What is the highest principle?

[RCSaunders]

Until you solve metaphysics positive principles are a pipe dream.

"Solve metaphysics?" Since when does the term, "metaphysics," mean, "puzzle," unless you mean, the nature of existence is a puzzle to you. That would explain your complete misunderstanding of the nature of principles.

The first rule in business (or doing anything) is "Don't die".

To live requires action. "Don't die," is an absurd notion without specifying what must be done to keep from dying, but even that is the wrong view. The first rule of life is to live, that is how one does not die.

Life consists of what you do, not what happens to you. Not doing is dying.

[Skepdick]

"Solve metaphysics?" Since when does the term, "metaphysics," mean, "puzzle," unless you mean, the nature of existence is a puzzle to you. That would explain your complete misunderstanding of the nature of principles.

Since it allows for infinite possibilities.

Metaphysically - the distinction between "possible" and "impossible" doesn't make any sense.
Metaphysically - everything is possible.

To live requires action.

Living is an action! I am alive - you are alive right now.

99.999% of all species are extinct.
100% of individuals fail to remain alive.

The odds are against you.

Avoiding death (extending life) requires strategic action.

"Don't die," is an absurd notion without specifying what must be done to keep from dying, but even that is the wrong view. The first rule of life is to live, that is how one does not die.

Living life is an absurd notion too if you don't specify what must be done to keep living.

I am already living - that requires no "rule". Living is a description, not a prescription.

Life consists of what you do, not what happens to you. Not doing is dying.

Living is what I am doing already. I am living whether I declare it or not.

Extending my life (not dying) requires a HOW. Strategic action.

[Gary Childress]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me. I mean, I generally try to abstain from harming others as much as possible but everything I do harms something or someone out there at least to a small degree. It seems virtually impossible to me to do no harm whatsoever. I mean, just being alive I'm probably doing a small degree of ecological damage to the environment.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me. I mean, I generally try to abstain from harming others as much as possible but everything I do harms something or someone out there at least to a small degree. It seems virtually impossible to me to do no harm whatsoever. I mean, just being alive I'm probably doing a small degree of ecological damage to the environment.

For sure you are. So are all living beings, Gary. And the environment is actually there for you to "do harm" to it, in some sense, because every time you eat a grain of wheat, you "kill" it, or destroy it with your digestive enzymes. While you do that, millions of organisms on the wheat grain and in your gut, and various cells in your own body are being killed, and new ones are being born. "Harm" of that sort, is going on all the time.

Death is also going on all the time, whether we wish it to or not. As one person wryly put it, "The mortality rate around here is 100% -- everybody dies."

[Sculptor]

What a joke!

LOL

Trumper moron says "No Harm"!! This is the jape of the week.

[henry quirk]

What a joke!

LOL

Trumper moron says "No Harm"!! This is the jape of the week.

skep is a trump supporter?

[RCSaunders]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me.

That is very sad, Gary. A fear of death is not a love of life. Death is only one aspect of life, where there is no life there is no death, but living is not evading death, living is achieving all one can and enjoying that life. If you are not doing that, why would you care if you die.

It seems virtually impossible to me to do no harm whatsoever. I mean, just being alive I'm probably doing a small degree of ecological damage to the environment.

I certainly hope so. I go out of my way to damage and harm the environment--not all of it, but a lot of it. I do whatever I can to eliminate all those vile things nature produces, like vicious and venomous animals, disease carrying (malaria, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile fever, plague, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever) insects, maggots, insects that destroy food and goods (termites, moths, fruit flies, locusts, fire ants, carpenter bees), festering swamps, uncontrolled natural fires and floods, in fact most of the things nature does when left unharmed. I really do not understand those who worship the environment, left on its own, if human beings did not harm it," it will kill you in a minute.

[Skepdick]

skep is a trump supporter?

I am a "no harm" supporter.

Between a <Better Candidate> and a <Worse Candidate> - I choose the <Better Candidate>.

If Trump is the better choice, then I support Trump.
if he isn't - then I don't.

Isn't that how choice works?

[Immanuel Can]

skep is a trump supporter?

I am a "no harm" supporter.

Between a <Better Candidate> and a <Worse Candidate> - I choose the <Better Candidate>.

If Trump is the better choice, then I support Trump.
if he isn't - then I don't.

Isn't that how choice works?

"Better choice" and "worse choice" are categories, chum. You've already claimed you don't believe in those things.

Good luck.

[Skepdick]

"Better choice" and "worse choice" are categories, chum. You've already claimed you don't believe in those things.

Good luck.

So that's a blatant lie. I can tell it's a mis-representation of my view because "I believe in X" is your language, not mine.
Just to be double-sure that you are lying - here's a search of me NOT saying anything like that: search results

"Better" and "Worse" are as much categories as "Hot" and "Cold" are categories.

It's a continuum. But to a categorical thinker there's nothing that isn't a category.

But here's a fun exercise for your ignorant ass.

Go ahead and put 8 presidential candidates into the TWO categories of "better choice" and "worse choice".

It's a sorting algorithm, ignoramus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm

I'd spell it out for you that I am a relativist with objective morals, but you don't do mutability so your brain short-circuits with "contradictions".

[Skepdick]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me.

And that is precisely how the "no harm" principle is used by doctors, Gary, when trying to preserve human life and well-being.

I mean, I generally try to abstain from harming others as much as possible but everything I do harms something or someone out there at least to a small degree. It seems virtually impossible to me to do no harm whatsoever.

That's the point of principles. They are always a light in the distant horizon. "No harm" is a Sysypian task - we will never achieve it, but we know the way.

I mean, just being alive I'm probably doing a small degree of ecological damage to the environment.

You can't harm "the environment", Gary. The environment has been taking care of itself since The Big Bang.

No harm is about humans. It's the environment will do to us what it did to the dinosaurs and it then all debates about "morality" end.

[Immanuel Can]

"Better" and "Worse" are as much categories as "Hot" and "Cold" are categories.

You don't think categories exist. You said so.

It's a continuum.

Hot and cold are adjectives, and so are ascribed on a continuum. Trump and Hillary are nouns. If Trump is not a member of a category, then you don't dislike him, because he's not found in your category "disliked things."

I'd spell it out for you that I am a relativist with objective morals,

Then you're only inconsistent. "Moral things/acts" and "immoral things/acts" are categories. Worse still, you ascribe to them "objectivity," which means you see them as stable, reality-premised categories, not merely "arbitrary" ones.

Nobody can make sense of that sort of contradiction.

[Gary Childress]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me.

That is very sad, Gary. A fear of death is not a love of life. Death is only one aspect of life, where there is no life there is no death, but living is not evading death, living is achieving all one can and enjoying that life. If you are not doing that, why would you care if you die.

I don't dwell on death all the time, I'm just saying if it came down to the wire, I don't know if I would be able to sacrifice my life for a higher purpose even if it were somehow vitally important for everyone else that I do so. If that is the case, then I assume that means I value self-preservation over all other principles. I mean, if I can uphold other principles to a lesser degree in the meantime, then great, I'll try to do so. But I just don't think I could bring myself to sacrifice my life for something or someone else, even if it were somehow considered morally imperative that I do so. But I don't know for sure. I've never been put to a test on it (and I hope and pray I never EVER am).

[Skepdick]

You don't think categories exist. You said so.

No, I didn't.

Of course categories exist. They are in your head!

Hot and cold are adjectives, and so are ascribed on a continuum. Trump and Hillary are nouns. If Trump is not a member of a category, then you don't dislike him, because he's not found in your category "disliked things."

Competent and incompetent are also adjectives.

And so amongst the list of presidential candidates some are more competent some are less competent. And that is how you ascribe them on a continuum.

I could say that Trump was the most competent.
I could say that Trump was the least incompetent.

Then you're only inconsistent.

You have no yardstick for "consistency" as I explained in the post about mutability.

The logical definition is only about linguistic consistency. It's useless in measuring behavioural consistency.

Logic is immutable. Action is LITERALLY mutation.

"Moral things/acts" and "immoral things/acts" are categories. Worse still, you ascribe to them "objectivity," which means you see them as stable, reality-premised categories, not merely "arbitrary" ones.

No, they aren't. Future outcomes are either better or worse relative to each other. We have an objective marker for "the worst outcome possible". Human extinction.

Everything that brings us closer to that is immoral.
Everything that moves us away from that is moral.

Nobody can make sense of that sort of contradiction.

Nobody that subscribes to the religion of Logic/immutability anyway.

[Gary Childress]

I'm ashamed to admit it but, If push came to shove, I suspect the highest principle for me would probably be that of self-preservation. Death scares the bejeebers out of me.

And that is precisely how the "no harm" principle is used by doctors, Gary, when trying to preserve human life and well-being.

Shouldn't it be called "do the least harm" principle? I mean, we all do small amounts of harm to others at times. I don't know if it's even possible to live and do "no" harm. When I go and interview for a job, presumably I'm there to beat out other people, even if some of them may need the job more than I do--for example to support their kids. Saying "do no harm" seems like a bit of a misnomer to me. Unless we all become radical Jains or something.