If you define y as x and then it becomes impossible to inquire into how x and y may be compared. — TheMadFool

More of "y should (appear to) be x". Sure the zombie would not have self-awareness in the sense that it wouldn't exactly have any knowledge at all, although its communication would reflect the information stored in its brain,

They lack a fully developed sense of self-awareness, right? Yet they can experience joy through many activities I mentioned above. — TheMadFool

However, feeling sorrow to its greatest extent requires a sense of self-awareness. I'm hurting, I'm dying, I'm losing, etc. are all expressions of self-awareness. — TheMadFool

I could agree with either that self-awareness isn't required for neither joy nor sorrow, or that non-human animals have enough self-awareness to be capable of both feelings. Either way, I do think animals certainly are capable of feeling sorrow as well.

I'm aware, but to be used as a thought experiment, the concept should make sense. Furthermore, although the term isn't used in that context, when a sceptic question whether other people have consciousness, isn't the idea practically the same?

How would a non-conscious being reflect on its own condition? — TheMadFool

Good question, as a thought experiment I think one could think of a conscious being losing their consciousness, thus having knowledge of the nature of consciousness without having it.

Doesn't the term ''zombie'' specifically deny self-awareness of any kind? — TheMadFool

Depends on how self-awareness is defined, I guess. By the definition of p-zombie, it should act like it had self-awareness.

As a counter-example, robots lack conscious visual experience but manage to react accordingly to information transferred by photons.

I don't see how the opposite is possible. How would a theist believe we are in a simulation? Why would someone make a simulation work seemingly fully rationally and according to very specific laws, only to add a deity or some other supernatural element in it? Would that being even be considered a deity then, if the simulation was created by someone else outside it?

So anything like as stated above but not justice. So to clarify, if there is a net gain, say in the economy of a state, but for this slavery was introduced, you would find this good? Conversely, if justice was gained by abolishing slavery, but there was no net gain in anything else (also no net loss), then you would not find this to be good? — Samuel Lacrampe

The economy only has an instrumental value. If the economic net gain also resulted in net gain in the happiness of people, slavery would then be morally right, but I don't see how that could be possible. In the hypothetical world where slavery didn't cause any kind of suffering to the slaves, I'd have nothing against it.

Morality is intending for equality in treatment, but one still looks to reason on the foreseeable outcome to make the reasonable choice. — Samuel Lacrampe

Why? This goes against that morality is based on equality.

Another extreme case is the Trolley problem, where equality in treatment is impossible, but that does not mean the person making the choice is immoral, because the intention for equal treatment remains. — Samuel Lacrampe

People making different decisions in that situation proves that people disagree not only on the facts but moral sense as well. How is the decision to not pull the lever just?

I am not sure what you mean about nihilism. — Samuel Lacrampe

How can a nihilist believe in morality based on equality if they don't believe in morality in the first place? If they believe there is no moral or immoral way to act in any situation, how can the actions they believe to be the moral ones be considered just?

As for the will of a deity, you are here using the word 'duty' ambiguously. — Samuel Lacrampe

I didn't use that word.

If the god is unjust, then a religious person may obey it "out of duty", but this "duty" is similar in meaning to how the nazis were carrying out their acts "out of duty", which has nothing to do with moral duty. In that case, we actually speak of an immoral god. — Samuel Lacrampe

If those people are deemed immoral because morality is based on equality and their god is unjust, that's circular reasoning.

this "duty" is similar in meaning to how the nazis were carrying out their acts "out of duty", which has nothing to do with moral duty. — Samuel Lacrampe

How so? Do not people do things out of duty because they believe it's morally right to do so? If not, why then?

I have no sense of moral duty to commit an injustice. Do you? — Samuel Lacrampe

Do you mean "to commit injustice" or "to do things that are unjust"? To the former, no, to the latter, yes. I think some unjust actions are morally right, but I don't think injustice in itself is morally right.

I am fairly sure that nobody wants to be cheated on — Samuel Lacrampe

Sex outside marriage is not necessarily cheating. One could have an open relationship.

Can you find a philosophical side to that?

We need belief because we sometimes give assent to and act on statements that are false. There is a mismatch between what we do or say and what is the case. We can deal with this by using belief. — Banno

You've got it backwards. We don't use belief. That statement is a belief.

Hence belief becomes and explanation for our actions, such that when we act erroneously, we might explain it by noting that we held a false belief. — Banno

That doesn't answer anything. That explanation is a usage of belief, not its origin or reason of existence.

What then is the benefit, if not the equality? — Samuel Lacrampe

Depends on the case. Could be anything. Well-being, happiness, money, health, etc. etc.

(1) What if we could give 1€ to two poor people each, or 1 000 000€ to only one of them? In that case, even the one that gets nothing would still likely agree that the second choice is better, as 1€ does not result in much anyways. As such, this choice seems morally good, but also just, because it does not break the golden rule. — Samuel Lacrampe

But the distribution of money isn't equal. I see how the outcome can be argued to be equal but that's merely a subjective interpretation of the situation. As I've stated, equality as a concept becomes far too vague when people's wills are considered, to an extent no objective statement can be made about which way to treat people is the equal one.

People disagree only on matters on fact, not on the moral sense in theory. — Samuel Lacrampe

What about nihilism? Or religious fundamentalists that believe the will of their deity is the absolute law? Or the trolley problem?

but then would anyone accept it out of duty? — Samuel Lacrampe

I wouldn't draw any generalizations out of 8 billion humans.

I once witnesses a mite that was a whopping 10.8mm. They say it was a myth and I was delusional but I know what saw! We needed a lot of drugs to calm it down enough so we capture it for research purposes. A lot of people died that day. We lost a lot of good men. Eventually it managed to escape and we never saw it again. Has haunted my dreams ever since. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Only a centimeter? You've seen nothing.

Speaking of which, I need to build myself a new house. Can anyone lend me some money?

how would I know that I'm think or what if something is controlling my thinking. — dakota

It doesn't matter. You're the one experiencing the thought, and that's the relevant part. You can prove the existence of the experience to yourself by experiencing it.

Yes I agree. And the intended result must be good for the act to be judged as good. And the criteria for this good result in this case is justice, because this is what Martin Luther King Jr. intended to bring. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, it's merely a means to an end, the end being the benefit, not the equality itself.

If you could give 1€ to two poor people each, or 5€ for one of them, it'd be just to give 1€ to both but (imo) morally right to give 5€ to one.

Now, the justice criteria for moral goodness is objective if, for every subject, the moral sense agrees with justice at all times. And this appear to be the case, unless we can come up with a case where the moral sense runs in opposition to justice. — Samuel Lacrampe

People disagree on morality, and if justice is objective, someone's opinion must contradict it. For example, let's take abortions. What's the just way to act? Whichever it is, there are people who disagree.

Drug addict example: Should drug addicts go to jail, or get rehabilitated? Well, if the law makers were drug addicts, and through not fault of theirs (which can happen), then surely they would want to get rehabilitated, and not go to jail. — Samuel Lacrampe

I'm certain there are people out there that would, being found guilty, be willing to suffer a punishment that they wouldn't want to suffer.

I am saying that the contextual shift is not sufficient enough to transform the behaviour into a moral issue. — Andrew4Handel

It's also not enough to make it a non-moral issue.

Animals will die whether or not we eat them. We didn't invent death or eating or predation. — Andrew4Handel

Can we apply the same to murdering people?

In what way?

I am beginning to think that making something a moral issue is always arbitrary because hypothetically we could try and make everything a moral issue. — Andrew4Handel

How would it not be? The question would be about evaluating one's own life against another sentient being's. Is deciding who lives and who dies not a moral dilemma?

P1. Ticket 1 won't win
P2. Ticket 2 won't win
P3. Ticket 3 won't win
...
Pn. Ticket n won't win

From this we can deduce:

C1. No ticket will win — Michael

All the premises are justified, but that doesn't mean they're true. You forgot

P(n+1). One of the P(1,2,...,n) is false.

your'e welcome. — Sid

You're free to believe whatever action is morally right but don't assume everyone agrees with you, or is grateful of your actions.

The fact that you are actually able to debate what kind of protein you want to consume says that me and my trigger pulling ancestors did something right — Sid

I don't see the connection:

if we needed to eat meat in order to survive, then, strictly speaking, it would still be possible, with enough determination, to refrain from eating meat. It would just lead to a horrible death — Sapientia

So that if we were carnivores then there could be no moral issue which seems to be quite an arbitrary point at which to invoke ethics. — Andrew4Handel

It would still be a moral issue, although the conclusion would be different.

(1) This does not seem to follow from what you said earlier, that the only rational reason to demand justice is out of selfishness (maybe you changed your mind; and I am just clarifying). — Samuel Lacrampe

True, I'll rephrase that as "demanding justice for the sake of it".

(2) So your judgement of people's acts is based on results, not intentions? — Samuel Lacrampe

No, I base it on intended results, which in that example happened to be the same as the results.

(3) It seems that you too believe in morality being objective, since you speak of a "net gain" which sounds like an objective judgement. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, I only believe that to be my subjective opinion.

can you find a case where justice demands for a punishment that exceeds prison time? — Samuel Lacrampe

Is the code of Hammurabi unjust? I think "eye for an eye" is about as just as it gets.

How is the question of the colour of your shirt of any relevance to the question of belief of "eating W"? — MathematicalPhysicist

The question can be rephrased as "for any given colour, do you believe it is that colour or not?".

To your question the answer is "I don't know", while the answer to do you believe I ate or do you believe I didn't eat has a definite answer; while to your question there are more than two options, it's not binary, either 0 or 1. — MathematicalPhysicist

Whether the options are binary is not relevant, you believe that one must believe in some value.

You don't believe I ate W and you don't believe I didn't eat W, then what do you believe: did I eat or didn't I? — MathematicalPhysicist

What colour do you believe the shirt I am wearing right now is?

We have ~Bp & ~B~p, the question is do we have BpvB~p? — MathematicalPhysicist

No.

How can someone believe something and also believe its negation at the same time? — MathematicalPhysicist

They can't.

In your view, does it follow that such persons as Martin Luther King Jr. were selfish? — Samuel Lacrampe

No. His work resulted in net gain.

I am not sure what you mean here. Let's take a step back to the definition of mercy. If mercy is defined as "never harming anyone ever", then it does not follow that mercy is always morally good, because it is sometimes necessary to harm, such as when defending a victim from a bully. If on the other hand, mercy is defined as "not being cruel" or "not giving a punishment that exceeds the crime", then mercy can indeed always be morally good, but also just. — Samuel Lacrampe

I would use neither of those definitions. I'd maybe define mercy as an act or decision of not punishing (even if the punishment is just). Unless prisons are made inherently uncomfortable or dangerous for the inmates, I don't call imprisonment punishment.

Uh, no it's not. The differences matter tremendously. — creativesoul

What's really the difference? How do they matter? Smith justifiedly believes in one outcome and the other one happens.

Nitpicking, the case is practically the same.

You mean belief 'a' is falsely confirmed by a co-incidence of fact. — charleton

No, the reason for a is not specified in the example, although iirc, the example was given of the employer telling Smith that they're going to hire Jones.

Like a black cat walked across my path and I subsequently tripped over and broke my leg, falsely confirming the black cats are unlucky?
post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. — charleton

I don't see the connection tbh.

In Gettier's original example, a person called Smith is applying for a job. Another person, Jones, whom is known to have 10 coins in his pocket, is applying for the job as well, and Smith (for a justified reason) believes Jones will get the job. This is the belief a. The conclusion b is that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket. What happens is that Smith himself gets the job, but also, although he didn't know this, had 10 coins in his pocket.

Plants probably have some sort of conciousness — Robin Pannenberg

Interesting. Can the same be said about anything that's alive? Body parts?

death excludes conciousness — Robin Pannenberg

The implication doesn't work the other way around.

We can't but in the absence of reasonable theories supporting one claim, the opposite can be called knowledge in practice imo.

You obviously have a blind spot and have forgotten women AGAIN. — charleton

Oh ffs not this again, it has been made clear what OP meant and that you're for some reason blatantly misinterpreting what has been said.

He did not use this form of definition, which is, incidentally about 40 years out of date. Not "MAN" but men. — charleton

So now you can claim someone's opinion to be whatever because of grammatical errors they make?

Yes I can: the context. — charleton

You've shown nothing in the context to imply your opinion.

I'm not sure whether you're saying that they do have consciousness or there was a misunderstanding, but I said "unless". Now if the former is the case, I just don't see any reason to believe so.

which leads to an absolute absence of life — Robin Pannenberg

Not correct, unless you claim bacteria,plants, individual cells have consciousness.

3. Nothing can’t be described because it is the opposite of anything, this means that no color, not even white or black can describe it because it absolutely isn’t imaginable. — Robin Pannenberg

You're just describing it by attributing the property of not being describable by colours to it.

On any grounds (hence objective). It means that no matter how one may justify wilfully killing an innocent child, it is wrong, regardless of anyones subjective feelings towards the killer. It can under no circumstances, be considered morally good to commit such an act. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

... according to your subjective opinion on the matter.

How can the demand for justice rise from selfishness? And if injustice is present, then what becomes the measure of the net gain? — Samuel Lacrampe

Because the only rational reason to demand for justice is the fear of being the one that is in the worse situation. If one wants altruistic good, they'll prioritize the good and not its equal distribution.

This act is no doubt merciful — Samuel Lacrampe

I can't agree with that, for the reasons stated before. The concept of mercy just doesn't apply to means of crime prevention.

But of course one can always fallibly know about one’s own existence — javra

For that belief to exist one would have to exist to believe it. Similarly

As to Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, Descartes took the “I think” proposition for granted, without demonstrating its infallibility. In fact, the thought he refers to could conceivably be caused by some given other than himself—the “I” he is addressing—such as by the evil demons we’ve all since Descartes time have become so accustomed to … or else the thoughts could be utterly uncaused in all senses (a block-universe model could account for this). Were any of these alternatives to describe that which is true, the proposition “I think” would then be false. — javra

in Descartes' argument, it's not the cause of the thought that is relevant. Even if the thought was thought by the evil demon, the one that holds the belief about thinking it, the one that is conscious of the thought and experiences it, must exist in order to do so.

I can agree on mathematics and most of logic being fallible though.

In these cases, these very same people would disagree on whether or not knowledge is had. My quoted statement states that where knowledge is had it will always be (fallibly) epistemically justified to be true. Where there is disagreement about the validity of justification, however, there will then also be disagreement on there being knowledge. — javra

I see this theory making sense: I've defined knowledge as a belief believed by the believer to be true and justified, and if I've understood you correctly, in that view the definition would be equivalent to that knowledge is a belief believed believed to be justified and believed by the believer to be true and justified.

A good point. Poorly worded on my part. Here I meant that truths are always justifiable in principle. For example, if a teapot floats in space between the Earth and Mars, it will be capable of being evidenced to so be given a sufficiently large body of acquired information and analysis of this information. So too with there being a needle in a haystack. — javra

Ah, yes, in Russell's example the teapot is too small to have been perceived. But what if the teapot is not only small, but also invisible and does not interact with the Universe in any way - it can't be perceived and does not influence anything? How could its existence be proven even in theory?

But, in retrospect, my bad for bringing this up. — javra

Not a problem at all.

Why would you say that? We can always make those claims, and often do. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's always a possibility of being wrong, so can you claim that your belief is justified if that claim isn't justified? Then you couldn't make that claim. In your belief, you can't have an idea that can't be justified and be justified in making the claim that it is justified simply as the belief justified by the justification is believed to be justified.

So we can never state that any belief is justified or reasonable because we can't be sure about hwhether they are true or not?

Right, but I don’t endorse the term of “infallible knowledge” in this case for the reasons I previously tried to provide. If knowledge is not a lucky guess, then one cannot have infallible knowledge—not unless one infallibly demonstrates it to so be "infallible belief that is infallibly true and is infallibly justified as being true". — javra

I'd say that depends on the situation, there are some specific cases of individual holding infallible knowledge. Generally speaking I see what you mean though, I might have accidentally used "infallible" there to mean the same as "certain" in its colloquial meaning.

Whenever we believe things--and are not then uncertain about them--we then hold a subjective certainty that our beliefs are true. — javra

That seems logical but I also can't quite agree. I feel like there's a jump between the colloquial sense of uncertainty and absolute certainty. There surely are many people that believe their beliefs to be certainly true, but I for one see in most of my beliefs the slight theoretical possibility of being wrong, even though I wouldn't claim to be uncertain about them in any way.

Furthermore, on the connection to knowledge, even though denying that a belief believed to be certain needs to be justified sounds exactly like a thing I'd personally do, I have to say it'd be a rare exception. If you are certain of the shape of the Universe, I think you have a justified reason for that belief.

To the individual and the cohort, justification will always be fallible — javra

Not always: one can always know their own existence. Mathematics and logic can also be argued on. I also think the context matters, as some information can be said to be infallible with specific premises, like that we can generally speaking trust our perceptions. Considering "I think, therefore I am" to be the only certainly justified belief and the only infallible knowledge won't get one far and I think no meaningful conclusions can be drawn from that.

Longwinded but this serves as a background to this conclusion: Wherever knowledge is upheld, relative to the individual(s) who so uphold, knowledge will always be factually justified to be true. — javra

What about the situations where people might disagree on whether the evidence justifies a belief? If Tom believes that there's a sheep on the field, but we know that he neither has seen or believes to have seen a sheep there, but instead thinks "I have a glass of water, therefore there must be a sheep on the field outside", I wouldn't consider the belief unjustified to me, but also relative to Tom. He'd of course believe the belief to be justified, and thus it would count as (false) knowledge.

The property of truth doesn’t follow from the property of being justifiable; rather the reverse applies. If a belief is true, it will then necessarily also be to some extent justifiable. — javra

Certain justification considered? If the Russell's teapot existed there'd be no justification for individuals of it.

So—while one can try to argue that knowledge is beliefs believed to be justified and true irrespective of whether or not they are in fact justified and true (this from an omniscient perspective?)—I’m maintaining that in practice knowledge will always be justified and true to the best awareness of the knowers … and will be so maintained to be until evidenced otherwise.

If an individual stubbornly maintains an irrational belief to be true and justified as true (e.g., the belief that Earth is hollow … believe it or not, I’ve heard this one before), while it will be considered knowledge to the individual, it will not be knowledge to us. That it is a “belief that is believed to be justified” is insufficient to make it knowledge to us. What would make this belief knowledge to us is a justification for this belief that would evidence this belief to be true (this in light of the many things we already (fallibly) know, such that gravity requires mass, thereby entailing that a hollowed planet would be devoid of the gravity we experientially know our planet to have). — javra

First I'd like to say that the hollow Earth theory is a poor choice of example, as it makes a lot more sense than for example the flat Earth theory: you can conclude the Earth is round by simple everyday observations, but to know Earth's exact size, mass, density and gravitational effect we do need to rely on the words of the scientists.

More on topic, I find the view peculiar in that it allows false knowledge but does not really allow its practical usage. Basically it gives individuals the possibility of belief that their knowledge has a chance of being incorrect, but the hollow Earth model is, although stupid, like the idea of evil daemon deceiving us, theoretical possibility, like the idea of evil daemon deceiving us. This is why I'd prefer to define irrational beliefs, when believed by other to be justified, to be knowledge, that one then has a belief about that the knowledge is false.

So you're saying that if a person has reasons for one's belief, even if those reasons involve falsities, then that belief is reasonable? — Metaphysician Undercover

Being reasonable isn't the same thing as having reasons.

If those reasons include falsities then clearly my belief is unreasonable — Metaphysician Undercover

Earlier you agreed though that in the medieval times it was reasonable with the given evidence to believe that the Earth was flat.

If I hold evidence that makes your belief unreasonable, then it's very clear that it's not reasonable for you to hold that belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't see any self-consistent way in which it matters whether anyone holds that evidence.

If I had the attitude that it was reasonable for you to hold false beliefs, then I would never be inclined to convince you of the reality of the situation. It is through confronting such unreasonableness that beliefs get justified. — Metaphysician Undercover

In that situation you'd present the evidence to that person, after which the belief would no longer be reasonable. The person is justified in believing what they believe, but the belief itself is not within the knowledge you have justified, so you change the circumstances so that the person is no longer justified in believing what you think is a false belief.

Not only is John being unreasonable but so are you. John is committed to a belief which you know is false, and is proceeding in activity which you know is wrong. You are claiming that it is reasonable for John to hold such a belief, and therefore reasonable for him to be proceeding in a wrong activity. If you do not designate his actions as unreasonable you will not be inclined to prevent him from proceeding with the wrongful actions. If you designate his actions as wrong, then to prevent him from proceeding, you will need to back this up with reasons, showing that his beliefs are unreasonable. If you truly belief his beliefs are reasonable, you have no recourse. So it is completely counterproductive, and unreasonable to think that John is being reasonable by committing to such a false belief. And I don't believe that anyone can honestly say that committing to a false belief is a reasonable thing to do. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're conflating moral justification and epistemological justification, and also jumping into unjustified conclusions regarding what actions to take with unreasonable beliefs considered.