• The Moral Emotions: Can we overcome anger and blame?
    If someone treads on my hand accidentally, while trying to help me, the pain may be no less acute than if he treads on it in contemptuous disregard of my existence or with a malevolent wish to injure me. But I shall generally feel in the second case a kind and degree of resentment that I shall not feel in the first. — Strawson, Freedom and Resentment
    https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwstrawson1.htm

    I suggest that it is possible to think beyond anger and blame entirely, but we can only do this by getting past the idea that human motives are fundamentally arbitrary and capricious, and subject to conditioning and shaping by irrational social and bodily sources. — Joshs

    For Strawson, the recognition of freedom is the cause and basis of resentment (roughly blame in the sense of the OP). For Joshs the recognition of freedom is the basis of 'thinking beyond' blame. Same observation - opposite conclusions. Something interesting going on here.
  • The problem of dirty hands
    What's confusing to me is the stark line Walzer draws between regular citizens and leaders (leadership has been on my mind lately.) — frank

    Indeed. If we understand 'leadership' to mean a position of power then most of us hold power to some degree, for example as a parent. Should we be prepared to do wrong for (what we consider) a greater good? It's a wider and more pervasive problem than statecraft.
  • Political Polarization
    There was some polarization in the 1960s. Vietnam was the principle locus. — Bitter Crank

    Watts 1965, Detroit 1966, M L King 1968..... I think the polarisation of the past can look less serious just because it is in the past.
  • Political Polarization
    Because one literally has to live in fantasy land and ignore the entirity of human history to believe this. — StreetlightX

    I do believe that shaming and hounding are favoured strategies of fascism (examples - passim). I do believe that using these strategies can degrade a person and make them indistinguishable from their opponents (more examples - you can think of them). I think there are examples of non-violent resistance that have been at least partially successful and equally successful as the violent kinds (some examples you can supply). But I do agree with your implication that passivity, civility and non-resistance can seem to be and may sometimes actually be naive. So it's not ignoring all human history. It's drawing attention to some of it. These are the modest fruits of debate.

    Milean dialogue — StreetlightX

    Melian? Sure, the stronger prevail (examples - passim). Whether might is right is another question.
  • Political Polarization
    Civil discourse has no value in and of itself. You don't "civil discourse" your way out of fascism. There is a time and place for incivility, and it should be used when necessary. There are people who deserve to be shamed, hounded, and made permanently miserable by all, as a matter of civil good — StreetlightX

    I can't help noticing that leaving people 'shamed, hounded and made permanently miserable' is also a favoured strategy of fascism. Perhaps civil discourse does have value in itself. Its value is to restrain us from joining in the shaming, the hounding and the leaving permanently miserable.
  • Cancel Culture doesn't exist
    Rowling .... replied to a comment asking if the [death] threat related to her previous comments about single-sex bathrooms, saying: "Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I’ve realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever." — yahoo news

    So much for the persuasiveness of violence. And so wittily put.
  • Cancel Culture doesn't exist
    Sometimes talking things over is just over. — Benkei

    But how much better than the alternative.

    Slavery was abolished thanks to violence. — Benkei

    Very true. There was no other way. But we are not slaves and not being treated as slaves. So we don't need to use violence. The time for talking is here.

    I get scared when I see someone pick up a sword. But when they are convinced it's the sword of rigtheousness I am bloody terrified. Then nothing will stop them.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    As befits a perfect being, God prohibits some actions precisely because they are evil. — spirit-salamander

    OK, but doesn't that run up against Moore's objection? If God prohibits actions because they are evil then we can work out we ought not to do those things regardless of any supposed divine prohibition. We can only presume an action is a prohibited by God by referring to its being evil. If we can make that reference successfully, then God (or any other supposed issuer of commands) drops out of the equation of moral reasoning.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    He constantly ruthlessly insults (almost?) everyone he talks to. — ZzzoneiroCosm

    I have been left alone. So far. I am reminded of a wrestler belittling his opponents and announcing victory before, during and after the fight, regardless of what happens in the ring. I'm only sticking around to show that I'm not scared and add some Hume and Moore to the mix. Although, truth to say, I am a bit scared.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    With the new research, theorists have begun to question whether moral emotions might hold a larger role in determining morality, one that might even surpass that of moral reasoning — ZzzoneiroCosm

    And not only new research:

    All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action, or quality of the mind, pleases us after a certain manner, we say it is virtuous; and when the neglect, or non-performance of it, displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it. A change of the obligation supposes a change of the sentiment; and a creation of a new obligation supposes some new sentiment to arise. — Hume, T 3.2.5.4, SBN 517

    I don't wholly agree with that quote but sentiment (emotion) certainly has some part to play. It's not all about commands. And the part that is about commands is problematic as per the OP, also the idea that you can ask about any command "Why is it right - or is it right at all - to do what I've just been told?", meaning (if it is right) then it would be so regardless of being commanded or not.

    .
    And Kant also commits the fallacy of supposing that This ought to be means This is commanded. He conceives the Moral Law to be an Imperative. And this is a very common mistake. This ought to be, it is assumed, must mean This is commanded; nothing, therefore, would be good unless it were commanded; and since commands in this world are liable to be erroneous, what ought to be in its ultimate sense means what is commanded by some real supersensible authority. With regard to this authority it is, then, no longer possible to ask Is it righteous? Its commands cannot fail to be right, because to be right means to be what it commands. Here, therefore, law, in the moral sense, is supposed to be analogous to law, in the legal sense, rather than, as in the last instance, to law in the natural sense. It is supposed that moral obligation is analogous to legal obligation, with this difference only that whereas the source of legal obligation is earthly, that of moral obligation is heavenly. Yet it is obvious that if by a source of obligation is meant only a power which binds you or compels you to do a thing, it is not because it does do this that you ought to obey it. It is only if it be itself so good, that it commands and enforces only what is good, that it can be a source of moral obligation. And in that case what it commands and enforces would be good, whether commanded and enforced or not. Just that which makes an obligation legal, namely the fact that it is commanded by a certain kind of authority, is entirely irrelevant to moral obligation. However an authority be defined, its commands will be morally binding only if they are—morally binding; only if they tell us what ought to be or what is a means to that which ought to be.     — G E Moore, Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics.§ 76
  • Two questions that help us distinguish between mere rhetorical facades and real thoughts
    And he will become irritated when he hears others merely parroting scientific formulas. — spirit-salamander quoting Bieri

    All good. I share the irritation. In addition, I think there are two traps. The first is to assume that those who reach contradictory conclusions have not also applied the same rigour and the same skeptical distance. They may have done and we might be wrong or we might both be partly right. The second is to assume that those who have clearly not applied this rigour are, for that reason alone, mistaken. They may or may not be. I am talking about the need for epistemic modesty and dialectical charity.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    I did wonder why omniscience and some other omni's and also God appeared in your conclusion, @Bartricks . I looked for them and Him in the premisses without success. I also wondered whether all moral imperatives come from reason and whether sentiment might also play a role. Now I wonder whether I can wonder these things publicly without being outed as a genocidal maniac or an utter fool. I shall try my luck anyway and jump off the merry-go-round if it gets too scary.
  • Xinxue
    To see a World in a Grain of Sand
    And a Heaven in a Wild Flower     — Blake
  • Experience Machine
    Pleasure is an achievement, a form of learning and discovery. — Joshs

    I agree. We need reality and activity in order to experience many kinds of pleasure. Virtual reality and passive experience cannot be enough.
  • Xinxue
    Doesn't it amount to saying that our knowledge develops but (some of) the stuff we know about does not change? So knowledge changes, whereas (some) facts do not change. Once we know everything then there will be nothing left to find out.

    It's 3 and 4 that bother me.

    3. Objective physics does not exist exactly as it is studied by science.
    4. the existence of something that does not exist objectively depends on the human’s mind     — Howard

    For something objective not to exist as studied by science is different from something's not existing objectively. The Sun exists objectively. The Sun, which exists objectively, does not exist exactly as it is studied by science. There is no contradiction in that.
  • Experience Machine
    I am often pleasantly hungry and pleasantly sleepy. One of my greatest pleasures is to be pleasantly thirsty from hard work and then enjoy a beer. So I guess the experience machine can continue to offer me these experiences. It will not offer me toothache, boredom or exhaustion. I don't think there is a conceptual problem with it. The big problem is that my beer will not be a beer and my hard work will be only a simulation. But then I will not be worried about that. Worry will not be an experience the machine is programmed to offer me.

    As for truth, if the machine offers me all truth, then I will know amongst other unpleasant things that my life is merely a simulation and that would not be a pleasure. It would hit a contradiction.
  • Two questions that help us distinguish between mere rhetorical facades and real thoughts
    These are the questions that in the end make us an authentically educated person:
    "What exactly does it mean?" (What does that mean more precisely?)
    and
    "How do we know that it is so?" (How do you know that?)
    These questions must become our second nature, and we must ask them constantly, tirelessly and fearlessly     — spirit-salamander

    True enough, but education isn't everything. "I love you." "What exactly do you mean by 'love'? And how do you know when you love someone?" So, perhaps not to be asked 'constantly'. But I'm splitting hairs, it's a good idea.

    And so on and so forth. — spirit-salamander

    The one who thinks they can see through it all and go to the heart of the matter with intelligent analysis. That's one I have to be particularly aware of and I see him in the mirror too often......
  • An objection to the Teleological Argument: Other forms of life
    It seems that while fine-tuning could occur under theism, we have no reason to believe it is likely. — lish

    I think there is some difficulty with the idea of 'probability' and 'likelihood' in the opening post. In what sense is it not likely that "fine-tuning would occur under theism"? There is a sense of 'likely' in which it was not likely that I would meet my next door neighbour on a holiday overseas. I had no reason to believe I would run into him. But it happened. It could be that sense. It wasn't likely that God would create a fine-tuned universe. But He decided to do it anyway.

    1. The fine-tuning data are not improbable under Theism.
    2. The fine-tuning data are very improbable under atheism.     — lish

    We cannot, for example, consider all the possible outcomes - fine-tuned vs not fine-tuned in God vs no-God universes - and then calculate a proportion. We only have one universe and no comparison. Some other notion of probability is being used. Does it mean, e.g., 'plausibility'? "I can't believe a fine-tuned universe would just happen by itself without a god to plan it that way." Ok, maybe that is hard to believe - for some people - very easy to believe, for other people - but we can't conclude much from what people find hard or easy to believe.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    ,to be clear, ......Hitler...... — Bartricks

    Please, goodness, not him again.

    I think @spirit-salamander 's idea is that there are lots of minds, some of which (at least) are capable of using the faculty of reason. So reason's being a single source of some thing does not entail that a single mind is the source of that thing.

    Lots of minds. One faculty of reason. Each mind uses the faculty of reason when and only when it is being reasonable.

    Nothing that @spirit-salamander wrote entails that every mind uses reason all the time. Some minds are crazy some or all the time.
  • Is Pi an exact number?
    A true circle, as defined, is an impossible object to create — Metaphysician Undercover

    The problem of the OP has turned out to be not specifically about pi. It is about the relationship between 'mathematical objects' and 'physical objects'. — Cuthbert

    Every mathematical object is an abstract concept and not a physical object. — TonesInDeepFreeze

    Agreement on this point seems to be breaking out! I would only add that a true half is equally impossible to create (physically) - or, if created, impossible to know that it has been created.
  • An Objection to Divine Command Theory
    All moral imperatives come from the single source of reason. Only a mind issues imperatives. But it does not follow that there is a single reasoning mind from which all moral imperatives come.

    Every chicken comes from a single egg. Only an egg can produce a chicken. But there is no single egg from which every chicken comes.
  • Is Pi an exact number?
    Pi however can't be fully known. It is limited by our means to measure a circle physically or within a computer? It must be more of a concept than a certain thing? — TiredThinker

    I would say we can know what pi is because we learn what it is - the ratio between circumference and diameter of a circle. That's all we need to know and so we fully know it.

    We can also express the number pi exactly: the Greek letter pi does just that.

    What we cannot do is to measure pi exactly in the same way that we can count exactly. You can pick up exactly three apples and put back exactly two of them, leaving you with exactly one. But you can't measure out exactly pi kilos of sugar. If you happen to be holding exactly pi kilos of sugar then you can never know that is what you are holding.

    That observation is not unique to pi or to irrational numbers. We cannot measure exactly half a kilo of sugar or, if we do, we cannot check or know that is what we have done. Our measurement might be correct to a million decimal places and incorrect at the million and first place.

    At least with 1/3 you poses all the information even if you can't write 3s forever. Or if you have a number system based on 6 instead of 10 it wouldn't need to go forever. — TiredThinker

    Yes, that's right. And just as we have base 6 as a good alternative for expressing thirds, so we have a notation for pi that similarly does not require infinite expansion. It's the Greek letter pi and it can used in normal arithmetic to refer exactly to pi.

    Every mathematical object is an abstract concept and not a physical object. — TonesInDeepFreeze

    The problem of the OP has turned out to be not specifically about pi. It is about the relationship between 'mathematical objects' and 'physical objects'.
  • Very hard logic puzzle
    Perhaps the puzzle was a psychology experiment given to unsuspecting students in 1956 to determine whether they were undercover communists. I can think of no other solution.
  • Very hard logic puzzle
    Even the right answers are wrong for no reason and for all I know the wrong answers are right. This puzzle is too much like real life.
  • Is Pi an exact number?
    It is only exact in an ideal sense. — emancipate

    I explained one unideal sense, which is 'having one and no more than one value.' Pi is an exact number in that sense. What is the ideal sense that you have in mind?

    There is a consistent value for pi. When a class does a geometry problem they don't all get different answers depending on how they drew their circles. If the question is 'What's the area of a quarter circle?' then they will all end up with pi-r^2 / 4. Either that, or they've made a mistake. No inconsistency.

    I am not sure whether there is concrete value for pi. Perhaps you mean, for example, that you can count out exactly three apples but you can't measure out exactly pi kilograms of sugar. That's true.
  • True Opposites??
    Looking for opposites in the real world will be difficult. — ssu

    I think we do it easily a lot of the time. Did I feel nervous about the exam? Quite the opposite. I was very confident and not nervous at all It is a usefully vague term. Nervousness is not obviously and everywhere the opposite of confidence. But in this real world case it works well. It does the job it is supposed to do.

    I think problems arise when we take an easy case and then try to apply it universally. There may be no universality. There may be just lots of fairly easy cases related closely or loosely.
  • Is Pi an exact number?
    Are any numbers exact? What is meant by 'exact'? — emancipate

    "Having one value and no more than one value"

    So the number "gazillions" is not exact: there are gazillions of people in America and gazillions of people in China but there is not the same number of people in America as in China. "Integer less than five and greater than two" is not exact because it could be three or four.

    Pi is an exact number because it has one value: it is the length of a circle's circumference divided by its diamter. Pi does not have more that one value. Any shape whose circumference and diameter are not related by pi is not a circle.

    An exact perfect circle can't be represented by an incomplete value of Pi? — TiredThinker

    The value of pi is exact, as above. The expression of the number pi cannot be made exact using finite decimal expansion. However, decimal expansion is not the only way we have of expressing numbers. An exact expression of the number pi is the Greek letter pi.

    There is nothing special about pi in this. We cannot express the number "one third" exactly by finite decimal expansion. But we can express it exactly using the fraction 1 / 3 or by using notation in decimal that means '...and so on for ever.'

    There is not even anything special about numbers. We can refer to PF members exactly at a given moment in time as "the latest person to post", "the second last person to post", "the third..." etc., but the reference will apply to several different people over the course of a day. If we want an exact expression to refer successfully and uniquely over time then we are better off using names, "Cuthbert" etc. The fact that we cannot refer to Cuthbert reliably as "the n-th person to post" does not imply that Cuthbert has a vague or inexact identity. It merely shows that we are using the wrong tool in the box to try to make a successful, unique and exact reference. It's the same with pi.
  • Is this a valid argument?
    Is this a duplicate discussion?

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12398/what-do-we-call-a-premise-which-omits-certain-information
  • Jesus Freaks
    Use all of the will power you have to call upon/pray for/invoke these forces now, to manifest the powers at their command and destroy me before 8 am tomorrow morning. If I post a message tomorrow then this does provide some evidence of that such forces do not exist — universeness

    I wish you a long, happy and healthy life. If you end up having one I don't imagine it will be to do directly with my wishing you it. But every little helps.
  • Against Benatar's axiological asymmetry
    If you put quote marks around something you're saying it is a quote — Bartricks

    Sorry - the quote marks meant it was a summary of the point I was addressing. The lack of your name afterwards meant that they were not your words. If it was an innacurate summary, then I must try harder.

    Irrelevant. That's not a criticism of the asymmetry. — Bartricks

    In my defence, it's a reductio. If the asymmetry entails antinatalism and antinatalism entails nihilism, and not-nihilism, then not-asymmetry. The 'nihilism' I mean is the view that the world would be a better place if the human race did not exist. The 'soundess' I referred to is the argument that the asymmetry entails antinatalism.

    ...we can explain the asymmetry by appeal to self-evident truths of reason about desert.. The explanation of why we have no positive obligation to create the happy life is that the happiness in question is non-deserved and thus we have no positive reason to perform an action that generates it. By contrast, we have positive obligation not to create the miserable life because the misery is undeserved and we have positive reason not to perform acts that create undeserved harm. — Bartricks

    That is interesting particularly because Benatar makes the same (I think) point:

    “While we have a duty to avoid bringing into existence people who would lead miserable lives, we have no duty to bring into existence those who would lead happy lives” — Benatar

    He makes the point to support his view and justify the asymmetry that underpins it. You make the point to attack the asymmetry. It seems to be quite tricky.
  • Against Benatar's axiological asymmetry
    Why? Do my criticisms of it fail - in what way? — Bartricks

    I think the asymmetry is this:

    Scenario A. Person exists: Presence of benefit = good, Presence of harm = bad
    Scenario B. Person does not exist: Absence of harm = good. Absence of benefit = not bad

    By not procreating we can prevent suffering without depriving anyone of good. So there is net benefit.

    "The asymmetry cannot be properly explained and it is a special case of a more general asymmetry." Yes, quite possibly. But if he can establish that the asymmetry also exists in the special case then that is enough for the argument to work. The asymmetry does not depend upon an assumption of whether a child will have an over-all happy or miserable life. Any suffering at all - and there will be some - and the asymmetry holds so far.

    "Absence of harm is good but it is always good for someone, in the same way as benefit." I think your second problem hits hardest. Benatar would have to show that we have a duty to prevent harm and no duty to promote good.
    “While we have a duty to avoid bringing into existence people who would lead miserable lives, we have no duty to bring into existence those who would lead happy lives” — Benatar
    He might have this wrong but I'd be prepared to grant it for the sake of argument.

    "We might pre-exist and suffer harm from not being brought into existence." True, we might, but it's a big assumption and we have no way of telling whether it's true or false or how happy or unhappy pre-existent persons may be. So it should not figure in our calculus of happiness.

    you're not focussing on what this thread is about - which is the credibility of the asymmetry, not the credibility of antinatalism — Bartricks

    I gave a reason why the asymmetry, despite being valid in consideration of people as consumers of pain and pleasure, fails when we add their role as producers. The pain of a childless couple can be mitigated in one way only.

    My second argument was attacking the asymmetry indirectly. If asymmetry is sound, then nihilism follows. We already reject nihilism. So we can reject the asymmetry without even knowing in detail what might be wrong with it.

    You can accuse me of lots of things but being off topic?? Ooh, that hurts.... :broken:
  • Against Benatar's axiological asymmetry
    And yeah, people who exist can certainly be a source of value for others, but it would still be preferable to avoid lives that are bound to be mostly negative — DA671

    Benatar's argument is subtle and doesn't depend on the idea that life may be generally crap. Even if a life is 99.9% full of joy there will be some suffering. And by not having children we can avoid creating any suffering at all for them. They will not be 'missing out' on any pleasure because they will never exist. His argument works regardless of the balance of pain and pleasure for the child.
  • Against Benatar's axiological asymmetry
    ......the biggest argument for that is life itself — DA671

    The strongest argument against antinatalism is the declaration "Darling, I'm pregnant."
  • Against Benatar's axiological asymmetry
    I think Benatar's asymmetry holds water (roughly as @Agent Smith summarised). But it is an incomplete calculation of cost and benefit. It ignores or discounts the child-to-be as a potential producer of unique kinds of benefit and mitigator of specific pain for others who do currently exist. I am thinking of the joy of parents and the pain of the childless who wish for children. Perhaps there is injustice in bringing into the world, for one's own benefit, a child who otherwise would not exist to experience suffering and who will not lose anything by not coming into existence. But if the calculus is one purely of suffering and pleasure then the role of child as a producer, nor merely an experiencer, of such should be included.

    Another problem is a ramification of the argument. If it's sound and it applies to Benatar then it applies to me and to everyone. So to maximise benefit and minimise suffering we shouldn't breed. So the race will die out gradually as we age and die. There will be zero suffering. Nobody will be losing because nobody will exist who can lose. The result is nihilism. A stronger conclusion than the one intended, but I don't see how we can avoid it, having accepted Benatar's conclusion.
  • Jesus Freaks
    ↪Bitter Crank
    You beat me to it.
  • An Objection to the Teleological Argument
    If A is more wonderful than B and A was not designed and A created B, then it is not improbable that B was not designed. — SwampMan

    I am more wonderful than this post. I was not designed*. I created this post.

    OK, all conditions met, all set. Here's the conclusion:

    It is not improbable that this post was not designed.

    Ok, it's not the greatest post in the world. I am sure there are better posts But to imply that it's a haphazard phenomenon seems a little unkind.

    * I was begotten - if we want to stick with the 'this is an argument for theists' idea.
  • Jesus Freaks
    Nobody seems to care about them... — Olivier5

    There used to be a fashion for denying that Shakespeare existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question

    BUT you had to include a statue of the emperor and accept him as overlord — universeness

    Rather careless of them not to have included that in their cult. They could have saved a lot of bother with just one verse, e.g. "And the heavens were riven with angels singing: 'Don't forget to celebrate the Emperor's birthday and refer to him as 'Divine'. A little statue on the mantlepiece would be appreciated as well. Jus' sayin'."
  • Jesus Freaks
    The Christian cult is just their most successful one. — universeness

    I think I see the argument. They got people to join their cult for the sport of persecuting them for being in it. Three hundred years later they made it official. Funny lot, those ancient Romans.
  • Jesus Freaks
    This is obviously Roman propaganda! — universeness

    I bet the Romans kicked themselves when people started believing it and refused to recognise the divinity of the Emperor. "Guys, guys, we made the whole thing up... really, we did... "
  • Should hinge propositions be taken as given/factual for a language game to make sense ?
    This axis is not fixed in the sense that anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.

    Eppur si muove. So the debate continues.
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