Well, I don’t believe in the mental-only/objective-mind-independent dichotomy. I believe they are intertwined inextricably. Hence, my belief that there is reason to the universe (it is rational) and the human mind is rational. The two cannot be extricated or separated. — Noah Te Stroete

I'm not at all saying they're not "intertwined." But either you believe that everything is ONLY mind or you believe that there is no mind, or you believe that some stuff is mind and some stuff isn't.

Again, thinking that some stuff is mind and some isn't mind isn't really saying anything more than "Some stuff is a tree and some stuff isn't a tree." I don't think anyone would be saying that trees and other things aren't intertwined in that case. They're just not saying either that everything is only a tree or that there are no trees.

A traditional distinction is between real and ideal, which at least roughly correlates to objective/subjective, or external/internal (internal a la mentality). That's not the only way to use the terms "real" and "ideal," obviously, but it's one traditional way to use the terms, and pretty much whenever you see a philosopher say that they're an antirealist on such and such, they're simply denying that such and such has any external or objective existence.

Re nominalism, it's worth reading a bit about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominalism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/.

That sounds like idealism. I thought you were against idealism. — Noah Te Stroete

Some things are mental-only--like ethics/morality and value in general, some things aren't mental-only, they're objective/real/external to us.

I'm not a realist on any abstracts. Not being a realist on any abstracts is a brand of nominalism (which is part of how I'm a nominalist). I'm a realist on particulars instead.

So yeah, you could say that it's idealism about physical laws, but it's not any kind of overarching idealism. Presumably everyone thinks that some things are mental-only, unless they're simply denying that we have minds, thoughts, etc. at all...... In which case they're literally telling us that they're mindless. ;-)

(1) Laws of nature do not have anything to do with purpose. They have to do simply with what is the case.

(2) I don't believe that we do discover laws of nature. I'm not a realist on natural law (in any sense). I'm not a realist on an abstracts. I'm a nominalist. And the evidence suggests that laws of nature are a way that we think about what we experience rather.

I’m not denying the existence of contingent moral truths (Kant’s hypothetical imperatives). I am claiming there are at least some necessary moral truths (Kant’s categorical imperatives). — Noah Te Stroete

Sure. And I'm questioning how you believe that necessary (moral or any) truth follows from the notion that the universe was created for the purpose of beings with reason or rationality, because that seems like a non sequitur to me.

I believe through faith that the universe was created for the purpose of beings with reason or rationality. Thus, I don’t see how it doesn’t follow that there are no necessary truths regarding conduct. You, on the other hand, believe through faith that there is no purpose for the universe. — Noah Te Stroete

I don't believe through faith that there is no objective purpose. I believe through the complete absence of evidence that there is no objective purpose. The only evidence for purposes suggests that they're something that individuals do (in other words, a way that individuals can think about things).

How does it follow that if the universe was created for the purpose of beings with reason or rationality, then there are necessary truths?

It seems not impossible logically that if the universe was created for the purpose of beings with reason or rationality, then there are contingent truths.

What's the argument for the former rather than the latter?

It appears to be from a 2015 book by Tim Whitmarsh, who is a professor of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge. The book is called Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World.

I disagree that it is an ontological fact that nothing has intrinsic value. I’m not an atheist anymore. — Noah Te Stroete

So to have a philosophical discussion about this, you'd need to plausibly support how there can be intrinsic value. Support just what it's a property of, just how it would obtain, etc.

So, human life has no intrinsic value to you? It’s just a matter of how a particular person happens to feel about humans? — Noah Te Stroete

Nothing has intrinsic value period. That's an ontological fact. Valuing is something that individuals do.

I didn't give my opinion above. I simply said that whether something is good or bad or neutral is a matter of how any given individual feels about it.

You were the one who claimed that your moral reasons were based on your “feelings”. Why should your personal feelings count more than others’? — Noah Te Stroete

Part of what it means to have preferences is that you'd rather that things were a particular way. You prefer that to alternatives. So you do what you can to make things that way. Otherwise we'd not be talking about very strong preferences, if we're talking about preferences at all.

This belief is justified in that raising too much cattle is bad for the environment. It is further justified in that it is a leading cause of climate change. — Noah Te Stroete

The effect that raising a lot of cattle under particular conditions has on the environment would be factual.

Whether that's bad or good or neutral or whatever is a matter of someone's preferences.

By your standard of basing the morality of eating cows and chickens on your “feelings”, then there are no objective moral truths and we are all justified in basing our own morality on how we feel. What’s the point of this thread then? I don’t give a fuck about tasty chickens. They’re food. — Noah Te Stroete

Everyone bases their morality on their feelings, whether they realize this or not. Because there's nothing else to base it on. Either you feel that such and such is acceptable behavior or you do not.

Re "justified," I wouldn't say that's a relevant issue, as I was trying to explain to chatterbears earlier. Justification is pertinent to whether we have good reasons to believe that p over not-p, which is pertinent to claims that are true or false, not issues where we're talking about you feeling one way versus another.

Re the point of the thread, chatterbears seems to believe that in some sense it's true that people should have moral views that amount to it being wrong to kill animals for food. If he believes that, I think he's mistaken. Moral stances are not true or false in any sense.

But aside from that, he may just want to try to persuade some others to feel that it's wrong to kill animals for food. Obviously our moral feelings are about ways we interact (that's what morality is--views about interpersonal behavior), and we want things to be as our preferences have it. So we do what we can to make the world more in line with our preferences, including trying to persuade others to feel similar to us.

Why didn't humans stop at atheism? What went wrong? — VoidDetector

For one, it's not as if everyone had the same beliefs but decided to change.

Two, you can't assume that there are never political or control motivations for belief endorsement.

The article explains that atheism was basically "written out of history" as best as the Romans were able to do so.

Consciousness is a term for general awareness.

Mind refers to phenomena including consciousness, ideas, concepts, emotions, desires, reasoning --all sorts of things.

Some people claim that there can be unconscious mental phenomena, so that you could have a desire that you're not aware of, for example.

Why the hate? Do you see elementary particles with your eyes? — leo

It's rather just frustration, and your comment here helps explain why. It's not as if you either directly experience elementary particles or you become an idealist. That would be quite the false dichotomy.

Already explained. — DingoJones

Obviously I didn't catch what was supposed to answer that question then. Whatever you took to answer it must not have seemed like an answer to it to me. Are you attempting to communicate with me so that I understand an idea I didn't previously or are you trying to just be disputatious and antagonistic?

What specific kind and what would the limitation be?

You are working backwards from your conclusions about ethics to dismiss the relevance of something thats foundational to almost any conclusions that can be drawn about almost anything. Starting with the simple, basic “fact” or rule or axiom (whatever you want to call it) that it doesnt make sense for something to be itself and not itself is the basis for a great many things. Im asking you to tell me why ethics must be excluded from the great many things that the “fact”, rule or axiom is applied to.
Its like you are using a rope to climb onto a rooftop. Ok, fair enough, but the versatility of a rope is such that you can also use it to swing from one rooftop to another, or tie someone up, or as a tightrope to get accross a pit...to which your response is “that doesnt make sense, ropes are for climbing onto rooftops” and im saying “yes they are but why couldnt they also be used to hang a tire swing from a tree branch?” — DingoJones

From that perspective, every fact has to do with everything, no?

...because it would be operating under the same “facts” (cannot be itself and not itself) that you yourself have called objective. Your turn. — DingoJones

The particular objective relation that a thing is itself, and can't be not itself at the same time, has nothing to do with ethics, though. Ethics is about the acceptability of interpersonal behavior. If there were objective relations that somehow amounted to whether any interpersonal behavior was acceptable or unacceptable (permissible, impermissible, obligatory, etc.) then sure, it could be similar, but there are no objective relations of that sort to base ethics on.

So I'm asking you to explain how the idea you're proposing makes any sense to you, because it seems like you're asking why ethics couldn't be based on something that has nothing particularly to do with ethics. I'm not trying to be antagonistic in asking you. I'm trying to get you to better or in far more detail explain to me what you're thinking, just how you're thinking it might work, because it seems like a nonsensical question to me--like if you were asking why oil painting technique couldn't be based on combustion, say.

pick any philosopher that says hard work is good or meaningful in itself, — schopenhauer1

But what's an example of that, for example? Maybe you're reading different philosophy than I am, but I don't see anything about "hard work" pro or con very often. The only thing I can think of offhand in that regard is Russell's "In Praise of Idleness", and even with that, we're talking about something almost 85 years old already.

What you are referring to is either the law of noncontradiction or the law of identity. — chatterbears

I'm not referring to laws/principles. I just explained that to you.

Why can’t you apply the same rule of non-contradiction to ethics to form similar basis? I understand this would not resemble conventional ethics, — DingoJones

What would it have to do with ethics at all?

What are some examples of this (philosophy bolstering the status quo) a la papers published in peer-reviewed journals, books from academic presses or by philosophy professors, etc.? I'm not doubting that there are any, but offhand I can't think of one (I have a crappy memory sometimes though).

I know, that doesnt answer the question.
The relations you are talking about are logical, the axioms of logic. Why call them facts? — DingoJones

My comment above should give you more insight into this.

Because it is not? The law of noncontradiction is an axiom one needs to accept — chatterbears

Stop there already. This is why we need to keep things simple to start. It's as if you didn't read, or at least didn't understand, what I wrote. I didn't say that the principle of noncontradiction, qua the principle of noncontradiction, is objective.

Here's what I wrote again, with some added emphases in a few spots:

"Logic and mathematics are different in that at their core, they're based on (though not exactly identical to) objective relations. Most of logic and mathematics is an extrapolation of how we think about those objective relations, but objective relations are the initial basis. That's not the case with morality/ethics."

And then as an example I gave the objective fact that something can't be itself and not itself at the same time. That is not the same thing as the principle of noncontradiction. For one, relations are particulars, they're not principles. They're also not real or objective abstracts. But it serves as the experiential basis, the basis for how we normally think about relations in general, that winds up in logic as the principle of noncontradiction.

I didn't want to get into a huge tangent about this, which is what we're doing. That's why I avoided it initially.

All you'd have to know is that I don't believe just the same structural-functional things are going on when it comes to logic and mathematics as when it comes to ethics. The reason is that logic and mathematics are more complicated in that regard in the way that they're based on, but not identical to, objective relations. Ethics isn't based on objective relations.

You can disagree with my view there, of course, but disagreeing doesn't imply that I'm not familiar with the same standard material, standard views that you're familiar with. Being familiar with and understanding something does NOT imply agreeing with it.

You are perceiving me to be as such, — chatterbears

You're telling me to look up elementary info on axioms as if I must not be familiar with it, simply because I don't have the same view(s) as you.

I am genuinely stating that I believe you are incorrect, — chatterbears

Obviously if we have different views about what we believe to be factual matters, you're going to think that I'm incorrect and I'm going to think that you're incorrect.

The first move you make from that isn't to assume that I must not be familiar with rudimentary material.

Why do you call those facts rather than logic? — DingoJones

I'm talking about relations that obtain in the extramental world.

Did you read anything else I wrote to you? This isn't about a disagreement. You are incorrect in labeling something as an objective fact, when it is not. I'd suggest you read a bit more on axioms and how they relate to principles within logic, math and ethics. — chatterbears

You're being ridiculously patronizing. (see that part I added to the above post)

Those are not "objective facts" — chatterbears

So, we disagree on this.

I'm not sure how to make sense out of someone thinking that's it's not an objective relation that something can't be itself and not itself at the same time, for example.

And posting as if you're going to teach me about something like axioms is patronizing/insulting.

We don't agree on some very core notions--whether moral claims can be true/false in any sense whatsoever, and whether logic/mathematics has any grounding in objective relations. The problem isn't that I'm not familiar with 101-level material.

How is logic based on objective relations? What objective relations are you referring to? — chatterbears

For example, the objective fact that something can't be itself and not itself at the same time.

Or the fact that if A obtains and B obtains, then it's not the case that neither A nor B obtain.

That answers it well enough. On my view, there's no sense in which moral utterances can be true or false, correct or incorrect. So we disagree about that.

Logic and mathematics are different in that at their core, they're based on (though not exactly identical to) objective relations. Most of logic and mathematics is an extrapolation of how we think about those objective relations, but objective relations are the initial basis. That's not the case with morality/ethics.

It's just a synonym for "mental" or "mind-sourced."

You don't have a problem with saying that something is a mental phenomenon, do you?

For me it's just a matter of acknowledging what morality really is--and what superior/inferior judgments really are. Both are simply types of preferences that people have. We could say that I prefer my preferences, obviously, but that's rather redundant.

Again, there's often reason to refer to mental versus nonmental, and I don't think there's anything wrong with having synonyms.

The thing is, everybody has values in which they deem as higher than another person's values. — chatterbears

I don't agree with that. I don't accept a "higher"/"lower" paradigm or framework for morality.

I wouldn't say "special" necessarily, but there's a need sometimes to refer to a distinction between "mind-dependent" or "mind-oriented" rather than "mind-independent" or "extramental" etc, and those terms, especially "mind-independent" and the like, can read pretty cumbersomely if you have to write them a lot..

It would be similar to if we often had occasion to refer to whether something is loudspeaker-dependent versus loudspeaker-independent. Less cumbersome words would be handy in that case. Who wants to keep writing or reading "loudspeaker-independent"?

If we are going to have a back n' forth, you should at least respond to my questions as well. — chatterbears

I can, but I want to keep things simple first, and you haven't finished answering my question, because it's not clear if you agree that moral utterances can't be true or false unconditionally, in any sense.

In some objective sense outside of a mind? — chatterbears

There is some sense in which you would say that moral utterances can be true or false?

Why is this even relevant? — chatterbears

It doesn't matter for the moment why it's relevant. Do you agree that moral utterances are not true or false? Let's do really, really simple things one step at a time. I don't want to try anything more complicated if we can't do that.

If your saying that subjectivity is a feature of minds, then how is that any different than talking about the features of some other process or thing in reality? Everything has distinctive features that make them different from other things. Subjectivity would be no more special than some other feature of reality, and would be a subset of reality (the objective). — Harry Hindu

I use the terms "subjective" and "objective" to refer to whether something is a mental phenomenon or not. Is that understandable?