I don't see why you can't understand the problems with what you are arguing. "Facts about the world" implies two distinct things to make it coherent; what is referred to with "facts", and what is referred to with "the world". Likewise, "the world is as it is" implies a similar subject/predicate division. There is "the world" which is referred to, and there is "as it is" which is referred to. These two referents, "the world" and "facts" in the one case, and "the world" and "as it is" in the other case, are the two things which are judged to correspond, in a judgement of "truth".

Now, the "facts" cannot be a part of "the world", because then we would need facts about those facts, and facts about those facts, and this would cause infinite regress, denying the possibility that any facts are complete, because no facts could include facts about themselves without implying a vicious circle. This means that we must assign to "the facts" a separate realm, a separate part of reality from "the world", in a form of dualism, allowing "the facts" to transcend "the world". We could say that "the facts" exist in God's mind, or we could just assign to them their own separate realm distinct from the world without even invoking God. However, this choice, at this time, is not important. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to want our judgements about truth, or facts, or anything else, to be the thing itself, and they just aren't. I put it to you that there exists a world beyond what we believe in. And that world is some way. I'm not sure why you think that having facts about facts would be a vicious circle. I think we could certainly say there are facts about facts (eg, if "the earth is round" is true, then it is also true that the earth is round is true, but this seems largely meaningless and inoffensive). That's not a regress, that's just a case of there being infinitely many true propositions, but only some of them really telling us anything worthwhile.

What is important though, is for you to recognize that if we deny the existence of "God", because we do not understand what it would mean for God to "exist", then to be consistent we need to exclude the existence of such objective "facts" for the very same reason.

Therefore, when you choose to proceed from principles which exclude God, for the reasons you describe, we must also exclude "facts" in as similar way, by applying those same principles. This we must do, to maintain consistency. Then we must revise statements like the following: — Metaphysician Undercover

I only don't understand what it would mean to discuss the existence of God without the assumption of objective truth. I do assume that the truth is objective, and so I understand what it would mean for God to exist. The reason I don't think He does isn't that I don't understand the claim. I was pointing out the incoherence of your worldview, not expressing my own.

I propose therefore, that we start with a different principle, something like this: 'The individual subject ought to try to do one's personal best, in the particular circumstances, of one's unique situation'. Notice, that this principle does not require the assumption of "the existence of the best possible answer" in an objective sense. It requires only the assumption of "one's personal best", which is a subjective sense of "best possible answer". — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea what this "ought" means in this context. Also, I don't know what it means to do one's best if one is right no matter what.

The issue is not whether there is "a world". That we can take for granted. So there is no problem with the term "usefulness", it refers to the means we employ toward achieving our ends within our world.

The question is whether there is such a thing as "facts about the world". This produces a dualism between "the world", and "facts about the world". You imply that you accept such a dualism when you refer to "an external world" here, already implicitly invoking the internal/external division. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think it does produce a dualism. Your argument above certainly doesn't show that.

What I was saying, is that we might assume "objective truth", if you insist. But then as we work toward our goal of understanding and obtaining the objective truth, as you describe our goal ought to be, we would come to understand that the goal of objective truth is not what guides and directs the vast majority of human beings in the vast majority of actions. In reality even philosophers who seek objective truth in philosophy, do not seek it in their mundane activities, which is the majority of their activities. And the majority of people are not even philosophers seeking objective truth in philosophy. They only appeal to "objective truth" in cases of disagreement, as I explained. But the majority of human actions are carried out without interference or objections from people disagreeing, causing the need to appeal to "objective truth". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, objective truth isn't the main goal behind most of our mundane actions. I'm not really sure why that matters though.

Also, the assumption of objective truth does matter quite a lot when it comes to our mundane activities given that we presumably care about their outcomes etc.

Generally yes, an agreed upon principle becomes an established "fact", so to speak, forming the grounds for conceptual structure. That thing we call 'the sun", that is "the moon", "1" stands for the numerical value of one, and "2'" stands for the numerical value of two, for example. Once we have agreement we can quit discussing what we ought to call these things, and move on toward more elaborate conceptual structures. But if we meet someone who does not agree, then we need to either discuss again, to justify our principles, or change and adapt the principles to allow the other's perspective, or simply exclude the other as not reasonable. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, you aren't being reasonable. The view you hold here is not reasonable. But, good news, I have decided you actually do believe in objective truth so there is no further need to discuss the point.

But "facts about the world" are statements about the world. Who judges what qualifies as "about the world", and makes the appropriate statements rather than some other statements, if not "we"? Do you not see that someone must choose "the correct" statements about the world, and make them, for there to be existent facts about the world? Or do you believe that every possible statement is already made, so that includes all the facts and also all the falsities? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, facts about the world are not statements. The world is as it is, regardless of what we say about it. Statements and facts are not the same thing. Things aren't "chosen" to be true, they just are.

If we did not assume that there was an objectively "right", or objectively "true" answer, then "usefulness" would be what we seek in our theories, our answers, and reasoning. And, for the most part the evidence of modern science supports that this is the case. The capacity to predict is what is generally sought in science, as the means toward usefulness. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what this kind of "usefulness" even means. Things like predictive power don't make sense if there isn't an external world that has phenomena in it to be predicted.

It's not hard to tell that others agree, they say so, just like you and I say that we disagree with each other. — Metaphysician Undercover

But presumably they only exist to they extent that we believe in them on your view, and agree or disagree to the extent that we believe that. If I decided that you agreed with me, would that mean there was no sense in discussing the point anymore?

OK, let's assume that there is such a thing as "objective truth", as you insist that this must be the starting point. Do you agree that we are on the path toward objective truth if we recognize that objective truth is not what directs us in our actions? What directs us, is our wants, needs, desires, our intentions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not sure what this means, so I don't know whether I agree.

Your faulty premise, that people look for truth in theories, statements etc., rather than usefulness, misleads you into believing that physicists apply relativity theory as if they are applying objective truth. This is a mistake, because the founding principle of relativity theory is that truth is not important, and completely irrelevant, because all that matters is usefulness. Then your argument, which concludes that relativity would be objectively true if taken to be true, is a matter of begging the question from that faulty premise, because in reality "true" if applied to relativity theory would mean useful. Science uses a pragmatic theory of "truth", where "true" means useful, especially for prediction. — Metaphysician Undercover

People do often look for usefulness, but you are assuming that scientists are not interested in getting at the actual truth of reality. I would say instead that they are, but they are aware that they are always making their best guesses at truth and can never be completely certain that anything they have discovered is correct or not. This does not imply that the truth of the matter is not sought, but rather an acceptance of the limitations of the discipline.

The issue is "choice", therefore the nature of "judgement" ought not be dismissed in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know what you mean by this.

"Objective truth" has no meaning for you, it's just something you assert. You assert that statements of claim have "objective truth" independent of any minds judging them as true. But this is unintelligible, meaningless nonsense. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it has very clear meaning. If you are unable to understand it, I don't think that fault lies with me.

There's a lot more to my claim than that. A statement needs to be interpreted, compared to the thing which it is a statement about, and then it can be judged for truth or not. You seem to believe that a statement either corresponds with something, or it does not, and that's all there is to it. That belief is both useless and meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

I seem to believe that there is something to correspond to. That there are facts about the world that would be true whether or not we believed them. I think this assumption also underlies a lot of your claims, but you seem to disagree.

You are intentionally ignoring the point. Whether or not there is a correct answer is what is the meaningless question. You know, like we discussed already, we could assume that there is an "objectively correct" answer, but we''ll never know whether we have it, so the assumption is meaningless to us. So the assumption of a "right answer" is completely useless because ti makes no difference to us whether we assume it or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, it makes a big difference. If we assume there is a right answer to questions, we might have reason to seek it. If we don't assume there is a right answer, or that anything is true independant of our believing it, then we need not search for evidence, or engage in logical reasoning, we can just make up whatever shit we like instead.

What is at issue is whether we can agree on something. If we agree, then we have something to work with. If we are working on it then we must believe it is right, each of us individually with a subjective belief. Whether or not the thing we agree on is "right" in some transcendent (objective) sense, is irrelevant. All that matters is that we agree, because agreement allows us to get things done. And we don't need to stop and worry about whether we are doing "the right" thing, because we've already agreed that it needs to be done therefore we do believe it is the right thing. But if someone else comes along, and disagrees, then we need to start all over again, and look for agreement with that person. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what matters is whether it is right. Even if we all agreed that killing children for fun was the right thing to do and set about trying to accomplish this end, we would still be wrong and we still shouldn't do it.

The criteria for justification is agreement. Isn't this obvious to you? If you demonstrate your reasons for believing what you do, and the other person agrees, it has been justified. If the other does not, it has not been justified. If some agree and others do not, then there is more work to be done, to complete your justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do we tell if others agree if the fact of their agreement is determined wholly by our beliefs, as is, presumably, the fact of their existence?

OK, then let's dispense with all ideas about "objectivity" here. You've been claiming "objective truth", and "objective right", and I've explained that these terms only make sense to me in a religious structure. To me, assuming such things as "truth exists", and "rights exist", is just as bizarre as the religious claims of "God exists". So for the sake of agreement, and having a starting point, can we get rid of all such bizarre statements about "objectivity", and start from the bottom, the subject? — Metaphysician Undercover

Objective truth is the bottom of any subject worth discussing. Assuming that there is a right answer to get to, that there is a world beyond just whatever we believe, is necessary to have any kind of sensible discussion. So no, we can't avoid this assumptions. We must make them. I've been willing to allow a lot of silly assumptions and definitions for the sake of argument, but I'm afraid I cannot make any assumption do away with the assumption that truth is objective.

As for "right" being objective, that is what I mean by "right". It is possible that such a thing as objective morality doesn't exist, that moral error theory is correct, but "right" as I understand the term, isn't subjective.






On an entirely different note, looking into something like Logical Armageddon (also called Logical Explosion) may be helpful in seeing that the idea that truth can be subjective (inasmuch as this implies contradictory premises) is problematic. I'm not going to get into the argument here though, as this discussion is already fairly bloated.

There is another solution, as I've indicated, "God". — Metaphysician Undercover

The claim "God exists" to me seems to imply that God actually, objectively exists. Without the assumption that truth is objective of what we think of it, then I'm not sure what to make of this claim.

Relativity very clearly assumes a lack of objective truth about motion. All temporal concepts, velocity, momentum, etc., are frame of reference dependent. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, it doesn't. It assumes that these things are relative, rather than absolute. But that, if true, is taken to be objectively true. Physicists aren't suggesting that if people just believed hard enough, then they could have launched their GPS satelities without taking account of relativity and they would have worked just fine for them.

Obviously, from what I've written, the claim is what I believe about your premises. When I say "you are begging the question" it means I believe you are begging the question. I mean that's pretty obvious isn't it? That's what any such statements of claim consist of, expressions of what one believes. Sometime we emphasize the strength of such a belief by saying "I strongly believe...", even we might insist "it is true that...", or "it is a fact that...", but in reality these are statements of what is believed. Surely you must recognize this. Don't you? — Metaphysician Undercover

This goes deeper than that. What do you mean you believe this? When I say "tomatoes are disgusting" I might plausibly be not really making a claim about tomatoes, but about myself, or I might be trying to claim something objective and failing because there is no objective truth to the matter (I could also be trying to claim something objective and probably just be wrong depending on what I mean by "disgusting" but that has very little to do this with point). When you say "I think/believe you're begging the question" does that belief really relate to me? Is it a belief about a world that you think doesn't objectively exist. If so, by what criteria can the belief be true? Is it true for you that I was begging the question but false for me?

Clearly, the phrase "based on the information you have", instructs one not to seek more information. And, the reason why the doctor's act, in the example, ends up being judged as wrong, is the failure to seek more information. So your instruction "Do what appears right based on the information you have" is very faulty, as it encourages the type of decision making which produces the wrong decision in the example. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see how you'd get that, but it doesn't really imply this. We all act based on the information we have. Sometimes, the right action, based on the information you have, is to gather more information.

As I said, "God" provides the grounds for what you call "objective truth", and "objective right". What I explained is that "true", and "right" are judgements, and if we assume that there is such judgements independent of those made by human beings (this is what constitutes your meaning of "objective truth" and "objective right") then we must assume an agent which makes these judgements. That is commonly known as "God". — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, I think all of this judgement stuff is completely the wrong way to be looking at things and is very much putting the cart before the horse. However, I'm not sure what it even means to say that God exists if we can't discuss the objective truth of the universe. Like, if God can exist for some people, does that mean those people get to have objective truth, but it only exists for them? Because that's not really how something being "objective" works.

I know I have not proved the assumption of objective truth to be false. I have very clearly demonstrated that the assumption of objective truth requires the assumption of some sort of divine mind (God), to justify it. Therefore the assumption of objective truth implies the assumption of God.

This is due to the fact that "true" and "right" are judgements, and judgements are only made by minds. You have asserted, and insisted, that such judgements exist independently of minds, that it's simply "fact" that X is true, or Y is right. I have asked, to no avail, for you to justify these assertions. — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't demonstrated this, you have asserted it based on the dubious assertion that truth is a judgement. Although, if there's no objective truth, then what you are saying is true for you (which strikes me as an incredible patronizing thing to say by the way).

I mean, I think we are demonstrating right now that without the assumption that there is a right answer, this discussion is entirely meaningless. To return to the example of God, without assuming that whether He exists or not has a correct answer, then all of these claims about Him providing a basis for objective truth are meaningless.

There are certainly other arguments, but I think this one is both good enough and fairly standard enough that we need not get into the weeds on it too deep. Also, if there were no objective, truth, then I would presumably be right, wouldn't I? I mean, right for me? So when you attempt to "criticize" my view, I'm not really sure what you're doing. Are you just trying to spread your worldview like a kind of virus? Given that it wouldn't be correct to those who don't currently believe it, I'm not sure why you are trying to convince me of something that is incorrect.

You provided one example. I explained why your example is not representative of "most human actions". — Metaphysician Undercover

I provided an example of specifically people being asked whether they would accept a false version of the life they wanted. It seems pretty relevant, wouldn't you say?

What I am saying is that by claiming "objective truth", and "objective right" to support your moral philosophy, this means that God is what supports your moral philosophy. However, you insist that your moral philosophy is not supported by God. So, I am showing you what a moral philosophy which is not supported by God actually looks like, and this is "subjective truth", and "subjective right". — Metaphysician Undercover

You aren't "showing me" so much as asserting incorrectly. What's more, your worldview presumably agrees that you are asserting this incorrectly "for me", right?

You really do not seem to like moral philosophy which is not supported by God, you find concepts like "subjective truth" and "subjective right" to be incoherent. So I ask you, why not just accept the fact that you really do believe in God? If moral philosophy without God is incoherent to you, and you profess a moral philosophy which relies on God, then doesn't this mean that you believe in God? — Metaphysician Undercover

I suggest that what is morally right is right in all possible worlds, the ones that have a god and those that don't. I think that moral truths (assuming they exist at all) are necessary truths. So no, I don't believe in your God, but even if I did, it would make no difference. He would just be another agent subject to morality, He certainly wouldn't get to decide what it is through His judgement.

There is another option I've given you, "an out". This is to justify your claim that there can be objective truth, and objective right, without God. Simply asserting that a statement corresponding with reality is a fact rather than a judgement, does not justify. You need to show how there could be a correspondence between a statement, which consists of a bunch of symbols, and the way things are in the world, without a judgement being made. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, the claim isn't the symbols that communicate it. It is the meaning being communicated.

I've given you very clear demonstration of how "objective truth" requires God. You dismissed God. So I showed you what "subjective truth" consists of. Now you dismiss that. What do you choose at this point? — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't. You have incorrectly asserted that truth is a judgement, rather than something that people make judgements about. But, without the assumption that there is some correct answer here, I'm not even sure what you mean by that. Do you mean that truth is a judgement "to you"? Presumably "to me" truth is a thing that judgements can be made about?

Also, what do you mean by "demonstrate" without the assumption that there is a right answer to be demonstrated? Do you mean "asserted"?

I wouldn't call it "taste", I'd call it "belief". Tastes are generally not justifiable. Beliefs are often justifiable, but sometimes not. When a belief is not justifiable, it may be classed as more like a taste. I have justified my belief, that objective right and objective truth require God, but you have not justified your belief that these do not require God. So I assume that to be a sort of "taste". — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't justified it, you have asserted it. But again, what the heck does it mean to justify something when there is no objective truth? What are the criteria for justifying a belief on that assumption and why are those criteria any better than any other? Normally, we think of theory/belief selection criteria in terms of criteria that are more likely to lead us to the right answer. But you seem to be asserting there is no right answer (and also that there is but only for some people), so how do we go about coming up with theory or belief selection criteria or justifying anything?

Where's the problem here, it's a matter of agreement, and agreement forms convention. Has a particular goal been met? If we agree, then the conclusion is accepted and we move on. If not then we decide what else needs to be accomplished, we do that and then we agree. If there is disagreement about what needs to be accomplished, then we might look into the possibility of an "objective truth" on the matter. Why is this difficult for you to understand? — Metaphysician Undercover

Right now I am finding it hard to understand the part where you just said we look into the possibility of an objective truth on the matter given what you have been claiming. What do you mean by that?

I agree with you, "subjective truth" is very difficult to wrap one's head around. You asked me what I believe in, and I did not answer you. I told you that the choices are two, God or "subjective truth".

I want to get a clear indication from you, as to what the premise are for our procedure, which is to analyze your theory. We need to take one approach or the other. I have no problem to choose "objective truth", "God", along with a shit load of baggage which weighs us down like a ball and chain, but I also have no problem to choose "subjective truth", which frees one of all that baggage, but also makes morality extremely difficult to understand. I do have a problem with any attempt to combine these two incompatible perspectives because that produces incoherency. — Metaphysician Undercover

God doesn't provide a basis for objective anything. You've got things backwards. In order to assert that God exists (in the sense of existing for everyone, rather than in the sense of tomatoes being disgusting), then we must assume that things can objectively exist.

I wouldn't say that "subjective truth" is so much difficult to wrap one's head around as it is an incoherent mess.

No. I've had a few genuine submissions emailed through, and a couple of them have presented some ideas that are interesting, but nothing that solves the problem yet.

Haha, that's funny, but obviously incorrect. If the claim "truth is subjective" is true, that in no way implies that the claim is objectively true. Such a conclusion would require defining "true" as "objectively true", which of course is what "truth is subjective" denies. So your stated conclusion implies self-contradiction, or at best requires begging the question by proceeding from the premise that "true" is defined as objectively true. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree it implies self-contradiction, because the position that truth is subjective is itself contradictory.

Would you instead say that your claim, that truth is subjective, is false for me? If so, why are you trying to convince me of something false?

Are you serious? Have you heard of "relativity", "multiverse", "model-dependent realism"? These theories are all based in principles which assume no objective truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

So model-dependent realism isn't a theory of physics so much as the philosophy of science, and it doesn't assume a lack of objective truth so much as thinks its the wrong thing to be focusing on. As for relativity and the multiverse, neither of these assume a lack of objective truth at all. You have badly misunderstood these theories.

This is an indication of the inclination to beg the question as explained above. If you start with the assumption (premise) that "truth" means "objective fact about the world", then any time that someone claims to make a true statement you will conclude that this means that the person has stated an "objective fact about the world". However, this would simply be a misunderstanding, caused by the inapplicable, and unstated premise which you decide to insert just to support your ontology. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we assume that truth is subjective, then what the heck do any of these claims mean? What are you claiming when you claim I am begging the question? Are you claiming I am actually begging the question, or just that you believe I am?

I am very happy to state right now that whenever I make any claim about the world or logic, I am assuming that objective truth exists. I think that assumption underlies any sensible discussion, as I have mentioned earlier.

Now you are saying something completely different. You are no longer judging the act as "right" ("you" being the third party observer to the doctor's act), You are judging the act as wrong, and saying that it appeared to be right to the person making the choice, at that time. This is very different from saying that the act "is" right from that perspective, it is saying that the act "appears to be right" from that perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I never said the action was right. I said the action was wrong. I would suggest that a way to check your belief here against morality would be to go back and read what I said again, but if you don't think there is any fact of the matter about what I said, then I'm not sure what use this would be.

From the principles described above, the distinction between real good and apparent good, you are taking things in the wrong direction here. Moralists do not encourage people to "do what appears to be right based on the information you have". That would encourage rash judgement, proceeding immediately without taking any time to look for other options. This is exactly the issue I pointed to concerning habitual actions. The information which comes immediately to mind is very limited, inclining one to act quickly according to the habit, without seeking any other information, even though further information is very often right in the memory somewhere, it is just not brought to bear on the immediate problem due to the force of habit. Instead, the moralist encourages individuals to recognize and acknowledge the difference between the apparent good and the real good, and make a judgement as to the likelihood of it being the case that what appears to be right in the current situation, is consistent with what is really right.

For your reference, "what is really right" needs to be grounded in sound arguments, or else the entire system breaks down. In theology "God" provides the ground. Your portrayal of consequentialism does not provide such a ground. This is because "what is really right" is based in the outcome, the effects of the act, and there is always an element of "unknown" due to accidents. So in the example, the doctor's actions will always be judged as "wrong" if the patient dies, no matter what precautions are taken. This means that there are cases where there is no "right" choice. Furthermore, to acknowledge that there is a "right choice" in any situation requires applying determinist principles, 'X will necessarily cause Y', and this denies the reality of freedom of choice. In short, because of the determinist principles, consequentialism is defeatist, fatalist. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Do what appears right based on the information you have" is pretty reasonable advice and is not the same as "rush to judgement and don't gather more information".

No, God does not provide the grounds. Even if he existed, that wouldn't show anything about morality at all. That being said, if truth were subjective, I'm not really sure what the claim "God exists" would mean. Would he just exist to the faithful, but not to the nonbeliever?

What are you insinuating here? Are you saying that the fact that no one can know the future with certainty, is irrelevant? If I read your work with this assumption, and that assumption makes your work appear to be incoherent, and I explain this to you, then the onus is on you to dispel this assumption. Prove to me that this assumption is irrelevant, or false, like I prove your assumption of "objective truth" is false. The problem is that proving my premise false requires determinism, which renders choice making irrelevant, and proving my assumption irrelevant requires a false representation of choice making. So we are left with the conclusion that you are in denial. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, no, that isn't what I'm saying at all. I am saying exactly what I said: that you are jumping to strange conclusions again and that perhaps you are making some unhelpful assumptions.

Second, you haven't provided the assumption of objective truth to be false. What the heck would that even mean? Wouldn't it mean, in your view, that it is just false to you? What the heck does it mean to prove something on a worldview where there is no objective truth?

Sure, there is a vast multitude of situations within which the idea of "what we believe is true" is given priority. And so, it is not hard to find examples. What I pointed out, is that in the vast majority of time, what we want or desire is given priority over "what we believe is true". In general, "what we believe is true" is only prioritized in cases of disagreement.

It's hard to see how your example demonstrates that "what we believe is true" is prioritized over "what we want or desire". We would have to actually examine the reasons why the decision was made, — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not entirely sure what point you are making here. You said that objective truth is irrelevant to most human actions, I pointed out it isn't. Are you saying that what you really mean is not that it is irrelevant, but that people care more about what they want than what is true? That is a less obviously wrong claim, though I'm still not sure it's correct. Also, again, I'm not sure what it even means for it to be correct or not on a world view where there is no objective truth. When you say "this is what human beings care about" what does that even mean? Does it mean "this is what I think they care about" or "this is what they care about, in my world". If the truth is subjective, then aren't we just arguing about our favorite dinosaurs here (and everywhere)? If I think that this isn't what people care about, aren't I right? In what sense could I be wrong?

This is consistent with the majority of your replies now. You simply assert that you think I am wrong, but you provide no support or justification, the reasons why you think I am wrong. And, it's becoming increasingly clear that these reasons are that you are applying faulty premises, as explained above. These are ontological premises about reality, "objective truth", and faulty premises about how a person's belief in "objective truth" ("what we believe is true") effects one's choices and actions. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have made a claim with no evidence and now seem annoyed that I am dismissing it just as easily. If you want to make a point about what people believe, I suggest you back it up with some form of evidence. Though, again, I'm not sure why you would be trying to convince me of anything if truth were subjective. Are you just trying to recruit me to your worldview? Not a matter of correct or not, but just a kind of intellectual tribalism?

I don't see why you claim this. People express opinions all the time, and others recognize them as opinions. A problem arises when people express opinions as fact, and people wrongly recognize the opinions of others as fact. Once you acknowledge that opinions about "the world" are opinions, and opinion will never obtain to the level of "objective truth", then you will understand that "objective truth" is irrelevant when discussing opinions about "the world". — Metaphysician Undercover

"Opinion" here is a little vague, so I'm going to clarify. Do you mean to suggest that everything you have been saying up until now amounts to nothing more than a matter of taste? You may as well have been telling me why I should like tomatoes? Is that your position here? I want to be sure.

i don't see any of these problems. You are making up imaginary problems, by misapplying faulty premises as explained above. We do not need to make any of those judgements which you claim are required. Those are only required under your faulty premise, that objective truth is necessarily important to discussion. But this is clearly not the case. We can discuss what we want, our goals, agree and produce common goals, we can proceed to discuss opinions about the nature of reality, while recognizing that these are opinions, and we can agree on these opinions when this is conducive toward achieving our goals, all without ever considering anything about "objective truth".[ — Metaphysician Undercover

How exactly do we discuss goals if there is nothing to judge against whether the goal has been met beyond opinion? What the heck does "reality" mean without objective truth? This is not a faulty premise, this is very much the premise that underlies any sensible conversation. Otherwise, we are essentially arguing with the hypothetical turtle, that can accept all the premises but deny the conclusion. Without the assumption of objective truth, all inquiry and logic is meaningless.

That's your opinion, but you clearly haven't considered all the possibilities. The driver of the car may hit the brakes, or swerve, to mention a couple other possibilities. What you've demonstrated with this example is how the force of habit restricts your thinking and decision making (limits your freedom), so that you jump to a conclusion ("you will be just as dead"), without considering all the relevant information. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm going to borrow your worldview here to demonstrate how it prevents sensible discussion:

I did consider that and in fact wrote all of those assumptions out in full. My post is seven pages long and details all possibilities surrounding this. If you don't think so, perhaps on the basis of reading it, then that's just your opinion and it isn't true for me.

I'm sorry to keep pestering you on this matter, but that is an assertion which needs to be justified. You can claim this over and over again, but repetition does not constitute justification. So you give me no reason to even consider this claim: "Our claims are either true or false independant of what we think". — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, few ways we could go about this. Probably the easiest way is to entertain the idea that the idea that opposite proposition is correct and realize that this would be self-defeating (saying that "truth is subjective" would itself be a claim that would be, if truth were indeed subjective, be objectively true). This also works for "there is no objective truth" and other similar propositions

If, the truth about the world is forever denied from us, then how do we know that there is such a thing. This is the problem. You assume, and claim, that there is such a thing as "the truth of the world", but since it is denied from us, we have no real evidence that there is such a thing. This renders your claim as completely unsupported, nothing but a baseless assertion. Furthermore, theories in modern physics, "multiverse", "model-dependent reality" etc., are contrary to this assertion. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely no theory in physics is contrary to the idea that there is an objective truth about the nature of reality. If it is the case that the observer effect is more than just the effect of relatively clumsy measuring tools and that someone observing something does in a real way change the thing (for example) then that would be a fact about the world that is true. If there is really more than one universe (though exactly what that means is a bit messy and it's not clear that we are all using the same meaning when we talk about a "multiverse") then that would be a true fact about the world.

More generally, I think we can get at some truths about the world, as the veil of perception is only really relevant when it comes to empirical knowledge. We might still be able to determine, for example, mathematical truths without this causing any problem.

You have one system which evaluates from the perspective of what you call "from the point of view of the person making the decision". Evaluation from this perspective does not involve knowing the future, i.e. the consequences of whatever act is chosen. From this perspective, (this proposed evaluation system), your judgement renders the chosen act as "right". However, you also apply a judgement produced from the evaluation system described as the perspective of "actual-value consequentialism". From this evaluation system, the consequences, therefore the future of whatever act is chosen is known. And from this perspective you judge the act as "wrong".

This demonstrates very clearly what I argued much earlier. A clear understanding of the nature of time is of the utmost importance to moral philosophy.

Since the two judgements here, "right" and "wrong", (one including the future from the act, the other not) are contrary, it is impossible that both could be the product of the same system of evaluation. That would imply contradiction within that system, and incoherency. Therefore we must conclude that there are two distinct systems of evaluation being employed, and the contrariness of the respective judgements implies that the two are incompatible. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is just a misunderstanding. A better way of describing this is that instead that from the point of view of the agent, it appears right. In fact, it isn't, but I think "do what appears to be right based on the information you have" is a pretty good rule of thumb, and so one we might want to promote, even if sometimes it leads to doing things that are wrong (in an actual-value consequentialist sense at least).

This is also my response to your comment regarding me pointing out that the person doesn't know the future. Again, I think you're assumptions are getting in the way of you understanding here. I suggest that you try reading what I have said again while assuming that I am not in denial and that what I am saying is coherent.

This is not at all reflective of reality, and it is actually a very clear indication of how your misunderstanding greatly misleads you in your approach to moral philosophy. Human beings are intentional creatures. We move around with wants, desires, aims and objectives. What you call "objective truth" is irrelevant to most human choices and actions. In most cases, we don't care about any supposed objective truth, we just want to get what we need or desire. Therefore our interactions, communications, are shaped and formed around these intentional activities rather than any assumption of an objective truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is bollocks. We (or at least, a lot of us) absolutely do care about whether what we believe is true. You can see this when, for example, asking why people would not want to be hooked up to an experience machine.

So the above paragraph of yours expresses the opposite of the reality of the situation. Human beings can, and do in most cases, have all sorts of discussions and other sorts of interactions, with the belief of whether or not there is an objective truth about the matter of their interactions remaining completely irrelevant. As long as we have adequate understanding of meaning, allowing us to communicate our wants, desires, and goals, also allowing us to produce, and work together toward common goals, "objective truth" is irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

Certainly we have some. We do talk about subjective things. But a) I think you're just wrong about human's attitudes on this front. And b) if you were right (which I'm fairly sure you're not) then that would be so much the worse for humanity.

The question of "objective truth" generally only arises when there is disagreement. So our moral philosophy needs to reflect this. Our choices, actions, and consequently interactions, are based in our wants, desires, and intentions. They are not based in a belief in "objective truth". As it is very clear that moral philosophy deals with human choices, actions, and interactions, it is also very clear that moral philosophy needs to be based in an understanding of human wants, desires, and intentions, rather than a belief in an "objective truth". The faith in "objective truth" is a mechanism employed to deal with disagreement. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are making claims about the world while also claiming that objective truth isn't important. This is nonsensical. Imagine that I agreed with you that there is no objective truth in the world, how would we discuss whether people believed this or not? We can't check the world, since there would be no objective truth to it. Further, how could you be sure that we don't agree? Sure, you could check the things you think I've written, but there would be no objective truth to a) whether I wrote them, b) whether I believe or don't believe what I wrote, c) whether I'm right or not about what I might or might not believe. So the discussion would quickly become completely meaningless.

I put it to you that if you walk into the road when a car is coming it won't matter whether you believe that the car is going to hit you, whether you judge that the car hitting you will kill you, or whether you define getting hit by a car the same way I do: you will be just as dead.

The meaning of symbols, is as interpreted by an individual mind, and is therefore subjective. Therefore true or false is a subjective judgement. I explained this already, with the examples of the meaning of "understand", "truth", and "world". But you don't seem to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover

True and false is not a subjective judgement. Our claims are either true or false independant of what we think (in many cases. There are of course subjective matters).

This would be a useless fact, if true. Whether or not the claim actually does correspond, as "fact", would be impossible for anyone to know, so even if this were true, these "facts" would be useless and irrelevant to our discussion. Furthermore, also if what you claim is true, then as human beings, only having access to our subjective judgements, we could never know whether it is a fact that what you claim is a fact. So the claim does nothing for us.

So we have a dual level of irrelevance. We could never know the truth (the fact) of any claim, so our subjective judgements would guide us anyway. On top of this, we could never know whether the claim that there is such facts is itself true. So the claim is completely useless and does nothing to aid us in finding truth because it makes truth necessarily beyond our grasp. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, that is the world we live in. We are behind the veil of perception and certainty about the truth of the world (in at least most cases) is forever denied to us.

Second, it isn't quite as hopeless as you make it out to be. We may never know for sure if we are seeing the world as it is, but we can certainly take steps to make better guesses about it. Also this really applies to observable facts more than deductive arguments, so presumably isn't such an issue for discussions of morality.

You are completely ignoring what I explained. The words "world", "roundish", need to be defined, interpreted for meaning, and the reality itself needs to be judged as fulfilling the conditions of the interpreted meaning. Therefore your claim here is completely incoherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

The words do indeed need to be defined in order to have a coherent discussion with someone else, but the claim itself (the meaning of the words) is either true or false regardless of anyone's judgement.

Then it's incoherent to judge the doctor's actions as wrong. By "all relevant regards" the doctor's actions were right. See, you excluded the consequences, (the patient's death) from "all relevant regards". However, it is the consequences by which you made the judgement "wrong", so clearly the consequences cannot be irrelevant. You are providing a very good demonstration of incoherency, and why you need to accept the fact that you employ two distinct, and incompatible, valuation systems — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you being facetious here? I also said "from the point of view of the person making the decision". Do you think that perspective involves knowing the future? I'm not employing two valuation systems at all, I am explaining a fairly simple point about actual-value consequentialism.

The ontological principle involved here, is the conclusion that the assumptions of "objective truth", and "objective right", require God for justification. This conclusion is derived as I've explained, from the true premise that "true" and "right" are judgements. I invite you to propose another form of justification, other than God, but simply asserting that this is "fact" is not justification. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, true and right are not judgements. They are properties which we often make judgements about. Just like we make judgements about the chemical composition of a substance. It's actual atomic makeup is not the same thing as our judgement of it, and our judgement can be more or less accurate depending on how closely it matches reality.

Whether things are true, or right, is a matter of fact that exists independantly of anyone's judgement. Even if it weren't, God wouldn't help with this as that would be just another person making a judgement, rather than something being objective. God couldn't even be correct in His judgement because there would be no objective fact of the matter so correctness would be nonsensical. Unless of course you are defining true and right as just whatever God says, which leads to Euthyphro problems immediately as this would be horribly arbitrary at best.

There are a whole host of reasons why not believing in objective truth is not a viable position, but the easiest to explain is that there is no point in anyone talking to you about anything if you don't think there is an objective fact of the matter. You say the world is flat, I say it's round. I can try to convince you using various pieces of evidence, but if you don't think that there is a world out there that contains the answer and we can at least try to compare our beliefs to (though of course there are challenges to doing so given that we cannot see outside of our own perceptions), then there is no point having the discussion in the first place. Or any discussion for that matter.

As I said, this is incomprehensible to me because whether or not a statement of claim is true, is dependent on interpretation of the statement, and comparison with reality. Such comparison only minds can perform.

As I said, whether a statement of claim is true or not is a judgement. In no way can truth or falsity be understood as the property of the claim itself, which is simply an ordered collection of symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

The claim is the meaning of the symbols or vocalizations, not the symbols of vocalizations themselves, and a claim can indeed be a true or false.

You seem to be missing the point. What I claim is that you use terms in such a way as to make your claim valid, but if analyzed, the meaning required is really unintelligible, such as your use of "true" above. — Metaphysician Undercover

The way I am using "true" is a pretty standard usage.

Right, and that is what I am pointing out about your use of "understand", it is not comprehensible. And now, your use of "true", and "right", are simply unintelligible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would say I was very much using them in the normal way here.

Can you not see that "corresponds to reality" refers to a type of judgement? Whenever someone says "that corresponds to reality", this indicates a judgement. How could it mean anything other than this? — Metaphysician Undercover

When someone says it, that is them making a judgement. But whether it does or not is not a judgement, but a fact. When I claim the world is round(ish) that is a judgement, but my claim is either true or false depending on the actual shape of the planet, and would be true or false regardless of whether I (or anyone else) judged it as such.

OK, you're saying that you want people to act wrongly. That's exactly why I am arguing that this type of consequentialism really does not suffice for providing moral guidance. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am saying that in circumstances that were identical from the point of view of the actor (since the doctor didn't know about the weird niche circumstances at play here), the same action (by which I mean the same in all relevant regards) would not be wrong, but right. At least from an actual-value consequentialism view. It's really not that complicated.

As I said, such objectivity requires God. Since truth is a judgement, we need something other than a human mind to make that judgement, if we assume such "objectivity".

The issue is not whether or not I agree with objectivity, the issue is that it is incoherent to believe in such objectivity, without a belief in some type of god for ontological support. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, that a) is basically all incorrect, and b) isn't really an answer.

This is not about what I believe, we are discussing the coherency of your theory. My beliefs are only relevant so far as they bear on your theory. Whether or not I personally believe in God is irrelevant here. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, God, a god, or gods have nothing to do with it, but it seems that a lot of your issues with my theory come down to issues with some fairly basic assumptions of moral objectivism and moral realism.

Again, "right" and "wrong" are judgements. If you want to provide support for your claim that a judgement can be objective, without a God who makes that objective judgement, then be my guest. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, not judgements, but properties.



A lot of what you are claiming seems to be steeped in highly dubious meta-ethical assumptions, possibly ontological ones as well. So I'll ask you again, what are the assumptions that are hiding behind these points? Are you claiming that there is no objective truth at all? Or that there is simply no objective truth regarding morality?

"Truth" is a judgement we make of a statement. Without a god, who do you propose, makes these statements and judgements?

It appears we may have a similar issue with "truth" to the issue we had with "understanding". You assume a meaning which is completely incoherent to me, and continue to use the word that way as if I ought to understand you. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can make a judgement of whether some claim is true, but whether it is true or not is a fact about that claim, not merely a judgement made by us.

I don't see how the example serves the purpose. In order for one of us to be correct, we need someone to judge the meaning of "world", and the meaning of "round", "flat", etc.. It is actually very possible that we both are correct, because I could be using "world" to refer to something which you would never agree to. — Metaphysician Undercover

Surely we can clarify that we are talking about the same thing though, can't we?

This is exactly what has happened in this thread. You use "understand" and "truth" in a way which makes no sense to me. And, you might actually be correct in your argument based on that meaning. The meaning is like a premise though, so to prove your argument unsound, I must prove the falsity of your meaning.

So in your example, if I say "the world is flat", and I hold a conception of "the world" in which it is flat, then "the world is flat" is correct, and to prove me wrong you need to prove that my meaning (conception) of "the world" is false. Likewise, to prove your moral position to be unsound, I am faced with the task of proving that the meaning you assume for words like "understand", and "truth" are false. This is a sort of dialectics. But if in such a debate, a person adheres to the false definition, fails to understand the falsity of it, or for some reason refuses to accept the falsity of it, argumentation becomes pointless. — Metaphysician Undercover

Definitions are not like premises, and rarely need to be disputed. You don't need to "prove someone's meaning incorrect". If someone was using terms in such as way as to make their claim meaningless, then you might point this out, but generally speaking what is much more interesting is to focus on the substantive claims being made. If someone says "the world is flat, and by the world I mean this piece of paper in front of me", then sure, they are probably right, but also that's a broadly meaningless claim. We can just clarify what is meant and then roll our eyes at someone being a prat.

What is almost always more interesting is to deal with substantive claims being made. If for example you say "the world is flat", me arguing that "world" really refers to a complete spacio-temporal manifold rather than a planet isn't really very helpful. Instead, I should show that the planet earth (as you hypothetically mean by the word "world" here) is not, in fact, flat but is rather shaped like an oblate spheroid. If you say "well, I define the world as something that's flat", then I might need to change my argument a little, and instead say that the thing you are referring to doesn't exist, and certainly isn't where we are living, but I still needn't spend all my time trying to convince you to define the word differently.

Based on what I presented above, "getting very concerned with language" is necessary. I can define "the world" as what can be seen within the horizon that extends 360 degrees around a person, and the world is "flat" by that definition, even if "the world" of multiple people overlap to make a universal flat world. Likewise, you can define words like "truth", "understand", and "same", in absurd ways to support your theory. The only way to show you that your theory is wrong, unsound, is to demonstrate that your use of language does not reflect reality, is therefore false. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you defined "world" in that way, then I might well point out that it's a very strange definition that isn't connected with how we normally use the word. But, if you persist, then it doesn't really matter. We can make clear exactly what you are arguing (that what can be seen to the horizon line is flatish) and discuss that claim specifically. We can also make clear that you aren't claiming that the planet itself is flat, or not roundish,

Also, I'm not defining these things weirdly at all. I am using "truth" in a fairly general sense, but I think I'd be happy with something like "corresponds to reality" as a basic definition for the purposes of this discussion. I don't think it's strange to suggest that claims really are true or false, and that this isn't merely a judgement made by people. I also think using "understand" in a similar way to "comprehend" is pretty normal and that using "the same action" to mean actions that are identical in their relevant features, even if they are not identical in all their features is pretty normal too. For example if you said "oh, I went to the mall yesterday and checked out the food court, then I went Christmas shopping" and I said "oh, I did the same thing" then you presumably wouldn't say "no, I went at noon, but you went at half-past, so those are different things". It's quite wordy to say "future actions that seem to share all morally relevant features from the perspective of the person making the decision," don't you think?

Sure, but if this is the case, then on what basis do you say the action was wrong? You are saying that people ought to be taught to always act "the same way" in any situation which appears to be to a significant extent "similar". But then you are also saying that in this particular case the person's act, who acted "that way" was wrong, yet you are using it as an example of how people ought to act. Can you not see the inconsistency? It's blatant, and blatant inconsistency is not productive in teaching because people dismiss it as ridiculous, and counterproductive. — Metaphysician Undercover

It really isn't. This is exactly the point I am trying to make here. From a consequentialist perspective (actual-value and some expected-value at least), then it is entirely consistent to say that this person acted wrongly but that we still want people to act the same way in the future. That sometimes you do something that looks like it's the right thing to do, but it turns out to be wrong due to circumstances you didn't know about. This is sometimes raised as a criticism of actual-value consequentialism generally, since the consequences of an action can ripple far into the future so it is sometimes charged with not being able to determine if an action was right or wrong, since the consequences of it have not been fully felt yet. You need not agree with actual value consequentialism, but there is not an internal inconsistency here.

Another nail in the coffin. At what point do you give up on providing exceptions to the rule, trying to prop up a deficient rule, and simply bury the faulty rule? — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea what you mean by this. This is a big problem for maximizing consequentialism. I am not a maximizing consequentialist.

That's a faulty judgement, based in your misunderstanding, of an objective, independent "truth", or "right", outlined above. You really need to work on this misunderstanding, figure out the reality of the situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, do you not think that things are objectively true at all? Or do you not think moral claims are objectively true (or false)? There is a big assumption hiding behind this statement, and I'd like to get it out in the open.

That is not clear at all. The person was dying. The doctor acted in an emergency situation. You only say that the doctor could have, and should have, "given the patient a physical exam" because that is consistent with discovery of the information, according to the contrived example. Maybe in another example, the patient's spouse was standing in the hall with the information, and the doctor 'could have and should have' asked the spouse. The problem is glaring. The doctor has no way of knowing which of the countless possible options are going to reveal the information, and cannot proceed toward pursuing them all until information is revealed, or the patient dies. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, that is very much the point of the example, and why we don't want people to do that in the future.

Again, clear indication of a faulty use of "right". I'll be waiting for you to either dispense with this idea altogether, or support it with some sort of god. I mean you might try to support it otherwise, but I've seen enough of that to tell you it's all smoke and mirrors of sophistry. So rather than have me make fun of your attempts, let's just get on with the either/or option. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm fairly certain gods don't help. They aren't a tenable solution at all. But it seems we are getting to the assumptions behind some of these misunderstandings. You seem to think morality is not objective true (or false) at all, is that fair to say? As mentioned above, I'd like to get this assumption out in the open, because I think I've been pretty clear about my meta-ethical assumptions here. So, could you please state for the record what your meta-ethical position is. Do you think morality is constructed? Subjective? Relative? What's the story?

Also, as linguistic claims go, "right" and "wrong" being objective facts about actions is probably the standard usage. I think moral objectivism is still the standard pre-theoretical position, though I will admit that this is in flux at the moment with a reasonable amount of relativist nonsense floating around.

This is a question of do I believe in God or not. If I believe in God, then I assume an independent God who interprets, understands, and upholds judgement on this rule, "killing children for fun is wrong", as correct, regardless of what human beings think. If I do not believe in God, then so long as not every human being agrees that killing children for fun is wrong, then the proposed rule remains debatable. So the issue is more complicated than the way you present it, because even if the majority thinks that it's not wrong, and the laws are repealed, then it is not wrong by those laws, but to the minority who do not agree, it is still debatable.

I don't see any other possibility. — Metaphysician Undercover

It really has nothing to do with any gods, but I think we have gotten to some dodgy meta-ethical assumptions underlying your views. I have some questions about how you can argue that there is anything wrong with any moral views if you hold in the meta-ethical beliefs that you appear to, but I'll let you state them explicitly before ripping into them too much.

That "X is right" is a judgement, just like "this thing I'm typing on is a keyboard" is a judgement. Are you assuming "God" to make this judgement "regardless of whether people agree? If so, I will dismiss it, just like you dismissed my reference to religious principles earlier in our discussion. Therefore there is nothing to justify your claim "What people are okay with and what is right are very often different". — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not assuming any gods at all. What I am assuming is that there are moral truths objectively of our views. When we claim that something is right (in the moral sense), I suggest we are making an objective claim about that thing which can be either true or false.

Again, "X is true" is a judgement. So this statement is dismissed on the same basis as the one above. — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn't a subjective judgement though. It is a claim that can be objectively correct or incorrect. As a simple example, if I say that the world is round (or you know, roundish) and you say it is flat, we aren't both right.

We cannot use an appeal to common vernacular in the use of "same" to support rigorous logic. This is why we have a "law of identity" to support logical procedures. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is another case of you getting very concerned with language where it really isn't necessary. I could instead say that we should praise the initial action because we want other people in situations that seem identical with regard to relevant factors to act in the same way with regard to relevant features of the action. That's a bit of a mouthful, and I think saying "the same action" was pretty clear as to what I meant. Sure, if we are defining terms, we should try to be precise, but if we're just having a discussion on a forum, could you try to engage with the core point, rather than nit-pick over terms?

This is untenable as a working principle. If this was an accepted moral principle, then any time which someone could apprehend a better possible outcome than what actually occurred, they'd have grounds to say that the action had "bad consequences", and was therefore wrong. And since there are always accidentals involved in any situation, every act would be arguably "wrong". Therefore, as a moral principle, your proposed "actual value" perspective is completely useless. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you have suggested is a common criticism of maximizing consequentialism called the "Demandingness Objection". I agree it is a big problem for such theories. Satisficing forms of consequentialism can, potentially, avoid this problem by claiming that one need not act in the way with the best consequences, but simply good enough ones. There are some pretty big issues with this too, as you can see if you read Ben Bradley's paper "against satisficing consequentialism". However, if you read "solving satisficing consequentialism" you will see how these can be solved, though that solution leads to a few problems of it's own so I have adapted it for the primer I provided.

It's very clear that this type of consequentialism is absolutely inadequate to provide principles for moral judgement. What is actually required to make a moral judgement is to consider the situation of the person prior to the choice, one's intentions, the specifics of the circumstances, along with the consequences. As is very evident from your example, basing judgement solely on consequences is woefully inadequate, and may be considerably misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you don't need to consider any of that. If someone does the right thing for the "wrong reasons", it's still the right thing. In terms of deciding what we should do, obviously the consequentialist (including me) is going to say that we need to base our actions on the likely consequences of our actions, rather than the actual consequences of our actions (because they haven't happened yet).

You paid no respect to my counter example. If "the doctor could have learned this" is a principle acceptable to the judgement of whether the doctor acted wrongly or not, then we'd have to allow that the doctor should have gone off and rummaged through the patient's car, one's house, all files on record anywhere, even keep searching all information in the universe, before acting. This principle is nonsense and completely unacceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, what it means that someone could have done something is potentially an interesting thing to discuss, but not terribly relevant here. It seems pretty clear that the doctor could have given the patient a physical exam which, in this example, would have led to them discovering the problem. And, in this case, based on what happened, it seems reasonably to say that they should have (on an actual-value view. Of course, on some expected-value approaches to consequentialism, this isn't the case). To say that checking the patient themselves is the same as checking throughout the universe seemed somewhat disingenuous to me.

Wow! I've never heard that before, not even in the "In praise of anarchy" thread. Following rules has very little to do with right or wrong? What planet are you from Dan? — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, this is surely obvious. What's right is right regardless of whether there is a rule that says its right. What's wrong is wrong regardless of whether it is prohibited. I find it very difficult to believe that you haven't heard that sentiment before.

As a fairly easy-to-understand example, do you think that killing a child for fun would become less wrong if the laws prohibiting it were repealed or the social norms prohibiting it were no longer held by the majority?

There's nothing non-normative on my part. You are the one who has already admitted to having non-normative principles. Look, if people are ok with it, then it is morally acceptable. Isn't that obvious to you? — Metaphysician Undercover

No. What people are okay with and what is right are very often different. What's right is right regardless of whether people agree.

No. How could there be a difference? — Metaphysician Undercover

In the same way there is often a difference between what people think is true and what is actually true in any other context.

If the situations are not identical, then it is false to refer to them as "the same situation". You just contradict yourself by saying "the same situation... wouldn't be completely identical". — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, it's the same in terms of relevant factors used to make the decision. I think that's what we'd normally call the same situation.

You haven't provided me with the principle by which you judge the doctor's action to be wrong. You simple assume it to be wrong, and say that it is wrong by "an actual-value or some expected-value view", but this gives me no principle, therefore no reason to believe it was wrong. As far as I can see, the doctor followed protocol, therefore we can judge the actions as right, even though the person's life was not saved. — Metaphysician Undercover

The doctor acted wrongly because their actions led to bad consequences that were avoidable had they acted differently. On an actual-value view of consequentialism where an action is judged based on the actual value of it's consequences, this makes the action bad and also wrong (in that the doctor should have done something different). In this case, the doctor gave the patient something to which they were deathly allergic and which led to their death, and the doctor could have learned this and acted differently. So, the action turned out to be wrong. But, we might still say that the doctor acted as we would want them to act in the future, and so praise the action. None of this is incoherent or even very complicated.

Again, following protocol is not a reason to think an action is right. Protocol has very little to do with right or wrong.

No, "protocol" means something like "standard rules for any procedure". It does not mean "best available method", just the conventional or standard method. There may be other ways available if one seeks them, judgeable as better or worse.

The issue is that this is the common practise in many cases, to simply follow protocol. Since it is the common practise, and it is also very "morally acceptable" that it is the common practise, this means that it is "morally acceptable" to just follow standard rules rather than considering whether the standard rules represent the "best available method". Protocol therefore is the means by which we simplify decision making, and we increase efficiency of actions. by accepting that seeking other options is unnecessary. And, as I've been arguing, while you seem to disagree, following protocal is very clearly morally acceptable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you mean something non-normative by "morally acceptable"? I mean, it's very clear that following the standard procedure is not always morally acceptable in the sense that it is morally permissible, but perhaps you mean something like "people will generally be okay with it" or something to that effect. Is that the case?

Surely you would agree that what people would accept, or what people would think is the right thing to do, is not the same as what actually is the right thing to do, right?

I think this is impossible. Never does a person find oneself to be in the exact same situation twice. Even the experience of Deja vu has some differences. Furthermore, we are talking about the perspective of the person who is supposedly judging the act to be both wrong and praiseworthy, so this would be irrelevant anyway. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, the consequences of praising the action are going to depend on the future actions of those that find themselves in the same situation, so their perspective is very relevant. Also, yes, the situations wouldn't be completely identical. They would be happening at different times for a start. But they may be identical in terms of relevant information that one might use to make the decision at hand.

This makes no sense. If not allowing the action to happen (I cannot allow the qualifier "again" because the same action cannot happen twice) would have worse consequences, how could the action be judged as "wrongful" in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sometimes the cost of trying to prevent something bad happening is worse than letting the bad thing happen. To use the same example I gave before, perhaps the call that the doctor made would be correct most of the time and, in the time-sensitive situation they find themselves in, checking for the niche circumstances which caused it to be the wrong call here would cost more lives than it saves. I'm not really sure what you are finding difficult about this.

If there is relevant protocol, the method for producing the desired consequences is to consult protocol. If in situation A, and desired outcome is Z, then protocol M is to be followed. That is the purpose of protocol, it is the convention for producing the desired consequences.

I don't understand how you can argue that protocol is irrelevant in decision making. Protocol is produced from experience with consequences. It's a form of science science, empirical evidence from experimentation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it possible you mean something non-standard by protocol? Like, something like "the best available methods of achieving the desired ends based on all known information" or something to that effect? I mean, I think you'd still be wrong, but that would be at least less egregious than suggesting that following a protocol was the same thing as acting rightly.

This is incoherent. If the action is evaluated as "wrong", it is impossible to conclude that simply praising that action would have good consequences. Thi is because the elements which make the action wrong are praised equally with any other elements. "Future actions conducted in different circumstances" are irrelevant in this context, because "different circumstances" implies different actions. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, I've already explained this. They wouldn't seem like different actions from the perspective of the actor because they would have identical information.

What is required is to analyze the action and separate the good from the bad, such that the good can be praised and the bad condemned in order to avoid similar wrongful actions. But analyzing and separating good from bad is completely different from simply praising the wrongful action. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am suggesting that in some cases we may conclude that the wrongful action should be praised and we should not try to avoid it happening again because doing so would have worse consequences.

The glaring problem here, is your reference to "how closely some protocol was followed". This means a judgement after the fact, as does "consequences". However when judging a person's decision, and the decision making process, we must acknowledge that the person decides to the act before the act occurs. In the person's decision making process, and consequently in the judgement of that decision, protocol is very important.

You can limit "moral decisions" to judgements made after the fact, and exclude the relevance of protocol, but this will not provide us with principles for decision making. Your morality will consist of after the fact judgments, essentially excluding the possibility of "ought" statements (being the basic protocol), if you insist that whether or not protocol is followed is not relevant to moral decisions. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, protocol is not not important in considering decisions before the fact. A consequentialist would say that the way we should make our moral decisions is by reference to their likely consequences. But even someone with a different method of evaluating moral actions need not include protocol (except inasmuch as their method of evaluating moral actions might be in a sense a sort of protocol).

This is incoherent. And, your explanation for it referred to the same act in different circumstances. As I explained, different circumstances make for different acts. You could mean "the same type of act". Otherwise you still have not provided any explanation as to how this statement might be coherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is coherent because praising the action is itself an action. We can evaluate the consequences of the first action and determine that it was wrong. Then, since praising it is a seperate action (that will have consequences for future actions conducted in different circumstances) we can determine that praising this action will likely have good consequences and so praise it. I'm not really sure what part of this you are finding difficult to understand.

But that's not knowing what the choice "means" which is your definition. "Meaning" is defined in relation to purpose, intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

Meaning is also defined in terms of definition. But more importantly, I've defined the term as I'm using it here.

This just demonstrates the dual evaluation you employ. Notice that you replaced "right" with "good", later in the paragraph. "Good" and "right" are not equivalent. The doctor is right, correct, not mistaken if protocol is followed, but the protocol itself maybe judged as bad. Notice the two valuation system. 1) How closely was protocol followed? 2) Is the protocol good? — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean those are both two questions we could ask, but neither one is about whether the action is right.

Consider the difference between the validity of a logical argue, and soundness. Validity requires only that the protocol (rules) be followed. But soundness requires also that the premises be judged for truth. Judging the logical procedure for validity, and the judge the premises for truth, are two distinct types of judgement requiring two distinct evaluation systems. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that those are two different evaluation systems, but when making moral decisions, we don't need to consider how closely some protocol was followed, we just need to consider the consequences (or possibly the expected consequences) of the action.

If this were the case, it would be impossible to say that the same act was both wrong and praiseworthy. The same system which judges the act as wrong could not also judge praising the same act as right, without self-contradiction. Your examples are faulty because you replace "the same act" with "the same type of act in different circumstances". So in the case of your examples, the praising is of a type of act, it is not a praising of the act which is judged as wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

It could. I am very much saying that the same evaluative system could say that an action was wrong, but we should nevertheless praise it. Not praise a different action, praise the action that took place in this instance, regardless of the fact it was wrong.

"What it means to make that choice" in the case of the child, is to acknowledge an end to experiences. That's what you said. "Experiences" is the desired thing, and if it were not, it would be irrelevant to knowing what it means to make that choice. It is only by being the desired consequence of staying alive, that experiences are relevant to the child's choice of dying, and therefore essential to "understanding" what it means to make that choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it does not need to be a desired thing. Someone might not care about whether they continue to experience things or not, but still understand that their death would stop them from doing so.

Otherwise, you could replace "end of experiences" with end of anything which the child does, eats, cries, sleeps, etc., and claim that understanding the choice requires understanding any one of these. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean yes, you could absolutely do that. The point is that if the person doesn't understand that if they die, they can't keep doing stuff, then they haven't really understood what death is.

It really isn't about what is desired and what isn't.

Yes, by definition, to follow protocol is to act in the right way. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is profoundly incorrect. Following protocol is very much not the same as acting rightly. Protocols are often wrong, as you can see by simply looking at protocols through history that were based on terrible reasoning or poor understanding of the world. Even when the protocol itself is good, it may not have taken account of the circumstances people find themselves in or may be designed to avoid the dodgy judgment of idiots.

Your use of these words is amazingly confusing. That's because you do not stick to definitions, and you introduce ambiguity.

There clearly is multiple systems of evaluation. There is one by which you judge the act to be praiseworthy, and another by which you judge the act to be "wrong", what you call the "actual-value view". You clearly say "the action can be wrong, and yet praiseworthy". Why can't you acknowledge that such a statement requires two systems for evaluation?

That it is an act which judges praiseworthiness, and this act can itself be judged, is irrelevant to the fact that this is an act of judgement, which requires a system of evaluation. Without a system of evaluation, the judgement of praiseworthy would be random and irrelevant for that reason. But it clearly is not irrelevant in what you write. Therefore the judgement must be based in a system of evaluation. — Metaphysician Undercover

There aren't two systems of evaluation. There is one system that is evaluating both the rightness or wrongness of the initial action and the rightness or wrongness of praising that action (which is another action).

I would say I am using language pretty clearly and consistently. I've tried to explain things in several different ways when you don't understand the first time, but perhaps you are having trouble because we are discussing too many points at once. Would it be easier to prune this discussion down and tackle one point at a time?

I do not see how this is substantially different from the shirt buying example. The child does not know that death is contrary to what is desired, more experiences. That is what you describe as not understanding the choice. This is equivalent to the shirt buyer not knowing that choosing the shirt of unknown fabric is contrary to what is desired, only to buy 100% cotton. In both cases, what is called not understanding one's choice, is a matter of not recognizing that the choice is contrary to what is desired. — Metaphysician Undercover

In the child's case, it is a matter of not understanding what the choice entails, what it means to make that choice. In the case of the person buying the shirt, so long as they understand what it means to buy the shirt and understand that they are buying it without knowing that it is 100% cotton, then the choice is understood.

I don't follow, and don't see how this makes a difference. To understand the choices which one has, requires that the person put them into the context of the desires which one has. This is exemplified by your example of the child who wants to die, and fails to understand this choice by not putting it into the context of wanting more experiences. — Metaphysician Undercover

It does not require this.

No, as I said, this statement demonstrates a failure of identification. All actions are context specific. An action under one set of circumstances is a different action from an action under a different set of circumstances. The doctor who acts without checking information within the file does not make the same act as the one who acts after checking the file but not the foot. You talk as if the same act could be bad under one set of circumstances, and good under another, but clearly these would simply be two different acts, one praiseworthy the other not.

You can produce all the examples you want, but I think that once you start trying to describe these various acts, you'll quickly understand what I mean. The praiseworthy act requires a different description from the condemnable act, to justify these distinct judgements, and is therefore a completely different act. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems confused. We are talking about whether something can be wrong but praiseworthy and, in the example I gave, the doctor checks the file but not the patient's foot. I agree that not checking the file would be a different act, but I'm not sure what it has to do with what we are talking about. I was suggesting that this is a praiseworthy act in the sense that we want doctors to keep acting this way so we praise the act. I was not suggesting the action would be both condemnable and praiseworthy, but rather praiseworthy and wrong, so I'm not sure how condemnablity (or blameworthness) comes into this.

How is this logical. The act was judged as wrong. How could it be possible that we would want to encourage people in identical-appearing circumstances to act the same way? That's totally illogical. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's not illogical. I mean, I gave you a fairly obvious example of this. There are many other classic cases of a similar sort. Basically, the act is wrong due to weird circumstances that the actor didn't know about at the time. In circumstances identical to the ones the actor was in (including what they knew at the time) we might want actors in the future to act in the same way because, even though acting that way occasionally leads to bad consequences (such as it did in this case), it usually leads to good consequences.

How could you ever conclude that praising the action of the person who failed to take the time to check the specific circumstances, and this resulted in a wrongful action, is a reasonable thing to do? It's completely illogical. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it's reasonable. You shouldn't always take the time to check for weird niche circumstances. Sometimes, you are in a time-sensitive situation and you need to act quickly and not check for all the things which could make that action wrong. I'm really not sure what you're struggling with here. Surely you agree that there isn't always time to check for every possible complicating variable in emergency situations?

That is what I insist is impossible. To understand that a choice is "a choice" is to associate it with what one wants or desires. Without any desires or wants, an agent would not apprehend possibilities as "choices" because there would be no motivation for the agent to select anything. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, I don't see any reason why we should think this is true. If I suddenly stopped wanting anything, I don't see any reason to think I suddenly wouldn't understand that I could choose to go check the mail (or whatever). I might not feel motivated to do it, but why would stop being able to recognize it as a choice? This just seems like something you are asserting without support. Do you have some reason to suppose this? Do cases of anhedonia where motivation is reduced show signs of not understanding what they can choose to do in an intellectual sense or something?

Again, this suffers a failure to properly identify the supposed action, and it is completely illogical for the reason I explained. In another set circumstances it would be a different action, and that different action might be praiseworthy. The other action, in the other set of circumstances, which is judged as wrong, is not praiseworthy. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, it is praiseworthy. We should praise it because we want people who are in seemingly identical situations to act identically.

has a standard protocol to follow. If the doctor follows the protocol the actions were correct and praiseworthy. If the patient then dies, this does not mean that the doctors actions were wrong. You are judging "wrongness" here by a different valuation system. You are saying that the patient died, and this is bad, therefore there must have been something wrong about the doctor's actions. But if the doctor followed the proper protocol then the actions were not wrong, and so your "actual-value view" (the second evaluation system) is completely irrelevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, are you genuinely suggesting that if someone follows protocol, their actions cannot be wrong? I mean, I have a lot to say about what a silly view that is, but I just want to confirm that this is actually what you are suggesting before I start tearing into it.

Do you still not see how these two systems for evaluating acts, are fundamentally incompatible, leading to contradiction such as the one in this example? Since they are incompatible, they are incommensurable, and it is illogical to attempt to bring one to bear on the other. Either we praise the doctor's actions for following protocol, or we condemn the doctor's actions from an "actual-value view", but to do both is illogical. Another option you might be interested in, is that we praise the doctor's actions, but condemn the protocol, arguing that a doctor ought to take stricter measures on determining such information. But condemning the protocol is distinctly different from condemning the action of the individual as wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not suggesting we condemn the action. You're bringing condemning into it. Condemning, like praising, is another action we can take after the fact, which might be right or wrong based on its own consequences. The action can be wrong, and yet praiseworthy. That is also seperate from whether the protocol is praiseworthy. It might be that the doctor followed protocol and it is a sensible protocol and we should praise their actions but, nevertheless, their action in this case turned out to be wrong (on an actual-value or some expected-value view). It might also be the case that the doctor didn't follow protocol because the protocol is stupid, and we should praise their actions, but they were still wrong in this case, and we should condemn the protocol. There are not multiple systems of evaluating here, there are multiple actions to evaluate.

I just cannot grasp what you mean by "understand". As I think I've shown, your use of the word does not match what you say it means. If "understanding" a choice requires knowing what that choice means (as you state), this implies "what it means to the person making it". And knowing what it means to the person making it is to position it within the context of the person's thoughts. That means the reasons for it. Therefore knowing the reasons for the choice is a requirement to "understanding" the choice, by your stated definition of "understanding a choice". — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't imply that. It implies that the person knows what it is to make that choice. Let me give you an example of someone not understanding a choice that I have been avoiding because it's a bit grim.

Imagine a child claiming that they want to die. However, the child does not understand what it means to die, they do not appreciate that such a thing is permanent and that it means an end to all experiences. This child does not understand this choice because they don't know what it means to make it.

I cannot imagine an agent who chooses, and also has no desires. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, I think I probably can imagine this sort of agent, but that doesn't really matter as what you are describing is different from the kind of agent I posited. Specifically, the agent I described does not need to actually choose, it just needs to understand the choices it has.

Dan, if action 1 is judged as wrong, due to its consequences, then how is it possible that praising action 1, because this could lead to better consequences is correct? — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, lots of ways. Can you really not imagine actions that led to bad consequences but which would, under most circumstances, lead to good consequences? Do you need me to provide some examples?

We cannot praise that action because it "could lead to better consequences", because the action already occurred, and it led to bad consequences. — Metaphysician Undercover

Confusion around the word "it". The "it" that is leading to good consequences in this case is the praising of the original action, not the original action itself.

The specifics of the act, the peculiarities of the circumstances, are part of the overall information and identity of "action 1". If you remove those specifics, to say that in other circumstances a similar act could lead to better consequences, then this similar action no longer qualifies as "action 1", the identified act which was judged as "wrong". So to say that this 'type of action', in other circumstances, might be praiseworthy is not to say that action 1 is praiseworthy. You are clearly making an error of misidentification, and not actually saying that action 1 is praiseworthy, but that a 'similar act', in other circumstances might be praiseworthy. — Metaphysician Undercover

We are presumably praising the action because we want people who are in identical-appearing circumstances to act the same way. If the person performing this action did not know about the reasons why it would turn out to be wrong, and we would not want people in future to take the time to check for those specific circumstances (perhaps the action in question is time-sensitive), then praising that action seems entirely reasonable.

I really think that you have fallen into deep denial Dan. Instead of recognizing the problems with your theory, and trying to iron out those wrinkles, so that the theory might correspond with reality, you are making different sorts of fantastic imaginary scenarios, fabrications to provide evidence for your theory. But these are purely fictional scenarios, which are demonstrably impossible, so they have no correspondence with anything which could actually occur in the real world, and it just demonstrates how your theory is out of line with reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

The scenarios we have been talking about here are pretty simple and certainly not outside the bounds of plausibility. Most of this current discussion hasn't even been about my theory, but a fairly simple point related to consequentialism generally.

You have here in the preceding post, a scenario involving an agent which makes choices without any form of desires, in order to justify your claim that "understanding" a choice does not require consideration of what a person wants. This leaves you with an unintelligible definition of "understanding". — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not have such an agent. I have one that understands choices without having desires. Also, I don't need such an agent in order to justify my definition of understanding. I was simply pointing out one of the reasons that your claim that understanding a choice related to the desires one has regarding was incorrect. Even if agents without desires were impossible, it would not show that your point was correct but the fact that they seem to be possible shows that it is incorrect.

And, you also have in that same post, an imaginary scenario where an action which is judged as the wrong choice, could actually be praiseworthy because it might produce better consequences in different circumstances. But obviously this is an impossible fictitious scenario, because in different circumstances it would be a different action. — Metaphysician Undercover

It would appear to be the same from the point of view of the person performing it though, and so praising wrong action because in most circumstances doing the same thing (or, you might say, performing the same action) would be right, is entirely sensible. One doesn't even need to think particularly hard to think of cases like this.

For a simple example, imagine a doctor administering a medication to save a patient that is rapidly dying. This patient, unbeknownst to the doctor, is deathly allergic to that medication. That information was not on any of their charts, but instead tattooed on the sole of their foot. Assuming that we don't want doctors to be checking patients' feet for tattoos in the future (due to any delay potentially proving fatal), we might well praise what the doctor did in this scenario. Their action led to bad consequences (the patient died), so on an actual-value view (and some expected-value views) of consequentialism, what they did was wrong. However, in seemingly identical circumstances, we would want doctors to act in the same way, so we praise the initial action as the best call available given the information that the doctor had.

Perhaps, but the point is that "I felt like it", as the post hoc answer, indicates a lack of understanding of what the choice meant to the person at the time it was made. Therefore the person did not know what it meant to make the choice, and did not understand the choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've already said that understanding a choice isn't about one's reasons for making it so I don't think we need to go over that ground again. Quite apart from that, you're the one who is suggesting that this is all post hoc rationalization. I wasn't suggesting this.

Sorry Dan, I just can't follow what you're writing now. The following passage is just unintelligible to me.

I am certainly capable of imagining a free, rational agent which (at least for a length of time) has no desires. Such an agent could nevertheless understand the choices available to it, even if it doesn't care to make them one way or another. The understanding is, as I have mentioned above, a precondition to the application of one's rationality. It does not require the person to know or understand what they want, only to know and understand what the choice is and what it means to make that choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, this seems pretty easy to understand to me. I was pointing out that an agent that has no desires seems imaginable and therefore possible and that such an agent could still understand the choices that belong to it/them. What part tripped you up?

And the following in no way explains how a praiseworthy action could also be judged as wrong without two distinct valuation systems. I mean, you appear to be saying that the system of valuation which is used to judge the act as praiseworthy could be judged as wrong itself, but that still doesn't mean two distinct systems is not implied. — Metaphysician Undercover

Because being "praiseworthy" isn't really an evaluation of the action itself, but rather an evaluation of the action of praising that action. Let me try to explain this a different way:

Person A performs action 1.
We evaluate action 1 to be wrong due to its consequences.
Now we consider whether we should perform action 2 (praising action 1) or actino 3 (condemning action 1).
We determine that, though action 1 was wrong, praising it will lead to better consequences than condemning it (perhaps it would usually work out well, but did not in this case due to perculiar circumstances).
Because of this, we decide that we should perform action 2 (praising action 1).
We might call action 1 to be "praiseworthy" in the sense that we have decided that we should praise it, but this isn't really a judgment on action 1, but rather on the likely consequences of action 2 (praising action 1).
Both actions are evaluated by their consequences (or likely consequences).
There isn't two systems of evaluation, but there are two actions here being evaluated.

This is where the problem is then. This phrase "such that they could apply their rationality to it" implies that applying rationality to it is done post hoc. This means that "understood" here means absolutely nothing. There is no requirement of an act of applying rationality, or even any sort of thinking whatsoever, prior to the choice, only a requirement that the person can 'rationalize' the choice after the fact. Such rationalizing generally consists of fictional excuses, specious, and fabricated with the intent of creating the illusion that the choice was rational, and understood, when it really was not. — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't imply that at all. The applying of one's rationality happens prior to the choice. The understanding that is at issue here is a prerequisite to the applying one's rationality.

"I felt like it" may be classified as the reason for the choice, it is a reason which expresses that the person does not understand the choice. In this way it is similar to "I don't know", which is a more explicit way of saying that the choice is not understood. — Metaphysician Undercover

First "I felt like it" seems a perfectly sensible reason to do some things in some cases and it definitely isn't the same as saying "I don't know." Second, neither of these show lack of understanding of the choice because, as I have said several times now, understanding of the choice is not about what reasons one has to make that choice.

Understanding a choice ("knowing the nature of the choice being made and what it means to make that choice") is to properly position the choice within the context of the person's intentions. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it isn't. It is (within this context at least) to know the nature of the choice being made and what it means to make that choice. That is what I am talking about when I talk about understanding and making one's own choices.

Do you even think about what your words mean before writing them? I cannot believe that you could actually believe some of this stuff you are writing now. Are you the same "Dan" as whom I was talking to before you left on break? It seems like you've gone off the rails now. How do you think that something which selects (say a machine or something), without any sort of desires or intentions which guide its selections toward an end, could possibly "understand" its selections? To "understand" a choice is to place it as the means to an end. The words "meaning", and "means", which are used to describe understanding a choice, all imply reference to intention. You Dan, are using "understand" in some random ad hoc way, which varies with each time you use it, rendering the word completely void of meaning in your overall text. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am using "understanding" in the same, consistent way. I have been saying it isn't about what one wants from the off. I am certainly capable of imagining a free, rational agent which (at least for a length of time) has no desires. Such an agent could nevertheless understand the choices available to it, even if it doesn't care to make them one way or another. The understanding is, as I have mentioned above, a precondition to the application of one's rationality. It does not require the person to know or understand what they want, only to know and understand what the choice is and what it means to make that choice.

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the fact that you have expressed two very different systems of valuation? You even name those two systems as 1)"praiseworthy" and 2) "moral judgment". The former is a system for producing a judgement as to whether a choice ought to be praised for its likelihood of producing good consequences, and the latter is a system for producing a judgement as to whether a choice is morally correct.

Can you not accept the fact that these are two distinct systems for evaluating the same type of choice? And, since the same choice may be high on one scale, and low on the other scale, the two valuation systems are incompatible. Why is this so difficult for you to acknowledge? — Metaphysician Undercover

I am using one system for evaluating actions and their morality. Praising an action is, itself, an action, so it is evaluated based on its consequences (or its likely consequences). Punishing an action is the same. The initial action is evaluated for whether it is right or wrong based on its consequences and praising that action is evaluated separately based on its consequences. Punishing that action would also be evaluated based on its consequences. There's one system of evaluting the morality of actions. It's just that there is more than one action to evaluate here (the initial action, and the action of praising that action).

Your use of "understanding" doesn't seem to allow for the possibility of misunderstanding. Any sort of rationalizing after the fact demonstrates "understanding", so where could "misunderstanding" enter the picture? Accusing me of misunderstanding is hypocrisy on your part. — Metaphysician Undercover

That does not demonstrate understanding. That is not what I said. What I said was that understanding one's choices is about knowing the nature of the choice being made and what it means to make that choice. It is certainly possible to misunderstand one's choices.

You are missing the point. Of course "praiseworthy" is not a separate "moral scale", the other scale is already called "moral" judgement. This would create ambiguity right in the title, you'd have two "moral" scales which are blatantly contradictory. What I am saying is that you have two distinct scales for evaluating the same act, one is the "moral" scale, and the other is the "praiseworthy" scale. According to the principles of these two distinct scales, the same choice which is of high value (favourable) on the one scale is of low value (unfavourable) on the other scale. Do you see how that contradiction, favourable/unfavourable, is implied?

This is the same issue as your moral scale based in consequentialism, and your praiseworthy scale based in the ability to understand and make one's own choices. You use two distinct scales which produce contradictory judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's all based in consequentialism. As mentioned above, praising something is an action. There isn't a seperate "praiseworthy" scale, there is simply a judgment of whether praising that thing will lead to good consequences. There is certainly information commonly used to make that judgment, but it's all about the consequences of the action (or likely consequences of the action). Just like we might make a judgment about what charity to donate money to based on features such as scalability, cost-effectiveness, transparency, etc. That doesn't mean there is some other scale of donationworthiness that is incompatible with consequentialism, it is simply using information about the action in question to determine whether it will likely have good consequences.

This is nonsense to me, and that's why I avoided it. No one knows what it is to make a choice, in general, that's why there is an ongoing debate between free willies and determinists. And we have even less of an idea of what it is to make a particular choice. So using this phrase would be completely pointless, it would simply mean that no one understands any of one's own choices, or any choices in general. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, I think you're just wrong. I think we can easily know what it is (or "means") to make a specific choice. For a fairly simple example, if I choose to give away my car, I understand that this would mean I wouldn't have it anymore (and a bunch of stuff that that entails).

OK, so how can a person be said to understand the nature of a choice, and have applied their rationality to it, when the choice is contrary to what they desire, and made for no reason (whim or caprice), like the example of buying the shirt? — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't say and have applied their rationality to it. I said such that they understood it such that they could apply their rationality to it.

To make a choice on a whim explicitly means that the person cannot respond to reasons regarding that choice. That's what "whim" means. the choice cannot be accounted for. So if the person understands the choice one is making, prior to making the choice, so as to be able to respond with reasons regarding the choice, it is impossible, by reason of contradiction, that the person could then make the choice on a whim. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it isn't. To be able to respond to reasons and actually responding to those reasons are different things. That being said, I would also say that "I felt like it" is itself a reason, even if it is perhaps not a good one.

It's very clear to me, that the person in the shirt example does not know "what it means to make that choice". Why is this not clear to you? The person wants to only buy a shirt if it's 100% cotton, yet chooses to buy a shirt of unknown fabric. Obviously the person does not understand that buying a shirt of unknown fabric means that there is a very significant probability that it will not be the desired 100% cotton.

Again, this is analogous to my lottery example. If a person has the policy of not buying lottery tickets because they know that the odds of winning are terrible, yet they are persuaded to buy into a specific lottery because the prize is much bigger than others, clearly they do not know what that choice to buy the ticket means. A lottery with a larger prize does not indicate that the odds of winning are better. In fact the reverse is usually the case. And since 'bad odds' is the reason for abstaining from buying in the first place, the person clearly does not know what that choice, (to buy into a lottery with the worst odds) means. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are making the assumption that the person doesn't understand, but the evidence for that is not sufficient. It seems entirely plausible to me that someone can understand a choice and make one counter to their desires.

This entire paragraph is absolutely senseless. How can you say the response "I felt like it" even resembles a type of understanding of one's choice? Further, and much more importantly how can you even think that what someone wants can be divorced from any understanding of one's choice? Isn't it the case, that a choice, any choice, and every choice, is in some very significant way, related to what the person wants? — Metaphysician Undercover

I didn't say the former. I said that "I felt like it" is a reason that one might respond to.

As for the latter, no, understanding one's choices is not about what one wants, it is about knowing the nature of the choice being made and what it means to make that choice. It seems entirely plausible that an entity with no desires could nevertheless understand its choices.

Understanding a choice is about what reasons one has for making it. In fact, that's what understanding a choice is, knowing the reasons for the choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

That might be what understanding the choice someone else made is about, but understanding one's own choice prior to making it is, I submit, about knowing the nature of that choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply their rationality to it.

You do not appear to have understood my criticism. You can argue that "it does make sense", but this requires two distinct values systems for judging the same decisions. The first is "the perspective of the person...at the time". The second system for judging the same decision, includes "information that they didn't have access to".

The two are very clearly incompatible, in a very strong sense, contradictory. The first explicitly does not include information which the second explicitly does include. So the two systems for valuing the judgement are based in contradictory principles. This allows you to say that according to the one system of valuation it is "the best" decision, and from the other system of evaluation it is a "wrong" decision.

As I said, you've been demonstrating this problem of employing two incompatible systems for evaluating decisions, from the beginning of the thread. One system employs a consequentialist evaluation scheme, while the other values freedom of choice, and bases judgement on your stated principle "the ability to understand and make one's own choices". As I've told you a number of times now, these two systems of valuation are incompatible. Consequently, you distort the meaning of "one's own choices" twisting and turning it in all sorts of fantastic ways, in your attempt to establish compatibility. Of course no amount of twisting and turning will allow you to put that square peg into the round hole. You are attempting to make contradictory principles (the square thing and the round thing) compatible. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I have understood your criticism, it was just misplaced. There aren't "two different systems". What is praiseworthy and what is right are entirely different from a consequentialist perspective because what is praiseworthy is a judgment of what should be praised to achieve good consequences, and what is right is a moral judgement. There is one system, it's just that praiseworthy is not really a moral judgment on a consequentialist account in the same way that it might be on some other account of morality.


You have indeed been accusing me of employing two incompatible systems from the beginning, but this has been due to misunderstanding on your part.

Of course it does! You clearly expressed two distinct (and contradictory) scales for judging the person's choice. By the one scale (the perspective of the person making the choice), the choice is judged as "the best". By the other scale (a perspective which takes into account information which the person does not have), the choice is judged as "wrong". Clearly the two judgements contradict each other, the best decision cannot be the wrong decision. And the obvious reason for this contradiction is that the two scales, upon which the judgements are based, employ contrary principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, just one scale. Being "praiseworthy" isn't a seperate moral scale, it is a judgment of whether we should praise something, which relates to whether praising it would be right, rather than whether the initial action would be right (again, on a consequentialist account of morality).

It cannot mean "what it means to make the choice", as you say, because "the reasons for the choice" is implied by "what it means to make the choice". "Meaning" implies what is meant, and this implies intention. How could one know the intention behind the choice without knowing the reasons for the choice? — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't imply that at all. Would you prefer I say "what it is to make that choice"? I would say this is less clear, but you seem to be getting snagged on a word again and ascribing claims to me that I just haven't made.

I know that isn't what your talking about when you mention "understanding their own choices". In your usage "understanding" appears to have no meaning at all. As I explained, when you say "the ability to understand and make one's own choices", "understand" is completely redundant. We could pull it out, and simply proceed with "the ability to make one's own choices" instead, without changing your intended meaning.

However, you do seem inclined to give "understand" some meaning in a retrospective sense. If a person can look back in time, and say "I made that choice", then the person "understands". the choice. This appears to be your usage of "understanding". If a person looks at the choice after the fact, in retrospect, and recognizes oneself to have made the choice, then would say that the person understands the choice. The problem is that this is unrelated to the ability to make a choice. The ability of a person to make a choice is to look to the future and choose accordingly, and the ability of a person to "understand" (by your usage) a choice is to look to the past and recognize that a choice was made.

Is this what you are proposing, two distinct aspects of decision making? One, the ability to make a choice, looking to the future and choosing, and the other the ability to understand a choice, looking to the past and recognizing that a choice was made? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, what I am suggesting is that a person understands their choice if they understand the nature of that choice and what it is to make that choice such that they are able to apply their rationality to it. This is very much to do with what happens before the choice, not after it.

I think you really need to clarify this, because it is not consistent with what you've been saying. Making a choice on a whim, or impulse, clearly does not include responding to reasons to make that choice, before making it. Making a choice on whim or impulse is exactly the opposite of this, choosing without considering reasons before making the choice. Yet you say so long as the person can give reasons in retrospect, then the person "understands" the choice. This is why I propose the separation above, between looking forward in time, and looking backward in time, so that there is no ambiguity in our use of "understands". — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, I don't say anything about what reasons they give in retrospect. I say that what reasons one has for making a choice are largely irrelevant. What matters is that the understand what choice they are making and what it means to make that choice so that they can respond to reasons regarding that choice. If they then decide to make their choice on a whim then that's fine. What matters is that they know the choice that is being made and what it means to make that choice.

Clearly this is wrong. If the person wants X, and on a whim chooses not-X, then it is impossible that this choice could be "understood", in any sense of the word, because "whim" implies that the choice was made without reasons. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, I would say that when someone makes a choice on a "whim" they are likely responding to the reason of "I felt like it", but this is neither here nor there really. Second, and much more importantly, this is not wrong because what someone wants has nothing to do with whether their choice is understood. Understanding a choice isn't about what reasons one has for making it.

How do you think that such a choice could be understood? — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, because understanding one's choices is not about what reasons one has for making them.

This makes no sense. If the person made the best choice that they could, you cannot say that the person made the wrong choice, unless you are judging "best" on a different scale from your judgement of "wrong". If "best" and "wrong" are consistent in principle, then it is impossible that the person's best choice is the wrong choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

It does make sense. It may have been the best choice in terms of expected value from the perspective of the person and the information they had at the time, but turned out to be the wrong choice due to information that they didn't have access to. Since we want people to continue making the best decision in terms of expected value (since that's really all they can do) then we might praise them for such, while acknowledging that it turned out to be the wrong choice based on what we know now. None of this has anything to do with incompatible moral values or scales, and is a fairly standard consequentialist way of thinking about things (at least, on an actual-value consequentialism approach. On a expected-value consequentialism approach this may or may not be sensible depending on whether the expected value is from the perspective of the person making the decision or from some perfect-observer kind of perspective).

This implies that the occurrence of human actions does not necessarily mean that a choice was made. Would you rather deal with the type of actions mentioned by me above, acting on a whim, caprice, impulse, emotional urges, being overcome by passion, and even habit, which are contrary to one's expressed desire, as actions which occur without a choice? This way, instead of classing such actions as ones which are not understood, we'd call them actions which are caused by something other than a choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would agree that there is a sense in which human action can occur without a choice. Certainly reflexive movement appears to not involve making a choice. But, no, I would say these are cases of someone making a choice. I would also say they are made for a reason, but whether or not they are made for a reason makes very little difference between understanding one's choices (as I have said many times) is not about what reasons one has for making those choices.

Yes it is what understanding a choice is about!

If a person goes out to the second hand store with the desire to only buy a shirt if it's 100% cotton, then comes home with a shirt of unknown composition, and can give no reason for making that choice which is contrary to the desire, clearly it is impossible that the choice is understood. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, we are devolving into nuh-uh territory here. I disagree. That isn't what I am talking about when I mention someone "understanding their own choices".

Obviously, the person buying the shirt does not know "what it means to make that choice". They've made a choice to do something contrary to what they wanted to do, which they will likely regret in the future.

Being able to "respond to reasons regarding that choice" is irrelevant because such questioning is after the fact, and the person can make up any sort of fictional rationalization in that response. To "understand a choice" is to know the truth about the choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Responding to reasons to make such a choice is very much something that happens before making the choice. Responding to as in being responsive to, being able to make a decision based on reasons. Further, it making a choice that is contrary to what you want, or especially contrary to what you wanted in the past, does not mean the person didn't understand the choice.

Imagine, a person is sitting at home, thinking about going shopping tomorrow, and deciding to buy a used shirt only if it's 100% cotton. The next day the person is shopping, and buys a shirt of unknown fabric. For you, the context of this choice is the person walking around the store looking at shirts, deciding which one is comfortable, and buying that shirt. There is no issue of the decision which the person made yesterday, because it is not part of the physical context. For me however, the context is the mentalscape, and here, that contrary decision, even though it was made yesterday, is very relevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you might be conflating multiple things here. I would agree that it is a person's mental state that is at issue for both whether their choice is praiseworthy/blameworthy and whether they understood their decision.

Whether a person understands their choice is all about what is going on in their mind. The disagreement here is that you think acting in a way that is counter to one's desire is proof-positive that one did not understand the choice in question. I don't agree. I think people can act counter to what they want while still understanding what they are doing.

I would also point out that whether a choice is praiseworthy/blameworthy is not, on a consequentialist understanding, the same was whether it was good/bad or right/wrong. It would be entirely reasonable to praise someone for making the best decision they could while acknowledging that it turned out to be wrong due to factors they couldn't have known about. It would also be consistent to blame someone for their ignorance if they should have known better. I would say that whether either of these things should be done depends, of course, on the consequences of doing them.

Yes you did make that claim. You explicitly stated that your belief in libertarian free will excludes the possibility that choices or actions are "caused". And, the act of volition, which causes a choice, or a physical action, separates the mental processes of thinking from the physical acts — Metaphysician Undercover

No I didn't. I said the actions of agents with free will were not wholly caused by preceding factors but rather by the agent themself and were in principle not predictable. It's absolutely fine for actions to be caused by the person performing those actions making a choice. I would say that is exactly what I think causes them. It's not that I don't think actions have causes, it's that I think the agent is generating new casual chains rather than is just a link in a casual chain that stretches back to the origins of the universe.

The question is why did the person buy a shirt which they know is of unknown fabric, when the person's desire was to only buy a shirt if it is 100% cotton. Do you not see that the action as contrary to the person's desire? How can you claim that a choice which is contrary to the person's desire, is understood by the person? — Metaphysician Undercover

Because people are capable of acting contrary to their own desires and/or having contrary desires. That really isn't what understanding a choice is about.

How does that make any sense to you? You are saying that the person understands the choice, even if the process of understanding it hasn't occurred yet — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I am saying that the kind of understanding of a choice I am discussing here isn't about what reasons one has for a specific choice, it is about knowing what the choice is and what it means to make that choice such that one CAN respond to reasons regarding that choice. It is prior to what you are discussing.

Reasoned choices, whether to act or prevent acting, are always blameworthy or praiseworthy, so there is no question, or issue here. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we are close to agreeing on a point here. Except that it's not just reasoned choices. The choice to act some way can be praiseworthy or blameworthy regardless of whether one has made a reasoned choice or acted out of habit or on a whim or what have you. Seems to me that you could do away with considering these differently at all and just look at the consequences.

I've explained, your adherence to consequentialism is based in misunderstanding. This misunderstanding inclines you not to make a distinction between choosing (mental process) and acting (physical process). Further, your belief in libertarian free will inclines you to deny that mental processes are "the cause" of physical actions, and this reinforces your refusal to make a distinction between mental processes and physical processes. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah but you were wrong on both these counts. The second count also misrepresents me completely as I have not claimed that mental processes are not the cause of our physical actions. I would say that they definitely are. So everything further said on this can be directed at someone else as it certainly doesn't apply to me.



On a different note, I'm going away so expect no replies for a while.

Like, I can disagree with all the things you've said and point out all the strange assumptions and dubious logic there, but I think it would be better to clarify what is actually being disagreed about clearly.

I mean, I gave a definition in the last post twice. What part are you having trouble with? Are you after a more formal definition?

Then why do you not accept that the shirt example is a case of a person not understanding one's own choice? The person has the desire to buy a shirt only if it is 100% cotton, and then for no reason at all buys a shirt of unknown composition. If we ask the person "why did you do that?", there is no answer provided in the example. We can only conclude that the person did it on a whim or something. However, you deny that choosing on a whim is a case of not understanding one's choice. But "whim" is defined as "caprice", an unaccountable change of mind.

You say you want less from "understanding" than I do. In reality you want nothing from "understanding". Your principle is really "the ability to make one's own choice", and "understand" plays no role at all. So long as the person is capable of speaking and can give an answer to "why did you do that?", such as "I felt like it", this qualifies as "understanding" the choice, to you. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, "why did you do that" doesn't really factor into it. I might ask them if they know what choice they are making (in this case, giving up ownership of some money in exchange for a shirt) and what it means to make that choice (eg, if you give up this money, you won't have it in the future etc), but why they want the shirt is more or less beside the point (except in some niche cases where they think it will protect them from aliens that are chasing them because they are suffering from a delusion, or something to that effect).

This is because you do not want to deal with all the real issues concerning "understanding" one's own choices which I've been bringing to your attention. These issues are the role of habit, education, deception, and things like that. Further, since your principle of "understanding" is to be able to "apply one's rationality", you would accept all different sorts of what is known as "rationalizing", and other specious forms of explanation as "understanding". — Metaphysician Undercover

I would accept not applying one's rationality also. So long as the person understands the choice such that they are able to apply their rationality to it if they choose to, then that is sufficient. If they then decide to do things for no reason or just because they felt like it or whatever, then that's fine.

The simple fact is that "allowing" does not require a choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

There are a great many things that we allow to happen which do require a choice. When bad things happen and we watch on with indifference when we could prevent them, we are allowing them to occur. I'm not suggesting that people are morally responsible for things they couldn't prevent (ought implies can and all that), rather I am suggesting that the whether you are actively doing something or simply letting it happen when you could easily prevent it doesn't make much of a difference.

You can give many examples which create the appearance that allowing is a choice, but these are false for the following reason. All choices are personal. The choice to act is personal, something I do my self. The choice not to act is personal. The choice to allow something else, not of my choice, to occur is a choice not to act in an attempt to prevent it. So, like I explained a choice not to act is a choice of disallowing myself to act. So what you call "allowing" is really a choice of disallowing. "Allowing", in a true sense of allowing something to occur, is something completely different which is neither a chosen act nor a choice to disallow action. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, it seems very odd to say that you choosing to walk on past rather than saving the drowning child is "disallowing yourself to act". Yes, allowing something to happen does seem to be choosing not to try to prevent it. My question is, why does any of this matter? Does any of this lead to us not being blameworthy for things we let happen? Does any of this make us more blameworthy for killing the one to save the five? What does this mean in terms of how we should live our lives? This would be my question generally, as quite often I will point out something wrong with your argument and you will respond by picking at a detail of the example that I didn't include because it wasn't relevant or a word I didn't define give a formal definition for. My question is, what are you claiming I am wrong about when it comes to evaluating moral decisions or giving moral guidance?

I really think I need to figure out how you are using the word "understand", because it's not making any sense to me. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said in a previous post I would say that to understand one's choices it to comprehend/recognize the nature of the choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to it.

So when the person decides to buy a used shirt only if it is 100% cotton, you call this a desire, and insist that it's not a choice, because it's not acted on, and the person's choice (act) is to buy the shirt of unknown fabric — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I'm not insisting that it isn't called a choice. I'm not worried whether it is called a choice or not. I don't think choosing one thing and then later on choosing something that goes against the goal expressed by that first choice implies misunderstanding of either choice. Also competing desires isn't the same thing as changing one's mind.

And would you agree that "understanding" and its contrary "not understanding", are terms used to describe a judgement against this medium process, thinking, decision making? "Understanding is a judgement of correctness, and "not understanding" is a judgement of incorrectness in the associated thinking process. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this, particularly this last sentence. But, as mentioned above, I wasn't insisting on a specific choice of words here and how I am using "understand" in this context can be found earlier in this post.

I assume that in all cases of acting (choosing), there are competing desires, otherwise a desire would lead directly to an act, without any medium, and there would be no choosing. Do you agree? And would you agree that the medium, consisting of thinking, could be judged as either understanding or not understanding? — Metaphysician Undercover

No I wouldn't say that in all cases of acting there are competing desires, but again I wasn't using "competing desires" to mean a whole lot of extra stuff. So no, I don't think if you just want one thing and then choose to pursue that thing you have somehow not chosen.

Also no I don't think the process of thinking about a choice is itself the understanding or not understanding of that choice. Me deliberating on whether to make some chicken for dinner isn't the understanding of that choice, that understanding of that choice is the thing which allows me to engage in that deliberation.

Now, the important point, who would make this judgement? The judgement of whether the thinking process was correct or incorrect, understanding or not understanding, must be made by someone. We cannot say that the person engaged in the thinking process, making that choice, also makes the judgement of correct or incorrect, or else all cases would be judged as correct, because the person would not make the choice unless they thought it was correct. Their judgement would have to correspond with the thinking process, because the choice actually is that judgement. Therefore the distinction of understanding/not understanding would be meaningless. In all cases of making a choice, the person would understand the choice, and there would be no question of the possibility of not understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is all based on the false premise that there needs to be a judge in order for their to be a fact of the matter. This just isn't the case. The truth is not determined by the judgment of an observer. The truth simply is, and it is up to us to find it as best we can. Also, this all seems to come from you seeming to think that I was claiming a bunch of stuff that I wasn't.

Do you agree with this Dan? If not, tell me please what you mean by "understand" in the context of the principle "the ability to understand and make one's own choices". — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't. As mentioned above, in that context I am using understanding one's choice in the sense of to comprehend the nature of the choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to it.

I think that if we say a person understands one's own choice, this is a judgement we pass on the person, not a judgement that a person would pass on oneself, because that would be meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we say it then yes, I suppose we are passing that judgement. But no, it wouldn't be meaningless for a person to say that they understand their own choice. For example, in cases of euthanasia, the person might need to affirm that they understand the choice to end their own life and they would, presumably, judge this for themselves.

When we ask the person "why did you do that?" what sort of guidelines ought we to follow in our judgement of whether it is a case of the person understanding the act or not understanding the act?. — Metaphysician Undercover

"Why did you do that" probably wouldn't be high on my list of questions in order to determine if they understand their own choices. I might ask them about the nature of the choice they are making, and try to ascertain their general level of mental competence. I might also check whether they are suffering from any delusions which lead to them not knowing what choice it is they are making.

But the examples I mentioned are cases of disallowing, i.e. preventing one's one actions. This is distinctly different from "allowing". So the difference I am talking about is the difference between acting and disallowing one's own actions. It is not a matter of "allowing" the actions of others, those are irrelevant. What is relevant is the choices (actions) of oneself, and the difference I am talking about is the difference between allowing oneself to act, and disallowing oneself to act. In the shirt case for example, adhering to the principle "I'll only buy a shirt if it is 100% cotton", is a choice (I believe it is a choice anyway), which would have disallowed action in the circumstances of the example. However, in the example the person allowed oneself to act. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does this have anything to do with whether or not there is a distinction between acting or allowing which I suggested is the reason consequentialism is the best approach to morality? I can engage with this if you want, but it appears to be divorced from what we were talking about.

Changing your mind does not constitute misunderstanding one's choice, that's what I said. However, exchanging one choice for a contrary choice, without any reason, must indicate that the person does not understand one's own choices. A whimsical choice, if it is contrary to a prior choice, must be a misunderstood choice, because there is no real reason why the person negates the prior choice in favour of the new choice. The person can give no explanation for the choice. "Whim" means precisely that, without explanation.

Here's another way of looking at it. Lot's of people make New Years' resolutions, then many end up breaking them. Suppose a person resolves to quit smoking, then two days later is lighting up a cigarette. Notice that the two choices are contrary, first to not smoke, second to have a cigarette. One of the two choices must be misunderstood. Either the person doesn't misunderstand the force the addiction has on oneself, making the first choice misunderstood, or the second choice is misunderstood for the reason above. Usually we would not say that the first choice was misunderstood, we'd say that the person was not strong enough to overcome the addiction. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think either was misunderstood. I don't think we need to say much about either one morally, but if I was to describe them, I would say that the person had competing desires and that they gave in to their urges rather than stick with the better course of action long-term. I don't think either one of these constitutes them not understanding their choices in the way I have described though.

So, don't you agree, that changing one's mind to a contrary choice, without a good reason for doing such, constitutes not being able to comprehend the nature of the choice? Take the shirt example, there is no reason given for the change of mind, therefore the person cannot respond with reasons for making that choice. Imagine the person told someone else, a spouse or someone like that, that they were going to buy a shirt, but only if the shirt is 100% cotton. Then the person brings home a shirt of unknown composition, and the spouse asks, why did you buy that. I don't know. There is no reason given in the example. That's a common answer for children when asked why did you do that, I don't know. Adults give that answer sometimes too. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, I don't agree at all. The person still understands the choice such that they are able to apply their rationality to it. That's all that is required.

I think you are missing the essence of the example. The decision to only buy the shirt if it's 100% cotton is clearly a choice. It's stated as that in the example. It's not a desire to have a cotton shirt, it's a choice to buy a used shirt, but only if it is 100% cotton.

You can rewrite the example, so as to call it a desire for a shirt, or a desire for a cotton shirt, but then you miss the essence of the example, which is the act of changing one's mind for a contrary choice. Please take note that this is just like your proposal to only consider "actioning choices". By doing this you exclude all the choices which do not end up in action, the choices of inaction, which is will power, and the choices which later get changed and do not end up in action. You can call all these choices "desires" if you want, but what's the point?

Why do you want to exclude all these choices from your consideration of choices? Obviously it's because this type of choice doesn't fit within you moral principles, your morality cannot deal with them. So instead of changing your moral principles to be consistent with the nature of choices in general, you choose to ignore all these choices, and hang on to defective moral principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

None of these things are inconsistent with my moral principles. As I said, I don't think the language used here really matters.

Sure, anyone can contrive an example where choosing inaction is just as morally reprehensible as choosing to act. I do not see how this is relevant to the issue of the distinction between choosing and acting. — Metaphysician Undercover

That isn't remotely the distinction that is important for whether or not we should be consequentialists or not. Whether there is a distinction between acting and allowing is what matters. If you agree that it is incredibly easy to imagine a case where it is as blameworthy to act as it is to allow (and not even a case where the situation is somehow your fault in the first place), then how can there be an important distinction to be drawn between acting and allowing.

Do you recognize that choices very often define conditions of inaction? Don't buy lottery tickets. Don't buy the shirt if it's not 100% cotton. Don't have a cigarette. Don't have a drink before driving. Thou shalt not... And so on. These are reasoned choices which serve as principles, rules which are designed for the purpose of preventing the urge to act, when the specified act is understood as unreasonable. Such choices do not produce observable acts, though they can change our attitudes. Since a judgement of one's moral character is a judgement of one's attitude, these choices which produce no actions turn out to be very important choices, morally. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I agree that these are cases of inaction (which I'm not sure I do as it seems like they could also be framed as actions). I would say that I am the one who is treating inaction is morally relevant here. I am saying there is no important difference between acting or allowing, so "inaction" is as morally relevant as "action". Further, I would say that the reason these things are good, to the extent that they are, is their consequences. To borrow one of your examples, the reason it is good not to impair yourself with alcohol before driving is that doing so increases the risk of harming yourself and others, wouldn't you agree?

Can you see how one is contrary to the other? Unless there is a reason for the change of mind, then a misunderstanding of one's own choices is indicated by the fact that the person has made contrary choices. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, so you mean that this indicates a misunderstand?

That is less crazy, but I think still wrong. I don't think it is a misunderstanding to change your mind. Or even to do so on a whim.

As I said, you demonstrate a misunderstanding of "understanding". By my OED, it means "perceive the significance or explanation or cause of". Unless a person apprehends the reason why they discard an earlier choice that they have made to adopt a contrary choice, it is impossible that they could perceive the significance or explanation or cause of that change of mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, there are a ton of definitions of words, and all of those are just based on common usage. Words are just ways of conveying meaning to one another. I think "understand" is a good choice to convey the meaning I am attempting to convey here, of being able to comprehend the nature of a choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to a choice and can respond to reasons for making it. Not knowing why you changed your mind does not preclude that one understood that choice in this way as one can clearly still know what the choice is and what it means to make that choice. In this case, that it is exchanging money for a shirt of an unknown material that feels like cotton.

If the point of the example is merely to show an instance of making a choice on insufficient information, then it would not be relevant to what we are discussing. We are discussing "understanding" one's choice. Understanding is not simply a matter of having information it also involves applying the relevant information to the situation at hand. This is the point which you just don't seem to be getting. When a person has relevant information, they do not necessarily apply it. And that is why habit is so important as a source for misunderstanding one's own choices. It inclines one to act (often taking risks) without considering all the relevant information which is available. Failure to consider all the relevant information does not necessarily lead to misunderstanding, it often does not. But it can lead to misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is definitely relevant. To understand the choice someone does not need to have all the information they might wish to have, never mind needing to apply it. My point is that the bar I am setting for understanding here is much lower than what you are talking about.

Acting in a contrary way to how one previously decided that they would act, without a reason for making this contrary choice, implies that the choice is not understood. — Metaphysician Undercover

It doesn't. They might well have changed their mind on a whim, which would not be considered misunderstanding the choice.

I really do not know what you could possibly mean by "understanding one's choice", if it's not to perceive the significance or explanation or cause of one's choice. How would you define "understand" in this context? — Metaphysician Undercover

To comprehend/recognize the nature of the choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to it.

No, this makes no sense. I am telling you that there is a distinction between acting and choosing, and you are now starting to agree with me. Yet you propose "actioning choices" as a way to deny the evidence which demonstrates your misunderstanding of "choice". Look at the shirt example. The choice to only buy if the shirt is 100% cotton, would be excluded as not an "actioning choice", because the person ended up acting on the contrary choice. Then we would be left unable to consider the very important condition of changing one's mind.. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, I would also quite happily describe the shirt example in terms of having a desire and then making a choice to buy a shirt that doesn't necessarily fufil that desire. I am not worried about whether the person wanting to get the shirt in the first place should be considered a choice or not. I just don't think it matters.

Why not recognize the real separation between choosing and acting, and then proceed to recognize that you were wrong to conclude that there is no serious distinction to be made between choosing to let something happen and choosing to make something happen? From here we can properly assess your reasons for believing in consequentialism. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have no idea how you have gotten from one to the other there. Let's say we agree that there is a difference between choosing and acting (mostly this seems linguistic to me at the moment). I'm not sure why I should think that choosing to act in a way that brings about some outcome, let's say the death of a person by my flipping a switch and sending a trolley to crush them, and me choosing to act in some other way which leads to the death of five people, in this case, not flipping the switch and watching while the trolley crushes them, are somehow different. Both of them could be considered a choice or an action, or both. The terminology isn't what's important. What's important is that there are two possible worlds (in this hypothetical) and I can pick one in which one person dies or one in which five do, and I can't see a principled reason why the fact that I have to flip a switch (or whatever) to get to the better world but only have to stand around twiddling my thumbs to get to the worse one should make a moral difference. This has nothing to do with whether or not there is a difference between acting and choosing.

Also, for what it's worth, I think choosing is definitely a type of action, even if it is a mental one. Though I don't think that has anything to do with whether there is a principled reason to draw a distinction between acting and allowing. The two things just don't seem to be related at all.

More generally. While I have tried to keep up with all comments, helpful and otherwise, on this post despite it not being my preferred method to discuss solutions to this problem, I am going away for a while soon and will not be replying. I will get back to this eventually, and I do appreciate the suggestions I recieved to the email address provided.

This choice, to take a risk on the unknown is the one which is misunderstood because it is contrary to the original. — Metaphysician Undercover

This looks like you are claiming something lunatic here. Could you please clarify what you mean.

We can see that it is a misunderstood choice, because there is no explanation, no reason given, as to why the change of mind was made. In other words, this choice was made without any reason, and without a reason for it, it cannot be understood. If the example stated a reason, 'it was so cheap it was irresistible', or, 'it looks so good I forfeit the 100% cotton rule, or the person decided that if they bought it and didn't like it they could give it to someone else, then the choice would be understood. But that's not what happened in the example. The person had a clear choice to only buy cotton, then suddenly dismissed that choice and for no reason at all, bought a shirt of unknown material. Since the person did this for no reason at all, it is very clear that the person did not understand one's own choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Putting aside that I didn't give a reason because it isn't the point of the example, you are wanting way too much in order for someone to understand a choice. If people change their mind on a whim, that doesn't mean they don't understand the choice they are making. They might not understand their motives for making it (though this is also debatable) but that isn't the same as not understanding the choice they are making. In this case, they understand that they are making a choice with incomplete information to buy a specific shirt.

But the issue of the example is not a matter of making a choice with incomplete information. As you say, we make all choices this way. The issue of the example is that a choice is made without a reason for it. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, that is the point of the example. I think the original version had a reason given since it had more of a complete story. I was just giving you a brief version and the reason behind the choice really isn't the point.

There is no reason why you went against your rule, you were suddenly overcome with the urge to buy. So you clearly do not understand your choice. This is known as impulse buying, and in a more general sense, it is called "whimsical", and a similar concept is "overcome by passion". They are all concepts which refer to cases of not understanding one's own choices. And, you ought to see that acting by habit fits right in with these, as a case of not understanding one's own choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah I would also say that in this case of buying lottery tickets on a whim, that the person seems to understand their choice perfectly well. They seem to understand what they are choosing and what it means to make that choice. Again, you want a lot more from "understanding one's choice" than I do. But, hopefully, that difference is now cleared up from these examples.

Do you recognize that a person can choose to do something, yet fail in doing it? If so, then you need to recognize the distinction between choosing and acting. If you continue to avoid this issue I will be forced to conclude intellectual dishonesty. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, it depends what you mean by "choose", but yes I suppose I would agree that someone can choose to do something but fail to acheive it. However, I've already offered to use "actioning choices" or some similar language if you would prefer. Also, I really don't know what this has to do with what you are responding to here. You seem to be saying that choosing and acting are different, but that is a whole different kettle of fish from acting and allowing being different.

Do you recognize the difference between misunderstanding, and understanding? Any time that not having adequate information results in misunderstanding, then there is a case of not being able to understand one's own choice. Therefore any time deception influences one's choice, or any sort of falsity influences one's choice, there is a case of a person not being able to understand one's own choice. Furthermore, since a well educated person has better knowledge about a situation relevant to what the person's education is, than does a not well educated person, and can therefore better understand one's own choice in that situation, then that person is better able to understand one's own choice in that situation. I think it is very clear that having better information is of great consequences in relation to being able to understand one's own choice.

I really cannot understand why you deny this. Is it really the case that your ability to understand your chosen principles is that deficient? Or, do you actually understand this and are simply denying it for some other reason? — Metaphysician Undercover

To not have the information you might wish to have is not to misunderstand (or fail to understand) the choice you are making. To borrow and example of Hallie Liberto's paper "Intentions and Sexual Consent", imagine you are wanting to buy a secondhand shirt, but you only want to buy it if it is 100% cotton. Sadly, as it is secondhand, the shirt you like is missing any identifying tags that would tell you this and the person working at the secondhand clothes store doesn't know. If you knew that it was a cotton blend, you wouldn't buy it, but if you choose to buy it without knowing one way or another, you have not misunderstood (or failed to understand) your choice. You are making a choice with incomplete information (which is presumably how we make basically all choices we ever make) but you understand what it is you are choosing and what it means to make that choice, even if you don't know what the consequences will be from it in the future (such as whether you will have a shirt you are happy with).

That's not the situation here. There are two theories involved, not one, the moral value of freedom and the moral value of consequentialism. It is very obvious that the two theories are incompatible. I pointed that out to you when I first participated in this thread. If, after ten years of studying this subject, you still do not see what is very obvious, then there is a problem with your approach. If you insist that there is only one theory, your theory, that the two are compatible, then the ten years of study should have proven to you that they are not, and that theory is incorrect. I mean, I recognized the incompatibility after less than a half hour of reading your material.

So I am not saying that you should abandon a problem because it is difficult. I am saying that if after ten years of studying something, you cannot see what others see as obvious about that thing, then the problem must be with your approach. The solution to the problem is to change your approach, allow the possibility that the two are incompatible, and understand each of the two separately. It makes no sense to manipulate the concept of "freedom", or "free will", just to make it fit with consequentialism, because all this does is force you into expressing a misunderstanding of "freedom". — Metaphysician Undercover

It appears obvious to you, but you are just wrong. You have a lot of strange ideas about consequentialism and freedom which are incorrect. For example, consequentialism is not a "moral value" it is feature of a moral theory, specifically related to how said theory evaluates actions.

I think I see the problem with much more clarity now. You never learned the distinction between choosing and acting on one's choice. This distinction is necessary to uphold, for the reasons I explained. Because you never learned this distinction, and the great importance and significance of it, you did not have the principles required to make the distinction between choosing to make something happen (choosing to act), and choosing to let something happen (choosing not to act). Not recognizing the distinction between choosing, and acting, has made it impossible for you to understand a choice which is not an act, "choosing to let something happen". Choosing not to act is equivalent to acting for you, because you do not distinguish between choosing and acting..

Because of this misunderstanding, you have chosen consequentialism as the only tenable moral position. Clearly your ability to understand your own choice has been crippled by this misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that you do not differentiate between choosing and acting. And so you understand your choice of consequentialism, as the only tenable choice, when this is actually a misunderstanding. Your own ability to understand your own choice in this instance, is seriously deficient, due to this misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeeeeah, I don't think there is a principle to make a serious moral distinction between choosing to let something happen and choosing to make something happen. I agree that I didn't learn such a principle or recognize it, but I think that's because it doesn't exist. I think you may be suffering under a misapprehension. However, this doesn't prevent you from understanding your own choices, it just makes you wrong.

I am simply employing your primary principle, "the ability to understand and make one's own choices". I am demonstrating how your ability to understand and make your own choice concerning the best moral philosophy, has been compromised by a failure to understand the distinction between choosing and acting. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are very clearly not employing my principle, as mine would certainly not suggest that a) one of my own choices is to know the best moral philosophy, or b) that not understanding what the best moral philosophy is consitutes not understanding my own choices. Also, this is a broader criticism than simply of your most recent post. You seem to proceed from the assumption that I am wrong and also, seemingly, a moron. I suggest that making such an assumption is hindering you from understanding what I am saying. I suggest trying to read what I am saying with the assumption that it is consistent and makes sense, as this will likely cause less confusion if I use ambigious words like "it" in a sentence.

I have been telling you since the beginning, that freedom of choice as the measure of moral value, is incompatible with consequentialist principles as the measure of moral value. This make the challenge of your op irrelevant. You are offering 10k to anyone who can solve a problem which a sound understanding would designate as impossible to solve. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree you have been telling me this, but your reasons are unconvincing.

The real issue then, is your motive for doing this. If it is true, as you say, that you've spent close to ten years studying this problem, then by now you should have come to the conclusion that the two are incompatible. This presents the possibility that you are being dishonest, either you did not spend that time studying this problem, or you already know that a solution is impossible and your challenge is a trick of some sort. Another possibility is that you have a disability in relation to your capacity to understand and make your own choices. This would mean that there is some kind of restriction, a force of habit or something similar, which is preventing you from understanding that your choice, to attempt to achieve compatibility between these two, is a choice to do something impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a bizarre claim because it seems to rule out the possibility that I am just wrong, which is a common affliction among us humans. It also doesn't make room for the possibility that you are just wrong, which appears to be the case here.

Based on this assessment, I will ask you to justify your belief in consequentialism as providing the best conceptual structure for moral philosophy. To explain what I mean, consider the following example. Suppose you spent ten years trying to solve the problem of making the conceptual structure of libertarian free will compatible with the conceptual structure of consequentialist morality. In this time you were not able to solve this problem, and your philosophical studies only strengthened your believe in libertarian free will. Why would you continue to believe that the conceptual structure of consequentialism provides the best principles for moral philosophy? — Metaphysician Undercover

Your question relies on the fallacy that if a problem is hard to solve, you should abandon the theory or position that spawned it. This seems fairly obviously not true.

It also relies on the idea that libertarian free will is somehow incompatible with consequentialism or that that is what I have been struggling to solve. Neither is true. I would say that libertarian free will is necessary for consequentialism as I think it is necessary for any moral philosophy since ought implies can do otherwise. What I have been struggling with for the past decade (though I will say that I have been doing other things too, not just sitting in a room trying to solve this problem) is how to determine what to do when freedom to make different choices conflicts.

As to why I think consequentialism is the best approach to moral philosophy, I have a few reasons, but perhaps the most compelling is that I don't think we can make a principled distinction between choosing to make something happen and choosing to let it happen. To put it another way, between acting and allowing. Without such a distinction, consequentialism seems like the only really tenable position. There are other discussions to be had, about why we should think someone's motives should matter and how action-guiding consequentialist theories can be compared to some others, but the lack of a principled reason to draw a distinction between acting and allowing is I think the most compelling reason to be a consequentialist rather than adhere to other intuitively-appealing and seemingly action-guiding types of moral theory.


More generally, I suggest that your approach of assuming I am victim to a bias or indeed a disability may be an instance of engaging in a mode of thought that is perhaps not helpful. It seems, and feel free to disagree, that you are starting with the assumption that I am wrong and preceding from there. I suggest that this may be the cause of the strange understandings of what I mean.

I am not saying that by your claim, "understanding" is the only measure of moral value, I am saying that the ability to "understand" must be given equal weight with the ability to "make" one's own choices, by the statement which is your principle. You clearly give preference to the ability to carry out the act which is representative of the choice (because of your consequentialist bias), and when I give you examples concerning a person's ability to understand one's own choices you simply dismiss them as not morally relevant.

Do you not understand, that it is illogical for you to proceed in this direction? You have defined "moral value" with the principle "able to understand and make one's own choices". Therefore any situations which affect a person's ability to understand and make one's own choices are necessarily of moral value. It is contrary to logic (illogical) to then turn around, and approach from your consequentialist moral principles, and say that since this instance of inhibiting a person's ability to understand one's own choices appears to have no consequences in actions it is therefore not morally relevant. Moral relevance has been defined by that principle. So you cannot logically override your definition to say that in these cases, affecting one's ability to understand and make one's own choices is not morally relevant.

This is the problem I've been showing you since the beginning. You have two incompatible principles, moral value based in freedom, and moral value based in consequentialism, and you are trying to display them as being compatible. So you sometimes approach from the side of freedom (the ability to understand and make one's own choices is the measure of moral value), and you sometimes approach from the side of consequentialism (only specific actions are morally relevant), and when you meet in the middle, you annihilate the one side (the side of freedom) in preference of your consequentialist bias. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not ignore things that affect a persons ability to understand their own choices. You want "understanding one's own choices" to include more than I think it does. I would say that the cases you have presented as problematic simply aren't. I am not annihilating the side of freedom, I am simply pointing out that not having the information you might wish is not the same as being able to understand one's own choice.

So what? "Planning" is just a specific type of "choosing".

This is the fault of your way of understanding "understanding" which is clearly deficient. You relate things to the more specific, and claim that this constitutes "understanding". You say to me "you seem to take that to mean that understanding generally is the measure of moral value. I suggest focusing more closely on the specific claim made", and so you fail in your denial of the relevance of the general.

Here's a simple example. Consider what it means to understand what "human being" means. You could point to many specific examples, showing me, those are human beings. But this does not demonstrate an "understanding", because you need to refer to the more general concepts, "mammal", "animal", "living", the concepts which inhere within the concept of "human being", as the defining features, to demonstrate a true understanding.

So when you point to a choice made about what will be done tomorrow, and you say 'that's not a case of making a choice, it's a case of planning', it's like pointing to a child, and saying 'that's not a mammal, it's a human being'. All you do here is demonstrate a gross misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Planning to do a thing and choosing to do a thing are different, wouldn't you say? But either way, we seem to be getting bogged down in the words chosen, rather than the meaning thereof.

As it is a case of pointing to a true and real separation, according to the concepts involved, (the separation between making a choice, and acting on a choice), my objection is normative. You ought to respect this difference which I have described, in order that we can go forward with our communication, and this discussion. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have offered to use different language regarding this in deference of exactly this disagreement about what constitutes making a choice. You're welcome to suggest what it is. Would you prefer we discuss "actioning one's choices" would that be more beneficial? I think within the context of this discussion that is likely to mean something close to the same thing in most contexts, so I'm happy to use that language instead if you'd prefer.

As I've shown, "the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices", as explained by you, is not a reasonable principle. This is because you fail to properly account for the meaning of "understand" in your explanation. So you make that principle into something which neglects the moral value of understanding one's choices. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have not shown that. You have asserted that. I have properly accounted for understanding.

Very often, you seem to want words to correspond with concepts in the broadest possible sense. For example, when I say that being able to understand and make one's own choices is the measure of moral value, you seem to take that to mean that understanding generally is the measure of moral value. I suggest focusing more closely on the specific claim made.

None of these restrictions provide the force required for your claim. I can still choose to leave the room if I am locked in. Whether or not I am locked in the room only changes the probability of success or failure in carrying out my choice. Likewise, I can still choose to take a walk after my legs are broken. And I can still choose to sell my car even after it's been stolen. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think this discussion was related to force at all, but rather being unable to make a choice.

You seem to be interpretting making a choice as an entirely mental exercise. I don't think it is sensible to say you are able to choose to do something that you cannot do. If you would prefer I use a different word rather than "choice" in deference to your view on choices, feel free to suggest one.

Your examples simply display your failure to recognize the distinction between making a choice, and carrying out the chosen activity. As I told you, it is necessary to maintain this distinction to account for the fact that we often make mistakes or for some other reason do not succeed in carrying out the choices we make. Because of this we must conclude that the choice to act is distinct and separate from the act itself.

Another proof of this separation is the fact that I can choose today, what I will do tomorrow. The act does not necessarily follow directly and immediately from the choice. And in the meantime I might even change my mind, so the original choice is never even acted on. This clearly indicates that there is a separation between the choice, and the act which follows from the choice.

This is all very strong evidence that you misrepresent what it means to understand one's own choices. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, this definitely isn't very strong evidence of anything. I think it is reasonable to say that your choices are limited by not being able to action them and that the way you are using the word "choice" is perhaps a bit nonstandard. Certainly your example of choosing what you will do tomorrow is quite odd, since it seems even in your example that the choice to do the action happens at a later time, and that a better word here might be "planning".

But basically that's all fine. I don't really mind how you're using the word, so long as everyone is being clear with their communication. But, more importantly, my question to you is whether your objection is a normative one or more a linguistic one?

Sure, each case has a number of differences from every other. That is why I think your procedure of singling out specific cases and claiming "morally relevant" , and claiming others as "not morally relevant" is unjustified. You have not provided any reasonable principles for making that distinction. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't singled out cases. I have said that the morality of actions is determined by the extent to which they lead to consequencesthat protect or restrict/violated the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices.

I do not see any other possibility for being unable to make a choice, other than that it is too difficult. How else could someone be unable to make a choice? — Metaphysician Undercover

For example, you might be able to choose to leave the house if you're locked in a room. You might be unable to choose to go for a walk if you've had your legs broken by local mobsters. You might be unable to choose to sell your car if it's been stolen. Lots of things might prevent you being able to make those choices that belong to you.

OK, so now you accept that teaching someone something (providing the location in your example), actually is causal in a morally relevant way. I'm glad you've come to understand that.

Now, you need to justify the boundary you impose between some acts of teaching, and others. Why, for instance is the person who taught the assassin morally responsible, yet the person who taught the arsonist how to light a fire, is not. Your principle of understanding one's own choices seems completely inadequate. The difference to me seems to be a difference of intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have at no point said that teaching someone something is never morally relevant. Simply that being taught something does (in most cases) not constitute restricting your freedom. "Causal" is a bit of a difficult claim to make here. Rather I would say that it certainly seems to be a contributing factor to the action occuring and it seems like the person who taught the assassin bears some responsibility. The arsonist is a very odd case, as presumably they would have learned to light a fire without that person's intervention so they (the teacher) aren't a necessary condition for them (the arsonist) lighting fires.

Again, it isn't the nature of the action that I am concerned with, it is the consequences.

I don't see the difference. A threat involves the possibility of having freedom restricted. Likewise,
when someone offers to teach you how to swim, there is the possibility that your freedom will be violated in the future, by drowning, if you choose not to accept the offer. Your claim of a difference is unsubstantiated. The forces of nature are all around us, violating our freedom in many different ways, and learning helps us to make choices which avoid these violations. So I really believe your claim of a difference is completely unjustified. — Metaphysician Undercover

I suppose someone is at some threat of being drowned in the future if they don't know how to swim. There are quite a few differences between that and the case of someone pointing a gun at you and saying 'your money or your life' though, don't you think?

As I said, if these are your claimed principles, you obviously do not know what "understand" means, or you are using the word in a very unusual way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am using the word "understand" regarding a specific thing. Specifically one's own choices. I am not requiring that people understand everything, just what choice they are making and the nature of that choice (assuming that the choice in question belongs to them).

Kidnapping a person is not forcing them to do something. You were talking about forcing a person to do something, as distinct from persuading or threatening them to cause them to do it. I do not see how anyone could force someone to do something other than by some form of persuasion, such as a threat. But all these are instances of using communication to tell people something. By what principle do you distinguish some cases as morally relevant and others as not? — Metaphysician Undercover

Kidnapping someone is absolutely taking them somewhere by force, against their will. It is forcing them to be there.

Again, I would distinguish which actions (of all types) are morally relevant by reference to whether they restricted/violated someone's freedom or not (or removed/prevented some restriction/violation of someone's freedom).

It's not a matter of learning about the nature of one's own choices, it's a matter of how education effects one's ability to make one's own choices. You seem to have no respect for how a difference in the number of possibilities present to one's mind, at the time of making a decision, affects the person's ability to make decisions. This is what I've been telling you about since the beginning, and why habit makes a significant difference to one's decision making ability. Lack of relevant knowledge makes a choice difficult, decreasing one's ability to make choices. Increased knowledge which is relevant to the situation makes the choice easier, increasing one's ability to make the choice. This has nothing to do with whether the knowledge is about the nature of making a choice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, I don't think any of that is right. Finding a choice difficult to make because you aren't sure which option will be best for you is not the same thing as being unable to make it.

You need to take a good look at what "the ability to make a choice" means. Clearly the degree of knowledge which is relevant to the circumstances at hand, affects that ability. This is a principle which is applicable to any type of decision making. Now you propose a special type of decision making, making one's own choice, and my principle, "the degree of knowledge which is relevant to the circumstances at hand, affects that ability", is clearly applicable, just like it is applicable to any other type of choosing. — Metaphysician Undercover

No it isn't. I am very capable of investing all my money into some new business. How much I know about that business's future profitability does not affect whether I am able to do so or not. I might like to know that, but not knowing it does not restrict my ability to do so.

Of course it is all wrong. You described for me specific things, like a distinction between "free will" and "freedom", and I proceed on that basis to show inconsistency in your thesis, so now you must take back what you said, as "all of it is wrong".

So let's go back then, and you can try again. Please define "free will", and "freedom", so that I can have some sort of understanding of what you are talking about. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have defined both of these things many times for you. What I have said, each time, is what I meant. I went on to explain why everything you said in that section was wrong in several points.

We could take that route, but I think it would prove disastrous to consequentialism. Consider that if we maintain such principles, that there are necessary conditions for an effect, but none of these can suffice as the cause of the effect, then we do not have what is required to tie the voluntary act to the consequences, as the cause of those consequences. The circumstances which a human being finds oneself in, are all equally necessary for the resulting consequences, and "causation" has been reduced in this way, such that the voluntary act cannot be said to suffice as "the cause" of the consequences, it is necessary but not sufficient. — Metaphysician Undercover

I mean, surely we are in a world where events can have multiple necessary but not individually sufficient conditions, aren't we? For example, if you provide the location of an assassin's target and I provide the asssassin with a sniper rifle (assuming they couldn't get either of these things otherwise), and the assassin then assassinates said target with said rifle, surely we all bear some responsibility here. I think we have to accept that responsibility for consequences is often a bit more complicated than we might like.

The issue is that threatening is a matter of persuading someone through the use of communication. The question for you, is how is this substantially different from any other form of persuading someone through the use of communication, teaching and deceiving in general? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is different because in the case of coercion it leaves the person with the choice to do as you say or have their freedom violated in some way.

My criticism is that you employ an arbitrary division whereby sometimes the use of communication is morally relevant, and other times it is not. And the principles you employ in making this division are not based in whether the use of communication is good, bad, or indifferent, as they should be for a true determination of "morally relevant". Your principles are based in harm or benefit to body and property, with complete neglect for harm or benefit to one's mind, even though your claim is that the principles are based in the ability to understand and make one's own choices. — Metaphysician Undercover

I do not employ an arbitrary division. The divison I employ is whether the communication in question restricts/violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices.

This is nonsense. You cannot grab a person and make them act out a procedure. How could they be performing the request while they are being held? What are you insinuating, that you could grab a person and move their arms and legs like a puppet, making them carry out an act? You are slipping into nonsense Dan. — Metaphysician Undercover

You could grab someone and carry/push/otherwise bundle them into a car. That would be forcing them into a car and different from persauding them to get in. I was thinking more that kind of thing, rather moving someone like a puppet.

You really haven't taken a look at what the word "understand" means. If you truly believe that deception and education do not, in general, effect one's ability to understand one's own choices, you have a lot of reading, and thinking, to do. — Metaphysician Undercover

You can decieve and educate people on a lot of things that aren't the nature of their own choices.

You've fallen into a trap. Just last post, you distinguished between "free will" and "freedom". And, I explained how "free will" as you defined it related to decision making, choice, (which is mental), and "freedom" as you separated it from free will, related to (physical) actions in the world. Then, to avoid having to deal with causation in the realm of the mental, decision making, and free will, you proposed a distinction between sufficient and necessary. Now you want to focus on consequentialism, and the world of physical actions, but your proposed distinction between sufficient and necessary, in the terms of causation, completely undermine your consequentialist principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, pretty much all of that is wrong.

First, freedom isn't related only to the physical. There are mental freedoms also. That is not how I distinguished between free will and freedom.

Second, I didn't introduce a distinction between sufficient and necessary conditions to avoid having to deal with anything. I assumed we were all happy with that distinction already. Further, I simply pointed out that I was open to the possibility, rather than asserting it.

Third, I have been focusing on consequentialism the whole time, and consequentialism is not wholly concerned with "the world of physical actions". As an example (and let me be clear that this is just an example using a different theory of consequentialism and not something I am proposing as true) a utilitarian might say that you ought not to think of things that make you needlessly sad and should instead focus on things that make you happy instead as this will lead to a better outcome.

Fourth, the idea that things can have necessary and/or sufficient conditions for their existence/realizement does not undermine consequentialism. It certainly makes it more complicated than asserting that every event has a single well defined and understood cause, but surely no one would make that assertion because it's pretty obviously wrong. Consequentialism in the world in which we live must by necessity deal with events which multiple people seem to share some responsibility for.

OK, so the key phrase is "not wholly determined by preceding events". I would say that "determined" is the type of concept where we would say that an action is either determined by preceding events, or it is not. That's my understanding of "determined". It wouldn't make sense to say that an act was partially determined, because determined is an all or nothing sort of concept. So, I will assume that by "not wholly determined by preceding events" you mean not determined by preceding events. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think it has to be quite so all or nothing. I'd be open to the idea that certain preceding events were necessary but not sufficient causes of some action being undertaken.

After that, I am going to have to disagree with you that things like lack of education or rashness count as restrictions on one's freedom (and certainly not restrictions on one's free will). But presumably you know that I disagree on that count since we have discussed it quite a lot by this point.

The "forces" which a person applies to another, in forcing that person, are the "forces" of the universe. There is no other type of "force" available to the person, to use when "forcing" another, so the word has the very same meaning. The difference is as I explained, we can be restricted by force, or we can use force to our advantage. In the case of "forcing another", the person is manipulating the forces of the universe to take advantage of another. — Metaphysician Undercover

If you go to a police officer and tell them that you just witnessed someone being forced into a car and they respond with a question about whether you're discussing the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear, force, magnetism, or gravity, that is not an appropriate understanding of how you are using the word 'force'.

However, you use an ambiguous and deceptive phrase, "forcing someone to do something", in order to veil your underlying inconsistency. When a person persuades or coerces another into carrying out an act for them (forces someone to do something), they use words, gestures, or other actions, to influence a person's decision making (to get them to decide to do the thing), they "cause" the person to decide on that act. But your stated principles of libertarian free will do not allow that a free agent's choices can be caused in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Persuading someone to do something is not forcing them to do it. Coercing someone by threatening them could plausibly be considered forcing. What you are doing in such a case is restricting their choices through a threat (for example, give me your money or I will shoot you). This is not inconsistent with thinking that one's actions are not wholly determined by preceding factors or in-principle predictable with 100% accuracy.

This is also fairly obvious in the case where you are literally forcing someone to do something, such as by grabbing them and physically making them do it. This is not the same thing as persauding someone or educating someone.

I am not making any special categories here. Some actions restrict someone's ability to understand and make their own choices and some don't. The use of force is often in the former category, and the use of deception or education is often in the latter. But, again, this is consequentialism. The type of action is not what is important. It is the consequences which determine an actions morality. In cases where education restricts someone's ability to understand and make their own choices (generally this would involve teaching them something incorrect about the nature of those choices or about some threat etc) then that education is morally bad. But, for example, teaching someone how many wives Henry the 8th had does not restrict their ability to understand and make their own choices.