Nobody asked me, but I hate the Golden Rule. — Joshs

No worries -- I'm interested in hearing a proper go at refutations of the golden rule. — Moliere

The Golden Rule might deserve a thread of its own.

But that is a very uncharitable understanding, don't you think? — schopenhauer1

I don't, and I think it's simply true.

It's not that we have 'no negative right not to be criticized'. That's not necessarily part of the negative ethics. That is simply interaction. Rather, if I said to you, "Please leave me alone", and you stood there yelling in my face, chasing me down, harassing me, then that might qualify for a negative right not to be harassed. But simply criticizing someone doesn't meet that threshold. — schopenhauer1

Okay, then we agree on this.

What qualifies as "right not to be... (fill in the blank)" can be up for interpretation. The point is, whatever negative ethic there is, you cannot use your understanding of what is a positive "right" to violate it. WHAT COUNTS as a negative ethic, is up for interpretation though. — schopenhauer1

I am among those who hold that a good end does not justify an evil means, but my point is that what counts as a negative ethic (right) is enormously important. That is where the crux of the question lies.

It seems to me like you are doing that throughout this comment You insinuate... — Paine

But the claim has to do with, "assumptions regarding the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection." I do not make any assumptions at all about Forms and Recollection in that quote you provide, and Fooloso's whole paragraph is centered around Forms and Recollection. What is he talking about?

This is actually a good example of what I am talking about. Fooloso is protecting against "assumptions regarding the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection," and there need be no evidence of such assumptions in order for him to mount a defense against such an interpretation. This is an example of "protesting too much," albeit not in a strictly Christian register. If I am to judge from his posts on the forum since I have arrived, he reads Plato primarily against a foil of his own construction; hence the "contrarian polemicism."

You insinuate Foolsoso4 resembles a gnostic sophist here... — Paine

I do think that.

And yet you impose your own assumptions regarding the truth of such things as Forms and Recollection. Contrary to his identification of Forms as hypothetical and Recollection as problematic, you accuse me of sophistic interpretation when I pay attention to and point out what is actually said. — Fooloso4

Where have I done that?

My approach is to pay careful attention to both the arguments and actions in the dialogues. You dismiss this as convoluted and sophistic. Rather than hold out these purported theories and doctrines against the text itself, you hold to them in place of the text. As if the details of the text itself are superfluous and can be ignored. — Fooloso4

Where have I done that?

You seem to be capable of spinning anything to make it say whatever you like, and I'm sure this includes my own posts. It should not surprise when a witch hunter finds a witch.

The problem is that the "negative ethics" being espoused are not true ethics at all (and of course this all relates obliquely to your antinatalism). We have no negative right to not be criticized; we have no negative right to not receive moral admonition; we have no negative right not to be imprisoned and coerced when we commit serial murder; we have no negative right not to be caused suffering*, etc. This is "negative ethics" run amok, and it violates the sort of minimalism that has classically characterized negative rights.

* At least in the way that the antinatalist thinks of the causing of suffering, which includes everything from inconvenience to bringing about conditions which may lead to suffering.

Mead of course leant into the “anthropological theory of cognition” angle with his symbolic interactionism. — apokrisis

Thanks for the background. :up:

By the end of the dialogue each moves up one spot on the hierarchy. Thus the imparting of knowledge of that cannot be spoken of in mere words, but which must be lived, is imaged in a story where the fruits of knowledge show up in the deeds of those involved. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Michael Sugrue gives the same interpretation. I assume your quotes are coming from something written by D. C. Schindler?

The point of my post was to counter the charge against Strauss that he was an oracular figure who mystified what was there for all to see. Strauss established his point of view in the context of Schleiermacher and Klein. He taught his classes with the spirit of that lineage clearly on display. Burnyeat either knew of that or he did not. In either case, awareness of that lineage rebuts Burnyeat's argument. — Paine

Fair enough, and perhaps you are right that Burnyeat was not sufficiently aware of this lineage.

Now, there are writers who oppose that lineage for a variety of reasons. Their opposition does not make them all saying the same thing. To make such an equation was the core of Apollodorus' method of argument.

He was a venomous fountain of ad hominem attacks and contempt. Everybody had to be speaking from a particular camp or school. His opponents were always tools in the hands of their masters. It deeply saddens me that such a spirit has returned to visit condemnation amongst us. — Paine

That's unfortunate. I wasn't around at the time. Fooloso has continually reminded me of Burnyeat's article, but I could not remember the name of the article and so simply searched, "Burnyeat sphinx" on the forum, and found Apollodorus' post (which was in fact a response to Fooloso). I am thinking of Burnyeat more than Apollodorus, but I wanted to reference that exchange as an antecedent of the point I was making. I don't find it coincidental that after Timothy pointed up the incongruence of Fooloso's approach, others started coming out of the woodwork, testifying to the same impression.

Burnyeat's article is 15 pages long and I don't want to fall into a detailed dispute of the article, especially given the fact that it is not publicly available. I think the discussion regarding Gerson's thesis would be more fruitful, but there is plenty of overlap between the two, and it is interesting that Burnyeat's criticism of Strauss in many ways parallels your own criticism of Gerson.

For what it's worth, the editors included a postscript to Burnyeat's article:

This review was met with a storm of rebuttals from the leading Straussians of the day, plus a letter of support from Gregory Vlastos: NYRB 10 October 1985; 24 October 1985; 24 April 1986. The title ‘Sphinx without a secret’ derives from a short story by Oscar Wilde. — Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Volume 2

I tend to agree with this. Fooloso4 has a very hardened way of looking at Plato. It appears like an opinion of Plato as useless. But to make that argument, there is a tendency to portray Plato as misleading. There's a very big difference between these two. Useless is simply non-productive, having no effect, and that is basically to say that there is no substance there at all. To say that Plato is misleading, is to acknowledge philosophical substance, and claim that it is wrong, pointing us in the wrong direction. Fooloso4 tends to argue both about Plato, without distinguishing one from the other, and without revealing what is truly believed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Quite right, and I think there are also false dichotomies at play, such as the idea that either Plato espoused concrete doctrines, or else he held to no positions whatsoever. Such false dichotomies push and pull the conversations and interpretations in unnatural ways. I would never want to impose such wooden assumptions on a subtle thinker like Plato. And if the false dichotomies are only being used as a rhetorical tool, then I would say that the rhetoric and agendas need to be tamped down.

- Good post.

It would seem that since we're on the 8th page of this thread arguing back and forth, criticizing as we do, we actually think that critical feedback is a useful means to promote free will, which in turn protects our autonomy, which then defeats the suggestion we shouldn't be critical. Those sorts of things are likely to happen when we admit that the highest good isn't not being critical, but that not being critical is just a rule of thumb that often (but not always) works to promote those higher order goods. — Hanover

Yes, I agree.

To state that an attack on a person's intellectual or moral decision detonates his individuality is a questionable claim, as it would seem that special element within the person is indestructible given the proper spirit. If that's the case, then it would follow we ought instill virtue into individuals so as to not make their spirit subject to dissolution at the simplest of criticisms. — Hanover

Right. I would say that the criticizing of someone's decision or action is an important part of human and social life. The ability to make decisions uncoerced is important, but the opportunity to see the shortsightedness of one's decisions and to grow into someone who can receive criticism and then make better decisions is also important. I don't think we can just take the first and leave the second.

And I do agree that this comes down to virtue more than anything else, in which case it must be asked how we are to instill virtues so that people don't find autonomy absolutism so alluring. Bad ideas need to be addressed when they take root in a culture. In my estimation the vice of pusillanimity is at the heart of many of these autonomy-based ideas. There seems to be a lack of courage to face challenge or criticism. There may also be an intellectual component regarding the pure ideality of autonomy, but I think the vice is the bigger player. Another name that this sort of thing goes under is "moral subjectivism," where everyone's moral system is supposedly self-enclosed.

That is to say, sometimes it is important to hear that one's thoughts and actions are stupid when they in fact are. Otherwise, you are just allowed to be born stupid, to live stupid, and then to die stupid. How that can be described as a life respected and cultivated is stupid of the highest order. — Hanover

Yes, as I said:

Those who do wrong are very often ignorant of their wrongdoing, whether culpably or not. It has always been considered a mercy to make them aware of it - to help them avoid what will only become a bigger problem for them and for others. — Leontiskos

For example, if such a grounding of intentionality reduces to mechanism, i.e. something like causal closure (is it supposed to?), then I would say such a theory has dire epistemic and explanatory issues. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is right. @apokrisis seems to now be using "semiotics" to refer to an anthropological theory of cognition.

Natural selection would never ensure that phenomenal experiences don't drift arbitrarily far from whatever the world is actually like because the contents of awareness have absolutely no bearing on reproduction if they don't affect behavior. It's self refuting. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right. From what I understand semiotics began as the study of intentional sign use (among humans), and then eventually incorporated a study of the way that sub-human organisms utilize signs in a non-intentional manner. Given what @apokrisis says, what may now be happening is that humans are being appraised as organisms that utilize signs in a non-intentional manner, and one use of the word "semiotics" apparently refers to this anthropological theory of cognition.

Of course humans do utilize signs in non-intentional ways, but when someone like apokrisis explicates an anthropological theory to explain the manner in which humans do this—which in this case seems to be premised on some combination of evolution and entropy—he is using intentional signs to explicate his theory, and is therefore back to the original sense of semiotics. As you say, this is self-refuting. It is self-refuting in the same way that an explanation of reasoning via reasoning would be self-refuting. In this case it is an explanation of human signs via human signs, or else an explanation of human being (including sign-use) via human signs. Such can never achieve a true explanation. In these cases the explanandum always outruns the explanans. Apokrisis' explanation of human sign use cannot, after all, manage to explain the sign-use he is involved in in this thread.

I thought you were here to discuss pragmatism in some way. — apokrisis

Peircian pragmatism or some other? Most of the pragmatism that occurs on these forums is not Peircian, and I would assume the OP is referencing the forms that are common on these forums.

Unfortunately I am not going to be able to respond to all of that. I found some of it accurate and some of it inaccurate, but these psychological theories of yours are icing on the cake, and we must first build the cake:

If everyone is doing the best they can at each moment of their life then no one is responsible for anything, and therefore it is entirely backwards to say that humans are responsible because they are always doing the best they can. — Leontiskos

If we are always doing the best we can, this means no one is responsible for immorality. — Joshs

I want you to think about why it is that someone who is doing their best is not responsible for immorality and for bad effects that might result. A central question here is whether "everyone is doing their best" is supposed to be a contingent and synthetic truth, or a necessary and analytic truth. On my lights it only makes sense as a contingent truth, because the question of whether someone is "doing their best" relies on an investigation into how they are doing what they are doing. In everyday language when someone says, "Johnny is doing his best out there," the presupposition is that it is possible that Johnny might not be doing his best. In doing his best he is doing something that he need not be doing.

On this account, "Johnny is doing his best," is a bit like, "The Corvette is going 100 mph." The claim about the Corvette is not a necessary truth, and therefore in order to verify its truth condition we must examine the speed of the car via the speedometer or a radar gun or something of the sort. Only once our examination is complete are we justified in confirming or denying the claim about the Corvette.

It seems to me that what you have done is to borrow from negative freedom, the bad things that happen despite our best intent, and attach it to intention itself ( I WANTED to be callous, insensitive, cruel, immoral). — Joshs

Nah, this is very far from Aristotle's or Aquinas' view. I'm not sure where your ideas here are coming from. For Aquinas we always aim at what we perceive to be good, and therefore no one ever aims at immorality qua immorality.

Also, for Aristotle and Aquinas what we all ultimately aim for is happiness, and in my opinion many of the errors of your post consist in reducing that happiness aim to something smaller, such as, "deepening the intimacy of our anticipatory understandings within the social groups that matter to us." Someone can seek happiness in social intimacy, and as social animals that will contribute to our happiness, but it is a mistake to confuse social intimacy with happiness or our aim.

Doesn't that show how consent is important? — Moliere

It shows a way in which consent is important and it shows a way in which consent isn't important.

Do you imagine that I want to punish people who will not consent to the punishment? — Moliere

If someone fully consents to a punishment then they are not being punished. What you say here makes me think that you do not understand punishment. And of course the general view being represented here does lead to the eradication of punishment, which leads to yet another societal impossibility, and to my mind counts as another reductio.

Well, I don't really. I'm one of those "Reform, to the extent possible" sorts, although there are all sorts of thorny questions along the way. — Moliere

To reform someone against their will is simply one form of punishment. C. S. Lewis argues persuasively that it is the worst form of punishment, and is deeply contrary to human dignity (link).

[Professionals] For making hard-and-fast rules? No one :D — Moliere

Then I have to wonder if you were being honest when you proposed that it is, "best to leave such [coercive] tools to the professionals." This is because when I asked you who these professionals are you said, "No one."

I do value autonomy a great deal, and I think we all ought to. I base this on our general ignorance... — Moliere

Again, the "ignorance" card doesn't play. Insofar as an intellect-based case is made for autonomy, that case is based on knowledge, not ignorance. It is based on the idea that I have more knowledge about what is best for me than anyone else does. And that is precisely what I challenged in my last post. For example, libertarians and those who champion autonomy have a great deal of trouble understanding how to parent children, and how it is that children should be answerable to adults.

I agree that the community can see you better than you can see yourself, though that doesn't mean that your close friends and family won't have biases either. Sometimes a lack of closeness could clear the eyes, and sometimes the distance obscures certain details. I don't think we really get to not socialize -- everyone who can think of themself as a distinct person in a community who makes choices is socialized to some degree, right? — Moliere

I agree, but many in this thread are saying that they should not be socialized. Socialization involves moral admonition, after all.

But I don't think the community can take on the role of doctor, exactly, no. — Moliere

Perhaps the more obvious case of those who wield moral tools are legislators and policemen. T Clark seems to think that the serial killer might be acting rightly, according to his "intrinsic nature." The legislators and the police don't think he is acting rightly, and they will throw him in prison because of it.

---

- I figured you might be lurking. :razz:

I find Fooloso4 interpretations invariably deflationary - they seem, as @Leontiskos says, to equate Socrates' 'wise ignorance', to ignorance, tout courte. We've discussed, for example, the allegory of the Cave, which I had rather thought contained at least a hint of something like 'spiritual illumination'. But no, apparently, it's also an edifying myth, and Plato is, along with all of us, a prisoner, for whom there is no liberation. Or something like that. — Wayfarer

I think Fooloso's approach discourages people from reading Plato, and that's unfortunate.* The "showmanship" I spoke of is a kind of contrarian polemicism, where one uses an infinite stock of ammo to gainsay any interpretation which draws substance and sustenance from Plato's works.

@Paine seems to me a sound and admirable philosopher. When he speaks I learn and when he speaks about Plato I end up learning about Plato and being edified. When I speak to Fooloso, on the other hand, after one or two posts I quickly begin to wonder what he even takes himself to be doing (and then in turn what I take myself to be doing in engaging him). Again:

The technique is as follows. You paraphrase the text in tedious detail – or so it appears to the uninitiated reader. Occasionally you remark that a certain statement is not clear; you note that the text is silent about a certain matter; you wonder whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges you gradually insinuate that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say. — Myles Burnyeat, Sphinx without a Secret

More generally, this kind of inflation and deflation in order to warp a text (or a post) and wring out of it whatever one wishes is an advanced form of sophistry that is in many ways beyond me to refute. But when I see someone raising questions about the Emperor's clothes I am certainly willing to assent and applaud. Paine's challenge is just and I can make my attempt, but there are certain forms of sophistry that are beyond me to refute. I think it is significant in itself that many of us see these interpretations as warped and questionable, even if we cannot match the time or the ammo needed to engage point for point.

When I say that Plato (or Socrates) is a pedagogue part of what I mean is that his words echo truths in multiple registers, as do his dialogues. There is food for the novice and the advanced pupil alike. This is different from gnosticism, which involves dissimulation and falsity for the sake of some higher and secret/concealed truth. It is very easy for a deft hand to warp the pedagogy and diffusity of Plato into a form of dissimulation or skepticism, in much the same way that a conspiracy theorist can cast doubt on everyday realities and replace them with some grand secret. I do not deny for a minute that there are secrets and cues and nuance in Plato, but I fully reject the "replacement" mentality a la gnosticism. Let the novice have his bread. It too is wholesome, and need not be gainsaid.

* This is part of Burnyeat's complaint:

According to Strauss, these old books ‘owe their existence to the love of the mature philosopher for the puppies of his race, by whom he wants to be loved in turn’.5 And one can understand that today’s puppies need assistance if they are to respond with love to Strauss’s manner of commenting on these classic texts; for he deliberately makes the hard ones harder and the easier ones (e.g., Plato and Xenophon) the most difficult of all. — Myles Burnyeat, Sphinx without a Secret

- Good post, but I don't see any of that as controversial, and I have no reason to believe that Burnyeat would demur. For example, the paragraphs I gave where Burnyeat speaks about the centrality of persuasion in the Republic presupposes that Socrates is saying different things to different people.

I understand the concept; but even a surgeon asks permission before excising a tumor, right? — Moliere

No, not necessarily. Medical procedures often do not require consent when the person in question is not capable of consent. In questions of moral admonition consent is tangential and not especially important. This is in part because one will not consent to the punishment that will be forced on them if they continue to act poorly (e.g. imprisonment, fines, etc.).

For my part I tend to think we're pretty ignorant of one another, so it's best to leave such tools to the professionals. — Moliere

Oh? Well who do you consider a professional? I think it's clear that many people are ignorant of themselves, and that especially close friends and family will see more clearly than they do their own actions. This is as it has always been, and it is why socialization is so important. Those who do wrong are very often ignorant of their wrongdoing, whether culpably or not. It has always been considered a mercy to make them aware of it - to help them avoid what will only become a bigger problem for them and for others.

Can you tell me not to tell others what to do? That seems immoral. — Hanover

There's something oddly inconsistent in the implicit claim that we ought not expect others to follow any moral precept.

How is that not, thereby, itself a moral precept?

The pretence of stepping outside moral discourse in order to discuss moral discourse is exposed. — Banno

Peter Simpson uses this question as a jumping-off point for his essay, "On Doing Wrong, Modern-Style." He encountered the doctrine very often in his college students, and I think it has become even more common in the two intervening decades:

One's immediate reaction here is likely to be that, if this is so, then the theory has here proved itself to be incoherent and contradictory. It ends up asserting what it first denied, namely, the existence of a right and wrong that we do not make but which is somehow absolute and the same for everyone. Perhaps in some ways of taking the theory there is an incoherence here. But there need not be. We can suppose that two difference senses of the word 'wrong' are being used. Certainly people act as if there were two senses, since they do not regard the wrong of telling others what to do as a wrong that is up to each one's choice and that might be wrong for me but not for you. On the contrary, they say it is wrong for everyone and should be avoided by everyone. This is intelligible enough if another sense of wrong is in question. For that it is wrong in one sense of 'wrong' to tell people what is wrong in another sense of 'wrong' is not, as such, a contradiction.

The wrong that one is forbidding when one says that it is wrong to tell others what is wrong is the wrong of interfering with their freedom to decide for themselves their own right and wrong. When one tells others that such interference is wrong, one is not oneself interfering with their freedom to decide for themselves their own right and wrong. One is interfering with interfering with others' freedom to decide their own right and wrong. To make this a little clearer, let us call the wrong that each one is free to decide for himself a first-order wrong. And let us call the wrong of interfering with this freedom a second-order wrong. What is being forbidden is telling people their first-order wrong. What is not being forbidden is telling them their second-order wrong. The two wrongs are at different levels, and a prohibition on telling people what is wrong at one level is not the same as, nor need it involve, a prohibition on telling people what is wrong at another level. Indeed, the contrary is the case. Telling people their second-order wrong is not only compatible with, but even required by, the prohibition on telling them their first-order wrong. It is just way of telling them to respect each others' freedom, I mean the freedom they each have to make their own first-order right and wrong.

Still, once we have made this distinction, we do end up, in the case of the second-order wrong, with a wrong that is wrong simply and altogether. Moreover, it is clear that in this sense of 'wrong' people not only can but in fact do do wrong. . . — Peter L. P. Simpson, “On Doing Wrong, Modern-Style,” in Vices, Virtues, and Consequences, pp. 60-1

"Guilt" becoming a tool, like a knife, to shave away parts of another in the name of the good has it backwards to my mind.

Rather, I have to grab the knife to cut away from myself when I see the need. — Moliere

I don't think incurring guilt necessarily involves bad motives. Using a knife to injure another person and using guilt to injure another person are both bad, but it does not follow from the fact that such injury is possible that every time a knife or guilt is utilized this is what is occurring. If knives and guilt could only be used to injure other people, then we should get rid of both. But that's not the only thing they are used for.

For example, a surgeon can use a knife to cut away a malignant tumor, and guilt can be used in much the same way. Now some who are beholden to a strict form of autonomy might say that we should only ever perform moral operations on ourselves, but I would say that there are strong similarities between the moral order and the physical order. Just as there are physical surgeons, so too are there moral surgeons, and there are tumors which cannot be self-excised. For an example of a moral surgeon, see Nathan in 2 Samuel 12.

Okay, I will let yours be the last word. Thanks for the interesting conversation.

But let me elaborate on this:

I was finishing reading the eudemian ethics the other day, and came across the exact distinction I happen to be making in Aristotle’s Book VI p. 103:

"If someone chooses or pursues A for the sake of B, then per se he pursues and chooses B, and A only coincidentally. But when we speak without qualification, we mean what is per se" — Bob Ross

Here is Simpson's rendering:

Or is it accidental that it is any reason and choice whatever and in itself it is true reason and right choice that the one stands by and the other does not? For if someone chooses or pursues this thing because of that thing, in itself he pursues and chooses the latter but accidentally the former. But we say that the “in itself” is simply so, hence in a sense it is any opinion that the one stands by and the other forsakes but simply speaking it is the true one.[2]

2. The point is that any opinion that one follows one follows thinking it true even if in fact it is false. Hence “in itself” one follows what is true but accidentally any opinion. — Peter L. P. Simpson, The Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle, VI.9 (1151a33)

Aristotle is here considering the different reasons why one may assent to a proposition or course of action. As I said above, for Aristotle the per se/per accidens distinction is nuanced, and is more than a merely logical distinction. So in this case Aristotle is saying that assent is per se concerned with truth, and therefore someone who assents to something because it is true assents to it per se, whereas someone who only assents to it because he is stubborn and wishes to maintain his opinions assents to it per accidens (cf. 1151b4). Both the end and the nature of the assent as characterized by that end are what is per se or per accidens. Everyone who assents to something is at the same time affirming its truth, but not all are motivated by a desire for truth qua truth. Some affirm its truth for a lesser reason, and in that case the interest in truth is secondary. Of course there is also the analogy between belief and action operating here, for the subject is continence and incontinence.

Returning to the original topic, I do wonder how much of the success of anti-realism has to do with how people have learned to think of alternatives to it as being something like positing "objective values." The focus on "values" doesn't really fit with philosophy prior to the 19th century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, great point.

So help me out here. Bob wants to rape and feels it very much a part of his intrinsic nature and he doesn't want to be judged for it. He asks me why it is immoral to rape. What do I tell him?

Am I immoral when I condemn him? Why? — Hanover

Because the only moral rule is, "Don't tell others what to do."

...My difficulty with @Fooloso4's Plato is fairly simple. I think Plato is a great philosopher and an unparalleled pedagogue, and Fooloso ends up making him an invisible philosopher and a shoddy pedagogue. Fooloso has an a priori (political?) motivation to wrestle Plato away from the Christian tradition, and his means is a skeptical-know-nothing version of Plato that prevents one from building any substantial doctrine upon Plato's writings, much less a Christian doctrine. This successfully undercuts the Western tradition of interpreting Plato since at least Augustine, but it also undercuts the idea that Plato was a great pedagogue. Why? Because on Fooloso's account, anyone who draws anything of substance from Plato has de facto misunderstood him; and if everyone has misunderstood Plato then surely Plato is a shoddy teacher or else a non-teacher. I find this all rather silly, especially given the strange swirling motivations which are very far from an innocent attempt to understand Plato in himself. The irony is that in order to dethrone a Christianized Plato, Fooloso has conjured up a dogmatism of his own, namely the dogma of Plato as a skeptical-know-nothing. Obviously such an approach creates the ambience of a secret knowledge of gnostic Platonism, unknown to the uninitiated, and this in turn further catalyzes the idea that Plato is a weak pedagogue, in need of auxiliary help in order to be understood.

And to be clear, the focus on Christianity comes from Fooloso, not from me. He protests far too much, often when no one has said a word about Christian interpretations of Plato. For my part, I accept a healthy distinction between Plato and Christianity, and I am not a great promoter of a single perennial philosophy running throughout the West. I would prefer to let Plato speak, but in order for that to happen we must acknowledge that he has a voice and we must also clear our ears of biases that would pre-scribe his voice.

What do you want to tell the person who I say is doing their best? Try harder? — Joshs

I say not that no one is doing their best, but rather that not everyone is always doing their best. Again:

If everyone is doing the best they can at each moment of their life then no one is responsible for anything, and therefore it is entirely backwards to say that humans are responsible because they are always doing the best they can. — Leontiskos

Also from my last, in an edit:

There is a legitimate way in which the analytic philosophers tend to neglect the bigger picture, but it is simultaneously true that the continental folks tend to struggle with logic. When the continental folks promote a blameless society I think a logical mishap is occurring. — Leontiskos

What’s the difference between the person you praise and the one you blame other than the difference in the result you’re looking for? — Joshs

It is the difference between the role they play in causing a good or bad effect, such as scoring on the penalty kick or missing the net. And the difference between the person I blame and the person I do not blame for a bad effect consists in their causal role in producing the effect. Not everyone who produces a bad effect is to blame.

The problem here is that you're oversimplifying the vast complexity of moral philosophy, and ignoring all sorts of subtle distinctions.

How can you tell the difference between the one who is doing their best and the one who isn’t? — Joshs

By my knowledge of their capacity as a cause. Ergo: I am best situated to praise or blame myself given my uniquely informed knowledge about myself, and I blame myself precisely when I fail in relation to my capacity and my ability.

Or are you arguing that no one is ever doing their best? — Joshs

To say that not everyone is doing their best does not mean that no one is ever doing their best. This is basic logic.

If I say that a decision always represents the best one can do given the circumstances, I am not saying that the decision is nothing but the effect of a cause , I’m saying that the decision is formed by the circumstances but always transcends it. Any choice must be defined by a background, or else it isn’t a choice at all, but is only the freedom of utter meaningless chaos. — Joshs

To say that someone has acted as a cause of an effect does not mean that there are no circumstances to their act.

To say that someone could have done better is to miss that what they did choose already leapt beyond the conditions that formed their background. — Joshs

Do you have an argument for why you think that no one could ever do better? Because when you say that everyone is doing their best this is entailed.

Can anyone know in the instant of that choice what its consequences will be? — Joshs

Everyone foresees and anticipates certain consequences of their actions. That is why they act in the first place.

Because the choice is utterly new, so aren’t the consequences, and only the unfolding of events will tell whether it will be validated or invalidated. — Joshs

Within the consideration of consequences, an act is judged not primarily on the basis of the consequences that come about, but primarily on the basis of both the consequences that are intended and the consequences that could reasonably be expected to occur.

What you call my and Strauss' "convoluted interpretation" is perhaps based on assumptions about how to read Plato that Strauss and others have called into question. — Fooloso4

No, for Burnyeat Strauss' problem is a kind of dogmatism combined with showmanship or privileged insight, and for me the critique would simply need to be adjusted for your unique form of dogmatism, namely one based on skepticism. The contrarian showmanship is much the same.

Here is an excerpt somewhat late into the article:

Let us be clear that if Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is wrong, the entire edifice falls to dust. If Plato is the radical Utopian that ordinary scholarship believes him to be,52 there is no such thing as the unanimous conservatism of ‘the classics’; no such disaster as the loss of ancient wisdom through Machiavelli and Hobbes; no such person as ‘the philosopher’ to tell ‘the gentlemen’ to observe ‘the limits of politics’. Instead, the ‘larger horizons behind and beyond’ modern thought open onto a debate about the nature and practicability of a just society. Those of us who take philosophy seriously will think that this clash of reasoned views among the ancient philosophers is more relevant to our present interests than the anti-Utopian ‘teaching’ that Strauss has single-handedly invented. So let me try to show that Strauss’s interpretation of Plato is wrong from beginning to end.

His beginning is an inference from literary form. Plato wrote dialogues, dramas in prose. Therefore, the utterances of Socrates or any other character in a Platonic dialogue are like the utterances of Macbeth: they do not necessarily express the thought of the author. Like Shakespeare, ‘Plato conceals his opinions.’53

The comparison is, of course, woefully inadequate. There are dramas and dramas, and Plato’s distancing of himself from his characters is quite different from Shakespeare’s. It is not through literary insensitivity that readers of the Platonic dialogues, from Aristotle onward, have taken Socrates to be Plato’s spokesman; nor is it, as Strauss imagines, through failure to appreciate that a drama comprises the ‘deeds’ as well as the ‘speeches’ of the characters.

The dramatic action of the Republic, for example, is a sustained exhibition of the power of persuasion. Socrates persuades Glaucon and Adeimantus that justice is essential for the happiness of both city and man. He persuades them that justice can be realised in human society provided three great changes are made in the life of the ruling class. First, the family and private property must be abolished; second, women must be brought out of seclusion and educated to take part in government alongside the men; third, both men and women must have a lengthy training in advanced mathematics and active philosophical discussion (not the reading of old books). He persuades them, moreover, that these changes can be brought about without violence, by the kind of persuasive argument he is using with them.

The proof of the power of persuasion is that in the course of the discussion – this is one of the ‘deeds’ that Plato leaves the observant reader to notice for himself – Glaucon and Adeimantus undertake to participate in the task of persuasion themselves, should the day of Utopia come.54 A significant event, this undertaking, for Glaucon and Adeimantus belong to the aristocratic elite. In Straussian language, they are ‘gentlemen’: the very people Socrates’ persuasion must be able to win over if he means what he so often says, that a just society is both desirable and practicable.

Thus the ‘deeds’ of the Republic, so far from undercutting Socrates’ utopian speeches, reinforce them. Plato uses the distance between himself and the character of Socrates not to conceal his opinions, but to show their efficacy in action. Any ‘gentlemen’ who read the Republic and identify with Glaucon or Adeimantus should find themselves fired with the ambition to help achieve justice on earth, and convinced that it can be done.

Strauss, of course, wants his ‘gentlemen’ readers to form the opposite conviction, about the Republic and about politics in general. What persuasions can he muster? There is the frail comparison with Shakespeare. There is the consideration that Socrates is a master of irony and ‘irony is a kind of dissimulation, or of untruthfulness’.55 But to show in detail that Plato means the opposite of what Socrates says, Strauss resorts to a peculiar mode of paraphrase which he evidently learned from the tenth-century Islamic philosopher, Farabi.56

The technique is as follows. You paraphrase the text in tedious detail – or so it appears to the uninitiated reader. Occasionally you remark that a certain statement is not clear; you note that the text is silent about a certain matter; you wonder whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges you gradually insinuate that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say. Strauss’s description of Farabi describes himself: ‘There is a great divergence between what Farabi explicitly says and what Plato explicitly says; it is frequently impossible to say where Farabi’s alleged report of Plato’s views ends and his own exposition begins.’57

The drawback with this mode of commenting on a Platonic dialogue is that it presupposes what it seeks to prove, that the dialogue form is designed to convey different meanings to different kinds of readers.58 If there is a secret meaning, one might concede that Maimonides’ instructions show us how to find it and that Farabi’s mode of commentary is the properly cautious way to pass it on to a new generation of initiates. But Strauss has not yet shown that Plato does conceal his opinions, let alone that they are the opposite of what Socrates explicitly says. Hence his use of techniques adapted from Maimonides and Farabi is a vicious circularity. . . — Myles Burnyeat, Sphinx without a Secret

Have you read Strauss or just relying on "Burnyeat's Eyes." — Fooloso4

I like Burnyeat. I have read more Straussians than Strauss himself, and at the beginning of his article Burnyeat explains that his critique is both a critique of Strauss and the Straussian pupils simultaneously, given the way that the pupils exaggerated the problems that Burnyeat sees in Strauss.


(I included portions in the quote that Paine might find interesting vis-a-vis Gerson.)

But no, I only stated the facts of the matter regarding your actions as I honestly saw them and as I've tried to succinctly evidence via quotes, this rather than engaging in personal attacks of your character as person so as to discredit your comments. — javra

I think you are deceiving yourself in claiming that your personal attacks were unrelated to the argument at hand, I think it is no coincidence that your personal attacks began just as your argument began to founder, and I have explained why I believe this above. This dispute is now two months old and I am not going to resurrect it.

Everyone falls into ad hominem from time to time, especially when their argument is foundering. This should have no detrimental effect on your good name. I take you to be a thoughtful poster.

As before, go for it in terms of last words. — javra

:up:

Human beings are responsible. But that just means that they do the best they can given the limitations of their framework of understanding at any given point in time. — Joshs

If everyone is doing the best they can at each moment of their life then no one is responsible for anything, and therefore it is entirely backwards to say that humans are responsible because they are always doing the best they can.

Our past is reconfigured by how we can change our future in the present. — Joshs

Can we change our future in ways that are better or worse? If so, then praise and blame and responsibility all come right back.

This completely misses the fact that it is impossible to perform such feats of will as long as there isn’t an adequate cogntive structure in place to make sense of the circumstances we find ourselves in. — Joshs

I don't think anyone misses that fact. I think this is a strawman.

Our ability to deal with each other without violence and brutality evolves over the course of human history in direct parallel with the evolution of cognitive structure. — Joshs

History notwithstanding?

I recently wrote a paper on the history of blame in philosophy and psychology . I couldn't find a single example of a post-blame thinking in pre-modern, modern. or postmodern Western philosophy, nor in non-Western traditions. Reductive determinism doesn’t count, because as I argued in an earlier post, they just shift their blame from a free willing person to material causes. This is not at all what I mean by post-blame. No philosophical or psychological approach makes the claim to have entirely eliminated the need for anger and blame. On the contrary, a certain conception of blameful anger is at the very heart of both modern and postmodern philosophical foundations. As a careful analysis will show, this is true even for those philosophical and psychological arguments that pop up from time to time extolling the virtues of moving beyond blame and anger. — Joshs

You also won't find the idea that 2+2=5 in pre-modern, modern, or postmodern philosophy. I think the reality of blame is as obvious as this mathematical fact, and that this is why you haven't found many people denying it.

But you literally captured the post-blame conception in popular culture, i.e., "Leave him alone, he's doing his best!"

I’d like you to give me some examples of what you consider to be post-blame approaches, and I’ll demonstrate the ways in which they sneak blame in through the back door. — Joshs

Hey, you're turning the tables on me - that's my job! Nah, I don't think these popular conceptions are coherent. I think you yourself will end up sneaking blame in through the back door as well, unless you yield to (psychological) determinism. I think proponents, including yourself, underestimate the unimaginable cost of a blameless society.

There is a legitimate way in which the analytic philosophers tend to neglect the bigger picture, but it is simultaneously true that the continental folks tend to struggle with logic. When the continental folks promote a blameless society I think a logical mishap is occurring.

Be that as it may, I must pick you up on your claim that "the deontologist cares about human life via deontological principles." If the driver follows Bob's deontological principle and does not turn the wheel, all four people in the road end up dead. How is this consistent with your claim that "the deontologist cares about human life"? — Herg

I think the answer would have something to do with Plato's insistence that it is better to suffer injustice than to do injustice, and that the man who chooses injustice is impoverished in a way that suffering could never achieve.

But you're right that if we consider the consequentialist goal of preserving the maximum number of human lives, then the deontologist's principle does not achieve this goal. Still, the consequentialist's principles are ordered to their end/goal, and the deontologist's principles are ordered to their end/goal. For each side there are principles in play, and there are intuitively difficult counterexamples for both of them.

I'm sorry, this post is not up to standard. I am finding it impossible to find the time to participate properly in these discussions, so I am leaving the thread. Thanks to all who have talked to me, and in particular yourself and Bob Ross. — Herg

No worries. I am thinking along the same lines. Take care.

I don’t think praise can exist without disappointment, which is of course different from blame. We blame when we try our best to understand the motives of another in such a way that we can see those motives as morally justified. — Joshs

I would simplify this a bit. I would say that the opposite of disappointment is the exceeding of expectations, and these two rise or fall together as possibilities. If someone disappoints me then they have fallen short of my expectations, and if someone "surprises" me then they have exceeded my expectations.

I think the contrary of praise is blame, not disappointment. To praise is to affirm and congratulate someone for doing a good job, whereas to blame is to call someone out for doing a bad job. The genus of both is an appraisal of causal activity, where in the first case the person is a good and effective cause, whereas in the second case the person is a bad and ineffective cause (or skillful and unskillful, as the Buddhists would say). These two also rise or fall together as possibilities.

When I hear someone say that we need to get rid of blame (and anger et al.), it seems to me that they don't usually recognize that to rid the world of blame would also be to rid the world of praise, for both are premised on the idea that human beings are responsible for that which they cause. Or simpler, that human beings can cause things, and they can do so in better and worse ways.

As an example, if a soccer game comes down to penalty kicks then the person who scores will be praised and the person who misses the net altogether will be blamed, and it is not really possible to praise the first without blaming the second. Both acts flow out of the same anthropological realities. If I can do well, then I can do poorly. And if my activity can be good or bad, then it can also be appraised as good or bad, and this appraisal can be communicated to me.

All I can tell you is that I’ve never met an immoral, evil, blameworthy or unjust person. It is not that I’ve never felt anger and the initial impulse to blame, but when I undergo the process of trying to make intelligible their motives I am always able to arrive at an explanation that allows me to avoid blame and the need for forgiveness. Furthermore, there is a fundamental philosophical basis for what I assert is the case that it is always possible to arrive at such a non-blameful explanation that can withstand the most robust tests in the real world. Having said that, I’m aware that my view is a fringe one. I only know of one other theorist who has come up with a similar perspective. I’m also aware that my view will be seen as dangerously naive. — Joshs

I find your position to be very popular, albeit not at an academic level. Where I grew up your position is baked into the culture in a way that creates many, many unexpected problems. My cousin and I used to joke that it was a wonder that the people in our town even kept score at all when playing games such as volleyball, because the logical conclusion of this philosophy would be a ban on score-keeping altogether. I think this has become more common elsewhere via the psychological/therapeutic culture.

Appealing to a mythical "intrinsic nature" denies that we each exist only in a community. — Banno

And more broadly, direct appeals to conscience and the like tend to go hand in hand with a refusal to justify ones beliefs and/or actions. The opacity of such an approach is contrary to community, but it is even more broadly contrary to the idea that moral claims are supposed to have a measure of intelligibility and cogency.

- I think @Count Timothy von Icarus is already arguing that perspective. I was just pointing him to a corroborating source. I assume that some who have access to university portals might have access to the article. But I will review the article and try to come back to this.

I cannot see beyond the paywall on that article. — Paine

Yes, I see it is paywalled now. I read it a number of years ago. It is a critique of Strauss' convoluted and inaccessible interpretations of Plato, and the confrontation between Timothy's commonsensical interpretation and Fooloso's convoluted interpretation reminded me of it. As I recall, the point of Burnyeat's "Sphinx without a Secret" was that highly convoluted interpretations of Plato are not only wrong, but they are also contrary to the philosophical spirit of Plato's dialogues. Additionally, in Burnyeat's eyes this is what led to Strauss' guru-esque status among his students.

No, I have some obligation to respond to your arguments civilly. Which I have done. That's it. I'm not responsible for convincing you, although I have tried at least to explain my ideas to you clearly. — T Clark

On the contrary, you haven't even attempted to respond to the argument that Banno gave. Setting out your ideas and then refusing to address counterarguments is not philosophical engagement.

As for my own understanding, I don't need to satisfy you. Or Banno. — T Clark

You sort of do, given that this is a philosophy forum and all:

Don't start a new discussion unless you are:

a) Genuinely interested in the topic you've begun and are willing to engage those who engage you. — TPF Site Guidelines

To be blunt, why should I worry about your problems with and suspicions about my ideas. — T Clark

Because this is a philosophy forum, not your private diary. You wrote a whole thread on your ideas, and a philosophy forum is by definition a place where people engage the ideas you present.

But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'. — Banno

Several others on this thread have made similar comments. I've responded with this quote from "Self-Reliance." — T Clark

Banno is right. What you are proposing is not normative in any way, and therefore it has nothing to do with morality. "Do whatever feels right to you," offers no real measure for others or for oneself to understand better or worse courses of action. How could this be called morality?

- The problem is that you are again unduly limiting the scope of interaction. From earlier:

Now it seems to me that you and I are neither treating Ahmad as an end nor as a means, because we have no interaction with Ahmad. If I am not interacting with someone then I am not treating them (in any way whatsoever). — Leontiskos

Now it seems to me that you and I are neither treating Ahmad as an end nor as a means, because we have no interaction with Ahmad. If I am not interacting with someone then I am not treating them (in any way whatsoever). — Leontiskos

I think interaction is the right word, but we could rephrase it as follows: "If you are not engaging in an activity (in the philosophical sense) towards someone, then you are not treating them as an end. Therefore in order to treat each person as an end we must be engaged in an activity towards each person." — Leontiskos

So let's go with this more philosophically precise notion of activity towards, call it "acting-towards."

1. Treating someone as an end is a form of acting-towards them
2. We are not acting-towards Ahmad in any way whatsoever
3. Therefore, we are not treating Ahmad as an end

How do I treat Ahmad as an end? By thinking of all humans as ends, so that if Ahmad crosses my path and I see that he needs help, I am ready to help him. — Herg

Okay, but I could not in good faith say that I am treating Ahmad as an end on this definition. On your definition I don't even need to know if someone exists in order to treat them as an end and love them. I would say that in order to treat someone as an end I must at the very least know that they exist (under one description or another). The same would go for loving. I do not love someone if I do not know they exist.

Consider Putin. Prior to his invasion of Ukraine, he didn't interact with most Ukrainians. So according to your reading, he wasn't required to treat them as ends. But isn't what was wrong with his invasion precisely the fact that he didn't treat the people of Ukraine as ends? — Herg

The first problem is to say that Putin did not interact with Ukraine prior to his invasion. He surely did, and he undeniably acted-towards Ukraine.

But suppose a bully like Putin does not interact with or act-towards a person, Jake, in any way. Even if this is true, as soon as the bullying begins (and in fact before it begins) they are already interacting with the person. Bullying is a form of interaction and a form of acting-towards, and therefore one cannot bully without interacting. The brunt of Putin's transgression against the Ukrainians began after his invasion, not before.

Ahmad lives on the other side of the world. I am not required to positively treat him in any way whatsoever, including treating him as an end. In fact I do not treat him in any way whatsoever. I am not acting-towards him in any way. If things changed (and he, say, 'crossed my path') then perhaps I would be required to act-towards him in some way, but given the way things currently are I have no such obligation. I do not believe it would be true for me to claim that I am loving Ahmad and treating Ahmad as an end. I think those acts require more than universal good will.

Edit: Forgot this part:

Another problem I have with your reading is that it puts the cart before the horse. Surely the idea is to love first, and seek to interact because of that love? Or, in Kantian terms, to think of all humans as ends, to think of their happiness as if it were our happiness, and then seek to interact with them so as to promote that happiness? — Herg

No, I do not think we love what we do not know exists. Knowledge is one of the most basic forms of acting-towards, for it involves an act of knowledge where the object of that act is the person in question. We must first encounter someone before we can love them.

- This is a worthy critique, but has already implied that if your "intrinsic nature" recommends serial murder then you should go ahead and be a serial killer. Presumably this "intrinsic nature" is no more bound by the law of non-contradiction than a prohibition against murder. Here is T Clark's quote in full:

---

And if your intrinsic nature is a serial killer? — Philosophim

Several others on this thread have made similar comments. I've responded with this quote from "Self-Reliance." — T Clark

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Emerson - Self-Reliance

O'Hagan's take: 'He wants to be famous, but not scrutinised.' Ironic, considering that scrutiny of others is his basic stock-in-trade. — Wayfarer

Assange seems problematic at best. A very mixed character. One could argue that he did some good, but I don't think it is any longer possible to dismiss his significant shortcomings. I thought the We Steal Secrets documentary did a good job showing this.

I don't think I've been unclear about what I mean by "morality." — T Clark

You've said that "my actions will be in accordance with the guidance of my intrinsic nature, my heart if you will," and the ambiguity comes with the terms "intrinsic nature" or "heart." Insofar as those central terms remain opaque, so too does your morality.

This is not correct. Taoism developed in response to and contradiction of Confucius's rigid formal moral principles. The quotes I have provided from Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu, the two founding sources of Taoism, are representative of the body of their work. — T Clark

Okay, but does Chinese philosophy in general say that the "intrinsic nature" of one person will tend to align with the "intrinsic nature" of another person, and with the order of the societal whole? Your angle here still seems much more individualistic than the Chinese philosophy that I am familiar with.

- You can multiply examples of misused blame and judgment all day, just as I can multiple examples of misused knives all day. Neither one of us would be showing that blame or knives are inherently evil.

Do you think praise can exist without blame?

(Note that the example of being "too pre-emptive" is an example of misused blame, or on your account, its antecedent.)

- This is a good post, and I think you make some good points, but I think it is stretching these points too far to say that everyone must always be treated as an end. The reason, for example, that the Hebrew law says to love one's neighbor rather than to love everyone is because of the interaction that I am pointing to. Our neighbor is the one we interact with, and therefore the one we must love. Surely we need not love those who we do not interact with (and yet this does not mean that the millionaire you cite is not being negligent, for negligence is an inverted form of interaction).

So let's streamline my argument. Let's pick one of those 235 million people in Pakistan who we have never met or interacted with. Call him "Ahmad." You are telling me that we must treat Ahmad as an end. 1) Are we treating Ahmad as an end? 2) Should we be treating Ahmad as an end? 3) How does one treat someone as an end?

Now it seems to me that you and I are neither treating Ahmad as an end nor as a means, because we have no interaction with Ahmad. If I am not interacting with someone then I am not treating them (in any way whatsoever).