Where you wrote "interpret as..."

I wonder. This is too funny. What would a misinterpretation look like? What about all the different people and positions that acknowledge the fact that the majority of people, when saying "X is immoral" mean that X is immoral.

Under your position... everybody holds that being moral/immoral is just a matter of being about personal judgment, or we misattribute meaning to everyone who doesn't think like that.

Everyone does not think like that.

The position you're arguing for/from is utterly inadequate for taking account of the way things actually are.

What does that mean? "Imbued in us"?
— creativesoul

An undeveloped albeit intrinsic quality present at birth.

Are you claiming that you, as a human, do not have any emotional content within your reasoning?
— creativesoul

No. I’m saying I can Reason with respect to emotion when it’s called for. Feelings are not cognitions, which is why they have no object of their own. The body supplies the object, re: tears, butterflies, sheer delight or sheer adrenaline rush....whatever. One never thinks......is this where I’m supposed put a smile on my face? Is this the right time to cuss the bad guy, applaud the good guy?

Reason with respect to emotion enters the stage when the response expected, or considered appropriate, doesn’t conform to the feeling, re: being punished (remorse) for something you didn’t do (anger), or, what’s worse, being given credit (pride) for something you didn’t do (shame). — Mww

This, I am fairly certain, highlights the remarkable differences between Kant's framework, and my own...

An undeveloped albeit intrinsic quality present at birth.

I wouldn't put it that way, but I also do not entirely disagree. Let's flesh this out a bit more.

I agree that neither physiological sensory perception nor emotions are equivalent to cognition(thought/belief). They are an irrevocable elemental constituent thereof. They are necessary for all thought/belief(all cognition is existentially dependent upon them both). I think we agree there, but I also think that that is where we part...

You want to separate complex thought/belief(about pre-existing thought/belief) from both it's content(what it's about) and it's own elemental constitution. There's also an aspect of existential dependency that is not being taking into proper account.

We are very close to talking past one another, and actually may already be doing so.

I am talking about what all thought/belief consists of and relating that to the fact that pure reason consists entirely of thought/belief. You're offering specific examples of situations where the thinker does not deliberately consider emotion. I'm not denying that. Grant it, without hesitation. It misses my point...

Pure reason is thinking about thought/belief(they are one in the same prior to metacognition, and even afterwards they consist of exactly the same core - mental correlations). So, for now at least, let this pass. I do distinguish between the two, particularly in cases where one is suspending one's judgment as a pre-requisite for entertaining another possible explanation/worldview/position. Prior to metacognition(thinking about thought/belief) there is no difference.

As best I can tell:We are unique in the animal world in that way. We are the one ones capable of isolating our mental ongoings and then considering them as a subject matter. Here is where the distinction between our report and what we're reporting upon is pivotal.

You've already admitted to having made that mistake. We all have made that mistake, I would think...

Use your own example.

That's where I am at on a simple 'foundational' level wrt moral discourse. It makes the most sense on a simple to understand level. It can tolerate our fallibility. In fact, it uses it as part of the argument/position.

The difficulty, some say, is saying where goodness comes from, or some such...

It's the aim. It is discovered by virtue of trial and error. The fact that we can be wrong also refutes the idea that what is good is equivalent to our belief about it.

Since some seem to have trouble comprehending the painfully obvious... Cognitive dissonance rears it's ugly head again...

There are conflicting statements, including moral statements. That's just the way it is. We all know this to be true. That claim corresponds to what has happened, what is happening, and what will most certainly continue to happen barring an extinction event.

If there are no conflicting statements under subjective moral relativism, then it fails miserably as a means for taking proper account of the way things actually are.

I'm not looking to argue about it. Just want to see if you're talking about my position. I respect your opinion. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking. I deliberately try to avoid any sort of anthropomorphism. I do see how it is related, as a result of being about all thought/belief, and morality is a kind, but...

It certainly is tangential.

PM me... if you would. Just want to avoid being guilty of the charge is all... A decades worth of work ought not be guilty of such.

Your irrelevancy is misplaced. I reject the thesis because reason doesn’t think. I do. I am the thinker. By means of reason, imbued in me as a condition of being human, I do my thinking... — Mww

Poor wording on my part. Of course reason doesn't think.

We do. Reason is a method and/or means.

Here we have a disagreement that seems relevant.

Reason is imbued in us as a condition of being human?

What does that mean? "Imbued in us"?

...That is why I am certain there are conditions where no emotional content is involved, for the simple fact I don’t think about them. — Mww

Are you claiming that you, as a human, do not have any emotional content within your reasoning? No propositional attitude? Neither confidence nor lack thereof? Neither contentment nor discontentment. No certainty? No confusion?

Surely you agree that pure reason consists of thought/belief.
— creativesoul

....of course it consists of thought and beliefs. — Mww

Good. At least there's something we agree on here. I'll return to this after more paving.

Nope, that's still not even a valid argument — S

That was a true statement.

You could always offer a valid argument in support of your position. I've yet to have seen one from you. It's all gratuitous assertion, handwaving, and ad hom from you thus far.

"'X' is moral according to person A's morality, and/or worldview"

What is the above statement about?

I say person A's belief. My answer is obvious. X equals some behaviour. "Is moral" represents person A's thought/belief about the behaviour.

How so?

There are no conflicting statements under subjective moral relativism! So of course that doesn't follow. It is designed to avoid conflicting statements! You have it completely backwards with regard to conflicting statements and moral truth! No two moral objectivists can both be correct about the same thing in an ethical disagreement, but there is no correctness under subjective moral relativism except the relativist kind, so they're never talking about exactly the same thing in any ethical disagreement, due to the relativist structure.

Why don't some people ever seem to learn from their errors in understanding, and instead continue to persist in making the same errors over and again? — S

I laughed... ...quite heartily.

If there are no conflicting statements under subjective moral relativism, then it fails miserably as a means for taking proper account of the way things actually are.



That's what tends to occur when one throws truth out the window.

There’s as much distance between reason and instinct, as there is between apperception (by the mind) and perception (by the senses). — Mww

Are these meant to name two distinct kinds(modes) of perception? If so, what do they both have in common that makes them what they are... examples of perception. Surely it's more than just because we say so. Right?

What is the criterion, which when met by some candidate or other, counts as being a kind of perception. Clearly the difference is 'by the mind' and/or 'by the senses'. What makes them both perception though?

What exactly is it that you're saying is 'by the mind' and 'by the senses'?

Nice rough history...

Insert The Great Moustache at this point. His life is a fine example of the sheer difficulty one has in 'shedding' one's first worldview when it is grounded upon such deeply held belief such as one in the God of Abraham.

Good/Evil

Reward/Punishment

Unfortunately the church did not do us any favors. The baby is hard to find in an opaque tub. She's there though.

God may be dead, but that God had nothing to do with an admirable moral code.

You're welcome to address where I left off...


"'X' is good according to person A" is not about the goodness of X.

Agree?

The job of logic is to provide the conditions for truth, given the correct use of it, it is the means to an end. It is the form of correct reasoning, content be what it may. After truth is known, there is no need of logic to preserve it.

This is just plain wrong. Logic does not provide truth conditions. Logic presupposes truth. Truth is presupposed in premisses.

Do me a favor here...

Define the term "truth" in such a way that the reader could replace all your uses of it with it's definition and not suffer any loss of meaning and/or coherency. The last statement above makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me...

The rules of logic most certainly need to preserve truth.

This is getting downright preposterous.

That which pure reason is thinking about always has emotional content.
— creativesoul

I reject that thesis as without sufficient warrant. It is patently obvious there are conditions where no feeling or emotion requires my attention. — Mww

That's irrelevant. I'm not claiming that every situation demands that we focus upon the emotional aspects.

The issue here is what all pre-reflective thought/belief consists in/of. What is the content? If it includes emotion, and it most certainly does, then thinking about it requires one to think about the emotional aspects of it. Pure reason is thinking about pre-existing thought/belief. A proper account would include all that that pre-existing thought/belief consists of.

Was he (@creativesoul) not anthropomorphizing and, it might be said, reifying the cat's sensory perception as (prelinguistic) thought/belief? — Janus

No. I was not. Cats are quite capable of thought/belief. The cat believed the prey went behind the computer without ever perceiving the computer as a computer. I've set this out more times than I can remember.

The point being made, however, was about the all too common notion of "perception"...

What would thought/belief devoid of all empirical content consist of?
— creativesoul

How the hell would I know? It’s your theory, maybe that parameter is.....you know, like......incoherent to you. — Mww

C'mon Mww. Surely you agree that pure reason consists of thought/belief.

Right?

It's all about existential dependency.

If not this, then I have no more interest in it. — Mww

If not equal to your misunderstanding then you've no more interest?

Hmmm.

The discussion is about so-called 'pure reason', which is called "pure" because it is supposedly empty of emotional content.
— creativesoul

No. Pure reason is empty of empirical content. — Mww

My mistake then. Earlier the comparison/contrast was between pure reason and emotion.

This is even worse.

Thought/belief without empirical content? What would thought/belief devoid of all empirical content consist of?

What counts as being an academic? How many letters must one have after his/her namesake?

Back to morality...

All rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour are first adopted via language acquisition. One's initial morality is thus subject to individual, familial, cultural, societal, and/or historical particulars. That is true of everyone. It is neither objective nor subjective, it is point of view invariant.

Does it follow that morality is relative? Sure. Does it also follow that conflicting statements about what's good/bad can be true as a result? Surely not.

"Good according to your morality", isn't about being good. It's about what you think/believe is good. It's the difference between being called "good" and being so, and we can most certainly be mistaken in that regard.

The language-less creature touches fire for the first time...

It learns that touching fire causes pain.

It has correctly attributed/recognized causality. It draws a correlation between it's own behaviour(touching the fire) and the subsequent pain. No language is necessary here. Are we really going to say that the creature doesn't apprehend that the fire caused the pain by virtue of direct physiological sensory perception combined with mental correlation between the fire and the pain?

That is most certainly more than adequate for thought/belief. Rudimentary, but none-the-less thought/belief.

I don’t agree with direct apprehension of external phenomena.
— Noah Te Stroete

Nor do I. Direct perception, sure. No apprehension of external things is direct — Mww

This suspiciously looks like an equivocation of the term "perception". It doesn't seem to square with our earlier conversation regarding physiological sensory perception. If perception is direct, which I wholly agree with, then it cannot be linguistically informed/laden. It's the difference between perceiving a computer as a computer(not direct) and perceiving a computer as a part of a mental correlation where the creature has no language, such as when a cat is chasing something and that something runs behind a computer. The computer is perceived. There is a correlation drawn between it and the cat's operative thought/belief... chasing the prey. The cat looks behind the computer without ever perceiving it as a computer.

The notion of perception as being linguistically informed/laden - which is perhaps the most common usage - is yet another consequence of failing to drawn and maintain the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong?
— Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth.
— creativesoul

True enough, but it doesn’t have to be; that’s logic’s job. — Mww

No, it's not. That is a huge mistake.

The job of logic is to preserve truth(correspondence). Truth(correspondence) is presupposed in logic by virtue of being presupposed in the premisses. That is precisely how it can be the case that a perfectly valid(coherent) argument and/or position can be wrong. It is based upon false premisses.

There's a problem here in recent meanderings. The terms "coherent" and "incoherent" have been being employed as a synonym for having sense, and/or being understandable. Being sensible simply means that the terms in use are being used in some commonly accepted way. Whereas being coherent and/or being incoherent is a matter of validity and/or lack of self-contradiction.

Terms can be perfectly sensible and lead to incoherence/self-contradiction. Terms can be perfectly sensible and utterly inadequate for taking proper account of whatever it is that they are attempting to take account of.

Definitions can be wrong when they are delineating and/or describing that which exists in it's entirety prior to being taken account of.

Consider this for a moment. (...) If thinking about thought/belief does not include thinking about the emotional aspects, then such considerations are not taking proper account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account.
— creativesoul

If I’m considering what color to paint the bedroom, if I fail to think about the starving children in Somalia, then it follows I’ll never decide what color to paint the bedroom because of it? Even if I’m a naturally emotional kinda guy, I don’t need to think an emotional aspect if what I’m thinking about has no emotional content. — Mww

The bedroom scenario is a false analogy.

The discussion is about so-called 'pure reason', which is called "pure" because it is supposedly empty of emotional content. Pure reason includes thinking about pre-reflective pre-existing thought/belief. All pre-reflective thought/belief has an emotional aspect. That which pure reason is thinking about always has emotional content.

Again, Kant's and Hume's failure to recognize this is a consequence of an utterly inadequate (mis)conception of thought/belief that neglects to draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. And again... they are not alone.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong? — Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth. This is particularly the case regarding accounts of and/or when one is reporting upon that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account/report.

Contentment need not be turned on. That is the simplest of mind states along with it's counterpart... discontentment.
— creativesoul

Contentment = pleasure; discontentment = pain. — Mww

All pleasure may qualify as contentment on your view, and all pain may qualify as discontentment as well. I would not disagree with that. There is no equivalence however. Not all contentment is pleasure. Not all discontentment is pain.

Physiological sensory perception doesn't need turned on. That happens autonomously.
— creativesoul

Physiological sensory apparatus doesn’t need turned on; it is available for perceiving autonomously, all else being given. Sensory perception requires an affectation, therefore is not autonomous. — Mww

On Kant's view, perhaps. Not on mine. I see no reason whatsoever to conclude that physiological sensory perception does not happen autonomously simply because there needs to be 'something' perceived.

Happening autonomously simply means that it is not the result of an intentional, deliberate, and/or purposeful conscious effort.

I don't do ontology by speculation or purely by logic. — Terrapin Station

Cool. You can do ontology without using language? That would be fun to watch.

I invoked "rigid designator" as the best means I know of for avoiding misinterpretations regarding my use of the term "morality". In addition, it avoids equivocating. I think that that is prevalent in this forum.

Salva veritate is quite the helpful tool around these parts...

“...The capacity of experiencing Pleasure or Pain on the occasion of a mental representation, is called ‘Feeling,’ because Pleasure and Pain contain only what is subjective in the relations of our mental activity. They do not involve any relation to an object that could possibly furnish a knowledge of it as such; they cannot even give us a knowledge of our own mental state. For even Sensations, considered apart from the qualities which attach to them on account of the modifications of the Subject, as, for instance, in reference to Red, Sweet, and such like, are referred as constituent elements of knowledge to Objects, whereas Pleasure or Pain felt in connection with what is red or sweet, express absolutely nothing that is in the Object, but merely a relation to the Subject. And for the reason just stated, Pleasure and Pain considered in themselves cannot be more precisely defined. All that can be further done with regard to them is merely to point out what consequences they may have in certain relations, in order to make the knowledge of them available practically...”

Available practically. The practical and the pure are very different. Pure reason has nothing to do with emotion, for emotion, reducible to none other than feelings of pain and pleasure, can provide us with no knowledgeable object, but merely a subjective condition. The separation of emotion from pure reason is very clear. — Mww

Kant clearly claims that there is a distinction between emotion and thinking about thought/belief. His conceptions support this idea. He defined all his different notions accordingly. I've granted his coherency.

He was still quite wrong.

Is mental correlation adequate? Is it both, necessary and sufficient, such that all predication counts as being thought/belief? I can't imagine a good argument against it.
— creativesoul

Such that predication counts as thought belief? It does not follow necessarily from mental correlation being both necessary and sufficient, that such counts as thought/belief. Mental correlation *IS* predication itself, and could count as pure reason with as much validity as counting as thought/belief. — Mww

Not quite.

All predication is mental correlation. Not all mental correlation is predication. I completely agree that Kant's notion of pure reason consists entirely of mental correlations. It consists of the all the different rational connections/relations he drew between different things, nearly or mostly all of which are existentially dependent upon language to begin with. That's the bulk of the problem.

It does not follow from the fact that emotion - alone - cannot furnish us with knowledge about objects that pure reason does not include and/or consist of emotion - at least in part.

Consider this for a moment.

If all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief, and all pre-existing thought/belief is existentially dependent upon emotion, then it only follows that all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon emotion.

If all thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief, and all pre-existing thought/belief has emotion as an elementary constituent therein, then it only follows that all thinking about thought/belief has emotion as an elementary constituent therein.

If thinking about thought/belief does not include thinking about the emotional aspects of thought/belief, then such considerations are not taking proper account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to the account.

Kant is working from two notions, one of which is pure reason in comparison/contrast to the other which is emotion.

The two are inseparable.

Pure reason consists of thinking about one's own thought/belief. All thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon something to be thinking about. Thought/belief exists prior to thinking about thought/belief.

Pure reason is existentially dependent upon a much more rudimentary kind of thought/belief. Pre-reflective, one might say. The kind of thought/belief that is later named, isolated, and thus further considered must exist prior to it's being reported upon. All examples of doing this show it's being done with written language replete with names for mental ongoings.

That which is being reported upon exists in it's entirety prior to our report. Prelinguistic thought/belief exist in their entirety prior to being reported upon.

All thought/belief consists entirely of mental correlations drawn between things. The first place we look and see this would be language use itself. Our reports, all of them, consist entirely of predication. All predication is correlation.

Is mental correlation adequate? Is it both, necessary and sufficient, such that all predication counts as being thought/belief? I can't imagine a good argument against it. Without a creature capable of drawing mental correlations between different things, there could be no such thing as predication of any kind. So, predication is itself existentially dependent upon mental correlations.

Can mental correlations between different things exist prior to predication?

Of course!

What would those things be? What things would become a part of the creature's mental correlations? In this early stage, of course, the creature has no language. So the pre-linguistic mental correlations could not include linguistic tokens, characters, signs, marks, and/or symbols.

Physiological sensory perception doesn't need turned on. That happens autonomously. Fear doesn't need turned on. That happens autonomously. Contentment need not be turned on. That is the simplest of mind states along with it's counterpart... discontentment.

Hunger pangs and the visceral satisfaction thereof...

...and the things connected to these.

The sheer quantity of possible combinations is more than adequate to account for all the different kinds of thought/belief. The complexity of thought/belief is established and/or determined solely by virtue of complexity of the correlations. The kind is reflected by it's content.

Kant named some kinds that would be possible if things were not the way they are. If the emotional aspect of all mental correlation were non-existent... things would be a different way. As it stands however, emotion and thinking about thought/belief are inseparable, despite lots of folk thinking/believing otherwise.

Since you keep mentioning rules/codes, and especially since you're mentioning written rules here, can I ask just where these rules/codes are recorded? — Terrapin Station

They are recorded wherever paper meets pen during the recording...

Deliberately changing one's belief system in such a way as to later become standing in opposition, requires first becoming aware of it.

If the candidate had but one teacher or set of teachers all of whom held the same sort of unshakable certainty, and whose belief system actually glorified and looked fondly upon continuing to hold that belief even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary...
In these cases it ain't so easy to change one's mind.
— creativesoul

If that is true, then it follows necessarily that lacking any evidence whatsoever, what was not so easy becomes impossible. — Mww

Any and all evidence to the contrary of one's belief system becomes such as a result of it's being used as such. Prior to the use, what becomes evidence is not yet... evidence.

In light of that, your response doesn't make much sense to me.

Last things first. Kant is how all the above even happened. You couldn’t have thought any of that without the machinations in your head. The ideas are yours, the words are yours, the very thesis is yours, and very well may have nothing whatsoever to do with Kantian philosophy. The formulation from one to the other to the other are......ooooo yeah........necessarily a product of Kantian a priori practical reason. Can I get an a-MEN, BROTHER!!!!! — Mww

My report of Kant's shortcomings are existentially dependent upon Kant's words.

Kant's linguistic framework is utterly incapable of taking proper account of the distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

He and Hume are equivalent in that regard, as is all of Western philosophy that I'm aware of.

Funny thing is, that that difference is undeniable.

If one gets thought/belief wrong, then one gets something or other wrong in their report/account of anything and everything ever thought, believed, spoken, written, and/or otherwise uttered.

Kant's CI...

Now that remains more than admirable. His staunch rigidness against not being honest in one's testimony. His demand of always testifying honestly and sincerely. That remains admirable.

I've not proscribed any behaviour...

Yet.

Broken things don't work right.

"Herd mentality" and "herd morality". Are these real things? Sure. How? They have an effect/affect.

They are ideas. Nothing more. Their effect/affect is confusion.