hrmmm checking now on paper.

I'm using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Morgan%27s_laws though I've made many mistakes so I could be wrong...

Who is this "we"? I've put a lot of effort into the literature that exists to explain history, politics and society this way. — apokrisis

I was thinking "all of us", though understanding we could be wrong.

So perhaps you understand social organisms. I don't, and so the "we" is thems who don't understand it very well like me.

Maybe you don't. But maybe that is because you can take your lifestyle for granted as something that is just magically there as a stable foundation.

Or maybe you are instead disillusioned with the world as it is given to you, but have little hope in changing it? Philosophy has to be a comfort, a solace, rather than a plan of action. — apokrisis

I have little hope, because I know we can change it. But the knowledge is not a scientific knowledge -- it's a historical knowledge.

Philosophy is certainly a comfort and a solace, but if it were not a plan of action then I could not claim Marxism. To do so I want to answer your:

A pleasant sentiment. But how do you in practice aim for it? — apokrisis

Here (on TPF, on the internet, in conversation) I think all we can do -- materially speaking -- is exchange ideas, and that such places are rare anymore. We can be respectful towards one another's histories and find out just what and why others are saying what they do, insofar that we trust one another enough to do so in a public space.

Marxism, as you may be aware, is not exactly popular. :D -- it doesn't need to be by my reckoning of philosophy, but I can say that I've always benefited from spaces like that where we can exchange ideas and learn together. The point of the old problems is that they teach people and connect the young to the older and create a point of reference: they may be wrong, but we at least understand one another.

I would agree that civilisation does seem to be on its own mindless path. It does exceed our control. Oil just wants to be burnt and it doesn't care about us except to the degree we serve to accelerate that entropic purpose. We opened the Pandora's box and we are being swept along by the larger forces that have been unleashed.

But my attitude is that you only have the one life. And right now is the most spectacular moment in human history. We can see how the whole metaphysical deal got put together. So sit there and understand what is going on right before our eyes. Fluffing about with philosophical distractions is a waste of an opportunity when this is the moment that reality is becoming properly known to us for what it metaphysically is.

I think we have different attitudes, but not contradictory ones.

I only have one life, and so I like to help and see the future grow -- there will always be difficulties, and the horrors of the future scare me, but we can see it through.

I'm definitely coming at the question from the point of view of propositional logic -- something basic because it's already confusing enough as it is :D

Would that make a difference? 0/1=F/T as I understand it.

Can anyone think up a real world example where you would point out that A implies both B and not-B except for saying something along the lines of:

"A implies B and not-B, therefore clearly not-A." — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not the same as "(A implies B) and (A implies not-B)" -- that'd be "(A implies (B and not-B)).

A real world example is often hard to parse into material implication -- sometimes, yes, but sometimes it's hard -- the conjuncts of disjuncts, while they can be claimed, is even rarer :D

Though after we dismiss "B and not-B" as always false, we can see that the truth of the proposition will only rely upon A, since "implies" is logically equivalent to "not-A or (B and not-B)", and the truth of a disjunct is true if one of the propositions is true -- so if not-A is true then it is true, and if not then it is false -- since not all results in the truth-table are false it is not a contradiction.

I appreciated the Truth-Tables.

I like this post because it's getting into why we might be tempted to say they contradict.

I think, at least in philosophy though maybe there's some other argument this stems from that I'm not aware of, that we should separate out implication from modality -- so when you introduce "possibility" and "necessity" those are entirely different operators from implication.

Though if there's some other argument going on I'm not aware of then you can link it -- I'm surprised to find so many people saying "Yes". lol

So a grander view was being asked for than a parochial one. Then Bono unhelpfully heaped on his confusion with a trite depiction that seemed to argue that equality and fairness are different things, or perhaps not. Not even a parochial clarification was attempted.

But as a case in point, we can see that it touches on a valid difference in terms of notions of "fair and just" life opportunities and "fair and just" life outcomes.

So we have then a problem of how to square the two. In the real world, people come with their biological variance and their social variance. In the old days, we were foragers. The biological variance was Gaussian and the social variance likewise. For a million years or so, bodies only evolved a bit, lifestyles only changed a bit.

Then we had the agricultural revolution. Folk still had the same genetic balance of equality/inequality. Luck could make you smarter or stronger than the average. But steadily populations grew and social outcomes became more of a hierarchical competition. You had the explosive growth of empires rising and falling.

Then the industrial revolution and now social outcomes could be hugely varied. And indeed, political structures were rejigged to make that part of the game. Liberal philosophy advocated for all to have the opportunity to get fat and rich, every person getting the just desserts they could earn.

But unfettered capitalism doesn't work. Some kind of balancing in the other direction – an evening out if outcomes are too uneven – has to be built into the politics. Marxism was one such response – but better institutionalised by social democracies than communist autocracies.

So yes, there is some ethical meat in this. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". We can see that as the kind of formula which connects the biological variance and sociological variance, that connects the distribution of opportunities to the distributions of outcomes in the hope of approaching some happy medium.

But then the rub. The happy medium is in turn dependent on the underlying entropic foundations of that society. There is a burn rate that the political thermostat is attempting to regulate. The populace must produce – or these days consume – at a rate sufficient to keep the system on the road and growing, while also paying for the matching social safety net (including its state security apparatus) that stops the social fabric tearing itself to shreds.

If you neglect to discuss this deeper thermodynamic dimension to human affairs – what it means to have moved from foraging, to agriculture, to fossil-fueled industry – then it will seem as if social settings are decided within some ethical bubble. Politics can ignore the burn rate it exists to control and can just fluff about debating good vs evil, Marxism vs Liberalism, your whatever vs my whatever. — apokrisis

If you neglect to discuss the. . . material conditions? :D

I think the social setting is not an ethical bubble, I agree -- I think of societies as organisms, but ones which we do not understand very well. That is, I don't think their patterns are just abstractions, though it's very easy to get lost in abstractions because there's not a very easy way to build falsification into social description: there isn't a science of history.

Which puts me in trouble with some variants of Marxism, and again, I really only mention it to put my cards on the table in answering the question: one could say I was giving the Humanist Marxist response, though there is this other, materialist-scientific side to Marxism that I believe your account gets along with fairly well: just in the place of "thermodynamic dimension" it's "Capital", which in a sufficiently generalized theory would probably have some kind of equality relations, but I don't think we're there yet. That is, I think when talking about Justice, Fairness, or even describing the political situation without reference to our ideals that we're still in a parochial bubble, rather than in the realm of scientific inquiry.

That is, I think we're doing philosophy in the vein of wondering about what is not known. Or, perhaps in light of current events, repeating ourselves because it's our value or something like that -- i.e. we might be doing politics rather than reflecting or some such.

But then, that gets to the deeper philosophy of Marxism, which changes what constitutes the real point of philosophy is to change the world rather interpret it. (but then, "Change it to what?" -- after you answer that, then we can speak of the use...)

What use are these fools who insist on the abstract purity of their ivory towers. — apokrisis

What's the use of use? :D

Beauty, not use, is my stated aim. I at least think it's important.

I don't even need philosophy to be true to be worthwhile, much less do I need it to be useful. But that's a metaphilosophical point that will surely diverge from the thread topic

Now let's get back to more pragmatic issues like the trolley problem and anti-natalism.... :grin: — apokrisis

Well, I'm calling for less pragmatic issues, though those two are first boring and then ugly, so not my bag either. :D

Ha! My commonsense solution to the Fairness & Justice problem would be to have a single-sovereign-supreme-superhuman judge to arbitrate between human definitions of My Justice and Your Fairness. Something like Molière's Tartuffe, relocated to heaven. But, since I gave up my religious solution years ago, I just don't worry about it. I'm certainly not a Marxist, except in the sense that he specified the problem for his day & time. His solution was missing the heavenly father to make the children behave. At my advanced age, I'm willing to let those who are more-concerned-&-more-able work-out the details of the next Utopia. :cool: — Gnomon

Utopia's shmopeya's :D -- the no place will not be as far as I'm concerned.

But I'll note that your commonsense solution runs into another commonsense solution: That Fairness and Justice would have to leave the supreme-superhuman judge out of our affairs, since we disagree on what the supreme-superhuman judge says, and so we should separate out church from state, and grant equal rights to all citizens.

I just mention my Marxism to lay my cards out on the table. There's a sense in which you could argue the opposite, that what we have can't be described as either just or unfair, but is just a process on its way to the next stage: to reject it for its injustice would be an idealism, whereas to struggle for a future freedom would be a materialism, or something along those lines.

Because Tartuffe tells us pretty things in order to seduce our daughters this lesser, material fairness is sought after as the highest real justice, even if it doesn't match what heaven is portrayed as.

No. I’m not arguing for open-ended dialectics. I’m arguing for arriving at some suitably definite dichotomy where just is defined with precision in terms of its “other”.

Negation doesn’t work as just vs unjust tells us very little about this still unnamed other. A metaphysical,strength dichotomy would be pairings like discrete-continuous, chance-necessity, local-global, vague-crisp, flux-stasis, etc.

If we can’t think of something to pair with just in similar fashion - as that which is logically mutually exclusive AND jointly exhaustive - then this in itself an argument for it being not a metaphysically general kind of distinction. It ain’t working as a bounding absolute when it comes to our dialectically formed vocab of ultimate abstractions.

Equality and balance are more robust terms, more overarching terms, as same-different is one of those standard dichotomies that concretely arose out of Greek philosophy. Justice and fairness are more parochial terms. As we have discussed and agreed, you can have the confusion of whether we are meaning equality of opportunity or equality of outcome.

Opportunity implies the competition that will result in a statistical range of outcomes. Lucky for some, unfair to others? Outcome implies a range of individual differences will be averaged over so that none are different by the end. Is that kind of communism just? Does one dream of the kind of discipline that leaves us as equal as an army marching in lockstep?

It is amazing that anyone could bandy these terms around - good, fair, just - as if they were already metaphysically robust … even if we can get by with them as socially coercive appeals in our everyday social politicking. Just claiming that goodness and justice is what your side represents and what your foe doesn’t. — apokrisis

What if they're not doing metaphysics, though?

I'd situation "equality of..." within Liberal theory. "Equality" is understood within the thoughts of the likes of Hobbes and Locke. The liberals were so successful that the calls for equality no longer mean the same as they once did: Equality then was before the law, so that the King didn't have a separate court from the people.

But as Kings diminished and the bourgeoisie rose "equality" took on new meanings.

Now, on TPF, "fair and just" will have all those resonances coming along-with. We can clarify as we go along to specify what we mean in a dialogue rather than relying upon a wide system to define our meanings. But I reach for liberal theory because liberalism -- in the classical sense -- is the dominant political philosophy to the point that it's in The Background. So we are stuck with these notions of opportunity vs. outcome, for instance, by virtue of our own history and context that we come from.

I think that where you would say: "Equality and balance are more robust terms, more overarching terms, as same-different is one of those standard dichotomies that concretely arose out of Greek philosophy. Justice and fairness are more parochial terms", the person seeking justice or goodness will say "But equality and balance are not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the parochial terms. That's ethics"

Do you see the difference there?

Since I have no formal training in philosophy, ↪apokrisis's posts are often over my head. So, in that sense, I may not have extremely "abstracted notions". But Fairness and Justice are fairly commonsense notions aren't they? — Gnomon

They kind of are, until you start to get into the details it seems.

They're kind of like "Freedom" -- everyone loves freedom, but wars are fought over which version of Freedom is going to rule.

Perhaps, as you said, it would be helpful to place "limits" on our thinking : to define our terms. One definition of "world" in this context might be simply "human culture", as the relevant element of ethical concern. — Gnomon

That definitely narrows the scope down from some kind of ontological Fairness or Justice, but there might be some difficulties here still.

What would your commonsense notion of Fairness or Justice look like, within this human world? Is it specifiable, exactly?

An inanimate object is a being-in-itself whereas a human is a being-for-itself (self-creating). — I like sushi

I think the object is still being-for-itself. An object is already quite meaningful: even rocks are more meaningful than being-in-itself. The Being-in-itself/Being-for-itself distinction is the most basic dualism of Sartre's which is offered as a means for resolving various paradoxes, but like all basic distinctions in a philosophy, it's hard to define it explicitly.

A human, I think, is not quite a being-for-itself -- there is no a being-for-itself -- Being-for-itself is a fundamental ontological category. After the distinction between being-in-itself/being-for-itself we can then come to understand that there is an ego, but the objects -- the equipmentality of Heidegger -- are still being-for-itself by my understanding.

The paradox here is that if someone has 'bad faith' how can we tell? — I like sushi

The Hazel Barne's translation has an introductory essay by her in it, and the following paragraph is (part of) her interpretation of Sartre on our relationship to others (and also our self -- think, if we're able to lie to self, which is a kind of Bad Faith, then we must also have this same "gap" you mention not just from our self to Others, but also between our self and our self) (page xxxviii)

Sartre has not
repudiated the Ego; he has only made of it an object of the pre-reflective
consciousness rather than contemporary with it. But it exists just as much
as objects in the world exist. Also Sartre never denies the existence of an
active, organizing (constituante), individual consciousness any more
than does William James, who likewise rejected consciousness as an
cntity. He merely insists that it is essentially a Nothingness which is
individualized by its objects but never wholly determined by past objects
to an extent which would prescribe what it will do with present or
future ones. Consciousness can never blot out the fact that it has been
aware of certain objects (part of which it has unified within the ideal
unity of the Ego); at times it may even let itself be trapped by the Ego
and not actively realize its ability to change its point of view on past
o,bjects. But the possibility is there. When Sartre speaks of inter-subjective
relations, of the phf::nomenon of bad faith, etc. he is referring to
the free conscio'lsness which has been directed toward certain objects,
",:hich usually asserts itself consistently with the general "character" of the
Ego, but which is not forced to do so. In ordinary experience consciousness
for all practical purposes fully asserts itself through the "I", but
anguish occasionally warns us that this familiar "I" is only a screen..
Ncvertheless consciousnesses are particular since they appear at a definite
time and place, thus nihilating Being from a particular point of view.
Sartre has warned us, as we said earlier, that strictly speaking one should
not say "my consciousness" but "consciousness of me." But if I say "consciousness
of me" and if you say "consciousness of me," our consciousnesscs
are as distinct as the Egos of which they are conscious.

Oh definitely! That's how I'd have preferred to set it out, but then I saw it was just easier to type it out :D -- but I like truth-tables because they just show it all laid out. They're mathematically clunky but conceptually useful for showing the structures for learning.

And, yes, I agree with your rendition of the composite proposition. I just find it easier to think of material implication in terms of the equivalence between: A -> B <-> not A or B (Who said that philosophers never agree on things? As long as we stipulate the definitions... :D )

A contradiction is of the form "P ^ ~P"

"A implies B" =/= "A implies not-B", and so the conjunction is "P ^ Q" rather than "P ^ ~P" -- the contradiction would be "A implies B" and "A does not imply B" -- the "not" would have to apply to the logical connective "imply".

Implication (EDIT: i.e. "A implies B") is logically equivalent to "~A or B", so...

Let
P = A implies B
Q = A implies not-B

then...
P = not-A or B
Q = not-A or not B

P =/= Q, and therefore you cannot derive the form "P ^ ~P", and so they do not contradict.

Combining P and Q what we instead obtain is: not A or B or not B (EDIT: or, we should say, not-A or B and not-A or not B), and since "B or not B" is a tautology we can simplify the expression to "not-A" -- the "B" is a sideshow because it doesn't matter if it's true or false when we put P and Q in conjunction, all that matters ifis the truth value of A.

Anyone who cares about their philosophy would make the effort to ground their use of terms in this dialectical fashion. They wouldn't just grunt and gesture – as if pointing is enough and no explaining is required.

Proper definition is counterfactual and must point to what is present in terms of what is absent. But how does the grunter and gesticulator point to that which is the absent? What use is such a person on a philosophy forum? — apokrisis

Ask not what use a person is, but how beautiful the uses being pursued are and whether or not we ought to change the uses we're pursing. There's the pragmatic ground of active values, and there's the possibility of changing what we pursue: the beautiful allows us to say "while this is useful-for, I think we ought do something else" (or, perhaps, the ethical). I think it's the latter question that physics cannot give a good answer to, though of course -- in the dialectical sense -- one has to know things about the world we're in in order to make pragmatic choices, and values, in turn, constrain the world in the sense that we'll only find what we're looking for (and pass over what we're not), and many a metaphysician is in fact speaking about an ethic and vice-versa.

I find Hegel pretty clumsy. Peirce tried to tidy him up. — apokrisis

I find Hegel frustrating, but he's still sort of the guy to go to when talking about dialectic and process -- it's not the dialectic of Plato, but a process whereby one doesn't have a worked out syllogism but rather the syllogism is placed within a context which starts a dialectic (or, really, the syllogism is replaced by process, and one goes from one idea to the next in a dialectic)

He's very open to interpretation, and inspired all kinds of philosophy after him so he's a good reference point for thinking through these problems of process and big systems and what-not -- a touchstone, more or less, for you and I to think through dialectics. In a lot of ways I see his system as the last Big System really worth considering (because not even Marx's system is really complete, exactly, and Marxism spans across many writers -- but Hegel really did just write The Big Idealist Philosophical System, so if that's the goal of philosophy he's kind of the go-to)

So when you say:

So this is Hegel+, perhaps. Sublation is what an action reveals by managing to leave that further somethingness behind. But from a fully relativistic point of view, attention is drawn to the mutality or logical reciprocality of the deal. Both are revealing their other as a "leaving behind". One isn't the first move, the other the second. It is a dependent co-arising. — apokrisis

I'm good with that. You can argue for co-arising in Hegel, as well. Your paragraph talking about Being and Nothingness sounds very much like Hegel in The Science of Logic -- so I mention him as a touchstone only, and Hegel+ -- so I believe -- is what every interpreter of Hegel has in mind :D

Science hasn't even had the final word on science let alone ethics. But that doesn't mean it ain't thundering down the line. — apokrisis

Heh, I don't see science as coming close to understanding science or ethics. Science understanding science is basically the 20th century philosophy of science -- what could be more consistent? -- and I believe it fails when it comes to ethical questions. I sometimes wonder about dithering is/ought, but then -- like The Subject -- it seems to come back around even if we "pass over" the distinction.

And everyone just jumps to the idealism of the Platonic kind of fair, balanced, equal, just and good that inhabits a realm of contextless abstraction – then wonders why they can't draw any kind of line back to the real world that must ground these as pragmatically useful distinctions. — apokrisis

Good point. Though I'm fine with it being useless, :D -- in the end I'm not a pragmatist.

But in what sense? What context? Can you define these terms as you contextually understand them. — apokrisis

In the context of a thread on TPF asking for a general reflection :)

So, yes, I think you're right to say:

the very broad metaphysical question of whether the real world in general is "fair and just". — apokrisis

Is the question posed, and even highlighting difficulties in answering -- or highlighting possible ways of thinking about the question -- is enough of an answer.

So, is the world fair and just?

I'm going to highlight where I see you answering the question more directly, whereas before what I was reading looked to be so different from the question I was struggling to see how it addressed it -- basically it seemed that is/ought ought to apply, and you were firmly coming down on an "is", but now I'm seeing the possibility of a bit more.

We are getting somewhere when we can see they are polarities that encode a spectrum of state that constitute "the world inbetween" their limiting extremes.

This is the power of metaphysical logic. It dichotomises to arrive at a unity of opposites. Mind and matter denote to opposing limits. A useful distinction which gives us the measure of all things inbetween to the degree they seem either more mindful or more material. Our definition of terms is precise to the degree it has been framed as a logical reciprocal relation. — apokrisis

Proper definition is counterfactual and must point to what is present in terms of what is absent. — apokrisis

Right then. The work begins. And perhaps some terms are so soaked in idealism (or physicalism) that there is no rescuing them?

I myself tend towards systems jargon like constraints and freedoms, plasticity and stability, vague and crisp, chance and necessity, etc, etc. I already inhabit a dialectical paradigm where work has been done to create robust reciprocal distinctions. There are a ton of terms that bridge the divide that reductionism creates. Those in system science speak their own language for a good reason. That is how they can share the same general mindset as a community.

If the talk turned to justice, this would be understood as some kind of optimising balancing act – as illustrated by a set of scales. Differences can be converted to equalities. A pound of cheese can be measured in terms of its equivalent – some sum of money being what matters to the shop keeper with physical goods to trade for hard cash.

Weighing the value of goods is prosaic. The exchange of money acts as the most impersonal way of establishing a biosemiotic connection between a society and its entropification. Definitions of a fair, just, balanced and equal deal seem to be synonyms of each other as the gap being bridged is so habitualised and ritual. Just read the price and pay the money. Or don't.

But then where we get to "moral" decisions that weigh the individual and their actions against their society and its norms, the weighing of the scales becomes a lot more difficult and complex. Pile up the sin on one side and what then is the good that can be placed on the other?

Is it an eye for an eye or juvenile rehabilitation? Does a crime of passion deserve an automatic market discount?

You have to see through these abstracted notions – fair, just, balanced, equal – to discover the pragmatic complexities they are supposed to encode. And that is even simply in the everyday human social context let alone when someone poses the very broad metaphysical question of whether the real world in general is "fair and just". — apokrisis

's post strikes me as someone who does not have abstracted notions, and is wanting to see the limits of thinking on the subject, so this is a perfect sort of response, isn't it? Rather than my first guess, it sounds to me like you're saying the question cannot be answered without first answering some other things, such as the definitions we're using in the question or the context in which the question is being asked, and it cannot really be answered "in general" -- one has to go through the dialectical process, and as such, engage in the dialectic rather than ask for a final answer that let's us check a box "yes" or "no" -- "just" or "unjust"

***

Now, in my context, I'll just flat out answer that the world isn't just, but I'm a Marxist so there's that :D

But my systems view doesn’t draw one way lines. That is the reductionist expectation where reality is just a tale of bottom-up material construction.

The systems view says reality is a growth process in which a stable existence arises from a complementary balance of two polar opposites. It is dialectical. A system is formed by its lived interaction between its top-down constraints and its bottom-up freedoms. Global constraints shape the local freedoms that then in their turn - statistically, on the whole - reconstruct that prevailing state of constraint. — apokrisis

Let's try to answer the titular question with this in mind.

It sounds to me like you'd have to say that the real world is fair and just, and that fairness and justness have a counterpart of some kind. If it's dialectical then how do you intend "complementary balance of two polar opposites"? Mostly interested in what "opposites" are in this.

Are polar opposites are simply the negation of some concept, like Justice/not-Justice, or if Justice is contrasted with injustice, or if Justice stands alone in relation to Fairness?

So if we take Hegel's philosophy we get a dialectic where the negation of the negation does not lead to the original concept, but instead is a process of sublation -- in which case I'd be inclined to think that Justness and Fairness are the teleological ends (top down constraints) and our human choices are the bottom-up freedoms. Or something along those lines.

But in a systems view I imagine that the dialectic must work differently? What is the system? What are the constraints and freedoms that would allow us to say something about the state of the world?

I'm guessing that we'd say something along the lines that you have to accept the good with the bad, so that the world is neither wholly just nor wholly unjust, and the same would go for fairness. Since we're always in a state of growth or becoming it's going to be the case that we'll find ourselves on the side of injustice as well as justice as we progress.

How does that sound?

So to draw a line from physics to moral choices is a complex and evolving tale, but perfectly doable.

My argument here is that to start the discussion, you first need to realise that we are indeed already caught in a choice between two poles of the "distribution game".

In one panel of Banal's diptych is everyone standing on the equality of a ground that never changes for anyone. The other panel represents the "fairness" of everyone being allowed as many boxes as take their fancy.

Assumed is that the world has some supply of boxes in the first place. And this particular world as pictured further assumes that only three boxes are enough to make everyone equally happy so long as the said boxes are distributed with the "fairness" of a maximum inequality.

So much to unpack as so much has been already assumed in the parable of the three boxes. As usual Bang-on pretends something is so obviously true it needs no further explication on his part. And as usual, he could not be more wrong. — apokrisis

I can spell out what I think it means -- I don't think it's very deep. I think it's comparing two versions of equality -- the equality of opportunity and the equality of outcomes.

I don't think it's much deeper than that, though. And if it needs be deeper then that's perfectly fine, but the question has less to do with the set-up -- boxes, firms, ownership, whatever -- and more to do with the question "How do we draw a line from physics to moral choices?" -- if it's doable, then can we do it?

Or is the statement of two sides enough to demonstrate that physics can draw a line to moral choices? What does this "drawing a line" consistent in?

Any scenario will do -- I'd be interested in hearing how you go from physics to ethics (as generally I don't think it can be done)

And, in my opinion, the best philosophy changes the way you read. For reading can be active form of thinking. — Fooloso4

I agree with that too!

Often I find myself in a kind of dialogue with the ideas, and sometimes the ideas are very confusing at first but then when it clicks the text changes -- Nietzsche reads like this, though I'm thinking that the aphoristic or poetic writers probably have an advantage here (or disadvantage, as preference may dictate).

But that's still a real pleasure when a text teaches you a different way to read that also opens up the text to a deeper understanding.

What do you want and expect from philosophy? — Fooloso4

Reflection, criticism, argument, and also storytelling.

The best philosophy, in my opinion, changes the way you think as you read it. It untangles a thought I didn't even know I was holding onto or offers another viewpoint or way I would not have considered without someone else having taken the time to put it into philosophical form. Sometimes that's a little uncomfortable but I've always found being exposed to a new way to think about the world worth it.

And so:

Has the philosopher outgrown the need for stories? — Fooloso4

No, but it's also not something I think we need to "grow out" of, exactly. Philosophy is full of stories! :D How else would we convey ideas? In setting out a context or a counter-example, so even in a bare-bones dialectical sense of philosophy, we'd still have to have some kind of narrative apparatus: The Trolley starts at point A then gets to Point B (the lever) which will lead to Point C or D, depending on what the actor in the story does. A beginning, a Climax, and a Resolution -- narrative.

On the whole, folk have voted for growth. And yearned for steady state. They want 3% as a basic forever rate of economic improvement and then they bellyache at the yawning inequality gap that such a regime creates simply as its equilibrium outcome. They remember the good old days when incomes were almost Gaussian flat. The good old days being the post-war anglosphere and not the pre-industrial era when GDP had flat-lined for millenia.

So there is the moral conundrum. The physical world foots the entropic bill. Fossil fuels are the explosive basis of modern economics and its scalefree social complexification. Peasants and serfs can now be pickleball professionals and influencers. — apokrisis

I think this expresses a good contradiction, and helps me understand between the two -- I really wasn't sure.

My guess is we're all on board with the Gaussian economy, yeh?

Enough of that, please.

What you are not answering is which equilibrium do you have in mind? Gaussian or scalefree? — apokrisis

Does it matter?

You and I can choose Gaussian or scalefree -- but that's not the philosophical question. the question is: Which do you choose?

Yeah?

Also, your criticism was a bit vague so idk if your suggesting guiding action is impossible due to moral realism or what not. If thats the case then the above wont really matter to your argument and I'll need to provide something else in response. — Ourora Aureis

Going over the exchange back to the OP I see I'm latching onto "maximize", which I generally associate with mathematics, and so utilitarianism, and so measurement -- but I missed that you're going against that sort of thing. At least to explain why I asked about how you could measure experience: I now see you weren't meaning it as literally as I took it.

But then my second question remains relevant, I think: How can egoism serve as a guide to action?

Usually I'd say that if I'm doing what I want then I'm not really deliberating about what is good or moral or ethical. I'm already decided. It's when I have to make a decision that I start to wonder about ethics.

Though the better way to put the question is: How do you know what you want?

I think that's a solid challenge. Thanks for telling me. Interested in the thread, or good to leave it there? I'm satisfied at this point.

In adult surgeries, sure, but apart from that not really. — Leontiskos

In terms of changing people, though -- calling them to action, effecting guilt to persuade them to change themselves, excising spiritual tumors -- I'd say that's pretty much on par with adult surgery. At least if we're keeping the medical analogy between physical doctors and moral doctors.

But then you aren't talking about ceding professionals coercive tools at all, which is what we were discussing. — Leontiskos

In the story you linked the professional was a Prophet of God. Which I think fits on par with Jesus, which is where I started :D . We could start there.

Since we haven't any of those available today:

In my parenthesis I mentioned texts. We have traditions we come from and can reflect upon and on and with and through, but there is also the whole breadth of philosophy to think through, too: ones we don't necessarily come from, even. Though that gets along with me thinking there isn't really one true philosophy.

I don't think any of us are professionals at anything more drastic, though. I don't really see the point in shaming someone on the street, for instance, for something I hold dear. If they didn't trust me or care about it, what would it do anyways? What would the point be? Even if we were professionals who could help someone, could we really do it here? Is that the sort of philosophy that ought to operate in a public discussion board?

I'm super-interested in these ideas as ideas, but I'm fairly doubtful that someone has really figured out how to be a doctor of the soul to the degree that we could just trust them to make a call on when it's ok to lobotomize someone to turn them from serial killer to saint, as a real example from the history of psychology. Sometimes I think doctors are a little overly confident in relation to how little we know. It probably helps them make decisions on the fly, but it doesn't mean I think it's thought through. I include all the doctors of the soul, there -- it's just human nature.

It's more because the doctor's of the soul are just as human as the patients that autonomy is so important -- be they psychologists, priests or family members. The best of intentions and hell and all that rot.

In terms of the board here, though:

I'm motivated to defend pluralism here because I'm interested in hearing how other people think through these problems for the same reason I'm interested in the plural philosophies -- they are beautiful ways of deliberating about what to do. But in the end our community here will only be able to help with things like reflection, consistency, understanding the ideas, and respecting one another's various viewpoints to the best of our capacity, too: so in a way these are the ethical considerations of what we can do here, which is all an ethics can be about between people, I think.

Though even it, I'd suggest, could be seen as a philosophy-for-this-board: perhaps there are philosophies that are better suited for other spaces. In fact, my pluralism would require it.

What do you think punishment is? — Leontiskos

Punishment is what you do to someone who breaks a rule.

Okay, but you still require a principle which explains why things change in the extreme case. Many of us have brought up the extreme case precisely because it disproves the OP. The extreme case disproves the claim that one can never transgress another's will. — Leontiskos

Why do you require a principle? Couldn't you just say "Yeah, that seems to break the rule, I'm not sure I know what to do with that but OK"

The question is whether they are bad per se; whether they are ethically permissible. To say that they are expedient doesn't answer that question. — Leontiskos

I thought I answered it in the negative -- they are merely expedient, they are the things we do as a society now, though I don't see them as good.

The idea that morality has to do with acting according to one's intrinsic nature is diametrically opposed to the idea that "ethical thinking occurs between persons who respect one another." This is what the serial killer example shows. — Leontiskos

Only if we're asking for a universal morality, I'd say.

I like principles, but I do kind of poke fun at the idea of not lying so that the serial killer can know the truth since that is how we respect his humanity. I believe in exceptions that can't be specified in a philosophy.

...I'm somewhat overloaded so I will probably need to start drawing myself out of some of these conversations. I suppose the main idea here is that extreme individualism which prizes autonomy and consent ends up being opposed to social living. The members of a society necessarily bump into one another and in doing so change one another's trajectory. A position which rejects this fact of life is simply unrealistic. It doesn't matter whether that position is premised on morality, or autonomy, or consent, or "Taoism," etc. — Leontiskos

No worries I understand. There's a lot of threads going through my mind just from this exchange, and it's been nice to have a spring board of sorts, just so you know. Cheers!

That's a good point.

What I'm thinking, roughly, Against the Golden Rule:

"Do unto others' as you would have them do unto you" is the version I'm thinking from.

One thing, all by itself, is that it doesn't really say much.

Nobody asked me, but I hate the Golden Rule — Joshs

:D

No worries -- I'm interested in hearing a proper go at refutations of the golden rule.

It perpetuates the very violences it is designed to pre-empt, by assuming that morality is a matter of motivation and intent rather than understanding. — Joshs

I'm interested. Is there more?

As I've tried to make clear, when I talk about "personal morality" I'm talking about how I, myself, come to what might be called "moral" decisions. I wasn't saying I expected, or even wanted, others to do the same. That being said, I've never come across a moral principle I found convincing or satisfying except, perhaps, the golden rule. — T Clark

What part of the golden rule is dissatisfying, do you think?

Asking since you said "perhaps"

For myself I at least like a commitment to honesty with self and others'. But it's merely a preference.
 

When everything is working correctly, so-called "moral" decisions present themselves to me as emotions, intuitions, understandings, insights, or intentions, not usually as rational arguments. Sometimes they skip those steps completely and go directly to actions. As I mentioned, that's what Taoists call "wu wei," acting without acting. Perhaps that's a bit misleading. In the world Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu came from, that's where all action, whether or not we call it moral, arises. — T Clark

When is everything working correctly?

I'm not opposed, it's just sometimes these states seem a little mythical to myself: they're idealizations which sound pleasant, but I can say I like the articulations and deliberations because I'm not always acting without acting -- sometimes I'm wondering "Hrm, so what now?"

It shows a way in which consent is important and it shows a way in which consent isn't important. — Leontiskos

Seems to me that the default is "requires consent" and so we have to justify why it is we are ignoring consent in some circumstance.

Then I have to wonder if you were being honest when you proposed that it is, "best to leave such [coercive] tools to the professionals." This is because when I asked you who these professionals are you said, "No one." — Leontiskos

No one when it comes to hard in fast rules. I clarified the kinds of persons I'd point to in a circumstance parenthetically, but I value autonomy in that process of selecting who the professional is.

To reform someone against their will is simply one form of punishment. C. S. Lewis argues persuasively that it is the worst form of punishment, and is deeply contrary to human dignity (link). — Leontiskos

"Against their will" would have to incur a pretty strong justification for me, given my respect for autonomy. But serial killing is pretty extreme. We've been dealing in some extreme examples where the question is when to use coercion.

While I understand the need to do so, I don't think we can get away with saying "And this is why we're good"

If someone fully consents to a punishment then they are not being punished. What you say here makes me think that you do not understand punishment. And of course the general view being represented here does lead to the eradication of punishment, which leads to yet another societal impossibility, and to my mind counts as another reductio. — Leontiskos

I'm admitting in this question that I don't see the appeal of punishment, yes.

What's the appeal?

I agree, but many in this thread are saying that they should not be socialized. Socialization involves moral admonition, after all. — Leontiskos

Hrrmm, I think it's just a disagreement about what is entailed by socialization -- is it a process of moral admonition, or a process of learning to think for yourself, or a process of collective deliberation, or a process . . . I think what's being said is that there are some forms of socialization which are not preferred; these other ways over here are preferrable, to the extent we can pursue them. Or, rather, a kind of ideal for living together.

Perhaps the more obvious case of those who wield moral tools are legislators and policemen. T Clark seems to think that the serial killer might be acting rightly, according to his "intrinsic nature." The legislators and the police don't think he is acting rightly, and they will throw him in prison because of it. — Leontiskos

I don't see legislators or policemen as moral tools.

Where we see eye-to-eye is with respect to the importance of community.

But hierarchy and coercion are generally things I don't think of as ethical, but rather expedient: they are political, not moral tools. They are useful to this or that end, but that doesn't mean they're good, per se. They are the decisions we've made so far, most of which were an inheritance to begin with.

The serial killer might be acting rightly to his intrinsic nature. But that's also a pretty extreme case for thinking ethically -- it's not on my radar as a thing I have to consider very often. I tend to believe that ethical thinking occurs between persons who respect one another, at least, so these are just difficult circumstances rather than cases against some approach.

When I think of my intrinsic nature, I just think of the sorts of things which bring harmony to my life, which is different for different people, and is still a worthwhile ethical topic in a world where serial killers exist.

Philosophically I don't think there is such a thing, really, as an intrinsic nature. For myself I'm coming at it more from the existential side. The "intrinsic nature" is created along the way, and changed with circumstances.

The beauty in ethical thinking, then, is in being able to deliberate. (Hence the value of many philosophies)

Again, the "ignorance" card doesn't play. Insofar as an intellect-based case is made for autonomy, that case is based on knowledge, not ignorance. It is based on the idea that I have more knowledge about what is best for me than anyone else does. And that is precisely what I challenged in my last post. — Leontiskos

It does, because, generally speaking, we are ignorant -- it's only in relationship with others' that I have any sort of knowledge of them, and such relationships reveal that there's much more under heaven and earth than what in my mind.

But to be in relationship we have to have some basis of trust. Family can point out flaws because we have a relationship of trust and shared values and a long history with one another.

That is -- in order to have rules and moral admonition, first we must have trust and reciprocal respect. (Or, at least, insofar that we don't, I can tell you I don't see the appeal)

For example, libertarians and those who champion autonomy have a great deal of trouble understanding how to parent children, and how it is that children should be answerable to adults.

Do they? Or do they just have different answers?

No, not necessarily. Medical procedures often do not require consent when the person in question is not capable of consent. — Leontiskos

Doesn't that show how consent is important? We only operate when the person is not capable of consent, and so we should have some basis of judging for when that's the case?

In questions of moral admonition consent is tangential and not especially important. This is in part because one will not consent to the punishment that will be forced on them if they continue to act poorly (e.g. imprisonment, fines, etc.).

Do you imagine that I want to punish people who will not consent to the punishment? :D

Well, I don't really. I'm one of those "Reform, to the extent possible" sorts, although there are all sorts of thorny questions along the way.
 

Oh? Well who do you consider a professional? I think it's clear that many people are ignorant of themselves, and that especially close friends and family will see more clearly than they do their own actions. This is as it has always been, and it is why socialization is so important. Those who do wrong are very often ignorant of their wrongdoing, whether culpably or not. It has always been considered a mercy to make them aware of it - to help them avoid what will only become a bigger problem for them and for others. — Leontiskos

For making hard-and-fast rules? No one :D

Hence the emphasis on autonomy.

I do value autonomy a great deal, and I think we all ought to. I base this on our general ignorance (... though in general I'd point to psychologists and priests and family: people who a person is close to and builds a trusting relationship with -- but it would ultimately be up to them who they choose to trust: philosophically speaking it wouldn't be I, that's for certain)

I agree that the community can see you better than you can see yourself, though that doesn't mean that your close friends and family won't have biases either. Sometimes a lack of closeness could clear the eyes, and sometimes the distance obscures certain details. I don't think we really get to not socialize -- everyone who can think of themself as a distinct person in a community who makes choices is socialized to some degree, right?

But I don't think the community can take on the role of doctor, exactly, no.

For some it's priests. For some it's a guru. For some it's a text. For some a feeling. For some an MD.

But given my belief about our general ignorance about how to go about helping people, philosophically at least, I put autonomy as a pretty high priority.

So, what do you do if you suspect your child of having committed a crime? — Vera Mont

In my tradition? Pray.

:D

Philosophically -- no answer. These are ways of reflecting on choices, not answers to choices.

Well there was that little bit about principles, convictions and knowing what's right. But no philosophy - just observations and experience. — Vera Mont

If I just know what is right and make observations and experience then where does asking questions for advice come in? Why deliberate about what is right if I just know what is right?

Seems a bit much to me. I like to know why other people do things. Sometimes they have a point.

Sounds to me like there's no philosophy to be had at all in your view, then. Follow your heart and do your best between the competing desires until you no longer have to or can.

Yes?

I suppose that, in the end, I'd still allow more principles than you do, though I think principles are the sorts of things one commits themselves to. I value moral autonomy.

But I am very interested in the role of emotions in ethical thinking, and also clarifying differences between different ways of thinking ethically (or even further specifying when it is we are thinking ethically)

Well, that's a beginning. Sounds like following our heart can include limiting ourselves, then.

We'll need a better reductio of following our heart as a rule than cases like murder, rape, and all the rest I think, in that case: most heart-followers are good on those, are able to articulate exceptions, and even being in conflict with oneself it sounds to me: Do we need anything more complicated than that to think through ethics, or does that about cover it?

The devil in the details I see here will be "OK, but when are we stupid, destruct, or spiteful? To what do I oppose this when that's the case? My heart?" -- and maybe that's not so bad after all, because we see that while we might want to kill someone, we also want our freedom and so we choose our freedom: there may be the brief flash of anger to do violence, but our attachments to other things are the desires that we can act upon to choose something else.

Makes sense to me, what's wrong with it?

What we ought to do is whatever we believe to be right at the time of decision. On most of those occasions, we'll chicken out or compromise or fudge, because the principled action is too dangerous, difficult, expensive, uncomfortable, unpleasant or inconvenient.
If we live up to our highest expectations once in ten tries, we're doing pretty well — Vera Mont

So follow our heart?

Linked, yes, but very often as antagonists wrestling. — Vera Mont

Also, this part always seems weird to me. If I'm antagonistically related to this or that ethical principle and am both at once then I'd prefer to either let go of the emotion or the ethical principle or rectify it in some manner. Why bother holding onto an ethic which is antagonistic towards feelings?

Well, the feelings would have to be bad in some way. Fair enough, sometimes they are bad.

Are they always bad, or can we ever feel good when thinking about ethics?

I suppose the part I'm missing here is: where is the adult?

We are influenced by what we grow up around.

Sure.

So, what ought we to do? Whatever our mother told us?

Relationships between parents and children are variable. — Vera Mont

Right.

But so far all I've been given here the relationship to mothers as a kind of point of departure for thinking ethically, at least conceptually -- and it seems we agree that, yes, we grow beyond our parents and see them as human, rather than superhuman, and at least in a loving relationship we come to love them in spite of the flaws: which seems to me to indicate that the mothers are not all the Others, but that there is a community that is much wider than the family unit.

Basically, as important as they are, it's not the whole picture -- and furthermore, it seems to me that what we were as children isn't as important to what we are now, though you can see some similar traits that live on over time if you know someone long enough.

Loving people is not an ethical decision; it's an emotional fact. What you do for parents at any given moment, in any given situation, those may be ethical decisions at any age. Calling every Tuesday to see if they're all right. Listening to your father's jokes the seventeenth time. Praising the fruitcake you never really liked. Spending Christmas with them instead of going to Bermuda. Driving the old lady to her bridge game when it's really not convenient. Taking a weekend to install a wheelchair ramp. If you love people, most of these decisions are not ethical - you just do things to make them safe and happy, because their safety and happiness matters to you. — Vera Mont

Aren't the two linked? Ethics and emotion? (coincidentally, or not, that was the impetus to a lot of this thinking: that question of ethics and emotion)

Now that ending there: That sounds like something I ought read. Thanks!

You are imputing bad motives again — Leontiskos

Not bad motives -- just ignorance.

For example, a surgeon can use a knife to cut away a malignant tumor, and guilt can be used in much the same way. Now some who are beholden to a strict form of autonomy might say that we should only be able to perform moral operations on ourselves, but I would say that there are strong similarities between the moral order and the physical order. Just as there are physical surgeons, so too are there moral surgeons, and there are tumors which cannot be self-excised. For an example of a moral surgeon, see Nathan in 2 Samuel 12. — Leontiskos

I understand the concept; but even a surgeon asks permission before excising a tumor, right? Autonomy is an important part of any medical approach to ethics: especially judging when someone is no longer autonomous or in need of intervention.

For my part I tend to think we're pretty ignorant of one another, so it's best to leave such tools to the professionals. (EDIT: Or, really all I mean here, is that they are dangerous and not cues to knowledge -- they are tools that can be used to shape the soul, but the soul can be shaped as well as it can be mis-shaped, too, and if we're ignorant then which is to happen? )