At the very least you have assumed that there is both mind and time. Time passes when you are asleep.

In what does this process of thinking take place?

And if seconds, days, years pass, then there must also be a clock or some other device external to mind, the periodicity of which can be contrasted with the series of mental events.

And to whom are you addressing this post?

I don't find what one should do is synonymous with what one is morally required to do... — Hyper

Can you explain the difference?

A variant of the chariot of the passions - Phaedrus?

If evolution does not tell us what to do, what does? — Questioner

...and now you are starting to do ethics...

I can see no benefit in this. If our greatest source of pleasure is to spend time with those we love, why would we want to cut that out of our lives? — Questioner

Becasue it is the right thing to do...

This comes down to to what you believe is the biggest determinant of human behavior — Questioner

Well, humans have a habit of not doing what is supposedly 'determined".

Here's the point again, lest it be lost: Evolution does not tell us what we ought do.

We are neurologically hard-wired to form bonds. — Questioner

And it might well be that our moral duty is to fight against this supposed hard-wiring. We might deconstruct society, or remove ourselves from it for the Good. Whatever you mean by "hard-wired", the choice remains.

To deny the need for human bonding is to deny our very essence. — Questioner

I'm happy to deny that people have an essence. It's an outmoded notion.

Okay, the opposite to "external judgement" is deciding for myself what I should do, and I'm always going to think that what I do is the thing that I should do. — Questioner

If you decide for yourself what you should so, then you decide for yourself what you ought do. SO we agree ought need not be external. Good.

Well, that would require changing who we are as humans. — Questioner

And that might be a good thing...

We know no other way. — Questioner

That's not right, as the mere existence of antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction as proposed moral doctrine shows.

Again, how things are informs how they ought be, but cannot determine it. Put another way, regardless of how things might actually be, we might desire that they be otherwise, and act accordingly.

I'd argue that the good is to practical reason as truth is to theoretical reason (and as beauty is to aesthetic reason). — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's a good argument...

But we can write "p" is true iff p. Nothing works in a similar way for good.

So it looks as if there are differences between truth and good, that cannot be captured by the proposed approach.

And a step further: there are true sentences about what is good. So what is good is included in what is true. But if that is so, then the mooted symmetry between "true" and "good" is broken.

This by way of questioning an implied non-cognitivism.

We do not necessarily have to remain connected. We must first connect though. That is the way things are. Asking if it ought be that way is out of place. — creativesoul

Yes to the first, no the the last. It is open to us to ask if we ought remain social.



"Virtue signalling" is not an argument. It is the libertarian's attempt to stop a conversation they find uncomfortable.

I am having trouble with this word "ought." That implies external judgement — Questioner

Why? As in, what is it about "ought" that "implies external judgement"? See Creative's comment and my reply.

I have already defined what "good behavior" is. It's all those behaviors which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure. — Questioner

And yet the question "is it good to do those things which contribute to the group, and keep your place in it secure" is meaningful.

There are always outliers. — Questioner

But being an outlier does not make them wrong, and terms such as "mental illness" are themseves normative.

Why? — Questioner

Good question. Why not?

A species' survival ultimately depends on individual survival, and of course reproduction — Questioner

Why ought we survive? Consider antinatalism and Voluntary Human Extinction, both touted as ethical positions.

...we can also consider that they provide insights into how we should behave. — Seeker25

I don't see how. Why should we do as evolution says?

I am not going to address any of your lies — Brendan Golledge

You are not obligated to answer my criticisms of your beliefs. .

But they will still be here, even if you don't.

Cheers.

We are hard-wired to connect. — Questioner

Well, no. There are examples of folk who have turned their back on society and walked away. Check out the biography of Mark May. Perhaps we ought fight the "hard wiring"...

The point being that whatever you offer as the way things are, it is open to us to ask if they ought be that way.

This is the Open Question, in a more general form. What we ought do and how things are, are two very different questions.

Metaethics and virtue signaling go hand in hand. — baker

The retort "you are virtue signalling" is quite insipid. It is much the same as the child's outraged cry of "You can't tell me what to do!"

IMO, the highest level of being human is to be your most true, authentic self. This means getting the most in touch with your natural instincts, with your "wild knowing." The question becomes, does this coincide with doing right or doing wrong? — Questioner

I'll ask the question again. Ought we try to become "the highest level of being human"; or ought we do what is good?

Or are they the same?

¬p ⊬ □¬(p ∧ JBp) — Michael

Well, yes, that's kinda the point.

That's been done. — Michael

Yep. With the consequences set out in the SEP article:

The debates surrounding the proper characterization of semantic anti-realism go far beyond the scope of this entry. As for the knowability proof itself, there continues to be no consensus on whether and where it goes wrong.

The antirealist claims that there are unknown truths but that all unknown truths of the appropriate kind1 are knowable. With respect to ontology, there are unverified truths but there are no verification-transcendent truth conditions. — Michael

Some do. Good for them. The question of whether they are right remains open.

it neither claims nor entails that all truths are known — Michael

That, Michael, remains an open question. You misrepresent my position. Again, I am suggesting that different logics might have application in different contexts; that we can adopt a realist approach in some circumstances and an antirealist approach in other circumstances; that it is not all-or-nothing.

you have the mind of a doubter — Gregory

Thank you.

I dont agree that life and desire work in that "logical" way — Gregory

Yep. You have difficulty with logic.

Believing that folk only ever get what they deserve requires great faith.

It doesn't say anything about what we ought do, so isn't intended to be "workable". It's a bit of frippery, like the OP.

Isn't that like "why does 1+1 equal 2"?

You're trying to shift the ground. Your claim was that what you get is what you desire. showed that to be incorrect.

Every second is a past but the present remains — Gregory

Gobbledegook, attempting to make an excuse to not be responsible for one's choices.

The past doesn't exist — Gregory

Layered shite is still shite.

I lost my husband 3 years ago to MS. The last couple years of his life were very difficult. At one point, as he was having a lot of trouble making a transfer, I said to him, "Tired of this life?"

He replied, "No, this life is good. It's this body I am tired of." — Questioner

That's an excellent reply.

As the spirit desires so it has — Gregory

You get what you desire? So that if you get poor outcomes, it's becasue that is what you desire?

And I suppose that those who say they did not desire mishap, misadventure and disability are denying what they really desired? True Scotsmen, one and all?

Pretty shitty reasoning.

Can one truly have a choice in remaining ignorant as the very state is a state of not knowing what they ate avoiding? — Benj96

Hu?


(Edit: Oh, "Are". OK. )

Determinism is debatable even in physics. Complexity theory, uncertainty and stochastic calculations all serve to undermine the supposed Newtonian notion of determinism.

What free will is, is also mercurial. It is clear that an intentional act is free when it is not coerced by some else; and that an act's being free is considered essential to the agent being responsible for the consequences. It's less clear what it means for an act to be free rather than physically determined.

It's also clear that free will is used by theists in order to overcome the problem of god's responsibility for evil.

And that's the usual motivation for the need to give an explanation of free will.

So discussions such as this are often veiled theology.

... i am only speaking from my own experience. — Questioner

Your experience is as valid as anyone's.

I guess it depends on the person... — Questioner

It is worth considering what can be said about what we ought do as well as what I ought do. How should we set things up, collectively? See for instance Rawls veil of ignorance.

There is also the philosophical tradition that to reach the highest level of being human was to live a virtuous life. — Questioner

And again, is the goal to achieve "the highest level of being human", or just to do what is right?

"Should we do good?" Of course, we should do good. — Questioner

That's the right response to the OP.

Cheers.

I always feel good when I do the right thing. — Questioner

That might be so, but it is important not to conclude that what is the right thing to do is what makes you feel good.

Poland seems to be the country best positioned to lead Europe against Russian imperialism.

GB put itself out of contention with Brexit. France and Germany are too politically compromised.

Because it's the right thing to do. — Talkopu

Yep.

All of that might be the case, and I more or less agree with you in regard to cooperation. There is more consideration of the ethical in your reply than in others here. You are acknowledging the difference between how things are and how we want them to be; the "we" is bolded becasue ethics is not about self interest.

This question seems moot, since we do. — Questioner

Then you are choosing not to make ethical considerations. You assume that how things are is how they ought be, a recipe for stagnation.

One ought to do good because it contributes to their survival. — Questioner

Why ought one contribute to our survival?

There's this whole big area of reasoning that you are avoiding.

As mentioned, we operate on a system of rewards an punishments. — Questioner

Sure. Ought we?

It's not giving a reason for doing good. — Questioner

The point is that "one ought do good" is no more informative than "one ought do what one ought do" or "doing good is good".

It's pretty clear that "good" in the OP is being used in the sense of "having moral virtue" and not "Desired or approved of".

This ignores human nature. It's akin to saying, "Do this because I said so." — Questioner

How does it ignore human nature, and how is it akin to "Do this because I said so"?

No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. — Hyper

But you ought sell all your worldly goods and donate them to charity. You also ought be self-reliant, which depends on your having worldly goods. You are going to have to work out some sort of balance.

That is, your posited counter example to synonymity does not quite work.

And so is right, we ought to do what is good just because it is good. What is good is what we ought do, and what we ought do is what is good.



, , that we have evolved to do something or to prefer something simply does not imply that we ought to do that thing. There remains the logical gap between what we do and what we ought do. Until you get your heads around that, you are not even addressing ethical issues.

This is not how modal possibility works. — Michael

Are you saying this is invalid? I don't think so.

~p→~◇Kp ↔︎ ◇Kp → p. — Banno

◇Kp means ◇(p ∧ JBp), where JBp means that p is justifiably believed. ◇(p ∧ JBp) does not entail p and so ◇Kp does not entail p. — Michael

Substituting (p ∧ JBp) for Kp we get. ~p→~◇(p ∧ JBp) ↔︎ ◇(p ∧ JBp) → p, which is valid. You keep repeating "you confuse ¬p ∧ ◇Kp with ◇(¬p ∧ Kp)" without showing where.

So you're an anti-realist about counterfactuals? — Michael

No. Context.

The antirealist allows for p ∧ ¬Kp, regardless of what Fitch might think. — Michael

This somewhat begs the question, since of course the antirealist wants the commonplace, that there are things we don't know, to be true. The issue here is how to formulate antirealism so that it is constant with there being things we don't know.


Is the difference in our views now that while I think one can choose realist or antirealist approaches in different situations, you think realism inconsistent in all cases? If not, what do you think the difference between our positions is?

You can also find statistics that say the exact opposite. — Brendan Golledge

Well, here's that search:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=most+domestic+violence+initiated+by+women
Folk reading on can check for themselves that the data does not show "the exact opposite", whatever you meant by that. Even the most generous readings will only shoe at best equal levels of violence between males and females.

Yes, the situation is more complex than the pie chart I posted. Your claim specifically was that

I think patriarchy is a good thing, because there's usually no one who will love his family more than the father. — Brendan Golledge

There there is no evidence to support this, and considerable evidence to the contrary.

Summations are typically as follows:

Domestic violence is a gendered crime, with women being much more likely than men to be the victims of violence and to experience a range of associated harms such as homelessness, assault-related injury and death — Female perpetrated domestic violence: Prevalence of self-defensive and retaliatory violence

The Australian statistics show that only one third of victims are male; that Male and female victims receive very similar numbers and types of injuries; that Males and females are just as likely to engage in coercive controlling behaviours; the Men who have experienced partner violence are 2 to 3 times more likely than women to have never told anybody about it.

The remainder of your post, concerning life expectancy, serial killers and so on, reeks of confirmation bias. As does

Also, you did not even accurately represent my argument, so I'm not going to argue with you anymore. — Brendan Golledge

So, you are not here to have your convictions questioned. Fine.

Notice that ↪Brendan Golledge did not address the more pressing critique, that yet again, we have someone claiming that what is the case is what ought be the case — Banno

You again did not address this.

Yeah. I wasn't gonna say that. Might be time for a check up for some.

This is Schopenhauer. Knowing that it's true, not wondering, but knowing, is part of an altered state. — frank

Trouble is distinguishing what we know from what we just believe. The difference is truth.

I don't know if that's an answerable queston. — Wayfarer

I'm pretty confident it isn't.

I think that's rather simplistic. — Wayfarer

As do I. offered a rational strategy, but was dismissed rather summarily. Feels seem to be what folk want, rather than thinks. That's fine, since the thinks will only lead to aporia, which feels unsettling.

Trouble with identity again. The argument against reincarnation seems applicable here - in what sense was the person in the Irish Cottage the same as @jgill? If all they shared was 'I AM', how do we conclude that they are the same? Or was Jgill experiencing being someone else, in which case experience is not essential to selfhood...? I don't know how to make sense of such experiences, but I don't think mystics do, either.



But also, and back to the topic, is the criteria for what is real to be that it feels real?

Yep. God explains everything, and hence is useless for any sort of clarification.