How about just explaining how you think it would imply that you somehow have my morality? — Terrapin Station

Huh? I don't follow.

If morals are only internal, then you internally possess my morals because?

Try that with something else that is internal to individuals. If desires are only internal, then you possess my desires because? — Terrapin Station

See what I mean? The rationale is ridiculous

Could you explain how that makes sense to you (as something you're figuring is implied by my comments)? — Terrapin Station

If morals are only internal, and have no external analogue, then what I said follows. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Seems relevant to me. I have no problem harvesting certain concepts for my own use. Doesn't mean I'm Kohlbergian.

There are theories of moral developmental reasoning. I think kohlberg's is considered a little out of date. — praxis

I didn't mean to invoke Kohlberg. :grin:

@praxis

I was thinking about the distinction between ethical authority and moral agency. The ethical authority always judges the other - it determines right and wrong. The moral agent judges himself - he decides how he ought to behave. His judgement can be based on authority (the approval of another), yet on a deeper level, it can be grounded in principle (obligatory duty).

I appreciate those with the patience and prescience to work out their thoughts systematically. Unfortunately there are very few who possess the wherewithal to do this. Most get bogged down in semantics and rhetorical drivel over definitions. And, we are left with flimsy argument by ellipsis.

I would find it much more interesting if more philosophers would develop their systems alongside each other so that they could be compared and contrasted. (You, creativesoul, and I have corrected many errors that we presupposed by doing this.)

Well that was a bunch of gobbledygook.
— Terrapin Station

Clearly that doesn't bother him. On the contrary, he must get a kick out of it. He's enthusiastically adopted creativesoul's gobbledygook, and he doesn't even seem embarrassed about it.
— S

@creativesoul
It seems, I have my own fan club.

Right, so that it was something external prior to the internalization.

The problem is that you can't literally have morals/morality, values, etc. that are external. — Terrapin Station

So then, your morals, and praxis' morals are internal to me. That seems odd, to say the least.

There you go again, imposing your irrational solipsist loop on us. Some one's theory is indeed flawed. :brow:

So an instruction booklet on badminton would be a source of morals? Since it provides conditions under which a particular school is move is right or wrong? Badminton is an example of human behaviour, no? — Isaac

That is what we are seeking to work out in our thought experiment.

An instruction booklet on badminton would, indeed, be a source of morals if we could show it to be an ethical authority, or if it could be said to act by judging itself to be good or bad.

I'm just trying to figure out why you're having trouble with the meaning of 'internalize'.
— praxis

I'm not. You're having trouble with the conventional sense of the term is you are if you are thinking that there's not a connotation of something being external initially.

You can have the idea and desire to develop a particular habit but until it is actually a habit it is not internalized. Make sense?
— praxis

It doesn't make sense with respect to the conventional connotation of the term "internalized." It's not a word to use for that context if that's what you want to say and you want anyone to understand it. — Terrapin Station

In sociology and other social sciences, internalization (or internalisation) means an individual's acceptance of a set of norms and values (established by others) through socialisation.
~https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalization_(sociology)

No one has defined either what is meant by 'source', nor what is meant by 'morals'. — Isaac

Ok, here it is.

Source: that which provides the conditions for something else.

Morals: concerning what is right and wrong in human behavior

Source of morals: that which provides the conditions for what is right and wrong in human behavior

Okay let's drop the metaphor. Can you identify the most egregious error so far? Or if that's too difficult for you, many just pick one of the worst. — praxis

I don't think you understand. The interlopers haven't read anything except your last post. They have no clue what has been happening here.

I guess comments from the peanut gallery are worth peanuts. — praxis

Not even peanuts. The Interlopers consistently provide nothing to any discussion, nothing but whining and bitching about how they don't agree with anything. If anything, their comments are worth D's nuts.

Where have they been the last dozen pages?
— Merkwurdichliebe

I abandoned the discussion when it began to be filled with gibberish. I am of the opinion that all of the gibberish you've been indulging for pages, which is currently permitted over various topics, should be confined to a single discussion. — S

Says the one who indulges in more unphilosophical gibberish than any other TPF member. Don't be upset just because you cannot understand what's being discussed.

Why would anyone want to go to America. It is falling fast into a tyrannical oblivion. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

European history is so deep, you can, at best, consider emigration but a minor factor in any current predicament you might be alluding to in Europe.

It is important to remember that all judgements are associated with one assessment or another. — Merkwurdichliebe

To say: "it is wrong to touch the fire because it is stupid to burn oneself in such a way," amounts to a judgement upon an assessment of the stupity of touching fire. Imo, to call judgement a "re-evaluation" does not adequately express its essential charge, or quantity, in contrast to an assessment.

This only serves to elucidate the necessary distinction between assessment and judgement.

I'm also interested in examining the relation of ethical authority to ethical principle, it might be relevant.

The presupposition of correspondence to actual events happens prior to language. — creativesoul

If the attribution of meaning happens prior to language, then any and all positions arriving at and/or relying upon the contrary are wrong in a very specific sort of way. — creativesoul

This is a very important point.

In basic terms, for the primitive human, the world has meaning in one particular or another. The introduction of language adds an entirely new dimension to the equation - a rational dimension. I, might argue, that ethical existence is not entered upon until (at least, but probably well after) the rational conscioussness is initiated through exposure to language.

We also find that the most relevant languages are not only historic, but contain historically embedded values that are determined by a completely separate dynamic, which lies far beyond the dynamic that determines primitive valuations; it is obviously more closely related to basic revaluations. — Merkwurdichliebe

Perhaps we should approximate where the notion of authority first arrises.
— Merkwurdichliebe

Highly relevant in regards to considering the source of morals. IMO. — praxis

We still need to discuss power over people and further parse out the necessity of our being interdependent social creatures. Those who write the rules have tremendous power. Legitimized moral belief.
— @creativesoul



Ethical authority arrives at some point in societal conditioning, after sufficient language acquisition. The primary influence of the ethical authority is to awaken the individual to the dichotomy of right and wrong.

1)what is the predominant moral authority?
2)what is the primary source of that moral authority?

My instinct tells me: 1)consensus, 2)history.

First, consensus with parental figure, whose morality was developed over a period of history, which, in turn, began through consensus with parental figure...ad infinitum. — Merkwurdichliebe

Simple, but a re-re-restart.

"I would never belong to a club that would have anybody else as a member". — Janus

:rofl:

@praxis
@creativesoul

Ok, time to get back on track...

We were investigating the relation between the cultured individual (viz. one imbued with a linguistic faculty), and ethical authority. This variable stands between (is delimited by) societal conditioning, and what we have provisionally hypothesized to be the internalization of societal ethics.

( Add. I would guess that the process by which ethics are learned has many similarities to the way language is learned. The main difference is that language acquisition only changes the mode of assessment/valuation - how we approximate what seems to be; whereas with the acquisition of ethical consciousness, assessment/valuation becomes secondary to judging - thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

An example of assessment might be,: "don't touch the fire or you will bet burned." Judgment would sound like "don't murder, it is wrong." Hence, if someone commits murder, they are judged to be bad in this instance. Yet if someone touches the fire and is burned, the person is not judged to be bad in this instance, only assessed as being stupid/crazy/masochistic/&c.

It is important to remember that all judgements are associated with one assessment or another. )

My fan club finds my writing morally reprehensible. — creativesoul

I find your avatar morally reprehensible, seeing that your name is creativesoul. Unless you are using it for irony. Then it's perfect . :grin:

To be consistent in my own 'personal' morals...

There are better ways to address the situation aside from resorting to personal attacks/remarks. — creativesoul

Do you mean when I said: "interlopers"? If so, there's a fine line between personal attack and calling it how it is, and I sometimes have trouble finding it.

Never mind, irrelevant.

The discourse here is unconventional in some remarkable ways. Such was the starting point:To take note of an underlying issue with convention itself. The position I'm arguing for/from is still yet conventional enough to pass the muster, I think. It is nonetheless a foreign methodological approach to many. — creativesoul

I'm still curious to see how far we can take it, and what it will look like when we arrive to a reasonable conclusion. And, after the wave of interlopers that invaded earlier today, I would say that the methodology is solid, and will at least stand up to, more or less, weak contention.

@creativesoul

You can see the disruptive effect of some of these Interlopers on the past page and a half. They showed up after 12 pages of silence and did nothing but attempt to disrupt a conversation that has repeatedly established the validity of its methodology. Lucky for us, I always carry my handy fly swatter. . . to shooo them off.

I could guess. We should officially designate them as: "The Interlopers".

A deeply confused view indeed! — Janus

Yes. All his discussions take the same pattern, with everyone. He starts out like he is seriously interested in philosophical discourse. But, as soon as you get started, he begins to spew his confused rhetorical garbage about how nothing makes sense to him. I think he just wants companionship with somebody as confused as he is.

Terrapin Station is mired in a worldview whose logical consequence is an unbridgeable dualism between mind and world, a kind of solipsism, as I showed Here. — Janus

That's why I said:

So then only TS has morality, I suppose. How would he possibly prove that another has morality by referring to "utterances a la sounds/marks etc."

Seems he has sufficiently answered the question for himself...

TS is the source of morals. — Merkwurdichliebe

I'm just trying to figure out why you're having trouble with the meaning of 'internalize'.

Maybe try to think of it as forming a habit. You can have the idea and desire to develop a particular habit but until it is actually a habit it is not internalized. Make sense? or is that too pedestrian of an explanation? — praxis

He understands. He's just fucking with you because he has nothing relevant to add.

TS is stuck in infinite reflection - a perpetual loop of direct relation. He is unable to make the dialectical transition out of immediacy, where a new relation can be synthesized.
— Merkwurdichliebe

Well that was a bunch of gobbledygook. I appreciate that it was only two lines of it though. (Seriously.) — Terrapin Station

But you know it's true. :wink:

TS is stuck in infinite reflection - a perpetual loop of direct relation. He is unable to make the dialectical transition out of immediacy, where a new relation can be synthesized.

Yes I did.

"X has/doesn't have morality" is an empirical claim. — Terrapin Station

Neither @praxis, @creativesoul, nor I have made such statements in our particular discourse.

How are we attempting to have discussions of the caliber that we're attempting to have in threads like this when we haven't even learned that empirical claims aren't provable, period — Terrapin Station

We are not making empirical claims here, we are conducting a thought experiment in existential quantification.

So then only you have morality, I suppose. How would you possibly prove that another has morality by referring to "utterances a la sounds/marks etc."

Seems you've sufficiently answered the question for yourself...

TS is the source of morals.

So my morality is internal to you? — praxis

:lol:

We've established an understanding of this through the last 12 pages of rigorous debate, it has been existentially quantified.

Thought/belief are already internal. — Terrapin Station

This does not mean thought/belief cannot be affected by something external.

Perhaps. And we are looking for the source of morals. We've already established that evaluations of prelinguistic assessments are primarily acquired from an external source.

How could you internalize morality (where presumably it wasn't something internal prior)?
— Terrapin Station

Practice. Or perhaps a whip? — praxis

How do you internalize language?

Thought