“What if you started out instead by concluding that, in the absence of God, all things really are permitted?”
The first thing you’d have to do is to answer the question, “permitted by whom?” You have to make sense before you can philosophize. Maybe this question makes sense, and I don’t. I just don’t see how it does.
God seems to permit everything. Never heard of God stopping anything from happening. Are you saying that everything is permitted, with or without God?
No offense meant to any incoherent nihilists out there.
“Permitted by whom?” given what particular historical, cultural and experiential context? And given who has the actual power to enforce one rather than another set of behavioral proscriptions?
Philosophers here are like the Pope, right? No actual army to back up their own deontological assessments.
And whether it makes sense to someone or not is only interesting to me given an assessment of a particular context in which there are in fact conflicting moral and political value judgments.
I’m saying that with an omniscient God [as most denominations describe Him] He knows everything. So, if He deems particular behaviors to be Sins that will be confronted on Judgment Day, there is no getting away with committing them; as can be the case for mere mortals in a No God world. And with an omnipotent God [as most denominations describe Him] He is there to assure us that those who commit Sins will be punished.
More to the point, He becomes the transcending font able to make that crucial distinction between moral and immoral behavior.
Where is the mere mortal equivalent of that? Where is the definitive philosophical argument that establishes once and for all that anything from the Holocaust to abortion is necessarily immoral?
Which behaviors do you believe are beyond rationalizing? Given a human history to date where not much hasn’t been. And what of the sociopaths who start with the assumption that in a No God world, morality revolves around self-gratification? Or the nihilists that own and operate a global economy that surely revolves around the amoral dictum “show me the money”?
Any incoherent nihilists among us?
Come forward and Faust and I can explore given a particular context what it means to be an incoherent nihilist.
Again, we will still need a context. One in which I argue that a behavior I choose is permitted given the components of my moral philosophy, while another argues that it is not permitted given the components of their moral philosophy.
My own experiential context “here and now” revolves entirely around an imploded world. I have no experiences with others pertaining to conflicting goods in a No God world.
Instead, my aim is to explore the behaviors chosen by those who do not believe that “in the absence of God all things are permitted”. Those who are not a moral nihilist as “here and now” “I” am.
Agreed. Without one, the claim contained in your question, the one I quoted in my first post, is nonsense. I am asking you to provide the context for the word “permitted” that would perhaps rescue it from meaninglessness. Words have meaning only within a context.
You used the word. It’s not up to the world to provide context for that word, it’s up to you. This is very far away from philosophy. It’s just about language. Language that you have used.
Okay, let’s focus in on the state of ILP of late. Far removed in my view from the days when you and only_humean and other actual committed moderators, created and sustained a forum in which far more substantive exchanges unfolded. These days we have Dan and Carleas. But the last time Carleas even visited the forum was “Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:31 am”.
Still, the question remains: What ought to be permitted here if we did regain a dedicated team of moderators?
Who should decide what warrants a warning or a banning? And based on what criteria?
Also, in the Society, Government, and Economics forum, there are any number of discussions/debates pertaining to any number of contexts in which, pertaining to behaviors some want permitted and others want prohibited, conflicting assessments are provided by objectivists all up and down the political spectrum.
I argue instead that value judgments here are rooted more in the arguments I make in my signature threads. I then challenge others to note my points there and given a set of circumstances of their own choosing [in a free will world] to note why they agree or disagree with my own conclusions.
Why don’t you give it a go? Or are you going to stay up in the didactic clouds where we must first pin down once and for all what words like “permitted” mean. How we must define them technically.
So you’re asking, “Sans God, what ought to be permitted if ILP restores the level of moderation it once had?”
The context of “permitted” is the theoretical future (nothing wrong with that). The historical context a certain period of time in the past. The cultural conditions are a little hard to pin down (hard for me, but probably not for you). But we could arrive at a rough rendering of the culture of the site and how it has changed. The wider cultural milieu may include how people behave on the internet in general, social media, and the pressures many SM sites are facing (and the reasons why). The experiential context is one that you and I, and others who may read this, share, to one extent or the other. We’re familiar with the site, and many of us with its history.
Further, it’s clear that most posters here are not sophisticated in Western academic philosophy. It’s been a long time since many posters here were.
And so on.
So, we know that, since this site is private property, most of the control is in the ownership’s hands. We also know that there are some laws that restrict behavior here and that these vary from country to country. If the site were banned from China, however, it would have little effect.
When I was a mod, the owner had final say, but took counsel from his moderators. Moderators had conversations with members, and took under consideration their thoughts. It wasn’t unlike a Western representative democracy. So, some of the controls over posting behavior were born of “community standards”.
I fought for a long time to ban one or more (couldn’t tell how many) child molesters from posting. I wanted them permabanned. I was met with a lot of resistance. In the end, I was informed that the site was climbing rapidly on Google, on that particular subject. I brought that to the tribunal. Free speech arguments were then jettisoned, as the owner did not want this to become known as a ped*o site. That could be real trouble.
Self-preservation was the operative moral principle. All moral principles serve the self-preservation of someone. A well-conceived moral system will preserve those who will act to in turn preserve the group they belong to. The argument for moral rules is not circular, but the causal chain that generates them is.
Your mistake is one that philosophers make all the time. It is to believe that morality should somehow be self-generating and absolute, or it’s not really morality.
This doesn’t come from any didactic cloud. It comes from the recognition that philosophy exists only within language. It doesn’t exist in a cloud, or in the empirical world, or in God’s lap, or anywhere else but in language. Which is why our words must at least have a meaning in the most ordinary sense.
I am certainly not trying to teach anyone morality. I am trying to get them to speak clearly. Most are a long way from philosophy.
And, then, given that this will mean different things to each of us, we can sustain an exchange that goes on and on attempting to pin down what the words we use in our assessments ought to mean – how they must first be defined – or we can take our own meaning and definition to be the most technically proficient and explain why we believe it is justified to warn or ban someone here given actual posts.
Thus: Is this or that post an example of an ad hom or a personal attack or going off topic or hijacking the thread? Is a warning or a ban justified? How close can those who are “sophisticated in Western academic philosophy” come to resolving differences of opinion here?
How does this make my point any less relevant? It still often comes down to our own subjective reactions to the posts of others. In any number of contexts, there does not appear to be a way to pin down definitively, objectively when someone is going off topic or hijacking the thread or becoming personal. Ambiguities can often abound here.
Yes, there are contexts such as this where a large majority of members would agree. For others it revolves around race or gender or homosexuality or Jews or Nazis. But what of those who rationalize extreme forms of sexuality? Where is the argument that unequivocally defeats their point of view?
And then out in the world, the sociopaths or those who run the world from their perches in Washington or Moscow or Beijing.
Okay, with regard to issues/behaviors such that there is not clearly an overwhelming opposition – sexually abusing children, mass murder – how would this be explored in terms of behaviors permitted or prohibited?
Abortion, gun laws, the role of government, animal rights, conscription, gay weddings, vaccinations. And on and on and on.
What of self-preservation and moral principles there? And then the part where, in any event, I root them in the arguments I make in my signature threads. Where do others see flaws in those points?
And how could that be explored without focusing in on specific sets of circumstances?
Instead, from my frame of mind, you keep the exchange “up here”:
In fact, my whole point is that in regard to “I” at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy disagreements about who is speaking clearly is precisely what sustains the most heated debates. Who is “speaking clearly” when the discussion shifts from performing an abortion as a doctor to assessing the morality of the procedure as an ethicist?
Morality is like language, in certain ways. Let’s imagine a world where everyone speaks English, and there are only 10,000 people in it. Within that world, there is language. So, when I say that philosophy exists only in language, we have a simplified version of “language” in the sense in which I am using it. But even so, language, in that same sense, is a higher order abstraction. What is really happening is that language, per se, doesn’t really exist. It’s a conglomeration of 10,000 different languages and what they have in common.
Even this model is oversimplified, because all 10,000 languages evolve, as does the collective language. So it’s a moving target, shot at with 10,000 arrows.
Morality is like that. It works insofar as these 10,000 moralities have commonalities. If all 10,000 moralities agree about murdering babies, all well and good. But moral proscription against baby murder does not require unanimity to function.
The problem with philosophers is that while most people think along a spectrum or continuum or range, philosophers don’t. And here I think we agree. But philosophers did not invent morality. It functions outside of Western academic philosophy and predates it. It functions at the intersection of politics, economics, law, class, gender, family ties and a lot of other stuff.
But let’s let epistemology enter. This has been commonly and tragically used to justify moral theory. And that’s because what philosophers, including you, look for is certainty. Enter metaphysics. Eventually, God enters. Pure Reason enters. Abstractions brought to a point of meaninglessness. Like Plato’s Forms. God is not dependent on context. God is the context.
You can only get to God when you remove all context, and therefore all meaning. But you do the same thing when you say that there is no context to morality and therefore morality means nothing. There is a context to morality. It’s a social construct, and just as science bears fruit even if it can’t produce certainty, so does moral thinking.
Any claim can mean different things to different people, but in practice, moral claims can mean the same thing, or close enough to the same thing, to different people, as can any statement. Even though we speak 10,000 different languages. We can look for differences or we can look for commonalities.
You sure should focus on specific circumstances, but you can focus a lens too close or too far - and either way, you just get a blurry image. But you can also focus the lens in a way that allows you to see. You chose the former way. But that’s your choice, and you have no justification in blaming others.
Yes, but, “for all practical purposes”, only given a particular set of circumstances reacted to by 10,000 individuals. Here though this imagined world is either derived from a history of other communities going back centuries or not. And the culture is either more or less heterogenous.
And, again, the distinction between those things all 10,000 agree are in fact true because they are in fact true objectively in the either/or world and those things they may not agree on with respect to value judgments. If someone insists they are not true in the either/or world it is because they are being demonstrably irrational or they have some mental condition that makes them unable to grasp reality as it demonstrably is.
Well, it’s all well and good given the assumption there is no God. And even if they all agree there is not one that is not demonstrable proof that there isn’t. So, from God’s omniscient frame of mind [as most understand it to be], murdering babies may well land you in Hell.
Then the part where some insist that with abortion you are murdering babies while others insist you are just shredding clumps of cells. Even here, sans God, there does not appear to be a way to resolve it all once and for all.
Are you talking about consensus here? As long as the overwhelming majority of the 10,000 agree on behaviors that are to be prescribed or proscribed, that need be as far as morality goes? For “all practical purposes”?
Well, from my frame of mind, the main problem I have had with some philosophers here is that however they construe the role of philosophy pertaining to exploring and examining and coming to conclusions in regard to the question “how ought one to live in a world of conflicting goods?”, I can’t seem to get them to bring their own conclusions to bear on a particular set of circumstances in which some argue that there is an objective morality [even a universal morality] and while others argue that there is not.
What I look for is a font – religion, ideology, deontolgy, nature etc. – that would allow me to predicate my own “fractured and fragmented” moral and political value judgments on something more than just the manner in which “here and now” I construe the meaning of dasein.
Or take a leap of faith to the assumption that with and through God you have all the context and meaning you will ever need. And not just on this side of the grave.
As for social context how is that not ever shifting and evolving over time historically and around the globe culturally in human-all-too–human interactions awash in contingency, chance and change?
Again, given what specific set of circumstances? For me, that means going back to this:
And this:
And not so much this:
What makes this blurry for me is that it is not in regard to a particular context…it is more in the way of what I call a “general description intellectual contraption”.
In regard to moral and political conflagrations in which there are large numbers on both sides of the political spectrum, when is the lens focused just right?
And what I argue is that to the extent some here refuse to take their technical philosophical conclusions down out of the didactic, intellectual clouds is the extent to which, from my frame of mind, the blame is warranted.
“Here though this imagined world is either derived from a history of other communities going back centuries or not.”
This is where you lose me, or where you lose everybody.
“I am part dog, part zebra, and part red Jello or I am not.” Your statement is vapid, which is a very bad thing for a statement to be. Yet you present it as if it means something.
“And, again, the distinction between those things all 10,000 agree are in fact true because they are in fact true objectively in the either/or world and those things they may not agree on with respect to value judgments. If someone insists they are not true in the either/or world it is because they are being demonstrably irrational or they have some mental condition that makes them unable to grasp reality as it demonstrably is.”
It’s my imagined world, so I get to make the rules. They are not agreeing to anything except the meaning of utterances. But that agreement is nothing like perfect. Language would not evolve if it were. Yet language evolves. It’s not all or nothing, as you are trying so hard to characterize it. It’s “in the ballpark” agreement.
Look, this is not rocket science. It’s not controversial. Everyone knows this, if they think about it for a couple of minutes. You’re taking my entirely mundane observations and pretending it’s astrophysics. “True” doesn’t even enter the conversation. It’s “true” that “phat crib” means “nice dwelling” until it’s not true anymore. It’s true while people use those words that way and then not true when they don’t. It’s like kids playing make-believe - they can change that universe at will. The leader of the game changes it, or it’s changed by mutual agreement, or it changes because the players forgot what it was, or for any reason at all. There’s nothing remotely objective about it. Nor is it subjective. The world is not divided in this arbitrary, binary way.
Binary thinking is leading you astray.
“Well, it’s all well and good given the assumption there is no God. And even if they all agree there is not one that is not demonstrable proof that there isn’t. So, from God’s omniscient frame of mind [as most understand it to be], murdering babies may well land you in Hell.”
So what?
“Then the part where some insist that with abortion you are murdering babies while others insist you are just shredding clumps of cells. Even here, sans God, there does not appear to be a way to resolve it all once and for all.”
That moral thinking has its limits does not mean that moral thinking is of no use, or impossible. Even iPhones have limits, but they don’t suck.
“Are you talking about consensus here? As long as the overwhelming majority of the 10,000 agree on behaviors that are to be prescribed or proscribed, that need be as far as morality goes? For “all practical purposes”?”
Moral thinking goes as far as it goes, just like science, religion, hot dog eating contests and Tom Brady’s career.
“Well, from my frame of mind, the main problem I have had with some philosophers here is that however they construe the role of philosophy pertaining to exploring and examining and coming to conclusions in regard to the question “how ought one to live in a world of conflicting goods?”, I can’t seem to get them to bring their own conclusions to bear on a particular set of circumstances in which some argue that there is an objective morality [even a universal morality] and while others argue that there is not.”
It’s a stupid argument and an unproductive dichotomy. As soon as anyone says “objective” they’re full of shit. They literally do not know what they even mean.
I’ll try to respond to the rest after I bathe myself in holy water.
“What I look for is a font – religion, ideology, deontolgy, nature etc. – that would allow me to predicate my own “fractured and fragmented” moral and political value judgments on something more than just the manner in which “here and now” I construe the meaning of dasein.”
The flaw in your thinking is this: You talk of those who say abortion is okay and those who don’t. But that is not grounded in the real world that we know, or think we know. Many people who are okay with abortion are okay only under certain circumstances, and, more importantly, people change their minds about this issue. And it’s moral reasoning that changes their minds. Philosophy is a road map, not a rest area. You don’t get the “once and for all” deal.
Philosophy is not about where you are but about how you get there. If you’re looking for a final resting place, there is only one, and no one goes there to practice ideology. Moral thinking is an activity and not an answer.
Sure, there are people who think that all they have top do is to attend church or read the right book and they’ll have all the answers. But you are obsessed with their positions but not their arguments. Moral positions are a dime a dozen. You’re right - yours is as good as mine. Serious thinking about these matters is directed at the process and what it does for you. Or, historically, it’s focused on the politics of the thinker.
Philosophy happens in language. In verbal thinking, and no where else.
For me, truth = reality.
Realness is inescapable, omnipresent, eternal, etc.
Nihilism is just a way of stopping thought and life.
The excuses / reasons vary.
Morality is not made up out of nothing.
Morals and values are discovered, and in other cases,
they are created by a pre-existing instinct or tendency,
which branches out into ideas and abstractions as well.
Ethics is one of our finest truths.
I think iamb has aborted the truth,
in favor of something less lively.
A weak idea that can be controlled,
instead of a wild, strong idea, which cannot be controlled or used.
We live in a world of truth.
We don’t live in a “subjective” world.
I’ll give another example, for those here who may read philosophy.
Kripke’s possible worlds theory. This is only possible by removing the context, and therefore the meaning, of the word “possible”. When we use that word, we usually mean it in one of two senses. One is only after we assign a (mathematical) probability to a given event. We recognize (or devise) a paradigm, or model. 50 red balls and fifty blue balls go into a bag, and we blindly pick them out of the bag, one by one. We assign a probability to each pick, which is easy enough to do. But when we get to the point where all the blue balls have been picked, with ten balls remaining, the probability of picking a blue ball is zero. Which is to say that there is no possibility of picking a blue ball. And before that point is reached, we will always say that it is possible top pick a blue ball.
The other sense in which we use the word also requires a paradigm, but it’s not quite mathematical because our knowledge is much less comprehensive. We know less, can account for variables less. We’re asked if time travel is possible, and we recall that Einstein thought it was, and well, he was a physicist and se we think it wouldn’t violate any laws of physics, so we say yes, time travel is possible. This paradigm is dependent on the trusted testimony of others (for most of us) but so is most knowledge. These two senses are related to each other.
There is a third way we use this word, which is unrelated to the first two. It’s when we say “anything is possible.” You can’t prove that unicorns or Bigfoot don’t exist. You can’t prove that an international supermodel won’t call; me to tell me she’a in love with me. You have to admit it’s possible. But only in that sense where you don’t ascribe any known paradigm that supports your view. In other words, you don’t really mean it.
Shockingly, this is the sense in which Kripke uses the word “possible.” Yet he’s a famous philosopher. If you remove all context from a word, you can say anything you want. And some of it may seem to make sense. At least to people who believe in Bigfoot.
Well, if this more or less homogenous community of 10,000 encompasses the only community that has ever existed on Earth…how different might that be from the same community that is considerably more heterogenous because their ancestors came from many different cultures going back centuries around the globe?
In other words, in regard to a context in which those in the community have come to conflicting political prejudices regarding that which constitutes moral and immoral behaviors given such issues as “abortion, gun laws, the role of government, animal rights, conscription, gay weddings, vaccinations. And on and on and on.”
Polemics? I love it!
As long as you don’t configure into my Stooge or me into yours.
On the other hand, what on earth is that supposed to mean?!
In my estimation, another intellectual contraption in which the rules apply only to that which you insist is true about the words you use to describe your imaginary world.
Or, rather, so it seems to me.
Me, I’m more interested in what the 10,000 have to say about behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions when one of their own becomes pregnant and doesn’t want to be. Or when those in power mandate that all 10,000 must be vaccinated. Or stop eating meat. Or turn in their guns.
What “ballpark agreement” then?
Instead, if I do say so myself, you still prefer to discuss it up in the clouds:
From my frame of mind, this sort of didactic “analysis” is your context. And there are any number of folks here who will be happy to accommodate you “up there”. But you either make observations of this sort applicable to a discussion/debate relating to a set of circumstances in which those on both sides of any particular conflicting good weigh in with arguments that are then configured into actual legislation enforced by actual government authorities, or we are both just wasting each other’s time.
The Karpel Tunnel Syndrome?
Binary thinking? From someone who, in regard “I” at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy has thought himself [here and now] into believing that his own fractured and fragmented “self” is on a journey from the cradle to the grave in what he has thought himself in turn [here and now] to believe is an essentially meaningless and purposeless world?
But who, even in regard to this, recognizes how a new experience, relationship or idea might prompt him to change his mind. As he has done so many times over the years about any number of things.
Tell that to the millions around the globe who embrace their own rendition of God. I may not believe in God. You may not believe in God. But that is by no means proof that God does not exist. And, so much more to the point, out in the real world where there are millions who do believe in Him, there’s no getting around our interactions with them. They do believe and will behave accordingly.
Note where I have ever argued that morality has no use. On the contrary, given a world in which mere mortals have been clashing for centuries over any number of wants and needs, morality – or whatever you wish to call “rules of behavior” – are not only useful but fundamentally necessary.
But: better that they revolve more around 1] might makes right/survival of the fittest 2] right makes might/philosopher kings or God or 3] moderation, negotiation and compromise/democracy and the rule of law? Or “in reality” what combination of the three in any particular community — of 10 or 10,000 or 10,000,000.
But first we’ll need a context.
Great…another flippant attempt to be clever? That, given a particular set of circumstances where, among others, the liberals and the conservatives here of an objectivist bent will tell us precisely how far all moral thinking must go. Straight to their own point of view. Up in the clouds as likely as not.
To wit:
Well, from my frame of mind, it gets even stupider the few times some of them do bring their intellectual contraptions down out of the clouds.
And I suspect that any number of them know this…so they don’t.
If nothing else, in regard to this contest – “abortion, gun laws, the role of government, animal rights, conscription, gay weddings, vaccinations.” – you can argue as to what this truth “for all of us to see” actually is.
Right, tell that to the moral objectivists. Tell that to those who, through one or another God, or one or another political ideology, or one or another deontological assessment, or one or another take on nature, will use the tools of philosophy only insofar as they reinforce their own dogmatic font.
Use your arguments on them.
Instead, my argument is derived from the OPs that commence my signature threads here.
And you and others, given a particular situation that precipitates conflicting goods out in the real world, will either take the component of your own moral philosophy there or you won’t.
Again, take this to the abortion clinic and convince those on either side of the conflagration that the answers that they have arrived at – the unborn baby’s right to life, the woman’s right to choose – miss the whole point of philosophy. The act of endlessly thinking about it all as a moral question is what really counts. Whatever actual answer you come to is beside the point.
The irony here being that in my own way I am suggesting much the same thing. But more because the answer they come to is derived subjectively from their own unique experiences embedded in the particular lives they lived rather than from anything they might read by Plato or Aristotle or Descartes or Spinoza or Kant or Wittgenstein or Hegel or Nietzsche.
Again, given a particular context ripped from the headlines, whatever that means.
Come back to ILP as a moderator on the philosophy board and make one final attempt to steer the discussions in this forum more in the direction of what you construe such conversations ought to be.
I’ll jettison the polemics and take my chances with you.
