Do dolphins have a language that is so different to ours that we cannot recognise it as such? Good question. I do not know the answer.

But you are not a dolphin. — Banno

I think there's much to discuss about "form of life." Maybe the topic for another thread one day, but it seems central yet not well explained (at least for me).

And when you are not looking up to the heavens, when you get hungry or cold, and look instead to what is going on around you now, then we may find agreement, and maybe work together to build a fire and cook some food. — Banno

Philosophy generally is what you only do on a full stomach, a luxury reserved for the few.

Kosher, I presume? — Banno

Glatt.

What about the beauty of a late game home run? — Fire Ologist

Ever since they got rid of the never ending extra inning baseball game, it ceased having any beauty to me. I'm an anti-modernist. I don't even use electricity. I read the internet by candle light.

The metaphysician may only know more about the world by accident, and despite all of the rigorous arguments and language used to support what he thinks he knows, he is more truly taking shots in the dark. — Fire Ologist

This is overly deferrential to analytic methods, exposing a bias towards its supriority. I'm not sure you've said otherwise specifically, but I would push back on any notion that metaphysicians (which I take to mean "anti-Wittgensteinians") claim certainty and do not in fact alter their specific viewpoints over time, subject to what they take to be knowledge. Centering the world around those who take language as a way of conveying private thought meaning to one another versus those who consider communication to be a language game where meaning is derivable through use seems a bias toward analytic philosophy as well, as it suggests there are two sorts of people in the world Wittgensteins and not Wittgensteins.

Dennett was hobbled by a reductive physicalism that, for all his brilliant writing, he could never make plausible for me. — J

He struck me as consciousness avoidant.

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. — Janus

Interesting. I find very much the opposite.

There might be a Scotsman lurking here...

At the risk of oversimplifying, best I make explicit that I did not deny having a world view, nor suggest that having a world view was a bad thing. I said that my worldview is incomplete, and that this is a good thing, since it allows for improvement, whereas those who have complete word views have no such luxury.

So back to the Scotsman. Is it that we truly have different world views when and only when we reject the results brought about by the tools of other traditions?

Otherwise, how do we tell that we truly have different world views?

The danger is that “different worldview” becomes a way of immunizing one’s beliefs from critique—you only truly have a different worldview if you reject mine outright. But there's that Scotsman, no? — Banno

My distinction isn't Scottish, it's lionesque, as in we're disagreeing upon methodology employed in truth seeking, not just inconvenient results I reject post hoc. Our game yeilds differing results because we're not playing the same game. I appreciate the lion distinction is meant more radically typically, as in it results in an entire failure to communicate, but that seems unecessary. It makes as much sense to consider gradients of lion-speak, as in its not a fully differing form of life, but just somewhat so.

My methodology looks up to the heavens, but not in a childlike way, but in a way that searches in all instances for the teleos, as in why would that happen given everything has a purpose. You simply cannot start where I start and ever end up with a conclusion we must walk away in silence to metaphysical questions.

But I'm here to learn, so tell we where you see I've diverted into nonsense.

Williams James seems to go too far in collapsing truth into will altogether. — Leontiskos

I do think that James creates criteria to limit the amount the will allows one to create one's own reality, but I do think there is merit to the position that the will is a dominant force in one's life, enough so that it can significantly change one's outlook and perspective. It's especially noticable on website like this, where I often detect an over-riding sense of doom, this idea that if you don't accept a certain pessimism, then you're looked upon as blissfully ignorant. And the point is that it's not ignorance. It's a choice.

And so that's why I ask aloud why someone thinks there's virtue to absolute fidelity to logic and scientific discovery if it yields such misery. But I do understand that some cannot but do that because to do otherwise would be alien to their nature. This is what James means by "live," meaning the decision to beleive has to be of something you actually have the constitution to believe.

For these reasons I find Hanover’s approach too strong (although at this point he is only quoting James' more mild ideas). — Leontiskos

My personal worldview actually is very different than this, only referring to pragmatism because it is more palatable here than my actual views that lean toward theism and mysticism, but that's an aside as far as what my particular beliefs are. What's not an aside is that everyone's personal beliefs form their worldview, which is what I think the OP doesn't address as closely. What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily. Those who are rigorous allow beliefs to fall as logic requires. Those who are sloppy maintain their views regardless of where they are contradicted, using analytic systems when it benefits their biases and ignoring the problems when it doesn't.

When we truly have different views of the world (i.e. not a shared view), then rejection of the results brought about by the tools of other traditions isn't inconsistent. If my world is not conducive to examination by an atomic microscope, it doesn't bother me what results it might show.

Now suppose I ask, "What kind of question is that?" I'm genuinely interested in your answer; for what it's worth, mine is, "It's a philosophical question" — J

I don't think wisdom can ultimately mean "believing what makes you happier though." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm intrigued. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to think about these sorts of things -- meaningful beliefs that are false, sometimes to the point that their falsity isn't exactly the point. — Moliere

Yes, I see I've sparked some interest by pointing out the Americanist of philosophies, that unprincipled notion of pragmatism. The hell with rigorous principles. Let's get shit done.

"James’s central thesis is that when an option is live, forced and momentous and cannot be settled by intellectual means, one may and must let one’s non-rational nature make the choice. One may believe what one hopes to be true, or what makes one happiest;"

https://www.princeton.edu/~grosen/pucourse/phi203/will.html#:~:text=James's%20central%20thesis%20is%20that,a%20sharp%20disagreement%20with%20Clifford.

It's not so simple as to suggest you can create falsity in light of truth, but working through the criteria:

First, the evidence must be inconclusive. You can't just will to believe you're the king of the world. So, something like God would be an example.

Second, it must be what he calls "live," meaning it has to be something you can accept as true. If the belief is so alien to your nature, then you simply can't will to believe it.

Third, it must be forced in that you will choose necessarily and live by the consequences of your choice. That is, you will either believe in God or not, and the way your life goes from the there will be affected.

Fourth, it must be momentous. The decision will impact your entire existential orientation.

Note how it puts the will into belief. A not so subtle move. You are in charge of your beliefs. Accepting that radical notion as true opens many doors.

The leap from aporia to closure cannot be justified. — Banno

But this is just your recitation of your ideosyncratic worldview.

Consider:

"Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds."

William James, Will to Believe

Banned unenlightened for being a broken record. — Benkei

He doesn't come close to breaking that record.

If philosophy is the love of wisdom, it is presumably the love of something in particular, and it would seem that not all philosophical positions are wise. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the key recognition that should be made is that philosophy is the love of wisdom, not the love of knowledge or the love of truth. One might believe the pursuit of truth or knowledge is the wisest path of all, but to believe that is a particular philosophy that can be challenged. What this might mean is that the acceptance of beliefs that are untrue might be wiser to hold.

In fact, I was going to enter the recent essay contest with a thesis along these lines, but I was given too much time and never got around to it. Yes, too much time results in a lack of urgency and lack of effort ultimately for some.

But my point would be that religion and I'm sure all sorts of beliefs fall into the category of not being valid upon a purely logical analysis, but I wonder what comfort one has upon their death bed for having had a firm committment to miserable truth as opposed to having chosen a more joyous path, filled with magical wonder and profound meaning and purpose in every leaf fluttering in the wind. Which sort of person is more wise is the question.

Karl Stone was banned for repetitive postings of content that lacked meaningful substance after warning.

How much better I am!" — Leontiskos

I would agree that advocates of a worldview that hold skepticism in high regard would be better received if they portrayed their position as aspirational as opposed to already being on a higher plane. As in, they can believe skepticism is the best approach, although they admit the standard is rarely fully achieved.

I still don't find the position sustainable just due to the impossibility of not having bias toward certain foundational standards, but direct declarations of superiority while claiming no one standard inherently superior strikes me as facially inconsistent as well.

Knowing you these many years, I have learned your worldview to be deeply religious, leaning heavily upon mysticism, enjoying Continental philosophy, although having an admiration of Descartes and wanting to better understand qualia and metaphysics.

As in, of course you have a cohesive worldview, and it's not close to what I've said. Worldview is not a philosophical concept as much as a psychological one, and despite one's belief that the intellect of a philosopher can trascend the limitations of others, we needn't kid ourselves.

A definition of worldview: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/worldview

So what is your worldview? Heavily analytic, later Wittgensteinian, formally logical, atheistic, progressively liberal (as Americans use that term), academically biased. This isn't meant as psychoanalysis, but simply to point out where you find truth, meaning, and value.

I just find the very concept of anti-worldviewism hopelessly paradoxical because it's a worldview unto itself.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quietism_(philosophy)

I read the book. You either believe the physically impossible accounts of largely rural children in underdeveloped nations where reincarnation is a mainstream belief or you don't. The better explanation for all their accounts is information leakage and confirmation bias.

It's sort of like how only Christians seem to see Jesus in their cereal bowl.

You can't wave off the crushing criticism that brains house memory, a fact easily proven.

My book is different in that it looks at the testimonial evidence from an epistemological angle and demonstrates that although testimonial evidence can be very weak, it can also be very strong. — Sam26

We rely on testimonial evidence when it's all we have, but its credibility diminishes when no expected corresponding physical evidence emerges. Bigfoot, for example.

If you're trying to establish disembodied consciousness exists, some empirical evidence has to be found at some point. There's none. That we have a phenomenon that avoids all empirical detection offers fairly solid evidence it doesn't exist.

Assuming we're talking about reincarnation, what the claim is, at best, is that memories are inherited. Soul or consciousness transference is religious doctrine. Since we know memories are stored in the brain, and damage to the brain destroys memory in the living, that knowledge leads us to the conclusion that destruction of the brain entirely in death eliminates one's memories.

The executive is following their own interpretation of the law despite legal rulings. — prothero

Assuming as the antecedent, "if Trump violated the law," the consequent is "Hanover disagree with Trump's actions."

What law was it that said Abrego Garcia should be sent to CECOT? — RogueAI

If there weren't one, then I'm opposed to it. Like I said, you're asking me for an opinion on the validity of the court analysis, and I just haven't looked into it.

If you want to make the case that an opinion was rendered in error, you could well be right. It sounds like you're just asking me to be outraged though. I don't know. Maybe the US has outrageous laws. That's not a basis for ignoring them.

Really? You need a court opinion to figure out whether a non El Salvadorian person should be sent to an El Salvadorian prison? — RogueAI

Really. That's what it means to be a nation of laws.

Do you think we should be sending immigrants to an El Salvadorean prison? — RogueAI

These are complicated legal questions, and so I'd really have to read the court opinions on it. I generally know how the courts ruled, but whether I agree or not would require a deep dive into it before I said it made sense to me or not.

What I push back on is the idea that these questions are addressed through basic notions of fairness or decency. Those nebulous concepts don't control. So, if you have some analysis that suggests a misconstruction of the law and you want to debate various precedent, I don't know I'm up for it, but that would be the only argument I'd consider valid.

And the Constitution is just a piece of paper with some words, right? — RogueAI

No. That's a legal document.

Is that just talk to make us feel good, or are those words to live — RogueAI

I think it's a poem.

Entirely reasonable people have serious objections to the methods and process being used by Trump. — prothero

They do, but this was the platform Trump ran under. Elections have consequences. It is the will of the people.

There is a statute of limitations in criminal cases that will toll only if the person concealed their illegal status, which can result in the time limit not starting until discovery. Whether that would apply would be fact specific.

There are no limits on civil proceedings that would remove the person.

Properly understood being in the country illegally is a civil not a criminal offense — prothero

But see, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1325

The problem is that the US has immigration law and immigration policy and the two aren't uniform. The law is clear, and it does not allow those that make it here in violation of the law to stay once they've been in the US a certain amount of time.

The policy reasons vary as @Benkei notes above, but whatever that policy is ought be embedded in the law. An argument could be made that it would be undemocratic for a chief executive not to execute the law as passed by Congress, particularly under the US Constitution's "faithfully execute" clause (the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed").

So let's abstract this: Under what circumstances do you wish to empower the chief executive to ignore the democratic will and engage in the wholesale refusal to enforce the law?

In the 1800s, the state of Georgia (Go Dawgs!) in the case of Worcester v. Ga. ignored the Supreme Court's ruling that the Cherokee lands within the state were soverign according to treaty and the state had no power to eject them from their lands. They did anyway and President Jackson didn't care. And the trail of tears followed. Any problem there with Jackson's use of discretion?

Properly understood, the argument that the President is afforded the power to evaluate Acts of Congress and decide whether he will honor them is an increase in his power, not a check on it. In fact, it's an elimination of a check. Unless you're willing to allow the President the power to ignore, let's say, civil right legislation under this broad power of selective enforcement as well, you can't take a principled stance on this except to say he should enforce the laws you like and not the ones you don't.

That doesn't really strike me as the rule of law though.

What I'm saying is that if you want the immigrants to be afforded greater rights, change the law. If we took this idea seriously, we would actually legislate when these matters arose, but we don't. We instead hold up signs in the streets and see if we can get someone in charge to buckle under the pressure. Then we shoot an Australian lady in the leg with a rubber bullet for good measure.

If by OK you mean, "Something I might feel ethically obligated to do": Sure. A foul regime imprisons me and my family and indulges its jailers' sadistic fantasies. (This example actually happened in Nazi Germany.). "Rape your daughter," they tell me, "otherwise we'll torture your entire family to death before your eyes." I emphasized might, above, because I don't presume to know what would seem right to me under the circumstances. But I might well decide that the rape was the lesser of two evils.

This highlights two important points. First, if that's not what you mean by OK -- if, rather, you mean "Rape becomes a good thing in this scenario" -- then I agree, this can never happen. Second, while we are helpless in the face of circumstances to rely on rules, that doesn't meant that teaching our children that rape is wrong should always be contextualized. I am not a utilitarian, but this is one area where the distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is useful. — J

The point of the question is whether there are objective, universal rules that have to be applied in order to determine morality. It's not relevant which moral dilimma you create in answering this abstract question. The question I posed was meant to just provide a very straight forward question, as in, is it morally wrong to rape someone without adding in a bunch of absurd facts with guns to people's heads and whatnot. But, to clarify, is it wrong to rape someone just for fun, who was otherwise just an innocent bystander.

Your example does not pose a challenge to my question. It just poses a very strange example we have to consider, as in "Is it wrong to rape someone if it is the only means to save the life of another," where we then have to get into a hierarchy of moral rules and how to prioritize them.

We can probably start with a goal, something like reducing suffering. — Tom Storm

I start with the goal of increasing suffering. Why choose yours? I'll answer that question. Because my goal is immoral.

None of this involves objectivity, it's more like a recipe made out of our shared judgements and hopes. — Tom Storm

Of course it involves objectivity. You're specifically stating that the advancement of "our shared judgments and hopes" is the Good. Notwithstanding that fact that "our" is undefined here because who "our" encompasses in the antebellum south, Nazi Germany, and in the various less than humanistic societies over time would arrive at very different "shared judgments and hopes."

So, is rape wrong? That is, regardless of how a society values women, regardless of what some dictator might say or do, are you willing to go out on a limb and say "rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus."

If you're not, tell me the scenario where it's ok.

I don't think you will. What that means is we need to take seriously the objectivity of morality and figure out what we're talking about and not suggest there is some sort of preference or voting taking place. If you think there are principles that apply throughout all societies, you are going to be referencing the objective whether you like it or not.

There's a key difference here. Hanover seems to be looking for a set of rules that are practiced. But what answers the question, and what you have provided, is a set of rules that ought be practiced.

So Hanover points out in triumph that they are not practiced everywhere, missing the point entirely. — Banno

No, I recognized his itemization was of the aspirational. I questioned if there were an objective anchor for those ethical statements, as in, is there something other than our agreement that makes the good the good.

If I say, we ought reduce suffering, I'm speaking in the objective. If not, then for some the increase of suffering might be good. But you disagree I'm sure in the proposition that we ought increase the pain of all redheads, for example. Why? They are a tiny little minority, and if the rest of of enjoy their pain, why limit it? Assert for me your principle. This isn't that hard.

Could we show ChatGPT what pain is? It does not have the mechanism required, obviously. But moreover it cannot participate in the "form of life" that would enable it to be in pain. — Banno

This is my problem:

“If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.” -- Philosophical Investigations §223
“To imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” -- §19

Is ChatGPT a lion?

If we rely on §19 and say he is a lion based upon its failure to engage in "form of life," then we cannot understand it per §223, which is false, because we can understand it.

To say that AI does not engage in a form of life asks for a definition of "form of life," which I take to be:

"Only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious."-- §281

This seems arbitrary. Why must a form of life have these attributes as opposed to identifying functionality, meaning, why must it look like a person to be a person. Why can't it just not act like a person to be a person.

By requiring human like physical attributes to deny AI being a lion strikes me as a cop out. That is not behavior. But to do otherwise would lead to the problem of explaining what the non-lion does internally, and that is forbidden. It is a private state that cannot be described.

But should we say that the properly behaved AI model does pass the Turing test, we're left with it not being a lion and it engaging in real language.

This might be a long winded way of saying that if "form of life" is knowable only by what is publically available, and it is convincing, then AI is a form of life, and we can't say such things as it doesn't have real stakes in the outcome of things or whatnot because that is extrapolating the contents of the mental state. If it act like a duck, it must be a duck. We can't assume otherwise just because it doesn't have the physical appearance of a duck.

Several of my "vice behaviors" -- smoking, drinking, and promiscuous sex were PULLED. — BC

But how do you know you weren't manipulated by the marketing machine or by social pressures cast upon the young impressionable Bittercrank? The candy Camels of your v youth were part of the grooming process.

And like you say, this applies to everything. Demands are created and then filled. Maybe you have some of your unique demands, but most hit the marketplace first, then we run to get them, thinking we're pushing to get that new iPhone, but really we were reeled in by a shiny lure.

The private language argument does not conclude that we do not have sensations. — Banno

I didn't suggest otherwise.

Won't be the best first time, but I'll do a deeper dive into this and see what I come up with.

The private language argument against private sensations has got to be one of the most unconvincing arguments I've encountered. — Michael

I think it's contrived in order to avoid metaphysical converations that don't yield answers. It strikes me as a prescriptive use of the term "language" that violates the fundamental rule that language is derived from use. Internal states are not denied, they just can't be spoken about and they just exist alongside language.

By example, AI engages in language usage in a very precise way. This shows that having an internal state is unnecessary to assess words and to use them consistently. The fact that ChatGPT has no internal state and is able to use words precisely means that meaning is derived from word usage, not from what is going on in your head. Or so the argument goes.

Of course, that's not how we use the word "language." We mean it as a term that describes how we convey private mental states to other people. The words are not just epiphenomenon to our mental states. They represent the mental state, but that is what is rejected in this Wittgensteinian analysis.

The argument is that since we don't need a consciousness to describe conscious states, our descriptions are not of conscious states, but are just games we play with one another, for some strange reason. This idea dispenses with the messiness of the experience, the phenomenal state, and it allows an entire linguistic philosophy to emerge without having to deal with Chalmers and the like, which are, in my estimation, real philosophers dealing with real issues. I see the logical analytic linguistic enterprise as a complicated puzzle, like playing a chess match, figuring out rules and what not, but I don't find it convincing, or useful (ironically).

I'm fairly well acquainted with some of the literature. My basic objection is that if they are private experiences then they are unavailable for discussion, and if they are available for discussion then they seem to be just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud". — Banno

But this commentary leaves the confines of your Wittgensteinian box. "Qualia" has meaning. It's meaning is how it is used within the language game. You seem to want to say qualia is a hollow concept because it lacks an internal anchoring, but meaning under this theory is never assessed upon its internal anchoring. It's assessed by public use.

Qualia is available for discussion as the thing I guess you say is not available for discussion. That's your use, but I just want to be sure you aren't talking about qualia as an ontological entity, as if you can.

These last weeks the prospect of leaving behind years of discussions and interactions on these fora has reminded me that sooner or later this will be the case unless I self-delete my entire post history which is unimagineable to me at the moment. — 180 Proof

I would think if you were to delete all your posts, you would do it consistent with your style and cross through them all.

A joke, my friend. Glad you're back and hope you're feeling better.

This is to the point - ↪Hanover wants a "basis" so he can "condemn their art you find abhorrent"; and that basis is all around us and includes our community of learning and language. — Banno

So I'll respond to the greater Wittgenstenian allusion here, which if Davidson is following (and you know better than me), we end up with a profound shallowness, particularly in the area of aesthetics which, properly understood (I'd submit), is to identify the underlying internal meaning of the thing to that person experiencing it. I understand that it's not that Witt denies the internal meaning is there, but it's that he ushers it out as superfluous, a sort of epiphenomenon that might exist alongside our speech. That is to say, ChatGPT can discuss at wonderful length the beauty of any piece of art, convincingly and entirely, playing the language game like the pro it is in manipulating syntax and identifying patterns. But it lacks the experience. And that is the point of aesthetics. It has no necessary utility. The Mona Lisa doesn't keep the wall in place. It has internal experiential meaning, so applying the analytic tradition to beauty seems an oddity unto itself.

Yes, to all of the above. That’s the condition we’ve always lived in. It seems to me morality emerges from a shifting balance of perspectives, shaped by history, culture, conversation, and imagination. There is no final foundation, only the ongoing work of negotiation, persuasion, and a hope for common ground. And yes, some cultures do lose this fragile balance though war or vested interests and anarchy results.

But I can already hear some asking but what does common ground matter if there's no objectivity? We are motivated by the desire to live with others without constant fear or conflict, to reduce suffering (our own and others), to be understood, to feel belonging, to imagine a world less cruel or arbitrary. Even without objectivity, these needs and aspirations don’t disappear. We don’t act because we’ve found final truths, but because we live among others, and must find ways to manage that fact. — Tom Storm

You list out objective criteria for determining morality: (1) negotiation, (2) persuasion, (3) search for common ground, (4) avoidance of anarchy, (5) avoidance of war (6) reducing suffering, (7) increasing our feeling of being understood, (8) increasing feeling of beloingingness, (9) reduction of cruelty, and (10) reduction of arbitratry rule. You also impose an unspoken meta rule, which is that rationality is the arbiter of morality.

Does any theocracy adhere to any of these rules? Do they even apply your meta rule? The point here is that you can't assert there are no hard and fast rules, but then identify the hard and fast rules, and then suggest that your rules are not simply a recitation of Western values generally but are just obvious truths everyone takes to be self-evident. These rules are not universal and it is not a universal truth that morality is to be found through reason. That's not even the rule within traditional theistic systems within the West (i.e. divine command theory).

And this is the bigger question of moral realism. The question of moral realism is not whether we know for certain what every moral justification is, but it's whether there are absolute moral rules that we are seeking to discover. If the answer is that there is not, that it's just a matter of preference, then we are left asking why we can impose our idiosyncratic rules on others. If, though, you say there is an objective good, we can impose our assessement of what they are on others, recognizing we could be wrong in our assessment. However, to do this will require us to say that we assess morality based upon X because that basis is right, and if you don't use X, you are wrong. Once you've taken that step, you stepped outside of subjectivity and you've declared an absolute truth.

And how do you know your moral basis is right (whether it be the Bible, your 10 point system, Utliltarianism, Kantianism, or whatever), you just do. This is where faith rears its ugly (or clarifying) head once again.

Ah, better. A good comeback. But you've moved over to ethics, and we probably should remain in the area of aesthetics, for the sake of the theme of this thread — Banno

I took though Davidson's critique to be that objectivity is universally muddled thinking. If the point he makes is simply that aesthetic judgments in particular don't lend themselves to objective reasoning, then his is just a platitude that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." That's obvioulsy not what he's limiting himself to when he challenges objectivity.

There are different sorts of judgments: moral, aesthetic, and empirical/ontological for example. I think we must maintain objectivity to morality. I would agree that the aesthetic is largely if not entirely subjective. The empirical/ontological is the most confusing because it asks what the thing is devoid of subjectively imposed attributes, leading us down the Lockean path of trying to distinguish what properties are inherent in the object and what are imposed by the person. It's the whole phenomenal/noumenal debate that leads us to direct and indirect realism conversations.

Again, unless you're in one of the many war-torn countries where such horrors are treated as routine.) — Tom Storm

Then upon what basis do you condemn their acts you find abhorrent? You have your preferences and they theirs.

Where are your jurisdictional boundaries that define your moral community? Am I bound by the consensus of the West, the US, the Southern US, my ethnicity, my religious heritage, my compound of similar thinkers? Can't it be that the entirety of my community could be wrong, yet I am right? If not, must I sacrifice babies to the gods if my community says it is good even if I disagree?

Don't want to clutter with cut and paste, but let me know if this won't open.