How do you suggest that we could change the belief of what is required, and still come up with the same action as being required for the new belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

If I’m lied to and told there is no erupting volcano but I need to leave the area for some other innocuous reason, then I won’t panic and run over people. But neither will I panic and run over people if I’ve learned that this is something I shouldn’t do anyway. The ought resides in the action/non-action, not in believing the lie.

I'm not talking about where bad things come from, I'm talking about where good things come from. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I was saying that bad things cannot come from truth, but they obviously can from lies. Therefore it cannot ever be bad to believe the truth, but it can be bad to believe lies, so an ought cannot ever reside in believing lies, but it can do so in the truth.

If good things are the things which are desired, as needed, then we ought to tailor our beliefs such that they naturally bring about good things. If, in the process of judging a particular belief, the possibility that it might bring about something bad comes up, then we need to consider this. But we start from a good, what is needed, and until believing the truth is demonstrated as something needed, or good, truth has no relevance. — Metaphysician Undercover

And all the time you’re doing this you are appealing to the truth; the truth of what is good, and whether or not good will come of a certain belief or an action. Why do we appeal to these truths if it is not good to do so, if it’s not the case that we ought to?

You don't seem to be grasping the principle. Truth is good and good is truth, is a bottomless pit, because it's circular. To avoid the circle (bottomless pit) we need to ground something. So we ground "good" in action, activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you have this backwards. Action is grounded in the good. How else would we choose our actions, if not in reference to the good, or at least what we perceive the good is? And it’s not a circle to say that truth and goodness are the same thing, to say that good things are true things and true things are good things. Truth/goodness are the ground you mentioned, not action, which is based on our perception of these things.

Knowing the truth does not necessitate any particular actions. So we cannot say that it's good to know the truth until we can say what good the truth brings about. However, we can say that a certain belief is good, because it brings about good actions, regardless of whether or not it is true. — Metaphysician Undercover

I just don’t think you’ve thought about this. Of course knowing the truth necessitates action. The only way it wouldn’t would be if it were true that we should never take any actions.

This is not true at all. Our beliefs regarding actions are based in probability. We proceed when there is a high probability of success, not when we are certain that it is true that there will be success. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, you just haven’t thought about this. The only way we can judge something to be probable is in reference to the truth that it is probable.

If a certain belief leads to good actions, then why can't we conclude that we ought to hold that belief? — Metaphysician Undercover

I’m saying the ought resides in the actions, and not the belief in the lie. It would be possible to take the same actions without believing the lie, so believing the lie isn’t strictly necessary. It might appear necessary in practice, but there’s certainly no ought to believing the lie in the abstract. As I said, this shows the ought does not reside in believing the lie, like I’m saying in does in the truth.

You insist that we ought to believe the truth, but why? Unless there is a good which comes from believing the truth, which is better than the good which comes from believing the lie, then this claim is unfounded. Do you have a principle whereby it is demonstrated that believing the truth is always better than believing a lie? — Metaphysician Undercover

Is it even possible for bad things to come from believing the truth? Can you give an example of this? If the truth of a nearby exploding volcano causes people to panic and run over one another, then it’s not believing the truth that has lead to this, but the implicit lie that it is good to panic and run over one another.

I don't see the bottomless pit. The bottom is what is good. You want to make the bottom the truth. Clearly these two are not equivalent, so why do you give supremacy to truth over good? I give supremacy to good because human beings are active beings, involved in doing things, activity is the natural tendency for the human being and to be sedentary is unhealthy. Therefore I assume that beliefs are for the sake of these activities which we engage in, and the beliefs which we ought to hold are the ones which are conducive to good actions. If a true belief is conducive to good actions then it is one that we ought to hold. If it is not, then there is no reason to hold it. And if a false belief is conducive to good actions, then it ought to be held. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is true is good. I’ve already said you can form the same bottomless pit with “good”. Is it good to believe true things? No? Well is it good to believe that?. And so on. Eventually you’re forced to say yes, because it’s good to believe true things, and we ought to do things that are good.

A belief needs to be judged in relation to something in order to determine whether or not we ought to hold it. Being fallible human beings, with fallible minds, we have no guarantee that what we think is the truth is really the truth, so we cannot judge our beliefs in relation to the truth. Therefore we need to judge whether or not we ought to hold this or that belief in relation to something other than the truth. I think that we ought to judge the beliefs in relation to the actions which they bring about, whether they bring about good or bad activities. — Metaphysician Undercover

We always judge our beliefs in relation to the truth, it’s impossible to do otherwise. By saying, “I’m taking this action not because I’m certain it’s true, but because good will come of it”, you’re actually saying, “I’m taking this action because I believe it is true that good will come of it, and we ought to believe true things.”

As to the noble lie, it might be the case that the lie is beneficial, in which case we ought to believe that it’s beneficial. However, that doesn’t mean we ought to believe the lie if we know it to be one.
— AJJ

This is what's absurd. It's not the lie itself which is beneficial it's the belief in the lie which is beneficial. The lie would be useless if no one believed it. If the people know that it is a lie, then they will not believe it, regardless of whether they ought to believe it or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

But then it seems to me it isn’t that we ought to believe the lie, but rather that we ought to behave in the way that the lie facilitates. If you consider the lie and the truth abstractly then it seems obvious that we ought to believe the truth over the lie. If you answer that we ought sometimes to believe the lie, then that demonstrates that the ought doesn’t reside in believing the lie, but in the consequent actions of believing the lie. If you try to say the same thing about the truth, you’re making the statement that true things are not things we ought to believe, which lands you in that same bottomless question pit I’ve been talking about.

Yeah, I think we should part ways now in this argument. I don’t want to discuss this with anyone who can’t see why the below statement makes no sense:

“there is nothing that we ought to believe, including the proposition that there is nothing we ought to believe.” — AJJ

As in nonsensical.

I was using the word insensible rather than senseless. My mistake.

So the issue isn't continually inviting a question, but something else. — Terrapin Station

The issue is continually inviting the question, which in effect makes a senseless statement, the one I just gave.

Re your comment here, if we're saying that it's not true, it's not a fact, that there is anything that we ought to believe, why is that absurd? How does it fit your definition of absurd? — Terrapin Station

Because it invites the question, “Ought we believe that there isn’t anything we ought to believe?” It’s like I’ve said, this question is continually invited, which in effect makes the senseless statement I gave in my previous post.

So in what way does "Continually inviting a question" fit the definition of "absurd" you're using? — Terrapin Station

Because you’re in effect saying “there is nothing that we ought to believe, including the proposition that there is nothing we ought to believe.”

First, "Continually inviting a question" is sufficient for "absurd"? What definition of "absurd" are you using, then, and what does it have to do with logical validity? — Terrapin Station

Here’s the definition from my Dictionary app: “utterly or obviously senseless, illogical, or untrue; contrary to all reason or common sense; laughably foolish or false”

The rest is just you asserting your own credo and I don’t care about that.

If it is the case that facts are things we ought to believe, then the OP argument works. The reason I’ve given that it is the case that we ought to believe facts is that it’s absurd to deny it, because you continually invite the question, “Well ought we believe that?”

You can do the same thing with “good”. Is it good to believe facts? If you say no, then you continually invite the question, “Well is it good to believe that?”

As to the noble lie, it might be the case that the lie is beneficial, in which case we ought to believe that it’s beneficial. However, that doesn’t mean we ought to believe the lie if we know it to be one.

Not really, and maintain rational integrity. Acceptance is analytic, insofar as that which is accepted is self-sufficient (accepted because it’s a fact). Belief is synthetic, insofar as there remains a contingency to the proposition which some additional proposition would need to rectify (if one does not believe the fact he should be able to justify his dissention). — Mww

It’s absurd to deny that we ought to take facts
to be true, whether that means believing or accepting, for the reason I gave in my OP.

To go a step further, acceptance grants that some particular cause and effect are empirically manifest, the primary conditions for facts in general. If one believes he ought not to accept some fact, by association he does not grant that particular cause and effect to be at least sufficient, and at most he does not grant those conditions to be possible and/or non-contradictory. — Mww

I don’t see how whether we think something is a fact or not has any bearing on the abstract notion that we ought to believe/accept facts.

Much more parsimonious to either accept facts as facts or not, and leave such vagaries as “ought to believe” by the metaphysical wayside. — Mww

Again, swap “believe” for “accept” and the argument works the same. If you deny that we ought to accept facts, it invites the question, “Well ought we to accept that?” and so on until it’s accepted that we ought to accept true things, which are facts.

If you’re simply saying you don’t care about that, then OK.

Well, I care. You could swap “believe” for “accept” and it seems to me the argument works the same.

Bottom of 108 to 109

It has a bearing, because not accepting facts has consequences. If you're an engineer, and you measure something wrongly, or enter a wrong value, then your bridge will collapse. It has nothing to do with belief - belief doesn't even come into it. And I don't know if 'accepting a fact' is the same as believing that such and such is the case; matters of empirical fact are simply thus, whether you believe it or not. — Wayfarer

Your bridge example is a practical illustration of why it is we ought to believe facts, but I’m simply saying we ought to believe facts because they’re true, because it’s absurd to say otherwise. In practice the things we believe may or may not actually be facts, but I’m talking abstractly - that it is abstractly the case that we ought to believe facts.

I suppose you can say that you ought to accept facts on the basis that not accepting facts has deleterious consequences. But I still don't see much of an argument here. Should I cheat in this exam? Should I take that office stationary for my own use? Should I give this stranger a ride? These are all questions which involve what you ought or ought not to do, but which don't necessarily resolve neatly to matters of fact. You can't say that as a matter of fact, you should never pick up strangers; a lot depends on the circumstances. And there are innumerable such instances in day to day life. — Wayfarer

This key point keeps being passed over:

It is absurd to say facts are not things we ought to believe. Because every denial invites the question, “Well ought we to believe that? Ought we to believe that facts are not things we ought to believe? If the answer is no, well ought we to believe that? And so on. It’s really just this I’m appealing to to demonstrate that facts definitely are things we ought to believe, because we ought to believe true things, which are facts.

Thanks for the cordial replies. I’ll try to respond to both here.

Facts don’t depend on whether or not we believe them, sure, but I don’t see how that has a bearing on whether we ought to believe them. Neither do I see what bearing all the facts we do not know has on this, since it can simply be the case that we ought to believe once aware of them. And how we come to know facts is a separate issue. The reason I agree with the OP argument is that it seems absurd to deny that facts are things that we ought to believe, for the reason described in the OP and my other posts.

Really the key is that last point. We ought to believe facts because it’s absurd to say either that we ought not to believe facts (which creates a paradox), or that facts aren’t things we ought to believe (which creates an infinite regress until you accept that there are things we ought to believe - which are true things, which are facts).

If for those reasons facts are things we ought to believe, then you have there a basis and proof for objective values.

Facts in no way generally hinge on us or anything about us. — Terrapin Station

I know mate. Again: that is what makes them objective, rather than subjective. That is why we ought to believe them.

If we never existed, there's obviously nothing we ought to believe. But there are still facts. — Terrapin Station

You’re just getting objective and subjective mixed up here. Whether facts ought to be believed or not doesn’t depend on us if they’re objective.

Terrapin has been attempting to do that...to little avail, AJJ.

What do you mean when you use the word "believe" the way you did in the OP? — Frank Apisa

No mate. Here’s what you said:

This could be resolved if we just eliminated the word "believe" from the English language. — Frank Apisa

So you should first of all explain that. And...

Obviously AJJ is using that word in one of its least desirable, least useful, idiosyncratic forms. — Frank Apisa

You should explain how I was using the word, since you’ve claimed to know, and then explain what the correct way to use it is, in your view.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t interested in having this type of argument. If there’s a clear objection to the argument in my original post, I would love to here it. So, please could you explain your comment, rather than simply assert it with a “Just sayin’!” on the end.

And so the absurdity of your premise 2 was actually my point, you’ve made it again for me.

So it’s actually a paradox, right?

I should say it’s self-defeating. Because if it’s true that we ought not to believe true things, then we ought not to believe that we ought not to believe true things.

Obtuse? this is as simple and straightforward as we can get while still doing philosophy. — Terrapin Station

I know it is mate. That’s why I’m calling you obtuse. Try looking the word up.

Imagine the following. Someone gives this argument:

P1: Facts are true things.
P2: We ought not to believe true things.
C: We ought not to believe facts.

Are there any problems with that argument? — Terrapin Station

Yes. It’s an argument that fails if it’s true.

Buddy, if you weren’t so bloody obtuse you’d have realised I addressed in my OP the absurdity of claiming that that facts aren’t things we ought to believe. I can ask the questions, “Is that true? Is that a fact? Ought we believe that?” to infinity.

In other words, you're not saying that the definition of fact is "thing we ought to believe." You're saying that it follows from something being a fact that we ought to believe it.

But claiming that something follows requires an argument. — Terrapin Station

Did I not give an argument? The one you only partially quoted?

P1: Facts are true things.
P2: We ought to believe true things.
C: We ought to believe facts.

By the way, does it follow from a fact that we ought to believe it if humans had never appeared?

Can we not have facts in the absence of humans? — Terrapin Station

Yes, that’s what makes them objectively true, which is why we ought to believe them.

That's fine, but it doesn't have anything to do with the problem with the argument you presented.

The argument you presented went like this:

"If there are no objective values then there are no facts (since there’s nothing that we ought to believe). "

That only works if:

(1) Objective values and facts are supposedly the same thing, or
(2) "Things we ought to believe" and facts are supposedly the same thing

OR, if

(3) "If there's a fact, then necessarily it has objective value" is true, or
(4) "If there's a fact, then necessarily there's something we ought to believe" is true

(1) and (2) are not conventional definitions of "fact." As unconventional definitions, that could work, though it would be vacuous (as a tautology--"There is no x if there's no x") and it wouldn't have any rhetorical weight, because the rhetorical weight of the argument is gained by appealing to the conventional sense of "fact." — Terrapin Station

Number 2. I think it is a tautology. If the conventional sense of fact is “something that is true”, and we ought to believe true things, then it follows that facts are things we ought to believe. So there’s at least something that we ought to do, an objective value, to believe facts.

Do you understand the difference between what "fact" refers to and what "thing we ought to believe" refers to? — Terrapin Station

I’m saying there are things we ought to believe, we ought to believe them because they’re true, and that true things are facts.

You’re not actually understanding what I’m saying, and you’ve done that partial quote thing again where you miss off an important part of my reply.

If anyone else has something to say then cool, otherwise I guess I can continue believing it’s a sound argument.

Facts are ways that the world happens to be. States of affairs. — Terrapin Station

Would you say the above is a fact? And would you say we ought to believe it? Is there anything we ought to believe? If you say no to the last two questions, ought we to believe that?

It goes on forever. It seems to me you’re forced to admit there are things we ought to believe and that those things are facts, unless someone can explain where I’m going wrong.

If people deem it moral, or at least not immoral,
to break a law, then I’d say that undermines the law. It’s surely possible to morally undermine a law by appealing to a higher set of values, but it doesn’t seem to me you could do that with drugs, given their harms.

Graham Oppy, atheist philosopher, gives the term “innocent” for those who have never considered the question of whether God exists, and so can’t properly be considered atheist or agnostic.

Mate, coincidences are by their nature unlikely. If you’re going to depart from common-sense like this (and if you’re going to now scoff at the notion of common-sense) then let’s just call it a day.

For the same brain phenomena to occur alongside the same experiences all the time by chance would, I’m only guessing, be unlikely.

Yes. Coincidence seems ludicrous given the probabilities involved.

Looking back over my posts I have said in some that it isn’t evidence for your claim. I should have been saying that it’s not necessarily evidence for your claim.

No. It could be evidence for what you say. But it seems to me - in the case of this particular evidence, not for evidence in general, and without knowing anything else - that there is an equally valid alternative explanation, which is that our experiences are simply based on our brain phenomena, rather than being identical to them.

No. I’m not talking about excluding possibilities. I believe the mind is immaterial. I do not therefore think the materialist possibility has been excluded. You can justify a belief without definitively proving it; this is what I was asking from you. Not proof. Justification.

I wasn’t appealing to proof. I was asking for a legitimate justification for your chosen conclusion. The best you’ve given is that the notion of immaterial things is incoherent. Yet the first argument I gave in this thread was about qualia, about the quality of redness existing in the mind but not in the material world. But that’s there already and I don’t want to go back to it.

That could still be interpreted as experiences being based on brain phenomena.

So says you. You have qualia, rationality and intentionality to deal with there. Perhaps you’re right, but the claim simply on the back of that evidence that brain phenomena are identical to experiences is too much.

No subject changes. The justification is all I want, then I’m out.

What was the justification you gave for choosing that former interpretation over the latter?