You can not buy it all you like. Your hindbrain and medulla beg to differ. The frontal cortex can come up with all the arguments it likes, but in the end the primal part of the brain always tells the frontal cortex when to eat, excrete, sleep and have sex.

Are you suggesting a purpose that might not be consciously present in individual humans, or are you saying that contingently, due to biology, that purpose is consciously present in all individual humans?

Sorry for the snappy last message, thought you were ignoring me.

This is a good question. I’ll give you a preliminary answer now and I’ll message you another later after it’s incubated a bit.

Now, it’s important to bring up subconscious and conscious. I do not believe that every human has a conscious desire to have babies, but most have a conscious desire to have sex, or do the thing that makes babies and nearly everyone has the subconscious desire.

Asexuals and abstainests are a little different. Asexuals more so. I’m not asexual so I couldn’t begin to imagine what values they should have. Asexuals May still adopt though, and sexual abstainests in religion usually see sex as the wrong but not having babies. So all productivity no play for these people.

As a collective though, barring a human extinction event or sterility causing epidemics, most humans are gonna keep having sex and babies. To argue whether they should is a pointless and futile endeavour as a collective. Pragmatic arguments could be made for certain individuals not having babies due to medical complications that make a pregnancy riskier than normal for certain women. However you’d be fighting a losing battle to stop said women from adopting or surrogate seeking if she wants to.

In other words, a moral system in which everything is morally permissible unless we specify that it's morally prohibited?

what an outlandish interpretation of law. It’s pretty much a given that the law attempts to make moral arguments and claims, but it also seeks to be challenged on its ever changing stance toward what is and isn’t morally acceptable. To describe the law as a concept that says “everything is allowed but for some reason we’ve decided you can’t do this stuff even though it’s allowed.” Every law has a moral implication behind it, whether the implication is right or not is for ethics and metaethics to decide in the long run. Just a pity it’s such a slow process.

Also, what do you mean by “common” moral theories? Do you mean out of the ones you’ve read about or the ones that commonly exist whether codified or not?

What point are you trying to make with Echarmion here exactly? That prescriptive moral systems don’t exist?

It allows me to resolve moral relativism (which as a substantive expression I think bankrupt, and those who argue it engaged ultimately in fraud) into a particular framework in which to organize data, but not the thing itself.

Good, I’m glad it helps. Descriptive moral relativism belongs in the tool box, not our principles.

So would it be fair to say you are a moral relativist? You believe that morals and value are relative based on things like culture, nationality, religion?

There are a lot of problems with cultural moral relativism. The two main components of the claim 1, Moral norms differ between cultures. 2, there are no universal moral norms. However this stance creates moral monoliths out of every culture as if there is consensus within them but not without. Also, claim number one sounds a lot like a universal norm which is immediately contradicted by claim number two. Now, descriptive moral relativism which looks into moral demographic makeups of a nation, culture or religion is at least a bit more insightful.

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort.

I don’t know that I’d agree with this. If we anthropologically state that humans use ethics and moral values for the biologically driven purpose to propagate their species and increase long term security and safety, and if we state that it is a biological fact that humans need food and water to do this, then we can probably objectively say something like this; If humans want their species to thrive, they must establish and maintain stable food and water systems.

Sorry I meant to get back to you earlier but got distracted.

Schweitzer was a Nobel peace prize winner and set up a hospital in French equatorial Africa. A Theologian, musician, philosopher, writer and a physician. A polymath really. He was Lutheran but he’d say his dominant value was a reverence for life. This guy actually had headlines written about him calling him “The greatest man on earth”. He fell out of favour though when he started predicting that our technology would one day destroy us and he worried that we would destroy the world. His views on race where in some ways really progressive... however although he cared deeply for all his fellow man, he was accused of being overly parental toward non-whites who, although he called them his siblings, he saw himself as the elder sibling and viewed other races as children. He may have meant technologically though as he was very critical of the morality of white people and claimed that most Christians today blaspheme the name of Christ by being all talk and no action when it came to philanthropy, plenty of people talking about loving their neighbour but not enough actually following through in his opinion.

He’s a hard one to put in a box in my opinion as most Polymaths tend to be.

I was with you up until the conclusion “Present Self implies Future Population.”. Could you maybe expand on that a little and clarify. Or correct my reading of the conclusion if it is wrong.

Are you saying; as only the present self has agency, it has an obligation to use some of that agency for a future population?

@Possibility I think you should get involved in this discussion. You can go into the Hebrew origins of this view too.

Possibility is a really intelligent person and has some valuable constructive criticism of this view. While I think he agrees with me that a good person might be someone who tries to be a good ancestor, it isn’t the only factor in determining someone’s overall goodness.

It would seem that you are starting to have inclinations toward thinking about the very modality of ethics itself. What it is for, what it’s purpose/function is.

The viewpoint you are describing is called Generationism or ancestor morality. It is the view that ethics should be grounded in a deification of future generations as our true judgers and argues that a good person is someone who strives to be a good ancestor.

The view is interesting but currently incomplete and needs work.

My advice would be to read Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical vision. Generationism is highly influenced by his works and the empirical findings within Moral Psychology.

Nope, not biting.

Out of curiosity what did you answer in this poll? I’m
Assuming you are qualified to make a formal assessment of someones level of education based on a few comments on a web forum?

“Also it isn’t wrong to say that not all business ethics is applied ethics because first you have to agree that all of our business ethics is actually ethical in the first place.” Okay, so are you saying that trickledown, middleground and trickleup economics are all ethically valid just because they are all attempts at applied business ethics? Or can we debate which of the three options is more ethical? If we can debate them, then how is it wrong for me to suggest that I don’t believe they are all ethical? There is a distinct difference between saying something is an attempt at an ethical business model and saying it actually is ethical.

If you’re not inferring I’m lying then why the interrogation and why aren’t you putting anyone else here under scrutiny? We both know full well you’re entire argument is a veiled ad hom attack for no other reason than to troll someone whom you 1, know nothing about, 2, can verify absolutely nothing about. If you weren’t inferring this then why the 3rd degree and the unfounded skepticism?

Okay, font of all grounding knowledge. Let us all bow to your opinion on what is right and wrong.


“You mean like law or business ethics?” No, it is a Masters in Applied ethics. It’s not the same degree as business ethics. It’s not wrong to say they are two different certifications.
What I actually said: “it isn’t the same as a masters in business ethics.” because they are two different certifications. However I never once made the claim that they don’t relate to each other. Not once. You are saying I’ve said that, but I never said it once. Copy and paste exactly where I said “they don’t relate to one another.” They aren’t the same certification is what I am saying and it is all I ever claimed to say. So where are you getting these notions that I’m saying wrong things about these fields as a whole? Words into my mouth the entire time and the entire argument you’re making is at this point comically illogical.

“And he was definitely wrong suggesting business ethics is not always a branch of applied ethics” Yeah it would have been wrong. If I said that. Fortunately what I actually said was they aren’t the same degree.

If you want to have a discussion about how fields relate to each other and how all business ethics are attempts at applied ethics. Fine. But you do not get to lie and say I said this or that, especially when I can just go back and quote myself. READ WHAT PEOPLE ARE WRITING PROPERLY.

yes, I’ve clearly been projecting that I want to know who you are this whole time. Get a life. I’m not letting you bait me into showing you my certifications and you can believe whatever the hell you want to believe.

you never asked me what it was on and I never told you? Where have you asked that?

No I’m hinting at what I believe. You really need to read what is being said more carefully. You’re using false equivalences and you’re suspiciously trying to dig up identifying details on me. I’m not telling you what I specialised in as within five minutes you’ll look it up and learn my identity.

Does a masters in applied ethics include classes on business ethics? Yes. Do I have to agree with everything said in that class? No. Did I specialise in business ethics? No. Your questions are answered.

So you’re annoyed that I didn’t tell you what my thesis was about? Also it isn’t wrong to say that not all business ethics is applied ethics because first you have to agree that all of our business ethics is actually ethical in the first place.

So, I could lie and say that a few business ethics classes amount to a masters in applied ethics (it doesn’t) just to satisfy your preconceived notions or I could just tell you that applied ethics is really broad because it is.

The question was what level of education do you have? Not; what was your masters thesis about? I don’t really have time to sort out your trust issues.

applies ethics is pretty broad and it should go without saying, it isn’t the same as a masters in business ethics. It could be, but it’s not and I don’t know why you find this funny.

Applied Ethics.

The Masters is actually in Ethics but it’s still a branch of philosophy so totally counts.

“You can make the denial of race, but are you putting your life on the line? Because if you aren't then you are abusing your (white) privilege. Because if those others start treating you just like any other N, you gonna freak out big time.”

I think it’s self evident that even discussing this is putting something on the line for equality. I’ll continue to evaluate people on the content of their character but I can refrain from judging most based on that even then as I am familiar enough with psychology and trauma to have an understanding of the why in most people’s behaviour.

Men and women of all colour are Muslim, and many of all religions and “races” believe in equality and the human will and spirit. You don’t have to be any one thing in order to be a good person. All you have to do is help contribute to a stable future for life. If we maintain the arguments of race then the future is less stable. Now, that is not to say that being “colour blind” means you ignore racism, on the contrary you fight it with arguments like these. No one here is ignoring racism right now. The root of racism though, is the social construct of race.

These are the sorts of conversations that really need to be had with real racists though. It is quite foolish to watch the children in the playground argue over the best colour.

Well, am I really white? If we put that logic to it’s utmost extreme, then why not break it down even more? Should I identify my race as Tanned Peach? Or maybe because they are brown I should say I am mixed race because of my freckles? Oh and burn victims can henceforth be known as “The blotch people”. I can see the future headlines now “TENSIONS INCREASE AS WAR BETWEEN THE EBONIES AND THE MOCHA LATTES LOOKS INEVITABLE”.

Honestly, this is how I see the logic of people that focus on race so much. It is a social construct and I can promise you that the millennia of slavery and empires that have spanned the globe pretty much guarantees that most people these days have some degree of being mixed race. We are all pretty much mixed. OP is right. This is backpedaling.

“You sound like someone who doesn’t believe that god exists, but doesn’t positively believe that god doesn’t exist either (a weak atheist), and someone who not only claims not to know, but claims knowledge is impossible (a strong agnostic).”

Not so, I believe in a creating and balancing force. Couldn’t begin to say whether or not the creating and the balancing forces are the same force. However to call this god to me seems a bit much as I think it goes beyond simple anthropormorphicpersonification.

However, in most religions we not only see god or gods being deified by us, but we see god or gods deifying us back. So to me this implies deification as some kind of contract with a supreme entity that has Will to put us at the focus of its attention, and deify us back.

However, I also choose to believe that a judging god exists or a judgement mechanism exists that we call god. To put it simply, this judging gods only unique characteristic is that it is unborn. The unborn generations of humans and other life which has the capacity to look backward with a critical eye. As we do on those from the past, we are their judges but they cannot be ours, just as we cannot judge those who are not yet born. I call this a judging mechanism because although unborn, these future generations are still mortal, therefore god is in itself an inappropriate phrase to use for this mechanism. The implications of this also suggest a final judgement day will indeed come, when the last generation has nothing to look forward to and it can only look back and have its last say on whether or not what came before had any value or meaning.

I’m sorry but for me your question really doesn’t go deep enough, but it definitely seems like myself and others have perhaps aided you in coming up with other lines of discussion.

Although, thinking about it now, I suppose my overall answer would be that my view on these things has a lot of weight in my application of philosophy.

Oh, this view of deifying the unborn generations is called Generationism and is more an application of Pragmatism in ethics than a spiritual worldview. I myself identify as an agnostic Taoist spiritually but if you called the Tao or the Dao, “God” you’d be grossly misunderstanding the concept really.

I still think you’re forcing us all into a false paradigm. I do not accept Atheist and theist as the only two paradigms, I am Agnostic and why would that term exist at all if people are just going to overlook that and claim against my will that I am atheist or theist? I know myself well enough and am able to claim without shame that I cannot know one way or the other if god/gods (again leaving out pantheists) exist.

So to claim that I’m either one or the other and that the term agnostic no longer means what it is supposed to mean just seems like you’re trying to force everyone to debate and poll with terms they don’t agree with.

I don’t believe in things if I cannot know them. Since I cannot know if gods exist I should not claim they do or don’t. Agnostic, not atheist, not theist, agnostic.

Thank you!

I feel we need to maybe separate the terms “God” and “Deity”. I feel god implies an entity whereas a deity is that which is deified. For example: I ground my take on ethics on deifying the unborn generations of life as I believe grounding ethics this way leads to a purposeful life of preparing the environment toward the best outcomes for future generations.

So to me, it seems that all gods are deities, but not all deities are gods.

on the Tangent: I’ll let you know if I start a discussion on financial ethics. Glad it is of interest to you though!

As for theist, atheist and agnostic. I feel while atheist and theist are perfectly adequate to describing whether or not someone denies or acknowledges a god is too binary to get into the detail of the different theistic belief systems. For example, where would someone who doesn’t believe in a god but believes in Karma fall, or fate? Theist or Atheist? This is where I feel it is better to look upon these things like a spectrum. Pure Atheism on one side wherein things like fate, Karma, the force or the Tao are all denied, and pure theism on the other where belief in a conscious and wilful god are accepted. You have so much in between though, you have god as a collective conscious, god as a force, god as the universe, god as nature. So much more than just spiritual orphan on one side and do as the sky daddy says on the other. Don’t even get me started on modern Pantheists either.

I’d have liked a middle ground Agnostic choice as that is where if fall.

In ethics, two points of view tend to be grounded in god, that of divine command theory and natural law theory, although the latter has atheistic variations.

As for where god comes into philosophy as a whole, answering for yourself “do you believe in god/a creator/creating force?” And “What is a god?” Is extremely important because it helps build a complete worldview. Learning about other interpretations of this is also helpful. I don’t have to be catholic to learn about Catholicism if it gives me an insight into that value structure.

Also, some areas of philosophy deal with studying fictional literature for the sake of gleaming insight about reality and if you’re an atheist the bible can always be read from this view point. An open but critical mind can read the bible cover to cover and find things they agree and disagree with no matter what religious view they take.

If I make the argument that: God doesn’t exist therefore no religion has value. Then I’m ignoring all the parts of a religions structure that don’t relate to god that can be studied. Religions are world views, god tends to be the grounding element to those world views. You can replace the grounding element with something else but the world view can still exist without god. For example: In Islam, charging interest on loans is considered usury and is forbidden. Sharia law, that is to say gods law (Torah translates to gods law too and Christians also have their own Gods law) contains a lot of rules surrounding finances and money. A lot of the negative bias toward Sharia comes from media only focusing on the punitive parts which make up less than 10% of sharia. I can safely say that I don’t agree with a lot of the punishments in sharia, but interest free loans sounds awesome to me.

I guess I’m just confused as to how small p pragmatism is any different than just Pragmatism in your eyes.

“That's because you're not one. Those of us who are, do.” not quite sure I understand what you mean by this?

"What I am is a T Clarkist." Great Response! Very in line with this "The rule of the animal kingdom is Kill or be killed, the rule of the human kingdom is define or be defined." - Thomas Szasz

I don't call that small p pragmatism, I'd call it Adaptive Pragmatism. That however is for a different discussion entirely and one I'm still trying to work out how to format.

Ahhh, but if I ask you to prove your existence to me, there is a logical argument I could make that you are as much a part of an elaborate simulation as deadpool is. Claiming to have self awareness is one thing, proving it to others in a way they can definitively KNOW the truth of your self is another thing entirely. So for pragmatism’s sake, the self awareness argument doesn’t work.

“NKBJ, the pure truth is that none of us are persons. The human truth is that humans define personhood. This isn’t a case of what should be, it’s a case of how it is. Humans define personhood in beings and entities around them. Some have even argued for rivers to be classed as persons to afford them the rights of persons to be free of pollution. Self-awareness isn’t what grants personhood, self aware beings define personhood. That isn’t the same as saying personhood requires self awareness in the person being considered by a self aware entity.” - Mark Dennis

If you’ll scroll up and see my reply to T Clark and NKBJ perhaps you’d like to weigh in on this argument.

Apologies for some of the things I said yesterday. Your grief matters to me, my grief matters to you. This should be enough common ground to keep a reasonable discussion on my part from now on.

I think you are both engaging in the topic of truth without realizing that there is not a single uniform truth definition within philosophy. Pragmatism defines truth very differently than the rest of philosophy.

NKBJ You are talking and describing or at least framing it thusly, as Pure Truth. T Clark you are framing your interpretation as pragmatic truth.

Discussing pure truth is fun, invigorating and stimulating... but little of what is talked about has much practical utility or scientific basis. The reason for this is simple, one might happen to conclude a pure truth, but you'll never be able to verify that you really know it is the truth. If you cannot verify you know it, then others have no reason to believe it. Now, the search for pure truth can certainly guide scientific inquiry but so far, every time science comes up with answers, new questions come up. So, pragmatism works to find the best truth we have from the available collaborative knowledge acquired by us over time. The pursuit of pure knowledge can sometimes make people fall prey to self serving tendencies based upon attaining merit within the field of philosophy. The pursuit of practical knowledge is purely meant to help humanity by giving ethics a function. Modality of ethics is its very core. Without a functional ethical ecosystem our species descends into dark ages of anarchistic chaos.

So in ethics, this can take many forms. If I argue that allowing parents to bestow personhood on the unborn gives us room to alleviate parents of the potential suffering of self-blame in the case of abortion, and solace to grieving parents in the instance of miscarriage in knowing their grief is just as grief compared to a living person.

Outside of a human universe of discourse non of us have intrinsic value to the universe because we have created value and meaning. To the universe, none of us is a person. None of us is being morally considered by the universe, except by each other. So ethics lies solely in the realm of a human universe of discourse and so it must have a function for humans.

NKBJ, the pure truth is that none of us are persons. The human truth is that humans define personhood. This isn’t a case of what should be, it’s a case of how it is. Humans define personhood in beings and entities around them. Some have even argued for rivers to be classed as persons to afford them the rights of persons to be free of pollution. Self-awareness isn’t what grants personhood, self aware beings define personhood. That isn’t the same as saying personhood requires self awareness in the person being considered by a self aware entity.

“Suffice to say I don't think an unequivocal definition is possible, but I will reiterate that I equate person-hood with self-awareness.” There is a very specific reason that I would say self-awareness might not be the best place to go in regards to justifying personhood. Deadpool and Rick of Rick and Morty. Both Deadpool and Rick are fictional characters, yet both are entirely aware of their existence as such and both are considered Mad within their own worlds for this. Now, when we enter into debates about fiction and we say things like “Deadpool is a person” normally what we are really saying is “He is a person within the marvel universe of discourse.” Yet if we are saying Self-Awareness is vital for personhood within our universe of discourse then don’t we have to grant personhood to Deadpool and Rick? Should we not all come down on the writers of these franchises and demand they write better lives for these two?

Then, we have the fact that not every human has a solid sense of self-awareness. Is someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s not a person or less of a person?



For two who claim to stay away from the abortion debate, you both do a good job of it I feel. Although I’d ask why you both stay away from it? Is it just the uncomfortable taboo nature of it or to avoid potentially heated debates?

So are you saying whether or not an individual decides to call something a person is irrelevant, so long as it at least matters to them that the being was lost?

I used to think I understood the nature of meaning. Then I read Cohens preface to logic and he confused the issue for me. I can’t even figure out why I’m confused about it now.

I dont think youre ready for it. Thats why I'm done. My emotions right now are more akin to frustration with a student not taking in what is being spoon fed to them, my grief is detached from this argument and it was my argument before I'd ever conceived a child so I dont really see how my bias is getting in the way as you're inferring. Personhood would have been defined the exact same way whether my fiance miscarried or not.