False. Getting real tired of you setting people up only to claim victory when you switch the bait. I have no idea what you mean when you say my perceptions are incoherent, nor how it's even coherent to say perceptions are incoherent. Perceptions are what they are, they may be false but they certainly aren't incoherent.

If you see the world is generically grey, you can't coherently claim it to be black on the grounds it is not white. Just as the pollyannaish reverse is also an incoherent claim. — apokrisis

But I don't see the world as generically grey, I see it as structurally black.

How I act upon this belief is entirely different. There is nothing stopping me from appreciating the ambiguity, or vagueness as you so love to say, of sentient welfare and the irony that this cultivates. Part of the pessimistic, or even just plain old existentialist, literature is the focus on the apparent paradox of human sentient existence. If you think the ways I cope with existence are not compatible with a belief that life is structurally unsound, then that's fine. Indeed it would be strange if the methods of coping were perfect, for there wouldn't be any reason to talk about the issues at hand.

So you're assuming pessimism has to be accompanied by a poor attitude. Not surprising, as I doubt you've actually read anything substantial in pessimistic literature, despite your ironic belligerence against it. If you had, you would have been familiar with the words of Camus, or Nietzsche, or Leopardi, who explicitly deny this assumption.

It is relevant that in one breath you tout the mood enhancing benefits of pot, the next you imagine it as the very worst advice I might give you and Schop (when it is as far away from sensible as any advice from positive psychology would get. — apokrisis

Mood enhancement is hardly a genuine solution to anything pessimism focuses on (or really anything for that matter, apart from maybe glaucoma or something), that's why I brought it up as an example. There's nothing incoherent in having a generally euthymic equilibrium while simultaneously having negative beliefs about life and existence. I've mentioned Leopardi's spontaneous explorer and Nietzsche's ubermensch before as examples. Leopardi's especially works well with what you implied elsewhere, the obvious aesthetic of the scientist (explorer of sorts).

For the record, I wouldn't get high again for the funnies. I'd do it to cope with the anxiety and tension I deal with on a daily basis, since years of therapy hasn't done much to ease my stress. There's a whole lot of ifs involved here, chances are I'll probably never get high again in the near future.

Thus the relevance is illustrating what awful arguments you make. — apokrisis

By planting a red herring and misdirecting the focus off my actual arguments and onto my so-called worship of weed.

I defined it - going the furthest in reducing awareness of reality to a matter of signs - that is, the theory we create and then the numbers we read off our instruments. — apokrisis

But why should I see this as the "height" of consciousness? Are you saying that this is consciousness at its most effective, as a well-oiled cog in the dynamic of the world?

The soccer goalie does just the same in the end. Success or failure is ultimately read off a score board ticking over - the measurement of the theory which is the rules of a game. — apokrisis

I mean, soccer isn't the only example available. What about artists who paint pictures blind or compose pieces deaf? Or the taxicab driver who doesn't need to look at the speedometer to know how fast he's going? Or the laborer who pounds stakes in the ground in a perfect repetition?

You are forgetting the role of measurement. Ideas must be cashed out in terms of impressions. — apokrisis

So, Hume? mkay

Science is the metaphysics that has proven itself to work. It is understanding boiled down to the pure language of maths. And so measurements become actually signs themselves, a number registering on an instrument. — apokrisis

It's really not that romantic, though. What if the instrument isn't working properly? What if you messed up in the calculation? What looks like understanding can easily be an error propagating through a system.

You say it boils down to the pure language of mathematics. Yet surely not all science rests on mathematics. Unless you wanna go all Meillassoux on us.

Yeah it's just so obvious. Alcohol doesn't cause drunkeness, drunkeness causes alcohol. Lobotomies don't cause a destruction of integrative thought, a lack of integrative thought cause lobotomies. Etc, etc. — apokrisis

Isn't this just begging the question, though, by implicitly assuming consciousness is akin to the effects of a physical reaction?

Consciousness isn't really weird, at least not in comparison to the apparent outside world. We at least know what consciousness is like. The "real" world is only able to be ascertained indirectly. It's probably nothing like what we experience it to be, if it even exists in the first place.

Smoked some weed for the first time last night at a concert. — darthbarracuda

I don't see how this is relevant.

and the superficiality of pot as a solution to life's problems — apokrisis

Dude, I did it once. It was alright. I'm not a pothead, sheesh.

But why do you presume the job of the mind is to see reality "as it is"? That makes no evolutionary sense. — apokrisis

If I may interject here, it seems to me that the job of the mind (or any organ for that matter) is to provide the organism the necessary nutrients to survive. In the case of the mind (or the brain depending on how you see the relationship between the two), paired with the sense organs, provides the organism a valuable nutrient - information.

Information, of course, needs to be accurate. The mind needs to be able to predict future outcomes, and it does this through trial-and-error learning, habitual behavior and unconscious memory. If everything was perfectly known, there would be no need for a mind. No thinking would be required. Thinking is the process in which we evaluate different sorts of information and construct a path of action. If we wanna go the psychoanalytical meta-psychological route, then consciousness is the (painful) method in which the unconscious satisfies its endless depth of want and need in a temporal world of insufficiency. Without this inherent ambiguity and uncertainty, there wouldn't seem to be any reason for an organism to expend energy on a representation of the world for the sake of representing the world. Certainly the mind cannot be an easy thing to maintain.

So apo is right in that for biological organisms, less tends to be more. Efficiency is what's up. But of course the mind has to be modelling the world somewhat accurately, otherwise theories like apo's wouldn't even make sense themselves. Here we have Plantinga's argument against naturalism, which in my opinion fails but certainly provokes discussion and refinement of naturalism.

The goal is to reduce awareness of the surrounding to the least amount of detail necessary to make successful future predictions, and thus to be able to insert oneself into the world as its formal and final cause. We gain control in direct proportion to our demonstrable ability to ignore the material facts of existence. — apokrisis

The tricky part is to figure out that balance between seeing too little and seeing too much. Curiosity as much as ignorance is a source of many problems. A cultural domino effect.

This is why science is the highest form of consciousness. It reduces awareness of the world to theories and measurements. We have an idea that predicts. Then all we have to do is read a number off some dial. — apokrisis

Why just science, though? Why not soccer? Surely goalies reduce their awareness of the world to the game, its rules and the movement of the players and the trajectory of the ball. Why isn't this the highest form of consciousness?

To denote science (or anything else) as the "highest" form of consciousness is sort of ambiguous in my opinion. Higher than what? What measuring system are we using here?

If anything I would have to say philosophy is the "highest" form of thought, since it deals with abstract concepts in a purely possible modality. Or, hell, even just daydreaming.

I'm legitimately curious as to why you think it's alright to blatantly ignore everything I just wrote by pretending it's the words of a seasoned stoner. Is it the impersonal culture of the internet, cognitive dissonance, or do you have some wisdom from above that isn't just scienced-up "suck it up"?

You smoke your first joint yesterday and today you talk like a seasoned stoner. — apokrisis

What?

And that existence is what you make it. — apokrisis

Empowering, yet false. Again this comes back to the whole schpeel about the requirement of illusions for personal security and optimism.

Of course Pollyannaism is as superficial as Pessimism. There are limits to what any individual can change. So Pragmatism accepts the necessity of working within limits. — apokrisis

Pessimism is pessimistic only in relationship to the very pollyanna optimism that is so widespread in the media and government and general public.

But it's not just blind pollyannaism but the general affirmative attitude towards life. Ever wonder why people are so resistant to suicide being legalized? It's because the existence of death is systematically obscured (oblivion!) and the non-Being of Being is forgotten and replaced by a delusion of permanence and progress.

Yet in accepting responsibility for playing a part in the making of a better world, at least we start acting like a grown-up. And that responsibility starts at home with ourselves - hence positive psychology. — apokrisis

I'm all for positive psychology if it makes us more productive. I'm not for positive psychology if it's seen as the Scientifically Correct way to deal with life.

So the problem with your pragmatic "solution" is that it's using a non-radical therapy to "solve" a radical problem that is not actually able to be solved, especially not by non-radical methods. You might as well just tell pessimists like me and Schop1 to go hit up the bong.

Of course pessimism thrives on the claim that misery (for us, in this era of history, due to the way we live) is inescapable.

But that is what makes it superficial as philosophy. — apokrisis

No, I think what makes pessimism so idiosyncratic is how easy and obvious it is but how paradoxically difficult it is to accept. Whereas other philosophical projects are somewhat successful at solving problems, the issues pessimism brings up are not really all that solve-able. And that's probably the rub of it. It's only superficial if you expected anything more.

Actually I'd say pessimism can be deeply interactive.

So misery exists (in nature) as a signal to get changing. It says you are in the wrong place and need to head to a better place. — apokrisis

But of course this better place has to be existence, right? :-}

But where are they discovered from? Nature is no guide to moral behavior, plus the whole is-ought distinction. It's left to human culture, and human cultures vary quite a bit. Individuals and groups within a culture often disagree a lot on what's moral. — Marchesk

Exactly why I believe naturalism is insufficient grounds to justify moral realism.

I think the moral realism/anti-realism debate can be approached in a different angle: moral realists typically believe moral truths can be discovered, whereas moral anti-realists typically believe moral truths are (in a certain qualified sense) invented. But just because something is invented doesn't mean it's useless - in fact inventions are generally useful by nature.

Okay, but I just want to understand your position. Is your position that it's not wrong to torture children, but that you pretend that it's wrong to torture them for convenience? — The Great Whatever

My position is that the common conception of morality is that morality is an objective and mind-independent source of guidelines for living, and that the moral anti-realist rejects this. Perhaps morality is a social phenomenon grounded in agreement and compromise.

I dislike the term "convenience" as it makes it seem like I don't have any emotional investment in morality when in fact I do. It's just that I don't think there's anything more to morality other than impulses from the unconscious and agreement between members of a society. These sorts of things can nevertheless be quite causally powerful, but nevertheless fail to qualify for "moral realism".

This is contradictory. What makes us moral if not that which grounds morality? — Thorongil

I meant morality in the realist sense is groundless. It doesn't exist.

It's not incoherent, but it's also not binding. If you believe it's a fiction, then you're acting, it's easy enough just to turn around and say, OK I don't actually believe it. — Wayfarer

Right, exactly. "Technically" speaking I don't actually "believe" it, but for all purposes I do because I act as though I do. It's practical, conventional, and comfortable to have morality instead of constantly reminding yourself that nothing actually matters in the end. Especially in situations where you have to make a choice, since error theory doesn't just magically transport you elsewhere where you don't have to make choices anymore. Something has to guide our action, and I find that phenomenologically-based morality does this quite well and is more robust and dependable than both moral realism and egoism.

The only problem is why one ought to care at all in the first place, not whether moral statements can be justified or not. — Wosret

Ideally, meta-ethics shouldn't interfere with the practice of normative ethics. We're moral beings, even if morality is ultimately groundless. We'll continue to be moral regardless.

Is that the issue? I thought the issue was whether there are 'moral facts' or not? Nothing about the mind was mentioned.

Are mental states not 'real properties?' What relevance does any of this have? — The Great Whatever

The relevance is that morality by and large is phenomenologically experienced as a sort of command structure from elsewhere, a series of hypothetical imperatives and obligations that don't derive their existence from the unconscious mind.

So yeah, if we're gonna say mental states are facts, then sure morality has a factual basis. But there's really no reason to go this route, because it's clear that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about objective, mind-independent truthmakers of normative claims and to say otherwise is a red herring.

Now of course if you're an idealist, morality is not going to be mind-independent because nothing is mind-independent. But this doesn't necessarily make you a realist either, since you can still see morality as ultimately subjective.

But surely you think certain things are actually illegal? And that there are legal facts? — The Great Whatever

From a purely descriptive sense, yes, just as I can say certain things are commonly seen by humans as moral or immoral without attaching any prescription to the description.

So, if there is no truth to moral claims, it must be that there's no truth to 'torturing children is wrong.' And so you must be committed to thinking it isn't true that torturing children is wrong. Or what am I missing? — The Great Whatever

I'm saying the belief that torturing children is wrong has no mind-independent factual basis. That is all. Just because something is a hallucination doesn't mean it's worthless.

Is torturing children wrong? By your own lights, it seems you can't ascertain the answer to this question until you have a philosophical theory of truth. But this would make you either an idiot or a psychopath. — The Great Whatever

Again, this doesn't have much to do with anything, since I already said that moral fictionalism is not only a rational position to hold but also a comfortable position to hold. Like how you can play a game while understanding it's not actually reality. We exist, and we live and interact with other people, and figuring out how we should live that satisfies us in various respects, not altogether self-interested, is important.

What does it matter whether it's 'dependent on the mind' or not? — The Great Whatever

Because that's the whole issue at stake here, whether or not moral propositions are in some way dependent on the mind or not for their truth. People typically think and act as though moral propositions are indicative of real properties and not just mental states.

If you don't think torturing kids is wrong, but you pretend to think that so others don't suspect you of thinking torturing kids isn't wrong, aren't you a psychopath? — The Great Whatever

Erm, no, because I'm still abiding by and studying morality. I just don't see it as being actually grounded in anything. Just like I can believe the legal system is wholly dependent on minds but nevertheless not be a criminal.

You mean, you think moral claims are true? — The Great Whatever

No, I think moral claims aim at truth but always fail to attain it, because there is no truth to moral claims, because there are no objective, real moral truthmakers.

What makes anything true? Before asking that question, we need to agree on the simple fact that they are true. But a deflationary account seems promising. — The Great Whatever

I fail to see why. In order to agree that something is true, we need to know what truth is, which you said apparently comes after determining what is and is not true. This isn't coherent.

So you don't think torturing children is wrong, but it's convenient to act like it's wrong? — The Great Whatever

I don't think there is any legitimate ground for the proposition that torturing children is wrong that isn't dependent on the mind, particularly the unconscious.

But it is useful to continue acting as it morality does exist, not only so others don't see me as a psychopath but also because I nevertheless have moral compulsions that motivate me to act in a certain way. I feel the universe should "be" a certain way, even if I know there isn't ultimately any mind-independent reason for the must-be.

I'd be curious to know what you think makes moral propositions true. Without God (or even with him...), there's nothing, from what I can tell, preventing us from asking "so what?"

But what can this mean other than to say that it's not actually or really wrong to torture children? — The Great Whatever

It means that I have the preference, or attitude, that looks down on torturing children (non-cognitivism), or it means that I legitimately believe that torturing children is wrong but understand that this is a belief that exists outside the philosophy room (error theory).

There's nothing incoherent about believing morality to be a fiction, but nevertheless see it as a useful or preferable fiction. Especially since it's not really practical to be a nihilist about everything.

1) "It's wrong to torture children." This is a moral claim, and it's also true. So there are true moral claims. — The Great Whatever

I deny the ultimate truth aptness of this claim. It's not that torturing children is actually okay or righteous, but that there is no actual real moral truth to the matter. Moral truths, in my opinion, are based on agreement and rationalizing within a system of relative coherence and not correspondence.

Dean Zimmerman has an interesting essay about what it would take and mean to survive after death.

http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/zimmerman/pitsod.pdf

It would be different if moral claims were in some obvious way different form non-moral ones, but they're not. — The Great Whatever

But moral realism isn't simply about the semantics of normative propositions, otherwise there wouldn't be any difference between error theory and non-cognitivism. There's legitimately something that makes them true or false; the presence or absence of moral properties in the world.

In my opinion, moral realism is not compatible with a naturalistic worldview. It's either too spooky or not "morally" sufficient.

Your life has to be a vale of tears or else your personal philosophy would be contradicted. — apokrisis

Why is this, and why do you assume my life is not a vale of tears? And why is the existence of lives that are vales of tears not important?

You stop belly aching about the life that has mechanically been forced upon you and take charge of creating a life as you want it. — apokrisis

Yes, indeed, one of the most deceptive aspects of positive psychology is the emphasis on the apparent compatibility between freedom and happiness (and, consequentially, one of the most emphasized aspects of cultural pessimistm is the incompatibility between the two). Especially since neither one is really attainable to any significant degree.

It's ridiculous to believe the universe was meant to make anyone happy, so the individual is expected to take up the reigns and bootstrap themselves into happiness - and this is expected of everyone, as anyone in dissent is seen as atypical. But the fact is that the Stoic advice contradicts its own metaphysics.

Neither do we have the freedom necessary to accomplish all our goals and aspirations. Fulfillment is not really about satisfying all your goals but of tailoring them to your environment, learning to swallow mediocrity. You have freedom to manipulate what is given to you in order to better suit your needs, but that's it.

And of course there's the oft-ignored issue of extreme situations. Natural disasters, catastrophes, horrible suffering and trauma - nobody wants these to happen, but they still do. Who is to blame? Are the victims simply supposed to accept that they're at fault?

Of course then if you think you can have a life of untroubled bliss, you don't understand the point of life at all. So there is no point making romantic transcendence your goal. The nature of nature is pragmatic. Suck it up. It ain't so bad once you do achieve that kind of harmonious flow. — apokrisis

And here we have, alongside your previous comment, the aggressive nature of affirmative ethics, specifically expansionary ethics like utilitarianism or pragmatic ethics. Instead of providing a reason satisfactory to the individual, you demand the dissent to suck it up and learn to deal with life. That's not answering the issue, that's just pushing it away as "unimportant" because it doesn't fit in whatever preconceived notion you're working under. It's strikingly similar to the bourgeoisie demanding the proletariat suck it up and keep working under such poor conditions. It's severely lacking in compassion and understanding.

I've said it before: civilization may thrive but only at the expense of its constituents.

For as much time as I spend reading and studying metaphysics, I have a comparatively low amount of metaphysical commitments. Those that I do have don't really affect my behavior that much, except for maybe my general belief that other people exist and that non-human animals can suffer.

If the religious folks are right, then the continuation of the species might have a reason going for it. But religious ethics is nevertheless almost unanimously affirmative despite having general negative approaches towards life and existence - for the Christian as much as the Utilitarian, the world is not good-enough (negative), but it can be redeemed (affirmative). The "candle in the dark". The paradoxical aspect of Christian ethics seems to be that problems have to be inserted in order for moral saints to "fix" them. Something-something problems are necessary for a good relationship with God or something esoteric like that. The idea that the candle shines brighter when there's more darkness or something.

But with the death of God, the only positive transcendent value a secular man has (to paraphrase Nietzsche) is the future. It's why "secular theodicies" inherently depend on positive predictions, even if these predictions are outlandish and far-in-the-future. So much of our value is dependent upon the future. Think of the children! Think of the possible accomplishments that we'll never actually get to enjoy! The deceptive nature of meaning seems to rest at least partly in the imaginative fulfillment of possible projects that never actually actualize. For the individual, this keeps them sane even though it is technically self-deception. For the society, though, this manifests as oppression and manipulation, as people are thrown away as expendable even if they agree to being thrown away.

But anyway, if you reject suicide in the way Schopenhauer rejects it as a manifestation of the Will, then you probably also should reject human or sentient extinction for the same reason. Things happen and persist for no reason and if we're going to change anything, it's going to have to be for more intra-worldly reasons than anything metaphysical.

I am trying to interpret this correctly. Do you mean to say Nietzsche believed that life-denying beliefs affirm life, because you have to live to deny life, and this is indirectly affirming it? — schopenhauer1

Essentially, yes. Nietzsche's Will-to-Power, a supposed-denial of the Will is nevertheless a form of willing (even Schopenhauer recognized this when he argued that aesthetic sublimation submerges one in the wider will of the world in general). In order to argue against arguments, you have to use an argument. In order to argue against the vital impulse of life, you have to use a vital impulse of life.

It is forced not directly, but indirectly in that not participating in these institutions is a non-starter. — schopenhauer1

er, one can argue that institutions are actually self-perpetuating and may not have the individual in mind so much as perpetuating the social contract. — schopenhauer1

One can also go the path of questioning whether institutions, hierarchies, governments, etc are justified to begin with. Is any harm or manipulation or coercion of the Other ever truly, infinitely justified (here we see the hypocritical and aggressive nature of affirmative normative ethics)? Such a negative perspective on political theory and life in general is almost always tossed out immediately as a "non-starter", as you said, because "life" is considered "immutable", "self-evidently valuable", "obviously worth continuing", etc. You can't exactly have a political theory of life if you reject the innocuous ethical view of life, or so it is assumed.

Affirmative societies take Being to be intrinsically valuable (despite it being simply a hiccup in between non-Being), and yet simultaneously obscure it; in other words, to affirm Being requires the concealment of Being by these same institutions you are referring to. But life, Being, is indefensible. One must point to beings within life to justify life, or take the Nietzschean route and point out the contradiction inherent in rejecting the vital essence by use of the vital essence, "life's vengeance" so to speak, the way life affirms itself by denying the validity of the opposition.

Just because it 'feels right' and it's not hurting anyone doesn't make the cut.
Someone could presume that it's sinful and that it 'feels wrong' and that it will hurt the person/society/God/children. — NukeyFox

Right, but to live in society requires one to make compromises. I could just as easily say that I am offended and scared by followers of x-religion, and point out how following x-religion is entirely optional and voluntary, and claim that it of utmost importance that those following x-religion cease and desist or gtfo of my homeland.

The fact of the matter is that individuality rests upon deviance, and that a society that promises individuality to its members must place limits on the expression of this deviant behavior. So long as someone is not a legitimate threat to the freedom of expression of yourself and everyone else in society, this person cannot seriously be prosecuted.

Is there a way we can justify homosexuals? — NukeyFox

At any rate, your argument doesn't seem to be consistent. You say it's against homosexuality as innate, but really you're trying to point out an apparent inconsistency between the social reaction to two deviant behaviors, homosexuality and pedophilia/psychopathy.

As far as I'm concerned, we shouldn't technically blame pedophiles or psychopaths for their harmful actions. But we live in society and as such these sorts of technicalities get thrown out as we end up focusing more on our rational self-preservation and the general well-being of the community. Like it or not, society will always be insufficiently moral, to whomever you talk to. It's just the way things are; people exist in close spaces and with limited resources and end up bumping and squishing and sliding and bouncing off each other as we all try our best to achieve our desires and fulfill our biological needs.

To ask such a question seems to presuppose not only that we have an adequate understanding of what personal identity is, but also that personal identity is concrete enough to be something that can be gained or lost.

Perhaps the answer is more psychological than philosophical. — TheMadFool

I suspect this may be the case.

Perhaps there's an absence of the implication of a personal defect in a general statement. — TheMadFool

Yes, interesting point. It is quite strange that we normally would be insulted by an attack on our personal dignity (say, if someone proclaims I am an insect (metaphorically)), but are not insulted when someone attacks the human race as a whole (we're all insects).

Say a super powerful race of aliens zooms into our atmosphere and proclaims that the human race is quite a sorry lot and that we should stop expanding our civilization. Although I normally would actually agree with that statement, I nevertheless would be quite insulted by such a statement. Like, who are you to tell me that my life is not worth living, that's my job!

But if the super powerful race of aliens comes with a message that all sentient life, not just human life but the alien life as well, is such-and-such and what have you, the sting goes away. It's as if, if someone admits that their own life is generally not worth living, it's no longer a serious transgression. It's more like a confession.

How an idea like this is presented seems to be important, too. If I present empirical, factual accounts of the human condition but leave out any substantial value-laden claims, I'm not really doing anything wrong. But this also is a bit too open-ended; the pessimistic conclusion from the data is not presented. But if the conclusion is presented too forcibly, it suddenly becomes way too aggressive. It's as if sometimes philosophical accounts like this have to be presented in a certain way. There's an art to finding the right balance between honesty and respect.

Perhaps a defining feature would be a passive evaluative claim. If I say "human existence is such-and-such", I am saying that I believe that human existence qualifies for whatever predicate I use. But there seems to be an element of passivity that prevents me from enforcing this evaluation. From my perspective I obviously believe I am correct in my evaluation, but I can't treat it as a factual claim, even if it is. For some reason there seems to be an ethical requirement that evaluative claims like this are held on a person-by-person basis, even if they objectively aren't subjective.

Although this is a big blow to heart and mind it also opens up the possibility of finding a personal fulfilling, enjoyable subjective meaning to life. As an added bonus we also, despite the suffering that is real and unavoidable, find moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting how small, that make us feel our lives worth living. — TheMadFool

I agree, a certain aesthetic surrounding the paradoxical nature of human existence can be cultivated to make a pessimistic life meaningful. Perhaps there is no logical connection between the value of life and the factual descriptions of it. Without trying to be cliche, it would seem to be that life is what life is, but the interpretation of this, the essence of life, is up to the individual to decide.

This also seems to be a decent argument for antinatalism - if I'm not morally allowed to tell people whether or not their lives are personally worth living, then surely nobody is allowed to force someone to live a life they may or may not feel is personally worth living. Of course, this is kind of a mask for the more fundamental issue, the disvalue of suffering, the same disvalue that I just said potentially isn't objectively shown to be of disvalue. Confusing.

Given the hard facts above wouldn't it be utter hubris and foolish to boot to claim one can understand god's mind?

Does this argument refute the problem of evil?

God moves in mysterious ways...Cowper — TheMadFool

No, because it begs the question.

You claim one cannot understand God's mind. Yet by saying so, you claim to understand an aspect of God's mind - it's apparent inability to be understood.

The religious leap of faith seems to be, then, that jump when someone recognizes the everyday, common-sense implausibility of what they believe, but also understands the technical internal coherence of the religion. That, despite the great chance of the opposite, it just might actually be correct. There's no way to rationally justify it. You just have to take the leap.

Much of theology and theodicy are not really proofs of God's existence or goodness or whatever, but rather defenses against criticism. Apologetics. To show that a belief in God is technically compatible with whatever criticism is brought up. It doesn't prove anything definitively, it just shows that it's not entirely incoherent.

Per utilitarianism good is what makes us happy. Its apparent simplicity and appeal to our subconscious instincts (''happy'') makes the idea sound reasonable. However I think the issue is far more complex than that. If good is only about happiness then a serial murderer on a killing spree is good since he's doing what makes him happy. This clearly shows there's more to being good than just happiness. — TheMadFool

Some of us might be willing to bite the bullet and accept that the serial murderer's apparent happiness is "good" - at least, it's intrinsically good for the murderer. It's bad for everyone else.

Good feelings are good feelings. Bad feelings are bad feelings.

Another problem is the ''maximize'' and ''overall'' terms. It assumes we can quantify happiness in a meaningful practical way. I don't think that's possible. Also it commits the fallacy of appeal to majorit e.g. in ancient times the Carhthaginians performed child sacrifices and I'm willing to bet that the majority of Carthaginian folks thought the practice was at least acceptable. Yet child-sacrifice is unimaginable to modern sensibilities. — TheMadFool

The use of thresholds and priorities are helpful when "calculating" utility. Scanlon, I believe, argues that welfare ought to be measured in terms of resources. I prefer to measure utility based on freedom. The happy man can take care of himself. Those who are worse off typically are those who are not able to fulfill needs.

Even though utility can be ambiguous, if you get a large enough gap it becomes quite clear when there is a difference in utility.

Also, re the Carthaginian child sacrifices: the Utility Monster is a direct consequence of classical, positive utilitarianism. Negative consequentialists avoid this, although they have other issues they have to deal with themselves.

After all a cursory glance at nature shows that it is ''amoral'' - unconcerned by human concerns such as morality. — TheMadFool

Yet saying nature is "unconcerned" nevertheless anthropomorphizes it, in the same way calling genes "selfish" or predators "merciless" ascribes some sort of agency to a non-agent (or is it a non-agent...?).

No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to fully describe nature in a way that isn't tainted by human values. And if teleology is a real aspect of reality, then it stands that we might actually be coherent in calling some things in nature legitimately malignant or harmful.

So evidence seems much stronger than argument. However, absence of evidence doesn't equate to absence. Something can be true but unobserved or unobservable. — Andrew4Handel

But evidence is only strong when it is pieced together through rational deliberation. Observation doesn't just magically lead to knowledge. What we perceive has to be disassembled, reassembled, and interpreted. The same observation can be interpreted in many different ways. The way we move forward in inquiry isn't simply by making more observations, but by returning to the premises and analyzing those as well. Paradigm shifts.

Reviewing the fact that utilitarianism seeks the ultimate option that maximizes the overall happiness in society, Is there any place for morality? — musimusis

Utilitarianism is a moral theory. That we ought to maximize happiness (and minimize suffering) is a normative prescription.

A warning here - don't get all 'mystical' about it - stick with reality. You can imagine things, but know that it is most likely sheer make-believe. You can spend time, money, and energy testing them, if you think they are worth further investigation. but don't go playing the IS GAME - where you claim your speculations are correct without tests and verifications (unless your purpose is deception and fleecing people out of their money, like a celebrity guru). — Numi Who

I don't know why you seem to be so resistant towards metaphysics. This also isn't even metaphysics, it's an attempt at phenomenology, the science of consciousness from the first person perspective.

METAPHYSICS AS PROVIDING EXCUSES — Numi Who

I don't get this, astrology isn't metaphysics, and metaphysics isn't astrology.

I call it the 'IS GAME' - when you claim that your speculations are correct, for whatever knavish reasons (and there are many). — Numi Who

Hence why epistemically productive metaphysics is far more conservative and based upon dialectic and not just the speculation of a single mind.