Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

Trade doesn't lead to greed; greed comes out of the hearts of men.

It works both ways. Trade and advertising creates desires and needs that would not other wise exist.
No one needed Bill Gates in the 1970s. There was no need or desire for wearable tech until these things were pushed on the public. Now you are working at a severe disadvantage if you do not have a smart phone. Suh things that were non existent in our lives a generation ago, and now thought of as basic necessities.

And monopoly power undermines the notion of consensual trade. Who would object to Bill Gates if his products competed with others on their merits ?

[NewToThinkingGuy]

You are correct that the reference something is invalid. As an aspect for consideration that cannot be valued, it cannot be said to be a thing.

The nature of a value judgement requires 'good (per se)' or 'truth' to be of substance a priori. When one values, one does not choose between good and bad but one values solely on behalf of what can be considered 'good'.

Is there not a subtle difference between the following two takes:

- One values solely on behalf of what can be considered 'good'.
- One values solely on behalf of what one considered 'good'.

The first opens the possibility that what can be considered 'good' may be independent of the one. Whereas I would argue that what can be considered 'good' is entirely dependant on the one, and hence is clearly not absolute as a different one may have a different valuation of 'good'.

[Pattern-chaser]

The nature of a value judgement requires 'good (per se)' or 'truth' to be of substance a priori.

Er, no, it doesn't. If it was as you say, then there would - or at least could - be truths that are both eternal and objective. And that does not fit the empirical evidence.

[CIN]

In my point e., what I meant by 'should be treated equally' was 'should be treated equally as moral ends'. I don't think it is morally defensible to treat beings one is not married to or who are not one's children or friends less as moral ends than one's wife, children or friends. One should try to treat everyone equally as a moral end; but as I've just said, one is in a much better position to understand what that requires and therefore do it well with people one is close to.

So if someone to whom you are not married wants to have sex with you, you should go for it? After all, denying her would be treating her "unequally".

No, that's not what I mean by treating equally. Treating equally means treating all sentient beings, including yourself, as moral ends, which in my view means maximising net pleasantness for everyone. In practice that isn't achievable, but it's what we should be aiming for. That doesn't translate into giving exactly the same gross treatment to everyone. If Bill likes chocolate cake and Fred doesn't, it wouldn't be treating them equally, on my definition, to give them both chocolate cake. If Fred likes jam sponge, you can get closer to equality by giving him jam sponge and saving the chocolate cake for Bill.

So in deciding whether to have sex with another woman, you need to ask what would tend to maximise net pleasantness for everyone affected. In practice that means considering long-term effects, such as what will happen to your kids if your wife decides to leave you when she finds out you've cheated on her. If you don't have kids, there's still an asymmetry between the effect on your wife and the effect on you and the other woman; and possibly - probably, even - the net unpleasantness for your wife outweighs the pleasantness for you and the other woman. I'm not an expert on these things, but from what little I've seen and heard, I think marital infidelity usually causes more net unpleasantness than marital fidelity. But I imagine it isn't always so, so it's each person's responsibility to try and work it out in their own case.

Honor suggests we have certain duties to out spouses and children.

Googling 'honour' throws up two quite different definitions:
1. high respect; great esteem
2. the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right.
I've explained what I think counts as honour in the second sense, it's treating all sentient beings as moral ends and acting accordingly. Honour in the first sense is not morally relevant.

If we treat all children "equally" the resources (financial and emotional) remaining for our own children would be (to say the least) limited.

Not if every other parent did the same.

In practice, though, most people treat their own children well and ignore other people's. So if your children are not to starve, you'd better do the same as they do. In theory you could take in some other unwanted kids instead and throw yours out on the street, but because you're genetically programmed to love your kids, you'd probably end up so miserable and racked with guilt that you wouldn't look after your new kids properly - plus, of course, your own net unpleasantness level would be rock bottom. So, for reasons to do with human genetic and societal programming, your best way of helping to make sure that all children are equally looked after, and net pleasantness is as far as possible maximised, is usually to follow the herd and do what everyone else does.

I'm a hedonistic ethical naturalist. I think there are moral truths which hold in any world that contains beings that experience un/pleasantness. I think 'any world' qualifies these truths as eternal.

"Pleasantness" seems a faint goal on which to base one's philosophy. What about "joy"? Or "ecstacy"?

I don't know much about joy or ecstasy, but I assume that they are both states of mind that are extremely pleasant, and that this is why they are valued more than less intense forms of pleasantness, which fits in very well with my theory. I think the mistake you are making is to suppose that joy and ecstasy are qualitatively different or different in kind from e.g. the pleasantness of eating an ice cream or listening to Bach. But this doesn't seem to me to make sense: there can only be one kind of pleasantness, and only one kind of unpleasantness, and the difference between the pleasantness of eating an ice cream and the pleasantness of joy or ecctasy is merely quantitative, not qualitative.

[Ecurb]

I don't know much about joy or ecstasy, but I assume that they are both states of mind that are extremely pleasant, and that this is why they are valued more than less intense forms of pleasantness, which fits in very well with my theory. I think the mistake you are making is to suppose that joy and ecstasy are qualitatively different or different in kind from e.g. the pleasantness of eating an ice cream or listening to Bach. But this doesn't seem to me to make sense: there can only be one kind of pleasantness, and only one kind of unpleasantness, and the difference between the pleasantness of eating an ice cream and the pleasantness of joy or ecctasy is merely quantitative, not qualitative.

Incorrect. Eating ice cream is a minor, sensual pleasure. Joy and ecstacy involve spiritual pleasures. Indeed, joy and ecstacy are often unpleasant. They can be disturbing. St. Francis's stigmata was decidedly "unpleasant". Watching TV or eating ice cream is "pleasant". Falling in love is ecstatic, but often unpleasant, especially if the love is unrequited. The much discussed "human condition" is such that ecstacy is often (always?) a prelude to tragedy, which is unpleasant.

Your philosophy of pleasantness is plodding and dull. I disavow it utterly.

Honor (as I was using the word) involves (among other things) keeping promises, however much such promise-keeping may be "unpleasant".

[psyreporter]

The nature of a value judgement requires 'good (per se)' or 'truth' to be of substance a priori.

Er, no, it doesn't. If it was as you say, then there would - or at least could - be truths that are both eternal and objective. And that does not fit the empirical evidence.

Truth and (the origin of) morality is neither subjective or objective. A value judgement is subjective, the origin of the potential for valuing is not.

By simple logic the origin of valuing cannot be valued and thus 'good (per se)' or truth as origin of valuing cannot be valued and equally it cannot be subjective while in the same time it cannot be said to be meaningless.

Truth and (the origin of) morality has its own class (neither subjective or objective) that resides outside the scope of empirical value (the foundation of scientific evidence).

Since what cannot be valued while it is to be considered meaningful cannot consist of a pattern (i.e. it resides outside the scope of empirical value), an alternative reference for what is indicated with truth or 'good (per se)' would be 'pure meaning'.

An indication that a class outside the scope of empirical value exists (neither subjective or objective) is the fact that science has been unable as of today to explain consciousness (meaningful experience).

The inability to capture meaningful experience (conscious experience) within the scope of empirical value (the foundation of scientific evidence) causes incompatibility with what science deems valid. Therefore it is an ideal of science to abolish morality.

The problem is addressed in the philosophical zombie theory.

(2022) The philosopher’s zombie: What can the zombie argument say about human consciousness?
The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: science can’t explain consciousness.
Source: https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-the-zom ... sciousness

In science the inability to define the meaning of life has resulted in an ideal to abolish morality.

(2018) Immoral advances: Is science out of control?
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.
Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... f-control/

When it concerns morality, it concerns aspects related to meaningful experience which derives it's substance from what is indicated with truth or 'good (per se)' or pure meaning (a class outside the scope of empirical value and thus neither subjective or objective in nature).

[psyreporter]

You are correct that the reference something is invalid. As an aspect for consideration that cannot be valued, it cannot be said to be a thing.

The nature of a value judgement requires 'good (per se)' or 'truth' to be of substance a priori. When one values, one does not choose between good and bad but one values solely on behalf of what can be considered 'good'.

Is there not a subtle difference between the following two takes:

- One values solely on behalf of what can be considered 'good'.
- One values solely on behalf of what one considered 'good'.

The first opens the possibility that what can be considered 'good' may be independent of the one. Whereas I would argue that what can be considered 'good' is entirely dependant on the one, and hence is clearly not absolute as a different one may have a different valuation of 'good'.

The indicated good that is subjective is a value judgement or ethical notion and belongs to ethics.

To display an indication of the difference, philosopher Bertrand Russell was opposed ethical claims (subjective value judgements) because, in his view, such claims result in violence. (someone's 'good' may differ from that of another).

(2020) The politics of logic - Philosophy at war: nationalism and logical analysis
Russell told one colleague that the talk (On Scientific Method in Philosophy, Oxford) ‘was partly inspired by disgust at the universal outburst of “righteousness” in all nations since the war began. It seems the essence of virtue is persecution, and it has given me a disgust of all ethical notions.
...
In private, Russell referred to the essay as ‘Philosophers and Pigs’.
...
Russell’s antiwar protest was so extensive that it would cost him both his job and, for a time, his personal freedom. His theoretical antidote to the irrational, sectarian vitriol between European nations was to try to show how logic could function as an international language that could be used impartially and dispassionately to adjudicate disputes. His theoretical antidote was, in other words, analytic philosophy.

‘The truth, whatever it may be, is the same in England, France, and Germany … it is in its essence neutral’
https://aeon.co/essays/philosophy-at-wa ... l-analysis

Truth = "meaning before value" or 'good' = origin of morality.

The indicated good that is the origin of morality (the fundamental nature of morality) would be of a different nature than a subjective value judgement and can be referenced as 'good per se' (good that cannot be valued) or truth. Since 'good per se' cannot be valued, it cannot be objective (nor subjective).

Aristotle considers a state of philosophical contemplation (eudaimonia) the greatest virtue (highest human good). It is a strive to serve life: the discovery of "good" from which value follows. It would be an everlasting quest and thus philosophy (morality) would have no end and would advance into infinity.

To return to your notions:

- One values solely on behalf of what can be considered 'good'.

The idea "what can be considered 'good'" indicates an open quest. By posing an attempt to achieve accuracy on behalf of the question 'What is 'good'?" one achieves a state of philosophical contemplation (Aristotle's eudaimonia) and performs what can be named morality.

- One values solely on behalf of what one considered 'good'.

What one (an individual self or a group of people) considers 'good' is a value judgement and belongs to ethics. One can make a theoretical case that such a value judgement is moral, but other than that it isn't morality itself. Making a case that a value judgement is moral, would be morality.

[Good_Egg]

If Bill likes chocolate cake and Fred doesn't, it wouldn't be treating them equally, on my definition, to give them both chocolate cake. If Fred likes jam sponge, you can get closer to equality by giving him jam sponge and saving the chocolate cake for Bill.

What do you say to the sort of person who insists that if they're dishing out the cake then it's their sense of justice that should prevail ? (Which might mean that everyone gets flapjack which nobody likes much ?)

The more general issue is when there's one portion of jam sponge and one of chocolate cake, and both Fred and Bill prefer chocolate cake. (In this example you can cut both portions in half and let both of them share both, but some experiences are not divisible in this way). How do you avoid giving the chocolate cake to whoever most exaggerates their preference for it ?

[psyreporter]

psyreporter wrote:

For valuing (assignment of value) to be possible, something is required and that something provides morality with substance (meaning). That something cannot be objective since then it would need to have been valued, which is a logical impossibility.

The subjective benefits of religion are political in the wider sense of binding people together in cooperative groups. Cooperative grouping pertains to all living things and is therefore biological, and so cooperative grouping is favoured by natural selection. In the absence of sexual or parental relations humans 'groom ' each other by means of religious cooperation.

How religion works is twofold. One, it feels nice to believe a higher power, which is often accessed during pleasant states of consciousness, can help you. Two, rulers and ruling elites use this social- psychological mechanism to ensure that people are obedient.

I just found your post.

So you believe that human social affairs are purely deterministic and that there is no (a priori grounded) intelligence involved?

Friedrich Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals mentioned the following about religious binding of people in cooperative groups:

The priests are, as is notorious, the worst enemies—why? Because they are the weakest. Their weakness causes their hate to expand into a monstrous and sinister shape, a shape which is most crafty and most poisonous. The really great haters in the history of the world have always been priests, who are also the cleverest haters—in comparison with the cleverness of priestly revenge, every other piece of cleverness is practically negligible.

...

All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the priests which has organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural necessity the strong strive as much for isolation as the weak for union: when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, on the contrary, range themselves together with positive delight in such a muster—their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the instincts of the[Pg 177] "born master" (that is, the solitary beast-of-prey species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation. There is always lurking beneath every oligarchy—such is the universal lesson of history—the desire for tyranny. Every oligarchy is continually quivering with the tension of the effort required by each individual to keep mastering this desire. (Such, e.g., was the Greek; Plato shows it in a hundred places, Plato, who knew his contemporaries—and himself.)

[psyreporter]

The nature of a value judgement requires 'good (per se)' or 'truth' to be of substance a priori.

Er, no, it doesn't. If it was as you say, then there would - or at least could - be truths that are both eternal and objective. And that does not fit the empirical evidence.

No, the indicated 'good per se' as origin of morality is neither objective or subjective since it cannot be valued (the origin of valuing cannot be valued itself).

Despite the wishful idea that subjective experience (and thus a subjective value claim) can precede the senses, simple logic shows that that is impossible. The senses logically precede subjective experience. Conscious experience is only possible on the basis of information provided by the senses. The senses are primary and for sensing to be possible the potential for a value judgement is primary, which implies that pure meaning ('good per se') must underlay conscious experience and provide the basis for a moral compass (moral sense).

The 'brain in a vat' idea is nonsensical. A brain is a posteriori in the face of the senses and the senses are a posteriori in the face of the potential required for sensing, which is moral valuing which itself derives its potential from what can be indicated as pure meaning or 'good per se'.

[Belindi]

psyreporter wrote:

For valuing (assignment of value) to be possible, something is required and that something provides morality with substance (meaning). That something cannot be objective since then it would need to have been valued, which is a logical impossibility.

The subjective benefits of religion are political in the wider sense of binding people together in cooperative groups. Cooperative grouping pertains to all living things and is therefore biological, and so cooperative grouping is favoured by natural selection. In the absence of sexual or parental relations humans 'groom ' each other by means of religious cooperation.

How religion works is twofold. One, it feels nice to believe a higher power, which is often accessed during pleasant states of consciousness, can help you. Two, rulers and ruling elites use this social- psychological mechanism to ensure that people are obedient.

I just found your post.

So you believe that human social affairs are purely deterministic and that there is no (a priori grounded) intelligence involved?

Friedrich Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals mentioned the following about religious binding of people in cooperative groups:

The priests are, as is notorious, the worst enemies—why? Because they are the weakest. Their weakness causes their hate to expand into a monstrous and sinister shape, a shape which is most crafty and most poisonous. The really great haters in the history of the world have always been priests, who are also the cleverest haters—in comparison with the cleverness of priestly revenge, every other piece of cleverness is practically negligible.

...

All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the priests which has organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural necessity the strong strive as much for isolation as the weak for union: when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, on the contrary, range themselves together with positive delight in such a muster—their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the instincts of the[Pg 177] "born master" (that is, the solitary beast-of-prey species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation. There is always lurking beneath every oligarchy—such is the universal lesson of history—the desire for tyranny. Every oligarchy is continually quivering with the tension of the effort required by each individual to keep mastering this desire. (Such, e.g., was the Greek; Plato shows it in a hundred places, Plato, who knew his contemporaries—and himself.)

It's obvious from historiography priesthoods if they 'succeed' become powerful strands among ruling elites in any society. Fortunately for poor, damaged, or otherwise forsaken people the moral message of Jesus has survived like a golden thread in a filthy tyranny of lies and corruption.

It's the duty of educationists to assist people to sort the gold from the dross.

There are eternal virtues namely goodness, truth, and beauty. We have a duty to these virtues and to ourselves to keep trying to translate them into moral precepts. Not an easy task, and often a dangerous task when elites such as the priesthood or the despotic law makers think they embody a God-given moral code.

However it's equally as dangerous for ordinary people when they lack any substitute for the moral code as promoted in detail by a world class religion, for then the ordinary people are preyed upon by those who lie that all elites are out to get them. Libertarians therefore are morally bereft and soak up demagogues' lies from the media. At the same time political interests that tend to despotic rather than democratic deliberately control what may be taught in education. Despotic politicians tell the people that intellectuals are not to be trusted , as we see again and again in these forums.

[Pattern-chaser]

The 'brain in a vat' idea is nonsensical.

No, it isn't. But I know of no-one who asserts that it is so. Its value, and that of its cousin solipsism, is that although these things seem non-intuitive, they are plausible/conceivable. The practical use of these things is as teaching aids, like Aesop's fables, and the lesson here is that the 'brain in a vat' idea is irrefutable.

[psyreporter]

The 'brain in a vat' idea is nonsensical.

No, it isn't. But I know of no-one who asserts that it is so. Its value, and that of its cousin solipsism, is that although these things seem non-intuitive, they are plausible/conceivable. The practical use of these things is as teaching aids, like Aesop's fables, and the lesson here is that the 'brain in a vat' idea is irrefutable.

Did you consider my logic?

"A brain is a posteriori in the face of the senses and the senses are a posteriori in the face of the potential required for sensing, which is moral valuing which itself derives its potential from what can be indicated as pure meaning or 'good per se'."

If not information provided by the senses which in turn relies on an a priori potential for sensing, what could potentially have caused a brain to have gathered knowledge of an outside world to provide the theoretical capacity for conscious awareness?

Is it not magical to believe that a brain could just lay there in a vat operating out of itself relative to an 'outside world', e.g. connected to a VR machine?

[Pattern-chaser]

The 'brain in a vat' idea is nonsensical.

No, it isn't. But I know of no-one who asserts that it is so. Its value, and that of its cousin solipsism, is that although these things seem non-intuitive, they are plausible/conceivable. The practical use of these things is as teaching aids, like Aesop's fables, and the lesson here is that the 'brain in a vat' idea is irrefutable.

Did you consider my logic?

"A brain is a posteriori in the face of the senses and the senses are a posteriori in the face of the potential required for sensing, which is moral valuing which itself derives its potential from what can be indicated as pure meaning or 'good per se'."

I tried, but I didn't get far. I can't see what your logic is.

Is it not magical to believe that a brain could just lay there in a vat operating out of itself relative to an 'outside world', e.g. connected to a VR machine?

??? The brain-in-a-vat thought experiment assumes that the brain is connected to a bio-electro-chemical 'data-stream', indistinguishable from the data a brain would receive if it was housed in a body, walking a real, physical, world. In modern parlance, it is a fully-immersive virtual reality. And no, it is not "magical" to think so. It is beyond our current capability, but that could change, in time...

[Sculptor1]

Did you consider my logic?

"A brain is a posteriori in the face of the senses and the senses are a posteriori in the face of the potential required for sensing, which is moral valuing which itself derives its potential from what can be indicated as pure meaning or 'good per se'."

You are also saying this on another thread.
I am sad to have to tell you that this is not even wrong. It is not logical. It is not correct. The only phrase that makes sense is the first nine words, it then breaks down into incoherence.
Clearly we can only apprehend the "brain" as an object of evidence, thought we may know it is the site of our a priori experience. The next bit breaks with meaning, and is followed by a non sequitur.