Just any old thing that is designated so... — schopenhauer1

Stop there and you are pretty much right.

Being rid of essence is somewhat to the point. That's what rigid designation does, avoids the "picking out".

You seem to be working with some form of counterpart theory, which has it's own set of problems.

Yep.

Meh. The error in your post is obvious. The supposition is that the zombie behaves just as we do - says things like "I believe..." - and yet has no "inner" life - no such belief.

I gave up kicking the puppy.

What?

What do you think a philosophical zombie is?

Edit: no, forget that. I see others have tried to explain the error in the OP to you. I'll leave you to it.

They wouldn't be p-zombies if they acted differently. — Michael

Exactly. Zombies by definition behave as we do, but they cannot adopt attitudes towards propositions, and so do not have beliefs.

This thread is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of philosophical zombies.

One might suppose that the OP question could become "would a being without attitudes or intentions reproduce?". The answer is that it would behave as its physical circumstances dictate. If they dictated reproduction, then the zombies would reproduce.

, you are attributing the intent to expediency to zombies. They do not have intent.

. Why would a kind be different than an individual in terms of substance that it is identified with? — schopenhauer1

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread, because of the many ways modality is misconstrued.

The difference between a kind and an individual is logical, or if you prefer grammatical, and not to do with substance.

One of the logicians will probably correct this, and doubtless it is formally wrong, but speaking roughly an individual is referred to by an individual constant, {a,b,c...}. A type is a grouping of individuals. The difference between types and sets is that types are hierarchic in such a way that a type cannot be a member of itself, avoiding Russell's paradox.

So the stuff in this glass - note the demonstrative, picking out an individual - is water - a type. So that individual belongs to the type "water".

An individual is not defined by being "a combination of substances".

Basically there are better ways to think about this issue. It's notable that there has been precious little use of modal logic in an thread about modality.

Water is a kind, not an individual. The logic is a bit different. A closer example would be the Lectern used in Identity and Necessity. There i tis used with the demonstrative: this lectern. Kripke chose not to use that example in Naming and Necessity. But I wonder if the lack of clarity here is what led Kripke to drop the example.

The upshot in Identity and Necessity seems to be that while this person could not have had a different genetics, schopenhauer1 might have.

Nice summation of On Certainty.

What does it mean for an obligation to be moral? Are moral obligations discovered or socially constructed (or other)? How does one verify or falsify a supposed moral obligation? — Michael

I'm not avoiding these questions. I am avoiding glib answers. I've offered, here and in other threads, ways of thinking about them that I think are productive: direction of fit, status functions, existential autonomy, the capabilities approach. I''m not pretending to have an answer, indeed I don't think this is the sort of issue that that an answer, but instead consists in a process of self-development. I've little patience with poor thinking, and doubtless get more pleasure from kicking the occasional pup that I should. But I've avoided kicking hyperchin for a few days.

Nice list. Yes, that's the way to proceed, looking at how the words around "obligation" are used rather than just making up a definition.

"That's not moral and I refuse to say what I mean by 'moral'" — Leontiskos

This captures neatly the problem with @Michael's writing.

meh. Take it up with Wittgenstein.

$0.\dot9 = 1$

After the cake has been passed around the family circle so that an infinite number of slices have been removed, there will be no cake left.

Achilles will pass the tortoise after an infinite number of steps, but after a finite time.

I'm just not seeing a problem here.

what you do with them is type them out. — NOS4A2

And so long as you don't consider what we do in writing them out, you cannot progress.

I supose it is your extreme individualism that prevents you seeing how words build the social world, one of promises and contracts and obligations and derision.

Nuh. This has been explained to you previously, by myself and by others; it dissolves the perplexity in your OP, but you can't see it.

Are words more than their word-form? Yes, they are also what we do with them.

Where is this meaning across, between, and external to minds? — NOS4A2

Use.

I suggest however, that the prediction that there will be an eclipse in March 2025 is neither correct not incorrect, neither fulfilled or unfulfilled until April 2025. Will that do? — Ludwig V

Oh, I'll say it is correct - it's not wrong. But unfulfilled - yeah, ok.

But seriously, who invented this idea, and is it proof against Humean scepticism? If not, why not? — Ludwig V

Thereby hangs a PhD - or a career.

But I can't work out a similar tactic for the lunar eclipse. — Ludwig V

Because of the lack of volition?

I think it true that there will be an eclipse in March, 2025. I might be wrong, but tif so the circumstances would be so extraordinary that the lack of an eclipse would be of little consequence. We'd have other problems. I think it true your companion's death last Sunday was averted. I don't think talking in this way invokes any ontological mystery.

If the link is causal, it is empirical. Which means it is not necessary. — Ludwig V

Since Kripke, It ain't necessarily so.

I don't think that's me. I suggested sorting out such terms earlier this morning. This conversation is swinging in the breeze. Several times, I've asked you to give your account some direction. I haven't seen any, and still don't. What remains is that there are conversations about what we ought to do, and that these conversations include true statements. The lengths to which folk go to avoid admitting this are extraordinary.

Yawn.

I don't really care. It's true that you should brush your teeth. We can work from that rather than assigning "ism"s.

I'm going to step off the merry-go-round — Leontiskos

Yep. Michael's direction is absent. We still have the problem of What To Do.

We can do all of this without introducing moral language. — Michael

You do not have to call our talk of "what might be done, what ought be done, what's the best thing to do, and so on" moral, if you do not wish to. That's neither here no there. But there are such sentences, and some of them are true. QED.

anyone who doesn’t accept your “common sense” realism is being disingenuous is itself disingenuous — Michael

That's not what was suggested at all, of course. We talk about what might be done, what ought be done, what's the best thing to do, and so on. Whatever word you choose for this behaviour, it would be absurd to deny that you engage in it.

The core error is the simplistic picture of meaning being encoded in one brain, transmitted to anther, and then decoded. It's rubbish.

There's no reason to assume that consciousness is the same for each of us - and a growing body of evidence that it isn't.

Meaning is constructed across minds, between and external to them as much as within them.

word-form — NOS4A2

It's very unclear what "word-form" is.

You pretend to understand how moral language is used but not what moral language is. That's somewhat disingenuous.

But the word "moral" - which we inherited from the original title - is far from being unproblematic. "Ethical" is perhaps better, but still not without complexity. "Ought" is somewhat better still, since it at least refocuses on action. We've come to the point where a much broader analysis of action is needed to clear up a morass of misuse. Without that, the thread will just be folk talking past each other.

Angry dolphins.

Cross porpoises.

Cheers.

( p & ~p )⊃ q


A contradiction allows anything to be true. That's why they are best avoided - they are unhelpful.

You made an assessment; this is not a moral obligation; as if you understood what a moral obligation is.

This begins to look like the sort of situation Ciceronianus had in mind.

I mention this point because some people have got the idea from some of the professions though not, I think, the practices of philosophers, that doing philosophy consists or should consist of untying logical knots one at a time-as if, to burlesque the idea, it would have been quite proper and feasible for Hume on Monday to analyse the use of the term 'cause', and then on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to move on to analyse seriatim the uses of the terms 'causeway', 'cautery' and ,caution', in alphabetical order. — p 31

An apparent dig at Austin...?

Roughly, statements in the future tense cannot convey singular, but only general propositions, where statements in the present and past tense can convey both. More strictly, a statement to the effect that something will exist or happen is, in so far, a general statement. When I predict the next eclipse of the moon, I have indeed got the moon to make statements about, but I have not got her next eclipse to make statements about. — p.27

This is quite problematic. I've been unable to follow what Ryle means here by "general" and "singular". The sentence "The next total lunar eclipse will occur on March 14, 2025" is about the Moon; and indeed it is about a single event. In what way is it general and not singular?

Doesn't Ryle's argument about the future mean that rigid designators cannot be rigid in the future tense? — Ludwig V

Yes, but I see no reason to take such a view seriously. The sentence "Ludwig may reply to this post later" is about you.

That's what they deserve.

Doesn’t seem like a moral obligation though... — Michael

How can you make such a claim if you do not know what "moral" is?

I'm not too keen on going in to that, due to the effort required and the small payout. If you ask whether you might have had different gametes, then that's a question about you, using a rigid designation. it's obviously not impossible that you could have had somewhat different genetics. As to whether your genetics might have been completely different, that will depend on how you understand the designation. It's a minefield, and intuition is a poor guide.

Yes. That's because, of course, there are, ex hypothesi no individual (actual) accidents to be averted. I don't see that Ryle is at all confused here. — Ludwig V

I should have been clearer, yes, the confusion is not Ryle's, but those who mistake the modal for the probable.

My overall response is that Lecture 2 has some confusion in regard to the modal considerations

I've previously set out the story that the ordinary language philosophy in use here gave way to a return to more formal considerations, mostly as a result of developments in Logic. Part of that was Kripke's development of a formal semantics for modal logic. Ryle's position here seems to be reliant on a descriptive notion of naming, and would need some considerable re-writing in the light of the development of rigid designators. Some idea of the complexity involved can be gleaned from The Possibilism-Actualism Debate. I doubt it's a road we would want to go down here. @schopenhauer1's new thread shows how convolute that area becomes.

There are other issues. So I suspect the intersection example suffers from confusing modality with probability. We can't name the individual accidents that were avoided, but can still maintain that the overall probability of an accident was reduced.

I don't know what this word "moral" means. — Michael

Ayer would be proud.

What does choosing not to volunteer to fight in Ukraine have to do with ethics? — Michael

That leaves me somewhat nonplused. We've found why we are talking past each other?

Not every action is ethical. Not every choice requires ethical deliberation. My decision to play, or not play, baseball has nothing to do with ethics at all. — Michael

Of course it is. In choosing to play a game you are choosing not to volunteer to fight in Ukraine. Ethics pervades everything you do.

Kant's epistemology was as impossible as his moral theory — Leontiskos

yep.

This conversation is well off the rails. Ethics is fundamentally about action and belief - about what to do. Yet one cannot wait until our ethical considerations are all settled and our morality derived from a foundation of certainty before one acts; That you choose not to eat babies - to return to your example - shows that you act ethically, and this despite not having the firm foundation you crave.

You seem to be in a position parallel to @Corvus, who denies certainty of the "external world" while interacting with it through the forums.

I don't need to posit something like "moral obligations" to decide how to act. Wants and pragmatic concerns are more than sufficient. — Michael

If that were so, your presence in this forum seems inexplicable.

As a pragmatic matter, yes. But I'm asking about morality. — Michael

You don't see the incongruity here?

Yep, except...

...completely beyond human grasp... — Peter L. P. Simpson, Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble, p. 16

Beyond words, perhaps, but perhaps not beyond acts.

So when do we get to the part where you actually explain morality? — Michael

I have been. A shame you seem to have a sort of blindness to it. It looks as if you have decided that you cannot act unless you are certain of what to do, and yet you must act and without certainty. So you are stuck.