Perhaps. Btw, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. — Merkwurdichliebe

:lol:

No, seriously. I provided quite a bit of info about that here on the forum around the time of the election. You could probably find them by searching through my posts for "Hillary" by using the advanced search function.

How would they have fucked people over, except those who could do with a bit of fucking over, i.e. the wealthiest?

You would have been wrong. But you also would have been wrong to vote for Trump. — Merkwurdichliebe

Hillary actually had some good proposals. Not just better than Trump's: good. They would have been of benefit to the working class. And assessments of her economic plan were rosier.

What better alternative, Hilldawg? Romney?McCain? Kerry? Gore? — Merkwurdichliebe

The Democrat candidate. I would've voted for Hillary if I could've.

My vote is a boycott against the system. That's why I refuse to vote for a president. — Merkwurdichliebe

But it won't do anything except weaken the chances of the better alternative.

Who are you guys, I don't give two shits about them, I'm just making a point concerning self respect. — Merkwurdichliebe

The American electorate who are opposed to Trump. I am not a member of that group, opposed to Trump as I am, so I don't have a vote that I could waste.

Cloying.

I'm still bitter about that hundred years war.

I don't see how they can be trusted with my vote. — Merkwurdichliebe

:scream:

That's not thinking pragmatically. Think of the consequences! I know that what they did is self-harm, but you guys can't afford lost votes, as that will strengthen the opposition.

Nah! Most of us do not have the opportunity to use morality spreaders on others. (They look just like manure spreaders. And sometimes it's the same old bullshit.) — Bitter Crank

:grin::up:

But not reason. Never reason. Reason has nothing to do with it. Human beings are incapable of reasoning out their ethics and morals. If they try to they just delude themselves. At every level of analysis it's all personal preference and feeling. Summary? Murder whom you like; it's only wrong if you feel that it is. Source: just ask mere-s, aka S. — tim wood

You're a really bad listener. After 60+ pages of discussion where I explained my position over and over again, you still waste time making a fool of yourself by attacking a straw man.

You truly do live up to your name, Tim nice but dim. Well, the latter half of it, at least.

Analyzing your comments, it concludes that our experiences revolve around our moral objectivity. — SethRy

No, it doesn't. I wouldn't call that moral objectivity, anyway, because that would just be confusing.

I think otherwise, because if it were to be by experience, then our moral ontology would be all subjective. There would be no objective morality. — SethRy

Yes, that's right. It is by our experience that we judge right and wrong. It is subjective. It is what we, the subjects, do based on our moral feelings. We often feel differently and judge moral matters differently, hence the need for ethics. But there's no correct and incorrect in the sense that there's a correct and incorrect in a disagreement over whether one plus one equals two. That's the mistake that many people make.

The answer to why we experience these feelings is one giant step removed from meta-ethics, which is already one step removed from ethics. It's just science, like I said.

I believe our human moral ontology and moral grounds, as a theist, would be from God. — SethRy

Fine, as long as you recognise that that's not philosophy. Well, unless you can pull something reasonable out of the hat. Otherwise it's just like saying something like, "I believe babies come from storks".

Polluted water off a toxic duck's back you mean? :joke: — Janus

Oh, duck off. :grin:

Too bad the Democrats sabotaged Sanders last election. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yeah, there has been a similar situation this side of the pond, where the Parliamentary Labour Party actively sought to undermine their leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Bunch of wankers.

Perfect.

I saw the left scrambling for solutions during Bush.

Now it seems like the left is just screaming about its problems. Perhaps it the only way left, a last desperate attempt to oppose a system that keeps promising everything and delivering nothing. — Merkwurdichliebe

Bernie Sanders wins the next election. Problem solved. There's little else, realistically, that can be done, except to wait it out.

Now I know that I was correct in the first place, but I knew that while it was happening. — whollyrolling

Hey. Comments like that are my thing. This town ain't big enough for the both of us.

Us feeble minds have to really have things spelled out for us, perhaps some tutoring, or a cheat sheet for the final exam you've invented. — whollyrolling

You still wouldn't pass it.

I paid close attention to your comment and to my response. I guess I didn't realize you had the meaning of life in your back pocket, you could have made that known sooner. — whollyrolling

Sure you did. Anyway, now you know. I never leave the house without 42 on me.

true, but when I use only those I begin to wonder why they feel those emotions in the first place. — hachit

That explanation would be biological and evolutionary, I would think. That's more a question of science than philosophy.

Perhaps it is immoral not to do illegal drugs. — Merkwurdichliebe

:lol:

Yes, I would take it further than that. Not only is it immoral not to do illegal drugs, the law should be changed such that it is illegal not to do so.

Refusing to pop a pill should carry a heavy prison sentence.

They simply stem from our conscience, which is our sense of right and wrong driven by certain emotions like guilt, indignation, vindication, sympathy, and so on.

The opposition to Bush was hardcore. The opposition to Trump is pretty lame (toothless and whiney). — Merkwurdichliebe

With Bush, I got more of an impression that he was dumb, but kind of naive.

With Trump, I get more of an impression that he's dumb, but in a much worse kind of way. Like he doesn't mean well. Like he knows he's doing harm, but tries to justify it. And often justify it with a bunch of lies and spin.

For Millennials, the numerous catastrophes of the Bush administration, particularly the economic recession in 2007, the disappointment of the Obama administration, and the failure of the Democratic establishment to stop the election of Trump is seared into the collective consciousness of that age group. — Maw

Yeah, that's pretty hard to forget about.

That reasons are reaching an expiry date doesn't mean they were never "good reasons" or didn't serve a purpose. — whollyrolling

I didn't say that the reasons were never good reasons, nor did I say that they didn't serve a purpose. That's a different statement that I didn't make. I didn't use past-tense for a reason. You should pay closer attention to my wording in future.

And nor was my meaning of "good reasons" that it serves a purpose. Of course it serves a purpose. It's a crutch for those of feeble mind and character. That's nothing to write home about.

However, truth conditions are not equivalent to truth, and neither truth conditions nor truth is equivalent to a proposition. — creativesoul

Is your book going to be full of distinctions that no one is unclear about, and which don't need to be made? You do this often.

Apples are not oranges. And neither apples nor oranges are animals.

Yeah, real profound. Real creative. I can't wait for the book. I'm going to be first in line.

So then God is a bit dumb? — whollyrolling

Or cruel. Or not so powerful. Or a combination. Potentially dumb, cruel and not so powerful.

But none of this matters, because there's no good reason to believe that God exists.

Proper critique first requires understanding that which is being critiqued. — creativesoul

You're often very dismissive of proper critique. You seem more interested in recognition and in promoting your muddled and highly repetitive thinking. It actually resembles some sort of mental disorder.

No one understands your ingenious contributions to philosophy, right? Wrong.

I offer no apology for expressing this, and you can think that I'm an asshole or a dick for doing so. You can call me a troll, a toxic fool, or a sociopath. It's water off a duck's back.

Does wrongness entail illegality?

Does illegality entail wrongness?

No and no.

It seems clear that the question of whether something is immoral or not should be asked independently of whether it is legal. — petrichor

:100:

One who is blunt by clearly offers a modicum of respect for others, despite the differences in world-views tends to be thought an asshole or a dick much less than one who is blunt and clearly has little to no respect for another's person. — creativesoul

That's just it, though: I suspect we'd disagree over what's respectful, or what's more respectful, and what counts as an example and what doesn't.

I say that it's more respectful to try to get someone to realise that they're a crackpot, if you think their crackpottery is against their own best interest. And bluntness is one way of trying to break through to someone which can be quite effective. Although with some people, there's just no breaking through.

Alright, but to be blunt, that wiki description also applies perfectly to some like Andy Dick, say, who is just an asshole.

I think there's a false dichotomy going on. There's a difference between only saying things so long as they accord with the nomos, or doxa and saying things impudently.

Now, I'm not opposed to impudence in general, tho I think there's good and bad ways of doing it. But the point of impudence and shamelessness is to evoke an emotional, rather than reasoned, reaction. If you don't want that, then deliver those non-nomos insights in a different form. — csalisbury

Well, that's the question: is someone just being an asshole, or are they just being honest or funny in a way which might cause some people to react by thinking, "Argh! He's such an asshole!"? That's another one of those tricky distinctions, I'd say. Those with a more conventional manner of thinking and a more conventional set of values might have more of a proclivity to knee-jerk towards the, "He's just being an asshole".

Restraint seems to be a value in political correctness - "Gasp! You can't say that! No! You can't do that!" - but I question such a value. Sometimes I just think, "No, fuck that".

This is kind of where I'm coming from with my bluntness:

A Cynic practices shamelessness or impudence (Αναιδεια) and defaces the nomos of society; the laws, customs, and social conventions which people take for granted. — Wikipedia

I value truth, and I value speaking it. I try not to let the nomos of a society get in the way of that. I likewise value humour.

None of this meant that a Cynic would retreat from society. Cynics were in fact to live in the full glare of the public's gaze and be quite indifferent in the face of any insults which might result from their unconventional behaviour.

He's a troll! A toxic fool! Let's lynch him! :lol:

I guess psychological approaches can go two ways. You can use them to undermine people's arguments, as a below the belt punch, for the sake of victory. Or you can genuinely feel that there is some kind of block that is beyond the argument itself, and the only way through it is to address is it to talk at that level.

It sounds like you're referring to a recent discussion on here, which I've missed, so I'm not sure what was going on there. The tricky thing is the two approaches can look a lot like each other, so it's not always clear what's going on. It's definitely an approach I take a lot, and I think it really can be productive, but honestly sometimes I'm not sure what my motivations are, and which of the two approaches I'm using. Multiply that times five, if I'm posting after having hit the bars. — csalisbury

I think that that discussion probably really only meant to be a criticism of weaponising psychology. We all do that both here and elswhere to some extent, even those arrogant and deluded enough to think of themselves as innocent, whilst thinking of someone like me as a villain. I think that the author of that discussion maybe confused frankness for malice. That happens to me a lot, because I'm very blunt, and funnily enough some people react emotionally to that. Whoops.

Yeah, I feel you. That might be my primary motivation for posting too, if I'm honest, only different things irritate us. I feel like it's a way of externalizing self-frustration. Like, the more obstinate the parts of you that frustrate you are, the more you seek out obstinate opponents. Which is why it's not really that satisfying if someone agrees with you, because now the opponents gone, and you still have the self-frustration. I guess that's well beyond the scope of this thread though. — csalisbury

See, this seems very productive and insightful to me. And yet we see some people fighting against this sort of discussion, against taking a psychological angle.

I think I've become passionate about psychology in a similar way to how I became passionate about logic. These seem like really valuable tools.

It's all of that and more. It irks me that people advocate what seems to me to be so wrong, and I am driven to correct it, even if I am destined never to convince anyone. It seems even worse when I'm familiar with the reasoning which leads them astray, and know it to be deceptive. I can understand on some level how people can fall for it if they don't have their wits about them. I think maybe some people do it to be clever, for the, "Aha! But...", moment. But, like I said, I just want to push the boring truth. It seems more noble. More right.

I don't know. Maybe it's a sort of madness when you think about it. Maybe I should just be silent.

The truth will take care of itself though. As you know, being a realist, a truth is indifferent to whether someone knows it.

Plus also, people are wrong about all sorts of truths. Why aren't you arguing about those other ones?

'Arguing in favor of the truth,' then, isn't an explanation of why are you're arguing against idealists, or the way in which you're doing so. — csalisbury

Your conclusion doesn't follow. I accept your first and second paragraph, yet that doesn't make any difference, and the answer to your question is simply that it wouldn't be appropriate in the context of a debate between realism and idealism to argue over other matters, but I do so elsewhere. Just look around. I do this often, and on many varying topics. You'll hopefully notice that I'm boring enough to argue in favour of the truth, plain and simple. You know, murder is wrong, Earth isn't flat, I have a body, one plus one equals two, Paris is the capital of France, and so on.

I don't like it when people treat philosophy as a sort of contest for who can be the most quirky or obscure. I want to bring philosophy down to earth.

Well, there is something performatively solipsistic in arguing against people on your own terms, knowing they won't argue on those terms.

(Though solipsistic isn't really the right word. You're not arguing with them. You're arguing against them, for someone else. That's a rabbit hole worth going down, imo. Who is your implied audience?) — csalisbury

Well, you are, in part. The readership. I'm not speaking to myself, and I'm not being solipsistic. If they won't argue on those terms then the argument becomes about why they should. It becomes a sort of meta-argument. This isn't that unusual: it happened in the discussion on morality, for example. And I'm not arguing against them because I'm arguing for someone else, I'm arguing against them because I'm arguing in favour of the truth, as I see it, and for no other reason.

I reject your spin on this.

Convincing to the idealist (or correlationist). If you adopt that perspective, you're not going to find your way of using the word 'objective' convincing, even if you're pointing out something which is obvious. Typically people arguing from that perspective find mind-dependence of everything (or a qualified Kant-derived substitution-of-the-concept-of-the-thing for every thing) just as obvious as you find its falsehood. They're just going to say, if they're sufficiently developed idealists anyway, whatever you say is question begging because you 'smuggle in' the mind-independence with the concept of objectivity without demonstrating that the concept has any scope or application. — fdrake

There's no way out of that. We'd just have to agree to disagree. Although we wouldn't be on par, because realism is more plausible whether they accept it or not. They're going against their own interests if they care about the truth.

If this doesn't matter, then why aren't we all solipsists? It's not impossible that Jupiter would cease to exist if we all ceased to exist, but who actually believes that? And even if they do, so what? What does that say about them?

I dunno. How useful is it to ask an idealist about mind independent properties or objects? You kinda need to implode the position to make a convincing rebuttal IMO. — fdrake

Convincing to whom? And what are the consequences in the bigger picture?

I say they can have their internal consistency, but who has the greater plausibility? When it comes down to it, isn't the truth more important than consistency? Bertrand Russell made the point in his History of Western Philosophy that a philosophy can be entirely consistent, yet entirely false.

Where? — Devans99

Seek treatment. You can't see because you're willfully blind.

The logic — Devans99

Fails.

And this has been demonstrated.

You want a repetition because you can't accept that fact. That's pretty insane when you think about it: just repeating things over and over again because of your psychology.

If you can't reasonably rule out an infinite regress, then your argument will never work.

You can't reasonably rule out an infinite regress.

Therefore, your argument will never work.

Psychologically, you can't accept the fact that your argument will never work.

And repeating a failed argument, no matter how many times, won't magically make it work.

I give up. — Devans99

Well yes, if you simply lack the capability of understanding what's wrong with your arguments or you're wilfully ignorant, then you definitely should just give up.