Not quite sure what you mean, but it sounds comedic. :lol: — Janus

You always get my jokes. So, look into the humor and you will get the meaning. :grin:

↪thedeadidea
That is quite a program.
Who will execute it? — Valentinus

I hope he answers: "the lazy edgelord".

Lazy edgelord rubbish.
— @StreetlightX

What on earth is "edgelord rubbish"? I mean, I'm guessing it's bad... — Isaac

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

It's begun being laid to establish common sense conclusions about existential dependency and timeframes. — creativesoul

Let me just re-emphasize. :ok:

It's also quite useful to tame down rhetorical drivel regarding claims and/or implications/entailment that any and/or all 'definitions' and/or conceptions are on equal footing. The groundwork has already been put down to conclude that we can get some definitions wrong in a vey specific sense of being "wrong". — creativesoul

Can you present an example where this has occurred in our discourse? Not disagreeing, only looking for a live example of such error so it can be properly understood.

The analogy doesn't quite take out endeavor into proper account. I like watching people play games even sometimes when I do not want to play. — creativesoul

But even then, the best way to watch is by entering the stadium. Watching a summarization on TV never matches being there, live at the bocce ball match.

The stadium is the universal criterion in my analogy, to be clear.

@Janus

Speaking to a nominalist is like speaking to one under the oath of silence, you can always answer their questions for them, and with no resistance.

Funny you say that. There are other benefits of establishing a universal criterion. It comes in quite handy when we talk about how to compare/contrast competing conceptions. — creativesoul

It's as though we have to enter the same stadium if we are going to compete in a contest of bocce ball.

You just like the extra teeth. — Terrapin Station

Actually, I just looked it up. That's hilarious :rofl: .

But as a nominalist, you know that nothing is absolute, so why would we begin to think such about Aristotle?

You just like the extra teeth. — Terrapin Station

I'm also a sucker for the long in the tooth.

and then I repeatedly kick it while it was down some-more, yet still you persist in trying to revive it. for this reason, I don’t think you’re actually capable of proving anything, because the context in which those proofs are being formulated, is faulty beyond repair. — TheGreatArcanum

We're you aware that Jesus, our lord and savior, was revived, RESURRECTED, in a mere span of 36 hours. Hallelujah!!!

Beating a dead horse can sometimes be amusing. :grin:

Aristotelian nonsense? Seriously? — Terrapin Station

Aristotle all day! :strong:

...

@creativesoul @praxis @Janus

So first question: what is the predominant moral authority? And, what is the primary source of that moral authority?

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

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

But, I could be wrong.

but the novelty is holding your attention just to see if it gleans anything new and trustworthy/dependable/convincing. — creativesoul

Indeed!

What I'm doing is attempting to establish an adequate basis of true statements about morals, including their origen as a means to provide the best universal basis from which to establish a moral code. — creativesoul

I like it. I will focus on this as the common goal (in addition to my own, personal, sadomasochist, selfish reasons :joke: ).

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

This point has been on the tip of my tongue for a while. Just haven't had the virtuosity to spit it out. This concern is my new priority here.

What do you find that still needs parsed prior to comparing/contrasting which rules ought be maintained and/or implemented and which ought not? — creativesoul

This is of secondary importance to the above concern, but I think it is important to examine the internalization of ethics. How is it internalized by the individual, and to what extent? What is the necessary relation of individually held morality to societal ethics? How do we clear up the confused dynamic of societal conditioning and internalization as it pertains to the moral authority (the rule writer) versus free ethical agency? How can we establish an adequate basis for true answers to these questions, and which questions require reformulation?

Thanks. Hopefully praxis and I don't fuck everything up in your absence. :wink:

(Stand by...addressing your last post.)

Good. We are involved in ethical conversation and it is not prescriptive... yet! Groundwork is crucial. We are getting there. — creativesoul

We have gotten this far, I am optimistic that we can take it a bit farther.

Where is the groundwork most required at this point?

You are a brave soul, Merk. — praxis

:grin:

Dumbfounding is indicative of an implicit evaluation or conditioned response that is beneath conscious awareness. — praxis

I agree. I associate moral dumbfounding with irrational moral feeling/intuition which is grounded implicitly in moral though/belief. I feel that the former is analogous to the ethically charged subconscious, as the latter is to conditioned ethical consciousness.

Regarding the source of morals, a distinction might be made between our innate condition, early pre-linguistic childhood conditioning, cultural conditioning (part of childhood conditioning), and whatever conditioning we might intentionally impose on ourselves. — praxis

There is much grey area between these categorical stages. And, although specific details of our individual interpretations (of each stage) may vary a bit, I see a general agreement over the basic framework we have established here. We have succeeded, at least, in establishing a reasonably sensible working theory on the source of morals. There is definitely more to figure out, but this is not a bad achievement here on TPF, despite whether we've actually achieved anything of significance. If nothing else, we will be better prepared when we enter into any philosophical discussion on ethics.

You claim that there can be no "same thing" from T1 to T2. But if T1 is of arbitrary span then, within that span, of course there can be. Your argument depends on the reification of a serial or linear model of mathematically determinate time. — Janus

Nothing you said there had any coherence. By the time I read it, the meaning had completely shifted.

Shit! It just happened again with what I'm writing here. What in hell's Creation do I mean? I mean what I don't mean to mean. :scream:

Evolutionarily... I would think that amoebas are incapable of either. — creativesoul

They certainly lack a neocortex.

Hume skirted around an important aspect of thought/belief.
Expectation. Seems to be adequate for concluding belief and drawing some line between stimulus/response and behaviour 'driven' by thought/belief. — creativesoul

I can agree with that at the level of immediacy and prelinguistic thought/belief. But, other than the guillotine, I completely reject Hume's ethics (and all derivations therefrom). So, as far as 'expectation' is concerned, I cannot associate it with anything ethical.

In this scenario, this particular state of mind (the morally dumbfouned) is in relation to the particular state of mind of the other(s) [...] Ethical conversation is always prescriptive, the ought. "True" doesn't matter, only reason. — Merkwurdichliebe

Ethical conversation is always prescriptive, the ought.
— Merkwurdichliebe

That's not true. We've been involved in descriptive ethical/moral conversation throughout. I think that that may be where some of the issues are arising from. I'm talking about moral things as a kind, and others are talking about moral things as a manner of expressing their approval/agreement as compared/contrasted to immoral. — creativesoul

You are misconstruing what I said. I was referring to the scenario (regarding moral dumbfounding) in which two or more moral agents are discussing the rational justification for their respective moral positions.

We, however, are in agreement. The descriptive conversion in which we are presently engaged is meta-ethical - it stands detached from prescriptive ethical considerations.

If democracy were about the governed having a say in how they are governed, they why are children not allowed to vote? Are they not 'governed'? — Isaac

Nope. Unfortunately they are enslaved. Enslaved to a system that makes them believe they have a say in how they are governed.

All experience is existentially dependent upon a thinking/believing creature. — creativesoul

And is thought/belief existentially dependent upon experience? Chicken-Egg :snicker:

Well, just ask an athiest is God has meaning, then ask if God exists.
— Merkwurdichliebe

I would answer yes to both. The explication would satisfy both questions. There is no difference between belief in and/or about God and God. — creativesoul

Now you're just getting deep. :flower:

I'm simply saying that if one makes true statements about the source of their own moral convictions then s/he cannot be sensibly said to be morally dumbfounded... — creativesoul

I'm trying to reconcile this point. My concern is, what is the criterion for morality, who is making the moral judgment? If it is a true statement about the source of one's own moral convictions, then you are right, but if it is, say, culture, then it is entirely possible for Socrates to give a coherent but deluded reason for why he is ethically obligated to drink the hemlock.

Is that different than having meaning? — creativesoul

Well, just ask an athiest if God has meaning, then ask if God exists.

I'm simply saying that if one makes true statements about the source of their own moral convictions then s/he cannot be sensibly said to be morally dumbfounded... — creativesoul

Ok good. I see how you mean to use true. :up:

I believe Socrates was morally dumbfounded in his moral conviction to eat the hemlock, and he gave plenty of sincere reason - "true statements about the source of [his] own moral convictions". But they were quite inconsistent in regard to what we know scientifically about death and social justice, as well as in regard to the general sentiment of common folk.

Its a satire on the the assumption that what we say has actual existential meaning. :grin:

Prefixing "truth" with the term "the" doesn't make sense on my view. — creativesoul

We went over this before, if I could get away with prefixing every word with " the ", I would.

Where is the correspondence to what happened?

Correspondence is not the sort of thing that has a spatiotemporal location. Thus asking where it is is misguided. — creativesoul

Then may I invoke the gravely overlooked guillotine of Nietzsche, that the only correspondence between what happened and what it means, is accidental or conditioned.
There is no necessary causal or logical relation between what we experience, and what we think of that experience.

That said, I thought we had already effectively situated the presupposition of correspondence to what's happened and the attribution of meaning within thought/belief formation itself.

All thought/belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line. All thought/belief is meaningful to the thinking/believing creature.

That is the rough general - very common sense - criterion and/or outline for what pre-linguistic and/or non-linguistic thought/belief must be able to satisfy. We arrive at that criterion(although this arrival has not yet been argued for) by virtue of looking towards statements of thought/belief as a means for assessing the common denominators of them all, regardless of the particulars. — creativesoul

That would make a great thread. But you said it "All thought/belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line. All thought/belief is meaningful to the thinking/believing creature." This is a fundamental assumption for what we are discussing here. And it has allowed us to discuss it quite efficiently in comparison to what was happening the first 15 pages. As far as the truth of meaning is concerned, that is beyond the scope of the present conversation, no?

@creativesoul
Consider that the other tells you murder is wrong, but condones just war, and everybody else is same. Suppose you believe that murder is not immoral, but sometimes necessary. Where is the truth here? Who is morally dumbfounded?

I cannot remember. I do remember some very odd language use. — creativesoul

I love philosophers who are courageous enough to speak oddly on occasion.

When talking about moral dumbfounding, we're talking about what we've named, some particular state of mind. — creativesoul

In this scenario, this particular state of mind (the morally dumbfouned) is in relation to the particular state of mind of the other(s). We cannot call the true, what is, without tossing this discussion out with the bathwater, and beginning again from the beginning with epistemology.

Ethical conversation is always prescriptive, the ought. "True" doesn't matter, only reason.

Maybe not. Probably not. Fear and Loathing? — creativesoul

You had to bring it up. A book that constantly reminds us of the highest ethical idea - qua. the tragic hero.

I'm suddenly reminded of Russell's Why I am not a Christian. — creativesoul

I don't think he read much Kierkegaard.

Rational?

How about true? — creativesoul

I think it would be wise, in the context of this discussion, to honor the great guillotine of Mister Hume, and leave out the notion of "true" thought/belief. Otherwise, we are going to end up in a different universe, a new thread. I think rational thought/belief is fair enough here.

@Praxis

Of what use are those notions in this context? — creativesoul

Yes, me wants to know too.

Those are not different names for the same referent on my view. Unnecessarily multiplying entities is against my religion. — creativesoul

That's why you are so valuable to this discussion. When we all push ahead, you keep your hands on the reins.

Was that the case with Plato's own personal superhero? — creativesoul

He's mine too. But I'm more aligned with Antisthenes account (via Diogenes), than Plato's.

I agree with Nietzsche, Plato fucked everything up - that pussylicking pedophile.