Whereas in Greek philosophy 'reason' was what marked humans off from the animal kingdom. — Wayfarer

Indeed! How fascinating. Taking the Kantian route to morality, evil violates the laws of logic if not the laws of nature. Interestingly, Kant was, in my humble opinion, attempting to make moral laws as watertight as the laws of nature, The Categorical Imperative:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. — Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals)

To be evil, as per Kant, was to violate the law of noncontradiction!

Very, very interesting.

They ate the apple and became self-aware — Hermeticus

Hmmm.... :chin:

I see the clouds of a rebellion (disobedience) on the horizon...better do something about it before all hell breaks loose. — Yahweh

:up:

What is true of nonhuman animals that if true of humans would justify killing them for food? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I can find none, I suspect the same goes for anyone and this exposes, completely, the fact that non-vegetarianism is not, in any sense of the word, rational/justified. We don't kill each other (humans killing humans) because there's a good reason (trait not found in animals) not to but "because" we just don't like it (utterly arbitrary). In short, to ask for a
justification for non-vegetarianism is like asking for semen from a woman, N/A.

@Wayfarer

:up:

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason

That says a lot. No wonder, ancient moral theorists needed God, a being not of this world, to prop up their ethics. Morality is a constellation of laws/rules from another realm, adapted, as best as we could, to our world.

The sense of right and wrong (ethics/morality) , ergo, cannot have been acquired from this realm which we inhabit. The human mind, the main protagonist in the tale of the good and bad, is then, from some other, as of yet, unknown universe. Could a man who's only seen white swans ever conceive of black swans?

What's a trait animals lack that if humans too lack it, killing humans for whatever would be permissible?
— TheMadFool

Morality. Animals take no issue with killing other animals for food. If Humans did not possess any moral compass whatsoever all would be permissible. — Pinprick

That, I'm afraid, is not going to do the job. By your logic, we should be killing immoral people but that just doesn't seem the right thing to do. Yes, we do execute a certain class of criminals (mass murderers, serial killers, etc.) but I believe capital punishment is losing support and fast - soon, it'll be a thing of the past.

What do you expect me to say? You make a claim about the Buddha, and I ask for a canonical reference for said claim. You don't provide it. You see no problem with not providing it.

*sigh* — baker

There's no point in providing a reference, canonical or otherwise because, unlike other religions, buddhism isn't what philosophers refer to as arguementum ad verecundiam.

As for luck's existence/nonexistence, @Wayfarer is right, buddhism is, all said and done, a rejection of dogmatism and as per Nagarjuna's tetralemma, the statement "luck plays a role in a person's life" would elicit the following responses:

1. It does. No!
2. It does not. No!
3. It does and it does not. No!
4. Neither it does nor it does not. No!

Chew on that and tell me what you make of it.

It’s the burden of self. Humans are able to abstractly reflect on their own existence, and existence generally, to think ‘this is mine’. Animals can’t do that. Comes with language and abstract thought. That’s the symbolic meaning of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ in my view. — Wayfarer

The first step towards a solution to a problem is to realize that there is a problem. Humans have, in a sense, awakened to the fact that all is not well in the garden of Eden. Nature, as it turns out, is hyper-savage - its brutality is infinite, everything and anything is permissible - and this is what humans got wind of after Adam and Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit.

By the way, I want to pick your brain on something that I just realized which is that being immoral, even in the worst possible sense, even though it breaks moral laws does not violate a law of nature. What's up with that? @180 Proof, care to take a stab?

I mean, I could torture someone in an unimaginably horrific way but at no point in the process will I actually violate the so-called laws of nature. Nature, it seems, permits, if not that at least doesn't prohibit, evil.

On the other hand, being good is in almost all cases an uphill task, almost as if a good guy/gal/child is on the verge of transgressing a law of nature.

The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it — 180 Proof

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. — Philip K. Dick

In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept. You can complain of course, that's what morality boils down to, but don't expect reality to do anything about it.

However, nothing about reality seems logically necessary, that is to say, we maybe able to make some alterations, give it a makeover and that's exactly what humans have been doing ever since we could imagine and thereby conceive of, let's just say, a better deal in life.

It looks like you're right and I'm wrong. I'm guilty of a non sequitur. Sorry to have wasted your time. I'll have to be more careful next time around.

In my defense though I see a lot of very intelligent members home in on why climate action is such a long-drawn-out process - there's an overall consensus that the culprit is money. Think of it, even someone like you who doesn't think this way mentions money as, at a bare minimum, a contributory factor. No smoke without fire, right?

The reason I broached the issue of human nature is I wanted to dig a little deeper; you know, get to the bottom of this puzzle which is both intriguing and equally saddening (humanity is committing mass suicide by becoming the instrument of its own extinction and we're taking a huge chunk of the biosphere with us - suicide bomber-like). What about us, perhaps some kind of an innate trait, drives climate change? After all, this is man-made climate change.

Yes, that's it. Also the double standard, the noble lie, the special pleading... take your pick... previously noted in MU and EE, shows itself again. If religion doesn't attempt to be factually correct, then it is not answerable to anything. — Banno

Religious ethics tries to eat the cake and have it too. To be good/bad we must exercise our free will but then it has a list of things (e.g. the decalogue) we're prohibited from doing i.e. our free will is rendered pointless.

It's like giving a slave his freedom but then preventing him from enjoying his freedom. The slave's freedom is meaningless.

Religion has to be factually correct for the simple reason that if it isn't, it's just a fairy tale and who takes fairy tales seriously? We're not children.

Why when animals are able to form order and organisation without this does the human stand alone. — David S

The law of the jungle = No laws; no holds barred death match; nature is red in tooth and claw.

But so far researchers have failed to locate lawyer bees. Bees don’t need lawyers, because there is no danger that they might forget or violate the hive constitution. — Yuval Noah Harari (Sapiens)

:up:

It was an innocent (enough) quip at case-based abortion and neglect of the mentally ill in society. Not a quip per se more of a satirical statement that promotes awareness. — Outlander

:ok: Sorry, I took it literally.

unconditional savagery — Outlander

Interesting. We usually don't kill carnivores (unconditional savagery).

Here's an instance where I should just ignore a question that is basically incoherent, but I won't.

(1) Being "money-minded" is not the same as being generous -- that's unrelated, not what I said or implied, and basically out of nowhere.

(2) What I was talking about with "mostly money" is taking out of context and was in response to a prior post about the reasons for why media isn't covering the story of climate change as well as they should. I mentioned money, because media is sponsored mainly by advertisers. The larger the audience, the more money per advertisement. If the stories don't get a large audience, or enough eyes or clicks, then there's less money to be made. I mentioned that as ONE reason, among others.

If you have nothing worthwhile left to say, it's not imperative to continue talking for its own sake. — Xtrix

I'm sorry but it was you who brought up money as a/the reason why climate activists have slipped up in their mission to get the movers and shakers of the world to act.

When I ran with that and took it to its logical conclusion - greed - you object. That's odd and, might I add, incoherent.

What's the difference between having no hammer and having a broken hammer?
Same as the difference between having no car and having a car with an empty fuel tank ... having no body and having a dead body ... etc.
How does one know whether a proposition is factually true?
Equivocating "know" again. Just look: It's raining iff it's raining. Also, sound inferential arguments.
Justification?
Foundherentism (S. Haack) works for me. — 180 Proof

:up: I have a lot of catching up to do.

The problem with most positions in this thread is with people's obsession with "absolute" concepts. — Nickolasgaspar

Only a Sith deals in absolutes — Obi-Wan Kenobi

Perfectionism (psychology)

Yep.

@TheMadFool, what do you make of dimosthenis9's first claiming that religion is needed to keep the common rabble in their place, then agreeing that folk must make moral choices?

Why deny choice to the rabble? — Banno

It exposes the paradox at the heart of religious morality - free will (ref: the problem of evil) and religious moral injunctions (no free will).

You can repair the hammer. — Tom Storm

You can try. I don't think it's possible. At least not in the foreseeable future.

Just what do you think you're doing, God? — Job/Noah/Sisyphus

false wisdom is worse — Cabbage Farmer

It'd be like thinking you've finally found the holy grail of philosophy aka living well but unbeknownst to you, it's a fake! So, you go around the world proudly announcing your fabulous discovery (wisdom, the be all and end all of philosophy) only to, one day, have your confidence, pride, and joy dashed to pieces on the unforgiving rocks of reality by those whom it's obvious that the emperor has no clothes.

As the Delphic Oracle warned those who sought guidance, surety brings ruin and just to drive the point home, the wisest person in Greece at one time was Socrates and his claim to the title rested on "I know that I know nothing."

Our journey then, it seems, began roughly 2000 years ago in Athens greece and we, it looks like, haven't made an inch of progress. Ignoramus ignoramibus!

Then it should be easy for you to provide at least two canonical references that support the above. TY. — baker

Sorry I can't respond to your request but for what it's worth, Buddhism is, inter alia, an argument, the key premise being the doctrine of impermanence (anicca). — TheMadFool

What happened?

Not if it reaches childhood at least. We let life take care of that. — Outlander

So, it's permissible to kill a brain-damaged human? So, someone could go to a special needs school and spray bullets inside the classrooms and nobody would bat an eyelid?

More broadly, there was a time when man needed to eat animals to survive, perhaps before agriculture and when berries and nuts were scarce. It's already hard coded in our DNA. Sure, it can be changed. But who wants to go ahead and do that. Animals on the other hand, never needed humans to survive. Long story short, we needed them (in our stomach) to survive more than they needed us to do the same, which means they have the responsibility to be eaten. Heavy hangs the head. Besides, we can't eat each other. You'll catch "the kuru". — Outlander

Red herring. Focus on the question/issue. What's a trait animals lack that if humans too lack it, killing humans for whatever would be permissible? I'm waiting, sir/madam, as the case may be.

Thank you. I have drawn a couple of conclusions about this, but am yet thinking it over. I will post something later today. — Michael Zwingli

:ok:

There is no trait absent in animals which if absent in humans would cause humans to lack sufficient moral value so that it would be immoral to kill them for food. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

This is the main premise I reckon. Animals or humans can either possess/lack a trait.

Ergo, the questions are,

1. Which trait that's missing in animals if also absent in humans would justify the killing of humans in the same way we kill animals?

OR

2. Which trait that animals possess if also a human trait would give warrant to kill humans as we kill animals?

Answers,

1. Self-awareness is cited by many as sufficient grounds to distinguish humans from animals but, intriguingly, if a human lacks self-awareness (brain damage, mental retardation) we don't kill that human. Nonvegetarianism fails.


2. Trickier to answer because most arguments for nonvegeterianism are premised on a missing quality in animals (see answer 1). We wouldn't, for example, think of killing an organism more self-aware, more pain-sensitive, so on, than us. Would we kill god(s)? We did crucify Jesus but the Buddha lived to be 82 or thereabouts and died of dysentery and not at the hands of others. He was actually given protection just like how high-ranking government officials are provided with security.

Then it should be easy for you to provide at least two canonical references that support the above. TY. — baker

Sorry I can't respond to your request but for what it's worth, Buddhism is, inter alia, an argument, the key premise being the doctrine of impermanence (anicca).

Since topic deletion is most probably impossible, maybe you can make some modications or additions, that will justify your ideas based on scientifically/technically correct data. I can help in that, if you like. — Alkis Piskas

I'll give it my best shot. It might take some time though. I'm not the brightest bulb on the chandelier.

I am currently chewing over...thinking about these two "principles". I have another question. Is "the indiscernibility of identicals" a proposition of Liebniz, as is "the identity of indiscernibles"? — Michael Zwingli

This might help: Identity of indiscernibles/Indiscernibility of identicals

1. The indiscernibility of identicals: $\forall x \forall y[x = y \rightarrow \forall F (Fx \leftrightarrow Fy)]$
For any x and y, if x is identical to y, then x and y have all the same properties.

2. The identity of indiscernibles: $\forall x \forall y[\forall F (Fx \leftrightarrow Fy) \rightarrow x = y]$
For any x and y, if x and y have all the same properties, then x is identical to y.

Expand on and elaborate what? — 180 Proof

Instead, "by nature", we akratic apes are (all-too-often) foolish / stupid. — 180 Proof

I'd like you to expand and elaborate $\uparrow$

That's right but consider how knowledge is, ultimately, an assumption just like a belief.
— TheMadFool
Stop. :shade: You're just abusing words again because you can. :point:

In short, knowledge, true knowledge is an illusion ...
So ... for instance, 'the gravitational constant' or 'both your parents were born before you were born' are "illusions"? You're talking out of your bunghole again, Fool — 180 Proof

Imagine a person X.

1. X believe God exists. Insofar as X is concerned that God exists is true. X has no proof/evidence. God exists, assumed true by X though God exists could be factually false.

2. X knows the earth is round. The earth is round is factually true and X believes the earth is round.

In 1, the assumption made is explicit and clear. So far so good. In 2, however, one thinks no assumptions have been made but that's incorrect. Observe that between 1 and 2 the difference is that in the former the proposition in question, here God exists, can be factually false but in the latter, the proposition, viz. the earth is round, is factually true.

How does one know whether a proposition is factually true?

Justification?

What about the skeptic Agrippa's trilemma (Münchhausen trilemma)?

There really is no difference between assuming God exists (X believes God exists) and using a necessarily flawed system (arguments) to "prove" the earth is round (X knows the earth is round), is there? What's the difference between having no hammer and having a broken hammer?

To know a falsehood =/= "false knowledge". To know a falsehood = illusion of knowledge (i.e. delusion). — 180 Proof

That's right but consider how knowledge is, ultimately, an assumption just like a belief. There are a lot of presuppositions (e.g. Agrippa's trilemma) - knowledge is a house built on sand. Given this is so, what's the difference between someone who claims fae believes Santa exists and another person who says fae knows Santa doesn't exist. This is not a type distinction, rather it's a question of degree (how many assumptions are made instead of whether assumptions are made at all). Thus, the person who states that fae knows Santa doesn't exist is in the same flimsy boat being rocked about, dangerously so, in rough seas as it were, as the person who avers that fae believes Santa exists but...there's a difference, fae is at a safer distance from the gunwale.

In short, knowledge, true knowledge is an illusion; To put it in different words, I know P (a proposition assumed to be true or itself based on other unfounded assumptions) but P can be false.

It is possible – in more cases than not likely – to be wrong about 'knowing'. — 180 Proof

Yes, that's what my post draws attention to:

E = The earth is flat (actually false)

1. I believe E

2. If I believe E, E assumed true

3. If E assumed true, it operates in the same way as R = the earth is spherical, R actually true. In a sense then, I know E.

4. I know E (E assumed true) BUT E actually false.

5. We can know a falsehood.

Not (involuntarily) "evil".

"By nature", we akratic apes are (all-too-often) foolish / stupid. — 180 Proof

No one knowingly does evil. — Socratea

Do not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity — Robert J. Hanlon (Hanlon's razor)

The Three Poisons (Buddhism)

1. Ignorance
2. Vanity
3. Hatred

:chin:

Expand and elaborate please.

Humans are neither good nor bad, but they can often be relied upon to do the wrong thing. — Tom Storm

:lol:

Predicate =/= noun, no? — 180 Proof

I know the earth is a sphere = I have knowledge that the earth is a sphere.

:chin:

"To know" =/= knowledge. — 180 Proof

That's interesting. How? Why?

In other words there's no reason why one cannot know a falsehood.
— TheMadFool
Hence,
Now that is a neat, reasonably coherent way to think about these terms. You are not obligated to think in this way, of course - you will do as you will. But if you keep this hierarchy in mind you will be able to follow the philosophical discussions around these issues with some clarity, and event to critique a few odd alternatives.
— Banno
If you claim to know a falsehood it is because you are not using "know" in the way specified. So you are on your own. See how you get on — Banno

However, isn't such a position - working with a seemingly unjustified, arbitrary definition of knowledge - self-refuting? First, the claim is give credence only to justified propositions (definition of knowing) and second, with the same breath, to declare that the way knowing is defined is arbitrary.

Also, do you mind taking a look at the following attempt at an analysis of the situation?

Or are you asking is it possible for us to know that something is untrue? — Tom Storm

To the both of you

If the claim is that we can know a falsehood it simply means that falsehood(s) count(s) as knowledge.

In line with the OP's main thrust, let's examine beliefs. I say "I believe P" where P is a proposition. P needn't be true, it can be false. Belief is a choice it seems - I can, for instance, opt to believe P. When I choose to believe P, I assume P is true whether P is actually true or not. In other words, for me, P counts as knowledge i.e. I can, in a sense say, I know P. Am I, after all, not assuming P is true. Yet, P could be actually false.

Here, we have the situation where I know P but P could be false. In other words the following hold:

1. I know P, P is true. [Usual deal.]

OR

2. I know P (P assumed true), P is (actually) false. [We can know a falsehood.]

The proof is not a deduction, it is a definition. — Banno

In other words there's no reason why one cannot know a falsehood. I can, if I wish to, define knowing such that it's not an issue to know a falsehood.

That said, I believe there's a very good reason why philosophers decided on a definition that makes it impossible to know an untruth. I'd like to know more about that, thanks.

Consider the situation where I believe a lie (falsehood) e.g. that the earth is flat. Until I'm disabused of this erroneous view, I'll maintain, till I'm proved wrong and assuming I'm not a stubborn fool, that I know the shape of the earth - flat. This aspect of knowing is lost in a definition that precludes knowing a falsehood. Now. I'm not sure but do you suppose anyone would describe this view of know/knowing as impoverished and utterly fails to capture the nuances and subtleties of know/knowing? I, of course, defer to the better judgment of experienced and knowledgeable philosophers but I'm curious. Why can't we know a falsehood?

"I know it (is true) but it is not true" is a contradiction.

IF you can't see that, then you are on your own. — Banno

It can only be a contradiction if,

1. To know p implies p is true. That p is not true then contradicts I know p.

However, that's begging the question, no? Whoever defined know decided that to know a proposition p, p must be true. This is precisely what the issue is - can/can't we know a falsehood?

I know it, but it's not true" is a contradiction — Banno

How?