Philosophy Now Forum

why didn't you just give up and let that weak position go when it became obvious it wasn't sustainable?

Cuz I don't find it weak or unsustainable.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 4:13 pmSo: you're a buttinsky...

Yup, and I've been stabbed and beaten up protecting others while pussies like you did fuck all.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 4:13 pm...a vegetarian...

As it happens, no.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 4:13 pm...and a green.

Well Henry, since you put that in italics, I'm guessing that's the worst of the lot. But as I'm not entirely sure what you mean, perhaps you should make clear what heinous crime I've committed in your estimation before I call you a shit for brains cocksucker for accusing me of it.

Yup, and I've been stabbed and beaten up protecting others while pussies like you did fuck all.

Actually, I've intervened in shitstorms too...since, as I say a person belongs to himself therefore it's wrong to use him as property or resource it would hypocritical of me to stand by while one is beaten by many, while a kid is whalloped on, while a woman is slapped by a man twice her size.


As it happens, no.

You understand meat comes to us by way of a process that lacks humanenss, yeah?


Well Henry, since you put that in italics, I'm guessing that's the worst of the lot.

Nah, just settin' green apart as movement or agenda. I coulda wrote environmentalist.


But as I'm not entirely sure what you mean, perhaps you should make clear what heinous crime I've committed in your estimation before I call you a shit for brains cocksucker for accusing me of it.

There was no crime implied.

You wrote...

if I see someone behaving in a way that is causing unnecessary stress or pain to others, animals or even the environment, I will do what I can to stop them. Fuck whether it is 'objectively right or wrong'.

...which tells me nuthin' worth renarkin' on, so: I synopsized with snark.

-----

As for callin' me pussy & a shit for brains cocksucker: I like it when enemies are bold & clear.

Thanks.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 9:35 pmAs for callin' me pussy & a shit for brains cocksucker: I like it when enemies are bold & clear.

Thanks.

No problem. But let's be clear, you dumb fuck, what do you think I would do to you that makes me your enemy?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:24 pm Because your sources suck.

yes, your source sez it, so it must be so

No, because your skewed sources CONSISTENTLY SUCK.

Lacewing wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 11:21 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:24 pm Because your sources suck.

yes, your source sez it, so it must be so

No, because your skewed sources CONSISTENTLY SUCK.

Paraphrasin' Barnum: I don’t give a damn what you say about me or my sources as long as you spell our names right.

HENRY QUIRK

https://swprs.org/

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

https://swprs.org/studies-on-covid-19-lethality/

what do you think I would do to you that makes me your enemy?

As long as I'm conscious, mobile, and armed: you ain't doin' jack to me or mine.


No, what you are is what makes you my enemy.

When I first came to the PN forum I was an indifferent atheist (I saw no evidence of god, so: there was no god) and a moral subjectivist (my morality is what I make it, I said).

I hold differently today.

At my worst, however, I was never against moral realism. A subjectivist merely says morality is personal opinion, the anti-realist actively rails against the notion of a moral reality.

I find that a bit frightening, to be honest.

I've jousted with VA from time to time: I find some of his ideas kinda whacky (his fear of death notions, for example), and I think he's missin' the mark with his moral fact derived from intersubjectivity deal, but we're on the same page when it comes to moral fact bein' discerned through reason.

For that reason alone: he's more trustworthy, to me, than you. He's workin' toward sumthin' and you say that sumthin' is fool's gold.


Your principles, if I can call them that, derive from, as Flash put it...

...a socio-linguistic construct created and constantly refined by consensus, that is largely unexamined in most cases and not remotely consistent. It is a constantly moving, out of focus picture of what we as a society as well as countless little sub-groupings of shared interests consider the right and wrong ways to make decisions, and its present configuration such as can even be ascertained represents our current set of concerns.

A mish-mash of nothin'.

You're my enemy cuz...

*DRAMATIC PAUSE*

...you're an agent of nuthin'. You'd stab me in the back if Flash's convention allowed for it and you wanted to.

Say what you like about my notions (hogwash & tomfoolery! and you're the fool, Henry!), they stand no matter what the community sez, no matter what the gov sez, no matter what the church sez. My notions are independent of culture. My notions say I don't stab you in the back, even if I desperately want to, even if the world as a whole demands that I do or entices me to.

You are yours and until you willingly, knowingly, and without just cause, deprive me of my life, liberty, or property, I have no claim on you.

A man belongs to himself and it's wrong to leash him.

Even if I'm wrong (but I'm not) how can such a notion be anything other than a good to strive for?

Even if you're right (but you're not) how can your moral anti-realism be anything other than a mournful celebration of nuthin' at all?

Anyway: that's the scoop. Sorry for the flowery language, the lack of philo-language, the (I'm sure) unconvincin' argument, and the honesty.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:01 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:46 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:27 am Nope. Henry says it's a fact that only humans are persons (which, by any definition of 'person', is a matter of opinion); that it's morally wrong to harm persons (which is a matter of opinion, not a fact); and that therefore it's not morally wrong to harm other animals (which is a matter of opinion, not a fact).

Where did you get the idea that 'by any definition of 'person', is a matter of opinion'.
That is crazy idea.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person
Obvious 'what is person' is based on fact [knowledge] and not opinion.

Think carefully. To define a word, such as 'person', is to explain how we use it or could use it. If we use the word 'person' as a synonym for 'human being', then the claim that only humans are persons is redundant. And I'm pointing out the redundancy of saying that it's morally wrong to harm humans because they're persons, and therefore not morally wrong to harm other animals because they're not persons.

Your reference to your favorite 'opinion' is definitely wrong here.
It is not redundant to emphasize humans are persons [individuals with distinct personalities].

This boils down to the obnoxious claim that moral rightness and wrongness don't figure in our treatment of other animals, so that we can do what we like with them. For example, foxes aren't humans, so its morally okay to hunt them with dogs that tear them to pieces, all for our pleasure. And it's morally okay to shoot a lion for 'sport', because it doesn't 'own itself', because it isn't a 'person'. This position is morally bankrupt, IMHO.

You are messing things up here and ignorant 'what is morality'.
What is morality is most effectively when confined to the human species only.
This is where you can draw the line between not killing humans and killing living non-humans for food and other reasons.
Then we can draw a further line why it is wrong to kill non-humans for pleasure and unjustified reasons, BUT such killing are not a matter of morality-proper.

Note there are right and wrong actions within religions, theism, legislature [criminal laws] etc. but they are independent from morality-per-se, albeit some of the acts overlapped with what is dealt within morality.

Note,
Re: opinion: A view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/opinion

Note this distinction between Knowledge and Opinion:

Historically, the distinction of demonstrated knowledge and opinion was articulated by Ancient Greek philosophers.
Today, Plato's analogy of the divided line is a well-known illustration of the distinction between knowledge and opinion, or knowledge and belief, in customary terminology of contemporary philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion

I have also argued Morality is strictly confined to the human species only, exceptions are only when there are vested interests to the human species.
Thus harming non-human animal is outside the scope of morality, thus no question of morality on such acts, but such acts imply the existence of mental issues and should be dealt within psychiatry.

FFS, wake up. That humans are not non-human animals is a FACT. That morality applies only to humans is an OPINION, and not a fact.

I have already shown you 'what is a FACT'.
What is FACT is any knowledge that is justified through a credible Framework and System [F/S] of knowledge, which Morality is one such F/S.

That morality applies to the human species only is a FACT as justified via the Moral F/S.
I have already justified that, i.e. we have to draw the line to cater for humans having to kill non-humans for food, so we have to differentiate non-humans from humans of the human-species.

As I've explained, whatever facts we deploy to justify a moral opinion, it remains an opinion and doesn't thereby magically metamorphose into a fact; and others can always deploy the same facts differently, or different facts, to justify a different moral opinion.
Nope. As I've explained, the JTB definition of knowledge is incoherent, because only factual assertions can have truth value; so beliefs are neither true nor false; and knowing something is the case need have nothing to do with language. And anyway, your assumption that morality is an epistemological matter in the first place begs the question.

JTB [Gettier acknowledged] is the most effective basis to determine what is knowledge that is distinct from what is 'opinion'.

Pay attention. I've just shown you why the JTB definition of knowledge is a conceptual mess. Why not have a go at understanding the explanation, instead of ignoring it? And, btw, Gettier merely recycled the confusion in 'true belief', missing the real problem, which is the assumed necessity of the truth condition.

You are the one with the thick skull who has to pay attention!
Scientific knowledge is based on Justified True Beliefs.
Are you condemning scientific knowledge as a conceptual mess?

Whatever that is justified from a specific Framework and System of Knowledge and Activities is fact [as defined above].
Morality like any Framework and System of activities and knowledge rely upon JTBs from other field of knowledge to justify its moral facts to be used a moral standards within the Moral F/S.

Nope. You merely state this matter of opinion - regarding moral scope - as though it's a fact, when it isn't.

'Opinion' again??
I have already refer you to the meaning of what is opinion a 'thousand' times.
Read the dictionary again for the general meaning of 'opinion'.

I repeat again.
"Morality like any Framework and System of activities and knowledge rely upon JTBs from other field of knowledge to justify its moral facts to be used a moral standards within the Moral F/S."
Prove me wrong on this?

WTF? It's precisely because the scope of our moral concerns is not, factually, confined to humans that vegans think eating animals and their products is morally wrong. Your 'intra-species' bullshit has no factual justification. It's just an opinion.

Morality is confined to the human species.
The minority of Vegans with their dogmatic ideology do not represent the human species.

Re Morality is Intra-Species,
I have justified that above.

If you do not agree, then justify why you and other humans are killing so many living things from non-human species, e.g. viruses, bacteria, one-cell living things, insects, fishes, etc.
When you take antibiotics you are also killing tons of good symbiotic bacteria, how do you justify that in terms of your idea of morality?
Note the extreme of the Jains who covered their mouth just in case they kill any insects that fly into their mouths - this is stupid altruism.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:47 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:16 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:00 pm also, if your moral "facts" can't account for it being morally wrong to torture an animal for pleasure, you failed real hard.

...the killing of living non-humans for food and other positive reasons are not a moral issue....

This is why your description of morality does not cover the actual thing, it's a substitute, or at best a minimal subset of the proper thing.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:16 am Suggest you research more into what is Morality proper and its related Ethics.

You can take a nasy vegan paste and make fake bacon out of it and call that "Bacon Proper", but it's still a shit and insubstantial alternative to the actual thing. Just calling it "proper" does nothing to change the fact that it is visibly inferior and fake. The same goes for all of your utterly shit "proper" alternatives. Your "philosophy-proper" is fake sad and usless, your "morality-proper" is hopelessly inadequate.

If you want to base morality on fact, use actual morality. If you can't do that, quit lying to yourself about whatever fake substitute shit you can do being "proper"

I had stated 'morality-proper' is dealt via the Moral Framework and System which generate specifically moral facts.

Morality-proper is also confined to the human species only.
If you do not agree,
then,
justify why it is moral when you and other humans are killing so many living things from non-human species, e.g. viruses, bacteria, one-cell living things, insects, fishes, etc.

When you take antibiotics you are also killing tons of good symbiotic bacteria in your lower intestines, how do you justify that morally in terms of your idea of morality?
Note the extreme of the Jains who covered their mouth just in case they kill any insects that fly into their mouths - this is stupid altruism.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:34 amA man belongs to himself and it's wrong to leash him.

There's a lot of things you and I disagree about, but on this, we are singing from the same song sheet. You and I know this is true. Can we prove it? No. The problem with some moral realists is that if it isn't written in some book, or there isn't a torturous and woefully unsound argument to 'prove' it, they get all whiny and say stupid offensive shit like:

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:34 am...you're an agent of nuthin'. You'd stab me in the back if Flash's convention allowed for it and you wanted to.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:34 amAnyway: that's the scoop. Sorry for the flowery language, the lack of philo-language, the (I'm sure) unconvincin' argument, and the honesty.

Ditto.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:44 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:47 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:16 am
...the killing of living non-humans for food and other positive reasons are not a moral issue....

This is why your description of morality does not cover the actual thing, it's a substitute, or at best a minimal subset of the proper thing.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:16 am Suggest you research more into what is Morality proper and its related Ethics.

You can take a nasy vegan paste and make fake bacon out of it and call that "Bacon Proper", but it's still a shit and insubstantial alternative to the actual thing. Just calling it "proper" does nothing to change the fact that it is visibly inferior and fake. The same goes for all of your utterly shit "proper" alternatives. Your "philosophy-proper" is fake sad and usless, your "morality-proper" is hopelessly inadequate.

If you want to base morality on fact, use actual morality. If you can't do that, quit lying to yourself about whatever fake substitute shit you can do being "proper"

I had stated 'morality-proper' is dealt via the Moral Framework and System which generate specifically moral facts.

"Morality-proper" is an artificial creation you made up because actual morality - the thing we actually have - doesn't operate on a factual basis. You are not explaining the factual basis of actual morality with any of this, and your manufactured "morality-proper" is simply an admission of failure with reagards to morality as it actually is.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:44 am Morality-proper is also confined to the human species only.

Thus making it an inferior knock off of the real thing, which does. Or more specifically, does if we have moral care on behalf of those animanls.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:44 am If you do not agree,
then,
justify why it is moral when you and other humans are killing so many living things from non-human species, e.g. viruses, bacteria, one-cell living things, insects, fishes, etc.

That isn't how it works. Moral realists like you feel the need to make morality some neat and tidy thing, with factual answers available for every question. The underlying rationale for moral anti-realists such as myself is that this is an attempt to see patterns in chaos.

The history of our moral interactions within others, if you look at it descriptively, is largely a matter of us (the insiders in any particular case) extending the scope of our moral concern very slowly. Couple of hundred years ago, people like you and Henry said moral concern for slaves was misplaced, they didn't qualify in just the same way you both deny it for animals today.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:44 am When you take antibiotics you are also killing tons of good symbiotic bacteria in your lower intestines, how do you justify that morally in terms of your idea of morality?
Note the extreme of the Jains who covered their mouth just in case they kill any insects that fly into their mouths - this is stupid altruism.

So you say, buy they say moral fact and their moral fact is just as credible as yours.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 2:34 am Even if I'm wrong (but I'm not) how can such a notion be anything other than a good to strive for?

It certainly can.

Your personal Henry version of the illusion of moral facts might be lovely. Even though your moral fact would say that there is nothing immoral in necrophilia, so it kinda has some issues. But everyone gets their own version of Moral Fact in your game, none of you has any actual fact to support their claim to moral fact being the factually factual one. You get to assert your one principle (self own) and your specific moral framework (heavily diluted contractarianism) and you put your little flag on that little hill.

Then someone else picks their particular principle (all men are created equal, property is theft, yadda yadda yadda) and their own limited moral framework (utilitarian, authoritarian, any old homespun what's right is right thing), and they put their flag on their little hill. And then you look at each other from your little hills and you tell yourselves that the other guy looks stupid sitting on that nasty ass little hill with his silly little flag, and that's a fact.

So when you describe Vestibule Aquafresh's version as just a little misplaced because of intersubjectivity, what I see is a blundering fucknut attempting to create the new Stalinism where a collection of "experts" defines what moral fact is, and then everybody who does not agree needs re-educating. Presumably he thinks typing "TO BE USED AS A GUIDE ONLY!!!" in all caps a lot makes some sort of difference to that.

If your facts don't demonstrate that Vertical Octopus is clearly wrong, then we have a problem because that's pretty much what facts are for, showing what we should hold as true and false. If your appeal to "fact" is only there to make you feel that your opinion on Visible Inkytits' mistakes is justified by something, that's kind of a misuse of the F word. our collection of moral realists has been reluctant thus far to aknowledge that we have a use for facts, and anything that cannot be used in such manner is not actually a fact.

If morality is fact, then it is fixed, or fixable. You can determine what is right and wrong forever right now if you can access facts of the case. If it's actually a today fact that it is not morally wrong to go on holiday and forget about your dog, and then bury it after it starved while you were on holiday, and just buy another, then it's an all time fact and you can close yourself off to any persuasion. Whoever or whatever falls outside our moral scope on this day, does so forever. There is no scope therefore for future generations to improve on what we have acheived morally thus far.

You know how historians are always telling us it's a mistake to judge historical figures by the standards of today, that's because we are all men of our time. The guys who wrote the Bill of Rights were mostly slave owners and unrepentent in the main, they had the same moral outlook as everyone around them at the time did about that. So yeah, there's a totally strong chance that when a group of history students are looking at this exact thread to see how Vertebrate Ectotherm became the great murder dictator of the 21st century, they will see you and me discussing bacon sandwiches and recoil in shock. then their teacher will tell them "yes, they ate meat a lot in those days, from real slaughtered animals. But you shouldn't judge Henry and FleshpotDingleFlaps, they are just men of their times, like everyone else".

You can fool yourself that history is just going to agree with you forever if you prefer. But when you get to the end of your inquiry, and you have facts to justify everything, what then, you stop trying to improve I assume?

There's a lot of things you and I disagree about, but on this, we are singing from the same song sheet.

Then I've erred, in a rather large way.

My apologies.


You and I know this is true. Can we prove it? No.

I think we can. I think we can reason it out.


The problem with some moral realists is that if it isn't written in some book, or there isn't a torturous and woefully unsound argument to 'prove' it, they get all whiny and say stupid offensive shit...

I am wrong -- as I say, in a large way -- but I wasn't whiny or stupid (offensive? yeah, I was).

Again: my apologies.

...your moral fact would say that there is nothing immoral in necrophilia, so it kinda has some issues.

Yeah, you & me, we got different ideas of what morality encompasses, this is true.


But everyone gets their own version of Moral Fact in your game,

No, that's wrong.


none of you has any actual fact to support their claim to moral fact being the factually factual one.

No, that's wrong.

FlashDangerpants to Henry wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:13 am...

Oh Mr. Dangerpants... brilliant and hilarious.