why do we need free will — mujo1127

To choose whether to put on a Zappa or Stravinsky album.

So I agree that normatives are "about how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong," which is what you quoted from Wikipedia.

I'd change the beginning--the language of "statements or claims," because those terms suggest something that has a truth value, something that you can get correct or incorrect. What I'd say instead is "Normatives are utterances about how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong." And I'd add: "What one is doing when one makes such an utterances is stating how one feels, or stating one's preferences."

If it's an "ought" utterance, it's a normative by definition. That's what normatives are. That doesn't make it true, or a(n objective) fact or anything like that. Normatives are value statements, preferences that individuals have.

It's not a "positive statement," because you can't derive values from non-value facts.

Well, you did say that foundational emotivist stances outline "how people should behave". Not, that they do in a certain way. Which led me to conclude that you were claiming an ought for an is... — Wallows

A preference about how people should behave. The person is telling you how they feel about interpersonal behavior.

The idea of 'necessary being' is most clearly laid out in Anselm's ontological argument. It's based on the axiom that 'being' is a good, and that 'non-being' or 'non-existence' is a deficiency. So when 'the fool' claims that 'God does not exist', then he's contradicting himself, because the very idea of 'God' is something which by definition, must be, because to not be, or to not exist, is a deficiency, and God, by definition, is not deficient in any respect, and so, therefore, could not "not be". Put another way, if God is indeed God, then God must be; His being is in that sense 'necessary'. — Wayfarer

Aka "pretending that we can define God into existence."

Not sure if this is correct. Hume outlined the is-ought problem, have you been able to overcome it? — Wallows

I don't know how you're reading me as suggesting something contra the is-ought problem.

In other words, I was saying that foundational moral stances can't be reasoned, because of the is-ought problem. No fact(s) can give you a foundational moral stance. You only "feel" your foundational moral stances. That's emotion/preferences.

I'm interested if anyone else arrived at this conclusion or whether it makes sense. — Wallows

Sure. Foundational moral stances have to be emotional, because they're preferences re "how people should behave."

And yeah, rationality and emotions are definitely not isolated from each other.

Choosing a purpose always struck me as akin to choosing a favorite color, favorite food, favorite musical artist, etc.

I like a lot of different things. I like variety. I don't have just one favorite anything. I don't really think in terms of ranked lists. So I'm not about to just choose a single purpose either. If it's satisfying to someone to choose a single purpose, that's fine for them. Settle on just one purpose then. But choosing single favorites (or even small lists of them) feels uncomfortable/awkward to me.

I don't see how this criticism is relevant. If God is a necessary being, then everything about him is necessary. If God is a triune being with Jesus being one part of the Trinity, then God is necessarily a triune being and Jesus is necessarily God. This all just follows from the logic of necessity. — Janus

You'd have to explain how that follows.

If the evening star ("Hesperus") were necessary because, say, strong determinism were true, would that imply that the evening star is necessarily the morning star ("Phosphorus")? It seems like it could have turned out to be the case that Phosphorus was a different necessary star.

All you are really saying is that different arguments depend on different presuppositions — Janus

I'm saying things far more specific about "explanations," actually.

And part of it is that if S is going to issue an argument that hinges on whether something is an explanation, then S had better make clear what S's criteria for explanations are, in a manner that's plausible demarcation criteria for S's general usage of "explanation," as well as being able to say why S's criteria--especially if relatively novel--should matter in general/to others.

if perception is all in your mind, then how do you know anything of reality? — tim wood

If taking is all in your arm/hand, then how do you take something like a cookie? This isn't a rhetorical question. I want you to think about it and answer. Because it's just the same confusion that's occurring in the question I quoted above.

Seeing is just an easy example — tim wood

The questions you quoted from me above this response weren't rhetorical. Could you answer them?

Of course common language - but common language isn't the way it really works, is it. — tim wood

Common language is how it really works for understanding what "seeing" refers to.

Again, what in the world are you taking "seeing" to imply, so that it would suggest to you that we don't see objective things such as trees?

Would you like to recraft your definition of subject/object? — tim wood

Recraft them for what reason? Why not focus on resolving your confusion instead?

Are you thinking of "seeing" as referring to something literally touching your eye, akin to tactile contact?

(If so, follow-up questions would be why would you be thinking of sight that way? What usage are you familiar with that suggested this definition to you? And you'd be aware, then, that you'd be confusing sight for another sense, namely touch, right?)

If that's how you're thinking of sight, you could "see" a tree by rubbing your eyeball on the bark. I wouldn't want to see a tree in that case.

No light, no see. If you could see without light then you would see the tree without light. But the fact is that it is light you see, not the tree. The light reflects off the tree. — tim wood

The only way that this would suggest that you don't see the tree to you is that you don't at all understand the notion of "seeing" in common language. But that would be inexplicable. How could you be capable of tasks like tying your own shoes while all the same time having zero grasp of what "seeing" is supposed to be? What in the world would you be thinking that "seeing a tree" should refer to that's not met by talking about light reflecting off the tree, etc.?

Kant provides a pretty good answer. — tim wood

"We don't actually see the (objective) tree" isn't how it's supposed to work.

How do you see the tree? What do you see? Might not light occur to you as a possible answer, and without light you do not, cannot, see the tree? And if you follow so far you might begin to "see" that you don't see the tree. Of course, of the light you see, how does it become the image of a tree? And so forth. And this just the start. — tim wood

Seeing involves light, obviously. So how in the world would you take that fact to be against the notion of seeing a tree?

Is this some sort of game where we pretend than we don't understand preschool-level language?

So the question to you, because you seem to think you know the answer, is how, exactly, you see the tree, and what, exactly, you see. — tim wood

You can't seriously be mystified at how that's supposed to work.

You don't perceive perceiving. You don't take taking. You don't throw throwing.

You don't perceive your mind. You dont take or throw your hand/arm.

Your mind is what performs the action of perceiving. Your hand/arm is what performs the actions of taking or throwing.

Perceiving, taking and throwing are examples of transitive verbs. They're something you do, something you perform, with respect to particular objects.

You're conflating perception and what the perception is of.

It would be just like conflating taking and what we're taking. Conflating your hand and a cookie. You wouldn't do that, would you? So why are you getting so easily confused when it comes to perception?

I don't mind to take him as sincere, but it does seem like pulling teeth to try to get to any focused discussion about anything.

I know this won't help, but I'm kind of getting an impression of him as a Kant fanboy in the vein of people who are hardcore religious apologists or Randroid Objectivists (or we could just say cult members in general), where anything that leads them off script is something that they basically can't parse. They try to veer things back on script, where they can wax poetic within comfortable boundaries.

The above is why I don't like for us to do long posts, by the way. Now we've got nine or ten different issues to discuss. If you respond even longer to all of the points above, then we'll have probably nine or ten additional issues to discuss, so then we'll have 20 or so. Eventually we'd get up to hundreds of things that we never address in any depth, never solve in any manner. That seems like a waste of time. Why don't we just pick one small thing at a time, focus on it, try to solve or at least come to some understanding about it with respect to each others' different views, and then move on to the next focused thing?

That you think I am something you call a "representationalist" while I am referencing Kant simply demonstrates willful ignorance. — tim wood

Again, the view you described is representationalism. Maybe there are some differences between your views and representationalism, but you haven't detailed those views yet.

The trouble is that perception itself is in-itself nothing. — tim wood

I don't recall what the argument is for that. It sounds nonsensical on the face of it. So what is the argument for it?

If it's just saying that there is no "intransitive perception," I agree with that, but why would we say that there's any trouble with it? Perception needs to be of something, like a(n objective) tree.

The same goes for taking. There's no "intransitive taking." You need to take something, like a cookie.

It requires reason to put the perception into the order that, — tim wood

Again, this just sounds nonsensical on the face of it. "Put the perception 'into the order'"??? What was Kant's argument for that again?

Because the objects of knowledge are a synthesis of perception of the object and mind/reason, — tim wood

"Synthesis of perception of the object and mind" is just gobbledygook. Perception is a mental activity. "Perception of the object" is not something different than a mental event. Saying that it necessarily involves reason doesn't follow (again, what's the argument for this?), but that doesn't really matter, anyway.

you don't get to the object as ground. — tim wood

As "ground"? Why think of anything as "ground"?

You rule out mind/reason. — tim wood

That bears no resemblance to anything I say. Shouldn't you be able to paraphrase my views in a way that I'd agree with prior to criticizing them?

reason would be, should be, within, even define, the capacity of any reasonable being, — tim wood

That's not really saying anything aside from "reasonable beings are reasonable." Well, duh.

Because in your definition, everything is subjective or object(ive) (it's - they're - both). — tim wood

What definition of mine says that everything is subjective or objective?

You hold the tree is objective, which is irreconcilable with your definition — tim wood

Irreconcilable with which definition?

, because in its objectiveness, you rule out mind.

Which makes it irreconcilable with which definition?

Yes. But now reconcile that with your definition of subjective/objective. — tim wood

On my view you're not perceiving your own mind. I explained this above. That's just like you're not taking your own hand when you take a cookie.

Your mind is perceiving. It's not perceiving itself. Your hand is taking. It's not taking itself.

Maybe you could try to support why you think you're perceiving your own mind/taking your own hand?

How about a more substantive reply? Maybe offering reasons that you believe representationalism? Maybe addressing my attempts to straighten out the confusions you have over my views?

I wish you'd give a more substantive reply . . . but in any event, to repeat:

"You're basically assuming that if someone is familiar with Kant, then they need to agree with Kant, rather than thinking that Kant was very confused and a crappy writer to boot. (And in both, he deserves a lot of blame for the huge mound of guano that is continentalism.) "

Importing poor black students into middle class suburban schools was hotly resisted, and as ZhouBoTong noted, has been abandoned. — Bitter Crank

I didn't realize it was abandoned . . . what did they do with all of those school buses? Haha.

I was actually glad that I was bused to the schools I was bused to. It gave me exposure to wide cultural variety, it led to life-long friendships, and it even led to career opportunities in a broader range of contexts than I would have easily had otherwise. My schools were mostly comprised of an unusual mixture of inner-city ghetto kids (and the schools were in the middle of those ghettos), middle-class suburban kids, rednecks, and uber-rich kids.

Do you know when busing stopped being the norm?

Take away the things that they are shadows and images of and the shadows and images disappear.

To be clear, I think the idea of things in themselves is problematic as is the idea that shadows and reflections are not real or do not exist. — Fooloso4

That's the point I'm making. Shadows and images are something, they're "things-in-themselves"--discarding them via just arbitrarily or by fiat putting them into a separate bin doesn't make much sense.

In some cases, such as shadows and reflections, it is easy enough to make the distinction, — Fooloso4

How would you make it?

Jesus you're a moron. I'm not saying anything about buses impacting anything (aside from whether folks go to their neighborhood schools). Either it's still common to bus students or it isn't. You have no idea if it is, yet you want to respond like a jerk anyway. I don't know if it is still common or not. It used to be. Someone must know if it's still common, but you sure don't have any idea. Respond again with your "expert" hat on anyway. It's the Internet, after all.

???

When I went to school, busing was common. You didn't go to the school in your neighborhood just because it was the school in your neighborhood. Therefore, it wasn't the case that if you were in a poor neighborhood, with a poorly-funded school, you went to that school. (And vice versa.)

The only way it would be the case that you tend to go to the school in your neighborhood (poor neighborhood/"poor school" etc.) is if busing isn't a big thing any longer. I don't know if that's the case. Is it?

That was the point. An intelligent response would be one from someone who knows for sure that busing isn't a big thing any longer.

Not according to the argument in the Republic. — Fooloso4

The worse for the Republic then.

By what criteria would we be saying that some occurrences are things in themselves and some aren't?

That's the false belief. But there’s also the true belief that Mary is married to a postman. — Michael

You don't have a true belief that Mary is "married to a postman, any postman." Your belief is that she's married to the postman who happens to be you. In your mind, "postman" stands for "me." It doesn't stand for any arbitrary person with that title.

I have a false belief (that you know that I slept with your wife) that justifies a true belief (that you will punch me). And in the same way I have a false belief (that Mary is married to me) that justifies a true belief (that Mary is married to a postman). — Michael

That's similar in that you only believe that he will punch you because of a particular reason. You don't actually believe that he'll punch you for some arbitrary reason, whatever it might be. It's wrong to characterize it as a belief that he'll punch you <isolated>/divorced from why you believe that he'll punch you. Because that's not actually a belief that you have.

That's why these sorts of examples don't work. They mischaracterize how belief works.

"the books we see," "the puppets," "the images on the wall," etc. are actually things in themselves.

Right, so first you make a claim (that the number 2 exists only as a brain state) and when I ask you for an argument in the way of explanatory support for that claim, you evade the question by saying that "first we need to go over what the "rules" for explanations are going to be. — Janus

As I relay in some of the posts you weren't interested in, there's no way that I'm doing an argument with anyone about explanations if we don't establish criteria for explanations first--criteria that are plausible and consistent with what the parties involved in the discussion count versus don't count as explanations of various things and why they count or don't count.

You said you weren't interested in this issue. So there's no way that I'm doing an argument that hinges on points about explanations. I'm opting out, because the problem with those arguments is that there's no criteria for explanations. No one cares about that, of course, at least not in these Internet arguments. They just plow ahead as if there's some clear, completely uncontroversial thing that "explanation" denotes in general . . . while there isn't at all. It's just a word that can be flung around like a sledgehammer that no one thinks to question. I consider that a waste of time.

If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read the posts I referenced. If you're not interested, that's fine. It's fine with me either way. But I won't be just moving on as if "explanation" is unproblematic.

Right or Wrong for specific issues would be defined in relation to the end-values, or rather within them. if we do not relate basic values so as to produce end-values then 'right and wrong' becomes a fashion show. I think that reads clearly? — RW Standing

Does an "end value" (versus whatever else--"basic value?") distinction really hold water? What distinction are we supposing?

Ah yes, the time tested rule of using micro-level exceptions as the basis to infer macro-level trends. — boethius

Not sure what that means, boethius. So is busing not common any longer?

Yes, this is the case. If you live in a poor neighborhood, you go to a poor school. — boethius

It's been a long time since I was in grade school/jr high/high school, but at the time, busing was big in the name of integration. You often went to schools 15 or so miles away from home rather than schools close to home.

That may have changed though.

I also pointed out that I think there is a problem with the doomsday argument on page one. — Echarmion

As did I.

? If something is said to be right or wrong in Ethical terms, doing so must be based on values that have already been accepted. — RW Standing

I don't agree with that part. Determining that it's right or wrong to you could be when you cement your values in relation to the issue.