[T]here are general truths regarding what is good for us that derive from human nature and the nature of human societies. But we are limited in our ability to know these general truths because human reason is weak and fallible: Human beings are capable of exercising reason and yet arriving at almost any foolish, destructive, evil, poisonous thing. Given this reality, conservatives give primacy to inherited traditions, — Colo Millz

My choices for a basis of appropriate action are not limited to general truths established by reason and inherited traditions. There is the matter of what might be called personal conscience. Here is a quote I often use when this kind of question comes up. It's from Ziporyn's translation of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more. — Chuang Tzu

I recognize the issue of humans using reason to justify all sorts of foolish, destructive, evil, poisonous things. This is what Emerson has to say about that in "Self-Reliance."

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't anticipate you will find this argument compelling. I acknowledge this is more applicable to personal morality than social and political action. It seems to me that the "gradual moral self-correction" you describe often, probably mostly, and maybe always arises from the personal conscience of a significant number of people.

Having said that, even as a liberal registered Democrat in the US, I believe reform should emerge within the framework of inherited traditions not so much because that will lead to better, more moral, choices, but because that is the only way it can be accomplished. Has any significant political change that tosses out the existing social and political order ever succeeded? Is that even possible? I think about the gay rights movement and the drive for marriage equality. That was finally accomplished by judicial fiat and it now it is approved in almost all states, even the most conservative ones. So I guess my answer is "I'm not sure."

The resulting debate, therefore, concerns the epistemology of moral improvement: whether justice is better secured by refining the wisdom of the past, or by subjecting that past to rational critique guided by universal moral principles. — Colo Millz

And, of course, the answer is "both." I don't think my Democratic Party has done a very good job of recognizing that over the last couple of decades, but the Republican Party teaching children about the benefits of slavery to black slaves is probably not the right answer either.

As I said in my first post, a great OP.

This is a nice summation that gets at what I was aiming for which seems to have been glossed over in most replies I have so far. — unimportant

I didn't notice anyone glossing over @Tom Storm's point. I don't think I did. I acknowledged that an appeal to tradition is not what you call an inviolable trump card, but it can be a valid argument.

T Clark defends hunting with his family from an typically anthropocentric perspective because it serves him and his own in group, with no regard for the needless killing of animals for one's own fun. — unimportant

I'm human. How--why--would I have a perspective that isn't anthropocentric. I could make a good argument that hunting and eating meat are acceptable practices, although that is not the point I made. I'm not interested in making it here. For what it's worth, we ate what we killed.

Does the act of killing some other creature enhance the fun and togetherness? that would be a rather chilling and bloodthirsty claim to stand by. — unimportant

I have fond memories of hunting, although I didn't really enjoy it much when I was a kid. We were mostly the mules--putting decoys out in the Chesapeake Bay with water blowing up over our chest waders with temperatures around freezing at dawn. That's why I don't do it anymore. That being said, why do you get a say in what I find enjoyable. The question isn't whether or not it is enjoyable, but whether it is justifiable.

It is about questioning what is held as traditional and asking 'can we do better'? — unimportant

I have no problem with that, although I don't trust you to be the person who decides what is better and what is not.

In my opinion it is about separating the wheat from the chaff which comes from well considered analysis of these traditions and not holding any particular one as out of bounds because 'tradition'. — unimportant

Again, I don't trust you to make that kind of decision for me. It's a social and political decision. As such, different arguments are considered and decisions are made. You get your say.

T Clark and his rifle — Outlander

Shotgun, mostly.

This is a great OP. I was going to say it belongs in @unimportant’s thread on tradition, but you really have opened a much broader door. I’ll think about it and come back with more comments.

I would say the assumptions, what values are deemed more important, are ultimately a matter of convention... of tradition. To say otherwise one would have to assume some objectivity to values, and that is a whole other can of worms. — ChatteringMonkey

I left something out of my last post. I said that we are born with certain things. That’s true, but we also learn things from what we observe and experience. Those are not necessarily traditional or conventional, or even social.

I would say the assumptions, what values are deemed more important, are ultimately a matter of convention... of tradition. To say otherwise one would have to assume some objectivity to values, and that is a whole other can of worms. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree with everything you’ve written with a little addition. I agree that factors that affect values include convention and tradition, but they also include personal human values that come from within—from our nature as humans. Some things we are born with.

Aah ok, but then I would just say this isn't about logic. — ChatteringMonkey

@unimportant called this out as a logical fallacy. That that’s where my first post came from.

You say this is not about logic… then what is it about? I’ll go back to what I said before— it’s about values. In that context, it’s about assumptions. What values are assumed when you make an argument against hunting? I guess the argument is that hunting is inhumane. Now I guess we can argue about which of those values is more important.

Anyway this is beside the point of the OP probably, I also don't quite got what you were getting at. — ChatteringMonkey

The OP indicates an appeal to tradition is a logical fallacy. Then you ask whether an appeal to reason gets better results than an appeal to tradition. That is irrelevant to the question on the table, which deals with logic and truth, not results.

To be fair to @unimportant, you brought up the subject of results and not he.

About conservation of truth. — ChatteringMonkey

I don’t know what that means.

What is known/judged to be comfortable, comforts the comforted. When the moralist or the lawmen show up, then goes the task of providing justifications for what should or shouldn't be allowed.

If we were Bonobos we'd run around naked and greet each other with a touch of our genitals. A disgusting culture of depraved traditions to be sure. Luckily none need to appeal to reason or tradition. It is what it is. — Nils Loc

A really good post. You got to the heart of it better than I did.

Can you make the case that an appeal to reason yields better results than an appeal to tradition, not only on an individual level, but also on a societal level? — ChatteringMonkey

Yes — unimportant

Logical arguments are not about the results of an action, they’re about truth

A good post, although I think it’s perfectly reasonable to place this thread on the main page.

Hunting season has come around again and it has got me reading up around it and that is an oft touted reason for its continuance. — unimportant

I come from a family of hunters, although I don’t hunt anymore. As much as you might sneer, hunting is an important tradition for us. I have many good memories of the times I spent with my family. It’s an important part of my memories as a young person. That’s a perfectly reasonable argument for continuing to hunt, although it certainly isn’t the only argument, or even, necessarily, the best one.

I just read the wiki of appeal to tradition which is a nice summation of this documented logical fallacy. — unimportant

An appeal to tradition is a statement of personal and community values. That’s a perfectly reasonable factor to consider when talking about social decisions and actions.

When I declare a communist/anarchist state I will call the public holidays by generic names such as 'festivity day x3827.5' — unimportant

You either mean this ironically or you’ve misunderstood the meaning of the word “anarchism .”

Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse. — Hanover

Have we dispensed with the restriction on use of videos in posts?

slow, steady empirical analysis, — Colo Millz

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t slow, steady empirical analysis at the heart of Enlightenment Liberalism?

My strongest interest is in metaphysics. Here are two books that have meant a lot to me.

“An Essay on Metaphysics” by RG Collingwood. You should be able to find this free online.
“The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science” by EA Burtt.

If you’re interested in the philosophy of science, here’s a link to an article that really changed the way I think—“More is Different” by PW Anderson.

https://cse-robotics.engr.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72more_is_different.pdf

If you hang around here on the forum, you’ll find I also have a strong interest in Taoism. But we won’t go into that here.

So I was wondering, does philosophy and mathematics have anything to say about the possibility, or otherwise, of perpetual economic growth?" — Peter Gray

Welcome to the forum.

There are a lot of issues associated with economic growth. Many of them have been discussed often here on the forum. The one that strikes me as most significant is demographics. The demographers tell us that, although populations will grow over the next 50 years, after that they’ll start shrinking with a maximum population of about 11 billion and then shrinking to about where we are now.

The US birth rate is right about at the replacement level now, and if it weren’t for immigration, our population would not be increasing. Quite a few other first world nations are seeing population reductions already.

The em-dash usually gives it away like the OP of the Cellular Sentience thread. — Forgottenticket

But @Jamal just convinced me to use the em-dash in my posts. Thanks Jamal.

You claim NOMA is "baloney" but don't even try to make your case. — 180 Proof

Come on 180—you and I have both stated our positions on this matter many times before.

I agree with SJ Gould, Wittgenstein, Spinoza et al that 'religion & science' are non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), or in other words ... — 180 Proof

I’m a big fan of Stephen Jay Gould, but I always thought his NOMA formulation was baloney. It’s just a way for an atheist to seem respectful towards something he doesn’t really have much respect for. Based on your posting history here that certainly seems true about you.

“Riding the Rap”— Elmore Leonard. Best crime writer ever. Second best—Tana French.

I used it to denote stereotyping. — Copernicus

Whom am I stereotyping when I say the distinction between male and female is biological, but the distinction between man and woman is social and linguistic.

But, to the point of social realism, whatever the anchors and whatever the grounding, the man or woman is a real man or real woman at the conclusion. — Hanover

Are you commenting to me or @Copernicus? I said that the difference between male and female is a biological one, but that the difference between man and woman is a social and linguistic one. I can’t tell whether you’re agreeing with that or disagreeing. Whichever, you certainly are taking more words to do it than I did.

I don't see why. — Copernicus

Your argument implies the difference between a Norwegian and an American is biological.

If transwomen are women or transmen are men just because of cultural or habitual identity, does carrying a gun or shooting down schools make a Norwegian an American, or does loving KFC chicken make a caucasian man an African American, regardless of ethnicity or nationality? — Copernicus

Worst. Argument. Ever.

And again the conversation about sex is held mostly by men, on men's terms ... — baker

You say “men’s terms,” I say “men’s perspective”. This is a mostly male forum. Expecting anything else is silly.

I guess my question is whether the user’s understanding is genuine, authentic, and owned by them.
— T Clark

Often times it's not. — Pierre-Normand

I’ve been thinking about this. Is what I’ve written here something that an LLM might write—whether or not you think my comment was insightful.

Objectively 'sex' is masturbation by means of another body; beyond that we interpret the process of opening-closing this desiring circuit with any number of fantasies (i.e. projections), especially those which subjectively intensify (someone's) self-pleasuring experience.

Somebody is doing it wrong.

This is my experience also. — Pierre-Normand

I understand from reading your posts you have much more experience with this then I do. Beyond that you use much more sophisticated programs.

The issue whether their own understanding of the (often quite good and informative) ideas that they generate is genuine understanding, authentic, owned by them, etc. ought to remains untouched by this concession. — Pierre-Normand

I guess my question is whether the user’s understanding is genuine, authentic, and owned by them.

That was a friendly interpersonal addition and remark, which should not have distracted from the main point of the post. — Outlander

I guess I misunderstood. I thought that was the main point. I thought it was a summary of your motivation for the comments in the first paragraph.

It only has to be a surprise to you in order to produce insight, it doesn’t have to be a surprise to the llm. Unless you have exceeded the rigor of philosophical understanding embodied by the best minds that the a.i. can tap into, there is no reason it can’t enlighten you. — Joshs

As I understand it, the insight is what you’re supposed to provide in your post. I don’t really care where you get it from, but the insight should be in your own words based on your own understanding and experience and expressed in a defensible way. The documentation you get from the AI response can be used to document what you have to say, but then you’re still responsible for verifying it and understanding it yourself.

What gets really funny, and endearingly so, is when you start talking about creative ideas you have about make some invention or technology, and it starts talking to you in this new-agey surfer dude type of tone. — ProtagoranSocratist

Sounds like you use it a lot more than I do, although I really do like it for a certain limited number of uses. As an example, I needed to find a new provider for my Medicare health insurance. It’s really hard to do that and to make sure that they cover your existing doctors. Neither the doctors nor the insurance companies really keep track of that in any way that’s easy to use. I used ChatGPT and it found the plans I was looking for right away.

No surfer dude though.

The main reason I would discourage its use is that the rapid development of AI, which given the unpredictability of the ways in which AI will evolve, is dangerous, is driven by profit, and is fueled mainly by consumer use. — Janus

That may be a good reason for you not to use AI, but it’s not a good reason to ban it from the forum.

Let's say I'm doing a "solo non-assist run" as far as the life I live goes. :grin: — Outlander

Which is outside the scope of this discussion.

Yet what has stayed consistent is a reference to sex and age. What we consider the age range for an adult has changed, but not that we ever considered a man as 'a female'. — Philosophim

I wasn’t addressing the question of whether a trans man should be considered a man or a trans woman should be considered a woman. My comment only addressed the fact that the answers to the question are not primarily biological, but are rather social and linguistic.

What is this question doing on a philosophy platform? It warrants a biological truth, not argumentative conclusions. — Copernicus

Because those questions have subjective answers and argumentative grounds. Biological issues are subject to experimental and empirical truths. — Copernicus

This is clearly incorrect. The difference between male and female is a biological issue. The difference between man and woman is a social and linguistic one. This is evidenced by the fact that the definitions of man and woman have changed over the years. When I was young, you had to be 21 years old to be considered a man or a woman. That has been redefined so that 18-year-olds are now seen as such.

Ah, but the thing i find unsettling is that A.I. is also dishonest, it tries to appease you. However, yes, sometimes it is better than the weirdness of real humans. — ProtagoranSocratist

But it always says such nice things about my ideas.

Yes. Insight results from thinking, which AI is incapable of doing. Noam Chomsky called the LLM's glorified plagiarism. I agree. — creativesoul

I don’t disagree, but I still think it can be helpful personally in getting my thoughts together.

I will have faith that a philosophy board will let people do philosophy. — Philosophim

That’s not always the case here, but so far I guess nobody’s complained.