Is it to replenish the water supply? Is he exercising? Is it to mix the poison so as to kill the town's population? Or is he just amusing the kids by making funny shadows on the wall behind him? — Banno

All serving the self. I can't see where not.

Practical tool, yes. Means to learn about reality? No. Not the TRUE reality.

Like I said, I'm a theoretical person with little concern for practicality.

You captured it yourself. My view towards selfishness. Hence I said bravo.

a father that sacrifices because he wants the best for his children — Mijin

Serving his desire and agency to protect his children.

Outside of threads like this — Mijin

Yes. My point was that words can have dumb meaning.

therefore all actions are selfish. — Banno

Yes.

Yes.

And I believe you grasped what I meant here.

That’s just evidence of AI learning on it’s own. — Punshhh

If that learning on its own goes beyond calculated prediction.

Are you sure about that, it’s not a given? — Punshhh

Yes, that's debatable.

Meanwhile back in the real world — Mijin

...people call mass "weight".

How do you understand the distinction between distance and spacing of objects if not the different areas they appear relative to each other in your conscious visual experience? — Harry Hindu

Goodness... Do you even understand what a metaphor is? This is hopeless at this point.

The very feelings you speak of IS your consciousness — Harry Hindu

Yes, thematic. I don't say this 5 cm area of my consciousness is 31 degrees Celsius hot, so to speak. That's what I said. You can't dissect it like you would your wrist nerves.

seems like you completely missed my point.

Aquinas would say that principles are not like commands shouted by a superior - they are expressions of reason itself. — Colo Millz

I see principles as constitutional amendments.

The job of philosophy is to codify morals (doctrinate) with propositional arguments and then come to a conclusion (finalized principle).

The job of the state is to put that into the constitution.

Justice should be governed by principles, not populism or logic (empirical or personal).

Perhaps I follow a particular sub-branch of the ideology, like anarchism within libertarianism.

Since Aquinas.

Summa Theologiae I–II, q.18, a.4.

Morality depends on what the will chooses as an end. — Colo Millz

Whatever that may be, it's not categorical morality (adherence to rigid principles).

If the soldiers don't intend to follow orders there's not much point being in the army. — Colo Millz

Tell that to your fellow militants. I'm a colonel and you're a sergeant and I shout "attention", you must comply. Same with principles and actions.

intention matters — Mww

Not in categorical morality, sorry.

You seem to be saying that indirect access is what provides truth where direct access does not, which is counter-intuitive. — Harry Hindu

What I said was that we can't mentally feel and touch our consciousness to dissect it for understanding. Only a thematic comprehension.

partially — Mijin

sure — Copernicus

what you described is situational (contextual) morality, which leaves room for due diligence, conscience, and judgement call.

Categorical morality is textual. Whatever is doctrinized must be followed. Much like the chain of command in the military.

Deontological moral doctrine, which can be considered synonymous with categorical morality — Mww

...follows principles (accepted doctrines) and principles only. Intent, approval don't matter.

A categorical moralist is a robotic person who's programmed to execute principled actions only and forfeits any free will that may sabotage the execution.

Fair enough. — Ludwig V

Yes.

such as?

persons mind — Outlander

Mind isn't the whole of the person. Body can't be sidelined. Agency requires both (not necessarily in synergy; can be done independently).

Anxiety or nervousness that makes one stand out and otherwise miss out of social opportunities doesn't seem "for [one's] own good." — Outlander

It is. It reduces the stress and helps you relax.

stuttering — Outlander

Your bodily functions (whatever causes stutter) execute full agency (even if against your mind, i.e., your willingness to talk smoothly).

selfishness requires intent — Outlander

Why? Intent is mental. Function is physical. Both constitute the self.

OP about how fire is bad if touched by most organisms? — Outlander

That's a fact supported by everyone, unlike my OP, which is still being debated.

is conscious and not just a mimic — Punshhh

If it shows signs of cognitive behaviour beyond its programmed capacity.

consciousness is emergent in colonies of cells and not, itself present in individual cells. — Punshhh

Of course not. Bacteria lacks consciousness.

But how can that be agency, if unconscious or otherwise a non-consciously formed arrangement the human mind forms automatically with no say or input from the "self" or conscious mind? — Outlander

You are pressing the switch in your sound, awaken mind.

Is that not an example of a truly "intent-less" act? Like nail-biting or some other nervous habit? Sure, you can realize "whoa, wait a minute I'm biting my nails" and stop at your leisure, but it was still initiated without a conscious agent behind it. — Outlander

Reflexive actions are done biologically for your own good. They're self-serving.

Agency requires awareness and intent, whereas the prevailing understanding of the human mind is that the unconscious can never be made conscious. So riddle me that. — Outlander

Your entirety is your self. Whether mind (agency) or body (reaction).

That still doesn't comport or explain an intrinsic, large part of your theory, which seems to suggest every other person's brain on Earth who lives, ever lived, or ever will live, somehow must respond and behave the exact way yours does. — Outlander

Natural law, not personal experience.

usefulness — Mijin

Usefulness is practicality.

If you're satisfied with practical benefits then sure. I'm not. I'm a theoretical person. To me, the truth is more important than functionality.

intention — Colo Millz

Since when did categorical morality depend on intentions?

It could just be an unconscious habit at this point, not unlike putting the toilet seat down after use or putting the cap back on a bottle after a sip. — Outlander

Your brain adapting to a pattern for your future convenience — self-interest.

What defies explanation is how you assume every person on Earth both alive and who ever did live once, and who ever will live just automatically has to have a mind that works the way yours does, exactly as it does. This is just not realistic, at all. — Outlander

Just like I don't measure everything in the universe but know that (a+b)²=a²+2ab+b².

I think the moment you "learn" art is the moment it loses meaning.

Philosophy, like any art, is about expression. Any intake is unnecessary. Just take it out and give it to the world.

I think this is the single best reason why I love philosophy over science.

without a way to make distinctions — Paine

Perhaps because there's in none.

Jack turned on the light to see what was going on - done for himself. — Banno

Self-interest.

Jack turned on the light so that Jill could see what was going on - done for Jill.. — Banno

Intent to assist others — agency — serving his own will and limbs to turn on the switch. He did it to both save himself from subconsciously feeling bad for not assisting, and serve himself his agency to act.

the definition is purely wrong, then, and those neologists need to be hanged.

Can you give reasons why infrared couldn't be measured in 1000 BC, or 1,000,000 BC? — ucarr

We didn't have the technology. And no matter how many more billions of years you spend next, there will be things beyond your technical capabilities, and give you a false image of the universe. Our technologies would have to invent technologies to make themselves see things like we see through our invented technology. And this chain goes on.

Does the question of the loss of info due to black hole evaporation raise a question about the complete accessibility of info, or does it raise a question about the completeness of existence, a larger set containing info? — ucarr

It implies that you've only discovered black holes and that particular paradox. There could be zillions of issues that are both forever beyond our reach and forever lost (affecting the state of the currently available entities). All of your constants and equations will always be based on a false reality.

perhaps we should focus on the info suggested by the paradox as a revelation of the incompleteness of existence, and thus a gain of info about what cannot be known existentially. — ucarr

You should focus on the unreliability of physics and live your life with an skeptical worldview towards everything. That leaves you with two choices: give up everything and live like a Taoist because there's no point (nothing is truly knowable), or keep seeking the truth out of humanity's greatest gift that we call curiosity and never rest.

Social contract forces cooperation (and morality) without prior consent upon birth.

Rather we want to know, relatively, who is problematically violent and who is problematically selfish with regard to whatever the mutual goal is. — Nils Loc

Sounds more like statecraft than philosophy to me.

what's your view on the social contract?

rhetorical.

What makes you trust science? You say observations (testing, diagnosing, matching). Why trust observations?


(P.S. don't forget to ping me)

testing — Mijin

Absolute certainty of infallibility?

cultural moralities — Mark S

I think the very word "morality" is a term with a collectivist (cultural or not) origin. Ethics, values, laws, and norms are all communitarian inventions. To even mention them or define them is an act of tyranny.

The individual lives within his own consciousness.
His perception, will, and moral sense are confined to his mind.
If liberty means self-determination, then it should begin and end within the self — not in the social contract that others draft on his behalf.

But when the state dictates what one can do, it transforms autonomy into permission. The “Bill of Rights” then is not the liberation of man but the institutionalization of his boundaries.

Alam, T. B. (2025). The Illusion of Liberty: When Individual Rights Become Communitarian Grants [Zenodo]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17351527