Philosophy Now Forum

iam,

Don't forget: you have sumthin' of mine over in 'nihilism' to apply your script to!

Interesting how I can say: 'All I insist, quite rightfully, is: you, iam, are a free will. I insist you have an inalienable, natural right to your, and no other's, life, liberty, and property. I insist you know this down deep in your bones.'

And you always bring it back to "henry insisting that a God he took a "leap of faith" to planted in him an intuitive grasp of life, liberty and property".

Yes, becuz natural rights (a man, any man, every man, any where or when, recognizes his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone) are omnipresent and unaltered by time or place or 'culture', I surmise there is a Creator. I haven't however, in any back & forth with you or anyone, relied on that surmising.

In fact, I've said, multiple times, across multiple threads, this sense of self-possession might simply be 'brute fact'. It does not seem to me, however, it can be. It's utterly consistent among all. If mere survival trait, it seems to me, it could have and would have been bred out of us, somewhere, some when. But this is not the case. No one has every said 'it's right and proper I should be another's property or commodity'. I've asked for verifiable examples of such a thing, from you, from others, and I get nada.

Interesting...and telling.

"if you don't agree entirely with my own God-given ahistorical and acultural assessment of life, liberty and property then you are lost, you are muddled, you don't know where you are going."

What's rather sad to me: you do agree that you are a free will, that your life, liberty, and property are yours. You live as though these things are true (becuz they are). You will not disavow and say 'I am a meat machine. My life, liberty, and property are not mine'. You, I believe, want to be meat with no moral claim to yourself; you know this is not possible. You are lost.

"And, again, one of the benefits of roundly rejecting an arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian assessment of life, liberty and property as you do is that it liberates me...I'm not anchored as you are to a dogmatic orthodoxy that binds my every option to never, ever stepping off the One True Path."

No. You rejecting yourself as free will and as having an exclusive moral claim to your life, liberty, and property has jailed you. You're caged, and, unlike Angelou's bird, you ain't singing.

"we do live in a world where those like Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong Un and others...have seized power and went over to the other end of the political spectrum: my morality or else."

None of these had a morality, they had only appetite.

As I say...

-Teaching Moment-

The slaver doesn't sit his potential property down and explain how it's reasonable he, the slaver, should own and use the other. There is no reasonable, rational, coherent, consistent, moral argument to make for slavery. So, the slaver just applies the leash, by force or thru lies.

The murderer doesn't sit his potential victim down and explain how it's reasonable he, the murderer, should kill the other. There is no reasonable, rational, coherent, consistent, moral argument to make for murder. So, the murderer just kills him directly, or thru misdirection.

The thief doesn't sit his target down and explain how it's reasonable he, the thief, should have the other's property. There is no reasonable, rational, coherent, consistent, moral argument to make for theft. So, the thief just takes it straight away or thru falsehood.

The rapist doesn't sit the object of his attention down and explain how it's reasonable he, the rapist, should use the other. There is no reasonable, rational, coherent, consistent, moral argument to make for rape. So, the rapist just uses, with violence or thru subterfuge.

The slaver, the murderer, the thief, the rapist, not a one would agree, not a one argues, that becuz he slaves, murders, thieves, rapes it would be right if he were slaved, murdered, robbed, or raped. Each understands he is his own.

-End Teaching Moment-

"their arguments are reasonable or logical or epistemologically sound"

No. See -Teaching Moment-

"Mary should have avoided all sexual encounters until, what, she was married and had intercourse only in order to procreate?"

Mary can do as she likes with herself. She is hers. She, however, cannot, morally, do as she likes with another. The other is not hers.

Harry,

'slow clap'

At first, I wasn't sure if you were applaudin' or deridin' (the slow clap can signify either). I see now: it's applause. Thank you, Sir...

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:53 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Just out of curiosity, please note the points that henry made above that you believe are worthy of a slow applause.

All of them.

Really? All of them? You agree that the manner in which henry defines the meaning of "life, liberty and property" transcends the historical era in which he lives? the culture he was born into? all of the uniquely personal experiences he had in being indoctrinated as a child and in accumulating as an adult?

His God-given intuitive mind is so sharp that he is able to figure out -- divinely? deontologically? -- the optimal, the "logical" manner in which to defend the buying and selling of weapons of mass destruction?

Slow clap there too?

And, if so, what do you make of all these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...insisting that, on the contrary, it's the manner in which they grasp the meaning of life, liberty and property that reflects the One True Path.

Slow boos for them?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Only, as I recall, you are not interested in exploring human morality other than up in the intellectual clouds with those like AJ.

At least with henry we do go back and forth exchanging our own assumptions regarding the moral parameters of such issues as abortion and guns.

How about you?

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:53 am Special invitation; limited time offer; hurry, hurry; buy now:

If you think that one even exists, then pick an issue and explain how you think it falsifies my case for objective moral truth.

Okay, I'll peruse it.

Harry Baird wrote: The moral nihilist[1]: "Morality doesn't mean anything, or doesn't have a referent, or at least is inapplicable." On this view, although we might personally deplore the brutal torture and slaughter of an innocent child for fun, we can't say that there is anything wrong with it. To any sane person, this is obviously untrue, and so, by reductio ad absurdum, moral nihilism is false.

Again and again and again: this moral nihilist -- "me" -- argues that in a No God world someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun". But suppose for reasons rooted existentially in the life that he lived, he became a sociopath. Or clinically his brain is all scrambled and he became a psychopath. Suppose he never gets caught.

So, your argument is that human sanity here in a No God world revolves around, what, a poll among the philosopher-kings?

I dealt with this [extreme behaviors] myself previously:

This comes closest to upending my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind. People tap me on the shoulder and ask "can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?"

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own "me, myself and I" self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn't it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font -- God -- to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different...for any number of reasons...I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

After all, do not the pro-life folks insist that abortion itself is no less a Holocaust inflicted on the unborn? And do not the pro-choice folks rationalize this behavior with their own subjective sets of assumptions.

Though, okay, if someone here is convinced they have in fact discovered the optimal reason why we should behave one way and not any other, let's explore that in a No God world.

What would be argued when confronting the Adolph Hitlers and the Ted Bundys and the 9/11 religious fanatics and the sociopaths among us. Arguments such that they would be convinced that the behaviors they choose are indeed inherently, necessarily immoral.

How would you reason with them?

Again, abortion here. Aren't there many who insist that abortion itself is the slaughter of innocent babies? Okay, but what about the arguments of those on the other side? That the real insanity is the state forcing women to give birth against their will?

Or how about henry arguing that given his own assessment of life, liberty and property, it is entirely sane for a community to permit its citizens to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction?


More to come...

Harry Baird wrote: Me: "Act according to the principles of fairness and of the avoidance of avoidable harm."

And, focusing in on no actual contexts at all, this is how a "serious philosopher" might construe it:

Harry Baird wrote:And so, what is it that all of these are getting at; what lies behind them? Simply put, that conscious beings can have both positive experiences of well-being, and negative experiences of harm and suffering, and that, given that - from an objective perspective - the experiences of all conscious beings are equally significant, it is obvious given what the words 'well-being', 'harm', 'suffering', and 'ought' actually mean that we ought to conduce to the former and to avoid causing the latter in our treatment of others.

From that understanding, various prescriptions and proscriptions follow that are objectively true in the sense in which I defined that term in this earlier post: true regardless of whether or not any mind is currently apprehending them, and regardless of whether or not any mind knows or even denies that they are true.

Okay, in regard to the issues that henry and I are discussing here...abortion, guns and transgender folks...how are your points here applicable?

From whose understanding of these issues? And what if others don't accept either your own definitions or your own prescriptions and proscriptions that follow from them?

Not to mention the part where I suggest that all of this is rooted existentially in dasein. After all, if the philosopher-kings really could define their words and then accumulate their behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions objectively, why, literally thousands of years after the birth of philosophy, are we still awash in conflicting goods? I quote "the news" for example.

henry quirk wrote: iam,

Don't forget: you have sumthin' of mine over in 'nihilism' to apply your script to!

Actually, it dawned on me that our exchange there had virtually nothing to do with a discussion of nihilism itself. And since your points were even further removed from having much to do with my points, I passed.

Though, sure, if you wish, bring anything you'd like from there here.

Bottom line [mine]: I haven't yet reached the point where my exchanges with you [as with those like IC] are construed by me to be largely "entertainment", but...but it really is getting rather tiresome reading things from you that in my own personal opinion amount to little more than you wiggling out of actually responding to the points I make.

Though, again, you are certainly able from your end to insist that it is really the other way around.

henry quirk wrote:Interesting how I can say: 'All I insist, quite rightfully, is: you, iam, are a free will. I insist you have an inalienable, natural right to your, and no other's, life, liberty, and property. I insist you know this down deep in your bones.'

And you always bring it back to "henry insisting that a God he took a "leap of faith" to planted in him an intuitive grasp of life, liberty and property".

Come on, henry, excluding solipsism, sim worlds, demonic dream worlds, the Matrix, etc., the human condition -- the either/or world -- does in fact exist. Now, you took your own leap of faith to the Deist God here, right? He created it. And above or elsewhere I recall you noting that your own intuitive sense of reality is of fundamental importance to you in deriving the logical arguments you believe regarding things like guns.

If this is not the case, please note specifically how you do connect the dots "for all practical purposes" between your value judgments regarding guns, your intuition, your reasoning mind and the Deist God. How does that work from day to day with respect to the behaviors you choose. Here presuming that we do live in a free will world.

Instead, as I construe it, you head straight back up into the general description intellectual contraption clouds:

henry quirk wrote:Yes, becuz natural rights (a man, any man, every man, any where or when, recognizes his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone) are omnipresent and unaltered by time or place or 'culture', I surmise there is a Creator. I haven't however, in any back & forth with you or anyone, relied on that surmising.

Then this part...

henry quirk wrote: In fact, I've said, multiple times, across multiple threads, this sense of self-possession might simply be 'brute fact'. It does not seem to me, however, it can be. It's utterly consistent among all. If mere survival trait, it seems to me, it could have and would have been bred out of us, somewhere, some when. But this is not the case. No one has every said 'it's right and proper I should be another's property or commodity'. I've asked for verifiable examples of such a thing, from you, from others, and I get nada.

A brute fact? Meaning that in a No God world and for reasons none of us can grasp going back to these questions...

Why something instead of nothing?
Why this something and not something else?
Where does the human condition fit into the whole understanding of this particular something itself?
What of solipsism, sim worlds, dream worlds, the Matrix?
What of the multiverse?

...the human condition just is? And without any intuition that God installed in you, you just "thought things through" and on your own simply concluded that in regard to the buying and the selling of weapons of mass destruction, your conclusions really do reflect the most rational and virtuous frame of mind?

And, in my view, what you get from myself and others are conflicting sets of assumptions -- rooted existentially in dasein from my own frame of mind -- regarding how "life, liberty and property" are to be properly understood.

Which, because they don't overlap completely with your own assumptions, you call "nada".

Whereas all of these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...would simply insist that it's their set of assumptions that you foolishly refuse to embrace.

henry quirk wrote: What you mean to say: I am lost. My head is muddled. I don't know where I am or where I'm going.

And what you always say is that "if you don't agree entirely with my own God-given ahistorical and acultural assessment of life, liberty and property then you are lost, you are muddled, you don't know where you are going." Heads you win, tails they lose.

henry quirk wrote: What's rather sad to me: you do agree that you are a free will, that your life, liberty, and property are yours. You live as though these things are true (becuz they are). You will not disavow and say 'I am a meat machine. My life, liberty, and property are not mine'. You, I believe, want to be meat with no moral claim to yourself; you know this is not possible. You are lost.

Yep, the "in one ear and out the other" syndrome.

Click.

I do not say that I am a free will. I say that given this...

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

...I have "here and now" taken my own existential leap of faith to determinism. Recognizing that I could have a new experience, form a new friendship and come into contact with new information and knowledge [here for example] that changes my mind. After all, some years ago over at ILP, I was defending free will against determinists like Volchok.

As for my views on life, liberty and property, I once garnered my convictions from the Christian Bible, then from the Unitarian Church, then from the Howard Roark Objectivists, then from the Marxist-Leninists tomes, then from the works of those like Michael Harrington, then from the existentialists, then from Supannika and the deconstructionists, then from the moral nihilists.

And, again, one of the benefits of roundly rejecting an arrogant, autocratic and authoritarian assessment of life, liberty and property as you do is that it liberates me...I'm not anchored as you are to a dogmatic orthodoxy that binds my every option to never, ever stepping off the One True Path.

henry quirk wrote: No. You rejecting yourself as free will and as having an exclusive moral claim to your life, liberty, and property has jailed you. You're caged, and, unlike Angelou's bird, you ain't singing.

Note to others:

See what I mean? "In his head" he no doubt really does believe that I'm the one in the cage here. When, in my view, he has locked himself morally and politically in a rebarred cell that he will never allow himself to escape from. Hell, he'll take his arrogant convictions regarding guns and weapons of mass destruction all the way to Ruby Ridge if necessary.

And, again, I was once like this myself. You anchor yourself to one or another political dogma. Then all of the folks you know who anchor themselves to same thing are always there to pounce on you if you dare to budge even an inch. "Traitor!" I was called time and again back in my own objectivist days.

henry quirk wrote: If man is a free will, with a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's, life, liberty, and property, then yes, you'll have to take your chances. To deprive one of property becuz you fear what he might do is immoral.

henry quirk wrote: If, however, we live in your morally vacant world, then all things are permitted.

Note to others:

I recognize the sheer futility of explaining this to henry, but, perhaps some of you might grasp my own distinction here more intelligently.

I don't have any capacity to demonstrate that we do in fact live in a morally vacant world. I merely presume that in a No God world there does not appear to be a scientific, philosophical, deontological, natural, etc., way in which to demonstrate an objective morality. And that very, very dangerous consequences can accumulate re either the sociopathic, "show me the money" moral nihilists or from the "my way or the highway" moral objectivists.

henry quirk wrote: Becuz we do not, as fact, live in a morally vacant world.

No, but, from time to time, we do live in a world where those like Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Ali Khamenei and Kim Jong Un and others...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... nstitution

...have seized power and went over to the other end of the political spectrum: my morality or else.

henry quirk wrote: None of these had a morality, they had only appetite.

Well, yes, it's certainly true that some of them embodied the amoral assumptions embedded in "might makes right". But others were very much attached to an ideological agenda. And they were keenly intent on creating a world where the "one of us" rational and virtuous folks rid the nation [if not the world] of all irrational and immoral -- if not outright sub-human -- "one of them" folks.

Dasein and World: Heidegger’s Reconceiving of the Transcendental After Husserl
Niall Keane

The following will offer an interpretation of Heidegger’s early work as deeply committed to reconceiving our relationship to the world and to things in the world in a manner that is bent on recovering our ‘worldliness’.

Yes, Heidegger is thought of by many to be an existentialist. Which it to say that the philosophical focus is more on "existence is prior to essence" than "essence is prior to existence."

And here "essence" can revolve around different things. For most it revolves around God and religion. But it can also revolve around a political ideology or a deontological philosophical assessment or a particular portrayal of Nature. In other words, we are expected to behave in accordance with one or another Holy Book. Or one or another Manifesto. Or one or another attachment to so-called "biological imperatives".

And, in my view, one can "recover their worldliness" only out in a particular world. But: given all of the widely conflicting assessments there have been over the centuries regarding the nature of the world itself, wouldn't one presume that the number one task facing philosophers is in determining whether, using the tools at their disposal, there either is or is not a "one size fits all" worldliness?

No, instead, the focus returns to what, from my frame of mind, is little more than intellectual gibberish...

I say this knowing full well that Heidegger is not advocating an ontology of individual things as bare entities or an understanding of the external world as a receptacle for such entities. It is argued that “Dasein’s openness to the world” corresponds to the phenomenon of world or worldliness and that nature is the other of world, or the “unworlded world” and yet understandable only on the basis of the worldliness. Thus, the open horizon of world, it will be argued, allows entities to be disclosed and held open by Dasein, as well as allowing Dasein to disclose itself and render the world more meaningful.

How does this not read as something one might expect from Alan Sokal?

Is anyone here willing to defend it as a collection of important points regarding Dasein? Well, if so, please note how they are applicable to your own interactions with others. And, in particular, interactions out in the phenomenal world in which conflicts might erupt regarding the consequences of actual behaviors.

Or how do you suppose Heidegger himself might have connected the dots between an assessment of this sort and, say, the Nazis?

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:28 am I am not sure to what extent this ["The moral nihilist"] includes iambiguous, because his position is too... ambiguous... to work out precisely.

It's now clear to me that you do explicitly identify as a moral nihilist.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 8:31 pm someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun".

Yes, apparently some might in fact do that, and when they do, their choice and behaviour are indisputably and objectively immoral.

The only way to argue otherwise is to redefine "moral", which, clearly, you've done.

Please, then, share your definition. It needn't be exact nor final; a provisional, working definition is fine to start with.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 7:02 am

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:28 am I am not sure to what extent this ["The moral nihilist"] includes iambiguous, because his position is too... ambiguous... to work out precisely.

It's now clear to me that you do explicitly identify as a moral nihilist.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 8:31 pm someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun".

Yes, apparently some might in fact do that, and when they do, their choice and behaviour are indisputably and objectively immoral.

That's it, Harry? That's all you've got to say regarding the points I raised above?

Hmm. Why don't you pretend that I am Alexis Jacobi and at least explore my points further up in the philosophical clouds.

"In your head" you are absolutely convinced that any behavior you personally find to be repugnant is indisputably and objectively immoral. And this is clearly demonstrated because you explicitly identify as a moral objectivist. You believe it. That makes it true.

And, of course, this shouldn't surprise anyone:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 7:02 amThe only way to argue otherwise is to redefine "moral", which, clearly, you've done.

Please, then, share your definition. It needn't be exact nor final; a provisional, working definition is fine to start with.

Morality? Let's define it into existence?!

Let's define a whole bunch of word and create fantastic formal constructs like Plato's or fantastic deontological constructs like Kant's.

Fantastic because everything eventually comes around to God, right? And that is still basically Immanuel Can's point, isn't it? No God, no Judgment Day. No God and no Judgment Day then, as the man once suggested "in the absence of God, all things are permitted".

And you and others being repelled by certain behaviors really doesn't change that at all. After all, how many members here would find it repugnant to live in a community where citizens were in fact permitted to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction? How many American women here find it repugnant that a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court has made it possible for some states to have them arrested for premeditated first degree murder if they choose to have an abortion?

Though if someday they are found guilty and sent to death row, many would not find it repugnant at all for the state to execute them.


Come on Mr. Baird, let's have a serious discussion about all of this. We can dispense with any huffing and puffing, respect each other's intelligence and sustain a civil discourse. You defending moral objectivism, me defending moral nihilism.

Well, "here and now", anyway.

The claim that something undefined doesn't exist (or isn't objective) isn't even coherent.

Yep, another one of these again...

ME:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 6:58 pm

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 7:02 am

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:28 am I am not sure to what extent this ["The moral nihilist"] includes iambiguous, because his position is too... ambiguous... to work out precisely.

It's now clear to me that you do explicitly identify as a moral nihilist.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 8:31 pm someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun".

Yes, apparently some might in fact do that, and when they do, their choice and behaviour are indisputably and objectively immoral.

That's it, Harry? That's all you've got to say regarding the points I raised above?

Hmm. Why don't you pretend that I am Alexis Jacobi and at least explore my points further up in the philosophical clouds.

"In your head" you are absolutely convinced that any behavior you personally find to be repugnant is indisputably and objectively immoral. And this is clearly demonstrated because you explicitly identify as a moral objectivist. You believe it. That makes it true.

And, of course, this shouldn't surprise anyone:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 7:02 amThe only way to argue otherwise is to redefine "moral", which, clearly, you've done.

Please, then, share your definition. It needn't be exact nor final; a provisional, working definition is fine to start with.

Morality? Let's define it into existence?!

Let's define a whole bunch of words and create fantastic formal constructs like Plato's or fantastic deontological constructs like Kant's.

Fantastic because everything eventually comes around to God, right? And that is still basically Immanuel Can's point, isn't it? No God, no Judgment Day. No God and no Judgment Day then, as a man once suggested "in the absence of God, all things are permitted".

And you and others being repelled by certain behaviors really doesn't change that at all. After all, how many members here would find it repugnant to live in a community where citizens were in fact permitted to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction? How many American women here find it repugnant that a Catholic majority on the Supreme Court has made it possible for some states to have them arrested for premeditated first degree murder if they choose to have an abortion?

Though if someday they are found guilty and sent to death row, many would not find it repugnant at all for the state to execute them.


Come on Mr. Baird, let's have a serious discussion about all of this. We can dispense with any huffing and puffing, respect each other's intelligence and sustain a civil discourse. You defending moral objectivism, me defending moral nihilism.

Well, "here and now", anyway.

HIM:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 4:56 am The claim that something undefined doesn't exist (or isn't objective) isn't even coherent.

And he's the one who suggested that I peruse his argument for objective morality on the Christianity thread.

I did. And reacted to it in a lengthy post above.

Which he basically ignored.

And now this post.




And what on Earth is he even noting here.

He wants to approach morality by way of definitions?

Well, hell, the dictionary definition works for me:

Moral: "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character"

Ethics: "Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that 'involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior."

Now, to the best of my own understanding, his definition of morality and ethics seems to revolve around insisting that if he finds a particular behavior repugnant then that makes it immoral and unethical.



And where am I making a claim here that something undefined doesn't exist or isn't objective?

Instead, I am asking him to take his own definition of morality and ethics and in regard to the things that henry and I are discussing here -- abortion, weapons of mass destruction and transgender politics -- defend the belief that an objective morality can be encompassed in regard to behaviors that he believes ought to be prescribed or proscribed.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:32 am Well, hell, the dictionary definition works for me:

Moral: "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character"

Good, we have an agreed definition. Now, here's my claim: that functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what "right" behaviour means is, roughly, "behaviour that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others".

So, if you don't agree with that functional definition, then please provide and justify your own.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:32 am Instead, I am asking him to take his own definition of morality and ethics and in regard to the things that henry and I are discussing here -- abortion, weapons of mass destruction and transgender politics -- defend the belief that an objective morality can be encompassed in regard to behaviors that he believes ought to be prescribed or proscribed.

I'm not going to pull up your weeds for you. Instead, I've offered you the chance to pick one and explain why it's even a weed in the first place. It was, though, a limited-time offer, and time is running out...

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:50 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:32 am Well, hell, the dictionary definition works for me:

Moral: "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character"

Good, we have an agreed definition. Now, here's my claim: that functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what "right" behaviour means is, roughly, "behaviour that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others".

Again, this is precisely the sort of assessment I'd expect you and those like AJ here to pursue up in the "general description philosophical clouds".

But what I imagine instead is taking those definitions and deductions out into the world of human interactions that come into conflict over things like abortion and guns and human sexuality. Okay, we agree that morality is "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character". We agree that "functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what right behavior means is, roughly, behavior that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others". Okay, but now we are outside of an abortion clinic where flesh and blood human beings on both sides of the issue are in a fierce confrontation over what is unfolding inside the clinic itself.

One side insisting that right behavior in sync with good character entails that the abortion clinic must be shut down. Meanwhile the other side insists that if the state is permitted to force women to give birth great harm and suffering can result with significant negative consequences for the only gender around that is actually able to get pregnant.

Whose "functional definition"? And out in the real world, how will legislating that definition impact the lives of either the unborn or the pregnant women?

My frame of mind here is "fractured and fragmented" in a No God world. As encompassed in the OP here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

And, given that I am drawn and quartered...able to accept the arguments from those on both side...the best of all possible world seems to be embedded in "moderation, negotiation and compromise" -- in Roe v. Wade -- where each side gets something but neither side gets it all.

Whereas the moral objectivists on both sides of the issue -- God and No God -- insist that all or nothing must prevail. They get it all, the other side gets nothing.

Same with the gun issue and with contexts revolving around human sexuality. Some are repulsed by one set of behaviors that the other side rejoices in.

Now, over on the Christianity thread, the moral objectivists like IC and his ilk not only insist that there is but one rational and virtuous resolution here, but they quote from the Scriptures to nail it down. Some adding that if others don't follow those moral Commandments, they will burn in Hell for all of eternity.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:32 am Instead, I am asking him to take his own definition of morality and ethics and in regard to the things that henry and I are discussing here -- abortion, weapons of mass destruction and transgender politics -- defend the belief that an objective morality can be encompassed in regard to behaviors that he believes ought to be prescribed or proscribed.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 5:50 amI'm not going to pull up your weeds for you. Instead, I've offered you the chance to pick one and explain why it's even a weed in the first place. It was, though, a limited-time offer, and time is running out...

From my frame of mind, simply unbelievable!

YOU:

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:53 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Just out of curiosity, please note the points that henry made above that you believe are worthy of a slow applause.

All of them.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Only, as I recall, you are not interested in exploring human morality other than up in the intellectual clouds with those like AJ.

At least with henry we do go back and forth exchanging our own assumptions regarding the moral parameters of such issues as abortion and guns.

How about you?

Special invitation; limited time offer; hurry, hurry; buy now:

If you think that one even exists, then pick an issue and explain how you think it falsifies my case for objective moral truth.

ME:

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 7:10 pm

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:53 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Just out of curiosity, please note the points that henry made above that you believe are worthy of a slow applause.

All of them.

Really? All of them? You agree that the manner in which henry defines the meaning of "life, liberty and property" transcends the historical era in which he lives? the culture he was born into? all of the uniquely personal experiences he had in being indoctrinated as a child and in accumulating as an adult?

His God-given intuitive mind is so sharp that he is able to figure out -- divinely? deontologically? -- the optimal, the "logical" manner in which to defend the buying and selling of weapons of mass destruction?

Slow clap there too?

And, if so, what do you make of all these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies

...insisting that, on the contrary, it's the manner in which they grasp the meaning of life, liberty and property that reflects the One True Path.

Slow boos for them?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 5:57 am Only, as I recall, you are not interested in exploring human morality other than up in the intellectual clouds with those like AJ.

At least with henry we do go back and forth exchanging our own assumptions regarding the moral parameters of such issues as abortion and guns.

How about you?

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 11:53 am Special invitation; limited time offer; hurry, hurry; buy now:

If you think that one even exists, then pick an issue and explain how you think it falsifies my case for objective moral truth.

Okay, I'll peruse it.

Then after reading your exchange with AJ, I responded...

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 8:31 pm

Harry Baird wrote: The moral nihilist[1]: "Morality doesn't mean anything, or doesn't have a referent, or at least is inapplicable." On this view, although we might personally deplore the brutal torture and slaughter of an innocent child for fun, we can't say that there is anything wrong with it. To any sane person, this is obviously untrue, and so, by reductio ad absurdum, moral nihilism is false.

Again and again and again: this moral nihilist -- "me" -- argues that in a No God world someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun". But suppose for reasons rooted existentially in the life that he lived, he became a sociopath. Or clinically his brain is all scrambled and he became a psychopath. Suppose he never gets caught.

So, your argument is that human sanity here in a No God world revolves around, what, a poll among the philosopher-kings?

I dealt with this [extreme behaviors] myself previously:

This comes closest to upending my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind. People tap me on the shoulder and ask "can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?"

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own "me, myself and I" self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn't it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font -- God -- to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different...for any number of reasons...I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

After all, do not the pro-life folks insist that abortion itself is no less a Holocaust inflicted on the unborn? And do not the pro-choice folks rationalize this behavior with their own subjective sets of assumptions.

Though, okay, if someone here is convinced they have in fact discovered the optimal reason why we should behave one way and not any other, let's explore that in a No God world.

What would be argued when confronting the Adolph Hitlers and the Ted Bundys and the 9/11 religious fanatics and the sociopaths among us. Arguments such that they would be convinced that the behaviors they choose are indeed inherently, necessarily immoral.

How would you reason with them?

Again, abortion here. Aren't there many who insist that abortion itself is the slaughter of innocent babies? Okay, but what about the arguments of those on the other side? That the real insanity is the state forcing women to give birth against their will?

Or how about henry arguing that given his own assessment of life, liberty and property, it is entirely sane for a community to permit its citizens to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction?

And...

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun May 28, 2023 8:50 pm

Harry Baird wrote: Me: "Act according to the principles of fairness and of the avoidance of avoidable harm."

And, focusing in on no actual contexts at all, this is how a "serious philosopher" might construe it:

Harry Baird wrote:And so, what is it that all of these are getting at; what lies behind them? Simply put, that conscious beings can have both positive experiences of well-being, and negative experiences of harm and suffering, and that, given that - from an objective perspective - the experiences of all conscious beings are equally significant, it is obvious given what the words 'well-being', 'harm', 'suffering', and 'ought' actually mean that we ought to conduce to the former and to avoid causing the latter in our treatment of others.

From that understanding, various prescriptions and proscriptions follow that are objectively true in the sense in which I defined that term in this earlier post: true regardless of whether or not any mind is currently apprehending them, and regardless of whether or not any mind knows or even denies that they are true.

Okay, in regard to the issues that henry and I are discussing here...abortion, guns and transgender folks...how are your points here applicable?

From whose understanding of these issues? And what if others don't accept either your own definitions or your own prescriptions and proscriptions that follow from them?

Not to mention the part where I suggest that all of this is rooted existentially in dasein. After all, if the philosopher-kings really could define their words and then accumulate their behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions objectively, why, literally thousands of years after the birth of philosophy, are we still awash in conflicting goods? I quote "the news" for example.

Then you actually have the gall to come here and talk about "weeds" being pulled!!! All the while simply ignoring the very points I have raised above.

Look, over at ILP this sort of "substanceless" posting is more or less to be expected now. It simply surprises me how much of it goes on here too.

Well, unless, of course, the "substance" being exchanged revolves around the sort "world of words" didactic/pedantic agendas that you and AJ sustain over on the other thread.

Christianity and "serious philosophy". Abortion and "serious philosophy".

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 11:46 pm We agree that "functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what right behavior means is, roughly, behavior that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others".

Do we? I don't think we actually do, because you contend that an act (the brutal torture and slaughter of an innocent child for fun) that causes an almost unimaginable negative experience - of harm and suffering - in another person is or can be morally permissible. Clearly, on this functional definition, it isn't and can't be.

So, apparently, you are working with a very different functional definition.

Here's the functional definition of "right" behaviour that it seems to me you're working with:

"Relative to a given person, behaviour which that person can justify on terms of that person's choosing."

Does that seem at least roughly accurate? If not, then how would you amend it?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 11:46 pm But what I imagine instead is taking those definitions and deductions out into the world of human interactions that come into conflict over things like abortion and guns and human sexuality.

I'm very, very aware of that: it's your shtuck. You, I believe - because I've told you from the start - are also very, very aware that I'm not interested in doing that. I have, though, in the course of "getting dragged into the moral debate" via a separate conversation, outlined in detail and quite carefully a defence of moral objectivism against the sort of objections that you raise based on the existence of such real-world conflicts.

I've invited you - for a limited time only - to choose the real-world issue that you think best defeats my defence, and to explain how and why it defeats it.

Note that this takes more than blithely referencing a real-world issue and saying, "There, that proves it. Your defence fails".

If you make a genuine attempt at explaining how my defence of moral objectivism fails in a given real-world scenario, then, despite that I have from the start not been interested in getting into the weeds with you, I will go there. But it has to be a genuine, thoughtful attempt.

Ball's in your court...

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 11:46 pm We agree that "functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what right behavior means is, roughly, behavior that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others".

Just for the record...

I didn't post this...you did.

And I responded to it as follows...

Again, this is precisely the sort of assessment I'd expect you and those like AJ here to pursue up in the "general description philosophical clouds".

But what I imagine instead is taking those definitions and deductions out into the world of human interactions that come into conflict over things like abortion and guns and human sexuality. Okay, we agree that morality is "concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character". We agree that "functionally, in terms of that definition - and regardless of the specific moral framework - what right behavior means is, roughly, behavior that conduces to the avoidance of negative experiences - harm and suffering - in others". Okay, but now we are outside of an abortion clinic where flesh and blood human beings on both sides of the issue are in a fierce confrontation over what is unfolding inside the clinic itself.

One side insisting that right behavior in sync with good character entails that the abortion clinic must be shut down. Meanwhile the other side insists that if the state is permitted to force women to give birth great harm and suffering can result with significant negative consequences for the only gender around that is actually able to get pregnant.

Whose "functional definition"? And out in the real world, how will legislating that definition impact the lives of either the unborn or the pregnant women?

My frame of mind here is "fractured and fragmented" in a No God world. As encompassed in the OP here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121

And, given that I am drawn and quartered...able to accept the arguments from those on both side...the best of all possible world seems to be embedded in "moderation, negotiation and compromise" -- in Roe v. Wade -- where each side gets something but neither side gets it all.

Whereas the moral objectivists on both sides of the issue -- God and No God -- insist that all or nothing must prevail. They get it all, the other side gets nothing.

Same with the gun issue and with contexts revolving around human sexuality. Some are repulsed by one set of behaviors that the other side rejoices in.

Now, over on the Christianity thread, the moral objectivists like IC and his ilk not only insist that there is but one rational and virtuous resolution here, but they quote from the Scriptures to nail it down. Some adding that if others don't follow those moral Commandments, they will burn in Hell for all of eternity.

So, what are you doing, Harry, critiquing yourself?

Harry Baird wrote:Do we? I don't think we actually do, because you contend that an act (the brutal torture and slaughter of an innocent child for fun) that causes an almost unimaginable negative experience - of harm and suffering - in another person is or can be morally permissible. Clearly, on this functional definition, it isn't and can't be.

Sigh...

Again, I responded to this above:

....this moral nihilist -- "me" -- argues that in a No God world someone might in fact torture and slaughter a child "for fun". But suppose for reasons rooted existentially in the life that he lived, he became a sociopath. Or clinically his brain is all scrambled and he became a psychopath. Suppose he never gets caught.

So, your argument is that human sanity here in a No God world revolves around, what, a poll among the philosopher-kings?

I dealt with this [extreme behaviors] myself previously:

This comes closest to upending my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind. People tap me on the shoulder and ask "can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?"

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own "me, myself and I" self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn't it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font -- God -- to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different...for any number of reasons...I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

After all, do not the pro-life folks insist that abortion itself is no less a Holocaust inflicted on the unborn? And do not the pro-choice folks rationalize this behavior with their own subjective sets of assumptions.

Though, okay, if someone here is convinced they have in fact discovered the optimal reason why we should behave one way and not any other, let's explore that in a No God world.

What would be argued when confronting the Adolph Hitlers and the Ted Bundys and the 9/11 religious fanatics and the sociopaths among us. Arguments such that they would be convinced that the behaviors they choose are indeed inherently, necessarily immoral.

How would you reason with them?

You simply ignore my points here [again] and are back to arguing that because you "just know" that certain behaviors are repugnant to you personally "in your head" that makes them immoral. That, in my view, "for all practical purposes" [as much as you are loath to go there] is your "moral philosophy" in a nutshell!

Same here. I note...

Again, abortion here. Aren't there many who insist that abortion itself is the slaughter of innocent babies? Okay, but what about the arguments of those on the other side? That the real insanity is the state forcing women to give birth against their will?

Or how about henry arguing that given his own assessment of life, liberty and property, it is entirely sane for a community to permit its citizens to buy and sell weapons of mass destruction?

You have nothing to say here. Instead, it's straight back up into the intellectual clouds...

Harry Baird wrote:So, apparently, you are working with a very different functional definition.

Here's the functional definition of "right" behaviour that it seems to me you're working with:

"Relative to a given person, behaviour which that person can justify on terms of that person's choosing."

Does that seem at least roughly accurate? If not, then how would you amend it?

As though I were AJ!!!

iambiguous wrote: ↑Tue May 30, 2023 11:46 pm But what I imagine instead is taking those definitions and deductions out into the world of human interactions that come into conflict over things like abortion and guns and human sexuality.

Harry Baird wrote:I'm very, very aware of that: it's your shtuck. You, I believe - because I've told you from the start - are also very, very aware that I'm not interested in doing that.

Again, simply unbelievable!!! You seem actually convinced that to the extent one takes their definitions and deductions down out of the didactic intellectual clouds, they are not really doing philosophy at all. They're what...anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists?

Fine, steer clear of my posts then. There are, after all, plenty of "serious philosophers" here who will be happy to stay up on the technical skyhooks with you. Even when the discussions do come around to human morality given the world that we actually live in.

Or, as I note from time to time...

In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company...he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him...He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist.

Will Durant

Harry Baird wrote:I have, though, in the course of "getting dragged into the moral debate" via a separate conversation, outlined in detail and quite carefully a defence of moral objectivism against the sort of objections that you raise based on the existence of such real-world conflicts.

Note to others:

What do you think...a "condition"? Or are the "analytic philosophers" among us so obsessed with their "disciplined" technical jargon -- cant? -- that nothing is deemed further removed from serious philosophy than the actual existential interactions embedded in the actual lived lives of human beings socially, politically and economically.





Anyway Harry, you are a complete waste of my time. As I am of yours. Go back to AJ and IC and the rest of the "world of words" ilk here.

By and large, I see you as basically a pedant. I picture you posting your philosophically deep, intellectually sophisticated technical outbursts and then sitting back...imagining how impressed others must be at the sheer profundity of your scholarly "contributions".

Especially the "philosophy chicks", right?