seems to be asking for evidence to support a series of claims that keep getting repeated without significant justification. — Tom Storm

In terms of why i'm saying this, across about five threads i've seen the opposite. Again, if it's unwillingness i have respect for that. It seemed as if he just had nothing to say in those threads. I'm only lending support to the idea that he can appear that way - and it makes it unfortunately unappealing to engage him.

Rupert does seem to get more of a hearing amongst respected scientists than most on the fringe. — universeness

Interestingly, just listened to a podcast which was a debate between Michael Shermer and Sheldrake.

I thought Sheldrake won the debate, despite basically feeling the same as yourself about his work. Think he and Chalmers could probably figure a more respectable version of his assertions if they cracked heads together.

if you are suggesting that 180 Proof, is an example of the persona you are trying to describe in the sentence — universeness

Just an observation - It may be the case that the remainder of your defence of 180Proof is correct - but he comes across condescending, affected and incapable (im gathering, unwilling is the truth of it) to engage with many arguments he doesn't like. His prerogative, but i got hte exact same feeling FrancisRay has.

I agree with Banno that glancing attacks on moral realism are occurring. — Leontiskos

I apologise :P

At least i now have some understanding, and grasp what i'm denying :sweat:

Ken Gergen puts it this way — Joshs

(for brevity - assume it includes the Gergen quote too)

Huh, i see. So I suppose thsi is a framework that supposes some universal 'oughts', but this based on a statistical analysis of functioning societies? Or would it just differ between societies? Seems to sort of put a definitive spin on relativism.

The organism has goals and purposes which it either meets or fails to meet. Human cognitive-affective functioning, including our moral oughts , are elaborations of the basic normative oughts characterizing living self-organization. — Joshs

Can we have some explication of how that connection obtains?It feels intuitively sensible to me, but I can;'t enumerate any kind of necessity between our function and morals - which may just be my failing, hence asking for a hand :P

Welp, i've just this morning reached the Transcendental Logic, Second Division :Transcendental Dialectic.

What pitfalls must i avoid in reading this section?

I'm working on being kind to fools. It's not easy.
— Banno

Please be kind to yourself. — hypericin

Now, now, boys....

I guess you have a different definition of the term "sentient" than the ones I presented and what is commonly meant by them. — Alkis Piskas

I do not believe this is the case. Remember, in philosophy, words generally have field-specific meaning:

https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/4682/what-are-the-differences-between-sentience-consciousness-and-awareness
https://www.animal-ethics.org/problem-consciousness/#:~:text=The%20difference%20in%20meaning%20between,experiences%20of%20her%20own%20thoughts.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FhjwbQ3RfYeC6ZJWe/sentience-sapience-consciousness-and-self-awareness-defining
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-31011-0_2

So, consciousness is actually very well understood to be the basis for sentience, but not the same, and while there are fuzzy edges the major difference between them (value-informed experience) seems universally accepted.

OK, it was a ref that I found handy. You can chose youserf from among 150 million Google results for < perception of plants > (w/o quotes) or the 2.5 million results on < "perception of plants" > (w/ quotes). :smile: — Alkis Piskas

I'll just note that I would expect references which would support the points being made, from the person making them :)

(BTW, my saying "they must feel something" is very general and the wor "feel" in it has the meaning of "perceive" or "sense", not any emotional state.) — Alkis Piskas

In discussions of sentience 'feeling' indicates a subjective, value-informed state of mind, viz. emotional responses to stimuli.

Now, you assert that a plant needs not to be aware of -- i.e. perceive-- anything n order to react to stimuli. — Alkis Piskas

I didn't. I indicated self-awareness is not required for mechanistic reactions to stimuli without analysis. Gnomon sort of went over this too - a VFT doesn't actually know a fly is there in the way a human or dog does. You actually replied to my replacement for that theory - they are able to sense air pressure differentials (possibly). They note some underlying change in their environment and mechanical reactions are triggered. There's no mental image or deliberation. No sentience.

Which means that it can identify them, distinguish one from another. — Alkis Piskas

It does not. Recognition is a matter for sentience.

It cannot "choose" how to react. Choosing involves free will or at least the existence of a mind, which are both absent in a plant. Besides, we have already that it reacts mechanically ... — Alkis Piskas

This runs counter to some of your comments above. If they 'recognize' flies, then they are choosing to snap out at them. But we know that isn't the case.

Because "feeling" as a sense belongs to perception, which is our subject and can certainly not follow cognition. Right? — Alkis Piskas

This seems extremely confused. Cognition is almost correlate of sentience and feeling. It is the ability to recognize and deliberate to gain knowledge and understanding. Feeling is a result of perception, but it's not a 'part' of it.

I only would like to say that my definition of consiousness --esp. in its basic form-- has not been disproved by anyone until now. — Alkis Piskas

No idea where this is coming from? No one has tried to do that - though, i should point out it has be very adequately pointed out that consciousness doesn't entail feeling.

Here's once more my basic definition of consciousness: "The state and ability to perceive". — Alkis Piskas

Again, i think you're having a different conversation then. No one has an issue with that conception of consciousness, i wouldn't think. But sentience requires much more.

a history of divine command theory, linking morality to compliance and hellfire, via a foundational guarantee from a magic man with anger management issues, has probably messed with our thinking. — Tom Storm

:snicker:

Nicomachean Ethics — Leontiskos

Thread put me in mind of this once you mentioned him. Nice. Thank you :)

Aristotle — Leontiskos

It has been a serious failing of mine to have waltz right over Aristotle. I took Plato, then Aurelius.

I will purchase a complete works of Aristotle this week - mark my words! Or don't. Not at issue :D

Maimonides' Jewish version — Leontiskos

I understand the little i do of Maimonides (and Spinoza) through a psychiatrist trying to treat the Jewish Patriarch stories from a psychological perspective - he finds much agreement in their work.

Aquinas I understood (obviously as the originator of Thomism in some sense) to require faith for his moral system. If i'm wrong - neat! Should be fun to go through.

being derivable in both a religious and non-religious manner.) — Leontiskos

Are the determinations compatible across each sector of assessment?

I would be interested to hear a moral theory that comports with a religion, and an atheist, naturalistic world-view.

Is there such a thing as a non-arbitrary rule giver? — Michael

I take theistic theories of morality to take such as given.

It's just that morality is open to rational discussion, that it's more than just competing preferences. — Banno

Understood and thanks for bumper-stickering it.

I suppose my position on that is that, I don't think it's open to rational discussion in terms of establishing moral rules - But i think competing preferences are open to being judged as more or less reasonable. I just don't think you could say any conclusion is 'right' or 'true' unless there's something to back-stop the claim other than just discussion - though, I personally think that's enough tobe getting on with

Perhaps there are moral truths because there is a rule-giver, e.g. society. — Michael

For sure. I wrestle with it a lot - I guess i see society as an arbitrary rule-giver. Assenting to just plum majority rule does not sit well.

Rules without a rule-giver does seem spurious. — Michael

This is the reason for my discomfort with the idea of moral truth.

This one is pronounced Durram. I guess nobody has much regard for a central h. — Vera Mont

I believe this the British pronunciation, as in The University of Durham.

This reference is the one alluded to’ — Bella fekete

Please highlight the text you want to quote, and press 'Quote' in the little blue box. Otherwise, I do not know you are responding without checking the thread :)

Okay. Thank you for that - i still cannot put together a coherent point from your post. My noting that those references are wonderful had nothing whatsoever to do with the wider thread besides alluding to being misunderstood. And, unfortunately, I cannot understand you :P

There is no sense of asking if something is moral independently of this system any more than asking about chess rules independently of the rules of chess. — hypericin

:ok:

Are you using a translator? Im not trying to be rude, but much of that previous comment is totally inexplicable given the thread we're in. 60s musical menu?

You said that one ought not kick the puppy because it hurts the puppy. How is this to be interpreted as anything other than you ascribing moral value to hurting the puppy? — Michael

No, no. This was my (highly likely to be) misguided approach to enumerating hte opposing position. I was intimating that the fact that you could say "Well, no, your claim must necessarily rest on the harm caused by the kicking being considered bad/immoral" as though it was a rebuttal to the position that the flat claim that kicking puppies is wrong is a brute fact. It was wrong to do so, but that the kciking is wrong because of hte harm was never my personal claim. I don't really think the harm matters, personally. But again, this is a result of my talking out of school at almost every turn here.

By analogy, consider if someone were to say that one ought not kick the puppy because the puppy has brown fur. It is certainly true that the puppy has brown fur, but this has nothing to do with whether or not one ought not kick the puppy, and so the use of the term "because" here is fallacious. — Michael

That is my position. I can't recognize an aspect of hte act which would 'prove' the truth of it being bad or good.

If you only meant to say that one ought not kick the puppy and kicking the puppy would hurt the puppy then I wouldn't object. But of course this doesn't even address the issue of whether or not moral facts are brute facts, so it certainly doesn't rebut the claim that there are brute moral facts. — Michael

Yeah, and this is the mistake i was making, likely leading the misunderstanding above. However, i actually only meant to say the second part. That it is a fact that kicking the puppy will hurt it. I wasn't saying kicking the puppy is wrong for either the reason of claiming it's wrong, or that it hurts the puppy.

And yes, I was wrong. My point was that if the claim "kicking puppies is wrong" must rest on a deeper fact viz. that it will hurt hte puppy, then it's not a brute fact. I actually haven't entirely given up this line but only out of lack of progress. I don't believe the puppy being hurt is a wrong-making necessarily so it's not a deeper 'moral' fact on my account - but I guess it's hard to say with certainty that i actually think that is the case rather than it 'seems wrong to count a fact of hte matter as a moral fact'

Leontiskos has very well dispossessed of the notion that this matters. It merely defeats that one single claim (if true).

It looks as if you've quoted me - but my comment was merely a response to Vaskane's claim that something he said could have merit. I agree with that possibility.

It wasn't a comment on the OP. And again, don't know if it's your writing style, or my lack of comprehension but it's hard to work out what you meant if it applies to the rest of our exchange.

I think Vaskane has a superiority complex because of the outright ego-centric claims his made as directly against other posters/people raising himself above them in various aspects. And whether his right, that is certainly a complex.

I think that the terms "sentient" and "sentience" is misconceived by many here from what I could gather from this and other discussions (topics) — Alkis Piskas

(the following applies to the remainder of that section of your post too).
That's fair. I guess I would stipulate the difference I outlined previously for two reason:
1. That seems to be what most philosophers of mind take to be the difference between the two; and
2. It makes it much easier to talk about awareness over consciousness (or, as a higher level of it).

So, in with your definitions in place it would be very hard to see how a fruitful conversation about hte difference between a human and plant viz. what type of perception constitutes whatever we want to call the 'human' level of consciousness vs a lower, plant-like level. I think sentience, as used to enumerate an actual rather than speculative self-awareness (something i really don't think a plant has) solves what would have been a linguistic problem.

Regarding the related link you gave to the Plant-Consciousness essay - I can't say much about it. It's not referenced, seems to make some pretty wild leaps:

"A bean plant, being fed upon by a spider mite, can
analyze from its saliva just what type of spider mite is feeding on it. It then will craft a specific
pheromone, releasing it from its leaf stomata as a volatile chemical into the air. That pheromone
will call to the plant the exact predator that feeds on that particular spider mite"

these appears to be inventions of hte author - we have no reason to think this isn't a mechanistic process the same way many of our autonomic processes occur. There's clearly no 'thought' in it. So, the contention isn't supported by the article itself. We also get sections like this:

"Depth analysis of plant consciousness since the turn of the (new) millennium is finding that their
brain capacity is much larger than previously supposed, that their neural systems are highly
developed—in many instances as much as that of humans, and that they make and
utilize neurotransmitters identical to our own."

These are almost all demonstrably untrue claims. Plants do not have brains, as a start point.

But certainly they must have a certain kind of sense, i.e. they must feel something, othersise they coulnd't perceive — Alkis Piskas

I don't think this is the case. I think because of your broad use of 'sentient' you're importing a necessity that isn't present. A plant need not be 'aware' for it to mechanistically react to stimuli. If it could, in fact, choose how to react, then we get some infernce of analysis whcih would require some debate around feeling. I don't quite think the current explications can allow for that inference. I would also note that VFT do not know whether it's a fly. They also snap at fingers, large dust, small rocks etc.. etc.. It seems to be a triggering event, not a perception-driven event.

I see that you took the VFT proposed experiment seriously! :grin:
Well, a appreciate a lot a fruitful imagination like yours! — Alkis Piskas

Heh, that's definitely going to be my schtick until I'm a graduate student LOL.

So, I believe we can safely take this element out of the equation. — Alkis Piskas

Fair, and I agree. I suppose here, we're leaning toward that cognition isn't involved, so feeling can't follow. Unsure if that was your intention with this though!

I don't think, either! :smile: — Alkis Piskas

As above. I think this is nearly a fatal flaw in the theory that a VFT is sentient. But again, with your defintions in place, nothing we've discussed would lean one way or the other!! I just prefer the definitions i've used as they make a fairly good, albeit imprecise, heuristic for judging the mental faculties or one or other being.

. For my part, I don't see that "one ought not kick puppies for fun" needs any justification. The problem with "brute" is that it carries some empiricist baggage. — Banno

I suppose In this, I see a defence of it being a moral fact.

Okay, at least through all my failings, that was my understanding of your position on it… at least I got that much lol.

Fair enough.

The point here was not that you must believe it, but rather that Banno is not presenting it as a brute moral fact. He is presenting it as an obvious moral truth. Your argument above requires that he be presenting it as a brute moral fact. — Leontiskos

Ahhh. Okay. I see that. Thank you.

This is the shifting of the burden of proof that I spoke about. This thread is not about proving moral realism, and in fact no one has really tried to do that in any significant sense. — Leontiskos

Okay.

Right. Never said you did. Again, the point is that, "It hurts the puppy," is not a moral fact, even though it could function as a non-moral premise in a moral syllogism. — Leontiskos

This is purely confusing. If the point is that it could serve as a non-moral fact, why would it be suggested it is a further moral fact? Is this, in fact, the debate?

Anyway, go do your work you procrastinator. :razz: — Leontiskos

I'm home now. Its quarter to 7pm. Which is early for me tbf LOL. I prefer wasting away here, now that i've found it! Or the mats.

That one ought not kick puppies for fun is an obvious moral truth — Leontiskos

So, this is the crux of my issue. No, it's not an 'obvious moral truth'. It's just something a lot of people agree with. It isn't 'true' in any other sense than that it is widely accepted, as best i can tell. There's nothing truthful about it. I think if you're going to call something an 'obvious moral truth' something other than claiming it's an obvious moral truth needs to be involved. Tautology doesn't sit well with me, even if that's what this boils down to.

When I said that moral anti-realists lost the day in this thread, my point was that the thread is about disproving moral realism, and the arguments have failed — Leontiskos

Hmm. Noted, But, I don't see that they've failed. I see you describing what would rebut but I don't actually see this applied to any argument.
The fact that I don't see morality as truth-apt, and that no one can give me any reason to think it is other than 'it's obvious' seems to me, to put that assertion on extremely thin ground. What have i missed? What's the bumper-sticker for why moral realism survives that?

I don't think it is. See: ↪Michael ↪Michael ↪Michael. — Leontiskos

Quote 1. If it is a fact that kicking a puppy hurts/harms the puppy, then that's just a fact of hte matter. So, that's not a further moral "fact" - it's an empirical fact subsequent to the act of kicking (which others are making a moral judgment on, rather than I). I ascribed no value to the harm/hurt (in fact, i think that might be what sets me on the anti-realist bent.. I do not see that it matters). Had I said that the harm is the wrong-maker, I could agree - but again, I don't see how the puppy being hurt imparts any truth to the initial statement.

Quote 2. Is him ascribing something to me which I don't think or feel but that may be explained by the above - I did not, and do not, believe the harm the puppy experiences is a fact that gives moral statements about kicking a puppy value or truth (morally speaking). It is just a fact (or, an effect).

Quote 3. Similar to above. I've never tried to prove that the fact of the puppy's harm would make it wrong or right. Though, it appears to me that's a result of my larger-scale misunderstanding being read as if i know what im talking about LOL. The only reason I was bringing up that underlying fact was because I was under the impression that i could apply the concept (that the statement is not brute) to the framework being used to allow 'One ought not kick puppies' being considered somehow 'true'. I don't think either that statement of itself, or the resulting harm/hurt impart 'truth' beyond it being empirically true that a puppy is hurt by being kicked.

Yes, that's right. The position is not, "Every moral statement cannot be reduced to deeper facts." It is that,
— Leontiskos

Ok; that clears a lot up.

Can you explain how “it hurts the puppy” is a moral fact? It seems to just be the actual result of kicking a puppy.

But no one has attempted such a thing. I — Leontiskos

Banno.

n different ways we have all been trying to show that the schema upon which the arguments against moral realism depend is fatally flawed. — Leontiskos

This has not been clear to me. And having now gone back over the thread I see no fatal flaw - if the objection goes : person A is a moral realist and the objector (B) simply considers morality subjective; what’s the catch? What’s the fatality? (I note here I may be positing something I’ve not before… so if it seems a sidestep it’s not intentional).
If moral realism is merely the position that there are moral facts - and nothing more - I can’t see how it’s anything but raising taste or consensus to an erroneously untouchable status?

If the "deeper fact" is itself moral, then this is not a rebuttal. — Leontiskos

Thank you very much for this. Hmm. Maybe I'm conflating what's being rebutted then and missing that entirely.. because I just reject this entirely as to what i've attempted to do (stick with me, lol).. So: would it make sense of what i've been saying if it were transposed to be a rebuttal to that claim viz.

Claim: "One ought not kick puppies" (as a brute fact, ostensibly supporting the ethical position)
Response: Hey, that is actually not a brute fact (because XYZ underlying facts/data)

would be a rebuttal of that claim, but not the ethical framework? If this is what it appears to be, that would solve any issue i had with the exchange previous.

But more simply, to rebut "moral statements are brute," with, "moral statements cannot be brute," is obviously begging the question. — Leontiskos

showing that they cannot, surpasses this though, surely.
I guess what i mean to say here, is that I am claiming that the position that Moral facts are brute consists in them not being reducible. But if they are necessarily reducible, they are not brute facts.

Assume that's true - Am i just fucking up on applying this to the framework rather than any particular claim?

(im sorry, i've had to put this together between harrowing bits of work. Ill try edit for clarity later if need be but feel free to make what would normally be annoying observations a bout how badly ive worded things)

I agree with the possibility :)

Aye, you can say that again. And I'm sure you will. :grin: — Leontiskos

Can you please explain to me, as if i'm five years old what's going on with the following that results in it being question begging?

Position: Moral statements cannot be reduced to deeper facts (i.e are brute)
Rebuttal: Moral statements necessarily rely on deeper facts, whether you engage them or not (i.e they cannot be brute, fundamentally).

Which part begs the question? (I am not being facetious in any way).

And I have been explaining non-naturalism so now I don’t understand the relevance of your comments. — Michael

Ok, well sorry then.

You’re arguing that ethical non-naturalism isn’t tenable because it disagrees with your ethical naturalism. That’s not a rebuttal, it’s begging the question. — Michael

1. You've got the positions backwards, but i imagine that was just haste. No guff. Naturalism is what I take issue with.
2. Ok. Suffice to say 'No. That's not the case' and that I can't spend any more time enumerating that moral claims cannot be brute facts, independent of my personal ethical view. But that's what i've done. So i'll leave it there.

For it to be a rebuttal you must prove that moral facts can be explained in non-moral terms. You must prove that "one ought not kick puppies for fun because it hurts the puppy" is true. — Michael

Ahh, ok I'm groking you now. I still don't think that's right, though.

To my mind, and my understanding, what you're asking me to do is prove another ethical framework is true (something which would amount to those deeper facts establishing the 'correct' (to the view-holder's mind) ethical reason for the statement to be true))... I'm not trying to do that. Merely, that the claim of a ethical naturalist isn't tenable.

You have claimed that one ought not kick the puppy because it hurts the puppy. The ethical non-naturalist, being a non-naturalist, rejects this connection. You are begging the question and assuming ethical naturalism. — Michael

No, I haven't. I have presented a deeper fact about the claim - whether i believe that's the case is somewhat by the by. The rebuttal is there are deep facts about moral claims. If an ethical naturalist rejects that, so be it. That's the rebuttal they actually have to grapple with instead of just jettisoning and pretending those facts arren't pertinent to their claim.

Again, whether i'm correct or not, this is a rebuttal to ethical naturalism. Their denial doesn't do anything for their position other than expound it in some sense.

In a more involved circumstance, I may indeed refer to Hume to support the contention and I think our flow is similar on that. But it's unneeded here as the mere existence of those facts, and their patent connection to the moral claim, is enough to defeat the position that ... there are no deeper facts for the statement to be reduced to. Because.. there they are. And simply denying a connection to them isn't an adequate response.

Michael says that moral facts cannot be explained in non-moral terms.
AmadeusD says that Michael's claim is fatally flawed because moral facts can be explained in non-moral terms.

AmadeusD says that moral facts can be explained in non-moral terms.
Michael says that AmadeusD's claim is fatally flawed because moral facts cannot be explained in non-moral terms. — Michael

Ahh, Ok I think I see where we're crossing wires. That's not at all how the rebuttal actual is. See below:

Michael claims (fictionally) that the claim 'one ought not kick puppies for fun' is true, and brute (i.e admits of no deeper facts to whcih it can be reduced)

Amadeus says (in contracted form) That's wrong - here are the deeper facts on which your claim rests (add in suffering, arbitrariness or whatever).

Michael says No. "

But those deeper facts remain in existence, and do, in fact, support the claim.

This is quite different from your version of the hypothetical exchange. In yours, I offer no explanation of my claim. In my version, I offer a precise and specifically relevant rebuttal to the claim that there are no deeper facts.

So yeah, it's a rebuttal. I guess you could say the rebuttal is "there are always deeper facts" Which is not my opinion, but something i claim to actually be the case. That's a rebuttal, whether its strong or not.

That's fine, but it doesn't constitute a rebuttal of their position. — Michael

Sorry, I don't understand how pointing out a fatal flaw in a claim isn't a rebuttal? Deny facts that exist is surely a fatal flaw in a position?

Like, i could certainly wrong but if what i've said is the case, then **discreet** (edited in)ethical naturalist claims fail at the first hurdle.

And as I said, that's ethical naturalism. Those kinds of explanations are impossible for ethical non-naturalism. — Michael

I understand. I'm not quite sure where we're getting wires crossed.

I'm aware that is the naturalist position - but my position is that: that is factually wrong. There are further explanations available and to just ignore them doesn't constitute it being impossible. Unsure if i can clarify that further.

What "deep facts"? — Michael

I've given you an example, which you've quoted. To be noted, though, is that this concept can apply to any claim.

Do you recall the below?

"One ought not kick puppies for fun"

Why?

"Because it hurts the puppy"

And then there's a further conversation.

The bold and underlined, and italicised is a deeper fact about why kicking puppies for fun is wrong. The moral realists I've encountered (particularly here) don't seem to think either that A. those facts exists; or B. are relevant to supporting the statement itself.

I think both are mistaken. Therefore, my position is that the moral realist has work to do. They may not believe those explanations are required, but they are available - and so their position can be reduced to deeper facts. Why aren't they engaging them? This is my issue.