What do I do? I point out that Bayesian probability is nonsense.

If it's all subjective, they should be able to draw the same inspiration from the instructions on a shampoo bottle as they do Hamlet. — NKBJ

Or in other words, you think that subjectivity implies something completely arbitrary--yet somehow still "directable"--in every instance, and you think that because?

I think any definition of art must also be an interpretation of art. It has to be saying something that all art has in common. In order to know what that is, you have to have to interpretive basis. In such a case, you've found -at least one- objective part of the interpretation of art. — NKBJ

What makes something art versus not art can be a way that a person thinks about the items or events at hand.

You've turned into an equivalent of the antinatalists with your obsessive, daily (if not more frequently) starting of threads that are all essentially arguing the same thing.

You quote me saying 2 dimensional universe is possible, asking why I "would you believe something like that", I responded why I think it's possible. No where do I say I believe it is the case. I already qualified my use of possible as being internally consistent, not "buildable" and certainly I do not equate possibility with what is true. The context of my assertion is responding to the claim that removing length makes no sense; i.e. results in some internally contradictory scenario, to which I am pointing out that a 2D universe is not contradictory in itself. — boethius

I was saying it makes no sense as something that could actually exist, not as an abstract construction.

It's possible because it can be mathematically consistent. — boethius

Why would you believe that things we can construct via mathematics might correspond to objective reality?

Constructing things with mathematics is simply playing a kind of game of sorts. You might as well think that the world might really be identical to Candyland.

I think it's important that we avoid suggesting that anyone should be doing anything just because it's what everyone else is doing.

Unconventional, perhaps against rules that someone has agreed to play by (if they have)

So how do you treat the use of the term "correct" when applied to a move in chess? — Isaac

As a sloppy manner of speaking. Yes, it's a misuse of the word to me. If you want to play by the widespread conventions, you can play by them, and have people monitor that, etc.--that's fine. But it's important to not conflate that with the notion that there's something "wrong" with it if you want to play differently. Whatever exact terms we use. This isn't about the terms, it's about the ideas. You can simply play in conformity with the conventions or you can do something more unusual. There's no inherent value to doing either.

I disagree with you on that, too. It's fallacious. That something is common never makes that thing correct or right or anything like that. It's simply the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

You could say "Well, people consider it correct if it's the standard or the norm," which is true, but the fact that people consider things to be correct in that case suffers from the same fallacy. It's not correct just because people consider it to be.

The only thing that commonality makes correct is the fact that it's common.

If it has to be done tomorrow, it would just be a practical matter of whoever you can manage to kill by tomorrow, however you're going to kill them. It wouldn't be an easy matter to kill a billion people in less than 48 hours.

Janus, I thought was saying something slightly different. That, in the case of morality, some collection of behaviours can be objectively called "right" just and only because that's what the word "right" means in this context, and any normative weight is derived entirely from the fact that we probably do want to live in a harmonious society (and so anyone who doesn't need not pay attention, ie the normative weight is not exhaustive). — Isaac

If that's all he's saying, though, what exactly is he disagreeing with me about?

Yes, absolutely. But then what is to stop someone from saying that a collection of such things (things everyone thinks is wrong) is what we call "wrong" when it comes to moral-apt behaviour? "wrong" is just a word, words quite frequently mean different things in different contexts (and to different people). It's quite reasonable that "wrong" when we're talking about morality means {those behaviours which most people dislike}, whereas "wrong" when talking about the statement "the sky is made of jam" means {does not correspond with reality}. After all, we say 2+2=5 is "wrong" all the time, and by that we don't mean {does not correspond with reality}, we mean {does not correspond with the rules of maths}. — Isaac

Sure, but there would be no way to support that using "right"/"wrong" in a particular way is the correct way to use it aside from just descriptively noting that it's the conventional or common way to use it. But that's not all that the other side here wants to say. They don't want to just say that such and such is the common moral view, or that such and such is the common way to use a term. If that's all that they wanted to say there would be no argument with us--or if there were, we could just settle any disagreement by doing a survey of beliefs, of word usage, etc.

People want to instead say that there's normative weight to what's common or conventional (or we could say that they want to support the notion of normative weight, period), they want to say that certain things are correct versus incorrect, reasonable versus not reasonable, etc.

If you don't judge health and functionality to be good and ill-health and dysfunctionality to be bad, then we have nothing to talk about. If you don't believe that the most fundamental aim of community is to live harmoniously together, then I will agree that of course you are entitled to that stupid opinion. But I see nothing to support such an opinion except "that is what I choose to believe"; it would be a perverse, and not a reasonable, opinion. — Janus

So presumably you believe that it's a non-opinion-oriented fact that "health and functionality are good" is reasonable, and you believe in general that "x is reasonable" can be a fact that in no way hinges on individual mental predispositions, habits, etc., right?

How would you attempt to support that?

What I'm hoping to show by this is that there are no objective facts of the matter even by Janus' definition of objective. I'm not particularly precious about my personal definitions, but I am precious about people confusing cultural superiority complex with objective fact.

Yes, we all agree with the very nebulous concept that "murder is wrong" and so by Janus' (rather idiosyncratic) definition of 'objective', such a concept could be considered an objective fact ('wrong' would also have to be quite weirdly defined as a class of behaviour, but as I said, I'm not precious about definitions).

My point is that this does not provide any useful insight because the concept is too nebulous to be of any normative utility. Hence he can safely leave the thing behind when investigating the meta-ethical issues.

I know it's a long way round, but the direct route didn't seem to be working. — Isaac

Yeah, if everyone feels that murder is wrong then surely it's a fact that everyone feels that murder is wrong and that fact implies . . . exactly nothing else. It certainly doesn't imply that any individual should feel that murder is wrong (if some odd individual happens to show up at any point and not feel the same as the rest of us), or that anyone has things incorrect if they don't feel that murder is wrong, or anything like that.

"Logical space" is something we imagine, so the question is itself contradictory.

How does my quote contradict that? And your statement seems to prove you WERE talking about "an interpretation of the definition of art" not an interpretation of any piece of art. I am probably overly concerned with grammar and semantics, I think I understand the spirit of what you are getting at. — ZhouBoTong

I don't know if he's being "cute" or if he really doesn't understand, but it's just NKBJ (perhaps pretending as if he's) not understanding scope and thus creating straw men.

It's entirely possible our world's true substance is a 2 dimensional hologram. — boethius

Oy vey. Say what? Why would you believe something like that?

Dimension just mean how many coordinates are required to define a point in space; in our physics that really means an event in space as Andrewk points out. So you can simply define a physics system with 2 dimensions. A classical system is easy to visualize as it's like most 2D computer games: objects move around in 2 dimensions and interact based on rules. — boethius

That you can define something in some way does not at all imply that the objective thing has those characteristics, does it?

Two dimensions isn't really possible. It's just an idea we have.

Can moral statements be true? — creativesoul


What’s a moral statement? — Mww

So, the idea is simply this. Normally, we say that something like "Man first landed on the Moon in 1969" can be true or false. Can "One should not murder" likewise be true or false in some way?

I don't mention feminist philosophers much because "feminist philosopher" always struck me as being akin to something like "gardener philosopher" or "Bolo tie-wearing philosopher."

Wait. What is the thesis of the initial post? I can't figure out what you want us to focus on/address.

Is the very notion of there being two things that have nothing in common except for universal, logically-necessary properties that any two things necessarily have, such as self-identity, being a thing, etc. and negative properties (such as both having the property of not being some other third thing) even logically possible? — Troodon Roar

Are you familiar with nominalism? I'm just curious if you're talking about two things having identical properties.

"Do-gooder" isn't conventionally used for "people who are doing things that one feels are good or worthwhile."

"Do-gooder" conventionally has negative connotations. Do-gooders may be moralizers (in the "self-righteous" sense), they're typically seen as naive meddlers, etc.

The gent scholar types want to think that understanding principles of science, and applications in technology provide some inherent meaning. Thus, by edifying themselves in the immersions in these topics, they feel they are participating in something grander or important. The fact that the world works in such a way as applying mathematically-derived, precise scientific principles to materials, processes, functionalities, etc. makes it such that their work is really "doing something", perhaps above and more so than those who are not engaged in these activities. — schopenhauer1

First, I'm curious what some examples of this would be.

We could retitle this "The dangers of learning stuff solely from Wikipedia (and similar sources)."

Re this: "A logical truth is a statement which is true, and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than its logical constants. It is a type of analytic statement," what they're referring to there is a tautology. "Logical truth" is a term of art for tautologies.

In order to define art, you must interpret it. — NKBJ

He means "an interpretation of art" in the sense of "here's what this painting is about in my view."

He's not saying that you don't have to think about art on a meta-level to define it.

The interpretation is bound to the text in the sense that it's not an interpretation of x (whatever particular "text") unless the person is thinking about x when stating the interpretation, but that produces no content restrictions on the interpretation. It just depends on how the person is thinking about x, and they could think about x in any way.

Yeah, that would be ideal, maybe, although I work a lot at night and I travel a lot, so a meetup group like that isn't the easiest thing for me to regularly participate in. (Also, I sure wouldn't participate in one focusing on Marx, Freud, Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida, etc., but that's another issue, lol.)

I shouldn't respond to something else because I want you to address "Let me ask you this. Would you say that what's suitable or not to a community hinges on what people desire with respect to the community?"

But re the other most recent comments to me, you're conflating things that I'm making pains to not conflate.

A precondition for x isn't identical to x. (Or x being the result of y doesn't imply that y is identical to x.)

So it's a precondition for me to awaken that I fall asleep or that I'm unconscious first. But falling asleep or being unconscious aren't identical to awakening.

It's a precondition for me to drive somewhere that I have access to a vehicle. But having access to a vehicle isn't identical to driving somewhere.

Also, me driving somewhere might be the result of someone asking or commanding me to drive somewhere, but someone asking or commanding me to drive somewhere isn't identical to me driving somewhere.

When I say that moral stances are mental phenomena, and only individuals have mental phenomena, I'm not saying that there aren't preconditions for having mental phenomena or moral stances, I'm not saying that the preconditions are (of) individuals qua individuals. But those preconditions aren't identical to mental phenomena or moral stances. (And likewise with ice states and the environmental, chemical, etc. preconditions of the same.)

Any of you know what "argument" creativesoul is referring to? — S

I'd say they were more his explanations or accounting of what's going on with morality than something like an argument with premises and a conclusion. I could find some examples of that, but it would take a bit because there are so many posts in this thread.

His explanations have been met with many objections that he hasn't really addressed.

I asked you, "Could you give an example and explain how we'd be mistaken? . . . "

Your response to that is "You've already admitted to having made that mistake." ????

And then you said to use my own example.

I suggested an example and asked you to explain how it would be mistaken rather than just being a different, far more unusual, moral stance that someone could have. How am I supposed to use that example? I have no idea how you'd believe it works that the person is supposed to be mistaken.

How about wrong to everyone? — tim wood

Wrong to everyone is wrong to a lot of someones. Wrong to Wilson and wrong to Andrea and wrong to Gary and wrong to Maria and so on.

That is, it must be that you presume that murder is not wrong for someone. — tim wood

I don't, actually. I'm not saying anything like that. It would simply be a contingent matter, kind of like asking if anyone owns a pink polka-dotted LeBron James shirt. I don't know if anyone does or not.

can you describe how it might not be wrong in your subjective sense? — tim wood

It would simply be a matter of someone feeling that it's morally permissible to commit at least some murders.

Let me ask you this. Would you say that what's suitable or not to a community hinges on what people desire with respect to the community?

Of course subjectivity is that trivially, within a certain definition and set of presuppositions, but it is also much more than that, because individuals are embedded within their communities. — Janus

Obviously I'm not saying anything like "individuals are not embedded within their communities." The only thing that would be simpleminded is thinking that I'm saying anything at all like that.

The problem is that being embedded in your community doesn't make mental phenomena communal phenomena. Mental phenomena, qua mental phenomena, still only occurs in individuals. And moral stances are mental phenomena.

It's just like, say, ice phenomena, qua ice phenomena, only occur in or "of" water. But obviously the water in question is embedded in a non-water environment, which has various influences on the ice phenomena in question. And it would be ridiculous to assume that anyone is supposing that the water in question isn't embedded in an environment. But guess what? Ice phenomena are still only in or "of" water. (Simplifying of course so that we're not talking about other types of ice.)

Yeah, I try to do that, but then sometimes you get responses like, "The things you say are too simpleminded to bother responding to" while the person still keeps forwarding straw men. :razz:

Interesting. So is the quality of the place too low or what's the impediment or deterrent why you would not want to stay? — Wallows

For whatever reasons, there's a block to understanding and interacting with at least some ideas that people aren't already familiar with.

It is objectively so that they share the attitudes, and the effects such shared attitudes have on communities are objectively so, and communities are objectively more or less harmonious or riddled with conflict. — Janus

But that's just changing the topic. The topic is whether moral stances themselves are subjective or objective, and whether moral stances qua moral stances can be correct/incorrect.

No one is arguing that people don't really share attitudes (etc.) when they do, or that behavior isn't what it is, or that the states of communities aren't what they are.

Is this some ego thing where members stay because they have something to prove to themselves or others?

In other words why would you want to leave this forum to anyone contemplating leaving? — Wallows

The reason I stay is simply because I don't really have anyone in my "real life" to regularly communicate with re philosophy. I desire to at least slightly "stay in practice" with it. Especially since chat has more or less died (at least IRC, which I used to enjoy), this is the best/most active place I've found online to allow me to stay in practice a bit. At that, I find this place rather frustrating most of the time. As I commented earlier today, it often seems like most of what I'm doing here is trying but not succeeding to communicate what I consider pretty simple ideas to others--most of what I wind up having to do here is correct straw men. If there were a better forum that was anywhere near as active, I'd probably hang out there instead. But I haven't found one yet.

The things you say are too simpleminded to bother responding to — Janus

Yeah, I'm sure that's the reason that you can't come up with a better rebuttal. Sign me up for that bridge you're selling, too.

Of course, but so what? — Janus

So that's what we're referring to by this being subjective rather than objective. And that's what makes it not factually correct or not (to prefer one thing to another).

Those people exist and share attitudes, don't they? — Janus

Sure. But that's nothing objective, and nothing correct versus incorrect.

Shared attitudes which will be more or less suitable to the flourishing of communities, no?

Per how they're defining "flourishing," sure. But what of it? That doesn't make anything objective or correct morally.

'Herd morality' is what people believe is right because it is good for the herd. I an=m not claiming it is always right, but without it there can be no community. If herd morality is to be judged to be wrong it would be because it is detrimental to the flourishing of the herd. Then it might take an inspired individual to come up with a healthy alternative. Can you give an example of what you would think of as herd morality? — Janus

Only people care about communities continuing though, no?