I just think that the right to bear [guns] is pretty unassailable. I'm open to being proven wrong...

Since you have not provided any evidence of that unassailability, there is nothing to prove wrong. It's just an opinion, and one you're entitled to.

I don't think I can look at things like this, seems to run into relativism. Why are these values more important to you? Are you implying there's nothing wrong with systematic oppression, death penalties, capitalism, etc? — darthbarracuda

It is relativism: Meta-ethical Moral Relativism, to be precise. What the rationale does is provide a robust, compelling reason for not drifting into Normative Moral Relativism, which is the state of being unprepared to impose one's moral convictions on others.

I don't need to answer the question of why these values are important to me. It suffices that they are. But there are good explanations of how one's values are formed, based on a combination of nature and nurture. So I don't find any dilemma or gap in understanding there.

The position certainly doesn't imply there is nothing wrong with oppression etc. But it allows that wrongness to be mind-dependent. I see no need to believe in mind-independent moral truths. It's a purely abstract belief that has no impact on either my behaviour or my emotions.

I understand that some people feel that their urge to act in accordance with their moral beliefs would be undermined if they didn't believe them to be absolute, mind-independent truths. They know their first-person experience and I don't, so I can't comment on that, except to say that my experience is different.

Strong boxes and security cases exist, which can be hand activated, that are secure and enable quick access if needed. — Thorongil

Your failure to provide a single detail makes that seem a very doubtful claim. But if you consider the argument 'There's a robust defence of my claim, that I can't produce but is somewhere out there on Google, so go and look for it' convincing then there's really nothing to discuss.

I used to worry about this sort of thing. What solved it for me was realising that it's not about my values being superior but about how important they are to me. The more important a value is, the wider the circle of people on whom I will try to impose it.

If it is a preference for chocolate over vanilla ice cream, I will impose it only on myself.
If it is a preference for good manners, I may seek to impose it on my children.
If it is a preference for people not to be able to rip off other people by financial fraud, I may seek to impose it on everybody in my country - eg supporting politicians that promote laws that regulate financial conduct.
If it is a preference for people not to kill and torture others on a large scale, I may seek to impose it on everybody in the world - eg supporting politicians or NGOs that make humanitarian interventions (aid provision, diplomatic pressure, military intervention in the last resort) in other countries.

It's not about whose values are 'better'. It's about how important my values are to me.

And by the way, I don't think most of the human rights abuses in places like China or Saudi Arabia have anything to do with values. It's just convenient for those in power in those countries to pretend that they do.

Oh, and Amen to capitalism not being cool!

Are you able to tell us what any of these immediately-available yet securely locked away gun storage options are that are beyond my imagination?

Back to the playground then. OK.

Here's the entirety of the 'rebuttal':

Jim, first makes fun of us for being prepared with a readily accessible gun. Then he makes fun of us for safely securing that firearm in a safe. I wonder if Jim realizes that there are quite a few options out there other than a vintage turning combination safe? — Gun lobbyists web-site

Quite a few options - but none worth mentioning apparently.

Rebut, if you can, his point that a gun is either locked away, in which case it provides no protection against an intruder in the bedroom, or it is available for a child who finds it to play with.

You must think the word 'insult' has a different definition from what the rest of us do.

Sorry, I thought this was supposed to be a philosophical discussion. If I'd known it was supposed to involve playground insults I'd have stayed out, because I'm not very good at them.

Which would take more or less time than the calling the cops and waiting for them to show up with... guns to the scene?

Your point being?

it would be a strange sort of burglar, rapist, or murderer who waited while you grabbed your keys and hopped inside a seventy ton vehicle with which to engage him. — Thorongil

It would probably be the same burglar as the one the NRA thinks would wait for a responsible gun owner to retrieve the gun from their child-proof gun safe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZIOE6aMBk

'Stranger in a Strange Land' was my favourite Heinlein novel. Years later I wrote a song with that title. — Wayfarer

Wasn't that U2?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDwB2dLnf2o

The claims of hypocrisy don't even use the word correctly. A hypocrite is somebody who says that people should do (or not do) X and does not do (or does) X themselves. For example the sexual morals crusader that has secret affairs.

For somebody to advocate both positions A and B, which an uncharitable bystander deem to be inconsistent, is not hypocritical. At worst, it's lacking in logic - which is not hypocrisy - but usually it's not even that.

I have read and loved many Heinlein books. Sometimes he could be enigmatic. This is one of those occasions. I have no idea what he is trying to convey with his question, and being a fan, I'd like to know.

Do you have an idea, or is it just an excuse to talk about astrology - which could be fun too.

I'm not a fan of common sense but in this instance, both my common sense and my explicit ethical analysis tell me that what Fallon said to Leadsom was unacceptable, and that - unless there are mitigating circumstances not reported here - his being sanctioned was reasonable.

For me the interest in this story is the first encounter involving Carroll. At first glance it may appear a harmless, consensual exchange of banter between adults with approximately equal power. Neither participant was a victim. If no others had been present it would be hard to find anything to complain about. But others were present, so there were other potential victims. What if one of those present were an impressionable mid-level employee who formed the impression - based on that and similar incidents - that making sexualised comments about co-workers was not only condoned but encouraged. What if that co-worker subsequently made a sexualised comment to an even more junior female employee - who was not dressing flamboyantly - that intimidates and upsets her. Then that female employee is an indirect victim of the Carroll incident, and potentially so is the one that makes the later comment, if they face repercussions. Repeated incidents like the Carroll one normalise gratuitous sexual comments in the workplace and create a climate with a greater risk of harm to people that are psychologically less robust than Carroll is portrayed to be.

The aim to avoid this sort of damage is one of the reasons that many (most?) professional firms have dress codes that forbid employees - male or female - from dressing in an overtly sexualised manner, which is what the report implies Carroll did. I believe that dress codes, to the extent that they are shaped by that motivation, have strong ethical and practical support. Dressing in an overtly sexual way in a workplace makes sexual comments almost inevitable and creates an atmosphere that can lead to harm to people other than the person who chooses to dress that way.

Prima facie there is an inconsistency there with my view that, in the general public space, people should be able to dress however they like, subject to some fairly light restrictions to cut off extremes. I am for instance supportive of the marches that were held protesting against 'slut shaming'.

I haven't resolved this apparent conflict yet. But I think the answer probably relates to the facts that (1) a workplace is a private, not a public place and (2) there are much stronger power inequalities at play in the workplace, that necessitate greater prudence.

I'm reluctant to label any opinion I hold as wisdom, but some benefits that perhaps emanate from my Emotivist opinion are

• If I have a moral dilemma, in spite of having diligently reflected on it to try to reach a clear decision, I don't have to torture myself with the belief that there is some 'morally correct answer' out there that may subsequently surface and show that whatever I decided to do was immoral. My Emotivism says that 'in this instance, the moral issue is undecidable so choose one of the remaining options and be at peace',
• I feel free to overrule the recommendations of my default Utilitarian position if they feel wrong. If I believed in objective moral truths I would find it hard to justify doing that.

My meta-ethical framework is roughly Emotivist, and my ethical framework is roughly Utilitarian, but not rigidly so. In theory it can be over-ridden if the action the Utilitarian perspective recommends just feels wrong. I can't remember that ever having happened in practice. I have yet to encounter a police chief that offers to spare ten indigenous people if I execute one of them.

I don't think my meta-ethical framework has a big effect on one's actions, but my ethical framework does. It has led to major changes in what I donate, what I eat, what I buy and what I say.

I don't see my ethical framework as foundational, or as something to be used for browbeating others. For me, ethics is personal, to be used as a guide to making important decisions. It can lead to lobbying and public advocacy, and I do some of that (not as much as I 'should', because I am weak) but that's different from being judgemental.

My dabblings in philosophy, including what I've read on this and the previous forum, have been a significant influence on my ethical stance, and thereby what I do.

it’s ‘philosophical Darwinism’.
......
But as an explanation for why there is anything at all, it is a pseudo-philosophy. — Wayfarer

Sure. And Darwin did not espouse it. So please don't call it Darwinism, philosophical or otherwise.

Be as rude as you like about radical reductionists and I won't complain. I may even tacitly agree. Just don't conflate radical reductionism with acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution. The two have nothing to do with another. If Nagel conflated the two (and I don't know whether he did) then I can understand his receiving an angry reaction. In fact, apart from Coyne, Dennett and Pinker, some of the people who were angry with him may have been Christian biologists - incensed that he gave support to those that seek to undermine the teaching of evolutionary biology in US schools.

Perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, but I thought that the main source of negative reviews of Nagel's book was that in it he gave credence to some Intelligent Design advocates. Decrying Intelligent Design as pseudo-science and claiming that 'everything is physical' are two very different things, even if there is a correlation. I see Intelligent Design (meaning the claim that complex life forms were separately designed and implemented, not evolved, NOT the much more benign idea held by many Christian scientists that the process of evolution was planned and set in place by a deity, or that the universe itself was somehow planned) as mind-rotting rubbish that needs to be fought at every opportunity, but certainly do not subscribe to statements like 'everything is physical' (which is, in my view, not even wrong).

What makes you think I'm an atheist?

You don't believe in atheistic big bang and evolution — Henri

'atheistic'?!?

Were you aware that the big bang theory was developed by Georges Lemaitre: a Roman Catholic priest?

In universe that got to exist from basically or literally nothingness, by chance, your opinion about morals is ultimately worthless, serving your personal purpose in life, which is random, since you came from ultimately nothing, by chance, just like everybody else. You are neither morally better nor worse from the rest, you are just living through your randomly given state of existence. — Henri

That is a statement of a dogma, not an argument.

You believe it. I don't. Except for where you say that I am morally no better nor worse than anybody else. While I wouldn't put it that way, I believe moral comparisons between people, and especially assertions of moral superiority, are unhelpful, so I'm supportive of your making that claim.

If you believe the rest of it, and that belief brings you joy, more power to you.

According to Jerry Coyne, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker, anyone who raises even philosophical objections of the kind that Nagel does, must ipso facto be on the side of creationism. There are only two possibilities in their view: materialist or creationist. — Wayfarer

I don't know much about Coyne, but I like and agree with some of Dennett's work, and ditto for Pinker - particularly 'The Better Angels of Our Nature' (again based on secondary sources - TLDR). But I can't agree with them on that. It's not just my worldview that they are summarily dismissing, but also that of the very many religious or spiritual people who work in evolutionary biology. They may be a minority in that field, but there are still very many of them, and they're generally very clever people.

Aesthetically too, I just really dislike that 'If you are not with me you're against me' attitude. It reminds me of George W Bush and the second gulf war. I don't think we need another war.

I loved Nagel's 'What is it like to be a bat' and, as a mystically-inclined non-materialist, I have no objection to Nagel criticising neo-darwinist materialism.

But I don't like when the target is extended to include the theory of evolution, and his writing is co-opted by young Earth creationists, intelligent design advocates and fundamentalists to try to support their wacky counter-theories. They imply that to accept the theory of evolution is to be a reductionist and a materialist and that is simply wrong.

And I know that if God did not exist, then I would embrace my animal instinct, you know? I would live like the animal that I am. I would rob banks, and maybe worse. — cincPhil

You cannot know this. The only way to know it is for it to happen and for you to know that it happened. But it didn't happen, so you can't know it.

All you can say is that you imagine that if you didn't believe in God then you would live without morals. Imagination of counterfactuals doesn't count for much in a philosophical argument.

Also, people have lived with morals and without God since time immemorial.

Also, it might help to know that the argument for God from morals via Nazism has been made by Christian apologists for yonks. It has been rebutted so many times that it's often not even considered worth acknowledging by some philosophers.

Discover, not invented. — Banno

Now there's a topic that can generate a whole 'nother discussion. I considered 'discover' and discarded it in favour of 'invented', knowing full well that most people, and philosophical 'realists' in particular, are likely to prefer 'discover'.

But to go down that wombat hole would be a potential derailment, which I would not wish to do, as this thread is generating so much enjoyment.

Thanks for the PI 48 ref. It's a good 'un.

Presumably he didn't really mention quarks, since they weren't invented until thirteen years after his death. :D

So you think an issue worth debating needs to have technological application for it to help attain eudaimonia?

Remember that maxim about the typical accuracy of sentences starting with 'So you....'?

So little at stake for what?

For the eudaimonia of sentient beings.

Who cares about a Higgs Boson or whether P = NP?

It seems reasonably likely that discoveries about Higgs Bosons may lead to technological advances that help sentient beings to attain eudaimonia. So there is likely something useful at stake there. I am not so sure about P vs NP, since plenty of P problems are still intractable in feasibly available computing time.

In any case, so far as I know, people don't have long, passionate, circular debates over either of those. They may work towards potential solutions of the problem, but that's technical work, not trading opinions.

It is remarkable how much sound and fury this issue generates (eleven pages showing now on my computer) when there is so little at stake. My attempt to explain this is that people who find it important do so because they believe that non-acceptance of the 'realist' (ie materialist) account logically entails solipsism, which in turn seems to signify ultimate loneliness, and that one's closest and most important relationships are a delusion.

There is no logical link of 'non-realism' to solipsism. If there were one, it would have been published by now, and no non-solipsist 'non-realist' that understood logic would dare to deny the link. But it must be conceded that there is a strong intuitive link. Without God there is no ready explanation for shared experience and it is human nature to grasp at any explanation rather than none, even if the explanation generates at least as great explanatory gaps down the track - which the 'realist' explanation does because it cannot explain how consciousness occurs.

Perhaps the passionate 'realists' are those that viscerally accept that intuitive link between 'non-realism' and solipsism, and the 'non-realists' (including both idealists ('anti-realists') and those that think the distinction is just words) do not.

It's interesting that, in The Matrix, although the protagonists' experiences while in the Matrix are not 'real', they are shared. They work together and communicate with one another while in the Matrix to achieve a goal.

There's room to reflect whether the idea of being in a simulation would be sad if it were a non-solipsistic, shared experience like in The Matrix. For me, it appears sad at first but then when I reflect on the sharedness of the experience with other conscious beings, I feel that it is not.

An older version of the simulation idea is the Vedanta notion that the world is a dream of Brahman. I find that notion attractive. Maybe the difference is that the Matrix is operated by hostile entities, whereas Brahman's dream is not.

My saying I like the Brahman idea might seem that I'm contradicting my earlier statements that the 'realist' and 'non-realist' position statements are not logically distinct. As defence, I'll offer that I don't think the Brahman idea is a well-formed logical proposition. Rather, it is a way of mentally framing one's attitude to life. It belongs in a context of mysticism, not of analytic philosophy, so it doesn't have to bother with things like definitions and syllogisms.

Someone back in Ancient Greece, China or India would have pointed it out, and that would be the end of that.

Interesting. I wasn't aware that this was a significant topic of discussion back then. The closest I can think of is Zhuangzi's musings over his dream of a butterfly, but even that is focused on transformation rather than perception. Then there's Plato's cave, but again that seems to be focused on transformation.

Other than that, I can't think of anything earlier than Descartes and his evil demon. And it was Berkeley that really seemed to set this issue rolling in any widespread way.

What writings from ancient times are you thinking of, that treat this as a serious issue for consideration?

the possibility that perception involves an idea in the mind that we experience instead of the public tree.

That returns us to where we started, which is that the only difference I can see between those two is the non-philosophical difference of the words used to describe them. It is a problem of grammar or vocabulary, rather than philosophy.

I understand that. But how does philosophical pragmatism help with concerns raised by noting that dream or hallucination experiences can be like perceptual ones?

I expect it can help with the concerns, but first we need to understand the nature of those concerns, and that has not been made clear.

Dream experiences of a tree differ from perceptual experiences of a tree in that we subsequently realise that the experience was in a dream, whereas for perceptual ones we do not. I expect there are other differences as well, but that one is the least controversial and the easiest to point to, and it suffices to distinguish the two. Of course, we cannot distinguish that a dream experience of a tree is a dream experience at the time. If we could then we would not be dreaming that we were experiencing a tree - unless we were lucid dreaming, which is something I have (sadly) never experienced and hence cannot comment on.

Similarly, hallucination experiences can be distinguished from perceptual ones after the event, when the LSD or psychotic state has worn off.

This seems straightforward to me, so I can't see where the concern lies. If the above doesn't alleviate your concern, could you please elaborate on what you are concerned about?

The pragmatic differences is what led to the philosophical questions. We can all be pragmatic and ignore philosophy if we want. — Marchesk

Or we can be pragmatic while we do philosophy, as the American Pragmatists, amongst others, did. In my experience, that approach leads to a more meaningful engagement with philosophy, and more helpful outcomes.

So you see no difference in meaning between dreaming of a tree, remembering a tree, visualizing a tree, hallucinating a tree, and perceiving a tree? — Marchesk

No. Most statements in philosophy arguments that start with 'So you' (or with 'Obviously') are wrong, and this one is no exception.

There are pragmatic differences between those situations that are easy to characterise.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but I've yet to see anything that suggests there is any difference between 'being conscious of a mental tree' and 'being conscious of a tree itself', beyond the differences in the strings of letters that make up the two phrases.

A politician would never say that we are slaves but in fact a lot of us are wage slaves. — Meta

I agree

Same with the physicist. — Meta

I wouldn't say a lot of physicists are wage slaves, but you're probably right that some are. The reason not many would be is that physics is fun, plus physicists are generally very good at maths, so if they don't like their job they can move into finance, make a load of money very quickly then retire and do whatever they want. Not many physicists do that because, as I said, physics is fun (more fun that finance), but plenty do.

The scientific community has an institutional hierarchy with informational monopoly at the top. — Meta

It's not very hierarchical. Power over budgets and people is hierarchical, but real power in science is influence, which tends to be driven by the value of one's discoveries, and that is not very hierarchical. Nor do I think there is an informational monopoly at the top, unless you're referring to the obsession with paper publishing, citation counts and the power of the big journals. If so, I agree that that's a very bad thing (I could rave about it for hours) but I wouldn't call it an information monopoly.

They also get a lot of tax money from everyone. (We are forced to believe in science.) — Meta

Being forced to pay tax for something doesn't mean that one is forced to believe in it.

Some of the tax I have to pay is used to spy on and incarcerate my fellow citizens in the name of the phony 'war on terror', and some of it is used to lock up and mistreat refugees. And my government has just wasted $122 million of taxpayers money to hold a postal ballot on whether to allow marriage equality, even though it knew a large majority of the population wants it, just because if they did their job properly and had a free-conscience parliamentary vote on a bill to introduce marriage equality (which would almost certainly have passed), that would cause some of the hard-right members of the ruling party to get irritated at the PM.

I don't like my tax being used to pay for those things, but it doesn't make me believe in those things.

I don't agree with that at all. Why 'obviously'? And why this anthropomorphism of the gene? The last person I saw doing that was Richard Dawkins - not, I thought, one of your heroes.

Sorry, I'm not following you, so I don't know whether I agree or disagree. What is the 'it' that you think is reductionist and meaningless, and why do you think that?