- If you look at the antecedents of "Buridan's Ass," you will note that none of them use an animal as the example. The reason for this is clear: animals do not demonstrate anything regarding rationality or free will given the fact that they are not generally taken to have rationality or free will. Wikipedia's very first sentence begins the strangeness, "Buridan's ass is an illustration of a paradox in philosophy in the conception of free will. It refers to a hypothetical situation wherein an ass (donkey) that is equally hungry and thirsty..." Huh!? Free will? An ass?

I suppose one might say that the example limps with respect to rationality and free will. My question is: what is the worth of this example which limps with respect to the very things in question? There's a really, really good reason why Aristotle, Al-Ghazali, Averroes, Aquinas, Spinoza, Bayle, and Leibniz talk about human beings and not asses. Did Jean Buridan ever talk about moral determinism in this way? I somewhat doubt it, as no one seems to be able to produce the source.

Wikipedia gives us the answer:

Later writers satirised this view in terms of an ass which, confronted by both food and water, must necessarily die of both hunger and thirst while pondering a decision. — Buridan's Ass | Wikipedia

It's satire that many simply haven't noticed is satire. Perhaps the original idea was that Buridan failed to account for the freedom or dynamism of the will, hence the ass. But now it seems that the joke is on us. :nerd:

I take 'the contradictory statement is P' to mean that P is a contradiction, as a contradictory statement is a contradiction. — TonesInDeepFreeze

And I already corrected your misinterpretation in <this post>.

But maybe you mean it is a contradicting statement. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I'm glad you finally figured this out and even came up with your own fun way of describing it in English. Now you should go back and reread the original post, using what you have learned about your misinterpretations.

To help you, @Janus' point about natural language is something like this:

• Supposing A, would B follow?
• Bob: Yes
• Sue: No

Now Sue has contradicted Bob. The question is, "What has Sue claimed?"

Your answer is incorrect. — TonesInDeepFreeze

You don't even understand what is being said. :roll:

You changed the sentence. Here is what you wrote: — TonesInDeepFreeze

No, I was there giving an answer to the question at hand.

"If lizards were purple then they would be smarter" is not a contradiction — TonesInDeepFreeze

I give up. Go read Lionino's first post on the first page. He explains the two basic senses of contradiction operating in the thread.

I know of no context in which that sentence is a contradiction. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The question at hand is, "What is the contradiction of, 'If lizards were purple then they would be smarter'?"

There are two separate matters: negation and material implication. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The negation of a material conditional will be different from the negation of an if-then statement in natural language, and my post was highlighting that difference.

Or as I said earlier:

Given the way that common speech differs from material implication, in common speech the two speakers would generally be contradicting one another. — Leontiskos

no - the consequent can only be affirmed as true IF the antecedent is first affirmed as true. It's THAT that is not the case here. — flannel jesus

"Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?"

Put it together: ...therefore the consequent cannot be affirmed as true in this case. Therefore the consequent does not "follow."

- On explosion the consequent "follows" in the sense that it can be affirmed as true. That is not the case here.

if you phrase "A -> B" as "from A follows B", then if A is false, you can say "A -> anything", from A anything follows — flannel jesus

It does not follow; it is moot. According to material implication (A → B) is true if A is false, but B does not follow given that A is false. We cannot derive B. That's why A is false in this case, because we cannot arrive at the contradiction of (B ^ ~B).

From falsehood, anything follows. Have you ever heard of this? — flannel jesus

I don't think the principle of explosion is quite the same as material implication. It's kind of the opposite. We are running from a contradiction, not running on a contradiction. See and .

Okay:

Another example is that someone might have a sudden and uncontrollable sneezing fit when driving and fail to see the pedestrian on the crossing and run them over and kill them. They will still be punished even though it was not their fault in any moral sense. — Janus

Supposing someone has an unforeseeable seizure, would they be punished in this case?

You are conflating the legal with the moral. If someone drinks and drives they are being negligent. If their ability to focus on the task of driving safely and/ or being physically coordinated enough to do it, is sufficiently impaired by the alcohol and they are unlucky enough to kill someone, they will not be excused and will be prosecuted and punished to a far greater extent than if they had not killed someone. — Janus

I agree.

From the point of view of the law concerning negligence, they have committed a greater crime than if they had merely driven without incident, but this doesn't seem right from a moral standpoint. Call this moral luck (or unluck). — Janus

Fair enough.

So I have to apologize. The quality of your recent posts has not been problematic. I was thinking about the earlier ones and I was trying to respond to too many different threads. Sorry about that. :yikes:

Still, I do not see how I have conflated the legal with the moral (although I do think the legal order is within the moral order).

Again, a contradiction is a statement and its negation. If there is a contradiction then you could show that both a statement and its negation are implied.

Again:

"if lizards are purple, then they would be smarter" and "if lizards are purple, then they would not be smarter" is not a contradiction. — TonesInDeepFreeze

But the difficulties of material implication do not go away here. You are thinking of negation in terms of symbolic logic, in which case the contradictory proposition equates to, "Lizards are purple and they are not smarter." Yet in natural language when we contradict or negate such a claim, we are in fact saying, "If lizards were purple, they would not be smarter." We say, "No, they would not (be smarter in that case)." The negation must depend on the sense of the proposition, and in actuality the sense of real life propositions is never the sense given by material implication.

The reason we keep material implication is because we like truth functionality.

Which is, compared to your citations, a poor translation (apparently). Irregardless, if I take it that his second sentence is a definition (and not an assertion that about what nobility think), then: — Bob Ross

I don't think yours is a bad translation. The point is that Aristotle is setting out the meaning (or at least his working meaning) of 'good' in that phrase. In colloquial terms this is a kind of definition. Scholars will argue whether it is a properly Aristotelian definition, or whether it should be translated into English as 'definition'. Regardless of those debates, Aristotle won't take up the use of a central term without giving some kind of explanation of what he means by it, and that is where he does this with 'good'.

'The good' refers to what is supremely and ultimately good — Bob Ross

But this is where Aristotle disagrees with Plato. Aristotle thinks there is no Platonic Form of the Good.

If I assume he means to define "good", as opposed to "the good", as "that which all things aim at", then this seems like an incredibly inadequate definition... — Bob Ross

I mostly want to save this debate for another day. What I will say is that 'good' is notoriously difficult to define, and that Aquinas goes about the psychological angle in this way:

Now as "being" is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so "good" is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that "good is that which all things seek after." — Aquinas, ST I-II.94.2

The difficulty with defining 'good' is that it ignores our subjective/objective distinction and it can act as a grammatical modifier of pretty much anything.

- Thanks, that was well put. :up:

People want a contractor who will build them a house; they don't want a contractor who will not build them a house. — Michael

And you think it is possible to claim that one of the contractors is more reliable without at the same time saying that he is more likely to fulfill his obligations?

The law simply says "if someone does not fulfil the terms of their contract then they are to be jailed". The judge then rules that I did not fulfil the terms of my contract and so orders the bailiffs to take me to jail.

Again, the existence of some supposed obligation is utterly irrelevant. — Michael

You are recasting the entire social sphere. Your "promises" and "contracts" are not real promises or contracts. Your "penalties" are not real penalties. Your "debts" ("owes") are not real debts (although you slipped there for a second). For example, a contract involves a promise to fulfill what one says they will fulfill, and the penalty that may follow is a real penalty, not just someone forcing you to randomly do something you'd rather not do. I think your error is quite similar to Anscombe's, noted above, in that the occurrence of natural debts is being overlooked in favor of a purely positivistic legal conception.

You think promising involves saying and intending to do something in the future, with no regard to the fulfillment of that thing. You admit that the promise either is or is not fulfilled, but you deny that the promiser has any obligation to so fulfill it. This is wrong. To promise and to intend are two different things. We intend to do things in the future all the time, but it does not follow from this that we are making promises. Banno got at it earlier:

↪Michael So this tells me only that you will not be held to your promises.

OK. You are not a man of your word. — Banno

What does it mean to give one's word, or to make a promise? Here is Aquinas:

A vow denotes a binding to do or omit some particular thing. Now one man binds himself to another by means of a promise, which is an act of the reason to which faculty it belongs to direct. For just as a man by commanding or praying, directs, in a fashion, what others are to do for him, so by promising he directs what he himself is to do for another. Now a promise between man and man can only be expressed in words or any other outward signs; [...] Now a promise is the outcome from a purpose of doing something: and a purpose presupposes deliberation, since it is the act of a deliberate will. Accordingly three things are essential to a vow: the first is deliberation. the second is a purpose of the will; and the third is a promise, wherein is completed the nature of a vow. — Aquinas, ST II-II.88.1 Whether a vow consists in a mere purpose of the will?

In his reply to objection 1 he addresses your claim directly, namely the claim that a promise is nothing more than a purpose or intention.

Why is it bad to go back on promises, not only for others but also for oneself? It is bad because it is to be a shitty man, in the same way that to continually try to do something and fail at it is to be a shitty man. "By promising he directs what he himself is to do for another," and someone who continually reneges or simply fails in his promises is a failure. He is unable to direct himself. He is unable to do what he promises—and yes, also intends—to do. To fail to understand why promises involve obligations is a bit like failing to understand why reaching out to turn on the light involves turning on the light. "If it turns on, it turns on. If not, not. It has nothing to do with my reaching out." :scream:

Your bizarre ideas also undercut any notion of debt. On your view if you borrow a shovel from your neighbor you have no debt to him, you do not owe it to him to give it back; or if you tell your girlfriend that you will marry her then on your view you have no obligation to marry her. If you didn't then the engagement would mean nothing at all! And when you renege on your contract to build my house you owe me a debt. The thing imposed for breaking a contract is a penalty, not merely a consequence; and when you fail to fulfill a promise or a vow, what you subsequently owe to the other party is more than what you originally promised, because by breaching their trust you incur an additional debt. This is why, why you stand up your girlfriend at a restaurant, she has a right to be angry with you rather than simply sad because she lost out on a meal.

- I will come back to this, but I want to present a different angle before I go:

• Leontiskos: What if a contractor in your area was known to never fulfill his contracts. Would you contract with him for a house?
• Interlocutor: No, because the house would not be built on time.
• L: How do you know that?
• I: Because the contractor is not reliable.
• L: Why is he not reliable?
• I: Because he does not fulfill his contracts.
• L: Is not he unreliable precisely because he fails to fulfill his obligations?
• I: A contract is not an obligation.
• L: If you are happy with receiving the penalty as a settlement then you would not need to view it as an obligation, but if you want your house built on time then it would seem to be an obligation. If reliability in doing what he says he will do is not reliability in his obligations, then what is it? And if you decide against him as a contractor on the basis of his unreliability and inability to do what he said he would do, then what exactly is it that your decision is based on? What is the per se thing about him that makes you choose someone else? Someone else who always does what they promise to do?

The terms of the contract simply say "Michael is to build the house or pay a fine". The law simply says "if someone does not fulfil the terms of their contract then they are to be jailed".

Neither the law nor the contract depend on the existence of obligations, and so arguing that obligations don't existence is an irrelevant argument. — Michael

Well, if you don't like the word 'obligation', then instead of trying to convince the judge that you have no obligation to fulfill your contract you should convince him that you need not fulfill the contract and that you need not be punished. After all, why must you fulfill the contract? Why must you be punished? Why must you do what the law tells you to do? Why must you do what you said you were going to do when you signed the contract? Why must you be held to your word? Surely the judge would have little to answer you.

I can say whatever I want. I doubt it would convince a judge. The contract states that if I do not build the house then I am to pay a fine. The law states that if I do not pay the fine then I am to be jailed. So I build the house, pay a fine, or go to jail. Unless I have very good lawyers, I have to choose between one of these outcomes. — Michael

Well, suppose your judge is a good philosopher, and he admits that laws cannot be premised on non-existent realities. And really, wouldn't any logical person affirm the same? So why not explain to the judge that you agreed to the contract when you signed it, but you disagree with it now? Do you think you would have a plausible argument to convince an impartial judge? Do you think you have good arguments to convince him that there is no metaphysical basis for obligations, and therefore obligations cannot exist, and therefore you do not owe me $25,000? If your arguments are sound, then why not apply them in real life?

I can do all of that. And then I will presumably face some further punishment. — Michael

But why? Why not reason with the authority and explain to him, like you did to me, that you intended to fulfill the contract when you signed it and now you've changed your mind? If you are not obliged to pay the contract, then surely you are not subject to further punishment...?

I don't understand the relevance of the question. — Michael

Earlier you told me that you honestly believe that you can just change your mind and decide not to fulfill a promise. Why can't you just change your mind and decide not to fulfill a contract? Why not just tell the authority that you've changed your mind and decided not to fulfill the contract?

For not doing what I was contracted to do. — Michael

Did you tell him you changed your mind and reneged?

As in, "If I don't build the house on time then some authority will fine me."

This is true if in the terms of the contract. But this proposition does not entail "I ought build the house" (or "I ought pay the fine"). — Michael

And so presumably after the deadline, "I owe you money," just means, "Some authority will fine me if I don't give up the money."

Why is the authority fining you?

I was thinking of it in terms of the conditional "If X doesn't happen then Y will happen", and that this proposition does not entail "I ought X". — Michael

Hmm? What are X and Y?

Right, by "owe" you mean "obligated to give you the money"? Again, you haven't told me what it means to be obligated to do something. I just either do it or I don't. — Michael

Well, you are the one who told me that you owed me the money. What did you mean when you affirmed that proposition?

Well I can certainly change my mind and not give you the money, and then face whatever punishment follows. — Michael

So if you change your mind and renege, do you still owe me the money, or not?

Yes. — Michael

When I say that you owe me $25,000, why couldn't you just say, "I changed my mind," like before? ()

He didn't do what he was contracted to do and so as per the terms of the contract (or the law in general) he is penalized.

That's all there is to it. I don't understand what this additional thing – the "obligation" – is, or what part it plays. — Michael

Take a contract. You tell me that you will build me a house in a year, and if you don't complete it in that time you owe me $25,000. The year completes and the house is not completed. Do you owe me $25,000?

That depends on what you mean. Here are two propositions:

1. Promises exist
2. People promise to do things — Michael

I am curious whether you think contracts exist. If no one is obliged to fulfill a promise, then surely no one is obliged to fulfill a contract? You will say, I think, "There is a penalty but no obligation." But then what is the one who breaks contract being penalized for? Is there something he failed to do?

- I was just being honest about my assessment of your state of knowledge regarding this topic. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems obvious to me that you don't understand this area well enough to opine on it, and I am simply not going to waste all of my time correcting elementary errors regarding things like the notion of negligence.

The colloquially normative sense is just to treat a command as a truth-apt proposition. — Michael

As I said:

Michael is presumably saying that obligations don't exist, because you can't place yourself under an obligation, because there is nothing about the past that can oblige one to act in any particular way in the present. He wants to rewrite all future claims about one's own behavior in terms of strict conditional logic, and because conditional logic cannot represent the inner dynamics of things like promising and obligation, for Michael they must not exist at all.

So for Michael promises don't exist, and what he calls a "promise" is a promise shorn of all obligation. — Leontiskos

1. You ought do this — Michael

The backstop here is the way you will also claim that terms like 'ought' and 'should' make no sense to you if they are interpreted in their colloquially normative sense. See our conversation where you do precisely this: link.

- ...And the abuse continues. Put me on ignore. I would love that.

- It's obvious that you haven't given the topic of negligence much thought. I'm going to focus on those who are willing to put in some work in order to discuss things at a higher level. Take care.

Anscombe talks of obligation as if it functions only under a law, citing medieval etymology. From what I understand the word derives from obligationem, "a binding". It's the "counts as" that is peculiar, binding and worthy of consideration. — Banno

In the past Michael has said that God would not change things, but there is good reason to doubt Anscombe's etymological inferences. William Diem, in addressing the Medieval sense of obligation, says:

In short, the law must have the ratio of due, and it is due in the same sense in which we say that something is due to someone else, i.e., some sort of debt. This is simply to say that, for Aquinas, debitum encompasses both the notions of ‘moral duty’ and ‘debt to another.’ Consequently, law, by its nature, regards our duties to others and their corresponding rights.

It may appear that Aquinas is incorporating an accident of Latin into his account of obligation: Debitum can mean either something owed (i.e., a debt) or something that must be done (a duty). It is worth remembering that debitum—though most frequently used to mean due or debt—is just the passive participle of debeo, which can be used with moral signification to mean ‘must.’ Aquinas in his treatment of law and justice is taking debitum and cognate terms with both senses at once. He is essentially treating these two meanings of debitum not as two discrete meanings—which would render these passages equivocal—but as two interrelated, and mutually implicative concepts.

This identity of debitum ad alium with moral obligation or moral duty, as perceived by reason, is the principal contention of the paper, so let us pause a moment to consider the plausibility of this point. — Diem, Obligation, Justice, and Law: A Thomistic Reply to Anscombe

They are not unrelated. One performs an algorithm by following set rules - principles. — Banno

They are not the same. To utilize a principle while reasoning is not to "perform an algorithm." You are creating a caricature.

You equate rational thought with following a principle. — Banno

No, I don't. In fact no one does that. A computer or a robot is equated with following a principle. Humans apply principles in acting.

it is often the case that we must act despite not knowing which principles to apply — Banno

And nevertheless when we do act we apply principles in so acting. That one can apply post hoc rationalization does not mean that rationality was not involved in the decision itself. You seem to keep falling into this invalid inference.

When the child chooses a cookie they apply a principle, "I want to eat a cookie, therefore I will flip a coin." They need not say it out loud or say it to themselves in order for the practical syllogism to be operative. When you sit down at the restaurant you apply a principle to your tastes, "I like duck therefore I will choose the roast duck from the menu." More difficult choices require more complicated principles and interactions of principles.

Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. — Practical Reason | SEP

That is the law of non-contradiction. What I said is a more formal way of saying the same. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The first page of the thread contains two basic ways of defining contradictions. You gave a third: mere negation and the attendant inverted truth table. That's a legitimate extrapolation, but still different from a non-formal assessment of contradiction.

@Michael is presumably saying that obligations don't exist, because you can't place yourself under an obligation, because there is nothing about the past that can oblige one to act in any particular way in the present. He wants to rewrite all future claims about one's own behavior in terms of strict conditional logic, and because conditional logic cannot represent the inner dynamics of things like promising and obligation, for Michael they must not exist at all.

So for Michael promises don't exist, and what he calls a "promise" is a promise shorn of all obligation.

Are you serious? You don't know how to prove it yourself? — TonesInDeepFreeze

Rather, I'm interested in you doing something more than making curt pronouncements from on high. This is a philosophy forum, after all.

Here is the alternative notion of contradiction that you are overlooking:

“opposite assertions cannot be true at the same time” (Metaph IV 6 1011b13–20) — Aristotle on Non-contradiction | SEP

and "imply ¬A" as the proposition being True means A is False — Lionino

Yes, this was my concern. Tones requires the assumption, as I thought he must.

- See

- Yes - I wasn't sure, but it fortuitously solved my conundrum as well.