Cauliflower is good either is a fact in respect of some criteria, — tim wood

How would it make sense to say that anything is good in respect to some criterion/criteria? That would never capture what "good" refers to. For example, say that one criterion is "Cauliflower is good if it's not moldy." If all that amounts to is that "good" is a synonym for "not moldy," then it doesn't at all capture the conventional sense of "good."

I don't think it makes any sense to parse forces as something separate from matter.

It also doesn't suggest doxastic voluntarism like the wording of "choice", and "acceptance". — S

I didn't intend to suggest voluntarism in my definition.

He examines the human experience of knowledge as the
experience of absolute and limitless transcendence. — Rank Amateur

This strikes me as very odd to jump to right after "knowledge is possible." I'm curious why he'd see the human experience of knowledge as experience of "absolute and limitless transcendence"--how would someone arrive at that sort of notion? But I suppose I'd have to delve into Rahner and search for if he gives any "ontogenetic" clues as to how he wound up there.

Physical possibility is what's possible given the laws of physics. — frank

I'm familiar with the standard distinction. The issue is that I'm not sure that the standard distinction amounts to anything "substantial."

For one, I'm not a realist on physical laws. So if there are no real physical laws, it's not going to make a lot of sense to analyze physical possibility on physical laws. It's also not going to make a lot of sense to suppose that physical laws could be different than they are.

No, it's not that, it's a fundamental disagreement about appropriate lines of enquiry. I'm a foundationalist, and as such, I think that some lines of enquiry are misguided. This is one such case. — S

So you don't think that if there's a standard, it has to be something, it has to have become the standard through some particular means, etc.? It's just unanalyzably present?

What you're doing isn't very clever, in my opinion. It's just like a child who keeps asking why. The standard is just the standard. If you act in accordance with it, then you're reasonable, and if you act in violation if it, then you're unreasonable. That's it. — S

lol at the idea that it has to remain a mystery and it's somehow off-limits to investigate it.

67% of 58 voters say that they belong to a religion, yet only 36% of 58 voters say that they consider themselves a religious person. — S

I'm not saying this is necessarily what's going on, but it's not uncommon for people to look at "belonging to a religion" as being akin to ethnicity. One is "born into" the religion in question, due to one's family, one may have undergone various rituals under that religion as an infant or child--christening/baptism, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc., but one might not consider oneself religious despite this because one doesn't actually have any religious beliefs. Some people even do this while still going to church/temple/etc. occasionally--it's more of a social thing for them. They might choose to get married in a church/temple setting, and they might even socialize their kids into the religion in a similar way, despite a lack of religious belief, just because it's seen as a part of their family's tradition.

The concept here is, it is difficult to make a reasoned argument against the proposition that man has some in inherent need for knowledge, and understanding. And he has some need for understanding his purpose. And as far as i am aware of them, all of the philosophical attempts to define such meaning, that does not include something "God Like" are unconvincing. If it is existentialism, absurdity, hedonism, nihilism - none seem to convincing - at least to me, and I believe in general. The best individual answers i have heard on this point - tend to be a kind of secular spirituality. One that are focused on love of others, on some selflessness. Which I wont argue against, but always seem rather God centered to me - just without the God. — Rank Amateur

I definitely agree re knowledge/understanding--because it's impossible to survive as a human without those things. So that's pretty much built into us. But I don't think that a search for "higher meaning" or some grand purpose or anything like that is something that necessarily everyone has a drive towards--although it certainly is very common.

myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and abstract – like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and meaningless until you start to play.

Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.

All one would have to say is "If you do such and such actions, maybe 'as if' certain things were true, or in the manner of playing along with some particular fiction, then it can have x, y and z benefits, including insights, etc." That seems to be all that's saying, really, and that wouldn't be near as controversial.--at least no more controversial than saying that people receive benefits or gain insights from interacting with the arts.

What he was referring to, was a concept of his theology called "pre- apprehension". Pre apprehension is the concept that it is man’s nature to search for the infinite, because he is either totally or partly, aware of its existence. This implicit knowledge is the base for knowing all things. Rahner would describe what we explicitly know of the universe as an island floating on a sea of a preapprehed knowledge of all we do not yet understand, but are aware of its existence. Man is a creature in the boundary between the physical world we inhabit and the infinite world we are innately aware of.

I am not aware of a good argument that can dismiss this very natural part of the human condition. Camus called this desire absurd, and that was an outgrowth of existentialism which says we can define this for ourselves. — Rank Amateur

I'm not saying this is a "good argument" to dismiss the above, but whenever I encounter someone talking about "the infinite" in this sense, I don't even know what the heck the concept is supposed to be. We get this on this board often. Someone will say something about "the infinite," and then someone will respond with something about the standard ways to parse infinite numbers, say, but the person who brought up "the infinite" will dismiss is, because it wasn't really what they were talking about. The best I can make out is that "the infinite" is supposed to be some kind of a code word for "God, where God is not subject to any logical, physical, etc. facts"--or something like that at any rate, but I also can't say that the idea of that is at all comprehensible to me, either.

Isn't it logically and metaphysically possible for the laws of physics to be different from what they are? — Echarmion

Part of my issue with the distinction is due to this. Does the distinction require that we're realists on physical law? I'm not sure.

By virtue of this, we know P is also true at a metaphysically and logically impossible world. — frank

I've never really been convinced that the physical/metaphysical/logical distinction with respect to modality makes much sense.

And "true in an impossible world" seems wonky to me, too. We fantasize about stuff like Superman pushing against the train simply by ignoring (and or being ignorant of) a lot of details and facts. We make vague analogies to experience and don't worry about the details.

It wasn't an argument. Just a further explanation.

I also didn't say that I'm only against mob mentality with respect to reactions against speech, but I wasn't defining it as cooperation, either. The intent wasn't to define mob mentality as if you're a robot or alien who hasn't the faintest idea what I might be referring to. For some reason you decided to approach it that way and not pay any attention to context for that part.

But I wasn't presenting an argument per se and certainly not something in the vein of a mathematics or logical proof. So I don't want to encourage you to take that sort of track. That's completely the wrong way to look at what anyone is doing when it comes to ethics.

When people say morality is "mere" preference, they're ignoring the bulk of what it is we do when we do morality, — VagabondSpectre

When I say that morality is mere preference, what I'm saying is that "x is good" and the like are mental phenomena and do not occur elsewhere. That's all that I'm saying. I'm not ignoring anything, I'm simply focusing on a very specific ontological claim.

Some people believe that "x is good" occurs in the world extramentally. It does not.

So that's what I'm talking about re mob mentality.

To the “mile” example, if someone or some persons invent the mile, then thats what it is. If someone else comes along and says “no, a mile is ten feet” then they are full of shit. — DingoJones

What kind of ontology is that, though? Why would naming/defining rights fall on temporal priority, so that that act determines what something is in perpetuity? What if someone names/defines something on August 10, 1985, but no one except for that person and their best friend know about it, then someone else comes along on May 16, 1992, uses the same word, defines it differently, but it winds up being relatively well-publicized or given some official stamp of approval (like BIPM adoption). Do we have some means of changing what the word refers to if we learn what the guy in 1985 did--because ontologically, that's the correct definition/usage of the term (it turns out the BIPM is full of shit) since it was temporally prior?

Yeah, it's probably too much to go through due to very different paradigms or something . . . but that's one reason I prefer to keep posts short.

You're saying that moral "truth" has to not depend on human preference, because human preference is not objective. That's meta-ethical. — VagabondSpectre

In the bit we were just talking about, I was pointing out that the facts you're talking about have nothing to do with ethics. I wasn't saying anything about the requirements for moral truth etc.--at least not aside from the requirement that we're actually talking about morality "x is good/right conduct" etc. and not stuff that has nothing to do with morality "x causes/does not cause autism" for example.

No, but the stances we take on issues like these factual issues do impact our moral actions and arguments. — VagabondSpectre

Sure. That just doesn't enable us to say that any part of the moral stuff is objective (to any extent).

In other words, whether or not it is true that X causes autism can determine whether or not an action is moral — VagabondSpectre

It can't do that objectively. It can do that subjectively, relative to an individual's preferences, though, sure.

The context was social pressure against speech, wasn't it? (I would hope there wouldn't be a requirement to specify the context in every sentence, because that would be a pain in the butt to type)

I was making use of terminology previously used in this thread. The rest seems to also be about nitpicking semantics. Ignore what I said, then. — javra

It's difficult to agree with something if I'm not sure what it's claiming, and I'm not sure if you're just using words in different ways than I would or if you believe that different things are the case than I do.

When you say "the moral part", you're appealing to a meta-ethical definition of morality as theoretical. When I say it, I appeal to morality as an applied [meta]-physics in service of human values. — VagabondSpectre

?? I'm referring to stances a la "x is good/right conduct," "x is bad/wrong conduct," "x is morally permissible," "x is morally obligatory" etc. So no, that's nothing meta-ethical.

"x is good/right conduct" and the like are what morality/moral stances are.

"x causes autism," "x doesn't cause autism" and the like are not morality/moral stances.

If a) it is objectively true that subjective beings hold presence — javra

First, I wouldn't say that anything is objectively true. I see that as a category error.

There are objective facts (states of affairs) in my view, but no objective truths. "Truth" isn't the same as "fact." Truth is a relation of a proposition to something else, and that relation is necessarily a judgment on my view. Judgments are mental phenomena. Hence truth isn't objective.

Aside from that, I unfortunately have no idea what "hold presence" might refer to. ("Hold presents," yes, just in case it's Christmastime. ;-) )

if b) it is objectively true that all subjective beings share a grouping of core characteristics that thereby validly makes them subjective beings, — javra

Aside from the same comments about "objective true," I wouldn't use "valid" that way, but that might not matter for anything. "Subjective," by the way, I use to refer to mental phenomena. And that's it. I'm not implying anything else with that term.

c) it is objectively true these core characteristics entail common, or universal, core wants (e.g., that of living life with minimal dolor), — javra

"Common" isn't the same as "universal," is it? I don't think that any wants are really universal, by the way. But plenty are statistically common.

it is objectively true that all subjective beings hold an implicit, if not also explicit, understanding of what is good for them, — javra

I don't buy the notion of "implicit understanding." Also, you seem to be using "what is good for them" so that it's referring to something other than whatever an individual's opinion is.

It's really laborious to go through a long post like this . . . the above was just about a sixth or seventh of your post.

Basically you could also argue that science itself amounts to personal preference about which empirical beliefs to adopt, but you would be focusing on the wrong thing. — VagabondSpectre

But all we'd have to do is point out that that's rather a matter of whether we're matching some objective state of affairs.

The problem with morality is that there is no objective state of affairs to match with respect to the moral part.

“I like cauliflower” is not an opinion, it is a persuasion, grounded in feelings, and cannot be false. — Mww

That's one sense of the term "opinion."

In other words, it was basically just some poorly thought-out rationalization to be anti-Islam.

Nothing novel there.

The standards of reason arbitrate. — DingoJones

If we discover the standards of reasoning by reasoning, how does that help us in the example, because again, both sides claim to be reasoning, claim to be correct, etc.--they're just reaching very different conclusions about that with respect to the exact content at hand.

This isn't just a hypothetical example. I've had more than a handful of conversations over the years with people who claim to reason to "true contradictions" for example, where they seem to understand the issues involved, claim to not be equivocating, etc.

And I frequently run into conversations on this board where I think that people aren't thinking very reasonably, but they sure don't see it that way--they see it rather the opposite of me. For example, positing things that I believe are incoherent.

Re the mile example, you explained someone stipulating something by fiat, and then seemed to suggest that there's something normative about that. But multiple sides could do the same thing to different ends. One guy stipulates "This is a mile" and the other stipulates, "No,this is a mile."

Think about how often, in practice, someone promotes the opposite...

"It is right to undermine the health of your child?"

Physical and mental health are such basic necessities to well-being and happiness that in practice nobody ever disagrees with the idea that promoting the health of children is morally important/obligatory. — VagabondSpectre

Even if literally no one ever felt otherwise, what would that have to do with the issue? Are you saying that it has something to do with how common a particular sentiment is?

I accept that people don't automatically understand this stuff, and I even understand why they reject vaccines; they're just wrong about it. — VagabondSpectre

Again, the problem here isn't that people can be correct or incorrect about the effectiveness, the dangers, etc. of vaccination versus foregoing vaccination. It's that those facts aren't in themselves moral facts. Even having preferences about vaccinating versus not vaccinating is not sufficient for us to be talking about morality. We have to be talking about preferences about interpersonal behavior (that's more significant than etiquette). We can have such preferences with respect to vaccinations, but not any old preference re vaccinations would count, and the facts about it, in themselves, just don't have anything to do with morality.

The answer is “apply reason to see which person is correct.”. — DingoJones

The problem is that in the example at hand, both sides claim to be applying reason and claim that they are correct.

So if there's no other arbiter, we can't get beyond being at loggerheads like that.

In a nutshell their claim was that now because of global terrorism, violence/oppression of women, and so on religions thenselves are causing harm and are unnecessary. — kudos

Since there are religious believers who don't engage in terrorism, violence towards or oppression of women, etc., then it would seem that believing in something, without question, with no room for rational argument is NOT necessarily dangerous. Something else would have to be at play in the examples he's objecting to.

If you take a neutron star on its own, I posit that the curve associated with its mass could be measured as an angle. — wax

What would justify that we're not just making up a story, so to speak, in this? In other words, it seems like an arbitrary model.

Your question has been answered, just not in the way you would like me to answer it. I — DingoJones

I'll remember that in the future for posts back and forth with you. I can type anything and claim that I answered a question you asked, "just not in the way you would like me to answer it."

dangerous on account of individuals believing without question in something with no room for rational arguement. — kudos

The person you were discussing this with should have had an argument re why believing in something, without question, with no room for rational argument is necessarily "dangerous." Because if that's not necessarily dangerous, it's a moot point.

The question if an event would be equally likely to exist or not exist given some reason to believe it doesnt exist. — kudos

There's no way to figure likelihood in scenarios like that.

does the belief that others should all ascribe to atheism itself necessitate a nonbelief in all things of this nature? — kudos

If one is proposing a normative based on rationality to that effect, then it would suggest being skeptical about all similar claims, sure. That wouldn't include claims about alien life, though, as there is good reason, grounded in scientific principles if one buys them, to believe that some sort of alien life would exist somewhere.

All men believe what they sense, but does argueing for the universal spread of atheism mean that one must systematically deny anything outside of its realms of plausibility? — kudos

Why would you be advocating that people believe things "outside of the realms of plausibility"? That seems like a weird thing to advocate.

If they say they like cauliflower, that's either true or false. — tim wood

It's true or false that they have that opinion, yes. It's not true or false that cauliflower is good, which is another way of stating the same opinion. It would be true or false that they think it's good, though.

Anyway, you're ignoring what I'm asking you.

Many people are looking fondly back to 1950s and want to re-create them. — Ilya B Shambat

Unlike the essay written in 1995, I'm guessing you wrote this one in the early to mid-70s?

I don't need a consensus to know, for example, if someone has presented an invalid argument. If the standard was validity, then they're being unreasonable. That's how this works. — S

So the standard isn't established by any consensus. What's it established by?

(Note that I'm not arguing pro consensuses or anything like that. The aim here is to get folks to think more about just what they're claiming re how this stuff works.)

You use the standard. What you are talking about is accepting the standard. Im not saying anyone must accept reason, only that should they choose to do so, they are accepting a particular standard, some basic rules that govern what is reasonable. If they do not follow that standard, regardless of whether or not they claim to be doing so, then they are not being reasonable.
The consensus would be in deciding whether or not to BE reasonable, it is something you agree or decide to do. The creation of that standard needs no consensus.
Someone creates a mile, a certain length of distance that they call a mile. If another person says “i just walked 10ft, a whole mile” then they are not correct according to that created standard of a mile. They claim its a mile, but there is a fact of the matter about what a mile actually is and 10 ft isnt it. No consensus required. This person can claim they are using miles, or they can use km instead, or feet instead or whatever..they could get a million people to call 10ft a mile. Doesnt matter, it doesnt change the created standard and when they claim 10ft is a mile they are wrong, they are just calling something else a mile that is not. They have not accepted the standard of the mile, but have rejected it or redefined it into something else (ergo, not a mile). — DingoJones

None of this answers any of the questions I asked you. Do you need me to go into detail why it doesn't answer the questions I asked?

How about because your examples are not opinions. "I like cauliflower," "I prefer Evil Dead to Casablanca," are categorical statements, true or false as what they aver is true or false. An opinion is a judgment with respect to some criteria. "In my opinion, X is better than Y." — tim wood

If someone likes cauliflower, they're going to say that cauliflower is better than some food they don't like. "In my opinion, x is better than y" is another way of saying that one likes x (more than one likes y.)

So again, how can they be right or wrong about that? Don't just tell me they can be. Tell me how they can be.

Whether or not a person thinks they are being reasonable, there is a fact of the matter of whether they actually are. — DingoJones

So if it's not determined by consensus what is it determined by? You say that some claim doesn't make sense and isn't reasonable. The other guy says it does make sense; it is reasonable. You say that it's a fact that it's not reasonable. He says that it's a fact that it's reasonable. Now what do we do. How do we figure out who is right?