Yeah, I think usually the desire to better the world in the abstract is narcissistic. You can better some things around you ingenuously, though.

Maybe. I think Berkeley's philosophy suffers from a false loyalty to common sense. There is nothing commonsensical about Barkeley's ideas, even if they are coherent and theoretically parsimonious.

The sort of English ordinary philosophy he wants to enact is probably doomed since he accepts that people only perceive ideas, which is not a commonsensical notion to begin with, but which is a tenet he probably couldn't have safely dispensed with among his peers.

Berkeley's assertion - that your idea of the Pepsi bottle is identical to mine - incoherent, because we only perceive our own ideas of the bottle, not one another's. — Pneumenon

Does Berkeley ever claim that our ideas of the Pepsi bottle are identical? I don't recall that. Wasn't his point just that we commonly speak of things as being identical in ways other than being numerically identical? I.e., it's okay to say we're looking at the same Pepsi bottle if we mean something like looking at separate ideas that coordinate our behaviors in a certain way? (fill in the blanks, I don't think he himself ever does)

He was a handsome dude.

Indeed. I take Berkeley's point to be that the 'vulgar' notion of identity is unlike the philosopher's, and that it shifts depending on the conveniences of language. Sometimes it in effect means something like the behavioral confluence surrounding qualitatively similar ideas, and sometimes it doesn't.

In general one should be wary of objections against technical stances from non-technical vocabulary, without checking that one can't be translated into the other. Of course Berkeley always claimed to be defending common sense outright, but this is doubtful.

First, that's not the common meaning of the word, "same." I'm drinking out of a plastic Pepsi bottle right now that is, by my senses at least, indistinguishable from all the other bottles like it, but still not the same as those bottles. I'm not drinking from every bottle in the world when I drink from this one. Berkeley seems to think that "the vulgar" have no concept of two things having all the same perceptible qualities while being two different things (I guess he never met any twins), but I have no idea where he gets that. He seems to be using "the vulgar" as some kind of weird authority he can appeal to in order to reject a concept of identity that he doesn't like, and it's an authority that we conveniently can't ask to speak for itself. It's OLP tom-foolery before OLP even existed. — Pneumenon

Identical twins aren't qualitatively identical though. Nor are separate Pepsi bottles. They're distinguished in quality by their location, for one.

Yeah, Kant always seemed to me to be engaged in a purely apologetic exercise that went nowhere. I was never taken in by him.

But, that specific problem seems pretty far astray from your lament with Hume. Yours seems more general, in that Hume's account of knowledge is largely the product of analysis -- the breaking of categories and things and concepts into its constituent parts, as well as the sort of hammer-scourge which skepticism has on other kinds of questions or inferences which are not exactly certain or even close to certainty, but still worth considering and wondering about in a philosophical fashion. — Moliere

It's not so much that Hume is ruthlessly analytical, but rather that the whole of his thought seems reducible to a single analytical move, applied relentlessly. If the validity of that move is questioned, his thought is no longer compelling.

Good analysis also recognizes the way in which things are to be broken up along their joints, and so reveals the way they were put together before being broken up. Hume lacks a taste for this. He assumes from the start that everything must be completely separate, and so concludes that it cant be put back together: and he sheepishly admits in a footnote that this isn't actually coherent on its own terms.

It's worth noting that Hume didn't just leave himself without the possibility of certainty, but also without the possibility of probability. He had habit, as Sapientia said, but by his own lights habit could never be rationally justified. There is a sense in which Hume concludes that one cannot really think about anything.

To address just the first of those, he advanced the bundle theory of the self, which gives a sceptical account of personal identity. — Sapientia

Hume noted that the theory was unsatisfactory because he wasn't able to coherently characterize the notion of a bundle by his own lights. That is, he had no way to characterize why from one moment to the next one bundle should persist qua bundle: the very notion is predicated on a deeper notion of continuity that he locked himself out of. The bundle theory is literally incoherent, and Hume recognized this.

The failure of logical deduction does not prevent him from constructing a philosophy that seeks to explain why we think of things as having to do with other things. — Sapientia

The point is, though, that he didn't. His philosophy ended with no account of personal identity or separation, continuity, or the coherence of any two ideas or impressions between each other. He gives several observations about mechanisms that seem to empirically govern certain things following or being associated with other things, but his own philosophy prevents him from giving any account of why these things should cause associations as they do.

That's not an ambiguity. It's just a matter of the scope of the claim, which isn't relevant to the question of realism.

My concern right now is more just with realism generally – hedonism seems to be a type of moral realism.

I think some sort of case can be made for hedonism, but that maybe it can't be made in quite the way it traditionally has. I'm a little uncertain of the moral status of pleasure.

We happen to be in agreement that torturing kids is wrong. But I'm sure we can find moral issues that we will strongly disagree with. What then? — Marchesk

The best thing to do would probably be to try to reduce our disagreement to a more fundamental one, to find out whether one of us was being inconsistent or was simply mistaken, or whether there was some deeper principle we didn't agree on. I don't think there's a surefire way to resolve disputes between more basic principles, but morality is in no sense unique on this front.

Otherwise, I might think you had the opinion I disagreed with because you were not sufficiently sensitive to whatever made me think the way I did, and so would recommend that you have a certain kind of experience that would allow you to remedy the deficiency I perceived in you. For example, a lack of empathy often comes from not being familiar the way in which, or the degree to which, other people suffer, and time around them, or simply witnessing what happens to them, can fix this. Of course some people are just incapable of empathy, so this will not work with them – but then, they seem to be 'morally blind' in the way that someone can be visually blind, and so visual evidence can't be presented to them.

What makes them wrong, though? Because the rest of us say so? — Marchesk

No.

That's the problem. There is no way to objectively determine that it's wrong. — Marchesk

Is there a difference between determining something and objectively determining something? Clearly I can determine it, and so can you, since we already did.

how do you account for such individuals? Are they wrong? — Marchesk

Wrong about what? That what they did was pleasant to them? No that's just a fact. That what they did was okay? If they thought that, then clearly they're wrong.

Or because other human beings have similar aesthetic tastes? How do you get from people having aesthetic experiences to the object being aesthetically pleasing independent (real) of anyone? — Marchesk

Because we can make claims about beauty that wouldn't make any sense if the object's beauty required perception of it. Yet they do make sense; so it can't be that... etc.

For example, suppose you say 'there was a beautiful painting that no one had ever seen locked inside a cellar.' That's not incoherent or contradictory. Or make it a beautiful flower in an uninhabited part of the world, if that's easier.

and there is nothing else to something being beautiful than our perception of it. — Marchesk

But that's not true at all. For example, I can say 'I bet/hope that painting is beautiful – so I hope someone gets to see it!' and this makes perfect sense, even knowing no one has seen it. But for this to make sense, it has to have been beautiful independent of anyone's seeing it. In fact, that's why we want to go see it, because it's beautiful.

Are we not discussing the case for or against moral realism? I'm confused at your confusion. If morality is no better than beholding a beautiful object for any given individual, then how is it real? — Marchesk

I think an individual can see whether an object is beautiful by beholding it, but that the object is beautiful doesn't mean that their beholding it makes it beautiful. It already was; they just saw that it was.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Is there a difference between there being a truth to the matter, and an objective truth to the matter? Claiming there's no truth to the matter would seem to commit one to saying nothing is tasty, which is wrong, since plenty of things are. So you must have something else in mind.

But what if he just replied, 'I don't believe this map is accurate?' Or what if he just said 'I don't believe my eyes reveal objects independent of them?'

I don't know, because I've never tried fruitcake (that I can remember).

I think I would need to be given a reason to think they're different.

What is more objective than looking at something and seeing that it's beautiful? Aren't all methods of inquiry in some sense observational like this?

Do you always think you're wrong, or there's no fact of the matter, juyt because someone disagrees with you? People have different opinions, that's perfectly common.

Like what? Can you walk me through how they work, and how they differ from non-scientific methods?

So you are the arbitrator of what's beautiful? — Marchesk

No; whether the object is beautiful is. Of course, I can often tell whether an object is beautiful by seeing (etc.) it.

But if we have two cultures, where one thinks that torturing kids in some situations is moral, and the other disagrees, then what independent means is their to determine who's right? — Marchesk

Why would the culture's opinions matter? Just because someone has an opinion that p, doesn't mean that p. No?

Uh, I don't know. I would have to know what song you were talking about.

I would say yes, because we have no other way of determining their truth than what people find moral or beautiful. — Marchesk

Shouldn't you look at (or otherwise experience) the thing itself, to find out if it's beautiful, rather than asking or observing whether people find it beautiful?

It's different with empirical or mathematical claims, because we do have means to investigate independent of what one group or another thinks. There are still some people who remain convinced the world is flat, but they're simply wrong. This is easily shown. — Marchesk

Really? What are those methods?

So let's say you have a specific belief - maybe torturing children is wrong - then you find out that it isn't true. Is that a possibility — shmik

Sure, but I don't think it's likely.

Haven't you ever changed your mind about something?

When I respond that I don't believe in the bible's authority you think its strange that I'm OK with killing children. — shmik

But I've invoked no authority at all. You have said yourself that you don't think torturing children is wrong. I'm just pointing out that that's an odd belief, and I'm not sure how to convince you otherwise.

You seem to want to say that 'torturing children is wrong' without a 'because'. For me that doesn't make any sense. That gap between by reaction to the thought of it, and it being a fact is insurmountable to me. — shmik

Do all statements of fact require a 'because?'

If someone says to me torturing children is wrong - I would likely say one a 3 things. — shmik

Wouldn't a more reasonable response be to say, 'you're right?'

Do you think that you are wrong about certain moral facts? Wrong in a way that isn't caused just by lack of information on a topic. — shmik

Yes, but only because I generally believe in my own epistemic faultiness. Because of the nature of belief, I can't pick out any single moral belief I have that's wrong (else I wouldn't believe it).

Yeh that's part of my issue. I'm unwilling to take on the metaphysical commitments that I think are necessary to say that 'X is wrong'. Repulsive is as far as I can go. — shmik

So when people say torturing children is wrong, you don't agree with them?

That seems like an unusual position to me.

I don't think the two are synonymous, although a decent person is probably repulsed by wrong things generally.

'Repulsive' can be relativized to groups or individuals – 'repulsive to me,' 'repulsive to humans,' etc. I understand what this relativization means: it means that whatever is repulsive to x produces repulsion/revulsion in x (which is itself just a fact about the world). I'm not sure what 'wrong to me,' etc. would mean (is that grammatical?), other than something like 'I think x is wrong.'

You behold them as beautiful because of the kind of creature and individual you are, — Marchesk

I don't deny this, but isn't this true of anything? I behold rocks as solid because of the sort of creature I am, right?

Yeah but the same can be applied to aesthetics, and the case for realism qua aesthetics is even less well supported than morality. — Marchesk

I'm not sure about this. It seems to me that certain things are beautiful and others less so, or not. Isn't this a kind of realism about aesthetics? Certainly I don't think my beholding them makes them beautiful, rather I appreciate that they are (and others can too).

It's different than some ordinary fact that we can have consensus on. Let's take slavery as an example. It's just as bad as torturing children, yet it has been defended vigorously by various cultures and individuals over time. — Marchesk

So, is the idea that if people defend different sides of an issue, there's no objective truth to the matter?

There are other examples. Some cultures have practiced human sacrifice, probably as a sacrifice to their gods. Then there's female circumcision, untouchable class distinctions, conquest by war, and many other abominable practices that were seen as justifiable and even good. There's probably even been some offering of children as a sacrifice, given a couple references in the Old Testament.

And then there's how the Spartans treated their kids to toughen them up, which might be considered as a form of torture to modern values. — Marchesk

Yeah, but all those things are wrong, right?

Back to morality. Would aliens find torturing human children to be immoral? — Marchesk

This is interesting, because the construction 'find torturing children immoral' sounds like nonsense to me. You don't find things immoral, any more than you find them, say, made of glass. You can think something is immoral, sure, but then you can think anything.

Of course I don't think it is wrong to torture children — shmik

OK, so you don't think it's wrong to torture children. I'm not sure, then, if we can come to understanding on this point, since I'm not sure how I'd convince you of something like that, which I take to be so obvious.

Interesting – I think that's a counterintuitive classification, but okay, I can't prevent people from drawing classifications as they please.

In any case, I think we've resolved that this issue is verbal, right?

I didn't say it has nothing to do with people. I said that the moral realist will argue that something about the act of stealing (which includes its affect on people) is what makes the claim "it is wrong to steal" true. They wouldn't accept – unlike when it comes to matters of the law – that the claim is made true by the verdict of some relevant moral authority, or that whether or not the claim is true is relative to particular individuals or cultures. — Michael

I think you have an idiosyncratic interpretation of what moral realism is, so this conversation isn't fruitful. I can let shmik answer for whether he was seeking arguments for moral realism in this more restricted sense.

Just as an example, one of the historical bulwarks of moral realism is command theory, which does accept that certain things are immoral because an authority says they are.

What it means to be an anti-realist about the claims of human psychology (whatever that would be) is not necessarily what it means to be an anti-realist about moral claims. — Michael

This seems to me an idiosyncratic definition of moral realism. What is your source on it?

If you have an idiosyncratic view on the matter, that's fine, but then, it's not what I was addressing.

A moral realist won't accept that claims like "it is wrong to steal" are made true by the decisions or attitudes of some person or group of people. They will say that some feature of the act itself (or consequence) is what makes it true. They might be a naturalist and reduce this moral feature to some empirical feature like doing harm or they might be a non-naturalist and claim that moral goodness (or wrongness) is a non-empirical feature that is recognised via intuition, or possibly reason. — Michael

The notion that facts having to do with people are somehow exempt from being 'real' in the sense in which realism of any sort is interested seems to me mistaken. Features of an act itself obviously have to do with people and their actions as well. Surely we don't want to say that morality and its grounding has nothing to do with people and their actions: that's precisely what morality is (at least in large part) about.

Are you an anti-realist about the claims of human psychology? Are facts about human psychology established by 'impersonal features of the world?'

But the question isn't asking about that. There is something more to saying 'it is wrong to torture children', something that I likely don't agree with. — shmik

???

So you don't think it's wrong to torture children? You disagree with that claim?

I'm leaving it vague because it's vague in the question. I don't agree that somehow, there are just somethings that us as humans should for some reason not do. — shmik

Wouldn't this make you some kind of psychopath though? Surely you think you shouldn't torture children? :s

I struggle to see the self evidence of whatever is outside actions to prevent it and human condemnation of it. — shmik

So let me see if I understand. You don't think anything is wrong (or right). Is that your position?

We're talking about objective, mind-independent truthmakers of normative claims and to say otherwise is a red herring. — darthbarracuda

But this just makes no sense. Following this line of thought, we have to be anti-realists about all claims of human psychology, since those are 'mind-dependent' (after all, no human mind, no subject of human psychology).

Clearly some features of the world include humans, and are so because of humans. This doesn't make them not real in any interesting sense. And of course these things may still be grounded in things that are not 'human minds' or whatever it might be.

From a purely descriptive sense, yes, just as I can say certain things are commonly seen by humans as moral or immoral without attaching any prescription to the description. — darthbarracuda

But I'm not asking you whether certain things are 'commonly seen' as moral or immoral. I'm asking you whether they are moral or immoral.

Again, this doesn't have much to do with anything, since I already said that moral fictionalism is not only a rational position to hold but also a comfortable position to hold. — darthbarracuda

Okay, but I just want to understand your position. Is your position that it's not wrong to torture children, but that you pretend that it's wrong to torture them for convenience?

This seems to be confused; it supposes that features of people are not 'objective features of the world.' Again, the question of which objective features of the world make a thing moral is irrelevant to the more basic question.