Procreation is not an event? Being born is not a state of affairs caused by an act previously? — schopenhauer1

Both created you, of necessity. Neither were done to you.

I am not here to condemn the people, just the question the practice and philosophy — schopenhauer1

A claim which is performatively contradicted by your grammar...which was the point of my comment.

As to the general philosophy, I've already presented counterarguments on several occasions. I've no intention of repeating them to the disinterested.

Your complaint isn't the illegitimate part. Your blame is.

No one did this to you.

Being you requires that you survive or die. So it's impossible for someone to impose that situation on you. It what being you consists of.

You can whinge like a five year old about it. Fucking annoying, but not incoherent.

Saying someone did it to you is equally annoying, but additionally incoherent.

To answer the question "Is the country mobilizing to save its citizens, or is it mobilizing to save the existing power structure?", you need to look at the function of mobilization of the society in a war. — ssu

Sure, but in relation to the balance of value to citizens vs the value to the state. Simply declaring that citizens benefited won't cut it. We're talking about Ukraine here. I've given the evidence of overall similarity between Ukraine, Russia and Belarus (as an example of a puppet state). Since the evidence shows there's not much to choose between them, I'm struggling to see where you're getting your argument from about civilian benefits.

And what happens to countries and societies if they loose the war (or surrender) to an invading power whose objective is annex the country. — ssu

Again, since I'm not disputing that some wars benefit the populations committed to them, your argument is wasted.

...

The point here is that whether the benefit of any war is worth the cost is disputed. I don't think you can seriously raise an objection to that.

So, given the enormous risk, and disputed benefits, how does a state justify not giving its citizens the freedom to choose?

If your answer is "it wouldn't work otherwise", then that opens the state to the criticism that its own survival is the paramount objective.

And your problem with all your arguments is you don’t recognize de facto conditions as still forced conditions. — schopenhauer1

a conditions necessity doesn’t make it any different than the lava pit scenario, when it comes to impositions. — schopenhauer1

I'm quite happy to admit they're forced too. But not on you. There's no 'you' without them.

It's the difference between a fireman complaining about long working hours and a fireman complaining about fighting fires. A fireman need not work long hours, but a fireman just ceases to be a fireman unless they fight fires.

So baby born into lava pit. — schopenhauer1

Yeah. Lava pits are dangerous and babies need not be born into them. Someone did that to the baby the moment that baby was born (or conceived even). It's not a necessary part of being them that they drop into a lava pit. It is a necessary part of being you that you either do what it takes to survive or you die.

Local institutions. The government you face basically isn't the foreign power, but for example your old previous institutions. A county isn't a country: both your county and London are in England. In fact Scotland with their Scottish Parliament (or the Welsh Senedd) are examples of autonomy in your country. The Scots have been an independent country and have had now referendums about independence (and I guess one purposed for 2023 now), which just underlines my point. Whales shows even better how assimilation works: only a third or so of Welsh people actually can speak Welsh and only a tenth use it daily. — ssu

Why are you telling me all this?

But seems that Isaac views these questions only from a moral point of view and cannot see any other way to look at it. — ssu

It's the topic of the thread. If you want to start another thread about the history and function of conscription, do so.

I think this generalizes pretty well too, into something like a quasi-mystical phenomenology versus crude nihilistic 'scientism' (as seen here, I suspect.) — Pie

Yes, indeed. One of the limitations of scientism (among many) is that the proponent's outlook is necessarily limited to those scientific models that they are aware of (and understand!). Most often (for some reason) these tend to be some extremely complex aspects of quantum physics or cosmology...

The 'science' of human beings (speculative and young as it is) is rarely in the playbook. Although I'd still object to it on other grounds, I feel the hard edges of scientism would be much reduced if the 'science' they were 'istic' about was a little more expansive in scope.

I don’t want this condition..is not breaking any grammar rules. — schopenhauer1

No. You can whinge about it all you like. Saying it was forced upon you, is nonsense. There's no 'you' without it. The trouble with all your arguments is that you just can't let go of the drive to blame someone. someone did this to you. But no-one did this to you other than you. There was no you, then there was, and one of the conditions of being you is that you must either do what it takes to survive or else die. Since there was no you before then (nor could there even possibly be) no-one 'did' anything to you.

If enough people don't vote, a minority can, through what is on principle a democratic election, establish a dictatorship and abolish democracy altogether. — baker

But enough people do vote. So that's not something I have to do anything about, is it?

In a political situation that is this dynamic, voting does make a difference. — baker

Yeah. I don't object to voting, or with a compulsion to vote where it's necessary. What I object to is the ludicrous notion that I have no means at my disposal to check whether I'm in such a circumstance prior to any given election. It's absurd. I know the political landscape in my part of the world very well. I know almost exactly how much use my vote will or won't be. Where it won't be of any use, there's no point in doing it. It's not magic, it's just a bit of paperwork. It either needs doing or it doesn't.

Oh dear how I broke all time, logic, and proportion, oh my! — schopenhauer1

I would boast about it, but if you're impressed...

And ? Which are real ? — Pie

Exactly. I can't see where people get the idea that the products of human societies are somehow unreal. On the one hand we have idealists telling us nothing but the products of human minds is real, on the other moral anti-realists telling us that everything except the product of human minds is real!

Could you reproduce my question? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

If you think I've misunderstood your question just say so and tell me what you think I've got wrong. I'm not doing an exam.

What happens, described in a general way, is that we form habits which are based on beliefs held at a particular time (when we're very young, we don't even acknowledge those habit forming beliefs, they are the beliefs, our trainers, or even innate). As we develop a stronger and stronger rational capacity (the power to reason), we may produce beliefs which are inconsistent with our habitual actions which were formed by the prior beliefs. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fascinating stuff. A few questions arise.

How do we identify the old beliefs from the new beliefs? Do they have some kind of labelling system?

Why don't the new beliefs form habits (if the old ones did), and if they do how do we identify new-belief habits from old-belief habits?

Whence my belief that the space above Glen's head is empty? Have I habitually told people the space above their heads is empty?

How do we identify which belief (of the hundreds required to carry out even the smallest task) is the one which is causing the defunct habit?

Research opportunities abound...

Are you saying that my original question (what does it mean when realists use normative/moral terms?) is loaded? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

You're asking "what does it 'mean'?" and then claiming that discussion of how words 'mean' something is 'off track'. If you have a particular direct reference theory of meaning that you want to use when looking at the question "what does it mean...?" then you'll need to make that clear, otherwise the answer is going to hinge entirely on different interpretations of how any word means anything.

Do you not understand my question, or are you being evasive? This conversation keeps getting off track. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

I do. Do you not understand my answer?

When you say the word ‘tree,’ presumably, what it is that your language is trying to do is to capture and transmit the conceptual information pertaining to the properties of a tree (long trunk made of bark, green leafs, etc) through corresponding signs, which are encoded with the conceptual information, across a medium we call language in order for a recipient to subsequently decode and form a mental image of the shared concept (the tree). — Cartesian trigger-puppets

If I'm a passenger in a rally car and I yell 'tree', I sincerely hope there's no decoding of concepts going on.

I mean for the driver to swerve.

Presumably psychologists like to know what it is they are talking about ? Isaac — Pie

Psychologists always know what they're talking about!

We are born with beliefs, and need proof to change them, if I can summarize. — GLEN willows

Yes.

This seems obvious though, and not sure what it has to do with the topic. I may have been born believing there are other minds, or born believing the opposite. Does that have anything to do with whether there ARE other minds? — GLEN willows

No. But we weren't talking about whether there are other minds, we were talking about whether (and why) you believe there are.

So if you're predisposed to be afraid of people that don't look like you, that gives the notion some weight? — GLEN willows

Weight in what sense? Moral weight? No. Explanatory weight? Yes.

Again I'm shocked that you believe having a predisposition to believe something means anything at all. — GLEN willows

Read more carefully. I didnt say "a predisposition to believe" I said "a predisposition to act as if...".

And why 'shocked'?

I would think they have a right to be reunited with the rest of Ireland. NI is an anachronistic remnant of colonialism. — Olivier5

Every border is an anachronistic remnant of some act of colonisation. Where else do you think borders come from? God?

Do you really think being born with a belief is a reason to believe it? — GLEN willows

You already do. That's the point.

If you ask me "what does the space above Glen's head contain?" Am I equally likely to say "Nothing", "A hat", or "a carnivorous butterfly called Ned"?

I assume no-one is going to argue that all three are equally likely responses. Which means that prior to my being asked the question, some state of affairs must exist such as to cause that uneven probability distribution. That state of affairs is what I call a belief - a propensity to act as if... I am predisposed to act as if the space above Glen's head contains nothing, one of those actions is to answer "Nothing" when asked "what does the space above Glen's head contain". We've just established that prior to being asked the question, I already had the predisposition to answer "Nothing", we agreed that (for whatever reason) it was more likely than any other response.

Perhaps these days an own independent nation state is taken as such an obvious given that one has to be a Palestinian or a Kurd to understand what an own independent country means. — ssu

Same could be said of the Russian Crimeans or the the independents in Donbas. Same could be said of the Basque separatists, the Scottish, the Taliban in their strongholds...

Does Northern Ireland have a right to autonomy? Israel (at what size)? Did South Korea? What about the Pacific Islanders?

Your notion that the world can be neatly divided into these shapes whereby a majority within them can rightfully tell the others to walk into a tank, but anyone from a different shape is monstrous to do so.

It's insane. These shapes are an entirely arbitrary result of various wars, settlements and ongoing truces throughout history, they have absolutely no other meaning. To say that those within them are morally obliged to risk their lives to protect the line drawn by some autocrats hundreds of years ago is crazy.

the situation of comply (work/survive in X way) or die was forced upon you — schopenhauer1

Your bitter fantasy is getting the better of your grammar again.

The situation is a necessary part of being you, it wasn't forced upon you. There is no 'you' without that requirement. It's like saying "being made of cells" is forced upon you. There is no you without the cells which constitute you.

would you require proof to believe there's a giant carnivorous butterfly named "Ned" that is floating above my head right now. Do you believe me [accept that it's real] or need [some kind of] proof? — GLEN willows

The answer to this question depends entirely on what one's prior expectations about the space above your head are. We require proof not to believe things, but to change our beliefs about things. I have a belief about the space above your head already (we can test this by asking me to bet on its contents, for example). By claiming that it actually contains a carnivorous butterfly, you're asking me to change my belief. I need some reason to do that (although as @Banno has already said, 'proof' would be too strong a requirement).

Regarding other minds, I already believe there are other minds. I was born with that belief, I've been attempting to emulate, predict and manipulate those other minds since I was a few month's old. I need 'proof'/evidence/justifications to change my mind, but not to keep it how it is by default.

You do understand that it's a great, enormous risk? — ssu

More of a risk than marching toward a line of machine guns?

If you invade and annex a country and then give autonomy to the country and have them have their own laws and institutions etc, why wouldn't they in the future just demand back their independence, if you are so benevolent and friendly? — ssu

I doubt an annexed country would be given autonomy. What's so special about autonomy? I live in a rural county of England. We don't have autonomy, we're dictated to by London. In America, states are dictated to by federal law. What's so special about existing states that they have a right to autonomy which is denied individual counties, or villages, or households?

What about the autonomy of those who don't want to enlist? Why is their autonomy trodden over but the autonomy of their state paramount?

And you think those that did successfully resist colonization are unhappy of their choice to resist? — ssu

I doubt it, no. That some military defenses are successful is not an argument that any given military defense will be. No one would ever attack anywhere if that were the case.

What do you happened then to the native Americans, the Aztecs and or the Incas? Or the Maoris in New Zealand? Did they get their nations back? With what political action?

No. — ssu

Now you're just making the same error the other way around. That some political activism isn't successful is not an argument that any given political activism won't be. No one would ever act if that were the case.

The matter is clearly uncertain. So the question is about what right a government has to force such an enormous imposition for such a disputed benefit.

At least as I have always understood it, with ethical naturalism and ethical non-naturalism being the two main types. — Michael

Here's Routledge...

The realist, on this account, holds that moral statements are capable of truth, and indeed that some are true. If we say this, we can still distinguish between realism and objectivism in ethics. Realism is the claim that moral judgments are sometimes true; objectivism is the claim that the sort of truth they have is objective truth.

It goes on to cite Crispin Wright...

Crispin Wright (1992) has suggested that, if this is what is at issue between realism and noncognitivism, the matter will be quickly resolved in favour of realism. In his view, the mere fact that moral discourse is assertive, and that moral utterances are governed by norms of warranted assertibility, is enough to establish that we make no mistake in calling some true and others false.

"Punching old ladies is right" is an assertion which is amenable to being true in exactly the same way that "this is a game" is.

If I point to a bus and say "this is a game", what I've said is false, but it's false by no other criteria than that buses are not the sorts of things we use the word 'game' for.

And just why wouldn't the surrendered people then fall to what surrendered people have fallen in history many, many times: to be second rate people in their own country and finally being assimilated to be the part of their conquerors after losing their language and their own culture? Or if not being assimilated, then live as a lower caste or live in a reservation. — ssu

Well they might. Or they might not. that's the point. the argument is about the degree of imposition the government considers reasonable in the face of a reasonable disagreement as to the consequences.

Consider the lockdown again. Some people disagreed with the government there about consequences. But the imposition was small and the government consulted scientists (whereas those who disagreed generally didn't).

This is no the case with war. The imposition is huge, and undeniably and the government consults no special experts as to what life would be like under foreign rule, it's just their opinion.

Perhaps these days an own independent nation state is taken as such an obvious given that one has to be a Palestinian or a Kurd to understand what an own independent country means. — ssu

No. There are objective facts about the matter we can turn to, Belarus is not an independent state. It scores higher than Ukraine on several measure of human well-being. There's no reason to think an independent state is better than a foreign-controlled one.

And you think that one state to another doesn't matter? Well, benevolent and friendly states that value your freedom usually don't go and invade other countries and annex them — ssu

No, they don't. Something which would only make a difference if the state you currently have was a friendly, benevolent one. Otherwise the swap is irrelevant. The war, though, isn't.

What would have surrendering in 1939 meant for us? Likely rape of women, pillaging, elimination of our political and cultural elite, deportations of entire families and villages to Siberia, masses of basically forced immigration of Russians (and Belorussians, Ukrainians) to our country. The Russification of our society and being under Soviet control perhaps until finally getting our independence back when the Soviet Union fell apart. We'd just be far more poorer with and ugly, painful history. — ssu

Probably. One of the reasons I think the war against the Nazis was just,

Or was it so simply to all those countries that were colonized by the Europeans? Just surrender? — ssu

Yes. Absolutely. In most cases resistance was useless and failed anyway. Surrendering would have been much less harmful and resistance could have taken the more successful form of political action. The thing which actually repelled the colonists in the end.

It's not a sufficient argument to say that because in some wars, we would have been worse off surrendering, that this must then be so in all wars.

Moral realists claim that moral facts are objective in the sense that the speed of light and the existence of Mercury are objective. — Michael

Do they?

Moral realism is not a particular substantive moral view nor does it carry a distinctive metaphysical commitment over and above the commitment that comes with thinking moral claims can be true or false and some are true. — SEP Article

point to the property something has to have to be considered ‘wrong’. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

But that's not equivalent at all. I wouldn't point to the property that a tree has to be considered a tree. I'd just point to the tree.

On a realist construal, moral good and bad are things of the world—they are a thing or property of the world. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

How is language not part of the world? An entire community of real people really use the word 'wrong' in association with the behaviour shoplifting. That's a fact about the world. It's objective. It's not the case only if I think it is, and I can be wrong about it.

That has no bearing on what moral realists mean. — Michael

You said moral realists believe morality relates to objective facts. Being part of a group of behaviours associated with a particular word is an objective fact. If you mean to claim some additional criteria for moral realism, then state it.

Shoplifting is wrong because it's the sort of thing we use the word 'wrong' for. — Isaac


This is not a tautology? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

No. It could be otherwise. It could be that shoplifting is wrong because God said so, regardless of whether entire language communities use the word 'right' in connection with it. Since it could be otherwise, the claim is not tautologous.

You answer a tangential question “Why is shoplifting wrong?” (Which is the same as asking “Why do we use the word ‘wrong’ to describe things like shoplifting.”) by answering, essentially, “Because shoplifting is wrong.” — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Read again what I've written. Nowhere have I answered the question "why is shoplifting wrong?" by saying "because it's wrong". I've said it's wrong because it's one of the behaviours we use the word 'wrong' in connection with.

This could not be the case. It could be the case that it's wrong for some other reason. Hence the claim is not tautologous.

It's like Wittgenstein's 'game'. Why do we call some things 'games'? There's no single reason other than "because they are members of a group of things we use the word 'game' in connection with"

Moral realists claim that there are objective moral fact. — Michael

The meaning of a word in a language is objective. We don't all have our own personal meanings, we couldn't talk if that were the case.

Im asking what moral or normative terms mean on a realist construal. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

If you ask "what does 'tree' mean" would you expect an answer other than just to point to a tree and say "It's one of those"? why would you expect the answer to "what does 'moral' mean" to be any different than to point to moral acts and say "it's one of those"?

This wouldn’t be moral realism though. — Michael

Are languages not real?

I'm using this definition of moral realism, by the way...

Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/

It is a fact that shoplifting is one of the behaviours we use words like immoral in connection with. Therefore the moral claim "shoplifting is not moral" reports a fact, the fact that shoplifting is not one the behaviours we use the word 'moral' in connection with.

There are legal terms in war too. Just starting from that combatants can be legal or illegal. That enemy soldiers are prisoners-of-war, not treated as ordinary criminals. — ssu

I know. You're still not relating any of this to justifications.

If you don't have the ability to defend your country and the potential enemy knows it, meaning your defense has no deterrent, then what is the justification for having a "defence force" in the first place? Perhaps it's just to lull your people into thinking that the army can protect the nation, when it cannot. — ssu

It's simpler to just answer the question, but whatever....

If you don't have a capable defence force you can't defend your nation. We agree on this.

Now. Why is it justified to solve the problem of not having a capable defence force by using conscription?

What you are talking about are the rights of the individual compared to duty of the state to protect the society and it's people, where the state then limits your freedoms because of the collective. And if you are somewhat OK with the state posing limitations on your freedoms during a pandemic, you think it's so totally different when the state faces a bigger threat of war. — ssu

Yes. Finally! That is exactly the question.

And yes, it is totally different for the reasons I've already given.

1. Being quarantined hardly compares to being shot at, captured, tortured and injured. The justification has to be significantly greater.

2. Being quarantined is (usually) scientifically proven to save people's lives. It's not a wild guess, nor is it a political opinion. The benefits of retaining one flag over another is not in any way the same quality of evidence. — Isaac

being either a civilian or not, you might be shot, captured, tortured and injured in war. — ssu

Not if your state surrenders. War takes two parties, the aggressor and the defender. Many Ukrainians, particularly in the east want to surrender. They believe that their lives under Russian rule will be insufficiently different from their lives under Ukrainian rule to justify war.

Others want to leave the country, to run away.

Being a civilian victim of war is not the only other option.

What is so difficult to understand in the grave threat a war poses to a society? — ssu

War (vs no war) is not the choice we're discussing. It's the current State vs some other State. You're assuming war. War is not a given . The state could simply hand over control to the invading party. No war.

I just rearranged your statement so to make it clear that it was tautological. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

It's not tautologous. We use the word 'wrong' to describe certain behaviours, shoplifting is one of them. There's nothing tautologous about that claim.

What is it out language is attempting to capture? Whats the referent? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Why need there be one?

we use the word ‘wrong’ to describe ‘wrong acts’ and shoplifting is one of those ‘wrong acts.’ — Cartesian trigger-puppets

We don't use the word 'wrong' to describe wrong acts. We use the word 'wrong' to describe some acts and not others. You're assuming there's some strict property we're identifying by that use but you've given no reason why you think there is. Why can we not use the word vaguely, or contextually, or without the other person completely understanding what we mean?

What else is there besides desires and standards? Intuition? Reciprocal altruism? — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Language?

Shoplifting is wrong because it's the sort of thing we use the word 'wrong' for.