Okay, I see you are using 'rational' in a very particular way so I won't waste my time in a pointless back and forth.

Have fun :)

So you are saying that people with no language do not act rationally? That seems like a stretch.

I agree rational thinking requires language and then questioning out one thinks and that animals do not do this and can not do so without language. — Athena

This is false. Chimps can cooperate and problem solve, as can chickens. The latter may be mere 'programming' but I would not say we can state one way or another what we mean by 'language' to begin with.

I can certainly think without words. The guy from Mexico managed to cross a border and work in the US before coming to understand what language was. Do not confuse language with culture. Our understand of language maps onto the lived-world rather than the other way around.

'Religious freedom'. Is this a fundamental human right? Where are the limits? When it encroaches on other freedoms or rights. Like those of women. A world-wide problem - wider than abortion. — Amity

I think if you rephrase this as 'freedom to believe what you want' it sounds even more stupid in a way. We believe what we believe. You cannot expect people to stop believing something just because it seems ridiculous or abhorrent.

It is obviously difficult to cope with this in society. No one has the same mind. The best we can hope to encourage on others is open dialogue. It will be refused by some, but those that accept it may leads others in too.

I am still not sure about how tolerant anyone should be to anyone else. it is another matter of personal choice. What I may tolerate others may not. We have to live with this fact.

The common argument here is that bodily autonomy is a defensive right - you have the right to refuse interference with your body, but you don't have a right to a specific treatment. And in case of a pregnancy, the fetus/baby is "using" the body of the mother, hence her bodily autonomy takes precedence. — Echarmion

I think this is a poor argument in some ways. If someone chooses to become pregnant, and/or sees their pregnancy through to a certain point, then changes their minds ... well, is the unborn child to blame for the mother's poor management of the situation.

Of course, I am looking at a specific scenario here and questioning exactly how far along a pregnancy is before the woman decides to abort. I do not see how the 'body autonomy' argument would hold up here because the woman made a prior choice and commitment and so should be held to account to some degree (varying on a case-to-case basis).

As a more concrete analogy if I commit to paying monthly installments for something over a period of time and willingly and knowingly sign up to this commitment, then simply having a change of mind/heart after I have only made 60% of the installments, and expecting everyone to be okay with this (if I have the fund available) is frankly a little ridiculous.

In some sense, I can see this kind of position being put forward to argue against abortions after a certain period of time. The obvious problem is then deciding on where to draw the line. I truly believe there is a line to be drawn and that, to some degree, it necessarily has to be arbitrary in-part but certainly not fully (ie. backed up by latest scientific understanding).

In the UK I believe it is 22 weeks. I am sure there are situations where abortions are allowed after this period depending on the circumstances.

I can a degree of sympathy with those who believe that life is sacred form the point of conception, but personally I just do not see things this way. Open dialogue is a good thing if people can respect/understand the authority of evidence others are working with.

This is all to say if you want to create an economic theory, you have to look at what the consequences of that system will be. A car that doesn't run isn't worth having even if it was the most ethically produced car of all time. If your system causes economic collapse, it's hard to argue that was an ethical system. — Hanover

As a kind of loose defense against this thought I guess it could be argued that ethics is necessarily embedded in any system of values. I cannot imagine how peoples opinions about things wouldn't effect the marketplace.

There is certainly something to be said for the traditions and values of different societies in how they assign the idea of worth. Historically different members of society are treated differently in manners that seem ridiculous to us today.

My main disagreement with framing income as 'moral' only seems relevant in a world where most people are effectively forced to take this or that job. Where choice remains (as opposed to slavery) there is a grey area where 'morality' has some clout. Pressure folks enough and they will demand something that at least 'appears' more just. Be this through dishes out punishments or offering handouts to rebalance the scales. Neither seems anything like ideal for the reasons I think Nozick is pointing too.

This means recognizing that individuals from socially disadvantaged groups may not have had the same opportunities to demonstrate their worth due to systemic barriers. Therefore, affirmative action or equal opportunity initiatives would be justified to help these individuals reach their potential. This adjustment reframes worth not just as a reflection of past contributions but as a recognition of untapped potential, especially in underrepresented groups. — Benkei

Nozick's frames this under patterning and states that the two 'principles of justice' do not require patterning. He does admit that where people view balances in society they will call for 'patterns' of distribution but these are arbitrary: based on moral merit, worth, need etc.,. The point being the overarching principles of distribution stand outside of set 'patterns' of distribution.

My understanding of all this up to now is that Nozick is stating something akin to what I was outlining (that may be due to my own views obviously!). That is, that rules cannot tell people how to behave. Some people will behave in a manner you may consider moral and I may not. What matters is the principles of justice are upheld as best they can until a time comes where more and more people are not happy and so act to rectify what they deem as an inappropriate distribution.

I think it is clear enough to everyone that the larger a company the less 'moral' it appears to be. I am under no delusion that the Law is Just. We have to keep pushing for what we deem to be just against those who have different views of what is just. We all dance around the 'convention' of the legal system and sometimes reform it when and where we can.

I completely agree that what is deemed legal is not necessarily moral. Nozick seems to be mostly concerned with minimal state interference and upholding personal individual freedoms above all else.

What would a solution look like to the problem of a lack of 'morals' in employers? I am curious to hear what you might suggest, or just further explain your thinking and reveal the problem as you see it further.

Thank you :)

Let's pretend that because it sometimes happens it isn't an issue? Really? — Benkei

If you are just going to put words into my mouth we will not get far here.

The market doesn't operate that way. There's no price mechanism through which such information is communicated so even if you would want to, you can't. — Benkei

Explain. I have no idea what you are talking about here. What is boils down to is people are FREE to choose who they employ and for some governmental authority to dictate to its citizens what is 'moral' essentially results in a slippery slope towards tyranny.

Berlin's 'Negative' liberty trumps 'Positive' liberty. If we disagree here then you have to put your argument forward more clearly. I cannot see how we can 'force' morals on people with any reasonable outcome.

Shame. The aesthetics part might have interested me :(

Freedom has its price, but few are willing to pay.

I do not think finger pointing and blaming gets anyone anywhere good very quickly (the opposite usually).

There is of course the question of the limitations of toleration. Where to draw the line if at all?

However, the labor market doesn’t determine worth in any moral sense—it merely assigns value based on economic factors like demand, supply, and efficiency. — Benkei

But it does if employers act as you state here:

In an ideal ethical framework, all things being equal, an employer should prioritize hiring the individual who is most in need of income. — Benkei

I am sure some do. The problem is then about negative discrimination. I have heard of some people trying to find work but being turned away for being 'over qualified'. There are many psychological factors to consider here as those more capable than their managers will be looked at as a threat to some and so they will do what they can to belittle them in the belief that they are being undermined.

Also, an employer probably wants a stable workforce rather than to hire someone who will work below their paygrade as once the labour market changes and allows the opportunity for those more capable to move on to pastures greener, they will.

As an interesting aside question here; is it 'better' to hire someone over qualified for a job above someone with the perfect level of qualification IF the former has been refused work on the job market for months whilst the latter has only been looking for a week? The 'moral obligation' in any given situation is extremely nuanced, so how much interest should employers be paying when it comes to the personal lives of their potential employees and those already in employment?

So ...

if we acknowledge the importance of need in labor contracts, then it follows that income should not be viewed as an absolute right. If individuals are hired based on their needs, the resultant income is not merely a reward for their labor but also a response to their vulnerability. — Benkei

This seems to be how things pan out overall - with some obvious fluctuations.

To the meat of your point regrading 'income' as an 'absolute right' I am still a little puzzled. I guess this comes down to my views on 'rights' being a construct not an actual 'right' by some universal law of nature.

If you mean something more like people do NOT deserve more than others, then I can only disagree. No one 'derserves' anything in some sense of the word ... this again harks back to essentialist views.

For the hiring and firing of staff people act in accord to their own morals. You cannot enforce 'moral behaviour' because that is a complete contradiction. You can argue for fairer systems that are better refined to protect individuals but they will only be enforced to any reasonable degree if people are willing to take responsibility and/or the overall outcome suits them (see above regarding the benefit of hiring those who NEED the work).

When we center the discussion on worth, need and just production it becomes clear that individuals do not have an unqualified moral right to all of their income. Market outcomes, contractual agreements, and economic success do not inherently reflect moral entitlements. Rather, they are contingent on broader social, ethical, and political contexts. Worth is often arbitrary, need is ignored, and production is more often than not exploitative and unjust.

In light of these factors, a moral right to income cannot be reasonably held. Instead, it is merely a legal right. — Benkei

Of course [for bold text]. The rest I am sceptical about for the reasons outlined previously.

What you also have to consider is Nozick's closing point regarding the liberty of an individual in a minimal state:

The minimal state treats us as inviolate individuals, who may not be used in certain ways by others as means or cools or instruments or resources; it treats us as persons having individual rights with the dignity this constitutes. Treating us with respect by respecting our rights, it allows us, individually or with whom we choose, to choose our life and to realize our ends and our conception of ourselves, insofar as we can, aided by the voluntary cooperation of other individuals possessing the same dignity. How dare any state or group of individuals do more. Or less.

Nozick,Anarchy, State and Utopia, (1999, pp. 333-334)

Note: I have not read the section covering his 'entitlement theory' so will go over that when I have time to look.

There are various tiers of belief in this discussion. A lot of people who are lumped into the term 'Pro life' often just think the point of termination should be changed.

The media is highly active in sensationalising an already sensitive issue sadly - especially in the US where major contention exists among more religiously inclined folk.

You should also consider that there are extremists on BOTH sides of the argument too. Some even argue for abortion right up to conception - Bodily Autonomy argument.

This assumes people have 'rights' - also a legal matter. True enough there is certainly a 'moral' factor involved here in regards to the establishment of rights being, at its core, about protecting people from harms in some fashion or another.

here's a contract after all. Etc. Etc. "The standards society adopted" are largely unexamined. — Benkei

By Nozick? I have read Chapters 1 & 2 so I am unsure why you are suggesting these standards are largely unexamined? Also in Chapter 10 (which I have also read fairly thoroughly) how and why society adopt certain standards are looked at here too. For instance, in the three utopian positions: 'Imperialistic,' 'Missionary,' and 'Existential'.

Maybe Chapter 3 does not cover what bothers you thoroughly enough. It woudl be helpful if you can pinpoint where in the Chapter he falls short. I will read that Chapter now. I have been meaning to get back to the book and read every page so this is a good enough excuse to do so now :) Thanks

What bits were useful?

He is not saying that apparently but I would. PLUS the level of skill and the cost of materials. I would pay an incompetent potter less or rather not even bother hiring them for their service.

Goods and Services. The potter is providing a service not a good (their knowledge and skill).

People pay for two things:
- The Practical use of an item.
- The Aesthetic quality of the item.

The lump of clay is neither of any practical use in its current form nor of any real aesthetic quality either. It is just raw material with potential use for creating something beautiful and/or useful.

Additional Edit: Why is this a curious question for you? Show us what interests you. There are clearly many different paths that could be explored here.

I have no idea given I have no idea about the nuances of this specific situation.

In general though, it depends on whether they felt like they made the correct moral choice. I would also ask whether the person asking made the right moral choice too in asking and in not planning ahead.

What is your point? What do you think?

I think it is pretty obvious that what is legal is not necessarily just. I have read Nozick's partially only atm so perhaps I will see what you are talking about exactly if you give page references maybe? From my perspective I am worried you are applying the idea of 'morals' where they simply do not map directly onto what you are considering. I may well be wrong in this assumption though.

I'm suggesting laws can change. — Benkei

They can and do. No need to suggest this.

I find the issue becomes more or less about what an individual can do and what others believe they should do. If it comes down to one side or the other I side with not imposing collective or individual wills on others.

In light of these factors, a moral right to income cannot be reasonably held. Instead, it is merely a legal right. — Benkei

Underneath are you suggesting that what is legal should be moral rather than just? Or that what is just is not moral? Or something else entirely?

Logic is mathematical not lingual. It is only applied to language in the same manner it is applied to numbers, but obviously language and mathematics are completely different breeds of thing.

No one can argue over the answer to a calculation, but many can argue over the answer to a question like 'Are people like dogs?'

Mathematical

Logical is a mathematical field primarily. There are no pure mathematically logical truths in language.

So, no. It helps to know where the limits of pure mathematical logic are and their associative use when applied to 'language' ... which is a nebulous term as is practically every term in ... er ... In short, words have limits and we have no idea what they are nor how to 'measure' them. Sentences usually float above this problem and create senses of meaning that are of practical use and more applicable to vaguely logical forms.

It is perfectly fine to say an orange is a happier fruit than a lemon. It is not at all clear what is meant by this or whether or not there is a correct way to interpret this in some given context, because 'context' itself squirms under scrutiny ... I could go on but hopefully you do not get the idea; which is precisely the point!

My general advice would be to simply write what you read in the simplest form you understand it then go back and check what you just read and see how well your written words align with it. As well as this it is really important to jot down any tangential ideas or thoughts that spring to mind and look where you agree or disagree with what you have just read and try and understand why you feel this way.

As for forums, they are a test of patience, sometimes a nuisance, and sometimes engaging. Either way you get to practice refining your thoughts more concisely as it is decent writing practice.

If you know you are ignorant then you are ready to become more ignorant. That is what any real amount of studying into any topic necessarily does.

Yeah, a long time ago. I thought it was utter garbage. Nothing but hermeneutical jargon under misrepresentation and twaddle.

That said, I would not dismiss either Heidegger nor Derrida out of hand. Heidegger has his uses (negatively) and I suspect Derrida could be of value to from what others have reported but I have not really had the time for a deep dive into Derrida. One day, sooner rather than later, I am likely to have a closer look at him.

Every philosophy is dubious to a degree and a matter of taste too. I like what Husserl was attempting and Heidegger did a pretty decent job (in places) of explicating some of Husserl's ideas, but overall I am still on the fence as to whether Husserlian phenomenology can rightly be labeled as 'idealist' or not. He remains intriguing to me and another I have to dive deeper into to find out more (maybe one day!).

Thoughts on Husserl? I personally believe Heidegger, for the most part, hijacked Husserl's line of investigation and fixated on one tiny aspect of it effectively throwing the entire point of the phenomenology out of the window. I kind of think of it a little like the New Age movement hijacking Jung's work. The only difference being people took Heidegger seriously.

Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself.

Interesting. Never heard of these scrolls before.

I was looking for something a little more specific. I have a broad enough knowledge and wish to learn more about the development and evolution of Islam specifically (within an anthropologic and political sense).

Do these cover the history from a secular perspective or are they laden with religious rhetoric? I am looking for more scholarly work that tries to be objective and provide facts rather than add speculative or religious connotations.

Thanks

If I was prone to losing the will to live in response to people struggling to articulate their thoughts, I'd have murdered myself a long time ago. — wonderer1

:grin: :up:

I do go on to suggest that is may be this kind of process that refined our reasoning too. Not sure if you got to that point or lost the will to live listening to me tripping over nearly every word I said :D

Thanks for reference. Doubt I will be able to find a copy of that book though. Does he make any cross-references with other religious traditions?

This is me making a pig's ear of this topic and rambling on :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlXj9cBTpVU&t=901s

I tried! I will keep trying :D Not sure if it makes anything I am talking about more clear OR less clear?

To the extent this generalized (and I grant, likely oversimplified) perspective is granted, I then doubt that egotists' sophistic competition for new ideas can lead to improved reasoning anywhere near as much as the sincere hunt for the truth(s) that await to be found, both physical and metaphysical. The very same overall dichotomy I'd then ascribe to humanity's history of conceptualizations regarding divinity, or spirituality, or god/s. Some emerged out of competitions for power-over others and yet others emerged out of competing views, competitions to this extent, for what is genuinely true - such that truth (and thereby awareness of what is real) becomes the prize that is to be won (and not an ego's greater power-over that which is other which bolsters one's magnitude of egoism). And, of course, there then can be rivalry galore between these two overall ambitions and resulting forms of respective competition.

In short, I don't find that all notions of divinity, spirituality, and god/s are there strictly due to oneupmanship - which, if true, would entail that all such accounts are strictly about granting some egos more power over other egos and that none of these concepts were in any way obtained via sincere inquiries into what is true and thereby real. Most interpretations of Buddhism, as one example, don't in any way strike me as being about oneupmanship - but, instead, as addressing being about as egoless as is possible. — javra

I cannot really disagree here either. I probably am just more curious about it having a bigger effect than we would initially think.

Before any search for truth I think this is a likely candidate that helped develop an initial search for the truth.

As a kind of counter argument to what I am thinking, I am aware that we are born with certain rational faculties. I read this several years ago. Maybe someone else will find it interesting enough to read too:
The Scientist in the Crib

I am unsure what is controversial. We absolutely have an innate capacity for language. There are instances where individuals have no, or minimal, language and manage to pick it up even in later life.

I guess it is good to have some controversy in areas that seem obviously true. I do have my own way of viewing language and by 'language' I mean something that is probably not the same as how many others use the term. So, yeah, disagreements will arise due to use of the term probably.

This doesn't go against what I am saying. Animism would not prevent people from having competing views and partaking in one-upmanship in term of items possessed. The underlying point I am making is people grappling in a competitive state with abstract ideas.

It is clear enough that if something moves we read social attributes into it. This has been shown again and again with non-lingual babies having emotional reacts to images of shapes 'attacking' other shapes.

I am looking very specifically at what I am proposing here. Not really interested in other ideas related to God/Religion unless they can be combined with what I am talking about.

Seeing Faces and Seeing Object As Sentient is interesting but I do not see how it relates to what I am saying directly?

Not all scientist agree that language is innate in humans
— Sir2u

This is true — T Clark

Really? Who disagrees? How so? Seems a strange thing to dispute, but likely it is the concept of 'language' they are using. Some linguists are quite happy to state that bees have a 'language' while others are not.

Granting that I"m properly understanding this quote, I don't identify the conceptual drift toward monotheism(s) with the key instrument to the development of reason. Instead, I tend to identify monotheistic notions of God with the average human impetus, or desire, for some authority that overshadows all others. This, in turn, can either lead to authoritarianism, if not despotic yearnings and practices, which I view as bad/unethical/etc. or else toward egalitarian universals of being: with "natural laws" quickly here coming to mind as one version of this (be they found in materialisms or in monotheisms or else in spiritualities such as the Logos of the Stoics ... the latter, quite obviously, standing at a stark crossroad to most monotheistic worldviews wherein a superlative personhood as absolute authority is championed from which the logos ("the word") stems).

In short, I disagree that the development of reason is to be associated with the "ultimate personhood" issue. (Whether one to any extent agrees or disagrees with it, Buddhism is certainly entwined with a vast amount of reasoning, for example, and there is no ultimate personhood in it.) — javra

I am saying something more like the 'one-upmanship' led to progress in Reason. As you rightly point out both Western and Eastern traditions have a history of debate (as I outlined).

I can get this, though I find it overlooks the yet quite persisting perspective of "Nature worship" to be found in a significant quantity of Western traditions (with various forms of Neo-paganism as one blatant example). A Buddhist or Hindu, for example, does not engage in the same trains of thought as do Westerners when it comes to this, such that Buddhism and Hinduism can at best only be described as forms of Nature-worship only from the vantage of Westerner's projections. This much like they could all be declared as "pagans" by some monotheists. — javra

The concerns of each tradition are quite different for sure. The God concept is a primary issue for Western traditions but not at all for Eastern.

To this effect, having read Eliade's "Shamanism" some time ago, you'll find the notion of nature-worship quite well alighted to the concept of shamanism, for example. And shamanism, though nowadays in some cases extended to Eastern traditions - say, for one example, by addressing the original Buddha as a shaman of the East - is well enough rooted in Western practices and perspectives: shamanism historically stemmed from Siberia with enough affirming it to originate from traditions along the Caucasus Mountains, and from the latter we get the term "Caucasian" which, at least in the USA, is often used to strictly denote white people of European decent.) — javra

To be fair Eliade makes it pretty clear he is talking about Shamanism not shamanism - as in not the true name associated with Siberia but a global phenomenon.

Again, contemplating the strictly Western notions of (non-monotheistic) Logos, as one example, is to itself be addressing "higher concepts" that concern the cosmological concerns you specify. No superlative personhood required. — javra

I think I see where you are slightly misunderstanding what I am saying. This is why I tried to steer clear of one particular example. The story is the competitive element here NOT the personhood. In the Western tradition clearly personhood has been a primary mover in the development of theological thinking, but elsewhere it was certainly not that big of a concern at all.

Pretty much. But I am also saying this may be more than it sounds as it could have played a big part in developing logical reasoning.

Once again you are confusing modern ideas and principles with caveman mentality. — Sir2u

Well, this is what I am saying you are doing ... so we are kind of stuck aren't we :D

Just because they did not get all of the answers correct does ot mean that they did not try to do the best with the knowledge available. — Sir2u

Yes. But you can agree they did not have demarcated logical principles or scientific method. No Evidence, Facts or concept of Causation in the way we do. I mean, this can been shown with people today to some degree (and even seen on this forum from time to time).

purely fabricated for some small individual purpose or simple pleasure? — Fire Ologist

I would not say 'simple pleasure' as the social interactions between people is highly complex. Maybe it was trivial to some and not to others. We can see how with the advent of civilization that people were curious enough to write about narratives and look beyond the surface. A kind of artistic 'critical analysis', a dissemination of taste, played out publicly.

So I wouldn’t say you need competitiveness or exaggeration to come up with the idea of god. — Fire Ologist

The one-upmanship is just what we do. I am not saying it is I am suggesting maybe it could be a bigger factor than we realise in social groups where Evidence and Facts are absent (in the modern sense) and that the aesthetics of the situation play are much harder role in the development of ideas leading to formal reasoning.