one gets told that there are things one cannot understand. One is excluded from some group. Some thusly excluded people handle this by downplaying the importance of said group and its expertise. Some do it by playing it up. — baker

Yes, probably. Neither of which have any bearing whatsoever on the question of whether that group were correct about ttier esoteric knowledge claims.

One of the meanings of "rational" is 'proportional', 'in ratio'... Adepts in some esoteric discipline spend a lot of time discussing those esoteric topics, and within that reference frame, their discussion is rational. — baker

Sounds plausible. Unfortunately no-one is using that heterodox meaning of 'rational' in this discussion so I don't see how it's relevant.

At the time of birth, there is a person's will. That person does not exist in that situation by magic or fiat. Something put them in that situation. — schopenhauer1

Agreed. And if the very situation itself was overall negative then we'd have a problem, but since it isn't we've no problem at all ... yet.

Once that situation has started, the dignity was violated. — schopenhauer1

This is just plain wrong though. Once born, no dignity is being violated. You can't change the past. You're literally saying that a situation which occurred in the past changes once the kid is born in the future. For something which did not violate anyone's dignity at the time to change as a consequence of something in its future breaks the rules of causality. Something from the future cannot cause a change in the properties of something in the past. So if it wasn't a violation of dignity at the time (which it wasn't because no will existed to act against), then some future event can't change the circumstances of the past to make it something it wasn't.

did this "will" have autonomy to be in the situation it finds itself in? No. — schopenhauer1

That doesn't make sense. Autonomy only means anything when there is a will. The concept can't be applied to the pre-will possibility, you might as well apply it to a stone. Possibilities don't have wills. The act of conception is the act of creating a will, so it cannot possibly be judged against the autonomy of that will, nothing can will itself to be created nor will itself not to be, so there's no view on the matter to take into consideration (or unjustly not do so).

I don't think "dignity" just covers autonomy of will, but a basic unfairness or injustice that might be more fundamental (you don't need a will involved at point A, let's say). That is to say, finding yourself in a game you cannot escape, and that was not of your doing, is an injustice. — schopenhauer1

Most people don't think so, so just saying it is isn't going to be sufficient. You've said before that you can make your case from common intuitions. This isn't one.

I can explain this better with your oft-used kidnapping example.

What's bad about kidnapping a person to play a game (even if you think the game is brilliant and they'll really enjoy it) is that you're treating them as if they didn't have a will of their own. Their own choices of their own free will have a value over and above how 'right' or 'wrong' those choices are (sometimes).

But we can't apply this to conception because there's no person to have a will, to possess their own choices, until after we've conceived them. A non-existent being doesn't have a will or make any choices of their own.

Once born they will have a will and choices of their own, but we're not doing anything to violate them by then. It's a one-off decision and it's made at a time when there's no will to violate by making it.

We're deciding whether to bring a will into existence, so we can't possibly be violating that will at the same time as deciding whether to create it.

though the subject may not be the author of her desires and primitive emotional attitudes, she is nonetheless cognizant of the truth of her desires and emotions and therefore they are the truth-makers to which her subsequent thoughts and statements—her truth-bearers —are dependent upon...emergent drivers and motivators of action that are out of my control — Cartesian trigger-puppets

This is not strictly true though. What we perceive as desires and emotions are constructions, models we build from physiological inputs and socially mediated expectations.

https://www.affective-science.org/pubs/2017/barrett-tce-scan-2017.pdf

It makes it difficult to qualify a truth-maker, as no-one could actually establish what was the case.

Time 1: No state of affairs exists where a baby is in a net that I set in the sand, hidden.
Time 2: A baby is in now in the net.

Time 1 caused the violation at Time 2. — schopenhauer1

But being in a net is a bad thing, so we're talking about harms here not dignity. I accept that one can set up affairs such that some harm will befall another in the future (even if that other doesn't yet exist). I'm asking you about the dignity argument.

The decision was made which caused dignity to be violated at a future point. That is the point. — schopenhauer1

How was dignity violated at a future point? What is the dignity violating event that's happening at this future point?

The essential in this case is what is good for the child. If we think, for example, not having child will cause despair for child´s potential parents, we then use child as a mean - as an instrument for something - not as something valuable in itself (Immanuel Kant).

I´m not Kantian, but I have to agree with his assertion of the principle that human beings should be treated as ends rather than as means. — Antinatalist

Well, I'll bear that in mind next time I ask a cobbler to fix my shoe - 'must not use him as means to an end'. Don't know how I'm going to get this sole re-stitched, but still, we can't go around ignoring the half-remembered edicts of dead eighteenth century Germans now can we?

we have no moral right to cause something that radically changes the existence of another individual or – to be more precise: from non-existence to existence or vice versa (in other words, from a non-individual/+ non-existence into existence or vice versa is also regarded as a change here), or to directly affect the existence of another human being if it is not possible to hear this individual in the matter. — Antinatalist

So you're positing that there is a non-existent individual? You see the contradiction there?

This thread is about the compatibility of God and antinatalism and whether God's existence would positively imply antinatalism. — Bartricks

This is a philosophy forum, not a fan fiction site. Discussions about whether made-up entities are compatible with philosophical positions are a waste of space. The answer is yes, or no, depending on the properties you choose to assign to your made up entity. We all knew that from the beginning

Those arguing about consequences, assuming God is real, are being charitable (or exasperated) enough to presume you wouldn't be so stupid as to want a whole thread dedicated to the question of whether you have sufficient imagination to make up an entity who would be compatible with antinatalism.

The bad thing is a decision being made for you against your will. That can't happen to the non-existent child, they have no will. When will that bad thing happen - the decision being made against their will? — Isaac


I would say birth. — schopenhauer1

What decision is made against a child's will at the time of birth?

There is now a will at that time, no? — schopenhauer1

Yep, but no decision is being made at that time against it.

A decision was made that (eventually) affected that person born at that time. — schopenhauer1

Yep I agree. I was asking when a decision was made that went against there will, not when one was made that would eventually affect them. There's nothing morally wrong with making decisions that will eventually effect people, we do it all the time.

I don't agree that autonomy is not violated by thinking in terms of the average way we look at future tense. Someone will have X, Y, Z happen due to this prior decision. — schopenhauer1

Again, that something will happen to then as a result of the decision is not in question, the 'bad' thing, the intuitively immoral thing here is making a decision for someone against their will. That is not something that's going to happen in the future.

The form of your argument about cause (bomb planting and bombs - as you delightfully put it) is

if B will cause A in the future, then B is morally bad.
where
A=bad outcome
B=action whose morality we're trying to establish

Substituting with future harms...

A=the child being harmed
B=conceiving a child

if {conceiving a child} will cause {the child being harmed} then {conceiving a child} is morally bad.

Substituting with making a decision for someone against their will (kidnapping to play a game)...

A=making a decision for someone against their will (kidnapping to play a game)
B=conceiving a child

if {conceiving a child} will cause {making a decision for someone against their will (kidnapping to play a game)} then {conceiving a child} is morally bad.

But conceiving a child does not cause, in future, a decision to be made against someone's will.

The best you can say is that a decision is made (to conceive a child) which might be against the will of that child if that child existed at the time and could express a preference). But since that contains a contingent which clearly is not the case, the situation it mitigates never arises.

This is what I mean by equivocating between harms and force. You can't use the 'will happen in future' argument that is associated with harms when talking about force because that is not something that will necessarily happen in future. The harm will happen in future, but the force won't.

I'm actually not sure what your problem with the idea of the cause being displaced from the consequent. You plant the device, and then it blows up later.. — schopenhauer1

OK.

So with harm the bad thing is harm. No harm can befall the non-existent child. But the child will be harmed in the future.

Now with deciding something for someone against their will. The bad thing is a decision being made for you against your will. That can't happen to the non-existent child, they have no will. When will that bad thing happen - the decision being made against their will?

Not at the time of conception (there's no will for it to be made against), not at any time after their conception (there's no decision to be made then). So when is the device you planted going to blow up?

With the breach of autonomy there is no cause and consequence. You don't breach autonomy at conception because there's no will to act against. You don't breach it any time after birth because there's no decision to be made against the now existing will.

Am I right that this is pretty much in line with your greatest objection? — schopenhauer1

No, not in the slightest. My objection is as above. When considering harms it is normal to weigh greater goods against them so that argument fails on its own. When considering dignity/autonomy there is no will to oppose at the time of the decision and no decision to be made once there's a will to oppose, so there's no consequence of one's actions to consider so far as dignity/autonomy is concerned. My actions now in conceiving a child will not result in a future situation where their will will be opposed in any but the normal ways we all accept already.

we know that if child will born to this world, her/his life could be painful, perhaps she/he will suffer really hard. And we also know that we make the decision for her/his life, the unborn child not having any kind of veto-prevention to ignition of her/his life, which she/he only has to live.
These are sufficient arguments not to reproduce, not creating human life to this world. — Antinatalist

Well no, they're not.

We know that if that child is not born we could also bring about much pain and suffering (in fact are much more likely to), so the pain/suffering argument doesn't work.

We do make the decision without consulting the child but we make decisions for people without consulting them all the time in life and consider it perfectly acceptable in many circumstances, so that argument doesn't work either.

my point is that its seeming uniqueness, is not different. It is another case, just with a time displacement from conception to birth or whatever other place you want to consider "valid" (consciousness, self-consciousness, etc.). It doesn't change anything because of the displacement. — schopenhauer1

I was looking for some support for that position. As it stands it's not a common intuition, nor have you given any reason why we should think this way. Putting the word 'just' in front of the thing you want to dismiss doesn't constitute an argument against it.

I can then make a case that because this is so unique, it defies things like, "waking up the lifeguard to save the drowning child" because in this case the person is absolutely being used for X reason and never for its own sake being that it doesn't exist yet. — schopenhauer1

You can't invoke the person's dignity but not their interests. That's just selectively imparting properties on the hypothetical person. If e can consider their dignity on the grounds that they will soon have such a thing then we can consider their interests on the same grounds. Since most people wish to remain alive and happy we can assume those same hypothetical interests of the not-yet-existing child.

If you want to say that we can consider their dignity but not their interests you'll have to make that case.

We currently feel that the non-existence of the subject is sufficient ground to treat infractions against their hypothetical will very differently to infractions against the actual will of an existent person. You feel we should change that intuition to treat them the same. I'm asking why you think we should. All you've provided so far is that you think we should, not why.

Therefore there could be values without the valuer. — Antinatalist

Lots of things could be. The important question is whether they need be, how useful it is to assume they are, what problems arise if we do etc.

So with values (without a valuer) - what advantage does seeing things that way give us? If it does give advantages, what are the disadvantages and are they sufficiently outweighed? Where would the values reside and what form would they take? If a value can exist without a valuer, then what happens when the values we know exist with a valuer contradict them?

I can see more problems than are worth it with a dualistic realm of 'values', but if you've got a good defence of the concept I'd like to hear it.

Let´s assume there is entity called God. God created the world. God created also two billion human beings to live in the place called Hell. Living in Hell is living in extremely miserable place forever.

Let´s assume there is an alternative option. God didn´t exist. There was a world. And there were no people or place called Hell.

Are you saying that both scenarios are analogous?
The world without people suffering was not better world than the Hell? — Antinatalist

Yes, that's right.

It's just nonsensical to say the alternative would be 'better'. 'Better' is judgement, a state, of a human mind, without the human mind to contain the judgement it simply can't exist. It has no mind-independent existence such that it would still be 'better' even if there were no person to hold that thought. 'Better' in whose opinion?

the problem is that the idea of something being both exclusively beyond and also within rational discourse is simply self-contradictory in an entirely ontology-independent way, — Janus

Yes. The assumption which I keep raising that @Wayfarer and other apologists keep repeating is that because science (or materialism) doesn't deal with esoteric issues, the alternatives must somehow therefore do so.

What arguments like yours show is that they don't do so either. Nothing does. Except perhaps art, in a subtle way.

As Wittgenstein said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

And as Ramsey (even better) added "..and we can't whistle it either."

@Wayfarer here is just trying to whistle.

You're just dodging @janus's question.

The question was

If the esoteric is outside the bounds of rational discourse, and if philosophy cannot be anything other than rational discourse, then how could the esoteric be within the purview of philosophy? — Janus

That has nothing to do with an assumption of realism. One could be a thoroughgoing idealist and would suffer the same problem. If the knowledge is esoteric then rational discussion of it is pointless.

the absence of suffering is not a moral good because it's not enjoyed by anyone."
↪Benkei


If you are right, then the concept of euthanasia is absurd. — Antinatalist

Not at all because in euthanasia there is still a population of humans living in a world with less suffering in it as a result. The completion of the hard antinatalist program results in a world where the absence of suffering is of no consequence at all because there are no humans to enjoy living in a world without it.

If you don't believe in throwing people into a game you can only escape with self-harm, if you don't believe in exposing new people to suffering.. that is the conclusion. — schopenhauer1

I'll put it here too since you seem to want to espouse it in both threads.

Conception is unique - it's not like throwing people into a game you can only escape with self-harm because there are no 'people' whose will we can consider prior to birth (even a few months after birth there's not a sufficiently complex will for such a consideration), so contrary to what you say it is not the inevitable conclusion for people who do not like throwing people into a game you can only escape with self-harm. Such people may well hate throwing people into a game you can only escape with self-harm with a vengeance, but still consider the unique situation of having a child to be morally acceptable.

There are no other circumstances where the person who would experience that which we expect for them does not exist to be asked (or have their will considered) in our lives. Birth is the only one. So we have no intuition on the matter other than the one we use for birth, and that is 99.999999% in agreement that it's morally acceptable.

In fact, the closest we get to it in other aspects of life is resuscitation, and here we almost universally make the assumption that the person would want to live.

if the person kidnapped into lifeguarding school actually ended up identifying with his kidnapping and enjoyed it 50% of the time, it was thus justified? No. Forcing an X on someone unnecessarily and suffering unnecessary is never right. — schopenhauer1

See, this is why you get accused of proselytising. It's not because you're 'discussing' a philosophical position, it because you keep repeating points that have already been countered without addressing that argument.

You equivocate on 'existence'

You start by positing harms and here the non-existence of the un-concieved child doesn't matter - they will exist and so one can consider the harms that will befall them. But here, the aggregate argument carries. There will be more harm by not conceiving them than there would by conceiving them (if you have a reasonable expectation that they'll mostly enjoy life).

You then switch to the dignity/will argument citing kidnapping. But here the non-existence of the un-conceived child does matter. There's no person who's dignity or will needs to be considered. We're not kidnapping someone against their will, there's no person who exists yet for their will to be considered. It's a unique situation not analogous to any other we face in life. so we have no other intuition on how to handle it that the one most people have about conception (that it's morally fine).

You've had all this explained to you before and yet you just bring it up as if you hadn't. That's why people get annoyed.

If you want to continue the discussion qua discussion, address the arguments, don't just ignore them and move on to fresh meat you hope might not spot the flaws, that just makes you seem like you're recruiting, not discussing.

All the stuff about harms has been discussed and resolved - no need to bring it up fresh as if it hadn't. If you take an aggregate harms position there's an argument that not having a child causes more harm than having one for some prospective parents. There's a threshold of autonomy/dignity above which we all cringe at considering aggregate harms (such as your kidnapped lifeguard). So harms are now completely irrelevant to the argument because it has moved on the the threshold of dignity/autonomy and its relation to conception.

You're view on this is that childbirth is like kidnapping, but you've not provided anything to support that view. Most people think childbirth does not cross the threshold of dignity/autonomy, mainly because the person whose will we'd normally consider doesn't yet exist.

You have an unusual view about this threshold. unusual views lead to unusual conclusions.

Nothing here is about the 'logic' at all, nothing about the discussion. It's all about that view. You think conception is like enough to kidnapping that your intuition about kidnapping applies to ti. Most others think conception is dissimilar enough to kidnapping that their intuition about kidnapping does not apply to it. Since conception and kidnapping are certainly dissimilar in many ways you can't show anyone to be wrong about that by necessity. There's therefore no 'argument' to be had.

I'm just short on the desire to go fetch your reading for you or regurgitate it here. I don't mean to be insulting, but really, catch yourself up. — James Riley

I've read the whole thread. It's not about catching up, I just can't see where you've answered that question.

So you are/were a practising lawyer and you refuse to acknowledge certain laws as law. — Isaac


Operative word is "were." — James Riley

So when you were a lawyer you thought differently about law?

So are there any laws which you currently refuse to acknowledge on those grounds? — Isaac


There are many, — James Riley

So you are/were a practising lawyer and you refuse to acknowledge certain laws as law. How do you handle that when defending a client, for example, if some facet of a law could absolve him but it's one that you refuse to acknowledge as a law?

Or is that case that by astonishing good fortune, despite hundreds of changes of government, revolution, civil war, slavery, despotism, and corruption all laws just so happen to have nonetheless derived from this source? Phew! — Isaac


Asked and answered. — James Riley

A link then perhaps, page number, quick summary...? I don't know how the site is currently fixed, but I don't think we're running that short on space just yet.

So you're basically saying that if a law does not derive from this Natural Law™, then you refuse to acknowledge it as a law?

So are there any laws which you currently refuse to acknowledge on those grounds? Or is it the case that by astonishing good fortune, despite hundreds of changes of government, revolution, civil war, slavery, despotism, and corruption all laws just so happen to have nonetheless derived from this source? Phew!

No 'natural law' of passcodes is required. — Isaac


It is if there is reason. — James Riley

Well then your counter begs the question. It becomes "Reference to the body of the law as a whole... is reference back to Natural Law...if it is a reference back to natural law". So all you're saying is that you think there's a natural law that all laws refer back to but you've got nothing by way of argument from necessity to support that guess.

Your example is flip and references no reason for any selection. — James Riley

Again, if I referenced a universal external reason for the selection I'd be begging the question. The issue at had is whether laws result from natural law. You can't argue that they do from a position of assuming they do.

That makes it arbitrary and capricious and subject to the legitimate refusal to be recognize it as law. — James Riley

What arbiter of 'legitimate' would normally restrain someone from refusing to recognise a law as law?

Reference to the body of the law as a whole, or the spirit, or whatever you want to call it, is reference back to Natural Law. We generally look to our organic documents for that, and they themselves are founded upon reason and what we "feel" is right. — James Riley

No it isn't, or at least not necessarily.

Say laws specify a passcode for a door. The first law says the passcode for door A must be 2435, another law then says the passcode for door B must be 54678, a third law says the passcode for door C must be 436.

If a fourth law comes along to say the passcode for door D must be "dancing bananas on a stick", and then you turn around three times and touch your nose, it's very easy to see that this law is not doing the same sort of thing as the others. It stands out.

At no time was there an overriding rule about what passcodes should be. There's no moral element. The first law could have been anything. But once a few have been written a pattern is established, purely by their existence, which new laws can be judged against.

No 'natural law' of passcodes is required.

If we say that law is what lawyers do that let's see what they do, said Ronny Dworkin. When we analyse cases (the famous case Riggs v Palmer, easy to find). In Riggs v Palmer the court argued that a murderer cannot claim the inheriitance of the person he murdered. However, there was nothing in the written law that prevented him from doing so. In fact the law of inheritance was crystal clear on the issue. The courts invoked a legal principle: "one should not legally benefit from one's own crimes" and withheld the inheritance. If we hold on to the principe of ciceronianus that law is law the courts have acted unlawfully. Did they? even positivists are hard pressed here. Dworkin argued that when law is as lawyers do we have to accept legal principles as a part of law. — Tobias

If there's a question of interpretation, a judge will try to do so within the 'spirit of the law', is that right? He'll interpreted it on the basis of a reasonable assessment of what that particular law set out to achieve. Say a law banning knives left some clearly dangerous use ambiguous, the judgement is likely to adopt the least dangerous interpretation assuming that the intent of the law was to protect people rather than, say, harm knife manufacturing.

Could not, then, the same argument be made for the body of law as a whole? That, where there's uncertainty, or conflict, the overall purposes of the body of law as a whole is invoked to justify a particular decision.

This would rescue positivism because the overall purposes of the body of law as a whole need not be aligned with any external morality.

It could simply be seen as an effort to maintain the maximum consistency, as is already the case if two laws accidentally contradict one another.

Edit - So in your German case, the aberrant law need not be overrode because it conflicts with natural law, but simply because it's so obviously opposed to the general intent of all other laws.

Such people don't engage in dialogue to begin with. They just preach. It's one-way communication. They declare their exalted status and move on. — baker

Good answer.

Whose use is one following if not that of those who request to be identified as such? It is a matter of frequency of use. — Fooloso4

Not just frequency. We share a language (or at least we used to - doesn't seem so much interest in shared enterprises any more). It's about being inclusive and constructive about the solution to the problems we face. 'He/She' was a community-shared distinction. I could see if you look like a man - you could see if you look like a man. We both had an equal part in the process which was judged by freely available standards.

That distinction causes serious problems for people who feel constrained by those freely available standards and being reminded of that every time they're referred to is clearly very distressing for them.

So we need another solution. But I don't see why it needn't be one which is also a community-shared term judge-able by freely available standards.

'Xe' would be a perfect example of such. The only judgement required is to distinguish that the subject of the sentence is a person (not an object) and one thereby knows that 'xe' is the correct pronoun to use. The information is shared, publicly available and easily judged.

I have said nothing about what others should do. I am speaking about what I would do and why. — Fooloso4

Not quite. You said...

It is a matter of civility and respect. — Fooloso4

What is and is not civil and respectful is something we agree on (or at least debate), not something we merely leave up to personal opinion. I'm arguing that calling them what they like is neither civil nor respectful. It's uncooperative, hyper-idividualistic (about as opposite of civil as you can get), and disadvantages the speaker before the conversation has even begun. I can't see how that qualifies as respectful.

what you see as just getting along might mean for someone else keeping quiet and hidden their deep seated shame for not fitting in. — Fooloso4

Yes, it might. And if it does then hopefully we'll solve that problem as a community too.

All that has emerged over the last few years is that some people are caused great distress by the action of gendered pronouns imposing gender identities on them that they struggle deeply with.

At the moment we've no reason at all to think that the gradual replacement of gendered pronouns with a gender-free pronoun won't solve that problem.

I can't see why a) we would take excessive precautions against a situation we've no evidence is going to cause any problems, and b)why, even if we were to do so the best approach would be to ask each individual what their preferred solution is and act on that.

The meaning of words and their connotations change. — Fooloso4

Absolutely. But they normally do so gradually and by following use, not by dictat determining use.

Many people would be uncomfortable referring to a male as 'she' instead of 'he'. What connotations that may accrue to 'Xe' is anyone's guess.

What is at issue here is gendered language. Some are in favor of preserving it, others of changing it. Agreed upon terminology does not yet exist. — Fooloso4

I think that's begging the question. It would be uniquely obsequious to presume that someone's saying an issue is about gendered language is sufficient to demonstrate that it is, in fact, about gendered language. The mere existence of a serious issue doesn't purge all fadishness, capriciousness, and plain foolishness from the population experiencing it. I can't think of a reason to simply assume all such requests are about gendered language.

As we stumble forward I would take my lead from someone who wants to be referred to as 'it' and comply. — Fooloso4

Indeed, you might. But by advocating such a response for others too I think you're extending a default assumption of sincerity beyond what experience shows us is reasonable of new cultural movements in general.

Personally, I'm in favour of phasing out gendered language altogether (along, perhaps with the very concept of gender), but I have to say I quite detest this new hyper-individualism of the modern age where each and every person's individually tailored solution to the problem must be respected at the expense of any attempt to muddle through together, each giving a little to reach some jointly amicable solution.

I have a long first name (it's not really Isaac). My colleagues at work shortened it. The thought that I might deny them their convenience to insist on my preferred longer version didn't even cross my mind. We used to just get along and accept that not every aspect of the world can be tailored to our individual preference.

Anyway, enough rant, I'm already enough of a cliché of a retired academic as it is, without adding frequent coronach for the past.

It is a matter of civility and respect. If a student told me they had a preferred pronoun I would put aside my own opinion of the matter and honor the request. — Fooloso4

It's not as simple as that though. You presumably don't comply with any and all of your student's requests, just out of civility and respect do you? You deem some requests to be reasonable and others not. The question in the post was over whether the OP's discomfort at using such a de-humanising term as 'it' was sufficient reason to see the request as unreasonable. If a student asked me to refer to them a some offensive term I would refuse on the same grounds (my justifiable discomfort at using the term makes the request unreasonable).

The issue is whether the discomfort is well-justified. with 'she' (instead of he), or some new term like xe, it's very hard to make a case that they would reasonably make anyone uncomfortable since they're words with either harmless of absent connotations.

This is described in the OP as being clearly not the case with 'it' which, quite unarguably, has connotations attached to it.

There's just no meaningful communication to be had with someone who claims to have an exalted epistemic (or other) status. (This goes for some philosophy professors and scientists as well.) — baker

How self-assured does that claim need to be for you to abandon communication? If someone came up to you and said "Hi, I'm a Buddhist Oshō" would that be sufficient claim to exalted epistemic status for you to just walk away? Or do they have to actually say "...and I know things you don't"?

That implies that the involved parties think that there is some scale (independent of their own opinions, which differ already) on which the options can be ranked as better or worse, more correct or less correct. — Pfhorrest

I know what you meant. It's just that you're empirically wrong. There are evidently other ways of resolving differences.

"They're acting like they each think [...] it needs to be settled which of them is [actually correct]." — Pfhorrest

Nope. They're acting like they each want the other person to behave a certain way. That's not the same as settling who is actually correct.

When you say "it would just be a better place to live" do you mean anything more than "I would prefer to live in that world"? I expect not. — Pfhorrest

do you feel the same way about your differences with Nazis? I expect not. I expect (and hope) that you're not just willing to agree to disagree with Nazis — Pfhorrest

Where does this 'willing to agree to disagree' come from. In my example I never specified what I was or was not willing to tolerate, only that I was willing to concede that I'm only 'right' from my perspective. I don't have to be universally 'right' to fight Nazism, I can fight Nazism purely because I think it's wrong from my perspective.

you act toward Nazis like a universalist. — Pfhorrest

Again (for emphasis), why do I need to be universally right about something in order to fight for it?

That's pretty explicitly giving up on caring about what's right or wrong, just like I say that relativism amounts to. — Pfhorrest

Nope. Again you've just ignored what relativism is defined as. I care very much about what's right and what's wrong, I just don't agree that it amounts to anything more than the meaning of the words in my culture. Nothing in that means that I don't care about what is right or wrong.

the threat of punishment for acting otherwise than compelled doesn't give you any internal reason to honestly support that course of action — Pfhorrest

Of course it does. Why would my tribe feel so passionately about my behaviour that they feel the need to take such drastic action to deter it? The answer, of course, could be all sorts of things, but it's clearly false to say that the disagreement of everyone I live with isn't good reason to think I might be wrong.

it's things like this that make me think that you really just have no idea whatsoever what my views (1)actually are. ... (2)I said this: — Pfhorrest

I don't think there's any need for me to spell this out further. You see the difference between (1) and (2), yes?

For something to be "correct relative to someone" is no different from it being someone's opinion. — Pfhorrest

You've still not supported this assertion. It's trivial to demonstrate alternatives (as I did with different languages). The 'correct' word to use to refer to a man is 'man' if you're English and 'homme' if you're French. It is not just personal opinion what the correct word is, but it is relative to the person's circumstances. There's no global answer to what the right word is, that would be nonsense.

You can universalise it by saying "the right word, if you're French, is...", but that's exactly the same claim as relativism makes "the right behaviour, if you're X, is...", with X being whatever one is claiming moral correctness is relative to.

If you only talk about the extension of a term, that leaves you no grounds whatsoever to ask whether or not something belongs within the extension of the term. The intension gives you some kind of criteria by which to measure up a thing and decide if it is a member of the set denoted by that term. — Pfhorrest

So from what source do we discover the 'intension' of a word, if not it's use. You surely don't expect to be able to carry some ancient Platonic argument about essences and forms past almost all of modern philosophy since the linguistic turn?

See Wittgenstein's discussion of the meaning of 'game'. What would you say the intension of the word is in that example? The idea that words have these set criteria for membership was thrown out long ago.

Nonetheless, it's not even clear what weight you think the intension would carry. If both soldiers consider killing communists to be within the extension of 'right' then the argument still stands that in their language game it's one of the things that is 'right'. You've not answered how they understood each other if the misused the word.

To say that any X just means "whatever is called X" is to ignore the intension of "X" and only pay attention to its extension. And you seem to do that only with moral terms, not with anything else. — Pfhorrest

Where have I veered from a general 'meaning as use' approach elsewhere? I think I've actually been pretty vocal about it.

you really want only some of the same principles that apply to factual matters to not apply to moral matters — Pfhorrest

Why? Is it somehow the default position that either all or none of the principles that apply to factual matters should apply to moral ones, but not anywhere in between? That seems like an odd position to hold without any prima facie reason.

now you're introducing moral beliefs into a sub-conversation that was explicitly only about non-moral beliefs. — Pfhorrest

Then the diversion was pointless. Moral beliefs are not reducible to the sorts of theories that can be analysed for complexity by any objective measure. As such anyone can maintain that their particular set of beliefs is the simplest, no-one can contest that and we're no closer to an objective answer. Which is exactly the position I outlined before your sidelined it into a discussion about Komogorov.

The point remains unanswered. If you accept underdeterminism you have to admit that a wide range of theories will be matched by the same data points. You've shown that there's no non-subjective way of judging either parsimony, or elegance, or any other measure of preference for one theory set over another. As such underdeterminism undermines your argument.

extreme hierarchy and authority was not possible in hunter-gatherer communities because the person trying to boss everyone around and horde everything for himself could just be abandoned by the rest of the tribe — Pfhorrest

That doesn't make it impossible, it makes it unwise. exactly one of the 'weeding out' processes you claim have been part of a gradual (if staccato) evolution. Are you, for some reason, eliminating behaviour being unwise from the reasons to eliminate it?

I'm certainly not trying to give that impression. — Pfhorrest

Thought you probably weren't. I do some work with Survival International, I'm touchy about those sorts of descriptions and like to check. some otherwise perfectly intelligent people do believe that kind of shit (Stephen Pinker, for example).

On my anti-consequentialist view that kind of argument can't fly: it doesn't matter that your actions prevent more harm than they cause, they still cause some harm, and so are unjust.

(Preemptively: yes, I know it's very hard in practice to avoid causing any harm to anyone, and in those circumstances my view says to cause the least harm possible, but that's different from saying to do whatever it takes to minimize any harm that happens at all for any reason). — Pfhorrest

OK, this is new (to me). You think that moral behaviour is only that which causes no harm? So I shouldn't trip a gunman over to save a thousand people from slaughter because that would harm him? I don't understand how you could arrive at such a nonsensical view I'm afraid. surely you can't mean that?

Just taking someone's word for something without question is an impractical way of finding out what's actually a correct or incorrect thing to think. — Pfhorrest

Why? Taking the word of a trustworthy individual or group with lots of experience is a considerably more efficient game strategy than working the whole thing out for yourself from scratch.

Therefore hedonism, for the sake of practicality. If doing hedonism is still hard... well, we'll just have to do our best at it — Pfhorrest

Agreements are few and far enough between for us to not squander them by repetition. I happen to agree with you that hedonism (in the very wide sense you use it) is the proper goal of people's moral feelings, so we needn't go over and over that point. My disagreement is about how to decide what course of action brings about the best of all worlds, I don't disagree that the best of all worlds would be the one in which everyone had their appetites satisfied.

It's not a question of which they value more than the other, it's a question of whether they value them independently as ends in themselves — Pfhorrest

Then are you arguing that no-one should value any other ends than the avoidance of negative affect? That (particularly coupled with your argument about non-consequentialism) makes your moral position sound even more bizarre than I first thought. You seem to be saying that no-one should act to achieve any other end than the immediate avoidance of harm regardless of the consequences of doing so. That's just lunacy.

In doing so, if we can manage to do so, we can get people who do have practical, functional, correct views as the deepest parts of their belief networks to bring the rest of themselves more in line with that; and also, expose any people who do have truly deep-seated dysfunctional views, make them face up to that and deal with it. — Pfhorrest

If wishes were horses... Do you have any idea how long it takes to set up a psychology experiment? It can take months, years even. Do you know why I take that long over experiment design, controls, pre-registration, peer review, statistical analysis, modelling...? It's because I care about what people actually do, what effects our interventions actually have... If I could just make shit up about how people behave I would have published considerably more than my paltry record.

Like I said... ugh... three hours ago... I didn't think it was necessary, on a philosophy forum, to specify that I mean rational discourse as the thing I'm talking about not giving up on. — Pfhorrest

Well then the same question applies. Why would you restrict your options to rational discourse?

the rich already get to decide what is declared right or wrong today, since they control all governance. — Pfhorrest

I don't see the link. The government control the law which lists the consequences of certain behaviours. It doesn't have any say at all in what's right and wrong. Maybe via the curriculum, or support for certain media outlets, but it's indirect and easily avoided. I can't see how a panel of rich college graduates telling people what's right and wrong is going to help.

I'm not advocating that we neglect the long term, but if it's hard to get good data on the long term one way or the other, then of course we can't plan as narrowly for it, and instead have to broadly plan as well as we can afford for everything in the range of possibilities, in proportion to whatever likelihoods we can manage to figure out about them. — Pfhorrest

Right. Which, given unarguable facts about complexity means that de facto you're including short-term gains and ignoring long-term ones, because long-term gains cannot be so easily accounted for.

___

Really need to sort out this crazy aspect of what you're advocating. I've no interest in conversing with a flat out sociopath. Are you seriously saying that you think we should not harm someone even if doing so saves potentially thousands of lives and that no other ends should ever even be considered? If so we can just end our conversation here, no point in replying to the rest.

I hope we can agree they had some interesting things to say. — Tzeentch

I can categorically say that I don't think Jung had a single interesting thing to say.

What we have in the historical record is 'the testimony of sages'. — Wayfarer

Well, that begs the question. All you've said is that there existed people referred to as sages.

The question being asked is whether they were right to revere them as such and how we should treat such claims today. Whether they existed or were treated that way is not in question.

In those other cultures, sound judgement, or sagacity, did not only concern those matters which could be measured. It's the development of that outlook, in which facts and values became separated, that I think is the historical issue at hand. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's absolurely right. It is indeed the (modern) treatment of values as facts vs opinions that's at issue.

Do you have anything to say about the merits/faults of that treatment? Because all you've said so far is that it didn't used to exist and now it does.

Well, equal rights for women didn't used to exist and now it does, so historical accounts clearly don't say anything about the merits if that they are an account of.

I agree. It's off-topic (if also interesting.) — j0e

I mention it because it's such a common feature of discussion around these esoteric sages.

Have you noticed how time passing is also a distinction between madman and sage? We seem to have this feeling that charlatans (or earnest prophets) can tap into whereby some esoteric knowledge is leant authority simply by being antecedent. It's almost the opposite of scientific progress (where we expect the more contemporary work to be more useful).

There's a strong narrative of 'lost knowledge', 'golden age' etc which philosophy (being more and more replaced by science) is ripe for the exploitation of.

I think those who are nostalgic for 'objective values' are sincere in some sense, but what's the political direction? How does it cash out? — j0e

It depends, I suppose. Like the florist, one can have a sincere belief that ancient values were better yet still be selective about which they promote most strongly for political reasons.

Take 'new age' philosophies for example. Out of all the old 'tribal' ways these philosophies could espouse (egalitarianism, low impact living etc), are we surprised most focus on the art and spiritual practices. The two things one can do without any actual cost to one's modern comforts.

I think the same's true of belief in higher truth of any sort. It's usually filtered to eliminate the costly and leave the beneficial.

The question in the OP was...

Should we call what the sage has special access to knowledge? — j0e

The question at hand just now is about values.

You're not explaining how you see your historical accounts answering either of those questions. What relevance has the history of the concept got to whether it is valuable and what we ought to do about it.

The irony is that you've spent a lot of time denying that science can answer value questions, but here you seem to be suggesting that history (a no less empirical investigation) can do exactly that.



We seem to be crossing these two subject matters, as I outlined above. I think it's often very insightful to look at the history of ideas, but I'm not seeing the crossover into assessing their value. I could give a detailed account of how slavery came about, but would it impact on a judgement of whether it was right or wrong?

It's tempting to interpret claims of higher knowledge as the ideology of a ruling class (in times past) or as charlatanism (in places where the educated are generally wary of taking religion too seriously.) Then there's the sincere florist. — j0e

I think its quite within reason to think it might be all three, even in any one given case. Maybe I'm just being gullible, but it seems unlikely to me that the Catholic priests involved in the child abuse scandals, for example, believed none of their own 'higher knowledge'. But irrespective of that personal conviction, it's without doubt that they also abused that unquestionable authority as a charlatan would for their own personal gain.

I think your hypothetical florist could be both sincere in her belief, and still seekeek to profit from the power it affords her.

I suppose a secondary issue is whether 'our' rational/secular philosophy is its own kind of inner circle in a nonpejorative sense, an inner circle that excludes any other conception of the inner circle. 'Universal' seems key here. — j0e

Yes, I thinks that's true. A common argument in some aspect of philosophical discussion is to claim that one's opponent doesn't (or can't) 'understand' the issue at hand without having read some work or other which has, as it's subject matter, the issue at hand. But this just repeats the mistake (or deliberate tactic, depending on how charitable one is feeling) of assuming that to have an issue as one's topic is synonymous with acquiring some body of knowledge about that topic. In reality, it is, of course, perfectly possible that despite X having written an entire bookshelf on the subject of Y, they have nonetheless (by virtue of their poor choice of methodology) acquired not a scrap of actual knowledge about Y.

Again, I think it's all too easy, as we see above, to resort to the 'safe ground' of assuring ourselves that science doesn't answer questions of value. But really that's not particularly apposite when we're talking about the various approaches to that which we all agree science doesn't cover.

Yep. When in doubt just resort to an historical account of how we got here... as if that in any way justified either position on whether we ought to be here.

So the old school philosophers were displaced by more egalitarian religions. What does that historical fact tell us about whether it was good or bad for them to have been treated that way?

If the 'higher truth' is not empirical (ie, it has no universalizable and predictable effects), and it's esoteric value can only be grasped by the sage, then what would be the point of even discussing the matter, philosophicaly?

It seems that the matter of whether some people can acquire a 'higher truth' has no further elements to discuss beyond the obvious answer "They might, yes, but we'd have no way of knowing".

What I think is of interest is the social role of such claims. Are we to take them at face value and ignore the clear social advantage of claiming higher knowledge which only you can access and such can't even be tested?

In normal circumstances, if a person were, say, to get paid a huge sum of money to perform some otherwise worthy deed we'd at the very least question their motives. The mere existence of a more plausible motive would normally suffice.