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But are the reasons true only when they correspond with your own? Can it really be as simple as that? Or is it simpler to suggest they are true only when they correspond with mine? Or with someone else?

Is it for the same reason another might give for taking it away? Is a reason all that is needed if you believe the reason you give accomplishes the task you set out for it?

They probably feel the same as the family of the man who is executed because we didn’t like the reason he gave for doing it. Reasons conflicting don’t make them any less reasons if we can’t think up a reason to prefer one over the other. Or, if we insist that our reason is preferable, does that make it so?

So, if someone writes an engineering manual for every conceivable context in which folks might race cars, it’ll just take longer for science to confirm that each is in fact the world’s fastest race car.

Just not so…universally.

Oh, and don’t forget to assign teams of scientists to prioritize all the reasons here:

“…is it ethical to risk your life [and the lives of others] racing cars for a living?”

And how about just for the sport of it?

Fortunately, if the universe is infinitely long, we will have an infinite amount of time in which to establish it.

  1. No, it’s not a criticism of consequentialism. Are you unimpressed with the scientific method because scientific problems are hard and complex?
  2. Yes, how many rats are as important as a dog… good question. It’s hard. Morality is complex. What is your beef?

This is the last time I’ll say this. What makes a character trait good are its consequences. What makes an intention good are the consequences it aims at. This is a consequentialist analysis of virtues and intentions. If you think this analysis misses something, then say what you think it misses. Otherwise, you are free to be a consequentialist. Here’s what you can’t do: Criticize consequentialism because it doesn’t incorporate the virtues, etc. Because as you can see, that’s just false.

And of “soft sweet and juicy” was the criteria of “tasting good” then I would be forced by reason to agree with you. As it happens, I think your definition misses something, namely “hard salty and dry”.

We create conceptual frameworks to capture and make sense of data, which becomes ‘trees’, ‘insects’, and ‘planets’. We create conceptual frameworks (theories/models) to capture normative data as well. What is the difference?

Faust,

My evidence was on the dog. You recognized it immediately. You said that the dog ought not have been treated that way. You read that off of the world itself. The dog, to be exact. Recognize, now, that it doesn’t matter whether anyone actually did that to the dog or not—what happened to the dog still ought not have happened, whether it was nature or man. I told you about this case before. A child with inner ear cancer. Nobody did that to him. He had to be strapped to a bed in such a way that he couldn’t move his head… because the fluid movement would cause pain. This is not an interpersonal conflict between people. The medications caused him to halucinate. And that’s how he died. Strapped to the bed, seeing monsters, and 5 years old. It is perfectly intelligible to say “that ought not have been the case”. The normative conclusions are pulled from facts about the world. You can fail to see them, sure. The present King of France fails to see the tree in the yard. You can defend the present King of France, sure. Ambigui is hatching an escape plan as we speak. None of that matters to me. I write the King off as a fanatic. I do the same in the moral case. What’s wrong with that?

If they hatch up a moral framework divorced from reality, then that’s where they belong. On the other hand, if they get it from reality, they’re likely an objectivist. Clear enough, right?

No. Reasons are facts about the world.

When reasons conflict you have a moral problem. There are lots of moral problems. Not all of them are solvable right now. Just as in science with competing explanations. That’s why we do philosophy—we look deeper into the reasons.

Yes, an escape hatch:

Your own is always, “…it’s hard. Morality is complex.”

While mine revolves around William Barrett’s “conflicting goods” argument or a point of view grounded in “self-gratification”.

Then I merely reconfigure “self” into dasein and ask, “when is this applicable?”

It has been shown that it’s possible to get several valid subjective results purely from objective data. Remember the wet farmers. Or are you now suggesting that their interpretation of the rain is not at all subjective? That they are each making an objective judgement? It is relativistic, right?

Do you remember my response to the wet farmer case? Go back and read it, and try to keep it in your memory long enough to last through your next post.
The rain is objectively good for crops X, and objectively bad for crops Y. No declaration such as “this rainstorm is universally good” is possible. Just as in morality, no principle such as “killing is universally wrong” is possible. Context matters. That’s not relativism or subjectivism. Relativism is the idea that the justification of morality is cultural crap, just as subjectivism is the idea that morality is justified by shit inside your head. It’s not, in either case. In a particular case, an entire culture can be wrong about whether the rain is good for crops X, and they can be wrong about whether they should have done that to the dog. This is old news my friend.

That you give a reason is a fact. That the reason you give is in accordance with, say, the laws of physics is often considerably more problematic.

If Mary is pregnant and chooses an abortion she either gives you a reason why or she does not. But if the reason she gives is, “it’s immoral to bring more life into this wicked world”, is that a fact about the world?

Is this, in fact, true?

Or, if she says, “a flying elephant from another planet told me to abort it”, is this something she can reasonably demonstrate to be a fact about the world we live in?

You say:

In other words, you avail yourself of the escape hatch. And there is no way on earth I can unequivocally discredit you. In other words, not objectively.

If the reason is a good one, then there will be a fact about the world that makes it true. As it is, it’s not well specified. We need to ask her more questions. I would ask why she thinks “it is immoral”. I’d keep asking why, until she specified a fact about the world. If she ended up just saying what Faust usually does, something like, “well I don’t fucking know, it just is”—then Mary is irrational.

The context is inside your head and it’s influenced by culture. There is no objective context which is accessible to humans - that would require God’s point of view.

I do not recognize that at all. Your implication was that the dog had been mistreated. If the fact is that the dog has not been mistreated, then I do not claim that it ought not to have happened. i did not read it off the world, i read it off what i took to be your implied claim - that the dog had been mistreated. If you were just trying to be cute, and that was a picture of a dog that had not been mistreated, then that is a problem not with my claim, but with your subterfuge. You can’t ask for my view and then demand that I take your view, by simply “recognizing” that it doesn’t matter if the dog was mistreated or not. here, you are, once again, not making an argument, but simply demanding that we “recognize” what you “recognize”. I am asking you to do some philosophy - to make an argument, which you evidently cannot do.

It’s also not a moral question to begin with. The kid had cancer. that’s not the result of anyone’s behavior towards their fellow man.

In common parlance, sure. But my assumption is that we’re generally here to engage in philosophy.

There are no normative conclusions in this case, because moral, normative conclusions are about the behavior of people. No one did this to the kid.

It’s not a moral case. Once again, you are not even attempting to respond to my points. I really had, up until now, given you much more credit than this. I had no idea how weak your case really was.

It’s a question about what’s better or worse. It’s a question about human flourishing. —That’s morality.
Your problem is that you define morality as “a bunch of bullshit”, and then argue that morality is a bunch of bullshit. (I’m paraphrasing obviously). And all I’m suggesting is that you haven’t captured everything with your definition. I thought that I showed you what you weren’t capturing with your definition… in the picture. Perhaps you don’t see it. If that’s the case, long live the King!

So is the debate over Brady v. Manning. That’s not enough to make it a moral question.

No, it is not. Morality is also about behavior. Many other factors are involved in human flourishing, including, but not limited to, luck, weather, and genetics.

Not at all. I think morality is one of the most useful of all human constructs. I neither make that claim nor do i argue for it.

All I’m suggesting is that you have found about a hundred ways, over thousands of words, to restate a single claim.

Yup, if you thought being a good football player had anything to do with human excellence, then it would be a moral question. As it happens, that’s about a craft—and unrelated.

No shit. Don’t you get it? If a baby is born (to use your genetics example), that is horribly deformed, whose organs aren’t connected properly, and who lives a short painful live, dying before it can open its eyes… guess what I’m going to say… I’m going to say, “that ought not have been the case”. And guess what? I’m fucking right about that.

What about the dog is constructed?

Here’s my beef: You think you’d be the actual King, if only the hospital maid wasn’t so treasonous.

You mean, a human being excellent at his craft has nothing to do with human excellence? Either way, you have missed my point, or dodged it.

No, you’re just using the word “ought” in a way that doesn’t apply to morality. Now, that just is a matter of literacy. I can intelligibly say “hey, we had a great time at the party, you ought to have been there” but that’s just a different usage than we employ in morality. I have said this many times, but you can’t do philosophy until you understand the language you are using.

Really? Seriously? Are you seriously asking that question?

Yes, this is basic Socratic stuff. Being an excellent cobbler doesn’t make you an excellent person. And being an excellent football player doesn’t make you an excellent person. That’s just fucking obvious, isn’t it?

No, it’s not. It’s the exact same usage. Here’s why you (wrongly) think it’s different: You think the person is either (1) wrong, or (2) it didn’t really matter either way—so it’s a flippant use of an important word. That’s all.

You can’t do philosophy until you understand basic language.

Yes.

  1. Science is very good at measuring and defining things, however hard it may be. Consequentialists generally wave their hands and talk about indefinable quantities like pleasure and well-being and back down when asked for specific objective measurables.
  2. So where do you start? How do you objectively come to a conclusion that it’s fifteen, or thirty-five, or whatever, such that anyone who disagrees is ignoring the tree in the yard? Don’t back down with “oh, it’s hard”, because I think it’s impossible. Because such a calculus doesn’t exist.

I think you misunderstand me. I’m not saying one is better than the other, here, or that you’re missing anything from your explanation of consequentialism. I’m saying that they are different, and will reach different conclusions on what is moral in specific cases, for different reasons. And I’ve given you examples of such things, as you asked me to.

And of “soft sweet and juicy” was the criteria of “tasting good” then I would be forced by reason to agree with you. As it happens, I think your definition misses something, namely “hard salty and dry”.
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How can this be? We’re referencing objective criteria, one of us must be wrong.

I’ve just said. Within the frameworks, we discover new trees and planets. If a thousand years ago in Europe we’d discovered trees, and no-one believed in them any more, we’d have a situation like that of morality.

That’s not a moral ought though; no-one is to blame. No normative power.

Mo -

It’s obvious when you say what you mean. But you still haven’t told us what makes an excellent person. You seem to be claiming that a morally excellent person is an excellent person, and when we ask you about actual moral cases, you claim that you don’t know, that morality is “difficult”. Just what good is your claim, then? You tell us it’s easy to see a tree, but impossible to see right and wrong in the examples that have been given you. Moral theory is useful when it tells us which acts are right and which are wrong. You give extreme examples that most would agree with, on pain of being called insane, but you expect us to be insane enough to accept your claim that morality is just as easily seen - except that it’s not, for when it’s an example that’s not settled by your claim, you simply shrug your shoulders and say - “Well, tough luck. I don’t know the answer”.

Again, with all this verbiage, all you have done is to make a single claim, that morality is “objective”, and then use extreme examples that most would agree with, and when someone disputes not the moral choice itself, but the basis for that choice, you scream “Reductio! Reductio!” It’s an insult.

The biggest problem with all this is that newbies might think that this is all actual philosophy, which it is not.

What? Why wouldn’t a consequentialist just use the scientist to measure things like pain? Why reinvent the wheel? Is that what you want?

Talk to a scientist. I am not a scientist.

Begging the question again. You have not explained how they are different, and if they are, you cannot point to the difference by saying that “they fight the good fight”----because that’s obviously begging the question about what ‘good’ means here.

I’ve just said. Within the frameworks, we discover new actions and principles, because new problems arise—like abortion. There are clearly people here who are prepared not to believe in trees, if only they were prepared to be consistent.

This is nothing but begging the question again. I’m tired of responding to it. Just look backwards if you need to.

Plato beat me to it.

I gave you an easy case. You’re free to give me a hard case. You can do that to a scientist too. Just ask them if quarks exist. There’s no difference, and neither hard case is a problem for a scientist, nor an objectivist about morality.

This is the insult.

I really hope they do. Because philosophy is practical—at least it can be, and was for the people who knew how to do it best.

And this brings up a more general point about ILP. There are, right now, any number of topics that I think are more interesting than this. But it’s like talking to your neighbour and knowing in advance that he has a dead body in his closet. Some things need to be cleared up first…

Awhile ago, I wanted to figure out what makes something beautiful. And a bunch of …people started going off about how beauty doesn’t exist! it’s all just made up shit! blah blah blah! So I was like, whoa…

You want to know what’s not philosophy? That’s NOT philosophy. If your answer to any of the deepest most interesting questions is: “It doesn’t exist! You just make it up for yourselves! Every man for himself!” …that’s the style of answer people here give, including you… and it’s not philosophy. I hope the newbs recognize that.

Because pain is not suffering, as I’ve explained. And scientists don’t measure pleasure. And no moralist has yet told a scientist how to measure well-being.

What a disappointing cop-out. You haven’t a clue what to measure, yet you insist it’s there?

Yes I did, back up the thread. Twice, I believe. Deontologists see the rational rule as good regardless of contexts, because the rule-keeping itself is what leads to the aggregate best world. Act consequentialists ignore a rule that brings a suboptimal result. I’m not going to keep repeating myself.

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I’m not sure that “begging the question” means what you think it means. Or if it does, how pointing out that not all oughts (nor this particular one) are moral statements does so.

I don’t think that you’re wrong that the baby ought have had a better life, nor that it doesn’t matter. But it’s simply not normative, no-one has the slightest capacity to change things. Unless you have a God you wish to blame. Ought can refer to many things besides moral injunction: you ought to try balsamic vinegar on vanilla ice cream, it’s delicious - I’m not attempting to bring you in line, just offering a suggestion. Of course, if it is moral in that case, then “delicious” is an objective description, by your views. :slight_smile: