, hello.

I am just thinking out loud here. First, as per Aquinas, logical contradictions are not part of the omnipotence of God. We would then need to define the terms "forgiveness" and "mercy". Can true forgiveness and mercy be unjust? If not, then this would not count against his omnipotence any more than not being able to turn good into evil or evil into good.

You can disagree, and argue with the norms of the times, and try to change them with good arguments — ChatteringMonkey

What would be examples of "good arguments" to judge the norms, if there is nothing higher than the norms?

Up to now, I was just trying to get clarity on your position. Now do you have an argument to back up that position? Since, as I said before, the Golden Rule is found in nearly every religion and ethical traditions, it is the prima facie, and you have thus the onus of proof to dispute it.

So to clarify your position, morality is relative to the social norms of the time. Does it follow that slavery was morally right at the time that society had slaves, and wrong today, until society decides to have slaves again?

Nah I'm good. I am here to talk about philosophy, not philosophers.

I don't think it's that selfevident that reason is all that usefull for determining morality. — ChatteringMonkey

Ethics has traditionally been called "practical reason", and is as such part of reason. The first principle of ethics is justice, or the Golden Rule, which is found in nearly every religion and ethical traditions - source

The way i see it is that a morality of a given society is something that devellops over generations involving many people, trail and error... — ChatteringMonkey

Morality is unchanging. I think you are thinking here of mores or traditions, rather than morals. Mores are judged by moral principles.

It easy to question the norms of the day like Socrates did, because no one person really knows anymore how it all came to be. It's a bit like an economy in that way, and emergent property. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree that merely questioning where a thing comes from and criticizing for not knowing is not useful. But Socrates went further because he found flaws in them using reason, and that is a good thing.

And, as for your last comment, reasoning about using reason to determine morality, is not the same as using reason to determine morality. There's no contradiction there. — ChatteringMonkey

Understood. I thought you were saying Nietzsche was aiming to remove reason as such.

Socrates is symbolized by knowing to know nothing. Nietzsche's point being, that, if this was the result of socratic philosophy, then something must be horribly wrong with it. It is of no use to know nothing. — Heiko

Hello. When Socrates would say "I know that I know nothing", he was saying it as a bit of a joke. His point was that we should use critical thinking, even on common sayings known by tradition. His philosophy starts with doubt, but does not necessarily end with doubt.

, hello.

Why be rational? It is the starting point to epistemology. To side with Descartes, there are first principles which are simply indubitable. "If rational then true" and "If irrational then not true" are examples of these.

, hello.

I am sure human reason has its limits. But for things where reason is applicable, reason is infallible. Thus if Socrates was able to rationalize against the norms of the day, then he was right to do so. If people disagreed with his points, they too would have had to use reason to refute his arguments.

I did not read Nietzsches, but if he claimed we should rely less on reason, this claim would have to be defended by reason to be valid, which creates a self-contradiction.

Sorry for late response. Real life got in the way for a moment.

How is the fact that it evidently doesn't work, despite 2000 years of trial, not an inherent flaw. If someone gave me a new phone and it didn't function, I wouldn't expect to have to find the exact diode that had failed before being entitled to conclude that the phone didn't work. — Pseudonym

You mean to say "the fact that no one could find the essence of 'belief' in this forum". That it doesn't work is precisely what we are disputing here. At worst, even if the perfect definitions are not always found, the method allows to get very close to it; thereby making it worthwhile to use.

If you want an account of those flaws, you could read Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, even Heidegger(if you must), or any of the many ordinary language philosophers, existentialists, quietists, pragmatists, all of whom in various ways have found flaws in the process. — Pseudonym

Claiming that others have an argument is not a substitute to come up with an argument of your own. Maybe they do have compelling arguments, but you would not know it if you cannot say what it is. If you and I are going to have a long term discussion, I expect you to philosophize, and not merely point to other philosophers.

The point is that you personally would not find their arguments compelling. [...] — Pseudonym

Why not? In our previous discussion here, my position was the exact opposite, that, unlikely you, I believe we can come to an agreement.

Is it that despite the Socratic method being around for more than 2000years, no-one (except you) has thought to apply it to the meanings of words, or is it that they have but the process simply takes more than 2000 years to resolve (in which case I don't have much hope for the technique helping much on this forum), or is it, just possibly, that it doesn't work? — Pseudonym

I would not exclude the fourth possibility that you all just suck at it :joke: .

But instead of trying to persuade that it doesn't work by the mere fact that no one could find the essence of 'belief', can you locate an inherent flaw in the method in general?

Are you proposing that when one learns the difference between a duck and a rock that one is learning duck-essence as opposed to rock-essence? I can usually tell a duck from a rock, but I have no idea what a duck-essence might be, nor a rock-essence. — Banno

You don't find the essences from this, but you find that if we know that a rock is evidently not a duck, then a rock is missing some essential properties that makes a duck a duck, and vice versa. And this implies that these beings have essential properties.

Relating this to the OP, are you suggesting that providing a definition, a set of synonyms, is what is involved in setting out an essence? — Banno

Not synonyms, but essential properties; that is, properties such that, if they were lost, then the being would lose its identity. E.g., the essential properties of a triangle are "flat surface" + "3 sides". Lose one of these, and the being is no longer a triangle.

So you can't provide a definition of duck or rock, and yet you want to use definitions for freedom and understanding? — Banno

Who said we can't define a duck or a rock? I said it is not necessary, because the terms are rather unambiguous. Although we would have to if we wanted to find necessary truths about these beings.

If you cannot set out an essence of duck why should we think you can set out an essence of freedom? — Banno

Why not? Socratic Method: come up with a hypothesis definition of 'freedom'; test it against examples in the common language that use the term; repeat until it cannot be falsified; Bob's your uncle.

, hello.

That it is troublesome and challenging, I have no doubt. But that essences exist is easy to prove. Virtually everyone can correctly identify a 'duck' among a pile of 'rocks', or understand that whatever the concept of 'knowledge' is, it is closer to the concept of 'understanding' than it is to the concept of a 'cow'. This would not be the case if beings did not have distinct essences, natures, or identities.

Now it is not necessary to find the perfect definition of concrete things like 'duck' or 'rock' in order to have a coherent discussion about these, but it is better to find it for abstract concepts like 'knowledge' and 'understanding' to avoid ambiguity, and it is necessary to find it if we wish to obtain necessary truths on these beings.

Example: Is free will necessary for 'Christian Love'? Yes, because the essence of 'Christian Love' is "willing the good" to the object loved; and there is no will without free will. Therefore if Christian Love exists, then free will necessarily exists.

Hello.

Texts? No idea. But here is what I know. Will is equivalent to intentions. And intention is essential to morality. If there is no freedom of intentions, then there is no morality, that is, no right or wrong way to behave. Also, if there is no free will, then there is no true love, because true love is defined as "willing the good" to the object loved.

Thus free will is important.

But would you agree that the function of art is to please? That is, if the particular art is not pleasing to the individual, then he would not obtain it. And the function of a video game is also to please, in a more specific way. If the function of both art and video games coincide, then it means that video games is a form of art.

Hello.

Very true. My experience is that people often focus so much on deductive reasoning - logical inferences - that they forget about inductive reasoning - definitions and principles. Definition of terms is possibly the hardest and yet most critical part of an argument.

Now there are two types of definitions. (1) The author's meaning, and (2) the real definition of things, also called essence or nature of things in themselves. (1) is easy enough to produce and the readers just need to adjust to the terms as intended by the author for that specific discussion. (2) is much harder, and answers the question "what is x", as meant by everyone in the common language. In this case, the Socratic Dialogue is a good method, which is testing a hypothesis definition against particular examples used in the common language. It is a lot of work, but once obtained, it does not need to be found again, and makes the rest of the discussion much easier.

[...] If it is possible for someone as well-informed and intelligent as you to be wrong, then how do you know it isn't you? — Pseudonym

The rational person does not claim to never be wrong. Rationality, like math, is in theory infallible in its applicable topics; although the person applying it is not, because we all make mistakes once in a while. If two mathematicians disagree on the result of a given problem, they can judge who is wrong by checking each other's steps.

So how do these two strangers who have dug deep enough and agreed on some principles have any means of checking that their 'rational' analysis actually means anything? — Pseudonym

Dialectic: Each person defends their position with objective reasons, called an argument, and attempts to refute the other's arguments.

Although it does not need to be formulated that way, an argument can always be reshaped into a syllogism; and a syllogism is refuted in only three ways: (1) Ambiguous term, (2) False premise, and (3) Logical fallacy. (1) The ambiguous term is in my opinion the most critical part to get right. Socrates spent most of his dialogues on definitions. (2) The false premise can come from a disagreement on principles or on facts. If on principles, keep digging until you find a common one, and this becomes the starting point of the discussion. If on facts, then we can at least agree on hypothetical reasoning: If A then B, but if C then D. (3) The unintended logical fallacy can be caught by someone else.

If I cannot refute your argument, then it does not necessarily mean you speak the truth, but it does mean you are closer to the truth than I am; because even if it turns out my position was the right one, it would be by coincidence, and not by knowledge.

While it can be hard to call out a liar, I don't believe it is hard to tell apart bullshitters from truth-seekers. Truth-seekers are rational, that is, they can back up their claims with objective reasons. The beauty of rationality is that it is a universal language, where two strangers can converse and come to agreements provided they use the same definitions and agree on some principles (which they will if they dig deep enough).

On the other hand, bullshitters, by definition, don't even try to be rational. Thus a bullshitter can be called out by asking simple questions such as "Why?", "How do you figure that?", and "Can you back that up?".

As long as the intention is to aim for truth, then that is good enough. After which, even if truth is not found, the resulting errors can be called honest errors. The problem lies in those who trade the aim for truth for other aims, like comfort in the lie, or different still, don't even consider truth one way or the other, like bullsh*tting.

I admit that aside from my own experience, I don't know what people tend to choose in general. Therefore, as a descriptive view on truth vs rhetoric, it may be that people tend to favour the latter over the former. However, as a prescriptive view on truth vs rhetoric, I hope you and I agree we ought to pick the former over the latter. What good is it to persuade people if the object of persuasion is not true?

That may depend on the context. If I have a non-physiologically harmful condition like a headache which symptoms can be alleviated with a placebo, then I would take it. But if I know the cause is physiologically harmful, like a tumour, then I would not take a mere placebo. I believe such would be the case for most people.

Hello.

Do whatever you want, as long as it is not unethical, that is, it does not break the Golden Rule of Ethics. But note, the Golden Rule is not the negative form "Don't do unto others as you don't want them to do unto you", but the positive form "Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you." In that sense, doing nothing is unethical. The Golden Rule is a call for action, the duty to help others in whatever way you are able to do.

Hello.

The long answer would require to define the term "art".
The short answer is: If story-telling, music, and drawing/painting are all considered art, then video games are absolutely art because they encompass all three.

However, players are not necessarily artists, inasmuch as you don't need to be an artist to enjoy books, movies, music or paintings.

People would choose the rhetorician because they also believe he is speaking the truth; but I don't believe people would choose mere rhetoric if they knew the person was not speaking the truth.

A good philosophy will take into account both the thesis and antithesis, and resolve the paradox by finding a synthesis, that is, a principle that contains both thesis and antithesis, and can explain when the thesis is correct vs when the antithesis is correct.

Example:

• Thesis: negative emotions are bad because they are painful; they hurt. E.g. fear is painful and can lead health issues from lack of sleep etc.
• Antithesis: negative emotions are good because they serve to remove foolishness and allow for quick reaction. E.g. fear of a prey incites us to run away which can save us.
• Synthesis: Sometimes negative emotions are bad, and sometimes they are good for us; and we can determine this by how the emotion agrees with reason. E.g. fear of a harmless spider is bad, but fear of a harmful spider is good.

This is part of the theme I have heard being called 'Truth vs Rhetoric'.
Rhetoric is not a bad thing as such, and can be a really good thing when it serves to complement truth. Rhetoric is bad only in the absence of truth, called 'mere rhetoric'.

We can prove truth is more important than rhetoric by imagining them in competition: If we can only choose between a person that is good a finding truth but bad at rhetoric, and a person that is bad at finding truth but good at rhetoric, I thing we would all choose the former over the latter. Therefore truth is more important than rhetoric.

Does the person who is deserving of punishment deserve this punishment? [...] — Moliere

I am not sure I understand your point. Your three options, death, life sentence, and rehabilitation, appear to aim at answering the two questions about stoping injustice and restoring justice; and they can be judged against these two questions to determine which one is most just, or mostly deserved. If not justice, how else would you judge which option is mostly deserved?

Note that if it works, rehabilitative justice is the best one, because being rehabilitated not only prevents further injustice, but can also restore justice a bit, by helping out the relatives of the victim.

how you determine whether such a statement is true or false. Agreement seems to be the metric on hand, so we'd have to ask how it is we determine that people agree. — Moliere

A moral system is a system that applies to everyone about what ought-to-be, or good behaviour. It is evident that everyone views justice onto them as good, and injustice onto them as bad. Therefore everyone ought to be just and not unjust. Justice is therefore a criteria to determine the morality of an act.

the Nazi system you propose contra moral systems is another example of people acting on moral impulses. — Moliere

Again, a moral system is about good behaviour for anyone. Part of the Nazi system was to subdue other ethnic groups like the Jews. Surely no one, not even the Nazis, would view this behaviour done onto them as good. It is therefore not a system of good behaviour, and therefore not a moral system.

No probs.

Gotcha. For most arguments, finding the validity of the logic is not too hard. A trick is to replace the complicated terms with simple concrete ones, and find sound premises with them.

Example: All A are B, some B are C, therefore some A are C.
Replacement: All triangles are shapes, some shapes are circles, therefore some triangles are circles.
This is not valid.

I'd like to know if learning logic will bring me any practical benefits, for example in verifying the validity of some arguments or stuff like that. — Rayan

Hello.

I never learned pure abstract logic so I am a bit biased; but experience has shown me that nowadays, inductive reasoning is more needed than deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is logic and math, and we have computers and calculators for this. Inductive reasoning is finding definitions and principles, and I find this is usually the weak point of people's arguments. After all, a perfectly logical conclusion is only as strong as its premises.

That is not to say that logic is not important; just that people, while focusing solely on deduction, forget about induction.

would I be exempt from making wrong/bad inferences? — Posty McPostface

Only deductive inferences, not the inductive ones.

Would I be any closer to the correct apprehension of reality/truth? — Posty McPostface

Yes, you would be closer than the person with the exact same rational skills but less skills in logic.

But it would be insufficient to find all truths, or even all truths that can be found by man, because this would only cover deductive reasoning, and you would lack perfection in inductive reasoning; that is, finding essences and principles.

A paradox is an apparent, but not real, contradiction. The barber can shave himself or not, and the group as defined can exist, but the barber cannot fit the group without contradiction. Now you claim it is a paradox and not a contradiction. Why is the contradiction not real?

Here is another simpler example for clarity:
A triangle exists in a world where all shapes have four sides. A triangle is possible, and a world where all shapes have four sides is possible, but the triangle cannot exist in the world without contradiction.

“The town barber, who is a man, shaves exactly every man in the town who does not shave himself.”
Either the barber shaves himself or not. If he does, then he does not only shave men who do not shave themselves. If he does not, then he does not shave all men who do not shave themselves. The statement is therefore impossible.

Contradictions are impossible.
The statement “the town barber ...” contains a contradiction either way we look at it.
Therefore the statement is impossible.

The town barber, who is a man, shaves exactly every man in the town who does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself? — Jeremiah

Hello. I can see that the first statement is logically impossible, because whether the barber shaves himself or not, the statement contains a contradiction. But why call it a paradox, as opposed to a mere impossibility?

By your terms I agree that morality is objective. The notion that I'm proposing is that every moral statement is false. — Moliere

Great. To determine if morality is objective or not was the main goal of this discussion. Everything else is secondary. Now why do you claim that every moral statement is false?

I think there's one important question that you're missing there. Do they deserve it? And that is not a question of fact, but of values. — Moliere

Asking "Do they deserve it?" is another way of asking "Is the punishment just?". If we unpack the question, we get "Does the punishment prevent further injustice?" and "Is justice restored?". The objectively correct punishment is the one that answers "yes" to both questions (if possible). But I only see a matter of facts here. Why do you say this is a matter of values?

how would we determine [strong disagreement or not]? — Moliere

Given that we agree that morality is objective, this question becomes virtually irrelevant; because objective truth is found by reason and not opinions. But I'll try to answer your objection anyways.

You point to the differences in political and economical systems, but believing that morality was always an end goal is a questionable assumption. The end goal of some of these could have been power only. It is hard to believe that the Nazi regime had morality in mind, instead of power. Moral systems on the other hand are very similar in different places and times. The Golden Rule is called such because it is universal. It occurs in some form in nearly every religion and ethical tradition (Source).

the notion 'objectivity' is an impossibility — Marcus de Brun

This statement is a self-contradiction, because if objectivity is not real, then nothing can be objectively true, including the above statement.

no two things can be the same — Marcus de Brun

I think you misinterpret Leibniz's law of indiscernibles. The law states that no two things can be the same in every way, that is, have all the same properties. But two things can have some properties that are the same. Two things can have the same genus or species, or accidental properties.

Are you a human being? So am I. Yet I am not you. Although we are separate beings, we participate in the same species: human. 1 human + 1 human = 2 humans. No more, no less.

Hello Mr Dude.
I admit I don't understand your post. Subjectivity means 'only a matter of opinion' and 'no right or wrong'. Objectivity means 'part of reality independent of a subject' and 'with a right or wrong'.

In accordance with Leibniz's law of indiscernibles it its accepted amongst scientists and philosophers alike that no 'one' thing in the universe can be exactly the same as another 'one' thing: if they are exactly the same, then they must be the same thing. Therefore if I begin my math with the assumption that 1=1, I am beginning with a subjectively accepted falsity. No things are alike, and no one thing in the entire universe is exactly equal to another 'one' thing IE: One is not equal to One . It is equal only to itself. Beyond subjective thinking we can have no two things that are actually equal. — Marcus de Brun

Your conclusion that "One is not equal to One" is wrong because it fails the Law of Identity: For all A: A = A. Now let A = 1. Therefore, 1 = 1. I fail to understand your demonstration using Leibniz's law of indiscernibles, because the first "1" is the same as the second "1" in the equation; so it does not fail the law of indiscernibles.

I understand your point, that strong disagreements on a topic suggests subjectivity. But two counter-points.

(1) Subjectivity is not necessarily entailed; inasmuch as people disagree on religions even though it is clearly an objective topic (E.g., if the Christian God exists, then He exists for everyone; and if not, then not).

(2) I dispute the claim that the disagreements are strong; even for the case of the death penalty. People do not argue on the death penalty when it comes to simple cases like children jaywalking; they do only when it comes to complex cases like dealing with terrorists. E.g., if only put in jail, will they escape? Will they do it again once released? Will their buddies continue to terrorize because jail time is not a strong enough incentive to stop? etc. If we know the answer to these questions with certainty, then there would be very few disagreements; and these are matters of facts, not values.

I am now confused as to where you stand. If you believe that "something can be ethically or morally wrong but legal or vice versa", then you believe in true ethics and morality, do you not? Those who don't believe in objective morality will use the man-made laws as the only criteria for what is considered wrong.