That doesn't make any sense. The content of my post was directly related to this thread's topic. The fact that it was also related to its author makes it ironic.

Now you're trolling...

No, I'm not. It seems you have no interest in reconciling. So be it. I'm happy to ignore you once more.

It seems you have no interest in reconciling. So be it. I'm happy to ignore you once more. — Thorongil

I never said that. I said I have no interest in reconciling in this discussion, which you have masterfully managed to de-rail.

There's nothing incoherent from what I can tell with the notion that there is an actual transcendent morality but it's muddled and "gray" in the colloquial way of looking at it. — darthbarracuda

Of course it is incoherent. Either the basis of morality is transcendent of society or it is simply whatever society does in terms of what works for it.

If there is some moral absolute, then there is no excuse for a moral agent to ignore that. Moral relativism becomes simply indefensible. One's duty is not to the whims of society but the absolutes we claim to have transcendent status.

And then vice versa. If morality is relative to the social good - what works for it - then that is the standard to which a moral agent ought to direct their strategic reasoning.

Things are then only gray or muddled to the degree that moral agents can't make up their minds which is the case.

But yes. Many really are muddled in just this fashion.

I stand by my post, as it directly bore on the topic of this thread. It wasn't an attempt to derail it or troll. Here's more irony for you: if you interpreted my post and our conversation thereafter to be trolling on my part, I apologize for inadvertently misleading you. Why do I say this? Because I agree with the person who made the following statement:

a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing

In case you're still confused and didn't understand my original post, the irony has to do with the fact that I felt slighted and trolled by you, said as much, apologized to you for whatever I may have inadvertently done to cause the rift, and then received no apology from you. In fact, I received no reply at all. Imagine, then, my surprise at seeing this very same person both start a thread about when to apologize and make the statement quoted above. Yes, in the off chance that you are actually bothered by your own hypocrisy and interested in reconciling, I felt I had to respond. But again, I genuinely don't care either way, as it's not up to me, and I've long since seen the futility of being irritated about things one can't change.

This is a matter of etiquette not morals. An accidental infraction isn't blameworthy, so the apology isn't offered to alleviate guilt. It's offered to express concern and compassion.

Of course it is incoherent. Either the basis of morality is transcendent of society or it is simply whatever society does in terms of what works for it.

If there is some moral absolute, then there is no excuse for a moral agent to ignore that. Moral relativism becomes simply indefensible. One's duty is not to the whims of society but the absolutes we claim to have transcendent status.

And then vice versa. If morality is relative to the social good - what works for it - then that is the standard to which a moral agent ought to direct their strategic reasoning.

Things are then only gray or muddled to the degree that moral agents can't make up their minds which is the case.

But yes. Many really are muddled in just this fashion. — apokrisis

It's not incoherent. There's absolutely nothing incoherent with the notion that there is a fact of the matter as to what we ought to do that transcends society, but that our epistemic access to this is muddled, confused, or otherwise limited in some way. There's a lot of truth to the saying that doing the right thing is by accident. Or - to put an Aristotelian twist on it - doing the right thing is oftentimes (but not always) due to a prior development of habit, in which action virtuously or morally comes naturally, and the moral agent is capable of deftly maneuvering given the circumstances ... but that this does not constitute perfect moral knowledge. (I've been toying with the idea that given our nature and circumstances there cannot ever be a "right" action, but that's a different topic).

Ultimately we may divide meta-ethical theories between dualistic theories and monistic theories. In fact there is only one dualistic theory (intuitionism), and four monistic theories (naturalism, subjectivism, non-cognitivism, nihilism). I'm of course championing intuitionism - I think there is a clear difference in kind between facts and values, and that any sort of morality that can be recognized as morality must employ some form of rational intuition.

"What works for society" is ambiguous, because it hides the fact that society only works if people do actually believe in some form of transcendent value - even the social contract theory implicitly holds that life, or something similar, is good. There is a system of justice because people believe justice to be morally important. Laws are made (sometimes) with morality in mind. etc. To the degree that someone believes what is good (transcendent) = what maintains social stability, then doing what will keep society stable will be one and the same with doing the good.

Shiiiit, you're still hung up on that? — darthbarracuda

>:O Dayuuuum the barracuda ain't apologizing for noughin' ma dawgs...


I discovered that some people will never apologise even if you put a movie of something they did wrong in front of them. Some people hate being "forced" to do something, and just out of spite will not do it, even if things will be worse for them if they don't apologise. That's what happens when the ego grows too large >:O

You forgot to add on what I said afterwards:

My view is that, no, a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing, because apologizing is a way of communicating your recognition that what you did was, in fact, wrong to do. Not apologizing for doing the wrong thing in general means you either don't think it actually was the wrong thing to do, or you have a character flaw that precludes you from admitting failure and assuming responsibility. — darthbarracuda

I've already told you that I don't recognize what I did to have been inappropriate. Thus I do not feel compelled to apologize.

Yes, in the off chance that you are actually bothered by your own hypocrisy and interested in reconciling, I felt I had to respond. — Thorongil

Yet you picked a terrible place to bring this up.

I stand by my post, as it directly bore on the topic of this thread. It wasn't an attempt to derail it or troll. — Thorongil

Then what exactly was it supposed to do, then? I have no idea why you thought to bring a private conversation up in a public discussion, and re-route the philosophical discussion to your personal gripe with how I treated you however long ago that was.

I'm feeling for myself, after some deliberation, that apology is part of a ritual or symbolic exchange. You make an apology when you believe that by such a speech act you will place yourself, and the person you're apologising to, in a better relation than your present mutual standing. That's it! — mcdoodle

Well said. There are lots of reasons to say 'I'm sorry' (un-ironically), but I think that covers most of them.

Does doing the wrong thing unintentionally (perhaps out of ignorance or fear) free a person from the responsibility of saying sorry? — darthbarracuda

No, in my view. I assume that most people would also answer 'no' here.

An apology is necessary when one has harmed or done wrong to someone else. The problem with your argument is that you're viewing the issue of forgiveness through the lens of your own perspective, as the perpetrator. You may not have intended harm, but that does not exculpate you from wrong-doing. If you caused harm to someone, intentionally or unintentionally, then you are in the wrong. And if you're in the wrong, then an apology is necessary. An apology is necessary because it creates an atmosphere in which you acknowledge your wrong-doing, and the victim acknowledges your acknowledgement. Communication leads to a better understanding of the situation.

I've already told you that I don't recognize what I did to have been inappropriate. Thus I do not feel compelled to apologize. — darthbarracuda

Doesn't matter, for you said that "a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing." So if you refuse to apologize, then you don't actually agree with this statement and are in fact a liar and a hypocrite.

Yet you picked a terrible place to bring this up. — darthbarracuda

It's a highly relevant place to bring it up.

Then what exactly was it supposed to do, then? — darthbarracuda

I've already answered that. Look, if you don't want to reconcile, that's fine. Just say so and stop stringing me along here. I've said my piece and so the ball's in your court.

My view is that, no, a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing, because apologizing is a way of communicating your recognition that what you did was, in fact, wrong to do. — darthbarracuda

In other words, the unbolded and bolded halves of this sentence contradict each other. Pick one.

He must hold a grudge against me or something. If he apologized and said, "it's water under the bridge, let's move on," which I'm willing to do, I would accept it and recommence discussing things with him. The fact that he still refuses is interesting and telling.

I'm of course championing intuitionism - I think there is a clear difference in kind between facts and values, and that any sort of morality that can be recognized as morality must employ some form of rational intuition. — darthbarracuda

Oh shit. No wonder I couldn't make sense of your position if you subscribe to that.

If you were saying that the intuitions are rooted in our biology - our evolved circuitry which rules our social behaviour - then that might be something though.

Like for instance - The neurobiology of moral sense: facts or hypotheses?https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3616987/

"What works for society" is ambiguous, because it hides the fact that society only works if people do actually believe in some form of transcendent value - even the social contract theory implicitly holds that life, or something similar, is good. — darthbarracuda

Do you mean transcendent in the deflationary sense of just being hierarchically organised? Perhaps you do in stressing the general vs the particular earlier.

Its a big difference. Of course we can organise our social thinking into general rules and particular exceptions. This gives our thinking its organised complexity.

But to talk of morality transcending that socially-constructed framework is to talk about it having some human-independent, and nature or evolution independent, basis.

I'm not sure from your words whether you have clearly disentangled the two incompatible positions and chosen a side to stand on. Either our morality is the normative product of natural circumstances or it has some super-natural basis.

Doesn't matter, for you said that "a person should still apologize for what they have done even if they did it accidentally or did not mean to do the wrong thing." So if you refuse to apologize, then you don't actually agree with this statement and are in fact a liar and a hypocrite. — Thorongil

No, I'm not going to apologize because I don't recognize what I did to have been inappropriate. You may think it was inappropriate, but I don't agree with you on this. How is this difficult to understand?

But to talk of morality transcending that socially-constructed framework is to talk about it having some human-independent, and nature or evolution independent, basis.

I'm not sure from your words whether you have clearly disentangled the two incompatible positions and chosen a side to stand on. Either our morality is the normative product of natural circumstances or it has some super-natural basis. — apokrisis

No, this is a false dichotomy. For instance I think mathematics is transcendent to socially-accepted norms. Logic transcends society. Yet our capacity to ascertain logic and mathematics presumably comes from evolution. I think the same thing applies to morality.

There's nothing "spooky" or "queer" about objective morality under an intuitionist view. I think we come to know moral truths in a similar way we come to know mathematical truths, or understand logical reasoning. I think you're begging the question here by assuming that an evolutionary explanation of morality necessarily precludes the possibility of objective morality. Hence why you automatically assume any objective morality must be "super-natural".

Of course, since I deny values can be reduced to natural properties in the same way water can be reduced to H2O, I'm committed to there being a separate realm of things other than descriptive facts. Stabilizing society =/= good, because it's an open ended question as to what goodness is, in both the analytic and synthetic sense.

The only perspective I have is my perspective. Don't you think you should only apologize if you recognize that what you did was wrong/inappropriate? Just because someone claims you did something wrong, doesn't mean you actually did do something wrong and thus must apologize to them.

So you have no interest in replying to what I said. Okay.

I never apologise as to do so would be an admission of guilt. If i had intentionally committed this transgression then I would not want to apologise; were it accidental then I'd have no need.

Acting mindfully, thoughtfully and consciously means never having to apologise.

I can do something that later turns out to have been regrettable. In such cases I offer an explanation. If that is not enough then the failure is with the person I am talking to and not with me.

You sound like you're from a top 10 worst anime villains of all time.

So you have no interest in replying to what I said. Okay. — Thorongil

Maybe I'd be more inclined to talk about this if you brought this up elsewhere. I don't know why you continue to insist on discussing a private gripe with me in a public discussion.

My gripe was public at the time as well. And it's relevant to the thread, but that horse has been beaten already.

Acting mindfully, thoughtfully and consciously means never having to apologise. — charleton

Correct. But it also privileges the fully self actualising self over that self’s social milieu. So as a moral stance, it is tied to a modern abstract notion of society.

And it does still leave open the fact that apologies can have useful transactional values within such a “purely rational” setting. Other folk still tend to have feelings that can get hurt. It can pay to recognise that even if no moral ought is involved.

(I should add that we then ought still to apologise when we are responsible for accidental harms from negligence. If we pretend to mindful action, we have to live up to that. Obvious really.)

There's nothing "spooky" or "queer" about objective morality under an intuitionist view. I think we come to know moral truths in a similar way we come to know mathematical truths, or understand logical reasoning — darthbarracuda

So this intuitionism is really structuralism? I could agree to that.

Can you elaborate?

OK, which of these two Wiki positions do you align with?

Intuitionism....

In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach where mathematics is considered to be purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of fundamental principles claimed to exist in an objective reality.

Structuralism....

Structuralism is a theory in the philosophy of mathematics that holds that mathematical theories describe structures of mathematical objects. Mathematical objects are exhaustively defined by their place in such structures. Consequently, structuralism maintains that mathematical objects do not possess any intrinsic properties but are defined by their external relations in a system.

The historical motivation for the development of structuralism derives from a fundamental problem of ontology. Since Medieval times, philosophers have argued as to whether the ontology of mathematics contains abstract objects. In the philosophy of mathematics, an abstract object is traditionally defined as an entity that: (1) exists independent of the mind; (2) exists independent of the empirical world; and (3) has eternal, unchangeable properties. Traditional mathematical Platonism maintains that some set of mathematical elements–natural numbers, real numbers, functions, relations, systems–are such abstract objects. Contrarily, mathematical nominalism denies the existence of any such abstract objects in the ontology of mathematics.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, a number of anti-Platonist programs gained in popularity. These included intuitionism, formalism, and predicativism. By the mid-20th century, however, these anti-Platonist theories had a number of their own issues. This subsequently resulted in a resurgence of interest in Platonism. It was in this historic context that the motivations for structuralism developed.

So you claim to be an intuitionist, yet argue like a structuralist. Like me, you believe that existence is the product of emergent structures or constraints. These structures are selected on the basis of some deep functional principle, such as the least action principle of physics.

Plato was a sort of structuralist in fact. The mathematical forms were somehow an expression of the telos of "the Good". There was some optimisation principle going on in terms of least action, or the invariances due to symmetry.

But the Good is of course then a warm, fuzzy, human concept of essential cosmic value. So what we now look for in nature is just a straightforward optimisation principle - like least action. A structure is good (it can endure and thus exist) as it expresses an equilibrium balance.

This structuralism can then be applied to the understanding of social systems. It is how we get down to a view of society as a functional equilibrium balance of competition and co-operation - or give and take.

So if you want to appeal to some general "transcendent" moral principle that transcends particular societies, then structuralism gives you the immanent story on what is "objectively" rational or optimal. There is a deep structure that works. And this is "intuitive" only in the sense that humans can guess at the shape of deep structures by inference to the best explanation. We are pretty good at guessing general principles (as a result of that being a selection constraint on human cognition in the first place).

So between realism and idealism, social constructionism and Platonism, there is as usual pragmatism or structuralism. Reality is ruled by the deep structure that is "what works" in a developmental sense.

I remember we had this difficulty over ontic structural realism. You sort of liked it, but then backed away into some confused mix of constructionism and absolutism.

You seem to want absolute truths - where that would fit your personal beliefs about ethical matters. But then just as often you will argue against people that their ethical positions are mere social constructions.

Only structuralism can bring dualist or transcendent Platonic ontologies back down to Terra Firma. A constraints-based metaphysics can explain why there is a deep structure to reality without having to invoke anything outside of nature itself as the cause.

An interesting question suggests itself from reading this conversation. Is apology one of those great equalizers cutting across status and hierarchy? Is the act of apologizing, assuming it is done in good faith, i.e. genuine, and whether or not the situation objectively calls for an apology, a declaration of equality? In much the same way, I wonder, that greeting a stranger with “hello” carries an assumption that the stranger is seen as an equal by the greeter. Of course, that also assumes that the person receiving the apology does not then manipulate the situation to extract further admittance of responsibility and other unsavory demands from the person apologizing.

Intuitionism....

In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach where mathematics is considered to be purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of fundamental principles claimed to exist in an objective reality. — apokrisis

"Intuition", as I'm sure you are aware, is a term used in philosophy that has lots of different meanings depending on the context. I most definitely am not using intuition in the sense of some magical "sixth sense", nor am I affirming what is quoted here. I am coming from the perspective of philosophers like Moore, Ross, Prichard and Sidgwick, i.e. the British Intuitionists, as well as contemporary moral intuitionists like Audi and Huemer. Ethics is a separate branch of inquiry, and cannot be reduced to a descriptive science. We come to know moral truths in a very similar way to how we come to know mathematical or logical truths - we "see" something as good or evil, right or wrong, just as we come to "see" the validity of a logical proof, or "see" how a mathematical theorem makes sense.

But the Good is of course then a warm, fuzzy, human concept of essential cosmic value. So what we now look for in nature is just a straightforward optimisation principle - like least action. A structure is good (it can endure and thus exist) as it expresses an equilibrium balance. — apokrisis

See this is where I find an issue with naturalistic ethics, including natural law theory. The "goodness" of a working piece of equipment, the "perfection" of a functional object or system, is NOT equivalent to "goodness" in the moral sense. I think, as Moore does, that moral goodness is undefinable analytically. And so while we may come to see what grounds moral goodness, say pleasure or virtue, the analytic definition of goodness will always be transcendent upon this ground.

The Good is not a warm, fuzzy feeling in the non-cognitive sense. Perhaps we respond to the Good by feeling warm and fuzzy but it certainly is not the case that this feeling itself is what is the Good.