Statik - yes, to use the word “mind” as if it’s something separate from brain function amounts to a reification.
Right on. I’m kind of grooving on this method of yours, by the way. I’ve never had “mind” put into perspective as such, but it makes a ton of sense to me.
I was also kind of getting at something a bit more …off topic, I suppose. Specifically, what “mind” is a reification of. I’d opine that the mind is commonly considered something like a container for thought, or wherein thoughts ‘exist’. However, in the same sense that the mind doesn’t “exist”, neither do thoughts. If anything, thoughts are occurrences, rather than static pieces of data that are recalled. There is no official repository of thought, as there is no official location of the mind. Thoughts only interact with the physical word insofar as we express them.
Thoughts do not “exist” either but as a commonality amongst those who think.
Statik -
“Mind” describes a relation, and not an object. We gather together a bunch of behaviors and call them “mind” - as if they are one, durable entity.
“I made up my mind” means “I made a decision”. Now, “decision” is easily seen as an event, an activity. “Mind” nounifies this activity.
And yes, I just made up “nounify”. We nounify all the time. Just as we verbify.
There are myriad factors that go into making a decision. Fears, attitudes, the weather, a stomach ache, anticipation of results, willful ignorance of results, knowledge, guesses, experience, lack of experience, a dream we had last night. All these occur “in the mind”. Well, not the weather or the stomach ache, but they become “mental” data. It’s not the temperature outside that matters as much as it is what we think about it. It’s just that it’s not just cold, hard facts. It’s emotions, attitudes, judgements. All this we ascribe to “mind” - as the seat, or vessel, yes, of our decision, in this example.
“My mind can’t comprehend this!” Here, we are also talking abut factors beyond cold, rational thought. We are feeling some emotion about our thoughts. We feel as if our brains are being overloaded, which our “minds” will tell us about.
“I know my own mind” is the best example. We don’t know our own brains - we don’t feel the synapses firing. But we think we know about the collective results over time.
Call mind “the brain as personality”. Our mental personnae. Descartes clearly did. He didn’t think the demon was literally in his brain - it was in his mind. Mind is aether - it allows for “things” to “enter” it that we wouldn’t say enter our brains. We don’t say that a thought entered our brain nearly so much as we say it entered our mind. Because we are not aware of everything (physical) that happens before we recognise a thought. Just like we aren’t aware of every physical change that occurs before we are diagnosed with, of finally feel, a disease we may have. Which is why primitive medicine focused a little bit More on exorcising demons than it does now.
Oh, see now – I like this quite a bit. A metric shit ton.
So, then, would you call thought the “acts of the brain as personality”? That is, do thoughts constitute that personality any more or less than they express it?
Statik - What’s bigger, a metric shit ton or a regular, american one?
It’s a matter of perspective, of context. I think many people can readily see thoughts as at least closely related to “synapses firing”.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I think the problem has a lot to do with how we talk about it. I think we may often discount seemingly random thoughts and those that don’t fit our image of ourselves this way - “I don’t know what I was thinking!”. Or, “How could I have been thinking that!” Or, if they persist a little, like a bad trip, we might say “I hardly recognised those thoughts as my own!”. My thoughts. We usually suppose that our thoughts belong to us. And this is what Nietzsche was getting at when he talked about will. Our thoughts don’t belong to us, they are us. Pieces of us, anyway.
Look - skin dies and flakes off us. We don’t notice it much, unless we have a sunburn or something. But physical parts of us come and go, and now we know that this is so at the cellular level. So there’s nothing special about the fleeting nature of thoughts - yet we often wish to integrate them into a static whole. Something we can count on, and that others can count on. So we don’t get burned at the stake, or drowned. We want the leaders to know our minds, we want our customers to know our minds, we especially want the priests to know our minds. We want to be able to be counted on. We want to be seen as having a righteous mind, morally correct thinking, a clever mind that makes us valuable.
And there is nothing mistaken or wrong about this. It’s just that it’s a collective noun, this mind. Not a thing, itself.
I think we generate a personality partly of our thoughts - the ones that endure and that we like the best - barring excessive alcohol consumption and too much denial. he thoughts that other people know about. So thoughts express a personality, yes. And make up a personality, yes. I think it’s complicated.
iambiguous,
The source of your confusion is obvious. You think that anything at all will count as a perfectly valid “rationalization”. That’s why you can write, for example,
…as if those were moral theories, and as if no theory were better than any other. If you think they’re even slightly defensible, then take up a theory and defend them. Otherwise, they’re not. The burden of proof is clearly in your court. —It’s simply not true that “anything can be ‘rationalized’”. You seem to think that anything at all will count as a rationalization, and thus if I go out and become a serial killer because I didn’t like the way someone looked at me—that this is a ‘rationalization’. But that’s preposterous.
This is, again, preposterous. Are you reallying saying that, because people can behave irrationally, there’s no such thing as rational persuasion?! We reason with each other, and persuade like and unlike people all the time. I’ve already given you a ton of examples. But, if you want another example, then examine what you yourself are doing right now.
[/quote]
Really?
Economic justice - There’s now such a thing as a ‘minimum wage’, and before there wasn’t. That’s moral progress.
Drug use - We treat it as a disease now, and sympathize more than before with addicts. That’s moral progress.
Gender roles - Women are not paid less simply because they’re women. That’s moral progress.
Capital punishment - We don’t do public hangings. That’s moral progress.
Race relations - There’s no more slavery. That’s moral progress.
Stem Cell research - Some forms have been made legal in the US, and they don’t bar it simply because it’s “playing god” anymore. That’s moral progress.
I could go on. But you get the idea. Progress is being made. Moral progress. And progress has as a part the work of people applying ethics—as with anything. Applying ethics means reasoning with people and making moral progress.
Technically American, but consistency accounts for quite a bit. A ton of Taco Bell filled ass lava is far more difficult to work with in terms of measurement. Plus, a ton is nothing to an American [in one sitting], so throwing the “metric” in there kind of puts a little emphasis on the urgency of the matter.
This is essentially what I was thinking, so we may be on the same page.
That’s where I was going when I said “thoughts are occurrences rather than recall of static data”. What makes our thoughts static is that they are agreeable and communicable; so they are given to some standard that dictates something must be thought of in certain ways. Whereas, in reality, thought is dynamic, as are the variables that contribute to a thought. In other words, these “static” pieces/parts that we contribute to some standard are actually not ever static – what composes the standard is similarity. The “static whole” we covet so much is anything but. This is one of the things I love about philosophy, but seems to make most people uneasy.
I agree. And, in addition (if I may), I think those that contribute to our personality are the thoughts that we hold onto [not necessarily out of preference or desire – PTSD, for example]. Those that others know about are the thoughts we express, which are not necessarily those that endure as part of our personality. This, I suppose, could be why we develop differences in our personalities and how we choose to express them. We portray more favorable versions of ourselves. So, thoughts which constitute our personality are raw, unbridled, even unwarranted at times. Those that express our personalities also refine them in that we learn how to make logical and rational that which naturally is neither. Perhaps, then, thoughts do constitute “mind”, but how we chose to express them has more to do with the evolution, or maturing, of the “mind” [or the refinement of that which constitutes the “mind”]. This would make sense from a therapeutic stand-point wherein expression of one’s thoughts is integral in recognizing and modifying troublesome habits. The better we can express a thought, the more refined it may become internally because we learn what is necessary, relevant, or prudent in our consideration relative to context.
statik -
Quite.
Great minds, you know.
This is essentially in line with Nietzsche, who also makes people feel uneasy. Let’s face it - it’s easier to name something and therefore ignore change than it is to express change. Geometry is easier than calculus.
Yeah. Getting back to iam’s recurring theme, there’s that kind of thinking that takes too seriously the perfectly useful static model that can accommodate “mind”. We all use that model, but we have to be careful not to let that model be the only one that defines our world. Just as we cannot use plane geometry for everything we wish to measure, even though it does the job for real estate.
That is actually a good example. An acre is a measurement generated by projecting a shape onto the ground from above. So if you own a thousand acres of very flat land, you own less surface area than if you own a thousand acres of hills. But they’re both 1,000 acres. And if you own a thousand acres of flat land and a volcanic cone some day thrusts up through that land, your surface area grows - but you still own only a thousand acres. So the measure stays the same, despite the change. An acre is a relation, and not a thing. And that’s what “mind” is - a relation among ever-changing events. And relations don’t literally exist, any more than an acre does.
Okay, but how do you know that we can know all of it? And if we can’t know all of it won’t what we cannot know forever remain hidden? You refuse to acknowledge just how astounding whatever reality may or my not be may or may not be. As soon as someone points that out you accuse them of defending things [like God or Mind] that no one is defending at all.
Mind is just a word. We invented it to describe the extraordinary things the brain does. You may as well say that emotion or libido does not exist. And pondering the nature of matter able to ponder what the nature of matter is may or may not be the same thing as pondering the nature of matter able to precipitate, say, a sneeze.
iambiguous wrote:
…that you actually imagine you have answers to questions like these—or answers considerably more sophisticated than the speculations of Magee—says more about your psychological profile than the sophistication of your logic. In me own humble opinion of course.
I did. As did Magee. We both argue that “mind” and “will” and “autonomy” etc. reflect matter unlike any other. And that’s going back nearly 14,000,000,000 years.
Well, out in the world both scientists and non-scientists alike use the word mind all the time. No one really knows what it is though. No one really knows how the brain manages to pursue the activities often attributed to the mind. But, push coming to shove, it’s basically just a sound we concocted to talk about it.
imabiguous wrote:
The determinists would be proven correct and this exchange we are having now would be but another inherent, materialistic facet of it. How, after all, is human autonomy even possible in a world entirely governed by the brute facticity of laws?
If all of this is just a manifestion of physical laws—laws that have propelled matter now for billions of years—what can anything we discern about it be other than the furthest evolution of this? But: Is the mechanical manner in which matter became stars and planets also the mechanical manner in which we discern it? Can’t it be argued this conflict we seem to be having here is illusory? If matter [all matter] is propelled by mechanical laws then this exchange is too.
But what if it isn’t?
But you have conceded something “metaphysical” may be out there. Something we cannot know. And that is Magee’s point. Magee is merely speculating about what may be “in” the gap between what we think we know and whatever it is we [possibly] cannot know.
iambiguous wrote:
I…point out no one has provided an argument that persuades me to believe this problematic relationship begets a particular God or a particular philosophical equivalent regarding value judgments and moral claims.
No, it means my values are 1] situated existentially in dasein and 2] subject always to change as my experiences, relationships and frames of reference evolve. Just like your’s.
And if mind is meaningless and the brain is just the latest manifestation of mechanical matter marching in lockstep with whatever compels matter to be matter what can it possibly mean to live well? What choice do we have in the matter?
And even in reconciling mechanical matter and human autonomy why should I suppose the manner in which I choose to live is “well” and that another’s is not if they choose to live differently? Living “well” can, perhaps, be measured in dollars and cents. But, in other respects, it is just a prejudice.
And my point is that science is a lot more objective in arbitrating conflicting views of matter than philosophy is in arbitrating conflicting views of morality.
iambiguous wrote:
What stuff have I “made up”? I am merely offering my own existential conjectures about “minds”.
I made a philosophical decision. I decided that philosophical language itself is limited in discussing minds. Why? Because its logic can only penetrate in so far. Just as the language of science is equally stymied.
At least so far.
I only speculate that what most of us call “the mind” is quite different from all other matter that came before it. As such it warrants conjectures that occasionally go off the chart. Or even off the wall. It is easily among the most problematic mysteries “the mind of man” has ever grappled with.
I acknowledge your argument. But if you believe that “mind” is not “special matter” than your definition of evidence is very different from my own. Matter becoming conscious of itself as matter becoming conscious of itself as—possibly—more than just matter is like no other matter anyone has ever discovered. If that is just “ho-hum” to you so be it. But then it was Einstein who suggested that, imagination is more important than knowledge. If only because imagination was the spark that led to so much of what we call a knowledgable understanding of the world around us. Einstein also noted that, the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
Finally this:
Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.
Me too.
iam -
As I have stated repeatedly, we likely cannot know all of it. There is no reason to think that all of reality is accessible by our five sense - in fact, we think we know that there’s stuff, on the quantum level, that is of a scale that we will never directly experience.
That’s not Magee’s premise. His premise is that empirical reality is not all there is. Let’s say I’m blind from birth. Does that mean that I should assume that no one else can see? I mean, would even I, as a blind man, assume that everyone is lying to me? Would I assume that everyone else was bumping into stuff, having no idea what that stuff was? Would I assume that no one could tell two balls apart even if the only difference was their color? Would I assume that they are all lying to me? Or would I assume that they didn’t have to feel a table to know it’s a table?
The stuff we can’t sense doesn’t have to be different than the stuff we can sense. He says “we know for certain that some of the movements of some of the material objects in the world do not have their complete explanations in terms of the laws of physics”. Well, we know that light reflects off of objects at different frequencies. It still “obeys” the laws of physics, whether a blind man can see that or not. My point is that Magee makes that leap - that there must be something else, without ever considering an alternative.
I looked this guy up - just as I thought - a politician.
No, I don’t. I just stick to what there is evidence for. That’s astounding enough.
You want to drop the talk of “mind”, that’s okay by me.
Calling it a different “nature” than brain tissue serves no purpose, so far as i can tell.
But Magee’s argument is not a good one. As I have pointed out. Why you can’t see this, I do not know. I guess I mean, give me a valid argument. You’re not arguing that mind is a “different kind” of matter, if all you are doing is making stuff up. We know that physics hasn’t explained everything, but we don’t know that it won’t. In other words, we don’t have a testable theory to the contrary. You have not presented one, at least.
Sure, and I do, too. I use the word “tooth-fairy” once in a while.
And some of those people know that the reason they don’t know what it is is that it doesn’t literally exist. Scientists don’t really know what gravity is, either,
but they can generate testable theories based on observation. “Mind must be different than any other matter that we know of” is not a testable theory.
That’s not entirely true. We do know a lot about how the brain works. Read up a little.
What conflict? If you want to admit that all we know is physical, then we don’t need to argue, true. If it isn’t, I just want some evidence of that, not the dogmatic pronouncements of a half-assed politician who still stares dreamy-eyed at the stars.
No, he’s not. He’s saying it “must” be.
Sure, maybe there’s something “out there” - but if we can’t know anything about it, there’s nothing to talk about. And don’t try to have it both ways - first you tell me I’m wrong because I’m dogmatic, and then you tell me I’m wrong because I’m not dogmatic. All I’m saying is that we can say anything we want about what we don’t know - that’s not philosophy - it’s just a fair BBC special.
Saying that your values are “situated existentially in dasein” - oh, gees. I can’t go on. How do you argue with someone whose values are situated existentially in dasein? Look - this hocus-pocus is not subject to your experiences. That’s the joke! You’re talking about that which we do not experience! Don’t you get it?
Wow - what’s all that? Matter is compelled to be matter? By whom? By what? Marching in lockstep?
Why do we need some mysterious “matter” to live well? How does some matter move against the cosmic forces of gravity? How can i jump? How can birds fly? Magic? There’s nothing about materialism that implies determinism - you just won’t explore the alternatives.
You get to decide for yourself. You don’t have to judge that another person’s decisions are wrong for them in order to make decisions for yourself. What did they do to you? That you are so “other”-oriented that you think in terms of locksteps? Just make the decisions for yourself. There’s no objective good or bad, but there’s good and bad for you. What the fuck do you care if anyone else agrees? Philosophers revalue all values - good ones do. If they cry about a lack of agreement by others, they miss the point of philosophy. And some have. Doesn’t make them right. A prejudice is an unargued for view. Philosophers argue for their prejudices. But at least they make the effort, which is more than Magee can do, evidently.
Why in God’s name are you reading politicians like Rand and Magee and calling it philosophy?
It’s not more objective - it’s more collective.
Logic is only part of it. But if you think that Magee is a sound logician, I can see why you think logic is inadequate. But philosophy isn’t a language, it’s about language.
But he didn’t say that imagination was magic. He didn’t say that it came from some double-secret matter that’s not really matter. He also cheated on his wife. What he says to the press in a greeting card moment is not the seat of his genius.
There remains something vague. And people like you and Magee panic about anything that’s vague.
These seem more like descriptions of processes. Matter is likely involved, but I don’t think any of those things is “matter” in general.
My point is that any particular rationalization is all it takes to convince any particular individual she is justified in behaving as she chooses. And while we can argue about which rationalizations are the most “valid” there is no way to determine which are, in fact, necesssarily valid. And that is the source of your confusion.
Moral theories are abstractions. We have Plato’s and we have Aristotle’s. We have Descartes’s and we have Kant’s. And we have the hopelessly conflicting theories propounded by the epicureans and the stoics and the cynics. And then on down through the ages historically to those propounded by the Fascists and the Marxists and the Objectivists and the Existentialists and the Nihilists. And then there are the proponents of Dewey and James and Habermas and Rawls and Rorty.
And not one of them could demonstrate beyond all doubt when an argument ceased to be a rationale and became a rationalization again. At least not regarding any particular behavior. It always depends on a particular context interpreted from a particular point of view.
My “burdon of proof” is met when I point this out. Your burden of proof is yet to be met. Where is your irrefutable argument? In other words, one that does not end in, “in your heart you know I’m right.”
And I don’t defend extreme rationalizations, I simply point out that those who do defend them have nothing to fear from you and your moral indignation. Your moral philosophy is little more than piles of words insisting other piles of words must be true because the meaning of the words you use in your premises are more than just a pile of words. They are, instead, what, metaethical constructs? Are you a new embodiment of Ayn Rand?
Bottom line? Like Rand, you can’t close the deal philosophically.
To wit:
Around and around in circles you go. How do we know when people are behaving irrationally? Because that is not how you would behave. Why? Because you only behave rationally.
Okay, let’s instantiate this. Some folks say, “if you want to see an ongoing Holocaust right now look no further than the thousands upon thousands of unborn babies that are slaughtered each year in abortion clinics!”. To them this is nothing less than cold blooded premeditated murder.
So, is this an irrational point of view? Is having an abortion irrational? Is having an abortion immoral?
Our quarrel isn’t over being persuasive, it is over the extent to which any particular argument [viewed as persuasive to some and unpersuasive to others] is rooted existentially in dasein and not essentially in some Platonic/Kantian sense of absolute rationality.
Or wherever “the heart” factors into that. Oh, and how about “the gut”?
iambiguous wrote:
Where is the progress being made regarding abortion, economic justice, human sexuality, drug use, gender roles, capital punishment, race relations, the role of government, gun control, stem cell research, affirmitive action, religious freedom, just war, political rights and on and on and on and on.
Again, you confuse political narratives with deontological ethics. I happen to embrace these movements as progressive myself. But they are not necessarily either more or less progressive than the opposite approach. Just ask the “pro-life” folks about stem cells or conservatives about traditional roles for women or the folks who insist that hanging should be brought back—public hangings smack dab in the middle of the town square. And attendance by citizens will be seen as a moral duty.
Unless of corse you can provide us with an air-tight ontological argument here that puts Kant’s categorical imperative to shame.
iambiguous,
Those were some pretty clear cases of moral progress…
The proponent of such moral progress, in one case you mentioned, might argue based on the principle of “equal pay for equal work”, for example. If that doesn’t sound philosophical enough for you, then think of it as the principle of “treating like cases alike”. That’s called a ‘reason’ for thinking what you do —and when some action has the balance of ‘reasons’ in its favor, we call it “rational”. Don’t use the word like it doesn’t exist, or can never be arrived at. So, does that principle seem any more ‘reasonable’ than the principle that, say, “women are not equal to men”? Because what you’re saying is that it isn’t, and you wouldn’t be able to convince someone that it was. And that’s demonstrably false.
Talk to the people who compare abortions without making any sort of distinctions to the holocaust. Their reason usually falls back on “god said not to”. Unimpressive. While the proponents of abortions often use reasons like “quality of life” concerns for the baby, or the mother, “pregnancy threatens the life of the mother” or “the woman was raped” or other such-like reasons. Compare them. One sort is, at least, more or less reasonable. The other isn’t. I.e., Don’t let someone tell you that god has the reasons, but you have to ask god for them… that’s not the same as actually providing the reasons.
Your responses give me the impression that you wouldn’t know how to calmly convince someone not to kick their baby.
What ethical theory does the Nazi use? (–that was your example). Are you saying it’s just as reasonable as any other? Because if you are, then you don’t know what ‘reasonable’ or ‘rational’ means. What do you mean by this talk of “necessarily” rational? …If the balance of reasons changes, then so does what is “rational”. But that has no affect on the progress we make in morality on a daily basis. It has no affect on declaring something or someone ‘irrational’. And it has no affect whatsoever on doing morality. I think you are confused about that. When you use terms like “absolute rationality”, you have no idea what you mean. Show me where Kant every referred to “absolute rationality”. Show me where Plato ever referred to “absolute rationality”. Both thinkers think that humans are similar enough in the ways that matter to agree about ‘reasons’ often enough.
Okay, demonstrate how this “progress” is not just a political narrative but reflective instead of the only possible rational manner in which everyone must embrace these issues—or be thought of as both irrational and unethical.
By you, right?
But some political conservatives insist that women have no business being in the workplace at all. And many base this not on the premise that women are not equal to men but that men and women have different roles to play in social interaction.
Now, again, provide us with an argument that demonstrates beyond all doubt that anyone who thinks like this is clearly irrational and unethical. I don’t share their values. And I believe I could provide them with reasonable arguments meant to dissuade them. But there is no way I can construct an argument that can never be refuted by them. And, in my opinion, neither can you. On the other hand, I may well be wrong. Give it your best shot.
This reflects only your own moral and political prejudice. One does not have to be religious to accuse a polity that permits legal abortions of facillitating genocide. And it is certainly not irrational to view the unborn as human beings. Or to view the killing of tens of thousands of them each year as analogous to a Holocaust.
I fully support the right of all women to have access to safe and affordable abortions. But I don’t view those who disagree with me as perforce unreasonable. Likewise when a pro-lifer insist abortions must end even in cases of women raped by their own father [using the reason it is not the unborn’s fault] I can’t demoinstrate how this argument is necessarily wrong. And, in my opinion, neither can you.
And what exactly does “more or less” reasonable mean here? Who decides these things, if not each individual dasein?
If you confronted someone kicking a child would you be calmly convincing them not to? No, you’d probably be too enraged to go that route. I know I would. But there are still people able to rationalize such behavior. And if you get in their way they would no doubt rationalize kicking you too. To death for example. But this doesn’t provide you with an argument that demonstrates philosophically such behavior is always wrong. Parents in some cultures will kill a new born child because it is the “wrong” gender. And, again, when you talk about kicking a new born baby others will talk about tearing a fetus into tiny pieces in the course of aborting it. You may insist it is not the same thing but they will beg to differ. Then what? Without God mere mortals are on their own in creating moral narratives.
It was called “National Socialism”. And I am saying it was deemed reasonable by them, not that it is as reasonable as any other ethical theory. But my reaction to any other ethical theory can only reflect my own existential values as dasein.
You on the other hand are, in my opinion, like Monooq. You go around and around in circles. You claim I don’t know what “reasonable” and “rational” mean. And why is that? Because I don’t share your meaning.
The “balance of reasons”? And the balance of reasons “changing” over time? No way. Almost all of those who embrace necessary reasons believe reasons are never subject to changing historical or cultural or experiental contexts. Something is either right or wrong for all people in all circumstances and for all time to come. The deontological agenda of folks like Plato and Kant and Rand.
All of these philosophers predicated moral duty on Reason. They approached virtue philosophically as scientists approach the laws of physics mathematically. Something was either true or false…good or evil…justified or unjustified.
Virtue was predicated on a knowledge that could be discerned objectively. After all, you don’t choose to lie this time in this context but not that time in that context. Some things you were obligated to do and some things you were obligated to stop doing. Period.
Indeed, as soon as you start making exceptions others can as well. And they do. Over and over and over again. It’s called human history.
Why does an argument have to remove all doubt to be useful?
iambiguous,
If you give someone good reasons not to think or do X, and they ignore them with no other equally persuasive reasons, they are behaving irrationally. Also, when you are providing a reason for some position, be careful that you are not merely restating the position in different words.
You seem to think that the following things count as reasons:
(1) God said so. (That’s not a reason, it just says god has the reason).
(2) I’ve just always done it this way. (That’s not a reason, it just says you might once have had one).
(3) My culture says so (That’s not a reason, it just says that perhaps your ancestors might have had reasons).
You’ll find that when you realize these three things don’t count as legitimate reasons, the rest of things human kind has fairly much in common. Since you totally misunderstand this, you think that anything and everything can be rationalized. And that’s just ridiculous.
It’s an interesting question about how to weight and gauge the balance of reasons in complex moral issues. That’s why we need applied ethicists. However, this isn’t what you are claiming. You are claiming that anything and everything can be rationalized, and so it’s absolutely impossible to solve moral problems. That’s an unfortunate thing to think. For instance, if a religious person wants to refuse their child a life-saving blood transfusion because they think it will permit the devil to infultrate their soul… ideally, we should be able to consider ourselves justified in condemning that. What right do we have to interfere if we allow that they can rationalize (aka justify) it somehow?
No, it’s because you don’t know what “rational” means. At least, you’ve never defined your own idiosyncratic use. To be “rational” is just to act with the balance of good reasons in your favour.
If that’s true, it doesn’t mean that anything and everything can be rationalized. The fact that there’s no one moral principle to guide all people for all time does not mean that anything and everything can be morally justifiable. Even so, it’s probably the case that kicking a baby is always wrong, for anyone. You’d need to provide a counterexample to think it’s not. I guess, suppose the baby was plastic, or the baby was choking and the only person around had no arms to perform the hymlick… But are you really going to stretch that far to provide a counterexample?
These are good points. The fact is that philosophy is always seated within a culture - and even iconoclasts like Nietzsche are no exception. Even if the philosopher intends otherwise. No one actually needs a solution for all time - people need solutions for the here and now.
But I think I would split the difference between iambiguous and todaytomorrow, despite that I generally agree with the latter in spirit. Or perhaps I’m just restating tt’s view. Anything can be rationalised, yes. It’s up to the philosopher (or anyone else, for that matter) to judge those rationalisations. Some are better than others. And this is true even before we accept the criteria we use to judge them - and “rationality” is not the only criterion we can, or should, use.
Yes, Virginia, it’s true - two largely mutually exclusive views can be equally rational. But we can look to TT’s “applied ethicists” - who do not have to be different people than the theorists. Rawls makes the point hat our moral ideas have to be checked against practical cases - and this is perhaps the strongest criticism of thinkers like Kant and Hegel - they don’t fare well when this is done. Now - doing so will bring into sharp relief the extant zeitgeist - will certainly seat a moral theory in its contemporary social milieu. But this is a good thing and not a bad.
Moral theories have goals - and I will agree with iam that if a theory’s only goal is to be “rational” then it’s probably a loser. I will also agree that there are other entities involved in public moral life - including the political ones. Nietzsche, again, made that perfectly clear, if writers like Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke did not. Or Plato - more than anyone, I think, and way back. But philosophy is not impotent - it’s limited - morality is part of (and often confused with) social theory. And social and moral theory does not arise out of a vacuum - again, despite the efforts of most rationalists to present it as such.
I agree that there is no such thing as an absolute moral value. Here, I am in a distinct minority - most moralists today are still trying to answer Nietzsche - to turn him on his head, and establish that morality is a biological necessity. I think the underlying factors of morality are underlying necessities (that’s a whole different thread). But that doesn’t mean that morality cannot be seen as a feature of the Social Contract (sans Natural Rights) - and it is this model that philosophy can help with the most.
That contract is unavoidable in any social group larger than a family. How we determine the terms of that contract, and what those terms should be, is an apt task for the philosopher. Making them self-consistent and practical is enough of a job - making them perfect and timeless is a bit much to ask. In the present US, we’re not really good at that. But we have made progress. Progress is all you can ask for.
In my view, this completely misses the point. We are all of us blind all of the time to whatever may ultimately explain “existence”. The literally blind among us are able to understand [up to a point] what it means to see. Most are able to touch and to hear and to smell and to taste what we see so there is enough overlap to allow for very sophisticated communication. Films like The Miracle Worker and Children of a Lesser God explored these themes. But none of us are privy to an explanation as to how everything there is burst into existence out of nothing at all. We may not ever know what “the empirical world” ultimately means. Consequently, that frees us to speculate as to what it might not encompass at all.
Fair enough. Magee makes a leap. But what is the alternative? I make a leap, you make a leap. We all do. We speculate as to what “reality” may or may not “be”. And up to a point science and philosophy can accummulate knowledge that seems rather objective. We can find ways to concur about many things. But as the questions get closer and closer to the truly primoridial [to the things we don’t even know that we don’t even know] we are rather lost. A leap is all there is that far out on the limb.
But let’s explore a leap of your own:
As though that alone explains everything!!
iambiguous wrote:
Mind is just a word. We invented it to describe the extraordinary things the brain does. You may as well say that emotion or libido does not exist. And pondering the nature of matter able to ponder what the nature of matter is may or may not be the same thing as pondering the nature of matter able to precipitate, say, a sneeze.
Notice how you have to refer to “nature” and to “mind” parenthetically. This is necessary of course because we really don’t fully understand either one. That’s where one’s “imagination” comes in. You leave nothing out as an explanation. But, as you note in turn, that which you leave in must have evidence to back it up. I agree. But how exactly do we accummulate evidence regarding the “nature” of the “mind”? We have a situation where the brain is trying to explain its own capacity to explain itself. We have the brain trying to decide if this can be pursued “freely”. It’s the intellectual equivalent of a hall of mirrors.
More circles. In other words, good and valid arguments being those you agree with.
Again, that’s where imagination comes in. That’s how alchemy evolved over time into chemistry. That’s how astrology evolved over time into astronomy. Regarding the “nature” of “human consciousness” contemplating the “nature” of “existence” itself, I say say let the imagination run wild. You are the one who seems to be implying that Magee’s speculations here are on par with tracking down leprechauns, unicorns and angels.
And you are the one insisting that using the word “mind” is analogous to using the word “tooth-fairy”.
But it seems to be quite different. Again: After nearly 14,000,000,000 years it is the only matter capable of naming itself. It is the only matter capable of asking “what is the meaning of matter?” or “Why matter instead of no matter?” or “Why this matter and not another matter?” or “Where did matter come from?” or “What is the ultimate fate of matter?”
How do we go about testing these? And not regarding this or that matter but matter per se?
iambiguous wrote:
[i][If all of this is just a manifestion of physical laws—laws that have propelled matter now for billions of years—what can anything we discern about it be other than the furthest evolution of this? But: Is the mechanical manner in which matter became stars and planets also the mechanical manner in which we discern it? Can’t it be argued this conflict we seem to be having here is illusory? If matter [all matter] is propelled by mechanical laws then this exchange is too.
But what if it isn’t?
[/i]
And how is this an intelligent rejoinder to the points I raised?
Aside to others:
Pick up a copy of Bryan Magee’s Confessions of a Philosopher. After reading it [in whole or in part] ask yourself if Faust’s assessment of the man is appropriate.
But we can’t talk about it unless we open our minds and think about it from all possible directions. Magee is an atheist. He is not trying to suggest “mind” is a pathway to “God” or some “New Age” mysticism. He marvels at the human mind, at human emotions, at human aesthetics, at human instincts, at the brain which embodies them and the deep, deep mysteries that encompass the relationship between all this and the evolution of life itself; at the “nature” of existence itself.
iambiguous wrote:
…my values are 1] situated existentially in dasein and 2] subject always to change as my experiences, relationships and frames of reference evolve. Just like your’s.
I am merely pointing out that what we value morally and politically is rooted in history and culture and in the particular experiences we all have as children. Dasein is not difficult to grasp. We are all “thrown” at birth into a paricular confluence of demographic variables. We are indoctrinated for years to believe certain things are true and certain things are false. We don’t create a persona, others create it for us.
And all philosophy can do is speculate on what we can know for certain about these fabricated values and what will instead always be buried in the “inner child of the past”. Among other things, that’s commom sense. We all have different experiences as we acquire a “sense of self”. What then can philosophy distill down to good and bad, right and wrong, true and false.
Let’s consider tectonic plates. Did or did not the mechanical laws of physics create them in their entirety? Did the plates sit down somewhere and negociate their location and movement? No, they “marched in lockstep” to the laws of physics.
Now, if this is true of that matter is it also true of the matter we call “the brain”?
You say:
“Matter” is just a word we invented in turn. And when we use the word we are not saying the word itself is matter. Unless we write it on a chalkboard. It’s just a sound we invented to talk about the aggregation of chemical substances in both living and non-living things. In non-living things determinism prevails. The mechanical laws of physics leave no room for “choice”. But the more sophisticated living matter has become the more determinism seems problematic. Yet if matter is matter is matter why should it be? Indeed, there are any number of scientists and philosophers who will argue it is not. This exchange we are having here is just like the exchange that tectonic plates have on planet earth. It is all just the mechanical unfolding of whatever precipitated the big bang itself.
But that is not how it works at all out in the world. When we make decisions for ourselves they can easily clash with the decisions of others. Then we are forced to judge them. But why do we choose what we do if not as a reflection of how we have come to understand ourselves and the world around us? And how is that not a manifestation of dasein—of a prefabricated identity we ceaselessly refabricate as we come into contact with new existential variables?
Because there are consequences, of course. If someone does something that results in my inability to do what I want [and vice versa] we need to establish some way to accommodate both agendas.
And “good and bad” are always works in progress. They are rooted in the very evolution of our existential lives. That, for example, is why we change our minds about things. And this is particularly crucial to note in a world where there is no objective good and bad. In such a world “might makes right” can prevail or we can choose instead to live embedded in more or less democratic interaction. And this contrary to your own willfully prejudiced assessment is what Bryan Magee attempted to do as a moderate Labour Party constituent in Britain. He embraced Karl Popper’s political philosophy which revolved around what he called the “open society”. The rule of law [subject ever to change] in other words.
More semantics. Philosophy uses language to discuss [among other things] the relationship between language and logic. But what is the relationship between that and the actual lives we live? Especially when they come into conflict. Is there a limit beyond which philosophical language and logic cannot go? Yes, I think so. And that happens to pertain to some rather crucial aspects of the lives we actually live: how ought I to behave? what is the good life? what is a just act? do we have free will? what is existence?
But you’re right: maybe someday we will have entirely empirical answers to questions like this. But we sure as hell don’t now.
Einstein:
Panic?! Oh, please.
Sure, but we still gotta pay the bills.
I have no objection to speculation. I object to using complete speculation to negate the significance of what we do know. Speculation of the sort that Magee does is not good philosophy. But that’s okay, because he is in no wise a philosopher. He’s a raconteur.
The alternative is t grow up and make your garden grow, as well. It’s fun to stare wide-eyed at the stars. If that sense of wonder leaves us, we are the poorer for it. But it’s not philosophy. I have no interest in “objective” knowledge. That’s another nonsense phrase. There is no such thing. It’s your pursuit of “objective” knowledge that’s got you into this mess. We can concur, however. And we must, about some things, or we cannot talk to each other. That doesn’t amount to anything “objective”, however. You don’t really have to leave the limb - and you can’t.
The only leap I made was to Wikipedia. And I did guess this about him. Just sayin’. But in fact it explains a lot. He’s also some kind of TV dude. I just don’t get a lot of my philosophical ideas from TV and movies. Call me crazy.
Nyet. it was necessary because I was being sarcastic. Again, my view is that there is no such thing as mind.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever used an emoticon. In my life. You’ve driven me to it. You are evil. ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
That’s simply incorrect. I have tried to explain this several times. You just don’t get it. “God’s teachings help us to be good. I want to be good. Therefore, I will listen to God’s teachings”. That’s perfectly valid. I don’t believe a word of it.
But you are not taking this forward, but backward. We’ve already been through all the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo we need to. There’s where philosophy and science came from, sure. It doesn’t need to go back.
Yeah, and Goo Gone seems to be the only thing that will take certain scuff marks off of wooden floors. I had a cat once that knew somehow where my bladder was - information she used against me on many a cold morning when she wanted me to get up. So what?
We are also capable Jersey Shore, Air Supply, Paris Hilton and clitoral piercings. Are those also keys to the universe?
And here is where he loses me. What in the world does “the nature of existence” mean? This is one of the greatest ruses of the metaphysician through the ages. If you thought about just this one question long and hard enough, you’d see that it means nothing! It certainly seems like it should - it seems very profound. But you cannot tell me the first thing about the nature of existence. You cannot even tell me what the phrase means.
I dare you to try. Without all the rest of this - just tell me that - tell me what that phrase signifies.
Sorry - eyes glazed over…Oh! Are you really claiming that your “imagination” does a better job?
Fuck, dude. I don’t have time for all of this. You write some muthafucka long-ass posts. I mean, dude, you comment on each individual sentence I write. Are you really omar? if you want to win a war of attrition, you win.
But suppose someone gives you good reasons to do X and you ignore them? Suppose you give them reasons not to do X but they don’t find them persuasive?
Aren’t you then behaving irrationally?
In other words, who decides all this? You, right? Except they would insist that, on the contrary, they do. Thus both of you are convinced you have the only truly “legitimate reasons” for doing or not doing something.
But, since you totally misunderstand this, you think that only the behaviors you embrace as rational never have to be rationalized.
Just like they do.
As I suggested with Monooq, let’s bring this down to earth:
Some folks say, “if you want to see an ongoing Holocaust right now look no further than the thousands upon thousands of unborn babies that are slaughtered each year in abortion clinics!”. To them this is nothing less than cold blooded premeditated murder.
So, is this a reasonable and persuasive point of view—or just a rationalization? Is having an abortion irrational? Is having an abortion immoral?
Using “applied ethics” how would this conflict be solved?
And I don’t say there is no possible resolution, only that any resolution must revolve around moderation, negociation and compromise. The resolution in other words cannot be dervived definitively from God or Reason or Science.
Ideally? Says who? This isn’t an “ideal” resolution, it is a manifestation of a particular culture [and its mores] interceding between a particular parent and a child. Same with the recent case in which a child was taken from the parents because they named him after Hitler. Historically and culturally, lines are drawn in different places by different people forming different “collective” points of view.
Yes, it is assumed that a belief in the Devil infiltrating a soul through a blood transfusion is irrational. And that it is wrong to risk the life of a child by allowing the parents to withhold it. I certainly believe it is. But, again, that does not make it necessarily so. And should this child be taken from these parents? What about the children of parents who smoke like chimineys? Should they be taken away from them until the parents agree to stop smoking in their presence? Should the state monitor this?
Some folks believe that all religious beliefs are irrational. And, concommitantly, that it is wrong that children should be brainwashed to beleve these preposterous myths. Should the kids then be “liberated” from evangelical zealots as was done by particular fascists and communists when children were not being raised to embrace The Cause?
iambiguous wrote:
You on the other hand are, in my opinion, like Monooq. You go around and around in circles. You claim I don’t know what “reasonable” and “rational” mean. And why is that? Because I don’t share your meaning.
What is the difference between rational in and out of parentheses?
For me something is rational when it is rational for 1] all folks 2] in all contexts and 3] at all times. The stuff of math and science for example. Or things that are analytically sound and true by definition.
For example, I believe it is rational to say that moral distinctions must be made when human beings form communities. Why? Because whenever people aggregate and interact socially, politically and economically conflicts will emerge. And when they inevitably do rules of behavior must be sanctioned and then enforced—one way or the other.
I do not believe however it is rational that, using logic and other tools of philosophy, we can determine the most rational manner in which to behave. Why? Because this is always embedded adventitiously in history and culture…and in ever evolving contingency, chance and change. In dasein, existentially.
At the same time I cannot insist that this is the most rational way in which to approach these things. It can only reflect the manner in which I understand myself and the world around me. Thus it is quite possible a better argument will change my mind. They certainly have in the past.
I will agree this sort of extreme behavior is one virtually all cultures in all historical eras would and will agree is immoral. But that still does not make it necessarily immoral. It means only the manner in which we are hard-wired mentally, emotionally and psychologically [i.e. the hard drive that is human biology] predisposes us to react negatively to this sort of behavior. But any particular man or women can rationalize it such that to them it is not immoral. One man might justify it because he believes the child is the progeny of a best friend who slept with his wife. Or a woman might kick/beat/smother the child because she does not want to be saddled with the responsibility of raising it and does not want certain folks to even know she had it. Or someone might simply be a sadistic narcissist and does whatever brings him self-gratification.
That’s the world we live in when we don’t have a God who sees all Sinners and punishes them in turn.