Maybe you can explain to me how they are irrelevant? I thought I was discussing ontology. The point I make and Banno agrees with is that in the posts of some people here the quality of being provable is mistakenly identified with the quality of existing or not. (Not sure if I have my analytic phil. terminology straight but you know what I mean.). That is an ontological point I would think. — Tobias

Your point seemed to be that a marriage (that is without any other kind of evidence) may be a feature of the world by virtue of your attitude:

But there is such a fact, namely my assertion that I am married. I attest to it, vouch for it, — Tobias

Note that what actually exists here is you demonstrating the behavior of assertion making. Compare this to the value of a currency. Literally the only fact regarding this kind of value is the way people behave. Imagine this exchange:

Ama: There is no fact regarding the value of currency other than people and the way they behave.
Tobi: So you're saying the value doesn't exist? That's crazy! Of course it exists!

We could say value exists as part of an explanation for certain kinds of behavior. As such, it's an abstract object because it's possible to be wrong about value. It's like numbers, sets, propositions, etc. It's a resident of complex intellectual activities that bear on interactions with one another and with the world. But that's their only domain: intellectual activities. They don't exist out there with dirt and dynamos. So we have two ways of talking about existence.

Why though would you hold that these rules do not really exist? — Tobias

This would require a dive into Wittgenstein's private language argument with a little help from Saul Kripke. Is that something you're interested in?

Ha! It speculates about how it answered the question.

Right. The US just isn't in an aggressive mood right now. Though Biden is a hawk (one who is quick to military action), the US on the whole is isolationist. Russia or China would actually have to attack the US to get Americans to approve of war.

Remember, Americans don't threaten war unless they're prepared to follow through. They don't have the mindset of unnecessarily antagonizing countries they aren't in a position to destroy, and that's what they would be thinking about with regard to a war with Russia: complete destruction of Russia's ability to wage war.

The US government doesn't want to provoke a war or attempt to bring about social changes through threats.

There are sentient beings behaving as if they have obligations. For a variety of reasons, the details of this are inscrutable. It's incredible!

If you're talking conceptual existence, which it seems Tobias is, that has nothing to do with what we're actually talking about and i've clarified this multiple times. — AmadeusD

Yea, I don't think he was being disingenuous. He just wasn't up for a discussion about ontology. He didn't seem to understand that his points were irrelevant.

I think the groundwork is forming for a shift in the US toward greater authoritarianism. The trigger for the change would be something like a war. The population is presently split between people who want that to happen (on both the right and left) and people who are apathetic.

Did you see the poll that said Trump is particularly popular among people 18-29? It was reported by The Hill. Like 61% prefer Trump.

Responsibility is a separate issue from knowledge of the good.

I don't see any connection between these two worldviews and Aristotle's. — Bob Ross

The conflict between them is whether knowledge of the good is innate or learned. I think Aristotle was a little of both.

Exactly. What exists in the world is you behaving as if there are certain rules you ought to follow.

I can safely assert it and I would probably be believed by all. However, if there really was such a man, I would still be wrong. He did exist, he just didn't leave a trace. You who told me there was such a man, were right, I was wrong. You won't be believed though, however, that is sad, as you were right all along. The same holds for promises and marriages. — Tobias

@AmadeusD can settle which of us read him correctly when he said "literally no evidence."

I think he meant there is no fact regarding the existence of X. X does not show up in any way in the world. If something belongs to the set of all things that exist in our world, one expects there to be facts associated with this existence. This is not about knowledge. It's about the state of the world.

With regard to a promise of which there is absolutely no evidence, you might think your memory of the making of the promise would stand as a fact. Surely your mental states are facts of the world. But let's look more closely (with Kripke's help). How would you, yourself determine if your memory was correct? How would you answer that?

No, I understood you. I was just saying they've always had an external source of grief. They don't have to generate it for themselves like Gentiles do.

As to the Jewish perspective you've mentioned, full satisfaction does not occur. Otherwise there would be a complete cessation of will/desire in all respects culminating in literal bliss, which does not happen to egos. — javra

Yea. The Jews have never caught a break from holocausts long enough to disappear into the oblivion of bliss.

These are two outlooks we've inherited about the innateness of goodness:

1. Hebrew: You're born blank. You don't know good from evil, and must learn it. Jews see the Mosaic Law as the only description of good and evil available to mankind. You're specifically warned about the dangers of taking your own council. You can tell if a person is good by their circumstances because if they're good, God rewards them.

2. Persian: The universe is divided in half between good and evil and you're born knowing the difference between the two. To be good, you have to actively reach out for the good side and push away from the evil. It's a journey. This is the origin of the idea that progress is good. You can't tell if a person is good from their circumstances. A poor person can be good if they're progressing. A rich man can be evil if he's in stasis, and since the poor are more inclined to want change, they're more likely to be good.

There are other ideas we've inherited, like the idea that goodness is about revelation. This is a companion of the idea of original sin. We're born bad, clothed in flesh, and we're on a mission to return to a heavenly state, so goodness is about bringing the truth out into the open, or the Roman idea was that they were on a mission (given to them by Mars) to bring peace to the earth. In both cases, good is always just out of reach. All you get is doses of it from time to time.

Of all of these viewpoints, the Jewish one is the only one that allows you to be satisfied with what you've got. You studied the law. You put it into practice. You're doing ok. Anyway, it's a way to analyze the emotional tones in your viewpoint.

I have created my own purpose of being good (to your point); and thereby commit myself to the purpose, which I have independently of my created purpose, of being a eudaimon (because that is what I was designed for).

The first is merely a decision I made, and the latter stems from what is good. — Bob Ross

Ok. This is just the opposite of what I thought you were saying. Your purpose is to live in accordance with your nature.

It is something they have. "Receive" and "create" presuppose that purpose only comes from an agent. — Bob Ross

What purpose do you have?

And on what metaphysical theory are you basing that assertion? — Tobias

It's a commonplace that if no evidence exists for X, X doesn't exist. By this we don't mean you have to have that evidence in your hand. It just means that it needs to be accessible in a logical sense.

For example. I tell you there is a little man on the stairs, but this doesn't show up in any facts of the world. He's invisible and he leaves no trace anywhere. You can safely assert that the man doesn't exist. The same would be true for promises and marriages.

If there is no evidence you are married, the marriage doesn't exist. — AmadeusD

This is true, but might not be obvious to some. Some will insist that a proposition can be true even though there is no fact of the matter, a fact being something in the world we can point to. Since this sort of thing is in opposition to Witt's private language argument, and that argument is persuasive on its face, one would need to explain how a marriage can exist when there's no evidence of it. That would be helpful.

I am getting a bit lost: I never suggested people should create their own purposes, so I am confused why you asking me about that. Am I missing something? — Bob Ross

You said:

It is misleading for many people to think of themselves as having no design and instead having to create their own purpose: that leads to radical individualism. — Bob Ross

Are you saying people should see purpose as something they receive? From where?

It is misleading for many people to think of themselves as having no design and instead having to create their own purpose: that leads to radical individualism. — Bob Ross

I think creating your own purpose is more likely to lead you into society because humans are synergistic. For most of us, the greatest expression of selfhood is found in the company of others.

But if you object to the creation of purpose, where do you advise people find that?

Telos is cast aside because final causation is most easily thought of in terms of practical reason*, whereas the is-ought gap only exists under the tyranny of the "objective." (Like I said, the third objection I don't see as actually following from Aristotle's philosophy.) — Count Timothy von Icarus

Telos was cast aside by Democritus about 50 years before Aristotle. 'Things do not come into existence for a purpose, but having come into existence, they find a purpose.' Both outlooks are parts of our heritage, and they're both still with us. I expect that if humanity exists 2400 years from now, that will still be the case. Don't you agree?

But you'll get another candidate instead of Biden. — Benkei

Not unless Biden dies or is incapacitated.


So you probably didn't know today is Independence Day for Americans. Like maybe independence wasn't such a great idea. :sad:

One is speaking American and the other... not really sure. — Shawn

I didn't see the debate. I couldn't watch.

The British think they're so great with their candidates who can speak in complete sentences.

Modern society is decaying — Bob Ross

How so? What makes you think this?

I don't think slave holders in the 1700s or even Nazis had no love for themselves. I just think they had no empathy, which was rooted in their belief that their victims were not fully human. I don't know they could have been convinced otherwise, and I'm not convinced something was broken within them. They were persuaded by the societies that created them. — Hanover

The Portuguese started the Atlantic slave trade. Before they set the plan in motion, they put the question of its morality to the Pope. He said, "Sure, go ahead." True story.

See, this is why you make the big bucks, because you can express a shrug in two paragraphs.

The problem is that "heart" is not really defined by you. It sounds like just gut instinct. I would think my moral decisions are based upon instinct, reason, experience, bias and probably some other things. But we've all faced moral quandaries in our lives and we've had to sort through them, asking ourselves (and maybe others) what the best course is. Telling someone to just listen to their heart isn't enough. Sometimes you have an inkling your heart is telling you you're going the wrong direction and you want to be sure. — Hanover

It's a lucky person who has friends who will grab them back and talk sense into them when they're headed toward a bad place. But when you're helping your friend, you aren't telling them to deny what they already know. You're telling them to face it.

You're right, it's not just a matter of feelings. Still, when the potential rapist comes to you asking for advice, tell him that a man who commits rape has no love for himself. Tell him he already knows the answer. If it turns out you're wrong, and he really has no sense of right and wrong, it doesn't matter what you tell him. He's just going to have to end up in jail. By the way, a psychology professor who worked with child molesters in the prison system told his students that people like that almost never rehabilitate. There's just something wrong with them. God almighty could come down and zap it into stone, and they still wouldn't get it. Using them as examples for understanding morality in general is probably not the best plan.

Is there some principle you follow even though it's contrary to what you feel in your heart? I certainly hope not. That's how gang members are made. They do what everyone else says is right as opposed to what they feel, and eventually they don't feel anything anymore. They're just numb to their own consciences.

In other words: telling people not to listen to their own hearts, but instead follow the crowd is beyond stupid. It's a recipe for social disaster.

Note that the quote at the beginning of your post is not supposed to be expressing the view of a CEO. Gordon Gekko was Wall Street. This is a totally different kind of profit-making. The financial sector essentially skims money off the top of transactions associated with human needs, like crops, oil, meat, etc. They don't involve themselves in any of that other than to finance buy-outs. Corporations aren't central to the American economy. Wall St. is. GM will be allowed to fail. JPMorgan Chase won't.

This means that if you're a CEO, you've been charged with keeping a business afloat in an environment where the US government is not your ally. You have to compete with foreign businesses who are supported by their governments and have better labor markets. You probably inherited a model where most of the business is off-shore. You're not really an American business. You're global.

Healthcare is very different story. We can't exactly replace American workers with Indonesians there. In the US, the trend is toward fusion. We're headed toward a time when there are no independent local hospitals. They're all owned by entities who operate across large regions. This allows them to take control of the cost of medications. I actually like the way it's working.

So help me out here. Bob wants to rape and feels it very much a part of his intrinsic nature and he doesn't want to be judged for it. He asks me why it is immoral to rape. What do I tell him?

Am I immoral when I condemn him? Why? — Hanover

I don't think you can do much until he actually rapes somebody. Then you have to call the cops.

Well, no. It's pieces from p.207 and §258 of Philosophical Investigations. It's not Kripke. It's pretty much straight Wittgenstein. All I did was change "sensation" to "intrinsic nature". — Banno

All Kripke did was change it from sensation to historic rule following. He didn't do any violence to Wittgenstein. He just pointed out the consequences.. the dastardly consequences.

Notice the difference between "Think for yourself" and "Follow your intrinsic nature". "Thinking for yourself" allows for consideration of others. "Follow your intrinsic nature" drops consideration from the agenda. — Banno

This indicates that you have little faith in humans. You believe they're basically bad and need to be threatened with fire and brimstone in order to be good. But you realize that brimstone is mythical, so you just hate your on kind and leave it at that.

I've long believed that it's better to be the fool that you are rather than pretend to be wise. Being the real fool will lead you into lessons from which you can learn real wisdom. Pretending to be wise will only shield you from those lessons and leave you foolish in the end. My perspective is sort of optimistic. It allows the human spirit to soar, even though I know that in the end, it's all for nothing.

The notion that we have a "deepest essence" is deeply problematic, especially after "existence precedes essence". — Banno

Following your heart is the best way to discover the freedom to reinvent the world. I think you're getting tangled up in word games and missing that. I think you'd probably agree with TClark if you understood what he's saying.

This is the crux of St. Augustine's famous saying: Ama, et fac quod vis (Love, and do what you will). — Joshs

It was his answer to the old problem of evil, right?

This makes sense to me, with this addition - considerations of good and evil may be post hoc, but they are likely to effect my judgment when another situation comes up in the future. — T Clark

Right. That's what I said.

It's not that judgment has to prove itself somehow in terms of value. Sometimes it's just there.
— frank

In order to effectively stop the hit man, I have to judge the situation and decide how to act. I don't have to judge whether or not what he is doing is evil. It's not relevant. — T Clark

One would expect that before you kill someone, you would think about whether it's the right thing to do. In my dream, I didn't hesitate.

This is my theory: considerations of good and evil are mostly post hoc assessments of spontaneous action. In other words, everybody is like you. We all just act without a huge amount of thought and then guilt invades later when we realize that we didn't channel our angst in the best way, or maybe things went awesomely and we take credit for an outcome that was 99% accidental. Through experiences like that, action remains mostly spontaneous, but that lingering guilt or pride makes us pause and assess the options.

As for judgment, if I call my enemy "evil," "monster," "inhuman," what value does that provide? As far as I can see, and I see it everywhere in the world, all it does is distract from the most effective response. — T Clark

I once had a dream where a mafia hitman followed me to North Dakota to kill me. There was a moment in the dream where I knew someone was going to die, either him or me, and I knew beyond any doubt: it's was going to be him. It's not that judgment has to prove itself somehow in terms of value. Sometimes it's just there.

And you're right, it was cannibalism :grimace:

But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. — Banno

This is pretty much Kripkenstein. You just need to apply the principle to historic rule following.

For Emerson, it wasn't a wishy washy situation. Around 3-5% of America's white population were abolitionists, and Emerson was in that tiny minority. He was surrounded by people who were afraid that a racially diverse society would crumble. His advice, which has been passed down for generations was; think for yourself.

Good points, I agree.

I'm not even sure that behaving in accordance with the golden rule will arise automatically when I live in accordance with my inner nature. — T Clark

That's ok. :smile:

But I somehow want to prioritize "listening" as an action. Or togetherness. I'd say that our being-with is prior to our Dasein, tho Dasein is more accessible -- tho terribly close and thereby needing exposition -- something something Levinas lol. (or Sartre) — Moliere

The pendulum swings between two poles: understanding and judgment (I got this from cabbalism, ha!) If I fall deeply toward understanding, then I eventually lose the ability to judge. I see it all. I understand why the Nazis did that, and how Stalin never meant to become what he was, and so on. I see all the biology and culture and twists of fate that produce the villain. I can't punish, because the only difference between him and me is that fate was kinder in my case.

On the deep end of judgement, I've closed the door to any further understanding. I know all I need to know to condemn. And I'm righteous. I stood up for the cause. And I have no mercy.

We partake of both sides. Understanding tempers judgment. There are those who have hearts of stone. For whatever reason, all they can do is condemn everyone and everything. Then there are those who can only welcome understanding and they become bumps on logs. I think maybe that these two kinds of characters balance one another. If you're all judgment, that's what you bring to society: the will to act. If you're all understanding, that's what you bring to your world: mercy.

This image came to me one time, it was a dragon that flies blindly, destroying. Mercy is a dove that has the power to put a mirror in front of the dragon so it can see itself. The two are eternally bound.

After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilizations, Cline