Great. Now that we have the perspective of a liberal capitalist on Leninism -- a thing I definitely think is worth noting if we want to gain a perspective on some political position, and increase our understanding -- can you address the part where I said that in addition to criticisms and barbs from opponents one must also look at what people who self-identify as this or that political group say for themselves?

Right now you're kind of just going on a tirade against something you dislike. All well and good. But your disliking it doesn't really change the history of there being two kinds of communism, one of which is libertarian communism.

Yes, anarcho-communism is a contradiction for me, it feels like communism is slapped onto anarchy in order to not frame it as pure anarchy, but it makes little sense — Christoffer

Oh, no! That's not the point at all. It's to differentiate itself from Bolshevism or other forms of authoritarian communism, not to save anarchy. Anarchy doesn't have a pure form, really. And anarchists don't believe anarchy needs saving -- they like anarchy! :D

As one might expect of a group of people who don't submit to any authority anarchists have developed many, many strands and thoughts on the subject. About the only unifying theme seems to be a commitment to the abolishment of all hierarchies out of a belief that the root cause of social evils stems from said hierarchies.

I get the desire to clarify anarchy as not some sort of Mad Max scenario. I'm just trying to point out that anarchy has many forms, and one such form is anarcho-communism -- and, as I see it at least, the two basically predicate one another, but there's a difference between how one organizes and who owns what.

Though that kind of gets at the difference between what your chart says and what the political compass chart says.

I am too nihilistic to believe that a pure anarchy society can function in any way. It will most likely become an Ayn Rand nightmare. But it also has its roots in the sociological and psychological observations that groups of 12 are the maximum in which people can behave as a functional anarchy system, beyond that people start grouping together, form tribalism and if there is no over-arching authority someone will start calling the shots, demanding things from the other groups etc.

I think that sub-definitions of political forms doesn't really change the over-arching map. A scale of authority to liberal, collectivism to individualism is the most basic map we can define by and within it, we get those corners which makes sense according to the first scales. Central economy and capitalism forms naturally under them and slapping together different parts trying to create some combination are usually why they never work and become failed sub-category political movements. It's the "eat the cake and have it too" of politics. The only way to do that is to embrace Objectivism and take the cake, eat it and by gunpoint demand that the one who owned it makes more. — Christoffer

I don't think our charts and conceptualizations are as important as attending to the history of political movements. We can, after all, come up with some sort of theoretical concept that does not fit the world. Further I don't think that our personal incredulity about such and such an idea should guide our explorations very much, especially with respect to politics. The political systems we inhabit in our life -- whatever they may be -- have a vested interest in influencing our feelings on plausibility. This would be true in an anarchist society as much as it is true under liberal capitalism. if people have similar feelings of plausibility on what is possible for themselves then that increases group cohesion and stability, and a society which does that is more likely to propogate than a society which does not do that.

So if we want to understand the lay of the land like a political scientist or historian or philosopher then we have to put aside our immediate feelings of plausibility and read not just what people say of others, or what a theoretical frame might say, but also what people say of themselves as well as the actual history in practical institutions of said ideas -- because it is never the case that the actually-existing-institution matches the idea.

This isn't to say that there is a theory-neutral place from which we can actually lay out some kind of uber-map of all maps. There is not. But we can improve our understanding, in spite of that.

And Lenin would say of your freedom that it is a bourgeois freedom, and not freedom proper -- that only the dictatorship of the proletariat as enacted by a vanguard revolutionary party in the interests of the working class can found a free society.

But if we adopt a more historical perspective we'll see that pretty much every political theorist throws criticisms and barbs at their opponents -- and while these can be insightful, it is also insightful to see what people have to say for themselves. And anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, or Eurocommunism, or anarcho-syndicalism -- as in, the people who describe themselves in these terms -- say different things than you do about themselves.

True, but in anarchy, you are free to claim anything for yourself, but if you don't support the community you will be left alone and if you force yourself onto the community, they will bond together to get rid of you. — Christoffer

I disagree that you are free to claim anything -- in particular I highlighted land, labor, and capital. There is also often a notion of personal property, the sorts of things that one might own at home, vs. private property which is contrasted to public property. If someone personally owns a journal then you can't claim their personal property -- that's theirs.

What enforces this? The community does, as you said. But the community is not a state. According to anarchy the problem with the state is one of hierarchy -- where, with a state, there will always be rulers (of some sort), and thereby there will be the more important and the less important; the more powerful and the less powerful.

It's in the word itself -- an-archy. Against rulers, chiefs, kings, presidents, bosses, heads of household, or senators.

But, then, how does one enforce the community rules if they are violated? Does that not establish a kind of hierarchy? Not if everyone is involved in the decision-making process. Or, so one strand of anarchic thinking believes.

Communism requires a state and authority, — Christoffer

That depends on what you believe people will be like without a state.

Perhaps you might say that a criticism against anarcho-communism is that communism requires a state, and so the anarcho-communist is committed to a practical, if not theoretical, contradiction. I think much the same thing about anarcho-capitalists.

But from a historical perspective these two strands of thinking really have rich histories of their own.

Depends on how you count "everywhere it was tried", and also what counts as totalitarianism for that matter. Libertarian communism has a rich history of its own. It's its own separate political line of thinking.

Or, of course, Lenin could just be referring to some non-existent trend in communism to ward against what may theoretically come to pass according to some theorists. :P -- I linked the two thinkers to demonstrate my meaning in a descriptive sense. It has both supporters and detractors, and has influenced institutional organization.

You have the authoritarian-liberal scale and the collective-individualism scale on there.
What other scale of liberty are you referring to? You are either totally free or you are free in a community-form. — Christoffer

Ah, perhaps I'm mistaking your chart for the political compass chart because of their superficial similarity.

But he is essentially describing anarchy. I think there are lots of people who miss that anarchy isn't "Mad Max", it's just a society in which everyone exists as a collective without authority given to anyone specific. — Christoffer

He is describing a particular kind of anarchy, but anarchy is multifarious. There are even, though they are (in my estimation) confused, anarcho-capitalists.

I understand that anarchy is not like Mad Max.

And if people want freedom on such an individual level that no state exists, you end up down in objectivism and Ayn Rand — Christoffer

I disagree with you here. Without a state, even a minimal state, to back up private property claims you do not have private property. You may have warlords or gangsters, but you don't have a court system to enforce contracts over private property.

I think you're confusing two different strands of communism and trying to fuse them together into one theory. But as your own political chart admirably shows, there is an economic and an organizational dimension which is both independent of one another.

I think you are confusing liberty with individual liberty -- as if this were the only thing under consideration. It's important to anarcho-communism, or libertarian communism, but not the whole story.

Kropotkin is a pretty typical thinker when it comes to understanding anarcho-communism. Lenin is a typical thinker when it comes to understanding the communism you are referring to.


Anarchy and communism go hand in hand, from my perspective, so there is no need to distinguish between the two except for the fact that there are different dimensions to political description -- one with respect to organization, and the other with respect to economy.

And, anarchy -- as one might predict given even just a general notion of anarchy -- has so many strands within it that it sort of just doesn't fit on the chart very well when taken as a whole. Anarcho-communism fits nicely, but there's, like, a lot of different strands of anarchy.

It'd probably for the better.

But who knows? Perhaps we assign too much to philosophical backing. Epicureanism was a popular philosophy in Roman times, for instance. I have read, though I'm uncertain of the evidence, that Cassius -- of Caesar killing fame -- was an Epicurean. So they did, in fact, engage in the world of politics and pain in spite of some Epicurean training.

Sort of like how many Christians engaged in warfare for land, gold, and power in spite of the fairly obvious message that such isn't exactly what Christ said was for the better.

But I will say that the Epicurean message makes more sense to me than the Christian one.

It's in the bottom-left corner.

I think that I know. However, what I think I know does not always match up to conventional understanding/notions. I asked not to be intentionally obtuse, but rather to perhaps seque into reasoning that leads us to scrutinize the conventional notion of moral statement. — creativesoul

I'd invite you to present some reasoning, if you wish. If it sparks a comment or thought in me then I'll share. But I'm failing to see where you're going with this.

I don't understand the bit about unchanging belief... — creativesoul

I just mean that the following conditional is false:

If I believe that "kicking puppies is wrong" is true then "kicking puppies is wrong" is true

"Kicking puppies is wrong" may be true, but my belief, or lack thereof, in said statement does not change its truth-value.

Moralizing is thinking about one's own thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. — creativesoul

This seems to cloistered in one's own thoughts, to me. When we moralize we are addressing others. When Ted moralizes on the evils of adultery, he is not talking about his beliefs, he is talking about adultery.

A point I use because we can often moralize about what I don't think is within the domain of morality. You can rationalize why adultery is wrong by making some notion about promises, but to me it just doesn't come on the same level as, say, ensuring the hungry are fed or preventing murder.

But even when we moralize about what I believe is not morally significant, we're talking about actions, dispositions, or character -- not our own beliefs.

I find the private-language argument to be pretty convincing. While I grant that we all have our own subjective realities that we do not share in the same way as we share, say, money or chairs I don't think that language is a part of that reality. In fact I'd say that language forms the bridge between our own interiors to one another -- and its public nature is what allows us to do that.

Further, while I grant subjectivity, I also think there's also similarity in our subjectivity. How do I know? Because when someone relates to me their experience I can feel that experience based upon what I've felt before -- I can feel someone else's pain, I can relate my life to another's. They are not identical, but similar. This relating happens a great deal of the time, too -- so while it is important to recognize we are different, I think it's also important to recognize our similarities too.

It's in this way that we might be able to argue that morality is a factual, if not empirical, matter. But the more I think of it the more I think that we would be abandoning naturalism in so saying -- which may be just too much for some to go along with.

Do you not know what counts as a moral statement? I'm hesitant to put necessary and sufficient conditions to the notion. It seems to me that it's not hard to discriminate between moralizing and statements of preference.

Some aspects seem to include claims to universality across all responsible moral actors, the notion that one's belief does not change whether something is good or evil, and that the subject matter is of particular import to living life.

If someone were to come to me, in some hypothetical scenario, and tell me that what I'm seeing is not green, but red, I'd tell them that what I am seeing is green even if the nanometers of the wavelength of light happened to roughly correspond to what most people call red.

Sure. After all, it's just a way of arranging theoretical stances. You could graph anything, though. Even quantitative features, like GDP, infant mortality, or life expectancy in addition to the more qualitative notions viewed on a spectrum.

Yeah, pretty much. Just a different way of saying the same thing.

The two aren't opposed.

Anarchy is against hierarchy of any kind. Communism is an economic model where ownership over land, capital, and labor is somehow collective rather than individual. The two complement one another because collective ownership levels hierarchies on the economic field -- and without a state to enforce individual property rights over land, capital, and labor you naturally obtain communism, ignoring the problem of warlords and gangsters that others have already mentioned.

So, for myself, it seems to me that if meaning is a property of language, and we are competent language speakers, then we should all be able to tell -- perhaps only in a rough and proximate sense, but still truthfully -- what the meaning of moral statements are.

I think I'd describe my beliefs about meaning in analogue with intuitionists on moral matters or mathematics, minus some tendencies in intuitionism to believe in stability -- since clearly words do change their meaning with time and usage.

And if that were true then it would follow that we'd all be able to pinpoint the meaning of words, moral or otherwise.

Where I think I agree with you, @andrewk, is in looking at usage to determine meaning -- I'd just say that meaning exists, and it is not identical to usage. Looking at usage in context is the method for determining meaning. And there are shades of meaning, too, in most phrases -- so you might focus on how the meaning of a moral phrase is meant to influence others, and someone else might focus on another aspect like how a moral phrase expresses one's sentiments about some action or another, and I'd just insist that some moral phrases are also -- not opposed to either of these previous theories but in addition to them -- truth-apt, because of the way some moral phrases are said are said in a descriptive sense.

More or less, yes. Something along those lines, regardless of whether said meaning attaches "in the mind" or "on the waves" or what-not, that gets at the gist of how I think of the matter. And, as with anything, open to revision insofar that some other way of thinking can account for just how successful we are in understanding language -- and how meaning is a public entity, in spite of needing a mind (which I would say is an interior space that isn't exactly shared, though can partially be so through language) in order to speak.

"with an implication of understanding"? What's that?

I'd just say that there's not much more to knowing the meaning than exactly what's said -- if I talk to a dog using English then the dog does not know the meaning of my sentences. If I talk to someone who doesn't know English they, too, do not know the meaning of my sentences.

But if a person speaks within said conventions, seems to respond to statements, questions, commands, and so forth in the manner I'd expect a person who knows English to speak -- and to act, more widely -- then they know what I mean.

And that we do this very successfully.

If that's all you mean by meaning, then I don't think I'd disagree that we all associate things differently. We all have different pasts, different feelings, different ways.

But I'd also say that you and I know the meaning of all the sentences we have thus far used in spite of that.

Do you agree with me?

Sure. I agree that's the end state. But that's not the same thing as associating, yes?

Okay, so it's the relation that's within the fridge, so to speak. We all relate things differently. And this activity is what you call meaning.

So how do we go from this activity -- which I'd say is common to many cognitive systems, which is evidenced by Pavlov's dog -- to knowing English? Since it is this sort of meaning that is of interest here, given that we're building towards moral statements.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at is how we bootstrap from no understanding of language to an understanding of a language. Associating seems to me the sort of thing that a lot of cognitive systems can accomplish, and we could call that meaningful mental activity but I wouldn't call it meaning in the sense of the English language.

And so while we would call these associations meaning, what then would we call the meaning when we're talking about the English language? How does that relate to this associating?

So I am keeping scribbles within my fridge?

First, I'm not a realist on mathematics, and especially not on sets.

Relations are simply any way that two things are related to each other. "To the left of (from perspective x)" is a relation. "Cause" a la "x caused y" is a relation. "Is the parent of" is a relation. "Is located on the same planet as" is a relation. Etc.

The relation in question with respect to meaning is that some individual is performing the act of making an association between x and y, where the association isn't just arbitrary for them, but is at least periodically, in particular contexts, brought to mind for them when they think about x and/or y. — Terrapin Station

That's fine. Then we have xRy, where y is the phonic substance or scribbles on a paper or digital shapes. x is whatever is in the fridge.

Can you specify what x or R are?

It seems to me, then, that you think moral statements are primarily tools for influencing the actions of others. Yes?

Alright I think I'm beginning to get a picture of what you're talking about, and I'm ready for more chocolate cake. Plus I feel like I'm getting close to the original topic now.

So my understanding of a relation is derived namely from ordered pairs, where you have two sets and some kind of operation from one set to the other that gives you an element in the other set.

So my thought here is that we have two sets -- and because this is language that we probably don't want to use the relation of a strict ordered pair, but it gets the idea across of what we might mean by a relation -- a sort of table where things are grouped together. The elements of one set are the phonic substance, as Saussure called it -- or the digital shapes that we are using now. I imagine that we must be going from the phonic substance to something in the refridgerator. Now, meaning is just this association, so my question is -- what are the elements of the set within the refridgerator to which the phonic substance, scribbles, or digital shapes are relating to?

TO be candid, I would drop "meaning" from most philosophical conversation. It's far more productive to talk about what we do with words, how they interact with the world, and such, than to get bogged down in esoteric waffle about concepts and such — Banno

There is wisdom to that.

But it's so much fun. ;) :D

Thanks for the clarification, I wasn't sure which way. Meaning is the act of associating. Associating is putting . . . well, what? into a relation? Or not a relation?

And is language somehow then outside of meaning?

So it's important to understand that meaning is an activity that we perform. It's not something that external things have or not.

Can we perform that activity (the meaning activity) in response to our perceptions, sure. But it's not identical to the perceptions. It's something additional to them. — Terrapin Station

And that activity is mental association, right?

So if I associate tea with crumpets then I have a meaning, let's just say that I put them in any relation together (be it in space, as a meal, or within time) then that is the meaning-activity.


Where does language enter in this picture?

So you are saying perception is reserved for the processing of information that is outside of the mind.

Let's go with it. Does that perception have a meaning, or not? That, after all, is what I'm trying to understand -- your boundaries for the usage of the term "meaning".

Yes.

Of course, in a relative sense. The puppy kicker's feelings are wrong relative to my standard of judgement, and probably your standard of judgement, and probably Banno's standard of judgement.

Who here amongst us judges it to be morally acceptable to kick a puppy? Hanover, put your hand down.

In hindsight, some of my past feelings on matters relevant to ethics are wrong relative to how I now feel about it. — S

I just meant that we can make true statements about how we feel. — S

It's a misunderstanding of moral relativism because it leaves out the relativism part! Approval relative to who or what? I don't approve. He does. I don't approve of his approval. Approval in this context comes under the broader category of moral feeling. Here are some more examples of words which can indicate moral feeling: disapproval, guilt, shame, outrage, condemnation, righteousness, vindication, and forgiveness. — S

Hrmm, well for me at least, then, this still leaves out the sorts of sentences we say that are ethical, yet mean there is a fact to the matter in the sense that an action has the property of wrongness or something along those lines.

I wouldn't dispute that we can say true statements about our feelings. But I wouldn't say that a speaker who says:

"Kicking a puppy is wrong" is true

means

In accord with my feelings, "kicking a puppy is wrong" is true

If they wanted to say that they'd just say "I feel that kicking a puppy is wrong" -- but, instead, they use the gerund and form what appears to be a proposition.

And what they mean is that this statement about goodness is true.

Cool.

So rather than "Thou shalt not kill" you might say "Killing is wrong"? And the same sort of analysis should then apply?

Heh. I hope I don't come across as too funny. I really don't mean to be. I'm just trying to grapple with the ideas and see where they lead more than anything. If there is no difference then maybe we just think of language differently, but that's alright -- @Terrapin Station would certainly not be alone in thinking that human language is basically equivalent to a series of barks dictated by our evolutionary heritage and continued because of said heritage, to reproduce, ultimately signifying nothing.

Yeah, I see language as attaching to the world in some way. It's not all in our head; so to speak is to speak in a world, of a world, and about a world and not about belief.

A sincere speaking saying "It is raining" implies that said speaker believes it is raining -- but they are talking about the rain, and not their belief.

Would it be outdated to talk about internal and external to something like a refrigerator? Because that's more or less similar to the distinction. It's a locational distinction primarily. — Terrapin Station

It just has a Cartesian ring to it -- but It's not like I am in here and the world I experience is out there. I am a part of the world. Further, it's not like the world is composed of sense-data.

But if you're being more literal, as in, inside the space within my skull is where the perception is, then OK.

I think I can get along well enough with the terminology that it shouldn't be a problem.

Mentally processing it, you mean? Obviously that's a mental activity. — Terrapin Station

Sure.

Sure, and the relevance of that is? — Terrapin Station

That perception is mental -- since I thought subjectivity and mental were pretty well linked for you.

I'm mostly just trying to get a hold of your terminology here. So when you say --

Meaning is subjective. It's something that occurs in individuals' heads. It's the inherently mental act of making associations. It can't be literally shared, but we can tell others what we're associating in many cases. You can't know how an individual is doing this without asking them. — Terrapin Station

That makes me think that perception is also meaningful, since perception requires the mental act of making associations, which seems different than what I'd say but I can go along with it. Also I'd say that meaning is tied to language, but you say it is not -- that it is something primarily mental, and not necessarily linked to language.

Dogs and many other animals may have very similar mental phenomena to us, and there's no reason to believe that we're the only animals with language.

The closer other animals' brains are to our own the more reason we have to believe they experience similar mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station

I'd say that this is language in the broad sense, but not in the narrow sense -- dogs do not speak English. We speak English. English is just one type of language, as there are many languages, but it doesn't matter which (human) language you choose a dog will not learn how to speak it.

Perhaps dogs speak dog. But even if that is so surely you can see the difference between dog and human language? Or is there none?

Facts are not standard-relative because they're determined by what's the case, unless that's a standard, in which case it would be the only standard, and it would be objective and universal. Morality is standard-relative because it's determined primarily by how we feel, and how we feel varies, and it is subjective and relative. The truth in morality consists in how we truly feel about moral issues. We both agree that seeking moral truth in the objective sense is a wild goose chase. — S

Could it not be the case that we truly feel wrongly about a moral issue, though? Or no?

What is truly feeling, as opposed to feeling? Or do you mean that we can be deceptive to what we feel, and thus there is what we truly feel and what is only ephemeral or false?

In what way does that differ from approval? As you say just above I am misunderstanding you when I say that Bob's action is moral because he approves of it, so truly feeling cannot be the same thing as approval.

What is truly feeling?

Not to just bombard you with questions @Banno I'll write what thoughts came to me after you brought up direction-of-fit:

So, we could say that the meaning of moral statements lies in their direction-of-fit, and in their truth-aptness. And, perhaps some notion of universality that includes all responsible moral actors, or something along those lines, if our notion of truth doesn't happen to include some requirement of aiming at what everyone should do in a specifically moral sense.

Then we might say something like -- "Though shall not kill" is true

And we might say that all true statements are facts -- redefining what I had said a fact was in my attempt at defending moral error theory.

SO rather than there being some empirical element to facts we are just relying upon the notion that facts are true statements -- and we are being liberal enough with the notion of statement to include commands as statements.

This is the part that gets kind of funny, I think. We are no longer correspondence theorists at this point, at least -- which might be too much for some people, though I'm willing to go along with it because I take it that correspondence theory is not a universal theory of truth, but an apt description of how we commonly think of truth. It's just worth noting that here.

At which point I might ask -- is naturalism preservable under other notions of truth? I suppose if by naturalism we mean something along the lines that statements like "Everything that exists is a part of nature" are true then, sure, naturalism is preserved.

But is that was naturalists actually mean, or are they correspondence theorists? I guess that would depend upon the naturalist.


But, to bring this back to Moore, there might be something to his notion of non-natural facts after all.

That's a good point. Though would we call commands moral? I suppose some commands are moral commands, so I can go with it.

Can such statements be true?

And, if true, do they or do they not have a fact? (Or is a fact just a true sentence?)