Is material progress required for socialism? — jamalrob

I don't think so, though I found myself agreeing with most of the points in Farber's essay. One of the counter-points Farber didn't seem to respond to, though alluded to, was the ecological concern of economic growth. At least redirecting the economy into green industries like socialist transportation, I don't think, would actually address ecological impact.

I think of socialism as economic freedom as defined by the working class. Laissez-faire capitalism looks like freedom because it is freedom to a particular class. Socialism is the freedom of the working class -- which, by necessity, must be collective just because of our position in society. It is the way in which economic life is organized that defines socialism.

All that being said, it's not like most people are opposed to material progress. If our democratic system is set up in such a way that collective preferences are actualized in the economic realm then I'm sure that the majority of people would prefer material progress within the confines of ecological restraint. But I don't think it's the defining feature.

Is it required for human beings generally?

I don't think so.

Can environmental problems best be overcome with more, or less, economic growth?

I suppose that all depends on whose defining the terms. I would say, in the present way of organizing the economy, environmental problems are better addressed through less economic growth. Economic growth in a capitalist economy doesn't -- and cannot -- account for environmental values. You can retranslate ecological values into capitalist logic, but all such efforts so far just seem to mitigate environmental damage rather than actually do something about it. The bottom line just isn't the environment.

And are these issues connected with wider cultural, moral and philosophical notions of progress?

I could see that.

I suppose my whole thing with progress is that people treat it like some kind of force in history.

I certainly don't believe in that, and neither -- so it seems -- does Farber.

And when Farber points out that those involved in practice must believe in progress, I would disagree there too. All that one has to do to be involved in political practice is to want something. It doesn't have to be progressive, necessarily. One can have a goal without, thereby, believing in progress of society or something akin to that. I would prefer to live in a free society, and so I pursue socialism. It's freedom that entails social commitments, but preference which drives action.

Though I tend to think that preferences can't all be lumped together. It's not like all preferences are like ones preference for ice cream flavors. There are a wide variety of aesthetic preferences, I think -- and principles, feelings, attitudes, and so forth -- and there are ones which are more serious and ones which are less serious.

That's what I took him to be saying in the preface. And I could see there being no relation between the analytic/synthetic method and knowledge. It was just something that caught my eye is all.

Was China's 12th 5-year plan publicized so much as the 13th 5-year plan seems to be?

I continue to see all sorts of news sources talking about the new five year plan. I have no recollection of this happening before, though I don't know if that's just me or if it's actually being reported more now.

At this point it would just be speculation on my part. I'm not exactly sure. Though it seems to make sense from his examples and with his philosophy in general -- it seems that with the "analytic" method we would basically be presupposing the conclusions of the critique of pure reason and deducing their implications so that one understood the general plan. Whereas with the synthetic method we would be presenting something for someone else to judge -- ie the deduction -- and consider in light of reason.

That's just a guess though.

What interested me most was the relationship between method and knowledge. I checked the german real quick to make sure that the word wasn't "wissenschaft" or anything -- it was actually Methode. Usually I think of the analytic/synethic distinction as something which applies to knowledge, but here Kant mentions a method. Though that could also just be my memory, as well. It's been a minute since I've picked up the CPR, so maybe he made more of that than I had perceived or remember.

Already it's been a pleasure to revisit Kant. Thanks for the opportunity @Sapientia , and the suggestion to do this reading-group style @jamalrob

Preface

The preface states who the work is meant for -- not for apprentices of metaphysics who are just learning the ropes, not for historians of philosophy who must wait for the philosophers and scientists proper to create the new science he has in mind, not for those who look at the works of metaphysics in dismay, contempt, or of an attitude firmly decided on such questions by way of ancient authority -- but for those future teachers and founders of a science who already believe metaphysics is a worthwhile pursuit unto itself, and who might become lost in reading the proper treatment of the subject due to the self-admittedly literary weakness that academic requirements make of any work in that vein -- and who want a guide to begin understanding his arguments so that they may fruitfully pursue metaphysics, and hopefully ground it as a proper scientific discipline, or barring that, show in what other manner Hume's critique of knowledge may be successfully addressed.

As such we find the thesis of the Prolegomena in paragraph 7:

... there can be no such science unless the requirements expressed here, on which its possibility rests, are met, and, as this has never yet been done, that there is as yet no metaphysics at all — Kant

I separated out the previous quote for emphasis, though this immediately follows:

Since, however, the demand for it can never be exhausted, because the interest of human reason in general is much too intimately interwoven with it, the reader will admit that a complete reform or rather a rebirth of metaphysics, according to a plan completely unknown before now, is inevitably approaching, however much it may be resisted in the meantime

I quote this to emphasize in what way Kant's work is meant as a propaedeutic to metaphysics.And so, in some ways, what we are dealing with in the Prolegomena is -- as far as explicit intent is concerned, at least -- something of a propaedeutic to the propaedeutic proper.

To emphasize this reading I would point a few pages later, after he gives some history of the problem he's dealing with (including his own struggles with it):

But I fear that the elaboration of the Humean problem in its greatest possible amplification (namely, the Critique of Pure Reason) may well fare just as the problem itself fared when it was first posed

. . .

with regard to a certain obscurity -- arising in part from the expansiveness of the plan, which makes it difficult to survey the main points upon which the investigation depends -- in this respect the complaint is just; and I will redress it through the present Prolegomena.
The previous work, which presents the faculty of pure reason in its entire extent and boundaries, thereby always remains the foundation to which the Prolegomena refer only as preparatory exercises; for this Critique must stand forth as science, systematic and complete to its smallest parts, before one can think of permitting metaphysics to come forward, or even of forming only a distant hope for metaphysics

Something that piqued my interest later is when Kant distinguishes between methods to draw the distinction between the Prolegomena and the Critique -- namely, the Prolegomena follows the analytic method, and the Critique follows the synthetic method. Kant insists that the synthetic method is necessary to present all the articulations, whereas the analytic method is good enough -- after accepting the deduction (which, back then, was more akin to legal justification than dedeuctive logical inference) -- for giving the plan in broad strokes.

Lastly, I want to highlight one quote at the end to show what Kant is asking of his readers. In part it articulates what we mean today by "inference to the best explanation", I think -- which Kant is sometimes credited with articulating -- but historically speaking it's what makes Kant's philosophy truly critical, as opposed to either dogmatic or skeptical:

whosoever undertakes to judge or indeed to construct a metaphysics, must thoroughly satisfy the challenge made here, whether it happens that they accept my solution, or fundamentally reject it and replace it with another

(emphasis mine)

So our job isn't to just find why we disagree with Kant -- because, indeed, it's easy to see that everyone except Kant disagrees with Kant ;) -- but to judge whether we do, in fact, agree, and if we do not, to not fall into skepticism and present our own solution.

I want to revisit this work in light of your thread.

As a general thrust, however: I have only just begun to disagree with Kant, and I'm still uncertain on which ways I am confident to do so. Saying that, however, I think it is invaluable to read him as if you agree with him and attempt to understand him from his own perspective. Part of my project to disagree with Kant was the hope that I might disagree with him in a way that he might hypothetically agree with -- meaning that I might understand where he's coming from, and would be able to say why I disagree in his own idiom [even if my own personal philosophical interests might differ]

It would almost seem, then, that it's appropriate to say the Epicurean's practiced both the medical and academic meta-philosophies -- though I think it might be fair, with the notion that professional philosophers are not particularly blessed, to say they were still practicing philosophy on the medical model. In the same way that we have research institutions dedicated to medicine, and practitioners who apply said research, the Epicurean community would have both [and those who are practiced upon, as well].

Heh. I don't know how it is in Delaware, but I know that where I'm at this is just part of the game. The police do public relations stunts like that in order to have a good report with the communities they police. I say stunts because there's still a culture of silence among police officers whenever a police officer violates the law and a culture of us vs. the world. They treat the public as an enemy that needs to be contained rather than as fellow community members. They are trained to fire center mass -- which is what they taught us in the US military as well. Many of them are ex-military, and are used to military operations and seem to utilize that experience in policing the streets. And police tend to treat civilians as civilians in the sense that police view themselves as not-civilian.

It may be a damned-if-you-do-or-don't assessment, but one way of containing people is intimidation, and another way of containing people is good PR. Usually a mixture of the two works great in maintaining control.

Personally I would move away from having beat cops and large standing paramilitary forces. How you do that is difficult because the police are an entrenched lobby at municipal, county, state, and federal levels -- and they tend to have a good relationship with the judiciary, given how much they work hand-in-hand.


For me, though, I suppose I'll never really look at police in a positive light. At least as they are currently organized. So I may just be at the extreme end of things. But I don't think that my extremity is irrational, at least, though I know that folk could rationally disagree with me.

Yes, but you're employing "criterion of truth" in an entirely different sense from me. Here's what I've been meaning by it all through-out: http://www.iep.utm.edu/criterio/ . Epicurus for example, (since I know you are an Epicurean), held that sense experience is the criterion of truth. I thought you meant the same thing by criterion of truth, so that's why I got confused. — Agustino

Cool.

Though, with Epicurus, I think that one fair and consistent reading is that he is using another criteria to accept his criterion of truth -- pleasure.

The stoics thought logic was valuable unto itself
— Moliere
False, just check out Epictetus who emphasises the difference between philosophical discourse and philosophical practice.

It is as if, in the area of the exercise of assent, we were surrounded by representations, some of them "objective" and others not, and we did not want to distinguish between them, but preferred to read treatises with titles like On Comprehension ! How does this come about? The reason is that we have never carried out our reading or our writing in such a way that, when it comes to action, we could use the representations we receive in a way consonant with nature; instead, we are content when we have learned what is said to us, and can explain it to others; when we can analyse syllogisms and examine hypothetical arguments
— Epictetus

Epictetus shows that the only justification for reading theoretical treatises [...] is so that, in concrete situations, we can act in conformity with mankind's rational nature
— Pierre Hadot

Well, I would think that, given this, that you'd be even more in line with the thrust of my argument there. I was trying to concede that with the stoics you could possibly argue that there's a bridge of reason between them and enlightenment, because they valued logic as a practice unto itself [which is true of them as a class, at least my readings have lead me to believe this, because they believed that reason, nature, and God were interlinked in some way, so exploring logic was in some way related to their ethical project, whereas for the Epicureans it was not]. But, given this, I think you would agree that there are not any ethical theorists in the ancient world who rely upon pure reason to justify their ethics.

I second that "feel", though with different activities.

I often prefer to write by hand because the way I think is different when I write by hand. I prefer to edit on the computer, but the original work I prefer to do by hand (if it is a labor of love, at least).

My thoughts are often more crisp and clear when I go for walks, or even more intensive exercise as well.

Hrm! I was entirely unaware that there were two paths in the garden. Thank you for sharing.

Is there a source I could track down that talks more about that? I am still gathering literature in my [very slowly progressing] quest to really dig into Epicurean philosophy.

EDIT: Actually, then again, perhaps I just hadn't connected the dots. I have read about how, if you wanted, you were free to continue studying -- but you didn't need to do so. IIRC, Hadot actually talked about that. Having two paths is another way of putting that.

On the money side of things -- we spend a considerable amount on police. In our city -- and I'm lead to believe that this isn't an anomaly, though I haven't sifted through the data -- the police department is the single largest chunk of the general fund. Police have more than striker fire pistols -- APC's, body armor, shotguns.

The force has been militarized in recent years because the feds have given surplus military gear to local PD's.

Policing may have to be different in different cultures. But, here at home, the police shot a disabled drunken grandmother because she was "wielding a knife". As it turns out she wasn't even strong enough to be able to hold her grandchildren. On top of that these things almost always happen in the black communities [and when they happen in white communities, punishment is dolled out -- while the opposite is the case with black communities, in spite of black leadership within the city].

I mean -- eh. I wouldn't give the U.S.P.D the pass because of culture. It's so clearly fucked up and crazy. I suppose I live in the U.S., so I can understand the hesitancy [I'm generally less critical of other countries, just because I know I know very little about them], but it's nice to have counter-examples like this.

With respect to cognition, I think Kant's philosophy gets a good grasp on a theory of cognition. Whenever concepts are placed within space-time to make sense of the world we have cognition. This is why I would say that consciousness differs considerably from cognition. Consciousness is just the what-it-is-likeness of experience. There is something it is like to see red. There is something that it is like to eat pizza. We can describe these experiences, but there's a holstic experience that it feels like. It's this feel-y aspect of experience that I mean by consciousness. At that point it should be clear why cognition differs from consciousness -- since cognition [the application of concepts to the real] is not always felt. We often learn things from our environment without having some kind of associated what-it-is-likeness.

I don't know how to define the mind. It's sort of implicitly understood in conversations about the mind -- and any definition, I think, would become contentious in the very philosophical debates about the mind. But hopefully I don't have to in order to draw the distinction out. I think that an easy distinction between mind and the other two terms is that of whole and parts -- consciousness and cognition are parts of the mind, but are not themselves the mind.

Things are determined to be true in reference to the criteria for truth, correct? — Agustino

I don't think that's correct, no. The determination of truth differs from the criteria of truth. Determination of truth deals with method -- epistemology. The criteria of truth is the necessary and suffucient conditions which make some truth-bearer true. So we might say, for instance, that those conditions are 1) A statement corresponds to a state of affairs, and thereby be a correspondence theorist about truth.

But how we determine what is true would differ from this. Truth is correspondence, but our epistemology may be empiricist, and largely borrowing from scientific practice.

The criteria of truth is more along the lines of asking "What is the metaphysics of truth?" -- and if we are consistent correspondence theorists [using the above briefly stated theory of correspondence], so it seems to me, then our theory of truth must either be not-true [perhaps not truth-apt], or it must correspond to a state of affairs.

But just because truth, in this scenario, must correspond to a state of affairs that wouldn't mean that this is how we check to see if truth corresponds to a state of affairs. If we are empricists then I'm not sure that you could do so -- you would have to conclude, to be consistent, that though the theory of truth corresponds to some state of affairs that there was no way to check said state of affairs, and so we don't know -- since justification is based on empricism [how we come to determine truth] -- that this is the case.

See the difference?

Reason determines that this is an irrational idea, regardless of the fact that you choose to say it, believe it, or whatever. The fact that you expect the criterion of truth to be true says something about you, not about how things really are.

Who is this reason, and how do you speak with them?

The only argument in the above being: All Normative standards are values. Judgment requires a normative standard. Therefore, judgment requires values.
— Moliere
Who says Reason cannot determine a normative standard given our nature and the nature of the world?

What would it mean for reason to do so? "Given our nature and the nature of the world" seems to evoke Hume. Which, if we are separating reason and passion as you seem to be doing, would be applicable.

Also, I agree that the good is not "what seems to work for us" -- I stated that this is how one finds the good, not that this is what it is to be good.
— Moliere
It seems to me that being drugged the whole day is good. So therefore, :s I am on my way towards finding the good? Because seriously, there are people for whom it seems that staying in a drugged state is the best thing. But we know that such languishing is not good. Therefore "what seems to work for us" seems to be quite a bad method for finding the good in this circumstance. Methods for finding the good must be objective, and not tainted by our cognitive biases and subjectivity.

That's the catch, though. There's no such objectivity outside of our cognitive biases and our subjectivity. You couldn't go to someone who believes drugs are the path to happiness and objectively show them that they are in the wrong. They have to find it for themselves.

You can identify the good through pure reason too. It just takes reflection and a certain mindfulness to detach yourself from how you would feel about something, and instead determine how things really are. How should human beings really behave given such and such a human nature and such and such a world? If a human being was really conscious of his/her nature, and the nature of the world, how would they behave? What would they do? That is why ethics comes after metaphysics (the study of the world in the broadest context), physics (as per Epicurus/Lucretius, the study of the world and of ourselves from a physical point of view), and epistemology (the study of our cognitive faculties). If you answer these questions before, ethics becomes a matter of pure reason, pace Spinoza.

Again, I think we're evoking Hume's critique here, especially with all the emphasis on pure reason.

Maybe it's just a terminological disagreement. I would just say that the romantic is following the ethic of a romanticism. That is the type of person they are. And, sure, the romantic is good in accord with what the romantic cares about. But not in accord with what the Epicurean cares about. But does this make him against ethics? I wouldn't say so.
— Moliere
The romantic may be following the ethic of romanticism. So what? The question here is, should he? Is that the best thing for him? You seem to say yes. I seem to say that there may be some desires/potentials within him that would be truer to his nature and (s)he is not aware of them for example.

I don't think that the committed romantic has desires, at least, which are truer to their nature. Lord Byron had no need for Epicurs. If you are to ask me, when I look at his life I see it as a reductio of Romanticism. But that's just myself. Lord Byron would have to see the folly of his ways in order to be brought back -- but he could consistently hold to romantic values.

When I used "against ethics", I meant against the ethical tradition. Epicurus, Epictetus, Spinoza, et al. develop very very similar ethics (especially in practice); they are all based on a dictatorship of Reason, and the differences come from a different conception of man and his place in the world. The stoics think that one should control one's passions, the Epicureans that one should minimise one's desires. Is that really that different? One achieves it by being tense, and watching every single moment to make sure that no immorality enters their mind, and the other achieves it by desiring little, and relaxing into the bossom of the existence. But these stances are all developed from overall conceptions of the world; they are developed by pure reason.

In this reading, the romantic is "against ethics" precisely because his ethics isn't one based on the dictatorship of Reason - Epicurus, Spinoza, Epictetus, etc. are pure reason (or very close to it).

I suppose our disagreement, then, has more to do with the notion "Pure reason", and on how to read ethical theorists.

I don't think that I would commit to a belief that any ancient ethicist relies on Pure Reason to establish their ethics. The notion of reason in ancient thought differs from the notion of reason in the era of Spinoza, et al. They are not enlightenment thinkers, and while there are distinctions between pathos and logos, etc., there is no effort to vindicate their ethical stances by the light of pure reason. They aren't even really looking at ethics in the same way as enlightenment and early modern thinkers do.

They use rational argument, and believe that beliefs change character, and that changing beliefs -- through philosophy and reason and whatnot -- will change character. But this is so very different from enlightenment ethical thought.

Epicurus, especially, seems an odd man out here. He didn't even believe in the study of logic, except insofar that it would help in the project of pleasure. The stoics thought logic was valuable unto itself, but Epicurus was no logician, and even made fun of philosophical theorists [like Aristotle] who would talk too much about ethics while not doing anything to cure the soul. Philosophy, too, is not valuable unto itself, but is valuable only insofar that it brings pleasure to the sick. That's his focus -- certainly not the sort of beacon of pure reason that you seem to take him for.

Not that I have a problem with that, obviously. Like I noted, I can go as far as Kant, which in some ways is to concede too much ground to reason anyways -- but his work was a critique of Pure Reason. And even his ethics uses notions like a "fact of reason", which seems sensible, but they are wholly embedded in the subject. As long as you are consistent, and if everyone does things your way the world remains consistent, you are permitted to do what you will. With standards like that -- which is a normal criticism of deontology -- you can certainly derive values which are in conflict with one another, and which would require a person to choose between them. How do you choose, if Pure Reason allows this sort of conflict? Pure Reason is like the donkey equally spaced between two haystacks, watching both. The donkey needs a swift kick, and reason needs a purpose to operate -- which, so I would say, is where our emotional lives enter the picture.

And you are correct. There is something question-begging to this. But, as I said, all ethics presuppose themselves. You can question an ethic -- but only in light of another one.

Hatching plans for a follow up? Or have you already crossed that road without me knowing why?

One thing to note in all this, though, is that the paper doesn't propose any theory of consciousness. Consciousness is a different topic from the paper. They utilize a functionalist account of mind in order to get at a particular notion -- that cognition, and by extension the mind, is not limited to the brain.

So the target seems squarely to be on mind-brain identity theories. (Also, interesting to note that the authors were listed by degree of commitment -- since Chalmers certainly doesn't believe that functionalism can account for consciousness, though he seems to believe that it can account for most of the mind)

Perhaps the tl;dr version is --

Agustino: Emotions beg the ethical question
Moliere: Exactly!

:)

To say that truth is true is a tautology; same as reason is reasonable. It's an empty, vacuous statement. Reason cannot be a value itself, and I have already outlined why. Reason is, as you say, that which judges between values. That which judges between values cannot itself be a value, simply because it is the criteria which decides what is and is not a value in the first place. The criteria for values cannot itself be a value, the same way the criteria for truth cannot itself be true — Agustino

I agree that "truth is true" has a tautologous feel to it. Similarly so with reason being reasonable. And I don't disagree that the statements don't tell us much about their subject matter. But I would still say that truth is true, and that reason is reasonable.

I don't think reason judges between values, but that reason judges simpliciter -- and that judgment requires a normative standard by which to judge and is, therefore, at least partially a value. (I'm not committed one way or the other on whether or not reason is or isn't a value) I don't see why a value cannot be a criteria for values, though, or why the criteria for truth cannot be true. I would expect the criteria for truth to be true. (I've not always thought this, but I've changed my position). And I would expect to be drawn to certain values based on what I already care about.


The only argument in the above being: All Normative standards are values. Judgment requires a normative standard. Therefore, judgment requires values.

Well my phrase "anything goes" is taken from Paul Feyerabend, so take it like he used it for science. Sure, it depends on context, but that doesn't contradict that, on the largest scale, "anything goes". And I disagree that the good is "what seems to work for us". The good has nothing to do with human idiosyncrasies - as such it is, and can be determined, by pure reason, pace Spinoza. That most of us have difficulty determining it, that many of us cannot see it, that many of us don't perceive it as good - that is all irrelevant; afterall, — Agustino

When Feyerabend is talking about science I don't disagree with him. But I wouldn't take his philosophy of science and generalize it to ethics. This is, in some sense, what Feyerabend is actually poking fun at -- the moralizing of scientific inquiry, when there are so many other important parts of life that science doesn't touch upon [like dreams, relationships, and good conduct]. And he is a great anti-moralist, in this sense, given that his background was as a Popperian moralist, himself ;).

Also, I agree that the good is not "what seems to work for us" -- I stated that this is how one finds the good, not that this is what it is to be good.

I'm afraid I am unmoved by appeals to pure reason for determining the good. I can go as far as Kant in my thinking, which is already to concede a great deal of ground to reason, but unabashed appeals to pure reason just don't make any sense to me. Perhaps you are one of the lucky few who can, through reason, see the form of the good. Well, I am not. So what am I to do with this theory, then?

The fact that each bird speaks its own language is not to say that there aren't great commonalities between the two in practice (such as between Epicureanism and Stoicism for example). — Agustino

I'm afraid I'm starting to lose track of what you're driving at now. I thought the point of contrast was the romantic persona you brought up in the OP, and not the similarities between kissing cousins?

Maybe it's just a terminological disagreement. I would just say that the romantic is following the ethic of a romanticism. That is the type of person they are. And, sure, the romantic is good in accord with what the romantic cares about. But not in accord with what the Epicurean cares about. But does this make him against ethics? I wouldn't say so.

I rather like Rawls brief characterization of deontology in A Theory of Justice. I mention it because it was upon reading this sentence that the distinction between the two "clicked" for me:

The last contrast that I shall mention now is that utilitarianism is a teleological theory wheras justice as fairness is not. By definition, then, the latter is a deontological theory, one that either does not specify the good independently from the right, or does not interpret the right as maximizing the good. (It should be noted that deontological theories are defined as non-teleological ones, not as views that characterize the rightness of institutions and acts independently from their consequenceds. All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness. One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy) — Rawls, Theory of Justice, Section 6, p 30

So it's the non-teleological which is [by definition] deontological, and so we can see how consequentialist theories differ because they justify goodness in accord with a teleology.

So you have Kant's moral theory which provides the categorical imperative which allows you to judge whether or not your principle of action is good based on whether or not it meets the CI. But the CI is more about self-consistency if everyone were to do it, and not about maximizing happiness [a teleological goal]. There is a standard for judgment, but not an end.

Just to add onto that thought --

I think that as one masters their ethics the number of possible choices begins to decrease. For a master of a particular discipline there are few questions in contexts -- but that's not necessarily the result of rules. It's more the result of practice. So the master of one's moral bearing won't be able to tell you exactly what to do, or some such, but will be very able to give advice [given what the master of said ethics stands for] succinctly upon knowing your circumstances, and very rarely encounters a context that can't be worked out adequately.

Perhaps the master believes in chasing a lover, as you note, or perhaps the master believes in joy. These two masters won't persuade one another. There is no argument to be had between them. But, similarly, they won't be hesitant either. The ebb and flow and originality of every moment won't overcome them with indecision.

This is also what I mean by "ethics presuppose themselves" -- I don't think there's a single answer out there that reason can give us. It seems quite plausible to me that one can be either a romantic or an epicurean. And the only way to really know what works is to try them out [perhaps the reason some of the great ethicists were actually penitent, having come from different walks of life than what they live when they become ethicicsts, is that they dared to try, and knew how each life felt because of that]

I'm not questioning the truth-aptness of moral beliefs. I'm questioning the relevance of moral facts, both as motivating factors and consequences. Is there any empirical difference between a world in which killing babies is moral and a world in which killing babies is immoral? If you found out that killing babies is moral then would you kill babies, or would you act immorally and not kill babies? — Michael

I suppose if one is truly a dyed-in-the-wool realist about moral facts, and they were to find out that killing babies is morally good, then they would change their behavior and kill babies.

Actually, this reminds me of the recent question from New York Times Magazine, where -- for some people at least -- they were shown an example when killing a baby is morally good, and they said "yes"

Something that may attract logic folks is LaTeX -style posting. Can we do that now? I am uncertain.

$\forall$

Just thinking that those interested in logic would like to have that.

I suppose I am casual when I feel it's appropriate, and more erudite when I feel similarly. Sometimes it's nice to "let your hair down" -- even in a serious discussion. And at other times it aids the flow of discussion to remain relatively dry and systematic.

Is that erudition? Is that not welcome?

To be fair I had a similar posting style at the old forums. At times I would have too many thoughts intertwine and I'd try to squeeze them all in through brackets, and at times I would speak more casually, and at times I'd try to remain largely academic in my speech patterns.

I would say that reason is judgmental. When one judges, one uses normative standards to judge. And so, given that reason is judgmental, reason must use normative standards, and therefore requires values. Is reason a value itself? I'm not sure. We could say it is, I suppose. It seems that we value reason. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that all ethical values are determined by reason.

I would say that truth can itself be true. In fact, it would be strange to say that truth is not true. It would be like saying good is not good.

Similarly to truth, going right back to the point, reason is, itself, quite reasonable. It is self-consistent -- and if we care for reason, then reason is the sort of standard which we gravitate towards. Reason presupposes reason by its own standards of judgment.


I would say that my meta-ethics are relativistic, yes. But that's still different from "anything goes", all the same. I would say, given what I've said so far, that nothing is good a priori -- but we can come to find the good by believing, testing, and seeing what seems to work for us. Perhaps all ethics are relative to a context -- but that does not then mean that anything goes. In a certain context, perhaps only one thing goes.

I don't believe anything goes, though, so unless I'm just inconsistent -- a possibility, but one which I don't see just now -- in my beliefs then it would seem that these two beliefs are not the same.

What I mean by "ethics presuppose themselves" is only that you can't prove an ethical system. You can reasonably reflect upon various ethical stances, beliefs, systems, or attitudes -- but you can't prove one or the other to yourself. You have to try them out to get a feel for them. And, as we see, some ethical beliefs will appeal to someone's intuitive reason more than others. The process is a good one, but it doesn't prove any ethical stance. Rather, upon coming to believe in an ethic the ethic becomes more reasonable in accord with its own values of judgment [insofar that we are dealing with a consistent ethic, at least].

This doesn't mean that anything goes, either. I certainly still have ethical convictions, but I don't have proofs of these convictions.

Perhaps my favorite quote from Wittgenstein can be found in the Tractatus. It seems to follow along similar lines of thought, though clearly we don't believe the same thing. It reads:

6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the
problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long
period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have then been
unable to say what constituted that sense?) — W

So you say:

I have found pyrrhonism, epicureanism and stoicism in particular to be quite strong from a rational point of view. Epicureanism and stoicism, are for example, in practice, not even that far from each other; just different theoretical frameworks.

This is only natural. This is what I mean -- you have found these to be strong from a rational point of view[a value posited by which you can then evaluate other values]. You come from somewhere and discover the strengths of your ethics.

I think all ethics presuppose themselves. So if you are a romantic then romanticism will just "appear right". Similarly, Epicurean values will just "appear right" if you are an Epicurean.

All ethics are questionable in this fashion. But I would hazard to guess that they are only questionable in light of another ethical stance. You have to complete the question "What if. . . ?", and propose another value, as you did in the OP.

I don't believe this is where a dictatorship of reason establishes itself. We can reason about ethics, but to reason about ethics is to bring in much more than pure reason, or any sort of notion like that. Our emotions are part of our reasoning about morality or ethics. Without emotions we are morally inept. Without any sense of reason we are equally so. They are interdependent upon one another, ethically speaking.

The argument is for both -- first for cognition, and then for the mind. Consciousness is mentioned as something which isn't necessary for cognition, though -- that's very different from cognition, because we aren't always conscious of our cognition. It's more than terminological, though -- at least, according to the paper -- because it's also backed up by empirical work in cognitive science [as they reference it]. [[this is just how the argument works]]

I agree with you that what occurs outside the brain is different than what occurs internally -- but the paper, by "internal", only means "inside of the skin and skull", not interiority or some such [which is what your use of internal makes me think of here]. Which is primarily what they are speaking against, I think, given the examples they start out with. They aren't speaking against interiority. I don't think they're speaking about that much at all. They're speaking against mind-brain identity theories more than anything, and at a minimal level, that even if the mind-brain identity holds, that cognition is wider than what happens inside the skull.

True. Good catch. They actually state that the mind is outside of the brain -- not that cognition happens outside of the mind.

Because the only difference between cognition in the head and the manipulation of something in the environment is that one occurs inside the skull and the other one doesn't, since some part of the brain is coupled with another part of the brain in what is traditionally thought of as cognition, and some part of the brain is coupled with the screen in the other case. Since they are similar in all other ways -- the mental manipulation of a tetris piece to find how it should fit being identical [functionally] to the manipulation of a tetris piece on the screen, aside from its location -- to not include the tetris piece on the screen is just to beg the question in saying that cognition only occurs within the brain.

In that case, given the functional approach of the paper, perhaps my objection is off the mark.

One of the things that occurred to me in reading this time was how much the paper is definitely not aimed at me. I agree with the moral of the paper. But I don't believe the second argument works because the notebook is actually more reliable than a belief or a memory. We construct our memories, they aren't deposited in a box for us to look up. There are cues for us to do so -- which is why, if we are studying for a test, we should listen to the same music each time and have a unique tactile object to associate our studies with [and then bring both to the test].

So I wonder if the notebook could count as a belief because it seems too reliable to count.

But, clearly, this objection isn't going to sink the moral of the paper -- that cognition, and the mind [if memory counts as part of the mind] extend outside the boundaries of the skull and skin.

This is true. Though, from Epicrus' perspective, that's because he adhered to the medical model so strictly. Imagine a doctor who asked your opinion before doing a surgery. Not just with respect to preferences, but as an equal. It would likely not go well. For Epicurus you slowly gained degrees of freedom. When pupils first entered the garden they were still sick from a sick society. So they would resist the cure. If Epicurus allowed them to remain sick it would have been callused of him, rather than loving.

Yes, I think that you strike at the heart of what really makes Epicurean [and therapeutic, generally] philosophy feel strange to us -- because we are so used to philosophy on the model of the Lyceum, and it just feels wrong to build philosophy, of all things, on the model of master-pupil.

However, the downfalls there are that philosophy is then only open to those who are born into the correct circumstances. They have to have the right parents, resources, and so forth to make healthy individuals who then have the luxury of learning to use their untutored judgment. [which can only be tutored by having them judge, rather than telling them the answer]. Aristotle admits as much in his ethics -- considering his school was set up to train the future leaders, the children of Aristocrats, this all makes sense. But not everyone needs to learn how to judge like this [and, in fact, ala Aristotle, the majority cannot, therefore, be truly eudaimon]

But not everyone has that background. And not every society is healthy. That's something which the Nussbaum book is beginning to really draw out for me in terms of the differences between ethical stances in the ancient world. Epicurus' philosophy assumes that society is sick, and so everyone is sick -- and they need to be transformed in order to be happy, or they will be attached to what is actually unnecessary and harmful to happiness. As proof the garden did take in slaves, prostitutes, and those of the higher classes. It wasn't a school to train leaders for an already healthy society, but a school to transform the sick into the healthy -- a kind of psychic surgery. [whose endgoal, in part, is autarky]


I agree that those "Aha!" moments are wonderful. And I am certainly uncertain about what makes good philosophy. Hence my asking the questions. :)

If its any consolation, I'd have done the same in your shoes. I've really enjoyed using what you set up, and haven't thanked you for it yet either, so thanks for everything you've done. I've learned a great deal about philosophy thanks to your efforts at keeping the site going.

Behold! :D



I saw this in a wonderful cultural history on Nietzsche, and it was just too perfect a moment not to share. :)


I actually like the Hypatia icon. Of course, I would say that, since i suggested it . But it does look nice, and her death is the result of her being familiar with philosophy and actually trying to teach it -- so there's something nice in that.

Something that's not more of the same. But I hear you. It's true that the right-wing is well organized and is increasing across the globe. Another galaxy might be nice. ;)

Hahah.

I know that's where it came from. But, no, that's not what I mean. I just mean that perspective -- a push for, for instance, the WAGE act would have been great. Changing the "middle class" lingo to "working class" lingo ,and an end to the neoliberal assumptions which Carter began.

That's a pretty cool idea, methinks. Like Hypatia, for instance.

Also, poll added.

Send them both an invite, however you know how to. I'd love 'em both.

As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.

Welcome.

Sounds bomb as fuck to me. I like TGW as a participant, along with Banno -- all acidity aside.