There's apparently no capacity to link to chats.

I had two discussions, one in which I had the bot develop a virtue-based response to the trolly problem, along the lines of Foot, to explore its understanding of non-utilitarian ethics. This resulted in it suggesting ethical decisions are based on intuition. I then asked it to evaluate the recent decision on the status of transgender women in the UK High Court, to which it replied that it could not make such a judgement.

So yes, , no skin in the game. It's very reminiscent of talking to Elisa, in that it's the human who carries the conversation forward.

I cannot now access either chat.

Cheers. I've added the generic link to PhilPapers, whcih should be stable and from which folk should be able to find other versions.

The Housing debate was pretty unedifying stuff, but Michael Sukkar showed himself to be a bit of a cunt. He begins by refusing to answer the simple question "How many homes will you build?", instead relying the now tedious practice of attacking his opponent. Then he denies the condemnation of the tax policy, refusing to say if it has been modelled. He refuses to answer the question of how many social and affordable hoses would be built. His behaviour is exactly that which has turned folk away from watching political discussions.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-17/federal-election-debate-housing-policy-negative-gearing/105162886

His mother would not be proud.

Your understanding of necessity is nonexistent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine.



Can there be a necessary being? The answer turns on whether you’re working within S4 or S5. Let’s map this out carefully and then draw a reasoned conclusion.

Here's the difference:
S4:
Axioms:
□p → p (if necessarily p, then p)
□p → □□p (if necessarily p, then necessarily necessarily p)
Accessibility relation: transitive, but not necessarily symmetric.

◇□∃x does not entail □∃x.
The system is more modestly modal: it allows nested possibilities without flattening them.
Therefore, even if a necessary being is possible, it doesn’t follow that it necessarily exists.


S5:
Axioms:
Everything in S4
Plus: ◇p ↔ □◇p
Equivalent to: □p ↔ ◇□p
Accessibility relation: equivalence relation (transitive, symmetric, reflexive).

If it's possible that a necessary being exists (◇□∃x), then it must necessarily exist (□∃x).
This is the core move in Plantinga’s modal ontological argument; if God (as a necessary being) is possible, then God exists necessarily. So in S5, possibility implies necessity in this special modal sense. This is too strong, allowing the modal collapse of possibility into necessity.


So:
If S5 is correct, and if a necessary being exists, then everything that exists does so necessarily.
But this erases modal distinctions and makes contingency illusory. Therefore, even if a necessary being exists in S5, the result is metaphysically unstable or unattractive — not because the being itself is suspect, but because necessity becomes bloated and indiscriminate.

If S4 is correct, a necessary being may exist without collapsing contingency. But since S4 lacks the machinery to promote possibility to necessity, we cannot infer the existence of such a being from modal possibility alone. Thus, the modal route to a necessary being is blocked.

Either way, there are profound problems for necessary beings.

But life is possible whatever the laws of nature are! — MoK

Why? There are possible worlds in which there is no life. Why not possible worlds in which life is not possible?

Even if that is true, it is also true that not all laws of nature exist in all possible worlds. So the laws of nature for a given possible world are designed. — A Christian Philosophy

Pretty clear this does not follow.

is correct.

Perhaps he was away from school the day "tangent" was taught.

I think John Locke's point was that if we believe that the One Truth is discoverable by rational means, we'll never be at peace, because people come up with different formulations. It's better to start with mutual respect. If you're a protestant, it's none of your business what Catholics think. — frank

Well put.

Note that those who take themselves as having access to the One Truth might well treat rationality as a means to the end of justifying or evangelising that One Truth. For them liberalism is an abomination; becasue it allows difference of opinion, it allows false belief.

It must be comforting to have such certainty. But I don't tink it moral.

He extends the same argument to other areas of mathematics, were he has repeatedly been shown not to understand the concepts.

A waste of time.

Every serious philosopher... — Metaphysician Undercover

:rofl:

Folk can Google it, Meta. Cheers.

Tonight:
4 egg
125 g chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup self-raising flour
150g fetta chopped
1 1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup zucchini grated
1/2 cup corn cob kernels to taste

Mix ingredients together and pour into a greased quiche or pie dish.

Bake at 180C for approximately 40 minutes

A variation from here: Quick Quiche.

Here's the rub: What's the alternative?

Fair enough—maybe I came across too categorical. I don’t wish to shut down the search for meaning, despite my view that meaning is made, not found. I’m just wary of the insistence on there being one true catechism, especially when history shows how easily that slides into coercion.

And yes, of course belief matters. But liberalism puts its emphasis on conduct—on how we live together in spite of differing beliefs. It doesn’t deny that beliefs shape action; it just refuses to make one worldview the price of admission.

Yep.

I understand your point, but just because liberalism and capitalism often align doesn’t mean they must always go together. Historical examples—like the welfare states of Scandinavia—show that liberalism can exist without full market-driven capitalism. The connection isn’t inevitable, even if it's often the case.

On Nussbaum, liberalism isn’t about abandoning values—it’s about letting people shape their own lives. It’s not about imposing a singular vision but creating the conditions for personal freedom.

Liberalism doesn't claim that competitors are "wrong"; it simply operates differently. Unlike authoritarian systems that enforce a single vision of the good life, liberalism allows diverse views to coexist. It doesn't impose a specific moral framework but creates conditions for individuals to pursue their own conceptions of the good, emphasizing freedom and pluralism. It’s not about rejecting other ways of life, but enabling them to flourish alongside each other.

Liberalism isn't perfect—no system is—but it might be preferable to the alternatives, which have yet to be clearly articulated in this discussion. Its flaws are evident, but it offers the most inclusive space for diversity and individual freedom, avoiding the coercion that accompanies more rigid ideologies. Without a viable alternative on the table, liberalism provides the best framework for coexistence and self-determination.

A shared vision is not an authoritarian religious regime. — Wayfarer

I'm not assuming it is. I'm not assuming anything about a shared vision, but asking - who decides what our shared vision is to be? And what happens to those who dissent?

It's not what we say that is important, so much as what we do. It's not we believe that counts, but how we behave. That’s where liberalism earns its keep. It doesn’t require us to agree on first principles, only to act in ways that let others live according to theirs.

I do rather like the developing argumentum ad peanutem.

Right, and this is where the disagreement runs deep. The idea that we need a shared vision of the good to live together—that’s exactly what liberalism resists. Its bet is that we can coexist without agreeing on ultimate ends. That isn’t moral emptiness; it’s a kind of modesty. A politics for a world where we don’t all think alike.

And if that sounds unsatisfying—what’s the alternative? Who decides what the good is, and what happens to those who don’t agree? There’s a long history there, and not a happy one.

Second election debate tonight, on ABC.

Might tune in. I doubt it will be better than Hard Quiz, which it replaces.

Yep. That’s what’s so compelling in Lefebvre—he rescues liberalism from the charge of moral emptiness not by denying it, but by reframing it. Liberalism isn’t a doctrine, it’s a discipline. It's what we do. A lived ethic of coordination, mutuality, and restraint. Less about asserting the good, more about making life together possible.

And I liked that Hadot echo too—quiet, but clear. Ethics as practice, not rulebook. That’s why the capabilities approach fits so well here: it’s not just about rights or choices, but cultivating the real power to live well. Not a retreat from meaning, but a wager that meaning can be plural.

And still, what is the alternative?

...you continue to speak about the Original Poster in the third person — Leontiskos

More an artefact of the forum's referencing system. Clicking on the reply button places the reply in the third person. It's interesting that you wish to comment on my style rather than the content of my posts. A trivial issue.

There's a previous thread that takes this argument and applies it to the ethics of believers: The moral character of Christians

You showed little understanding of modal logic. Your contribution here is pretty much on a par with your rejection of instantaneous velocity - an eccentric irrelevance.

collapses liberalism into capitalism, but that’s a mistake—one Lefebvre might help us avoid. For Lefebvre, liberalism isn’t an economic theory, but a moral and political framework for coordinating life among individuals with different wants, values, and needs. It’s not about GDP. It’s about decency.

Liberalism, in this account, isn’t hollow—it’s ethical. Its institutions aren’t designed to satisfy appetite, but to manage disagreement without violence. Especially when people disagree about what is good.

Lefebvre is clear: liberalism doesn’t pretend to be metaphysically deep. What it offers instead is an ethic of mutual forbearance. That’s not nothing. It’s how we live together without killing each other.
So yes—liberal states often coexist with exploitative global markets. But that’s a reason to reform markets, not discard liberalism. If you think liberalism inevitably slides into consumerism or wage slavery, you need to show how the institutions must produce those effects. Not just that they sometimes do.

Lefebvre’s point is that liberalism’s value is not in what it promises about markets, but in the kind of interpersonal ethic it encodes. If we care about mutual respect, basic fairness, and the protection of difference, then liberalism is worth defending—even if capitalism isn’t.

Nussbaum’s capabilities approach picks up on this and gives it substance. She argues that a liberal society must guarantee the conditions for real human flourishing, not just negative freedom or consumer choice. We might well work towards the development of central human capabilities like health, education, emotional life, and political voice. It’s liberalism with a richer telos, grounded in dignity rather than market logic.

Yes, the problems are real. But they don’t all trace back to liberalism. The fact they appear across liberal states with wildly different politics suggests something deeper—like global capital, demographic shifts, or decades of bipartisan neoliberal consensus.

Lefebvre helps here. Liberalism isn’t just an economic order—it’s a moral anthropology. It treats people as plural and self-directing, not as interchangeable units of labour. If there’s a vision of humans as “plug and play,” it’s from capital, not liberalism.

Same goes for the capabilities approach. It’s not just about GDP—it’s about real freedoms: to think, move, speak, love. If those aren’t being secured, that’s a failure of implementation, not a failure of liberalism.

And the question remains: what is the alternative you are offering?

It's not just that it is not in syllogistic form - which it still isn't. The terms you use are odd, to the point of nonsense.

I don't know how to understand your supposed argument, even giving a generous interpretation. You have a change from one physical state to another over a time, but claim physics doesn't "experience" time... and does nto "know" time. what does that mean? Physical states certainly include time. And there is an odd jump from "the physical in the state of S1 cannot cause the physical in the state of S2" to "physical cannot be the cause of its own change". I don't understand what that phrase is trying to do.

Despite you, and best attempts there's precious little here supporting sufficient reason as a principle, intelligent design or god.

As said, it's very much a supply-side deficit.

The Libs blaming immigration and foreign investment is bullshit.

Isn't there a tension between liberalism and classical philosophy, in that classical philosophy is concerned with the pursuit and cultivation of wisdom—something that not everyone will possess, or even understand? — Wayfarer

Sure, you can buy into the elitism if you like. But let’s be honest—who exactly counts as “the wise”? I was at a VAD (Voluntary Assisted Dying) forum today where a prominent academic summed up the anti-VAD stance as: “I wouldn’t do it, so you can’t either.” Are they the wise? Is that wisdom? Are you comfortable having "the wise" tell you what you can and can't do? With them enforcing their view through state-sanctioned violence? If classical philosophy leads us there, maybe we should be wary of where it's pointing.

But I do not think that is where "classical philosophy" does point - as if "classical philosophy" were monolithic. There’s more in the tradition than just Plato and his philosopher-kings. There are also the the Epicureans, the Stoics, the sceptics. Classical thought doesn’t settle the question—it opens it.

I'm an immanent liberal-sceptic. — Jamal

:wink:

As should we all be.

But babes and bathwater. Liberalism is in the end a solution to the problem of how we get on without hitting each other. And again, what alternative is on offer?

How does a CO2 offset work? — kazan

It pays for more trees, as I understand it. Not claiming to be carbon neutral here.

We could have different issues, but the problems are the same: speculation and exclusion of first-home buyers. — javi2541997

Sure, yet there are differences. I came across this:



From https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/How-to-tackle-Australias-housing-challenge-Grattan-Institute-submission.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com, fig 2.1, comparison of growth in housing stock over two decades. Zero growth.

Is it the country and its people who can't be trusted? — kazan

I specified the administration.

However, in practical terms it amounts to the same thing. If I do an deal with some individual in the USA, I can no longer be confident that the circumstances of that deal will remain as they are - that an arbitrary tariff or tax will not be imposed, that the exchange rate will remain predictable, and so on.

That's the problem.

If you make it harder to buy or sell into the USA, we will buy or sell elsewhere. — Banno

Banno might have not read yr post — kazan

:chin: My response is the one immediately after Franks...

As it turns out, a piece of art we purchased from the States arrived an hour or so ago. Very light - less than a half-kilo - but cost $70 freight, including a CO₂ offset. About half the same thing from Canada. Odd.

(The item cost less than $50, but would probably sell in AU for $400. Things you find on eBay.)

See
https://www.productivity.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-11/20241114_NSW-PEC-report-Review-of-housing-supply-challenges-and-policy-options-for-New-South-Wales.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/How-to-tackle-Australias-housing-challenge-Grattan-Institute-submission.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Negative gearing and capital gains tax discount remain the largest factors influencing house price. Next is zoning and planning restrictions. Migration is hardly noticeable - a 1% increase population du to in migration leads to a 1% increase in housing demand.

RBA (2016) estimated that foreign demand may add a few percentage points to dwelling prices in select areas - Box Hill or Chatswood - but not across the country. FIRB approvals fell from $72 billion in 2015–16 to under $10 billion by 2021.

The Libs are full of shit in this regard.

You seem to think that all you need do is present a proposal for it to be agreed. Presenting statements is not presenting an argument.

Must be a Christian thing.... "It is written..."

Wishful thinking on your part. Certainly not of much real interest.

A simple response, here, would be removal of capital gains and negative gearing.

I have a thread on the topic that the physical cannot be the cause of its own change here. — MoK

The style of that OP is not one I could take seriously.

Sure, many critiques see liberalism as spiritually thin. But Tim doesn’t respond so much as revel in that thinness. In contrast, we have the example of Nussbaum, who gives liberalism depth without slipping into authoritarianism. Her capabilities approach is rich in human flourishing—liberal, but not empty.

Tim wants more than pluralism. He wants a public affirmation of the good. But the presumption here is that we agree as to what is good. liberalism resists that—not because it’s relativist, but because it rejects coercion. That refusal isn’t decadence. It’s a defense of freedom.

The charge that liberalism is ideology masquerading as neutrality misunderstands liberalism at its best. Rawls, Nussbaum, and others are aware of its historical and moral commitments. That’s why they build in checks—public reason, overlapping consensus, plural foundations. Of course liberalism is an ideology - sing it from the battlements rather than pretend to neutrality.

Finally, and again, Tim conflates liberalism with capitalism. But that’s a local confusion. Elsewhere—think Lefebvre—liberalism restrains the market rather than sanctifying it. If Tim wants a richer alternative, he has to name it. Gestures to Augustine and Han don’t yet make a politics.

Modern social justice liberalism, and perhaps Nussbaum and Rawls, might represent a late twentieth century patch-up job prompted by the realization that capitalism, the supposed vehicle of liberty, doesn't actually deliver it (as if nobody had pointed this out before). — Jamal

Tim's piece doesn't much differentiate liberalism from capitalism. Outside the USA socialist policy has a greater standing and liberalism can be considered a counterpoint to capitalism, a way of constraining capitalist excess. Rawls, Nussbaum, Sen and so on can be read as offering a corrective to a particular fusion of liberalism and capitalism, dominant especially in the postwar United States. That fusion took liberty to mean market freedom and little else.

Tim does not make this differentiation, blurring liberalism and capitalism into one. The result is that all critiques—of consumerism, of commodified sex, of self-alienation—get pinned on liberalism alone. That’s too easy.

Outside the USA liberalism has serves against capitalism, curbing its excesses, defend individual dignity, and secure public goods. Nussbaum’s capabilities theory, for instance, expands on this tradition. So does Rawls, who insists on distributive justice as a precondition of liberty. These are not afterthoughts. They are integral to their conception of the liberal project.

In that way the OP is somewhat parochial.

There's an excellent account of liberalism to be found in the work of the Professor of Politics and Philosophy at The University of Sydney, Alexander Lefebvre. Lefebvre shows how liberal ideas developed as a way of coordinating individual needs and wants, and how much of the general ethic underpinning our interpersonal relations is implicitly liberal. Liberalism is a practical ethic for life among equals. It's embedded in how we relate; in respect, consent, reciprocity. We live in liberal ways, often without noticing. Liberalism isn’t just a political system or economic ideology. It’s also a moral culture—something ordinary, even beautiful, in how we deal with one another. Tim’s piece doesn’t engage with this at all. His liberalism is faceless: pure abstraction, detached from lived experience.

@Jamal, the principles of this very forum are liberal.

There’s something quietly aristocratic in Tim’s writing. The lofty tone and heavy references are aimed at readers already in agreement. Event the chosen nom de plume... It gives the impression that liberalism is too ordinary, too flat, too widely shared to be worth much. But that’s not a criticism of its failures, so much as of its popularity. Tim seems to want a world reserved for the few who can feel deeply and read Badiou. That’s not a real alternative to liberalism. It’s a retreat.



Some of Alexander Lefebvre's ideas:

Are we all liberals at heart? (podcast)

Australia's problems are to a large part the result of a policy introduced in the nineties that allows rent to be negatively geared.

If an investor buys a property and the rental income is less than the cost of maintaining it (including mortgage interest), they make a net loss. Under negative gearing, this loss can be deducted from the investor's other income.

This increased demand from investors, driving up property prices and excluding first-home buyers from the market.

Capital gains on investment properties are taxed at only 50% if held for more than a year. Combined with negative gearing, this makes speculative investment extremely attractive.

This has been central to the increase in wealth inequity seen here over the last twenty years.

From what aI have been able to work out, this is very different to the situation in Spain.

About 80% of the total dollar value of negative gearing deductions is claimed by people in the top 30% of income earners.

Too hard for the major parties to deal with.

The Greens have a different approach.

Australia should rethink its relationship with America because alliance is becoming obeisance. — Alan Kohler

Alan Kohler.

The OP offers a broad indictment of liberalism. But there is no clear argument. You've written a mood piece. The dissatisfaction is real, but the reasoning is thin. Liberalism is accused of being hollow, flattening, spiritually dead. But the case is assumed rather than made.

The critique depends on a conflation. Liberalism is equated with consumer capitalism, secularism, and moral relativism. But this is not self-evident. It’s not clear why Rawls’s political liberalism—or Nussbaum’s capabilities approach—must collapse into late-modern malaise. Both offer accounts of human flourishing. Both recognize the need for moral depth, social meaning, and institutional justice. These are not libertarian apologies for consumer choice.

At its core, the critique chafes at pluralism itself. It wants one truth, publicly affirmed and normatively binding. Liberalism refuses this. It does not deny truth—it refuses to coerce consensus. That refusal is treated here as decadence. But it is, in fact, a guardrail against authoritarianism. The demand that a culture publicly reflect a metaphysical or theological unity is a recipe for repression—of minorities, of dissenters, of difference. Liberalism protects that space. It allows communities to pursue deep, even ultimate, goods—so long as they don’t do so by coercion. That is not a bug. It is the point.

The deeper issue is metaphysical. Liberalism is faulted for not being a theology. It doesn’t offer a doctrine of eros, virtue, or transcendent meaning. But that’s by design. Liberalism is a political framework. It permits those deeper views—it doesn’t impose one. If that’s the flaw, then name the alternative. A confessional state? A return to teleology? A politics grounded in love? Perhaps. But that needs to be argued, not implied through nostalgia and allusion.

Without that, this is not a critique of liberalism. It’s a lament that liberalism isn’t something else.

Along with , I would like to understand your proposed alternative.

Your understanding of modal logic is on a par with your grasp of physics.

Right. I'll leave you to it, again. Enjoy.

On your logic, if someone goes looking for the Loch Ness Monster, then there must be a Loch Ness Monster.

Very good.