• DingoJones
    2.8k


    I mean tool in a general sense. Something useful or enabling of any given task.
    Ethics/morality are tools for us to get along with each other, to create well functioning societies/interactions and I would say in some sense to service our ownnhuman dignity, although I admit the last one is rather nebulous and perhaps idiosyncratic.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    I think, that what can be said about stipulative definitions is that if a person makes one the moderators should ask for a clear explanation of it before or after the thread starts.

    Thoughts?
  • macrosoft
    674
    Many topics revolve around defining something contrary or otherwise than the original definition.Posty McPostface

    I recently saw a sign advertising a philosophy club. It advertised philosophy terms of lots of (to me) annoying questions about the meaning of various common, important terms. What is truth? What is knowledge? And so on. Of course I also love these questions. If they are sincerely suffered, they actually urge one to usefully clarify the questions and even find good-enough answers to them.

    How does this relate to what is quoted? There is tendency to 'answer' the wrong question, where the words of the question are reinterpreted so that the answer is no longer life-relevant. Profound questions are debased to opportunities to demonstrate cleverness. An industry of gossip about gossip about gossip is born. Meanwhile the real questions continue to be suffered and tentatively answered by words and deeds by everyone, most of whom never found the gossip industry relevant in the first place. And then some of us have a love/hate relationship with this gossip. We pan for gold in a muddy creek, having cataloged many shapes of pyrite, and therefore aware of how little gold there is in the torrent of gossip.

    *By gossip I just mean talking always about what some famous person said about what some other famous person said about what some other famous person said in this or that jargon. This isn't always bad, but it can degenerate into a tedious game.
  • Shawn
    13.2k
    How does this relate to what is quoted? There is tendency to 'answer' the wrong question, where the words of the question are reinterpreted so that the answer is no longer life-relevant. Profound questions are debased to opportunities to demonstrate cleverness. An industry of gossip about gossip about gossip is born. Meanwhile the real questions continued to be suffered and tentatively answered by words and deeds by everyone, most of whom never found the gossip industry relevant in the first place. And then some of us have a love/hate relationship with this gossip. We pan for gold in a muddy creek, having cataloged many shapes of pyrite, and therefore aware of how little gold there is in the torrent of gossip.macrosoft

    Yes, this is framing the question about how to do ambiguity, vagueness, and other misinterpretations occur. If logical tules would work strictly on human behavior, then what en be said then?
  • macrosoft
    674


    That's a tough imaginary situation. If logical rules strictly applied to human behavior, then we'd no longer be talking about humans as I understand them. If we remove the ambiguity from language, we are left with something like math or chess. And we could no longer say anything profound or silly.
  • macrosoft
    674
    I mean tool in a general sense. Something useful or enabling of any given task.
    Ethics/morality are tools for us to get along with each other, to create well functioning societies/interactions and I would say in some sense to service our ownnhuman dignity, although I admit the last one is rather nebulous and perhaps idiosyncratic.
    DingoJones

    I agree. And also with the part about human dignity. Can we really get along very well without it? I'd put it near the center.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k


    Depends on what we mean by human dignity. Ill confess I do not have a clear idea of what I myself meant by it. Concerning morals and ethics, I think of human dignity in terms of something like honour, a principal or set of principals that we sort of cherish for their own sake or for our own sake but this has its own problems, it is an inherantly selfish act to maintain principalsor set of principals.
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