Have you looked at Kripkenstein? This is not unlike his account.

All examples of rule-following will not be subject to exactly the same logic, that is there is no essence of rule-following just as there is no essence of game-playing. — Janus

A family resemblance of rule-following?

Cool!

I am puzzling over what it might mean to be self-directed. It can't be following a rule understood only by oneself. — Banno

Why can following a rule not be understood only by oneself (as opposed to understandable only to oneself)? Explain your reasons for thinking that (if you do think that) and we might get somewhere.

Yes, why not? If the notion of essences is rejected, then the "family resemblance" idea would seem to be the only contender to take its place everywhere.

No, I have heard the term used referring, I take it, to Kripke's take on Wittgenstein, but I haven't looked into it. :smile:

There's a slight ambiguity here. There's a difference between a rule that only Nietzsche understands and a rule that only Nietzsche can understand. The former isn't analogous to a private language as a private language is a language that only one person can understand and the latter isn't anything that Nietzsche claimed to be the case. — Michael

And others...
The discussion could involve both cases; after all both are mentioned in the PI; but also we are not here restricted to the PI.

Your interpretation fo the OP was literal - your forte. The questions I wanted to talk about are a bit more general. I'm taking morality to be rule following. I'm thinking of certain types of rules, those with a structure such that if someone finds oneself in a specified situation, one ought act in a specified way. These are rules which have a direction of fit such that the world is made to conform to the words.

And it seems that this approach has hit a chord with some folk, if not with you.

One approach might be to consider an action that results from a certain private sensation. When I feel that sensation, I will do such-and-such. I think it clear that this wold fall to the incoherence set out by Wittgenstein.

Nor could this count as a moral law; it could have no general application, such that anyone who finds themselves with that sensation must do so-and-so; because the sensation is by definition private.

New keyboard; it's a bit small.

...continued

Oppose this to a public sensation... say feeling shame. When one feels shame one ought seek vengeance.

This could count as a moral principle. But in being so, it places a restriction on this who follow it. In Nietzsche's case, I puzzle at whether this restriction would be acceptable. Would he accept submitting to the power of such a rule? I think not.

So Nietzsche can't follow private rules; and he can't follow public rules.

Maybe living in accord with newly posited values, or a new system to evaluate norms, doesn't make much sense from this perspective since it is overemphasising already established rules. 'One ought not introduce security backdoors into communications software' would not have made sense prior to a public understanding of these issues, but nevertheless such a public understanding was put in place.

Moreover, we need to be able to evaluate such norms in order to decide which ones to live in accordance with. This requires an ability to treat norms as an object of discourse, a topic of conversation, and not just a fundamental constituent of discourse.

Why can following a rule not be understood only by oneself (as opposed to understandable only to oneself)? Explain your reasons for thinking that (if you do think that) and we might get somewhere. — Janus

I'm following Wittgenstein. As I said at the beginning of this thread, I'm going to take that for granted. I'm not interested in defending or rearguing the private language argument here; there is plenty of stuff elsewhere for that. That's why I'm ignoring @S and @Terrapin Station and anyone else who wants to go down that path. Getting bit of depth in a discussion means taking some things as moot.

So go look at the Wiki argument on private language. I wrote much of it, anyway.

Go for it; I'm just not sure what it might look like.

Do you believe that one person could create a complex alternate private language without using the public language they already speak? — Janus

We'd have to define "complex," but I don't see why someone couldn't do this.

Private language arguments would need to specify and define "complex" languages if what they're saying is limited to that.

I don't believe such a thing would be possible, but as I said, there would be no point arguing over it, since the possibility or impossibility of such a thing cannot be definitively demonstrated. — Janus

Yeah, demonstrating it via a specification of a private language that other people are going to understand (at least on the conventional assumptions) isn't going to work, but demonstrating or verifying something is different than whether there can be that thing--unless we've all turned into party-line logical positivists all of a sudden (which would be a bad idea in my opinion).

On my account of language, though, arguably language is private period--or at least important aspects of it are.

...continued

The same goes for other existential approaches. I have some sympathy for the view sometimes set as existence precedes essence, although I think that badly phrased. Becoming involves choosing one's own standards, yet for reasons explained, those standards cannot be private, and hence involve accepting public restrictions.

And it's this that I want to fill out in this thread.

On my account of language, though, arguably language is private period--or at least important aspects of it are. — Terrapin Station

Languages are not private; this is true simply on account of the fact that their origins and evolution are public. A completely private language would have a completely private origin and evolution, an origin and evolution that depended not at all on any publicly originating and evolving language.

That just seems impossible to me: and the only way you will convince me otherwise is to give an account of how a language could originate and evolve in the mind of just one individual, and completely independently of any public language the individual already uses.

For your account, start simple. I have already said that the individual that wishes to produce a completely independent private language could draw or even visualize the objects that the common nouns of the new language are to refer to, but how would they specify what pronouns or articles, for instance, are to refer to?

There's no point saying you think something is possible for a human being, if you cannot even begin to give an account of how it could be achieved.

I am puzzling over what it might mean to be self-directed. It can't be following a rule understood only by oneself. And acting in an arbitrary or accidental way is not acting on direction.

This is not too far form free will, either. If one follows a rule is one acting freely? — Banno

Morality has no bearing on a non-volitional action. If one can make decisions, why couldn't one follow one's own rules? One could keep track of the rule by writing it down and verify conformance by recording some sign. These are things we routinely do anyway.

So this gets back around to, in my mind, on just what we mean by private or public -- because a private rule by Kant is still, in principle, articulatable (oi, I butcher the language so), even if it is not shared. And though it be articulatable we can have no behavioristic criteria for determining if an act is moral, though we can check if it follows the rule. — Moliere

Going back to this... what Moli said applies further afield than just Kant. Following a moral rule is seen in the doing, not the saying, and yet we cannot infer the rule from the act.

I'm going to adopt, at least as a first position, the view that following the rule as stated is irrelevant to the act being good.

SO I am going to separate out an act's being good from an act's following a rule.

Let's see how that goes.

For your account, start simple. I have already said that the individual that wishes to produce a completely independent private language could draw or even visualize the objects that the common nouns of the new language are to refer to, but how would they specify what pronouns or articles, for instance, are to refer to? — Janus

Why couldn't they simply think about what every symbol of their devising is going to refer to?

Morality has no bearing on a non-volitional action. If one can make decisions, why couldn't one follow one's own rules? One could keep track of the rule by writing it down and verify conformance by recording some sign. These are things we routinely do anyway. — frank

All of which makes the rule public.

Becoming involves choosing one's own standards — Banno

Context? Becoming (what/in what context?) involves choosing one's own standards?

Morality has no bearing on a non-volitional action. — frank

I had a friend who killed someone in a car accident. It seems they were stung by a wasp and lost control. Nevertheless they were held responsible for the result.

So...

Why couldn't they simply think about what every symbol of their devising is going to refer to? — Terrapin Station

Will that thinking be done in their native language? If not, then how else?

Legal responsibility and moral responsibility are not the same.

Good question. I'm borrowing vague notions from European thinking. Help me out.

Sure. But was she moral responsible? The family of the casualty thought so.

Will that thinking be done in their native language? If not, then how else? — Janus

It could simply be relational and not in terms of any other text or phoneme strings.

All of which makes the rule public. — Banno

He's still following his own rule.

Sure. But was she moral responsible? The family of the casualty thought so. — Banno

I'd have to know more details, but at best it should have been a manslaughter case. The moral issue there is simply that the person should have taken more care than they took.

Of course the family of the victim is going to want the person strung up even if it were completely an accident where manslaughter shouldn't apply.

Yes. If the will to power is transcending rules, should Nietzsche move past even his own rules?

Yes. If the will to power is transcending rules, should Nietzsche move past even his own rules? — Banno

I don't know. What's your moral outlook? Is moral good just whatever we as a community decide it is?

I don't think so - the herd is rarely right.

Perhaps ethics is not about identifying moral rules.

Then what?