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as one united species — universeness

'A counterfactual ideal projection' for which, like "God" or utopia/paradise, there aren't – never have been – any compelling grounds to believe or expect. 'Your Roddenberryesque fantasy' is, my friend, "incorrigible" – even, I'm sad to say, religious. You seem to forget: we are primates, not ants or angels. :mask:

I am not saying that the thoughts and fables of the ancients have no value, but I am saying that they are not good enough to form the basis of our moral codes or human rights or global constitution or prime directives, in our spacefaring future as one united species. — universeness

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Historically, IMHO, it's been a hallmark of realpolitik conservativism (e.g. neoliberalism) to support oppressive regimes and repressive policies in the name of geopolitical "stability" and/or economic exploitation – the caste / class status quo. Thus, as an example, for over a half century the US-NATO hegemon militarily and economically has supported the zionism-über alles, settler-ethnic cleansing ("lebensraum"), apatheid state of Israel. Both Jewish and Palestinian religious extremists – US-backed "Likud" & Iran/"Likud"-backed "Hamas", respectively – are far more invested in maintaining this internecine status quo than in any progressive alternative.

Call me Derek. — Tom Storm

Me three.

If "consciousness" is semantic nonsense, — Lionino

... is not my statement.

If you say so.

I'm saying that philosophy cannot solve a scientific problem because the latter concerns 'simulating some specifiable facts of the matter' whereas the former concerns 'interpreting concepts'. The folk concept "consciousness" has yet to be demonstrated to correspond to a specifiable fact of the matter, so prematurely declaring (how "consciousness" emerges?) "is a hard problem" is only semantic nonsense.

Born, raised & educated in NYC, I currently live in the Portland, Oregon metro area, USA.

(Formerly of Atlanta, Georgia and Chandler, Arizona and St. Paul, Minnesota in the last thirty years. If I ever relocate again, I hope I land somewhere in British Columbia, Canada.)

A moral realist who doesn't accept ordinary language philosophy will offer a different argument. — Michael

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I prefer moral naturalism to "moral realism", Bob, because the latter concerns 'the meaning of moral statements about states-of-affairs' (semantics) whereas the former (a subset or kind of moral realism) more precisely concerns, in effect, 'defeasible reasons for moral statements about natural beings' (pragmatics). These 'moral reasons' are objective insofar as the functionalities or properties of natural beings to which they refer are objective. No doubt just as one can use mathematics or chemistry subjectively, one can also use 'moral statements about natural beings' subjectively; however, such unwarranted subjectivization (or relativization) tends to be incoherent and vacuous.

Anyway, simply put: (1) it is a fact of the matter that every natural being is inseparable from the natural world; (2) natural beings capable of normativity require reasons (i.e. facts/evidence-based claims) for doing things as a rule and for not doings as a rule; (3) normativity that specifically concerns the species' defects (i.e. vulnerabilities to harm / suffering) of natural beings, however, is moral (i.e. obligates natural beings to care for one another) insofar as natural beings are cognizant (how can they not be?) of their species' defects as such; (4) and in the normative framework of moral naturalism, (our) species' defects function as moral facts¹ which provide reasons² (i.e. claims (e.g. "I do this³ because² 'not to do this' can/will harm¹ her")) for species-members (us) to care for³ – take care of³ – (our) species' defects as a rule we give ourselves.

(NB: A rule itself does not compel compliance, however; 'following a rule' is usually a habit acquired through practice for which, at best, there is a compelling reason independent of that rule.)

We can have reasons to believe something, to do something, to have some desire or aim, and to have many other attitudes and emotions, such as fear, regret, and hope. Reasons are given by facts, such as the fact that someone's finger-prints are on some gun, or that calling an ambulance would save someone's life. It is hard to explain the concept of a reason, or what the phrase 'a reason' means. Facts give us reasons, we might say, when they count in favour of our having some attitude, or our acting in some way. But 'counts in favour of' means roughly 'gives a reason for'. The concept of a reason is best explained by example. One example is the thought that we always have a reason to want to avoid being in agony. — Derek Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 1

re: Some of h. sapiens' defects (which are self-evident as per e.g. P. Foot, M. Nussbaum): vulnerabilities to

- deprivation (of e.g. sustanence, shelter, sleep, touch, esteem, care, health, hygiene, trust, safety, etc)

- dysfunction (i.e. injury, ill-health, disability)

- helplessness (i.e. trapped, confined, or fear-terror of being vulnerable)

- stupidity (i.e. maladaptive habits (e.g. mimetic violence, lose-lose preferences, etc))

- betrayal (i.e. trust-hazards)

- bereavement (i.e. losing loved ones & close friends), etc ...

... in effect, any involuntary decrease, irreparable loss or final elimination of human agency.

This sketch (influenced by Laozi, Epicurus, Spinoza, Peirce-Dewey, C. Rosset, A. Murray, D. Parfit, M. Nussbaum, O. Flanagan, P. Foot et al) supports only one type of 'moral realism', Bob, and rejects error theory / moral nihilism (etc) as well as all forms of moral supernaturalism (e.g. divine command theory).

:up: Over three years ago, I'm guessing, it'd become irrefutably clear to me that MU and I could only ever talk past each other – not merely substantively differ – on most nontrivial philosophical and scientific topics.

:100:

Welcome to TPF!

@stupidity – Res ipsa loquitur :confused:

Nihilism doesn’t choose chaos and hardship, it merely accepts that there is no intrinsic meaning available to us. There’s a significant difference between 'there is no inherent meaning' and ‘nothing matters’. — Tom Storm

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I've no idea what you are talking about and apparently, sir, you don't either.

Fyi: The sixth Shit Bet chief in the documentary was on the job at the time he'd given his interviews.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeepers_(film)

:mask: :fire:

2012 ...


2013 ...


(will post full documentary when i find it)

It remains that we can and do commonly assign truth values to normative statements. We also use these truth values to perform deductions. The oddity here is the denial of all this because of philosophical ideology. — Banno

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I don't know what the philosophers are doing.
— Inyenzi

Trying to make sense of and justify the many things we simply take for granted. — Michael

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:cool:

:clap: :smirk:

What you've written here has no bearing on the discussion where I left off with

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/855848

You're flapping around, sir, out of your depth again.

The big problem here is you begin with the assumption that, not only do mind-independent moral facts exist, but that we can arrive at all true moral facts with your flavor of critical reasoning. — Sirius

Where do I make this"assumption"? Stop making shit up.

l can say, the catholic background of Anscombe influenced her decision, whereas the progressive/feminist tradition informs the decision of many philosophers who support abortion.

Like Anscombe, I was raised and educated in Roman Catholicism until I attended university and I "support abortion" as many current and former Catholics do. So what. Wtf are you talking about? This has nothing to do with my previous reply to you.

People don't have metaethical commitments when they use moral language. — Inyenzi

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the accepted wisdom, what the man in the street thinks — Wayfarer

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Ludicrous, cop-out Wayf, even for a lifelong working class, prole like me!

l will wait till eternity for you to explain which defective cognitive faculty in religious people or progressives makes them make the wrong judgment. Is this cognitive faculty mysterious and undetectable ? — Sirius

Changing recognition of facts (e.g. "cultural / historical lineages") do not change facts as facts. Ignorance afflicts both "religious people" and "progressives" alike so the cognitive faculty is neither "defective" (as you suggest) nor "mysterious and undetectable". The difference is that "religious people" (i.e. supernaturalists) tend to eschew techniques of rational self-correction (i.e. learning) – relying on fallacious appeals to tradition, authority, popularity, incredulity, etc – much more than "progessives" (i.e. naturalists) do.

I will repeat what l said earlier ...

... rather than address the questions I put to what you said earlier. How tedious. :roll:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/855846

Insofar as modern thought takes science to be the arbiter of reality — Wayfarer

You mean "modern thought" which includes being espoused by (philosophers like) Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Bergson, Peirce, Husserl, Cassirer, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Sartre et al? (Please spare me / us your usual litany of cherry-picked quotations in lieu of your own reasoning or arguments) Your anti-science 'scientistc reduction' of "modern thought" (i.e. the cultural west), Wayfarer, is not even wrong. :eyes:

Conclusion, moral facts are mind-dependent, moral realism is false — Sirius

So harm (e.g. theft via hacking micro-transactions, betrayal of a country, rape of a coma patient or infant) happens to the victim only when it is observed by the victim? :chin:

Moral prescriptions (i.e. hypothetical imperatives – not "customary preferences", "emotional reactions", "subjective intuitions", etc) seem, except for implementation, indistinguishable from algorithms (i.e. adaptive rules). Caveat: not all algorithms are moral and not all morals are algorithms.

Nonetheless, if algorthms (i.e. If x, then y; therefore ought to z in order to prevent / mitigate either x and/or y) are necessarily "mind-dependent facts", then when generated by programs without minds, algorthms are not "normative facts"? This conclusion doesn't make sense.

I might be repeating @Banno here but Hume's Guillotine says one cannot logically derive (moral) norms from non-normative facts. The moral anti-realist assumes that 'normative facts do not exist', even though they exist as evident in (e.g.) public health, medical & ecological sciences as well as institutional facts like money, traffic signs, marriage vows. The vast majority of considered facts are, in fact, theory/value-laden (i.e. normative), so Hume's Guillotine makes sense to me and 'moral anti-realism' does not.

According to popular Federal election results from 2016 until 2023, most Americans vote against Trump(ism). Simply, regardless of the nonpredictive year-before-the-election-polls pimped by the media, there are not enough MAGA morons in "the GOP base" to beat Joe Biden (or any other Democratic nominee for president (except, of course, effin' HRC)) in 2024. "Faith in the American people" has nothing to do with it, baker; it's math and the numbers don't lie.

Your supposition, like averring to wishful thinking, is unwarranted.

I guess it depends on where you loiter. I'm a disbeliever (since 1978/9) with decades of comparative religions and theological literacy, briefly a practicing Soto Zen Buddhist (1982-3), raised and educated a working-class Roman Catholic for a dozen years (1969-81, beginning with Dominicans and ending with Jesuits), and I've never found it difficult to find others among the godless who are religiously / theologically well-read, especially here on TPF (though I've also found it much easier to find believers who think they know what they are pontificating about but don't).

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"Purposelessness," as some sort of "bedrock idea" seems to me to be more a historical - philosophical moment, starting with the decline of idealism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

It seems to me like the most common scientific response to largely philosophical claims about the essential and apparent meaningless and purposelessness of "the world" has been to shrug, say "well that's just philosophy," and to go right on assuming purpose exists in theories. Only is biology does this become a flash point. Physics and chemistry don't deal with things that seem to have purposes and the social sciences don't seem to take the "no purpose" claim seriously (how could they?) — Count Timothy von Icarus

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It's not that modern science dispenses with "purpose" categorically, only that telos in almost ever case of natural phenomena does not explain anything (like g/G). Anachronists like @Wayfarer usually forget that Aristotle's teleology (i.e. finalism) falsely "predicts" that the vacuum is impossible – horror vacui – because one "purpose" of matter is to fill space whenever possible; and that one of the brain's "purposes" is to be a radiator that cools the heart and blood. "Geocentrism" (later exemplified by Ptolemy's model and its epicycles) is also a consequence of this sort of occult storytelling (e.g. because the "purpose" of heavier matter is to fall to the center of things and lighter things like stars to stay far from the center). :roll:

If you says so ...

Don't believe me; compare the democracy index with the academic standings. — Vera Mont

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As this thread amply shows, I'm afraid Athena is extremely allergic to contrary evidence or apples to apples comparisons of "the human development / cultural data of rich nations".

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From an old thread "AMOR" ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/769996

Just a guess out of left field: No Kennedy Assassination in '63 ... no Nixon in '69 ... no Reagan in '80 ... ultimately no Dubya - Obama - Trump from 2000 to 2016. Things that followed could have been worse or better than 'our timeline', we'll never know. Even traveling back in time and preventing the assassination in Dallas, I suspect, would only have branched-off an alternative timeline that itself would have no downstream effects on this one (i.e. our present). Perhaps in the far future it will be possible to observe (all) alternative, possible past events (i.e. counterpart worlds); by then, however, Kennedy will probably be nothing more than a footnote of a footnote of a footnote.

Happy Pilgrims Unfortunately Saved From Starvation By Natives Day, folks! :yum: :party:

That is what is implicit in Aristotle's 'telos', and conversely the rejection of telos or teleological principles, implies 'purposelessness'. — Wayfarer

Okay, clearer, though this observation concerns modern science and not, as you have said, "much of modern thought", and does not entail "nihilism" either (pace Nietzsche; vide Spinoza & vide Peirce). Apparently, you prefer pre-modern science ... :mask:

Thanks.

"Proof?" I make no positive claim that requires "proof"; simply there are no compelling grounds to even consider that the world is "a long vivid dream or some realistic illusion or hallucination", and therefore, the existence of the world remains self-evident or presupposed by all other true statements of fact. Your OP raises a perennial pseudo-question (à la "Cartesian doubt"), Corvus, and maybe as a cure for what's ailing you, consider Peirce's "The Fixation of Belief" and Wittgenstein's On Certainty.

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None of that addresses the question I raised with you, sir. I want clarity on

what you mean in this context by "purpose"... — 180 Proof

in your comment to Gnomon.

81 candles vs 91 felonies (plus 77 farts)? No contest. Happy BDay, sir. :cool: