You don't know?

You don't know? — Janus

Not really. It seems like anything can be called sophistry nowadays.

Sophistry. Hmm. What is it? — Wallows

It's a type of jellyfish.

Anything can be called anything either correctly or incorrectly. Traditionally the Sophists were those in Ancient Greece who taught the art of rhetoric with the aim of developing proficiency in winning arguments. Winning arguments is just about people's opinions or perceptions: and philosophy is not concerned about that and is not about winning arguments. Sophistry can involve a whole range of techniques which are generally considered from a philosophical perspective, to be fallacies. Of course, I was also being sophistic in calling Terrapin out for his sophistry; but sophistry is the only adequate response to sophistry; or if it is inadequate, at least it doesn't involve much effort. :joke:

But the difference of quality is obvious in extremis, so we know that Shakespeare is better literature than Mills and Boon, and we know that Bach created greater musical works than probably anyone today, and that Da Vinci is a greater artist than the middle class hobby painter. We know that acts of love are morally better than acts of hate, and so on. — Janus

None of those "in extremis" examples are factual, true, correct. They're simply opinions that one can have. — Terrapin Station

I think that's just bullshit; — Janus

"That's sophistry" isn't an adequate response to the objection. — Terrapin Station

You're both kind of right. But Terrapin wins in my assessment of this exchange. It does seem obvious, and calling it bullshit will likely seem agreeable on the surface to many people.

But can you provide reasonable support for such claims without the added qualifications? If calling something obvious or bullshit or sophistry is adequate here, then why not in other contexts in philosophy? Where is one to draw the line? Is it just whatever Janus says goes, or is it another appeal to the masses, or what?

No, it involves cunninglinguistics. No one wants to be caught in flagrante delicto.

You make the usual mistake of thinking it is all a matter of opinion, and this is shallow thinking, as well as being the definition of sophistry. Winning or losing is all about opinion, but that is not philosophy; see the difference? You should loosen your grip on the need to think in terms of winning, that is in terms of black and white, if you aspire to one day actually be wise.

You make the usual mistake of thinking it is all a matter of opinion, and this is shallow thinking, as well as being the definition of sophistry. Winning or losing is all about opinion, but that is not philosophy; see the difference? You should loosen your grip on the need to think in terms of winning, that is in terms of black and white, if you aspire to one day actually be wise. — Janus

You are in no position to talk to me about wisdom when you deliberately miss the point like that and take a cheap shot instead. Go on then, you can scuttle away now that you've predictably exploited my use of that term and spewed out some patronising drivel, if that's all you care about. (Hmm... evasion, exploitation of language, patronising drivel... now what does that remind me of...?)

I meant it in the sense that, in my assessment, he presented a more reasonable or compelling case. And by that criteria, I consider him to have "won". And there's nothing wrong with that. Not that I have to justify myself to one such as you.

(Hmm... evasion, exploitation of language, patronising drivel... now what does that remind me of...?) — S

Yourself?

Yourself? — Janus

Prévisible.

It doesn't matter to me. It's simply an issue of whether Janus really cares about "actually being wise." If he does, he'll have to meet objections better than the old "that's sophistry" blowoff, for the sake of his own intellectual integrity. Maybe he doesn't care about "actually being wise" and it's just an ego thing for him, though.

In what way is legality the demarcation of morality? The constitution as an example is deeply inconsistent and flawed (mainly in refusing to acknowledge anything preterlegal) lacking internal consistency. An individual can be personally morally consistent far beyond the constitution or legal-illegal dichotomy. In other words, if any and all components of legalism are lacking internal consistency before a human being even becomes aware of them, the law has been broken by itself before it has even been applied. And only an internally inconsistent subject would rigidly adhere to such laws or assume morality and legality are related concepts. The question is barely moot inasmuch as this holds.

Glad you corrected yourself lol

Glad you corrected yourself lol — Anaxagoras

:monkey:

Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?

Lets look at illegal and drugs separately for the moment.

Is it immoral to do anything illegal?

Surely we can imagine situations in which most would feel that obeying a law would be immoral. Suppose for example you are in Nazi Germany and it is against the law to lie to the officer at your door about Jews you are hiding.

It seems to me that the question of whether an action is immoral is independent the question of whether it is legal. One is not a function of the other. Not all immoral actions are necessarily illegal and not all illegal actions are necessarily immoral.

Consider the act of questioning the morality of a law. Is it a good law? If what is illegal is automatically what is immoral and what is legal is automatically morally permissible, then it would impossible to morally interrogate the law.

Consider, for one thing, that different societies have different laws, and sometimes these laws are in conflict.

We also run into a question analogous to that asked in the Euthyphro dialogue: Is it good because the gods love it or do the gods love it because it is good? In our case, we would substitute "laws" for "gods".

Is it wrong because it is illegal or is it illegal because it is wrong?

Let's take the former, wrong because illegal. That would suggest that something isn't wrong until it is made illegal. So creating laws creates immorality. It was okay to murder until they outlawed the practice. Now it is suddenly wrong.

Now let's take latter, illegal because wrong. This seems more reasonable. But of course it means that the question of whether something is wrong precedes the question of whether it is legal. We ask first if it is wrong. If it is, we make it illegal. But the question of its wrongness is prior to the question of its legality. Legality is then not what determines morality. But can we be sure that no mistakes are ever made here? And do the laws exhaust all matters of morality?

Does wrongness entail illegality?

Does illegality entail wrongness?

No and no.

It seems clear that the question of whether something is immoral or not should be asked independently of whether it is legal.

Now, let's ask if it is wrong to do drugs. Is it wrong to do antibiotics? Perhaps it must be mind-altering. How about caffeine? How about a beer with friends after a day of mountain biking? How about an Adderall when you are sleep-deprived to help you get through the exam that you need to pass in order to get a good job and support your future children?

Are all drugs the same? Does it even make sense to ask if it is moral to do drugs in general? Don't different drugs have very different effects? Wouldn't it make the most sense to say that whether something has certain effects is what makes it immoral rather than whether it is a drug?

Suppose the question is one of harm. Alcohol is a legal drug. Cocaine is an illegal drug. Datura is legal. Henbane is legal. Kratom is legal. Bath salts are legal. Does the legality here make any difference to the question of whether doing any of these drugs is harmful? There is plenty of evidence of alcohol's harmfulness, despite its legality.

Maybe it is immoral to do drugs if they are harmful rather than if they are illegal. Perhaps? So maybe the question of legality is irrelevant to morality.

Suppose that doing certain drugs is harmful because if you get caught, you go to jail and cease to be a functioning member of society and cease to be a parent to your children. If harmfulness is what determines immorality, then maybe illegality can be the cause of the immorality.

There are harmful drugs that are legal. Could there be harmless drugs that are nevertheless illegal? Would it be immoral to do those ones? Suppose there are beneficial drugs that are illegal. How about those? Is such a situation unimaginable? Do you scoff at the possibility that a drug is beneficial and nevertheless illegal? Why? Because governments never do anything bad, never make bad laws?

What about so-called "performance enhancing" drugs? Consider "performance enhancing" all by itself, without considering the harms you think go with certain drugs often classified in this way. It is thought wrong by some to use performance enhancing drugs because they enhance performance, not because they are harmful, precisely because they are thought to be a form of cheating, because everything is a competition and it is unfair to have an advantage. But I thought it was harmfulness that makes drugs bad! Now it is benefit too?

If it is bad to take something that degrades performance, like heroin, one might be tempted to think that if a drug is shown to have a net performance enhancing effect, everyone should be taking it. If it should be against the law to degrade your performance, perhaps it should be the law that we are all required to take anything that enhances us, as we seem to be saying that the law should prohibit us from performing worse. To not use such drugs is to perform worse. How about that? Fun, no?

Suppose the principle of legislation is this:

If it makes us worse, make it illegal.

It should then be illegal to oversleep, to undersleep, to not exercise, to exercise too much, to overeat, to undereat, and so on. You get the idea.

Suppose we simultaneously have this principle:

If it gives users an advantage over non-users, make it illegal.

Anyone see any trouble here?

And if something degrades performance or possibly does grievous harm, why should the question of whether it is a drug or not matter to whether or not it should be illegal or immoral?

As for Socrates, did he always preach obedience to the law?

“Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy... Understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.”

Besides, does "Socrates said we should do X" entail that we should do X? Socrates says it is immoral, therefore it is immoral. Fallacious, obviously. Appeal to authority.

And what of the motivations for making certain drugs illegal and not others? Consider the claim that has been made that the Nixon administration pursued the war on drugs to defeat political enemies. Here is an alleged quote from Ehrlichman (source):

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people," former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman told Harper's writer Dan Baum for the April cover story published Tuesday.

"You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Now, in the Trump era, when everyone on the right "knows" that the everything in the non-Fox mainstream media is "fake news", especially CNN, some might question this article, since it comes from CNN. Let's put the question of whether it is factual aside. Make it hypothetical that it is accurate. Suppose that the primary reason for criminalizing some drugs was to jail and thus politically silence certain groups, to basically deactivate and persecute and even prevent the reproduction of certain political groups. What then? Is it immoral to do those drugs because it was made illegal by these people? Is it immoral to be a member of these groups? Is it immoral to have those political beliefs?

Suppose all right-wingers use drug A and all left-wingers use drug B. Now suppose left-wingers gain the power to outlaw drug A and thus to put right-wingers in jail. Is it immoral to do drug A and not drug B? Now right-wingers are all criminals and presumably also bad people, perhaps even "evil".

Recently, Jeff Sessions said, "Good people don't smoke marijuana." Well, conveniently, marijuana is more associated with the political left than the right and Sessions is a right-winger. What if we said that "good people don't drink scotch"? He probably drinks something. Most people he considers good probably drink at least occasionally. After all, Winston Churchill is often reputed to have been an alcoholic. And he didn't he say that good people don't smoke marijuana when it is illegal. It is now legal in some places.

Are people bad if they smoke marijuana in Texas but not in Colorado? If so, we need to change the laws to make it legal everywhere, as laws prohibiting the drug are therefore making people bad!

How do you do emojis like that?

Click the smiling face icon, top right, above the text box.

:razz: :razz: :razz: :razz:

Got it...

Wow all that education and still unwise.... Thank you my good friend...btw please if you have more questions in my thread feel free to ask...Hard questions please

Prétentieux

You're welcome, although your judgement on wisdom is less so.

Touché. :grin:

Drugs are harmful to oneself and its effects spread out from there like a wave into everything else. — TheMadFool

No. I use gabapentin and cannabis to mitigate the unpleasant effects of MS. The MS is harmful; the drugs help to moderate that harm. Isn't everything we partake of, a drug, in some sense? Maybe even water?

I don't think blanket statements help. :chin:

I have seen what addiction or habitual use of pot does to families and children and it is not a pleasant reality. [...] The moral is addictive substances can lead to a lot of avoidable human pain and suffering for generations and we need to stop denying that. — Athena

However, pot is likely one of the best medicines nature has given us and hemp has many good purposes. We need to be more rational about growing and using marijuana. — Athena

I can't relate these two snippets, even though one follows directly after the other. Are you for or against ... or some other position?

Could we look at gambling addiction, and honestly say it's any less damaging than (say) alcohol addiction?

I think addiction is the problem. :chin:

Drugs are just one thing we can become addicted to.

Pattern-chaser

Both are true. Keep in mind water is essential to life and it can kill.

Addiction to anything, including sugar, is harmful. An addiction turns us into slaves to the substance or behavior. Even exercising is addicting. In rats and humans the habit of exercising becomes physical in that the our bodies will become uncomfortable if we stop exercising when we are in the habit of exercising, same as we feel hungry when we need food. Our addictions are physical cravings, and they control our thinking. We can use our mental powers to stop addictions but it is not easy to break some addictions and avoid returning to the substance or activity that is addictive.

Does wrongness entail illegality?

Does illegality entail wrongness?

No and no.

It seems clear that the question of whether something is immoral or not should be asked independently of whether it is legal. — petrichor

:100:

Don't know if it's been posited here yet (haven't read everything), but:

Perhaps it is immoral not to do illegal drugs.

Perhaps it is immoral not to do illegal drugs. — Merkwurdichliebe

:lol:

Yes, I would take it further than that. Not only is it immoral not to do illegal drugs, the law should be changed such that it is illegal not to do so.

Refusing to pop a pill should carry a heavy prison sentence.