Legal rights are a very small part of the law. What people may consider moral or immoral is a very small part of the law. If a law addresses what people may consider moral or immoral, people often disagree on whether what it addresses or provides is one or the other. The law is a vast system, and to think of laws as moral or immoral is simply to disregard the laws as they exist.

Well, I don't think it's a play on words, which normally refers to punning.

Regarding the

If the law allows something immoral or prohibits something moral, the law is immoral. — David Mo

I've explained why I feel this isn't the case already, so I assume you're just noting your disagreement.
I'm inclined to think conduct is moral or immoral, and people act morally or immorally.

What results from the immorality of the law is the right to oppose it, which is enshrined even in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. — David Mo

If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a law (the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't seem to think so), the rights it refers to are legal rights. I don't think there is a right to oppose laws unless there is a legal right to do so (i.e. the law states there is such a right under certain circumstances). However, I think certain laws should be opposed, regardless of whether there is a right to do so. No "right" is required for opposition to be appropriate.

But why should they be legal rights? — NOS4A2

Many of what are called "natural rights" aren't legal rights, depending on the system of law. Legal rights exist, though, in the sense that they've been adopted and recognized by the sovereign of a nation and provision in the system of law has been made for their protection and enforcement. "Natural rights" don't exist in that sense, unless they'e made legal rights. Most of those who believe in natural rights, I think, would desire that they be legal rights and part of a system of law which recognizes their existence and sets forth remedies for their violation.

[

1) A law may exist but it may not be enforced. On the flip side, an action may be legal but there could still be dire consequences for performing it in a given society, e.g. how blacks in the American south had to conduct themselves towards white women during the Jim Crowe era. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes. Laws (and legal rights) may be violated, and it may be that the recourse provided in the law for violation is not provided for one reason or another. Prosecutors, for example, have a certain amount of discretion in determining what cases to prosecute. Some violations may not be prosecuted due to a lack of proof. Judges/jurors may be bribed. Legal rights nonetheless exist as part of a system of laws, but the system may be perverted or overwhelmed.

2) Other organizations outside of the government often do enforce - and enforce strongly - e.g. the mafia, the KKK, hell's angels, etc. In some societies the police were either weak, ineffectual, or corrupt and turning to the mafia was your best bet at recourse. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't think such organizations enforce legal rights. Legal rights are part of a system of laws, in any case, and the recourse available for their violation or protection is through the laws. The failure to use recourse provided in the law would violate another's legal rights. .

3) The grievance could just be aimed towards an autocracy, and what we're really aiming towards here is regime change not a legal change. An autocrat may ignore the laws or change them at whim. — BitconnectCarlos

Unfortunately (or fortunately) legal rights may be changed as provided in the law, as may any law. Legal rights need not be permanent. They need not be just. They're just legal. What are called "natural rights" are supposedly permanent and unchangeable, but that isn't necessarily the case with legal rights. We create legal rights, and may change them or ignore them; we may not even make them. Nevertheless, they're the only rights for which protection and recourse is provided.

Enforceability is extremely important and when I hear about a natural right - say, right to life - being unenforceable it should cause one to immediately ask "how do we enforce this?" not "I'm not going to recognize these rights because presently we're not capable of enforcing them." — BitconnectCarlos

We may assert there should be legal rights which are not currently legal rights (i.e. the violation of which is prohibited by the law, or are not recognized in the law). The fact that we say there should be such legal rights, however, doesn't make them legal rights. When we refer to natural rights that are not recognized by the law, I think the only thing we're saying, for any practical purposes, is that they should be legal rights.

I think it's very important to the protection of life and civil liberties generally that the law recognizes and preserves legal rights. However, being inclined to virtue ethics and even more inclined to maintain the distinction between morality and the law, I don't accept that nature somehow manifests rights to which all are entitled.

Inalienable/natural rights such as life and liberty are first - atleast in the Anglo-American tradition - recognized as such and then enshrined into law. I can't think of any natural rights that aren't recognized by law. Even if there were no laws whether something is enforceable or not is just a question of the social reality or practical politics at the time, i.e. whether you can garner support or arms etc. — BitconnectCarlos

It's odd, then, that laws addressing such inalienable/natural rights tend to vary from time to time, and nation to nation, and legal system to legal system. And not just in the Anglo-American tradition (though this qualification in itself creates prolems for your position, I think).

Presumably, the authors of the Declaration of Independence thought the laws of Great Britian didn't adequately protect those rights or recognize them, for example--didn't believe they had the recourse to enforce those rights under British law. In other words, they thought that what they construed as inalienable/natural rights were not legal rights under British law.

Then, of course, we may consider the laws of nations governed by dictatorships or some other form of autocracy. If we limit ourselves to the "Anglo-American tradition" we might note that both life and liberty were subject to considerable restrictions in the past. The peculiar institution of slavery comes to mind, for example. Certain people being legally defined as property tended to limit their inalienable/natural rights of life and liberty, and because they had no such legal rights neither nature nor nature's God was able to do anything for them. The rights to life and liberty of English nobility were very limited before Magna Carta and other modification of the law. The rights to life and and liberty of those not so fortunate to be landed or noble were even more restricted.

And wouldn't you say that the right of liberty, at least, of women wasn't "enshrined in law" until they were granted the right to vote?

What you think are natural rights may be legal rights, or they may not. What you think are legal rights may be natural rights, or they may not. That's because they're different.

Eh, a policeman is duty-bound to "serve and protect" and takes an oath swearing to uphold these norms. People in society don't just exist as free floating, independent entities that have complete freedom of choice in any given interaction. In healthy societies the police owe the public at least some level of protection or at least recourse. — BitconnectCarlos

Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. I think the police are part of the process of law enforcement. Law enforcement is part of the recourse a person has if legal rights are violated. We don't rely on the police to enforce natural rights. If I asked the police to protect or enforce what I believe to be my natural rights, and those rights are not legal rights, I don't think they'd be of much help.

A person who has a claimed right in those circumstances wouldn't be entitled to protection of that right or entitled to recourse in the event of violation, regardless of whether anyone felt any moral obligation. Whether the right was recognized or enforced, or recourse granted, would depend on whether others choose to recognize them, or enforce them, or see that recourse is granted. They may, or may not. There isn't anything that requires them to make any particular choice. Law provides a mechanism which identifies a right and provides for its protection or enforcement regardless of what others are inclined to do or not do, with the power of the state available to be imposed if necessary.

Even if there was no government there could still be consequences for violating someone's natural rights whether they're in a legal, written document or not. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, I don't think we can equate morality and the law, and so am hesitant to characterize laws as moral or immoral. They're merely laws, and will remain laws regardless of whether we call them moral or immoral. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hesitant, but I think characterizing them as moral or immoral results in a confusion I think is already too common, and confusion. Jews should not have been excluded from the civil service in Germany in 1933. That law should not have been adopted. Nonetheless it was. Does that make that law immoral, or does its adoption mean those who caused it to be adopted were immoral, or was the conduct it sanctioned immoral? I would say the latter two statements are appropriate, but not the first.

Something I've always wanted to ask you, do you think a law can be immoral? — fdrake

I'm not sure that a law can be described as immoral in the way we would call an act or ommission immoral, or a person immooral. I think a law could require or allow for conduct which would be immoral. It would in that case be a bad law, an objectionable law, a law which should be repealed or amended. But it would nevertheless be a law.

I voted "no" because I don't think it appropriate to speak of "rights" that are unenforceable. or the violation of which is without recorse. There are legal rights, but there are no rights that should be legal rights, which, I think, is all that "natural rights" are (unless they're legal rights).

Regarding Scalia, I remember reading that he follows Hart's 'Concept of Law' (1961) which is postcedent to Wittgenstein's metaphysical underpinning of legal positivism by logical positivism. — ernestm

I read Hart's Concept of Law a long time ago, but think it was in the analytic philosophy tradition, so it may well be that Wittgenstein influenced Hart.

I'm afraid I can't watch the entirety of that video right now.

You're probably better off quoting Austin than me.

I've hears Scalia was a legal positivist, but have to admit I haven't read enough of his opinions to come to my own conclusion. I tend to read opinions when they relate to my practice, and U.S. Supreme Court opinions do so fairly infrequently, my experience with constititutional issues being limited to takings, zoning and land use issues for the most part. Usually, there are more than enough state, federal district court and federal appeals court opinions to suffice for my purposes.

I've never understood the totemic regard some of my fellow citizens have for the Second Amendment, and believe the rights granted by it are subject to limitations just as rights granted by other amendments are subject to limitation.

'legal positivism' which in brief, if you forgive me uttering my opuinion on it, that the law is right because it says so, much like the bible saying it is right because it says so, in a legal deduction, metaphysically, from early Wittgeinianism. — ernestm

Legal positivism is the view that, as was said succintly and simply by John Austin in 1832, long before Wittgenstein was born: The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry. What the law is, therefore, is determined by studying the law itself. Whether a law is right or wrong, wise or unwise, popular or unpopular, has no bearing on whether it is a law according to legal positivism. Whether it is or is not any of those things may have bearing on whether it is a good or bad law, a wise one or a foolish one, a popular or unpopular one, however.

Strange thing. Attorneys who dont know very much often say this, and insist it is true, which just goes to show how awful the USA education system is. — ernestm

I don't think I've said that about the Declaration of Independence, though. Do attorneys who don't know very much also tell you they were/are not prohibited from reading the Declaration "in college"?

Perhaps blaming a religion for the misdeeds of religious authority is due to the aggressors' repressed childhood dread of going to church on Christmas day, before being allowed to open their presents. — ernestm

Ah, but I was an altar boy, and a good one I will say, for years. I arose in the wee small hours of the morning to participate in the ritual of the mass, which I learned in Latin, and though I greatly preferred the Latin rite to the uncouthness that replaced it after Vatican II (for aesthetic reasons), soldiered on through guitar masses and the like until high school. Fortunately, I was never molested, though I became aware that one of the priests I assisted at mass was found to have been a molester. I must have been an ugly child.

But sorry, I doubt that a Roman emperor could have been convinced to preside over a Council involving hundreds of bishops brought together primarily to address castration, and whether one who had been castrated by pagans should be allowed as a member of the Church as opposed to one who had castrated himself. Even accepting, as I do, that he waffled between Christianity and traditional religion during his reign, and had a tendency to have the heads of statutes of the gods knocked off to be replaced by his own likeness, I think his involvement is better explained by the desire to maintain order in the Empire and prevent the fanaticism of the conflicting factions of the early Church from creating problems in governance. That may have been combined with his own eventual acceptance of Christianity and preference for a particular kind of Christianity. It actually took several Councils to finally result in an orthodoxy of sorts, so bitter were the conflicts among the early Christians.

Even lawyers aren’t allowed to read it in college because it is requires accepting the existence of God as a premise. — ernestm

There is nothing prohibiting a lawyer, or anyone else for that matter, from reading the Declaration of Independence in college, or anywhere else.

As for reference to God here in our Glorious Republic, you'll find that he's mentioned fairly often by the federal, state and local governments here, for good or ill, and that reference has been sanctioned by the courts. "In God we trust" is the official motto of our Great Union, and has been since 1956. The Pledge of Allegiance contains the words "one nation under God." Prayers are allowed at the commencement of meetings of the Congress and state and local legislatures.

Be that as it may, I'm not aware of any self-evident rights or any rights at all, properly speaking--if rights of any kind are enforceable--except legal rights.

I think it's pretty well established that the (first) Council of Nicea was called by Constatine at the urging of a synod of bishops primarily in an effort to address, and condemn, the claims of Arius and his followers and establish a set of rules and doctrine to govern the Church. The Arian claims were renounced at the Council, and other points of doctrine approved (e.g. the date on which Easter was to be celebrated), and so there was formulated what's called the Nicean Creed, we we fortunate Catholics dutifully recited at mass, first in Latin (Credo in unum Deum, etc.) and then after Vatican II in the local language that applied. The renunciation of Arianism had the result that the Creed states that Jesus is begotten, not made, and is one in being (consubstantial) with the Father.

Nonetheless, Constantine's successor emperors Constantius and Valens were Arians, and Arianism thrived for a time, so other Councils were held at which other controversies were also addressed. It took some time for orthodoxy to be established and to a certain extent there remain in play controversies regarding, for example, the role and status of the Bishop of Rome.

I doubt very much that the Council of Nicea was held primarily to address self-mutilation or castration, certainly one of the less enchanting aspects of ecstatic Christianity and of the worship of Attis, consort of the Great Mother, and Dionysus, which preceded it.

Call me cynical if you like, but I think the Councils and the eventual establishment of an orthodoxy were to be expected as a religion which sought to regulate so extensively the lives and beliefs of all persons and forbid any contrary thought and conduct took hold of the apparatus of the Empire.

I'm not interested in the sex life of others, unless it inolves me. So, I don't find myself asking people about their preferences or relationships or what they like to do. I find it hard to believe any person would be interested in mine, and don't go around volunteering information about it.

I was going to suggest that what took place regarding self-mutilation took place at or around the same time as the Church began to abandon its glorification of martyrdom, and for much the same reason. To put it very simply, the Church had begun to take over the Roman state. As it did so, self-mutilation like seeking a martyr's death--like living on top of pillars and other extravagances--became something of a nuisance and embarrassment, and may have threatened the status quo. My guess would be this kind of extremism was discouraged more and more after the reign of Diocletian. It no longer served a purpose. From the time of Constantine, Christians became more concerned with oppressing pagans and other Christians.

Well, no. Ptolemy (who may have been his half-brother), Callisthenes and Nearchus were all there with him when Darius was defeated, Tyre besieged, Jerusalem entered, Egypt taken, Alexandria(s) founded, and so on. They didn't write their accounts 300 years later--there's no evidence they lived over 300 years. His generals, friends and relatives like Ptolemy and Seleucus, the Diadochi, ruled portions of his empire just after his death. Why would they pretend there was someone who led them in the conquest of the known world? Then they'd have to make up his father, Phillip, as well, whose conquest of Greece is well-attested to. Athens and Corinth revolted against Alexander's rule while he was alive. We may as well say Aristotle was made up while we're at it, since he was hired by Phillip as Alexander's teacher. The coinage, the dedication to Athena, the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Babylonian tablets, have all been dated to around 330 BCE, when he lived.

I think it's likely there was a real person, Jesus, as well. We can add to the sources you note the brief mention made by Tacitus to someone like him; also Suetonius. But the evidence regarding the existence of Alexander is so extensive it simply makes no sense to me to maintain that there is no more reason to believe Alexander existed than there is to believe Jesus existed.

Logically, you cannot believe Alexander the Great existed either. — ernestm

I don't think it's reasonable to maintain that the quality (or quantity) of historical evidence supporting the existence of Jesus is comparable to that supporting the existence of Alexander the Great. Quite the contrary.

There's a great deal of contemporary evidence of the existence of Alexander, from many different sources. He's mentioned in 1 Maccabees Chapter 1 for example. Those who accompanied him on his conquests, like Ptolemy, Callisthenes and Nearchus, wrote accounts of him. There are contemporary Babylonian accounts of him inscribed on clay tablets. There's an inscription memorializing his dedication of a temple to Athena. His name and figure appear in contemporary Egyptian hieroglyphics. Coins were minted while he was alive with his name and likeness.

There is no comparable evidence of Jesus.

My original point was that I don’t see how other religious creeds wouldn’t have been as willing to die as Christians were for their beliefs. Such beliefs are not usually something people can just throw aside and in many cases death can seem more inviting than turning their back on their whole world view. — I like sushi

Christianity was peculiar in that it encouraged its believers to die. Martyrdom was actively sought by Christians. To die for the faith was to be guaranteed a place in heaven. Christians were angry, or at least disappointed, if they were denied death. The more gruesome the death was, the better as far as the saintliness of the martyr was concerned.

Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers, proudly wrote of the large group of Christians who flocked to the house of the Roman proconsul for Asia Minor, Arrius Antoninus, in 185 C.E. and demanded that he execute them. It seems he obliged some few of them but told the rest to disperse, telling them that if they were so eager to die there were plenty of cliffs they could throw themselves off of and plenty of rope they could hang themselves with; and that they didn't need his assistance.

Bear in mind that Tertullian was boasting of this in a letter to another Roman official. According to Tertullian, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church."

Well, a couple of things. I think it would have been noted, somewhere, by someone, if a pagan was executed by Roman authorities for not honoring a pagan god, or for refusing to honor the cult of the emperor. As far as I know, there is no record of that. Also, I think we'd know if a pagan religion or religious belief prohibited the following of any other pagan belief. As far as I know, there's no record of such a pagan belief.

In the case of Christians, we have records regarding their failure to honor Rome and the emperor, their hatred of pagans and pagan beliefs, and the fact that they were executed for it. The record that comes immediately to mind is the famous correspondence between Trajan and Pliny the Younger. Pliny was governor of Bithiya at that time and was asking the emperor what to do with Christians. That was around 112 A.D. or C.E., still long before the "triumph" of Christianity. I think it's likely that if pagans were causing concerns of that kind, some governor or legate or functionary would have noted it.

That, alas, is the best I can do, as far as the Roman world is concerned. I understand that isn't absolute certainty, nor does it address the possibility that somewhere outside of that world some non-Christian was killed for not honoring some non-Christian god, if that's what you meant.

Christian Roman authorities (and individual Christians) certainly killed pagans for refusing to convert to Christianity, but I assume you weren't referring to that. We have quite a bit of evidence that took place, including writings of various Christian leaders urging that pagans be killed, their temples destroyed, etc.

Very true.

The status of the Jewish people in the Empire is remarkable, I think--up to the first great revolt. Despite the antics of a madman like Gaius Caligula, they had a special, and favored, status under Augustus and the late Republic. I think this was the result of a combination of policy and respect. The Romans were aware that Judaism was exclusive, but tolerated its intolerance of others because it was ancient and true to its traditions, in its own way worthy of a certain admiration.

The revolt showed the other side of the Roman state, of course; utterly ruthless and devastating in enforcing and perpetuating its imperium. I was in Rome and saw the arch of Titus and its relief of the legions carrying the spoils of the Jewish Temple during his triumph (seeing history is impressive). The second revolt brought even greater devastation and Hadrian renamed Jerusalem. The Jews suffered much more than the Christians did for flouting the authority of Rome.

I’m pretty sure that many pagans were put to death too for refusing to give offerings to some other deity. — I like sushi

That would have been highly unusual until the Christians took over the Roman state. Then pagans (and other, erring, Christians) were killed relentlessly and with great savagery. The persecutions of the Christians which took place were occasional and minor in comparison to the persecution of pagans by Christians.

Before then, the Romans were generally quite tolerant, provided the cult of the emperor or spirit of Rome was honored and there was peace and order and taxes paid. There were certain pagan cults the Romans felt outlandish and dangerous and were banned (e.g. Druidism), but for the most part you could worship whatever god you wanted, and it wasn't unusual for a person to worship several gods, and be initiates of more than one of the "mystery religions" such as those of Isis, Magna Mater and Mithras. Some even worshipped Jesus along with other figures such as Appollonius of Tyana and traditional pagan gods such as Asclepius.

I speculate that the remarkable success of Christianity is due to a number of factors, but most of all to (1) its assimilation of virtually all aspects of pagan culture which could co-exist, sometimes awkwardly, with the less odd (to pagans) traditions peculiar to Judaism, the result being a kind of hodgepodge offering to residents of the Empire something which satisfied most of them, and (2) its exclusivity and intolerance which became evident and active as its adherents obtained control of the Roman imperial government.

Remarkable, but but ultimately unfortunate, I tend to think.

But also he never claimed he was THE son of God, he said he was THE SONE OF MAN, — ernestm

Well, he comes as close as can be to claiming godhood.

John 8:58 - "Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'
John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst."
John 8:12 - "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
John 10:9 - "I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved..."
John 11:25 - "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."

That doesn't leave much room for a God who isn't Jesus.

The transition of the Empire from pagan to Christian has always fascinated me.

But I do remember once seeing a controversial painting of Jesus with his four brothers, with a splinter in his finger. I cant find it. Do you know who painted it? — ernestm

I didn't know there was such a painting. I'll see if I can find it.

oh ok. There is almost nothing on the subject by comparison in terms of documentation. What we have are rather good archaeological ruins whence events were reconstructed. Unfortunately Jesus was a carpenter and didnt make piles of earth a thousand feet long. — ernestm

Assuming those Mark quotes in his Gospel were accurate, he was a carpenter with four brothers. I don't know about you, but I was brought up in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and we never heard about those brothers. I suspect that was because either the Church didn't think such things were important if they were true, or the Church was hesitant to tell its members that God the Son (who was also God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, depending on what person was involved at the time) had brothers.

I think many people aren't inclined to accept the Gospels as historically accurate because of the extraordinary claims made by them in some cases and by others regarding not Jesus the man, but Jesus as God or magician (wonder-worker). According to John's Gospel Jesus said with some clarity that he was God. If he did, it seems very odd that he didn't according to the other canonical Gospels. Did Matthew, Mark and Luke forget he made that claim? Did they think it unimportant that he did? It's not likely. Also, Jesus said according to certain Gospels those standing with him would see the coming of the Son of Man and the establishment of his kingdom. That didn't seem to happen. If the Gospels are unsound or conflicting in these most important requests, why believe them to be accurate otherwise?

Personally, I think it's likely there was Jesus the man, but that Jesus as God was created, and don't see that creation as primarily beneficial. You say the pagans had no concept of guilt. Certainly they didn't have the Christian or Jewish conception of guilt, but it isn't clear to me that they were the worse for that. There's an interesting book, There is No Crime for Those who Have Christ by Michael Gaddis. The title are the words of a Christian of the 5th century justifying religious extremism. No crime, no guilt.

Well, the existence of "shit sponges" as used by the Romans is pretty certain. Perhaps we should be content with that.

But if not, it's also pretty certain that Lucius Flavius Silva led a legion to Masada, given the remains of temporary castra and an encircling wall around that place, not to mention the remains of the giant ramp that eventually provided access by elements of the legion. Whether the pet Jew of Vespasian and Titus, Flavius Josephus, provided an accurate account of what happened then is unknown, however, as you note. The Romans weren't quite as devoted to detailing the legions' victories in gory detail as were the ancient Assyrian kings when describing their conquests, so as far as I know there's no Roman account of what took place either, beyond the fact Masada was taken.

Tacitus refers to someone who may be the person we call Jesus being executed per the order of Pontius Pilatus (whose existence is apparently established by part of an inscription found in Caesarea Maritima). I think Suetonius made some reference as well. Flavius Josephus did too, but it's thought that part of that reference is a later Christian forgery.

As for the accounts of the accepted and unaccepted Gospels, and the various Councils held as Christianity assimilated the Empire and pagan culture and philosophy, the extent of the history involved and the evidence of it became unimportant and I think largely ignored when Christians began their persecutions not only of pagans but of other Christians over such questions as whether Jesus was a god or God, or some other kind of divine being but not quite a god or God, and just how the Christian God was three persons in one God. It didn't help, of course, that Jesus never cleary called himself God (there were other sons of God or a god wandering all over the Empire in the first century) except as he was portrayed in the last of the Gospels, that of John. Over the years heretics were identified and condemned, and eventually an orthodoxy was established. Historicity just wasn't much of a concern in the early Church, I believe.

Does it matter if I go crazy in the next minute? Does it matter if I die in the next second? Does any fate we go through matter in the grand scheme? — Cidat

Well, presumably it would, to you and those who like, or love, or depend on you. Why disturb yourself over whether it matters to anyone, or anything, else? Just get on with it and, as Epictetus said, "Do the best you can with what you have, and take the rest as it happens." It seems many of the ancients lacked the all-consuming concern with our fates that so many of us have, and likely were the better for it. Read Horace (Ode 1.11):

Leucon, no one’s allowed to know his fate,
Not you, not me: don’t ask, don’t hunt for answers
In tea leaves or palms. Be patient with whatever comes.
This could be our last winter, it could be many
More, pounding the Tuscan Sea on these rocks:
Do what you must, be wise, cut your vines
And forget about hope. Time goes running, even
As we talk. Take the present, the future’s no one’s affair.

The Philosophical Investigations is his own text. — jacksonsprat22

Damnation. I must be thinking of The Blue and Brown Books, then.

So "red" means... one or more red things? — Banno

I think Heidegger wrote something about being able to encounter The Nothing only when suspended in red. Or was it something else?

Perhaps we must be suspended in something in order to encounter The Red.

every day language is not, for Wittgenstein, alright - that view would be better attributed to Austin. — Banno

I prefer Austin, myself. I think him easier to understand, possibly because he took the trouble to write what he thought, something the later Wittgenstein avoided, and so we have the work of his students/interpreters. But judging from the Tractatus, perhaps that was a good thing. All those proclamations relentlessly marching down the pages.

Well, the cure is one that must be self-administered. Many are loathe to be cured. They're like anti-vaxxers in that respect.

you seem unable to provide an account of how we arrive at the conclusion that decisions, thoughts, and feelings occur in the first place. — javra

We seem to be talking past each other. We approach these issues in very different ways. I'll try to explain my approach or view, though I expect you disagree with it.

When someone asks me for an account of how we arrive at the conclusion that decisions, thoughts and feelings occur in the first place, I have a tendency to wonder, first, whether there is any doubt that they occur. Only a faux doubt a la Descartes, I think, who famously and I think unfortunately wondered, in effect, how we arrive at the conclusion that we exist.

I think nobody really doubts that what we call decisions, thoughts and feelings occur in the sense that we make them, have them. So this becomes what? A search for their causes? That's a search I think we can engage in usefully even as to what we don't doubt takes place. But you refer to "an account of how we arrive at the conclusion that decisions, thoughts and feelings occur in the first place." I don't know how to interpret that as anything but an account of how we conclude that we make decisions, have thoughts and have feelings. Which is to say, an account of how we conclude that what we don't actually doubt takes place does, indeed, take place. I find it hard to conceive of a reason for seeking or making such an account, nor is it clear to me we can in any meaningful sense. If that means I lack the philosophical attitude, so be it.

I think what we call decisions, thought and feelings, and anything else we say we do or have, arise from living in the world. They're the results of our interaction with the environment of which we're a part. We don't discern or realize or perceive them, or conclude they occur, any more than we discern or realize or perceive or conclude that we're coughing.

]

The majority of posts in this forum give ample examples. — Banno

I fear so, yes. Most of us are content--even glad--to remain in the fly-bottle.

I'm saying I think it's inappropriate to treat our own decisions, thoughts, feelings as if they were like objects or things we discern, realize, perceive , or know. There are objects and things we discern, realize, perceive and know, through observation, testing, investigation, interaction, etc., but our own thoughts and feelings are not such objects or things. There's no need for us to perceive or realize or even to know them in the sense we know or can come to know the rest of the world. If I say "I know I feel hot" I'm saying something bizarre.

Our decisions, thoughts and feelings shouldn't be conceived of as if they are things generated or lurking in our minds or brains or bodies of which we're aware. I think that's to reify them