Re "rigid designation," the whole idea of that isn't really worth bothering with in my opinion. — Terrapin Station

That’s fine. I think it worth bearing in mind, nevertheless, that any discipline predicated on non-contradiction demands something like it.

That which is moral is always a rational determination, so “one should not kill” is just one more in an constant barrage of them.
— Mww

Fine, but not only a rational determination, the subjective feeling that some law exists (I wouldn't put it that way myself, but I'm trying to use your terminology), must come first, and it is this which makes morality relative. — Isaac

Interesting. How would you put it, and how does it make morality relative?

let's say that Joe has a love of a particular part of the Amazon — Terrapin Station

I see what you mean, wherein the realms of anthropology and morality tend to overlap, something like Janus’ civil intentionality. Virtue ethics. That’s ok, it’s a viable consideration. My objection stems explicitly from the distinction I hold between morality the “rigid designator” and anthropology the subjective interaction.

Basic functional society is enough and that requires that we get the social environment right, not moralise. It's like trying to talk a cog into playing the right role in a machine rather than just putting it in the right place for it to do so. — Isaac

True enough. Rather Utopian, though, isn’t it? Idealistic? You’re asking for something history has never given, except in small pockets the rest of humanity failed to value properly. If all we have is social environment and moralizing about social environment, and social environment hasn’t sufficed to render moralizing of no import........why not moralize? Even if dialectic on how to improve social environment so it becomes right, what is that besides moralizing? If it isn’t moralizing, then we’re open to arguing such things as economy, boundaries, relative judicial systems, etc., in order to arrive at social environment right-ness. And all those have at their base, morality.

Is this what you were referring me to?

Let's say hypothetically that the whole world is sat round a table deciding what 'The Law' should be........
(Herein is the groundwork for universality, re: the whole world, implying each and every moral agent)
.......and I propose "No one can murder me, but I can murder whomever I choose". You might say then that is not a very rational suggestion because if everyone adopted it my first desire.....
(It is not a desire, it is to be a law. If adopted, there is no possible desire to do anything but what the law demands)
..... (to not be murdered) would be logically frustrated by my second (that I may murder whomever I choose).

OK. The irrationality lies in the inherent contradiction. If the law became universal, was adopted as spoken by the whole world, the second part of the law is moot, because every single member adopts that no one can murder me. Therefore, you could never murder anybody.

I suppose the notion of universality incorporated in the maxim is in itself not irrational, but it is so improbable in its adoption that rather than irrational, it is the more rationally negligible.

Yes? No? — Isaac

If the candidate had but one teacher or set of teachers all of whom held the same sort of unshakable certainty, and whose belief system actually glorified and looked fondly upon continuing to hold that belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary...
In these cases it ain't so easy to change one's mind. — creativesoul

If that is true, then it follows necessarily that lacking any evidence whatsoever, what was not so easy becomes impossible.

I am using the term "morality" as a rigid designator....

What counts as "moral" behaviour follows from one's notion of morality.....

It always refers to codes of acceptable/unacceptable behavior....

Is morality the sort of thing that can exist in it's entirety prior to language acquisition? If we follow current convention, it cannot, unless the written rules for acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour are not existentially dependent upon common language. They are by definition existentially dependent upon common language use. So, according to current convention. No. Morality cannot exist in it's entirety prior to common language. That would fail to draw the distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. It would relegate all moral thought/belief as metacognitive in it's nature. But it's not. All deliberate oppositional change in one's original adopted morality is......

language is not required for thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. It is required for thought/belief about unacceptable thought, and/or belief.....

So here we must make some sort of decisions. Some may include.....
1. Deny....; 2. Deny...; 3. Admit.....; 4. Reject....
5. Come to the realization that the written rules of conduct consist entirely of and/or are otherwise underwritten by thought/belief statements.....

If all thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour counts as morality, then morality - in rudimentary form - is not existentially dependent upon common language.....

What is it (Kant’s a priori practical reason) doing here? — creativesoul

.......

Last things first. Kant is how all the above even happened. You couldn’t have thought any of that without the machinations in your head. The ideas are yours, the words are yours, the very thesis is yours, and very well may have nothing whatsoever to do with Kantian philosophy. The formulation from one to the other to the other are......ooooo yeah........necessarily a product of Kantian a priori practical reason. Can I get an a-MEN, BROTHER!!!!!

Sorry for butchering your well-written thesis, and hopefully I pulled the pertinent bullet points. I understand the keywords as morality as a rigid designator, morality in its ENTIRETY, and the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable. Morality isn’t about our agreements; it’s always about our disagreements.

This gives me the most trouble: Language is not required for thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behavior because behavior follows from one’s notion of morality, granted. However, to say language is required for thought/belief about unacceptable thought, and/or belief (without recourse to behavior), still leaves unexplained what that language would be. Could it be because one can witness behavior in another so needs no language to judge it, but if all there is, is thought/belief there is no behavior to witness, hence nothing to judge. If there’s nothing to judge, what use would language have? I’d have to talk to somebody about what he’s thinking, but without any reason to talk to him in the first place? The only conditions under which this would work is in a dialogue about possible behavior, about possible relative notions of a set of rules, about morality itself.

Anyway.....well done; it was fun. Hope I did you justice.

Kant actually accords greater moral merit to one who does something that they really don't want to do out of a sense of duty, than someone who does their duty because that is what they love to do. Although I must say that seems perverse to me. — Janus

It’s a never ending reduction, seems like, doesn’t it? One does his duty when he doesn’t really want to, which is much more morally meritorious because it’s more painful than pleasurable, out of respect for the law to which duty requires your adherence. Coincidentally enough, respect is what Kant uses to replace the prevalent atttitude of his day, feelings. We normal people don’t usually consider respect a feeling, so it fits well as a replacement for it. That he was Prussian certainly didn’t hurt.
—————

her life is more important because she is the queen' — Janus

I’ll go ahead and disagree with this. Her actions may be more important because she must do queenly things, but her life, irrespective of Her Highness, still occupies space and time, is created, suffers, and belongs to her alone, just like mine. Just as in your “On the other hand.....”
—————-

I think the idea of deliberately acting towards others and being responsible for those actions is where the intentional dimension comes into play. — Janus

You know.....nobody talks too much about the responsibility side, do they. I know I’m more into the causation rather than the correlation, but one does necessarily follow from the other, true enough.

What is opposed is the presentation of objectivism here which states that, for example, murder is objectively wrong for all people at all times, which it appeared at first you were supporting. — Isaac

I have no truck with moral objectivism; it’s actually an impossible view, simply because humans are fundamentally all the same, but our entire evolution has been predicated on territory and culture, rather than uniting as a species. Some here have, nevertheless, advanced propositions favoring the possibility of specific inclinations in which murder, slavery, racism and such, are very close to being abhorant to all humans, which I don’t have any problem with. But inclinations are very far from moral interests, and are provably absent any aspect of universality whatsoever. What I do support, is if all humans held the categorical imperative, act only in such a way that the ownership of life be never violated.

Hopefully you recognize that while a categorical imperative describes one agent, the universality of it only has any relevance as if the same categorical imperative operates in all minds. You could say it is the hope of absolutism, or objective universality, but no one ever expects it as a result. It’s just a high-falootin’ way of saying, if you want to be the best you can possibly be, this is how.
——————

What I'm saying here is that from my position people tend to justify, post hoc, that which they desire to do anyway. The complexity and flexibility of deontology in the regard you mention is exactly how this happens. I think it's a mistake to hide behind a woven rationalisation. — Isaac

Deontology allows for this, because of the fragility and inconsistency in human activities. The categorical imperative is one thing, very strict, the bottom line, that which is the end game. But end games don’t permit inconsistencies, so if categorical imperatives were all there was, morality would always be contradicting itself. Hypothetical imperatives, as those with “should” as the actuator, as opposed to “shall”, only pronounce those acts which permit acquiescence to desires, wants, that for which the ends are always something else. Yes, the flexibility of deontology grants this, but it is not thereby post hoc, nor a woven rationalization. It is just weak, permissive....like us.
—————

But there's nothing irrational about saying I don't want anyone to murder me, but I shall murder whomever I please. — Isaac

You know, just these words, even in context, can only be understood as the epitome of irrational. I’m going to leave it alone until it becomes clearer to me exactly what you mean. Somehow I don’t think you meant what the words say.

Yes. On here someplace was presented a scenario of a fully racist culture, with a single member’s instance of avowed non-racism, but without any visual experience of a non-racist conditions given in the scenario.

I agree with you that the instance of contrariness to a norm can only arise from some kind of doubt about that norm, which in turn can only arise from either experience, including language use, or feelings. I’m saying feelings are not sufficient for negating a norm, such that one is justified in claiming to be its opposite, even while feeling a dissatisfaction with it.

So morality is something more than sticking to a rule — Isaac

I see it that way, yes. Morality is a fundamental condition of being human. It’s not a thing; it’s the name given to one of the things that makes us human, separates us from any other biological agent.
———————-

......(or, as below) one determines what is a moral action by reference to its objective — Isaac

I see it as one determines what is a moral action by reference to its law. Here is is where relativism enters; a law is determined by the will so can be variable by the will determining what it is. One is free to choose that which defines him. It’s what makes all the same (we’re moral) but different (we’re free).
————————

what "one should not kill" could possibly mean in terms of rationally determining that which is moral. — Isaac

That which is moral is always a rational determination, so “one should not kill” is just one more in an constant barrage of them.
————————

how is the relative value of these two conflicting maxims judged? — Isaac

I can’t unpack what you’re calling these two conflicting maxims. “Thou shall not kill” is not a maxim, and being a command, doesn’t require any rationality in response to it anyway. Why would it, if under any possible circumstance, the agent holding with this command isn’t going to kill anything. Period.

The maxim is “the wanton violation of ownership of life is wrong”, and the relative value in that relates solely to the will that determines it, the will which could have just as permissibly determined some other maxim. Or, it’s relative value could be with respect to some other freely determinant will inhering in some other moral agency, which is free to determine a completely different maxim. Then I guess the relative value would manifest in whether or not the one guy gets along with himself, or whether those two agents get along with each other.

Bear in mind, this “wanton violation.....” is just an example of what a maxim might look like. It is the correct form, but the idea it presents could be anything.
———————-

tail wagging the dog. — Isaac

I don’t understand. The idiom means some small thing overriding some big thing. Cart before the horse, and the like. How does this relate to anything? Are you saying a guy who kills for fun, while not admitting any immorality whatsoever, does so because he’s thinking he’s merely doing what feels good and therefore can’t be held liable? Yeah, so? What else would you expect? If that’s what you mean, all you’re doing is superimposing your morality where it doesn't belong. You get to judge his actions using your morality as a baseline, so to you his actions are atrocious, but you don’t get to judge his moral agency because his agency is exactly the same as yours. Hence.....subjective relativism in its proper sense.
———————

Not to mention of course the fact that "no life has preference over another" remains just an opinion, unless you support it with rational argument, — Isaac

Yes, it is an opinion. Any maxim is a product of reason, given from one mind, and internally maintained, which is the very definition of opinion. That opinion may be grounded in experience, teachings, culture, whatever, but the formulation of it is entirely a subjective enterprise. Similarly, the support is a product of reason antecedent to the formulation; reason is the means, opinion is the ends. When the opinion is expressed as a hypothesis in a theory, or a tenet of a philosophy, the rational argument is already given in order for the hypothesis or tenet to even exist. Although, I suppose a guy could advance a theory by just saying “x....” without saying why, but that’s pretty crappy theorizing and he probably doesn’t care about the seriousness with which it is received. Nevertheless, I, as a moral agent, am only concerned with the “life” part, not the content of it. No LIFE has preference, but certainly some life contents....what one has done with his....have greater value than others. But we don’t judge morality on content of life, but rather on content of self.
———————-

universalisation, which is the very thing you're now saying doesn't apply to murder — Isaac

Again...I’m not understanding this. If universalization means the end result of a maxim, then if I held the maxim “wanton violation of ownership of life” I would be happy if every single moral agent ever acted as if that were indeed a universal law that the ownership of no life be ever wantonly violated. Or, in short....conventionally spoken.....don’t murder anybody.

if we have an understanding of what is involved in moral duty, that it is nonetheless the case that we still need the unadulterated intention to carry it out. — Janus

I think that because Kant stipulates that morality is a fundamental human condition, and such morality in human form at least, is claimed to be predicated on the principle of duty, intentionality is given automatically. I mean...we couldn’t be not moral, so not matter what we actually do with respect to it, we are going to do something. We intend to do something in conjunction with the being of moral agency. That is not to say that other theories in moral philosophy doesn't or shouldn’t attribute more value to intentionality, so you might be quite right in stating our need.

Intentionality maybe arises from the connection of an imperative with its result. I judge an imperative as an action with the intent that the end to which the imperative aims is actually attained. But I might have misjudged, in which case my intentionality, while still there, was not met.

I understand philosophy in general makes a big deal out of intentionality, but like the language thing, I don’t see much power in it.

If that is the case, then n as a prerequisite for m contradicts m being an effectively foundational stance. N can’t be both before and after m if m is the foundation.

I’d say being rational means no more than being non-contradictory. If so, n is rational in relation to m as long as n doesn’t contradict m. ‘Course, that doesn’t say squat about the rationality of m, but if it is a effectively foundational stance, it better not be self-contradictory.

Right? Maybe?

One ideology in conflict with another doesn’t negate the rationality of the given maxim. It may be irrational to even have a conflict, but that is not under consideration. One can hold the maxim “one should not kill”, and still go about his business as a soldier in the combat field with his morality intact.

“thou shall not kill”, an absolute declarative statement per the Ten Commandments, e.g., is irrational, because it is impossible in all cases to avoid it and simultaneously hold with a more valuable maxim “the wonton violation of ownership of life is wrong”. Wherein lies the distinction between the should not of killing and the shall not of murder, insofar as the former may be forgivable but the latter is may never.

Technically speaking, in deontological moral philosophy, “one should not kill” is not a maxim, it is a directive. The maxim proper would be, in the correct form of a subjective principle which prescribes a possible volition, “no life has preference over another”, and the hypothetical imperative standing for what the possible volition actually becomes, “ therefore one has no right to kill”. Because killing is not always avoidable, this hypothetical, while not tacit permission to kill, maintains an agent’s sense of personal moral worthiness if he should be put in a position where he must exercise his prerogatives.

Why do you think, from a purely rational perspective that the maxim "one should not kill another" is not rational? — Isaac

I doubt I ever presented my thought “one should not kill” is not rational. Don’t know why I would, especially when it seems perfectly rational to me.

See, that's far too entrenched in the mistake of a brilliant man. If he did not deliberately misrepresent his own thought/belief, then I would be quite confident in saying that he was a good man. With that in mind, good men make mistakes just like bad men. In Kant's case, his categories of thought cannot take the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief into consideration. — creativesoul

Yikes!! That’s a tough one, right there. Lemme see if I understand this the way you intended:
......too entrenched.....that’s me, in the writing of the scenario;
......if he did not deliberately, his own thought/belief, he was a good man.....he being the subject of the scenario, the guy In moral opposition to the norm....

Good men make mistakes just like bad men, sure, but there’s no sense of good/bad anywhere here. The scenario has to do with racist norm vs. non-racist exception to the norm. Adding in good/bad doesn’t address the origin of the moral divide. Is the good man and/or the bad man in the scenario, or is that a general provision for all scenarios? You say if he had not misrepresented his own thought/belief, he would be a good man, but where in the scenario was it ever presented that he was a bad man? If all he’s doing is morally opposing the extant racist norm of his society, why isn’t he automatically a good man? Not from your or my point of view because *WE* think racism ugly from a distance, but from *HIS* point of view, because he’s in the midst of it experientially?

I shall take your word that Kant’s categories of thought cannot take the actual distinction... into account. I’m sure such failure has something to do with all that said beforehand.
————————

1.)........Deliberate oppositional change to one's morality always happen through complex common language use.....

2.)........If the only way to question a certain kind of thinking is by virtue of using a specific well-defined set of linguistic terms in a conventionally accepted manner......

3.)........Questioning such an inculcated morality is existentially dependent upon thinking about one's own pre-existing thought/belief. All thought/belief about the rules of conduct requires first isolating the rules as a means for subsequent consideration......

4.).......Some moral thought/belief is not existentially dependent upon language. — creativesoul

1.) OK, granting that complex language use does not necessarily include actual speech.
2.) OK, but the problem remains, in the given scenario of a completely racially entrenched society, there shouldn’t be any set of linguistic terms contrary to the terms of the inculcation. Sorta like a minor Mary’s Room, insofar as all this guy has ever heard are racist terms and conditions, so supposing he will understand non-racist terms and conditions when there aren’t any.....well, how would that even happen?
3.) Absolutely. Herein lies the employment of a priori practical reason.
4.) Yes, agreed. Morality itself, or some ground for it, or the means for its possibility, reside in humans as a intrinsic condition. If not language, then what? Feeling or reason are the only choices.

Nice street fighting with you, mon amie. May the Gods of Proper Dialectic smile upon your countenance and bring you a vast array of Plato/Platypus jokes and Andy Warhol reprints.

No criticism here; I'm just curious. — Janus

LOL. Oh hell no, I don’t want to be famous. I use authority to make some points, but I grant that what I say of my own accord has no kind of authority. Opinion, no matter the pretty prose and precise grammar, is nonetheless mere opinion.

I mean it as sort of an anticipatory, “well who the hell are you? What makes you any better than me?” kinda thing.

Space and time?

Where do you see intention in Kantian moral philosophy? Or any brand, for that matter. I never gave it much thought, myself.

So you have the well-worn thought experiments like what if you were in Warsaw — Janus

Yeah, The Good Professor took some serious flak for his conditions for maxims on lying. There are several references for the topic, and in typical Kantian fashion, one doesn’t say exactly the same as any other. But in an essay to the Frenchman Benjamin Constant,** he was pretty adamant in defending the subjective principle of absolute truthfulness. He justified it by changing the doing of harm to the doing of wrong, and it is always a violation of duty to do wrong. One must bring plenty of his own salt in cases like this.

Still, mass casualty events in Kant’s time were natural. I’d have to think he’d have done a little different job on this lying thing, if he’d witnessed WW1 or the Holocaust.....Hiroshima.......or some such man’s inhumanity to man thing. We are much less susceptible to perfection than his philosophy suggests for us.
—————-

morality, if it is to have any communal significance, cannot but consist in acts. As principled intention it has significance for individuals to be sure; but where individuals do not transform intention into action I would say there can be no communal significance. — Janus

Absolutely. But it still raises the question as to whether one can still be a worthy moral agent if he is the only human around. He might be, but what would it matter sans community to be moral in. Nobody ever stipulated empty environment for a location of morality, over a communal social environment.
—————-

perhaps Kant would say that you are behaving morally. — Janus

Agreed.

**http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/KANTsupposedRightToLie.pdf

I’m aware, and I’ve already covered murder.

Call it whatever you like, directly or indirectly, but you can bet your ass Tim wasn’t talking about me when he said it. Nevertheless, I call it passing on an instruction. I’m not qualified to refute her, only to present him. Let the chips fall where they may.

Anything else?

Yeah, I could have, but I was more interested in what she said.

Kant's Categorical Imperetive (sic) “...is useless without stipulations as to what shall count as a relevant description of an action with a view to constructing a maxim about it.”. — Isaac

Anscombe MMP, 1958)

The categorical imperative is a misrepresentation. Anscombe actually said “...his rule on universalized maxims is useless without stipulations....”.

“....A maxim is the subjective principle of volition...”
(Kant FPMM, 1785)

"...Act always on such a maxim as thou canst at the same time will it to be a universal law"; this is the sole condition under which a will can never contradict itself; and such an imperative is categorical....”
(ibid)

It is clear the maxim, the subjective principle, being universalized is antecedent to an imperative behavior. It is the rule that’s claimed to be useless, and the categorical imperative is not a rule. It is a law. The difference is critical to deontological moral philosophy in general, and Kant’s mandate for pure practical reason, the concept of an autonomous, freely determinant will, in particular.

“....there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, (...) and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that is, must be followed, even in opposition to inclination. (...) the categorical imperative, is not limited by any condition, and as being absolutely, although practically, necessary, may be quite properly called a command....”
(ibid)

Hypothetical imperatives are rules, and if Anscombe’s thesis is to have power, she must only refer to these alone, in which case the they would be useless without a stipulation, which is not necessarily given:
“....When I conceive a hypothetical imperative, in general I do not know beforehand what it will contain until I am given the condition...”
(ibid)

The view to constructing a maxim, with respect to hypothetical imperatives, is nothing more than addressing whatever arbitrary want the description of the action provides. The view to constructing a maxim, with respect to a categorical imperative, involves a command of will, by which the description of the action must abide without exception.

Furthermore, there are as many hypothetical imperatives as there as circumstances that call for a moral determination and their respective maxims are just as many, as suits the mood of the will determining them. But there is one and only one categorical imperative, which demands the maxim one wills to become universal law, from which a certain act must follow necessarily by rule of law such that the act and the law do not contradict themselves, be chosen wisely. This proposition reduces to the proposition that the determinant will (the law) and the judgement of volition (the act) do not contradict themselves.

Is there remaining a question as to what form a relevant description of an action corresponding to a universalized maxim would have? While it is true Kant does not include a description per se, he makes it quite clear what the action is doesn’t matter. If one acts as if the maxim to which the imperative relates were a universal law, he is justified in calling himself morally worthy.

But, as I said before, I’ll never be famous, so....who cares.

Cool. Wasn’t aware of that. Thanks.

Wall of Sound.....as in Phil Specter? And his all-girl groups of the 60’s?

Question: we know that you think he did bad things. But did he do bad things? The question seems absurd, but it matters because it amounts to the question of what the ground of any standards will be. — tim wood

The question is not absurd *because* it removes the answer from psychology, which is the empirical doctrine of inclinations, and installs it into metaphysical doctrine of good. Does an action occur because it is good for something, in which case the means informs the good as a preferred end, or does an action occur because it is good in itself, in which case the means informs itself. Acting from preference is a means to an end which may be self-contradictory, hence immoral; acting from good in itself is a means entirely consistent with its ends and cannot be immoral.

The question may be asked, did he do bad things, but the question reduces to, did he think he did good things because he thought they were things good in itself to do? Such being the case, any semblance of preference immediately factors out of the moral equation, because if he acts from good in itself, he is acting on a subjective principle, the deviation from which is immoral for him.

Being not much more than merely kicking necessity can down the metaphysical road, and given the inherent imperfection of humans in general......there might not be a final answer to “is there a standard?”

I've no idea what purported sense of 'universal' is being put to use here? — creativesoul

Ironic, isn’t it, that conceptions or ideas or even mere notions, intended to be so all-inclusive the induction principle cannot falsify them, can only be derived from the reduction to a single instance?

Here, if I ever use the term “universal”, I mean it to stand for a circumstance that would be constant for a rational agent no matter where he is or the conditions under which he finds himself. Otherwise, I don’t think the term should be used at all.

You’re right, it’s not impossible, if something new is available.
— Mww

New thought/belief. — creativesoul

Yes, but there is still the question about a possible instantiation for it. If a society is of a certain moral persuasion, and a fully inculcated member is nonetheless subsequently in moral opposition to some part of it, the question is raised as to where the opposition came from. Without experience, without some external influence, he is subject to his own a priori practical reason as the source of his opposition. But where did reason get the idea the societal norm should be opposed in the first place? What enables a subject to declare that whatever some norm might be, he is opposed to it? If it be supposed the opposition arose from mere feeling, for lacking experience reduces the means to nothing else, then it becomes manifest that feelings have the power over reason, which is impossible because feelings have no object until reason cognizes one as belonging to it necessarily.

“This just doesn’t feel right” may be at the attention of conscious awareness of a subject as a relevant feeling, and it should be given he understands both the “this” and the “not right”, otherwise he would have no ground for the feeling to begin with, but that in itself does not enable its negation. The most he is rationally allowed to conclude, is whatever sustains racism, he opposes. Or, which is the same thing, whatever feelings the majority hold in the form of a social norm, he does not. But to declare from that alone that he is in fact a non-racist, without the experience with which to connect the declaration, and without the cognition of some object that belongs necessarily to the feeling he has but the other members do not, he is admitting to an irrational cognition.

In short, one merely saying he is non-racist with respect to an entire society of normalized racists, doesn’t make him so. He may think himself non-racist, but without the experience of being in the proximity of the conditions by which the racism is distinguished, he wouldn’t know whether he was or not.

I gotta say, being an unabashed transcendentalist, if ANYBODY had said he’d said anything about Kant in general and the CI in particular, I would have known about it. I would have researched the crap out of it just to see where it was right or wrong. Like you, I went back through the entire thread, and found not a gawddamn thing about anybody telling you anything about the CI, joke or otherwise.

So I’m with you, for whatever that’s worth. I wouldn’t have gone through the same trouble as you, just to find out the same thing and come to the same conclusion. There’s dishonesty in the building, dishonorable and disrespectful, herein never to be taken seriously.

OK, I guess. I’m not happy with tautological truths myself, but ehhhh.....I’ll never be famous.

Agreed on harmonious community, if one thinks of morality as an act, or a set of actions.

You’re right, it’s not impossible, if something new is available. But in the case at hand, there was posited a non-compliance, an offset of the norm, but with nothing new justifying it. I must say I had secret hopes as to why you conceded, but I’ll probably never know, other than, as you say.....not worth getting into.

Misguided. Care to elaborate?

Are you ok with it? Dissenting or affirming opinion?

Tim used “ownership of my life is absolute”, and I used that as a condition for the argument. So no, in this case the alluded truth was a reduction to a minimum particular, not an induction to maximum generality.

And I didn’t say, and I didn’t mean to imply, that truth can’t be relative, but only that the truth of murder being immoral can’t be relative, and then iff one accepts the conditions given in the syllogism.

Agreed, most folks do use truth to refer to objective facts in some manner. But moral philosophy doesn’t deal in a posteriori facts, but moreso a priori practical reason. Anthropology and empirical psychology may deal in objective moral facts, but, being a transcendental reductionist, I’m not impressed with them.

We’re even then. I wasn’t clear on why you brought up physical phenomena when what you were responding to was mental preference. So I just ran with it, trying to connect them somehow.

Of course. Anything can be found problematic if one tries hard enough. In any speculative philosophy with syllogistic arguments, the author can only advance valid conclusions, consistent with the premises the philosophy expounds.

It then becomes incumbent on the dialectical opponent to prove the premise false.....not problematic or merely inconclusive or irrelevant.....but false, in order to falsify the conclusion.

preference can imply a relativism whereas a truth can not.
— Mww

So it's not true that physical phenomena are reference-frame relative per the theory of relativity? — Terrapin Station

Correct. It is not true that physical phenomena are reference-frame relative. It’s an isotopic universe which means there is no preferred reference frame for the occurrence of phenomena. But I understand what you were driving at, so yes, per SR, the observations of phenomena show reference frame relativity.

Still, I think I will invoke the dreaded categorical error, insofar as my “preference can imply a relativism whereas a truth can not” predicated on logical thought, is very far removed from SR, predicated on metaphysical naturalism.

As an aside, metaethical moral relativism didn’t come into vogue until the early 20th century, about the same time as the paradigm shift in natural science. I wonder....did one chose “relativism” because the other chose “relativity”? Or the other way around?

About a third of the way down, pg 43.

Careful.

Doubting that requires being exposed to something different. — creativesoul

If this is indubitably the case, you’d have to either find or assume something different in order for the doubt necessary to counter the societal norm to manifest. You won’t be able to find it, because it wasn’t given, and if you assume it, you’re open to accusations of assuming the antecedent.

It should be the case that an offset for the norm is impossible, but you’ll never be granted a successful argument.

I would not put it quite like that. I would say..... — Janus

I’m ok with everything after the dot dot dot. Six of one, half dozen of the other?
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Neither, as truths, are merely matters of personal opinion or preference. — Janus

Agreed, unequivocally. Opinion has no logical validity, and preference can imply a relativism whereas a truth can not.
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When it comes to the universal moral truths, I think disagreement is irrational. — Janus

Agreed, in principle. Disagreement would be irrational iff universal moral truths are established by means of an antecedent law. I presented Tim with a logical proof for establishing the universality of murder being immoral, so I think each instance of such establishment would require a proof of its own. But that being given, disagreement would indeed be irrational.
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Awww......I was hoping you’d offer a possibility for the flaw. But never mind......we both gave all sortsa stuff about truth, but neither of us reduced the concept to something relevant to the stuff we said. In other words, what is truth? Or, even better, is there any sense of truth at all, that would falsify the stuff we said.

I like your “notion of truth”, but doesn’t analytic philosophy demand more than a notion?

I’ll go first: truth is the non-contradiction of a conception with its object.

All truths are only such insofar as they are based on inter-subjective agreement; and that goes for both scientific truths and moral truths. — Janus

If it be granted scientific truths, not as such but in themselves, are empirical, and moral truths, not as such but in themselves, are thought, we arrive at a distinction between the former truth as sufficient and the latter truth as necessary. The former from the principle of induction which can never suffice for a totality of possible conditions, any one un-met of which is possibly capable of falsifying a truth, and the latter from the principle of deduction which has the power of proof but not the availability of verifying a truth. Induction starts with observation and expands its conclusions into the world of objects in general; deduction starts with observation and reduces its conclusions into a singular object of the objects of the world in general.

A truth as such as it relates to inter-subjective agreement has to do with the direction of its dissemination, which is the opposite of its origination. Empirical truths are already extant in the world, merely being discovered, hence disseminated inward to the subjects, moral truths are extant in the subject, being determinations of will, and disseminated outward to like subjects. It follows that empirical truths are objective and the agreement with them is a condition of agreement with the state of affairs of the real world, and moral truths are subjective and agreeing with them is a condition of the state of affairs of the moral world, the qualitative difference being disagreement with the former is necessarily irrational because this kind of truth represents a fact, but disagreement with the latter is not necessarily irrational because this kind of truth merely represents an interest.

Therefore, a truth in itself has no need of inter-subjective agreement, whereas a truth as such, does.

I for one appreciate the inclusion of the qualifier “as such”, but you are aware of the catastrophic flaw in both our comments, right?