Peter Holmes: What is Fact.

[Peter Holmes]

Now, what in reality can verify or falsify the assertion 'slavery is wrong' in the way that something in reality verifies the assertion 'fire is hot'?

What you assert is true. However, there is more to wrongness than morality. There is physicality.

For example, to eat spoiled food is wrong because of the nasty physical effects, possibly even premature death.

Likewise, slavery is wrong because of its deleterious effects upon the body, that include premature death of the body.

This assertion that what is good for the body is morally right, that slavery is physically harmful and thus morally wrong, raises the question, is slavery actually deleterious to the body?

Because slaves are often subjected to harsh physical conditions that shorten a lifespan, the inquiry can be refined to an objective measure that excludes harsh physical conditions, namely: Does physical enslavement lead to mental enslavement, with the same deleterious effects upon the physical?

Well, those in the know realize the significance of the mind/body connection and how enslaving the body does in fact enslave the mind. An enslaved mind can be full of fear and alertness, but it can also be dopey and complacent. Depends on the master. Dopey and complacent often has deleterious physical effects similar to those that Chief Full Of Fear And Alertness is watching out for, ‘specially if the slave’s fingers are stained orange from cheetle, and if the complacent slave’s feet trip over beer bottles when they finally start moving.

However, those who learn this are on the road to transcending enslavement of the mind.

Example: Viktor Frankl realized, while physically and mentally enslaved, that love is the purpose of life, and this freed his mind from physical enslavement. Is this realization morally right, given the objective criterion of positive mental effects upon the body?

The fact is, his body lived to tell the tale. Many others under the same physical conditions of brutal enslavement did not. Therefore, his mental freedom is morally right.

Thanks, but I don't think your mind/body distinction is relevant in this discussion. We can always point to what is harmful (how ever defined) for the mind or the body, or both. But the moral assertion that it's wrong to harm someone, mentally or physically, doesn't follow from the fact that they can be harmed. The moral question is completely separate from the nature of the harm. That Frankl achieved mental freedom was no doubt good for him, but that has no bearing on the morality of mental (or any kind of) enslavement.

(Btw, 'right' and 'wrong' have non-moral uses, as in 'eating spoiled food is wrong', which has no moral implication.)

[Veritas Aequitas]

Peter Holmes wrote


I haven't read all in this tread, but a couple of things come to mind.

It is a fact that torturing young children is wrong! Note that such a thing is SO wrong that it makes Witt look silly. Clearly the fact that my shoe is untied is, in a very real sense, not even in the same galaxy as torturing young children being wrong. And yet the former gets called a fact, the latter does not.
........

Chattel slavery certainly IS a matter underdetermined compared to an untied shoe, but the "wrongness" of the moral issue tells us there is something greater, not less, than the injunction against it. Why would this be discounted an no factual?

I believe the point here is whatever claim is a fact, it must be grounded on and preceded by solid justification processes that are based on the empirical and the philosophical.

Intuitively all 'normal' humans will realize 'torturing children for pleasure' is not right regardless of whatever Framework and System it is subsumed under, e.g. legal, psychology, psychiatry, cultural, social, MORAL or others.

However if such acts of torture are to be termed 'morally wrong' it must be justified within a Moral Framework and System.
There is an argument and justification why 'torturing children for pleasure' is morally wrong, but I have not yet presented a detailed argument and justification for it.

I have presented reasonable detailed arguments and justifications the moral facts,
-no human ought to kill another'
-no human ought to enslave another as a chattel.'

Point is for every claim that is claimed to be a moral fact, each claim must be individually justified empirically and philosophically. There are no generic universal rule that is applicable to all moral facts.

If you think a fact needs justification, you must be referring to a factual assertion, because a feature of reality - a thing that is known to exist or to have occurred - obviously needs no justification, because it just is or was.

I think there is semantic issue here along with a philosophical one.

What I meant, whatever is termed a fact or is a statement of fact, there must be a preceding justification process that support the fact. Thus whatever is fact must be conditional and conditioned upon its justification processes.
As I had stated, a fact cannot be unconditional; there is no fact-in-itself.

Note the fact 'the Sun is 93 million miles from Earth'.
In general, this fact is accepted by people who have faith in Science and astronomy, thus, in general, no need for subsequent justification because it is.

Note the above fact is only 'in general' and thus commonly accepted.
But in practice and realistically, the above like all facts are open and subject to continual justifications.
Therefore, philosophically it is wrong for you to insist a fact obviously need no justifications.

So the facts you're referring to are linguistic expressions, such as: no human ought to kill another; and no human ought to enslave another. And you think these assertions can be shown to be true empirically and philosphically.

Nope the facts I referred to can be linguistic expressions, but that is not my intention.
What I referred to as moral facts are facts that are justified empirically and philosophically within a Moral Framework and System.

Now, we can sack philosphical justification, because all that means is valid argument with true premises - and there's nothing specifically philosophical about that requirement. Calling it 'philosophical justification' is sound and fury signifying nothing special.

Empirically means relying on empirical evidences.
Philosophically means using all known philosophical tools, i.e. establishment of a sound moral framework and system, logic, arguments, critical thinking and whatever relevant to support the conclusion.

So we're left with the need for empirical justification for a moral assertion: real evidence from experience for the truth of a claim such as: no human ought to kill another.

What and where is that empirical evidence? To my knowledge, you (VA) and others have failed to produce any such evidence. Every putative example has turned out not to be evidence of any kind - let alone empirical evidence. But, perhaps I've been blind, stupid, ignorant, deluded by my logical positivism, and so on.

So, tell you what, please be patient and enlighten me once and for all by producing your best piece of empirical evidence for the truth of your favourite moral assertion: no human ought to kill another. Empirical evidence, mind, not argument. Why is it true, and what would have to be different for it to be false? What in reality would we not experience if it were false?

Since VA will either misunderstand or ignore this request - offers from any other convinced moral realist or objectivist also welcome.

There are many perspectives we can gather empirical evidences to support the claim of the moral fact,
"no human ought to kill another'.
Note Moral fact meant a fact conditioned via a Moral Framework and System.

Btw, I have already presented the various perspectives, i.e.

• 1. Neural basis of the inhibition-to-kill in ALL humans
  2. political Legal correspondences - legally murder is a crime in all nations
  3. Social and common law
  4. No normal person would volunteer to be murdered.
  5. Evolutionary - all humans are "programmed" to survive till the inevitable
  6. Others

Re 4,
I have asked you to show evidence where there is any ordinary normal person who would want to be murdered?
From a full literature reviews of human history, there is no evidence that any normal person would want to be murdered.
If we are do a survey of the majority or 100% [it is possible] of normal people on Earth, 100% will not want to be murdered voluntarily.
Those who volunteered to be murdered are likely to be certified as mental cases by psychiatrists.

Note the case of Armin Meiwes where Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes volunteered to be killed and eaten by Armin Meiwes. Do you think this is normal?

• Looking for a willing volunteer, Meiwes posted an advertisement on the then-active website The Cannibal Cafe (a defunct forum for people with a cannibalism fetish). Meiwes's advertisement stated that he was "looking for a normally-built 18- to 25-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed."[2]
  Bernd Jürgen Armando Brandes, an engineer from Berlin, answered the advertisement in March 2001. Many other people responded to the advertisement but backed out; Meiwes did not attempt to force them to do anything against their will.[3][4][5]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Mei ... annibalism

[Peter Holmes]

Note the fact 'the Sun is 93 million miles from Earth'.
In general, this fact is accepted by people who have faith in Science and astronomy, thus, in general, no need for subsequent justification because it is.

Note the above fact is only 'in general' and thus commonly accepted.
But in practice and realistically, the above like all facts are open and subject to continual justifications.
Therefore, philosophically it is wrong for you to insist a fact obviously need no justifications.

Pay attention. The distance of the sun from the earth is a feature of reality. To say that feature of reality needs justification is completely incoherent. No feature of reality needs justification. It just fucking IS or WAS the case. So if a fact is a feature of reality, such as the distance of the sun from the earth, then it needs no justification.

What does need justification is a factual assertion, such as 'the sun is 93 million miles from earth'. That claim needs empirical evidence. And, like all truth-claims, it exists within a descriptive context - what you call an FSK.

When you understand this, when this penny drops, the intellectual sunshine will come out for you. THE WORD 'FACT' HAS TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

So. If the moral wrongness of killing a human is a fact-as-feature-of reality, as you seem to think, then that's the thing for which you have to provide empirical evidence. And here's your list.

• 1. Neural basis of the inhibition-to-kill in ALL humans
  2. political Legal correspondences - legally murder is a crime in all nations
  3. Social and common law
  4. No normal person would volunteer to be murdered.
  5. Evolutionary - all humans are "programmed" to survive till the inevitable
  6. Others

Now, I and others have shown you countless times why none of these is evidence that the ought-not-to-ness of killing another human is a feature of reality. To simplify, turn each example into a factual assertion, then add: 'therefore a human ought not to kill another human' - and you'll see that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

For example: No normal person would want to be murdered/killed; therefore a human ought not to kill another human.

If you really can't see why that doesn't follow, I'll spell it out for you. Glad to nudge the penny a little nearer the drop.

[Walker]

Thanks, but I don't think your mind/body distinction is relevant in this discussion. We can always point to what is harmful (how ever defined) for the mind or the body, or both. But the moral assertion that it's wrong to harm someone, mentally or physically, doesn't follow from the fact that they can be harmed. The moral question is completely separate from the nature of the harm. That Frankl achieved mental freedom was no doubt good for him, but that has no bearing on the morality of mental (or any kind of) enslavement.

(Btw, 'right' and 'wrong' have non-moral uses, as in 'eating spoiled food is wrong', which has no moral implication.)

You're most welcome, Peter Holmes.

The wrongness is the immorality of premature death of the body.
You’re stuck on your unproven assumption that morality is subjective.
Death of the body, i.e., physicality, is the objective measure of morality.
Eating spoiled food is wrong because it leads to premature death of the body, which is immoral.

You may say that by this measure, capital punishment is wrong because it causes immoral, premature death of the body.

To this I would say, by golly you are right.

You don’t punish someone in the ultimate way, by doing them right.
You do them wrong.

You may say that by this measure, abortion is wrong because it causes immoral, premature death of the body.

To this I would say, by golly you are right.

You may say that by this measure, slavery is wrong because it causes immoral, premature death of the body.

To this I would say … what I said.


(Apologies in advance if these thread-spicy ruminations don’t measure up to penetrating your perception of relevance.)

All bodies die. Surely you see the implication of that fact.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Note the fact 'the Sun is 93 million miles from Earth'.
In general, this fact is accepted by people who have faith in Science and astronomy, thus, in general, no need for subsequent justification because it is.

Note the above fact is only 'in general' and thus commonly accepted.
But in practice and realistically, the above like all facts are open and subject to continual justifications.
Therefore, philosophically it is wrong for you to insist a fact obviously need no justifications.

Pay attention. The distance of the sun from the earth is a feature of reality. To say that feature of reality needs justification is completely incoherent. No feature of reality needs justification. It just fucking IS or WAS the case. So if a fact is a feature of reality, such as the distance of the sun from the earth, then it needs no justification.

What does need justification is a factual assertion, such as 'the sun is 93 million miles from earth'. That claim needs empirical evidence. And, like all truth-claims, it exists within a descriptive context - what you call an FSK.

When you understand this, when this penny drops, the intellectual sunshine will come out for you. THE WORD 'FACT' HAS TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

That is why I have stated your meaning of "fact" is ungrounded thus illusory and it is a metaphysical woo woo.
Your 'fact is a feature of reality' which need no justification is meaningless.
As I had stated there is no fact-in-itself.
If your fact = a feature-of-reality, then there is no 'feature-of-reality'-in-itself.

Note the contention between Philosophical Realism versus Philosophical Anti-Realism.
Your stance is of Philosophical Realism which maintain that there is an independent reality out there awaiting discovery.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
  In metaphysics, [Philosophical] realism about a given object is the view that this object exists in reality independently of our conceptual scheme. In philosophical terms, these objects are ontologically independent of someone's conceptual scheme, perceptions, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc.

This is why you insist what is 'fact' is a feature-of-reality that is independent of human conditions.

The counter by Philosophical Anti-Realists is Philosophical Realism is not realistic and tenable.

According to Kant and other similar Philosophical Anti-Realists, reality is not independent of human conditions, thus there is no independent fact-in-itself as a feature-of-reality-in-itself.

Unless you can prove your Philosophical Realism re Fact-in-itself or a feature-of-reality-in-itself is realistic and true, your philosophy grounding is illusory.

Hey, you are the one who is needing the intellectual sunshine.

So. If the moral wrongness of killing a human is a fact-as-feature-of reality, as you seem to think, then that's the thing for which you have to provide empirical evidence. And here's your list.

• 1. Neural basis of the inhibition-to-kill in ALL humans
  2. political Legal correspondences - legally murder is a crime in all nations
  3. Social and common law
  4. No normal person would volunteer to be murdered.
  5. Evolutionary - all humans are "programmed" to survive till the inevitable
  6. Others

Now, I and others have shown you countless times why none of these is evidence that the ought-not-to-ness of killing another human is a feature of reality. To simplify, turn each example into a factual assertion, then add: 'therefore a human ought not to kill another human' - and you'll see that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.

For example: No normal person would want to be murdered/killed; therefore a human ought not to kill another human.

If you really can't see why that doesn't follow, I'll spell it out for you. Glad to nudge the penny a little nearer the drop.

You and others, merely two other ignoramus , i.e. Sculptor and Pantflasher??

Note I am calling for support here;
Survey: 56% of Philosophers Accept Moral Realism
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30893

The Moral FSK is about human ought-to and ought-not-to act in terms of morality.

Note the justification proper within the Moral FSK,
DNA-RNA wise ALL normal human beings has a neural algorithm of
"ought-not-to-ness of killing another human as a feature of reality"
in the brain.
It is self-evident in your own self and the majority of humans.
Therefore being normal as programmed,
"no human ought to kill another human"
since they are programmed inherently with the "program" of
"ought-not-to-ness of killing another human as a feature of reality".

Btw, I have other means of justifications to reinforce the above empirical evidences.

[Peter Holmes]

Claim: reality is not independent of human conditions. Utter codswallop. Was there no reality before there were humans? Is reality in the rest of the universe dependent on humans? Will there be no reality when humans have gone?

Claim: what humans believe and know and say about reality can only be what humans believe and know and say about reality. Trivially true and inconsequential.

[Advocate]

[quote="Peter Holmes" post_id=479681 time=1605257250 user_id=15099]
Claim: reality is not independent of human conditions. Utter codswallop. Was there no reality before there were humans? Is reality in the rest of the universe dependent on humans? Will there be no reality when humans have gone?

Claim: what humans believe and know and say about reality can only be what humans believe and know and say about reality. Trivially true and inconsequential.
[/quote]

It's an important distinction between Actuality and reality. The two tend to be used interchangeably, but they are not. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... y_X2Kbneo/

[Veritas Aequitas]

Claim: reality is not independent of human conditions. Utter codswallop. Was there no reality before there were humans? Is reality in the rest of the universe dependent on humans? Will there be no reality when humans have gone?

Claim: what humans believe and know and say about reality can only be what humans believe and know and say about reality. Trivially true and inconsequential.

Your thinking above is based on common sense and immature philosophy.

It is a default since a human is born at birth as a baby there is an external reality, i.e. the external nipples that one depended on for survival. Thereafter all humans are raised within an external reality which is verifiable empirically. I have no dispute with this basic claim of an "external" empirical reality.

However humans have evolved with higher capabilities of reflection [philosophically] to understand that the question [raised since 1000s of years ago] of an absolute unconditional external world or reality is highly doubtful.

Note the very recent theories in Physics where Physicists are unable to conclude an absolute unconditional external world of the physical reality really exists. Physicists are unable to extricate the human factors from what is really real. Note Einstein Theory of Special Relativity, the Observers' Effect, the Wave Collapse Function of Particle Physics.

The idea of of an independent external world is very contentious to the extent G E Moore set out to prove it when challenged and he failed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand
Wittgenstein added, Moore and such proofs will never be successful.

From first consideration of common sense [even Science], it is so obvious, the Sun and Moon pre-existed human beings.
But not so fast.
The above is very contentious.

It is not a question of whether the Sun and Moon pre-existed before human beings, but the point is there is no way to justify soundly, the Sun and Moon pre-existed human beings.
As I had asserted, what is most tenable is, the Sun, Moon, Stars and the likes 'emerges' spontaneously with the human conditions which are grounded from evolutionary elements from 4 billion years ago.

The leverage on the concept of "pre-existing" is grounded on time and space, which are interrelated with the human conditions.

[Atla]

Your thinking above is based on common sense and immature philosophy.

It is a default since a human is born at birth as a baby there is an external reality, i.e. the external nipples that one depended on for survival. Thereafter all humans are raised within an external reality which is verifiable empirically. I have no dispute with this basic claim of an "external" empirical reality.

However humans have evolved with higher capabilities of reflection [philosophically] to understand that the question [raised since 1000s of years ago] of an absolute unconditional external world or reality is highly doubtful.

Note the very recent theories in Physics where Physicists are unable to conclude an absolute unconditional external world of the physical reality really exists. Physicists are unable to extricate the human factors from what is really real. Note Einstein Theory of Special Relativity, the Observers' Effect, the Wave Collapse Function of Particle Physics.

The idea of of an independent external world is very contentious to the extent G E Moore set out to prove it when challenged and he failed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand
Wittgenstein added, Moore and such proofs will never be successful.

From first consideration of common sense [even Science], it is so obvious, the Sun and Moon pre-existed human beings.
But not so fast.
The above is very contentious.

It is not a question of whether the Sun and Moon pre-existed before human beings, but the point is there is no way to justify soundly, the Sun and Moon pre-existed human beings.
As I had asserted, what is most tenable is, the Sun, Moon, Stars and the likes 'emerges' spontaneously with the human conditions which are grounded from evolutionary elements from 4 billion years ago.

The leverage on the concept of "pre-existing" is grounded on time and space, which are interrelated with the human conditions.

You are merely presenting your extreme 'philosophical' idiocy. Even though we can't be absolutely sure, the most tenable view is still to assume an external world that pre-existed humans. By denying this just because of fundamental uncertainty, just because we can't know for sure, you are giving human knowledge a special active role in existence. Maybe we should view this version of anti-realism as a mental disorder.

You are far too stupid in philosophy to go more than one step beyond the surface, so you think others see the surface. Even though they simply went further than you.

And only someone as shallow and clueless as you would confuse the 'Kantian' psychological experience of space and time, with the spacetime of modern physics. Or claim that the "Theory of Special Relativity, the Observers' Effect, the Wave Collapse Function of Particle Physics" surely have something to do with things being 'real'. Claiming this for sure is one of the worst kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense one can come up with.

[odysseus]

Atla wrote
You are merely presenting your extreme 'philosophical' idiocy. Even though we can't be absolutely sure, the most tenable view is still to assume an external world that pre-existed humans. By denying this just because of fundamental uncertainty, just because we can't know for sure, you are giving human knowledge a special active role in existence. Maybe we should view this version of anti-realism as a mental disorder.

You are far too stupid in philosophy to go more than one step beyond the surface, so you think others see the surface. Even though they simply went further than you.

And only someone as shallow and clueless as you would confuse the 'Kantian' psychological experience of space and time, with the spacetime of modern physics. Or claim that the "Theory of Special Relativity, the Observers' Effect, the Wave Collapse Function of Particle Physics" surely have something to do with things being 'real'. Claiming this for sure is one of the worst kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense one can come up with.

Oh, so sorry Atla, but this is all heat no light. You haven't read page one of the Critique have you? You know who did read it? Einstein. Dismissive he was not. He simply realized that physics maintained all its viability and still Kant was essentially right. To see this you have to understand: Empirical science rests on phenomenological assumptions, and IT DOES NOT CARE, because this is not is within the purview of its discipline. That is, physicists don't ask philosophical questions, questions about what is presupposed in an observation. You have to learn that science and phenomenology are not at odds at all.

"Absolutely sure" did you say? And you call someone else stupid?

[Atla]

Atla wrote
You are merely presenting your extreme 'philosophical' idiocy. Even though we can't be absolutely sure, the most tenable view is still to assume an external world that pre-existed humans. By denying this just because of fundamental uncertainty, just because we can't know for sure, you are giving human knowledge a special active role in existence. Maybe we should view this version of anti-realism as a mental disorder.

You are far too stupid in philosophy to go more than one step beyond the surface, so you think others see the surface. Even though they simply went further than you.

And only someone as shallow and clueless as you would confuse the 'Kantian' psychological experience of space and time, with the spacetime of modern physics. Or claim that the "Theory of Special Relativity, the Observers' Effect, the Wave Collapse Function of Particle Physics" surely have something to do with things being 'real'. Claiming this for sure is one of the worst kind of pseudo-scientific nonsense one can come up with.

Oh, so sorry Atla, but this is all heat no light. You haven't read page one of the Critique have you? You know who did read it? Einstein. Dismissive he was not. He simply realized that physics maintained all its viability and still Kant was essentially right. To see this you have to understand: Empirical science rests on phenomenological assumptions, and IT DOES NOT CARE, because this is not is within the purview of its discipline. That is, physicists don't ask philosophical questions, questions about what is presupposed in an observation. You have to learn that science and phenomenology are not at odds at all.

"Absolutely sure" did you say? And you call someone else stupid?

Get to the part where I was wrong. Veritas's obsession is to claim that Kant and others have shown that 'everything is interdependent with the human conditions' or something like that. Why is that not an extreme misunderstanding of the phenomenon-noumenon thing, bordering on mental disorder?

And do you understand that while on one hand, the kind of "absolute" psychological space and time, through which we naturally experience life, the ones that Kant talked about, are in fact a priori mental functions or whatever. On the other hand however, the Einsteinian spacetime is an entirely different issue, and we can assume if we want, that the noumenal world is behaving according to it.

[Advocate]

[quote=Atla post_id=480945 time=1605984622 user_id=15497]
Get to the part where I was wrong. Veritas's obsession is to claim that Kant and others have shown that 'everything is interdependent with the human conditions' or something like that. Why is that not an extreme misunderstanding of the phenomenon-noumenon thing, bordering on mental disorder?
[/quote]

Because "things" are phenomenal. The noumenon is not directly available to us. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... y_X2Kbneo/

[Atla]

Because "things" are phenomenal. The noumenon is not directly available to us. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... y_X2Kbneo/

'Everything' includes the noumenon, even though the noumenon is not directly available to us.

Aside from the fact that there are no 'things' in the phenomenal world either. Such a misleading way of thinking has no place in a serious ontology.

[Advocate]

[quote=Atla post_id=480954 time=1605987028 user_id=15497]
[quote=Advocate post_id=480951 time=1605986068 user_id=15238]
Because "things" are phenomenal. The noumenon is not directly available to us. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... y_X2Kbneo/
[/quote]
'Everything' includes the noumenon, even though the noumenon is not directly available to us.

Aside from the fact that there are no 'things' in the phenomenal world either. Such a misleading way of thinking has no place in a serious ontology.
[/quote]

Things are exclusively in the phenomenal world. Outside it is only undifferentiated stuff. The differentiation, according to purpose, is the kernel of each thing. Every thing is a set of attributes and boundary conditions, which are themselves phenomenological.

[Atla]

Things are exclusively in the phenomenal world. Outside it is only undifferentiated stuff. The differentiation, according to purpose, is the kernel of each thing. Every thing is a set of attributes and boundary conditions, which are themselves phenomenological.

You aren't doing ontology, just a minimalistic, quasi-solipsistic description for practical purposes. Who cares about that?