it seems as though you are claiming that there is some sort of “objective moral law” — Bob Ross

the sort of objectivity I am claiming is the objective inequality I mentioned way back – honesty is moral and dishonesty is immoral; similarly killing folks is immoral and keeping them alive is moral. It cannot work the other way around, and thus there is objectivity, without that being the kind of law like gravity that one cannot defy.

I don't think i'm saying anything extraordinary or new here, so I wonder why it is so difficult to grasp. I'll try a quick recap.

1. Humans are heavily socially dependent on each other and have developed language as an aid to cooperation, including education planning and agreements.

2.Humans also make identifications of themselves as individuals, and this can give rise in thinking and planning to a conflict between self- interest and social interest.

3. This conflict manifests as the moral conflict, whereby one has to choose between self-interest and social interest. Because morality is a social judgement, acting in the social interest is moral and acting against it is immoral whenever there is a conflict.

4. Animals without language cannot articulate to themselves the nature of social interest or clearly differentiate it from self-interest, and therefore largely avoid such internal conflict. Here for example, we have the beginning of language, and the beginning of dishonesty.



The dishonesty has to be, as Attenborough says 'very occasionally', because otherwise the warning would not work either as a deception or as a warning. And I would add that it is clearly an intentional deception, and thus the original sin.

For example, let’s say that 99% of the population were convinced there wasn’t an objective law prohibiting murder, but they realize that the best bet to not get killed (in very unnecessary ways) is to promote and insincerely affirm that there is an objective law prohibiting it. In that case, I don’t see how society would crumble. In other words, dominant pretending isn’t necessarily a highway to destruction. — Bob Ross

Yes, you have found an exception..If one were to pretend to believe something that was true, though one believed it false... one would be telling the truth while thinking oneself deceitful. (Not that I really know what an objective law is, mind. It tends to make me think of laws of physics that one obeys without exception, rather than human prescriptions that one can and sometimes does break.)

If the boy who cried wolf masked his narcissistic desire to spook his village with crafty, legitimate reasons for crying (whereof when they approached there was no wolf but everything indicated that the boy was sincere—even though he truly isn’t), then they would have kept showing up. I am not sure if I am explaining this adequately, but hopefully that helps. — Bob Ross

Indeed so. there is advantage in immorality. Cheats prosper, but always at the expense of the honest. That is why I call it immoral realism as much as moral realism. This is hard for people to understand because decent folk want the world to be fair and reward virtue, but it is not and does not. As long as there is a community of the honest, the charlatan can exploit them; it is only when the charlatans become dominant that there is a collapse, and then the hard lesson has to be learned again that nothing can be done without virtue.

We could both be, for example, just interested in debating each other and are thusly just communicating counter points to each other (and not for the sake of what we think is true pertaining to the subject at hand) for the sake of having a good debate. To clarify, I don’t find any evidence either of us are doing that, but, as far as I am understanding you, it seems as though that kind of conversation wouldn’t be able to function properly (especially on a grand scale)--but I am failing to see how it would degenerate. Fundamentally, I think this is our dispute: — Bob Ross

When the boy cries wolf when there is no wolf, he teaches the world to ignore what he says. When we all ignore what each other says, there is no meaning and nothing to understand. It seems so obvious to me that i struggle to understand what you cannot understand. You do know the story?

And there's no arguing with absurdists, because fish never eat with their fingers.

Daft bugger!

Who do they talk to, then?

↪unenlightened So then you’re not really adding anything to the conversation. — Darkneos

Solipsists don't have conversations, they talk to themselves, as I am doing.

↪unenlightened Failure of empathy is another false argument against it. You’re attacking their character when their character has nothing to do with it. There are better counter arguments that don’t develop to attacking the person. — Darkneos

I'm only attacking myself, so there's no need to complain. And even then, it's descriptive – a solipsist has no one with whom to empathise; it's not a fault. And not an argument either if it comes to it.

Are you just trying to note that your attitude is that of a moral realist in the sense that there are things which must be done societally to preserve the nation, which have very minimal concern for any particular individual’s wants? — Bob Ross

It's more than that. We are discussing together; we are using language. This means we are already in a social relationship and already necessarily committed to a common purpose that involves truth and not falsehood. This moral position is necessary to commit to in the sense that to aver its negation would be a performative contradiction equivalent to my trying to persuade you that I do not care about you or what you think. In your terms, there can be no intersubjectivity that is not committed to truth. The sociopath is in practice a solipsist with nothing to say, though he may choose to appear to communicate as a manipulative strategy. This is very different from, say, establishing intersubjectively a rule for driving on one side of the road and not the other, which is necessary but arbitrary.

Truth, honesty, care for each other. These are the necessary components of social living, and social living is the necessary condition for communication. Morality is therefore necessary for language, and as real as language. And language is really real.

Can one be arrogant enough to believe he is the sole source and author of all great music, all architectural marvels and technological achievements, the author of all our epistemology and the content found in all youtube videos. — Nickolasgaspar

It only looks arrogant from the isolation of the self. But when I was Einstein, I was not arrogant, but humble.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly
I'm crying. — J.Lennon

Solipsism is merely a myopic failure of empathy. I am @Darkneos failing to be me. The third person is me beyond the horizon of self. As him I run from the gun, even as I come here demanding to be shot down. It's a game that I play with myself until I am bored. There is another game called 'love', that i can play when the crying and the running stop.

false messiah — Fooloso4

False Messiah. Def: — Leader whose followers get crucified before he does.

That looks just like Bray-fart from Scotchland, London.

Matter is emergent from mass habit. I keep thinking I am.

Hello, and welcome to our little community. Thank you for your fulsome introduction. I feel we might be friends, but I am old and bound for recycling in the near future, so my contribution to anyone's creation can only be very small. Never mind, you are young and can do more. Dive in, say some stuff, and see what happens!

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?