I don't need to read — Janus

Believe me, it is easy to see that you don't read in this area.

From a historically conscious perspective, the whole notion of calling the Christian God evil is unfathomably confused (it's no coincidence that our most cogent illustrations of evil and even of the Problem of Evil come from Christians themselves). Then add the fact that you cannot even produce a substantive reason for why racism is wrong, or should be prohibited. That's pretty standard philosophical-academic problem in the contemporary Anglo-American world: moral truths do not exist and moral claims are not truth apt. Which gives us the average amateur philosopher on TPF saying, "God is evil! Also, evil doesn't exist."

It would be extremely difficult to underestimate the anti-religious thinking sentiment on TPF. What is desperately needed here is reading and information.

I don't know if that is so, just surmising. — Janus

You should find a theological treatment of the problem of evil and actually read it. That way your appraisal will be based on at least one piece of real evidence.

As far as popular writers who come to mind, there's Brian Davies, Eleonore Stump, David Bentley Hart, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, C. S. Lewis, N. T. Wright...

Very fair, but that isn't my position. My position is that "wrong" and "right" are ambiguous, amorphous and probably indefinable terms which create a problem for morality to do what it purports to do. Your concept is askance from this, but it seems tp want the same security people find in : — AmadeusD

I'm pretty confident in my ability to persuade someone regarding moral truths (I might begin with things like pain, suffering, empathy, the Golden Rule etc.). In a highly speculative context like TPF, where everyone is running around claiming they don't believe in morality, I tend to show them that they do actually believe in it, regardless of how they conceive of it. For example, in my recent thread hardly anyone claimed that racism is not wrong. I think once we see that morality pertains to action and action is inevitable, then it is easy to see how morality is inevitable.

My position is that "wrong" and "right" are ambiguous, amorphous and probably indefinable terms which create a problem for morality to do what it purports to do. — AmadeusD

Well, this goes back to my claim that morality has force, and if something does not exist or is incoherent then it can have no force. You might like the chat between Sam Harris and Tom Holland that I posted recently. If Holland is even half-right then Christianity dramatically overhauled the moral conscience of the West. So I want to say that it does what it purports to do, even if you question how exactly it does it.

I can't relate to it, at all, despite it being relatively sound in form. It doens't speak to me about right and wrong, and therefore doesn't seem to be a moral system. It's a system for making decisions based on data towards what can, in most instances, be considered arbitrary ends. I know you feel that a collective agreement shifts that. I do not, so impasse there for sure . — AmadeusD

I think you are right that my thread does not present a moral system, in the sense of Aristotelian ethics or Utilitarianism or Kantian deontology, or something like that. Instead, it's about the breadth of the moral sphere - it's about which actions are generically moral and which actions aren't.

It's more like this. Suppose someone claims that colors do not exist. The thread is like arguing that everyone thinks colors exist, even those who claim that they do not exist. Excepting those with visual problems, everyone gets up in the morning and thinks they see color. Maybe it doesn't, but the fact that everyone, including my potential interlocutor, thinks it does apparently bears on the question. Even if everyone sees somewhat different colors, it still seems like color exists.

I suspect that even you, when you look back on a bad mistake you've made in life, could catch yourself half-consciously saying, "That was the wrong thing to do." If so, then I'd say you used the "unintelligible" word in a perfectly ordinary and intelligible way, morally judging a past action.

Okay, gotcha. :up:
Yeah, I have a feminist friend who has dealt with that sort of thing. She is "old school" in that she gravitates towards Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, but those philosophies are heretical in the more aggressive parts of the trans community.

That's it, in a nutshell. If our human notions of goodness and justice are so far off the mark, from God's point of view, then why call God "really" good or just at all? It's just words, at that point. I think there are ways to "get God off the hook" but this isn't one of them. It's as shameful as a parent whipping a child into the hospital while saying, "But this is just a sign of how much I love you." Yeah, with love like that, who needs hatred? — J

This is a bit like saying, "All teh theists are Westboro Baptists!" It's an irresponsible strawman.

Reformed theology is problematic.* Also, the Reformed constitute a tiny fraction of Christianity. So why take the beliefs of a 2.5% minority and pretend that they represent the whole group? ...Because it's fun to be indignant, and focusing on the crazy minority offers that opportunity.

* Or rather, some. It's not even fair to characterize that whole group this way.

I often see this as well-poisoning by association. I don't paint all TRAs in the light of terfisaslur. But they exist and are worth mentioning. — AmadeusD

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. I am sure there are bad actors on both sides. I'm just not convinced that "bad acting" is a good basis for a philosophy thread in the Humanities and Social Sciences section. I can understand if @fdrake is frustrated by bad actors, but I don't think that frustration translates into rationale for policy positions. And maybe fdrake recognizes this when he says, "I'm not particularly trying to conclude something reasonable."

The exact same logic applies to sexual assault. — AmadeusD

:up:

Yes, but they have every reason to believe that the currently accepted canon of scientific knowledge is based on actual observation, experiment and honest and accurate reporting by scientists. — Janus

Everyone who has faith in an authority has reasons to believe the authority is credible. No one who has faith in an authority lacks reasons to believe the authority is credible.

Else, see where I critique in detail the basis you gave for considering some faith-assents to be less faith-based.

1 ) Talking about trans women's rates of sex offence using data.
2 ) Construing trans women as latent rapists on the basis of their {alleged} manhood.

I have the time of day for the former, the latter can suck a bag of dicks, believing something in the manner of ( 2 ) and motte-baileying back to ( 1 ) can suck a larger bag of dicks. It isn't just about being factually correct, people can believe all this stuff in the wrong way. I am not saying you're doing this specifically. I'm bringing the calcified prejudices I usually bring to this discussion's terrain, where knee jerk reactionary crap suffices. — fdrake

You seem emotionally invested in casting your opposition in a bad light, which is why your construal of the lobbyists lacks prima facie credibility. The more charitable and reasonable alternative to (1) is to recognize the strength differential between males and females, and to recognize that this strength differential accounts for the reason society separates incarcerated males and incarcerated females in the first place. That's the elephant in the room for your reasoning: Why are incarcerated males and females separated at all? The fact that this still remains the elephant in the room is a rather significant problem. Presumably to grant the elephant recognition would be to lose a lot of motivation for the negative construals.

At the very least, the idea that men are generally more physically dangerous to women than women are (given the strength differential), is not irrational. If you put two mammals in a room, the potential for significant harm rises as the strength differential increases. Criminality would seem to exacerbate this dynamic.

And maybe an interesting question is this: for the sake of argument, if a group of people come to a true conclusion via invalid reasoning, should we accept or oppose the conclusion? Probably we want to accept the conclusion while opposing the reasoning. But in this case it's not clear why invalid reasoning from the relatively small group of lobbyists should invalidate a true conclusion (about prisons) for the entire population.

- Very clear. :up:

Even your take imports that to ignore a NHO would be 'wrong'. — AmadeusD

Part of what that thread is getting at is this. Everyone takes themselves to be doing and seeking things that are right and not wrong, good and not bad. A non-hypothetical ought-judgment is always about what ought to be done, and you could say that what ought to be done is the right thing to do. When we critique ourselves or experience regrets, we are judging that the action we thought was right was in fact wrong; or the action we thought was good was in fact bad; or the action we thought ought to be done in fact oughtn't have been done. That's the basis of morality, and everyone is engaged in it. A categorical/exceptionless norm is just a special kind of moral premise, one that not everyone accepts.* Nevertheless, to say, "I don't believe in morality because I don't believe in categorical/exceptionless norms," is not right, given that morality is not reducible to categorical/exceptionless norms. Just because someone is fascinated or even obsessed with the notion of categorical/exceptionless norms does not mean that this is all morality is.

Maybe the easiest way to see this is to note that civil law is a moral construct which nevertheless does not necessarily contain categorical/exceptionless norms.

* And moral judgments derived from categorical/exceptionless norms are just one species of moral judgments / non-hypothetical ought-judgments.

No one does. That's my entire point lol. — AmadeusD

So you want to criticize people who use the words "right" and "wrong," because you think the words are meaningless. And then when I avoid using these words that you deem to be meaningless, you criticize me for not using them? It seems like you've erected a game where I lose by default even before I begin.

This is a widely accepted conception of morality. — AmadeusD

What "conception"? You yourself claim that your definition of morality is meaningless, and therefore there is no conception. If it is not meaningless, then you should tell me what the conception is.

Given the first reply above this one, it seems pretty clear that either morality doesn't exist or... — AmadeusD

Again, in order to determine whether something exists one must explain what they are talking about. If you say, "Morality is about right and wrong and I have no idea what right and wrong mean," then we have no candidate which could exist or not exist.

Oxford Languages, Cambridge and several AI models. — AmadeusD

So <here> is the Cambridge entry, which is publicly accessible. It says nothing about debates and nothing about "wrong," although the word "right" does occur in a few entries. So it looks like your definition does not come from Cambridge dictionary, unless you are using an older version?

I couldn't possibly hold a view i've noted has a fatal flaw, could I? — AmadeusD

What is its fatal flaw? That it doesn't mean anything?

I don't generally find it useful to argue other peoples positions for them, but I did that here:

With that said, there are more productive ways to approach such difficulties. First we define morality as that which pertains to rational action, at which point we can try to relate various subdivisions: categorical/exceptionless moral norms, non-hypothetical ought-judgments, weighted moral values or "ceteris paribus rules," and hypothetical imperatives. The tendency among our moral anti-realists is to reduce moral norms to the first subdivision: categorical/exceptionless norms, probably because this is the most potent kind of moral norm. Its potency also makes it the hardest to justify, and therefore it is understandable that someone who reduces all of morality to the most potent variety of morality also comes to the conclusion that morality itself is impossible to justify, and that morality is therefore little more than a pipe dream.

[...]

(This is to say that the definition which eludes J and AmadeusD is bound up with categorical/exceptionless moral norms. The idea is that morality is really about rules which admit of no exceptions (and this flows simultaneously from both Kant and divine command theory). The exceptionless character of the rules makes them autonomous, sovereign, untethered to any ulterior considerations, particularly prudential ones. To give a reason for an exceptionless rule is almost inevitably to undermine the exceptionlessness of the rule itself. It's not an unworthy puzzle, and I think it comes down to the same issue of ratiocination vs intellection. ...And nevermind the fact that J's pluralism will balk at the idea of intellection, even though his mystical "metanoia" is quite similar to it.) — Leontiskos

So presumably you want to say that something is moral if it is obligatory, and that this means that it must be done. On this view a moral norm is therefore a categorical/exceptionless norm.

But the problem here is making that first subdivision the whole of morality. In everyday life it just isn't. For example:

Because this is precisely what people mean when they speak about morality. "That's immoral!" means "that's wrong" or bad. — AmadeusD

First note that the claim, "That's [inadmissible]" is a NH, and every negative NH entails the claim, "You should not do that." Thus, "Note that a non-hypothetical judgment is not the same thing as a categorical imperative. We could say that all categorical imperatives are non-hypothetical judgments, but not all non-hypothetical judgments are categorical imperatives" ().

Now suppose someone becomes a vegetarian because they don't want to cause animal suffering. Nevertheless, one day they are starving and they find a live mouse caught in a live trap. They eat the mouse to stay alive and yet nevertheless continue to consider themselves a vegetarian. Your view is apparently that in order for them to hold the norm, "It is immoral to eat meat," they must wield that norm as a categorical/exceptionless norm. But this is a strawman. It's not how morality is viewed in real life. In real life if a vegetarian allows certain exceptions to their rule this does not disqualify their vegetarianism from being of a moral nature.

You have not been able to say what you mean by morality (or by "right" and "wrong" - the words you use to define morality). So I've offered you a definition, namely one that pertains to categorical/exceptionless norms. You might claim that this is not your definition of morality, but I can hardly be faulted at this point for providing you with a definition, given that you have continually failed to give a clear definition yourself. This definition of morality is incomplete. It is not colloquially adequate. If it were colloquially adequate then the vegetarian in question would not be acting morally in admitting exceptions, but everyone thinks they are acting in a morally-infused manner even if they admit exceptions.

If you want to reduce non-hypothetical ought-judgments (a.k.a. NHs) to categorical/exceptionless norms, you could do it even though it requires a bit of bastardizing. We could construe the vegetarian eating the mouse as saying, "Given the unique circumstances I am in, one should categorically/exceptionlessly eat the mouse, even though one should not eat the mouse in alternative circumstances." Again, this is in fact conflating two different subdivisions of morality, but someone who is intent on categorical/exceptionless norms might want to try to construe it that way.

I'll reverse this section, because it is extremely important to notice that these words are required if you want to talk about morality about actions. That is literally what morality is - the discussion of right and wrong actions. Even your take imports that to ignore a NHO would be 'wrong'. You don't use that word, but without it you have no basis to claim any kind of coherence between the theory and actual actions. We can simply kill ourselves, and there's no valence to it. — AmadeusD

I am not following this, and I am especially curious to know what your third sentence is supposed to mean.

The language problem here is generalizable:

• Amadeus: You are not talking about X.
• Leontiskos: Well, what do you mean by 'X'?
• Amadeus: By 'X' I mean 'Y and Z'.
• Leontiskos: Okay, but what do you mean by 'Y' and 'Z'?
• Amadeus: I don't know what I mean by 'Y' and 'Z'? {NB: 'right' and 'wrong'}
• Leontiskos: If you don't know what you mean by 'Y' and 'Z' then your critique is not meaningful. In that case you are literally saying, "You are not talking about [the I-know-not-what]."

So many of the recent discussions on TPF have hinged on the burden of proof. You are basically saying that you don't know what morality (or else right/wrong) means, and that I have the burden of proof to explain what it means. I then say, "Okay, I will just avoid that word altogether," and you object. That is the especially problematic objection on your part. If someone knows what they mean by a word, then they don't need to use that word. And if someone wants to object, then they must be able to say what they mean by the words contained within their objection.

I agree with the problem in terms - but those terms, being so ambiguous, are a fatal flaw in there being a stable concept of morality beyond this (which anyone with half a brain can understand the intent of, even without decent definitions. We all conceive those words clearly for ourselves). If you are trying to entirely overhaul the concept of morality to fit something people do not usually talk about under that head, so be it. Its just not in any way convincing to me and doesn't seem to pertain to anything one would normally consider moral. — AmadeusD

I don't think you can claim that you "conceive of the words clearly" while simultaneously being unable to say what you mean by them. The whole crux here is that you do not conceive of the words 'right' and 'wrong' clearly.

Not sure why you're trying to avoid that word, though. It is hte basis of what we're discussing after all.. — AmadeusD

No real discussion is merely about words. The token m-o-r-a-l-i-t-y is not the basis of our discussion. Discussions are about concepts, and a token with no attached concept is not a word at all. The I-know-not-what is not a basis for anything, for it has no content.

It requires a concept of right and wrong. — AmadeusD

Wrong: "Not correct" (Cambridge)

On that definition the non-hypothetical ought-judgment, "Do not drink the water!" is a claim about what is wrong/incorrect. ...But now you will want to say that it is about wrong but not about "moral wrong," and the whole circle will repeat itself...

Not so, and there's no good evidence for it. — AmadeusD

That's a good example of a complete non-argument.

- True, but there is a particular culture that accounts for why one is made to focus on the Westboro's and then seek validation for their focus, and it can be traced back even as far as Enlightenment Rationalism.

You think that to be a human generates an automatic interest in a single best way to live -- or, perhaps, that it's impossible for a human not to want the best way to live, however misguided they may be. Would that it were so! — J

This is a misreading. @Count Timothy von Icarus is saying that humans will choose what they deem best, not that humans will choose what Count deems best. You are the one who is apparently committed to the (contradictory) idea that humans will not choose what they deem best.

Words like "good," "bad," "best," "worst," "desirable," "undesirable," etc., do not function ad unum (towards one thing). That's why we argue about what is best even without disagreeing on whether we ought to choose the best. If we did not agree that we ought to choose the best then there would be no point in arguing about what is best. This goes hand in hand with your misunderstanding of the choice-worthy.

Your claim is that "x is best" never implies "do x," — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the only recourse for @J is to say that the decision to do nothing at all does not count as a decision, or equivalently, that the claim, "x is best (among all options)" is not taking into consideration the option where one does nothing.

J would then be saying something like <"x is best" never implies "do x" because I might choose to do nothing at all>.

The response to this objection is to simply note that the decision to do nothing is itself a decision. The error here is very closely related to the conflation between a non-hypothetical ought-judgment and a hypothetical ought-judgment where, despite the evidence, the moral non-realist will claim that every piece of advice is merely hypothetical. For example, the moral non-realist wants to say, "Sometimes people will say that the Toyota is the best car to buy if I want to buy a car, but they will never simply tell me that I should buy a Toyota. They will never tell me, 'This is what you should do, all things considered.'" (They will never speak the following words non-hypothetically: "Don't drink the water!")

What's really interesting about this is that the moral non-realist claims that morality is not real, and yet he must ultimately change reality itself in order to hold this position, namely by changing all the patent instances of non-hypothetical ought-judgments into hypothetical ought-judgments. He must pretend that all advice is only intended hypothetically, even his own advice, and even his own advice to himself.

Relatedly:

Acts and regrets are non-hypothetical

Following in the footsteps of Philippa Foot, many are accustomed to claim that morality is merely a matter of hypothetical judgments, or that non-hypothetical judgments are rare.⁵ To give an indication of how gravely mistaken this opinion is, consider the fact that acts and regrets are all non-hypothetical... — Leontiskos

Atheists generally get their idea of God from elementary religious education, from interacting with casual believers and from listening to sermons in church directed mainly at casual believers. — goremand

I think the kind of atheists who the OP is referring to get their idea of God from New Atheist sermons. That group is disproportionately represented online.

Yeah, definitely. I think we have been to some degree. Initially it was grating, but now I see it clearly, it's interesting and revealing :) — AmadeusD

Yes, but I would say the impasse is alive and well. :razz:

Two forms are given. We may be speaking about two distinct uses of the same word. Mine is definitely descriptive. — AmadeusD

Okay, but you've defined morality as, "The debate between right and wrong," and I'm not sure how a debate could be descriptive. In fact I don't really understand how the word morality is supposed to refer to a debate at all. But these are your definitions, so I leave them to you. I've dropped the word 'morality' entirely from my argument.

it is hte first dictionary definition — AmadeusD

According to what dictionary?

whereas I think you may be using a proscriptive/normative form — AmadeusD

Yes, my definition of an NH is certainly normative. That's true.

I think either could be true, but I see a much bigger problem. On what basis are you justifying that conclusion as a moral one? How can it be "right" or "wrong" particularly when you cannot(or don't, i'm unsure) sufficiently define those terms? I fully agree that ambiguity of those terms is a problem - in fact, I think it's fatal. — AmadeusD

That's your definition, not mine. As I said, I don't know what you mean by 'right' and 'wrong', so if your definition is to be meaningful you would need to spell that out. Here is what I said:

Supposing you want to disagree, you have a few options here:

1. Decide that the conclusions pertain to 'morality' and then dispute the argument
2. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' and then agree with the argument
3. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' but then dispute the argument anyway — Leontiskos

Now apparently you want me to decide whether my conclusions pertain to your definition of "morality." I can't really do that, given that I don't know what you mean by 'right' and 'wrong'. I would suggest that you read the OP where I explain what a non-hypothetical ought-judgment is, and then try to figure out if it relates to your own concept of morality (whatever that concept is). I stopped using the word 'moral' in my argument in this thread (if we can't agree on what a word means then why would we use it at all?), but in my OP I do use that word and explain what I mean by it. If you have a special desire to use the word m-o-r-a-l in our conversation, you could look there for an alternative definition. Nevertheless, I make no use at all of the words "right" and "wrong" in that OP. I myself don't see why any of the three words are necessary at all, especially if we are using them equivocally between us.

If you do decide on option #2 or #3 and say that my argument does not pertain to 'morality', then I would expect at least a syllogism with a middle term that looks something like: <Morality requires X; Your argument omits X; Therefore your argument does not pertain to morality>. Note that you might be tempted to say, <Morality requires the words "right" and "wrong"; Your argument omits the words "right" and "wrong"; Therefore your argument does not pertain to morality>. The problem with this would be that I still don't know what you mean by "right" and "wrong", and I can't imagine why an argument would be required to include the five-letter tokens r-i-g-h-t and w-r-o-n-g.

A healthy body of law and regulation depends on moral realism, and in a culture where moral realism is waning the body of law becomes unhealthy. Like all natural rights, the right to speech requires moral realism. Nevertheless, because the value of speech is more perspicacious than most values, it is easier for the moral non-realist or the morally non-realistic culture to support the right to speech. In the case of speech it is easier for the moral non-realist to have his cake and eat it too.

When you have a culture that tends towards moral non-realism, free speech absolutism becomes more intuitive (i.e. the idea that there are no values which compete with speech becomes more intuitive). Even so, this merely a stage in a destabilizing process, for the moral non-realist can’t actually justify the value of speech in any significant way, and those who wish to oppose speech absolutism also have no sound arguments to hand, deprived as they are of moral realism. So it becomes the culture of Thrasymachus or Nietzsche, where the power of might makes right. You can actually see this same thing in my thread, “Beyond the Pale,” where the majority of participants said that there simply is no rational justification for prohibiting things like racism (or in this case, racist speech).

is not clearly imbedded in the example. I understand your following (in this post) justification for why I should have assumed this - my point is that your example doesn't rise to that level. I'm unsure that's a tractable issue. — AmadeusD

Okay, but it's an important issue. If we don't mean the same thing by 'morality' then we will be talking past each other.

Ok, so in this case we agree. — AmadeusD

Sure.

What the fuck dude????: — AmadeusD

Sorry, my bad.

Morality: The debate between right and wrong. — AmadeusD

"right" and "wrong" are definitely arbitrary in the sense you want to use them to support a moral system... — AmadeusD

I don't find this a helpful definition. This is because instead of one ambiguous term ('morality'), we now have two ('right' and 'wrong'). You yourself immediately put the two key terms of your definition into scare quotes, which is bad news for us if we want a precise definition.

Again, I have been talking about non-hypothetical ought-judgments. An example of this is, "Do not drink that water!"

I think we need a clearly defined subject if we are to discuss it. I think "non-hypothetical ought-judgments" are very clearly defined. I wrote an entire OP on the subject. I don't think, "The debate between right and wrong," is clearly defined, and therefore I don't think we can have a discussion about it until it is further clarified.

Let me give the argument again:

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments)
2. Our moral judgments are able to be evaluated, both by ourselves in retrospect, and by others
3. We respect these evaluations, or at least some of them
4. Therefore, ought-claims have force
5. Therefore, the "rhymes and reasons" are not arbitrary — Leontiskos

Let me clarify the argument a bit and also dispense entirely with the word 'morality':

1c. We all make non-hypothetical ought-judgments (NHs for short - plural)
2c. Our NHs are able to be evaluated, both by ourselves in retrospect, and by others
3c. These evaluations are themselves NHs
4c. We respect these evaluative NHs, or at least some of them
5c. Therefore, at least some evaluative NHs have force
6c. Therefore, the "rhymes and reasons" are not arbitrary

5c is really my primary conclusion. I realize that this argument will be difficult to follow if one does not understand what an NH is, and that understanding will require looking at the thread where I lay it out.

Supposing you want to disagree, you have a few options here:

1. Decide that the conclusions pertain to 'morality' and then dispute the argument
2. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' and then agree with the argument
3. Decide that the conclusions do not pertain to 'morality' but then dispute the argument anyway

Let me give an example using the water case:

A) You decide to drink water, raising it to your lips (1c)
B) A complete stranger tells you not to drink the water (2c, 3c, 5c)
C) You decide not to drink the water, or at the very least you give the stranger's utterance due consideration (4c)

Note that by giving the stranger's utterance due consideration you "respect it." One need not agree with an evaluative NH in order to respect it. Hopefully that example helps illustrate the argument, even if you want to say that you would not give the stranger's utterance due consideration.

The validity of 5c is really the crux, and I don't claim that I have given sufficient argumentation for it, but I also don't want to do too much work in a single post. The sense of 5c crucially requires that we understand what an NH is, and that we do not conflate a non-hypothetical ought-judgment with a hypothetical ought-judgment. Again, this terminology is explained in my thread.

Roughly, yes — AmadeusD

Okay, good. Your thesis is very close to 5c, so that's good. Perhaps I need more reasoning to justify 5c; perhaps I need more reasoning beyond 5c to reach a substantial conclusion; and perhaps the argument is sufficient as it stands.

I am now back to supremely enjoying this exchange, fwiw. — AmadeusD

Glad to hear it.

That is not at all clear, and if that's baked into your examples you're hiding the ball the whole way through. — AmadeusD

How was I hiding the ball? I said it at the very outset:

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments) — Leontiskos

You've misrepresented the argument by interpreting a moral judgment as a hypothetical ought-judgment. I agree: if the argument is misrepresented in that way then it is invalid. But the argument was never about hypothetical imperatives.

I literally did do this when I was in Egypt, so I don't quite know why you would make such a blatantly unsupportable claim? — AmadeusD

So you are telling me that when you were in Egypt someone told you not to drink the water, and you did not give their utterance any (due) consideration? Their utterance had no force on your decision process?

Nope. That's what you think, and are not convincing me of. That's fine. — AmadeusD

I'm not sure what you are supposed to be arguing here. Are you claiming that it is impossible for a complete stranger to tell you not to drink water?

That's fine. I've already told you that "ought" need be unpacked there, and you've not done it... — AmadeusD

But I have done it, namely in the thread that I have referenced multiple times.

I think you are incorrectly describing morality. — AmadeusD

As I've said, I have no use for the word "morality." You can't even say what you mean by it, so I see no point in using it.

can. Again, totally unsupportable by anything but your intuition to this effect. Fine. i don't share it, nor does my experience support my assent. — AmadeusD

The thesis you seem to be proposing is this: <Sometimes the non-hypothetical ought-judgment of a complete stranger has force for me, and sometimes it doesn't>.

Is that accurate or not? If not, please tell me what you are saying when you say, "Can."

Fixed (im jesting that it's 'fixed' - that's just my view and experience). But then, generally only happens to trans women. Because they are male. It is the male doing all the lifting - not the trans. That part is almost irrelevant until you look at the stats and realise that trans women are vastly more likely to commit a sex crime than even non-trans males. I do not think it is "you're in camouflage" and rather "It doesn't matter what you're wearing. You are male. Stay out". I think that's entirely fair and I think point-blank period MALES trying to tell females what they can and cannot allow in their spaces is utterly reprehensible and just another form of misogynistic horseshit we've been battling for millennia. — AmadeusD

Great points. :up:

We have fundamental societal reasons for separating males from females. The reasons hold whether those males have long hair, or have an earring, or identify as a woman. The reasons are based on biology, not mental beliefs.

@fdrake's concern is generalizable: "What if there is something about someone that makes them unpopular in prison?" The answer is that something should be done to protect them, within reasonable limits. It doesn't matter whether it is their long hair, their earring, or their mental identification that makes them unpopular.

(Note that a woman who is an elite powerlifter will receive special attention from a prison, for the exact same reason that men and women are separate.) — Leontiskos

They won't be excluded on the basis of their strength alone. — fdrake

They will receive special attention on the basis of their strength alone, actually.

If you think that placing biological men who are criminals into an all-woman environment will not endanger the women, then you are the one who has to demonstrate that the men pose no special risk. — Leontiskos

Wrong demographic innit.

The relevant comparison is trans women in women's prisons, not men generically in women's prisons. — fdrake

You've simply misrepresented what I've said. I spoke specifically about biological men.

Women who sexually assault women still go to women's prisons for god's sake. — fdrake

Now try to form a valid argument out of that claim.

Legislation that wants to send people to prisons based entirely on their natal sex for the protection of women then sends women {trans men} to serve sentences in buildings full of rapists. It's utter hypocrisy. You send a woman who passes as a man {how you see it} to a building with loads of women with dubious understandings of consent who might be attracted to her, who's way more likely to be the victim of sexual assault because she's a trans man. And she's a woman {according to how you see it}. — fdrake

Again, you don't seem to have any real proposals. I mean, are you proposing that trans men should be sent to men's prisons? As I said:

Logically, the abuse matter is tricky because a trans man or trans woman who has received hormone treatment will possess a strength somewhere between that of the average man and woman, and therefore they introduce a new (and varied) strength differential. For example, the trans man will be stronger than women but weaker than men, and therefore there is a potential for abuse in both women's and men's prisons. — Leontiskos

The rational position is that biological men should not be incarcerated with women (and biological men should not compete in women's sports). That leaves the question about trans men open. You can make an argument that they should be sent to men's prisons if you like. I don't think we need to physically protect men from biological women at the societal level of incarceration. The main problem I see with that is in prison, which seems a bad option no matter where we stand.

What do you mean "us", kemosabe? — Srap Tasmaner

I gave the argument in <this post>, and particularly in the final paragraph. Give that a read and let me know if I am incorrect in claiming that, "you give it due consideration."

So happy to see you, Srap. :up:

My point is that the ought-claims of complete strangers have force for us, and this jibes with your claim about the "reasonableness of assuming." I don't think my universality claim needs to be exceptionless in order for my conclusion to be valid.

It would help me to know where you think we disagree with regard to the more central moral premises, here. I want to make sure that we don't end up quibbling over a minor point.

(Short on time, sorry if that is an inadequate response.)

It would be nice if you would demonstrate how the difference in physical strength between men and women makes trans women more likely to commit acts of sexual assault if they were imprisoned with cis women. You need to show the implication. — fdrake

The burden of proof you are attempting to push is wild, in my opinion. You may as well go to a women's shelter and say, "You need to demonstrate how the difference in physical strength between men and women makes men more likely to create problems in your shelter. You need to show the implication. We just don't have enough data on men in women's shelters to know if there is any danger. If you can't demonstrate the implication, then we're going to start bringing men into this women's shelter. Because my a priori beliefs that men will not cause problems in a women's shelter are stronger than your a priori beliefs that men will cause problems in a women's shelter."

If you think that placing biological men who are criminals into an all-woman environment will not endanger the women, then you are the one who has to demonstrate that the men pose no special risk. Our whole prison system which separates men and women is premised on the obvious fact that there is a special risk. You are the one with the burden of proof, and it isn't even close.

What about women who are elite powerlifters? — fdrake

Great argument, fdrake. "What about women who are elite powerlifters?" This is painful, dude. I already pointed to the problems where you take an exception and try to use it to establish a rule.

(Note that a woman who is an elite powerlifter will receive special attention from a prison, for the exact same reason that men and women are separate.)

I'm being facetious. — fdrake

Then let's separate husbands and wives too. So what? You're not being rational. What you are engaged in is a red herring.

You would need to establish that trans people pose unique risks in prisons. When people look at the data, it doesn't look like that at all. All that's left is the perception that Man Strong Rapist Woman Weak Raped, and it works like a thought terminating cliche. — fdrake

Again, you seem convinced that women are not physically weaker than men, and I can't think of a more unintelligent position for someone to hold. The rhetoric doesn't help your position.

I am reminded of Nellie Bowles' quip:

[Saying we need to demonstrate that men are stronger than women is] like saying we have absolutely no research indicating that a giraffe is bigger than a goldfish—no double-blind peer-reviewed studies have been done to date, so really, how can we say which is bigger? — Nellie Bowles in response to John Oliver

This is why no one takes your position seriously, and why public opinion is now headed in an immensely more rational direction.

I cannot see it beyond a mechanistic if/then. — AmadeusD

But it's not a mechanistic if/then. More precisely, it's not a hypothetical imperative. He didn't say, "Don't drink the water if you don't want to get sick." He said, "Don't drink the water." Or, "Don't drink the water because you don't want to get sick." I am envisioning the stranger who is telling you what to do, which is why I spoke explicitly about non-hypothetical ought-judgments. If we wanted to be pedantic, we could have him tell you, "Even though we are complete strangers, I know what you value, and therefore you ought not drink the water." You could respond, "You have no idea what I value. All values are arbitrary - what the Christian values has nothing to do with what the Muslim values," and go on to ignore him and drink the water. But you don't do that. Think about the fact that you don't do that!

(What he delivers to you is a non-hypothetical ought-judgment, which I explain in detail <here>. Also see my first paragraph <here>, which anticipates what you've now done.)

I take it you think you've beaten this by showing food helps us survive. It sure does. That is not moral — AmadeusD

Saying, "That is not moral" doesn't mean anything if you can't tell us what the word 'moral' in your sentence is supposed to mean. In fact I have said precisely what I mean by 'moral':

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments) — Leontiskos

...and it is clear that the non-hypothetical ought-judgments of complete strangers still have force for us. The word "moral" is completely unnecessary, and given the way people in this thread want to use that word while refusing to say what they mean by it, it perhaps should be left out of the discussion.

No, it doesn't, as far as I am concerned/can tell. Would you be able to tell me how that makes it non-arbitrary?

[...]

This seems a total non sequitur (think I've pointed that out before). Cannot understand how this is the case... What's going on for you there? — AmadeusD

Did you read the rest of the post? Here it is again:

You might say, "I and everyone else on Earth share the value of wanting to avoid poisonous water, but that value is still arbitrary. Everyone on Earth may share the value, but that does not make it non-arbitrary."

I don't see a need to enter into the debate on universal vs. objective. My point is that at least some values are shared by all humans, and this is all that is required for morality to exist. If this were not true then the complete stranger's warning would have no force for you. But it does have force for you, and therefore it is true that there are fundamentally shared values. — Leontiskos

- It seems like you're intent to avoid the central issues, here. I'm not sure what your claim that husbands rape their wives has to do with the central question of whether women are physically weaker than men, and whether physical strength is a central factor when it comes to rape and abuse.

You've, "Swallowed the camel and strained the gnat," to quote a phrase.

I've almost no interest in talking about the letter of the ruling, other than the ways in which it still catastrophically fails the lobbyist's intentions. — fdrake

Hmm, okay.

Why? Surely you need to demonstrate more danger than would be expected from a typical inmate in order to make this case? — fdrake

Well, why do you think we have separate men's and women's prisons in the first place. Is it for the safety of the men? The idea that I need to demonstrate that it is a bad idea to house criminal, biological men with women is a bit strange. Surely you recognize the longstanding rationale for separating men's prisons from women's prisons?

No. I think the moral panic surrounding trans people in gendered spaces is totally nuts and that they don't amplify the risks meaningfully if they're allowed in their preferred gender spaces especially if they've received a GRC. That's mostly what this ruling was about, honestly. What a GRC does.

Scotland passed a bill that let trans people count as their preferred gender if they went through a lengthy and robust assessment process, which was then vetoed. This ruling made that irrelevant. — fdrake

Okay. I'm not up to date on the legal ins and outs of the GRC in Scotland, so I am not competent to comment on such a thing.

They're sexually assaulting each other just fine in there without trans mens' help. And more than men do to each other in men's prisons. If anything we should be afraid that the poor trans man is being put in with such vicious, criminal, creatures. But we won't, because we see women as weak and in need of protection. — fdrake

Women are physically weaker than men, and in need of protection. That's why Western society has been taking progressive steps to protect women for at least the last 500 years. Do you disagree that women are physically weaker than men? I can understand political positions, but when your political position causes you to contradict some of the most well-known biological facts the political position becomes untenable.

- Lots of strawmen being discussed among the atheists.

- It sounds like your objection is, "The lobbyists' motives are bad." Is that the only objection?

On the view of those of us who are far removed, it looks to be good law. Even supposing the motives are bad, that doesn't make it a bad law. Is there a substantial objection to the law, one that goes beyond imputing bad motives?

I think your substantial conclusion is something like, "This will harm trans men or trans women or both." From the perspective of law and politics, "This will cause harm," is not a sufficient justification. The question is whether it will cause more harm than the alternative. My sense is that it won't, at all.

a tiny minority group — fdrake

If you put a criminal, biological man in a women's prison you put all of the women in danger. You presumably want to favor a tiny minority of criminals because you think minorities are good, and need to be protected. But to favor a tiny minority of criminals at the expense of the vast majority of criminals (particularly in women's prisons) is bad law. It is much more harmful to put a tiny minority of biological men in women's prisons than to put that tiny minority of biological men in men's prisons. The commonsensical argument here is pretty straightforward.

The response of someone in your position is something like, "These are real trans women. They aren't just pretending to be trans women." The fact of the matter is that if a male criminal with a history of sexual abuse can get into a women's prison by merely claiming that he identifies as a woman, he will. We are talking about criminals, not ordinary people, after all. I don't see any good reason to endanger all of the natural women in women's prisons. If we have to choose between endangering the 99% or the 1%, we choose the 1%. That's eminently rational.

(And sure, women's prisons can be vicious. Nevertheless, strength differential is still enormously important.)

Interesting thread, . I am relatively new to Adorno. I looked at Wikipedia, Britannica, IEP, SEP, and read the SEP section on Negative Dialectics. His project reminds me a lot of Erich Przywara's Analogia Entis, for Przywara was also of German descent, born fourteen years before Adorno and dying 13 years after him. One can actually see in all sorts of German thinkers of that era the identification of the evils of fascism with excessive and overly programmatic intellectual certitude.

I will go read the first lecture before trying to say anything more substantial.

A short and related article I stumbled upon: "Getting Serious about Seriousness, Aristotle on the meaning of Spoudaios," by Matthew Lu.

The reason old mate in the foreign country's "Don't drink the water" might be worthy of consideration is the factual situation of his familiarity with something I am not familiar. He might also want me to dehydrate. It doesn't matter, because the facts lead me to think "Maybe this guy/gal knows something I don't". Where's the "ought" coming into this? — AmadeusD

So when a complete stranger warns you not to drink the water, you don't see any 'ought' involved in this?

They will, in all cases, rely on personal values. — AmadeusD

I don't believe anyone has claimed that moral judgments do not rely on values. This is a big part of your ignoratio elenchus.

If they aren't shared, why would I have any interest? — AmadeusD

Exactly, but you do have interest, and therefore according to your own reasoning here your interest indicates a shared value. The fact that you think a complete stranger has a shared value with you shows that the values of complete strangers are not arbitrary.

Is the suggestion here that if several people agree on a value, it is no longer arbitrary? — AmadeusD

Yes. I am claiming that <If the ought-claim of a complete stranger has force for you, then values are not arbitrary>.

You might say, "I and everyone else on Earth share the value of wanting to avoid poisonous water, but that value is still arbitrary. Everyone on Earth may share the value, but that does not make it non-arbitrary."

I don't see a need to enter into the debate on universal vs. objective. My point is that at least some values are shared by all humans, and this is all that is required for morality to exist. If this were not true then the complete stranger's warning would have no force for you. But it does have force for you, and therefore it is true that there are fundamentally shared values.

There’s two interesting points here — Bob Ross

I agree, and those points follow from the argument you gave. I am just looking at that argument and seeing where it leads.

Hell doesn’t have to exist for God to punish you after you die; at least not in the strict sense of being a place absent of God for eternity. — Bob Ross

So then instead of, "If humans are not eternal then Hell doesn't exist," you could read, "If humans are not eternal then eternal punishment doesn't exist." It doesn't matter. The point is that if humans are not eternal then there is nothing to object to (and the person who believes in Hell obviously believes humans are eternal).

Likewise, we are talking about the causes in the universe of one’s sins and not in Hell; so I don’t understand how humans being eternal in the sense of living in another place than the universe after dying necessitates their act in the universe may have infinite spillage. A human could be eternal in this sense and the universe is finite in time; which would mean that their sin would not be capable of infinite spillage. — Bob Ross

I said that for Aquinas the infinite spillage flows out of the broken relationship between two eternal beings, namely God and a human. So if you believe that God and humans are eternal then the infinite spillage is possible. The question of whether "the universe" is eternal is not relevant to the argument I gave.

Duh, women can rape women. — DifferentiatingEgg

Let's just pretend that this is a reasonable claim for the sake of argument. What then is the position? That women can rape women, men can rape men, men can rape women, and women can rape men, and therefore as far as rape is concerned, all prisons should be co-ed? That separating the sexes has no effect on the issue of rape?

This is a good example of why the position is so insane.

I recently listened to a very interesting discussion between Sam Harris and Tom Holland. It is about the ties between secularism, liberalism, and Christianity. The discussion towards the end about the way Islam encounters secular/Christian culture was on point for Wayfarer's thesis.

The lobbyists that forced this issue in the UK courts were principally concerned with not allowing rapists in vulnerable women's spaces. — fdrake

Are you concerned that trans men are going to rape women? Do you think someone without a natural penis can rape a woman? Unaided penetrative intercourse doesn't work so well with a phalloplasty, and I'm not sure why erectile prosthetics would be allowed in a women's prison.

Imagine you're in a woman's prison and Buck Angel walks into the showers. A musclebound, steroid using, bodybuilder with a sixpack and thick bodyfur walks into womens' collective showers... — fdrake

You're equivocating between rape and abuse. If we are concerned about rape, then the ruling is quite logical. If we are concerned about abuse (i.e. strength differentials), then the ruling is beneficial but imperfect (as all law is, by the way).

Logically, the abuse matter is tricky because a trans man or trans woman who has received hormone treatment will possess a strength somewhere between that of the average man and woman, and therefore they introduce a new (and varied) strength differential. For example, the trans man will be stronger than women but weaker than men, and therefore there is a potential for abuse in both women's and men's prisons.

On balance, though, the ruling is great. That you've found an exception to the rule in no way proves that the ruling is flawed. All rules and law have exceptions.

(And if we are concerned with neither rape nor abuse, but merely "perceptions," then we have created a world with infinite potential complaints where realism and pragmatism do not even exist.)

- I don't know that you've provided me with many arguments, but I think you are short on time and I am glad to see you offering Count Timothy arguments and reasons in this post. So, fair enough.

To be clear, the reason I wanted you to consider and answer (3) is as follows:

1. We all make moral judgments (in the sense of non-hypothetical ought-judgments)
2. Our moral judgments are able to be evaluated, both by ourselves in retrospect, and by others
3. We respect these evaluations, or at least some of them
4. Therefore, ought-claims have force
5. Therefore, the "rhymes and reasons" are not arbitrary

It's a definition of 'ought' which relies on value. I just do not accept there are any objective values to be found. Therefore, no 'ought' which is not beholden to it's speaker's values specifically can be found either. — AmadeusD

So suppose your wife tells you, "You shouldn't have done that," or, "You should do this," and suppose you respect her evaluation (i.e. 3). What follows is (4): ought-claims have force for you.
(I think what you are more truly opposed to are categorical/exceptionless norms.)

That's a fairly big step. You, Michael, and others claim that you don't think people are being coherent when they make ought-claims. I would point out that something which is incoherent or non-existent cannot have force, and yet ought-claims do have force; therefore they cannot be incoherent or non-existent.

Now you might say, "Sure, my wife's ought-claims have force for me, but that doesn't make them objective or even universal. Either she knows my own values well enough to counsel me, or else we self-consciously share a set of values upon which we reason together. Either way the objectivity needn't extend beyond the two of us." That's a fair answer, but I would contend that you and your wife are also potentially open to the suggestions and advice of every other person on Earth, and that this would be odd if there were not some sort of value-continuity between the two of you and other people. That is, ought-claims of others who do not know you at all and who therefore do not know your idiosyncrasies and "arbitrary" values nevertheless have force for you (even if that force is quite small or is merely potential and defeasible). Hence the point about food: there are all sorts of values that everyone holds in common, and the general "oughts" which flow from these common values will also be common.

To give a concrete example, suppose you travel to a foreign city and begin to drink water from a drinking fountain. Someone warns you not to drink the water. Whether or not you accede to their suggestion, you give it due consideration. Now I don't know why you would give a perfect stranger's ought-claim due consideration if all values are arbitrary. Instead I would say that, like the food example, the stranger knows and shares one of your own values even though he does not know you, and this is why his ought-claim is worthy of consideration.

and, naturally, the layman atheist latches onto this disposition and becomes the counter-disposition, equally flawed and vague, that ‘faith’ is a useless concept which only refers to blind belief that only makes sense within the context of religion. — Bob Ross

But it doesn't even make sense there. For example, Janus implies that <People have faith in authorities who they have no reason to believe are credible>. That whole idea is incoherent, and it underlies these New Atheist-type arguments.

The paradox of these fringe debates is that the atheist who is infallibly certain that religious faith is irrational cannot be engaged rationally (and that level of certitude almost always results in them refusing to give arguments for their thesis in the first place). On the other hand, the 99% of people who can be engaged rationally do not hold that religious faith is foundationally or definitionally irrational. Therefore you can't ever argue about whether religious faith is irrational, because the tiny percentage of militant atheists are dogmatic and unwilling to offer arguments, whereas the rest of humankind doesn't hold to the thesis in question at all. So it's pointless with either group.

Were they able to unfold their reasoning, we would see that the rational error that such atheists or quasi-atheists generally make is to conflate subjective grounds/evidence with objective grounds/evidence. They effectively mean to say, "Well I admit he has reasons to believe, but they aren't good reasons." Thus the argument is little more than <If I don't think his reasons are good reasons, then he is irrational or he is believing without evidence>. But if the atheist were honest he would admit that the believer does have evidence; he would just say that it isn't good evidence. Yet this merely begs the question since the whole issue is about whether the evidence/reasons are good or bad.

I have limited access to internet at the moment, but there is a famous miracle (of Fatima?) where the sun stood still, or moved backwards for a time, or was blotted out for a time, or something like that. The idea is something like this, "The prophet predicted abnormal activity of the sun to occur at such-and-such a time. That activity occurred. Therefore the prophet is truly in contact with a higher power." (This is an example of how we vet someone's abilities, and the logic is much broader than prophecy or foretelling.)

The atheist will say something like, "Yes, they believed they saw the sun behave abnormally, and therefore they had 'evidence' that the prophet was a true prophet, but it was not good evidence, because they should have [reasoned the way I reason about such phenomena]." Or in other words, "Well I admit he has reasons to believe, but they aren't good reasons."

The philosophical and scientific problem with the atheist's approach is that there is nothing principled or rigorous about his method. Legitimate epistemological theories have identifiable criteria. "If I think it's a poor reason then it's a poor reason," is not a legitimate epistemological theory. An atheist can certainly hold the belief that, "All religious beliefs are based on insufficient evidence," but there is nothing philosophical, scientific, or rigorous about this assertion/dogma.

More simply, the militant atheist is too vain to admit that there are rational beliefs which he would nevertheless disagree with, and it is literally impossible to argue with someone who can never admit that something he disbelieves believe might be rational. Incidentally, this is why there is a strong correlation between militant atheists and unintelligence, and this in turn is why their professional colleagues ask them to pipe down lest onlookers begin to perceive the whole field as being possessed of such unintelligence.