They can act for good reasons, in a space of reasons - but that's only if that space already aligns with their emotions.
The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level
I guess the question then becomes, do any of these paths actually lead anywhere? I think sometimes it's enough to simply know what sort of question a question is. Wondering if closing your hand into a fist creates another object by itself is an odd question, but defining it as a mereological question, and clumping it together with other questions of a similar sort makes it less odd. I think eventually you can get to a point where it seems like just about all possible positions in a given domain have been explored, and no further progress is to be made apart from eliminating positions.
It is also possible to write and think endlessly about topics and go round in circles, never coming up with any answers. Perhaps it is about lack of commitment to and one way of seeing amidst a diversity of possible options. Or, perhaps it is about not seeing thinking to clear ends. It is easy to dabble with philosophical questions but not work hard enough at them.
I am not sure that the issue is simply that pre-philosohical solutions is a solution because I am not sure that such solutions are pre-philosophical in the first place. That is because philosophy goes back to ancient times and by using arguments so most ways of seeing life are rooted in some kind of roots in philosophy in the first place.
Sure, but it’s easier to remain convinced of a falsehood by a bad argument when there’s nothing at stake for being wrong.
Even if the correct philosophical answers end up being common sense, there is still value in exposing why all the alternative nonsense is wrong, to keep people from veering away from common sense.
I don't recognize any grounds for assuming the ethics needs "epistemological justification" because I approach philosophy as a noncognitive performative exercise for proposing rigorously coherent criteria for conjecturing and methods for conjecture-testing, and not a cognitive theoretical practice for explaining (with 'testable conjectures') how nature (or even culture) works.
Because this particular potential (among others) was realised by an acorn’s interaction with the world.
It does work - you’re just not accustomed to looking at the universe as a dynamically built relational structure. It’s a paradigm shift. The ‘whole’ is the origin - the ‘parts’ are only perceived as discrete in ignorance of this relational ‘whole’. So it’s not so much discrete parts making the whole, but rather the whole increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with itself through dynamic structural relations.
So the modality of acorns is constrained by ignorance - in the dynamic structure of interacting ‘parts’ - of the relational ‘whole’.
Normativity is just perceived value/potential as a prediction for future interactions based on information from past interactions. Beliefs are not formed according to what a thing IS, but always according to this perceived potential, which is necessarily uncertain and subjective.
What you call ‘relative telos’, I’m calling perceived potential - the semantic difference is one of perspective. Telos assumes objective knowledge, but it is this ‘objectivity’ that is unknown as such. Your term is as useful as ‘relative truth’ or ‘relative infinity’.
The inner is not ‘preserved’ - it is sustained as a dynamic relational structure — Possibility
This occurs to some extent all the way down to basic atomic structure. In self-aware organisms it manifests as fear, but the process is the same. This is what constrains forms, and it isn’t rational at all.
I don’t believe the modality of acorns is rationally constrained - at least, not from the top down.
define ‘purpose’ is necessarily limited by the relativity of perspective.
I haven’t changed ‘ends’ here, only realised a certain potential
Teleology I have no problem with - it’s the explanations I disagree with, so my approach to it is always one of caution. Interrelation and dynamism is indicative of Darwinian evolutionary theory, for example - but I have serious problems with its interpretation in relation to explanations of purpose. Natural selection need not be explained as ‘survival of the fittest’, and the purpose of life is NOT to maximise survival, dominance and proliferation of the species. These teleological explanations (like most) are ignorant of contributing causal conditions and dimensional aspects of reality that point to a MUCH broader and more relative dispositional potential (and therefore purpose) than our limited perspective assumes.
My view of purpose vs cause is one of BOTH/AND: for me, the impetus underlying the cosmos is both teleological and random, and it is our limited perspective that determines our intentional capacity. What matters to the whole is awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion.
I see the ultimate purpose AND cause of the cosmos as maximising awareness, connection and collaboration. It is the value attributed to preserving identity which limits this capacity - whether at the level of atoms, molecules, objects, events, organisms, persons, ideologies, etc. In order to change, we must let go of this fear of losing an identity constructed entirely of ongoing relationships whose potential is limited only by ignorance, isolation and exclusion. It is this courage that has inspired the Big Bang, chemical reaction, the origin of life, consciousness, curiosity and love.
That’s interesting, because you did distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic teleology with this example:
All teleology IS relative - it comes and goes depending on your perspective of the situation - in particular on your awareness of, connection to and collaboration with dimensional aspects of reality. The more you increase awareness of this inner arrangement to a subject, object or process, and the dynamic relationships that build this identity, the less teleological it appears to be, because everything is interrelated.
Which then brings us to the teleological explanation of ‘top-down’ meaning/purpose. This is where our perspective of intention skips a dimensional aspect again, and suggests that everything and everyone has a specific purpose intended for us, our awareness of which often conflicts with the individual will of the organism. My problem with this perspective is that it ignores the distinction between value/potential and meaning/purpose. The teleology comes from assuming value or perceived potential is equal to the end-goal or purpose.
How is ‘passed on’ not the same as ‘imparted’ in relation to DNA information? What’s the difference?
So, what you’re saying is that it’s ‘teleological’ if you ignore the causal conditions contributing to the object/process/state of things? Isn’t that like saying the billiard ball has a mind of its own?
My point is that teleological explanations necessarily isolate an interaction from the conditions in which it occurs. It sounds ridiculous when you try to identify telos here because to do so, you would need to isolate the action of falling down the slope from the conditions of moving forward on the cue’s impact, or vice versa. The ball curves to the left as it moves forward from the cue’s impact due to a slope in the table.
‘Dispositional’ refers to arrangement, particularly in relation to other things. You can try to isolate these qualities from the relational structures that determine them, but again you’re ignoring the causal conditions in which this particular arrangement occurs in the organism.
Both teleological explanations and efficient causation derive from Aristotlean philosophy, which attempts to ‘solve’ the problem of infinite regress with the actual external existence of a ‘first cause’. When you say everything that occurs has a goal-orientated action behind it, this is essentially what you’re proposing: an intention that exists external to the occurrence.
What you’re not addressing, however, is what this intention is and where it comes from. This is where teleological explanations don’t really explain - rather they hide behind the ambiguity of concepts such as ‘goal’ and ‘purpose’ to imply an actual ‘force’.
I think you’re missing the duality of intention in my description of the billiard ball’s movement. Unless you’re aware of, connected to and collaborating with the slope in the table or spin direction, then either of these effects on the ball’s movement across the table is external to your intention in exerting momentum onto the ball. But the effect of the slope in the table isn’t a goal-orientated action, either, but a causal condition of the four-dimensional event that is the ball’s movement across the table. It’s when you’re unaware of the slope that it appears to be either an external force or a goal-orientated action (the ball having a mind of its own). Once you’re aware of it as a three-dimensional relation to the space in which the ball’s movement occurs, you can allow for the slope, so that the effect is no longer external to the occurrence but incorporated into your action.
What I’m trying to get at is that what we think of as an external ‘force’ or a goal-directed action points (in my view) to a dimensional aspect of reality that we haven’t taken into account. Once we’re aware of this dimensional relation and can collaborate with it or allow for it within our actions, it’s no longer teleological - there would be no intention that exists external to the occurrence.