I am understanding this analogy to be agreeing that your moral system doesn’t purport to have objective moral judgments, is that correct? — Bob Ross

No. I am saying, (reluctantly because I prefer to avoid 'isms' as being ways not to listen to what is being said), that moral conflict arises from a psychological conflict between self-interest and social interest. It is a real conflict and because it is grounded in the nature of social individuals, there is a real difference between what is moral and what is immoral. Thus I am a 'moral realist' in that particular sense. By the same token, I am equally an 'immoral realist'. The reality of immorality is that individuals can and do exploit the sociality of people for a-social reasons and thereby harm and undermine sociality, including and importantly communication. This is expressed here in a simplified humanistic sense for ease of comprehension; to be more even handed and philosophically useful, I would reference not merely human society, but the whole environment.

Brexit needed to be placed in the context of the UK's violent, sometimes revolutionary history since its foundation 300 years ago; that what happens after the UK breaks up has been the primary issue ever since the collapse of empire, not Europe as such; and that there is a creeping constitutional crisis on many fronts, focusing on parliament's prerogatives, the monarchy, the house of lords, the voting system and centralization of everything in London at the expense of the regions, so that the main political issue, after Scotland's secession and the reunification of Ireland, will be and already is to some extent, decentralization and a new federation for the ex-UK. Britain is now in some ways the most unstable major polity in the world. — Keith Hart

https://www.academia.edu/29662300/Where_once_was_an_empire_on_Brexit

Bunge wrote in2001. Here's the Guardian in 2018. There has been an attack on philosophy from the right for more than 20 years, and another from the left. The reason is very simple; however one governs, however one manufactures consent, philosophy departments and philosophers in general are in the business of criticism of society. They rock the boat. They not only do not help, they hinder, the orderly governance of society, and the progress of the dominant ideology {science}.

No new broad and deep philosophies have been proposed in recent times, and none of the extant ideas has been of much help to understand the sea changes that have signed the twentieth century. — Bunge

This is just wrong. Much work has been done in reshaping man's relation to the world and conception of himself from the point of view of the environment as a whole. This gives rise to an entirely new value system which is necessarily in conflict with capitalism and scientism. It is very little discussed on this site, because it has been successfully marginalised, sidelined and ridiculed to a great extent. But there is a philosophy of ecology, that is even called Deep Ecology, and much related material on the concept of wilderness, and Ecosophy, and all sorts of interesting stuff that the Man does not want us to talk about.

There must be no alternative to moral nihilism, pragmatism, materialism, and despair. Therefore there must be no new philosophy. The nearest we can get here is the interminable lament of the Global Warming thread.

Biography of Arne Naess I mention this stuff now and then, as a way to think about how to live, which is the central concern of philosophy, or should be, but sadly, the natural world is so distant from everyone's actual life, that the non-human is taken to mean robotics and ChatGPT. The birds and the bees are a fairytale, fit only for euphemism. At the time, (early 80's) I was able to do some extra-mural courses on some of this, but that too came under attack and was defunded.

The philosophy of — I don't know what to call it; it is nameless and invisible because universal, but I'll say "Secular Humanism", to be as politically neutral as possible — your philosophy; is there room in it for the idea of restraint? Are there things, places, possibilities that humans should not, or can decide not to approach? Is there anything that is not our business, our property?

The same stimulus triggers different, even conflicting, private experiences, and it is these private experiences that directly inform our understanding (hence why people use different words to describe that they see). That is clear evidence of indirect realism. — Michael

The same experiment triggers conflicting conclusions. It is clear evidence of direct realism. The dress is a duck-rabbit. Everyone can see the same duck-rabbit dress, and that is indeed the assumption on which the experiment stands. If they didn't see the same thing, there would be nothing to explain. Because it is only an image, it can be ambiguous; if it were even a short movie, let alone a live encounter, the illusion could probably not be maintained, any more than anyone is deceived for long about ducks and rabbits, (or frogs and horses). One can mistake what one sees for something it is not, but this is no reason to deny that one sees it.

...

The search for meaning is meaningful. The feeling of emptiness is a feeling of inadequacy to the task of being human.

It would be kind of these constructors of meaning to share with us inadequate philosophers the meaning they have constructed, but perhaps they have none to spare, or perhaps it is a fragile substance that cannot be transferred from one mind to another.

The best I can offer is a word, 'love', and a method, poverty. A life full of meaning is one that is given to others. Whatever you do for another will enrich your life with meaning, and whatever you do for yourself will impoverish its meaning.

And therefore in truth I reject this constructed meaning as mere glamour; the fools gold of fame, fortune and temporary self-satisfaction. Speak a kind word, because there is no meaning in unkind words.

As much as I respect Nietzsche as a philosopher a lot of my beliefs can be read contra his entire project. Him and Aristotle are the usual suspects I have in mind when I think "Who is it I just basically disagree with on everything when I finally piece it all together into something coherent?" — Moliere

I'm with you there. Look, I think that the difficulty, the disagreements, mostly arise from dealing with horrors — War to end war, defeat fascism etc. But there is no question of setting up Fascism so we can have a good war, any more than there is any question of getting pregnant in order to have an abortion. Dealing with evil for the good is hard. But making the distinction in principle, other things being equal is much easier - life over death, truth over falsehood, freedom over coercion love over hate, peace over war.

The inversion would be -- I can only pretend that killing is bad, given my reliance upon those who are willing to kill to preserve our societies. — Moliere

That is a justification. It has the form, killing is bad, but something else is worse, so killing is necessary, not killing is good.

There's no fact to the matter. — Moliere

If I do what I ought to do, then what I ought to do becomes the fact of what I do. Either my morality or my immorality is realised. The reality that I am defending here is that I can only pretend that my immorality is morality – I can only pretend that killing is good, or lying is good.

All moral statements are false. — Moliere

They are only false if you misinterpret them to be statements of fact.

You ought to do good, but you will not.

The moral conflict arises from identification, which is separation. I want versus we want, and then we want, versus they want.

The categorical imperative that I long considered as true was "Thou shalt not kill" -- but reality woke me up from that one. Clearly the societies which are very efficient at assigning the best people to killing are the ones which thrive. At which point -- what is moral realism anymore? — Moliere

What moral realism is not is either that the good works or is rewarded. So societies can 'thrive', just as individuals can 'thrive', by identifying self -interest as the individual against the rest, or the tribe against the enemy. In the latter case, the selfish individual is subsumed into a selfish society. A religious sect typically makes this identification, and strengthens it with supernatural threats and promises, and pretends it is not all a mafia.

Being moral will not save you. It was always an empty promise, because if it would save you, it would be mere expediency, and even arseholes would find it expedient to be good. But it is the only end to the internal conflict, to end the identification. Than one is, ahem, beyond good and evil. In the meantime, it is a commonplace that God favours the big battalions, and therefore being good is costly and painful.

I've just asked that politicians pay attention to the political landscape. — Hanover

That's what bothers me. That you don't even worry that the justice system is run by the politicians.

I see this as a major fuck up by the Democrats. — Hanover

That's a sad inditement of the US justice system. I thought the whole of the US political system was about the separation of powers.

Nowhere in this do I find a moral judgment. You are simply noting that if one wants to communicate, then they must speak the truth most of the time. — Bob Ross

I'm not saying that. "Come buy my snake oil, it will make you immune from snake bites." Some people do lie all the time. It is corrosive to society. I'm saying that one cannot in good faith say say it is good to lie. One cannot found a society on the practice of lies, because lies only work at all in a social context of trust and honesty.. It is an argument against subjectivism and against error theory.

So I write a lot about antinatalist topics and pessimism on this forum, and very familiar with Benatar and the notions of misanthropic and philanthropic antinatalism and I do think they are useful distinctions. — schopenhauer1

Yes I understand the distinction being made. But when that is transposed to a psychological as distinct from philosophical context, I think ordinary language needs to be at least acknowledged, because the terms are going to apply to pronatalists as well as antinatalists. That's the premise, at least.

There is something interesting going on here. The centre of environmentalism - and it's reflected in the questions on the survey - is that humanity and the environment are inseparable. But the terms philanthropy and misanthropy tend to make that separation. I think they are not very good terms to be using here and not even normally understood to be opposites. In particular, it is generally considered philanthropic to donate to and support animal or environmental charities. whereas I wouldn't expect a misanthrope to be very charitable in any direction.

Anyway, please let us know if you get some interesting results.

so how is there a standard of what is moral which no one gets to choose? — Bob Ross

We are trying to communicate.
Communication depends on honesty.
It is open to us to be dishonest, and only pretend to want to communicate in order to manipulate each other rather than understand each other.

But the moment either one claims that they are not intending to communicate but to manipulate, the meaning of their words is lost, and the discussion is over. Our social relations depend on honesty and -cannot depend on dishonesty. Social relations presume morals, and the particular morals are necessary features of social relations. We simply cannot discuss on the basis that we are not going to tell the truth - we would be wasting our breath. One can lie, but one cannot make lying good.

I hadn't thought about it, but I don't think there is a terribly important difference, in my mind at least. What's important is that one can decide things that are undecided, or one can choose things when there is a choice. But one cannot choose or decide that 2 + 2 = 5, and one cannot value deceptive communication as a rule because it undermines itself. We discount and ignore what habitual liars say. so they do not communicate at all; their talk has no meaning. This kind of inequality necessarily applies to social beings in their social relations. Asocial beings have no need for morality

Yes, I think that is close to what I am saying. Obligations are not facts, oughts are not is'es. But there is a radical inequality that makes obligations take one position and not the opposite. Another example: truth and falsehood. We can play at tall stories sometimes and see who can tell the most outrageous lie. But that game is a holiday from the functional use of language to communicate. The story of the Boy who cried "Wolf". illustrates, how falsehood destroys communication and prevents cooperation. If the truth does not prevail overall, language has no use; one stops listening. The deceiver can only be parasitic on a community of honest speakers, and therefore I conclude that one ought to tell the truth,and one cannot make the argument that one ought to lie, except in rare and exceptional circumstances.

One can choose to be moral or immoral, but one cannot chose what is moral and what is immoral.

As an Indirect Realist, I am not saying that I see a model of a tree, I am saying that I directly see a tree, though the tree I see is an indirect representation, — RussellA

What about the tree that you climb? Is that a representation?

it would be really helpful if people would state what definition of "direct realism" and "indirect realism" they are using when they are posting. — prothero

Direct realism: Reality includes sensitive beings, and sensible objects, amongst, and consisting of a load of insensible stuff like radio waves, molecules, and the core of the earth. Sensitive beings include dogs, rabbits, and blind, colour-blind, and shortsighted humans. Sensitive beings can sense sensible objects in various ways. A blind man can tell a golden delicious from a mackintosh red by the feel, the smell and the taste. I can tell the difference by the colour.

One does not see "the look of the apple", but the apple.

"The look of the apple" is an abstraction, a memory, an image one might recall with more or less detail according to artistic talent and training, peculiarities of vision, or whatever. One represents an apple in "the mind's eye", or on paper with a pencil, and associates it with the shape of the written word. This is easier said than done.

The apples posted to this thread are mere visual likenesses, which the sighted among us can recognise, (cognise again), because we are already, directly familiar with real apples. Just as we read what is said because we are already familiar with the language in written form. An infant does not have a visual image of an apple, but will happily eat stewed apple. A little later we will look together at My First Alphabet, at the picture of an apple, and pretend to eat it. Because a child of one already knows the difference between the likeness of an apple and an apple. It's a fine joke to pretend not to.

This is the intentionality argument for semantic direct realism, and has nothing to do with the phenomenological issue that is at the heart of the disagreement between direct and indirect realists. — Michael

I read that bit too. You have no response to any of the questions put to you. You claim the high ground of objectivity but cannot explain how you overcome the subjectivity you project onto everyone else. I think I'll leave it there 'til next time. It's been fun.

Do you or do you not accept that some people are colour-blind; that the colours they see things to be are not the colours that you see things to be? If so then you accept that direct realism fails; it cannot be the case that both you and the colour blind person directly see the apple's "real" colour and that you see different colours. — Michael

Do you or do you not accept that some people are blind; they see nothing that you see? If so then you accept that direct realism your argument fails.

I don't think I see the apple's colour, or the apple's shape, or the apple's surface; I think I see the apple, and I think the colourblind person sees exactly the same apple, and if you give the apple to Tommy the deaf dumb and blind kid, he will be able to feel and smell and taste the very same apple.

This is an example that shows the difference between how most people see things and how someone with red-green colour blindness sees things. — Michael

That's a pretty picture; it looks to my dependent mind like a picture of some apples, with some kind of filter applied to one half. We direct realists may be naive, but we can tell the difference between a picture and an apple, and likewise between a filter and a red-green colourblind person.

Again, how do you know so much about other people's inner worlds when you don't even have access to the common outer world?

Do you not notice the folly? Blind people cannot see, therefore I what see is in my head. Dead people have no experience, therefore experience is unreliable. As it happens, I am short-sighted; it doesn't make me think the world is blurry until it gets with 30 cm of my face, it makes me think I cannot see as well as I'd like.Nevertheless I can see, and what I see is the world, and the proof of that is that I read what you write and respond to your picture. And that is only possible because we both have limited access and connection to the same world, which is not therefore "internal".

The fact that a colour blind person and I can both look at the same thing and yet see different colours. It therefore follows that at least one of us isn’t seeing the colours that the object “really” has. — Michael

Oh, that's news to me. I thought colour blind people couldn't see colours. But how did you make the comparison? and how do you access these facts that are mind independent? I tend to use observation, myself, but you say that is unreliable.

It’s not naive to think that shit smells. It’s naive to think that shit having a smell (especially a bad smell) is a mind-independent fact that we “directly” perceive. — Michael

Again with the internal/external division, and "the senses" mediating. Once you are a mind separate from a body, you will never know that you are not a brain in a vat, or a spirit deceived by a demon.

What is the source of your sophisticated indirect realism? Is it not the naive assumption that there are brains and eyes and noses and internal and external worlds?

If we assume that we do have eyes and brains, — Michael

Then why not assume we have trees?

At the very centre, God knows everything and experiences everything for all time all at once forever.

My little thread of awareness, and your little thread of awareness are just temporarily oblivious fragments of the whole.

Trying to escape is creating the fear, and everyone here is kindly helping you to feed your fear. As God you have created the isolation and the other to love, but you are trying to frustrate yourself, because you have become confused. Turn around and embrace what you are running from.

how can we know that the external world "really is" as we see and hear and feel it to be? The indirect realist argues that we can't know this, because the quality of our experiences is determined not just by the external stimulus but also by our eyes and brain. — Michael

How can we know, therefore, that we "really" have eyes and brain? How can we know that we cannot know? How can we know that the telephone "really" works the way you claim it works? How does an indirect realist escape from global epistemological scepticism? A direct realist is naive to think that shit smells, but somehow, an indirect realist knows everything about everything.

I think the distinction between self and other is pretty fundamental — prothero

A direct link of causal efficacy is necessary, but that is a different proposition than direct naive realism. — prothero

How can you speak of causal efficacy, a mysterious connective substance for sure, when you cannot see or touch a tree?

When the dog sees the rabbit, and gives chase, there is not a great deal of consideration of self, nor of causality going on. One does not say the dog's brain sees an image of a rabbit or that the dogs legs run after it — particularly, the dog or its legs cannot be running after a perception in its brain. No, the dog is running after the rabbit, that it has seen, not in its mind or its brain, but in the field, because that's where the rabbit is.

perception is a process that occurs in the brain not in the external world. — prothero

The phrase "external world" implies a separate "internal world" in which presumably "perception" happens, as distinct from "seeing" which happens in the external world when for example, the dog sees the rabbit. Indirect realists are happiest talking about seeing and most unhappy talking about touching, for reasons that are probably fairly obvious.

But the problem with this dual world that indirect realism seems to require is that bodies, sense-organs and' most of all, brains, are part of the external world that they have no direct contact with.

Is there a point to this? Is there not elementary neuroscience and psychology first in modern philosophy? — Alexander Hine

I think the question reduces to one of identity. Those who Identify as mind will be indirect realists, whereas those who identify as body will be direct realists. Direct realists are joined to the world by their skin and all their senses, and indirect realists are separated from the world by their skull and all their senses. Neuroscience will never find the person in the neurones or the 'correct' identification.

Our senses (body and mind) filter, organize and present information (data) from the external enviroment in a way that is advantageous (usually) for our survival. Do our senses give us an entirely complete picture of the external environment, it would seem quite clearly not; we don't see UV or Infrared, we do not hear frequencies above or below certain limits. So our picture of the world including the way we color it is a representation of reality, not a complete picture of all or nature. — prothero

Is this your argument? I can't see everything, so I can't see anything. If you have a picture of the world, how do you see it? Indirectly?

The onus is on direct realists to explain, if only broadly and superficially, how direct realism is supposed to work. Thoughts? — frank

But you already know how it works, I see with my eyes and touch with my skin and hear with my ears. The onus is on the indirect realist to explain what this interface could possibly be that is neither me nor the world. The only candidate so far is 'image', and that is obviously nonsense. when I touch a tree, what is between me and the tree? Nothing, I say, what do you say?

but why ought a person keep surviving? By noting that life either survives or dies, you have not thereby made any moral claims at all. — Bob Ross

Again, if you are going to claim that peoples’ wants are absolutely to be removed from the equation in terms of morals, then you must be able to ground objectively the choice to keep surviving. — Bob Ross

No, I haven't made any moral claims, and no one has to choose to keep surviving. But if one should choose not to keep surviving, there is no more choice and no more obligation. There is an inequality between living and dying. And out of this inequality comes necessity and from necessity comes obligation. If you want to die, don't be bothering me about morality, because I am concerned with living, I'm not interested in dying.

I am a direct realist, and I do not have a tree in my head. Some people say that I have an image of a tree on the retina of my eye, but if that is true, I certainly cannot see it, because I am busy looking at the tree.

they acknowledge that their view is a representation of the world-as-it-is. — L'éléphant

One sees sign posts to particularly fine views, and sometimes there is a plaque with sight-lines indicating various features. A view is not a representation; a photo or a painting is a representation of a view. It is quite easy to tell the difference between a real view and a representation of a view, by trying to walk around to the back of it or better still through it.

If the view is of a valley with a fine village with an old pub in it, and you can walk down the hill to the pub and enter and order a beer and drink the beer, then the view was not a representation, whereas if you just get a squashed nose and the taste of paint, it was a representation. I hope this helps.

No, it is not true that every human being wants a home, but I would grant, to your point, that the vast majority do — Bob Ross

Not the point at all. What people want is absolutely to be removed from the equation. Animals take shelter from the storm, or the predator, or the heat or cold, or they die. No recourse to subjective wants explains how a yeast cell absorbs sugar and excretes alcohol. that's just how they work, and this is how humans work, - they shelter or they die. they arrange the environment just as rabbits do or birds do We don't have to invoke the subjective world of these animals at all, any more than we have to invoke the subjective world of a yeast cell.

Life does what is necessary to survive, or it dies. but if it dies, it is no longer life. Therefore life does what is necessary to survive. And human life is no exception. We need to control our environment or we die. And those that are homeless must make a shelter from cardboard and plastic waste as best they can.

the “need” for buildings is subjective ( — Bob Ross

Have you ever been homeless? It might change your mind.

I am still failing to see how your idea of a “better house” is ultimately objective — Bob Ross

"Ultimately objective" is a curious term. I wonder how it it works?

An organism exists in relation to an environment. It can only exist within certain environmental parameters to which it is tolerant, and conditions outside these parameters are lethal. So for example the antarctic is only survivable to humans with ongoing input of food, energy, materials, and shelter brought in from elsewhere. These are facts, no? The full details are complex, but most birds need to nest, and so do humans, even if their nest is a mobile or temporary one.

There is no necessity for there to be humans, or any life whatsoever, of course, but as a matter of fact there is life, and life has a necessary relation to its environment. Most of the planet is not survivable to humans without some constructed shelter. So what do you mean by saying it is subjective? shall I go into detail about how a clean water supply and waste disposal maintain the home as an optimised healthy environment along with thermostatically controlled air conditioning? Subjectively, you might prefer 60F, while I like 72F, but there is no liking to boil or freeze.

Fish like water, and philosophers like neat divisions, but what is called 'subjective' is a certain minor variability in human-environment relations, the major part of which is biological necessity. This is why global warming is so important to humans. We are very fragile.

I don't think Nietzsche liked dwarves much. I doubt his real views would be put into the mouth of a dwarf. Thing is, though we look down both the roads, no one ever goes down them. Whichever way we look, it is always from the the archway of this moment, and we never stray from it. The image works better without the dwarf's commentary, which is why he is a dwarf. The image is static, there is no coming or going except in the diseased imagination of the dwarf. That is his function in the story, to point out the wrong way to think the wrong conclusion to draw..

Your analogy is fundamentally conceding, as far as I can tell, that there are no objective moral judgments but, nevertheless, if we all subjectively want to build a building (or most of us do) then there is a procedure we can take to pragmatically achieve that goal (in the most cogent means possible). Thusly, to me, your view (or analogy at the least) seems to hold that morals are ultimately contingent on wills (i.e., subjects) and that there are objective better ways to achieve those goals; but, importantly, I don’t think you are claiming there are objective morals themselves at all. — Bob Ross

I want to be a bit more realist than that. We do need buildings, and architects and all those ancillary workers i mentioned are the experts on these things. Different climates, different buildings; different geology, different standards; different population densities... etc. But none of this makes architecture 'subjective', merely complex.

Clearly, things ain't what they ought to be, otherwise we wouldn't need to talk about the way they ought to be. In the same way, if I already had an adequate house, I wouldn't be wanting plans for another. But granting that things are not as they ought to be, already allows that they could really be better; and here's the plan...

The more we are honest, the more we can trust each other, and the easier it is to to cooperate. I don't think this is subjective, I think this is the way it is - just as a wall will stay up longer the more vertical it is.

What then is the objective? — Hanover

'Flourishing'. The objective is coexistence with the environment, the health of which can be measured by its resilience, complexity, stability and so on. The question of an individual building is sufficiently complex to allow of differing judgements, but that doesn't make such judgements subjective. One would have to balance the potential boost to trust of folk coming together for various purposes, against the ecological cost of such mass movements and the deprivation of that portion of wilderness and so on.

http://environment-ecology.com/deep-ecology/63-deep-ecology.html

Try this analogy.

An architect draws up plans for a building that does not exist. The plans are general instructions (commands) for the construction of the building. To complain to the architect that the building does not exist would be foolish; what matters is, if and when the instructions are followed, will the building stand, or collapse? And if it stands, will it provide whatever requirements for shelter and comfort were envisioned?

One would like to answer these questions before expending a deal of effort on building, and so one has recourse to engineers' calculations and planning departments and building regulations and materials specifications and health and safety rules etc. Society and individuals learn from experiments, mistakes and successes what sorts of buildings work. All this accumulated knowledge and wisdom helps a good architect produce plans that are realistic. But it takes a team of builders to produce a real building.

This is a really fascinating thread. Thanks to @Pierre-Normand for the experiments.
It occurs to me though that what we have here is a demonstration that thought is mechanical, and that Descartes was wrong. Thinking is not aware. Philosophers and scientists alike rather tend to promote their own business as the centre and summit of human awareness.

Unecarte says 'I piss therefore I am; I look out the window, therefore I am; I breakfast, therefore I am.'

One can be aware of one's thoughts, and this is not the same as being able to refer to one's thoughts, or being able to think about one's thoughts.