If you feel guilty for eating plants then the source of that guilt is misplaced or fanciful. — Nils Loc

It's come to my notice that the moral universe has been expanding, it seems to mirror the Big Bang cosmology ( :chin: ) ever since people began thinking about right and wrong: First, morality was only about humans, then we included animals, now, with ecological sciences in full gear, morality isn't just about self-awareness or pain, it's about life itself.

Given this is so, plants and animals (humans included) and what they do to each other acquire moral significance i.e. they can be classified as either good or bad. This the key premise, it seems, in my argument.

To that add the tit-for-tat strategy and what it means to morality and we have a situation: it's alright to eat plants because they eat us but then if that's how we're going to come at the issue, eating animals is also permissible.

In short, is the tit-for-tat strategy moral/immoral?

Be part of the solution and not part of the problem!

The Best Things In Life Are Free.

IMO what T Clark says about the anachronistic "JTB" word salad is demonstrable true. Knowledge is falsifiable (i.e. fallibilistic), therefore not a matter of "justification" (re: the problem of induction, infinite regress of 'foundationalism', self-inconsistency of positivistic "verificationism", etc). Read Peirce-Dewey. Read Wittgenstein (re: PI, OC). Read Popper, D. Deutsch, N.N. Taleb. Read Sextus Empiricus (re: Pyrrhonians). — 180 Proof

If you ask me, the JTB definition of knowledge is perfectly acceptable in the domain of abstract philosophy wherein you axiomatize. However, in the empirical domain, falsifiability is the right way to do one's business. What say you?

Plato was an aristocrat, and quite well off. Not for nothing did Diogenes the Dog mock him for his vainglory (and other things), trampling on the carpets of Plato's house.

A person who has no need to make money often looks down upon those who must make money. We pay people for their knowledge all the time, and have always done so. For example teachers, doctors, lawyers are all paid for using what they know to the advantage of their students, patients and clients. It would be wonderful if we didn't have to pay for anything, but the idea that philosophy is a "higher knowledge" they shouldn't be paid for is silly, for more than one reason. — Ciceronianus

I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that Greeks didn't approve of wisdom and money being exchanged for each other. I suppose they thought selling stuff was what ordinary people would do and so when the sophists asked for fees when imparting wisdom, they lost their distinctiveness as sages. Sages (wise folks) weren't supposed to care about dough!

Well, I doubt anyone would refuse if the donation was generous enough and could be used in a good cause.

But would your equation be "Philosopher + Donation = Sophist"? — Apollodorus

I have mixed feelings about what you said here. First, donations are usually money but then it differs from a fee in that the former isn't asked for but is given but the latter is asked for and given. Yet, both are money in the end.

Given how similar they (donations & payment) are, a prudent philosopher should refuse donations because it could easily be misinterpreted by people. However, they also differ enough to allow a philosopher to claim that fae accepts donations but not payments.

Notice how the gist of the OP, the difference between sophists and philosopher, parallels the difference between donations and payments. In one case it's wisdom that's common to both sides, sophists and philosophers, and in the other, it's money that's in the overlap zone of donations and payment.

Good point!

I whine and complain about the needless tangle of words with which western philosophy ties up important philosophical issues. None is sillier or more misleading than justified true belief.
— T Clark
:clap: :100: — 180 Proof

Why is what T Clark said worthy of :clap: :100: ?

:chin:

As once I said, ideas enslave as much as they emancipate.
— TheMadFool

In a sense, that is the message of Taoism. — T Clark

Catuṣkoṭi

Śūnyatā (emptiness) is the ninth 'view' (Sanskrit: dṛṣṭi), the viewless view, a superposition of the eight possible arrays of proposition P [and its 'inseparable contradistinction' (Sanskrit: apoha)]. — Wikipedia

The idea is not to get trapped in system (of beliefs). Supposedly, this is the so-called madhyamaka (the middle path) in Buddhism. @Wayfarer might be able to clarify the matter further.

Speaking for myself, nec caput nec pedes! It's all Greek to me!

I'm fed up with your questions!
— KDT

Who is KDT? — Prishon

Just someone I overheard.

Once upon a time Religion and State marrily hopped along together. — Prishon

This is the type of question that separates the wheat from the chaff. Hats off to you!

It appears that what we have here is a rather interesting but very dangerous love/eternal/romance triangle with science and religion vying for the state's attention.

What you've done is expose the fact that science and religion aren't on an equal footing.

The state's facebook page reads, under relationship status: married.

Married to whom? Science.

In geometric terms, the eternal triangle can be represented as comprising three points – a jealous mate (A = science) in a relationship with an unfaithful partner (B = the state) who has a lover (C = religion)...A feels abandoned, B is between two mates, and C is a catalyst for crisis in the union A-B. — Wikipedia

What could go wrong?

P.S. I wish we knew the gender of the 3 involved. It would be a big help in resolving the problem, right?

I know it is off topic but I liked this phrase. Again, we can get into philosophy of language.
Barking up the wrong tree it is related to a dog who is wrongly breaking at something meaning that a person is saying arguments against the wrong listener or context.
I have in my language a similar phrase with the same meaning: ¡a otro perro con ese hueso!
(give that bone to another dog!)

Another thing we learned today. Cheers! — javi2541997

:up: At least one person - you - is learning. I'm an old dog and they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks! :sad:

Nontheless it was a nice polemic. And eventough God and the gods are there I prefer not to gove a goddamne thing about them. Insofar Im concerned they are dead. I use him only for interpreting QM, which he or they created. — Prishon

I'm too tired to fight back! You win!

What would they do? Make you admit? — Prishon

I'm fed up with your questions! — KDT

That's a compliment by the way.

Then you have to admit that God HAS an influence on epistemology. — Prishon

Why? That's what theists would do. I could be an atheist. Good day. I'm all out.

I didnt speak about the amounts of money. There are people who own 100 million euros while on the other hand there are people struggling to make ends meet. Thats immoral! — Prishon

You're barking up the wrong tree.

God didnt like pure chance. In fact he couldnt even imagine it! Thats why he created hidden variables.
— Prishon

Dont you think this is ironic. — Prishon

No, nothing surprising/out of the ordinary/counter-intuitive going on.

Explain what? — Prishon

What I gathered from how sophists and philosophers were treated back when they were part of the Greek cultural scene is that money, not money per se but accumulating it to the point of becoming filthy rich like the sophists, was viewed as morally dubious, perhaps mixed as it were with hidden envy. This generally dim view of money still persists - money can't buy everything (myth).

You, on the other hand, have made it clear that you believe money doesn't have/shouldn't be taken that way - money, to you, is either good or is morally neutral.

Explain that!

I dunno whats the reason behind hatred or essential dislike. Why do you ask this? Whats the connection with the old Greek. Money cant buy anything but you CAN buy a book that contains wisdom. — Prishon

Money, what it stands for, is an old enemy!
— TheMadFool

Why should asking money for wisdom make the widom less wise? I rather pay some money for good wisdom than getting bad for bad.

(thats 5 dollar please) — Prishon

Kindly explain yourself.

Now I WAS ironic! — Prishon

Sorry, fail! No irony detected!

Why should asking money for wisdom make the widom less wise? I rather pay some money for good wisdom than getting bad for bad.

(thats 5 dollar please) — Prishon

Explain the logic/rationale behind what is essentially dislike, perhaps even hatred, for sophists back when they were part of Greek culture, about 2000 years ago. Money still has a bad rep - money can't buy everything! (false but humor me).

Does it get your adverse juices flowing? I guess yes. I cant see the irony in what I said. God didnt like pure chance. In fact he couldnt even imagine it! Thats why he created hidden variables. — Prishon

No irony, no deal!

Its very relevant to the discussion. If God cant create pure randomness then this has implications for QM. — Prishon

Non sequitur because Cheshire was trying to use an irony, something that gets my juices flowing, in re epistemology, to prove God. What you said has no relevance to that unless...I'm mistaken and you have a card up your sleeve.

Show me the irony!

Just think about this. Einstein thought the universe is deterministic on the grounds that God dont play dice. So God matters. — Prishon

Non sequitur!

Was I that unclear? My point was how is an ordinary person expected to tell the difference between bullshit and acuity? Much of the time I can't even tell the difference between good and bad products, let alone metaphysics. — Tom Storm

So, you're equating bullshit with sophistry and "acuity" with philosophy and what's being implied (by you) is that ordinary people can't tell the difference between bullshit and truth.

Indeed, some folks, like me for instance, don't have a working bullshitometer or its counterpart, a truthometer. However, sophists and philosophers both are, for real, genuinely so, about the same issues that have been bothering the thinkers in every generation of humanity. What sets them apart is moolah as in who demands it and who doesn't. In other words, if you want to know whether someone is a sophist or a philosopher, one has to know whether money's involved or not.

Testing the limits of extrapolation for the sake of public interest. The boat has indeed run ashore. — Cheshire

I still didn't get it. There's merit wherever there's irony. Can you dumb down your argument from epistemic irony for God so that I too may see what you seem to have seen. Thanks in advance!

The difference with me and the arrow-struck hero being that I trie to remove the arrow. Knowing who shot the arrow and how the arrow is shot and how it has hit in the first place can be helpful. — Prishon

The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him. — Wikipedia

It's interesting because it's contrary to a JTB approach to knowledge. The same person saying it's best to avoid being wrong by not defending or owning a position is also defining knowledge as something absolute or rather something defensible with justification and belief. While casually over looking neither have a bearing on the T requirement. Justify and believe all you like but T isn't implied. Yet, credence is given for never assuming T, compared to not assuming it. The man defines knowledge as something unattainable, promotes claims of ignorance and 2000+ years of intuitional learning is spent on attaining absolute truth. How is that type of Irony able to exist in a world without a God?

It simply can't. Interesting? — Cheshire

Very interesting, you seem to have turned the whole issue of human knowledge vis-à-vis Socrates into a rather unique though not-so-convincing argument for God. Frankly, I fail to see how God matters to epistemology unless your intention is to bring up the so-called God of the gaps idea or God's alleged omniscience and use that as a springboard to make an argument.

Go on...

The fool really did see things others didn't because he wasn't tied to the accepted creed. — T Clark

:fire: As once I said, ideas enslave as much as they emancipate. Ideas/beliefs/philosophies/etc. are the proverbial gilded cage - it's luxurious, yes, but it's a prison and let's face it, prisons are sometimes spacious waiting rooms that open into the execution chamber.

being a fool was a dangerous profession. — T Clark

Spot on! Yet, some say, justifiably, things like, "he was too smart for his own good." What's up with that?

like some fools, he was put to death. — T Clark

So, Socrates was, in that sense - courting death with a passion matching Romeo's and Juliet's - the quintessential idiot!

Socrates cared about life, that's why wisdom mattered to him. Fortunately or not, to make wisdom a life goal meant he had to stop caring about crossing the river Styx but then, if he didn't mind a visit from the Grim Reaper, he didn't give jack shit about life. Thus, in a sense, life was of utmost importance to Socrates but also, it was not! Another Socratic paradox for you to mull over.

The OP's question reminds me of the Buddhist Parable Of The Poisoned Arrow.

It's just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me... until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short... until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored... until I know his home village, town, or city... until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow... until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated... until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird... until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.' He would say, 'I won't have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.' The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him. — Wikipedia

It also brings to mind the butcher's moral puzzle: If people didn't eat meat, butchers won't kill animals. If the butcher didn't kill animals, people won't eat meat. Who's to blame? The butcher? No, he's killing animals for us. Us, the nonvegetarians? No, we only eat meat because the butcher's made it available. The butcher can't stop killing animals because we demand meat; we can't stop eating meat because butchers make it available. Vicious cycle!

Why then is it that, to my reckoning, to misunderstand is worse than to not understand? Socrates: To know that I don't know is better than to think you know when you actually don't know. :chin:
— TheMadFool
It's a little more than misunderstand I believe. I suppose knowing wrongly in the classical sense implies something to over come prior or during getting it right. There's no knee jerk reaction to guarding or defending ignorance of something. But, a well entrenched mistake can have a lifetime warranty. — Cheshire

I realized that there are two kinds of people:

1. Those who either speak the truth or say interesting things.

2. Those who either speak falsehoods are say uninteresting things.

True, we need to get it right but if that's a tall order, say something interesting. It's not always about finding the truth, it's also about making life exciting and colorful. If all goes well, the best-case-scenario is interesting truths but hey we can't have it all, can we?

Throughout the ages the question has remained - how can an ordinary, perhaps foolish person tell the difference between the two? This can be an issue even in cases where the differences are more apparent. — Tom Storm

You seem to be implying that only intellectually-challenged people can't tell the difference between Sophists and Philosophers, fixated on money, not a good sign by some accounts, and using that to make the distinction between the two.

However, sources indicate philosophers distanced themselves from sophist by not asking for a fee when sharing what they knew.

So yeah, money was the distinguishing feature that helped the common man and the philosopher decide who was a sophist and who was a philosopher.

Well said. But what about philosophers that accept donations — Apollodorus

Irrelevant as sophists too would be happy to receive financial assistance, no strings attached (donations).

Yep, it might even come cheaper and leave you some extra pocket money for other things .... :grin: — Apollodorus

I could use some extra money right now but that's beside the point. Something is better than nothing attitude, eh? Why then is it that, to my reckoning, to misunderstand is worse than to not understand? Socrates: To know that I don't know is better than to think you know when you actually don't know. :chin:

serve as knowledge in the absence of higher forms of knowledge — Apollodorus

Fascinating, this is what I would like to call in the fake zone - when you can't get the original, make do with a fake!

It all depends on what Socrates' definition of knowledge was. I read somewhere that justified, true, belief (JTB) as knowledge originated with him. So, let's run with that.

JTB (knowledege)
S knows P IFF
1. P is true
2. P is justified
3. S believes P

So, Socrates claiming "I know nothing" means, for all propositions Q,

Q is false OR Q is unjustified OR Socrates doesn't believe Q.

4. Q is false: Violation of the law of contradiction as both a proposition and its negation are false. Non viable.

5. Q is unjustified: Agrippa's trilemma that there are no good justifications; self-contradictory. Non viable.

6. Socrates doesn't believe Q: When does someone not believe anything? When, inter alia, that person thinks everything is a lie but that takes us back to 4. Q is false and that all propositions are false, instantly violating the law of noncontradiction. Non viable.

"I know nothing" leads to contradictions! Thus, Socrates (highly likely that he's aware of this and is deliberately going round Jack Robinson's barn) means to say "I know something." Socrates knew that...??? :chin:

I guess Socrates wants to tell us that there are true propositions out there (see 4, 6) and that justification, logic, isn't self-refuting (see 5). That's what he knew! Deus ex machina to rescue us from skepticism and ironically, the statement that he makes, "I know nothing" is precisely the skeptic's advertising slogan. Odd!

Protagoras to the rescue (again):

A. Perceived dilemma

1. Either vaccines are mandatory or vaccines are optional
2. If vaccines are mandatory then freedom is at risk
3. If vaccines are optional then many will die
Ergo,
4. Freedom is at risk or many will die (1, 2, 3 CD) [lose-lose]

B. Protagorian solution

1. Either vaccines are mandatory or vaccines are optional
2. If vaccines are mandatory then fewer will die
3. If vaccines are optional then freedom is secure
Ergo,
4. Fewer will die or freedom is secure (1, 2, 3 CD) [win-win]

BUT...of what use is freedom if you're dead?!
Conversely, of what use is life without freedom?
Tough call!
:chin: Hmmm.

Death is the only god.
Def: God - that to which one devotes one's life.
— unenlightened
Re: (every) event horizon. — 180 Proof

:up:

I like that idea even though it's kinda like raining on my parade, well, half-a-parade actually.

They had a name for it - phonophobia - and it was a nightmare. Even the slightest sounds gave me the jitters; loud noises and panic attacks. I decided to build a sound-proof room in my house which would serve as a sanctuary, a place to escape from the cacophony that was the world and so I did. I walked into the room with high expectations, closed the door - the silence was deafening! — Some Guy

That which you hate and run away from (death) is that which you love and run towards (God).

You've lost me!

The profit driven world economic system which puts profits over people at every point.

We call it capitalism. — StreetlightX

Is it possible, do you think it's plausible, that capitalism is just a way freedom manifests itself and, conversely, could it be that socialism is authoritarianism in disguise?

Aye, there’s the rub. There is no way to be certain in making a decision without some degree of ignorance/exclusion. As I said, it’s about how much inaccuracy you’re willing to overlook. — Possibility

Assume, Possibility, let's go hog wild, you're totally uncertain, say God's existence is 50/50. Do you pray or not? Why?

Oversimplification, but I’ve come to expect that from you. It’s only ‘the same’ with regard to the specific decision to take or not take an umbrella with you. — Possibility

Correct the scenario then - make it better, add/delete as it seems fit; remember, you have to be agnostic about some claim and make a decision based on that uncertainty, then compare that too how you would make the decision based on knowing i.e. you have to be certain about whatever it is that you're agnostic about.

The ball, I sense, is in your court, Possibility!