I don’t think this line of thought is important to the project of determining the source of morals. — praxis

Seems to be of utmost importance to me(by my lights). If we claim that all things moral are about considering behaviour towards others, then we're mistaken if some morals are not about considering behaviour towards others. Considering one's own personal outlook in a situation where there are no others around - such as is the case with the moral of The Fox and the Grapes - is not considering behaviour towards others.

Therefore, the criterion is mistaken. There are actual morals that contradict what the criterion claims that all things moral have in common. The criterion makes a false claim about some morals. It cannot properly account for all morals.

"All morals are about considering behaviour towards others" is false.

Just to be clear here...

Do you realize that I'm not offering moral judgment here? Calling it "the moral of the story" does not require my approval/disapproval of the thought, belief, and/or behaviour any more than calling the place I get my gas a "gas station" requires my approval of that namesake. I'm offering an account... an exhaustive description(within the realm of relevancy/germaneness) of what all things called "moral" have in common.

Later we can get into which ones ought be put to use and how/why.

How's my existential quantification coming along?

Interpretation is always of something already meaningful. All interpretation is the attribution of meaning. Not all attribution of meaning is interpretation.

If It doesn’t belong to a group then there is no moral. — praxis

I agree with this. The fable belongs to the community of language users which first conceived it and all those who continue it's use via reporting upon it.

A correct/accurate/trustworthy report will take account of it's original meaning. The meaning is the moral of the story. The moral of that story does not consider behaviour towards others. It is called and has been called "the moral of the story" since it's inception.

I cannot explain this in many more ways...

Are we in agreement yet?

I'm just taking account of the fable and it's moral lesson. The only reason it needed to be invoked here was as an exception to a criterion for what counts as "moral" - in kind. A criterion for what counts as being moral - in kind - that claims that all morals are about considering behaviour towards others is rendered inadequate by virtue of conflicting with the way things are. It cannot take proper account of The Fox and the Grapes. That's a story with a moral. That moral is about one's own thought/belief and/or attitude. It helps promote self-reflection. It's not about considering behaviour towards others. Thus, the proposed criterion is rejected as inadequate, insufficient and/or lacking explanatory power. It could easily and sensible be called "false"...

Some morals are about considering behaviour towards others. Not all. — creativesoul

Some morals are about considering behaviour towards others. Not all.

I’m not at all convinced, if that matters. Your fable fails to illustrate this point... and this is not an expression of sour grapes. — praxis

What determines whether or not The Fox and the Grapes has the lesson that it has been said to have since it's very inception? That lesson is called "the moral of the story". It is a moral lesson. It is not about nor does it consider behaviour towards others.

Your agreement isn't necessary here... is it?

It(the story) is existentially dependent upon others for it is language based... That's irrelevant regarding whether or not all moral things consider behaviour towards another. They don't, and the story is itself a piece of evidence that falsifies the criterion.

The big mistake is in thinking that there are any issues to resolve in the first place. — Merkwurdichliebe

Do you not think/believe that there are many self-perpetuated problems, all of which are a result of people becoming bewitched by certain language use? Frameworks are language use. Dichotomies are a part of all frameworks. Some dichotomies are used - historically - as a means for doing something that they are inherently incapable of doing. In the simplest possible terms...

Some things consist of both and/are thus neither. Some things are neither because they consist of both. Two ways of saying much the same thing.

Subject/Object is one such dichotomy.

Banno wants to continue/limit it's use, for/in/to some contexts I suppose, but I find it fatally flawed in such a way that it's use loses all explanatory value. It is inadequate for taking account of the attribution of meaning, the presupposition of correspondence to what's happened, and thought/belief formation itself.

Hence... the unresolvable issues.
— creativesoul

I always like to revisit these topics with a fresh eye - "a fish I" (that's for banno).

The big mistake is in thinking that there are any issues to resolve in the first place. All we can ever do is methodically trace out the logical consequences of self-evident/groundless premises (we have to "kick the ladder out from under us"). If we do this thoroughly, one might arrive at some type of personal clarity. But we will never resolve anything of any great significance amongst each other. — Merkwurdichliebe

That's just not true. Not all premisses are on equal footing. Not all are groundless.

Sometimes you have to smash it to pieces and reconstruct it, other times you have to throw it far into the distance and rediscover it. — Merkwurdichliebe

We talk about smashing things into pieces that are able to be smashed into pieces. Moral things aren't such things. Moral things do indeed consist of other things, of simpler things. All of these elementary constituents/ingredients exist in their entirety prior to becoming part of one of the multitude of different things that we've chosen to call "moral".

All moral things are about acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour.



Do you follow me? There are no exceptions. Every example confirms.

...

Philosophy is so versatile in its methodology, it is rendered useless. — Merkwurdichliebe

There are some historical methods that are useless for taking proper account of that which existed in it's entirety prior to our account.

There are some philosophical methods that arrive at all sorts of gibberish and/or otherwise preposterous conclusions.

Some. Not all.

It does not follow that all uses are useless. Our saying and/or arriving at that doesn't make much sense to begin with. I know you and Janus are playing around with rejecting the law of contradiction, but doing so will inevitably result in equivocation and/or some other kind of incoherence.

Agree?

We look at what's left and assess it's relevance/adequacy for deducing a universal criterion.
— creativesoul

I thought the point of your sour grapes example, in the context of its use, had to do with trying to establish the universal criterion of weather or not morals require other sentient beings.

Maybe I misconstrued the point. In any case, grapes aren’t sentient. What do you think the moral of the sour grapes fable is, just out of curiosity? — praxis

I want you to follow me here. I'll come back to this later if need be. There's another underlying crucial matter. We need to bring it more into the forefront of our considerations here.

Methodology. It will cover this as well.

Paine was an aside... I'm not even sure of his Ethics or if he had any. When I was reading him, it was all about motivation and attitude about the role of government, notably what the conditions were for rejecting the government.

:wink:

Anyway... I need to think a few things through here. Some clarity is needed to ensure we're all on the same page. Given the 'depth' of the argumentative basis(thought/belief), and all of the different jargon popping in and out of existence here... :halo:

A bridge of mutual understanding needs to be maintained. We've a good start, I think.

If the nominalist is coherent/consistent, then s/he cannot even talk about this sentence for it would have changed and would be another one as a result of change(similar to Heraclitus' river). We wouldn't be able to name things fast enough to talk about them.

But we do.

Some change is allowed without changing the identity of the thing in question.

Willow makes a relevant point.

Ask the nominalist to account for shared meaning. Shared meaning is required for language use, particularly for picking out an individual/entity to the exclusion of all others.

I want to attempt a translation in my own terms. Hopefully it will be as well received as the last.
— creativesoul

Your interpretation is necessary for me. It helps me to know we are on the same page. Also, you are probably much more intelligent than me. — Merkwurdichliebe

I wouldn't go that far.

This is something I find hilarious! Not so much what they meant at the end... bit what it now means...

:smile:

That is something that we can now make a distinction about, but only because the variables have been existentialized, right?

Ethical thought/belief it would seem, pertains to the stages of prelinguistic thought/belief and cultural indoctrination (predominantly the latter). It opens up onto ethical existence for the individual.

In ethical existence, the individual internalizes ethical thought/belief. Somewhere here, in the internalization of ethical thought/belief, is where moral thought/belief should first appear (I can't exactly pin point it yet).

At a the most superficial level, moral thought/belief would be likely to appear identical to the ethical thought/belief from which it was derived. But the deeper one sinks into moral thought/belief (i.e. the more serious his conviction and responsibility become), the more ethical existence becomes a reality for him... the more likely (but not necessarily) his morality will come to differ from the ethical thought/belief from which it is derived. — Merkwurdichliebe

I like the aesthetic feel of this...

I want to attempt a translation in my own terms. Hopefully it will be as well received as the last.

Love me some Aesop. Should be mandatory reading for all TPF members. :cool: — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't know about all of that. Just a few examples of morals.

I didn't say we were doing anything right. Even if we aren't.

:rofl:

I wanted to comment on this...

It seems reasonable to suggest that at a deep enough level of moral thought/belief, it ceases to be a cognitive process, and becomes more akin to feeling and intuition. If this is accepted, then the more that ethical thought/belief is internalized, the more irrational it becomes. — Merkwurdichliebe

If we equate being rational to being consciously thought about and we suppose that thought/belief somehow loses it's rational aspect when it becomes an unconscious operator.

I would disagree with both of those presuppositions.

I love it. Thanks for the challenges! I'll think on that.

Here are Aesop's fables. Stories with moral lessons. Lessons about thought, belief, and/or behaviour...

Roughly...

A motivational speaker often accredited with being very influencial in both the American and French Revolutions.

A rabble-rouser...

Google Thomas Paine's Common Sense. I think it's readily available.

How to get what one could not first attain/acquire...
— creativesoul

Giving up may not have been a mistake. Further effort could have been better spent simply looking for low lying fruit elsewhere. — praxis

Alternatively...

Did you miss that part?

The mistake was choosing to believe a fiction. That kind of behavior can have serious negative consequences within a group.

I'll grant this for no other reason than it doesn't matter. We're not deliberating - yet - which moral thought/belief is best given some specific situation or other. We're getting there.

Do you follow me?

I'm just taking account of the fable and it's moral lesson. The only reason it needed to be invoked here was as an exception to a criterion for what counts as "moral" - in kind. A criterion for what counts as being moral - in kind - that claims that all morals are about considering behaviour towards others is rendered inadequate by virtue of conflicting with the way things are. It cannot take proper account of The Fox and the Grapes. That's a story with a moral. That moral is about one's own thought/belief and/or attitude. It helps promote self-reflection. It's not about considering behaviour towards others. Thus, the proposed criterion is rejected as inadequate, insufficient and/or lacking explanatory power. It could easily and sensible be called "false"...

Some morals are about considering behaviour towards others. Not all.

That's just a bit of the further parsing that needed to be done earlier...

I thought everyone had read Aesop's fables... My naivety rears it's head once again.

Don't you have similar moral lessons in your worldview?

Is it pretend? — praxis

No, it's not pretend...

It's the groundwork upon which a teacher can plant the seeds of practical thought. How to get what one could not first attain/acquire...

Don't be like the fox.

Or alternatively, when faced with an unattainable goal, accept it. Again...

Don't be like the fox.

It's all about the attitude!

In any case, it only matters in relation to other beings of its group. If It doesn’t belong to a group then there is no moral. If a man living alone in the forest hates the fruit he can’t reach it is of no consequence to anyone else, or to himself. — praxis

We're in agreement here regarding the need for others.

But a man in forest - all alone - would not have the fable to begin with. A baby in a forest will not ever become a man. So, it's a moot point. We're interdependent social creatures by our very nature... necessarily so.

thought the point of you sour grapes example, in the context of its use, had to do with trying to establish the universal criterion of weather or not morals require other sentient beings. — praxis

I think they do. Rudimentary level pre-linguistic thought/belief aren't sufficient. Having morals requires understanding them to some - at a minimum - basic extent. Understanding them requires thinking about the meaning. The story is comprised of thought/belief statements. All thought/belief statements are meaningful. Thinking about the underlying meaning requires thinking about thought/belief statements. Thinking about thought/belief statements requires common written language. Common written language requires another human. Humans are sentient beings. Morals require other sentient beings.

All use of "requires/require" can be replaced with "is/are existentially dependent upon"...

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

I asked because I've already been using it throughout. Universal claims, while being prone to reductio, are nonetheless the strongest possible justificatory ground, especially when they are verifiable/falsifiable.

That's exactly what's been going on.
— creativesoul

I had that feeling. — Merkwurdichliebe

And it can be 'validated', so to speak... in conventional layperson/psychological terms. There is plenty of evidence to verify/falsify the claim.

You may find this interesting, or you may not. The written word alone cannot tell me - yet - about the amount of sincerity and/or actual interest you have here. I'll tell you anyway.

My thought/belief about government - as an entity - is largely along the lines of Thomas Paine. Particularly regarding it's responsibility to it's citizens. There's also much to be said regarding conflicts of interest between the wealthiest people and the poorest people. Further talk about what counts as worthy of holding public office, particularly when it comes to the candidate's own historical record and/or personal vested interests. This line of thinking leads us to overturning specific pieces of legislation(and/or Supreme Court decisions) and along with them some mistakenly set precedent(s).

Common Sense.

Samurai the snowball while stepping aside...

I tend to get myself in trouble with such talk...

:joke:

I'm too lazy to lead a revolution. Besides that I've got too much else to do! :wink:

I want to return to the discussion when it pertained to the distinction between moral thought/belief and ethical thought/belief. We were not finished with the nuance in that regard.

Particularly, the bit about considering others.

To what extent must one consider an other in order for her/him to be thinking ethically about the other?

Yes, I think it is worthy of investigation. — Merkwurdichliebe

I asked because I've already been using it throughout. Universal claims, while being prone to reductio, are nonetheless the strongest possible justificatory ground(in terms of arguing for warrant), especially when they are verifiable/falsifiable. If there are no known examples to the contrary, but there are examples, then there are no empirical reasons for dissent.

That's exactly what's been going on.

In between other things, that is...

Pre-linguistic thought/belief must exist in such a way that it is able to evolve into linguistic thought/belief.

Agree?

If so... we're done talking about the role of evolution.

You primed?

We just covered it.

The complexity of thought/belief at the rudimentary, basic, and/or foundational level must evolve in terms amenable to evolution. Language is covered already. Seamlessly, or at least as seamlessly as possible...

That's it.

You still open to the idea of existential quantification?

At a certain level, the explanatory usefulness of the role of evolution in the source of morals becomes exhausted. — Merkwurdichliebe

Certainly. But, let us not make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse, or counting chooks before they hatch.

We'll have all the time in the world to talk about that when we get there. It's about much more than the role of evolution. I don't talk in such terms to begin with. There's much more to it than meets the eye...

All morals rest their laurels upon rudimentary thought/belief. Being used and/or being useful doesn't amount to much at all on my view. It's the goal that matters most, and that holds good in ethics as well. Being used in the best way known is the aim.

Utilization of that knowledge(the origen of all thought/belief, including but certainly not limited to thought/belief that is moral in kind), goes far beyond mere talk of 'the role of evolution'.

At a certain level, the explanatory usefulness of the role of evolution in the source of morals becomes exhausted. In all subsequent discourse, the role of evolution is automatically implied as a necessary factor in the source of morals. Any further talk of it is redundant. — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed. Our account must be amenable to evolution. That's all. That's merely one standard of many measures that need be taken. Guidelines to meet and/or exceed.

So...

Pretty important to know what thought/belief consists in and/or of. Changing terms changes meaning. Changing the terms one uses to recollect events can make recollecting the events a bit healthier, a bit less stressful. Anyway...

I've got philosophy to do...

:smile:

Laterz!

Read about CBT... Closely and carefully. Pay attention to what they focus upon changing regarding the patient... Thought and/or belief... That's the only way to change who one is.

Read a little closer... more carefully perhaps.

Do you see the similarity between what CBT is doing and the position that I've been arguing for as long as you've been aware of me?