Thank you!
How about Averroes' commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima?

Anyone else worry that we may get another Solar Storm like the Carrington Event of 1859?

In response to the question, "Why be moral?", I would suggest the question just might be analogous to the question, "just because I can do math well, why should I do math well?"

I'd also like to point out the importance of the questions, "are all opinions about morality equal? Or are some opinions about morality better than others?" (also similar to the questions, "are all opinions about math equal? or are some opinions about math better than others?")

Would it be naive and simplistic to suggest that perhaps the point of Plato's dialogues is to argue that: no matter what knowledge is, or how to attain it, the best life is the (examined) virtuous life?

Out of curiosity, I'm kind of interested in what topic you are having difficulty in discussing the matter with your classmates or other people you are dealing with. — dclements

Some topics that come to mind are: How should we treat the poor? How should we treat those who disagree with something that we hold dear? What kind of society should we create? How should atheists treat the religious? How should the religious treat atheists?

@Wayfarer Thanks! After creating this thread, I had a renewed desire to read Plato's dialogues.

I think what I might ultimately be dealing with is my own state of aporia (I'm puzzled by the many different metaphysical beliefs and positions) and lack of ataraxia. And I kinda forgot that the Stoics do acknowledge both issues, in that they suggest that objectivity is something to strive for, but because of our nature and the nature of our universe, we can't always create an objective view of reality. So, in those cases, it is better to suspend judgment, rather than draw an incorrect conclusion.

In regards to Ataraxia (freedom from worry) or lack thereof, I suspect the Stoics would suggest that 1. worry is not the main issue. the main issue is one's progress towards moral excellence. and concentrating on the Virtues is what is necessary and sufficient for Eudaimonia, (not reducing worry). and 2. concentrating on the present can reduce worry.

Well, the Theaetetus is simply wrong in treating rationality as the memory of eternal ideas. — apokrisis

I changed my post... The Euthyphro is a better example of an Aporetic Dialogue.

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The Greek word skepsis means investigation. By calling themselves skeptics, the ancient skeptics thus describe themselves as investigators. They also call themselves ‘those who suspend’, thereby signaling that their investigations lead them to suspension of judgment. They do not put forward theories, and they do not deny that knowledge can be found. At its core, ancient skepticism is a way of life devoted to inquiry. It is as much concerned with belief as with knowledge.

Becoming an investigator sounds interesting. Perhaps it will lead to Ataraxia.

The dialogues didn't result in confusion but sharply delineated alternatives that have been productive ever since. — apokrisis

None of Plato's dialogues ended in confusion? Not even Euthyphro? What of Aporia in Plato's dialogues?

This is why skepticism is in the end unsatisfying. — apokrisis

So the skeptic's position - if it has any actual value - is already incorporated (at least implicitly) in what it seeks to challenge. — apokrisis

My interest in Ancient Skepticism (basically those who followed in the footsteps of Plato- if there are no forms, then we can't have knowledge.) has only just begun. But, as I understand it, they didn't so much challenge or try convince anyone else of anything, as much as just believe themselves that there were as many reasons to accept any position, as there were reasons to doubt it. So, they found comfort in not making any claims about any positions.

And actually, I do like Plato, especially the way that he portrays Socrates. Socrates doesn't seem to have a conclusion in mind, or have any agenda at all when he gets into conversations. Both parties may learn something, or the conversation just might end in confusion... but, it's an interesting journey nonetheless.

@Bitter Crank.... thanks for that response. (although I feel compelled to point out, that it's within the realm of possibility that those convinced of the goodness of unfettered capitalism, may find it difficult to accept any evidence that any of the underlying principles behind communism (doesn't the early Christian Church as described in Acts chapters 2 - 5 look like an ideal form of communism?) are good).

A third issue is that I find myself grasping around for my own metaphysical position. Stoicism is still attractive, but in some ways, Skepticism (maybe even a skepticism closer to that of the ancient Platonists who became skeptics) seems like it may be closer to what is the case. I suppose I could "mix and match" Skepticism and Stoicism.

It came to mind when we were discussing Free Will in a class. Maybe part of it has to do with the fact that 1. I'm being confronted with the fact that how one even views evidence in the first place depends on one's underlying beliefs. And 2. there are issues, like Free Will, that seem to be such that it's hard to see how evidence could even help decide one's position.

''God will exist'' makes sense to me. Why? — TheMadFool

I've argued that it's within the realm of possibility for man to one day (obviously in the far future) develop a nature and/ or qualities that are virtually identical to the nature and qualities that many ascribe to God. I hope our descendants keep striving after virtue.

@ernestm
How would you defend that view? Sources?

It would probably be best to stick with Aristotle himself, if possible.

What about respected secondary literature? Or is there enough in De Anima? I get the sense that Aristotle believed there would be no conscious awareness after death. So, a part of the human soul would live forever, but that part wouldn't even be conscious of its own existence.

@Wayfarer
Thanks for bringing the video to my attention. I recently became acquainted with someone who is into restorative justice and social justice. And he is also a big fan of Rohr, specifically his book Falling Upward.

I may have to try Kierkegaard again. I read most of Fear and Trembling, and I started to read The Concept of Irony. I might just need to be in the right frame of mind.

Wiki does list some prose authored by Rilke. I'm intrigued by the Christian Existentialists, having come from a Christian background. I'm reading some Marcel from a book called A Gabriel Marcel Reader. I know Marcel and Sartre engaged, responded to, and criticized each other in their works. Specifically, Marcel challenged Sartre's judgment of freedom as a negative quality.

I read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment years ago, and really liked it. I only recently became aware that Dostoyevsky is also considered to be an Existentialist Philosopher.

It doesn't really work as a pure meta-ethical stance because it doesn't handle deviants or extreme minorities in moral opinions very well, but it works as a description of morality in a general sense. — Chany

It doesn't look to me like it works as a description of morality in a general sense.
It doesn't explain the idea of moral progress. Or why people listen to unpopular moral reformers. Or why people even make judgments about morality. (if people truly believed that morality was relative, then they would believe that others couldn't be wrong- if morals are relative, then the others aren't wrong. They just hold different views that are right... from the others' perspective. If they accept that the others are right, then by why would they care what they think?).

The cultural relativist is stating morality is like fashion or etiquette and varies from cultural framework to cultural framework. — Chany

People don't act like they believe that morality is like etiquette or fashion. They act like they believe that morality is something so important that differences can't just be accepted (like differences in etiquette or fashion are accepted.)

A more accurate title for his book would be something like "Arrogance is the Enemy". or perhaps, "An Overinflated Ego is the Enemy".

@Chany
I agree that cultures (and individuals) disagree about morality. I can accept that without being a moral relativist (or subjectivist, or emotivist), I can accept that there are disagreements about morality without making the claim "all morals are relative to___".

I can accept that people disagree about any subject X without being a relativist about that subject.

I went back and listened to his talk at Stoicon, and noticed that he redefines "virtue" to mean excellence, so he definitely does not have the traditional cardinal virtues in mind (wisdom, courage, justice, temperance), or even moral excellence. But, rather just his own personal definition of excellence, which appears to be "I'm meeting the goals I set."

Stoicism in the ancient world was always about moral excellence. The core of Stoicism is that virtue is the only good, and necessary and sufficient for Eudaimonia. Stoicism has been reinterpreted by Ryan Holiday (and others) so that something other than moral excellence is concentrated upon. In most cases, it's reinterpreted to mean that some kind of agency, or meeting one's goals is the only good.

I get the sense that if you were to ask Ryan Holiday how he knew he was living a good life, he'd answer that he was accomplishing his goals. Whereas the ancient Stoics would answer that they knew they were living good lives, because they were focusing on the virtues, and making progress toward moral excellence.

I didn't read all 12 pages... but, my gut response to the question "can you be wrong about experience?" is no. I suppose you could see a dog and think it was a cat..., but you did experience seeing a cat.... you can't be wrong when saying "I saw a cat". But, perhaps you should say, "I thought I saw a cat." And hopefully, if presented with evidence it was actually a dog, you'd be open to that possibility.

But consider the case of hallucination. Can you hallucinate a dog and think it was a cat? I don't think so. Or consider the case of phantom limb pain. If you were a victim, could you think you were cured, and later find out you were still in pain? or If you underwent treatment for phantom limb pain, and were told by the doctor you were cured... would you believe the doctor, or the pain you felt?

I've been reading Holiday's Ego is the Enemy. So far I like it. He does mention some unflattering rather personal accounts of his own life at the beginning of the book...
I'll continue to keep an open mind for now.

Generally, people who claim morals are not objective usually are using the word descriptively — Chany

I have no issue with that, except that I'm not convinced that relative morality actually does describe, in general, what people think and how they act when morality is concerned, as I mentioned in another post.
I do obviously agree that some people are correct when they describe themselves as people who believe that morality is not objective.

It does appear that morality is difficult to talk about. I acknowledge various opinions about morality.

In general, it can be said that moral objectivists believe there is an objective way to view morality... That morality is not determined by culture, or preference, or a majority. That there are objective moral principles that one can get right or wrong.

Moral subjectivists believe that the individual determines what is right or wrong. In that case, it's hard to see how anyone could be wrong about their opinion.

Moral relativists believe that one's culture determines what is right or wrong. Again, it's hard to see how a culture could be wrong about its moral views.

Emotivists believe that there is no way to determine right or wrong. that there is no truth about moral claims. . that we're all just expressing our emotional reactions when it comes to moral issues.

Here are some descriptions of subjectivism, relativism and emotivism...

Subjective relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one approves of it. A person’s approval makes the action right. This doctrine (as well as cultural relativism) is in stark contrast to moral objectivism, the view that some moral principles are valid for everyone. Subjective relativism, though, has some troubling implications. It implies that each person is morally infallible and that individuals can never have a genuine moral disagreement.

Cultural relativism is the view that an action is morally right if one’s culture approves of it. The argument for this doctrine is based on the diversity of moral judgments among cultures: because people’s judgments about right and wrong differ from culture to culture, right and wrong must be relative to culture, and there are no objective moral principles. This argument is defective, however, because the diversity of moral views does not imply that morality is relative to cultures. In addition, the alleged diversity of basic moral standards among cultures may be only apparent, not real. Societies whose moral judgments conflict may be differing not over moral principles but over nonmoral facts.

Some think that tolerance is entailed by cultural relativism. But there is no necessary connection between tolerance and the doctrine. Indeed, the cultural relativist cannot consistently advocate tolerance while maintaining his relativist standpoint. To advocate tolerance is to advocate an objective moral value. But if tolerance is an objective moral value, then cultural relativism must be false, because it says that there are no objective moral values.

Like subjective relativism, cultural relativism has some disturbing consequences. It implies that cultures are morally infallible, that social reformers can never be morally right, that moral disagreements between individuals in the same culture amount to arguments over whether they disagree with their culture, that other cultures cannot be legitimately criticized, and that moral progress is impossible.

Emotivism is the view that moral utterances are neither true nor false but are expressions of emotions or attitudes. It leads to the conclusion that people can disagree only in attitude, not in beliefs. People cannot disagree over the moral facts, because there are no moral facts. Emotivism also implies that presenting reasons in support of a moral utterance is a matter of offering nonmoral facts that can influence someone’s attitude. It seems that any nonmoral facts will do, as long as they affect attitudes. Perhaps the most far-reaching implication of emotivism is that nothing is actually good or bad. There simply are no properties of goodness and badness. There is only the expression of favorable or unfavorable emotions or attitudes toward something.

Okay, I'll take your word that some people who identify as emotivists/subjectivists/relativists aren't going to just sit on their hands. What would they do, instead of just sitting on their hands? — anonymous66

Do you have an answer to the above? You insist that they would do something.. what would they do?

I want to just focus on this for a minute, because it's frustrating that you don't see able to understand it. Why do you think that someone wouldn't try to shape things--culture, legislation, etc.--so that they're closer to their preferences? — Terrapin Station

Is that your answer? In your opinion culture and/or legislation determines what is moral?

What do you see as the difference between Emotivism, Subjectivism and Relativism?

In any event, what we need to focus on is why you can't get it through your head that relativists/subjectivists have preferences about behavior, inluding preferences about what behavior we should allow socially, and because they're preferences, they're not just going to sit on their hands and ignore them. — Terrapin Station

Okay, I'll take your word that some people who identify as emotivists/subjectivists/relativists aren't going to just sit on their hands. What would they do, instead of just sitting on their hands?

It seems to me that if one really believed that no one can be wrong about moral opinions, then one couldn't really do much of anything... Except...
1. believe that might makes right- that the strongest determine moral rules
2. vote on morality- believe that the majority determines what is moral
3. Accept that everyone has different views.

That question suggests that despite being an apparently competent speaker of English, you have no conception of what preferences are. I have preferences about murder and rape, and preferences about whether we should allow people to murder and rape. For some reason, you keep reading relativism/subjectivism as if it suggests that we'd have no such preferences. — Terrapin Station

The problem I have is that you say you are an emotivist, but you also tell me you can make judgments about morality. It seems to me that emotivists can only tell me what they prefer (or as Ayer puts it, an emotivist would tell me about his emotional reaction). It seems to me that you do acknowledge that people do have disagreements, but according to emotivism, all disagreements are merely a difference of preference (or rather a difference in emotional reaction) I'm trying to determine what an emotivist would do with those differences.

Are you familiar with A. J. Ayer? He was an emotivist... Here's an article about his Emotivism.

Emotivism:
Moral judgments are not truth-apt, but rather, are expressions of sentiments
of approval or disapproval: e.g., saying “Murder is wrong” amounts to saying “Boo to
murder!”: “..if I say to someone ‘You acted wrongly in stealing that money’, I am not stating
anything more than if I had simply said, ‘You stole that money.’ In adding that this action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it, I am simply evincing my moral disapproval about it. It is as if I had said, ‘You stole that money,’ in a peculiar tone of horror, or written with the addition of some special exclamation marks. The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker.

“If now I generalise my previous statement and say, ‘Stealing money is
wrong,’ I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning – that is, expresses no
proposition which can be either true or false. It is as if I had written ‘Stealing money!!’ – where the shape and thickness of the exclamation marks show, by a suitable convention, that a special sort of moral disapproval is the feeling which is being expressed.” (Ayer, “The Emotive Theory of Ethics,” p. 124)

and here are some criticisms...

But emotivism also raises certain worries
:
•Ayer claims that when we make moral judgments, what we’re doing is expressing
our emotional reactions to the thing we’re judging. But it seems possible to judge something is morally wrong without having any emotional reaction to it, or even feeling positive about it. Examples: the “amoralist” – a person who knows what’s right and wrong but doesn’t care – seems imaginable; we’re sometimes amused by other people’s misfortunes even though we know they’re bad (Kasey); children learn to recognize things as right and wrong before the learn the appropriate emotional responses to them (Will).

•Ayer has trouble accounting for the apparent prevalence of moral disagreement and dispute – if moral judgments are in fact just expressions of emotion, they can’t contradict each other, and we can’t reason about them, so why argue? Ayer argues that we stop engaging in such disputes once all matters of empirical fact have been settled. Does that seem right? And in any case,it still seems to us, even if we can’t settle our disputes about moral judgments, that we are contradicting each other when, for example, we argue about the morality of abortion.But emotivism has difficulty accounting for that seeming contradiction.

•Finally, our practice of making moral judgments treats such judgments as propositional in a number of ways – we use them in logical arguments and draw inferences from them, we “embed” them in other kinds of statements and use them in un-asserted context. It’s not clear whether the emotivist account of the nature of such judgments can explain why we can do this.

So, not descriptive... Now you're talking about enforcing what you claim are merely preferences.

But, to continue, you do understand that we are up against people who do want to murder and rape, because, according to you, they have different preferences. So, why do you judge the preferences of not allowing rape and murder to be better than allowing rape and murder?

@Terrapin Station
Can you elaborate on the judgments you do make? Can you give me some examples?

I'm trying to understand moral relativism.. I'm trying to understand what it would be like for me to be a moral relativist (and trying to determine if any moral relativists actually exist).
— anonymous66
Have you ever had a moral disagreement?
Say for example a friend of yours did something that you believed was morally questionable.
You understand why your friend thought what he did was right but...
If it had been you then you would have done it differently.

That is what it is like to be a moral relativist.

What it aims at is to describe why people or cultures believe that their values are moral. — m-theory

The way I see it, in very culture, there are moral disagreements. It sounds to me like moral relativists want me to believe that I should accept every act that anyone wants to perform (killing for fun), and just accept that that person just has different preferences... but when pressed they also speak of voting, and who is strongest.

It seems to me that we do make judgments and do decide what to allow or disallow. The question is... how do we decide? A moral relativist has one of 3 options.
1. the strongest make the rules
2. vote on it
3. allow all "preferences"

I don't see a good fit w/ relative morality as descriptive. It seems to me that people in general do believe that morality is objective. We think of making moral progress (a society w/o slavery is better than a society w/ slavery). We think of some moral attitudes as being wrong (slavery). We listen to unpopular reformers (because they convince us that we were wrong... but, we can make things right).

Rather than it being the case that relative morality is descriptive, it's rather the case that some people reject the idea that there could be objective moral principles (it's wrong to kill for fun) that some people get right and other people get wrong, because they (moral relativists) are convinced that morality IS and can only be a matter of preference.

It seems you must have some way of judging between preferences,
— anonymous66

Of course, and we do. We think about them and state what we think/how we feel. — Terrapin Station

Do you actually make judgments? Or do you think about them and talk about how you feel? I thought THE difference between moral relativists and moral objectivist, is the claim by moral relativists that there is nothing wrong in and of itself... that all talk of morality is only talk about preferences. While moral objectivists believe that there is a way to judge between right and wrong. That some actions are wrong... (i.e. there is something wrong with people who kill for fun, vs. killing for fun is an acceptable preference). The moral objectivist believes that some people are mistaken about morality, while the moral relativist believes that it's only a matter of preference... a moral relativist couldn't be wrong about a preference. Actually, if morality IS a matter of preference, then no one could be wrong about a preference.

Again, descriptively, that is obviously how things work now and how they've always worked, regardless of anyone's ontology of ethics. — Terrapin Station

So, in your view, there is no objective standard for right and wrong, it's merely a fact that the strongest impose their morality on the weaker? And you personally wouldn't impose any preference of your own on anyone else, because you believe that all preferences are equally valid?

This is what looks like a contradiction to me. I see people telling me that they are moral relativists, that that morality is only a matter of preference, but also they admit that they care very much about morality, and that they want to impose their preferences on others.

Or am I misreading that? Do moral relativists merely believe that moral relativism is a descriptive term, and accept whatever morality happens to be in place (purely descriptive, no attempt to impose their preferences on others)?

Why should they care? Firstly, they are very likely to care without any encouragement from me, because my dislike of seeing others suffer is very widely shared in the human population. To the extent that it isn't, the challenge to me is to try to persuade enough people to care so that action is taken. That's what is happening in political debate.

Lastly, you observe that a - presumably incurably psychopathic - serial killer will not care. That doesn't matter. All I need to do is to persuade enough people to take action to arrest and imprison him. What the serial killer thinks about that is irrelevant. — andrewk

So again... in a society with some people with some preferences, and others with other preferences... how are we to decide which to allow? Do the stronger make the rules? Does the majority rule (vote on it?)

And again... are you merely telling us facts? or telling us what should be done?

I wonder if we're on the same page here. Earlier you called yourself a relativist, but now you're calling yourself an emotivist. Which are you?

Emotivism is the view that moral utterances are neither true nor false but are expressions of emotions or attitudes. It leads to the conclusion that people can disagree only in attitude, not in beliefs. People cannot disagree over the moral facts, because there are no moral facts. Emotivism also implies that presenting reasons in support of a moral utterance is a matter of offering nonmoral facts that can influence someone’s attitude. It seems that any nonmoral facts will do, as long as they affect attitudes. Perhaps the most far-reaching implication of emotivism is that nothing is actually good or bad. There simply are no properties of goodness and badness. There is only the expression of favorable or unfavorable emotions or attitudes toward something.

You also made a valid distinction between descriptive and prescriptive. Which are you advocating? Are you merely stating the facts as you see them(descriptive) "people do disagree about morality"? or are telling us(prescriptive) how we ought to act - "people ought not be allowed to____ and ought to be allowed to___".