• Can I say this to divine command theory?
    Are there something else in our mind makes us know that divine commands are moral? — Rystiya

    However, god is omnibenevolent and so his commands will always be moral. To think otherwise would be a contradiction: — TheMadFool

    you don't second-guess God, that's not how divine command works. All you need to know is that you must accept God's authority. — SophistiCat

    Clearly there is something in some people's minds that make them know that divine commands are moral. Whatever it is, it is not the faculty of reason, because there is something in some other people's minds that says that the world is the creation of an evil god. And there is no contradiction in that belief.

    The thing in peoples minds that tells them what is moral is called conscience. You might call that the still small voice of God, if you are of that tradition. You might make the personification of goodness your god, and then you can say that if the world was created by the personification of goodness then that is the god I obey. And if it was created by another god, that is not my god.

    I might come right out and say that my conscience, which is the voice of God, tells me
    that God the creator is God the good. And after that I don't second guess what God tells me, and then I have to defend corona virus as somehow good. Recourse to 'mysterious ways' is probably the best option, or in the case of the guinea worm, 'mysteriously disgusting and gratuitously painful but still somehow benevolent ways'.

    Or I can drop benevolence entirely and just say the Creator is in charge and I as created just do what I'm told the way an arrow flies where it is aimed. or a computer runs the way it is programmed.

    Or...

    What you cannot say is that it is a contradiction that the Creator is not omni-benevolent. Well you can, but it's not true.
  • Question thread?
    I really like asking questions. — Shawn

    Why? I wonder if you see a certain safety in asking a question? As if a question cannot be wrong.

    I will venture to suggest that not only can a question be wrong, but that a large part of philosophy (but not all) is a matter of showing just how wrong some questions are.
  • Coronavirus
    Also they have probably calculated that the virus will kill off a lot of older, ill people, which will solve the bed blocking problem in the NHS and save money. — Punshhh

    Nobody would be so callous as to make that sort of calculation, would they?

  • Can I say this to divine command theory?
    And what about the God of the Flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the ejection from the garden of Eden? What about the God who created the Guinea worm and corona virus? Is that god ommni-benevolent? No, at the least it is not a contradiction that god is not benevolent.
  • Can I say this to divine command theory?
    You think Zeus is benevolent?
  • Compliments of the season.
    I especially appreciate your translation of Yiddish into Spanglish. — Artemis
  • Compliments of the season.
    You really think being called a philosopher is a compliment? — Shawn

    That question is a compliment of an extremely limited order, however, the idea of the thread is to find them on the site and quote them, rather than make them up especially.

    "But well done for making a contribution."
  • Can I say this to divine command theory?
    God is defined as omnibenevolent and so whatever he commands will be moral, don't you think? — TheMadFool

    Yes indeed. If Mummy loves me and Mummy knows best, then I should do what Mummy says. But 'does She?', is rather the question here. Mummy is not defined by me. Mummy might be an uncaring and cruel alcoholic paedophile.
  • If scientists/biologists are so smart...
    It just seems to me that it all boils down to things humans have done. — DeepThinker

    Well yeah, at the moment, that's why they call it the anthropocene. But that boiling down is not very useful; one wants to know what things and what one could do differently, and then is gets complicated again. But even when there is a simple answer - "fossil fuels" nothing much happens. I don't think it's because scientists are not clear.
  • Coronavirus
    ↪Nobeernolife
    I don't care who you caught it from; just quarantine yourself until the symptoms subside.
    ↪Punshhh
    And you.

    Actually, what you have is more like an allergy than an infection. Any contact with that to which you are sensitised provokes a huge over-reaction that takes over the whole mind and prevents thought about anything else.
  • Coronavirus
    But the hypothetical asymptomatic cases that were not counted for fatality rate were also not counted for infection rate, so the net result is zero. — SophistiCat

    That can't be right. Death is a symptom. If you are asymptomatic, you don't die any more than you cough or have a temperature. And if you are asymptomatic, in most cases you don't get tested. That is why the quarantined ship makes a good statistical sample - everyone was tested. In China many were quarantined, but not tested, in general, symptomatic people are tested, and that tends to over-estimate the death rate.

    ↪Punshhh
    ↪Nobeernolife
    Please make sure your politicians have corona virus before you bring them to this thread. thrilled though we all are to re-run the previous US election, we like to talk about other stuff too.
  • If scientists/biologists are so smart...
    If these people are so smart, why do they all state: "We aren't sure why the (insert animal species) population is dwindling."? — DeepThinker

    Because life is complicated and scientists are humble. In some cases it is straightforward, but quite often it isn't, because one thing affects other things and they affect other things and populations rise and fall quite naturally and stable, static equilibrium is pretty much an illusion. Any species might become an invasive destroyer of the environment, humans are not that special in this regard. Talk to any elm tree if you don't believe me.
  • Who wants to go to heaven?
    To me it seems like some sort of sanitarium in perpetually. Something horrifyingly undesirable ... — Wallows

    No.
    Don't play with other people's deepest ideas. If you don't like the taste, choose another flavour. Heaven as undesirable is just fucking about.
  • Coronavirus
    You like reasoning and argument, don't you? Here's some reasoning and argument.

    https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html?fbclid=IwAR2Di6GSNzwF8WJ4RDVmkLjwJr7x8sY5Bnwq-UJY_Uv3WmUu4EmjHP3XRZU
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    What's your argument against human life being intrinsically valuable because that life can eventually feel pleasure and have preferences? — Aleph Numbers

    I don't argue it. My argument is more simple; if you do not want abortions (and no one thinks they are a good thing worth getting pregnant for), if you value the unborn highly as most pregnant women do and most men do, then you should value the women who carry them and the children that they become. You cannot reasonably make them other peoples risk, consequence, fault, responsibility, problem, and also complain about how they deal with their problems. A society that does not care for the child and the mother has no standing from which to moralise about them, any more than a society that drives women into prostitution has any standing from which to moralise about prostitutes.
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    I don't think Tzeentch is depreciating the value of fetuses, but rather the autonomy of women. He just doesn't want anything killed. — Aleph Numbers

    I think he is a typical anti-abortionist that wants to lay down the law without taking an iota of responsibility. And that's another abortion debate aborted.
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    In the case of voluntary intercourse by individuals aware of the possible consequences: — Tzeentch

    Yes, you rightly change the wording, from 'risk' to the more neutral 'consequence'. But it is very little improvement. Are you the consequence of a fuck? Is that what a person is? Please, stop thinking like this in the first place, because the death of consequences will follow automatically from seeing people as consequences.
  • Abortion and Preference Utilitarianism
    people who voluntarily engaged in intercourse and were fully aware of the risks. — Tzeentch

    Abortion is a horrible thing. It is almost equally horrible to consider pregnancy or birth a "risk". In fact they go together. As if having children is a punishment strangely visited only on women for having intercourse.

    Abortion is the desperate measure of a woman in a hostile society that gives her or her children no value or a negative value. Start there, and moralise the society that so disrespects life as to put its women in such a position.
  • Can I say this to divine command theory?
    You are following in venerable footsteps. Congratulations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma
  • Coronavirus
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

    If you don't test much, you won't have many cases.

    Allegedly.
  • The Private Language Argument
    So my daughter squeals every time she sees a spider. I might conclude that *squeal* means "spider", or I might conclude that *squeal* means "I'm frightened". But the truth is that it doesn't mean anything in the linguistic sense. *Daughter squealing* means "spider"/ "frightened daughter" equally, in the same way that a footprint means a foot. It's a sign of...

    But feet do not speak 'footprint', and though some people read footprints, nobody writes them.
  • Brexit
    Don't worry guys, when he says 'everybody' he doesn't mean cripples, peasants, and foreigners - you're quite safe.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    Perceptions of beauty, belief in values, perceptions of oases, mirages and rainbows, the ideas of one's own and others' minds all obviously exist, — Janus

    Intersubjectively confirmed perceptions? That's a novelty!
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    Epistemological justifications require inter-subjective corroboration. The existence of a tree can easily be so corroborated. Can the existence of God? — Janus

    Can the existence of beauty, of any value, of oases and mirages, of rainbows, of other minds, of one's own mind? Let's eliminate from the discussion anything that cannot be so corroborated; the discussion will be short indeed.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    It can be said that there is God. It can be said there is no God. Rainbows and Psyche likewise. And allowing for context, there need be no contradiction.
    — unenlightened

    So while psychology might have something to say here, philosophy remains irrelevant, or silent.     — Banno

    Psyche and Sophia are equally divine. If you ask the gods whether they believe in god, you are liable to get as biased an answer as if you ask a mortal whether they believe in the self.
  • Resources for identifying fake news and intentional misinformation
    It's not infallible, but anytime you hear someone going on about how they truly mean it honestly, from the heart of their bottom or whatever, you can be sure you are dealing with an habitual liar. Honest folks just assume their own honesty. Rather the way smart people don't go on about how smart they are, they rely on the smart things they say to convey it.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    To state what Mt Everest is, you have to put it into a sentence with a subject/predicate form. — creativesoul

    My mouth is too small.
  • Shame
    I appeal to rational principles to over rule the feelings, and decide what I ought and ought not do, based on these principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I think this is special pleading. Take a simple conflict. I like ice-cream, but it makes me fat. Which is rational, liking ice-cream or not liking fat? I say neither.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    Wouldn't you deny the existence of the self? — frank

    It's rainbows.Yes and no. I simply say God is as real/unreal as you and me. Personally in practice I behave as if I am real regardless of affirmations or denials, so I probably ought to treat God with the same respect.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    ↪frank
    Wasn't taking you for a smarts at all. Yes indeed, psyche is the divine self, and that is my main suggestion, that it behooves us to be rather cautious about denying the existence of gods.

    It's about what can, and what can't, be said. — Banno

    It can be said that there is God. It can be said there is no God. Rainbows and Psyche likewise. And allowing for context, there need be no contradiction.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    What does "psychological" mean exactly? — frank

    What does 'direct experience' mean?

    One brings terms into question here and there. Earlier, I wondered if anyone was inclined to say that rainbows exist. In one sense they obviously do, and in another, they obviously have a pot of gold at each end.

    I think, therefore I am thought. But a thought of myself, is no more myself than a thought of a unicorn is a unicorn.
    I believe, therefore I am. If there is anywhere, a properly basic belief, then belief in one's own self is properly basic. So it is up to the theo-sceptic to distinguish this belief from belief in God in some way. I haven't noticed anyone doing it, and you are quite right to question the distinction between direct and psychological experience. That is what I myself am doing in my previous post.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences with God are merely psychological. — Sam26

    My contention is that what most people count as direct experiences of themselves is merely psychological.
  • Shame
    I cannot apprehend my emotions as judgements. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes, I can sympathise. judgement is commonly considered the province of the thinker, the rational faculty. But while rationality can make the measurement, and decide which dick is bigger, it cannot decide whether bigger or smaller is better, one has to have a feeling about it.

    Reason is and ought to be the slave of passion. — Hume

    Which is to say that reason can tell you what's what and what's not, but only passion can make you care, and so only passion can make you act.

    Suppose I start feeling embarrassed. This feeling wells up inside me, but the feeling itself doesn't really give me any information about the situation, — Metaphysician Undercover

    Nor should it. It is a response to the situation; the character of the emotion directs the action which in the case of a 'negative' emotion is to change the situation in some appropriate way, eg to cover one's nakedness. Without the judgement that nakedness in this situation is 'bad', the cover-up makes no sense and would not happen. Reason alone is incapable of making such a judgement.

    Philosophy has been very poor at understanding psychology because philosophers (and psychologists) like to think of themselves as ruled by reason, and studiously avoid these basic insights of Hume that lay the foundations of a clear understanding of human nature. This is what I call 'identification' and it always leads too prejudice. I like to think of myself as rational; therefore I am rational. Therefore it is rational to cover my genitals.
  • Coronavirus
    I don't mind the mass deaths, but my shares have gone down. This is serious!
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    ↪unenlightened Yes. — Pfhorrest

    Yes, rainbows are like God? Yes, the existence of rainbows is properly basic? Yes, rainbows are like hands? Yes, we have no bananas? Help me out a bit.
  • Shame
    I've said, in this thread, that "shame" involves a judgement that the situation is less than ideal, deprived. So I've made the same mistake which I've criticized David Mo for here, placing the judgement as inherent within the emotion. Therefore we ought to describe shame simply as the uncomfortable feeling, and associate the judgement that the uncomfortable feeling is derived from the apprehension of a deprived situation, with conscience. — Metaphysician Undercover

    I think you were right the first time. I think every emotion is a judgement. To have an emotion is to give a damn. To call it uncomfortable is already to have judged. The judgement provides motivation - grab that fig leaf.
  • Plantinga: Is Belief in God Properly Basic?
    the point I made earlier, that didn't seem to strike a chord with anyone. When you see your hand and are prompted to believe that your hand exists — Pfhorrest

    When I see a rainbow and am prompted to believe the rainbow exists, is this a properly basic belief, that is an elaboration upon the details of the experience that prompted it? Or are rainbows more like God?
  • Shame
    Indeed! There is no shame and we are talking about nothing.
  • Shame
    When we talk about moral emotions in psychology and philosophy, we understand that they are those that affect my relationship with others. — David Mo

    In the case of the Bible the confusion is easier because it is the product of a society in which tribal pressure and morality are confused. — David Mo

    So shame and guilt are moral emotions and moral emotions are those that affect relationship with others, that is to say social relations, and the bible confuses morality and and social pressure.

    You are so full of arrogant shit my head has just exploded and unfortunately I will be unable to engage further.
  • Shame
    This is due to their proximity as moral emotions and because they have some of their characteristics in common: both are based on a concept of what should and should not be done (that's why they are moral) and both involve self-esteem (that's why they are also called emotions of the Self). — David Mo

    You see this just sounds like pontification of the most dogmatic kind. How can an emotion be moral or non moral, what even is it for something to be moral? These are the questions that I think need answering by looking at shame, but you are already using them to define shame as if morality is less problematic than emotion.

    I am not a priest or a moralist. I analyze the causes of your discomfort (fact). I am a psychologist. — David Mo

    Yes. And I am a philosopher. I analyse the causes of your confusion. You have no idea what you are talking about because the thing that is the proposed cause of the feeling you are analysing, does not exist in your philosophy. Guilt is reduced to discomfort and therefore painkillers will cure it. That is degeneracy of the first order.
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