I know nothing of him, but he's said to be a bit nuts, so I'd vote for him assuming he can run with a football.

, in the video Herp-a-durp stepped on another dude's head and that counts `as a score, I get it. As for the connection to politics, is this how you decide which laws get passed in 'Murica? Party members step on each other's heads and those with the least brain damage get to make the laws? ...Plausible — Baden

Now you've put me on a mission to find a crazy Irish politician so I can retaliate and divert. Let me get to Googling and I'll be back in a few.

My dad was in diapers when he was 20?

Now I know where I inherited my pervyness.

You and Banno appear to advocate that some knowledge/information is missing unless one undergoes the experience for themselves. As I see it, that is not a rejection of the ineffable, but an endorsement. — Luke

Exactly.

As I noted in a prior comment, the concession that the experience is not wholly conveyable in language concedes (1) that experiences are divisible into qualia, where some portions of the experience are conveyable and some not, and (2) that language is an interpretative act, offering a generalized glimpse into the experience, but not equivalent to it.

As to #1, I think it actually goes beyond that because if we can't accurately convey parts A, B, and C of an experience, I see no reason why we should think we could accurately convey D, E, or F, meaning the entire experience and all experiences are ineffable. If there are portions of the experience that are capable of being perfectly conveyed, I'd like to know what those portions are and why. It sounds like we're about to go down a Lockeian sort of division of the mental world, where there are primary qualities of mental events that can reduced perfectly to language and secondary sorts of ones that cannot. Sounds like a failed enterprise of trying to draw false distinctions. Where we'll end up is that all is ineffable or all is fully describable. It's equivalent to the direct realism versus indirect realism debate. Either we see all the world just as it is or none of it.

As to #2, if we start claiming distinctions between what we experience and what we talk about, we're in the murky world of metaphysics that I thought Wittgenstein was trying to avoid. That is, we're back to dealing with what there is versus what we can speak of, and if it appears that all experiences are ineffable (per #1), then we must remain silent about everything (a pleasant thought).

Walker is from my alma mater — jgill

A long line of Hanovers went to UGA. One's now in Colorado. Son, is that you?

Leaving that aside, the guy seems to be a scumbag from just about every angle. If you do vote for him, for the love of Yahweh at least have the decency to lie about it afterwards. — Baden

Herschel was a hell of a running back, which usually translates into an equally amazing upper legislative chamber member.



BTW them Dawgs is #1 right now, probably will win the national title. Coinkidink? I think not.

I read your post by skimming down the middle of it, so if I say something that doesn't really respond to it, it has to do with my reading style.

I think the win for Trump here is that with a Republican majority in the House, the investigative committee against him will be disbanded and then they can go about the important business of investigating Hunter Biden's computer or some such shit.

Trump rules from fear, which he uses only against his own party to keep them from challenging him, leaving a bunch of battered opponents waiting for the chance to destroy him once he's been weakened, which seems to be about now.

I need to go vote in a few days. It's between Warnock and Walker. It's a difficult choice. I sort of like the idea of a pro-life candidate who has paid for a few of his girlfriends' abortions. Something just rings true about that.

In addition to all that can be said about Trump causing the weak performance in the midterms, I think we can also credit/blame the Supreme Court. Having an entire branch of government sympathetic to Republican causes for the next few decades likely has taken some of the urgency of Republicans to elect representatives. That is, they're happy with the way things are, so it would follow that they have no motivation to shake up the status quo.

I say this to make Democrats sad, by telling them that the reason they won the mid-terms is because the Republicans don't care because they didn't matter. They already won something much bigger.

I can't see how that might work. What is there that cannot be said? "...it hardly conveys the full experience" - of course not! That has to be experienced! But as suggested to Frank, that just means that it is not something to be said, but something to be done. It's not a something that remains unsaid! — Banno

I don't understand this concession, where you acknowledge that the experience cannot be accurately conveyed. That would equate to universal ineffability, and it seems to acknowledge a distinction between the object and the phenomenal state, a distinction you've always maintained.

If I tell you I saw a sunrise, but I can never actually fully describe it, then there is something within my experience that cannot be stated, and is thus ineffable. If what we say of sunrises can be said of all experience, then all experience is ineffable.

To borrow from Kant, the unity of apperception is the a priori ability to perceive an object as a single thing, as opposed to it being a disorganized mix of various perceptions. If that unity we perceive of a single experience if not conveyable by communication, then what is being conveyed other than particular qualia composing the unified perception?

We've debated before whether there were a need to speak of qualia, with your position being that perceptions were not subdividable entities and that perceptions and objects were mirror images, not distinguished by our perception faculties (i.e., seeing, hearing, mentally processing, etc.) . Such is direct realism.

If you say now that the perception is not to be dealt with as a unity, but as that with various qualities (i.e. qualia), with some qualia being describable and some ineffable, then you seem to be admitting that which I thought you previously vehemently denied. We're now talking about the qualia that composes the unity of the experience and discussing which may or may not be describable in language.

And that raises another question here: If there are parts of the experience that are conveyable through language, which ones are they? I can't follow why the sunrise would be ineffable but the rays of light, the warmth, the joy provided by the sun (or any other such portion of the unified experience) would not.

have three related words. The ineffable, about which we can say nothing, and which as a result can not enter into our explicit considerations; ↪Tom Storm's numinous, to which we can no more than nod, and perhaps the sacred, which remains undiscussed. — Banno

I'd define the ineffable as that which we cannot say everything about, not nothing. We can call the ineffable sunset magical, which is to say something about it, but it hardly conveys the full experience.

That is why I disagree with your assessment that my view on universal ineffableness is solipistic. I didn't suggest we can say nothing at all about anything.

I think your definition of sacred is off. The sacred is that which is set apart from the mundane and venerated. While some things may be so venerated as to be forbidden to be discussed (the Orthodox Jewish prohibition of ever speaking the name of God (YHWH) comes to mind), that is the exception. Sacred prayers, for example, are recited daily. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacredness

Seems you wish to create a typology of thought, from those most capable of being reduced to symbol to those least capable. I'd submit it's not a type distinction, but just of degree, and dependent upon the artistry of the speaker in painting a picture of his thoughts.

Our thoughts are extremely complex, intertwined with countless perceptions and interpretations, so much so we cannot expect they'd be specifically and inerrantly conveyed, nor is it reasonable to assume they'd be interpreted similarly by others. That is, my understandimg of your comments will differ from how others understand them.

My private mental world will always remain to some amount private, no matter how much I might be the sort that wishes to share my deepest thoughts.

I'm hoping the cause of this is seen clearly as the unelectability of Trump candidates so that the Trump era can once and for all come to an end.

perhaps it can only understood by metaphors. — Banno

I subscribe to the notion that all language is metaphorical to the extent it can only to better or worse extents describe one's internal states to tell the listener what that internal state "is like" (thus implicating a metaphor or simile). This assumes a similarity in our experiences which is purely assumed, which may or may not present to you some feeling of what I was experiencing based upon what I assume you have previously experienced. Even in the most non-abstract of sentences where I tell you what my dog experience is by pointing to a dog, what I am telling you is that I expect your experience will be like my experience.

What this assumes, which I understand you disagree with, is that my descriptions are of phenomenal states, not of things, which I hold to be very distinct (this is the direct realism versus indirect realism issue).

The point to this whole preface is to say that all thoughts are ineffable. The best we can do is share our experiences by reducing them to symbols and uttering them, but the picture we paint with our words is a rough sketch, only partially revealing the actual thought.

If it is all a matter of choice, why choose a world that spins meaninglessly? Why not choose one that revolves for a purpose that you are a part of?

But you're addressing something entirely different from me. I thought the thought experiment raised interesting epistemological questions and that's what I addressed.

You're just focusing on the medical ethics question. Whether the detainment were justified will turn upon unavailable subtleties in the hypothetical you posed that would be available to a judge in an actual case, whose decision would be reviewable on appeal.

This seems an uninteresting hypothetical as you're confining it.

But to address it. I'd think the administration of justice in actual such cases will follow the trend they always do. That is, the system generally works, with some celebrated instances of injustice, with injustice typically more common among the poor and inadequately represented.

She believed she would be unjustly detained, but she wasn't. She was justly detained. She was wrong.

It"s close to a Gettier case, but not quite.(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#:~:text=The%20Gettier%20problem%2C%20in%20the,(JTB)%20account%20of%20knowledge.) In your example, the justification was insufficient as it was not founded on fact, but only in hunch. A Gettier case would only be implicated if she had an uncorrelated justified belief.

In your example, the false belief was perfomative of making the belief true, resulting in a Pinocchio like paradox. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio_paradox

When Pinocchio lies and says "my nose grows," it grows and he's not lying so it doesn't grow.

So, when the lady in your example says "I will be detained," she won't until uttered and then she will.

I'd say she's no more clairvoyant than Pinocchio when he said his nose grows when it didn't.

It's somewhere between Gettier and Pinocchio I think, but as my first comment says, I do think her assertion suffers from some vagueness in that it she believed herself being subject to unjust detention, when in fact her detention was just.

I'm curious how the data was compiled. A "threat" means what and who must it be reported to to be included in the data? How long have they kept such data, and was it compiled pre-1996. Do they register the likely daily threats posed by various terrorist groups around the world and include that in the data?

It just sounds vague to me. If there has been a recent decision to take the threats more seriously and to investigate them more closely, I would expect there to be a rise in the number they are investigating. It's like if there is an initiative to reduce drunk drivers, we should expect to see a sudden rise in the number of suspected drunk drivers, but that arises not from the increased drunk driving, but just from the increased efforts to identify them and prosecute them.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting that these numbers can't be correct, nor am I suggesting that Trump might not have sparked some to make these threats, but I don't feel like I can do much with the data provided.

What I do agree with is that I feel Trump has a moral duty to deter others from violence, and that can be accomplished by stressing to his supporters the need for non-violence and civility, something Trump has steadfastly refused to do. I don't think the response should be to stifle free speech rights or to subtract any personal responsibility from the ones who have actually made the threats and impute it on Trump. It's enough for me to just state that Trump is morally bankrupt and unfit for a leadership position. What I would hope is that democratic rule eventually gets this right and removes him from a position of power.

I think they're underrated

In this context - a grotesque and self-serving justification for prejudice and censorship. — T Clark

I really have no idea what you're talking about.

The other side of this: https://www.chabad.org/4411808

I don't get it. His dad said he might be chips, and then he saw a bag of chips.

Also, it's mom, not mum. Chips, not crisps.

C minus.

That cartoon I get, but still don't know why the shirtless woman had her hair straight up.

Can you make me a cartoon with a breast bearing fish with its hair straight up? Maybe that will clarify things for me.

I first suggested merging the recent series in pessimism into the Life Sucks thread to the other mods, but Mikie got to it first.

I wanted to point that out because I don't want my delay on doing the merge myself to be the reason I'm saved from your criticism.

Came up with a name for this cartoon. Monkingfish.

Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. This feels intuitively like something useful to my argument, but, first, I must ask how symbolic logic can stand alone (which it can) without being its own language? — ucarr

It is the symbol that is the syntactic element of the language and the meaning that is the semantic element of the language.

English: "If I go to the store, I will buy milk."
Symbolic logic: S --> M

In English, the syntax were those certain words, and should I have said "If I now am go to store, I after have milk,' perhaps I mean the same thing, but my syntax is all screwed up. You hear that in pidgins, where a foreign speaker can be understood without properly using accepted format.

In symbolic language, the semantical content of your symbols is heavily abstracted, but there still must remain an accepted syntactical form.

Consider:

S --> M
S
Therefore M.

This is logically sound, yet it's entirely irrelevant whether we are talking about stores and milk, meaning the specific semantical content of the symbols has become irrelevant, as for any S that occurs M will follow, regardless of what S or M represent.

If I create a syntactical error in a syllogism, that will likely negate the truth of the syllogism, but that has to do with the precision and limited room for error when your syntax is so abbreviated.

I think a good example of a logical syntax error is one that occurs quite literally in computer programming. The computer immediately recognizes what you've attempted is not "understood" by the computer. You've just spoken gibberish to the computer as it might have much less room for error than a human in understanding a pidgin.

Anyway, somewhat nascent thoughts on my behalf with some of this, so tinker with what I've started if some of this doesn't hold.

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. The latter is a specific use of language. — Joshs

I disagree that "formal logic" and "Fortran" are similarly related to language in that both represent specific uses of the language.

I see formal logic as the semantical component of language, which does not represent a structure , but a meaning, whereas Fortran is a specific syntactical language form used to convey a semantical meaning. Under any language (Fortran, French, English), you will need to adhere to a logical based semantics for coherence, but the form can vary among types of languages. That is, logic is not a language, but a component of language, whereas Fortran is a type of language.

Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception , which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. Our embodied perceptual-motor interaction with the world plays a large role in the origin of the structure of linguistic grammar. Animal cognition already implies a spatial-temporal ‘grammar’. — Joshs

This references a specific type of non-linguistic thought, specifically "how to" thought. That is, a chicken knows how to jump on the perch and likely engages in some form of non-linguistic reasoning when plotting her course from the ground, into the coop, up the ramp, and onto the perch. That is akin to much higher human non-linguistic "how to" knowledge, as when we can disassemble, repair, and reassemble an automobile transmission without putting a single action into language before acting.

Living my life with dogs, cats, goats, and chickens, I am very sympathetic to the view that animals have much higher levels of thought than people wish to give them credit for, but I don't think your reference to "perceptual-motor interaction" touches on those higher levels of animal intelligence. That is to say, I agree with you to the extent you suggest that there are all types of thought without language, but I believe your example of "how to" language points to the least controversial one that is generally conceded by the staunchest of deniers of meaningful thought without language.

What makes a government legitimate or illegitimate? — Average

I was thinking about this, and what rights a population might have to overthrow the government if it were considered illegitimate. This is what I sketched out. It's my first thoughts, but this is what I came up with:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

Why?

There seem to be things that are true or false yet unknown - that you have an odd number of hairs on your forearm, for example. — Banno

The claim was:

For something to be true.. It must be knowable. — Benj96

The claim was knowABLE not known.

He could know the number of hairs on his forearm. He just happens not to.

So, the proper rejection of Ben's assertion isn't as you've said, but it would be that "You have 100 hairs on your forearm" still has a truth value even if you cannot know it.

But is Ben wrong because that's a different sort of claim, and I'm not sure what Ben means by unknowable. For example, the number of stars in the universe? That is in principle knowable, but not something that will likely be known.

Is "there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand in the solar system" true? Well, we can't know that in actuality, but in principle we could. I would think that does have a truth value even though we will never know it

But what is in principle unknowable? Maybe "Germany wins the World Cup in 2030." Right now, that is unknowable. We have no way to know that. So right now, does it have a truth value?

I suppose if people are cool with God not caring about justice my argument would do little to persuade anyone to think critically about God or their religion. — ToothyMaw

I didn't say God didn't care about justice. I said that few religions solve the theodicy problem by just outright denial of the existence of evil.
https://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/theodicy_brief_overview.htm#:~:text=A%20theodicy%20is%20an%20attempt,a%20contingent%20relationship%20to%20God.

. If God is just then there should be no injustice
2. There is injustice
Ergo,
3. God is not just [1, 2, MT] — Agent Smith

You're missing some premises to make this valid.

Substitute "Ghandi" in for "God" and you'll see why.

You're going to have to define God in your syllogism as that which eliminates the possibility of injustice. I'm not sure that is a generally accepted notion of God. Most religions accept that there is injustice.

Yes it does. Intelligent people see 'the big picture,' they think about more than themselves and their family, they also consider the wider community, their nation and the planet they live on. — universeness

You're describing an ideal morality, not "intelligence." You can be an evil genius.

How can intelligent people consider other people inferior due to the colour of their skin or their tradition or their culture or the fact that they are less technically advanced than you. — universeness

Because they are immoral.

Yeah, their economic slave system made them technically stagnant and mainly backwards.
Another major difference was that the South had no navy to speak of, so the union blockades of Southern ports were eventually very decisive. — universeness

Why are you now offering additional reasons for the South's loss of the war when you previously argued it was due their having adopted an evil system?

No, because no SIGNIFICANT HUMAN CIVILISATION has ever in history said rape was moral. — universeness

See: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1418&context=nlj, particularly page 7 and footnote 20. Rape of black women was legal during times of slavery.

Marital rape was legal in every state in the US until 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape_in_the_United_States

What the Bible says about rape: https://www.openbible.info/topics/rape

See also the English law of Coverture, where a woman had no legal rights of her own, but was the legal property of her husband: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture

Where did I mention gods or supernatural BS? — universeness

You didn't. You presented a justice prevails because it is just argument which is essentially the same thing. It argues that as long as we fight for righteousness we will prevail.

Your point here again merely states the obvious and the much more important point is that the human race continues to progress and is in its totality, more moral and does in its totality behave better towards each other in general, in comparison with our ancestors. — universeness

If my point is obvious, then why do you argue otherwise? I have submitted that the majority will is irrelevant when deciphering morality.

I don't always look for backup or counter opinions from long dead philosophers, I prefer to listen to those alive now and without, of course, ignoring the mistakes of the past often highlighted by such as the person you refer to. — universeness

Super.

All I can say is 'right back at you!' So, give a real example from history that supports your claim.
Was there a referendum of the British people taken before the thugs in their royaly or military decided to go to war with the French, for example? Where all the people in Clan Campbell above the age of 16, male and female, democratically consulted before their clan chief and his top thugs/gangsters decided to fight those from Clan Macdonald?
Was there a referendum before America joined WW 2. Was that what took them so long? :halo: (No offense intended). — universeness

How does this contradict the idea that a democracy can be tyrannical?

I do not. You regard the severely depressed as morally similar to sadists and abusers? — hypericin

I don't know if it's a moral similarity because there certainly appears to be something more sinister in harming others than in harming yourself. Not all moral violations are of the same magnitude.

I do think it's worthwhile however to make the point that if we hold humanity in high esteem, we can't overlook the lack of self-respect we offer ourselves as morally irrelevant.

Of course they were stupid! They caused a bloody civil war due to their stupid economic model and their pursuit of profit and power for a racist, sycophantic few who leached off of the backs and sweat of enslaved people who they considered inferiors. That's why the South was utterly defeated. It was really stupid and moronic to bring such devastation onto themselves instead of getting rid of slavery themselves and sharing the resources of the South with all 'Americans.' Of course, the first issue for Americans is their genocide of the native tribes. — universeness

It was certainly immoral and wrong, but trying to preserve an economic system that resulted in great wealth doesn't point to a lack of intelligence. While it would be delightful to join in your world view that justice always prevails and it was for that reason the South lost, I think more mundane causes can be given for their loss. Specifically, the South was agrarian, lacked resources, had a smaller population, and experienced little to no immigration. They were also outmaneuvered politically so that larger numbers of states remained loyal to the union than the confederacy.

The point being that slavery had existed hundreds of years in America at the time of the Civil War, and it wasn't that it just finally exploded from being unjust. I wish that were the case. It would mean that we need only sit back and wait for those unjust nations in existence today to finally become enlightened.

No Its not, that's just naive. Morality is a human invention (or at least an invention of sentience). I think that the majority of humans NOW accept that rape is morally wrong. That morality is created BASED ON that OPINION of the majority. It then has the force needed to become an objective truth BUT only an objective truth within human civilisation. The role of the majority is essential in determining HUMAN morality. — universeness

And such is subjectivism. It means rape was moral when the population said it was. If morality is an opinion, then it is fluid. Should rape fall into favor, it will be moral, as you are relying upon the majority to tell you good from bad.

. Whenever evil grows too big for its boots, it gets smashed. — universeness

Again, whether you intend for this or not, you are arguing a theistic view, where nations rise and fall on the basis of their aligning themselves with good or evil. It ignores entirely the ebb and flow of good and evil within nations, ignoring the fact that a seemingly good Germany became evil, focusing only on the fact that an evil Germany fell. Why can't we argue that when a nation becomes too good it too gets too big for its britches and then it must become evil? We can tell the tale of how good fell to evil as much as evil fell to good.

If you want to understand the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, there are plenty of good historical treatises that can explain the social changes, political changes, and the details of each battles fought. The point being, the answer to such historical questions lies within the historical events, not just some statement that we win when God is on our side and we lose when he's not.

If you add the Jews, to the gypsies, the slavs, the catholics, etc, etc all the non-aryans then you have a vast majority! yes? — universeness

I don't know if the oppressed outnumbered the oppressors or not, but it's screamingly irrelevant. Had there been one more Nazi than the sum total of the oppressed, then the Nazis would still have been wrong. Had there been a single man mistreated, scapegoated for the crimes of others, with only a single person objecting on his behalf, that person would have been right and the rest wrong.

By definition, a democracy cannot be tyrannical unless the lunatics have taken over the asylum and only those people are involved in voting in the 'democracy' you describe. — universeness

Maybe read some de Tocqueville:

https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/alexis-de-tocqueville-tyranny-majority

Take some time to work through your position. It's just not making sense. You are arguing that it is logically impossible for the empirical reality of a tyrannical democracy to exist. That is, you are suggesting it is impossible that the majority of people would vote to oppress a smaller number of people, as if to suggest all laws, as long as there is a 51% consensus must be just by definition. This
argument is defeated by actual history.

This is more related to our lack of authentic documentation from earlier than about 6000 years ago. — universeness

Slavery existed in the US only 150 years ago, it still exists in parts of the world today, and woman are considered chattel in parts of the world today. I'm not referencing unknown, ancient civilizations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

No democratic system can legalise slavery unless the people involved are stupid morons and I do not consider a group of stupid and moronic humans, capable of creating a good civilisation. SO — universeness

The American South did not create slavery because they were stupid.

In any event, you miss the point terribly. The point was that the role of the majority is irrelevant in determining morality.

I don't employ scapegoating in any shape or form, — universeness

Again, you miss the point terribly. You argued that Hitler was an example of a minority will over-ruling majority will, resulting in an evil that wouldn't have existed had he more concerned himself with Germany's will and not his own. My response was twofold: (1) you're factually incorrect to assert that Hitler was subjugating the majority because the subjugated (Jews among many others) were a minority, not a majority, and (2) a democracy can be tyrannical. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority#:~:text=The%20tyranny%20of%20the%20majority,those%20of%20the%20minority%20factions.

That is, the will of the majority of the people can be advanced by the enslavement and even murder of a minority. That is not a hypothetical construct. It is the very history of the US.

[

I can't conceive of a human civilisation that would define rape as good and still be able to retain the label civilised. I would engage in armed revolt against such a civilisation, wouldn't you? The bizarre projection you are attempting is sensationalist and is based on a quick jump to extremity approach. Such a jump is a bit irrational. Democracy is based on subjectivism, which is fine as long as you have an educated populous, which is the socialist/humanist goal — universeness

Unfortunately egalitarianism is s fairly modern invention, meaning there was a time in our not so distant past that women were considered men's property. The same holds true for certain races. Caste systems allow subjugation as do religious systems to this day.

You are attempting to defend your subjectivist position by arguing that your moral positions are subjective but that they are universal, meaning that they so happen to be moral because of a universal consistency in human preference and thought.

The problem with your position is that it is an empirical statement and it is wrong. From nation to nation, culture to culture, time period to time period, there are fundamental distinctions in what is considered right and wrong, including the issue of rape.

What we need to say is rape is wrong, regardless of where it happens, when it happens, or which dictator says it is. That is moral realism and it demands objectivity.

Democracy can legalize slavery. It cannot make it moral. That is the point.

Hitler demonstrated evil towards the majority, and benevolence, only towards his chosen few. — universeness

The Jews were a minority. In any event, why are we counting numbers here? Are you suggesting if we scapegoated a sufficiently few for the common good, then the scapegoating was moral?

What I should have responded was "I remain skeptical of your sincerity." — T Clark

You don't annoy me. I ignore those who annoy me.

I'm sincere in my posts. Even the absurd ones are not insincere.

You're the second person today I've had to ask to respond to my argument, not to my motivation. You and Universeness are peas in a pod. — T Clark

I made no mention of your motivation. I indicated your position's similarity to Christianity and then pointed out the well known difficulties with that position, namely its inability to adequately condemn unresolvable evil.

How you arrived at your position isn't a concern of mine.

As with most (all?) philosophical positions one may advance here, they have been advanced and criticized elsewhere probably for the past 1000 years. I've done nothing but identify your position and respond in what was actually a predictable way.

I personally do define evil as a purely human measure/judgement of behaviour. — universeness

And so rape would be good if humans so defined it as good? This sounds like subjectivism and subject to the many problems associated with it.

think the most heinous evil is to truly believe that YOU are the most important object in the universe and to act 100% in accordance with that belief. — universeness

Except to the extent they might have an enlightend sense of selfishness, where they feed their narcissistic ego through apparent acts of kindness. That is to say, your focus on the psychological motivation seems less significant than focusing on the intent generally as well as the behavior.

For example, if Hitler's motivation was truly that he thought Aryan supremecy would result in a greater good for the world, he still would have been evil, even though his motivation would include advancement of his community generally, would not be narcissistic under this description, and would be just as evil.

think the idea of evil is generally not a useful one. It often leads to responses that are not effective in addressing the behavior in question. E.g. revenge rather than prevention and deterrence. "Evildoers" are human. If you want to stop them, you have to understand that. — T Clark

This is a Christian notion of evil within humanity, which relies upon an ever present love of one's enemy, turning the other cheek and viewing all as capable of salvation.

I know you didn't suggest all that with your simple comment above, but it is part of that tradition.

The counter tradition is that there is true evil for which no sympathy should be afforded.

The latter may be thought of as unnuanced, judgmental, and merciless The former naive and refusing to call a spade a spade. That is, to the extent we must understand our enemy, let us understand they are evil. It could be that simple.

Evil is to act without regard for the well being of the other. — hypericin

I include as evil self harm, not just that harm to others, including subjecting yourself to degradation or humiliation. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" does not create a subjective morality where it becomes acceptable for the masochist to injure others because he would enjoy receiving such pain.

If you see all of humanity, including yourself, as the ultimate end, the highest being within our world, imposing a metaphorical divine essence upon it, it becomes as evil to damage others as yourself, resulting in a duty to develop yourself to your highest potential

That being said, the worst thing a person can do is hurt a child. — T Clark

What about repeatedly jabbing a nice old lady in the ear with a pencil? Slapping a child seems like child's play compared to that.

I can arrive at some additional counter examples to your comment if you'd like.

You said the potential energy is in the spring (or at least you seemed to.). Strictly speaking, potential energy doesn't have a location. You could think of it as a sophisticated prediction. — frank

I don't understand this. If it exists nowhere, it doesn't exist.

A battery has stored energy and you can move it from one thing to the next. I get that the total energy equals the potential energy plus the kinetic energy and the amount of energy that is demanded will increase based upon the resistance, but I don't see how we can suggest the energy is being expressed or being held in a potential state at some location away from the event.

That is, when I drop a penny, the energy event isn't occurring down the street.