Could you sketch out how exactly, or point me to a source?
— baker

Basically, stories. We're quite easily fooled by stories, so whilst a social group seems indispensable for the construction of many complex beliefs, those social groups don't have to be real. — Isaac

The topic here were the epistemic implications of power relationships between people (Do I believe someone's argument because I am convinced by its rationality, or by the power of the person who made it?). You said this was surmountable. I asked, how. From what you said, I don't see that you explained that it is surmountable.

I semi-seriously wonder if the soul of Putin died some decades ago and his body taken over by the malevolent spirit which also animated Josef Stalin, which lurks around the Kremlin waiting for some potential body to inhabit. After all, Putin's high- school teacher couldn't remember Vlad, he was such a colorless and unexceptional pupil. So now he's just become a carrier for that same industrial-scale cruelty and malevolence that his predecessor exhibited. — Wayfarer

And this coming from a Buddhist.

You and I clearly have very very different standards for how to treat others, enemies notwithstanding. As I said earlier, your position is based upon an emaciated set of morals. Specifically, how to treat others. — creativesoul

Because believing that one should not approach others in bad faith is ... just egregious!!!!!! Emaciated!!!!

So you mean to say that the Buddha "deceives" people into being ethical by dangling the false gift of nirvana before their eyes? Most interesting! Nevertheless, there is a reward, even if only an illusion of one and that brings us back to what I referred to in my posts - ethics as a means to...happiness. — Agent Smith

This is Mahayana doctrine. Not all Buddhist schools teach such things.

Yeah, I get that virtue is a reward in itself but all religions, without exception I'd say, peddle virtue as a means to paradise, attaining nirvana, achieving moksha and so on.

On the flip side, the highest good, in these very same ideologies again, is to expect no reward for one's good thoughts/words/deeds. — Agent Smith

Can you support this claim with doctrinal evidence?

What you're saying is often claimed by various religious/spiritual people, as a display of one's grandeur and piousness, and as an implicit way to demand generosity and goodwill from others.
But I can't think of any actual doctrinal references that would actually support this notion of "expecting no reward for one's good thoughts/words/deeds."

Well, how are they - Nagarjuna's tetralemma & ethics - connected? — Agent Smith

Who says they are??

What does Nagarjuna's tetralemma have to do with ethics? — Agent Smith

What does Nagarjuna's tetralemma have to do with the Noble Eightfold Path?

Yeah, interesting. I suppose that's more true than it might at first seem if one considers social as well as economic power relationships. I do think it's surmountable though, but I agree the temptation makes it difficult to be sure. — Isaac

Could you sketch out how exactly, or point me to a source?

I think, one difficulty here is that there's two aspects to these types of discussion that people are interested in. The 'beliefs' we find most interesting are those like god, socialism, transgenders, etc... But these are a tiny minority of beliefs.

We all believe, for example, that larger objects cannot fit inside smaller ones.

It's not clear this would generally even be considered a belief, but rather, knowledge, common sense, something that isn't up for dispute.

The former type of beliefs I think are held almost entirely for reasons of social relationships. The latter type more for pragmatic or biological reasons. The forces which act on each type will be different.

I agree. I find that often, the former are attempted by many people to be advocated as the latter. For example, "All men are created equal" or "Those who refuse to get vaccinated against covid are selfish" are sometimes advocated as being as equally true, objective, self-evident as "2 + 2 = 4".

The right-wingers say that the "self-serving and devious" are the leftists.
The leftists say that the "self-serving and devious" are the right-wingers.

They also differ in who exactly those "innocent masses" are.

So who is who exactly?

What you're describing is epistemic egoism. It's the ideal of epistemic autonomy.
Given that we're not living in a vacuum, epistemic autonomy is not possible.
— baker

Ego is an undeniable aspect of being human so it’s no surprise that it will influence personal beliefs.
If an individual is nefarious and they have power and influence then they can insist their personal beliefs are more important than the beliefs of some alternate mass or group of people with less power and influence. But, all tyrants are eventually overthrown, even those who seem to have total power. The combined belief of a large majority that they are not being treated in an acceptable way that makes their lives worth living is often the reason why those who think their beliefs/legacy will ‘stand for a thousand years,’ gets overthrown relatively quickly. — universeness

I wasn't thinking about epistemic egoism in such socially dramatic terms. I was speaking in reference to your claim "I am advocating for some rigorous background checking to make sure YOUR conviction or belief it’s true is justified to YOU".

The epistemic egoist maintains that one must possess positive reasons in favor of other people's reliability or trustworthiness before their beliefs and testimony offer prima facie social evidence.

https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phc3.12184#:~:text=The%20epistemic%20egoist%20maintains%20that,offer%20prima%20facie%20social%20evidence.

Also see Ethical and Epistemic Egoism and the Ideal of Autonomy.

And again, your distinction of "feels certain" from "is certain" does not make sense.

Wo else makes this distinction? Can you point to a source? — Banno

It's common sense to make this distinction. From what you've said so far, you're making it as well. Otherwise, you couldn't say things like "Faith is unwarranted belief."

If you see yourself as the arbiter of what makes a belief warranted or unwarranted, it means that in a particular case, you determine whether a particular person is certain of x, or, at best, can merely feel certain of x (regardless of what said person claims about their relationship with x).

Ah, so we are free to "think" that such-and-such is true, free of the yoke of authority? — Banno

We are, but the usefulness of this freedom is yet to be seen. It's right up there with "Everyone is free to buy themselves a private jet."

So there is an infinite number of points between any two points?
— baker
It depends if you're talking about a line segment or a line that has both ends expanding. And I don't know why you asked this question. — L'éléphant

Because proposition no. 8 and its implications don't seem to be in line with a materialist/physicalist/realist point of view.

Who exactly are the "innocent masses" and the "self-serving and devious"?

Different political options have different ideas about who those are.

I was told the middle path doesn't take sides. — Agent Smith

Told by whom??

A cornerstone idea of Buddhism is that all propsitions are undecidable and hence epoché (suspension of judgment)

Where on earth do you get these ideas about Buddhism????

The masses are essentially innocent in the hands of expert psychologists and mass-manipulators. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Well, do you want democracy or not?

If the innocent masses should get to have a say, why shouldn't the expert psychologists and mass-manipulators have a say as well?

Post-modernist rejection of objective reality, truth, human nature, reason etc; or if you prefer moral and epistemic relativism, is absolutely necessary neo marxian identity politics. How else can one posit the idea, for example, that gender is a social construct; and presume to have the moral righteousness and foresight to deconstruct and remake these evolutionary concepts, without resort to post modernism? — karl stone

If the postmodern ideas would be restricted to country clubs and other special elite venues, there wouldn't be a problem.

Postmodernism is a kind of luxury that most people cannot afford, and so are bound to deride it.

This is psychological gender. Many in the lgbtq community argue that psychological gender is inborn , and can differ from one’s biological sex. This inborn gender-related brain wiring would explain extremely feminine acting males and extremely ‘butch’ females. — Joshs

The description of those behaviors is culturally specific, though.

Where I live, there are no "butch females" or "tomboys", but there are "girls that lack feminine charms and graces". No boys are "girly", but some are "weak". (Or at least, this is how it used to be when I was growing up. But more recently, many people here uncritically adopt American psychology, as if it would be universal and the only relevant one.)

It doesn't occur to me to describe any woman in terms of "she's behaving like a man", or any man as "he's behaving like a woman". Even if she "manspaces", spits, never wears skirts or makeup; even if he has a petite physique with a high-pitched voice, fine hands with fine fingernails, etc.

The way the "aberrations from the gender norm" are interpreted is not universal, not a given. I think the culture you're describing is interpreting those aberrations in a way that supports its particular ideological agenda (which is hypersexed and politically hypercorrect).

This is one of those things that a postmodernist approach allows one to see.

You may disagree that there are biologically formed intermediate genders, but what if you are wrong? What effect do you think your incomprehension might have on those around you, some of whom you may know? — Joshs

So others should be considerate, but you shouldn't have to be??

I should note that focusing on increasing our care and consideration implies that we believe we were acting carelessly and inconsiderately, which I consider to be forms of anger-blame. — Joshs

So far, the only criticisms I've encountered when it comes to postmodernism is that --they're hard to understand! lol. Then spend more time with it until one understands what the fuck they're talking about.
/.../
Just because a postmodern philosopher questioned the status quo, it doesn't mean that philosopher had made his case. The learners just willy-nilly accepted such theory because it is explained as facts, instead of an analysis. For once, let's go against the prominent philosophers and make our case. — L'éléphant

It is precisely in relation to postmodernism that it is evident that higher education should have stayed reserved for those for whom it was originally intended: the elite. The problems some people have with postmodernism are due to their plebeian mentality. When people (of lower or middle class status) pursue higher education with the intention to climb on the socioeconimic ladder, they do not have the cognitive, emotional, and cultural wherewithal needed to understand phenomena like postmodernism (or art, literature, philosophy) in all their width, depth, and flexibility.

And then there's the question who has the time? — Tom Storm

The elites do. That's why they exist.

My point is that being "open to not fully knowing" is a precarious position to be in, a liability that those who are still relatively healthy and wealthy can afford, but the rest can't.

I'm not sure I understand the nuances of your point about 'thinking this way'. Do you mean being aware of this? And what is the connection to being a weakling?

No one really cuts in front of others in grocery lines here unless they are just rude. Usually this can be settled with some words - social status is almost never an issue here but size might be.

I'm not sure if self-awareness connects to awareness of socially constructed status, unless some holds a specific value system.

But perhaps you also mean that rich people get privileges others don't get. I'm still not sure how this relates to self-awareness being for weaklings. And what exactly a weakling is? Do you mean that only those with no power practice self-refection because they are weak? — Tom Storm

I said earlier: I think being more self-aware makes one a loser, a weakling. Unless, of course, one already has a massive ego.

Do you think a poor, ugly person enjoys being self-aware, benefits from it?

Even poverty stricken homeless people philosophise. — Tate

And what good does it do them?

You seem to think that people are born innocent tabula rasas, and that they are helplessly, haplessly thrown into the jaws of propaganda that swallows them up.

I was never taught any critical skills at school or at home, and I still come up with the question, Who is placing a gun to the head of the masses, threatening to pull the trigger if they refuse to get doped on sex, drugs & religion, game shows, state lotteries & promotional giveaways?
How is that??

First of all, I don't think people are born so good and so innocent, or so weak and vulnerable as you suggest. To tie to your example, nobody is born a Christian, but people are born with varying passions. I think these determine how strongly the cultural indoctrination will take root in a particular person and in which ways.

Ingenious propaganda closely interweaves with culture to make a seamless combination so seemingly natural as to prevent native members from even questioning the legitimacy -- both existential & moral -- of the state-sanctioned, core values of the culture. — ucarr

I think you underestimate people's cunning and their propensity for keeping up appearances.
I grew up among Christians in what was a majority Christian culture then. These people mostly didn't actually believe anything they were taught at church, but they kept up the appearance of believing. They would ridicule the small minority who actually took the religious doctrines seriously.

Keeping up appearances is an art form in its own right. It's a form of self-defense.

Postmodernists' critical theory world view is the extreme form of skepticism of all things humans. I don't subscribe to it. It puts doubt on your own thinking of what's really driving cruelty, suffering, ignorance, absurdity, goodness, benevolence. They complicate issues, leaving you with confused state of mind and existence. It can be a bad prescription for hopelessness.

Sometimes I think of them as securing their lucrative posts in the academia and beyond by publishing books that won't ever give definitive answers to human issues. — L'éléphant

Elites tend to be prone to decadence.

They complicate issues, leaving you with confused state of mind and existence. It can be a bad prescription for hopelessness.

Which is one more reason why run of the mill people should not get involved with philosophy.

No, it's a description.

Believers simply hold subjective personal preferences about what they think god/s want. — Tom Storm

But they don't see it that way. They believe they are being objective, neutral. (So do most people anyway.)

Which is how we arrive at the moral quagmire of Christian ethics — Tom Storm

Sure, but whose problem is that? The Christians themselves don't seem to have much problem with it. Each group of Christians, or even each individual Christian believes that they are right, that they are beyond, subjectivity, beyond personal preferences, and that it is other people (including some Christians) who are wrong. For them, this is not a problem, nor a source of doubt or any unease.

(Personally, I think being more self-aware makes one a loser, a weakling. Unless, of course, one already has a massive ego.)
— baker

Can you expand on this? — Tom Storm

"The rich lady can cut in front of me in the waiting line in the grocery store, I must let her do so, because I am inferior, and in this world, might makes right, and there is no point in resisting this system."

Where is the ethical advantage in thinking this way?

I'm afraid @Joshs is ignoring this part of the discussion, though.

but maybe we could just be open to not fully knowing.
— Tate

But only for as long as we're relatively healthy and wealthy.
— baker

What happens if we're not? — Tate

Have you ever tried to be "open to not fully knowing" when you're in a precarious situation with either your health or socioeconomically, or even both at the same time?

8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point.
— Clarky
For the benefit of the members here, this is the euclidean geometry. — L'éléphant

So there is an infinite number of points between any two points?

I’m not against holding something to be true but I am advocating for some rigorous background checking to make sure YOUR conviction or belief it’s true isjustified to YOU and you can cite your sources and also cite why your sources are reliable and rational. Fact checking is a way to support personal beliefs. — universeness

What you're describing is epistemic egoism. It's the ideal of epistemic autonomy.
Given that we're not living in a vacuum, epistemic autonomy is not possible.

Loads of people are more powerful than me. I rarely believe anything they say. — Isaac

Like I said earlier: Neither those above oneself nor those beneath oneself are open to being convinced by the arguments one gives.

I think the existence of a power differential between people makes rational argumentation (and being convinced by rational arguments) difficult or even impossible.

Whether they are actually convinced by that argument is not given by power relationships.

It's the power relationship that prevails.

Personally, it feels awkward to me to agree with an argument given by someone more powerful than myself. Am I agreeing with their reasoning, or submitting to their power?

American vs English usage perhaps? — Isaac

Could be. My casual observations:
-- Americans use "belief" more frequently in ideological contexts,
-- "belief" is an extremely loaded term,
-- middle class people use it more often than elites,
-- in British English, "I believe" seems to often be used with the meaning 'I guess; I think so, but I'm not sure'.

No. I have in mind Kenny's "Faith, then, resembles knowledge in being irrevocable, but differs from it in being a commitment in the absence of adequate evidence" Faith is unwarranted belief.

Knowledge, Belief, and Faith. — Banno

"Unwarranted" on whose terms?
"Belief despite evidence" according to whose idea of evidence?

This is what happens when you throw out all notions of subjectivity and set yourself up as the one objective arbiter of reality.

You don't care about other people's knowledge, insights, concerns. Other people don't really exist for you. You are the one who decides what is real and what isn't, what exists and what doesn't, what is adequate evidence and what isn't. You treat your own standards as if they were the objective standards that everyone is bound to. (IOW, you're doing the exact same thing as many religious people do.)

* * *

Faith is not belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. No one has ever used the word that way as far as I know. — Tate

Some atheists do, for example.

Some atheists believe there is a lot of evidence that shows or at least indicates that god doesn't exist. They also believe that they have the only truthful take on the matter. So from the perspective of those atheists, theists in fact believe in god contrary to evidence.

Similarly, some theists claim that atheists refuse to believe in god despite ample evidence that god exists.

You can find examples of this in the theism-atheism discussions pretty much anywhere where this is discussed.

The two camps have vastly different ideas about what in particular constitutes "evidence of god", but often, they refuse to acknowledge this.

But this has nothing to do with rationality, but with the power hierarchy between the people involved, and the implications of this hierarchy. Neither those above oneself nor those beneath oneself are open to being convinced by the arguments one gives.
— baker

Well, that still leaves those of one's own class, surely? — Isaac

Within the same socioeconomic class, there is still a power hierarchy, depending on socioeconomic context. Would, for example, your boss be persuaded by rational arguments provided by you? Perhaps your colleagues would, as long as you and they are not competing for the same opportunities at work.

My point being that there are relatively few situations in life where the argument from power isn't the strongest one.

You seem to think that the Buddha and his followers are or should be Renaissance men (and that their outlook is or should be scientific materialism).

Is there free will in heaven? Yes? Is there evil in heaven? No? Then free will doesn't explain (or inevitably lead to) evil. — Art48

But only good people get to heaven, people who do no evil.

Then free will doesn't explain (or inevitably lead to) evil.

Do you know any actual monotheistic doctrine that states that evil is due to free will?
Those that I'm aware of use the notion of "misuse of free will", and some then try to explain whence the misuse.

Can we not make our own humanist laws? — universeness

But what good are they?

So our 'pro-lifer' can hold the belief that all life is sacred and also hold the belief that some life is not sacred which he will express (and possibly even rationalise, post hoc) in different ways if and when called upon to do so. If I were to look into his brain (this can't be done yet, of course) and see the tendencies wired into his neural networks, I might render his beliefs as "he believes that all life is sacred, and he believes that all life is not sacred". He would likely not render them that way (seeing how odd it sounds) but the way he renders his beliefs is just a front - a post hoc process designed to make them meet that standard required of rational discussion. — Isaac

_He_, the pro-lifer. Oh, the irony.

I've never heard of "I believe" being equated with "I'm certain", it seemed out of the blue. — Isaac

It seems to me that this is how (philosophically uneducated) people usually mean it.

Yes, the abject (and worsening) failure of the project to get people to think more rationally by using rational argument. — Isaac

But this has nothing to do with rationality, but with the power hierarchy between the people involved, and the implications of this hierarchy. Neither those above oneself nor those beneath oneself are open to being convinced by the arguments one gives.

They were a pro-lifer and now they are not. A change of mind. — Banno

Sometimes, that's the case. Other times, denial, rationalization, compartmentalization are at work.

Christian women are, officially, pro-life, but many, if not most, also routinely use contraceptives and have abortions, just like non-Christian women.
As far as I know Christians, context determines a lot. There are things they proclaim in official situations, but in some informal situation, they might claim the opposite. The whole discrepancy seems so strategic, so systematic that it's hard to believe there is some mistake or unconscious denial going on.

A similar pattern can be observed with with many other people. For example, a white American supremacist nationalist will show contempt for blacks if the topic of the discussion is US internal matters, but will prefer a black American to a white Russian or a white German if the topic of discussion are matters external to the US.

One can peacefully co-exist with one's enemy if both should so choose. — creativesoul

Then they are not enemies to begin with, so your point is moot.

Peaceful co-existence need only require that one sovereign nation respect another.

And Western countries have never respected Russia to begin with.

One can see another as the enemy of self-governance.

A country that actively seeks membership in not one but two organizations that will significantly shape the internal and external policies and actions of said country is clearly not interested in self-governance.

The hallmarks(actual results) of good self-governance are shown in the actual lives and livelihoods of the overwhelming majority. Good government produces quality lives.

People have been trying to cover up their narcissism, hatred, contempt, lack of consideration in many ways, and this emphasis on "self-governance" is the way that is in fashion now.

The same is true of individual people. One can consider another an enemy on certain terms and in certain non violent, non harmful ways. These terms and ways do not cause harm. Nor do they seek any unnecessary unprovoked offensive violence towards this enemy. Seeing another as an enemy is in itself insufficient ground for the enemy to cause retaliatory harm. So, no it is not the least absurd to be able to expect to see another as an enemy(in nice and harmless ways), and completely expect the enemy to be and remain nice and harmless.

This is nonsense.
There is no such thing as "seeing another as an enemy(in nice and harmless ways)".

Someone isn't your enemy because you call them so. But if you insist in doing so, and you take preemptive action, the other party is justified to begin to consider you the enemy (and take according action).

What you're describing here is the preference for a narcissistic one-way relationship where one party gets to define all the terms of engagement, and the other party is supposed to comply. The other party has no say. They are supposed to think of themselves the way the first party demands.

Are you a Christian?