Non-sequiturs won't do here.
— creativesoul

Aren't non-sequiturs only pertinent to arguments? I wasn't forwarding an argument in what you quoted relative to this response. I was simply making some comments. — Terrapin Station

I'm confused then, I suppose. Did you not quote me and charge the excerpt with ignoring and/or neglect?

Yes, that actually happened.

Three charges of neglect. None true.

When I wrote "non-sequitur" I was drawing your attention to the situation at hand. None of those charges follow from my position. You quoted me, and then aimlessly opened fire. "Non sequitur" was not about your argument, it was about the fallaciousness of your inquiry.

We can try. We ought try.
— creativesoul

Sure, but only to the extent of patience, re: when barking at the moon and Wiki have equal dialectical authority, I find myself with nothing to say. — Mww

I like the way your expressions land. Worthy of copying.

If one gets that(non and/or prelinguistic thought/belief) wrong, then they've gotten all sorts of other things wrong as a result.
— creativesoul

Quite so. As we can see here........

“Since morals, therefore, have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows, that they cannot be deriv’d from reason... — Mww

This presupposes that nothing and/or no things that has/have/had an influence on actions and affections can be derived using reason. As if these possibilities are mutually exclusive and/or incompatible with one another. That is a very dubious presupposition that quite simply does not correspond to that which happened yesterday, is happening today, and will most likely be happening again tomorrow..

Some political/financial powers have world-views that are so heavily laden with thinking about thought/belief that one could sink a ship with them. Those belief systems are operative and derived from thinking about thought/belief. Some people have tremendous power over other folks' lives and/or financial livelihood. Some of those people write the morality which not only governs lives, but also affects/effects an overwhelming number of the citizens living in the world.

That which influences actions and affections can be derived from reason. Hume's mistake is conflating simple, rudimentary, and/or basic thought/belief with the linguistically informed/ladened. He was not alone.

If the best you can manage is just to say that every counter-argument to your Delphic declarations is either a red-herring, a non-sequitur or the result of a failure in understanding then you might as well not bother writing anything. This is a philosophy discussion forum, not a podium from which to pronounce to your followers. Pathetic. — Isaac

Philosophy discussions include calling out fallacious reasoning when and where it happens. It is happening here and now. The best I can do is call it out. An astute reader will notice the sheer lack of valid rebuttal coming from folks like you.

Do you have a valid counterargument? Do you have a valid argument? We all know you are rhetorically talented. Rhetoric alone doesn't cut it. Shut up and learn.

Moral agency is existentially dependent upon thinking about the rules of behaviour. The rules of behaviour are statements of thought/belief. Moral agency is what's happening when one is carefully considering what sorts of behaviours are good and what sorts of behaviours are not; what one ought do, and what one ought not, etc.

All observable and thus undeniable moral agency includes a creature which adopts, and thus must begin working from, it's initial worldview. The adoption of world-views replete with moral thought/belief is existentially dependent upon common language replete with codes of conduct.

The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason. — Mww

The above is clearly false. It stands in direct conflict with everyday observable events. It may well be consistent, coherent, and/or otherwise lacking self-contradiction. It may well be a valid conclusion. It is false nonetheless. False conclusions cannot be arrived at by logical means/valid argument. Hume's argument is valid(I'm granting that without prejudice). Therefore, at least one of the premisses is false.

The argument supporting the objection is as follows: The rules of morality are written in and/or reported upon and/or taken account of with common language. All of them. There is no better place to 'look' for empirical evidence to be used to help us consider Hume's position on morality. The rules of morality are the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. The rules of morality have evolved over time. Written history will attest to this. This evolution is the result of people changing their minds about what counts as acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

Slavery. Reason changed minds all over the world. Thankfully.

The above conclusion is false.

Nice post. There's a number of different facets of understanding to be discussed. I have my own copy of the Enquiry. May be worth a reading group thread. Let some flies out of the bottle.

Morality is codified rules of behaviour. Code is language.
— creativesoul

(1) that would amount to ignoring a significant portion of the phenomena that people typically characterize as morality, moral stances, etc.,

(2) it either ignores or gets wrong what meaning is/how meaning works,

and

(3) it ignores that someone feeling one way or the other about interpersonal behavior--assessments of permissibility, etc. is a unique phenomenon, contra for example behaving in a way that doesn't upset the apple cart in relation to other persons' behavior precipitated by their feelings about interpersonal behavior. In other words, there's an important difference between Joe feeling that it's wrong for him as a 40 year-old to have sex with eager 13 year-olds and Joe behaving in accordance with the prohibition of such sex because of the social repercussions of it should he engage in that activity and be found out. — Terrapin Station

Non-sequiturs won't do here.

There's an argument. You are objecting to the primary premiss. The primary premiss is both true and verifiable. I'll have nothing more to do with this conversation unless your tack takes a 180.

I cannot help your lack of understanding. If you have an argument of your own, I'll be glad to put it to the same tests that I use for determining the value of my own. If not, I doubt you'll receive much more of my attention. Some folk here know what I'm talking about. It's a reading comprehension thing, you might not understand.

I'm always amazed by the sheer amount of - apparently - unrecognized double standards underwriting your rhetorical drivel. A well-considered measure of rhetorical power is and always will be accompanied by an argument with the strongest possible justificatory ground. You wield the rhetoric. The argument remains unseen.

Being a parrot doesn't count as good philosophy.

We can try. We ought try.
— creativesoul

Sure, but only to the extent of patience, re: when barking at the moon and Wiki have equal dialectical authority, I find myself with nothing to say. — Mww

:smile:

...commonality has no normative weight except for people who happen to be rah rah conformity. — Terrapin Station

This is interesting, to say the least. Did you come up with emotivism? Except for those who happen to be rah rah conformity, you say? Why should we equate what's right with what feels right, and vice versa?

:yum:

A little tongue-in-cheek...

:wink:

Haven't you ever taken an action that you thought/believed and/or strongly felt was good, right. and/or moral at the time only to later find out that you were sorely mistaken?

If so, I suggest you re-think the emotivism aspect of your position... clearly there's an issue.

There's a weird bias against things that are mental... — Terrapin Station

What's weird about it? The bias is rightfully justified given the historical accounts ranging from Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Hume through modern day snake oil sales people, many of whom get paid quite handsomely for spouting rubbish...

Those accounts are bunk. The mental/physical distinction is bunk when it comes to taking adequate account of anything thought, believed, spoken, written, and/or otherwise uttered. I'm biased against them as well, and yet on my view nothing is more important than having a good grasp upon what thought/belief is and how it works... If one gets that wrong, then they've gotten all sorts of other things wrong as a result.

Morality consists of and/or is codified thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour.

People are too bound up in projecting outward to demonstrate, rather than retreating inward to discover, those grounds. — Mww

You know, while I am sympathetic to the above, I would like to note that no one can do that alone. No one. No how. No way.

It always take an other. We are interdependent social creatures by our very nature. No one makes a mistake on purpose. Everyone's thought/belief system(worldview) is self-contained. We cannot see our own shortcomings. That takes an other... along with a certain humility... and a bit of shared meaning of course.

Rhetoric is a sure sign that one's position/argument is sorely lacking. I'm no theist. That's a funny thing to say about someone like me... you clearly haven't read much of my writing.

I'm of the very strong belief that we can acquire knowledge of that which existed prior to our awareness and/or naming it.

Aren't you?

I'm after what grounds all morality in order to compare it with conventional moral discourse.
— creativesoul

Unless you bring it with you, other than my brief and scattered remarks, and perhaps not even then, you won’t find what you’re after here. People are too bound up in projecting outward to demonstrate, rather than retreating inward to discover, those grounds. — Mww

We can try. We ought try.

Reason can change one's passions. Therefore, it is not a slave to one's passions.
— creativesoul

Okay, go ahead and reason me out of my passionate belief that murder is wrong. — S

An exception negates the claim. If all reason were a slave to one's passions, then reason could not be used as a means to change one's passions, but it most certainly is. Therefore, reason is not always a slave to the passions...

Moreover...

The inherent issue with Hume(and he's not alone) is that his notion/conception of "passions" conflates all sorts of different things. Desires, wants, needs, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, etc. Reason is not distinct from any of these things. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Thought/belief is chock full of emotional meaning, wants, needs, and desires...

Moral agency requires thinking about thought/belief.
— creativesoul

Because? — Terrapin Station

Moral agency is thinking about morality. Morality is thought/belief about the rules of bahaviour.

Morality. All humans follow one after (mostly)adopting their first world-view via language acquisition.
— creativesoul

In my view it doesn't at all depend on language-acquisition. — Terrapin Station

Morality is codified rules of behaviour. Code is language.

Hume's notion of passions and reason fails to draw and maintain the distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. Reason can change one's passions. Therefore, it is not a slave to one's passions.

The general theme of your series of comments seems to focus on the pre-rational or early rational chronology of moral agency. If such chronology is more reactive to outside influence from which experiences are attained, yet moral philosophy in and of itself is predicated on active determinations, which presupposes fully developed rational capacity with its set of experiences already attained, then it is reasonable to suppose the former is merely forms of consequential inclination, rather than a true system of morality, which is just as reasonably supposed to incorporate a form of antecedent obligation that a psychologically incomplete rationality cannot abide. — Mww

Indeed. Moral agency requires thinking about thought/belief. A language-less creature cannot do this. I'm after what grounds all morality in order to compare it with conventional moral discourse.

We trust in each other, as we must.

We are interdependent social creatures by our very nature. The sheer amount of time that a human requires prior to his/her ability to fend for themselves is unmatched in the animal world, aside from elephants. They're comparable. The pure faith upon which one takes on their first world-view is universal. The unmatched trust that we each have(had) in our teachers is also universal and is displayed on an everyday basis.

That which is subject to individual particulars is little to nothing more than an unhelpful distraction during moral discourse. That which is true of everyone lends itself to being a rock-solid dependable foundation.

No one prior to and/or during initial language acquisition approves when another physically harms them.

All initial world-views consist of thought/belief about the world and/or oneself. All initially adopted morality consists of thought/belief about the world and/or ourselves. None of us has the ability to doubt the truthfulness of the common language teachers' lessons about life. They are all lessons.

All adoption of one's first world-view is accompanied by an inherent incapability to doubt.

Thought/belief is prior to doubt. Some of that is thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. All thought/belief presupposes it's own truth somewhere along the line. All thought/belief is meaningful to the thinking/believing creature. Some thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour comes prior to learning the social code. I would posit that some thought/belief about acceptable/unacceptable behaviour is formed and/or held by everyone, regardless of that which is subject to particulars. That is...

Some moral thought/belief is prior to language acquisition and held on a universal basis by everyone.

Morality. All humans follow one after (mostly)adopting their first world-view via language acquisition. Morality - all morality - consists entirely of thought/belief about the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Morality makes up the rules of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Moralities - all of them - vary afterwards. The variances have a direct correspondence with/to that which is subject to particular influence(s). Those include familial, socio-economic, historical, cultural, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and any and all of the other manifestations arising from the evolution of human knowledge.

None of us can doubt the truthfulness of our first worldview. That is true of everyone. We are all borne with the inability to doubt the veracity of our own worldview. Then we all have a sudden, sometimes quite uncomfortable reality check. What happens differs from expectations. We become painfully aware of our own fallibility, assuming one is capable of such a thing. Those who do not better have a fairly accurate understanding of themselves and the world around them, and be fortunate enough to pursue their own happiness. Not everyone can.

War-torn... Abject poverty... Powerless...

Those people have no ability to doubt their own worldview either, until they have one that is... just like everyone else.

The reason for all this is clear enough for all to understand:One cannot doubt the rules of socially acceptable behaviour unless s/he has a baseline from which to do so. That baseline is one's first/initial/original world-view. Those primary baselines are all replete with the language community's moral sensibilities.

All reasonable doubt is belief-based. All doubting is doubting the truth of something or other that has been heard and/or read. All doubting of morality comes via common language use. All language acquisition has universal common denominators. The students' utterly complete inability to doubt the truthfulness of what's being learned about the world and/or him/herself. This holds good regardless of that which is subject to the influence of individual, societal, familial, historical. and/or cultural particulars.

All morality is first adopted.

That which is common to all is universal. There are some things common to all moralities. Those things warrant careful thought experiments. Preferably, this special kind of thought experiment will have some falsifiable/verifiable foundation.

Next?

Yet?

What is your idea of simple thought? — Mww

Correlations drawn between different things. That is the rough outline of all thought/belief. The complexity/simplicity is determined by the content of the correlations.

Red Herrings won't do here.

There are times when "We are under attack!!!" is known to be false by the speaker but deliberately used nonetheless to manufacture consent for war. The meaning is used to manufacture consent. Thus, the meaning of the statement and it's use are clearly not equivalent.
— creativesoul

It's used to get people to think they're under attack. That's the use of the word if they genuinely are, and that's its use if they aren't but the speaker wishes to deceive them. It's the same use. — Isaac

This misses something...

If they are genuinely under attack, the use is for them to know it. If they are not genuinely under attack, the use is for them to believe it. So, even with the most charitable reading... not the same use.

The expression "we're under attack" is used to engender the response of feeling under attack. The ultimate purpose of someone wishing to engender those feelings is neither here nor there, otherwise the question "what is x used for" becomes pointlessly unanswerable. — Isaac

The ultimate purpose is precisely what the meaning of the statement is being used for.

Jeez.

How about you stick to the example I offered? It is one which clearly shows that use is not equivalent to meaning.

Besides that... there's an obvious tack here...

Are you claiming that we do not use meaning? I mean surely you must be. How could we do that if they were equivalent?

...

Well, you've offered more than adequate background. From early on, I was reminded of Kant and the old British Empiricism/Rationalism debates. Those were some of my very first interests in philosophy. Kant's intellect was quite impressive. It's no surprise his writings are still revered despite the untenability of Noumena. Intro to Philo classes may still teach the idea that all we can know is our perceptions. I know at least one... a year or so back... did. I have no idea why.

I am beginning to think/believe that the similarities between you and I revolve around personal values. I suspect our ethics are similar. That is where I still find Kant very appealing. Goodwill. The Categorical Imperative as a standard by which to measure the goodness of an act. His bit on judgment as a talent that cannot be learned at the beginning of the First Critique also left quite the impression. There are many good reasons to honor Kant and all of the other greats throughout history, especially given their knowledge base at the time along with who the most powerful people were.

The most important difference between our viewpoints is that the position you argue from/for does not drawn the crucial distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. You've acknowledged that much. The consequences of neglecting to draw and maintain that distinction are far reaching. The evidence of that neglect pervades nearly all of Western philosophy... Hume and Kant notwithstanding(his notions of apriori and a posteriori are proof positive, as is the very misconception of 'pure reason').

Thought/belief begins very simply and grows in it's complexity. At conception, there is no thought/belief and yet at the end of some people's lives the sheer complexity of thought/belief that they have/hold and/or use is downright daunting. However, the very complex ones are existentially dependent upon the simple ones. Thought/belief is accrued. Thus, to draw a distinction between empirical thought and pure reason is to show that one misunderstands how all thought/belief works. There can be no pure reason without simple thought. There can be no simple thought without an external world. There can be no pure reason without an external world. The distinction between pure reason and empirical thought is fraught with tremendous misunderstanding.

All thought/belief - from the most rudimentary, simple, and/or basic ones through the most complex - consist of common basic elemental constituents, and that is what makes them what they are.

There are times when "We are under attack!!!" is known to be false by the speaker but deliberately used nonetheless to manufacture consent for war. The meaning is used to manufacture consent. Thus, the meaning of the statement and it's use are clearly not equivalent.
— creativesoul

It's used to get people to think they're under attack. That's the use of the word if they genuinely are, and that's its use if they aren't but the speaker wishes to deceive them. It's the same use. — Isaac

The meaning of "We are under attack" is the same in both situations. It means the same thing.

That meaning is not being used for the same thing.

With an insincere speaker the statement is used to deliberately misrepresent the speaker's own thought/belief(the speaker uses the statement to lie/deceive). With a sincere speaker, it is used to represent one's own thought/belief(the speaker uses the statement to be honest/sincere).

Speaking sincerely and speaking insincerely are the not the same use of the same statement with the same meaning.

Common denominators are shared and undivided. The world is shared and undivided. All mammals share mammary glands. Commonalites are shared and undivided.
— creativesoul

Yes, that's why I included those things in my list of thing I think "shared" could refer to.

Some people convince others to take certain actions by virtue of making statements. The speaker does not believe what they say. The listeners are convinced that the speaker does.

Here, your position cannot adequately account for the meaning of the statements/language use. Their use is not equivalent to their meaning.
— creativesoul

What? I really can't make any sense of that. — Isaac

There are times when "We are under attack!!!" is known to be false by the speaker but deliberately used nonetheless to manufacture consent for war. The meaning is used to manufacture consent. Thus, the meaning of the statement and it's use are clearly not equivalent.

Could you show me exactly where he draws that distinction? I've seen nothing from him with regards to talking about "thinking about our own thought/belief"...

I personally prefer the Enlightenment era Continental Idealism, particularly the Kantian variety, even if I wouldn’t bet the family farm on it. But it doesn’t matter which speculative system one chooses, if he chooses at all, which ever way the brain works is how it works, and because there’s no peer-reviewed positive evidence of the fundamental aspects of brain mechanisms, we are free to be as purely logical as we please... — Mww

My last two responses to you were based upon what I've taken to be 'fundamental'(for lack of a better word) tenets of the position you're arguing for/from. The position I'm arguing for/from differs remarkably. I suspect that you are already aware of this. Never-the-less, I do find much agreement as well. Do you agree?

I want to say that I appreciate the 'manner' in which you've taken part here, and I want to return to some of those posts. They deserve more attention than they've been given thus far. It's just that both posts began with an assertion/claim/statement that seems to be incompatible with my own view. That makes for clear difference. Clear difference is good. Crucial for both of us, as it lends itself to knowing what we're talking about and/or debating.

I don’t know what you mean by “thought/belief”. For me, a belief is a thought but a thought is not necessarily a belief, and if thinking is always and absolutely prevalent, believing is redundant. There is no epistemological or cognitive distinction between “I think.......” and “I believe.......”, and in a sufficient metaphysical reduction, the “I believe......” disappears anyway.

Still, I see you use that connectivity just about everywhere on here, so it must mean something to you. — Mww

This skirts around the very foundation of my position. I agree with much above, but not all. All belief is thought, but not all thought is belief. The only difference between the two, it seems to me, are during times of contemplation, particularly when one is temporarily suspending one's judgment about a particular subject matter in order to follow a line of thinking regarding that matter. Even then, however, that act is chock full of thought/belief.

If there is a metaphysically based method of reduction in which "I believe" disappears, and/or belief and/or believing is rendered as redundant, then there's either something wrong with the method, or the method arrives at the inability to draw a distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.

There is clearly a difference. Exploring that difference is key.

Are you disagreeing that meaning is shared?
— creativesoul

I can only understand the word 'shared' in terms of division, or joint ownership, or maybe joint possession (as in some property is shared). I can only make sense of 'meaning' as in the use a word is put to, or maybe the responses it brings about when it's read or heard. — Isaac

Common denominators are shared and undivided. The world is shared and undivided. All mammals share mammary glands. Commonalites are shared and undivided.

You asked, what is it that is being shared between language users? As if there were a single thing that had some significance over others.

If 'shared' is to be used to indicate joint possession or membership, then we share the words themselves, we share a broad collection of the uses they're put to, we share some (but not all) of the responses they generate in our minds. But this is all trivially true. What's the point of the question? — Isaac

The point of the question is to see what sense can be made of it. From your position, we have word use is shared... by definitional fiat. If meaning is the use a word(or language) is put to, then there are some unacceptable consequences...

Some people convince others to take certain actions by virtue of making statements. The speaker does not believe what they say. The listeners are convinced that the speaker does.

Here, your position cannot adequately account for the meaning of the statements/language use. Their use is not equivalent to their meaning.

...it appears we are thinking about our own thinking, which is technically true, but in actuality, we are just thinking. Instead of some arbitrary object to think about, we’ve chosen ourselves as the object. We think about ourselves in exactly the same way we think about everything else. — Mww

We are not our thought/belief.

Are you really attempting to deny that we think about our own thought/belief?

You've offered several different kinds of meaning. What do they all have in common such that that commonality is what makes them all a kind of meaning?

Aristotle did not draw and maintain the crucial distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief.