My point is that it's the action we judge, not the pleasure derived from it. — Tom Storm

My point is that the prohibition of cocaine (or methamphetamine or whatever you like) has everything to do with the drug use, and that the pleasure is an integral part of that drug use. Your idea that the prohibition of cocaine has nothing to do with the pleasure cocaine provides is what is implausible. If cocaine didn't provide pleasure we wouldn't ban it, because no one would use it.

Whenever I hear this argument, I find it underwhelming. Parsing happiness into "the right kind" and "the wrong kind" seems both futile and subjective. — Tom Storm

Actually the idea that some pleasures are intense but empty strikes me as a unanimous idea in both ethics and psychology. I think it would be hard to find an author on ethics or psychology who does not admit this. In fact, if one denies this idea, then ethics as a science looks to be unnecessary.

For example, why do we prohibit cocaine as a society? Because it is a base pleasure that deprives individuals and groups of deeper fulfillment.

So I’m driving along, in this cool-as-hell ‘67 Cobra, hair flyin’, head-bangin’ to some classic Foghat turned up to 11….happy as a pig in an overturned hotel restaurant dumpster. — Mww

Aristotle would call this pleasure.

To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, and men of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some reason) to identify the good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of life-that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some reason for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.v, tr. W. D. Ross

(This is quite similar to the discussion @Count Timothy von Icarus and @J are having elsewhere.)

E.g., a firefighter must save all people from burning buildings irregardless of if they feel like it, but they are not violating that duty meaningfully by saving as many as they can if they cannot save everyone. — Bob Ross

We could rephrase my argument for the firefighter:

If one were bound to save every person from fire then they would be bound to do the impossible; but no one is bound to do the impossible; therefore no one is bound to save every person from fire.

You say that a firefighter is bound to save every person from burning buildings. I don't think that is right, and I don't think you will find that idea in a firefighting oath.

Yes, I am not arguing that we must oppose immorality that is out of our power to oppose: I am arguing that, all else being equal, a moral agent opposes all immorality that they can. — Bob Ross

Is a firefighter bound to save every person from fire that he can? No, and although this may sound pedantic, firefighters work on teams, and that means that they are supposed to share the load. This means that a firefighter might be rebuked by his captain for trying to save someone (because it is not always appropriate for him to try to save someone, even when he can).

With regard to common citizens, I don't think a moral agent should "oppose all the immorality that they can." I think they should oppose all the immorality that they should. "Can" is obviously a very loaded word. Let's return to Aquinas' quote:

Again, no man justly punishes another, except one who is subject to his jurisdiction. Therefore it is not lawful for a man to strike another, unless he have some power over the one whom he strikes. And since the child is subject to the power of the parent, and the slave to the power of his master, a parent can lawfully strike his child, and a master his slave that instruction may be enforced by correction. — Aquinas, ST II-II.65.2

And especially objection 3 and its response:

Objection 3. Further, everyone is allowed to impart correction, for this belongs to the spiritual almsdeeds, as stated above (II-II:32:2). If, therefore, it is lawful for parents to strike their children for the sake of correction, for the same reason it will be lawful for any person to strike anyone, which is clearly false. Therefore the same conclusion follows.

Reply to Objection 3. It is lawful for anyone to impart correction to a willing subject. But to impart it to an unwilling subject belongs to those only who have charge over him. To this pertains chastisement by blows. It is lawful for anyone to impart correction to a willing subject. But to impart it to an unwilling subject belongs to those only who have charge over him. To this pertains chastisement by blows. — Aquinas, ST II-II.65.2

The question here is whether there are reserved forms of correction. Aquinas thinks there are, and that "chastisement by blows" is one of them.

My claim is that the same distinction regarding jurisdiction applies to nations and cultures. "It is lawful for any nation to impart correction to a willing nation, but to impart it to an unwilling nation belongs to those only who have charge over it."

And then there is the deeper question of open coercion, which applies to things like war. Given the United States' military prowess, it can oppose a great deal of immorality. But I don't think it should, because I don't think it has a duty to do whatever it can.

You often raise this strawman. I don't see anyone thinking that Hitler self-consciously believed himself to be evil. The example of Hitler is often raised for the opposite reason: the self-righteous are not always righteous.

The shooter should spend the rest of his life in jail, but anyone losing sleep over this CEO being gunned down? — RogueAI

That is prima facie contradictory. "This crime deserves a maximum sentence, and also we shouldn't lose any sleep over crimes like this."

I am always amazed at how much attention a suggestion gets. Reading Groups is only slightly different from Primary Sources, and it has the great benefit of already existing, so I think my request has already been met.

There is one consideration for any future forum that affects both Reading Groups and Primary Sources. It is the exclusive nature of a thread, where it must belong to only one category. In systems where categories run on a tagging mechanism, a thread on Plato's Republic could belong to both the Reading Group category and the Political Philosophy category. This could be helpful for combining different categorization schemas. It could also be confusing if posters perusing the Political Philosophy category do not recognize that this Political Philosophy thread is also a Reading Group.

- So do you see it as a mistake to make Reading Groups a category? Would it have instead been better for individuals to simply post individual reading-group threads?

However, it means: "it is to your benefit to be courageous, temperate, prudent, generous, patient, honest, friendly, modest, loving, witty, etc." and "it is better for you to live with people who have these virtues," and "it is better to live in societies that embody and instill these virtues." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here is the counterargument:

1. It is always to your benefit to be courageous. (Supposition)
2. It is never to your benefit to die.
3. Some courageous acts get you killed.
4. Therefore, (1) is false. (Via reductio)

And @J has the same puzzle:

• Socrates was right to drink the hemlock. (Supposition)
• But it is never right to die.
• Therefore, Socrates was not right to drink the hemlock.

I don't see how such a position doesn't require the presupposition that "benefit" means something like "egoistic pursuit of one's own pleasure," or something similar. Good luck building an ethics on that assumption, and good luck justifying it, given how many examples there are of people being ruined by such egoistic pursuits. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is part and parcel of the incoherence of Kantian ethics: right action absent motivation (because all motivation is selfish). @J keeps dancing around that without actually defending it. If he would actually defend his own Kantian position this could be a productive exchange.

Kantian ethics in a nutshell:

1. If something is done for a reason then it isn't moral.
2. Therefore all moral acts are done for no reason.

(The modern egoist uses the same premises, only denying the existence of moral acts.)

And J's argument:

• Suppose (1) is false.
• What reason does Socrates have to drink the hemlock?
• Socrates' act is "right" without being "good." It is an act without a reason, without a motivation, without an intended good/benefit. Reasonable acts are always susceptible to selfishness, and moral acts are not susceptible to selfishness.

---

If we follow J's version of Kant, then it would seem that Kant agrees that Socrates made the correct decision, but he can't figure out how that would be true given the ethical options available to him, so he tries to draw up something new. Kant's ethics makes most sense when considering these acts of extreme virtue or sacrifice.

For example:

I would greatly like to know if there is a Greek word that discriminates here, allowing "beneficial" to break off into these two senses -- roughly, the benefit of personal goods and the benefit of acting well. — J

• Socrates did what was right even though it was not desirable.
• Therefore not everything we should do is desirable.
• Therefore there must be some category of choiceworthy-but-not-desirable.

For the Greeks the kalos is desirable but not base, and it retains its value even in cases of martyrdom. @Count Timothy von Icarus is right when he says that reducing all desirable objects to the base or selfish is the error. Kant seeks a guarantee on the moral character of an act, and that is the problem. It is a bit like trying to guarantee that you avoid gluttony by only eating food that tastes bad. Or more specifically, specifying sensuous taste as a non-moral category.

There is no deeper metaphysics. We say things, we write things, we sign things. There's no need to overthink this. — Michael

That's the avoidance of an answer and the avoidance of philosophy.

• Let's talk about what truth-bearers are.
• Michael: Impossible!

Again, philosophers have been talking about the status of truth-bearers for thousands of years. This is a pretty standard topic, and most everyone responding to you is critical along similar lines, including myself, frank, fdrake, Apustimelogist, and Srap.

- Yep. :up:

- And half of it about that one. :smile:

Methodologically, I think a lot of this comes back to this:

Do any devil's advocate questions demand answers?

On a philosophy forum the question of the OP should probably be phrased, "Why ought one do anything at all?" Or, "Why ought one do any one thing rather than any other thing?"

At that point we can whittle the contributors down to two groups: those who recognize that some things ought to be done, and those who won't. I'd say that only the first group is worth hearing. (And we could have another thread for the second group, which shows that anyone who does things believes that things should be done.)

At that point everyone in the first group can contribute to a productive conversation given the common premise that some things ought be done. — Leontiskos

Which is an example of what I said here:

I like some of the late Thomas Hopko's ideas on this, who I believe was in your Church. One paraphrase is in my bio, "Don't label him; say he's wrong. And don't just say he's wrong; say why. And don't just say why; say what you think is right." — Leontiskos

When people on TPF and elsewhere contradict others for pages on end without giving any alternative account of their own, they are engaged in a dubious practice.

I argued that truth cannot exist without minds. You adapted that by replacing "minds" with "sentences." But then when you were pressed on what a sentence or a linguistic entity is, metaphysically speaking, you threw up your hands as if there is nothing to talk about. And 's response was both witty and important. If you think you get to appeal to "common sense" without any further explanation, then why do you think everyone else has to go further?

- Good points. I was essentially thinking of a space where everyone is mutually on board with paying attention to primary sources, whether or not any strict rules are in place. "Reading groups" seem fairly close to that.

- Yes, I suppose that's pretty much the same thing. :up:

I was assuming that if something is immoral than, ceteris paribus, one would think it should not be done; which, to me, implies some degree of duty merely by acknowledging that. Of course, you are denying the binding of a moral agent to stopping immorality simpliciter; since one may not have a duty, under your view, to stop it even though it is immoral. — Bob Ross

That's right. I don't think that just because something is immoral I therefore have a duty to stop or prevent it. If that were true then I would have a duty to stop every immoral act I have knowledge of, which would be impossible.

If so, then please, if you don't mind, elaborate why or how one could justify doing nothing in this situation; and, more generally, how a moral agent is not bound, qua moral agency, to stop immoral acts all else being equal. — Bob Ross

Let's grant that one has a moral duty to help the woman being raped, even if they do not have a legal duty (and I have never said otherwise). How does your conclusion follow that we have a duty to prevent every immoral act we have knowledge of? I don't think it follows at all.

and, more generally, how a moral agent is not bound, qua moral agency, to stop immoral acts all else being equal. — Bob Ross

If I were bound to stop all immoral acts then I would be bound to do the impossible (by stopping every immoral act I have knowledge of); but no one is bound to do the impossible; therefore I am not bound to stop all immoral acts.

I don't know that your idea of "being bound ceteris paribus" is ultimately coherent. Being "bound" implies necessity, whereas "ceteris paribus" implies non-necessity.

Put differently, if we want to say that we should oppose the immorality that is within our power and competence to oppose, then we have actually contradicted the thesis that we are bound to oppose all immorality we have knowledge of (at least on the presupposition that we have knowledge of immorality that is beyond our power or competence to oppose).

Here is the point of origin for the discussion:

It is true that there is gold in Boorara. If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

It turns into this: If minds (or else truth-bearers) do not exist, does truth exist? The idea is that the state of affairs is left intact. The focus is on the mind or truth-bearer. You yourself hone in on this exact same thing:

C3. Therefore, if the sentence "there is gold in those hills" does not exist then there is no gold in those hills. — Michael

...you were literally presenting arguments about the existence of sentences, so it is not realistic for you to go on to deny that the metaphysical status of truth-bearers is irrelevant.

(And of course you were presenting this argument as a sort of dilemma for Banno, not for your own position, but the metaphysical status of truth-bearers is nevertheless central to the discussion.)

Metaphysics concerns the nature of truth makers, not truth bearers. — Michael

This whole discussion is directly related to the metaphysical status of truth bearers, and this has been an important question throughout the history of philosophy. Your simple appeal to the idea that truth bearers are linguistic just shuffles the central issues under the rug instead of furthering the investigation.

Sorry, I forgot about this.

I think moral and legal standing are different: the latter is a practical attempt at justice for the community, whereas the former can surpass that sphere of jurisdiction. — Bob Ross

They are the same insofar as moral standing is not infinite. Not everything is our responsibility to rectify.

To deny this, by my lights, is to accept that nothing immoral is happening — Bob Ross

Why? If I don't have a claim to prevent something, then that something cannot be immoral? This is obviously not true in law.

Usually, when we note that a person doesn’t have “duty” to enact justice for another; we tend to be saying that as a pragmatic rule of thumb for two reasons: the first being that it tends to be handled more appropriately by those that are of an institution designed to handle it (e.g., police, first responders, etc.), and secondly because imposing that justice usually has sufficiently negative consequences to the avenger that we would not blame them for avoiding avenging or stopping the attack in the first place.

However, I do think it is commonly accepted that if the negative consequences are sufficiently trivial, that it is immoral to do nothing. — Bob Ross

But what about the first reason you gave? That there are those with a duty? If something is happening on the other side of the world, then the duty generally falls to those who live there.

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that, in principle, we can wipe our hands clean when we avoid doing just things because they are outside of our jurisdiction—jurisdiction is just a pragmatic notion to enact justice. — Bob Ross

I think we both know that the answer to my question is, "No." Or at least, "Generally not."

We are not responsible for everything. That's a fairly important moral and psychological principle, and one that we really struggle with in the West. Your slippery slope concern does not invalidate it.

A suggestion: perhaps have a forum devoted to primary sources? Where OPs are meant to revolve around a primary source and the threads are supposed to stay in contact with the relevant primary sources? I have noticed that it is fairly rare for posters to engage or present primary sources, and this seems like a deficit on the forum.

If we say "if 1) reality is determistic and 2) we have a free will, it follows 3) we exist outside reality". Where does this go wrong? — Carlo Roosen

I was wondering, even while I do agree with the premises to some extend and it seems logically correct, I do not agree with the answer. — Carlo Roosen

The implicit premise is incompatibilism, which seems right to me even though it is not uncontroversial.

If there is an argument that we disagree with, and yet we cannot say why, should we throw out logic? No, probably not. Logic is just the study of what follows from something else. If (3) follows from (1) and (2) then the argument is logically valid. If a logical system says that a conclusion follows when that conclusion does not in fact follow, then the logical system is faulty, but nevertheless, its specific fault ultimately needs to be pointed out.

Note that even to reject a logical school requires logic. "If this logical school is correct then I must accept the conclusion; I cannot accept the conclusion; therefore this logical school is incorrect" (modus tollens).

I'm just not that impressed by the surface grammar. "4 > 3" says something about 3 and about 4, and about ordering. "The paperclip is holding" says something about the whole Jerry-rigged business. And "What you say is true" is not just a statement about your words. — Srap Tasmaner

Well said.

In general I think we want to properly recognize prima facie judgments. For example, Michael may want to claim that there is some prima facie reason why truth is thought to be a property of a single object. Where does that come from? Why would it be the starting point? The way you corralled the "surface grammar" accounts for this.

- :up:

Well, yes. A sentence about it raining is only true if there is rain, and a painting of a landscape is only accurate if there is a landscape. But truth and accuracy are properties of the sentence and the painting, not properties of the rain or the landscape. — Michael

You have this weird idea that truth and accuracy can only be properties and cannot be relations. Historical philosophy says otherwise.

Sure, and being an integer greater than the number 3 makes no sense without reference to the number 3, but being an integer greater than the number 3 isn't a property of the number 3; it's a property of the numbers 4 and 5 and 6 and so on. — Michael

"Greater than" (>) is a relation.

Okay, then I can see why you want to include interpretation. I would err on the side of saying that interpretation/perspective can simply be taken for granted. It could be added as a relata but it isn't strictly necessary to add it. If we feel it necessary to add it then I fear we will need to add other things as well (although we could perhaps fold all interpretive elements into one representative element).

(And this relates somewhat to Wayfarer's approach, for I think he underestimates how widely accepted a perspectival element is in theories of perception or knowledge.)

(Or a triple that includes as well a world.) — Srap Tasmaner

I think world is the key missing element here. To say that a painting is accurate in itself makes no sense without reference to something outside the painting.

To the first, yes, I think an interlocutor of Socrates (let's call him Kantias) could have posed theories about the moral value of motivation, and whether in order for an act to be virtuous, it would have to be something that anyone would do in the same circumstances. — J

What do we think the Gadfly would say after he hears Kant speak on morality?

I'm just troubled by this idea of incommensurability and decline, which seems too strong. — J

A priori or a posteriori? Because when someone who offers very few arguments and has a self-admittedly thin exposure to philosophical history opposes theories of decline (or also unique excellence), it seems that they have some a priori bias.

<The ancients are not superior to the moderns>

This proposition can be supported with arguments and evidence, or else it can be supported by a priori prejudice (which in this case looks something like egalitarian "tolerance").*

It looks to me that the modus operandi of Pyrrhonian skepticism is utilized by a number of people on this forum, often for different reasons. That approach is skepticism via infinite questioning and doubting, combined with the move of always placing the burden of proof on the other guy. When attempts to offer a positive reason for his own position, he moves into a more reasonable space, a space of transparent arguments and motivations.

With that said, I do think that incommensurability tout court is too strong. And if there is decline from A to B then A and B are simply not incommensurable, which is a problem for MacIntyre.


* Of course, it can also be "supported" by nescience, but axe-grinding over time precludes this option.

He is for me the most important and impressive "modern" moral philosopher because he framed the problems with enormous originality and insight, raising questions that have been impossible to ignore ever since — J

Compare:

As for the continuity question, I see nothing in Kant's ethics -- apart from the Christian aspects -- that Socrates would not have both understood and been eager to debate. — J

So Kant was enormously original and insightful, raising questions that have been impossible to ignore, and there is nothing new in Kant - nothing that Socrates would not have already had. This is a contradiction.

-

I wish I knew what "modern thinking" consisted of, that supposedly made it either so unique or so pernicious. — J

Aristotle often sounds to me as if he believes he's achieved complete wisdom in all matters — J

The problem with "time-tested wisdom," of course, is that we are still in time — J

I also think, as I wrote somewhere recently, that the "loss of fundamental truths" picture is meant to go hand in hand with a picture of actual moral decline, such that Western society is now supposed to be much worse, ethically, than it used to be. — J

This idea of philosophers being "uniquely correct" is a fantasy. — J

This is a lot of soapboxing and witch hunting. I'd prefer philosophy rather than signaling our virtue about how inclusive, open-minded, and non-deplorable we are.

I'm not sure there are ancients who are as explicit as Hume -- so I'm saying he's making an advance in ethical thinking in pointing out how is/ought frequently get conflated as if they have the same import. — Moliere

Do you know of ancients who say that you cannot get an ought from an is? Is Hume progressing something that already existed, or is he doing something new?

The important thing to note that I think might be misunderstood is that this doesn't mean we can't be moral beings -- one interpretation of Hume's ethical theory is that morality is real, and justified by the passions. — Moliere

Hume doesn't develop his is/ought thought at all. It is later thinkers who follow through, taking it to its logical conclusion (and this is where the cited examples of Michael or Amadeus come in).

Hume's clarification is an advance in thinking because it was a point of confusion which could hide arguments prior to him. — Moliere

I mean, if everyone prior to Hume thought that one could get from 'is' to 'ought', and Hume showed that that is impossible, then that would be an enormous change with the modern period.

So whether you're a realist or an anti-realist or an idealist, the bare assertion that "it is raining" is true iff it is raining says nothing to address any metaphysical issues – or even issues about truth. It's just a rather vacuous aphorism. — Michael

Yup. And it is odd to appeal to a vacuous aphorism over and over again as if one is saying something substantial. ...Not to mention refusing to go beyond the vacuous aphorism.

As to the past we don't really know what actually happened apart from human records or what we can glean from archeology, paleontology and cosmology. — Janus

Inferences from empirical premises run in both directions, past and future. Both similarly depend on the physical perdurance of matter. There is no substantial difference between them.

Truth is a property of a sentence that correctly describes these other things. — Michael

This definition is what is leading to so many of your contradictions. Sentences have no existence or meaning apart from minds. You can't separate out sentences as if they float around in the ether.

A claim about the future is a claim about what will exist in the future and about what will happen in the future. We don't need to claim that true sentences exist in the future. — Michael

Truths and sentences are about things, not sentences.

I see what you mean. The world is seen as a database of propositional forms, if you'll pardon the pun. But criticising that is another thread. — fdrake

Well the discussion began when I pointed out that Banno thinks there are truths even where there are no minds:

For me the strangeness of Banno's position is the claim that truth can exist where no minds do. Classically, truth pertains to minds/knowers, and if there are no knowers then there is no truth. There is some overlap with Pinter, here. To disagree with Pinter as strongly as Banno has is to run afoul also of this broader school which associates truth with mind. — Leontiskos

So that is the starting point, and this deviation into truth-bearers a tangent.

That's just a matter of tense.

"there were dinosaurs" is true.

This doesn't require someone to have truthfully said "there are dinosaurs". — Michael

This is Janus' future-truths transposed to be about the past instead of the future:

You want to say that a claim about the future involves no claim about what will be true in the future, and that's not coherent. — Leontiskos

"You want to say that a claim about the past involves no claim about what was true in the past, and that's not coherent."

It's complicated by the fact that any theory of truth worth its salt should evaluate "There were rocks before the advent of humans" as true. — fdrake

I still think the terminal question is about the relation of mind, truth, and world. Is mind accidental to the world or not? Then depending on how one conceives truth, the relation of truth and world will follow upon that.

This whole focus on sentences and utterances is a materialistic rider that is obscuring the question. To focus on truth-bearers in that sense would require one to say that unenunciated propositions have no truth value. For example, suppose there is a fish that we do not know about. Does it truly exist? There is no actual truth-bearer regarding it, so apparently it cannot be true that it exists (or does not exist).

Folks in this thread see mind as accidental to truth. They seem to think that the world is a database of Platonic truths, and when a mind comes on the scene it can begin to download those truths.