Philosophy Now Forum

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:55 pm I think there's another problem.

...

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 7:41 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 7:41 am Elsewhere, VA offers this gem.

'Here is one argument [among others] demonstrating why philosophical realism is unrealistic.

1. Reality as a WHOLE is all-there-is.

2. A part cannot be independent of its Whole.

3. Humans [body, brain and mind] are intricately part and parcel of reality.

4. Thus, reality cannot be independent of Humans [body, brain and mind].'

Can anyone spot the flaw?

Yep. I quoted it whole. IWP has pointed out the equivocation on 'dependence' - but that's another lost cause.

'Human beings are part of reality; therefore, reality cannot be independent from human beings.'

Where to begin? Tinkering's no good. What's needed is complete disassembly, a steam clean, and reconstruction from the start. Which ain't gonna happen.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:16 pm Elsewhere, the old fallacy has come around again.

Factual premise: Through our history, humans have generally thought X is morally right and Y is morally wrong.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, X is morally right and Y is morally wrong.

For many values of X and Y, the premise is false - so the argument is unsound.
But even if the premise were true, it doesn't entail the conclusion - so the argument is invalid.

VA's version of the non sequitur fallacy is this:

Factual premise: Humans are neurologically programmed to think that, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.

But the following argument, with a rational and evidenced premise, is also invalid.

Factual premise: For reasons to do with individual and group survival and progress, humans have developed moral values and codes which have many features in common, and which developed from the proto-morality evident in many other social species - not just the higher primates - which often include fairness and reciprocity, punishment for 'anti-social behaviour,' including group exclusion, and even self-sacrifice for the group.

Moral conclusion: Therefore, socially acceptable actions are morally right, and unacceptable actions are morally wrong.

Non-moral premises - even true ones - can't entail moral conclusions.

• 1. I do not define 'morality' in terms of morally right or wrong. That belong to pseudo-morality not morality-proper.
  
  2. I have argued what is moral fact MUST be empirically verified and justified [scientifically or via other credible FSK] and is inputted into the moral FSK which enable moral facts to emerge to be used as moral standards which must not be enforced.
  Since they are not to be enforced, there is no question of right or wrong in this case.
  Rather there are moral gaps and deviations from the moral standards which trigger the necessity for continuous improvements toward the moral standards.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 7:27 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:16 pm Elsewhere, the old fallacy has come around again.

Factual premise: Through our history, humans have generally thought X is morally right and Y is morally wrong.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, X is morally right and Y is morally wrong.

For many values of X and Y, the premise is false - so the argument is unsound.
But even if the premise were true, it doesn't entail the conclusion - so the argument is invalid.

VA's version of the non sequitur fallacy is this:

Factual premise: Humans are neurologically programmed to think that, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.

But the following argument, with a rational and evidenced premise, is also invalid.

Factual premise: For reasons to do with individual and group survival and progress, humans have developed moral values and codes which have many features in common, and which developed from the proto-morality evident in many other social species - not just the higher primates - which often include fairness and reciprocity, punishment for 'anti-social behaviour,' including group exclusion, and even self-sacrifice for the group.

Moral conclusion: Therefore, socially acceptable actions are morally right, and unacceptable actions are morally wrong.

Non-moral premises - even true ones - can't entail moral conclusions.

Your whole argument is based on philosophical realism [mind-independence] which is grounded on an illusion.
As such any view that do not match your illusion is flawed; but you are so ignorant your grounds are illusory, thus no credibility to judge the views of others whether they are real or not.

In addition, you keep strawmaning my position of what is morality-proper;
viewtopic.php?t=35464

• 1. I do not define 'morality' in terms of morally right or wrong. That belong to pseudo-morality not morality-proper.
  
  2. I have argued what is moral fact MUST be empirically verified and justified [scientifically or via other credible FSK] and is inputted into the moral FSK which enable moral facts to emerge to be used as moral standards which must not be enforced.
  Since they are not to be enforced, there is no question of right or wrong in this case.
  Rather there are moral gaps and deviations from the moral standards which trigger the necessity for continuous improvements toward the moral standards.

Therefore your above argument is baseless.
Try represent your argument properly.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:34 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:55 pm

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 12:16 pm VA's version of the non sequitur fallacy is this:

Factual premise: Humans are neurologically programmed to think that, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.

I think there's another problem.
Let's take the 'oughtness-not-to-kill-humans' neurology.
At this current time, 2023, humans have a neurological set-up. Let's grant there is an 'oughtness not to kill humans'. He has been critical of current humans, seeing most as primitive, except for a few. Clearly since neurology leads to behavior, there are others oughtnesses that conflict with 'oughtness not to kill humans' neurological patterns.

So, we have current brains with whatever ratio or prioritizations of oughtnesses not to kill and oughtnesses to kill or be violent.

He purports to draw his morality out of human neurology. If he is drawing morality out of human brains, well, there they are, as they are now, with a mix. If neurology shows objective moral facts, then the objective moral facts are we generally do not kill other humans, but sometimes some of us do.

Thus the objective moral fact is that we should have the current mix.

If that is the source of objectivity, well, they we have to accept the lay of the land.

But VA does not accept the lay of the land.

He wants us to enhance one oughtness. He thinks we should. The oughtness not to kill should have more dominance in neurology.

SO...he has some other source of objectivity that allow him to say, no those neurological patterns are bad and this one, that I like is good.

So, even granting

Factual premise: Humans are neurologically programmed to think that, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.
Moral conclusion: Therefore, morally, X is right/good and Y is wrong/bad.

Let's say this is all correct. This does not allow him to morally judge most current humans, which he does, and also implicitly current human neurological patterns.

He either has no grounds to do this OR he has some objective grounds which he still does not reveal.

I think he just thinks it's obvious, since he has never justified on what grounds he uses neuronal patterns as the source of objective morality, but does not, at the same, time accept current neurological pattern ratios and priorities in current brains.

All agreed - and that's an interesting angle. Thanks.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 8:23 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:34 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 1:55 pm
I think there's another problem.
Let's take the 'oughtness-not-to-kill-humans' neurology.
At this current time, 2023, humans have a neurological set-up. Let's grant there is an 'oughtness not to kill humans'. He has been critical of current humans, seeing most as primitive, except for a few. Clearly since neurology leads to behavior, there are others oughtnesses that conflict with 'oughtness not to kill humans' neurological patterns.

So, we have current brains with whatever ratio or prioritizations of oughtnesses not to kill and oughtnesses to kill or be violent.

He purports to draw his morality out of human neurology. If he is drawing morality out of human brains, well, there they are, as they are now, with a mix. If neurology shows objective moral facts, then the objective moral facts are we generally do not kill other humans, but sometimes some of us do.

Thus the objective moral fact is that we should have the current mix.

If that is the source of objectivity, well, they we have to accept the lay of the land.

But VA does not accept the lay of the land.

He wants us to enhance one oughtness. He thinks we should. The oughtness not to kill should have more dominance in neurology.

SO...he has some other source of objectivity that allow him to say, no those neurological patterns are bad and this one, that I like is good.

So, even granting


Let's say this is all correct. This does not allow him to morally judge most current humans, which he does, and also implicitly current human neurological patterns.

He either has no grounds to do this OR he has some objective grounds which he still does not reveal.

I think he just thinks it's obvious, since he has never justified on what grounds he uses neuronal patterns as the source of objective morality, but does not, at the same, time accept current neurological pattern ratios and priorities in current brains.

All agreed - and that's an interesting angle. Thanks.

You ignorantly agreed to the above without a proper understanding of the real human-based FSK facts???

First anything to do with morality related to right or wrong strictly is a strawman.

Note this neuroscience-FSK-Fact,
The brain has appx. 100 billion neurons, each with up to 10,000 synapse connectors with the potential and actual permutations of neural combinations.
There are load of neural functions [1K, 10K or 100K?] represented by their specific neural combinations.

Although all the functions are interconnected within the whole brain and body, they are dealt separately within specific human-based scientific FSKs, e.g. primal instincts for survival, food, fight, flight, sex, intellect, social, senses, etc. and morality.

As generally practiced in modern times, each neuro-function is primarily studied as a specialist subject independent of other neuro-functions and other functions are only brought where is is critical.
On a secondary basis, various primary functions may be grouped together as a subject, example neuro-this or that.

I had argued, morality-proper is a primary function of the brain independent of all other functions, e.g. food, sex, fight, intellect, etc.
At a secondary level, morality may be combined with other neural-functions.

The oughtness-not-to-kill-humans belong primarily to morality-proper and its specific physical neural referent in the brain. The moral function is innate but recent emergence within humans since 2 million [higher primates] to 200k [homo-sapiens] ago.

That humans killed other humans is not primarily a moral function, but related to the 'fight' or kill or be killed function which is a primal instinct. This innate function is inherited as necessary since billions of years ago.

The to-kill function [>3 billion years old] is still critical for human survival so they can kill animals for food, but to avoid some lack-of-control evil people from driven by the kill function to kill humans, the moral function ought-not-to-kill-humans [200K years old].

In this sense, we cannot conflate [combine] the to-kill instinct with the ought-not-to-kill-humans of morality-proper.
While they are both human-based neural facts, they are distinct neural functions.
The 'to kill' instinct abused to kill humans is a separate neural activity; it is a primary function as primal instincts and the subject of neural evil_ness; it is not a primary function of morality proper per se.

The main function of morality-proper is to modulate the 'to kill' instinct so that it is not directed at humans.
At present, the morality-proper neural modulator [the objective moral fact -physical sets of neurons] in the majority of humans are weak and under-developed; this is reason why so many humans had been killed by humans since the early on to the present.

How can we make moral improvements and progress if we deny [like PH & gang] the existence of morality-proper neural modulator [the objective moral fact -physical sets of neurons] in the human brain.

Philosophical Realism is A Hindrance & Threat to Humanity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40094

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 9:42 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 8:23 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 2:34 pm
All agreed - and that's an interesting angle. Thanks.

You ignorantly agreed to the above without a proper understanding of the real human-based FSK facts???

First anything to do with morality related to right or wrong strictly is a strawman.

Note this neuroscience-FSK-Fact,
The brain has appx. 100 billion neurons, each with up to 10,000 synapse connectors with the potential and actual permutations of neural combinations.
There are load of neural functions [1K, 10K or 100K?] represented by their specific neural combinations.

Although all the functions are interconnected within the whole brain and body, they are dealt separately within specific human-based scientific FSKs, e.g. primal instincts for survival, food, fight, flight, sex, intellect, social, senses, etc. and morality.

As generally practiced in modern times, each neuro-function is primarily studied as a specialist subject independent of other neuro-functions and other functions are only brought where is is critical.
On a secondary basis, various primary functions may be grouped together as a subject, example neuro-this or that.

I had argued, morality-proper is a primary function of the brain independent of all other functions, e.g. food, sex, fight, intellect, etc.
At a secondary level, morality may be combined with other neural-functions.

The oughtness-not-to-kill-humans belong primarily to morality-proper and its specific physical neural referent in the brain. The moral function is innate but recent emergence within humans since 2 million [higher primates] to 200k [homo-sapiens] ago.

That humans killed other humans is not primarily a moral function, but related to the 'fight' or kill or be killed function which is a primal instinct. This innate function is inherited as necessary since billions of years ago.

The to-kill function [>3 billion years old] is still critical for human survival so they can kill animals for food, but to avoid some lack-of-control evil people from driven by the kill function to kill humans, the moral function ought-not-to-kill-humans [200K years old].

In this sense, we cannot conflate [combine] the to-kill instinct with the ought-not-to-kill-humans of morality-proper.
While they are both human-based neural facts, they are distinct neural functions.
The 'to kill' instinct abused to kill humans is a separate neural activity; it is a primary function as primal instincts and the subject of neural evil_ness; it is not a primary function of morality proper per se.

The main function of morality-proper is to modulate the 'to kill' instinct so that it is not directed at humans.
At present, the morality-proper neural modulator [the objective moral fact -physical sets of neurons] in the majority of humans are weak and under-developed; this is reason why so many humans had been killed by humans since the early on to the present.

How can we make moral improvements and progress if we deny [like PH & gang] the existence of morality-proper neural modulator [the objective moral fact -physical sets of neurons] in the human brain.

Philosophical Realism is A Hindrance & Threat to Humanity
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40094

None of these facts about human neurology and instincts has any bearing on morality. Factual premises can't entail moral conclusions.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:02 pm And VA knows this damn well - hence the emphasis on the credibility and reliability of the natural sciences - on the falsifiability of natural science assertions - and the rational dismissal of religious supernaturalism. Theology isn't a 'framework and system of knowledge' of or about anything but invented gods, evidence for the existence of which there's none whatsoever, to my knowledge.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Jun 23, 2023 4:27 pm Thanks, IWP. I think the following is VA's model of morality.

1 Morality-proper is about avoiding evil and promoting the good. That we ought to avoid evil and promote the good is a matter of fact, and therefore objective.

(This is false. That we ought to do or not do anything is a matter of opinion, which is subjective. And anyway, there's no such thing as morality-proper. VA invented this in order to try to by-pass the subjectivity of morality, which is impossible.)

2 Something is evil if it is 'to the net detriment of an individual and society'. What constitutes 'detriment' is a matter of fact, and therefore objective.

(This is false. What constitutes a detriment and a benefit is a matter of opinion, which is subjective.)

3 Vernacular morality is about the moral rightness and wrongness of behaviour, which is a matter of opinion, and therefore subjective.

(Most people think morality is about the moral rightness and wrongness of behaviour, which is the dictionary definition. VA's comedy 'morality-proper' is a joke.)

4 What we call a fact exists within - or is 'conditioned upon' - a 'human-based framework and system of knowledge.'

(This is false. Yes, a factual description - and therefore a truth-claim - is always contextual and conventional. But a description is not the described. And the described in this context is what we call a fact - a feature of reality that is or was the case - which has nothing to do with knowledge or description.)

5 Any 'human-based framework and system of knowledge' can produce facts. Therefore, a morality framework and system of knowledge - inputted with non-moral facts - can produce moral facts. Therefore there can be moral facts. Therefore, morality is objective.

(This is false - and laughably so - at every stage. To maintain this argument is to have no idea how logical validity and soundness work. Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. Moral conclusions (moral assertions) stand alone, unless they follow from moral premises.)

In fact, VA's moral theory, like any other, begins with moral premises which are assumed and ignored. Then VA argues invalidly from non-moral (in this case, scientific/factual) premises to moral conclusions - thereby pretending that the moral conclusions are factual - so that morality is objective.

But VA is incapable of understanding this analysis, let alone recognising that even some of it is correct. All we'll get in response is bluster, abuse, an intonation of the mantra, and intellectual blockage.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 6:10 am and I happen to think that, pending evidence, belief that non-physical things exist somewhere, somehow, is irrational.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 25, 2023 6:10 am Elsewhere, VA quotes this definition of philosophical realism:

'Philosophical realism...is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.'

It seems to me it's rational to believe that many things - such as the universe - exist independently from human beings. And it seems to me it's weird to believe that nothing exists independently from human beings.

If you stick your head up out of the philosophical rabbit hole for a gulp of the fresh air that civilians breathe, the intellectual contortion required to reach the conclusion that reality depends on human beings is immediately evident. Little wonder normals think we're oddballs.

Exactly which kinds of things so exist is a separate question - and I happen to think that, pending evidence, belief that non-physical things exist somewhere, somehow, is irrational.