As an aside that doesn't add much, for me, personally, ethics is even more objective than moral, because while moral makes a rule for "right or wrong", and this rule may have nothing to do with the actual consequences of an act (such as being gay, for example, that doesn't harm other people), ethics is worried with the interpersonal consequences of an act. That is, what is the effect of something on others.

Is there something wrong with this definition? — Aleph Numbers

I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but it wouldn't answer one need for the participants, that is, sometimes, to find a moral solution that is "universally good". Even if it is not possible, it is goal that people usually have in mind.

Say, for example, that most of the world approves some form of repression of gay people. If we have reason to believe that there's no sense in that, we wouldn't be willing to accept such moral belief, even if it is considered consensus.

Unless I misunderstood you, in case you can correct me.

A question that I think might be a problem:

By trying to define a morality based on common use, aren't you not forsaking a logically necessary, a priori definition of morality?

And where does the - even if individual and subjective - logical need and justification for a morality comes from? That is, that which makes individuals to have a morality in first place.

Wouldn't make more sense to extract the principles that give birth to a morality system?

Thus, cultural relativism is avoided. Is there a flaw in my thinking? — Aleph Numbers

Does the different resultant moral axioms from different time periods avoid relativism? (I'd say they don't, but perphaps you see "cultural relativism" differently than me.)

Very well, I will attempt to describe the situation.

After suffering a (mental) illness, I ended with fear of certain things. The doctor still consider I have the illness because I have this fear. However I see no sense in that, as the relationship between the illness (P) and the fear (Q) is 1. indirect (that I informally inferred from the word he used, that I will translate as "unchained", or as an "indirect consequence of a series of events") and, as a matter of fact (I didn't ask this, and as it a fact of the world, believe is the case), the illness is not necessary nor sufficient for the existence of the fear.

That is, as I see, the illness led to a state "similar to trauma" (paraphrasing my therapist), and the trauma itself is enough for the endured fear, and I see to logical need for the fear to be a sign of the illness (whose commonly listed symptoms don't include fear, and it may not even be present in some cases of this illness). Yet the specialist considers that the "parcial" part about the remission is the existence of the fear (I actually asked this).

Thus I seek to understand what kind of arguments the empirical sciences may have to stabillish a causation and existence chain in this kind of problem. The best bet I have is to ask and have a conversation, but nothing says I can't try to at least put my perspective in a better way than "it doesn't make sense". It is admitedly confusing, being a case where I have limited information.

See, fdrake, you was kind of right, but in a different way. I don't intend to just dismiss what he says, however.

In the way you put, I think that P is a risk factor to Q

(4b) If P never existed regardless of its causal status and other relationships with Q, then Q could not occur. — fdrake

But that I would say (4c) instead: that even if is not the case that P anymore (one is not anymore a smoker), Q can still be the case (one can have lung cancer).

The actual problem muddies this belief, because even if it seems a sure thing for me, it is not for the doctor. The actual example of lung cancer may not be ideal, as it is something we already have a belief regarding (4c). (Am I incorrect in is this last affirmation?)

So one of the things about logic is it is irrelevant to time. The premises state the facts as they are at a particular moment. If the facts change, then that is a different argument. — Philosophim

There is such a thing as temporal logic, though. Even if in this situation it doesn't apply, it considers time.

Oversimplifying it, I see as P -> R; R -> Q; but I still can't formalize it properly. I could try, and this is what I have come up with, but it could be wrong:

1. This illness (P) lead to some symptoms S1, S2... Sn.
2. S1 and external factor (E) lead to the initial fear (Qi)
3. Somehow all of this lead to "trauma" (T)
4. And T is a source of enduring fear (Q)

But it is just a guess, and may be more in the way than helping to understand it. I was on the assumption that limiting to the essencial premises would be more helpful. 2 and 3 are an extrapolation of the belief that Q can exist without P (whose symptom S1 doesn't exist anymore). It appears to be circular logic. I could complement it in this way:

1a. It not the case that S1 anymore
1b. It is the case that Q
1c. Thus, there is some factor causing Q that does not need S1 to be true in this moment. I attempted to write it as 2 and 3. I could also say "S1 ^ E -> T", which is simpler.

Already QED.

((P v ~P) ^ Q) => Q

It seems to me you're not actually looking for a proof in logic, but perhaps a negative proof that Q can exist absent P in fact. If in fact Q does exist absent P, then that's all you need. — tim wood

I'm under the impression that this is not sufficient as an argument for the doctor... It is a fact of the world that fear of "things" can exist without an illness, and that this illness does not always lead to fear. I could present this just to see his response.

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Thank you misters, for the discussion, and forgive me for my confusion, I'm trying my best to understand this.

Edit: And I must mention. I don't want to burden members with a particular issue. Just to understand in a more abstract and generalist way a given problem.

I will respond to you when I have the time to carefully read all of the responses, but I want to advance that the definition of contributory cause can be found in some articles, and it seems relevant for some sciences.

In a Wikipedia article about causation, there's a citation about an author that does formalize it. I found his book (The Cement of the Universe: a Study of Causation, Mackie), but reading it takes some time.

I know little about this subject, so just some tentative discussion that may be not relevant, as I find dualism interesting:

If self consciousness is a factor that receives input from but does not output to the system, how does the system (cognition) can recognize the existence of the factor?

(Possibly related, and the same question I have about Chalmer's argument, with the difference he also postulates no input and admits a paradox. He does answer it in his book though.)

What do you mean by "reporting" in Q1? A conscious experience? Or causality chain in the system?

Part of the problem is the limited format of things like twitter, youtube and reddit, these formats lend themselves, not to quality, but to misinformation, they literally give an advantage to pathological personality types. — JerseyFlight

Although it can have its criticisms, the new Netflix documentary "the social dilemma" does shed light on how the social media and search engines further dissent by narrowing results to the person's preconceptions.

I agree that the format is not encouraging to thoughtful discussion. And I'd say both aesthetically and behaviourally. The UI is meant for little text. It can be seem by comparing the recent media with older ones, like blogs and even Orkut. And there's a sense of urge, an almost pavlovian conditioning of receiving the next reward. It is very difficult to concentrate on a single demanding matter when you have a plate full of distractions.

That documentary just made this mechanism more evident for me, but I have a longing from some fruitful forums and discussions on some of the old platforms that always made me find these aspects of the new media insufficient.