interacting with. The only exception is arguments that prove things purely rationally, as rationalism is presupposed by engagement with any argument. Any other kind of argument must appeal to Interests. The way this logic works, is that all interactions rationally ought to be justifiable deductively, meaning normative claims should be derivable. This is presupposed by rational discourse, but if it is true then interests are the only thing that can derive normative claims. Thus, rational justification requires an appeal to the normative value of Interests, otherwise you forfeit all ability to justify normative force. Justification Ethics (Simplified) All rational justification of normative claims must appeal to Interests as the source of normative value, because: 1. To prove an action or interaction is rationally justifiable through deductive argument, premises based on arbitrary assumptions need not apply. 2. Premises based on simple truths will not derive normative claims. Definitions: Justification: Proving an action justifiable means to form a deductive argument that derives a claim in the form "you ought to accept X". Such a deductive argument only proves justification if the conclusion is derived from premises that apply to the person you're justifying the action to; for if they don't then the conclusion cannot follow. Normative Claim: As used here, a claim that is not a simple normative truth like "you ought to accept 1+1=2" but rather something like "you ought not murder". Persuasive Argument: A deductive argument (or argument equivalent to a deduction) that derives a claim in the form "you ought to accept X". [see full text] [see deduction] [see yoggism as a procedural norm] Deriving Interest Fulfillment Persuasive Arguments and thus Rational Justification must appeal to Interests Premises of a persuasive argument must be justifiable to the person the ought claim is made to, otherwise the claim could not follow. Rational Justification functions as a persuasive argument, an argument that proves a claim in the form "you ought to accept X" to some opponent. Any argument like this, any 'persuasive argument' at all, must appeal to the interests of the opponent for the opponent to accept the premises; the only exception being arguments that prove claims solely based on rationalism itself. For if the opponent does not accept the premises, the argument will not follow. For example, trying to argue that "you ought to buy a washing machine" must appeal to the interests of the opponent. Rational Justification must appeal to the Normative Value of Interests Normative claims cannot be derived purely through non-normative premises. If a claim is truely normative, that normativity has to come from premises that are justifiable. Persuasive Arguments, and thus Rational Justification, is only meaningful if it proves a normative claim "you ought to accept X". The normativity of the claim must be derived from the premises of the argument, and those premises must appeal to the interests of the opponent. Therefore, as a premise of any act of rational justification, the normative value of the opponent's interests must be appealed to. Interactions should be Rationally Justifiable If you act in a way where your behavior is rationally unjustifiable, you are being irrational. Any semblance of reason would thus discredit such behavior. If you interact with someone, you should be able to rationally justify your interaction, in a way where those involved in the interaction should be rationally required to accept your justification. This means you should be able to justify that the claim “You rationally ought to accept my way of interacting is reasonable” is true for the person you are interacting with; you should be able to argue you are acting reasonably. To contradict the value of Interests is to contradict Rational Justification Interactions that contradict the normative value of interests, fail to be rationally justifiable to those engaged in the interaction. This is a 'persuasive argument', meaning an argument that attempts to derive a claim in the form "You ought to accept X". Any argument in this form, must appeal to the interests of any debate opponent for the conclusion to have valid normative weight. To engage in an interaction that is inconsistent with the normative value of interest, is to engage in an interaction that cannot be rationally justified to anyone. Imagine someone is outside of your house and is dancing weirdly on the sidewalk. Not too close to your house to disturb your yard, not making much noise, either. They just.. look weird, and you can see them being weird out of your window. Imagine you have an interest in them not doing that. Said another way, you don't like that they are doing that. What is more reasonable relative to the Fulfillment of Interests? A. To forcibly stop the person from doing what they want. B. To close your window so them dancing stops getting on your nerves. Inherent Interest Theory --A Definition of Inherent Interest-- Inherentness is a spectrum used to compare interests. An interest is more inherent than another if the given interest is entangled with other interests, or acts as a conduit for other interests regardless of external factors; in a way the second interest does not, or to a higher extent. For example, an interest in not having food taken away, can in most circumstances be a very inherent interest, as it acts as a conduit for an interest in not dying; which itself is a conduit for all other interests. -- More Details-- You can also think of inherent interests as interests a sentient being can hold where the goal or outcome their behavior is tending towards, is an end in itself, meaning that to a reasonable extent, they will maintain said activity regardless of external factors; the interest is itself of intrinsic value . That 'extent change' is the spectrum of inherentness, some interests are more intrinsically foundational to other interests than others [see full text] Normative Will A water bottle cannot behave irrationally, the distinction of rational behavior and irrational behavior does not apply to it. A water bottle's behavior can only be measured relative to the laws of physics themselves. Sentient beings can act rationally and irrationally though, relative to their interests and relative to the value of truth. This grants a way of describing "free will" that is coherent and non-mystical. The Normative Will of sentient beings is the difference in volition and capacity to resist instinct, the capacity to act rationally or irrationally relative to rational standards and relative to one's own interests, and the capacity to contradict naturally selected preferences. Definition: Normative Will is therefore the capacity for normative evaluation of behaviors relative to standards beyond the mere laws of physics; including rationality, ethics, and personal preferences. [see full text] Implications How it connects to Justification Ethics Justification Ethics is the idea that rational justification presupposes an appeal to the Normative Value of Interests themselves. If you interact with a water bottle, you need not justify your actions to the water bottle, because rationally justifying a claim of "This water bottle ought to accept X idea" makes no sense. The water bottle is not a rational actor at any level. For sentient beings this isn't true. Consider the interaction of "I will steal this child's candy". How can you rationally justify such an interaction? The child would object, and the child's cognition should be complex enough to be able to judge the action on rational grounds, thus the objection is of rational weight. Thus, rational justification requires you to be able to prove "The child ought rationally to accept my interaction as non-contradictory". This is impossible, because you cannot: 1. Prove it's positively rational to steal candy based on rationalism alone, with no explicit or implicit appeal to normative value. 2. Prove it's legitimate to steal candy relative to the normative value of Interests, as the action is inherently frustrating and without reason. Therefore, stealing candy from a child is rationally unjustifiable. Therefore, Normative Will is the way to measure how strictly Justification Ethics applies. Animal Rights through Justification Justification Ethics, which implies the Normative Value of Interests, can apply to any sentient being where their cognition is complex enough to judge a given action on rational grounds, relative to the standards or complexity of the action and it's affects. In the "stealing candy from a child" example, the child's cognition is complex enough to be able to object to the behavior in a way that makes sense. Similar logic applies to animals, you can simply replace "child" with "monkey/dog/bird/earthworm" and it's fine. Since preference is present in all sentient beings, those beings can object to behavior based on their preferences. Those beings do have the ability to act rationally and irrationally relative to their interests, and relative to how they should act relative to the truth, making it possible to define "rational oughts" that apply to them. If you try to kill a dog for no reason other than you want to, it is impossible to make an argument such that "The dog ought rationally to accept your interaction as non-contradictory". This is impossible, because you cannot: 1. Prove it's positively rational to steal candy based on rationalism alone, with no explicit or implicit appeal to normative value. 2. Prove it's legitimate to steal candy relative to the normative value of Interests, as the action is inherently frustrating and without reason. Since the dog has the ability to judge your behavior based on their own preferences, and any attempt to justify your behavior has to appeal to their preferences, your actions are unjustifiable. Absolute Interest Conclusion Proven It has thus been shown that Normative Will is the appropriate measure on how strictly Justification Ethics applies. Killing a dog is unjustifiable because the dog has the ability to rationally object to it, same with killing a monkey, or a child, or a cow, or a human. The logical consequence of this is that any entity that is sentient with Interests, has Justification Ethics apply to it to the rational extent. Any unnecessary inherent frustration of their interests is thus illegitimate as it cannot be justified without appealing either to Interest-free Rationalism, which doesn't work, or appealing to the Normative Value of Interests by trying to appeal to their own standards, which is contradictory. Therefore, the Fulfillment of Interests of all sentient beings, in all reference frames; with priority to Inherent, Rational Interests, is sustained. [see Absolute Interest Conclusion overview] Yogg Virtue Theory Yogg Virtue Theory is the idea that the definition of a Good Character or Good Virtue is founded on the Respect for Interests, and behaviors that curate this respect, are good. This grants the Yogg Virtue Principle : You ought to act in a way consistent with the virtues that curate respect for interests, including Mutual Respect, Justice, Truth, and Recognition of others as Self-Sovereign. You ought to not act against Consent, or enforce Interest Misalignment for your own gain through Unfairness, Irrationality, Explotativeness, or Abuse. You ought to form a character that adheres to the responsibility of upholding these character traits, against Negligence towards others, and Abuse of others. Common virtues such as Justice, Self-Sovereignty, and Generosity, are simply emergent properties of the Respect for Interests. The idea of Virtue is a great way of explaining how inaction can be morally wrong. Specifically if someone does not act to save someone and lets someone come to harm, the justification of calling that a moral wrong, is difficult under Justification Ethics, Justification Ethics is contingent on the normative obligation to rationally justify methods of interaction. If there is no interaction occurring, it's not obvious how there could be an obligation to rationally justify inaction, or even how such justification could happen, and to whom. Praxeological Asymmetry could also be used to argue for inaction not needing justification, based on the epistemic logic of there being a default state of falsity for any positive claim, thus disbelief in something can be excused simply by the lack of evidence, though a true lack of evidence in all directions implies neutrality, violating this asymmetry. Virtue Ethics, specifically built around the Respect for Interests, solves these problems. Virtue Ethics is a philosophical approach emphasizing character and virtue, rather than adherence towards a principle or goal. Positive traits, Virtues, and negative traits, Vices, are the attributes that help curate morally positive and morally negative behavior, respectively. The Anti-Abuse Principle can then be used as an easy way to justify how: 1. Behaviors functioning off of misaligned interests can result in frustration for one side of a deal, which is dangerous, and 2. Respect of Interests in a way similar to Immanuel Kant's "Treat People as an End, never as a Mere Means" is a good way of describing how to prevent such abuse from occurring. These are the justification for Yogg Virtue Theory and it's utility. [see full text] Absolute Interest Conclusion It is utmost rational to uphold the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings, across all possible reference frames; with priority to existent, rational, inherent interests , as a value. This conclusion is justified by rational justification itself via Justification Ethics , Normative Will , as well as the idea that the Utmost Rational Outcome for any specific set of sentient beings to approach is the outcome that best upholds the fulfillment of their Interests, where 'Interests' are rational preferences, wants, desires, goals. It is also justified by an idea called Value Reductionism , wherein any value you have ultimately can be reduced to Interests and thus an implicit value of Interests. Further detail on Inherent Interests and non-inherent interests, is present in Inherent Interest Theory . Therefore, actions that are against the normative value of Interests are self-contradictory. Read Full Text All Texts Guide Oughts from Logic [see full text] Absolute Interest Conclusion [see overview] [see full text] Anti-Abuse Principle [see overview] [see full text] Justification Ethics [see overview] [see full text] [see deduction] Yoggism as a Procedural Norm [see full text] Retaliatory Law [see full text] Normative Will [see overview] [see full text] Yogg Virtue Theory [see overview] [see full text] Interest Property Theory [see full text] Markets and Interest Alignment [see full text] Rationally, you ought to utmost-Rationally Fulfill your own Interests, as all beings are acting in accordance with their interests and thus rationally must act utmost-rationally towards their ends. Thus, rational existent interests must have prioritization to the self. The utmost-rational outcome that all sentient beings should align with is that which upholds the Fulfillment of Interests of all sentient beings, in all reference frames; with priority to Inherent, Rational Interests. The distinction of Inherent Interests and non-inherent Interests is derived by Inherent Interest Theory . Thus, from the AIC, actions that constitute interference with another's non-abusive fulfillment of their own rational interests, are illegitimate. Actions that result in the frustration of interests, due to misalignment of interests between parties, are irrational, constitute "abuse", and are illegitimate. Abuse must be defended against. The Fulfillment of Interests as a value is implied by Rational Justification. Rational Justification of anything beyond pure rationalism requires appealing to the normative value of Interests, so any interaction that violates the value of Interests is rationally unjustifiable. As interactions ought to be rationally justifiable, that justification must be based in Interests, if an interaction cannot be justified on rationalism alone. Normative Rationalism is presupposed by deductive arguments and engagement in argumentation, as they rely upon it to have normative weight. Non-abuse is required as a procedural norm of argumentation and is required by rational interactions, not just due to rational justification, but because enforcement of interest misalignment itself invalidates rational argumentation and the ability to seek truth. Justification Ethics grants the value of Interests based on rational interactions. This grants interests as a value, as well as self-defense of rational interests, but not clearance to do evil for "the greater good". Instead, defense of the pillars that uphold Interests themselves can justify ideas reflecting Threshold Deontology and how a breakdown of rational deliberation should be avoided at all costs. Giving to the poor, self-defense, and frustrating to prevent existential disaster, are all different. Good, Right, and merely Justifiable. Only sentient beings have interests relevant to Justification Ethics and Yoggism, as these beings can be described in terms of the rationality of their behavior relative to different standards. A water bottle cannot behave irrationally, yet sentient beings can. Normative Will is thus the capacity for normative evaluation of behaviors relative to standards beyond the mere laws of physics, including rationality, ethics, and personal preferences. Every sentient being possesses some degree of this Normative Will. This also functions as a measure of how strongly Justification Ethics may apply to a given sentient being. The value of well-rounded Consent can be derived via Justification Ethics. This virtue-wise can be framed as a Respect for Interests broadly. Through this value, is inaction always justified? A framing of Virtue Ethics in terms of the Respect for Interests solves this problem, regardless of Justification Ethics granting explicit obligations, there is a basis for good character. This grants the Yogg virtue Principle: You ought to act in a way consistent with the virtues that curate respect for interests. Self-Ownership can be justified under Yoggism based on Consent, where abusive conduct is framed as a violation of consent, in a way that contradicts the Absolutist View of Ownership; due to it contradicting interests. You thus own your Interests, and Preferences, via the normative value of Interests, and also your Body and Mind as they are the primary conduit of your interests. Inherent Frustration is condemnable in local spaces; to be censored for honest criticism or fired for unfair reasons is inherent frustration even if done in the larger purview of property rights rather than direct use of force, as abusive use of property based on Interest Property Theory is not ethically justifiable. Due to the tendency for monopolization and more broadly centralization of firms in an unregulated market economy, caused by varying barriers to entry, inconsistency of perfect competition, and the self-reinforcing nature of market share growth, unregulated market economies naturally lead to abusive outcomes. All Yoggism Pages https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggism https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text0_oughts-from-logic https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text1_anti-abuse-principle https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text2_justification-ethics https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text_deduction-of-interests https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text6_retaliatory-law https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text5_normative-will https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text4_absolute-interest-conclusion https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text3_yogg-virtue-theory https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text7_interest-property-theory https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text8_markets-and-interest-alignment https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text2_yoggism-as-a-procedural-norm https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text9_inherent-interest-theory https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text_refutation-of-argumentation-ethics https://www.tc-blox.net/yoggtexts/text_refutationofthenap

We make games, music, and provide information on game development and open source software, among other things. Check us out! About TC Blox TC Blox Studios was started in 2018, as a small website named "TC Sites". That website was eventually discontinued and replaced by a YouTube Channel named TC Blox YTC , later renamed to TC Blox Studios. This website was originally created to host my content, as well as downloadables such as our Content for Minecraft specifically. TonyTCB / jimmybob Hi, I'm TonyTCB! I also go by jimmybob. I am the creator of this website, and the creator of Bob Simulator , The Movy Chronicles , and most of the media on this website. I am the creator of everything present in the Portfolio . "you'll never find my base" - TonyTCB, the Bob of All Trades OnlyOnTCBloxNET Only on TC-BLOX.NET: Portfolio Assets Games Demo Projects Bob Simulator The Movy Chronicles Content for Minecraft Admin Abuse Resistance (AAR) Yogg Interest Theory (Yoggism) Videos Music Contributors Development Activity Help Center and Support FAQ Bobbelvox (Open-Source Voice Chat) 3D Models - Textures - Music YouTube Videos - MiniMods - Shorts - Minecraft Modding Legal Info and Licenses Contributors Partners and Contributors One person can't do it all. See who contributes to TC Blox Studios [SEE PAST CONTRIBUTORS] TonyTCB (jimmybob) Bob of All Trades Founder of TC Blox Studios Creator of Bob Simulator Website Designer , Music , Sprites, Animation , Programming Game Development Generalist Creator of everything in Portfolio View YouTube Channel Founder of: Admin Abuse Resistance Yogg Interest Theory egg dragon / fitlord (Jaslego/pappy) Music Contributor Music Contributor , Sprite Designer Contributed to: Battle of The Bobs Legacy Spritework and Base Design MythicalYeti Rec Room Room Designer Room Designer for the Rec Room VR Game, builds Talk Show public rooms for TC Blox Studios and Bob Simulator showcases BenTheMilkBoi (BenTheAPPLE) Sprite Designer, Creative The Milk Man Sprite Designer, 2D Animator Contributed to: Battle of The Bobs Legacy , Topple The Tower Content for Minecraft View YouTube Channel PeaStoneCharlie Film-Maker, Animator Music Contributor , Animator , Film-Maker, Script Writer Co-Creator of: The Movy Chronicles BOB532101 Rec Room Maker Pen Master Moderator for Rec Room Talk Shows for TC Blox Studios and Bob Simulator showcases Manages props in talk shows with the Rec Room Maker Pen Qaz (quackshotgun) Sprite Designer, Writer, Creative Lord and Savior of all that lives Art Designer for: No Bath Battle of The Bobs Legacy Writer and Creator of: The Cyan Anomaly The Cyan Mystery View YouTube Channel Redding (Mr. Motion) Music Maker Music Contributor , Creative Team Contributed to: GameDev Audiotracks schleepy GameDev Generalist 3D Modeler, Minecraft Content Contributor , Game Development Generalist Special Thanks to EinP0421, The forbidden, and Mr. Friendly from Rec Room, Roblox Time and mr.peanutbutter / BloomBerry from YouTube, Reya Azerythz / ZuriProto / BegueBot, Minecrafter, and Darklord for contributions to the AAR, PeaStoneCharlie, Nye, Diamond Infant, and others - TonyTCB / jimmybob [SEE PAST CONTRIBUTORS HERE] Partnership Apply for Partnership Apply to become one of our Contributors Sign Up and become an official contributor. Don't just answer 'yes' to all the questions, tell us what you actually know how to do. Apply for Partnership First name Last name Email Why are you applying? What types of content can you make? How can you contribute? Check all that apply and all subjects you have experience in I have content ready-made to contribute Minecraft Map Creation Minecraft Texture Packs Minecraft Modding Garry's Mod Addons Godot Engine Game Development Unity Engine Game Development Programming in gdscript Game Development in-general Web Development or Website Design Machinima Creation 2D Animation 3D Animation Film-Making Video Editing 3D Modelling I am associated with an organization What name do you want to be featured on the site as? (Ex. Username) Submit Application Thanks for applying! PastContributors Past Contributors Contributors from years gone by! Roblox Time Does Roblox Lets Plays Runs the Roblox Time YouTube Channel Played an old Pancake Obby game made by TonyTCB Fred Samuel Shadow leader of yegg Fred of all Worlds Shadow Leader of yegg Overseer of the AAR Yielder of Yogg Mythos Reya Azerythz / Zuri doer of all things On Mastodon , uwu.social , YouTube , Twitch , and Bluesky zuri.network (offline) sillycc.org (offline) Past Minecraft World Contributor and creator of Dark GUI Pack Past Moderator for the AAR and Investigations Contributor mr.peanutbutter Music Producer A musician with over 5 years of guitar playing experience Runs the mr.peanutbutter YouTube Channel Also runs misterpeabee Twitch

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Interest Property Theory Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide More Interest Property Theory [Full Text] —Basic Property through Interests— Imagine you find a stick on the ground. You pick it up and play with it, but unknown to you, the stick is actually an incredibly rare kind of wood, that is extremely fragile, and then it breaks. A collector walks up to you and is furious because that was their stick, and it was worth a lot of money. Now imagine you find a stick on the ground, the stick does not belong to anyone, you pick it up and play with it, and it breaks. You walk away, and that's it. In the second circumstance, messing with the stick affected nobody else. More than that, if someone walked up to you and tried to take the stick from you, they would be frustrating against your interests. In the first circumstance, if the collector tried to take the stick from you, it would have been justified as your interest in playing with their stick would be an inherently frustrating interest, and thus interest transgression against them. In the second circumstance, you can do what you like with the stick as long as it affects nobody else, and nobody else can take the stick from you because that inherently frustrates against you. In this sense, your preferences are wrapped up in the stick, the stick has become a conduit of your interests themselves; the fulfillment of specific interests of yours are dependent on the state of the stick. Thus, relative to Interests as a value, while messing with the stick until it is abandoned, you have ownership over the stick. —Interest Property— The Lockean theory of property, asserts that individuals gain ownership of resources by mixing their labor with them. This matches up with Interests. If you build a birdhouse, from unowned wood, your preferences become wrapped up in, and dependant on, the birdhouse. If the birdhouse is destroyed, a whole set of rational interests you have in relation to the birdhouse, are all inherently frustrated. From this grants a basic right to Personal Property. This grants a justification for the idea that you own what you make, and are ethically justified in defending your own property, as you are simply defending the conduit of your rational interests. —Self-Ownership— Your Body and Mind are both also conduits of your rational interests. Your mind is the conduit of all of your preferences, of all kinds. In the sense described previously, your rational interests, and irrational interests, all preferences you have, are wrapped up in your mind, dependant on it. Your ability to fulfill most interests are wrapped up in your body. Thus, any attack on your body or mind, any frustrating against your interests relevant to your body or mind, any violation of your bodily autonomy, is an inherent frustration against your interests to an even greater extent than a violation against your personal property. This grants a basic sense of "Self-Ownership". Except, what does ownership mean exactly? —What Constitutes "Ownership"?— What does ownership mean exactly? People may own their bodies, their minds, and personal goods that are relevant inherently only to themselves; but in what way? What does it mean to 'own' something? --Absolutist View of Ownership-- Is ownership of some entity, the same thing as saying you can do whatever you want with that entity, so long as it does not violate other people's ownership rights? --Anti-Abuse Principle contradicts this Absolutism-- According to the Anti-Abuse Principle, inherent frustration against others interests, and enforcement of misaligned interests causing frustration, "Abuse", is illegitimate, based on the normative value of interests themselves. This contradicts the Absolutist View of Ownership, because if the basis of ownership is building a thing and using it, it is still possible to abuse your control over that thing, in a way that contradicts others interests, including their rational inherent interests. --Unsafe Food Example-- Imagine a simple example: A business that has a monopoly on food production. This business then decides to start using cancerous chemicals in the food, and rolls back their safety standards, for profits. The business does list their additional ingredients on the food, so customers can read the ingredients. Yet, even though the customers are able to be informed, even if they are, the business will likely recieve sales anyway, and consumers who want and buy the products, will do so even if they themselves would rather the business not use cancerous chemicals in the food. This is the free market at work, and nobody's property rights are being violated here. Yet, it is an inherent frustration against the consumer, done by the business. The business is in the wrong, since the fact that the consumers bought the product, doesn't mean they actually have an interest in cancerous food. It is that interest that is in-fact, being actively violated. How exactly a monopoly of this sort comes to be, is irrelevant to the fact that the business' decision to add cancerous ingredients to their food, against their customer's wishes, was still inherently frustrating against their customer's interests. —Abuse Violates Consent— This idea can be taken farther, obliterating the Absolutist View of Ownership. If someone goes to the store and buys apples, and the apples are contaminated, and the person gets sick and dies due to a lapse in safety protocol by the food producer, that is inherently frustrating against them, even if they were informed previously of the food producer's safety protocols. The reason for this, is that it violates Consent, and thus violates Interests. --Consent-- Consent is a continuous, preferably enthusiastic, explicit, and relevantly-informed, acceptance of an agreement, contract, or activity. --Getting sick from Contaminated Food is a violation of Consent-- Someone getting sick from apples and dying, still had their consent violated to some extent, because they did not consent to die, nor get sick, and they did not have a reasonable expectation that it would happen in the first place. Even if they were technically informed, in the real world people informed or no will buy sometimes risky products if no better options are available. Reluctantly buying a product due to a lack of options, is not consent. The person who got sick and died from contamination, did not consent to eating contaminated food. They did not explicitly agree, they did not give enthusiastic consent, they did not accept "you might die" as a term. None of that is what they "signed up for". --Abuse violates Consent as it is Anti-Interest-- The problem with Abuse, of the enforcement of misaligned interests, either through poor safety protocols being pushed on the public against their interests, or through lay-offs of workers for profit-driven reasons when alternatives to lay-offs are available, or through changes in contracts and ongoing agreements; is that it is contrary to the interests of those involved, as a side-effect of the misalignment of interests, and contrary to what the people involved actually signed up for. Thus, abuse as defined and agreements made through interest misalignment, violates Consent. —Ownership is Consent— If abuse, agreements made through interest misalignment, and inherent frustration, violate the consent of those affected, this also comes into conflict with the point of Ownership. If you own yourself, and a store sells food that went through poor safety protocols, and thus violates your consent, then suddenly that is in violation of your ownership of yourself. This follows, because ownership of yourself means some protection over the conduit of interests that is your Body and Mind; and that protection requires consent. --Loosely Voluntary is not the same as Consent-- The Absolutist View of Ownership thus creates a problem, what counts as a violation of another's ownership rights? It depends on how you define it in the first place. Absolutist Property Rights are usually argued for on behalf of the idea that any agreement made voluntarily is valid, where "voluntary" simply means "the person trying to get you to do something isn't threatening you with violence as an aggressor to make you do it". This is not the same as Consent. What that description of voluntary is really describing, is a 'loosely voluntary' exchange that can include anything from being coerced into doing someone by the threat of eviction, or loss of some deal, misalignment of interests, inherent frustration, etc. --Ownership is Consent Based-- That is not the same as an enthusiastic, mutual agreement, enthusiastic meaning all sides of a deal agree with most terms of the contract, and that the process of deciding the terms is fair. This has Interest Alignment written all over it, so Absolutist Property Rights in the sense of 'loosely voluntary' transaction, is fundamentally Anti-Consent and Anti-Interests. Therefore, if people really own their own bodies and minds, they should own them with respect to the ownership of their own interests and preferences, in a way enforced by rule of Consent. —Conclusion— If Ownership, relative to Interests, should be based on Consent, then what determines Property Ownership? An answer can be arrived at in a way consistent with what has been said, through Justification Ethics. Justification Ethics, the assertion that actions should be rationally justifiable based on the relevant interests of those involved in an ongoing interaction, paraphrased here, allows the pinpointing of the circumstance where the rational justification of exclusive property is valid, and where it is not. The Anti-Abuse Principle states that interference with non-abusive fulfillment of interests is illegitimate. This can be used to craft the following theory: —Interest Property Theory— Definition of Ownership: A right to exclusive, non-abusive control over a particular object or entity, due to the right over interests the entity acts as a conduit of. You own your Interests, and Preferences, through the normative value of Interests. You thus also own your Body and Mind, as they are the primary conduit of your interests. If you build, craft, or otherwise create something, or possess and use something, your interests get wrapped up in your new property, and a set of your interests become dependant on your property. Your property is a conduit to your interests, granting you the right to use your property as you wish, as long as your use is non-abusive and does not inherently frustrate against the interests of others. Interference in the non-abusive use of your property, thus constitutes inherent frustration or abuse against you and your interests. Abuse Violates Consent

Absolute Interest Conclusion Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Absolute Interest Conclusion [Full Text] —The Absolute Interest Conclusion— The Absolute Interest Conclusion is the conclusion that: It is utmost rational to uphold the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings, across all possible reference frames; with priority to existent, rational, Inherent Interests, as a value. This conclusion can be derived logically, using the following argument: (1): Why Future Interests Count Future interests are also valuable as people generally have an interest in their future and the fulfillment of interests they hold in the future. When people do not value their future interests, then we can apply the following argument: A hypothetical large group of people who do not have an interest in their future interests, will on average end up minimizing the fulfillment of interests of a majority of the group. It is utmost rational, relative to each person, of any group, to avoid such a scenario; and this is true regardless of precondition. This logic applies to all future interests, but only interests given from those already or previously sentient. The reason for this is that the minimization of existent interests has no relevant causal relationship with the prevention of the creation of new interests. (2): Reducing everything to Rationality We can thus define oughts as interests, treating the fulfillment of interests as a form of Moral Utility, that we should maximize throughout all of time, across all possible reference frames; assuming present interests are as ultimately meaningful as future interests; which is defendable from the argument already given. Finally, we can now convert all ‘oughts’ and ‘ought-nots’ to simply ‘rationalities’ and ‘irrationalities’. (3): Cooperation for Interests This grants us something similar to the contractarian idea that morality emerges from valuing social cohesion and the need for cooperation through agreements, based on people’s subjective interests; but with one key difference: All sentient beings capable of ‘interests’ are held as morally significant. (4): Fulfillment of Interests vs. Creation of new Interests To maximize interests means to maximize the fulfillment of any existing interests. There is no rational justification for the creation of new Interests, unless it maximizes potential for already existent inherent interests related to certain mental states such as happiness or other Approximate Goods. This is due to it being rational to most rationally fulfill an interest assuming you are acting according to your own interests already, this says nothing about creating new interests to act according to, unless doing so helps to fulfill your existing interests. All of this is to say that forcibly modifying everyone’s brains to really want to lick walls, and then giving them walls to lick, is a terrible way to help anyone, as it is not an ethical thing to do as it does not maximize existent interests and violates basic freedoms which actually minimizes existent interests. Even in situations where everyone ends up happy with their new artificial interests, situations with more rational interests will be more rational and overall more stable, and any situation that tries to force people into some set of interests will be violating their interests in not doing that, continuously. A situation where people are able to fulfill their own individual interests will be much more consistent with the AIC, and much more consistent with the fulfillment of interests as a principle. (5): Overall Rational Outcomes The self-interest of one individual is different from the overall interests of a group. Recognizing and valuing the group interests, the utmost rational, most consistent interests of the most universal group, will give us this Absolute Interest Conclusion. Since the class of all sentient beings represents the largest class actions can be compared and measured according to, it is an Absolute Class, representing the utmost rational standard of intrinsic value. To contradict this utmost rational standard is thus irrational, therefore the intrinsic values that are held consistently among all members of the Absolute Class, must not be contradicted. This intrinsic value is the value of the Fulfillment of Interests itself. It should be noted at this point that the idea of a "collective" is meaningless, as you cannot directly conclude a group collectively has some interest, unless the interest is shared unanimously. Collectives don't exist, only individuals exist in any meaningful way, only individuals can act rationally or irrationally. In this case, the fulfillment of interests is a rational, inherent, and existent value, and interest, intrinsic and inherent to all sentient beings, regardless of external factors. Therefore, it is utmost rational to maximize the Fulfillment of Existent Inherent Interests of all sentient beings in all possible reference frames. (6): Intrinsic Standards, Value Reductionism, and the Axiom of Choice The Axiom of Choice is a mathematical construct, usually added onto Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory mathematics. Set Theory is based on the idea of ‘Sets’, of collections of members. So you can have a Set of all Purple Dogs, and a Set of all Bananas. The Set of all Naturally Purple Dogs is equivalent to the Empty Set, a set containing no elements at all. Now, the Axiom of Choice is the axiom that, phrased crudely: If you have a bunch of sets, and then you take one or a few elements out of each set, and group up all of those specific elements into a new collection, that collection is itself considered a valid set. If every set contains valid elements, then grouping one from each set should also yield a valid set. It seems logical, because if each element of a set is a set itself, I.E. a single element A corresponds to a set [A], the set who's only element is A, and the sets containing them are of course sets themselves, then it seems the ‘set-hood’ of each set emerges from and can be reduced to the set's members. If we simply group up a bunch of random or arbitrarily chosen elements, no matter how we group them, that group’s ‘set-hood’ can be reduced to its members, and its members are all valid both as elements and as single-element sets. So, how could the new collection not constitute a valid set? Especially if it follows all other rules for sets, which it unequivocally does. This intuition appeals to a logical and philosophical system called Reductionism, the idea that some thing's function can correspond to it thought of as a collection of members, and that collection's function, as a mere byproduct of its members behavior. Under reductionism, all things that contain other things, function merely as the sum of their parts. A machine functions not as its own thing, but as a byproduct of the parts making it up. It is not separate from its parts, instead it is equivalent, both in function and ontologically, to the sum of its parts. We can apply this same logic to Rational Standards and Values. Let us use the word Class instead of Set, now imagine the class of all Dogs. If all members of this class value chewing bones, even in slightly different ways, each value of each member shares something in common: the concept of “Chewing Bones” itself. If values are the sum of their parts, following this reductionist logic, then each value members have gets their value from its parts. Thus, each member shares the concept of Chewing Bones in common, and as the value of values is deduced from their parts, value should rationally be present in the concept of Chewing Bones itself. This shared concept should thus rationally be a value of the group. To say it another way, it would be irrational to not accept Chewing Bones as a value, as rationally it can be derived through reductionism. This allows us to define a shared Intrinsic Value, universal across some collection, where to act against that value, is to act against this collection as a standard of value from which we can measure actions. To reject the idea of Intrinsic Value is to act in contradiction with basic logical reductionism. To simply ignore the most rational and universal version of some value, is to contradict the idea that actions can be measured by any sort of rational standard, which is utmost irrational and incoherent. The best standards of value are thus the standards that are the most consistent, I.E. the most intrinsic. For example, the standard of "All judges argue based on assumption X" is more intrinsic and consistent than a more arbitrary standard like "My cousin argues based on assumption X". The latter standard would not be a good justification to appeal to some assumption X, while the first standard would not be perfect, but would be better. The best rational standard of value, or measurement, is the class of all sentient beings itself, as anything outside of this class cannot be judged on the basis of rationality. This makes the class, an Absolute Class. Another example of an Absolute Class is the class of all couches, which is the most rational standard of measuring what attributes are intrinsic of couches. This couch class cannot be used to judge the rationality or consistency of values, nor the rationality of actions, it can only be used to judge how intrinsic the attributes of some specific couch is. The Fulfillment of Interests as a shared concept, is an example of an utmost rational value, as it is intrinsic among all sentient beings, an Absolute Class. Therefore, based on all that has been said here, the Fulfillment of Interests relative to all sentient beings is the most rational standard with which to measure behavior and the consistency of values, and the rationality of actions. (7): Intrinsic Potato Theory Jon values eating potatoes driving a car, Jessie values eating potatoes at the beach, Jessica values eating potatoes driving a truck. Jon, Jessie, and Jessica all value potatoes. For Jon to not value potatoes themselves, is for them to not value “eating potatoes while driving a car” in and of itself; yet removing potatoes would make Jon value it less. Thus, eating potatoes must have value. To say that they only value “themselves eating potatoes” and not “eating potatoes” in and of itself, is wrong. This is because if we remove the reference to potatoes we get that they must value “themselves”, regardless of other factors. Yet the feeling of meaninglessness can exist, thus this is wrong. If we assume basic value reductionism, then values get their value from their parts. Potatoes are a part. Thus, the only consistent value here is the eating of potatoes itself, as an object. Therefore, it can be said that: “All beings value themselves performing actions that fulfill interests.” To remove the reference to yourself, is to give the statement: “All beings value the performing of actions that fulfill interests in general.” To remove the fulfillment of interests, is to give the statement: “All beings value themselves performing actions, in and of itself.” Clearly, the first statement is true to a greater extent than the second statement. The third statement is clearly false as a being cannot value themselves as an end in themselves, regardless of all else that gives life meaning, to an extent that is somehow the same as if they were also fulfilling interests. Yet if it isn’t YOU that itself grants all the value, and it isn’t the performing of actions itself that is the value, then assuming values can be reduced to their parts as all things can, there is only one conclusion: The fulfillment of interests for consistency’s sake, must rationally be valued in and of itself. So, rationally, you should act with reference to the value of the fulfillment of interests itself. (8): Justification Ethics Justification Ethics is a way of proving Yoggism via the claim that the normative value of Interests is implied by rational justification, because any argument that is a rational justification of normative force requires an appeal to the interests of whomever you are interacting with. The only exception is arguments that prove things purely rationally, as rationalism is presupposed by engagement with any argument. Any other kind of argument must appeal to Interests. The way this logic works, is that all interactions rationally ought to be justifiable deductively, meaning normative claims should be derivable. This is presupposed by rational discourse, but if it is true then interests are the only thing that can derive normative claims. Justification Ethics (Simplified) All rational justification of normative claims must appeal to Interests as the source of normative value, because: 1. To prove an action or interaction is rationally justifiable through deductive argument, premises based on arbitrary assumptions need not apply. 2. Premises based on simple truths will not derive normative claims. Thus, interactions ought to be rationally justifiable to others involved in the interaction, and that rational justification requires an appeal to the normative value of Interests, otherwise you forfeit all ability to justify normative force. You cannot prove someone ought to buy a washing machine, without appealing to the normative value of their interest in clean clothes. See 'Justification Ethics' for further details. This logic expanded derives the Fulfillment of Interests. —Logical Deduction via Absolute Classes— Finally, to fully disassemble Naive Egoism, we can use the following Logical Deduction: –Definitions: (Intrinsic Value): Something that is valued / acted upon in a way regardless of external factors to some extent; I.E. by most sentient beings in most circumstances, to a reasonable extent. If it is actually valued / acted upon by all sentient beings in all circumstances and all situations, it is intrinsic relative to the class of all sentient beings. Specific values such as individual preferences can give way to broad, all-encompassing values if the preference is intrinsically shared, especially among all beings. (Interest): Something that a sentient being’s behavior tends towards. An interest is Inherent if your behavior tends towards your goal regardless of external factors to some reasonable extent. (Absolute Class): An absolute class is a class where no greater class can be imagined that values and variables can be compared to or measured by, relative to the members of said class. (Rational Standards of Value): Actions and variables can be measured and compared, and rationally judged, relative to some standards of value, I.E. a set of rules or values. The more universal this standard, the least arbitrary and thus most consistent, all-encompassing, and most rational. An Absolute Class is the only utmost rational standard of value that can be defined by definition, as it is the only thing actions and variables can be compared to or measured by, relative to the members of the class. An action that is contradictory to what is utmost rational relative to an Absolute Class, is inconsistent with the only rational standard of value that can be defined relative to that specific class. Said another way, that action in contradicting the standard, would violate the concept of action comparison itself. This is based on the idea of Intrinsic Standards which is derived via Reductionism. –Premises: (P1): Rationally, you ought to fulfill your own interests in the most rational ways possible, relative to you acting in accordance with your own interests, which all are. (P2): Something that is acted upon by all sentient beings under all conditions, is a highly Intrinsic Value. (P3): Rationally, the recognition of Intrinsic Values is utmost logically consistent. (P4): Rationally, acting with reference to your recognitions, with reference to what is true, is most logical. (P5): The class of all sentient beings represent an Absolute Class, the only rational standard of value that can be defined relative to the class. (P6): A value or interest, like "I like mashed potatoes", can through reductionism be reduced to its parts, those parts being "Me", "Liking of mashed foods", "Liking of potatoes"; where each part is itself something held has a rationally necessary value, and the original value is the sum of its parts. (P7): From (Definition of "Intrinsic Value"): Intrinsic values can be defined relative to some large class of things. If something is held as a value or interest, or a value that is rational to act according to as well as possible, universally among the class of things, then that value is intrinsic to said class. (P8): Rationally, all actions and situations can be measured relative to some set of standards. Standards that are the least arbitrary are the most rational of standards to measure by, and can be referred to as specific values and interests. (P9): From (P6 + P7 + P8), An action that is contradictory to what is utmost rational relative to an Absolute Class, is itself a fundamentally irrational action as it is inconsistent with the only rational standard of value that can be defined relative to the class. The action violates the concept of rational comparison and measure itself. –Logic: (L1): From (P1), The utmost rational outcome relative to all sentient beings is the upholding of the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings, non-contradiction with rational oughts. (L2): From (P5), The class of all sentient beings represent an Absolute Class. (L3): From (L1 + L2), The utmost rational outcome relative to the most rational standard of value is the maximization of the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings. (L4): From (L3 + P9), An action that is contradictory to the utmost rational outcome relative to all sentient beings, is itself fundamentally irrational as it is inconsistent to the most rational standard of value definable. –Conclusion: From (L4 + L1), You ought to act in alignment with the value of the fulfillment of interests of all sentient beings. Therefore: It is utmost rational to uphold the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings, across all possible reference frames; with priority to existent, rational, Inherent Interests. This is the Absolute Interest Conclusion. Priority should be given to rational Inherent Interests, as these are the most consistent of interests, and preservation and fulfillment of Inherent Interests will allow the most fulfillment of interests in general; protecting non-inherent interests may result in inherently frustrating behavior. It is also utmost rational to act in alignment with the inference of this conclusion, as to violate it is to act against what is rational relative to the most rational standard of value, which would be logically inconsistent. L4 also grants us something interesting, the Absolute Interest Principle, the principle that it is inconsistent and irrational, to act against or in contradiction with the utmost rational outcome, that which upholds the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings. —The Absolute Interest Principle— The most rational outcome overall, relative to the Absolute Class of all sentient beings, is that which upholds the fulfillment of existent interests of all sentient beings, across all possible reference frames; with priority to existent, rational, Inherent Interests, as a value. Therefore, it is inconsistent and irrational, to act against or in contradiction with this most rational outcome, and it is irrational to act against others rational interests as an end in itself, and to act against the fulfillment of interests on small scales as well; as it is in contradiction with the only coherent rational standards of value. Value Reductionism Rational Outcomes

Inherent Interest Theory Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Inherent Interest Theory [Full Text] —Inherent Interest Theory— What does "Inherent Interest" really mean? What does inherent mean in terms of inherent frustration? How are different interests weighed against each-other? The answer to this question is crucial to understanding the 'nitty-gritty' of Justification Ethics and the Anti-Abuse Principle. Let us begin. --A Definition of Inherent Interest-- Inherentness is a spectrum used to compare interests. An interest is more inherent than another if the given interest is entangled with other interests, or acts as a conduit for other interests regardless of external factors; in a way the second interest does not, or to a higher extent. For example, an interest in not having food taken away, can in most circumstances be a very inherent interest, as it acts as a conduit for an interest in not dying; which itself is a conduit for all other interests. --More Details-- You can also think of inherent interests as interests a sentient being can hold where the goal or outcome their behavior is tending towards, is an end in itself, meaning that to a reasonable extent, they will maintain said activity regardless of external factors; the interest is itself of intrinsic value. When we say "an interest acts as a conduit for other interests regardless of external factors" what is meant is that the acting as a conduit is intrinsic to the interest, and remains true even if external conditions change, to a relevant and reasonable extent. That 'extent change' is the spectrum of inherentness, some interests are more intrinsically foundational to other interests than others --Exercise Example-- If you would partake in exercise for example, even if it was entirely neutral in effect towards your and others physical and mental health and you knew this, then you value it intrinsically. If you like something, that simply means your behavior tends towards you doing that thing, and your behavior would tend towards that thing regardless of external factors to some reasonable extent. If your behavior only tends towards exercise because it gives you physical benefits, then you do not view exercise with intrinsic value, it is not an inherent interest. Thus, for someone who doesn't enjoy exercise, exercising isn't an inherent interest. It merely represents the inherent interest in good health. —Why Inherent Interests take Normative Priority— Imagine someone is outside of your house and is dancing weirdly on the sidewalk. Not too close to your house to disturb your yard, not making much noise, either. They just.. look weird, and you can see them being weird out of your window. Imagine you have an interest in them not doing that. Said another way, you don't like that they are doing that. What is more reasonable relative to the Fulfillment of Interests? A. To forcibly stop the person from doing what they want. B. To close your window so them dancing stops getting on your nerves. The answer is that, all things being equal, their interest in dancing is more inherent than your interest in them not dancing; because their interest in dancing is merely an extension of non-abusive autonomy. Their interest in autonomy, which their dancing is entangled with, is much more intrinsic to all of their other interests than your interest in them not dancing is to yours. Therefore, their interest is more inherent. Since them dancing doesn't interfere with your interests to anywhere near the same extent your interest in stopping them from dancing interferes with them, acts against them are unjustifiable. –Deriving Inherent Interest Theory– An appeal to the normative value of interests of those involved in an interaction is presupposed by the justification of deriving a conclusion with normative ethical force. Such justification must prove a normative conclusion where the target of the justification is rationally required to accept the conclusion. Accepting the conclusion requires the premises of the justification to never contradict each-other, otherwise logical normative force breaks down because the truth of premises breaks down or logic itself breaks down. Any weighing of interest “inherentness” that fails to answer which interests take priority in a given conflict or transgression, or gives an answer that results in all justification becoming provably false by some argument, allows contradictory normative claims to be proven. Therefore, Justification Ethics presupposes priority to inherent interests, in so far that these interests are necessary to uphold justification as valid and conflicting interests as derivable distinct in value. This grants criteria for measuring whether one interest is more inherent than another. (A). Does the interest stay frustrating against the other regardless of external factors? (B). Does frustration of an interest correlate with frustration of other interests? Is the interest a conduit of other interests? (C). Is proportionate resistance thus justifiable to defend higher interests? If one interest matches more of the criteria than the other, that interest is thus more inherent by the definition given earlier. These criteria then imply Inherent Interest Theory and the Inherent Conflict Principle for conflict resolution. —Inherent Conflict Principle— In a conflict, defined as when two or more people's interests contradict each-other in a way that prevents fulfillment of one or more interests, the resolution that is the most consistent with the value of Interests, is the legitimate one. This resolution can be reasoned out by looking at who's interests are more inherent, and whether 'defense of rational interests' and ideas of 'retaliatory law' applies. Specifically, if someone is frustrating someone else's interests, and their behavior's frustration is intrinsic and counts as frustration regardless of external factors, then their behavior is subject to Retaliatory Law; meaning that proportionate resistance to their inherent frustration is legitimate so long as proportionate resistance would prevent the inherent frustration. Inherentness of Interests is thus on a spectrum, of highly relative interests, "I'm personally disgusted by seeing people wear purple hats", and highly inherent interests, "I don't want to be eaten alive by a giant frog". This spectrum is measured based on whether a given interest acts as a conduit of other interests, such as how an interest may relate to basic autonomy which then relates to the protection of all other non-abusive interests. —A Misuse of Inherent Interests— Imagine this argument: "You cannot regulate a business, even if the business' activity is abusive towards its consumers! Because, the regulation is itself an inherent frustration upon the business, and such frustration is done in defense of consumer's interests that are less inherent!" This argument can be summed up as the following: "Consumer's interests in better products are less inherent of an interest than a business owner's interest in not wanting to be threatened with legal force." Given the logic laid out in support of Inherent Interests this seems correct, and appears to support Libertarian Anarcho-Capitalism and the Non-Aggression Principle. This intuition is wrong though, because this argument and this conclusion contradict themselves. Imagine someone breaks into your house and threatens to burn your house to the ground. If necessary, can you use lethal force to defend your house from the person? According to this logic, you actually cannot, as the aggressor's inherent interest in not dying is more inherent than your interest in your house. —The Contradiction with the Non-Aggression Principle— This presents an immediate Catch-22 against Absolutist Property Rights. Your interest in your house not being burned down is an inherent interest, but if inherent interests work as described then the aggressor’s interest in not dying is still more inherent, and thus appears to take priority. If we argue against this by saying that the aggressor is invalidating their own inherent interests by threatening your house, then suddenly it's also true that the business owner is invalidating their own inherent interests when applicable, by acting in an inherently frustrating fashion. To be clear, this invalidation is not tied to responsibility, but rather raw causal relationships. If a drunk guy wandered into your house and started burning down your house, the logic still stands. Ironically this sounds even more like libertarianism, yet it contradicts it if Interests are granted Normative Value. Therefore, if you CAN defend your property with lethal force, that implies an invalidation of inherent interests caused by acting unethically, which then implies abusive behavior can be met with lethal force when proportionate, in contradiction with absolutist property rights. This would mean the boss actually can be forcibly stopped from laying off people unfairly, as the boss' behavior is inherently frustrating and thus proportionate resistance is validated, as their own inherent interests in not being resisted is invalidated. If instead the boss cannot be forcibly stopped because his inherent interest in not having force used against him is more inherent than an interest in not being laid off, then suddenly defending property with lethal force is also illegitimate, as the aggressor’s inherent interest in not dying is more inherent than your interest in your own house not being burned down. Therefore, either way, absolutist property rights don’t make sense. The one way out of this mess is to say that the aggressor invalidates his own interest in not dying by trying to kill you in a way that is inconsistent with Interests. And so, any proportionate means to defend rational interests is valid. This answer fixes both problems and allow both lethal defense of property (when necessary), and defense against abusive contracts, in the way that aligns with the Defense and Retaliatory Law Principles laid out previously. —Defense and Retaliatory Law Principles— --Basic Recap of Self-Defense-- As explained before, valuing Rational Interests can only mean the right to defend rational interests from irrational transgressions. To have the right over your interests, and to not have the right to defend your interests through proportionate means, is a contradiction. If the idea that Interests form a right to Property, where certain objects and environments can act as a conduit of your interests, where attacks against personal property is an act of inherent frustration against your interests, this also implies a right to proportionate self-defense of your body, mind, and property, your stuff, belongings, your home; by any means necessary to protect interest fulfillment. --Proportionate Force and Lethal Retaliation-- Rational Interests win out over Irrational Interests, this comes from the assumption of Normative Rationalism. If someone breaks into your house and tries to destroy all of your stuff and then tries to burn down your house, is lethal force justified to defend what is yours? The answer is proportionate force is justifiable. If lethal force becomes proportionate, then it is justifiable. It can be argued that the transgressor could tell you explicitly, "You can leave, I won't stop you. If you try to stop me from burning down your house though, I will kill you." If they say this, assuming you know they are being truthful, you now know that any resistance will be met with lethal force by them. Since force against them to some degree is already justifiable defense of your interests, if they turn to lethal force in retaliation, then since that lethal force is unjustifiable this situation becomes the same as one where they used lethal force from the beginning. For this reason, since them using lethal force is foreseeable anyway, it is thus justifiable for you to engage in lethal force before they do. If you have reasonable foresight that they will use lethal force if threatened in any way, then you have a right to cut to the chase, since your interference with them is already justifiable. —Retaliatory Law— Based on this reasoning, this then justifies a limited use of justifiable force by government and courts. If a court argues you are inherently frustrating against others to such a degree that it must be stopped, and you try to refuse their justifiable demands, then under Yoggism they have the right to use proportionate force to prevent your transgression. If you then resist further with lethal force, your resistance becomes an inherent frustration against them and unjustifiable use of force, to which whoever is enforcing demands against you can then defend themselves with their own lethal force. To be clear, this logic behind enforcement of justified rules immediately fails if said rules are unethical or unjustifiable in and of themselves. In a democratic society, this logic will also fail if rules are contrary to the interests of the public, aka decided undemocratically or in a way not representative of the citizens of some community.

Markets and Interest Alignment Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Markets and Interest Alignment [Full Text] —Public / Private Spectrum— If you have a dinner party at your house, is it inherently frustrating to kick someone out of your house for unfair reasons? Is it unethical? The problem with this, is that unfair judgement can count as frustration, but this frustration is happening within a greater scope that in a private space such as your own home, is more important. A right to your own sanctuary, to privacy, is more important. Relative to Yogg Virtue Ethics, it is unethical. Relative to Yogg Law, the Anti-Abuse Principle, it is permissible in the sense that it could constitute abuse to try and prevent you from removing them from your dinner party. A right to a private sanctuary makes less sense for something like a public restaurant. Though privately owned, it functions as a public space, and directly affects more people's interests in a way more inherent than your private home. In a private home, the person most affected by discrimination, is the home owner, not the person discriminated against. In a public restaurant, the opposite is true. The interest of someone wanting to stay at a dinner party, may be irrational if it resorts to violence, as they should have a private dwelling of their own. The protection of Interest Fulfillment implies as previously explained, a Right to Privacy and a Private Sanctuary to fulfill your own interests without frustrating against others. Whereas in a public restaurant, this logic stops making sense. There is no exact line here, it is a spectrum of what the difference between a public space and private space are, but the difference is in how different people's interests are weighed. A public restaurant would be weighed differently than a private club, for example. Although, if such a private club was integral to a community, this could change things. Very personal spaces are private. Very open spaces, are public. Spaces that are integral to a community or become inherently wrapped up in other's interests, such as spaces that provide services to people for profit, businesses, are public. —Ethics of Gated Communities— Similar to discrimination in open spaces, ethnostates and other gated large-scale communities create inherent frustration through discrimination and prejudice against people for reasons not relevant to Interests. This results in enforcement of frustration due to misaligned interests, as well as a lack of virtue such as respect and fairness, on behalf of the perpetrators of the unjustifiable exclusion. Racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice, are hence an inherent frustration against people for irrational reasons, and for reasons that treat them as a mere member of some undefinable group, rather than as an individual who should be judged as such. The interests of a criminal, or drug trafficker, or gang member, may be irrational interests that should be defended against, but that does not make the interests of a random individual irrational or invalid, simply due to them being of the same creed. --Factionalism destroys Freedom of Movement-- For the most part, discrimination due to creed is justified not based on genuine and justifiable mistrust; but rather ignorance, and factionalism. It is for this reason that so-called freedom of association can quickly turn into instead, a freedom from those separate from your tribe, and a freedom to inherently frustrate, to discriminate, against others. If Interests are to have value themselves, the right to freedom of movement of people should be protected. People should not be limited to live in the community they were born in, and communities should be more open to letting new people in; it is only then that people can be truly free to fulfill their own ends. For these reasons, because of the importance of freedom of movement, the value of interests, and the unjustifiability of prejudice, ethnostates, ethno-nationalism, and the overall vices of tribalism, are ultimately against what is ethical. —Theory of Local Freedoms— Adding on to what constitutes abuse, in the setting of open or semi-public spaces, or even private spaces with common mutual trust, is the idea that inherent frustration when present in larger societies is condemnable, is also unjustifiable in local spaces. --The Unethics of Censorship-- To be censored for honest criticism, is unethical relative to the value of Interests, and the value of Truth. It represents an inherent frustration against someone's non-frustrating interests. To allow for such a form of censorship, is to allow for some people's interests to be given protection from criticism, in a way that may be irrational. This same logic applies in local circumstances, it is not purely beholden to large societies or to governments. If you're in a community and they try to kick you out for criticizing their leader, that is bad in and of itself. This grants an idea of Local Freedoms, freedoms that apply in local spaces as well as open, public spaces. True freedom thus grants Local Freedoms, since the value of the Fulfillment of Interests implies protection from abuse, and violation of these local freedoms is itself a form of abuse. --Alien Invasion Example-- If a group of aliens came down to Earth and claimed that thousands of years ago they created the Earth and have been continuously sustaining and developing the Earth and thus claim property ownership over the entirety of Earth (but not the humans themselves) and thus want to evict us from it, and force us from our homes, this act would be acceptable under the NAP yet it is clearly an unethical abuse of power, completely unfair, and abusive. Humans would be well within their rights to defend themselves. Relative to interests this is clearly the case, the aliens have interests misaligned with the humans and are inherently frustrating upon the humans. --Stripping of Contentment-- If someone is enjoying the fruits of their labor, and becomes content with their situation, stripping the person of their goods is bad. The consistency of circumstances entails a rational inherent interest in the circumstance, granting an entitlement to not being stripped of the goods via inherently frustrating transgression. If someone enjoys the ability to speak their mind on some platform, they should be able to continue with that and should not have their ability to interact on a platform taken away arbitrarily or exploitatively; as the taking away itself is bad regardless of the medium it is exercised through. --Conclusions of Local Freedoms-- If some action is good or bad, its morality is based on the content of the action and not purely in the medium with which it's carried out. Censorship is bad, whether performed through violence, or enforced via property. Censorship is wrong because the content of the action is itself wrong, not the way it is enforced. —Why Market Domination is Inevitable— Any market if left without enough regulation, will naturally create centralization through cumulative advantage, and said centralization will not be destroyed unless it screws up majorly. The problem with this, is it allows dominant producers to abuse their consumers and workers as already explained, within a threshold. For industries that have a naturally higher barrier to entry, or a low barrier to entry for competition but a high barrier to entry for meaningful competition, perfect competition and near-perfect competition may be impossible which will result in dominant producers forming, creating the same problem as full-on monopolies, to a slightly lesser extent. Libertarian theory assumes markets select for quality, but network science and empirical data imply they select for path dependance. In the real world, large firms will have an advantage over smaller firms by virtue of being large. This is path dependence, where consumers are more likely to choose the large firm more often, because their services will be of more consistent quality. --Market Share Growth is Self-Reinforcing- Market domination is simply a predictable consequence of feedback loops. Advantages such as capital, brand recognition, and network effects, compound over time allowing for increases in bargaining power, visibility, reduced marginal costs, etc. All of which, allows for greater growth and attracts more customers and talent. It is a cycle that causes market share to ever increase, until the business completely messes something up. This is a problem, because in-order for such a cycle to be prevented, for rightful fear of centralization, competition needs to happen. Unfortunately, entry into a market is not binary. While small competitors may or may not enter easily, the dominant firm's accumulated advantages can naturally, or deliberately, prevent entrants from forming meaningful competition. --Centralization leads to Widespread Abuse-- Markets do not select for the best product in the abstract; instead they select for the product that is good enough given historical adoption. Once a firm becomes the default, quality improvements by competitors face diminishing returns, while quality degradation by the dominant firm faces a delayed and weakened punishment. Advantages become too accumulated and competition too reduced. This is Market Centralization. The moment market share is centralized to specific companies, regardless of whether domination is by an absolute monopoly or not, a firm can exert monopoly-like power while retaining nominal competitors. All a firm needs, is a decisive market share. This is not a problem because it 'raises prices', it is a problem because it undermines consent. When exit is costly and alternatives are functionally inferior, transactions become structurally forced to follow the decisions of the dominant firm. This destroys consensual transactions, and is actually the exact same reason why monopolies can abuse their consumers. The problem is simple. A lack of competition creates a lack of functional alternatives, creating the ability for a dominant producer to enforce their own interests against their consumers. Markets work best when business bends the knee to their workers and consumers, unfortunately centralization creates a scenario where service industry forces consumers and especially workers to serve them and their every want, and not the other way around. This is the heart of interest frustration in the economy. --Why Markets do not Self-Correct-- The assumption that markets will self-correct relies on the idea that sufficient harm will cause greater competition. This is true to an extent, but once market power is centralized, the conditions required for correction are systematically undermined and beholden to the interest asymmetry created by the relationship between producers, consumers, and last, workers. Market correction therefore does not fail because actors behave irrationally, but because rational behavior under asymmetric power conditions reinforces the dominant position. What emerges is not a temporary deviation from market logic, but its predictable outcome. —Entangled Property by Entangled Interests— If you are employed as part of some large-scale job, it is worth saying that a significant set of your interests are wrapped up in your job. Employment, and the specific business you are employed to, explicitly become conduits of your rational interests. If you are to own what you make, in an Interest Property sense, as when you make something your interests get wrapped up in what you make, then that gives a conclusion that has interesting consequences: That you have an ethical claim over the decisions of the business you yourself are employed to, when it affects you. This represents a Right over Influence, a right over that which inherently affects you, and this comes right out of the value of Interests. --Layoffs are Inherently Frustration against Entangled Interests-- If you have a job and are suddenly laid off, this can cause significant harm to your own ability to fulfill your interests, and all interests directly related to your job, are immediately frustrated. If a job includes long-term commitment and long working hours, decisions at the firm you work at are suddenly directly entangled with your own interests. This is Entangled Property. Instead of personal property which is private to an individual, property used in a profit-generating setting through tools and devices operated by multiple people, which is called Productive Property, and sometimes just Private Property or Private Productive Property. This kind of property usage creates an entanglement of people's interests. --Productive Property operated by multiple people creates Entangled Interests-- This productive property is the means of the production of goods, and as used here is entangled property when multiple people's lives are inherently affected, and hence this applies to employment. In a limited sense, and in a way relevant to this concept, to be unfairly laid off of a job is thus not only inherent frustration against you, but a violation against the conduit of your interests. For interests to have value is for you to own your interests. To own your interests is to have some say over that which affects you personally. —Worker and Consumer Ownership— Entangled Property and Abuse, Interest Frustration, Eventual Centralization.. There is a solution to these problems, the solution is Interest Alignment. The fundamental problem here is that a firm is owned by a single person, or small group of people, who's interests take priority over their employees and consumers. --Interests must be Aligned-- Producers, workers, and consumers, are the three main groups. For companies that are publicly traded, this also includes shareholders. Producers and shareholders taking precedence over workers and consumers, and this time the shareholders have significant market power as a side-effect of being part of the means to profit. The most common targets of market abuse can be identified as the Workers and Consumers. This logic can be used thus, as an ethical justification of worker and consumer ownership of the means of production, in the sense of worker-owned cooperative enterprise and consumer coops. The best way to align the interests of workers and producers together, is simply for the workers to be the producers, or for the workers to have ownership of the firm itself. The ethical and rational imperative is to grant ownership with those whose interests are most entangled with the firm, give workers and consumers a real stake and voice in the means of production. --Worker-Owned Cooperatives have Advantages-- Empirically, around the world; Worker-Owned Cooperatives, enterprise under the legal ownership and control of their employees, has been shown to result in greater stability during economic downturn, as well as a persistence to lower wages during a crisis in a way more consensual as the workers themselves are the ones choosing to lower wages, and instead of simply doing an unconsensual layoff as is common in other forms of enterprise. This results in a more stable market environment less prone to bust and boom cycles than traditional capitalist enterprise; capitalist in the sense of individuals maintaining sole ownership of a business through contracts. --Worker-Ownership is better than Centralized Command Economies-- One thing this logic acts against, is Centralized Command Economies. A Command Economy is an economy where the means of production and exchange is operated at a significant scale by the State, or some other form of government or central power. This is fundamentally different from worker and consumer ownership, and such an economy has a poor track-record around the world, especially for State-owned production, as this removes the competition-driven market forces that allow for markets to align interests at all. This damages the ability to decide what should be produced and how. To simply nationalize industry naively, and put it all under centralized control of a single entity with likely poor management, is not a good strategy. The market is a tool, not an enemy of Interests. —The Conclusion— Worker and Consumer Ownership, along with acts against Discrimination and an ensurance of fair treatment of consumers and workers alike, is the imperative given by Interest Alignment. This then acts as a rational justification for Worker Cooperatives, Consumer Cooperatives, Right to Employment Laws, Civil Rights, and the philosophical basis of Fairness in greater society.

Refutation of the NAP Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Refutation of the NAP [Full Text] --When Aliens steal the Sun cause it's not Homesteaded - An Absurdity within the NAP-- Imagine aliens with advanced technology come to Earth's solar system and take the sun away. Earth stops receiving sunlight and thus freezes to death. This is not a violation of the NAP, because humanity does not own the sun. The sun is not homesteaded, until the aliens homestead it. Humanity owns the sunlight as it reaches the Earth, but owning the sunlight that reaches our planet does not mean we own it's source. --The Bird Cage Analogy-- Imagine there is an unowned cage. You place a light-bulb above the cage and turn it on. The light-bulb is your property. Later, someone random third party brings their pet bird and puts it in the cage, and walks off. The bird is their property. You come back and decide to turn your light-bulb off. You do. The bird goes to sleep, gets cold, and dies in it's sleep. Did you violate the third party's property rights over their pet bird? No, because withholding support is not the same as physical violation. From this we can derive that if the sun was owned by aliens previously, they would have a right to turn the sun off. Now imagine the aliens simply homestead the unowned sun. Does that actually change the situation at all? What if the light-bulb on the cage is unowned to begin with, and you simply homestead it by changing the bulb, and then later turn it off? Does that suddenly become aggression? What if the bird owner abandoned the bird, and we assume aggression against animals is itself wrong? Does that turn this into a violation of the NAP? No? The answer to all of this is no under the NAP. Dependency does not and can not grant entitlement. It isn't your fault the bird is in the cage, if you homestead the light-bulb it's yours, end of story. --But stopping Sunlight from reaching Earth causes Destruction of Property-- Causal links between an action and a destructive outcome are only valid if you are directly causing a destructive outcome, in an invasive way. Trespass, not mere withholding of resources in transit. For example, polluting a river next to a village is argued to be aggression because you're sending pollutants into the village without their consent. With trying to stop sunlight from reaching Earth, only messing with sunlight before it's reached Earth, you aren't aggressing because no foreign matter trespasses property borders, there is no invasion. This is a mere withholding of a Natural Input. This does not constitute invasion, same as slowly draining a large unowned body of water. If others like using it from time to time but nobody claims ownership, you can't argue aggression. Nobody is entitled to an unowned body of water. The same applies to the sun. Imagine Alice likes going to an unowned forest once a week and eating berries from it. Now imagine Gerald homesteads and cuts down the forest. Now Alice can no longer get her berries. Aggression? No. Now imagine Alice also used the berries she collected to power a machine that made her garden grow, and without the berries her factory will stop functioning and her garden will die. Does this suddenly make it aggression since now her property's integrity is linked to the berries? Of course not. She has no entitlement to the berries. --Entitlement through a Right to Easement, a Pattern of Use-- Perhaps humans own the sunlight and have a right to easement of the sun, they don't own the sun but they have partial homesteading of the sun due to continuous use of the sunlight from it. By this logic, the hobo's continuous, visible harvesting of fallen berries constitutes homesteading of the recurring yield itself as a pattern of use. Not the bushes themselves, but the recurring yield. This is a very vague assertion though, and feels kind of like Squatter's Rights being implicitly snuck in, continuous use of a house doesn't necessitate a right over the house in and of itself, right? Imagine Alice again, she likes going to an unowned forest once a week and eating berries from it. Gerald homesteads and cuts down the forest. Is this aggression or not? Surely not, yet Alice has a pattern of use in connection to the forest, therefore Squatter's Rig- I mean uh, a right to the continued pattern of use of the forest? --But the Natural State of Humanity is to have access to Sunlight-- Imagine a hobo who lives on an island. The hobo builds a house, the house is his property as he homesteaded it. He lives off of berries from berry bushes, but he never interacts with the bushes, he merely picks up berries off the ground that fall off the bushes. The berry bushes should thus be unowned, dependency does not create entitlement. If Johnny comes to the island and starts homesteading and uprooting the bushes, this should not qualify as aggression because the bushes are unowned and the hobo has no entitlement to them. 1. Hobo relies on berries fallen off bush 2. Humanity relies on sunlight from sun randomly reaching their planet There is no valid difference here. The only difference is that humans are born into relying on the sun, the "natural conditions". This doesn't hold up because you can argue the hobo has the natural condition of having access to the berries, as he was born on the island. What defines natural? Dependency should not grant entitlement, that contradicts the NAP.

Deduction of Interests Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Deduction of Interests as a Value [Logical Deduction] –The value of Interests, derived from the existence of Normative Force itself– --Basic Definitions and Clarifications-- B. Deduction starts with premises and derives a conclusion. If the conclusion is meant to apply to some agent, it's premises must apply to that agent, otherwise the conclusion would not follow. A. Acceptance of deductive arguments presuppose the validity of deduction and reason for seeking and identifying truth, as a rejection of deduction as valid makes those deductive arguments invalid. C. Agents view their own interests with normative value relative to themselves, by definition. D. The Is/Ought Fallacy dictates you cannot derive "You ought not murder" from pure truth claims. E. Thus, if normative force must require something else, that something else is presupposed by acceptance of any form of normative force apart from the normativity of reason itself. F. If an argument proves a normative claim such as "You ought to accept 1+1=2", that argument's correctness assumes and relies on the normativity of it's premises. If it turns out one of the premises is false, that's fine because that means the argument isn't actually correct. The conclusion being true doesn't imply the premises are true, the premises imply the conclusion. The normativity is only true in so far as the argument is true. --The Argument-- 0. Argumentation and acceptance of any deductive argument, presupposes reason and deduction. 1. Persuasive arguments prove a conclusion of "Therefore, you ought to believe X" by definition. 2. Rational justification is defined as a persuasive argument that deductively proves a claim X as correct, via a deductive argument proving a conclusion in the form "Thus, you ought to accept X". 3. Proving a conclusion in any deductive argument, requires premises. (basic deduction) 4. If rational justifications prove normative claims to some opponent, based on premises, those premises must apply to the opponent as otherwise the conclusion would not follow. 5. Normative conclusions must derive their normativity from some normative premises. 6. For a normative premise to apply to some opponent, it must derive it's normative force from claims already valid for the opponent; epistemic truths, reason, or values they hold as having force. 7. An opponent's wants, desires, beliefs, preferences; definition-wise these are their interests, and they are values the opponent holds with normative force relative to themselves. 8. Thus, for a normative premise to apply to some opponent, it must derive normative force from an appeal to truth, reason, or the opponent's value of their own interests. 9. It is impossible to derive normative claims in the form "You ought not murder" from true facts alone. This is the is/ought fallacy. Thus epistemic truths and reason, fail to derive normative force. 10. Any argument that hinges on or argues for normative force, thus must ultimately derive that normative force from the value of interests, as otherwise the conclusion need not apply. 11. Acceptance of the validity of normative force in any respect thus presupposes the assumption that normative force can be justified, thus appealing to the value of interests. –Acceptance of Normative Force presupposes a value of Interests– Therefore, to assume the existence of normative force rationally requires the presupposition of the normative value of Interests, as otherwise such normative force would be impossible to justify. To reject the normative value of Interests as they apply to all beings, is to make all arguments for normative force of any kind unjustifiable. To reject Interests as the source of normative value is thus to forfeit all normative force. —Deduction of Interests as a Value via rules of Interaction Justification— –Definitions: Persuasive argument: an argument aimed at justifying the conclusion “Therefore, you ought to believe X” Relevant interests: an agent’s wants, desires, beliefs, and preferences relevant to the argument Rationally justifiable interaction: an interaction that can be defended via an argument deducing the claim "Therefore, you are rationally required to accept X" Objectively true: as used here, a claim that directly follows from hard logic, empiricism, or other inarguable epistemology; true facts about reality itself, is-statements Rational oughts: You rationally ought to accept anything that is rationally-derivable; including logic, inarguable epistemology such as empiricism, and the objectively true –Premises: (P0): If a claim is objectively true and rationally derivable, you rationally ought to accept it by definition; as they should be derivable through logic, empiricism, or other rational epistemology (P1): All persuasive arguments aim to justify the normative conclusion “Therefore, you ought to believe X” (definition) (P2): Any argument that proves a conclusion requires premises to derive it (P3): A persuasive argument’s “you ought to believe X” claim's derivation does not hold for an opponent unless they are rationally required to accept all that is necessary to justify the claim (P4): To be rationally required to accept premises of an argument requires that those premises appeal to what is objectively true, or to your relevant interests (P5): Normative conclusions must be derived through normative premises, for example rational oughts must be derived from rationally-derivable truths, which are normative by definition (P6): Rational justification works via persuasive argumentation for the claim "Therefore, you ought to accept X claim", which then grants a specific claim's justification (P7): Rationally, interactions ought to be rationally justifiable –Logic: (L1): From (P1 + P2), persuasive arguments necessitate premises to justify “you ought to believe X” (L2): From (P3 + L1), for a persuasive argument's conclusion's derivability to hold for an opponent, the opponent must rationally be required to accept the premises (L3): From (P1 + P5), the normative force of a persuasive argument's claim of “you ought to believe X” must come from the premises (L4): From (L3 + L2), a persuasive argument's normative force requires the opponent to be rationally required to accept the premises (L5): From (P4 + L4), a persuasive argument's premises must appeal either to objectively true statements, or to the opponent's relevant interests, for the argument to have normative weight (L6): From (L5 + L4), the normative force of persuasive arguments depends upon the normative value of; objectively true statements, or opponent’s relevant interests, based on the premises (L7): From (L6 + P6), the normative force of rational justification depends upon the normative value of; objectively true statements, or opponent’s relevant interests, based on the premises (L8): From (L7 + P7), interactions rationally must appeal to the normative value of; relevant interests of participants, or objectively true statements; in-order to be rationally justifiable –Conclusion: From (L8): Interactions rationally ought to appeal to the normative value of relevant interests of participants, or that which is objectively true, because rational justification requires persuasive arguments whose normative force depends on appealing to at least one.

Justification Ethics Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Justification Ethics [Full Text] Note that the following arguments use Normative Rationalism as an assumption. This assumption comes from the 2nd section of this text: [yoggism as a procedural norm] This also provides a more rational alternative to NAP Argumentation Ethics . You can skip to the Deduction of Interests as a normative value, here: [Deduction of Interests as a Value] –Justification Arguments presuppose the Normative Value of Interests– A Persuasive Argument as used here, means a deductive argument deriving a conclusion in the form "You ought to accept/believe X". Such an argument must derive its conclusion from premises. Since the conclusion is a normative one, it contains "You ought", that normative conclusion must be derived from normative premises. Here, the different types of premises that can be used to form such a conclusion can be identified. These are: 1. Truth Claims (true facts about the world, is-statements) 2. Reason (logical truths, A=A, if A implies B and A is true then B is true, I think therefore I am) 3. Interests (wants, desires, preferences, goals; of some sentient being) 4. Axioms (assumptions, statements assumed to be true without justification) Any argument entailing normative force must rationally justify that normative force via one or more of these types of premises. Immediately the problem is that truth and reason cannot justify normative (ethical) force, the type of normativity that governs apparently logically neutral behaviors like "you ought not murder", because of the is/ought gap. Is-statements, and logical tautologies, cannot directly derive normativity of this sort. The one type of normativity that can be derived is normative rationalism, the idea that rationale and reason have action-guiding value. This is assumed as a starting point when engaging in argumentation or accepting deductive arguments based on their logical weight. Axioms also cannot derive ethical normativity, not in a way that is guaranteed to apply to the recipient, because the axioms themselves definitionally cannot be justified. Normative claims that are supposed to apply to specific people, derived from axioms like "Murder is wrong", are thus impossible to rationally justify. –Interests CAN Justify Normative Claims– Interests however, and the value of them, is the one type of premise that when appealed to actually can derive normative claims. Imagine a deductive argument that sets out to prove "You ought to buy my washing machine". This is a normative claim, so you can't derive the ought from pure logic. You also cannot derive the ought from truth claims, and appealing to "Washing machines are good" as an axiom isn't helpful. Yet if you appeal to "You want clean clothes" then suddenly it is possible to derive "You ought to buy my washing machine". Of course for the conclusion to be normative, that premise must also be normative, therefore "You ought to achieve your end of getting clean clothes" must be true at least relative to the person the conclusion is meant to apply to. –Interests from Normative Force Conclusion– Thus, only interests can derive normative force in a way that can be applied. Therefore, any presupposition of the existence of normative force, implicitly justifies the value of the Fulfillment of Interests in-order to rationally ground that normative force via justification. All arguments that are a 'Persuasive Argument' that tries to prove you ought to accept its conclusion, thus must presuppose the Fulfillment of Interests as a value as it pertains to the relevant interests of the person the argument's conclusion is meant to apply to. The only exception being arguments that prove normative claims based around pure truth, like "You ought to accept A = A". –Interactions ought to be Ju stifiable– If you interact with someone, you should be able to rationally justify your interaction, in a way where those involved in the interaction should be rationally required to accept it. This means you should be able to justify that the claim “You rationally ought to accept my way of interacting” is true for the person you are interacting with; you should be able to argue you are acting reasonably. This is a 'Persuasive Argument', meaning an argument that attempts to derive a claim in the form "You ought to accept X". Any argument in this form, must appeal to the interests of any debate opponent for the conclusion to have valid normative weight. To engage in an interaction that is inconsistent with the normative value of interest, is to engage in an interaction that cannot be rationally justified to anyone. To reject justification in this sense, is to forfeit all justification of normative force, which leaves you unable to justify your own actions. If normative claims and normative arguments, arguments about things like "you ought not to murder", are recognized as meaningful whatsoever, forfeiting normative force prevents you from engaging in that conversation. –Layered Justification– Imagine someone fulfilling their interests while not interacting with anyone else in a way that interferes with their interest fulfillment. This is someone acting in a way that does not frustrate against anyone else's inherent interests, where 'inherent interest' means an interest that acts as a conduit of other interests, like basic autonomy. Such fulfillment is neutral under Justification Ethics. No deduction can be made for or against the action. Yet, acts against the neutral action are explicitly unjustifiable, as they represent inherent frustration. It should also be noted that Justification Ethics cannot on its own derive a claim of positive obligation, aka an obligation to act. It only deals with the justifiability of actual actions, not inaction. This is because "interactions ought be justifiable" is presupposed by the recognition of normative value, and presupposed by argumentation. Yet, "inaction ought be justifiable" is not presupposed by either. This allows the separation of Justification Ethics into three layers. 1. Actions that are inherently frustrating or abusive under the Anti-Abuse Principle, cannot justify normative force. Actions that promote fulfillment of interests can justify normative protection. Actions that constitute fulfillment of interests while not interacting with anyone else, are neutral. To act against such behavior is still unjustifiable. 2. Inherent Interest Theory as derived, states that interests acting as conduits of other interests, are Inherent Interests and ought to be given priority in justification. 3. The concept of Retaliatory Law justifies frustration in one extra case, if it constitutes defense against inherent frustration. This is justified as proportional defense is frustration of interests in defense of interests more inherent. These then explicitly solve conflicts between interests, generating the AAP. –Justifying the Anti-Abuse Principle– These building blocks then justify the Anti-Abuse Principle as a consequence. Actions that inherently frustrate against other's interests are unjustifiable, unless they constitute defense against inherent frustration. Actions that constitute fulfillment of other's interests justify normative protection. Actions that only fulfill interests of an individual, while not interacting with anyone else, are neutral, and unjustifiable to act against. Conflict between interests is measured via Inherent Interest Theory, where interests that are entangled with other interests, like an interest in basic autonomy, are given more normative justificatory weight. —The Anti-Abuse Principle (AAP)— Actions that constitute interference with another's non-abusive fulfillment of their own inherent and non-contradictory interests, are illegitimate. Actions that inherently result in the frustration of interests, through overall frustration by misalignment of interests between parties, or due to conduct that frustrates against inherent interests, are unjustifiable, constitute ‘abuse’, and are thus illegitimate. Actions that prevent abuse, or inhibit otherwise unjustifiable conduct; including conduct that is a product of interest misalignment between parties, and conduct that is inherently frustrating to interests; are legitimate as they constitute resistance to abuse. –Max Stirner's Egoism– This then sews the seeds for a sort of Universal Egoism, the idea that my ends matter, and yours, and everyone's. This sets up Yogg Interest Theory to be the most consistent framework for ensuring the protection of the individual's self-interest, within an organized group or apart from one. This idea is a "spook to end all spooks". In Max Stirner's Egoism, a 'spook' is referred to as some action or concept meant to push you away from your own self-interest. To define a rule against creating spooks upon others, is the kind of rule a "Union of Egoists", the hypothetical social organizing envisioned by Max Stirner, advocates for. This rule is essentially exactly what the Anti-Abuse Principle is. This makes Yoggism particularly justifiable by Egoist standards, compared with other normative frameworks. Yoggism itself is a spook technically, but it is also the anti-spook. –Rejection of Normative Force results in Unjustifiable Nihilism– If someone says "normative ethical force cannot be justified", they are presupposing that actions and that which is action-guiding, normativity, ought to be justified in the first place. This claim is also presupposed by argumentation and the acceptance of deductive proofs. The idea that deductive justification of actions is valuable itself, forces confrontation with the Fulfillment of Interests because interests are the only way to ground claims of justification for actions such as acts of gift-giving, eating food, violence, murder, theft, etc. To reject normative ethical force is also to reject any normative force pertaining to logically neutral actions, which is simply to embrace nihilism. –Interest-Frustration cannot be justified by Nihilistic Egoism– True Egoism requires the conclusion that it is irrational to say a strong person should not murder a disadvantaged person. Either that, or it must contradict itself. It is impossible to argue such a conclusion to someone if they are the disadvantaged, because making such an argument requires appealing to their preferences and such a conclusion contradicts them; their interest in not being attacked is clearly relevant to any argument against it, yet the argument against it can only function by granting their interests no weight. This is a blatant contradiction in the nature of justification itself. You cannot rationally justify an assertion that you can punch someone in the face for your own enjoyment, because any argument they would care about must appeal to some preferences they share, yet the assertion itself is contradictory to their preferences and grants their interests no weight. It also cannot be claimed that to have a preference beyond Egoism is irrational, as Egoism itself dictates that all self-interest is rationally valid. It is only Preference as a Normative Force itself, that allows for the distinction between rational and irrational interests, and it is this which allows for proper rational justification. Therefore, it is impossible to justify Egoism, it is impossible to justify behavior through Egoism, it is impossible to normatively argue for Egoism in a way that applies to anyone with an interest against it, and it is also self-contradictory to accept an argument for Egoism as it always contradicts your own rationally-justifiable preferences. –Interests as Normative Value, Deductively Proven– We can now demonstrate this proof step-by-step: --Basic Definitions and Clarifications-- A. Persuasive arguments are definitionally, arguments that prove a conclusion of "Therefore, you ought to believe X", from deduction through premises. B. In this context we can assume normative claims deduced from premises, must require at least one normative premise. C. Interests are defined as any preferences, values, beliefs, wants, desires, that which a being's behavior tends towards; they are action-guiding. D. If a premise in an argument acts as a normative claim, the argument's correctness can assume the normativity of the premise, but only in so far as the argument is correct. If the argument is incorrect, either invalid or one of the premises is false, then the normativity of the given premise is not necessarily valid. For example, a persuasive argument that 1+1=2 could appeal to an opponent's irrational interests in astrology, though it would be wrong to thus conclude that astrology has actual rational normative weight. The normativity is only true in so far as the argument is true, and an argument appealing to wrong premises is not true. --The Argument-- –Definitions: Persuasive argument: an argument aimed at justifying the conclusion “Therefore, you ought to believe X” Relevant interests: an agent’s wants, desires, beliefs, and preferences relevant to the argument Rationally justifiable interaction: an interaction that can be defended via an argument deducing the claim "Therefore, you are rationally required to accept X" Objectively true: as used here, a claim that directly follows from hard logic, empiricism, or other inarguable epistemology; true facts about reality itself, is-statements Rational oughts: You rationally ought to accept anything that is rationally-derivable; including logic, inarguable epistemology such as empiricism, and the objectively true –Premises: (P0): If a claim is objectively true and rationally derivable, you rationally ought to accept it by definition; as they should be derivable through logic, empiricism, or other rational epistemology (P1): All persuasive arguments aim to justify the normative conclusion “Therefore, you ought to believe X” (definition) (P2): Any argument that proves a conclusion requires premises to derive it (P3): A persuasive argument’s “you ought to believe X” claim's derivation does not hold for an opponent unless they are rationally required to accept all that is necessary to justify the claim (P4): To be rationally required to accept premises of an argument requires that those premises appeal to what is objectively true, or to your relevant interests (P5): Normative conclusions must be derived through normative premises, for example rational oughts must be derived from rationally-derivable truths, which are normative by definition (P6): Rational justification works via persuasive argumentation for the claim "Therefore, you ought to accept X claim", which then grants a specific claim's justification (P7): Rationally, interactions ought to be rationally justifiable –Logic: (L1): From (P1 + P2), persuasive arguments necessitate premises to justify “you ought to believe X” (L2): From (P3 + L1), for a persuasive argument's conclusion's derivability to hold for an opponent, the opponent must rationally be required to accept the premises (L3): From (P1 + P5), the normative force of a persuasive argument's claim of “you ought to believe X” must come from the premises (L4): From (L3 + L2), a persuasive argument's normative force requires the opponent to be rationally required to accept the premises (L5): From (P4 + L4), a persuasive argument's premises must appeal either to objectively true statements, or to the opponent's relevant interests, for the argument to have normative weight (L6): From (L5 + L4), the normative force of persuasive arguments depends upon the normative value of; objectively true statements, or opponent’s relevant interests, based on the premises (L7): From (L6 + P6), the normative force of rational justification depends upon the normative value of; objectively true statements, or opponent’s relevant interests, based on the premises (L8): From (L7 + P7), interactions rationally must appeal to the normative value of; relevant interests of participants, or objectively true statements; in-order to be rationally justifiable –Conclusion: From (L8): Interactions rationally ought to appeal to the normative value of relevant interests of participants, or that which is objectively true, because rational justification requires persuasive arguments whose normative force depends on appealing to at least one. –To not respect Interests, is thus a performative Contradiction– We may also demonstrate that to act in a way inconsistent with premises assumed by an argument, is a performative contradiction. A performative contradiction is when a statement's assertion contradicts necessary presuppositions required for it to be meaningful. Imagine you argue with your landlord about what you or them ought to do, in any sense. The landlord attempts a persuasive argumentation, thus appealing to your interests. This value of your interests must be a premise of their argument, as otherwise normative force is unjustifiable. If the landlord then turns on you and threatens to evict you for criticizing them, they are acting inconsistent with the assumption of the normative value of your interests they held previously, as doing so forfeits their ability to justify normative force, and thus forfeits their own argument. By arguing for the claim that they should evict you, or for arguing that if they threaten eviction you ought to give in, this is thus a performative contradiction. Therefore, if they still hold their previous argument as valid, and/or hold persuasive argumentation between them and you in any way to be valid, they are also contradicting themselves. Rationally, it can be argued that they ought to value argumentation with you, or with anyone willing to give persuasive argument for that matter. The only way then to not contradict yourself, when interacting with others where you would value argumentation, is to uphold the Fulfillment of Interests for all parties involved in the interaction. Thus, rational interactions ought to uphold the Fulfillment of Interests as a principle applicable to those parties.

Yogg Virtue Theory Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide Philosophy Menu More Yogg Virtue Theory [Full Text] —Consent from Justification Ethics— Consent is a continuous, preferably enthusiastic, explicit, and relevantly-informed, acceptance of an agreement, contract, or activity. The value of Consent can be obtained through simple Justification Ethics. Agreements sustained via an alignment of interests will ensure people's interests are respected; for if agreements are handled with everyone involved only looking out for their own interests, and not actually in agreement, this will end up with gross interest misalignment and thus the interaction will dissolve into an anti-interest catastrophy in violation of the AIP and AAP. —Passive vs. Active Interactions— Justification Ethics lays out the following concept: Interactions rationally ought to appeal to the normative value of the relevant interests of all involved, due to the premises of the persuasive argumentation necessary to rationally justify the interaction. Thus, interactions must be rationally justifiable relative to Interests. The question here is what kind of interaction? If someone is in danger in front of me, do I have a duty to act and help them? To what end, to what limits? —Justification Ethics and a Right to a Private Sanctuary— Justification Ethics is contingent on the normative obligation to rationally justify methods of interaction. This normative obligation comes from Normative Rationalism. Does this normative obligation apply to inaction as well as action? It could be argued in theory that for someone in danger in front of you, you are not interacting with that person, and thus no rational justification for anything is necessary until you interact with them. This view implies interests only become relevant once you enter into an interaction with someone else who has Normative Will, who has interests. Thus, inaction is never unjustifiable unless somehow inaction is contradictory with the existence of interests themselves, such as if "Interest Structures" or the "Pillars holding up Interests" are themselves under threat, similar to theories of Threshold Deontology. There is a problem with this analysis though, couldn't it be said that inaction is yet another form of behavior, and as a behavior it is the fulfillment of an interest, an interest to not act? Must this interest be rationally justifiable? If so, justifiable to whom? How can it be narrowed down who is involved in a behavior that by definition is directly affecting no-one? —Praxeological Asymmetry— One place to turn to is the idea of a Praxeological Asymmetry. Praxeology is the theory of beings that engage in purposeful behavior. Praxeological Asymmetry is the idea that inaction or withholding from action does not require justification in the same way as active interaction, and this is founded on Epistemological Asymmetry grounds. Epistemology is the theory of how beliefs should be shaped, and this idea holds within it an arguable asymmetry. If you have a claim like "there is a teapot between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn", the lack of evidence for such a claim means that you, empirically, ought to disbelieve in the existence of the teapot. So a lack of evidence leads to disbelief rather than just neutrality? This implies an asymmetry. Applying similar logic, or applying this epistomological thinking to rational justification, leads to a Justification Ethics conclusion that interests are relevant to only involved people in an interaction. If your actions don't directly affect anyone, you aren't interacting with anyone in an active way, then justification relative to interests need not be present due to the asymmetry. —Epistemological Asymmetry is Invalid?— There is unfortunately a problem here too. Belief in such a mystical teapot is irrational, but so is neutrality towards the hypothesis, due to there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that space is mostly empty, so the area between Jupiter and Saturn should be devoid of random teapots, as well as how Earthly objects should be nowhere near planetary orbits, except under very specific circumstances of which none should exist for a random teapot. Thus disbelief is the rational conclusion, not due solely because of a lack of evidence but also because of evidence to the contrary. This presents a problem because other claims where there is limited or no evidence going for or against the claim, may not have a "default state" to point to for deciding whether belief or disbelief is rational, leading to neutrality being the rational conclusion. This breaks the asymmetry which goes against the logic of "non-interaction" leading to non-justification, leading to inaction not being in violation of interests. —Abuse Constructs a Right to a Private Sanctuary?— Perhaps due to neutrality being correct in a true both-sides lack of evidence, no evidence for or against a particular claim, this can grant a "default state" that can bind Justification Ethics to ongoing interactions, the same way non-existent future interests are fundamentally different from Justification Ethics and the Absolute Interest Principle, as the ought to rationally fulfill interests only derives existant interests. You cannot ought that which you cannot. It may also make sense to acknowledge that the Anti-Abuse Principle as formulated grants a protection from Inherently-Frustrating Interests, classifying them as illegitimate based on the logical implications of Interests being treated as the fundamental normative value. A protection from such inherently-frustrating interests may include a protection from harmful obligations, which further demonstrates this "Right to Private Sanctuary". —Yogg Virtue Ethics— Even if it may be hard to justify any form of duty or obligation towards those you aren't actually interacting with, using Justification Ethics, there is still a basis for defining good character and morally positive conduct, and this is Virtue Ethics. Virtue Ethics is a philosophical approach that emphasizes the character and virtues of a person, what guides their behavior, rather than focusing on adherence to a principle or goal. Positive traits, aka Virtues, are the attributes that help curate morally or ethically positive behavior, and reflect an outlook on others or an outlook on existence that is in some sense morally positive. Negative traits, aka Vices, are the attributes that contradict this goal. Positive character, and the recognition of rational and irrational character traits, relative to Interests, is the way to address this problem. Virtue can thus be thought of as a Respect of Interests, of both others and your own, and the adherence to that responsibility. This is similar to Immanuel Kant's "Treat People as an End, never as a Mere Means" philosophy, which is also related to the given Yoggist definition of Abuse, that behaviors functioning off of misaligned interests, may result in frustration for one side of a deal, which can be dangerous to the meaning of interests themselves, and is thus illegitimate. —Plagiarism and Wheaton's Law— Wheaton's Law is a guiding principle that states simply, "Don't be a dick". This guiding principle maps almost perfectly onto the Anti-Abuse Principle, as to be a 'jerk' is pretty neatly spelled out as to engage in behavor that is inherently interest-frustrating, and unjustifiable to others in some way. Taking up the Anti-Abuse Principle with this idea of "Respect of Interests" as a form of Virtue, then maps perfectly the guiding principle of Wheaton's Law. This grants a valuable insight, the ability to both ethically and character-wise decry practices such as Plagiarism in the name of Interests. Plagiarism, and equivalently non-attribution and stealing credit, as well as very specific and limited forms of Intellectual Property, are thus justifiably anti-virtue as they correspond to a disrespect towards other's interests, and in many cases are unethical as they may correspond to inherently-frustrating interests as the product of both vices and interest misalignment. Some things that are illegal under absolutist Intellectual Property Rights, but are not inherently-frustrating, would include archiving, and derivative works. These actions don't harm anyone inherently, and simply represent creative expression. The ethical violation in plagiarism lies in false representation, not in duplication; so archiving doesn't count as an ethical infringement. Plagiarism frustrates interests by: 1. Stealing reputational capital (career prospects, social standing, trust). 2. Undermining trust and attribution (people rely on attribution to evaluate credibility). 3. Creating asymmetric advantage through deception (falsely-attributed exchange). 4. Discouraging creation by breaking the link between effort and recognition. This makes plagiarism inherently frustrating, regardless of any monetary exchange. Archiving does not inherently frustrate interests because: 1. It preserves access without deceptive or abusive practices. 2. It does not claim authorship of anything and ought to include proper attribution. 3. It often aligns interests (creator interest in preservation + public interest in access). Any harm is contingent, not inherent (e.g. bandwidth costs, disputes in hosting). —Forming a Principle— Therefore, based on all this reasoning, we can define Virtue and Vice as the following: Virtue: Traits that curate a respect towards Interests as having value. Vice: Traits that curate a disrespect towards Interests as having value. Some virtues consistent with this view would include: Generosity, Altruism, Self-Reliance, Solidarity, Trustworthyness, Justice, Fairness, Mutualism Some vices consistent with the view would include: Unfairness, Irrationality, Rage, Disrespect, Hatefulness, Exploitativeness, Callousness, Cowardice Using this reasoning we can then define the following principle, describing Just Duty, and Fair Behavior. —Yogg Virtue Principle— You ought to act in a way consistent with the virtues that curate respect for interests, including Mutual Respect, Justice, Truth, and Recognition of others as Self-Sovereign. You ought to not act against Consent, or enforce Interest Misalignment for your own gain through Unfairness, Irrationality, Explotativeness, or Abuse. You ought to form a character that adheres to the responsibility of upholding these character traits, against Negligence towards others, and Abuse of others. Common virtues such as Justice, Self-Sovereignty, and Generosity, are simply emergent properties of the Respect for Interests.

Normative Will Back to Home Details Step-by-Step Guide More Normative Will [Full Text] Only sentient beings, defined as entities that possess subjective experience, have interests relevant to Justification Ethics and Yoggism more broadly. Below is an explanation as to why, and the logical basis for how rationalism, normative value of preferences, and Justification Ethics all connect. --Yogg Normative Will-- For sentient beings with interests, their behavior can be described relative to more than just the laws of physics as a standard. A water bottle cannot behave irrationally, yet sentient beings can, relative to their interests and relative to the value of truth. This grants a way of describing “free will” that is coherent and non-mystical. The Normative Will of sentient beings is the difference in volition and ability to resist instinct, the ability to act both rationally and irrationally relative to rational standards and relative to one’s own interests, and the ability to act in contradiction with naturally selected preferences. Normative Will is therefore the capacity for normative evaluation of behaviors relative to standards beyond the mere laws of physics; including rationality, ethics, and personal preferences. Every sentient being possesses some degree of this Normative Will, and the stronger the Normative Will, the more clearly Justification Ethics applies; as under strict instinct or structural constraint, both appeals to non-self-interest and adherence to argumentative norms become impaired. Non-sentient life has preferences that can only be described and evaluated from the outside, thus normative evaluation can only measure behaviors relative to their consistency with physical laws, in which case the "behavior" or functioning, of non-sentient life, should never deviate. --Normative Will and Virtue-- Normative Will is thus the grounding capacity that makes interests ethically authoritative. How such dispositions are exercised is thus the grounding of an Interest-based definition of Virtue and Duty, where others should be recognized according to Justification Ethics, as normatively authoritative sources of reason, and holders of the basis of normative value, interests themselves. --Absolute Interest Conclusion-- --Connecting to Justification Ethics-- Justification Ethics is the idea that rational justification presupposes an appeal to the Normative Value of Interests themselves. If you interact with a water bottle, you need not justify your actions to the water bottle, because rationally justifying a claim of "This water bottle ought to accept X idea" makes no sense. The water bottle is not a rational actor at any level. For sentient beings this isn't true. Consider the interaction of "I will steal this child's candy". How can you rationally justify such an interaction? The child would object, and the child's cognition should be complex enough to be able to judge the action on rational grounds, thus the objection is of rational weight. Thus, rational justification requires you to be able to prove "The child ought rationally to accept my interaction as non-contradictory". This is impossible, because you cannot: 1. Prove it's positively rational to steal candy based on rationalism alone, with no explicit or implicit appeal to normative value. 2. Prove it's legitimate to steal candy relative to the normative value of Interests, as the action is inherently frustrating and without reason. Therefore, stealing candy from a child is rationally unjustifiable. Therefore, Normative Will is the way to measure how strictly Justification Ethics applies. --Animal Rights-- Justification Ethics, which implies the Normative Value of Interests, can apply to any sentient being where their cognition is complex enough to judge a given action on rational grounds, relative to the standards or complexity of the action and its affects. In the "stealing candy from a child" example, the child's cognition is complex enough to be able to object to the behavior in a way that makes sense. Similar logic applies to animals, you can simply replace "child" with "monkey/dog/bird/earthworm" and it's fine. Since preference is present in all sentient beings, those beings can object to behavior based on their preferences. Those beings do have the ability to act rationally and irrationally relative to their interests, and relative to how they should act relative to the truth, making it possible to define "rational oughts" that apply to them. If you try to kill a dog for no reason other than you want to, it is impossible to make an argument such that "The dog ought rationally to accept your interaction as non-contradictory". This is impossible, because you cannot: 1. Prove it's positively rational to steal candy based on rationalism alone, with no explicit or implicit appeal to normative value. 2. Prove it's legitimate to steal candy relative to the normative value of Interests, as the action is inherently frustrating and without reason. Since the dog has the ability to judge your behavior based on their own preferences, and any attempt to justify your behavior has to appeal to their preferences, your actions are unjustifiable. --Obtaining the Interest Conclusion-- It has thus been shown that Normative Will is the appropriate measure on how strictly Justification Ethics applies. Killing a dog is unjustifiable because the dog has the ability to rationally object to it, same with killing a monkey, or a child, or a cow, or a human. The logical consequence of this is that any entity that is sentient with Interests, has Justification Ethics apply to it to the rational extent. Any unnecessary inherent frustration of their interests is thus illegitimate as it cannot be justified without appealing either to Interest-free Rationalism, which doesn't work, or appealing to the Normative Value of Interests by trying to appeal to their own standards, which is contradictory. Therefore, the Fulfillment of Interests of all sentient beings, in all reference frames; with priority to Inherent, Rational Interests, is sustained. --What is a Rational Agent? What about theories of God?-- Below is an explanation as to what forms of sentience or some third, God-like form of being, could mean for rationalism. What if a being exists that is not held under the laws of physics, but rather is the originator of the laws of physics themselves? This idea is taken up assuming "the laws of physics" corresponds to some sort of fundamental law of existence; not the inventive and technically constructivist laws humans come up with to describe their observations. This separates an actual God from mere builders of a simulated world, those builders would still be held under some *real* laws of physics, whereas God is the originator of physics. Non-sentient robots cannot act rationally or irrationally, their behavior can only be measured relative to the laws of physics. It doesn't matter to sentient beings what non-sentient robots do to each-other, there is no philosophical reason to care. Sentient beings' actions can be measured relative to their interests, as well as the laws of physics. They always follow the laws of physics, but they do not always best act to fulfill their interests and thus have the capacity to act irrationally. We could imagine a third category of being, where this third being’s actions might be best measured by some third standard outside of the laws of physics, and interests. For such a being, it may have no reason to care about human actions, since it doesn't measure the validity of actions based on interests, but rather some greater construct. This third being could be a God, the top of the value hierarchy, where rational justification breaks down as they are beyond the concept of rationalism itself, or they are above the concept of interests in such a way where they are their interests, they are one and the same thing and thus can never act in a way that is invalid, and are thus utmost rationality itself. This seems to break the whole concept of rationalism though, because if it's definitionally impossible for God to contradict themselves, and God being an infinite being can justify and let be true anything, then it is also impossible for there to be separate true and false statements, which means everything is both true and false. If God breaks rationalism, then all arguments for God, and all arguments prescribing behavior to God, and all arguments prescribing oughts from God, arguing what to do based on God, etc, don't make any sense because their premises destroy their own structure. Thus, reason, rationalism, argumentation, and objective truth itself, are ontologically separate from God, faith, and any other unprovable spiritual beliefs that ultimately stem from God.