Your premise that the activity of ethical reasoning is like mathematical reasoning is an opinion, a belief.
— Fooloso4

'Never said it was. — Leontiskos

What you said is:

When we engage in ethical reasoning, are we inquiring into whether people believe something, or whether something is right or wrong? I take it that it is obvious that ethical reasoning pertains to the latter, and is not about peoples beliefs. — Leontiskos

By the latter you are referring to what you call "type 1" propositions and give 2+2=4 as the paradigm example. You go on to say:

I take it that it is obvious that ethical reasoning pertains to the latter ... — Leontiskos

The latter being these type 1 propositions. If ethical reasoning concerns and pertains to type 1 propositions then ethical reasoning is like mathematical reasoning.

That ethical reasoning is "type 1" reasoning is your belief not an established and uncontested truth.

In another post from today you say:

I think the reason moral subjectivism is basically non-existent in professional philosophy is because ... — Leontiskos

Evidently you are unaware and uninformed about the current literature. You will find not only a rejection of moral objectivism, but that the concept of reason itself is once again changing. See, for example, the work of Richard Bernstein or Joseph Margolis.

Leontiskos: The activity of ethical reasoning is X; the subjectivist is not doing X; therefore the subjectivist is not engaged in ethics. — Leontiskos

Your premise that the activity of ethical reasoning is like mathematical reasoning is an opinion, a belief. It is shared by some but rejected by others. The term 'subjectivism' is used in different ways. To pick one from Wikipedia and treat it as if this is the only thing that those who defend some form of subjectivism must mean goes against the idea of free and open inquiry and discussion.

The irony is that you use own beliefs regarding morality to argue that morality is not about beliefs.

Prove to me, via ethical reasoning, that abortion is wrong. More generally, how is anything proved to be wrong? — Leontiskos

After responding to this several times it now looks as if you are no longer arguing in good faith. I have not asked you to prove that abortion is wrong or right. Abortion is a clear example of what is at issue, namely, the claim that ethics like mathematics is objective. The unresolved moral controversies surrounding abortion clearly demonstrates that ethical deliberation is not like adding 2 plus 2.

If you really think that I am asking you to prove anything then you have not understood what I am saying. Moral problems are not like mathematical problems. They are not subject to proof.

The existence and non-existence of states of affairs is reality.

(2.06)

To state the obvious, non-existing states of affairs do not exist. Reality does not contain non-existing facts.

2.06 includes the parenthetical remark:

(We call the existence of states of affairs a positive fact, and their non-existence a negative
fact.)

also:

The totality of existing states of affairs also determines which states of affairs do not exist.

(2.05)

If we could know the totality of states of affairs we would thereby also know those states of affairs that do not exist, that is, any state of affairs that contradicts those states of affairs that do exist.

Then what is the purpose of Witt saying:

"The total reality is the world" (2.063). — 013zen

Compare this to:

The totality of existing states of affairs is the world.

(2.04)

The purpose is, at least in part, to exclude ethical and aesthetic propositions from what is the case. They do not refer to how things are in the world. They do not depict reality.

In logical space, however, I can picture the process of making a pizza, without it actually obtaining in reality. — 013zen

In your imagination you can make this pizza, but this pizza does not exist in the world. It is not real.

Like, you're seemingly outright conflating the world and reality, — 013zen

In order to conflate them there must be some pertinent distinction that is not understood. I do not see how or where Wittgenstein makes such a distinction. It is a distinction you impose on the text.

When he says:

Reality is compared with propositions.

(4.05)

he is talking about the propositions of natural science, that is, propositions about the world. Propositions about what is the case. Facts.

If you want to start a thread on abortion or the epistemology of moral obligation or intractable disagreement then you should go do that; I'm not biting on the derailment. — Leontiskos

I don't know if you are trying to avoid addressing the problems raised by declaring them out of bounds or if you are simply unable to see what is at issue. What is at issue is the claim that moral subjectism (sic) is internally inconsistent. In support of that claim you say:

Moral propositions are (meant to be) binding upon oneself and others — Leontiskos

but when I question what it means to be binding you complain it is a derailment.

You claim that:

The question is whether ethics concerns statements of type (1) or type (2). — Leontiskos

and:

When we do philosophy we are usually concerned with statements of type (1) — Leontiskos

The type 1 proposition you cite is: 2+2=4. If ethics and more generally philosophy is concerned with this type of proposition then the problem of agreement with some propositions of this type such as 2+2=4 and disagreement with others of this type such as abortion needs to be explained. Once again, what is at issue is not abortion but the lack of agreement regarding moral propositions. When I point to this problem you complain it is a derailment.

You say "the epistemology of moral obligation" is a derailment and yet you ask:

When we engage in ethical reasoning, are we inquiring into whether people believe something, or whether something is right or wrong? — Leontiskos

If we are inquiring into whether something is right or wrong then the question of how we know that something is right or wrong is not a derailment. If it is of the indisputable, demonstrable, objective type 1 then it is not a derailment to point out that moral propositions are not true to type.

But we don't need to be too serious all the time, and there's something fun in the exercise, I think — Moliere

I took the tone of the thread to be serious. I find any serious attempt to think about ethics in terms of the construction and assault on categories comical.

I am reminded of Arthur Koestler's definition of philosophy:

The systematic abuse of a terminology specially invented for that purpose.

(The Act of Creation)

And, for good measure, from Wittgenstein:

The language used by philosophers is already deformed, as though by shoes that are too tight.

(CV, p. 47)

As long as it is meant to binding then it fulfills the necessary condition I set out—a necessary condition which subjectivism and emotivism do not meet. — Leontiskos

What I am questioning is the claim that some as yet unspecified set of obligations are binding. I am also asking how it is determined that these moral propositions are objective and true?

To say more would be to go beyond the scope of this thread and the argument at hand ... — Leontiskos

To not say more is to skirt the issue at hand. If you are claiming that there are objective moral truths then you must not simply assert that they exist, but provide and defend at least some of them.

Prohibitions against abortion are the same kind of propositions as prohibitions against murder. — Leontiskos

There are significant differences that render the comparison problematic and questionable.
There is a generally accepted distinction between killing and murder. Murder is by definition wrong, killing is not. There are cases where killing is regarded as acceptable.

The point is not to argue the morality of abortion but rather to point to the fact that it is arguable moral issue. Rational people are unable to agree. That should not be the case with propositions that are objectively true.

... and to move into a discussion of your personal political positions, which is probably what you are aiming at. — Leontiskos

The relation between morality or ethics and political philosophy is important but is not what I am aiming at.

Moral propositions are (meant to be) binding upon oneself and others — Leontiskos

Should the moral proposition, 'you must not abort a fetus but carry it to term' be binding? What makes this proposition either true or false? By what moral authority can this be determined and by what force is it made binding?

I think the problem is that those who attempt to reduce moral deliberation to some set of self consistent propositions forget that what is at issue is not an abstracted analysis of the truth of moral propositions, but how our lives and those of others are benefited and harmed by what we say and do and think.

I think that within these constraints there is still some degree of play and freedom. There are from time to time those who are able to see beyond the limits of their time. Those who are not products of their time but who influence how those who follow will see and think.

they are both similarly projections of Language and its autonomous processes — ENOAH

I don't think so. I think we are historically/culturally/linguistically situated but not thereby determined.

That it is pictures of facts that present those facts in logical space, if the facts are already in logical space? — 013zen

The facts are in the world.(1.13) A picture of the facts is in the world. The picture represents a possible situation (2.202) What is represented, however, may not be in the world.

Just as the only necessity that exists is logical necessity, so too the only impossibility that exists is logical impossibility.

(6.375)

That it is possible to picture the world is a logical possibility.

What makes logic a priori is the impossibility of illogical thought.

(5.4731)

Put differently, thought too is in logical space.

A fact does not have this necessity - it's objects are their relations are merely accidental. — 013zen

The structure of a fact is not accidental. That some facts exist and others do not is accidental.

In logic nothing is accidental: if a thing can occur in a state of affairs, the possibility of the
state of affairs must be written into the thing itself.

The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. (1.11)

Yes, they do determine the world, but they do not make up the world. Pictures do, and insofar as pictures are pictures of facts, the facts ultimately determines the world. — 013zen

If I want to eat, a picture is not going to do the job. You do not make up a pizza from pictures of dough and cheese. This seems so obvious that I think you must mean something else, but I can't figure out what that is.

Witt is thinking, I believe, of the realist/idealist/, empiricist/rationalist debate. — 013zen

I am reminded of something Wittgenstein said:

The language used by philosophers is already deformed, as though by shoes that are too tight

[CV, p. 47].

Shoes that are too tight make it difficult to walk. The language used by philosophers make it difficult to think.

Your challenge does not demonstrate a unique uncovering of real truth — ENOAH

Certainly not unique but it does point to something that has been covered. Whatever the "real truth" might be, it is not something we possess and not something we can come to know through a misguided model of reason based on the success of mathematics.

It is just another conditioned path which surfaced because multiple "words" moving in your locus of history triggered the beliefs you are espousing. — ENOAH

"Words" can have multiple paths that can be traced by their history. To do so may require desedimentation. Doing so can open paths that have been closed, leading us away from our conditioning. Paths can be walked and paths can be made.

Both do not kill and don't eat meat follow that process and are neither relative to subjective choice, nor grounded in Natural Law. — ENOAH

What these prohibitions mean is subject to interpretation. Is killing an enemy in war prohibited? Is killing an animal to eat it prohibited? Do fish and fowl count as meat? The process by which such determinations have been made is not always a process that already exists to be followed. At some point it had to be established. Exceptions had and in some cases still have to be dealt with.

1. A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the truthity of a proposition; and
2. Beliefs make moral propositions true or false. — Bob Ross

Your definition of moral subjectivism misses the mark because it rests on two questionable assumptions:

1. That moral beliefs are adequately addressed in terms of propositions.
2. What makes a moral claim true or false is whether or not it is believed.

1. This marks a wrong turn in the history of philosophy that fails to strike us as odd and out of touch because we have become so accustomed to philosophers making such claims, as if thinking and feeling are two separate, independent things. Rather than an analysis in propositional terms, we need to begin with what is more fundamental and primal. A baby will smile in response to a smile and become distraught when the face in front of them is sad. That others seem happy or troubled matters to them. The roots of morality lie here, in our nature as social beings who care.

2. What this criticism of subjectivism fails to to into account is the difference between the belief in an objective morality and our failure to identify what that might be. Without such knowledge some form of subjectivism is the inescapable default position. Moral reasoning is deliberative not deductive. It begins with a critical examination of opinions. It does not end with indisputable, apodictic universal moral truths, but with beliefs and practices accepted by some or many but perhaps not by others. At best in our ignorance we settle on what seems best, and this may be subject to change.

2. Facts - not in logical space — 013zen

All facts are in logical space.

The facts in logical space are the world.

(1.13)

Logic underlies and makes possible both fact and pictures or representation of facts.

2. The existence of a fact means the existence of an atomic fact. — 013zen

'Atomic fact' is an infelicitous translation from the Ogden translation.

The Pears/McGuinness has:

What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.(2)

In German "das Bestehen von Sachverhalten".

The term'Sachverhalt' simply means a fact, what is the case, a state of affairs, not an atomic fact.

This is important. Reality, is the existence and non-existence of atomic facts, while the world is only the existence of an atomic fact. — 013zen

This distinction does not hold:

The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. (1.11)

For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case. (1.12)

The sum-total of reality is the world. (2.063)

It's not the gambit or the vanilla, it's the always. — tim wood

Right. That is why I asked:

Why should what I always do and what you always do be related in any way other than this being what we always do? — Fooloso4

and:

Would you ask if what I sometimes do is related to what you sometimes do? — Fooloso4

When you say:

The structure of the inquiry being, is-it, what-is-it, what-kind-of-a-thing-is-it, genus/species, quiddities; and the tools being the simple "why" and "what." — tim wood

and follow this with the example of 'always' then 'always' is being treated as a kind of thing with its own "whatness". It seems to me that you are reifying 'always' as if it plays a determinate role in what is being done.

But what is at issue here is 'purpose'. Your initial question:

The questions here are, then, what is purpose (in itself), where does it come from, what is its ground? Or, what exactly gives it all meaning, makes it all worthwhile? — tim wood

"Purpose in itself" treats it as if it is some thing that exists on its own apart from those things that have purposes.

...on the working assumption that there is something there to see. — tim wood

I am questioning that assumption. The problem is that when working with that assumption leads one to find what may not be there to find. And if not here then there.

Thus if you always play the king's gambit, and I always chose vanilla, we can ask if in any way these are related, the "always" being the clue. And if related, presumably in some way by the "always," then there is a subject that might be pursued without any reification risked. — tim wood

Why should what I always do and what you always do be related in any way other than this being what we always do? My reasons for always playing the king's gambit may have nothing to do with why you always choose vanilla. Would you ask if what I sometimes do is related to what you sometimes do?

The assumption is that if there are various particulars of some kind then there must be some one thing that underlies them all by virtue of which they are the things they are. If there are purposes then there must be some more basic and general thing, PURPOSE, without which there could be no purposes.

This is reductive reification. It posits an entity where none is to be found and thus invents a transcendent realm of eternal beings where it is to be discovered.

If this is part of some secret plan by the conservative Supes, I wonder what it is. — fishfry

I do not think it is some secret plan. They are anti-regulation, anti-LGBT rights, pro-discrimination on the basis of religious freedom, and pro-gun.

I would go further and say that Wittgenstein is opposed to the framework of things in themselves versus things for us. — Paine

I agree. The discussion of the cube at 5.5423 is instructive:

This no doubt also explains why there are two possible ways of seeing the figure as a cube; and all similar phenomena. For we really see two different facts.

Facts are separate from and independent of our perception of them.

In a letter to John Taylor he says:

Democracy, nevertheless must not be disgraced. Democracy must not be despised. Democracy must be respected. Democracy must be honoured. Democracy must be cherished. Democracy must be an essential, an integral part of the Souvereignty, and have a controul over the whole Government, or moral Liberty cannot exist, or any other Liberty. I have been always grieved, by the gross abuses of this respectable Word. One Party speaks of it as the most amiable, venerable, indeed as the sole object of their Adoration: the other as the Sole object of their scorn, abhorrence and Execration. Neither Party, in my Opinion, know what they Say. Some of them care not what they say, provided they can accomplish their own Selfish Purposes. These ought not to be forgiven.

The two parties at that time were the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. He was a member of the Federalists. This would raise doubts for the those who wrote and supported the Republican resolution @jorndoe cited above, if only they knew where Adams stood.


According to his wife he was an avid reader of Plato, but I think his views on democracy were shaped in part by his own experience and observations regarding human nature. A Democratic republic differs from the Athenian democracy in important ways.

Surely you can think of a few cultural moral norms that seem unlikely to be parts of cooperation strategies. — Mark S

There is a difference between a moral norm that in some way promotes cooperation and a strategy to promote cooperation via moral norms.

The same norm can result in cooperation between some but discord among others.

In what way is a norm prohibiting abortion a cooperation strategy? Such rules are often divisive and harmful. They may not lead to cooperation but to oppression.

In what way is a norm against homosexuality a cooperation strategy? It too is often divisive and harmful and can lead to oppression rather than cooperation.

If you suspect the hypothesis is false, any candidate counterexamples would be welcome. — Mark S

I have no alternative hypothesis. I regard this whole endeavor as a fruitless dead end.

...that hypothesis is robustly supported by inference to the best explanation... — Mark S

Inference to the best explanation is not scientific evidence.

John Adams is quoted but his position if far more subtle than this naked attempt at a power grab.

In John Adams' "Thoughts on Government" he asks:

As good government, is an empire of laws, how shall your laws be made?

and answers by:

... a few of the most wise and good.

That is, not by a political party but by those who are wise and good,.

He goes on to say:

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it.

If the people at large favor policies that are progressive and socialists then the Republicans are not representatives of the people.

Adams also says:

Of Republics, there is an inexhaustable variety, because the possible combinations of the powers of society, are capable of innumerable variations.

As the greatest leader of the Republican Party said, this nation is a government:

of the people, by the people, for the people.

It is a mixed regime with elements of aristocracy and democracy.

A lot of people think the court's on Trump's side and not being judicially impartial. And opinions about that correlate with people's opinions on Trump. — fishfry

I do think that there are members of the court who have an agenda. It is not that they are on Trump's side but that they see Trump as useful to their side. An expedient for attaining their conservative goals.

You appear to not understand what is included in empirical evidence for scientific truth. — Mark S

I think it is the other way around. If, as you claim,

The principles that underlie descriptively moral behaviors are what people have thought of as moral (because it has been encoded into the biology underlying our moral sense) for as long as we have lived in cooperative societies. — Mark S

then you must provide evidence and not just arguments supporting your hypothesis. Just claiming that what people have thought of as moral is encoded is not 'science'. The claim that what people think is of as moral is encoded means that moral judgments are encoded, that 'x' is morally acceptable and 'y' is not. In other words, that a moral code is encoded.

I missed the fact that there was a thread on the Supreme Court. If I was aware of that I would not have started a new thread. I though you meant I should not have put it in the Lounge.

The evidence is in 1) the explanatory power for virtually all the diversity, contradictions, and strangeness of descriptively moral behaviors as parts of cooperation strategies, 2) huge superiority over any competing hypothesis, 3) simplicity, 4) integration with the rest of science, and other normal criteria for scientific truth. — Mark S

So in other words no empirical evidence. Cooperation is too thin and insubstantial to stand as a moral strategy.

Right. I would add that some will cooperatively conspire against others (or other societies) while believing they are acting morally. — Mark S

And many who cooperate to conspire are not concerned with morality but with their own gain.

Isn't our knowledge of hormones scientific evidence? — Athena

Evidence of morality?

All social animals are biologically influenced to conform to social expectations ... — Athena

I agree, but I think Mark is saying something more than this. Being a social animal is not a principle that underlies and encodes what it is that people think is moral. Within a societies there may be agreement but between societies there may be disagreement as to what behavior is and is not acceptable. He points to cooperation within a society but this is not the same thing as cooperation between societies. And even within a society we may cooperate with some members while conspiring against others.

If you read the comment, I am only using the term insofar as I am quoting the text wherein Witt uses the expression "presented" here:

"The picture presents the facts in logical space" (2.11) — 013zen

You say more than that:

a)

The world is made up of pictures in our mind ... — 013zen

and:

b)

A fact, can only "exist" in logical space and present the world insofar as it is a picture. — 013zen

a) Wittgenstein does not say that the picture that presents the facts is something in the mind

b) A fact does not present the world. The picture presents the facts.

... we need to somehow make sense of the fact that:

1. Fact in logical space make up the world
2. Facts are presented in logical space by pictures — 013zen

1. Wittgenstein is making a distinction between facts and things or objects. The world is all that is the case. Facts and not things determine what is and is not the case. That a thing can exist in a state of affairs is not accidental. The possibility of it occurring in states of affairs is necessary. This necessity is logical necessity. The space in which it occurs is logical space.

2. The logical structure underlying both the facts and the pictures of the facts is what makes it possible for pictures to present the facts.

An exhaustive collection of all the facts re-presented in logical space, as pictures, form the world. — 013zen

The pictures do not form the world. The facts do. The facts exist even if they are not pictured.

The principles that underlie descriptively moral behaviors are what people have thought of as moral (because it has been encoded into the biology underlying our moral sense) for as long as we have lived in cooperative societies. — Mark S

That what is thought of as moral is biologically encoded is at best a hypothesis and at worse an unsubstantiated assertion. In either case it is in need of scientific evidence. What is that evidence?

“The science of morality studies the psychological, neurological, and cultural foundations of moral judgment and behavior”. — Mark S

If the foundations of moral judgement and behavior are biologically encoded then they is not cultural. To the extent those foundations are cultural they differ from culture to culture.

There is some amount of speculation always I agree as to what persuades people, but I don't think the strategy to prosecute Trump out of the race has been generally effective. — Hanover

As a strategy I agree, but I don't think this is what is going on. His legal problems began before he announced he would run. At that time there was a widely held assumption that he decided to run as a way of avoiding legal troubles. Declaring he was running two years ahead of the election he attempted to turn his legal troubles into political opposition.

The general strategy of criminal defendants is to delay, object, and refuse to cooperate — Hanover

That is true. It is what he has done his whole life. Something he learned from his father and his mentor Roy Cohn.

I don't know that it's the election he's most concerned about as opposed to just getting convicted. — Hanover

I think he hopes to avoid the latter by way of the former.

If anything it should go in “Supreme Court (general discussion)” thread. — Mikie

I'll leave that up to the moderators. I put it here because it is an election issue. But if they take up the larger issue of the extent and specifics of presidential immunity then it is no longer simply an election issue.

This assumption assumes the conservative members of the Court share the Left's delusion that the trial or even a conviction would reduce Trump's support. — Hanover

It is not unreasonable to think that there is some segment of voters who may be sways by what might be uncovered in trial. Given how close the election is likely to be this could make a difference. There is a reason why Trump is doing whatever he can to postpone or prevent the trials from taking place.

Shouldn't this thread go into the Trump thread — fishfry

No. What Trump says and does and what the Supreme Court says and does are not the same.

What else could I possibly mean by constitute? — 013zen

You could possibly mean:

be (a part) of a whole.
make up, form, compose
found
establish
to be or be considered as something

You just disagree. — 013zen

I do disagree, but gave you a chance to clarify what you meant. The world is not "pictures in the mind". A picture and what is pictured are not one and the same.

So, the facts in logical space that make up the world are presented in logical space by pictures. — 013zen

Your use of the term 'presented' is ambiguous. There is a difference between phenomena as what shows or presents itself and what is or can be presented in a picture. What is presented "by" pictures are not the facts themselves that are presented in the picture. The picture re-presents what is pictured. It is an image of it. Your toe does not hurt in a picture of you stubbing your toe.

A fact, can only "exist" in logical space and present the world insofar as it is a picture. — 013zen

There are no illogical facts. Facts are what is the case. If the book is on the table then it is the case, a fact, that the book is on the table. A statement of fact "the book is on the table" is not the fact that the book is on the table. A statement of fact is a picture of the fact. The fact itself, the book is on the table, is not a picture. If we want to read the book we do not find it in a picture.

But is it? Anyway, their reason for believing that is not true - i.e. a bad reason. — Ludwig V

What is at issue is the education of the guardians. It consists of gymnastics for the body, the proper kind of music to moderate their spiritedness, and the noble lie. They must believe that the good of the city is their own good if they are to protect it even if they die doing so. It there reason for believing is not true that is an indication that a lie is needed. A mercenary will only fight if it benefits them.

The latter presents facts in logical space, and thereby constitute the world. — 013zen

What do you mean by constitute? The world is not made up of pictures. The world and pictures of it are not the same thing. Analogously, you and a picture of you are not the same thing. If they were then you could be in two or more places at the same time, depending on the number of pictures.

You asked:

Which distinction? — 013zen

To which I responded:

Between the world as pictures in the mind and reality as not made up of pictures in our mind. — Fooloso4

Here is your original claim:

There is a distinction being made between reality and the world. The world is made up of pictures in our mind; reality is not made up of pictures and certainly not pictures in our mind. — 013zen

The first claim is wrong. The world is not made up of pictures. The second claim is correct, reality is not made up of pictures, but, as I pointed out:

A proposition is a picture of reality.

(4.021)

Both the world and reality are pictured. Whatever distinction you are trying to make between them, that distinction cannot be based on pictures.