And if they don't "pick themselves up"? What is the solution? Lock them up? Do you know that the United States has the highest prison population the world? Do we really want to start a crusade locking people up? — Wheatley

We should start by releasing all of the non-violent drug offenders, institute some necessary police reform, and maybe increase the police in some particularly rough areas. That's what I would do.

crime is an act of individuals, not groups, so it would make more sense to look at individual circumstances rather than invent racial ones. — NOS4A2

I did emphasize that it is a choice for each murderer to murder at the end of my OP.

I can’t help but cringe when someone brings up “black-on-black crime” for the same reasons I cringe when I hear about “white privilege”. Two racist assumptions occur the moment we consider such propositions: that human beings can be demarcated on grounds of race, and that this arbitrary demarcation has some bearing on individual behavior. — NOS4A2

This arbitrary demarcation is useful because of the shared culture and experiences of people of color and how it affects the disproportionate amount of crime they commit. I would never claim that someone is automatically a criminal because they are black, or automatically likes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. because they are white.

From there it isn’t long before we’re talking about essences like “blackness” and “whiteness”, and other absurdities. But crime is an act of individuals, not groups, so it would make more sense to look at individual circumstances rather than invent racial ones. — NOS4A2

I agree that crime is an individual choice and that individual circumstances are most important, but the group becomes relevant when you see a disproportionate amount of crime coming from said group; it is likely that there are some commonalities that can be abstracted (whiteness, blackness, etc.).

You didn't even make an argument, bro. You just listed a bunch of examples of white-on-white violence

Systemic racism is, IMO, wholly different – higher level – topic, and thus perpetuated by rhetorically rendering it invisible by talking about "black-on-black crime" as if that is an aberration devoid of wider socioeconomic structures and stressors. :brow: — 180 Proof

Did I or did I not say that culture plays a part and that many cultural influences are affected by racism? Did I say black-on-black violence existed in a vacuum?

I mean did you even read the OP?

I find your comments to be self-indulgent and poorly written. I shouldn't have to deal with all of that unnecessary punctuation. And I never said there was no severe white-on-white crime; I'm talking strictly about the here and now in the US.

If we are paying attention to systemic racism, do you respond what about breast cancer? Surely breast cancer is something worth paying attention to. And what about feminism generally and the plight of children in Eastern Europe? Bringing something unuseful up in an unrelated context because that unseful thing is important is a waste of time, i.e. a deflection. — Ennui Elucidator

Some people do in fact dismiss all mentions of black-on-black violence as racist merely because it is sometimes a deflection, such as when discussing systemic racism, like you say. But even when it isn't dismissed outright as a deflection it is systematically down-played when it overlaps with systemic racism and other issues affecting people of color.

I think you’d find it unlikely that serious people exclaim that black on black violence is always a deflection, but that the only time they hear certain people talk about it is in response to a conversation about (or action against) systemic racism. — Ennui Elucidator

I'm talking about some somewhat serious people, and some very unserious people here - mostly college age and steeped in social justice.

If one is concerned with people of color being murdered, then black-on-black violence is relevant; far more black men die to other black men, for instance, than police officers. Insofar as systemic racism relates to people of color being murdered, black-on-black violence eclipses it and it is not a deflection to mention it.

In before someone accuses me of writing claptrap

I still believe that the reason for non-Asian minorities' average underperformance is likely to be genes rather than "systemic racism" — Xanatos

While intelligence is inherited largely, there is no evidence that people of color are actually genetically predisposed to being stupider. At all. You are probably trolling, so I don't know why I am bothering at all, but that's what the facts say.

I mean so much of the bible is both horrible and almost certainly literal, such as Deuteronomy 25:11-12:

If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.

Difficult to interpret that metaphorically. While it isn't difficult to just pick out horrible verses and say that it reflects on the whole of the bible, the fact that it is so easy reflects on the whole. But that's just my opinion. Also: a different ancient text would probably be better; the bible has also been translated so many times in different ways (literal translation, idiomatic, etc.)

Better dust off the moldering texts (as tucker would say!).

In all seriousness though, what are you putting forward for discussion? Just any and all ancient texts and how we should interpret them lacking the knowledge of whether or not certain passages were literal?

I mean, surely you recognize that one sentence can have almost the same meaning as another? That a sentence can approximate the meaning of another sentence, or at least approach it?

Semantically your theory may work, but it is not tied to reality, and thus, it is not something that says anything. — god must be atheist

It's a heuristic, not a comprehensive theory.

Good point - as usual. Perhaps I should call them contingent facts.

Facts can't be argued. There are no such things as facts that are approximate. Our opinion based on our differences of observation may be approximations. But facts are never approximate. — god must be atheist

I expected this. We can get close to expressing a fact, and so it is an approximate fact. Never claimed they were beyond dispute. But I did say that there might be a way of using approximate facts to arrive at less approximate (or even real) facts given the approximate facts started with are within a certain range of their real counterparts. It is just difficult to say whether or not we can indeed approximate facts the way a computer can approximate things in a simulation.

Why I think there are approximate moral facts is that, according to a moral realist, there are objective features of the world that make the propositions contained in ethical sentences true. If we ground ethical sentences in such things it follows that we can approximate a moral fact if the approximate moral fact is sufficiently close to the actual moral fact such as that it functions no differently given a certain set of true ethical sentences; the approximate moral fact would also merely represent the features of the world that would make the corresponding moral fact true, without regard to whether or not it contradicts or represents other actual moral facts inaccurately.

Furthermore, to speak about moral facts, you need to know what they are. Do you have a description of what makes a fact a moral fact? A completely accurate conceptual definition that delineates moral facts from other facts? If yes, I'd like you to show what it is. Without a benchmark, you can't approximate. And the benchmark is missing. — god must be atheist

A moral fact is a fact that represents a facet of objective morality.
.

This paragraph begs the question. How do we know the statements reflect morality? There is actually no logical connection between "it is wrong to steal on the Sabbath" and anything wrong stealing on the Sabbath. Semantically your theory may work, but it is not tied to reality, and thus, it is not something that says anything. — god must be atheist

I'm presupposing that the statements are moral merely to show how the heuristic would work. I obviously don't actually think that I just made a universal law that governs when it is okay to steal.

Without a benchmark, you can't approximate. And the benchmark is missing. — god must be atheist

The benchmark is indeed the biggest issue: in order to apply my heuristic we would need a good idea of a few moral facts to begin with. But then again I already said that in the OP.

I will keep at it, thanks.

Don't take the sentence stating a rule as a single semantic unit and leave it at that. Also include the concepts/ideas that will obviously appear as phrases or words. — TheMadFool

The semantic units could be anything from a whole sentence to just a few words. Including the ideas/concepts that appear as words or phrases would complicate things because it is difficult to square the compatibility of a concept with another. Keeping it as basic as possible would allow for greater efficiency in the calculations.

See that the rule itself, as a whole, squares with the the parts, the constiuent concepts/ideas. — TheMadFool

As I wrote above.

The catch is this isn't new? It's the way it's always been done, not just with rules but every sentence that was, is, will be uttered. I don't get it! — TheMadFool

The best way I can think of this is that many sentences could potentially be compatible with a number of phrases, but they don't necessarily have to be understood in those terms to make sense. In my process the sentences/laws must accurately represent all of their pre-specified constituent parts to be valid (approximations).

I really need to read more about linguistics; I'm sure there are better words for what I am trying to say.

It would seem that the approximate moral facts started with would have to be within a certain range of closeness to their real counterparts so that the approximations built off of them wouldn't be drastically off the mark, however.

Removed my stupid joke. Sorry.

I do want Guantanamo closed down — NOS4A2

Well, great! Maybe you have a moral compass!

the CIA and FBI abolished, along with every other federal agency. — NOS4A2

No, I do not want to abolish every federal agency, that is crazy talk - even though I consider myself a left-libertarian. Guns are okay, all drugs should be legal, free speech, etc. All of that good stuff.

In my ideal world we’d help members of our community instead of delegating that responsibility to the state. — NOS4A2

Yes, but people, especially the ultra-rich, have demonstrated that they have a willingness to do precisely everything but that. The state obviously needs to take care of people sometimes.

For instance: what about the severely mentally ill? Should we leave them to fend for themselves? Just live off of the pocket change they scrounge off of the pavement?

So then it would be bad to reign in the military-industrial complex?

What if we just organized a vigorous infrastructure revitalization plan? Maybe that would drain enough to avoid the overproduction crisis?

Tough shit. Then you have the freedom to starve to death. That’s NOS’s ideal world, anyway. Government is the problem, free markets are the solution. It’s done wonders the last 40 years— especially the Friedman Doctrine. — Xtrix

I know five-year-old's with more thought-out worldviews; at least they believe they should share their stickers with people.

I mean, would you like to be detained and water-boarded for being a suspected terrorist? If you don't want the state to have a monopoly on violence or coercion you should want Guantanamo closed down.

By slavery I mean the thirteenth amendment of the constitution, which reserved slavery and involuntary servitude for prisoners. — NOS4A2

Then you should care about the incarceration and torture of suspected terrorists without due process.

Trump on torture:

Torture works. OK, folks? You know, I have these guys—”Torture doesn’t work!”—believe me, it works. And waterboarding is your minor form. Some people say it’s not actually torture. Let’s assume it is. But they asked me the question: What do you think of waterboarding? Absolutely fine. But we should go much stronger than waterboarding.

But if you don’t like the parameters, you can refuse to accept the terms or move elsewhere. They cannot force you to stay and work, and you are the ultimate arbiter of your employment. — NOS4A2

What if there is no better alternative? What if you have no education or qualifications for anything other than a retail job?

The state, on the other hand, particularly the American state, can force you into slavery. — NOS4A2

Oh sweet Jesus - don't tell me you think forcing doctors to care for people who don't have money is slavery. Who is a slave to the US government?

edit: other than people who lick Biden's boots

I'm going to flag your comment for triggering me. Triggered.

We have to look to who has the monopoly on violence and coercion. — NOS4A2

Then I guess we should tolerate mob justice?

No corporation or church can skim from my wealth or throw me in prison or regulate my activity. — NOS4A2

What about censorship on social media? And aren't corporations responsible for the wages they pay their employees? Maybe that isn't "skimming wealth", but corporations can decide whether or not you live in poverty - and many hard workers do merely because of the bottom line.

That is true. What many don't realize is that the USA would be in the middle of a long-long elongated depression, created by an overproduction crisis. This is counter-effected by the powers that be by draining the economy; they do it by building up a military. The military brings nothing to the table of the economy; but because it only takes away, it makes sure that whatever is on the table will get bought up. If things remain on the table, they have a poisonous effect on the economy. A bit like a real, food table: if you don't wash it and empty it of food every day, it will develop greasy dirt that attracts microbes, rodents and disease. — god must be atheist

I never would have thought such a thing. But wouldn't production naturally slow down if people weren't buying things and there was no tremendous military industrial complex draining the economy? I'm no economist (or really anything for that matter), so that question might be a bit naïve. But I understand what you are describing.

Yes, thats right, and if the dilemma were previously framed as which course of action caused most happiness, changing it to which causes least suffering won't change the disagreement because lack of happiness can be framed as a type of suffering. — Isaac

Fair enough.

The former. They may talk as if they disagreed about the latter, but my argument is that such disagreements are superficial whether it's least suffering, or most happiness, or most virtuous, or most culturally acceptable, or most pleasing to God... The main thrust of the disagreement in moral dilemmas is not the objective, it's the means of getting there. — Isaac

Once again, fair enough.

If you define suffering as exclusively being an undesirable state of mind then it seems to me that not every metric can be converted to suffering, although almost anything could be seen to cause suffering.
— ToothyMaw

Seems contradictory. If anything can be framed by how much suffering it causes, then it seems to follow that every metric can be converted. All that's required is to measure the suffering caused by it's valence. — Isaac

That was a bit of a mindfuck. I suppose that that is true too.

So where does that even leave us?

I also personally thought that linguistics had more to do with the expression of ideas rather than the idea itself. Of course, certain ways of expressing ideas could yield promising results that can help us get better at approximating the actual answer. I was wondering what your thoughts on using linguistics for this subject were. — XFlare

Maybe analyzing applied approximate moral facts in terms of the semantics of their constituent parts and comparing the combinations of constituent parts to the outcomes arrived at by their application could yield a basis for combining said constituent parts into a more accurate approximation through trial and error?

Basically you would insert different combinations of chunks of meaning into an ever-closer approximation based upon how you know they interact from trial and error, and then check the consistency/closeness of the approximation.

(duplicated post)

Yeah, I definitely agree with all of that. :up:

But it seems to me many of these rationalizations are the result of or an interaction with deeper tendencies like tribalism, fanaticism, greed, hegemony, etc. - things that are both explicitly and latently dangerous.

For example, none of the neocons in the US can even give a fucking half-decent rationalization for their forever-wars, so the tendency towards hegemony with regards to the US is quite explicit.

I see now what you were getting at, but I think Cheshire meant something else entirely.

That's just it: feelings are not universal over some particular action or event.

For example: One nation's celebration of victory over the overlords is a sad day in the life of the overlord. The victory is moral on one side of the fence, immoral on the other side.

Or take the crucifixion of Jesus. Christians decry and hate the decision by the Jewish leadership to crucify him; yet without the act, people of Jesus' followers would never be saved. So should Christians thank the Jews for killing their god, or hate them for it? Christians by-and-large chose the hate part.

If my soccer team wins by one goal where the referee did not punish my team for being off side, then it's not a moral sin for the followers of my team, but it is for the opposing team. — god must be atheist

How does that relate to what you quoted? I think Cheshire was more talking about how we have to give a justification for why one act is better than another - and explain it in words; we have to be able to give
- at minimum - a rationalization about why we are right, if not a fully logical explanation.

Right, but Chaos Theory is almost entirely mathematical. I think linguistics is probably more important in this context than math because we would describe a moral fact, or the approximation of one, in terms of language, not, say, in terms of the curvature of the path of a body in the presence of other bodies. So I don't know if Chaos Theory could say a whole lot about approximating moral facts and the outcomes of doing so.

But it is interesting nonetheless, and the concept might be useful.

If the liking system were still in effect I would like that comment. :up:

Unless I'm mistaken that is a big thing that happens when running certain simulations.

Since every metric can be 'converted' to suffering, changing the metric doesn't resolve the fact that the measurement of it is unresolvable. — Isaac

If you define suffering as exclusively being an undesirable state of mind then it seems to me that not every metric can be converted to suffering, although almost anything could be seen to cause suffering.

If we could choose the option which causes less suffering it wouldn't be an extant moral dilemma, it would already be solved (like no-one is wondering whether we should torture children for fun). Moral dilemmas are dilemmas because it is undecidable which course of action causes the least (or most) of whatever metric you're using to determine 'right'. Since every metric can be 'converted' to suffering, changing the metric doesn't resolve the fact that the measurement of it is unresolvable. — Isaac

Okay, yes, I see what you are saying - if the dilemma is merely that which course of action causes less suffering then it isn't really a moral dilemma; it is a disagreement about facts about which course of action will cause less suffering.

Try it, by all means. Take a moral dilemma where people disagree with you about the 'right' course of action. Tell them how much 'suffering' you think the 'wrong' option causes and see if they disagree. If they do, where do you go next? To what higher authority do you appeal to judge the correct amount of 'suffering' in cases of disagreement? — Isaac

Do you mean they disagree about the amount of suffering caused or whether or not minimizing suffering is a good objective?

I didn't say you couln't measure it, I said it was nebulous and everything can be framed in those terms. Take any existing moral dilemma, then say 'we should look at this in terms of how much each option would cause suffering'. What is achieved by framing it that way. All the factors being considered (tradition, God's will, personal preferences, in-group bias...) can be framed as types of 'suffering', so no factors are being filtered or highlighted for consideration. The dilemma is exactly as it was. — Isaac

I'm not sure I understand. Unless I'm mistaken you are saying that suffering is caused by every action, so we cannot weigh one course of action against another. Well, sometimes there is a measurable tradeoff - one course of action might cause suffering, but less suffering than if it weren't taken. That is how many moral dilemmas could be solved: choose the option that causes less suffering, which, as you admit, can be measured. This seems exceedingly simple to me: trade more suffering for less whenever possible.

Or are you saying there is no discernible criterion for "suffering" since everything could be interpreted as suffering, so there is absolutely no way of navigating moral dilemmas? That seems incorrect to me too because we definitely can can develop a criterion - suffering is an inherently undesirable state of mind we all feel. Thus extraneous factors like God's will can be disregarded. But then again I don't really understand how God's will could actually be a form of suffering anyways.

Cool that you can take criticism!

But I get what you are saying.

The thing is that in the mind of such a person, there is objective morality. I mean this in the metaethical sense. Such a person has an unfailing conviction that they know objective morality. — baker

But whether or not morality is objective is still independent of anyone's feelings by definition. Just because I don't believe in god doesn't mean he doesn't exist and that the bible isn't made up of (contradictory) moral facts. The converse applies too.