I simply repeated what you had already said, adding an observation about forum etiquette. — Banno

Listen mate, I understand that obtuseness comes natural; but I’m here to have fun.

Far be it from me ;)

s just...I can't stop thinking about how the process of law was so rapidly abandoned as the fundamental liberties of citizens in "so-called" free societies were blatantly trampled upon. — Merkwurdichliebe

As a legal professional, yep. Fully agreed. Regardless of the possibility that it was, in hindsight, right, there’s always a niggling Kantian asking whether that matters

If that's what you need to think, far be it from me.

are any judicial gag orders constitutional? — Relativist

(am not trained in constitutional law, but law in general).

Yes. It has to meet the benchmark for 'fair trial rights' being preserved, though. That can be pretty vague and requires serious scrutiny of the order in question.

They apparently lament Trump's being restricted from hurling ad hominem attacks, and feel this unfairly hurts his election chances. — Relativist

That is a curtailment of free speech, as i understand it. Unfortunately, it's actually the legal proceeding protocol that matters, so your conclusion is still correct (particularly with the second post immediately above this one)

That nothing else exists in scenario 1 is a state-of-affairs, but not something that "exists". Therefore it is false to say that something is a state-of-affairs only if it exists. — Michael

that doesn't exist in scenario 2. — Michael

the absence of anything but that one mind exists in scenario 1.

In scenario two, this extends to "but those two minds".

While your example here is infinitely clearer than other attempts you've made, which i commend, I still end up with the answer "Not existing isn't a state of affairs". It's talking about a non-state-of-affairs. I would posit that in either case, it wouldn't even be possible to posit anything not existing or existing, beyond the items noted. That seems baked into the scenarios to me.

That may seem semantic to you, but doesn't to me, and that may be the difference.

If you act as if one ought not keep slaves, then you act as if it is true that "One ought not keep slaves"
Your point is pointless. — Banno

HI Banno... Hmm..This is likely to be my last reply in this exchange and so f'ing help me i will stick to that, unless something fruitful comes of it.

I act in accordance with my thought. My thought is not that it's true, but that its best practice. It is a sentiment i hold. Not a claim i make about hte world. I don't make that claim. I just behave in accordance with the claim, accepting it could never be 'true'. Reject that? I don't care. That's how it is.
You've elsewhere admitted that these claims can only rise to the level of heuristics anyway, so i literally don't understand what's going on.. Can't for the life of me figure out how your mind works mate, but its fascinating.

If you believe that the tree is a Eucalypt, then you believe that it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If you doubt that the tree is a Eucalypt, then you doubt that it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If you understand that the tree is a Eucalypt, then you understand that it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If you suspect that the tree is a Eucalypt, then you suspect that it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If you are 98% certain that the tree is a Eucalypt, then you are 98% certain that it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If you act as if the tree is a Eucalypt, then you act as if it is true that "The tree is a Eucalypt"
If the one ought not keep slaves, then it is true that "One ought not keep slaves" — Banno

That/if you do not see a significant linguistic and philosophically important difference between statement 1. about "It is " or not and 2. about "One ought..." or not, I'm unsure this can be helped. I anticipate "It is the case that it is a Eucalypt" vs "It is the case that one ought..." as an objection. It isn't one. That sentence is the same with extra words. They contain the exact same distinction between them. Is/ought.

One is about a state of affairs that actually exists (As you point out, if it's a Eucalypt, then its true to claim it is) and one is your claim about what want to exist (the state of it being wrong to own slaves) and does not reference anything in the world (it references something in your head) - coupled with your claim that is is a state of affairs, rather than your belief in one. It is a claim. Not a fact. This is the exact is/ought distinction.

You've nothing to add to your claim, but to further claim that it's also true, rather than a mere claim.
Have you just plum forgotten to provide anything more than the claim? Or are you saying that acting in accordance with it rises it to the level of truth? So far, no mechanism between the claim and it's truth have come forward (see below for the 'brute fact' issue).

The bold is the exact non sequitur I've been trying to tease out of you. Thank you. What in the world does it refer to?? What would confirm or defeat this claim?? IF it were true, then that would make the claim true. But, you've not established that it's true. Your opinion is the single piece of data in support of the claim (or, perhaps an aggregate of other opinions appended) couple with a claim that its a brute fact. Except that amounts only to the claim it could be a brute fact, if ever shown to be true. If you concede, without qualification that it's a 'brute fact' that you can't prove, then what the heck has this exchange even been (refer also here to your concession that its heuristics all the way down).

So, "Your claim is true for you" (my position) cannot be addressed by your use of 'truth' here. Its entirely self-referential and is patently, inarguably and inescapably merely your subjective assessment of hte world. Which is fine. We don't even need to deal with what would make it objective here.

If you reject that, please stop wasting my time as i've respectfully noted we have nothing more to discuss. This is literally an is/ought distinction and that you're not getting it is just tedious to me. I would posit if you're going to repeat yourself in more words, this is a waste of both our times and i request you not bother.

That's ok. My question was directed Gnomon. — wonderer1

That's nice dear.

And this is the kind of attitude that gets trumpism elected. Ser. — baker

It is EXACTLY 180proof's attitude that resulted in the first T election.

I see, clearly, from outside the US, this happening again. Biden has been such an absolute disaster in so many ways that It's really, REALLY hard to believe that he, or another Dem, could be re-elected. It's obviously in the realm of genuinely possibility, and almost rises to likelihood - but given that:

Biden:
Approve: 37.9%
Disapprove: 55.4%
78% of D approve.

vs

Trump:
Approve: 42.2%
Disapprove: 53.1%
85% of R approve.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/

It's hard to understand an attitude that writes off a reelection, given the absolute paucity of candidates with anything coming close to acumen or persuasive media presence. Seems like wishful thinking on the part of someone who can't understand T's election at all.

We were able to see just how many people (the vast overwhelming majority of people) are willing to throw away their basic rights simply because they are told to. We also saw how they will defend their choice to abandon their basic rights with the weakest, flimsiest bullshit, and then go on to indiscriminately impose the same upon everyone else.

It is pathetic that these sheep continue to double down on it all, despite the fact Coronavirus-2020-hindsight has proven lockdown and vaccine policy to be an absolute disaster. It is a case of too much pride and zero dignity. — Merkwurdichliebe

I can't help but laugh at the lack of self-awareness here. The exact same attitude present in those who went gung-ho and demonized those resistant to public health protocol is present in this dismissive, inhumane reading of the other side. You also can't (No, you can't) be sure that those public health protocols didn't ensure a far-less intense negative outcome from the pandemic than without.

That said, I think your screed DOES apply to those who are, since let's say last August, still making the claims made two years ago, and still expecting people to behave in what are (regardless of the previous ssituation) definitely absurd and pointless ways now.

wreak of coordinated corruption more and more as time passes. — Merkwurdichliebe

maybe this is true if you've been predisposed from the jump to leap to this conclusion. In actual fact, all it reeks of in hindsight is more-than-initially-assumed incompetence. Which is, let's face it, the norm. There is no such thing as a competent government, and least of all when it comes to public health. We don't need to invoke any intent to get the results we got.

Do you understand that "materialist" is not a distinct category from "philosopher"? — wonderer1

I dont understand the problem.

A plumber can have opinions about other plumbers that don't comport with those plumber's attitudes.

A materialist philosopher can have opinions/views on philosophers in general. Am i missing something here? I mean, analytic/continental philosophers are at loggerheads often in this way..

I am not saying that you should be convinced that you shouldn’t be doing X because I think you shouldn’t be doing X: I am saying that I am going to try and stop you. First, I will try to intellectually and rationally convince you otherwise. — Bob Ross

Such a good way of setting this out - and I think what i would reference here is the ethical considerations around vegetarianism.
You get quotes from folk like Parfit and Singer to the effect that it is inarguable that we, objectively, should all be vegetarian.

That's merely a strong preference - but these people spent/spend decades trying to convince people of their point of view. They believe it's 'true'. Yet, fail entirely to actually establish that that is the case. Many take that further and become violent because of this conviction. I've been physically attacked (not in any way that put me in real danger) for refusing a (really bad) argument for vegetarianism in public. So, this taste can absolutely be imposed on others - its just that those imposing it don't consider it a taste. They are wrong.

it is clear that the belief is what is enveloped in the proposition, which, in turn, envelopes the moral judgment — Bob Ross

:ok:

. Attempts to bypass that with talk of the T-sentence rule or directions of fit only obscure the issue because the T-sentence rule accommodates both realists and anti realists. — frank

:cheer:

that was me for a long time. Sometime in 2021 I got into her then-new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. Represented something wholly different from what I’d heard from her before and the subsequent two albums matched that, have really enjoyed all three. The track above is the opener from her most recent album

's that "some sense" that needs to be explained. In my own thesis, I use abstract "Information" instead of personal "Psyche", partly in order to avoid the absurdity of atomic awareness. :smile: — Gnomon

I believe i have seen Chalmers reference (perhaps in that 2022 Yale talk?) IIT as a framework for how you could have different 'levels' of consciousness essentially mirroring the functionality of the 'being'. Vague, but a hint at a direction.

... is not my statement. — 180 Proof

Ok, so your statement amounted to claiming that the issue of how consciousness arises is a hard problem is semantic nonsense. Your use of parentheses makes a direct quote both unwieldy, and open to the type of sidestep above by explaining the parenthesized element.

So, that's what it amounts to - on paper. If you meant something else, so be it. But given what was actually put across in your post - that absolutely entails philosophers of mind who treat that as a serious metaphysical problem as either misguided or confused. Can you, perhaps, not be obtuse, but address that question?

So many gems in this thread. I'll be coming back rather often I think!



I'm not crying; you are.

Yes. I had this going with a friend from a Facebook group but it fizzled out... on their end. LOL. I'm very interested in this type of thing

Is there any reason — TiredThinker

World war perhap

Of course I grant that if the book sets out plans for a coup d'état then it would be illicit. I wasn't reading anything that extreme into your comments — Leontiskos

AH, i f'd up on this one. I did fully misread your direction.

You are correct.

I don't think so. Not after Holmes' dissent in Abrams won the day. — Leontiskos

My legal training is in the British/New Zealand system - but that case doesn’t deal with definitions of imminent lawless action in the context of a peace time society, as best my memory and cursory skim of it's text tells me. Noting i may be over my head, This is genuinely fun for me as a legal professional.

What i think I would consider operative here, is Holmes treatment of 'intent' and 'imminent'.

It is plain that 1A doesn't protect incitement to violence, as to imminent lawless action.

I don't think Holmes dissent outlines any kind of carte blanche - It merely outlines the limits of the charges (well, the third charge (relevantly, anyhow)). There is a huge amount of daylight between the facts of this case, and the charges laid that I can't see it as relevant, really, to cases of actual incitement. I don't think Holmes did either. Indeed, it seems to me, passages such as this:

"Of course, I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and exhortations, which were all that were uttered here.." - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Abrams v US at 631

make it known that his Honour understands that there are limits, that those limits rest upon interpretations of the above (imminence and intent) and that in this case the limits weren't reached. I would agree. But i can't see this making any issues for the example - Let's say the book was understood to convincingly address itself to less-intelligent yard-workers who have a chip on their shoulder and a history of mobilizing for untoward causes - and the intent is to incite, essentially, a slow-drip but country-wide attack on ballerinas, physically. Particularly in light of Jan 6, I cannot see the judiciary having anything but contempt for similar speech. My opinions withheld there :P

The book is protected by the first amendment. It is not legally tricky. — Leontiskos

That may be legally tricky actually depending on the modes of enforcement your book called for.

That, my friend, is corroboration

Those who hold the type of emotivism you are describing do not generally also hold that moral statements are binding. Taste does not bind, and is not the stuff of argument. To say that the moralist is expressing a taste is to make an excuse to ignore them. — Leontiskos

Thank you for this. That is, happily, not what I was saying. I, in fact, whether wrong or right, indicated my understanding was exactly that what you say is true, abs therefore statements of the kind “one ought not kick puppies” is a statement of taste only and so is emotiovism I’m action.

I am not seeing either you or Banno making statements that aren’t emotivist. They are just statements that express your opinion as a command. I assumed I was wrong at every turn and sought anything at all which would traverse the taste-truth gap but I saw nought to that effect. That is why I cannot even conceive of the positions you two have taken. They are just fingers in ears

Edit; I am typing on a phone on a bus. Forgive the inevitable typing errors

I think I’ve found the “cool kids”

Israel's special and exclusive history of grievance gives it special and exclusive license to behave as it likes. — hypericin

....whatt????

↪AmadeusD - Sorry, I've read enough of your exchange with Banno. I don't think your position makes a lick of sense, and I think you are only engaging in hand-waving when met with the contradictions in your thought. It looks to be an exercise in evasion. If that's how you treat contradictions, then there's really no reason for me to try to lead you to another one. So yeah, "Keep working on it," I suppose. — Leontiskos

Given that i take both of you to have avoided the problem you face entirely (including in this comment - which is condescending and bizarre in many ways), suffice to say this is no skin off my nose.

I hope to remain in good faith going forward :) Take care mate.

But I am not the one saying anything; you are. That's the whole point. You are the one enforcing a prohibition on the torture of babies. — Leontiskos

Hmmm. this comes across entirely a non sequitur in the face of what Bob Ross has outlined.

He is, from what i can make out, making an emotionalist argument against moral realism. So far, it's not been addressed very well. Moral statements are instances of a subject expressing their taste as a universal rule. What makes this not true? In the case of the babies vs the ice cream, the only move that needs to be made is moving from your taste, that babies ought not be tortured, to a statement that no one should do it. Nothing of substance changes there, just a delivery method apt for a wider audience than merely one's self.

If you've got the inverse of this as an overview of hte exchange, I think you may be misreading.

The T-sentence is exactly about truth. It does not address belief. — Banno

It is a statement of belief. If you don't have something of more substance than to just repeat the statement, in the face of this objection, we have no further ground to cover. As i've noted multiple times.

It wouldn’t. — Bob Ross

:ok:

Now we have been through this discussion, set out where this goes astray. — Banno

If this is for me, I have. Multiple times, and have now decided to refrain from repeating myself.

It's an opinion, and nothing more. I reject that it's a fact, or state of affairs and you've not adequately defending either stance. So, again, I think we're done. I'm trying my absolute best to end this exchange respectfully. But I am getting the distinct feeling you're under the impression you have an empirically verifiable position - something to which this claim is not amenable, in my mind.

So there we go. Tip my hat once more.

↪hypericin Good article. You should consider starting a thread specifically on it. It might be fun. — Banno

@hypericin Agree with the above..
Not the whole way through it; but very interesting and I imagine a fairly colourful area to be discussed at -large.

Maybe your answer is not as clear as you think.

But keep working on it. — Banno

Or... so strange, i know... maybe... You're not supporting your point in such a great way? That's my conclusion. So, as i say. I think we're probably done :)

It's been a very interesting and entertaining exchange. I don't require you to change your mind, and i've not seen anything that would push me in that direction either so... I simply tip my hat to another on the path.

Same I think could be claimed for most everything. — javra

We;re getting somewhere... :P

That is, you act on the basis that "Folk ought not keep slaves" is true. — Banno

No, I don't. And i have explicitly covered why not multiple times, so i'm refrain from repeating my very much coherent answer to this charge again.

it doesn't matter which propositional attitude you frame it with; the T-sentence sits on its own. — Banno

It sits on it's own, while completely failing to rise to the status of truth. Because its self-referential and tautological. So, yeah. I reject your position and your reasoning on the basis that is not good lol. It's just a way of sophistically remaining convinced your opinions represent truths.

So your reply doesn't help you avoid ascribing truth values to moral statements. — Banno

yes it does. A repeat of the first response in this comment.

I think we may be done. But i pointed that out a long time ago.

objective reality of what is good by being most proximate to it, — javra

No. I did cover this. It is explicitly not entailed by acting on what is thought to be the best option. My own fallibility precludes me from concluding that my best intuitions correlate with 'truth'. I don't even think my deductive reasoning could be truth-apt in that sense. If you reduce the claim to it being true, that it is the best option among those in front of me, that's the case. But that doesn't touch the truth of the statement itself.

And if you think folk ought not be allowed to keep slaves, then can you explain how it does not follow that you think "folk ought not be allowed to keep slaves" is true? — Banno

I just did. I don't mean this to be rude - but it appears you might just plum not have read my response to this same question in the post you're quoting:

"It think its the best option given te information I have, when input to the values i hold."

That doesn't require me to believe it's true. It requires me to believe it's the best option.

So you ar enot confident in your conviction that folk ought not keep slaves. Ok. — Banno

Bit underhanded. I'm confident that its the best option, and so my conviction to it is sound. I just don't claim it's true, in any sense that isn't entirely predicated on my disposition in light of the data available to me personally (i.e that which i'm aware of, rather than could (lets say easily) become aware of).

But moreover, if you think folk ought not keep slaves, how could you not be committed to concluding that "One ought not keep slaves" is true? — Banno

I'll take this one: You can act without believing your act to comport with truth. Im unsure why that's difficult. I outline to Banno that a direct answer is that to act in accordance with what i think is the best judgement of the information/data available to me doesnt entail that judgement's truth, or that i must necessarily take it to be true. It only need be the best among the options I see ahead of me, for any given decision to act.

Additionally, I could believe a course of action is 'right', despite not relying on a truth to inform the action.

I personally think Israel is probably wrong in it's current actions. But that's amenable to immediate update if new data is available to me. If i believed they were wrong, i would necesasrily have to also believe, with certainty, some data which informed that belief. I don't. I don't even think that's available to me. So, I hold belief (such as a belief is a strongly-held, lively impression of a judgement) that Israel is likely wrong (disproportionate, at least) in it's current actions.
That doesn't require me to think it's true. It is just the best explanation I can rely on to inform any kind of moral decision. Luckily, i'm not involved lol.

Parenting has thousands of these situations - you have to believe what you're doing is 'right', without ever having to believe the data is true on which you've based the decision to do that thing.

In fact, animals also exhibit moral behavior. Isn't the most natural explanation that it is instinctive? — hypericin

Can you give an example that comports with what humans envisage morality to be viz. contemplated outcomes resulting in a judgement informing the decision to act with regard to other sentient beings?

I necessarily see instinct as separate to this. Though, determinism might trump me, if true.