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[Leontiskos]

Hi, Leontiskos,

Thank you for your reply!

Hello, Scott. You're welcome and thank you for your own reply.

Granted, there are two ways one can interpret the claim, "I do not believe we 'should' drink coffee tomorrow morning":

1. "I believe we should not drink coffee tomorrow morning."
2. "I do not believe we have any [moral] onus to drink coffee tomorrow morning."

[Color added.]

Indeed.

I agree with the second statement and not the first.

If I believed "we should not drink coffee tomorrow morning", I would have said that. In contrast, I said what I said.

Incidentally, to be extra extra clear about what I meant by my words, I went out of my way to also explicitly say both (1) I do not believe we 'should' drink coffee tomorrow morning, and (2) I do not believe we 'should' not drink coffee tomorrow. So it seems to me it would be impossible to reasonably interpret it said otherwise.

Yes, I agree, you went out of your way to clear up any ambiguity. The reason I focused on the single statement is because I assumed your clarification was meant to function as an example of how we are supposed to interpret your language, even in those times when you don't provide the three additional propositions.

That's not even considering how clear I was about such things it the OP:

I don't believe in "shoulds" or "oughts" or other moralizing. So if hypothetically I'm asked "what should the government do" or "what ought my neighbor do", I cannot answer. There are no shoulds or oughts in my philosophy, only cans and cannots; and then from ‘can’ there is only do and do not. In my philosophy, there is no ought, no should, and no try. I can tell you what I will or would do, and only time and happenstance will tell if my answer is honest and true.

I very purposely provided the above in the OP to help make sure the rest of my sentences after that were more surely clear, and by extension that was clear what I mean when I say things like, "I do not believe we 'should' drink coffee tomorrow" and "I do not believe we 'should' not drink coffee tomorrow".

Fair enough. I was trying to focus on your more recent statements since the OP is over two years old, and it is not uncommon for people to change their views after years have elapsed. But if you are willing to stand by the OP then I am furnished with additional information.

Let me say at the outset that I agree with the way you phrased it in the OP. You spoke of " 'shoulds' or 'oughts' or other moralizing." All "shoulds" and "oughts" are, in my opinion, moral statements. Above you clarified my interpretation (2) to speak of a "[moral] onus" rather than an onus simpliciter. In my estimation this is not necessary since all onuses are moral. Your phrasing in the OP seems to agree with this.

But other cases are more clear. For example, when someone says, "Don't should on me," they are inevitably engaging in the sort of 'moralizing' that you indicate.

No, they could be sometimes since people use the same words differently but it is not a given. As I explained in the OP, when I say that I will defensive force to kill a murderer before he murders my family, that does not mean I am saying it would be 'immoral' for him to do it, or that I am saying he 'ought' not do it.

I agree that one could engage in self-defense without making moral claims, just as a tiger might protect its cub without making moral claims. But when you say, "Don't should on me," you are issuing a directive to someone else and telling them how to act or not act. Given what I said above, this is a moral act.

"Don't moralize" is a form of moralizing. "Don't issue imperatives" is an imperative.

First, it's worth noting that I never said those two things.

True. I was only trying to illustrate the principle at hand.

Nonetheless, I disagree with the broad assertion that anyone who says those 2-3 word sentences would necessarily be engaging in moralizing or such, let alone that we could say much about anything about what the unknown person means based solely on a single out of context 2-3 word sentence that the hypothetical person said. That is not even to mention the Philosophical Principal of Charity, which would make concluding a contradiction even less reasonable or likely.

Oh, I surely do not agree with this. "Don't issue imperatives" is itself an imperative. It is a phrase in the imperative mood. Similarly, if I tell someone, "Don't ever tell anyone what to do," I am at the same time telling someone what to do. I don't see any way around this simple truth.

Words are equivocal and it's not always clear what someone means, and generally all humans project such that someone who moralizes will be more likely to misinterpret non-moralizing words as moralizing and vice versa. That's in the same sense that, even when they read the same exact words, an angry judgemental person will tend to read another persons words with an angry or judgemental tone versus who see the world differently. Or, in yet another example, someone with social anxiety might be more likely to interpret a quiet person as fearfully shy, whereas someone else would is quiet due to some other reason (e.g. confidence or indifference about the situation, or some kind of arrogance or anger, or any million other reasons) would be more likely to project that or something more similar to that as the explanation.

I can imagine many scenarios where you could hear me say to you or someone else, "don't touch my butt!" or "stop touching my butt!" You would be understandably misunderstanding my meaning if you thought I was saying that I believe it is immoral for you to touch my butt, or for whoever was about to touch butt or did touch my butt despite my protests.

Above I noted that the phrasing in your OP indicated that you believe "shoulds" and "oughts" are inherently moral, and I agreed with you. But here you seem to be changing course. You seem to be attempting to say that only some "shoulds" are moral, and only some "shoulding" is moralizing. Perhaps instead of focusing on these two words I should just say that, in my opinion, all imperative statements are moral statements. "Don't touch my butt" is obviously an imperative statement, and therefore a moral statement. I mostly think that those who eschew morality while issuing imperatives are inconsistent, but if someone wishes to consistently eschew morality while at the same time issuing imperatives then they would need to explain which imperatives are related to morality and which are not.

Likewise, if a moralizer and a non-moralizer both overheard someone else saying "don't touch my butt" to another person, they would likely tend to interpret the speaker's words differently due to the role projection plays.

It seems to me that both will understand that the person has issued an imperative statement.

He can correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that Scott wrote his book because he wants to convince other people to embrace the same philosophy he has chosen for himself.

I don't really think so, actually. May I ask, have you read my book, In It Together? I'd be very interested to learn what your best guess is as to my primary motivation(s) for writing it after having read it (assuming you haven't already).

No, I have not read the book. My judgment comes from the excerpts I have read, the posts of yours I have read, and my belief that all such practical-philosophy books are written to persuade others. More generally, I would say that anyone who publishes a book believes that someone else ought to read it. If they did not hold such a belief then they would not have had the book published. This is a 'softer' "ought" than the Jehovah Witness', but it is an "ought" nonetheless. Even to say, "This book is worth reading," or, "It is worthwhile to read this book," is to issue a moral utterance (about how others ought to behave).

Incidentally, your OP is full of such moral language, so much so that I would not know where to begin. To simply take the first instance that caught my eye, you spoke of, "those people who are way too attached to the material world of the flesh." "Too attached" implies "More attached than they ought to be," does it not?

He wishes to convince others to adopt a "free-spirit" manner of living.

Do I? I'm not sure.

In person, I usually do my best to use tasteful discretion to avoid mentioning that I'm a vegetarian. I think I may have been asked 1,000 times why I'm a vegetarian. I generally do my best to avoid even receiving that question, at least in person. But even on a social media or such it's generally a bit of a borderline secret I keep.

Then perhaps vegetarianism is not something you wish others to adopt. Given such a stance, I would suppose that you have no intention to publish a book on the merits of vegetarianism.

In my younger days, over 15 years ago, I worked full-time going door-to-door for a political party. I also went door to door, but for no pay, when I ran for and was elected for public office in my hometown as a politician, which was an unpaid position as well. It's hard to imagine myself going around like a Jehovah's Witness now, knocking on people's door, and asking them, "Have you heard the great news about spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline)? Can you spare a moment to talk about inner peace and spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline)?

Jehovah's Witnesses do promote an idea or philosophy, but there are other ways to promote an idea than by going door-to-door. Such an approach is too aggressive for most people.

As I said many times before, "live and let live", that's one my mottos. It's like my self-chosen diet. Even my own kids aren't vegetarian, and I've never done anything to encourage to adopt that diet I have adopted. Whether it's a literal diet or behavioral one (e.g. I refuse to rape or murder people), I don't see a lion eating an antelope and lose my inner peace over it. It's all beautiful.

To be clear, are you claiming that you wish to never say or do anything that would influence another person to act in one way rather than another?

Let me offer something else to give you more access to my view. I don't generally use the pejorative "moralizing," but insofar as I see it as a viable verb it would not for me merely connote imperative actions, language, or intentions. One who issues a moral statement or an imperative statement is not necessarily moralizing. It rather depends on the manner in which one is issuing such statements. "Don't have an abortion," is an imperative (and therefore moral) statement, but whether the speaker is moralizing depends on the circumstances.

He has found value in a particular philosophy of life and, as an unselfish person, wishes to share this with other people.

I can't say for sure that I agree or disagree with that as it is worded, but if you change the word 'wishes' to 'is typically willing to', then I can and do agree.

How about this: "He has found value in a particular philosophy of life and has decided to share this with other people." I assume we can agree to that? The next question for me is, "What motivated him to share it?"

Thank you,
Scott

Thanks Scott,
-Leontiskos

[Stoppelmann]

Hi, Stoppelmann,

Thank you for your message. Correct me if I am misremembering, but I believe I have answered each and every question you have ever asked me on the Philosophy Forums ever. Generally, I do my best to answer any question that is directly asked of me on these forums.

You know that you have put off answering many points I made and deleted them, only then to pose the question that seems so very important to you, but which I have actually answered:

I think I'm done with repeating the same argument over and again, there is an issue in how we use language and I have a feeling that you are referring to a colloquial usage of the words, rather than a dictionary based language. If I say (in English or German) that I do not believe that I should do something, it would require a "but" to say I will. ("I do not believe I should do that, but I will"). It may be different in your neck of the woods, so I am laying down my argument for the sake of peace.

As you can see by my long exchange with Leontiskos or Thrasymachus, we have no issues with language, despite coming from different lingual backgrounds and having differing grades of education.

Regarding the book, I spent over 5 years working on my book, In It Together, including putting a lot of thought and effort into the structure and order. Thus, if one doesn't agree with one chapter, I wouldn't expect that person to agree with (or even necessarily understand) later chapters coming after, much like a train that already went off the tracks an hour ago and kept going. If you read the book and don't agree with every single sentence in the book, please do make a post in the following topic to specify which is the very first sentence in the book with which you disagree (which also helps in knowing all the common-ground we have in terms of all the sentences that come before the first point of disagreement):

Do you agree with everything in the book, "In It Together"? If not, what is the first sentence with which you disagree?

I have given you examples of what I don’t agree with, in particular the 11 suggestions, the criticism of which is typical of how I could go through the whole book if I had time.

I think the problem is, as Leontiskos says, you try to be a moral relativist, especially with regard to the normative position about how we ought to think about or act towards those with whom we morally disagree. You state your opposition to this in many ways, beginning with disagreeing that there can be a normative position that tells how we ought to do anything. You use instead the word suggestion, which is just a temporary semantic solution, because a suggestion is “an idea about what someone should do or how someone should behave.”

But, it seems you do not want to engage in discussing your suggestions, so I will just have to accept that.

[Ecurb]

"Should" is a conditional word. "If we want the water to become ice, we should lower the temperature in the freezer to 0 degrees C or lower."

Since Scott is a boxer, perhaps his cornerman might advise: "Your opponent is leaving his left jab out there, you should counter with an overhand right (if you want to land punches and win the fight)."

I don't see how anyone could object to this use of "should". Any time a football (gridiron) coach calls a play, he's expressing his opinion about what play his team should run to give them the best chance of victory.

in somewhat dated English usage, "shall" is used in the first person, "will" in the second person. Shall (should) expresses a modest intent, and implies that intentions may go astray. "Will" in the first person expresses a rigid determination. "I shall drink coffee tomorrow morning," suggests the possibiiity that something might come up and distract the speaker from his intent. "I will drink coffee," suggests an intractable addiction.


From a moral perspective, "should" and "ought" presume a goal or intent. Just as in the case of freezing the water, we "should" do certain things if we desire certain results.

(Sorry for being a Johnny-come-lately. Perhaps I shouldn't have encroached.)

[Gertie]

Scott

It seems to me you are saying that if someone broke into your home and tried to rape your children you would violently fight them to the death because it would disturb the inner peace you achieve from acting in ways (including holding beliefs) which bring you inner peace.  

Rather than for your children's sake.

But that inner peace is just something you happen to value above all, not an ought which is universalisable.  In other words, whatever anyone happens to value most is what they should pursue as their own person goals (otherwise why write a book with ''polite suggestions'') as you do, and be free to do so.  If that happens to be raping children, then might will decide the outcome if it conflicts with your inner peace.  Likewise if it happens to be becoming a tyrant over a society imposing their will on others, might will decide the outcome. 

So a society becomes an anarchy where-in everyone is free to pursue their idiosyncratic desires, with might being the arbiter of which consequentially win out when desires conflict.

And you believe this is philosophically justifified, because there is no such thing as oughts or right and wrong which should guide us or temper our desires, whatever they be.  Nothing ought to limit us but force/physical limitations, because there is no such thing as ought? Rather that force will be left to be applied in individual, idiosyncratic ways, not by common agreement in an organised way, because we ought not impede freedom to pursue individual desires, except as competing individuals with competing desires.

Is this correct? 

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Gertie,

Thank you for your reply!

It seems to me you are saying that if someone broke into your home and tried to rape your children you would violently fight them to the death because it would disturb the inner peace you achieve from acting in ways (including holding beliefs) which bring you inner peace.  

Rather than for your children's sake.

I don't particularly disagree with the first paragraph, but I do disagree with the second paragraph.

The relationship between love and sacrifice (as I see it) is explained in detail in my book, In It Together. I would be surprised (and happy to answer any questions) if someone read the book but somehow didn't understand why I would throw myself in front of bus to save my kids lives or throw myself in a boxing stance in front of a would-be murderer, even if I thought I would probably lose that fight to death.

I wrote the 26-paragraph OP before I finished writing and released that longer 206-page book, In It Together.

If after reading the 26-paragraph OP, you are interested to learn more about the philosophy of mine that I summarize in the OP, I think the fastest, easiest, and clearest way would be to read the book. I think the OP gives the best and shortest outline/summary that I can give. Since I spent over 5 years working on the book, making sure it was as clear, concise, and complete as possible, if I attempted to regurgitate it here it would end up longer than the book and less clear.

In other words, whatever anyone happens to value most is what they should pursue as their own person goals

I disagree with that statement, or in other words I don't share that belief of yours. But I respect your freedom to have religious, superstitious, supernatural, paranormal, or other beliefs that I don't.

If [what someone chooses to do] happens to be raping children, then might will decide the outcome if it conflicts with your inner peace.  Likewise if it happens to be becoming a tyrant over a society imposing their will on others, might will decide the outcome. 

It certainly could, which I thought I explained in the OP:

If anyone's plan to 'save the world' or do charity requires committing rape, murder, or other non-defensive violence, then let me give that person fair warning they need to be ready to fight me to death. I believe not only in the principle of "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," but also I believe equally in the broader principle from which that one is derived: "I strongly dislike what you do, but I will defend to the death your right to do it."

I don't care how noble the Noble thinks the end goal of their prima nocta is, or how legal of a raping it is, I would still rather die as a William Wallace than live to become a murderer, rapist, or coward [...]

we each have to choose for ourselves what we ourselves will do. Our freedom of spirit precedes and supersedes that of any politics or fleshy happenstance. I must choose for myself whether I murder, rape, and enslave others or not. I must choose for myself whether or not I vote in favor of murder, rape, slavery, or other non-defensive violence. When the Nazis come after the Jews, I must choose for myself whether or not I break the law and hide Jews in my attic or follow the law and turn them in.

If you don't agree with every sentence in the OP, I would greatly appreciate if you told me explicitly what the very first sentence in the OP is with which you disagree.

Likewise, if you don't feel you understand what I mean by each sentence in the OP, then I would appreciate if you explicitly told me which specific sentence is the first one you don't understand what I mean by.

By extension, that will also allow me to know that you understand and agree with the preceding sentences, so that I can know the agreed premises on which our discussions take place, which I think will help both of us understand each other more effectively and easily.

Needless to say, for reasonable people like us, an argument can only as convincing as its premises are agreeable because an argument is only sound if its premises are true.


***

So a society becomes an anarchy where-in everyone is free to pursue their idiosyncratic desires, with might being the arbiter of which consequentially win out when desires conflict.

I don't understand the meaning of the above sentence. Can you rephrase and/or clarify it for me? I think I am most thrown off by the word "becomes", including both the word itself and the particular tense used.

When a raper attempts to rape me, and I fight to stop him including using lethal defensive if needed, might (i.e. who wins the fight) ultimately determines whether he dies or I get raped. That's an eternal truth, like 2 + 2 equaling 4. It's just a fact of physics. Adding or remove nonsense oughts (i.e. moral superstitions) to the equation doesn't change it.

And you believe this is philosophically justifified,

I wouldn't say that because I don't because I don't believe in justice.

On that topic, I wrote my only fiction book, Justice: A Novella.

because there is no such thing as oughts or right and wrong which should guide us or temper our desires, whatever they be.  Nothing ought to limit us but force/physical limitations, because there is no such thing as ought? Rather that force will be left to be applied in individual, idiosyncratic ways, not by common agreement in an organised way

I think I would generally agree if you remove the word "rather". Otherwise, it seems to not only possibly present some kind of false dichotomy, but more importantly to falsely imply that things aren't what they inexorably are. Saying or believing a hurricane that happened 'ought' not have happened doesn't change the fact that it did; it's just superstitious nonsense.

Adding oughts doesn't change what is. In other words, adding the superstitious belief in morality (i.e. some moral law) doesn't change what actually is. It just meaninglessly says that some people/things are 'moral criminals' according to some kind of impotent 'moral law' that allegedly really exists. That fact is essentially the basis of the Is-Ought Problem and also separately why I would quicker believe that Big Foot exists than that moral values actually exist. The latter is generally unobservable by definition.

In example, saying, "I ought to not drink this coffee, but I am drinking this coffee" doesn't change the fact that I am drinking the coffee.

That's the irony of people who believe in the superstition of morality (i.e. oughts and shoulds). Not only does "should do" not equal "will do", but it is ironically much more correlated with the exact opposite.

When one person says to another, "We really shouldn't kiss." And then the other replies back, "yes, we really ought not to kiss." All else the same, I'd place my money on the bet that they will kiss.

A similar pattern is true of homophobes who preach passionately about the alleged 'immorality' of homosexuality. "You really ought to not have gay sex," they would probably say.

A moralizer might take that sentence as some kind of actual meaningful proposition that contains some kind of objective truth or objective inaccuracy, much like how someone who believes in unicorns might find it meaningful to argue about whether unicorns prefer eating corn or peas.

I would take it as nonsense that is correlated with the speaker being gay and doing gay stuff, in addition to probably being one who lacks inner peace and spiritual freedom.

because we ought not impede freedom to pursue individual desires, except as competing individuals with competing desires.

Is this correct?

No, it's not correct.

I don't believe we "ought not" impede political freedom or such. I don't believe in any oughts at all. To hold such nonsense beliefs would be to impede my own spiritual freedom.

My book In It Together explains what I actually believe.

I spent over 5 years writing it, putting a lot of thought into the structure and such. I challenge you to read it up until the very first sentence with which you disagree, and then let's chat about that specific point of disagreement in detail. If you take me up on that challenge, please do post the first sentence with which you disagree in the following topic so I can discuss it in detail with you:

Do you agree with everything in the book, "In It Together"? If not, what is the first sentence with which you disagree?

Even if we cannot resolve that disagreement, I love learning about different perspectives.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Stoppelmann,

Thank you for your reply.

Let's look at the following four sentences, all four of which I believe to be true:

1. I, Scott, do not believe we 'should' or 'ought' to drink coffee tomorrow morning.

2. I, Scott, do not believe we 'should' or 'ought' to not drink coffee tomorrow morning.

3. I, Scott, will drink coffee tomorrow morning.

4. I, Scott, don't know if you will drink coffee tomorrow morning or not, and I, Scott, lovingly don't care if you do drink coffee tomorrow or not.


I don't believe any of the above four statements contradict any of the other ones. Do you?

[Emphasis added to yes/no question.]

...I have actually answered:

I think I'm done with repeating the same argument over and again, there is an issue in how we use language and I have a feeling that you are referring to a colloquial usage of the words, rather than a dictionary based language. If I say (in English or German) that I do not believe that I should do something, it would require a "but" to say I will. ("I do not believe I should do that, but I will"). It may be different in your neck of the woods, so I am laying down my argument for the sake of peace.

I am sorry; I don't understand your answer. Is that a yes or a no?

As best I can tell, it is a pretty simple yes no question.

As I use the terms, "X but Y" cannot be true if X and Y contradict. Moreover, as I use the terms, "X but Y" can always be phrased as "X and Y".


Thank you,
Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Leontiskos,

You're welcome, and thank you for your reply to my reply to your reply!

I agree that one could engage in self-defense without making moral claims, just as a tiger might protect its cub without making moral claims. But when you say, "Don't should on me," you are issuing a directive to someone else and telling them how to act or not act.

Sure, in a sense, I agree. In a similar sense, if I told a paid employee that works for me, "Go over there and file those papers," it would be a directive telling them how to act, in a sense. Grammatically speaking, the grammatical structure of the sentence would be an imperative, meaning simply that grammatically it's written in the so-called "imperative mood".

But it doesn't necessarily mean I am saying, "the employee should file the papers" or that "employees should do what their boss says".

Likewise, when I say to another human, "don't pee on me", it does not necessarily mean I am saying, "It would be immoral for you to pee on me" or "you should not pee on me".

When a police officer points their gun at you and screams, "Put down your gun!" I would not take their meaning to be, "It would be a moral sin for you to not put down your gun." I would not take the police officer as meaning to say, "I believe morality exists, and that you would be violating moral law if you fail to put down your gun."

Sentences phrased using what in grammar is called the "imperative mood" tend to be very equivocal. There's many different things a speaker could mean when they issue such a 4-word sentence.

Nonetheless, I disagree with the broad assertion that anyone who says those 2-3 word sentences would necessarily be engaging in moralizing or such, let alone that we could say much about anything about what the unknown person means based solely on a single out of context 2-3 word sentence that the hypothetical person said. That is not even to mention the Philosophical Principal of Charity, which would make concluding a contradiction even less reasonable or likely.

Oh, I surely do not agree with this. "Don't issue imperatives" is itself an imperative. It is a phrase in the imperative mood.

Grammatically, you are correct that the grammatical structure of a phrase like "don't issue imperatives" or "don't pee on me" or "don't touch my butt" are all in the "imperative mood" grammatically. That's a simple matter of grammar, the same as saying the sentence, "This is sentence is in the past tense," is in the present tense.

But I am not sure why you disagree with what I said, especially since I agree what you said.

Similarly, if I tell someone, "Don't ever tell anyone what to do," I am at the same time telling someone what to do. I don't see any way around this simple truth.

I agree with that.

Words are equivocal and it's not always clear what someone means, and generally all humans project such that someone who moralizes will be more likely to misinterpret non-moralizing words as moralizing and vice versa. That's in the same sense that, even when they read the same exact words, an angry judgemental person will tend to read another persons words with an angry or judgemental tone versus who see the world differently. Or, in yet another example, someone with social anxiety might be more likely to interpret a quiet person as fearfully shy, whereas someone else would is quiet due to some other reason (e.g. confidence or indifference about the situation, or some kind of arrogance or anger, or any million other reasons) would be more likely to project that or something more similar to that as the explanation.

I can imagine many scenarios where you could hear me say to you or someone else, "don't touch my butt!" or "stop touching my butt!" You would be understandably misunderstanding my meaning if you thought I was saying that I believe it is immoral for you to touch my butt, or for whoever was about to touch butt or did touch my butt despite my protests.

Above I noted that the phrasing in your OP indicated that you believe "shoulds" and "oughts" are inherently moral, and I agreed with you. But here you seem to be changing course. You seem to be attempting to say that only some "shoulds" are moral, and only some "shoulding" is moralizing.

That's not what I was saying, and I am sorry it seemed that way. I am not changing course, and I am sorry it seemed that way.

Rather, I am saying that the equivocal sentence "Don't pee on me" usually doesn't mean "You shouldn't pee on me" or "It's immoral to pee on me".

The sentence, "Don't touch my butt" doesn't mean "you shouldn't touch my butt" or "it's immoral to touch my butt". I'm sure there are quite a few gay but extremely religious men out there who firmly believe that it is immoral for me to touch their butt, that it is sinful for me touch their butt, and that I shouldn't touch their butt but who would say to me, "please touch my butt" instead of "don't touch my butt". And I don't blame them because I have pretty hands that are good at grabbing things.

The phrase, "go file those papers over there" typically doesn't mean "you should file those papers over there" or "it is immoral to not file those papers over there".

The phrase, "Put down your gun!" typically does not mean "you should put down your gun" or "it is immoral for you to not put down your gun".

When I tell my girlfriend, "let me know if you are free on Friday," I don't mean, "You have a moral obligation to inform me whether or not you are free on Friday night."

Perhaps instead of focusing on these two words I should just say that, in my opinion, all imperative statements are moral statements.

If you are using the word 'imperative sentence' in the grammatical sense of how a sentence is structured (i.e. a sentence that happens to be written in the "imperative mood"), then I firmly disagree for the reasons explained above.

"Don't touch my butt" is obviously an imperative statement, and therefore a moral statement.

I disagree. Not only do I not think it's obvious, but I don't even think it's true.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret someone's meaning when they say a phrase like "don't touch my butt" is to mean "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" and/or "I do not want you to touch my butt." It also can have implications of urgency (since the person chose to use the much shorter easier said vague equivocal imperative mood in grammar rather than elaborate on what they mean more specifically and clearly). It can also have implications of a threat, such as an unstated or intended "or else". Such as, "Put down your gun, or else I'll kill you", or "Get to work on time, or else I'll fire you." Whether for politeness, laziness, or urgency and time-saving, the words "or else" are often left off along with everything that would follow.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret a police officer screaming "Put down your gun!" is not that the police officer believes in moral superstitions and is saying "you have a moral obligation to put down your gun and it would be morally wrong for you to not put down your gun". Instead, I would interpret him as saying as meaning to say, among other things, "This is urgent and important and the amount of time and/or words I can use is limited, so with that said if you don't put down your gun, then I will shoot you repeatedly with mind, and there will be no consequences for me because I have given you this warning."

The "imperative mood" is just a label given to a certain grammatical structure of sentence. We will be committing logical fallacies if we conflate the "imperative mood" with the concept of "moral imperatives".

The sentence "you should do X" is not in the imperative mood but it's meaning is a moral imperative.

The sentence "Eating grapes is immoral" is not in the imperative mood but it's meaning is a moral imperative.

The sentence, "go file those papers over there, employee" is grammatically in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

The sentence, screamed by a police officer, "Put down your gun!" is grammatically in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

The sentence said to one's girlfriend, "let me know if you are free tomorrow" is in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

The sentence, "you have a moral obligation to tell me if you are free tomorrow" is not in the imperative mood, but it is a moral imperative.

while at the same time issuing imperatives then they would need to explain which imperatives are related to morality and which are not.

Depending on what you mean by "need to", I think I would typically agree. I think 4-word sentences in the imperative mood are equivocal and unclear. Of course, if someone is very limited in time and/or word count, then it may be the most time-efficient way to express the idea and/or the clearest way to express the idea with the time and word count allotted.

In other words, I would definitely agree that the 4-word sentence "Put down your gun!" is a lot more equivocal and less clear in meaning then the much longer sentence, "This is urgent and important and the amount of time and/or words I can use is limited, so with that said if you don't put down the gun, then I will shoot you repeatedly, and there will be no consequences because I have given you this warning."

Likewise, if a moralizer and a non-moralizer both overheard someone else saying "don't touch my butt" to another person, they would likely tend to interpret the speaker's words differently due to the role projection plays.

It seems to me that both will understand that the person has issued an imperative statement.

I don't think so. In fact, I think it would be more common for one to interpret the 4-word sentence as the opposite of a moral imperative. I think I can illustrate that best with two contrasting example:


Example One -- Moral Imperatives

Imagine two people alone in a room. One says to the other, "we shouldn't kiss". The other replies, "Yes, I agree, we really ought not kiss."

If I had to bet one way or the other, they both want to kiss each other. If I had bet one way or the other whether they kissed each other after that, I would bet that they did kiss, and I would bet that the kiss was consensual, even if they never said anything after having said the above, before then kissing (and thereby becoming moral criminals to the the moral law they agreed exists, so to speak).


Example Two -- The Imperative Mood in Grammar

Two people are in a room. One says to the other, "do not touch my butt" or "do not kiss me".

All else the same, I would place my bets opposite in that case versus in case #1. Notably, in regard to the perceived consensuality of it if I found a butt-touching and/or kissing took place without anything else being said.

More generally, I would say that anyone who publishes a book believes that someone else ought to read it.

Interesting view. I don't at all share it, but it's interesting, and you are entitled to have it.

May I ask why you isolate it to books? Can one post on the Philosophy Forums at all if one doesn't believe in morality? What about Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat? If I post a snap on Snapchat, does that (in your view) mean I must believe that people ought to look at my Snapchat? If I post a tweet on Twitter, does that mean I believe people have a moral obligation to read my tweet? If I post a picture of my kids and I on Facebook, does that mean I believe it would be immoral for people to not look at my kids and I?

I hope you don't mind the playful question: What about people who make porn? Do you think they must believe you and I have a moral duty to watch them have sex?

Incidentally, your OP is full of such moral language, so much so that I would not know where to begin. To simply take the first instance that caught my eye, you spoke of, "those people who are way too attached to the material world of the flesh." "Too attached" implies "More attached than they ought to be," does it not?

That's not what I meant, but I agree that the wording is poor, and it would tend to (misleadingly) come off that way to many readers. In fact, while writing my book, I fixed that issue. One of the editors proposed changing some sentences of the structure "often people say of starving kids..." to "Too often people say of starving kids", and I changed it back, removing the word 'too' from "too often", for exactly the reason you mention.

So you are right that the wording is poor if not inaccurate in the OP on that. While to most accurately express what I meant by that sentence would take the kind of elaboration and years of work I put into the book, we can for simplicity here simply reduce its meaning to something more agreeable by replacing 'too' with 'very':

"I suspect generally only those people who are very attached to the material world of the flesh could care very much about the topical human politics of a sliver of time on a tiny planet in an endless sky."

Is that more clearly amoral?

He wishes to convince others to adopt a "free-spirit" manner of living.

Do I? I'm not sure.

In person, I usually do my best to use tasteful discretion to avoid mentioning that I'm a vegetarian. I think I may have been asked 1,000 times why I'm a vegetarian. I generally do my best to avoid even receiving that question, at least in person. But even on a social media or such it's generally a bit of a borderline secret I keep.

Then perhaps vegetarianism is not something you wish others to adopt. Given such a stance, I would suppose that you have no intention to publish a book on the merits of vegetarianism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the merits of vegetarianism" exactly. But, if I had way more time on my hands than I do, I would definately write a short book entitled, "Why I am a vegetarian", if not simply so I could carry copies around with me, and give them to people who discover my borderline secret and who then ask me that same old annoying question again and again.

As I said many times before, "live and let live", that's one my mottos. It's like my self-chosen diet. Even my own kids aren't vegetarian, and I've never done anything to encourage to adopt that diet I have adopted. Whether it's a literal diet or behavioral one (e.g. I refuse to rape or murder people), I don't see a lion eating an antelope and lose my inner peace over it. It's all beautiful.

To be clear, are you claiming that you wish to never say or do anything that would influence another person to act in one way rather than another?

No, I am not saying that.

Sometimes it is easiest to understand my broad spiritual philosophy of spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) using the analogy of narrow politics and political freedom (a.k.a. self-government). To support the live and let live motto politically, one does not rape and presumably supports in some way to some degree the use of defensive force to stop rapists from raping. But one who votes to outlaw rape is not hypocrite for engaging in consensual sex.

Just as there a crucial difference between the coercion and persuasion in politics, there is a difference between imposition and voluntary free-spirited cooperation, and by extension between aggression and assertiveness, or between dishonesty manipulation and honest communication, or between requesting or encouraging or influence someone to do X versus believing it would be immoral for them to do X. While political the key difference is centered around literal violence (and by extension the dichotomy of consent), spiritually the key difference is centered around the dichotomy of control, namely in terms of accepting what one cannot control. In my philosophy, it's not physically possible for something to happen that shouldn't happen, be that a hurricane or a certain behavior by someone else. But as explained in much more details and more clearly in my book, part of having the serenity to accept what you cannot control is having the wisdom to know the difference between what you can control and what you cannot control. Self-responsibility plays a huge role in my spiritual philosophy; indeed I even mentioned it by name in the OP.

Political analogies aside, I have no qualms about paying my staff to do what I ask them to do, or inviting my friends over for dinner even though issuing such an invite influences their behavior.

I wouldn't just twiddle my thumbs at home being lonely, passively (or passive-aggressively) hoping my friends will come visit on their own accord without being assertively invited by me, presumably with me growing resentment when such a passive or passive-aggressive communication style doesn't work to get what I want, and then eventually resorting to full-blown aggressiveness when my friends don't mind-read well enough to fulfill my secret unspoken requests. Doing all that would be very inconsistent with the philosophy and suggestions I give in my book, and by extension the philosophy of which I have scratched the surface of with the OP here and my replies to it.

While my book does it much more clearly, I explained how I value assertiveness and assertive communication, and how I exercise it both (1) in terms of how I speak/write to others and (2) in terms of not being an enabler of toxic unassertiveness in others in this Instagram post which I also cross-posted to Facebook.

Let me offer something else to give you more access to my view. I don't generally use the pejorative "moralizing," but insofar as I see it as a viable verb it would not for me merely connote imperative actions, language, or intentions. One who issues a moral statement or an imperative statement is not necessarily moralizing.

Fair enough. Thank you for the clarification about how you use the terms.

We use the term 'moralizing' slightly different then, which is fine. Words are equivocal and different people often use the same word to mean different things with neither person being wrong. For me, by 'moralizing' or 'moralizer' I refer to any moral assertions or beliefs.

Thus, as I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "X is immoral" is moralizing.

As I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "That hurricane ought not have happened" is moralizing.

As I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "That hurricane that happened last night was evil" is moralizing.

He has found value in a particular philosophy of life and, as an unselfish person, wishes to share this with other people.

I can't say for sure that I agree or disagree with that as it is worded, but if you change the word 'wishes' to 'is typically willing to', then I can and do agree.

How about this: "He has found value in a particular philosophy of life and has decided to share this with other people." I assume we can agree to that?

The next question for me is, "What motivated him to share it?"

I suppose I could write two or more books about that and there still would still be more to say.

One difficulty in answering that is a flaw with the concept of why and whyness. In different words, my book talks about that when it talks about letting go of blame (and credit). Why was John late to work? Is it because he is irresponsible? Is it because his mom didn't teach him the value of punctuality? Is it because there was a traffic jam on the highway? Is it teleological, such as that he wants to get fired to collect unemployment insurance? Was it because it's daylight savings time? Was it because of the particular arrangement of particles in the Big Bang? Is there infinite reasons that are all each independently true that would be impossible to list even with a thousand years to name one after the other? Is the question itself a type of misleading nonsense that the given answer to which reveals more about the given answerer than that which they describe, a sort of proverbial Rorschach test? If so, what does this very paragraph, the last sentence of which you are reading right now, which is my answer say about me?

Another difficulty in answering such questions is--it seems to me--that such seemingly inexplicable difficulty is part of the nature of free-spirited creativity, and by extension art itself. It we ask what motivated Van Gogh to paint Starry Night, can we give an answer that is truly sufficient and more complete and accurate than the painting itself? What about if we are giving that answer to someone who has never even seen Starry Night or any of Van Gogh's painting? I explore what I see as the nature of free-spirited creativity in more detail in my topic, The artistically creative diversity of spiritual freedom.

If and when you read it, I'd love to know what you think about the quote by Van Gogh I included in my book regarding the proverbial blank canvass of life.


For some reason, I'm also reminded of these lines from one my favorite songs:

It takes courage to be still and go inside
I'm on a tip of liberation, watch me toe the line
When yoga pose hits a yoga pose
A part of me that I really hate showing shows
You get a taste from my post of quotes
But my inner growth is something no one knows
And I hope it shows
In my eyes, in my music, in my vibe, in my kindness
And in my stride, in the grand art piece that is my life
And again, this is just a brush stroke
You've been running long enough, child, come home

Thank you,
Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Ecurb,

Thank you for your reply!

"Should" is a conditional word. "If we want the water to become ice, we should lower the temperature in the freezer to 0 degrees C or lower."

Since Scott is a boxer, perhaps his cornerman might advise: "Your opponent is leaving his left jab out there, you should counter with an overhand right (if you want to land punches and win the fight)."

I don't see how anyone could object to this use of "should".

The "objection" I would have, if we would call it that, is that the usage you describe is (in my anecdotal experience) not even close to the most common usage of the word 'ought'/'should' and is extremely confusing because it uses moralistic language to express amoral assertions.

If I had a cornerman, and he talked like that, I would fire him for being so confusing and misleading. Because I would think he meant I have a moral obligation "to counter with an overhand punch", which would confuse me and likely cause me to get fight worse because I would be so confused. He could just leave the moralizing words "you should" or "you ought" out entirely. He doesn't even need to replace them to avoid the moral implications they would give.

I don't have a paid cornerman per se, since I just box for fun, but I have done a lot interviewing and hiring. If I am hiring someone to do X, and when applicant says he believes he "ought" to do X or that X "ought" to be done, and another employee says "he will do X", I will hire the latter not the former. If I am hiring someone to work a cash register, and one says, "I believe I ought not steal," and another says "I do not steal", I will hire the latter and the former. In fact, I find oughts to be correlated with the opposite of doing and willing. A corollary of "I ought not have cheated on my spouse" typically is that the speaker did cheat. "We shouldn't kiss" is more typically followed by kissing than not. "I ought not steal from you" is more correlated with the speaker than stealing than not stealing. Someone saying the words "Gay sex is very immoral and sinful" is (to me) evidence that they are gay. In that way, I not only don't think that the words are used in the way you describe, but that they are actually used to describe roughly speaking the exact opposite. Should is more similar to "will not" than "will". "Ought to do" is more similar to "do not" than "do".

Insofar as someone is using moralistic language to state amoral things that can thus be more clearly and specifically stated in purely amoral terms, then the objection I would have is simply one of using confusing equivocal language that's easily avoided. I explained my views on that in more detail in my 2008 topic What Moral Claims Can Mean and my 2007 topic The Clarity of Amorality.

If someone means to say that the ice won't freeze unless the temperate is lowered to below 0, but expresses that by saying it would immoral/evil/sinful/etc. to not lower the temperature to below 0 degrees, then it's true that I would technically agree with the person's intended meaning, and would only 'object' to their utterly confusing wording.

"I shall drink coffee tomorrow morning," suggests the possibiiity that something might come up and distract the speaker from his intent. "I will drink coffee," suggests an intractable addiction.

The use of the word 'suggests' in the above suggests to me that a lot of reading between the lines and connotation is being confusingly referenced when the point I am addressing is more strict and denotative.

In any case, I believe the following statements are true:

1. I shall drink coffee tomorrow.

2. I will drink coffee tomorrow.

In terms of denotation, I believe the following statements are synonymous and are thus all (equally) either untrue or meaningless or both:

3. I should drink coffee tomorrow.

4. I ought to drink coffee tomorrow.

5. It is immoral for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

6. It is sinful for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

7. It is evil for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

8. I have a moral obligation to drink coffee tomorrow.

9. I have a moral duty to drink coffee tomorrow.

10. It is a violation of moral law for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.


I do not believe any of the above statements (i.e. 3-10), but I do believe 1 and 2 are both true.

[Ecurb]

The "objection" I would have, if we would call it that, is that the usage you describe is (in my anecdotal experience) not even close to the most common usage of the word 'ought'/'should' and is extremely confusing because it uses moralistic language to express amoral assertions.

If I had a cornerman, and he talked like that, I would fire him for being so confusing and misleading. Because I would think he meant I have a moral obligation "to counter with an overhand punch", which would confuse me and likely cause me to get fight worse because I would be so confused. He could just leave the moralizing words "you should" or "you ought" out entirely. He doesn't even need to replace them to avoid the moral implications they would give.

I don't have a paid cornerman per se, since I just box for fun, but I have done a lot interviewing and hiring. If I am hiring someone to do X, and when applicant says he believes he "ought" to do X or that X "ought" to be done, and another employee says "he will do X", I will hire the latter not the former. If I am hiring someone to work a cash register, and one says, "I believe I ought not steal," and another says "I do not steal", I will hire the latter and the former. In fact, I find oughts to be correlated with the opposite of doing and willing. A corollary of "I ought not have cheated on my spouse" typically is that the speaker did cheat. "We shouldn't kiss" is more typically followed by kissing than not. "I ought not steal from you" is more correlated with the speaker than stealing than not stealing. Someone saying the words "Gay sex is very immoral and sinful" is (to me) evidence that they are gay. In that way, I not only don't think that the words are used in the way you describe, but that they are actually used to describe roughly speaking the exact opposite. Should is more similar to "will not" than "will". "Ought to do" is more similar to "do not" than "do".

Insofar as someone is using moralistic language to state amoral things that can thus be more clearly and specifically stated in purely amoral terms, then the objection I would have is simply one of using confusing equivocal language that's easily avoided. I explained my views on that in more detail in my 2008 topic What Moral Claims Can Mean and my 2007 topic The Clarity of Amorality.

If someone means to say that the ice won't freeze unless the temperate is lowered to below 0, but expresses that by saying it would immoral/evil/sinful/etc. to not lower the temperature to below 0 degrees, then it's true that I would technically agree with the person's intended meaning, and would only 'object' to their utterly confusing wording.

.

Since "should" is conditional, obviously when it is used in a moral context it assumes some moral postulates. If someone thinks adultery is evil, and that people should not do evil things, then he can conclude that he should not commit adultery. Similarly, if a soccer coach thinks the opposing team's left fullback is a weak defender, and he wants to win the game, he might say, "We should attack down the right wing."

This is not a non-standard use of "should". It's how everyone uses the word, whether they are talking about morals or some other tactical situation, like making ice cubes. If you want to pass the final exam, you should study. I'll grant that when the word is used in a moral context, the postulates are often not specified. Your notion that "should" always implies some moral imperative bespeaks a life spent on philosophy fora, instead of sporting arenas.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Should is more similar to "will not" than "will". "Ought to do" is more similar to "do not" than "do".

Similarly, if a soccer coach thinks the opposing team's left fullback is a weak defender, and he wants to win the game, he might say, "We should attack down the right wing."

This is not a non-standard use of "should". It's how everyone uses the word,

No, respectfully and politely, I believe it's absolutely not how everyone uses the word. Some people sometimes do, I don't doubt.

In fact, in my experience, the idiosyncratic usage you describe is not merely different than the most common usage of the word; But rather, your proposed definition is almost entirely the utter opposite of the most common usage.

Saying "I should attack down the middle" or "I ought attack down the middle" most commonly means, in part, that "I won't attack down the middle." Otherwise, I would simply say that "I will attack down the middle" rather than using moralizing language (i.e. ought-statements) to describe something that can more easily and much more clearly be described with amoral language (i.e. is-statements).

I agree that a coach has probably once said, "The opposing team has an opening on the left, so it would be a sin for us to not attack down the left." We can understand that despite his confusing usage of moralizing language he is actually meaning something amoral. Using ought-statements (i.e. moralizing claims) to mean is-statement (amoral statements) is not the most common meaning of moral terms like "ought", and certainly isn't how everyone uses the terms. Quite the contrary, actually.

I gave other examples in my previous post how your proposed definition not only is different than the more common moralizing usage, but utterly opposite to it:

If I am hiring someone to do X, and when applicant says he believes he "ought" to do X or that X "ought" to be done, and another employee says "he will do X", I will hire the latter not the former. If I am hiring someone to work a cash register, and one says, "I believe I ought not steal," and another says "I do not steal", I will hire the latter and the former. In fact, I find oughts to be correlated with the opposite of doing and willing. A corollary of "I ought not have cheated on my spouse" typically is that the speaker did cheat. "We shouldn't kiss" is more typically followed by kissing than not. "I ought not steal from you" is more correlated with the speaker than stealing than not stealing. Someone saying the words "Gay sex is very immoral and sinful" is (to me) evidence that they are gay. In that way, I not only don't think that the words are used in the way you describe, but that they are actually used to describe roughly speaking the exact opposite. Should is more similar to "will not" than "will". "Ought to do" is more similar to "do not" than "do".

I also gave this fun example in an even early reply in thread to someone else:

Example One -- Moral Imperatives

Imagine two people alone in a room. One says to the other, "we shouldn't kiss". The other replies, "Yes, I agree, we really ought not kiss."

If I had to bet one way or the other, they both want to kiss each other. If I had bet one way or the other whether they kissed each other after that, I would bet that they did kiss, and I would bet that the kiss was consensual, even if they never said anything after having said the above, before then kissing (and thereby becoming moral criminals to the the moral law they agreed exists, so to speak).

Two ways your usage seems to differ from what I experience anecdotally as the most common usage of moral terms like 'should' and 'ought' is that your usage seems to be almost entirely if not completely entirely future-oriented. Additionally, your usage seems to almost entirely if not entirely focused on things that are one's own control, or at least the speaker's or listener's. Focusing on those things is something very reasonable intelligent people do. Is it possible that you are projecting a level of high intelligence and reasonableness onto the average person that is way above average? If the average person was so very good at accepting what the cannot control (i.e. cannot change), such as the past, there would be a lot more people with inner peace and a lot resentment and hate in the world, for sure. If most people were so good at letting go the illusion that things out of their control (such as the past) could be different, there would be a lot more people with inner peace and a lot less clinging to inner-peace-stealing resentment and unforgiveness. Is it possible you are drastically over-estimating the reasonableness and wisdom of the average person? To help ensure not, is it possible to isolate your examples to the past tense, meaning things that have happened in the past? That means we would be looking at things taking the structure of, "X should not have happened," or "X ought to have happened but didn't".

To use your example but in the past tense, if after a boxing match or soccer game a coach says to the player about a maneuver, "you ought not have done that," does that typically mean as a corollary that the coach also believes "you ought not have lost that match." If so, does that mean the same thing as when a gambler watching the match on TV says about the same player or fighter and the game/match, "He should not have lost that match"? Are the gambler and the coach saying the same thing, since they are using the same words about the same match and same player/fighter?

[Ecurb]

Personally, I would not say, "We shouldn't kiss" to a winsome lass whom I wished to kiss. I might say, "We should kiss." I'll grant the possibility of your example, though. The couple wants to kiss, but thinks, for an unstated reason, that it would be unwise. If they weren't thinking bout kissing, why would they be yammering on about kissing?

The student who says, "I should study if I want to pass the exam" may or may not study. He does want to pass the exam; he knows that if he studies he probably will pass the exam; but he's lazy and might not study. So "I will" has a different meaning than "I should".

In any event, it's a minor issue. I'll grant that "should" and "ought" are often freighted with moral connotations.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Ecurb,

Thank you for your reply!

Personally, I would not say, "We shouldn't kiss" to a winsome lass whom I wished to kiss.

Neither would I.

Needless to say, you and I aren't most people.

For my part, I generally don't use words like 'should' or 'ought' at all. Anything I believe actually exists or is actually true can be expressed without those terms and thus without their moralizing connotations, and thus more clearly and precisely in my opinion.

When people do use the terms to describe something that is amoral and/or non-prescriptive, I frequently misunderstand what they mean or just don't understand what they mean, since I take the terms to generally be either moralizing and/or prescriptive, particularly in the sense of being prescriptively unaccepting or resentful towards some unchangeable aspect of reality in some way (e.g. "X happened but shouldn't have happened", "Y will happen but shouldn't happen", etc.). As I see it, and as I understand the terms, one cannot have inner peace if one believes and says that unchangeable reality 'should' be different or 'ought' to be different than it unchangeably is.

You are right that the terms can be used to say amoral things, and I was mistaken insofar as I said otherwise. With that said, insofar as one does believe in some kind of 'moral law' (which I don't believe in and see as a superstition), then there is a significant sense in which that moralizer seems to be lacking what I call spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). Granted, I made the case, both in my OP briefly and in more detail in my book In It Together, that technically any such lack of spiritual freedom is actually an illusion or at least dependent on illusions, namely self-deceit or denial of some kind. Of course, those who don't see things like "moral law" as an illusion/superstition might disagree with me about that. I imagine such people would often be likely to call my free-spirited amorality "evil" or such, whatever that means to them. Either way, illusion or not, a lack of what I call spiritual freedom also entails a lack of what I call inner peace, for the reasons explained in my book in detail. As I say in my book, a nightmare can torture the dreamer even if it's not real, and an imaginary roadblock can be just as effective as a real one.

I'll grant the possibility of your example, though. The couple wants to kiss, but thinks, for an unstated reason, that it would be unwise. If they weren't thinking bout kissing, why would they be yammering on about kissing?

The student who says, "I should study if I want to pass the exam" may or may not study. He does want to pass the exam; he knows that if he studies he probably will pass the exam; but he's lazy and might not study. So "I will" has a different meaning than "I should".

In any event, it's a minor issue. I'll grant that "should" and "ought" are often freighted with moral connotations.

I agree with all three paragraphs.



Thank you,
Scott

[Leontiskos]

• LEp1: A judgment is a moral judgment if and only if it is a judgment about the behavior of rational agents.
• LEp2: Thoughts, utterances, and actions can involve moral judgments.
• LEp3: Utterances which are imperatives are utterances which involve moral judgments.
• LEp4: Conditional statements do not involve moral judgments, and therefore are not imperatives.

Hi, Leontiskos,

You're welcome, and thank you for your reply to my reply to your reply!

Hi, Scott. Thanks for your reply. Above I set out a few propositions I hold to, and which will probably be important for our discussion. Let me discuss a few of them quickly.

First, the reason LEp1 focuses on rational agents is because rational agents can act freely and be held responsible for their behavior. Their behavior can be praiseworthy or blameworthy in a way that the behavior of a rock cannot.

The second thing I should say is that I do not hold to the proposition that <All moral utterances are imperative utterances>. Some of what you say below seems to assume that I hold such a proposition, but I do not. I just made use of imperatives since they are an easy way to broach the subject.

Third, in my last post I said things like, "You seem to be attempting to say that only some 'shoulds' are moral..." My use of "moral" in such a case means, "involving moral judgments." The same is true when I speak of "moral statements," or "moral acts." In the context of our discussion I am referring to statements or acts which involve moral judgments, not acts which are morally praiseworthy. This was probably obvious, but I wanted to make it explicit.

Fourth, Ecurb brought up the issue of conditional statements, and I do believe this is important. A conditional statement is an if-then type statement. For example, "If you don't wish to slip on the ice, then you should wear ice cleats." This statement is not necessarily a moral statement. Usually it is. Usually when someone utters this statement in a real-life context they are implying that the person should wear ice cleats because it is bad to slip on the ice. Yet technically speaking the statement need not involve that moral judgment.

A final preliminary point:

...not that the police officer believes in moral superstitions...

For many people 'moral' is a dirty word, associated with superstition and old-fashioned ideas. It seems as if you are one of these people, no? It is not a dirty word for me, but the first point I wish to make is semantic. In LEp1 I use the word 'moral' because I think that is the best word to describe those sorts of judgments, but if you want to use a different word we can do so. I'm just not sure which alternative word we would use.

Secondly, I wish to note that in my experience the people who see 'moral' as a dirty word don't have any clear definition of what 'moral' even is. It seems to be used as a pejorative to point to judgments that they dislike, but when I press them it never seems to go much deeper than their likes and dislikes. So a theme that will probably recur in our discussion is found in a quote from my last post, "...if someone wishes to consistently eschew morality while at the same time issuing imperatives then they would need to explain which imperatives are related to morality and which are not..." More generally: If someone wishes to consistently eschew morality while at the same time issuing statements which involve moral judgments, then they would need explain which statements or judgments are moral and which are not. This will surely be important.

I agree that one could engage in self-defense without making moral claims, just as a tiger might protect its cub without making moral claims. But when you say, "Don't should on me," you are issuing a directive to someone else and telling them how to act or not act.

Sure, in a sense, I agree. In a similar sense, if I told a paid employee that works for me, "Go over there and file those papers," it would be a directive telling them how to act, in a sense. Grammatically speaking, the grammatical structure of the sentence would be an imperative, meaning simply that grammatically it's written in the so-called "imperative mood".

But it doesn't necessarily mean I am saying, "the employee should file the papers" or that "employees should do what their boss says".

Likewise, when I say to another human, "don't pee on me", it does not necessarily mean I am saying, "It would be immoral for you to pee on me" or "you should not pee on me".

When a police officer points their gun at you and screams, "Put down your gun!" I would not take their meaning to be, "It would be a moral sin for you to not put down your gun." I would not take the police officer as meaning to say, "I believe morality exists, and that you would be violating moral law if you fail to put down your gun."

Sentences phrased using what in grammar is called the "imperative mood" tend to be very equivocal. There's many different things a speaker could mean when they issue such a 4-word sentence.

Let's take them in turn:

1. "Go over there and file those papers."
2. "Don't pee on me."
3. "Put down your gun."

According to LEp2 these are all moral utterances since they all involve moral judgments. Again, if you want to come up with a different word than 'moral' we can do that, but the key point is that they are utterances which involve a judgment about the behavior rational agents. For example, you yourself admit that (1) is "a directive telling them how to act..." What likely happened is that the boss saw that the papers needed to be filed and that the employee was fit to file them. He then made the moral judgment that the employee ought to file the papers and instructed the employee to file them.

You say:

But [1] doesn't necessarily mean I am saying, "the employee should file the papers"...

Likewise, when I say to another human, "don't pee on me", it does not necessarily mean I am saying [...] "you should not pee on me".

This really makes no sense to me. When a manager tells an employee to do something they think the employee should do that thing. When you say, "don't pee on me," you are telling someone that they should not pee on you. It seems obvious and commonsensical that this is true, does it not? And if so, then you have the burden of proof to defend your opaque claims. I will address things like your "kissing" example below.

Nonetheless, I disagree with the broad assertion that anyone who says those 2-3 word sentences would necessarily be engaging in moralizing or such, let alone that we could say much about anything about what the unknown person means based solely on a single out of context 2-3 word sentence that the hypothetical person said. That is not even to mention the Philosophical Principal of Charity, which would make concluding a contradiction even less reasonable or likely.

Oh, I surely do not agree with this. "Don't issue imperatives" is itself an imperative. It is a phrase in the imperative mood.

Grammatically, you are correct that the grammatical structure of a phrase like "don't issue imperatives" or "don't pee on me" or "don't touch my butt" are all in the "imperative mood" grammatically. That's a simple matter of grammar, the same as saying the sentence, "This is sentence is in the past tense," is in the present tense.

But I am not sure why you disagree with what I said, especially since I agree what you said.

I claimed that all imperative statements are moral statements, whereas you claimed that the statements in question are imperative but not moral, and this is why I disagreed with you. Or, to stick to the main topic and avoid semantics, imperative statements are statements which attempt to influence a rational agent's behavior.

Perhaps instead of focusing on these two words I should just say that, in my opinion, all imperative statements are moral statements.

If you are using the word 'imperative sentence' in the grammatical sense of how a sentence is structured (i.e. a sentence that happens to be written in the "imperative mood"), then I firmly disagree for the reasons explained above.

But I don't believe you have given any arguments. Instead you have given assertions, such as the following:

The phrase, "go file those papers over there" typically doesn't mean "you should file those papers over there"

This is an assertion, not an argument, and it seems to be plainly wrong. That is precisely what "go file those papers over there" means. I think this point needs to be answered, but on the other hand I wrote LEp1 so that we could start avoiding these vagaries of language and verbs like 'should'. Whatever the statement means, surely you are directing the employee to act in one way rather than another. You said as much above.

"Don't touch my butt" is obviously an imperative statement, and therefore a moral statement.

I disagree. Not only do I not think it's obvious, but I don't even think it's true.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret someone's meaning when they say a phrase like "don't touch my butt" is to mean "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" and/or "I do not want you to touch my butt." It also can have implications of urgency (since the person chose to use the much shorter easier said vague equivocal imperative mood in grammar rather than elaborate on what they mean more specifically and clearly). It can also have implications of a threat, such as an unstated or intended "or else". Such as, "Put down your gun, or else I'll kill you", or "Get to work on time, or else I'll fire you." Whether for politeness, laziness, or urgency and time-saving, the words "or else" are often left off along with everything that would follow.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret a police officer screaming "Put down your gun!" is not that the police officer believes in moral superstitions and is saying "you have a moral obligation to put down your gun and it would be morally wrong for you to not put down your gun". Instead, I would interpret him as saying as meaning to say, among other things, "This is urgent and important and the amount of time and/or words I can use is limited, so with that said if you don't put down your gun, then I will shoot you repeatedly with mind, and there will be no consequences for me because I have given you this warning."

I assume that LEp1 and LEp2 will clear up these misunderstandings, but let me know if they do not.

The "imperative mood" is just a label given to a certain grammatical structure of sentence. We will be committing logical fallacies if we conflate the "imperative mood" with the concept of "moral imperatives".

I disagree, but you still haven't provided a definition of what you mean by 'moral'.

The sentence "you should do X" is not in the imperative mood but it's meaning is a moral imperative.

The sentence "Eating grapes is immoral" is not in the imperative mood but it's meaning is a moral imperative.

[...]

The sentence, "you have a moral obligation to tell me if you are free tomorrow" is not in the imperative mood, but it is a moral imperative.

As I said above, I do not hold to the proposition that <All moral utterances are imperative utterances>.

The sentence, "go file those papers over there, employee" is grammatically in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

The sentence, screamed by a police officer, "Put down your gun!" is grammatically in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

The sentence said to one's girlfriend, "let me know if you are free tomorrow" is in the imperative mood, but it is not a moral imperative.

I disagree, but again, I think LEp1 and LEp2 will clear this up.

Likewise, if a moralizer and a non-moralizer both overheard someone else saying "don't touch my butt" to another person, they would likely tend to interpret the speaker's words differently due to the role projection plays.

It seems to me that both will understand that the person has issued an imperative statement.

I don't think so. In fact, I think it would be more common for one to interpret the 4-word sentence as the opposite of a moral imperative. I think I can illustrate that best with two contrasting example:


Example One -- Moral Imperatives

Imagine two people alone in a room. One says to the other, "we shouldn't kiss". The other replies, "Yes, I agree, we really ought not kiss."

If I had to bet one way or the other, they both want to kiss each other. If I had bet one way or the other whether they kissed each other after that, I would bet that they did kiss, and I would bet that the kiss was consensual, even if they never said anything after having said the above, before then kissing (and thereby becoming moral criminals to the the moral law they agreed exists, so to speak).


Example Two -- The Imperative Mood in Grammar

Two people are in a room. One says to the other, "do not touch my butt" or "do not kiss me".

All else the same, I would place my bets opposite in that case versus in case #1. Notably, in regard to the perceived consensuality of it if I found a butt-touching and/or kissing took place without anything else being said.

There are ways that words can take on a special or non-literal meaning in particular contexts. I don't deny this and I am not saying that everyone who utters the phonemes, "Do not kiss me," is necessarily intending one meaning. Language doesn't work that way. Granted, it would still be an imperative if it means "Kiss me!" in that special context, but this is of course beside your point.

More generally, I would say that anyone who publishes a book believes that someone else ought to read it.

Interesting view. I don't at all share it, but it's interesting, and you are entitled to have it.

May I ask why you isolate it to books? Can one post on the Philosophy Forums at all if one doesn't believe in morality? What about Twitter or Facebook or Snapchat? If I post a snap on Snapchat, does that (in your view) mean I must believe that people ought to look at my Snapchat? If I post a tweet on Twitter, does that mean I believe people have a moral obligation to read my tweet? If I post a picture of my kids and I on Facebook, does that mean I believe it would be immoral for people to not look at my kids and I?

I hope you don't mind the playful question: What about people who make porn? Do you think they must believe you and I have a moral duty to watch them have sex?

Oh, it is not limited to books. We were talking about your book so I mentioned books, but anyone who publishes something believes that others ought to consume it. Again, I'm not sure what the difference between an 'ought' and a 'moral ought' is supposed to be. It seems to me that all 'oughts' are moral, and this is entailed by LEp1 and LEp2.

Granted, there are some possible distinctions. For example, some people think that morality always involves other people, and so 'oughts' which pertain only to oneself are not moral in nature. I don't share this view, but it isn't an unreasonable view. Yet everything which we have considered involves other people.

Incidentally, your OP is full of such moral language, so much so that I would not know where to begin. To simply take the first instance that caught my eye, you spoke of, "those people who are way too attached to the material world of the flesh." "Too attached" implies "More attached than they ought to be," does it not?

That's not what I meant, but I agree that the wording is poor, and it would tend to (misleadingly) come off that way to many readers. In fact, while writing my book, I fixed that issue. One of the editors proposed changing some sentences of the structure "often people say of starving kids..." to "Too often people say of starving kids", and I changed it back, removing the word 'too' from "too often", for exactly the reason you mention.

So you are right that the wording is poor if not inaccurate in the OP on that. While to most accurately express what I meant by that sentence would take the kind of elaboration and years of work I put into the book, we can for simplicity here simply reduce its meaning to something more agreeable by replacing 'too' with 'very':

"I suspect generally only those people who are very attached to the material world of the flesh could care very much about the topical human politics of a sliver of time on a tiny planet in an endless sky."

Is that more clearly amoral?

Yes, and thank you for the concession. Granted, I think the change corrupts the meaning of your OP, but we don't need to quibble about that random sentence.

The other reason I brought up books is because moral realities like 'ought' and 'should' can sometimes exist even if no single sentence uses those words, or even directly implies them (as, for example, "too attached" does).

The simple act of publishing a book involves the belief that other people ought to read it, at least in my opinion. A similar thing applies to your section on starving children, which I was able to read in the preview. In that section you do avoid formally moral or normative language in each of the sentences, but it seems to me that those paragraphs taken together clearly convey a moral claim. The moral claim is that it is bad that a child starves every eight seconds. This is a premise underlying those paragraphs, and it is a premise which you and your audience will take for granted (as I do). This is something like a semantic epiphenomenon or case of emergence, where a paragraph can have a meaning which none of the words or sentences taken individually possess.

He wishes to convince others to adopt a "free-spirit" manner of living.

Do I? I'm not sure.

In person, I usually do my best to use tasteful discretion to avoid mentioning that I'm a vegetarian. I think I may have been asked 1,000 times why I'm a vegetarian. I generally do my best to avoid even receiving that question, at least in person. But even on a social media or such it's generally a bit of a borderline secret I keep.

Then perhaps vegetarianism is not something you wish others to adopt. Given such a stance, I would suppose that you have no intention to publish a book on the merits of vegetarianism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the merits of vegetarianism" exactly. But, if I had way more time on my hands than I do, I would definately write a short book entitled, "Why I am a vegetarian", if not simply so I could carry copies around with me, and give them to people who discover my borderline secret and who then ask me that same old annoying question again and again.

Ha! Okay, that's a fair point.

As I said many times before, "live and let live", that's one my mottos. It's like my self-chosen diet. Even my own kids aren't vegetarian, and I've never done anything to encourage to adopt that diet I have adopted. Whether it's a literal diet or behavioral one (e.g. I refuse to rape or murder people), I don't see a lion eating an antelope and lose my inner peace over it. It's all beautiful.

To be clear, are you claiming that you wish to never say or do anything that would influence another person to act in one way rather than another?

No, I am not saying that.

Sometimes it is easiest to understand my broad spiritual philosophy of spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) using the analogy of narrow politics and political freedom (a.k.a. self-government). To support the live and let live motto politically, one does not rape and presumably supports in some way to some degree the use of defensive force to stop rapists from raping. But one who votes to outlaw rape is not hypocrite for engaging in consensual sex.

Just as there a crucial difference between the coercion and persuasion in politics, there is a difference between imposition and voluntary free-spirited cooperation, and by extension between aggression and assertiveness, or between dishonesty manipulation and honest communication, or between requesting or encouraging or influence someone to do X versus believing it would be immoral for them to do X. While political the key difference is centered around literal violence (and by extension the dichotomy of consent), spiritually the key difference is centered around the dichotomy of control, namely in terms of accepting what one cannot control. In my philosophy, it's not physically possible for something to happen that shouldn't happen, be that a hurricane or a certain behavior by someone else. But as explained in much more details and more clearly in my book, part of having the serenity to accept what you cannot control is having the wisdom to know the difference between what you can control and what you cannot control. Self-responsibility plays a huge role in my spiritual philosophy; indeed I even mentioned it by name in the OP.

Political analogies aside, I have no qualms about paying my staff to do what I ask them to do, or inviting my friends over for dinner even though issuing such an invite influences their behavior.

I wouldn't just twiddle my thumbs at home being lonely, passively (or passive-aggressively) hoping my friends will come visit on their own accord without being assertively invited by me, presumably with me growing resentment when such a passive or passive-aggressive communication style doesn't work to get what I want, and then eventually resorting to full-blown aggressiveness when my friends don't mind-read well enough to fulfill my secret unspoken requests. Doing all that would be very inconsistent with the philosophy and suggestions I give in my book, and by extension the philosophy of which I have scratched the surface of with the OP here and my replies to it.

While my book does it much more clearly, I explained how I value assertiveness and assertive communication, and how I exercise it both (1) in terms of how I speak/write to others and (2) in terms of not being an enabler of toxic unassertiveness in others in this Instagram post which I also cross-posted to Facebook.

Okay, well that is helpful and clarifying. Perhaps at this point we both perceive that we have been talking past one another a great deal.

I suppose one thing which confuses me is a sort of vacillation between rhetoric and hard-nosed philosophy. It appears that when you say something like, "Don't should on me," this is rhetorical flourish. You don't believe that all 'shoulds' are inappropriate; just those which are coercive, manipulative, etc. But then on the other hand when you say, "it's not physically possible for something to happen that shouldn't happen," you are engaging in hard-nosed philosophy which is not merely rhetorical. Statements like this latter one led me to believe that the former were not merely rhetorical, which is why I pressed the philosophical issue with the former statements. Honestly, this sounds a lot like Stoicism.

Yet action is very often motivated by a desire for change. Often those who wish to act in the world are motivated because they wish to change something that they believe should be different. When she worked for UNICEF Audrey Hepburn probably said something like, "Too many children have starved!" Or, "Too many children are starving!" I would even go so far as to say that if such propositions are not affirmed then child hunger will not end. Can one shape the future if they do not recognize the contingency of the past? If they do not recognize that the past could have turned out differently?

Let me offer something else to give you more access to my view. I don't generally use the pejorative "moralizing," but insofar as I see it as a viable verb it would not for me merely connote imperative actions, language, or intentions. One who issues a moral statement or an imperative statement is not necessarily moralizing.

Fair enough. Thank you for the clarification about how you use the terms.

We use the term 'moralizing' slightly different then, which is fine. Words are equivocal and different people often use the same word to mean different things with neither person being wrong. For me, by 'moralizing' or 'moralizer' I refer to any moral assertions or beliefs.

Oh, no worries, that's how I figured you were using it.

Thus, as I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "X is immoral" is moralizing.

As I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "That hurricane ought not have happened" is moralizing.

As I use the term (which is different than you use it), to say "That hurricane that happened last night was evil" is moralizing.

Interesting... So when you invite your friends over for dinner would you be moralizing? It seems to me that when you send the text to invite them you believe that, at the very least, they ought to read your text (if they are not busy). Or are some 'oughts' unrelated to morality? For me the human world is filled to the brim with morality and normativity. To try to reject 'moralizing' would be like trying to reject breathing.

In Loss and Gain John Henry Newman writes:

• "I know persons," said Charles, "who believe that handwriting is an indication of calling and character."
  
  "I do not doubt it," replied the priest; "the gait is another; but it is not all of us who can read so recondite a language. Yet a language it is, as really as hieroglyphics on an obelisk."
  
  "It is a fearful thought," said Charles with a sigh, "that we, as it were, exhale ourselves every breath we draw."
  
  The stranger assented; "A man's moral self," he said, "is concentrated in each moment of his life; it lives in the tips of his fingers, and the spring of his insteps. A very little thing tries what a man is made of."

Or if someone makes a promise to you, then they ought to fulfill it. If your brother promised to be the best man at your wedding then you would surely form the judgment that he ought to attend the wedding, no? And if he skipped the wedding because he decided to eat potato chips and watch re-runs of Seinfeld, you would probably be frustrated or at least annoyed with him, no? Or disappointed?

How about this: "He has found value in a particular philosophy of life and has decided to share this with other people." I assume we can agree to that? The next question for me is, "What motivated him to share it?"

I suppose I could write two or more books about that and there still would still be more to say.

One difficulty in answering that is a flaw with the concept of why and whyness. In different words, my book talks about that when it talks about letting go of blame (and credit). Why was John late to work? Is it because he is irresponsible? Is it because his mom didn't teach him the value of punctuality? Is it because there was a traffic jam on the highway? Is it teleological, such as that he wants to get fired to collect unemployment insurance? Was it because it's daylight savings time? Was it because of the particular arrangement of particles in the Big Bang? Is there infinite reasons that are all each independently true that would be impossible to list even with a thousand years to name one after the other? Is the question itself a type of misleading nonsense that the given answer to which reveals more about the given answerer than that which they describe, a sort of proverbial Rorschach test? If so, what does this very paragraph, the last sentence of which you are reading right now, which is my answer say about me?

Another difficulty in answering such questions is--it seems to me--that such seemingly inexplicable difficulty is part of the nature of free-spirited creativity, and by extension art itself. It we ask what motivated Van Gogh to paint Starry Night, can we give an answer that is truly sufficient and more complete and accurate than the painting itself? What about if we are giving that answer to someone who has never even seen Starry Night or any of Van Gogh's painting? I explore what I see as the nature of free-spirited creativity in more detail in my topic, The artistically creative diversity of spiritual freedom.

Oh, I don't think all acts--such as painting Starry Night--are means to an end. But I think publishing a book is a means to an end. Writing could be an end in itself. It's the publishing that especially introduces instrumentality.

I recently told Morton, <"Not all reasons are grounded by goals and consequences. Means-based analyses of acts are not exhaustive. Indeed, the claim that means-based analyses of acts are exhaustive is actually incoherent.">.

For some reason, I'm also reminded of these lines from one my favorite songs:

It takes courage to be still and go inside
I'm on a tip of liberation, watch me toe the line
When yoga pose hits a yoga pose
A part of me that I really hate showing shows
You get a taste from my post of quotes
But my inner growth is something no one knows
And I hope it shows
In my eyes, in my music, in my vibe, in my kindness
And in my stride, in the grand art piece that is my life
And again, this is just a brush stroke
You've been running long enough, child, come home

Indeed, these are difficult topics, and they are topics that I do not currently have enough time to engage. But as Jack Kornfield said, "After the ecstasy, the laundry."

Thank you,
Scott

Thanks Scott, and thanks for maintaining the forum,
-Leontiskos

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Leontiskos,

Thank you for your newest reply and the thought-provoking discussion.

• LEp1: A judgment is a moral judgment if and only if it is a judgment about the behavior of rational agents.

Typically, I wouldn't consider humans to be "rational agents".

There's also many people who believe that "cancer is evil" and "hurricanes are evil", a few examples of which can be seen from some of the replies in my topic Three questions for people who believe evil actually exists. Does that mean hurricanes and cancer would have to be rational agents for those people to be right? If not, what evidence do you have that you say is immoral/evil is immoral/evil but that what they say is immoral/evil is not?

Insofar as humans are considered rational agents, I would then typically corresponding conclude that lions, mice, spiders, and even probably trees are rational agents. Are lions and such rational agents?

A conditional statement is an if-then type statement. For example, "If you don't wish to slip on the ice, then you should wear ice cleats." This statement is not necessarily a moral statement. Usually it is. Usually when someone utters this statement in a real-life context they are implying that the person should wear ice cleats because it is bad to slip on the ice. Yet technically speaking the statement need not involve that moral judgment.

In my anecdotal experience, if someone is attempting to state something that is descriptive and amoral, they wouldn't phrase it with the word 'should' or 'ought'. Granted, language can be very regional and cultural and such.

In my anecdotal experience, if the idea they intended was amoral, they would typically say something like, "To get in the concert, you need tickets," or "to freeze ice, you must lower it's temperature to below 0".

This is especially the case since "should do" is so strongly correlated with "will not do". If someone says they "should have done" something, they typically mean in part they did not do it. If they says, :I should be doing X", they typically mean they are doing it.

"I should have tickets" typically means, in part, "I don't have tickets".

"I must have tickets [to get in the concert]" doesn't have the same issue.

"Must" is correlated to what actually happens, while "should" is correlated to the opposite.

For many people 'moral' is a dirty word, associated with superstition and old-fashioned ideas. It seems as if you are one of these people, no?

I am not sure what you mean by dirty word, but I wouldn't say I think it is a dirty word and presumably don't think it is a dirty word. I do think it is associated with superstition.

I think of "immoral" as a synonym for "sinfulness" which I indeed would typically say is old-fashioned, but I would not say the word "immoral" is old-fashioned, per se. I'd probably typically think of it more a new-age spin on the old-fashioned idea of "sinfulness".

I'm just not sure which alternative word we would use.

It doesn't really matter to me since a non-existent rose by another name smells just as non-existent.

Nonetheless, I offered some alternative terminology in a previous reply to a different person:

In any case, I believe the following statements are true:

1. I shall drink coffee tomorrow.

2. I will drink coffee tomorrow.

In terms of denotation, I believe the following statements are synonymous and are thus all (equally) either untrue or meaningless or both:

3. I should drink coffee tomorrow.

4. I ought to drink coffee tomorrow.

5. It is immoral for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

6. It is sinful for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

7. It is evil for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

8. I have a moral obligation to drink coffee tomorrow.

9. I have a moral duty to drink coffee tomorrow.

10. It is a violation of moral law for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.


I do not believe any of the above statements (i.e. 3-10), but I do believe 1 and 2 are both true.

I agree that one could engage in self-defense without making moral claims, just as a tiger might protect its cub without making moral claims. But when you say, "Don't should on me," you are issuing a directive to someone else and telling them how to act or not act.

Sure, in a sense, I agree. In a similar sense, if I told a paid employee that works for me, "Go over there and file those papers," it would be a directive telling them how to act, in a sense. Grammatically speaking, the grammatical structure of the sentence would be an imperative, meaning simply that grammatically it's written in the so-called "imperative mood".

But it doesn't necessarily mean I am saying, "the employee should file the papers" or that "employees should do what their boss says".

Let's take them in turn:

1. "Go over there and file those papers."

[...]

What likely happened is that the boss saw that the papers needed to be filed and that the employee was fit to file them. He then made the moral judgment that the employee ought to file the papers and instructed the employee to file them.

I wasn't talking about a hypothetical boss or such, I was talking about me, and I can tell you better than anyone what I mean by what I say.

When I say to an employee something like, "put those papers over there", I'm saying, in more concise words, "As your employer, I am asking you to go over there and file those papers. If you don't do what I say, I will fire you because I am paying you to do the job I tell you do. If you don't do what I pay you to do, of course I'm not going to keep paying you."

I have fired (or simply chosen not to hire) plenty of people in my life, and I don't think any of them did anything that they "should" not have done or "ought" not have done, whatever that would mean. In other words, I don't think they did something "immoral" or that they did something "morally bad".

When you say, "don't pee on me," you are telling someone that they should not pee on you. It seems obvious and commonsensical that this is true, does it not?

No, it does not. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be the case to me, since "should not have" is so heavily correlated with "did" and "should not do" is so heavily correlated with "doing", as illustrated by the kissing example:

Example One -- Moral Imperatives

Imagine two people alone in a room. One says to the other, "we shouldn't kiss". The other replies, "Yes, I agree, we really ought not kiss."

If I had to bet one way or the other, they both want to kiss each other. If I had bet one way or the other whether they kissed each other after that, I would bet that they did kiss, and I would bet that the kiss was consensual, even if they never said anything after having said the above, before then kissing (and thereby becoming moral criminals to the the moral law they agreed exists, so to speak).

"We shouldn't kiss" means some very different than "don't kiss me"; it's much closer to the exact opposite, in fact.

As I understand the terms, "I shouldn't do X" means, in part, "I do X".

As I understand the terms, "I shouldn't have done X" means in part, "I did X".

Or, to stick to the main topic and avoid semantics, imperative statements are statements which attempt to influence a rational agent's behavior.

In that case, I think I misunderstood much of your earlier posts. Sorry about that.

When I say I disbelieve in "moral" superstitions and that there are no 'shoulds' and 'no oughts' (and no 'try') in my philosophy, I am not talking about and and all statements that attempt to influence a human's behavior.

For instance, the statement, "I will pay you $20 to do the laundry" is a statement that influences my kids' behavior, and I use it and other statements like it often.

In contrast, I would never sincerely say one of the following (all of which I do not believe to to be true):

1. "I should pay you $20 to do the laundry."

2. "I ought to pay you $20 to do the laundry."

3. "It would be immoral for me to not pay you $20 to do the laundry."

"Don't touch my butt" is obviously an imperative statement, and therefore a moral statement.

I disagree. Not only do I not think it's obvious, but I don't even think it's true.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret someone's meaning when they say a phrase like "don't touch my butt" is to mean "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" and/or "I do not want you to touch my butt." It also can have implications of urgency (since the person chose to use the much shorter easier said vague equivocal imperative mood in grammar rather than elaborate on what they mean more specifically and clearly). It can also have implications of a threat, such as an unstated or intended "or else". Such as, "Put down your gun, or else I'll kill you", or "Get to work on time, or else I'll fire you." Whether for politeness, laziness, or urgency and time-saving, the words "or else" are often left off along with everything that would follow.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret a police officer screaming "Put down your gun!" is not that the police officer believes in moral superstitions and is saying "you have a moral obligation to put down your gun and it would be morally wrong for you to not put down your gun". Instead, I would interpret him as saying as meaning to say, among other things, "This is urgent and important and the amount of time and/or words I can use is limited, so with that said if you don't put down your gun, then I will shoot you repeatedly with mind, and there will be no consequences for me because I have given you this warning."

I assume that LEp1 and LEp2 will clear up these misunderstandings, but let me know if they do not.

They do not, at least not fully.

Do you think the statement, "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" is a "moral statement"?

If so, then I am even more confused by what you might mean by "moral statement".

I believe the statement "It would be immoral for you to touch my butt," is a "moral statement", and it's a very different statement than a descriptive statement about whether or not I am giving consent to have my butt touched.

The "imperative mood" is just a label given to a certain grammatical structure of sentence. We will be committing logical fallacies if we conflate the "imperative mood" with the concept of "moral imperatives".

I disagree, but you still haven't provided a definition of what you mean by 'moral'.

I don't really use the word 'moral', at least not sincerely, hence why I put it in quotes.

What I meant when I warned against the risk of conflating conflate the "imperative mood" in grammar with the concept of "moral imperatives" was simply this:

When I say "don't touch my butt", I do not mean "it would be immoral for you to touch my butt".

When I say "give me your biggest coffee" to the cashier, I do not mean, "It would be morally wrong for you to not give me your largest coffee".

When I tell my girlfriend, "let me know if you are free Friday", I do not mean "it would be literally evil for you to not tell me if you are free Friday".

I generally don't even use words like "evil", "morally wrong", "moral", "immoral" etc. because I don't believe in that superstitious nonsense.

How do you define the word "morality"? How do you define the word "immoral"?

Oh, it is not limited to books. We were talking about your book so I mentioned books, but anyone who publishes something believes that others ought to consume it.

I disagree. I do not think that everyone who posts on the Philosophy Forums believes that it would be immoral for others to not read what they post.

Likewise, I don't think it would be immoral for you to not read my book.

Again, I'm not sure what the difference between an 'ought' and a 'moral ought' is supposed to be. It seems to me that all 'oughts' are moral,

I did not say there is a difference between an 'ought' and 'a moral ought', whatever that would mean.

In any case, I don't believe in the superstition of morality. I don't believe in 'oughts'. If the superstition of 'oughts' come in two flavors (e.g. moral and not moral), then I don't believe in either of its flavors.

I don't think homosexuality is 'immoral' (whatever that would mean). I don't think homophobia is 'immoral' (whatever that would mean). I don't think anything is 'immoral' (whatever that would mean). In other words, I don't believe people 'ought' not be homosexual or 'ought' not be homophobic. I don't believe people ought to do anything. I don't believe anyone or anything ought to do anything.

In other words, I don't believe 'evil' exists, as I explain in my topic, What the word "evil" means to me, and why I believe evil (as I use the term) does not exist.

realities like 'ought' and 'should' can sometimes exist even if no single sentence uses those words, or even directly implies them (as, for example, "too attached" does).

Sure, I agree they can. Nonetheless, perceived implication is the mother of misunderstanding.

One might read between the lines, or otherwise perceive an alleged reality beyond what is said, when, for example, someone says a restaurant simply, "These potatoes are too salty." For example, one might think the person is implying that the chef is bad at cooking or that the chef did something immoral, or a million other things, despite the fact that maybe the person put the salt on the potatoes themselves and the chef didn't have anything to do with it.

The simple act of publishing a book involves the belief that other people ought to read it, at least in my opinion.

I don't think you "ought" to read my book.

I don't think you "ought" to not read my book.

In other words, I don't think it would be "immoral" or "evil" for you to not read my book.

A similar thing applies to your section on starving children, which I was able to read in the preview. In that section you do avoid formally moral or normative language in each of the sentences, but it seems to me that those paragraphs taken together clearly convey a moral claim. The moral claim is that it is [morally] bad that a child starves every eight seconds.

That's a misunderstanding, and is not what I meant. Sorry the words weren't more clear.

I speak very assertively, and so you will generally understand me more accurately if you avoid reading between the lines. Reading between the lines will result in misunderstandings.

As I wrote earlier, perceived implication is the mother of misunderstanding. I worked on the book for 5 years. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, so reading between the lines or perceiving implications, particularly while reading that book, will almost certainly lead to misunderstandings.

As mentioned and linked to before, I value assertiveness and assertive communication, and how I exercise it both (1) in terms of how I speak/write to others and (2) in terms of not being an enabler of toxic unassertiveness in others is explained in this Instagram post which I also cross-posted to Facebook.

This is a premise underlying those paragraphs, and it is a premise which you and your audience will take for granted (as I do). This is something like a semantic epiphenomenon or case of emergence, where a paragraph can have a meaning which none of the words or sentences taken individually possess.

Words are just symbols, and meaning is derived from intent. My sentences mean only what I intend to mean by them. Other interpretations or perceived meanings are misunderstandings.

Projection and reading between the lines and such will occur, and thus many people will misunderstand, which this Key & Peeke sketch illustrates hilariously, in my opinion.

I suppose one thing which confuses me is a sort of vacillation between rhetoric and hard-nosed philosophy. It appears that when you say something like, "Don't should on me," this is rhetorical flourish.

Technically, that's not even something I said. It's a title I gave to a thread. I'm also not sure what you mean by rhetorical flourish, but it sounds like it might be a compliment of my thread-titling ability, in which case, thank you.

I am also not a 100% what you mean by hard-nosed philosophy. If these quotes from Nietzsche aren't hard-nosed philosophy, then indeed it's probably not something I do and I am likely quite soft-nosed:

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego’.

In any case, when I say, if I was to say "don't should on me", it would be in the same sense I would say, "don't touch my butt" or "don't kiss me".

If you are interpreting as me meaning, "I believe it's immoral for you to touch my butt" or in other words "I believe it's evil for you to touch my butt", then you are simply misunderstanding what I mean. I don't believe in such moral superstitions.

You don't believe that all 'shoulds' are inappropriate; just those which are coercive, manipulative, etc.

I never said that.

Any statement of the structure "You should do X" or "X should have happened but didn't" is a statement with which I do not agree, to just give a couple examples of countless.

What I wrote in the OP is that there are no 'shoulds' and no 'oughts' in my philosophy. I wrote, and I quote, "I don't believe in 'shoulds' or 'oughts' or other moralizing."

Yet action is very often motivated by a desire for change. Often those who wish to act in the world are motivated because they wish to change something that they believe should be different. When she worked ffor UNICEF Audrey Hepburn probably said something like, "Too many children have starved!" Or, "Too many children are starving!" I would even go so far as to say that if such propositions are not affirmed then child hunger will not end. Can one shape the future if they do not recognize the contingency of the past? If they do not recognize that the past could have turned out differently?

Technically, I believe time (and by extension change) are not real. More firmly and fully, I strongly believe that the pseudo-idea that the past could be different is an inner-peace-stealing illusion.

Interesting... So when you invite your friends over for dinner would you be moralizing?

I don't think so.

It seems to me that when you send the text to invite them you believe that, at the very least, they ought to read your text (if they are not busy).

I do not believe my friends have a "moral" obligation to read my texts. I do not believe that my friends "ought" to read my texts.

Or are some 'oughts' unrelated to morality? For me the human world is filled to the brim with morality and normativity. To try to reject 'moralizing' would be like trying to reject breathing.

I wouldn't recommend you try to do anything, not even trying to not try. I imagine doing something like that (insofar as it can even be construed as actual doing versus non-doing) might be like those who start mediating by sitting down, closing their eyes, and exhaustingly working really very hard with excruciating effort to not think. Maybe even they say, "shhh! Shut up!" in their inner monologue. Most probably don't get very far that way. Thoughts like "I shouldn't be thinking" are just more thoughts to crowd a probably loud mind.

In analogy, it might be much like 'trying' to not see an optical illusion, like 'trying' to see the two same-colored boxes as not being two different colors in the optical illusion posted in my topic, Commentary on self-transcendence, ego death, and dying before you die; with a finger snap more brutal than Thanos

Or if someone makes a promise to you, then they ought to fulfill it. If your brother promised to be the best man at your wedding then you would surely form the judgment that he ought to attend the wedding, no?

No. I don't think someone is "immoral" or "evil" or such because they break a promise.

As I explain in my book, I believe in unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness, and I believe in fully and unconditionally accepting that which I cannot control.

And if he skipped the wedding because he decided to eat potato chips and watch re-runs of Seinfeld, you would probably be frustrated or at least annoyed with him, no? Or disappointed?

Not really. Notably, the use of the words with him would presumably go against some of the philosophy I explain in my book, particularly the sections on "blame" and unconditional forgiveness. However, you can get a tiny taste of my views on that subject, in my topic, If they knew better, they would do better. For anyone and anything, say, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It's hard to predict what feelings (e.g. hunger, annoyance, fear, horniness, etc.) might body might feel in any given set of hypothetical circumstances. But moralizing about it would be inconsistent with my philosophy, and presumably would be inconsistent with me getting to continue to enjoy what I call consistent free-spirited inner peace.

Oh, I don't think all acts--such as painting Starry Night--are means to an end. But I think publishing a book is a means to an end. Writing could be an end in itself. It's the publishing that especially introduces instrumentality.

I'm sorry; I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing between selling paintings and selling writing.

In this particular case, though, it would be more analogous to a commissioned painting, since many people bought the book before I wrote it. I got paid first, upfront.

But as Jack Kornfield said, "After the ecstasy, the laundry."

A great quote. I'm not sure if it is in line with his meaning or not, but I have "just love everything" tattooed on my arm (and written in as a chapter in my book). Needless to say, everything includes the laundry. In a certain significant sense of the words, I have the wonderful ecstasy of loving free-spirited inner peace before, during, and after doing the laundry.


Thank you,
Scott

[Leontiskos]

Hi, Leontiskos,

Thank you for your newest reply and the thought-provoking discussion.

You’re welcome, and thank you as well.

• LEp1: A judgment is a moral judgment if and only if it is a judgment about the behavior of rational agents.

Typically, I wouldn't consider humans to be "rational agents".

[...]

Insofar as humans are considered rational agents, I would then typically corresponding conclude that lions, mice, spiders, and even probably trees are rational agents. Are lions and such rational agents?

Oh, I already explained what I meant by this:

First, the reason LEp1 focuses on rational agents is because rational agents can act freely and be held responsible for their behavior. Their behavior can be praiseworthy or blameworthy in a way that the behavior of a rock cannot.

Thus trees are not rational agents because they cannot act freely and be held responsible for their behavior. You cannot bring a lawsuit against a tree in a court.

Earlier I criticized a sentence of the OP and you conceded that the wording was “poor if not inaccurate.” My criticism and your concession would not be possible if you were not a rational agent who acts freely and with responsibility. If I critiqued a lion he would not sit back, consider my words, and then choose to defend himself or concede my point.

There's also many people who believe that "cancer is evil" and "hurricanes are evil", a few examples of which can be seen from some of the replies in my topic Three questions for people who believe evil actually exists. Does that mean hurricanes and cancer would have to be rational agents for those people to be right? If not, what evidence do you have that you say is immoral/evil is immoral/evil but that what they say is immoral/evil is not?

Given the length of our exchange and time constraints that have recently arisen for me I will not be able to engage this new topic, but in short I do not know what it would mean to morally judge that which cannot act freely. To do so would be to hold responsible that which cannot possess responsibility. I suppose such people could put the hurricane on the stand and bring charges against it if they like, but nothing will come of it.

A conditional statement is an if-then type statement. For example, "If you don't wish to slip on the ice, then you should wear ice cleats." This statement is not necessarily a moral statement. Usually it is. Usually when someone utters this statement in a real-life context they are implying that the person should wear ice cleats because it is bad to slip on the ice. Yet technically speaking the statement need not involve that moral judgment.

In my anecdotal experience, if someone is attempting to state something that is descriptive and amoral, they wouldn't phrase it with the word 'should' or 'ought'. Granted, language can be very regional and cultural and such.

In my anecdotal experience, if the idea they intended was amoral, they would typically say something like, "To get in the concert, you need tickets," or "to freeze ice, you must lower it's temperature to below 0".

This is especially the case since "should do" is so strongly correlated with "will not do". If someone says they "should have done" something, they typically mean in part they did not do it. If they says, :I should be doing X", they typically mean they are doing it.

"I should have tickets" typically means, in part, "I don't have tickets".

"I must have tickets [to get in the concert]" doesn't have the same issue.

Oh, I entirely agree that ‘should’ generally correlates to moral language. I just wanted to touch on Ecurb’s topic of conditionals since philosophers like Philippa Foot have attempts to recast all moral language in non-moral conditionals. That said, I still haven’t received your definition of what you mean by ‘moral’. Mine is found in LEp1.

For many people 'moral' is a dirty word, associated with superstition and old-fashioned ideas. It seems as if you are one of these people, no?

I am not sure what you mean by dirty word, but I wouldn't say I think it is a dirty word and presumably don't think it is a dirty word. I do think it is associated with superstition.

I think of "immoral" as a synonym for "sinfulness" which I indeed would typically say is old-fashioned, but I would not say the word "immoral" is old-fashioned, per se. I'd probably typically think of it more a new-age spin on the old-fashioned idea of "sinfulness".

Okay.

I'm just not sure which alternative word we would use.

It doesn't really matter to me since a non-existent rose by another name smells just as non-existent.

Nonetheless, I offered some alternative terminology in a previous reply to a different person:

In any case, I believe the following statements are true:

1. I shall drink coffee tomorrow.

2. I will drink coffee tomorrow.

In terms of denotation, I believe the following statements are synonymous and are thus all (equally) either untrue or meaningless or both:

3. I should drink coffee tomorrow.

4. I ought to drink coffee tomorrow.

5. It is immoral for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

6. It is sinful for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

7. It is evil for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.

8. I have a moral obligation to drink coffee tomorrow.

9. I have a moral duty to drink coffee tomorrow.

10. It is a violation of moral law for me to not drink coffee tomorrow.


I do not believe any of the above statements (i.e. 3-10), but I do believe 1 and 2 are both true.

Ah, but in the language of Socrates, these are examples, not definitions. Indeed, these are the same sort of ambiguous examples that lead me to desire a real definition. If you won’t offer your own definition of ‘moral’, will you accept my definition in LEp1?

Let's take them in turn:

1. "Go over there and file those papers."

[...]

What likely happened is that the boss saw that the papers needed to be filed and that the employee was fit to file them. He then made the moral judgment that the employee ought to file the papers and instructed the employee to file them.

I wasn't talking about a hypothetical boss or such, I was talking about me, and I can tell you better than anyone what I mean by what I say.

When I say to an employee something like, "put those papers over there", I'm saying, in more concise words, "As your employer, I am asking you to go over there and file those papers. If you don't do what I say, I will fire you because I am paying you to do the job I tell you do. If you don't do what I pay you to do, of course I'm not going to keep paying you."

I have fired (or simply chosen not to hire) plenty of people in my life, and I don't think any of them did anything that they "should" not have done or "ought" not have done, whatever that would mean. In other words, I don't think they did something "immoral" or that they did something "morally bad".

Well, that doesn’t tell me much since you haven’t told me what ‘immoral’ or ‘morally bad’ even means. Abstaining from offering that definition leads us in circles, since you continue to use the words you have not defined. If you think morality is superstitious, then I would immediately want to know what you even mean by ‘morality’? What is it that is superstitious? In my experience, for folks who use morality pejoratively yet fail to define it, morality is a chimera. It has no definition or meaningful content apart from a pejorative expression of dislike.

Yet you seem to be taking Foot’s tack. You seem to be converting an imperative into a conditional. “If you want to get paid, then you should/must file these papers.”

But let me try to circumvent the traditional philosophical line. The employer’s directive is still moral a la LEp1. This is because it involves a moral judgment. What moral judgment, you ask? The moral judgment that, “Given what I pay her, she should accede to my request.” This expectation about the employee’s behavior is part of what caused the boss to issue the directive. Such an expectation would not hold were the directive excessively onerous and out of proportion with the pay, and this is why managers do not ask their employees to do such things. For example, the boss asked his employee to file papers instead of asking her to hand copy every book in the Brooklyn library because the first is in accord with her station and pay whereas the second is not, and this is the sort of thing that informs his expectations about what he can reasonably request.

When you say, "don't pee on me," you are telling someone that they should not pee on you. It seems obvious and commonsensical that this is true, does it not?

No, it does not. In fact, the exact opposite seems to be the case to me, since "should not have" is so heavily correlated with "did" and "should not do" is so heavily correlated with "doing", as illustrated by the kissing example:

Oh? So if you were peeing on someone and they said, “Don’t pee on me,” you would continue peeing on them since their words are so heavily correlated with their opposite? And if you were arrested you would tell the officer that when they said, “Don’t pee on me,” what they really meant was, “Pee on me”?

As I understand the terms, "I shouldn't have done X" means in part, "I did X".

Well yes, this is past tense and it entails that you did X.

As I understand the terms, "I shouldn't do X" means, in part, "I do X".

It can in certain circumstances. If someone is at the AA meeting and they say, “I shouldn’t drink,” then we understand that they mean, “I should end my drinking.” But if someone is contemplating suicide and they say, “I shouldn’t commit suicide,” they are not saying that they do commit suicide.

But I don’t think this muddying of the waters is helping our conversation move forward. People could say “black” and mean red. Such a fact does not impact a philosophical discussion of morality.

Or, to stick to the main topic and avoid semantics, imperative statements are statements which attempt to influence a rational agent's behavior.

In that case, I think I misunderstood much of your earlier posts. Sorry about that.

That’s alright. I think we both misunderstood. Although I’m still trying to get my bearings.

When I say I disbelieve in "moral" superstitions and that there are no 'shoulds' and 'no oughts' (and no 'try') in my philosophy, I am not talking about any and all statements that attempt to influence a human's behavior.

But then what are you talking about when you say those things? You keep saying, “I am not saying X. I do not say Y. I would never say Z.” My question is always the same: What are you saying? What is your definition of morality?

For instance, the statement, "I will pay you $20 to do the laundry" is a statement that influences my kids' behavior, and I use it and other statements like it often.

But why isn’t this a moral statement? According to what definition of morality is it not a moral statement? And when the sweatshop owner tells a child, “I will pay you $.25 an hour to make shoes,” is his statement related to morality?

According to LEp1 it is a moral statement since it involves the moral judgment that the child will act in a certain way given the incentive. The act in question need not even be consent. It could even be interest, or consideration, or deliberation. And if you utter such a thing with no expectation about any behavior of any kind whatsoever, then one would have to wonder why you even propositioned the child in the first place.

In contrast, I would never sincerely say one of the following (all of which I do not believe to to be true):

1. "I should pay you $20 to do the laundry."

2. "I ought to pay you $20 to do the laundry."

3. "It would be immoral for me to not pay you $20 to do the laundry."

I hope you see that the moral judgment need not be so obvious as that, but let’s take another step back. You seem to have a very rarefied understanding of ‘should’. My understanding of ‘should’ is not at all rarefied, just as my understanding of morality is not complicated. In fact it is quite commonplace. If you offer a child $20 to do the laundry, then you believe you should do so. We don’t generally do things that we don’t think we should do. If you walk across the street then you believe that you should walk across the street. If you clip your fingernails then you believe that you should clip your fingernails. Of course there are also more formal ‘shoulds’ in the form of obligations and duties, but we will get to those below.

"Don't touch my butt" is obviously an imperative statement, and therefore a moral statement.

I disagree. Not only do I not think it's obvious, but I don't even think it's true.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret someone's meaning when they say a phrase like "don't touch my butt" is to mean "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" and/or "I do not want you to touch my butt." It also can have implications of urgency (since the person chose to use the much shorter easier said vague equivocal imperative mood in grammar rather than elaborate on what they mean more specifically and clearly). It can also have implications of a threat, such as an unstated or intended "or else". Such as, "Put down your gun, or else I'll kill you", or "Get to work on time, or else I'll fire you." Whether for politeness, laziness, or urgency and time-saving, the words "or else" are often left off along with everything that would follow.

To me, the way I most commonly interpret a police officer screaming "Put down your gun!" is not that the police officer believes in moral superstitions and is saying "you have a moral obligation to put down your gun and it would be morally wrong for you to not put down your gun". Instead, I would interpret him as saying as meaning to say, among other things, "This is urgent and important and the amount of time and/or words I can use is limited, so with that said if you don't put down your gun, then I will shoot you repeatedly with mind, and there will be no consequences for me because I have given you this warning."

I assume that LEp1 and LEp2 will clear up these misunderstandings, but let me know if they do not.

They do not, at least not fully.

Do you think the statement, "I do not consent to having my butt touched by you" is a "moral statement"?

If so, then I am even more confused by what you might mean by "moral statement".

I have given a definition, and according to that definition it is a moral statement. It is a statement which involves a moral judgment (see LEp2 and LEp1). It could be an imperative statement or else a descriptive statement about consent; either way it is a moral statement. The relevant premise in the consent interpretation is, “They should not act contrary to my consent.” The moral judgment is found in that expectation about behavior. Whether you say, “Don’t touch my butt,” or, “I do not consent to having my butt touched by you,” either way you are attempting to shape the behavior of a rational agent.

The "imperative mood" is just a label given to a certain grammatical structure of sentence. We will be committing logical fallacies if we conflate the "imperative mood" with the concept of "moral imperatives".

I disagree, but you still haven't provided a definition of what you mean by 'moral'.

I don't really use the word 'moral', at least not sincerely, hence why I put it in quotes.

Then perhaps I am right that it is nothing more than a pejorative in your usage? Without content?

What I meant when I warned against the risk of conflating conflate the "imperative mood" in grammar with the concept of "moral imperatives" was simply this:

When I say "don't touch my butt", I do not mean "it would be immoral for you to touch my butt".

When I say "give me your biggest coffee" to the cashier, I do not mean, "It would be morally wrong for you to not give me your largest coffee".

When I tell my girlfriend, "let me know if you are free Friday", I do not mean "it would be literally evil for you to not tell me if you are free Friday".

But of course none of these statements have any meaning if ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ have no definition.

How do you define the word "morality"? How do you define the word "immoral"?

I tried to give a very clear picture of what I mean by morality with LEp1, LEp2, LEp3, and LEp4. The formal definition is LEp1.

“LEp1: A judgment is a moral judgment if and only if it is a judgment about the behavior of rational agents.”

In that same post I said:

Third, in my last post I said things like, "You seem to be attempting to say that only some 'shoulds' are moral..." My use of "moral" in such a case means, "involving moral judgments." The same is true when I speak of "moral statements," or "moral acts." In the context of our discussion I am referring to statements or acts which involve moral judgments, not acts which are morally praiseworthy. This was probably obvious, but I wanted to make it explicit.

...Nevertheless, when one makes a moral judgment they judge some action or behavior to be good or bad. When it is judged to be good we use words like “praiseworthy,” “moral,” “good,” etc. When it is judged to be bad we use words like “blameworthy,” “immoral,” “bad,” etc.

Now my purpose in this discussion is to convince you that you very often issue moral statements and make moral judgments. The separate question of whether yours or my moral judgments are correct or incorrect relates to ethics and meta-ethics, and that question would stretch me beyond what I currently have time to discuss. But I can say that on my view good acts are related to flourishing – a sort of variety of “virtue ethics.”

My hunch is that, although you wouldn’t use the word, what you deem to be immoral is violence, coercion, manipulation, dishonesty, etc. I too take these to be evils. The difference between us that concerns me here is that I am perfectly happy to say that they are evil and that my saying so is a moral statement.

Oh, it is not limited to books. We were talking about your book so I mentioned books, but anyone who publishes something believes that others ought to consume it.

I disagree. I do not think that everyone who posts on the Philosophy Forums believes that it would be immoral for others to not read what they post.

Likewise, I don't think it would be immoral for you to not read my book.

Since I don’t yet know what you mean by ‘moral/immoral’, I will substitute ‘should/should not’ so that we can have something approaching a common language.

I do not believe that a user on the Philosophy Forums believes that everyone should read their post. But they do believe that their interlocutor should read it, especially when the interlocutor has consented to a dialogue. But when someone publishes something there is also a general expectation that it was worth publishing and that it is therefore worth reading and that it therefore ought to be read. That softer sense is something like the fisherman who baits his hook with an appetizing bait (for the fish!) and waits in anticipation and expectation for the fish to bite. This is not moral since the fish is not a rational agent, but when he baits the hook he is thinking that the fish ought to be attracted to it. If he didn’t think that he wouldn’t drop the line in the water. When you advertise or incentivize your book you are doing a similar thing.

Of course I should grant that many people who believe in morality don’t seem to have any coherent idea of what they are talking about when they talk about morality, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that those who oppose morality also don’t have any clear idea of what the word is supposed to mean.

I don't believe people ought to do anything. I don't believe anyone or anything ought to do anything.

Then I understood you correctly when I wrote my first post in this thread, and my purpose here is not based on a misunderstanding.

In other words, I don't believe 'evil' exists, as I explain in my topic, What the word "evil" means to me, and why I believe evil (as I use the term) does not exist.

Who decides what we can and cannot control? And if there are things that we cannot control, and things that we can control, then reality simply is not unchangeable. If the future can be controlled then the past could have been different. If it is within your control to eat either a salad or curry for lunch tomorrow then what you ate for lunch yesterday is not something that could not have been different. Our actions affect reality, and our choices direct those actions.

The simple act of publishing a book involves the belief that other people ought to read it, at least in my opinion.

I don't think you "ought" to read my book.

I don't think you "ought" to not read my book.

In other words, I don't think it would be "immoral" or "evil" for you to not read my book.

Is your book worth reading? Should people read books that are worth reading?

A similar thing applies to your section on starving children, which I was able to read in the preview. In that section you do avoid formally moral or normative language in each of the sentences, but it seems to me that those paragraphs taken together clearly convey a moral claim. The moral claim is that it is [morally] bad that a child starves every eight seconds.

That's a misunderstanding, and is not what I meant. Sorry the words weren't more clear.

I speak very assertively, and so you will generally understand me more accurately if you avoid reading between the lines. Reading between the lines will result in misunderstandings.

As I wrote earlier, perceived implication is the mother of misunderstanding. I worked on the book for 5 years. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, so reading between the lines or perceiving implications, particularly while reading that book, will almost certainly lead to misunderstandings.

As mentioned and linked to before, I value assertiveness and assertive communication, and how I exercise it both (1) in terms of how I speak/write to others and (2) in terms of not being an enabler of toxic unassertiveness in others is explained in this Instagram post which I also cross-posted to Facebook.

Oh yes, I read those posts. I don’t currently have internet as I write this, but I read them in your last post. I agree with the posts, but I also believe they are moral posts. They remind me of things C. S. Lewis has written.

To “value assertiveness” is to believe that you (Scott) ought to be assertive rather than non-assertive, is it not? If you value assertiveness in others then you believe that others ought to be assertive rather than non-assertive, ceteris paribus. Perhaps you would say that you direct yourself via ‘oughts’, but you do not direct others via ‘oughts’?

Similarly, to speak of, “not being an enabler of toxic unassertiveness in others,” is a direct moral statement via LEp1. You are acting to influence others’ behavior. To “not enable toxic unassertiveness.” Similarly, to avoid saying or doing things which would influence others to commit suicide is a moral habit. Again, I am not saying that such things are good or bad; only that they involve moral judgments. “I ought not enable toxic unassertiveness.” Alternatively, “Toxic unassertiveness is immoral or evil.”

This is a premise underlying those paragraphs, and it is a premise which you and your audience will take for granted (as I do). This is something like a semantic epiphenomenon or case of emergence, where a paragraph can have a meaning which none of the words or sentences taken individually possess.

Words are just symbols, and meaning is derived from intent. My sentences mean only what I intend to mean by them. Other interpretations or perceived meanings are misunderstandings.

Elizabeth Anscombe wrote a paper on intention in which she pointed out, contrary to many philosophers of her day, that intent is not stipulative. One does not get to just stipulate their intent, nor do we possess perfect self-knowledge which allows us to understand all of the intent underlying our words and actions. Words are more than just symbols and intent. They are a reality which is shaped by cultures and history, and which shape us just as much as we utilize them.

But I agree that focusing on that passage of the book will probably not be helpful. Better to focus on your explicit affirmations.

Technically, that's not even something I said. It's a title I gave to a thread.

Propositions asserted in the titles of your threads are not things you have said?

If you are interpreting as me meaning, "I believe it's immoral for you to touch my butt" or in other words "I believe it's evil for you to touch my butt", then you are simply misunderstanding what I mean. I don't believe in such moral superstitions.

You haven’t told me what you mean. Only what you don’t mean. It’s quite evasive.

I keep pointing out that you are swimming in moral statements according to my definition in LEp1. You keep asserting that you are not making moral statements, but you won’t tell me what you mean by ‘moral’ and you don’t seem to accept LEp1. It leaves me at something of a dead end.

You don't believe that all 'shoulds' are inappropriate; just those which are coercive, manipulative, etc.

I never said that.

Any statement of the structure "You should do X" or "X should have happened but didn't" is a statement with which I do not agree, to just give a couple examples of countless.

What I wrote in the OP is that there are no 'shoulds' and no 'oughts' in my philosophy. I wrote, and I quote, "I don't believe in 'shoulds' or 'oughts' or other moralizing."

Of course, and I don’t mean to be rude, but my whole thesis in this thread is that you are contradicting yourself. That you “moralize” while eschewing morality.

You said:

To be clear, are you claiming that you wish to never say or do anything that would influence another person to act in one way rather than another?

No, I am not saying that.

[...]

Just as there a crucial difference between the coercion and persuasion in politics, there is a difference between imposition and voluntary free-spirited cooperation, and by extension between aggression and assertiveness, or between dishonesty manipulation and honest communication, or between requesting or encouraging or influence someone to do X versus believing it would be immoral for them to do X. While political the key difference is centered around literal violence (and by extension the dichotomy of consent), spiritually the key difference is centered around the dichotomy of control, namely in terms of accepting what one cannot control.

I interpret this to mean that you are willing to influence others via persuasion, voluntary free-spirited cooperation, assertiveness, honest communication. You are unwilling to influence others via coercion, imposition, aggression, dishonest manipulation, and violence. Or more bluntly, you think the former are good and the latter are bad.

Further, you think that we ought to accept what we cannot control, and that we ought not attempt to control what we cannot control.

All of these are moral beliefs and propositions via LEp1 and LEp2. Attempting to influence another’s behavior through persuasion is a moral act. Attempting to avoid influencing another’s behavior through coercion is a moral omission. It’s all moral.

Yet action is very often motivated by a desire for change. Often those who wish to act in the world are motivated because they wish to change something that they believe should be different. When she worked ffor UNICEF Audrey Hepburn probably said something like, "Too many children have starved!" Or, "Too many children are starving!" I would even go so far as to say that if such propositions are not affirmed then child hunger will not end. Can one shape the future if they do not recognize the contingency of the past? If they do not recognize that the past could have turned out differently?

Technically, I believe time (and by extension change) are not real. More firmly and fully, I strongly believe that the pseudo-idea that the past could be different is an inner-peace-stealing illusion.

You said:

One of the editors proposed changing some sentences of the structure "often people say of starving kids..." to "Too often people say of starving kids", and I changed it back, removing the word 'too' from "too often", for exactly the reason you mention.

You did this because you believe that you ought not contradict yourself, no? “If I made this change then I would be using language which intimates a contradiction, but I should not contradict myself, therefore I will not make this change.” That we ought to tell the truth and not contradict ourselves are moral claims.

Interesting... So when you invite your friends over for dinner would you be moralizing?

I don't think so.

It seems to me that when you send the text to invite them you believe that, at the very least, they ought to read your text (if they are not busy).

I do not believe my friends have a "moral" obligation to read my texts. I do not believe that my friends "ought" to read my texts.

Why do you keep using quotes around “ought”? Are you going to tell me that when you send your close friend a text message you have no expectation that he will read it?

Or are some 'oughts' unrelated to morality? For me the human world is filled to the brim with morality and normativity. To try to reject 'moralizing' would be like trying to reject breathing.

I wouldn't recommend you try to do anything, not even trying to not try.

This felt very much like a recommendation:

As I wrote earlier, perceived implication is the mother of misunderstanding. I worked on the book for 5 years. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, so reading between the lines or perceiving implications, particularly while reading that book, will almost certainly lead to misunderstandings.

This is like saying, “Walking without ice cleats, particularly when the ice is wet, will almost certainly lead to injuries.”

Sorry the words weren't more clear.

This bears on the future-past question, assuming it was not rhetorical. If we should not worry about what is beyond our control, and the past is beyond our control, then why be sorry? About anything? Is it possible to make mistakes? Mistakes imply ‘oughts’; they imply good and bad. As do successes.

I imagine doing something like that (insofar as it can even be construed as actual doing versus non-doing) might be like those who start mediating by sitting down, closing their eyes, and exhaustingly working really very hard with excruciating effort to not think. Maybe even they say, "shhh! Shut up!" in their inner monologue. Most probably don't get very far that way. Thoughts like "I shouldn't be thinking" are just more thoughts to crowd a probably loud mind.

I agree that generally people do focus too much on not-thinking, and that they ought not do that.

Or if someone makes a promise to you, then they ought to fulfill it. If your brother promised to be the best man at your wedding then you would surely form the judgment that he ought to attend the wedding, no?

No. I don't think someone is "immoral" or "evil" or such because they break a promise.

Ah, but I never asked you about immorality or evil. Nor would I, given that you yourself admit that you have no idea what you mean by those words. You dodged my question by adverting to words that you refuse to define, as you have done time and time again.

As I explain in my book, I believe in unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness, and I believe in fully and unconditionally accepting that which I cannot control.

What does this mean but that one should be unconditionally loving and forgiving? Or that you (Scott) should fully and unconditionally accept that which you cannot control? And if no one ought to do one thing or another, then how could there ever be anything to be forgiven? To believe in forgiveness is to believe in things to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a deeply moral reality.

Presumably you sometimes struggle with this idea of control. Presumably you sometimes wrestle with movements within yourself to not-accept something which you cannot control. And what causes you to try to hold to your philosophy? It is the belief that your philosophy is the right way, the better way, the good way, the path that you ought to walk, etc.

And if he skipped the wedding because he decided to eat potato chips and watch re-runs of Seinfeld, you would probably be frustrated or at least annoyed with him, no? Or disappointed?

Not really. Notably, the use of the words with him would presumably go against some of the philosophy I explain in my book, particularly the sections on "blame" and unconditional forgiveness. However, you can get a tiny taste of my views on that subject, in my topic, If they knew better, they would do better. For anyone and anything, say, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."

It's hard to predict what feelings (e.g. hunger, annoyance, fear, horniness, etc.) might body might feel in any given set of hypothetical circumstances. But moralizing about it would be inconsistent with my philosophy, and presumably would be inconsistent with me getting to continue to enjoy what I call consistent free-spirited inner peace.

Feelings can have a moral character as well, particularly anger. When you get angry it is because you believe, among other things, that something is not right. That something is a way that it should not be. The anger is both a response to this perception and a means to correct the problem.

Usually when I talk to moral relativists like yourself they admit that anger does have a moral character, and that they do sometimes get angry. If they wish to retain their moral relativism they tell me that it is an inconsistency on their part, a kind of irrationality which they cannot control but which they are working at.

Oh, I don't think all acts--such as painting Starry Night--are means to an end. But I think publishing a book is a means to an end. Writing could be an end in itself. It's the publishing that especially introduces instrumentality.

I'm sorry; I'm not sure I understand the distinction you are drawing between selling paintings and selling writing.

In this particular case, though, it would be more analogous to a commissioned painting, since many people bought the book before I wrote it. I got paid first, upfront.

Selling a painting is different from painting a painting. But if you were commissioned then the motivation is different.

But as Jack Kornfield said, "After the ecstasy, the laundry."

A great quote. I'm not sure if it is in line with his meaning or not, but I have "just love everything" tattooed on my arm (and written in as a chapter in my book). Needless to say, everything includes the laundry. In a certain significant sense of the words, I have the wonderful ecstasy of loving free-spirited inner peace before, during, and after doing the laundry.


Thank you,
Scott

Thanks Scott. I pushed a bit harder in this one, but my time is becoming more limited so I am hoping to reach a resolution or stopping point sooner rather than later.

Best,
Leontiskos