Phenomena as “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition” went on to become determined.
— Mww

Could you explain some more what you mean here? — Janus

You said philosophy gives clarity rather than knowledge, phenomenology is a philosophy, so gives clarity to phenomena. Kantian phenomena are stated but unclear, re: undetermined objects of empirical intuition. Post-Kantians wishing to clarify the conception of phenomena tried to make them something knowable, hence reifying them as phenomena proper. The Kantian system leaves phenomena as object of intuition knowable, not as phenomena, but as cognitions, by synthesizing them with conceptions. In Kant, phenomena are representations in the unconscious part of the system, while conceptions, hence the cognitions arising from the synthesis, are members of the conscious part.

Dunno so much about the “sin of naive realism”, but I’d certainly go with the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. And I guess I can see why folks would want to examine phenomena a little more closely than Kant, who devoted a grand total of about two sentences....out of 800 pages....to what they are.

Disclaimer: I am not familiar with the particulars on phenomenology, merely the general idea, so if I got it wrong, don’t be too hard on me. But I have trouble with......

Or if we count metaphysics as a disciple which consists in something more than phenomenology (as, for example, Heidegger and Merleau Ponty do not) ... — Janus

....which says the same thing as “Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty do not count metaphysics as anything more than phenomenology”, where metaphysics is the ground of philosophy in general, of which phenomenology is only a part.

All of which reflects back to my “metaphysics of the human conditions” with respect to morality = regulation/amoral = disorder, to which was substituted a discipline insufficient for the purpose, re: phenomenology, for metaphysics.
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If they are said to be "undetermined objects of empirical intuition" would this not be to say that they are "things in themselves", since it would only be what we might think of as their "absolute nature" which remains indeterminable? — Janus

No to “thing-in-themselves”, which are real physical objects in the world. Phenomena, on the other hand, are representations of sensations, sometimes interpreted as appearances, the matter of which is given to us by perception, but the arrangement of the matter, the form the representation will eventually assume and be presented to understanding, is the function of intuition. All of which is not in our conscious presence; we have no realization of the synthesis of intuition and conception, and, it happens all the time, with each and every perception. The form of the phenomena is given in intuition if the perceived object has been cognized before, in which case, understanding merely validates the arrangement, rather than creating it when the perceived object has yet to be cognized.
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It seems contradictory to say both that conscious entities arose and that their non-existence is impossible, unless perhaps you are invoking some spiritual process — Janus

Oh HELL no....homie don’t do no spirit stuff. I meant only that conscious entities do exist, otherwise there is no explanation for ourselves, therefore conscious entities cannot not exist.
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I'm not seeing what you are driving at here? — Janus

Just agreeing with your position that philosophy doesn't give knowledge, only clarity. Knowledge is obtained by other means.

the danger will always be, as Kant indicated, unwarranted reification if we allow ourselves pretensions to knowledge. — Janus

That’s a pretty fair elucidation of why I never got into phenomenology, in that post-Kantians developed a novel thesis around the notion of phenomena different from a critical reason point of view. In other words, in some sense, phenomena became reified because they were given more importance and broader scope than originally thought. Phenomena as “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition” went on to become determined. But, that’s progress.....or something.
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if we count metaphysics as a disciple (...) then we might speculate about how we come to be conscious entities in a physical world. — Janus

Why wouldn’t natural evolution be sufficient explanation for becoming conscious entities? Metaphysics would be better served, I think, reconciling the existence of conscious entities, which are given because their non-existence is logically impossible, with what it is that facilitates being one.
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I do think of philosophy as being a matter of achieving clarity, rather than knowledge. — Janus

True enough. Experience gives a posteriori knowledge, pure thought gives a priori knowledge. The metaphysics of epistemological philosophy merely facilitates understanding the ways and means of the difference.

Still....metaphysics of the normative human condition on the one hand, psychology of the deranged human condition on the other. Not sure how much they should overlap.
— Mww

It doesn't seem to me to be a matter of metaphysics, but of phenomenology. — Janus

Do you treat phenomenology as a philosophy? If so, you don’t hold with the notion that metaphysics is the ground of all philosophies?

I suppose I can live with that. If morality stands as personality regulation, in which I do care about others, so then would amoral stand as a personality disorder, much as does psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, and the like, in which I do not.

Still....metaphysics of the normative human condition on the one hand, psychology of the deranged human condition on the other. Not sure how much they should overlap.

Yo’ Eddie....help a brother out, wodja?

“....Alone, listless
Breakfast table in an otherwise empty room
Young girl, violence
Center of her own attention...”

Thanks, man.

Oh. Great show at the Gorge by the way. I got so wast......never mind. (Nudgenudgewinkwink)

Peace.

the only truly selfless act (one that it is impossible to personally gain from) is sacrifice of ones life in order to protect another. — Benj96

Just like practically everything else....there may be two sides to this coin.

Given that a man’s primary, unalterable and final consideration is preservation of his life, perhaps for no other reason than life is absolutely not something one can inhabit more than one of, wouldn’t it be rather more selfish of him to disregard the best interests of such preservation?

Life....not living a life, but life itself....is conditioned only by its negation, insofar as there is life, or there isn’t. No such thing as a partial life, or a life of different forms at different times, with respect to mankind as a specific entity. While preserving another’s life may indeed be selfless in the immediate sense, sacrificing that which is a sole representation of one single, fundamental, altogether entire existence, would appear to be catastrophically selfish.

Still, people do self-sacrifice, which reduces to intentionality, which in turn reduces to some personal attribute: honor, respect, obligation, love.....something. Between the selfishness of self-preservation, in juxtaposition to the selflessness of self-sacrifice, the reality of a moral condition is humans, is given with apodeictic certainty. And whether or not one is “nice”, derives exactly from extensions of such condition.

Interesting topic, either way.

There are no certain rules which cover all cases — Janus

Granting that there are no rules covering the cases themselves, which implies an inductive approach, there can still be rules from a deductive approach, covering the determination of acts in general, no matter the case to which particular acts apply. Deontological and virtue-based normative theories are predicated on rules, or indeed, law itself, however not covering the vast plurality of cases themselves, but covering moral actor himself, in his responses to cases. The focus then becomes not the act, which is always contingent on circumstance, but the ground for the determination of the act, which, if considered to be moral, can never be merely contingent.
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The basic thing is that you have to care.....(...).....the point is merely that morality involves caring about how my actions affect others. — Janus

This almost looks like two different kinds of caring. I grant “the basic thing is you have to care”, which is reducible to a moral feeling seemingly inherent in autonomous willful agency. Not subscribed to so wholeheartedly, is the kind of caring concerning my actions with respect to their affect on others, for the impact on others may well conflict with the impact on myself. And if I am to remain moral in its truest sense, inward feelings must take precedence over outward, otherwise I become susceptible to conflicting with myself, which is the same as conflicting with my own moral constitution, which in turn relieves me of being a true autonomous agent moral, which in its turn, contradicts the predicates of Nature herself, for having evolved me into thinking myself as being one in the first place.

Still.....you know.....awful lot of unsubstantiated assumptions involved in moral philosophy. Nature of the apparently rational, thus ultimately subjective, human beast, I guess.

One can often right a wrong. — Olivier5

Oh. Hmmmmm....so it is possible to un-ring the bell. Yeahhhh-no, it isn’t. Sorry.

Wait. That was probably tediously analytic, wasn’t it.

Never mind, then.

I don’t find banality; your position seems rather commonplace. In the Good Old Days, such would be called “vulgar understanding”. Plain to see why we don’t call it that anymore.

Nahhhh.....banal it isn’t; incomplete and partially wrong, it is. Incomplete insofar as a grand metaphysical system of some kind is required for moral discourse, and wrong insofar as ambiguity is not everywhere, re: mathematics, logical and general physical law, and, moral choices are always irreversible.....
(It is never not good to make my sick mom her breakfast should she desire, given no known injurious conditions)
.....while reversible choices are those without moral predication.
(Sorry mom, we’re out of eggs so I made you oatmeal)

Anyway.....carry on.

As I see it morality is concerned with how we ought to behave in relation to the impact we think our behavior will have on others. — Janus

So I should act according to what won’t piss you off (or will please you), rather than doing what I think best? What about the fact I may not know what angers/pleases you, in which case.....I shouldn’t act at all? But then, maybe not acting at all pisses you off. Or, if not you, the guy next to you.

Normative ethical behavior instructs me to stay on my side of the road, step aside for the guy with his arms full, keeping my mouth shut when others are speaking. Morality instructs me to accept a payment plan when selling my car to a desperate young mother as well as some mouthy, punk-ass dude.

Ethics: wherein the judgement of the quality of one’s extant conduct, what he has done, is other than his own because of what it is;
Morality: wherein the judgement of the quality of one’s possible conduct, what he is going to do, is his alone regardless of what it is.
No act can be judged by others before it has occurred, which means no act can be judged by others before it is judged by the actor himself. And any act can be judged as proper or improper by any number of other people, according to each of their respective moral standards, but any act of a single moral agent judged by himself, will always be proper only, for otherwise he is immoral, or, which is the same thing, he is untrue to himself.

This seems like a meaningless formulation to me. — Janus

As you are entitled.

So, what....being true to one’s self is meaningless, or, being true to one’s self is a valid concept but just needs a different name?

If morality is intrinsically concerned with others, what is the intrinsic concern of ethics?

Ambiguity is the stuff of philosophy and singularly ethics..... — Olivier5

Ok. Thanks.

These two points are enough to show that an exhaustive and objective analysis of all the implications of our actions is not something upon which we can based our decisions. — Olivier5

Absolutely. So what does knowing what we can’t do, tell us about what we can?

Ahhh....so it is a school.

Wonder what the attendance is.....

The human condition is about making choices -- including choices about what is relevant to consider in a given context, and what is irrelevant.

These choices are always made with insufficient information, e.g. no one knows how things are really going to pan out if one does A rather than B. — Olivier5

Which reduces without contradiction, to.....the human condition is about making choices, the consequences of which are unknown. Humans do choose, and if knowledge of the consequences are unknown, then perhaps it isn’t from insufficient information with respect to consequences that grounds such choice, but rather, from exactly the information at hand. Which tends to make the right/wrong dichotomy regarding choices, an improper perspective.

——————

So not only are the future outcomes of our choices unpredictable.....

The future is inaccessible to knowledge in any domain, so has no business being a legislative consideration for what effectively is a vast array of personal choice possibilities.

......even our motives (our "appetites") are not totally transparent to ourselves.....

If not totally, it must be the case they are transparent, that is, present to our attention, enough to know what they are, such that there is some ground for whatever choices we do end up making. Otherwise, it becomes possible to never make a motive-based choice at all.

.......Hence the need to get counsel from others, and for some rule-based ethics. — Olivier5

So where is the line drawn, such that we don’t need outside counsel? Otherwise it would seem to be the case we need outside counsel for every single choice ever even possible to make. Doesn’t our own experience sometimes serve as counsel? To say counsel is itself an experience, it is nonetheless of second-hand quality, seemingly insufficient for choices where personal integrity is a necessary requisite. What of immediacy, insofar as a determinant choice is possibly under time-constraint? Make an appointment? Call your best friend? The exception cannot disseminate the norm, but must always be derived from it.

And if we adhere to a rule-based ethics, why wouldn’t the rule eliminate the need for any counsel whatsoever, other than one’s own, such that his choices follow the rule?

There’s no doubt we sometimes.....often.....rationalize conditions to suit our own best interests, so perhaps that is a better example of what the human condition is about, rather than the choices which follow.

But I appreciate your sentiment. The human species seems to have fallen into at least partial disgrace, and we may have even evolved ourselves right out of the capacity to rectify it. The ingredients are still within us, nonetheless, if for no other reason than we are still human, with all its fundamental entailment included.

What do I want to see happen?", and then to work toward that goal.
— Avery

Which seems to put it squarely as a form of egotism. — Pfhorrest

Agreed, at least for this part. “What I want to see happen” translates easily to “that for which I am sufficient causality”. Sometimes better known as The God Complex, or, severe egotism, in as much as thinking a perfection of any kind, and attaining to it, are mutually exclusive.

Not sure egotism is an actual school of philosophy though.

Why ought you do anything? — Bert Newton

Wrong question. Should be....to what ought my actions, comply?
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All oughts can be reduced to the belief they will lead to wellbeing. — Bert Newton

Not in this neck of the woods. That to which the acts given from my moral disposition belong, are known to me, but there is no promise they lead to wellbeing, even if they are indisputably morally good in themselves. To be moral is to be true to one’s self, the effects be what they may.

I suppose, though, there is a sense of wellbeing for the agency that adheres to his moral disposition even at the expense of another’s. Still, such adherence is a form of knowledge given from pure practical reason and the principles in support of it, without any reduction to mere belief.
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We ought to find the best ways to be. This means checking our beliefs. — Bert Newton

This presupposes both that there is a best way, and that it can be found, which implies both always seeking after it, and at the same time, never finding it, which in turn implies disregard for innate personal identity. No need for any of that, nor any need for beliefs, when one already knows what kind of person he is. And if he knows that, he consequently knows his moral inclinations, that is, what his response will be to any given moral dilemma.
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There is only one ought: you ought to do what gives you and others the most wellbeing. — Bert Newton

Which makes explicit no possible moral action is determinable, if the wellbeing of the acting agent and wellbeing of those being acted upon, are not congruent. On the other hand, to give the “most wellbeing” is an altogether contingent criteria, requiring arbitrary compromise, which is anathema to morality itself. One cannot will according to mere desire, especially desires for which he is not responsible, but must remain a willful moral agent within the bounds of his own personal identity. Hence, the legislative authority of the categorical imperative in conjunction with respect for the principles of law.

You’re talking about not much more than just being nice, so sure....one ought to be nice, which reduces to mere etiquette. Or perhaps plain ol’ manners. My friends may very well say, awwww...how nice of you, when they hear I took the time to help the proverbial lil’ ol’ lady cross the street, but I dare say not a one of my friends will repeat the missive, upon hearing I intentionally put my arm between a child and a rabid dog’s teeth.

I think you’ve got a fairly decent preliminary examination of general human conduct, but I also think some ground for a strictly moral conduct, is missing. Maybe you hadn’t intended a true moral examination to begin with, in which case your “only one ought” may well hold. But for me, general conduct is governed by judicial code, in which the “only one ought” is simply ought to obey the law, whereas in moral conduct, there are no oughts at all. There is only and ever.....will this according to that obligation......oughts derived therefrom being irrelevant.

we can get an ought from your belief about what is. — Bert Newton

An ought is possible from an is, yes, but not by means of beliefs. But if you wish to see it that way, have fun with it.

I think he’s equating deontological ethics with individual rights, and equating utilitarianism with the greatest good. — Pfhorrest

Hmmm.....I sure hope not. I’m ok with utilitarianism equating to the greatest good, but I reject Kantian deontology, which is technically a metaphysical misnomer anyway, equating to individual rights or utilitarianism/greatest good.

Something else must be in the offing, in order for all those to fit together, seems like. Depends on what “it” is, and the conflict with the c.i.

An ought can be gotten from an is. — Bert Newton

In principle, but not without support. Hume said so himself:

“...For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it....”
(THU 3.1.1, 1739)
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It draws on the conflict of Kant’s categorical imperative, the rights of the individual, and utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number. — Bert Newton

What is “it”, and how do rights, utilitarianism and greatest good relate to the Kantian C.I.?

“mind” being a concept of explanatory convenience
— Mww
Yes. "Mind" is a term of convenience to label the non-physical Function of the Brain. — Gnomon

To label a non-physical function of the brain presupposes there is one. Might be more accurate to say mind is a term of convenience to label a yet unknown physical function of the brain. Or, better yet, in order not to be trapped by objectivist physical determinism on the one hand, and subjectivist point-of-use abstractions on the other, just leave it at convenience. If nothing else, it certainly is exactly that, even if convenient easily translates to uninformative.

I think of function as an empirical condition....it is the function of this to do that, a necessary product of cause and effect. I’m not sure I’d think of consciousness as a function. What does consciousness actually effect, and how can anything be said about its effects, when its cause is itself unknown. And labeling neural nets as source doesn’t necessarily implicate neural nets as either cause or effect. Then of course, we’ve got mind as consciousness as emergent function of brain, which seems altogether overly-complicated, for it appears to make mind practically synonymous with consciousness.

Anyway, interesting topic, so......thanks for that.

If we look in an entirely external realm to social contexts for a validation procedure for our moral conduct, we're no longer attending to the nature of moral conduct. — fdrake

If I’d seen that first..........(sigh)

The agreement isn't about her mind or my mind, it concerns how I treat her. — fdrake

“...The vice** entirely escapes you as long as you consider the object. You never can find it till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation which arises in you towards this action. It lies in yourself, not the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious**, you mean nothing but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it....”
(THN, 3.1.1., 1739)
** or, its complement, virtue, implied.

“....Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should wish to derive it from examples. For every example of it that is set before me must be first itself tested by principles of morality, whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, i.e., as a pattern; but by no means can it authoritatively furnish the conception of morality....”
(F.P.M.M., 1785)

“...Do. Or do not. There is no try...”
(Yoda, 1980)

The object of the ought to try, is the trying; the proper object of the ought to agree, is the agreeing.

Trying does not necessarily include a volition of will, but only suggests trial and error in the thinking of it, which is hardly the means to a determination in which mutually congruent self-interest as ends, is given, for it necessarily excludes the best interests of the subject to whom the ought ultimately relates. Unless the trying succeeds at first instance, which equates to already knowing, which isn’t trying at all.

The proper object of the agreeing, the agreement, is a set of mutually congruent willful volitions, in the form of judgements, but as yet, still does not suffice as evidentiary reconciliation of mutually exclusive self-interests, insofar as the agreement remains to become conscious acts.

The agreement does concern “how I treat her”, iff the volition from which the ought to agree arises, translates to its corresponding act, but is nevertheless strictly given from the practical reason of both subjects, which implies “is not about about her mind or my mind” contradicts the reality of its establishment.

All of which raises the question........why does there need to be an agreement? That an agreement is necessary to satisfy particular ends says nothing about how the disparity in ends came about in the first place. Which is why examples serve no purpose in moral discourse, other than to illuminate moral effects (1785), but without any examination of moral causality (1739).

So either the example never was a moral dilemma, which seems odd because it has as its bottom the question of worthiness of personal happiness (I do this because I’m the warrant for her unhappiness”), intimating a permanent solution, or, hypotheticals are themselves sufficient for pragmatic reconciliations, which is itself odd because these reduce to nothing but the pathetic contingency of sheer inclination out of desire (if I do this I get the bitch off my back”), intimating nothing whatsoever about what happens tomorrow.

Editorializing.......for what it’s worth.

Mind is an emergent holistic property of Brain, not a sub-system of the neural net. — Gnomon

Not sure how holistic and emergent can coexist simultaneously, and not sure how either is possible for humans if not for neural physics.

I think I’ll remain satisfied with “mind” being a concept of explanatory convenience, the purpose being to serve as the unconditioned from which logically consistent metaphysical cognitive theories arises. Hardly sufficient for the hard scientist, I know, but I’m not one, so I can get away with it. Something as ubiquitous and seemingly authoritative as human thought doesn’t profit enough by knowing its source over merely granting its efficacious reality.

That helps me to clarify the old Brain/Mind conundrum. — Gnomon

Understood. But really...I’m not sure there should even be one.

Do you think “the mind is what the brain does” to be just a somewhat lame effort to eliminate epiphenomenalism? Or does the proposition, in effect, justify epiphenomenalism? What about the possibility that the immeasurable complexity of the human brain is sufficient in itself, to permit the reality of some lawfully transcendent functionality? If that is the case, then reason and feelings are reducible to mind mechanisms, whereas, if this is not the case, reason and feelings, along with everything else, are reducible only to brain mechanisms.

Never was a fan of chicken/egg dichotomies, myself. But it seems we get ourselves into ‘em almost as a matter of course regardless. Probably because reasonable answers are needed even when facts are missing. Follow the bouncing ball........

How is that possible? — RogueAI

Ok, how about we say mental states are conditioned by brain states. That way, we can talk all day about the one, without having to know anything at all about the other.

There is a definite scientific vocabulary when it comes to brains — RogueAI

Of course. But I said we don’t think in brain state terms. When I tell you all about what I had for supper, not once do I need to mention how many neurotransmitters I used. Test equipment may tell you, but if I come to your house with one attached to my head, I doubt you’ll care much about what I wanted to tell you anyway.

My argument doesn't work against dualists. — RogueAI

Cool. If mental states merely represent brains states, it isn’t contradictory for mental states to have a logic vocabulary while still allowing brain states their scientific vocabulary. Besides, nobody, not even scientists, think in brain state vocabulary terms, so either what we consider thinking isn’t real, or another vocabulary is justified because it is.

”moral universalism”, which is just the claim that, for any particular event, in its full context, there is some moral evaluation of that event in that context that it is correct for everyone to make, i.e. that the correct moral evaluation doesn't change depending on who is making it. — Pfhorrest

Universally correct, better read as “consistent”, for me to make, as a autonomous moral agent, because of my particular moral evaluation, does not, in itself, grant the same license to everyone. In this sense, my moral universalism in strict accordance to my moral law, is not the universal moralism implicit in the characterization given. Precedent abounds for correct moral evaluations which are not necessarily universally correct amongst moral agents in general.

Still.....the last thing I need to know, in the event of necessary moral determination, is to which -ism I belong, or to what kind of -ist I subscribe. Just because I personally favor the transcendental deontologist doctrine doesn’t mean I’m locked irrevocably into being one, even though I actually do think any moral decision I ever make will absolutely and inescapably be a product of pure practical reason.

Information perceived is not the same as knowledge obtained; the former only makes the latter possible. Recognition of someone’s knowledge represented by one’s perception of information put forth by him, only says that he knows something, but does not relate what he knows. One must still go through his own internal process to obtain congruent knowledge, all else being given.

Besides.....it is entirely possible for me to perceive unfamiliar information not forwarded by anyone, hence unrecognizable as already learned by anybody else, and certainly not by me. The most I can say under such condition, it is possible that information may have been already learned and I just haven’t had the occassion to recognize it as such.

Methinks ‘tis a slight case of “misplaced concreteness”, I do.

I am genuinely interested in what you mean by "false practice". — Luke

Like that guy on the news the other day, knowingly posing as famous people, saying send me money, I’ll send you back double. The hypocrisy is not the robbery, it’s the contrivance of posing. The guy may actually think robbery is fair play....share the wealth kinda thing. But he cannot think himself really to be one of those famous people.
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if I were able to forgive myself for an act of killing someone, then I think I would have little trouble being able to forgive myself for an act of hypocrisy. — Luke

Forgiving yourself for hypocrisy would be like forgiving yourself for murder. Intention being the salient point.

You’re not being dismissive, but you’re missing my point. But that’s fine; it may not align with the general thesis anyway.

Hey...just thinking out loud here. Give it fair hearing, make of it what you will.

why is being a hypocrite such a terrible thing? — Luke

If hypocrisy reduces to the intentional construction of false practices, and if human moral agency absolutely prohibits such intentions, otherwise the conception of morality itself becomes meaningless, then one can do nothing more to further falsify himself, or, which is the same thing, to be any more immoral. Killing, on the other hand, is not necessarily immoral, which makes explicit that killing, although most often at least distasteful, very far from always a self-falsification.

Another way to look at it, is the reality of possible exoneration from a killing, as opposed to the reality of impossible exoneration for the negation of self-respect.
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We, as a social group, don't agree - or, at least, we aren't acculturated to accept/believe - that psychopathic serial killers should be allowed their own individual moral frame of reference. — Luke

This is the separation of cultural anthropology from moral philosophy, the former says it is true we are not acculturated from a social perspective, from which arises the empirical domain of certain judicial consequences, the latter says it is true each individual agency is its own reference frame, from which arise the rational domain of relative moral consequences.
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From the sense of human morality, bottom-up implies internal legislation, top-down implies external legislation. The former given from apodeictic personal virtue, the latter from mere contingent instruction. From which follows, no one knows a criminal until he acts criminally, but a person knows his immorality before he acts immorally.

As always.....for what it’s worth.

I want to begin by establishing "gut thinking" is not my idea.

Noun. gut feeling (plural gut feelings) idiomatic wiktionary — Athena

Notice the difference?

I don’t reject gut feelings in their relation to thinking. I reject gut thinking in its relation to anything.

As for the rest...informative and interesting opinions, so thanks for that.

I do not believe, as Mww does, that my ancestors had to bother reasoning whether escaping a sabre-tooth tiger was efficacious or how to do so — Kenosha Kid

I don’t want to be on record as claiming that. Biology may take care of escaping, you know, ....run like hell....but that’s not the same as understanding how not be in a position to have to escape.

Ten days ago, so...bygones.

It's not tangential, it's fundamental to the arguments about moral realism. — Isaac

The tangential is the foolish devolution into silly language games. I mean......any fool can intentionally put words together in a proposition that reduces it to sheer absurdity. All that’s accomplished is showing how ridiculous it is possible to be.

“.....I can think what I please, provided only I do not contradict myself.....”

I don’t care about real human groups. No matter the group, is fundamentally nothing more than the composite of its individuals. It only stands to reason, that to understand the group, something about the individual must first be given. And even if the group admits to different characteristics than its individuals, they are nevertheless the causality for that difference.

Wanna know about a molecule? Figure out its elements.
——————

Morality, as a single measurable property of behaviours/characteristics is a fabrication of philosophy — Isaac

Morality the concept, is a fabrication of philosophy, yes. And.......what about it?

Hmmmm.....come to think of it, what would be a reasonable, logical single unit of measurement for behavior, anyway? Surely not a mere fabrication of philosophy.

Have it your way. I’m not interested in tangential nit-picking.

Similar objects of the same kind are just examples of the thing in question.
— Mww

What I'm asking is what your justification is for saying this. Taking Wittgenstein's 'game' example, there is no 'thing in question' with regards to the word 'game' we apply it according to some rules, but the rules do not together represent 'game' because they do not all need to be applied at any one time. — Isaac

Thing in question is just the subject of discourse. There is a subject of discourse referred to by the word “game”, something like.....that formal activity in which a relative competition arbitrates a standing goal, and consequently having for its objects the conditions consistent with the particular rendition of the concept the word represents, and all according to rules. The objects of baseball are different than the objects of pinochle, even if they are both subsumed under the subject represented....referred to.....by the word “game”, and the rules administering the objects of each are correspondingly different.

When the subject of discourse is something like “good”, none of that can apply, because all those are contingent on the peculiarity of the subject, whereas the subject “good”, being merely a possible human condition, or a possible integral part of human nature, can have no contingency whatsoever because it has no peculiarity. It either is the ground of that which would logically follow from it, or it isn’t, in which case, it is irrelevant.
——————-

What I'm saying is that words do jobs, they don't always refer to some 'thing' even if they appear to. — Isaac

I would agree with the first, with the amendment that words always refer to some thing because that is the only job they have. There is no reason to even invent words, without presupposing that to which they refer. Hence.... words being nothing more than the schema of conceptions. Don’t forget....we think up words; they are not given to us in the same manner as are phenomena.

The same word might do a different job in different contexts. — Isaac

Of course: a foot is at the bottom end of your leg, or it is an assemblage of quantitative units. The word is still only doing one job in each case, that being relating a conception to its representation, context just informing what the conception is.

So with a word which appears to refer to some thing, we might be looking for one thing, several things or no things at all. — Isaac

Appears to refer to some thing still presupposes the possibility of the thing. With the parameters already set for the thing, we require it to be one thing. Anything more than that defeats its necessity.
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I think a moral realist would have to be someone who thinks that moral 'goodness' and 'badness' are universals. — Isaac

Ok, thanks. I don’t have an opinion, myself. So.....just wondering.

Back to our bodies and thinking- how do you feel about what I said? — Athena

I don’t have any feelings about it; my feelings weren’t affected. My thinking was affected, and from that, I can say I agree with a lot of what you say, disagree with some.

Agree:
.....Enlightenment is no longer predominant; our education is bad; stress how to think not what to think; sense of right or wrong is visceral...

Disagree:
Sense of true or false is visceral; (formal) education develops us as capable moral creatures; we normally vote from feelings.
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Does your gut tell you this is ridiculous or maybe something that should concern us? — Athena

Only this.....

While the brain plays a part in our thinking, it does not play the most important part. Our bodies play the most important part. — Athena

....which I fail to understand at all. I suppose you mean our gut is part of our body, which I reject as it relates to thinking. From here, if it were true, it would follow that feeling controls thinking, which in turn permits thinking to be rash, irresponsible and dangerous, exactly as much as it permits thinking to be beneficial. But the former is the exception to the rule, the latter being the rule.

Anyway, I have the utmost respect for educators, especially these days, when kids are generally just punk-ass renditions of their parents. And THAT....is what my emotional intelligence looks like.

What about several different objects? Like several quite different things are 'games' but my teacup here definitely isn't one of them. — Isaac

Similar objects of the same kind are just examples of the thing in question. And several dissimilar objects are examples of different questions. What we’re looking for, is that which is that thing because it couldn’t be anything else. As such, it is necessarily irreducible.

So several examples may tend to justify the validity of the thing, but don’t say what the thing itself represents. A fundamental human-specific condition, in order to be sufficient to ground that which follows from it, cannot be reducible to the very examples for which it is meant to be the ground. This is why we may be looking for something not a conception at all, because we can only understand conceptions by means of their examples, their instantiation by means of things that represent them. Or, to be exact, their schema. “It is good to do this”, “this” being a yet-unspecified schema of that which is to be done.
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There is not some reified concept 'the good' which we then go about finding out which thing belong in — Isaac

Agreed. What we’re looking for cannot be a reification of anything. All we’re attempting, is to justify its possibility, and if that is accomplished, determining what may or may not logically follow from it.

The human animal is imbued with several things common to all its members (....) Some varying collection of these things are referred to by the term 'moral good' at different times, in different conversations, to different effects. — Isaac

Agreed, but here, all that’s been done is posit examples of good. Moral good is just another representation, as is skill or wisdom. Why one is skilled or how he became wise is a hellava lot easier to characterize, then why is he moral. Perhaps the reason for that relative ease, is the former is grounded in experience, the latter in intelligence, both of which are contingently sufficient to represent his moral inclination, but lack the necessity to represent his moral constitution.
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What is a moral realist? Or, what would you say a moral realist is? How would I know one as such?

The idea that our word 'good' picks out exactly one unified and inviolable concept identical in every mind which conceives it seems ludicrous. — Isaac

Then perhaps it isn’t a word or a concept with which we should be concerned. Any possibility implies either an object that accords with it, or not. If an object, then what the possibility entails because of it, and if not, the possibility is abandoned as unintelligible.

The question reduces to whether or not the human animal is imbued with something common to all its members. Only if there is such a thing, is it then reasonable to suppose there are differences in its manifestation.

The usual understanding, the historical precedent, begins with the objects, which are always seemingly different, and that difference prevents the investigation into the source of those objects, insofar as a great enough plurality seems sufficient to negate a non-empirical connecting commonality, re: Hume, Bradley, Hobbes. If one begins from the notion of a common source as given, however, in the form of a natural human-specific fundamental condition, the difference in objects follows naturally from it, even if by different means, re: Kant, Leibniz, Schopenhauer.

Still, rejecting the possibility of a fundamental human condition is very far from proving there isn’t one. It then becomes nothing but a matter of the stronger propositional argument.