(Y)

Should I eat pork, should I not eat pork? Should I be vegetarian or vegan? On and on with the splitting of hairs - the differences that don't make a difference (or only a tiny difference). — apokrisis

It wouldn't be a 'tiny difference' to those who believe that such rules are holy writ.

Of course not. To deny metaphysics is not to do metaphysics. That sounds totally legit. — apokrisis

But I'm not denying metaphysics. I'm denying the relevance of metaphysics that isn't trivial.

[Sound of window being slammed, shutters closed, shade wrenched down.] — apokrisis

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

We have to pay attention to fostering the generalised conditions from which a concrete reasonableness is just the way of our world. — apokrisis

We have to...is just the way.. Interesting how you combine those two. Why does anyone have to do what "is just the way".

Exactly. Hence that characterises theists as not naturalists.

But the important thing to note here is that I have successfully bridged the is-ought gap logically — darthbarracuda

I disagree. "Everything I say is true" only implies the truth of moral claims if the set of things you say includes moral premises.

What do you mean? Is there some other conclusion to the argument as I laid it out?

I disagree. "Everything I say is true" only implies the truth of moral claims if the set of things you say includes moral premises. — Pneumenon

What do you mean?

Validity is not the same as soundness.

We have to pay attention to fostering the generalised conditions from which a concrete reasonableness is just the way of our world. — apokrisis

Well, good luck with that; I don't think it will ever work because of the differences in mind sets between individuals.

The is-ought gap stipulates that there can be no valid inference from non-moral claims to moral ones. The "Everything I say is true" argument is only valid if "Everything I say" includes moral statements. If you never make a moral statement, then I cannot infer the truth of a moral claim from your argument.

Should I eat pork, should I not eat pork? Should I be vegetarian or vegan? On and on with the splitting of hairs - the differences that don't make a difference (or only a tiny difference). — apokrisis

This is not the kind of issue I would class as being directly morally or ethically significant in terms of effect on other humans.

But I did make a moral statement.

Well, good luck with that; I don't think it will ever work because of the differences in mind sets between individuals. — John

Yeah. That Enlightenment. What a joke, eh?

Yeah! I'd like to add that I am certainly in agreement with fostering conditions of "general reasonableness", but I don't think that precludes per se any reasonable metaphysics; whether it be materialism, idealism, anti-realism or theism. Surely you would not want to advocate instilling a monolithic culture, would you?

Metaphysics never really matter beyond their content as capital, like everything else. Just don't make shit up, as if you can re-invent a wheel 2,500 years in the making. No one will know this "new shit" you've invented unless it happens to be good enough to have already been considered, and contributed. If it is neither known, and doesn't blow people away, then it's probably shit, it's not that they're all idiots.

Don't believe shit you can't check, or didn't check. Recheck sources again and again and again because your memory can't be trusted for detailed recollection, but only general form. The more internalized and understood the content, the more the symbols can be distilled down into a general principle which isn't reliant on particular details for recollection.

Just get the information right, start to overestimate everyone that you underestimate, and underestimate everyone that you overestimate.

Realize that irony is a mastery of truth, and everything you think is actually the opposite of the truth, no matter what it is.

Then realize that straw is great insulation, and begin to weave the special pants that you'll need for the next step.

A slight issue could be that a pragmatist metaphysics is empirical in its realism. So reasonableness is tied to acts of measurement. That is how it is can be known what differences make a difference. And that sets quite a high bar in terms of the alternatives you mention.

Sure, but you seem to be assuming your conclusion since reasonableness is tied to acts of measurement only on the assumption of the primacy of pragmatist metaphysics.

What do you mean? Is there some other conclusion to the argument as I laid it out? — apokrisis

Yes, any other. The assumption that the goals of the majority are the "right" goals because they are the majority, is an appeal to the majority. It's not justified.
1) The majority can have a lot of horrible consequences. Many examples can be used here (war, human rights violations, etc.). The balancing factor that may or may not work out when this is resolved in some dialectic manner... doesn't negate that horrible consequences happened. It doesn't get resolved in the magic of the balance of the universe (aka.. secular Taoism).

2) You assume what is right is what is tested. How is that assumption justified? I argued in the other thread that the very question of whether more Being is better than non-being is already assumed in your approach. You have a hypothetical imperative and assume this is what is good. You have an irrational Platonic value for testing I guess.. something you railed against.

3) Even if we went with your assumptions (survival is good and desired), testing has costs.. even if in some utopian future when all the testing lead to a more finely "calibrated" result.. the testing had collateral damage to get there. This of course is assuming one can have a utopian-like result.. Of course if you think suffering is structural, it never gets dissolved.

4) What currently exists isn't always the best option.. what is, is not always what is optimal. What happens if one has the wrong judgement of what is optimal? Who is the judge of this? What if something could have went better, but it was unknown as to what this could be? What happens if luck, accidents, and simple preference will always prevent true optimal choices? Then what is chosen by the majority is not optimal either. And if we say, that does not matter, because optimal is only survival no matter the costs or how it gets there, then that still begs the question of why survival. If you say its some other X reason.. it still begs the question. And then that brings us back to point 2 which is why value more Being?

I think you've got your threads crossed.

Moore restated Hume's guillotine as the naturalistic fallacy. That was actually the main basis of most discussion of ethics in the logical schools of the 20th century. — ernestm

A slight issue could be that a pragmatist metaphysics is empirical in its realism. So reasonableness is tied to acts of measurement. — apokrisis

Here's a curiosity. Hume points out the limits of logical reasoning, hence the term 'fallacy'. He does the exact same thing for predictive science, and yet science utterly fails to fall about in confusion, unlike ethics. Perhaps an example will bring out the difference between a pragmatically reasonable explanation of ethics, and a logical justification.

Humans value their offspring highly because they have few of them (compared to an oak tree for instance) and invest heavily in them. Sperm are plentiful, and eggs are fewer and this perhaps explains the different moral attitude to male and female sexuality. What it doesn't do is justify it.

What is odd about discussion of Hume is that he gives values primacy over logical reason; reason is the slave of passion, and one reasons always from values and not to them. If philosophers or religionists value reason over values, they have got their knickers in a twist, and need to take them off and sort them out. Why do they think he has undermined values, when he has rather undermined reason?

Sperm are plentiful, and eggs are fewer and this perhaps explains the different moral attitude to male and female sexuality. What it doesn't do is justify it. — unenlightened

If attitudes are explained as serving a purpose, then are they not justified?

If attitudes are explained as serving a purpose, then are they not justified? — apokrisis

Only in terms of another value - in this case species survival. But as Darwkin explained, the aim of the selfish gene is to go extinct, and most of them achieve it eventually.

I'm not following. Is the idea of there being some value that is at issue. Or is it the fact that the value claimed might be survival and not something else? And so, what value did you have in mind?

For Hume, values are primary. So I explain the value of children in terms of the value of survival. But an anti-natalist denies that survival has positive value. (Genes have no values, are selfless and opinion-less, hence my feeble joke.) But once one arrives at value-zero of life is good, or life is not good, reason cannot adjudicate, because it is always the slave, and not the master. Values - truth, love, beauty, whatever, are the ground of (human) being, and the ground of reason, not the fruit. The difference that makes a difference is itself a value in action, the giving of a damn.

Facts without value are trivia.

I think you've got your threads crossed. — apokrisis

It's all related in this case.

So the usual dualist or idealist position where only the mind can experience value? And truth, love and beauty are platonically real?

Sounds so, welll, primitive.

Sounds so, welll, primitive. — apokrisis

Value outside the mind sounds like, well, equivocation.

Depends whether and how you can define "mind" in a suitably general Metaphysical fashion.

Sounds like you still don't want to answer some questions from earlier.

So the usual dualist or idealist position where only the mind can experience value? And truth, love and beauty are platonically real? — apokrisis

I don't recollect mentioning dualist, idealist or mind, and I'm fairly confident Hume is neither dualist nor idealist. But sure, Hume is primitive; that's the end of that argument.

Not just "metaphysical" but "Metaphysical". Care to elucidate or do you prefer to keep dishing out these empty criticisms?