Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz — Janus

It ought be a lesson that three brilliant folk, using supposedly the same approach, came to three such different results...

Don't see how this follows from your first paragraph. — Banno

Behaviour guided by Reason, means that the behaviour necessarily follows from some premise. This is possible, but in that case, which premise? Hence, the existence of unknown mental faculties that are not Reason and that also inspire behaviour; most likely more often than Reason.

Yes, I know what you mean. But humanity operates from within the so-called "hermeneutic circle" of its present knowledge and understanding, and does not need any ultimate premise to ground all subsequent ones. It is as though reasonableness is cumulative as understanding grows, but never absolute, or based on any absolute foundation.

Think of science: there are certain things it is reasonable to believe in light of science and others things that are not. The premise here would be the totality of scientific understanding as it is now known, or rather attempted (by any individual) to be known. So today it would be unreasonable per se, and not merely on some premise or other, to claim that the earth is flat, for example.

OK, I see. I was just suggesting that actions might or might not be motivated by reason, regardless of whether they could be established to be, post hoc, reasonable; that is all.

True that. Philosophies are not absolutely right or wrong, but more or less significant moments in the general evolution of thought. In that much at least I agree with Hegel.

In that much at least I agree with Hegel. — Janus

Hrmph. I've often thought that if you find yourself in agreement with Hegel, you're doing it wrong.

Being post hoc does not make one's reasons wrong.

I disagree with Hegel on most counts, but I think he got it right that thought is evolutionary and dialectical and that great philosophies are not great because they are absolutely true, but because they are significant dialectical moments in that evolution, but he was not right that the dialectic is teleological or that its culmination is Absolute Knowing.

Agreed.

OK, I'll grant that.

Yes, I know what you mean. But humanity operates from within the so-called "hermeneutic circle" of its present knowledge and understanding, and does not need any ultimate premise to ground all subsequent ones. It is as though reasonableness is cumulative as understanding grows, but never absolute, or based on any absolute foundation. — Janus

Yes, agreed.

The hermeneutic circle (German: hermeneutischer Zirkel) describes the process of understanding a text hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle.

There is clearly some truth to that. For example, the foundations of (classical) mathematics are considered impredicative (circular). I personally suspect that all mathematics rest on impredicative foundations, but that is not how the problem is traditionally phrased. So, I will limit the problem to "classical" mathematics (but I do not really believe in that limitation).

Still, mathematics may not have ramified foundations, but the remainder of mathematics is still exclusively built on these (possibly) circular foundations and is therefore ramified.

Mathematics is very intrusive and possibly unavoidable in other spheres, if only because logic has been annexed into mathematics in the 19th century. If mathematics -- which is our stock of syntactic consistency-maintaining formalisms -- has that problem already, everything else (which provides the actual semantics to knowledge) will not be any better ...

Think of science: there are certain things it is reasonable to believe in light of science and others things that are not. The premise here would be the totality of scientific understanding as it is now known, or rather attempted to be known. — Janus

Unlike mathematics, science provides real-world semantics. So, the situation will only be worse there. What's more, there is a lot of academically-accredited ideology masquerading as science. But even real science is at best a Platonic-cave shadow of the true laws of nature, i.e. the true but unknown construction logic of the universe. Scientists may not necessarily stick to advocating theories that have effectively resisted experimental testing, i.e. the sound Platonic-cave shadows. They will happily sell opioids and kill a large number of people in the process, based on mere conjecture.

So it would be unreasonable per se, and not merely on some premise or other, to claim that the earth is flat, for example. — Janus

Yes, agreed. There really are sound Platonic-cave shadows. They obviously exist. Not all purported science is produced by opioid-flogging charlatans. There is science that is real science, i.e. Platonic-cave shadows that are impressively resilient to falsification by experimental testing.

Of course, this real science also exists.

:cool:

Off to work now; "see" y'all later...

Here, for your convenience, is the argument thus far:

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued.
2. Only a subject can value something
3. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject.
4. If moral values are my valuings, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
5. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable.
6. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject who is not me. — Bartricks

Not all value is moral value. On that ground I reject 4. So, 5 and 4 contradict one another and/or are otherwise incompatible/mutually exclusive.

you think the Euthyphro is not the main basis upon which contemporary moral philosophers reject divine command theories??? It is. If you don't believe me, e-mail one — Bartricks

I am not making the claim, you are. It a sign of a poor argument that you make outlandish claims and then pass the burden of proof to anyone opposing them. The vast majority of modern ethicists are atheist, so they dismiss divine command theory on the basis that God does not exist. Euthyphro is an hypothetical argument to bridge the gap linguistically (and for theists themselves to refine their conception). It cannot, obviously, be the actual basis on which divine command theory is rejected by those who, separately, have already concluded that there is no God to do the commanding.

I accept that they are going to be sceptical about that, but not because it is not plausible in itself, but because accepting it would then entail a subjectivist position in ethics - a position they think is incompatible with the previous premise! — Bartricks

Right. So you admit that it is reasonable to assume, within an argument, that the majority of rational people who have given the matter serious thought, are nonetheless very much mistaken. You've literally just assumed that as a central requirement for your argument to work.

So you cannot, remaining consistent, then also assume that your premises are most plausible for the very reason you later dismiss (that most rational people who have given the matter serious thought are right).

In addition, you have, again, failed to provide a shred of evidence in support of your assertion that the apparent contradiction with objective ethics is the reason why most moral philosophers reject the idea of morals as valuings.

Let's start with a representative from each of the main traditions. Take Phillipa Foot for the virtue ethicists, Lucy Allais for the deontologists and Peter Singer for the consequentialists. Where in any of their writings is your textual support for the contention that they reject morals as valuing because to not do so leaves them no other way to achieve categoricity?

They aren't so different, just talk about different topics. Largely, the are translatable into each other. The differences of one we can put in the context of others without really causing a contradiction or disagreement.

The Rosetta Stone is to understand God as univocal being rather than an existing creator of causality.

, even then, we must each decide whether to follow the divine command or no. — Banno

The OP thinks that if a moral statement seems true to him, it's necessarily true. He's declared himself to be a divinity and therefore needs no external divine commands.

Divine commands are usually understood in a framework of human fallibility. The OP needs to explain why he apparently isn't fallible. Without that, his argument crumbles.

Yes.

You do realize your open question challenge has failed, right? You haven't pressed the Euthyphro, but made instead a completely different criticism

You mistakenly think that my view somehow commits me to the view that 'right' means the same as 'prescribed by reason'. That's just false. As false as thinking that Superman means the same as Clark Kent and that water means the same as H2O.

Haha, I was never off track!! Your criticism doesn't work. Funny. You think you've got me on the ropes. You really, really haven't.

Strange how? And how on earth am I confused? I am literally the only one who is not confused. This is the dementia ward for the philosophically touched and I'm the doctor trying to explain to everyone that the war is over, I'm not their son, and their partner's been dead for years. Come on, I dare you - de-confuse me.

Megalomania has a poor prognosis.

Here, for your convenience, is the argument thus far:

1. For something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued.
2. Only a subject can value something
3. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject.
4. If moral values are my valuings, then if I value something necessarily it is morally valuable
5. If I value something it is not necessarily morally valuable.
6. Therefore, for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by a subject who is not me. — Bartricks
Not all value is moral value. On that ground I reject 4. So, 5 and 4 contradict one another and/or are otherwise incompatible/mutually exclusive. — creativesoul

Which premise says that all value is moral value? None of them. (And for the sake of EricH - who has trouble with this sort of thing - 'none of them' includes 4). 4 and 5 do not contradict. I have no idea how you could think that unless you use the word 'contradict' to mean 'are consistent with one another'.

Nausea and megalomania - you're in a bad way. You think if you say things they're thereby made true - so that's the megalomania. And speaking to me makes you feel sick ,you said. So there's the nausea. Masochist too, presumably.

Calm down.

And there we go, focussing on me and not the argument! That's actually what I recommend - attack me, not the argument. I mean you tried the latter and it didn't go well, did it? You punched me on my fist with your face.

More bad advice. Anything else Jesus said that you want me to refute?

if your values are moral, then what you value is necessarily valuable. Right?

But you have no way of knowing if your values are truly moral.

So how do you decide what to do?

You can't say reason. Do you see why?

If my values and moral values are synonymous - that is, if my valuings are moral values - then yes, what I value is necessarily moral. Just as if gold is water, then if I have some gold I necessarily have some water.

Note the word 'If' at the beginning. I am not saying my values are moral values. I am arguing the precise opposite. So well done for not being able to follow arguments at all. I mean, not at all. Good job.

Anyway, debates between us get tedious and - for you - nauseating very fast, so I am off to bed now and you can go and find a toilet to be sick in.

All you can ever do is hope that you're being reasonable and so moral without knowing for sure.

Therefore your morality does not proceed from reason. It proceeds from what you think the divine has prescribed.

So if your argument holds, it's irrelevant to your life and the lives of everyone else.

It's the castle that cant be taken, but it sends out no troops to harass anyone, so we can pass by it without concern (Schopenhauer's take on subjective idealism).

'If'. It said 'if'. If you look up if, you will find out that you have completely and utterly misunderstood my simple, valid and sound argument.