I agree that there are legally justified killings. If you commit a legally justified killing, then you will likely not be in trouble with the law. let's look at a hypothetical example. God asked a man to hijack an airplane and crash it into a building full of evil people. In obeying God's command, is he justified in killing thousands of people? Is this a justifiable killing in a court of law? — GregW

Your hypothetical assumes God assessed the evil of the people within the building and determined that their death would save the world from greater harm, or perhaps he assessed their just dessert to be death by airplane. That is, this was not the killing of innocent people, and it would go somewhere along the lines of any other preemptive response (like self defense) or just punishment.

This is not to suggest that when someone believes God tells them to do something that they are justified in doing it or that that there isn't real danger in relying upon what you believe the will of God is when you act. Your hypothetical, strictly construed, is that God directed the order, so here we know it was God's will.

We can hypothesize a rational basis for any decision. As in, should I use a baby as a baseball bat? In a typical day, no you probably shouldn't do that, but suppose the only way to save a village from complete annihilation is to beat back the attackers with a slinging baby? Maybe the act itself would bring such fear to the attackers, they'd leave the village alone for millenia. But this ridiculous hypothetical makes an important assumption: you know with certainty the baby as weapon will be effective, you know with certainty that there are no lesser alternatives, and you know that without it, your whole village will die.

How can you know all this? You know it because your hypothetical asserted it when it said the information came form God.

Back to Amalek. We are working within a scenario where we know God is talking to the actors in the story. There have been miracles of plagues and the parting of the sea and God seems to be having fairly open conversations with Moses. Presenting this story as myth, a work of fiction, but with a consistency among its characters, we say of course the response to Amalek was justified. We have a super-hero built in the story that is always right.

If God asked you to commit a justifiable killing, then you won't be in trouble with God. Do you wonder why the "God defense" don't usually work in a court of law? — GregW

There are legally justified killings. Self defense is an example. If you know with 100% certainty that your failure to protect others will result in death, that would be justified. Our hypothetical is usual in that it gives literally god-like certainty, so I'd say it'd be justified.

You are not obligated to nip that in the bud. The original premise is that God is perfectly good and not evil. God cannot and will not command you to do evil things, like murder. You cannot justify your evil acts by saying that God himself told you to do it. It is your choice. — GregW

God didn't tell you to murder. He asked you to commit a justifiable killing.

Else, given what Bob Ross has said, I am not convinced he would find this persuasive. He would ask whether it is permissible to "kill" a demon for their future crimes, Minority Report-style. Admittedly, I myself wouldn't have such qualms — Leontiskos

It's not a speculative preemptive strike, but one where we know what will happen if we relent because the warning was from God, not just some UN inspectors who might be wrong.

First, let me try to elaborate on the second consideration I gave. Consider this argument:

1. It is impermissible to indirectly kill an infant
2. Killing an infant's parents will indirectly kill the infant (if left to itself)
3. Therefore, it is impermissible to kill an infant's parents (for any reason, so long as you cannot support the infant)

Would you agree with that argument? Because anyone who accepts that argument simply cannot justify killing the Amalekite parents, regardless of what the parents have done, unless of course all of the infants can be supported. — Leontiskos

That's not correct because you've decontextualized a fantastic tale and are trying to plug in a few facts to 2025 western civilization.

Per the story, Amalek attacked the Israelites unprovoked from the rear, picking off the weakest after they had recently been freed from 400 years of slavery through a series of miracles. The Israelites were under divine protection as part of a covenant between God and the Israelites at that time. This attack characterized absolute evil directed against God himself.

The sole survivor's descendant of these Amaleki went on to try to murder all the Jews 600 years later. That is, Amalek are the metaphoric spawn of Satan in this story and boldly confronted the the very force of good (i.e. God himself).

So, to your question: if there were a community of demons, some old, some young, and some cute as a button, all of whom you know for certain will perform horrible acts of violence, destruction, and mayhem because God himself told you they would, are you not obligated to nip that in the bud?

Ron Burgundy, the greatest jazz flutist the world has known.

Some more rock flute.

There is no third party. It's just God and humanity. Next: criticisms. — frank

Are you fully and completely equating Jesus and God and saying God sacrificed himself? Maybe I'm not following what you're saying.

An overview of the problem you've identified and some of the criticisms and responses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_substitution

The Rabbi, granting Chatgpt even got it right, is inventing a new kind of light to explain it when the simpler answer is that the author had no clue how light works OR the author was trying to convey something spiritual. — Bob Ross

Which part of the midrash or Talmudic passage cited do you contend doesn't support the interpretation?

My comment just points out you didn't explore those cites or other rabbinic commentary because you've already decided upon a hermeneutic that demands author intent determine meaning. Notwithstanding the Creation myth passages clearly provide distinct stories strewn together and you have no basis to suggest the original author(s) ever expected their tale to be taken as a literal account.

Is the interestiing part of Aesop's fox and grape fable that it accurately describes human behavior or that foxes can speak?

My point here is simply to say if you've arrived at literalist method of interpretation within the four corners of the document, you will reject others, but just appreciate you're using language differently.

Wittgensteinian speaking, you're a different form of life.

I see your point. It's a tough nut. Do we need to try to find some limit cases where we could speak of a programmer "intentionally" doing something via a program? And do we agree that the idea of a program doing anything intentionally is a non-starter? (just leaving Davidson out of all this for the time being) — J

I'm with you on this. I think we all talked about langauge with a sense there was something special that occurred in the conscious that would make it impossible to communicate without it. What protected this view was the Turing Test barrier, where no interaction with a computer could be remotely confused as human. Then all of a sudden (so it seemed) ChatGPT dropped, and while you can decipher it as not being a human, you can't really argue it doesn't perfectly appear to understand the questions you are asking based upon any inconsistent behavioral manifestation.

What this means to me is that the ability to engage in langauge games does not require an inner state. What this does not mean is that we can ignore what the conscious state is or that langauge does not provide us a means for that conversation.

This seems right in line with Davidson, because even by ascribing no intention to the program, we're able to explain the meaningfulness of its outputs by deferring that ascription back to the programmer -- again, without needing to be able to say specifically what these intentions are. — J

I don't think that works because Davidson speaks often of concatenation, which is the placement of a finite number of words into an infinite number of sentences. That is, we compose sentences of different meanings based upon the words used. AI composes from its database, which means the sum is greater than the parts. There is no programmer out there, for example, that went through and intentionally answered whatever question you might pose to ChatGPT. In fact, AI can create a program, which can create a program, which can create a program, etc. Suggesting you can, through the principal of charity, assume a rational and logical intent based upon a programmer's program 20 generations ago who had no idea of the data within the massive internet database seems quite a stretch to define Davidson as defining AI speak as meaningful language .

I’m a little confused. If malapropisms “by their very nature run contrary to the conventions of language” then there are conventions of language. So the very existence of malapropisms is proof that there is a (conventionally) “correct” way of speaking (else nothing could be a malapropism). — Michael

I can't imagine a language that lacks some degree of conventionalism and I'm not sure anyone holds that. There must be rules to a langauge even if you have full buy in to an internal mentalese. The question is whether it's entirely just a rules based language game or whether you're trying to find some other foundational structure. That's my point directly above related to Davidson's need to rely upon ascribing intent else he would just be a conventionalist.

In responding to @banno and your comments here, is that intent is a necessary component in Davidson's triangulation theory. This does not mean that we look into the heads of the speakers to decipher intent, but we have to ascribe it to the person based upon our assumption that they are rational and logical. "Ascribe" is the operative word, where we assume it and place it upon the speaker, but we don't pretend to know specifically what the intent is, but we do know there is an intent, but it's a black box.

Should Davidson not hold that way, he woudl lose the foundational element for meaning to exist and he would blur into a "meaning is use" position. His position is different than Wittgenstein, although he very much rejects private language and mentalese sorts of claims. I get why there is pushback against anyone who tries to oversstate the intent requirement and tries to turn Davidson into a metaphysician when it comes to understanding meaning, but I think the opposite problem arises when someone tries to ignore the importance of the intent for his theory.

Need not words
— Hanover

But I'll give them anyway. — Banno

That was a spellcheck error where it somehow put "not" instead of "more." You charitably read me as rational and deciphered my intent correctly. Very Davidsonian of you.

Is it different to say say "nice smile" or "nice painting of a smile" when referring to the Mona Lisa?
— Hanover
"Nice smile" picks out the smile. "Nice painting of a smile" picks out the painting. — Banno

Same referent though.



I'm a huge Hopper fan.

If a 16 year old is considered within the custody of his parents, would the parents be required to permit him to vote if that right were afforded him? Do they have a duty to get him to the polls? Can they withhold his vote to punish him for some offense? Can he only vote with the consent of his parents like in other instances (military and marriage) when they wish to be adult like at earlier ages?

there's no appeal to internal meaning or intention - doing so would result in circularity. — Banno

We must charitably assume the speaker is rational and presents his statement accurately to intent. This makes no demand upon deciphering internal thoughts, but if we dispense with linking what he meant with what I understand, it deflates to Wittgensteinian meaning is use.

"To understand the speech of another we must interpret in a way that makes most of his utterances true and rational, given the totality of what we take to be his beliefs, desires, and intentions."
“Radical Interpretation"

I take this as requiring us to construct intent from behaviors but also coupled with an assumption of internal coherence and rationality.. We're not getting into the speaker's head, but we are assuming intent.

All in all, I think education can help people of all ages to acquire a better perspective from which to vote according to their beliefs, desires and needs. — I like sushi

I'm obviously a huge advocate for education for education's sake, this being a philosophy forum and all, but unfortunately education is not what creates better people and better voters

Just get the scope right. Not really a problem. — Banno

Not sure what you mean here. Need not words.

He's saying that the expectation of intent goes into calculating meaning. He's not saying the listener actually knows the speakers intent. — frank

I agree with that. The interpreter applies the principle of charity to assume the speaker's rationality and logic, which assumes consistency of usage, but he's definitely not admitting to a tapping into the speaker's internal state.

But assumption of intent is demanded, else it would be a simple conventionalism.

The problem with using ChatGPT is that it's processing statements that were intentional. It's not just randomly putting words together. — frank

I'm not sure what you mean here. The sentences created by ChatGPT are truly compositional it would seem. That is, they are not just the random slamming together of simple words into sentences or the combination of preset sentences into paragraphs. Davidson often refers to "concatenation" which identifies the ability to create infinite sentences from finite words.

Explaining how oncatenation comes to be is a major part of his project. That is, how does meaning emerge as a sum greater than its parts.

I think it's a hard argument to make that ChatGPT is just an arranging finite elements into finite sentences. It appears to compose, to concatenate.

This ties into Davidson"s resistance to convention being the primary driver of meaning. Intent of the speaker is demanded, which pulls ChatGPT out from producing meaningful statements.

If that is the result, I wonder if AI disproves triangulation. AI under his theory speaks without meaning, yet I feel I understand what it means. But, should I say its lack of intent erases its meaning, am I not just demanding the secret sauce of consciousness into the equation? If that, he becomes just another dreaded metaphysician.

Somewhat perfunctorily, the goal is not to expose the intent of the speaker, but to note the circumstances under which their utterances would be true. — Banno

Is this correct though? I took the truthfulness of the statement to be the 3rd prong, not the 2nd. As in the "cat is on the mat" has meaning if (1) I believe the cat is on the mat, (2) I charitably infer your intent is to communicate the cat is on the mat based upon my assumption you are rational and logical, and (3) the cat is in fact on the mat.

I asked ChatGPT to paint a drawing of a painting. This creates a few interesting questions.

Is a painting of a drawing of a painting a painting or a drawing? Is a painting of a house a house or a painting? Is it different to say say "nice smile" or "nice painting of a smile" when referring to the Mona Lisa?

Are these questions aesthetic questions, linguistic, or metaphysical? Is a representation art, symbol, or a phenomenonal state?

Just what is the house?

The second prong of Davidson's triangulation requires ascribing intent to the speaker charitably assuming rationality and logic to the speaker.

Does ChatGPT satisfy #2?

If not, must we smuggle in internal state talk to maintain the distinction between humans and AI?

The PM's comments don't suggest that working, paying taxing, or serving in the armed forces are conditions that must first be met to vote, but just states that if society already treats 16 year olds as adults for other purposes, then to be consistent, they should also be allowed to vote.

Your suggestions are more problematic because they impose potential voting tests, enfranchising only those that meet certain criteria beyond just age and citizenship. Historically, those sorts of tests have eliminated the least powerful and traditioanally most discriminated classes from the voting rolls.

The age of majority is necessarily arbitrary, and I'm fine with it being 18. I do know that those underage can serve in the military and get married and do other adult activities, but that typically requires parental consent. Whether it ought be 16 and not 18, I suppose an argument could be made either way, but 16 just sounds awfully young to vote or to serve in the military.

But how are they interpreting it? How do they respond to the things Hanover said? If you would like to respond to a specific example, then here's one: why does Genesis describe God making light for the earth before the sun? — Bob Ross

I am not Rabbi Hanover, so I'll cite to ChatGPT, which is generally forbidden here, but I offer it to provide you a glimpse perhaps into what I'm talking about:

Key Rabbinic Interpretations:
The "Or HaGanuz" (אור הגנוז) – the Hidden Light:

Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 3:6) and Talmud (Chagigah 12a) teach that the light created on the first day was a special, transcendent light.

This light allowed one to see "from one end of the world to the other."

Because of its purity and power, God hid this light after the first few days of creation and reserved it for the righteous in the World to Come.

The sun and stars, created on the fourth day, are seen as "cloaks" or physical vessels to carry light going forward.

Rashi’s View (Genesis 1:3):

Rashi, citing Midrash, holds that the initial light wasn’t the same as the sun’s light.

It was an independent illumination that allowed for the division of day and night even before the celestial bodies existed.

Philosophical and Kabbalistic Views:

Maimonides (Rambam), more rationalistic, tends to allegorize these verses and sees "light" as symbolic of form, potential, or divine emanation.

Kabbalistic sources (like the Zohar) associate the first light with divine emanation—a manifestation of God’s presence, not bound by physicality.

Literal Harmonizers:

Some rabbinic commentators, like Ibn Ezra, try to harmonize with natural observation by suggesting that “light” was created in a diffuse or unlocalized form first, and only later gathered or fixed into celestial bodies.

He suggests perhaps the sun already existed but was not yet assigned its calendrical role until day four.

Your questions (all of them), trust me, have all been answered in one form or the other over the past couple thousand years.

The goal should be equality for humans. — MoK

Like @180 Proof, this struck me as the unsupported part of your OP and I'd ask why this should be the goal.

To quote Dylan:

"A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now."

That is, an unnuanced equation of liberty or goodness generally to equality or really to any one single thing is overly simplistic, the behavior of someone who claims to know more than he knows, the result of clinging to youthful unprocessed idealism.

There is no "principle or parsimony" for reading historical texts that says: "stick to just one text." Really quite the opposite. We try to confirm things through as many traditions and texts as possible. I am not sure where Rashi got that idea though, if it might have been in an earlier tradition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The biblical rule that provides authority to the rabbis:

Deuteronomy 17:8–11
"If a matter eludes you in judgment... you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God shall choose. And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who will be in those days, and inquire, and they will declare to you the matter of judgment. And you shall do according to the word which they declare to you... You shall act according to the Torah which they teach you and according to the judgment which they say to you; you shall not deviate from the word they tell you, either right or left."

Consider also:

Exodus 24:12
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me on the mountain and stay there, and I will give you the tablets of stone, and the law and the commandment that I have written for their instruction.’”

The "commandment" is considered differently than "the law," which is interpreted as the oral tradition that was supposedly passed down from generation to generation, eventually being written into the Talmud. The Talmud is considered as authoritive as the Torah, and it is interpreted by the rabbis. That is, there is an entire legal system devised around these writings, largely given meaning by the rabbis.

It's for that reason that isolated readings of biblical passages have no authority because they ignore other binding writings and binding rabbincal authority. It's not terribly different from legal interpretative systems in secular society, giving priority to various documents and authority to interpreters.

Also, it is worth mentioning that these kinds of rejoinders, like Rashi’s, seem to fall prey to violating the principle of parsimony. No where in the OT does it suggest remotely that there were no children or that the beasts were shapeshifters: you’d think it would mention that, or at least not mention things which imply the contrary. — Bob Ross

Well, the story tells us in one passage there were 2 of each animal, but in another 7 pair of clean animal and 1 of unclean. It tells us the flood was 40 days but in another it was 150. The story fluctuates from calling God Yahweh and Elohim, which supports the theory that this is a tale from multiple sources weaved together and therefore not consistent. Keep in mind the physical impossibility of a rainfall flooding the entire earth and animals of all sorts from polar bears to kangaroos all converging upon the ark at the same time. And there is that whole problem of the Nephilim, the offspring of the gods and mortals which is given as the basis for the flood, further discussed in Enoch, a book that failed to make the canon. Why do we not stop and ask ourselves more about those giants of old who irritated God so much that he killed them by flood? And multiple gods having sex with humans seems so non-monotheistic. Like how do I make that consistent with the absolute monotheism of Deuteronomy?

The point being that I have no idea how to apply the rule of parsimony to this ancient and largely borrowed tale.

Then let's talk about your insistence upon looking only at the text. That isn't the Jewish tradition. They rely upon the oral tradition that was eventually written down in the Talmud, which has as much priority as the Torah for explaining all these things. That is, subtracting out the rabbinic tradition from the source material is not how the source material is supposed to be understood by those who are relying upon it.

Are you proceeding under the theory that the OT was written by God, that it is consistent, or that it can really be used without other documents for a complete understanding? The inconsistencies are not just curious problems that we must rectify, as if a diety of such complexities left them as riddles to challenge us. They are true inconsistencies, formed from too many cooks in the kitchen and preserved for posterity by an ancient editor, who's name or names was lost to time, meaning the scribe was not Moses.

In the United Kingdom, if you get 70% or above, you get a 1st class Bachelor's Degree and a Distinction level Master's Degree. — Truth Seeker

In the US, a 70% would be considered barely hanging in there, and in some programs that would be considered a D, just short of failing. If knowledge of only 70% of the material is considered stellar, then in the US, they'd curve the grade scale to make that an A because the grades reflect a particular standard as opposed to a particular percentage mastered. Also, there's grade inflation in the US so as to combat hurt feelings. We make sure everyone gets a trophy, but I digress.

What is "Cs"? — Truth Seeker

I guess it's an American expression. A "C" (as opposed to an A or B) is an average grade. You can be average and still get a degree.

I scored 73% in my exam. — Truth Seeker

Cs get degrees I always say.

In the new order, all comments regarding religion must be deferential, apparently. — Banno

Perhaps respectful as opposed to deferential. Or not, if it's a shouting match or snarkiness competition you prefer.

Sounds like a Marxist liberation from religion ideology. Controlling the masses through religion and all.

The Nietzchian response is to eliminate Christianity not because it's being used disparately to subjugate, but because it's subjugating the powerful by imposing the morality of the weak upon the strong. So, to the extent the suggestion is that the problem is that religion is being used to control the weak, there is an argument that it is being used to control the strong.

I see it as neither, but just a general observation about politics and how power is imposed upon people with a special pleading upon religion, as if the political mechanisms of religion for social control are importantly distinct from all the other ways human beings play king of the hill. Whether you control beliefs, normative behavior, or actual law, you can do that for the purposes of promoting your own interests or you can do it for the betterment of society. The track record of politicians generally is far from perfect, regardless of what ideology they espouse.

I'll go on record as calling rapists bad in all instances. The question is complicted by whether the person did the act or not. If there is a person who would rape if he could rape and not find himself in prison for a very long period of time, I can't say he's a terribly good person, but he's not done anything (yet at least). I think we need the intent and the act before we pass real judgment. Like if I said I'd give $1,000,000 to the poor if I had $10,000,000. Does that make me a good person even if I don't have $10,000,000 so the poor get nothing from me? So, is a guy bad if he would rape if he could rape without consequence? It's pretty hard to do that in our society, much like it's pretty hard to have $10,000,000.

But, sure, I'd like to know that it's not the prisons that keep people honest, but it's the people's honesty that keeps them honest.

So we are all bad. — Fire Ologist

I'd still maintain that all that can be concluded is that we all do bad things, not that we're holistically bad. Like if a murderer, rapist, liar, cheater, etc. helps an old lady across the street, he's not a good person. He's a bad person who did a good thing. The opposite holds true for good people who do bad things from time to time. If you didn't allow any bad acts, there'd be no good people, but clearly there are people we consider good.

When we say to ourselves that we know right from wrong, and then we still do what is wrong, if that is bad, then yes, we are all bad people. — Fire Ologist

He didn't require you do bad, just that you'd hypothetically do bad if you could get away with it. So, if you never committed a bad act, and in fact lived a super moral life, helping others in all instances, but you did it for the fame and failed to do bad because you knew you'd get caught, are you a bad person?

I'd also argue that even if you did commit a bad act now and then, you're not a bad person necessarily. You can do bad and still be overall good

It's as immoral to turn the other cheek to evil and allow it to destroy the innocent as it is to annihilate.without restraint to protect the innocent. Both at extremes are not virtuous, and, in practice, adherents of the OT and NT behave in moderated ways. There is as much turning cheeks and firing weapons from both sides.

The problem is in taking these stories too literally. It destroys all nuance and creates dichotomies that never really exist

Fast forward 600 years after Amalek to the Book of Esther. Haman is noted to be an Agagite, meaning a descendant of Agag, the sole survivor of the Amalek, who King Ssul failed to kill from sympathy. Samuel did kill him soon after, but the story being told is that evil. If allowed to spawn (and the rabbinical suggestion is Agag impregnated someone in that extra day) begets more evil. And, of course, Haman sought to murder all the Jews in the Esther story.

The point is this is a mythological story about responding to evil and the consequences of misplaced sympathy. I don't think a Christian should find that notion objectionable. It's the literalism that is unworkable.

Do you think that argument is "to simply declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong"? — Leontiskos

I think if you begin with an immovable preconceived notion of what God is (love, etc.) and you encounter a tradition inconsistent with that, you are left with either judgmentally or non-judgmentally responding to it. Non-judgmentally, you'd recognize it academically and consider yourself educated. Judgmentally, you'd tell the other side they were worshipping a false god.

Is there something you believe to be wrong with "option 4"? — Leontiskos

You said it's heresy. But, assuming we don't care about that, I'd say it's perfectly fine to say the OT and NT are incompatible and you've got to choose one, the other, or neither. But to declare which must be chosen because it's the correct one is simply to declare your God the true God and all other believers wrong

I don't know public declarations that you worship the true God bring much fruitful discussion.