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The Principle of Double EffectYour approach here is quite obtuse. You appear to be pretending that going to this trough, rather than that, is not making a choice... An odd way to think about it.
No principle can be used by Buridan's Ass to choose which trough to go to. Yet it would be irrational not to make the choice. Therefore it is sometimes rational to make choices that are not governed by principle. -
The Principle of Double EffectFor no particular reason. — Leontiskos
Indeed. No "principle" led to choosing this trough and not the other. -
The Principle of Double EffectDon't over egg your pudding. Which trough the beast heads towards is arbitrary, and a decision that must be made.
Demonstrate why, rather than values being needed in order to choose between conflicting principles...In that case one must still provide principles for the interaction of those values. — Leontiskos -
The Principle of Double EffectDo you mean algorithmic, or rational? — Leontiskos
Algorithmic. Following an explicit rule.
Or principle.
Buridan's Ass will die unless it makes an arbitrary decision. So sometimes it is rational to make arbitrary choices....if we make unprincipled decisions then we are not being rational. — Leontiskos
Why not instead think about morality in terms of values?...one cannot think about morality without principles. — Leontiskos -
Is the real world fair and just?
So justice is not reducible to thermodynamics.The physical analogy between a Fair & Just distribution of social states, and thermodynamic equilibrium (balanced measure) is a philosophical metaphor, not to be taken literally — Gnomon -
A Case for Moral Anti-realismFolk hereabouts regularly confuse something's existing with something being known to exist. — Banno
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Is the real world fair and just?yep.
There’s also a sort of latent animism in some of our expressions in that we do attribute intent to things around us as well as to people. -
The Principle of Double EffectSure. There are cases in which one does not have the answer before one encounters the problem. That's kinda my point. Making decisions is not always algorithmic.
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Is the real world fair and just?Well, I suspect that will go along with your scientism. Of course, I don't think it is I who is not in the game. You do not appear to even see the ethical considerations. But my posts only elicit more spit. I'll leave you to it.
Edit: just to be clear, here are my two contributions to this thread:
- Fairness is not found in the world, it is found in what we do about it.
- The way things are does not determine what we ought do about them.
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The Principle of Double EffectWell, the interminable nature of discussions of trams and trolleys might show us how easily any principle can be undermined. Principles seem reasonable when used to explain one's actions post hoc, and yet folk can dream up convolute circumstances too difficult for any given principle. (This is more than just a technical problem for undergrads; it is part of the way language, and hence thinking, works. see again Davidson's A nice derangement of epitaphs.)
Foot points out that “It is not always rational to give help where it is needed, to keep a promise, or even… always to speak the truth”
Which to my eye serves to somewhat undermine deontology as a feasible approach to ethics.
The problems with taking Catholic Doctrine as worthy of taking into account in one's ethic considerations have become fairly explicit in the last few decades.
My present inclination is to "reject the demand that moral actions fit with a preconceived notion of practical rationality" - SEP
It's just more complex than that. Hence, again, doing ethics might better be seen as seeking growth rather than seeking rules to govern our behaviour. -
Is the real world fair and just?
To which I might only add that ethics may be of more help here than physics. For while physics tells us what is the case, ethics acknowledges that we might well make things otherwise.Hence, the necessity for a moderate philosophical attitude toward the extremes of Good & Evil. :smile: — Gnomon
Not that analysis is wrong. But maybe not quite right, either. -
The Principle of Double EffectYep.
Nuh.The Principle of Double Effect is utilitarian. — I like sushi
It's much more complex than that. If anything, it's Catholic...
Not a strong recommendation in my opinion. -
A Case for Moral Anti-realismSeems pretty clear.
Yep. Folk hereabouts regularly confuse something's existing with something being known (believed, shown...) to exist.We do not require evidence for existence. — Tobias
It's very basic stuff. -
Is the real world fair and just?
How does it make sense to ask which of these is closest to thermodynamic equilibrium? -
Is the real world fair and just?Fairness is not something
youwe come across in the world.
It's somethingyouwe do in the world.
(Edited for ) -
Gödel's ontological proof of GodImagine that some intelligent, all powerful, all knowing, creator of the universe actually does exist, but that because it doesn't necessarily exist then we refuse to call it God, as if the name we give it is what matters. — Michael
"Q"?
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Gödel's ontological proof of GodIf it is not necessary that Q, then it is not possible that is necessary that Q. — TonesInDeepFreeze
I bet you are fun at parties :wink:
Note that god is by all accounts necessary. Hence, a contingent god is not god. If it is not necessary that there is a god, then, as you say, it is not possible that it is necessary that there is a god...
Hence, if it is not necessary that there is a god, then there is no god.
This by way of setting out what is at stake for the theist - it's all or nothing.
(edit: hence, where Q is god, if it is not necessary that Q, then it is not possible that Q). -
Gödel's ontological proof of GodS5 does not say that pQ -> nQ. — TonesInDeepFreeze
It does say that ◊□p → □p. Hence if ~□p, it follows that ~◊□p.
If god is not necessary, then god is not possible. If god is not necessary, then god is not god.
While the coffee here is not strong enough, it does seem to me that if the ontological argument fails then there is something contradictory in the notion of god. God cannot be just possible. A contingent god is not god. -
Gödel's ontological proof of GodIf, in S5, if god is possible then god is necessary, Gödel's ontological proof shows that god is not possible in S5.
Not what the Op wanted. :wink: -
My understanding of moralsThere's something oddly inconsistent in the implicit claim that we ought not expect others to follow any moral precept.
How is that not, thereby, itself a moral precept?
The pretence of stepping outside moral discourse in order to discuss moral discourse is exposed. -
My understanding of morals:smirk:
I don't think you are wrong. But I do think what you have said is incomplete.
As is what I have said.
Edit: Do you also read Master Kong? -
My understanding of morals
Well, not entirely. Sometimes it also depends on what others want.That depends entirely on what you want. — Vera Mont -
My understanding of morals:roll:
Given a choice of extremes, must we always choose the one or the other? No, we can reject both, accepting the complexity of our situation. -
My understanding of moralsI should add that of course there is some truth in the OP. Much of morality is about coercive control. And why shouldn't you do what you want? A question that should be taken seriously.
Appealing to a mythical "intrinsic nature" denies that we each exist only in a community. To a large extent it's an appeal to the American Myth of Rugged Individualism, the very same myth that denies its citizens a decent health care and social security system and brings us Trump and other sociopathic billionaires.
And for all that, the question of what to do remains. -
My understanding of morals
Well, no. It's pieces from p.207 and §258 of Philosophical Investigations. It's not Kripke. It's pretty much straight Wittgenstein. All I did was change "sensation" to "intrinsic nature".This is pretty much Kripkenstein. — frank
The point is the obvious one that if we take as the only criteria for what is right, what seems right to each of us, then we have stoped talking about what is right and changed the topic to what we want.
That does not address, let alone solve, the problem of what is right.
Notice the difference between "Think for yourself" and "Follow your intrinsic nature". "Thinking for yourself" allows for consideration of others. "Follow your intrinsic nature" drops consideration from the agenda.
The notion that we have a "deepest essence" is deeply problematic, especially after "existence precedes essence".
The Op doesn't address what we ought to do. -
My understanding of moralsAs for my own understanding, I don't need to satisfy you. Or Banno. — T Clark
The level of awareness espoused in this thread is that of the eight-year-old decrying "you're not the boss of me!".
Sure. But when you grow up you might choose to act with some consideration for others. -
My understanding of moralsOn intrinsic nature.
The temptation to say "I see it like this", pointing to the same thing for "it" and "this". Always get rid of the idea of the private intrinsic nature in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you.
Let us imagine the following case. I want to write about my intrinsic nature. To this end I associate my intrinsic nature with the sign "S" ——I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated.—But still I can give myself a kind of ostensive definition.—How? Can I point to my intrinsic nature? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on my intrinsic nature — and so, as it were, point to it inwardly.—But what is this ceremony for? For that is all it seems to be! A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.—Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation.—But "I impress it on myself" can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.
(Paraphrasing Investigations). -
Mathematical truth is not orderly but highly chaoticAny readable proof of Cantor's Theorem will contain at most a finite number of characters. Yet it
showscan be used to show* that there arenumberssets* with a cardinality greater than ℵ0.
And we are faced again with the difference between what is said and what is shown.
So will we count the number of grammatical strings a natural language can produce, and count that as limiting what can be - what word will we choose - rendered? That seems somehow insufficient.
And here I might venture to use rendered as including both what can be said and what must instead be shown.
Somehow, despite consisting of a finite number of characters, both mathematics and English allow us to discuss transfinite issues. We understand more than is in the literal text; we understand from the ellipses that we are to carry on in the same way... And so on.
But further, we have a way of taking the rules and turning them on their heads, as Davidson shows in "A nice derangement of epitaphs". Much of the development of maths happens by doing just that, breaking the conventions.
Sometimes we follow the rules, sometimes we break them. No conclusion here, just a few notes.
* just for @ssu -
Mathematical truth is not orderly but highly chaotic
Nicely phrase. Our new chum is propounding much more than is supported by the maths. Here and elsewhere....there's less there than meets the eye. — fishfry -
AssangeJournalism is not a crime, and Evan went to Russia to do his job as a reporter —risking his safety to shine the light of truth on Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukraine. Shortly after his wholly unjust and illegal detention, he drafted a letter to his family from prison, writing: “I am not losing hope.”
...we will continue to stand strong against all those who seek to attack the press or target journalists—the pillars of free society. — Biden
Hmm. -
Mathematical truth is not orderly but highly chaotic
Sure. What this argument purports to show is that a natural language has no fixed cardinality. And this is what we might expect, if natural language includes the whole of mathematics and hence transfinite arithmetic.For natural language to be uncountable, you must find a sentence that cannot be added to the list. To that effect, you would need some kind of second-order diagonal argument. — Tarskian
But the point is that "...the collection of all properties that can be expressed or described by language is only countably infinite because there is only a countably infinite collection of expressions" appears misguided, and at the least needs a better argument.
Your posts sometimes take maths just a little further than it can defensibly go.
Not I, but Langendoen and Postal. If you wish you can take up the argument, I'm not wed to it, I'll not defend it here. I've only cited it to show that the case is not so closed as might be supposed from the Yanofsky piece. Just by way of fairness, Pullum and Scholz argue against assuming that natural languages are even infinite.I didn't completely follow what you're doing, but in taking the powerset of a countably infinite set, you are creating an uncountable one. There aren't uncountably many words or phrases or strings possible in a natural language, if you agree that a natural language consists of a collection of finite-length strings made from at an most countably infinite alphabet. I think this might be a flaw in your argument, where you're introducing an uncountable set. — fishfry
Langendoen and Postal do not agree that "a natural language consists of a collection of finite-length strings".
Does mathematics also "consists of a collection of finite-length strings made from an at most countably infinite alphabet"?
Also, doesn't English (or any other natural language) encompass mathematics? It's not that clear how, and perhaps even that, maths is distinct from natural language.
All of which might show that the issues here are complex, requiring care and clarity. There's enough here for dozens of threads. -
Mathematical truth is not orderly but highly chaotic
You seem to have missed the argument presented. It shows that such a list would have no fixed cardinality.
Ok. -
Mathematical truth is not orderly but highly chaoticWhy should we suppose that natural languages are only countably infinite?
Consider:
A convolute argument, perhaps, but it shows that one must do more than simply assert that natural languages are at most countably infinite. Yanofsky must argue his case. " ...the collection of all properties that can be expressed or described by language is only countably infinite because there is only a countably infinite collection of expressions" begs the question. Indeed, the argument above shows it to be questionable.1. Let L be the NL English.
2. The set S0 is contained in L, where
S0= {Babar is happy; I know that Babar is happy; I know that I know that Babar is happy; . . .}
3. S1 may be constructed as follows
a. Form the set of all subsets of S0, P(S0).
b. For each element B in P(S0), form the sentence that is the coordinate conjunction of all the sentences in B.
c. Let S1 be the collection of all sentences formed in (3b).
S1 = {Babar is happy; I know that' Babar is happy; I know that I know that Babar is happy; ... ; Babar is happy and I know that Babar is happy; Babar is happy and I know that I know that Babar is happy;... ;Babar is happy, I know that Babar is happy, and I know that I know that Babar is happy;...}
4. S0 is denumerable, but S1, which is equinumerous with P(S0) is not denumerable (by Cantor's Theorem).
5. S2, S3, etc., can be constructed analogously. Each successive S has a greater transfinite cardinality than the one preceding it.
6. All of the S collections are contained within L.
7. L has no fixed cardinality. — The Vastness of Natural Language
There is something very odd about an argument, in a natural language, that claims to place limits on what can be expressed in natural languages.
Banno
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