Fair enough. I was expressing an agreement with your position, and attempting to connect it, through my own approach, to what @Pfhorrest was trying to say.

My use of ‘more’ (which I imagine you took as a comment on Pfhorrest’s approach) was simply to acknowledge that our capacity to attain the objective morality is limited.

It seems my approach is more confusing than I thought. Perhaps I will go step back and try a different tack. Thanks for your reply.

It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the question of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.
— god must be atheist

Can you cite something from Berkeley to support this? — Pfhorrest

I was mixing Berkeley's voice with my opinion, and with what was stated in your essay. I never read Berkeley. Sorry about that, it was my mistake to attribute this to him.

@PFHorrest, I am one of the polemicists. As you know. I think your temperament is more of the academic philosophers -- you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place?

I think I can be polite and staid in the face of logical criticism, but when someone shows total stupidity I get really upset. That's why I would make a horrible teacher, given the chance. I don't teach; I clobber. That's not good, and maybe I should be seeking to change my ways.

But it feels so natural... I feel better after defending my points vehemently and polemically. If I were to be polite, cool, calm and collected, would I feel the same satisfaction?

Does emotional satisfaction play a motivating role in your arguments? I know we can't argue against the truth to feel good, but when you argue FOR the right reasoning, do you still get the satisfaction, the taste of victory when you state your points, despite employing a polite, never personally degrading voice?

I'm having a tough time following you, but the question at hand here is entirely about whether there is any "truth outside our knowledge" to coincide with, as you put it. (I would say "opinion" rather than "knowledge", because "knowledge" implies truth while "opinion" does not). The second kind of relativism, that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions". — Pfhorrest

Thanks for clarifying this.

What you argue against, therefore, is the denial of truth (which TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I would not argue against that. In other words, I accept that there may be no relationship between reality and our opinions about it. Since our senses give no indication whether our perceptions are to be trusted to detect reality, we have no knowledge of reality. Opinions, yes, alleged perceptions, yes, alleged impulses, or sensations, yes. But not one of these can be trusted.

Therefore there is no knowledge of reality. This does not negate the existence of truth; but it allows the POSSIBILITY of no truth. (Again: TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I don't know how you can deny that.

that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions" — Pfhorrest

(TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality, in the particular instance that our opinions are precisely coinciding with the events and things in reality.)

Accepting my definition of truth, truth can only exist as our opinions; I think your wording ought to have been:

"no, there aren't any real things or events outside our opinions, for our opinions to potentially coincide with; there are just our opinions"

Your original wording leads to a lot of inaccurate misalignment of words with their meanings to what the concepts were aimed to cover.

Or else, you can supply your own definition of truth which will render the claim true.

Would you care to supply a definition of truth which is different from my definition of truth?

you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place? — god must be atheist

A little bit of both. I’ve actually had a very bad temper for my entire life, but I’ve spent so long being so angry about much bigger problems that someone being wrong on the internet just doesn’t seem like something worth getting upset about anymore. But then I have also been practicing staying calm in the face of all those bigger problems for a long time so if I do feel a little upset, I’m able to deal with it a lot better than I used to.

I’ve realized that a major factor in how good or bad I feel in general is how good or bad I think I’m allowed to feel about myself, so if someone whose opinions I give weight to criticizes something that’s really important to me, so that I feel like I have to take their criticism seriously and there’s really something “wrong with me”, that hurts. It helps then to just give very little weight to most people’s opinions, to think of people like children, don’t expect them to be right and don’t really care if they think you’re not, but maybe take the opportunity to help them learn something, and yet still be open to their potential insights, and try not to actually talk down to them “like children” because even with actual children that always just backfires.

More generally than even that, I find it helps if I just don’t expect to convince anyone to begin with, but still give my say in case anyone finds it interesting. That ties into my motto which now serves as the basis of my entire philosophy: “It may be hopeless but I'm trying anyway.”

But it feels so natural... I feel better after defending my points vehemently and polemically. If I were to be polite, cool, calm and collected, would I feel the same satisfaction?

Does emotional satisfaction play a motivating role in your arguments? I know we can't argue against the truth to feel good, but when you argue FOR the right reasoning, do you still get the satisfaction, the taste of victory when you state your points, despite employing a polite, never personally degrading voice? — god must be atheist

Hearing things like this feels good, makes me feel good about myself, and so reinforces it my inclination to keep behaving this way.

In general, sharing my thoughts is very emotionally satisfying, one of my favorite things in life, and I don’t think I’d be here doing it if it weren’t so. Even worse than critical feedback is no feedback at all, just talking into the void, so even critical feedback gives me a bit of “rush” (that word is too strong but I can’t think of a better one), lets me know someone cared enough to even give it a read at all.

Therefore there is no knowledge of reality. This does not negate the existence of truth; but it allows the POSSIBILITY of no truth. (Again: TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.) — god must be atheist

I think I see the mix up here now. What I’m arguing against here is those who say truth (having our opinions correspond to reality, roughly speaking) is not possible; and I am saying instead that it is possible, that someone might be right. It is in my other essay, against fideism, where I also argue, as you do here, that it is possibly not, i.e. that anyone always might be wrong.

you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place? — god must be atheist

It's funny that on the same day you say this, two threads piss me off on this very forum:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/384912
and
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/384959

I think the topic of justice is about the means, while the topic of morality is narrowly about the ends. I think they are analogous to the topics of reality and knowledge, respectively.

So justice would be 'knowledge' and morality is 'reality?'

This is interesting and it's a definite difference between us. I see justice as an end in itself, and morality as also an end in itself. the two tend to operate in different spheres, but I guess by your definition they could come into conflict. If I were a judge on a case and the options were justice on one hand and human happiness on the other my first inclination would be towards justice. my attitude towards humanity as a whole is fairly neutral.

In my mind justice and morality cannot conflict in the same way that reason and truth cannot conflict. You can see a fuller explanation at my later essay A Note On Ethics.

If you were judge what would you do in a case where you had to choose between a just verdict and the happiness/satisfaction of the community?

Happiness/satisfaction per se is not a factor in my ethics. Read more.

Didn't you say something like well-being in another discussion? Or human welfare? My point remains. I shouldn't have to read an entire essay you should be able to put forth your view within a sentence or two.

There are clear cases where the welfare of the community (as normally understood) is in opposition to justice.

The primary divide within normative ethics is between consequentialist (or teleological) models, which hold that acts are good or bad only on account of the consequences that they bring about, and deontological models, which hold that acts are good or bad in and of themselves and the consequences of them cannot change that. The decision between them is precisely the decision as to whether the ends justify the means, with consequentialist models saying yes they do, and deontological theories saying no they don't. I hold that that is a strictly speaking false dilemma, between the two types of normative ethical model, although the strict answer I would give to whether the ends justify the means is "no". But that is because I view the separation of ends and means as itself a false dilemma, in that every means is itself an end, and every end is a means to something more. This is similar to how the views on ontology and epistemology I have already detailed in previous essays entail a kind of direct realism in which there is no real distinction between representations of reality and reality itself, there is only the incomplete but direct comprehension of small parts of reality that we have, distinguished from the completeness of reality itself that is always at least partially beyond our comprehension. We aren't trying to figure out what is really real from possibly-fallible representations of reality, we're undertaking a fallible process of trying to piece together our direct sensation of small bits of reality and extrapolate the rest of it from them. Likewise, to behave morally, we aren't just aiming to use possibly-fallible means to indirectly achieve some ends, we're undertaking a process of directly causing ends with each and every behavior, and fallibly attempting to piece all of those together into a greater good.

Perhaps more clearly than that analogy, the dissolution of the dichotomy between ends and means that I mean to articulate here is like how a sound argument cannot merely be a valid argument, and cannot merely have true conclusions, but it must be valid — every step of the argument must be a justified inference from previous ones — and it must have a true conclusion, which requires also that it begin from true premises. If a valid argument leads to a false conclusion, that tells you that the premises of the argument must have been false, because by definition valid inferences from true premises must lead to true conclusions; that's what makes them valid. If the premises were true and the inferences in the argument still lead to a false conclusion, that tells you that the inferences were not valid. But likewise, if an invalid argument happens to have a true conclusion, that's no credit to the argument; the conclusion is true, sure, but the argument is still a bad one, invalid. I hold that a similar relationship holds between means and ends: means are like inferences, the steps you take to reach an end, which is like a conclusion. Just means must be "good-preserving" in the same way that valid inferences are truth-preserving: just means exercised out of good prior circumstances definitionally must lead to good consequences; just means must introduce no badness, or as Hippocrates wrote in his famous physicians' oath, they must "first, do no harm". If something bad happens as a consequence of some means, then that tells you either that something about those means were unjust, or that there was something already bad in the prior circumstances that those means simply have not alleviated (which failure to alleviate does not make them therefore unjust). But likewise, if something good happens as a consequence of unjust means, that's no credit to those means; the consequences are good, sure, but the means are still bad ones, unjust. Moral action requires using just means to achieve good ends, and if either of those is neglected, morality has been failed; bad consequences of genuinely just actions means some preexisting badness has still yet to be addressed (or else is a sign that the actions were not genuinely just), and good consequences of unjust actions do not thereby justify those actions.

Consequentialist models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what is a good state of affairs, and then say that bringing about those states of affairs is what defines a good action. Deontological models of normative ethics concern themselves primarily with defining what makes an action itself intrinsically good, or just, regardless of further consequences of the action. I think that these are both important questions, and they are the moral analogues to questions about ontology and epistemology: fields that I call teleology (from the the Greek "telos" meaning "end" or "purpose"), which is about the objects (in the sense of "goals" or "aims") of morality, like ontology is about the objects of reality; and deontology (from the Greek "deon" meaning "duty"), which is about how to pursue morality, like epistemology is about how to pursue reality. In addition to consequentialist and deontological normative ethical models, there is a third common type, called areatic or virtue ethics, which holds that morality is about the character, the internal mental states, of the person doing the action, rather than about the action itself or its consequences. I hold that that is also an important question to consider, and that that question is wrapped up with the question of what it means to have free will. And lastly, though it's not usually studied as a philosophical division of normative ethics, there are plenty of views across history that hold that morality lies in doing what the correct authority commands, whether that be a supernatural authority as in divine command theory or a more mundane authority as in some varieties of legalism. That concern is of course wrapped up in the question of who if anyone is the correct authority and what gives their commands any moral weight, which is the central concern of political philosophy. So rather than addressing normative ethics as its own field, I prefer approaching those four questions corresponding to four kinds of normative ethical theories as equally important fields: teleology (dealing with the objects of morality, the intended ends), deontology (dealing with the methods of justice, what the rules should be), the philosophy of will (dealing with the subjects of morality, who does the intending), and the philosophy of politics (dealing with the institutes of justice, who should enforce the rules). I would loosely group these together as "meta-ethics" in a slightly different than usual sense, they being the questions necessary to answer in order to pursue the ethical sciences I propose above; in a way analogous to how the fields of ontology (about the objects of reality), epistemology (about the methods of knowledge), the philosophy of mind (about the subjects of reality), and the philosophy of academics (about the institutes of knowledge) — which we might likewise group together in a slightly unusual sense as "meta-physics" — address the questions necessary to answer in order to pursue the physical sciences.

There are clear cases where the welfare of the community (as normally understood) is in opposition to justice. — BitconnectCarlos

Justice for one man is injustice for the other.

How can the welfare of the community be in opposition to both?

Justice for one man is injustice for the other.

no, if someone is wrongfully convicted of a crime that's injustice.

no, if someone is wrongfully convicted of a crime that's injustice. — BitconnectCarlos

You're right. But what if I lend you five bucks, you don't pay it back because you lose your job and your house burns down. I take you to court, and the judge comes down with the verdict, on humanitarian grounds, that you don't need to pay back the $5. Or he comes down with the verdict that you must pay it back.
It turns out that the $5 is the amount I need to get the money together to pay the "Final Notice" on my house taxes, before the city would reposses it.

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

Assume please that there are no court fees, no lawyers fees, and no transportation costs to go the court house. If you can't assume that, then please adjust the figures in question to cover those expenses as well, not just to round up my "final notice".

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

the justice on this one is hazier, and there's no need to use this as an example. I already cited an example and one clear example is all I need for the concept of justice.

Which is just? Your paying the $5, or not paying the $5?

the justice on this one is hazier, and there's no need to use this as an example. I already cited an example and one clear example is all I need for the concept of justice. — BitconnectCarlos

Very convenient, BCC. You conveniently use your example, because it fits your way of thinking, and discount other examples that go against your way of thinking.

You display the spirit of Bible studies. You cherry-pick the parables, make a bit of a different interpretation from the literal meaning of the text, and bang, you got your point supported by the Bible.

I am not saying you are a Bible-Thumper, BCC, but you are practicing an eerily close approximation to the process of Bible interpretation by Christians. Reject the inconvenient, emphasize the supportive.

Well done.

NUMBER ONE.

I also consider justice part of "the good." Justice, in its truest sense, isn't about making people happy or ensuring that they thrive. Justice can actually hurt society sometimes. — BitconnectCarlos

Though I think 's point is a useful exercise, I'd like to criticize the premise that "justice can hurt society sometimes".

If you mean "hurt" in a some trivial way of what people, even most people, may feel, then we are in agreement. For instance, assuming we agree slavery was unjust it certainly felt "hurtful" to the slave owning class when slaves escaped, much worse, rebelled. So if we consider only the slave owning society (which in some cases can be the majority of people even including the slaves) then such a situation could agree with your framework that a "just act" of slave rebellion is "hurtful to society".

However, where I disagree is that this situation can be fundamental. For, we ultimately derive the injustice of slavery from the welfare of society, usually by considering the welfare of the slaves as part of the community then slavery becomes essentially by definition unjust since if society could function without the slaves being slaves, then clearly this is a better society than one where some members are slaves. The only way around such a conclusion is to argue one of the following "the slaves are not human and not part of the community", "slavery is good for the slaves", "slavery is necessary and there is no option to run society equally well without slaves", "it would be more unjust to part slave owners of their property than the justice served by freeing slaves"; not only are these the logical alternatives that we can derive today, but they are the historical key arguments proposed to justify slavery and only after each was proven untrue did opinion turn against slavery.

However, the point of this example is that the injustice of slavery is derived from a concept of the welfare of the community; that it is in fact more hurtful to society to have the institution of slavery than the temporary hurt of the slave owner class to have their world view challenged and be parted with their property.

Although it is a dirty word today (due to, what I would argue, unjust and criminal campaigns of propaganda) democratic social organization is only feasible by referencing the public good. The only way to decide situations where private interests, or private opinions of justice, conflict is to reference a concept of the public good. Such a reference can be wrong, and so what was thought just at one moment to some, even the majority, of people (such as capturing runaway slaves and returning them to their owner for arbitrary punishment) is viewed as unjust by a later generation that has a new opinion of the public good. However, there is no logical alternative to a concept of justice other than the public good, as there's no way to rationally convince society (hence propaganda) to implement a policy that is bad for society; there's no logical way to construct an argument where society should do what is bad for it.

Now, this does not prevent people from personally not wanting the public good but only their own definition of good for themselves at the expense of others, but even if that be the majority they could not come to any coherent agreement on any policy; maybe some policies emerge from bartering, corruption (as the majority of people don't act to prevent corruption, as it's not their problem), propaganda and influence; but such an exercise has no stable coherent outcome; the powerful players that come out on-top at any given moment maintain alliance insofar as they perceive it benefits them, and break that allegiance and overthrow the previous policies (and their previous friends) the moment they see even greater gain in a new order of things. The phenomenon of "socialize the cost, privatize the profit" is just such a dynamic at play; a lucid entirely "self interest maximizing" thinker maybe against such a policy as it's a waste of their tax dollars and makes the economy less efficient ... until the moment they are able to benefit from such a scheme, and so who gets to socialize their costs while privatizing the profits the most is in constant flux, their is no convergence of policy even if everyone in society is attempting to do the same thing in this case (and, if everyone is not acting in this way, then in constant conflict with whoever's left who disagrees with "only looking out for number" and create a coalition for their concept of the public good, which may include private property but is, essentially by definition, incompatible with underwriting an organizations costs and risks while permitting all the profits to be kept private).

Likewise, even a theological definition of justice (and I am a theist for context) does not have a definition of justice incompatible with the public good, it's just with extra steps: even a theocracy will argue not only is following the will of God good for the individual and the community but that God is good and so only wants good things to begin with.

In short, any example you have of doing justice "hurting society" I contend is only illusory, essentially resting on a prerequisite claim that society does not know what is good for it in this case (and time will bare this out; such as the US South with slavery or the Nazi's with trying to take over the world and genocide along the way; it was certainly "hurtful" for these groups to lose their respective wars, but any argument that it was just to defeat those groups, internally or externally, would be based on a public, not private or some other, concept of welfare).

Though I think ↪god must be atheist's point is a useful exercise, I'd like to criticize the premise that "justice can hurt society sometimes".

I honestly didn't think it was a useful exercise, so I didn't bother responding to it.

It's like take a concept like fairness - everyone should have an implicit understanding of it and this still holds true even if there are some vague cases involving it. If I'm talking about fairness in the usual sense I'm not interested in arguing those border cases which can be up for dispute. Fairness is still a meaningful concept even if there are these border cases. Otherwise there would be no such thing as day and night because twilight exists.

However, there is no logical alternative to a concept of justice other than the public good

So, just to provide some context, in the discussion me and Pfhorrest were having earlier we were roughly defining good as "social contentment or satisfaction" or something along those lines. Under that definition it should be clear that carrying out justice can conflict with "the good" - it can indeed make people very angry and could also lead to riots. Discontentment can certainly carry broader implications.

I wasn't really thinking along the lines of slavery when I wrote this. I was more thinking along the lines of the Making a Murderer case with Steven Avery.

In case you haven't seen it, imagine this: The community hates this guy. His family is poor and dirty, the family have like 10 kids who are bad students and one of them, Steven, has a minor criminal history. A murder in the city happens. We have reason to suspect - but not conclusive evidence - that it was Steven Avery - so we maybe cut some corners but in the end we find him guilty and throw him in prison. The community is happy.

I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened in the case, but these were along the lines I was thinking when I wrote about the potential contradiction between the public good and justice. Now of course you can just define the "public good" as inherently containing justice or define justice as inherently linked, but subordinate, to the public good... We can play with our definitions but under a fairly typical conception of "public good" to which the actual satisfaction of the community is the chief component it should be clear that individual justice and community contentment can certainly contradict. We can also play with other definitions of "public good" - the term is not cut and dry. Our conclusions will depend on the definitions we use.

As for the request of the OP,

Reminder: I'm looking for feedback both from people who are complete novices to philosophy, and from people very well-versed in philosophy. I'm not so much looking to debate the ideas themselves right now — Pfhorrest

This seems incompatible with the content of your essay which concludes there is "a much better chance of getting closer to finding them, if anything like that should turn out to be possible, if we try to find them".

Why advertise you aren't trying to find the answers you're looking for?

I submit to the forum that a new category should be made for "is this new or not new idea?" feedback section. If we aren't debating the content, we are clearly not doing general philosophy.

As you may certainly expect, the atomic pieces of your argument are not new. Of course, the molecule your argument builds up is new, but only because it doesn't make any sense. You are "open to find answers, whatever they may be and even if they can't be fond" ... as long as they are "not some transcendent kind of reality or morality".

Be that as it may, your position is basically that of the early skeptics of antiquity in a straight forward logical way and also in a transcendental way in Buhddism.

The Greek skeptical school held that we "cannot access truth directly", however, they got around nihilism by arguing that they adopt what appears to them to be true, while leaving open that it may turn out to be false (the Hellenistic skeptical philosophers developed a distinction between "assenting" to an idea and "believing" an idea; assenting meant basically to assume it as it's the best option available), and of course also leaving open the possibility of "really" encountering the truth also. The skeptic acts as best they can with what information they have, while "suspending judgement" of whether it is really true or not.

The other Hellenistic schools criticized this position as basically being too easy, that is sounds like intellectual courage, and certainly a good attitude in many situations, but it is not actually taken to heart by the skeptic, that the skeptic in fact does believe things without suspending judgement (such as that their attitude about suspending judgement is the best available), which then lead to a rebuttal that, no, they too suspend judgement about suspending judgement, and so and so forth. Point being, the focus is on the searching as the basic moral activity, as one cannot know things cannot be found nor being unable to rule out what appears to be true is not the best available premise.

Skepticism in Buddhism (as well as other schools in India) went much farther, in a way that the other Hellenistic schools might really agree is at least taking it to heart: one by one, taking everything that "seems obvious" and becoming seriously skeptical about it, no matter how absurd it seems to leave reasoning afterward: ultimately in the suspending judgement of one's own identity, and dealing, fairly honestly, with followup questions of "who's thinking such argument if there's no one thinking". I believe the Buddha himself had the analogy that, indeed, the arguments aren't "true" as such a notion of truth is an illusion, but it is like a bridge that can get you to the other side and then, once used, is no longer required and can be discarded; i.e. believing skeptical arguments are true is a path to get to a place where one sees all such kinds of arguments as mere human opinion and untrue. Various Buddhists and also other Indian schools went basically as far as you can possibly go in such a debate.

So, just to provide some context, in the discussion me and Pfhorrest were having earlier we were roughly defining good as "social contentment or satisfaction" or something along those lines. — BitconnectCarlos

I make a very important distinction between intentions or desires, and appetites, in my ethics. It's analogous to the distinction between beliefs or perceptions, and sensations, in physical sciences. What people believe, or think they're seeing (their interpretation of their observations), is not relevant to truth. What they actually observe is. Likewise, what people think ought to be the case, or what they want, is not relevant to the good. What actually hurts them is, though.

It would help if you would actually read the entirety of what my position is before arguing about it, although we are getting way, way ahead of ourselves here, as this thread is just about one essay establishing one principle that will be employed in many places later on. All of the follow questions about "but what is that objective morality like, what's its relationship to justice, who gets to make the decisions", etc, will be addressed later.

This seems incompatible with the content of your essay which concludes there is "a much better chance of getting closer to finding them, if anything like that should turn out to be possible, if we try to find them". — boethius

The "right now" part that you quoted is important, as is the part immediately following that that you didn't quote:

...especially the ones that have already been long-debated (though I'd be up for debating the truly new ones, if any, at a later time)

I'm don't want knee-jerk rehashing of very old arguments to get in the way of critiquing the form and presentation of this particular project first and foremost. When the whole project is polished and done, then I'm happy to debate its merits as a whole.

You are "open to find answers, whatever they may be and even if they can't be fond" ... as long as they are "not some transcendent kind of reality or morality". — boethius

Technically in this essay by itself I'm not arguing against transdentalism, I'm just stating that I'm not arguing for it just by being against nihilism. But in another essay I am arguing against transcendentalism, precisely on the ground that answers about trancendent things can't be found. And in this essay I don't say "even if they can't be found", I say that if we're not certain either way that they can or can't be found, we should try to find them. That's entirely compatible with not looking for them in places where we're sure they won't be found.

When the whole project is polished and done, then I'm happy to debate its merits as a whole. — Pfhorrest

Sure, I don't mind not debating the substance, as is your desire. When your desire changes, I'll look into it.

You ask where the ideas have been had before, I am simply providing you the answer that the idea that we can still function, that it's still worthwhile to keep an eye out for the truth, even if we don't have it, goes back, at least, to the Hellenistic philosophers, is the foundation of skepticism, and is also a Socratic theme (though debatable Socrates is a skeptic as it later developed, you are not really taking a skeptic position, only presenting part of a skeptical argument, elsewhere it very much seems you are claiming the arguments you present are true and you believe them to be so; so, more akin to a Socrates that claims to know much more).

I'm a moral relativist/nihilist and I've argued with a number of people on the topic, your summary opinion of how we don't know therefore there's no more reason to be a nihilist than not be one is probably the second or third most popular counterargument from my experience.

I think most of your issues with moral relativism are all pretty common, at least with people who don't like it.

Likewise, what people think ought to be the case, or what they want, is not relevant to the good. What actually hurts them is, though.

What do you mean by what actually hurts them? What is this actual good that you are here to tell us all about?

Everyone seems to dislike nihilism, but also everyone is using it to annihilate what they don't like. It's like the traitor: everyone likes a good treason, well, where it suits them, but noone the traitor himself.

You ask where the ideas have been had before, I am simply providing you the answer that the idea that we can still function, that it's still worthwhile to keep an eye out for the truth, even if we don't have it, goes back, at least, to the Hellenistic philosophers, is the foundation of skepticism, and is also a Socratic theme (though debatable Socrates is a skeptic as it later developed, you are not really taking a skeptic position, only presenting part of a skeptical argument, elsewhere it very much seems you are claiming the arguments you present are true and you believe them to be so; so, more akin to a Socrates that claims to know much more). — boethius

Thank you for that.

I'm a moral relativist/nihilist and I've argued with a number of people on the topic, your summary opinion of how we don't know therefore there's no more reason to be a nihilist than not be one is probably the second or third most popular counterargument from my experience.

I think most of your issues with moral relativism are all pretty common, at least with people who don't like it. — Judaka

Thank you for that too.

What do you mean by what actually hurts them? What is this actual good that you are here to tell us all about? — BitconnectCarlos

As I said, that's getting way ahead of the game and will be answered in detail in later essays, some of which I've already linked, and you refused to read. For a short answer for now, it's very close to what is meant by interests (as opposed to positions) in principled negotiation, and as I think I said already, it's analogous to the difference between beliefs and observations in science. You find out if something actually hurts someone (or vice versa, though I can't think of unambiguous terminology for that as "pleases" could mean the wrong thing) by standing in their circumstances and seeing if it hurts (etc) you, after controlling for differences between you if necessary. Just like you verify an observation by repeating an experiment, controlling for differences in instruments (including natural senses) as necessary.

But the polemic nature of philosophical debates is usually either underrated or even totally ignored, as "philosophers" battle for domination, for their ideas to dominate. And of course at the end, no one wins, even if in fact someone manages to win, nihilism at its best.



those bloody russians!

Based on feedback from these threads here, I have rearranged the first four essays of the Codex into a different order. This essay, Against Nihilism, is now the first essay, as I figure being against nihilism is the lowest-hanging fruit, and will get more people on board quicker than starting out with the other core principle, against fideism.

This is the statement I most disagree with: "simply because to assume otherwise would just be to give up for no reason" but I'll get to that later.

I don't think this is arguing against nihilism logically but pragmatically: "I object to that on the grounds that if it is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims about what is real and what is moral"

Nihilism doesn't exclude itself from its own equation. It doesn't claim to be objective. It claims that all beliefs (including this one) are relative and believed in by the person's choice. To disagree with it is just that, disagreement, it doesn't prove it false. It's a statement that, whether you agree or disagree with it, remains unprovable. It cannot be established objectively but neither can it be dismissed. So your argument against Nihilism is purely a pragmatic one. "We can either give up or go on" is what it boils down to but that doesn't logically disprove anything. You can't logically respond to the people that choose to "give up".

Also, another interesting thing I find with your argument against it is that, whether or not one believes there is nothing real or moral, they will take very similar steps from that point.
"or, instead, we could baselessly assume that there is something real and something moral — as there certainly inevitably seems to be, for even if you are a solipsist and egotist, some things will still look true or false to you and feel good or bad to you — and then proceed with the long hard work of figuring out what seems most likely to be real and moral, by attending closely and thoroughly to those seemings, those experiences."

How exactly would one go about figuring out what seems most likely or real WITHOUT employing some sort of arbitrary system of evaluation? The system you proposed sounds to me like trying to reconcile all the different views, to find common ground among them. But how is that different from the initial position you disagreed with of saying that the closest we can get to objective morality or reality is whatever the group agrees with? Because to me, they sound exactly the same. And that's why I disagree with: "simply because to assume otherwise would just be to give up for no reason."

People don't go: "There is no objective reality I'll just kill myself now" they usually go "There is no objective reality so what's the next best thing?" And end up doing the exact same thing as people that say "There is an objective reality time to find it"

That's why I usually don't bother getting into threads that have "Is there an objective X" because:
1- To assume there is or there isn't is just as baseless
2- Whichever you end up going with you practically do the same things

In other words, answering the question is pointless.