Well, it started with claims like this, where he makes a trivial point where he doesn't seem to consider the importance of context, — S

I don't agree that there's any context within which concepts are correct.

I don't see anything unethical about any utterances. — Terrapin Station

Which is an extreme position which I, along with the vast majority, would reject. But whether you talk about it as an utterance or as a behaviour (it's both) it only shows poor judgement on your part to fail to see why it's unethical.

You were asking me to explain my view, to aid your understanding of it, and I didn't explain it to you? — Terrapin Station

No, clearly I did not think that you did so, or at least not adequately, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you the question in the first place, and I wouldn't have kept on asking you it multiple times afterwards when you wilfully decided to evade answering it.

And at this point, I've totally lost interest, and I gave up attempting to have a productive discussion with you on that topic a number of hours ago.

I don't agree that there's any context within which concepts are correct. — Terrapin Station

Fine, don't agree, but you've been shown extensively and definitively to be wrong on that point.

Which is an extreme position which I, along with the vast majority, would reject. But whether you talk about it as an utterance or as behaviour (it's both) it only shows poor judgement on your part to fail to see why it's unethical. — S

I can't be wrong about whether something is unethical. (Of course, I can't be right, either. Right and wrong don't apply here.)

Re the other part, in other words, it didn't seem to me like you were asking me to explain my view with the goal of better understanding it for the sake of understanding it.

I can't be wrong about whether something is unethical. (Of course, I can't be right, either. Right and wrong don't apply here.) — Terrapin Station

And you're mistaken about that, as well.

Re the other part, in other words, it didn't seem to me like you were asking me to explain my view with the goal of better understanding it for the sake of understanding it. — Terrapin Station

Your personal impression of what seems to be my motivate in that regard is entirely irrelevant. And let's be clear that that's all it is: a personal impression, or how it seems to you. Not fact, not truth, not knowledge.

The bottom line is that you should have had the decency to answer. I granted you that decency throughout, at least until you reneged on the quid pro quo relationship I expect of interlocutors.

And you're mistaken about that, as well. — S

How, in your view, can someone be mistaken about whether something is unethical?

How, in your view, can someone be mistaken about whether something is unethical? — Terrapin Station

Because that's just how ethics functions. Neither of us are extraterrestrials recently landed on this planet. We both know what ethical discourse looks like, what it involves, what it's based upon, at least on a basic level.

"That's unethical", "No it isn't, it's perfectly acceptable", "You're wrong about that", "Says who?", "Says me!".

That's what it looks like. People make moral judgements, feel certain ways about matters relating to ethics, agree and disagree, tell each other they're in the right or that they're wrong.

All of the meta-ethical details, all of the various meta-ethical interpretations, have no immediate relevance here. It doesn't mean that I can't tell you that you're mistaken. But I suspect that that's what you're getting at. Though regardless, that's what ethics is, that's the norm, and if you do it any other way, then you're basically doing it wrong, just like with all this nonsense from you about there being no correct or incorrect use of a concept in a context which very clearly (to everyone else, at least) indicates just that.

Cool. Glad to hear it.

Wait, your saying that ethics is also determined by norms?

Wait, you're saying that ethics is also determined by norms? — Terrapin Station

I'm saying that that's a sensible starting place, so my understanding of ethics takes into consideration norms.

I'm saying that that's a sensible starting place, — S

I see the (statistical) norms more as an ancillary ending place.

("statistical" because I don't buy the notion of prescriptive norms period)

I see the norms more as an ancillary ending place. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and look where that's gotten you: a position that is counterintuitive. A position that myself and others find unacceptable. An implausible minority position.

Yes, and look where that's taken you: a position that is counterintuitive. A position that myself and others find unacceptable. — S

Which I of course do not see as a problem.

Which I of course do not see as a problem. — Terrapin Station

And I of course see that as a problem in itself, in addition to all of your other problems.

And I of course see that as a problem in itself, in addition to all of your other problems. — S

Okay . . . what am I supposed to do about it?

Okay... what am I supposed to do about it? — Terrapin Station

Well, obviously, I would suggest a different approach, for starters. I think that any account of ethics which is so radical as to be unreflective of how people tend to talk and think and feel when actually engaging in ethics is destined to fail.

When you express an ethical judgement which contradicts what I strongly feel is right, then it's natural for me to react by thinking that you're mistaken. And that's not just how it is for me, it's how it is for everyone.

So that shouldn't be scrapped as somehow inapplicable, but rather explained in a way which works. There is correct and incorrect, in a sense.

Well, obviously, I would suggest a different approach, for starters. — S

Because you have a problem with it? That's your problem.

I'm not about to change something I'm fine with just because other people have a problem with it.

Because you have a problem with it? That's your problem.

I'm not about to change something I'm fine with just because other people have a problem with it. — Terrapin Station

Pah! Then why even ask me that in the first place? I don't care whether you actually take on board my suggestions, but you asked me what you're supposed to do about it, so obviously I told you what I think.

Pah! Then why even ask me that in the first place? I don't care whether you actually take on board my suggestions, but you asked me what you're supposed to do about it, so obviously I told you what I think. — S

It's rhetorical, because (in my opinion) obviously you should realize that other people have no obligation to cater to you when they don't have a problem with something but you do. Why shouldn't you just as well cater to them?

It's rhetorical, because (in my opinion) obviously you should realize that other people have no obligation to cater to you when they don't have a problem with something but you do. Why shouldn't you just as well cater to them? — Terrapin Station

I don't care whether it was rhetorical. I answered it anyway, because I'm bored. And I never suggested that you have any obligation to cater to me. That's come from your own imagination. Whether you follow my suggestion or not is for you to decide. I'm simply expressing my thoughts on the matter. That's what we do here, remember?

Tangential to the central argument (which i haven't read all of, so I may be repeating) but if we think of concepts, like horseshoes, as a kind of solution to a problem, then we have the possibility of an evaluative context which (1)isn't correct or incorrect, and is also (2) outside the felicitous/infelicitous divide (which is about effective use of things already given)

You could look at concepts (and horseshoes) in terms of how effectively the resolve the issue. In solving one problem, they push out other possible solutions, which means they resolve tensions in one way while foreclosing the actualization of other potentials.

Terrapin for instance has, in the past, vocalized a problem he has that people seem frustrated by his way of holding a conversation in a way he personally finds baffling. and now he's put forth a family of concepts involving, among other things, the absence of responsibility for the effects of one's words, the total subjectivity of meaning, the ethical freedom to ignore catering to others and so on. It works in one way, but the path of theoretical commitments required to remain loyal to these concepts requires a lot of goofy kludges at the expense of more fruitful avenues of discussion.

Goofy kludges. Interesting choice of words. I like it. :grin:

:cool:

You could look at concepts (and horseshoes) in terms of how effectively they resolve the issue — csalisbury

Could you give an example of this? Is a concept supposed to be solving a non-conceptual problem?

I think it's concepts all the way down, so this perspective would require that concept and issue emerge simultaneously.

It's like when we were talking about wolfpacks the other day. There were a couple open conceptual threads in the air, and you brought them together in the image of a wolfpack. It wasn't just a metaphor, but a way of thinking of hierarchy, authority, cohesion etc. together.

A marxist example, to try to tie conceptual solutions to nonconceptual problems, might see the idea of individual liberty + rights as a convenient way to explain how factory workers aren't being violated (they freely exchange their labor for wages, they aren't slaves.)

For the the left, the concept of the 'alt-right' packages up mentally a hyper-diverse set of people as a single bloc, while for the right 'Soros is a mastermind' packages up a different hyper-diverse set.

The theological concept of the trinity, which is chronically in interpretive revision, aims to solve the problem of what christ means/is.

'She has daddy issues' explains all sorts of things in one fell swoop.

(here, I was going to try to do this with something like Kant's noumenon but I don't have the focus right now)

I'd add that some of these examples I think are helpful conceptual solutions, others not so much.

I see. A concept may be shaped by an agenda or it might facilitate something.

It's not that the concept of a tree is supposed to be solving a problem related to sensory data, or that the shared concept of a triangle has been solving a shared problem for the last 10,000 years.

My examples may have skewed too agenda heavy. I think the tree works too. The concept of tree has evolved a lot as we have. Triangle too. It doesn't mean we invented trees and triangles, tho, it means we developed ways to interact with and think about then.

It doesn't mean we invented trees and triangles, tho, it means we developed ways to interact with and think about then — csalisbury

Sounds like indirect realism.

Maybe. I think you can interact with trees and triangles without concepts though. I don't agree with the object - perception - concept - mind model except as a subset of what we do.