Ha ha! thanks for the insight. Churchill said Churchillian things in the way that Homer was the one who wrote anything Homeric.

"Alternatively, we could all have a stick up our respective arse."

It's the 'don't be a prude' objection that I mentioned.. But if a person has to demean or domineer in order to have a laugh then learning manners (respect and putting others first) is not the only challenge facing them, though it is probably one of them.

Common sense is only understood when people already have a shared view. But it's only appealed to or needed when they don't. So it's a concept of rather limited use.

On the question whether smashing the patriarchy that invented manners as a way of oppressing women is more important:- I think the patriarchy in question is the process of men belittling, disrespecting, domineering and excluding women from opportunities. I doubt whether that patriarchy invented good manners (respect and self-denial). It's not the patriarchal style. But there is lot of under-cover demeaning that masquerades as good manners. I can quite believe the patriarchy invented that.

"...how do we get from here to there?"

Not via democracy, according to Plato. Governments have to use restriction, social manipulation and force with results that history has shown to be abysmal.

My own view is that the wisest and the best should rule (I agree with Plato there). However, we have no reliable way of agreeing who is wisest and best (I disagree with Plato there). And every person is unwise and imperfect to some extent at different times. So we rely on the opinion of the crowd to balance out biasses and come to the least-bad solution. I think this is what Churchill meant when he said that democracy is the worst kind of government apart from all the other kinds that have every been tried.

A point made by Plato. "Unless . . . philosophers become kings in the cities or those whom we now call kings and rulers philosophise truly and adequately and there is a conjunction of
political power and philosophy . . . there can be no cessation of evils . . . for
cities nor, I think, for the human race." (Rep. V. 473c11-d6)

https://philosophy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/_philers_rule_copy.pdf

There are more jobs in applied ethics than there used to be - in medicine, business e.g.

Everything is a goat, therefore I am a Capricorn.

"Contextualizing a workplace conversation helps us determine what falls on which side of the harassment line, but it’s still a distinction that’s extremely difficult to articulate, and even harder to prove."

True. The difficulty has arisen because something has been thrown away. The distinction is easily articulated as 'good manners' and the proof was to respect other people's feelings and to put the needs of others before one's own. These things still exist and are thankfully very common but people feel embarrassed and prudish to mention them in such easily understood terms. So they are driven to talk about contextualisation, appropriateness, banter, harassment, disempowerment and oppression: all useful concepts, but often invoked where 'let's mind our manners' will do the job well enough.

On whether it's likely that a highly intelligent and educated person might also have some totally foolish beliefs - well, I'm afraid not only likely but quite normal. Education and intelligence are only a limited form of protection from folly. But perhaps I am too cynical or have too low an expectation of the intellect to foster wisdom.

"A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual" - find out how he feels about astrology."

I can't agree. Take two "intellectuals". Both think astrology is rubbish. It's quite possible that one of them is a smart intellectual and the other is, aside from his views on astrology, a fool. Conversely, a top-class intellectual might have an aberrant belief in astrology, elves or some other nonsense.

Newton believed in alchemy. Conan Doyle believed in fairies. Pythagoras thought that beans have souls. Aristotle thought that volcanic lava is made of cheese. (I made that last one up, but you get the point).

But I don't think it is the case. It's not a view that I support in the least. It's a view I introduced for discussion. It seemed to be hovering on the edge by implication - because of the link made between feminist philosophy and virtue-ethics; and the comparison between the ethical goodness of men vs women.

True. But we can't infer that men are more criminally minded or less ethical than women. Black people are also disproportionately imprisoned but I don't think that reflects on them either generally or individually. Japanese school children are better at maths than the English but that fact won't help us select a mathematician if we ever need one. It's a problem not about men and women but about the logic of generalisations.

As to sexism in philosophy, yes, I'm sure you're right. There's sexism pretty much everywhere and I would not imagine that philosophy is any exception. But I wonder whether splitting philosophy down the lines of virtue-ethics=feminine and duty-ethics=masculine effectively challenges the issue.

It may also be used to imply that they need not bother themselves too much with politics, law, duty and matters of principle. Let them concentrate on looking after the children and the old folk. True on face value or not I think some reflection is needed on the implications of the view I expressed.

Generalisations are often invidious. I could say 'But look at this wonderfully ethical man, and look at this despicable woman!' Then someone else chooses contrary examples. Eventually it becomes clear that we are not talking about men and women at all but about virtue, care, law, politics etc as those things are relevant to us all. But by that time we have wasted our energy on an ill-advised battle of the sexes.

Am I to understand that women's philosophy is about care, education, families, communities, virtue, being a good person and matters of personality and men's philosophy is about duty, right and wrong, law, politics and matters of principle? I don't think anyone has said such a thing in this thread and yet it seems to be a thought that's hanging around on the edge of the party waiting to be invited in. Or alternatively uninvited explicitly.

I was tempted, but I didn't want to provoke or discourage what is an excellent forum.

I hestitated whether to click "About right". I think that "About right" is about right. I'm surprised that we weren't offered the option "About right" because I would have chosen that one for preference.

The hard problem of consciousness is the question how physical events can give rise to the phenomenal experience of consciousness. This problem may be akin to wondering which part of a banknote constitutes its monetary value. We investigate every atom of the note and nowhere do we find its value. So we conclude that the value arises not from anything physical about the note, but from something outside. Possibly God? Either Him, or the Bank of England. But then we can go through the same process with the Bank of England and we still won't find the monetary value of our note. Finally it will occur to us that perhaps our search is not entirely coherent.

The bad guys will still get guns, because they are not afraid to break the law. The good guys will have given their guns away, being law-abiding. And the result is that innocent people will be left undefended against evil-doers. That's how it is in the US and how it should be in Britain and everywhere else.

As to the question, why gun crime is much lower in countries with gun control than in countries without it, well, it's an inexplicable mystery that the finest minds have been unable to fathom. Some people say that it's because gun control actually *causes* the lower murder and crime rate. Obviously, that is ridiculous. Most people who have guns don't mean any harm and there are only a few bad guys with guns, so that would have no effect on the over-all murder rate. No, it's a mystery and beyond all possible explanation, as far as I can see.

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-36131

The genuinely distressing thing is that you can post this kind of nonsense and the irony is missed - not because people are insensitive to irony, but because the arguments are peddled so widely without the slightest irony at all....

They allow everyone to have guns and then the good people use guns to protect themselves and their families from the tiny number of bad people who also have guns. If the Government takes the guns away then the good people will give up their guns, being law-abiding, but the bad people will continue to have guns and use them for evil, having no respect for the law. It is a theory I have heard many times from good US citizens. It works. Just look at the US rate of gun crime and how much worse it would be if they had gun control. It's a persuasive argument and I don't understand why the whole of the rest of the civilised world has not understood this argument and has not yet freed up their own stupid restrictive gun laws.

It is a mystery why gun crime is so bad in the United States in comparison with other countries. Almost everyone in the US who has a gun is a good person who would only use the gun for self-defence. Such a tiny proportion of people that have guns are bad people that it would hardly account for the high number of gun murders.

It's inexplicable. I think other countries should take the lead from the US and loosen up their ridiculously strict gun laws - unless they think their citizens are generally bad people who would use guns to do harm to others. Clearly the US is doing something right.

A culture where it is acceptable to deceive women into thinking they can have a better life overseas and then forcing them to work as sex slaves is, at any rate, not superior to a culture where this is not acceptable. So the question is "Where did I get the notion that one of these cultures might be better than the other?". It's a reasonable question. But there's no reason to assume that, if I can't say where I got the notion, then the notion must be false.

I know that Japan is bigger than Surrey. I have no idea how I know that or whether anyone has ever previously used the sentence 'Japan is bigger than Surrey' or what size either Japan or Surrey is even to the nearest thousand hectares. But from this complete absence of grounding for my knowledge we may not deduce that Japan and Surrey are the same size.

Where would we be without Stanford..? https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides/ . But it's a bit dense.

This is easier but not as authoritative: http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_parmenides.html

And you can't beat the original text - like most pre-Socratics, we only have fragments, mainly quoted by opponents, but you get the idea, especially see Fragments 2-8:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Parmenides

'Ethics is the majority's common interests' is an ethical theory. It has good points and bad points. What are they? How do you answer the challenges that this theory will meet?

If you are inclined to consider the down sides as well as the up sides of the theory, then you can study ethics. Otherwise, probably not.

"What does the pecived majority of humanity desire? And how does that compare with what I desire for our fate, is it common enough with my vision for me to bother participating? Or should I simply focus on what I wan't for my own life(given that the majority would win out against my efforts). What would you call that specific area of study? Am I on the verge of needing to coin my own term?"

No need for a new term. It's an ethical theory. A theory with big holes, but still a theory. Tell us about its positive and negative points as a theory. Then you're studying ethics. Otherwise you are adhering to a theory without examining it.

Which question is most frequently asked by philosophy graduates?
"Would you like fries with that?"

The distinction between epistemology and ontology was not clear cut then - and not entirely clear cut since, perhaps, as you say. Parmenides wrote of non-existence being 'unable to be spoken or thought of'. His attack on the common view of the world is called the 'Way of Opinion' or the 'Way of Seeming'. So he was very concerned with our understanding of reality and what reality is; and the gap between the two. Another distinction that was blurred at that time was between the 'is' of existence and the 'is' of predication. And confusion arising from the scope of modalities was not clarified until Aristotle. But the main point is that debates about these problems go back at least to 6th Cent BC.

When there's nothing left to lose?

His commitment to civil rights carried through into his business and personal life. He stood up for the right of every human being - young or young, woman or woman, blonde or redhead - to dress up as a rabbit and serve drinks to leering perverts.

It's a rhetorical trope. "Say I'm dumb. But don't say I'm insincere." Despite appearances, that is not an instruction to call me dumb. It's a way of saying that, horrible as it is to be called dumb, it is far worse to be called insincere.

"...and the role of the concept of fairness (truth)"

Fairness and truth are different things. Truth is a matter of saying of what is the case that it is the case and of what is not that it is not. Fairness is roughly a matter of equal treatment for equal claims. Two people can agree on what is and is not the case (the facts of the matter) and disagree about what fair treatment in that particular case will be: so two referees might agree that one player tripped another but disagree that a penalty should be given. Conversely, two people may agree about what is fair in a particular case whilst disagreeing about the facts of the matter: for example, two referees might agree that a penalty should be given whilst disagreeing as to what exactly happened to warrant it.

The problem you outline is mainly to do with fairness but not particularly to do with truth. There is presumably no dispute about e.g. the costs of the cheaper items or the names of the countries from which it is imported. But there is a dispute about whether the advantages and disadvantages accruing to interested parties are in proportion to their various claims, based e.g. on the benefits they bring to customers, the contributions they have made in terms of labour and capital etc.

I thought "delete me or ban me" was the same rhetorical construction as "You can slander my name all over the place, but don't step on my blue suede shoes". Elvis is not asking to be slandered. He's saying that, awful as it would be to be slandered, it would be preferable to having a person step on his blue suede shoes. Similarly, "I would hate to be banned. But I'd prefer (even) being banned to being edited."

No, the first recognisably philosophical argument in Greek is by Parmenides, 6th Cent BC. He tied a big knot round the problem that took a lot of thinking to untie. His view in a nutshell was this. Since everything we perceive in the world both *is* something and also *is not* something else, then our customary ways of talking about the world are self-contradictory nonsense. Either a thing is or it is not. It can't be both. Even if philosophers did not agree with Parmenides they could not ignore him, including Plato and Aristotle.

Before the 1960's it did not occur to men to dream about having sex with beautiful, compliant women. Hefner created and popularised this new area of interest and his reputation as an innovator cannot be under-estimated.

Reality, Existence, Being, World and Actuality.

Reality is when your card is rejected for lack of funds. Existence is what said funds lack. Being is all you have money left to do. World is the place this all happens in. And actuality is a guy who calculates risk for the insurance industry. Hope that clears it up.

Yes, that is why I think it's a useful reference for this discussion. If we want to know what reality is then let's consider what is fake, illusory, fictional and all the other ways there are for things to be other than real. Reality is everything except that stuff. The approach makes us look at conceptual detail.

Thank you. I say we need Austin's Sense and Sensibilia to make a start on this job. ".... Austin examines the word ‘real’ and contrasts the ordinary meanings of that word based on everyday language and the ways it is used by sense-data theorists. In order to determine the meaning of ‘real’ we have to consider, case by case, the ways and contexts in which it is used. ... Only by doing so, according to Austin, can we avoid introducing false dichotomies" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin

OK, point taken. You can't tolerate any old rubbish. But I wonder if there are passages of Kant or Heidegger that might not make that particular stylistic grade. Obscurity, circumlocution and verbosity are certainly faults. But it's the thought that counts.

I think the OP is fine. It's raising the question whether pessimism is more realistic than optimism. It makes sense. And if you take care of the sense, the sounds will take care of themselves.

I think it is my brain that makes decisions in the same way that it is my hands that hold a cup and my foot that kicks a ball. But my foot only ever kicks a ball when I'm kicking the ball. To say the brain makes decisions is a manner of speaking and it may be misleading, because it can suggest that my brain's decisions are really not much to do with me, in the way that a rumbling stomach is mine but its rumbles are not altogether my own.

On the main question, only you can answer it in the way that it is put. What determines your decisions? Well, why don't you give us an example of a decision that you've made and then tell us what determined it. Yesterday I decided to have an egg for breakfast. As to the question what determined that decision, I would say that nothing determined it because the decision, although made by myself, was not determined and nor was I determined. I fancied an egg. My fancying an egg did not determine the decision to cook one although it was my reason for cooking it. These matters are complicated and full of pitfalls that you cannot just skate over.

Damn. I was wondering why I couldn't just swipe left on the posts I don't like. And there didn't seem to be a strong story line in any of it. Thanks for explaining. :P

Good points. The theory depends upon actors being rational and well-informed. We are not rational when addicted and as you say we are all irrational to some degree. But it's not easy to get away from 'someone knows best.' We both know the addict has a false idea of what is best for him. But on what authority do we make this judgement on his behalf? Rawls suggests that behind the veil of ignorance we would rationally make certain judgements about the distribution of welfare and opportunities, leading to the maxi-min principle. Well, maybe some would think like that and some would not. Some might be prepared to take the chance. Some might point out that there is no veil of ignorance. We know who we are and what is best for us in our current situation. There are appalling examples of groups of individuals jointly making ethical decisions that stink. I would say that we do need governments. And looking around at the options I would rather live under a broadly utilitarian regime than one that believes, for example, it was installed by God to do His will or that some group that I happen to belong to needs to be eradicated for the sake of national purity.

I would say, not quite accurate. You have put forward a particular ethical theory. Ethics in philosophy is the study of such theories and there are many types. So when you look at your own theory and then list its advantages and disadvantages and the challenges that it might encounter, then you are studying ethics. Whether or not you choose to study ethics is entirely separate from the question whether you are 'ethical' in the sense of being a good person.

"...people, in general, don't even know what they themselves want"

"...isn't the problem now to create a calculus that would be able to determine what would be the optimal utility to all people (the greatest good principle)."

One theory is that what they want is what they are prepared to pay for; and that free exchange between well-informed individuals will result in optimal utility. So I make smartphones which make people happy, as proved by the price they are prepared to pay me for them. If too many people jump on the bandwagon of selling smartphones then people will have had enough of them and the price will go down and some of us will have to move on to producing something else, such as kipper ties or sonnets or landmines. Eventually everyone will be paying just as much as they want for exactly the things they most like.

There are notorious problems with this view which I will leave to others to explore if they wish.