I claimed objective secular morality is impossible. You agreed. — Ram

Yes, I said it was impossible based on an Absolute definition. As soon as you define what you mean by Objective Morality you will see why you are able to claim that it doesn't exist: because you are using a loaded term, it is purely an exercise in idealism. What you mean by Objective Morality is very close to the same kind of term as what you mean by God. Define the term and all will be made clear.

Another sentence that doesn’t mean anything. — apokrisis

I will try this one more time.

The question above was a reference to my slave analogy. The point is that you would be abstracting about freedom, as you are abstracting about education now. So the logical question to ask is, since your position is in the negative, did freedom exist in the world at the time of slavery? Likewise, the question to ask now, since your unsupported claim is in the negative, do quality educated people exist anywhere in the world?

all I was arguing was that secular objective morality isn't really possible. — Ram

See my first post in this thread. Now to prove it. What do you mean by Objective Morality?

What about Banno's argument, are you going to get to it?

I'm not going to bother with you — Wayfarer

I think you mean, you're not going to step into the arena with a person who can call you out on your nonsense. Like all good apologists you prey on the ignorant. Not in my house playa.

Let me get this straight, you just cited the term "revealed truth" and now you want to change it and debate another term? Can you not see why this appears as an admission of its indefensibility? This is incredibly dishonest, where's your intellectual integrity?

You don't win arguments by repetition. — Tzeentch

The argument I was referencing belonged to Banno. In none of the post you quoted was I making an argument.

Where did you go, you said there was such a thing as "revealed truth?" I want to know how you know this?

The question would be what interest was being served? That purpose would explain why some interest group might take one view rather than another. And my general position would be to ask whether some universal system of freedom could even be the case. What would it look like if it was to meet all possible purposes of a variety of interest groups? — apokrisis

And all the while you were busy asking would there have been free people at this time in the world?

Quoting you, "It's self-evident what is harmful to our kind (and living things like, or nearly like, us such as mammals) and what we need when harmed; thus, we (can) know what to do or not to do to and for other persons and living creatures vulnerable to being harmed or in need of help when they're suffering; therefore, we (can) reasonably judge whether or not, by action or inaction, conduct decreases (i e. avoids mitigates or relieves) someone's - some creature's - suffering. Hardly a (merely) "subjective" consideration."

Yes, I fully agree. However, the objectivity you are here referring to is not that posited by the theist in his attempt to negate morality. How convenient that he never applies his negative standard to his own definition. Like I said, they always use a loaded term.

You mean they do exist? How do you know this?

revealed truths — Wayfarer

There is no such thing.

I have no interest in evading my burden of proof. I am not trying to play a posture game. I just want to seek out truth, my motivation is not to be right. You raised many points and some of them may indeed stand to correct my position. I would only be grateful for it.

We’ve established that you have no particular position. — apokrisis

This is just an empty assertion, with no particular content.

What I said above was quite clear and quite correct. I will try to put in clearer terms.

Suppose I was talking about freedom in a time of slave plantations, and you went off on an abstract rant about "whose interests [would this freedom serve] would you be wanting to impose some universal system of freedom?"

This helps to expose your elitism. Because lots of people had freedom in America at the time of slave plantations. My position is exactly the same, lots of people have education throughout the world, and every occurrence of it is the result of social privilege. Just like you would be telling me I was wrong to speak of freedom back then, you are telling me that I am wrong to speak of education now. I hold my tongue, but you are seriously a despicable intellectual.

No, because the term Objective is a loaded term. When you ask a religious person what they mean by this term it becomes immediately clear that they are talking about the existence of an Absolute ideal that they cannot substantiate or defend, literally does not exist. Keep in mind, they are bringing up the objection, which means they have the burden of proof to define the term.

Friend, you have already been utterly refuted by Banno. This is not just an opinion, it's a fact. It's why you didn't answer his valid questions.

The American people are going to stand back and watch as authoritarianism shatters what's left of their democracy. There is not enough education in America to realize what's happening. Americans worry about cancer when they get it, which is often too late, they will do the same when it comes to a dictator.

Your position, in order to qualify as a refutation of my position, must in no way validate the existence of quality educated persons. If these people exist, it means society is already producing quality, and that is exactly my position. You denied the existence of this quality, that is why, properly and legitimately shifting the burden of proof, I asked you, 'Is there no such thing as a quality educated person?' This is not a hard question and the answer is obvious. Which then of course, makes my plea to expand what already exists valid! So I would like to make clear to all readers, there is a real elitism attached to your position. You are indirectly claiming that what you possess as an educated person 1) does not exist and 2) cannot be replicated and 3) (and this is where the elitism comes in) that we can't even talk about its integration. The whole time you are speaking from a privileged platform, denying the legitimacy of discourse on the very thing you have. This is not just elitism, it is a form of intellectual tyranny! Intellectuals like you are the problem with society. You are trying to de-legitimize the conversation by making use of a false and generalized negative. Why do you have to answer my questions? Because the burden of proof is in your court.

You are now engaged in Ad Hominems. Please answer my questions.

Capitalism is really the only humane way to aggregate an overpopulated world of nearly 8 billion. — Outlander

I am not interested in engaging this, I would just like to make a point about Left intellectuals. This is an incredibly ignorant statement that should not exist, but it does it exist. The man who wrote this is a strict provincialist, without any concrete knowledge of the workings of capitalism throughout the world. The reason this man is able to hold this view is because this narrative dominates, especially in Western countries that live off the exploitation of third world countries. The sheer fatalism attached to this dogmatic premise is simply proof that Left intellectuals have failed. If they had succeeded many things should be general knowledge, ingrained in the culture. Just like we no longer believe the sun revolves around the earth. This error was obliterated, not merely by evidence, but by intellectuals championing its truth in culture. We live in times where intellectuals champion their theories in academic institutions away from culture. We will all pay for this because this gentleman's ignorant and provincial consciousness represents a vast majority of humans. The intellectuals have failed.

"that may or may not have existed."

I have made the same mistake. Just try reading more carefully next time.

The reason I said, "may or may not have existed" is because I am familiar with the alternative arguments put forth by Carrier and the like, I am also familiar with Ehrman. Further, Carrier does not hold this position out of Nihilism, as you groundlessly here assert, but makes the argument on empirical grounds. I could care less if he existed.

Friend, I'm super disappointed. You are a total obscurantist and sophist. This is proven by the fact that in your last reply you 1) evaded my questions and 2) tried to introduce multiple red herrings into the exchange. This is dishonest. You are smart enough to know that when you answer my questions you will end up validating the very category you tried to deny, which then provides the premise from which to deduce my position.

You did not answer my questions. You accused me and challenged me to justify my claim. As I already said, 'I am talking about the concrete possession of it, which is a thing that does exist, and most specifically, in a positive form that you would validate (even if that form was only your own).'

Please answer my questions.

There is too much sophistry in your reply. You did not answer my question: 'How can you say the essence of a thing "does not abide in the thing," and then claim to "apprehend" and "determine" it from the thing?'

It's shows how messed up humans are, that the idea of Jesus rising from the dead is actually considered a real event in history, because it is asserted in ancient cultural texts. Humans are pathetic creatures.

A healthy human is not just one who is physically healthy but one that is psychologically mature, to simplify it, not driven by defense mechanism or insecure rigidity.

You call the fruits positive. That is the presumption I have challenged you to justify. — apokrisis

This exchange has to be narrowed to get anywhere. Is there no such thing as a quality educated person? Is your criticism then an example of something that should be negated as opposed to replicated?

It is my property. It is my rights, and it is my money. — BitconnectCarlos

My family is all Native American. No lie here, my grandfather was a full blooded warrior. You want to talk about property and rights?

This is not only desperation but blind stubbornness. You did not answer Banno's questions, you did not even engage his argument, which amounts to the total negation of your position. This is not the way serious or intelligent thinkers proceed. If he was not making a point, or demonstrated some kind of intellectual incompetence or irrelevancy, then you could attempt a justification at evasion, but this is not the case. He took the premise from your own hand and threw it back in your face... seems you didn't like it very much once it was inverted. Interact with his questions and see what happens to your position.

Wouldn't that have been the perfect moment to have this democratic Marxism as surely Khrushchev was a confident marxist-leninist? — ssu

Communism is not an ideology. One cannot force it to come about, if Marx is correct the contradictions of capitalism will lead to it.

More to the point, the desperation of this strawman is unrelenting. You have attacked, attacked, attacked the Soviet Union and tried to assign it to every person you disagree with on this thread. The challenge for you is to get serious, try interacting with the ideas of Marx!

There is too much for me to reply to in your response. This seems quite important:

I said you are being idealist because you are not understanding that Nature is also about the imperative of entropy production - the dissipation of material gradients. — apokrisis

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this?

The first time this idea appeared you said:

This is all very idealistic. Knowledge is not something disembodied and abstract. At least not in the form that modern society is privileging it. — apokrisis

I do not see how these two relate, though I expect one is an expansion of the other?

I agree that knowledge is not something disembodied and abstract. I am talking about the concrete possession of it, which is a thing that does exist, and most specifically, in a positive form that you would validate (even if that form was only your own). My charge is that this always presupposes favorable social conditions (which I think you agree with) and that we must reverse engineer the process (replicate it or reproduce it, pick your word).

In contrast you are trying to derail the conversation in the direction of privileged questions (please note, I don't much like this word, and I don't like using it here). What you are getting at is indeed quite abstract:

That is where pragmatism is a corrective. It makes us go looking for the reasons why we would even hold rationality, science and a good education in such high regard. Society is training us for something! — apokrisis

This is an abstract program. We don't need millions of people asking the privileged question of why we would hold rationality, science or good education in such high regard, you are ignoring the concrete fact that the positive fruit of these categories already exists, and that is what I am referring to. I comprehend what you are asking, it was asked, far more profoundly than you are asking it here, by the Frankfurt School.

Back to the concrete. I referenced an exceedingly important text by Allan Schore, in this text he has traced the biological and psychological development of human beings from the early stages of life. This is a major game changer and it has broad significance to philosophy-- philosophers just don't know it yet. If you and I can actually begin to understand each other, and be honest and open, willing to have our beliefs changed, much progress can be made between us. The consciously combined power of minds is the medium of excellence that is seldom achieved in society.

I can put it in simpler terms, is it even a matter of asking questions, or is it a matter of action at this point? We have completed so much theory, there is no point in reinventing the wheel. This is one reason I would never write a text on Critical Thinking, it would be useless, I know of several masterpieces in this area. What this allows us to do is use this material to better society. By proceeding thus we can make more progress. We must overcome the psychological desire to prove something about ourselves, we must reach the point of maturity where we are trying to change something in society, not merely prove ourselves in society.

This is all very idealistic. — apokrisis

No this is not all "very idealistic" but very materialistic, just the opposite, it is the result of thinking about reality from the basis of its most primitive point of concretion. As to what I said about producing healthy humans, see Allan Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. What happens to a human in the process of development, and how it happens, is not idealism but has empirical verification.

It is indeed a significant fact of history that humans have shifted up a level from being "emotional" animals to being "rational" beings due to the semiotic power of developing language. — apokrisis

This is too vague for me, we can pinpoint it far more specifically than this. You didn't obtain the knowledge you have because you grew up in a war-torn country that was lacking in social resources. The actual case is that it's just the opposite. Right now you are manifesting, not that you have superior will power, but that you have been a beneficiary of society to a higher degree than others. I deal in concrete facts not abstractions.

Now, I'm not trying to put you on the defensive, but I am trying to make sure this conversation is not derailed by idealism. This is no easy task.

I think we at least have to start closer to the pragmatic truth of knowledge. It must be serving a purpose. The question becomes whose? — apokrisis

I do not find this to be a very intelligent question for the simple fact that it pretends like humans are not allowed to answer with their own interest. Last time I checked food and water were the basic building blocks of intellectual life. Do you deny this? You can try to say it fails to make contact with your position, but it is in fact the most primitive point of your being and every other intellectual being. Hard to see how one could negate it with idealism? You can of course, try to minimize it, and pretend like food, clean water, shelter, are just given, but you are intelligent enough to know that would merely display ignorance or arrogance.

But have we overshot the mark in trying to construct a purely rational society? Or even a purely mechanistic one, now that we have added the semiotics of numerical syntax to that of linguistic syntax? — apokrisis

While I fully embrace the importance of these questions and ask them with you, they overshoot and presume too much about my post. It is not an abstract problem when we talk about poverty and lack of education throughout the world. One should admit this. The questions you are raising, are in fact, secondary questions, they are questions of privilege, once the basic needs of humanity have been met, then we can ask the finer questions you have raised. Seriously, imagine putting these questions to a million war torn refugees. What we need is a society that can get to the secondary questions and questions beyond, how come you can get here? Examine the concrete facts and you will see that your will had nothing to do with it. Come now, isn't it smarter to act at the level of conditioning as opposed to try to pretend there is no conditioning? If we know we are determined by social process and resources, isn't it intelligent to try to intelligently determine this process? Why leave it to chance when we have the tool of thought?

It could also be that this is just Hegelian inevitability. We are following Nature's course somewhere "good". It is a live question. And the deeper one to be addressed. — apokrisis

Event if this is the deeper question, it is not the question of highest value and it is not the question of highest relevance, that belongs to the basic structure of society, specifically, the intelligence of man's production process, because this determines everything else.

I’m liking your exposition. Frankly I find it difficult to draw a sharp line between any of these positions as they all seem to be generally right, but then also then generally wrong in the same way to. — apokrisis

Hegel did not negate Aristotle, he merely showed his thinking was 1) a violation of itself and 2) incomplete. That ought to be enough to compel you in the direction of Hegel, because it's basically what your are here saying.

When you say, "Nature is not starting with ideas," which I believe should be common sense, but alas, what has idealism done to man? This is quite important because, I would think, based on your thinking, this must constitute an exceedingly high place in any epistemological hierarchy? If this is true it inevitably takes us in the direction of Marx. Marx was the ultimate anti-idealist, this is what makes his philosophical thought so powerful.

Happiness is not the sole marker of psychological health. One can learn to be happy being oppressed. Talking about what comprises a healthy human doesn't merely equate to feelings of happiness, the spectrum is much broader.

Totally fascinating reply, an excellent synopsis and outline of Peirce's thinking. Thank you for taking the time to articulate.

There is another way out of this, just let your beliefs about the topic alter. That's the value of other minds. It's pretty clear you have been refuted. Don't hold onto the error, move in the direction of the greater truth.

This is, of course, the equivalent of telling an immigrant to go back to their home country — Tzeentch

No, you are complaining about government, an immigrant is seeking life in a new domain of government.

Do you stop at the red light? — Banno

What a swift refutation. :lol: :up:

You stand in opposition to ideas like everyone having access to medical care, every child having equal access to a useful education, ordinary people being protected from the poisoning of their food and environment by uncaring corporations — Pro Hominem

The real irony here, my friend, is that this fella is a beneficiary of government, and more importantly, he is not going to walk away from it any time soon. I mean, he can flee to the mountains with his anarchist gang and they can all be free, but they had better not be leeching off society in any way if they want to remain consistent with their principles.

Aquinas was a genius only of coming out with thousands of faulty arguments. — Gregory

A genius at faulty arguments. :lol: So accurate. Idealism will do that to a person.

Am I the only one who finds this to be incoherent? I really did try to understand it, see if I could draw something from it, but then we have stuff like this: "everything beyond the individual is a consequence of his acts, and all of them - even the ones that appeared to not make a difference -, were emperors, by coveting being the best..." What? False premise followed by emperors coveting being best? Friend, this ego stuff isn't working out for you very well. Maybe you should return to community.