As I understand him, Kant specifically suggests we take on a proscribed, deontological approach that we should all implement so that a rigid moral code is established. He's really not into everyone having their own take. — Tom Storm

I think you're being as rigid as you claim Kant is.

Forget that part... — Nickolasgaspar

Well, no. it is a logical error in your account. But we can come back to it later.

That is because you assume that thought is reducible to neuroscience, which is precisely the meaning of 'neuroscientific reductionism — Wayfarer

-No I don't really have to assume anything.
I only observe the objective facts provide by our epistemology and I use the Null Hypothesis to identify the default position on this subject.
Our current epistemology demonstrates the Necessity and Sufficiency of brain mechanisms for the emergence of human mind states.
On the other hand I have zero facts indicating the existence of an alternative Necessary or Sufficient explanation. Do you have any?

There are many criticisms of neuroscientific reductionism which are too voluminous to try and give an account of here. — Wayfarer

-Criticisms based on metaphysical worldviews are useless in Epistemology. What they need to provide is objective independently reproducible evidence in favor of their alternative framework.

But I would argue that it's a mistake to ascribe semantic content to neurological data. Semantic content, which is the content of meaningful statements, is of a different order to the kinds of data the neuroscience deals with. Saying that neurobiological signals 'mean' something or 'transmit meaning' is projecting semantic value onto neurological signals — Wayfarer

-Your argument makes no sense from a scientific perspective. Meaning is a characteristic infused in our conscious states by an other property of mind known as Symbolic Language. it turns out that reasoning affections and emotions in to feeling and concepts has an evolutionary and survival advantage for organisms with brains. Not only its is a necessary ingredient of our conscious states,but we can accurately decode the semantic content of conscious thoughts by just read brain scans (Carnegie Mellon 2017)

But neuroscience itself is nowhere near to understanding this process on a practical level. — Wayfarer

-This is a common misconception based on personal incredulity and the result of a wishful thought . A quick search in a popular databased of Neuroscience can reveal to anyone that we know a great deal of things on how meaning arises in our brains and which mechanisms are responsible for this mental property.
https://neurosciencenews.com/?s=how+the+brain+meaning

AND this is the best chance to point out how Pseudo Philosophy "looks like".
When people make claims that are disconnected for science and our current epistemology ...those claims are doomed to be unwise, wrong and pseudo philosophical!

So neuroscientific reductionism is said to commit the 'mereological fallacy', that is, the ascription of what conscious agencies are able to do, to only one part of the organism, namely, the brain. — Wayfarer

-This is an other factually wrong statement about science.
Mental properties are emergent phenomena products of the function of a complex system, so by definition a reductive approach is useless to study the phenomenon. This is why Complexity Science is the right tool for emergent phenomena.
You are trying on purpose (or due to ignorance) to promote a strawman picture of science that has nothing to do with the actual methodology used in the field.

Besides, that is not the point of the emerging science of biosemiosis is the sense in which signs (and therefore meaning) are inherent in all living processes, even very simple ones like single-celled organisms. That is in turn connected with the view that rational sentient beings such as ourselves don't live in a world comprising physical objects, but a world comprising meanings - the meaning-world or 'umwelt' which is interpreted by us as (among other things) a physical domain. — Wayfarer

I guess my above remarks on your knowledge about neuroscience raise red flags anytime you attempt to criticize the science...

No it isn't a logical error...ITS just irrelevant to the subject in question.
The mistake is to assume jumps.....when I describe the tools I use and you avoid challenging them.

Chronicling is NOT Philosophy. Kant or any other great philosopher of the past didn't have access to the epistemology available to us today....so its mainly a waste of time to either criticize outdated philosophy or to try and understand what they really meant when you can use our current knowledge and arrive to informed and far superior philosophical conclusions.
That is not a rule of course....

Our current epistemology demonstrates the Necessity and Sufficiency of brain mechanisms for the emergence of human mind states. — Nickolasgaspar

‘It’ does no such thing. There is no such consensus. This is a philosophy forum, as such knowledge of neuroscience is not assumed or necessary, although at least some knowledge of philosophy would be considered desireable.

Our current epistemology demonstrates the Necessity and Sufficiency of brain mechanisms for the emergence of human mind states.
— Nickolasgaspar

‘It’ does no such thing. There is no such consensus. This is a philosophy forum, as such knowledge of neuroscience is not assumed or necessary, although at least some knowledge of philosophy would be considered desireable. — Wayfarer

:up:

Chronicling is NOT Philosophy. Kant or any other great philosopher of the past didn't have access to the epistemology available to us today....so its mainly a waste of time to either criticize outdated philosophy or to try and understand what they really meant when you can use our current knowledge and arrive to informed and far superior philosophical conclusions.
That is not a rule of course.... — Nickolasgaspar

:up: Thanks for letting us know. Philosophers have blind spots, like everyone else I suppose.

Did you check the data base I sent you? You will keep denying facts?
Let me provide the definition of Pseudo philosophy.
"What is pseudo-philosophy?
Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion,(premises that aren't verified)
and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. (scientifically ignorant)
And isn't corrected when discovered." (what you do by not correcting your factual wrong claims).

-"This is a philosophy forum, as such knowledge of neuroscience is not assumed or necessary,"
-By skipping epistemology and science, these two essential steps for any philosophical inquiry you render your claims pseudo philosophical by definition.
When a claim isn't based on knowledge or is in direct conflict with knowledge...it can never be wise!
Wisdom(wise claims) is the actual goal of Philosophy...its in the etymology of the term!
So lack of wisdom means lack of any philosophical value in your claims.!

You understand why up-voting his claim is an objectively wrong thing to do ...right?

Chronicling is NOT Philosophy. Kant or any other great philosopher of the past didn't have access to the epistemology available to us today....so its mainly a waste of time to either criticize outdated philosophy or to try and understand what they really meant when you can use our current knowledge and arrive to informed and far superior philosophical conclusions. — Nickolasgaspar

Science has learned a lot since the 1700s and the questions we ask have changed, but I don't see that the fundamentals of epistemology have changed.

:up: Thanks for letting us know. Philosophers have blind spots, like everyone else I suppose. — Agent Smith

And not only that.....the available epistemology during their time was not enough to assist them in their work.

maybe you are right and I can see cases where chronicling is not only helpful but also insightful.
But in this case we are all posting opinions on a thread labeled "Can morality be absolute?
and no one (except me) talks about Secular Morality and Situational ethics that is the back bone of the modern Judiciary system (which if far from being adequate). Instead most of you visit ideas that they are either tautologies or factually wrong (based on modern knowledge) or metaphysical at best.

I agree with you - there's a lot of stuff that people present as philosophy but ain't. You provided a list in another thread on what pseudo-philosophy is and it was an eye-opener.

I up-voted Wayfarer's post because truth be told, our knowledege on consciousness is full of holes and so long as that's the case, people are justified in challenging any position one assumes on the nature of the mind.

I up-voted Wayfarer's post because truth be told, our knowledege on consciousness is full of holes and so long as that's the case, people are justified in challenging any position one assumes on the nature of the mind. — Agent Smith

Sure....but looking the holes will never allow ''you" to see what we know.
His actual statement was that:

But neuroscience itself is nowhere near to understanding this process on a practical level — Wayfarer

...when he can easily visit a neuroscience database and learn the roles of the Ascending Reticular Activating System and the Central Lateral Thalamus in establishing and introducing content in our conscious states!
Not knowing everything doesn't mean we know nothing....right?
Go to neurosciencenews.com and search the key phrase "how the brain does" and add any mind property you want...from memory, meaning to consciousness and pattern recognition.
The fact is that we known (science) far more things that philosophers want to admit.
I get it, consciousness and the mind in general is the last field of study that still justifies some paychecks to philosophers so its on their favor to ignore our epistemology.

Sure....but looking the holes will never allow ''you" to see what we know. — Nickolasgaspar

:up:

ITS just irrelevant to the subject in question. — Nickolasgaspar

This ought be compulsory reading for anyone entering into a discussion of ethics.

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation,’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it … am persuaded, that a small attention [to this point] wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason. — Hume

I agree with you - there's a lot of stuff that people present as philosophy but ain't. You provided a list in another thread on what pseudo-philosophy is and it was an eye-opener. — Agent Smith

This makes me really happy to hear. Most individuals in here stick to their guns even when facts hit them in the face with a big metal sign with bold letter spelling "facts".

Again....chronicling is NOT philosophy. That is one of the ten problems in modern Philosophy identified by Bunge in his book "Philosophy in crisis".
Now can you offer a critic similar to Hume's but this time on the system of moral evaluation I described or this is where our conversation ends?

chronicling is NOT philosophy — Nickolasgaspar

But comprehending the is/ought distinction is.

What I mean , do you see a "god" in my system?..And don't be confused, Moral pronouncements are NOT the same with moral evaluations based on Objective principles,at least this is what I am trying to challenge in this idea...by exposing to your eyes.

But comprehending the is/ought distinction is. — Banno

This is a really cheap excuse sir. The goal of ethics is to define these oughts!
So you confuse subjective unfounded declarations with objective moral evaluations.
We need to agree on the principle and you avoid this conversation.
I think we are done here.

↪Banno What I mean , do you see a "god" in my system?..And don't be confused, Moral pronouncements are NOT the same with moral evaluations based on Objective principles,at least this is what I am trying to challenge in this idea...by exposing to your eyes. — Nickolasgaspar

What?

As in, I do not understand what you are trying to say in that post.

This is a really chip excuse sir. The goal of ethics is to define these oughts!
So you confuse subjective unfounded declarations with objective moral evaluations.
We need to agree on the principle and you avoid this conversation.
I think we are done here. — Nickolasgaspar

Here's a principle for you: there is a difference between saying how things are and saying how they ought to be.

Do you agree?

This makes me really happy to hear. Most individuals in here stick to their guns even when facts hit them in the face with a big metal sign with bold letter spelling "facts". — Nickolasgaspar

:up: You stick to your guns as well! So, fair and square, oui?

the difference is that I have acknowledged the beating I suffered by that metal sign and I gave up my comforting beliefs.

Interesting. If someone were to say that physicists don't need to pay attention to f=ma, that talking about Newton's ideas was just chronicling and not physics, would anyone here give them credence?

the difference is that I have acknowledged the beating I suffered by that metal sign and I gave up my comforting beliefs. — Nickolasgaspar

Ok, ok, you're better than the rest of us. :smile:

Interesting. If someone were to say that physicists don't need to pay attention to f=ma, that talking about Newton's ideas was just chronicling and not physics, would anyone here give them credence? — Banno

NO sir! The difference is that Newton's idea is still established KNOWLEDGE with technical applications while in philosophy you will find pseudo philosophy, metaphysics, deepities, unfalsifiable speculations side by side with great ideas like Objectivism, naturalism, Humanism,Set Theory, Symbolic Logic, Reduction of Mathematics to Axioms & Logic, Transfinite Mathematics, Game Theory, Modal Logic, Bayesian Epistemology, Consequentialism etc etc.
So a more proper example would be if physicists DID pay attention to alchemy or astrology....

not better....more rational and I accept the rules of the game.