Thanks I have learnt something valuable. Excuse the pun.

did Adam Smith say that value was determined by Labour? I thoughttween that was a specifically Marxist idea...

I see a lot of people using the term value differently in this discussion. Maybe we should, like Marx, distinguish between value and exchange value and use value.

What is the meaning of being?

If the language-less child believes that there is a treat under the cup, then it's belief cannot consist of the terms used to report upon it. What else could it consist in/of — creativesoul

Maybe there is conceptual belief and doubt of the Cartesian kind. And maybe there is an existential belief and or doubt that is more basic than its conceptual derivative.

Life is beyond good and evil. Also giving someone a burden creates in them a sense of purpose. How is this intrinsically bad? There are no intrinsic values. The more burdens the better!

But isn't this just de facto what we do, because the counterfactual of suicide is repugnant? Just because suicide is usually culturally/biologically not an option for most, doesn't mean that the opposite (having things matter) is good. It is what we do yes, but why is mattering something good in itself other than its the default state of a human mindset? — schopenhauer1

The opposite of mattering is not suicide, it's not mattering. Actually that is not quite correct. Heidegger says (using different terms) that even not mattering is a kind of mattering in the sense that they both involve world disclosure. A rock can neither matter nor not matter, since for it, unlike us, world disclosure is not possible. So the opposite of mattering (which includes not mattering) is "neither mattering nor not mattering".

Also mattering (and not mattering) is neither good nor bad, it just is. It is a default fact of our thrown existence; it is beyond good and evil as Nietzsche would say. Here is a profound point Heidegger makes: we don't choose what matters to us, rather we are thrown into it, which is why it is fundamental or basic; it is out of our control.

In this sense the only reason I can see why somebody would kill themselves is because of this "mattering". Either there would be a painful disconnect (impossibilities) between their world and their mattering, or due to angst or depression they would find themselves completely overcome with "not mattering" and see no point in carrying on.

I don't think work has anything much to do with maintenance, only at a superficial level. Rather than maintenance it's more like the will to power. People understand themselves in significant ways which disclose certain particulars in their world as mattering. One lives for the sake of their self understanding. And one of the things one does for the sake of their self-understanding/mattering is work. In this sense even alienated work is extremely meaningful.

So how can the present be ambiguous if it is not a concept of perspectival experience — sime

This statement is ambiguous. We don't experience concepts if that is what you mean? We articulate our understanding of experience using concepts. Do you mean, the present must be an experience for it to qualify as ambiguous? According to whom? Besides, the present is experiencable and/or intelligible in different ways which is why it is ambiguous. Do you mean it needs to be a concept to qualify as ambiguous? It is both conceptual and a pre-conceptual experience.

Is a social context something we are 'in' , or is it something that we move through? Do we not alter the normative context every time we participate in it? — Joshs

I think that if we were to move through it then context would have to be something external to us. What I mean by saying we are in it is not 'in' in an internal/external sense but 'in' in the sense of that we are that meaningful context, we are in the meaning. Saying that we are those norms, is not quite the same as saying that the external has become internalized. Does that make any sense? I think my brain is too tired from a hard day at work to express the idea any better sorry...

is to talk of 'the present' necessarily to speak of a concept? — sime

Good point. Perhaps one meaning of the present is just experience as you say. This seems like an ontological present which would, as ontology, involve conceptualisation. However, what you're pointing to is an implicit pretheoretical or preconceptual experience I think.

the present is at this location" when making plans? — sime

Here you picked up another meaning. The future now. When we make plans we talk of a present in the future when we will do such and such. It's not the future per say but a future-present that is referred to.

Im not sure... it seems that the presents i mentioned are a few of the different ways that this division between the past and future is intelligible. By using division you seem to be renaming the present rather than describing a way how we encounter the present and make it intelligible. But I concede I will add it to my list as number 6. Note however that the past and future are just as ambiguous as the present.

4 doesn't refer to 'present' as time, but to 'present as context. Context and present will always be deeply associated, because a context can be said to define a present, but I think that's only due to that correspondance, and not because context necessarily refers to a present. — Akanthinos

Very interesting... You want to distinguish between context and present. I would probably disagree but I would struggle to argue for it... At the root of the idea that I'm attempting to express is that we are each generally and deeply constituted by social norms. The context (or the situation) we are both referring to here is what we usually find ourselves 'in' in an 'everyday' way. I would ask the question how are these everyday contexts constituted? Or better, how do we find the contexts to be intelligible? Think of a group of people sitting at a table holding knifes and forks at 7pm. Does this 'context' define a present? Does this context correspond to a present? Or is this context intelligible only on the basis of a shared socially appropriate 'now'. I.e. Now is the time to eat dinner, not the time to eat breakfast. I think this particular context is only intelligible on that basis. If you choose to eat breakfast 7pm rather than dinner, then the context you and others find yourself in will still be intelligible on the basis of the socially appropriate now; afterall, eating breakfast at 7pm is considered 'odd' only on this basis. So the present (in the sense of the socially appropriate now) doesn't correspond to the context, but rather constitutes that context.

I feel that the socially appropriate now is a way that we legitimately experience the present, and is a particular distinct kind of 'present'. One pertinent way I experience this shared socially appropriate present is while coming home from work on the train everyday.

A previous person suggested that measuring the present is like measuring 'the here'. Is this not genius?

Buddhists have a doctrine of non-self. The idea being that there is no experience of a permanent unchanging thing that we could call an essence or self. For them the self is a convenient fiction that enables us to live together. It is a fiction that covers over their ultimate reality. I'm not too sure about this but I would imagine that their view of time is that the present is a convenient fiction also. In other words, perhaps the present is an ultimately meaningless social construct that is only meaningful at a superficial level due to its pragmatic usefulness? I'm not sure what it would be like to experience the present...

nice!

I don't think I've read much McDowell but I have read Foot and Hursthouse.. I would say Heidegger would be very useful in this context. He wasn't interested in ethics, but his idea of our shared background practices making possible our understanding of foreground phenomena e.g. the virtues or beings, seems very similar to the point that Foot and Hursthouse are making. From memory the latter two are wanting to ground the so-called objectivity of the virtues and vices in a kind of naturalism. This naturalism is basically how our species gets things done as a natural species.

I think there could be space for a radical Heideggeran interpretation of the virtues as grounded in our shared background practices rather than a "naturalism". The shared background practices aren't at all natural. The virtues could thus receive a kind of "objectivity" this way perhaps..

You are an ignorant fool

The workers create the value. They are not paid all that they create. Thus exploitation is necessary. Exploitation is not a moral term, but an economic term that explains how capitalism functions. If you remove exploitation from the equation then capitalism is also removed.

How else do capitalists make a profit? Where does value come from if not the labour power used to make commodities? The computer you are reading this on was likely made by children somewhere in the 3rd world which is why the commodity price is able to be kept so low, cheap labour. You are a consumer of exploitation. Cheap labour in the 3rd world and decently paid labour are each exploited by capital. All labour under capital is necessarily exploited otherwise capital couldn't function.

Material resources aren't the only source of wealth. Just think of the digital and service sectors. Some programmer who creates an app and becomes rich didn't exploit any poor person. — Thorongil

Labour is the source of value. In capitalism labour is exploited so the capitalist can make a surplus. In one sense the self-employed programmer is profiting out of capitalist exploitation in that every single commodity they use to make their own profit was made by workers in very poor and highly exploited working conditions. Capitalism is exploitation. If the programmer is employed by a company, the company exploits the programmer by paying them less than the value they create.... I'm ranting...

So Aristotle examines morality, the natural world, rational deliberation, and probably many other things, in terms of a teleology or an end at which they aim. The end that the virtues, for him, aim are Eudaimonia, which can be translated as flourishing or mistranslated as happiness. This is his teleological understanding of the virtues.
Heidegger doesn't explicitly use the word teleology as far as I'm aware but he also has a teleological understanding of the human being on many different levels. E.g Being-toward-death is teleological in that this way of being in the world is such that it is explicitly makes sense of itself in terms of the end that it anticipates. And what he calls "potentialities-for-being" are ultimately understood in terms of a for-the-sake-of-which e.g. being a Father. This for the sake of which is teleological in that it kind of points back and structures, or gives sense to various different features and practices in that person's world.
Similarly a knife when understood not as an object, but as equipment, is understood teleologically in terms of its end or what Heidegger calls its 'in-order-to'.

That purpose is teleology is what undoes your post. You need to argue that teleology is not purpose. — Banno

Why?

My argument makes perfect sense. I never argued that purpose comes from teleology. I thought you were leaving?

Thanks for leaving

In my view the notion of the human is a nature of the human. We can only have this discussion because some pre-interpretation of the word 'human' is in play. So for me the issue looks to be how fixed and/or articulated this notion/nature is. — ff0

That sounds interesting. How fixed do you think it is?

That the knife didn't make itself is so irrelevant. Neither did the human.That we can only understand each on the basis of their purpose is the analogy man. come on!

So it's an argument from analogy. The analogy is that a piece of equipment is only intelligible on the basis of its purpose or 'in-order-to'; similarly a human is only intelligible on the basis of its purpose or 'for-the-sake-of-which'. The kind of purpose is different in each case, however the fact that they are both intelligible only on the basis of their purpose justifies the analogy.

A knife's purpose is to cut. To cut knifes ought to be sharp. That knifes ought to be sharp is part of the is. If you don't include the purpose then the knife drops out. A knife, as equipment, is its purpose. A knife is unintelligible if you don't account for its purpose.

Humans are a different being than equipment obviously but by analogy this argument could be extended to humans. How are humans intelligible if you don't account for their teleology, or what they're striving towards/seeking, or how thy understand and interpret themselves in what they are doing, etc.? They are similarly completely unintelligible.

Oh that was a typo. Whoops haha. No I meant teleological in an Aristotlean and Heideggerian sense.

So, do you think it moral?

What does your answer tell us about you? — Banno

No of course I don't. That statement doesn't suggest anything about my character. I was only trying to show that morality changes, which is something gurugeorge denies. Another statement I could have made would have been around womens' former inferior socio-political status in western democracies.

It remains an is, from which explanation is needed if you are to derive an ought. — Banno

You would still have trouble getting from what is the case about human nature to what we ought do.

Perhaps the right thing to do is to fight our nature.

The naturalistic fallacy. — Banno

The naturalistic fallacy seems stupid. For example: A clock is a device used to keep time. When one understands the function of a clock, then a standard of evaluation is implicit in the very description of the clock, i.e., because it "is" a clock, it "ought" to keep the time. Thus, if one cannot pick a good clock from a bad clock, then one does not really know what a clock is. Similarly with a knife. If one does not understand that a good knife is sharp, and a bad knife blunt, then they have fundamentally misunderstood the 'is'. Implicit in the 'is' is the ought that the knife ought to be sharp because a knife is used in-order-to cut. In other words, there is a certain teleology in understanding the 'is' of equipment. I would argue that the whole world is made up of these teleological "ought" (in-order-to) relationships, and that the 'is' is only intelligible upon that basis. In a like manner, if one cannot determine good human actions from bad, then one does not really know what the human person is.

You would still have trouble getting from what is the case about human nature to what we ought do. — Banno

Not really. Aristotle had no trouble, Kant had no trouble, Schopenhauer had no trouble, Nietzsche had no trouble, etc. etc.... I think you are misinterpreting Human Nature to be something biological when it is not this at all. Human Nature is NOT biological.

"Grounded in" isn't at all the same thing as "determined by." — gurugeorge

Words have multiple meanings in different contexts. It is clear that within the context that we are using these words they mean the same thing. By the way, have you ever thought about slavery? Why is owning a slave immoral within our culture but perfectly moral in prior cultures? Do the humans in these other cultures have a different biology? Do they have a different end goal?

If the biology changes, that's like the position of the stake (to which the tether is tied) changing — gurugeorge

given our biology and the given nature of the world in general. — gurugeorge

You appear to be grounding morality in biology. That is all I meant by calling your view biological determinism. You seem to be understanding human nature biologically and thus when you say that morality presupposes human nature you ground morality in our biology.

I don't see how biology is relevant to morality. It might help if you give specific examples of how biology is relevant. Also what do you mean by "nature of the world"? The scientific world?

Wow that is a very controversial view! Could we call your view biological determinism? It seems to be a naturalism based in our biology or genetics. It would be great to see other people's responses to this... my resopnse would be boring since my view is the polar opposite.

Fair enough. But Heidegger is explicitly not describing consciousness. Being in the world, for him, is more basic than consciousness or unconsciousness. This is why he is such an original thinker. He is describing how we are the world existingly

What is the difference between the virtual and the actual other? Lately I've been digging into Heidegger. Heidegger describes how dasein is for the most part an other, i.e., dasman, i.e., it is not itself. For the most part dasein does what one does as one does it because it's what one does; and dasein understands oneself in terms of how one understands oneself, etc. Dasein is fundamentally constituted as a theyself; even the hermit is a being-with he says. Is it because Heidegger basically looks down upon "the actual" (a present-at-hand concept) that the distinction between the virtual and the actual can never arise for him in his Being and Time? Do the concepts virtual and the actual other only belong to a present-at-hand philosophy? Maybe the phenomenon of the Heideggerian theyself is just at a more basic phenomenological level than the actual and virtual other, which would belong to present-at-hand philosophy?

I think what Heidegger is describing is also more basic than the below Bakhtin quote since before we can adapt our actions to those of others (consciously I assume), we already are, as dasman, an other to ourselves.

Our social identity is constructed by adapting our actions to those of others; and even more, knowing me myself as such is only possible by me seeing myself through the eyes of the other (Bakhtin, 1990).

Yeah I think it's just different levels of phenomenological descriptions.

For anyone who's interested. Heidegger on the nothing.

I watched it a long time ago. I think it portrays NOTHING in a negative light - a destroyer - and that's how people generally see it. But, what of the positive aspects of NOTHING? Is NOTHING the prime evil in this world or does it also contain, within it, the seed of a new beginning? — TheMadFool

Interesting response. Yes the phenomenon of the nothing must also have positive aspects. I think genius like Einstein and Nietzsche for example, as well as authenticity proper is precisely living with a certain openness toward the nothing. That is, disclosing new worlds (being) is only possible on the basis of the nothing. Bare with me. I don't fully understand myself yet... my thoughts aren't crystal clear

I think ethics does presuppose a human nature, and also a nature-of-the-world. It presupposes that things and people have innate tendencies, innate patterns of behaviour — gurugeorge

But how would your view incorporate society's moral changes?

Right. I was merely responding to the argument above regarding the circularity. Yes there are ambiguities everywhere...

If the physical is defined as that which is susceptible to being understood in the terms of physics, then animals (and possibly plants) cannot rightly be thought to be physical. — Janus

The 2nd time you use "physical" above do you mean physical as in "an object of physics" like you do the 1st time you used the word? Because physical can mean different things

Heidegger distinguishes between being and beings (entities), or the ontic and the ontological. Empirical sciences studies beings (the ontic), and depend on being. It's hard to explain if you don't know Heidegger. Perhaps you know Kant? Ontology is basically the conditions of possibility for the ontic sciences. This condition of possibility, Heidegger thinks, is an original world disclosure. Is it mental, is it physical? It's neither...