I stated very clearly that it’s about damage mitigation in our current reality. Harm reduction.
We need to achieve this with as much precision as we can to get as many people working the ultimate goal as possible. Anytime we keep sustained trauma on someone is a person that we lose who can focus on ending consent violation.
Yes. Some people do sustained trauma on millions… sustained trauma on them is utilitarian, so we can free up millions instead of one bad actor.
Yes, that’s your (D). I am aware of it and I don’t know why you’re repeating it.
Let me now fully review the argument you presented in this post.
Premise (A) is understandable but, as it seems to me, it is unnecessary. You should remove it.
Premise (B) is also understandable. It appears to be necessary because (D) is referencing it but I would say this one is unnecessary too and thus in need of being removed.
Premise (C) isn’t quite clear, so it should be rephrased. I already suggested splitting it into two different statements. I suggest splitting it into (C1) which states “The highest goal of every being is to have all that they want” and (C2) which states “In order for a being to attain their highest goal, they must make sure that noone’s consent is violated”. Since (C1) also looks completely unnecessary, you can ditch it too, leaving you only with (C2).
Premise (D) is too complex. It is made out of three different statements. I think these should be independent, so splitting (D) into three independent statements would be the right thing to do. Some of them aren’t exactly clear. For example, the purpose of the first statement, which is “Since we’re not there yet, the highest current morality is harm reduction”, is not exactly clear and it appears to be redundant. So I’d suggest removing it. The second statement, which is “People concetrate better when they’re not being continuously cut again on a raw wound”, is understandable and I’d say absolutely necessary. But it should be a premise instead of being a conclusion. The same goes for the third statement, which is “We need all the people we can get to solve this problem once and for all, and we need them in tip-top shape mentally”. It is necessary but it should be a premise rather than a conclusion.
With all of the above in mind, I would rewrite your argument in the following way.
First, I would present argument (A):
[tab]A1) In order for a man to attain their highest goal, he must make sure that noone violates another man’s consent.
A2) A man should always choose to do that which brings him closer to attaining his highest goal.
A3) Therefore, a man should make sure that noone violates another man’s consent.[/tab]
Then, I would present argument (B) which argues in favor of statement (A1). Like so:
[tab]B1) In order for a man to attain his highest goal, he needs the help of everyone else.
B2) A man cannot help another man attain their highest goal if someone is violating his consent.
B3) Therefore, in order for a man to attain his highest goal, he must make sure that noone violates another man’s consent.[/tab]
That’s super simple and straight to the point.
If it proves to be necessary, you can then go on and provide arguments in favor of (B1) and/or (B2).
There is still one more check to do. I have to check that the final conclusion, which is (A3), is equivalent to what you set out to prove. And what you set out to prove is that “Morality is objective”. So the question is: what exactly does Ecmandu mean by “Morality is objective”? You aren’t of help here, so I have to make a guess. My first guess was that it stands for “For every moral statement (S), its truth value is independent from what anyone thinks its truth value is”. But it turned out to be inccorect. My current guess is that it stands for “There exists a universal moral statement that is true regardless of what anyone thinks”. “Universal moral statement” means “A moral statement that states that everyone should (or should not) make certain decision under certain circumstances”. An example would be “No human being should kill another human being under any circumstances”. “True regardless of what anyone thinks” means “Other people’s opinions do not determine its truth value”.
That said, is “You should make sure that noone violates other people’s consent” equivalent to “There exists a universal moral statement that is true regardless of what anyone thinks”? Not exactly. But it might be an instance of “Universal moral statement that is true regardless of what anyone thinks” in which case it would be pretty straightforward to derive the conclusion we’re supposed to reach.
So is (A3) a moral statement? Is it a universal one? Does the argument conclude that it’s true? And does it conclude that it’s true regardless of what anyone thinks?
(A3) is obviously a moral statement. And it’s obviously a universal one (it says “A man should do” which translates to “Every man should do”.) Argument (B) obivously concludes that it is true but it what it does not is conclude that it is true regardless of what anyone thinks. That’s why you need the argument that I presented earlier.
You need this:
[tab]Let “statement of fact” denote any statement that says that some aspect of the world is such and such.
Argument:
Every statement of fact is either true or false regardless of what anyone thinks its truth value is.
Every moral statement is a statement of fact.
Therefore, any given moral statement is either true or false regardless of what anyone thinks its truth value is.[/tab]
And since (A3) is a moral statement and every moral statement is either true or false regardless of what anyone thinks, it follows that (A3) is true regardless of what anyone thinks.
And that’s it.
As for your actual argument in the debate thread, that one is more complex, and in a way, it is worse. I might review that one some other time.
Magnus,
It’s trite to state that every moral statement is true or false, thus no matter what, regardless of your opinion, every moral statement is objective.
I’ve already told you why.
Imagine that the actual solution to this objectivity is that every moral statement is false.
Now… it’s implied morally that you think your argument is good (moral or moral to put forth).
But!! If all moral statements are false, then by definition your argument is not good (not moral or moral to put forth).
The other thing I keep pointing out to you is that we can all agree on the SELFISH moral axiom!!
But you don’t do anything to fill in the gap on the INTERCONNECTED moral axiom. That other people matter too, for the SELFISH goal.
You simply assert it. Let me be very straight forward, and I’m sure you have quite a bit of life experience to back this up too. If people could get the selfish one without the interconnected one, most wouldn’t hesitate the selfish one and everyone else be damned.
Fortunately for both of us, that’s not the way existence works, but you have to address it, and you don’t.
Magnus,
Another way to say this is that ANY flaw in existence is a back door in our solution that can be hacked / corrupted.
We have to solve it for everyone.
Sorry, I don’t know how notifications work…
I edited my last message.
I don’t think you get this rather important thing. If you’re offering your services to someone, it is that someone who has the final say on whether or not you did a good job. Your own opinion on that matter is of secondary importance. Thus, if they tell you that you did not do a good job, then you can be sure that you did not do a good job. It does not matter how convinced you are that you did a good job. Similarly, when you write in order to convince others of your own ideas, it is these other people who get to decide whether or not you did a good job – not you. Thus, when I tell you that you’re incomprehensible, you really should trust me. Trying to insist that you’re “perfectly clear” is missing the point. You are not writing for YOURSELF, you are writing for OTHERS. And I happen to be among these people I call “others”.
So, if you find yourself having to repeatedly say “I’ve already told you that”, it’s most likely because what you wrote isn’t clear enough. So what you have to do is not repeat yourself (which is exactly what you did now) but clarify what you said. But if you keep believing that other people are simply not reading you or forgetting what they read then you will keep being frustrated. False beliefs is why people get frustrated.
That aside, here’s a question for you:
How does the statement “All moral statements are false” being true implies that my argument is not good? And not good in what way?
But I did. (B1) states that “In order for a man to attain his highest goal, he needs the help of everyone else”. Thus, other people matter too.
I don’t know what you mean by this. If you mean that I did not present an argument in favor of (B1), then my response would be that you didn’t do anything similar either. Or am I missing something?
(B1) states that people cannot attain the highest goal without the help of everyone else. In other words, there is no selfish route that leads to the attainment of the highest goal. So what exactly is the problem?
How?
Magnus…
sigh
When Einstein’s papers came out, most of the best respected physicists on earth called him a crazy quack. His audience. They tried to ruin his career.
This is einstienian of morality.
Is it possible you just don’t understand?
My argument is so fucking simple dude.
“If every moral statement is false, then your moral objectivity argument is false”
It’s so simple. If you can’t understand something that simple, I have no idea where to go with you.
Why not simply say that you do not know how to explain things?
Is it perhaps because you do not want to admit to yourself (because you’re afraid of the implications) and to others (because you’re afraid of the consequences) that you cannot do something?
That explains why you boast and why you can’t learn how to explain things.
Magnus. Your arguments don’t work. Mine do work.
You’re projecting here.
I know I’m correct, just like Einstein knew he was correct. Almost every physicist in the world came out against him because THEY couldn’t understand it.
Then a solar eclipse came out and it was verified.
You know the story.
Your formulation doesn’t fucking work dude.
How many times do I have to fucking tell you that if all moral statements are false (objective conclusion), that posting any formulation as “a good formulation” is false?
You are missing the point. The point that I made is that if someone you’re trying to convince of your ideas says you’re incomprehensible, you really should believe them that you’re incomprehensible instead of insisting that what you’re saying is “simple” and “perfectly clear”. The fact that you don’t do this indicates that you’re pretty much closed off to external feedback.
What you should be doing is explaining things (or, if you can’t do that, admit that you can’t answer questions and leave it at that.) Instead, what you’re doing is boasting that you’re the Einstein of ethics and unnecessarily repeating yourself.
So which path are you going to take? The path of an insecure person or the path of a normal healthy person? The choice is yours.
Explain it, don’t merely repeat it.
Do what you’re asked to do and not what you feel like doing. If you don’t know what you’re asked to do, ask for clarification.
Not good in what way?!?!?!
Good is a moral judgement. I’m trying so hard not to get mad at you.
If everything is false, morally, then no statements can be good… they’re all bad. If it’s not the statement that’s bad, it’s posting the statement that’s bad. Immoral. By definition!! Extremely simple logic.
Stop projecting on me. You’re trying to make it my fault that you refuse extremely simple, basic logic.
All moral actions = bad (false, untrue)
You say that submitting your argument = good
You’re contradicting yourself.
That’s called cognitive dissonance.
Yes, that’s the question I am asking.
You said that my argument is bad. I am asking “Bad in what way?” There are several different ways in which an argument can be bad. For example, it can be bad because some (or all) of its premises are false. It can also be bad because it’s logically invalid.
Not always. Good arguments aren’t morally good. Good food isn’t morally good either. And so on.
I take it that you’re saying that if all statements are false then all statements are false. That’s not much of an argument. But as it seems, that’s precisely what you’re saying albeit in a rather complicated way. And I do agree it’s true. If X then X. Can’t be disputed. But . . . how does that invalidate my argument? You have yet to explain.
Your fault consists in the following:
You fail to realize that when I say that your writings are incomprehensible I generally mean that they are incomprehensible tp me and not necessarily that they are incomprehensible on average (although I do think, and sometimes say, that they are incomprehensible in this sense too but that’s of secondary importance.)
You fail to realize that in order to move this discussion between the two of us forward, you have to clarify your writings. Merely repeating them won’t do the job. Declaring you’re the Einstein of ethics won’t do the job. Insisting that your writings are “simple” and “perfectly clear” won’t do the job.
You get frustrated precisely because you keep expecting that mere repetition will do the job when in fact it won’t. Get rid of false expectations and you won’t be frustrated. Either admit that you can’t explain things to me OR start actually trying to explain things to me. What you’re doing is dumb and it’s the reason you are on the verge of getting mad.
I never said that all moral actions are bad and I also never said that all moral statements are false. So how can I be contradicting myself?
Fuck dude!
Go back to my VERY first post on this absurdity of yours.
You stated that all moral statements have a truth value (true or false) thus, morality is always objective.
What did I say? I said there’s a loophole - what if all moral statements are false ? Then I said that would make you immoral (by your own definitions!!!) by presenting your argument (bad).
I know what you said. I read that post. The problem is it makes no sense.
Of course it does. It’s a critical mass refutation of your axiom.
You’ve never refuted or addressed this argument directly, you just stated it makes no sense and I’m incomprehensible as a poster with all kinds of issues (because none of your formulations actually are better than the ones I laid out).
Let’s do this in your stupid syllogisms since you seem to like them so much …
1.) Every moral assertion is either true or not regardless of your opinion (You need to prove that by the way, you can’t just assert it)
2.) thus every moral assertion is objective; thus morality is objective
Then I come in and state…
1.) if every moral assertion is proven to be false, than any good or bad decision always solves as bad. Including the decision to POST your ‘proof’
You defeated your own argument dude.
Magnus, at this point, you are being such an ass, I don’t care if you ignore me at this point. I’m only interested in people who give a shit about logic and reason, not post modern trolls.
What axiom?
How can I refute or address an argument if I don’t understand it?
Part of the reason people refuse to make their writings comprehensible is because when you make your writings comprehensible you open them up to criticism. As long as you’re incomprehensible, noone can crticize you because noone can understand you.
I take it that you hate syllogisms because they take effort to write.
I did not merely assert (1). If you go back to this post, you can see that it’s in the conclusion of the argument. So obviously, I presented an argument in favor of it. But of course, that argument may be unsatisfying, requiring one or all of its premises to be supported by an argument. What makes an argument satisfying (i.e. convincing) is a relative thing, differing from person to person, so my general preference is to present the simplest possible argument I can think of and then let the other side tell me whether or not it’s satisfying, and if it’s not, what makes it unsatisfying such that I can develop it in the right direction.
How is my argument worse than your own argument? Your own argument is basically this:
“The reason I call it objective is because if there were no life forms and suddenly life forms emerged; the laws would always be the same.”
That looks worse.
That’s what I say makes no sense. And that’s what I’m asking you to explain (rather than repeat.)
So people who ask you to clarify things are asses and postmodern trolls?
Magnus,
You’re being nicer than I am, but you have to understand, it cannot be explained any simpler, it cannot even be explained more complex… maybe if I change one word it will make sense to you (fuck, who knows).
Your moral objectivity argument rests on all moral statements having a truth value (true or false).
What if they’re all false? What if every moral statement is false? How you don’t understand this is beyond me.
This is a limit flooding/self recursive argument I’m using here.
IF!!! (Notice I use the word “if”)
IF!!! Every moral statement is false, then it is necessarily true that arguing it is false.
It can’t be a GOOD argument and your behavior of posting it can’t be GOOD (by definition) (it’s immoral)
You keep accusing me of all manner of things that you’re the one committing.
If you know how to do it, then yes it can be.
What if they are false? If they are false, it does not follow that they have no truth value. In fact, the very fact they are false (rather than neither true nor false) means they have truth value. And that’s all my argument is saying. It is saying that moral statements have truth value. That’s its conclusion. Here:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.p … 0#p2822272
[tab]Let “statement of fact” denote any statement that says that some aspect of the world is such and such.
I interpret “Morality is objective” to mean “For every moral statement (S), its truth value is independent from what anyone thinks its truth value is”.
Argument:
Every statement of fact is either true or false regardless of what anyone thinks its truth value is.
Every moral statement is a statement of fact.
Therefore, any given moral statement is either true or false regardless of what anyone thinks its truth value is.[/tab]
Alright, I think I understand what you’re saying now. Good job for making your point clearer.
What you’re saying is that if every moral statement is false then so is “I should share my argument with Ecmandu”. That can be said to be true if we accept that “I should share my argument with Ecmandu” is a moral statement (and not merely an ought statement.) So let’s say it’s true. Yoy then go on to say that because I shouldn’t share my argument with Ecmandu that my argument is necessarily bad i.e. unsound. That’s a big non-sequitur. Just because you shouldn’t present an argument does not mean it’s a bad one (:
Consider “2 + 2 = 4”. We both agree it’s true. What you’re saying is that if expressing that statement is wrong (say in every situation) then it follows that “2 + 2 = 4” is false. But that doesn’t actually follow. A statement can be true and expressing it can be nonetheless wrong in every situation. Its truth value does not depend on how preferrable the act of expressing it and its consequences are. It depends entirely on whether or not it corresponds to reality.
Such as? Being incomprehensible? Repeating my points instead of clarifying them? Not realizing that I should either clarify or give up instead of repeating myself in frustration?
So here’s the deal with the contradiction part.
If you define bad as sharing it, per the hypothetical that they are all false, you will never be a hypocrite if you choose not to share it.
Now… these are lots of ‘ifs’ here. I’m analyzing your argument at one possible limit. Obviously, since we are both moral objectivists … my issue is that your argument has the hypothetical hypocrisy loophole and is thus incomplete. I look at this like math proofs being submitted.
We’re both critiquing each other.
You don’t define the word “bad” as “sharing it”. Rather, you deduce from “Every moral statement is false” that “sharing it” is bad.
Because every moral statement is false, and because “I should present my argument to Ecmandu” is a moral statement, it follows that “I should present my argument to Ecmandu” is also false. That, in turn, means that it’s morally bad to present my argument to Ecmandu.
If it is true that “All moral statements are false” then it is also true that both “I should present my argument to Ecmandu” and “I should not present my argument to Ecmandu” are false. And that’s a logical contradiction. So what that indicates is that it is not possible for all moral statements to be false. In order to solve this problem, you have to replace this statement with a less universal one.
Alright, so what you seem to be saying is that, if you accept that all moral statements are false, then you wouldn’t be a hypocrite if you choose not to share your argument with Ecmandu. We can say that’s true if we turn a blind eye to the fact that the statement “All moral statements are false” also implies that not sharing your argument with Ecmandu is also a wrong thing to do.
For some unknown reason, you think that, in order for me to prove that morality is objective, I have to prove that it is morally right for me to share my arguments with you.