Asking them to explain why it's the case that one ought not X is like asking the physicist why electrons are negatively charged particles. — Michael

Physicists can empirically verify is (with reference to definition, sure). Moral facts are not amendable to the same verification. I think this is the trouble, though i agree that's how realists see their position.

First, note that it is a principle of action. Now when a principle of action is applied, it becomes a norm. — Leontiskos

I'm very sorry about how dismissive this might sound, but I can't think of anything but 'What, no".
That makes no sense to me. This requires that you apply that judgement to other people. 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).

One such way is by applying or maintaining a principle of action and refusing to call it a norm. — Leontiskos

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. I think this is best encapsulated by an explanation i gave of why I'm not longer depressed to my wife (Lmao)

I just do not have time to second-guess everything i do. I accept i can't possibly know if an action is correct, right, or best. I can approximate, and forge on knowing full-well I could be incredibly wrong consequentially and will need to adjust my actions in future based on the results of actions in present. I do not judge the action as moral or immoral because i reject deontology almost entirely.

By "approximation", do you mean that the "soul" can be understood as a figure of speech such as "gravity" can be understood as a figure of speech? — RussellA

I guess i'm making a bit of a woo-woo claim here, but couching it merely in experience, not truth. It is possible, in those states of consciousness, to fully conceive, with no apparent metaphysical discomfort, the concept of a 'soul' beyond the human imagination - but these states purport to take you to that 'beyond' space. Again, the actuality of that experience, imo, is up for debate. But hte point is that, i think the claim that those concepts are beyond human cognition, is a placeholder for 'beyond normal, waking cognition'.

I suspect not. I do not suspect a vft is conscious. But I suspect it is filled with proto-consciousness. — Patterner

In the Chalmers/IIT type of sense?

It was my reply to Gnome, who wondered whether plants can perceive or not. And it was not based on my comment on Nagel's "what it is like", which was quite unimportant, but rather on the definition of consciousness. — Alkis Piskas

We're talking about sentience though, which is why i directly referenced sentience and it's constitution. I need not have used the Nagel line, it's just a great encapsulation. I'm really not understanding your frustration here... LOL

We are our own clarifying machines. — Vaskane

Nope. I need to know what you mean to give a meaningful response to your statements. I can clarify anything to myself, but all that does is take me further away from whatever you meant to convey into my own solipsistic machinations (in reference to your claim there :P )

That there is no ball in your room is a state of affairs. — Michael

No, it isn't. The state of affairs is everything which is in the wrong. The exclusion is a necessary inference, but is not a state of affairs in itself. I'm not sure how you're conceptualising a negation as a state of affairs? Again, though, I have adjusted my notion of truth to include statements of this kind - but they refer to no object/s and so can't be a state of afffairs.

That there is no elephant in your room is a different state of affairs. — Michael

That there is no ball in your room is a truth maker.
That there is no elephant in your room is a different truth maker.

No. This is merely another inference from the actual state of affairs, which is only able to capture that which is, not that which isn't. Re: teh second quote there, they don't come into contact with what actually is and so have no truth-value.

If you don't accept that, fair enough - but it seems pretty clear we're not misunderstanding each other anymore which i think is good.

Moral realists claim that some truth bearer "one ought not X" is true because a particular truth maker – that one ought not X – objectively obtains — Michael

Also my understanding of the general claim there. However, i see a serious problem with this. That is tautological. If the position is that a claim is true by tautology, even if it obtains some way, i'm unsure how you could ever convincingly provide this to another person - A T-sentence includes a criterion for the P being found true.
I.e 'One ought not X, if (or IFF) Y". If 'Y' obtains, then P is true. But the sorts of claims which i'm gathering are considered moral realism rely on the speaker merely asserting the claim - and rejecting any further discussion of it, because they see it as self-evident.

So when we look at the "One ought not keep slaves" statement, there HAS to be a 'why' or 'in what condition' that obtains. And it's pretty easy to reduce the claim to 'because it causes suffering'. 'suffering it bad' 'bad is undesirable' 'undesirability is something to avoid' etc.. etc... And i mean here only to point out that the claims don't support themselves in any meaningful way unless you're a deontologist so can just immediately note a rights/obligations violation.

I just can't conceive of a moral statement being self-evident beyond it being (in practice) normative, like not murdering for instance.
But I reiterate, i think this discussion is now actually on decent footing instead of talking past one another or about different things.

If we're being honest with ourselves, the pursuit of human life involves a certain inclination toward deception that, when considered metaphysically, distinguishes us from other forms of life. This perspective, rooted in the human experience, encompasses not only philosophical aspects but also the insights provided by science--making it a distinctly human, all-too-human viewpoint. — Vaskane

Quite a number of terms here I would need an elucidation of to give a particuLely meaningful response - but I THINK I agree overall

Honestly, there is nothing here to talk about bye — I like sushi

Ooof. Well that’s a move I guess.

A move I reject but that’s fine. There’s clearly daylight here and you’re now just plum not engaging while claiming there’s no daylight. Wild

I never said anything about anything being ‘true’. — I like sushi

Then be a good sport; replace it with “real” and respond to the objection.

It remains with either term. It is not true OR “real” in any meaningful way. Which was “precisely” what I outlined

This is a little like saying Canada does not exist because I have never been there. Merely heresay. — I like sushi

It is absolutely nothing like saying this, but incidentally that example also affirms, as an example, that using the term 'true for me' would be useless precisely because you could make such a stupid claim, and then just say it's true for you so no one can criticise. You've never seen it, so - wahey, no Canada. Absurd.

What are you talking about? If you are deluded you are deluded. You do not choose to be deluded. If you are pretending to be deluded you are lying — I like sushi

Your incredulity aside - yes - that's exactly the scenario I am point out renders the use of the term 'real for me' absolutely unusable. Someone lying can just claim 'Well, it's real for me!' and you have no recourse.

What about a rainbow? We all see them yet they are not there. The illusion is an objective one though, so whilst we can say it is not real in one sense (being an illusion) we share a common experience of it. — I like sushi

Yes, but it is patently obvious they are different experiences. "real for me" loses meaning as it can just be used to defend any erroneous claim by declaring yourself deluded.

I'm unsure that's true. Is there not actual sun rays actually refracting through actual moisture?

There are people who cannot see a rainbow.

how do you know you are not the doppelgan — Apustimelogist

This depends on whether the 'identical' memories include the moment at which the DG was created. Typically, you'd have that memory (i.e, you could remember before and after the creation because you knew it happened) where the DG could not.
I think this is why the Teletransporter TE is so good - it stipulates that this isn't the case and that both versions had the 'exact' same memories. I suppose another version is to stipulate that you don't know the DG was created. Same issue

Yep. Sounds pretty much like what I said 7 hours ago. — Mww

No it doesn't. I make no comment on what you're actually saying/trying to say or whether interpretation is an issue - but it certainly did not sound like that.

Deleted

We are, of course, walking right into the antediluvian, nature versus nurture debate and whether there is libertarian free will or not. — Tom Storm

Yes, i recognized this and pulled back from it at the end there with 'No' lol. I suppose the potential for determinism's truth admits of that well.

Likewise - As i'm never on your side of the table, as it were, I am always interested in how things are seen from that perspective.
As a final note, While i probably put less emphasis on the causative nature of this, addiction is such a massive, and under-dealt-with element in criminal behaviour.

For a brief period right after the American Revolution, there was an even more extreme "states rights" — schopenhauer1

More than i thought then.

Thank you for that informative response!

I finally can accept myself, then I suddenly realize and feel that I can be honest about my situation with others — YiRu Li

I see what you mean.

I suppose that, to me, doesn't smack of 'honesty' but self-awareness.

What I have often seen is families of origin with 'official stories' of nurturing and harmony which are untrue. Also quite often, the experiences of abuse are not from immediate family but come from other sources - scoutmasters, priests, school camp instructors, friends, parents, relatives, etc — Tom Storm

Yeah, re-reading my post I was extremely sloppy lol, so sorry for that - I meant to superficially extend the example to many origins - that kind of misapprehension is actually more often placed on police and justice in general, in my experience. Hence, the context being important as to what we each see from the subject/s.
Where I live, we have swathes of two particular groups (i want to be extremely clear I'm grouping them via their defense positions, not their belief in the position - that would become your issue outlined below):

1. "Free men" who believe the law doesn't apply to them - they feel the system is 'rigged', 'corrupt' or whatever else you can think of - and as a result of this utterly absurd position, offer violence to those attempting to enforce the justice system; and
2. Groups who believe that due to their membership of a social/racial/religious group, they are per se disadvantaged by the justice system - and the result is as above.

So, I'm not trying to say there are 'bad people' (though, i would posit there are as a result of mental illness). But people don't like being impeded. People don't like being told their views are wrong. People also like 'standing up to the man' etc.. and these misguided emotions often land people in prison.

1) Are some people just bad? 2) To what extent are people responsible for the choices they make? Attempts to address these matters can become a cesspit of cultural politics. — Tom Storm

Fully agree, and to the former: No. That saves the cesspit :)

A group chat wouldn't go amiss, im sure @dani @Mikie

While, the body sense lacks this sophistication. Your body feels good here, it is hot there, the stomach feels queasy. — hypericin

From what i gather, the distinction is that these are internal feelings of ostensibly, touch?

My suspicion is is you dig far enough such a reaction may be a consequence of a personality disorder which will itself be the product of significant shortcomings/adverse experiences in a person's upbringing. Being easily slighted is a classic symptom. — Tom Storm

(this may be for a nother thread, but I like this line, so....)

Hmm, a fair suggestion, but I am actually noting that your supporting features are those to what my concept applies. I suppose it would be helpful to know what your context is; but without that in hand I'd say there's going to be a big divide between how I, as a legal mind, would interpret and dig through claims, than would a social worker looking to rehabilitate. It is in their interests to buy into the subjects story. It is not in mine as i am victim-oriented; I want the facts as far as they can be established.

As an example, i regularly, though not frequently, come across offenders who claim in their, what's called a s 27 report here in NZ, that they suffered familial violence or abuse. In these regular, but not frequent cases, it becomes quite obvious that actually what happened was their parents were perhaps restrictive in a way they didn't like - so from a young age, they formed a ridiculous and misplaced view of their family and reacted as if that was a fact. I'm unsure this is controversial. The failure rates of rehabilitative efforts seems to comport with this general theme.

it is that the state-of-affairs, which exist, agree with the proposition that X doesn’t exist because it really isn’t a part of those states-of-affairs. Go back to my ball analogy in the room, saying “there is not ball in the room” is true iff the state-of-affairs, which all exist, in that room are such that there is no ball in them; you seem to think that it would imply, instead, that there is a state-of-affairs that does not exist such that there is no ball. — Bob Ross

I had a hypnogogic version of this occur to me this morning. Finally figured what i was trying to say....Which is essentially this. The claim something doesn't exist can be true, but it's only true in relation to a existing state-of-affairs which excludes the object in question. The thing not existing isn't the state of affairs. Does that comport with your take, or have i misread it?

Maybe - although I'm not sure what emotional reactivity is - if you are referring to difficulties with emotional regulation, that is generally the result of trauma or brain injury. — Tom Storm

The emotion arising from a perception. The reaction to an event in emotional terms.

Interesting. If your interpretation of my words are that some people justify their behavior (or lack of virtue) on the basis of fictional backgrounds - I don't accept this. — Tom Storm

No. I am telling you that i, myself observe this among criminals (particularly career criminals). It is not uncommon for an underlying attitude of aggrievement with no basis in reality to motivate a continuing disrespect for the law and courts. A perceived slight from the 'state' can do this, for instance. And I don't think anything i said inferred fictional. Up front, I noted misfiring or misplaced emotions. The subject may believe their plight is actual, when it is not, and react accordingly. Unfortunately, the legal system will
act accordingly to the 'actual'.

But we were talking about dishonesty rather than emotional regulation and violence. — Tom Storm

My comment was regarding motivations for dishonesty. I don't think i mentioned violence?

What I believe is real for me is real for me and may or may not relate to what you believe is real for you. — I like sushi

This seems a totally useless meaning to ascribe to 'real'. It doesn't delineate anything except that you, rather than another person experience something.

It would have no use, in this case. It is self-evidence that we do not share experiences. It is their comparison resulting in consistency or deviation that matters, and helps us delineate what we can rely on from what we cannot. I suppose, for an idealist this doesn't matter though so I could be barking up the wrong tree.

I have worked with a lot of prisoners and career criminals over the years. In getting to know them, I can't think of one example where the person wasn't a product of disadvantage, abuse or trauma — Tom Storm

I certainly can - some people are just misguided in their emotional reactivity; this is the sense of 'misguided' or 'misfiring' emotions. Thinking you've had a disadvantage and behaving just so doesn't mean that actually happened. But this doesn't defeat your point - it's an anomaly and for the vast majority of people they never even survey their internal maps so it's hard to put much at their feet.

even if its law code is descendend from England (which is and has been a far cry from general European culture), it does not make it alike the English law. — Lionino

One of the largest distinctions in law is the difference between the US system and 'British' which the colonies took on. Canada's law system is closer to England than is the US. Likewise with Australia, New Zealand and many other 'British' countries. The mere existence in the US of Federal and State law sets it aside in a rather extreme way.

It seems to me this was purposeful. While i'm not an historian of Law, i do understand that the War of Independence probably influenced the US legal system and bases as much, if not more, than the pre-loaded British mechanisms of law which were necessarily, at least initially, mimicked.

When we choose to be honest, it may not be because of the outside world. — YiRu Li

I find it quite hard to understand how one could have a 'conclusion' such that it results in behaviour, which is not a direct result of external.. everything...

Can you elaborate on how one might come to that sense of honesty without an external guiding/enforcing mechanism?

Plants are "Sentient", in that they can sense the environment. — Alkis Piskas

I do not believe this to be a very widely view of what sentience consists in. My understanding is there must be feeling in the sense of "what it is like to be.." involved for sentience to be observed. So, @RogueAI has a very apt question for you there..

the bodily sensations (pain, pleasure, heat, thirst, etc) — hypericin

Are these not just modes of touch? The sensations are all physically derived. If not, how do you separate 'touch' from these?

How can the soul be beyond the scope of human comprehension as millions of words have been written about it? — RussellA

If you've experienced an altered state of consciousness, that conclusion (that a 'soul' is beyond comprehension) is perhaps best thought off as an approximation. IN altered states, things become comprehensible which are not in normal waking consciousness. The reality of those things (as with a soul) are up in the air, or perhaps leaned-against. But there are concepts such as the 'soul' or a clear conception (at a very base level) of something 'unimaginable' that don't inspire typical incredulity or awe in those mind states. Being and not being do not always appear contradictory in those states.

We know very little about them and their function. My policy has been, and remains to wait until far more work has been done into the nature of the mind and its, hitherto almost ignored functionality, before making any sweeping statements of the kind made in the 18th and 19th (or even 20th) centuries about them. Without a systematic consideration of that which we know apply, but don't yet understand it seems a bit premature to posit absolutes about the ability to perceive/conceive certain things.

Moral claims absolutely do not escape this.... The larger philosophical question is, what claims do escape this? — hypericin

:up: Yessir.

They comport with all I’ve read about deontological principles from Bentham on? Idk man.

Because it posits a system in which lying is violating a duty. Which supports my contention.

That said; I don’t care. I’ve never seen any deontological writing invite dishonesty for any reason than paradox.

Disagree.

Supports my contentions

But true or false? I don't think so. I just can't see how they are the sort of things that might be true or false. — hypericin

I agree with this - and it seems to me that this exact thinking applies to moral statements. But I consider truth dependent on an object. If your object is “the world at large” I simply don’t understand what you think you’re saying wrt to a moral “fact” of the world.

But again; I may be (and this is active work(including this comment)) changing that conception as we exchange.

Fair, in general. But, not quite my understanding based on multiple academic sources. One below, directly dealing with the issue:

https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline-files/Roman-Evans.pdf

From the above:

"From a deontological point of view lying is always wrong (as is deceit for that matter), on the basis that communication is a process needed for prosperity and that truth communicates but a lie does not. Therefore, on this basis lying is always wrong. In the case that there is a clear and moral alternative to a lie then of course anyone would agree that this point of view stands true. But one might ask ‘What if a lie prevented an action worse than a lie from occurring?’ And this essay would answer that from a deontological perspective the lie must still be wrong as a lie is always wrong."

(I understand the Isenberg definition to in fact be Kantian from Arnold Isenberg's essay Deontology and the Ethics of Lying - https://www.jstor.org/stable/2104756 - but i don't have access)

Another, though, i've just pulled this one out for mentioning Kantian ethics specifically:

https://books.openedition.org/obp/4433?lang=en#:~:text=That%20is%2C%20if%20the%20consequences,be%20morally%20acceptable%20to%20lie.

"That is, if the consequences of lying are better than telling the truth then we are morally required to lie. The deontologist — the Kantian or Divine Command Theorist for example — thinks that lying is always wrong. There are no situations at all when it would be morally acceptable to lie."

Someone who values their own self-perceived "respect" so much that would condemn an innocent to a terrible death for its sake, operates under a deeply flawed moral system, I think most would agree. — hypericin

I am not a deontologist. So am free to agree with you. My understanding is that as lying perverts communication, a deontologist cannot, ever, lie, to be consistent. But i agree with you at least intuitively.

Yes. To lie would be to disrespect yourself to a degree that is unacceptable to a deontologist (is my understanding)

Totally missed this thread!

A lot of you already know me and my ankle-biting ways because of that, so apologies.

My name is Amadeus Diamond
I'm Irish; living in New Zealand
33; married; 2 kids (blended family)
Legal professional full time; back in school (conjoint LLB (law) and BA in Philosophy undergrad).

Most intensely interested in the question of personal identity over time both "whether" and "if it matters".
More minor (but still, very much preoccupying) interest in both trying to justify my feeling that morals can be objective, while conceding i have never seen a good argument for it; and understanding why so many philosophers appear totally detached from the real world, while trying to avoid that myself.

Outside of philosophy and law i practice brazillian jiu jitsu competitively and play many instruments.

Looking to make some type of philosophy friends too; hence extraneous information above.

Glad to be here!