Who ARE you???? That was the most interesting read I’ve had in ages.

You’ve taken the mind, the reality of which nobody knows anything about, and transferred its operational predicates to the brain, the reality of which nobody can deny.

Excellent work, I must say. Tomorrow I’m going to poke the hell out of it, see what happens. You OK with that?

So knowledge that something will happen does not make it "true"? — ZhouBoTong

That something will happen is fine, one could say he knows something will happen, because it is impossible nothing will happen, barring extremes, which would make the whole thing moot anyway. But it cannot be said it is true that any particular something will happen without reasoning from induction, which is insufficient causality for knowledge, or, merely speculating, which has no claim to knowledge at all. It helps to have an idea of what one thinks knowledge actually is. This philosophical reasoning shouldn’t be confused with scientific causal necessity, as in that old, worn out, “I know the sun will rise tomorrow because it has always risen”, which is categorically false informal inductive reasoning, but rather that if the sun doesn’t rise in the morning the world is over anyway because natural law has been falsified. So if causal necessity of natural law holds the truth about the sun rising will also hold. Regardless, we won’t know the truth about the sun coming up until it isn’t dark anymore.

But if there are no rational agents (S's hypothetical) then no real objects? — ZhouBoTong

Who knows? Without rational agents, whose left to say anything about anything? Whether objects remain is certainly more than likely, because rational agency is not casual necessity for existence. It’s not a question of existence anyway, it’s a question of rationality. Correct reasoning. One cannot say with absolute certainty that which was left behind when observers are vacated remains in the same condition it was in when there were observers. The planet those rocks were on could have exploded vaporizing everything for light years around. That’s no more unlikely than having all observers just up and vanish.

if there are no rational agents then we can't even begin to speculate on anything? — ZhouBoTong

Yep. Notice the lack of philosobabble on my part. Pretty cool, ain’t I?

Doesn't this reduce any and all speculation about the future to meaningless nonsense? — ZhouBoTong

Nope. We humans speculate about the future all the time whether we’re included in it or not. One can speculate from reason, relating knowledge to possibility, or he can speculate from imagination, relating belief to illusion. Some speculation is fascinating and leads to great discoveries; some speculation is irrational and leads to absurdities

Your latest post is exactly what I’ve been saying about your thought experiment since pg 5. You demand acceptance the rock will still exist, but here you merely agree the pencil will fall to the floor because there’s no good reason for it not to. What’s the difference between you saying, “will the pencil drop to the floor? We don’t know for sure....”, and me saying, “will the rock still exist? I don’t know for sure....”. You say it, it's correct; I say it, it’s extreme empiricism.

I deleted my comment on your big long comment when I saw your comment to Janus. Homie don’ play no schoolyard gangsta games, first of all, plus you’ve completely misunderstood my entire argumentative domain. Where I’m coming from, in case you missed that too.

Here’s how this is going to play out. You’ll say all sorts of mean nasty ugly stuff about me and my pathetic inability to use reason and logic correctly, and I’ll just sit here and think.....oh. Ok. So be it.

You aren’t hearing me. You said of blue, the measurable properties x and y means it’s blue. That doesn’t make any sense at all to a guy who claims a thing is blue for no other reason whatsoever than he sees it as blue. I see an object as blue therefore that means it is a blue object no matter it’s properties. How could what I see as blue mean it’s red? Hence, while discoverable properties describe something, such discovery does not always lend itself to meaning.

What you’re saying by measurable properties x and y means it is blue, is actually x and y are the conditions under which some part of the visual spectrum of EMR must be identified as the same as the sensation of “blue” that is perceived by humans. That spectrum has the exact same conditions for blue but may not identify as blue to an animal lacking the similar receptor system as the human animal that labels that part of the visual spectrum “blue”.
(Example only; it is a categorical error to suppose anything with certainty regarding non-human animals.)

So if there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. — S

Do you see that the subject of your proposition is “shape”? That makes explicit some arbitrary extension in space is necessarily presupposed in order for the conceptions in the predicate to be thereafter associated to something as a means to identity it. It follows if the arbitrary shape is constituted by four equal sides and four equal angles contained in those sides, THEN it is labeled “square”. It is not always necessary to actually quantify anything to perceive a square, insofar as natural knowledge evolution accepts the general conception of “square” without recourse to rulers, but there are still conditions where it is required in order for the label “square” to be at the negation of the possibility of all other shapes, i.e., construction trades, very great or very small distances, etc., or to falsify an optical illusion.

From this, it is clear that a necessary truth such that any extended shape with its own identifying consistently attributed constituents must be a square. A necessary truth needs no confirmation, it will be the case whether confirmed or not. An unconfirmed truth suggests a possibility of falsification, which requires a means of identity to apodectically resolve.

Yes, understood and agreed, in principle. Nonetheless, if we were herein engaged in common meanings, we would be writing newspaper articles instead of delving into metaphysical particulars.

The dropped pencil argument is straight out of Hume’s claim of epistemological knowledge given from mere habit or convention. The pencil will fall to the floor because it has always fallen to the floor, but that says nothing whatsoever about why such should be the case, and if sufficient reason should be given, that serves as argument the pencil will never do anything BUT fall to the floor. But sufficient reason is not proof, sufficient reason here being gravity, or the mass of the pencil, but that doesn’t say what gravity is or why it acts on objects the way it does.

Even the rabid subjective idealist grants the existence of real things, even if those things are said to be real in a categorically unsubstantiated way. No rational agent can deny the existence of real objects; if he does he cannot explain his own body as a spacetime object without immediately contradicting himself.

I think the antagonist approach in this multi-logue is, not so much that without observers nothing exists, but rather, the idea that because existence in general can only be examined, understood, cognized and known from a human perspective, without all that nothing can be said about it with the same certainty and logical consistency as the original expositions gave to it. So it isn’t so much about the negation of existence as it is about the negation of the observer with respect to existence. It’s the same error as defining a word and using the word being defined in the definition.

You have GOT to be the WORST epistemological realist EVER!!!

There are some unconfirmed truths; but these are necessary truths, the contradictions of which are impossible. To say

....knew enough to make a prediction or a guess about the properties of blue objects or geometric shapes, then I could speak unconfirmed truths about them. — S

.....has no greater power than mere conjecture, a contingent possibility, because no conditions are given to sustain any prediction. Because of the technical difficulty intrinsic to color, simply observing one of them enables no predictions whatsoever about their physical properties. You couldn’t even ascertain the fact color is EMR, much less predict anything about the behavior of it from the observation of rainbows. Even saying if you knew enough is catastrophically inept, because it raises the question....how much is enough. If you knew x and y and from those predicted z, z remains no more than reasonable expectation until some other condition is satisfied, as in, experiment or accident. A caveman sees green grass and predicts it is fresh, but only because he has seen brown grass that deer never eat. Just because he knows the grass is green at night, does not allow him to predict the sun is partly responsible for fresh grass. Faraday might have the unconfirmed hypothetical for electric lines, but without the rational appeal to a very specific experiment, he would have had no reason to suppose them. And even then, he got it wrong by requiring a medium.

if I knew that the colour blue consists in visible light from within a certain range of wavelength, and I knew that we could measure wavelengths in nanometres, then I could make a complete guess and say that the colour blue has a range of between 450 and 495 nanometres, and if I said that, then I would be speaking a truth prior to the discovery of that fact. — S

Yeah, so what? That’s what every theoretical physicist says, but I betcha a Benjamin he never calls it a “truth” before it is proven to be one. After the fact he can say such and such is true, thus beforehand it was an unconfirmed truth, which is exactly the opposite of what you say.

Unconfirmed truth is a contradiction in terms. No truth is unconfirmed and that which is either rationally or empirically unconfirmed cannot be a truth. That which is true now and will be under congruent circumstance is a necessary truth empirically, or a logical truth rationally. Substantiated hypotheticals can lead to reasonable predictions, but truths absolutely must meet the criteria of knowledge.
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I didn’t say “determine”; I said determinable. Under certain conditions there are things completely undeterminable, and those conditions have to do with human inability.
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This discussion was about realism and possible counter-arguments with respect to it. Knowledge and truth may enter into it but they are qualifiers for what they are. You brought truth here, apparently without understanding what it is.
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A worthy epistemological realist would be quick to realize the limited practical purpose is the sole paradigm from which he can work. The total of practical exercise is indeed very far larger than the arena available to a human, but the totality is quite irrelevant. Hell, we haven’t even got ourselves off this planet yet. But the deeper you go into realism the more you need some kind of idealism, because you’re bound by reason itself to reduce to conditions not met with realism alone.

This thread is called a THOUGHT experiment for a reason.

Before science there were humans that perceived blue things. Before geometry there were humans that perceived equi-sided formations. Even if we can say truthfully the scientific or geometric properties resided in the objects before we knew of them, we can truthfully only say so after The discovery of it. Blue things were blue long before wavelengths and frequencies were determinable, or even practically necessary. Square things were square long before geometers determined what it means to be square.

Because these things were perceived beforehand, the specific properties for these things are not required for them to be understood. That is the same as saying the real parts of these things are not required for the understanding of them, for the knowing of them for what they are merely by means of their appearance. A gal who wants a shade of blue for the nursery doesn’t give a crap about the frequency of it, and the guy setting tile in the hallway doesn’t give a crap about the fact of four equal angles, but both of them know what they want from each of those things, have an expectation from these things because of their appearance and NOT from their respective properties.

There is no suspicion in claiming to be a realist, the negation of which is absurd, but the denial of idealism which necessarily accompanies it, is highly suspicious. As long as an otherwise normally functioning human thinks, he is an idealist of some kind. Simply knowing something about blue and squares and all the rest, that cannot be derived, nor does not need to be derived, from its physical properties presupposes a source of knowledge having nothing to do with the empirical realism, that being merely the occassion.

Yeah, the counterfeiter made the Kantian “better calculation”, and if never found out, there is reason to suspect he was quite thoroughly pleased with himself, and only immoral upon reflection by another.

Nevertheless, the major names in moral/ethical philosophy are usually left with either assuming a naturally innate human quality in order to alleviate rational infinite regress, or, posit an innate human rational faculty with the specific job of alleviating rational infinite regress. For Aristotle, virtue, for Descartes, the evil demon, for Hume sentiment, for Kant the good of the will, Schopenhauer compassion....and so on.

Ok. So if some properties are measured, some meaning follows necessarily from those measurements, but the meaning itself is not a measurement. If that is true, then how can we tell whether the meaning belongs to the measurement or to the EMR? Just like if we measure the sides of a four-sided geometric figure and the measurements provide the same units means the figure is a square, does “square” reside in the figure or the equal measures?

I couldn’t help myself. First thing I thought was, time-like and space-like morality? Whaaaa???

Sorry. I’m all better now.

So would a realist say some EMR has the property of 450nm, along with the property of 630THz, and the property “blue”?

Just seeing how people think. No pressure, no biggie.

What is color?

So you’re a realist. I’m sorry, does it hurt? They got remedies for that these days, ya know. (Grin)

So what kind of realist are you? Scientific realist? Metaphysical realist?

Describe the world in your own words.

Nahhh... the easy stuff is done; morality is subjective, mentally located, if that is how one thinks of it. Philosophy, never one to leave well enough alone, still wants to ask, how is it that it is (However it is thought) and why should it be that way.

Otherwise, we talk about what we accept without sufficient explanation as to why we accept it the way we do.

Absolutely. I can dig it.

Still, as written, it is all hypothetical. What needs to be done now is turn that into a theory. Nobody’s gonna give a crap about a theory without sustainable grounds for it. In natural science, sustainable grounds are the natural laws; it follows that a possible moral science should have moral laws.

A law is that of which the negation is impossible or self-contradictory. What, with respect to morality, is indisputable such that it could be a law, or the basis for a law?

The binary approach in question here, is the subjective/objective dichotomy, which is not required for *obtaining* individual morality. It is required to *demonstrate* the morality already obtained.

I understand subjective to mean in me, objective to be outside me. If that’s a misunderstanding, or inappropriate, somebody outta tell me.

They don’t. They can’t. That which does, is anthropological whatevers.

No judgement whatsoever, whether puppies, tea cups, hot stoves, love and marriage, Ford or Chevy, or moral predicates, is non-mental. The will, the freedom it may or may not have, the imperative whether hypothetical or categorical, assertorial or pragmatic, the volition whatever it may be and the relation to its value whatever its form.......are all necessarily obtained in a mental location.

Whatever action derived from moral judgement is certainly non-mental, but that action is not itself moral. It is merely a physical representation of the willful volition that spawns it.

For the obtaining of morality it could well be one place and another, as long as they are of the same kind, which of course they must be. But that’s not a subjective/objective dichotomy, the demonstration post-obtain, is.

I'm saying the whole binary approach is wrongheaded and prevents a full view of where and how morality obtains. — Baden

You wrote this while I was writing. This I agree with: where and how morality obtains has no need of the binary approach, other than serve as the reason the moral investigate should begin.

That doesn't mean the subject/object distinction is useless in every field but it's much more useful for scientific enquiry than philosophic / moral enquiry. — Baden

Why not turn philosophic/moral inquiry into a science?

Not trying to speak for Banno, but absolutely agree with him it fails. — Baden

(“It” being the subjective/objective dichotomy)

For the subject to function as moral agent, it is necessarily a socially constituted entity, in some sense both 'objective' and 'subjective'. — Baden

If that is true, how does the subjective/objective dichotomy fail, when subsequently described as consisting of both parts?

Even human reason itself, when reduced as far as possible, retains the thinking subject and the object of his thought. As long as humans are in the conversation, it is impossible for the subject/object dichotomy to fail. It is every bit as impossible for the subjective/objective dichotomy to fail as soon as the internal subject/object is transferred to the external world, and becomes an object of perception or understanding by any other similar subject.

The internal subject/object dichotomy is moral philosophy; the external subjective/objective dichotomy is practical anthropology. The only real, important consideration should be.....how are the two related, what is it that relates them. And because the fundamental ground is the human himself, the what and the how absolutely must be reducible to him in a singular form.

Kant is notoriously hard to grasp, so right off the top, I shouldn’t present myself as an expert by any means.

That being said, I haven’t found anything on the removal of perception from “observables” that leaves behind anything but space and time, which do not fit the explanation for noumena.

And the mind does indeed give appearance to that which is far beyond it. Such is called transcendental illusion and is PRECISELY why the critique was written in the first place, to direct reason to its proper domain. Kant states definitively the illusion cannot be removed because of the nature of the mind itself, only exposed and controlled.

Explore to your metaphysical content.

We was all just wondering if you’d been......rehabilitated.

,,,,from missing the point that practicing morality presupposes its inception. We aren’t going to do anything (the practice) that counts (the good) until we know (the presupposition) what counts.

What if the legislating authority and the obeying subject are the same? It would appear that obedience in such case could hardly be irrational.

Maybe one of the forms will be a true or false quiz.....

......even if “good” is undefinable, and even if “goodness” is not derivable from naturalistic conditions, can “good” still be an innately sensible quality?

Me ‘n’ the rest of the boys on the Group W bench acknowledge your superior logicianness

“.....In whatsoever mode, or by whatsoever means, our knowledge may relate to objects, it is at least quite clear that the only manner in which it immediately relates to them is by means of an intuition. To this as the indispensable groundwork, all thought points. But an intuition can take place only in so far as the object is given to us. This, again, is only possible, to man at least, on condition that the object affect the mind in a certain manner. The capacity for receiving representations (receptivity) through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is called sensibility. By means of sensibility, therefore, objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes us with intuitions; by the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions. But a thought must directly, or indirectly, by means of certain signs, relate ultimately to intuitions; consequently, with us, to sensibility, because in no other way can an object be given to us.The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon....”

Follow the bouncing ball, so to speak. What is herein called “object” is matter external to us. If it is external it is empirical, hence these objects without qualifiers are empirical objects. The definition of “phenomenon” is given, and it is itself an object but carries the qualifier “undetermined object of empirical intuition”, to distinguish it from an empirical object of the senses. An empirical object and a phenomenon are related, because the phenomena we call intuitions will eventually represent the empirical object of sense as soon as the “undetermined” part goes away, or, as soon as understanding cognizes what it is, but they are not synonymous, insofar as they are not interchangeable.

A lot of times Kant will put something in print, then paranthesize something right after, as if one is meant to equate to the other. This is not the case, for he means the one relates to the other directly, as in “....(the raindrops of course are not such, for they are, as phenomena, empirical objects)...”. Here he means rain drops are empirical objects in the world.....obviously....but they are phenomena to the faculty of representation.

And here: “...Although all these principles, and the representation of the object with which this science occupies itself, are generated in the mind entirely a priori, they would nevertheless have no significance if we were not always able to exhibit their significance in and by means of phenomena (empirical objects)....” This is working backwards, that is, instead of external sense of objects then inwards to understanding, working from a priori understanding through intuition to outward objects of sense. The science is mathematics, and he’s talking about figures, lines and points and such, the principles for which lie a priori in the mind but are worthless and unprovable until we draw the figures, or do the math, etc., at which time the phenomena become empirical objects of sense.

On space and time:
They are not transcendental properties, and it is shown they are not properties of any kind. Instead they are pure intuitions a priori, thus not derived from experience. The means for arriving at the conceptions of space and time is the transcendental exposition, which is the ground for the truth of synthetic a priori propositions with respect to natural phenomena, and therefore our knowledge of them. For these to be the ground of something like that, they must be unconditioned, and are shown to be those unconditioned intuitions upon which the possibility of experience itself rests.

But wait!!! There’s more, so much more.......always more.

I call your superior model and raise you a superior theory.

I know, because I’ve tasted my thumb. In the interest of science, I assure you. Which doesn’t tell me jack about the moon, I agree.

Certainly everyone has an equal claim, but that which satisfies the claim does not necessarily satisfy the being of equal. It would seem that the more narrow the conception of being equal, as life and welfare, the more exact the principle which validates it. Everyone may broadly deem himself worthy of e.g., a nice car merely because he feels he’s earned it by doing his job, but to deem himself worthy of life, he cannot revert to the judgement that he has done his job well. Does anyone honestly think Lady Jane wants Tom to slow the train for no reason better than she’s got an altogether respectable multi-generational heritage?

Life and well-being may be part of the function of being human, but what it is to be human is not contained in its function.
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Elaboration = arete = virtue.

“....Empirical principles are wholly incapable of serving as a foundation for moral laws. For the universality with which these should hold for all rational beings without distinction, the unconditional practical necessity which is thereby imposed on them, is lost when their foundation is taken from the particular constitution of human nature, or the accidental circumstances in which it is placed. The principle of private happiness, however, is the most objectionable, not merely because it is false, and experience contradicts the supposition that prosperity is always proportioned to good conduct, nor yet merely because it contributes nothing to the establishment of morality-since it is quite a different thing to make a prosperous man and a good man, but because the springs it provides for morality are such as rather undermine it and destroy its sublimity, since they put the motives to virtue and to vice in the same class and only teach us to make a better calculation, the specific difference between virtue and vice being entirely extinguished....”

Yeah, but if you are aware of Aristotle well enough to come up with eudaemonia, I shall assume you are just as aware there is something antecedent to it, and necessary for it. Or at least qualifies its meaning.

And I would also ask if you think ethics, the general domain from which eudaemonia arises, re: “living well” or some such, is the same as morality? If so, I submit that the participants in the train hypothetical and all such manufactured moral dilemmas have precious little to do with the general conception of “living well”.

On logically minded Platonists understanding reason as being prescriptive...agreed.
On people in general ordinarily understanding reason as being prescriptive.....not so much.

I don’t think people ordinarily understand reason, the noun, at all, prescriptive or otherwise, even while using reason, the verb, continuously their entire conscious lives, We see this, as you say, in rational arguments appealing to emotions and ethical intuitions, which are more often specious or illusory at best, and therefore are more often detrimental to sound rationality itself, for emotions seldom conform to rules. Hence, the supervenience of the coolness of logic by the passion of rhetoric.

On the other hand.......there’s always an other hand......throwing accusations of logical fallacies, as a Platonist is apt to do, at a co-conversant doesn’t really help the one not recognizing the prescriptive nature of reason. Pretty hard to inflict a truth on a mind that has regressed to emotion as its fundamental ground.

By naturalistically inclined philosophers, do you mean empiricists? If so, then I concur with the naturalist’s distinction between rationality and preference being purely a matter of convention, or, perhaps, repetitive habit, re: Joe has always done this so he will likely do this again under similar circumstance. Or what's worse, Joe has always thought Bob a dope because of that time in 3rd grade, so Bob is going to be a dope for the rest of his miserable life.

The was no specific reference to Kant in the OP, but now that the reference has been made with respect to Kant and the transcendent/transcendental distinction.....

......he is talking about transcendent principles, those in opposition, not to transcendental principles, but rather immanent principles. The latter are confined to possible experience, the former do not recognize such boundaries, hence allow reason to overstep them and permit understanding to operate where it has no proper restraint. Technically speaking, it is elsewhere proved the categories of the pure understanding apply only to empirical conditions, but transcendent principles “....deludes us with the chimera of an extension of the sphere of the pure understanding...”


“.....transcendental or supersensible sphere, where experience affords us neither instruction nor guidance....” [A12/B25]
“.....mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori". [A295/B352]
“.......transcendental propositions can never be given through construction of concepts, but only in accordance with concepts that are a priori". [A720/B748]
.....the transcendental is a way of thinking, all having to do with a priori cognition in general, hence is used by Kant in many senses: to a type of deduction, to a type of exposition, to types of idealism and realism, to "content", to a way of employing the faculties of the mind, to the unity of apperception, to different types of proofs, to a type of reflection, to a special unknown "transcendental object = x", to a type of truth, to a type of knowledge, to a type of reflection, to a type of illusion, to subjects (selves), to certain ideas, to a sort of negation, to principles, to a kind of theology, to a type of hypothesis, and at the top of the heap.....a type of philosophy itself.
.....there is no such thing as “transcendental to human consciousness”, and empirical objects do not have transcendental properties.

Page 24 has calls for evidence, but not for whether this puppy crap is wrong or not. The call is for the morality grounding the judgement that this puppy crap is wrong.

...........like using a Band-Aid to remedy a heart attack: the answers to moral questions are never going to be found in the near-infinite complex of worldly examples.

OK. You’re just saying there is a condition where there are possible objects yet unthought. If that’s right, then I can say, sure, there’s millions of things I haven’t thought yet. And right now, this minute, every damn one of them is immersed in a hypothetical scenario. Still, again, if that’s right, I can’t call any of those things a rock, for to formally name an object presupposes its conception.

Finger/moon.....funny. I know for a fact my finger isn’t green cheese.

That works....interpret the meaning of it. You said you could conceive an unconceivable object. I’ve been wondering ever since how I would do that. It might be so simple I just looked right over the top of it....dunno.

I certainly don’t mind talking necessary dualisms, but this conceiving business has got to get fixed first, know what I mean, Vern?

Is there another way to say “I can conceive an unconceived object”?

Kantian idealism isn’t the idealism of Berkeley or Descartes, but it is a necessary dualism which retains a strictly mental, re: subjectivist idealism, parameter, annexed directly with an empirical realism. Which was the foundation of my comments on the experiment. I’m sure you’re aware of all that.

Guy across the street threw the snow from his driveway into the street because he didn’t want the road treatment chemicals on his lawn. He told the cops he thought the plow would take it away. Although true, the plow would take the snow away, and true, road chemicals don’t belong on lawns, still the unreasonableness of the behavior itself remains.

Understanding doesn’t necessarily alleviate illusory reason, just exposes it for what it is.

Unless you meant something else, maybe?

They're not the same sense of good — Andrew M

Quite right. I should think a determination made on the basis of good with an expected return is an empirical good.
(you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Or, it is good to pay the parking tickets in order to stay out of court. Lady Jane: it’s very good indeed to slow that f’ing train down so’s not to scatter pieces of me over 6 counties, dammit!!!!!)

A good which determines an action because such action is good in itself, is a principle good.
(I’ll scratch your back because it itches; I’ll pay my tickets because I was too cheap to use a meter; Lady Jane: do whatcha gotta do Tom. I know I’m toast. Somebody......please.......shoot Boris for me)

Which begs the question.....is there a principle “good”?

One of us has grossly misinterpreted the Critique.

Hey. Good to have your comment, thanks.

That both Lady Jane and Tom want to avoid bad circumstances is the very root of the entire moral issue. There is only one outcome, therefore one of them is going to be on the short end of the stick. Whomsoever is on the short end is going to say my claim of immoral action is true, *because* the other guy believes it to be false. Tom would believe as Lady Jane believes, that not slowing down would be immoral, iff he had no sufficient reason to believe something else was of greater moral import and thus made a counter-action necessary.

This is of course, an idealized moral dilemma, as most are. The last car in the train could have blown a wheel bearing, jumped the tracks, ended up sideways, and Tom, seeing that, slows down hoping the sideways car will stop him from descending the grade. Or a big tree falls, or a tremor looses a boulder.

Yeah, you’re right about ol’ Boris.....hanging out in the bushes, waiting for one calamity or the other. He doesn’t know he was nothing but an afterthought, an add-on of mine, an embellishment because my imagination overstepped itself. My Andy Rooney influence, I guess.
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On the context of others and their perspectives with respect to “the good”.......under those conditions, how do we distinguish an act of morality from an act of mere civility? Even if they are both predicated on some sense of “good”, can it be the same sense of good for both?

Evidence of misunderstanding.......Yeah, I’ll go with that.

What can I say. When I talk about my morality, I speak from knowledge. I KNOW the condition of my moral nature. And even if I can’t say what a moral judgement will prescribe for my actions, I can still say with absolute certainty my volitions upon which the judgement is based, shall be consistent with a fundamental truth I hold no matter the circumstance. And even if I should act counter to my inner truths, in no other way is even possible to know I have judged immorally, then to know what it is I should have done instead.

One either is moral or he is not, which is to say one is morally worthy or he is not. There is no maybe, no partially, moral. Because “is” is a certainty it must have for its ground a law, which in its turn must have for its ground a principle, the negation of which is impossible If the lawfulness is to be maintained. One cannot “think” the law, nor can he “believe” the law, for law itself carries with it necessity and universality.

The rest is metaphysical gravy. Bring your own salt.