What does it mean to "trust", or "to be trusted"? — GreekSkeptic

Now that I’ve given the rigidly literal meaning of the word “trust,” I’ll give one with a bit more nuance. This is from Ellen Marie Chen’s translation of verse 49 of the Tao Te Ching.

“The sage has no set mind (ch'ang hsin),
He takes the mind of the people as his mind.
The good (shan) I am good to them,
The not good I am also good to them.
This is the goodness of nature (te).
The trustworthy (hsin) I trust them,
The not trustworthy I also trust them.
This is the trust of nature (te).
The sage in the world,
Mixes (hun) the minds (hsin) of all.
The people lift up their eyes and ears,
The sage treats them all like children.”

You can find quite a few explications of these lines. I think of them as recognizing that sometimes you risk more by not having faith in people than you do by trusting them—that trust is not an actuarial judgment.

What does it mean to "trust", or "to be trusted"? — GreekSkeptic

Oxford American Dictionary says—believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Interesting, keeping in mind I was not arguing for or against pantheism, only that, as I understand it, pantheism and panpsychism are different things.

Sorry it took me so long to respond.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist.) — Ciceronianus

You are forgiven.

I’m all done.

There is an extremely small, unhinged group that exist on Earth and probably number below 10m who want Trans people to stop being trans (or, alternately, existing). Even "anti-trans" activists tend not to take either of the — AmadeusD

This strikes me as complete baloney. Where did you get your numbers from? I speculate the true number is in the hundreds of millions or billions worldwide.

Pew surveys indicate about 35% of the people in the US consider homosexuality a sin with a similar number for transgender people.

It is in the DSM. — AmadeusD

As I noted in the previous post, DSM in the not too distant past classified homosexuality as a mental illness.

You do not strike me as someone who would defend 'trans rights' on any ground such as ones coming up here. — AmadeusD

As I noted, protection of rights identified in the ACLU summary strike me as reasonable for people in general, including transgender people.

I simply took the one that you yourself provided at the outset of your quote. — Leontiskos

You took one of the many ones I provided—the vaguest and hardest to define. Here are the others:

We’re fighting discrimination in employment, housing, and public places, including restrooms. We’re working to make sure trans people get the health care they need and we're challenging obstacles to changing the gender marker on identification documents and obtaining legal name changes. We’re fighting to protect the rights and safety of transgender people in prison, jail, and detention facilities as well as the right of trans and gender nonconforming students to be treated with respect at school. Finally, we’re working to secure the rights of transgender parents.

Yet this immediately raises the substantive issue of precisely what human right trans people are being denied. According to the ACLU from page 1, they are being denied the "right to be themselves." — Leontiskos

This is disingenuous. The ACLU listing includes many concrete and specific rights that many people would consider fundamental. Yet you’ve picked out this one vague feel good statement to focus on and criticize.

Trans gender people have a mental health issue called gender dysphoria, and this will never not be a mental issue — Philosophim

I don’t think you’re qualified to say that. Maybe I’m wrong.

It is not the same as being gay, — Philosophim

I think one big thing gay people and transgender people have in common is that, to a large extent, their problems are associated with rejection by society at large and not with their sexual characteristics themselves.

There is a large difference between calling someone an intentional slur and 'gay'. — Philosophim

Perhaps someday, if society moves in that direction, it might be considered a slur to use a pronoun the person does not accept.

despite your bias against me that I know you're trying to keep under control, — Philosophim

Ahem…

probably more telling coming form a person who has actively lived their life in support of minority and disadvantaged causes, not merely arm chairing from the philosophy boards. — Philosophim

This is rhetoric, not philosophy.

To be clear, gender dysphoria is a mental health issue. An easy comparison is depression. The goal is not for a person to transition, its to treat gender dysphoria. — Philosophim

Not long ago homosexuality was considered a mental health issue. It no longer is.

What I cannot agree to, is the idea that everyone around a person with the mental health condition of gender dysphoria has to change how they interact or refer to them. — Philosophim

Certainly, I don’t see this as a matter of law, but one of culture. If transgender people can be accepted enough, then it might be perfectly reasonable that you would be expected to change how you interact or refer to them. I doubt you call gay people “fags” anymore, even though there’s no law that says you can’t.

t can have evolutionary roots in two ways . One way is that it is a gimmick, an arbitrary genetic contrivance whose value is indirect; that it is adaptive for the survival of the species. The second way is that the intrinsic dynamics of caring and social involvement function according the same same principles as evolutionary processes; not as an arbitrary gimmick that just so happens to further survival — Joshs

I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’ve made and I’m not qualified to specify any particular evolutionary mechanism. Humans and other animals have instincts—modes of behavior that are hereditary. I don’t know whether it’s appropriate to designate the kinds of behavior we’re talking about as instincts or whether they represent a more complex mental process. Maybe that’s what Piaget was talking about.

I am a skeptic about evolutionary psychology— the attribution of particular behaviors to specific evolutionary pathways or genes.

It's just that, if I happen to be one of those lacking that tendency or capacity, we've pulled all the ethical teeth out of the argument if you can't say to me, "But here's why you ought to" (or perhaps, "Here's why you should at least behave as if you did"). — J

That’s what social rules, laws, the police, and public shaming are for—social control. As I intimated in a previous post on this thread, ethics and morality, to the extent they are useful ideas, deal with what comes from within, not what is imposed from without.

There are no 'trans rights'. No one can enumerate any, and no one can adequately decide to whom they would be owed. — AmadeusD

The civil rights act of 1964 in the US designated certain classes of people as having protection of certain rights against discrimination. Those classes included race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Through legislation and court interpretations, additional classes have been added including age, sexual orientation, transgender status, and some others. The inclusion of transgender rights in the list is based on a court case in 2020, so it might be considered vulnerable.

@Philosophim and I got involved in a fooferall about whether these constitute human rights or only civil rights.

I agree with the thrust of your post, and I personally share the sentiment quoted above. But . . . suppose I don't? Suppose I don't see others as like myself, and am not interested in relating to them or expanding my sense of self. Are you arguing that I ought to? — J

I saw @Joshs response to this. Here are my thoughts. It’s not that humans have to or ought to see others as similar to themselves, it’s that they tend to and are capable of seeing them that way.

This seems like a long and convoluted way to explain something that can be better explained in a much more direct way. We believe killing is wrong because we care about others. We care about others because we see them as like ourselves, which allows us to relate to them, learn from them, expand the boundaries of our sense of self. It’s not a question of what we can ‘get out of them’ for some narrowly conceived selfish purpose, but that they become a part of our own sense of self. — Joshs

This makes sense, but I don’t think it contradicts what @panwei has written. I think it makes sense too say, or at least consider, that the fact we care about each other is something that has evolutionary roots.

Perhaps the moral system of human society is itself an adaptive tool formed under evolutionary pressures to promote group survival and reproduction. In other words, morality is a cultural apparatus that "serves the fundamental purpose."
— panwei

This is how I see things too, although it always pays to be skeptical about attributing specific purposes to evolution. — T Clark

Another thought. I think maybe this emphasis on biology and evolution underplays the importance of culture and learning on our personal moral judgments.

Again, a really good OP.

A very good OP.

However, the "must" argued for in this theory is not based on moral judgment or orientation, but rather on the efficacy requirement that a fundamental purpose imposes on action. It is an instrumental "must"—an internal, factual necessity based on the causal relationship between ends and means. — panwei

I was going to argue with this. As I see it, all political judgment is underlaid buy a value judgment about what the responsibility of a society is to its members. As I read further down, I see that you’ve addressed that issue pretty well.

Perhaps the moral system of human society is itself an adaptive tool formed under evolutionary pressures to promote group survival and reproduction. In other words, morality is a cultural apparatus that "serves the fundamental purpose." — panwei

This is how I see things too, although it always pays to be skeptical about attributing specific purposes to evolution. The way I say it is that people like each other and we like to be around each other. We find value in other human beings, especially those close to us. Under ideal conditions, these values guide us in how we behave when we’re trying to live together. The ultimate foundation of morality comes from within us, it isn’t imposed from outside.

The authority of moral language is merely the projection and expression of this factual connection within human psychology and culture. In other words, the essence of "ought" is the recognized"must" that serves the fundamental purpose. — panwei

I have a somewhat different take on this. I split what we call morality into two parts 1) that voice inside us that guides our actions—our conscience 2) The voice of authority from outside that works to control disruptive behavior and maintain the stability of society. Sometimes these two factors reinforce each other, sometimes not.

There is a logical chasm between them; any such derivation necessarily implies an unstated normative premise. — panwei

Yes, this makes sense to me.

Everyone has to work out their personal meshugganah. Lots of people manage to do so gracefully -- whatever their situation, and more power to them. And some people don't. — BC

For me, it all comes down to choice. As I understand it, some people don’t have that choice. That’s called gender dysphoria. Strikes me as a little dangerous to deny them their understanding of who and what they are. I, as a straight man, didn’t choose what I am. You, as a gay man, didn’t choose either. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me to at least consider using the same standard for these transgender people.

Which brings us to the subject of those who do choose to identify as trans. My sister has three kids, one of them identifies as non-binary, another as a transgender male. I would never say this to them, and I will call them whatever they want, but I will always suspect this is a lifestyle choice rather than a fundamental question of identity. For people like them, I agree with what you’ve written above.

A person may believe they will be happier if they can live like a person of the opposite sex. They can make the attempt, and may succeed. But they must do so within quite reasonable limitations. The limitation is that they are still the sex they were born as. — BC

I’m surprised you have this attitude, which isn’t the same as saying I disagree with you.

And I will try to keep my responses less antagonistic in the future.

I regret that I brought in the subject of civil versus human rights. That really confused things. Beyond that, I suspect neither of us thinks the other is arguing in good faith. So we should probably leave it at that.

Welcome to the forum

However, it added something like "read through your text such that you can perfect it before posting". I might be overinterpreting this but it seemed discouraging to me in that it gave me the impression that I can't be casual on here - that larger bodies of text might be the only ones allowed to take place in the discussions. — fFilip

Yes, I think you are over interpreting this. On the other hand, it’s a good idea to reread your post before you finally post it. That’s especially important for people like me who use voice to text, which can easily lead to embarrassing typos.

It becomes much more important to be careful of what you write when your starting your own discussion. The original post (OP) should be thoughtful and lay out the terms of the discussion in a clear way. Generally, background and backup documentation should be provided or referenced.

The OP you wrote for this thread is a good one. You should have no problems.

just came across like you hadn't read the OP and went on a side straw man by quoting another source which was seemingly mostly addressed in the OP. — Philosophim

I read your OP twice and I stand by behind my main criticism. The source you use to generate your list of human rights left out the most important parts of the ACLU list in a way that undermined possible contrary arguments. It was that dishonesty I reacted to. I have no objection to this subject for discussion, I just think your OP was a set up job.

You are just being contrarian & polemic & off-topic. I didn't say they are the same thing, but only that they are related, — Gnomon

No, they are not related except they both have a "pan" prefix which refers to "all," "of everything," or "completely." They are completely different things. And no, I'm not being contrarian. I'm being irritated because your OP is so vague and inconsistent and you present half-baked ideas without support and without a willingness to take responsibility for them. It's not philosophy at all, it's a book report.

Technically its about human rights.. — Philosophim

The saying is "Transgender rights are human rights." I'm willing to be extremely pedantic in explaining that the correct wording is "civil rights." I think the difference is important, but I won't clutter up your thread unless you beg me.

I don't think this includes anything I didn't address in the OP. Did you read it in full TClark? Which specific points that I've made do you disagree with? — Philosophim

My response was harsh because I think your OP is misleading in a way I interpreted as for rhetorical effect. For me, the most fundamental provisions of the ACLU's description are "fighting discrimination in employment, housing, and public places." These form the basis for many of the other rights identified but your listing did not include them at all. In the US, such discrimination is prohibited by various civil rights acts and court cases for the following protected groups:

Race – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Religion – Civil Rights Act of 1964
National origin – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Age (40 and over) – Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Sex – Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Civil Rights Act of 1964
Sexual orientation and gender identity as of Bostock v. Clayton County – Civil Rights Act of 1964
Pregnancy – Pregnancy Discrimination Act
Familial status – Civil Rights Act of 1968 Title VIII: Prohibits discrimination for having children, with an exception for senior housing. Also prohibits making a preference for those with children.
Disability status – Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Veteran status – Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
Genetic information – Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act — Wikipedia - Protected group

So, the rights identified are already in place for transgender people, although, since that is based on a court case, our current courts might change it.

And yes, I did read your OP in full.

So then, what are your thoughts on the kind of health care trans children can/should get? — RogueAI

The thread is about civil rights, not specific policies or practices. It is reasonable to consider adequate medical care a civil right. What adequate care for transgender people includes is not the subject of this thread and I’m not interested in expressing an opinion.

I don't think it's a good idea to do mastectomies on 14 year olds. Do you? — RogueAI

This has nothing to do with anything I’ve written in this thread. Perhaps you’re asking the wrong person.

The OP does mention PanTheism, which is a religious form of philosophical PanPsychism. — Gnomon

This is not true. Pantheism and panpsychism are entirely different things.

1. Neuroscientist Christof Koch is a proponent of a modern, scientifically-informed version of panpsychism, the belief that consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter…

*2. How scientists are engaging with panpsychism : — Gnomon

You’re OP is not about panpsychism. It’s not even mentioned. It’s primarily about consciousness being the result the transmission from outside the body.

This is from the ACLU page on transgender rights. I think it’s a better summary than the claptrap baloney you’ve put together.

The ACLU champions transgender people’s right to be themselves. We’re fighting discrimination in employment, housing, and public places, including restrooms. We’re working to make sure trans people get the health care they need and we're challenging obstacles to changing the gender marker on identification documents and obtaining legal name changes. We’re fighting to protect the rights and safety of transgender people in prison, jail, and detention facilities as well as the right of trans and gender nonconforming students to be treated with respect at school. Finally, we’re working to secure the rights of transgender parents.

Here’s the link

https://www.aclu.org/issues/lgbtq-rights/transgender-rights

Suppose that our brains are not productive, but transmissive organs, through which the material world affects the spiritual.

For the record, I really like James. As for this quote, that’s not all that far from what I believe. The material world affects the spirit through our senses and perceptions processed by our nervous system. I don’t know if that’s what he meant.

In his essay ‘Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine’, he raises the question whether consciousness might depend on, or even originate from, sources “outside” the brain, — Joshs

The idea that the essence of humans—the soul, consciousness, the spirit—originates outside the body is nothing new. As I understand it, that is one of the fundamental ideas in Christianity. I haven’t read the James essay, so I can’t really say what exactly he’s talking about. The usual suspect tertiary sources on the web say he did not believe that consciousness originated outside the body.

Quite a few prominent scientists have embraced Panpsychism*1 as an explanation for the emergence of human sentience. — Gnomon

Some scientists are exploring panpsychism as a potential solution to the hard problem of consciousness, which questions how physical matter can give rise to subjective experience. — Gnomon

The link you provided doesn’t really identify any scientists who support panpsychism, although it does identify some philosophers. Can you name some scientists who do?

discussion of a controversial philosophical concept — Gnomon

This is not a philosophical question at all—it’s a scientific one. Does our consciousness result from signals coming from outside our bodies?

And I use this forum as place to explore unconventional ideas, honed by skeptical reasoning, not ridicule. — Gnomon

The forum used to be much stricter about keeping out pseudoscientific theories. I don’t really mind that it’s become more lenient, but many such theories still do deserve ridicule.

I’m glad we’ve finally got a credible source of evidence for your ideas—a Dan Brown novel.

The Magus by John Fowles is a remarkable book; beautify written and great storytelling. Kept having to revise my ideas about what it's about :grin: but in the very end–which was quite tense–it came together for me. — praxis

I’ve given the book to both my daughter and one of my sons. They both like it a lot. We do an annual book club where we read one long book, 100 pages a month. We may do “The Magus” next year. Since it’s shorter than some of the books we’ve read, we’ll fill in a couple of months with something else, maybe “Heart of Darkness.”

I’m going to accept the idea that our common understanding and use of “cause” is meaningful, and refers to a genuine phenomenon in the world. As T Clark allows, “It works for certain everyday events at human scale, e.g. if I push the grocery cart it moves.” — J

Thanks for the call out. All of the issues that have shown up in this thread so far are exactly the reason I tried to avoid a discussion of mental cause in my previous thread. It just gets too muddled and confused and physical cause is muddled and confused enough without any help.

Oh! I was wondering why some of those gatherings were called "No AI Philosopher King Protests!" — Pierre-Normand

Yes, we Americans are a philosophical bunch.

Happy 10th anniversary, folks. :wink: — javi2541997

Over the weekend, almost seven million people in several thousand communities here in the US got together to celebrate our anniversary...among other things.

[T]here are general truths regarding what is good for us that derive from human nature and the nature of human societies. But we are limited in our ability to know these general truths because human reason is weak and fallible: Human beings are capable of exercising reason and yet arriving at almost any foolish, destructive, evil, poisonous thing. Given this reality, conservatives give primacy to inherited traditions, — Colo Millz

My choices for a basis of appropriate action are not limited to general truths established by reason and inherited traditions. There is the matter of what might be called personal conscience. Here is a quote I often use when this kind of question comes up. It's from Ziporyn's translation of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more. — Chuang Tzu

I recognize the issue of humans using reason to justify all sorts of foolish, destructive, evil, poisonous things. This is what Emerson has to say about that in "Self-Reliance."

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't anticipate you will find this argument compelling. I acknowledge this is more applicable to personal morality than social and political action. It seems to me that the "gradual moral self-correction" you describe often, probably mostly, and maybe always arises from the personal conscience of a significant number of people.

Having said that, even as a liberal registered Democrat in the US, I believe reform should emerge within the framework of inherited traditions not so much because that will lead to better, more moral, choices, but because that is the only way it can be accomplished. Has any significant political change that tosses out the existing social and political order ever succeeded? Is that even possible? I think about the gay rights movement and the drive for marriage equality. That was finally accomplished by judicial fiat and it now it is approved in almost all states, even the most conservative ones. So I guess my answer is "I'm not sure."

The resulting debate, therefore, concerns the epistemology of moral improvement: whether justice is better secured by refining the wisdom of the past, or by subjecting that past to rational critique guided by universal moral principles. — Colo Millz

And, of course, the answer is "both." I don't think my Democratic Party has done a very good job of recognizing that over the last couple of decades, but the Republican Party teaching children about the benefits of slavery to black slaves is probably not the right answer either.

As I said in my first post, a great OP.

This is a nice summation that gets at what I was aiming for which seems to have been glossed over in most replies I have so far. — unimportant

I didn't notice anyone glossing over @Tom Storm's point. I don't think I did. I acknowledged that an appeal to tradition is not what you call an inviolable trump card, but it can be a valid argument.

T Clark defends hunting with his family from an typically anthropocentric perspective because it serves him and his own in group, with no regard for the needless killing of animals for one's own fun. — unimportant

I'm human. How--why--would I have a perspective that isn't anthropocentric. I could make a good argument that hunting and eating meat are acceptable practices, although that is not the point I made. I'm not interested in making it here. For what it's worth, we ate what we killed.

Does the act of killing some other creature enhance the fun and togetherness? that would be a rather chilling and bloodthirsty claim to stand by. — unimportant

I have fond memories of hunting, although I didn't really enjoy it much when I was a kid. We were mostly the mules--putting decoys out in the Chesapeake Bay with water blowing up over our chest waders with temperatures around freezing at dawn. That's why I don't do it anymore. That being said, why do you get a say in what I find enjoyable. The question isn't whether or not it is enjoyable, but whether it is justifiable.

It is about questioning what is held as traditional and asking 'can we do better'? — unimportant

I have no problem with that, although I don't trust you to be the person who decides what is better and what is not.

In my opinion it is about separating the wheat from the chaff which comes from well considered analysis of these traditions and not holding any particular one as out of bounds because 'tradition'. — unimportant

Again, I don't trust you to make that kind of decision for me. It's a social and political decision. As such, different arguments are considered and decisions are made. You get your say.