There's more than the paperwork. There's the actions and intents that form it and are formed by it. — Banno

Oh, i readily accept that these things are either motivated by, or done in respect of, the contract/s in question. But the resulting obligation consists in the contracts terms.

This isn't the case with plain promises though. AS far as im concerned, promises don't exist in an of themselves and confer no obligation.

No one would ever say, "Oh, well if you believe it, then I surely must accede." — Leontiskos

it is true — Leontiskos

...because i believe it is true

Is the best we've gotten, though. Im unsure you caught what i was trying to say.
I agree with you, in principle, but there has not been any account which does what you're positing to establish the truth of any moral statement.

No one would ever say, "Oh, well if you believe it, then I surely must accede." — Leontiskos

I should say, this isn't true, and to the high, high statistical degree in which is does consist, it's mainly people pretending that they understand the work an expert has done, to accede to the expert's belief without saying as much.

Which is odd - as this is basically how children acquire what their parents think is knowledge (particularly cosmological and philosophical knowledge - religious indoctrination being a prime example).

You made the claim that they are physical. I pointed out that they are more than just physical. — Banno

Ok. Amend to “physical records”. Which is my position.

But the promise which informs a mortgage is not a mortgage. Careful.

If you have time, could you tell us if a contract, marriage or mortgage ceases to exist if the documents on which it is written are destroyed? — Banno

No. This needs to read "any record of it whatever, is destroyed" which is the case i made.

I literally work in law firm dealing with solely mortgages. IN New Zealand. So, i doubt this is going to be any help. If there is literally no record of an agreement it will not be accepted by a court.

A good eg to consider this issue, is promissory estoppel. You can be prevented from disposing a property under promissory estoppel if there is record of some intent which would have, if made 'official' prevented the sale (doesn't only apply to just.. just setting out an example). For instance, if there's say an email trail in which you agree, on certain terms, to sell a property to A, A then makes financial decisions based on that exchange, a court will (in some cases) stop you from disposing of hte property based on that promise. Because there's a record. It is extremely, extremely rare that a court will even entertain a verbal agreement on an application for promissory estoppel.

and so on are much than the physical item: — Banno

I assume you meant to say "much more" so will go with that.. The intention behind them is, for sure. The mortgage, which is merely a line on a page, will motivate someone to do certain things on the back of the agreement. Accepted. But those things aren't a mortgage. Those things are actions related to a subjective stance on whether or not to carry out hte recorded obligations that the mortgage carries.

Wills are an obvious exception. — Banno

Depends how you want to except them. Probate can be granted in what's called "solemn form" even with no written Will.

Those words were just used by you for the first time, and yet I'm somehow avoiding something that you've just now expressed. — creativesoul

Which words?

You haven’t answered either:

What makes the statement true; or
Where your confidence comes from.

Neither of your answers are in any way adequate.

Enforcing it is not the question. It's whether or not the agreement remains intact. The agreement is not physical. The record of it is. — creativesoul

The agreement isn’t the contract/mortgage. Are you trying to say that in some form the agreement supersedes the legal requirement for a mortgage? Because it certainly doesn’t. A mortgage is a legal instrument.

I would also suspect that’s his position - but the idea that a promise 'exists' is incoherent to me, so that explains that. A promise happened.

I've no idea what you're on about. I think that you're misattributing meaning to my posts. — creativesoul

Ok. My position is that this is another superfluous comment avoiding where you substantiate your confidence in the truth of moral statements.

Im fine to leave it there, with our differing takes.

You are mistaken. — Banno

If there is no record of your company existing, it doesn't exist. Fact. When the company office burned down, there were still plenty of records for the vast majority of the involved entities to rely on for their existence where were not in that office. I can be sure of this, based on your claim that they remained on foot.

Tell me how you would go about enforcing a property interest if there's no record anywhere of you having any interest in the property?

Given I deal with this problem for my clients regularly - this should be quite interesting.

Looked at this point again, but cannot quite follow what it means. Could you please elaborate with the CPR passage (if possible)? Thanks. — Corvus

My understanding of this point is that, while we must infer something "in-itself" causes our phenomenal impressions, which in turn create our perceptions, our perceptions are not those impressions and cannot, in any meaningful sense, access them or the object which causes them.

IN the preface to teh 2nd edition we get this :

"The estimate of our rational cognition à priori at which we arrive is that it has only to do with phenomena, and that things in themselves, while possessing a real existence, lie beyond its sphere. "

Among other passages, seems to indicate to me that Kant accepts that the thing-in-itself is necessary, but unknowable.

Did I claim anything about what - exactly - establishes a state of affairs? — creativesoul

You seem to be trying quite hard to avoid this, which was why I changed the question.

Burn the certificate, the marriage remains. Shoot all the bankers, the mortgage is still owed. — Banno

That’s because they also exist in a register which is a physical thing also.

But if the records are destroyed those things do not persist. They are the record of “promise” as you put it.

Meh. Not my problem, except that it prevents you seeing the solutions to these philosophical issues. — Banno

Suffice to say, no, it’s not. But it’s not my problem if you ignore things either. Such as the physical nature of a mortgage.

“Because I believe it is.” — Leontiskos

Is the only coherent justification for moral truth other than divine command presented, though.

I know what they both mean. — creativesoul

Ok. Accepted.

But this doesn’t establish a state of affairs as claimed.

that they are physical? — Banno

At base, they are physical objects in the world. How people behave as regards those facts is not.

Statements are not states of affairs. I'm not sure what you're objecting to. I've never claimed statements are states of affairs. — creativesoul

Oh.

then it is the case that one ought not kick puppies. Those two claims express the same state of affairs. — creativesoul

Ok. I cannot escape the thought that you are contradicting yourself.

Let me shift the question: From where does your confidence in that claim come? No need to justify - I want to know where your confidence in it's "truth" comes from?

:ok:

If it is the case that kicking puppies is forbidden, then it is the case that one ought not kick puppies. — creativesoul

It's not, though. It's the case that a rule exists forbidding it. Not that one ought obey the rule. And in any case, the claim here would be "One ought obey the rule that one ought not kick puppies".

The statement is not a state of affairs. The state of affairs is that "There is a rule to not kick puppies, and X(or Y, or Z) adheres to that rule".

If she contravenes a court order and adds Trump to the ballot...??

English comes the top with 1.45 billion speakers in the world. — Corvus

After some more digging, it looks to me like the top total number is in flux, and trades off between Mandarin and English. Variously, there are 1.4-1.6bil English speakers total, and anywhere from 1.3-1.8 billion Mandarin speakers in total.

However, significantly more native speakers of Mandarin - about 955mil vs 450mil in English.

But i would concur with Jamal there. It's not that these countries use it daily - its largely commerce.

I took it as implied that the same comments he made about verification apply also to justification. — Michael

Right right; i followed that element of the exchange; but I anticipate what i've pointed out may be a defense to your charge. If he's, unfortunately, not taking that into account by noting he requires no verification, he may still have an answer as to the justification of the belief.

Me: They’ve ordered her to remove Trump from the ballot.

You: And their orders are just words. Therefore, if their orders have coerced her then their words have coerced her, which according to you is impossible. — NOS4A2

Fwiw, this is incoherent. The words have no coercive power. The threat of losing his/her job might. But that's not on the judge/s by the other commenter's account.

Here is empirical evidence of you admitting that you're not even interested in justifying your position. — Michael

He used the word 'verify'.

I don't think he's equivocating the two the way you are

A company is a thing, and is not physical. So is a promise, and a mortgage, and a marriage — Banno

A mortgage is a line on a title to a property. A marriage is technically two signatures on a marriage certificate which contains the legally correct wording for that contract, and a company is a set of documents establishing the legal entity of X company. I think what you're trying to assert is exactly what these facts circumvent.

In the fable presented, the protagonist’s age as measured by his own personally experienced duration of time will factually be that of twenty-some years. This though, in the fable, relative to the duration of time as would be measured by all those he departed — javra

This puts me in mind of some of Kant's CPR i've gone over in the alst couple of days.
The relation of time is individual in that an external impression of another person doesn't exist in their time, it exists in the perceiver's time. I would think that this means we can just see any subjective notion of time as legitimate. It only exists as a relation, so there's no other benchmark.

Is that silly, or somewhat reasonable?

Not this again.

i'm interested in the psychology of that 'pretend' part. Do you think of it as a conscious hypocrisy or just a naivety? — AmadeusD

This is a clear question related to something you said. Would you mind answering it? If you don't want to, that's fine too.

Well no. A claim need not be verified in order for it to be true. — creativesoul

Then, again, how could you possibly establish it's truth? If the case is that you just trust that it's true, I can get on with that - But i think Michael and I are trying to find out on what basis that is the case?

I understand that things which are true, will be true whether or not anyone can be convinced of them/whether they can be verified. Not a problem. But i assume you've been convinced, by reason. I'm trying to understand why you think one ought assent to an argument that doesn't actually establish any truth of the claim? What reason you have for assenting to the statement

I personally do not feel the need to verify that we ought not kick puppies. I do not need a rule for that. I could also care less whether or not that particular claim could be verified. — creativesoul

This seems to give up the claim of truth, then.

Yup, when our report of the utterance is qualified enough, we'll be talking about certain communities' codes. Not all. — creativesoul

Sorry if i'm just dumb - to what specifically does this reply? I have a response in mind, but I don't want to waste time if it's not relevant.

I owe your last reply more consideration than that. :wink: — creativesoul

Forgive me if i've been a Jump-The-Gun Jones lol

Nah. Sometimes codes are wrong/mistaken. — creativesoul

In light of? Other codes?

If you're appealing to a COC to establish that one it's rules is a state of affairs(i.e is true), i'm unsure what else that truth could be resting on?

Cheers... Seems to comport, at the rough level my current understanding rests, anyhow.

It gets all strange, if you place the ordinary objects like cups or trees into Noumena, and say they are Thing-in-itself, which are unknowable and cannot be talked about. — Corvus

Agreed. I do recall passages in which it's essentially said that by inference, we can't get away from accepting that there are things-in-themselves causing our impressions of them, but that our impressions are removed from the objects enough to make it impossible to access.

There is simply more to metaethics than just accept that some moral sentences are true. — Michael

I was under the impression that metaethics was entirely about how, and why moral sentences could be true and then what makes them so, if they can be.

This seems to preclude a "brute fact" analysis of any moral sentence. However, as should be clear to the forum by now, im early in my learning and look for setting-straight.
Though, i sheepishly acknowledge Banno's dismissive attitude is what got me this humble LOL

My point was, whatever countries I visited, if didn't know their native local language, I was able to communicate with the most locals in English. No other language would have been able to do that. — Corvus

I would say i've somewhat experienced the same, but only in a commercial sense.

Most random locals don't speak English in the, lets say, 'exotic' places i've visited. I had to pick up some Arabic to work my way around, socially, in Egypt (don't read in to that - i recall about six words), despite every commercial interaction being super-easy due to English being taken on for that purpose in Egypt.

An appeal to authority is a fallacy. You charged me with exactly tha — creativesoul

Ahh, i see, I see. Fair enough. I think you have misunderstood - I invented a scenario in which a COC was in place which forbade the kicking puppies, and called the claim that this means "one ought not kick puppies" is, as a result, a state of affairs an appeal to authority, because the 'state of affairs' there involve only the COC existing, including that proscription, and having been assented to. The claim that, because of that rule, it is a moral truth that we ought not kick puppies, is an appeal to authority. The claim rests on the rule being the benchmark for truth.

It wasn't my intention to charge you with an appeal to authority. Sorry if it came off that way. I didn't assume it was your position that a code of conduct supported the claim that it is a state of affairs, rather than a rule. My point was that the existence, content, and assent to the COC does not establish 'one ought not kick puppies' as a state of affairs anymore than than the first commandment establishes that one ought have no God's before the Abrahamic one is a 'state of affairs'.

You first claimed that it is not the case that one ought not kick puppies. You then went on and realized that sometimes kicking puppies is forbidden and accused me of 'appealing to authority'. — creativesoul

Hmm. I see how it comes across that way, and maybe I just don't know how to express myself adequately yet - but this was not the intention behind what i wrote. Hence, I conceded, in some sense (and i should have said in a sophistical sense) that in that scenario it is a rule that one ought not kick puppies and so, linguistically, one could claim "one ought not kick puppies" but it's not a state of affairs. The state of affairs is "There is a rule to not kick puppies, and to adhere to the rule, one ought not kick puppies" which again, doesn't establish "one ought not kick puppies" in itself, as a state of affairs. Without the rule in place, there is no state of affairs.

I was trying to point out the fallacious nature of the claim that a rule establishes a state of affairs. The states of affairs are the existence, content, and assent to, the rule. That doesn't touch the proposition 'one ought not kick puppies' as a state of affairs in itself. To my mind.

I'm trying to show you that the concept of something being forbidden only makes sense in the context of some relevant authority telling you to not do something and possibly threatening you with punishment for disobeying. — Michael

It seems im not the only one...

Yes, many folks in the world speak 2-3 languages. — Corvus

My point is that number for English speakers includes those people.

It doesn’t exclude them. So nothing to add to the number :)

those are overlapping numbers - not single-language speakers.

But you’re right on the latter particularly in terms of volume of media

Children use these to claim that there are no answers to moral questions, and pretend to be nihilists. — Banno

Hey Banno...

I know we disagree, so just want to set aside the obvious disagreement here - I'm interested in how you envision one making the 'claim' (assumably, one that isn't prima facie wrong) yet 'pretend' to be nihilist? I understand you're saying that the experience of being transgressed against, as it were, presents essentially an hypocrisy, but i guess i'm interested in the psychology of that 'pretend' part. Do you think of it as a conscious hypocrisy or just a naivety?

f you read this far, then the answer is clear. It is English which is the most useful language in the world for the number of speakers in the world (don't know how many exactly but it would be spoken in every country you place you foot in), — Corvus

I think this isn't quite right - about 1.3bil English speakers and about 1.8bil Mandarin speakers last I saw anything about it..

That's odd. While contradicting yourself out loud you (inaccurately)charge me with a fallacy? — creativesoul

What? I didn't charge you with anything.

And what contradiction, sorry? I'm trying to have a discussion not a pissing match.

I don’t really care — Mikie

That much has been obvious for some time. Not understanding other people's perspectives makes it very, very hard to care.

Well this has been adequately bizarre to finish out the year. Nice.