That is less crazy, but I think still wrong. I don't think it is a misunderstanding to change your mind. Or even to do so on a whim. — Dan

Changing your mind does not constitute misunderstanding one's choice, that's what I said. However, exchanging one choice for a contrary choice, without any reason, must indicate that the person does not understand one's own choices. A whimsical choice, if it is contrary to a prior choice, must be a misunderstood choice, because there is no real reason why the person negates the prior choice in favour of the new choice. The person can give no explanation for the choice. "Whim" means precisely that, without explanation.

Here's another way of looking at it. Lot's of people make New Years' resolutions, then many end up breaking them. Suppose a person resolves to quit smoking, then two days later is lighting up a cigarette. Notice that the two choices are contrary, first to not smoke, second to have a cigarette. One of the two choices must be misunderstood. Either the person doesn't misunderstand the force the addiction has on oneself, making the first choice misunderstood, or the second choice is misunderstood for the reason above. Usually we would not say that the first choice was misunderstood, we'd say that the person was not strong enough to overcome the addiction.

I think "understand" is a good choice to convey the meaning I am attempting to convey here, of being able to comprehend the nature of a choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to a choice and can respond to reasons for making it. — Dan

So, don't you agree, that changing one's mind to a contrary choice, without a good reason for doing such, constitutes not being able to comprehend the nature of the choice? Take the shirt example, there is no reason given for the change of mind, therefore the person cannot respond with reasons for making that choice. Imagine the person told someone else, a spouse or someone like that, that they were going to buy a shirt, but only if the shirt is 100% cotton. Then the person brings home a shirt of unknown composition, and the spouse asks, why did you buy that. I don't know. There is no reason given in the example. That's a common answer for children when asked why did you do that, I don't know. Adults give that answer sometimes too.

It is definitely relevant. To understand the choice someone does not need to have all the information they might wish to have, never mind needing to apply it. My point is that the bar I am setting for understanding here is much lower than what you are talking about. — Dan

As I said, making a decision without all the relevant information is not the issue. The issue is failure to apply the information which one has. When the person makes the choice only to buy a shirt if it's 100% cotton, there are reasons for this decision, and those reasons are available to the person within one's mind, the memory. Likewise, when the person decides to quit smoking there are reasons for this. When the person decides to buy on a whim, or decides to have a smoke because of an urge, that person does so without reconsidering all the information within the memory, which lead to the decision in the first place. That's why we say that it's a "whim", or the result of an "urge", the person is not applying the available information in making the choice. I'm not talking about not having the information, I am talking about having the information, but not properly applying it. That's why it's called "misunderstanding", it's a failure to apply the available information correctly.

I mean, I would also quite happily describe the shirt example in terms of having a desire and then making a choice to buy a shirt that doesn't necessarily fufil that desire. I am not worried about whether the person wanting to get the shirt in the first place should be considered a choice or not. I just don't think it matters. — Dan

I think you are missing the essence of the example. The decision to only buy the shirt if it's 100% cotton is clearly a choice. It's stated as that in the example. It's not a desire to have a cotton shirt, it's a choice to buy a used shirt, but only if it is 100% cotton.

You can rewrite the example, so as to call it a desire for a shirt, or a desire for a cotton shirt, but then you miss the essence of the example, which is the act of changing one's mind for a contrary choice. Please take note that this is just like your proposal to only consider "actioning choices". By doing this you exclude all the choices which do not end up in action, the choices of inaction, which is will power, and the choices which later get changed and do not end up in action. You can call all these choices "desires" if you want, but what's the point?

Why do you want to exclude all these choices from your consideration of choices? Obviously it's because this type of choice doesn't fit within you moral principles, your morality cannot deal with them. So instead of changing your moral principles to be consistent with the nature of choices in general, you choose to ignore all these choices, and hang on to defective moral principles.

I have no idea how you have gotten from one to the other there. Let's say we agree that there is a difference between choosing and acting (mostly this seems linguistic to me at the moment). I'm not sure why I should think that choosing to act in a way that brings about some outcome, let's say the death of a person by my flipping a switch and sending a trolley to crush them, and me choosing to act in some other way which leads to the death of five people, in this case, not flipping the switch and watching while the trolley crushes them, are somehow different. Both of them could be considered a choice or an action, or both. The terminology isn't what's important. What's important is that there are two possible worlds (in this hypothetical) and I can pick one in which one person dies or one in which five do, and I can't see a principled reason why the fact that I have to flip a switch (or whatever) to get to the better world but only have to stand around twiddling my thumbs to get to the worse one should make a moral difference. This has nothing to do with whether or not there is a difference between acting and choosing. — Dan

Sure, anyone can contrive an example where choosing inaction is just as morally reprehensible as choosing to act. I do not see how this is relevant to the issue of the distinction between choosing and acting.

Do you recognize that choices very often define conditions of inaction? Don't buy lottery tickets. Don't buy the shirt if it's not 100% cotton. Don't have a cigarette. Don't have a drink before driving. Thou shalt not... And so on. These are reasoned choices which serve as principles, rules which are designed for the purpose of preventing the urge to act, when the specified act is understood as unreasonable. Such choices do not produce observable acts, though they can change our attitudes. Since a judgement of one's moral character is a judgement of one's attitude, these choices which produce no actions turn out to be very important choices, morally.

It ain't necessarily so, for we are not confined to representations of reality. Experiences of reality are presentations of reality in the sense that the experience in your mind of a material reality is the material reality. When mind about matter is the matter, then there is no split between mind and matter. . — jkop

Matter is conceptual, it is an idea. You confirm this when you say " the experience in your mind of a material reality is the material reality", and "mind about matter is the matter". So this is the reason why there is no split. But as Berkeley showed, there is no necessity in the assumption that some people make, that matter is something other than an idea in the mind. And so, as I said in the last post, monist idealism is the only form of monism which has the appearance of being coherent.

However, if we are inclined to represent some aspect of reality which is not within our own minds, if I want to believe in a real world which is independent from my mind, there is a need for further principles. As Berkeley showed, we can maintain the premise that 'the experience in the mind is the material reality', but then we need to assume "God" to support that independent reality. It is an appearance in God's mind. The result is monist idealism.

If instead, we assume "matter" as something independent form minds, to support our belief in a real world which is independent from us, then we have a second fundamental principle. In this case we have a dualism.

The issue being that we cannot establish compatibility between your assumption that "the experience in your mind of a material reality is the material reality", and the assumption of a world which exists independently of myself. How do I justify my belief that the world was here before me, and will continue after I am gone? We can either turn toward a monist idealism, as described by Berkeley, or toward a dualism. But monist materialism is already inconsistent with your primary assumption.

My belief is that monist idealism is also untenable because it does not support a separation between one mind and another. Therefore the remaining alternative, the one accepted by classical metaphysics, and the ontology which has persisted through thousands of years of trials, is dualism.

No, but what makes sense is Berkeley's rejection of the split between mind and body. — jkop

But the point Berkeley makes, is that doing away with the split only makes sense if it's all mind. So matter really is eliminated, if we reject the split. There's no way to reject the split, and be left only with matter and body. There is only one logical monism, and that is idealism, materialism cannot work out. This is because mind can account for all existence, as ideas without matter, but matter cannot account for ideas. Therefore if we want matter in or representations of reality, we need to keep the split between mind and matter.

This looks like you are claiming something lunatic here. Could you please clarify what you mean. — Dan

Look, the original decision was to buy a shirt only if it is 100% cotton. Then the person has a change of mind, and chooses to take a risk on a shirt of unknown composition. That change of mind results in a choice which is contrary to the original choice. The original choice: 'buy a shirt only if it is 100% cotton'. The second choice: 'buy the shirt of unknown composition'. Can you see how one is contrary to the other? Unless there is a reason for the change of mind, then a misunderstanding of one's own choices is indicated by the fact that the person has made contrary choices.

Putting aside that I didn't give a reason because it isn't the point of the example, you are wanting way too much in order for someone to understand a choice. If people change their mind on a whim, that doesn't mean they don't understand the choice they are making. They might not understand their motives for making it (though this is also debatable) but that isn't the same as not understanding the choice they are making. In this case, they understand that they are making a choice with incomplete information to buy a specific shirt. — Dan

As I said, you demonstrate a misunderstanding of "understanding". By my OED, it means "perceive the significance or explanation or cause of". Unless a person apprehends the reason why they discard an earlier choice that they have made to adopt a contrary choice, it is impossible that they could perceive the significance or explanation or cause of that change of mind.

No, that is the point of the example. I think the original version had a reason given since it had more of a complete story. I was just giving you a brief version and the reason behind the choice really isn't the point. — Dan

If the point of the example is merely to show an instance of making a choice on insufficient information, then it would not be relevant to what we are discussing. We are discussing "understanding" one's choice. Understanding is not simply a matter of having information it also involves applying the relevant information to the situation at hand. This is the point which you just don't seem to be getting. When a person has relevant information, they do not necessarily apply it. And that is why habit is so important as a source for misunderstanding one's own choices. It inclines one to act (often taking risks) without considering all the relevant information which is available. Failure to consider all the relevant information does not necessarily lead to misunderstanding, it often does not. But it can lead to misunderstanding.

So, in the case of buying the shirt, the person knows that they only want to buy a shirt if it is 100% cotton, that is information which they possess. However, in the act of shopping, they do not apply that very relevant information which they possess, and, by the force of habit or some other whimsical feeling, they choose to act in a contrary way. Acting in a contrary way to how one previously decided that they would act, without a reason for making this contrary choice, implies that the choice is not understood.

Again, you want a lot more from "understanding one's choice" than I do. — Dan

I really do not know what you could possibly mean by "understanding one's choice", if it's not to perceive the significance or explanation or cause of one's choice. How would you define "understand" in this context?

However, I've already offered to use "actioning choices" or some similar language if you would prefer. — Dan

No, this makes no sense. I am telling you that there is a distinction between acting and choosing, and you are now starting to agree with me. Yet you propose "actioning choices" as a way to deny the evidence which demonstrates your misunderstanding of "choice". Look at the shirt example. The choice to only buy if the shirt is 100% cotton, would be excluded as not an "actioning choice", because the person ended up acting on the contrary choice. Then we would be left unable to consider the very important condition of changing one's mind.

Why not recognize the real separation between choosing and acting, and then proceed to recognize that you were wrong to conclude that there is no serious distinction to be made between choosing to let something happen and choosing to make something happen? From here we can properly assess your reasons for believing in consequentialism.

"It doesn't matter if you won or lost the election," he said following his November 2020 defeat, according to a witness who overheard the remark. "You still have to fight like hell." (as noted in Smith's filing). — Relativist

Oh, there's that infamous phrase from the Jan 6 speech, "fight like hell". @NOS4A2 likes to interpret that phrase as being in the context of campaigning for an election, "a hard fought campaign". Now we see the intended context very clearly, to fight after the election, to subvert the legal outcome. Of course, that was already obvious to anyone but NOS, because the Jan 6 statement was nearly two months after the election.

I would say, if you can afford it, go to school. The professionals can provide very good direction. Start with an introductory course, and follow where your interest leads you.

To borrow and example of Hallie Liberto's paper "Intentions and Sexual Consent", imagine you are wanting to buy a secondhand shirt, but you only want to buy it if it is 100% cotton. Sadly, as it is secondhand, the shirt you like is missing any identifying tags that would tell you this and the person working at the secondhand clothes store doesn't know. If you knew that it was a cotton blend, you wouldn't buy it, but if you choose to buy it without knowing one way or another, you have not misunderstood (or failed to understand) your choice. — Dan

This is actually a very good example of a misunderstood choice. The initial choice is to buy a secondhand shirt, but only if it is 100% cotton. The second choice is a changing of the mind, a choice to take a risk on the unknown, instead of adhering to the initial choice, which was only to buy in the case of certitude. So the second choice is the one of concern here. It is representative of a change of attitude, from the attitude of the initial decision to proceed with caution, only if there is certitude that it is 100% cotton, to the secondary decision, to take a risk on the unknown. This choice, to take a risk on the unknown is the one which is misunderstood because it is contrary to the original.

We can see that it is a misunderstood choice, because there is no explanation, no reason given, as to why the change of mind was made. In other words, this choice was made without any reason, and without a reason for it, it cannot be understood. If the example stated a reason, 'it was so cheap it was irresistible', or, 'it looks so good I forfeit the 100% cotton rule, or the person decided that if they bought it and didn't like it they could give it to someone else, then the choice would be understood. But that's not what happened in the example. The person had a clear choice to only buy cotton, then suddenly dismissed that choice and for no reason at all, bought a shirt of unknown material. Since the person did this for no reason at all, it is very clear that the person did not understand one's own choice.

You are making a choice with incomplete information (which is presumably how we make basically all choices we ever make) but you understand what it is you are choosing and what it means to make that choice, even if you don't know what the consequences will be from it in the future (such as whether you will have a shirt you are happy with). — Dan

But the issue of the example is not a matter of making a choice with incomplete information. As you say, we make all choices this way. The issue of the example is that a choice is made without a reason for it. Here's a similar example, which might help you to understand. Imagine that you have decided not to ever buy lottery tickets, because the odds are so bad, you think it's a waste of money. Then, you are in the corner store, and lights are flashing, bells are ringing, and there's a big sign saying $100,000,000 grand prize, and you are suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, and buy five tickets. There is no reason why you went against your rule, you were suddenly overcome with the urge to buy. So you clearly do not understand your choice. This is known as impulse buying, and in a more general sense, it is called "whimsical", and a similar concept is "overcome by passion". They are all concepts which refer to cases of not understanding one's own choices. And, you ought to see that acting by habit fits right in with these, as a case of not understanding one's own choice.

Clearly, the person does not understand what they are choosing nor what it means to make that choice. The person acts in a way which is contrary to a prior choice (changes one's mind on the spur of the moment) with no understandable reason for doing this. When a person chooses to change one's mind for no reason, that person does not understand what they are choosing (how could they, because there is no reason for it?), nor what it means to make that choice.

Yeeeeah, I don't think there is a principle to make a serious moral distinction between choosing to let something happen and choosing to make something happen. I agree that I didn't learn such a principle or recognize it, but I think that's because it doesn't exist. I think you may be suffering under a misapprehension. However, this doesn't prevent you from understanding your own choices, it just makes you wrong. — Dan

Do you recognize that a person can choose to do something, yet fail in doing it? If so, then you need to recognize the distinction between choosing and acting. If you continue to avoid this issue I will be forced to conclude intellectual dishonesty.

You seem to proceed from the assumption that I am wrong and also, seemingly, a moron. — Dan

I must admit, it is starting to look like you are a moron, and so I'm headed toward that conclusion. This was never an assumption of mine, I assumed you to be quite intelligent, that's why I engaged. Talking to morons gets boring so I try to avoid it. I'm not quite convinced yet though. I'll allow you to rethink the distinction between choosing and acting.

In research on gravity, there's talk of backwards causation and that time is not a fundamental property of the universe. — jkop

You can always find ridiculous talk, but it's always irrelevant.

I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be a hard problem to explain how the past creates the future. — jkop

If you ever gave that a serious try, you'd find out that the exact opposite is the case. It's very simple to demonstrate logically that the past does not create the future.

This is because we need to deal with the reality of choice, and the fact that the future is full of possibilities, while the past is fixed, or determined. Those are fundamental self-evident truths, derived directly from experience. And, possibilities cannot be created from a determined past, yet a fixed past can be created from possibilities. Therefore, that the past does not create the future is a very sound conclusion.

And you think that one should still pray even if God doesn't exist? — Leontiskos

As I said, I don't pray. And, I'll add that the existence or non-existence of God is irrelevant to that choice.

I am simply pointing out that not having the information you might wish is not the same as being able to understand one's own choice. — Dan

Do you recognize the difference between misunderstanding, and understanding? Any time that not having adequate information results in misunderstanding, then there is a case of not being able to understand one's own choice. Therefore any time deception influences one's choice, or any sort of falsity influences one's choice, there is a case of a person not being able to understand one's own choice. Furthermore, since a well educated person has better knowledge about a situation relevant to what the person's education is, than does a not well educated person, and can therefore better understand one's own choice in that situation, then that person is better able to understand one's own choice in that situation. I think it is very clear that having better information is of great consequences in relation to being able to understand one's own choice.

I really cannot understand why you deny this. Is it really the case that your ability to understand your chosen principles is that deficient? Or, do you actually understand this and are simply denying it for some other reason?

Would you prefer we discuss "actioning one's choices" would that be more beneficial? — Dan

This would not help. I believe that moral philosophy is concerned with making choices, and the assumption is that actions naturally follow from the choices accordingly. Focusing only on actions, with complete disregard for the process of decision making, which leads to those actions, would be pointless in relation to moral philosophy because it would ignore the substance of moral philosophy, which is decision making.

This is a bizarre claim because it seems to rule out the possibility that I am just wrong, which is a common affliction among us humans. — Dan

There is always a reason why someone is wrong. It's already become extremely evident that you are wrong, so now I've moved along toward looking at the reasons for your mistakes.

Your question relies on the fallacy that if a problem is hard to solve, you should abandon the theory or position that spawned it. This seems fairly obviously not true. — Dan

That's not the situation here. There are two theories involved, not one, the moral value of freedom and the moral value of consequentialism. It is very obvious that the two theories are incompatible. I pointed that out to you when I first participated in this thread. If, after ten years of studying this subject, you still do not see what is very obvious, then there is a problem with your approach. If you insist that there is only one theory, your theory, that the two are compatible, then the ten years of study should have proven to you that they are not, and that theory is incorrect. I mean, I recognized the incompatibility after less than a half hour of reading your material.

So I am not saying that you should abandon a problem because it is difficult. I am saying that if after ten years of studying something, you cannot see what others see as obvious about that thing, then the problem must be with your approach. The solution to the problem is to change your approach, allow the possibility that the two are incompatible, and understand each of the two separately. It makes no sense to manipulate the concept of "freedom", or "free will", just to make it fit with consequentialism, because all this does is force you into expressing a misunderstanding of "freedom".

As to why I think consequentialism is the best approach to moral philosophy, I have a few reasons, but perhaps the most compelling is that I don't think we can make a principled distinction between choosing to make something happen and choosing to let it happen. To put it another way, between acting and allowing. Without such a distinction, consequentialism seems like the only really tenable position. — Dan

I think I see the problem with much more clarity now. You never learned the distinction between choosing and acting on one's choice. This distinction is necessary to uphold, for the reasons I explained. Because you never learned this distinction, and the great importance and significance of it, you did not have the principles required to make the distinction between choosing to make something happen (choosing to act), and choosing to let something happen (choosing not to act). Not recognizing the distinction between choosing, and acting, has made it impossible for you to understand a choice which is not an act, "choosing to let something happen". Choosing not to act is equivalent to acting for you, because you do not distinguish between choosing and acting..

Because of this misunderstanding, you have chosen consequentialism as the only tenable moral position. Clearly your ability to understand your own choice has been crippled by this misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that you do not differentiate between choosing and acting. And so you understand your choice of consequentialism, as the only tenable choice, when this is actually a misunderstanding. Your own ability to understand your own choice in this instance, is seriously deficient, due to this misunderstanding.

More generally, I suggest that your approach of assuming I am victim to a bias or indeed a disability may be an instance of engaging in a mode of thought that is perhaps not helpful. It seems, and feel free to disagree, that you are starting with the assumption that I am wrong and preceding from there. I suggest that this may be the cause of the strange understandings of what I mean. — Dan

I am simply employing your primary principle, "the ability to understand and make one's own choices". I am demonstrating how your ability to understand and make your own choice concerning the best moral philosophy, has been compromised by a failure to understand the distinction between choosing and acting.

So apparently if you didn't get a good look at the guy who hit you, you would just assume it was Tyson. I still don't see how you would write him a letter if you don't believe he exists. — Leontiskos

I don't pray myself, but I think that's how praying works. If your prayers are answered you assume it was God who did the answering. I don't understand the relevance of the last sentence though.

@Dan
So here's the situation as I see it.

I have been telling you since the beginning, that freedom of choice as the measure of moral value, is incompatible with consequentialist principles as the measure of moral value. This make the challenge of your op irrelevant. You are offering 10k to anyone who can solve a problem which a sound understanding would designate as impossible to solve.

The real issue then, is your motive for doing this. If it is true, as you say, that you've spent close to ten years studying this problem, then by now you should have come to the conclusion that the two are incompatible. This presents the possibility that you are being dishonest, either you did not spend that time studying this problem, or you already know that a solution is impossible and your challenge is a trick of some sort. Another possibility is that you have a disability in relation to your capacity to understand and make your own choices. This would mean that there is some kind of restriction, a force of habit or something similar, which is preventing you from understanding that your choice, to attempt to achieve compatibility between these two, is a choice to do something impossible.

Since intellectual dishonesty is a very serious moral flaw in my mind, I am inclined to stay away from the former possibility, and choose the latter, that you have a disability in your capacity to understand and make your own choices. The two factors are your believe in libertarian free will, and your believe that consequentialism provides the best moral conceptual structure. The former is very intuitive to me, so I accept it readily, but your adherence to consequentialism is not intuitive. So I conclude that your disability is most likely associated with your acceptance of consequentialism. This is what I call your consequentialist bias, it is a force of habit which is restricting your ability to understand and make your own choices.

Based on this assessment, I will ask you to justify your belief in consequentialism as providing the best conceptual structure for moral philosophy. To explain what I mean, consider the following example. Suppose you spent ten years trying to solve the problem of making the conceptual structure of libertarian free will compatible with the conceptual structure of consequentialist morality. In this time you were not able to solve this problem, and your philosophical studies only strengthened your believe in libertarian free will. Why would you continue to believe that the conceptual structure of consequentialism provides the best principles for moral philosophy?

You have not shown that. You have asserted that. I have properly accounted for understanding. — Dan

We obviously disagree on this point.

Very often, you seem to want words to correspond with concepts in the broadest possible sense. For example, when I say that being able to understand and make one's own choices is the measure of moral value, you seem to take that to mean that understanding generally is the measure of moral value. I suggest focusing more closely on the specific claim made. — Dan

I am not saying that by your claim, "understanding" is the only measure of moral value, I am saying that the ability to "understand" must be given equal weight with the ability to "make" one's own choices, by the statement which is your principle. You clearly give preference to the ability to carry out the act which is representative of the choice (because of your consequentialist bias), and when I give you examples concerning a person's ability to understand one's own choices you simply dismiss them as not morally relevant.

Do you not understand, that it is illogical for you to proceed in this direction? You have defined "moral value" with the principle "able to understand and make one's own choices". Therefore any situations which affect a person's ability to understand and make one's own choices are necessarily of moral value. It is contrary to logic (illogical) to then turn around, and approach from your consequentialist moral principles, and say that since this instance of inhibiting a person's ability to understand one's own choices appears to have no consequences in actions it is therefore not morally relevant. Moral relevance has been defined by that principle. So you cannot logically override your definition to say that in these cases, affecting one's ability to understand and make one's own choices is not morally relevant.

This is the problem I've been showing you since the beginning. You have two incompatible principles, moral value based in freedom, and moral value based in consequentialism, and you are trying to display them as being compatible. So you sometimes approach from the side of freedom (the ability to understand and make one's own choices is the measure of moral value), and you sometimes approach from the side of consequentialism (only specific actions are morally relevant), and when you meet in the middle, you annihilate the one side (the side of freedom) in preference of your consequentialist bias.

I think it is reasonable to say that your choices are limited by not being able to action them and that the way you are using the word "choice" is perhaps a bit nonstandard. — Dan

Again, you are displaying gross misunderstanding of the nature of "choice". You are appealing to common usage of the term instead of accepting a rigorous logical analysis of what a choice is.

Consider that any time a free agent initiates an act, the existing physical restrictions are immense. The agent must make a "choice", a selection, as to the nature of the act which will be attempted. This may involve a sort of decision. When the agent makes such a selection, the choice is conditioned by the agent's desires (intention), and the agent's knowledge of the immensity of physical restrictions. The immense physical restrictions, themselves, do not at all play a role in the agent's choice. That's the essence of "free will", the agent's choice is completely free from these physical restrictions. What plays a role in the agent's choice is the agent's understanding of the immense physical restrictions.

It may be the case, that in common usage we simplify the situation, for the sake of efficiency of communication, and say things like "I cannot choose that, because it is impossible to do that", but this is just that, a simplification. What it really means, is "I will not choose that because I understand it to be impossible". Notice that the latter is the true representation. It shows that the choice is made by a free will, which could still make the opposite choice, and it shows that the thing which is viewed as "impossible" is not necessarily impossible in an absolute sense, but is understood as impossible, by the agent making the choice.

Certainly your example of choosing what you will do tomorrow is quite odd, since it seems even in your example that the choice to do the action happens at a later time, and that a better word here might be "planning". — Dan

So what? "Planning" is just a specific type of "choosing".

This is the fault of your way of understanding "understanding" which is clearly deficient. You relate things to the more specific, and claim that this constitutes "understanding". You say to me "you seem to take that to mean that understanding generally is the measure of moral value. I suggest focusing more closely on the specific claim made", and so you fail in your denial of the relevance of the general.

Here's a simple example. Consider what it means to understand what "human being" means. You could point to many specific examples, showing me, those are human beings. But this does not demonstrate an "understanding", because you need to refer to the more general concepts, "mammal", "animal", "living", the concepts which inhere within the concept of "human being", as the defining features, to demonstrate a true understanding.

So when you point to a choice made about what will be done tomorrow, and you say 'that's not a case of making a choice, it's a case of planning', it's like pointing to a child, and saying 'that's not a mammal, it's a human being'. All you do here is demonstrate a gross misunderstanding.

But, more importantly, my question to you is whether your objection is a normative one or more a linguistic one? — Dan

As it is a case of pointing to a true and real separation, according to the concepts involved, (the separation between making a choice, and acting on a choice), my objection is normative. You ought to respect this difference which I have described, in order that we can go forward with our communication, and this discussion.

If you write a letter to Mike Tyson asking him to punch you in the face, and the next day a random guy on the street punches you in the face, has your petition been granted? Would you still await a response from Tyson? — Leontiskos

I don't understand your question. It does not seem to be comparable. If you ask God for something, or your favourite idol in the case of idolatry, and your wish comes true, how would you know whether this was caused by God, or the idol, some other cause, or just fate?

And as such, prayer is not restricted to God, worship (latria) is. — Leontiskos

Neither prayer nor worship is restricted to God. That's why the religious speak of false divinities, idols and heresy. And, that's part of the reason why the premise of the op is false.

But there is another, very serious issue I mentioned earlier, which has not been given attention in this thread. "God" is understood to have a will. And, because the will is understood to be free, there is no necessity between the intentional agent, and any described act, such that we could say that existence of the agent would necessitate that act. Therefore it is false to say that if God exists my prayers will be answered, or the inverted, if my prayers are not answered God does not exist.

There's a lot more for us to learn about the universe, and so far there is little reason to split it in two. — jkop

Actually there is a very good reason to split the universe in two. It's called time. The past and future are irreconcilably different, and the present conveniently divides these two. Therefore the split into two is already there, as a fundamental aspect of reality.

I haven't singled out cases. I have said that the morality of actions is determined by the extent to which they lead to consequencesthat protect or restrict/violated the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices. — Dan

As I've shown, "the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices", as explained by you, is not a reasonable principle. This is because you fail to properly account for the meaning of "understand" in your explanation. So you make that principle into something which neglects the moral value of understanding one's choices.

For example, you might be able to choose to leave the house if you're locked in a room. You might be unable to choose to go for a walk if you've had your legs broken by local mobsters. You might be unable to choose to sell your car if it's been stolen. Lots of things might prevent you being able to make those choices that belong to you. — Dan

None of these restrictions provide the force required for your claim. I can still choose to leave the room if I am locked in. Whether or not I am locked in the room only changes the probability of success or failure in carrying out my choice. Likewise, I can still choose to take a walk after my legs are broken. And I can still choose to sell my car even after it's been stolen.

This is what I've been telling you, these physical restrictions which might restrict one's freedom to act do not restrict one's ability to choose. This is very important to understand because it is fundamental to the advancement of science, that we can use our imaginations to hypothesize ways to get around things which appear to be physical restrictions. Look, we can now fly in airplanes, and human beings have gone to the moon. A few centuries ago these things would have seemed impossible due to physical restrictions.

Your examples simply display your failure to recognize the distinction between making a choice, and carrying out the chosen activity. As I told you, it is necessary to maintain this distinction to account for the fact that we often make mistakes or for some other reason do not succeed in carrying out the choices we make. Because of this we must conclude that the choice to act is distinct and separate from the act itself.

Another proof of this separation is the fact that I can choose today, what I will do tomorrow. The act does not necessarily follow directly and immediately from the choice. And in the meantime I might even change my mind, so the original choice is never even acted on. This clearly indicates that there is a separation between the choice, and the act which follows from the choice.

This is all very strong evidence that you misrepresent what it means to understand one's own choices.

The circumstance is not of people dying. The majority are souls about to return in another life. Human or animal. They have no physical body. Er's soul seems to have departed his body on the cusp between life and death. Just as the river can be seen as a border to cross. He is there in the Myth as an observer to return and tell the story, of the Myth. — Amity

That's very clearly not the case. Er's soul did not depart his body, otherwise the body would have started the decomposition process. These experiences are known as "near death". Er went on the trip with the others, without his soul leaving his body. The adventure occurred within that context. We can conclude therefore that this is the context of that trip, it is the process of dying, not the condition of being dead. This is prior to the returning in another life, which only occurs after the drinking of the water, which Er did not partake of.

The drinking symbolizes finality for Plato. It is the finality of Socrates when he drinks the poison. And, the will power to resist drinking non-potable water, when a man is thirsty, is the example Plato uses to demonstrate, that it is necessary to conclude, that the mind rules the body. This argument, concerning the will power of a thirsty person to resist the desire to drink, when the water is known to be likely unfit for drinking, is a very strong argument for the idea that the mind can rule over the desires of the body. Therefore drinking is a very powerful symbol in myths like this, and being forced to drink is very significant as representative of that moment when the body overpowers the soul, and puts an end to that rule. This is when the harmony of the parts, which is the effect of the soul ruling the body, is lost, and decomposition of the body begins.

It does not follow that the words are 'best understood' as having bad or negative connotations. Or as 'bad passions' which do as you suggest. — Amity

Again, this is clearly not the case. The situation described by Er is a situation in which the rule of the soul, over the body is being lost. By Plato's principles this is explicitly bad. Therefore the terms used here "forgetfulness", and "heedlessness" or "carelessness", mean that something bad is occurring. It would constitute misunderstanding, to deny the bad connotations of these words. This is undeniably a bad situation.

However, there are different ways to see 'carelessness'. As 'free from care' - having no worries, problems or anxieties. I can accept this as being necessary and welcome for the souls about to start a new life. They don't want to worry or about events in the past, present or future. — Amity

You appear to have an irrational inclination toward glorifying death. Death ought not be represented as freeing oneself from the problems of life. In no way does the myth of Er imply that this is the case. Notice, the souls in the final stages of dying are presented with the most difficult decision, what sort of life would be better than the one I just had. And, the souls are bound by fate to be subjected to the consequences of that final choice. Therefore, rather than being freed, the souls at this point are bound and sentenced to a lifetime of living out the consequences of that one, most important choice. That 'most important choice' is, 'what is the best possible life which a soul could have?'. Notice, the possibilities are restricted to those handed out by fate, and "having no worries, problems or anxieties" is not an option.

I am viewing this in its literary context. The perspective of the individual souls in the Myth of Er.
The need to drink from the river of Lethe as a way to progress, without care or anxiety, to a new life as a new-born. To blankly go where they haven't been before. Well, as far as they know... — Amity

Again, you are neglecting the essence of the myth. Read 618 please. The message concerns the 'all important', most significant, choice which must be made, "the greatest danger of all" 618b. That is the choice, to choose from the available options, the best possible life a soul could have. To the extent that we all have regrets, and no one would ever choose to live a life exactly as one has, the choice is "To blankly go where they haven't been before". But, as indicated in the translation below with " But there was no determination of the quality of soul, because the choice of a different life inevitably2 determined a different character", we need to decide which will be the best life. This is the problem, we must choose a life which is different, but by what principles will we know that the different will be better rather than worse.

However, this going forward which is presented, this proceeding, or "way to progress" is irreversibly conditioned (because the nature of time) by that all important, primary choice, which is forced upon the soul. Refusing to choose would mean a lifetime in purgatory. And if one is overcome by forgetfulness, or haste, the soul will be punished with suffering. Therefore a lifetime of experiences, in the future life, is dependent on this one choice, "what is the best possible life a soul could have". So it's completely opposed to the message of the myth, to say that the souls proceeds "without care or anxiety". If you believe that you can progress without care or anxiety, you will surely choose the life of tyranny.

[618a] And after this again the prophet placed the patterns of lives before them on the ground, far more numerous than the assembly. They were of every variety, for there were lives of all kinds of animals and all sorts of human lives, for there were tyrannies among them, some uninterrupted till the end1 and others destroyed midway and issuing in penuries and exiles and beggaries; and there were lives of men of repute for their forms and beauty and bodily strength otherwise [618b] and prowess and the high birth and the virtues of their ancestors, and others of ill repute in the same things, and similarly of women. But there was no determination of the quality of soul, because the choice of a different life inevitably2 determined a different character. But all other things were commingled with one another and with wealth and poverty and sickness and health and the intermediate3 conditions.

—And there, dear Glaucon, it appears, is the supreme hazard4 for a man. [618c] And this is the chief reason why it should be our main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, should seek after and study this thing5—if in any way he may be able to learn of and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow, and, taking into account all the things of which we have spoken and estimating the effect on the goodness of his life of their conjunction or their severance, to know how beauty commingled with poverty or wealth and combined with [618d] what habit of soul operates for good or for evil, and what are the effects of high and low birth and private station and office and strength and weakness and quickness of apprehension and dullness and all similar natural and acquired habits of the soul, when blended and combined with one another,6 so that with consideration of all these things he will be able to make a reasoned choice between the better and the worse life, [618e] with his eyes fixed on the nature of his soul, naming the worse life that which will tend to make it more unjust and the better that which will make it more just. But all other considerations he will dismiss, for we have seen that this is the best choice, [619a] both for life and death. And a man must take with him to the house of death an adamantine1 faith in this, that even there he may be undazzled2 by riches and similar trumpery, and may not precipitate himself into tyrannies and similar doings and so work many evils past cure and suffer still greater himself, but may know how always to choose in such things the life that is seated in the mean3 and shun the excess in either direction, both in this world so far as may be and in all the life to come; [619b] for this is the greatest happiness for man. — Perseus Digital Library

I suppose someone is at some threat of being drowned in the future if they don't know how to swim. There are quite a few differences between that and the case of someone pointing a gun at you and saying 'your money or your life' though, don't you think? — Dan

Sure, each case has a number of differences from every other. That is why I think your procedure of singling out specific cases and claiming "morally relevant" , and claiming others as "not morally relevant" is unjustified. You have not provided any reasonable principles for making that distinction.

Yeah, I don't think any of that is right. Finding a choice difficult to make because you aren't sure which option will be best for you is not the same thing as being unable to make it. — Dan

I do not see any other possibility for being unable to make a choice, other than that it is too difficult. How else could someone be unable to make a choice?

There is idolatry, which is a case people praying to something other than God. If God can answer prayers why not something else as well?

You can pray to anything, it need not be God, it's called idolatry. So one might believe, that if you simply pray, in general, to no specific divinity, you'd have the highest probability of having your prayers responded to, because you are not limiting the possible respondents to one particular divinity.

As already mentioned, I think the meaning matters as to the best fit in the context and circumstances. I won't rehash my view again. — Amity

I think we need to consider "context" as the entire work, "The Republic". This is what I said earlier, we look at the whole, and try to see how the part fits into the whole, and this is how we ought to understand, or interpret, that part. That is why multiple readings is the best course for understanding a philosophical piece. The first reading gives an overall, general idea about what is going on. This allows one to go back and reread, and better understand each part, in relation to how it fits into that understanding of the whole. Then, the person can develop a better understanding of the whole, and be prepared for a repeat.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'emotion based concepts'.
Is it that one can be seen as 'bad', the other 'good'?
So, I prefer 'forgetfulness' to 'heedlessness' or 'carelessness'. Other translators or readers prefer 'carelessness' which in my view has a negative connotation. — Amity

The translation to words with bad or good connotations is something which needs to be determined in relation to the overall context. Plato has separated mind from body, throughout the text, and has proposed a third aspect of the being, passion, or spirit, as the medium between these two. This conception is known as Plato's tripartite soul. In a healthy human being, the mind rules over the body through the means of the passions. This is the same way that the rulers rule over the working class through the means of the guardians, in Plato's proposed republic. In the case of an unhealthy, or corrupted soul, the situation is reversed, the passions are responding to the body, with the result being the suffering of the mind.

Now, in the situation described by the myth of Er, the people are dying, so the circumstance is one of unhealthiness. I believe it is better to consider them dying than dead, because Er managed to come back from this near death experience to tell the story. And, since it is a circumstance of unhealthy souls, the words are best understood to have bad connotations. So these words, "forgetfulness", "heedlessness", or "carelessness", are all best understood as the bad passions which are completely extinguishing the mind's rule over the body, and this will result in death.

The image of "thirst", I believe is very significant, because thirst is the example which Plato uses to show how in the case of a healthy soul, the mind can rule over the desires of the body. In the described circumstance of the myth, the mind is losing that capacity, and the soul is "forced" to drink, and this is what finalizes the end of the mind's rule over the body. This is also the death of Socrates, being forced to drink poison. So these words, heedlessness etc., are the words which are used to refer to those passions which overcome the mind, and lead to the end of the rule of mind over body.

This combines all of Plato's 3 parts of the soul: reason, spirited emotion and appetitive desire.

It seems that reason should be given the higher power but is this 'just'?
Isn't desire one of the main motivating factors. The desire to be healthy and well.
And fear - or concern - is the other. It is prudent not to die, if it can be helped. — Amity

The important point about the tripartite soul, is that the middle part, what you call "spirited emotion", is fundamentally neutral. You can think of it as power, and power can be used for good or for bad. If the emotions are directed by reason, the mind uses the emotions to control appetitive desires, and the soul is happy and good. Conversely, the appetitive part may use the emotions to overpower the mind. This relationship is best seen in the corresponding three parts of the state. The guardians are the median group. Corresponding with "spirited emotion", they are bred to be like watchdogs, serving their masters, the rulers, with honour. But when the state starts to corrupt, the guardians become more interested in money than honour, and they switch allegiance, from rulers to the ruled, the tradespeople.

In summary then, desire must be ruled by reason to avoid all sorts of moral problems. In this way, "the desire to be healthy and well" is given priority over the desire for instant gratification. There must be some kind of power there, as a motivating force, but it cannot be desire itself, or else reason would not have the capacity to overcome desire (Plato's example of thirst). So motivation, as power is assigned to the middle aspect, this allows that reason can overcome desire, or desire can overcome reason, depending on the disposition of the emotions.

Because of the heat and harsh conditions of the Plain of Forgetfulness it is necessary for the souls to drink from the River of Heedlessness. (621a) In his closing comments Socrates refers to the river as the river of Forgetfulness rather than the river of Heedlessness. What is the connection between heedlessness and forgetfulness? — Fooloso4

I would not attach too much specific importance to these words. These are generally emotion based concepts, and the words for feelings are used in a variety of ways, and ways which are rapidly changing as the days pass by, making them not well-defined. Furthermore, we have a second layer of ambiguity created by the word employed by the translator, and it being not well-defined in the same way.

It might be important though, to note that "thirst" is an important symbol to Plato, in his example of how the body is distinct from the soul, and very clear proof that the body is directed by, or ruled by, the soul. Thirst drives a man with a hard and fast desire to drink, which is extremely difficult to overcome with will power, when the water in front of one is known to be in some way not safe for human consumption. The capacity for a thirsty person to resist the desire to drink water which is known to be unsafe, is Plato's principal example of how reason, as a property of the soul, has the power to rule over the body. Notice in the myth, that the souls are forced to drink, as they are ruled by a power which is even higher than human reason.

So you are saying that your prayers might still be answered even if God does not exist? So that an atheist could be justified in praying? — Leontiskos

The inverse fallacy is the perfect example of the need for skepticism. When we establish a cause/effect relationship between two types of events, A and B, this is based on either noticing that the first brings about the second, or in the case of the op, assuming that the first brings about the second. When the relationship is well known, and well documented, we get accustomed to it, and this produces a corresponding certitude surrounding those events.

The problem is that we never know for sure whether or not something other than A might bring about the occurrence of B. Because some degree of uncertainty lingers, even though we might say with a great degree of certainty that A always produces B, we cannot validly conclude that if we have B there must have been A.

There are many very good examples of this. For instance, the boiling point of water. We see that 100 degrees Celsius causes water to boil. But we cannot say that if water is boiling its temperature has reached that point, because pressure plays a role to decrease boiling temperature.

This is why ancient skeptics like Socrates and Plato were so persistent in warning us about how the senses mislead us. It is through this process whereby our inductively produced customs are held to high esteem. You can see that in those days it was assumed that the sun orbiting the earth caused the appearance of sunrise and sunset. If we do not allow the skeptic's premise, that possibly something other than the sun orbiting the earth could cause sunrise and sunset, we deny the possibility of advancements to scientific knowledge.

None of that matters. Just assume that the premise is true. The conclusion is still (superficially) counterintuitive. — Michael

The occurrence of a counterintuitive conclusion is the argument which Aristotle used against sophistry. This is why he placed Intuition as the highest form of knowledge. The sophists, such as Zeno, could use logic to produce absurd conclusions. When a conclusion produced from valid logic is strongly counterintuitive, this indicates the need to address the premises. It is very likely that there is hidden falsity, and that's what Socrates and Plato were demonstrating was the trick of sophistry, to veil falsity within the premises.

The issue concerns making sense of the argument's validity, not proving or disprove its soundness. — Michael

Nah, that's boring, Benkei went through that already on the first page, and as far as I'm concerned nothing more needs to be said. The real issue is the question of how this form of logic can produce seemingly absurd conclusions. And that was demonstrated by Hanover, it separates the form from the content.

This, I've argued in other places is the problem with "formalism" in general, it is an attempt to separate form from content, and this cannot actually be done without rendering the logic as totally meaningless and useless. So what happens is that little snippets of content get hidden within the logical form of the argument, or else there's be no argument. And, content always contains some degree of uncertainty. Then the form, being the logical process itself, has room for error inherent within it, rendering this a less than perfect form of logic. That is how formalism contaminates logic with uncertainty, in its attempt to do the impossible, remove all uncertainty (content).

They’ve done things that nobody thought was even possible.”

I'd say that's quite the feat. The envy is showing.

The argument is valid but its first premise is false (or at least hasn't been proven to be true). — Michael

The first premise is the product of an inversion fallacy which I explained on the first page of this thread. There is an assumed cause/effect relation between God's existence and prayers being answered. We say that prayers being answered is the effect, and God's existence is the cause of this effect. God's existence causes prayers to be answered. However, it's an inverse fallacy to say that if prayers are answered then God exists. And saying "if God does not exist my prayers will not be answered" is another way of representing that same fallacious conclusion. So, the first premise, "If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be answered" is a convoluted representation of that very same inversion fallacy.

The first premise is the product of a logical fallacy, and therefore can be considered to be false on that basis. I believe this is the fallacy which Hanover refers to as making the argument "inductively false".

For example, if you provide the location of an assassin's target and I provide the asssassin with a sniper rifle (assuming they couldn't get either of these things otherwise), and the assassin then assassinates said target with said rifle, surely we all bear some responsibility here. — Dan

OK, so now you accept that teaching someone something (providing the location in your example), actually is causal in a morally relevant way. I'm glad you've come to understand that.

Now, you need to justify the boundary you impose between some acts of teaching, and others. Why, for instance is the person who taught the assassin morally responsible, yet the person who taught the arsonist how to light a fire, is not. Your principle of understanding one's own choices seems completely inadequate. The difference to me seems to be a difference of intention.

It is different because in the case of coercion it leaves the person with the choice to do as you say or have their freedom violated in some way. — Dan

I don't see the difference. A threat involves the possibility of having freedom restricted. Likewise,
when someone offers to teach you how to swim, there is the possibility that your freedom will be violated in the future, by drowning, if you choose not to accept the offer. Your claim of a difference is unsubstantiated. The forces of nature are all around us, violating our freedom in many different ways, and learning helps us to make choices which avoid these violations. So I really believe your claim of a difference is completely unjustified.

I do not employ an arbitrary division. The divison I employ is whether the communication in question restricts/violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices. — Dan

As I said, if these are your claimed principles, you obviously do not know what "understand" means, or you are using the word in a very unusual way.

You could grab someone and carry/push/otherwise bundle them into a car. That would be forcing them into a car and different from persauding them to get in. I was thinking more that kind of thing, rather moving someone like a puppet. — Dan

Kidnapping a person is not forcing them to do something. You were talking about forcing a person to do something, as distinct from persuading or threatening them to cause them to do it. I do not see how anyone could force someone to do something other than by some form of persuasion, such as a threat. But all these are instances of using communication to tell people something. By what principle do you distinguish some cases as morally relevant and others as not?

You can decieve and educate people on a lot of things that aren't the nature of their own choices. — Dan

It's not a matter of learning about the nature of one's own choices, it's a matter of how education effects one's ability to make one's own choices. You seem to have no respect for how a difference in the number of possibilities present to one's mind, at the time of making a decision, affects the person's ability to make decisions. This is what I've been telling you about since the beginning, and why habit makes a significant difference to one's decision making ability. Lack of relevant knowledge makes a choice difficult, decreasing one's ability to make choices. Increased knowledge which is relevant to the situation makes the choice easier, increasing one's ability to make the choice. This has nothing to do with whether the knowledge is about the nature of making a choice.

You need to take a good look at what "the ability to make a choice" means. Clearly the degree of knowledge which is relevant to the circumstances at hand, affects that ability. This is a principle which is applicable to any type of decision making. Now you propose a special type of decision making, making one's own choice, and my principle, "the degree of knowledge which is relevant to the circumstances at hand, affects that ability", is clearly applicable, just like it is applicable to any other type of choosing.

This is knowledge which is relevant to the circumstances, it is not knowledge about the special type of choice you are proposing. Further, there is another type of knowledge which aids a person in determining which knowledge is relevant to the circumstances, and this is where habit is very important. If the person's mind goes only toward some specific information, avoiding other information which is actually relevant, excluding it as irrelevant, this severely restricts the person's ability to make the choice. Therefore, if one were to apply the principle (or habit) that only knowledge about the nature of making one's own decision is applicable, in any set of circumstances where the person wants to make one's own decision, this would actually be extremely restrictive to a person's ability to make one's own decisions. That is what you are proposing, a severe restriction to one's ability to make one's own choices.

Okay, pretty much all of that is wrong. — Dan

Of course it is all wrong. You described for me specific things, like a distinction between "free will" and "freedom", and I proceed on that basis to show inconsistency in your thesis, so now you must take back what you said, as "all of it is wrong".

So let's go back then, and you can try again. Please define "free will", and "freedom", so that I can have some sort of understanding of what you are talking about.

I believe we can take modern usage of "necessity", and divide it into two principal categories. We have on the one hand, what is said to be "necessary" as determined by the physical forces of the universe, or the laws of nature. This is the sense which is at the base of determinism. On the other hand we have what is "necessary" as determined by the needs of a free willing being. This is the sense when people desire something as the means to an end, it is needed for that purpose.

We can see, that in much of common, modern usage, it is usually not hard to distinguish the two, it's a pretty straight forward analysis which is required to make that judgement. However, then we have a type of necessity which can be understood as "logical necessity". This is what forces logical conclusions. A thorough analysis will show that this sense of "necessity" is really a subdivision of the sense which is based in the needs of a free willing being, "the means to an end". However, many people will not accept this designation, wanting to assign "logical necessity" more force, making it closer to the sense of "necessity" which is at the base of determinism. However, they generally find that it doesn't quite qualify as a determinist "necessity" because it cannot be shown to be driven by the laws of nature. So they propose another distinct sense of "necessity", a third principal type.

The acceptance of this third type of "necessity" produces a lot of confusion, making the judgement of a specific instance of usage much more difficult. Instead of seeing logic as the means to an end, we now have to distinguish the use of logic as distinct from other decision making practises, to place it in a distinct category which some want to portray as closer to being "necessity" in the sense of being driven by the laws of nature than to being "the means to an end". Furthermore, since decision making generally involves some form of logic, it pulls the whole model of "choice" away from the "means to an end" portrayal toward the determinist portrayal.

In reality, a complete and very thorough analysis of "the concept", "necessity", shows that the opposite is what is the case. The "necessity" of determinism is just a special type of "logical necessity", which is a special type of "means to an end" type of "necessity".

We can see, that in Plato's day these distinctions were even less clear than they are today. The concept "|necessity" was young and underdeveloped. But we have to keep in mind, that since the "means to an end" sense is the overarching sense, it is the other sense, the highly specialized determinist sense of "necessary by the laws of nature" which is not yet developed at Plato's time. It is portrayed as "fate". So we see a recognizable representation of "the means to an end" sense of necessity, but the determinist "laws of nature" sense is not well portrayed at all. It is presented as "a lottery". What we call "the laws of nature" present us with one's "lot in life", the circumstances of one's being, and this is presented by Plato as random chance, with some sort of "necessity" lurking beneath it, which drives it. That sense of "necessity" is some how comparable, or related to the "necessity" which is "the means to an end", but the relation is not really intelligible to those people involved in that discussion because they have a primitive understanding about the laws of nature and determinist forces.

As depicted in the story, the options are listed as what the lottery offers. Some are left scrabbling for the last bits. — Paine

The point though, is that the order in which the souls get to choose, is dictated (necessitated) by the lottery, which as a lottery, appears as random chance. So those who have the number of possibilities available for their choices, severely restricted (scrabbling for the last bits), suffer from a necessity which is imposed by chance, the lottery.

Compare this lottery to the one Plato proposes earlier, the lottery which selects breeding partners. The breeding order is necessitated by the lottery. Just like in the case of the souls whose order of choosing is determined by the lottery, to those involved in the selection process, the necessity appears to be imposed by chance. In both cases, to those being selected from, it appears like the order is produced from a purely random, chance lottery. However, we see that in the one example, there is really intelligence behind the scene which creates the appearance of random chance for all those being selected from, and only a distinct class of people are privy to that information. Plato has guided us to allow for the possibility that what appears as a chance lottery, which is behind the necessity that imposes itself on us, there might really not be a chance lottery at all.

I don't think it has to be quite so all or nothing. I'd be open to the idea that certain preceding events were necessary but not sufficient causes of some action being undertaken. — Dan

We could take that route, but I think it would prove disastrous to consequentialism. Consider that if we maintain such principles, that there are necessary conditions for an effect, but none of these can suffice as the cause of the effect, then we do not have what is required to tie the voluntary act to the consequences, as the cause of those consequences. The circumstances which a human being finds oneself in, are all equally necessary for the resulting consequences, and "causation" has been reduced in this way, such that the voluntary act cannot be said to suffice as "the cause" of the consequences, it is necessary but not sufficient.

Persuading someone to do something is not forcing them to do it. Coercing someone by threatening them could plausibly be considered forcing. What you are doing in such a case is restricting their choices through a threat (for example, give me your money or I will shoot you). This is not inconsistent with thinking that one's actions are not wholly determined by preceding factors or in-principle predictable with 100% accuracy. — Dan

The issue is that threatening is a matter of persuading someone through the use of communication. The question for you, is how is this substantially different from any other form of persuading someone through the use of communication, teaching and deceiving in general?

My criticism is that you employ an arbitrary division whereby sometimes the use of communication is morally relevant, and other times it is not. And the principles you employ in making this division are not based in whether the use of communication is good, bad, or indifferent, as they should be for a true determination of "morally relevant". Your principles are based in harm or benefit to body and property, with complete neglect for harm or benefit to one's mind, even though your claim is that the principles are based in the ability to understand and make one's own choices.

This is also fairly obvious in the case where you are literally forcing someone to do something, such as by grabbing them and physically making them do it. This is not the same thing as persauding someone or educating someone. — Dan

This is nonsense. You cannot grab a person and make them act out a procedure. How could they be performing the request while they are being held? What are you insinuating, that you could grab a person and move their arms and legs like a puppet, making them carry out an act? You are slipping into nonsense Dan.

Some actions restrict someone's ability to understand and make their own choices and some don't. The use of force is often in the former category, and the use of deception or education is often in the latter. — Dan

You really haven't taken a look at what the word "understand" means. If you truly believe that deception and education do not, in general, effect one's ability to understand one's own choices, you have a lot of reading, and thinking, to do.

But, again, this is consequentialism. The type of action is not what is important. It is the consequences which determine an actions morality. In cases where education restricts someone's ability to understand and make their own choices (generally this would involve teaching them something incorrect about the nature of those choices or about some threat etc) then that education is morally bad. But, for example, teaching someone how many wives Henry the 8th had does not restrict their ability to understand and make their own choices. — Dan

You've fallen into a trap. Just last post, you distinguished between "free will" and "freedom". And, I explained how "free will" as you defined it related to decision making, choice, (which is mental), and "freedom" as you separated it from free will, related to (physical) actions in the world. Then, to avoid having to deal with causation in the realm of the mental, decision making, and free will, you proposed a distinction between sufficient and necessary. Now you want to focus on consequentialism, and the world of physical actions, but your proposed distinction between sufficient and necessary, in the terms of causation, completely undermine your consequentialist principles.

I see what you mean. Your explanation shows the argument to be invalid though, because it puts a second instance of the same fallacy, in the second part. And that fallacy is required to carry out the procedure.

I'm not sure why the inversion fallacy is considered a separate fallacy from the fallacy of denying the antecedent. It only seems to differ in the assumption that if "If P, then Q" is true that therefore "if not P, then not Q" must also be true. But you get there if you analyse it as denying the antecedent as well. — Benkei

I think it actually is the same, just different names for the same problem.

The quote I took from Wikipedia concerns what happens when the problem is carried into inductive premises which are naturally probabilistic. It throws a skeptic's curveball at the problem, by making the relation not "necessary" in either direction, because there is not the required relation between the two, in either direction. I think that's what says. In reality, there is no necessary relation between God's existence and prayers being answered, in either direction, because "fate" might answer the prayers, instead of God, and God could choose not to answer prayers. That's where freedom of choice throws the curveball at cause/effect relations.

If not P, then not Q (if R, then S)
Q equals if R, then S
Not R
Therefore, not S
Therefore, Q (through double negation)
Therefore, P

But not "R" therefore not "S" is denying the antecedent in the secondary argument "if I pray, then my prayers will be answered". So this is still invalid if you ask me. — Benkei

Thank you, that's a very nice, clear explanation as to why it is a case of "denying the antecedent", sometimes called an inversion fallacy. The issue is that the assumed necessary relation does not carry in both directions, and this is very significant in cases of cause/effect. We see that A causes B and we establish the necessary relation "if A then B", assuming A does not have freedom of choice in the matter. But we might be fooled if we do not allow that B could be caused by something else, therefore to prevent that possibility of being misled by the inversion, we cannot say if B then A.

So the issue here is that there is an assumed causal relation between God and prayers being answered, such that God causes prayers to be answered, The necessary relation is that God is the cause of prayers being answered, if G then PA. Where the fallacy lies, is in the assumption that this can be turned around, to say that if prayers are answered, then God must exist. We must maintain the possibility that the effect could have another cause. So the fallacy inheres within the claim "if God does not exist my prayers will not be answered". That primary premise, as an inversion of "God is the cause of prayers being answered", already has within it, the fallacy. According to the nature of cause/effect relations we must maintain the possibility that the effect can occur without the known cause.

The myth is concerned with decision making and I think the big issue is the relation between possibility and necessity, and the role of each in the art of decision making. Each soul is free to decide its own destiny by choosing the life which it wants, from the vast multitude of possibilities. However, the drawing of the lots is the necessity which forces the decision.

The premise states a conditional concerning "if God does not exist". We cannot proceed logically, from that premise to make any conclusions about what would be the case "if God does exist". Such a conclusion would be an "inverse fallacy".

Here's Wikipedia:
"Confusion of the inverse, also called the conditional probability fallacy or the inverse fallacy, is a logical fallacy whereupon a conditional probability is equated with its inverse; that is, given two events A and B, the probability of A happening given that B has happened is assumed to be about the same as the probability of B given A, when there is actually no evidence for this assumption."

In other words, once you understand the relation between the antecedent and the consequent, in this type of conditional, as a relation of probability, you will see the argument in a completely different way. The relation between "if God does not exist", and "my prayers will not be answered" is a relation of probability.

I am going to be slow to respond to the other parts of the Er story because I am a slow reader. — Paine

You might notice the basic principle of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean at 619a:

"And we must always know how to choose the mean in such lives and how to avoid either of the extremes, as far as possible, both in this life and in all those beyond it. This is the way that a human being becomes happiest."

This section deals with the art of decision making. And, it's interesting that those who have had a good life are portrayed as being bad decision makers because they are rash in thinking that they already know what's best, but those who have had to suffer take their time to deliberate, grasping the importance of avoiding a repeat of suffering.

Sorry, sloppy mistake, or a strange sort of typo, in my last post. The question was meant to be, how do you proceed from the premise "if God does not exist..." to "therefore God exists" without an inversion fallacy?

If God does not exist, then it is false that if I pray, then my prayers will be answered. So I do not pray. — Banno

How do you conclude "God exists" from this? Since the premise is "If God exists..", doesn't the conclusion of "God exists" involve an inversion fallacy?

The myth is excellent for bringing out the juxtaposition of necessity and possibility, and ultimately how this relates to choice or selection. The assumption is that there is always some sort of necessity behind every act of selection, but the necessity is often veiled so that the selection appears as chance. This is the hidden nature of intention, and Plato's assumption that what appears to be random chance, is really guided by an underlying, unveiled necessity. That is the principle employed by the fixed lottery proposed as the selection lottery for breeding, and the use of the noble lie. Selection appears like random chance, an idea propagated by the lie, but only to those who are not privy to the reality of the underlying necessity.

Now, apply these principles to Darwinian natural selection as juxtaposed with Darwinian artificial selection in husbandry, and go have some fun.

Fair enough. I would suggest that for an agent to have libertarian free will, it must be the case that their actions are caused by the agent themselves and not wholly determined by preceding events (I think I'd also add that they aren't random but that's maybe a debate for another day), and that their actions are in-principle not wholly predictable with 100% accuracy prior to their occurance (Lapse's demon is impossible). — Dan

OK, so the key phrase is "not wholly determined by preceding events". I would say that "determined" is the type of concept where we would say that an action is either determined by preceding events, or it is not. That's my understanding of "determined". It wouldn't make sense to say that an act was partially determined, because determined is an all or nothing sort of concept. So, I will assume that by "not wholly determined by preceding events" you mean not determined by preceding events.

I mean, I think freedom and free will are different things. As I have said before, I would say that freedom is the ability to understand and make choices (and I would say that the kind of freedom that we should care about morally is the freedom to make one's own choices). — Dan

I would not make the distinction in this way. What I described earlier, is a difference between choosing and acting. I would say that "free will" involves choosing freely, and "freedom" involves acting freely. Notice that this distinction is necessary to account for the reality of cases where people choose to do something, and it ends up that they cannot do it, or they fail for some reason. So for example, if I choose to steal your car, that's a freely made choice, of my own free will, but if you shoot me, or if I'm arrested, then obviously I did not have the freedom to carry out that act.

Having free will is not the same as being able to use it to make your choices (since those choices might be restricted in some way). — Dan

This seems to be similar, to what I said, but I think you really need the distinction between choosing and acting. We need to recognize that distinction because choices are made within one's mind, and the factors which restrict one's choice, lack of education, inattention, rashness, desires, and all sorts of emotional things, are completely different from the factors which restrict ones actions. The things which restrict ones actions are those things which are expressed by the laws of the physical world, the activities in that world.

Because of this difference, one can choose all sorts of fantasy things, which might never come true. So there is often an inconsistency between what one chooses and what one actually receives from the world. But this facet of free choice is very important to theoretical thinking, like pure mathematics, and the creation of scientific hypotheses. The physical world is full of things which appear to us as restrictive, but our ability to transcend all those restrictions, with our minds, allows us to dream up ways around the apparent restrictions. That is the essence of problem solving. This ability to "dream" is what lifts us beyond things which appear to us as physical restrictions to our freedom, but which we may ultimately find a way around because the free will of our minds, to choose, is not restricted by those "apparent" restrictions. Here we have technology.

When I talk about a "free agent" I mean an agent possessing free will. I am not making a claim about how restricted or unrestricted their freedom is. — Dan

I believe this distinction between "free will", which which refers to the capacity of the mind to understand and choose, and "freedom", which refers to the capacity of the human being to act in the world, is very important to maintain in moral philosophy. Once we clearly define this boundary, we see that "freedom" is inherently restricted in many ways which "free will" is not. And since in moral philosophy we must start from the most base level of restriction, the restrictions to free will, as restrictions to the mind's capacity to understand and choose, we need to start with those things I've mentioned, education, deception, and even genetic disposition which is a form of restriction more base than learning.

The most base restrictions are the strongest and most influential restrictions. After this, we can move to the higher levels of restrictions, the restrictions to our freedom. And, the reason for maintaining a distinction between the two, is to allow for interactive relations between them, as a true model needs this separation to allow for reciprocation. These interactive relations are well exemplified by the process known as "trial and error". The mind comes up with an idea (a choice) and has to try it out in the physical world. In science, this is experimentation. Notice how this is representative of different types of free will choices, ones which are based in untried and very uncertain speculations, and ones which are based in proven and very certain principles.

Yes, because "forcing" someone to do something means something different than the "forces" of the universe, and I was very confused that you seemed to be using them interchangably. — Dan

The "forces" which a person applies to another, in forcing that person, are the "forces" of the universe. There is no other type of "force" available to the person, to use when "forcing" another, so the word has the very same meaning. The difference is as I explained, we can be restricted by force, or we can use force to our advantage. In the case of "forcing another", the person is manipulating the forces of the universe to take advantage of another.

However, you use an ambiguous and deceptive phrase, "forcing someone to do something", in order to veil your underlying inconsistency. When a person persuades or coerces another into carrying out an act for them (forces someone to do something), they use words, gestures, or other actions, to influence a person's decision making (to get them to decide to do the thing), they "cause" the person to decide on that act. But your stated principles of libertarian free will do not allow that a free agent's choices can be caused in this way.

Therefore you propose that "force" has a different meaning. This is a type of meaning which allows that a freely willed choice can actually be caused, "forced", by another person. But it's really nothing but contradiction. The free agent's choice is not caused, and cannot be caused. That's what being a free agent means. The proposed use of the word "force" is to signify a cause, which does not qualify as a "cause" because that would negate "free agent". So the word "force" is used instead of "cause", because if you said that a person could cause another person to do something, the contradiction between this and the principles of libertarian free will would be blatant.

This I believe is the most significant problem you've shown to me, in your principles, the above inconsistency. You dismiss all sorts of communications, teaching, deceiving, etc., as not able to have any causal effect on another's choices, because people have "libertarian free will", which means that their choices are not caused. However, then you allow that one person can "force" another to do something. But this proposed type of "force" is nothing other than persuading or coercing through teaching or deceiving, and it's really just an instance of communicating with another.

The glaring problem is that you deny the moral relevance of all sorts of communicative activities, saying that the agent is free, and these activities are not causal. Then, you cannot help but notice the reality that communicative activities really obtain the highest level of moral relevance, so you give this a special name "force someone", and separate it off, as completely distinct. Then you argue as if there is no similarity, no continuity between them, not allowing for some sort of scale of degrees of difference, between teaching, deceiving, and "forcing", all being activities of the same category. This is because of that above mentioned inconsistency. You really want "forcing" to qualify as "causing", and the others not to qualify as "causing". But "causing" cannot be provided for by libertarian free will, so you give it a different name, "forcing", and you speak as if it is something in a completely different category, when really it's nothing other than a matter of influencing a person through the means of communication.

I understand that there are many specific notions and fictions tied together in different books of the Republic. And yes, it does lead to confusion. — Amity

I believe, that it is this way of looking at things which is what leads to confusion. Instead of looking at the work as one united fiction, parts tied together in unity, building a cohesive conception, you are looking at a number of different fictions, which are somehow, supposed to be tied together.

This way of looking, which you describe, removes each section from the context of the whole, understands that section on its own, then attempts to establish a relation between it and other sections. Since the separated section cannot be adequately understood on its own, out of context, it is misunderstood. Then the attempt to relate it to other sections is very confusing, filled with the appearance of incoherency and contradiction between the distinct sections, due to that misunderstanding of the sections.

The proper way to understand a work of philosophy like this, is to take the whole as that which gives context, and then understand each section according to the context it is in. This will assist greatly in preventing you from giving a faulty interpretation to an individual section, i.e. an interpretation which does fit with the rest of the whole. That type of faulty interpretation is a great cause of confusion.

Please point me to where it tells of the 'selection process' in this fiction.
The males don't go through the travails of repeated pregnancies. — Amity

In Bk 5, the males are subjected to a false (fixed) lottery to determine who gets to breed. The true selection process is not revealed by the rulers. The males go through the travails of repeatedly losing the lottery.

Pregnancy is a fact of nature, which is irrelevant here. Since Plato was strongly into eugenics, I'm sure that if he could have conceived of a way to have laboratory babies instead of having women pregnant, he would have jumped on that opportunity.

At this point, I think the class system as imagined by Plato is a fiction within a fiction tied up in a bow of confusion and contradiction. — Amity

The entire proposal is imaginary, that's pretty clear. To say that one particular aspect is a fiction within a fiction is not really meaningful. You are just isolating it as a separate part of the overall fiction. It's generally not very helpful to attempt to completely separate aspects of a conception like this, because the various aspects tie together, and rely on each other for meaning. Analyzing a specific aspect, in isolation, usually will lead to confusion, because the ties, associations, required to develop the intended meaning are dropped.

Given that one of the roles of women is to have sex with select males on a temporary basis, it's clear that they are seen as baby producers. — Amity

If you consider the selection process, you'll see that the men are selected as "baby producers" just as much as the women are. This selection process is known by us as eugenics. In agriculture it is a very important part of what is called husbandry. Notice, Plato compares the guardians to dogs, and makes an analogy with the breeding of dogs. Advances in science have brought us into a new realm of husbandry known as GM.

I am not convinced that many women of wisdom would be happy or healthy in such a state. — Amity

Health ought not be a problem. There is nothing to indicate that a person would be less healthy in Plato's type of state. In fact, Plato describes the means to physical health through gymnastics, and mental health through music. And happiness, in relation to the breeding program, is ensured by the "noble lie".