...and what I said above applies here too. If the rules of chess are neither true nor false, then they cannot be used in deductions such as: — Banno

The rules exist. The may be followed, broken, or ignored. But how exactly are they "true"? — hypericin

So then you agree, the rules of chess themselves cannot be "true". — hypericin

How do you make the check icon, btw? — hypericin

[math]\checkmark[/math]
[math]\unicode{x2718}[/math]

A moral claim C is true, or false, in virtue of moral rules, R. (doctrines, axioms, etc.) — hypericin

Or, R itself is true. I contend, R can no more be true than the rules of chess. You can follow R, or not, like R, or not, find R useful, and virtuous, or not. But R by its nature, cannot be true, it is not truth-apt. — hypericin

My position hasn't changed one iota. — AmadeusD

But is not truth finally something we have to arrive at via apprehending and understanding? I feel like this is a bit of a loop. — Tom Storm

This is absolutely the case. And i've certainly learned to be far more careful. I've cleaned a fair bit of egg from my face. — AmadeusD

Not really. I queried why it would be senseless. I can see where you've gone with that, though.

In that case, yes, but for the above (in regard to your take on my position). — AmadeusD

I have no idea how to get this through to you lol - I misspoke. I walked nothing back. Given that I entirely overlooked where I misspoke you took my claim for something it wasn’t. — AmadeusD

What does it mean for the rules of chess to be "true"? Can a games rules be "false"?

The rules exist. The may be followed, broken, or ignored. But how exactly are they "true"? — hypericin

The second point, regarding shape, is that if a boulder rolls over a small crack it will continue rolling, but if it rolls into a "large crack" (a canyon) then it will fall, decreasing in altitude. This will occur whether or not a mind witnesses it, and this is because shape is a "primary quality." A boulder and a crack need not be perceived by a mind to possess shape. — Leontiskos

Nice, thank you mate. Really appreciate the grace. It's been a really cool thread. — AmadeusD

Which of these don't you agree with:
(By "Doctrine", I mean any doctrine, system of thought or belief, ideology, etc. ) — hypericin

Claims can be about doctrine, or about reality, or both. ($\checkmark$)
Doctrinal truth is independent of truth in reality. ($\unicode{x2718}$)
Claims can therefore be:
Doctrinally true, but false in reality. ($\checkmark$)
Doctrinally false, but true in reality. ($\checkmark$)
Doctrinally true or false, but have no truth value at all in reality. ($\unicode{x2718}$/?)
Doctrinally empty, and true or false in reality. ($\unicode{x2718}$) — hypericin

The form in English of doctrinal and reality claims is identical.
Therefore, people are apt to get all this wrong. They may confuse doctrinal claims with claims about reality, or mistake doctrinal truth with truth in reality. — hypericin

"One cannot move pawns backwards" — hypericin

I fucked up. I apologise. That is not my claim. We good? hehe — AmadeusD

I really don't care how we got here. — AmadeusD

I have clarified this multiple times, at much pain (linguistically). i think this. I don't think it about anyone else. — AmadeusD

I don't make that claim. — AmadeusD

In my case, I do think this — AmadeusD

I make no such step. I think it's probably better that other people don't routinely do that, but that's only a comment on my own discomfort. I say literally nothing, and claim literally nothing, about how others should behave. I have thoughts, sure, but I refuse to(tbh, am not motivated to either) conclude anything. I inform my own actions. No one else's. And i don't, unless by incident. I suppose one could say 'norm' OR 'norm for me'. And yeah, it's normal for me not to want to torture babies. That doesn't extend to anyone else (again, other than the fact that it actually is normal, rather than normative, to not do that). — AmadeusD

I just can't see an issue with this. If your principles are applied only to yourself, you are making no attempt whatsoever to enforce them. You are not making judgements or proclamations on actions per se, but on your actions. — AmadeusD

But, I would say, within my metaethical framework, the reason I agree with you is not because there is a fact of the matter: it is because what we both consider “worthy” of imposement is similar to one another. They are both tastes (to me), but one hits towards my core morals and the other seems negligible. Why? I can’t give you a full account of my psychology, but I would guess it is a bit of biology, sociology, nurture, and psychology that motivate me towards finding that a reasonable assessment. — Bob Ross

So I don’t think you should find it that controversial when I say I would impose my belief that one should not torture babies but no the vanilla ice cream because I value the former simply so much; just like how you value moral facts so much that you will impose that taste on other people. — Bob Ross

I would find them “unreasonable”... — Bob Ross

What is incoherent about any of that? Please explicate two propositions which I affirm that you find to be incoherent. — Bob Ross

In my case, I do think this, but i dont think it's a norm — AmadeusD

Hi Leontiskos, thanks for making this point, it is crucial. It is precisely here that I am an error theorist. People go around all the time making doctrinal claims as if they were correspondence to reality claims. Pick any ideology, religion, political system, etc., you want, and you will find people talking about it as if they were claiming things about reality. When in fact, they are making doctrinal claims about and within a certain framework of beliefs. This is in fact a basic cognitive error, and it is for the clarification of errors of this sort that philosophy exists in the first place.

Moral claims absolutely do not escape this, as much as it might hurt the feelings of those making them. Moral claims are simply impossible without a moral doctrine within which they exist. And this moral doctrine itself, unlike the claims made within it, is not truth apt.

The larger philosophical question is, what claims do escape this? — hypericin

It is such a strange and deep-seated malady of analytic philosophy whereby intelligence is reduced to computation and truth is reduced to tautology! Some philosophers have become so preoccupied with their systems that they seem to have forgotten that reality exists at all. Their Tower of Babel always ends up crashing down, and this occurs at approximately the same moment that the average person understands truth better and more clearly than they do. Truth is arrived at by judgment, not primarily by computation or syllogism or system. Judgment always comes first and precedes the others. The terms, the premises, the first principles, the inferences, the realities at stake—all of it is first subjected to judgment. There is no magic way to circumvent judgment and truth in the realest, most primary sense. In real life there are no axioms, only first principles that are either true or false. The suspension of judgment that putatively applies to axioms is but a useful fiction.

The same problem that occurs in moral epistemology also occurs in natural epistemology. The initial judgments that connect reason to the real world tend to elude analytic philosophers and “empiricists.” Hume ends up undermining not only morality, but also natural science. A truncated understanding of intelligence leads to a truncated understanding of reality. If intelligence were only computational, a matter of combining and separating, synthesis and analysis, then empiricists like Hume would be justified in their strange conclusions. But it is not. It is also comparison; comparison of things to one another and also comparison of ideas to things and to reality, whence the ideas are true or false. The most basic act is not even comparison per se, but rather affirmation and denial (the recognition and assertion that something is or that something is not). The simplicity of affirmation and denial precedes discursive computation and also grounds it, giving it meaning and purpose. If there is no truth in non-discursive reason, then there can be no truth in discursive reason (unless we substitute truth for a formalism, but this is not truth).

Firstly, it isn’t immutable. I have the taste that everyone should not torture babies, and that could very well change (although I doubt it) in the future.

Secondly, it is not ‘universal’ in any objective sense. I subjectively commit myself to trying to universalize my goal.

Think of it this way. Imagine that we programmed an AI such that they had the sole goal all the time of trying to convince and ultimately stopping people from torturing babies. All else being equal, that people shouldn’t torture babies is not a fact, the AI just has this ingrained taste. Now, does this change the fact that this AI is trying to universalize their taste? Not at all. You seem to omit this option in your analysis. — Bob Ross

Fair enough -- if what I'm describing is, in fact, Aristotelian then the distinction between the thinkers isn't as important to me as the line of thought itself.

Let's say that this emphasis on willpower is a common belief, that I have heard it attributed it Aristotle's psychology (in the sense of having authority due to Aristotelian roots), and that I believe this is a bad way of thinking about how human beings change their behaviors. It seems what you're saying is that this is an incorrect way of understanding Aristotle, so fair enough -- then I misunderstand Aristotle. — Moliere

Why would you disagree with "total inability"? Isn't that the actual problem case that I'm talking about? From the perspective of the doctor, at least, the one who gets themselves to the AA meetings and undergoes change because they realize they have a problem and they need help -- that's the case that's already solved itself. From the perspective of the Epicurean doctor the person who doesn't attend the meetings, that cannot stop themselves from pursuing anxious desire -- those are the cases that need the most help. — Moliere

The question is not whether moral statements are truth-apt. They clearly are.

The problem is, are the moral systems against which moral statements are true or false themselves truth-apt? Here I think not. — hypericin

it's not a lack of willpower, though a presence of willpower would surely make the doctor's task easier, it's that this person requires something more than willpower (given their total inability in that regard). — Moliere

I have to note that, because I am a moral subjectivist--so when my view is just subtly excluded from consideration... — Bob Ross

I have no problem with this, I just don’t agree that it is objective. I would say it is inter-subjective. Something can be independent of me and still be subjective, and it can be independent of any randomly selected person and still be subjective. — Bob Ross

What would you think about a visceral uneasiness is calling it 'true'? I don't know whether my behaviour is correct. It's the best i can envisage. I feels awful to claim that as truth. Any comments there? — AmadeusD

I think I have pinpointed the crux of our disagreement (and let me know what you think): it is twofold. Firstly, you believe that someone is a moral realist if they accept #3 (i.e., “There are at least some true moral judgments.”), whereas I believe one needs to accept all three prongs of the thesis (that I outlined before). Secondly, you believe that there is it is illegitimate to impose a taste on another person. — Bob Ross

I am thinking of moral anti-realism as the idea that, to use your own words, <There are no "subject-referencing prescriptive statements" that are objectively binding on all>. — Leontiskos

With respect to the first point, I think this is just wrong, in the sense that this is not a standard definition of moral realism. The contemporary view holds those three prongs, which makeup of the moral realist thesis in its most generic form, and rejecting even one of them entails anti-realism. If you think that #3 (and I would presume #1 as well) are all that are required to be a realist, then, by your definition, I am a realist. I simply do not agree with the semantics. — Bob Ross

I wholly agree: moral subjectivism agrees with moral anti-realism insofar as it also affirms there are true moral judgments — Bob Ross

Nope. I affirm that “I believe thou shalt not torture babies”. — Bob Ross

it makes no difference if morals are truth-apt and there are true moral judgments if those judgments express something non-objective. — Bob Ross

I take an internal sense of 'true' to entail a certitude that I don't apply to my moral judgements. — AmadeusD

She seems to conflate 1 with 2 and 3. — schopenhauer1

She seems to assume that legal organizations cannot take on preferred political sides in constitutional law cases. For example, doubtful you will see the Heritage Foundation taking on various leftwing causes. — schopenhauer1

Can it be the case that, at the apex of my considerations(judgement), a certain behaviour appears moral/immoral, and so I enforce that judgement to the degree that I am acting on it toward other people, and yet am open to their response motivating or informing an adjustment in my judgement? — AmadeusD

Correct. I never claimed that, I said, "I think you should not torture babies, irregardless of whether you think you should not torture babies, and if that is true then I should be trying to stop you." — Bob Ross

I am not saying that you should be convinced that you shouldn’t be doing X because I think you shouldn’t be doing X: I am saying that I am going to try and stop you. — Bob Ross

This is patently false. Moral anti-realism is the denial of one of three things:

1. Moral judgments are propositional (moral cognitivism).

2. Moral judgments express something objective (moral objectivism).

3. There are at least some true moral judgments.

Denying any of these lands you in moral anti-realist territory. Denying just 1 lands you in moral non-cognitivism; denying just 2 in moral subjectivism; and just 3 in moral nihilism.

You have attempted to define moral realism such that it is ‘anyone who imposes a moral standard’, which includes subjective and objective standards, and this is just not what moral realism is at all. Perhaps you are presupposing that standards are always objective, then clearly I am not a moral realist since I impose subjective ‘standards’. — Bob Ross

I see it more that she was using the ACLU to say that legal organizations that promote free speech should take all cases. — schopenhauer1

Is the solution to urge the ACLU to return to neutral liberalism? That seems unlikely. It would be strange indeed for conservatives to take up the cause of liberalism now that its former champions have abandoned it. Even if it were possible to rediscover neutral liberalism as a cross-ideological common ground—and it is not—conservatives would still be better off pursuing other theories of law based on concepts closer to their tradition, such as the common good.

There is one means of restraining the woke that we all can insist upon, liberals, originalists, and integralists alike, and that is a return to professional standards. — What Happened to the ACLU? by Helen Andrews

I don't have the article right in front of me. Did she cite specific examples of that happening with the ACLU? I think she did, but I can't remember the details. I believe someone was dropped, right? It seemed to me the article was more lamenting what the ACLU used to be about mid-century. But I do remember her explaining the fiduciary argument. I just don't remember the egregious examples, other than the organization has become generally taken over by the "woke" politics that many academic/legal institutions have become — schopenhauer1

The one instance she provided of (1) seems to have been here — schopenhauer1

Left-wing hostility to the basic rules of the game culminated in the Dobbs leak. Supreme Court deliberations and decisions have always been protected by the strictest codes of confidentiality. In May 2022, in an unprecedented breach, an unknown person leaked Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade to reporters at Politico. The identity of the leaker has not been discovered, but the logical motivation would have been to spook one of the moderate conservative justices into changing his or her vote. A professor at Yale Law told a reporter that he assumed the leaker was a liberal “because many of the people we’ve been graduating from schools like Yale are the kind of people who would do such a thing. They think that everything is violence. And so everything is permitted.” — What Happened to the ACLU? by Helen Andrews

That may be legally tricky actually depending on the modes of enforcement your book called for. — AmadeusD

I get it. I'm on board with that, but I think we have to look at it as a series what we mean by "abandon fiduciary duties".

If we mean
1) A specific lawyer is doing things like dropping their clients or misrepresenting them in court intentionally, then this is an obvious flagrant violation of fiduciary duties.

2) An organization chooses to no longer represent "free speech" on all sides that used to do that. Less egregious, but agreed that it is troublesome that it has shifted to only taking on leftist causes and not ANY speech, free or otherwise. But technically, if it is not part of the government, it can decide to change policy. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it is more about how the organization is deciding to take on cases at that point, which oddly enough, is their "right" to do. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, correct. I guess I mean problematic at what degree it reaches. At what point is it actually affecting other people's rights? I would say at the point that judges actually take those positions and agree with it and make it part of the common law in which case hopefully it could be appealed and overturned. — schopenhauer1