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I think this is precisely correct.

I should have said anti-Rationalist. As in Rationalism, a flavor of formal philosophy. These are not merely reasonable and logical people. In fact, they usually badly mangle logic. And they tend to reach entirely unreasonable moral conclusions. They believe that important moral dicta, and other dicta, like epistemic dicta, can be reached by reason alone. Compare and contrast to Empiricists. Plato was a rationalist, setting wild and wacky precedence for much of the philosophy that ensued. Descartes was a rationalist, despite that he had to throw God in the get started.

On being logical, rational and moral - to lump these together is to invite a big fat category error. While the first two are related, the third is not.

The way you phrase it, being logical and being rational are pretty much synonymous. When we say someone is rational, we are saying he uses logic. But he’s got to do more than that. You can use the finest tools and still build a crappy house. We really ask for sound arguments, which are valid and which use only true premises.

So, no one is logical in regard to capital punishment. That’s nonsense in a way that may be beyond my powers to explain. We can ask if someone uses a logical (sound) argument to justify one position or the other on capital punishment. But to say that someone is “logical in regard to” capital punishment t says absolutely nothing, even though it sounds like it does. Is he being rational? Is he using his brains and not his balls? Is he hallucinating? has he thought about this?

What does it mean to say that he is “moral” in regard to capital punishment? In regard how? That term, “in regard to” is too vague for philosophy. It does’t describe the relation well.

Logic is applied only to arguments. Only to arguments. It was formulated to analyze arguments and that’s all it does. There are other uses for the word “logic” of course, but we’re only talking a bout one use. If we have a purely emotional, unreflective reaction to the idea of capital punishment, we are not being rational. But no matter what our view, we can be thinking lucidly.

Philosophers have been giving their answers for a long time. But philosophy has progressed enough to consider questions about the relationship between morality, politics and law, for instance. It’s just a very much more interesting question than the one you are asking.

You must remember that philosophy doesn’t justify itself. Morality doesn’t justify itself. Nothing justifies itself. That’s what you asking philosophy to do. No field of human endeavor justifies itself.

Again:

All I’m trying to distinguish here is the difference between being logical in regard to capital punishment, being rational in regard to it, and being moral in regard to it.

You tell me: how would you make that distinction for the opposing camps protesting outside the Huntsville unit in Texas?

Or is your own “general description” “intellectual contraption” here reserved only for those able to discuss “rationalism” analytically, scholastically, academically. In the hallowed halls as it were.

If, philosophically, rationalism “is the epistemological view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge” apply that to the political conflagrations that revolve around state executions.

[Note to others: You tell me how any of this is relevant to the distinctions I am attempting to grapple with above. With regard to the death penalty or to any other human interactions that revolve around conflicting goods]

You and I both seem to agree that with regard to abortion mere mortals don’t have access to objective morality. Okay, given that, how do you make the distinction yourself between logical, rational and normative points when you bump into someone who does not share your own point of view?

Me, I’m down in my hole as encompassed above and elsewhere. I embrace my own rendition of pragmatism but that does not make me – “I” – any less fragmented and fractured.

And that seems to revolve around how we construe the meaning the “self” here [in the is/ought world] as more or less an “existential contraption”. An ever and always evolving frame of mind ever and always subject to change given new experiences, relationships and access to other points of view.

Debate me iambiguous.

Stop toying with the children.

Debate me.

Why on earth would I debate someone whose intelligence I have absolutely no respect for? Folks like Faust and KT I have considerable respect for. But you are just another Kid here to me.

A kid who is the only person on the entire Internet who can beat you at this debate.

Thus proving my point. Unless of course I’m wrong.

This contains, pretty likely, a misunderstanding of logical. You can’t be (just) logical in relation to capital punishment. It’s a category error. You can present logical arguments about it. Or your arguments might, it turns out, contain fallacies - that is they were not logical. But since any argument about capital punishment is going to have value judgments - unless it has to do with the effects of various chemical poisons, or similar practical issues - there can be logical arguments that reach different conclusions, since they have premises that are different. Of course there might be a chance of resolving something if boht parties had exactly the same values, but one party was using fallacious logic. then you might be able to demonstrate this to them. But that is generally not the case. Usually there are differing value judgements, that is differing assumptions (about the good or the bad or the evil) that form the base of the arguments. Things/phenomena/acts aren’t logical or illogical, arguments or acts of reasoning are or aren’t. See sound vs valid arguments, google that, and you’ll get where I am heading.

Most likely I wouldn’t, but if I got into a discussion and it felt OK, then it might be somewhat like the above.

What fucking contraption?

Why?

OK. Here is your solipsism.
Who did I write that post to? (hint: Faust)
Was Faust seeming a little confused by a contradiction he found in you? (I think the answer is yes. See the post I responded to)
Was I trying to solve the problem you were raising? Clearly and absolutely not. I addressed Faust. And notice, he understood. I made it clear I was addressing Faust and on what issue I addressed Faust.

Now: note the irony. I pointed out in my repsonse to Faust

And here you are doing precisely that. I did not solve your issue. But I was responding to Faust. In other places, I am pointing out things in your posts to you, that have to do with issues you may not be as obsessed with. You respond precisely like this ‘that did not solve my issue X.’ Well, gosh I AM NOT YOU. i HAVE MY FOCUS AND INTERESTS AND DISAGREEMENTS WITH ASSUMPTIONS OR CRITICISMS OF BEHAVIOR.

I AM ALIVE. I HAVE GOALS AND INTERESTS. I have never encountered a so solipsistic poster, who at the same time seems like a nice guy and is intelligent. I mean, I expect empathiless babbling and focus from KThyself type kids.

You respond AS IF everything is just for you and what you demand for answers and you just it as failing for you and that it should be judged that way. Even here, when I am clearly posting to a third party. This can be very irritating, though here I am grateful to you for giving me an exactly and perfect example of what I told Faust it was like to be responded to by you.

I know you think I get irritated at you because I fear the hole. That you trigger what it would be like without whatever contraptions you hallucinate I have. That’s irritating too. there is such an obvious interpersonal, consistant and repeated irritation in the way you respond and/or often do not respond at all, as if you hadn’t even read it.

and that you, in essence, treat only your goals as mattering or even existing. Even many objectivists notice that I have my own goals and interests. and many of them read my posts and respond to the points I make. they just as often think I am wrong. But they fucking see me, lol.

Karpel - I’d like to expand upon something you said a couple of posts up. Sometimes two people can reach partial agreement because they realize that they are using some of the same premises in their arguments and/or because a logical lapse is discovered. So, arguing about capital punishment may yield agreement on some tangential (to the argument at hand) point. It’s still agreement.

I have a friend who was until recently pro-life but is now pro-choice. And yes, part of the reason for her shift is life experience. But while she was going back and forth over the issue of abortion, she was weighing different arguments.Those arguments constitute the narrative of her mental machinations. They provide the narrative for her position.

Humans are the species that requires narrative. And for most people, that narrative has to progress, somehow, on some level.

Our friend iambiguous - and now I will address you, Iam. You’re stuck in a narrative that spins round and round and ultimately tells you nothing. The proper use of philosophical technique can help. And it doesn’t matter how badly other philosophers have done with their technique. Philosophy is just one of those things that very few people are good at.

Agreement is useful even if it’s partial and conditional. Everything that’s even interesting exists on a spectrum.

If everyone agreed, there would b e no use for morality at all.

Duplicate. Sorry.

biggy’s a bonifide existentialist who’s most important contribution is in his forcing thinkers to ground theory in the immediacy of experience. to force the thinker to examine a theory in regards to how one can - in a generically wittgensteinean style - see the efficacy of theory x rather than y, how one can point and say ‘this is what a person does when they subscribe to theory x.’ then to force further; what makes this act the ‘rational’ act, and then again further; if this is the rational thing to do, why aren’t we all doing it. but behind this maieutic meddling, which he is so skilled and persistent with, is an even more important revelation. there’s a secret assault on rationality itself going on… and it’s focus is to bring the thinker down and out of the ‘philosophical clouds’ and perhaps ground people in an environment that is simplified and free from the ambiguities of philosophical language. ‘i’m ambiguous’ is a wonderful doubly irony, for while he professes his own sense of ‘I’ as just another rational or irrational philosophical contraption, he would be the first to contribute to figuring out ways in which our conflicting goods (values) could come into cooperation if we were, to once, bring down our formulas and set to work coming to agreement on practical (and philosophically free) ways to solve problems. so in being constantly reminded that group x’s argument that abortion if bad, and group y’s argument that abortion is okay, can’t be reconciled with recourse to rational philosophy… we are forced to invent a new space in which we examine the problem. and this is why i adore him… even though he sounds like a broken record sometimes. he is, quite certainly, the unwitting voice of the analytical tradition (‘ordinary language’ philosophers) and its assault on metaphysical, a priori methods of philosophy… where so much of our fragile, self assured certainty hides without our knowing.

when i hear him say somewhere ‘wtf does that even mean’, i see a kindred spirit at work and laugh to myself; biggy understands, but not the others… not yet… maybe not ever. because he’s experienced enough to see the almost infinite ways a person might understand a particular philosophical statement, and therefore sees in advance the entanglement around the corner, he seizes it… locks onto it… stops it from developing… and pins it down. and there is no hint of malevolence in the spirit of this interrogation. he’s genuinely concerned and interested and with good will. maybe what this seasoned thinker is trying to tell us is ‘i’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work. let me warn you before you get carried away.’

now as a fellow very familiar with the analytical tradition and a solid understanding of logic, you, faust, should be able to recognize biggy’s quasi-deconstructivist modus operandi. is he not declaring out loud the very thing you so adamantly insisted; that logic cannot tell us what to do, or why to do it? again, he’s not throwing the baby out with the bath water… but he’s sure as hell throwing the bath water out. that bath water is where we felt comfortable with our ‘rational theories’.

biggy is a midwife for something more primitive in our being, something we can’t give birth to without becoming very uncomfortable first. he’s anchoring the ethical in something simpler which we have to strive to find without relying on our rationality. the existentialist wizard non plus ultra.

see what he did to peacegirl? he brought ‘determinism’ to its most terrifying, logical conclusion. maybe everyone else missed it, including peacegirl, i dunno. but he showed the absurdity involved in any effort to make the thesis reasonably useful for anything. constantly drilling peacegirl; but isn’t my inability to agree with you just one more inevitably determined thing? why then the frustration at my deference?

there is a mix of playfulness, toying and serious concern in all of this. there’s a swagger to it, a groove to it. and he’s not trying to offend or confuse or irritate, believe me. it’s a very earnest and important game that changes the rules of philosophy… a game we could call gaslighting abbie.

Theories are not wrong because they are rational, whatever the hell that means.

Existentialism leads exactly nowhere. I hope iam grows out of it. European Emotionalism.

Asking "if it’s the rational thing to do, why aren’t we all doing it is not even an interesting question. Having a non rational argument is a waste of time, but there are many irrational activities that are not and are in fact a lot of fun. “Being rational” is not the result of having a rational argument over ethics. So what?

That’s the problem with European Emotionalism - it’s a waste of time. It may tell us much, but none of it is interesting.

holds hands up

we’re working outside of the natural sciences here, where any claim to a ‘rational’ theory to explain anything more than observations made in normative ethics, is a great leap of faith in the faculties of reason. there are lists of reasons why value judgements express nothing but the personal preferences and attitudes of human beings, without the slightest foundation in the theoretical sciences. the big question, the biggy, is why do i choose to value x. how do i explain that? because i like to? that doesn’t explain anything. in an emotivist sense, such a statement is equivalent to saying ‘yea my choice!’ or ‘yahoo!’ these expressions tell us nothing about the goodness or badness of the value. if it is good merely because we like it, this is circular reasoning. we’ve made no progress.

oh come on, dude. you can’t be that dismissive about a movement that is so importantly part of our philosophical heritage. even if 99% of the questions these guys were asking were nonsense, that 1% of real questions are incredibly important. you must be a robot. a faustbot. faustspock. ‘your actions are emotional, captain. stop reading sartre.’

okay, my bad. left the definition of ‘rational’ open-ended. what i mean is (which might not be what other people mean but i’m confident i can hit the nail on the head for everyone); wait. scratch that semicolon. let me tell you what i don’t mean by ‘rational’. that would be much easier; a sound and valid argument with a true conclusion could be called ‘rational’ if that means we followed all the proper forms and rules of reasoning. but we’ve already identified those qualities with what we call valid and sound. so we have a redundancy. a truism. rational, then, should be thought of as what compels us to want to follow proper form and rule. and this is a purely ethical matter (why truth… why not untruth? - N) so when joe asks ‘are you being rational’, he’s not asking me if i did my logic shit right. he’s instead implying the question of whether or not i attribute any importance to wanting to do my logic shit right. a subtle difference, but its there.

what is rational can’t simply mean ‘what is true’ or ‘what is correct’. it has to demand another element in reasoning, another layer, and ethical evaluating form of thinking. so when i ask ‘is abolishing capital punishment or pro-choice the rational thing to do’, i can’t possibly be asking if there is a series of logical arguments which can certify those things… because they’re aren’t any. no… what i’m asking is ‘should you want to do so, and if so, why.’

this is how i’m using the word… and how i suspect biggy is using it also. that’s the crux of the biscuit. being rational is the most challenging thing to do because it involves much more than the simple adherence to a few rules of logic. it evokes a… gasp… existential dimension to our experience. c’mon man, you know what the fuck i’m talking about. don’t shrug this shit off.

not now, but it was when you were in your twenties. you ate that shit up, dude. just because you’re older and wiser doesn’t give you excuse to dismiss it. your responsibility is to lead the fledgling philosophers through its labyrinths. that is your DUTY.

I never thought Existentialism was worth shit.

Look - everyone wants to live in a just society and everyone wants others to act ethically. Everyone wants the power of rational thought. Philosophy didn’t invent these desires. It seeks to make them more useful to people. It usually fails, but not because it is trying to clarify our thoughts. Philosophy doesn’t fail because it analyzes generally held ideas that have always existed, well before Plato.

Philosophy doesn’t fail because it seeks to identify our most basic assumptions. And logic doesn’t fail because it can help us to remove self-contradictory thought. Logic is a tool that probably shouldn’t be applied to our every moment of existence. But it does help us to answer why we choose the values that we do and very much help us to resolve conflicting goods within ourselves.

If ten percent of the posters here could only avoid contradicting themselves, if one percent of humans could, logic would be seen as useful. But it will not be seen as useful by those who fail to realize that we all use logic every day. The philosopher is just better at it. Except many famous philosophers were not. Oh, well.

And sure, what is rational can’t simply mean “what is true”. That’s a straw man. No one says it does. Except rationalists. So, Liam’s rejoinder to rational;its is okay by me. But he doesn’t seem to know who is a rationalist and who is not. Being rational is challenging, yes. So what?

I think this is a myth. He often challenges people to demonstrate here that what they would do in a discussion with a hypothetical anti-abortionist and a hypothetical abortionist would resolve all such conflicts between people with conflicting ideas about what is good think about abortion. This is not immediate experience. It is a very abstract though experiment. It even confuses ‘what wil convince people’ with ‘what is the case or true’. (my pointing this out does not mean that I think I know the objective good position on abortion) IOW it is an odd criterion.

If one explains to him that his version of concrete lived experience is a radically abstract thought experiment, one is often told it is ‘serious’ philosophy - which is a pejorative term to him. If one seems not as upset as him at the situation we live in where we cannot produce arguments that convince all rational people of things, then one is told that one has a contraption that one uses (believes in) to hide from the horror of the hole that he finds himself in.

If you DO, in fact, work with the only concrete immediate experience experiences we have here - reading each other’s posts and responding to them - he does not see this as a part of life. His actions, here, can never be looked at, despite these being vastlyl more concrete ‘cases’ to look at behavior in and be rational about and seek to change others view of here.

A read of his posts will show an incredible amount of very abstract often confusing and idiosyncratic use of language. And there is no secret assault on rationality. he repeated contraposes things where we can have objective knowledge - for example the products of scientific research are contrasted with the conclusion of moral argument. He makes this contrast over and over and his position hinges on it. Here we can be objective, here we cannot. Here we can draw rational objective conclusions, here we cannot. (as a side note he confused objective and universal and even popular)

It’s true, perhaps, that he does suggest that compromise, negotiation and I forget the third process are an approach to dealing with the ‘situation’. But these cannot be justified from within his position. he seems to be mentioning these less. Perhaps he has noticed this. You cannot even determine problems objectively, not in the moral realm, from his position. So it is inconsistent to then assert one knows a way to solve them or even a direction one might head in. And we would have no tools to evaluated if moving in that direction was good.

And note: I don’t blame him for not having a solution. I disagree that he is t

He’d better take a good look, then, if this is true, at his own use of ‘dasein’ but most clearly ‘contraptions’, especially where the latter plays a role in his interpersonal psychic claims.

Certainly there are instances where his incredulity is grounded. Other times it is not, and regularly.

If he remained a skeptic, this would be fine. But he does not, he has promoted approaches to solving problems - as you noted above - which do not hold water with the rest of his position. He is quasi-religious. IOW ‘what could be more important than finding out how one ought to live?’ We should, and I emphasize that word ‘should’ be in the hole and focused on getting out? We should experience it as he does or we really haven’t ‘gotten it’ (and have a contraption)? we should be looking for rational arguments that will convince every rational person on earth that X is good? IOW he is, as I said elsewhere in different terms, an existentialist demanding to be talked out of being an existentialist and judging other existentialists or nihilists or non-objectivists as immoral or confused if they do not prioritize his project.

This is a myth too. That if we do not share his hole or positions we are not willing to face the uncomfortable. Biggie, as you call him, has no idea what people have faced philosophically or experientially. Hell, I think there are worse holes than not having the unstoppable rational argument for an objective moral position. I think Ship of Thebes type issues are a much darker hole. And I have been in his hole. I reject the Christ-like role he positions himself as having: I am here, suffering what all of you really should be suffering.

Here you are misrepresenting him. He is always calling for the rational argument. I did for a while think that was him rhetorically showing that there is none. But then, he objects to others who are not interested in trying to find this objective argument no one can resist.

But that was disingenous. Even in a deterministic universe one can learn/change one’s mind. I don’t know how well or not peacegirl presented his case, but iambiguous never seem to get that a meme could be infectious. I am not optimistic in the way peacegirl is, but Iamb could have focused on himself as an individual being convinced or not by the case peacegirl presented, rather then making himself an object that cannot change. IOW he abstracted himself out of the situation and demanded to be loved by the determinist even if he might never agree. That was abstract. He is not everyman. He is one guy.

Sorry, I find that there is a great deal of not reading well, not considering that he might be missing something in specfiic - he’s great at making discalimers (of course I might be wrong), but not once have I even seen him consider that a specific point made about something he did or said might be correct AND WHAT THIS WOULD MEAN, he mind reads, demands things that have been done, lectures and repeats himself as if it is relevent when it is not, takes every point made as an attempt to solve conflicting goods. So you point out that argument X was wrong because of Y, he will respond to what you wrote by saying ‘how does this resolve conflicting goods?’ when it obviously was not an attempt to. You can see a clear example of this pattern when he responds this way above to my response to Faust about him.

The mythical Iambiguous, the one who stays on the skeptic side, needling objectivists to demonstrate the objective nature of their moral claims, that’s a useful character. And I know he has done this well at times. But the actual Iambiguous is a quasi-religious figure on a mission and one he thinks we all should be on, and like many people on missions, everything gets filtered through that mission - which means he is not a good reader and not very aware of himself and what he does interpersonally with others. Why? Because he is saving the world or at least grieving it in the right way, so whatever he does or does not do or mistakes he makes…these are all trifles.

Okay, let’s assume you do know considerably more [philosophically] about the technical meaning of being logical in discussing capital punishment. Give us some examples of how you might instruct the protesters at Huntsville in grappling with the difference between being logical, being rational and being moral in regard to the particular execution about to take place.

Other then by way of yet another “general description” “analysis”.

For me, everything here revolves around the gap between what you think you know is true about it “in your head”, and what you are able to demonstrate is true about it to those you would deem to be reasonable men and women.

There would seem to come a time when you would have to acknowledge the limitations of “being logical” in the discussion. Which all of us would agree on. The part where only the language is critiqued vs. the part where the words intertwine with the world and the critiques become what I construe to be more or less “existential contraptions”.

And, for me, that revolves largely around the conflicting goods, derived from dasein out in a particular world where what you think you know is true may well butts heads with those who have the actual political power to enforce their own [conflicting] moral agenda.

In my view, you can’t turn to the folks here who embrace Plato or Aristotle or Descartes or Kant for the one size fits all answer. Or, rather, so it seems to me. No moral obligations, just the obligation to be in sync with the rules of language.

But it’s the part about what one “ought to do” here that by far generates the most controversy and conflict.

My guess: a lot of people will be scratching their heads.

Then those on both sides hit you with arguments like this: deathpenalty.procon.org/view.re … eID=002000

Then they pummel you with endless facts [and interpretations of the facts] with regard to this particular execution. Then you can either be an objectivist here or a pragmatist.

Pragmatism as you understand it, pragmatism as I do.

Meanwhile the one thing that everyone can agree on is this: the prisoner is either executed or not.

And the execution itself is neither logical or illogical. But [of course] that’s not at all what motivates people to protest for or against it.

The one that makes sense to me as a description of your “assessment” here but makes considerably less sense to you.

Because there will be conflicting assessments regarding which rendition of being reasonable ought to be “the chief source and test of knowledge” regarding this particular execution.

Ah, but forget about folks actually being executed and the relevancy of logic and rational thought and morality in discussing it. Instead, the problem here is really me:

This need on your point to expose me, to explain me, to disclose to everyone what is really going on beyond the curtain.

Or so it seems to me.

And then the role that logic, rational thought and virtue either play or do not play in discussing capital punishment is no longer even the point of the exchange.

No, as a matter of fact, any number very rich and powerful folks want only to sustain a world that they deem to be in their own best [and selfish] interest. Basically, their “morality” revolves around “show me the money”. Capitalism thrives on a generally amoral approach to human interractions. What counts are market transactions in which there are winners and losers. Interactions then rationalized by one or another rendition of suvival of the fittest. A dog eat dog world that revolves largely around K Street and Wall Street. And their cronies in Washington. At least here in America.

And then there are all the narcissists and sociopaths.

And what about the folks who own and operate nations like Russia and China. Do they want to create a just society? Do they want others to act in a manner other than in sustaining their wealth and power? Where does the “power of rational thought” fit in here?

And for those who are intent on creating a just world, what on earth does that mean with respect to actual issues like abortion or gun control or animal rights or energy policy or the role of government or separation of church and state or homosexuality or gender norms?

Rational thought here? Who gets to decide what that is? And common sense tells us that, in regard to value judgments, any particular individual’s point of view is going to be largely embeded in historical and cultural contexts. And clearly derived from the actual experiences that unfold in the life that they have lived.

Existential – subjective/subjunctive – variables are everywhere here. Engendering social, political and economic permutations that then fall up and down the political spectrum. And [so far] throughout all of human history.

And yet “general descriptions” of the relationship between words and worlds brings philosophy [however it is understood] no where near the actual contexts that make up our day to day interactions with others.

In my view, philosophy fails when it does not take into account the existential nature of human interaction. When, instead, it proposes that moral obligations can be “thought up” or “deduced” into existence; and then attached to words like “categorical” and “imperative”. Morality differentiated as either shadows on the cave walls or out in the clear light of one another rendition of philosophical realism or political idealism.

And then those who throw in one or another rendition of God in turn.

In what particular context? Regarding what particular behaviors?

Again: All I am trying to distinguish here is the difference between being logical in regard to value judgments, being rational in regard to them, and being moral in regard to them.

And in order to flesh this out you have to actually discuss your own views regarding these issues. And then when others react to that you can point out deficiencies in their use of logic and rational thinking and assumptions regarding virtuous behavior.

Okay, then be rational in reacting to the conflicting goods that revolve around the death penalty. Note your own value judgment here. Note for us why it is deemed rational to you.

And then when I note that my own value judgments here revolve precisely around the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, you can point out the parts that are in sync with the true rationalists and those that are not.

Morality is not fundamentally about what is true. Nothing is fundamentally about what is true. Morality, in the sense you are using it, meaning social justice, is about what enough people with enough power (people who matter enough) will accept.

I want you to picture a wall that someone has just painted, except that he has left a few square feet undone. If you had hired him for this job you would not pay him, because he hasn’t done the job at all. That is, that he was hired to paint the wall, the entire wall, and he didn’t do that. This position is consistent with your all-or-nothing view of morality.

He claims he did 90% of it, so you should pay him 90% of the money. You both claim that your position is just. In the end a small claims judge decides, according to laws that are informed by moral thinking, thinking concerning “what is just”.

This is not difficult.

The fact is that a decision is made. See what we (humans) did there? We made rules so that you didn’t have to shoot the painter and ransack his house. And kill his bird. Some of this process included rational thinking (as an antidote to your homicidal rage). Some of this was valid arguments using premises that are generally accepted as true, some of which are not directly related to morality at all.

These rules are applied to your very real civil case, your very real wall, partially covered with very real paint. But no mother’s son is going to make a rule just for you. So, yeah, it has to be kinda general. The “off the skyhooks, down to earth, nose stuffed into Godzilla’s armpit (or whatever)” stuff already has happened and happens every day. There would be no purpose to the rules if it did not. The rules were formulated exactly because of everyday daseinpoopen.

Give me a specific situation. I have the option of doing this, but I don’t. I don’t try to find those people and engage with them. So what is a specific situation with protester at Huntsville. How do I meet them? Do they stop me in the street? There are hundreds or thousands of issues and arguments related to capital punishment. Can you give me some kind of concrete scenario revolving around a specific argument? I am willing to hallucinate that I would spend time instructing some Huntville protester for a thought experiment, but you are also asking me to choose out of mass of different arguments some random one to demonstrate my ideas about logic. And I am not sure why?

Otherwise I am just making shit up, even if I am specific.

And by the way, I have nowhere said whatever I say to them would be effective, let alone end the conflict, so I don’t understand why you are asking me to do this.

It seems like a set up. I present what I say. Then you say ‘oh, they won’t understand that.’ Or ‘but they still have conflicting values’

and to that all I can say is '‘Yeah, duh.’

So, why are you asking me to instruct these protesters about logic

and why don’t you instruct them about dasein and contraptions?

Needless repetition.

If anyone here is saying that conflicting goods go away when we clean up language, have at them.

Fuck yeah. That’s one of the reasons I would not engage them. They’d scratch their heads at dasein and contraptions also. So what? You let me know what I say ‘all the people need are some lessons in logic and conflicting goods disappear’ or ‘a good approach to Huntsville is teaching them about logic in arguments’ or whatever strawman position you seem to be attritubing to me.

Why should I apply rationalism to conflicts? what position are you hallucinating that I have? Have I asserted this would be a good thing? Not in my memeory

Behind the curtain. It was right there in the posts I quoted. You responded to a post to Faust I made.

and Ironically elsewhere You asked for a specific example when you do the kind of thing you did in relation to my post to Faust. So, following YOUR request I pointed out the example.

Now you shift the context using an inappropriate metaphor about revealing what is behind the curtain.

And notice how you do not respond. You ask for an example. I give one. Now you ignore the example and blame me for focusing on you. Why did you enter a discussion between me and Faust about you?

The post that you quoted was my response to Faust. Right?
That post had a purpose dealing with you and a confusion he seemed to have. Right?
I explained my sense of what was going on. YOu quoted me doing that.
that interchange was not about capital punishment and it is in thread not about capital punishment.
It was not the point of the exchange.

but you will never admit that.

Its a simple thing. You responded to my post to Faust as if I was solving some OTHER issue. I pointed this out. If you can’t see it, go through the posts again.

I get blamed if I do what you ask.
I get blamed for not solving problems I never claimed to have solved.
I get blamed for executions because in a philosophy forum I focused on certain issues and people are still being executed, while the one blaming me focused on philosophical issues and people are still getting executed.
I get blamed because my explanations would have people shaking their heads at Huntville by someone using arguments that would have poeple shaking their heads at Huntville.
I am asked to give a specific example - I actually already had when asked - of a pattern of behavior. I give a new example,s ince I was provided with one in this thread and then I get blamed for focusing on you.
I respond to anohter poster about an issue he had and get told by you, a third poster, that my post to him was not on the topic it should have been and failed to solve your problem.

I think we have hijacked Faust’s thread enough. Feel free to pm me or bring this up elsewhere if you are confused by any of your behavior as much as I am.

I will leave this thread or at least the dialogue with you in it. Probably similar stuff will arise elsewhere.

I agree. But any number of men and women down through the ages have scoffed at that. They have instead embraced “might makes it right” or “right justifies might”. There are the dictators and the ideologues. And the ideologues that become dictators.

And then those who recognize that [perhaps] the best of all possible worlds is embedded instead in democracy and rule of law. But [in the real world] ever and always subsumed in political economy.

Still, in focusing in on particular behaviors in particular contexts, there are the lines that are drawn between the logical rules of language, the assumptions made about rational thinking and the extent to which it can be argued that human morality ought to be predicated on rational thinking expressed logically.

I accept that. But then I introduce the elements of my own nihilistic morality: dasein, conflicting goods and political/economic power.

In a [presumed] No God world.

And then the “hole” that I have thought myself into as a result of putting all the variables together.

Huh? Where does dasein, conflicting goods and political economy really fit in here? As they do with regard to life and death issues like abortion or conscription or capital punishment or gun control or animal rights.

Painting a wall?!

Then this: All-or-nothing morality? My point is that if God does exist, if a particular political ideology or a deontological philosophical argument comes along able to be demonstrated as wholly in sync with objective morality, or an understanding of nature [re Satyr and his ilk at KT] is determined to definitively differentiate natural from unnatural human behaviors, then morality could be anchored to an all-or-nothing set of rules able to prescribe or proscribe human behaviors.

On the other hand, moral nihilism is exactly the opposite of all-or-nothing. But, given my own rendition of it, I’ve still thunk myself down into that hole. I embrace moderation, negotiation and compromise, but I have no illusions that this is anything other than the embodiment of my own particular “I” here as an “existential contraption”.

Then with folks like KT who seems to share my views regarding the presumed absence of objective morality and the need to be pragmatic in our interactions with others, I probe to understand how he himself is not down in the same hole that I am in.

This one:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Over and again with regard to either the objectivists or the pragmatists, I ask them to explain how that is not applicable to them in regard to an actual set of conflicting behaviors in an actual circumstantial context.