Hence it's absolutely no wonder at all that communist revolutions have collapsed into totalitarianism and one man rule. It is simply an intrinsic aspect of Marxism (and Marxism-Leninism). Marx starts from the belief that the change will extremely likely be violent, the change has to be done by force, so imagine how that comes out with actual people. — ssu

Marx of course believed (or at least seemed to believe) that he didn't need to imagine possible outcomes or rank their probability. According to Marx, history has a fixed goal, the classless society, and it reaches that goal through stages which follow rationally from another. So, Marx did not believe any outcome other than the dictatorship of the proletariat leading to the classless society was possible.

But yes, he's been talking about cultural marxists, when at least in my view basically it's more about the effects of post-modernity or anti-modernism of our times rather than a plot of marxists (simply because there's so few actual marxists around). — ssu

Also because Marxism is the polar opposite of a post-modern view. For Marx, history itself had an objective purpose that could be known.

But one good video to look at for Petersons political stance is in his interview with Steven Pinker, the author of enlightenment now. Watching it, it was very obvious to me that Peterson at every turn brought up "cultural maxism" and "post-modernism" as the bogeyman that threaten our achievements, while Pinker, while sharing some of Peterson's views, was much more neutral. The "culture war" is not just an aside for Peterson. It's the main focus of his philosophy. He conceptualizes it as literally an archetypical fight between light and darkness.

He means set yourself/your mindset in order. — BitconnectCarlos

Good advice, certainly, but what if an unordered mind comes up with something rather important?

Peterson starts off the chapter talking about the Columbine killers and Carl Panzram - both of whom hated being and described so in detail in their manifestos or biographies. The Columbine killers hated pretty much everything. And they were right in regard to a lot of it - life is often pain, life is unfair, injustice happens constantly. But if you're just criticizing and coming at things from this type of perspective it's a monstrous and nihilistic way to approach the world even if you happen to share some opinions with normal, rational folks. — BitconnectCarlos

Which seems to be saying that if you don't set yourself in order first, your arguments are going to be bad. But this implies that Peterson already knows the arguments are bad, so obviously he has a way to decide that based on the arguments themselves. Why then shouldn't they simply be part of the "marketplace of ideas", which Peterson presumably holds in high regard?

In politics there might be some use for these people, but Peterson is always speaking to the individual. Political philosophy or theory tends to deal in groups, Peterson does not. — BitconnectCarlos

I think quite the opposite is true. Peterson cares a great deal about groups. Behind the self-help is a political philosophy that's very worried about the wrong group being in power.

Chapter 6 of Peterson's book is "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world" but he obviously doesn't mean that literally. He's not saying only people whose houses are 100% clean are entitled to try to change the world. Nor does he says that only people whose family lives are perfect are entitled to opinions. — BitconnectCarlos

So, what does he say, in your interpretation? What's the connection between setting your house in order and criticizing the world?

Peterson's style is to blend self-help with political philosophy. As self help, concentrating on what you yourself can do to deal with your situation is good advice. That's where the Solzhenitsyn example works well. But as a political philosophy, it's a call towards indifference towards social and economic issues. A call which happens to line up very well with the interests of the people who promote Peterson as a philosopher.

Especially when his self-help instructions got popularity, this seemed (somehow) as a political following to leftists. — ssu

Peterson explicitly makes political statements. The culture war between the "post modernist cultural Marxists" and the classical liberals is invoked frequently in his lectures and talks. It's not like "leftists" started attacking him because they're against cleaning your room.

Real empowerment, based on your real position and abilities within society. He argues that you should take care of yourself, then if you get that right, try to take care of your family, if you succeed there then try to play an active role in your community. He merely points out that if you can't even get your own shit together then how are you qualified to be explaining to the rest of the world how the economy should function or how law or society should function. Isn't that just common sense? — Judaka

Common sense usually is neither common nor sense.

Apart from that, there is two problems: For one this is an impossible standard. Everyone has problems. But more importantly, it doesn't follow. You'd first have to establish that there is an inherent connection between your ability to have a happy and fulfilling personal & family life and your ability to analyze society. Are we going to judge the writings of Plato, Kant or Wittgenstein by whether or not they got their family life right?

There is also the slight problem that, according to Jordan Peterson, we shouldn't listen to Jordan Peterson.

Your value isn't determined by how much you change the course of the nation, one should focus on things in their immediate area first where you can actually make a difference and when they're able to handle that kind of responsibility. — Judaka

But this is instrumental advice. It applies regardless of your aim. Peterson isn't arguing that you should "think globally act locally". He isn't saying start fighting climate change by changing your diet and consumption habits. He's saying focus on your personal fulfillment and leave climate change to the people in charge.

Peterson advocates for the empowerment of the individual — Judaka

I kinda get the opposite impression: That he argues that individuals should care about themselves and not try to change the world around them. That the world around them is properly run by forces that are beyond the individual, which are expressed in traditions, and one should best accept those as they are. Only very exceptional individuals should ever try to think about changing the world.

I don't mean that just as snark. The point of saying it is that an intellectual commitment to nihilism that severs facts from interpretations is like a powerful acid. You can use it to destroy whatever you choose to, but as the above shows you can't function without the fungibility of facts and interpretations. You have to act as if the world is how you interpret it - that's what it means to hold beliefs about it. — fdrake

This "wedge" between fact and interpretation seems to be at the heart of a lot of philosophy in the post-enlightenment era. It could perhaps be said that Kant's critique of pure reason already contained the issue - in dormant form - when Kant introduced the "Ding an sich". It seems like Kant's reasoning, excluding the "realm of freedom", could be taken as a direct road to radical constructivism. Yet at the same time, it also seems self-evident that the outside world has a solidity that implies it exists "in and of itself".

I have no idea if “no gods exist” or if at least one does. I prefer not to guess on the issue, because all such guesses would be nothing but blind guesses—nothing more than a coin toss. — Frank Apisa

How reasonable this is depends a lot on what you mean by "exist".

It's fairly obviously the case that our current best empirical theories about the physical world don't include a god or gods. So if existence refers to physical existence, then God or gods don't exist.

There is plenty of empirical evidence for people acting as if they believed in a god of gods, and, making some basic assumptions, it follows that God or gods "exist" fairly commonly as mental idea and as a shared social entity.

If we're talking about metaphysical "existence" in some unfathomable way, the "coin toss" stance seems apt. But the "unfathomable" bit kind of throws a wrench into things. Can something be meaningfully said to "exist" if it's entirely unclear what such "existence" entails? I tend to answer that with a "no".

Looks like someone expedited the plan.

I don't quite agree with this. What I'm trying to ascertain is what is logically possible, and impossible when thinking about two separate ideas. Finite, or infinite regress of causal events. The conclusion is that any time of causality will, by necessity, resolve to a finite causality.

Now perhaps logic doesn't apply to causality, could be. But we can't argue anything at that point. Assuming that logic can be applied to causality, this is the only logical conclusion which can be made. Now if I'm wrong on that, feel free to point out the error in the logic. — Philosophim

The problem is less with your logic (I pointed out some problems with your reasoning in my previous post) and more with the whole "powerlevel" thing. The latter is a misuse of statistical analysis. You're inventing cases (infinite gods) and are then applying statistical analysis to the cases as if they were actual data. This kind of analysis does generally result in random results.

For example, imagine we have the following self-sorting problem:
"You wake up in a Hotel room with no memory. All the windows and the door are closed. What's the chance that you are in a hotel room with a number from 1 to 10?"

In order to give an even marginally useful answer, you need some empirical groundwork. You'd need to know, for example, what the average number of rooms in a hotel currently is. WIthout such groundwork, you can come to any arbitrary conclusion. Maybe there are infinite rooms? See the "doomsday argument" for a slightly more involved argument with the same problems.

Close, VERY close. But can you put this in similar terms of the argument? Because in the argument I demonstrate there is 1 specific universe, and any alteration after that first cause would be a different specific universe.

So for example, imagine that the first cause of our universe is the big bang, no God. There are an infinite number of Gods that could have been a first cause that then created the big bang, and created a duplicate universe.

Now imagine that there is another possible universe with a slightly different big bang as a first cause, and your dominant hand is different. That is an entirely different specific universe. But for that specific universe, there would be an infinite number of possible Gods that could be the first cause, that created that big bang that lead to that universe. — Philosophim

Since we allow metaphysical first causes, which is to say the "first cause" starts causality, but is not itself part of causality, nothing is stopping us from imagining any number of other ways a specific universe comes to be.

For one, the idea that the physical universe can be completely described based on it's initial state is somewhat outdated, since it assumes a universe working according to classical mechanics, which we now know is not the case.

But apart from that if we take the big bang as the starting point of our specific universe, and assume that every alteration of the makeup of the big bang results in a different specific universe, that does not constrain the metaphysical antecedents of the big bang in any way. Just like a God does not need a specific makeup to create a specific universe, there is no reason to assume that other possible first causes do. We don't have any convenient words for this, as with God, but let's for example assume that some sort of Aether gives rise to a specific universe in some unkown, metaphysical way. There is no reason to assume that only one specific Aether can give rise to one specific universe. Rather, there might be infinite Aethers that all give rise to the same specific universe.

Because we know that's not an option. Causality is a necessary condition that results in a necessary outcome. A first cause is a condition that results in a necessary outcome, but the first cause does not have a prior necessary condition for its own outcome, its existence in this case.

Now if you can show that causality has not been proven to exist, feel free, but I'm taking the stance that causality is proven to exist. — Philosophim

I would point you to Hume, who has pretty convincingly argued that we don't actually have a way to prove causality exists.

I hope my definition of causality above also clears up any concerns you had about why and how.

Why means: This is seeking out a necessary precondition for this current existence, but we do not know how.
How means: This is the understood necessary precondition for this current existence, or the answer to the why.

So on point 3 when I state, "The logic of a first cause entails that there is no rule on how that first cause has to exist."
There is no understood necessary precondition for why a first cause has to exist.
This can easily be answered with a why question. Why is there no necessary precondition on a first cause existing? It is because there can be no how. If there was, then it would not be a first cause, but there would exist some necessary precondition for the first causes existence.

Thus when I state on point 5, "Why is is all of causality infinite?", I am asking, "Is there a necessary precondition that entails all of causality must be infinite?"

So with this definition fleshed out more, I do not believe there is any contradiction. If you see one though, feel free to point it out! — Philosophim

The problem, which remains not cleared up, is that you say in 2:
"We can represent this as answering the question, "Why did X happen?""

Then in 3 you argue there are 3 (and only 3) answers to that question.

Then in 5 you ask question 2 again, even though you have already concluded that the options in 3 are definitive answers. That's the contradiction.

For example, in looped causality, every question "why did X happen" has an answer. For every X there is a Y. Therefore, looped causality is a valid solution to the initial dichotomy.

What you do in 5. is to then treat causality as a whole as an X, and ask whether that X has a Y. That, however, is not logical, since you're now stepping outside of causality and into metaphysics. And you have not established the metaphysical rule that every X needs a Y, that is there is no reason to assume there is a causality in metaphysics. Indeed you acknowledge that there is no such causality when you say that the (metaphysical) first cause does not need a prior cause.

Those answers rejected aren't being described as untrue, they're being judged in other ways. An emotional argument like "it is horrible to see someone suffering" for why you should not cause suffering might or mightn't be a logically correct argument, it is based on my assessment. — Judaka

Yeah but "it's horrible" is not the saying the same as "it's feels horrible to me". That's my point: We treat the outcome of any deliberation on morality as more than just emotion.

Everything about my choice to call a thing moral or immoral is based on me, my feelings, my thoughts, my interpretations, my experiences. The conclusion is not a truth, the conclusion can be evaluated in any number of ways. Is it practical, pragmatic, fair and the options go on. For me, it is never about deciding what is or isn't true. — Judaka

Doesn't the ability to evaluate anything in any way require assigning truth values? Even the question "do I feel that this solution is fair" requires there to be an answer that is either true or false.

As for A.I, I don't agree, intelligence doesn't require our perspective, I think it is precisely due to a lack of any other intelligent species that this is conceivable for people. It's much more complicated than being based on empathy, one of the biggest feelings morality is based on is fairness - even dogs are acutely aware of fairness, it's not just an intellectual position. We are also a nonconfrontational species, people need to be trained to kill and not the other way around. All of these things play into how morality functions and morality looks very different without them. An A.I. computer would not have these biases, it's not a social species that experiences jealousy, love, hate, empathy and it has no proclivity towards being nonconfrontational or seeing things as fair or unfair. — Judaka

How do you suppose an A.I. would gain consciousness without human input? It's a bunch of circuits. Someone has to decide how to wire them, and will thereby inevitably model the resulting mind on something. And in all likelihood, in order to create something flexible enough to be considered "strong A.I.", you'd have to set it up so it started unformed to a large degree, much like a newborn child.

As humans, we can go beyond mere instincts and intellectually debate morality but that's superfluous to what morality is. Certainly, morality is not based on these intellectual debates or positions. I think people talk about morality as if they have come to all of their conclusions logically but in fact, I think they would be very similar to how they ended up if they barely thought about morality at all. One will be taught right from wrong in a similar way to lions and dogs.

Since morality isn't based on your intellectual positions, it doesn't really matter if your positions are even remotely coherent. You can justify that suffering is wrong because you had a dream about a turtle who told you so and it doesn't matter, you'll be able to navigate when suffering is wrong or not wrong as easily as anyone else. The complexity comes not from morality but interpretation, characterisation, framing, knowledge, implications and so on. — Judaka

I agree with all that, but it's notably an intellectual position looking at morality from the outside. It's not how morality works from the inside. Internally, you do have to keep your positions coherent, else you'll suffer from cognitive dissonance. Knowing, intellectually, that your moral decisions are ultimately based on feeling doesn't help you solve a moral dilemma. The position "it's right because I feel like it" is not intuitively accepted by the human mind.

It seems property can only be maintained by force where a society and its military and police and government defend an individuals property claim. But beyond that I don't see any metaphysical type of ownership justified by someones innate right to an object.

I think one problem is how the first society or individual managed to gain the first property or land before it was distributed via a legal system. Personally, I don't believe I own anything and I am happy for anyone to share my property if they need it and I consider myself as a steward borrowing and caring for resources that may be inherited by someone else. — Andrew4Handel

Based on what I know about the history of early humanity and the development of human children it seems likely that some form of limited personal property is common to human societies and is present in hunter-gatherer band-level societies. This only extends to personal tools and clothing. From a practical perspective, it also seems to make sense to assign to each person some basic necessities as their own personal responsibility to avoid excessive bookkeeping.

But what if two bands want to trade goods? There is some evidence that happened even very early in the history of anatomically modern humans. Trading goods requires (or perhaps creates) at least the tacit acknowledgment that whatever is being traded belongs to either band.

I think it's generally accepted that "real property", that is ownership of land, only enters the picture once agriculture has developed (though some general notion of "territory" may well have been around), and that ownership of land - which to an agricultural society is mostly equivalent to ownership over the means of production - was communal.

I can think of two reasons a communal ownership of land is preferrable to having no ownership: If the land is considered the property of the society, that establishes certain obligations on the individual to treat the land in accordance with the interests of that society. And by that same token it serves to delineate the borders of the society and those responsibilities.

So I think those are the core elements: Establishing and delineating responsibility and organizing the commerce of goods. As society grows more complex, the demands for that also grow. As soon as people are wholly employed in a function that doesn't either serve their basic needs, or ensures they're met due to social status, i.e. artisans, they're in need of more robust forms of private property.

That's only a very brief look at the topic, but to jump far ahead to the modern day: I think market-based distribution is an effective way to organise many (but not all) social relationships. This form of organisation requires property to function, and insofar as property is necessary for a justified form of distribution, it is itself justified.

Alright, the challenge is on! Where is the flaw I finally found? Can you introduce a flaw I missed? — Philosophim

The most obvious flaw, broadly speaking, is that the argument is an exercise in creating information ex-nihilo, which is to say it operates on the assumption that stringing some mathematical operations together will somehow result in new information, which isn't actually possible.

There is nothing stopping us from supposing an infinity of "natural" causes to counter the infinity of gods.

A more technical criticism is that the initial dichotomy doesn't seem valid or includes a hidden premise:

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which all others follow. — Philosophim

What about the option that nothing has a cause?

There is also the issue that you seem to be flip-flopping on the definition of "cause" a bit. 2 clearly establishes cause as a "why" question, but 3 then sets up 3 "how" answers. And you then go back to a "why" question in 5. This masks the fact that 3 and 5 directly contradict each other. Either there are the three options of 3 or there is only in fact one option. Can't have it both ways.

Perhaps the scenario could be rephrased thus:
Assuming there is an objective truth "out there", which is not accessible to most people, but is accessible to you, does it remain the "objective truth" even if you're the only one that can access it?

Honestly, I use meta-ethical relativism to say that moral positions don't have a truth value, they're not objectively true. — Judaka

That much I understand. But, in the case where you are faced with a moral dilemma, don't you then run into a performative contradiction? In order to solve the dilemma, you employ reasoning, and that reasoning will, presumably, reject some answers. What is that rejection if not assigning a truth value?

I think that morality is a conflation of our biological proclivity for thinking in moral terms, the intellectual positions that we create, the personal vs social aspects of morality. Hence, people say "you need a basis for your intellectual position to be rational" but to me, morality is not based on rational thought. — Judaka

From a descriptive perspective, I agree. Morality is, from the outside perspective, an evolved social capability of humans, and it's probably based on our capability for empathy, that is mirroring feelings.

I don't believe a supercomputer A.I. can reach the moral positions that we do and for it, I think it would really struggle to invent meaningful fundamental building blocks towards morality which for us just come from our biology. — Judaka

This is an interesting scenario actually. Is an AI independet from human morality even possible? An A.I. would, in the first instance, just be an ability to do calculations. In order to turn it into something we'd recognize as intelligence, we'd need to feed it with information, and that'd presumably include our ideas on morality. Given that we don't have any intelligences to model an AI on other than our own, it would seem likely that the outcome would actually be fairly similar in outlook to humans, at least in the first generations.

Morality is often just you being you, the relativity of morality frames morality as being exactly that. You can be logical but your base positions aren't logical, they're just you being you. Morality is not simply an intellectual position. My reasoning is based on feelings which discount any possibility for objectivity, my feeling aren't dependant on reasoning. — Judaka

But isn't it the case that, while you may intelectually realize that your basic moral assumptions, your moral axioms, are merely contingent, you are nevertheless employing them as objective norms when making your moral decicions? To me it seems rather analogous to the free will situation: You can intellectually conclude that free will is an illusion, but you cannot practically use that as a basis for your decisions.

It seems to me that this dualism - that of the internal and the external perspective - is fundamental and unavoidable when decisionmaking is involved.

Reasoning becomes a factor when we start to talk about the implications of my feelings. I may instinctively value loyalty but we can create hypothetical scenarios which challenge how strong those feelings are. I may value loyalty but we can create scenarios where my loyalty is causing me to make very bad decisions. That's the intellectual component of morality, interpretation, framing, decision-making and so on. I find all of this happens very organically regardless of your philosophical positions. Even for a normative relativist, I imagine it changes very little in how morality functions for that person. — Judaka

I would agree that, in general, your meta-ethical stance has limited bearing on how you make moral decisions in everyday life. We cannot reason ourselves out of the structures of our reasoning.

I've never really understood the supposed distinction between these two. It makes it seem like objectivity is being conflated with transcendence, like the objective is something completely beyond access. As I understand it, the objective is just the limit of the increasingly intersubjective; the maximally intersubjective (that we'll never reach, but can get arbitrarily close to) just is the objective. Any "objective" beyond that is incomprehensible nonsense, and so not worth speaking of. — Pfhorrest

That's an advanced position though. You first have to understand the objective as a realm completely beyond access, realize that therefore everything supposedly objective is therefore merely intersubjective, and then conclude that if the objective is inaccesible, we might as well cut out the middleman and equate intersubjective and objective.

My view is moral opinion will be exerted one way or another, there is not a possibility for its disappearance. So in essence, it is about deciding what kind of world I would like to live in and what needs to happen to make that happen. I am decidedly intolerant of people who disagree with me on moral issues, they are obstacles to the creation of my ideal world. Not much different from moral absolutism except I don't feel the need to pretend that my ideals have divine authority. Mostly I believe that when I do what is best for myself and others, the best outcome comes naturally. Then it is only about creating the correct framing and the power to exert your influence. I certainly don't agree with normative relativism. — Judaka

So, this is a nice introduction to something I have wondered about before: Given that, internally, you have to justify your moral position to yourself somehow, and that, having justified it, you are going to act on it, how does the distinction between meta-ethical relativism and meta-ethical universalism work from your internal perspective?

"It's all relative" won't help you when confronted with some moral dilemma. If you want to make a decision, you need to start somewhere, i.e. you need to treat something as an universal baseline to base your reasoning off. It may be true that, what you're actually doing is merely justifiying a conclusion you have already arrived at emotionally. But doesn't your reasoning nevertheless treat whatever you're doing as "logical" and therefore "objective"?

I was just trying to find an argument in favour of the mind's physical nature. My reasoning was:

1. Everything that exists occupies a space.
2. The mind exists.
3. The mind occupies a space. — Daniel

I think this is, in a way, backwards. Space describes the relations between physical objects. Fundamental particles don't necessarily "occupy" space so much as creating it.

You made me think of another question: is everything that occupies a space of a material (physical?)* nature?

*some particles are said to be massless but still physical... they interact with mass and must occupy a space (right?). Mind could be massless but physical nonetheless. — Daniel

I tend to go with the notion that everything that can be observed (has observable effects) is physical.

The problem with the mind is that if you look at everything a body does, some specific things that happen in minds, like what the color red looks like, are nowhere to be found.

Can you give me your reasoning that God can't be both the creator and some other player in the world? It isn't an assumption I have made. — Punshhh

Well, you said that this was an attribute God has, so God is a creator. He might be other things, but if he is all things, we're back to square one.

That seems to be asking whether or not the mind is material.

There are lots of differen positions on that. Is there any specific reason you're asking?

It is the ability to bring me and/or the world in which I live, into existence. — Punshhh

Ok, but there is an implicit assumption here: That "God" is the creator, and not some other player in the world. That's not something you got from observing the world. That's you defining a term.

The creation/provision of a world for me to live in. — Punshhh

How is that an attribute?

I agree. I'm arguing here against the opposite view, that moral decisions are (or can be) some kind of rational attempt to find what is 'right' by some pseudo-scientific method. — Isaac

Well, my argument is that we managed to go from "intuitive empiricism" but controversial and variously flawed natural philosophies to scientific empiricism and scientific materialism.

Therefore, it doesn't strike me as prima facie absurd that we might go from intuitive moral judgement and controversial and flawed moral philosophy to some more universally accepted system of practical morality.

I didn't say we were. Just s significant one. Virtually every single person in the world from 2 year-olds to senile geriatrics, from psychopaths to saints, all believe in the external reality of the table in front of them, they all believe that it will behave in the same way for you as it does for them, and they all have done since we crawled out of the caves. The only exceptions are the insane and the mystical (possibly the same category).

Any form of communication, or social endeavour relies on these shared concepts. I can communicate with, or share an activity with, almost anyone on the planet at any point in time, based on the fact that there's a stable external world whose properties are not fixed by my mind.

I cannot make even the slightest progress on any communication or joint activity based on the notion that what is morally 'good' is that which feels hedonically 'good', because there is no such shared belief in this association. — Isaac

Yeah, that's a good point. We're certainly more reliant on a shared concept of external reality than we are on a shared meta-ethical theory.

But I wouldn't say that we cannot make "the slightest progress" on a joint idea of meta-ethics. I think you can use Hedonism, to take your example, as a fairly reliable heuristic to how people approach everyday questions. After all, that's the principle behind a basic economy. Both parties trade because they each get something they want more than what they trade away.

Of course, actual human relations are a lot more complex, but there is some evidence for shared meta-ethical frameworks.

Nor can I make any progress meta-ethically assuming that my assessment of 'the reasons' for believing the above position to be best, will be shared by many others - each person's assessment of any given collection of 'reasons' seems to also be different. — Isaac

Well there is a basic notion underlying a lot of philosophy that reason is a basic ability all humans have, and that therefore a correct reasoning will be understood and accepted by everyone.

If you don't share that notion, you'll inevitably end up with relativism in any field. Even the scientific method then isn't correct, it just happened to work until now.

The statement "An hedonic-based ethical systems is best because my assessment of the reasons for and against it is such that I find it the most compelling" is also mostly useless other than as a statement of the speaker's state of mind. It is only useful to the small group of people who (for whatever reason) trust that person's judgement for the modification of their own beliefs.

The statement "This bridge can only carry 8 Tons", however, is potentially useful to the entire world. Absolutely everyone would agree that if the limits of the materials tend, in tests, to break after being subjected to more than 8 Tons, that they will not magically act differently for different people, that no amount of belief on my part can make the bridge carry more, that at no point will the bridge suddenly act as if it's made of cheese...

The difference in the utility of different classes of statement may well only be one of degree, but the degree is hugely significant. — Isaac

Again, I want to point out that while today, almost everyone would agree that the question "will the bridge hold if I drive across it in this 8 ton truck" is answered via the scientific method, that wasn't always the case. Some other approaches include asking an oracle, offering the gods a sacrifice for safe passage, or ritually blessing the bridge. And people in the past did try those.

So while it seems evident from our modern perspective that the scientific method is simply and obviously correct and that it has so much more utility than any moral philosophy as to be an entirely different kind of idea, a look at history imo shows that it's not so simple. For most of history, natural philosophy and moral philosophy were not much different. That we managed to "solve" the former doesn't make it less likely that the latter can also be solved.

Those attributes which coincide with/are perceptible by, our bodies. Natural philosophy and science have described them quite well. — Punshhh

For example?

This is a weak argument, it relies on God being necessarily defined by the person claiming his existence. Philosophy would need to go deeper than what people claim to know through the use of their intellect. Regardless of what people say, be they theists, or atheists, the reality on the ground is not altered. So philosophy is required to look beyond these arguments and consider reality instead. — Punshhh

Well but this just begs the question: what attributes of good do we "see", in whatever way you propose we can, in reality?

They imply causation. Hint: explain causation viz conscious existence. — 3017amen

I don't see how they do, nor do I understand what you mean by your question.

Indeed, but this has any bearing on what I'm saying. I was talking about the lack of widespread agreement over the method of reaching moral judgements, not the conclusions. — Isaac

Most people reach moral conclusions intuitively, the same way that most people use something related to the empiricism intuitively. Otherwise, it'd be hard to explain how humans can live together in societies.

I disagree, but even if that were so, it doesn't even approach basic empiricism. — Isaac

But if we're talking about degrees, we're not establishing some fundamental difference between the two kinds of making judgements.

Neither do I, I never even mentioned 'truth'. — Isaac

But you nevertheless seem to base your distinction on how many people agree with basic empiricsim versus how many people agree with the golden rule.

What scientific papers are you reading? The goal of scientific papers is to present the degree to whicha model fits the experimental data. It should have zero to do with convincing (even if it sometimes does). Morality, on the other hand, is all about convincing, it's built in. — Isaac

No, I think you're applying two different standards here. In theory, a scientific paper needs only present the evidence. In practice, science is a social activity and requires convincing. In the same way it can be argued that, in theory, the correct moral philosophy only needs to present it's arguments. In practice, it too needs to do so convincingly.

I'm not talking about the scientific method (the detail of it) I'm talking about devising theories of reality based on the degree to which they conflict with experience. 6 month old babies do it. I didn't take us thousands of years, it's built into our DNA. — Isaac

It seems to me, though, that this fails to explain why the enlightenment accelerated the speed of scientific advancement as much as it did.

Wrong. Synthetic a priori judgements/assumptions are used all the time to test theories in physics. — 3017amen

Synthetic a priori judgements don't imply a god.

Indeed. I'm not sure how you think that impacts on what I said. Normative propositions are always dependent on agreement (otherwise they're commands "you will", not "you should"). There is widespread agreement that experience arbitrates reality, at least so far as negation is concerned (that which is contrary to all experience is not the case). So universal statements from empiricism work - "letting go of that ball will cause it to drop".

Some people disagree with experience as an arbitrator. The extremely religious might, in some circumstances, believe God will hold the ball up and their past experiences are irrelevant compared to their faith. Statements based on empiricism will be useless to these people. But they are extremely rare, so it matters very little. — Isaac

There is also widespread agreement that killing babies for fun is wrong. I'd wager even less people disagree with that than disagree with experience as an arbitrator. So if we're going to base our conclusions on how widespread agreement is, there are at least some moral rules that are extremely widespread. On a meta-ethical level, variations on the "golden rule" are also very widespread.

But I don't think it's very convincing in the first place to argue that "as long as less than X% of people disagree with an idea, it can be considered true".

With hedonism being the arbiter of morality, there's no such widespread agreement, not even close. So universal statements based on such a meta-ethic are useless, they only have any normative force for the group who already agree with the meta-ethical position. — Isaac

But of course, the goal of a moral philosophy is to convince, much like the goal of a scientific paper on some subject. Your argument would lead to the conclusion that the only valid moral philosophy is the one everyone already agrees with, in which case there'd be no moral philosophy in the first place.

Yes, but we're not new to this. The human race has been at this for millenia. We've already very strongly landed on some form of empiricism to arbitrate everyday reality, we don't have any cause to doubt that. — Isaac

True, but it did take us thousands of years - until the 18th century - to really figure out how to ask the right questions. And it did not take long for the scientific method to become so obvious that most people can't even imagine there was a time when people didn't know how to "arbitrate reality" based on experience.

What tells you that the same process will not happen to moral philosophy in 100 years?

The widespread agreement about the principle of taking phenomenal experiences to be evidence of physical reality actually matters, it's the reason we can just take it as read. There being no such existing agreement about the relationship between hedonic experience and moral value is what means we cannot make the same presumption. — Isaac

But does this mean that before the argeement existed - i.e. before the 18th century, the scientific method was not the correct way to gain information about phenomenal reality?

You're still the final arbiter, not any external test. This is what distinguishes ideas about reality from ideas about 'oughts' or metaphysics. — Isaac

I am not sure that that distinction works. If we look at the history of natural philosophy, we see that people had all kinds of ideas about reality that were not solidly based on experience.

The idea that experience is the final arbiter for what is real is not itself real. It's an idea that cannot be tested against reality. So ultimately, all such testing requires prior reasoning to establish what does and does not count as evidence.

Say there was one objective meaning that some superior being knew, like it was beyond our knowledge. This is unlikely but I can't say with certainty that it isn't the case. This would make like therefore not meaningless, but it would remain that there is no way of objectively proving meaning. — JacobPhilosophy

But does the concept of objective meaning make sense? I understand the distinction you make, but "meaning" is not an ordinary property. For a thing to have meaning, that meaning must be known. A text in a language no-one can speak contains abstract information, but it doesn't "mean" anything.

It seems to me the same is true for life. Even if your life had meaning and purpose to some higher being, it would not make your life any different. There is nothing to predict or discover about your life that changes.

but just because there is no way of KNOWING anything objectively, that doesn't mean that there can't be objectivity. Epistemological nihilism is the claim that nothing CAN BE KNOWN, not that nothing exists. Therefore, life could or could not have meaning, we just can't know for sure. — JacobPhilosophy

Well, but then what does it mean to say "life may have meaning, it just cannot be known"? If the meaning cannot be established objectively, that leaves everyone with their personal, subjective meaning of life (or lack thereof), which is just the same as if there was no meaning to life.

I think the answer depends on whether you the claim "nothing can be known with certainty" is different from a regular negative claim like "I don't know X". Essentially, whether you think the statement is self-contradictory. If it isn't, then the two can be compatible, as denying any objectivity and certaint precludes any given meaning for "life" in general.

I infer the presence of corporate strength and pressure that I doubt Bannon can muster. The Chinese have that strength, but working with Trump as a tool doesn't seem their style. But it fits with Russian ideas of long-term subversion. — tim wood

Russia is certainly in favour of whatever damage and discord can be caused, but too many of the powers that be in the US would have to be enlisted by Russia to support such a move. I therefore accord that low probability. What I find more likely is that you can find plenty of American capitalists who couldn't care less about whether the 99% have a say in government, and are at least complacent to, if not actively engaged in, winding down America's liberal democracy in favor of something more akin to a corporate oligarchy.

Anyone else got any explanation that makes sense given the facts? — tim wood

My conspiracy theory is that it's all part of Steve Bannons plan to destroy the institutions of the American political system in order to replace it with a right-wing populist regime.

The purpose of a justice system is to serve justice. The fact that a justice system is fallible doesn't mean we should ignore justice, we should still try to make sure justice is being served wherever we can. It doesnt mean we should ignore injustices, that cant be part of the justice system. — DingoJones

Yes, I think we're in agreement this far. The system should be set up as well as possible. Usually, the way this is done is to ensure first that everyone has a chance to make their case, and second that all decisions can be appealed at least once. Of course, there are practical and all too often monetary constraints on how much oversight you can establish. Eventually, someone needs to make a final decision that will stand.

I wouldnt want to give absolute power to anyone of course, but ya I think someone making sure there are no miscarriages of justice as best they can would be a good thing. Youre saying that It wouldn't be good because of potential corruption but couldnt that be said about any part of the system at any level? — DingoJones

I'd say my argument is about points of failure. A system with appeals and other forms of oversight can control and perhaps even weed out corruption. There is no single point of failure - no single corrupt judge can cause widespread injustice. Even the supreme court has a panel of judges.

On the other hand, there is no oversight over the presidential pardon. It's a single point of failure. A single corrupt president could neuter any conviction they disagreed with. Imagine a democratic president in favour of legalisation of marijuana pardoning every single person convicted for possession. The entire system would become a farce. Now you may agree with their specific goal, but once we establish that in effect voiding laws you dislike is something presidents do, what is keeping the next president from pardoning everyone who beats up members of the opposition?

There is actually recent precedent for this process in the US. Obama widened the application of executive orders to enable "Obamacare". Trump is now using that same precedent to defund and neuter not just healthcare, but any agency he (or his handlers) doesn't like.

So if someone disagrees with your assessment, or doesnt place the same value as you do on appearances then they have no brain or eyes (or lack the ability to use them)? — DingoJones

Totally not what I said.

Trust in the system is more important than the system actually working and it trumps ethical consideration of individual cases? Gosh, what could go wrong doing it that way? — DingoJones

Yes, actually. A lot of things can go wrong either way, but I trust the self-regulation of the judiciary more than I trust the ethical considerations of any one president.

I cannot think of any historical examples where the rot started in the judiciary and tore the house down. I can think of several (including current attempts) where the executive bend the judiciary to their will and used that freedom of movement to tear the house down.

Sure there is, you could have a stronger justification for writing off miscarriages of justice.
Do you not see how similar your argument is to the ones used by places like China and N Korea where the state reigns supreme and individuals dont matter? — DingoJones

It's difficult to explain the value of functioning institutions if you're used to thinking mostly in terms of individual merit. Essentially, liberal democracies depend on a lot of unwritten rules about what behaviour is and isn't acceptable to function. Fundamentally, a constitution is a piece of paper. What gives it force is a commitment to actually live the intended system. One of those unwritten rules is that political interference in the judiciary is taboo. By extension, any appearance of such interference is to be avoided.

Without such a taboo, all you have is the trust that every leader will use their powers wisely and not subvert the judiciary for personal gain. But once someone starts, their opponents will be under pressure to respond in kind, and then the democratic system collapses.

I have no idea why you think limiting the powers of the executive is "similar to arguments used by China and North Korea". Are China and North Korea arguing that the executive shouldn't have the right to intervene in the judiciary even with good intentions?

Well this is the fundamental disagreement we have. I understand the importance of impartiality, but its not more important than individual corrections. Ultimately the justice system is about justice being served, not the system itself. — DingoJones

But everyone knows that no justice system always serves justice. Yet it must still function in some way. Would you install some superintendent with absolute power just so you could overturn those decisions that did not ultimately come out just?

Why is it politically motivated? How did you determine that it was politically motivated rather than correcting an injustice? — DingoJones

Is that a serious question? I have eyes and a working brain, that's how I know. Anyways It's the threat of politically motivated interference that does the damage. With corruption, it doesn't so much matter whether it can be proven that there is corruption. It's sufficient that the trust in impartial justice is damaged.

Im not buying this threat to rule of law bit, nor the appeal to consensus that follows. — DingoJones

Not much I can do about you "not buying" the importance of the judiciary being and being perceived as impartial.

The fact it benefits any involved party doesnt mean it isnt the right thing to do, it can be both.
Anyone with the power to do so should always correct a miscarriage of justice. — DingoJones

I think the operation of the system of checks and balances is more important than individual corrections. There is a reason this system exists: The people making corrections might themselves be wrong or corrupt.

In this context "metaphysical" simply means "non-physical". A process or function is not a tangible object, but a mental image of change over time. If you think of the Brain as a machine, the Mind is its product, its output. For example : a physical automobile produces non-physical Transportation. — Gnomon

That's pretty odd usage of words. People don't usually refer to automobiles as "machines that produce metaphysical transportation". Really what you're doing is describing what the automobile does in terms of how it is used. What an automobile produces, in the ordinary sense of the word, is heat and energy. It's a process, but it's still physical.

And of course the whole "brain produces mind" problem runs into the hard problem.

If the Brain is a physical computer, the information it produces is its function, its output, its reason for being. — Gnomon

Function, Output and reason for being are very different terms. Only one refers to the phenomenon of the brain. The other two contain additional interpretation.

Ideas are not physical objects, but metaphysical symbols that represent things (nouns) and actions (verbs) that we experience in the world. So, you could say that the Mind concept is a metaphysical (unreal, ideal) brain. :nerd: — Gnomon

What's specifically meta-physical about ideas? Aren't you just equating the terms "non-physical", "metaphysical" and "mental"?

Metaphysics : 4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. — Gnomon

I don't like this definition. It seems identical to mental. Metaphysics refers to physics and meta. The usage should reflect those component words to avoid confusion.

It would be the opposite imo, if “striking miscarriage of justice“ occurred, then its moral and not corrupt to correct that injustice isnt it? Isnt a striking miscarriage of justice precisely the circumstance under which you would want an overriding executive decision? — DingoJones

Not in a political case. A single miscarriage of justice is tragic for those involved, but not a threat to the rule of law. Politically motivated executive intereference, on the other hand, is perhaps the biggest threat to the rule of law. Creating even the appearance of such corruption will weaken the judiciary as one of the forces of checks and balances.

The only way such an intervention could possibly be justified is if there was near unanimous consent in the judiciary that the result ought to be corrected. Needless to say, that is not the case.

You might be confused by my use of fiction. If I used concept it might help. I use fiction because it better explains the idea that ideas are agreed on to become “fact”. ‘All men are equal“ is not a fact. It’s an agreed on idea, a fiction. — Brett

Ok, that I understand.

You would disagree that ideas can evolve? — Brett

A difficult question. The term "evolution" is thrown around a lot, and it's not always clear what is meant. If we mean an essentially unguided process by which one idea gradually turns into another based on the circumstances the people holding the idea are exposed to, then I suppose that happens. But ideas are also often "sticky", meaning that old ideas will be re-discovered again and again.

Yes, Mind is a fiction. The Mind that we imagine is not a physical Thing, but the name for a metaphysical process --- it's what the brain does. — Gnomon

Brains are physical. If the mind is metaphysical, then how is it "what the brain does"? Is there a metaphysical brain?

And one creation of the brain is a symbolic concept (idea) to represent brain function as-if it were a tangible object. So the Mind concept is a self-reference. And if self-reference is itself reflected in thought, it becomes a hall-of-mirrors. Therefore, you are literally correct that "there's nothing there", it's only an intangible mental image. Ideas are not real things, but ideas about things and their operations. Oooops! This is beginning to sound like a hall-of-mirrors. — Gnomon

But isn't the brain itself just a construction of the mind? Which would mean that the mind is basic, not the brain.

@Michael @DingoJones @Relativist

It might be worth pointing out that discussing Stone's conviction and some vague notion of "fair treatment" is playing the propaganda game @NOS4A2 wants to play.

For the judgement of Trumps action, all that is irrelevant. All that matters is that he commuted a sentence in a case he has a personal interest in. Even Stone himself admits as much when he claims he "refused to tell lies about Trump". That's what makes the corruption. Even if Stone's conviction had been some striking miscarriage of justice, it'd still be wrong and corrupt for Trump to commute that sentence.

All else is misdirection in the interest of propaganda.