Your initial example did seem to treat Pluto as a question of it characteristics rather than our category. Pluto(1) was implied to be different than Pluto(2) in terms of the object of Pluto, even though the characteristic that resulted in Pluto's reclassification wasn't new.

I'd say there was only one Pluto (object) and then our categorising of Pluto(1) and our categorising of Pluto (2).

The Wittgenstein point is this disagreement is meaningless because we are using different languages. To say Pluto is a planet uses a different category or language than saying it's not. In a more general sense of "planet," Pluto does qualify. Under the more specific version defined recently, Pluto does not qualify. Both categories are truthful. All we can do squabble about is which language we ought to use. It doesn't affect Pluto or the meaning of Pluto either way. If we are arguing over it, all we are doing is trying to get people to use one language over another.

The supposed problems surrounding naming and reference stem from ignoring what the speaker intends with language.

Statements are mistaken to have a problem referencing if they are untrue (e.g. "Willow who is president of the US," talking about me) when that has no impact on reference. Just because I'm not US president, doesn't mean someone can't intend that I am. I can be referenced in untrue statements.

Furthermore, the true statement ( "Obama is the present of the US, not Willow" ) is a language used when someone points out the falsehood about me. The names "Obama" and "Willow" are used with meaning and reference to the world in this context.

To imagine either "Obama" and "Willow" as blank slates names is to miss the entire point of both statements and what each person is talking about.

Because when we are talking about the modality of the proposition -- its being necessary, possible or impossible -- and not just talking about its truth, then we are also talking about the world as it could or couldn't possibly be, and not just about the world as it is. — Pierre-Normand

For me this is the exact problem. If we were talking about Paris in our world, then we talking about what it is, not what it might have been or some other world entirely. To talk about our Paris is to exclude all other possibilities and worlds. Modality is what we don't want to talk about if we wish to understand the meaning of our Paris-- I don't want to know if Paris is the capital in some alternate history. I don't want to know if Paris can be a capital or not in some other place. I don't even want to know if Paris can be the capital of France in our world.

Modality doesn't tell me anything. Sure we can talk about it. Paris could be the capital of France in our world, but it leaves out all relevant information. If I say Paris might (or might not) be the capital (which is true), I don't have any information on whether I should treat it as a such. If someone says to me, "Go pick up the delivery in the capital of France," I'm stuck guessing. Paris might be the capital. It might not be the capital. Whether I can make the pick-up is down to a toss up. Is the Paris the capital of France? I have no idea. I'll only be able to tell with the addition of "Paris is the capital of France."

There is an ideality at play within the mainstream understanding of modality. Supposedly, if we can say "Paris being the capital" is a necessary true (in all possible worlds), then we have what we need to know Paris is the capital, otherwise it all still up in the air.

But this analysis ignores how Paris is of our world. Our Paris cannot be true in all possible worlds. By identity, any other Paris, whether a concept in modal analysis or an alternate world, is a different city. For Paris to the capital in all possible worlds is impossible. Not merely because there might be different states, but rather because our Paris in necessarily tied to our world. To say "Paris is (not) the capital in all possible worlds" or "Paris might be the capital" gets us nowhere. We can't draw what is true about the world from modality-- is the proposition "Paris is the capital of France" true? We don't still know. We won't until we learn whether Paris is the capital.

'Possible worlds' aren't other worlds. It's just a fancy name for ways the world either is (actually) or could have been (counterfactually). It's a device for formalizing semantic theories of modal statements. — Pierre-Normand

Yes. They're all a logical construction-- even the possibility of our own world. In our world, it is true the Paris may or may not be the Capital of France. This possible world is not actual. It's only a logical concept which indicates which states might be actual.

Mainstream modal analysis fails so often because it treats actuality like this possibility. People get caught in the trap of thinking knowing the possible world gives knowledge of the actual world. Everyone starts tripping up over how Paris could (or could not) be the capital of France rather than paying attention whether it is.

Everything necessarily is, in the actual world, as it is in the actual world. This tautology says nothing about something being necessary or contingent simpliciter. Something isn't necessarily true if the world could have been such that it is false. This is what is meant when we say that there is a possible world in which (or at which, as it is usually expressed in the technical literature) it is false. — Pierre-Normand

I know, but that's sort of the point. What use is knowing necessary or contingent simpliciter if our subject is the actual world? Since modality is only a logical construction, it can't help us if we want to know something about the actual world. All it can do is tell us about the possible one-- e.g. no short, tall, fire snowmen who are made of only sand. We can use it to disregard the existence of contradictory or incoherent states, but that's it. If is's not necessary by logic, the possible world can't make comment. So why exactly are we trying to use it to tell whether or not Paris is the capital of France in the actual world?

That's not very philosophically interesting. — Pierre-Normand

I think it's the most philosophically interesting relation to modality. It represents the logic a describing the world. For us to say, logically, the capital of France is Paris, we need to now about Paris in our world. If I am to know where to pick-up the delivery, what I need to know is that Paris is the capital of France in the actual world. Far from being trivial, it points out the most important thing about knowledge: if it's of the actual world, then it must be knowledge of the actual world. We can't get there with modality. Possible worlds won't tell us anything about the actual world.

A proposition is necessarily true iff it is true at all possible worlds. If you stipulate from the get go that you are restricting your attention to only those possible worlds where it is true, you hardly have shown that the proposition is necessarily true -- only that is is true wherever it is true! — Pierre-Normand

Isn't that the definition of necessity though-- that there is no other possibility in the context?

Consider the proposition: "In our world, the capital of France is Paris." Is this true of our world? If so, how exactly are other possible worlds relevant? Why is Paris being true in all possible worlds a requirement if we are only talking about our own actual world? How would it even make sense to say necessity required the city of one possible world to be present in any possible world? Our Paris cannot be the Paris of another world.

To say that Paris is necessarily the capital of France in our world, we only need the truth that Paris is the capital of France in our world.

Necessity isn't the absence of possibility, just possibility's irrelevance. The capital of France isn't Paris because an alternative cannot occur. It's Paris because, at the moment, that is what is true of the capital of France.

The issue has more to do with the inadequacies of the a priori/posteriori and analytical/synthetic understanding of knowledge. Rather than types of knowledge, what the are trying to distinguish is different sorts of meaning-- a state of world (posteriori) compared to a logical truth (priori), an contingent act of language (synthetic) in contrast to a truth not bound to what is spoken or done in the world (analytical).

In each case, the priori/posteriori and analytical/synthetic understanding is meant to act as reduction of the meaning involved, such that we know it significance to knowledge. Such as, for example, that 2+2=4 is a logical truth known by definition while a presence of a elephant is known by observing the world. In the context of only asking about different types of knowledge, this appears to work because we are only considering ideas we already have. Our role in knowing is obscured.

Problems arise in a priori/posteriori and analytical/synthetic account of knowledge when we start to consider ourselves. Consider the synthetic posteriori of "There's an elephant in the room." According to it's distinction, I would know it by observing the presence of an elephant in the room. I don't need any sort of (necessary) a priori logical concept and cannot know about the elephant unless I've observed it.

Yet, where is my experience of the elephant and my language? In observing the elephant, I have not encountered either. How then can my knowledge of the elephant be synthetic posteriori? I'm relying on concepts and language which are not observed to know about the elephant. Without knowing what I saw was necessarily an elephant, I would not be able to think or say what I observed was an elephant at all. To know a posteriori requires a priori.

The analytical/synthetic discintion also collapses. If I was the only one speaking English, what I observed would still be an elephant. In my English, it is necessarily an elephant, no matter how anyone else speaks, how English changes or if my language is never spoken anywhere else. My concept of elephant and so my knowledge of what I observe is analytic-- it's known by definition in my language.

Now circle completes. If any posteriori is known by an analytic a priori (e.g. the concept of an elephant in the time and space in question), I don't even need to observe it to know about it. Let's say on the day before observing the elephant, I thought: "There will be an elephant in that room tomorrow." I have knowledge of the elephant in the room prior to (or even without) observing it. Knowledge about a state of the world does not require observation or direct experience at all.

Yet, knowledge itself is a state of the world. To know about the elephant, I have to exist in a certain way. I must have the concept of the elephant, in my language (as opposed any other language). In my life I must have learnt this language and about the object of which it speaks. Despite my concepts being analytic a priori, they are only given in the synthetic.

I could have been different. I might have spoken differently, known differently or not existed at all. What I am and the content of the world is not necessary. So despite any instance of knowledge being formed by an analytic a priori, they are all synthetic. At anytime, we may understand differently. This is even true of any analytic a priori knowledge-- we could all wake up tomorrow and understand 2+2=5.

"Paris" might by the capital of France now, and is knowledge formed by an analytic a priori concept, but tomorrow its capital might be Nice, if our language and conceptual practices were to alter in the right way.

While Paris is necessarily the capital of France, it is only so until Paris ceases to be the capital of France.

You are limited to your nature for the simple reason that you cannot be more than you are (and just in case you misunderstand this, that does not mean that you cannot in the future be more than you are now). — John

This is correct-- but it's merely descriptive. It has nothing to with ethics or virtue. All your doing is saying there is now way I act. As a description of ethics of virtue is useless-- if I were to attack or my friends, eat nothing but lollies, throw other people's possession off a cliff without their permission-- it would merely say "That was my direction." Aristotle has more than this in mind when he refer to nature.

This is a downright contradiction; if you might be wrong about yourself then you have no warrant to say that you are not wrong about yourself. — John

Only if you are confused about the relationship of possibility and actuality. Just because something might be, doesn't mean it is or isn't. Knowledge isn't always about showing something is logically necessary. Most of the time it's about what isn't logically necessary. Every morning the sun rises without it being necessary. Each morning is merely one possibility amongst many actualised.

For something to be possible, it doesn't mean it's incorrect or untrue. Indeed, it has no impact on it. The sun this morning is no less actual becasue it was a possible outcome.

The warrant for saying I'm not mistaken about myself does not come from an outside logical idea, such as possibility, but rather from awareness of my what I am. Even though it possible I could be a moral naturalist, I know I'm not. I'm aware of what moral naturalism and that it's not what my ethical philosophy means.

I'm not. I'm pointing out phronesis is merely repeating that expectation in a different way. Let use me as an example.

Let's say I cultivated my nature. I understand my self to be someone who cares about a certain ideas, particular issues, has a certain out look on life, who will do certain things. I (supposedly) know what I will will be or do at anytime-- in my mind I am the "red-round apple." I have this nature, this instinct, and (supposedly) nothing else is possible.

But this is not true. I may end up being many other things than are understood in my "cultivated nature." Tomorrow I might wake up and be a Christian Fundamentalist, a Mystic or even a moral naturalist. I might even be wrong in my own appraisal of myself (I'm not, but it's possible) and be a Christian Fundamentalist, a Mystic or a moral naturalist right now.

I am not logically limited to the meaning of "red round apple," to my phronesis, to my "cultivated nature." I never will be.

My point is that nature or form is totally inadequate to characterise anything. It doesn't describe any state. Any attempt results in a generalised notion which presets what the world is supposed to be.

Let's say you see an apple that's red and round. You say: "Ah, apples are red and round. That's the form/nature of apples." You are prejudiced against any apple which is not "red and round." They don't even make sense because impossible for apples to do anything else. Any use of nature of form in this way, no matter how qualified, always closes off discourse to possible meanings, to recognising things which fall outside the form/nature understood.

If I present a green, knobbly apple, you will dismiss it. You will say: "That's not an apple. Apples are only red and round." Assuming I managed to convince you that it is an apple, and you now say: "Apples have the form/nature of red and round or green and knobbly," the closure of meaning repeats. You won't recognise the spotty blue apple. And so on and so on. No matter how many different properties you add to the form/nature of apple, it will not be enough, for meaning expressed in one apple does not define what any existing apple can be.

I'm targeting this shutdown of meaning (which you don't seem to realise) your argument is performing by taking form/nature constitutive of things and states. It's not that I'm mischaracterising your argument, but rather that I'm talking about something, an assumption, an expectation, you haven't realised is there.

I wasn't saying you were arguing any of the crass and unethical examples in my last post, but rather that they function by using the idea/form meaning as constitutive of things and states.

From my initial read, that was my feeling too. Use of the logical expression of biology to defend the idea of a naturalistic morality. To me it felt like he was doubling down on the biologist error, equating the descriptive meaning (e.g. sight) expressed by states of the world with the expression of ethical meaning.

It's more a defence of naturalistic morality built on the grounds that "nature" is not a question of existing states, but rather a logical rules of existing states, so eliminating the accusation of equivocating descriptions of ethics with descriptions of the world-- those descriptions of nature are really logical not empirical, so (supposedly) naturalistic morality isn't confusing the empirical with ethics.

"And this means - doesn't it? - that we have provided an opening, however narrow it may be,for the possibility of a naturalist interpretation of the content of normative judgment. We have provided an opening, that is, for the view that our fundamental moral and practical knowledge - our knowledge of good and evil and of what is rational and irrational in human action - is at the same time knowledge implicitly about the specifically human form, knowledge of how the well-working human practical reason reasons, yet in no way a biological or empirical knowledge or any sort of knowledge that derives from observation." — Thompson

In concluding he ends up equivocating knowledge of ethics with understanding of the human form. It is, to my mind, just more of the same equivocation of human form with ethics. We might well use his "alien" argument within the context of humanity itself. If a different species doesn't work to our rules, even ones are clearly about something important (e.g. it's wrong to eat other living humans), due to a difference of biology and opinion, why can that not work within the human community too? What if a human has a biology and understanding that has them hunting other humans? In comparison to other humans they are effectively "alien," so how come they have to endure immorality while other species who do exactly the same do not?

Thompson is still making ethics a matter of "human nature"-- if you are understood as human, then this must apply-- rather than a question of ethics an states themselves. In the process, he makes a mockery of ethics. If we met an advanced alien species which happens to hunt other life forms, are we to set back and say: "Yes, that's morally fine because we are human?" Or conversely, if we meet an advanced alien species, are we going to sit back an say it's fine for humans to hunt them because they aren't human?

He keeps the underlying equivocation of the biologist-- ethics are derived from our logical understanding of the existence of particular beings. He just treats description of the logical expression of out identity as existing states as the ground, rather than description of bodies as other moral naturalists might.

I know... that's what I've been arguing against this entire time. You say we can tell the significance of state or ethic by preset logic concept, "a nature," from which the state or ethic (supposedly) comes-- "trees have leaves, psychopaths are suited to killing, if it's biologically caused it's legitimate, humans are heterosexual, having a penis means you're male, black people are savages, etc.,etc., etc.-- such that we can tell the meaning of the state or ethic without having to describe the meaning of the state or ethic itself.

She doesn't have a telos. In being a firefighter, she is not ordained by logic to be or do anything. Her presence as a firefighter is a state of the world and logic doesn't tell us anything about what sort of firefighter (e.g. good, bad, moral, immoral, virtuous, not virtuous, etc.,etc.) she is. Only her actions can define that. And only the existence of our understanding gives us that knowledge. She not expressing her telos. She's expressing her ethic.

This is not empty rhetoric. You are just ignoring the distinction between telos and ethic.

We can say that, by definition, every person expresses the actions they take, their particular thoughts and movements-- but that's descriptive not normative.

Tautology and redundant.

"Whatever a firefighter ought to do" tells us nothing. It doesn't describe what a firefighter does and its ethical significance. No doubt a firefighter ought to do what, but it doesn't say anything about how a firefighter is virtuous. It gets us nowhere in expressing the firefighter's ethical significance.

The function characteristic of being a firefighter is missing. Of course, those who understand the ethical significance of being a firefighter will know what it means to be virtuous firefighter, but in that case they know ethics. There is no "ought for is" (just "this firefighter ought to" ) and "nature" is irrelevant. Rather than a telos which defines what a firefighter is meant to do, there is an ethic which the world and the firefighter expresses.

But that's exactly why "nature" doesn't work in the context you are trying to use it. When dealing with ethics we are picking particular truths and their relationship to the world. We are talking about people and whether specific actions suits them or ought to be done. There are states of nature, but no state has a nature.

That's a strawman. I never claimed that our experiences were always about our experiences. Indeed, I've said the exactly opposite at least twice-- if I thinking about my computer screen, I am not thinking about thinking about my computer screen. I'm just thinking of my computer screen. "Stand for" in my argument means the same thing as "of things" in yours.

My point is not about what the world or nature stands for, but rather that those instances are states of existence. Our thought (e.g. the world), is a state of experience, as opposed to what we are speaking about. I'm talking about how our experience relates to the world logically.

That despite the way our experiences represent accurately (or inaccurately), they are not the brute existence of the world, only what we thinking about them-- our discourse (as Landru would say).

There can be. And used properly, that's pretty much what "nature" means-- a pointer to states of the world whether known or unknown. Just as we say "the world" as a pointer to the logical expression of any state of existence, we may say nature to point to the logical expression of anything in causality.

The problem is following. That's an idea of what the world is meant to do. You take that meaning (e.g. psychopath) and say it derives a different truth (e.g. suited to killing), without taking into account that the world is distinct from the idea which is our expectation of it.

the former is a word that stands for the concept of the world and the latter is a word that simply stands for the world — "John

That's what I said. The world, which simply stands for the world, is our concept.

Our experiences stand in for things which are not them. That's how we know about stuff that's distinct from us. I experience my computer screen, but I am not my computer screen. My experience copies the meaning of the object such that I am awareness of the computer screen (rather than, you know, just being a "third person" computer screen who feel and thinks nothing).

You've already admitted what I'm arguing here. The world stands for the world. It is not, itself, the world. It's concept, our understanding of meaning, not the world itself.

The account of realism and idealism you are giving is backwards. For the realist, experience "stands" for things. For the idealist, experience is all things (i.e. experience=thing-in-itself). That's why things without experience are impossible under idealism.

No...

I'm saying "the world" and the world are ideas-- both are our concepts about the world. The former being our concept of speaking about our concept of the world, the latter being our concept of the world. "Nature" and Nature are similar.

States of the world themselves are neither of these. The world doesn't depend on us thinking about it to be. "The world" and the world are both our concepts, significance in representation, meaning expressed by existing experiences. These are never the "thing-itself." Outside of us, there are many existing states and logical truths which are never any of our ideas, no matter how well or badly we might think of talk about them (if we even do at all).

He's not too far wrong actually. My position is there is no "ground." Truths are worldly (states of existence) or they are in-themselves (logical). Idealism is false. There is no "ground" of an idea which determines any truth.

(1) is true in the sense my points don't depend on them making sense to anyone.

(2) is also true because ideas don't limit what the world can be. Just because someone thought or said something in the past doesn't mean they can't think something different or even something inconsistent with it. I am always free to take issue with any argument someone makes, even if it were to contradict something I (or anyone else) said.

I'm even free to argue pure nonsense or incoherence if I want (e.g. you are wrong becasue the spade is in the sky and cups sing with dancing lasers on their way to my sister's birthday party). So is anyone.

Ideas to not define which states of the world occur or can occur. The world and logic cannot be reduce to one unified form, principle or idea which accounts for everything. You can't rule the extent of the world or meaning by what you think it is meant to be. Things and meaning always extend beyond you and your ideas.

It's shown otherwise with your own example.

You expected, without reference to actions, that the psychopath with be suited to killing and the rational, compassionate woman to morally good actions. Analysis of them in reference to moral action was made on what you expect them to do, based on the concepts you have of them, not on what actions they actually take or what they understand.

Yes and no.

Our concepts of the world are ideas. States of the world are things and are not ideal.

I'm not saying Aristotle is Kantian in the sense of having a rule thought to be floating above the world constraining what can be done. My point is that, like Kant (and many other moral philosophers), Aristotle treats moral value as ideal.

It is something "we are meant to be" separate to our actions in the world-- in knowing the nature of the psychopath, we know killing will suit him, in knowing the nature of the rational, compassionate woman of virtue, we know moral goodness will suite her. This is not true. The woman might have compassion for Nazi goals and the psychopath might be content to limit or stop their violence.

Our thinking about those states, our descriptions, our categories are always our ideas. Whether we are accurate or not, right or wrong or not, they are our thoughts which are a distinct state of the world-- are descriptions and concepts are not the-thing-itself.

This is the opposite of idealism. Things are defined in themselves rather than by our ideas.

Nature is an idea.

It a generalised concept that doesn't refer to any particular state of the world. There is no-one who is "nature," no state of the world, no action, no particular expression of ethical significance.

The problem with Aristotle is similar to the issue of equivocations seen science, where the concepts we used to describe the meaning of empirical states are confused with the states themselves.

If you follow your own nature and you are a brutish psychopath; then you might kill people. If you follow your own nature and you are a highly cultivated, educated, compassionate and rational women of virtue, then you will likely commit acts that are morally good. No rules need to be followed in either case — John

Indeed, but the problem is it doesn't consider what outside "nature." The brutish psychopath is by definition only considered capable of kill people, whole the rational woman of virtue is by definition only considered capable of moral goodness.

Instances where either one acts otherwise are considered impossible becasue they go against the "nature" which supposedly defines how must act.

Aristotle's ethics consists in intuitively following nature, and meta-ethically speaking his idea is to intuitively follow nature, not to rationally follow principles derived from ideas about our intuitive nature. — John

This is where the issue lies. "Nature" is an idea. In arguing that we intuitively follow nature, Aristotle has introduced a rational principle which supposedly grants us moral knowledge. We will know virtue when we follow our "nature." It functioning in the same way as the CI in Kant. We will know good when we follow the CI.

It's Aristotle's idea to intuitively follow nature is to understand virtue, not an argument that virtue is known intuitively. We're supposed to be relying on the rational ground of "nature" to understand what's virtuous.

Calling it "human telos" doesn't make it any less an outside rule. Actions don't derive from purposes and intentions. They exist. A purpose or intention does not define any action-- I may think I should do something or think I will do something, but end up not doing it at all.

There is no "logical deriving." Actions and the ethical significance they express are themselves.

Because you are asserting what I'm not talking about defines what I am talking about.

My point was that Aristotle, Kant and you were misapply rationality in the context of describing how we understand ethics. You made a truth claim about how we understood ethics-- that it was through rationality, the "nature" of Aristotle, the CI of Kant, as if thinking those ideas is how we exist with moral knowledge. I'm pointing out this is not true. It's a fiction.

There are claims about ethics in your argument. You are suggesting Hume's "is/ought" distinction isn't known to be a truth about ethics.

I'd say it took us no time at all. Any instance of knowledge is occurs in the moment it exists. No doubt we make estimates all the time, but these either fully capture what we want to know (e.g. Newtonian physics works for certain problems) or they amount to not knowing it at all. Knowing cannot be work.

Getting knowledge can be a lot of work, setting up the right experiments, finding the right environment to inspire new knowledge, studying what's gone before to reflect back against what you know, etc.,etc., but that occurs before we gain an instance of knowledge.

I suspect you don't really have a conflict with the is/ought discintion though, for you appeal to "moral facts" seems to be more about protecting an objective morality. In that sense, there is no conflict with the is/ought distinction. "Ought facts" are just a different sort of truth to "is so facts."

Indeed, but utilising the CI is not how someone knows what's ethical. That's granted by an underlying intuition. Take killing someone on the street. A person doesn't know this by the CI. The CI is just a formalised idea which takes what they know (killing this person is wrong) and attaches to an idea of duty. CI is for saying "Killing is wrong becasue of X," not the understanding the killing is wrong.

I'd say that's exactly the issue.

These points about ethical are drawn from reasoning about what we know about ethics. The "is/ought"distinction is shown by that ethics, an "ought," does not mean the same as just being so, an "is."

If you can locate meaning of ethics in the first place, then you won't understand how the discintion is drawn. You won't be able to tell the difference between saying: "X was ethical " and "X is so." I'm sceptical you are really that unsure though.

Let's say someone kills another person going about their daily business in the street. This state "is so." It exists. Does this mean that the person ought to have been killed?

I say the term is sort of irrelevant. When dealing with an "is" there is nothing to be bound, no person who is meant to act in any particular way. Something just "is."

As to the proof, that's in the logical discintion between "being true" and "being ethical." If existence made ethics, then simply being so (an "is") would define ethical behaviour. This is not true. Many states are unethical. To be "ethical" is a different meaning than being something that "is."

It's not ethically binding. "You can't get an ought form an is" is a an "is statement." Hume is stating a logical truth.

Whether it is ethical to state or believe that logical truth is a different question. In an ethical sense, we can't state anything without resorting to an ought. If I think we ought to understand , "you can't get an ought from an is," then I have to argue that in terms of an ought. I have to be bound by an ought.

The truth "You can't get an ought form an is" is unaffected by this thought. It's still true even is everyone believes you can get an ought from an is.

Life has no form. The problem with such an argument is that it confuses the form expressed by instances of life for an ethical value. Somewhat similar to the direction Thompson takes when talking about the "a priori" notion of life, our concept of "life" or "human" or "nature" is not biological.

It's logical (and ethical). When we use the category of "human life," we are pointing out a logical expression of many things which have an a equivalent logical value. This is why the "Is it human?" or "Is it life?" question comes up so often. We are not trying to identify a particular body or life form with this concept, but rather the presence of a being who matters like some others.

When we refer to "form of life" or "nature" we are either attempting to limit use of this category those with a particular form or believe that states of (i.e. existing life) is only restricted to them--e.g. "gay people are monsters (i.e. not human life) who cannot even exist (i.e. for someone to be gay is logically impossible; humans are necessarily heterosexual)."

Ethics based on the form of human life is made on the equivocation of a form expressed by some (e.g. heterosexual) with the category of life (e.g. a being who is a state of the world). It defines normative prejudice (e.g. only heterosexuality is moral) as equivalent to the meaning of a present biology or practice (e.g. human "nature" is heterosexual. Anything else is logically impossible), hiding it beneath the masquerade of it "being the facts."

Our concepts of the empirical world never are the empirical world. One is our understanding of something, at best description of on small part of the world or person, at worst an insistence of what we think they are meant to be. I'm reminded of the distinction between bodies and the discourse of sex here.

We say that, upon apprehending the form of individual's body, that they must belong to the category of "male" or "female" because of it. Supposedly, existing with a body that expresses a particular form is meant to define which sex category someone belongs to. But it doesn't. A body is not a sex category. One is someone's body. The other is entirely our notion of what someone means. To have a body expressing a form does not mean someone must belong to any particular sex category at all. Which category we use for someone is entirely up to us, defined in our actions, reactions and language towards the person in question, a question of the logical meaning of the ethical category itself, not any form of the body we might have understood.

Biological meaning is not ethical meaning (not even the ethical meanings which reference biology).

There's certainly reasoning involved in that statement of the philosophy. I never said that Kant did not use raining in his philosophy. That's just not what I'm talking about. Talking and reasoning about the CI isn't knowledge of virtue or ethical action. It's presence has no impact on my argument about knowing virtue.

More than that: animals make ethical and aesthetic judgements all the time. At least the ones who understand some is ethical/unethical or beautiful/ugly. No doubt some animals would seem to lack such understanding or feelings, but that's no issue for my argument. Then they just aren't aware of ethical or aesthetic significance.

"Rationality" has nothing to do with it. Understanding ethics or aesthetics is a question of existence, not an idea.

But that's wrong-- such rational reasoning isn't required for virtue. Someone just needs to understand what is virtuous. Rather than some stuffy step through "rational steps," being virtuous is intuitive. We understand action is virtuous(or not).

Indeed, we can say such knowledge is never a result the process of reasoning because making such an argument requires that knowledge to be acquired. What is "nature?" We can't present this as a pointer to ethical action, unless we already know virtuous action. It fails to "derive" what is virtuous.

One does not have to be a "rational being (whatever that's supposed to mean)" to exercise aesthetic judgement. They just need to feel/think something is beautiful/ugly. It's worldly-- a being exists with (an) understanding of beautiful/ugly-- not ideal.

For sure, but in doing so, Aristotle is ignoring that he's actually relying on rationality. Humans will, supposedly, intuitively grasp the form of the human ("nature" ), in ourselves and others, such that the we will then know how to behave virtuously. Moral value is defined through the idea of nature.

But this is not true. Not only to we frequently not intuitively grasp ethical action, but we don't grasp it on the basis of "nature."

If we are to be virtuous, we grasp it in the act of being so and know it on those terms-- "nature" is irrelevant. The virtue of action is all that matters. "Nature" is doing no work in the role of understanding ethics. It just an ad hoc justification given to ground ethics, to give the illusion moral value is logically derived-- which is why Aristotle comes into such conflict with modern moral philosophy (i.e. anything that understands the is/ought distinction), despite its individualistic worldly concerns that would seem to fit with modern culture.

My point is a meta-ethical one of how moral value is understood. It's not that Aristotle's virtue and CI are the same in their normative prescriptions or even in their understanding of what constitutes are normative prescription. They are vastly different. (though less different than one might initially think too. The CI makes comment about the world too. After all, it used to judge acts and sates of the world. It's not "rational" vs the "non-rational" world).

The point is that they share the same logic of understanding moral value based off a source idea rather than itself. Kant uses the CI as a foundation for ethical value-- moral value is determined by whether it fits with that idea. Aristotle uses nature in the same way. How do we know what is ethical? Not by knowing what is ethical, but rather by understanding this foundational idea of "nature."

I should clarify then. My argument is not against virtue ethics as a concept, just Aristotle's (and any set of ethics which relies on telos). They misunderstanding virtue.

It treats virtue as if it is an outside rule, a logical nature we must necessarily live up to by our existence as humans. Like Kant's duty( "nature" is basically Aristotle's CI), moral value is about living up to a grand outside rule, rather than the moral significance of our lives.

Hume's is/ought distinction is a great, possibly the greatest, meta-ethical insight. It draws philosophy away from throwing out "justification" which supposedly derive moral value, turning our understanding to moral value itself. We no longer make the embarrassing argument that killing someone is wrong because "it's against nature" or "God said so."

It is known to be wrong itself-- the death is harm on the world. Our ethics philosophy becomes about actions and their significance, not defending some idea held be the source of moral value.

To take the mechanistic stance on human behaviour is to remove any talk of reasons and purposes, which means that insofar as there are facts about human beings, they cannot involve reasons and purposes, thus they cannot be about morality as traditionally understood. — jamalrob

This particularly points out what I am talking about. If moral value obtains regardless of whether people respect it, how can it be a "reason" or a "purpose?" A murder certainly doesn't have any sort of "reason" or "purpose" to not kill their victim, their intent is the exact opposite, yet their act is immoral. Without reference to their "reason" or "purpose," it's still true they are immoral.

Moral significance has nothing to with a reason or purpose. It's a logical expression of states themselves-- the murder isn't wrong for some reason or purpose, it's just wrong to kill this person. They ought not die. There is no separation between the world and its moral significance.

We find that Aristotle's account of morality is a distant ad hoc justification of ethics. Why is the murder wrong? "It's against human nature" he says, as if being an unjustified killing was somehow not enough to define its immorality. Ideality-- it's only so if formalised and grounded on some particular experience.

Ideality is a stubborn force. It uses supposed impossiblity to say logic (telos in this case) sits above the world and governs it. Ethics is no different. A world without telos, well, it simply couldn't have moral significance.

If it weren't human nature to necessarily act in a particular way, then only moral nihlism could obtain. Or so the story goes.

But humans don't have a necessary nature. Part of the significance of ethics is that we enact one possibility over another. A nature such that we necessarily behave (a telos) a certain way is impossible. Moral value is expressed despite the absence of telos. The world has moral significance, even though there is no necessity we will behave ethically.

l'd say that misunderstands the shift in moral philosophy significantly. The removal of telos moves understanding of morality from ideal to worldly-- moral value becomes understood not as a fact that rules what we ought to do, but an expression of states of the world. We see this unconsciously manifest "subjective" accounts. A turn away from an ideal morality when which rules from outside our lives, to one which is an expression of the living world.

Aristotle's ethics are ideal. The logical rule of telos governs what ought to done. Despite being virtue ethics, they are backwards-- the moral significance is thought an application of logic to the world, rather than the world expressing a logic(moral) significance. Aristotle is part of the pre-modern view of ethics as alien to the world.

I wasn't expecting you to understand it. The idea infinite meaning is necessary, rather than something to be obtained, is alien to you. It goes against you understanding of what's logically possible. Meaning without a transcendent force? That's just impossible to your mind.