Fucksake.

"Wholly evolved" as in having reached an endpoint or "wholly evolved" as in only owing to evolution and nothing else.

I'm losing interest quickly here.

Odd. Seems we haven't cleared up the word "whole". So do you mean "whole" as in evolved to an end point or "whole" as in only evolution serves as an explanation?

Yes, as opposed to partially. — Clearbury

Ah. teleology.

Ok.

What?

The point is about whether one needs to posit the actual principles in order to be able to explain why a belief in them would confer a reproductive advantage, or whether the belief alone would do the trick. — Clearbury

So you have given up on working out what we ought do, and decided that we only do what we evolved to do?

...I take the paradox that an evolutionary account of our development to present us with is that if we are wholly evolved... — Clearbury

Wholly? As opposed to partially? Or are you again saying we can only do as evolution dictates?

I guess you evolved to say that.

By 'question begging' I mean the vice of assuming the truth of that which needed to be demonstrated. — Clearbury

Ah, good. So many folk think otherwise these days. what was the truth I presumed?

You have strawmanned my argument. — Clearbury

I don't think so. You said you could not find moral principles in an evolved world. I pointed out that you are looking int he wrong place.

I said reason, not reasons. — Questioner

Ah, so your reason doesn't give you reasons? Odd.

Evolution produced our ability to choose from an array of choices. — Questioner

Cheers. so we agree that evolution does not tell us what to do, but ethics is about what we ought choose.

That's question begging. — Clearbury

I'm not sure how you are using that term.


But the paradox you speak of relies on much the same error you made in thinking that becasue you could not find moral principles lying around like rocks and chairs, they do not exist. Reason is also just not that sort of thing, not "found" but "performed". Sometimes badly.

I think that's an open question. Depends on how the paradox is resolved. — Clearbury

Well, you would think that... it's what you evolved to think.

Sorry, no, this ignores that evolution gave us reason. — Questioner

Ah, reasons, not causes. Then we might choose to do otherwise than what evolution says?

I don't think anything you just said addresses anything I said. — Clearbury

Presumably you evolved so as to say that...

I do not think there exist any moral principles if an entirely evolutionary account of our development is true. — Clearbury

Seems to me that that's becasue you pretty much have missed the point.

And so something has gone wrong somewhere, it seems to me....though it is not entirely clear where..... — Clearbury

Keep going.

There are times when we talk about what is the case. We talk about the meat on the grill, the beer in the cup.

But when the food runs out, after the conversation, it's time to actually do something. And here there is a fundamental difference, becasue we are no longer talking about how things are, but what we are going to do about it.

The direction of the conversation changes from making the words match how things are to making the how things are match the world.

How we are to change the world is a fundamentally different question to what the world is like. If you look for what you ought do out there in the world, of course you will not find an answer. Your hunger is not out there in the world.

We can do whatever we want. But what should we do?

This is what sits behind the is/ought distinction.

Cognitive scientists who understand the fundamental role of an observing mind. — Wayfarer

Are they saying that it is not the case that "reality is real"? Do they deny the reality of neurones? How do they reconcile that with their day job?

Would they agree with you that "'...the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves... cannot exist in themselves, but only in us".

That phrase they use... 'underlying reality".... what's that, then? How does it fit in with your creed?

What is it that you think this video shows?

Neuroscientists that deny the reality of neurones?

'If the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of the senses in general, be removed, the whole constitution and all the relations of objects in space and time, nay space and time themselves, would vanish; and as appearances, they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.' — Wayfarer

This, , is Waif's strong doctrine. If you press it's logic, he will deny it, stepping back to some merely transcendental reality.

But I don't think making progress on this knowledge is impossible. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You were earlier defending logical monism, weren't you? Do I recall correctly?

So is there a pattern here of seeking the Grand Narrative? One Explanation To Rule Them All?

Hubris, No?

What would it be like, to have an ethical calculus that will tell us What To Do in every case?

In particular, how would we tell that we had the calculus right? To know we had it right would require that we had a way to evaluate it's results that was independent of the calculus.

But if we had such an independent way to evaluate the calculus, why not use that instead of the calculus?

Candidly, evolution is appealing becasue it offers folk a way to avoid responsibility for their choices.

So forget about what is good or not good, and instead focus on what to do.

After all, wasn't the reason for trying to work out what was good, precisely to enable us to decide what we ought do?

...and if evolution can explain anything we chose to do, it explains nothing.

?

I explained the symmetry that I think exists. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Did you? Perhaps your erudite post made the explanation recondite.

So what was it, again?

:chin: — Wayfarer

It's sentences that are true or false.

Yet the two aren't unrelated — Count Timothy von Icarus

You wanted to draw a symmetry between "true" and "good". If there were such a symmetry, then there would be a schema for "good" that is equivalent to Tarski's schema for "true". There isn't. Hence the supposed symmetry isn't there.

Being true is about sentences while being good is about attitude. They are quite distinct.

I'm not sure what else there is to say here. — Leontiskos

Then don't say anything.

There is a difference between something's being the case and something being said to be the case. Pretty simple, but apparently not for you.

...the need to belong to the group... — Questioner

You do not need to appeal to evolution to maintain this. That you are writing using a language shows that you are embedded in a culture, along with all that implies.

So we still have the question, "what to do?"

But freed from the irrelevance of both god and evolution

My claim (belief) is that there is not a supernatural cause for our behavior. — Questioner

That's a relief, becasue you were apparently proposing that evolution take on the role of handing down our commandments. Replacing god with evolution doesn't solve the problem of what to do.

You claimed,

...the good is to practical reason as truth is to theoretical reason — Count Timothy von Icarus

I made a precise logical point about the difference between "true" and "good". I pointed out that "p" is true IFF p, but that there is no similar equation for "good". So there is a break in the symmetry you proposed. You don;t appear to have spoken agains this, so I will take it as read.

is unnecessarily long.

Perhaps in your third and fourth paragraphs you are saying something not unlike direction of fit, that some sentences set out how things are, while other sentences set out how we might prefer them to be. But you combine this with what appears to be talk of the objective and subjective.

You also slide from what is good per se to what is good for an organism.

Meh.

You asked

If evolution does not tell us what to do, what does? — Questioner

And answered

But there is nothing else to us, except our evolution. — Questioner

What is your claim here? That there is no variation in out behaviour? Or perhaps that we do not make choices? If either of these were true, then the question of "what ought we do?" is meaningless, because we just do as evolution dictates.

But you are now choosing whether and how to reply to this post. You remain confronted by choice.

What will you do?

You will choose.

At the very least you have assumed that there is both mind and time. Time passes when you are asleep.

In what does this process of thinking take place?

And if seconds, days, years pass, then there must also be a clock or some other device external to mind, the periodicity of which can be contrasted with the series of mental events.

And to whom are you addressing this post?

I don't find what one should do is synonymous with what one is morally required to do... — Hyper

Can you explain the difference?

A variant of the chariot of the passions - Phaedrus?

If evolution does not tell us what to do, what does? — Questioner

...and now you are starting to do ethics...

I can see no benefit in this. If our greatest source of pleasure is to spend time with those we love, why would we want to cut that out of our lives? — Questioner

Becasue it is the right thing to do...

This comes down to to what you believe is the biggest determinant of human behavior — Questioner

Well, humans have a habit of not doing what is supposedly 'determined".

Here's the point again, lest it be lost: Evolution does not tell us what we ought do.

We are neurologically hard-wired to form bonds. — Questioner

And it might well be that our moral duty is to fight against this supposed hard-wiring. We might deconstruct society, or remove ourselves from it for the Good. Whatever you mean by "hard-wired", the choice remains.

To deny the need for human bonding is to deny our very essence. — Questioner

I'm happy to deny that people have an essence. It's an outmoded notion.

Okay, the opposite to "external judgement" is deciding for myself what I should do, and I'm always going to think that what I do is the thing that I should do. — Questioner

If you decide for yourself what you should so, then you decide for yourself what you ought do. SO we agree ought need not be external. Good.

Well, that would require changing who we are as humans. — Questioner

And that might be a good thing...

We know no other way. — Questioner

That's not right, as the mere existence of antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction as proposed moral doctrine shows.

Again, how things are informs how they ought be, but cannot determine it. Put another way, regardless of how things might actually be, we might desire that they be otherwise, and act accordingly.

I'd argue that the good is to practical reason as truth is to theoretical reason (and as beauty is to aesthetic reason). — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a good argument...

But we can write "p" is true iff p. Nothing works in a similar way for good.

So it looks as if there are differences between truth and good, that cannot be captured by the proposed approach.

And a step further: there are true sentences about what is good. So what is good is included in what is true. But if that is so, then the mooted symmetry between "true" and "good" is broken.

This by way of questioning an implied non-cognitivism.

We do not necessarily have to remain connected. We must first connect though. That is the way things are. Asking if it ought be that way is out of place. — creativesoul

Yes to the first, no the the last. It is open to us to ask if we ought remain social.



"Virtue signalling" is not an argument. It is the libertarian's attempt to stop a conversation they find uncomfortable.

I am having trouble with this word "ought." That implies external judgement — Questioner

Why? As in, what is it about "ought" that "implies external judgement"? See Creative's comment and my reply.

I have already defined what "good behavior" is. It's all those behaviors which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure. — Questioner

And yet the question "is it good to do those things which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure" is meaningful.

There are always outliers. — Questioner

But being an outlier does not make them wrong, and terms such as "mental illness" are themseves normative.

Why? — Questioner

Good question. Why not?

A species' survival ultimately depends on individual survival, and of course reproduction — Questioner

Why ought we survive? Consider antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction, both touted as ethical positions.

...we can also consider that they provide insights into how we should behave. — Seeker25

I don't see how. Why should we do as evolution says?

I am not going to address any of your lies — Brendan Golledge

You are not obligated to answer my criticisms of your beliefs. .

But they will still be here, even if you don't.

Cheers.

We are hard-wired to connect. — Questioner

Well, no. There are examples of folk who have turned their back on society and walked away. Check out the biography of Mark May. Perhaps we ought fight the "hard wiring"...

The point being that whatever you offer as the way things are, it is open to us to ask if they ought be that way.

This is the Open Question, in a more general form. What we ought do and how things are, are two very different questions.

Metaethics and virtue signaling go hand in hand. — baker

The retort "you are virtue signalling" is quite insipid. It is much the same as the child's outraged cry of "You can't tell me what to do!"

IMO, the highest level of being human is to be your most true, authentic self. This means getting the most in touch with your natural instincts, with your "wild knowing." The question becomes, does this coincide with doing right or doing wrong? — Questioner

I'll ask the question again. Ought we try to become "the highest level of being human"; or ought we do what is good?

Or are they the same?

¬p ⊬ □¬(p ∧ JBp) — Michael

Well, yes, that's kinda the point.

That's been done. — Michael

Yep. With the consequences set out in the SEP article:

The debates surrounding the proper characterization of semantic anti-realism go far beyond the scope of this entry. As for the knowability proof itself, there continues to be no consensus on whether and where it goes wrong.

The antirealist claims that there are unknown truths but that all unknown truths of the appropriate kind1 are knowable. With respect to ontology, there are unverified truths but there are no verification-transcendent truth conditions. — Michael

Some do. Good for them. The question of whether they are right remains open.

it neither claims nor entails that all truths are known — Michael

That, Michael, remains an open question. You misrepresent my position. Again, I am suggesting that different logics might have application in different contexts; that we can adopt a realist approach in some circumstances and an antirealist approach in other circumstances; that it is not all-or-nothing.