Given the factcity of disvalues (i.e. whatever is bad for – harmful to – natural beings)^^, it is a performative contradiction not to reduce disvalues; rationally, therefore, disvalues ought to be reduced whenever possible without increasing them. And, insofar as exercising this ought reinforces habits (i.e. virtues, customs (mores), commons capabilities (agencies)) for reducing disvalues, this ought, at minimum, is moral.

Makes sense or not? :chin: — 180 Proof

You're talking to a non-philosopher, so I have no problem acting on that which I think is beneficial. :wink: I also think that one ought not do a lot of things - like cause suffering in others. I'm comfortable with this solution to moral problems for me. But I would never care to develop a comprehensive theory of morality like Mark S.

What is universally moral – strategies that solve cooperation problems without exploiting others
— Mark S

Why would this be an Ought? — AmadeusD

That's what I keep coming back to. It seems there is an assumption that cooperation strategies are good and therefore ought to be obligatory or foundational to any moral system. Sam Harris did the same thing when he proposed that 'wellbeing' is good therefore it ought to be obligatory as the foundation for moral decision making.

I'm basically pointing to the ancient debates regarding the question as to what grounds personal identity. — sime

Ok.

Does the ground consist of essential criteria, or not? — sime

I'm not an essentialist. I'm not sure what ground you are referring to. Are you asking what is the foundation of personal identity grounded in?

And is the ground context-independent or not? — sime

As per previous answer. I'm not sure anything is context independent.

The ghosts of folklore suggest to me, that humans ordinarily do not appeal to essential criteria when identifying a person. — sime

This sentence isn't clear to me. What are the ghosts of folklore? Do you mean traditional accounts of ghosts?

When you say 'humans ordinarily do nto appeal to essential criteria when identifying a person' This isn't clear.

I also don't understand what this has to do with the next bit -

Isn't our very concept of a person made entirely out of the clothes of contextual accident? — sime

I am not aware of anyone made entirely out of clothes. Do you mean people wearing clothes? And what is a contextual accident?

Is this question open to the public? — Vera Mont

Of course. I was asking Jack mainly because I know of his fondness of Jung and Jung's work on dreams.

Your response is very interesting. We're all different. I dream a lot and I enjoy dreams, but from memory, I have never received an idea or learned a thing from a single dream I've had.

Isn't our very concept of a person made entirely out of the clothes of contextual accident? — sime

I'm not sure I follow. Can you reword this?

:up: I guess it all depends upon whether we think a ghost is a person's soul trapped between worlds, or some other (incoherent?) idea like an energy or spirit or ectoplasm.

No idea why you're taking this as some kind of an attack — AmadeusD

No idea why you're taking this as some kind of response to an attack.

Your assorted responses seem more like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. A game, perhaps? Just looks that way, but I don't know you so context isn't available.

This -

Around where? Czechnia? — AmadeusD

That's a nice line. How do I interpret this? You think Chechenia is deserving of being described as one of the last bigoted places on earth? Is that the gist, or are you just trying to say that trans people don't regularly face bigotry and assaults just for being trans? I'm basing this claim on our own service experiences. Perhaps trans people are safe everywhere on earth except where I am?

I am putting forward that your version of trans experience is entirely incomplete, and is leading you to an inaccurate view, necessarily missing parts of the global situation. — AmadeusD

So fill me in on the part I'm missing, then perhaps we'll be able to tell if I am indeed telling story.

As compared to? And in light of?

I also have many trans friends. I have worked with trans people. I simply do not care what the think and feel in their minds about their own identity. How could I? But even these, trans, people understand that your version of this story is inccomplete. — AmadeusD

I don't really understand your response.

1) I am not comparing the hatred of trans people with the hatred of any other groups. What is this, a hatred competition? I've seen plenty of trans phobia and it is unsafe to walk the street as a trans person around here.

2) My version of the story? What 'story'? I already said 'I have no theory of trans' so I have no 'story' I just have how I conduct myself in relation to the matter.

I simply do not care what the think and feel in their minds about their ownn identity. How could I? — AmadeusD

Well, I don't care that you do not care. :wink:

So, I am asking whether dreams are a mere exercise of little significance in human understanding or as central as aspects of the themes and dilemmas of life? Also, how important is the development of one's inner life as an essential narrative aspect of mediating the dramas of outer and inner life experiences? — Jack Cummins

Sounds like you have made an assumptions about dreams and inner life having some kind of important or sacred connection.

I've alwasy thought dreams were like a mental bowel movement. I guess it is important to be regular but I would not consider the content of dreams to be of much use to us, nor can they be readily interpreted. But humans, being meaning making creatures, have always gone in for this kind of thing, as though dreams can be read like a kind of text about our inner life and our external choices.

What have you learned about yourself or your life from a dream?

Aren't they presumed to be ethereal? — Wayfarer

But the so-called ethereal realms, akashic records, and the like, are of a different order of being, not detectable to scientific instruments which are ultimately just extended versions of our natural senses. — Wayfarer

Got ya.

But would clothing and machines also have ethereal versions? I am assuming that this other plane where ghosts 'dwell' the might simply be a parallel world where the reality looks something like our own. That could be a rich source of speculative pondering.

Notwithstanding such exceptions, I do think we would like people to be better informed about the world than misinformed about it. I think we can explore ghosts and fairies and much else as experiences, which says a lot about us and the ways we interact with the world, thus treating it seriously, but not literally. For if they are taken literally, I think they are making a mistake. — Manuel

I think this is an interesting frame. Take it seriously, but not literally. In other words, don't be dismissive, but seek to understand and expand our insight.

The logic of hauntings is interesting. Mostly it seems variations of the restless sprit inhabiting a space with unresolved issues - grief/anger. Which fits with many first nations ideas of spirits as I understand it.

In interviewing people who have experienced ghosts, what I find interesting is how often hauntings come with sound effects and beings present as fully dressed, often in period clothing. I get the theory behind a spirit appearing in some form, as an entity, but in clothing seems a stretch to me. Why would clothes also survive death? And sometimes there are ghost trains, cars and horses and dogs with their drivers or masters. What makes animals or machines come along for the undead journey?

S/He doeen't "decide", s/he conforms (even obeys) instead. The tried and true path of least mental effort, no? :sparkle: — 180 Proof

I think that's right. But if you are a Christian, say, which bits of the Bible do you obey? There's a cornucopia of contradictory moral advice in those books that still requires discernment, even a form of reconciliation. Which is why we face churches that fly the rainbow flag of diversity, or maintain that 'fags will burn in hell'. Either way can be justified as god's will and therefore The Good. And numerous other variations in between.

And if you're one of those sophisticated theists who hold that scripture is allegorical (and that all the terrifying judgments in scripture can be ignored) then how do you identify the good? You are in the same space as a secularists - having to decide what is right.

Agree totally. The Spinoza quote is a lovely one. And no doubt we'll be seen as unfairly hating of religion, crass, modern-era physicalists.

But the problem for theists remains that there are many immoral acts theism has sanctioned (and continues to do so). I remember discussing apartheid with some South Africans back in the 1980s who took it on faith that apartheid was morally right.

Some theists are smug about morality in as much as they imagine their god is foundational to goodness itself and thus as believers they have a superior pathway to morality from all others - not just dreaded secular humanists, but other religions.

But the problem remains, what version of the good does theism exactly identify? How does a theist decide this? Clearly theists, even within the one religion, are inconsistent and diverge on key issues like war, abortion, gay rights, trans rights, the role of women, wealth accumulation, euthanasia, medical treatment, taxation, etc, etc. In other words, theists are no closer to the good than the unbeliever. We can still only arrive at moral choices through investigation and conversation and no one has access to goodness in its pure form.

And as I read that I can't help but notice your need to obfuscate rather than explain.

To profound to be of much use. — Banno

Does this mean wrote a response that for you is an unassailable novelty? :wink:

I don't think Josh's reply answered your question. — Philosophim

I thought it was fine. Josh's answers are quite sophisticated and anti-essentialist. I have sympathy for this approach, but as a non-philosopher with an abbreviated attention span, I like to cut to the chase.

My response to the trans issue is minimalist (like most of my approaches to life). I accept trans men and women as men and women. I have encountered no good reason not to.

I think your description is the standard one I have heard around the place. But I was particularly keen to hear Joshs on this given his perspectival, postmodernist orientation.

Nice. Thanks.

I have some trans friends, a few trans colleagues and have worked with trans people. I have no theory of trans, I just tend to respond to folk as requested by them. I tend ot think of gender as performative. The bigotry and hatred this community face is exceptional.

Can I ask you, setting aside the complex theory, if you had to explain trans to a group of people with no understanding of the issue, how would you frame it?

In any case, the idea of justification by faith alone was revitalized by Luther in the 16th century (imho his thinking on this topic is an accurate representation of Christ's own teachings) — BitconnectCarlos

But can we really say that the history of theistic morality is much good? Take Luther, who on the one hand extolled the moral teachings of Christ yet found it entirely Christian to preach a virulent form of antisemitism. His treatise 'On the Jews and Their Lies' (1643) reads like an instruction manual for Kristallnacht. If Luther can get here as a foundational figure and leading exponent of Christianity, what does this say about the nature of good through theism? The problem with religious based morality is its notion of the good and its ongoing support of immoral ideas like misogyny, homophobia, slavery, genocide. Some modern humans, with modern ethics now cheerfully cherry pick the 'nicer' parts of religious morality, perhaps pretending that the appalling material isn't there and that god does not condone slavery, etc.

Male kangaroos fighting.

People sentimentalise kangas, but really they are vicious thugs and can grow taller than a human male. Recently I watched a mob of kangas in the bush. I was reminded of this clip from David Attenborough.

:up: Thanks - will check this out.

But the difference from sexuality is that, on some occasions, arguments can persuade some people the religious belief is not based on a rational foundation. — Manuel

:up: I hear you, but there is this. I have gay friends who were convinced by argument that being gay was irrational and unnatural and in some cases, against god's natural order. So they had girlfriends, wives and worked at being heterosexual. I think there are many fairly common arguments put forwards even in these progressive times. And that's just in the West. In many other countries gay people are still killed or jailed.

Conversely I have known many gay people who were able to come out precisely because they were exposed to arguments that allowed them to see same sex attraction as natural and harmless. They had been shut off from this by the moral conventions of their sub-culture. I have personally provided suicide intervention several times for people who were same sex attracted and thought they were evil. One such person was in his 60's and had never accepted the idea that being gay might be ok.

t's not a choice, it's a preference. It's very intricate though. — Manuel

It is intricate and I need to do more thinking about this. I don't want to simplify too much. My point is it is similar, not identical.

Nothing more than being that type of person who, for instance, feels that they are actually communicating with a higher power, as opposed to talking to oneself. As in cases in which people are in a church, and some people once they leave the religion say, they never felt such a force or power in the first place.

Or being the type of person who tend to believe that virtually every coincidence is very meaningful in some transcendent sense. — Manuel

That makes sense. And my intuition here is that some people's experiences serve to establish their habitual sense making in this domain or mode. For some reason, they have found that life makes mores sense to them this way. A world imbued with magic is more interesting and probably offers more alternatives than one without magic.

As most of us know, according to Max Weber, as societies progress and become more rationalized, they tend to lose their mystical and enchanting qualities. This process is characterized by the replacement of traditional religious beliefs, magical thinking, and mystical worldviews with rational, bureaucratic, and scientific approaches to understanding the world.

Might it not be the case that many people bemoan this disenchanted world and flee to romanticisms and superstations for some relief?

The UFO people tend to almost always describe the actual UFO like the ones we see on 50's movie billboards on the topic. And the aliens have the huge black eyes and are green. That's a very strong connection between culture and experience.

But I don't even find a supernaturalist "folk-account" that could explain this belief. — Manuel

I think by now aliens are folk accounts. All such traditions start somewhere. Perhaps aliens are just a technologically updated form of supernaturalism, located in the era's zeitgeist; science rather than magic.

I wonder if functionally there is much desirable psychological difference between aliens and spirits? They are probably founded on similar principles and psychological factors. Note, I am not considering in this account the more reasonable speculative notion that aliens may exist somewhere in reality.

perhaps the mind they have is not readily or easily put in such a receptive state. — Manuel

I wonder what counts as a receptive state? What are you thinking? A psychological state? My candidate explanations for this are personality, psychological health, and individual sense making shaped by culture. Same things that inform most of our choices.

My father's family were fundamentalists. But my father and his siblings were divided into those who 'chose' atheism and those who 'chose' Christianity. Same upbringing but they chose one of the two dominant belief systems in ther culture - Christianity and materialism. Why do people make such choices - why are some 'receptive' to religion and others to materialism/physicalism? I've often likened this to a sexual preference. We can't help what we are attracted to. The justifications and arguments are post hoc.

What's curios to me is that many people, not all, could be put in such a state of mind given specific circumstances, say, being in a cult or being constantly barraged with people saying and believing in these things. But what accounts for this?

Is it just that we experience things to some extent due to cultural circumstances? — Manuel

I don't think it is a 'state of mind' as such that we're looking for. Just a worldview that includes, perhaps even embraces, ghosts and spirits and is therefore receptive to them. Which tends to result in an experience of them readily in ordinary events. A flash of light, a sudden breeze, a movement, a noise and, 'bang' it may a ghost or spirit. I have met many people who default to such interpretations regularly.

For those more elaborate (and much rarer) accounts were an entity appears and talks to the person - we can perhaps include lucid dreaming, wishful thinking, and other brain states.

And yes, I do think that we experince things based on the culturally informed sense making tools and narratives we are immersed in. A person whose culture recognizes demons will see demons. A person whose culture recognizes djinns will see djinns.

I wonder if there is some similarity between some 'ghost stories' and UFO abduction stories. We can find thousands of folk worldwide who are convinced they were abducted by aliens. Is this, as Jung suggested, an expression of our psychological state, our anxieties and fears and, perhaps, an emerging spirituality/religion for this era of technology and science?

But given that such things were universal, say, in the Middle Ages, then it seems to me as if we are inclined to interpret such data consistently in a specific way, such as seeing ghosts or spirits as opposed to unicorns, in terms if repeated experiences. — Manuel

That follows in as much as in a culture where the idea of ghosts and spirts are accepted as real and are culturally important, you're going to see way more of them.

Reminds me of people who have religious visions of saints or of gods. People generally have visions of the saints and gods that are part of their own culture. I'd be more convinced if Mary appeared to people in Punjab. Or if a Hindu deity appeared to a Southern Baptist in Georgia.

I've never heard 'ghosts are only visible to believers' until now. — flannel jesus

That was a standard claim I used to hear amongst New Age types. You don't see them because 'you're a crass materialist who lacks sensitivity' or 'you are a skeptic and so are nto receptive'. I think this romantic approach to occult matters is still popular.

How do you think about spirits and ghosts? And, more importantly, what do you think about falling into such a state as to be suggestible into believing such things to be existing phenomena? — Manuel

A debunker of psychic and 'supernatural' phenomena I knew in the 1980's once told me that he believed in haunted minds, not haunted houses. I am inclined to accept this explanation. We sometimes see and hear things as a consequence of our sense making gone wrong - we are stimulated, prompted and primed by so many things. Heightened emotion often provides the catalyst. The people I have known who have seen ghosts on a regular basis, all tended to have anxiety related issues, often well hidden.

In the 1980's, when I was interested in the superphysical, I attended many seances, slept in cemeteries and in houses said to be haunted and, sadly, never experienced anything.

I think many of us are attracted to stories of ghosts and other occult phenomena because they are exciting, they lift us out of the mundane and promise us that in our increasingly technocratic world, a form of romanticism and mystery can still be found.

It seems that humans are extremely, by default/nature, superstitious. That is to say that we possess thought patterns and behaviors that are meant to "make things go well or stay well". — schopenhauer1

Nice OP. I agree with your points.

Given humans are meaning making creatures, working hard to identify or make some order out of the chaos, we can't help ourselves but to anthropomorphise nature and machines and devise magical rituals to protect us, along with ways to please our gods or powers. Superstition seems to be a continuum - from the primitive to the sophisticated.

Perhaps religions are the most sophisticated forms of codefied superstition and are really just a way for us to connect with an imagined or hoped for explanatory higher power which will protect us now and/or in the next world. Often such protection is against the pervasive fear of nihilism. There Must Be Transcendent Meaning! People who follow religions will likely resent this and consider it a simplification. But if ignorance is the wellspring of superstition, couldn't we say that god (which is so often also a god of the gaps -Why something rather than nothing? Why evil? Why death? Why morality?) operates as a kind of fetish to help us manage our nescience?

Do you think there is good reason to hold that what counts as superstition needs to be unsophisticated pre-rational thinking and that if a 'magical' system is more scriptural and sophisticated it is no longer superstition?

The question for me, however, is whether or not 'claims about g/G (e.g. theism, deism) are demonstrably true'. AFAIK, such claims are not demonstrably true; therefore, I am an atheist. — 180 Proof

Yes, arguments and the lack of demonstration of gods has maintained and sharpened my atheism. But my initial impulse was not based on arguments as such. The intriguing thing about gods is that they have no explanatory power, so as a solution to any fundamental questions, it just seems to be kicking the can down the road.

Good question. I have in mind the platonic idea of god as an absolute substance, content, form, quality. A sun around which all objects revolve. An unfalsifiable, unchangeable criterion for the true, the real and the good. This idea is abhorrent to me because it is conformist, restrictive and violent in its sanction of blameful
moralisms. — Joshs

Got you. Thanks.

For me, the best argument against god isn't that there isn't enough evidence, but that regardless of whether or not there is evidence, the very idea of god is abhorrent. This is why I consider self-declared agnostics to be closet theists. — Joshs

One of the more intriguing responses I've read here in a while.

But is this an argument or more of reaction? Which very idea of god is abhorrent?

I might say the same of childhood leukaemia or herpes - but they still exist and aren't going away.

As philosopher we are free to take out position about anything. For me we cannot know about God or prove it. That doesn't mean there is no Possibility of god. So i choose to be an agnostic and i believe that is the most convenient position a philosopher could hold — Abhiram

For me atheism isn't about proof that there are no gods. It's whether I believe in gods or or not. I don't believe, so i am an atheist.

I can only talk about my actual experiences over 40 years, working in a range of roles. I don't recall any significantly unethical cultures. Sometimes a particular work culture is bad, but this may this be down to malicious colleagues having personality problems and being arseholes from time to time. More unpleasant than unethical.

For the most part, for workers here, conditions have improved over my time. I'm sure there are still primitive conditions in the casualised work force (waiters, cleaners, food delivery people), where workers don't get properly paid, any holidays or training or any benefits. But full-time workers here tend to be protected by robust legislation, are provided 4 weeks holiday a year and are paid for days taken sick. They also can't be sacked without a robust due process.

Isn't faith certainty?
— Tom Storm

I don't think this is right. — Hanover

Fair enough. I'm no expert on degrees of faith, since I've never had the experience in any form. Nevertheless, most of the Muslims and Christians I have explored this with describe it that way.

But I generally don't raise certainty as an aspect of faith and your response is useful. I usually define faith as the reason people give for believing when they don't have a good reason. And only then when faith is presented to me as the same thing as that the plane they will catch will not crash. And of course believers challenge the 'no good reasons' as you would expect.

Even if my view on faith is peculiar to just me, I still think it responsive to the OP, which was a question generally of what sorts of faith there are. I just reject the idea that faith is best described as what children in Sunday school believe as they just repeat back what they're told. — Hanover

Those with 'certainty' are not always naive fundamentalists - they may not be any kind of literalist and accept science and do not have a cartoon god in their sights. And I'm not sure it is fair to describe this type of faith an unthinking, child like Sunday school style faith (Islam aside) but I get what you mean.

I also suspect that some people's faith is performative and not deeply held. Having worked in palliative and end of life care, I have met many dying people (including priests) for whom the faith vanished as they discovered they were dying. God provided no comfort and heaven receded the moment mortality presented. The opposite of a deathbed conversion is also a thing.

That means faith is a meta concept, not just a list of rules and regulations. It is the idea that belief in something bigger than one's self is what faith is, — Hanover

I think this is a useful point. Faith can be complicated and I wouldn't associate it with rules as such. Even if rules are justified by using appeals to faith. I would imagine that faith is more of a 'non-rational' foundation.

But 'bigger than one's self' seems super vague and rather pointless to me. I have no doubt that there are trillions of things bigger and more important than me (depending upon the perspective), but I've never been able to get from this to any varieties of theistic meaning, no matter how sophisticated.

Interesting. You may be right. Yes, populist leaders of a certain kind are autocratic because they are generally insincere and know what to do to get elected in a certain context. There's an inherent predatory cynicism built into this process, so it would seem natural for such a leader to detest democracy and detest the average person along with it. Has it not been documented via various sources close to Trump that he hates his own base, viewing them as a bunch of unattractive losers? For a populism like his, authoritarianism seems to be an obvious end.

The term "populist" is rather misleading as what easily comes to mind is "popular". Perhaps "anti-elitist" would be better. — ssu

Yes, that's the take home message for me. Or 'popular prejudice'. Like the old 'migrants are destroying our culture and taking our jobs' trope.

But I also tend to think that most politics is populism - the attempt to capture popular issues and use tribalism to divide and conquer voters. Some exponents of this are more cynical populists than others.

When it comes to elites, the real target for self-described populist like Gore Vidal (in the US back in the 1970's) were the corporate and property classes. Vidal defined the hot issues of populism as turbo charged funding for schools and infrastructure, free healthcare, raising taxes for corporations and the wealthy, isolationism and an end to military incursions overseas, slashing the military industrial complex.

It just seems that there's no antidote to populism, no way other than the disillusionment after the populists fail when in power. Then you just hope you have the means to get them out of power. — ssu

Voters seem to be activated most by fear and self-interest. The easiest way to harness these in politics is to lie, divide and conquer and promote tribalism. For me it is the political process I fear almost as much as the type of populism it can promote.

:up:

That said I wouldn't expect anyone would want to live in Canberra without a reason :-) — Wayfarer

Funny you should mention this. I love Canberra and am there now. Just for 3 days while on a road trip. I love the manageable scale of the city, it's quirky regions, the modernist architecture, it's amazing free galleries. I think I could easily live there.

Thanks for clarifying. :up:

Which is why, when I read the opening post, about "types of faith", I had no intuition at all. What's the concept we're supposed to subdivide here? Like you, I tend not to use faith outside of the context of religion. — Dawnstorm

Understand. I generally highlight faith in this way just to make a point. When it comes to Christian traditions, I do consider the various categories of believer and their faith, from the literalists to the sophisticated theologians - who inhabit totally different worlds.

I grew up in the Baptist tradition, so god stuff is not alien to me. But we were taught that the Bible is allegorical. The stories were understood as ways to teach people, they are not to be taken as (forgive the pun) gospel. I was soon aware of Paul Tillich's more mystical notion of God as ground of being and have read a fair bit of Christian thinking. Nevertheless, I still hold the idea of gods to be an unnecessary fiction and can't find any way to make use of the idea of a deity or the notion of faith as a pathway to truth.

Also super interesting you don’t relate to rock. — AmadeusD

After the age of 40 I started to enjoy small amounts of the Rolling Stones (earlier stuff) still dislike the Beatles. Enjoy later Leonard Cohen and some Bob Dylan. Tom Waits I have time for too. I also have had a soft spot for proper blues - John Lee Hooker, Little Walter, Muddy Waters. But I listen to very little music these days.

Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé, Pavane pour une infante défunte. I also really like his piano concerto for left hand - written for Wittgenstein's brother, Paul, who was a concert pianist and lost an arm.

This is simply confused. Horses are not humans, nor do they approximate humans. Sorry. — Leontiskos

Isn't this missing the point of the example? I think @joshs observation seems relevant. As humans develop our moral understanding and ethics, the sphere of concern widens. Which reflects the broader idea that moral agents should take into account the well-being and interests of all beings affected by their actions, not just humans. Which also underpins discussions on topics such as animal rights, environmental ethics, and bioethics - but that is moving on into new subjects.

But Buddhism, along with the other sapiential traditions, is about breaking through to a different form of awareness altogether. I don't think you'll find it in phenomenology or existentialism although there may be hints of it at various places. There's some references to it amongst the German idealists (Schopenhauer's 'better consciousness', Fichte's 'higher consciousness'). But it will usually be categorised with religion by many, to their detriment. This is where the insights of non-dualism are especially relevant. — Wayfarer

Interesting. So the idea is that the essential nature of being is beneficial towards all things?