Whether or not something being medically bad is actually bad for them is the question ethics needs to deal with. — AmadeusD

Being "bad for" someone, bare, is what you would need to show is self-evident. But it's not. — AmadeusD

This is more or less the same point I was making. "Being against my best interest" is an ethical term; "being medically bad for me" is a scientific term. The two almost always coincide. But if someone says they do not, in their particular case, they could be right. They could also be wrong, of course, but the point is that it's an open question that needs to be decided by some other means than an equation of medical with ethical terms that claims self-evidence.

I don't think it's the case that people have infallible judgement as to what is in their own best interest. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite right. We're trying to understand a case in which the person asks for a reason why they are wrong. What must we say to them?

I said your argument was question-begging because you appeared to start from the premise that the smoker had to be wrong, and then used that to show that they are wrong. But now that you've clarified what you meant, we can move on.

What we want to know now is, How can the fact of the matter related to this particular individual, Smoker, be determined? We'll need to know that, if we're going to answer their demand for a reason why smoking is not in their best interest. They say it is, you say it is not. (Or so I assume; I suppose you could be agnostic on the question, while still claiming that their reason can't hold up, but let's ignore that wrinkle for the time being.) And our ultimate goal is to discover whether it's possible to be both rational and wrong about a matter like this.

So . . . how would you propose to determine the fact of the matter concerning whether Smoker is acting in their best interest?

I hope it doesn't seem as if I'm quibbling, but . . . you've made a change in the terminology that needs to be brought out. You write:

there is a fact of the matter as to whether some particular individual would benefit from quitting smoking. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But my question concerned whether such an individual, in continuing to smoke, could ever be said to be acting in their best interest.

"Benefitting from something" is not the same as "acting in one's best interest," wouldn't you agree? It's important in this case because the smoker is going to want to say, "Yes, I'm quite aware that continuing to smoke isn't a benefit in the way you mean it. But nonetheless I consider to be in my best interest, because I don't rate the benefits the same way you do."

Once we get clear about that, we can look at the difference you're proposing between saying that we have reason to believe all people act in their best interest by quitting smoking, versus saying that we have reason to believe one particular individual does.

OK, let's take this step by step, if you don't mind, as the argument is somewhat complicated.

For starters, here are three statements (call this "the flat-earth analogy"):

1. There is a fact of the matter about whether using a dangerous and life-shortening drug could ever be in one's best interest.

2. And the fact is: That is not possible.

3. So anyone who asserts that it is in their best interest is wrong.

Have I understood you correctly so far?

And so long as someone is being "rational" they are infallible as to what is truly in their in own best interest? — Count Timothy von Icarus

But putting it this way begs the question against the individual. Let's call them the Smoker for convenience. You're assuming that avoiding the risk of smoking-related death is in the best interest of the Smoker, and that they don't or won't see this. Most people certainly see it that way. But by making that assumption, you don't allow the Smoker to hold the position they in fact do hold (at least this particular person I'm talking about, who is far from imaginary). The Smoker's position is, "Look, I know all about what I'm risking. I get it that most people don't see it my way. But it just so happens that I like smoking so much that I'll accept the trade-off. You say, 'That's not in your best interest.' OK, explain to me why living a life I don't want to live -- as a non-smoker -- is in my best interest, especially if I'm perfectly willing to die young in order not to do so." The example becomes more compelling with, say, opiates rather than tobacco.

I like that. So the alleged "pilot" self would receive information about a sense perception in order to assess it ("as a pilot perceives by sight if something in his vessel is broken"), whereas the Cartesian self, intimately connected to the body, is able to affirm the experience directly.

….."perceive" as in "correctly identify an object of the senses."
— J

Even if that were the case, isn’t it necessarily presupposed there is an object to identify, correctly or otherwise? — Mww

Yes. Philosophically, I prefer your way of understanding "perceive" to the more common usage in which we can be flat "wrong" about perceptual experiences.

Which leads to the question, how important is such "praxis" for doing philosophy (or theology)? Or ethics in particular? Either past practices were quite misguided or current ones are. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is interesting and of course contentious. I separate most of my ethical and spiritual practices from philosophy, precisely because it is very helpful to have a domain in which rationality has the last word, and we call this domain "philosophy." One can then bring one's specifically philosophical insights to bear on the other areas of one's life, and vice versa. But no two philosophers are exactly alike in this regard, seems to me.

I think that's exactly right. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Glad you agree.

the tragedy is that none of these things we might say can have any bearing for the person who simply replies, "I couldn't care less about what's good for 'man' or the good life or what most people think is happiness. I challenge you, since you're such a fan of reasoning, to give me a single reason why I should. — J

Indeed, but I don't really see this as anymore of a challenge to ethics than persistent "flat-Earthers" are a challenge to geography. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think we can take that attitude. We're assuming that there are compelling reasons we can give a flat-earther that should convince them they're wrong, so if they aren't convinced, something else is going on that is ir- or non-rational. And I think that's right. But can we really say the same about the egoist? What are these compelling reasons we can give them -- not the reasons why behavior X or virtue Y is 'good for man', but the reasons why it should matter to the egoist, why they should change their mind about what they want to do?

You're hoping to box the egoist into the same corner that the flat-earther finds themselves in: the only way to deny the reasons is to deny reasoning itself. But what is the knockdown argument here? I wish it were as simple as "doing wicked things is bad for you, like smoking is bad for your lungs" but I hope you agree that the evidence for this, if any, is hardly knockdown. And besides, I've known many a smoker whose attitude is, "Yes, I know it's bad for my health but I enjoy smoking enough that I'm willing to pay the price." Are they being irrational? Is the egoist being irrational when they say, more or less, the same thing?

it certainly seems like it is possible to say some things with confidence about what is good for man, the good life, happiness, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but you and I have talked about this before, and the tragedy is that none of these things we might say can have any bearing for the person who simply replies, "I couldn't care less about what's good for 'man' or the good life or what most people think is happiness. I challenge you, since you're such a fan of reasoning, to give me a single reason why I should."

the demand that the unique "ethical good" be formulated in terms of universal maxims or "laws" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, this is a further step that need not necessarily be taken. Lewis' quote about courage highlights what I would say next: Universal maxims or discursive reasoning in general may not be what's required in order to transform the ethical egoist (or, I suppose, the emotivist, though I haven't given serious thought to them) into an ethically solid character. After all, a well-known authority on the subject urged, "You must be born again," and preached compassion and mercy, not rational ethics. In fact . . . metanoia is all about noesis, isn't it?

So if you perceive something, it is not certain you perceived it? — Mww

I think we're getting confused by different meanings of "perceived". What @Kranky seems to mean is "perceive" as in "correctly identify an object of the senses." So, for instance, when we fall victim to a mirage, then the answer to your question would be, "It is not certain at all that I perceived an oasis, although I seemed to." And this contrasts with entertaining a thought, which is supposed to be immune from that kind of mistake.

But I think you mean "perceive" as in "experience a sense-perception event", in which case the answer to the question is different: "Yes, it's certain that this has occurred, but -- see above -- I could be wrong about the nature of it." Here, as you point out, we're on the same basis with perception as we are with thoughts.

And we should remember that what goes for "objects" goes for the subject too. I can be certain of my subjectivity while holding in question what this "I" might be.

I never claimed that were the same. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps not intentionally. But it's the obvious conclusion to be drawn from this:

I said that "'stomping babies is bad for them ' is an obvious empirical fact of medical science." To say "I agree that stomping babies is bad, but this is only because of how I feel about it," is not to agree with the fact claim made. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why would your interlocutor agree that "stomping babies is bad" unless they equated "stomping babies is bad" with "stomping babies is bad for them"?

But you're right, it's somewhat beside the point about emotivism. I wanted to flag it because the gap between "bad = destructive/deleterious/harmful/etc." to "ethically bad" is so often leaped over as if it didn't exist.

I don't believe there are any "scientifically verifiable facts" that will help here.

Why? Because it is impossible that there be facts about human nature that demonstrate that it is bad for an egoist to be an egoist? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Same question here. When you say "bad for an egoist to be an egoist," do you mean harmful/deleterious or morally bad?

"'stomping babies is bad for them ' — Count Timothy von Icarus

stomping babies is bad, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry, not the same. The whole ethical problem resides in making that leap. Of course being stomped is bad for a living creature. But why should I care, asks the egoist, as long as it isn't me who's being stomped? I don't believe there are any "scientifically verifiable facts" that will help here.

That last paragraph in the article. Quine advertises it as "a final sweeping observation", but it seems to be claiming little more than that truth functionality requires substitutional opacity. — Banno

A typo, I think? You meant "truth functionality requires that there not be substitutional opacity," no? Or else I really got lost!

Yes, these are reasonable doubts. But I think @Wayfarer makes the right response:

So to try and tackle your question as to why these insights elude discursive analysis, I think it's because such states require a deep kind of concentration and inner tranquility which is removed from the normal human state. Hence the emphasis on askesis and self-training in the contemplative traditions. — Wayfarer

It isn't quite accurate to say that it's "a tiny percentage of people, who claim it cannot be described." Again, the Western bias -- for us, it's a tiny percentage, but in cultures that take this kind of experience for granted, it's seen as remarkable but not at all unusual, and it's been going on for millennia. Not many people get to have these experiences (according to this view) because the self-training is so rigorous and time-consuming. Compare being in the top 1% of tensor algebraicists. That's what, maybe 100 people? But we don't doubt they really have the experiences they have, because in theory anyone else can have them too, if they have a natural gift and are willing to put in the many, many, many hours of practice.

As for claiming it can't be described, I would say, Yes and no. Such experiences put us at the limit of what words can say. But make the comparison with esoteric math again: If you asked such a mathematician to "describe the experience" of having a mathematical insight, I wonder what you'd get. Similarly, reports about ego-loss or enlightenment states are hard to understand, but we can say something about them -- for instance, that the experience is usually described as blissful and beneficial, as opposed to painful and destructive. Notice here that language has moved from discursive rationality to descriptions of emotion and value -- that may be a clue.

There's an interesting character, rather obscure, called Franklin Merrell Wolff. — Wayfarer

I'll have to check him out, thanks.

Of course, such states of pure consciousness are exceedingly difficult to realise in practice, but in Eastern lore, they are amply documented. The difficulty being, from a philosophical perspective, that they're all well outside the bounds of discursive reason. — Wayfarer

I started to write "Yes" but then I asked myself, "Well, why exactly?" What's so exceptional about such a claim that puts it outside anything we can reason about? Is the experience itself seen as so esoteric as to defy description, and perhaps credulity? This may be a Western bias.

I'm somewhat surprised that you attempted to answer ↪Count Timothy von Icarus's question, at your accepting the presumption that being red is an "experience". — Banno

I thought you'd be on board with that:

I suppose you agree that, if I ask you to close your eyes and imagine "red," and then "green," the two color patches or whatever you come up with will look different in your imagination. That is because (I would say) "red" and "green" have different meanings, at least as far as "meaning" is commonly understood. Are we on the same page so far? — J

Ok. So you are looking to divorce "red" and "green" from individuals that are red or green — Banno

But maybe your "Ok" wasn't assent. I agree about not prolonging this with color phenomenology and Mary the Color Scientist and all that, but . . . do you assent that the imagined red and green are different experiences?

Do you think it is possible today to give an accurate (if perhaps still imperfect) account of why different people experience all red objects as red? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. This problem has been around for a while, as you know. "Maybe Jesse's 'red' looks like my 'green'?!!" But that doesn't stop us from being able to define "red": "the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres," according to our friends at Wikipedia. This is what I meant by a phenomenologically irrelevant definition. We can accept the definition and still be unable to use it to judge the quale. So, what we can't "define" (if that's even the right word) is the subjective experience itself.

Fortunately, it only matters if we require absolute certainty here, which we shouldn't. It seems to me wildly unlikely that evolution would have selected for "personalized qualia" while retaining the same mechanisms for brain processing of the same available wavelengths for each person. That would be expensive and useless. Like the sun rising tomorrow, we can stop worrying about it, despite lack of certainty.

The challenge is thus: "Show me an observation of a 'language community' that cannot be explained in terms of stimulus and response and mechanistic causation? You cannot."

This would give us conclusions like "LLMs use language appropriately, so LLMs are language users," etc., and "LLMs are conscious so long as their behavior makes us refer to them as such. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Actually, I'd be comfortable with the first conclusion, precisely because being a "user" tells us nothing about what's going on mentally. (In the case of the LLM, nothing.). The second conclusion would never be made by a "full eliminative materialist," though! They're not interested in what might or might not be conscious. For us, assuming we believe in consciousness -- then yes, we'd reject the notion that simply referring to something as conscious because it appears to pass all the tests is the same thing as being conscious. We'd also raise two eyebrows at the idea that we know what these tests are, anyway.

True enough. Glad to have had your thoughts.

OK, I like what you're saying here. Please do share any thoughts on the tension between Witt and Davidson. My own reservations may turn out to be similar, though I'm not sure. Something to do with the ambiguity of "saying"? Are all sayings speech acts or utterances? In other contexts, we've been careful to separate utterance from assertion. In some very rough way, isn't this the same issue as use vs. meaning and extension vs. intension? It might even go as deep as "physical act vs. mental event". Seems that, if assertions are correctly understood in the Fregean way (which we know has been doubted recently), they shouldn't be reducible to any specific utterance. They are "World 3."

The content of your thoughts is brute. Whether it's veridical, we can discuss. — AmadeusD

Yes, and this pertains as well to the "content of you" -- of the "I" who is doing the thinking. As Ricoeur notes, above, the experience of the "I" is brute, while its nature is open to a great deal of interpretation and discussion.

Heck yeah. What else is self-reflection but self-knowledge?

What would this consciousness be conscious of, if not the "I" or object of thought? — RussellA

Yes, exactly. What's left? Would you reject out of hand the possibility that "God-realization" is a term, however fuzzy and encrusted with doctrines, that tries to answer this question?

without the meditater's active awareness of this transient ego-death . . . the person would have no way of experiencing, much less recalling, the occurrence — javra

Yeah, that's the challenge. We'd really need a different way of talking about how experience and memory work at the "below-ego" level.

I believe it's this non-dualistic ego of active awareness that remains at such junctures of transient ego-death which then gets addressed as "pure consciousness". Without it, one might just as well be entering and then emerging from out of a state of coma. — javra

And this is also spot on. Even assuming the meditator could recall "leaving" and "returning" to the "I", why is it bliss instead of coma? I have a whole hobby-horse I could get on about how little we understand about what consciousness really is, but I'll stay off it. Suffice it to say that deep meditation experiences may turn out to be crucial for a better theory.

Later in the same essay, Ricoeur puts it even more clearly:

The cogito is at once the indubitable certainty that I am and an open question as to what I am. — 244

Remove the perceptions and thoughts, and what is left? Nothing. There is no "I" remaining. — RussellA

It's interesting that serious meditation practice, especially in Hinduism and Buddhism, makes this point vivid. My understanding is that an experienced meditator would agree that there is indeed no "I" remaining -- but this does not show that consciousness requires an object. For pure consciousness is said to remain, even in the absence of the "I" and its objects. Of course we're free to raise an eyebrow at that, but there's a lot of testimony to the validity of this experience.

I can only presume that what he intended by "immediate certainty" was something like "a certainty that is prior to any reasoning or empirical, else experiential, evidence". In this manner thereby being what can then be termed "infallible certainty". — javra

Good guess. He may be poking fun at people who can't imagine that their experiences might ever lead them astray.

Maybe FN's key objection to the cogito was to a possible reification of what the term "I" references that might have been typical in his day — javra

And that's perfectly fair, when stated a bit more carefully. Paul Ricoeur made a similar point in "The Question of the Subject" which is worth quoting in full:

Before Freud, two moments were confused: the moment of apodicticity and the moment of adequation. In the moment of apodicticity, the I think - I am is truly implied, even in doubt, even in error, even in illusion; even if the evil genius deceives me in all my assertions, it is necessary that I, who think, be. But this impregnable moment of apodicticity tends to be confused with the moment of adequation, in which I am such as I perceive myself. . . . Psychoanalysis drives a wedge between the apodicticiy of the absolute positing of existence and the adequation of the judgment bearing on the being-such. I am, but what am I who am? That is what I no longer know. — in The Conflict of Interpretations, 241-2

Nor do we need Freudian theory, strictly speaking, to drive the wedge Ricoeur is talking about. We are all now comfortable with the idea that consciousness can be false consciousness, that we may mistake the picture it seems to paint of a thriving, masterful self. The greater part of "me" may dwell underwater, as it were.

a series of rash assertions which are difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove - for example, that it is I who think, that it has to be something at all which thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of an entity thought of as a cause, that an 'I' exists, finally that what is designated by 'thinking' has already been determined - that I know what thinking is. — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil §16

I’ve wanted to dwell on this passage before but never found the occasion. So . . . what are the actual objections FN is raising here?

“It is I who think” – Not sure what the alternative would be. Joe? God?

“It has to be something at all which thinks” – Again, the alternative? Perhaps “thinking” is a happening which I observe? OK, not impossible.

“Thinking is an activity and operation on the part of an entity thought of as a cause” – Yes, this one is easily doubted. We have no idea how cause and effect might apply here.

“An 'I' exists” – We could use the quotes around ‛I’ to make a distinction on FN's behalf, and say that this ‛I’ may not be what actually exists, but rather our mistaken personification of it, or some such. But using ‛I’ in its ordinary sense of “me,” it would be incorrect to say that I don’t exist, wrong though I may be about who or what I am.

“What is designated by 'thinking' has already been determined - that I know what thinking is” – Same point about distinction-drawing. The quotes around ‛thinking’ invite us to problematize the use of the word, and wonder whether what we’re calling ‛thinking’ here is the real deal, actual thought, or some such. But regardless if we call it thinking or shminking, we do know the event in question when it happens, however wrong we might be about its nature.

'immediate certainty', like 'absolute knowledge' and 'thing in itself', contains a contradictio in adjecto — Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil §16

Does anyone know what he means here? Why does "immediate" contradict "certainty"?

Looks like this thread has run out of steam. Does anyone want to hear about, and discuss, Pincock's direct argument in support of the "tall order" (providing justification for a "single rationality" concept)? Speak now and I'll go ahead, otherwise thanks to all who participated thus far.

He wouldn't understand a word of that. Trumpius, god of stupidity.

Stop, my face hurts from laughing! And besides, we here in the US have plenty of good things to say about misogyny, just ask our misogynist-in-chief!

Fair enough. It would be a good OP though -- if you start it, I'll gladly participate.

I see your point. But to deny them that opportunity, shouldn't we start by branding them as liars and tyrants? (If we're willing to suffer the consequences.) I think there's a difference in the way a democratic society should treat demagogues versus those committed to a genuine public discourse. The conditions for an "open, inclusive, and rational society" are not, past a certain reasonable point, a matter of opinion.

Every tyranny there has ever been has used this exact same argument. — T Clark

Of course they have. But they lie and distort what is going on under their tyrannies, so that criticisms of the regime are vilified as "dehumanizing" and "bad-faith noise" that criticizes a "rational and open" government. That doesn't make it true. Let's not get distracted by "false equivalence" strategies, which will always be yapping at us.

but I also respect how European countries have handled such noxious speech.
— J

But antisemitic hate speech is illegal in Germany, right? — frank

Yes, exactly -- they take a different approach than the somewhat more rigid ideas of US "free speech." And I respect that. I'm using "respect" to mark out an attitude roughly like, "Yes, this approach makes sense, and the reasons behind it must be taken into account in any decent discussion of the question." So "respect" would also apply to the US reasons for permitting anti-semitic speech.

Excellent points. This should really be an OP to discuss the philosophy of speech in a democracy. For now I'll just say that I don't think free speech is an absolute value in the sense that it can be played like a trump (sorry!) card to end a discussion like the one we're having. I would put free speech, along with other democratic values, in a Habermasian context and ask, How can we achieve a discourse that respects the rights of others to safety and flourishing? Also, how a government may handle speech is quite different from how we might do it, for instance, here on TPF. One can oppose government's restrictions on free speech while approving, and even demanding, such restrictions on private forums.

I know! I'm not sure. I certainly wouldn't protest at such a banning. The US free-speech tradition is pretty strong, but I also respect how European countries have handled such noxious speech.

I think it was the right thing to do, in this case, but it's worth pointing out that complete lack of response to demeaning posts can often accomplish the same thing. We're really not required to debate every position, or "give air" to every remark.

Saying is a doing. — Banno

But only on a particular interpretation of what it means to say something -- which is the very interpretation we're examining.

Draw? :wink: