Ok, I may have misunderstood what you were claiming. Let me ask for clarification: are you saying that a baby does not experience in space and time despite lacking the thinking power know that they are experiencing in space and time?

Just because a baby does not understand well enough, e.g., the difference between themselves and other things and space and time does not entail in the slightest that they do not experience in space and time.

From what I can see you are a jingoist ideologue.

I am not ultra-nationalist; but I am a nationalist. I think you are conflating the two, but maybe I am wrong.

You toe the party line and don't seem particularly interested in how the US will be governed as opposed to ideology.

I am failing to understand the dichotomy here: the US government vs. idealogies. What do you mean?

The idealogy is what is baked into the way the government works—all societies are that way. Everyone adheres to some (in)complete idealogy: are you suggesting there’s something wrong with that?

Says a supporter of the party that tried to overthrow the results of a free and fair election for president in 2020

Trump did try to do that, and I do not approve of that.

The party that refused to consider a Democratic Supreme Court nominee for purely partisan reasons.

I am fine with that: are you saying you wouldn’t want to pick a democrat over a republican if you could choose for the supreme court?!? That doesn’t make sense to me.

It includes such things as registration, permitting, background checks, gun safety, and restrictions on ownership for certain groups, e.g. convicted criminals.

Hmmm, those conservatives, then, I disagree with. E.g., registration is so antithetical to the 2nd amendment. Don’t you agree?

The only one that makes historical and contextual sense is banning ownership for certain convicted criminals (like violent felons): the constitution was written in terms of what reasonably law-abiding citizens would have as protections.

I think they would be approved by even those in conservative states if they trusted it wouldn't lead to more restrictive measures.

I hope not: then we are doomed. People have forgotten the freedoms and rights that the founding father’s wisely envisioned.

I envisioned it being paid for by private funds

That’s fine, and I agree.

This from the guy who wants to send US troops into other sovereign countries to force our ideological preferences down their throats. That's pragmatism?

This is a straw man and a red herring. I am saying that there are situations where countries have a duty to subject other countries to their values—e.g., North Korea, Talibanian Afghanistan, etc.

Republicans want to pretend the way black people have been treated historically is no longer an issue. It turns my stomach.

I can’t speak for all republicans on that (although I don’t think you are right here), but I can say that trying to provide retributions is nonsense and is unfair. You can’t make a right with two wrongs.

I don’t ignore that bad things happened, but turning our society into a identity politics game from a merit-based system regresses society.

The State of Florida has made it part of the school curricula that slaves benefitted from slavery.

Did you actually read it??? I don’t think you did. Here it is: https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20753/urlt/11-3.pdf . They did not censor any of the horrors of slavery in there.

The Republican party is as guilty of this as the Democrats. That's why I want to get us out of that business.

How? Conservatives are trying to get rid of it.

Babies cannot intuit time and space.

When Kant speaks of intuition, he is talking about the innate capacity our sensibility and reason has for attributing spatio-temporal properties to phenomena—not ‘intuition’ in the sense of what our higher-order thinking abilities does.

(and if true, in a rough-and-ready way, defeating Kant's position entirely - but apoditicality would be required, and im not suggesting this.)

With all due respect, this doesn’t even address what Kant is talking about; so, no, I am going to have to say that it would not refute Kant’s position. Babies experience in space and time, which entails that their cognition is representing things with the concepts of space and time which it already has readily at its disposal; and of which the baby is not capable of formulating a concept of with thought.

I would also add, that we have no reason to think time and space aren't inherent in matter

The space and time which are the forms of your sensibility are not in reality—they are the forms that your brain uses to represent phenomena. Whether or not objects themselves have spatiotemporal properties, whether space and time also exist in reality, is a wholly separate question.

Perhaps you're seeing what I'm seeing, but grasping at the gap as significant in theory? Can't quite tell, i'm sorry.

No worries at all. I think you are just misunderstanding Kant’s view, dare I say (;

Perhaps you're seeing what I'm seeing, but grasping at the gap as significant in theory? Can't quite tell, i'm sorry.

That’s true; but there’s still a lot of his view that hasn’t been negated.

Evolution did not design human beings like we design basketball

Correct; but there is still design in it—but it is a different type of teleology (which I call ‘weak teleology’).

That my eye is a product of evolution, does not entail that it is not designed to see in a particular way. You would have to say, e.g., that human beings are not supposed to to have two arms. It makes no sense.

If you don’t like the term ‘design’, then use the term ‘function’: it portrays the same underlying meaning here.

Why, in case after case, do you take his word against women who have nothing to gain by making known what they say has happened to them?
…
What is the reasoning behind the assumption that in case after case after case we should take Trump's word over that of the women?

I don’t take his word for it: I do not convict him because there is a fundamental and important principle called “innocent until proven guilty”.

Believing the accuser without any evidence is always wrong; because it does not establish the necessary evidence to support what the accused was accused of.

All I am noting is that he does not even seem to know her name. This is far different than the romantic date scenario you provide.

It was an analogy to point out that saying “I didn’t even have to wait” does not entail itself a confession of sexual assault.

The real challenge is that they will become the target of just the kind of "reasoning" you provide, where without any evidence they are treated as the evil woman.

I never said we should treat women that accuse men of sexual crimes, who do not have sufficient evidence to prove it, as “evil women”.

It isn't "subjective" what is right or wrong, because it objectively follows from the design, indeed.

So we haven’t explored this far yet, because you denied moral realism. Now that I got you on board with the idea of objective goodness, we have to understand what morality is about in this view: right and wrong behavior. An analysis of behavior, subsequently, is an analysis of the mind—specifically those which have sufficiently free and rational capacities (called persons). What is morally objectively good, then, is the behaviors (and habits) which are in alignment with being an excellent person; and this is relative to the Telos, design, of persons. The virtues for persons, are any excellences of character—i.e., habits of character which allow a person to properly size up to being a person.

The virtues, to put it simply, are the traditional virtues—e.g., justice, liberality, open-mindness, being morally conscientious, courageousness, etc.

Anything developed or created by a person, must be done in an moral way; and this is to say that it must be done in a virtuous and morally permissible way; which is just to say, in a nutshell, that, e.g., any human society that does not promote properly those internal goods to being a person and, more specifically, a human being—although you are right to note that such a society would have objective, internal goods—would be immoral for humans to participate in.

Yep, you are definitely to the right of what used to be considered establishment Conservatism.

I am not sure how that is the case.

that the outlook of educated urbanites is so far removed from your worldview that there is little room for compromise, which is fine with me

What do you mean? I am not following.

so in order to protect the Union we need to devolve as much power to the states as possible

Conservatives love limiting government; and unions are ehhh—I see how they are necessary sometimes, but sometimes they are just another form of the eradication of the free-market.

I also love short visits to Trump’s America, but I can’t live there.

What do you mean? :lol:

But my values are the morally correct ones, and the liberal cities are on the path to hell

Yup. I try to be as open-minded as possible and charitable to opposing positions; but, e.g., California is a shit show.

A core value... complicated, mate.

Haha, I see your frustration. Yes, people on both sides of the political isle are inconsistent in their beliefs.

By American core values, which I am surprised none of the liberals on here called me out on this yet (in such a manner as to bring up all the historically bad aspects of our culture that existed—e.g., slavery), I mean the fundamental moral, political, and metaphysical ideas embodied, albeit imperfectly at the time, in the constitution, the declaration of independence, and the founding fathers.

No, I am not saying that the founding fathers were perfect in their beliefs; but I think we can give them a charitable read and understand what they were going for fundamentally without accepting all the actions and habits they did and had as absolutely correct.

These values, which I did NOT put in order of importance, were:

1. Inalienable rights—e.g., the right to life, liberty, and property. Everyone has certain rights because their nature is such that they are a person.

2. Freedom of religion. Everyone should be able to follow their own notion of what is good, as long as it doesn’t impinge on other peoples’ rights.

3. Freedom of speech and press.

4. The right to not be unreasonably searched.

5. The right to not self-incriminate.

6. The right to bear arms.

Etc.

Liberals are moving away from these core values in the name of social justice.

American core value is gun freedom

Absolutely, Jefferson once wisely said that a rebellion from time-to-time is healthy for rebalancing society just as much as a storm from time-to-time is healthy for the earth’s ecosystem. Government inherently gravitate towards tyranny, and the friction which helps prevent it is the people being well-trained in and capable of owning lethal weapons.

also, you are against censorship, but you would avoid having a LGTBIQ flag in your classroom

I see what you mean; but freedom of speech is not the right to say whatever you want whenever you want. It is the right, ceteris paribus, for a citizen, as having the role of a mere citizen, to say what they want without fear of the government punishing them.

The role a person is currently assuming in society influences their duties. E.g., a cop cannot tell a person false information about the law, a government official cannot give their own opinions at a press conference when they are supposed to be representing whatever the government decided to say, etc.

So, yes, a teacher cannot express in their classroom their own particular opinions on things in a manner such as to indoctrinate their students into believing those opinions. Their job is to teach the kids the curriculum, and ensure their basic well-being.

you claim that it is essential to have different beliefs, but some of you label as 'Communist' the working model of Mondragón (Spain) for not being capitalist enough. 

I’ve never heard of that business structure before, but prima facie it looks good. Nothing about it is communistic nor socialistic (prima facie).

For me, it is to have a strong national healthcare system. So, to you is carrying a M-16 in your big polluting Ford truck.

I think a healthcare system that is actually governed by the free-market would be best; and the right to bear arms is more important: what does good health care do if you can’t protect your rights?

The problem America has with health insurance is that it is giant scam: they have no competition; there’s no transparency; and the whole idea of insurance is purposefully convoluted to make those companies more money. If the government forced them to engage in a free-market just like the old barber shop on the block, then it would be much better IMHO.

I voted for Trump, because I am afraid of what Kamala would have done to our country. My policy is to vote for the lesser of the two evils, and not to abstain in principle. To me, abstaining is a cop-out to not engage in a sticky moral dilemma: either I have to abstain because it would be immoral for me to do anything, or I need to do something about it. In this case, I don't see anything wrong with choosing the lesser of the two evils.

EDIT

I can see there point though: if it were Hitler or Stalin that I had to vote for, then, yeah, I am not voting and am probably going to start trying to overthrow the government.

I provided one but apparently you did not read it.

I did, and, again, women merely claiming be to sexually abused is not sufficient evidence to support that the alleged man did it. That’s poor reasoning, and opens up for innocent men to be convicted of crimes they didn’t commit by evil women.

I don't think her name is "with the gold".

All you are noting here is that he speaks demeaning about women—that’s not a sex crime.

It is predatory behavior.

Perhaps, I could see that in the looser sense of ~”trying to go out and have sex with as many attractive women as possible”. There’s tons of men out there that are f*boys that speak in an overly sexualized way about women—that’s not a sex crime.

What concrete evidence might she have? He attacked her in a department store dressing room.

Yes, and unfortunately, this is the real challenge for sex crime victims: there word cannot be enough to convict someone, but the nature of the crime usually means there’s no further evidence. I am not sure how to help solve this issue, but I do know it isn’t to lower our standards for evidence.

I don''t think there is any good reason to pursue this further.

No problem. I am always here if you want to keep discussing this.

If you regard his action as permissible and imagine that women welcome his advances, there is nothing more I can say to that will make you see just how wrong it is.

I don’t think it is morally permissible; but it is legally permissible. A sex crime happens when you unconsentually do something sexual to a woman, and nothing about his tape nor the other claims of the other women gave sufficient evidence that he did anything illegal. He was speaking about women in an immoral way, but wasn’t confessing to anything illegal.

I'm not sure what you mean with a Telos or internal good

I am talking about the fact that things that have design have goods which are intrinsic to that design (e.g., a good clock is a clock that can tell the time properly and a bad clock is a clock that can tell the time poorly): this isn’t relative to a subject’s belief about it—so it isn’t “subjective”.

It’s no different than:

I don't disagree that Lebron is objectively a good basketball player

Then you agree that there is such a thing as objective goodness; because you just agreed Lebron is objectively a good basketball player.

The problem you are noting is that we invented basketball, but this doesn’t make the internal goods to basketball subjective—that’s the key you are missing. These internal goods are relative to the design, irregardless if that design was imbued by a subject or subjects.

If it were subjectively the case that Lebron is a good basketball player, then I would be equally right to say right now that he is a terrible basketball and you wouldn’t be able to say I am wrong—because no one is actually right or wrong about it.

I am a strong leaning conservative and you seem to be a strong leaning Democrat, so this should be an interesting conversation :smile: . IMHO, the reason the democrats lost is because they have lost the common sense constitutional values. They have been advocating for censorship, prosecution for differing beliefs, essentially the revocation of the 2nd amendment, child mutilation, the disbandment of basic gender distinction in society (like bathrooms), etc. I think America woke up and realized that this is getting out-of-hand; and wants to go back to America’s core values.

Enough with guns already

Every time I discuss gun control with a liberal, they always end up using the phrase “reasonable gun control” to advocate for the infringement of our 2nd amendment rights; and then turn around and say “I am pro-2nd amendment just like you”. The only form of “gun control” that is contextually aligned with the 2nd amendment, historically, is background checks—that’s it. You can’t, e.g., say you are pro-2nd amendment and then turn around and ban the guns that are the most useful for rebelling against a tyrannical government (such as “assault weapon bans”).

One major reason Kamala lost is because she is on record saying that she will violate the constitution to force people to give the government their “assault weapons”.

Also, don’t get me started on the non-nonsensical clowns at the ATF—you gave them an inch, and they certainly took a mile.

provide funding to send transgender students to private schools where they will be more welcome

Who is funding this? It better not be my taxes.

Use government funds to install unisex bathrooms in schools willing to use them.

I’m ok with that, as long as it comes out of the schools’ existing budgets instead of raising property taxes on the community to get a bond.

The main difference I personally find between liberals and conservatives is that liberals tend to think all ideally and conservatives all pragmatically. You say “let’s do this to help with this” and I say “who’s paying for it?”...round and round she goes.

Stop hating white men. No, not everything is their fault. Movements like Black Lives Matter infuriate people. Heck, they infuriate me. And they don’t work.

Agreed. Moreover, let’s stop with the identity politics—it’s nonsense. This is another reason Democrats lost. People want a merit-based society, where race, gender, ethnicity, etc. do not matter. When liberals create, e.g., quotas for diversity based solely on those kinds of demographics (like race), that’s reintroducing racism and what not into the mix. Pick the best people for the job—stop trying to force the outcomes.

I’m a supporter of gay marriage but it cost us a lot.

I am not for gay marriage, but not because I think it is immoral per se (like stereotypical conservatives): it’s because the State has institutionalized marriage for the sole purpose of incentivizing the Human Good (in the Aristotelian sense) which involves, as a generally applicable rule, people having a lifelong, intimate, heterosexual, procreative, closed, and monogamous relationship with someone else. Once you tack on gay couples, there’s no end: why not polygamous? Why not open relationships? Why can’t 50 people go to the county and get married to each other as a group? Institutionalized marriage becomes trivial and, at that point, something, quite frankly, the government shouldn’t be meddling in.

My questions for you would be:

1. Why should the government meddle in gay monogamous marriage but not gay polygamous marriage?

2. If the idea is just to have the State recognize people who are promising their lives, intimately, to each other, then why not like a libertarian stance and get rid of institutionalized marriage altogether? People could still get married in the metaphorical sense.

Keep supporting women’s reproductive rights. This is a good issue for us.

It is a good issue for you, since a lot of people agree in America with you; but, for me, it’s nonsense. You can’t ensure women’s reproductive rights by violating someone else’s rights—that’s immoral.

Stop showing contempt for people you disagree with. I like and respect many Trump supporters whom I’ve met. Of course they show contempt for us too. Too bad. Learn to live with it.

I don’t have contempt for you Clark :heart:. I think both sides need to have more of these conversations.

These is such a thing

I am glad we found common ground on that part of the point; and I agree that granting that there is such a thing as implicit consent does not entail itself that Trump is properly “acquiring” it.

The difference between us is that you think that the tape, which you keep re-quoting, demonstrates a confession out of Trump’s own mouth to kissing women without any kind of consent; and I am not seeing how. What do you think of the part that says “they let you do it”? It seems like, to me, that you are ignoring that part to fit the tape to your narrative—but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

To just assume that women will let him do anything because he is a star is a rapist mentality

I didn’t say nor imply that; and I completely agree if someone were to think that they can do whatever they want simply because they are a star that they have a sex offender mentality. However, Trump didn’t say in that tape that he was just assuming women will let him do it when he does it: he said, and I cannot stress this enough, that “they let you do it”. He was noting that there are perks to being famous, and one is that women are more incentivized to do sexual things with you; and I think we can both agree that that is true. I mean De Caprio still pulls women in their early 20s: same idea.

Some women might let him because they think it might advance their career

That’s consensual, in this case. I cannot stand it when women let a man do something to her as a means towards her own end and then when it doesn’t work out in their favor they cry wolf. Can we agree on that?

but others because they are coerced and worried about what will happen if they don't.

I agree here: this is a form of sexual abuse. 100%.

Grabbing someone and not waiting does not leave time to judge whether they welcome the advance or give them a choice in the matter.

Yes, I concede that he said that he doesn’t even wait; but he also said that they let him do it. So, contextually, the best interpretation is that he means that he doesn’t ask or obnoxiously slowly come onto them for the kiss.

For example, I could see someone saying:

“Yeah, Hannah and I had a great time yesterday. We went on a nice date, and she let me kiss her. I didn’t even have to ask: I didn’t have to wait. She just let me kiss her. It was amazing”.

Do you see what I mean?

In the E Jean Carroll case she did not "let him" do things, she resisted, but he did them anyway.

Yes, she tried to hold him civilly liable for rape and the Jury agreed but only with respect to the common use of the term—so he wasn’t held liable. My problem is that she had no concrete evidence, and waited conveniently until he was very popular in office to do it; and then made a ton of money off of her book about it.

Good practice involves more that just the purpose construed narrowly. It is not simply a matter of the production of crops. To be good practice it must be sustainable. It must limit the negative environmental consequences. Phosphates produce larger yields but are harmful to streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes.

A well designed system is full of smaller systems with their own internal goods that contribute to greater internal goods—e.g., the human body, a society, etc.

Of course, but in practice as well as principle. What makes a good farmer is what she does in practice not principle.

So we agree, then, that there is such a thing as actual goodness—i.e., objective goodness? That was my point.

there is no good reason to think that which excites our perceptions is significantly different from them

The fact that space, time, logic, math, and various core conceptions is not evidence enough that there’s no reason to believe that our perceptions are closely mirrored of things-in-themselves?!?

The idea of a priori concepts is a baffling one, if you're not going to invoke like genetic memory or whatever.

It’s an innate capacity; not memory.

And perhaps why philosophies like Kant's don't make it further than universities... No one relates to this nonsense.

That’s true of all major philosophical movements to a large extent, because people don’t critically think.

I am not sure if I responded to this already, but here we go (again, if applicable).

I'm saying there is no objective badness, and you're turning that into actual badness... as matter of definition it seems.

Yes, that is incoherent to say that something is actually good, but isn’t objectively good.

What is considered good or bad farming is subjective, in that you do have different ways of farming that have different values in mind

No, no. A moral judgment is expressing something objective if its truth is independent of non-objective dispositions; and whether or not someone is good at some form of farming, chess, playing basketball, etc. is objective. E.g., it is not relative to anyone’s beliefs or desires that Lebron is a good basketball player—and, in principle, it couldn’t be the case.

You are confusing moral relativism with moral non-objectivism (such as moral subjectivism).

If over 90% of the people belonged to the same church, why not?

Because the church should have no influence on the state: that usually leads to corruption, persecution, and disaster.

Right to bear arms is in many countries. It really doesn't have to be in the constitution.

Oh, do you mean like a state right? How are they codifying that into law there?

Hey, nobody hasn't used the Hitler card yet. Or have they???

That proponent of a mixture of nationalism and socialism has to appear sometime.

Surprisingly no, they have not yet...everyone’s been hammering Trump. My answer is simple: I don’t promote socialism at all nor authoritarianism (to that degree). By nationalism, I just mean it in the sense as noted in the OP; which I don’t think aligns with Hitler’s version.

What does it mean to let you do it when you don't even wait?

I already explained this to you, and you didn’t address it adequately. There is such a thing as implicit consent and, specifically with kissing, it is commonly accepted that you can kiss a woman without explicitly asking if it’s ok first—it depends, rather, on the circumstances.

By Trump saying “I don’t even wait”, I don’t think he is saying that he BlitzKriegs them so that they don’t have time to say no or gesture him to stay away. All he is saying in that tape, is that women will let you do things to them if you are famous; which is generally very true.

It is not simply about the purpose, it is about the practice and results of the practice.

The practice is relative to a purpose or purposes. My point is that, as generally understood, there is such a thing, in principle, as a good or bad farmer. Nothing you have said has negated this; instead you are sidestepping it by trying to debate what exactly the practice of farming entails.

What are the internal good of chess?

The internal goods are anything that can be acquired that is good relative to what chess is designed for. These are things like competitive skill, strategic imagination, competitive intensity, winning (fairly), etc.

An external good would be like if a person were trying to win chess just for the sake of winning the prize that comes with it.

What is the purpose of chess?

To play a fair, strategic match according to certain rules to determine a winner. That’s the Telos of chess; although people can certainly have other reasons and purposes for doing it. A person who plays chess may not be a chess player in the strict sense of that word; because they may not be playing chess for those internal goods—it may be, e.g., to get revenge on their ex who is really good at chess by beating them.

Is there a point you are trying to make in defining what it means to be good at chess?

That internal goods are objective goods relative to the Telos of the thing in question—there are objective goods to chess. This doesn’t, prima facie, entail that they are morally relevant; but I am building up to that here.

It seems we have moved quite far away from supremacy, nationalism, and imperialism.

It definitely seems like it, but it is important to understand that my view presupposes an aristotelian form of moral realism; and so if you don’t see that then we can’t make much progress—especially if you are not a moral realist yourself at all...

I expounded the evidence that, as far as I could tell, were presented in court: did I leave anything out?

I didn't steer the conversation towards Trump, and it is not necessary to do so to contend with the OP: I am merely entertaining all avenues of conversation that present itself to me.

I just don't agree with what you seem to think follows from definition/is axiomatically true. I don't get what an objective value could mean, how do you find these in the world?

There are no objective values: there are objective, moral facts.

A value is a worth assigned to something by an agent, and so is always (inter-)subjective; whereas a moral judgment can express something about what is actually good or bad, right or wrong, and so is objective.

As an Aristotelian, I would say that there are objective, internal goods to things when those things have a Telos. E.g., a good farmer, a bad chess player, a good watch, a bad human, etc.

Lol. Nobody that doesn't belong to the church isn't forced to participate in the classes

Is it in public schools? That’s a no-no for me.

And btw have you noticed something in the symbolism of the flags of the Nordic countries?

Lol.

So sorry to upset you, but Christianity has been a fundamental part of what has been called Western culture

I never claimed to the contrary. PS: Christianity is also deeply entrenched in Aristotelianism.

That then is quite meaningless

I am not sure I followed, but my point is that people should have the right to bear arms.

The specifics of the current political situation is something that Aristotle could know nothing about.

True, but this doesn’t entail that Aristotelianism has nothing to say about it.

Where is explicit consent? How can there be consent when he does not even wait?
…
Bullshit! His getting away with it and them consenting are two very different things.

I see what you are saying, but no one tends to get explicit consent to kiss a woman: that literally kills the vibe, and women attest this.

Are you suggesting that a man should always explicitly ask to kiss a woman before doing it? I don’t think most women even want that: what they want is for a man to read the situation properly.

Likewise, he said “they let you do it” and he didn’t say “I can do it anyways”.

To your point, the dude is unhinged and unvirtuous; but that tape doesn’t demonstrate he unconsensually kissed women; unless you think it has to be explicated beforehand…

Your good farmer is a hypothetical.

Whether or not a farmer is good at farming is relative to what the purpose of farming is; and this is not relative to anyone’s desires or beliefs about farming. I think you may be conflating conditionals with relativity.

Let’s take another example: a good chess player. There is such a thing as a good chess player, because there are rules to the game of chess; and whatever internal goods exist for chess, which are relative to the purpose of chess, are what is better to obtain in chess; and whatever habits and actions which are more apt to acquiring and preserving those goods in chess are best for chess playing. This is not hypothetical, it is relativistic.

If you think it is hypothetical, then please demonstrate why.

Are you saying that that evidence, that I expounded, is enough to convict someone of sexual assault???

I am not saying that Trump is great, nor that he, ideally, should be president. Yes, it would be nice if the US actually had nominees that were virtuous.....still, this does not negate the fact that our republic is objectively better than Talibanian rule.

He may believe he is so privileged as to do whatever he wants or so delusional that he thinks all women will welcome him grabbing them by the pussy, but bragging about doing this is an admission that he rapes women.

No, no: you are stretching it here. I am trying to be as open-minded and charitable as possible; but that Hollywood tape explicitly states that there is consent, and that he is conveying that women will give you consent when you are famous (which actually tends to be true if you think about it).

but when I give examples of why the claim about being good at farming is problematic, you appeal to a hypothetical, moral anti-realism.

What???

Aristotelianism is a form of moral realism.

I am not denying that one can be a better or worse farmer, but rather that without saying what it means to be better or worse at farming the point is empty

It is relative to the objective, internal goods to farming—viz., relative to what farming has as its purpose.

The question was whether the issue of abortion can be resolved. An appeal to normative ethics has not resolved it. That can be empirically determined.

I genuinely don’t think that colloquial debates about abortion hold up for philosophers in the literature on abortion—irregardless of whether they are pro-choice or pro-life. The colloquial debates have been debunked a long time ago: those have been resolved by normative ethics.

An appeal to ethics gets us nowhere on this issue. Of course it is an ethical issue, but ethicists continue to argue the issue without resolution. The issue of abortion is very much in dispute between ethicists.

We don’t need to appeal to authority to discuss ethics…..

Second, whether or not politics should be governed by ethics, the fact is, it is not

Politics is literally the practical study of justice….which is a sub-branch of ethics. Politics is about how we should behavior and organize ourselves: how could you not say that is morally relevant?!?

It isn't. Nationalism simply includes ultranationalism and jingoism.

:roll:

Forgot the Church of England?

What about it?

Nordic countries like Norway, Denmark have state religions

Fair enough: I didn’t know that. They are inferior for doing that.

Finland the link to Lutheran Church is quite strong still starting from religion taught in schools

Yeah, that’s objectively bad. No one should be shoving a particular religion down the throats of children at a public school—that’s not how it should work.

And only a few countries in the World don't permit citizens owning firearms

I don’t know about that...only three countries that I am aware of have a constitutional right to bear arms: that’s the US, Mexico, and Guatemala.

I am not denying that ethics should play a role in our evaluation of politics, but without specifics the claim is vacuous

Correct. I believe I already noted I am analyzing this through an Aristotelian lens; but maybe that was with someone else.

For example, you said you would vote for Trump even if he is a rapist. In this case it would seem that you put political considerations above ethical.

Not quite. I have to vote for either Trump or Kamala, and both are unideal options. Ethically, when I am forced to choose between two evils, I pick the lesser of them—which, to me, is Trump because his political positions tend to be way better than Kamala’s. This is, firstly, a political analysis and, consequently, an ethical analysis.

It strains credibility to the breaking point to think that this many women just made things up. The fact that he has never been criminally charged does that there is not ample evidence that he is a sex offender.

I haven’t gone through every single one; but it seems like they are baseless allegations (so far) that were conveniently brought to the light once he took office. I find that suspect, but, yeah, he may very well have committed sex crimes: I take charging someone with being a rapist to be a very serious allegation, and so I will not attribute it to someone unless I have solid evidence to back it up. That 27 women have claimed sexual assault does not itself prove sufficiently that someone is a sex offender. Again, he may really have done it; but nothing so far, that I have seen, really proves to a high degree of certainty that he has done it—and I can’t just make serious allegations about anyone without having serious evidence to back it up.

Would you leave him alone with your wife or mother or daughter?

Oooo, I like this. No, definitely not. I am not denying that someone having these many allegations raises my eyebrows; and I would definitely be protective of, e.g., my daughter(s).

If there is 'nothing out there' corresponding to your perception

So, something cannot correspond, from reality, to, one-to-one, your perception: that wouldn’t make sense. Your perception(s) are the aftermath of the intuition and cognition of whatever was in reality that excite your senses—that will never one-to-one map because (1) there are a priori preconditions by which your brain cognizes and (2) your brain is cognizing multiple objects, from those sensations, into one coherent stream of consciousness.

If by this you just meant that there must be something exciting your senses in order for your brain to have the material required to represent (i.e., the sensations), then you are absolutely right.

The coffee. Quite blatantly.

How? The idea of a coffee is inherently spatiotemporal, logical, mathematical, conceptual, etc. All of that is a priori.

The evidence wasn't not very solid: that's why I don't believe he would have been convicted. In criminal court, one needs evidence that implies a conclusion without a reasonable doubt: there's a lot about that case, as far as I could tell from Wiki, that doesn't add up. Unless I am missing something, I find it kind of shocking they even found him liable, other than that it was in New York, because, like I said, all the evidence was just two people saying she told them when it happened, a tape that doesn't actually confess to any sex crimes, and defamation facts.

If a person claims you raped them 23 years ago, they have two people (who didn't actually witness anything) corroborating the story, and an irrelevant sex tape; would you say that you should be convicted on that evidence?

I don't see how you got there.

If there is no actual badness, like you claim, then there is no such thing as a bad farmer. A bad farmer is a farmer that is actually bad at farming—this is not relative to anyone’s beliefs or desires about it.

Not everything is about morality. Morality pertains to human behaviour in relation to the group, by and large.

Anything related to behavior is related to morality; and morality is about right and wrong behavior—not “in relation to the group”.

People can and do value things that don't have a lot to do with morality... and can base their decisions for what to do on that

They shouldn’t.

Geo-political decisions also rarely made predominately on the basis of a morality.

Assuming that is even true, should they? Nope.

It does matter if you rely on your group for survival, which is generally the case outside maybe modern affluent society to some extend. You risk exclusion from the group.

Survival doesn’t actually matter under your view: the best you can say is that if you value surviving then you should care about your society.

It's real enough that a certain group of people, grown up with certain moral institutions and traditions, will have certain moral ideas which make them behave in corresponding ways...

Are those moral principles in those societies expressing something objective...or not? Who cares if it feels real!

Also why should something be objective to actually matter?

That’s what it means: I don’t think you understand what actual goodness entails—it is objective goodness: those are synonyms.

If you say something actual matters, then you are claiming to know at least some moral facts.

If I value something 'only subjectively', I do value it... why should I need something extra to actually matter?

That you actually value something, is not the same as that something actually mattering. In other words, that you actually believe or desire for something to matter does not entail that it actually matters. For something to actual matter, it must matter independently of non-objective dispositions.

CC: @Foolos4

I was just about to message you both about this. I've been researching it more, and, as you noted, it is civil and not criminal case; and so he was not found guilty of sexual abuse but rather, given the jury found it more likely than not (i.e., >= 51% chance), they found that he probably did it. I don't think this is enough evidence to say he is a rapist, although he may of very well done it. He doesn't have a great character: I think we can all agree on that. It interesting though that Carroll didn't file the suit until 2019 (initially): that's suspect.

Let's be real though: he was found liable for forcible touching and sexual abuse not once, not twice, but three times....so, in all probability, there's something there. Reading through the evidence, there's nothing really solid indicating it happened; so I am thinking I might be missing something. Essentially the evidence was two people she told about it, the Hollywood tape, and defamation evidence (e.g., things he said about her in malice).

I honestly don't think he would get convicted of rape nor sexual abuse in criminal court given that evidence.

Come on Bob. I think you know better! Not all women let "a star" do it. And to assume ahead of time that they will is a rapist mentality. But I see that you do go on to admit he is a rapist.

I was just noting that what he said was not an admission that he rapes women. I am not saying he hasn’t done, considering the evidence you demonstrated. I think this is a mute point to debate now, since I agree with you on him being a sex offender.

If good at farming means producing an abundance of crops

You missed the point: if you are a moral anti-realist, then you can’t say there is such a thing as being actually better or worse at farming.

Rather than looking to ethical theory we need to look at what is actually going on.

The circumstances can inform our ethical decisions, but there’s more to it than that: you can’t purely empirically determine what is right and wrong.

And it is not as if there is no dispute on this between those who do understand normative ethics, unless you mean that to understand it is to agree with you

On the point I was making, there isn’t much dispute. It is uncontroversially true, for the vast majority of ethicists, that politics should be governed by ethics (ultimately). Ethics is about right and wrong behavior afterall.

We might agree that there are cases where we should step in, but this ignores the larger question of when we should step in. Should we step in to stop the Russians or the Israelis or Hamas?

I agree, but I am trying to take this one step at a time here. You are denying that we should evaluate politics based off of ethics; so we have to start there first.

To be fair, I responded to Foolos4 right before I sent that to you (: So there is no possible way you would have seen that. The bottom-line is that Trump has done sexually immoral things, for sure. I didn't realize he was actually convicted in court, and got off of a rape charge on a technicality. So that's a fair point Foolos4 was making there.

To be honest, though, I would still vote for Trump over Kamala knowing that. Of course, I do not intent to condone that behavior; but every election is like picking the lesser of the two evils ):

I really wish a philosopher would run for office.

If you are suggesting that Western culture (whatever that may be) is better in EVERY single way that matters I would want to see how you are calculating this?

Because it is the only set of values that separates church from state; gives people as many equal liberties as possible; has the right to bear arms; and is merit-based (or at least used to be). Any society which is missing some of things is not as good (I would say). Maybe we can disagree on the 2nd amendment; but the others seem obviously better than any alternatives.

The best parts, ironically, of eastern countries are the westernized aspects of it—in terms of what really matters politically. Sure, the food may be way better; people may live more healthy lifestyles; etc. But if they don’t have basic rights than that doesn’t really matter—does it?

One such example would be how well other countries around the world have managed to separate religion from state (China and Japan had to create a concept for Religion to talk about monotheistic traditions in the late 19th century)

I don’t know enough about Japan to comment; but China, really? China sends people with religious beliefs to concentration camps….

In Australia the culture has survived in spite of the attempts of erasing it during colonization.

What’s survived? I didn’t follow.

The difficulty is in showing how we can evaluate this in any objective manner.

I am viewing it through an Aristotelian lens, ultimately.

I created a thread sometime ago regarding the premise of 'better languages' and it was met with equal hostility. Some people are just not willing to talk about such ideas.

:up:

I do think European Culture is probably better than US Culture simply because it is not anywhere near as homogenous as US culture. European culture is a patchwork of various traditions and ideas that have rubbed up against each other, and contended with each other (often violently), for millennia.

Interesting, why would diversity make a culture better? I would imagine that a society which is homogeneous and in alignment with the Human Good is the best—not one which has various opinions on what the Human Good is, nor whether to follow it.

The biggest issue is defining what is meant by Western Culture and whether or not the term is at all useful.

True. I am talking about the core western ideas; like democracy, liberties, rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms (for the US at least—Britain, e.g., can take that L on this one), tolerance, etc.

Is supremacy, nationalism and imperialism necessarily 'bad'. I think not.

I have a feeling you are the only one that is going to agree with me on that, lol.

There is no actual objective wrong, only conventional wrongs, yes

Then, you have to deny that there is such a thing as a bad farmer.

Usefull for what, to be able to declare war?

Morality is useful for knowing what the right thing to do or not do is.

It's neither totally realist nor anti-realist I think. Morals are very real in that they exist as conventions for people to follow within certain groups, and are therefor not merely subjective expressions or choices of individuals... but they are also not the things you go looking for and can find as objective facts in the world. We create them over time.

Ok, so it sounds like your view is a form of moral anti-realism; because you are denying that moral judgments express something objective; instead, they are inter-subjective. This is just as meaningless to me as if it were straightforwardly subjective: why should anyone care what some group of people think? It literally doesn’t matter, because you are denying that there is anything that actually matters.

True, and I recanted that claim to @Fooloso4: Trump is definitely a sex offender. There's too much evidence to support this for me to overlook.

That's what I've been trying to tell you: democratic nations don't "take over" other countries to fix those other countries' morality

No, no, no. You missed the point: democratic nations don’t go to war at all based off of a vote—that’s not how it works. You are acting like a democratic nation only goes to war if we vote to.

This opens up the discussion to the question: “what reasons can a democratic nation go to war, which is despite whatever their citizens think?”. I am tacking on one more than you: if another country is doing something really bad—like genocide. So, why do you think otherwise? You can’t say it’s because people wouldn’t vote for it….

Who attacked the Nazi regime just to improve its morals?
And why do you think shifting the subject in every exchange is going to convince anyone of your own moral rectitude?

I didn’t shift the discussion. Here’s what I said:

A war of aggression, for me, is always immoral.

Is going to war with the Nazis to stop the Holocaust a war of aggression? Sure. Is it immoral? Not at all.

You said that a war of aggression is always immoral; so I was asking if you think that a war to stop genocide is then immoral? That’s the logical implication of what you said, and I want to see if you are willing to bite that bullet.

:heart:

I suggest the opposite is the case: you cannot unify any member of government with any of the people it rules over. It’s impossible for someone to represent people she’s never met, for example, and the wants and needs of the people she has met shift to such an extent that to keep track of them all would be impossible. People are only nominally represented by politicians.

Well, it’s about the values that she would profess (and hopefully stick to) which people would vote her in for: that’s the connect between them that you seem to be missing.

I’m not saying the state should do that, only that they cannot do otherwise.

To a certain extent I agree, because I do believe State’s slowly becoming tyrannical over time; so I see your point there. However, that’s one of the main reasons we have guns…..

Look, Jefferson was no dummy: he explicitly stated that a rebellion from time-to-time in a republic is as necessary and good as a storm for the earth’s ecosystem:

Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

- Jefferson to Madison, January 30, 1787

That’s my boy, Jeff.

Imperialism is the expansion of power and jurisdiction. One cannot give aid by establishing a permanent institution and ruling over the victims.

Imperialism is “a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force”. I am just saying that, in giving aid, influencing them into the same values as the West isn’t a bad idea. Is that not Imperialistic to you?

Imperialism suggests occupation and the expansion of power. Implying that this is an act to save victims is nonsense.

You don’t think a US version of Iran would be better? I think so.

The caste system was officially outlawed in 1950 but it still persists in certain parts of India. From what I understand, it is highly controversial in India. It is wrong to say that it persists everywhere in India.

There is overwhelming evidence that it is upheld in the vast majority of their society. There are tons of crimes reports, and tons not reported, that never get investigated because the police there do not care at all.

The Taliban is a wicked force and promotes wicked policies, but I wouldn't say that Afghan society is degenerate. There was pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

Perhaps: I would have to look into it. If it was like Iran, then it was definitely degenerate. However, this sidesteps my point: I was talking about specifically Talibanian rule.

We have Trump's admission that he grabs women by the pussy.

This is what he said:

when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy

That is not a sex crime to grab a woman “by the pussy” if she let’s you do it.

Either way, I see your point and recant my statement:

On Tuesday, May 12, 2023, the Manhattan jury of nine men and three women found the former president liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

He was also, upon reading in to it, found guilty of rape under the common definition but not charged because the definition of rape in that state required the unconsensual penetration to be with a penis and not fingers. So, yeah, Trump definition is a sex offender—good point Foolos4.

Please cite those facts. You like to throw around terms such as 'objectively'. I know you will not agree but values are not facts. The fact is, however, that the belief in equality comes from Christianity not secular sources.

Traditionally, yes, it comes from Christianity. I am not sure how deep we want to get into this, but I am a neo-Aristotelian; so I believe that the chief good is to be a eudaimon because this is what is required to realize and preserve the objective, internal goods to mindhood; and this is just to say that one must be virtuous, in the pre-modern sense, as it relates to the natural functions of the mind. One of those virtues, and the highest of them, is Justice. To be just is to respect a thing for what it deserves relative to what it is (or does); and, so, persons—i.e., beings with a free and rational will—cannot be treated as a mere means but also simultaneously an end-in-themselves. This is what rights are grounded in, and this is also true for Christianity; insofar as it borrows heavily from Aristotle’s ethics.

Objective goods are internal goods, in that Aristotelian sense. I will leave you, for now, with an easy example: the good farmer. The fact that a farmer is good at farming is not hypothetical: it is not relative to the beliefs or desires you have about it, nor that I have about it. This is a form of objective goodness: if you are really a moral anti-realist, then you must deny that there is such a thing as a good farmer, or deny that this sort of objective goodness has any relevance to morality.

What does this mean? Do you think this stands as a reasoned argument?

I was just affirming your question.

In his recent book constitutional scholar Jeffery Rosen argues that the term 'the pursuit of happiness' as used by the Founders traces back before the philosophers of Liberalism to the classical philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero. The pursuit of happiness is deliberative and public minded. It is not self interested but a matter of the 'common good' and 'general welfare'.

Absolutely; and this goes back to the Aristotelian idea that the state should be trying to facilitate the Human Good. ‘Happiness’ should really be translated here as ‘eudaimonia’.

The right to the pursuit of happiness is not the right to do whatever you think will make you happy or even the right to do whatever you want as long as it does not impinge on the rights of other

Oh, I see. That’s not what it means to people in America nor how it is taught. ‘Happiness’ is used in the modern, non-Aristotelian sense now: you follow your own conception of the good—not some objective good. You are right, though, to point out that the founding father’s were entrenched, because of their predominant Christian beliefs, in Aristotelian thought.

No, if we only had to the right to be a eudaimon, then we would not have the right, e.g., to eat McDonald’s everyday—that’s not how Aristotle envisioned it.

No. the fact is that the dilemma of abortion does not resolve. It is a stand off of conflicting rights.

I can tell you that is certainly not the case; although, like I said, people think that because they don’t understand how normative ethics works. You cannot throw someone in front of a train, thereby killing them, to save five people on the tracks: there is not conflict of rights here. That’s not how it works.

Your hypothetical? Do you mean "without grave consequences"? The actions taken by one nation against another should not be based on improbable hypotheticals.

Correct. I was never denying this. The OP is trying to tease out that there actually are forms of these views which are permissible, per se.

Do you think that real world problems are like the difference between stopping the Nazis and stopping people from eating vanilla ice cream?

No, but my point is that we don’t have to have an exact formula of what to tolerate to agree that a nation should step in to stop the Nazis. That’s obviously bad enough to go to war over it—no?