But it very obviously wouldn't work as a test, because it would allow all kinds of nonsense, such as no crimes beginning with "m". And if you're taking what I said out of context and talking instead about a test of whether that matches someone's feeling, then you're committing a fallacy of relevance. — S

Another way to look at it is that I think that the idea of a "test" for one's moral stances is incoherent if one is a metaethical subjectivist/noncognitivist. Or it's incoherent aside from "testing" that one's stances are really how one feels. I didn't expect that's what you had in mind. But who knows what you have in mind, because as I said, I think the idea is incoherent. When I suggest something that I would think would work as a "test" I'm being charitable.

Obviously something other than a "test" which passes literally anything conceivable, so long as it matches someone's feeling. That's a minimal requirement that you're failing on. I don't have to provide you with a more detailed proposal of how to a test should be performed to be right about that. — S

So why should I believe that there's some sort of "test" for moral stances where the idea of that would be coherent, if you don't even know an example of one?

All this is amounting to is that some stances are really, really different than anything you'd think, and you can't accept that someone might think something, feel some way, that's really, really different than how you are.

Irrelevant. — S

??? That's the whole nut of whether they'd think it's a problem or not. This is just the same as the discussion we've been having with schopenhauer. There are plenty of people who don't see hunger as a moral problem. schopenhauer doesn't care about that. It's a moral problem simply because HE says it is. That's the same thing you're doing here. Whether something is a problem to someone depends on how they feel about it.

Are you claiming I am wrong? — Bartricks

What in the world? I'm asking you a question. You said that in your view, the answer to whether semantic gibberish is relevant to validity is (that it) "depends."

So I'm asking for more details about your view: what does it depend on?

Problems are undesirables. Drowning is undesirable to one's health. — Shamshir

So the world, aside from minds, has desires in your view?

I wasn't merely talking about whether a statement, such as, "There shouldn't be any crimes beginning with the letter 'm'", matches someone's feeling that it's right. — S

I didn't say that's what you had in mind. I said that that was the only thing that I would think would work as a "test." I was explicit about that. I figured that that was NOT what you had in mind, and that you'd detail the sort of test you'd have in mind instead, but you didn't do that, and you said that what I had in mind would work. So what the heck would a "proper test" be?

whereas I can easily point to the overwhelming evidence of how much mayhem the implementation of legalising all crimes beginning with "m" would cause. — S

A person who believes there should be no crimes starting with the letter "M" wouldn't agree that the objective facts re consequences are undesirable.

That's just like I don't agree that the objective facts re consequences of not banning speech, or not having crimes based on psychological harm are undesirable.

What happened to "What does it depend on?"

When I wrote, "There's no correct claim re 'This is a problem.' It's a subjective opinion whether something is a problem."

What was the definition of "problem" I was referring to?

(As an aid, maybe look up "problem" in a dictionary and see if you can figure out what definition I might have been using)

My answer to your question: depends. — Bartricks

What does it depend on?

Nope. Not a clue. — Bartricks

Haha. Okay. Not surprising, unfortunately.

"Someone valuing their health" is something that only obtains subjectively.

Thus, it's not objective that it's a problem. A person has to value particular things for it to be a problem. That makes it subjective. Drowning is an objective fact. Whether it's a problem to S depends on what S values, what S's dispositions are, what S prefers.

(Not our S -- S is a generic variable for a subject)

You're always chastising folks for their logic. You understand the differences between:

[]P
~[]P
x[]F
x~[]F

right?

Sure. No I don't agree. It's valid as it stands. Okay, your turn.

There isn't anything objective about whether drowning is a problem. How would you think that whether it's a problem is somehow found in the extramental world?

Heterosexual relationships, even in the modern-day, illustrate vast disparities in the gender roles between man and the woman. For example, in terms of housework, women are left with the most work to do in the relationship whereas men, even in more egalitarian households, continually tend to do less work than their wives. — Bridget Eagles

Well now we know the person behind the video cameras in everyone's home, I suppose.

No, second premise is gibberish. — Bartricks

So an argument isn't valid if the premise is semantic gibberish?

You suggested that they're equal when you suggested that anything goes. — S

Anything goes when it comes to opinions not being correct or incorrect. That doesn't imply that I agree with them all. My disagreement, that I feel a different way, that I prefer something else, doesn't amount to me being correct.

And you suggested that when you said that the view that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "m" would pass the test, — S

It could pass the test of really being how an individual feels. That certainly wouldn't be impossible.

Their opinion wouldn't matter. — S

Wouldn't matter to whom/for what?

It would cause problems in terms of the consequences whether they recognise that or not. — S

There's no correct claim re "This is a problem." It's a subjective opinion whether something is a problem. Different people think that different things are a problem or not. They can't get that correct or incorrect. It's not a matter of rationality. It's a matter of someone's disposition, how they feel, what they prefer.

But what I'm saying doesn't have to be objectively correct for it to be right over and above the opinion of someone who says something completely barmy, and in addition to that, erroneously suggests that all opinions are equal, when they're not. — S

I'm not saying anything like "all opinions are equal." I'd say that they're objectively equal, but that's a category error. Nothing objective evaluates opinions.

They're subjectively unequal. But that doesn't make one subject correct versus another subject when it comes to opinions.

The problem clearly isn't that the opinion of someone who thinks that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "M" is different to mine. I don't believe for a second that you can't see what the actual problem is. Think about the consequences! — S

They'd have a different opinion than you about the consequences. That's the whole point.

I have a different opinion than you do about the consequences of not having any crimes based on "psychological harms," and I have a different opinion than you do about the consequences of not banning any speech. (Not in the sense of disagreeing about consequences; in the sense of disagreeing about whether the consequences are acceptable, desirable, etc.)

Another one would be

If Bartricks isn't a moron, then if Bartricks says P is self-evident, P is self-evident
If Bartricks says P is self-evident, not necessarily P is self-evident
Therefore, Bartricks is a moron


You'd agree that's valid, right?

I just don't believe that. — S

Okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think that you often fail to recognise the problems which arise as a result of your unusual premises, — S

I think that you think you're objectively correct just because you think something, even though intellectually you realize this is a problem. It's still something that's pretty deeply ingrained in you. "Problems which arise," for you, amounts to, "having different opinions (about what's okay, what's acceptable, what's the case, etc.) than I do." That's very transparently the case with you.

Are you saying WHEN millions of people die that I am in no way liable because they knew what they were getting into? — ZhouBoTong

Correct. It's not even an issue. The people who took the drug made a decision to take it.

We all admit that children can't be responsible for their decisions, what makes most adults any better? — ZhouBoTong

I don't agree with the first part of that, even, but if we were to agree with the second part, then you certainly can't make the drug manufacturer or anyone else in the world responsible for any decision they make.

You have WAY more faith in people than I do (or maybe you just like the idea of thinning the herd, haha). — ZhouBoTong

Definitely some people would take the drug and wind up killing themselves. I think it's "evil" to not allow people to make those decisions. People should be allowed to do whatever they consensually decide to do. If you think that anyone has a right to make decisions for other people re what they should be allowed to do, then you don't think that no one is capable of making decisions about what people should be allowed to do. What would make some people capable of that and not others? Is the deciding factor your own views/whether people agree with you?

Why do you believe that you should be able to decide for others that they shouldn't be allowed to decide to risk and take their own lives this way?

No, I'm not valuing it at all. Again, it's fine if something is usual. I'm just not going to speak for anyone else and claim that anything I do is usual.

Okay. That's fine. It just seems very counterintuitive to me when we're talking about something that tons of people don't even have a problem with.

Like I said before, that's probably because you interpret things differently. I think your interpretation is the more unusual. — S

I wouldn't ever claim to be usual, haha.

If something about me is usual, that's fine, but it's not something I'd claim.

I'd say that if someone's philosophical position is at odds with how they behave at times, they have problems with their philosophical position.

So I don't actually ever behave as if I think my moral stances are correct rather than simply how I feel about things, what I'd prefer, etc.

Would there be a way to express preferences but convince you that one doesn't think they're correct at the same time?

Causing someone to need something when they don't have to is morally problematic, even if the person is gracious or indifferent to the need they are being forced to need. — schopenhauer1

So that's a statement. And I understand that you're making that statement. What I'm asking is the why. Why is that morally problematic?

Again, as I've stated, Schopenhauer equates need with suffering as in one definition of it. Needing is not completion, and not being complete in this metaphysics is a state of suffering. This is structural in that it pervades all animal life. Not sure why you're not getting that part — schopenhauer1

I get it. What's not being stated is why it's morally problematic. In other words why is suffering under this definition morally problematic?

What I have gathered from the news [NYT for example is that Purdue Pharma (and the Sackler family) did two things:

1) they misrepresented oxycontin as "less addictive"
2) and "less likely to be abused"
3) and they promoted the drug very vigorously
4) for two decades

when, in fact, the company was aware from 1996 that oxycontin was as addictive as any other opiate — Bitter Crank

If that's the case, yeah, I'd agree that it's a type of contractual fraud.

But wouldn't it have been pretty soon apparent in the medical community that it's not less addictive? (If not immediately obvious because of what you're saying re "It isn't clear to me how a high-dose opiate could be described as 'less addictive')

Yeah, to want ideological focuses to all be exhaustively intersectional would seem to suggest that they'd "all" address everything, all the same issues, so that there couldn't be different ideological focuses, and the idea of intersectionality would just dissolve away (since it's all the same movement).

Feminism has been attacked for only accommodating to the needs of white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, able-bodied women while leaving out other minority women from the movement. — Bridget Eagles

So, as someone who is normally skeptical, my first thought is to be skeptical of this claim. What sorts of data support it? (That is, the claim that feminism only accommodates the needs of white, cis-gendered, etc.)

Aside from that, jumping ahead a bit (because we probably won't get to it otherwise), and just as a point of logic, this seems to have a problem to me:

"1. If feminism is intersectional, then it directly addresses the needs of women who are disabled, LGBTQ, women of color, and the lower class."

Shouldn't that be something like "If feminism is exhaustively intersectional . . . "?

Because let's suppose that feminism also addresses racial concerns. That would make feminism intersectional in that respect, even though it might not be intersectional with LGBTQ concerns. The only way that wouldn't be the case is if we were to argue that "intersectional" is necessarily exhaustive, but that would be dubious.

Born in 1962

"Nothing is more symptomatic of the enervation, of the decompression of the Western imagination, than our incapacity to respond to the landings on the Moon. Not a single great poem, picture, metaphor has come of this breathtaking act, of Prometheus' rescue of Icarus or of Phaeton in flight towards the stars." ~George Steiner — 180 Proof

Meanwhile, among others:

So desiring is like a wound that is never clotted by simply fulfilling a desire. Physiological pain (pain being by its nature unpleasant) attend many of these lacks. But it will persist again even after temporary satiation. Can one revel in the unpleasantness of starving? Sure. Perhaps certain masochistic types. So, if the masochists don't get what they desire? — schopenhauer1

I overlooked that you responded to me here.

First, we weren't talking about starvation, but simple hunger. I've never in my life been in a state of starvation, and no one I know ever has either. That's not to say there are no people who have suffered from extreme hunger anywhere in the world, but that's not most people by a long shot. (And it's not going to be anyone for long, because either you find food or you die.)

For most people, being hungry is not unpleasant, and it's nothing like a pain state. It's still unclear whether you're denying that, or whether you're saying that regardless, it's still a moral problem--in which case I'm still trying to figure out why it would be a moral problem when the people you're trying to white-knight aren't complaining/don't seem themselves as victims of any sort of moral transgression due to being hungry so that they eventually get off the couch and go to the refrigerator.

Okay, so no, I don't think my musical preferences are correct (I take it). I was asking because I sincerely had no idea what your response would be.

So I'd have to figure out why you'd think that "in practice, I think my ethical views are correct," but "in practice, I do not think that my musical preferences are correct."

The particulars of the dialogue itself, probably not the foundation of subjectivist condemnation. The dialectical form of the conversation may very well be, however, insofar as, no matter what somebody says, somebody else can find something wrong with it if he puts enough effort into it. — Mww

I don't know what you're saying really. Again, I'm skeptical about a claim about how "virtually all contemporary moral philosophers" interpret something. The evidence that would counter my skepticism is evidence of what virtually all (or at least a great many) contemporary moral philosophers say about it.

So we'd need to look at how Kwame Anthony Appiah and Johann Frick and Christine Korsgaard and Alex Guerrero and on and on and on interpret the Euthyphro.

In practice do I think that my musical preferences are correct?

You think that your moral stances are correct, — S

No, I don't at all. It's not that I don't want to use that word. What I'm saying is that my moral stances don't extend beyond me in some way where there's some sort of error that other people are committing in not feeling the same way about them.

For me, it's exactly like musical or food preferences. I wouldn't think that someone is making an error in not having the same musical or food preferences that I do.

I'm a moral subjectivist, but reason is objective. There's no inconsistency in that. — S

Sure, I don't think it's inconsistent, I just don't agree with it.

Moral stances can be reasoned whether one is a moral subjectivist or a moral objectivist and irrespective of which of those positions is true. You reason your moral stances, too. — S

Sure. No disagreement there, either.

Again, it's just that you're not a subjectivist on reason, and via objective reason, you believe that you can arrive at correct moral stances.

Well that's easily refuted. If reason were subjective, then, for example, whether affirming the consequent is reasonable would be moot. But it's not. — S

There could just be different opinions about it where one opinion isn't correct where that has nothing to do with how any particular individual is thinking about it.

I'm not a subjectivist on reason, if that's what you mean. — S

Right. "More sensible" is "in accordance with reason," and you're not a subjectivist on that. Since you think that moral stances can be reasoned, you're not actually a subjectivist on moral stances.

I am a subjectivist on reason.

I'd have to read more about it, but what did Perdue Pharma do that should make them liable for anything?

I could see if they knew there was a risk of physical addiction but they didn't let physicians know this. But is that the case?

If they did let physicians know it, then it would be up to physicians to inform their patients, and then it's up to the patients to take the risk or not.