So if it makes good pragmatic sense to harvest the organs of a healthy young person in order to to keep 5 rich old geezers alive, that is moral? Or is there something about the quantification of what is moral or immoral that misses the concept of what it means to be moral, and pragmatism is all about quantification. I think moral value is a quality & not quantity.

We want our laws to be fair and just, that's true, but if we lived in a world where making murder illegal actually caused more murder to occur, we would think such a system to be less just or less fair (or at least less desirable to live in, perhaps).

Yes, far less desirable to live in any such world, if life has no value, or say it has merely pragmatic value, and pragmatism is morality. Then I think, we need to ask if such a world could possibly exist, if it's a possibility, and not a logical/existential impossibility. Can pragmatism encompass morality?

I wonder how that would work. Something that is immoral, known to be immoral, is made legal seems to me to be some sort of contradiction., if by 'legal', just and fair are meant.

If 'murder' is made legal, then it is no longer murder, per se.

Well, Kant's struggle here is epistemic not ontological, it has to do with what is right or wrong and not what is or is not. In my opinion, he loses this struggle, because of his dismissal of desire, which also dismisses motivation.

Faith in God may be as necessary epistemically as all universals/absolutes are 'necessary' epistemically, but that hardly makes them necessary ontologically, which is what we are discussing...

Kant's did not need to prove humanity's propensity to evil...all you have to do is to look around, it is found universally, everywhere man is...evil is. For Kant evil is subscuming to desire. The conflict between man's animal inclinations and his reason creates a 'space' within which evil is defined. Evil is what it means to be human; without the possibility to do otherwise, man could not be free. Our inclinations are for self-satisfaction prior to our understanding of what it means to be a member of the kingdom of ends. Looking back, we are innately self centered prior to our socialization.

PS Congratulations! 8-)

with

You may not be aware of the underlying cause, but that's a separate issue.

That's the unconscious cause of your current desire for that slice of warm apple pie topped some finely aged melted cheddar >:) , my point of view.

Suppose you like apple pie and someone hypnotized you to desire apple pie every time you hear the word 'Wittgenstein' ? If you are susceptible to the suggestion then you will desire apple pie and you will rationalize that desire whenever you hear the trigger word used.

Something like this was done with in a Stroop test in which color words like 'red', 'blue', 'green' are colored in the wrong colors. The subjects are then asked to identify the colors they see. Normally, there is a hesitation due to the conflict between the word's meaning and the color the subjects see. In a test Amir Raz, a cognitive neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal (2013) he gave half the test subjects a hypnotic suggestion to disregard any meanings attached to colored words, to treat them as if they were written in a foreign language. When the subjects took the test the one who had been given the post hypnotic suggestion did not display the same hesitancy as the non-hypnotized group.

is there good porn
— Cavacava

Consequentialism is the hands-on winner here. If it works, it's good.

Then porn has (what) a negative aesthetic, if it's only function is to get you off or to titillate, but if it has utility then it can be improved, it can be crafted...porn sites do rate their videos, there is a rating system.

Should harm be the deciding factor? What of moral intuition? Are there other forms of harm that haven't been considered (like the harm of treating people as a means to an end)?

What is porn? While answers may not satisfy, isn't it a form of parody (Rule 34), and isn't war a form of porn, a deadly parody of morality. And how does porn distinguish itself, from erotica and comedy, is there good porn, or is that a misnomer.

We can conclude that God being a man on a cloud or the trinity etc are the illusions of reason as we are able to trace the source as rational, autonomous beings following a synthesis between us and consciousness of the world, and the possibility of transcendental reflection for ourselves is practically indispensable epistemologically, but I am not convinced that we simply stop at the point of being aware of our limitations but rather continue - morally - toward the ideal, making God necessary for perfecting our moral position.-

as we are able to trace the source as rational, autonomous beings following a synthesis between us and consciousness of the world,

Kant thought that the structure of the world does not necessarily match the structure of thought. His transcendental method attempts to find the 'necessary' presuppositions that explain what we experience. These presuppositions are believed and the results achieved by that belief enable measures such as Planck's Constant.

This belief is a faith, a conviction, a claim about what there is, it is not certitude, but it works. This is pure theoretic faith, which is similar to religious faith, only funny thing, the more skeptical the theory the greater the faith in 'actuality'.

But getting back to PP's OP, it is the refutation of the Ontological Argument that leads to the overturning of metaphysical absolutes, necessity with a big N. This coup dethrones god, which leads to the denial of the principal of sufficient reason and the affirmation of ultimate contingency of existence (and the law of noncontradiction). The uncaused cause & the noumenon, are both unknowable but not forgotten, they are still needed as necessary perspectives in our empirical faith in pure reason & our religious faith in freedom, liberty, equality, et al. They create their own 'space', I think.

Steve Palmquist's analysis, and his survey of positions is excellent. I have have some more thoughts on this topic.

He certainly intimates these 'illusions' of reason - the whole man on a cloud, the trinity, the sun or whatever the heck - but the fact that you say (t)his is not to say there is no God is the very root of our argument, whereby since Kant cannot deny non-existence otherwise his existence is not a predicate would contradict itself that therefore concludes the necessity of God since by saying (a)ccordingly, there must be something whose nonexistence would cancel all internal possibility whatsoever. This is a necessary thing justifies my initial suggestion contingency isn't the only necessity. If your argument rests solely on some justification that Kant suggested that during his pre-critical period, ya gonna have to do better.

He can deny the real being of absolutes, which he does in his critique, and I think he also denied existence is a predicate in his earlier works. The point is not that absolutes can't be, even perhaps they must be, but they cannot be known, they can only be believed in and this is how Kant makes room for faith.

This means that rationality has no legitimate claim over beliefs, and it can not judge one belief superior to another. Therefore:

"--thought no longer provides an a prior demonstration of truth of a specific content of piety; instead, it establishes how any piety whatsoever enjoys an equal and exclusive right to grasp the ultimate truth."
Q Meillassoux "After Finitude"

The phrase just prior to this

For thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. T. S. Elliot The Hollow Men

Eliot left out Kingdom, Power, Glory, or maybe he didn't...perhaps each of these have a fair shot at "This is the way the world ends."

Not with a bang but a whimper

How an animal dies.

My guess is that China will follow its own self interest, and take some form of 'guardianship' over its ally, NK. NK was historically a vassal of China.

The magic-- at least for me, is that there is no ultimate explanation. Seeking explanations for why things are as they are and exactly how they are as they are, is in my opinion what pushed humanity forward to where it is at today. Thinking about the unimaginable scale of the universe is a wonder in itself.

I believe that people have religious experiences, that logic and reason are regulatory of thought, but do not constitute thought. Logic,reason & language cannot fully describe our experiences in life, love or death, any such attempts always leaves something out-- the magic.

"Accordingly, there must be something whose nonexistence would cancel all internal possibility whatsoever. This is a necessary thing."

This a quote from "The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God". published in 1763, which SEP considers Kant's pre-critical period, it does not appear to have made the cut 18 years latter in his 1st Critique.

There is no absolute, no reason why things are the way they are, no full explanation, things are just the way they are, everything could be otherwise. The explanation that things the way they are due to an ineffable real being is superstition. This is not to say there is no God, only that describing God as a real being is "magical thinking" , but there is reason to think that "magical thinking" might be essential in man, Kant intimates as much.

The only necessity is contingency. >:O

Yes, I guess so, good pick up.

LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Address
February 27, 1860

I found the following note fascinating, regarding Lincoln's speech from an observer:

"When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, -- oh, how tall! and so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man." However, once Lincoln warmed up, "his face lighted up as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet like the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man."

K,

The following from here:

Despite his insistence that the idea of God is indispensable and “inescapable” (cf. A584/B612), Kant again denies that we can acquire any theoretical knowledge of the alleged “object” thought through such an idea. On the one hand, then, the idea of God is “the crown of our endeavors.” On the other, as in the cases of both rational psychology and cosmology, the idea answers to no[t] given and theoretically knowable object (A339/B397). Indeed, according to Kant, the idea of God should not lead us to “presuppose the existence of a being that corresponds to this ideal, but only the idea of such a being, and this only for the purpose of deriving from an unconditioned totality of complete determination the condition…” (A578/B606). As in the other disciplines of metaphysics, Kant suggests that we are motivated (perhaps even constrained) to represent the idea as a real object, to hypostatize it, in accordance the demand for the unconditioned:

The 'necessity' in Kant's refutation of the necessity of an absolute being (i.e., the ontological argument) is real ontological necessity and its refutation dashes the absolute necessity which forms the ultimate culmination of metaphysics.

This proof is tied to the principle of sufficient reason, the concept that every worldly fact has a reason, an explanation, a cause, a reason why things are the way they are in fact, and reasons for those reasons, which leads to infinite regress. Every metaphysics is accented by at least one absolutely necessary real entity, which is the 'dogmatic metaphysics'. But if any such real necessary being is rejected then the principle of sufficient reason is also rejected.

The only necessity is contingency.

So, ah-yuh even the universe is contingent, it could have been otherwise.
— Cavacava
Nope. You're gonna have to do better than that. :P

Well what would happen to the constitution of the universe if one digit in Planck's Constant were different?
:-O

Really? No racism anywhere except that started by Christianity?

Yes, that is my understanding and there appears to be plenty of online references to back it up.

How did Christianity do that?

That Old Black Magic, got them in a spell, they saw black as evil.

If the Greeks or Romans were not racist, what kept them from it?

I don't think it occurred to the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians et al...Ham was the father of the black people, he and his descendants were cursed to be slaves because of his sin against Noah,and some Christians said, "Africans and their descendants are destined to be servants, and should accept their status as slaves in fulfillment of biblical prophecy."

I agree, however ancient Romans & Greeks were not racist (as I understand it). It took Christianity to start racism, the curse of Ham.

Social justice has a conscience. King's genius lied in his ability to align and weave the Declaration of Independence with the Bible into a very christian/nationalistic theme (after all it was the religious who gave the colonists the 'right' to treat blacks and natives as subhuman), King aligned human law with de facto human justice, and judges and politicians were forced to realize their unfairness to blacks and others. They jonesed for the might of his rhetorical approach (ha!) and adopted it as their own, quickly rereading the Constitution. Weakness that rests on justice has might, in the right hands it is hard to beat down, or stay beaten down for long. Gandi, Christ, et al.

.

Martin Luther King, as well as Socrates submitted to the might of the law (I am not sure Socrates was not guilty of the charges against him, but Plato does not present that view), both made examples of themselves, to demonstrate to society the unfairness of its laws:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

King's bid for social justice became the law of the land, with a huge social upheaval which is still with us, there is great strength in weakness.

[of course only certain types of weakness]

Does might make right? Ah yuh, but it's complicated.

If everyone were only out for their own self interest, then culture & society could not exist (one of Socrates responses to Thrasymachus). Honor among thieves is required in order for society to cohere, which is why we have laws (the might) to suppress those nogoodniks.

Thanks, great questions, but I am facing a mountain of unpacking :-* , so later slater.

Injustice is profitable...Thrasymachus, Plato's "Republic".

[I didn't notice but there is a contemporaneous thread that may intersect with your OP]

I said

I am sure that a 'logical' God it is a fantasy, perhaps a necessary one

you said

How is it possible that something which is necessary could be a fantasy

and I answered

I it think this is an intrinsic part of modern man's psychological construction.

Now you want to step outside the frame, as it were, and suggest that I am rendering reason qua reason "impotent",' but what I am suggesting is that reason has taken on a 'divine' like character for modern man...in this capacity it is far from impotent it rules as a 'God'.

MU, I think that man has set reason as its 'god', the perfection we glimpse in its purity, and I it think this is an intrinsic part of modern man's psychological construction.

Hi, happy we agree here.

Oi, since when is Anselm a god? I said that surely Anslem' ontological argument on the existence of God has a logic, namely "...that than which no greater can be conceived," and not that God is logical. But wait, you say:

The only necessity is contingency...show me otherwise
— Cavacava

Hmm.. and you also say:

All the logical conundrums fall flat in the face of experience, and life goes on.
— Cavacava

Anselm' formula that we are unable to conceive by understanding alone of a perfect being or God which - by being an agnostic - you must agree with this contingent proposition since the nature of the divine beyond which nothing greater can be posited is neither true nor false.

My my, how logical of you.

Think of the cosmological singularity - how did the universe come to existence? No one is able to posit the very nature and the ultimate beginning of this reality and yet we assume the necessity of the singularity' existence since the universe exists. Unless, you believe that the universe is a contingent proposition?

A perfect being should possess existence, but it cannot maintained that solely by virtue of this conception existence is entailed.

"Kant-- following --Hume disqualifies the ontological proof on the grounds that there is no contradiction in conceiving of a determinate entity as existing or nonexistent" Quentin Meillassousx

Kant's refutation of the ontological argument means that for any and every determinate being there can not be any absolute necessity. Dogmatism is dead and along with it metaphysics, oi vey.

This proof is intrinsically tied to the principle of sufficient reason since this thought entails that all things have causes, even the totality of causes which is god, it demonstrates that there is no absolute necessity.

So, ah-yuh even the universe is contingent, it could have been otherwise.

Well you put my cart before the horse. I said

Of course if there is no God, then there is no reason why the principle of sufficient reasons holds. The world is just the way it is, the causal argument crumbles leaving only contingency & the law of noncontradiction. There is (ultimately) no causal reason for anything.

I am agnostic, so my "if" is meaningful, because I am not sure if there is a God or not, however I am sure that a 'logical' God it is a fantasy, perhaps a necessary one but still if your conception of the divine is some sort of logical magician, happy trails. Logic is fine, it is important for knowledge, but it is not in my opinion extensive with experience, it can't explain experience. All the logical conundrums fall flat in the face of experience, and life goes on.

The only necessity is contingency...show me otherwise :-O

I am moving today, but I will respond perhaps at end of day, assuming I can still think coherently.

Me

If the PSR applies to all things, then it applies to all becomings.

Of course if there is no God, then there is no reason why the principle of sufficient reasons holds. The world is just the way it is, the causal argument crumbles leaving only contingency & the law of noncontradiction. There is (ultimately) no causal reason for anything.

If the PSR applies to all things, then it applies to all becomings.

Because thinking is active, it's the realization of being, but what is, what exists is passive because it does not necessarily think.

Sounds like you are getting all knotted up. Descartes masin task in the Meditations is epistemological certainty not ontological, what is correct is therefore important to his goal. I have already stated that I don't think 'cogito sum' is tautologous.

Descartes response to Mersenne:

When someone says 'I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist', he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind. This is clear from the fact that if he were deducing it by means of a syllogism, he would have to have had previous knowledge of the major premiss 'Everything which thinks is, or exists'; yet in fact he learns it from experiencing in his own case that it is impossible that he should think without existing. It is in the nature of our mind to construct general propositions on the basis of our knowledge of particular ones.

Which I will now defend as the only correct understanding.

What do you mean by "correct", some people think cogito sum is a performative statement which is only 'correct' when it is actually thought.

But how on earth could anyone know that every single version of physicalism fails to account for consciousness? He even looks like a christian rock musician O:)

Well it would have to be a problem in principle: that subjective reality in principle can't be reduced to objective reality, that this is a category error. I think that thought always was a possible configuration for matter, and over the eons biologic matter evolved to the point where this possibility is realized in the actuality of man. So property dualism, where what Mary felt when she experienced red could never been understood/felt without actually experience of it, similar to the bat argument. Mary's claim is ontological, it reflects how the experience of seeing red affected her, how she felt on seeing it, and not about her knowledge of the color.


'

hinking is always being,
being is not always thinking
—Cavacava

And you know this how? While not living things 'think' as we do, it is a gray area as to at what threshold allows something to be classified as a 'living thing', and from there at what level it has some self awareness, and after that sentience. Whether or not a non-living thing is a being like a living being is other question that really has no answer. While it is kind of safe to assume that something you see exists, I'm unaware of anything of any argument that state that it is a given that the thing-in-and-of-itself exists as we perceive it to exist. Or at least I'm unaware of any good argument that states this.

As far as I know, we do not the attributes that are required to allow something to think nor do we really understand which attributes are required for something to be. While for the sake of simplicity we can make certain assumptions, but it isn't a given that such assumptions are true under all conditions.

Let me ask you, how could you not know this? My desk is very reticent.

You want to say there are ambiguities, but how did we get on to life anyhow? You backtracking or compounding the issue?

"

Yes, that's my position and I doubt life as a non-random event. I think life must be a potentiality of matter, to be alive something must have a form that separates it from its environment, a way to reproduce itself and an active metabolism...spores, virus and whatever that do not have active metabolisms, can only be said to be potentially alive, until they are revived, my opinion.