In parallel, all analytical judgments of correctness will always be relative to those particulars address, yet the notion of correctness remains constant. — javra

I have determined that that means that if something is true it is true only with respect to a certain object if it is not related to other things. And things can still be correct.

edit: or maybe it doesn't mean anything

I wasn't addressing lack of disagreement. I was addressing the possibility of an objectively true psychological reality that universally applies to all psyches. If it were to be somehow discovered, all would have it, true. But it's objective truth wouldn't be a product of agreements. — javra

Then what would make it right or wrong to reduce conscious suffering? What would tie a shared psychological state to objectively true moral claims about reducing suffering? It would remain that suffering would have to be wrong, or we are just forming propositions based on a shared understanding of something objective that doesn't directly inform morality. That doesn't resolve is/ought.

Would this analogy help?: In parallel, all analytical judgments of correctness will always be relative to those particulars address, yet the notion of correctness remains constant. — javra

I don't know what this means. Not even a little.

Isn't the point that TC is arguing there are no moral facts, just ideas which work or don't in context? This means justification is moot and context dependent, for we do not have access to some transcendental realm of moral truths. — Tom Storm

I agree that we don't have access to transcendental moral truths, but we cannot rule them out, which is the point of my OP. Many arguments that are not as cogent as TC's misfire because they argue some newfangled combination of (1), (2), and (3). TC's argument is honest, simple, and makes sense.

Btw, javra basically just plagiarized Sam Harris as far as I can tell. Maybe unintentionally.

Since this objectively true goal would in principle satisfy that which all yearn for, it would then be an objective good - a good that so remains independently of individuals’ subjective fancies.

Since this good would be objectively real to one and all, a proposition regarding it could then be conformant to its reality and, thereby, true. — javra

A lack of disagreement doesn't mean that something is objectively true, merely that everyone agrees on it. You could indeed fashion propositions after this common goal of reducing conscious suffering, but it remains that these propositions would be only correct with regard to something subjective: everyone's common desire to not suffer.

Yes, one could make moral claims that would be correct, but these claims would still be relative. What difference is there in what you propose and proposing that female genital mutilation is okay relative to those in your culture if everyone in your culture agrees it is okay?

You could make an argument from unlikeliness that it is unlikely that our morals - obviously the result of many different things - are true, but that does not mean (1), (2), (3), or any combination thereof, is true.

While it is apparent that Haidt's views might be compelling, they don't seem to address justifications for morals, although he addresses why we have the morals we have. It is like using a scientific conclusion to support a policy decision: science might provide the facts necessary for a decision to be made, but these facts have to be interpreted such that a conclusion about what is best to do can be reached.

But yeah, many of our moral beliefs could have been reached via "inborn evolutionary adaptations". To say, however, that our moral beliefs are correct because they are adaptations is fallacious, obviously, and to say that they are objectively incorrect, or that (2) follows, because they are adaptations, is also fallacious or unfounded.

I know very little about Haidt, so if he does address justifications for morals, please link me something.

Think: "murder is wrong".

I'm not saying true and not-true can logically exist, but rather that an injunction against something like murder could be true and represent a statement claiming something is immoral.

In my OP I do at least recognize that some moral axioms could be true, and that some (many?) attempts to refute them don't make sense.

Ah. Okay. My bad. I didn't understand you.

You are conflating specific moral beliefs with logical truth of a claim. — L'éléphant

Extrinsic moral claims, such as that animal abuse is wrong, must always eventually be traced to an axiom, and for that extrinsic moral claim to be true one must have a true axiom - which doesn't really have to be proven logically, but must be reasonable or capable of being evaluated for truth, or have plausible conditions that exist under which it could be true. That is, if we are expressing those moral claims in the form of propositions and not "rats are gross" or something.

philosophers are also aware of the universal implication of individual experiences -- so they come up with universal claims such as the golden rule, veil of ignorance, the harm principle, categorical imperative, etc. — L'éléphant

That animal abuse is objectively wrong requires that its harm is not just undesirable, but provably wrong. Many things are undesirable, such as going to the dentist, but we wouldn't say that one is doing oneself a wrong by going to the dentist, or that the dentist is evil for drilling your teeth. Your examples of universalizations are, of course, reasonable, but we cannot say that they represent anything objectively correct.

I get what you are saying - that we can decide that something is wrong if it can be tied to measurable negative outcomes, and that these moral claims do not reference moral facts, but rather have their base in universalizations formed from the collation of individual experiences.

But that doesn't give us logically true moral claims that express whether or not something is objectively right or wrong.

As I see it, morals mostly express human values, not facts. Morals are not true or false, they work or they don't. Where do those values come from? I think some are inborn and some are learned. — T Clark

That morals must work is indisputable, but that some are inborn, or tied to human nature, and others learned, says little about whether or not those morals are justified. That is mostly what I am concerned with. I appreciate what you are saying, but it is somewhat irrelevant, unless you are trying to demonstrate that morals cannot be justified.

You don't really seem to be saying that, but rather that it doesn't matter if morals are justified via reasoning - they only matter insofar as they are functional. If that is a misrepresentation, please correct me.

Morality limited to "the law" is a very low morality. A higher morality is a good understanding of virtuous thinking and action. — Athena

Agreed - I think that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it cannot be moral in certain circumstances, and that some things that are legal can be immoral in certain circumstances.

But it is different when considering the existence of moral facts. Moral facts could be vague, or very specific, and could be applied by a virtuous person in novel ways. There would be room for creativity, even, when considering the application of moral facts in a way that we don't have when considering the application of some of the very specific laws we have.

A common understanding of what makes a pest is a consensual understanding of the meaning of the word pest, but this is not the same thing as a consensual experience of the feelings of revulsion, disgust, etc that make rats a pest for some people and not others. — Joshs

My argument would not be that moral claims must be both emotional responses to experience and also propositions, but rather that both can exist and are tied up, and that (2), an assumption you and Prinz seem to make on the grounds that emotional reaction to experience forms morals, is not reasonable, as it is conceivable that there could be an objective grounding for a moral claim if it can be expressed in a way such that it could be true or false. So maybe it is a proposition, or maybe it isn't. One cannot claim then that (3), a refutation of us knowing any moral facts, follows from whatever version of (2) one subscribes to.

If I make a genuine moral claim like: "sand-bagging is despicable and ought be punished", then this is indisputably a proposition, and to dismiss it would require some justification - if it is being dismissed on the grounds of (2). It seems you and Prinz take (2) to be true because we cannot evaluate moral axioms to be true, to which I would respond that (2) is itself an axiom in need of some justification.

Furthermore, I think claims should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as some morals are definitely formed from emotional responses to experience, yet others are the result of careful thought.

Dude, I can't understand shit that you write. Your writing is not bad by any means, but your style is difficult for me.

Also: I could list the many characteristics of rats - dirty, vicious, etc. - and use this as a basis for the belief that rats should be considered pests, and this would be empirical based upon the common understanding of what makes a pest. You might disagree, but you cannot argue that my foundation for believing they should be considered pests is not empirical, even if I am deriving an ought - "rats ought be considered pests" - from an is - "rats are dirty, vicious, etc." You might say this jump is unjustified, but "rats are pests" is a proposition regardless of anyone's opinions.

btw I love rats

And if rats are found to be ideal pets within another culture is that culture empirically incorrect? — Joshs

Note that I amended myself to "are, largely, found to be", not "are".

Prinz argues that the basis of our moral values are not in fact propositional beliefs but pre-cognitive preferences. — Joshs

How does he support the assertion that they cannot be propositional in addition to being pre-cognitive preferences?

Does this necessarily require "everything is A or B?" — Edmund

I think that if something is not true, that means it is false. At least if you frame it the way you do in the OP.

However, I don't think it is a requirement that something, or everything as you say, must necessarily be false if not true - at least in the context of belief.

The OP is obviously a reference to belief in God - must God not exist if we cannot prove he exists? No, but it is likely he doesn't. Or at the very least we don't have to cite evidence for dismissing his existence. And saying you don't believe in him doesn't mean you think he cannot exist.

I should amend my OP: when I mention (2), I realize that axioms in logic and math do not need proving, but a moral axiom would need some sort of self-evident reason or means of being evaluated for truth, as we are not building a logical system, but rather discussing a first principle for an ethic. (2) could mean that axioms merely cannot be evaluated for correctness, that no axioms are reasonable, or that the conditions under which axioms could be correct don't really exist.

Furthermore, it sounds like sentimentalism would have to assume (2) to support the claim that moral claims are only subjective and relative. The sentimentalist would have to demonstrate why (2) is a reasonable assumption, and "because emotional reactions to experience" doesn't seem to me to be enough.

I definitely agree with Prinz and the other people who believe that certain moral positions are better than others based on empirical ("meta-empirical") values, but I fail to see how moral-sense theory, or more specifically sentimentalism, rules out realism, even if it does provide a plausible account of how we discover what is moral or immoral; just because we draw on emotion to form our beliefs about right and wrong does not necessarily mean that moral realism is impossible. Moral sense theory is, however, definitely right, imo, about the fact that "moral facts and how one comes to be justified in believing them are necessarily bound up with human emotions."

I mean, just because I hate rats because a rat bit me once doesn't mean that I cannot be empirically correct when I claim that rats are found to be, largely, annoying pests.

The argument is that moral claims are never true. But notice that truth is a value. — unenlightened

It seems to me the argument in the OP is ambiguous about this: he says that no moral axioms are true, not that no moral claims at all are true. You can assign a truth value to a claim if it is true or false according to a set of axioms, but it ends up being baseless because you cannot verify said moral axioms, or they are just untrue - according to the OP.

So yes, these utterances might have relative value, but ultimately, they have no objective value. Also, I don't see how the kind of value a lie has can be compared to a moral claim. The truth value of the utterance is based on an axiom that cannot be verified or is untrue, and the value of a lie is totally practical.

edit: he does say no moral claims are true, but it is a contradiction, as he recognizes later that some moral claims are true in relation to others that may not be untrue but rather (presumably) unverifiable

First off, I appreciate the clear, surgical OP. Why you had to relate your argument to torture I'm not sure; you could have easily demonstrated your beliefs without invoking such a thing.

Would you say that (1) it is impossible for any moral axioms to be true? Or do you think that (2) we cannot prove if any moral axioms are true? Or (3) do you think that all proposed moral axioms are not true?

(1) and (2) sound very much like axioms to me, and (3) appears to be largely unverifiable, or definitely unverifiable if you believe (2) to be true. We, humans, seem to throw paint on the canvas with little thought in the hopes of making sense, not considering what you outline in your post, but I think we have good reason to have the intuitions we have, which is that moral claims can be true and false, unless you can demonstrate (1), (2), (3), or some combination thereof, is true. If (2) is true, (3) becomes as unverifiable as the moral axioms you claim must support extrinsic moral claims.

If it comes between arguing that moral claims cannot be subjected to verification by their very nature, and the claim that they can indeed be verified, I would choose the latter, if only because both claims seem to be equally grounded in arbitrariness, and the latter is more pleasant.

Thought about it some more. So maybe we have God and then some incredibly powerful being capable of creating us and the universe/world. I remember back to the aseity thread you argued that some original thing must have existed with aseity. So if this powerful being that is less than god created us and this world he must have existed with aseity. What space could there be for God if something comes into existence with aseity and creates the only space there is? This thing would have to predate God or God created this being that then created our world. Both contingencies sound bizarre. And in the second one you could hold God accountable indirectly for our shitty world.

If God didn't even create us or this world, why should we think that he cares at all about anything we do or think? But then again even if he did create us, why would he care what we think? You seem to be displacing a stupid belief via an equally irrelevant proxy. Yes, maybe God didn't create this world yet exists, but what conclusions should we draw? The situation in which God has not created us or the world sounds mostly equivalent to the conclusion that we have no reason to believe in God at all and therefore should not believe in him in terms of consequences.

Not to mention that would leave us all alone in terms of moral injunctions and imperatives. But I suppose you would say a personal relationship with God is possible and that he can still give us inspiration. Or something.

Honestly it seems like you are trying to detach religion from religion, and I don't think it is working.

edit: not making an argument based off of my belief that Christianity is dumb, but I do think it is dumb

Most of the people on this forum are not so cantankerous as Bartricks, and in general if you post a decent opening post you will get a critical, but not rude, response. Tempers sometimes boil over, but excessive flaming is discouraged, and continual flaming is grounds for being banned. Unfortunately, Bartricks actually does post some good, if misguided arguments, and generally stays substantive, even if he is acrimonious at times.

edit: it helps to have a thick skin, however, because disagreements over certain things have a tendency to be inflammatory, such as discussions around politics. And the standard for academic criticism kind of goes out the window when you spew dogma, like nos4atu, who people have speculated to be mentally ill/stupid/etc. for his unwavering Trump support.

Thanks. I won't.

moved to propose that the ultimate purpose of the book is to encourage the average man to become something greater; to stand up to his own self and demand that "it" (that being his personal constitution) evolve. — Bret Bernhoft

And by what process does one evolve their nature/constitution according to Nietzsche? Pain? Suffering? Incremental progress? Discipline? By developing a perfect rear-naked choke? One cannot merely demand that they stop being average and expect to stop being average - coming from someone who is painfully average in most ways.

Or did he just not focus on that? Maybe I'm treating him too much like a motivational speaker.

But this confusion comes from assigning a characteristic to God that I don't think you fully understand the consequences. What are the consequences of a being who can make contradiction true? I don't think you even understand such a scenario, nor do I, nor do I think anyone does. I'm not sure you, or I, are fully capable of understanding a world in which a contradiction are true. — PhilosophyRunner

Yeah, I admit I don't understand it. If God made a contradiction true wouldn't the principle of explosion follow? Or would it just mean that logic still works apart from some localized contradiction?

I suppose we could always revert to some paraconsistent logic and give up disjunctive introductions and/or disjunctive syllogisms or whatever.

But God could mess that up too somehow, probably.

The issue I have with logical arguments about a omnipotent/omniscient/can make contradictions true God can be seen using an (imperfect) analogy.

I have a being locked in a room. He has real magical superpowers and can make anything happen. I will argue he can't escape.

-The room has walls that are so thick it is impossible to escape
-The door is secure in a way that it can never be opened
-There are no windows
-There is no other escape route

Therefore the being cannot escape.

Have I proved my case? No of course not! For a normal human, sure if the above is true then he is not escaping. For a magical being with superpowers who can make anything happen? He can make anything happen, so of course he can still escape!

And he can escape not only any physical cage I put him in, but also any logical cage. For he can do anything - I have said so myself! — PhilosophyRunner

Yes, I see your point, but consider this:

If all you see is a world in which injustice is ubiquitous, and know that a being could arrange the world in such a way that people get what they deserve, then is that being not responsible for the human element of that inconsistency?

You would say, presumably, that God could either have a superior understanding of justice or could just magically make it true that people get what they deserve. After all, if God is all-powerful, why wouldn't the world bend to his will? And why wouldn't his omniscience allow him superior insight? Or maybe we must be getting what we deserve if God allows us to suffer injustice.

If God is magically making it the case that everyone gets what they deserve, then why is there no consistency among those who commit similar acts? Justice is blind, as they say, and murder, for instance, is murder, no matter who perpetrates it. What confounding factors could explain the inconsistency in what people receive for committing the same good or bad acts?

Furthermore, in a just world there could be no differences in justice across irrelevant characteristics - and we reliably find that there are. I don't feel like giving any examples.

So, when you consider merely the lack of consistency, and not the actual punishments or positive treatment people receive, you find that God must not have arranged the world in such a way as to be just - regardless of what people actually do or don't deserve according to whatever superior understanding of justice God has.

edit: or justice never existed, so God must be unjust according to my definition
edit2: but it would be trivial

edit3: I suppose God could be a racist and make it true that people of color should be treated worse than Jewish people or something, but that sounds ridiculous. I mean, it would be an out if he accidentally bungled justice and humanity, but what kind of God would fuck up that bad.

We have an extremely rude person here, ToothyMaw, who is either a psychiatrist himself, of the kind I mentioned, or a fanatic pro psychiatrist. A perfect example of what I was talking about.
Of course, I expected reactions from some people, but not such as that! Despicable.

Here's what I just read from this person, which I reproduce (copy-paste) below, before it is deleted or edited: — Alkis Piskas

Lmao, why on earth would I delete that? Go ahead and post it on a billboard with my real-life name.

However at the root of their belief - the sensation that "something alien/something unfamiliar" is coming or occurring in which our values (precious gold reserves) are being eroded (stolen) to do something sinister (theft - in this case cannabis) seems to be plausible. — Benj96

Yes, I can come up with those for days. I suppose you are right insofar as the logic and reasoning is somewhat valid, even if, taken literally, it is nonsense.

I think then, that schizophrenics articulate genuine humans concerns that we all frequently suspect, but are unable to use sensible means to describe them. Their imagination runs wild with descriptors. But what they are describing is still comprehensible. We just lack the compassion to trust they have some logic deeply engrained in their superficial absurdities. — Benj96

Right. You don't seem to be talking about psychiatry so much as the way we treat the mentally ill, or how they are misunderstood.

The question is then why has their brain failed to use useful language to describe their anguish? It appears as though their innate language model has departed from their limbic system (emotions/instinctual threat perception). — Benj96

This sounds like it might actually be true. Never put that much thought into it myself.

Have you studied psychology/neuroscience at all? Or is this conjecture?

Make it a completely legal process at every step. No detainment or forced treatment unless the person commits a serious criminal act, especially not at the speculation of potential harm. The view on reality should be that subjective experience is reality: the reality is the person is hearing voices and the reality is the psychiatric interpretation; the reality is the patient thinks he is God. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main reason from a philosophical standpoint, is it is not a good precedent to set that there is a standard of objectivity for the subjectivity of the underdog in a conflict while the favorite has different rules where his subjectivity is real (subjectivism). This is a philosophical challenge. There's more obviously, but I am interested particularly in why psychiatry takes such a powerful advantage against vulnerable and sick people. I think if it wasn't so keen on infringing people's liberties, people would be much more well behaved in dealing with them. I guess there are no lessons to learn from history about people's desire for liberty and their violent defense of it, and it is merely convenient that taking it away escalates and empowers them to force treatment. — introbert

You actually think we shouldn't try to get people who hear voices and think they are God to understand that their beliefs, and the voices they hear, aren't rooted in reality? We should just encourage people to listen to whatever instructions their voices give them, if they give instructions? Why wait until a serious criminal act has been committed to detain someone who might be obviously mentally ill and dangerous to themselves or others? Why not nip it in the bud before people or property might get hurt or damaged?

Does a comparatively small evil of taking away a measure of freedom really outweigh the good of helping someone get healthy? What if you were an unmedicated person with schizophrenia? Would you rather pull a butter knife on an officer and get shot or get talked down and taken to a hospital where you might be medicated for your own good, even if it is against your will?

The collective idiocy in this thread is astounding. The only person who put forth anything valid was Unenlightened, and even then, the theories in that post are far from mainstream.

edit: Benj made a good attempt at contributing too, sorry for the reductive comment

Didn't read past the second word.

Yes, we all agree, there are corrupt people in power, but you might want to structure your posts such that they can be read more easily. You could be presenting a correct proof for a Millenium Prize problem, and no one would bother to read it.

Now where I personally would like to draw a hard line is at the point where anyone whomsoever tries to make a comparison between this kind of experience, and being called a white privilege denier. And that is why this conversation becomes difficult. We are supposed to be having candid discussion about race, but even before it has begun, you have brought forth the terrible injustices that white folks have to put up with. So where do we go from there? — unenlightened

I don't think I equated the kinds of experiences you just recounted with being called a white privilege denier or racist. Being called a racist does absolutely nothing to me in particular, although it is mildly annoying.

Your daughter obviously suffered some serious pain there, and I'm sorry to hear that. It indicates that racism is pervasive still - if anyone doubted it.

My complaint now, since writing the OP, about being called a racist, would be mostly that it eliminates conversation, rather than that it causes emotional damage to the one being called a racist.

I've been thinking about something I heard Hitchens say about something Chomsky wrote that sounded about right, and that might give what I'm saying some necessary context.

There is no good reason for racism. No argument could ever be made that could justify treating one race differently from another. Even if it were revealed that there were differences in intelligence, for instance, between races, it wouldn't matter. The shared preferences, the basic elements that make humans human, none of that can be diminished - there is no threat to equity. I think we should keep that in mind when considering what some random ignorant white person has to say.

I mean, they have no chance of providing an argument that can justify racism, so instead of engaging them on their level we should just stay calm and dismantle what they are saying from the point of view that even if they can demonstrate some sort of backwards ass argument that might sound valid, it doesn't matter because it justifies nothing. It is absolutely inconsequential - academically, at least.

I hope that wasn't condescending, and I also hope that your daughter found some cool, open-minded people to surround herself with.

This is probably my favorite.

Bartricks basically leverages the problem of evil into a syllogism demonstrating that since God would not suffer innocents to live in a dangerous world, we must not be innocent.

The only avenues of attack were to claim that God is unjust - humans don't get what they deserve - or that innocence can indeed be ascertained via reason. I have argued for at least the first.

I'm pretty certain 180 simultaneously craps his pants and has an aneurysm every time Bartricks posts an OP.

I will. Just give me like 20 minutes.

If you guys would take the time to understand his arguments instead of getting triggered, you would realize that many of his arguments make a lot of sense. Even if they are pretty intense.

That's not me protecting Barricks btw, I think he is arrogant and on an unexplainable, bizarre crusade to trigger as many TPF posters as possible with *surprisingly well-thought-out arguments.

* as compared to the vast majority of people who post on philosophy of religion, or on this site at all

So, your conclusion is basically in support of anti-natalism.

the sensible world — Bartricks

Sensible meaning a world in which there is no suffering or injustice? Or just orderly?

I totally acknowledge that the justice system is severely flawed, but I have trouble believing that there are such confounding factors that people of color don't genuinely commit more crimes. Honestly, it doesn't matter, however, because my point is more so that many ignorant people believe that people of color commit significantly more crime, which appears to be true, because of their culture alone, and disregard other factors.

I mean, if you can provide a little bit of evidence that there are confounding factors that make it merely appear that people of color commit more crime, I'm totally open to amending my position. I know, for instance, that drug legislation in the 80's attempting to target the use of cocaine unfairly targeted crack cocaine as opposed to powder cocaine.

However, the statistics say that people of color commit more violent crimes too, and I can only explain that through culture and the lens of historical and institutional oppression. But we should always keep in mind that nobody must deal hard stuff or commit violent crimes really ever - there is always a choice, even if you are disadvantaged and disenfranchised. The choice is just harder.

I'm not sure how much empathy is required if you begin with accurate and relevant statistics. — Vera Mont

The empathy factors in in people understanding that people of color who live in low-income, high crime areas cannot merely pull themselves up by their bootstraps - and neither could they in the person of color's shoes. But yes, from an analytical standpoint, the information resoundingly indicates that people of color are disadvantaged.

But even understanding the statistics and information, some people are incapable of the sort of cognitive empathy you outline in your post - they see the statistics and claim that they are misleading, or they just block them out totally upon realizing they contradict their own position.

Interesting. I do think there is something not quite right about psychiatry. Consider this, we do not understand how consciousness works, how one experiences, behaves or believes what they believe. — Benj96

We understand quite a bit about the brain, actually, if not what gives rise to consciousness. We know that people, for instance, can undergo radical changes in their personality when they receive frontal lobe damage. We know that neuroplasticity allows one to form and reorganize synaptic connections in response to learning or injury. We also know what risk factors predispose one to developing schizophrenia, and that, for instance, trauma can actually have a strengthening effect (post-traumatic growth).

We know so much about the brain and psychology, enough to diagnose illnesses that can be identified by the symptoms that manifest certain behaviors and patterns of thought or other criteria. Furthermore, using medication and therapy in tandem actually produces positive effects greater than either in isolation. Adding medication to therapy is as they call it a "force multiplier" - with a fairly high coefficient, usually.

The only time I think drug therapies are appropriate is when someone is of immediate harm to either themselves or others. In the case of actively attempting suicide or murder. Only in these cases is using a drug to blunt a person's consciousness justified to simply buy some time to allow psychologists to help them. — Benj96

I cannot disagree more. Taking medications such as antipsychotics, although less than ideal, help establish some stability that lends itself to life-changing therapy. But that therapy can often only be accomplished across a relatively long timeline, and one may need the medication that whole time before they are in a good enough headspace not to take it.

It can take tremendous therapy to make a person with schizophrenia understand they are schizophrenic and can only be done with meds usually. If you want people to not have to deal with taking antipsychotics for their whole life, you should be in favor of them taking them until they are stable enough not to ruin their life/hurt themselves/hurt others/break laws, etc., which goes beyond just taking them until one is not of immediate danger to themselves or others.

Furthermore the use of the word "delusional" by a psychiatrist to justify medicating is somewhat a comical irony in that the psychiatrist doesn't know what "reality" truly is to justify judging another's as delusional. — Benj96

If I said that aliens are coming to earth to steal our gold reserves to create conductors for their spaceships as they go on an unstoppable galactic conquest to snatch all sentient species' cannabis, would you say: "I don't know if I can say that your reality is any less valid than mine?"

I think psychology is the more prudent approach. Without an arsenal of vaguely useful drugs not fully understood in their action, the psychologist must contend with an unwell mind through discourse, conversing and offering therapy through communication. This seems much less invasive and controlling. And has been proven to have good results. — Benj96

And medication has been proven to have good results. But I agree - if one can avoid taking medication one should. But many people really need to.