I have successfully predicted the outcome of every US presidential race since Van Buren other than my one embarrassing misstep in the James K. Polk match up against Henry Clay, so consider those credentials as you will, but I see a Trump victory. No one is getting out of bed to vote for Joe, not even Joe.

Don't kill the messenger. I too wish things were different.

But we can ask a rather simple question. If someone believes that immorality pertains to the causing of suffering (↪Banno), then must they not simultaneously hold that not-causing-suffering is part of the essence of morality — Leontiskos

When you say "part of the essence of morality," are you envisioning (1) multiple essences that establish morality or are you envisioning (2) an essence having more elemental components. If #1, then you're saying that an evil act inherently includes causing-suffering and that it has additional inherent elements? If it does, what are they? If not, does it then just have accidental properties along with the essential properties? If #2, then you're arguing essences of essences, meaning if an evil act is essentially one that causes-harm, then we have to decide what the essence is of causes-harm is, right? Does this reduce to some sort of fundamental atomic essence that all things have? Would that be the pure form of morality we seek? If it is, then we need to stop talking about causes-harm as being the essence of morality, but we need to figure out what this deeply imbedded essence is that all moral acts have.

What I'm suggesting is that not-causing-harm is not the essence of morality. I can probably envision an instance where I must do harm to be moral, as in when self-defense becomes necessary. I'm also not committed to a consequentialism, which this line of thinking might entail, where you then complicate the matter by suggesting that morality is reducing-harm-to-the-greatest-number or some such.

By arguing essentialism, you just challenge my creativity, meaning you throw down a definition and then you ask me to come up with a counter-example to the definition. I (and you) can always find a counter-example, but that's not because we're so clever, but it's becasue essentialism is false. Words are just too flexible, and it is words that we're talking about. This says nothing about ontology or metaphysics. It just speaks about how we speak.

And don't get me wrong. I am a moral realist and have no difficulty talking metaphysics. I think an act is right or wrong, not subject to my subjective definitions or beliefs. What I don't think though, is that there is some special X that all moral acts must have to be moral. It's entirely possible that act A and act B are both moral, but they lack any similar ingredients.

As with my DSM psychological definition I provided, maybe to be moral we must have 25 of 8,000,000 possible ingredients. That would allow for thousands of moral acts to not share a single common ingredient, meaning we don't have any essential ingredient at all. And I'm not committed to 8,000,000. We may learn it's 8,000,001 upon further review.

It's sort of interesting how modern philosophy has attempted to do without essences, but really you can't do without them. Linguistically, words need to have meaning. — Leontiskos

Non-essentialism doesn't suggest words have no meaning.


What is the essence of "depression:? Here's the definition:

Major Depressive Disorder requires two or more major depressive episodes.

Diagnostic criteria:

"Depressed mood and/or loss of interest or pleasure in life activities for at least 2 weeks and at least five of the following symptoms that cause clinically significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of functioning almost every day

1.
Depressed mood most of the day.

2.
Diminished interest or pleasure in all or most activities.

3.
Significant unintentional weight loss or gain.

4.
Insomnia or sleeping too much.

5.
Agitation or psychomotor retardation noticed by others.

6.
Fatigue or loss of energy.

7.
Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt.

8.
Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness.

9.
Recurrent thoughts of death (APA, 2000, p. 356)."

I have fatigue and loss of energy? Am I depressed? Maybe yes, maybe no. #6 isn't essential, but no one attribute is.

Could this prescriptive definition not be universal? Might the way it's used vary by context, where I say I'm depressed just because I'm mildly upset, yet I don't meet this definition?

The point is, use varies by context and users don't even require a single consistent attribute of a term to anchor its meaning.

The word conveys meaning, but every sentence is a mix of metaphor and poetry. Just speaking of words (and I don't speak, I type) as conveying meaning (as if they move something from A to B (and what the hell is an A and B, and why speak of the netherworld, and what's it underneath?)) and what did we mix? (I didn't stir anything).

The point is, speaking is a comparative analysis to the world you know. We talk about what things are like, not what they are, which is what an essence is.

It's just a name. The states haven't been united since the drawing of the Mason-Dixon line. Some federal governments, in some economic climates were able to hold it together more effectively than others, but in the last 40 years - since Reagan - the divide has been growing wider, while other rifts have been opening up. I see no way to reconciliation. — Vera Mont

The problematic aspect of your lament over the dissolution of state's rights was that the war that formally drew them legally bound together under the same Constitution was not one fought for any lofty principle. It was fought to protect the institution of slavery by a confederacy that did nothing to try to protect the individual state rights within its confederacy. It's just that South wanted its own slave protecting laws for its region and so it went to war.

As to the division between the left and the right, that geographical division is best defined not by drawing a line somewhere north of Maryland and meandering south of Missouri, but instead by drawing circles around major metropolitan areas and leaving out suburban and urban areas. The Atlantans, for example, probably won't be fighting alongside their suburban neighbors to the north.

Since Americans have no particular allegiance to certain state lands, as if someone would proclaim they will fight and die for the great state of Iowa or the like, the insurgents would be left fighting over ideology alone, unattached to any love of land. In the Civil War, ideology was attached to land, as it was the slaves who were fueling that economy in that region. So, if the right or the left wants to fight a civil war, they will have to come from all regions and band together under a unified flag.

In any event, the last great resurrection ended with a handful of crazies getting locked up after storming the Capital.

OTP. I'm not an ITP sort of person.

How much do you expect and or fear that a strong fascist moment could be organized within the next 5 years? — BC

Unless someone wants to define our current system as fascist (which I don't), I put the chances at right around zero. The forces maintaining the status quo are well forged, and not seriously challenged by those marching in the street, writing scathing articles, and or even by the voting booth.

Your post could have appeared during any 5 year period from 1950 until today, and I expect the same sort of responses would have been given, with back and forth about how the political and economic environment will never sustain with way things are going.

The only reason I don't say it's outright zero is because there is always the chance of an unforeseen disruptive force, like a meteor slams into earth, nuclear war, or a zombie apocolypse.

The most likely of those deals with war. Which means its less our morals that offers us protection than it is our military.

Edit: I'd change 1950 to 1865, but I might be convinced to roll it back to 1776.

St. Simons is a resort island these days. It's very built up. Jekyll much less so because of regulations preserving it. If you're exploring the coast one day, check out Cumberland Island. It's a national park, completely preserved, with the ruins of old estates and wild horses running free.

Fair enough. I still see that as utterly ridiculous - impugning someone's motives based on their accent or locale. Wild. — AmadeusD

Well not like that. What I was indicating is that if someone is violating social norms and it's clear they are not familiar with them due to their being from somewhere else, which is evident from their accent, they might get a pass. It's like if I ate with the wrong utensils at dinner and then you heard my American accent, you'd understand, as opposed to if I should have known better.

So, if you started in with some awkward race based questions, I might give you a pass, just realizing it was a cultural difference. But if you were a local, I would assume you were familiar with local customs and you meant to be violating them. I wasn't suggesting that the Southern twang made them a racist. I was suggesting that if they are saying things that are understood locally as racist, and they are locals, then they probably are racist.

I find this utterly preposterous, and a symptom of looking for enemies, unfortunately. Thems might be the rules, but they're ridiculous, if so. — AmadeusD

It's not a symptom of looking for enemies though. The word usage is well understood. If the meaning you wish to convey is "I'd rather not black people be around me" there is no special way it ought be said. If that can be said by saying "I like rabbits," then that's the word usage. That people say it here as "there were a lot of black people there," just means it's said a different way.

That you might mean something different when you say it will likely be realized with your Aussie accent, but, I assure you, the harder the Southern twang used when it is said, the less likely you're going to convince someone your questions about the presence of black people was just an innocuous curiosity.

P.S have spent some time in Georgia, near the coast. Lovely, flat, welcoming place but its super-creepy to drive past plantation after plantation — AmadeusD

Not sure of the plantations you speak of. There are some more inland that have fallen into disrepair, nothing like what has been maintained in Lousiana.

The coast itself has a storied past dating back to among the first European settlers and it then became a vacation area for the Pulitzers, Morgans, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Goodyear, to name a few. The Jekyll Island resort was once owned by the Rockerfellers and it is now a hotel with adjoining cottages. It has a very Great Gatsby feel to it, in terms of the decor and description, although the book itself sucks as we've already concluded.

I don't see a faux pas in pointing out a demographic unfamilar to you. Doesn't seem to contain any opinion on it - just that it was unusual for that guy. I think in this case, your friend/her husband aren't being reasonable - but this, I think goes to my point. Id want to hear more, in any situation. — AmadeusD

I see you are from New Zealand? This is significant because the comment by the driver was in fact a faux pas where I am from. The husband was not in the car. We were all white. Had a black person been in the car, it would have been different. I have heard there are few things more complex than American racial interaction and humor related to it. I saw that happening and instead of changing the subject (which would probably been the tactful move), I entertained everyone by soliciting more faux pas.

If you said to me "my friend and I are coming over later" and I said "is he black?," and you were American, you'd look at me sideways, like, why does that matter? Or, you might say "fuck no!" which means you're either racist, or it could mean you're sarcastially calling me a racist by pretending to agree with my racism in an extreme way, which means you'd be asking me to clarify for you why it should matter..

That is, it's not supposed to matter what race people are, so if you ask about it, you're saying it matters, which means you now need to explain why it matters. That is, why did the cabbie register in his head that something different about Atlanta was that many of the people are black? Why was that important to him when it's normal to those who live there? The insinuation is that he thinks differently of black than whites. He didn't mention that everyone in Atlanta wears white tennis shoes and blue jeans and baseball caps (which they do like in the rest of America). He mentioned they were black.

What he meant really was, "Wow, back home everyone is white, and when I came over here I thought it'd be the same, but it's different, and that's unusual for me." And he likely meant no judgment either way. But here, there are judgments attached to those things.

Anyway, I don't make the rules.

When i said 'you', read it as the abstract use of 'one'. It was not aimed at you personally - And i do not carry assumptions of this kind (or, more accurate, i immediately, by way of years of habit-forming, jettison my assumptions upon meeting/interacting with someone). I wait until someone actually tells me something of substance, instead of reading into things. — AmadeusD

A quick story because everyone does love a story.

I live in Atlanta and visited my then wife's family in rural east Georgia. Their indiscriminate use of the N word was a bit shocking to my more urbane ears, so much so that I must have shown enough reaction that the family matriarch apologized to me and explained to me that they weren't racist, but that there were a lot of racial tensions in town, at that moment having to do with a dispute over whether certain white historical sites would be preserved by the majority black city counsel.

Word usage varies from bubble to bubble I understand, but I have to think they conveyed exactly what they meant to convey, probably thinking all "family," regardless of blood or not, shared similar views, so they were free to speak freely. The point being that some word usage doesn't leave much doubt as to where people stand, and you have to realize that the words you hear are probably modified to your sensibilities until the day you stumble into somewhere you've been misread.

You are right, though, to the extent maybe someone could live somewhere and not know the nuances of the language and suggest something with their word usage that was unintended. I think that happens here at PTF honestly and can recall a few instances where posters did not understand the incredibly complex world of American racial nuances and they said something that shouldn't have been said, at least if they were in my bubble.

Another story because everyone loves a story.

I was on a work trip and we all piled into a cab from the airport and we had a driver with a thick Eastern European descent, likely a recent immigrant. We told him we were from Atlanta, and he told us he had been there and that it had so many black people he couldn't believe it. One of the women in the cab with us was married to a black man, which he, of course didn't know, so I took that opportunity to egg him on and ask him "what do you think of all those blacks," trying to keep up the awkward moment. The joke, of course, was that he already committed a faux pas, had no clue, and I was going to see how many more I could get him to make, all while my friend was forced to endure it. He, I do believe, was innocent and just making a remark, although had he been allowed to keep talking, who knows.

The first story, no innocence there.

If the refrain indicates that all that preceded it has been rejected now that he's wiser, then I'm left with this:

"Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, "rip down all hate, " I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"

meaning he does not buy into the statement "rip down all hate" and that he does not believe it a lie when people claim some things are black and white. An interesting nod to moral certainty at a time when that was challenged.

And then this:

"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"

A rejection that equality is the highest principle to hold to (i.e. a wedding vow).

I could go on, but I'm already boring you.

But then this is consistent with some lyrics from "To Ramona" (which some say was written about Joan Baez),

"I've heard you say many times
That you're better than no one
And no one is better than you
If you really believe that
You know you have
Nothing to win and nothing to lose."

That's my Dylan analysis for the day. I actually just saw him recently in Kentucky. It was cool to be there, but he was a bit hard to understand.

Your dad was far hipper than mine. Mine was of a generation earlier.

I was struck by how counter-counter-revolutionary these lyrics were, like saying the whole counterculture ideology was bullshit.

My thoughts, and I'm perfectly fine with your telling me I've missed the boat entirely here because I pretend no expertise in this.

Where @Mww and you were discussing:

And yet, there remains some idiotic insistence that noumena and thing-in-themselves are the same thing. Or the same kind of thing. Or can be treated as being the same kind of thing.
— Mww

I was absolutely wrong on this, and misunderstood Noumena entirely. — AmadeusD

I take issue with the "idiotic insistence" suggestion, as if the equation of the noumena and thing in itself is such an unsustainable suggestion that it is to be ridiculed.

For example, from Wiki:

"Noumenon and the thing-in-itself
Many accounts of Kant's philosophy treat "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" as synonymous, and there is textual evidence for this relationship.[15] However, Stephen Palmquist holds that "noumenon" and "thing-in-itself" are only loosely synonymous, inasmuch as they represent the same concept viewed from two different perspectives,[16][17] and other scholars also argue that they are not identical.[18] Schopenhauer criticised Kant for changing the meaning of "noumenon". However, this opinion is far from unanimous.[19] Kant's writings show points of difference between noumena and things-in-themselves. For instance, he regards things-in-themselves as existing:

...though we cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position at least to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.[20]

He is much more doubtful about noumena:

"But in that case a noumenon is not for our understanding a special [kind of] object, namely, an intelligible object; the [sort of] understanding to which it might belong is itself a problem. For we cannot in the least represent to ourselves the possibility of an understanding which should know its object, not discursively through categories, but intuitively in a non-sensible intuition.[21]

A crucial difference between the noumenon and the thing-in-itself is that to call something a noumenon is to claim a kind of knowledge, whereas Kant insisted that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Interpreters have debated whether the latter claim makes sense: it seems to imply that we know at least one thing about the thing-in-itself (i.e., that it is unknowable). But Stephen Palmquist explains that this is part of Kant's definition of the term, to the extent that anyone who claims to have found a way of making the thing-in-itself knowable must be adopting a non-Kantian position.[22]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noumenon#:~:text=However%2C%20Stephen%20Palmquist%20holds%20that,that%20they%20are%20not%20identical.

This is just to say that the equation of noumena and the thing in itself is not idiotic, but is a point of debate among scholars.

The last paragraph of what I quoted makes the most sense to me, assuming I followed it, and that is I take it the distinction being drawn is that "noumena" is a reference to an epistimilogical statement that says "X cannot be known," where "cannot be known" is what it means to be noumenal. So X is noumenal. However, "the thing in itself" is a reference to the ontological object and is that actual thing that cannot be known. It is X. We therefore say "the thing in itself is noumenal," meaning all we know of X is that it is unknowable.

All of this is to say:

X = "the thing in itself"
Y = "that which cannot be known"
"That which cannot be know" = "noumenal"
All Xs are Y
Only Xs are Y

So. X is Y is a correct statement.
The error, I assume that is drawing this debate is where X is Y is reinterpreted to X = Y? That is the idiotic insistence of equality?

We then can debate why X is Y is a different statement than X = Y, which is probably true, but I'm not sure how that changes any part of our analysis, but I can see what some would say "is" and "is the same as" are not importantly different.

I found this helpful: https://epochemagazine.org/07/the-thing-in-itself-a-problem-child/

The primary part of your post relates to this:

Kant tells us that there are real, material objects 'out there' of which we can know nothing things in themselves. But that these objects cause our intuitions... which are not, as far as we care capable of knowing, anything like hte thing-in-itself.. — AmadeusD

This seems a contradiction from the above. We now know two things about the thing in itself: (1) it is unknowable and (2) it causes intuituitions. #1 appears definitionally true, but #2 an empirical statement. If X (the thing in itself) causes me to see a flower, I can say something pretty substantive of X, specifically that it elicits a particular intuition, but I don't think I can say that because it's noumenal. I can only say there are Xs out there and intuituions in here, but I can't say any particular X is consistently responsible for any particular intuition.

That is why I have a problem with the causative suggestion of X eliciting certain intutitions. That tells us too much about X. It tells us there is this fuzzy, unclear sort of energetic impulse out there that makes us experience and presents us with an extreme sort of representationalism, which I personally would lean toward, but I'm not sure Kant comes out and says that.

Anyway, I'm open to reconsidering. With Kant, I'm never sure if I'm just not following it or whether it's just not followable.

Word usage has nothing to do with progress toward greater racial harmony. Meaning is use. When a white person uses the N word, he means, "hey guys, I'm a racist." When a black person uses it, it doesn't mean that.

If one day both blacks and whites could hold hands and mean the same thing when they use that word, that'd be interesting, but I don't think it would mean we were any closer to achieving MLK Jr.'s dream.

Let's aim higher.

That's what he says. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT84jMWvD/

As discussed, they won't be adding new functionality and we'll have to move to another platform. — Jamal

Are there some other platforms that would consider adding a penalty box as described? I'd like to get that started, at least to have the foundation poured by the end of the month.

I still don't have ice skates though.

Here I need a little help now, cause I thought that the word antisemitism refers to systematic discrimination, prejudices and conceptions of the Jews that have prevailed in the Christian world the last 2000 years — Eros1982

It's not limited to the time or geographical region you assumed. This stuff is easy enough to Google.

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

It is hard in my view to trace systematic prejudices against Jews in the non-Christian world — Eros1982

Just read the timeline I cited.

Wouldn't it be more correct to call the Muslim, Asian and African opponents of Israel "anti-israelites" instead of calling them antisemitic? — Eros1982

It would be more accurate to call anyone who is anti-Israel "anti-Israel" if that's what they are, regardless of where they're from, and it would be more accurate to call someone "antisemitic" if they were antisemitic if that's what they are regardless of where they're from. The terms have different meanings.

Even if your historical analysis were correct that antisemitism began sometime in the 1st century and was limited to Christian nations (and none of this is accurate), your logic still dioesn't hold. By analogy, someone who hates black people is properly called a racist even if he's from a country that has no history of hating black people.

But the bigger question is what is your larger point? Are you simply trying to prescribe linguistic usage for pedantic reasons, or are you suggesting some substantive difference between the hate felt by modern day Christians antisemites versus Muslim ones so much so that a different term should be prescribed for each?

Another was a Medieval-style system, where reporting a post was effectively a wager, such that if someone reported a post that is not problematic then that someone takes the penalty that would have been applied to the poster they reported. It seems that this was a way to limit litigation in locales where judicial resources were scarce. I'm not sure if it would work, but I like the idea. It would certainly lighten moderation if it could be implemented. — Leontiskos

I envisioned a hockey style penalty box where for the two minutes you were in lock down, your opponent was in a power play and could comment without allowing you a response. The difficulty I saw in it was in the expense of the box and finding personnel to monitor the person in the box so he wouldn't jump free.

I also don't have ice skates.

I don't want this to appear as if there is some bias against Chinese culture or traditions. My only point is that the information that is passed down in any culture is passed down for a variety of reasons, and the scientific accuracy of the account is not necessarily one of them. I do also recognize that some cultures value their traditions more than others, while within some it is part of the tradition to challenge the culture.

Are there any westerner ancestors who passed things to your generation nowadays and you know it is valuable? — YiRu Li

There are of course, but what we're talking about isn't how information is transmitted, but the accuracy of the trasmission. I would suggest that all cultures pass their mythology down to their children, and there is a reason for that mythology in maintaining a certain culuture and belief system, but that doesn't mean that the wars of the Bible, for example, actually occurred as set out or whether they occured at all.

The Bible (which is the Western example) describes battles that the ancient Hebrews either heroically won or that they lost due to their failure to do the will of God. That is, it's all set forth with the Hebrews being the center of importance, maintaining a theme that justice prevails when one acts in accordance with God's law.

The point being that history accuracy, particularly the ancient sort, did not rely upon the modern sorts of rules we apply to historical accuracy today. They did not make sure the sources were double checked, that opposing accounts were considered, or that physical evidence was examined. They made sure it maintained a certain narrative they wanted advanced.

For a specific answer to your question, within Judaism, for example, there is a concept known as L'dor v'dor, which literally means "from generation to generation," a talmudic requirement that "is understood to mean the transmission of the culture's values, rituals, traditions, and history to the next generation."

https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/pjblog/december-2016/what-is-ldor-vdor

Chinese history is only 5,000 years old.
If mapping to the Bible time, it's after 'Tower of the Babel'.
Before that, it's not included in Chinese history.
So Chinese history can not support six day creation and a great flood. — YiRu Li

My point was only that because your documents indicate something happened, that doesn't mean that it actually happened, regardless of whether it comes from China or another country.

Chinese has 5,000 years of history.
We still can easily read any documents from 5,000 years ago.
It's not legends, it's history. — YiRu Li

Ancient documents from the near east that have become central to Western civilization tell of a six day creation and a great flood. Does their antiquity and accessibility mean those things actually happened?

Chinese history has a very strong civilization and culture supports the truth. — YiRu Li

But isn't this what all governments say?

I guess an ethical system is the 'clothes', which is a prevention/temporary solution.
We still need to fix the root cause 'the Apple', which changed the way Adam and Eve look at things.
How to turn our mind back to the original / nature, to antidote 'the Apple'?
I guess that's why philosophy discusses dealing with inequality or the way to see things. — YiRu Li

I'd take the apple in the metaphor to represent the knowledge of good and evil, distinguishing humans from the animals that lack such knowledge. I don't see the antidote is returning humans to that animal like state to where we become amoral.

If we're sticking with the metaphor, the question is how we should best respond to the serpent, which represents temptation to do evil.

That is, we know what is right and what is wrong and we have to respond by doing what is right.

I think this forum makes a very good distinction between the philosophy of religion and religious debates themselves.

That's a good example. — ssu

It is a good example, consistent with the adage not to discuss religion and politics.

There's obviously a difference between political philosophy and arguing politics, the former we see much less of. I doubt in the former you'd hear a whole lot of fuck yous, bullshits, insults, questioning integrity, subtly racist outbursts, or name calling.

My New Year's resolution is to stear clear of the political threads. I don't think it's philosophy per se, but I do think it belongs here, but I don't think it adds a whole lot to whatever my reason is for being here. The threads tend to create bad feeling, accentuate our closely held personal differences, do nothing to cause reconsideration of our views, and generally piss each other off. I can find animosity all around me. I don't need to come here for that.

And this isn't a lecture to others. I can be as hostile as anyone else,. I just happen to be right when everyone else is wrong so it's justified.

It's not that ethical truths don't affect choices but that ethical truths don't affect the outcome of choices. If I choose to eat meat then the outcome of eating meat is the same whether or not I ought not eat meat. — Michael

This doesn't follow from Moore’s quote in the post above it. If Moore is adopting a Kantian view where he claims moral principles are synthetic, then he is specifically stating a moral outcome does affect the world and the world will be different if the outcome is different. This isn't to say the basis for the principle (in Kant's case, the categorical imparative) is known by evaluating the world and gauging it's consequences (i.e. that it's known a posteriori), but instead that it is a synthetic a priori truth (which is what Kant considered the categorical imparative to be).

The fact that I know something purely from intuition (which is what Moore is noted to be:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism-ethics/#:~:text=Moore%20is%20the%20intuitionist%20who,on%20goodness%20rather%20than%20rightness.) or a priori (per Kant) doesn't mean the consequence isn't measurable.. It simply means epistemologically, I know it's rightness without having had to experience it and that its outcome is not what made it good or bad.

Why does it matter if good increases? It's a non-natural property that has no practical affect on us or our lives. Unlike nutrition. — Michael

That's not how Moore describes the non-natural. Show me where non-naturalism is defined as having no effect on our lives.

Non-naturalism is that which can't be provided an essentialist definition and whose properties are not sensible in terms of natural (physical) properties. That I can't touch the righteousness of an act doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it has no impact on the world.

I know. This discussion is intended to show that if theories like Moore's are correct then moral facts don't matter, and so perhaps works as a reductio ad absurdum against such theories. I do not endorse Moore's ethical non-naturalism. — Michael

But Moore holds that moral facts do matter because when people do as they ought to, societal good increases. So why does it matter if killing babies is moral? Because if you do it, the good will be maximized.

So why are we motivated to promote the good? Why not just be motivated to promote pleasure? If pleasure happens to be good then this is merely incidental and irrelevant to our considerations. — Michael

Your question is equivalent to this:

If we want to promote nutrition, and nutrition is promoted by increasing vitamin C intake, then why don't we just promote vitamin C and not nutrition? What is added by saying we want to promote nutrition if nutrition happens to equal vitamin C?

The reason is that we don't just happen to like vitamin C, but it's that we like nutrition and vitamin C is our vehicle for getting there.

We might deny immediate pleasure (e.g. drug use) not because we think denial of immediate pleasure is the good, but because it promotes greater pleasure, which is the good.

Why does it matter that I ought not kill wild animals for food? What is my motivation to be moral? Perhaps I simply don't care that I ought not kill wild animals for food; I'm going to do it anyway because I like the taste of meat. — Michael

You're asking a question Moore doesn't ask. Again quoting from the article you cited:

"In applying this view, Moore gave it the form of what today is called “indirect” or “two-level” (Hare 1981) consequentialism. In deciding how to act, we should not try to assess individual acts for their specific consequences; instead, we should follow certain general moral rules, such as “Do not kill” and “Keep promises,” which are such that adhering to them will most promote the good through time"[/quote]

That is, Moore was a non-naturalist and a consequentialist, which means he cared what the consequence of his behavior was. What made him a non-naturalist was his refusal to provide an essentialist definition of "the good. "

Per Moore, your motivation not to kill wild animals for food (as you have posited that it is immoral) is that by not killing animals, you will promote more good through time. That means you have a goal and purpose for your behavior, which is to maximize the good.

"The good" you wish to promote is real (as Moore is a moral realist), even if the definition is subject to a plurality of goals (i.e. not just one, like a hedonist, who isolates pleasure as the only objective).

No, what I was referencing was your misuse of language in order to compare the "genocide" and "concentration camps" of Nazi Germany to the current day conflict in Israel as if they're literally the same. I indicated it was unnecessary that I actually show pictures of those housed in those death camps to prove my obvious point and that it would be disrespectful to use those images just to state the obvious. You made an offensive comment suggesting I didn't actually care about those who suffered in the death camps and ridiculed my suggestion that I did.

I didn't respond in kind, but attempted to diffuse your inappropriate comment only for you not to allow that we just move on from there, now presenting with this claim that I'm a racist.

Anyway, all that can be said has been said on this, no opinions are likely to change, and so now all that is left is snark and insult. To the extent you believe your opponents are in bad faith, deluded, racist, or whatever other subhuman trait you attribute to them, you are very wrong.

But the non-naturalist isn't a moral skeptic. He's a moral realist.

And no one is an essentialist anymore. It's like so yesterday.

I'm trying to make sense of it as well, and I don't know if I'm understanding it or just imposing some linguistic meaning = use philosophy into it. That is, what is any X other than a fluid set of non-essential criteria defined contextually?

A hat is thing you put on top of your head, but suppose it's a 5000 lb iron hat? I guess the putting on your head part is non-essential. And the same holds true for anything you say of the hat or of anything,. But that doesn't mean we don't know what hats are or that we don't know what anything is just because we reject essentialism as it pertains to definitions.

So, we can adjudicate what is the good, just as we can adjudicate what is a hat, and that holds true even though we have no essential element of either. I contend Moore still can provide specific reasons for why something is good, and those reasons are subject to debate and conclusions. If not, then he is saying "moral" is an empty concept, which is clearly not what he's saying.

If you want to say dictionaries have limited use because every word's meaning is contextualized, that is true, which can be taken to mean that terms generally are not fully defined, but that hardly means words have no meaning.

Hanover

Moore doesn't have a definition. As he says in the Principia Ethica:

‘Good,’ then, if we mean by it that quality which we assert to belong to a thing, when we say that the thing is good, is incapable of any definition, in the most important sense of that word. — Michael

He does have a definition of "the good" from what I quoted above, but he claims it is undefined because he says there is no essential component to it. He describes "the good" as having a variety of objectives, and so it is pluralistic, unlike saying the good = that which increases the most pleasure, which would posit a monistic, essentialist definition of "the good. " What Moore is saying is "the good" might include a variety of things, which may include pleasure and other objectives.

But to reject essentialism isn't to argue for meaninglessness or for intuitionism. It is to argue for contextualism. That is, the good is that which satisfies certain particular goals attendant to the circumstances and therefore based upon reason as to what you wish to accomplish under a given scenario.

And so when you ask this question:

Given that I believe that it is immoral to cause suffering, what follows if suffering is immoral and what follows if suffering is not immoral? — Michael

The answer is that the suffering you find immoral will not be moral if contextually it is not defined as moral. That is, if killing babies is moral and you find it immoral, you will be immoral if you don't kill babies, but that will require a rational basis for such killing to be moral under the circumstances at hand.

The consequence of doing wrong under this scenario is the same for the naturalist as the non-naturalist. One just has a simple equation defining the good. The other a fluid one context dependent.

Thoroughly offensive comments like this add to your charm.

It is in defining goodness in terms of some natural property – in this case, pleasure – that makes it an ethical naturalist theory. And then, according to Moore, deriving the normative claim that we ought pursue pleasure commits the naturalistic fallacy. — Michael

Moore's view is this:

"In applying this view, Moore gave it the form of what today is called “indirect” or “two-level” (Hare 1981) consequentialism. In deciding how to act, we should not try to assess individual acts for their specific consequences; instead, we should follow certain general moral rules, such as “Do not kill” and “Keep promises,” which are such that adhering to them will most promote the good through time. This policy will sometimes lead us not to do the act with the best individual outcome, but given our general propensity to error the policy’s consequences will be better in the long run than trying to assess acts one by one; however well-meaning, the latter attempt will be counterproductive (1903: 149–70/1993: 198–219. This indirect consequentialism had again been defended earlier, by Sidgwick and John Stuart Mill, but Moore gave it a very conservative form, urging adherence to the rules even in the face of apparently compelling evidence that breaking them now would be optimific. Principia Ethica made the surprising claim that the relevant rules will be the same given any commonly accepted theory of the good, for example, given either hedonism or Moore’s own ideal theory (1903: 158/1993: 207). This claim of extensional equivalence for different consequentialist views was not new; T.H. Green, F.H. Bradley, and McTaggart had all suggested that hedonism and ideal consequentialism have similar practical implications. But Moore was surely expressing the more plausible view when in Ethics he doubted that pleasure and ideal values always go together (1912: 234–39/1947: 144–47/1965: 100–02), and even when he accepted the equivalence claim he remained intensely interested in what he called “the primary ethical question of what is good in itself” (1903: 158, 26, 77/1993: 207, 78, 128). Like Green, Bradley, and McTaggart, he thought the central philosophical question is what explains why good things are good, i.e., which of their properties make them good. That was the subject of his most brilliant piece of ethical writing, Chapter 6 of Principia Ethica on “The Ideal.”

So he is a consequentialist, just making clear though that he doesn't what to take a very simple reducible definition of "the good" to be immediate pleasure like Bentham. He then goes on to explain. "The Ideal" to mean that which should be promoted (i.e. "the good ") is a number of things, and since it's not monistic, he somehow avoids being naturalistic. It's explained as:

"One of this chapter’s larger aims was to defend value-pluralism, the view that there are many ultimate goods. Moore thought one bar to this view is the naturalistic fallacy. He assumed, plausibly, that philosophers who treat goodness as identical to some natural property will usually make this a simple property, such as just pleasure or just evolutionary fitness, rather than a disjunctive property such as pleasure-or-evolutionary-fitness-or-knowledge. But then any naturalist view pushes us toward value-monism, or toward the view that only one kind of state is good (1903: 20; 1993: 72). Once we reject naturalism, however, we can see what Moore thought is self-evident: that there are irreducibly many goods. Another bar to value-pluralism is excessive demands for unity or system in ethics. Sidgwick had used such demands to argue that only pleasure can be good, since no theory with a plurality of ultimate values can justify a determinate scheme for weighing them against each other (1907: 406). But Moore, agreeing here with Rashdall, Ross, and others, said that “to search for ‘unity’ and ‘system,’ at the expense of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy” (1903: 222/1993: 270). If intuition reveals a plurality of ultimate goods, an adequate theory must recognize that plurality."

My responses are this:

1. I think this gives short shrift to Mill. Mill's reference to happiness as being the objective of "the good" didn't at all suggest it was a reducible concept, but he was clear that happiness arose from a variety of factors and it was a holistic state that could not be achieved from just finding physical pleasure. I don't follow why Mill is a naturalist but Moore not.

2. Go back and re-respond to this here and explain why my response doesn't now apply, particularly to (b). Just plug in Moore's definition of morality into (b), and that offers a reason why it matters what you think is moral for a non-naturalist.

That would make my degree in Philosophy all the more impressive. — Michael

Good one.

Make me up a non-naturalst ethical theory.

Would an example be ethical itemizationism? That's the belief that something is bad if it appears on a random list of things we've itemized as bad.
This List of High Truths is accepted implicilitely.
There are no reasons why something is or isn't on the list and you can't determine any sort of consistency among the rules where you could figure out what additional rules may follow. It has no overriding theme either.

You can Google "ethical itemizationism" for more information on it, but you'll likely only pull up this post because this is its first appearance.

If this is a good example of ethical non-naturalism, and all other examples would follow similar trends, then I'd agree, ethical non-naturalism offers no reason to follow it.

I've lost count how many times the Palestinian areas have been built by outside money just for Israel to destroy the buildings as "terrorist strongholds". — ssu

My point remains that the usage of the terms "concentration camp" and "genocide" has been and continues to be used to create a moral equivalency argument between Israel and Nazi Germany. Acting as if those terms are just generic terms that can be used in all sorts of contexts of varying degrees is not taken seriously by anyone recognizing the context of upon which Israel was given statehood or by who resides in that land.

Meaning is use, and it's no coincidence that the language used to describe the Israeli response is intended to write an ironic and hypocritical narrative of the Jewish experience by comparing today's Israel to yesterday's Nazis. It's an argument of moral equivalence.

The terms bantered about here like genocide and concentration camps bear no resemblance to what those terms mean to Jews, and we cannot pretend they are not being used sardonically and intentionally to say "you escaped persecution only to be like those you escaped."

This is the Gaza "concentration camp" prior to the recent war:



I could share photos of Nazi concentration camps, but I'll do my ancestors the respect not to trot those out. They were death camps, designed for the separating, forcing into labor, gassing, and burning of an entire race. But you can compare the ways "concentration camp" is used and decide if it's appropriate to have a single word describe both situations.

As to genocide, this is what genocide looks like:



That's just Europe. Over 900,000 Jews have been expelled from the Middle East since WW2.

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

The Palestinian population has increased 9 fold in Israel since 1948.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-05/13/c_138055503.htm#:~:text=%22The%20Palestinian%20population%20in%20the,1948%2C%22%20said%20the%20report.

This is why we asshats quibble over your terms.