Do unto others as they would have you do unto them" — Janus

This presupposes you know how they want you to treat them. Be ok after you get to know them, but beforehand, you could be all kinds of embarrassed.

Do you think Eisenstein’s rendition is right?

Agreed...no formulation can cover all the bases. That’s exactly why the C.I. is only the form a command would have, if it was possible in reality. Hypothetic imperatives cover the others; one can make those up as he goes along, depending on the circumstance.

More art than science....hell yeah. More fun too. Unless you’re a hard scientist.

So, on your view, no matter what unforeseen circumstances may arise, no matter what false pretense led to the promise... if one promises to do something, then they ought do it out of moral obligation alone. — creativesoul

I did say I am relieved of my moral obligation immediately upon discovery of false representation of the predicate under which the promissory proposition was made. Otherwise, yes, to be morally worthy one ought to act in accord with his moral obligation, in this case do what he promised. Won’t be long before he becomes quite careful in what he promises.
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I think that there are a number of different situations/circumstances in which I would not say that one ought keep one's promise. — creativesoul

Then he has no business making one. Remember, you said....voluntarily obligates himself. A guy promising to commit murder, again, as you say, hasn’t actually done it, so he is just speaking threateningly.

I'd be interested in your setting out of the a priori concepts... — creativesoul

From deontological metaphysics, the key is understanding there is a freely determinant will that both prescribes a law and subjects itself to it. For that to have any sustainable power, a moral agent must hold with respect for law in itself. Otherwise, morality can never be grounded in that which is universal and necessary, which are the criteria of law, and our private conduct would know no ground. Duty is the consciousness of respect for law, and consciousness of the will that determines it. Obligation is acknowledgement of duty in the form of judgement, when it comes to acting in conformity to an imperative.

A promise is, as you say, when one enters himself into an obligation. If one obliges himself, in this case oblige himself with making the world conform to his word, he has already done his duty out of respect for the law which says it is never a moral interest to issue false intent.

Metaphysics. Where one is allowed to theorize without having to actually prove anything, while still maintaining internal consistency.

What counts as being moral in kind, such that all things satisfying the criterion are sensibly and rightfully called "moral" things as compared/contrasted to things that are not? — creativesoul

What counts as being moral is the tripartite correspondence between that which is freely determined as good in itself, the will which authorizes an action in accordance with it, and the duty to execute that action.

What counts as not moral is everything else. The metaphysical description might read....that which has freedom as its causality is moral, that which does not invoke freedom as its causality is merely rational.

Saying that one ought keep their promise is about what has not happened. — creativesoul

True enough. But a thing has happened. Would you concur with my description, or conceptual itemization, of the existential dependency of the promise itself?

Otherwise....d’accord.

I was thinking more along the lines of existential dependency. — creativesoul

Ok. Promise has it, sure. Promise is existentially dependent on some a priori abstract concepts the understanding thinks as belonging to it necessarily, re: in descending order of power, obligation, duty, respect. No promise as the meaningful subject of a synthetic proposition is possible without these a priori conditions.

We don’t think a promise to ourselves alone. Knowledge of those necessary fundamentals is given a priori in a subject, therefore he has no need to represent them to himself in the form of a promise. Thus, promise has the existential dependency of being represented in the world by the subject who understands the a priori conditions for it.

What does existential dependency mean to you?
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I cannot agree with saying that all promises ought be kept. — creativesoul

Under the assumption that all promises have moral implications, can you agree with thinking that all promises ought to be kept? Or, upon the making of a promise, the ought to keep belongs to it necessarily? I wouldn’t even make a promise, given a certain set of conditions, unless I knew beforehand I would keep it, within that same set of conditions. My contention would be, the fact I am relieved of my moral obligation immediately upon discovery of false representation of the predicate under which the promissory proposition was made, is insufficient to relieve me of my moral obligation otherwise.

Wait....maybe you mean a promise made by some other person that would not be in your best interest ought not be kept. Even so, you’d still be forced to admit his obligation to keep it despite your being ill-disposed because of his moral integrity. Seems odd, although nonetheless morally worthy, to credit his moral worthiness in keeping a promise at the same time he ends you.

It just occurred to me that, in a way, the C.I. is a reformulation of the Golden Rule. — Janus

That has been the case since its inception, and the literature is abundant both pro and con. Skipping all the theoretics, the bottom line is.....the second formulation of the C.I. we all know and love in effect says never treat another rational agent as a means to your own ends, whereas the G.R. explicitly requires a rational agent to do just that. In addition, by that same requirement, the other person is relieved of both his freely autonomous will, and his duty.

On the other hand, there’s nothing untoward in treating someone a certain way for no other reason than it would be good for you to be treated that way. Problem is of course, this system only works with non-deviant rationalities. I mean, you wouldn’t gain much if you went around robbing people because you want them to rob you.

But no, the C.I. prime doesn’t relate to the G.R. It doesn’t obligate anyone to treat you any way at all. It only obligates individual agents to act as if everyone else was obligated the same way.
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Could you explain some more how you see the difference between ""morality is relative" with respect to the good of a community" and ""the relativism of morality" which has nothing to do with community"? — Janus

Nahhh........I lost my chain of thought on that. Reading back through all your stuff, I couldn’t pick it back up.

I am not arguing that one ought keep their promise. — creativesoul

Maybe not within the context of promise, but you’d argue that one ought to kee a promise if the context was about “ought”. I mean, one ought to keep his promise is a valid argument to make, right?

A promise is when one voluntarily enters themselves into an obligation — creativesoul

A promise, in and of itself, or any affirmative token with a moral interest, regardless of it’s object, implies something a whole lot more fundamental than mere intentionality. Without these fundamentals, the object might as well not even be included in the predicate of a promise proposition.
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There is an actual distinction between making a promise and making a statement about that promise. — creativesoul

Certainly. Statements, at least explications about promise, should include those aforementioned fundamentals. Any decent meta-ethicist is already well aware of them.
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I'm not arguing that a promise means that what it says ought to be done. — creativesoul

Agreed. Still, a promise is a synthetic proposition, and all synthetic propositions have a necessary connection between its subject and its object.

If person A promises to plant a rose garden on Sunday, then it follows that there ought be a rose garden the day after, not because one ought keep his/her promise, but rather because that is exactly what the promise means. It means nothing else. — creativesoul

Yes, there ought to be a garden; that is all the consistency between a promise made and an obligation to it, by the same person, means. Whether or not the ever is, or ever was going to be, a garden, is irrelevant with respect to the relationship between a promise and the obligation presupposed by it.

It's not flawless... — creativesoul

Nope, it isn’t. It’s philosophy, which presents an inherently logical possibility, which experience will either confirm, deny or not address at all.
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A method is only as successful as it's implementation. — creativesoul

Exactly. Under this paradigm, to be moral is to choose a worthy principle and act accordingly; to be immoral is to choose a worthy principle and act contrary to it. Humans always have choice, but they also have choice to disregard their own best interests. Like...it is morally good to let an ex-girlfriend have her own life; it is immoral to let and ex-girlfriend have her own life yet key the new boyfriend’s brand new Mustang.
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We're not seeking perfection. We're setting out which is the most likely to increase goodness while decrease unnecessary suffering. If everyone did this, there is no doubt that the world world be a much better place than if not. So, it also consistent. — creativesoul

Well said. I might say we do set out to find perfection, but recognize our own imperfections which naturally prohibit exemplifying what we find.

“The first rule of culture: let each man be the best he was created capable of being”- Carlyle

Either not all utterances of ought are moral utterances, or Hume is wrong. — creativesoul

The first is true, the second theoretically true, depending on one’s metaphysical bent. But there’s also a third, in which Hume never said no ought can be derived from any is, but only that if some moral theory adventurist wanders thereupon he should show his work. Of course, Hume then presumes such efforts to be ill-founded. Leave it to those wishing to make mountains out of molehills, in a rush to publish any old thing with his name attached, and we end up with a philosophical dilemma that never was. Also, it should be noted that Kant didn’t address this false dilemma in his moral philosophy, because it didn’t exist (Black, 1964). And conceding that Kant read and understood Hume very well indeed, it is easy to suppose no import should have been given to it even if it now does.

First of all is the exposition of the “problem”. For context, from the book itself, this is easy to find at the very end of the reference pagination, so one doesn’t have to scroll or thumb page after page for the backdrop on what he’s saying here:

“.....I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou’d subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv’d by reason....”
(THN 3.1.1.,1739)

Make of it as you wish. If you don’t already have a full text, and if you’re at all interested, especially in the context, and if you’re on an IPad, maybe any device....dunno.....you can highlight and go right to the reference pagination.
https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-a-treatise-of-human-nature

All that to say this: Hume was wrong, but only with respect to the very last sentence of the passage, insofar as we do see that the distinction between vice and virtue is founded on the relations of objects and is most certainly “perceived” by reason.

I’m ok with that. Mores being a form of social etiquette, or an unwritten code of public conduct, as opposed to, say, taboos.
— Mww

I'm not sure about your distinction here. — Janus

You know...the human complement system: Yes, no; left, right; front, back; up,down.....mores, taboos.
But you think of a taboo more as a negative more? That’s fine. I can do that, if it ever comes up again.
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OK, but I was referring to your enculturation as a child being the foundation of your moral attitudes. — Janus

So you use enculturation that way, from a child-rearing perspective. I was attributing more to it than that, looks like. It relates because I treat morality from the perspective of a fully developed rational system. As such, I don’t think morality is given to me by parents or society or environment. I figure if I’m responsible for my actions, I get to say what they’re going to be.

All the rest of your comment.....all good.
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although you apparently consider yourself a moral relativist, you seem to be in favor of Kant's categorical imperative. That would seem to be a difficult if not impossible reconciliation. — Janus

Moral relativism is only recently prominent, sorta like when science divorced itself from philosophy, so too did relativism divorce itself from anthropology, and has since sliced and diced itself up into so many separate denominations....it’s ridiculous. If morality is a study of personal conduct, then there are only two sources of what would stand as a guide for it. Either the code is external, as religious, tribal or administrative doctrine, and is called descriptive ethics, or it is internal, called normative ethics, as a function of personal character, called virtue ethics, or as a function of will, called deontological ethics. That’s it...ain’t no mo’.

I am a relativist in the common sense only insofar as my moral interests are certainly not going to be identical to everybody else’s, I’m a subjectivist simply by nature, and I’m a deontologist because the idea of moral law appeals to me.

The C.I. is the formula for a moral law, it says act strictly in accordance with a principle and whatever that principle is, which I am free to choose, treat it as if it were a law on which everybody else acted the same way. Although this is not a realistic “ought”, it is a very substantial guide to private conduct, to being morally disposed. And that’s all it was ever supposed to be. Murder is a moral interest of mine, because from it I can hold with a principle (murder is contrary to the purpose of life), therefore I ought to act (never commit murder) as if it is indeed a fact murder is contrary to the purpose of life.

As an aside, this formulation also solves the “is-ought” problem. Turns out, it ain’t all that difficult to reason from an “is” (murder is contrary to the purpose of life), to an “ought” (don’t do it, man).

FYI, of purely general interest.

This struck me most:

“....a survey of 73 professors with a PhD in philosophy and primary area of specialization in ethics revealed that 37% endorse deontological principles, 27% endorse utilitarian principles, 22% endorse virtue ethics, and 14% endorse none of the above....”
(reported in Schwitzgebel & Cushman, 2012)

http://home.uchicago.edu/bartels/papers/BartelsEtAl-MoralJDM-2015.pdf

What’s a moral statement? From the agent’s perspective, is it a declaration of an interest (hunger is detrimental to good health), or, is it the representation of an interest in the form of an action (I go to the gospel mission every Tuesday to feed the hungry)?
— Mww

Will any interest do or does it require a specific kind of interest in order for it to qualify as being a moral one, as compared/contrasted to one that is not. I've all kinds of interests, from people watching to inventing, to rendering, to poetry, to non-fiction, etc. — creativesoul

Excellent question, and well-thought. There are two kinds of interests. An interest which is the object of desire is an interest of empirical reason and is subjectively pathological; an interest which is the object of will is an interest of morality and is purely subjectively practical. It is here that it becomes clear objective examples, re: external to the moral agent, of moral conditions are not sufficient for moral judgements.

In the former it is the object itself that is good because it satisfies a desire, in the latter it is the willful determination of a volition in order to attain to an object that is good because it satisfies a moral disposition.
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On my view, the law is nothing more and nothing less than legitimized morality(legitimized moral belief). — creativesoul

Absolutely. As long as we agree it is a moral law, not a law in general. And it must have the form of law, because laws are the only possible manifestations of universality and necessity, with respect to human rationality. And it must be those in order to be non-contradictory. And it must be non-contradictory in order for the moral agent to know with certainty what his moral dispositions are. He cannot go through life constantly asking himself what the right thing to do is, or, more importantly, what the good thing to do is. Here is where the intrinsic circularity of human rationality arises, insofar as he must reason to a law, which must then be used to reason to his lawful actions. Enter.......yeah....that’s right......moral subjective relativism. Proof positive moral relativism has no place in the world. An agent needs to determine his laws relative to his sense of good. THAT is the name of the moral game.

Even so, given the necessary conditions of law, it still must be determined how a moral law is possible.

Mores can differ markedly between cultures, but I tend to see those more in terms of different forms of etiquette than of central moral differences — Janus

I’m ok with that. Mores being a form of social etiquette, or an unwritten code of public conduct, as opposed to, say, taboos. The consequence of violation of a civil code of conduct is usually pre-determined as part and parcel of that code. The consequence of violation of social mores is usually something like being ostracized to some degree, or something like it, and isn’t usually pre-determined in form or degree. It’s like mores are an informal code, civil law is a formal code, both having to do with public conduct.

It is very much more the case that an outsider will find the mores of an extant community sufficient reason to join it, rather than the unambiguous, etched-in-stone civil code. Though I suppose it is possible a guy will come to a state where the penalty for bank robbery, e.g., is substantially less than some other state. Nevertheless, it seems rather significant that one’s sense of good conduct has precedence over one’s sense of right conduct.
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The "relativism of (your) moral dispositon itself" I would see as a combination of enculturation and freely exercised rationality. — Janus

Again, I concur, if I’m already in a social environment, but if I’m freely changing environments because of some arbitrary unhappiness with either myself or the community, to wit: my enculturation is insufficient, or even detrimental somehow, then my freely exercised rationality becomes the means by which I know what’s good for myself, and in turn justifies me packin’ up the kids and BBQ and hittin’ the road.

If it be true my moral relativism enables me to be well-adapted to a community, and my moral relativism enables me to be unhappy with a community, enculturation because of community can’t be the ground of my moral relativism. Cultural predicates can only serve as the means of exposing my freely excersiced rationality. In other words, I myself am common to both situations, therefore whatever the distinctions are, and however they manifest, absolutely must have their origin in me.
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Morality is relative, but it is relative to what is good for community, not what is good for the individual. There is obviously an objective 'what is the case' when it comes to what is good for community, and this is all the more obvious when it comes to extreme acts
— Janus — Mww

All my above is in relation to your assertion here. I voted it true, because I agree with that assertion in itself. I bring it up to exemplify the difference between your “morality is relative” with respect to the good of a community, and my “the relativism of morality” which I assert has nothing to do with community.

Is there any common ground?

endless talk-pastfest, which is a complete waste of time. — Janus

I go by the Lincoln-Douglas style. I take the first negative in opposition to whatever first positive I’m responding. The correct second positive reply to me should address what I said and nothing else whatsoever. If it doesn’t......I’m out. Patience is not my thing. Right before wasted effort.

I am a moral relativist in a sense apparently not too different form the sense in which you also seem to be. — Janus

I guess I’m a moral relativist in the sense you gave here. I’m pretty sure I have different moral interests than many others hereabouts, and we all get along pretty well.

That being said, I think that notion of morality is reducible to something that, while I get along well here, I wouldn’t get along well at all in, say, Belltown in Seattle, or the South side in Chicago. Or, hell....anywhere in Saigon. Is it something that can be addressed by a shrink, to see if I’m simply a elitist, or would it be better addressed by an examination of my moral philosophy, to see if I live where I do because it is good for me to live here?

I think it means something if I can say my moral interests would change dramatically if I was forced to inhabit a community I didn’t like. If that is true, the influence of culture can explain the occassion of my moral relativism, but it can’t explain the relativism of my moral disposition itself.

The judicial system is an administrative code of conduct, in which rules or laws have a consequence associated with them. It works well to supervise public conduct, but it doesn’t speak to private conduct

Whether law grounds moral dispositions, the why and how of it, is the purview of deontological doctrine. If one doesn’t grant the validity of that doctrine and abide by it, moral dispositions in conjunction with moral law are meaningless.

One would have to find some other way.

Morality is relative, but it is relative to what is good for community, not what is good for the individual. There is obviously an objective 'what is the case' when it comes to what is good for community, and this is all the more obvious when it comes to extreme acts — Janus

True, for the morality of the individual is already determined, so what is good for him is given. The differences in already determined moralities of separate individuals, assuming there are any, and the matter and degree of those differences, is where the relativism resides. By association, what is good for the community is determined by the relative moralities of its individual inhabitants and how those differences manifest in public.

The obviously objective “what is the case” of the good of the community is given by how well it performs as a community. It is the case objectively that the community gets along well when the members do, and vice versa.

That which is thought but never expressed is an opinion. That which is opinion expressed is a belief. That belief of which a single instance of its natural occurrence is met in experience, is knowledge. Ever been in a community where some people exhibit moral differences but the community gets along? All righty then......thesis validated far FAR beyond mere opinion.

Superficially, man landing on the moon is empirically provable, carrying the implication of necessary truth in the statement. To say one should not murder is not the same kind of statement, insofar as no empirical proof arises from the commission of the act. Committing a murder doesn’t prove it true you shouldn’t have, but only proves it necessarily true that you did. And the negation is the same: not committing the murder proves you didn’t but doesn’t prove you shouldn’t.

If I say it is true my best interest is served by not committing murder, then I am tacitly admitting the statement “one should not murder” is true, but that admission is only with respect to my interest, not to the fact of the matter contained in the statement itself. Besides, how would I know with apodeitic certainty the statement is necessarily true without actually doing what the statement says I shouldn’t? Have you ever been aware of some mindset of yours, committed some act associated with that mindset, then been aware of your mindset post-act? Oh man...I should NEVER have done that!!! The difference in those two mindsets perfectly describes the truth of the statement, which manifests purely as a conflict of interest.

So....is there a sense? Sure. But we have no business in formulating our moral interests by having to actually do something beforehand, in order to then discover whether our moral condition is supported by it.

Do you not worry about equivocating and/or self-contradiction? — creativesoul

No. I’m sure of what I think. I know I’m not self-contradictory, but I certainly could be just plain wrong because I’m missing some experience which would alter my judgements. That being said, I’m as much subject to possible cognitive prejudice as the next guy. But if so, I came by it honestly, so I’m ok with it.
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Correspondence to what has happened. — creativesoul

I said I wasn’t going to define “truth”. That’s not to say I don’t accord with with a similar form of yours, insofar as...a-HEM!!!!.....truth is given when a cognition conforms to its object. While not a definition per se, it is an indication of a purely subjective condition which abides no internal controversy.
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Can moral statements be true? — creativesoul

What’s a moral statement? From the agent’s perspective, is it a declaration of an interest (hunger is detrimental to good health), or, is it the representation of an interest in the form of an action (I go to the gospel mission every Tuesday to feed the hungry)? I don’t make linguistic moral statements when the occassion arises to formulate my morality (I can see it in my head) so the truth of that kind of statement is moot. If my action is considered a moral statement, and it derives explicitly from my moral law, then it is a true representation of a moral interest but not a linguistic statement. If I just outright tell you something I consider implicit in my moral agency, then that statement I make to you must be a statement about a true moral interest of mine. But you wouldn’t know if I actually held the moral principle from which the interest came anyway, so, again, the truth of that statement is moot.

Truth or non-truth is not sufficient for moral statements, but only for actions in compliance with a subjective principle. Only then is an agent is morally true to himself.
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Is it helpful to parse morality in such terms? "Moral" not being a synonym for right, acceptable, and/or approval, but rather as a kind of thought/belief that everyone has; a kind that is determined the same way that all kinds of thought/belief are determined... by the content of their correlations. — creativesoul

Since this whole Chinese fire drill started, it has been my position that morality is one of two intrinsic conditions of being human, the other being rationality (I said reason, but that isn’t quite right). So, no, I do not consider it helpful at all to parse morality in terms of right or wrong, true or false. These are all subject to definite quantification, hence those dualities are reducible to something else, which is the foundation of relativism in general.

I think we need the term “right”, of a certain sense not negated by “wrong” but having to do with “harmonious”, in which relativism has no say, and we also need something irreducible to anything else but still relative in itself. We end up with.......doing the right thing because it is good to do it. Here, what is right is given by the rules the agent himself determines and has no relativism, what is good is relative to the separate agents’ sense of moral obligation with respect to each other.

Where is the boundary on this side of which is right and wrong and the good; and on the other it's all relative? I think that depends on the good in question, and the age, maturity, experience, and circumstance of those asking. — tim wood

I would have left out right and wrong, but otherwise, well said. The sense of “good” already contains right or wrong in it for the moral agent, and on the other side, the observing agent has no say in the moral agent’s determinations but may only make his own judgements relative to them.

Cognitive dissonance rears it's ugly head again... — creativesoul

It always does, when opinions are the primary source in a dialectic.

If there are no conflicting statements under subjective moral relativism, then it fails miserably — creativesoul

No conflicting statements implies subjective infallibility, but otherwise normal humans are very far from infallible if it be granted it is impossible to have sufficient evidence to prevent being wrong universally, such that an agent’s statements and the world of his involvement immediately coincide regardless of circumstance. It follows that “fails miserably”, while perhaps being a rather harsh judgement, isn’t entirely misplaced.

On the other hand, in a broader sense, involving groups of subjects, there can be private statements among individuals which may not conflict internally but conflict inter-subjectively. This broader aspect entails a failure in the culture in which the SMR is operative, but not so much the individual. Either way, the implication is that subjective moral progress is very difficult and any rational criticism of his own or any other social climate is virtually non-existent.

All of which seems to indicate a problem with “conflicting statements” with regard to what is in conflict with what. Such problem with statements reduces to a problem with relativism, in which case the question becomes, what is it actually that is relative, and what is it relative to.

What does that mean? "Imbued in us"? — creativesoul

An undeveloped albeit intrinsic quality present at birth.

Are you claiming that you, as a human, do not have any emotional content within your reasoning? — creativesoul

No. I’m saying I can Reason with respect to emotion when it’s called for. Feelings are not cognitions, which is why they have no object of their own. The body supplies the object, re: tears, butterflies, sheer delight or sheer adrenaline rush....whatever. One never thinks......is this where I’m supposed put a smile on my face? Is this the right time to cuss the bad guy, applaud the good guy?

Reason with respect to emotion enters the stage when the response expected, or considered appropriate, doesn’t conform to the feeling, re: being punished (remorse) for something you didn’t do (anger), or, what’s worse, being given credit (pride) for something you didn’t do (shame).

Define the term "truth" in such a way that the reader could replace all your uses of it with it's definition and not suffer any loss of meaning and/or coherency. — creativesoul

Nahhh....I ain’t doin’ that. No matter how I did it, somebody could take exception. Especially you, methinks. It’s a fine line between truth being out there waiting for us to find it, in which case logic preserves it, or truth doesn’t exist until we determine what is true, in which case logic makes it possible. Historically, empiricists use the former to denounce the latter, rationalists use the latter to denounce the former. And the beat goes on.....

What exactly is it that you're saying is 'by the mind' and 'by the senses'? — creativesoul

Quickly.......
Perception: real objects are passed through the senses in order that we understand we are being affected by something outside us;
Apperception: representation of objects are passed to understanding a priori, so we are enabled to think an object without it being outside us.

If we didn’t have that ability, we wouldn’t have a memory. Perception is the energized neural pathway, the empirical aspect, apperception is the feedback loop such that the pathway is maintained, the rational aspect.

In theory.......

That which pure reason is thinking about always has emotional content.
— creativesoul

I reject that thesis as without sufficient warrant. It is patently obvious there are conditions where no feeling or emotion requires my attention.
— Mww

That's irrelevant. I'm not claiming that every situation demands that we focus upon the emotional aspects. — creativesoul

Your irrelevancy is misplaced. I reject the thesis because reason doesn’t think. I do. I am the thinker. By means of reason, imbued in me as a condition of being human, I do my thinking. That is why I am certain there are conditions where no emotional content is involved, for the simple fact I don’t think about them.

Are you familiar with “Cartesian theater”? Your “thinking about thought/belief” as it seems to me, demands one, which both speculative philosophy and cognitive neuroscience shows as unnecessary on the one hand or implausible on the other.

Surely you agree that pure reason consists of thought/belief. — creativesoul

Your proclivity of conjoining disparate conceptions is off-putting. I understand thought, I understand belief. I understand thought is possible without a belief attached to it, I understand no belief is possible without being thought. I don’t have any reason to suppose conjoining them with the implication they are the same thing, would serve a purpose they couldn’t serve just as well by treating them as different conceptions, and as having different relations within a rational procedure.

Pure reason is a procedure, the method of exercising our intrinsic rationality, so of course it consists of thought and beliefs. There is no place in the procedure for thought/belief as a singular notion.

a concept that exists to protect humanity from itself. — nsmith

A judicial system can protect humanity from itself, as well. Can the judicial fully contain the moral, or does morality need to be a system of its own?

On reification:

There’s as much distance between reason and instinct, as there is between apperception (by the mind) and perception (by the senses).

If we never learned a language, would we still be able to think?

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong?
— Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth.
— creativesoul

True enough, but it doesn’t have to be; that’s logic’s job.
— Mww

No, it's not. That is a huge mistake. The job of logic is to preserve truth(correspondence) — creativesoul

A theory predicated of internally consistent, non-contradictory tenets has truth as its possibility, regardless of its coherence. A theory can be perfectly coherent and be refutable to extinction.

The job of logic is to provide the conditions for truth, given the correct use of it, it is the means to an end. It is the form of correct reasoning, content be what it may. After truth is known, there is no need of logic to preserve it.

where the creature has no language, such as when a cat — creativesoul

Rationality belongs to a biological entity with the capacity to reason by means of conceptions, in accordance with logical laws of his own invention, AND, willfully act in discord with them.

Find me a cat with those attributes, and we can talk.

What would thought/belief devoid of all empirical content consist of? — creativesoul

How the hell would I know? It’s your theory, maybe that parameter is.....you know, like......incoherent to you.

The discussion is about so-called 'pure reason', which is called "pure" because it is supposedly empty of emotional content. — creativesoul

No. Pure reason is empty of empirical content. The bedroom is empirical but incidental to the color, which cannot be related to the physical paint because the paint isn’t present. The palette of possibilities is a priori in my mind.
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That which pure reason is thinking about always has emotional content. — creativesoul

I reject that thesis as without sufficient warrant. It is patently obvious there are conditions where no feeling or emotion requires my attention.
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Lemme ask ya.....who does distinguish between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief? Other than you. Anybody whose name I’d recognize?

Guy going about his business, just living the life, being of sound mind and body, normal Everydayman stuff, thought/belief is operating in him.

Guy gets done with the day, or just done with whatever, thought/belief goes idle, he begins witnessing what had been thought/belief. What was thought/belief in the office inventory, e.g., is now thinking about what thought/belief was doing at the time of the office inventory.

If not this, then I have no more interest in it.

No excuses. I got careless.

If ontology isn’t presupposed, or if ontology is irrelevant, I don’t care what it is.

If ontology isn’t presupposed or irrelevant, I don’t care what it is.
— Mww

Haha (or were you not joking?) — Terrapin Station

Nope, not joking. Being or becoming is already present in transcendental reductive epistemology. Working with what is, beats working with how something becomes what it is.

A theory predicated on logic, internally consistent, and non-contradictory....can be wrong?
— Mww

Of course it can be. Coherency is insufficient for truth. — creativesoul

True enough, but it doesn’t have to be; that’s logic’s job.

It is well accepted in philosophy of science that theories cannot be verified to be right or wrong. A theory is provisionally accepted as long as it seems to be, regarding what is observed, the most explanatory one available and as long as any predicted conditions and events that it entails are consistently observed to obtain. — Janus

Yep. Not to mention, coherence is not a condition of a valid theory. Just because it doesn’t make sense to someone, or even a group of someone’s, doesn’t mean it is senseless.

The question 'But do we REALLY have free will?' is at best unanswerable, and at worst inapt and even incoherent. The idea that it is a coherent question seems to be a chimera created, again, by outmoded and unfortunate atomistic, mechanistic thinking. — Janus

The final words on Dr. Hook’s “Cover of the Rolling Stone”, the way it was said....fits that comment to a gold-plated tee: ahhh, that’s just beautiful.