Is this the start of it?

Murder, the thing itself, is properly understood as revoking the principle of ownership — Mww

If so, I'd say that first premise already has a problem, because of the idea of "properly understanding" a concept.

Thanks.

Everything is subjective. — Brett

Clearly not on my view. I just listed objective things above.

And among things that are objectively the case is that merit only occurs subjectively.

. But because presumably Mao, Stalin, Hitler, et al didn't themselves think they were doing wrong, then apparently that's enough for S. and Terrapin. They didn't think it was wrong, therefore it isn't wrong. — tim wood

No one has ever said anything like "therefore it isn't wrong," and in fact we've explicitly explained, in some detail, in quite a few different posts, why and how such a "therefore" doesn't work, is absurd, depends on a category error, etc.

I presented Tim with a logical proof for establishing the universality of murder being immoral, — Mww

Could you reference that post somehow if it's not too much trouble? Maybe link to it, or at least retype or paste a brief text string that's unique to it?

Copernicus’s theory is an objective fact. You said it has merit. You also said merit is subjective, not objective. — Brett

Yes. (And yes re the theory in the sense that it exists as text, say.)

preference can imply a relativism whereas a truth can not. — Mww

So it's not true that physical phenomena are reference-frame relative per the theory of relativity?

Merit is inherently subjective. It can't be objective. — Terrapin Station

Correct. Which does not at all imply that there is no merit. Merit can't be subjective if there is no merit, lol

You can't have an x with property F if there is no x. (So for example merit with the property of subjectiveness)

Because you said merit was subjective. — Brett

Yes, which obviously doesn't imply that there is no such thing.

Why does Copernicus’s theory not have merit? — Brett

Didn't I just say "of course (it does)" when you asked me if it has merit? So why would you be asking me why it doesn't have merit? I just said of course it has merit. What it doesn't have is objective merit.

I was trying to establish an objective fact that we agreed on, — Brett

Sure. I'm sure there are tons of them. The Earth revolving around the sun, the Earth's atmosphere being 78% nitrogen, etc.

Is the earth circling the sun not that? — Brett

Of course. But what does that have to do with "objective merit"?

I see what you mean. I thought you meant there was no value in that process. — Brett

It's not at all that there's no value, it's just that it's individual people who are doing the valuing.

So what is an objective fact? — Brett

Any extramental state of affairs, such as the chemical composition of the atmosphere, for example.

By who? — Brett

By people commenting on the film, such as critics.

Does Copernicus’s theory have merit? — Brett

For every such question, copy-paste "Of course, insofar as someone values it or values the upshots of it."

No idea how you're thinking that's implied.

I've spent a large portion of my life focused on art, including that it's how I've always made a living.

Does a mathematical formula have merit? — Brett

Of course, insofar as someone values it or values the upshots of it.

Oh. There's not the slightest question that it's a category error. Merit is inherently subjective. It can't be objective.

But you wouldn’t regard Bay as auteur, would you? Bergman, yes. — Brett

I think it's absurd to approach auteur theory selectively, as I see it as a tool for a lack of knowledge regarding how content was achieved. So if it has any utility, it does for Bay just as much as Bergman.

As an aside, I'm a fan of Bay's films but I hate Bergman.

I hate to get into one of those endless discussions, but this hasn’t been proven either way, it’s an exploration. — Brett

I don't know what "this" is referring to above.

So, according to you, we should ignore any kind of abuse that doesn't leave lasting marks? — Echarmion

Legally, in my view we should not prosecute anyone where there isn't "physical evidence" of someone being a perpetrator, yes, definitely. I also think it's outrageous that we prosecute people for murder, say, when there is physical evidence but no body.

, I cannot really know anything about the live of other people, unless I was actually physically there. — Echarmion

Only I didn't actually say that, and I rather explicitly said otherwise. There just needs to be "physical evidence" at some stage of the process if we're dealing with empirical claims, and then removed from that, good evidence that there was reliable access to physical evidence at some stage in the process. For legal purposes, I'd make direct presentation of evidence necessary, because the future of others' lives is in the balance, but not everything is the legal system.

Given that your justification is that witnesses are inherently unreliable — Echarmion

Again, I didn't say that. I also didn't say, and there's no reason for you to have known, that on my view relying on testimony only (sans good evidence of reliable access to physical evidence at the initial stage) is worthwhile proportionate to just how important or significant the upshots of trusting the testimony are.

I am fairly certain you cannot actually apply that standard in everyday life. — Echarmion

It's difficult to comment on that without getting rid of the straw man portions first.

sult. The objective merits of art are a lot harder to pin down — Brett

Well, because there aren't any. "Objective merit" is an oxymoron or category error.

Someone comparing the two would likely do so from an auteur theory perspective when it comes to Bay. My view on auteur theory is somewhere between thinking it has some merit and seeing it simply as a convenient fiction for talking about films, since we don't know exactly who was responsible for exactly what content of a film without having ourselves been intimately involved in every step of the filmmaking process.

Auteur theory also works for some other collaborative processes, by the way, such as music, where people tend to treat either solo artists or bands (or subsets of bandmembers) as the auteurs.

A lot of people get into as a means of improving or maintaining their health. Both calisthenics and resistance (weight) training are very important healthwise. The early stages of bodybuilding are an upshot of this.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that getting healthier can help one in the attractiveness department, too.

I think the example I gave explains it. There are certain preference claims that can't plausibly be argued against: It would be senseless for me to try to convince you that strawberry flavour ice-cream is better than chocolate flavour ice-cream if you prefer chocolate ice cream. And there are certain factual claims that can't plausibly be argued against: It would be senseless for me to try to convince you that the temperature today is 50 degrees Celsius if you have carried out reliable and corroborated measurements that show it's 15. Questions of artistic merit fall somewhere in between. Whether or not we can agree, it is not senseless to have the debate. We can give reasons based on what art is and what it's supposed to do with reference to the genre it's a part of.

I could (in theory) over the next few weeks write millions of words about Michael Bay's films, would the quality of his films actually change as I write the words? — Isaac


No, but you may be able to uncover aspects of Michael Bay's films that show they had more quality all along than was recognized. And it's possible that people reading your words may change their level of appreciation on understanding your arguments. Classes on art appreciation, for example, are not a con. There is something to be appreciated. Teaching someone to try to prefer strawberry flavour to chocolate flavour, on the other hand, is likely to be a waste of time. — Baden

First, no one is saying that subjective things are incorrigibly immutable, that there's no point to ever discussing subjective judgments in any arena, especially via factual, cultural, etc. info surrounding the things we're judging (but that aren't themselves aesthetic, moral, gustatory, etc. judgments). Subjective judgments can be influenced, whether via one's own or via outside efforts. And factual, cultural, etc. info about the items in question can always play into how subjective judgments are shaped. This most definitely includes gustatory judgments, and there are in fact various food appreciation courses at universities and colleges, mostly under the umbrella of culinary schools.

One way that we influence subjective judgments is by ferreting out the tastes we already have and figuring out how novel-to-the-individual experiences relate to those tastes. As one has new experiences, that also opens up new avenues of taste, and acclimation to various things shapes tastes, too. Another way to influence subjective judgments is by providing insight into works a la socio-historical contexts, information about what the artist was attempting to do relative to various conventions, and so on.

None of this makes any aesthetic or other judgments anything other than subjective. And it doesn't give credence to anyone's evaluative judgments being correct versus incorrect. It's rather a matter of understanding just what subjective judgments are and how they work.

Thinking that anyone is saying that it's simply an immutable matter of someone liking or disliking something, where they don't interact with anyone else, where information can't have an influence on judgments, etc. is an absurdly caricatured straw man.

Of course I don't believe moral stances are merely personal emotional responses or preferences. They are inter-subjectively acquired, sustained and justified, so they are relative not merely to individual subjects. — Janus

The idea of a moral stance that has no meaning or judgment attached to it is incoherent.

All world-views are adopted via language acquisition. — creativesoul

Objectively, language is only sounds, marks, gestures, etc.

If you care to disprove the dictionary, which is based on logic — OpinionsMatter

:brow: Isn't the dictionary supposed to be reporting word usage?

Do things become more objective the more people believe them (that seems fraught with social and political problems to me), — Isaac

And it's simply an argumentum ad populum.

Certainly you wouldn't expect courts to let someone go free merely because only witness testimony is available. — Echarmion

Most definitely I would. That we can convict someone on testimony only is a horrible, horrible idea in my opinion.

There are degrees of objectivity. — Baden

What would objectivity even refer to if there are "degrees" of it?

Oh dear. I see you're thoroughly confused now.

But I'm afraid I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain to you all the times and ways in which you did say what you are now denying you said.

Sorry, but arguing with someone like you is just a waste of time. — NKBJ

Well, or at least your mistaken beliefs about what my views even are, apparently. Maybe in the future, not necessarily with me, try to not be so quick to judge, so quick to stick someone on a particular template, and take the time to listen and think about what they're saying?

You claimed that. — NKBJ

No I didn't. I explicitly explained above that I'm not at all saying that things aren't measurable or that they're all equal.

What do I have to say for you to be able to understand that? Aren't you at least interested in understanding the viewpoints that you're supposedly arguing against?

Yay--can't wait until the next time you claim that I think that there's no way to judge/measure works, morals, etc. or the next time you claim that I think all works/moral stances/etc. are equal. That will be fun to correct again.

We're not getting anywhere here. We're just talking in circles. Let me know when you have something new to add. In the meantime, I'll just agree to disagree. — NKBJ

You should have corrected your straw mannish misconceptions at least, but I guess that's too much work.

They're not writing about their "feelings." — NKBJ

Oh yes they are insofar as they're making any evaluative statements a la things being good, bad, better, worse, beautiful, sublime, crass, etc.--anything like that.

HOWEVER, there are things like philosophical breadth and depth that Bay just doesn't measure up to. — NKBJ

The philosophical content of artworks comes from the consumer, unless we're talking about text/dialogue that's literally a philosophical argument. But the "philosophical content" of a work isn't at all limited to that.

At any rate, "A work with more philosophical breadth/depth is better than a work with less" would simply be a preference that an individual has.

By your logic, there is no way to measure the difference in quality between a personal essay by an average middle schooler and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. — NKBJ

There's no objective way to measure it, because there is no objective quality in that sense of the term.

It's all just how you "feel" about it. — NKBJ

Which is subjectively measuring it. That's how we measure such things, subjectively. So it's not true that there's no way to measure it in my view. It's just that it's a subjective measurement

.

Nevermind that if you actually look at the texts, instead of just blustering here because you like the idea that all opinions and "feelings" are equal, — NKBJ

Opinions are only "equal" from a perspective that's completely irrelevant to opinions. So you're forwarding a stupid straw man.

it's just obvious which one contains more thought, more ideas, more insight. — NKBJ

"Works that 'contain' more thought, ideas, etc. are better" is just a preference that an individual can have. (Leaving aside the other issues with that.)

And frankly, I can't take anyone seriously who wants to maintain that the middle school paper and the Kant text are equal. — NKBJ

I probably wouldn't be able to, either. But you know what I take even less seriously? Someone who wants to maintain that the inequality isn't about preferences that people have.

The important thing in my post was understanding the "evidence for"/"evidence against" distinction. Does that distinction make sense to you? They're both evidence. The difference is whether the evidence is "in favor" of a claim, whether the evidence suggests that a claim is true, or whether the evidence is against a claim, whether the evidence suggests that a claim is false.

My first thought is this: vanity is concern with how one looks. Neurotic and non-neurotic vanity are distinguished in the following way: If in circumstances where S would fail to approximate looking a certain way, S would feel deeply inadequate, then S is neurotically vain. — Welkin Rogue

I wouldn't say that no bodybuilders feel that way, but I think it's relatively rare.

For most, even those who do it competitively/fairly obsessively, I think it's far more akin to any other skill or development that someone pursues, which can include things like learning to play a musical instrument, taking up sailing, learning philosophy, etc. People try to keep progressing at those things, try to increase their mastery of it, etc. This is expressed pretty literally in bodybuilding as being concerned with "gains." It's just that in bodybuilding, what you're developing is your physique. Bodybuilding, done with any degree of seriousness--basically so that it would be noticeable to others, is something that requires a lot of knowledge and dedication, even moreso than many of those other things, because it really requires a major lifestyle change.

Where it typically starts to become neurotic is when you start doing things that can potentially harm you just to make (apparent) gains. Steroids are one example. Synthol is a far more extreme example, especially since synthol doesn't even produce something that looks like bodybuilding gains. Synthol is more assuredly an indication of body dysmorphia.

Many here and elsewhere erroneously believe science says something does not exist if there is no evidence for it - science does not.

Science only says something does not exist, where there IS evidence that it does not exist. — Rank Amateur

The language here is going to cause a lot of people to not understand this.

It's conventional to think of "evidence (suggesting) that F does not exist" is the same as "there is no evidence for F."

No one would be claiming that "science makes claims about whether F exists when there's no evidence to suggest that either F exists or F does not exist"--which is apparently how you're using "no evidence for F." Most people would make an "Evidence for F"/"Evidence against F" distinction. You seem to be using "Evidence for it (for F)" to cover both.