Evolutionarily... I would think that amoebas are incapable of either. — Merkwurdichliebe

Wouldn't be much of an experience to be a single celled organism...

Moral intuition was characterized as moral knowledge acquired without evidence. I cannot agree to that.
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praxis
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Maybe that makes sense in context? — praxis

I'm listening.

Moral intuition was characterized as moral knowledge acquired without evidence. I cannot agree to that.

I do not think it is very debatable that humans have a niche way of surviving, and it is very unique. The question is the nature of how this came about, — schopenhauer1

Language use and interdependence...

In the USA, we have a secular form of government. — LD Saunders

Could have fooled me.

That was an element/tenet of certain 'isms' in a link within the wiki page you linked us to.

We decide the names of things. I'm largely in agreement with Quine here regarding the arbitrariness of what we pay attention to, name, and/or further talk about.

Things are in a constant state of flux. The identity of a thing need not be. In fact, change could not even be taken account of if we demanded such.

If nominalism is held by a coherent advocate thereof, then s/he must admit that we cannot step into the same river once... We cannot step into that river!
— creativesoul

OK. When did the River Thames (for example) become 'that' river? It will have been a trickle at one point in the past. It would certainly have been in a different location before the southern uplift created the North Downs. So at what point in its history did it become 'that' river?

And while you're at it, you can explain at exactly what point 'that' river ends. How far out to sea, or how saline must the water be before it is no longer 'that' river? Where does 'that' river begin for that matter? Underground? The moment it breaches the surface? As soon as other tributaries join it?

I'm regularly dumbfounded by the number of people who seem to do philosophy on the basis of the whatever seems obvious to them must therefore be a fact of the world. It's unbelievably lazy thinking. — Isaac

I find it rather amusing when one argues in such way...

Those are not consequences or troubles arising from my position. They are consequences of a strict adherence to nominalism. I've no burden to defend those.

The irony of it all given the charge of "lazy thinking"...

:kiss:

Just because one may not be aware of the ground, does not mean that there is none. Just because one may not be capable of arguing for their belief, it does not follow that it is not well-grounded. Just because one may be able to argue for their own belief, it does not follow that it is well-grounded. Coherency alone is insufficient for both, solid ground upon which to base subsequent inference and truth.
— creativesoul

Right. The point is that individuals may have roughly the same intuitions but they can be developed differently depending on cultural influences. If true, that’s relevant to the project of investigating the source of morals. — praxis

Ok. So, it seems that you're willing to accept the explanation in the terms I've put to use. My hesitance to invoke "intuition" is based upon it's lack of thorough definition/delineation. As mentioned earlier, and now that I have our agreement, I do not see how multiplying entities/conceptions is helpful here, especially if the framework being employed take take adequate account of all things called "intuition". Unless I'm missing something important in the explanation you've assented to, I think we can say that we agree, and that there is no need to invoke "moral intuition".

I would readily agree that there are simple moral thought/belief common to all humans who eventually learn language.

I would not agree that one can acquire knowledge of morals without evidence.

Yes. Our philosophies are actually quite similar in several aspects. He did not get thought/belief right. Humean causation attests to that as well as his notion of belief.

The question is, what is the difference between linguistic thought/belief that is non-moral in kind, and linguistic thought/belief that is non-moral in kind? I would say that the former makes ethically neutral assessments of the world (analytical and speculative), while the latter makes ethically charged judgements (normative and prescriptive), that are likely to be someway associated with one assessment or anothe — Merkwurdichliebe

The question needs attention, my friend.

:wink:

Agreed.

Nominalism is untenable. A thing is not equivalent to it's name. A thing changes. It's name does not. If nominalism is held by a coherent advocate thereof, then s/he must admit that we cannot step into the same river once... We cannot step into that river!

Strict adherence renders language useless, at best...

It's a philosophical position that amounts to nothing more than willfully ignorant mental masturbation.

The term 'prelinguistic' has been used a lot in the topic and I thought it might be helpful to clarify what is being meant in its usage. — praxis

It means - quite simply - thought/belief that is formed and/or held prior to language acquisition, and/or by a language-less creature.

It can mean developments prior to language acquisition for our species or for children. The former might be considered instinctive or innate, but not the latter. — praxis

Our children are individuals of our species. Thus, I do not understand how something could be called "instinctive" or "innate" for a species but not for an individual thereof.

Regarding the source of morals, a distinction might be made between our innate condition, early pre-linguistic childhood conditioning, cultural conditioning (part of childhood conditioning), and whatever conditioning we might intentionally impose on ourselves. — praxis

Oh, indeed! There are all sorts of distinctions that have yet to have been drawn and maintained between different complexity levels of linguistically informed thought/belief.

Merk and I were amidst drawing a distinction between moral and ethical along those lines(lines of complexity and/or existential dependency). Much was left unpacked. The aim was what ethical agency was existentially dependent upon; the preconditions necessary for ethical agency to arise/emerge as compared/contrasted to simple moral thought/belief(I presume).

All else being equal...

Cases of moral judgment by a language user who is capable of clearly explicating their own moral thought/belief are cases of one who is not ignorant of their worldview. Such capability does not require careful scrutiny at the level of origens. I mean only to say that not all explanations are on equal footing.

Cases of moral judgment by a language user who is not capable of clearly explicating their own thought/belief are cases of one who is ignorant of the origins/sources of her/his/their own worldview. Such incapability does not equate to having/holding ungrounded thought/belief.

Just because one may not be aware of the ground, does not mean that there is none. Just because one may not be capable of arguing for their belief, it does not follow that it is not well-grounded. Just because one may be able to argue for their own belief, it does not follow that it is well-grounded. Coherency alone is insufficient for both, solid ground upon which to base subsequent inference and truth.

Does that address your concerns?

I want to find a way to help us all better understand thought/belief and it's different complexity levels.

I've seen several different notions of 'moral judgment'. On my view, all moral judgments are about what's counts as either acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. It is to think, believe, and/or say that some specific thought, belief, and/or behaviour is one or the other(acceptable/unacceptable).

This begins prior to language(as heretofore argued without subsequent refutation/objection), and first manifests in language via mimicry and/or in situations where one witnessed the terms in question being used by others.

Does that help?

It’s not clear to me how you distinguish between moral judgments that, on examination, ‘thought/belief’ can be clearly articulated and judgments where they cannot. — praxis

Can you re-phrase this?

Moral dumbfounding is believed by some to be evidence for moral intuition. — praxis

I'd have to see that argument. :wink:

Not much activity during your absence. Just my blabbing. You should be able to catch up quickly. — Merkwurdichliebe

Yeah, perhaps setting out and/or enumerating our agreements is a good thing to do...

Am I missing anything relevant?

Moral intuition is the product of a pre-existing worldview replete with thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. Habits of thought/belief are habits of mind. Habits of mind yield consequences. Intuition is a consequence of previously formed and re-formed thought/belief.

I would agree to the following(which seems amenable to some of the positions mentioned in the wiki article or it's link).

Not all well-grounded true belief is existentially dependent upon language acquisition and/or use.

I'd rather not do all the work here and now. Suffice it to say that any and all things called "intuition" consist entirely of and/or are existentially dependent upon thought/belief.

They are a kind of thought/belief. The kind is determined by their content. Unconscious operative thought/belief. Those about acceptable/unacceptable thought/belief and/or behaviour are moral in kind.

That is the basis that exhausts all notions of moral intuition.

recognition is a mental activity, but what is recognized is not. — Janus

That holds better of properly quantified.

Some things recognized are mental activities.

Not disagreeing, but rather sharpening the terms of agreement.

I'm fond of Jung's unconscious. More particularly, what he asserts as the contents thereof.

That is the extent of my agreement with Jung however.

Are you suggesting that you don’t believe in moral intuition? — praxis

Not at all. I'm suggesting that moral dumbfounding has been rendered useless here.

I'd be happy to intentionally analyze moral intuition. What is it?

Does my earlier assessment lack explanatory power regarding intuition of any sort?

I'm simply saying that if one makes true statements about the source of their own moral convictions then s/he cannot be sensibly said to be morally dumbfounded...
— creativesoul

I'm trying to reconcile this point. My concern is, what is the criterion for morality, who is making the moral judgment? If it is a true statement about the source of one's own moral convictions, then you are right, but if it is, say, culture, then it is entirely possible for Socrates to give a coherent but deluded reason for why he is ethically obligated to drink the hemlock. — Merkwurdichliebe

The above - by my lights - looks like the result of a prior misunderstanding. However, I do not think further hyper focus will sort it out. Sorting is sometimes better done indirectly.

Of what use are those notions [intuitive, non-linguistic, subconscious] in this context?
— creativesoul

Yes, me wants to know too.
— Merkwurdichliebe

In the context of moral dumbfounding? Plenty, in my opinion.

Dumbfounding is indicative of an implicit evaluation or conditioned response that is beneath conscious awareness. — praxis

What it could mean for us to say that something/anything can even be 'beneath conscious awareness'. What would be above it? A spatial relationship between two things requires that both have a spatiotemporal location.

I also have a hard time making sense of this notion of 'implicit evaluation'...

Evaluations are deliberative measures with clearly established criteria. Evaluations are not the sort of things that exist implicitly within all moral thought/belief. Nor are they of much use here. Ignorance of one's own worldview predates evaluations thereof. Moral dumbfounding always results from the former but not always the latter.

Furthermore, implication is existentially dependent upon language use. It belongs in the domain of discourse about a single language expression having more than one accepted use(shared meaning).

So - knowing all of that - the only sense I can make of an "implicit evaluation" is when we're talking about a deliberate evaluation that has been previously made but has been long since forgotten, but the results left an impression of sorts that is still identifiable by virtue of it's ongoing affects/effects. In that sense, an implicit moral evaluation would be better understood as one element, one piece, one part, one ingredient... of a case of moral dumbfounding.

Not all cases of dumbfounding include much deliberate evaluation to begin with. Seems to me that correcting the dissonance is itself existentially dependent upon such an evaluation.

One who has a good grasp upon his/her own worldview also has implicit evaluations, so the notion of moral dumbfounding is not helpful here as far as I can tell...

Am I missing something?

Evolutionarily... I would think that amoebas are incapable of either.
— creativesoul

They certainly lack a neocortex. — Merkwurdichliebe

Our notion of thought/belief must also include some physiological aspects, or at least be falsifiable/verifiable. It seems that the complexity of thought/belief is proportional to the physiological/biological complexity of our candidate.

A venus flytrap, for example, can detect stimulus. It would be a stretch to say that it is capable of having/holding expectation about what's to come, and/or what's about to happen/take place...

So, that's another aspect that will definitely need to be addressed.

...other than the guillotine, I completely reject Hume's ethics (and all derivations therefrom). So, as far as 'expectation' is concerned, I cannot associate it with anything ethical. — Merkwurdichliebe

I reject Hume's framework for a couple of different reasons, including the guillotine. Hume's entire edifice is based upon an arbitrarily drawn distinction between emotion and reason that is itself based upon an ill-conceived notion of thought/belief. Hume wants to characterize reason as though it does not contain/include emotion. That could only be the case if reason was not existentially dependent upon emotion. Reason(Hume's conception) is a metacognitive endeavor. It consists entirely of thinking about pre-existing thought/belief. Disinterest is not completely devoid of all emotional content. It is itself an emotional attitude of sorts, one of 'self-control'. This could be further explicated, but I think we all agree on that much.

Thought/belief begins simply and grows in it's complexity according to the content of the correlations themselves. At conception there is no thought/belief. All thought/belief consist entirely of correlations between different things. Prior to language, correlations are drawn between the creature's own autonomous mental ongoings such as hunger, fear, and/or the lack thereof. Those are what's necessary for meeting the two basic needs for survival, gathering resources and avoiding danger. This sometimes results in contentment/discontentment amongst other things. Fear and hunger are at the foundation of all subsequent emotion and thought/belief.

Regarding expectation...

Expectation is a hallmark - the most reliable one - from which we can confidently say that the candidate under our observation/consideration has formed thought/belief, and/or is a thinking/believing creature. Humeans may wish to invoke the problem of induction, but it's moot here. A creature is more than capable of holding expectations without having the capability to presuppose a consistent world. Hume's inability to arrive at this is a result of not ever having drawn and maintained the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

Rather, successful prediction/expectation is itself existentially dependent upon a consistent world. It does not follow from the fact that unexpected/unforeseen events can take place due to previously unknown causes, that we are unjustified/unwarranted regarding all expectation/prediction based upon consistent past events and/or their recollection. To quite the contrary, one who refrains from holding any expectation intentionally, would be arguing along the lines of refusing to believe that anything will happen because we've been wrong about what would happen before. We need not be omniscient in order to form, have, and/or hold well-grounded inferences/expectations/predictions.

The point of all of this is simply to situate expectation where it belongs...

It's also quite useful to tame down rhetorical drivel regarding claims and/or implications/entailment that any and/or all 'definitions' and/or conceptions are on equal footing. The groundwork has already been put down to conclude that we can get some definitions wrong in a vey specific sense of being "wrong".
— creativesoul

Can you present an example where this has occurred in our discourse? Not disagreeing, only looking for a live example of such error so it can be properly understood. — Merkwurdichliebe

That has not taken place here. Earlier you - quite astutely - put such potential things to rest in another way, with other words.

I've seen it happen too many times to count here on this forum and others as well.

The analogy doesn't quite take out endeavor into proper account. I like watching people play games even sometimes when I do not want to play.
— creativesoul

But even then, the best way to watch is by entering the stadium. Watching a summarization on TV never matches being there, live at the bocce ball match.

The stadium is the universal criterion in my analogy, to be clear. — Merkwurdichliebe

Understood.

It's as though we have to enter the same stadium if we are going to compete in a contest of bocce ball. — Merkwurdichliebe

The analogy doesn't quite take out endeavor into proper account. I like watching people play games even sometimes when I do not want to play.

What I'm doing is attempting to establish an adequate basis of true statements about morals, including their origen as a means to provide the best universal basis from which to establish a moral code.
— creativesoul

I like it. I will focus on this as the common goal (in addition to my own, personal, sadomasochist, selfish reasons :joke: — Merkwurdichliebe

Funny you say that. There are other benefits of establishing a universal criterion. It comes in quite handy when we talk about how to compare/contrast competing conceptions.

:wink:

It's also quite useful to tame down rhetorical drivel regarding claims and/or implications/entailment that any and/or all 'definitions' and/or conceptions are on equal footing. The groundwork has already been put down to conclude that we can get some definitions wrong in a vey specific sense of being "wrong".

It's begun being laid to establish common sense conclusions about existential dependency and timeframes.

No worries. You two are fine. For all I know, you've already been through all this unbeknownst to me, but the novelty of my framework(odd way of talking) is holding your attention just to see if it gleans anything new and trustworthy/dependable/convincing.

:wink:

Where is the groundwork most required at this point. — Merkwurdichliebe

What I'm doing is attempting to establish an adequate basis of true statements about morals, including their origen as a means to provide the best universal basis from which to establish a moral code. Amongst other things...

We still need to discuss power over people and further parse out the necessity of our being interdependent social creatures. Those who write the rules have tremendous power. Legitimized moral belief.

What do you find that still needs parsed prior to comparing/contrasting which rules ought be maintained and/or implemented and which ought not?

I see a general agreement over the basic framework we have established here. We have succeeded, at least, in establishing a reasonably sensible working theory on the source of morals. There is definitely more to figure out, but this is not a bad achievement here on TPF, despite whether we've actually achieved anything of significance. If nothing else, we will be better prepared when we enter into any philosophical discussion on ethics. — Merkwurdichliebe

Well put!



I hope you stick around. I've been restraining from addressing some of the considerations you've put forth, particularly those involving the possible logical consequences of the Fox. That is a conversation that needs to happen, just not yet.

I've some senior graduation ceremonies to attend in real life this weekend. Great 'kid'. Loved to help him make better sense of Stove's worst argument. His professor used it to start his intro class. All we have are our perceptions and conceptions. Therefore all we can know about is our perceptions/conceptions...

Fun and easy to talk about trees as a means to differentiate between "trees" and trees.

I'll return later. Just a heads up to explain my future absence for a few days.

Thanks/kudos to all who've participated here.

We, however, are in agreement. The descriptive conversion in which we are presently engaged is meta-ethical - it stands detached from prescriptive ethical considerations. — Merkwurdichliebe

Good. We are involved in ethical conversation and it is not prescriptive... yet! Groundwork is crucial. We are getting there.

Ethical conversation is always prescriptive, the ought. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's not true. We've been involved in descriptive ethical/moral conversation throughout. I think that that may be where some of the issues are arising from. I'm talking about moral things as a kind, and others are talking about moral things as a manner of expressing their approval/agreement as compared/contrasted to immoral.

All experience is existentially dependent upon a thinking/believing creature.
— creativesoul

And is thought/belief existentially dependent upon experience? Chicken-Egg — Merkwurdichliebe

Evolutionarily... I would think that amoebas are incapable of either.

Hume skirted around an important aspect of thought/belief. Expectation. Seems to be adequate for concluding belief and drawing some line between stimulus/response and behaviour 'driven' by thought/belief.

There is no necessary causal or logical relation between what we experience, and what we think of that experience. — Merkwurdichliebe

All experience is existentially dependent upon a thinking/believing creature.

Surely that's a bit more compelling on a common sense basis/criterion for what is to be counted as and/or called "experience". If existential dependency doesn't count as being necessary, then nothing will.

Well, just ask an athiest is God has meaning, then ask if God exists. — Merkwurdichliebe

I would answer yes to both. The explication would satisfy both questions. There is no difference between belief in and/or about God and God.

Is that different than having meaning and/or being meaningful?