Can you give me any reasons to change my mind? — Relativist

Read the op, and what I said in my last post. Only minds provide a spatial-temporal perspective, and without assuming such a perspective, all these supposed mind independent things, the world, the universe, even "reality" itself, are completely unintelligible.

If what is addressed by the term “reality” (I presume physical reality which, in a nutshell, is that actuality (or set of actualities) which affects all minds in equal manners irrespective of what individual minds might believe or else interpret, etc.) will itself be contingent on the occurrence of all minds which simultaneously exist—and, maybe needless to add, if the position of solipsism is … utterly false—then the following will necessarily hold: reality can only be independent of any one individual mind. As it is will be independent of any particular cohort of minds—just as long as this cohort is not taken to be that of “all minds that occur in the cosmos”. — javra

I really can't understand what you are saying here javra. Perhaps you could rephrase it?

Do you really doubt there exists a mind-independent reality? — Relativist

I think the idea of a mind-independent reality is really incoherent. Reality is something which minds create, as pointed out by the op. If you try to imagine the world as existing without any point-of-view, from no perspective at all, it becomes completely unintelligible, so it cannot be imagined. That's because "reality" as we know it, is point-of-view dependent. So the idea of a mind-independent reality really is incoherent.

The state has been conceived as a person for quite some time, for example in Hobbes, but at least as far back as Ancient Rome. — NOS4A2

I would argue that these are faulty political theories. The problem being that anyone can produce a political theory designed for one's own special purposes. That's the approach of the tyrant. As dedicated philosophers, we scrutinize such theories for soundness.

Those in charge are people. And might does not make right. — Clearbury

Still, "people" is different from "a person". The former implies a multitude unified by some principle. The latter is an individual. The question is what unifies some, such that you refer to them as "people", yet others in your discussion are individuals, "a person". Obviously, the unified "people" have far more power than an individual person. You seem to think that there is something wrong with this, but it's just a simple fact of nature, that unified people as an entity, have far more power than distinct individuals as entities. If you want to negate this natural fact, or show it to be wrong, then you have some work to do.

Therefore, what it is just for those in charge to do can be determined by considering what it would be just for individuals to do to one another. — Clearbury

You have not provided the premises required to validly make this conclusion. Look at the difference between the relations, and consequent activities, required between individuals, to produce a unified whole, and the actions required to maintain an already established unified whole. The former involves principles of internal relations, designated as "good", conducive to unity. The latter must include principles to deal with external relations which are destructive to the unity, designated as "bad".

Anything conducive to unity can be understood as an internal relation, good, and anything destructive is external, bad. Under these principles any activities which are bad, are not understood as internal person to person relations, but are understood as external forces destructive to the unity. The destructive forces must be dealt with in ways other than as person to person relations which are conducive to the unity. Therefore they cannot be classed as the same.

It seems to me, like you want to deny the principle of "unity", and put every individual on equal standing. If so, then you cannot us terms like "the state". And if you speak about a special class of "people" who are "in charge", then you have to clearly identify what they are in charge of. So if you say that they are in charge of maintaining some type of unity, then this necessarily gives them special status to determine things which are destructive to that unity, and corresponding special powers to prevent these destructive things.

I take it to be morally self-evident that might does not make right. If I am more powerful than you, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to trample on your rights. I am simply more able to do so, but not more entitled to do so. So if it would be wrong for me to use force against you, then it is also wrong for a person with more power than I have to use force against you. And that now applies to the state and politicians. They have more power than the rest of us, but they are not more entitled to force us to do things than the rest of us. — Clearbury

You seem to be confusing "the state" with "a person". So your example ("If I am more powerful than you, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to trample on your rights. I am simply more able to do so, but not more entitled to do so.") is not relevant. The example compares the power of two persons, but then you go on to talk about the power of "the state". The state is not a person. So if you want to compare the power of the state to the power of a person, and the justifiability of the use of force by each one of these distinct entities, you need to start with a good definition, or conception, of what each one of these is. Otherwise it's a pointless exercise.

I don't know how there can be understanding if there is nothing to understand — Patterner

Understanding, is of meaning, and meaning does not consist of things. This is how we can avoid the infinite regress. If a thing, in this case an object of knowledge, consists of parts in specific relations to each other, and each part is itself a thing, then an infinite regress is implied. But if we allow that understanding is prior to knowing, then the object of knowledge, the fact, can consist solely of meaning without any things, and the infinite regress is avoided.

Entirely likely. But it is, as you just said, s fact that is learned, And if it 'will be integral to an understanding at a later time,' then it is not when learned. It is just a fact. — Patterner

But "the fact" which is learned, is produced, created, by understanding. The fact is a judgement, let's say a judgement that X is true (this penny was minted in 2003). The judgement depends on, is supported by, or is created by, a specialized understanding which is specific to the knowing of that particular "fact'. The understanding may consist of other objects of knowledge, "facts", in relation to each other, but as described above, this is not necessary. And any time that there is a new fact in your mind, this new fact is supported by a new understanding.

That's true. But I don't always learn any amount of any type of understanding underlying anything each time I learn a new fact. I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar. Learning that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003 does not give me any new understanding of anything. — Patterner

I think the difficulty here is with your assumption that understanding must be of something. Consider understanding to be the relationships which create the whole from the parts. As such, it is an unobserved part of the whole, which is determined through retrospect and logical analysis. Context is of the essence here, because a so-called "fact" which is learned as a fact at one time, will be at a later time, integral to an understanding.

This is why there is the appearance of infinite regress, each "fact" is composed of smaller facts united by understanding. But those smaller facts must be also composed of even smaller facts, so some would propose fundamental elements, similar to atoms, elements of knowledge.

Now, consider that you can learn about a relationship between two things, yet be completely unfamiliar with the whole, which would put the learned relationship into a larger context. Faulty speculations, and assumptions about the larger context is what leads to a lot of misunderstanding.

What I am saying, is that knowing is what produces closure to the understanding, making a whole "thing" out of the underlying understandings (or misunderstandings). And knowing is fallible because it may consist of misunderstandings. This is where mistake is common, in producing closure, judgement, which creates an object of knowledge, a supposed fact, when there is misunderstanding inherent within that object.

So your example, "that a particular penny in my pocket was minted in 2003" is an object of knowledge, a particular "thing", a supposed fact. However, I assume that it consists of an understanding of the relation between the penny and the numbers printed on it. That's how you learned this fact, by looking at the numbers. But this fact requires an understanding of the relation between the numbers printed, and the actual time of printing. We can call that "the meaning" of the printed numbers. But there is always the possibility of misunderstanding here. Suppose the company doing the minting used the same mold for a number of years, producing coins with the same numbers for numerous years, or their timing for updating molds did not correspond with calendar dates. Then you would have misunderstanding of the meaning of the printed numbers, producing the possibility of a false "fact".

So all your examples, ("I know what metal is. I know what a penny is. I know who Lincoln was. I know about the calendar."), are individual objects of knowledge, which rely on underlying understanding. To facilitate discussion, we often will simply call the underlying understandings "meaning". So those objects of knowledge imply that you understand the meaning of "metal", "penny", Lincoln", "calendar". To look at these understandings is to look inward into existing conceptual structures, objects of knowledge, with the use of logic, to understand "meaning". Though the simple term "meaning" facilitates discussion, "meaning" is actually very difficult to understand. To look outward, is to utilize the internal understanding to create an object, a larger whole, such as your example 'this penny was minted in 2003'.

Some of this probably seems very counter-intuitive, and confusing, because the 'moving outward', creating the larger whole, is actually moving from the more general toward the more specific, or in your example, even the particular coin in your pocket. Therefore the larger whole is actually the more precise, specific individual. But this is based in Aristotelian logic, in which the more general inheres within the more specific. So for example, "human being" inheres with "Socrates", as a defining feature essential to an understanding of "Socrates". And, "animal" inheres within the definition of "human being", as an essential feature, required for an understanding of "human being". And so on. In this way, we can understand context as having the more general inside the more specific. Then the whole, being the object of knowledge is the most specific, and ultimately the individual, the particular.

I took a class on the philosophy of AI not that long ago and it revolved almost entirely on the processes you could use to structure atomic propositions relative to some agent, with desires just represented at a certain sort of atomic belief that needs to be made true (with action being determined by other atomic beliefs about how to make the desire proposition true).

It was interesting, but I couldn't help thinking that this seemed to be structuring the model of intelligence around what is easy to model and not how thought actually works. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's not how thought actually works, because it's far to simplistic. A computer is far faster than a human mind, in doing the things that it does, but those are always simple tasks. Then, since it's so fast at doing simple tasks, we can assign it a whole bunch of simple problems, and when it solves them all very quickly that creates the illusion that it is doing complex problems, when it really is not.

The issue of "understanding" mentioned by Patterner, is the way that parts fit within a whole. That is a complexity. From the Aristotelian perspective, and what you mention, when you remove the part from the context of its whole, you cannot get a complete understanding because you cannot observe the thing's function. The thing's function is what it is doing, so it's an activity, and this is a concept of relations to others. That leaves two ways of looking at the thing, one is to describe the thing, what it is, and the other, what it does. So by Patterner's example, "the bat" names the thing described as the "long, thin, tapering thing". But within the context of the game, it is what one hits the ball with. Meaning can be developed in these two distinct directions.

I don't think it makes sense to say we understand single facts. — Patterner

I don't think it makes sense to say that we know single facts. Knowing requires understanding. So there is always some type of understanding which underlies any instance of knowing.

Your example is context dependent. Look what happens when I change the context. To know the game of baseball requires that you understand that the spherical thing is a baseball, the long thing is the bat, and the mound is the pitcher's mound.

Understanding provides the connections required for knowing. So, your supposed single facts, are really made possible by underlying connections (understanding). There is a relation between the spherical thing, and the name "baseball". Likewise with the names "bat", and "pitcher's mound". These are all instances of understanding, when you understand the meaning of a word. Then each of those words having meaning which goes beyond the simple relation between name and object, given by the context of the game, baseball.

Then Trump implies that there is no need to be bashful about these secret admirations. Bring them out into the open, as he does with his admiration of tyrants. This allows the vicarious pleasure to envelope the individual in the virtual subsumption of fantasy, allowing greatness to penetrate the individual.

Trump is a symptom of the righteous distrust common people have of the political elites and rich people. — Benkei

How ironic, when Trump names the richest man in the world, Leon Musk, as a special secretary to audit government expenses. Hidden within the proposed "distrust for rich people" there is a secret admiration and envy, which defies reason.

Understanding trivial matters is still understanding.

How do we take the step from the doctrine of the mean to a sort of Hegelian higher understanding? — KrisGl

I don't think it's a matter of taking a step from one to the other, rather accepting that both are different ways of looking at the same thing. The path toward higher understanding must be a sort of skepticism, because it must be based in the belief that one's current understanding is somewhat deficient. So the current understanding must be questioned in order to produce the higher understanding. The "higher understanding" is simply a matter of bringing the unknown into the known. That is a matter of producing consistency.

Aristotle showed that if we hold fast to the three principle laws of logic, identity, non-contradiction, excluded middle, then sophists such as Zeno can prove absurdities. Simply put, there are aspects of reality which were known as "becoming", activity, change, which appear to defy these fundamental laws. What he determined was that the reality of becoming, motion, activity, and change, requires the reality of possibility. And, he designated possibility, "potential", as a fundamental violation of the law of excluded middle, that which may or may not be.

Hegel's position on this dialectical problem, is that the law of identity is unnecessary. From this perspective, the aspects of reality which defy understanding, do so because they have no identity. Because of this, they have no formal properties, therefore not even the law of non-contradiction can be applied. The opposing properties of being and not-being, roll together in the activity of becoming.

The "higher understanding" which I am alluding to, is simply recognition that these two perspectives are just different ways of looking at the same thing, "the unknown". Aristotle looked at the three fundamental laws and determined that the existence of "the unknown" is due to faults in those laws, specifically the third law, excluded middle. Allowing exceptions to that law produces modal logic, and all sorts of what i would call "designer logic", designed to deal with things which appear to violate the fundamental laws. The Hegelian approach places the deficiency the "fault" you might say, as inherent within the nature of reality. From this perspective, it doesn't matter how we manipulate the laws of logic, there are things which simply have no identity, therefore cannot be understood by us. To bring these aspects of the unknown into the known would require a logic which treats them as something other than things with identity. Either that, or we just accept that these are unknowns which simply cannot be known.

How is it that sometimes this way of risk management thinking is reinterpreted, "aufgehoben" to use Hegel's term? And why is it that every explanation of how we might shift our thinking here seems to be inadequate to explain exactly how it happens? At least no explanation comes to my mind which would lead necessarily to this new way of thinking or maybe being. — KrisGl

This is exactly the problem. There are always aspects of change which evade our understanding. We can never explain "exactly how it happens". The philosopher's desire to know drives one to request that explanation, but it cannot be provided. At first glance, we attribute these issue to being a problem with our language. The language isn't really designed for a complete and full understanding, it has evolved to be efficient for practical purposes. Then when the philosopher tries to apply it in a way to produce an accurate understanding problems appear. So we blame deficiencies in the language. Then we reshape the language (designer logic), and find that similar problems still emerge. Therefore we are faced with the possibility that maybe the problem goes beyond just an issue with language, maybe there is a problem within reality itself, which makes it impossible for us to understand.

Is my understanding increasing? — Patterner

Yes, I would say that learning something new like that is an increase to your understanding.

Reaching that higher level of understanding seems to me to not be a necessary outcome of accepting the fact that neither rashness nor cowardice are worth pursuing. — KrisGl

Well, do not place too high of a standard on "higher level of understanding" then. If you learn something new everyday, then aren't you reaching a higher level of understanding every day?

What would you think of the idea that concern for certitude, for knowing and doing "the right thing" has its rightful place in some realms of acivity/communication, but not in others? — KrisGl

This is another issue covered in Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. There are different levels of certitude which are proper to different subjects of study. I agree with this principle, and we can see it clearly in comparing the consequences of failure in different activities. When the consequences of failure are very significant, then a higher level of certainty is required before proceeding, in comparison with when the consequences of failure are less significant. There is an entire field of study called "risk management", which deals with these principles.

And do you think that once a state of higher understanding is achieved it is stable? Or can we backslide? — KrisGl

I don't think backsliding is likely, in general, except when our minds get feeble, like in old age. So, in that sense backsliding is also inevitable. But the significance of it is avoided by passing the responsibility to the next generation, therefore gains are maintained.

However, since absolute certainty is never achieved, the "higher understanding" is never stable. As in my reply above, about learning something new everyday, the horizon, beyond which lies the higher understanding, turns out to be a false boundary, merely the appearance of a boundary, created artificially by the 'hinge propositions' we assign certainty to, as the canvas to our representations. So in some sense the skeptic is always crossing that boundary, but in another sense, the horizon always maintains its appearance in front of us, being simply reformulated, so that we discover (create) new horizons as we travel the journey.

Well, in me you have a kindred spirit, but you will be hard-pressed to find more than a tiny handful of contributors to this forum who endorse anything other than some variant of realism. — Joshs

The internet is a double edged sword. It lets a tiny handful of kindred spirits who are seeking to better their understanding (misunderstanding) of reality, like us, unite and work together toward this end. On the other hand, it lets tiny handfuls of freakish evil-doers unite and be empowered by each other, in their quest to destroy all that humanity has worked so hard to develop.

What pragmatic solution would you propose? — KrisGl

The obvious, I think, is that we proceed in our activities without certitude. We can apply the traditional principle of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. The two extremes are considered vises, and virtue lies somewhere in between. Proceeding into action with too little certitude is rashness, or carelessness. Requiring too much certitude produces a lack of confidence, which is fear or cowardice.

This implies that we always proceed with some degree of misunderstanding. Because we see this within ourselves, through introspection, when we adopt the 'observe myself' position, we avoid the infinite regress of justification by accepting the fact that we proceed without certitude. When certitude is not requested the infinite regress does not appear.

Further, recognizing that we always proceed with some degree of misunderstanding conditions us to be prepared, always, for the appearance of the unknown. That in itself is a higher level of understanding. This could be known as a 'meta' level cautiousness, which is neither cowardice nor rashness. In the Hegelian dialectic of Being, instead of taking the middle path between the two extremes, as Aristotle proposed, the two extremes are rolled together into one, annihilating each other, and producing a new position, which instead of being the mean between the two, is an assimilation of the two, and this is that higher understanding.

How is that relevant?

Isn't that just a matter of law enforcement going after the law breakers? Getting "the state to go after him", seems like nothing other than pointing out to the law, where the law may have been broken. Isn't that basically what Trump did with Clinton?

Is this a term only to be used when "success" is evident - to understand is to understand correctly or there is no understanding at all - or is there such a thing as "wrong understanding"? — KrisGl

Wrong understanding is usually called misunderstanding. It's a tricky concept to grasp, because to the person who has the misunderstanding, it is not distinguishable from understanding. So in any situation where a person believes oneself to understand, it may actually be misunderstanding which the person has, but it is impossible for that person to actually know whether it is misunderstanding, or understanding.

This implies that there is a third person perspective required; an observer is necessary to make the distinction between understanding and misunderstanding. Or, a person may act as the observer oneself, at a later time in retrospection, through introspection. The observer either corroborates the understanding/ misunderstanding, which strengthens the belief that it is understanding, or else provides a distinct understanding, indicating that one, the other, or both, are misunderstanding. Then we might seek another observer, and so on, to the point where we might ask if it is ever possible to know for sure whether an apparent understanding is not really a misunderstanding. I believe, this is commonly known as the infinite regress of justification, and it's an issue looked at by Wittgenstein in his critique of skepticism.

but Trump’s enemies have also used the state to go after him. — NOS4A2

What does that mean?

Because people are capable of acting contrary to their own desires and/or having contrary desires. That really isn't what understanding a choice is about. — Dan

Yes it is what understanding a choice is about!

If a person goes out to the second hand store with the desire to only buy a shirt if it's 100% cotton, then comes home with a shirt of unknown composition, and can give no reason for making that choice which is contrary to the desire, clearly it is impossible that the choice is understood.

No, I am saying that the kind of understanding of a choice I am discussing here isn't about what reasons one has for a specific choice, it is about knowing what the choice is and what it means to make that choice such that one CAN respond to reasons regarding that choice. It is prior to what you are discussing. — Dan

Obviously, the person buying the shirt does not know "what it means to make that choice". They've made a choice to do something contrary to what they wanted to do, which they will likely regret in the future.

Being able to "respond to reasons regarding that choice" is irrelevant because such questioning is after the fact, and the person can make up any sort of fictional rationalization in that response. To "understand a choice" is to know the truth about the choice.

I think we are close to agreeing on a point here. Except that it's not just reasoned choices. The choice to act some way can be praiseworthy or blameworthy regardless of whether one has made a reasoned choice or acted out of habit or on a whim or what have you. Seems to me that you could do away with considering these differently at all and just look at the consequences. — Dan

I think the difference is that the reasoned choice is always either blameworthy or praiseworthy, but the non-reasoned choice does not necessarily fall into one of these two categories. When there are reasons for the choice we can judge the reasons, and we can always make a decision as to whether the choice was correct or incorrect, based on an interpretation of the reasons. (The fact that you and I might disagree as to that judgement is irrelevant, having the reasons simply enables a judgement.)

Without reasons for the choice, the choice may or may not be judgeable. Many instinctual responses are judgeable, many are not. The ones which are not, are generally not judgeable because the context by which a judgement could be made is not evident. The judgement of good or bad, correct or incorrect, is relative to the context of the act, the circumstances. When reasons for the act are available, the context is explicit. When there are no reason available, the context must be inferred. The problem is that there is two distinct types of context which one could consider. One is the physical conditions of the choice, the other is what is in the person's mind at the time of the choice, and this includes one's perception of the immediate physical circumstances, as well as the person's intentions, mental associations, and memories etc. And things like mental illness become a factor.

Now, what I believe is the important factor, and this seems to strike at the heart of our disagreement, is that the primary, and I'll say "correct" context for judgement of a choice, any choice, is what is in the person's mind. This is because that is what is evident to the person when making the choice. And, any perception of the immediate physical circumstances is subjective, so that limits the reliability of "the physical conditions" as the context. So when we go to judge the person's choice, and we put the person's choice into the context of "the physical conditions", this presumed context is a product of the judge's perception, not the choice maker's perception. That, in my belief, taints the judgement.

I think I can represent our disagreement in the following way. You think that the primary context of a choice is the physical conditions in which that choice is made, and I think that the primary context is the mental conditions in which that choice is made. So, when a decision is made, which is completely divorced from the current physical conditions, this choice will be completely irrelevant to you, yet it may prove to be extremely relevant to me.

Imagine, a person is sitting at home, thinking about going shopping tomorrow, and deciding to buy a used shirt only if it's 100% cotton. The next day the person is shopping, and buys a shirt of unknown fabric. For you, the context of this choice is the person walking around the store looking at shirts, deciding which one is comfortable, and buying that shirt. There is no issue of the decision which the person made yesterday, because it is not part of the physical context. For me however, the context is the mentalscape, and here, that contrary decision, even though it was made yesterday, is very relevant.

The second count also misrepresents me completely as I have not claimed that mental processes are not the cause of our physical actions. — Dan

Yes you did make that claim. You explicitly stated that your belief in libertarian free will excludes the possibility that choices or actions are "caused". And, the act of volition, which causes a choice, or a physical action, separates the mental processes of thinking from the physical acts. Therefore it is impossible that mental processes, thinking can cause physical actions. This is the means by which you separate decisions made yesterday (to buy a sort only if it's 100% cotton) from decisions made at the current time, as not relevant.

So you decided on the term "influence" instead of "cause". This is the root of your incoherency. You keep wanting to portray actions as united by necessity to choices, as if choice necessitates the action. However, your belief in libertarian free will does not allow that there is anything which necessitates the action. This inclines you to leave no separation between choice and action, such that volition constitutes a choice, which is one and the same thing as an action. Choice and action are the same, because you refuse a causal relation between them but you still need that necessity to uphold morality. But this places volition, the act of the free will, as separate from mental processes, thinking. And by your belief in libertarian free will it is impossible that the act of volition could have a cause, so mental processes, thinking, cannot be the cause of our physical actions.

The whole problem here is that your belief in libertarian free will does not allow you to understand causation in the terms of final cause, which allows that thinking is the cause of free will choices, in that sense of "cause".

I'm going away so expect no replies for a while. — Dan

Thanks for the notice Dan. It's been a pleasure.

Again, "why did you do that" doesn't really factor into it. I might ask them if they know what choice they are making (in this case, giving up ownership of some money in exchange for a shirt) and what it means to make that choice (eg, if you give up this money, you won't have it in the future etc), but why they want the shirt is more or less beside the point (except in some niche cases where they think it will protect them from aliens that are chasing them because they are suffering from a delusion, or something to that effect). — Dan

The question is why did the person buy a shirt which they know is of unknown fabric, when the person's desire was to only buy a shirt if it is 100% cotton. Do you not see that the action as contrary to the person's desire? How can you claim that a choice which is contrary to the person's desire, is understood by the person?

I would accept not applying one's rationality also. So long as the person understands the choice such that they are able to apply their rationality to it if they choose to, then that is sufficient. If they then decide to do things for no reason or just because they felt like it or whatever, then that's fine. — Dan

How does that make any sense to you? You are saying that the person understands the choice, even if the process of understanding it hasn't occurred yet. That makes no sense at all. You are allowing that the person can look back in time, after the fact, and say I did that for X,Y, and Z reasons, when those reasons really did not enter into the person's decision making process at all. This is nothing but allowing yourself to be lied to, and deceived by the person's rationalization.

The person can make up an excuse, after the fact, for acting in a specific way (what I called "rationalize" above), when the excuse does not at all represent the real thought process of the person at the time of making the choice, they are just applying their rationality to it after the fact. And you would accept this 'after the fact' rationalization which is really a false representation of what thoughts actually led to the act, as proof and justification that the person knew what they were doing at the time.

There are a great many things that we allow to happen which do require a choice. — Dan

That's exactly what I said, and very clear evidence that your claim that there is no distinction to be made between choosing to act, and allowing things to happen, is false. The claim that there is no distinction to be made is your reason for choosing consequentialism as an acceptable moral philosophy. Clearly, you need to revisit that choice.

I'm not suggesting that people are morally responsible for things they couldn't prevent (ought implies can and all that), rather I am suggesting that the whether you are actively doing something or simply letting it happen when you could easily prevent it doesn't make much of a difference. — Dan

But there is clearly a huge difference. The type of "understanding" employed in each of these two distinct types of situation is completely different. Do you not grasp the fact that watching something happen, "observation" only allows you to understand what has happened after it has happened? We can watch an act in process, extrapolate from principles of cause/effect, and make predictions about how it will play out, or end, but when these predictions involve the actions of a free agent they are extremely unreliable. On the other hand, when you are actively doing something, you can, and ought to apply these principles of cause/effect, and make such prediction prior to even beginning the act.

Do you not see the difference between having the time to understand, and make the required predictions prior to acting, and observing an act in process, with absolutely no prior knowledge about it, and having to make predictions concerning it 'on the fly'? This is an indication of why the nature of time is of the utmost importance to moral philosophy, but both you and @AmadeusD refused to accept this fact.

First, it seems very odd to say that you choosing to walk on past rather than saving the drowning child is "disallowing yourself to act". — Dan

Why do you say this? The natural human urge, or tendency, is to have compassion and sympathy for a crying child. It is an instinctual response. This is the evolutionary reason why the child cries, and the mother attends. It is also why big aid charities such as UNICEF used to play television commercials showing children in horrible conditions in an effort to get you to donate. To prevent yourself from responding to a child in need requires will power, control of one's emotions.

My question is, why does any of this matter? Does any of this lead to us not being blameworthy for things we let happen? — Dan

It matters because the thought process, the "understanding", which supports the disallowing of actions, (known as "will power"), and the thought process, the "understanding" which produces actions (choosing to act) is completely different. Furthermore, once you allow these two differences of thought processes, and come to recognize the distinction, you'll see the need to provide a third category, simply "allowing" oneself to act. And this type of action, is devoid of any real thought process. Therefore we cannot say that it is a choice which is understood. This type of choice is driven by things described by words like instinct, emotion, passion, urge, whim, habit, etc.. And, there is a vast multitude of them occurring all the time, they are morally relevant, so we need to be able to account for them in a moral philosophy.

This is the true representation of "things we let happen", that category of choices which we do not understand, things that we just happen to do, like buy the shirt. And, we must be blameworthy for such things if we want to be able curb the mistakes which often follow from such choices.

Your representation of "things we let happen" is really meaningless, because this type of situation you mention, is reducible to a reasoned, or understood, choice of not to act. Reasoned choices, whether to act or prevent acting, are always blameworthy or praiseworthy, so there is no question, or issue here.

There is simply a requirement for different principles of judgement to be applied due to the temporal reality of the nature of acts in general. As explained above, planning an act is prior to the act, and responding to an act is posterior to observation of an act in process. That is why there is a big difference between first, second, and third degree murder, for example.

My question is, what are you claiming I am wrong about when it comes to evaluating moral decisions or giving moral guidance? — Dan

As I've explained, your adherence to consequentialism is based in misunderstanding. This misunderstanding inclines you not to make a distinction between choosing (mental process) and acting (physical process). Further, your belief in libertarian free will inclines you to deny that mental processes are "the cause" of physical actions, and this reinforces your refusal to make a distinction between mental processes and physical processes.

So you have a vicious circle of unsound logic. There is a belief in libertarian free will, which denies the causation between mental processes and physical processes, but this is based in a false representation of causation. Then, your incoherency is to unite the mental choice with the physical act, making them one and the same, as if the physical act is a necessary effect of the mental choice, and this supports a unity of the two as simply a physical act. The mental choice is divorced from the physical act as 'not the cause of it' by actually uniting it to the physical act as 'one and the same', leaving the mental choice gone, irrelevant by that incoherency. Then, in your consequentialism you focus on the physical act only, having illogically shown the mental thought process as irrelevant. But this is a misunderstanding.

You are really not helping me Dan. I really do not understand what you mean by understand. You provided a sort of definition, but when I gave an interpretation of your words, you claimed my interpretation is wrong. So I am continually left with nothing to go on.

This is all based on the false premise that there needs to be a judge in order for their to be a fact of the matter. This just isn't the case. The truth is not determined by the judgment of an observer. The truth simply is, and it is up to us to find it as best we can. Also, this all seems to come from you seeming to think that I was claiming a bunch of stuff that I wasn't. — Dan

We are not talking about "truth, "or "fact", we are talking about "understanding". Whether or not something is understood is a judgement which must be made, otherwise anytime someone thinks that they understand, and claims to understand, that would constitute understanding, even if the person really misunderstood.

I mean, you can say that there is an objective fact of the matter, of whether the person understands one's choice or not, but this is not relevant because we do not judge according to the fact of the matter, we judge according to what we think is the fact of the matter. So, we need some principles as to what constitutes "understanding", so that we can make the judgement as to whether one's ability to understand one's own choices is enhanced, or limited by specific factors.

This is where you and I have significant disagreement, as to which factors play an important role in one's ability to understand one's own choices.

As I said in a previous post I would say that to understand one's choices it to comprehend/recognize the nature of the choice and what it means to make that choice such that one can apply one's rationality to it. — Dan

So, as a demonstration of our disagreement, if I apply this definition which you provide above, to the shirt example, I think it is very obvious that the person in the example does not understand one's own choice. This is obvious, because the person has two contrary choices, (or a choice which is contrary to a desire if you wish to express it that way), and there is no reason given why one results in the selection rather than the other. Clearly that there is no reason, indicates that it is impossible to "apply one's rationality to it". When the choice that the person made is contrary to the desire that the person had, and there is absolutely no reason given for that choice, then we need to accept that there is no rationality to that choice either, and therefore the person did not understand one's own choice.

"Why did you do that" probably wouldn't be high on my list of questions in order to determine if they understand their own choices. I might ask them about the nature of the choice they are making, and try to ascertain their general level of mental competence. I might also check whether they are suffering from any delusions which lead to them not knowing what choice it is they are making. — Dan

Then why do you not accept that the shirt example is a case of a person not understanding one's own choice? The person has the desire to buy a shirt only if it is 100% cotton, and then for no reason at all buys a shirt of unknown composition. If we ask the person "why did you do that?", there is no answer provided in the example. We can only conclude that the person did it on a whim or something. However, you deny that choosing on a whim is a case of not understanding one's choice. But "whim" is defined as "caprice", an unaccountable change of mind.

You say you want less from "understanding" than I do. In reality you want nothing from "understanding". Your principle is really "the ability to make one's own choice", and "understand" plays no role at all. So long as the person is capable of speaking and can give an answer to "why did you do that?", such as "I felt like it", this qualifies as "understanding" the choice, to you.

This is because you do not want to deal with all the real issues concerning "understanding" one's own choices which I've been bringing to your attention. These issues are the role of habit, education, deception, and things like that. Further, since your principle of "understanding" is to be able to "apply one's rationality", you would accept all different sorts of what is known as "rationalizing", and other specious forms of explanation as "understanding".

Do you think that if we asked the person why they bought the shirt, and they said because they thought it was 100% cotton, even though there was no tag or other indication, that would qualify as understanding one's own choice? And, if we asked the person why they thought it was 100% cotton, and they answered because that's what I wanted it to be, that would qualify as understanding, wouldn't it? This is because "applying one's rationality" does not mean the same as applying sound logic, nor does it even imply being "reasonable", as "rationalizing" indicates.

Does this have anything to do with whether or not there is a distinction between acting or allowing which I suggested is the reason consequentialism is the best approach to morality? — Dan

Yes, it's very relevant, that's what I've been explaining, and why I've been saying that you ought to reconsider your belief in consequentialism. The simple fact is that "allowing" does not require a choice. The vast majority of things which occur do not require any choice from me. Disallowing does require a choice, as does acting. So disallowing is classed with acting, and allowing is something completely different.

You can give many examples which create the appearance that allowing is a choice, but these are false for the following reason. All choices are personal. The choice to act is personal, something I do my self. The choice not to act is personal. The choice to allow something else, not of my choice, to occur is a choice not to act in an attempt to prevent it. So, like I explained a choice not to act is a choice of disallowing myself to act. So what you call "allowing" is really a choice of disallowing. "Allowing", in a true sense of allowing something to occur, is something completely different which is neither a chosen act nor a choice to disallow action. We can carry this principle to our personal selves, just like the others, to consider how we allow things like habit, impulse reaction, whimsical buying, etc.. These are personal actions which occur without real choice, nor are they disallowed by choice. They require a special category because they escape the reason which guides our choices which either disallow us from acting, or cause us to act. This type of action, the ones which are simply "allowed", can never be understood.

and now this odd behaviour; — Amity

Socrates may have been "catching forty winks" before that dinner party. If I remember correctly, he ended up staying up all night drinking. Alternatively, you might consider that since he was described to be less drunk than the others, after that all night drinking, he may have been intentionally avoiding the pre-dinner cocktails, shots, or whatever was the custom. Those are real kickers to one's inebriation.

. I am not unduly concerned re Socrates. Simply noting his behaviour as told. And wondering. I think sometimes he needed to be alone with his thoughts. Perhaps, this was a way of preparing himself... — Amity

Consider, every minute aspect of description, written by Plato, has importance, and small things mentioned earlier can develop more importance later. And, the association between the earlier and the later is usually not mentioned, leaving it up to the reader to draw the link (deduce causation). A significant part of the dialogue concerns etiquette (notice "beauty" is the property of institutions), and Socrates is a bit of a social misfit. If you are socially inept (as I am), you may find some good party strategies in this dialogue.

I really think I need to figure out how you are using the word "understand", because it's not making any sense to me.

I would say that the person had competing desires and that they gave in to their urges rather than stick with the better course of action long-term. — Dan

I think I see what you're saying here. What I call "choice" you call "desire", and what I call "act" you call "choice". So when the person decides to buy a used shirt only if it is 100% cotton, you call this a desire, and insist that it's not a choice, because it's not acted on, and the person's choice (act) is to buy the shirt of unknown fabric. I find this to be a very strange and confusing use of words which precludes the possibility of a person changing one's mind. What I call changing one's mind, you call "competing desires". I find this to be a very deficient description, but I'll try to follow you.

So here's the scenario you describe for me. A person has competing desires, then the person acts. The act is the choice. Where do you place thinking, decision making, in this process? We have to address this because you refer to "understanding" one's own choice, and "understanding" describes this thinking process. Is it fair to say that thinking, decision making, is a sort of medium between desires, what you call "competing desires", and the act which is the choice? (I intentionally say that the act is the choice rather than say that the act is representative of the choice, because you explicitly do not distinguish between these two.) And would you agree that "understanding" and its contrary "not understanding", are terms used to describe a judgement against this medium process, thinking, decision making? "Understanding is a judgement of correctness, and "not understanding" is a judgement of incorrectness in the associated thinking process.

I assume that in all cases of acting (choosing), there are competing desires, otherwise a desire would lead directly to an act, without any medium, and there would be no choosing. Do you agree? And would you agree that the medium, consisting of thinking, could be judged as either understanding or not understanding?

Now, the important point, who would make this judgement? The judgement of whether the thinking process was correct or incorrect, understanding or not understanding, must be made by someone. We cannot say that the person engaged in the thinking process, making that choice, also makes the judgement of correct or incorrect, or else all cases would be judged as correct, because the person would not make the choice unless they thought it was correct. Their judgement would have to correspond with the thinking process, because the choice actually is that judgement. Therefore the distinction of understanding/not understanding would be meaningless. In all cases of making a choice, the person would understand the choice, and there would be no question of the possibility of not understanding.

That would be the case if the person making the choice was the one who judged whether the choice was understood or not. All choices would be understood, and none not understood, and the use of "understand" in your principle, "the ability to understand and make one's own choices" would be redundant and meaningless. Your principle would be more clearly stated as "the ability to make one's own choices". Is this what you mean with that principle? Or do you want "understand" to hold some significance?

If the latter is the case, then we need to look to a third party, an observer to make the judgement of understood or not understood. Do you agree with the reasoning here? This means that we have to ask the acter, why did you do that, or something similar, and access the acter's thinking process in some way. From an analysis of the thinking process we can judge correct or incorrect, hence understanding or not understanding.

Do you agree with this Dan? If not, tell me please what you mean by "understand" in the context of the principle "the ability to understand and make one's own choices". I think that if we say a person understands one's own choice, this is a judgement we pass on the person, not a judgement that a person would pass on oneself, because that would be meaningless. If you agree, then could you name some criteria which would be used in that judgement? When we ask the person "why did you do that?" what sort of guidelines ought we to follow in our judgement of whether it is a case of the person understanding the act or not understanding the act?.

I am saying there is no important difference between acting or allowing, so "inaction" is as morally relevant as "action". — Dan

But the examples I mentioned are cases of disallowing, i.e. preventing one's one actions. This is distinctly different from "allowing". So the difference I am talking about is the difference between acting and disallowing one's own actions. It is not a matter of "allowing" the actions of others, those are irrelevant. What is relevant is the choices (actions) of oneself, and the difference I am talking about is the difference between allowing oneself to act, and disallowing oneself to act. In the shirt case for example, adhering to the principle "I'll only buy a shirt if it is 100% cotton", is a choice (I believe it is a choice anyway), which would have disallowed action in the circumstances of the example. However, in the example the person allowed oneself to act.

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.