Do you really believe that there are no real differences in quality between comparable things? That some movies, food, TV programs, paintings, photographs, novels are not better than others? That it's all just a matter of preference? — T Clark

Yes, and I couldn't be more certain of it.

I can recognize the difference between what I like and what is of high quality. — T Clark

The only way that something like that can make sense is that you're making a distinction between what you like and what other people like. It would make zero sense to say, "This is/isn't of high quality, but that has nothing to do with whether anyone likes it."

I'd say that any moral stance, n, is rational only in relation to some other, effectively foundational stance or desire, goal, etc., m, where n is either a consequence of or prerequisite for m.

Using the term SJW to discredit a group or individual is a form of control — Fooloso4

I specified what I'm referring to. I'm referring to things like people losing their freedom (by being imprisoned), losing their job, not being able to rent/buy a home, etc.

Okay . . . there, though, I just don't agree that religion has any positive influence on social cooperation. It's impossible to establish truth values for counterfactuals there, though.

How do we know the people wearing silly Halloween costumes don't want to bring about a society in which ethnic minorities have their choices restricted by social pressure in exactly the same way. — Isaac

The way that we know that SJWs want to control people's ability to make choices in the ways I noted is that they say as much, and they laud when people are fired, and so on.

So the way we'd know that in the case you present is if they say as much, if they laud someone (who?--we're not talking about targeting any specific person usually) being fired because of it, etc.

But perhaps the main point I wanted to make is that it is still the outcome of the act you're judging, which means the act itself (speech in this case) seems irrelevant. — Isaac

I'm not judging speech, though. My problem isn't at all with any speech. My problem is with how people want other people to be treated--namely controlled, so that particular choices (such as speech choices) aren't practically available to them, because the consequences of making those choices is too severe. I don't like people controlling other people in general. I agree it's necessary in some situations--with really violent criminals, say, but even there I don't agree with how we handle that. I don't agree with a bunch of stuff re the legal system, there are tons and tons of laws I'd just get rid of (I think we should reward legislators who remove laws, not who create more), I don't agree with the way the prison system is set up, etc. I have a problem with people who want to control other people in these significant ways.

A lot of folks express such sentiments with having a problem with various things being illegal, but making something illegal is just one way to express control over others. There are social means of exerting control that are just as significant as imprisoning someone. My issue is with control. Whether we achieve that control legally or some other way is irrelevant in my view.

Doesn't "behave better" have an ethical/moral connotation?

It might help if you explain what led you to this question. (Even if the explanation is simply citing a journal article or something like that.)

Ah, my mistake. I wasn't clear enough. I meant 'extent' as in the extent to which some action inexorably leads to the restrictions you speak about. — Isaac

It seems that you're still focusing on speech. I'm not saying anything about speech. My problem with SJWs is that they want--they WANT to control people to that extent.

Ok whatever you say. I don't get you with these one lined sentences. If you don't like the answer so be it but I cannot do more beyond something like what you're saying. — Anaxagoras

In my opinion, one of the worst things about boards like this is that people can type posts if not of unlimited length, at least a couple thousand words long. We wind up with rambling, unfocused posts that introduce a plethora of issues. The vast majority of those issues wind up being overlooked, and points and questions that people bring up are regularly overlooked. I've always preferred a chat format for discussions because of this, and also because of the direct, focused, extended back and forth of chat. In my opinion it's easier to make progress in chat--at least the progress of understanding other persons' views (which of course doesn't imply agreeing with their views).

At any rate, I wasn't clear on what your question was. Or were you simply commenting on the brevity of my post?

OK, so can you pin down the 'extent'? — Isaac

I've done that many times already. I'm talking about where you want the person to lose their job, lose anything like their shelter, healthcare, etc., more or less lose their ability to make a living, to be imprisoned --anything like that.

The "control" you object to is to prevent the unjust from violating the just rights of others. — Dfpolis

You mean preemptively? Because no one's rights are being violated simply because someone says something, or dresses a particular way, etc. Not that I really frame anything in terms of rights, but I'm just sayin'.

Yeah, it's frustrating to have to keep correcting such simple things against straw men.

Yes . . . not sure why that's surprising?

It's worth pointing out, by the way, that the extent of agreement in other fields is often overestimated, and the extent of agreement in philosophy is often underestimated.

I meant what is the basis of TS's and I think your core belief that all mental phenomena is by definition subjective. — Rank Amateur

Again, that isn't a belief. It's simply a stipulation about how I use a term. Different people use the same terms in different ways. I use that term to refer to mental phenomena.

Free speech should have speech consequences, in my opinion.

But you do think it's 'wrong'. I'm trying to understand why, basically. — Isaac

I have a problem with people wanting to control others to that extent, where they're in favor of them losing their jobs, etc.

This is like the positions of wrong to kill vs abortion vs death penalty or the case that criminals do not like criminal offences committed against them. Cases of cognitive dissonance you could say. — Andrew4Handel

In a lot of those sorts of cases people simply are not articulating their actual stances very well. The stances are going to be more detailed, nuanced, qualified than what they may have stated.

I'm basically confused between your hard-line position on free speech (which seems predicated on the fact that speech acts alone do not cause harm) and your opposition to the SJW's in these cases who (despite their nefarious objectives) were, afterall, only performing speech acts, and were therefore harmless. — Isaac

First, I just want to make sure that you understand that I'm not saying that the speech acts of SJWs are harmful in any way. I feel like that's not clear, and I hate having to repeat the same thing over and over.

Answer: collective community wisdom. — tim wood

Collective community wisdom is evidence of what the consensus is in a community, right?

In this you're akin to a pre-Kantian idealist. To the idealist it all occurs only in minds. The question, then, is that if it really is all a matter of mind, then how do you know anything at all of the world? How do you know anything at all, period? How even do you get to the question of knowledge? — tim wood

Morality is subjective. But morality isn't the entirety of the world. There are plenty of objective things. Morality just ain't one of them.

But I fail to understand how in that case you can move out of your personal preference mode to register any sort of complaint or argument that anyone should find cause to pay attention to, except as they prefer to. — tim wood

Yeah, either they already have the same moral preferences, or you have to try to "talk them into them" by appealing to other preferences they have, other things they believe, or you're out of luck. As it is, there are many moral stances that I'm simply out of luck on re having anything done about them. My stances in those regards are too unusual. Unusual enough that there's no way I'm going to be persuading anyone to them, at least without far more time and energy than I'm willing to put into it.

Believing in objective morality makes no difference in this regard, by the way. If the right other people (read "people with the power to do anything about it") don't share your beliefs about which moral stances are the objectively correct ones, you have to try to talk them into your view or you're out of luck.

But I think you have logically invalidated the value of life by killing one person without his or her consent. — Andrew4Handel

As we've discussed in many recent threads, both about morality and aesthetics, I don't believe that value/valuing is anything other than how an individual feels about something. I don't think it's possible to "logically invalidate" that, and "logical invalidation" suggests that we're dealing with something that has a truth value (validity is an idea that has to do with truth value; logic in general deals with truth value via implication etc.), but moral and aesthetic (e)valuations have no truth value.

On the other hand if you do accept the death of one person like this what logical grounds do you then have for condemning arbitrary violence. — Andrew4Handel

Wouldn't the difference be whether you're saving thousands of lives?

Intentionally, I think it can be justifiable to push people to do things they don't want to do, to nag at them, etc. That can produce change in a way that just letting them be doesn't. It depends on the situation, the people involved, etc.

Again, it's not for your benefit. I don't expect you to pay any attention to it or to do anything other than this sort of bickering.

I think Zhou can respond for himself. — NKBJ

Sure, he probably could, barring something unusual. Other people can respond, too. That's the whole gist of public message boards. If you want something to strictly be between you and another person, private message them instead of posting on a public message board where anyone can respond to anything they like.

firstly, this is your flying teapot, not mine. It should not be my job to prove your point is false. I — Rank Amateur

I'm not asking you to prove anything. I'm asking you "Could you please explain what the heck you're thinking here, because it just seems completely mysterious to me."

I find 2 a more logical explanation than 1. — Rank Amateur

It seems to me like "logical" is the same as you telling me that you find it more intuitively plausible. Would you agree with that?

billions upon billions of individual mental phenomena all independently reach the same moral judgment. — Rank Amateur

Re this, do you find it plausible that billions of individuals have other bodily similarities, where the similar things are not given wholesale to the individuals from outside of themselves?

We could just as well say that "every single person having a different moral stance on x" could have an outside source--and sure, it could. It's not impossible.

But how is that evidence of there being an outside source?

Mere possibility isn't sufficient to believe anything, because the contradictory is usually possible, too.

You're repeating yourself again. Like I said before, you and I are at an impasse here, so I don't see a point in continuing the conversation with you. Sorry, but I do hope you have more fruitful discussions with someone else. — NKBJ

No problem. I just think it's worth responding for the benefit of other people who might read the thread in the future.

Yes, especially if we're allowing "anything that someone is psychologically upset by" as "harm."

So, for example, I think it's completely justifiable to smile and say "Hello" to someone as you pass by them on the street, even though that person might be psychologically upset that you did that, because they have a neurosis about it.

Near universal moral judgments on some issues is evidence that the source of some moral judgments could have a source outside individual mental phenomena. — Rank Amateur

Again, how would that be evidence of that? You're not explaining this idea. You're just stating it, but it seems completely arbitrary to me.

I don't want to write anything else for a moment, because I want the only response to be asking you HOW that would be evidence of objectivity.

I'm going to flip the order of your post around a bit:

Both ↪tim wood
and myself have pointed to near universal moral judgments, and at least my underlying question on these is, as above, does it not show that there can be objectively moral views that individual thoughts can be in error of. — Rank Amateur

How would it show that, though? Why wouldn't it just show that (almost) everyone thinks in the same way?

So I would say there is evidence that I can think things that are in conflict with objective and verifiable reality. — Rank Amateur

Definitely. And what do we need in those cases? We need some evidence of the thing in question occurring extramentally. That's all we need to do. If we can provide some evidence of moral judgments occurring extramentally, then cool. Insofar as we're making a claim about those extramental moral judgments that we've provided evidence of, we'd be able to get correct or incorrect what those extramental moral judgments say.

Is there some support for: all moral judgments are individual mental phenomena

I'm assuming you'd want to include an "only" at the end of that--presumably that's what's at issue. The support is this: there's a complete lack of evidence of moral judgments occurring outside of minds.

and therefor subjective. ? — Rank Amateur

"Therefore subjective" is just a stipulation of definition. We're using "subjective" to refer to "occurs only in minds." That doesn't need any support. It's just a stipulation about how we're going to use a term.

I understand the problem: you think philosophy is just a matter of opinion.

Then riddle me this: if every opinion is equally valid and true for that person why do you bother arguing with me? My opinion is, after all, just as valid as yours (according to your view) and I (by your definition) can neither be right nor wrong. Or, I'm always right, and so are you, because we're all right all the time as long as we think we're right. So why try to convince me of anything? — NKBJ

The idea is that aesthetic (e)valuations are a matter of opinion; it's not that all other things are a matter of opinion.

"Aesthetic (e)valuations are a matter of opinion" is not itself an aesthetic (e)valuation. It's a fact. If you disagree you are wrong.

You're not wrong if you disagree that Shakespeare is a better writer than Stephen King.

You should have figured out as a toddler, even, that just because one thing is some way, that doesn't mean that everything you can consider is the same way. Just because you could put your hand on the dog and not get burned, that didn't mean that you could put your hand on the stove when mom is cooking and not get burned. You should have figured this out early on. Just because aesthetic (e)valuations can not be right or wrong, that doesn't mean that nothing can be right or wrong. Not everything is a dog or a stove. Not everything is an aesthetic (e)valuation.

I believe I should pay my utility bills on time. This belief entails an action. I believe I should bathe regularly, so I do. We quickly get into the territory of habitual behavior (I put my keys in my right front pocket, my comb in my back right pocket, my wallet in my back left pocket...) which are not related to belief at all. — Bitter Crank

Even for normatives, many people believe they should clean their house, declutter, etc., but they do not. Many people believe they should lose weight and eat better, but they do not. Many people believe that they should make a lifestyle change--a different job or career, a different area to live, a different family situation, etc.--but they do not.

I'm of course not saying that no one acts on beliefs. But at least as often people do not.

I wasn't asking you to tell me what you think is artificial, vain, etc. about bodybuilding.

I was asking you to basically give your definition of artificial, vain, and pointless so that (a) under the definition, bodybuilding qualifies as artificial, vain, pointless, but (b) under the same definition, carpentry, having sex, doing martial arts, etc. don't qualify as artificial, vain, pointless.

I honestly think that the "hard problem" stems from a combo of (a) a poor analysis of explanations--just what they are, just what the relationship is--and isn't--between any explanation and the thing being explained, etc., and (b) the fact that in this case, and this case only, we have a "first person" perspective of the thing being explained.

(b) makes clear the fact that explanations aren't actually anything like--that is, they don't at all seem like the thing being explained, when the thing being explained is considered from a "first person" perspective. (a) results in a lack of realizing that this is all that's really going on with the hard problem.

(I put "first person" in quotation marks above because I'm not trying to suggest that there's literally a conscious perspective for other things, but things are different from reference points of being that thing than they are from other reference points.)

Yes, which is most of the time, I'd say. — Edward

My experience is different, but I don't suppose that I'm interacting with most of the people in the world. :wink:

Just curious if on your experience a lot of people are also objectivists on aesthetic value.

The problem is that, semantically, the terms "morality, right and wrong" have connotations of objectivity. — Edward

When there are mistaken beliefs about what morality is ontologically, sure.