When (and how) something (or someone) is "good."

[The Voice of Time]

Anyone else smells natural fallacy here?

Nope. The natural fallacy would be if Prof approved of something simply because it was "good" (i.e. exemplifies its nature).

The SUV example should have clued you into this; Prof's hypothetical environmentalist notes that the SUV is "good" (meaning, it is an exemplary instantiation of the general concept "SUV") and that the very fact that it is a good SUV makes it an evil (due to its contributions to climate change, etc).

The naturalistic fallacy would be to assume that because the SUV is good, it is therefore worthy of our approval.

I don't understand. So is it good or not good? The distinction you make erodes the meaning of "good" and makes it meaningless. Good is an absolute word, unless otherwise specified. "It is a good SUV" means that the SUV is good, if it should mean that it is a complete SUV you'd write that it is a complete SUV. Naturalistic Fallacy.

From Wikipedia, a quotation from Moore himself:

...the assumption that because some quality or combination of qualities invariably and necessarily accompanies the quality of goodness, or is invariably and necessarily accompanied by it, or both, this quality or combination of qualities is identical with goodness. If, for example, it is believed that whatever is pleasant is and must be good, or that whatever is good is and must be pleasant, or both, it is committing the naturalistic fallacy to infer from this that goodness and pleasantness are one and the same quality. The naturalistic fallacy is the assumption that because the words 'good' and, say, 'pleasant' necessarily describe the same objects, they must attribute the same quality to them.

[Arising_uk]

Well, A_UK, precisely my point about original thought. Isn't this just tit for tat?

I feel like a prisoner.

[Arising_uk]

Whoops! My mistake about VOTs aim. Apologies.

[The Voice of Time]

I think VOT was probably referring to Bill Wiltracks post.

Nope. I'm protestingly ignoring Bill's posts 95% of the time. My nose was smelling Prof's ass, not Bill's, and it found a load of narcotics there.

[artisticsolution]

“Granted, I might be a bit better off if I acted selfishly at your expense and you played the sucker, but the same is true for you with me, so if each of us tried for these advantages, we’d both end up worse off. Any neutral observer, and you and I if we could talk it over rationally, would have to conclude that the state we should aim for is the one in which we both are unselfish.”

It has been my experience that "playing the sucker" can be more of an advantage than acting selfishly... if you think of it in the right way.

It is my contention that having a charitable attitude can make one have a sense of well being. If we look at being played the 'sucker' as a charitable act AND instead of harboring bad feelings for our perpetrators...... meaning, we harbor only good feelings for our own actions of unselfishness towards another (whether or not they have only taken from us). I think a sense of well being in the sense we are above such foolish desires of the flesh or of this world, then we can get a sense of happiness from being lifted out of the bad part of human nature. And instead of our strength coming from our accomplishments of obtaining bigger and better...instead our strength can come from things we have at our disposal at all times... our very own being. It is something that cannot be taken away.

Recently my mom had surgery, she had to share a room with another woman and my mom was stressing because the room was not divided up evenly. The curtain that divided them did not run down the center of the room and my mom got the short end of the stick by about 2 inches. Not only that...the woman had her bed placed over so that the curtain was moved about another inch so it swayed into my moms side....not to mention she also had the window side of the room.

My mom started to get mad at this woman's selfishness until I said something that changed the way she thought about the situation. I said, "be happy for the woman mom....be happy for her that she gets more room. Strive to feel even happier give her even more room than she takes. And my mom did...and it became less distressing for her...

"Remove the judgement, and you have removed the thought 'I am hurt';
Remove the thought 'I am hurt', and the hurt itself is removed."
Marcus Aurelius

[homegrown]

AUK, Sorry if you feel like a prisoner. I got the impression y'all were leading me around the board - seeing if I could keep up at the same time as showing me just how much you all suck at philosophy. If you'd rather I cease to demonstrate my prowess/your relative ignorance, yeah, sure! I require only that in future you think before you disagree/fail to understand.

hg.

[The Voice of Time]

AUK, Sorry if you feel like a prisoner. I got the impression y'all were leading me around the board - seeing if I could keep up at the same time as showing me just how much you all suck at philosophy. If you'd rather I cease to demonstrate my prowess/your relative ignorance, yeah, sure! I require only that in future you think before you disagree/fail to understand.

Having all the answers doesn't make you a great philosopher, or else Wikipedia would've been one of the greatest philosophers of history. No, posing the right questions that can lead the wondering to seek out new thought patterns: that would be an achievement. Philosophy is about wisdom, not knowledge.

[homegrown]

Yo, Bill - why you post that here? Seems like it's a reply to my post to yours in another place - no? If you want to stop pissing around - humans doomed y/n?

[The Voice of Time]

Yo, Bill - why you post that here? Seems like it's a reply to my post to yours in another place - no? If you want to stop pissing around - humans doomed y/n?

Paranoia? I've never heard of Bill actually having any meaning at all with any of his images. Would be surprised if that one was meant for anyone except the world in general.

[Arising_uk]

AUK, Sorry if you feel like a prisoner. I got the impression y'all were leading me around the board - seeing if I could keep up at the same time as showing me just how much you all suck at philosophy. If you'd rather I cease to demonstrate my prowess/your relative ignorance, yeah, sure! I require only that in future you think before you disagree/fail to understand. hg.

My bad, my pun was intended as a reference to Danielsons work which I, apparently, mistook your "tit for tat" as referring too, as his 'games' are about game theory as applied to rational moral behaviour. So now I have little idea of what you meant by your reply. That I pointed to anothers work as not being philosophy as its not original thought? I think you'd have to go some to have an 'original' thought in philosophy. Take your video, its not that original to claim science is the truth and that its ideologies that subvert this truth and cause us to behave in ways counter-productive to the well being for all but I think it also contentious that we will become extinct, what may become extinct is our current way of life but extinct? Not so obvious.

Why would I be leading you around the board?

[homegrown]

A_UK, Who else has proposed such a theory? Maybe they claimed scientific justification for the survival ethic. I should very much like to know if they still maintain such an idea is defensible! hg.

[prof]

[

Is an SUV good ?
An American mother will say yes, because she feels safe driving it. And it is fun to drive it so it improves her mood.

An environmentalist will say no.

Who decides about what criteria a car should fulfill ? The people by a majority vote ?

Hi Prof....interesting question and interesting reply. I always find it curious when people jump to blaming women...particularly mothers.....for using something that has been invented, manufactured and distributed mostly by men. ...

Hi, ArtisticSolution

I hope you don't think that I was blaming women for anything. Firstly, I don't blame people. Secondly, I was only playing along with duscek's example. Thirdly, it could just as well have been a male in the illustration who liked to drive an SUV, and often men have thought and acted the same way as the mother in his illustration. Fourth, he was only relating an experience he had: He happened to have heard about 'the fun ride' from a woman, so he used a woman in the story. That doesn't mean that either one of us is in favor of men dominating women, or having any rights that women do not have.





v

[prof]

Anyone else smells natural fallacy here?

Nope. The natural fallacy would be if Prof approved of something simply because it was "good" (i.e. exemplifies its nature).

The SUV example should have clued you into this; Prof's hypothetical environmentalist notes that the SUV is "good" (meaning, it is an exemplary instantiation of the general concept "SUV") and that the very fact that it is a good SUV makes it an evil (due to its contributions to climate change, etc).

The naturalistic fallacy would be to assume that because the SUV is good, it is therefore worthy of our approval.

Greetings, Diogenes

At last, someone who understands the Hartman definition of "x is a good C."

Yes, you are correct: there is no commission of the Naturalistic Fallacy here. No fallacy either by your interpretation of it, or by G. E. Moore's, as quoted in Wiki. Hartman's definition relies on the relation of class-membership, and thus manages to avoid naturalism. It does not declare that "good" is any one particular quality of nature. Some Systemic-thinkers hold that "a thing is either "good" or it is "not good," trapped in an aristotelian extensional logic that has an axiom 'A or not A.' Life is much more complex than that.

Life (an Intrinsic value) requires an intensional logic, one that considers attributes (qualities, features) as descriptional predicates; whereas the commonly-taught-in-schools extensional logic is about classes of things (about sets of identical objects.) E.g. Apples are fruit.
Socrates is a man. Etc.

I commend you for your perpicacity and philosophical sophistication. And also for finding "the good" in something you read ...rather than feeling obliged to tear it apart and score points by showing how smart-aleck one can be

[Arising_uk]

Hi Prof,
Sounds like quite a tight definition. I have a question tho'.

...
A “good action” is an action that (Systemically) proceeds from sound reasons; (Extrinsically) has outcomes that meet with approval and gets something worthwhile done; (Intrinsically) shows respect for others and reflects living out one’s principled beliefs on the part of the one performing the action. It it meets those three criteria, we are justified in speaking of it as “a good action.” ...

Does this in the end fall into some kind of utilitarian calculus? As there are sound reasons to build a hydroelectric plant, the outcomes meet with approval and something worthwhile is done, however respect is shown to many others but some have to have their homes flooded even tho' it is performed by someone with principles. So is it a good and bad action?

[duszek]

[

Is an SUV good ?
An American mother will say yes, because she feels safe driving it. And it is fun to drive it so it improves her mood.

An environmentalist will say no.

Who decides about what criteria a car should fulfill ? The people by a majority vote ?

Hi Prof....interesting question and interesting reply. I always find it curious when people jump to blaming women...particularly mothers.....for using something that has been invented, manufactured and distributed mostly by men. ...

Hi, ArtisticSolution

I hope you don't think that I was blaming women for anything. Firstly, I don't blame people. Secondly, I was only playing along with duscek's example. Thirdly, it could just as well have been a male in the illustration who liked to drive an SUV, and often men have thought and acted the same way as the mother in his illustration. Fourth, he was only relating an experience he had: He happened to have heard about 'the fun ride' from a woman, so he used a woman in the story. That doesn't mean that either one of us is in favor of men dominating women, or having any rights that women do not have.

v

I took a mother as an example because I heard once a mother explaining her good feelings about an SUV.
A man can use an SUV for curing his mid-life-crisis.

Not only manufactueres are to blame for a bad product. Consumers are just as responsible. If they do not buy a product the manufacturers stop producing it.