I was expecting some study or something showing that when people raise their arms, the causal chain leading to the movement starts arbitrarily, suddenly, without any detectable material causer. That's what we would expect to see if immaterial minds really did interact with material brains.

That would constitute evidence. — khaled

No, that's just you being confused and begging the question. It's what you do.

Sure, and that's the first argument I gave on the thread. I asked "What's the relative molar mass of Love" — khaled

That's not my argument. That's just a question. There's playing every note on the piano, and then there's a Chopin etude. If Chopin plays his etude no. 1 you can't then say "yes, I wrote that - I did it when I played all those notes earlier".

On the grounds that that would violate conservation of energy and momentum. — khaled

Where's your argument for this?

It makes no sense to ask it as unaided self-reflection, but that doesn't mean that through some assisted view (externally) your mind could not see itself better then you mind alone can. — simeonz

I am not entirely sure what you mean. I interpret you as saying that just because our reason tells us that it makes no sense to ask "what does your mind smell of?" that does not entail that our minds lack smells.

I agree. None of the 14 arguments I have is a proof. Not by themselves. The 14 together are. But individually they just provide prima facie evidence.

There's an animal in my kitchen that appears to be a cat. Perhaps I'm just hallucinating it. Perhaps it is a cleverly disguised hamster. But it appears to be a cat. And that's good prima facie evidence there's a cat in my kitchen.

Likewise, my reason represents my mind to be an immaterial thing, for it says of it that it makes no sense to wonder about what sensible properties it might have.

That is not a proof, for my reason could be misleading me. But it is prima facie evidence nonetheless. And to challenge it one would need to locate some more powerfully rationally self-evident countervailing evidence.

Materialism to me has only one consequence, objective reality, — simeonz

That's just the thesis. Materialism 'just is' the thesis that there is an objective - that is, 'existing extra-mentally' - reality.

If you justify this presupposition as being evident to you — simeonz

It is self-evident to virtually everybody. "Is your mind rough or smooth?" makes no sense. It's like asking "how loud is 3?"

This radical apparent dissimilarity between minds and sensible objects is what most contemporary philosophers of mind are, in one way or another, grappling with. So, the powerfully self-evident nature of my first premise is not exactly peculiar to me.

This is contemporary philosophy of mind: let's assume as our working hypothesis that the mind is a piece of cheese. Now let's note what a whole heap of problems this generates. And now let's exercise our ingenuity and strut our intellectual stuff trying to solve them.

It's really silly.

If there is just one mind, what would draw a boundary between the mind simply being compelled by unnatural forces and the mind being part of a physical world? Those two options become distinguishable only terminologically. There is no other sense of distinction between them. — simeonz

I don't know what you're talking about. Imagine materialism is true. Now imagine you're the only material object that has conscious states. Bingo, now you're a materialist solipsist.

Imagine dualism is true. Now imagine that your material body is the only one with an immaterial mind associated with it. Bingo, now you're a dualist solipsist.

Imagine immaterialism is true and imagine that your mind and its mental states are all that exist. Bingo, now you're an immaterialist solipsist.

Solipsism is a view about the number of minds in existence. It is the view that there is 1. It is not a view about what the mind is made of.

Solotincanism is the view that there is one tin can in my cupboard. It is not a view about what's in the can. It is consistent with beanism, and beetrootism, and pinneapleism.

You didn't state whether you are theist, so I provided a theist option. — simeonz

I didn't state it because it is not relevant. You can be a theist materialist, a theist dualist, and a theist immaterialist. Theism is the view that God, or a god, exists. It is not a view about the nature of the mind.

What is the problem? I thought that the problem is how can the mind exist. It solves that problem. — simeonz

And how does it solve that problem? Let's just be clear: this is a problem for the materialist, yes? They - and they alone - have difficulty explaining how mental states can somehow emerge from, or 'be' material states. Now, a) I have refuted that view. So there's no problem. B) even if there was a problem, how on earth would panpsychism solve it?

Yes, well on your scheme no matter how many times I give an argument for immaterialism about the mind it will never constitute evidence in support of the thesis.

But anyway, this argument (and about 13 others) is prima facie evidence that the mind is immaterial (why? Because it is a valid and its premises are powerfully self-evident to reason):

1. If one's mind is a sensible object, then it makes sense to wonder what colour, shape, smell, texture or taste it might have.
2. It does not make sense to wonder what colour, shape, smell, texture, or taste one's mind has
3. Therefore, one's mind is not a sensible object.

Like I say, I have 13 more of these. And to date, I haven't heard a single good one - not a single one - for the materiality of the mind.

So,
1. My mind appears not to be a sensible object.
2. My mind appears causally to interact with sensible objects (I just decided to move my hand, for instance - the decision was a mental event, but that mental event appears to have moved my hand, which is a sensible thing).
3. Therefore, my mind appears not to be a sensible object and appears causally to interact with sensible objects.

There. Two valid arguments, both with manifestly true premises.

Solipsism denies an objective world. Materialism and dualism both require it. — simeonz

No, that's just confused. Solipsism is a view about the number of minds that exist. It is 'not' a view about the nature of the mind. One can be a materialist solipsist, one can be a dualist solipsist, one can be an immaterialist solipsist.

It can have implication about the mind, because it spiritualizes matter, making it conscious. In other words, it can become a theistic version of panpsychism. — simeonz

What? I made arguments in support of the view that our minds are not sensible objects. No premise in any of my arguments (I gave 2, I have 14 - and what I am about to say is true of all 14) assumed a position on deities.

What is so silly about it? You can have mind and it can be the result of your material embodiment's innate ability for experience. — simeonz

There's nothing to be said for it. It doesn't solve any problems. It's just silly.

You still didn't answer why you believe automatically that the mind must have inherent ability for realization of its own form? (The faces analogy.) — simeonz

I am afraid I don't know what you mean or what your faces analogy was supposed to illustrate.

most philosophers don't believe free will is possible, using THEIR reason (to use your words) so that point is debatable to begin with. — GLEN willows

That's totally untrue. Most philosophers believe free will is both possible and actual. Only a minority believe we lack free will, and an even smaller number of those hold the even more extreme view that free will is impossible.

As well as being untrue, it is also irrelevant. I made an argument - which premise is false? One can't do philosophy by surveying contemporary philosophers.

Why do you say this? What's your proof of that? If we have free will, but it IS part of the brain, what would the difference be? — GLEN willows

I say it because it is self-evident to the reason of most people. It's even got a name - it's called the transfer principle. If I am unfree in respect of A - so, exercised no free will over A's occurrence - and A is wholly causally responsible for B's occurrence, then I am unfree in respect of B.

If I am a sensible object, then the transfer principle entails I am unfree. But my reason tells me that I am free. Thus, as both the transfer principle and my possession of freedom are self-evident to reason, whereas materialism about the mind is not, then it is materialism about the mind that the rational person will reject.

Ok...first off I'll say that as a student of philosophy and science, both, I'm surprised at how little stock philosophers seem to put in the science involved with brain injuries and operations - including split-brain operations. In all of these, damage to the brain directly affects qualia. Can you explain that? — GLEN willows

Why are you surprised at this? Do you think philosophers have been labouring under the misguided belief that doing things to the brain has no affect on our minds? You don't need to do any science to know that the sensible world affects what goes on in our minds. I am seeing a computer right now. That's a sensible thing - and it is affecting my mind. I am 'seeing' it - the seeing is a state my mind is in.

So, for thousands of years, and without any assistance from science, philosophers have been abundantly well aware that the sensible world affects our minds. That wasn't a discovery made in science! It's been obvious to anyone and everyone for the history of rational humanity.

And it isn't - isn't - evidence that the mind is a sensible thing. Take a balloon and fill it with water and tie the end. What shape is the water? It's pear shaped, yes? Now alter the shape of the balloon by gently squeezing it. Has doing that to the balloon affected the shape of the water? Yes, obviously. Does it follow that the water 'is' the balloon? No, obviously not. That doing something to A affects B, does not entail that A 'is' B. (And that remains the case even if something about A determines something about B).

Doing things to our brains obviously affects what goes on in our minds. Nobody disputes that. But that is not evidence that our minds 'are' our brains. That would be to reason as fallaciously as in the balloon case.

When I ask for evidence that the mind is the brain, that's all I'm ever given. Yet it rests on a simple mistake: the mistake of thinking that if A affects B, A 'is' B.

The mind is clearly a distinct entity from the brain - that's what the evidence suggests. But it just as clearly interacts with the brain.

Some think this interaction would be impossible if the mind and the sensible objects it interacts with are fundamentally different kinds of entity. Pick up any intro book to philosophy of mind and this one will be lazily trotted out as if it is some kind of decisive refutation.

But a) it is a rubbish objection, as if we have good evidence that the mind is an immaterial object, and good evidence that the mind interacts with radically different objects such as the brain, then we have good evidence that two different kinds of thing can interact. And b) even if it wasn't a rubbish objection, it would not imply the mind is a sensible thing, so much as that sensible things are in fact made of mental states.

Er, what? I have just argued that the mind is not a sensible object.

You have said 'why not solipsism?' That's not an alternative view - it's like saying "why not eat a pizza?"

Solipsism is not a view about the nature of the mind, but the number of minds in existence (it is the view that there is precisely one mind in existence - your own). Solipsism, then, is neutral between materialist and immaterialist views about the mind.

Pantheism is a view about God. So quite why you're raising it I do not know.

And panpsychism is just silly and not implied by any of the arguments I gave.

Presumably you think that mental states are brain states?

What evidence do you have for this?

Imagine I have a metal detector. It detects metal really well. No matter how well it detects metal, that isn't evidence that everything - including the metal detector - is metal, is it?

So, we have science - science investigates the sensible world and it does so very well. But it would be silly to conclude on that basis that therefore everything is sensible.

Perhaps you will point out that brain states have been found to be strongly correlated to mental states. Okay, but the flashing and bleeping that my metal detector makes is strongly correlated to there being metal in its vicinity, but that is not evidence that the flashing and beeping are metal.

Perhaps you will say that, nevertheless, as we have been so successful at finding metal, and lots of things turn out to be made of metal (though to be honest, all the things that turn out to be made of metal appeared to be made of metal in the first place, all the metal detector did is tell us more about the metal) we should have as our working hypothesis that the metal detector itself is made of metal, indeed that by default everything is until we know better.

But even if that's true - and it isn't - it would be perverse to insist that something is metal that positively appears not to be. I mean, if you insist that something of that kind is metal, then all you've done is show that you are a dogmatist in possession of an unfalsifiable thesis.

Yet that's how things are with our minds and their mental states. They do not begin to appear to be sensible objects, and mental states do not appear to be states of a sensible thing.

Sensible objects have colours, shapes, sizes, smells, tastes. But my reason assures me that it is positively confused to think of my mind as having any of these qualities. So my mind does not appear to be a sensible object. It may still be, of course, for appearances are sometimes deceptive, including rational appearances. But where's the evidence? We cannot have - on pain of a radical and inescapable scepticism - as a working hypothesis that appearances are deceptive until we have reason to think otherwise. The reverse is true: we have resaon to think that appearances are accurate until we have reason to think otherwise. But if we listen to our reason and not convention, it tells us loud and clear that our minds are not sensible objects.

My reason also tells me that I have free will, yet tells me at the same time that I would not have free will - not of the robust responsibility-grounding kind that it insists I have - if everything about me traces to external causes. Yet if I were a sensible object, everything about me would trace to external causes. So my reason tells me, once more, that I - my mind, that is - am not a sensible object.

And on and on it goes - there are loads of these arguments (I think I have about 14). They're not decisive, admittedly. But each one counts for something - each one is some evidence, prima facie evidence, that our minds are not sensible objects.

What countervailing evidence do you have that our minds are sensible objects?

I should say what, in more detail, is wrong with your case.

First, there is no question in my mind that testimonial evidence can count, and can count for a lot. But it does not invariably do so. Philosophers distinguish between 'defeaters' and 'undercutters'. A defeater is countervailing evidence. An 'undercutter' is something that undermines the probative force that a piece of apparent evidence would otherwise have.

Normally, if something appears to be the case, that is good evidence that it is in fact the case. And we can apply this basic principle - the principle of phenomenal conservatism - to testimony as well. Normally, if someone says that something is the case, that provides us with some reason to think that what they are saying is true. And so if someone says that they had a near death experience as if they were going down a tunnel towards a light or whatever, then this provides us with default reason to think that they did indeed have such an experience. And as experiences of this kind - experiences with representative content (so, 'appearances' of some sort or other) - are default evidence in support of what they represent, then accordingly we can conclude that we have some reason to think that what appeared to this person to happen to them, did in fact happen to them.

So far, I take it, you would agree with all of this. For it is only if all of this is true that mounting up more such experiences will add probative force.

The problem, however, is that there are many circumstances under which we have undercutters for phenomenal appearances. If, for example, everyone in a room has taken a powerful drug that makes them extremely suggestable, and written on a blackboard in the room is the statement "there's a flying pig in the corner" - something that everyone in the room now confirms does indeed appear to be the case - we do not suddenly have good evidence that there is a flying pig in the corner. The fact all these people are on drugs and that flying pigs are things we have hitherto had no evidence exist, makes the more reasonable explanation that there is no flying pig in the corner and that the appearances to the contrary are the result of the drug's operations.

Well, that's the case with near death experiences and with dream experiences. There is no serious question that we do have the experiences constitutive of dream experiences, and no question that such experiences have a great deal in common, are attested to by virtually everyone, and, while one is subject to them anyway, can have representative contents as vivid as that contained by any phenomenal experience. And there is no serious question, I think, about near death experiences either - or at least, you won't find me questioning it. But in both cases we are in unusual circumstances - circumstances that operate as undercutters for those experiences. When it comes to sleep, we are unconscious. Our normal sensory modalities are not functioning. And so the more reasonable explanation of these experiences is not that they are accurate and that sleep transports us all to a bizarre other realm in which other laws of nature operate, but that we are hallucinating. And the same is true of near death experiences: those who have them are unconscious at the time and furthermore their body is under extreme stress. The idea that we become 'more' reliably hooked up to reality under those circumstances seems to me to be utterly bizarre and one only someone quite unreasonable would make.

It was a point that Descartes made. It would be foolish, he thought, to think that you become 'better' at discerning reality when you're asleep than when awake. And similarly, it would be foolish to think you become better when you are dying.

So, although there is no serious question that testimonial evidence often counts (and can count for a lot), the fact is that the testimonial evidence you are appealing to has no real probative force at all. In terms of what testimonial evidence can provide in the way of direct evidence for an afterlife, we actually have much better such evidence for a dreamland. And of course, as any reasonable person recognizes, we do not have good evidence for a dreamland. A fortiori, we do not have good evidence - not in the form of this kind of testimonial anyway - for an afterlife.

You are not addressing the objection. All of us have had dreams that we would say seemed robustly real. When we subsequently judge them to be dreams this does not alter the fact that they seemed, phenomenologically, to be real. We would testify to how real they seemed. Again, virtually all of us - billions upon billions of us - could provide such testimonies, including you, yes?
Such testimonies satisfy all of your criteria and thus provide us with evidence - proof, by your lights - of another realm.
Only, of course, they don't and so something has gone wrong with your lights. Again, I stress that all of your criteria are satisfied by our dream testimonies.
Note too you can't just dismiss this criticism as expressing a prejudice, for I believe in an afterlife. It is just that I believe in it on good grounds, not the dodgy grounds that you do.

That is not a convincing reply. Your case now rests entirely on the supposed hyper real quality that some testimonies report. Yet most of us have had dreams that seemed every bit as 'real' as waking life. So again, by your logic we have excellent testimonial evidence for another reality that we all visit when we sleep.

Note too that the out of body experiences are different. I am talking about those who report having the experience of going to another place.

I think there is overwhelming evidence that our minds are immaterial, eternally existing objects. I know of no good evidence that the mind is a sensible object, only a lot of fallacious arguments to this conclusion (of the 'brain events cause mental events....therefore the mind is the brain' variety).

I am unsure if you would agree about the nature of the mind. I describe my view just to assure you that I am not committed to the prevailing materialist worldview. I believe in afterlife and past lives. I just think the kind of evidence you have provided is very weak by itself. I stress that this is not to dismiss it. It is just to say that it counts for very little and if someone believes in an afterlife solely on the basis of these kinds of testimony, then their belief is very poorly supported to the point of being unreasonable.

For example, surely the same reasoning that you employed in your original argument would commit you to insisting that there is a dream realm that we all travel to when we sleep?

Virtually all of us report having dreams when we go to sleep. And although the content of our dreams varies a lot, there are lots of resemblances - curious things happen in them; our perspective often radically alters; they have a strange atmosphere; we ourselves seem remarkably unperturbed by their strangeness while having them and so on. Lots and lots of things in common - so much so that it is safe to say that we share the same concept of a dream. I mean, we a use the same basic method to distinguish dream from reality, so all of our dreamlands differ from here in the same kind of systematic way.

All of this testimony is, of course, good evidence that dreams exist. We really do have them. And probably virtually every sleeping person has them even if on any given night only about 5% of sleepers remember having them (I just made that figure up for illustrative purposes).

But it is not good evidence that there exists a dream realm governed by laws of nature very different to those operative here and that we all travel to when we sleep, surely?

Wouldn't you be committed to saying otherwise? I mean the testimonial evidence for the dream realm is orders of magnitude better than that which you are offering for a post morten realm. So are you not now committed to adding a dream realm as well?

Incorrect. Premise two is redundant and unnecessary. Premise 3 logically follows from premise 1. Though judging by your post I find you to be an idiot. — Darkneos

Er, no. 3 does not follow from 1. As for your judgement that I am an idiot - well, that's the Dunning Kruger effect for you. Experts seem like idiots to idiots.

It's not clear to me what you're asking in your OP.

Nobody denies that prescriptions exist. "Shut the window!" There. That's one.

And there can be descriptions of prescriptions. "Bartricks just ordered us to shut the window". And some of those descriptions can be true.

So I do not really understand the difficulty. There are prescriptions and there are descriptions. Prescriptions can be complied with or flouted, but can't be true or false. Descriptions can be true or false. But that doesn't prevent there from being descriptions of prescriptions, some of which are true.

I think your view is very silly.

If morality is a matter of opinion, then if I have the opinion that Xing is right, it is right, yes? I mean, unless that follows I don't know what you mean by 'a matter of opinion'.

Well, that's clearly false. If I have the opinion that X is right, that doesn't entail that it actually is right. I will believe it is right. But it won't necessarily actually be right.

That's as foolish as thinking that if I have the opinion that I have a partner, then I do. No, whether I have a partner or not is not a matter of opinion, even though I have opinions about it. Likewise, morality is not a matter of opinion, but is rather a matter about which we have opinions.

This fallacy - the fallacy of confusing a means of awareness with an object of awareness - is what's principally responsible for the widespread belief in individual and collective moral subjectivism among the public.

Yet it is just poor reasoning.

Here's some more poor reasoning (I have never been able to comprehend how anyone can think this a good argument - it's just so obviously stupid - yet whenever I ask anyone to defend their individual or collective subjectivist views, this is the argument I am invariably given).

1. Different people and groups have different moral beliefs
2. Therefore, morality is individually or collectively subjective

Obviously as stated the conclusion doesn't follow. It needs the following premise added to it

1. Different people and groups have different moral beliefs
2. If different people and groups have different moral beliefs, then morality is individually or collectively subjective
3. Therefore, morality is collectively subjective

But 2 is obviously false. I believe it's raining. You believe it is sunny. Therefore whether it is raining or sunny is just a matter of opinion. That's the same logic, yes? The same logic by which many reach the conclusion that morality is individually or collectively subjective, would imply that weather is too. Yet it isn't.

(Reply on behalf of the ignorant - 'oh, but, dur, weather is objective'.....er, yes, that's the point!)

Note: the fact that different people at different times and places have had different moral beliefs is, at best, evidence for 'relativism'. But relativism isn't subjectivism. If morality is individually or collectively subjective, then it is also relative. But it does not follow that it morality is relative it is individually or collectively subjective.

The fact is there is no good evidence that morality is individually or collectively subjective. Which is why you find that it is almost exclusively non-experts who hold that view about morality, whereas the experts- though they disagree among themselves about exactly what morality is - nevertheless agree that it is not individually or collectively subjective.

More gobbledygook. Media studies may be a better fit methinks.

I am discussing Strawson's argument. Criticising it. It's called philosophy.

It's implicit. Try reading the article and thinking about what he's saying.

And what you said was not written in plain English. It was gobbledygook. It had nothing to do with what Strawson argued.

Your assessment of Strawson's argument has nothing whatsoever to do with his argument. I mean, what on earth does this mean:

As the assertion is that moral responsibility is impossible, given Strawson's argument here, it would have to be Robinson Crusoe - cast away on a desert island, far removed from any real world moral expectations of him, in regard to which he may or may not be morally responsible, and reliant solely upon his own resources, for this condition to hold — counterpunch

It's complete gobbledygook. Strawson's point is the one I expressed in the OP. Namely, that one's decisions are a product of one's character, but to be morally responsible for those decisions one would need to be morally responsible for one's character. But our characters are a product of external cause - heredity and environment - neither of which are things for which we bear any moral responsiblity.

So, what's the more basic underlying principle at work here? It is this one: that if one is not morally responsible for A, and one is not morally responsible for B, and A and B are causally responsible for C, then one is not morally responsible for C.

As such, even if one's decisions are the conscious product of a reason-responsive process, one will not be morally responsible for them if one is not morally responsible for their causal precursors.

That's Strawson's assumption. I think it is correct.

But Strawson thinks that the 'only' way that this condition can be satisfied is if we create ourselves from scratch (which is, of course, impossible).

He's wrong though. If we are uncreated things then the condition would be satisfied.

Thus, Strawson is incorrect. Moral responsibility is not impossible, it just requires that we be something that flies in the face of conventional beliefs about what we are.

This is the point at which you find something out about yourself: are you a true follower of reason or do you let convention restrict where she can lead you? That is, do you put reason above convention, or vice versa?

(Note, Strawson is conventional at a crucial juncture - for he says "It is undeniable that one is the way one is, initially, a a result of heredity and early experience". No, Strawson, that is deniable.)

You have allowed that we might not be morally responsible, and since it is impossible to know that something false is true, the possible falsity of the proposition that we are morally responsible rules out the possibility that we can be certain of knowing it. — Janus

I don't know what you mean. The two claims of mine that you quoted were perfectly compatible with one another.

Strawson thinks it is metaphysically impossible to be morally responsible, because he believes that moral responsibility requires the ability to create oneself from scratch. I am disputing that this is necessary. I am pointing out that the only reason to think one would need the ability to create oneself from scratch to be morally responsible is because if one did this - if one created oneself from scratch - then one's subsequent decisions would not trace to external causes. Yet that would also be the case if one was an uncreated thing. And thus contrary to what Strawson has argued, it is metaphysically possible to be morally responsible.

It does not follow from something being metaphysically possible that it is actual. But that's a silly point to keep making. Nobody disputes it. I don't. Strawson doesn't. No one does. The point, though, is that if we have powerful prima facie evidence that a proposition is true, and no reason to doubt the truth of that proposition, then we have the best possible grounds for believing the proposition is true. And if the proposition is indeed true, and we have come to believe in its truth in the right way (one way would involve recognizing that there is overwhelming reason to think it is true and none to think it is false and believing in it accordingly), then we 'know' that it is true.

No, you simply don't know how to express your hodge podge of claims in a logical way.

We both know that you simply can't do what I asked you to do. I mean, if you could, you would.

You are contradicting yourself. — Janus

No I'm not. The views expressed in both of those passages are consistent. Having prima facie evidence that a proposition is true is consistent with that proposition being true. And if it is in fact true that I am morally responsible, and I have prima facie evidence that I am morally responsible and form the belief that I am morally responsible on that basis, then other things being equal I 'know' that I am morally responsible.

What you actually mean is "I can't do that because I don't know how". Waste. Of. Time.

I was merely being helpful. I did not suggest they were the only valid argument forms (like you know what they are!) But just one valid argument would be nice.
Anyway, stop stalling and just present an argument. And try making the premises comprehensible and not gibberish.

Yes, I can read. Is English your first language? What does 'a difference between an intuition and reality cannot be afforded' mean? It's gibberish.

Just express it in this form

1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q

or

1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3. therefore not P.

Lay it out. I'm tired of trying to argue with someone who doesn't know how to argue. Lay it out.

Pssst, premises can't be fallacious. Fallaciousness is a property of arguments, not premises.

Where is the deductively valid argument that has the negation of one of my premises as a conclusion? Lay it out.

Nope. You just can't construct a deductively valid argument that has the negation of one of my premises as a conclusion and has rationally compelling premises, can you?

Then we have as good evidence as we will ever have that uncaused causers don’t exist. — khaled

Question begging. Refute my argument.

I did. The premise that we are morally responsible can be dismissed. — khaled

You didn't.
Do it.

Deductively valid argument (you're going to have trouble there as your arguments have so far been fallacious, almost without exception).

Premises that are self-evident to reason.

Do it.

Isn't that what every one of your discussions devolves to? Why is that, do you think? — counterpunch

Well, my theory about that would be because I'm debating with people who can't recognize an argument from their elbow. The main argument I made in the OP - the one that's interesting and novel - is one that no-one yet seems even to have noticed or said anything about.

It makes no sense to say you have empirical evidence something doesn’t exist. You can only have a lack of evidence that something exists. — khaled

Yes it does. Christ.

Now replace “unicorn” with “uncaused causers” — khaled

No parallel at all. Jesus.

I am challenging it by showing that the intuition that we are morally responsible can be dismissed. — khaled

And you haven't shown that. You've just ineptly dismissed all rational intuitions, which is kinda silly given that all arguments for anything presuppose that at least some rational intuitions are accurate. Good job!

The rest was just you question beggingly expressing your conventional views.

Present valid arguments that have the negation of my premises - whichever one you want to challenge - as conclusions.

There is no empirical evidence that unicorns don’t exist either. — khaled

Erm, yes there is.

An argument made over the internet about the existence of unicorns, or centuries of us failing to find them. I think the latter, wouldn’t you? — khaled

What. On. Earth. Are. You. On. About?

I’ve assumed that all objects capable of moving things are sensible objects. — khaled

Yes, like I say, you're just begging the question. And it doesn't seem to you that you are because a) you're an inept reasoner and b) you're too conventional and thus you think that if a conclusion is unconventional that itself is evidence that it is false. I mean, can you seriously not see how that assumption is question begging? Seriously?

I’ve been challenging premise 2 haven’t I? — khaled

Not that I can see.

Premise 2 says that if I am morally responsible, then not everything I do traces to external causes, yes?

Where have you challenged that? Present a deductively valid argument that has the negation of that premise as a conclusion.

Cod psychology. How about addressing the argument I made? That's what a philosopher would do...

In which premise is the conclusion assumed? — khaled

You assume my view is false for the purposes of refuting it. That's begging the question.

There's no empirical evidence that nothing that exists exists uncaused. There's empirical evidence that sensible objects are caused to exist. So, insofar as you've thought at all about your position, you have simply assumed that all objects that exist are sensible objects. That's not a truth of reason, it is just a conventional belief of the age we live in and it is contradicted by the conclusion of my argument - an argument you've done nothing to challenge any premise of.

Now you’re applying epistemology to itself. “When can you reasonably believe that you can reasonably believe X?”. — khaled

What? No, I am showing you where the logic of 'your' position leads. If you think that an evolutionary account of a rational intuition serves always and everywhere to undermine that rational intuition's credibility, then you would have to conclude that we have no evidence of any reason to believe anything, and as you would 'conclude' that, you would at the same time be assuming that there are reasons to believe things. That's confused - but of course, people who are poor at reasoning will not recognise the confusion inherent in the view and thus will feel no pressure to revise it.

What you need to do is provide a principled account of when an evolutionary explanation does undermine a rational intuition's credibility and when it doesn't. And that principle had better not be one that, when applied consistently, would undermine the credibility of our rational intuition that we have reason to believe things.

Shall I do it for you? I mean, it'll just speed things up.

Here's what I'd say. If we have a rational intuition that seems - intuitively - to be inconsistent with the rest, and if we can in addition see that this particular rational intuition is one that seems highly adaptive, then we have some reason to suppose that that alone is why we are subject to it. That intuition can then be reasonably discounted.

That approach - which is independently motivated - would give us grounds for discounting the rational intuition that procreation is permissible. For if the antinatalists are right, that rational intuition does indeed conflict with a whole load of others and furthermore it is clearly adaptive.

But that approach would not give us grounds for discounting the rational intuitions that represent us to be morally responsible.