So, the issue is how you framed the issue. — Wallows

Exactamundo!

So, don't take it personally, is all I'm saying. — Wallows

Fat chance of that happening!

And your opinion matters only if this is T-ball and you want the "ball" teed up a little higher, or lower, or whatever. But this isn't T-ball, so your opinion does not matter. You yourself are more like the batter who cannot hit the ball, but who struts and puffs out his chest and flaps his lips making foolish noises and who glances around all as if he meant something, while all the time being just a fool who takes up space and wastes time.

You have your views, and you're impervious to any sort of reason. But you like to sucker people into setting it up for you, not so you can hit it, because we have finally learned that you cannot, but so you can piss on it. And that, finally, is disgusting. That's you, in discussion disgusting. — tim wood

But in all their invective there seems no counterargument, just the invective. — tim wood

:rofl:

Look at my post and your response. It's all right there. — tim wood

Challenge failed.

There's no blanket answer to that, as I've already made clear. Why are you asking me poorly considered questions, one at a time, at a snails pace? Do you think that that meets an acceptable standard? Because I do not.
— S

No you didn't. — tim wood

That's ungrammatical. I think you meant, "No, you haven't".

And yes, I have. You must have lost concentration to the extent that you forgot about earlier comments I've made such as this one:

That's why it was a problematic question. It depends on a whole bunch of factors to the point that it's rash to even make a judgement without knowing the full details of a particular case. The question should be, "Is this particular case immoral?", but for that we'd need to know more, so my response would be, "Tell me as much as possible about it". — S

You do this sort of thing a lot. You don't display good listening skills and people end up having to repeat themselves a lot with you.

The rest of your reply consists in irrelevant personal attacks, so I've ignored it.

I challenge you to quote this alleged non sequitur.

No. Either reasonable people need me to be reasonable to accept my belief, which in turn means I have to be reasonable - or they're not reasonable; in that number, you. — Shamshir

I've asked you a few times now to make your intention here clear, specifically as to whether or not you intend to be reasonable. You haven't directly answered that question, and based on your replies, including the rest of your reply quoted above, which I've discarded as irrelevant, I'm going to answer that question myself: you do not intend to be reasonable. Thus, I'm going to end our exchange.

If I use a descriptor (I try not to) I use "agnostic." — Frank Apisa

If you genuinely didn't care about such descriptors, then you wouldn't get so worked up about being called an atheist rather than an agnostic and you wouldn't rant about it on here as you are wont to do. But you are not like me at all in this respect. You care a great deal about something I consider to be too insignificant to get worked up about.

Reasonable people need it to accept your belief. I'm not saying that you have to be reasonable. I'm just curious what you're doing here if you don't care to be reasonable.
— S

You're saying reasonable people 'need' it, and yet I don't 'have to' be reasonable.
So clearly, I either have to be reasonable or you're unreasonable - evident by how I cannot reason with you. — Shamshir

Ironically, you're committing the fallacy of taking what I said out of context, which means you're being unreasonable.

You can see the proper context of what I said in the quote above. I said that reasonable people need it to accept your belief. You can't selectively remove the underlined part if you're trying to produce a logically valid criticism. Do you know anything about logic?

You aren't paying sufficient attention again. The question is whether or not you can reasonably justify your belief.
— S

Read what is written. I don't need to justify my belief, because it is irrelevant to my belief. — Shamshir

Why aren't you paying sufficient attention to what I'm saying? I said that the question is whether or not you can reasonably justify your belief, and you replied that you don't need to do so. Your reply doesn't address what I said. Do you understand the difference in meaning between the words "can" and "need"?

If you're going to switch to "need", then I say that the only context in which you need to justify your belief is in order to demonstrate that you're being reasonable. Please make clear your intention here. Are you going to try to be reasonable, or are you wasting my time?

Meaning I can only reason about my belief, your belief and any belief.
Any justification itself, mind you, being a belief. — Shamshir

That doesn't answer my questions or address the problem.

You're silly. You go about chasing one thing, calling it 'wisdom', and leaving behind another thing, calling it 'folly'. And you end up with neither. — Shamshir

Sure, whatever you say.

I plead you give these few words some thought, rather than rushing to prove me wrong - which proves nothing. — Shamshir

I urge you to put more effort into restraining yourself from letting your thoughts wander away from the points that I'm making and the questions I'm asking. You seem very unfocussed.

One last point. There comes a point in an exchange I'm involved in where if my attempts to seek a reasonable response repeatedly fail to be met, I end up giving up. We're drawing close to that point.

Is it immoral to commit crimes? — tim wood

There's no blanket answer to that, as I've already made clear. Why are you asking me poorly considered questions, one at a time, at a snails pace? Do you think that that meets an acceptable standard? Because I do not.

It is not about justification, as nothing wants nor needs your justification. — Shamshir

Reasonable people need it to accept your belief. I'm not saying that you have to be reasonable. I'm just curious what you're doing here if you don't care to be reasonable.

How can you justify the existence of things? They just are, with or without your justification. — Shamshir

You aren't paying sufficient attention again. The question is whether or not you can reasonably justify your belief.

The incredibly basic thing about philosophy is that it is 'the love of wisdom'.
And love is not a contentious thing, as you would desire it to be.
You lust after wisdom, you do not love it; perhaps this is why we misalign. — Shamshir

There's nothing wise about indulging folly, and that's what you must do in order to believe the silly things you've said that you believe.

The group of people who are atheists is larger than the group of people who are atheists and believe in extraterrestrial life. Any atheist who is in the former group but not the latter group doesn't have to justify the additional belief of the latter group. You will find that the atheists here are only in the former group.
— S

Ask for example people on Facebook in atheist groups - Which of you is 100% sure that there is extraterrestrial life. I guarantee you that the results will surprise you — Geo

Your response commits a fallacy of relevance.

You wrong
— Geo

You troll.
— S

And it already annoying when people who have no arguments, just blaming the opponent for being a troll. — Geo

You're a funny troll. An argument against "You wrong"? :lol:

I think that it's about time that we looked beyond those who think that they're beyond the God debate. Actions speak louder than words.

You troll.

They're all worth exploring or you stay in the dark. — Shamshir

Sure, whatever you say. You go run along with your magnifying glass to explore how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, then. I'm okay with staying here.

Nothing you've said in the rest of your post changes the situation we started with. It's still curious to me why you presumably think that any reasonable group of people would give any credence to these ridiculous beliefs. It takes a matter of seconds for me to acknowledge that something so seemingly farfetched is at least logically possible, but there are innumerable such possibilities, so it is indeed about justification if you actually expect any reasonable person to believe in one of these possibilities which you believe to be true.

This is an incredibly basic thing in philosophy. Are you new to the subject?

Aren't philosophers ones who should explore ideas, wherever they may lead? — Shamshir

Only those worth exploring, and don't assume that the basis for such beliefs hasn't already been explored and found to be severely wanting.

So, shouldn't reasonable people reason that there may be more to something, than their preconceived notions? — Shamshir

Possibility alone is insufficient grounds for justification.

Isn't it unreasonable to say that what we're seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting is all there is? — Shamshir

I haven't said that. Stay focussed.

Wouldn't it be reasonable to think, that in the same way there are people blind to this world, we may be blind to some other world? — Shamshir

Once again, possibility alone is insufficient grounds for justification.

Why do atheists believe in a extraterrestrial life, when there is clearly no such evidence? — Geo

You really didn't think that one though, did you? The group of people who are atheists is larger than the group of people who are atheists and believe in extraterrestrial life. Any atheist who is in the former group but not the latter group doesn't have to justify the additional belief of the latter group. You will find that the atheists here are only in the former group.

Why would they be all over the place? Are anglerfish all over the ocean?
I, for one, know seers - that I would constitute as having superpowers.
They, by their claim, say anyone can read minds or see in to the future - but, people are simply oblivious to it, being so enamored with the small physical view they're presented.
By their claim, I suppose they're not superhuman - and it's inadequate of me to give them as an example. Nonetheless, I believe they possess super powers. — Shamshir

What I find curious is why you presumably think that any reasonable group of people would give any credence to that? You do realise that there's nothing reasonable about that, don't you? You're entitled to beliefs based on whim and fancy, but why come to a philosophy forum to express these kind of beliefs?

Check out the new ignore feature which has been added to the forum. Very helpful in raising the signal to noise ratio. — Jake

Thanks! I will. Can it block out comments like the above?

You can’t expect him to list all of your shortcomings. — praxis

There isn't much that can be expected of him until he's repaired. Well, except repeating his usual jibber-jabber.

Special pleading, ad hom, gratuitous assertion, and moving goalposts — creativesoul

I see you can name some logical fallacies. That's nice. But there's a bit more to it than that.

You must admit that it’s kinda funny that you applied experimental results from critter studies to human morality. — praxis

No, it's not that much of a stretch, actually. Emotions have an obvious role in morality, and those experimental results are of significance in relation to how our brains function in relation to emotion. Funnily enough, we do have some things in common with "critters", as you call them, but that doesn't mean that we have everything in common with them, and I certainly wasn't suggesting the silly things that you and the malfunctioning android, Repetitron2000, seemed to have in mind.

Answer this. Is a crime a crime, or does it "depend"? — tim wood

A crime is a crime, and a silly question is a silly question.

It's a catch 22: you either accept his proposal or you're not giving it a chance.

Ok, so just as an example, threads in an edited section might not dissolve in to random cleverness Facebook style quips. Some people might prefer the de-quiped service to the one currently being offered. Some of those people might be inspired to share interesting content as a result. And those who preferred to quip etc could still do so in the now somewhat demoted sections of the forum.

Or, as yet another option, we could convert this thread in to an endless series of hysterical anti-nuclear rants, with insanely clever quips included at no extra charge!!!

Personally though, I would rather discuss Mickey Mouse. — Jake

How about goggles equipped with Boring Vision™? That way, when you browse the forum, you won't see any of those quips you so despise, yet oddly partake in.

They're usually £49.99, but for you, only £174.99!*

*Terms and conditions apply.

As I said, we're all open to feedback. I provided reasons why I didn't agree with your suggestion. You didn't respond, but instead posted the above passive aggressive comment, summarily concluding the world is filled with mindless naysayers who refuse to take seriously your suggestions. — Hanover

Sarcastic passive-aggression is a quality of elites, and since I'm without a doubt the most sarcastic passive-aggresive son of bitch around here, I must be the most elite of the elites. As leader of the elites, I demand that you implement an exclusive forum for us, posthaste, or else I will continue to instruct my sub-elites to create more passive-aggressive feedback discussions like this.

Looks like I misspoke. All right. The proposition of the OP is unanswerable according to S. His position as that taking illegal drugs is not in itself immoral, but that it depends on the circumstances. Well, what do we know about the circumstances? Only that the drugs taken are illegal. Implicitly it is a crime to take them - at least that is how I understand "illegal." — tim wood

All good so far.

Implicitly it is immoral to commit crimes. — tim wood

Uh, and this is where you fail. You fail because you struggle to think outside of the box. Someone who applied critical thinking skills would be able to quite easily come up with counterexamples. Though of course, you would just deny these counterexamples or contradict yourself.

I know, every consumer of illegal drugs under the sun does not want to deal with their actions being immoral. And will twist every which-a-way to avoid dealing with it. I take that back. Addicts in recovery are usually mature enough to acknowledge that taking illegal drugs does harm pretty much everywhere. I have heard them say it, and give them credit for saying it. — tim wood

Given that you began that little rant by begging the question in your first sentence, everything that follows is completely irrelevant, logically.

And for the nth time may I point you back to the question of the OP. It reads, and I quote, "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" Nothing about addicts being immoral. — tim wood

I was addressing your comment. If it was off topic, then you only have yourself to blame.

That is, the addict lies outside of considerations of morality or immorality, his or her actions as an addict on the level of the actions of animals, the morality being reduced to an abstract consideration. The addict as addict, then, is a personification of immorality.
— tim wood

Be nice if you troubled to read and understand before you write. The addict as person is beyond immorality. As a sick person - and I think the verdict is clear that addiction is sickness, with altered brain chemistry, etc. - his/her actions don't fall under morality. But the actions in an abstract sense are still immoral, thus the addict personifies the immorality. I know its a difficult thought, but I think if you can get your knees to stop jerking, you'll get it. — tim wood

Maybe you should speak more clearly and think more orderly. I don't think that anyone else here sees any merit in your convoluted, higgledy-piggledy system of classifications which you seem to be making up as you go along.

Clear enough. You wrote "moral agents". No one else did. — creativesoul

Yep, you didn't use the word. I suppose that gets you off the hook then. I haven't got the patience to be dealing with uncharitable nonsense about worms, dogs and critters as though it bears any relevance whatsoever to what I was getting at, and nor do I wish to spend my time unduly arguing and going around in circles about what you did wrong; and I especially don't want to see anymore of your usual repetitive gobbledygook about "that which exists prior to" etc., etc., so I'm going to leave it at that.

Claims about morals evolved to claims about moral agents... — creativesoul

Yes, and where did that stem from?

So you're suggesting that critters have morals, S? — praxis

Brains are insufficient for morals. Worms have brains. Worms have no morals.

Emotion is insufficient for morals. Dogs have emotions. Dogs have no morals. — creativesoul

I guess we'll never know.

(Worms, dogs, and critters don't have morals because they're not moral agents because their brains aren't advanced enough. There, spelt it out all nice and clear for you).

Look, if you two think that I was suggesting that worms, dogs, and critters are moral agents then you need try harder. A lot harder.

Do you need Hanover's last name for that sizable check? :joke: — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Yes. I only know his first name, which is Gerald.

I agree, we should have taken a step back probably 8 pages ago. — Merkwurdichliebe

No, that would've premature. You needed more time to be guided in the right direction.

You're welcome. :grin: :up:

I think if it takes 80 pages, we should keep going. — Merkwurdichliebe

Well, for me, this is a good point to take a step back and think things more thoroughly, whereas prior to that, the replies to me were such that they were able to be dealt with with a quick and easy reply. However, with a few recent replies, if there are faults, they aren't as glaringly obvious.

@praxis, @Merkwurdichliebe, at least we're getting somewhere now. You've given me food for thought. Shame it took fifteen pages.

Ad homs aren't acceptable. — creativesoul

I agree, but nor are poor responses in my book. There's always room for improvement. Now, do you understand my objection, or do you need me to explain it to you?

Brains and emotions are insufficient for morals.

So do you agree or not? — creativesoul

You're being one of those people who want a direct answer instead of a more intelligent answer where you have to think about the problem with your question. Do you understand the problem with how you're responding? I didn't spell it out, but if you think about it, maybe you could figure it out from my previous reply without my having to do so.

The person as described by you is bifurcated, with the perpetrator as their addiction and the victim as the addicted. I'm not denying the possible truth of this description, just that it's curious. You have a drunken homunculus of sorts puppeteering an otherwise pure and true homunculus.

This revisits our prior discussion, where you assert diminished responsibility for acts committed while intoxicated. It seems to absolve people of the acts of their corrupted will instead of holding people responsible for the acts of their will. — Hanover

Yes, I thought of that discussion as well. This is another example of diminished responsibility. The diminished responsibility approach not only more accurately reflects the truth in terms of what's going on in our brains relating to the control we have over our actions, it results in a better society, where treatment, not punishment, is the focus.

So you're suggesting that critters have morals, S? — praxis

:roll:

It's currently believed that the amygdala doesn't play the as big a role in human emotion as they once thought it did. Also, according to constructed emotion theory, culture plays a significant role, not unlike that in moral development. — praxis

Yeah, thanks for sharing your opinion, but I think I'll do my own readings on the matter.

Can you give me a link or reference to any study done in neurobiology that shows how emotion is the source of morality? — Merkwurdichliebe

Not at present, no. I would have to look into it. I was making that connection myself, influenced in part by Hume, who made the connection between morality and its emotional source. Neurobiology then makes the connection between emotions and their neurobiological source.