It's not even a pseudo science. It's not at all a science, of any kind. — AmadeusD

Isn't that simply part of what pseudoscience means, namely, "Not a science"?

Given that you didn't address it, I assume you agree that better represents ethics than (1). In that case we have some simple questions to consider:

1. Do you act?
2. If so, do you act for some rhyme or reason?
3. If so, are those rhymes and reasons altogether different than those which guide other people's acts?

This goes back to our discussion in the other thread. You claimed that . I pointed out that , you went on to say that simply have different aims and different 'goods', and then I pointed out that . You did not respond to the claim that food is (deemed) good by all.

Ergo, anyone who acts is already engaged in ethics. The objection that the good is arbitrary and differs with each person is empirically false. If I put a hot coal next to your eyeball I know that you will shrink back, because I understand your (normative) ethics. I know you believe that burning out one's eyes is bad, even if you claim it isn't.

If I choose to read an interesting book, that book is, arguably, choice-worthy. But why? — J

It's odd that you would include the word "arguably," as it defeats your point. And do you think that the book is choice-worthy because it is interesting, or because it was chosen?

This is your objection:

• Count: This book is good / This book is choice-worthy
• J: If you don't say why it is good, or why it is choice-worthy, then you haven't said anything at all.

And your unargued assertion is simply false. To say that something is good or choice-worthy is more than saying nothing at all. One can say why it is good or choice-worthy, but things are good/choice-worthy for different reasons. In no way does one need to say why something is good in order to say that it is good.

It sounds like Socrates and Euthyphro. Is piety whatever the gods love, or do they love it because it is pious? Is something good because it is choice-worthy, or is it choice-worthy because it is good? — J

defined 'good' as 'choice-worthy.' It does not follow that whatever one chooses is choice-worthy (which is the thesis you are grasping at, and which requires dropping your "arguably"). Everyone themselves knows that not every choice they have made was good/choice-worthy. When you regret something you say, "I thought it was choice-worthy but in fact it wasn't. I chose what was not good."

Your objection is like, "If you think a bachelor is an unmarried man, then is something a bachelor because it is an unmarried man, or is it an unmarried man because it is a bachelor?"

If I choose to read an interesting book, that book is, arguably, choice-worthy. — J

So the better way to put your argument is, "If I choose to read a book then that book is choice-worthy." What an Aristotelian would say is, "Anyone who chooses X deems X to be good at the time they choose it." But what is deemed to be good and what is good are not the same thing, and anyone who has ever regretted anything has experienced this fact. They might apologize as follows, "It seemed like a good idea at the time..."

(Note that the shorthand I prefer is "desirable," but choice-worthy is not too far different. Good qua ethics is rooted in the object of "a non-hypothetical ought-judgment.")

I'm afraid that I have some pressing business to take care of. I won't be able to give this the attention it needs for a week or so. So I have to bow out. It's been a good discussion and I'm sorry to have to disappear.

what is deemed to be good and what is good are not the same thing, and anyone who has ever regretted anything has experienced this fact. They might apologize as follows, "It seemed like a good idea at the time..." — Leontiskos

Which a Christian would probably attribute to the unreliability of human reason, tainted as it is by sin, would they not? But then, from the Christian point of view, what is good is not really a matter of choice, is it?

Well, do you feel the same way about "healthy?" When we say that both lentils and eggs are "healthy" are we making the mistake of Molière's doctor? Should we always try to specify the exact way in which they produce health? And the same for running and weight lifting, which are also said to be healthy, but for different reasons, or bloodwork?

The benefit of referring to "health" is that this is the general principle that unifies lentils, running, eggs, weightlifting, etc., in that all promote health. I suppose a reductionist might deny that there is any such thing as health and insist that each be explained in terms of their specific interactions with the human body. Yet such an explanation will invariably also rely on principles, and each instantiation of a principle is different, and so the same demand can be made over and over, in a slide towards multiplicity.

For example, "milk thistle is healthy." What do we mean by healthy in this particular case? "It improves liver health?" What exactly does that entail? "It makes enzymes more efficient?" The same demand that was made of "health" can be made of "efficiency." Why not use the precise biochemical description of how this "efficiency" is achieved in this particular instance and then tie that back to liver function? But that will also invoke principles. And so on.

You could do the same thing with the principle of "lift" as applied to dragonfly wings, helicopter rotors, a delta wing plane, canards, a bi-plane, hawks, etc., since the principle is realized in different ways in each instance, the dynamics of each control surface are different, etc.

The epistemic notions at work at in the post at the bottom of: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/979851

To demand that everything be explained in terms of particulars becomes, at the limit, to make explanation impossible. Goodness is among the most general principles, and it is ends/goals by which proper beings (i.e. not just heaps) are unified and "one," (making a one from a many). This is complicated stuff, the transcendentals. This is why we often find it useful and easier to speak in terms of less general principles, such as health, etc., or to speak of goodness with qualification, e.g. "the best car here for drag racing," as opposed to "the best car without qualification" (if the options are a Ferrari and a VW Rabbit, there is an obvious fact, whereas since good is said primarily of men the goodness of an artifact like a car will tend to be filtered through the needs of a particular man, and a Rabbit might be better if you park in a city or don't want high insurance costs).

"Choiceworthy" is a particular rendering of the Greek, but I am aware of no major ethics which doesn't equate "good" with "what ought to be chosen," so I don't see the real difference here. It seems bizarre to me that someone could be a moral realist and not think we should do what is good. In virtue of what would it be "good" then?

You can see this in the English "desirable." When we speak of "desirable" outcomes in medicine, education, etc., we do not tend to mean "whatever people currently happen to desire." If this was true, dropping out of school would be a highly "desirable" outcome because kids clearly desire it. We mean what is truly worthy of desire, as in "choice-worthy," or "good." Many English uses of desirable become incoherent if it just means "what is desired." A similar association still remains with "reasonable" to a lesser extent.

Thank you for this thorough response, and for taking my plea for enlightenment seriously!

I think your argument has two primary thrusts -- first, that some terms, such as "healthy" and "good," refer to general principles that unite many specific instances, drawing out what they have in common. Thus we can call something healthy without, in each case, needing to specify in exactly what way "healthy" applies. And second, that "choice-worthy" is an example of such a term.

In general, I have no objection to the first point. Universals are fine with me. Though we should be careful when we say:

To demand that everything be explained in terms of particulars becomes, at the limit, to make explanation impossible — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure what limit you're thinking of, but the demand for explanation of a given use of a universal or principle is surely OK, isn't it? Perhaps what you mean is that an appeal to particulars as a way of constructing the explanation of a universal is going in the wrong direction. Given a principle, though, we can always ask that its use be explained in any given instance of its application.

My problems arise with the second point. I'm still not seeing how "choice-worthy" is the same kind of principle or universal as "healthy" and "good". If you'll accept some crude definitions:

healthy = conducive to optimum bodily performance or longevity
good = conducive to spiritual growth, flourishing, and compassion for others
choice-worthy = ?

(The first two definitions aren't meant to be clearly correct; they just represent the kind of filling-out we do when we want to use these terms as universals. You can adjust them as you see fit.)

But what about "choice-worthy"? What is the comparable way of indicating the kinds of qualities or features that it means to describe? I'm at a loss to understand how "choice-worthy" indicates anything other than "a good thing to choose" -- and this doesn't add anything to our knowledge about values, in the way that the definitions of "healthy" and "good" do. So I still feel I'm not getting it.

"Choiceworthy" is a particular rendering of the Greek, but I am aware of no major ethics which doesn't equate "good" with "what ought to be chosen," so I don't see the real difference here — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the difference would be that most other ethics don't use "choice-worthy" as a conceptual building block. Sure, a Kantian or a utilitarian would agree that we ought to choose what's good, but that's almost in passing. They might say that the good is choice-worthy, but not that "choice-worthy" defines the good, or can be of any help to us in further understanding what is good. Sorry, but it still sounds like Euthyphro trying to defend his use of "pious."

We mean what is truly worthy of desire, as in "choice-worthy," — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes! But what is that quality which, like "health" or "goodness", we can point to as "worthy of desire"? As far as I can see, it still has to be defined apart from choice, which makes "choice-worthy" akin to "dormative power".

One more shot at explaining my puzzlement:

Anything that is good is choice-worthy.
"Good" means "choice-worthy."

The first statement seems fine. It's not a definition, it's merely a description, a rule, if you like, about how to understand the conceptual connection. The second is a definition, and I can't make sense of it. Now if all you mean is the first, descriptive statement, then my puzzlement is at an end, and I agree. But if the second . . . I still don't get it.

Well, you've spent a lot of time on this, and if you feel you've said all you can, feel free to let it go.

I'm not sure what limit you're thinking of, but the demand for explanation of a given use of a universal or principle is surely OK, isn't it? Perhaps what you mean is that an appeal to particulars as a way of constructing the explanation of a universal is going in the wrong direction. Given a principle, though, we can always ask that its use be explained in any given instance of its application

It's fine to ask why a particular thing might be considered healthy, or to inquire into what "health" is. What makes explanation impossible is if we are to demand that all universals in an explanation be reduced to particulars. For instance, if you ask "what makes lentils healthy," the explanation is surely going to invoke a number of other principles and universals.

It's going about things in the wrong way in that, while particulars are better known to us directly, principles are better known in themselves. We all have an idea what health is, how we might apply it across plants and animals, etc. Now, if you go outside most places you can find plenty of insects. They are better known to us in that we can go right out and observe them. But there are millions upon millions of insect species, and what it means for each to be healthy varies by species. And this is, in part, why the principle health is better known in itself.

My problems arise with the second point. I'm still not seeing how "choice-worthy" is the same kind of principle or universal as "healthy" and "good". If you'll accept some crude definitions:

healthy = conducive to optimum bodily performance or longevity
good = conducive to spiritual growth, flourishing, and compassion for others
choice-worthy = ?

If the Good is "that towards which all things strive," then it ends up implying "choice-worthy." Something is choice-worthy vis-á-vis some end if it leads to that end. I wouldn't say "good" is synonymous with "conducive to spiritual growth, flourishing, and compassion for others." A "good knife" is presumably one that cuts well, which isn't directly related to flourishing. A "good knife to give a child," might be a dull knife though. The end matters. Flourishing (happiness) is associated with the Good in that it is sought for its own sake, whereas other things (e.g. cutting things with a knife, buying a knife, driving somewhere) are all sought for the sake of something else (Chapter I of the Ethics).

Whereof you get quotes like St. Maximus' "Nothing... is evil. It is not food that is evil but gluttony, not the begetting of children but unchastity, not material things but avarice, not glory but vainglory. It is only the misuse of things that is evil, not the things themselves.”

The relation to the ultimate end determines goodness, but we also speak of goodness vis-á-vis particular, finite ends. The F-15 has been a suburb fighter airframe for instance, but whether fighter aircraft are generally a means to good ends is a different question.

So to your later question, something is choice-worthy according to some end (and the end itself can also be considered choice-worthy or not).

Sure, a Kantian or a utilitarian would agree that we ought to choose what's good, but that's almost in passing

I don't see how this is the case. Utilitarianism is about what is good for its own sake, which is what we should pursue, which is the same thing as saying it is choice-worthy. It's not just that there is no ethics where what is good is not considered desirable/choice-worthy, it's also unclear to me how one could even argue that something is "best" but ought not be sought (except as qualified by pragmatic concerns, i.e., "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.") That would be saying: "the worse is preferable (more choice-worthy) to the better," which seems like a contradiction in terms. Hence, "no one knowingly chooses the worse over the better but for weakness of will or some other constraint."

To use David Bentley Hart's example, even Milton's Satan has to say "evil be thou my good," because it would be incoherent to say "evil be thou evil to me," and then to pursue it. Even in self-harm, self-harm is considered to be an end worth pursuing.

But I agree that something isn't good because it is choice-worthy. A thing is good relative to leading to some end, and choice-worthy if that end is sought (if the end itself is good). The two converge though. If God and theosis are the "highest good" then it follows that they should be pursued above all else, and thus are most choice-worthy.

In a similar way, we might talk about things being good or bad for a plant (helping or hindering its natural ends) but a plant cannot be said to be choosing.

Let's try this. Find an online version of the Euthyphro and copy from 10a - 11c. Then replace "piety," "loved by the gods," etc. with the various forms of "good," "goodness," "choice," "choice-worthy," etc. that we've been using. It's easy to do; takes about 10 minutes; and it helps to actually replace the terms on the screen so you can see it clearly. The conclusion Socrates comes to, at 11b, is now "But that which is choice-worthy, is chosen because it is good, not good because it is choice-worthy."

Can you find any way that Socrates is now incorrect, in this passage? As best I can read it, it's the exact same argument, pointing out the exact same flaws. But see what you think.

But I agree that something isn't good because it is choice-worthy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Then, following Euthyphro, you would have to withdraw your definition of "good" as "choice-worthy." But again, if all you're saying is "Anything that is good is choice-worthy" (a fact rather than a definition; "anything that has X, also has Y"), we have no disagreement. Your original language, "If 'good' is taken to mean 'choice-worthy' as it often is . . ." certainly seems to be definitional, but perhaps you were merely offering a synonym.

But again, if all you're saying is "Anything that is good is choice-worthy" (a fact rather than a definition; "anything that has X, also has Y"), we have no disagreement.

Then we have no disagreement. I only framed it in that way because, as respects ethical decision-making for finite ends, you can use the two almost interchangeably since what is better will be more choice-worthy than what is worse (unless the "worse" is better vis-á-vis some other end that is also sought). It is easier to talk about what is choice-worthy IMO because it avoids getting into the metaphysics of Goodness.

The Euthyphro dilemma seems different to me. That respects if something is good because it is chosen or if it is chosen because it is good (that something would not be good unless it is chosen, which makes the choosing inscrutable). The answer of Protestant voluntarism is the former (God's will being inscrutable), the answer of classical metaphysics is that God is Goodness itself, and that all finite goods are good by participation in this Good, which requires a detour through the metaphysics of Goodness to properly explain. But both would allow that what is more good ought to be chosen over what is less good (i.e. that it is "more desirable" even if we don't currently desire it).

Then we have no disagreement. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yay! :grin:

But both would allow that what is more good ought to be chosen over what is less good (i.e. that it is "more desirable" even if we don't currently desire it). — Count Timothy von Icarus

And here too, no problem -- because we're both saying that being choice-worthy depends on something else. We can't use choice-worthiness itself as an explanatory element ("Well, I chose it because it was choice-worthy.") Nor desire either, of course.

You can see this in the English "desirable." When we speak of "desirable" outcomes in medicine, education, etc., we do not tend to mean "whatever people currently happen to desire." If this was true, dropping out of school would be a highly "desirable" outcome because kids clearly desire it. We mean what is truly worthy of desire, as in "choice-worthy," or "good." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right. For the intellectually honest inquirer, this should be basic.

I only framed it in that way because, as respects ethical decision-making for finite ends, you can use the two almost interchangeably — Count Timothy von Icarus

If the two terms are to be used interchangeably, then what we have is a definition, namely a definition of goodness qua ethical deliberation.

The Euthyphro dilemma seems different to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, it is entirely different. The vague appeal to Euthyphro is just more hand-waving:

↪Count Timothy von Icarus defined 'good' as 'choice-worthy.' It does not follow that whatever one chooses is choice-worthy (which is the thesis you are grasping at, and which requires dropping your "arguably"). Everyone themselves knows that not every choice they have made was good/choice-worthy. When you regret something you say, "I thought it was choice-worthy but in fact it wasn't. I chose what was not good."

Your objection is like, "If you think a bachelor is an unmarried man, then is something a bachelor because it is an unmarried man, or is it an unmarried man because it is a bachelor?" — Leontiskos

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We can't use choice-worthiness itself as an explanatory element ("Well, I chose it because it was choice-worthy.") — J

The sophistical fallacy persists. "Everything that is chosen is eo ipso choice-worthy, therefore choice-worthiness cannot be an explanation for choosing." Any honest interlocutor should be able to recognize that the antecedent is false. It's as if @J hasn't the faintest idea what the word "worth" means. He might also fallaciously claim that there is nothing explanatory about the claim, "I paid 100 dollars for it because it is worth 100 dollars."

...Note how it is also myopic to relegate the whole discussion to retrospect, for ethics also involves suggestions like, "You should pay $100 for it because it is worth $100." The fallacy loses even its prima facie purchase on this sort of future-looking counsel.

(This forum is riddled with Moliere/Poquelin's shoddy logic.)

Which a Christian would probably attribute to the unreliability of human reason, tainted as it is by sin, would they not? But then, from the Christian point of view, what is good is not really a matter of choice, is it? — Wayfarer

It would only be voluntary in a corporate sense, "in Adam." Original Sin flows from a choice, namely Adam's choice. Christian metaphysics is going to see humanity as a kind of corporate/bodily entity, such that the actions of one bear on another.

But I agree that something isn't good because it is choice-worthy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

J's premise is that anything that is chosen is choice-worthy (and therefore "good"). Again, this is false, and it results in the fallacy that choice-worthiness (and goodness) cannot be an explanation for choosing (and that worth cannot be an explanation for a valuation).

Your word "because" is too ambiguous for the disagreement. If we restrict ourselves to the sphere of ethical deliberation,* then what is good is what is choice-worthy. They mean the same thing in that context, and choice-worthiness is meant to function as a semantic explanation of goodness (qua ethical deliberation). An Aristotelian could equally agree that an ethical choice isn't good because it is choice-worthy. Rather, the goodness of an ethical choice is its choice-worthiness. Similarly, someone is not an unmarried man because he is a bachelor. Rather, an unmarried man is a bachelor.

Euthyphro subordinates an essence (piety) to an opinion (god-loved). If someone said that whatever is chosen is good then you could parallel the Euthyphro. But no one has said that. "Chosen" and "choice-worthy" are not the same thing. This is a strawman.


* Or simply ethical deliberation simpliciter.

:up:

Yes, I agree. The connection only breaks down as we move out of the human ethical sphere. Hence the example of plants. Something might be "good or bad" for a plant, but living things that possess only a vegetative soul do not really participate in choices (and arguably even those with a sensitive soul don't rise to the level of "choosing" in the way that those with an intellect do).

But I think this highlights something helpful, which is that, without something that is chosen for itself, goodness (and choice-worthyness) dissolves into an endless multiplicity. In this case, anything is only ever good as respects some end, and that end is only ever good as respects some other end, etc., in an infinite regress. IMHO, this is why appeals to "pragmatism" to paper over epistemic and moral relativism/nihilism are ultimately flawed.

Likewise, if Hume is right and all desire ultimately rests on what is irrational, then man cannot determine or prioritize his own desires based on which are "truly best." All we will have is Nietzsche's clash of desires. Yet the desire for truth and "what is truly best" supposes a sort of intellectual desire. Such intellectual desire goes beyond all sensuous appetite and the passion. It has to. It must be able to ask of any and all appetites or passions "but is it good that I should feel this way?"

To me, this capacity for intellectual desire seems obviously essential to meaningful freedom and self-determination. We need something like Harry Frankfurt's second-order volitions, the ability to desire to have (or not have) other desires. Else we would simply be impelled forwards by inchoate and unfathomable desires (unfathomable because they cannot be known and chosen as "truly good.") As R. Scott Bakker puts it, we would be slaves to a "darkness that comes before" the light of intellect.

Moreover, if many disparate goods are sought for their own sake we still face a multiplicity problem. Yet if we are ordered to an infinite (or highest) good (actual or merely ens rationis), there is no such difficulty. This desire for an infinite good is exactly what we find in man at any rate. Even atheists such as Leopardi come to this conclusion. There is no finite end to desire, but instead the desire to "be gods." Yet its also unclear why, if materialism is true, such a desire for the infinite should exist. All desire should find full satisfaction in accessible goods.

David Bentley Hart has a pretty good essay on the phenomenology of this, looking at the idea as presented by Nicholas of Cusa (and to a lesser extent St. Gregory of Nyssa) in "You Are Gods." It ends:

In Christ’s human—which is to say, rational—nature, we see the rational human spirit in its most intimate and most natural unity with divine Spirit, which is absolute reason, and the most intimate and natural unity of human intellect with divine intellect.31 And so on. One should not let the sheer grandiloquence of these apostrophes to the God-man distract one from their deepest import, or from the rrigorous logic informing them. Because what Nicholas is also saying here, simply enough, is that in Christ the fullness of human nature is revealed precisely to the degree that it perfectly reveals the divine nature of which it is the image, and that human spirit achieves the highest expression of its nature only to the degree that it is perfectly united with divine Spirit. That is, in Christ we see that the only possible end for any rational nature
is divine because such also is its ground; apart from God drawing us from the first into ever more perfect union with himself, we do not exist at all. We are nothing but created gods coming to be, becoming God in God, able to become divine only because, in some sense, we are divine from the very first

Which is not to say that this phenomenology and analysis of rationality leads to the specific revelations of Christianity. It might lead as well to Neoplatonism, some forms of Romanticism, New Age syncretism, etc. Rather, it shows that the atheistic assumptions best represented by Hume, that the human desire for an infinite good can simply be dismissed as a sort of confused mathematical induction on finite goods (e.g. just adding +1 to the goodness of some beneficent father figure without end) fails to really take the issue seriously, both the presence of the infinite good as an intentional object (if not an actuality), and its role in making goodness a coherent unity. The latter is what allows for any rational agency that doesn't ultimately bottom out in inchoate, unknown desire, i.e. the capacity to choose things because they are truly best and are known as such.

Also, "if something is chosen it is choice-worthy" would imply that people are infallible as to what is best for them and can never make "bad choices." This gets back to the example of smokers who give "rational reasons" for why they do not want to quit smoking. I am not saying that we can say that the recalcitrant smoker is necessarily wrong about the relative benefits of smoking of course, just that their "reasoned choice" in no way implies that they are always correct either. In general, I think we have good reason to believe they are normally wrong.

But there are more obvious examples. I made a reasoned choice about buying a van off Carvana. I wasn't able to look under it when I picked it up. When we put it up on the lift it was leaking transmission fluid everywhere; the transmission had been fixed up just enough to get it to be able to drive off the lot. Clearly, my reasoned choice about my best interests was wrong.

Yes, I agree. The connection only breaks down as we move out of the human ethical sphere. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I agree. :up:

But I think this highlights something helpful, which is that, without something that is chosen for itself, goodness (and choice-worthyness) dissolves into an endless multiplicity. In this case, anything is only ever good as respects some end, and that end is only ever good as respects some other end, etc., in an infinite regress. IMHO, this is why appeals to "pragmatism" to paper over epistemic and moral relativism/nihilism are ultimately flawed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and I think a big part of this conversation is to repel, "Morality as a set of hypothetical imperatives." That is an important ingredient, and I can see that you were speaking to it earlier.

To me, this capacity for intellectual desire seems obviously essential to meaningful freedom and self-determination. We need something like Harry Frankfurt's second-order volitions, the ability to desire to have (or not have) other desires. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and attendantly, when we make a choice we are deeming our election choice-worthy, but we could also come to regret (or confirm) it a minute, hour, or year later. Choice-worthiness is an important and non-vacuous concept. (As is goodness!)

Moreover, if many disparate goods are sought for their own sake we still face a multiplicity problem. Yet if we are ordered to an infinite (or highest) good (actual or merely ens rationis), there is no such difficulty. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and precisely insofar as the infinite or highest good places the goods which are sought for their own sake into a hierarchy, or at least subordinates them to the highest good.

David Bentley Hart... — Count Timothy von Icarus

That is a good quote. It reminds me of Gaudium et Spes:

The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light. For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown. — Gaudium et Spes, #22

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...and its role in making goodness a coherent unity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

An interesting idea.

Also, "if something is chosen it is choice-worthy" would imply that people are infallible as to what is best for them and can never make "bad choices." This gets back to the example of smokers who give "rational reasons" for why they do not want to quit smoking. I am not saying that we can say that the recalcitrant smoker is necessarily wrong about the relative benefits of smoking of course, just that their "reasoned choice" in no way implies that they are always correct either. In general, I think we have good reason to believe they are normally wrong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and we can even say this, particularly the bolded proposition:

So the better way to put your argument is, "If I choose to read a book then that book is choice-worthy." What an Aristotelian would say is, "Anyone who chooses X deems X to be good at the time they choose it." But what is deemed to be good and what is good are not the same thing, and anyone who has ever regretted anything has experienced this fact. They might apologize as follows, "It seemed like a good idea at the time..." — Leontiskos

So J's vacuity argument could be applied to an assertion like, "At the time I chose X I deemed X to be choice-worthy." But this is a very narrow assertion, and is very far from what is required to sustain J's conclusions.

In general the fact of human regret throws the subjectivist's thesis into confusion. If nothing were good beyond my desires, or beyond what I deem good, then regret as well as second-order volitions would be impossible.

It would only be voluntary in a corporate sense, "in Adam." Original Sin flows from a choice, namely Adam's choice. Christian metaphysics is going to see humanity as a kind of corporate/bodily entity, such that the actions of one bear on another. — Leontiskos

Interesting take on this is Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety. He is without mercy on Luthor, Catholic dogma, and others as they proceed fail to explain at all ("thought gets nothing") how the actions of the one (Adam, the first sinner) bear upon another, and here I assume you mean the rest of us, "the race" as Kierkegaard puts it. As it traditionally stands, no sense can be made at all out of this "original sin" unless there is a connecting similarity between us and Adam, meaning Adam's sin must be our own sin and a way that makes some sense. Otherwise Adam stands entirely apart from the rest of us.

You don't have to be a Christian to appreciate his analysis. Many think Kierkegaard went too far. Seminaries try to keep clear because of just this kind of thinking: the sin of all humanity lies with its fixation of all that is not God, bluntly put, and this fixation is culture itself, religious culture especially. Of course, being fixated on God has to do with one's spiritual constitution, and Heidegger will use this (not giving due credit at all. Called K a religious writer, pejoratively) in Being and TIme. But what Heidegger will call dasein, Kierkegaard, arguably, calls inherited sin, keeping in mind that MOST of dasein is language and culture (we are mostly "the they").

What is faith? (OP)

IME, "faith" is a path (bias/habit à la Žižek's 'ideology') of least cognitive effort:

1. (worldview) folk belief – fantasy – that impossible things (can) happen (e.g. supernaturals, spirits, superstitions, magic).

2. (religion) unconditional obedience (devotion, self-sacrifices) to hearsay accounts (e.g. myths, rituals, laws) about a deity (i.e. an "absolute" authority).

What about faith in oneself or faith in one’s ability, this has nothing to do with religious faith, and inspires confidence in outcome.

For example I have faith that I will beat my friend at tennis tomorrow. This faith is grounded on my ability. Perhaps I could substitute the word faith with confidence yet this would merely be linguistic.

Perhaps I could substitute the word faith with confidence yet this would merely be linguistic. — kindred

Indeed, that’s generally what I recommend. If you have a good reason for believing something, you don’t need faith. Reasonable confidence in one’s skill and training based on evidence is not the same as faith. Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel.

Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel. — Tom Storm

Yes they do. Faith that something exists (i.e. god) without any proof is the religious type and not much different to saying I have faith that it will not rain tomorrow. It’s speculative.

The speculation that it will not rain tomorrow has two outcomes either it will or it won’t yet faith had nothing to do with the outcome because the result is natural either way.

To believe in the supernatural without proof and faith alone is to immunise yourself against empirical scrutiny as the believer has no obligation to provide proof as to the deity’s existence (which may or may not exist).

But what does faith have to do with the deity’s existence when it either exists or doesn’t ? Does it merely leverage one’s bet that it does exist ? If so is this not futile ?

What about faith in oneself ... — kindred

What about it? That's nothing to do with the thread topic and mere equivocation.

Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel. — Tom Storm

:up: :up:

What about it? That's nothing to do with the thread topic and mere equivocation. — 180 Proof

The OP asks what faith is so I provided my example which is faith in oneself. Faith does not necessarily have to have religious connotations as such.

Read the OP and the rest (almost all) of this thread. The predominant context within which "faith" has been discussed so far is religious.

Yes they do. Faith that something exists (i.e. god) without any proof is the religious type and not much different to saying I have faith that it will not rain tomorrow. It’s speculative. — kindred

Some theists attempt an equivocation fallacy by equating faith in God with faith in things like air travel. — Tom Storm

If you identify a difference use, you don't get to just declare your use correct and the alternative use incorrect. The OP asks what is faith, and it's clear it's used differently by different groups.

That is, you're as much guilty of the equivocation as they are if there is no agreed upon definition.

What you've identified is the Jerusalem/Athens distinction, where the former holds to more traditional Judaic/Hebrew Bible (OT) views and the latter is more Hellenstic. https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/three-ways-to-think-about-athens-and-jerusalem/?srsltid=AfmBOooWxM6LOKIjLvfZUHucvTbwFRRRsre7eNMfS4Lep2Q7vGkUzRRR

Old school faith versus philosphical reasoning is a way to think about this distinction, and it should come as no surprise you would be biased towards the Athens approach.

Faith in the OT was trust in the power of God, not in a belief in God without evidence. Thematic throughout the OT is the Hebrews following and trusting in God and their prospering and their doubting God and straying and their being punished.

They did not wander in the desert for 40 years and have Socratic debates about what God is, what "the good" is, or whether he could exist. His existence was a given, and it was based upon their seeing plagues, seas parting, and manna falling from heaven. Even after the empirical evidence (the miracles) ceased, God's existence was never challenged, but only the extent of his power was challenged.

So, yes to a biblically based theist, they would refer to faith in the same way as theyd say they trust the plane will land safely in the sense they trust a bigger plan being in place, but they don't actually ask if God exists. That matter is foundational.

If you identify a difference use, you don't get to just declare your use correct and the alternative use incorrect. The OP asks what is faith, and it's clear it's used differently by different groups.

That is, you're as much guilty of the equivocation as they are if there is no agreed upon definition. — Hanover

Not really. I agree the word is used differently. I'm explaining why I make a distinction and advocating for my preference. This is a site devoted to hairsplitting definitions, so I don’t think this was remotely off track.

But let's look at the example again. Comparing faith in God with faith in plane flight, say, seems to conflate two very different things. When an evangelical says (as they often do; and I’ve heard this from Catholics too), “But you atheists live by faith all the time,” they’re committing an equivocation fallacy.

They’re comparing faith in air travel (something we can demonstrate exists, something based on empirical evidence, engineering, and training) with belief in a god, which is an idea we can’t even properly define. That seems like faulty reasoning to me.

When I board a plane, I’m not taking a leap of faith in the same sense that a theist might use the word. I know that airplanes are real physical objects, built through well-understood principles of aerodynamics. I know that pilots are trained extensively, undergo certification, and are subject to routine evaluation. I know that aircraft are maintained by engineers following strict protocols, that the air traffic control system is in place to coordinate safe routes, and that there are black boxes and regulatory investigations when things go wrong. All of this is grounded in observable, repeatable, testable processes.

So when I "trust" a plane to get me to my destination, it's not a blind or metaphysical faith—it's a reasonable confidence based on experience, statistics, and a mountain of evidence. That’s a far cry from faith in a deity, which lacks comparable foundations. Equating the two just muddies the waters.

I think these differences are worth pointing out since they are overlooked by some theists.

When an evangelical says (as they often do; and I’ve heard this from Catholics too), “But you atheists live by faith all the time,” they’re committing an equivocation fallacy. — Tom Storm

I think they are mean you too have foundational beliefs that lack empirical proof, like causality and the existence of other minds. If causality isn't provable, it's equally as logically to assert teleological explanations are valid.

To the extent you have faith that a plane won't crash, that's just probabilistic reasoning, so I'd agree that's not really faith. That's just playing the odds.

I think they are mean you too have foundational beliefs that lack empirical proof, like causality and the existence of other minds. If causality isn't provable, it's equally as logically to assert teleological explanations are valid. — Hanover

In my experience (and I’ve debated many in person), they generally point to specific things like flight, crossing roads, or the efficacy of medicine. The more philosophically inclined ones - presuppositionalist Christians - are more likely to take the path you mentioned. Yes, we all hold presuppositions.

The claim “atheists live by faith too” trades on a confusion about what faith means. Atheists acknowledge basic assumptions but generally would treat these as provisional and open to revision, not sacred truths. Foundational beliefs like causality are not equivalent to teleological or theistic explanations, because they don’t posit an agent or a purpose we must subscribe to without evidence.

To the extent you have faith that a plane won't crash, that's just probabilistic reasoning, so I'd agree that's not really faith. That's just playing the odds. — Hanover

I wonder if it's even that. As long as we don't have "fear of flying", aren't we just going along our way without giving it much thought? Like crossing the road (a car could run me over), walking on sidewalks (a flower pot could fall on my head) etc.

We do engage in probablistic reasoning on occasion, like when we look at a cloudy sky and wonder if we should take an umbrella. But even then a large part of the decision might be not wanting to carry around that inconvenient thing. (I'd think how much anticipation of potential effect translates into imagining the event and thus making it more or less acute at the moment of decision also plays a role. For example, I'd be more inclined to worry about a planecrash, if I've survived one before - but the difference isn't a re-evaluation of the risk, it's likely a greater vividness in imagination.)

I feel like "playing the odds" is as much an ex-post interpretation of our day-to-day conduct as "having faith". And as such I could accept something like "I have faith in God (or a bigger plan, or whatever), and you have faith in statistics," as a provisional resting point to figure out what's going on. But it's difficult for me to see beyond that point: I don't know what faith is supposed to do here. I can't really pin down the common ground. Whether you have faith in God or not, whether I believe in odds or not, planes crash, and when we're in a crashing plane that sucks (I'd probably be at least a little distracted from fear of dying by being horribly airsick - a blessing?). And for me that's all there really is to say about this.

So would you say, I arrive somewhere else after a branching point, or I just stop and settle down on the branching point (I could sell people lemonade as they pass by towards their teleological or stochastic destinations)? Or if we include the social aspect, am I just going off-road, since I don't get along with the way that people maintain the roads? (Is this metaphor even useful?)

The thing is this: it's my experience that whether my outlook seems to me to align with someone else's is not something I can predict from the single information of whether they believe in God or not. I'm far more likely to find common ground with, say, a Christian fideist than with say Christopher Hitchens. How, if at all, is this meaningful?

I do find the question of what faith is intellectually interesting (hence I'm here in this thread). But I don't find it impacts my day-to-day life much at all, except when it comes to the rhetoric involved. Let's say I'm sitting next to a priest in a crashing plane; if he we trying to calm with the usual rhetoric I wouldn't doubt his good intentions, but it wouldn't calm me - it'd be a nuisance. I'd spend my last few minutes on earth humouring a theist. (But then, that's just the life of an atheist in a predominantly theist country. In a predominantly theist but also predominantly secular country, the irony of the matter is that you usually don't have to confront that rhetoric - with the exception being moments of crisis, which is also when you're least likely to have the mental energy to spare to deal with this. People who find God-talk calming don't tend to understand this, or at least there doesn't seem to be a contingency plan for such situations in place [if I can't say this, what else is there to say?]).

Very often "you have faith, too" is a genuine attempt at finding common ground. It's probably here where there's a practical interest beyond just the intellectual curiosity. But depending on where you are more often, equally often, or less often it's also an attempt to errect a barrier and either lure you over or use you as foil to solidify the barrier. (I'm in a less-often place. It seems I'm lucky.)

The claim “atheists live by faith too” trades on a confusion about what faith means. Atheists acknowledge basic assumptions but generally would treat these as provisional and open to revision, not sacred truths. Foundational beliefs like causality are not equivalent to teleological or theistic explanations, because they don’t posit an agent or a purpose we must subscribe to without evidence. — Tom Storm

:100: :up: