Mate, I say this with no ill intent: it genuinely doesn't make sense (to my mind) for you worry so much about etiquette, to the point of saying "no offense" when you give your honest opinion about something, especially considering the fact that you jumped into this Thread without even saying "hello". Like, relax mate, you're not offending me by stating your opinion on something.

I just do it to be kind and considerate: for our discussion, it is duly noted that we do not need to do that. I will refrain (:

Happy New Year.

You too!

Just intuition. What is your reason for calling it "pure"?

Common sense is just whatever one has been sociologically conditioned to believe is obvious; whereas intuition—in the philosophical sense—is an intellectual seeming. What is intuitive—in this sense—may NOT BE obvious (e.g., “1 + 1 = 2” is not obvious to a tribal member); and what is obvious may not be intuitive (e.g., a society where all cats are considered to always green).

An intuition is a seeming based on purely intellectual grasping of the evidence; whereas common sense is based off of what society or an individual has been conditioned to believe. This is why intuitions—in the philosophical sense—are defined usually something like “An intuition is a seeming a reasonably rational person would have if they grasped the entirety of the evidence”. Therefore, “1 + 1 = 2” may not be obvious (and thusly not common sensically true) to the tribal man, but if one were to convey the concepts behind it to that man in a way that they understand; then they would intuit that it is true.

A pure intuition is any intuition which has no basis in any conveyable evidence; and an impure intuition is one which is based off of, at least some, conveyable evidence.

The grandaddy of examples for pure intuitions is ‘beingness’. There is nothing one can convey to another person that allows for an understanding of what it means ‘to be’ nor anything they can convey themselves to themselves; but yet any reasonably rational person who grasps readily their own experience knows what ‘to exist’ means. It is pure exactly because one just grasps it as a result of something deeply ingrained into their existence. “to be” is so undefinable exactly because it is a pure intuition.

An example of an impure intuition is ‘cars can’t fly’. Only by conveying what a car and flying is, and how it relates to the physics or common understanding involved, which can be done, can one intuit that “yeah, cars can’t fly”. It is based off of conveyable evidence because there concepts involved are complex (as opposed to absolutely simple).

Think of AVI in the following way.

I see what you are saying, but I disagree. Being does not come in degrees, just as much as the PSR doesn’t. I am a monist about being: there’s too many problems with it to me.

If the PSR has degrees to it, then I would need to know exactly how that works to re-assess your view. Give me example of two things which the PSR applies whereof one has the PSR more weakly associated with it.

This is good: you are making me think about this more.

The problem then as now is that your conception is not Aristotelian, so I am wondering what it is. Is it Christian? Marxist? Rawlsian?

I would like to think it is Aristotelian; but let’s find out.

I think I agree that Justice—like you—is about distribution and commutation. So let’s size this up to what I’ve said before.

It is unjust not to help someone on the other side of the world.

I agree, this isn’t true; because justice would be relative to the community, and the nation would be the highest community. EDIT: An interesting question is, though, why would we note hope to unite all people under one law in order to bring about this sort of justice (which would apply)? It seems like a loophole to your critique here.

It is unjust when the rich do not help the poor.

This isn’t true as well if we are talking about how citizens should treat each other and not what goods the government should be providing. More on that later.

It is unjust for the community not to fulfill members' needs when it can.

I would say “it is unjust for the community not to fulfill members’ needs when it can sustainably”; and it would be unjust in the sense of distributive justice—not commutative justice.

Think about it: if there’s a starving orphan child, then it is a part of the community’s job to take care of that child—at least until it can grow up to be an adult for themselves; and if the community could no longer afford (through perhaps taxation or whatever resource streams they have) to take care of orphans, then there is no injustice—in any sense—if they starved to death (because other families have duties to their own children—not random children—and no citizen is obliged—morally or legally—to take care of some random child (even if it is a good thing to do).

Here’s the interesting part: distributive justice seems to require the community to take care of that child—if the resources are available in a sustainable and reasonable sense: do you agree?

This gets interesting though, as most people would disagree with this, prima facie, because most people would say one has a duty to keep an orphan baby, which was dropped off anonymously at their house, as long as required until the authorities arrive or despite any authority ever being on their way.

Sure, so for example, the community has a duty to properly distribute the revenue it receives via taxation, and the individual is owed a proper distribution. But he is not owed water qua water,

Agreed; but how do we decipher what distributive justice entails? I started re-reading Aristotle to try and get some clues. It seems like the community’s distribution of goods based off of trying to promote the human good (e.g., institutionalized marriage [in the sense of giving tax breaks and incentives], foster care system, CPD, etc.); so why wouldn’t it be obligated to give a base income, e.g., for each citizen if that were feasible (given the abundance of resources)?

It seems like why you and I wouldn’t go for universal base income, is because it, in fact, doesn’t work and is not sustainable; but what if it were? In principle, would that be distributatively just?

The rest of what you said I agree with; so I do not feel the need to comment on those.

EDIT: I forgot to mention another thing: although it is not unjust to choose to not help a person who is not of your nation; I do still find it potentially lacking in beneficence, which could result in it being immoral albeit not unjust. Of course, this is relative to whether the given case is making them inbeneficent or not; but assuming it is, then we would have a reason to say they shouldn't be doing that.

You don't paint a painting perfectly from the get-go, unless you're extremely confident in your skills and in your understanding of the subject matter that you're painting.

Do you agree or disagree with me, up until that point?

That’s fine, but I think it is still worth noting that the problem being addressed in the OP is due to the ambiguity in what it describes…remove that ambiguity and there’s no issue anymore. This is not the case with standard philosophical disagreement: when two philosophers converse, they are conversing about who has it correct—providing two different theses if you will—which each is perfectly clear in their own right.

That’s not to say you are doing anything wrong by asking people’s opinions; but the OP ideally should be clearer IMHO (no offense).

on this topic is that some folks will tell you that we're appealing to the stone, and that's a fallac

Nothing I have said is a blunt assertion; so it is not an appeal to the stone fallacy.

If someone who takes solipsism seriously were to ask me "How do you know that you're not a disembodied brain in a vat that is hallucinating?", I would simply reply in the manner of Moore: here's a hand, mate.

That is appealing to the stone, so to speak, and is a bad argument. I think Moore was right to posit that there are purely intuitional primitive concepts; but the proposition “My hand exists” is not even a concept….

The reason solipsism holds no water is because it egregiously unparsimonious: my repetitive experience of my hand, as confirmed by everyone else, is evidence that my hand actually exists; and my experience of the world whereof I am in a transcendent reality is evidence that there is such a reality. All hard skepticism is deeply rooted in conflating the possibility of something with its probability.

So, I take it that you and I believe in good common sense, yes? I know I do. How about you?

Pure intuition, yes; “common sense”, absolutely not.

(AV1) If some things have a sufficient reason and others do not, then it is possible for there to be a sorites series for the universality of the PSR.

I don’t see how this follows. A thing which has a sufficient reason for its existence and one which doesn’t isn’t analogous to concepts which refer to gradations (e.g., short vs. tall, shades of colors, etc.): it is analogous to non-gradations like ‘being a circle’ vs. ‘not being a circle’, and so it is not subjected to the problem of the heap.

(AV5) So, either everything has a sufficient reason, or nothing does.

Even if I grant AV1, it does not follow from the possibility of something that it is required; which is exactly what you implied in your argument. You seem to be trying to argue that if the PSR is like a sorites series, then it must either apply to everything or nothing; but your first premise only demonstrates the possibility of it being a sorites series. A person could just say “well, it is possible; but I don’t think it is a sorites series”. Viz,:

(AV2) Any such sorites series must contain either an exact cut-off or borderline cases of sufficient reason.
(AV3) There cannot be exact cut-offs in such sorites series.
(AV4) There cannot be borderline cases of sufficient reason.

This assumes that the PSR’s application is like a sorites series, which AV1 doesn’t even purport.

(AV2) Any such sorites series must contain either an exact cut-off or borderline cases of sufficient reason.

If it were a sorites series, then this would be true; but, like I said, either a fact is brute or non-brute: there’s no degrees to it.

(AV3) There cannot be exact cut-offs in such sorites series.
(AV4) There cannot be borderline cases of sufficient reason.

Again, these are both correct: the problem is that you provided no reasons for us to believe that the PSR’s application is a sorites series. AV1 doesn’t even claim that it is: it just admits of its possibility.

I would suggest writing your argument out into proper syllogisms just to ensure the logic is sound.

MacIntyre's point of departure is that the two conceptions are incompatible, no? Even if there is some common ground between them?

Yes, and I agree.

I would follow Aristotle, Cicero, or Aquinas. As quoted above:
But of justice as a part of virtue, and of that which is just in the corresponding sense, one kind is that which has to do with the distribution of honour, wealth, and the other things that are divided among the members of the body politic (for in these circumstances it is possible for one man’s share to be unfair or fair as compared with another’s); and another kind is that which has to give redress in private transactions.

I don’t have a problem with this view, but I am surprised you don’t. This definition is also not found in the Webster dictionary, which you used as a critique of mine.

Also, Aristotle’s description, like mine, has an interdependency on the community and the individual such that there is a need for “redress in private transactions” and “the distribution of honor, wealth, etc.” which was my point before:

Here's what I am thinking. Justice is about, fundamentally, respecting other members of the community (or social structure in which one is a member, such as a family for example) such that each member is getting what they rightly deserve and not getting what they do not deserve.

The confusion lies in the idea that distributive justice functions in the same way that commutative justice does. Distributive justice has to do with an impartial and fair distribution of things among the community ("honour, wealth, etc."). The only legitimate claim is therefore something like, "I did not get a fair share in relation to the rest of the community." Absolute claims are excluded, such as, "I did not get healthcare, and you have a duty to provide me with healthcare."

Well, that’s what I am getting at; and you referenced it here as a type of justice; so I am a bit confused: that seems to agree with me.

I'm not sure. Consider your drought example. Does the community owe the members water or not?

Yes, in terms of what you would call “commutative justice”, I see your point: they either must have a positive right to water or not…

However, in terms of what you would call “distributive justice”, it seems like if the community, e.g., has an abundance of water then they shouldn’t hoard it for the ruling elite—that would be unjust.

Moreover, this “distributive justice” seems connected still to what one is ‘owed’. Viz., it is only unjust for the community to hoard the abundance of water because they have duties, as the community, which include properly distributing resources—so that is owed to the individual in a sense.

So compare a negative right

That’s fair: negative rights a lot easier to uphold than positive ones; but I think we both agree we have positive rights. Take the water example: if you were denied any water simply because the government didn’t want to give it to you (perhaps they want to use that water for a water slide party for the ruling elites) even though you are doing your duly fair share of work in society—which we could think of it in terms of you having the money to pay for the water bill—then that is unjust because you have a positive right to the water.

I think the trouble comes in, as you rightly pointed out, when we think of positive rights just like negative ones. E.g., when we think of our right life like our right to have water when it isn’t being distributed fairly. This ends up conflating the right which can never be breached with a straw man version of the “water right” such that one thinks that the government is required to give them water simpliciter. That’s not what we are saying here.

What grounds the facts about, or of, my existence?

What you are.

For example, why was I born in 1985? "Because your parents had sex the year before, mate. Are you stupid or what?" Ok, so that fact (that I was born in 1985) is metaphysically grounded by another fact?

The fact and the explanation for why what factually happened happened are separate things.

The proposition “You were born in 1985” is true IFF you were born in 1985. That you were born in 1985, is what ontologically grounds the truth the statement “You were born in 1985”. The truth of the claim “You were born in 1985” is not relative to the facts which explain why it is the case. Either you were born then or you weren’t. Why you were born in 1985 is a separate question; and your parents having sex will, in part, be the explanation.

Aristotle would say that my parents are my efficient cause. But efficient causes are contingent. And yet the fact that I was born in 1985 can't be changed.

That’s because it is in the past: that has no bearing on the fact that your parents were the physical cause of your creation—nor that that fact is contingent on other facts (like them falling in love, etc.).

So it's not contingent, it's necessary.

What you are saying here, is that if a fact about the past cannot be changed then it isn’t a contingent fact: that doesn’t make sense.

It is true that “I stubbed my toe yesterday” and that that only happened because I was busy walking with my head glued to my phone and that I cannot change that it is true that “I stubbed my tow yesterday”, and yet your conclusion is false that me stubbing my toe was necessary—I could have not stubbed my toe if I wasn’t glued to my phone.

The more important issue, is that you are confusing necessary existence with brute existence. Some things could be necessarily the way they are but yet have an explanation for why they are the case; thereby being necessary but not brute.

E.g., if you deny the possibility that I could have done otherwise by not being glued to my phone, then it is necessarily the case, ceteris paribus, that I stubbed my toe (yesterday); but yet that is not a brute fact, because the sufficient explanation of why I stubbed my toe is still there: I was glued to my phone.

This is the opacity in your OP that I was alluding to earlier.

This, this right here, is the deal breaker as far as I'm concerned

Well, I wasn’t commenting on which version, if any, of the PSR one should accept: I was noting that in the OP you referenced a plethora of facts which are not brute as if they are. This leaves me a bit confused, because you are now defending some (presumably strong) version of the PSR when in the OP you said many things are just brute facts (such as where you were born or your race). Perhaps that was just an outline of this “Speculative Materialism” that you don’t quite agree with but want to discuss.

Meillassoux says exactly what you just said there: that The Principle of Sufficient Reason is, at the very least, not universally applicable.

No, that is not what I was saying. I was saying two things with regard to brute facts:

1. The kinds of facts you spoke of (such as biological facts) are not brute facts, although you referenced them as such; and

2. Brute facts cannot be contingent.

Whether or not brute facts exist is a separate question, which I will go ahead and address since you brought it to our attention.

But how could it not be? That just makes no sense to me

If the PSR is not universally applicable, then there is at least one thing which has no reason for it being the way it is; and if the PSR is universally applicable, then every thing has a reason for the way it is.

It is important to understand, that this is tantamount to saying that a strong version of the PSR results in all entities, and there properties, being contingent (upon other entities and there properties); and a weak version allows for at least some entities which are necessary.

To answer your question, someone that believes in a weak version of the PSR and believes that there are brute facts fundamentally (ontologically) will say that something about the way reality is that is fundamental to it just is that way with no further explanation. This could be God; it could be some set of natural laws; some set of Platonic Forms; etc.

Let’s take God for example: if classical theism is correct, then God exists necessarily and has, therefore, always existed without any reason for why God exists. If there was a reason for God’s existence, then that would mean that something else is more fundamental than God—which undermines the whole idea that God is God in the first place. So if God exists, then God must be a necessary being; and so God’s existence is a brute fact.

Personally, I find essential equal credence in the idea that there are an infinite regress of ‘things’ just as much as there are fundamental, necessary ‘things’. I think reason makes us search for a reason for why everything is the way it is; and I have no clue why we should believe that it really is the case that everything is ‘causal’. What reasons do we have to believe that no where in the universe, or beyond the universe, there is something which exists without being caused by anything in any manner? We don’t; just as much as we don’t have any good reasons to believe they do exist.

I believe in the PSR. How could I not? I mean, if the PSR is false (let's suppose, if only for the sake of argument, that it is) does that mean that a squid can suddenly pop up into existence in my living room?

I think most people would agree that the Nature in which we live has shown herself to abide by the PSR, but more fundamentally we aren’t so sure. It’s not that a squid will pop into existence all of the sudden; but more about if there are any fundamental aspects to reality which just always have been. However, technically, what reasons do we have to believe that at the quantum level things don’t just pop into existence and back out for no reason at all?

I mean, if there is no reason for anything, then how could we rule out such insane-sounding possibilities?

One can reject that the PSR applies universally without accepting that the PSR doesn’t apply at all.

This OP seems littered with opaque concepts. Dare I say, I think you will find answers for yourself if you disambiguate your questions.

Why is my existence as a person (and as an "Aristotelian substance") characterized by the factual properties that I have, instead of other factual properties?
…
By the way, how would you even define the term “factual properties”?

If you want to be able to work through your thoughts here, then you will need to come up with a definition of what a “factual property” is itself. To me, it makes no sense (and no offense meant): a ‘factual property’ implies the possibility of a ‘non-factual property’. A non-factual property would just be any property, to wit, which a thing doesn’t have (viz., it is non-factually the case that a cat has laser beaming eyes); which would entail that a ‘factual property’ collapses into the normal meaning of a ‘property’ simpliciter….

If you are just asking why one is defined into terms of the properties they have instead of what they don’t, then it would be because, by my lights, a property that isn’t attributed to a thing cannot possibly be a part of its nature. E.g., that’s like saying a cat can be defined in terms of having laser beaming eyes while equally admitting that a cat does not need to have laser beaming eyes.

The other point worth mentioning, is that the essence, nature, and Telos of a thing are separate concepts; and depending on which one you mean by “characterized by”, the answer differs. E.g., I am characterized by having extreme introvertness, but this is not a part of my essence nor my Telos but is a part of my nature.

This is my "Love Letter" to Speculative Materialism, especially as developed by Quentin Meillassoux (particularly in his first book, After Finitude

I haven’t read that book, so if I am just completely missing the point of the OP then just ignore me (: .

The origin of the preceding question is the following one: It just feels odd (to my mind) to have no good reason, other than brute facts, to explain why I have the factual properties that I have had since birth, especially since I didn’t choose to be born

A brute fact is any statement about reality which agrees appropriately with reality (with respect to what it references) and itself has no sufficient reason for why it is the case. The fact that you were born, is not a brute fact: you were born because, e.g., your parents wanted a child, they had sex, etc. There’s is a sufficient reason (or are sufficient reasons) for why you were born, so it is not a brute fact.

You seem to think that biological facts, historical facts, etc. are brute facts when none of them are (although it is possible, technically, for one to be). The color of your skin, e.g., is not a brute fact: you have that color pigmentation because of the biological makeup you have—which provides the sufficient reasons for why you have it. There’s nothing brute about it.

all of the aforementioned brute facts are contingent

A brute fact cannot be contingent: that’s baked into the concept. If a fact is contingent, then it is contingent upon other reasons (and presumably other facts); and so it must have a sufficient explanation for why it is true—thusly it is not a brute truth.

A brute fact would, perhaps, be God’s existence; or the Universe’s existence; or a set of Platonic Forms; or a set of natural laws; etc.

If I am allowing myself some leniency in my interpretation of your OP, then I would say, and correct me if I am wrong, you are fundamentally questioning why your identity is shaped by the historical and biological context in and of which you live and are. The answer, to me, is simple: you cannot escape what you are. Nosce te ipsum is the beginning of wisdom for a reason...

Are you pulling them out of thin air? Or is there some thinker or tradition that you are getting these from?

I got those from After Virtue by MacIntyre:

For A aspires to ground the notion of justice in some account of what and how a given person is entitled to in virtue of what he has acquired and earned; B aspires to ground the notion of justice in some account of the equality of the claims of each person in respect of basic needs and of the means to meet such needs. Confronted by a given piece of property or resource, A will be apt to claim that it is justly his because he owns it – he acquired it legitimately, he earned it; B will be apt to claim that it justly ought to be someone else’s, because they need it much more, and if they do not have it, their basic needs will not be met. But our pluralist culture possesses no method of weighing, no rational criterion for deciding between claims based on legitimate entitlement against claims based on need. Thus these two types of claim are indeed, as I suggested, incommensurable, and the metaphor of ‘weighing’ moral claims is not just inappropriate but misleading...

– (After Virtue, Ch. 17 “Justice as Virtue: Changing Conceptions”, p. 246)

I find it plausible that justice requires a balance between A and B types of justice because they are the two extremes in a community: the one, to wit, the proper assessment of individual merit and the other, to wit, the proper assessment of natures (of members). One focuses only on the individual in terms of agency, and the other solely on the needs of each member.

I don't see much merit in either of these conceptions

How would you define justice, then?

I would have the same concern about this. Where is it coming from? If we look at <a dictionary> I don't really see your conception. Or if we do, it is only there in a vague way.

Well, dictionaries are notoriously inadequate for formal discussions. Nothing about the definitions in the Webster dictionary for justice suffice in telling us what exactly justice is getting at.

We need a better starting point for a definition.

My definition of justice is the study and practice of properly treating other persons; my initial description of justice is what you quoted:

Here's what I am thinking. Justice is about, fundamentally, respecting other members of the community (or social structure in which one is a member, such as a family for example) such that each member is getting what they rightly deserve and not getting what they do not deserve.

I am describing justice fundamentally in terms of the relation between community and individual exactly because the Aristotelian conception of justice arises only exactly due to us being social organisms. Justice can’t be, i.e., if Aristotle is right that justice is a virtue only because we must facilitate it to fulfill the social aspect(s) of our nature, fundamentally about merely respecting individuals (such as is the case in libertarian notions of justice) because it makes no reference to the community or over-arching structure which one’s goods are interdependent upon.

This conception of justice finds no basis anywhere in the Merriam Webster definitions above.

Why doesn’t it fit? Here’s one definition from your link:

the quality of being just, impartial, or fair

"If you can do X then you are required to do so in justice." That is a very strange claim to my ears.

Justice has an element to it that is relative to the resources and circumstances of the community. E.g., it is unjust to arbitrarily or unduly prevent someone from driving on roads, but depending on the conditions of the roads what is considered unduly here may change; it is currently unjust to force people, where I live, to not use as much water in their homes, but if there is a drought then it may no longer be unjust; food rationing is unjust right now, but not necessarily if we start running low; etc.

Do you deny any circumstantial aspects to justice?

Sure, but commissions tend to be more unjust than omissions, and this is why justice was classically concerned primarily with "negative rights."

I guess, to a certain extent. However, there are multiple levels to laws (e.g., local, state, federal, etc.) and policies that come into play which are circumstantial to some extent. We have this negative right to, e.g., make this policy for our private business; but might not have it in, e.g., in martial law.

Didn't Gandhi and King endure the violence of the British and the southern cops / mobs respectively?

Yes, in the most violent of displays of peace—viz., in the most radical and extreme methods of peaceful protest ever concocted. I was merely pointing out that even the rare occurrences where peace has the same swift and monumental effect of aristocratic elites, it still has that aristocratic shadow….it is perfectly plausible that if Ghandhi were not so radically peaceful—but rather peaceful in a more moderate and reasonable sense—then his whole project wouldn’t have made a single dent in human history. It was the “uno-reverse card” of showing people how barbaric someone could be in the face of absolute kindness that had a bone-chilling affect.

What about the Dutch, one might ask.

I don’t remember much about Dutch history, but I would guess that they haven’t done anything monumental towards the course of history. We are not talking about countries that merely survived but, rather, plummeted humanity into a new age or significantly expedited the development process. I am not sure if the Dutch count here…

American Indian tribes are fairly often suggested as peaceful and unwarlike

I’ve heard otherwise—e.g., cannibals—but even if this is true it is obvious that they are weak and only exist still because sympathy and tolerance of all human life has been thoroughly cultivated into humanity’s conscience. In fact, if they are examples of the product of anti-aristocratic values, then it only serves my point….

Humans can display a great deal of solidarity, cooperation, loyalty and trust when either a sufficiently dangerous threat or an irresistible opportunity presents itself

Yes, and they have tended, throughout history, to come together at the expense of a weak out-group...no?

We have entered an unprecedented age, where we now find aristocratic values itself disgusting; and it has had its strengths and weaknesses.

I think this is why so many people do not like Israel and Russia for their conquests: it is very aristocratic.

We will just have to agree to disagree then :wink: .

For our discussion, I am just focusing on one: the implausibility of the sex being an external representation of the disassociation of a mind. Don't those seem unrelated? How would that make any sense?

If we think of it akin to personality disorder, which Kastrup does quite often, then we would expect trauma to cause a disassociation (i.e., an alter) or at least something significantly violent or powerful; but, because we know sex produces life, Kastrup must hold with consistency that sex somehow is the act that forces the Mind to disassociate from itself. Sex, simpliciter, is not violent; it is not traumatic; it is not particular powerful; etc. What I would expect if Kastrup were right, is that something powerful about the Mind's psychology would 'traumatize' it into splitting into multiple minds (alters). The problem is that Kastrup admits the analogy cannot be stretched this far (as I am doing) because the universal consciousness is a basic, primitive consciousness for Kastrup (so it doesn't have the psychology that a person with a personality disorder would have). However, it still produces a meaningful question: "why would we expect sex to produce alters of a universal Mind?".

Well, we could always ask: "could good historical epochs always have been better if there was more prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, as well as faith, hope, and love?"

I am not saying vices are virtues; but the vast majority of the major historical progressions were so rich, rapid, and monumental because of the sheer brutality involved. The ends justifying the means is always a faster and better route to achieve the end result, notwithstanding its immorality.

On the other hand cooperation, loyalty, trust, and love -- all good things -- were indispensable in the development of the scientific / industrial revolutions, growth of agriculture, trade, industry, and culture which brought about our prosperous present state. .

To me, cooperation, loyalty, trust, and love are all traits which are required for any ideology or project to take root and sprout....it seems like you are both trying to formulate a dichotomy between these traits and those required for brutal conquest when, in reality, they are the same. Some virtues are required for evil just as much as good (e.g., the courageousness of the Nazi).

To your point though, it is worth asking: "have there been any peaceful and ethical movements that progresses just as rapidly and richly as the many barbaric ones that came before (or after) it?". Very few; in fact, I would say the only ones are the ones that are barbaric anti-barbarism: the violence of peace. E.g., Ghandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.

It seems to me that you could just as easily make the case that good things have overwhelmingly involved cooperation, loyalty, trust, and love. It's a selective history.

I don’t see how this contradicts what I said: the bloodiest and most gruesome of human events require all those traits you mentioned within the in-group.

At any rate, you might enjoy Dante. He takes a lot from Aristotle, but he also has a very developed philosophy of history and sees a major unifying role for empire. He has De Monarchia, which is an explicit apology for world-empire, but these ideas are also all over the Commedia.

Thanks: I will take a look.

Hegel would be another good example, and he has some ideas about balancing particularism (perhaps through federalism and strong local governance) and a strong state. However, given he is writing in the long shadow of the Thirty Years War, he cannot seem to find it in himself to discard the post-Westphalian state system, even though his thought would seem to suggest a world-state.

I have Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic, but I’ve never been able to penetrate into whatever the h*** the man was trying to convey with his obscure writings :worry: .

Interesting: so it sounds like you are a bit of an Aristotelian too. How would you define Justice? Do you see any solution to the A and B conceptions of Justice that I noted?

For reference, here they are:

(A) in terms of some account of what and how a given person is entitled to in virtue of what they have legitimately acquired and earned, or (B) in terms of some account of the equality of the claims of each person in respect of basic needs and of the means to meet such needs.

Yes, because, as any experienced attorney or judge will attest to: "justice" is not normative (re: micro bottom-up –> well-being (i.e. utilitarian)) as you seem to conceive of it, Bob; in a naturalistic moral framework¹, "justice" is applied (re: macro top-down –> nonzero sum conflict resolution (i.e. consequential)).

Wouldn't you agree, that justice has a normative and applied aspect? There is what is just ideally (which is normative ethics), and there is what can be applied in practical law (which is applied ethics)---no?

E.g., everyone should be going the speed limit but there's no way for the government to monitor that in the car (other than cops checking with their speed guns) without violating people's right to privacy.

Also, why would "macro top-down" justice require consequentialism?

Here's what I am thinking. Justice is about, fundamentally, respecting other members of the community (or social structure in which one is a member, such as a family for example) such that each member is getting what they rightly deserve and not getting what they do not deserve.

Let's revisit both A and B conceptions of Justice:

(A) in terms of some account of what and how a given person is entitled to in virtue of what they have legitimately acquired and earned, or (B) in terms of some account of the equality of the claims of each person in respect of basic needs and of the means to meet such needs.

A is missing the communal aspect of justice, namely that each person is owed resources, titles, roles, etc. not just in terms of their merit of activity but also relative to (1) the resources that the community can provide reasonably and (2) the nature of those members (viz., persons). A, then, is an incomplete libertarian-style conception of Justice that does not work per se. E.g., it could be that one person has legitimately acquired all the food but that it is unjust to let everyone else starve because that person would still nevertheless not be caring properly for their community (which they are still inter-dependent on): since, for Aristotle, a central element to Justice is respecting each person in society with the understanding that the good of the one is dependent on the good of the whole, it follows that the food hoarder would be being unjust (in this case) even though they have not violated A-Justice.

B is missing that the merit of actions is an aspect of justice, namely that each person is not equal simpliciter merely because they have certain inalienable rights (nor because they share a Telos): some people provide more value to the community's good and so deserve a bigger share of the goods for themselves. E.g., a person that takes on more responsibility and risk in the community which, in turn, furthers the community's good (proportionally to how much it furthers the person's good) deserves more goods (proportionally) to a person who chooses not to; and so if all the community does is reward people based off of their basic needs as a person, a human, etc. then there are bound to be people who are unjustly being given less than they deserve (proportionally) relative to the value they are bringing to the community itself. Thusly, a person can be B-Just while clearly being not only A-Unjust but also unjust (in the broader sense I described above).

So, beyond negating A and B conceptions of Justice, what exactly does each person deserve? I am don't think there is any exact moral principles that can be deployed, but, rather, taking the Aristotelian approach, Justice is fundamentally about the virtue of being just; and so I have to accept that it is impossible to come up with an exact equation that can solve the problems with A and B justice. Instead, all I can say is the general definition I gave above (which squarely holds justice as community-centric) and note that A and B styles of Justice don't quite capture it.

There are basic things that can be noted, of course: people have inalienable rights (in a deontological fashion), if the community has the resources to suffice the basic needs of each member than it should, each person beyond those basic needs (that can be reasonably fulfilled by the community) must be earned by way of merit, etc.

In terms of my example of the self-sufficient man, I think you are right: it would be a matter of beneficence and benevolence and not justice. One would have no duty nor obligation to help them in the forest, even if they could just snap their fingers to instantly heal them; but beneficence and benevolence are important virtues that are closely connected to justice (I would say) as doing good and being good willed are necessary in order to properly care for the community and the over-arching structures that the community is dependent on (like Nature). So it would follow that, ceteris paribus, the self-sufficient person who could snap their fingers to help the injured person would do so if they are virtuous because their goods are still indirectly dependent on the goods of the whole system of Nature functioning properly. If we were to say that this person somehow was radically self-sufficient to the extent that they could survive even if Nature died out, then they would not be being vicious by not helping.

Same thing, I think, with things like animal cruelty. Beyond the injustice which would arise from violating a person's property by torturing or killing their pet, it is not something, even outside the purview of justice, that a virtuous person would do because they need to be benevolent and beneficent.

Thoughts?

I've was lucky enough to be born in a culture which benefitted from a long history of colonialism, imperialism, and western supremacy. Had I been born in a culture which was the recipient of the hob-nailed boot, I'd look at things differently, I suppose. — BC

This is an astute observation that most people don't seem to acknowledge anymore. Nietzsche pointed this out, correctly, that all good things in human history have been the product of bloody and gruesome events. That's not to say we should keep doing it for because of that, but it is worth acknowledging.

Unfortunately, I don't see what part of my analysis is incorrect. Kastrup believes that a dissociated alter is akin to an alter in a person with a multi-personality disorder, and that each of us are external representations (i.e., images) of a dissociated alter of that one consciousness. It thusly follows that when a new consciousness is created, such as in childbirth, that this creation is an external representation of whatever processes produced the One to disassociate into another alter---no?

:up:

I will think about it and get back to you.

I've not read this thread

No worries at all: I don't expect you to read the entire thread (:

I read that comment you linked, but I am, unfortunately, not following. How am I conflating normative with applied ethics? Are you saying my thought experiment was invalid (on grounds of some sort of conflation)?

But how does that work? How is sex an external representation of a mind disassociating with itself?

Your response was good; and I need to think about it more and get back to you. There's two particularly challenging problems I haven't thought about much before. (1) The first being that justice can be viewed in two seemingly irreconcilable ways (and this reminded me of After Virue by MacIntyre, as he outlined in well in there): (A) in terms of some account of what and how a given person is entitled to in virtue of what they have legitimately acquired and earned, or (B) in terms of some account of the equality of the claims of each person in respect of basic needs and of the means to meet such needs. (2) The second being that moral naturalism doesn't seem to afford any notion of selfless justice whatsoever; instead, the only kind of naturalistic justice seems to be the need to socialize.

With respect to #1, it seems like your view of justice is squarely, although I don't want to put words in your mouth, A. Whereas, my attempted rebuttals invoke a sense of B; hence the disagreement. I am not so sure now if Justice is like A, B, or some sublated version I haven't thought of yet.

With respect to #2, if there is truly no way to naturally ground selfless justice, then I think you are right to point out that the only justice which one would participate in is the kind which is required by way of social goods; which would be essentially the relation between communal and individual goods. I am not so sure here either that naturalism can't afford an answer, but if it does I would reckon it would have to be grounded in the rational aspect of our nature (so Kant comes to mind here).

I am curious what @180 Proof has to say, although I am guessing it will be on consequentialistic lines of thought.

Let me outline a basic example so that we are all on the same page. Imagine you are completely self-sufficient living up in the mountains; viz., you are able to live off of the land, which is no one else's property, and need absolutely no social interactions between people to realize your own good (e.g., perhaps you are a bit anti-social). You come across an injured person in the woods, in need of desperate help. The question is twofold:

(C) Do you have any natural duty to help them?
(D) Would not helping them be an act of natural injustice?

As it stands now, I can think of no reason why one would have a natural duty to them at all; nor why it would be unjust. I feel like it is unjust, but I am starting to think that is the mere result of the Christian conscience in me from my forebearers.

I am aware of Kastrup's view, but his solution seems utterly implausible to me. According to his logic, people conceiving a baby is somehow an instance of the Universal Mind disassociating from itself thereby creating an alter.

I was curious what your take is on it, but, again, you don't have this problem (I don't think).

I would say epistemic idealism is any metaphysical theory which posits primacy to the mind insofar as how we understand reality; whereas ontological idealism is any metaphysical theory which posits primacy to the mind in reality (over matter).

Classical ontological idealism arguably started with good 'ole Berkeley and is still prominent in the literature today (such as with Kastrup). Although I am not as familiar with the lineage of epistemic idealism, I would imagine it starts with Kant.

Your view seems to be a form of transcendental idealism, which is about how we understand reality fundamentally through mental ideas (and cognitive pre-structures) and thusly is a form of epistemic idealism---not ontological idealism.

Re-reading your OP, I think this is supporting by your claims like:

These are the grounds on which I am appealing to the insights of philosophical idealism. But I am not arguing that it means that ‘the world is all in the mind’. It’s rather that, whatever judgements are made about the world, the mind provides the framework within which such judgements are meaningful. So though we know that prior to the evolution of life there must have been a Universe with no intelligent beings in it, or that there are empty rooms with no inhabitants, or objects unseen by any eye — the existence of all such supposedly unseen realities still relies on an implicit perspective. What their existence might be outside of any perspective is meaningless and unintelligible, as a matter of both fact and principle.

Although I think one could go the objective idealist's route and just say that all is in mind, but there is an objective reality because there is one universal mind maintaining the ideas of reality (e.g., God); your response to basic objections to idealism seems to be to go the transcendental idealist route; viz., to admit that there is a mind-independent world but that we can say nothing meaningful about it independently of the modes by which we cognize it.

A position, like Kant's, that admits of reality being fundamentally mind-independent (ontologically), is not a form of true idealism; that is, ontological idealism. Classically, by my understanding, 'idealism' is a short-hand for 'ontological idealism' which posits, like Berkeley, that reality is fundamentally mind-stuff: not physical-stuff.

Why is this important? Well, because I was going to ask you about the most difficult problem for idealism (IMHO)--the decomposition problem--but you don't seem to believe that reality is fundamentally mind-stuff; so that isn't a problem for you like it would be for a classical idealist.

The decomposition problem is how a universal mind, which is the fundamental entity ontologically, can "decompose" into separate, subjective, and personnal minds which we are. Sometimes it is denoted as how a Mind (with a capital 'M') 'decomposes' into a mind (with a lowercase 'm'). It seems like, for an idealist, the Mind which fundamentally exists for the world to be objective is toto genere different than the minds which inhabit it; and there's not clear explanation (that I have heard) of how a mind like ours would arise out of mental stuff happening in 'the Mind'.

I was going to ask you about your response to the decomposition problem, but, in re-reading the OP, it doesn't sound like your view is a form of ontological idealism....

Okay, but in your OP you talk about "forcible imposition" and "taking over North Korea," which look like warlike acts (i.e. imposing some value on a country by taking it over).

Correct; but war is the last resort. One of the central points of the OP was that it is a resort. I am merely elaborating that diplomacy and other tactics can be used; which would equally be banned if one is completely anti-imperialist.

I don't see a concrete argument here. Why does justice require it?

Justice’s essence is fairness; which is about judging merit and demerit impartially and objectively. To do so, requires that one judge merit and demerit based off of substances (viz., natures), relations (e.g., you are the father, you must take care of the baby), and decisions (e.g., you decided to spend all your money, now live with the consequences); for anything else, which would have to be the upshot of conative dispositions, is not impartial and objective. The just man, thusly, assigns merit and demerit, e.g., because this ‘thing’ is a person, a being that is alive, a being that has feelings, a being that is not alive, etc. and/or because this being decided to do this or that. The just man constructs a hierarchal structure of values based off of this sort of fairness, such that respecting persons is highest and non-living-things lowest (with everything in between).

One must help others, in general, ceteris paribus, because they are supposed to be just; and justice requires, as mentioned above, assigning merit and demerit impartially and objectively. Therefore, a just person should care, in general, about other people (and living things) in virtue that they are people (and are living things); because there nature sets them as worthy of protection.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is to think about the contrary: to believe that one shouldn’t help a person when they could at no or little cost to themselves, is to squarely value a non-person over persons; which misses, at best, the nature of a person vs. a non-person. E.g., the super rich man who spends a million dollars on a yacht, for no purpose other than to enjoy it, is valuing the satisfaction and enjoyment of a yacht over persons (which he could have helped with the money). Valuing a non-living-thing over a person is to improperly understand the nature of a person. The fact that they have a rational will marks them out as the most valuable; and the fact they are alive, can feel pain, etc. makes them more valuable than non-life (like a yacht).

"Suppose I see a source of mercury polluting the water supply. I should remove it, because as a member of the community I should value the health of the community and the cleanliness of its water. My good is bound up in the community's good, just as its good is bound up in my good."

Like I said before, this equally applies to all of life. Nature is one inter-connected body. We cannot survive and realize our good without the good of Nature herself. E.g., that’s why we hunt certain numbers of certain species to ensure the balance is stable. This equally applies to humanity as a whole, including itself in the whole of Nature. If I must care about mercury pollution in the water supply because my good is bound up with my community’s good (and vice-versa); then I should care about it because my good is bound up with Nature’s good (and vice-versa).

The reason I didn’t make this argument above is because it isn’t the ultimate reason why I think a rational agent is committed to the “moral project” of “the good of life”: like I stated above, it is the consequence of understanding properly how to analyze, impartially and objectively, the substances, relations, and decisions which exist in reality. I cannot be just and value a non-living-thing over a living-thing, all else being equal: that is to disrespect the nature of a living-thing in contrast to a non-living-thing. A living thing has a will (to some extent, albeit not necessarily proper), desires, emotions, can feel pain, etc.

Why don't you require that we have a responsibility to take care of other nations?

Because by this you are envisioning, I would say, a nation babysitting another nation; which is not what I am talking about. On the contrary, a nation does have a responsibility to take care of another nation if it does not pose a substantial risk to their duties to their own people; and that is why we do not go around advocating that nations, which have their own issues and are not in a position to help other nations, to take care of other nations. If a nation was super-abundant and rich and could give their excesses to helping an extremely poor nation—and at no risk of nuclear war or something like—in principle—I would say they have a duty to do so. But that duty does not supercede their more local duties.

This is no different than how, e.g., a father has a duty to take care of his kids and to care about water pollution for his community, but if the two conflict then he must uphold the former over the latter. Since father’s do not tend to have a super-abundance of resources and time, we do not generally advocate that fathers should spend an enormous amount of time solving water pollution: they don’t have the time or resources. They fit into society with certain more immediate roles that they must focus on.

There’s a hierarchy to duties.

Under your view, is it not a just war to invade Nazi Germany? Is it not an obligation other nations would have because they have no duty to victims of another nation? — Bob Ross

You are mixing together the notions of obligatory and permissible. What by natural virtue is supererogatory is neither impermissible nor obligatory.

That’s fair: I guess I would agree with that; as, by my own logic, a nation is not obligated to go to war with another nation to stop them from doing something egregious if it poses a significant risk to the integrity of their own prosperity. However, I can reword this to get at the main point: would you say that it is not obligatory for a nation who could stop Nazi Germany without any risk to their own prosperity, if that were possible, to do so? I think it would be, in principle.

Well the point is that a para-community does not possess obligations. The U.S. is so large, diverse, and diffuse, that what is at stake is more like an alliance than the natural obligations of a community.

So, to be clear, you are saying that I do not actually have a duty to care about water pollution in a state of the US which I do not live because the US is not a proper community?

This is a slippery slope. I can make the same argument for my local county vs. my state. They are just as much a “para-community”; and that was my original point.

The first problem is the idea that I have a duty to be virtuous. To whom is this duty owed? Strictly speaking, one does not owe oneself anything, because they are but one agent, not two.

Duties arise out of roles one has; and one has roles for themselves—no? E.g., one of my roles to myself is that I need to just with myself—no?

I don’t see why duty arises out of roles one has to others.

The second problem is the idea that justice requires us to fulfill the things you want us to fulfill. How does it do that?

What do you mean? Justice just requires us to be fair.

For Aristotle your dog does not have knowledge, and it therefore does not have volition.

I disagree with Aristotle on that point then. Evolution makes no leaps.

A human is bound by reason to care for its young, unlike a lion.

I am asking: what if a woman takes care of her young merely in virtue of an unbearable, primal, and motherly urge to do it? Arguably, a lot of mothers out there operate (at least sometimes) on primal motherly urges and are not committing themselves to their motherly duties because they rationally deliberated about it. In that case, then, your view seems to dictate that the woman would not be being dutiful because it is not being done through reason.

They do not engage in knowledge, volition, choices, etc.

I agree that they don’t engage in volition in accordance with reason; but there’s also volition in accordance with conative dispositions. I can will as an upshot of my passions, or my reasons for doing so. Animals have volition in the lesser sense; and knowledge in the sense that they also formulate beliefs about their environment (to some degree). Have you seen how smart some birds are? Belgian Malinois are way too smart to believe that they have no knowledge; unless by knowledge you mean something oddly specific.

I don't take Aristotle to be a moral relativist

I thought moral relativism meant something else: nevermind.

That's what people say, of course. But somehow no one ever provides good reasons, right? :razz:

That’s not true: there are many people on this forum that have changed my mind about things. In fact, I used to advocate for moral anti-realism on here: just look at my past discussion boards I created.

Why is it that no matter what the moral system or moral facts people are convinced of at any given time, the killing continues. Could it be that morality is chimerical?

That’s a very complex, socio-pyschological question. I am not sure how deep we want to get into it. The first problem is that there are wildly different understandings of the moral facts out there; the second is that people tend to behave like a herd—they are not governed properly by reason. Most people just end up being regurgitations of their societies values unless they are the ones being persecuted.

Well yes, as I say he has decided, not without precedent, that wellbeing should be the foundation of morality because harm to wellbeing appears to be a good indicator of what is bad.

Just as a side note, the problem with Harris—and why he is a laughing stock in the philosophy community—is not that he thinks well-being is the chief good: it’s that he doesn’t give any actual arguments for why that is the case in the Moral Landscape. The parts where there is a semblance of an argument, are so poorly written. He gives no metaethical account of why goodness is objective, nor how well-being is objectively good. He just pulls it out of his butt.

The other problem is that he thinks ethics can be done purely through science; which makes as much sense as doing epistemology purely through science…

How would we demonstrate when this happens?

We do it all the time; some people more than others. Heck, just do it yourself real quick: decide to do exactly the opposite of what you want to do. Viola!

The most extreme example I can think of is David Goggins, if you’ve ever heard of him.

I take this to mean that there are essential characteristics of what it is to be human.

Ok, sure. There’s an essence to being a human; but it can evolve over time. I don’t think my view requires humans to be ever-unchanging to work.

I forget, are you borrowing from Aristotle's notion of teleology here? The purpose/functioning of a thing?

Yes.

I'm not sure I understand this argument very well. Might be me or the wording used. If you can keep it simpler and briefer it might assist.

Viz., under a view that says the only goods are hypothetical to one’s goals (e.g., if one wants to be healthy, then they shouldn’t smoke) there are no expressions of good which are non-hypothetical (e.g., “one shouldn’t smoke”); but the problem is that “Lebron is a good basketball player”, “Bob is a good farmer”, etc. are non-hypothetical expressions of goodness. It is on the person that takes this kind of view to explain how those kinds of expressions are reducible to hypotheticals.

If basketball is about skill and winning, then Lebron is a good basketball player (I don't know who this is but I can make inferences)?

Basketball is about winning in accordance with the rules of basketball: saying “if” here would just be an expression of one’s uncertainty about it. For example, imagine I told you “if math is about doing operations on numbers in such and such ways, then 2 + 2 = 4”: does that make all mathematical propositions hypothetical? I don’t think so. “2 + 2 = 4” is a valid, categorical statement; and me saying “if math <…>” is just an expression of my uncertainty about what math is; and even if it weren’t, “2 + 2 = 4” is a valid categorical statement.

You believe human life can be assessed similarly and has a telos? We can agree as to what constitutes good - based on teleological grounds, which you believe are objective?

Essentially, yes. I outlined it before in a previous post. Teleology provides objective, internal goods (to itself).

I think history may have demonstrated that moral facts don't exist and societies can turn to killing people indiscriminately fairly quickly.

Let’s parse this argument. You are saying:

P1: If moral facts exist then societies could not turn to killing people indiscriminately.
P2: Societies have turned to killing people indiscriminately.
C: Therefore, moral facts do not exist.

This is obviously a non-sequiture. This is like saying:

P1: If mathematical facts exist then societies could not turn to killing people indiscriminately.
P2: Societies have turned to killing people indiscriminately.
C: Therefore, mathematical facts do not exist.

The issue is the same for both: there mere existence of a fact does not entail that humans will immediately believe it is true. In fact, this would be odd to say; e.g., like a mathematical fact wasn’t a fact all along because we just demonstrated the proper proof for it (after lots of disputes), or like a mathematical fact should be believed to be true even though one doesn’t have good reasons to believe it (given they are not given the hindsight, like we are, that it is a fact).

This is how Sam Harris seems to arrive at wellbeing as a moral foundation.

:yikes: . Sam Harris just blanketly asserts that wellbeing is objectively good: his approach to metaethics is to avoid it…..

What we can see here, is that we have a form of moral objectivism which is a form of moral relativism; whereof each objective good is relativistic to some teleological structure such that what is good is fundamentally about what best suits and sizes up to the teleology of it. — Bob Ross

Agree. And I have already alluded to this approach myself that we can set a goal and reach this objectively, but the goal itself is subjective.

What you are describing here and with Harris’ “approach”, which is really a form of moral anti-realism, is that subject’s set out for themselves, cognitively or conatively, ends for themselves which are subjective (or non-objective to be exact); and somehow because of this there are no objective goods—just hypothetical goods. Viz., a hypothetical good for basketball would be, under this view, something like “if you want to be good at basketball, then you need to practice it” or “if we want to have fun, then let’s invent a game called basketball”; but, importantly, the examples I gave are NOT convertible to hypotheticals. “Lebron is a good basketball player” is not convertible to a hypothetical: it is a categorical statement which is normative, because it speaks of goodness which is about what ought to be. E.g., the good farmer is not hypothetically good at farming.

As you suggest this is a contested idea and I have no way of determining whether you are correct about this.

One must determine its truth based off of the reasons for accepting it. My argument was based off of the colloquial way we talk and behave about biology: we behave as if it is teleological. Are you suggesting, e.g., that when someone says “My eye is malfunctioning” that they are really saying something like “My eye is not working like I wish it would”?

I see no good reasons to endorse essentialist accounts of human behavior,

What do you mean by “essentialism”?

I believe our use of reason is directed and shaped by affective responses, with reason often serving as a post hoc justification for emotional responses. I tend to hold that reason follows emotion, so what is often described as a 'rational nature' is better understood as rationalization rather than an innate rationality.

Many times that is the case, but don’t you agree that it is possible for a human to completely go against their nature qua animal in accordance with only reasons they have for it? This would negate your point, because it admits of human’s having a nature such that they have rational capacities irregardless if they use them properly.

I don't think it is worth us taking any more time on this (for now) since we do not share enough presuppositions to continue and we are bound to stick to our guns no matter what the other person says.

Whether or not to conclude our discussion, I will leave up to you my friend. However, neither of us are bound to “stick to our guns no matter what the other person says”. I am more than willing to change my mind if someone gives me good reasons to.

What is 'moral might'? I don't recognize any such conception.

Do they?

Yes, as I noted in my post. I did not follow how anything you said was relevant to it.

You appear to be an absolutist.

What do you think an ‘moral absolutist’ is?

I have consistently argued that morality functions pragmatically and aims to provide a safe, predictable community that minimizes suffering

It didn’t in Nazi Germany; and if it weren’t for the Allies winning, then most of the world would be just like it.

History doesn’t corroborate your position: rather, it tends to function as a tendency towards flourishing for an in-group. There have been tons of societies that do not generally care about the suffering of other people outside of their own group.

The fact that you keep arguing that I might just as well advocate anti-social or violent behaviour is absurd.

I am not saying that you like people being violent: I am saying that your view entails that people who are violent aren’t wrong for doing that; and that societies have not historically had a general disposition towards the well-being of humans...not even close. Heck, there was a huge span of history where entire classes of peoples were slaves…..

Your argument is similar to those religious apologists who maintain that if there wasn't a god there would be no morality and people would steal and lie and murder all over because only god can guarantee morality. Looks like you have just substituted god for the abstraction, truth.

What I am saying is that if there is no moral truth, then anything could be permissible relative to any given person’s subjective dispositions.

Now, with respect to this:

and people would steal and lie and murder all over because only god can guarantee morality [what is factually wrong is really wrong].

Not quite. I don’t think that people historically become immediately radically different if they disbelieve in moral realism; in fact, they tend to re-create basic moral realist intuitions into an attempted moral anti-realist substitute.

However, the reason these people don’t dramatically change, is because humans tend to be sheep. They are so influenced by their environment that their conscience ends up a reflection of their society’s conscience. That’s, IMHO, why they don’t start pillaging when they don’t believe, e.g., that it is actually wrong to pillage; because they don’t like the idea of pillaging (or what not) because they have the conscience of the historical context in which they are. Only few people in society think truly for themselves, to the point that they are willing to stand up straight—not straightened.

Can we explore an example of a moral truth?

We absolutely can. Let’s just take your example, since you mentioned it:

What objective truth underpins the notion that stealing is wrong?

For all intents and purposes hereon, I will refer to stealing as the purposeful and unlawful possession of another person’s (private) property. There are other definitions, and feel free to bring them up if you find them relevant, but I think this one will suffice.

Objective goods arise out of the teleological structures to which they refer; that is, they are goods which are objective because they are goods for and of the given teleological structure which are not good relative to anything stance-dependent.

The basic example I like to give is basketball. Is Lebron a good basketball player? Most people would say yes (and even if you don’t agree, just grant it for my point here). Here’s the interesting question though: is Lebron a good basketball player because one wants it to be the case that he is? No. Even if one yearns, desires, wishes, etc. for Lebron to be the worst basketball player in the world, that does not make it so; nor does it negate the fact that if he is placed on a court he will dominate. Is Lebron a good basketball player because one’s mere belief that he is makes it so? No. Even if one believes that Lebron is a terrible basketball player, that does not make it so; nor does it negate that he will dominate on the court. Is Lebron a good basketball player because we all agree he is? No. Everyone in the world could decide right now that Lebron sucks at basketball and it would still be true that he will dominate the court. The fact that Lebron is good at basketball is true stance-independently—thusly objectively. The goodness then, which Lebron exhibits, as it relates to basketball, is objective.

Now, someone might bring up the glaringly obvious fact that we invented basketball; but this doesn’t negate the above point. We could re-define basketball—viz., change all its rules—specifically so that it is true that Lebron sucks at basketball (now); but what the game—the teleological structure—which was historically called “basketball” is something Lebron is actually good at—viz., objectively good at.

What we can see here, is that we have a form of moral objectivism which is a form of moral relativism; whereof each objective good is relativistic to some teleological structure such that what is good is fundamentally about what best suits and sizes up to the teleology of it.

So, likewise, we could easily apply this to anything with a teleological structure. What’s a good clock? Presumably, among other things (perhaps), one that can tell the time appropriately. What’s a good chair? Presumably, among other things (perhaps), one that a person can rest on by sitting on it. What’s a good human? One that is properly behaving in accordance with what a human is designed to do. What is a human designed to do? Biology and philosophy (about our nature) tells us that.

We see here that this view inherently admits of evolutionary teleology, which is a hot take these days, so let me speak a few words on that real quick. The idea that biology supplies us with teleology has lost all credence nowadays, but it is easily recoverable by understanding that we behave as if it does provide a telos. For example, when one goes into the doctor’s office and says “my hand is acting poorly: it won’t move properly”; this analogous to the “good basketball player” example. One is not conveying, in normal speech, that their hand is behaving poorly only because they wish it worked differently. They are not expressing that it is behaving poorly—that it is being a bad hand—merely because their own belief that it is makes it so. No, no, no. They are saying that (1) there is a way that a human hand is supposed to work (viz., there is a teleology of a human hand) and (2) their hand is not sizing up properly to it. This becomes a much bigger problem for moral anti-realists that is often admitted (in my experience); because they have to claim, in order to be consistent, that when we go to the doctor complaining about our bodies not working properly (viz., not working in a healthy manner) that we are speaking purely about non-normative facts; which entails that, e.g., “my hand isn’t working properly like a hand should” is truly incorrect, colloquial shorthand for ~”my hand isn’t working like I would like it to [or like we all agree it should] [or like I believe it should][or <insert-non-objective-disposition-here>]”.

Back to the good human. In order to understand what a good human is, we must understand (1) the nature, teleologically, of a human and (2) how a human can behave so as to align themselves with it. There is a ton I could say here but to be brief, human’s have rational capacities with a sufficiently free will (that can will in strict accordance to reason—to cognition—over conative dispositions); and this marks them out, traditionally, as persons. A person—viz., a being which has a rational nature—must size up properly to what a rational nature is designed to do. Some of which are the intellectual virtues like the pursuit of truth, pursuit of knowledge, being open-minded, being intellectual curious, being impartial, being objective, etc. The one important right now, for your question about stealing, is Justice.

A good man is, ceteris paribus, a just man. Why? Because a good man properly utilizes his natural, rational faculties; and those rational faculties are designed to be impartial and objective; and, as such, are designed to bestow demerit and merit where it is deserved (objectively)—not where it is wanted. This is the essence of fairness.

As a just man, one cannot disprespect the proper merit that is innate to other persons; for they are just like him: they have a proper will which is rational. Therefore, in order to properly and impartially respect a person, he must respect—all else being equal—their will just as much as his own; and he cannot validly place his own will, all else being equal, above theirs without it being a matter of bias.

Now we can answer your question: why is stealing wrong (objectively)? Because stealing is effectively the act of cheating a person out of what they deserve in order to acquire someone one doesn’t deserve because they want it. This is to totally and utterly disrespect the other person qua person and to place one’s desires above the impartial facts.

In this view, it is worth noticing that stealing is not wrong because of some Divine Law or Platonic Form but, rather, because a person is a person and as such has a rational nature which they must adhere to in order to be a good person; given that the objective goods to persons are relative to the teleology of being a person. This is why nosce te ipsum is so important: one cannot escape what they are. If they want to be good, then they have to be a good at what they are—not what they want to be.

I am sorry Mww, I still have no clue why you believe that the will is good :sad:

It seems like you are taking the position that nothing is objectively good.

The moral facts. I don't know what you are looking for here. I certainly am not going to try to enumerate all the moral facts to you. The point was that "might entails right" is false because the moral facts dictate what is right.

I think you're really talking about an act of war, and I don't think just war theory would permit initiating a war or a war-like act simply for the sake of preventing some country from engaging in immorality.

I am not just speaking about war, but also diplomacy.

Some immoralities may justify wars, but certainly not all.

I agree.

I think we have a Christian duty to help humans qua human, but not a natural duty
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For example, what is your rationale? What does it mean that we have a duty "for the sake of the entire moral project?"
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Presumably you would say we also have a duty to rational aliens on other planets, if they exist?
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Do you offer any reason for why we are responsible to people on the other side of the world?

I think we have a duty to help humans qua Justice. Our rational capacities mark us out, teleologically, as requiring of ourselves, among many other things, to be impartial, objective, and to bestow demerit and merit where it is deserved (objectively). Under my view, a human has a duty to be Just merely in virtue of being a person; and basic human rights are grounded in one’s nature as a person, and so, yes, a rational alien species would have those same basic rights.

By the entire moral project, I mean the human good which, as humans, we must embark on; or, more abstractly, the “person good”, as persons, which we must embark on. Human good includes Justice because we are persons.

I am not arguing that we have a responsibility to take care of other nations; but we do have a responsibility to stop immoralities when they are grave enough. Under your view, I am not following why one would be obligated to even do this; as it is not their community. Under your view, is it not a just war to invade Nazi Germany? Is it not an obligation other nations would have because they have no duty to victims of another nation?

For wealth, but usually not for necessity. But a nation would generally be seen as a kind of para-community.

Well, that’s my point: the whole of humanity is a para-community no differently. So if a person must be concerned about the pollution in their nation, then they should be concerned about it every else on planet earth.

Kant is attempting to rationalize Christian morality, and I don't think he succeeds

I don’t think he did either; because all he really noted is that reason requires universalizability of its maxims, and this doesn’t entail any objective moral truths whatsoever.

I also find his categorical vs hypothetical imperatives kind of suspect.

Humans are pretty much always dependent, but if there were a non-social species then yes, it would not have communal obligations. One does not have communal obligations if one does not belong to a community.

But they would still have moral obligations—no? One such obligation would be to use their excess of resources to help other persons (and then other non-person animals). No?

Supposing I have duties to random strangers on the other side of the world, in virtue of what teleological reality do I have those duties?

Ultimately, your teleology as a human. You are a rational animal, which is a person. Persons must pursue truth, knowledge, honesty, open-mindness, justice, impartiality, objectivity, etc. in order to fulfill their rational telos.

He says, "a voluntary act is one which is originated by the doer with knowledge of the particular circumstances of the act" (Nicomachean Ethics, III.i).

Yes, but I don’t think the lion is ignorant just because it lacks the sufficient ability to will in accordance with reason. My dog, e.g., wills in accordance with its own knowledge and conative dispositions all the time.

A lion is bound by nature to care for its young, but not by reason.

So is a human bound by nature to care for its young, does that mean that a woman who takes care of her babies is not dutiful to her maternal duties?

Or, perhaps, do you mean by “bound by nature” that it wills it not in accordance with its own will, but some other biological underpinning?

But you are trying to say that chess duties are not moral duties. I would say that if one breaks their promise to play chess then they are acting immorally, which can be done by cheating. I don't recognize non-moral duties.

If the duty is not (indirectly or directly) related to our Telos as a mind; then it is an amoral duty. To your point, since we are analyzing everything relative to our Telos, everything truly morally relevant.

If I take your argument seriously, then it sounds like all forms of moral relativism must express merely hypothetical imperatives. — Bob Ross

Sure, that sounds right to me.

Let’s take the most famous example of moral relativism that is a form of moral realism: Aristotelian Ethics. Do you believe that there are no categorical imperatives in Aristotle’s view? Perhaps not, as Kant’s idea of a hypothetical vs. categorical imperative is a bit shaky and useless, but there certainly are objective moral truths in it.

E.g., I would consider “I should live a virtuous life” to be a categorical imperative that is derivable from Aristotelian Ethics even though it is true relative to the Telos of living creatures.

The nation is only justified relative to the moral facts: not their own inter-subjective dispositions.

Why should anyone care even if there are moral facts?

Because it enables us to enact what is actually good; and anyone who doesn’t want to enact what is good must be either evil, ignorant, or a lunatic. Don’t you agree?

Religious believers still commit crimes/sins even while they believe god is watching and will judge them.

Moral realists can still do bad things, but this is either because they themselves choose to disobey what is wrong or the moral facts they believe are not entirely factual. My main point is that, in this case, at least I can admit that those kind of people are wrong (e.g., Hitler); whereas you can’t.

In the absence of moral facts morality shifts from being about discovering "truths" to constructing frameworks that work for individuals and communities

No it doesn’t. That is a moral judgment you are making here—viz., that society should construct itself to work for its communities—but there is absolutely no fact-of-the-matter that dictates that either. Morality, under your view, becomes people trying to impose their own subjective dispositions on those that are weaker than them—that’s it.

A person that comes around and says, e.g., that morality should be, under moral anti-realism, about allowing the ruling elite to do as they please (and for the servants and slave classes to obey) is equally as right as you are; and equally wrong.

What magic do you suppose a 'moral fact' has to compel anyone to do anything?

We shape society on rationality, which requires of itself factual interpretations of situations; and of which is relative to objective, impartial reasons for or against. Our entire legal system is predicated off of this….

What you are saying is that people should start being biased and subjective about their reasons for or against how society behaves….

It sounds to me like you want to identify moral facts so you can dismiss any ethical positions you disagree with by appealing to 'truth' as the ultimate criterion

Truth is the ultimate criterion. Let me ask you this: if I were forcing vanilla ice cream down a child’s throat screaming at them that “I don’t care what you say, you should like vanilla ice cream!!!”; wouldn't you stop me because it is true that I should not be forcing my own subjective dispositions on another person (let alone a child)?

I'm curious - do you also wish to criminalize behaviors that don’t align with your truth criteria? What’s your end goal here?

Now you’ve shifted the conversation from truth being the ultimate criterion to what criteria of truth one holds, which is different. I don’t expect everyone to have the exact same theory of truth as I have, but I do expect them to intuitionally have something similar. Most people agree and understand, e.g., that truth is objective and absolute—and even if they don’t they behave as if it is—and that we should not impose our own feelings on other people: that would be irrational.

We support behaviors which support such human dispositions.

So, then, if we by-at-large hate the jews; then we would be correct to extinguish them under your view. It’s the same glaring issue over and over again.

Thanks for this discussion, by the way. I've found it useful.

You too, my friend!

There is no agreement on how morality works right now and yet we have morality and it mostly works. Cultures argue about morality all the time and have ongoing conversations about what they beleive and how to live better. So morality already functions the way I am suggesting.

The key here is that you are not merely noting that there is moral disagreement: you are noting that there is no disagreement whatsoever about facts. This is not, by any moral realist’s lights, what is going on in society. The mere fact of moral disagreement doesn’t suggest itself that there are no moral facts; and, on the contrary, I would say that it suggests that people behave as if there are. Imagine you didn’t believe that it was actually wrong to, e.g., torture babies for fun—in all probability, you wouldn’t try to stop anyone who likes torturing babies for fun, nor would you try to codify its prohibition into law. In practice, what you are claiming would like more akin to two people arguing about their favorite flavor of ice cream: we may have an interesting discussion—we may even make progress towards bettering our own subjective tastes on it—but at the end of the day we wouldn’t say either or us are wrong nor that we should impose our tastes on each other. Most importantly: this is NOT how people behave about ethics.

Western societies usually seem to set wellbeing or flourishing as a goal. What is best for people and culture. But there will never be agreement on how to get there or indeed what precisely flourishing entails. But it's close enough.

According to you, again, well-being isn’t actually good: it’s just, at best, what everyone mostly wants to be the case. So, why should anyone who disagrees care? Is Hitler wrong, then? Under your view, he has no reason, other than his own subjective dispositions, to change his mind.

No, it's more than a mere like/dislike. Just because there are no moral truths, doesn't mean there's no reasoning involved.

Ultimately, it is; because it is not grounded in truth. E.g., I can refine my cooking to better accommodate my tastes, but there is absolutely nothing factual going on here at its core. There are facts about what I like, but what I like is dictating what I am doing—not some fact out there (ultimately).

My current belief is that there are no moral facts but I believe morality is useful pragmatically - people (mostly) feel empathy for others and they generally want a predictable, safe society. They want to be able to raise families, pursue interests, have relationships and achieve goals. They want codes of conduct that allow for this. That's what morality is

Yes, but, again, if a society were to emerge which didn’t care about those things—or even had anti-thetical values (like mass genocide, torturing, etc.)—then they wouldn’t be wrong according to you.

For me, people tend towards, assuming their environment isn’t heavily influencing them to the contrary, what is actually good because they tend to be healthy members of the human species; and healthy members of the human species have rational capacities that require of them to be impartial and just.

Like traffic lights. There's nothing inherently true about road rules but they provide us with systems of safety and allow for the possibility of effective road use

Well, there’s plenty of things that are factual about laws; but, to your point, they are grounded in something else—what is it, then? Morality as it relates to Justice: the polis. Having no vehicle laws, for me, is ultimately about allowing people to drive around safely because that is a part of a better society (objectively).

Those don’t work for what’s going on here. Ontology, insofar as for that Nature is causality, and the human subject is the intelligence that knows only what Nature provides.

For what’s going on here, the subject himself is the causality, and of those of which he is the cause it isn’t that he knows of them, but rather that he reasons to them. It makes no sense to say he knows, of that which fully and immediately belongs to him alone.

I would say it is a conflation between ontology and epistemology but I realized this is just begging the question in our case; because you deny this distinction exactly due to the fact that you don’t think there is anything about how reality is that can dictate out it ought to be. Of course, the moral anti-realist has to note that the ontology of morality is really just grounded in the projections of subjects; and this is exactly what I understand you to be saying by noting that the wills of subjects are introduce new chains of causality into the world and are not themselves causal.

I don’t disagree that willing is inherently negativity (as hegel would put it) and, as such, does not itself originate out of causality; but this still doesn’t answer my question.

You have to provide some argument for why the will is good, and not merely the introducer of new chains of causality. So far, this is what I see you as arguing:

P1: A thing which produces new chains of causality and of which is not causal itself is good.
P2: Willing produces new chains of causality and is not causal itself.
C: Willing is good.

Again, in P1, why is it good? What grounds as good?

The word "reprimand" does not appear at all in the passages you quote, which hinders your argument for equivocation.

I see what you are saying, but if Aquinas is just noting that no man can punish another who is not in their jurisdiction (to do so) but that they can restrain or stop a person from doing wrong; then this does not, per se, negate my point since invading a nation like North Korea is done primarily for stopping them—not punishing them.

What do you think it would mean to restrict duty to that which relates to law?
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For the ancients the largest community would have been the polis, the city-state

I thought you were saying, by way of Aquinas, that a nation cannot invade another nation to stop them from doing immoral things to their own people because that nation has no jurisdiction over the other one (and thusly no duty to do it). That’s inherently about the legal system: the jurisdiction that they don’t have is purely legal—no?

Likewise, the polis is about legal jurisdiction: it is the city-state.

Are you thinking of positive law or something?

I don’t know what positive law is.

How do you suppose a teleological structure would support a duty?

It arises out of the roles an agent has within that teleological structure—e.g., a good dad, a good son, a good mother, a good police officer, a good firefighter, a good judge, etc.

I should remove it, because as a member of the community I should value the health of the community and the cleanliness of its water. My good is bound up in the community's good, just as its good is bound up in my good

I agree, but in the eudaimonic sense of ‘my good’ and not a modern egoistic sense. My good includes my roles—some of which I did not choose myself—and some of my roles as a moral agent are such that—being just, impartial, and properly respectful of life—I should care about the cleanliness of the water on the whole planet for the sake of the entire moral project (which is to properly respect life in a nutshell).

I don’t just have a duty to clean the water for my own ‘community’ (as you mean it) but, rather, to preserve the human good and the good of all life—don’t you agree? If you see a polluted stream that you knew with 100% certainty wouldn’t pose any threat to your community but would to another, then you think you have no moral obligation, ceteris paribus, to do something about it? The human good (in terms of as a whole) doesn’t bind you at all—just the communal good?

Telling a human that they are responsible for every human would be like telling a bee that it is responsible for every bee, as opposed to the bees of its hive and especially its queen.

Not quite, this is, again, the straw man that I am arguing that every human is obligated to do the impossible; but I am saying that human’s have duties to the human race—not just their own nation.

What is a community? It is something like a group of mutually self-sufficient people

A nation wouldn’t be a community then: they aren’t self-sufficient. They have to trade with other nations.

Communal obligations arise in virtue of that interdependence

I don’t think so. For you, would you say that if you didn’t require the resources of anyone else in your nation (and thereby were living completely self-sufficiently), then you have no obligations to help other people? What if you are filthy rich and completely self-sufficient and there are people that are starving? It seems like under your view there would be no duty or obligation to help them because there is no interdependence.

But that's circular, for you are appealing to your principle in order to establish duties.

I don’t remember how I initially presented the principle, but it might have been. What I am saying is that there are duties which arise out of the roles one has in a teleological structure, some of which can be morally relevant, and that those duties do extend to the entirety of the moral project [of respecting life—Justice and Fairness].

I was about to make a joke about the animal kingdom, and then you went on to talk about dutiful lions. So you think that teleology entails duties and lions have duties?
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If lions cannot deliberate then I'm not sure what a dutiful lion is.

I used that example of purpose in anticipation (;

If I am right that duties arise out of the roles derived from the teleological structure and duty is living in proper agreement with those roles and being dutiful is fulfilling one’s duties, then a lion is dutiful if the lion is fulfilling its roles within the teleological structure of being a lion—e.g., a good father lion, etc.

Voluntariness and choice are not the same thing—given that I take the Aristotelian approach here—and duty is just acting in alignment with one’s obligations; which can be done voluntarily without choice.

The chess player has a hypothetical imperative to follow the rules of chess, but unless he has a duty to play chess he has no duty to follow the rules of chess.

It is not a hypothetical imperative that the chess player is a good or bad chess player; nor that they are a dutiful or undutiful chess player. Just as much as a good human is not an expression of a hypothetical imperative.

If they are a chess player, then they are bound to follow the rules. Sure, they can decide to become a chess player or not, but that doesn’t make the goodness, badness, and dutifulness which is relative to that teleological structure a hypothetical imperative for a chess player.

If I take your argument seriously, then it sounds like all forms of moral relativism must express merely hypothetical imperatives.

Depends on the society. Obviously in 1830's America, to the masters. But the conversation changed. There's a general thrust in the West for egalitarianism and greater solidarity. We all seem to agree with this except when we don't

But according to you we don’t agree that it is actually better: we just subjectively like it more, whereas the masters subjectively liked their society more.

when perhaps it involves people of colour, Muslims, or women or trans folk, we might not consider solidarity relevant and call any consideration of such people 'woke'.

Here’s another gigantic issue with moral anti-realism: there’s no way to resolve these disagreements. The people, according to you, that are racist are no less right or wrong than those that want to eradicate it; so what exactly is one conveying to the racist when telling him he is wrong? Absolutely nothing but “Hey, I don’t like that you are doing that, and for some reason I think that you should abide by my feelings”.

But we all need to agree that this is the best way to achieve human flourishing or wellbeing or whatever you consider your foundational value to be

Which we can’t do in a rational way if there are no moral facts. That would explode into meaningless expressions of subjective dispositions.

Are there objective ways to reach a goal once you have arbitrarily chosen one? Perhaps. Is this what you are arguing for?

By “power-structure”, I was noting, and conceding, that you are absolutely right that human social structures are inherently hierarchical; and so those with the power dictate the rules (so to speak); and so there are human-interaction (social) dynamics to things that very well may not be orientated towards facticity; but I was also noting that there are moral facts, and these are the sort of facts which would dictate what a better world, a better social order, would look like. When people disagree ethically, they are either disagreeing about the truth of the matter or they are expressing meaningless non-objective dispositions they have. In the case of the latter, there may be legitimate disagreement if they subjectively agree on some maxim(s); but there’s not true disagreements because there are no facts. I say “I like vanilla ice cream”, you say “I don’t like vanilla ice cream”—who’s wrong? Neither.

I addressed that very concern: the evidence that humanity in general determines good acts, is sufficient reason to think the will as good.

I see. Let’s put it into a syllogism:

P1: What determines what is good grounds what is good.
P2: Agents determine what is good.
C: Agents are the grounds for what is good.

This is a equivocation between ontology and epistemology: that agents can come to know what is good, has no bearing in-itself on what actually is good.