Yes, I see that now.

BUT WHAT ABOUT RAPE YOU SAY?

Yes……I cannot make the same causality argument in rape because the woman was not a willing participant in the sex which caused the pregnancy. — LostThomist

Here I might add that two wrongs don't make a right. If abortion is intrinsically immoral, then rape is not a legitimate exception. To punish the innocent for crimes it never committed (in this case, rape, but the same logic would apply to incest) is unjust.

The only possibly legitimate exception is when the life of the mother is threatened. There, the principle of double effect becomes relevant, so that if the child is killed in an attempt to save the life of the mother without intending to harm the child, the abortion in that case is morally permissible.

Welcome to the forum, LT. It's good to have you. I agree completely with your argument and appreciate the lucidity with which you presented it. :up:

But they are. People have done just that with them.

Cannot? What are you talking about? There have been plenty of mass shootings by means of pistols.

Fair enough.

I don't think that it does. I think that it should, and I suspect that you know why I think that. — Sapientia

You're just stalling here. Why do you think it should? And no, I don't know why you would think that, but I can guess. If your reason is "because people use guns to kill other people," that's not good enough. People use lots of things to kill other people that you don't think ought to be banned. I would also counter by pointing out that 1) a large proportion of gun deaths are due to illegally acquired firearms by individuals who have criminal records and that 2) there is an enormous number of defensive gun uses each year, a number that dwarfs the number of deaths by guns, so that 3) to ban guns would be to take away guns from nonviolent, law abiding citizens who may have used them to protect themselves.

No, I clearly said, for example, many handguns don't qualify as weapons of war. — Agustino

I think a gun qua gun qualifies as a weapon of war.

It's not negative in a war setting. — Agustino

And I say it's not negative in other settings.

That wasn't a strawman. I asked a question. I agree that there are restrictions on the means of self-defense, but I don't think that extends to banning all guns. Why do you think it does, if indeed you think that?

Self-denfence? Yes. Right to bear arms? Hell no. — Sapientia

Why doesn't a right to self-defense entail a right to the means of self-defense?

demand the use of war-like weaponry. — Agustino

Define.

If there are no non-war-like weapons, and it doesn't seem that there are, then you're just against weapons per se, which would seem to indicate your opposition to the possession of any means of self-defense. All weapons qua weapons can be used in a setting of war, but that doesn't mean that is their sole purpose or function.

You clearly regard "war-like" as a negative quality in itself. Does that mean war-like clothing, such as camo, should be banned? What about war-like haircuts? War-like vehicles? War-like language? Lots of things fall under the category of "war-like" that it would be absurd to ban, so just claiming that guns are "war-like" isn't sufficient to show that they ought to be banned.

If you can't distinguish a joke like the above from a serious point then you really have a problem, frankly. — Baden

I get that it was a joke, but it was clearly meant as a reductio of my position.

I demonstrate it by asking you to give me examples of realistic situations when you would need such a weapon for self-defense. — Agustino

It is estimated that there are between 60k to several million defensive gun uses each year.

Where did Agustino claim that civilians had access to the first set of weapons you mentioned, which were: — Baden

He mentioned machine guns and bazookas. I filled in other weaponry that I had in mind.

Anyone who claims that guns like this are not the equivalent of war weapons and accuses those who claim they are of "fear-mongering" and "peddling falsehoods" is either deliberately lying or willfully ignorant. — Baden

I had in mind grenades, tanks, attack helicopters, fighter jets, bombs, machine guns, RPGs, etc when I made my comment. Civilians don't have access to these quintessential weapons of war.

If it matters so terribly to you, I can happily acknowledge that the weapons civilians do have access to are also military grade weapons, in that they or their equivalents have been or are used by the military. I can concede this because it doesn't affect my position in the slightest. You're fear mongering by calling these guns "weapons of war," the idea apparently being that that is the only setting in which they ought to or can function, which is false. The other falsehood, moreover, was the suggestion by Agustino that civilians have access to the first set of military weapons. They don't.

Believe it or not, I'm in favor of gun control, which means in part that I don't believe civilians ought to have access to the first set of military weapons and that there may be reasonable limits placed on the weapons they currently have access to as well as on their procurement. The change in my position has been one from, "we ought to ban all guns" to "we ought not to ban all guns." The continued attempts in this thread to paint me as some rabid, gun toting and loving NRA shill are getting really, really old.

Typical.

Regular people do not need assault rifles to defend themselves for fear of being attacked on the street. — Agustino

Here you're defining the terms of what counts as a situation of defensive gun use: "being attacked on the street." A handgun might suffice for that scenario. But that's obviously not the only one.

Oh yeaaaaah, the hamster mafia is after me, I certainly need a bazooka to defend myself, I'm sure they'll be coming with tanks too — Agustino

Strawman.

Stop replying to me. You've amply demonstrated your inability to address what I've actually said, so your nasty little insinuations do not affect my argument or position. You might heed Einstein's definition of insanity.

there is absolutely NO REASON that your average person would ever need to have access to such a weapon — Agustino

How do you know? This sort of assumption is at the heart of the anti-gun rhetoric, it seems to me, and it's never demonstrated. There are lots of defensive gun uses every year, with people using guns of the kind you find so terrible to protect themselves, their families, and property.

they should apply and seek to buy regular handguns. — Agustino

There are handguns more powerful than the "assault weapons" you've created as your boogeyman.

As I've already pointed out, and this is for @Baden too, there are guns more powerful and deadly than the AR-15. Mass shooters use it because they're copy cats. The civilian model looks more terrifying than it really is. So you're fear mongering once again over a gun skin.

In standard civilian life there should be absolutely no need ever to own assault rifles, automatic war weaponry, etc. — Agustino

They can't. It's illegal to own such weapons.

It is a total disrespect actually of the military and of law enforcement to think that you need the kind of weaponry the military uses in order to defend yourself. — Agustino

Civilians don't own the kind of weaponry the military uses.

Anyone who thinks otherwise has fallen prey to propaganda & conspiracy theories — Agustino

Are you sure you haven't, in light of the two falsehoods you peddled above?

Intellectuals are eminently worthy of blame, so I'm not sure I would advise something be done about it. We might just as well consider whether something ought to be done about anti-anti-intellectualism. A question like this depends on how the terms are defined, I might add. I would agree with the critique of intellectuals advanced by Sowell, for example, whom the article mentions, but not by fundamentalist Christians who dismiss evolution. The content of the opposition is not the same in all forms of anti-intellectualism.

In fact, I daresay, to turn the tables somewhat, that a failure to make proper distinctions, such as between various forms of anti-intellectualism, is itself a pretty anti-intellectual thing to do.

There is a difference between either/or and both/and, the latter of which applies in the present case.

Okay, so have I.

things that exist on one level, do not exist on another. — Wayfarer

This way of couching it corresponds to my correction and confirms my suspicion about Moran's description, which was misleading.

That is the subject of Richard Weaver, Michael Allen Gillespie, and also the 'radical orthodoxy' movement, of which there is quite a good review here (starts from the bottom of the page.) — Wayfarer

My point is that the Radical Orthodoxy people, from whom Brad Gregory imbibes, get Scotus totally wrong, especially on the univocity of being. I agree that Ockham was responsible for some deleterious metaphysical turns in the West, which trickled down into culture. But it is wrong to unambiguously link Scotus with him and thereby to all the bad stuff Gregory speaks of, the foremost of which being the Protestant Reformation.



Do you know what this is an image of? It's an early modern painting of Duns Scotus trampling Lucifer and the heads of various Lutheran reformers underfoot. One wonders what Gregory and his ilk would make of it....

It's pretty selective to agree with Heller in light of the history of supreme Court interpretation of the 2nd amendment. — Benkei

It's no less selective than to agree with a previous court's interpretation to the exclusion of Heller.

I guess to my ear the term "exists" means to be actualised. — apokrisis

To be actualized from what? You presuppose the existence of what is being actualized here. I think to be actual is to exist in one manner, namely, in reality, whereas to be potential is to exist in another manner, namely, in the mind or nature of a thing. Language, for example, doesn't actually exists in infants, but it exists potentially. No tree actually exists in my backyard, but it potentially exists. The only category of thing that doesn't exist are impossible things, like square circles. Otherwise, things exist potentially or actually.

That would be where we differ in that you take a theist and Platonist route here? — apokrisis

I don't know. Maybe? Why do you think I am?

and the purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide for an alternative to a standing army — Michael

No, not necessarily. I agree with Heller that, "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." Protection from government tyranny, both foreign and domestic, may have been one reason for the Amendment, but self-protection was another and in fact underlies the former.

Mere assertion without substantive argument is at this point just a waste of all of our time — tim wood

That is precisely what you have done, tim. I have provided the reason, by quoting court documents, as to why the Amendment grants an individual, and not a collective, right to own and bear arms. You have merely asserted the contrary without evidence. Put up or shut up, I say.

What Constitutional provision is violated when the police fail to act? — Hanover

I was thinking in terms of the sentiment expressed in the Preamble.

Its purpose is to grant the people the right to keep and bear arms, just as it says. This isn't esoteric stuff.

The 2d amendment had a purpose; that purpose is no longer relevant. — tim wood

False.

Now it's used in contexts it wasn't intended for - misused. — tim wood

False.

According to this classification, God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist

I find the distinction to be incoherent, for it amounts to saying that God is (otherwise, we couldn't attribute transcendence to him) but does not exist. Eriugena can't affirm both without contradiction. I suspect, however, that either Eriugena or Dermot Moran, the author of the SEP article, is being loose in their language, for later on in the article, Moran attributes to Eriugena the claim that "God knows that He is, but not what He is." So here God does apparently exist, while his nature is inscrutable. This means that the original quote above ought to read: "God, because of his transcendence, is said not to exist in the manner of a phenomenon or creature."

became collapsed by the later Duns Scotus with the assertion of the ‘univocity of being’ — Wayfarer

Scotus didn't deny the analogy of being by asserting the univocity of being. He also wasn't a nominalist. I suspect you're getting this from Brad Gregory, but as I've said before, he's just wrong and misinformed about Scotus. If you want a villain, his name is William of Ockham, who really was a nominalist.

Your comment is a series of ad hominems and strawmen. If you want to discuss what I have actually said, I'll be here, but until then, I won't be further responding.

An egregious fact that is unconstitutional in spirit if not in fact. Perhaps the sole legitimate reason for the existence of the state is so that the rights of its citizens are protected. A state that rejects the duty to protect them has forfeited its authority.

In the classical sense, philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, namely, living the good life as informed by the truth. In the professional sense, as Anthony Quinton says, philosophy is thinking about thinking. It is the analysis of second order concepts, like truth, goodness, beauty, causality, etc. Indeed, it conceptually analyzes conceptual analysis itself, so we might say it analyzes third order concepts as well. In other words, philosophy analyses not only other things but itself and not only analyzes itself but analyzes the analyzing of itself. This naturally leads to an infinite regress, which is why philosophy never seems to progress, unlike other disciplines. One must simply accept a set of axioms in order to do philosophy but also to disavow it. So there is no real escape from it.

I agree, but I don't see why it needs to be capitalized. We also need to figure out whether or not it should have the hyphen. That inconsistency drives me up a wall.

I used to be an antinatalist, but I don't find it abhorrent. In fact, I am greatly predisposed to the idea. I just think the arguments in favor of it don't work.

But are possibilities real? Do possibilities exist? How do you answer there? — apokrisis

I don't think they are real by definition, but they certainly exist, just as impossible things don't and can't exist.

Being is the end of becoming. — apokrisis

I don't think that what becomes doesn't exist. The contrast between being and becoming is between the kind of existence under consideration. To say of a thing that it becomes is to say that it changes over and within time, while to say of a thing that it is is to say that it exists immutably either eternally or outside of time. To use my example, the chair as concept is, while the chair as percept becomes. A concept doesn't exist in time, but physical objects like chairs do.

The point I am grappling with is that there are ‘degrees of reality’, which I don’t think is recognised in modern philosophy. The only place I see it explicitly acknowledged is in the Thomists, for example, Maritain’s Degrees of Knowledge (which is a daunting read.) — Wayfarer

There may be degrees of reality, yes. I'm inclined to think so. But each of those degrees will exist in some manner or another. That's my point. A real but non-existent thing is a contradiction in terms, for a real thing is that which actually exists, as opposed to what is only imagined or potential.

One point I made in that thread is the rather mischievous suggestion that Buddhists must accept the reality of Universals - because that’s exactly what ‘the Buddha’ is! After all, the historical person of Gotama is in some respects only a vehicle or precursor for ‘the Tathagatha’, which (or who) periodically manifests ‘for the benefit of all sentient beings’ - which is why Mahāyāna Buddhism always talks in terms of ‘the Buddhas’. So if the Buddha is not ‘a supreme archetype’, then I’m not sure what is. But I didn’t want to push that line of argument. — Wayfarer

Interesting take. I suspected you would go down something like this route. I read this as an inconsistency within Buddhist thought. The classic way to resolve it, I gather, is the notion of the Two Truths, whereby the ultimate truth that the Buddha has access to and represents may contradict the truth of ordinary perceptual reality, but I'm wary of this idea. In the medieval West, it was Siger Brabant who introduced (or was accused of introducing) the notion of "double truth," which is to say that there could be truths of reason and truths of faith that mutually contradict. But as Aquinas says, "only the false is opposed to the true, as is clearly evident from an examination of their definitions, it is impossible that the truth of faith should be opposed to those principles that the human reason knows naturally." Truth cannot contradict truth definitionally, in other words.

I don't know where on earth you call home, but you might like Texas or Florida, or a number of other states. Or you might like Massachusetts, the state with the lowest gun death rate. Of course, you might have to leave your gun at home, to be safe. — tim wood

I don't see the relevance of this. In case you were unaware, Massachusettsians possess the individual right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment applies universally.