There are clear cases where the welfare of the community (as normally understood) is in opposition to justice. — BitconnectCarlos

Justice for one man is injustice for the other.

How can the welfare of the community be in opposition to both?

In my post that you quoted I offered a number of basis for morality, human suffering and based on doing onto others as you would have them do onto you. I offer another, based on what is good for society. Thats what you are going with, so my that point of mine stands. — DingoJones

Right. I agree with your second approach ("what is good for society"), and disagree with your first approach (axioms are the guidelines for morality) as the BASIS for how morals are formed. In my opinion axioms are created after the morals have solidified, and they act as rationalization, as justification for the morals. Deceptively portraying themselves, these axioms pretend to be the root, the basis for morals. That is a mistaken view. Axioms may be the distilled truth of how the current morals work, and they may give them raison d'etre, the axioms may be logical and they may make sense, but stil, they are not the basis, not the root, not the reason for the current morals. These are my points.

You should get some beer, man. You're spinning out on withdrawal. Either that, or you're getting slushed. I sense a lot of anger and lashing out in your replies, with no reason attached to your angry outbursts.

That is to be expected from the system, so I fail to see what the problem is. What applies to one party should apply to the other, unless you you want a one-party system. China, anyone? — Nobeernolife

If you can't see the difference between republicants and democrats, then I can see your point.

But if you admit that the lives and lifestyles of a great number of people will be affected DIFFERNTLY whether the top judges in the country are rep or dem leaning, then your objection just reflects short sightedness.

What you are advocating is that since the dems will be dems, and reps will be reps, and the judges behaviours are EXPECTED to be leaning to their philosophies that coincide with their parties', therefore the judges are immaterial for their leaning. That opinion is unreasonable thinking, as the nature of the judges' decisions will affect people in different ways, depending on their leaning. A lot of people could be affected by getting forced to behave in ways they don't want to behave. This is what the difference means. And you may argue that the same number but different individuals will be inconvenienced either way, you neglect to take into consideration that every person CAN vote for his or her way to be hopefully the dominant one, by voting for a president who promises to select judges according to the particular voters' preferences.

then again every serious take on marriage or monogamy as an ideal, even including Biblical ones (in which marital problems and conflicts are a recurring theme) is that it would require a lot of work and sacrifice, with many marriages or relationships not being part of the ideal, — IvoryBlackBishop

Most of my life I used to think that there is no way that two individuals could be compatible for marriage. Humans are extemely diverse, and problems and conflicts are unavoidable.

Then when I started to date my present lover, and we've been together for four years, I realized not only has my previous stance not true, but its opposite is even more true: ANY one can be compatible with anyone else, depending on HOW MUCH A PERSON IS WILLING TO COMPROMISE. It is a question of incompatibility vs patience. If as your patience (ability to accept the foibles and idiosyncrasies of the partner) increases, the compatibility can decrease, and vice versa.

My present partner is not suitable for me, in very many levels and facets of life, but SHE LOVES ME, and to me that's a greater treasure than anything else, and therefore I am not willing to stop getting her love.

I think you are conflating law and morality and culture together. Anyway, not much point in continuing if you cannot talk about these explanations you have, we will keep hitting a wall. — DingoJones

You're right on hitting a wall. But I still have to give you a point, for thinking I am conflating law with culture with morality. Because I am not, but it's a point of contention I hadn't thought existed, so I must clarify why I think I am hitting on morality, consistently, while you claim I mix the three up.

Theft is both a morally despicable act, and against the law. The theft hurts only the rich. The rich are the people who impose morality and law at the same time. They are the ruling party. So they impose the moral "thou shalt not steal" and they impose the law, "if you steal and get caught, you land in jail."

The two are not equivalent, only form a parallel. The law only applies if the courts find you guilty of it, and that necessitates a catching or proving a crime on you. The morals, however, are an imposed self-governing value system for one's own behaviour. You can steal if your morals allow you, and if you don't get caught, you can practice theft indefinitely. If your morals forbid theft, then you never steal, even if your hunger is more painful than the hunger of the guy who steals not due to fear of criminal charges and of what they might lead to.

My argument applies to both processes. But because I brought up this argument, it does not mean that I can't separate the moral from the legal. It's just that there was no need to, seeing the effect of either.

They also believe that the more hours I work the better person I must be — ZhouBoTong

Right on. (The sarcasm.) Case in point: "Arbacht macht frei." ("Work liberates", in German. The slogan on the entrance gate to Auschwitz.)

Morality doesnt have to be a arbitrary, transforming quagmire. It depends on what its based upon, what axioms you are operating from.
If morality is about human suffering, then slavery is clearly not moral. If morality is about doing unto others as you would have them do to you, then slavery again is wrong. It depends on what morality is based on, then you can operate from that to determine whats moral in a non-arbitrary, transforming way. — DingoJones

No, I don't agree that morality starts with axioms and definitions and categorical truths. Instead, I am convinced that the categorical truths follow the accepted moral behaviour, and that is based strictly on what is positive for society, or else for positive for segments of society.

Did cannibals start out by dreaming up the Categorical Imperative that eating the brain of your enemy will make his spirit the slave of your spirit, or you gain his courage, and accumulate the courage the more brains you eat? therefore eating humans and their brains by humans is moral? NO, it did not start that way. First they ate humans, they tasted good, so they were FORCED to create an ideology around it. Their morals are practice-based, and so are Western, Christian morals, make no mistake.

Is theft a sin? A morally deplorable thing? Yes. Who made that moral established? The wealthy, who had something to lose by theft. For the poor, theft is a godsend. But no, they won't steal, because the church and schools and society makes them not steal, it's against morals.

Is polygamy a sin? An immoral act? Why should it be? It is only immoral because one of the Ten Commandments commands it.

Christians always accuse the atheistic society of no morals, that there would be moral mayhem if it were not for Christianity.

Atheists reply with saying that morals are inherent in every human, and they act accordingly, without god.

I think they are both lying. I can show the lies, and uncover them. I have a good answer that explains this apparent conondrum, but I can't write it here. It is publication-worthy, I think, and yet I can't publish it, because I am not an academic philosopher, and therefore publishers poop on me.

Since every president has this power, what does it matter? — Nobeernolife

My guess would be that a Republicant president would appint Republicant-leaning judges, and a Democratic president would appoint a Democratic-leading judge.

Much is at stake.

------------------------

American politics reminds me of the old novel by a French national writer, Robert Merle, who wrote the book "The Island." It's a brilliant book. Brilliantly written. It describes a political struggle, where the "bad" is always a step ahead of the "good". Eventually a war breaks out, and it turns out, that one-by-one, the "bad" guys who support the "BAD" leader are actually "good" guys who want to support the "GOOD" leader, but they line up for the "BAD" because of unrelated injuries suffered, real or imagined, in the hands of the "good" guys. The ideals, the imagined future, the goals and the means to attain those goals are all agreed by almost all "bad" guys that the "good" guys got it right, yet they fight them under the leadership of the "BAD" leader.

Apparently the "BAD" leader was crafty at mind-mining the people, and he fostered in them the injuries and somehow made that a pivotal point to join him instead of the "GOOD" leader. A typical case of Divide and Conquer.

America is the same. Everyone hates murder, drugs, bombing of innocent people abroad, the skyracketing price of medicare, and they all want prosperity, equal chances for everyone, etc etc but for some reason the evangelist religion hijacked the Spirit of America and got it by the balls, and it never stops squeezing it.

"Adamo megszolalt. "Szerintem a tahitiaknak is adjunk foldet."
("Adamo spoke: "I think we ought to give some land to the Tahitians, too.")
("Adamo a dit: "Je pense que nous devons aussi donner de la terre aux Tahitiens.")

Is the presidency overrated?

I'd give it a "5".

Of course without a scale this is meaningless, but so be it. I carry to my grave the little secret of what I meant by a rating of 5. Let the posterior worry about the depth of wisdom thus not express'd.

I think the ancient Greek saying went something to this:

One that hailed from the Parnassus asked:
"How deep is your love?"
The other, standing on an alabaster statue, replied:
"Night fever, night fever...you don't have to do it!"

The natural birthrate being roughly 50/50, that by definition leaves a number of male incels, unless you limit the polygamy to the ruler only. And as I pointed out, male incels are source of aggression and instability i a society. You don´t want large amount of testosterone sloshing around, if you want stability. — Nobeernolife

Homosexuality. That takes care of 15% of the overflow of testosterone. Natural homosexuality.

On this one, as far as getting tired of the other person goes, can you elaborate more? Is it something purely 'physical', such as a desire to have sex with more women or 'newer' women, or is it related to personality, characteristics, getting along or having common interests, or things of that nature? — IvoryBlackBishop

I think, all of the above.

Of course, what you don't know, does not hurt you. People who got married at seventeen and lived a lifetime together, will never miss the taste for change.

A bit like indoor cats. They are EXTREMELY happy and satisfied with life. They love life. Until... one day they get to go outside. The sights, the smells, the sounds, will drive them scared... then they come in and ponder about that... and the next time they venture out, they are hooked for life on the outside.

Good for you! I've been with my beautiful girl for four years now, but then again, I've grown old. It's good to warm my bones beside the fire.

I also concur with @Nooberforlife. The basic problem with morality is its complete transformability of what is moral and what is not. I would abhor a system of slavery, per se, but to southern cotton farmers in the USA this posed no moral or ethical dilemmas whatsoever.

Now, consider this: Am I so different from Southern cotton farmers? I am white, privileged, like to fuck women, like wealth and pomp and adoration, social acceptance, winning at Poker, getting drunk, living it up.

So what is it that makes my blood boil with disgust and anger when I think of slavery, and what is it that makes the Southern Man cool and not think about it twice?

Slavery is moral then? It fits both those categories. — DingoJones

I did not say all social customs are moral. I meant (but did not say) that some morals come from social customs.

From societal perspective, monogamy is preferred, for it promotes stability. Of course andriarchies are stable too, when the ruling male has a stable of wifes and concubines. That's a form of polygamy.

From a personal perspective, monogamy, monoandry, is preferred if your goal is to nurture your offspring with any degree of certainty to maturity.

From a personal perspective, polygamy or philandering, is preferred because you have a chance to produce offspring which has a chance to propagate your genes (the basic idea behind procreation).

From a personal perspective, polyandry and slutting around is preferred, because your offspring, if begotten to a wide variety of males, will have a diversity in DNA which alone provides a better survival chance for the propagation of the mother's DNA, which is the basic idea behind procreation.

Has anyone ever heard of contraception, introspection, full suspension, and resurrection?

I have enjoyed both a promiscuous and a monogamous lifestyle, and I have to tell you: the monogamous is boring but safe and life is easier; the promiscuous is frought with adversity, instability, and money troubles, but it's infintely more exciting and enjoyable.

Yeah, you can find a partner whom you can trust and get to know, and while I don't condone hooking up for myself (I won't interfere with the choice by others for themselves), a serial monogamy is WAAAY preferable to a single long-term relationship. In serial, you can date as long as you find your partner exciting and vice versa. In marriage, in most of them, there is no sex to speak of after the fifth year. It is not exciting, you get so fucking incredibly bored with her or him, that you cringe even when they touch you or you touch them. And of course you fantasize about thy neighbour's ass.

For those who still can afford a choice, I suggest you go out and sow your wild oats, (without producing a baby, fer crying out loud), then when old age sets in and the cart of life gets too heavy to be pulled just by one person, then hook up with a contemporary of your age group, and waltz to the grave hand-in-hand.

I'm stressed the fuck out by other stuff in life, banging my head against the same wall over and over again can start to piss me off. — Pfhorrest

A sure sign of genius is that once the same thing is tried over and over but in vain, one has the foresight to stop doing it and to look for a different solution. (-:

People, what have you done
Locked Him in His golden cage
Golden cage
Made Him bend to your religion
Him resurrected from the grave
From the grave
He is the God of nothing
If that's all that you can see
You are the God of everything
He's inside you and me
So lean upon Him gently
And don't call on Him to save you
From your social graces
And the sins you used waive
You used to waive
The bloody Church of England
In chains of history
Requests your earthly presence at
The vicarage for tea
And the graven image you know
With His plastic crucifix
He's got him fixed
Confuses me as to who and where and why
As to how he gets his kicks
He gets his kicks
Confessing to the endless sin
The endless whining sounds
You'll be praying 'til next Thursday to
All the Gods that you can count

back at ya -- — 180 Proof

Same battle for the CBC. Leftist; multiculturalist; representing the opposing view to half of all Canadians. The large C conservative gov cut their funding; the large L liberal gov reestablished their funding.

CBC is running on the ticket to prove their fundworthiness to the public, by putting forth convincing arguments and slogans which assert that funding is a fun ding.

And everyone puts their money where their mouth is.

History does not show that dictators are inherently bad. It just shows that one bad dictator can undo the progress of multiple generations. — ZhouBoTong

However, some dictator's awful wrongdoings free up society after the dictators' downfall, to the extent that incredible growth and prosperity follows.

Hitler's awful rule was followed by the bourgeoning of the consumer society, with more wealth to nations than ever before had been thought possible. Germany went completely democratic, Jews were more tolerated after wwII than before, social benefits to the poor, downtrodden, sick and misalinged were pumped up, taxes took on an equalizing role. Technology doubled every three years, medical science performed near-miracle-strength healing via aggressive advancements.

All because of one fucking bad dick tater.

Morality is based on reason, or on faith. I can not think of another foundation for morality. — Athena

Social customs. Societal needs.

I don't have posting privileges, so here's a link to a song depicting a soulless soul's soul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVuSYUNAekc

I love this! Thanks, Matt, for posting this video.

The music itself sucks. But the visuals -- the robots playing it -- brings life to the performance. You feel the vibes. You feel their hearts pounding with the beat.

I bet the base player gets all the chicks in the back stage. Which one would you go for, @Artemis?

"The soul in the machine."

The Only Way
Emerson, Lake & Palmer

People are stirred moved by the word.
You kneel at the shrine, deceived by the wine.

How was the earth conceived? In finite space.
Is there such a place? You must believe in the human race.

Can you believe? God makes you breathe.
Why did he lose six million Jews?

~~~~

Touched by the wings, fears angel brings
Sad winter storm, grey autumn dawn
Who looks on life itself, who lights your way?
Only you can say. How can you just obey?
It's the only way.

Don't need the word, now that you've heard.
Don't be afraid: man is man made.
And when the hour comes, don't turn away
Face the light of day. And do it your way.
It's the only way.

Songwriters: Anthony Paul Grantham / Jaime Brian Harding / Phillip Cunningham

that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions" — Pfhorrest

(TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality, in the particular instance that our opinions are precisely coinciding with the events and things in reality.)

Accepting my definition of truth, truth can only exist as our opinions; I think your wording ought to have been:

"no, there aren't any real things or events outside our opinions, for our opinions to potentially coincide with; there are just our opinions"

Your original wording leads to a lot of inaccurate misalignment of words with their meanings to what the concepts were aimed to cover.

Or else, you can supply your own definition of truth which will render the claim true.

Would you care to supply a definition of truth which is different from my definition of truth?

I'm having a tough time following you, but the question at hand here is entirely about whether there is any "truth outside our knowledge" to coincide with, as you put it. (I would say "opinion" rather than "knowledge", because "knowledge" implies truth while "opinion" does not). The second kind of relativism, that I am against, says "no, there isn't any truth outside our opinions to potentially coincide with; there's just our opinions". — Pfhorrest

Thanks for clarifying this.

What you argue against, therefore, is the denial of truth (which TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I would not argue against that. In other words, I accept that there may be no relationship between reality and our opinions about it. Since our senses give no indication whether our perceptions are to be trusted to detect reality, we have no knowledge of reality. Opinions, yes, alleged perceptions, yes, alleged impulses, or sensations, yes. But not one of these can be trusted.

Therefore there is no knowledge of reality. This does not negate the existence of truth; but it allows the POSSIBILITY of no truth. (Again: TRUTH I take to be the correspondence of our opinions to reality.)

I don't know how you can deny that.

@PFHorrest, I am one of the polemicists. As you know. I think your temperament is more of the academic philosophers -- you don't get upset at the voice of harsh criticism. I like that in you. How do you do that? By forcing yourself to not show how upset you get, or you don't get upset in the first place?

I think I can be polite and staid in the face of logical criticism, but when someone shows total stupidity I get really upset. That's why I would make a horrible teacher, given the chance. I don't teach; I clobber. That's not good, and maybe I should be seeking to change my ways.

But it feels so natural... I feel better after defending my points vehemently and polemically. If I were to be polite, cool, calm and collected, would I feel the same satisfaction?

Does emotional satisfaction play a motivating role in your arguments? I know we can't argue against the truth to feel good, but when you argue FOR the right reasoning, do you still get the satisfaction, the taste of victory when you state your points, despite employing a polite, never personally degrading voice?

It actually does not deny there is objective reality. It just does not deal with it. It avoids the question of objective reality altogether, but that does not mean it denies it.
— god must be atheist

Can you cite something from Berkeley to support this? — Pfhorrest

I was mixing Berkeley's voice with my opinion, and with what was stated in your essay. I never read Berkeley. Sorry about that, it was my mistake to attribute this to him.

yeah, Contemporary Christian music... You know you're getting old when you hear your youth's favourite hard-rock band's most radical song over the p/a system at Walmart as background music.

Contemporary Christian music sounds like the musak of yesteryear (make it 1938?)

As do I. — Pfhorrest

Some of we also knows you also change your species when listening to Phish.

Total mind-body immersion into music appreciation.

Black Sabbath was reputed to be a devil-worshipper's band. In the late sixties or early seventies, to counter this myth, they released an album, "Master of Reality" with very storng theist and religious lyrics, all devotional to god. The effect? Their reputation as Satan's band tripled.

It would be cool if there was ACM - Atheist Contemporary Music, or inspirational music for atheists. — Noble Dust

In my opinion all music that has no explicitly religious text for lyrics, can be viewed as atheistic, and theistic at the same time but not in the same respect.

Everyone can enjoy music, even baboons and chimpanzees do. My uncle's dog sang along with Mozart and Rossini, and believe me, he was a staunch Roman Catholic.

They say wheat fields bring a larger yield if classical music plays in the fields in July, and they say the Coral-area Gooblefish and the colourful Geddifish of the south seas change sex spontaneosly when they listen to Black Sabbath.

, the search you have done proved you wrong in parts, and did not prove you right in other parts. If you studied physics, you should demand a refund of your tuition fees.

I am not battling with you, I'm battling with your ideas. The quotes you supplied prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you not only don't know physics, but don't know how to read text, either.

I am sorry. I really did not enjoy this either. Most likely even less than you have. I just refuse to give in to nonsubstantial, ill-gotten, unreasonable arguments. I wish I was doing something else instead, too, man, please don't feel it was only bad for you.

Max Planck wrote that the phrase "entropy of the universe" has no meaning because it admits of no accurate definition. More recently, Walter Grandy writes: "It is rather presumptuous to speak of the entropy of a universe about which we still understand so little, and we wonder how one might define thermodynamic entropy for a universe and its major constituents that have never been in equilibrium in their entire existence1This is an assumption they can't substantiate.." According to Tisza: "If an isolated system is not in equilibrium, we cannot associate an entropy with it."2. Assumes the entire universe is not an isolated system. Buchdahl writes of "the entirely unjustifiable assumption that the universe can be treated as a closed thermodynamic system". According to Gallavotti: "... there is no universally accepted notion of entropy for systems out of equilibrium, even when in a stationary state." Discussing the question of entropy for non-equilibrium states in general, Lieb and Yngvason express their opinion as follows:"Despite the fact that most physicists believe in such a nonequilibrium entropy, it has so far proved impossible to define it in a clearly satisfactory way."3. READ THE WORDS: DESPITE THAT FACT THAT MOST PHYSICISTS BELEIVE IN SUCH A NON-EQUILIBRIUM THEORY In Landsberg's opinion: "The third misconception is that thermodynamics, and in particular, the concept of entropy, can without further enquiry be applied to the whole universe. ... These questions have a certain fascination, but the answers are speculations, and lie beyond the scope of this book."4. MY OPINION IS NOT, REPEAT, NOT LANDSBERG'S BOOK.
A recent analysis of entropy states, "The entropy of a general gravitational field is still not known", and, "gravitational entropy is difficult to quantify". 5. i AM NOT TALKING GRAVITATIONAL ENTROPY. The analysis considers several possible assumptions that would be needed for estimates and suggests that the observable universe has more entropy than previously thought. This is because the analysis concludes that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor. Lee Smolin goes further: "It has long been known that gravity is important for keeping the universe out of thermal equilibrium. Gravitationally bound systems have negative specific heat—that is, the velocities of their components increase when energy is removed. ... Such a system does not evolve toward a homogeneous equilibrium state. Instead it becomes increasingly structured and heterogeneous as it fragments into subsystems."6 THIS HAS PATENTLY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POINT. — Pussycat

I love it when a dilettante searches the Internet to disprove a point. They come up with pearls of wisdom that they can't fathom, and they actually help disprove their criticism with their quotes.

Thank you, Pussycat. Prrrr.

Another fundamental and very important difference is the difficulty or impossibility, in general, in defining entropy at an instant of time in macroscopic terms for systems not in thermodynamic equilibrium; it can be done, to useful approximation, only in carefully chosen special cases, namely those that are throughout in local thermodynamic equilibrium.7 READ: AT AN INSTANT OF TIME. OUTSIDE OF AN INSTANT OF TIME IT IS NOT DIFFICULT, IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE. — Pussycat

Again: the dilettante does not know how to read carefully, because it's above his or her head. So to speak. But they have a very strong opinion, and they will stick by it tooth and nail.

And claws. Prrr.

I object to that on the grounds that if it is true, then by its nature it cannot be known to be true, because to know it to be true we would need some means of objectively evaluating claims about what is real and what is moral, so as to justifiably rule all such claims to be false; but the inability to make such objective evaluations is precisely what such a nihilistic position claims.
This I can't comment on because I can't understand it / can't follow it.

There always remains the possibility that we will fail to construct such models that can consistently account for all experiences, but we can never be sure that we have conclusively failed, rather than having just not succeeded yet. The only choice is between continuing to try despite the possibility of maybe never succeeding, or giving up — embracing nihilism — and definitely never succeeding.

I don't like this as an argument for your proposition. It is an argument that is applicable to everything... it has no value therefore for the establishing of the truth or validity of anything specific.

In psychology a distinction is made between perceptions, which are interpreted by the mind, and sensations, which are the raw experiences that get interpreted into perceptions, things such as colors of light and pitches of sound, as opposed to images or words. I make a similar distinction between desires, being the things that are interpreted by the mind, and what I call appetites, which are the raw experiences underlying them, things such as the feeling of pain or hunger, as opposed to wanting to do or have something.

Finally a paragraph (segment) that makes sense, is a proposition, and has no contradictions; it is sensible, logical and reasonable.

Maslow described desires motivation, and the appetites, needs. "I am hungry" is a need or sensation or appetite, and "I want to eat" is a perception, or motivation, or desire.

"I want to own a motorcar and a house with a paid-off mortgage" is a desire, a motivation, a perception, and "I want wealth to sustain my life, and to elevate my social status so I can easily reproduce" is a need, an desire, and a perception.

So while your and Maslow's classification are similar, there are differences between the two which makes them relatively unique, and both valid.

nihilism at its most extreme denies that anything is real or moral at all, that there is any such thing as reality or morality.

I don't know about morality, but nihilism can't claim that there is no reality. It can assert as a belief and a possibly (but not likely) valid belief that nothing real exists in reality; but reality is still a reality, even if it contains nothing. (Null set, as you have once in one of the threads so carefully and to yourself in frustration tried to explain to me, that null set can contain something if the thing is both something and its opposite, but only if the contained goods is a null set. Similarly, the set is reality and the contents, nothing. Still, the container, the set, is said to exist. Hence, nihilism does not deny reality, it just says it's a null set.)