Jonathan Haidt argues that our moral values are the product of inborn evolutionary adaptations. He lists the following 5 innate moral foundations:

Care/harm
Fairness/cheating
Loyalty/betrayal
Authority/subversion
Sanctity/degradation

These intuitions are the tail that wags the dog of the reasoned propositions that you are counting on to give us objectively true moral axioms. — Joshs

To introduce some Buddhist-like thought, which of any can occur independently of a qualitative metric consisting of conscious being’s suffering?

I’m so far concluding that none can, in so far as all possibilities are either favored to not favored in relation to the appraised conscious suffering that would be incurred or avoided were the possibility enacted or pursued.

If so, then it could be concluded that it is an objective truth that all conscious beings seek optimal freedom from conscious suffering - this despite complexities such as weighing short-term suffering against long-term suffering.

If objectively true that we all seek optimal freedom from suffering - what in western thought could be termed the search for optimal eudemonia - then that means which in fact best liberates us from suffering will be the objectively true goal relative to all conscious beings, irrespective of (or else, in manners independent of) one’s beliefs on the matter.

Since this objectively true goal would in principle satisfy that which all yearn for, it would then be an objective good - a good that so remains independently of individuals’ subjective fancies.

Since this good would be objectively real to one and all, a proposition regarding it could then be conformant to its reality and, thereby, true.

Were this goal to be objectively real, then it would be that reality which “just is” via which what ought to be can be judged. Thereby potentially resolving the is/ought problem.

Of course, all this is contingent on there being a) a universal, foundational, (one could add, metaphysically real) drive to all conscious beings in everything we do and b) some means of satisfying it in principle. Yet, if (a) and (b), one could then well make sense of objective ethics and morality – in so far as there being an objective good to pursue by which all actions can be judged as either better or worse.

Never mind; too overly-analytical of me. — Mww

I'm curious, especially if you find fault with what I've stated, but if you insist on my never minding, alright.

I'm still not following how you've jumped to 'awareness'. Why does the dog need to be 'aware' of bones and biscuits in order for the category {stuff that's nice to eat} to form a semantic memory. — Isaac

Aren't all variations of memory (e.g. short term memory and long term memory) the storage (however imperfect it may be) of what occurs in the present awareness of the organism? If not entertaining philosophical zombie scenarios, this is the only possibility I can currently think of. I for example don't find that we as humans can recall memories of events which we were never consciously aware of in some former present time. (EDIT: false memories excluded - but this exception only seems to evidence the point made in terms of true memories.)

As to category formation, at the very least all species of will animals will make active use of categories if they are to survive - e.g., those of predator and/or of prey - in manners devoid of word use. This will include solitary animals, such as is typically the case for felines. Which to me evidences that categories can and do form in the absence of word use. (In truth, I also uphold that some category awareness will be inborn in certain animals, becoming only fine-tuned via experience ... a duckling's indifference to a goose's silhouette overhead and fearing that of a hawk's comes to mind as one researched example (though not devoid of controversy) of such ingrained recognition of categories ... but this would greatly complicate the current issue.)

It seems to me all that's required would be some connections between the word-sound 'treat' and the neural networks associated with nice food. — Isaac

My view is that no animal, humans included, forms connections between word-sounds and certain neural networks. Here I find a confounding of two different levels that concurrently occur in the same system. The animal would instead hold conscious awareness of the word-sound "treat" and would consciously associate it to, in my view, a category it is also in some way consciously aware of - most likely intuitively. And all of these activities that take place within the conscious awareness of the organism are then concurrently also manifesting in the workings of organism's neural networks.

I'm saying that without language we do not have experiences of 'red', not that we don't have experience tout court. — Isaac

I can agree that without language we would likely hold no awareness of the culturally-relative, abstract, connotations which redness can imply. That of passion - be it anger or love - for example.

But it seems to me that all lesser-animal predators will be aware of red, for it is the color of blood, which prey evidences when injured or eaten. For a lesser-animal predator to not have an experience of red would be greatly detrimental to its survival - such that experience of this color is favored by evolution in at the very least predators (irrespective of how qualitatively different their experiences of redness might be in comparison to typical human awareness of the color). I mention this because, of course, lesser animals do not make use of language (when understood as word use) to have experiences of red.

My clarification wasn’t clear, apparently. — Mww

My bad. Should of added a smiley face or something. My post was tongue-in-cheek. No, I'm in agreement with you. :up:

... still maintaining that experience is not contingent on narrative. :wink:

Perfect sense. Brain system does its narratives of mental events, none of which is the mental event of “experience”, yet one of its mental events is the “conscious subject”, and that mental event is that which makes sense of mental event “experience”. — Mww

I’m not getting it. How does the brain make use of words to bring into being mental events, such as those of word recognition and usage?

I could get the affirmation that CNS cells, exemplified by neurons, communicate with each other. This affirmation presumes that neurons are of themselves living agents capable of giving and receiving information, replete with their own individual positive and negative valance … their own unicellular kind of autopoietic experience - such that they strengthen their synaptic connections when the information-conveyance is to their liking, and such that lack of beneficial information-conveyance results in synaptic decay. But even when so conceptualized, where is there word usage in the constitutional activities of brain systems?

I don't follow how you're making the jump from the particulars constituting concepts to 'experiences'. Why must the particulars be experiences?

Say there's concept a dog has which makes it more likely to, say, fetch its lead when it hears the word "walk", and say this concept is constituted of several linked concepts, I don't see why any of those linked concepts need be an experience. — Isaac

For me “walk” is too ambiguous, since it’s something that can be learned via classical or operant conditioning. Haven’t checked but I presume pigeons could be taught to properly respond to this word by walking when so hearing - or else by fetching a leash, etc. The concept of “treat”, as first mentioned, seems to me far more apt for discussion. A typical treat can be a bone, a small serving of human food, a biscuit, or even a carrot if the dog so likes to eat. For the dog to understand the concept of treat it would need to abstract from a limited set of particulars such as those aforementioned to a generalized notion such as, here guestimating, “that which is given to me and make me greatly pleased”.

In presuming you’re not asking me why a dog must hold a first-person awareness rather than being a philosophical zombie of sorts (it does after all share enough CNS commonalities to our own to warrant making the issue moot, or so I'm thinking):

A dog can develop the concept of treat and associate it to the word "treat" only by a kind of inductive inference from a limited set of particulars of which it is aware of - this to the generalized notion as concept - by holding first-person awareness (to not further confound the issue by using the term “conscious awareness”) of things such as biscuits and bones. I presume we can both grant that, in typical cases, the dog has no word associations for each of these particulars it is aware of (e.g., so as to differentiate the word “biscuit” from the word “bone”). If so, then the dog uses unnarrated first person awareness of particular tokens to develop an unnarrated first person awareness of a type … Which it can then, however imperfectly, associate in semantic import to the English word “treat”.

None of this being possible if the dog were devoid of experiences pertaining to some particular treats.

What I'm suggesting is that all experience is post hoc. Everything we'd call an experience is made up after the mental events which that experience is attempting to explain. — Isaac

Roger that, as can for example be measured in milliseconds between raw sensory data from sensory organs and the after-the-fact result of the experience. But this can get knees-deep in murky issues: such as how it is that we come to hold first-person awareness of neurons and what they do in the first place if not via the experiences of first-person awareness. Besides, that experiences of a red apple, for example, are post hoc to the raw sensory data our sensory organs register does not of itself diminish the reality of us having immediate experiences of the red apple in our first person awareness.

For my part, though, I was here only questioning the appraisal that experiences need to be contingent on narration in order to manifest.

So the fundamental issue here is not really the use of words. It is for humans, but maybe less so for dogs. It's about what kind of cognitive activity constitutes an 'experience' as opposed to simply some neurons firing.

I think the evidence is pretty strong now that there's no one-to-one relationship between neural events and our 'experience', so we must explain that epistemic cut somehow. — Isaac

Yes, this is a big and very loaded fundamental question. Don't intend to get into it on this thread. But so it's said, I again very much doubt that humans require words in other to experience.

I don't know anything about canine psychology, but if it works anything like human psychology, the association of a word (or any noise at all) with an expectation is mediated primarily by the hippocampus and just works by associating previous responses with a kind of 'mock up' of that response repeated (but not carried out). So if a human says "pass me the book", my motor circuits will be fired for all the muscle movements required to pass the book, by that expression, before I actually decide to pass the book. The last action on my part is sort of 'releasing the flood gates' of the potential to act that has already built up. Or in object recognition, it might be firing all the clusters related to some action on that object (naming it, using it, emotional response to it), connected, via the hippocampus, to the output of the various auditory cortices (depending on if it were a word or another sound type).

'Experience', as in the thing we later report as our conscious experience of the event, is constructed later out of those firings (plus a whole load of random firing which are happening all the time, and a load of extraneous firings to do with unrelated environmental variables). The task of the experience narrative is (partly) to sift out all that extraneous junk so that the memory of the event is clearer - next time's firing set is nice and neat, useful and clean of noise. It doesn't really play a role in the actual word-object linking in real time. — Isaac

Cats also have a hippocampus, but tmk show no evidence of being able to associate words to concepts. So the presence of a hippocampus in a brain does not of itself provide a satisfactory explanation for why the average dog comes to associate certain terms with certain concepts. I say this with no quibble over the hippocampus’s importance to cognition - such as in word recognition, when a word's usage has become habitual, in at least humans.

At pith, though, was whether or not language - and hence narration - is requisite for concept formation. Expressed differently: Do concepts occur first followed by word association? Or are words, and thereby narration, required for concept formation?

Here's my underlying reason for the question:

If concepts can occur prior to word recognition - since concepts are abstractions abstracted from a plurality of particulars - the implications are that experiences can then take place prior to, or else in the complete absence of, narration. This conclusion would be entailed by the process of forming concepts from particular, narration-devoid experiences.

But if words are required for concept formation, I so far fail to see an adequate explanation of how dogs - which are by nature languageless - form concepts to begin with. To this could be added the question of why dogs can and cats can’t - since both, for example, have a hippocampus and are constantly exposed to words while around humans.

To emphasize: At base in the aforementioned question regarding concept formation is whether experience can occur in the absence of narration - this in lesser animals which are by nature languageless and, as would then seem to follow, in humans as well.

In the first, the narrative is from the perspective of recounting, which necessarily presupposes a system has done its job, — Mww

I could see that, granting that it’s as metaphorically narrational as a bee’s dance is linguistic - both having nothing to do with word usage.

There are also some who claim to find freedom in the bottle. Not good for one's liver, I hear. — Banno

Eh, for my part, yours is a trite retort, especially seeing the lack of coherent rebuttals to the arguments I’ve provided. FYI, there’re other kinds of freedoms associated with to bottles that are nowhere near as common, like the far harder to express and obtain sense of profound freedom pointed to in Jim Croce’s song Time in a Bottle. And yes, unlike booze, it’s not something that can be easily, if at all, effed.

But it’s your thread; express ad nauseum what you will about your lowly flies.

but watch out, Banno might interpret what you've said in such a way as to make it seem that you are stuck in a bottle that he has freed himself from. :wink: — Janus

It would be pretty fly of him if he could so demonstrate. :wink:

Freedom … it can be such a cockeyed concept. Some seek freedom from reality; others freedom from prohibitions not to be a tyrant; but I do believe that the typical philosopher - including those anti-philosophy philosophers amongst us - seek freedom from falsehoods … very much enjoying the bottle of truth-filled reality in which we would like to perpetually dwell.

There, waxed poetic a bit in turn. :smile:

I don't think anyone 'doesn't have experiences'. I said earlier that experiences are post hoc constructions, they're narratives we use to make what just happened in our brain more predictable (understandable in more colloquial terms). We weave together disparate, and often completely contradictory processes into one coherent narrative after the mental events themselves have already taken place [...] — Isaac

With the understanding that a concept is an abstraction abstracted from particulars:

In terms of languageless creatures and language, dogs, for one example, can on average understand 89 unique words and phrases - with a demonstrated extreme of being able to recognize about 1000 - and with at least some such words understood on average referencing concepts, e.g., “treat”. So, a preliminary question: Do human words for concepts bring into being the dog’s very ability to cognize that concept which the word references? Or do dogs hold cognizance of non-linguistic (hence non-narrative) concepts which they can then associate with human words?

As per the quote above, you seem to lean toward affirming “yes” to the first and “no” to the second. Then:

Without an organism’s innate ability to cognize non-linguistically expressed (hence, non-narrative) concepts - such as the concept of treat - how do words that reference concepts, such as “treat”, become associated with anything any concept whatsoever?

Edited the crossed-out word for better comprehension.

Makes sense, in different contexts in regard to saying 'yes' or 'no' to the use of loaded words. — Janus

Was in a rush with my last post; sorry about that. I had something more fundamental in mind.

Loaded words may indeed be more easily changed in a language, but I’m sustaining that no language or part thereof is absolute. Therefore, any word or phrase can in principle change by being either endorsed for use in a language or else by being proscribed, this by any individual or cohort of these. Every time we make use of a word, we endorse its usage in the language community we partake of. Or, as phrases it (and in disagreement with his appraisal), we say yea to a word’s use every time we make use of it.

So I’m here arguing that we all partake in the construction, preservation, and alteration of the language we communally share - this via the choices we make (be they conscious or subconscious) in terms of which words we as individuals use.

Both the endorsement and proscription of particular words will be contingent on the interests of individuals: words which individuals find favorable to themselves in terms of functionality, aesthetic appeal, or (as in my previous examples) their ethics will be endorsed for use in language. “Meme” comes to mind as a word that via these means of endorsement has gained mainstream presence in at least the current English language, and this in a very short span of time. On the other hand, whatever words individuals - such as via their changing culture - no longer find favorable to themselves (functionally, aesthetically, ethically, or for any other reason) will degrade in the language until no longer present.

Hence, I'm maintaining that since no language is absolute or else set in stone, all languages thereby evolve via the endorsement or proscription of word use by individuals.

As to use of the term “red”: Two thousand years ago “red” didn’t exist as word to express the given color (neither did English for that matter). And two thousand years from now, there could well be a different term to address the same color in some neo-English language. But when it comes to our concrete experiences - unlike at least some abstracted notions which words express - words will change over time while their referents will remain the same. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, sort of thing.

Can you determine whether or not it is in one's "pragmatic favour"? — Janus

If you're speaking in general, it's contingent on a lot of factors. Choosing not to ever say "red" would hence likely not be in my pragmatic interests. Choosing to not say "ineffable" on the other hand ...

Here's something more palpable, with the strong caveat that no undertones are in any way intended: People nowadays commonly enough express "fuck you" to others when upset with the other. Seeing how "fuck you" implies "may you be raped", one could then in theory make a concerted effort to cease saying this term to others (given that one detests rape for any reason and in any context). Maybe replacing it with "to hell with you" or, if this is too spiritualistic sounding to one's ears, maybe via the coinage of some new terminology. One person can so decide / determine. Were others to then follow suit, maybe such as due to admiration or else finding it pragmatic in their own lives, it would then be a sub-cultural use of language that distances itself from the current norm. Where the vast majority of people to in due course so choose to use alternatives to "fuck you/him/them/etc.", then this use of "fuck you" will in effect then have become a thing of the past.

Again, no undertones intended.

Same can be said with replacing "pimping" (directly implying being a pimp with whores) with something like "stoked" (which need not refer to drugs) or, else, some newly coined terminology.

It costs me nothing to willfully choose not to say "may someone be raped" or else "this is pimp-like behavior and thereby good". Here, it would be in my pragmatic favor - given my ethical values - to not use the terms "fuck you/him/them/etc." and "pimping". Whereas I find no personal interest whatsoever in not using the term "red" - it improves my ability to communicate without in any way compromising my ethical nor aesthetic values - though its up to me to not use the term in practice.

Aesthetics are a big part of language - "Bank of Billy" rather than "Billy's Bank" - but this is a whole other issue all together.

It's not a mathematical type of determination, but it in such roundabout ways I find that it can be more or less decidable / determinable, yes.

Decidable? — Janus

Meaning?

Without turning crimson, as I previously said, you can nay it any time. Languages after all evolve via such yey and nay of peoples all the time. Whether it's at all in one's pragmatic favor to do so is a different matter.

Not sure how one goes about answering this question. My intuition that words are rather clumsy building blocks we use to feel our way around. — Tom Storm

I could be on board with your metaphor of "clumsy building blocks". As to the question itself, please go for it if you find any faults; I'll rephrase it for easier criticism: The "is everything linguistically expressible" issue boils down to "can reality itself be in principle made equivalent to words".

I don't remember agreeing (but I did follow orders) - I remember being told what the names of colors were and getting them wrong. I still do, as I am color blind. — Tom Storm

For many, “mommy” and daddy” are the first words we willfully consent to using - though, granted, we might not have memories of it. Color words come later- and whether or not we use these terms correctly is not pertinent to the issue I was addressing. At issue here, if you’d want to get in it philosophically, is this: how does one first come to use any term if not via agreement with those who so use these terms? (This regardless of whether the agreement is obtained via coercion from others or via one’s own willful inclinations.)

I have to say parsing the notion of color as a pathway to understand the merits of the term ineffable is bloody dull. — Tom Storm

I can get that, but you speak as though you’re forced to partake.

Thirteen pages in and I am no closer to understanding what ineffable means other than the literal definition and associated, shall we say, poetic uses. — Tom Storm

For my part, I don’t see what all the hubbub is all about. If meaning is use, then the word means whatever its use intends it to mean. Haven’t heard of “ineffable” being spoken of by people, except in certain academic and philosophical circles. But if one wants to say that, for example, “my joy is indescribable” or else “beyond words” well, when it gets the point across it has meaning to both the speaker and the listener. Case closed as far as I’m concerned.

Is it not the case that some people believe there are quasi mystical matters that are beyond words while others think that everything can be understood or, at least, turned into words? It's hardly a surprising bifurcation. — Tom Storm

As to this issue, I’d phrase it in more blunt terms: does one find that reality is - or else can in principle be made - equivalent to words?

If so, then everything that is can be expressible via words. If not, then some things of which we can be aware of will not be accurately expressible via words.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I so far don't see it.

Besides, there’s a lot more to meaning and its conveyance than words: I can verbally tell you anything about my state of being but if my body posture and mannerisms express otherwise, what will you make out of my words? And as to non-verbal communication, think of the Mona Lisa smile: other than by pointing fingers at it, literally or via words (as in, “the Mona Lisa smile”), I so far don’t know of anyone that has managed to accurately convey it linguistically (other than via poetry, maybe).

intersubjective agreement — Tom Storm


Rude.

So when did you agree to red? — Banno

The first time one makes use of the word as it’s expressed to oneself by others, one agrees, or willfully consents, to its use.

One can also disagree to use the word “red” at any time; instead making use of “crimson”, “scarlet”, “vermilion”, “amaranth”, and so forth.

... or even coin a new term for a unique shade or red, and this irrespective of whether others would then agree to make use of it so as to make the term an aspect of the shared language.

Back to the issue of blindness and color awareness:

Given that many sighted-people have no clue as to what these terms concretely specify even if able to use them in grammatically correct sentences, how does one find that a blind person could know the difference between, for example, Alizarin Crimson and Crimson Lake when devoid of any visual experience … and, for that matter, be able to know the differences in these colors that different paint manufacturers produce?

This could easily start to approximate the Chinese Room problem, wherein one could make fluid use of words to specify that, “this manufacture’s carmine has a yellower tint than that manufacture’s” without any awareness of what one is expressing in relation to colors.

ps. All this being in no way contradictory to blind people being able to use color-words to express abstract sentiments (e.g., I'm feeling blue) or abstract states of affair (e.g., it's not a black and white issue) - but not concrete experiences of colors. They can know that in certain cultural contexts white represents good and black bad - and can further know that in other contexts no such representation is to be validly made (such as in addressing people's skin color) - without having any awareness of, for example, the concrete differences between Ivory and Floral White, or else Onyx and Ebony. Whereas sighted people can learn of these differences by being presented with direct experiences of these shades.

I flip the switch on the trolley, knowing that people will die (though more will be saved). Is this morally different from pushing a man over a bridge and killing him deliberately in order that more lives will be saved? — Cuthbert

No, it's not morally different. No more than would be pulling the trigger of a gun - flipping its switch, so to speak - so as to accomplish the same result via the same means. One could even address the pushing of red buttons so as to launch nukes with the same overall intent.

Whimsy aside, though we all like to believe people are all of equal value when we intellectualize, in our everyday lives we judge very differently - and maybe, at least at times, this for good reasons. Making things other than a simple numbers game. For instance, most would consider it ethically wrong to cause the death of one Einstein or one Gandhi so as to save a thousand Hitlers (neo-Nazis excluded). In many versions of the trolley problem (such as the one where a person is pushed off of a bridge), what can be known beforehand - all else being equal - is that one would sacrifice an innocent bystander to rescue a plurality of people that give no heed to the sounds of an approaching train while standing on train tracks. Here is a question of relative value, including that of merit, rather than one of strict numbers.

But adjust the trolley problem's parameters and the ethical issues drastically change: e.g., five captive people tied down to train tracks by some assailant vs. one bystander. It's still a question of value - is the value of the five captives more than that of the one bystander? - and here it seems far more appropriate to deem "yes". This despite there yet being a lot of unknowns in terms of who these people are. But we live with risks in the choices we make all the time.

Btw, while a different thread might indeed be appropriate for this topic, as jgill says, I'm not prepared to start one.

Banno sort of beat me to the punch a little, but I’m going to join in for a second anyway.

It’s to be acknowledged that words for colors have meaning to blind people: expressions such as, “I’m seeing red”, “I’m blue”, or “it’s not all black and white” can be readily meaningful. Likewise can other associations between colors and properties be made: green is generally a cold color; yellow warm; purple is beyond the light spectrum and can signify some form of spirituality (these are examples taken from personal experience interacting with one or two people blind from birth). I never asked, but it’s also at least possible that people blind from birth could hold some form of color scheme that could be seen by them with the mind’s eye.

That said, what a concrete red apple perceptually looks like will not be a shared experience. And its particularities will not be expressible.

More interesting to me, I’ve read of blind people being very pleased at touching the surface of heavily impastoed paintings of the ocean’s waves and crests. It helped them get a tactile sense of what the ocean looks like. They held descriptive understandings of this, but, obviously, had no visual experience of it. And the tactile feel of the painting helped them form an image - however accurate or inaccurate it may have been - in their mind’s eye.

As to expressability, my take away is that much of the meaning of color words can be cognized via language by those who can't see - but not the direct experience of perceptual color. This anymore than we know what a color blind person experiences when looking at the world day in and day out, or else what a fully blind person experiences via heightened sensitivity to tactile feelings and sounds, and the mental mappings resultant from this.

Hmm. Isn't unprincipled lust more... interesting? — Banno

Nah. Too anarchistic.

don't understand that. What are "principles"? — Banno


Principles are ineffable. — Tom Storm

… until they aren’t.

Hence: Nietzsche’s principle of will to power, Freud’s principle of will to pleasure (in fairness, together with his reality principle), Frankl’s principle of will to meaning, and the one which I find most important, Enigma’s principles of lust.

It might take a whole lot of reasoning to make me change my mind on this stance:

So virtue ethics might well be seen to involve personal development that does not have a social implication. Virtue has a broader scope than morality.

So in moving past cutting himself, your castaway becomes more virtuous but not more moral. — Banno

That's a very nice way of expressing my current view on the matter.

An interesting approach. — Banno

Well ... thanks.



:up: Especially in relation to your insightful analysis of truth and lies.

This has support when we consider that sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to feel a certain way about a certain thing, e.g., doesn’t make sense to cry over beautiful music. — Mww

:grin: Am reminded of "tears of joy" ... could happen ... but your point is well taken.

Doesn’t the unknown in practice still require an explanatory principle? I should think that if it is the case that knowledge is only possible in conjunction with principles, the criteria for the unknowable must be either the negation of those, the validity of its own, or the absence of any. But principles at any rate. — Mww

I’m unclear as to how to best interpret this. But in addressing principles, what comes to my mind are epistemological principles. To address a relatively concrete example that we could all relate to: The future is uncertain.

Because we know this via experience-laden inference, we can thereby express that the future is “uncertain”. That we know the future to be uncertain then implies that we know - hold JTB - that much of the future is unknown to us - i.e., that we don’t hold JTB regarding some of what will be - usually, and in general, this in correlation to how distant a future we’re addressing. Of course, we have our best inferences of the immediate future, that tomorrow will most likely resemble today to a significant extent, etc., but in terms of what we clearly know the be unknown aspects of the future:

We can speculate as to possible alternatives of what might be, and these will be know to us as such, and thereby expressible by us. Example: a year from now it might rain or not rain at the location I’m currently at. That said, while it may be true that some might presume to know and thereby express what the case will be, for those who know they don’t know what will be what will be is quite technically inexpressible.

This is a relatively challenging example because alternative expressions can be used: the future might be X, or is likely to be X. Still, if we hold JTB that we do not hold JTB regarding what the future will be in a certain respect, then, for those who so hold a known unknown, this aspect of the future will be ineffable.

This roundabout line of reasoning to my mind will then apply to any inferred known unknown.

When it comes to experience, it gets far trickier to express, but there is - and some here might be very appalled by this - a certain form of meta-cognizance regarding what one is consciously experiencing: a non-inferential knowing that one knows. The clearest simple example of this that currently comes to mind is in our tip-of-the-tongue experiences. Here, we know the word’s meaning we want to express and likewise know that we, at least momentarily, don’t know the phenomenal word itself. Furthermore, maybe most poignantly, we non-inferentially know that we have knowledge-by-acquaintance of the phenomenal word although we can’t for the life of us recall what it might be.

Then, in a similar, but far more complex, way, we could non-inferentially know that we don’t know how to articulate that emotive state of being we are knowledgeable of via direct experience (via a kind of knowledge by acquaintance).

Don’t know if this helps any. But that’s my best take so far.

Do we….or do we not….still need to stipulate the criteria for determining how the unknowable isn’t a mere subterfuge? Seems like that would be the logical query to follow, “only the unknown cannot be put into words”. — Mww

It need not be unknowable in principle, just unknown in practice - and we would need to know that it is so. Some givens, via reasoning or experience, can be demarcated as known unknowns (if one pardons my Rumsfieldesque expression). All known unknowns will then be known ineffables.

To readdress examples in my first post here, hence, among some theistic folk, if G-d is a known unknown to them, G-d is then ineffable to them, and known to be so. As an alternative more down to earth example, if I know how to describe a painting but also know that I don’t know how to describe the particulars of how the painting makes me feel, then the painting’s properties will be effable to me but not the precise aesthetic experience which the painting provokes in me. All the same, it’s it, and known to be so by those who might express, "it is ineffable".

Can known unknowns be intersubjectively shared? Language use indicates that they can. As is exemplified in our being able to understand skits such as “Dude, you know.” “Know what?” “Dude …” “Oh, right, of course.”

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And as could also be argued for some Fly of the Lords or other: were it to be a known unknown.

It always struck me as odd that a bunch of numbskulls oblivious to the fact that a train is about to hit them should be rescued so as to live and reproduce in favor of killing an individual that, in one way or another, has no evident stupidity to speak of. … A kind of Darwin Awards handed to those who so select for the human species’ gene pool.

p.s. I should add: that whole intentional killing of a person thing aside.

Your castaway might well be able to find a better way to deal with their stress. — Banno

I’m curious: How do you differentiate the philosophical issue of “how one should live” from that of “morality”? (I view the former as a subset of ethics - very much including virtue ethics - but you might disagree in so far as interpreting ethics to be equivalent to morality.)

Because the nature of their reality is not subject to verification. They are processes inside the subjective consciousness of an organism: real to the subject, unreal to everyone else. — Vera Mont

You say, “unreal to everyone else,” am I’m about as flabbergasted as one can get. Like, the wants, the desires, of your loved ones are unreal to you unless they act out - and then it’s a “maybe” and “just in case” kind of mindset on your part as to them actually having any desires.

Since I’m in no mood to argue this very pivotal disagreement we have, I’m gonna part company right here.

In trying to address the basics:

I already stated that it's not a question of truth. — Vera Mont

Because psychological wants have no reality? If wants are real, then there will necessarily be truth-apt propositions in reference to them. Hence, a question of truth.

I don't believe in a disembodied 'underlying want' that can seek fulfillment. — Vera Mont

Um, yea. Neither do I. As I hope is not a news flash, humans, for instance, are embodied together with their psychological wants.

If you don't believe in wants that seek fulfillment, then what would a "want" entail other than that it be fulfilled? Wants can be subconscious emotions that attempt to influence us as conscious agents or else be our own, as in "I want X"; either way, they seek fulfillment as far as I know.

As to not believing in such a thing as an "underlying want", when a person wants to turn on the radio it's usually because of an underlying want to hear what the radio is playing. Examples of underlying wants can be quite numerous. On what grounds to you conclude that sentience does not have a base underlying want that motivates all others?

(I'm running short on time; will check in later on.)

For instance, is it right, or else good, that mental aberrations occur? — javra


This is not a question of ethics or morality — Vera Mont

Never claimed it is. I claimed that we ascribe value judgments to it: as in, it is of value or not of value ... right / good or wrong / bad in this sense ... and not one of ethics, which would be a category error unless the mental aberrations were to be intentionally caused.

Is the person's self-cutting neither good nor bad? — javra

Yes.
To me, morality is an issue of individual-in-the-world; a karmic issue, if you like. — Vera Mont

It to me seems obvious that if the self-cutting serves to satisfy the immediate want of the individual then the act is good relative to the short-term goals of the individual. If it does not, or else is contrary to the more long-term goals of the individual, than it is not good to the very same individual. Individuals can and often enough do hold contrary wants at the same time but in different respects.

In this case, I'm not sure either that responsibility can attributed, or that harm has been done.
Is scarification morally wrong? It's certainly deemed ethical in their cultures. Is it okay for western people to have tattoos and studs? — Vera Mont

Psychologically speaking, self-cutting is intentionally done for the purposes of inflicting bodily self-harm intended to result in various degrees of emotive euphoria. It's like a drug to those who do it: a kind of runner's high incurred from willfully inflicted pain. It is not done so as to decorate oneself, apropos to tattoos and studs.

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Aside from which, all this is sidelining the main issue I've brought up. Here, for the sake of argument, I'll momentarily consent that ethics by necessity entails the interaction between agents. Is it not logically possible that ethical judgments can be correct or incorrect? Such that if one judges that torture is bad, this ethical judgment can be truth-apt relative to the reality of a universally shared, underlying want that seeks to be fulfilled? (Here presuming you've read my previous posts on this matter.)

I would call it a mental aberration rather than a wrong action. This is not an intellectualized answer but my gut reaction: "Poor guy's going bananas over there!" I would wish he didn't, but not blame him for it. — Vera Mont

Fair enough. We nevertheless do hold value judgements in regard to mental aberrations. For instance, is it right, or else good, that mental aberrations occur? As to the ethical component, to me it yet remains a murky issue, this with the understanding that ethics addressed right and wrong conduct - and, in this sense, conduct which is either good or bad. Is the person's self-cutting neither good nor bad?

BTW, I wouldn't blame the individual either in the sense of finding the individual deserving of punishment or scorn for their actions. But in a different sense of the word, who else is technically responsible for the act of self-harm but the individual themselves?

Thanks, though, for the honest reply. Something to think about.

Banno seems to have a very big problem with this, [...] — Metaphysician Undercover

I've noticed. :grin:

In fairness to me, these are only forum postings, so they’re not as robust in their content as one might want of a comprehensive philosophy. My main intent was to show how it is logically possible that value judgements - in relation to both preferences and ethics - can be eighter correct or incorrect. In short, if there is a universal want, and a means of satisfying that want that all individuals can in principle approach, then all ethical judgments of good and bad - wherein two or more individuals interact - can in principle be appraised by the metric of how well the given action or interaction satisfies the complete fulfilment of the given universal want: this complete fulfilment then being that which is the correct, universal good. All this having been somewhat better expressed in my previous post.

As to there being a sharp distinction in type between value judgments applied to personal preferences and value judgments applied to ethics, I by in large agree: ethical values for the most part tend to always concern two or more interacting agents each with their own personal preferences (despite all holding an underlying universal want, if such in fact does occur). This interaction between agents being to my mind fully subsumed by the logical possibility of correctness previously addressed.

But here’s one possible exception to the rule of thumb: a sole castaway on an island with no hope of rescue cuts themselves to relieve stress. Since there’s no interaction between persons, is this action then good strictly on account of it being the personal preference of the individual? I know that various intellectualized answers could be provided, but also believe that in our gut we all sense there’s something wrong with so doing … despite the activity not infringing upon anyone other and it being what the person wants. To me this is a murky area of ethics: it addresses harm and health of life in manners that ice-cream flavor preferences do not.

BTW, I use "ethics" instead of "morality" because the latter to me strongly connotes established mores (customs and norms) whereas the former does not - instead strictly addressing right and wrong conduct. One can for example thereby stipulate: the morality of female circumcision held by some people is unethical (such that the given morality is of itself unethical).

:up:

Piggybacking on your example for a bit in terms of truth of value judgments:

From the very simple: If I deem strawberry ice cream to be a bad ice cream flavor, then it will be true that strawberry is a bad flavor of ice cream for me.

To the slightly more complex: If all humans find dirt-flavored food to be bad, then it will be true that dirt-flavored food will be universally bad for all humans.

And to the somewhat extreme: If a) all life strives to successfully live and b) no life can survive consuming what is relative to itself a lethal poison, then it will be true that consumption of lethal poisons will be universally bad for all life in general.

Maybe needless to add, such that “bad” is of itself a value judgment - irrespective of how tacitly it might be made.

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… And now likely distancing myself from your views by a few lightyears’ distance:

As regards ethics in general: One could in theory progress in the same manner from concrete personal truths to concrete universal truths regarding what is good by finding out what is the/an underlying universal want shared by all life, oneself included. If this premised universal want shared by all life were to be existentially true (i.e., conformant to the reality of the matter), then the complete satisfaction of this want among all life would in turn be an existentially true, universal good. Then, anything which serves to satisfy this true (again, conformant to the reality of the matter) idealization of a universal good would itself be a good in due measure; whereas what deviates from satisfying this universal good would be in due measure a bad. Hence, here, for any action X, one could in turn ask: “Is it true that X serves to satisfy that which is universally good?” If yes, then X ought to be done; if no, then it ought not be done.

But this in large part pivots on there being such a thing as an underlying universal want shared by all life. Maybe obviously, it would need to be something extremely generalized: maybe - as psychologists might say - such as notions of optimally reducing negative valence and maximizing positive valence in oneself given interactions with one’s surroundings or - as us more common folk might translate - finding a means wherein one no longer unduly suffers while yet being with others.

Then again, this gets into metaphysical contemplations regarding what drives life in general and, as is by now no surprise, for many (especially those of a physicalist bent) even contemplating such notions is tantamount to philosophical absurdity.

For my part, though, I’m gonna leave this in as an earnest illustration of how it in fact is logically / metaphysically possible that ethical value judgments could be correct or incorrect - and, by extension, either true or false. Make of it what you will.

No one said it was. — Banno

:cool:

:rofl: Since when has the popularity of beliefs become an accurate indicator of their truth-value?

For all prom queen wannabees out there: the striving for popularity is a Socially Transmitted Disease. Something to do with selling out and lack of authenticity or other. But then all the prom queen wannabees are bound to disagree. :roll:

This is because we have been pacified for far to long to conceive of and work towards these arrangements. — NOS4A2

Agreed.

For what it's worth:

In an idealistic sense, I find the notion of pure anarchy to be almost, if not fully, indistinguishable from the notions of pure communism (or, community-ism) and of pure democracy (akin to what they were close to having in ancient Athens). Not wanting to write a thesis on this, in short, they to me all seem to require the same codes of conduct. Things don't ever remain static, so, from my pov, it's a question of whether societies move toward this just expressed ideal of universal "fraternity, equality, and liberty" or else toward its converse: that of an ever-more powerful authoritarian regime (which some do hold as their ideal governance, given that they happen to be on the side which is in control).

Obviously, the former ideal is unrealizable in the world as we presently know it, but incremental progression toward this for now utopian state of affairs is not: Hence the ideals of the functional democratic-republic wherein, for one example, all powers are to be in checks and balances and, as yet another example, all citizens are to be deemed endowed with equal right regardless of the power they might wield.

Yes, the aforementioned is somewhat overly simplified, and will likely be rather controversial for many, but I find that the issue is always a matter of where we're headed to politically. And without a clearer sense of the ideals we strive for, it's likely that we'll move about like a headless chicken ... which is to say randomly, in contrast to having an idea of where we should be going as our long term goal which guides our actions in the present.

Statism also requires that everyone is on the same page in terms of ethical conduct. If anyone violates certain rules, for instance, he can be kidnapped and imprisoned. — NOS4A2

To be more specific about what I wanted to say: Unlike any Stalinistic governance that ever was, I find that a sustained anarchy will require that no one individual in the community violates the implicitly agreed upon ethical conduct of the community, and this of their own accord. And this because ...

I’m not so sure it’s utopian, though. A consequence of ending a monopoly on violence is its dispersion, and I’m sure most anarchists are aware of that. Violence will occur; people will try to seize control; and hopefully they will be met with the force of free people. — NOS4A2

I take it that violence toward others and attempts to seize control will both be violations of the ethical conduct which anarchy assumes. Given this:

When starting off with a baseline of anarchy (no governance) in a given community, violators of ethical conduct will gain power over non-violators of said conduct, thereby resulting in a governance of the community (one that will quite arguably be corrupt to boot) and thereby an end of the anarchy which previously was. To prevent this, a sustained checks and balances of power is required; in an anarchistic community this will translate into all individuals of the community needing to wield equal power - be it physical, social, economic, etc., or any combination of these - so as to prevent one individual assuming more power than the rest.

While this can be done with good enough approximations of the just stated ideal in very small communities, in large societies it to my thinking does become utopian thinking - by which I here mean unrealistic thinking.

The social contract (which is, granted, not a signed document. and nobody thinks it is) yields mutual support and benefit. That's how a functioning society works.

The social contract of mutually beneficial behavior would exist in an anarchist society as much as, maybe more than, it does in a hierarchical society. Our human ability to mirror other people's needs, desires, pains, etc. long preceded civil society. — Bitter Crank

Well said.

As a kind of apropos, if one cares to think of it this way, social lesser animals also each have their own “unsigned social contracts”: a grouping of meerkats (which are relatively, but by no means perfectly, non-hierarchical, if I remember right) will abide by a social contract different from that of a grouping of wolves (which are relatively speaking very hierarchical, starting with two alpha mates and going down to the omega) - yet both these examples can perform feats of reciprocal altruism that some humans can only presume to be “unnatural”.

Well, my take on the philosophy of anarchy: it's the unrealistically optimistic belief that all individuals in a large grouping of humans can remain ethical toward each other’s needs without hierarchical governance and policing - and that it's this very governance which makes many humans less than ethical. I find its unrealistic optimism right up there with the ideal of communism (in contrast to the concrete practice of what can be termed Stalinism): can work for some very small groupings, like a kibbutz, but it requires that all participants are on the same page in terms of ethical conduct … without there being any rotten apple to spoil the bunch.

There are no correct moral claims. People only have incorrect opinions on what's good/bad, what should/shouldn't exist.

To say that torture is bad is to say that moral claims can be true. If moral facts could not ever be true, the torture would not be bad, there would be no reason to prevent torture. — Leftist

Value judgements have connection to truth in that value judgements can be correct or incorrect. [...] They must all always be incorrect claims, if it is true that no claims made of value can be true. Otherwise, there must be an actual system in place that determines actual morality, much more than just "x people think y should be done, therefore y should actually be done". — Leftist

What your posts seem to be asking for is some substantial argument for the occurrence of a universal good that is always existentially correct. Something akin to what Plato addresses as “the Good”. I say, good luck with that.

Until then, here is one example wherein value judgments can be correct and incorrect:

You want to visit a relative who lives in some distant part of the world across some ocean, and this in a relatively short period of time. To accomplish this feat, you will need to fly there.

Here are two conceivable options: a) going to the top of some tall building and jumping off of it while flapping one’s arms so as to fly to the given destination; b) investing some money in an airplane ticket so as to fly to the given destination.

If one deems option (a) to be the good option to take, this being a value judgment, the value judgment would be incorrect - for (a) cannot fulfill one’s want. Deeming option (b) to be the good option to take, however, would be a correct value judgment - for (b) readily can fulfill one’s want.

Here, the correctitude or incorrectitude of the matter in no way relies upon what a majority of people think.

Therefore, value judgments can indeed be correct or incorrect, as I think this example makes clear. While this doesn’t account for everything, it to my mind does demonstrate that value nihilism - a position maintaining that no value judgment can be correct or else incorrect - is an erroneous position.

Which in turn evidences the logical possibility that at least some moral claims can be correct or incorrect. To be clear, I'm not here going to uphold that they in fact are ... but am only suggesting that it's logically possible that they might be.

Can thoughts ever be aware of themselves or can only the thinker create thoughts without fully knowing what they are? What is being asked? — TiredThinker

Just saw the video. It’s always possible that something important becomes lost in translation. Nevertheless, to me:

1) Consciousness is synonymous to first-person awareness (in contrast, for example, to unconscious awareness)

2) First-person awareness is no more equivalent to the things it thinks than it is to the things it perceives - instead being that which is aware of thoughts and perceptions. Hence, first-person awareness is not equivalent to thoughts - but is instead that which experiences thoughts.

3) So when asking “can consciousness be aware of itself” one is asking “can first-person awareness be aware of itself” - such that its thoughts have nothing essential to do with the issue.

There might be contention with the just mentioned. Still, given this understanding, I can’t make heads or tails of the video’s propositions.

But in answer to (3) as just mentioned, my take is: yes, all the time, and necessarily so.

When one as a conscious being - i.e., as a consciousness - is joyful, sorrowful, certain, doubtful, pensive, surprised, “in the zone”, etc. one will only ascertain and thereby know this about oneself as a first-person awareness by being directly aware of oneself as a first-person awareness. Such that, here, there is no gap - else stated, no duality - between that which is aware and that which it is aware of. Thoughts do not need to be in any way involved here, and most of the time aren’t.

Though of course one can invoke thoughts simply by thinking about this otherwise ordinary state of affairs. And this state of affairs will be utterly different then that type of self-consciousness wherein one is aware of a conceptual understanding, hence of thoughts regarding, what oneself as a first-person awareness is (e.g., I am a human earthling, such and such’s child, of this height rather than that, etc.).

I gather this is most likely a very different view from that entertained by Krishnamurti ... but it does address the question of whether consciousness can be aware of itself.