Individualism wants to shed all constraints - social and ecological - and so finds itself plugged directly into fundamental thermodynamics, the most general and mindless constraint that can't be avoided. — apokrisis

You would make a good science fiction writer... The problem is that you yourself, apokrisis, WANT a goal to happen- that of humans working together to achieve some sort of stability. To do this, we must put on the proper constraints to do so. Apparently humans are around to put on the appropriate constraints so that we "fix" some sort of over-entropification. For what reason we must fix things, is not stated other than the generic "flourishing" which, to be frank, seems quite Romantic of you. Flourishing of what? The arts? The sciences? The mind's ability to work out problems and create X stuff that YOU, Mr. Apokrisis find to be worthy? This all sounds quite individualistic (by this I mean Apokrisistic).. But you will wrap this in terms of the idea that Apokrisis speaks for the holy Naturalism which apparently you intuit and spread work of through your pontifications regarding it.. thus It cannot be refuted like a mere mortal tries to disprove a the prophet (but this time of Naturalism).. The universe speaks to Apokrisis about recruiting US the humans into making sure we balance things out (entropically speaking)...

Apokrisis, lay it out less obtusely in bullet points, what is it that humans "should" do? There is a certitude of "objectivity" of the human "should" that you really never get at other than "overusing oil sucks because it leads to ruining the planet so let's stop that" and "humans can flourish and there is some kind of vague thing (insert preferred study of some psychological preferences)". Why humans need to be around to fulfill preferences that may or may not be true (which can be it's own debate) is not explained other than circular reasoning.. But I'd like to see you try.

In fact I care a lot about animal suffering and ecology generally. The difference is that I don't have to invent the facts that would support a simple-minded absolutism. I've studied the science and that informs my ethical position. — apokrisis

It's not absolutism. If lab rats are being used to cure cancer, and this is only way to do it, then I'll support the effort. After all, I am a consequentialist. Conseqentialists tend to be rule-breakers and non-conformists, although the ends justify the means.

It's when we start talking about hunting animals for fun, eating the flesh of a dead animal for enjoyment, and ignoring the plight of predation and the infirm of the animal world, that I start to have problems with your and others' worldview. It's inconsistent.

Lab rats can suffer, but they aren't to be seen as ethically important, despite you yourself saying you don't have the stomach to deal with them in the lab?

It's not clear how science should be the ultimate guide to morality. Given that we can see that lab rats behave as though they suffer, that pigeons behave as though they can learn, and that ants behave as though they can recognize themselves in the mirror, shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt? Shouldn't we believe them to be sentient and thus ethically important before dismissing their lives? Don't you think an sentient shouldn't have to pass some test in order to qualify for ethical treatment?

Not having the stomach to dissect animals isn't the issue here: the issue is dissecting the animals in the first place when there's no good reason to.

You however argue in terms of absolutes. And when the evidence is not there, you invent it - like these forlorn suicidal penguins deciding to die by trekking inlands rather than just stepping off the beach into the waiting jaws of the local orca pack. — apokrisis

That's like saying a suicidal person should've just shot themselves instead of CO2 poisoning themselves. Animals can feel fear too.

You're rather frothing at the mouth there, Schop. I'll wait until you've had a chance to calm down.

If lab rats are being used to cure cancer, and this is only way to do it, then I'll support the effort. — darthbarracuda

So it IS justified that they suffer for our benefit? We should shut them in horrible little cages, give them a disease and also drugs, just to see what happens? Or even just give them enough of the drug to discover for a start what is the lethal dose?

This seems confusingly at odds with what you have been saying.

It's when we start talking about hunting animals for fun, eating the flesh of a dead animal for enjoyment, and ignoring the plight of predation and the infirm of the animal world, that I start to have problems with your and others' worldview. It's inconsistent. — darthbarracuda

It is hardly inconsistent that I would weigh up the trade-offs of curing cancer in the same way as anything else. But it is inconsistent that you seem to think inflicting suffering in the name of cancer research is OK for some reason that does not apply to the other cases you cite.

It's not clear how science should be the ultimate guide to morality. — darthbarracuda

My position is that nature constitutes existence. Science is our best inquiry into the character of that existence. Morality should be based on a proper understand of nature as morality is about our actions in the world.

So science doesn't tell you the answer in some way that is different to what we already would do in exercising rationality. It just is the method of inquiry which provides the picture of what is the case regarding the world, the context of our behavioural actions.

...ants behave as though they can recognize themselves in the mirror, — darthbarracuda

OMG. Here we go again! You must be punking me. Congrats.

Not having the stomach to dissect animals isn't the issue here: the issue is dissecting the animals in the first place when there's no good reason to. — darthbarracuda

Well you keep making the presumption about me being the blithe vivisectionist. I'm quite willing to draw my own lines in life.

But my point is that doing so is a complicated ethical business. And right at the beginning I highlighted at least two key issues - human cognition and social proximity - that you left out in your simplistic OP.

And the issue matters to me as you are representing attitudes which claim the status of rational argument but are essentially wishful romantic absolutism.

You're rather frothing at the mouth there, Schop. I'll wait until you've had a chance to calm down. — apokrisis

I still think I made a fine point regarding your ethical stances.. Your claims are simply hypothetical imperatives that you have somehow found more pressing or dominant than others.. The only two I really fathom if I was to put all the "positive" (meaning not criticisms but stances you advocate) are the following:

1) We should work socially (like some Star Trek fashion..at least moderate environmentalist) to preserve nature/the planet, specifically to do away with the dependency on fossil fuels so that humans can exist farther into the future so that they can...

2) Flourish

Claim 1 is simply a truism in modern political (albeit "liberal") aims. It's true that it is not a priority as it could be, and it might also be true that it needs more "willpower" by the nations/actors involved in lessening greenhouse gasses and overuse of fuels for various industrial goods.. BUT
It is also just a hypothetical imperative... One can just as easily go for and to all wars and conflicts, a more robust education system on the sciences, a more equitable distribution of goods, etc. etc. All are just as social and just as pressing in certain areas of the world.

These kind of vague social actions that we all must "work together" towards are not justifications in themselves, but simply asserted goals... "If one wants X outcome.. one would do X thing..". Putting aside the real life challenges of implementing any effort to get a lot of people to put forth effort to achieve an outcome, the real issue is why one assertion matters over another.. THAT needs justification other than circular reasoning. This means it needs more than just arguing "Well don't YOU want this too!! It's so evident..because I see it... I mean, come on people!!" Yeah, that's not much of a justification. Common sense or "it just makes sense" is speaking as if facts just lead to conclusions on their own.. That the universe just speaks to us through common sense.. If that is your position, then fine, but you REALLY have to hone in that whole common sense being the language of the universe thing...

And onto Claim 2.. Flourishing.. What does that mean?
Why do we have to flourish?
What is it about existing that flourishing MUST take place? What NECESSITATES flourishing as having to be done in the first place?

Flourishing, happiness, tranquility and the like are so vague as to be useless unless expanded on in detail.

1) We should work socially (like some Star Trek fashion..at least moderate environmentalist) to preserve nature/the planet, specifically to do away with the dependency on fossil fuels so that humans can exist farther into the future so that they can... — schopenhauer1

My point is that there is a choice - both choices natural in themselves.

So we could create a lifestyle that is predicated on the exponential liberation of fossil fuel. And that's fine in itself. It is not unnatural. Just a rather "live fast, die young" collective strategy.

Or we could seek to construct a lifestyle that is sustainable - one based on renewable energy. That is a conservative and homeostatic ambition - although one that could still be high growth depending on the realities of what we can achieve technologically.

And then more than that, I am saying there are reasons why fossil fuels are winning and not renewables. It is inevitable - usually - that the more urgent desire rules. But hey, we're supersmart humans. So maybe we do have a choice in the matter after all. So let's get talking about that in ways which are realistic.

it might also be true that it needs more "willpower" by the nations/actors involved — schopenhauer1

That's the trouble. Its like allowing McDonalds to exist and hoping a nation exercises its willpower. As soon as you frame the collective problem in this classically romantic fashion - one in which "individual will" is at the centre of everything - then the battle is already lost. A faulty philosophy is going to be the reason you fail.

THAT needs justification other than circular reasoning. — schopenhauer1

Its hierarchical reasoning, not circular reasoning. There's no point fussing about the details if the general structure is not right. And life on earth being a thermodynamic equation - a proton gradient - that balance is the one 7 billion homo sapiens most urgently need to attend to.

You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs right? That is hardly circular is it? More triangular. :)

Flourishing, happiness, tranquility and the like are so vague as to be useless unless expanded on in detail. — schopenhauer1

Did you ever check out positive psychology? What they mean in practice is hardly a secret. Although no-one is going to promise you that you can have it all. That's what Romaticism promises you - and why your life consequently feels like shit because you are so far from what is being promised.

Where does this crazy idea of its "perfection or nothing" come from? Mostly from being conned by a modern individualist and consumerist culture.

Pessimist philosophy in that context is then learnt helplessness - seeking escape from the game as if there is no other alternative.

Yet it is just a game. The rules can be rewritten.

Well up to a point, the ultimate limits being that it still has to be a thermodynamic game. Even suicide only recycles the parts, advances the dissipation, a little ahead of time. There are no perpetual motion machines in this existence.

Or we could seek to construct a lifestyle that is sustainable - one based on renewable energy. That is a conservative and homeostatic ambition - although one that could still be high growth depending on the realities of what we can achieve technologically.

And then more than that, I am saying there are reasons why fossil fuels are winning and not renewables. It is inevitable - usually - that the more urgent desire rules. But hey, we're supersmart humans. So maybe we do have a choice in the matter after all. So let's get talking about that in ways which are realistic. — apokrisis

Again, hypothetical imperative.

That's the trouble. Its like allowing McDonalds to exist and hoping a nation exercises its willpower. As soon as you frame the collective problem in this classically romantic fashion - one in which "individual will" is at the centre of everything - then the battle is already lost. A faulty philosophy is going to be the reason you fail. — apokrisis

Why this "romantic fashion" stuff? I was just discussing the willingness to follow your hypothetical imperative. Nothing about individual wills.. I would assume the legislatures and executive branches would or whatever governments would have to agree and follow through with it.. call that what you will...but your tendency for being dismissive at all costs.. prevents you from actually elaborating on much of your own detail. That seems reasonable being that you are more vulnerable for criticism if you actually have something to claim versus simply taking the critical stance.

Its hierarchical reasoning, not circular reasoning. There's no point fussing about the details if the general structure is not right. And life on earth being a thermodynamic equation - a proton gradient - that balance is the one 7 billion homo sapiens most urgently need to attend to.

You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs right? That is hardly circular is it? More triangular. :) — apokrisis

So it does go back to Maslow's hierarchy, eh? So what makes it hierarchical? What does that even mean in any sense that is not simply a hypothetical imperative? There is nothing of necessity, only of unjustified assertions that X is our goal...but don't ask why.

Did you ever check out positive psychology? What they mean in practice is hardly a secret. Although no-one is going to promise you that you can have it all. That's what Romaticism promises you - and why your life consequently feels like shit because you are so far from what is being promised. — apokrisis

Yep..pretty much where I thought you were going. So the goal to have humans is to have them practice positive psychology? Hmm. Why? Also, sounds like instrumentality is still an issue.

So it IS justified that they suffer for our benefit? We should shut them in horrible little cages, give them a disease and also drugs, just to see what happens? Or even just give them enough of the drug to discover for a start what is the lethal dose?

This seems confusingly at odds with what you have been saying. — apokrisis

Benefit, in this case, is defined as the minimization of harm - harm that is more significant than the harm being applied to the lab rats. The doing/allowing harm distinction does not apply very well in consequentialist ethics.

It is hardly inconsistent that I would weigh up the trade-offs of curing cancer in the same way as anything else. But it is inconsistent that you seem to think inflicting suffering in the name of cancer research is OK for some reason that does not apply to the other cases you cite. — apokrisis

Because we don't need a burger to survive. We don't need to go to the circus to have fun. All of these are examples of exploitation without reason.

If you had the choice between synthetic meat and natural meat - why would you choose the natural meat? The difference between them is that an animal suffered/was killed for your enjoyment.

My position is that nature constitutes existence. Science is our best inquiry into the character of that existence. Morality should be based on a proper understand of nature as morality is about our actions in the world. — apokrisis

You got the last part right, but you got the first part wrong partly. Science can help inform our decisions. But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy.

For every naturalistic claim you present, we can always ask "but is it really moral?" because it does not satisfy the open-ended question.

OMG. Here we go again! You must be punking me. Congrats. — apokrisis

??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. The same applies to birds, dolphins, etc.

Given that neuroscience is in such a baby state right now, we really ought to not be surprised if it actually turns out that different animals can have different ways of experiencing the world, or can attain self-hood in different manners.

At this point you're just ignoring evidence. There is a much higher need for rigorous evidence to show that we ought to not treat something ethically, while if there's any doubt in our mind that they might be sentient, we have an ethical imperative to treat them equally, or at least with basic respect.

But my point is that doing so is a complicated ethical business. And right at the beginning I highlighted at least two key issues - human cognition and social proximity - that you left out in your simplistic OP. — apokrisis

Because these don't matter to morality. They may matter to the pragmatic application of morality but this changes nothing about the theoretical aspects of morality.

You got the last part right, but you got the first part wrong partly. Science can help inform our decisions. But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy. — darthbarracuda

Good point.. and what seems to be a theme.

But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy. — darthbarracuda

Good job I don't say that then.

Getting back to what I did say, why should I treat any notion of the good as something transcendentally abstracted from existence? So naturalism can't be a fallacy in that light. Any rational definition of the good can only make sense within the context of that which exists.

You ought to recognise this from the argument you wanted to make about the irreality of nothingness.

??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. — darthbarracuda

After looking in the mirror? References please.

I disagree. I know science gets the blame for Scientism, but science is perfectly capable of understanding organisms as organisms. And a capacity for creativity and autonomy fits quite happily into the organic perspective. — apokrisis

I think where we are going to disagree is in regard to the meaning of autonomy. For me autonomy consists in the possibility of self-determination in the fullest sense. To be fully self-determined is to not be determined by ego at all. We must be capable of some degree of self-determination to even begin, or to be morally responsible for our actions. This is what it means to be a person, and a person cannot be reduced to a mechanism or even to an organism, for that matter, in my view.

Kant had the right idea, although I don't entirely agree with his method of thinking. He separates reality into the empirical, which is rigidly determined by causality, and the noumenal, which is not. The noumenal leaves room for Kant to believe in God, freedom and immortality.

It might rightly be said that the mechanistic paradigm is no longer relevant, but I can't see how the probabilistic paradigm offers any more hope for a coherent account of autonomy in the fullest sense than the mechanistic paradigm did.

So, for me the way forward is to accept that we cannot give an account, in terms of the world, in terms of biology, genetics and sociology, of radical freedom and responsibility, and the selfhood that is constituted by them. Any account we give will merely be of a watered down faux-freedom, faux-responsibility and faux-selfhood. There is a very important place for mystery, after all. I'm pretty sure this won't be to your taste, though. :)

The fact is that even if you eradicated speciesm from humans you have only made a small dent in specieism as a whole. How are you going to change the minds of all those other animals and if you don't think it is necessary to do so, then you really aren't against specieism - just as Black Lives Matter isn't about all black lives - only about black lives ended by cops. — Harry Hindu


This is a pragmatic argument that does not affect the legitimacy of the OP.

In any case, we would presumably change the minds of predators by eliminating them from the population and restructuring ecosystems so predators cannot exist en masse. A good way of doing this would be to limit the amount of foliage available for herbivores to eat. Thus the population of herbivores would decrease, and the population of carnivores would follow. — darthbarracuda

Now I'm laughing even harder now. Your solution to all the other species committing "specieism" is to commit genocide against them. Do you even think about what you type before you type it?

'??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. — darthbarracuda'

After looking in the mirror? References please. — apokrisis

There is actually some evidence on this front: http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532%28jos%29.pdf

Evidence of what, though, even the authors do not appear to know.

Even if our results suggest a certain degree
of self recognition in ants, they do not explain how ants
take and use such information, how then functions the
underlying cognitive processes, and if ants detain some
self awareness. For many animals, such an assumption is
not unanimous [39, 17]; for ants, we are conscious that it
might even be less plausible.

It's one giant leap to employ this 'evidence' as it has been in this thread.

What is interesting is that every conceivable argument against racism, sexism, or homophobia can be applied to speciesism. Appeals to nature are ad hoc assertions that use the naturalistic fallacy. Appeals to divine law either fail to resolve Euthyphro's dilemma or conflict with independent moral intuitions. Might=right arguments are straight up totalitarianism, as are appeals to cognitive abilities or any other sort of "fitness". Speciesism cannot be held up without leading to a slippery slope. — darthbarracuda

The slippery slope is in assuming that because we believe racism, sexism, and homophobia wrong that we cannot discriminate against anything ever. Why can we eat vegetables, use rocks to build buildings, imprison murderers, own pets, kills roaches in our house, etc.? The difference between rocks, roaches, pigs, and people relates to degrees (or lack of) consciousness, ability to comprehend, and intellectual capacity.

I think where we are going to disagree is in regard to the meaning of autonomy....

...Kant had the right idea, although I don't entirely agree with his method of thinking. He separates reality into the empirical, which is rigidly determined by causality, and the noumenal, which is not. The noumenal leaves room for Kant to believe in God, freedom and immortality. — John

Naturalism says something pretty similar and also exactly opposite based on Peircean semiotics.

So in the semiotic view, autonomy results from the separation of material cause and symbolic cause - the modelling or sign relation. Life is self-determining because it can use remembered/encoded constraints to regulate material/energetic processes.

But this is freedom constructed from "inside" the material flow - arising immanently - and not sourced from without. So it leaves no room for souls, gods, immortality or freedom in some transcendent sense.

So naturalism has an empirical model of what it is talking about - one that can be concretely tested and measured.

Autonomy in the real world is all about turning the accidental - the world's material degrees of freedom - into a useful habit.

The problem I have is that I am unable to see how anything more than an illusion of freedom could result from a semiotic process; if it is understood as entirely materially based. Real freedom cannot be explained for the reason that to do so would make it determinable; which is a contradiction. So I would say it is only a purported freedom (which could never be more than a cognitive illusion of freedom) that can be discursively explained.

There is actually some evidence on this front: — mcdoodle

Yep. I googled and found that. So what is your assessment of its credibility?

The researchers do look credible and their university is reputable. But the paper is published in a rubbish journal and has attracted zero comment. This is a red flag given the result should have really made waves.

For instance, it should have got a reaction like the finding that wasps can learn to recognise the faces of nest mates - http://www.nature.com/news/wasps-clock-faces-like-humans-1.9533

And also the authors make some rather weird comments such as " It is logical that ants try to clean themselves if they see such a strange marking on their head".

It hardly seems logical that such a behaviour could have evolved given when in history has any ant ever before seen itself? Ants don't live in a world of mirrors.

Also, even if the finding holds up, there is other evidence that would argue that the behaviour is not the result of an integrated state of consciousness - the ant brain being too small to support that - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weve-been-looking-at-ant-intelligence-the-wrong-way/

But the experiment as described seems robustly designed. It builds on other work from the same authors. So if it can be replicated, I'm sure it will create a stir.

It is the sort of result I can't believe can be true. Or if it is, it must have a simpler explanation. Yet even that simpler explanation - as with all recent work on arthropod cognition - is going to be surprising.

And surprising because we do project a mechanistic/robotic notion of how brains should work on to neurology. But we are only starting to get to grips with brains in terms of organic or semiotic theories of "computation".

We underestimate insects because we think of them as mindless automatons.

Yet also, like DC, we also underestimate the gap that a new level of semiosis - articulate language - then opens up between humans and all other animals.

So if this ant finding holds up, I would say it makes the mirror test an even less credible test of "self consciousness" than it already was.

Good job I don't say that then. — apokrisis

You literally just said that our morality should be based on scientific discoveries. Doesn't get any more naturalistic than this.

But why? Why should we entropify? Why should we breed and sustain a manageable population and energy output?

The answer to this is that we should do so, not because that is what the universe does, but because doing so presumably will make us happy, comfortable, etc.

Thus the actual point of ethical importance is agential well-being. If you want to argue that the best way of doing this is by following the march of entropy, then fine. But that's just scientifically-informed utilitarianism.

But again, how we focus on welfare is more of a practical and applied ethical issue than a purely normative ethical issue. For you need to have normative ethics before you can even start applying them. Without defining your normative ethical priorities, you end up prescribing action without reason.

Getting back to what I did say, why should I treat any notion of the good as something transcendentally abstracted from existence? — apokrisis

Well, in my opinion (which I've said before), you shouldn't. Goodness is such a queer property that it would be quite difficult to actually find goodness "out there". Hence why I'm an anti-realist: our mental states define and encompass all that is moral. None of this changes anything substantial.

After looking in the mirror? References please. — apokrisis

https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/mirror_test.htm

http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/04/15/list-of-animals-that-have-passed-the-mirror-test/

Ants, admittedly, are probably more of a fluke than anything. But the fact that they scratched off the paint means that, potentially, they are able to recognize what is "normal" in their colonies, and recognize that there are "others" - the recognition of the "other" requires a separation between the other and the self.

Denying this possibility is speciesism, or the disregard of others' rights just because you doubt they have sentience (since it's neither proven nor disproven that they have sentience). It is an unethical leap of faith.

Now I'm laughing even harder now. Your solution to all the other species committing "specieism" is to commit genocide against them. Do you even think about what you type before you type it? — Harry Hindu

No, it's not genocide. It's humanitarianism. Animals cannot take care or advocate for themselves in the way humans can. They live more on instinct than rationality - yet they can suffer all the same. All non-agents are free of responsibility - ethically innocent.

What the ^&$# is humanitarian about letting animals starve to death? You're making no sense at all!

The problem I have is that I am unable to see how anything more than an illusion of freedom could result from a semiotic process; if it is understood as entirely materially based. — John

First, Peircean semiotics takes spontaneity as fundamental. So it already rejects a deterministic ontology even at the cosmological level. In this fashion, it foresaw the shocks of quantum mechanics and complexity theory. It starts with a probabilistic worldview in which chance is inherent.

So there is the raw material - a built-in spontaneity. And then complex systems arise by the regulation of this spontaneity. A complex system can bend chance to its will, harness material accidents so that they achieved desired outcomes.

A Newtonian view of material existence of course makes all spontaneity a paradox. But Newtonianism just describes the Universe as it is in a highly dissipated state - within a degree or two of its final heat death. In talking about life, we are talking about existence that is 300 degrees C hotter, sitting in that heat sink which is 300 degrees C cooler. So there is a huge gradient to exploit - given also the solar radiation arriving at a temperature of about 5000 degrees.

Chance is thus taken for granted. And life sits in the middle of a flow of chance - solar radiation bouncing its way quantumly towards cosmic background radiation. So all life has to do is organise that chance using semiotic machinery.

This is physically what happens. Life is based on respiratory chains - complex proteins that take the energy off an excited election in seven or so steps by setting up a chain of quantum tunelling events. The chain is a sequence of sub-units set apart by precise distances that organises the milking of the electron's energy as a series of discrete and habitual "accidents".

So the underlying quantum behaviour is pure probability. But proteins are coded structures that then give cosmic accidents no choice but to bounce down life's carefully arranged flight of stairs.

So self-determination can be explained now in terms of the biophysics where it first arises. Biology has made contact with the quantum ground of being - via semiotic explanation.

Of course, it is then all "materially based". But it is nothing like materiality as would be traditionally conceived - the Newtonian description of a basically dead and dissipated cosmos. It is materiality regulated by symbol systems.

The Enlightenment was about recognising humans as natural creations with a natural logic. We could consider the basis of human flourishing and create the social, political and ethical institutions to foster that. And recognising the continuity between humans and other animals was a big part of the new thinking. — Apokrisis

Which is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't encompass any over-arching goal, purpose or telos. It might be more equitable for animals, but less so for the 'rational animal'.

It is often said that 'human flourshing' is now a worthwhile goal in its own right, but what constitutes 'flourishing' in the absence of any over-arching good? It easily becomes a matter of opinion and then collapses into relativism.

Endless economic growth seems to be the motive force behind liberal economic theory, however we are rapidly running into absolute constraints as the population rapidly reaches Malthusian limits. And furthermore even within the developed economies, where we are supposed to enjoy the benefits of that progress, there is widespread dissillusionment and unhappiness, as evidenced by rates of suicide, mental illness and substance abuse.

in the semiotic view, autonomy results from the separation of material cause and symbolic cause - the modelling or sign relation. Life is self-determining because it can use remembered/encoded constraints to regulate material/energetic processes.

But this is freedom constructed from "inside" the material flow - arising immanently - and not sourced from without. So it leaves no room for souls, gods, immortality or freedom in some transcendent sense. — Apokrisis

I don't know if that was Peirce's view - he after all remained Christian in some sense, and presumably believed in Heaven.

I would rather believe that the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, actually represents a culmination of the evolutionary process - that (like the view of 'evolutionary enlightenment') we are evolving towards a higher state, one which doesn't solely define itself in economic or biological terms.

But without it, what does freedom amount to, if it's not simply economic choice? I think this is the perceived lack that drives the idea of the conquest of space. Having dispensed with the spiritual notion of heaven, we wish to 'conquer the heavens' instead, using advanced technologies as a way of indefinitely expanding the domain of the natural. There's 'transcendence' - albeit expressed in terms that scientists and engineers can relate to.

Thus the actual point of ethical importance is agential well-being. — darthbarracuda

Sorry but that is precisely the kind of presumption that I would be willing to question. I wouldn't use it as a starting point.

So what I would say is that flourishing and well-being are widely felt to be important as the basis for any ethical system. It reflects what would seem to be inescapably our own self-interest.

But I would then step back from the phenomenological justification to inquire about the natural basis. Why would humans have evolved (both biologically and culturally) to feel this way? And that is where we can see that it makes sense thermodynamically. Life exists as negentropy, or little pockets of organisation, so as to assist the Cosmos in its general entropic flow.

So stepping back to the bigger physical picture - as best we so far understand it through the systematic inquiry of science - we can see that human ethical systems do have a naturalistic logic. They are rational in terms of the rationality of the Cosmos.

You just want to start with "how it feels to me". I am interested in the hypothesis that "how it feels" is always going to be naturally rational. And the hypothesis is holding up pretty good.

As I say, many might be puzzled by climate denial, rampant consumerism, neo-liberalism, gated communities, McDonalds. These seem unnatural and unethical behaviours - according to PC romantic notions that are widespread.

Yet a shift in the entropic basis of the species now can make those behaviours "ethical" and natural. If we endorse the desires of fossil fuels, the things we might object to are in fact morally right.

And if we still feel they are wrong (which I tend to) then we have to dig into just why. And that is where the alternative of a slow burn sustainable entropification can be considered. We can now argue objectively why this is a better moral paradigm.

So my approach to ethical systems presumes nothing except that the Cosmos is rational. Nature has an over-arching self-organising logic. And that then presents us with the choice of either living within that logic or acting counter to it. And in fact, we can't act counter to it in any fundamental sense. But that still gives us a range of choices about the level of "harmony" we opt for.

And again I stress the empirical nature of all this. After making the broadest of presumptions - existence makes its own sense - it then becomes a matter of discovering what the fundamental nature of nature actually is.

Science has the advantage it is an open-ended process of learning. So we can get as close to the truth of things as we feel it matters. The answers one might have given 300 years ago would be much less informed than the ones we can give today.

But again, how we focus on welfare is more of a practical and applied ethical issue than a purely normative ethical issue. For you need to have normative ethics before you can even start applying them. — darthbarracuda

As I have argued, I would always seek to begin with the fewest presumptions about what might be the case. So the guiding norm would be the expectation that the Cosmos is rational. Nature lies there waiting to be discovered. Morality grows out of nature and so it would be questionable to hold to any ethical systems that go against nature. That would be - by definition - irrational and unsustainable (from a personal phenomenological point of view).

Well, in my opinion (which I've said before), you shouldn't. Goodness is such a queer property that it would be quite difficult to actually find goodness "out there". Hence why I'm an anti-realist: our mental states define and encompass all that is moral. — darthbarracuda

Your "out there" is my immanent nature. And your phenomenological "in here" is my hearing you assert transcendent dualism. You treat the mind as if it could exist without a body, without a world.

Sorry, but we should've all moved beyond this kind of atavistic belief.

Ants, admittedly, are probably more of a fluke than anything. But the fact that they scratched off the paint means that, potentially, they are able to recognize what is "normal" in their colonies, and recognize that there are "others" - the recognition of the "other" requires a separation between the other and the self.

Denying this possibility is speciesism, or the disregard of others' rights just because you doubt they have sentience (since it's neither proven nor disproven that they have sentience). It is an unethical leap of faith. — darthbarracuda

As I say, I have no problem with self~other distinction being as basic as it gets in the definition of life. Cell membranes can do it. Gut digestion and immune systems can do it.

And science shows that social wasps can discriminate the faces of nest mates so as to organise their interactions according to complexly hierarchical ranking.

So science continues to surprise our preconceptions about "sentience".

But that cuts both ways. We can't just cherry-pick the findings that support our preconceptions while not listening to the others that question them.

So I am very surprised by this ant finding - even if I already have no trouble believing other recent findings regarding arthropod cognition.

However the evidence that only humans have articulate speech, and thus only humans can evolve culturally encoded habits of "self-conscious introspective awareness", is just as scientific.

You are trying to talk about "sentience" as some generic property - a mind stuff abstracted from the world. This, as I say, is a Romantic hang-over - a dualistic belief in the mental as causally something apart from the world.

Now we all know that there is a Hard Problem when it comes to connecting mind and body. But how much of that problem is due simply to its ontological framing - a belief in the kind of materiality that arose out of a Newtonian model of physical causality? The advantage of a semiotic understanding of physical causality is that it offers now a causal bridge to span the gap.

So my approach is based on naturalising explanations - turning dualistic notions like "sentience" into measurable hypotheses.

I would rather believe that the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, actually represents a culmination of the evoluionary process - that (like the view of 'evolutionary enlightenment') we are evolving towards a higher state, one which doesn't solely define itself in economic or biological terms. — Wayfarer

The issue it can only ever define itself in biological and economic terms. In the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, the culmination is a seeking of biology and economics; if only we had the resources, the biology, to exist forever and ever and ever.

I don't mean this in the crass sense of our bodies or earthly possessions, but rather in the sense of our presence. If only we existed in a way that gave us more and more all the time into perpetuity. Endless resources such that our existence would extend into perpetuity without cost or hitting limits.

The modern world's endless quest for economic growth is, quite literally, the mythos of freedom and immortality transplanted into the world. Like it pre-modern counterparts, it views the goal of existence to endless get more, to live forever, to be free of any Malthusian limits. In neither transcendent camp does anyone have the respect or self-awareness to say: "That's enough. I've obtained all I need. It's okay for me end."

And furthermore even within the developed economies, where we are supposed to enjoy the benefits of that progress, there is widespread dissillusionment and unhappiness, as evidenced by rates of suicide, mental illness and substance abuse. — Wayfarer

You say widespread, but have you measured it?

I'm not disagreeing that there is much that seems far from optimal. But also, it is easy to exaggerate what the majority actually feel.

Also there may be other things going on. The easier you make life for people, the more numerous become the many tiny things that might now get noticed as sources of annoyance, anxiety, etc.

When life is lived in more brute survival mode, you would either have the straightforward alternatives of an unhappy starving belly, or a satisfied full one after the kill.

But as modern developed life removes all the basic sources of unpredictability, the tiny stuff now becomes the focus in all its trivial, unresolvable, multiplicity.

If you have OCD about a neat house, there are just any number of crooked hanging pictures or mismatched cushions you can obsess about. If you fear strangers or spiders, you have the luxury of indulging such existence-irrelevant phobias to an irrational extreme.

So how much of the problems that the pessimists and anti-natalists complain about are problems that exist because all the bigger, simpler, problems have been removed from their lives?

You have to understand the psychology of why people might feel the way they do rather than just take their explanations - life sucks - at face value.

The modern world's endless quest for economic growth is, quite literally, the mythos of freedom and immortality transplanted into the world — Willow

At last! Five years of useless wrangling, and finally we agree on something!

You say widespread, but have you measured it?

I watched an ABC documentary last night on suicide prevention amongst tradesmen in Australia. 'Anecdotal evidence' - I get that. But I think it is a cultural issue, or an issue with a cultural dimension. I think our culture doesn't equip us with a sense of purpose. Of course a lot of people are quite capable of creating their own, but for others, that sense of being alone living a pointless existence is a very widespread condition. (That is what Nietzsche foresaw - the collapse of values, leading to widespread nihilism. I think he was right, but not his proposed 'solution'.)


But to try and focus on the OP - the unique thing about h. sapiens is to be able to discuss and consider these things. I think some animals are aware of mortality - elephants come to mind - but I'm sure that humans are unique in regards to this kind of abstract self-awareness.

So when The Enlightenment rejected 'the supernatural' they sure threw the baby out with the bathwater. The problem is, that nature is now valorised - 'being natural ' is now another form of faux spirituality.

The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Horkheimer

The Eclipse of Reason

What the ^&$# is humanitarian about letting animals starve to death? You're making no sense at all! — Barry Etheridge

Way to misrepresent my position. Animal starvation is a prime example of what we ought to NOT allow. The only way to cut down on this, and other sorts of suffering, is by making compromises. Animals don't need to starve to lower the population anyway.

Speciesism is a reoccurring thought within my mind. I don't know whether it's my belief that all organisms should be given a fair chance on an even-footing, or within a sustained environment that would benefit the individual organism as a whole.

I mean, it would be rather interesting to see how a particular plant or fungi (specifically those two branches of organisms) would take root and flourish without any interference from organisms that would destroy their nourishing environment or cause some sort of mutation within their families...

What are your thoughts on this? O:)

I watched an ABC documentary last night on suicide prevention amongst tradesmen in Australia. — Wayfarer

There is no doubt there is a problem. And yet ethnologists find high levels of happiness in villagers living very basic lives in large parts of the world.

So it is a question that has to be studied systematically if you want to draw strong conclusions.

Are the tradies unhappy because they are no longer craftsmen but simply hammer hands of various description? Are they unhappy because masculinity itself is now problematic for tradesmen?

DC and Schop would have us believe the tradies are unhappy because they have discovered life is an existential charade with no true meaning. But I would doubt that. I would inquire first after their particular social circumstances and its distance from the kind of "village scale life" that is the most natural psychic state of being arguably.

The problem is, that nature is now valorised - 'being natural ' is now another form of faux spirituality. — Wayfarer

Yes and no. I don't see nature as being "spiritual" in some traditional ontological sense. That is a Romantic notion of nature - one in which humans and their messy social lives is exactly what is missing. The Romantic just wants the fluffy kittens and the starkly beautiful mountain ranges. Humanity is the ugly bit.

But in terms of an emotional connection, I think "nature" is what makes existence meaningful. And it is that messy nature - that mix of competition and co-operation, that cycle of life and death - which is then what I would feel like celebrating. The best cities are like the best countryside - organic.