Methodologically, I think a lot of this comes back to this:

Do any devil's advocate questions demand answers?

On a philosophy forum the question of the OP should probably be phrased, "Why ought one do anything at all?" Or, "Why ought one do any one thing rather than any other thing?"

At that point we can whittle the contributors down to two groups: those who recognize that some things ought to be done, and those who won't. I'd say that only the first group is worth hearing. (And we could have another thread for the second group, which shows that anyone who does things believes that things should be done.)

At that point everyone in the first group can contribute to a productive conversation given the common premise that some things ought be done. — Leontiskos

Which is an example of what I said here:

I like some of the late Thomas Hopko's ideas on this, who I believe was in your Church. One paraphrase is in my bio, "Don't label him; say he's wrong. And don't just say he's wrong; say why. And don't just say why; say what you think is right." — Leontiskos

When people on TPF and elsewhere contradict others for pages on end without giving any alternative account of their own, they are engaged in a dubious practice.

I argued that truth cannot exist without minds. You adapted that by replacing "minds" with "sentences." But then when you were pressed on what a sentence or a linguistic entity is, metaphysically speaking, you threw up your hands as if there is nothing to talk about. And 's response was both witty and important. If you think you get to appeal to "common sense" without any further explanation, then why do you think everyone else has to go further?

- Good points. I was essentially thinking of a space where everyone is mutually on board with paying attention to primary sources, whether or not any strict rules are in place. "Reading groups" seem fairly close to that.

- Yes, I suppose that's pretty much the same thing. :up:

I was assuming that if something is immoral than, ceteris paribus, one would think it should not be done; which, to me, implies some degree of duty merely by acknowledging that. Of course, you are denying the binding of a moral agent to stopping immorality simpliciter; since one may not have a duty, under your view, to stop it even though it is immoral. — Bob Ross

That's right. I don't think that just because something is immoral I therefore have a duty to stop or prevent it. If that were true then I would have a duty to stop every immoral act I have knowledge of, which would be impossible.

If so, then please, if you don't mind, elaborate why or how one could justify doing nothing in this situation; and, more generally, how a moral agent is not bound, qua moral agency, to stop immoral acts all else being equal. — Bob Ross

Let's grant that one has a moral duty to help the woman being raped, even if they do not have a legal duty (and I have never said otherwise). How does your conclusion follow that we have a duty to prevent every immoral act we have knowledge of? I don't think it follows at all.

and, more generally, how a moral agent is not bound, qua moral agency, to stop immoral acts all else being equal. — Bob Ross

If I were bound to stop all immoral acts then I would be bound to do the impossible (by stopping every immoral act I have knowledge of); but no one is bound to do the impossible; therefore I am not bound to stop all immoral acts.

I don't know that your idea of "being bound ceteris paribus" is ultimately coherent. Being "bound" implies necessity, whereas "ceteris paribus" implies non-necessity.

Put differently, if we want to say that we should oppose the immorality that is within our power and competence to oppose, then we have actually contradicted the thesis that we are bound to oppose all immorality we have knowledge of (at least on the presupposition that we have knowledge of immorality that is beyond our power or competence to oppose).

Here is the point of origin for the discussion:

It is true that there is gold in Boorara. If all life disappeared from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed, then it would still be true that there is gold in Boorara. — Banno

It turns into this: If minds (or else truth-bearers) do not exist, does truth exist? The idea is that the state of affairs is left intact. The focus is on the mind or truth-bearer. You yourself hone in on this exact same thing:

C3. Therefore, if the sentence "there is gold in those hills" does not exist then there is no gold in those hills. — Michael

...you were literally presenting arguments about the existence of sentences, so it is not realistic for you to go on to deny that the metaphysical status of truth-bearers is irrelevant.

(And of course you were presenting this argument as a sort of dilemma for Banno, not for your own position, but the metaphysical status of truth-bearers is nevertheless central to the discussion.)

Metaphysics concerns the nature of truth makers, not truth bearers. — Michael

This whole discussion is directly related to the metaphysical status of truth bearers, and this has been an important question throughout the history of philosophy. Your simple appeal to the idea that truth bearers are linguistic just shuffles the central issues under the rug instead of furthering the investigation.

Sorry, I forgot about this.

I think moral and legal standing are different: the latter is a practical attempt at justice for the community, whereas the former can surpass that sphere of jurisdiction. — Bob Ross

They are the same insofar as moral standing is not infinite. Not everything is our responsibility to rectify.

To deny this, by my lights, is to accept that nothing immoral is happening — Bob Ross

Why? If I don't have a claim to prevent something, then that something cannot be immoral? This is obviously not true in law.

Usually, when we note that a person doesn’t have “duty” to enact justice for another; we tend to be saying that as a pragmatic rule of thumb for two reasons: the first being that it tends to be handled more appropriately by those that are of an institution designed to handle it (e.g., police, first responders, etc.), and secondly because imposing that justice usually has sufficiently negative consequences to the avenger that we would not blame them for avoiding avenging or stopping the attack in the first place.

However, I do think it is commonly accepted that if the negative consequences are sufficiently trivial, that it is immoral to do nothing. — Bob Ross

But what about the first reason you gave? That there are those with a duty? If something is happening on the other side of the world, then the duty generally falls to those who live there.

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that, in principle, we can wipe our hands clean when we avoid doing just things because they are outside of our jurisdiction—jurisdiction is just a pragmatic notion to enact justice. — Bob Ross

I think we both know that the answer to my question is, "No." Or at least, "Generally not."

We are not responsible for everything. That's a fairly important moral and psychological principle, and one that we really struggle with in the West. Your slippery slope concern does not invalidate it.

A suggestion: perhaps have a forum devoted to primary sources? Where OPs are meant to revolve around a primary source and the threads are supposed to stay in contact with the relevant primary sources? I have noticed that it is fairly rare for posters to engage or present primary sources, and this seems like a deficit on the forum.

If we say "if 1) reality is determistic and 2) we have a free will, it follows 3) we exist outside reality". Where does this go wrong? — Carlo Roosen

I was wondering, even while I do agree with the premises to some extend and it seems logically correct, I do not agree with the answer. — Carlo Roosen

The implicit premise is incompatibilism, which seems right to me even though it is not uncontroversial.

If there is an argument that we disagree with, and yet we cannot say why, should we throw out logic? No, probably not. Logic is just the study of what follows from something else. If (3) follows from (1) and (2) then the argument is logically valid. If a logical system says that a conclusion follows when that conclusion does not in fact follow, then the logical system is faulty, but nevertheless, its specific fault ultimately needs to be pointed out.

Note that even to reject a logical school requires logic. "If this logical school is correct then I must accept the conclusion; I cannot accept the conclusion; therefore this logical school is incorrect" (modus tollens).

I'm just not that impressed by the surface grammar. "4 > 3" says something about 3 and about 4, and about ordering. "The paperclip is holding" says something about the whole Jerry-rigged business. And "What you say is true" is not just a statement about your words. — Srap Tasmaner

Well said.

In general I think we want to properly recognize prima facie judgments. For example, Michael may want to claim that there is some prima facie reason why truth is thought to be a property of a single object. Where does that come from? Why would it be the starting point? The way you corralled the "surface grammar" accounts for this.

- :up:

Well, yes. A sentence about it raining is only true if there is rain, and a painting of a landscape is only accurate if there is a landscape. But truth and accuracy are properties of the sentence and the painting, not properties of the rain or the landscape. — Michael

You have this weird idea that truth and accuracy can only be properties and cannot be relations. Historical philosophy says otherwise.

Sure, and being an integer greater than the number 3 makes no sense without reference to the number 3, but being an integer greater than the number 3 isn't a property of the number 3; it's a property of the numbers 4 and 5 and 6 and so on. — Michael

"Greater than" (>) is a relation.

Okay, then I can see why you want to include interpretation. I would err on the side of saying that interpretation/perspective can simply be taken for granted. It could be added as a relata but it isn't strictly necessary to add it. If we feel it necessary to add it then I fear we will need to add other things as well (although we could perhaps fold all interpretive elements into one representative element).

(And this relates somewhat to Wayfarer's approach, for I think he underestimates how widely accepted a perspectival element is in theories of perception or knowledge.)

(Or a triple that includes as well a world.) — Srap Tasmaner

I think world is the key missing element here. To say that a painting is accurate in itself makes no sense without reference to something outside the painting.

To the first, yes, I think an interlocutor of Socrates (let's call him Kantias) could have posed theories about the moral value of motivation, and whether in order for an act to be virtuous, it would have to be something that anyone would do in the same circumstances. — J

What do we think the Gadfly would say after he hears Kant speak on morality?

I'm just troubled by this idea of incommensurability and decline, which seems too strong. — J

A priori or a posteriori? Because when someone who offers very few arguments and has a self-admittedly thin exposure to philosophical history opposes theories of decline (or also unique excellence), it seems that they have some a priori bias.

<The ancients are not superior to the moderns>

This proposition can be supported with arguments and evidence, or else it can be supported by a priori prejudice (which in this case looks something like egalitarian "tolerance").*

It looks to me that the modus operandi of Pyrrhonian skepticism is utilized by a number of people on this forum, often for different reasons. That approach is skepticism via infinite questioning and doubting, combined with the move of always placing the burden of proof on the other guy. When attempts to offer a positive reason for his own position, he moves into a more reasonable space, a space of transparent arguments and motivations.

With that said, I do think that incommensurability tout court is too strong. And if there is decline from A to B then A and B are simply not incommensurable, which is a problem for MacIntyre.


* Of course, it can also be "supported" by nescience, but axe-grinding over time precludes this option.

He is for me the most important and impressive "modern" moral philosopher because he framed the problems with enormous originality and insight, raising questions that have been impossible to ignore ever since — J

Compare:

As for the continuity question, I see nothing in Kant's ethics -- apart from the Christian aspects -- that Socrates would not have both understood and been eager to debate. — J

So Kant was enormously original and insightful, raising questions that have been impossible to ignore, and there is nothing new in Kant - nothing that Socrates would not have already had. This is a contradiction.

-

I wish I knew what "modern thinking" consisted of, that supposedly made it either so unique or so pernicious. — J

Aristotle often sounds to me as if he believes he's achieved complete wisdom in all matters — J

The problem with "time-tested wisdom," of course, is that we are still in time — J

I also think, as I wrote somewhere recently, that the "loss of fundamental truths" picture is meant to go hand in hand with a picture of actual moral decline, such that Western society is now supposed to be much worse, ethically, than it used to be. — J

This idea of philosophers being "uniquely correct" is a fantasy. — J

This is a lot of soapboxing and witch hunting. I'd prefer philosophy rather than signaling our virtue about how inclusive, open-minded, and non-deplorable we are.

I'm not sure there are ancients who are as explicit as Hume -- so I'm saying he's making an advance in ethical thinking in pointing out how is/ought frequently get conflated as if they have the same import. — Moliere

Do you know of ancients who say that you cannot get an ought from an is? Is Hume progressing something that already existed, or is he doing something new?

The important thing to note that I think might be misunderstood is that this doesn't mean we can't be moral beings -- one interpretation of Hume's ethical theory is that morality is real, and justified by the passions. — Moliere

Hume doesn't develop his is/ought thought at all. It is later thinkers who follow through, taking it to its logical conclusion (and this is where the cited examples of Michael or Amadeus come in).

Hume's clarification is an advance in thinking because it was a point of confusion which could hide arguments prior to him. — Moliere

I mean, if everyone prior to Hume thought that one could get from 'is' to 'ought', and Hume showed that that is impossible, then that would be an enormous change with the modern period.

So whether you're a realist or an anti-realist or an idealist, the bare assertion that "it is raining" is true iff it is raining says nothing to address any metaphysical issues – or even issues about truth. It's just a rather vacuous aphorism. — Michael

Yup. And it is odd to appeal to a vacuous aphorism over and over again as if one is saying something substantial. ...Not to mention refusing to go beyond the vacuous aphorism.

As to the past we don't really know what actually happened apart from human records or what we can glean from archeology, paleontology and cosmology. — Janus

Inferences from empirical premises run in both directions, past and future. Both similarly depend on the physical perdurance of matter. There is no substantial difference between them.

Truth is a property of a sentence that correctly describes these other things. — Michael

This definition is what is leading to so many of your contradictions. Sentences have no existence or meaning apart from minds. You can't separate out sentences as if they float around in the ether.

A claim about the future is a claim about what will exist in the future and about what will happen in the future. We don't need to claim that true sentences exist in the future. — Michael

Truths and sentences are about things, not sentences.

I see what you mean. The world is seen as a database of propositional forms, if you'll pardon the pun. But criticising that is another thread. — fdrake

Well the discussion began when I pointed out that Banno thinks there are truths even where there are no minds:

For me the strangeness of Banno's position is the claim that truth can exist where no minds do. Classically, truth pertains to minds/knowers, and if there are no knowers then there is no truth. There is some overlap with Pinter, here. To disagree with Pinter as strongly as Banno has is to run afoul also of this broader school which associates truth with mind. — Leontiskos

So that is the starting point, and this deviation into truth-bearers a tangent.

That's just a matter of tense.

"there were dinosaurs" is true.

This doesn't require someone to have truthfully said "there are dinosaurs". — Michael

This is Janus' future-truths transposed to be about the past instead of the future:

You want to say that a claim about the future involves no claim about what will be true in the future, and that's not coherent. — Leontiskos

"You want to say that a claim about the past involves no claim about what was true in the past, and that's not coherent."

It's complicated by the fact that any theory of truth worth its salt should evaluate "There were rocks before the advent of humans" as true. — fdrake

I still think the terminal question is about the relation of mind, truth, and world. Is mind accidental to the world or not? Then depending on how one conceives truth, the relation of truth and world will follow upon that.

This whole focus on sentences and utterances is a materialistic rider that is obscuring the question. To focus on truth-bearers in that sense would require one to say that unenunciated propositions have no truth value. For example, suppose there is a fish that we do not know about. Does it truly exist? There is no actual truth-bearer regarding it, so apparently it cannot be true that it exists (or does not exist).

Folks in this thread see mind as accidental to truth. They seem to think that the world is a database of Platonic truths, and when a mind comes on the scene it can begin to download those truths.

- Make sure to use earplugs with that sand.

I'm not refusing to talk about truth. I am only talking about truth. Truth is a property of sentences. Sentences do not exist as mind-independent Platonic entities. If nothing is said then there are no sentences, and if there are no sentences then there are no true sentences. — Michael

...and if there are no true sentences, then there is no truth. In which case my description of your illustration is perfectly accurate, "That gold exists in universe B is true in universe A and neither true nor false in universe B."

- See:

What I say is true, and is being said in universe A. — Michael

And sure, you continue to refuse to talk about truth and instead want to merely talk about utterances, but my whole point is that you need to summon up the courage to move beyond that. "But now you should go on to ask yourself how it is..."

Yeah. Can there be truth without a truthbearer? Seems to me a different question to whether there can be rocks on earth without humans. — fdrake

Right.

I haven’t said either of those things. — Michael

Sure you have.

You have substantially elevated the level of discourse in this thread, and I don't think the nature of truth is something that one can grasp in a day. For these reasons I will try not to complain. Curiously, fdrake's approach of setting out an argument beginning with two quasi-contradictory premises is thus far the best way of getting at the paradox:

1 ) Take the world without humans.
2 ) Imagine that nevertheless one human existed. — fdrake

His "modal context" workaround is apparently to say that it is not true that gold exists, but it would be true were there a mind. And there's no dinking around with the incoherent, "Gold exists but it's not true that gold exists." Such is a classical answer.

- Okay, but your distinction between universe A and B is ad hoc for the purposes of predication. What began as a simple contradiction, "It is true and not true that gold exists," ended as a more complex contradiction, "That gold exists in universe B is true in universe A and neither true nor false in universe B." This use of "possible universes" is little more than a thin construct constructed to band-aid a contradiction.

We can see this if we consider the simple and non-"universe"-scoped question of whether it is true that gold exists in universe B. The answer to this question is either yes or no. Truths are not scoped to universes in your sense that what is true about Asia in Europe is not true about Asia in Asia (to alter the metaphor).

...ask, "What's good?" — Moliere

Right:

What this is meant to highlight is that just because you have some is-statements -- a "What is it for this kind of creature to be good?" -- that doesn't remove the conflict found in modern philosophy — Moliere

"What does it mean to be good/virtuous" is not a question that begins (exists?) with the moderns. This is a wholly different issue than Hume's characteristically modern preoccupation with inscrutable oughtness. — Leontiskos

-

There are two ways to go here. On the one hand we could say that ancients and moderns both ask what is good, but the moderns also do something that the ancients did not do (and that this breaks the supposed discontinuity between them). On the other hand we could observe that for very many moderns, asking what is good is a pointless and otiose question (Michael and Amadeus are two clear examples of this).

Even @J's approach seems to challenge this continuity, for he thinks that Kant's view is uniquely correct. If Kant's view is uniquely correct and is not a continuation of earlier moral philosophy, then how could Kant be continuous with earlier moral philosophy?

On it's face, this idea that there is strong continuity between ancient and modern ethics is false. I think you may be conflating it with a different contention, namely the claim that ancient remedies cannot solve modern problems.

Here are three sentences:

1. "Gold exists" is true
2. It is true that gold exists
3. Gold exists

(1) and (3) do not mean the same thing; (1) describes a sentence as being true but (3) doesn't. — Michael

Here is what you said earlier, which is both better and contradictory to what you are saying now:

3. "there is gold in those hills" is true is semantically equivalent to there is gold in those hills — Michael

-

But perhaps you want to say that... — Michael

I am saying that when you assert that gold exists you are involved in a truth claim. When you try to assert that gold exists while simultaneously eschewing all instances of truth/falsity, you are contradicting yourself.

My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael

Again:

But now you should go on to ask yourself how it is that you are claiming, "(It is true that) gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false." You've highlighted sentence-Platonism, but you still haven't reckoned with your own truth-Platonism. — Leontiskos

The sentence-Platonism or description-Platonism is clear enough at this point, and it was salutary in canvassing Banno's blindspot. But I'd say you are still involved in truth-Platonism. So:

In fact, I think "is true" can be replaced with the phrase "is an accurate account of the world" without issue. So, we have:

1. "Gold exists" is an accurate account of the world
2. It is an accurate account of the world that gold exists
3. Gold exists

My claim is that in a world without language gold exists but there are no accurate accounts of the world. — Michael

Our earlier exchange:

• Leontiskos: When you say that gold exists are you not uttering a truth?
• Michael: ...

The adapted exchange would be as follows:

• Leontiskos: When you say that gold exists are you not providing an accurate account of the world?
• Michael:

This view of a continuity between ancient and modern ethics is similar to what I’ve been saying to Count T — J

I think you and @Moliere are doing little more than trading in ambiguities. If you are not, then be straightforward about you claims. "Ancient and modern ethics are continuous/similar because they both ________."

Moliere seems to be committing a straightforward non sequitur, "There are certain similarities between ancient and modern ethics, therefore Hume's 'guillotine' is not distinctively modern."

There's no such thing as the truth; there's only the truth of a sentence, so this remark doesn't make much sense. — Michael

And yet your view entails it. You say that in the cases we are speaking about, "gold still exists but nothing has the property of being true or false." When asked whether this commits you to the idea that it is true that gold still exists, you bury your head in the sand.

Second, it possible that the demand that everything be reduced to univocal predication part of the problem? Univocal predication is proper to logic. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, and even in logic univocity founders. @J's thread on Kimhi, where the univocity of p in the first two premises of a modus ponens is questioned, is a perfect example of the way that strict univocity doesn't even work in logic. There have actually been a number of threads in the past months demonstrating in effect that univocal logical formalisms cannot even stand up to their own scrutiny.

- You've clearly tied yourself in knots.

But I didn't say "it is true that gold still exists". I said "gold still exists". — Michael

And by that you mean that it is true.