If you want to do some of the heavy lifting, feel free to make an argument against my position that:

Slavery is morally wrong in all circumstances, in every time, and no matter the individual that is evaluating it.

I would be interested in hearing your argument. If you feel no compulsion to change my mind, I am fine with that as well. — Rank Amateur

It would simply amount to arguing over whether there is any evidence of the world, independently of persons, making a judgment (or whatever word you'd want to substitute that doesn't imply persons doing something) to the effect of "slavery is wrong."

Because aside from evidence of that, all we have is evidence of people telling us whether they feel that slavery is wrong or not, and some of them tell us that slavery isn't wrong. So their perspective is a circumstance in which slavery isn't wrong.

But if there's evidence that the world outside of persons makes such judgments (or whatever we want to call them), then we could at least say that the person who said "slavery isn't wrong" got what the world is like incorrect, assuming that's what they were trying to do, assuming they were trying to match what the world is like independently of them.

You're arguing with your own reference. — tim wood

What is (at least an example of) my disagreement with it a la a quote that I'm disagreeing with?

The last post of mine addressed to you prior to this was simply a service, a more complete/detailed explanation of the ideas.

Validity is a function of form, period. — tim wood

Again, I said nothing suggesting otherwise.

If we want to rule out the possibility that there is someone who has no moral preferences we do — Janus

You seem to be conflating the idea of empirical evidence and "proof." You want certainty of the claim, not just evidence of it. But (a) we can't actually prove empirical claims, (2) surveying every single person wouldn't provide empirical proof even if it were possible (to prove empirical claims), because, for example (i) someone could be dishonest in their survey responses, and (ii) their view can change over time, so even if people couldn't be dishonest, we'd need to survey everyone all the time.

In any case moral relativism (at least int the way you frame it) carried to its logical conclusion means that no moral stance is inherently any more valid than any other, which entails that they are all equal from that perspective. — Janus

??? I did address that, I just didn't quote your text when I addressed it. Here's a copy/paste of my response to that:

"Both inherent properties and validity are category errors here, so that's hardly a criticism of moral relativism.

"But yeah, from a perspective that's completely irrelevant to morality, and completely irrelevant to any person's view, all moral stances are equal."

If that's what you're referring to re it seeming like gibberish to you, just clarify that.

Firstly, it should be obvious to you that I wasn't using the term 'validity' in the sense that pertains to formal logic. — Janus

That's the only sense in which I use that term. Hence, especially if folks are using a sense not related to truth (if the sense is related to truth it's a category error), my asking for clarification from others above re just what sense they're using.

And secondly if a moral stance promotes harmonious human community (which is the whole reason behind morals) then it is a more valid, that is a more appropriate and effective, response than a moral stance that promotes disharmony. — Janus

This simply ignores my comments about harmoniousness (if normative), re preferring harmoniousness, and the same thing would go for appropriateness and whatever non-truth sense of validity you might be using. You're talking about preferences that people have.

Out of what...8 billion? — Janus

When we acquire survey data we don't have to do anywhere near 8 billion people. But it's far more survey data than the norm, because it's a survey we've all done.

carried to its logical conclusion means that no moral stance is inherently any more valid than any other, — Janus

Both inherent properties and validity are category errors here, so that's hardly a criticism of moral relativism.

But yeah, from a perspective that's completely irrelevant to morality, and completely irrelevant to any person's view, all moral stances are equal.

On the other hand the overwhelming cross-cultural prevalence of certain moral stances can reasonably be used to justify the claim that some moral stances are indeed more valid than others — Janus

Again, validity is a category error.

greater efficacy for harmonious human community. — Janus

X is harmonious, where there's any normative connotation to that

It's better to be harmonious than otherwise

X is more prevalent than y, where there's any normative connotation to that

Are all subjective preferences.

Yes. We've all done surveys of hundreds if not thousands of people, all of whom have moral preferences. None of us has yet found anyone (conscious) who does not.

If moral relativism were true, then from the point of view of the disinterested observer all moral positions on any issue would be equally valid. — Janus

In other words, you'd have to be saying that "from the point of view of someone who has no moral preferences at all, but who is considering the moral preferences of others" . . . it's just that there isn't actually anyone who is conscious but who fits that description.

Here's what I said again: "Validity obtains when it's impossible for a conclusion to be false and/or impossible for premises to be true."

You can break that up, make it simpler, so that we're saying that validity obtains in three cases:

(1) when it's impossible for a conclusion to be false
OR
(2) when it's impossible for premises to be true
OR
(3) both (1) and (2), or in other words, when it's impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false

Soundness, on the other hand, is defined as a valid argument with true premises.

The definition of validity doesn't imply true premises, as one situation wherein validity obtains is (2), when it's impossible for the premises to be true. If it's impossible for the premises to be true, then the premises aren't true, and the argument isn't sound. Nevertheless, it's valid.

(1) above can obtain when a conclusion is a tautology. In that case it's irrelevant what the premises are.

(2) above can obtain when the premises are contradictory. In that case it's irrelevant what the conclusion is. (And this is the source of the "everything follows from a contradiction" saying.)

(3) is only the case when the conclusion follows from the premises. Relevance logics require (3)--they require that the premises and conclusion have something to do with each other (hence why they're relevance logics), and dispense with the traditional interpretation of validity that allows (1) and (2).

The important difference is that what you suppose to be about content (soundness) is actually about form (independent of content). — tim wood

Say what? That wasn't a response I expected.

I didn't say anything about soundness. I didn't define soundness. So from where are you getting that I'm supposing something to be about content or soundness?

From your source:
"A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false."

I think you might gain from reading the article again, or at least once, and by noting the differences between what you copied and what it actually says. Sometimes differences make a difference! — tim wood

What do you think the important differences are (between what you're quoting there and what I said)? (I know what you might answer, but that will give me a chance to explain other things to you that apparently you're not familiar with or never understood up to this point)

Not so. "Validity" as a term of art from logic simply refers to the form of an argument. Plenty of invalid arguments have true conclusions. Plenty of valid arguments have false premises. — tim wood

Yeah, it's a term of art from logic defined as impossibility that a conclusion is false and/or conclusions are true.

See for example: https://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/

I'll move on after we straighten this out.

And if that is the case than there is no real truth statement we can make about slavery. — Rank Amateur

No true statement of morality that we can make. Correct.

As an alternate methodological means (an alternate to science) of observing and analyzing the world, including us and our relationship with the rest of it.

Yes of course. I don't mean to start a discussion about the types of belief. I'm more interested in this type of discussion which I'll repost from disqus. Basically philosophy is a wonderful and endless amalgam of knowledge but it has a particularly limited purview at times. I'm interested in a balance between those types of thought. I'm also interested in these fubdamebtal mysteries because they seem all to be related. Maybe we can find a better, unified theory; most discussion on this site seems to be about irrelevant details here and there.. it bores me — Nasir Shuja

I'm primarily interested in philosophy in the vein of "I believe there is a refrigerator in my kitchen."

Answering this for myself: valid in the sense of being valid, and from the "perspective" of what being valid is and entails, i.e., the rules and their consequences. — tim wood

You're not understanding the question. Validity is a logical idea, and it obtains when it's impossible for a conclusion to be false and/or impossible for premises to be true.

We can't be referring to that sense here, because moral stances aren't true or false (at least on the view in question). Hence, what sense of validity are we talking about? It can't be the logical sense.

Re perspective, the reason for the question is that there is no person from whose perspective all moral stances are "equal." So we must be talking about the perspective of someone other than an individual considering moral stances. So what perspective are we talking about?

each as true, real, meaningful, correct, right. — Rank Amateur

The problem is that on the " The morality or immorality of slavery is an individual judgement" view, no moral stance is true, real (in the objective sense), or correct.

Moral stances are meaningful to their bearers, and "right," if we mean the moral sense (rather than simply a synonym for "correct"), is what the individual moral judgment is about to the bearer--"right conduct," it's someone saying that they feel that such and such is right conduct, basically.

Those latter two things have no implication for "needing to accept" anyone else's moral stance as anything but their moral stance, a la "It's a fact that John has M moral stance."

"Valid" in what sense, and from whose perspective? — ChrisH

Yeah, I've asked him that a few times, but we haven't managed to explore it at all yet.

"Believing in yourself" is a different sense of the term than "Believing that there is a refrigerator in your kitchen."

As to the power thing, it is significant; — unenlightened

Power may be significant, but it's also far more complex than simply being mapped to race, gender, economics, (relative) office, etc.

First, the "political compass" is a bit better to use:



It's not that it's a myth, but it's a bit oversimplistic, and people can tend to pigeonhole themselves to fit into a spectrum or compass, which isn't a good idea.

He followed that up by saying that no mathematical statement is universally constructed by humans. Is that what he meant? And what does that mean? That every single human must make the statement that 2 + 2 = 4? That doesn't make much sense to me. Why would we even be talking about that? Why would every single human do that, or need to do that? Why would someone claim that? I don't really get the denial, because I don't get why anyone would make that affirmation to begin with. — S

Why I'd say that is because, on my view, "Mathematics is an abstracted way of thinking about relations," Which means that every human who engages in it must at least think "2 + 2 = 4" (or whatever alternative they think instead, and some people definitely think alternatives instead--we run into them as students in mathematics classes, at least). Not everyone has to bother with mathematics, although it's a bit more difficult to avoid basic arithmetic.

So, when I first read your post, I thought, "What?? Of course that's not racist. Why would misidentifying someone be racist?"

But then I read the article, and realized that your post didn't at all mention that the tweets were supposedly due to her being afraid of the men just because she thought they were Muslim. That's important information, and that could amount to being racist in some regard . . . although there's still not really enough information to say.

In any event I'd also add "Does it matter if she's racist? No." And the idea that something she tweeted somehow led to the guys being thrown off the plane is kind of wonky. Definitely someone shouldn't be thrown off of a plane because of a tweet--that's wrong to do in my view, but the person who tweeted whatever they tweeted isn't responsible for that. How do we go from a tweet to someone being thrown off of a plane? Again, the article doesn't detail this.

Let's be clear. When Trump attacks others for being PC it is not because he is bothered by their attempt to avoid language or behavior that can be seen as offensive or excluding, marginalizing, or insulting groups of people. — Fooloso4

I don't know enough about that to comment on it, because I don't really follow politics.

Well, because of the stuff in bold:

"The term political correctness (adjectivally: politically correct; commonly abbreviated PC) is used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society.[1][2][3][4][5] Since the late 1980s, the term has come to refer to avoiding language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting groups ofpeople considered disadvantaged or discriminated against, especially groups defined by sex or race. In public discourse and the media, it is generally used as a pejorative, implying that these policies are excessive or unwarranted.[6][3][7][8][9][10][11]"

Absolutely.

↪S
"Ethics and maths are two fundamentally different things."
I assume it wouldnt surprise you if I suggested that for a number of contemporary approaches in philosophy maths and ethics do indeed fundamentally interpenetrate. It has something to do with the dependence of math on propositional logic and the dependence of propositional logic on conditions of possibility and the ground of conditions of possibility in perspective and the dependent relation between perspective and will.
Indeed. — Joshs

If only we could figure out exactly what it's supposed to have to do with that stuff. :joke:

What is the concept of political correctness really? — Fooloso4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness

In response to the massacre, journalists, both on Twitter and in newspapers, and regular Twitter users have begun calling for censorship of speech hostile towards Islam. I can post photographic examples if it doesn't violate the code of conduct, for example — Hallucinogen

You're not going to change anyone's opinions by placing prohibitions/sanctions, etc. on them. The only way to change opinions is to coax them into reasoning. That's not necessarily going to work, either, but it's the only thing that can work. To reason with them, the views have to be laid bare and then addressed.

That's a problem on this board often enough. It can be difficult to get people to be forthright and articulate about their views. Prohibiting expression doesn't help in that regard obviously.

If folks aren't forthright and articulate about their views, others can hardly address them and try to get them to reason about them so that they reach alternate conclusions.

Voting on something isn't really an argument.

If it were something Trump and his supporters did not like they too would, and have, threatened to boycott. — Fooloso4

Just curious if there are any examples of this.

Ah I just thought of one possibility. The Kathy Griffin thing, although I don't know how we could make that fit the concept of political correctness really.

Do you hold that 2+2=4 is absolutely true as a matter of reason? — tim wood

No.

I've posted this a couple times in the last month or so, and I'm pretty sure I directed you to it already:

Mathematics is an abstracted way of thinking about relations, with some basis in external-world relations as we observe and think about them (which doesn't imply that any mathematics is identical to external-world relations, of course), but the bulk of it is extrapolated from that, creating a sort of construction/game upon that in an erector-set manner.

Because of that, there's no reason to say that any mathematical statement is universal.

As it is, no mathematical statement is universally constructed by humans, but we have very stringent socialization procedures in place to enforce conformity to the norms.

Fox News is not caving in to political correctness, they are simply concerned that they will loose viewers and sponsors. — Fooloso4

Not that I agree with Trump overall on this, but "concerned that they will lose viewers and sponsors" is what is meant by "caving in to political correctness" isn't it?

All that really amounts to is saying that the people who don't agree with you are unreasonable. Not much of an argument.

pigs’ skin is used for grafts for humans, because of its relative human-compatibility.
.
Cannibals have referred to human meat as “long-pork”. — Michael Ossipoff

That sounds like the extent of the "evidence" he's presenting. At least per the article you're quoting.

If I have that right, than what makes any thoughts about a moral stance any more than a preference by the thinker of one over another stance — Rank Amateur

Nothing. I've said over and over that moral stances are simply preferences, utterances of approval and disapproval (about a particular subject matter, not just any preferences, of course).

as long as they acknowledge this entails allowing the different moral views of others without any value judgments. — Rank Amateur

What entails that? Or it's entailed by virtue of what?

You can have subjective but then all you can have is different not better not worse. — Rank Amateur

Better and worse are subjective judgments. So why can't you have that?

No! The whole point of philosophy is to get right what it means for us to be us, and to be in the world as us as we are and can be. — tim wood

That's not part of what the world is like?

Sure, take your time. :up:

So we all as humans, by our very nature, have some near universal moral views, but that has nothing at all to do with that being to a high degree objective. — Rank Amateur

Not to speak for S, but I don't know what there would be to say to that. Is anyone disagreeing with it?

ok, so there is no truth, my thought is as valid on any moral subject is as good as yours? — Rank Amateur

I just said, "Thoughts are the only things that have truth values." Obviously I think there is truth, then. It's a property of some thought. (But not moral stances (at least not when we're keeping this simple, when I'm avoiding what would have to be a huge tangent on truth theory).)

Validity has to do with truth value. So no one's moral stance is valid on my view. Again this is because moral stances do not have truth values.

And no, almost no one--and definitely not me, would say that any arbitrary person's moral stances are just as good as other person's moral stances, because "just as good" is itself a value judgment that individuals make, and people--again including me--do not happen to judge all stances equally. Hence why I asked you earlier, "Equal from what perspective?"

So your view of the source of the near universal commonly held belief that murder is wrong is pure biology, It is a sneeze. — Rank Amateur

Yes. That's what I said about six or seven different ways above. Mentality period is just biology on my view. It seems so obvious to me that sometimes I forget that it wouldn't simply be understood without having to be explicit about it.

And yes, thoughts are the only things that have truth values. Propositions are thoughts.

Yes, I really want you to present it, because if it wasn't clear already, I'm actually challenging that there has been any significant empirical research surveying meaning/intent for such phrases.

Also, please don't ignore what you believe the logical/implicational upshot is supposed to be.

(Re your question, by the way, do you mean a course on "culture, race and history" combined? If there were any courses on "race" when I was in school, there sure weren't many. So no, I never had a course on "race." "Race" was considered kind of a ridiculous fiction when I was in school--to be filed under "stupid shit that people actually used to believe," and I still agree with that view--which makes it disappointing that things turned around and we seemed to instead go for a full-on embrace of the concept of race academically (and personally, I think that ideological change has been responsible for a lot of problems). I certainly had a lot of history courses, and various sorts of "culture" courses, including that the two fields in which I have degrees are culture fields--philosophy and music theory/composition.)