Philosophy Now Forum

The point of moral and political philosophy is to ensure that we aren't robbed and killed by our neighbors.

It's about self-regulation.

It's about findin' and holdin' on to a reason to not bash in your neighbor's skull and take his stuff...even when you really hate the guy and really want his stuff.

AllenBeasley wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 8:19 am As someone who's spent four years in uni studying moral and political philosophy and is seriously considering going to grad school to study more, I can't help but start to question the legitmacy of questions raised by the philosophers. It seems to me the strength of any normative argument, ethical framework, ideal political system etc. ultimately has to make appeal to "moral intuition" or mere "feelings."

Is killing the same as letting die? Sould the state/individuals be allowed/forced to do X,Y,Z? Is moral duty natural or contract-based? What counts as consent? Is the morality of an action assessed by its utility, intention or some principles?

Barring any factual errors (when empirical claims are made) or internal inconsistency of an argument, it seems to me the debate among philosophers is always reduced to "According to your premise a,b,c, aren't we also compelled to accept conclusion x,y,z (which violates general moral intuition)?" "Consider this following thought experiment/imaginary scenario, are you cool with that as well?"

At the end, it seems to me all the discussions always hinges on whether the audience already accepts certain moral commitments or sharing the same moral sentiments, and if not, there's just what I call "fundamental misalignment of moral judgement" where two people simply have different opinions about a moral situation and the debate admits of no further arbitration.

The authenticity of x's argument concerning morals and politics is defined by whether or not x's actions accompanied or followed x's words.

The reasoning of x's argument must be both sound and correct.

The audience self selects. Quality argument contains sincere expression of feelings without which the first criterion, authenticity, will be absent and words will be superficially imitative.

As to the second criterion, quality argument must be sound and correct without which it lacks skill.

Having got over those hurdles, evaluating legitimacy of questions is related to times and places. Moral intuitions are caused by world views and particular cultural influences . Philosophy is not science, it's art. As it's art, the best approach to do philosophy is by way of historical structure.

Art forms vary in quality. Times and places are identifiable that produced high quality philosophy. High quality moral or political philosophy is best evaluated by the same criteria as any other art, which does not include thoughtless intuitions.

I think the word 'intuitions ' needs to be thought about. There are limited occasions when intuition is valuable. Intuition is not coterminous with feeling.

it sounds from your original post you have not been doing philosophy at all, as you have invested nothing of yourself in it, have taken no emotional risks. You cannot do art just by learning about what artists have done.Philosophy ditto.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 6:50 pm It's about self-regulation.

It's about findin' and holdin' on to a reason to not bash in your neighbor's skull and take his stuff...even when you really hate the guy and really want his stuff.

Yes, the advantage of regulating it and requiring lots of formalisms, is that you can more efficiently professionalize and industrialize it.

The wholesale mass production of violence is obviously much more impressive and much more respectable than some individual scuffle.

There is this widespread misconception that violence is the problem. The truth is that violence is usually the solution to the problem.

godelian wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 2:14 am the advantage of regulating it and requiring lots of formalisms, is that you can more efficiently professionalize and industrialize it.

Well, I was talkin' about sussing out and holdin' onto a reason to refrain from violence, not ways to commodify it.

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 11:31 am

AllenBeasley wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 1:16 am thank you so much

As a matter of curiosity, what ways in particular did you find that helpful?

Fairly sure he was just checking he could post now and didn't have anything specific to talk about - there's a long delay on that sort of thing when people sign up. For all we know this is an ad-bot using text copy-pasta'd from a comment on a youtube video or a reddit thread in which case a quick check before going live is usual, and a 'thank you so much' reply to a randomly selected post would fit that bill nicely.

But he might have just been happy that somebody understood his references to normativity and the logical limits of arguments founded on it. Moral philosophy is a big field and undergrads can only be taught a portion of it. When I studied the subject Hume's guillotine was covered, as was relativism (dismissively) but beyond that it was the optimistic positions all the way; contractarianism, deontology, consequentialism and virtue theory dominated as I recall, with side orders of rights and justice.

It was only after I graduated that I learned of writers like Mackie and moral scepticism in general*. Mister Beasley might be in that boat.






* Ayers' Language Truth and Logic was a set text in Phil. A-Level when I did that, so I knew non-cognitivism up to a point before uni. But I'm quite positive it never cropped up in uni for me.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 4:17 pm What exactly is the point of moral and political philosophy?

crowd control

-Imp

Isn't that the point of all philosophy?

Normativity.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 10:42 am To be fair, I am a moral skeptic and inclined towards hermeneutic moral fictionalism, so I am rather more accepting of your base premises than others might be. Most moral realists are likely to challenge them.

Show me a moral skeptic and I'll show you a liar.

Deprive the "moral skeptic" of enough normativity; push them far enough and moral outrage inevitably follows.

Revealed preferences trump all philosophy. This is why provication is superior to argumentation. It sidesteps all the abstract/theoretical/philosophical bullshit.

For example, ask this m̶o̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶k̶e̶p̶t̶i̶c̶ liar why anything I say/do is a "problem". What exactly is a "problem" without morality/normativity?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu May 22, 2025 8:46 am Skepdick tend to write whatever they think will offend you, this is central to their problematic conflict-driven personalities

My "conflict-driven personality" has this peculiar and reproducible side-effect of exposing the irony in "moral skepticism".

You don't like my methods? On what grounds?

Moral skepticism is just a sleight of hand where the "moral skeptic" gets to retain control of manipulating connotation and social attitude of anyone who dares listen to them via the use of language. It's just a power move in a game of rhetoric. It serves no other purpose than to maintaining discursive control.

It works because words like "problematic", "concerning", "undesirable" etc. carry moral and social weight, but can be deployed while maintaining plausible deniability about making moral claims.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 5:26 pm The point of moral and political philosophy is to ensure that we aren't robbed and killed by our neighbors.

Henry's idea like your own idea comes close to the idea that the ultimate purpose of philosophy is seeking to know how to live a good life.

"how to live a good life" is a central question explored by Plato. Plato believed that the good life is not simply about living, but about living well, and he explored this concept extensively in his philosophical works.
Plato's concept of the good life, often referred to as eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness), involves living a virtuous life, where reason guides one's actions and the soul is in harmony. He emphasized the importance of wisdom, courage, and justice in achieving this harmonious state.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 5:09 pm "how to live a good life" is a central question explored by Plato. Plato believed that the good life is not simply about living, but about living well, and he explored this concept extensively in his philosophical works.
Plato's concept of the good life, often referred to as eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness), involves living a virtuous life, where reason guides one's actions and the soul is in harmony. He emphasized the importance of wisdom, courage, and justice in achieving this harmonious state.

Quillbot is 100% sure that you got AI to write that for you, but GPTZero only rated it 87%. Did you have chat GPT write it?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 1:25 pm

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 4:17 pm What exactly is the point of moral and political philosophy?

crowd control

-Imp

Isn't that the point of all philosophy?

Normativity.

kinda but not really

-Imp

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 1:25 pm Isn't that the point of all philosophy?

Normativity.

I think that the goal of philosophy is induction about expressible ideas, i.e. Platonic abstractions. Science is induction about physical reality.

(Mathematics is deduction about Platonic abstractions.)

Instead of describing stubborn observable patterns in physical reality (science), philosophy tries to describe them in the world of expressible ideas.

Therefore, the problem could be the collection of expressible ideas already.

For example, political ideas are generally bullshit. So, philosophy about them will not reach a higher level.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 7:52 pmThe authenticity of x's argument concerning morals and politics is defined by whether or not x's actions accompanied or followed x's words.

Authentic: Conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief

One's argument and one's character are not identical.
To conflate the two is obscures our capacity to assess / examine information.

If one dismisses an argument, solely based on who speaks it,
then one is actively blinding themself to potential insight or perspective.

The argument you set here is not sound.
It does not follow that an argument is flawed, because it is presented by someone of flawed character.

An argument can be valid, regardless of the one who presents the argument.

Your standard is flawed - your argument, unsound.

AllenBeasley wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 8:19 amultimately has to make appeal to "moral intuition" or mere "feelings."

Your every motivation boils down to "feelings" - preferences.

Here's a question, Allen:

Why do anything?

-

AllenBeasley wrote: ↑Fri May 23, 2025 8:19 amAt the end, it seems to me all the discussions always hinges on whether the audience already accepts certain moral commitments or sharing the same moral sentiments, and if not, there's just what I call "fundamental misalignment of moral judgement" where two people simply have different opinions about a moral situation and the debate admits of no further arbitration.

Our preferences can change.
We can grow and come to recognize ourselves more clearly.
One's goal yesterday, need not be one's goal today.

The future always holds the potential to alter us dramatically.
Whether us to align with others, others to align with us -
or both to align upon a newly discovered path.
Sometimes even to walk away,
and potentially converge again.

These frameworks we create,
ideally produce our shared benefit.
And it is recognized that compromise & cooperation,
can produce greater outcomes -
than indiscriminately chasing any drive.

EDIT (for visibility):

Ben JS wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 10:58 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 7:52 pmThe authenticity of x's argument concerning morals and politics is defined by whether or not x's actions accompanied or followed x's words.

Authentic: Conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief

One's argument and one's character are not identical.
To conflate the two is obscures our capacity to assess / examine information.

If one dismisses an argument, solely based on who speaks it,
then one is actively blinding themself to potential insight or perspective.

The argument you set here is not sound.
It does not follow that an argument is flawed, because it is presented by someone of flawed character.

An argument can be valid, regardless of the one who presents the argument.

Your standard is flawed - your argument, unsound.

Ben JS wrote: ↑Tue May 27, 2025 10:58 pm If one dismisses an argument, solely based on who speaks it,
then one is actively blinding themself to potential insight or perspective.

Yes, there are two kinds of people in that respect.

The ones who judge an argument based on who says it versus the ones who judge it based on how it is justified.

So, that opposes the who-people versus the how-people. Since all knowledge is how-based, it opposes the who-ignoranti versus the how-cognoscenti.

I have zero sympathy for the who-ignoranti and for the trouble that they typically run into when following their false prophets off a cliff into the abyss.