The dichotomy objective/subjective doesn't truly hold water. Everything is subjective, even objectivity itself, because the meaning of objective is formed and known only via subjectivity. Hence that which we call objective, is really just a special type of subjectivity which is shared in by others. This is a very very important distinction. It means that for example, no one can be called objectively happy if a series of criteria is met but they do not feel happy. It also means that someone can't be called happy if they merely feel happy but do not meet the "objective" conditions of happiness.moral realism is correct, that an objective, universal morality exists, then there is a way in which persons ought to be or act. — Dan
Right. So a woman who makes her own choice to be a luxury escort is according to you acting morally? Or is this kind of question simply not a moral one in your vision?Then I argue that based on this assumption, our best candidate for moral value is the ability of persons to make their own choices, which I call freedom. — Dan
And claiming to have a "new" theory is just uninteresting. Newness has no value in philosophy - it's truth that is of value.I am interested in the true philosophy, but everyone thinks the philosophical theories they believe in are true, that's why they believe in them. Claiming to have a true moral theory (though I think it is) wouldn't be any kind of claim at all. — Dan
You ignore the process of coming to know what you call objective. You are not born knowing what objective refers to - you are not born with knowledge of such a concept. The real question is how is it possible at all to acquire the concept of objective, when all that you have to start with is your subjectivity - your impressions - with Kant, you never have access to the noumenon as such, or with Schopenhauer, you only have access to it THROUGH your subjectivity? Descartes' cogito is a purely subjective truth - no one but you can be aware of your existence with certainty in Descartes' thought experiment. It becomes an objective truth because of the impossibility of its denial - its necessary truth. Likewise, you are not born knowing that in Euclidean space in a right triangle a^2+b^2 = c^2; you come to know that this is objective, with absolute certainty. How is it possible to attain certainty when all that you have is your subjectivity? When you will answer that question, you will realise that objectivity is a form of subjectivity.As for objectivity. I think you're just wrong. To go back to basics, when we go through the reasoning of Descartes to find that we most definitely do exist, this is objectively true. — Dan
Not IF true; there is no if. It is true. The only interesting question is the Kantian one - how is it possible to know that it is true, if all you have is your subjectivity? What is it that guarantees its truth?2 + 2 = 4 is, if true (and I'm pretty confidant that it is), objectively true — Dan
This is kindergarten arguments, sophistry.You could say that it is subjective in the sense that we might understand the term "2" to refer to something else, but that is rather missing the point. It isn't that those words have an objective meaning, it is that concept they are presently describing is objectively the case. — Dan
Exactly - so you fall in the same trap as the moderns do, and believe that so long no one else's freedom is violated, everything is morally permissible. That is absolute nonsense, and it is a betrayal of the way morality has been understood for most of history. Gluttony is immoral, even though it impinges on no one else's freedom directly. Why? Because it harms the perpetuator first and foremost. Self-harm, just like other-harm is immoral. Freedom - in the sense you understand it - doing whatever you want - is not a value, it's not even a virtue. That is why you fail to realise that someone who objectifies their person, and sells their body in exchange for money is doing a harm to themselves first and foremost - its losing their human dignity. Now how do we identify what harm is? How did you come to know that violating someone's freedom is a harm? We identify harm by inquiring into the nature of people, and seeing what frustrates this nature. That's why ultimately it will collapse into a virtue ethics - a striving towards the fulfilment of one's nature, with harm being identified as what is contrary to that nature.I would say that it is completely morally permissible to be a luxury escort, or a poorly paid escort for that matter. I would say so long as they are not hurting anyone else (which in this context can be understood as violating anyone else's freedom), then people can pretty much do what they want. — Dan
It does not make sense to say something exists without even the possibility of it being perceived. What sense would it have for me to say aliens exist, and then add that whatsoever you do, however your technology improves, etc. you can never perceive them. In what sense then do they exist? Something exists only if it can, in principle, be perceived. The concept of objective world, the concept of existence, all those concepts which you use in saying "the world keeps on existing" are born out of your subjectivity; out of your subjectivity you encounter the impressions which lead you to know these concepts. So your objectivity is either a form of subjectivity, or it is NOTHING - at least nothing that can be positively known.Even with no one around to perceive it, the world just keeps on existing. — Dan
According to you it follows that if you own yourself you have a moral right to do whatsoever you want with yourself. I disagree, and you have not yet proven a necessary link between the two statements. In fact, quite the contrary - if that which you do harms or frustrates your nature, then your actions are immoral in-so-far as your actions harm you. What you really mean to say is that if you own yourself you CAN do whatsoever you want with you. But from this factual statement it does not follow that you OUGHT to do whatsoever you want. You are confusing facts with morality.So I would say no, self-harm is not immoral as every person owns themself to do with what they will — Dan
I am considering human nature, personhood is just part of human nature.Are you sure you aren't considering human nature, rather than the nature of personhood? — Dan
Red herring and strawmanning. I never said we have to directly perceive it to say it exists.No, the fact that we cannot directly perceive something does not mean it does not make sense to say that it exists. — Dan
Okay, so based on what information do we discuss this, if all that we have access to are our perceptions? Where does our concept of external world come from? From our perceptions no? So if it comes from perceptions, how can this concept be used to reach beyond the perceptions themselves?When we discuss whether we should believe our perceptions of the external world resemble the actual outside world even though we only have direct experience of the veil of perception, this is a sensible discussion. — Dan
You're equivocating on subjective truth and not adopting the same understanding of it as I put forward.Further, the cogito is not subjective truth. — Dan
Again what do you mean by objective? Do you mean that it is true independent of what we think of it? I agree. But still, we access this objective truth through our own experience, and hence, it is first and foremost, before it is objective, subjective. You fail to realise what subjective means. It doesn't mean it's up to whatever you think. It means it's up to whatever you percieve, and since you can't percieve any different in this case, it is objective.It is an objective truth, albeit one discovered through personal experience. — Dan
This is unjustified. Freedom is just one of the many human potentialities. Why should it have priority?I am not claiming a necessary link. I am saying that the freedom over persons to make their own choices seems the best candidate for moral value we have. — Dan
Okay you're not disagreeing with me there. It still does not follow that you OUGHT to do whatever you want, and you haven't proven that you OUGHT to do whatever you want.I would not say that if you own yourself you CAN do whatever you want. For example it might be the case you are bound and gagged and locked in a small room. Then you cannot exercise your freedom, though you still own yourself. I would say that you are morally permitted to harm yourself. — Dan
What's the use of this abstraction? Even a non-human rational animal of the same kind humans are would be characterised by much more than their freedom. Perhaps I phrased my sentence in a limited way (non-human person does not make sense to me though - we don't know of aliens, etc), I should have said every rational animal.It is not only humans that are morally relevant. Any kind of person, be they human or not, surely matters just as much. It is not our humanity that makes us matter, it is our personhood. — Dan
Where do you get this idea of there being an external world from?What do you mean "reach beyond"? If you mean find out if our perceptions are actually reliable and actually represent the external world, then they can't. — Dan
Indeed. So how can we speak of an external world? Through what do we gain access to this external world? How do we even form the idea?We are doomed to forever experience only our perceptions, and never the reality beyond them. — Dan
No the difference collapses on itself. If I tell you there is a certain ghost in your house, but regardless of what you do, or what happens, you can never experience it or percieve anything from it in anyway, in what sense does the ghost exist? Sure, according to you, it objectively exists, even though it's impossible to ever percieve it. But that makes no sense, because existence is one, and thus existence is inter-related qua existence. Substance dualism does NOT make sense, as Spinoza for example proved. And for this reason nothing can exist detached from everything else - in a way that something else that exists cannot interact with it in anyway.I suppose what I am getting at here is that there is a difference between something objectively existing and/or being true, and whether we can know it to be true and, further, whether we can know it to be true in a way you would consider "objective". — Dan
Yes, they will necessarily be. For example, the desire for expanding agency, growth and survival will necessarily be shared by other possible persons.It should have priority because if morality is the way in which persons ought to be or act, then it must be able to apply to all potential persons, not just humans. And I suspect these other human potentialities (assuming you mean any of the things virtue ethicists generally care about) you are talking about are not necessarily shared by other possible persons. — Dan
That is on one level because freedom itself is a value. On another level, there is a right and wrong choice regardless of the actual choice that I make, if you believe in objective morality as you claim you do (and I believe in objective morality as well, btw).I would say you ought to be free to make your own choices. — Dan
Yes this is a wrong. But one among many wrongs, certainly not the central or most important one. To illustrate. I may decide to be a hooker, and if someone stops me from acting on my decision by force they will do a wrong. I grant you that. But I also insist that if I do decide to be a hooker, I will commit a wrong, and I will use my freedom in a way that degrades my dignity and potential.The wrong comes in the violation of their ability to make and understand choices — Dan
It's one moral value, I grant you that. How do you establish it's the only one?As for how I establish this is the case, it goes back to freedom (by which I mean the ability to make and understand one's choices) being the best candidate for moral value. — Dan
If this is your assumption then you are contradicting yourself. The way persons ought to be or act is different than the way they do (or choose) to act - hence it's different than mere freedom. Your proposed morality is just terribly incomplete, otherwise there is nothing wrong with it.Which goes back to my assumption that morality is the way in which persons ought to be or act. — Dan
If this is your assumption then you are contradicting yourself. The way persons ought to be or act is different than the way they do (or choose) to act - hence it's different than mere freedom. Your proposed morality is just terribly incomplete, otherwise there is nothing wrong with it. — Agustino
It is of moral value for me to take care of my physical health because I can do it. Someone bed-ridden who can't do anything about it - for them it's still a moral value, just that they can't strive to fulfil it in anyway. There is no question of obligation though. Just the way someone ought to strive to act in. If their striving potential constitutes a mathematical zero, then that's everything they can do about it. So no ought does not imply can in the sense you have put it.However, one can only be morally obliged to act in some way if that person can actually act in that way (ought implies can) so it seems to follow that whatever is of moral value must be shared by all possible persons. — Dan
Notice that I didn't say that you just haven't percieved the ghost. I said IN PRINCIPLE you could never percieve it, no matter what happened. This is alike you and the ghost being two different substances, which can never interact with each other, even in principle. This is incoherent.I don't remotely agree in the case of the ghost. It may well be the case that the ghost exists. — Dan
Exactly, you don't know, but without knowing the genealogy of the concept, how can you go about using it without falling into error? If I know what I have abstracted from in order to form the concept, then I also know how to use the abstraction - what it means.As for how we form the idea of the external world, that is either a very hard question or a very silly one. I am going to assume you mean this in the difficult way, in which case I think my answer is probably "I don't know, but I certainly do have an idea of an external world" it seems completely coherent to talk about an external world, even if we have no direct access to it. — Dan
No we cannot imagine that. Not in any sense of the word imagine - to picture clearly and distinctly in an image what it would be like. Why not? Because no living beings can exist which don't strive for expanding agency and survival - no such beings are possible in a world like ours (because of a few things, amongst which the inevitability of the process of evolution is one). We can imagine it the same way we imagine a square circle - just in words.We can imagine all sorts of aliens that don't share out desires to, for example, grow, or expand their agency or even survive (though that one looks like it might require a bit more mental gymnastics) so these cannot be shared by all possible free, rational agents. — Dan
I don't mind. Even if you're talking of all possible persons, my points still hold, because all possible persons share in those desires I mentioned. It's simply part of what it means to be a person in this world.So yes, I really am talking about all possible persons, including any imaginable alien. — Dan
How about it, Dan? Get your degree? — jgill
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