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  • Why be moral?
    Yes, and what if you are absolutely sure that something you enjoy is wrong and something you're disgusted by is right? Would you change your behaviour to reflect your moral knowledge, or would you decide to continue as you were? — Michael
    I have been faced with similar situations when I approached some religions/spiritualities. But I wasn't actually sure that something I enjoyed was wrong, and I wasn't sure that something I'm disgusted by was right -- instead, I felt enormously pressured to have such surety, and my continual involvement was predicated on at least aiming for such surety. I couldn't stand it for long, though, and eventually broke off my involvement with them. I'm also facing such situations in relation to politics, and as things stand, my current means of coping is cynicism.

    But, realistically, as years pass, I can see on my own example that Kohlberg's theory of moral development applies, esp. the part where he notes that changes in moral reasoning happen gradually over long periods of time, through personal experience, discussions with others, reading, reflecting, as opposed to people changing their moral beliefs simply after reading a syllogism. For me, this manifests in having developed a new framework for understanding religious/spiritual claims and expectations, and a kind of -- not exactly stiff upper lip -- but a certain, let's call that, inner, non-verbal rigidity because of which those religious/spiritual claims and expectations can't take much hold of me (unlike they did in the past).

    If it could be proved beyond all doubt that there was a God, that divine command theory is true, and that we have a moral obligation to kill infidels then I still wouldn't kill infidels because I don't want to be a killer. Morality be damned.
    While a person's moral stances can remain the same for long periods of time, things can change. External events might provoke one to think and act in ways that one previously thought unimaginable, not only impossible.


    1. No morality but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
    2. It is immoral to kill babies and everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
    3. It is moral to kill babies but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies

    What is the practical difference between these worlds?

    It seems to me that only moral beliefs matter. Whether or not the beliefs are true has no practical relevance.     — Michael
    The problem is the bit about _everyone_. It's usually not the case that everyone thinks the same way. This is why the issues of whether moral facts exist or not and whether a belief is true or not come into play. As soon as someone is "different" than the majority, this will have some practical consequences for the person (often adverse ones), and the person will try to make sense of this being different and of how other people treat them because of it.

    Perhaps I should have said that it isn't necessarily a sufficient reason. If I were to somehow know that I have an obligation to kill children, I would need a more convincing reason to carry it out. That I am obligated isn't reason enough for me. — Michael
    Because you haven't internalized the metaphysical framework needed for said obligation to make sense.

    So what is the motivation to obey God's moral laws? — Michael
    For most people who (claim to) obey God's law, that motivation appears to be pre-cognitive; ie. they have internalized it before they were even old enough to think about it.
    For many of those who first turn to obeying God's law as adults, there's some trauma or crisis.

    I, for one, am not motivated simply by the belief (or knowledge) of what I ought to do. — Michael
    Moral obligation only makes sense in a religious framework to begin with.

    I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. That's really what I'm trying to show here. — Michael
    As is inevitably the case for someone who is not religious or whose sense of morality is not shaped after religions.

    If it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to harm and if it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to not harm, and if there's no practical difference between being morally obligated to harm and being morally obligated to not harm, then moral obligations are a vacuous concept.
    Because moral obligations only make sense in the framework of religion. Only religion has the metaphysical underpinnings needed for making moral obligations intelligible (and the practical means for raising prospective believers).
  • Why be moral?
    Again, "Why be moral?" is an infelicitous question - being moral is what you ought to do. Hence the answer to "ought you be moral?" is "yes!" — Banno

    If only it would be clear what "moral" means, in any particular instance. Hating your enemies (the persons), like the Jews do? Stoning infidels, like some Muslims do?
  • Why be moral?
    Perhaps we could say that it is best for us to live the truly moral life. But what if what is right is what we find reprehensible?
    /.../
    Would you accept a morality that stands in stark opposition to your personal values? What would it mean for you if you'd found this to be the case?     — Michael
    Insanity.

    And what difference would it make if there was no morality at all?
    Insanity.

    It seems to me that the only difference is that in the second one we would be correct in believing that it is immoral to kill babies. But what difference would being correct make to being incorrect? Presumably, regardless of what is or isn't the case, you wouldn't kill babies. Or would you convert to baby killing if you'd found it to be moral? In the unlikely case you'd say yes: then it's your belief that matters, not the fact-of-the-matter -- what difference does the fact-of-the-matter make?
    It seems to me that the implicit assumption in all this is that people don't know, aren't sure about what is moral and what isn't. That there is a fundamental possibility of moral doubt (in every person?).

    Usually, people don't seem to indulge in such moral skepticism, so your thought experiment is moot for them. A philosopher cannot just ignore such things about people. It seems that most people are intuitively and absolutely sure about their sense of right and wrong, and this surety being intuitive and absolute is essential to their sense of morality.
  • Why be moral?
    If you told me baby murdering were ethical, I guess I'd have to murder babies even if it made me sad to wrestle them from the hands of their mothers and dash them upon rocks. — Hanover

    While you believe in a god who kills babies en masse.
  • Would P-Zombies have Children?
    ↪wonderer1
    So you argue in favor of physicalism?
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    Are we to simply presume that what these terms stand for is transparently obvious to everyone? — Joshs
    It seems the OP and several other posters here take for granted that the meaning of hate/harm (as well as goodness, evil, etc.) _should_ be transparently obvious to everyone. And that if a particular person doesn't think/feel the way they do, then the fault is with that person (ie. said person is "morally or cognitively defective").

    Isnt the problem of interpretation the central issue of ethics? And doesn’t this problem make all ethical questions inherently political?
    Yes and yes, I agree.
    There are many issues here. To begin with, how do we account for the fact that different people have different ideas about what counts as "good"? Should those who think differently than oneself simply be written off as "morally or cognitively defective"?
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    More or less – I'd put it: 'Prevent or relieve more suffering than you cause'. — 180 Proof
    How do you propose to measure this?
  • Would P-Zombies have Children?
    And yet there are people who pretty much live like zombies, at least some of their time. Not people in a coma, but people who mindlessly peruse Facebook and such.
    — baker
    Those people are not physically identical to us, and so aren't relevant to Michael's argument.     — wonderer1

    What do you mean? That people who mindlessly peruse FB have mush for brains?
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    Are these sorts of maxims ultimately just variations on, 'Do not cause suffering?' — Tom Storm
    Or, to quote you, "Don't be a cunt."

    It's just that for Harry, Dick is a cunt, and for Dick, Harry is a cunt, and neither of them think of themselves as cunts. Now what?
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    ↪mentos987
    To begin with, iIf something is a "commandment", who is the one doing the commanding, to whom, under threat of what penalty?

    Do you still want to go with "commandment", or would something like "motto" be better for your purposes?
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    The OP thought-experiment mentions "commandment" for nonreligious persons. Nothing I've said here has any whiff of "divine command theory". — 180 Proof
    Of course it does. Your system of morality is structurally the same as a religious one, except that in your case, it isn't a god sitting at the top. But you operate from the same assumptions of objectivity and universality of morality as religion does.
  • Commandment of the Agnostic
    commandment for anyone that isn't religious — mentos987

    Commandments in terms of morality/ethics only make sense within religion. Outside of religion, the very concept of a commandment (in terms of morality/ethics) is unintelligible.
  • Mitigating Intergenerational Dysfunction Through Knowledge and Awareness
    society — FrankGSterleJr

    More and more people nowadays don't believe there is such a thing as "society" to begin with, which renders the topic of society's responsibility for children moot.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I don't see why he's fighting to be on any ballot considering he's already told us the elections are rigged. Why does he want to enter a contest where he knows the result is already decided against him? — Hanover

    Probably because he and his supporters are not anarchists. They do value the idea of various institutions and institutes, but not necessarily the particular persons who (currently) hold those positions. So they, for example, respect the office of the president or the democratic process of elections, but not necessarily Joe Biden or the 2020 presidential elections. They are not simply biased tribalists either, as is evidenced by how they cut ties with or get rid of those who no longer serve their cause.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    But you believe commands command and orders order.
    — NOS4A2

    Yes, just as guns kill.

    I’m just trying to wade through the magical thinking here.
    — NOS4A2

    It's not magic, it's common sense. The problem is that your position is nonsense.     — Michael

    It's a kind of thinking that completely refuses to acknowledge authority or the power of others. As in:

    Judge: I order you to pay this fine.
    Refuser: Duh. [You're not the boss of me.]

    The part in brackets is usually intended but left unsaid.

    To a person like that, it also makes sense, for example, to say that A didn't simply kill B by shooting him, but that B allowed himself to be shot and/or that B was too weak to withstand the bullet (and so B's death is actually B's fault).

    It's a kind of thinking that takes the motto "everyone is solely responsible solely for themselves" to its logical consequences.

    It's democracy at its most American finest: everyone is equal, everyone can be equally dismissed and ignored (whether a stranger in the street, a family member, or an officer of the law). If someone says something to you, it's on you and entirely on you how you will take it, whether you will even feel addressed by it at all.
  • Would P-Zombies have Children?
    I think the most reasonable perspective on p-zombies is that they are an incoherent idea. — wonderer1

    And yet there are people who pretty much live like zombies, at least some of their time. Not people in a coma, but people who mindlessly peruse Facebook and such. As if they were robots. Even when they talk about their "hopes and dreams", it all sounds so rehearsed and artificial that one cannot but wonder whether there is actually anyone at home there.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I wonder if people realize that this thread in a nutshell explains why Trump might win a second term.

    The disdain for ordinary people, the "all means necessary" approach confirming one's own moral bankrutpcy while pretending to have a moral high ground, etc.     — Tzeentch

    Yes. This can't be pointed out enough.

    That same disdain, ridicule, and supremacism on both sides. Were it not for mere names, one couldn't tell who's who.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    What kind of person would do what Giuliani did? You ruined people's lives, and for what? To prove your loyalty to Trump? — GRWelsh

    Not loyalty to Trump per se, but to what he is taken to represent: a ruthless will to win, the belief that life is a struggle for the upper hand.

    Many people have this will, this belief (including many of Trump's critics), which is precisely why Trump's chances for victory are so good.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    How he can remain a candidate in light of all this beggars belief. He's seeking popular support to overturn the constitution. The electors want the right to overturn elections. Makes zero sense. — Wayfarer

    Things like this are not new, just look at the history of monarchies and big religions. People fighting for power.
  • Convince Me of Moral Realism
    This is the distinction between metaethics and normative ethics. Moral realism – like non-cognitivism, subjectivism, and error theory – is a theory in metaethics. Utilitarianism and deontology are theories in normative ethics. — Michael

    I don't understand how metaethics can be so neatly separated from normative ethics.
    All ethics are, by their nature, normative, that's the point of ethics. How can there be any talk about ethics that is not normative?
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    I would expect that an infant sees what I see when it looks at a flower, despite it not having any sense of what is socially agreed upon. — Hanover
    This is doubtful, already physiologically.
    A human infant's vision is qualitatively different from that of human adults; also, infants have not yet mastered object permanence.

    This concept would apply cross-culturally as well, lending support to the idea that we reach out to the flower to pick it not due to some inter-subjective, socially agreed upon basis, but because we think the flower it out past our hand ripe for picking.
    The standard counterargument to this is the complexity of color words across different languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    I know you can't drop all that nonsense about things in themselves and phenomenal states of consciousness, and although it provides a basis for some wonderful pretence, in the end it confuses you. — Banno

    But @Hanover is a lawyer, right? He has to make sense of things in a way that is consistent with his profession.
  • What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?
    ↪AmadeusD
    You're a lawyer, right? What one can readily see in practice is a gross inequality before the law, depending on one's socio-economic status. If one has money for a good lawyer, one can get out of pretty much anything. If one doesn't have such money, even an administrative mistake by a government official can mean the end of one's existence. We're not living under the rule of law; we're living under the rule of money. Money, with which law can be bought. And so for someone who doesn't have much money, dealing with the state really comes down to might makes right.

    (I studied law for a while, btw.)
  • What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?
    If it bothers you that I'm labeled with a disability, and that I outperform you in most ways. — Vaskane

    Yet you can't have an ordinary conversation with ordinary people.
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    The flower has four petals regardless of what you suppose. — Banno

    Much of what people call "petals" are actually bracts.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bract
    Since it's the season, what you see in a poinsettia, those Christmasy bright red things are bracts, not petals.
    Just so as to be botanically clear.

    This difference between bracts and petals is another good example of how our perception of things is socio-culturally shaped.
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    Ah, if only we were in a court of law. I would object to your "response" as being unresponsive, and I think any Judge in the external world would sustain the objection. — Ciceronianus
    Exactly. You're thinking like a lawyer, not a philosopher. Except that we're at a philosophy forum.

    But in this unhappy, imperfect universe we must make judgments without the benefit of absolute knowledge, on the best evidence available at the time we make them. And we do, in real life, if we're wise. — Ciceronianus

    But must these judgments amount to a certainty that justifies burning people at the stakes? For a lawyer, perhaps, certainly.

    People who are not lawyers and otherwise not in the business of professionally judging others, can get by just fine without pronouncing definitive judgments upon others, and can instead live with tentative.



    Have you ever thought that those children in pre-Renaissance painting actually were little adults? Or just that the artists who painted them thought they were?
    That was actually the prevailing belief back then: that children are just like adults, only smaller. The belief was that children were only quantitatively different from adults, but not qualitatively. (I read somewhere Kant believed children cried because they were angry because they couldn't use their bodies properly yet.)
    In the 20th century psychological theories of cognitive and moral development put forward the idea that the differences between children and adults are in fact qualitative.
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    Ask yourself when you last acted as if there were no other people, no things, no animals, i.e. nothing other than yourself. — Ciceronianus
    The psychological equivalents of solipsism are narcissism and egoism. Which are fairly common, and appear to be on the trajectory to becoming virtues.

    When did you last believe, and treat, people you see across the street from you as if they were only, e.g., 6 inches tall because that's how they appeared to be when you saw them, and thought that they became 6 feet tall when they crossed the street to speak to you?

    When did you last ponder whether the car you're driving was in fact a car having the characteristics of a car as you understand them to be, or instead something else you can never know (if, indeed, it was anything at all)? When did you last question whether the office building in which you work remained the same building, because it looked one way when you entered it in the morning, when the sun was out, but did not look the same as it did then when you left it at night?

    Chances are you never did anything of the sort.
    Actually, children do such things, according to Piaget's theory of cognitive development. :)
    It covers also issues of perspective, object size, object permanence.

    Object permanence is the understanding that whether an object can be sensed has no effect on whether it continues to exist. This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addresses the development of young children's social and mental capacities. There is not yet scientific consensus on when the understanding of object permanence emerges in human development.
    /.../
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence


    I don't say certain philosophers are hypocrites, or even that they're disingenuous when they contend that what we see and interact with every day without question isn't real, or can't be known, but when what we do is so contrary to what we contend, or what we contend is so unrelated to what we do as to make no difference in our lives, I think we have reason to think that we're engaged in affectation.
    Western philosophy has affectation built in as a feature, in the assumption that an argument can somehow "stand on its own", regardless of who is making it; "a fallacious ad hominem" is considered a pleonasm, as if every argument against the person is automatically fallacious.

    And so we have a whole philosophical culture of people saying things they don't mean and that aren't meant to be taken seriously, at least not by everyone.
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    Does the world have any kind of coherence at all without us providing a point of view and the language to 'demonstrate' the relationships we see? — Tom Storm
    How could we possibly know?
  • Convince Me of Moral Realism
    What do you mean here by "responsibility"?
    — baker

    Responsibility for what you say and do; to answer for it, to make it intelligible, clarify, qualify, be read by it, judged by it, held to it, make excuses for it, etc. That words not only do not stand outside of the circumstances in which they are spoken, but that an expression is an event that has an afterwards, to which you are tied.     — Antony Nickles

    Responsible to whom? Answer to whom? To make it intelligible, clarify, qualify, be read to/by whom? Judged by whom?
  • How to define stupidity?
    ↪AmadeusD
    But @180 Proof don't hear you ...
  • What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?
    If that’s your vibe /.../ — AmadeusD
    I'm high functioning on the spectrum. — Vaskane
  • What characterizes the mindset associated with honesty?
    People also like 'standing up to the man' etc.. and these misguided emotions often land people in prison. — AmadeusD

    So what are you really saying? Might makes right?
  • Convince Me of Moral Realism
    /.../Those are facts of our human condition, but outside the realism/anti-realism distinction, which is just the desire to avoid our responsibility for our acts by making it about just doing what is right, what we “ought” to—made certain (apart from me) by “facts”. — Antony Nickles

    What do you mean here by "responsibility"?
    Legal responsibility?
  • When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
    I'm not sure if "on trust" is entirely accurate. I think it would be more a case of making a judgment based on the weight of the evidence, which may be indirect. What's the probability that everyone without the problem would lie to us, or be mistaken? — Ciceronianus
    It's not about others lying or being mistaken.
    My personal example here is that I have a non-dioptric vision problem because of which I can't see some optical illusions, among other things. I remember back in school when other students and the physics textbook were talking about those optical illusions, and I just didn't see them. It's a peculiar situation: other people visibly express emotion over something, are excited, and I don't even see what they're talking about. It was an alienating experience, that's why I remembered it. How does one make sense of this feeling of alienation?
  • Is nirvana or moksha even a worthwhile goal ?
    The problem has more to do with how it's projected or sold as a goal to everyone, which included myself. I firmly believe it's incredibly unhelpful and even harmful to become a Buddhist for the purpose of attaining nirvana. It's akin to studying maths to win the fields medal or solve one of the 7 millennium problems. I can almost guarantee disappointment to anyone who does this.
    — Sirius

    It's 'projected and sold' to those who want to it to be, of which there are many.     — Wayfarer

    It's often 'projected and sold' in a decontextualized manner, especially socio-economically decontextualized. Eastern religions are often being presented here in the West as something one can and should do on one's own, alone, in the midst of a socio-economic environment in which those Eastern religions are alien, while the Western socio-economic environment is actually often even hostile to those religions.

    So it's not merely the seeker's own fault, his greediness, his "spiritual materialism" or "spiritual consumerism".

    Many Western people interested in Eastern religions are trying to do something (such as "attain moksha") for which they have no socio-economic basis, and they aren't even aware of this lack.

    Older, more experienced "seekers" owe the newcomers the courtesy to make them aware of that, so that they wouldn't waste time.
  • Is nirvana or moksha even a worthwhile goal ?
    If you want me to be completely honest. I have felt and do feel the diminishing returns thanks to my depression. — Sirius
    That's not the recognition of diminishing returns I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who works hard in order to be able to afford the proverbial eating, drinking, and making merry, and who realizes that the eating, drinking, and making merry don't compensate for the hard work needed in order to be able to afford the eating, drinking, and making merry. I'm talking about people who, for example, one day realize that they need to work for an entire day in order to earn the money to be able to go to the cinema, and that the pleasure of watching the film doesn't outweigh the hardship needed to earn the money to be able to go see the film.

    I know what is it like for nothing to satisfy you, not even an hour long meditation session, medication, a dedicated study of the religious scriptures of all major world religions does the job for me

    Why am l bitter ? Cause the medicine l was given didn't cure me of my illness.
    Who gave you that medicine?

    In the Hindu system, for example, you'd need to be some 75 years old, having accomplished everything a person is supposed to accomplish in this world in terms of raising a family and building a business, and only then could you even begin thinking about "moksha".
    In the Buddhist system, you're supposed to either ordain as a monastic, or live as a productive lay person. And it's only as a monastic that one might think about pursuing nirvana. Everyone else is supposed to be busy earning money in as ethical a way as possible.
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    I think perhaps, I would say, the correct sentence structure (in this particular context) for a realist then, would be "I think xyz about, what I think, is London".

    But i do think the force of habit is strong enough to explain why realists talk in those absolutes anyway.     — AmadeusD

    No, the force of habit might make them say "I think", but the absolutism is central to them.

    "I think xyz about, what I think, is London" is unintelligible to a realist.
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    ↪Banno
    Because at the end of the day, they do. It's what makes them realists.
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    Questions of morality are about what everyone should choose. — Banno
    Only on the assumption that everyone is equal.

    In practice, there are usually multiple standards of morality. E.g. "Members of group A hold it is immoral to kill a member of group A, but not immoral to kill member of group B." "It's wrong to lie, except to outsiders."
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    It's subjective in the sense that it's people who are talking about its existence.
    — baker

    I think it goes further. It's subjective in the sense that it is an artificial label upon something that has no conformity to the label other than in the mind of a subject who has accepted the command to apply the label to that plot of land.     — AmadeusD

    But for a realist, this makes no sense. For a realist, statements with "I think ..." or "From my perspective ..." are, at best, expressions of less-than-truth. A realist will not utter them (other than, perhaps, merely by force of habit).
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