The Insignificance of Moral Realism
Without reference to the truthity of either, moral realism tends to be posited as better than anti-realism if it were true; for, in a moral realist world, there would be facts of the matter about morality that society could strive towards independently of tastes (i.e., non-facts). However, I have begun to be suspicious of the benefits of moral realismto the point of outright claiming it is useless to the normative discussion even if it is true. Let me briefly explain why.
There is no such thing as a moral fact, even in the case that they do exist, which is simultaneously a fundamental obligation; that is, the core principle which commits oneself to the moral facts, in the case that they exist, is necessarily a moral non-fact. This is readily seen by asking the simple and obvious question: why is one obliged to the moral facts?. If it is a moral fact, then one is left with a vicious circle in their logic (for it posits as true what one was supposed to be proving all along); or, if it is not a moral fact, then it must be a non-fact (as a mere tautology). If it is a non-fact (which anyone who denies circular logic must concede), then it is quite clear that the core obligation, of which no other obligation for that person could even be posited without, is a taste even if there are moral facts. Therefore, morality is always, at its core, a clash of tastes; and, as such, becomes a question of why should one agree with such a taste?. This is why it is self-defeating for a moral realist to posit that all tastes are not worthy of being imposed on one another (in virtue of them being merely subjective), as they have thereby cut their own head off: why ought anyone comply with their taste of abiding by the moral facts which is necessary to justify imposing any of those facts on another?
It must be briefly noted that some would like to split values and morals into separate categories, whereof the former is subjective and the latter is objective; and, thusly, it would be countered that the obligation to the moral facts is no obligation at all but, rather, a value judgment. However, I merely note that this provides no real counter to my point; for if the moral system which one advocates is predicated on a subjective value judgment, then that judgment is more fundamental (normatively) than the moral system and, consequently, it is in even more need of justification than the moral facts within that moral system itself. Thusly, morals becomes, at its core, a clash of values.
However, if ones fundamental obligation is necessarily a taste, then why blindly obligate oneself to the moral facts? Why not take up that fundamental obligation and deploy the objective implications thereof? In other words, the fundamental obligation is a hypothetical imperative of which one has already committed themselves to and, thusly, why not simply obligate oneself to whatever is implied from that commitment? In the case of moral realism, if one commits themselves to the moral facts because they like the idea of fairness for all beings, then wouldnt the most efficient means of achieving such be to obligate oneself to the best means of providing fairness irregardless of what the moral facts say? It seems as though the moral facts are rendered useless, as whatever objectively follows from ones fundamental obligation is what matters.
Likewise, some might argue that some tastes are biological and, it is argued, thusly objective insofar as it is not something the subject has any meaningful control over. To this I say two things: (1) this sort of view turns the traditional objective morality talk into subjective morality talk insofar as it is now purely about ones tastes (which just happen to be outside of ones control), and (2) this does not exempt us from the problem that our fundamental obligations are tastes (such that we cannot appeal to them being objective to answer the problem of why we are obligated to such moral facts without falling into circular logic).
I thusly submit to the reader that if moral realism is true, then it is useless for deriving morals, since the best (and most rational) course of action is to figure out what one is fundamentally obligated to (which is a taste) and derive what the consequences are of holding that hypothetical imperative.
There is no such thing as a moral fact, even in the case that they do exist, which is simultaneously a fundamental obligation; that is, the core principle which commits oneself to the moral facts, in the case that they exist, is necessarily a moral non-fact. This is readily seen by asking the simple and obvious question: why is one obliged to the moral facts?. If it is a moral fact, then one is left with a vicious circle in their logic (for it posits as true what one was supposed to be proving all along); or, if it is not a moral fact, then it must be a non-fact (as a mere tautology). If it is a non-fact (which anyone who denies circular logic must concede), then it is quite clear that the core obligation, of which no other obligation for that person could even be posited without, is a taste even if there are moral facts. Therefore, morality is always, at its core, a clash of tastes; and, as such, becomes a question of why should one agree with such a taste?. This is why it is self-defeating for a moral realist to posit that all tastes are not worthy of being imposed on one another (in virtue of them being merely subjective), as they have thereby cut their own head off: why ought anyone comply with their taste of abiding by the moral facts which is necessary to justify imposing any of those facts on another?
It must be briefly noted that some would like to split values and morals into separate categories, whereof the former is subjective and the latter is objective; and, thusly, it would be countered that the obligation to the moral facts is no obligation at all but, rather, a value judgment. However, I merely note that this provides no real counter to my point; for if the moral system which one advocates is predicated on a subjective value judgment, then that judgment is more fundamental (normatively) than the moral system and, consequently, it is in even more need of justification than the moral facts within that moral system itself. Thusly, morals becomes, at its core, a clash of values.
However, if ones fundamental obligation is necessarily a taste, then why blindly obligate oneself to the moral facts? Why not take up that fundamental obligation and deploy the objective implications thereof? In other words, the fundamental obligation is a hypothetical imperative of which one has already committed themselves to and, thusly, why not simply obligate oneself to whatever is implied from that commitment? In the case of moral realism, if one commits themselves to the moral facts because they like the idea of fairness for all beings, then wouldnt the most efficient means of achieving such be to obligate oneself to the best means of providing fairness irregardless of what the moral facts say? It seems as though the moral facts are rendered useless, as whatever objectively follows from ones fundamental obligation is what matters.
Likewise, some might argue that some tastes are biological and, it is argued, thusly objective insofar as it is not something the subject has any meaningful control over. To this I say two things: (1) this sort of view turns the traditional objective morality talk into subjective morality talk insofar as it is now purely about ones tastes (which just happen to be outside of ones control), and (2) this does not exempt us from the problem that our fundamental obligations are tastes (such that we cannot appeal to them being objective to answer the problem of why we are obligated to such moral facts without falling into circular logic).
I thusly submit to the reader that if moral realism is true, then it is useless for deriving morals, since the best (and most rational) course of action is to figure out what one is fundamentally obligated to (which is a taste) and derive what the consequences are of holding that hypothetical imperative.
Comments (141)
My concern is that rationality itself is fundamentally ethical. In my view, there's a popular scientistic forgetting that science itself (in the broadest sense) is a 'holy war' against parochial ignorance and bias. It's the 'religion' of the horizon, of the truth to come which never arrives.
So we enact [ presuppose ] the reality of such norms in order to question them as philosophers.
Some quotes to give more info on what I'm getting at, which is the framework that too easily becomes transparent for us, disappearing like a screwdriver in our hand as we fix the faucet.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/#TheComAct
https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/apel-karl-otto-1922
So, then, would it be ethical for me to murder someone if I abided by the most rational course of action to achieve it?
It seems to me that being rational can be utilized for good or evil; so it can't be fundamentally ethical.
Firstly, again, one can be incredibly rational in their justification of mass genocide; but that doesn't thereby make it morally permissible.
Secondly, "rationality" itself, I would argue, is normatively loaded; and is itself rooted, just like morals, in a taste (as its fundamentally obligation). For you cannot define what it means to be rational without importing what you fundamentally think one should be epistemically doing, which shifts the conversation back into the same normative issue I expounded in the OP with morality. For example, perhaps you think that what is rational is to be logically consistent, internally/externally coherent, to have intuitions which seem to correspond to reality, etc.: why should one be logically consistent, etc.?
I don't mean simple instrumental rationality.
Quoting Bob Ross
Respectfully, you are appealing to rational norms as you attack them. The alternative is that your are a cynical manipulator beyond good and evil, just trolling us. I of course think you are sincerely seeking truth here.
You seem to assume that norms are Real unless they exist like stones. If semantics is even partially explained by inferentialism, you can't even think without real norms. You'd need the reality of those norms in order to intelligibly and paradoxically deny them.
Quoting Bob Ross
One should never be logically consistent, and yet one should always be logically consistent. I'd go farther and say that nonviolence is the most intense form of violence, and that only the honest lie. Any genuine philosophy contradicts itself continuously, confusing initiates until the chains of their superstitious attachment to an ancient misconception of rationality drop from them and they see Truth. Any statement that can be understood is apriori false. When I tell people I'm an atheist, they incorrectly assume that I don't walk with God a parsec at a time in the Filth Dimension.
****
More seriously, I allow for the existential possibility of mysticism, ironism, brutish pragmatism, ..., but these positions are only consistent if they drop all pretense to be justified rationally (according to a universal norm that binds all rational participants in the ICC). In my opinion, Holden from Blood Meridean is a beautiful (exuberance is beauty?) monster who 'understands' that the 'True Logic' is War. One does not argue for this warlogic. It's transconceptual. Its premise is a loaded gun, its conclusion a scalping.
This questioning itself is an expression of the autonomy norm that makes philosophy intelligible. Why should I regard @Bob Ross as more than a monkey using instrumental reason to try to get a banana ? Because philosophy is founded on a deeper, ethical rationality. I'm not as cynical about you as you seem to be.
--Why the fuck should I live an examined life ?
--Who says I gotta ask questions about the world ?
--What if knowledge is not important ?
Do we not apriori seek knowledge...justified true belief ?
The philosopher only has leverage in the first place in terms of real norms: ego-transcending norms that apply to all philosophers as such --- not to be found like magic stones in some hidden amoral Reality behind the lifeworld.
But the critical-rational tradition is not the only existential possibility. People can just have gods whisper in their ear and refuse to debate. They can gather armed beneath mystic symbols that blaze above them on flags. Or an ironist can embrace a gentle radical childishness.
https://writing.upenn.edu/library/Tzara_Dada-Manifesto_1918.pd
If I could put your point in my own words:
A moral realist says that people are dependent on external rules for guidance. There is benefit to seeing things this way because people are vile, and hard rules draw them toward something better. We should encourage people to ignore their instincts and follow the rules.
The thing is: somebody is picking those rules. That somebody is human. How did they pick the right rules if they were born vile and have no innate sense of rightness?
Yes, so it appears we do claim for humanity the ability to choose the right path, it's just that some people have this special talent and everybody else just needs to follow them.
The most fundamental Christian view, like from the gospels, is that Jesus says you do have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. You have the whole of the law in your heart, since the fundamental rule is to love others as you love yourself. As Augustine said, "Love, and do as you will." In heavily mythical language, Christianity says you were not born vile. You were born innocent.
Thank you, but I'll do what I think appropriate, regardless. Why, indeed, shouldn't I? De gustibus non est disputandum.
I partially disagree: most people have false beliefs about their own tastes, so moral discourse is helpful for really honing in on what one truly wants.
Hello Frank,
This is a pretty fair summary. I would add that each person is actually determining the norm insofar as they are implicitly agreeing to it, and fundamentally, in the deepest depths of their pyschology, it is a reflection of sociological and physiological factors. We try to project morality onto something other than ourselves, but, by my lights, we end up just ignoring the fact that even when there are moral facts they are useless in any of our actual decision making (other than potentially a superficial ease-of-use tool that is guided by our fundamentally obligations).
Interesting. I agree that Christianity does advocate that we have the moral code written on our hearts, but I just dont buy that: what about psychopaths (at the very least)? Also, I dont think Christianity argues that we are innocent, as most Christians believe in innate sin.
Hello Plaque flag,
Then what do you mean? Can you please define rationality for me (in the sense that you are using it)? For me, I was referring to rationality as (something along the lines of) being closely married to reality.
Thats fine. I am appealing to epistemic norms, fundamentally, to demonstrate how those epistemic norms are either (1) not fundamental or (2) are tastes. What is wrong with that?
I appreciate that you believe that I am sincere, and I can attest that I am; however, I dont see how this is the only alternative to what you said.
Not at all. I am saying that ones fundamental obligation is always a taste (and not objective): it is mind dependent (and more specifically will dependent).
Sure, I cant think properly without norms, but why are they objective? And why would it matter if they were? My point is that it wouldnt matter, because ones fundamental norms are always tastes, irregardless of whether there are factual norms or not.
Yes. Norms are real irregardless of whether they are objective or not; but thats not what real means in the metaethical debate: it means something which exists mind-independently.
With all due respect, I was not able to make sense of this portion of you argumentas if this statement you claimed here is true, then it thereby false (and thusly leads to a paradox). I dont see any benefit of holding this belief, which no different, in its structure, to saying that all statements are false.
What autonomy norm? Are you claiming it is objective?
I like bananas (; . On a serious note, I am not more than a monkey in the sense that I am an ape; but how does this tie to the OP?
So you do think rationality somehow produces objective norms, correct?
Not everyone.
Not a moral code. Jesus claimed the moral code is summed up by the imperative to love.
Quoting Bob Ross
Christians think they've been set free from innate sin. I'm sure neither of us wants to dissect Christianity, I was thinking more historically and culturally about whether evil is supposed to be innate in people. Western culture is diverse and complicated. There are a number of perspectives about evil that dance around one another, fusing here, at odds there. Christianity is a touchstone for the belief that you are or can be free of innate evil. The Christian figurehead also famously claimed that you aren't bound to specific rules of behavior. You can figure it out with love.
Sure. But I already did. Maybe you missed it ? I gave a nice, long quotation above.
If they aren't fundamental, your own claims about them lack leverage or 'force.' It's like going before the court to argue that argument itself is not to be trusted.
Quoting Bob Ross
But the problem is the status of that claim itself. It suits you (it's pleases your taste) to believe that it's all just taste.
I think you are imagining a kind of logic that is untainted by normativity, so that you can get logical leverage on normativity itself. But instrumental rationality can't give you this leverage. Only 'ethical' rationality (the essence of science) can do this.
The philosopher as such can't earnestly question the reality of normativity. The mystic or the sociopath can, but they could only argue for its unreality ironically.
Like I said, respectfully, magic stones in a hidden dimension, assumed to be cognitively inaccessible from the very beginning. It's (nonobviously) mystic talk about a round square. What does the world look like from no perspective at all ? Who hath seen it ? But we can rationally create mathematical models that we look at with working eyes.
I think it's less confusing to talk in terms of the 'transcendence' of this or that individual person --- and not the species as a whole. I don't think humans can talk sensibly about that which by definition they can't talk sensibly about. Hence the famous criticisms of Kant's mystical X.
:up:
Not everyone, but we --- people in freeish societies -- inherit Socratic software. As discursive subjects we largely are that software.
Hello Plaque Flag,
I have not been able to penetrate into what you mean by rationality, as it seems to be some sort of logos, so please give me clear and concise definition (so that I can assess).
I never said that they arent fundamental nor that they cannot be trusted: I said that they are tastes. Some tastes are better for acquiring truth and some are better for survival.
In the underlined sentence, please expound what is incoherent or logically inconsistent with itas I am not seeing it. You are absolutely correct that I am saying that we use norms as the bedrock to what we do, which includes epistemology, and that, yes, my assessment of norms is contingent on what norms I used to assess them: I dont see any logical contradiction nor internal/external incoherency with that position. If you disagree, then please elaborate on where the contradiction or incoherence is.
No. I am agreeing that the use of logical principles is contingent on ones tastes; but I am not saying that those tastes are untrustworthy (in virtue of being tastes) nor that they are not fundamental (to ones derivations of reasoning).
You can assess normativity, as a concept, while using normativity as a necessary but incomplete analysis: what is wrong with that? This is no different than analyzing being as substance.
Just because one must use norms to perform logic does make those norms objective.
How does science give us a viewpoint of normativity beyond that normativity? I dont think it does.
Anyone can question the reality, in the sense of being mind-independent, of normativity; they just cant question normativity (independent of consideration of its mind dependence/independence). With all due respect, I think you are confusing the analysis of normativity in general with its objectivity (or lack thereof).
Ive already clarified this, so I am confused why you are still straw manning moral realism: the idea is that there are true mind-independent moral judgments, which do not necessarily have to be tangible.
Then demonstrate to me the incoherence (just like the round square, which is an incoherence in terms) of talking of mind-independent moral judgments.
Just because no one has directly come to know the world-in-itself does not imply that mind-independent morals, just like objects, are incoherent like a round square.
Hello Frank,
I am more than happy to discuss Christianity if you find it relevant to the OP: can you tie it back to the OP so I understand where we are headed with this?
I think your point is that moral realism is associated with a conundrum: it assumes that we don't know right from wrong innately, so we need an external set of rules. But how do we know which rules to embrace if we're morally vacuous to begin with?
I was looking at the cultural roots of the conundrum, as opposed to trying to resolve it. I don't think it has a resolution. :razz:
It's not so unlike a demystified version of logos in the sense that science and philosophy dialectically and autonomously determine / reveal / establish / revise the conceptual aspect of our shared reality.
I'd like to answer this from a different angle. By our very birth, there is something presupposed with existence. There are forces beyond what we would ask for. There is a "thrownness" to the world. We cannot get out of the structures that are in place, and that we, de facto, can never ask for. Our narrative was written for us. For we can never get out of our physical, cultural, and social choices that were already laid out for us. Every birth is a political move. This world is supposed to mean something. Otherwise, why would you bring more people into it? Can you imagine if people brought people into a world and thought it a useless endeavor?
I think that there is a way to do radical relativism without contradiction, but it requires irony and disclaimers.
If it's only a private [s]logic[/s] in which you [s]prove[/s] the unreality of norms, your 'conclusion' is a personal 'superstition,' an opinion that doesn't aspire to any 'justification' beyond effective sophistry. The rational community is founded on (is structure by) communication norms. Claims are justified within a 'public' logic which members, as members, take for granted willingly [ autonomy ] as an authority.
To me, respectfully, it looks like your own biased understanding of what is real is the problem. A 'mind-independent judgment' sounds like a judge-independent judgment --- indeed an absurdity. Hence my half-joke about your demand for magic stones in another dimension.
The same style of argument reveals 'mind-independent reality' to be absurd in the same way, since the world, so far as we know from experience, is only given to subjects [who are themselves within this same world that is given to them, a strange loop.]
Looks look at a standard definition :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/
Notice the lack of mention of mind-independence.
The point is just that those logical norms themselves must be real in order for you to appeal to them as authoritative, therefore making your own conclusions significant . They [these norms] are something like the essence or sine qua non of science /philosophy.
I take it you don't mean what one should want. If that's the case, though, I'm not sure how helpful "moral discourse" would be.
Hello Frank,
This is also a good point, but not the point I am trying to make. Instead of questioning how reliably a person could obtain knowledge of the moral facts, I am questioning why anyone should care about the moral facts (regardless of how easy or difficult it is to know).
I see!
Hello Plaque Flag,
You didnt provide a definition of rationality here. The paragraph you shared uses the term without defining it. So let me ask again: what do you mean by the term rationality? Saying there is an ideal communication community that is a metainstitution of rational argumentation tells me nothing of what you mean by the term rational itself.
Its not private logic: logic is logic. I am not saying that we make up the laws of logic, I am saying that what one uses to determine that there are laws of logic is subjective. You seem to be under the impression that using hypothetical norms as ones fundamental obligations results in everything becoming subjective, which is not true.
Its about conversing to convince people of ones position (and not to scam them or maliciously argue with them), where by convince I mean get the person to see that they themselves already agree with it in the depths of their psychology. Most people share the same fundamental obligations or very similar ones without necessarily realizing it.
I dont agree with that one bit, but, then again, I still dont know what you mean by rational. For me, I mean, for simplicitys sake, being closely married with reality (which entails using normative principles that are better suited for that). So, for me, rationality has absolutely not dependence on a community; however, it may be more rational to collaboratebut that rationality qualification there is just that one is being closely married with reality to achieve their goals. This is why I said a psychopath can be very rational, but nevertheless really unethical.
This reminds me of Nietzschien ethics.
Just like how there can be laws without an author, I find no reason to believe that there cannot be a law (judgment) of morals without a judge (author).
I disagree. Just because everything we gather about the world is via the filter of our minds, does not in any way entail that the world itself is mind-dependent. As a matter of fact, there must be something which is mind-independent, even in the case that the world is fundamentally mind-dependent (in the sense of what eternally exists is a Universal Mind), for the brute fact (or facts) of reality would be necessarily mind-independent.
Facticity is mind-independent existence. Moral realism is the idea that there are objective moral judgments, according to standard definitions, like the one you quoted, whereof objective is mind-independent (sometimes called stance-independent) existence. Another simple reference is Wiki:
Irregardless of definitions, it wouldnt make sense to say something is objective if it is dependent on ones mind, for that is exactly what subjectivity means. What is real is that which is mind-independent, which includes mind operations insofar as the operations it is true that those operations occurred independent of any mind current operations; that is, in other words, that something contingent on a will, being itself subjective, is objective insofar as it is a fact that it happened (and no one can change that): it is a part of existence, which is mind-independent itself.
I dont think this is true: this presupposes that what is objective is only worthy of any moral force, which just begs the question (as I am literally arguing against that). I am saying that subjective norms are significant, and that objective norms are the insignificant ones (truly).
Hello Schopenhauer1,
I guess I am just not following how this ties to the OP, as I would say that the meaning that actually matters is ones fundamental obligations (which are tastes), and that is why people are begotten by other people. Are you claiming that it requires an objective meaning to actually matter?
Hello Ciceronianus,
In the sense that I cannot say they are objectively wrong for what they want, or even if I can appeal to a moral fact it would be useless, you are correct; but I dont find anything talking in terms of you should want... because it is a colloquial expression of trying to convince somehow either (1) of what one suspects they will agree with given proper contemplation or (2) something that one believes is worthy of imposement on the other. Sometimes people argue that moral anti-realism, and positions similar to what I argued for in the OP, explode into #2; but I find that #1 is still largely intact, as most people agree on fundamental obligations (they just dont agree on how to achieve it) (and of course there are exceptions).
I think a simpler example is that, in the US, we drive on the right. This norm is physically manifested everywhere.
The latest stochastic parrots find word-order norms in the internet. Such norms are so prevalent and readable that we can hardly tell these parrots from human beings.
Hello Plaque Flag,
In order to further the conversation, I would appreciate it if you could define (generally) what you mean by "rationality"; because your position seems to be that what is rational is ethical. So far you still have not provided a definition but, instead, are providing examples of rational discourse--but that just begs the question!
To reciprocate what I am asking of you, here is my definition of rationality: "to be, in all matters of assessment, closely married to reality to the best of one's ability, and, consequently, to deploy principles which best achieve such". That which irrational, is that which, in matters of assessment, deviate from what reasonably gathered about reality. Of course, what one thinks is is reasonably gathered about reality is dependent on one's core epistemic principles (so there is a subjective aspect to it in that sense), but the epistemic principles that are best suited for being closely married to reality is certainly objective. Rationality, put another way, is to commit oneself to the hypothetical imperative of being as closely married to reality as possible. Now, what is your definition?
All good, nevertheless my only objection is here: fundamental obligation is categorical, represented as a command of reason, re: shall, whereas hypotheticals are mere oughts.
If one acts in accordance with the c.i. his morality is sustained, even if he feels abhorrent because of the action taken pursuant to it. If he acts via a hypothetical, he may only possibly be moral, but it remains equally possible that he is immoral, for here he may have allowed his practical inclinations, re: desires, to override his own principles.
Why not take up ..? Mostly because its all-too-often very much easier not to.
Do you believe, then, that obligations do not begin with a desire?
My point is that even if there are categorical imperatives, we only are obliged to them if we desire them; and that is the hypothetical imperative that stands morally deeper than the categorical imperative; and, as such, is one's fundamental obligation. If one's obligation to the categorical norm is hypothetical and one has committed themselves to the antecedent, then the most rational thing to do is to simply commit oneself to whatever is objectively implied by that hypothetical commitment and to do so irregardless of what the categorical imperatives are.
Well, I am not disputing that people tend to take the easiest way out; but that is not the purpose of this OP. I am arguing for the de-valuing of moral facts (as useless in moral discourse).
.with which I am in total accord.
Quoting Bob Ross
I agree with the proposition that moral obligations do not begin with desires.
I see, and what do you mean by a "moral" obligation, as opposed to a mere obligation?
I would say the contrary, that moral obligations are rooted in tastes. In other words, "morals" is rooted in "values", not vice versa.
Ok, but why are desires not simply synonymous with tastes?
Moral obligation: that interest of will, by which the worthiness of being happy is justified.
A fact cannot be moral or immoral. Not for the reasons you are stating but by definition.
A fact is something known to exist or having occured. It may come from something that has been committed, but this is irrelevant; it does not define it. Facts can be also regarded as information, knowledge. We cannot say that an information or knowledge is moral or immoral, can we?
What can be moral or immoral is an act, a decision, speech, behavior, etc., i.e. things humans do. (Sometimes, lack of action (omissions) can be considered as immoral, i.e. when we should do something but we don't.)
Based on the above, and since "facts" are a central element in your description, I'm afraid I can't go any further, since it makes not sense to me. Sorry about that. :sad:
Hello Mww,
They are; and I apologize if I suggested otherwise.
I think the crux of this definition rests on worthiness of being happy: how does one define what is worthy of happiness without appealling to values (fundamentally)?
Hello Alkis Piskas,
Interesting point! Yes, you are correct that my OP presupposes that facts can be of the moral type. I would say that a fact is a proposition of which its content appropriately agrees/corresponds to reality. In other words, it is a thought that corresponds to something which exists (or occurred, as you put) and not just something which exists. In light of that definition, I would say that a moral fact would be an obligation, asserted in thought, that correponds to something in reality. This would entail, I would say, that there exists an obligation mind-independently; that is, it is not contingent on any will. As an example, this could be a platonic form.
Even in terms of your definition (i.e.,, a fact is something known to exist or having occured), I still think there is a possibility for a moral type of fact because nothing about that definition negates the idea of an obligation which is mind-independent (e.g., it doesnt rule out that there could be a fact, in this sense, that is a platonic form of goodness).
Shall we start over? I inject moral as a qualifier for obligation, because the topic is concerned with moral facts. I thought to continue the moral condition, but thats not actually what you asked for regarding obligation in and of itself.
My bad.
Just to add to that: morality is often pictured as a covenant. You follow the Mosaic law, and God will protect you and your family. Fail to follow the law, and God will feed you to the Assyrians. So morality is something you commit to because you have special insight about God's will. The obligation follows from that commitment, or acceptance of the covenant.
Scenarios vary, but that's usually the basic framework. If you draw the concept of moral realism away from that cultural backdrop, I think it's good to specify what you mean, just to avoid the devil in the details?
A proposition is something that is suggested to be considered, accepted or done. It clearly refers to the future. A fact on the other hand refers to something that is present or in the past. These terms/concepts are incompatible with each other. They cannot replace one another.
I'm afraid that you must choose a term/concept other than "fact" for your posit. It will be much better than altering its meaning to fit your posit. Don't you think?
From what I could understand from your description, maybe the term/concept of "thought" will do ....
While I agree morality is a covenant, I reject morality as having any connection with religion, insofar as the covenant holds with ones self alone. If one acts in disrespect of the will of a god and its laws, he is a sinner; if one acts in disrespect of his own predisposed values that manifest in his will and its laws, he is immoral. A sinner dishonors his god but may not consider himself as dishonored; an immoral agent cannot escape the dishonor of himself.
And, yeah, always best to avoid the devil.
Sorry, I must have misunderstood what you were originally trying to convey; as I thought you were contesting my OP with the use of categorical norms. Are you agreeing that moral obligations begin with tastes, but that one should desire to abide by some set of categorical imperatives?
Philosophically, a proposition is a statement that is truth-apt and not merely something suggested to be considered, accepted, or done.
Not at all. A proposition can be about the past (e.g, bob went to the store yesterday), present (e.g., bob is eating), future (e.g., bob is going to eat), tenseless expressions (e.g., bob went to the store on Friday, December 23rd, 2022 at 5:55 a.m.), or atemporal expressions (e.g., God is [eternally and timelessly] good).
The only qualification for something being a proposition (in philosophy) is that it is truth-apt, which are statements.
In practical life, I agree; but this depends on ones theory of time. If one considers the future to not exist yet, then, yes, facts must pertain to the present or past. However, if one considers the future to exist equally as much as the present and the past, then there are currently facts about the future. Also, if one believes in atemporal entities, then those would be facts which do not pertain to the present or past. Either way, I dont think it matters for this discussion, as I am saying that if these moral principles exist (mind-independently), then that qualifies them as facts.
I dont think I am altering the philosophical senses of the terms at all here.
I am not arguing that morals are concepts of thought, I am generically discussing the metaethical debate about moral facts (i.e., moral realism) vs. non-facts (i.e., moral anti-realism) and noting that even if the former is right it is so insignificant that it doesnt matter.
From Dictionary.com we read about the meaning of the term "proposition" in specialized fields, that are included in philosophy:
Rhetoric: A statement of the subject of an argument or a discourse, or of the course of action or essential idea to be advocated.
Logic: A statement in which something is affirmed or denied, so that it can therefore be significantly characterized as either true or false.
Mathematics: A formal statement of either a truth to be demonstrated or an operation to be performed; a theorem or a problem.
And, from https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-is-a-proposition-in-philosophy.html, we read: "A proposition in philosophy is the statement or conjecture which can be analyzed for its truth value."
(Emphases are mine.) Both expressions "to be" and "can be" refer to a future action. In fact, these definitions are not much different than the what I discribed earlier. They are only focusing on specialized areas and actions. Of course, since the basic idea the essense of the term "proposition" is present to all of them, in common as well as specialized areas.
See, you don't make a proposition for the sake of the proposition itself, and just forget about it.
You can also look it from another aspect, as far as the term "fact" is concerned, which is the central element in your discussion: Can you fit this term in any of the descriptions of the term "proposition"? There's nothing there to remind us of or refer to facts, is there?
Quoting Bob Ross
Nothing of these is a proposition. They are just information about things that happened or happen are are going to happen. That is either facts (past and present) or expectations (future). There is nothing in them that proposes anything. We can't say, e.g. " I propose that Bob went to the store yesterday, or "I propose that Bob is eating or "I propose that Bob is going to eat. They all sound ridiculous, don't they
OK, we can go on forever if you keep trying to milk the bull.
I have explained to you the difference and incompatibility between a fact and a "proposition" more than --I believe-- anyone would have the patience to do ... But my patience is over.
Hello Alkis Piskas,
I think we may be reaching a semantic dead-end here, but let me try to adequately respond.
I am using the term proposition in these two senses that you provided:
This is exactly what I defined it as here:
Now, something important I wanted to clear up:
To say that it can be analyzed for its truth value is just to say that it is truth-apt. This does not imply whatsoever that the proposition expresses a statement concerning the past or present, but, rather, that it expresses something that is either true or false (and not both).
"to be" refers to existence, which does not entail any particular tense, but I can agree that "can be" refers to something in the future in a practical sense.
It is incredibly different, you said:
Propositions do not exclusively express a truth-apt sentence about the future.
The point of a proposition, in philosophy (of logic), is to define a form of expression (i.e., a sentence) that expresses something which can be evaluated as true or false (i.e., truth-apt) in the sense that it depicts something that is either true or false (and [i]not that a person has the physical or mental capabilities to evaluate it properly).
I was never suggesting that we create a proposition for the sake of itself, nor that we forget about them.
Firstly, I am not saying that fact is synonymous with proposition, so I dont have to fit it into any of the definitions.
Secondly, it fits insofar as I noted before:
In other words, a fact is a statement which is truth-apt, of which went evaluated agrees with reality with regards to what it claims about it.
We may just have to agree to disagree, but I can assure you all of those are text-book examples of propositions in philosophy. See https://www.cs.odu.edu/~toida/nerzic/content/logic/prop_logic/proposition/proposition.html#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20%22Grass%20is%20green,and%20the%20second%20%22false%22.
Those arent propositions!
Firstly, saying I propose... is a proposal, not a proposition. Saying you propose something just means that you are hypothesizing or asserting something, and what you are asserting is the proposition. Bob went to the store yesterday is the proposition being proposed in the sentence I propose that .... Not all sentences are propositions.
Secondly, you have to be careful with indexical statements, as they do not refer, if taken as a proposition, to what you seem to think: I think that Bob went to the store yesterday is not the same as Bob went to the store yesterday--the former pertains to whether or not the person-at-hand thinks that bob went, and the latter pertains to if bob actually went (and not to mention that the formers truthity is relative to the subject being considered, so it could be true for me and false for you if I do think bob went and you dont).
Absolutely no worries, my friend! I do not want you to be frustrated with me, and if I am convinced by your argumentation then I will gladly concede (as I am not trying to milk it); but, with all due respect, I dont think you right about propositions at all. In philosophy, the term proposition means something very specific, it is not a proposal.
OK, Bob. As I said, I don't intend to continue this thread.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to participate in this topic.
Negative on both. Moral obligations begin with interest in a principle, and one SHALL, not merely SHOULD DESIRE to, abide by a categorical imperative the principle determines .in order to declare himself an moral agent that is worthy of his happiness.
Heading into the bush for a few days; not sure of cell coverage, so . forewarned.
Absolutely no worries, my friend!
Interesting! Couple questions:
1. How is "begin with interest in a principle" different from "moral obligations begin with tastes"? You contended the latter, but affirmed the former; and I am just having a hard time understanding how those are different claims.
2. What are you semantically distinguishing with "shall" vs. "should desire"?
Sure, but at the risk of detouring the thread topic? Up to you, of course; its you that called the meeting.
Moral obligation relative to interest, indicates the employment of practical reason in determining a willed volition. That obligation relative to an interest in a principle, then, indicates practical reason determine a willed volition in accordance with the subjective disposition of the moral agent himself. A principle in a moral agent that accords with his subjective disposition, is called a maxim. The point being, to eliminate outside influence with respect to moral considerations in general.
Taste, on the other hand, represented by aesthetic judgement, indicates merely a desire, which is always relative to sensation, re: attainment of that which corresponds to, and thereby satisfies, a desire, which in turn is always influenced from outside. Influenced from outside eliminates employment of practical reason, without which there is no proper moral consideration.
Morally speaking, acts willed according to good principles are more powerful than acts willed by mere good feelings.
Quoting Bob Ross
Dunno about semantically. I positively detest, and refuse to engage in, so-called language games.
Shall indicates a command of reason offering no alternatives; should desire indicates a conditional want which implies a plethora of alternative inclinations.
Quoting Bob Ross
There would be facts of the matter about ethics that society could strive toward, re: administrative codes.
(independent of taste: hey, you wanna speed through a marked-off school zone, go right ahead. Makes no difference to me)
Personally, I think as soon as society enters the conversation, morality becomes group morality writ large, which is ethics. So maybe there is a form of realism in society, but it isnt moral as much as ethical, realism. I mean, it is documented, e.g., that the speed limit in a school zone is 15mph, which seems pretty factual.
Anyway .obviously I survived 6 days in the bush. She with the whistle and spray, me with the .44. No need for either and good times for all.
Hello Mww,
Fine by me!
I see what mean and agree that obligations are more powerful than desires within your semantics; however, where I could never get on board with this kind of terminology is the that both a interest in a principle and a desire in a good feeling are both mere acts of taste, just separated semantically by what it is directed towards.
To me, any act of ones will is a taste, irregardless of whether one has a euphoric or emotional feeling with it, as it is a subjective desire that one has. Yes, desiring more rigid, long-term oriented, principles tends to be a better bet in life (and are more powerful, as you put it) but it is still just a taste. Thusly, I fear that your terminology makes an unwarranted implicit favoritism towards one arbitrary class of desires over another. I mean, whos to say my short-term desire is not geared towards a principle? Or that my good feeling is not towards a principle?
I agree, but what I mean is that we are using two different schemas, so we need to hash out terms firstnot to debate them but to see where eachothers heads are at.
So is shall, for you, a command with literally no alternatives (e.g., a person being forced to do something, etc.)? If so, then that doesnt seem like the word is too often applicable.
I dont make a distinction between ethics and morality, but I do agree that we have laws, which are morally motivated, which do become considerations that supersedes the individuals wants.
Im glad! I am just curious: is she a transcendental idealist too?
Nahhhh .oil and water. Shes a retired Fed in the intelligence services with U-Dub Masters in history and library science, for her, its facts and nothing but the facts.
Quoting Bob Ross
Conventionally, I suppose thats close enough, insofar as either may be reducible to aesthetic judgement. Still, in proper philosophy, I submit it is not so much the directed towards, but rather, the arising from. The difference manifests, and for which philosophical account should be taken, in those occasions where one feels pleasure for doing a bad thing, or, conversely, feels pain or displeasure about doing a good thing. Simply put, it follows that interest in a principle it that by which a moral act is given and its negation impossible regardless of circumstance, but mere desire for a good feeling is just as likely to invoke an immoral act as a moral one, which makes negation of one by the other not only possible, but increasingly probable, conditioned by the difficulty inherent in the circumstance.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Yeah, humans: sorryful bunch, to be sure. Even if they know whats right, theyll sometimes manage to talk themselves out of doing it, or allow someone else to do the talking. A command of reason is always applicable, but not always effected.
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Ive been thinking about moral realism. Is morality a real thing? Even if it isnt, per se, it seems the case there is in all humans a condition by which certain behaviors are legislated, so if the behaviors are real in one sense of the term, wouldnt that condition by which behaviors are caused be real is some sense? I dunno .its a fine line between granting the realness of behavior but denying the realness of behaviors causality.
I think there must be as many moral facts as there are acts in accordance with subjective moral commands. But that is not sufficient reason to grant objective moral facts in general, to which one is morally obligated. While I am perfectly entitled to say my act is in fact a moral act, am I thereby entitled to say my act is derived from a moral fact, and if I am not so entitled, by what warrant is my act, in fact, moral? If I then fall back on moral command as necessary causality, am I then forced to deem a mere command of reason, a fact?
Leporidae excavation if there ever was one.
Lol. I was just curious, as two transcendental idealists, as a couple, is quite a rare feat!
I sort of understand: all interest is of a will, but the desire to do something irregardless of whatever surface-level pleasure/pain is better, correct?
I agree and am also suspicious of the existence of moral facts; however, I also, nowadays, find the moral facts, if they do exist, to be irrelevant as long as the person has committed themselves to being rational.
This is a bit off-topic, but I am curious: how do you reconcile Einsteins general/special relativity with Kantian notions of space and time?
You should start a thread. :wink:
If there are subjective conditions by which behaviors are legislated, and these conditions come into conflict which results in argument, does it then follow that they are in some sense objective? Or are all such arguments based on a category error? Surely these anthropological facts must carry some sort of weight in considering the question.
The interest isnt of the will, which is the autonomous faculty of volitions. The interest residing in the agent, is in a principle, with which the will determines a volition. The desire to do something, regardless of pain or pleasure, still needs to be informed as to what is to be done, which returns to will.
Quoting Bob Ross
In a way thats fitting, but Id probably say .as long as he has committed himself to being moral. If there are moral facts, however subjective they may be, and one adheres to them by his actions, he would be deemed moral antecedent to being deemed rational.
Maybe thats the key: subjective moral fact equates to moral commitment; objective moral facts equates to rational commitment. Or is that just adding yet another chef to the kitchen?
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Quoting Bob Ross
They cant be reconciled, because Einstein invoked a geometry Kant didnt use in his construction of the conceptions of space and time. Which is odd, in a way, in that Kant taught mathematics, which implies he knew of spherical geometries, so it is more likely he used plane geometries as examples in his theoretical tenets in CPR merely for simplicity, to only go as far as he needed to prove a point. In other words, it doesnt matter one whit that the interior angles of a spherical triangle add up to more or less than two right angles, if it is still necessarily true the interior angles of a Euclidean plane triangle equals two right angles, and it is also quite true the thought of that sum cannot ever be found in the mere fact there are three interior angles.
. Of course the conviction of the "truth" of geometrical propositions in this sense is founded exclusively on rather incomplete experience. For the present we shall assume the "truth" of the geometrical propositions, then at a later stage (in the general theory of relativity) we shall see that this "truth" is limited, and we shall consider the extent of its limitation .
(Einstein, 1920: Einsteins equivalent to Kants Prolegomena: relativity for dummies in one, transcendental philosophy for dummies in the other)
Einstein had a problem with Kants derivation of true propositions more than his notions of space and time. Just as SR and GR took Newtons physics further than Newton himself but didnt disprove what was originally given, so too did Einstein demonstrate that Kants notions of mathematical truths were limited, but also didnt refute them as given.
Nevertheless, there is a clandestine categorical error in Einsteins claim. Kant derived true propositions in order to prove their possibility, and because the proof of their possibility stands, they can be employed as ground for something else relative to them. Einstein disputed the propositions as being true in any condition, but they were never intended for any condition, but only for one.
Another thing. Einstein didnt like Kants notion of synthetic a priori propositions .the ground of all mathematical proofs .yet had to use that very philosophical derivation for his own gedankenexperiment, which he drew from Ernst Mach, 1883, who was waiiiittttt for it .an acknowledged Kantian.
Go figure.
I would say the argument is objective, the conditions in conflict be what they may. On the other hand, here is an proposition that states any cognition or series of cognitions shared by all members of a set capable of them, are for that reason, objective cognitions. Im not so sure about that myself, but, its out there. Some folks rejecting that form of objectivity favor a thing called intersubjectivity, which just looks like subject/object version of Frankensteins ogre.
What categorical error were you thinking as possible?
Quoting Mww
I suppose I wouldn't want to invoke the objective claim on those grounds, although it would be fair to ask what alternative grounds there are. I am thinking more of the idea that if all members of a set claimimplicitly or explicitlyto have knowledge of some objective reality, then this is a strong indication that such a reality is objective and is accessible to members of that set. The strength of the indication would weaken as the percentage of the population which makes the claim diminishes.
Are you a Kantian, then?
Quoting Mww
Well if we only argue about things that we believe to be objective, then apparently we think morality is objective. Or else everyone who argues about morality is making a category error in holding that morality is something worth arguing about (and hence based on something objective).
The easiest case for morality as something we argue about would seem to be your example of the "ethical"societal laws that objectively exist and are argued about.
On strong indications ..agreed. Seems reasonable.
Yeah, Kant is my go-to philosopher.
Hello Mww,
Oh, so are you saying that there is an interest devoid of will which is a part of the structure of being a will? Is that the idea?
If there is really an interest (i.e., a desire) which pertains to the structure of being a will and not to a will itself, then I think that would be, by definition, a moral fact (in its own right).
I do not know of any such moral facts though, and I would only find them useful insofar as I do have a desire to commit myself to them. Perhaps, then, the moral fact and my taste would run full circle, and the latter would be an illusion of the former.
But under Einsteinien space/time fabric, they are not synthetic judgmentsthey are not isolated pure forms of ones experience (like Kant thought): they do pertain as properties to the things-in-themselves. I am curious how a Kantian would reconcile that: would you say space and time are analytic judgments but do not exist fundamentally as extension and temporality?
What true propositions are you referring to here? A priori judgments? A priori categories, conceptions?
Isnt the idea that mathematics is proven true in virtue of the structure of our representative faculties? And math is always synthetic, as the numbers and mathematical operations on those numbers do not contain in themselves the result of them?
Another question I have: if ones conscious experience is a representation (of the world) and extension & temporality are only the forms of ones experience, then is Kant referring to atemporal representation? For isnt representation itself imply temporalitybut these operations which produce within a pure form of time these representations would have to be outside of that pure form, which is either in a noumenal time or no time at all. Thats my logic, at least.
Thats not what Im tying to get across, no. Interest ..you know, that certain je ne sais quoi, that which underpins a consideration, a focusing of attention specifically. So, yes, interest is devoid of will insofar as having an interest is not to will anything, nor is it the structure of will, which is reducible to pure practical reason. Accordingly, before anything is to be willed there must be an interest in the manner in which it is to be done, hence, interest in a principle which grounds the wills determined volition.
Quoting Bob Ross
That may be right. If a structural component of will is desire, and if will is the source of moral behavior, then it follows desire serves as possible ground of such moral behavior. However, desire takes no account of good in the attainment of its objects other than the satisfaction of the agent, but mere feel good satisfaction can never be deemed truly moral behavior, which is good in and of itself regardless of the feeling derived from it.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Yes, thats true, and further instance of space/time conceptual irreconcilability of the two geniuses. In fact, in the 1920 essay, he wishes his system to be understood as paying no attention to space, but rather, to relations of objects to each other. Kant does that as well, but stipulates relative to each is meaningless without the space n which they are extended.
For an interesting read, see ..
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/58/12/34/394660/Albert-Einstein-as-a-Philosopher-of#:~:text=By%20the%20age%20of%2016%2C%20he%20had%20already,on%20Kant%20in%20the%20summer%20semester%20of%201897.
.and find it isnt the relative space/time distinctions that distinguish these guys, its the mathematics by which space and time are useful, that does.
Hello Mww,
I see now! I was not understanding that interest was distinct from willing, which I agree they are differentas I can have an interest in something without deploying my will to engage in it. However, I am skeptical that interest is completely devoid of willing, as when I am interested in something, I am thereby willing attention towards it (even if it be very brief and only cognitive).
Perhaps interest is the initial, weakest form of willing?
This is where I think your feeling vs willing distinction unfairly favors one abitrary camp of tastes over another, as there absolutely no way for a person to willfully obey a moral principle in and of itself without having a taste to do it. There is no such thing as performing an action devoid of feelings but, rather, only devoid of (or more like in opposition to) ones initial (or superficial or less-prioritized) emotional responses to something.
If einsteinien space/time is irreconcible with Kantian space and time, then, as a transcendental idealist, do you deny Einsteins general/special relativity?
There is an established metaphysical system in which this condition is precisely descriptive of true moral agency, re: Enlightenment deontology. The only limitation therein with respect to a moral act, is the physical accomplishment of it, which makes explicit obligation to a willful principle, the ground of such system, has no regard for the contingencies of taste, but only the necessities of law.
Of course, established is one thing, practiced is quite another.
Quoting Bob Ross
Oh heck no. The science is good. Far and away beyond the bounds of my possible experience, but good science nonetheless. Time dilation, which held for our flight to Rome a couple years ago, is .what, a couple picoseconds? My sons here in their frame, and me there at a 500mph frame, a difference in age disparity noticed by some dude with the most sensitive time device available but not the least noticed by me or them.
And ya know what? I dont have the slightest need to locate Bobbys Badass Burger Barn with a 3-foot margin of error, but I recognize that I might want that precision if Im planting a Hellfire on it. Like .after one too many messed-up orders.
If anything, Id take exception to Einsteins dismissal of the transcendental nature of pure mathematics, as Kant authored the notion. He stated for the record mathematics is discovered, but in fact I rather think the proofs of mathematical relations are discovered, but math, in and of itself, is a purely rational construction by, and manifestation of, human intelligence.
Shall we chalk up the disparities to a mere domain of discourse?
I see! I am just a bit confused then what you think of space/time fabric? Einstein's notion of space/time is something which would exist beyond the possibility of all experience, which I thought, as a kantian, you would deny knowledge of any such things.
For example, do you amend Kant's original formulation and say that space and time are a posteriori (since we only understand them better via empirical investigation)? Are they still a priori insofar as they are forms of our experience, but their behaviors are a posteriori? Do you know what I mean?
It isnt a fabric, its a mathematical model of a gravitational field under specific conditions. The Universe, reality in general, in and of itself .whatever there is that isnt us ..doesnt need space or time. We as calculating intelligences, do.
But then, the Universe doesnt need mathematical models or gravitational fields either, so
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Quoting Bob Ross
Thing is, were investigating objects a posteriori, in order to understand them better, not space or time. All we need from those two, is the understanding, the recognition, that because of them, things dont happen all at once, and things arent all in the same place.
Quoting Bob Ross
Technically, forms of the representations of objects, or phenomena, but, a priori, yes.
Quoting Bob Ross
Space and time dont behave, dont possess behavior. Things possess relations between themselves or between them and us, which is what wed loosely call their behavior, but is really our representations of their responses to force.
Long ways from moral realism, arent we?
Hello Mww,
Lol: yes. But I am intrigued by this conversation, and as long as you are as well then I think we should continue.
That makes sense! Ive just only ever heard of Einsteins space/time as a fabric, but that must just be physicalists and substance dualists that advocate for it and not Einstein himself (potentially).
The interesting part of this part of your response it that it almost seems like you are granting science metaphysically legitimacy, which I reckoned you wouldnt as a transcendental idealist, but just that we dont need, scientifically, to posit space and time but, rather, only mathematical models of things: is that correct?
Otherwise, wouldnt you be compelled to say that the universe is completely unknown instead of the universe...in and of itself...doesnt need space or time: the latter seems like a knowledge claim about the things-in-themselvesbut I could be just getting in the weeds here.
I also lean towards mathematical anti-realism, if that is what you are alluding to here. I just wonder what is actually going on in reality then, and how would we ever know?
But that is exactly what Einstein did: he made predictions about objects that would prove the differing behaviors of space and timeso it was an indirect empirical inquiry of space and time themselves (e.g., predicting the orbit of mercury with space curvature).
So, under your view, space curving and time dilating are not classified as behaviors? Then what are they classified as?
Actually, in his 1926 Britannica entry, he calls it four-dimensional continuum, derived from the fact things are described in a space and in a time, simultaneously. Kant said the same thing, in that nothing is ever given to us empirically that isnt conditioned by space and time.
In Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science, 1786, Kant say
Thus, for all experience and for every inference from experience, it cant make any difference whether I choose to consider a body as moving or rather to consider the body as at rest and the space it is in as moving in the opposite direction with the same speed. The two ways of looking at it are strictly equivalent.
..which can be found, in a way, in Einsteins equivalence principle: elevator gerdankexperiment, 1907, and theoretically posited in Relativity: The Special and General, 1916:
. If, relative to K, K is a uniformly moving co-ordinate system devoid of rotation, then natural phenomena run their course with respect to K according to exactly the same general laws as with respect to K. This statement is called the principle of relativity (in the restricted sense) .
It is documented that Einstein read philosophy, had favorites in it, but would he ever admit to taking a hint from Kant? Nahhhhh .I doubt it. But, theres the two texts; make of it what you will.
Quoting Bob Ross
The effects of gravity on objects in space for the one; the difference in measurable durations relative to objects of significantly disparate velocities, for the other.
The devil is in the details. Same as it ever was ..
Hello Mww,
Well, it appears as though Einstein didnt share Kants view that math is a priori certain:
So is it that the math behind these behaviors is transcendent, and the space and time are transcendental?
All a priori certain is meant to indicate, is if it comes from human understanding, for whatever is thought, it is impossible for that thought to not have occurred, which is the same as saying that thought is certain. From there, because both Kant and Einstein recognized mathematics is a product of human thought, it is for that reason, both a priori and certain. Then the question becomes, for whatever is thought, does Nature support that thought, such that rational ..logical .certainty relates to empirical conditions, without contradiction.
Gotta consider the times: Galileo knew of relativity respecting a single subject relative to the world, and Kant knew of spherical geometry respecting geometric formulae, but neither had experiences of velocities greater than that of a running horse, so both are relieved of not having the occasions for Einsteins thought experiments, re: trains and station platforms, and, Einsteins relativity (of simultaneity) relates two subjects to a common worldly event, from a perspective outside either affected subject.
If Einstein held that math didnt relate to reality with certainty, on what ground, then, did he actually invent mathematical propositions to explain certain aspects of it, re: w = c - v? And, because that formula had no existence, had never been thought, and for which therefore there could be no possible experience, how is it not a priori?
Not an issue, really. Einstein didnt approve of a priori mathematical certainty, merely because the content of the formulas he envisioned and constructed had no chance of being obtained in experience. He grounds Relativity: the Special and the General on assumptions, re: .. it had always tacitly been assumed in physics that the statement of time had an absolute significance .., and, . based on yet a second assumption, which, in the light of a strict consideration, appears to be arbitrary, although it was always tacitly made even before the introduction of the theory of relativity
Kant thought in consideration of his current time, in which his mathematical proofs were readily available without technical support; Einstein thought in consideration of times in which his ideas must wait for proofs, pending technological support. What a scant three years for GR, but 35 for SR? Something like that.
The term universality in Kant meant wherever a human is, in Einstein it meant wherever the Universe is. In the one, it is a logical concept, in the other, an empirical. Nowadays, man has been on the Moon, and Voyager left the solar system without falling apart, so, with respect to the certainty of mathematical proposition as they relate to reality .whose thinking was the more precise?
Anyway .rambling.
Hello Mww,
By impossible for that thought to not have occurred, you are referring to math being a necessary precondition for the possibility of experience? Otherwise, I am not sure I followed this part.
I think you are just conflating the term thought here. In the quote I provided, it seemed as though Einstein was referring to the thought of 1 + 1 = 2 as certain but not certain pertaining to our perceptions, whereas Kant means thought in the sense of the active participation of the construction of our perceptions.
Because he thought it could be empirically verified, not that the equations themselves, nor math in general was a priori certain.
But they werent obtained in experience, or at least some of them, right? Otherwise, they would be indistinguishable from being a product of human imagination.
That is fair: I dont think Kant would have made the same exact claims had he have written CPR in our current era.
True, but then wouldnt Einsteins viewpoint be impossible under Kantianism, since there is no way to know anything about the viewpoint of the things-in-themselves (i.e., Universe)?
Nothing to do with the objects of thought, but only of thought in general. Was there ever a thought you didnt think? Of course not, which is to say every thought of yours was both a priori and certain, which is its form. Now if the content of each thought is included, it follows necessarily that the object thought has the very same certainty as it relates to its form. But singular thoughts are very seldom of any use, and thus it is almost always the case the human understanding conjoins a series of thoughts, in which the certainty then becomes the business of logic, particularly, the LNC.
Quoting Bob Ross
By which Im supposing you mean Einsteins opinion. I never found anything particularly impressive about it, actually. Mathematics can be certain in its mere form, but is only true insofar as it conforms to Nature. All logic to be thought .which is all mathematics is ..needs its content verified empirically. So the opinion reduces to, mathematical propositions refer to understanding for their certainty, so they do not refer to reality, and, insofar as mathematical propositions refer to reality, it is not for the certainty of them, but for the empirical verification of their certainty, which is their proofs. His opinion is shared by the enlightened metaphysicians of his day, just ..you know ..stated differently.
Well ..yeah. How else does a thing get its properties, if the human thinker doesnt decide what they are? Basketballs as such dont exist naturally without immediate human causality. Basketballs have the properties that make a real thing a basketball only because a human logical reason says what those properties must be. So he gets the idea that because Nature has shown him round things that roll, he can make a round thing of leather and fill it with air. But thats not quite right, in that Nature only showed him a thing of a certain shape, but not that it was round, which he came up with all by himself, and assigned that as a property inherent in things of that shape, without regard to whether he, or Nature, was its causality.
If Nature gave the properties of things to us along with the thing itself ..why do we assign spin to an elementary particle as a property of it, when spin as rotating mass has no relation to what spin as this property, is meant to indicate?
So, yes, human reason is the only means by which the properties of real things is fathomed. That there are natural conditions of real things, to which properties are the means for comprehending those conditions, is true enough, but it remains the one is not the same as the other.
Quoting Bob Ross
Thats the cool thing about Einsteins avant-guarde thought experiments: there is no way to empirically verify them. Otherwise, theyd be actual scientific experiments. Which leaves naught but the internal logic of mathematical propositions a priori for the certainty by which the physical experiments may even eventually prove the math, while logically certain in itself, doesnt correspond to Nature. I dont see how it empirical verification can be thought that doesnt necessarily presuppose the mathematical logic to which the verification, whether affirming or negating, relates.
Quoting Bob Ross
I dont see a relationship here.
..I think Einstein admits his philosophical view is Kantian with respect to mathematical propositions, but he wont admit the Kantian methodological predication from which it obtains;
..the viewpoint of things-in-themselves doesnt make any sense, insofar as things do not have a viewpoint;
..to say the Universe is a thing-in-itself confuses what a thing-in-itself is supposed to represent. For us, every object of perception presupposes that object as a thing-in-itself. If the Universe is not ever going to be an object of perception, such as are those objects contained in it, then theres no necessary presupposition for it to be a thing-in-itself. We can think Universe as a conceptual representation, but were never going to intuit it as a phenomenal representation. That is to say the Universe will not be an appearance to our sensibility, hence will never cause a sensation in us, which means it is not a thing, which makes a thing-in-itself corresponding to it, meaningless.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Did you mean to say .were obtained?
Hello Mww,
Yes: other peoples thoughts.
I see.
I just dont think Einstein was conceding that mathematical propositions find their certainty in the understanding, but, rather, are certain insofar as they are in reason (as a cognitive faculty we have of our experience, and not the active participator therein).
It would not be the human thinker deciding their phenomenal properties if the understanding is an aspect of the universal mind, and not the particular I of any human; which I am starting to lean towards, as it seems implausible to me that the I is the decider of the entire experience of which it has and is an entity within that experience.
But I dont think this is accurate in Kantianism, if causality (and space and time) are produced by the human (as its forms of intuition), then there the nature you refer to is reduced to a purely negative conceptan incomprehensible nothingwhich cannot be understood to even show him a thing of a certain shape. You are inferring the representations from human understanding from the after effects of the human understanding, which is allegedly supposed to not provide any knowledge of the things-in-themselves.
I did not follow this part: could you restate it differently?
It is a very, prima facie, appealing argument I must say; but it fails because the proof of reason actively determining things properties requires that the representations are somewhat accurate of the things-in-themselves, which, if Kant is right, there is no way to determine anything about them; instead, the claim we represent the world becomes not universally valid but, rather, valid only insofar as it is constrained to the possibility of experiencebut Kant is working with a framework where the possibility of experience is a representation!
Interesting!
You were saying that Einstein views things from the universes perspective; that is, everything is relative. And Kant views it from the perspective of the individual, and thusly universal. However, these do not seem to be compatible views, as if Kant is right then Einstein cannot take the viewpoint of everything is relative since it speaks of the things-in-themselvesnot the individuals experience.
Continuing from the post linked above, @Bob Ross, tell me what is "subjective" about the form of this (ethical / medical / ecological) hypothetical imperative ...
(where X = homeostasis or health-fitness or sustainability, respectively).
Whether or not one chooses to do a moral, or right, action (i.e. a hypothetical imperative to reduce harm) is no more "subjective" than whether or not one chooses to solve a mathematical equation because both are, I argue contra the OP, equally objective operations.
Hello 180 Proof,
To me, whether it is expressing something subjective is if the hypothetical is an operation of the mind as opposed to something mind-independent. So, for me, even if that were hardwired into our biology (which I dont think is true for all people) it would be contingent on ones mind since I hold that biological operations are mind-operations (metaphysically). For your view, as I noted before, if you hold that this hypothetical is a product of mind-independent operations that governs our actions (as a mind), then it would be a categorical imperative: not hypothetical. In other words, the hypothetical, holistically, is a categorical imperative (viz., the hypothetical is deployed as some function of our mind independent processes).
If by this you are referring to the above hypothetical as an actually ingrained judgment which mind-independently governs us, then I agree that it would be objective. However, for me, since I am an idealist, I hold that we do many things which are subjective (mind-dependent) but not within our (as the ego) control in any meaningful sense of the term: minds, for me, operate in very consistent and regular ways: its just higher-order aspects (like the ego, our facutly of reason, etc.) that tend to operate quite whimsically or in a manner that we (as the ego) feel we are in control of.
Yes, as we talked about a few pages ago.
..Kant didnt have the vision in physics Einstein had, and Einstein didnt accept the vision in metaphysics Kant had;
..Kant didnt find a need to think about a stationary clock here and a moving clock out there, and Einstein didnt find a need to grant that in order to think mere possible events requires an absolutely necessary precondition in human reason itself;
..Kant understood perfectly well if there was a clock here and a clock there, one moved and the other didnt, there must be the experience of change in a perceiving subject, the change relative to the clocks themselves utterly irrelevant except as the representation of an internal logical human principle. Einstein used mathematics to prove if there is a stationary clock here and a moving clock there, there must be a change relative only to the clocks but not as an experience of the subject, who only experiences the verification of the mathematical logic but not the relativity of the clocks times to each other, which is a function of Nature alone without any regard whatsoever for principles of human reason.
Quoting Bob Ross
Ehhhh .I suppose theres some truth in that. Einsteins math with respect to objects determines a mere possible human experience, or in some cases no human experience at all, re: events at or approaching the SOL, so at that point, perhaps the objects must be considered as thing-in-themselves. On the other hand, insofar as in Kant knowledge is experience and there is no experience of events regarding objects at or approaching the SOL, it follows that all we have as humans is the validity of the pure mathematical logic, which has nothing to do with objects themselves but merely represents a deductive inference for them, hence removes the thing-in-itself objection.
Furthermore, upon the successful exhibition of that which was formally only mathematical logic, makes necessary actual real things, which again removes the thing-in-itself objection, re: HafeleKeating, 1971.
Anyway .Ive reached the limit of my formal physics.
Quoting Bob Ross
Representations are somewhat accurate .yes, but only of the sensations evoked in us of a thing, not a thing-in-itself. It reduces to reason not proving, but merely justifying, the accuracy of representations, but not necessarily the accuracy of the actual constituency of things-in-themselves. Nature Herself will inform if the properties determined as representing objects is accurate or not, as shown by evolving experiences of the same object over time.
I figured youd glean from the properties of real things is fathomed presupposes those properties, which makes explicit that which fathoms cannot be the source of that which is fathomed. Understanding actively determines things properties, not reason, which only shows conflicts in such determinations and thereby conflicts in understandings. Now it should become clearer that regarding the properties of objects, fathom means to find uncontested.
(Too loose a definition? Yeah .maybe. Or, too tight an analysis. Not sure which, but it made sense at the time.)
Quoting Bob Ross
What .I cant free-wheel with language, just a little? Nature doesnt technically show me anything, but when things make their presence perceivable to me, are they not shown to me? While it may be a stretch to say that because those things that make their presence known to me are in Nature then it follows that Nature showed them to me.
And why should Nature be an incomprehensible nothing? If I can think a conceivable representation then it is necessarily something, and it being a conception that doesnt immediately contradict any other conception it must be comprehensible. Right?
Sorry for the dialectical delay.
Hello Mww,
But wouldnt Einsteins argument also be explained metaphysically as:
It seems like they are incompatible views, but Einsteins empirically verified views can be reconciled with Kantianism insofar as one denies Einsteins metaphysical views.
I didnt understand this part: could you please elaborate?
I have a hard time parsing this, as the sensations are supposed to be the raw input of things-in-themselves, so are you saying that after the things-in-themselves have conformed to our sensibility we have accurate representions of that?
Yeah, I mean I think kantianism operates implicitly under the assumption that causality is not merely the pure forms of our intuition: otherwise, I dont know why a Kantian would even think that they are fathoming properties of a thing-in-itself, which has impacted their senses in a manner that resulted in a process of interpretation (i.e., creation of a representation). This is one thing I think Schopenhauer got right: (physical) causality only pertains to the representations, and so there is absolutely no reason to believe that things-in-themselves are impressing upon our senses.
But isnt nature the totality of the things-in-themselves, which you equally claim you know nothing about?
Only if by nature your claims are restricted to the possibility of experience, and not universally valid (I guess).
Absolutely no worries! I appreciate our conversations, and would much rather have a substantive response that takes a while than a quick superficial one!
That isnt so much Einsteins metaphysical view as it is his precursor to his own empirical view. Im not sure he even posits a metaphysical view in juxtaposition to a philosopher from Kants era, but he does regarding religion and whatnot.
Quoting Bob Ross
The views are incompatible, as weve already established. Einsteins empirically verified views cannot be reconciled with Kants, because Kant never entertained an empirical view anywhere near Einsteins.
Again, my disclaimer: I am more familiar with Einsteins science than his philosophy, and regarding his philosophy I am more familiar with his views on things having little to do with Kant, and regarding his little views on Kant I am more familiar with the exposition of his denial of Kantian a priori transcendental predications and on his denials, I object to them insofar as I think he missed the point.
Quoting Bob Ross
No they are not. Raw input of things. Things-in-themselves are exactly what is NOT a thing of which we have the sensation. Why do people have such a hard time with IN-ITSELF? MY-self, YOUR-self, no problem. Along comes the notion of IT-self, and folks just go all bonkers. Makes no damn sense to me.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Capitol N Nature is the totality of real natural things; little n nature is the composition or constituency or manner of being, of things caused naturally or conceived rationally. I suppose theres nothing suspiciously untoward in calling Nature the totality of things-in-themselves, but in doing that, wed immediately lose access to knowledge of any part of Nature, insofar as, all being things-in-themselves no part of it can appear to us as phenomena, which is a theoretical contradiction.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Im ok with Nature being restricted to the possibility of experience. Im not going to experience the nature of, say, justice, but Im perfectly qualified to think how its nature would or would not be represented by an experience.
Quoting Bob Ross
Youd be correct, as far as I understand it. Kantianism, per se, operates under the assumption causality is not a pure form of our intuitions, of which there are only space and time. In Kant, cause, and its various derivatives including causality, is a category residing in understanding represented by and subsumed under conceptions, a function of logic in the form of discursive judgement, whereas the pure form of intuition resides in sensibility represented by phenomena but subsumed under imagination, an arrangement in the form of aesthetic judgement. Schopenhauer is the one that formally includes causality in the pure forms of intuition.
Quoting Bob Ross
He wouldnt. And if he does, he has lost sight of what he professes to know.
Your namesake. The one I asked about awhile ago? One of his pieces just sold .$9.8M.
Hello Mww,
Sorry the for belated response, but it took some time for me to give your response the proper thought it deserves.
Firstly, if you think that Einstein and Kants views are incompatible, then how do you accept general/special relativity as a Kantian? Are you saying that you accept the empirical aspects but reshape them, so to speak, under a Kantian metaphysical outlook? It just seems like, on the one hand, you are saying the Einsteins math is sound, but then turning around and saying Einsteins views are incompatible with your own.
Secondly, I desperately need a refresher on the process that is taken by our representative faculties under Kantianism (under your interpretation of it), all the way from the thing-in-itself to the representation. You said the things-in-themselves are NOT a thing of which we have a sensation; but, as far as I understood, the sensations (the raw input) are a approximate of the thing-in-itself.
My exposition of Kantianism with regards to this representational process would be as follows:
1. The thing-in-itself impacts us.
2. The impact trigger our receptivity and sensibility to receive and produce raw input of, within the limits of what it is capable of, the thing-in-itself.
3. The intuition and the understanding both process the raw input.
4. A representation is the aftermath of the aforesaid process.
How would you explain it?
Ok, then thats fine. I was interpreting it as capital N nature.
Are you referring to a Bob Ross painting?
As I wrote a few days ago, Im not directly affected by, therefore care very little for, e.g., gravitational lensing and assorted SR/GR relations. It is true the world acts the way it does, but only under those conditions which are not available to me or you as general experiences.
The world as the manifold of all real objects operates under a wide set of laws in merely possible relations to me, re: I will be taller than I am now iff I am ever under the effect of a much greater mass; I as an individual subject operate under a narrow set of rules in necessary relations to my world, re: if I kick a rock I will suffer a broken toe. While both conditions are true in relation to me, they remain apples and oranges in relation to each other.
quote="Bob Ross;838190"]You said the things-in-themselves are NOT a thing of which we have a sensation; but, as far as I understood, the sensations (the raw input) are a approximate of the thing-in-itself.[/quote]
Yeah, its been a bone of contention ever since its conceptual creation. Technically, phenomena are approximations of things, whereas sensation just informs there is something for which an approximation is determinable.
Its just logic, man. Just logic. Why should it be, that even though you look at a thing and learn what it is, that it must be the same thing next time you look at it? On the one hand youd expect it to be the same, but on the other theres no reason why it absolutely must. Hell, driving by a fence one day is one thing, driving by the next day somebody repainted it. Even if its the same fence, your experience of it is different, which reduces to the fact all your experience is ever going to be, regarding that fence, is predicated on your perception of it, no matter who does what to it.
So .say the fence is a different color but you dont drive by. How you gonna get an impression from the fence you didnt drive by? Now it is that the condition of the fence changed but your experience of it didnt. You know that fence in one way, but the fence isnt the way you know it. Why dont we just say there is a fence you know about and a fence you do not. The fence you know about youve perceived, the fence you do not you have not. Back up to the point where you never perceived anything and everything is unknown to you. But there are still things nonetheless. So for every single thing that becomes a perception for you, is one less thing that doesnt. Of all the remaining things that havent yet been perceived by you, are still things you may possibly perceive, but until you do, you will know nothing of them, and they are thereby called things-in-themselves, and conversely, that which you do perceive is not longer a thing you have not, or, which is the same thing, the thing you perceive is no longer the thing-in-itself.
Now, it is true you may infer the bejesus outta all sorts of stuff .never having been there, you still know the moon exhibits shapes of illumination hence it is likely spherical ..but need I remind you that inference, a purely logical enterprise, is not experience, which is entirely predicated on the necessity of phenomena, which is turn is a strictly empirical perception?
The fence is a particular example, but the particular holds in general. For any object, your experience of it, how it is known/what it is know as by you, is predicated on your intelligence alone, the state or condition of the thing itself be as it may.
Quoting Bob Ross
(Nope. The thing impacts us)
2. The impact trigger our receptivity and sensibility to receive and produce raw input of, within the limits of what it is capable of, the thing-in-itself.
(Nope. The impact triggers our receptivity to produce representations of the raw input of whatever sensation the thing gives us, depending on the mode of sensibility affected, re: which sense is affected by that thing, the representation herein we call phenomenon. The key here is to realize not even memory is established yet. Receptivity and thereby sensibility in general is singular and successive, which is to say, receptivity works the very same way whether the received raw input is already an experience or it is not.)
3. The intuition and the understanding both process the raw input.
(Nope. Intuition processes the raw input, understanding processes the representations of the raw input. Intuition informs of the raw material of the thing; understanding informs that intuitions can or cannot have conceptions related to them.)
4. A representation is the aftermath of the aforesaid process.
(Nope. Judgement is the immediate, cognition is the subsequent, experience is the consequential, aftermath of the antecedent intuition/understanding process.)
2a.) We are not conscious of the process of receptivity; phenomena are generated without any intellectual activity. Sensibility is merely the faculty by which that out there becomes this in here the system can work with. Understanding must be capable of coping with five different kinds of intuited phenomenal representations determinable within the confines of five different kinds of sensory devices. The only way .or at least the most parsimonious way, theoretically .in which one kind of understanding can cope with five different kinds of phenomena, is to have the means for it arise spontaneously in accordance with the form the phenomena present to it, AND, to have contained in it a set of rules by which the phenomenon from one sense is to be judged differently than the phenomenon of another.
3a.) Simply put, intuition says how things are, given some raw input, understanding says how things are to be thought because of some raw input. Intuition is concerned with the thing, understanding is concerned with what is done with the thing. Judgement is that by which the relation of the two coincide, that is to say, if the validity of what is to be done coincides with the possibilities contained in the raw input. At the lowest level, this is what prevents us from cognizing a ham n cheese sandwich as heavy, or, cognizing the moon as combustible.
4a.) There are but two kinds of representation, phenomenon and conception. It is possible to have a conception with no phenomenon conjoined to it, but it is impossible for a phenomenon to have no conception belonging to it. This is because phenomena are representations of that which is given to us and hence cannot be dismissed .you cannot un-see what youve seen ..but conceptions can and often do spontaneously manifest in mere thought without connection to a phenomenon, re: imagination. Like .all that contained in metaphysical speculation.
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Yep, him. Although, upon closer inspection, it turns out $9.8M was the asking price, not the sale price. It was for A Walk in the Woods, 1971, currently held by a museum gallery, purchased from a legitimate former owner for .(gasp) $1000.
Hello Mww,
With respect to Einstein vs. Kant, it appears as though, to me, that you are accepting Einsteins equations but through the lens that they describe merely the a priori structure of our representative faculties, is that correct?
But you are: time dilates even at the scale of our normal lives.
But doesnt the thing-in-itself have to appear to you in order to perform those logical operations on the sensations of it?
I appreciate the elaboration, but it seems like, to me, we are saying the same thing. You seem to be calling the aftermath of the thing-in-itself appearing to us as a thing, and the sensations are what comprise the thing; whereas I am saying that the sensations are what comprise our limited knowledge of the thing-in-itself. Arent we saying the same thing?
This sounds like the same thing I said, but why postulate a thing then (on top of a thing-in-itself)? The raw input is of the thing-in-itself, which isnt necessarily a 1:1 raw input of the it.
I dont understand how this isnt pure speculation: what exact about ones experience implies that the intuition processes the raw input and the understanding processes those representations? How do you even know there are two different faculties doing it?
Niceee.
Another question for you: I find schopenhauers argument compelling that we know the thing-in-itself insofar as we can introspectively access that our will is what is getting represented in our outer representations, such that the outer representations are not completely cut off from our knowledge. I would presume that a Kantian would think that the immaterial events (such as thoughts) which one has is somehow still conditioned by their faculty of understanding (but not intuition): how do you go about explaining that?
I forgot to respond to the fence analogy: sorry!
This doesn't make sense to me: for the reason that you perceived it differently is exactly because someone did something to it.
You didn't have a new experience of it that was different than your previous experience because you haven't experienced it again. Once you do, then it will have a different color. Are you talking about memories?
Not in my inertial frame it doesnt, hence, it is not an effect on me, hence I am not affected by it.
Quoting Bob Ross
For what you said, I said Nope, which makes explicit we said very different things.
Quoting Bob Ross
No thing is comprised of the sensation caused in another thing by its appearance. Thats like saying a mosquito is comprised of an itch on my arm.
Youre probably trying to say the itch tells me theres some thing on my arm, and of that thing at the very least I will know its capacity for biting me. Thats all well and good, but not what I want to know. By sensation alone, an effect, I still dont know what exactly the thing is that bit me, a cause necessarily related to the effect. All I can say at this point is that there is the appearance of an unknown thing, but not a thing-in-itself, insofar as the thing-in-itself is that unknown which would never have bit me in the first place. I mean .how does it make sense that the thing-in-itself has my blood in it?
Quoting Bob Ross
It is. Exactly what you wrote. You quoted yourself.
Quoting Bob Ross
Bottom line ..to affirm the methodology of a representational cognitive system.
Quoting Bob Ross
Because there are two kinds of knowledge, that which involves things, that which does not. For the one there must be things to know about that do not belong to me, that are external to me; for the other there is that which does belong to me, is internal to me, that which I create or construct myself. I have no need of sensations for that what I only think, even if I do need sensation to prove there is a real thing that corresponds to it.
Think of the science. For every bee sting or sweet taste there is a difference between what the senses do and what the brain does. But the brain can do stuff even if the senses dont, and, the senses can do stuff the brain doesnt recognize.
Quoting Bob Ross
It is pure speculation. Even given certain observations upon which the speculation is based, it remains speculation because there are no empirical proofs for any of it. Even SR and GR were speculative upon their respective initial composition .I mean, cmon man .riding a light beam???? and subsequently obtained in experience.
We just love to say we KNOW the car is in the garage for no other reason than thats where we left it. But it is an illegitimate claim, lacking any empirical warrant whatsoever. And THAT, my friend, is NOT speculative.
Quoting Bob Ross
Schopenhauers theory works well if one hasnt already been exposed to how Kants theory works.
From my personal, well-worn armchair, this makes no sense at all ..
.. Every true, genuine, immediate act of will is also, at once and immediately, a visible act of the body. And, corresponding to this, every impression upon the body is also, on the other hand, at once and immediately an impression upon the will. As such it is called pain when it is opposed to the will; gratification or pleasure when it is in accordance with it.
..in that there are a whole bucketful of impressions on my body that are neither pain nor pleasure. And although S acknowledges this circumstance here ..
.. There are only a few impressions of the body which do not touch the will ( ). These impressions are, therefore, to be treated directly as mere ideas, and excepted from what has been said. The impressions we refer to are the affections of the purely objective senses of sight, hearing, and touch, though only so far as these organs are affected in the way which is specially peculiar to their specific nature. This affection of them is so excessively weak an excitement of the heightened and specifically modified sensibility of these parts that it does not affect the will, but only furnishes the understanding with the data out of which the perception arises, undisturbed by any excitement of the will .
.which is indeed unfortunate, should I will that stupid fence to be a different color, in order to remove the necessity of driving by it in order to experience the change.
Not only that, but hes incorporated exceptions to his own rules, anathema to any theory meant to be taken seriously. And while Kant says the same thing .
.We may especially remark that all in our cognition that belongs to intuition contains nothing more than mere relations. (The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, which are not cognitions, are excepted) .
..he goes on to say what the reason for the exceptions are, that being an entirely different rational methodology given in an entirely separate critical exposition, but S merely says those impressions are just conditions of relative degree.
I know, huh?!! If S wanted to refute K, or at least forward a different brand of transcendental philosophy, why didnt he start by falsifying the claim the feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, are not cognitions, perhaps by somehow showing that they are???? If he had done that successfully, which means with sufficient logical integrity, Ks second critique on pure practical reason and thereby his entire moral philosophy would have been destroyed.
Simplest explanation which says it all .if one likes K he wont like S and if he likes S he wont like K.
Quoting Bob Ross
Which was the point: I perceive it differently, regardless of why it is different, therefore it is a different experience. There is the purely logical argument that because I perceive the same thing at different times the experiences are correspondingly different. Nevertheless, with respect to the content of experience, for there to be a difference the content must be different.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes. Memory would be a mere recollection of an antecedent experience, the recall of a cognition already given. Throw enough metaphysical reductionism at memory you arrive at consciousness, right?
Different color, new knowledge, new experience, consciousness not memory.
Til next time ..
Maybe I'm not following, but this seems fairly circular. Moral realism is irrelevant because there are no objective facts about morality. But isn't that the very question at hand? It seems like begging the question to claim that we cannot obtain objective facts about "the good."
In many conceptions of moral realism, as I will discuss further below, facts about good and evil are facts in the same sense the fact of who won the 1986 World Series is a fact. Actually, for some, like the early Proclus and Plotinus-inspired Saint Augustine, such facts are more objective, more sure, because they are facts about the higher hypostasis of Nous, Universal Mind, and can be known through contemplation and the application of logic alone, rather than through our demonstrably unreliable senses. What we today term empirical facts would be of a lesser factual quality, being statements about accidents rather than essence.
But I'll quote another poster as a good segue into this:
It might be useful to differentiate here between propositions, statements about the world that are true or false, and states of affairs, descriptions of reality that either obtain or fail to obtain. We use the term "fact" to describe both these abstractions, but contemporary metaphysics breaks them out because this causes confusion.
A proposition cannot be good or evil. Its values are true or false (and maybe neither). If we are a moral realist though, a state of affairs can be good or evil.
How this works depends on your definition of good and evil. I will just throw out two forms of moral realism that I think are compatible with moral "facts," as defined as: "there exists state of affairs that we can say are more or less good or evil relative to some other state of affairs based on criteria that are every bit as objective as anything in the empirical sciences."
180Proof's definition above would seem to truck with this concept. However, I will describe some simpler forms of moral realism because it's easier to see how subjectivity is tamed as well as it ever can be in these.
First, the classic "God is the arbiter of what is good and evil." Here, we have a creator of the universe. We can ignore the Euthyphro question about whether God loves what is good because God is good or if what is good is good because it is beloved by the God(s) (Plato's polytheistic context made this question a bit more tricky, because the Gods sometimes disagreed with each other.)
In any event, God is a metaphysical ground for morality. The good or evil of an act can be judged via God's eternal response to it. An act's morality has consequences as well, objective ones. E.g., you either experience the New Earth in a perfected body or are thrown into the Abyss depending on your actions. In this way, we can envision operationalizing morality in terms of future outcomes in the very same way we would do in the sciences, granted that such theorizing would need to wait until the Judgement Day to allow for collection of airtight data. But that's a different question about our knowledge of good and evil. The point here is that facts about good and evil are metaphysically possible and causally efficacious; thus, they make a difference.
Second, consider a more sophisticated conception of good and evil. Saint Augustine of Hippo claimed that evil is not a substance. This was his key argument in Against the Manicheas (he was a former member of that faith). Evil is simply the absence of good, an imperfection such that a thing does not live up to its essence. A hole in a shirt is not a thing, it is absence, it is rather a failure of the shirt to fully embody its essence, to live up to its telos, purpose. In such a view, it seems possible to make objective statements as to how well a thing is perfected vis-a-vis its essence. There is a fact of the matter about gradations of perfection. Here, disease is the absence of health, out of equilibrium homeostasis, 180's harm.
Now of course, there are plenty of critiques of essence as a concept, Neoplatonism, theism, etc. and you could easily reject the above views. That is aside the point though. There are also far more complex forms of moral realism, Hegel's emergence view being my favorite. But the above are two famous examples that are, on the face of it, rational enough and which allow for meaningful moral facts as statements about the relative goodness or badness of states of affairs. From there, it's easy to see that our choices can make some states of affairs obtain, and others fail to obtain. The moral person then, does what they can, based on their limited knowledge, freedom, and resources, to make the good states of affairs more likely and the evil less likely.
Note that explanations of morality in terms of God or essence are not tautologies. Something isn't good because it is good, but is good because of its relation to a Creator, or an abstract entity.
This is very good. I can see the immediate rebuttal being that people often disagree about how to define harm. Is a parent dragging their child to confession harming them or reducing harm, etc.?
This isn't a problem for the metaphysical existence of objective morality. After all, mankind has frequently disagreed about facts about other parts of the natural world, and gotten things wrong, but this doesn't mean that the Earth orbiting around the Sun is subjective.
But there is the epistemic challenge of "how do we come to know the good?" "Are there general principles we can discover that can inform us on this matter?" Biology alone seems unable to answer the question, because we have examples like euthanasia, where we might agree that it is moral to try to end someone's suffering, but be unable to justify this in terms of homeostasis etc. So, psychology plays a role too.
I haven't thought it through all the way, but I think second order volitions (ala Frankfurt) might play a key role here. Frequently, people desire what harms them. There is a sort of reflexive freedom that is required such that people have control over their wants- that they "desire what they want to desire," as well as the attainment of "authenticity" or "self-actualization," before psychological desire begins to align well with harm. Lynn Rudder-Baker had four criteria on when a desire is free, but they escape me right now.
So, it seems like we reach a point where furthering our epistemic ability to properly distinguish harm itself becomes itself a moral imperative. Acting justly requires knowledge, and knowledge consolidation is a social activity, requiring institutions. In this way, I think we can recognize objective moral goals, the prerequisites for achieving a perfected morality, even when the moral facts of the matter re some specific even appear hazy and subjective. And such goals aren't easy to attain and efforts to do so face trade offs, which seems to open a role for the sort of pragmatic thinking that moral realism often seems to squeeze out.
Why have you quoted my whole --3 paragraph, 136 words-- message, when you didn't coment on anything in it? In fact, why have you quoted me at all?
What I can see is that you just presented your own, independent ideas on the topic ... This is how debates between leaders of political parties are carried out in Greece! :grin:
I was addressing this. Sure, if you take it as axiomatic that facts cannot be moral, then you can't have moral facts. But like I said, the term facts, or "facts of the matter" often refer to states of affairs which can be assigned a moral ranking. If that's the case, then you absolutely can say "X is better than Y," or "Z is more morally preferable than Q." I could see an argument that acts are only good or bad in virtue of the fact that we expect said acts to bring about states of affairs that are more or less just/good (and indeed I think this is a fairly common view in moral philosophy, consequentialism and all). In which case, the morality of the facts is the key player here, the morality of acts is derivative of that.
Hello Mww,
Yes and no: you are right that it doesnt affect you insofar as you experience one continual stream of temporal processes, but it does affect you in the sense that your time is sped up or slowed down relative to another person. So the laws which Einstein describes are affecting your forms of experience, as opposed to the content thereof.
I know you think we are saying different things, but hear me out
I am saying:
thing-in-itself > sensations > intuitions > understanding > representation
You seem to be saying the same thing, but noting:
thing-in-itself > sensations* > intuitions > understanding > representation
* The reverse engineering of what was sensed does not produce knowledge of the thing-in-itself but, rather, the mere thing.
Is that a fair assessment? Let me know where I go wrong if not.
With your mosquito analogy, I would say that the mosquito-in-itself is whatever affecting your senses, but the reverse engineering of the in-itself from the for-us only results in a thing: the site of it, the feeling of it, etc. comprise the mosquito-for-us, and we try to extrapolate what it is in-itself from that (but really only get the thing). I am not saying that our sensations of the thing-in-itself affects it, just that, rather, the thing-in-itself is what causes what we experience of it and our extrapolation of its pure essence is the thing (and not the thing-in-itself).
But how can you appeal to science to furnish you with evidence of those two separate faculties, when it is conditioned by the forms of human understanding (i.e., experience) in the first place?
Speculations based off of empirical evidence is not pure speculation. Thusly, I dont think it is purely speculative that the pure forms of our experience is space and time, but I do find it purely speculative that we have a faculty of intuition that is separate from a faculty of understanding. By pure, I mean it is indistinguishable from human imagination (or conceivability).
Very interesting, I dont see how will would be a cognition but I do see how the actualizations of its intentions are. Why would Kant think will is a cognition? Why think that when one has clear introspective knowledge that what they will appears in the representations (of the outer world)?
Apparently so (:
I think you arrive at the imagination, which is a part of conscious experience for sure, but not equivalent to our (outer world) representative knowledge (nor experience).
Thanks.
I do not see a basis for "the epistemic challenge". Consider my more explanatory post linked at the top of the post to which you've responded
That's much better. Now there can be a dialogue. :smile:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
What do you mean by "taking it as axiomatic"? I take it by definition. How else could one take it? Figuratively?
A fact is something that actually exists or is the case or has happened or is happening.
But even taking it in the sense of "reality" or "truth", the issue is the same: neither reality or truth can be (im)moral.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I don't know what does "facts of the matter" mean, but if it means "states of affairs", i.e. situations, this is a little tricky, or a more subtle case. Because morality may be indeed be involved in a situation, but the situation itself cannot ne moral or immoral. What is happening in the situation can. E.g. drug dealing is immoral, but the situation of drug dealing is a fact. It cannot be considered immoral. See, morality has to do with acts, activity action. A situation is not itself an activity. It is a context, a frame of reference, concerning activities that happen in it. I don't know if this makes sense to you.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
There. You are talking too about acts, that can be good or bad and that bring about sates of affairs. See, "bring about" means they result into, they produce something. Can that something be moral or immoral? Or only the actions that led to that something?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus[/quote]
OK, I see what is the problem here. You kind of equate "facts" and "acts". Well, although they differ by one letter, they are two totally different things.
(BTW, I found something interesting regarding the above two words: "In the 15th centurythe Latin factum, was the neuter past participle of facere do, So, the original sense was an act, later a crime, surviving in the phrase before (or after) the fact . The earliest of the current senses (truth, reality) dates from the late 16th century." (https://www.etymonline.com/word/fact))
Maybe I phrased it poorly. I think your posts explain why we should act a certain way in principle, but there remains the subjectivity involved in which acts actually best reduce harm in practice. The ol' Aristotelian/Marxist "theory versus praxis."
For example, the doctor who faces a patient with a good deal of pain who must decide if pain medicine reduces harm in the short term, versus if it increases the risk of greater harm in the long term if the person might become addicted to opiates; that sort of thing.
My point was just that, even if we face these sorts of objections on praxis, it is clear that greater knowledge of the world, ourselves, and each other, helps us with praxis. So, even if we cannot say, "we know for sure that this course of action is the one that best reduces harm," we can say things about concrete goals that must be achieved to help us answer those sorts of questions. In this way, I can see an argument that other goods, namely freedom and the expansion of knowledge, can also be justified through the need to reduce harm as best we are able.
It makes sense. I don't think it's necessarily inconsistent to say that only acts have moral implications, but neither do I think that this is the only plausible way to look at it. Saying situations can't be more or less moral simply because they are not acts is sort of begging the question, no? The claim of moral realist consequentialists is that some states of affairs simply are more moral than others.
Isn't drug dealing bad in virtue of the states of affairs it brings about? A pharmacist sells drugs and we don't see that as evil.
Right, but aren't acts good or bad in virtue of the states of affairs they bring about? If our acts had no effect on how the world was, how could we say they were good or bad? We don't tend to think of immoral acts in video games as immoral for this reason. The question is: how do you define good and bad acts without reference to the states of affairs we think they are likely to produce?
So, I guess the question is, why is consequentialism wrong? Don't acts gain their good or evil character because of the states of affairs we expect them to produce? The act of pushing a button isn't, in itself, evil. But we might say pushing a button that fires a rocket at a mix of militants and civilians is immoral. Why is the act immoral in this case? It seems to me like it is immoral because we have good reason to expect that it results in a state of affairs where innocent people are harmed.
And this is how we generally address pragmatism in ethics and trade-offs. Firing the rocket at a crowd that includes civilians may generally be an evil act, but if said militants are close to breaching a nuclear weapons facility and intend to kick off a massive nuclear war by firing off a warhead at India- or is it Bharat? - we might decide the act is moral. Why are looser rules of engagement sometimes warranted and sometimes not? If it isn't states of affairs that determine the morality of acts, how is pragmatism justified?
It can't be simply the biological acts, which in modern warfare often just involve clicking a mouse and some buttons. The morality seems to come in light of the causal chain those acts kick off and what sort of states of affairs we either promote or prohibit based on our actions. The normally immoral drone strike becomes moral in the face of failing to attack likely resulting in the state of affairs where a nuclear war is begun, etc.
Again, not if that person and I are in the same inertial frame. As I said before, it is true there would have been a ~12 x 10-8sec (dunno how to type exponents, sorry) discrepancy in elapsed time in my age upon flying to Rome, and yours, if you didnt. Not that either of us would have noticed ..
Quoting Bob Ross
Bob: thing-in-itself > sensations > intuitions > understanding > representation
Mww: thing-in-itself > sensations* > intuitions > understanding > representation
*The reverse engineering of what was sensed does not produce knowledge of the thing-in-itself but, rather, the mere thing.
If your asterisk holds, mine should read, thing > sensation > intuition > understanding > representation, which would then be right if, in addition, representation is exchanged for knowledge. Its a methodological sequence, start here, end there. In either case, the production of knowledge doesnt belong here, re: the proposition, reverse engineering of what was sensed produces knowledge of the mere thing, is false.
Where do you start when you reverse engineer what was sensed? If in the series as youve given it, starting at representation and working backwards is inconclusive, in that which of the two kinds of representation, phenomenon or conception, is not determined. If the start is knowledge, on the other hand, working backwards arrives at understanding represented by conception, then intuition represented by phenomenon, then sensation, then the appearance of the thing, and the sequence is upheld.
Nevertheless, the experiment doesnt work as stated by the totality of the sequence, insofar as reversing the sequence eliminates the possibility of knowledge of the thing, effectively reversing the system to its inception, to wit, the occasion for its use, which is the mere appearance of some undetermined thing, hence the fallacy of knowledge production.
Furthermore, metaphysically, if we adhere to the conditional as written, reverse engineering what was sensed, under the implication the reversal begins with the sensation itself irrespective of the remainder of the methodological system, we havent accomplished anything at all. The ol ..you cant unring that bell. Now reverse engineering isnt engineering, but reversing time, which gives, say, in the case of the mosquito bite, that time before the mosquito bite. It should be clear we cannot say, after the sensation of being bitten, we were not bitten, but only that there was a time before being bitten.
(Easy to see where this could go, given sufficient interest)
So .switching to science, surround yourself with all sorts of test equipment. The experiment is restricted to the reversal of sensation, again, say, of the mosquito bite, which focuses the equipment right down to the pores and little tiny hairs on the skin, at the epidermal level and the nerves at the posterior epidermal level. The sensation empirically manifests as an object having penetrated the skin and affecting the nerve endings, so reverse engineering that, is backing that object out of the skin, removing the affect on nerves, insofar as the non-penetration of the skin is exactly the same physical condition as not even having the particular sensation the experiment is meant to depose.
Do you see you have to stop right there? And because you have to stop right there in order to conform to the demands of the experiment you prescribed, you STILL dont know to what the object that penetrated the skin belongs. You wanted to reverse what was sensed .thats what you stipulated .which does not give you the initial cause of it. Hence, you dont have knowledge of the thing to which the object of the sensation belongs, repeating the fallacy of knowledge production.
And you think were done here? Oh HELL no, were not!!! Expand the test equipment focus to include the immediate surrounding space. Now you got proof of the initial cause, now you perceive the thing to which the reverse-engineered, skin-penetrating, sensation-giving object belongs. Ask yourself whether, right here, right now, it can be said what that thing is.
Hello Count,
I think you may have misunderstood the OP (which is totally fine): it is not that moral realism is insignificant because there are no facts but, rather, that if it were true it would be irrelevant. I am questioning the value of moral realism, and not its truth (or falsity).
This is fine, and it should be. To me, a moral fact is an obligation which exists mind-independently.
The content of a proposition can be evaluated to being good or evil, which I think has your idea of states of affairs subsumed under it. Irregardless, I am not entirely following why this distinction needs to be made. If you claim that state of affair A is morally evil, then you are stating a proposition such that state of affair A is morally evil.
In terms of what you quoted from @Alkis Piskas, if I remember correctly, I differ with them fundamentally on what a proposition is (and thusly what a fact is). They seems to be claiming it is a proposal about the future, moral judgments are about the future, facts are about the past, and thusly (as the argument goes) moral judgments can never be facts. I find many things wrong with this.
Although, as an example, I totally understand what you are saying (although I dont think it really pertains to the OP, as noted above); but I dont think one can, if we were to discuss whether moral realism is compatible with Gods existence (which, again, is not anything related, at least directly, to the OP) then I would say that God and moral realism is incompatible; for either (1) God is the arbiter of moral judgments (and it is subjective) or (2) Gods nature (or something else) conditions Gods will such that it furnishes God with the moral goodness (like a platonic form) (and thusly is objective, but now God doesnt exist because there is something greater than God, which defies Gods very basic definition of being that which no being is greater).
I think @Count Timothy von Icarus' reply is on point given that the OP fails to make this argument. The OP grants moral facts with its right hand and takes them away with its left. "You can have moral facts but you cannot have fundamental obligations," is the same as saying, "You can have moral facts but you cannot have moral facts." A fundamental obligation is one kind of moral fact, and if there are no fundamental obligations then there are no moral facts.
What is your position on the relation between Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and his Metaphysics of Morals (1797)? Some, such as Allen Wood, allow for the possibility that Kant's moral thought developed significantly in the interim, and that the Groundwork was in some ways superseded.
Hello Mww,
But this concedes that it does affect you! I get that relative to your inertial frame nothing affected you, but the whole the point is that it is relative to other inertial frames; and if it affects you, then it must be explained (or accounted for) in Kantianism: I believe you saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that space and time themselves are not behaving differently (depending on where one is) but, rather, the description of space curving and time dilating are just shorthands of explanations of the behaviors of the content of ones pure forms of experience (such as speed and gravitational displacement).
I have a hard time with this, because there is no thing and this denotes the thing-in-itself as completely irrelevant to what we are representing: so, in your view, the things becomes effectively what the things-in-themselves were supposed to be. Now the things-in-themselves are just imaginative, unprovably existent, objects of the world.
Exactly, which I would say that this entails that we do not reverse engineer, ever, the things-in-themselves but, rather, only the best guess based off of the limitations of our senses and understanding; for we cannot start anywhere else but the representation in front of us.
What do you mean by start with knowledge? You cannot start with anything but the representations that you have (of the inner and outer senses) and reverse engineer, at best, what is necessary for the possibility of it. Anything else is pure imagination.
Exactly, why think, if Kant is right, that there are things-in-themselves? I think the root of the problem, as I noted before, is that Kant is presupposes a causal kind of relationship when transcendentally determining our a priori faculties and then using them to say that causality is only valid within those representations: kind of self-undermining.
Then it seems as though reverse engineering the process of producing a representation (e.g., sensibility, receptivity, intuition, cognition, etc.) since it requires time, which was supposed to be a pure form, and nothing else, of the faculty of intuition in the first place!
I dont think science helps us with this dilemma one bit, since we are contrained to the two pure forms of our experience; and so it seems impossible to know, even transcendentally, that they are produced (themselves) by our intuition.
By reverse engineering, I am not saying to remove all the senses, for then we have nothing sensible left (as Berkeley rightly pointed out): instead, I mean that the object within our representations is the sensations (e.g., the sense of site of it, the sense of touch of it, etc.). What was sensed is only reverse engineered insofar as we converge our representations of it. I think it is very flawed to think that one can look at a mosquito, separate the sense of the feeling of the bite, and hold that the mosquito exists tangibly as (close to) what one saw of it but sans the sensations of touch that one had; for the sense of site is equally a sense, and thusly just as dependent on the subject as the sense of touch.
This just circles back to the major problem that Kant demonstrates, but adamantly tried to dogmatically refute: that we cannot know a priori that we sense, intuit, nor cognize: we are stuck with being conditioned, ultimately, by the two pure forms of experience and they shape how we understand ourselves after that.
No. Because this test is still dependent on your sense of site (at a minimum); take that away, and the mosquito returns back to a giant question mark: something insensible.
Truth be told, I dont have Metaphysics of Morals as a completed volume, so am not qualified to compare it with the Groundwork, which I do have. I have the first division of Metaphysics, The Science of Right found in the Philosophy of Law, Hastie, 1887, but not the second division, The Science of Virtue.
From what I do know, I say my position on the relation between the two is .the Groundwork is personal, the rest is anthropological, or perhaps more precisely, the rest shows distinctions between the personal and the anthropological. You know ..Kant and his incessant dualism: whatever this is, there is always going to be that. All that, in juxtaposition to The Metaphysics of Ethics, which I also have, tends to keep em separated.
As to the development of his thought, there is the mention in the secondary literature that it isnt so much a development, but an elaboration, re: Palmquist, 1990. Development carries the implication of significant change, as you say, being superseded, whereas mere elaboration doesnt necessarily. But still, just the conceptions themselves, Groundwork for morals on the one hand and Morals themselves on the other, is highly suggestive of at least a progression, which is a sort of development.
My primary interest has always been reason itself, and always my reason. Not yours, not anybodys; just lil ol me. As such, I dont care about your knowledge, or your morals, or your ethics, but leave them to you or them, to do with as you, or they, wish. Because of that, Groundwork has always held the most sway for me, which probably explains why I havent bothered to examine Metaphysics with the same zeal.
Sound about right to you? You see it differently?
Hello Leontiskos,
The fact that no fundamental obligation is a moral fact does not negate the existence of moral facts. The point is that the moral facts are not doing any of the work in a rational moral system: its the hypothetical imperative(s) which is(are) the fundamental obligation(s).
On another note, as argued in the OP, a moral fact cannot be a fundamental obligation, as that would be circular logic.
How do you figure Im affected by the very thing I didnt notice? I concede a thing happens, an effect on me, but from that I dont have to concede I am aware that it happens, an affect in me. The food I eat has an effect on me, but Im not aware of it.
Quoting Bob Ross
Nothing in a different inertial frame affects me in mine. My watch ticking at its rate at 450mph has no effect on your watch at 0mph. The only affect on me when returning from 5 years in space, is DAMN, you got OLD!! It is absolutely impossible for me to justify, given only the account determinable from my frame of reference, that I simply didnt age as fast as you. It is the case, therefore, there is no way to explain the relativity of inertial frames from a purely metaphysical Kantian point of view.
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Quoting Bob Ross
But there is a thing iff there is a sensation. Or, technically, there is the appearance of a thing iff there is a sensation. Which does make the thing-in-itself completely irrelevant to what were representing, yes.
Yes, things effectively represent what things-in-themselves SHOULD be, iff intellect doesnt conflict with Nature.
Yes, things-in-themselves are existent in the world, necessarily presupposed by our phenomenal representations.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Reverse off our best guess presupposes weve already made it. If weve already made our best guess, were way past representation, which is the starting point for what the best guess is going to be. Reverse means backwards. Backwards from best guess, that which weve already done, gets us to representation. To say we start from representation when in reverse, contradicts the method by which we arrived at the best guess.
Quoting Bob Ross
Because knowledge is the systemic epitome of best guess!!! You had a chain of mental events ending in representation, but thats wrong. The chain of mental events ends with knowledge, so in reversing, THAT is the start. But still, reversing from mere sensation does not involve the whole series of mental events, in which case, reversing does not start from knowledge. But it cannot start from representation either, insofar as, at the point of sensation, there isnt any representation to reverse from.
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Quoting Bob Ross
This is kinda hard to unpack, but here goes ..
Ok, causal kind of relationship: in determining our faculties, he presupposes they work together. Nothing wrong with that.
Then he uses the faculties as he has determined them to be, to make it so causality only works within them. But that cant be right, because if it is, there is no way in which there can be any other kind of causality working outside those faculties, in which case, it becomes impossible to explain the ontology of natural objects. Even if there is a limit on our knowledge of what they are, there is no uncertainty in the fact that they are. If we deny or even doubt the appearance of objects because Nature is not itself causal, we destroy the very notion of an internal cognitive system, relying on pure subjective idealism.
Quoting Bob Ross
Two reasons: the representations in us presuppose corresponding things external to us, and, Nature is causal in itself, but that doesnt mean we have to know anything about either of those two things. In fact, whatever it is that we do know about, comes from us, and there is nothing whatsoever that qualifies what we know, except what we know. No wonder were such a bunch of potentially confused creatures.
Quoting Bob Ross
We cannot know a priori what we sense or intuit, but we can certainly cognize a priori.
There not two forms of experience; there are two forms by which experience is possible, which indeed we are stuck with. Theoretically.
The two forms by which experience is possible do not condition or shape how we understand our-SELVES, but only how we understand real objects external to us. Our-SELF is a subject, and no subject can at the same time be an object, therefore our-SELF, as mere subject of which can only be thought as conception, has no need of phenomenal representation, hence is not conditioned by that which makes them possible. And this, among others, we cognize a priori, or technically, transcendentally.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Correct: no. But if no, where the does mosquito come from? The reversing doesnt turn back into a giant question mark; it never was anything but that, an undetermined something, from which you have no warrant to label it as a named thing. It was always and only just a thing. What ..you think that sensation came ready-equipped with a name? And we knew of it just from the sensation given by it? If thats the case, why is there a cognitive system, and by association, an intellect, at all? Whats the brain for, if mosquito is given immediately from a sensation? I know you dont think thats how it works, so .where did mosquito come from in your view?
Hypothetical imperatives cannot ground obligation, which is why the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations.
Quoting Bob Ross
I think the OP is nothing more than a circular denial of moral facts, a begging of the question. Positing the existence of moral facts without the existence of fundamental obligations makes no sense at all, and isn't a true positing of moral facts. In reality what you call a "moral fact" is a hypothetical imperative, and what you call a "fundamental obligation" is a moral fact. Thus you are granting hypothetical imperatives while denying moral facts (categorical imperatives). This is the same old consequentialist argument that has been popular for centuries, at least since Sidgwick.
If you think I'm wrong then set out your definition of a moral fact.
(Again, the point here is that @Count Timothy von Icarus' replies are on point. He is defending moral facts because the OP denies moral facts.)
By obligation, I mean something which one ought to dothats it.
However, if by obligation you tie it, in definition, to moral facticity; then, yes, an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact. Nevertheless, this is would incorrect to use your definition in parsing my OP (since I did not use it that way): I mean a fundamental normative statement.
Under your definition, you are just noting that there are fundamental normative facts within moral facts (i.e., theres a hierarchy to moral facts) which are necessary not ones fundamental obligations in the sense that meant it, since there are more fundamentally some taste which is committing you to the moral facts in the first place.
There can exists a fundamental moral judgment which is subjective that is fundamental to ones moral system, and there can equally exist moral facts.
No. By moral fact I mean a moral judgment which exists mind-independently, and I do not mean that they are themselves hypothetical imperatives (for those are moral non-facts: tastes). Likewise, I think I already clarified above what I mean by fundamental obligation.
Hello Mww,
Oh I see: I was not intending by affected that you were aware of it (as the ego).
But if it isnt accounted for within Kants view, then doesnt it pertain to the things-in-themselves; which Kant say we cannot know? I have no problem with the idea that you dont perceive the time dilation, but the fact that there is such a thing is either accounted for (1) in Kants metaphysics or (2) it pertains to the things-in-themselves.
I didnt quite follow this part. But I agree that:
So I cannot say we start with representations but, rather, experiences; and reverse engineer that.
It sounds like you are claiming to know something about the world-in-itself: that it has causality. Am I correct in that? If so, then that does get around the worry I invoked but introduces a new one: if space and time are the possible forms of experience, then how is positing a world-in-itself space and time not transcendent metaphysics (of which Kant adamantly is against)?
To me, the second reason here is purely transcendent metaphysics; and the first I have a hard time justifying, since all we know is conditioned by are possible forms of experience.
That makes a lot more sense! Building off of this, then what do you think of our selfs actions being also represented in our outer sense? Doesnt that prove we know at least some things-in-themselves (or thing-in-itself)?
I am not saying that we dont represent the world (viz., that we just know from direct sensations), so I should have been more careful with my terms: I mean that the mosquito is made up of the representations, the experiences, we have ofit is constructed of purely qualities and, thusly, to remove those qualitative properties (of which we experience) is to remove completely that thing which we called a mosquito; and I am uncertain as to what it could be in-itself nor as this thing that you mentioned.
I did not give a definition, and what I said is, "the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations." I did not sayas you incorrectly claimthat "an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact."
Quoting Bob Ross
How could a judgment exist independent of minds? Judgments are judgments of minds.
Yeah thats dialectical inconsistency on my part. Properly spoken, it should have been, there is awareness of it, rather than I am aware of it. Theres no I (as the ego) in the senses, to be sure. Recall as well, Ive said we are not conscious of the machinations of the faculty of intuition, and it is true there is a blind spot between the senses and the brain, but there needs to be something like intuition and with it phenomenal representation, in order to intelligibly explain that of which we are conscious, even if only from a metaphysical point of view.
Let it be resolved that to be affected is to grant the necessity of real external objects effecting the senses. Now it may be clear I cannot notice from the effects of the ticking clock right in front of me, that another identical clock, in some significantly different place and under certain conditions in that place, is ticking at a rate different.
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Quoting Bob Ross
It could, sure. Thats what Schopenhauer did with his theory of world as will and idea, made it so the Kantian thing-in-itself just goes away. Still, Kants view is quite broad, so its possible to account for some things within that view using a different method, while discounting others. We know this, because some of his ideas are still in force today. Or, I suppose, to be accurate, some of his ideas havent been sufficiently refuted.
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Quoting Bob Ross
It does sound like that, but adhering to the theory shows the sound to be just conventional simplicity. You said it yourself, the chain of mental events for knowledge. For me to know the causality of Nature, Id have to be affected by causality, intuit causality and represent it as a phenomenon, understand causality and represent it as a conception, synthesize each representation into a cognition of causality. Right off the bat it is impossible to represent causality as a phenomenon because causality is not conditioned by space and time. Causality does not have extension in space; things do. So given the interrupted chain of mental events, I cannot KNOW causality, but I can still think it as a conception. Which it is, in transcendental philosophy, being termed a category, and is entirely a function of logic alone.
Just as space and time are the necessary conditions a priori for experience, the categories are the necessary conditions a priori for the understanding of conceptions. So it is in thinking alone, that logically Nature must be causal, because it is absurd, and eventually contradictory, to suppose it is me .or you or Bob or Julie or Sir Charles that is necessary cause of the things both by which all of us are affected, and at the same time, the things only some of us and possibly none of us, are.
So no, I cannot say I know the world has causality. All I can say is that logically, it must. If a logical system combines with a transcendental philosophy, and if there is a non-contradictory truth given from it, such is a tacit authorization of reason, to call that truth pure a priori knowledge, insofar as given a certain set of conditions, the conclusion could not be otherwise.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Yeah, but we dont know either the representations of things or those real things corresponding to them. What we know, knowledge proper, emerges as the culmination of a procedural methodology. The conditioning of a procedure, then, indicates that which relates the components in it to each other in order for it to be methodological.
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Quoting Bob Ross
Exactly right. To be uncertain is to not know, precisely relevant to the point. It follows that there is uncertainty simply because the means for it has not been called into play by mere appearance. Not that certainty will occur upon such means, but it absolutely never will without it.
Such is metaphysics, which is, after all, what were talking about.
Hello Leontiskos,
I apologize: I must have misunderstood what you were saying. The claim that the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations simply does not follow by the definition of obligation that I gave. There can be no such subjective obligation while moral facts still exist. Again, and correct me if I am wrong, I am interpreting you to be using the term obligation to refer to an prescriptive statement that is objective, which is the only way I can fathom that one would think moral facts presuppose the existence of obligationslet alone fundamental ones.
That is the whole point of moral realism: that the moral judgment is objective, which is to say that it exists mind-independently (i.e., independent of any subject: mind: person: thinking being). E.g., biological functions (for physicalists and potentially substance dualists), a priori knowledge (for Kantians), a platonic form (for platonists), a law of nature (for naturalists), etc.
These deploy a moral judgment as categorical, which is to say it exists independent of whatever a given mind produces or generates.
Okay, thanks. I think that is a common approach to the matter. Wood's thesis (in the preface of his translation of the Groundwork) caught me off guard a bit. He posits that the 13 years between the two works brings with it significant development, and a working out of the problems of the Groundwork.
Quoting Mww
I own and have read the Groundwork a few times, but I do not own and have not read The Metaphysics of Morals. I have never heard of "The Metaphysics of Ethics" construed as a separate work.
I am not a Kantian. I was mostly curious whether I would be talking past you if we ever get into a discussion where I have the Groundwork in mind but you have the latter work in mind. It sounds like we wouldn't be.
What would you say is the main reason youve read Groundwork a few times, but youre not a Kantian? Would it be that you werent persuaded by it enough to investigate other works, or you werent impressed with it at all?
Hello Mww,
Yes, I am saying it affects you insofar as your senses are aware of it.
So this is where I havent fully quite captured your metaphysical theory: are you saying that the world-in-itself (1) has causality and (2) that our representations of it are (for the most part) accurate? Otherwise, I dont know why you would appeal to scientific investigations of the brain, since they are also representations and not things-in-themselves (unless there is a somewhat accurate bridge between representation and thing-in-itself).
Yes, I agree. But doesnt this now negate the idea that we cannot know anything about the things-in-themselves [i]if we are allowed to use our representations to determine that there are such real external objects effecting us[i]?
The more I speak to you, the more I think you have developed (or adhere to) a model of reality, which is extracted from the trusting of ones experiences, whereof we represent the world to ourselves and our representations are somewhat accurate of the things-in-themselves.
Interesting, so would you say you believe that the world-in-itself has relations, which are not meaningfully called physical causality?
This makes sense if we assume that are representations are accurate enough to tell us there are other conscious beings; but, yeah, that makes sense.
Off the top of my head, I think Kant takes some starting points that are not tenable. For example, that self-legislation is possible and that there is morality apart from inclinations (or that moral behavior and inclination-behavior are conceptually separable).
I think the project is interesting, and when reading Kant in general I can see where he is coming from. It's a fairly tight system, and that's always a nice thing to have. In truth I take an Aristotelian-Thomistic approach and I haven't seen a need to leave it behind (except perhaps in a few recondite areas).
I would be somewhat curious to get my hands on The Metaphysics of Morals and skim through it to see what Kant's moral reasoning looks like at a more concrete level.
Im saying we have to grant that the things in the world are caused. Even if we dont know what causes things, if theres some thing right in front of my face, Im further along accepting something else caused it to be there, than I would be if I denied it.
Granting the fact we are not conscious of that which transpires from the output of the sensory apparatus and the input to the brain, and supposing the Enlightenment metaphysicians figured this out as well, we cannot say anything about the accuracy of our phenomenal representations. As every Kantian worth his salt can recite verbatim, .intuitions without conceptions are blind .
Quoting Bob Ross
The brain is just another thing, right? Im just saying theres some degree of correspondence between scientific and metaphysical knowledge claims. Or, lack of them.
Quoting Bob Ross
I wouldnt word it that way. Id say everything in the world appears related to something else.
Quoting Bob Ross
Im ok with that. And because you and I will agree on many more things than not, it is more than probable our cognitive systems are congruent in their respective matter, but merely similar in their respective operational parameters.
Observation proves that is the case, either in ourselves or in our observing others. It sometimes happens that even knowing what is to be done, isnt.
Quoting Leontiskos
I can certainly can sympathize with that.
Whereas I would say that observation proves that we do not do things that we are not inclined to do (things for which we have no inclination). Moral acts are just like other acts in this respect. If moral acts are not caught up in our inclinations, then moral acts do not exist.
Hello Mww,
I apologize: I thought I responded to you, but I must have forgotten.
I dont have any issue with that as a model of experience, but I dont think it works for the metaphysical claims Kant was making. However, I think weve discussed my complaints pertaining thereto sufficiently (and dont want to beat a dead horse here).
Yes, this only works if you grant that we can know the things-in-themselves, to some degree, by investigating the appearances (i.e., science)--only then to turn around and conclude we cant. Its a nice Kantian paradox he puts himself into.
Thats fair.
True.
From the perspective of moral realism, the very discussion of morality (and philosophy in its entirety) is useless. By its nature, moral realism is opposed to a reflexive, meta-view of morality.
The question is, how well does this outlook hold under the pressure of life's difficulties.
If you were put in a concentration camp, or even just the daily grind taking a toll on you, would you still be confident in yourself, still sure that you know what is appropriate and what isn't?
If something is wrong iff one ought not do it then by definition if something is wrong then one ought not do it.
I didn't follow why this would be true: can you please elaborate?
This just sounds like a tautology built off of the definition of 'wrong'.
Further, moral realism in its crudest form is the principle "might makes right". This means that what is right depends on whoever happens to have the upper hand, at any given time. This is a type of situational morality, transient and unpredictable. Philosophy is useless for such things.
For most moral realists, of course there is a need to discuss the moral facts so that we can discover them.
It absolutely does not. Moral realism is the position that (1) moral judgements are cognitive and (2) there are objectively true moral judgments.
What you described is an anti-thesis to moral realism.
In its most broad sense, the study of that which is right and wrong (viz., what is permissible, omissable, obligatory, and impermissible).
If moral facts are something that some people still need to discover and some already know them, then on the grounds of what should the thusly ignorant trust those who propose to have said knowledge?
Secondly, how do you explain that people disagree on what the moral facts are? And what should they do when they disagreee about them? And especially, when such disagreement is between people where one person has more socio-economic power than the other person?
So, you don't include your own personal choice, no matter what your society's rules are? I mean, your own personhood -- the internal dialogue that goes on inside your feelings and mind about justice and compassion and fairness?
Hello Baker,
I apologize for the belated response!
I am not following the relevance of this (to our original conversation): could you please elaborate? The current state of knowledge of moral facts doesnt negate the possibility of their existence; and I would suppose that if a person doesnt buy the arguments for moral facticity that another person is providing, then they shouldnt trust them.
People disagree all the time. Why would that negate the possibility or existence of moral facts?
Again, to me, this just seems irrelevant to whether moral realism is true. There could be moral facts, confusion between societies about what they are, and disagreement between people about moral facts at the same time.
Hello LElephant,
I apologize for the late response!
I dont define morality with a split between society and self: I define it as simply what is right or wrong, period. I am not saying that whatever society says is the standard, nor the individual but, rather, that morality is the study of what is right or wrong (period).
It doesn't negate the possibility or existence of moral facts, but disagreement brings up problems of talking about moral facts, or anything else for that matter. Unless moral facts are somehow something that we can grasp directly, with direct insight, we probably need to learn what they are, and we do so through some kind of conversation with others.
If there is such a thing as a "moral fact", then it must exist somehow independently of persons.
How can people learn what the moral facts are?
How can people know that they have the correct knowledge of moral facts?
On the grounds of what should one person trust another to tell her what moral facts are?
And with this view, how do you account for persons?
In what relation are persons to right and wrong?
Hello baker,
Ultimately, the same way, I suppose, that we derive that there is something at all which exists independently of persons: intuitions and evidence.
Morality, as a definition, should include our metaethical commitments: so I say it is the study of what is right or wrong, period. However, I think that morality is an inevitable mixture of facts and non-facts (i.e., facts and tastes). The individual plays a part in it.
Also, if I remember correctly, the person that I responded to with that quote was asking about personal morality, which I do not make such a distinction at all (even in the case that some [or even all] moral statements are contingent on subjects) because it draws an invalid line between what one thinks is right or wrong for themselves vs. universally: all moral statements should contain the element of obligation. I cannot say stealing is always wrong but caveat it with personally: either it is always wrong to steal, or it isnt.
Although there are still parts of my OP that I still consider true, I think that I have an answer (to myself) of the benefit, if true, of moral realism (and I thought I should share in here): moral realism, if true, would provide a means of living a better life irregardless of one's goals.
To understand this, let's take logic as an example: the reality of our daily lives is fundamentally and inherently logical (i.e., adheres to laws of logic); and, consequently, irregardless of one's goals, it will be to a person's benefit to be logical in their execution of such goals. The more logical, the better it will be: period.
Same thing with morals, if there really are moral facts, then they are, like logic, inherent in the reality of our daily lives and, thusly, irregardless of one's goals, it is to a person's benefit to consider and use them. Just like logic, adhering strictly to the facts may be hard or ruin our spontaneous pleasures; but, irregardless, our actions will be objectively better (in relation to whatever we are trying to accomplish) if we adhere to them.
Like logic, we can abstract morals (if they hold any facticity) as not just useful for our own goals but useful for all goals; and, consequently, are worthy of exaltation as universal commitments.
The valuing of the moral facts is certainly a non-fact, but this does not takeaway from the benefits of moral realism; and, likewise, although a hypothetical commitment is required to be obliged to the moral facts and it is most rational to abide by whatever is the consequences (objectively) of committing oneself to that hypothetical imperative, the commitment to acting as much in accordance with reality as humanly possible requires, as a consequence, the commitment to the moral facts.
Let me know what you all think!
Bob
To be honest, I'm not sure I see why belief in moral realism is required for any kinds of benefits you allude to
Imagine that there was a law ingrained into reality that governed objects (to some extent) where it was defined what is better/best: wouldn't aligning oneself with it benefit them?
For example, no matter what my goals are, it is objectively better to be unified and self-harmonious in that goal to achieve it. If I want to achieve my goals, then I better align my actions with that form of unity and harmony. Of course, whether I want to optimally achieve my goals is up to me (subjectively); but the form of achieving it is not.
I was under the impression you were saying this would be a benefit even if moral realism were not true.
No, I was meaning to describe the benefits of moral realism if it were true; but I think most of my OP is actually still quite accurate: the only difference being that the moral facts may benefit one's morel non-facts. But, upon further reflection (again), I think that the moral facts are not fundamentally doing the 'heavy-lifting' in any ethical theory but, rather, the individual(s) which created it.
I do think Nietzsche got a lot of it right on morality, but I would say that I am taking it a step deeper than him; as he was a moral anti-realist through-and-through, whereas I would say that even if moral facts exist they are only useful insofar as they benefit the moral non-facts; and, so, the conversation is better invested into the non-facts and not the facts.
Ah, fair enough! I think I would agree.
I can't remember Nietzsche ever considering, in his works, the value of moral facts themselves; but only that they don't exist. The idea of "morality of customs" that you referenced was not consider moral facticity by Nietzsche but rather a socio-psychological stringing together of tastes, that is why you won't read anywhere in the Genealogy of Morals that morality is objective.
I agree; but my point is that I am positing that there really are moral facts which are not just mere interpretations of phenomena, and evaluating their worth. This is what I mean by saying that I am taking it a step further than Nietzsche.
:up:
Well said. I say that, because its pretty much the same sentiment I offered in response to his Making a Case for Transcendental Idealism.