We need a kind of Rosetta Stone to enable analytic philosophers to make sense of what existentialists are saying. — Wayfarer

And it's really interesting the way this intersects with your and @J's interest in "the view from nowhere," because Sider is presupposing it. He thinks there is a neutral conceptual space where interlocutors can communicate without misunderstanding, and the only question is how to arrive at this holy grail. Apparently in this iteration it is to be done by the coining of new terms.

Or course in one sense it is true that we overcome disagreement by being clear about what our words mean, and disambiguation can aid in this—including the disambiguation that occurs via the coining of new terms in order to distinguish the various senses of a contentious term. But this never leads to a Rosetta Stone. There is no master key to be had that will unlock all of the doors of meaning and mutual understanding—at least this side of heaven.

I find the term disgusting — J

You should try carving up a cow or a pig without any regard to the joints.

the structure of concepts – their relations, groundings, logics – is something we can discern regardless of the words we use. — J

No, it's not. Concepts are conveyed and understood via words.

Plan B is an attempt to help everyone concerned to find a way to stop disagreeing about words and get on with doing metaphysics. — J

Any disagreement involves disagreements about words, including metaphysical disagreements.

The problem with Sider's proposal is this. Suppose we coin a new word, call it 'yik'. Yik has no meaning, and in order to give it meaning one must stipulate its meaning in terms of common words. Given that those common words were the subject of disagreement in the first place, coining a new word and defining it in terms of the controversial words won't help at all.

The way one overcomes disagreements is first by understanding what the other person is saying. If there is a term that is being used differently between two interlocutors, then it can be helpful to disambiguate that equivocation for the sake of clarity and mutual understanding, but there is no magic bullet where one overcomes metaphysical impasse by coining new words. :grin:

Two things should be said about this latter response. First, you don’t need special powers to see the structure of the way concepts relate. — J

You are falling into an equivocation between concept and reality. Whether or not insight into reality requires words, an understanding of concepts does, especially in a dialogical context.

Both of these responses seem to me to invite a retreat into non-substantive disputes. The first philosopher wants to prevail in a debate about what a word ought to mean, based (I presume) on a story about what it has often meant in the past, and the successes that this meaning engendered. Of course, this individual wouldn’t put it that way. They would say that the word does mean X, not that they think it ought to. So from this position, “real,” for instance, would be like “leopard” -- there’s only one reference magnet in the vicinity.

The second philosopher doesn’t see daylight between word and reference; for them, to discuss reference can only be a discussion about how to use words, not about independent concepts or structures. But, as Sider puts it, reference is explanatory: It’s supposed to do more than pair word A with object B and show us what true things we can now say; that would be a kind of theory-internal version of reference. Rather, “one can explain certain facts by citing what words refer to.” This is why we regard “‛theories’ based on bizarre classifications as being explanatorily useless.” — J

You always deal in these strange, artificial dichotomies. Words and word meaning are contextual, and it is folly to try to "solve" word meaning as an end in itself. We use words to convey meaning (among other things), and if the meaning is being conveyed then there is no problem.

So we should ask about the motive for disagreement (especially because so many on TPF are apt to disagree irrationally or emotively, even dreaming up fictional points of view in order to disagree). If John says something and Joe disagrees with what John is saying, then Joe has sufficient reason to disagree with John. This requires that Joe has an implicit theory about how John is using the words with which he disagrees. Interlocutors who are intellectually honest should never run into the problem where they are arguing over words themselves, as if they must insist on a word-use. True disputes about word-use belong to lexicography, not philosophy proper.

In making an argument one is using words that are fit to function within one's argument (and this is one way in which words serve a contextual role). It would make no sense to disagree with a word without at the same time disagreeing with the greater function that the word is serving within the argument. More simply, one primarily disagrees with an argument, not with words. If a disagreement about an idea or argument becomes a disagreement about a word, then intellectually honest interlocutors solve this quickly by disambiguating the word and avoiding it altogether if it cannot be used fruitfully (given the semantic difference).

What this means is that the "problem" of the OP is never a problem for the intellectually honest, and therefore is not a problem. Indeed, it is primarily a problem for propagandists who cannot dispense with the connotative sense of certain words and who wish to persuade not by argument or reason, but by emotion or association.

(Regarding "reference magnetism," the Analytic notion of stipulated reference is extremely artificial. If one understands philology and language development they understand that we are continually drawing on a rich but finite resource of historical meaning. We inherit the palette of linguistic meaning from those who have gone before us. This idea that meaning is somehow stipulated or that words can be coined willy-nilly is fundamentally confused. In a disagreement one is taking words and meanings that are known to both parties and have a philological pedigree, and then utilizing those words to argue for diverse positions. We never think or act in a purely stipulative or abstract manner.)

Half the controversies in the world are verbal ones; and could they be brought to a plain issue, they would be brought to a prompt termination. Parties engaged in them would then perceive, either that in substance they agreed together, or that their difference was one of first principles. This is the great object to be aimed at in the present age, though confessedly a very arduous one. We need not dispute, we need not prove,—we need but define. At all events, let us, if we can, do this first of all; and then see who are left for us to dispute with, what is left for us to prove. Controversy, at least in this age, does not lie between the hosts of heaven, Michael and his Angels on the one side, and the powers of evil on the other; but it is a sort of night battle, where each fights for himself, and friend and foe stand together. When men understand each other's meaning, they see, for the most part, that controversy is either superfluous or hopeless. — John Henry Newman, Oxford University Sermons, #10

It's really not that complex. — Hanover

I think it's spot-on. When you go on to continue in the same vein it just reinforces my point.

I'm simply pointing out that your definition of specialness isn't valid because it doesn't work when you evaluate specific examples. — Hanover

I don't think you've managed anything of the sort. What is this counter-example you speak of?

Norms are derived — Hanover

No. The significant differences between humans and other animals are not merely "derived" or "social constructs." Why not live in reality for a few minutes?

moral worth — Hanover

I'm not sure where this "moral worth" is coming from? Do you take "special" to mean "having moral worth"? And surely "moral" is another undefinable Moorean term, no?

The reason you can't is because there are infants that don't have any advanced ability, — Hanover

Again, this is a rather silly denial of final causality. If you don't understand that human babies naturally grow into human adults, then I'm not sure what to tell you.

You also have no explanation for how embryoes work into your definition, being forced to declare it "silly" that some might not hold embryoes the same value as adults even though they have the potential to become adults. That is, your position isn't even fully accepted within modern society. — Hanover

My position isn't fully accepted within modern society? Is that supposed to be a rebuttal? Is yours? I am continually amazed at how bad the reasoning on TPF is.

but all that is an aside because mine is unprovable and yours is empirically invalid. — Hanover

This is the Moorean confusion I pointed up.

I take mine as more valid because it doesn't pretend to be empirically derivable, but it is clearly axiomatic. It is axiomatic thelogically and secularly. Secularly, it is a principle upon which we have built our society, and enforced it as a non-debatable norm. Kantian dignity and secular humanism demand this principle as do Enlightenment principles of equality, historically responsive to tyranny and hierachical classism. — Hanover

The problem with this is that it's all wrong. We are seeing secularism abandon the principle before our eyes. We have seen the society shift seamlessly away from Enlightenment fiat-axioms. And your religion is a case in point of the way that religious traditions shift, and some of them become unmoored and increasingly deprived of substance and rationale. The people saying, "It's so because we decreed it," are precisely the generation that is laughed at by the next after they abandon the arbitrary decrees. It's painful to watch the older generations justify their obsolescence.

You're just pretending to know why we've ended up where we are and have offered an overly reductive basis, as if we can explain all assignment of moral worth upon humanity to the fact that human ability is greater so we therefore assign humans higher moral worth. — Hanover

You've introduced this new concept of "moral worth" into the conversation as if it was there all along, and you will doubtless confess that you have no idea what you mean by that term. *Sigh*

This is far far beneath you Leon. You didn't even respond to my substantive reply which puts complete paid to your position against me.

Your only argument is that babies are special because they are human (fair, in the sense that we're not talking about puppies.. but). I have already made it clear that is not a reason. That is tautology. That is simply a claim, and an extremely parochial one.
What makes humans special? Consciousness? Deliberation? Moral reasoning? Babies have none of these (in the sense needed to make "human" a special category). Babies are next to useless. There is no error here - you are just not giving a reason. Just state the reason - stop prevaricating. Give a reason that isn't circular for the "specialness" of babies - given that they do not meet any of the criteria for the intension of that word, i'm left wanting. — AmadeusD

But you're just reiterating the error I've pointed to. I point out that humans are special and claim that babies are human. You concede that humans are special but claim that babies have none of the "special-making properties" of humans. Again, you're denying final causality. Human babies are special because they naturally grow into human adults, and we both agree that human adults are special. If that does not make human babies special, then pray tell what else naturally grows into a human adult. Even the strange person who denies that babies are human must still admit that they are special on this consideration.

(By the way, the reason I didn't respond to your more recent reply is precisely because it was not substantial, and did not address the issues that were being raised.)

It's not the case that logic necessarily implies metaphysics, but using metaphysical terms like "thing" and "identity" do imply metaphysics. And if you believe that epistemology can be separated from its metaphysical grounding you are mistaken. — Metaphysician Undercover

:up:

We both agree that there is a very clear and significant difference between "the actual world" in a modal model, and "the actual world" as a real, independent metaphysical object. However, you persistently refuse to apply this principle in you interpretation of modal logic. And, when I insist on applying this principle in our interpretation of modal logic, you reject me as erroneous, and refuse to include me in your "game". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, and this critique can be drawn out in various ways. The question of whether a first-order quantifier quantifies over imaginary entities has no real answer, and this is why modern philosophers can debate the topic ad nauseum. The underlying issue is the fact that modern philosophy is filled with metaphysical muddle. The attempt to devise a logic which leaves metaphysical questions untouched is incoherent. In the case of first-order logic this manifests with the metaphysical confusion surrounding ‘thing’ or ‘one’, which Aristotelians know to be transcendental terms but moderns confuse for category terms. The modern logician says, “For all x…,” but when asked what he actually means by ‘x’ he has no idea. He doesn’t know whether imaginary entities count, or whether theoretical entities count, or whether propositions themselves count, etc. In essence he does not know to which of the categories of being his quantifier is supposed to apply, and his presuppositions ensure that he will be unable to answer such a central question.

- Thanks, I thought it was a good conversation as well. :up:

It has always seemed self-evident that one ought not allow the strong to harm the weak. But perhaps I should never have intervened, and in future, perhaps I won’t. — Tom Storm

Okay, and as long as you see the point of my objection I am content. If one ought not allow the strong to harm the weak then a consent-based morality is insufficient; and if one were to hold a consent-based morality then they would have to allow the strong to harm the weak (unless the strong somehow consented to being stopped, which they surely would not).

I find the account of moral naturalism fairly convincing, and I suspect that, if they reflected on it, many secular people would intuitively base their morality in a similar way. — Tom Storm

Yes, I have no per se objection to "moral naturalism" or that specific form of negative utilitarianism (although I would tend to go further myself).

If I have time I'll think about it some more but I'm not sure I have much left to say on this. I appreciate your patience and rigour. — Tom Storm

Well I appreciate your seeing the point. In general what I've laid out is what irks me about those who hold to subjectivist or consent-based moralities when these same people engage in forms of moralizing that necessarily go beyond their own positions. The difficulty is that when I make a moral claim that they don't like they will appeal to moral subjectivism in order to oppose my claim; but then when they want to champion some moral cause and fault others for not joining in, they immediately forget all about their moral subjectivism. It's that double standard that is problematic: holding others to a standard that one dispenses with oneself whenever it is convenient to do so.

This is tricky to give a yes or no to. The answer properly is 'yes'. But what i've said there is about how I behave, Not what I try to have others do around me, if you can grok the difference. — AmadeusD

Well this whole thread revolves around forms of behavior that also influence others' behavior, so I don't think it makes much sense to try to make it merely about one's own behavior. For example, I am talking about the way that "try to get people to either act or not act," and those acts are not merely about how you behave. The matter is about how you intentionally influence the behavior of others. If it were just you, standing alone, behaving as you like without any influence or effect on others, then none of my points would have any weight.

I think you're being a little callous in your capturing of the situation, — AmadeusD

Well you literally said that you "try to get people to either act or not act," and you also acknowledged the importance of intention. This seems to indicate that when you are merely trying to get people to act or not act (regardless of any intention), you have your own goals primarily in mind rather than their own. If we want to help someone then we have to focus on something more than a material act or omission. So I think my phrasing follows from your own words.

...but in a significant sense, yes, that's right. When I speak about how i interact with other people, i try my best to help people toward their goals. The decision to do so is moral. The activity of, lets say, educating someone as how best to achieve their goal in my view, is entirely practical as I see it. I could just as easily leave off and nothing would be different morally. — AmadeusD

But are you saying that your decision to help people towards their goals is moral, or not? Because in your third sentence that's what you said, but then in your fourth sentence you said it was "entirely practical" (which presumably means non-moral). Isn't that a contradiction?

If my behaviour violates other people's rights, that's counter to an overarching moral intention to maintain social and cultural cohesion. This is a legal argument rather than a strictly moral one, but to be sure, I am making a moral call to resile from a behaviour once I note it may be violating another's rights of some kind. — AmadeusD

Okay good, and we agree on this. Your behavior in cases such as these is moral in nature, or in your words, it requires "making a moral call."

There's no inconsistency. If I am trying to get someone to act, its on practical grounds due to a moral decision to help them. You must clearly delineate the two modes. A moral decision is made in my mind - I then behave without moral reasoning in persuading the other to act toward their own goal (not mine. That's incorrect). My (moral) desire is to help the person. Not their goal, per se. The how-to is somewhat arbitrary. — AmadeusD

Okay. Let's take just one part of this. You seem to be saying that you make a moral decision to help someone do something, and then you go on to "behave without moral reasoning in persuading the other to act toward their own goal." Is the idea that helping others is moral, but the thing that the other person is being helped to do need not be moral? It seems to me then that in the interaction you would be acting morally throughout (insofar as you are helping), and the person would be achieving some practical end with your aid. Thus from the perspective of the person being helped, you are acting morally insofar as you are helping them, but you are only acting practically insofar as the means-end intelligibility is being discovered. Is that right?

(If this is right, then when you earlier said that you are only helping them act, what you must have meant is that you are helping them act and think and understand, but the behavior that you call forth in them is not something that you deem moral.)

Roughly moral reasoning is that which gets us to do something because of its rightness or wrongness. Practical reason is trying to do things which will achieve an arbitrary goal. — AmadeusD

Okay good, and I will probably come back to this definition.

So, in my example, if my moral position was that it's good to help anyone whatever then you might find me teaching a racist how best to gut Chinese children. But my moral reasoning tells me not to help that person toward their goal. The reasoning-to-act issue never arises. Had it, the moral problem would be in my decision to help them, not my reasoning on how best they could achieve their barbaric (i presume moral) outcomes. — AmadeusD

But why is your unspecified decision to help someone moral, as you earlier said it was? Were you relying on a syllogism like this: <It is right to help people; I decide to help because it is right; therefore my decision to help is moral>?

My general point here is that it is hard to believe that you are a thoroughgoing moral subjectivist (or emotivist). — Leontiskos

I think most people have this trouble; particularly the theologically inclined. For instance I don't need answers to 'why are we here' or 'what does it mean to be human' or whatever to get on with my life all hunky dory. I don't care. We are here. We are human. What the 'means' is made up stuff we do for fun, basically. I get that its tough to understand, but there's a massive difference between being a subjectivist when it comes to morality, and being either a-moral, or dismissing morality entirely. Alex O'Connor does a good job of discussion emotivist in these terms imo. — AmadeusD

A simple case is your point about how you respect others' rights, and that this respect is moral in nature. If you were a subjectivist or an emotivist I'm not sure how that would work. It's helpful that you reference O'Connor, but I also find him muddled (even though he seems to improve with time). (Note that a lot of these themes overlap with a new thread on the topic).

How does a moral subjectivist claim that the law is often wrong when it comes to moral regulation? — Leontiskos

As an example, with wills and estates there is generally a 'moral duty' to provide for one's children after death (if one has anything to pass on, anyway). I think this is wrong, overreach and inapt for a legal framework that doesn't interfere with people's personal affairs. So, that's my personal moral view. I don't think that's going to be true for the next guy. So i don't care to do anything about the policy. I have to enforce it regularly, actually (well, I have a part in doing so regularly).

This is why I think the Law does a pretty good job. For the most part, its been 'democratically' hammered out over time, through common law, into something resembling a "close-to-consensus" and I'm happy to live with that. — AmadeusD

But how does the subjectivist claim that the law is right or wrong? You give an example where you think the law is wrong, but then go on to say, "I don't think this is going to be true for the next guy. So i don't care to do anything about the policy." This is utterly strange to me. It's like saying, "This law is wrong but there is no reason to change it," or, "This law is right but there is no reason to keep it."

If you really think a law is wrong, then by definition it would seem that you want it to be changed. If you have no desire that it be changed, then I'm not sure you can say that it is wrong. And if you are a subjectivist then I think that would be consistent. Yet you say it is wrong.

To the extent this suggests some sort of objective basis for the determination of value in the sense there are agreed upon criteria that can be measured in some empirical sense, this strikes me as a category error. Value is not measured that way. If you don't see it as a category error, but you insist no distinction between value based judgments and empirically measurable ones, then it's just question begging, assuming what you've set out to prove, which is there is no difference between value judgments and empirical ones, placing within the premise your conclusion: humans are not special. — Hanover

The deeper problem here is that you're just appealing to your Moorean meta-ethic where 'good' (or 'special') is undefinable and therefore, if admitted, also mystical and esoteric. So you think that it must be impossible to explain why babies are special (or why anything at all is good), and that if someone does this then they must have said something wrong (hence trying to misconstrue what I've said counterfactually into something that is merely contingent and therefore less plausible). It also follows from this that "you can say whatever you want" (because everyone's claims about the 'good' and also the 'special' are basically unjustifiable anyway).

This is a representation of the sort of thinking that says, "I say babies are special, and you can't gainsay this because morality is about values not facts, and neither one of our views has any real grounds to support it." Despite being common, this approach to morality is banal and wearisome. It's basically the religious version of error theory, where one embraces the idea that moral utterances are intrinsically confused and lacking in intelligibility, but nevertheless keeps uttering them.

- The point has to do with the final causality of the human being, not the contingent nature of particular humans. Hence the explicitly counterfactual phrasing:

Then you are committed to the claim that if human babies did not ever grow into human adults they would have the same value as they do given the current state of affairs, which is absurd. — Leontiskos

You are relying a persistent strawman of, "maybe some baby does not grow to be an adult, therefore that baby does not have value." The problem with your position has to do with the failure to understand the final causality of the baby, and this is the same error that @AmadeusD makes. You both want to talk about babies irrespective of their human nature and their human telos. In a long historical sense, babies are special because humans are special, not because they are nascent. If their nascency makes them special in some way, it is only because of the less restricted potential bound up with it ("He could become anything!").

(Or in a very simple sense, you don't think baby racoons are special. The difference-maker for what makes it special is its human nature, and it is silly to try to understand that human nature without reference to human maturity and human ends and capacities.)

No, it's not a counterfactual — Hanover

Oh, it definitely is. I should know: I'm the one who wrote it. Even in a grammatical sense the sentence is a counterfactual. You're starting to sound like Michael.

You're neck-deep in strawmen. Again:

Then you are committed to the claim that if human babies did not ever grow into human adults they would have the same value as they do given the current state of affairs, which is absurd. — Leontiskos

That's a counterfactual claim. I am talking about a world where babies never mature into human adults.

I'm not sure I would dignify my interventions as a reasoned moral position. More of a response to an emotional reaction. — Tom Storm

Okay, but do you see how this is a bit like the insanity defense? When a judge calls someone to account for their actions they might say, "I was insane, I was not in my right mind. I cannot be held to account for my actions." When asked whether one's actions were justifiable this is a bit of a cop-out (unless there was true insanity or loss of control involved).

But the broader question as to whether I consider the acts I responded to as wrong is probably yes. The foundation for this is tricky, I suppose I’ve generally drawn from a naturalistic view that the well-being of conscious creatures should guide our actions. — Tom Storm

Okay, but do you see how you've moved beyond the sort of consent-based moralities we were talking about earlier? You've basically forced someone to do something that they do not want to do, and which is contrary to their "perspective." So earlier when you said, "I understand that not everyone shares such a perspective or sees cruelty or suffering in the same way," you apparently could not have meant by this that you are willing to allow other people to entertain and act upon their own perspectives. In the cases you outlined your perspective trumps theirs, and you coerce them contrary to their perspective. So it seems that you do think there are moral truths that apply to other people whether they want them to or not, given that you literally enforce those truths on others' behavior.

Unless it won't, yet it still will have the same value. — Hanover

Then you are committed to the claim that if human babies did not ever grow into human adults they would have the same value as they do given the current state of affairs, which is absurd.

Sure, we could call humans 'special' but that's somewhat arbitrary. — AmadeusD

What is your definition of "special"? I don't think it's arbitrary at all. I think I am adhering to the definition of 'special' and you are not.

I guess I’ve done so. I’ve taken animals from people who were cruel to them. I’ve thrown men out of bars for harassing women. I’ve broken up unfair fights. I’ve stopped police from hurting people a couple of times; a bit more risky. I've stopped men beating women. I've stopped bullies. Would I intervene if it were a bikie gang picking on a lone person? I’m not sure about that, but I would call the police. — Tom Storm

Okay, great. And note that when I say "intervene," coercion is not even necessary. To simply reason with someone or ask them to stop or even distract them would also count as intervention.

I would say, however, that my interventions have been impulsive and were essentially responses to my emotional reaction to what I experienced. — Tom Storm

Would you then say that your interventions were irrational? That your morality does not provide any grounds for intervention, and that by intervening you acted irrationally?

And yet an infant does none of the things you itemize, but it's still special. What makes it more special is that its worth is not tied to what it does, but what it is. — Hanover

What it is is precisely something that will grow to be able to do those things.

But they are objectively not special in any sense other than a theological one. — AmadeusD

Are humans special? Are babies human?

I don't know of any other species which uses language, composes poetry, mathematizes the physical universe, develops vehicles to fly around within the atmosphere and even beyond, develops traditions which last for thousands of years and span civilizational epochs, and worships God. If humans aren't special then I don't know what is.

There are lots of charitable readings of the OP. One is that something as special as a human being could result from an act that is so similar to acts that all of the non-human animals engage in. There is also the fact that the sexually promiscuous person's life is liable to change quite drastically once they find themselves with a newborn baby.

Or we make it up as we go and retrofit reasoning to justify it. I’ve tended to be in the latter camp, — Tom Storm

The first thing I would want to say here is that "retrofit reasoning" must itself be either teleological, deontological, consequentialist, realist, non-realist, et al. Given that all of the same questions remain, this doesn't really answer any of them. Even the religious approach that you reference could be a form of "retrofit reasoning" (although I understand why you separate it out).

I don’t think I have any firm commitments here but I do lean a bit towards consequentialism.

...

I never want to be cruel or cause suffering. I assume I inherit this from culture and upbringing and understand that not everyone shares such a perspective or sees cruelty or suffering in the same way. — Tom Storm

Then let's take a test case. You want to never be cruel, but you understand not everyone shares this perspective and sees cruelty in the same way. Suppose you see someone acting in a cruel way. Would you try to get them to stop, or not? For me, this is the question where the rubber hits the road. If someone tries to get other people to stop acting cruelly, then I would say that they believe in a moral norm that applies to everyone and not just themselves, even if they say that they "understand that not everyone shares my perspective." Either you will not intervene when you witness cruelty, or you will intervene. Either you allow others to pursue their goals which require cruelty, or else you take steps to bring about your own moral goal of non-cruelty, even where others do not share your perspective. I don't see any middle ground which would allow you to do both, or which would allow you to avoid the question posed.

Ok. But I gave chatGPT your exact prompt, copy/pasted from above:

[...]

I can see why AI is not good for these types of things. — AmadeusD

Incredibly important point. :up:

ChatGPT is not singular source, insofar as it will answer the exact same question a hundred different ways when asked by a hundred different people.

I'll go through your charge and make it quite clear you are simply not coming into contact with what I'm saying - and, I think I apologised for that if it's my fault, but if not, here you are: I'm sorry. — AmadeusD

Okay, fair.

1. This is my telling you how I behave. Nothing about convincing other people. — AmadeusD

So you would say that when you tell me that, "I will try to enforce [my moral positions] where i am not obviously violating rights," this act of enforcement is not moral in nature?

2. And in those situations the reasoning is "what will get you toward your stated goal". Which has almost nothing to do with me or my opinions. It is a-moral — AmadeusD

So all you have ever done in this thread is spoken about how to help other people achieve their goals? Don't you think you've also spoken about how to get other people to achieve your goals?

I don't. I have literally never called the police in my entire life. Not once. — AmadeusD

And you never would? Similarly, why would you stop enforcing your own moral positions "where I am not obviously violating rights"? Why would rights prevent you?

Earlier when you said things like this it seemed like you at least partially perceived an inconsistency in your own approach:

You may be right about the disconnect between those arguments. — AmadeusD

-

As above, no I'm not. I am trying to get them toward their goal. I have been quite clear about this - I suggest the mildly-mind-reading aspect of your thinking is doing some lifting here that it shouldn't be. — AmadeusD

Well look at quotes like these:

It should also be clear that I only ever try to get people to either act or not act. I don't care much what their moral position is. — AmadeusD

I said I would use explicitly rationality to try to get people to act in certain ways, rather htan moral reasoning. — AmadeusD

I don't think it requires mind-reading to understand that you try to persuade people to act in certain ways in order to achieve ends that you desire. But you think this doesn't really count against your position because you dub it "rational" rather than "moral."

I know hte difference between moral and practical reason. — AmadeusD

Can you tell me what the difference is? Is it based on what you said ?


My general point here is that it is hard to believe that you are a thoroughgoing moral subjectivist (or emotivist). The more particular point is that many of the things you said early in the thread militate against such an idea. To take one example:

I think the Law does well-enough when it comes to moral regulation. Its often wrong... — AmadeusD

How does a moral subjectivist claim that the law is often wrong when it comes to moral regulation? Are you saying, with the emotivists, something like, "Often, 'boo law!' "? If not and you actually think that the law can be (and often is) wrong, then how is that supposed to work on moral subjectivism?

Possible world semantics, while used for denoting possibilia, (i.e. state relative actualia via an overspill expansion of the domain of the quantifiers), has no notion of dynamics or interaction, that is necessary for understanding the language-game of possibility.

As a static set-theoretic model. possible world semantics can describe a game tree, but not the execution path of a given game, or the prior processes of interaction by which a game tree emerges. — sime

Those are nice ways of explaining it. :up:

As a moral naturalist: insofar as needless harm – whatever causes every individual human to gratuitously suffer (as well as other kinds of fauna & flora) – is "foundational" such that we cannot not know this about ourselves (or living beings), "moral claims" – non-instrumental / non-transactional norms, conduct or relationships – are "justified" to the extent they assert imperatives which when executed reliably reduce harms more than cause or exacerbate harms. — 180 Proof

:up:

I’ve always assumed that morality is either grounded in God [...] Or we make it up as we go and retrofit reasoning to justify it. — Tom Storm

As an aside, @180 Proof's approach is especially helpful insofar as he is a moral naturalist (and moral realist) who is not religiously motivated, and he holds a principled view. This helps show that there are principled approaches to morality that are not religious in nature. I will come back to the rest of your post.

Great post. For the sake of convenience let's call the position which says that humans have at least one universal and natural telos "teleological naturalism." Now I do think the teleological naturalist must deal with arguments from moral non-naturalists (such as the is/ought distinction, which originally flows from Kant), but let's delay that discussion for just a moment.

Nevertheless I would accept your argument that telos might be a critical concept for a universal ethics. — Tom Storm

I want to dwell for a moment on this question of whether there is any alternative to teleological naturalism for the person who holds to at least some universal moral truths. The primary alternative on offer is Kant. Beyond that, someone might say that consequentialism is an alternative, but I'm not really convinced that consequentialism departs from teleological naturalism construed broadly. For example, the hedonist seems to hold that humans are intrinsically ordered to pleasure, and therefore I would see hedonism as falling into this same category of teleological naturalism (construed broadly).

The alternative I've already outlined is one which is consent-based but thinks that it will be able to achieve universal consent. Kant is one example of this, although "consent" is not quite accurate in his case, as he is more autonomy-based.

Anyway, what do you think? Do you think there are viable alternatives to teleological naturalism for those who hold to at least some universal moral truths? A fairly easy example of teleological naturalism is the hedonist who says, "Humans are pleasure-loving creatures by nature, therefore we do seek pleasure," and this is seen as a ground for a pleasure-based ethic.

Cool. I'm with you on Aristotle over Kant. — Tom Storm

Okay great. I see I've opened up a can of worms with Kant, but maybe that's okay if he is really playing the role that I think he is.

Is your sense of what counts as flourishing pure Aristotle or is it also built around some Christian commitment? I made the assumption, perhaps wrongly, that you were aligned with Thomism. — Tom Storm

Quickly, I am a Christian but not technically a Thomist, although I do have a lot of respect for Thomism. My personal understanding of flourishing is influenced by Christianity, but in discussions such as these I restrict myself to arguments and concepts that are readily available to the non-Christian (and therefore the "flourishing" that I have been referring to here is not based in revealed doctrines of religion).

I would argue that most Western ethics (secular and identity politics) seem to be derived from Christian values (and I guess classical Greek), though I know some people might consider this anathema. But how could it not be the case after a couple of millennia? — Tom Storm

Good, I agree. Still, I think my points about moral realism and relativism can be made independent of Christian (revealed) premises.

Yes, I think you're correct on this.

If we think that the best goal for a society is to promote flourishing then there are better or worse ways to achieve this end. I think this is fair. — Tom Storm

Okay, so what is required if we are to be able to say something like, "Slavery is wrong (for everyone)"? Given the means/ends notion of morality that we have been considering, apparently it must be the case that everyone has the same end which slavery does violence to.

First I should make a terminological point. The word "goal" presupposes intention or volition. The word "end" does not, although it does not exclude intention and volition. So every goal is an end but not every end is a goal. Hopefully the import of this will become more obvious as we proceed.

So let's take two utterances, and let's suppose that they are being made to a random slave holder:

• 1. "Slavery is wrong (whether you think so or not)"
• 2. "Slavery is wrong (only if you think so)"

Let's also suppose, for the sake of argument, that the end/goal which makes slavery wrong is the equality of all humans.

Taking (2) first, it conceives of wrongness as being predicated on our interlocutor consenting to the goal of the equality of all humans. If he consents to the goal of the equality of all humans, then his act is wrong. If he does not consent to that goal, then his act is not wrong. This means that if our encounter is truly random, then we are only justified in telling the random slave-holder that he is wrong to hold slaves if we know that he holds to the goal of human equality; and (because the encounter is random), this can only be true if we know that everyone holds to the goal of human equality.

Now moving to (1), given the idea of "whether you think so or not," we must move from talking about goals to talking explicitly about ends, because in this case the endpoint of human equality need not be consciously/intentionally/volitionally recognized by the slave-holder. In this case instead of saying something like, "You should abstain from lying if you think telling the truth is an ultimate goal," we are saying something like, "You should feed your infant because you are a human being."

To summarize, if we want to say that slavery is universally wrong, then if we are utilizing a consent-based morality we must know that everyone holds the same goal (of human equality), and if we are utilizing a "natural telos"-based morality, then we will be able to say that slavery is universally wrong regardless of whether everyone holds the same goal (in a conscious, intentional, volitional way).

Because this post is getting long and potentially confusing, I will leave it there for now. The question obviously arises, "How do we ground moral truths that are not based in consent?," but I will leave that for later. First let's just ask if any of this makes sense as a groundwork.

In my experience, having lived in both camps at various times, the issue comes from what people mean when when they talk about intolerance. I would argue the right side of the aisle uses a more traditional meaning of the word, putting up with things they may not like because they have to, while the left seems to want tolerance to mean acceptance and celebration, which is not the same thing. — MrLiminal

Yeah, that's a clean way to get at it. :up:

I would add that the reason for this is imo is likely because the left has been quietly winning most of the cultural battles for some time now, and is no longer used to having to tolerate dissent to the degree the right has in recent years. I suspect 50 years ago things were very different. — MrLiminal

True, and I also think the left has been more proactive in pursuing cultural influence. A lot of the ideologies of the left are oriented to such a thing in a way that the right has not been.

You're now allowed to be openly racist to white people, publicly, even in parliaments and senates - no issue. That is a problem. We shouldn't - tolerate - it. — AmadeusD

Yeah, and it's causing a lot of rippling problems.

For about 100 years liberal (meaning politically liberal rather than conceptually "classic liberal") policies have been needed (this, purely in my view) — AmadeusD

Why differentiate political liberalism from classical liberalism on this point? Aren't they the same with respect to your example of opposing racism?

I don't agree that people who say trans women are women do so because they ought to be allowed in women's sports. — Questioner

@Michael was engaged in a (mild) strawman. The underlying question has to do with the meaning of a phrase like, "Transmen are men." See on the matter.

The basic point of extensionality is substitutivity. — frank

As says, not according to the SEP article that is being discussed. Indeed the article literally implies that extensional logic need not have substitutivity principles at all (my bolding):

An extensional logic will thus typically feature a variety of valid substitutivity principles. — Menzel

@Metaphysician Undercover's complaint that little attention is being paid to the SEP article is understandable.

C1 doesn't follow because it's possible that John doesn't believe that Jane is a married woman — Michael

It looks as though you are retreating back to a defense you had already (wisely) , namely the defense that says, "Ah, but none of these people knew that men's boxing excluded women on the basis of biology." Again, such a position is so implausible as to appear disingenuous. You are trying to claim that John's not knowing that Jane is married is the same as the trans activist not knowing that women's boxing excluded men on the basis of biology. :yikes:

We could draw out other absurd consequences of your view. You apparently think that, as with John, if you were to explain the situation to the trans activist then their course of action would alter. You apparently think that if you explained to the trans activist that women's boxing excludes men on the basis of biology, then they would change their views; or that if you explained to the trans activist that:

1. "Transwomen are women" means that biological men who identify as women are feminine (or woman-gendered) — Leontiskos

...then they would stop using that phrase in connection with these sports issues or other sex-based issues. The fact of the matter is that the trans activist does not care a whit about your quibbles. Nothing they do is based on some principled difference between sex and gender, where they seek to alter norms based on gender but leave intact norms based on sex. I think you know this.

With respect to trans women in women's sports, it's not that they favour biological males competing in sports restricted to biological women but that they favour women's sports not being restricted to biological women. — Michael

This is yet another quibble, a distinction without a difference. Trans activists want biological men and biological women to compete in the same sports leagues, even when it comes to sports like boxing. They want them to share the same restrooms, the same shelters, the same locker rooms, etc. All of this points to the same issue: your convenient construal of, "Trans men are men," is surely false. As I said in , their claim has little to do with gender. It is a claim about the inclusion of identifying individuals into the sphere with which they identify. Sex divisions in sports is just one impediment to that program of the sovereignty of self-identity. You misrepresent their position when you claim that they are speaking to gender but not sex, as if they were uninterested in changing norms around sex.

Coming back to the original post:

The activist means something like, "This human being who says that he is a man should be viewed by all as a man, both as regards sex and gender." — Leontiskos

Well I certainly don't think that anyone who says "trans men are men" means to say "anyone who self-identifies as a man has XY chromosomes and a penis". — Michael

Lots of people who say "transmen are men" think transmen should be provided with penises by the government, and they probably also think that transmen "deserve" XY chromosomes, even though they realize that such a thing is not (yet) possible. These are the sorts of facts that your skewing of the issue manages to ignore.

if you look at the whole picture, we should also include Melissa and Mark Hortman. — Questioner

That's fair, but what did we see in the wake of such things? Was there widespread support for the murderer of the Hortman's from the right? Heck we even had a TPF mod implicitly supporting the murder of Charlie Kirk.

And statistics actually show — Questioner

I wouldn't accept the ADL as a reliable source.

Could it not be that the left is indeed more tolerant of difference? — Questioner

I pointed you to my post about criteria. What are you criteria for intolerance? How are you measuring?

Also - in what context are you using "litigiousness"? — Questioner

I am just thinking about the general quantity of lawsuits emerging from each side.

I assume you are referring to the American "left" and right"? — Questioner

That's a good question. Yes.

Can you provide examples of this? It seems an unfounded statement. — Questioner

I was referring to the example of the murder of Charlie Kirk. Another recent case was the murder of Brian Thompson.

This does beg a discussion of the parameters of tolerance. Are all things equally worthy of tolerance? Is tolerance always a virtue? Is intolerance always a vice? — Questioner

I'll just quote what I said in my first post:

Once one sets out what they mean by "intolerance" and what counts as "more intolerant," the question becomes answerable. For example, if we take "intolerant of X" to mean "does not allow X," and we measure relative intolerance quantitatively, then we merely need to count up the different things that each group is intolerant of. Of course a quantitative analysis will probably be insufficient, but you get the idea. — Leontiskos

Fair. Yes, I think it’s probably quite difficult not to hold any metaphysical presuppositions. — Tom Storm

I agree.

On this, I’d say we can organise human life in almost inexhaustible ways. My own preference (and the one I think makes most sense and should be promoted) is to promote harmony and wellbeing for as many people as possible. But I settle on this because it seems the most reasonable way to achieve a goal. I don’t consider it to be a fact independent of human contingencies. Do you think this is an important distinction or does this count as moral realism? — Tom Storm

I think it counts as moral realism, at least as long as the goal of harmony and well-being for the greatest number is held as normative. The difficulty comes with your third sentence here, "I settle on this because it seems the most reasonable way to achieve a goal." It is a difficulty because what you have done is defined a goal, not a means, and therefore it is not really about "the most reasonable way to achieve a goal." You are saying that the goal is "to promote harmony and wellbeing for as many people as possible," and as we have been saying, we must understand whether this goal is hypothetical or non-hypothetical.

So let me try to spell it out again. If we have a goal (end) then some things will be appropriate unto that end and some things will be inappropriate unto that end. Thus following my formula from above, you could rationally say, "If you share this goal then it is wrong for you to do X," but it would be irrational for you to simply say, "It is wrong for you to do X [regardless of any ends]."

So on the means/ends (or means/goals) understanding of morality, how would one secure the possibility of culpability? How would one be justified in saying, "You are wrong to [hold slaves, say]"? Rather than blathering on, I will let you try to answer this question, but it would apparently have something to do with common ends/goals, no?

I don’t consider it to be a fact independent of human contingencies. — Tom Storm

Incidentally and as an aside, you are apparently arguing against Kantian morality with claims like this (cf. Simpson, Goodness and Nature, p. 128...). Kant effectively thought that morality could not be based on human contingencies, such as the Aristotelian notion of flourishing, because in his mind human contingencies are always bound up with selfishness. But I am in no way a Kantian. I am an Aristotelian who bases morality in human flourishing. I have argued against Kant's strange morality many times on TPF.

- Indeed. :up:

I don't quite understand what (3) means, but it doesn't seem to follow from (1). — Michael

It is a premise. (2) follows from (1) with another tacit premise; (4) follows from (2) and (3). I will add an edit to make this clear.

Yes, but only semantically. In practice, they don't come to different places in the context of the thread. In the context, I think tolerance relies on acceptance. Which may simply be an error in the way the public does things. — AmadeusD

Right:

A core problem on the left is actually an equivocation where they want "tolerance" to mean "acceptance." Once one recognizes that tolerance does not mean acceptance, and that tolerance implies dislike or aversion, much of the muddle coming from the left dries up. — Leontiskos

That said, I see the right wing doing more tolerance without acceptance than the left, for whatever that's worth. It seem the left can't tolerate that which they cannot accept, on some level. — AmadeusD

I would say that the right is more tolerant and the left is more empathetic. The left is also more disagreeable (e.g. murdering people for speech with which they disagree), and therefore lacks both tolerance and acceptance. The reason the left sees themselves as more tolerant or accepting is because they are very careful about what things are under consideration when those words are used. Something as simple as litigiousness would bear out the fact that the left is less tolerant.

1. "Transwomen are women" means that biological men who identify as women are feminine (or woman-gendered)
2. Therefore, those who claim "transwomen are women" do not favor biological men competing in biological women's sports — Leontiskos

(2) doesn't follow from (1)? — Michael

Here are some of the tacit steps:

• 1. "Transwomen are women" means that biological males who identify as women are feminine (or female-gendered)
  
  • {Premise}
• 2. "Transwomen are women" does not mean that biological males who identify as women are biological females
  
  • {From (1) and <this post>}
• 3. If <those who claim "transwomen are women" thereby favor biological males competing in sports that are restricted to biological females> then <"transwomen are women" means that biological males who identify as women are biological females>
  
  • {Premise}
• 4. Therefore, those who claim "transwomen are women" do not thereby favor biological men competing in sports that are restricted to biological females (especially sports such as wrestling, boxing, MMA, etc.)
  
  • From (2) and (3); modus tollens
• (Reductio ad absurdum)

It is perfectly consistent to accept that all these are true — Michael

If you want to be propositional about it then your rational error lies in this:

• 1. "Transwomen are women" means that biological men who identify as women are feminine (or woman-gendered)
• 2. Therefore, those who claim "transwomen are women" do not favor biological men competing in biological women's sports

(2) is false; therefore (1) is false (modus tollens).

The political dispute concerns (3). Should women's sports be women1's sports or women2's sports? — Michael

This is like saying, "We were never sure whether men's sports like wrestling/boxing/MMA excluded biological females or gendered females." That position seems disingenuous. Everyone knew that these separations were made on the basis of biological factors.

- The whole issue has to do with the claim that trans activism involves itself in contradictory or illogical positions. So if you take one premise of that system and work it out logically, obviously you will get no contradiction. But this is short-sighted. As I pointed out, on your view there simply couldn't be any biological men who compete in biologically female sports. Someone who takes your view would be apt to say, "Well I certainly don't think anyone who says, 'I am a transwoman who is a woman' would ever compete in a sport restricted to biological females," and yet they would be wrong. They would be wrong because in order to assess whether a contradiction is occurring, one must consider independent premises or data points.

(Also consider the fact that "trans women/men" generally prefer to leave out the 'trans' modifier and simply call themselves a woman/man, thus allowing the sexual component to operate.)

Given that the sentence starts with "trans men" rather than "cis men" then it is obvious that they mean (2). So it's not ambiguous.

...

The ordinary meaning of "trans man" is obviously (4).

So the common sense interpretation of "trans men are men" is "women1 who identify as men2 are men2". — Michael

This is admirably clear, but do you really believe it?

The activist means something like, "This human being who says that he is a man should be viewed by all as a man, both as regards sex and gender." And in a dialogical sense what tends to happen is a motte-and-bailey fallacy, where the bailey encroaches upon sex and the motte retreats back to gender.

The underlying point is that your binary framing is inadequate. The traditional logic does not see a clean separation between sex and gender, and the logical telos of the activist also denies a clean distinction between sex and gender. The nominalistic logic of the trans movement has to do with the power of self-identification. It is the idea, "If I say I am X, then I am X." There is no intrinsic reason why that ideology would stop at "gender" and fail to go on to "sex." Indeed, we are already beginning to see this, and it will become ever more prevalent in those circles. The logic is not, "Gender is subjective and sex is objective," but rather, "Self-identification reigns." It is the outgrowth of an autonomy ethic, where one is sovereign over things which have traditionally been seen as objective or unrelated to one's will - particularly those things which bear on one's social life.

To take a simple case, if you were right then sports which obviously make distinctions based on sex and not on "gender" (such as weightlifting) would have encountered no problems with people of the oppose sex competing in those sports. If you were right and, "Transwomen are women," only meant that biological men are feminine (or woman-gendered), then there would be no biological men competing in women's sports, particularly those such as weightlifting, boxing, MMA, etc. But that's not true at all. Heck, if what you say were true then the most grievous problems would not even exist.