Really? I thought that one fell squarely on humans, not God. Or must She bear the responsibility for everything, regardless of who does it? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

She does. That's at the heart of the theodicy issue. If you are all-knowing and all-powerful, it follows that you are also all-responsible.

I very much enjoyed "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder. accessible and clever.

Perhaps you'd be interested in actually engaging with the substance of my post? You did say this:

Beyond the usual invitation to comment implied by any posting, I would be especially interested in hearing from anyone who knows if this argument has been made before, or who thinks they can find a flaw in my argument. — Theologian

Nor do I claim for one moment that forbidding literally everything was what Kant intended to do. I only claim to have put some thought into the logical implications of what Kant actually said – in his first formulation of the categorical imperative. — Theologian

I struggle to see the point of discussing a philosophy on the basis of wilful ignorance of the details of said philosophy.

“Weigh up competing maxims” is most definitely not what this rule says, and we all know it. — Theologian

That doesn't matter though, since a maxim can have as many conditions added to it as you like. Whether you treat the exceptions as a competing maxim or a part of the first maxim is logically equivalent.

So if an act can be described by any maxim that you would not will to be universal, and you perform that act, you have broken this rule. — Theologian

Again, this is not how it works. You don't "describe" acts with maxims. It's right there in the CI: you act according to a maxim, and that maxim is the one that matters.

And if anyone here can think of even one act that is not in accordance with at least one maxim that no basically normal person could ever want to be universally applied... I challenge them to tell us what it is! — Theologian

The CI does not ask whether an act violates "at least one maxim". The CI only applies to the maxims themselves. If we're talking about the CI as written, you could at most ask us to come up with a maxim that doesn't violate the CI. Such as "safe lives where you can do so without significant danger to yourself".

God exists, but She is the God of all things, not just human beings. To you puny humans, "evil" means only 'something we humans don't like'. Grow up! We all share the same world, and we all have the right to live there. — Pattern-chaser

I think if we include non-human beings in the equation, the problem becomes bigger, not smaller, since most creature's lifes are even worse than ours. If god is supposed to care about pigs and cows, she has a lot to answer for.

I would like to universalize the fact that everyone should smile when I walk into their establishment and be as friendly as possible. If we universalized that, there is no contradiction here, should this be a general maxim? — schopenhauer1

A maxim of benevolence / friendlyness can be universalized, I think. Of course, this is different from a maxim that includes forcing people to be friendly, which, while not necessarily self-contradictory, isn't something one would want to be on the receiving end of.

Let me edit what I said above.. If let's say, there WAS a contradiction..something like "If everyone were mean, civility itself would not exist".. would that be a general maxim? Everyone MUST be friendly to me when I walk into the establishment? You may disagree with how granular I'm getting.. see what I'm getting at? — schopenhauer1

If a maxim fails the CI, it does not follow that the reverse becomes a duty. if a general maxim of "mean-ness" (non-benevolence) fails the CI and is therefore prohibited, it does not follow that "friendlyness" (benevolence) becomes an absolute duty. You shouldn't be mean to your customers on principle, but that doesn't mean you can never be mean if the situation requires it.

Show of hands here - how many have actually read any Kant? — tim wood

Well the "Groundwork" is not that long, and I found it enjoyable to read (in german at least).

I've had similar criticisms of the CI. What counts as a maxim to be universalized? I think that his first formulation was trying to be too rigorous for its own good. — schopenhauer1

I don't think it really matters so long as you are actually concerned with maxims governing actions and not just making a rule for every single actions. It's not supposed to be some fixed catalog at a high level of abstraction like the ten commandments. If the principle that guides your action is embedded in some more abstract principle, you can go up an check if the principles that guide your actions are consistent with themselves and the CI.

If the brain only receives electrical impulses from the senses, what template does it use to construct reality? — VeganVernon

Both the brain and electrical impulses are already part of "constructed reality", so the question seems confused to me.

To borrow a term from grammatical theory, Kantian deontology is “context insensitive.” — Theologian

No, I think you are mistaken here. Kant's moral philosophy is not at all context insensitive. I think you're misunderstanding how a maxim works in general. A maxim is a principle of acting, it's not the "raw act" itself. The context is embedded in the principle. Almost no CI will be as simple as "do not kill". It will almost always be a conditional statement: "Do not kill for your own convenience". This is also, obviously, where the motive for the act is relevant.

Again, lying is wrong, so lying is always wrong, and it doesn’t matter what else the lie may happen to be: a beautiful sonnet, a sublime haiku, or an order for steamed hams. It’s a lie, so it’s wrong: end of discussion. — Theologian

You're using a very popular example but missing the very specific reason why lying, in particular, is "always" wrong (I think it's debatable whether or not that's actually a reasonable conclusion to draw). Kant argued against "benevolent" lying on the basis that when you tell a lie, you become responsible for the (unpredictable) long term consequences of the lie. It's a bad example to choose because Kant's logic here is specific to lying.

But the one I want to raise here is that with a little creativity, literally every behavior can be described in such a way that it fits some “maxim” (as Kant uses the term) that you would not be happy for everyone to act in accordance with all of the time. — Theologian

Yeah but that's backwards. The maxim guides the action, or else it's not a maxim. An action can be categorised under any number of maxims, but that is wholly irrelevant to Kant's system. Kant is concerned with the formation of the will, the "motive".

For example, most of the time I’m okay with people squeezing their fingers. But if a particular finger happens to be wrapped around the trigger of a gun, and that gun is pointed at my head, then absolutely no, squeezing that finger is right out! And unless you happen to feel differently about guns pointed at your own sweet noggins, then no more finger squeezing for you, my dear Kantians! — Theologian

Where is the maxim here? "I will never squeeze my fingers" is obviously not a universal maxim.

kantian ethics does not take care of delicate situations like these where a universal law fails to appear moral.But kant would argue it is the act which matters and the will. — Wittgenstein

In the case of lying, Kant was concerned that by lying to change the trajectory of someone's actions, you'd become inextricably linked to that altered trajectory. So that, for example, if your neighbor also sheltered even more Jews, and not having made an arrest in your house, the Nazis would then discover them instead, it'd be partially your fault for lying. Whereas if you tell the truth, it's the Nazis free decision what to do with that information. You can't be blamed for the truth.

An interesting argument, but somewhat removed from the general merits of Kant's moral philosophy. Unfortunately, it has come to dominate all discourse on it.

I don't know what this "experience of free will" is. Sure, I raise my arm, but my brain knew I'd be doing that and set up the action before my awareness or experience. Was my brain free? How? I can't even plead lack of constraints, for it's constrained by the laws of physics. — Unseen

But you decide to raise your arm. Every time you make a decision, you experience yourself as free. Otherwise, making a decision would be impossible. You can only act at all by assuming that you have some degree of control over your actions.

Then 'the software' simply isn't a traditional mathematical algorithm. — ssu

Again, how do you know that? In a deterministic universe, can not everything be expressed as an algorithm?

Why designate ANY words as offensive? Why not stop being offended by people using words at all? — Frank Apisa

Not relevant to adult language, but language shapes belief. How people say things matters, because human psychology is sensitive to it.

Freedom in the sense of lack of constraints, even combined with a sensation of being free, is no proof of free will, for all of that is the product of a brain operating under the same deterministic rules as everything else in the universe (above the subatomic scale, where randomness seems to rule). Experiences are helpless to rescue free will. — Unseen

The point is that you know what free will is, because you experience it. You can claim that this experience is an illusion, but we know what free will is just as we know what consciousness is.

Yet that doesn't make the program having AI as it simply follows a well written software, an algorithm. That's all what Turing Machines can do. Sorry, but that is the goddam definition. — ssu

The obvious counter argument is that human brains also just follow a well written software. You say we can "alter our decision making system", but this is true only to an extent. The logic behind the decisions stays the same. We cannot simply incorporate entirely new inputs of sensory data, or change our perception to include or exclude dimensions.

Yes but there are complications in that concept because what is the it in "its"?? Humans have a body, but computers can connect, So I can see why some might interpret the singularity as one gigantic entity. It's life Jim, but not as we know it? — Kippo

I don't see how that's a complication. The concept of "self" would obviously be different for an entity that could, say, copy itself. But that seems unrelated to the topic.

Please read carefully what I said. Turing Machine simply cannot perform the task "do something else than what is given in your program in a way not defined in the program. Whatever neural network mimicking machine deep learning we are talking about, IN THE PROGRAM there has to be specific instructions how to learn, how to rewrite the program. — ssu

And what makes you think humans do not have these limitations? The way our brains function and create new connections is based on a fixed set of rules.

The interesting thing about the AI "singularity" is that conceptually an AI could rewrite it's base code in a way a human never could.

At the moment we're simply talking about certain kinds of actions in response to speech. I have a problem with that control. — Terrapin Station

Which is to say you have a problem with the motives of that control. I am just saying that to label that motive "enforcement" is not appropriate, since in most cases it probably has nothing to do with "enforcing" some view or agenda.

Which doesn't have to be governmental. It can just refer to control.

It's definitely a reaction to speech. That doesn't make it not control. — Terrapin Station

So we should overthrow the capitalist system in favor of anarchy (in the sense of "no gods, no masters, no employers”)?

Because if you have the problem with control as such, the above seems like the only logical conclusion. I think you're more concerned with the way the control is used though.

The issue is controlling other people. That can easily happen outside of a governmental context. It's not as if it's okay to control people as long as it's not the government doing it officially. — Terrapin Station

But in order for it to be "enforcement" the people doing it must be doing it to actually "enforce" something. But I contend that, usually, the negative consequences are merely a reaction to the speech of other people, not an enforcement of their personal ideology.

I don't believe free will is possible, so what sort of will are you talking about and how does it work? — Unseen

I am fairly certain you have direct experience of free will. It's what you experience when you act.

Assumptions can be quite logical and rational. I assume there's no hippopotamus in my coat closet for rational and logical reasons. I just looked in my closet and showed that it IS possible to prove a negative. — Unseen

But only for empirical questions and only because the proof is itself based on assumptions.

If it were just speech I'd be fine with it. But it's not just speech. It's other sorts of actions. — Terrapin Station

But these actions are just decisions these people make as part of their freedom of action. It's not as if they follow a government mandate. It's not "enforcement" so much as avoidance of controversy.

Thus it's not about leftists imposing PC culture and more about culture, in general, not dealing well with controversy. A problem that's fairly evident on many levels and not limited to PC

Jobs/careers lost, ostracization, black listing, etc. — Terrapin Station

While I dislike this kind of reaction to statements that are merely controversial, I don't think it's accurate to call this "enforcement". Mostly, it's just other people using their free speech in opposition, which in turn prompts a reaction.

I believe most people's gripe is with the meat industry, rather than the act of eating meat. — Tzeentch

But the meat industry is how most people eat meat, so you cannot separate the two that easily

This is an idea almost as old as philosophy itself. "How real is reality" has been a central question through the ages, and there are lots of threads on the issue.

Eating meat is no worse than eating vegetables. One is eating living, growing things and, sadly, that is a requirement for survival. Only by prejudice do we value animal life over plant life. There's absolutely no merit to the idea that vegetarianism or veganism is in any way "better". — Tzeentch

It's worse in any number of ways. In terms of resource usage, energy efficiency, climate impact, general ecological impact. Health is debatable, but at least eating lots of meat is generally considered less healthy. The nervous systems of plants and animals, especially common Lifestock animals, is very different.

Whether or not any of this amounts to an ethical consideration is debatable, but claiming there is no difference to base ethical considerations on is ludicrous.

But a trait that helps an organism survive also provides opportunity for mating and thereof to pass on the concerned traits.

Grass is green and turns brown in winter. Imagine two species of grasshopper; one bright red and the other green. One color camouflages well and the other doesn't. More green grasshoppers survive and so more green grasshoppers mate resulting in an increase in the green grasshopper population. The red ones die out. So reproduction is correlated with traits that have a benefit to survival. — TheMadFool

This is possible, but it's not a necessary process. If, for example, red grasshoppers had a significantly higher chance of mating (perhaps grasshoppers find red attractive) it might also lead to red grasshoppers surviving despite the selection disadvantage.

A survival advantage can lead to a better chance of reproduction, but the reverse is not true.

I think the problem with evolutionary theory is that it assumes chance and survival are the only determining factors in evolution. But it then struggles to explain a number of evolutionary anomalies like altruism, suicide, love, art, etc. — Possibility

The theory of evolution does not assume that. That would be a subset called natural selection. Other selection mechanisms, like sexual selection, are actively discussed within the theory of evolution.

According to the theory of evolution, all that is required to pass on a trait is for the individual having the trait to reproduce. No "survival advantage" is strictly speaking necessary.

A statement is either true or false. If it is true that 'there is no objective truth' then that seems like a contradiction. — curiousnewbie

But what is the definition of truth? Saying "it's objectively true that there is no objective truth" is an obvious contradiction. But what if I define "truth" in this context as "reasonable assumption". Then I am just saying " I don't see how we can reasonably assume an objective truth", which isn't contradictory because it's reference is only myself.

In the context of metaphysics, the object of the objective truth is hard to pin down.

Therefore, for the sake of talking about society or culturally, does that fact that prison populations are predominantly male mean or imply that females are socially superior to males? — Wallows

The prison population as such does not tell us much. We'd need to account for factors like sentencing bias, and the different ways society treats men and women at the margins of society.

I'm talking about in probability theory, not about practical persuasion in a court of law. If you were to:
1) grab the population of people who ever claimed to have won the lottery and have an eyewitness to back them up who actually won the lottery
2) divide it by the total number of people who claimed to have won the lottery and have an eyewitness to back them up
3) grab the population of people who claimed to have ever won the lottery and have 10 eyewitnesses to back them up who actually won the lottery
4) divided it by the total number of people who claimed to have won the lottery and have 10 eyewitness to back them up
5) compare these ratios
6) I think you would have a slightly higher ratio of people who claim more eyewitness testimony also have a slightly higher percentage of being correct in their claim — coolguy8472

This is pure speculation though. There is no data suggesting it, and as speculative psychology it's not terribly convincing. Possible, yes, but I wouldn't bet on it.

I can't wrap my head around how so many intelligent people can come to so many different conclusions within the world of philosophy. Is philosophy not rigorous, logical and thorough? Are "thinkers" not looking for the same thing? How does it differ from the physical sciences, where, generally, something is proven and everyone will fall into line? — Edward

I think it's helpful to remind oneself that the scientific method is fairly new on a historical scale. The idea that knowledge always progresses is something peculiar to our modern world. For the vast majority of human history, no certain knowledge of physical nature existed either.

So it might be that we haven't found the equivalent of the scientific method for other questions yet. Given it took thousands of years to come up with it, that wouldn't be terribly unlikely.

But perhaps, unlike questions about the physical world, we don't have a way to ask the question in a way that allows a clear answer.

Does that work? — jorndoe

I don't see how either 2 or 3 follow.

I would say instead "has no certain information on the actual event in question" it has possible information of the actual event in question. Because the claim on its own cannot scientifically verified need not imply that it follows that the likelihood of the hearsay being true is unchanged. — coolguy8472

Hearsay evidence can increase the reliability of the witness, and thereby increase the likelihood of the claim being true. But it's not about the substance of the claim, that's what "hearsay" means.

All things being equal though I do think that more eyewitnesses make the claim slightly more likely. Unfortunately this is why people exaggerate or make stuff up to deceive others. For that reason I'd also say the more unlikely the claim and the more incentive to the lie, the less of an improvement the odds become when claiming more evidence within the claim. — coolguy8472

You still haven't explained how this is supposed to work. Just claiming to have witnesses is just another claim.

I suppose that would depend on the amount of the contribution, and the likelihood of it succeeding. Are we going to be doing a Pascal's wager thing?

I'm not sure what you're referring to here, but I'd not have any hurt that doesn't have a longer-term physical effect as something that's legally prosecutable anyway. — Terrapin Station

You'd be fine if people came around and slapped you across the face everyday? No physical evidence on the hands of the people that lasts more than hours.

Anyways I can create examples for days, why don't you answer my question?

What's the physical evidence for everyday events? A red car drove by. I saw you punch someone. I performed experiment X with result Y. Do these count as "physical testimony"? — Echarmion

Antifa is also a good example. Dressing in masks, enforcng through violence their own ideology. — DingoJones

It's problematic to include antifa under the general label of SJW. Antifa is older and it's ideology is distinct from "social justice".

I wonder, what is wrong with advocating for minority and women's rights, fighting against equality, racism, sexism and the like? Why is being a social justice warrior bad? — Anaxagoras

The term " warrior " denotes more than just advocacy. And there are lots of reasons for disagreement from lots of sides. Conservatives are opposed in principle, as is the alt-right. The criticisms from moderates is anywhere from dogmatism to focusing on the wrong issues.

Why wouldn't there be physical evidence re my face and your fist? The bruise on my face, the abrasions or bruise on your fist, etc. aren't only someone making an accusation. — Terrapin Station

It's very unlikely you can detect any damage on my fist from one punch, especially not hours or days later. There'd potentially be physical evidence that an injury happened, but not who did it. Obviously you can hurt people in ways that don't leave lasting marks.

Yeah, when it's only people making accusations. — Terrapin Station

So you're fine with me walking up to you in the middle of the street, punching you in the face and walking away free? You only have your testimony, and perhaps the testimony of others to convict me.

The grounds are that there's no way to bootstrap testimony-only. — Terrapin Station

But you haven't shown why testimony needs to be bootstrapped in the first place. It's potentially unreliable. So is all other evidence.

Say what? No idea what you have in mind there.

I'll answer the rest later, but I don't want to get into increasingly longer posts back and forth. I hate doing that. I'll let you answer this first, and then I'll get back to the rest afterwards . . . unless you respond to this with another couple thousand words. Hopefully not, though. — Terrapin Station

What's the physical evidence for everyday events? A red car drove by. I saw you punch someone. I performed experiment X with result Y. Do these count as "physical testimony"?

Legally, in my view we should not prosecute anyone where there isn't "physical evidence" of someone being a perpetrator, yes, definitely. I also think it's outrageous that we prosecute people for murder, say, when there is physical evidence but no body. — Terrapin Station

That blows a hole the size of a truck into the legal system that anyone with sufficient planning can walk through. You're saying we should ignore evidence even if there are no grounds to distrust the specific evidence in question, on the grounds that such evidence could potentially be forged. That makes no sense.

Only I didn't actually say that, and I rather explicitly said otherwise. There just needs to be "physical evidence" at some stage of the process if we're dealing with empirical claims, and then removed from that, good evidence that there was reliable access to physical evidence at some stage in the process. — Terrapin Station

For the quoted bit, no such physical evidence exists. You even pointed out reporters, specifically, as unreliable.

You have not really explained how this chain of physical evidence is supposed to work. When you write:

For example, having evidence that so and so won't testify to something unless they had solid physical evidence to support the testimony, even then the person removed from the physical evidence there didn't actually witness the initial physical evidence themselves. — Terrapin Station

This sounds like you're just referring to the person being trustworthy. But of course if that's sufficient, every chain of trustworthy witnesses also has a chain of physical evidence. This would be just a standard evaluation of the weight of the testimony. You obviously mean to set up an additional requirement that can only be met by specific limited kinds of testimony.

What about normal, everyday events? Does someone reporting an event they saw have physical evidence?

For legal purposes, I'd make direct presentation of evidence necessary, because the future of others' lives is in the balance, but not everything is the legal system. — Terrapin Station

You realize that not prosecuting someone also has consequences on other's lifes?

Again, I didn't say that. — Terrapin Station

How else am I supposed to interpret your statement?

The grounding is that the facts can't be wrong about the facts. But a reporter can be, including that reporters can be dishonest/they can weave fictions (so that it would turn out that they're not actually reporters at all), they are biased in many different ways, etc. — Terrapin Station

You explicitly say a witness might be lying, biased or mistaken where physical evidence would not be.

I also didn't say, and there's no reason for you to have known, that on my view relying on testimony only (sans good evidence of reliable access to physical evidence at the initial stage) is worthwhile proportionate to just how important or significant the upshots of trusting the testimony are. — Terrapin Station

You actually did not give any of these qualifications before. Do you have different epistemological systems for different situations?

Most definitely I would. That we can convict someone on testimony only is a horrible, horrible idea in my opinion. — Terrapin Station

So, according to you, we should ignore any kind of abuse that doesn't leave lasting marks? Even if it leaves lasting marks, the identity of the perpetrator can often only be established by witness testimony, so as long as you get away from the crime scene, many kinds of assault would be impossible to prosecute. As would theft and robbery perpetrated using only non traceable utensils, like a kitchen knife.

But it doesn't end there. According to your opinion, I cannot really know anything about the live of other people, unless I was actually physically there. This includes most information about the rest of the world, current and especially past events. Most of the scientific knowledge is right out as well, because it's based on the testimony of scientists or, more commonly, the hearsay testimony of secondary literature.

This makes your approach barely better than the flat-earther's "zetetic method". Given that your justification is that witnesses are inherently unreliable because they might lie or be mistaken, you can not accept any knowledge that is more than tangentially based on testimony. That means you also have to mistrust videos and images because their genesis is only established by witness testimony.

I am fairly certain you cannot actually apply that standard in everyday life. Which begs the question how you could possibly arrive at a position this absurd.