You didn't sound rude at all. It's not as if you said "You are not good at writing."

I appreciate the advice and I do understand.

The problem I feel I am having, is that I am currently aiming to create thoughtful comment and according to a few, I am. Is thoughtful content the same as engaging?

My reasoning, is that I actually want people to find the flaws and breaks in my reasoning. I'm writing a book which basically requires it. I even ended up writing a response here which ended up basically being a script where I had to create character's just to critique the flaws in my own reasoning, but it's like playing chess with yourself except what you are doing has no winner.

Enough with empty philosophical discourse about language! :-) This is for empirical data, models that are testable, tools for machine translation... The topic of this thread is the scientific method applied to language, in other words linguistics. — Olivier5

Thank you for posting this! Really amazing read.

Where does Semiotics come into play with linguistics?

You make a good point. I also don't see why we are even having a discussion about the state of free speech in a forum on philosophy.

Any critically and reasonably put theory should absolutely be free to say here. As a learning exercise even a stupid theory or argument can be useful as an example of a bad theory or argument.

I can understand why people might feel irritated by a big ol, egoic "My theory of/on" and it is probably something to avoid if you don't want people to assume that. If however you are being satirical to make a point, My super awesome indisputable narc spasmotic reckoning theory is.... fire away for it shall not be better than mine!

It's unfortunate the left didn't anticipate this in 2016. My view at the time was that SCOTUS appointments were the biggest issue. It was for evangelicals- it is what got the idiot elected. — Relativist

This seems like a strange thing to say when it was an 11th month long republican senate blockade which stopped Obama from getting Merrick appointed to the Supreme court. On the grounds that 11 months was too close to an election and that the people's vote needs to factor into the senates choice for the supreme court. That's 11 months that is too close. Obviously within 2 months is a completely different scenario (sarcasm very much intended on that last one)

Just the psychoceramisists — Banno

What have you got against mental illness?

Also, what have you got against the phrase "In an OP?" @Banno

Can we institute an automatic ban on anyone who uses this phrase in an OP? — Banno

.... Umm... Wouldn't that mean you would be the first to go? Since this is clearly your theory of why you think your opinions, ideas or other novel reckonings matter more than anyone elses? Give me a break. You might think you've come across a cloud of sweet perfume but right now your head is actually just up your ass.

do you feel I have answered your question?

The classic case of "I don't know anything about xxxx, but I sure know one when I see one." — god must be atheist

Not sure of your meaning here

Try exercising some nuanced thinking. Or would that be too "abstract" and/or "idealist" for you? To say there is no such thing as a language is not the same as to say there is no such thing as language. To make the latter claim would indeed be absurd.

And stop accusing others of invoking authority, when that is virtually all you do. I have yet to see a cogent argument from you anywhere on this forum; all you seem to offer are bare assertions. — Janus

No, you are offering up a base assertion right here.

Both the former and latter claim are absurd. This is a word game where the word "Language" has been unreasonably too far removed from the common consensus for what it means in all meaningful practical settings. Including a philosophy class and abstract thought. If there is no such thing as a language, then if the replacement system is also not a language then using that word instead of using something more appropriate to what is really meant by this not-a-language-but-still-language thing. It's also not even a long game, it's a short one. Meaning neither I nor anyone else has to agree to the rules of it. We don't agree with a rule that states "language" means something else that hasn't even been clearly defined as an appropriate replacement for it.

Cogent responses are an interesting thing to bring up. @Janus Yours isn't even substantive enough to be wrong or right. Just incomplete. You do seem to be getting emotional about this and you aren't being very charitable at all.

I'm assuming this is because you and others are trying to be smug elsewhere even though you've done practically nothing to be smug about. Just being disrespectful and condescending for no good reason.

My dear boy,

I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil

Now, fly, you fools.

Haha, no.

Can animals have thoughts of an existential nature? That is the gist of the thoughts I am discussing. — schopenhauer1

It's a good question that deserves a good answer. I don't think either of us can be reasonably certain. That's not a good answer but it's what I am reasonably certain of at least. I know that I want to believe that animals can have thoughts of an existential nature. I'd maybe accept evidence of my dog trying to comfort me in a strange almost empathetic way when I myself am feeling Existential dread or anxiety. I could maybe accept as evidence, wild animals who save other animals from death. Including saving us.

Serious question; what you going to do if Re-incarnation is real and you come back as something non-human with existential angst?

I'm really tired. I'll probably need to take a break from this for a few days. It's been a pretty traumatic week. I've had lots to think about.

@Everyone. Instead of treating this discussion thread as your own personal form of therapy, using others as a proxy for your hurt, you wake up and remember why you are here. To discuss philosophy. Now, there is an election coming up and nobody is going to convince anyone of anything by treating this like a subreddit full of teenagers talking about who to vote for in the student council election.

What's with all the Ad Hom everyone? What is with all the generalisations? Why is this thread laced with thick concepts?

Let me just point out that tragedy, has been a driving force behind some of the most amazing intellectual works of humanity. We are all experiencing tragedy right now and it's happening on a scale of awareness (because of the technology we have.) That very few generations have experienced before.

The Vienna Circle got together just shortly after both a World war and one of the last great pandemics.

So I challenge everyone who reads this. Can you take a stand, then a stance and walk the walk instead of talking the talk on other threads that are probably less important than this one is, right now?

The work we do in times of comfort is boring and complacent. The work we do in times of upheaval, toil and trauma is so much more meaningful, impactful and most importantly memorable.

What does it mean to rise to this challenge, if you consider yourself to be a true philosopher? It isn't a degree. It's a mind set. You just, keep calm and do philosophy in as reasonable and charitable and meaningful way as you can muster in the time that is given to you.

I believe antifa is both an ideology and a group, but not a centralized group as far as I can tell. It seems to be organized more on a regional/local basis. If we're going strictly by ideology then in the original sense of the word I'd consider myself an antifascist (as any decent person should be) - my issue is that the antifa of, say, the 1930s is not the same as the antifa of 2017-2020.

I think we need to be really careful in regard to whether we refer to it as an ideology or a group. My criticism is really geared towards the group - the (mostly) men who clad themselves in black and assault journalists and burn down stores and harass business owners. There's been many, many incidences where this has been documented. — BitconnectCarlos

I can understand why you would think this. Unfortunately there is a problem with your reasoning on this. A big one. You've made an assumption that it's the Antifa Ideology as the problem in what it makes certain groups of Antifa do, looting and burning. The problem is one of certainty when it comes to knowing the contributing factors of ideology when it comes to predicting and explaining individual and group behaviour.

It's probably a given that we both subscribe to more than one ideology. Now fundamentally we are both Anti-Fascist and not racist, we both agree we have cultural biases and have the potential to be callously racist, let's imagine we are also both Pacifists with a self defence condition for violence. (Not going to talk about whether weapons are just, only talking about self defence and whatever that might mean legally where any given person is.)

Now lets say one of us is a black man and one of us is white. Doesn't matter if it's true or not I just want to demonstrate a deep contextual difference in something here.

We are both in our own cars, driving across the same state. This state happens to have gun rights which allows for both of us to have a legal firearm in our vehicle. We are both responsible gun owners who know the law and our rights.

We both get pulled over for speeding. We weren't dangerously so, just a few miles over the limit and got a bit careless.

Cop walks over to your window which you have opened.

Things contextually diverge here.

White Driver: Hello officer

Officer: License and registration please

WD: Of course, Also officer, I must let you know I am carrying a legal firearm.

Officer: Well if you can show me your permit for that also, and keep it holstered during this citation that would be great.
Driver shows license, registration and permit
WD: Why am I being stopped?

Officer: You're being stopped because you committed a speeding violation so I have to give you a citation. You can try to appeal it with the court but by law I have to give you the citation.

WD: Okay Officer. Once you give me the citation can I leave?

Officer: You can leave, just don't let me catch you speeding again. This is a family neighborhood.

WD: You take care now officer.

Now the Black drivers experience.

BD: Hello officer

Officer: License and registration please

BD: Of course, Also officer, I must let you know I am carrying a legal firearm.

Officer: Well don't take it out.

BD: I'm not going to take it out.

Officer: Don't take it out!

BD: I.. *BANG*...

The dialogue for the BD was real dialogue from a real killing. Where a black man was shot and killed for trying to exercise his second amendment rights. He did everything a responsible gun owner was supposed to do and where was the NRA? They pop up to help a white man use stand your ground to kill whomever he happens to feel like provoking but they were completely silent on this. Black people can't win. Their second amendment rights in pro gun states aren't respected, gun control laws in California where originally implemented by Regan when he was governor to target the black panthers. It was implemented in direct response to black people trying to exercise the rights they had recently "Won". Look at stop and search statistics in New York.

Now, I'm white. So it's partly my responsibility to know my own cultures history of racism. I have a long memory and my culture also has also experienced racism and slavery. My culture has perpetuated racism and slavery. Historically speaking there have now been oceans of blood spilled of unnamed slaves who's contributions to the rest of man kinds progress, at the cost of the stagnation of its moral progress, well let me make one thing completely plain. The waters are starting to taste stagnant again.

Rounding back to my point about ideology, since the dialogue obviously brought on a subsequent dramatic style which is making me want to kick my own ass.

The ideology you have identified as the problem, isn't the problem. It kind of all comes down to one Moral question. Is it justifiable to use proxies to express your justifiable anger toward others? Thereby using them as a means to your own ends?

I think me and you would probably say No, as evidenced by the fact that neither of us are doing that with looters and neither are we looting.

Maybe another way to think of it, is the accusations of White privilege levied at Lori Loughlin in the college admissions scandal at the recent news she will be allowed to pick her own prison.

While I agree most black men wouldn't be offered that, neither would most white people. The ideological problem isn't privilege by race it's privilege by class.

Can I ask, how familiar are you with Semiotics?

Sure, I don't think anyone is to blame for their thoughts. You can certainly be blameworthy if you actually execute on those thoughts/fantasies though. To be perfectly honest, I've never fantasized about hurting the protesters though. I don't see anything wrong with protesting. I'm not mad at the protesters, but if you look at the facts of the destruction I think it's been pretty widespread. I know it's happened all across the country and now parts of my home city of Boston (entire blocks, many, many stores) have been destroyed. I don't even fantasize about hurting the rioters I just wish they would stop or maybe that there would be a stronger police response. — BitconnectCarlos

Stronger man than I, I've fantasized about beating up Alt Right Armed Militia. In fairness though, the fantasies usually involve superhuman abilities because it's more like a proxy for a video game coping mechanism and there is little convincing evidence that violent video games increases violent crime.

Sad to hear about Boston! Used to live near JFKs house around Jamaica Plains.

I wish the riots would stop, I wish I didn't have to to juggle different news sources, bias indicators, which are next to useless at telling you individual reporter biases because outlet bias means less than people think, news reliability algorithms just to try and figure out which is a riot and which is a protest due to the potential for misdirection with cherry picked camera footage on both sides.

Apparently the troubles are back in Belfast too. But they are different. More random, angry, isolated and unpredictable.

literature has been written on the group -- and they're not a democratic movement that supports open, free discussions. They very routinely shout down and try to shut down conservative speakers on college campuses. I honestly don't think the movement believes in free speech. They believe in de-platforming and not allowing conservative speakers to express their ideas because anything outside of their little box is labeled "fascist." I know you might just consider me
paranoid conservative, but I would encourage you to familiarize yourself with the group a little, not just the philosophy. — BitconnectCarlos

Lots of literature is written but that doesn't mean the literature is correct.

I think most people do actually support open and free discussions, free speech and democracy. Where I think people are actually disagreeing, though they may not realise it, is appropriate venues. Unfortunately the platforms are actually falling prey to a psychological consequence of capitalism and the free market. Schools are businesses and unfortunately have to protect their bottom line. If a school looks like it provides a platform to fascism, that will threaten their bottom line. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, appearances matter to the consumer. No way around it.

For me, political correctness is no longer even being practiced by either side. Neither is emotional correctness.

Everyone seems to be losing their minds. Even philosophers are generalising and drawing up imaginary lines.

Ultimately I cannot do much about Looters, Police Brutality, Armed militia on the streets, blaming them won't help, hating them won't help, fighting them with violence won't help and may rob me of my chance to really help later.

I can just try to love and have faith in people. I'll forgive the sinner, do my best to examine the sin for what it truly is. If I love people a little more I can empathise more and understand the context a little more each day.

I think the reason why some individuals on this particular thread have lost site of the purpose of the forum, to discuss philosophy, is due to how polarising Donald Trump is. This thread though strikes me like its primary function for some is... Proxy for justifiable anger at a president who should never have been in office and his enablers. Proxy for anger at the people causally responsible for the riots, looting and the people protesting which ultimately are racists. Not just any racists. Dead racists who had the power to shape our culture to be systemically oppressive to the poor.

I don't know how to argue for or against the will in terms of metaphysical reality. I do use the likes of Hume and Mill to drive the point that agency includes rationality as well as the five senses or empirical observation. — Caldwell

There are 9, I say 9 senses which are in the domain of empirical observation. The Big five, as I like to call them are what we would call Sensus Externi.

The Small four, Sensus Internus.

Why Big five? Me and you can both watch a firework together. The only way for me to gather data on what it is like to watch a firework, as you, is to use fine data analysis of internal physiological phenomena.

I can be reasonably certain you saw the firework because I saw it too. Big.

I can only be reasonably certain how it made you feel by analyzing computer data, small. I can't trust you telling me without trusting one of your small four to reliably determine what is going on across all the other 8.

That's all I wanted to chime in with. I'm trying to keep out of free will debates as I no longer know where I stand on the issue.

I know. I was just trying to pre-empt anyone who may have jumped onto our conversation and let me have it if I hadn't tried to imagine the argument without moral truth. Which by my argument is linguistically impossible to be true based on everything we can reasonably be certain is true of language.

What would convince you that we have found a moral truth? How certain is it possible for you to be that we have found a moral truth?

7

that makes the actor feel good and truly happy. Indistinguishable from other things that make us happy, such as child birth, wedding, falling in love. Is falling in love a moral act, in and by itself? It's not even in your power when you do.
-- that which most people approve of. Most people approve of holding the fork and knife properly, of driving on the proper side of the road, of not kicking dogs. Is not kicking dogs actually a moral act, in and by itself? Is not raping children a moral act? No, raping children is immoral by consensus, but not raping them is not moral per se.
-- heroic acts: sacrificing one's own health, wealth, family, even life, for the good of the community or for loved ones. Is working overtime to make a boss's or capitalist life better, at the cost of destroying your own health a moral act?
-- acts that make most or all people feel better, or their lives better, easier, happier. This is indistinguishable from being "good" or "bad", in case of the opposite.
-- a decision has to be involved; a moral decision. You see your child drowning in a lake; you jump in, without thinking. This is a moral act; yet no decision took place. So it is indistinguishable from a good Samaritan act.
-- serving god. Well, it is not moral to kill, according to the ten commandments, but refrain from murder is indistinguishable from harm avoidance: you burn in hell if you do cross god.
-- etc.

In any of the foregoing, the act which we call moral, and its essential qualifier, can be found in acts that are not moral. Not immoral, but just not moral. And therefore I claim that humans have not found the magic formula for calling any act truly moral, whether the act is actually moral or not. — god must be atheist

Sorry for the late reply. Been in a lot of interesting discussions recently and it's been a little hectic to manage them all around home life and responsibilities. I'm sure you understand.

I agree with your claim that there is no one magic formula for claiming full epistemic justification for truly claiming any act as truly moral with 100% certainty. In order for there to at least be some objective moral truth there needs to be at least one true claim about morality to ground it in. So ultimately we can only rely on certainty by degree. It becomes a question of reasonable or unreasonable certainty.

If there is no such thing as moral knowledge or meaning then Relativism is also the wrong. Relativism cannot set itself apart from other moral claims when it is itself a moral claim, that there are no moral absolutes or objective truths. Relativism is still a moral claim, so if it is true then there must be at least on moral claim which is true, itself. Yet it can't be because it's central claim is there are no moral absolutes. Do you see the contradiction there?

Contextual Relativism, might have relativism in the name but it's first claim is this; Moral Truth and meaning are relative to clearly delineated context. If we had full awareness of the context of the universe and it's compositional parts, as well as a brain and/or Mind (whichever you prefer, not the topic) that could handle all of that complex data. Then maybe we'd be able to act with complete and full certainty on all moralistic matters.

If there is no such thing as moral truth then that means there is no cultural truth, if that is true this negates all ideas of meaning in language. Which means we couldn't have certainty on anything. However, this would provide deep contextual meaning to the concept of Chaos. But if chaos can mean something? Why would everything else be meaningless? The word "Meaningless" ultimately means "Nothing" but how can "nothing" have a meaning when the meaning we take from "Nothing" when our only frame of reference for a concept of "nothing" is reasonable certainty that this must mean an absence of a "something".

Ultimately, if language is meaningful to nature through any of the compositional parts of the universe that we might term "alive" then we can reasonably be certain that the universe must have meaning.

Otherwise everything I have said is just the nonsensical grunts and ape noises we claim have no meaning in the languages of other living entities. Which would have to be impossible for you ti understand if there is no meaning to anything.

If we can be reasonably certain about one thing, it stands to reason that we can not only be reasonably certain about other things, but that we can be reasonably certain that there are other meaningful truths up to and including moral claims.

Back to contextual relativism; it's second claim is that Language is a tool. A tool by itself is neither good or bad. It can be used by either a good or bad actor. If language is a tool, all words are tools. Made to Negate Falsehoods, Affirm truths and delineate clearly between the two with theories of meaning and the nature of meaning.

All this really implies about moral truths, as truths about language, is that moral truths can be described as objective but emergent in the same way there used to be no stars until the compositional parts of the universe previously enabled stars. It's an assumption that even meaning has to be in the universe from the beginning in order for it to be an objective reality of the universal environment, the way stars used to not be but now are. The way life used to not be but now is.

" you spend all your time working on shaving others, when do you have time to work on shaving yourself? Who will shave your skull?"

@Gregory Did you feel threatened at all by this comment from this extremely new account? I've sent a message to the moderators and this account. If anyone said this to my face I'd probably act pre-emptively. Way too dark and not funny if it's meant as a joke either.

Well, a linguistic paradox is when two ideas are thought of to be true at the same time even though their natures inherently negate each other. So if an argument has two of these sorts of ideas in them, the chances that one or both being true are diminished. One is definitely not true, one might be or might not be.

A mathematical paradox is a mathematical conclusion so unexpected that it is difficult to accept even though every step in the reasoning is valid. For example mathematical reasonings where every step is valid in an explanation of how 2+2 could possibly equal 5 is a mathematical paradox.

You're right about the logic, but you've made the mistake of treating a language game like a numbers game. The rules aren't the same. So neither is the definition of a paradox.

For example, a paradox in time, where you travel in time and encounter a past or future version of you is a mathematical paradox.

If time travel is possible in a given universe and you encounter another version of you then what should normally be 1, becomes 2. Mathematical paradox.

To explain the problem of the barber mathematically, it's just algebra.

Symbol for Barber, Symbol for everyone, Symbol for rules of culture on who gets to cut who's hair or shave who's beard.

Let me put it this way. If all Bs are a part of E and only B gets to do S, B must do S to E, because B is equal to E, B must also do S to B.

B is Barber
E is everyone
S is shave

Does that make a bit more sense? I hope I haven't made it more confusing for you.

Okay I misunderstood you when you talked about language games. I thought you understood my answer. I didn't realise you had a misconception of what a paradox is and were conflating logic in math for logic in human culture. Sorry.

If I’m conscious, I’m there, even though I’m always conscious, part of me always sleeps. Some parts are on the night watch.

say what now big fudge? Many if not all? Where do I factor into this?

You're smart enough, I'm sure you could have given the time. Sorry if it seemed like my original response came off as aggravated, it wasn't at you. Just the individuals trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and taking too long.

It's not a logical paradox. It's language game that's cleared up when you COMBINE language with logic — Gregory

Dear gods people listen to Gregory! Gregory knows, be more like Gregory. Make it a fucking meme.

Still though Gregory, you could have framed it a little better for them.

I really enjoyed reading this. A nice spread of information on some different conceptual and contextual formats of egoism.

The discussion that I try to bring up with this paper is that if we really judge egoism in the right way, and not in the weakest and morally wrong way because we have a mentality that comes from the beginning of sedentary civilization, and that is of a out of disgust with our essence – egoism – many psychological and philosophical horizons can be reached, but that in the end, are left in the dark by prejudice.

We must also ask ourselves, why the "Academy" and all its renowned thinkers simply ignore the fact that the ego is one of the strongest candidates for an "essence" of humanity. — Gus Lamarch

I agree with this. Ultimately it's a matter of language, to me the two structural formats I like are contextual egoism and collective egoism. However, I'd also argue for essence plurality across a Biocentrist model of essence. So while I agree that Ego is a powerful linguistic tool in describing our nature. What else is essential for us besides Ego? What about it's counter tool Humility? Is this Human essence different to animal or living essence?

Next people will start believing a no-cat is a real animal based on descriptions about the number of tails it has as opposed to a real cat.

The barber shaves those and only those who do not shave themselves

So there are perhaps people who do not shave themselves whom he does not shave. And those who shave themselves he does not shave. But he can't shave himself because he shaves only those who do not shave themselves. So anyone can shave the barber except himself

Solved? — Gregory

No, not solved. Also a poor framing of the original problem.

There is a town. It has two laws about Barbers.
First law; Everyone has to be shaved by the barber.
Second law; No one can shave himself.

The solution is simple. The barber shaves himself. First law states "Everyone".

By way of the first law, the barber shaves no man who shaves himself, except himself because he is ultimately still accounted for when the word "Everyone" is used. He's by law logically exempt from the second law because he's the only barber in the town.

Now it's solved. It's just a logic puzzle.

The idea that an idea has to be proven wrong in order to be wrong is wrong. — Pinprick

Simple, sincere, elegant logic. :strong:

Did you do that on your own or did you translate my comment? :P If that's all you, noice!

Ma tha mi mothachail, tha mi ann, eadhon ged a tha mi an-còmhnaidh mothachail, bidh pàirt dhòmhsa an-còmhnaidh a ’cadal. Tha cuid de phàirtean air faire na h-oidhche.

If you can tell me why a chimp would even be interested in Kant's views on metaphysics or even his ideas on morality then I might be able to explain why I would not discuss these things with him.
But there again. I could not get my neighbors to discuss him either so they must be chimps in disguise. As I mentioned earlier, negros were not considered humans for exactly the same reasons. And look how wrong the intellectuals were about that. — Sir2u

@schopenhauer1 Whatever you believe, I sincerely hope you laughed at what he said. Cracked me the fuck up when I got to chimps in disguise, had to show my wife and everything.

that would just strengthen the underlying claim.

If there existed a gorilla that in their own self-reflective way "said" to itself "I fuckn' hate stripping these leaves all day to eat", a chimp who said, "OH man, just another day of chasing this monkey to smash its skull in so I can eat it.. such a grind, why can't there be another way?" That just means more creatures in the same boat. — schopenhauer1

Only if whether or not a belief is moral, is grounded on moral theories that address pleasure and pain as the be all, end all to the nature of our existence, to justify our moral reasoning. If Antinatalism is immoral, then the point is moot. Or if acting on such a binary moral reasoning system as pain vs pleasure is overly simplistic and isn't being charitable to the evident complexity of the universe amd therefore a moral mistake, then your your underlying claim by acknowledging the possibility of the potential for animal self awareness,

Also, you don't have to agree to this being true now if you feel the argument isn't there, we both know you have your own personal determination to make, the argument can however extend to animal species that have not emerged and another million years might see linguistics Gorillas, operatically meaningful whales. This is just based on the idea that if it could happen for our ancestors, it could happen for their descendents.

Now, a Biocentrist Antinatalism could hypothetically be a possible normative prescription on earth, climate change might see to that, except for space bears. That doesn't mean life isn't suffering and feeling pleasure elsewhere in the cosmos. How do we apply antinatalism to these poor ignorant creatures who know not what they do by procreating? Without essentially just becoming Daleks that also have a plan for self suicide after our glorious purge/crusade is complete and the cosmos is lifeless?

This is why we should subscribe to theories of descriptive contextual relativism, Relativism is in the name but don't be fooled, this theory argues for the existence of objective moral truths and doesn't make claims that it as a theory is based on subjectivity and that there are no moral absolutes. Contextual Antinatalism is something I can get behind, since it can at least be a possible normative prescription and there are some humans and forms of life which by their nature can only bring suffering or can only make their offspring suffer.

Now, how do we reduce our contingent suffering foot print in a way that might actually succeed?

One thing I would appreciate you so much for is if you can justify one thing for me. Why do you think it is immoral for you personally to not have children? Is it just that you think everyone should not do it or is there more to it than that? What are the personal reasons in your eyes. I might not agree with them, just to warn you.

Based on what? Sophisticated language and deep contextual knowledge does not give an objective moral answer to anything. Were do the facts that inform the act come from? An objective answer to a moral question does not follow from descriptive claims, this is just the gap between is and ought, unless I'm mistaken. — Aleph Numbers

Woooo! Now we are talking! So we are at Hume, who believed we make moral judgements from emotional sentiment, not logic. Not what I believe exactly.

Logic is a tool for making sense of our experiences. Language is a tool for describing that experience.
This is true of our individual experiences and our collective experiences.

Your emotions are psychological, your cognitive reasoning facilities and ability to utilise logic are also psychological. Individual Emotional Psychological facts like "I fear Covid-19" are true if you are really afraid of covid-19 because you fear your death or a loved ones death. Collective social and moral truths are contingent on a few different things. Culture, Individuals, Psychology, Biology, and Physics. Now, keep in mind that those concepts here should not be conflated with the experts in the study of those concepts, who are individuals within academic field cultures. Same with me, I'm no expert.

There are Emotional and cultural facts about you for example. You are aware of some or most of them but not of others. Like everyone.

Ultimately since there is more experience within a collective, the collective is the thing that should be the object of the most judgement and responsibility for its moral behaviour. Which means to some extent individuals are the object of judgement and responsibility for what goes into the culture of that collective. Obviously some people bare much more responsibility on that due to the amount of power they wield on the modal quality of the moral culture of the collective. This is why most people intuitively feel it is wrong to blame poor people for their lot in life. No one individual knows the full context but we can get an emotional impression of it when exposed to experience of it from any perspective. It's also why I trust most people to be accurate in the claim that "they are treated unfairly" even if I don't agree with their estimation of the Why, as my view of the context will most likely be different than theirs.

The way you arrive at this conclusion, is to examine the historically contextual answers to the Is ought problem, Kant and Mills for example, and then contemporary ones like pragmatism and neo pragmatism etc, Negate the falsehoods and affirm the truths from all those proposed solutions until the modal quality meshes symbiotically between the different answers to the problem, balanced with the criticisms to those answers in a way that actually solves whatever problem is trying to be solved based on what the language identifies. While also accepting the truth of human fallibility when it comes to using tools like logic and language. The tools aren't the problem, the craftsman is. It's up to the craftsman to figure out if;
A) if he is using his tools correctly and
B) has the right tools for the job.

MSC, I washed my hands in this thread, and I don't want to engage any more, but I must answer your plea for the reason of sheer personal respect. — god must be atheist

That's nice to hear, not sure what I've done to earn the respect but thank you. It's returned in kind, even if we end up disagreeing.

I have one question so far, and that is, what is it in a moral act that distinguishes it from other acts, as being moral (or immoral). — god must be atheist

My claim: What distinguishes it from an act from an immoral act or a moral act, is truth relative to context, combined with a few moral imperatives based on self evident truths about the nature of the universe, the nature of life and the nature of humanity. The self evident truths about humanity is where I will introduce how this method works exactly while also highlighting its inherent fallibility born of my inherent fallibility as an individual who doesn't know the full context of the nature of life and the universe.

I am going to have to put a pause on this now but I will be ready to address the rest of your comment later. I have a zoom meeting in half an hour. Got voters in Wisconsin to write to. Vote Biden! (Note for Moderators, if my "vote biden" remark was against the rules or shouldn't be in this discussion, let me know and I'll remove it but please leave the rest of the comment intact if you use your discretion to remove it yourselves)

Hey, guys and gals, what do yout thing constitutes an act which is moral?

I am asking because there has been examples of what we call good and what we call bad. But there has no discerntion between good and right and between bad and wrong. If it's bad, it's wrong, and the right thing to do is to do something that is good for everyone.

Where is the moral compass? What can you say about something bad that is still moral? Something bad that is still moral, yet it contains no good that counter-effects the bad?

This is what I need to hear before I can seriously engage on a talk about morality. Morality exists, but we never touched upon what its hallmarks are. Please tell me what it is about morality that makes it different from everything else, and most prominently different from good and bad. — god must be atheist

These are all reasonable questions and I'm sorry for not addressing this myself sooner. As I noticed that in some of your other comments you felt your questions have not been given a fair shake.

I don't know how much of my comments to @Aleph Numbers you have gotten the chance to read. Did you feel any of what I said answered any of those questions for you? All, none or a few?

I will attempt to answer them but I want you to have the time to critique what I've already said to others so I can see where our understandings have overlapped and where they are at odds. Will probably make it easier for me to answer your questions in a way where they are true attempts at direct answers, whether you agree with them or not. Sound fair?

Quite simply by pointing out those things in fact do not contribute to a person's happiness. Isn't it so that people who commit such acts are deeply troubled or even mentally ill individuals?

They are driven by a need to resolve childhood trauma, slavish obedience to their basic impulses, or mental defects. All sorts of things that need to be resolved before an individual can understand what true happiness means for them. — Tzeentch

Very appropriate to point out.

Immediately begging the question “what about if true individual happiness means murder, rape and torture?”
How do you exclude that? — DingoJones

I'd call BS and say that this individual is contextually incapable of knowing what true happiness is, because they are in fact truly miserable and deluding themselves.

This just makes it a more descriptive claim, but I don't see why that matters if it is relative to all of humanity. — Aleph Numbers

What if morality is relative to context, not humanity? Descriptive contextual relativism.

I'm going to argue from some of your points that I can agree with, so you know I'm being fair and that your words do have the power to move the conversation along in a functional and helpful way.

A majority is perfectly capable of not knowing the full context of any given situation.

The best way to describe the difference between an honest moral mistake and a malicious moral act is individual or group knowledge of context.
If I know he full context of a given situation but still argue against it = malicious act.

The idea of moral progress requires honest moral mistakes. I think you would benefit by looking out some books of logic problems to really get into this point. I can't remember the one I'm thinking of off the top of my head but I can describe how it works.

There are a number of good logic problems where the question is essentially "How many times do you have to guess incorrectly to know what the right answer is?"

An honest moral mistake is made when someone believes the way are acting in a way that benefits others but our experience of the context isn't full enough to realistically be expected to make the right answer.

it is about something subjective. It isn't like saying the earth isn't flat just because the majority of people believe it isn't, it's that something is true for all members of a group if it is true for the majority, given certain criteria, namely the a priori assumption that what is good behavior for most people some of the time is true for everyone. Where is the fallacy in that? — Aleph Numbers

Because when the full context is known and language is sophisticated enough to explain that, there would be an objective moral answer for any given situation. So in that situation the majority is only right when it is contextually objectively right. If they are wrong, then it's just wrong.

The thing about relativism in most of it's forms, is that it claims there are no objective moral absolutes, but it doesn't make that claim of itself. It posits itself as the only moral truth. So if descriptive contextual relativism is the only moral truth, then it's central claim that there are no objective moral absolutes, truth or knowledge is not true. So how could relativism be true?

What do you think I mean by fallacious? I don't mean wrong. If that helps you at all?

Edit: Duplicate post glitch. Flag for deletion.