It is true that in modern times people base their morality less and less on formal system. I took into consideration the whole history of mankind. — TheMadMan

I'm not a good enough student of history or anthropology to be definitive, but I think my description of how most people make moral decisions probably applies during all times.

But still I observe that people, consciously or unconsciously, create a structure of morality for without it they feel at a loss. — TheMadMan

Most people probably do to some extent, but I think there's a lot of wu wei in how even regular people treat other people.

And welcome to the forum.

How would a phenomenal conservativist accept my definition when there is no reason we should think an intuition increases the probability that a belief is true? — GodlessGirl

Welcome to the forum.

I've made the case here on the forum many times that intuition is a valid source of justification. Whether or not it is adequate in itself depends on the consequences of being wrong. If the consequences are significant, intuition might have to be validated with additional information.

So we have the moral person who acts through the traditions of their organized belief system and we have the person of Heraclitus, of Chuang Tzu, of Christ and of many old wisdom who acts spontaneously through their understanding. — TheMadMan

Sounds like you are familiar with the Tao Te Ching. This from Verse 38, Stephen Mitchell's translation.

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos. — Tao Te Ching

Although I am mostly in agreement with what you've written, I think you've laid it out too starkly. Most people don't make decisions based on a formal system of morality. For me, that's what conscience is about - it includes internalized learned rules, but also empathy and compassion.

A veritable definition of sophistry: what counts is what serves my purpose. — Banno

That's not what sophistry means. You should look it up.

I'd be happy to discuss opinion sometime, but it's outside the scope of this discussion, which is about knowledge.

Which, on your account, have no truth value... — Banno

I didn't say anything about the truth value of opinions. Let me think about them now... I think you're probably right that opinions are not either true or false. That doesn't mean they aren't useful. I've been consistent here on the forum that I believe usefulness is more important than truth.

There wasn't actually an argument in that post. — Banno

Agreed, but there were statements of opinion.

What is the term you'd prefer to designate JTB if not "knowledge"? Let us use the word "tnow" for that. — Hanover

As I stated previously, knowledge is adequately justified belief. As to what JTB is...I guess I think it's meaningless, or at least useless. That's a position I've been pretty consistent about throughout my brilliant philosophical career here on the forum.

One might even claim that their pushing such a break between fact and value was intentional sophistry. — Banno

Particularly lame sophistry.

Are you really wanting to maintain that values do not have a truth value? — Banno

Yes.

SO it's not true that I like vanilla, — Banno

That you like vanilla is a statement of fact. Your liking of vanilla is a statement of value.

Who shouldn't such sentence have truth values — Banno

It's not that it shouldn't. It's that it doesn't.

I'm saying that Ptolmey didn't know the earth was in the center of the universe, regardless of how helpful that belief might have been to him. — Hanover

I disagree.

Your example is very consequential, thus a higher burden of justification is needed to claim something as knowledge. — PhilosophyRunner

I agree.

Perhaps pragmatism works for deciding if the sun will come up tomorrow. Does it work for deciding if you should kill Mum for her inheritance? — Banno

This is not a question of fact, i.e knowledge, it is a question of values, which you know. More sophistry.

The point here is that dispensing with the T element dispenses with a meaningful K. That truth is evasive is just the truth about truth, and ignoring it doesn't resolve any issue. — Hanover

It allows us to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. That includes most decisions. In a related fashion, it allows us some control over the risks of decisions we make.

Sophistry, intentional, as are many of your comments.
— T Clark

Whatever gets you through the night. I can show you the bigger picture but I can't make you see it.
35 minutes ago — Banno

I think my statement is a justified true belief.

And so in practice, everyone uses JMAOJB (Justified Massive Amounts Of Justification Belief) when using "I know..."

If everybody uses JMAOJB when invoking knowledge, then is it not the case that knowledge is actually JMAOJB and not JTB in any practical use. A meaning of a word is what is in common usage, after all. — PhilosophyRunner

I don't need a massive amount of justification, only enough so that any uncertainty is acceptable given the consequences of being wrong. The same belief might require different justification in different situations.

Is that true? How do you know? How certain are you? — Banno

Sophistry, intentional, as are many of your comments.

So how do you know that all truth is provisional and how certain are you? — Banno

I believe, based on experience and reason, that the attitude I expressed is a useful, pragmatic way of seeing things which is most likely to lead to effective actions. That's what knowledge is about - it is a tool to help decide what action to take.

And to put my views more succinctly, JBT is defying knowledge (epistemology) is being defined in terms of metaphysics (absolute objective truth). But since we can never actually access this, instead I propose to define knowledge in epistemological terms - provisional truth that can be justified using the best current justification methodology. That to me is what most are referring to when they say "I know" — PhilosophyRunner

You and I are in agreement. As an engineer and a pragmatist, I think an emphasis on the adequacy of the justification, uncertainties in that judgement, and the consequences of being wrong are primary.

Curious, that your thread on a simple technical feature had been metamorphosed into a discussion of the arguments for the existence of god. — Banno

It's more of an argument about whether religious people and their beliefs deserve to be treated evenhandedly on the forum. I think the new feature @Jamal has identified can grease the squeaky wheels on both sides in that regard.

3) It is tru.. . Wait a minute, I do not have direct access to the truth. I am stumped. — PhilosophyRunner

may JTB be useless? — PhilosophyRunner

I think you are exactly correct. That's why I think JTB is useless. I propose different factors for identifying knowledge. Rather than belief, justification, and truth; I think belief and adequate justification are the right factors and are all that's required. I'll bring out one of my favorite quotes, from Stephen J. Gould - "In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

All truth is provisional. We just have to be certain enough that we minimize the consequences of being wrong within acceptable limits. Not everything can be justified by personal experience, so it is perfectly reasonable to accept justification from sources you have confidence in. As for flat earth - If you are at sea and another boat with masts is coming toward you, you first will see just the tops of it's sails. As it get's closer, more of the boat will be visible. People knew that long before Columbus. Of course, now we also have pictures of the Earth from space.

So, if you want to say you know something and you're worried people will doubt your knowledge, just add a statement about how you know it and how certain you are.

Solution: place this thread into a blocked category and quickly forget about it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your post is well-expressed, and I agree. If religious posts are put into Philosophy of Religion, then those who are offended by arguments for the existence of God can just block the whole category.

I'm not in favor of encouraging those who disagree with a topic to avoid that topic so as to allow those in agreement to hold their conversations in peace. — Hanover

Yes, I agree, but my post was in response to @Benkei's provocative post. See below.

Finally, no more religious crap!
— Benkei

Finally, no excuse for anti-religious bigotry in "Philosophy of Religion" threads. — T Clark

I'm all for respectful, responsive comments from non-theists in posts on religious subjects. Many anti-religion posts are neither.

just turn a blind eye. as you would to any subject that doYYesn't interest you. — Janus

Yes. That was my point in the whole exchange - Now that we can block whole categories, anti-religious people can avoid the whole problem rather than whining and growling over religious threads.

Sounds like all humans are naturally bigots by this definition. — Nils Loc

Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

I'm sorry? You've been on this site how long? If you think any of the proofs of God actually works, you haven't been paying attention. — Benkei

Klaatu barada nikto

Ah, you've just described religious persons as bigots. That's not very nice. — Benkei

How is that relevant to your behavior?

I'm not anti-religious, I'm against stupid threads. And since all the god arguments have been disproved, all of them are stupid. — Benkei

Definition of bigotry - The character or mode of thought of a bigot; obstinate and unreasonable attachment to a particular creed, opinion, practice, ritual, or party organization; excessive zeal or warmth in favor of a party, sect, or opinion; intolerance of the opinions of others.

No further questions. I rest my case. That's the name of that tune. Nuff said. Quod erat demonstrandum.

My heart sinks when I read those sorts of OP's and there is an existing conversation much like it here already somewhere festering with overly familiar bigotries. — Tom Storm

I didn't like it either, but it's pretty run-of-the-mill for what gets posted here. Most of the responses I read were people criticizing the OP. That's kind of the way it's supposed to work unless a post is especially egregious.

Egregious is a good word. I'm glad I had a chance to use it.

The thread was deleted because my concerns were shared by other mods/admins. — busycuttingcrap

Thanks for the reasonable reply. I still think deleting the thread was unnecessary.

And welcome to the forum.

Finally, no more religious crap! — Benkei

Finally, no excuse for anti-religious bigotry in "Philosophy of Religion" threads.

I recommended that your thread be deleted, — busycuttingcrap

You're brand new on the forum and you've already been made a moderator. You don't know much about our history or way of doing things. Your decision seems precipitous and unnecessary to me. I assume you ran this past other moderators before you deleted the thread.

I had problems with @tomatohorse's OP, as I noted in the comment I posted. I agree that he didn't do much homework. On the other hand, his post had much more detail than many that are allowed here. OPs with one or two sentences and very little content are allowed all the time.

Although I thought his ideas about transgender people were ham-handed, naive, and ungenerous, they didn't seem to me they violated any of our guidelines. You seem to have made a preemptive strike based on what might happen.

While I'm at it, I'll make another request that moderators notify affected members when they delete a post or thread. At the very least it will help avoid unwelcome kvetching from loudmouth members like me.

I mean the syntax or grammer of a sentence expressed in logical form. And, SEP has a better entry on logical form.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-form/ — Shawn

This is from the link you provided:

We can express this point by saying that these inferences are instances of the following form: B if A, and A; so B. The Stoics discussed several patterns of this kind, using ordinal numbers (instead of letters) to capture abstract forms like the ones shown below.

If the first then the second, and the first; so the second.
If the first then the second, but not the second; so not the first.
Either the first or the second, but not the second; so the first.
Not both the first and the second, but the first; so not the second. — SEP

I'll say it again - most of the discussions we have are not easily expressible in these kinds of formats, e.g. you didn't express your OP in logical format. Also, you specifically used an example of an empirical question - the identity of the evening and morning stars - but the format you are discussing only relates to deductive reasoning.

So, why isn't there more concern about the proper form an argument should display as a bona fide argument presented in logical form? — Shawn

What do you mean by "logical form." This is what Wikipedia says:

In logic, logical form of a statement is a precisely-specified semantic version of that statement in a formal system. Informally, the logical form attempts to formalize a possibly ambiguous statement into a statement with a precise, unambiguous logical interpretation with respect to a formal system. In an ideal formal language, the meaning of a logical form can be determined unambiguously from syntax alone. Logical forms are semantic, not syntactic constructs; therefore, there may be more than one string that represents the same logical form in a given language.

The logical form of an argument is called the argument form of the argument...

...To demonstrate the important notion of the form of an argument, substitute letters for similar items throughout the sentences in the original argument.

Original argument
All humans are mortal.
Socrates is human.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Argument form
All H are M.
S is H.
Therefore, S is M. — Wikipedia

Is that what you mean? Or do you mean using logic symbols like ⇒, →, ⊃, ⇔, ≡, ↔. Wikipedia provides a list of logic symbols:

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

Most of the discussions we have here on the forum are not easily expressible in these types of format.

Sort of like a rhetorical magic wand to wave at my argument and make it go away. — Hallucinogen

That's my metaphor. You should think of one on your own.

We're clearly not making any progress. Nuff said.

The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy, Bryan Magee — 180 Proof

Magee's video interviews with philosophers are also great for lazy people like me:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF9E7ADD88FBA144

I forgot to welcome you to the forum so... Welcome to the forum.

World/human population is 8 billion now. It keeps increasing. It doesn't even matter if I'm gone/die — niki wonoto

I won't talk about the issues raised in your post, but I will respond to the one raised in the title of this discussion.

World population is currently 8 billion and is expected to reach a level of 11 billion before 2100. After that it is expected to decrease till it reaches an equilibrium population of about 9 billion. Birth rates in developed countries have declined dramatically over the past 50 years to the point that the population in many countries is declining. In the US, the birthrate has reached the break-even point of 2.1 live births per woman. Increases in the US population come from immigration. Demographers and economists predict that worker shortages will be as big or bigger problem than crowding, resource shortages, and environmental damage.

OK, so as I suspected, it has no more weight or relevance than the error that I made this post to point out. — Hallucinogen

So, you're not really trying to understand Someone's argument. You are just looking for excuses to dismiss it. You came looking for a non-existent so-called "logical fallacy" rhetorical magic wand to wave at it and make it disappear.

but someone didn't explain any distinction between the two and didn't explain why it would affect my argument. — Hallucinogen

I thought he explained it pretty well, but I'll try to be more explicit. This is my last effort on this. I think your attachment to your own position makes it hard for you to accept what Someone is trying to say.

Metaphysical naturalism says there are no supernatural phenomena. Scientific methodological naturalism says only that science is not capable of examining supernatural phenomena.