Why is it that nature is perceived as 'true'?
We live inside a world that has and is understood through the science of nature. Regarding this truth, as a person who has looked at nature in various ways, as have other scientists, I have been very cautious, as have other scientists, to not try and create things that could destroy or alter nature.
I view nature, in many regards as Schopenhauer did, as manifesting a certain "way", for lack of a better word. Now, I think that Tolstoy made an important point about the connection of mankind with his surroundings, being nature. Here is the quote:
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.
- Leo Tolstoy
With man's insatiable need to make nature conform to his needs and even wants, what are your opinions about our current relationship with nature? Is it becoming better or worse?
I view nature, in many regards as Schopenhauer did, as manifesting a certain "way", for lack of a better word. Now, I think that Tolstoy made an important point about the connection of mankind with his surroundings, being nature. Here is the quote:
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.
- Leo Tolstoy
With man's insatiable need to make nature conform to his needs and even wants, what are your opinions about our current relationship with nature? Is it becoming better or worse?
Comments (189)
Science is only one of the ways we understand the world.
Quoting Shawn
I can't speak for you, but it is not true that scientists in general have tried not create things that could destroy or alter nature.
Quoting Shawn
As I see it, historically we have lived in a world that was big enough to contain the results of humanity's actions. If we screwed up one place, we could just move to another. That is no longer true. Our population has gotten much bigger and our ability to affect the world has gotten much more potent and pervasive. We are at a point now where we are capable of rendering the Earth uninhabitable.
What did Tolstoy mean by "nature"?
It varies by individual, but collectively - humankind is becoming increasingly worse, because there are so many of us
That may not be true. Maybe humans (including their issues of mortality) are just part of Nature's current manifestation and current processes?
Just a thought.
quiet smile
We're part of nature, and co-evolve with other parts of it, such as our environment. This parthood-relationship can become better when we achieve a sustainable interplay with our environment, or worse when we fail e.g. by shortsighted, compartmentalized or just idiotic trade-offs that destroy what we're all part of.
Regarding what's perceived as true. Perception is a part of nature that's providing us with facts. Statements about those facts can be true or false.
When astronomers scan the cosmos for signs of an advanced civilisation, they're looking for signals that wouldn't appear in nature; theyre looking for the non-natural. They might either be electromagnetic transmissions (radio etc) or the spectral emissions of non-naturally-occuring substances like our hydrocarbons and industrial solvents. So it's the assumption that the signs of another intelligent species will be found precisely because they're not naturally occuring.
On the other hand, nature is nowadays idolised as representing purity or the unsullied state. This manifests as environmentalism, eco-tourism, and the respect accorded to indigenous cultures. All of which are perfectly respectable impulses. But it omits something which our cultural ancestors would have assumed important, which is that nature herself, aside from being nurturing and creative, is also implacable and destructive. So whereas for the perennial philosophers, nature was something to rise above, we, oddly, believe that being re-united with it is somehow transcendent. Which is odd, because all it really means is that the body will return to the elements (although maybe not for all the teeth fillings, hip replacements, and other non-natural elements that nowadays comprise our bodies.)
As mankind is a part of nature, not separate to it, mankind's relationship with nature is outside any judgment of better or worse.
Mankind is part of nature, not separate to it. Mankind is not separate to the surrounding world, but is an intrinsic part of the world. Mankind lives inside a world, and this world is what is called nature. Mankind is as much a part of nature as the surrounding world is part of nature.
Mankind's relationship with its surrounding world is the same relationship as one part of nature's relationship with another part of nature. When mankind tries to change its surroundings, this is no different to one part of nature trying to change another part of nature. The wind, being one part of nature, blows down a tree, being another part of nature. Mankind, being one part of nature, knocks down a tree, being another part of nature.
Mankind's relationship with its surrounding world is outside any judgment of morality, any judgement of better or worse. One part of nature trying to change another part of nature is part of the natural process, and therefore outside any judgment of morality. If the wind blows over a tree, is not relevant to ask if this is for the better or worse, as this is part of the natural process. It follows that mankind, as one part of nature, in trying to change another part of nature, the surrounding world, is also outside any judgement of morality, any judgment of better or worse.
Therefore, as mankind is a part of nature, not separate to it, mankind's relationship with nature is outside any judgment of better or worse.
I question that, Russell. If you were parachuted into a completely natural environment with no artifacts and minimal clothing, I suggest you would find survival extremely difficult (depending of course on the specific nature of the environment, rainforest probably being easier to survive than tundra or desert.) But our 'separateness' from nature seems perfectly obvious to me - we live in buildings, insulated by clothing, travelling in vehicles, none of which are naturally-occuring. So I think yours is rather a rose-coloured view in this respect :-)
In a way, @RussellA's post illustrates what I said in the post above: the tendency of moderns to idolise nature as representing purity or wholeness. Sans God, it is the nearest we can imagine to those qualities.
It is, but I'm not sure that he's right about that. Primatologists would disagree, for example. And there's evidence of mollusks arranging decorations (the famous "Octopus gardens"). Some species of birds, such as ravens, seem to understand the concept of "useful inorganic objects", etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, it does. In that sense, you're 99% right, I would say.
I'm never really sure what counts as nature in these discussions. I would tend to count buildings and machines as a part of nature too, since we made them and they are expressions of human interaction with our environment, just like a bird's nest or beaver's dam. I know some people prefer to see human activity as a disruption of nature and that nature is that which is without human influence. Of course the idea of nature is a human conceptual construction in the first place so there's that..
Like I said:
Quoting Wayfarer
If nature refers to the ecosystem prior to or outside of human manufacture or artifacts, then I can't see how that is an especially problematic definition.
We are in the age of the calculating technique in which nature is manipulated or at least has the power to do so. Man's eagerness to dominate in order to control and predict.
The calculating reason turns everything into an "available resource" losing the opening to the mystery of being according to Heidegger.
Heidegger a conservationist?
Heidegger was talking about a passive attitude towards the sending of being. Let us say that this is doing justice to nature.
I do not agree. A pure and passive experience of being is being under the view of immediacy. But how could there be justice without law? One cannot stay passive, one must make laws that protect nature, and why not, even more science so that violence does not repeat itself.
Still, it seems like there is an over-arching system of matter and energy, or "nature", which existed before us and without us, even as "it" was bringing us into existence. We can build a bridge using raw materials provided by "nature" which we process into concrete and steel. If we follow the rules which describe how nature's materials work, the bridge will last--though nature set's about destroying everything we make--not willfully, of course, but because the "forces of nature" such as rust never sleep.
Plastic is a bit more problematic. Nature made petroleum but we made plastics, many of which nature has not previously dealt with, and which will last and trouble various species for a long time--or forever, perhaps, and maybe it should not be considered "natural".
If Nature is TRUE because it is unchanging and eternal, then perhaps plastic is also TRUE. Yuck!
Definitely not!
there's rather a good article on Aeon, just popped up, by Peter Harrison, who's books have been mentioned here from time to time, The Birth of Naturalism. (Not quite finished it myself yet, but a very thorough piece of work.)
As for me, I can perceive a distinction. Again I hark back to the Buddhist term for the Buddhas, 'lokuttara', meaning 'world-transcending'. In Tibetan iconographic representations of the 'wheel of life' - the various worlds, hellish, heavenly and human among them - the Buddhas are depicted as being on the outside of the circle, so to speak (as well as often being inside at the same time, i.e. transcendent yet immanent). But the essential thrust is that the Buddhas are no longer subject to the natural cycle of birth-and-death and are in that sense outside of or beyond it - beyond the world of becoming, hence, 'lokuttara'.
But then you find something similar in Christianity
[quote=Jacques Maritain]Every progress in evolution is dearly paid for; miscarried attempts, merciless struggle everywhere. The more detailed our knowledge of nature becomes, the more we see, together with the element of generosity and progression which radiates from being, the law of degradation, the powers of destruction and death, the implacable voracity which are also inherent in the world of matter. And when it comes to man, surrounded and invaded as he is by a host of warping forces, psychology and anthropology are but an account of the fact that, while being essentially superior to them, he is at the same time the most unfortunate of animals. So it is that when its vision of the world is enlightened by science, the intellect which religious faith perfects realises still better that nature, however good in its own order, does not suffice, and that if the deepest hopes of mankind are not destined to turn to mockery, it is because a God-given energy better than nature is at work in us.[/quote]
Quoting Wayfarer
Just because history has brought you, me and Russell to a 'place' where we are alienated from [our] nature, doesn't mean we are, by nature so alienated.
We are conceited apes. Sure, the story about Eden is a myth; but an insightful one. If there is a human fall, it is our fall from nature; our infatuation with knowledge, the this and that of our own constructions, and our concomitant turning away from life, or nature, or so called God's creation, where, as Russell rightly observes, there is no judgement, no better, no worse; only 'is-ing'
[quote=Charles Darwin, private correspondence] But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?[/quote]
Right. A monkey is free from the burden of trust and convictions. We are enslaved by these fantasies.
Sure. I'm not proposing we go back. We can't. And it's far too late. And I'm not suggesting our 'fantasies' aren't often beautiful, functional etc. Just that they are ultimately fantasies, and we are ultimately nature.
As Ive said, I see the modern idolisation of nature as a kind of nostalgia, where nature is beautiful and nurturing and pure and innocent. Love of nature is supposed to take us back to that state of innocence or purity. To say were ultimately nature is to try to return to that state of primordial purity. And thats what is a fantasy. The reality of the human condition is far from that.
Paradoxically, I agree. To say we're ultimately nature is an idealization.
And I fully agree that the human condition is far from that.
But I still believe the reality is we are simply nature, and all else is the plasticization of nature, or as you noted, [not petroleum but] dead dinosaurs.
True, but doesn't mean that mankind is not a part of nature.
I agree that if I was parachuted into a different natural environment, such as the Sahara, I would probably die. But if a whale was parachuted into a different natural environment, such as Provence, it would also probably die.
That something is a part of nature does not mean that that something is able to survive outside its natural environment.
If a tree, one part of nature, found itself in a volcano, another part of nature, the tree couldn't survive.
That mankind is not able to survive in a different natural environment does not mean that mankind is not a part of nature.
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Quoting Wayfarer
This is a circular argument. If mankind is a part of nature, then anything mankind does, such as building houses, is a part of nature.
Three examples:
1. Light: Sunlight (natural) vs. LED bulbs (artificial)
2. Intelligence: Human cognition (natural) vs. AI algorithms (artificial)
3. Sweeteners: Honey (natural) vs. Aspartame (artificial)
The fact that a word may have more than one meaning does not make the word meaningless
Most words have more than one meaning. For example, "heavy" can mean "having great weight" or "difficult to bear". The fact that a word has more than one meaning doesn't make the word meaningless.
On the one hand, as mankind is a part of nature, one meaning of "natural" could be everything that mankind makes, including LED bulbs. On the other hand, the meaning of "natural" could be restricted to those things that are not made by mankind, such as sunlight, and differentiated from those things that are made by mankind such as LED bulbs, which can be named as "artificial".
The word "natural" is not made meaningless because it has more than one meaning.
Mankind falls from a nature where there is no better or worse, no truth or falsity, no right or wrong, no morality and no ethics.
Mankind is a part of nature not separate to it. Mankind was created by nature, and is an expression of nature.
When mankind attempts to separate itself from nature, it attempts to differentiate itself from a nature that is non-judgemental by introducing concepts of judgment, of right and wrong, truth and falsity, better or worse, morality and ethics.
These judgements it then projects onto the world around it, projecting its own beliefs onto a world absent of them.
Mankind perceives truth and falsity in nature because of its attempt to differentiate itself from nature through the invention of judgements such as truth and falsity. These judgements it then projects onto a world absent of them.
or, before they were historical humans.
But its meaning is to differentiate the natural from the artificial, as per the examples given above. If you extend the meaning of natural to encompass the artificial then it looses its meaning.
Besides, what does it mean to say that h.sapiens is part of nature? Why is that meaningful or important?
:rofl:
Isnt it about our lack of insight? The absence of wisdom? Not seeing what is real? Thats how Ive always interpreted it. I dont think the ancient Greeks had much grasp of palaeontology.
And you care about the interpretations of academic philosophers since when, exactly? Academia itself is just an institution, a human construct, if you will. Plato himself invented it. Caves existed before Plato. And the ancient Greeks did in fact discover Mammoth bones: they mistakenly took the hole for the trunk as one large, central eye: they thought they were cyclops bones.
It's a dilemma, Wayfarer: given the choice, would you rather live in a cave, or out in the Sun? I'd rather live in a cave. But that's to Plato's point: by living in a cave, instead of under the Sun, our insight diminishes, to the point that it becomes lacking. Our wisdom also diminishes, to the point in which it becomes absent. We forget what is real, since we are making cave paintings instead of hunting, we're making funny shadows with our hands and the cave fire, pretending that they're the shadows of different animals, like birds and rabbits. So, what's the remedy to all that? To step outside the cave, literally, and get some good old, fresh air, from the great outdoors, under the Sun.
Are you sure?
None of this makes much sense to us moderns, because being committed to materialism and empiricism, we're essentially cave-dwellers ;-)
Why would Plato need an allegory to say that? He could have just said it plainly, instead of resorting to poetic language. And even if he did indeed need an allegory to say that, why is he talking about a cave, specifically? He could have talked about a basement, or a dungeon, for example. Caves are natural, basements are not. So, why does he have a preference for natural subterranean prisons, instead of artificial subterranean prisons?
Quoting Wayfarer
I think it's fair to say that I'm respectful of your idealism and spiritualism. Wouldn't you agree?
Because nobody gets it. Symbolic language is being used to convey profound and difficult insights.
Generally youre a very courteous poster, yes. (Although I would gently distance myself from the word spiritualism, it always reminds me of Victorian seances with table-rapping and ectoplasm. Philosophical idealism is another thing.)
:up:
Nothing you've said in the brief exchange we've had about 'the allegory of the Cave' would indicate that you interpret it accurately :brow:
I feel like I've earned the right to have my own interpretation of it, after years of teaching the standard, mainstream interpretations of it.
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
which I for one have never encountered elsewhere.
The book El Sol, la Línea y la Caverna (The Sun, The Line, and The Cave), by Conrado Eggers Lan. This book represents the standard, mainstream interpretation of the allegory of the cave, in Argentina. We use it in Ancient Philosophy, which is a semester course (4 months) in the first year of the Licenciatura en Filosofía and the Profesorado en Filosofía. There are other books, and other scholars, and other interpreters, of course. But that book would be the main one, I would say.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, like I said, I think I've earned the right to have my own, unorthodox, and unique interpretation of the allegory of the cave.
In [I]Demon in the Machine[/I], Paul Davies writes:
But does that make human-made things unnatural? Wouldn't that makes humans unnatural? Nothing in the universe can be unnatural. Intelligence, consciousness, teleology... All are natural. All are natural parts of the universe.
Still, there's value in differentiating natural and human-made.
True, Grant was associated with Speculative Realism in the past. He is, after all, one of its "Founding Fathers", if you will, together with Meillassoux, Harman, and Brassier (and perhaps one might add Toscano as well, since he moderated their discussion). But Grant then distanced himself from Speculative Realism, and no longer identifies as a realist. He was always an idealist, through and through. His specific brand of idealism is in large part indebted to Schelling.
Philosophies of Nature After Schelling is one hell of a trip. It's an extremely technical book, it assumes, on the part of the reader, prior knowledge of Schelling, Plato, Deleuze, and Badiou. But it's definitely worth studying.
Grant claims (among other things) that there are no "two worlds" in Plato, or "two realms", or however you want to call the classical Platonic division between the world of sensible things and the world of Ideas. Grant doesn't deny that there's a difference, what he suggests is that Plato should be interpreted as a proponent of a "Physics of the All". In this sense, he is a precursor to Schelling's Naturphilosophie.
I think it's something that you might be interested in reading, despite your aversion to Speculative Realism. Just forget about the "Speculative Realism" label for a moment, and picture that Iain Hamilton Grant is an idealist (which he actually is, he even identifies as such).
If I might chime in. My general agreement with the picture of Plato's allegory referring to prehistoric humans isn't to say he meant "cavemen." It's to say--whether wittingly or un--Plato was addressing an intuition he had (I speculate, from Socrates) that humans approach things already and inevitably "clouded" by the concepts history has constructed. While Plato then took a turn towards more history with his idea that reason is the path back to Truth; both his allegory, and the fact that he was already disciple of Socrates, suggests that his intuition was that the Truth lies in being (human-) unfettered by history, and hence, the 'animal' in its natural state of being.
Again, I don't dismiss history, nor reason. I'm not saying Plato's intuition was a return to nature. Just that the shadow paintings--constructions and projections--are not the locus of Truth, no matter how appealing or functional.
The truth is not knowing, but being. And what is being without knowing? Human [as] Nature.
Plato was many things, but post-modern was not one of them.
Thanks Ill look into that book. Have you run across Matt Segal? Hes written some interesting material about Schelling.
I'm more of a Hegelian than a Schellingian. Hegel is easier to understand. Schelling is just a scholastic nightmare.
Whether mankind is a part of nature or separate to it has important consequences, specifically in whether mankind's relationship with nature is open to judgement or not.
Nature is non-judgemental. Nature includes all the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. If the wind blows down a tree, this is neither good nor bad. An apple is neither better nor worse than an orange. A whale is not good and a scorpion is not bad. A lake is not true and a mountain is not false. Nature is outside any judgment.
On the one hand, if mankind is a part of nature, and not separate to nature, then any act of mankind is no more than another act of nature, no more than any other expression of nature, and is therefore entirely natural. As acts of nature are non-judgemental, then any act of mankind, being a part of nature and not separate to it, are also outside being judged. As nature blowing down a tree is outside any judgement of right or wrong, mankind cutting down a tree must also be outside any judgement of being right or wrong. It seems clear that mankind is an intrinsic part of nature and not separate to it, being totally dependent on nature for its existence, and having evolved as a part of nature over a period of at least 3 billion years.
On the other hand, if mankind is not a part of nature, and is separate to it, then mankind's relationship with nature is open to being judged, and mankind's cutting down a tree is open to be judged wrong. The question is, if mankind is separate to nature, and not part of nature, then for what reason does mankind have any responsibility towards nature.
If mankind is a part of nature, then no act of mankind within nature is open to judgement. However, if mankind is separate to nature, for what reason does mankind have a responsibility to nature, and if mankind does have a responsibility, then its relationship with nature may be open to judgement.
We cannot [I]not[/I] be part of nature. However, we have qualities that, to our knowledge, no other part of nature has. I don't think it's out of line to judge us. Especially since some of those qualities are what gives us the concept of judgement. We, alone, [I]can[/I] judge. And we do, and always will. In how many species does the male kill offspring that are not his own? I have no problem passing judgement on a human male that goes around killing babies.
You will recall the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden. In the story, the tree from which it is forbidden to eat is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Doesnt that signify in mythological form the origin of mans sense of separateness from nature? The Genesis myth of the knowledge of good and evil can be understood as an allegory for the moment when humans become aware of themselves as separate beingsself-reflective, capable of judgment, and alienated from the purely instinctual existence of other creatures. In this sense, moral awareness is the marker of separation from nature, because nature itself (in the strict sense) does not operate in moral categories.
Of course we understand, in a way that our Biblical forbears did not, the physical story of human evolution as it unfolded across millions of years. But it is not hard to imagine the gradual dawning of self-awareness and the sense of 'me and mine' - and, with it, intentional planning and activity - as developing in tandem with that. Stone tool use - the first manufactured artifacts we have records of - preceded the arrival of h.sapiens. With the advent of ownership, comes that sense of separateness which is deeply rooted in the human condition.
If humans are part of nature, all actions (including moral judgments) are merely natural and thus beyond value judgments. But the act of judgment itselfthe ability to step back and reflectis precisely what separates us from nature in a fundamental sense. If we were only another force of nature, then deforestation, pollution, and even nuclear war could be seen just as expressions of natural causality. Yet, we experience them as ethical dilemmas precisely because we do not see ourselves as merely forces of nature. Even the insurance industry recognises the distinction between acts of nature and those of humans.
So to attempt to say that there is no difference between man and nature, or that human acts are simply natural acts, is really an attempt to dodge or hide from the reality of the human condition. That's what I was getting at when I said that the tendency to idolise nature and the environment in modern culture really amounts to a kind of faux religiosity. 'We have to get back to the Garden', sang Joni Mitchell. But the way is blocked by 'angels with flaming swords'.
I agree with you that they are different, except that you are ignoring the possibility of a hybrid, or a qualified "nature-ism."
To assume for illustration only that we accept the biblical story as helpful and refer to your re-reference to the myth of Eden, the so called fall represents the way/thing which takes humankind away from nature (compare to the cave). This movement to knowledge, is not a movement to an equal reality as the one God made, but an error. Hence, the "fall'. The choice made by Adam/Eve does not effectively eliminate or change so called God's creation. But rather, it is an error launching uniquely humans into a fall from their "God given" natures: nature. Their nature remains the same, Nature. Reality does not change, rather, human constructions of knowledge to displace life are just not reality, or, are 'false.'
Again, I don't purport to judge them ethically or functionally; but as far as ultimate Truth or Reality, we are nature. And as Nature, there is no judgement. It just is. And our make-up and clothes, that is the realm of judgement, where we are both transgressor and judge; and though useful, that realm is ultimately false. Those last words, particularly, (it.e., realm and false) to be understood loosely and broadly.
Now, respectfully, I will anticipate your reply might be directed at some literal interpretation of this suggestion, or a statement as to its failure to comply with a contemporaneous, scholarly, or biblical interpretation, so I reiterate, the myth was used in the same spirit as you used it, in the same spirit as Platos cave, not to be construed strictly, but as a fluid illustration of matters of which expression and discourse already remove said matters from the capacity to accurately pinpoint the truth.
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The relationship, if we ought to call it that [ I lean away from that option ] is not good, bad, better, or worse, because then we would have to compare to WHAT? If we WANT anything out of nature, to be conforming to US is almost like forgetting how life works. Forgetting on purpose is interesting...creating bad thinking patterns though, i wonder... [probably]
How does your life work? We can hope nature aligns with our wants or needs, but to have expectations that get let down over and over because of this repeated behavior is out of error, instead we must accept our actualities and ground self into reality. Life is give and take, nature is not aware of how it (mans wants or needs when given or refused) effects human nature...we are simply the ones bothered, at all different levels, subjective to objective scales.....Nature is not bothered and if it was I wouldnt be asking that here NOW....I'd know. The relationship between nature currently and man is respected, I think. It ought to be, but what do I know I am a woman.....But nature.
It's power is to be respected, beauty awed over, and gifts of life ought to be received with grateful arms wide open....some people don't have arms. Some armless people are happier than fully able people, that is measurable. Or observable at least, in nature in character, the behavior. The sources...judged rightfully. Hope so? How much do you really HOPE?
Quoting ENOAHFreaks of nature! :joke:
:eyes: :strong: I'm following you a bit here now...My thoughts are being thought about now...Got me thinking! It's interesting to me breaking down these words for their uses, meanings, content, (a min or max value is knowable here, i think) - human nature vs reality vs natural vs nature..."our nature" human nature, earths nature....life is of nature? natural? meaning what? not tainted by any artificial substitutes, unaltered, natural state, meant to be? KNOWING you are BEING that? Yes...Awareness? Levels of it relevance? Experience of it? (accuracy or credibility to be verified as experiences arent always explained as they actually occurred, tolerance is loose here [leave slack room maybe]
ANYWAYS, I am enjoying the discussion. Just wanted to acknowledge you, ENOAH as you often have a unique pov that I find easy to follow and relate to/with. I just thought I'd share a bit, a train couldn't of stopped me.
Humans make subjective not objective judgements.
There are no general agreement as to foundational objective judgments. Killing may be wrong, but then again it may be right. Abortion may be wrong, but then again it may be right. It may be asked of what value are subjective judgements, when no one subjective judgment can take precedence over any other subjective judgement. Pro life believe unborn babies have a right to life and Pro choice believe unborn babies may be aborted.
In nature there are no judgements.
Apples are not right and oranges wrong. Trees are not better and mountains worse. Whales are not good and scorpions bad.
Animals do judge.
Across the animal kingdom, infanticide has been observed in totally disparate mammal species, from dolphins to lions to baboons. Since it was first witnessed in the wild, researchers have come up with a variety of explanations as to why males might kill infants of their own species. ( www.smithsonianmag.com). It may well be the case that animals do judge what course of action to take, but not necessarily why a particular course of action is morally right or wrong.
Humans make subjective judgements.
An individual may say that "killing is wrong", thereby making a moral judgement, but this is a subjective rather than objective judgement. The subjective judgement is particular to one individual, at one particular moment in time and in one particular context. Different people make different judgements about the same issue. For example, regarding abortion, some are Pro life and some are Pro choice. Some believe that unborn babies have a right to life, and some advocate for abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. There is no one objective judgement towards abortion. Judgements towards abortion are subjective to each individual.
A judgement is not about a certainty.
A Judge may judge someone guilty given the evidence, but they don't know for certain that the person is guilty. It may be that the weight of evidence infers that they are guilty. A judgment infers an uncertainty. I may judge that killing is wrong. However there may be some circumstances, such as a war for survival, when I judge that killing may be right.
No subjective judgement can take precedence.
Any subjective judgment is an acceptance that it may be wrong. As subjective judgments may be different in a different individual, time and context, no subjective moral judgement can take preference over any other subjective moral judgment. Therefore, no moral judgement should be taken as having precedence over any other moral judgement. No moral judgement may take precedence over its antithesis. The moral judgement that killing is wrong may not take precedence over its antithesis that killing is right .
If no subjective judgement can take precedence, then any subjective judgement is meaningless.
However, if no moral judgement can distinguish between its thesis and antithesis, then moral judgements lose validity and become meaningless. In nature there are no objective judgements, and in humans subjective judgements are meaningless. Nature cannot judge. Humans can judge, but they cannot objectively judge, only subjectively judge. As no subjective judgment can take precedence over its antithesis, any subjective judgement becomes meaningless.
Humans are a part of nature, and as nature has no objective judgement neither do humans.
Even if the individual has free will, this has been determined by nature, of which the human is a part. Any judgment the individual makes is an expression of nature. As nature is neither right nor wrong, any human expression of judgment cannot be right or wrong. The individual may judge killing wrong, but this is a subjective not objective judgement. A subjective judgement is an illusion of an objective judgement.
Humans cannot make objective judgments, and subjective judgements are meaninglesss
Nature doesn't make objective judgements of right or wrong, true or false or better or worse. As the human individual is a part of nature, an expression of nature, neither can the human individual make objective judgments. However, a human individual can make a subjective judgement, but as no one subjective judgement can take precedence over any other subjective judgement, subjective judgments become meaningless.
It seems to me that subjective human judgements can be quite meaningful to humans. For example if someone's society judges them to not be fit to participate in that society and subsequently banishes or imprisons that person, I'd expect that person to find society's judgement to be meaningful.
So I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningless" in the quote above.
Humans are a part of nature and not separate to it
Humans are a part of nature and not separate to it. Particular features of human existence, such as self-awareness, ability to judge, being intellectual rather than instinctive and having a morality may be explained as natural expressions of nature. Nature is using the agency of the human to express these particular features, rather than being expressed by a human existing separately to a world in which they have evolved.
Knowledge is different to good and evil
There is knowledge, the Moon is about 384,000 km away from Earth, and there is good and evil, kindness is good and killing is evil. But these are different things, in that we have knowledge about things that exist in the world, but good and evil only exist in the mind.
Human self-awareness is not evidence that humans are separate to nature
That humans are self-aware is not evidence that humans are separate to nature. If humans are a part of nature rather than separate to it, then it may be argued that it is the case that nature is self-aware through the agency of the human. Human self-awareness is the mechanism by which nature is self-aware. In the same sense, the hammer is the tool by which I hammer in a nail. It is not the hammer that is hammering in the nail.
Human judgement is not evidence that humans are separate to nature
It is true that humans are capable of judgement and are intellectual rather than instinctive, but this would be the case regardless of whether we had free will, where we can decide to act in a certain way, or were determined by forces over which we had no control. For the Determinist, all behaviour has a cause, meaning that even though we make judgements these have been determined. For the believer in Free-will, we have some choice in how we behave. That humans are determined is evidence that humans are not separate to nature, as it is nature which makes the determination. That humans have free-will is not evidence that humans are separate to nature. As with self-awareness, nature has free-will through the agency of the human. Human free will is the mechanism by which nature has free will.
Human subjective morality may be an illusion
Humans are aware of morality and have ethical dilemmas, but such concepts of good and evil, better or worse, right or wrong don't objectively exist in the world but only subjectively in the mind. However, as you wrote about the tendency to idolise nature and the environment as a kind of faux religiosity, it may well be the case that our concepts of good and evil are no more than a faux morality, no more than an illusion having no substance. The problem with a morality that is subjective is that it must forever remain particular to the individual, particular to a particular time and particular to a particular context. One person knows that Pro Life is good and Pro choice evil, another person knows that Pro Life is evil and Pro choice is good. The moral approach to slavery today is very different to that of the Romans two thousand years ago. Whilst killing may be evil, in different circumstances, during a war for survival, killing may be good.
Subjective morality has no objective foundation
If any moral position may be countered by an opposing moral position, if killing may be evil but may also be good, if Pro choice is evil but also may be good, then the concept of a subjective morality becomes meaningless. There is no objective reality against which to know whether any particular moral position is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse.
Humans are the mechanism by which nature operates
That humans are self-aware, capable of judgement, are intellectual rather than instinctual and aware of morality is not evidence that humans are separate to nature. All these may be explained as the mechanisms by which nature expresses itself, which is though the agency of the human.
The imprisoned person may feel angry, but this would be an emotion, not a subjective judgement by the prisoner.
Being imprisoned would be an objective fact for the imprisoned person, not a subjective judgment of the prisoner.
If every judgement I make, "killing is wrong", can be countered by its opposite, "killing is right", what value do my judgments have?
Quoting RussellAHumans are natural. Humans judge good and evil. Therefore, nature judges good and evil. The fact that not every cc in the universe judges good and evil doesn't mean nature doesn't judge good and evil. Just as, while every cc in the universe is not involved with fusion reaction, stars are.
Quoting RussellAIt can be for a specific action in a specific setting.
Certainly, what we judge to be good and evil can be different in different circumstances. It's subjective. The fact that killing a human in Scenario A is judged to be good, but killing a human in Scenario B is judged to be evil, does not not mean it is not good in A.
Quoting RussellAHumans have subjective judgement. Which, again, is the only kind there is. And humans are a part of nature. Subjective judgement is a part of nature.
Quoting RussellAYou understand exactly.Quoting RussellAVery well put.
Quoting RussellANothing can conceivably be evidence that humans are separate to nature. The fish is part of the aquarium. The snail is part of the aquarium. The gravel is part of the aquarium. The water is part of the aquarium. Humans are part of nature.
My video of it:
Magic Shadow-Show
[i]For in and out, above, about, below,
Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Playd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.[/I]
- Omar
Like shadows cast on Platos ancient wall,
We dance to music we cannot recall,
While truth itself stays hidden from our sight,
Behind the curtain of perceptions hall.
The mind that thinks it grasps reality
Holds only shapes of possibility,
As children clutch at shadows on the grass,
Not knowing what above them they might see.
What lies behind the screen of time and space?
What hidden light projects each human face?
We see the dance but not the dancers form,
The effect but not the cause of natures grace.
The universe spins like a cosmic wheel,
Where what we touch is not the thing thats real;
The chair, the stone, the star above our heads
All shadows of a truth we cannot feel.
Yet in this play of light and shifting shade,
Some wisdom still may guide the choices made:
Though all be seeming, seeming still contains
The truth for which our seeking hearts have prayed.
For if were shadows, still we cast our own,
And in our dancing make our presence known;
Though substance slip beyond our mortal grasp,
Our phantom steps leave footprints in the stone.
The Box of space-time holds our brief display,
While stars and atoms through their patterns sway;
Perhaps the greatest truth is simply this:
To dance our shadow-dance with grace today.
And though we cannot pierce the veil of things,
Nor see what moves the puppet masters strings,
Still in the beauty of the shadow-show
Some echo of the eternal mystery rings.
We are phenomenas projected face,
Well-painted from noumenas unseen base;
Its as a lamp lights up a paper shade,
We figures revolving around in space.
Our being blocks the view of the Ultimate,
Nor to gaze at it can we our selves acquit.
Evn the wise cant step beyond their nature
All mothers sons stand helpless before it.
This wheel of heaven, which makes us all afraid,
I liken to a lamps revolving shade,
The sun the candlestick, the earth the shade,
And men the trembling forms thereon portrayed.
We are magic lanterns shining here;
Our spirits are the lights in there.
From what bright star came the gleam in your eyes?
From what distant sun came your smile, light-wise?
Come, light your lantern and mine with good cheer;
Were magic lamps; our spirits dance in here.
Our beginnings and ends are of nowhere,
So, lets radiate, since for now were here!
Which of the following is more worthwhile:
The rainbow or the gold under its smile?
Well, the rainbow is here and now; the pot
May not turn out to be worth the miles.
Our minds and senses interpret and dispense
The base reality into the colors and sensations
Of the phenomenal world from the noumenal;
We may become either rainbows or ugly stains!
Mind, like Shelleys prism of many-colored glass,
Strains the white radiance of Eternity
Into our beinguntil death tramples us
And then back we must goto stardust.
Looks awful.
Of course not. That is why the underlined declaration is immediately followed by my argument, hopefully valid.
But I hope that underlining the declarations makes it easier for the busy Forum reader, who is often contributing to several threads at the same time, to more easily follow the structure of my reply.
Headings are sometimes advised. For example, in the article Should you Include Headings and Subheadings in an Essay?
As I said previously, if everything humans are and do are all simply expressions of nature then the term natural really has no meaning, because it refers to anything whatever. In reality the distinction between natural and artificial is perfectly intelligible and has been spelled out, and the idea that humans live in a state of nature fanciful. The human sense of otherness or alienation from nature is a fundamental fact of the human condition. As I said before, were you cast into a perfectly natural environment with none of the artifices and resources of urban life, I dare say you would find it very difficult to survive.
Then you make sweeping statements to the effect that, because moral statements cant be objectively justified, then theyre really a matter for every individual subject. No moral judgement takes precedence over any other. This is a complete capitulation to relativism, whatever works for you, depending on circumstances and your particular predilections, I presume.
The basis of ethics is neither subjective nor objective, but transcendental. That is what Wittgenstein means when he says ethics is transcendent (TLP 6.41) - objective propositions are what ethics are transcendent in respect to. Conscience is traditionally that faculty which is guided by or drawn towards a transcendent source of ethics, something lacking in animals for whom such matters do not arise.
So, in short, and without wishing to be unfriendly, I disagree with practically everything about that post.
:smile: Plenty to take on board and food for thought. There is plenty to say, but limiting myself to Wittgenstein.
Quoting Wayfarer
In TLP 6.421, does Wittgenstein write "Ethics is transcendent" or "Ethics is transcendental"?
What does Wittgenstein mean by "Ethics is transcendental"? (TLP 6.421)
When Wittgenstein says "transcendental", does he in fact mean "transcendent"?
How does "transcendent" differ to "transcendental"?
Why are ethics transcendental rather than subjective or objective?
Why is conscience drawn to a transcendent source of ethics?
Does Wittgenstein think that ethics can be put into propositions?
How do we know that the transcendent source of ethics is objective?
How do you know that animals have no conscience?
You're right about everything. But I think it all needs to be viewed and/or labeled differently. Humans evolved in the universe, through the laws of physics. That makes us natural beings. How could anything that came about through the natural processes of the universe not be natural?
The fact that we manufacture things that the laws of physics would never manufacture without us doesn't mean we, or our consciousness, or teleology, isn't natural. It means the laws off physics aren't the be-all and end-all of what is natural.
It's possible that consciousness like ours already exists elsewhere inn the universe. It's possible it will pop up more asked now throughout there universe. And all the conscious beings will manufacture more and more things that would not exist if the laws of physics were the only thing at play. Will we say the universe is no longer natural when >50% of the universe is either conscious or things manufacturers by conscious beings?
P1 Humans are part of nature
P2 An individual human can make a judgment as to what is good or evil
P3 There is no consistent judgment across all individuals as to what is good or evil, and it may be that different individuals judgments are in opposition to each other.
C1 Each individual's judgment as to what is good or evil is particular to them and is subjective.
P1 Within nature, either i) there is an objective judgment of good or evil or ii) there is no objective judgment of good or evil
P1 Assume that within nature there is an objective judgment of good or evil.
P2 Humans are part of nature.
P3 Each individual's judgment as to what is good or evil is particular to them and is subjective.
C1 As within nature there is an objective judgement of good and evil, yet only subjective judgments of what is good or evil within individual humans, humans are not aware of the objective judgment of good and evil.
P1 Assume that within nature there is no objective judgment of good and evil
P2 Humans are part of nature
P3 Each individual's judgment as to what is good or evil is particular to them and is subjective
C1 As between different individuals there may be a range of judgments as to what is good or evil, it is not possible to determine an objective judgment of what is good or evil.
C2 Within nature, whilst there may be a range of judgments as to what is good or evil, there can be no objective judgment of what is good or evil.
In conclusion, within nature there may be an objective judgement of what is good or evil, but humans are not aware of it. The fact that humans are part of nature and make subjective judgments as to what is good or evil does not mean that within nature there is an objective judgment of what is good or evil.
Well, if that's the case, then why are people so dismissive towards his idealism? I say that as a materialist. Evidently Wayfarer has found some sort of objective truth in the world as well as inside of his own brain. It's called self-consciousness. Or self-awareness. Or perhaps mindfulness. Or perhaps his own subjective experience of himself and of the circumstances that surround him.
I think he's right about all of that, if such were the case. And perhaps it is. Who am I to tell him that his conclusions about his own experiences are somehow not part of the world if they emerge from his specific brain-world correlation? I don't have that kind of authority. No one does.
Sorry to interrupt.
Carry on.
Quoting RussellAI agree. I never said there is an objective judgement of what is good and evil. In fact, I suggested there is no such thing as objective judgement. Judgement is subjective.
My proto-consciousness views are also generally dismissed, so I don't put much stock in someone's ideas being dismissed.
That's a fair thing to say.
In context, the passage in question is this:
'If there is value which is of value, it must lie outside all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental'. Why is it accidental? Because it is contingent. It happens to be the case. Whereas ethics is a matter of necessity. Ethical maxims express what one ought to do or must do. They are maxims, irrespective of happening or being-so. Ethics is not an object of knowledge in the way physical facts are, but rather, it is something presupposed in our engagement with the worldit is "beyond" the realm of empirical description. Wittgensteins use of 'transcendental' is Kantian in this sense.
The final remarkEthics and aesthetics are one suggests that both ethics and aesthetics concern a way of seeing the world rather than a set of factual claims about it. They both belong to the domain of the transcendental, shaping our perspective but not adding to the sum total of facts. Ethics is not another fact within the world but something beyond 'happening and being-so' hence why it cannot be stated propositionally. Instead, it is something lived, shown, or experienced.
As to why animals do not have a conscience - I don't want to express it as if it were a lack or a fault. But animals can't envisage that things could be other than what they are. The capacity to grasp what could be, might be, or should be, is what distinguishes humans from other species. It is also the source of our sense of separateness from nature.
Quoting RussellA
I'm afraid the attitude that you're describing is very close to that of a psychopathology. There's no reason for any action, other than what makes sense to me. Nature may have reasons, but there's no way you or I can know what they are.
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
I question that the only criterion of truth is what can be considered 'objective'. I've written an off-site essay on that question, Scientific Objectivity and Philosophical Detachment, which is very hard to summarise down to a forum post. But suffice to say that it sees philosophical detachment as superior to scientific objectivity, because it doesn't pre-suppose the division between knower and known that characterises modern thought. The culmination of philosophical detachment is seeing beyond the ego-logical perspective, an insight outside the domain of self-and-other, subject and object, as understood in the various schools of the perennial philosophies.
Very interesting.
Even if philosophical detachment doesnt presuppose the division, does it arrive at it through some form of logical inference?
The point of departure for me was doing a web search on the phrase 'the union of knower and known'. If you click that link, just scroll down the page and see what is returned. All of the results are from perennialist philosophers, but it requires a very long view to discern the dialectics.
The key idea is 'participatory knowing' or 'participatory realism'. That is a form of knowing in which the knower (subject, agent, actor) is completely at one with the object (act, peformance or doing). The dancer becomes the dance, so to speak. The general drift of the idea is that this was characteristic of pre-modern thought, and with the advent of modernity and individualism, knowledge becomes instead propositional and procedural (hence the 'cartesian anxiety'). The separation of knower and known was hardwired into Galilean science, with the division of primary and secondary qualities, subject and object. It's a big topic, well outside scope of this thread.
Cool. Thanks.
I can dig the union (unity, if I may be so bold) of knower and known, but Id like to see intellectual space allotted for procedure.
1. If nature is the natural world outside of anything that humans make then one might expect certain kinds of answers to the "true" question.
2. If some things that people do are natural and others are not then again you might expect various answers on the "why" is nature perceived as true question.
3. If Nature encompasses the Universe, the laws of physics, biology and chemistry, then mankind and all it does is clearly bounded by nature, you will get a single answer.
Also the idea of true in this context seems to be really referring to authenticity. What is "true"? Is what is true what is real and not a deception? Is what is true what is authentic vs in-authentic?
I hold to the third perspective on nature, namely that nature is really the unfolding of the universe according to the laws of physics in time and therefore it is obviously perceived as true because it is true insofar as the idea of truth is simply a human construct describing what "is". I must hold the third perspective because the first is not defensible, obviously humankind is at least in part natural, and the second perspective is arbitrary because the demarcation between what people do that is considered natural vs un-natural is arbitrary. Therefore I'm left concluding humankind cannot do anything that is un-natural.
Unless of course the OP wishes to define the boundaries of nature they wish to measure human perception against differently then I conclude that nature is perceived as true because nature "is" true by definition.
I agree. ?????????
Quoting philosch
Yes.
Quoting philosch
They can do something that is artificial, cultural. They can create artifacts. Cultural objects, so to speak.
Quoting philosch
The boundaries of nature...
... what would they even be?
Artifice, perhaps.
Divinity, perhaps.
Mathematics, perhaps.
Hmmm...
... I don't like the word "perhaps". Too formal. A better term is "maybe".
Quoting philosch
Hmmm...
... no, I think I disagree, with that statement. Here's how I would phrase it:
Stealing doesn't make sense to me, therefore I avoid stealing. I wouldn't conclude that my avoiding stealing because of my subjective belief that stealing is wrong should therefore be studied as a mental illness. :smile:
If a moral code didn't make sense, it wouldn't be followed.
A moral code can be a set of principles of ethical conduct established by an individual for that individual (Dictionary.com, Definitions.net). Ethics is concerned with what is good and bad, right and wrong. (Britannica.com)
If something doesn't make sense to me then I avoid doing it.
I think that it is good that I avoid doing something that doesn't make sense to me. I think that I am right in avoiding doing something that doesn't make sense to me.
What I think good and right of necessity follows from what makes sense to me.
Morality is not an abstract concept that has no bearing on how I live my life, but is a concrete concept directly related to my relationship with the world.
If being good made no sense, and if doing the right thing made no sense, neither being good nor doing the right thing would be part of my moral code.
I have a personal moral code precisely because some things make sense and some things don't.
There are examples now showing an animal's ability to grasp what might be.
From Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates
From Are crows the ultimate problem solvers? - Inside the Animal Mind: Episode 2 - BBC
The ability to work through 8 separate stages in a specific order infers that more than a simplistic instinct is at play.
The capacity to grasp what might be is now being found in animals other than humans.
There is evidence that some animals can be altruistic. Altruism is linked with having a conscience.
Altruism is the concern for the well-being of others, independently of personal benefit or reciprocity (Wikipedia). Having a conscience is being aware of the moral goodness of one's own conduct (Merriam Webbster)
From Are Animals Altruistic?
.
The concern for the well-being of others is an example of moral behaviour
Having a conscience is being aware when one should be being altruistic towards others but for some reason isn't.
If the African grey parrot has an understanding of when and why their partners needed their help, but doesn't provide any help for whatever reason, being torn between ought to do something but not doing something is the hallmark of having a conscience.
This is not to say that a parrots sense of morality equals that of a human, but does suggest that the parrot has a glimmer of morality, and consequently the glimmer of a conscience.
Humans are animals after all. The human animal evolved from non-human animals. The human animal didn't appear ready-formed from nowhere.
I was going to write it exactly as you have but I didn't want to use such forceful language. It's essentially what I meant.
Quoting Arcane Sandwich
Well you are making my point or in some way setting a definition of nature with boundaries with words like artificial for instance. In my view artificial has a meaning but in the context of this discussion I would submit it's still within the purview of the natural world. Take an artificial limb for instance. In the common everyday use of the term here, it's well understood to mean a limb that is not biological and has replaced something that was natural, (in this case) meaning organic and original. But in the larger context of this discussion I argue that it's still within the totality of "nature" as it exists and is made of matter that was manipulated by other objects of nature, namely people. I view this as a contextual or categorical problem that Sean Carroll talks about in his book "The Big Picture". That is how it can be viewed as both "un-natural" and within "nature" at the same time. Not contradictory but context dependent.
(I realize your question is somewhat rhetorical but I'll take a stab at an answer anyway).
No of course not. We are human and therefore prone to contradiction, impulsive behavior based on emotional states and more. If we were all walking around acting rationally in our own or even society's best interests, the world would be much better off but also much less interesting and I say much less satisfying emotionally. The eternal, internal struggle we all carry within us is the war between our emotional and rational minds. And the degree to which each of us acts one way or another is directly proportional to how much sway we give to each mind along with our individual talent for being rational and/or expressing our emotional side in constructive and sensible ways. Of course our environment, experiences and mental health factor in as well but that's the gist of why we appear to act non-sensibly or against our own self interests. Or in fact we may have a disorder...LOL.
H.Sapiens are different in a way that makes an enormous difference. The fact that this is something modern culture cant acknowledge is a cultural blind spot. I think it's because what is described nowadays as philosophy doesn't have the foundational concepts required to comprehend why it's important.
(Ref Why Us? How Science Re-discovered the Mystery of Ourselves, James le Fanu.)
Then why have you been giving me such a difficult time for the past 2 or 3 months concerning the idealism vs materialism debate? I already told you that I respect your beliefs! :scream:
The point I'm trying to get it, is that while it's true, of course, that h.sapiens evolved from simian forbears, during the course of evolution, a threshold was crossed which makes humans very different from other species. But every time I say that, the response is, hey, caledonian crows can count! What makes you think we're so special? Which is what I'm saying is the 'blind spot'.
No, we're not. You're not above a shark. Not when you swim under it.
And I'm saying, that your beliefs are respectable. When have I disrespected you?
What's the difference between disrespecting someone's beliefs and disagreeing with them? Is it just a matter of not telling them you disagree and why? Should arrant dogma be respected?
You shoulda lerned that in school, mate.
And whose fault is that?
Did I say that you were? There's nothing to be defensive about. I was responding to your comment simply to make a general point, I wasn't taking a shot at you.
You implied and keep implying that Bunge is wrong.
Quoting Wayfarer
I'm just asking.
It's a simple question.
What question?
And if I don't want to?
No.
Intuitively doing something that makes sense
Sometimes people do things intuitively because it makes sense at the time. Sometimes these acts are intuitive, such as giving up a well paid job or starting to take a particular drug. It may not be possible to put their reasons into words, other than the feeling that it is the right thing to do.
Sometimes these acts are beneficial, such as finding another job that is even better paid, and sometime these acts are detrimental, such as in becoming an addict.
The consequence of an intuitive act is only known subsequently. The consequence of an intuitive act that makes sense at the time can only be known subsequent to the act. Sometimes it may be beneficial and sometimes it may be detrimental. With hindsight, someone who makes an act that is subsequently seen to be detrimental can be said to have a disorder, and someone who makes an act that is subsequently seen to be beneficial can be said to be sensible.
Whether someone who makes an intuitive act because it makes sense at the time can only be said to have a disorder or be sensible subsequent to the act when the consequences of the act are known.
Moral codes
A moral code is an example of something that is followed intuitively because it makes sense at the time.
As Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus, ethical values cannot be put into words. The reasons why something is moral cannot be put into words, even though the moral code itself can be put into words. "Thou shall not kill" can be included within a proposition even though why thou shall not kill cannot be. One follows the moral code because it intuitively makes sense. This doesn't mean that one cannot break one's own moral code if the circumstances require it, for example, if "thou shall not kill" conflicts with one's personal survival.
Moral codes can be described but not justified.
Doing X harms others, therefore X is morally wrong. Could this be not a justification of moral code?
Why is one difference more philosophically important than another difference?
Life may be common throughout the Universe, and H.sapiens may not be the only example of something that can judge the world around it. In which case, being able to judge may be a natural expression of the nature of the world.
Yes, something having the ability to judge, such as a human, is different to something that doesn't have the ability to judge, such as a tree, but how can this be argued to be of special importance, if no more than a natural expression of nature.
Why is the difference between being able to judge and not being able to judge more philosophically important than the difference between the electron and the Higgs Bosun?
The moral code "Doing X harms others, therefore X is morally wrong" can be described.
But, how can you justify in words why that X harming others is morally wrong?
Why is harming others wrong?
It would be like asking "Why 1+1=2", wouldn't it?
It can be justified based on practical reason, which all humans supposed to share, and accept the certain moral codes as the maxim. Of course there would be folks who don't agree, or understand the maxim.
In that case, it is not because it cannot be justified, but because they might have different criteria of reason, or indeed they have no understanding of the moral code why it is right or wrong, which is not universal or shared or agreed, or just unintelligent.
In that case, they would be treated as morally corrupt or morally insensitive, or even folks with no morality by the rest of the society.
Some would say that 1 + 1 = 10
It depends on what number system you are using.
Of course. But we must stick to what is called "normativity" when discussing morality. There could be folks who don't even know what morality means. What is the point of talking about the extreme ends, when the whole issue is about normativity?
Morality is also based on what is called "normativity". Without it, morality derails into subjective denialism.
Slavery was normative in Ancient Rome and played an important role in its society and economy (Wikipedia - Slavery in ancient Rome)
It may well be that the minority who did not agree with slavery were treated as morally corrupt or morally insensitive by the majority
But does that mean that they were in fact either morally corrupt or morally insensitive?
Moral normativity is effective for the time period and the societies we live in. You don't go back in history, and bring in some strange and weird practices they used to have in the history books, and claim as if they are relevant to us now, and as some meaningful examples for the current moral normativity. That would be a fallacy of anachronism.
Quoting RussellAPerhaps moral codes are all rooted in what gives the individual the best chance of continued life and prosperity. The Nazis thought their best chance was to kill everyone not like themselves. The American enslavers amassed wealth by brutalizing others. Many believe the best chance for anyone is to makes things better for everyone, so you won't need to kill or steal from me in order to survive and prosper yourself.
OK, lets consider 2025 and avoid anachronism.
Stoning to death is a legal punishment for adultery in Iran, and therefore normative within Iran today (Wikipedia - Capital punishment in Iran).
Some within Iran may disagree with this law. That some disagree with the moral normativity of the society that they live in, does it follow that this makes them necessarily morally corrupt or morally insensitive?
Moral Relativism rather than Moral Absolutism.
Again you are not telling the difference between moral judgement and legal punishment.
The example demonstrates, that adultery is universally judged as moral wrong. Moral judgement ends there.
The punishment is a legal judgement. It has nothing to do with morality. Legal punishment is all different from country to country depending on what religion mainly they practice, and what the effect of their traditional legal customs are, and how much they stick to their own legal customs. Nothing to do with morality.
Some society would have only moral judgement on certain acts, but other countries societies would brush the acts under the legality too.
Yes, legal judgments are different to moral judgements. But as bread is different to wheat, bread is made from wheat. Legal judgements are founded in moral judgments. Any law not judged to be moral would be unacceptable
From Law vs. Ethics: The Debate Over Whats Legal and Whats Right
The protection of rights is a moral duty.
Social order is the moral thing to achieve.
If Legal judgment is not founded on moral judgment, where does legal judgment get its authority?
Legal judgements and punishments for the criminal acts comes from the set of criminal laws of the country, and only the appointed legal judge can hand down the decisions on the details of punishment. That process is nothing to do with morality.
I agree that once the criminal laws have been established, it then becomes a legal rather than moral judgment.
But the criminal justice system will only work if the criminal laws are moral.
Would you accept as a citizen of a country criminal laws that were not moral?
It happens all the time. It was the defining characteristic of American law for a very long time. Many will argue that it still is, and they have a case.
Moral absolutism is a meta ethical view that some or even all actions are intrinsically right or wrong, regardless of context or consequence (Wikipedia - Moral absolutism)
Is it possible for a moral code to be intrinsically right, even though it may not give the individual the best chance of continued life and prosperity?
Yes, it is. Which means my idea was wrong.
Tell me something I don't know.
OK.... if you say so.
But that's completely groundless speculation. Judgement is a cognitive function, exercised by an agent. And besides, even if it is true that other rational sentient life-forms have evolved, why would it not be the case that they too face existential angst as we do? (In Mah?y?na Buddhist mythology, it has long been accepted that there are other inhabited worlds, but that the same fundamental conditions apply there also, due to the principle of dependent origination.)
Quoting RussellA
For example, enlisting to fight Nazism during WWII. On a smaller scale, every time an individual declines an opportunity to gain from an illicit promise of wealth.
Even if H sapiens is the only example in the whole universe of an animal that can formulate judgements in symbolic linguistic form why would that fact by itself not qualify such an ability as natural? What would be the alternative? I can only think of twothat it is an unnatural ability or that it is a supernatural ability, and the first of those seems absurd and the second tendentious and ultimately incoherent.
As to why the ability to judge should be argued to be of special importanceit very obviously is, but only in a few domains I can think of: for examples, the domain of argument itself (obviously) and the domain of adaptability and the domains of the arts and sciences.
What was the name of the bosun on the good ship 'higgs'?
Quoting JanusNicely done! :grin:
A very good philosophical question. The philosophy of particle physics is an academic topic.
For example, the Cambridge University press has a series about elements in the philosophy of physics.
From Philosophy of Particle Physics
Why is the ability to judge of "special" importance? I agree that it is an important philosophical question, but why more important than other philosophical questions, such as those of space, time, existence, consciousness, the quantum theory, knowledge, the origin of the Universe, etc?
Perhaps, but as you correctly wrote:
Quoting Wayfarer
That means that philosophical questions about the nature of time, space and the Universe are less important than philosophical questions about the human mind.
Is it right that humans consider themselves more important than the world in which they live?
If the second thing in danger is a star, it's still not a close call.
I anticipate many tweaks to the scenario, and have already written out answers to what I think are the more likely ones. But I wanted to just say this much in this post.
Why do you think that is the case? Does morality precede legality? Or vice versa?
Quoting RussellA
If you are a citizen of a country, then would you have choice not to accept the legal system?
It is the moral thing that morality precedes legality, even if that is not always the case.
I don't think the public would accept a legal system that was not fundamentally moral. Sooner or later they would revolt and overthrow the system.
Quoting Corvus
True. I have no choice, regardless of whether I believe the system to be immoral or not. Though I could emigrate.
For humans, humans are more important than cats.
For cats, cats are more important than mice.
For mice, mice are more important than cockroaches
For cockroaches, cockroaches are more important than bed bugs.
Philosophically, is it right that one part of nature is more important than another part of nature?
Quoting Janus
:roll: Try reading and quoting the whole thing in context.
For what it's worth I agree with your arguments against human exceptionalism.
Quoting Patterner
All that says is that humans are more important to you. Could be just your conditioning. I'd save the natural wonder unless the person was important to me. I'd save my dog before a person who meant nothing to me.
Isn't it itself an act of moral wrongness to break the law, revolt and overthrow the system? You are committing more serious moral wrongness under the excuse of moral wrongness. It sounds like a contradiction to me. According to Socrates, even bad law is law. Breaking law is morally wrong.
Quoting RussellA
Emigration? What if the new country had more hidden injustice in the system? Would you not regret? There is no utopia or paradise in this world. It is a product of dialectical transformation from the ancient beginning. You have options to get adjusted to the system whatever system you live in, and flourish under the system knowing it and abiding by it.
No, as only moral laws are valid. It is not morally wrong to break a law that itself is not moral.
I agree that it is the moral thing to do to follow the laws of the country.
However, the assumption is that laws are founded on moral principles. Only laws founded on moral principles are valid laws. If a law is not founded on moral principles then it is an invalid law. Therefore, the moral thing to do is to follow valid laws, and valid laws are founded on principles of morality. It is not immoral to not follow invalid laws, those laws that are not based on principles of morality.
Breaking a law not founded on moral principles is not morally wrong.
Quoting Corvus
Even if the system is morally wrong? In abiding by a system that is morally wrong, then one is condoning it, meaning that abiding to a morally wrong system is in itself an immoral act.
Well, Socrates wouldn't agree with that claim, I guess.
Quoting RussellA
Morality and legality is not the same. Just because you feel your country's legal system doesn't suit your taste, it doesn't mean the moral system is also wrong too.
Morality only judges the moral actions of the folks. Legality judges the acts and also hand down the punishments according the law, hence legality precedes morality. It matters to folks' life physically. Morality only affects the folks reputations. Hence legality comes first. Would you not agree?
The law could state that the punishment for stealing anything valued up to £50 was the amputation of the right hand.
You are right that the law judges the act and hands down a punishment according to the law.
Are you arguing that a particular law must be followed by a society even if that society believes that that particular law is morally wrong?
Isn't the law formally accepted legal system by the people of the society? Wouldn't it be self contradiction to say your country's legal system is wrong, when the people have accepted their legal system to protect the society?
Isn't this an appeal to extreme case fallacy?
I don't think that society would willingly accept a legal system that was immoral. I have no evidence, but I am sure that this is the case.
Quoting Corvus
Being an extreme case doesn't make it a fallacy.
No one forces a society to accept their own legal system. The members of the society accept sets of legal system and laws themselves. Do you honestly believe someone else who are not a member of the society or country forces certain legal system or laws into the societies and countries?
Quoting RussellA
Appealing to Extremes is a formal fallacy.
Being an extreme case doesn't in itself make a logical fallacy.
I agree that an extreme case, where an argument is exaggerated to such a hyperbolic degree that it distorts the argument, would be a logical fallacy.
However, an extreme case, where an argument is not exaggerated to such a hyperbolic degree that it distorts the argument, would not be a logical fallacy.
The Argument from hallucination deals with an extreme case and is used as an argument against Direct Realism. That it is an extreme case does not mean that it is not a valid argument.
It wouldn't be accepted as valid or meaningful arguments on the basis of either non relevant or highly unlikely example.
Quoting RussellA
Again, the other party can reject the arguments on the basis of highly unlikely example or irrelevant example for the main point.
I feel the way I do for two reasons.
1) Life is extraordinary. Literally, by definition. It's a pretty huge universe. We can't claim to know terribly much of what's out there. But neither are we entirely ignorant, and we are not aware of any life anywhere other than on our planet. We don't even see signs of it, although there are possible signs that it's possible elsewhere. We haven't been able to create life from scratch, either by trying to follow any of the paths we think nature might have taken, or by stacking the deck as much as we can. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that rare things are worth more than common things. For that reason, imo, life is more valuable than non-life.
2) Awareness at the human level is, to our knowledge, unique to humans. That brute fact makes it even more rare - more valuable - than life. If there was only one flying species, I think that would be pretty special. If every oyster produced a pearl, it would still be very cool, even if the pearls did not demand as high a price. Elephant and walrus tusks are expensive because of their scarcity. My opinion is that human awareness is much more fascinating than wings, pearls, tusks, or anything else we are aware of. (If we could take it out of someone and put it into someone/thing else, I have no doubt it would be happening, with a worldwide crime organization behind it. Can you imagine how much such a thing word cost on the black market??) In support of that opinion, I offer every movie, book, and human conversation in history, as well as a pretty good percentage of all human thoughts.
And one aspect of human awareness is that it wants to continue. Life, in general, works to endure. The continuation of the species is always a primary focus of all species. But, in some species, the individuals are also working to stay alive. None moreso than humans.
Yes, it's subjective. I find human awareness/consciousness more fascinating and attractive than diamonds, chocolate, the aurora borealis, or anything else. Even more than music, which wouldn't exist without us. But I know different people feel different ways.
You have offered fairly extensive reasons for why you feel as you do. It left me wondering if you feel the way you do for those reasons or if they are just a rationalization of how you would feel regardless of whether you consciously formulated those reasons.
I have no argument against your feelings even though I don't share them. I find animal awareness just as fascinating as human awareness. Of course, my own awareness is the most fascinating since it is the only awareness I have direct access to. It is only on account of personal communication as well as the arts: literature, poetry, music and the visual arts that I have any access to the awareness of other humans, and of course that is a far greater access than I have to animal awarenesses, and also being human myself it is more familiar. But then my experience of the arts and literature etc., is my experience and not anyone else's.
I don't count human lives other than those I am familiar with as more important than animal lives though. And obviously an animal life, say one of my dogs, I am most familiar with is more important to me than most human lives. There is no way I would save a stranger at the expense of sacrificing one of my dogs; I would not consider it even for a moment. But then we are all different, eh?
It serms to me everybody's mind is drawn to, or resonates with, certain things. I prefer Bach to Mozart, by a long shot. It's not a close call. It wasn't a decision. I didn't mull it over, weigh various qualities, and decide which I preferred. It was automatic. After having taken piano lessons for several years, teachers always giving me Mozart Mozart Mozart, I heard my first Bach piece. BAM! I didn't have to understand why, and couldn't have said at the time. It was just an instant, unquestionable reaction.
Now I can say why, because I took classes in things like music theory, counterpoint, and music history. Why would there be no reasons? And if there are reasons, why wouldn't I be able to name them?
The two main factors are counterpoint and rhythm. Bach is the undisputed king of counterpoint. Can't imagine how many fugues he wrote. He probably spoke in fugue. :rofl: And the Baroque Era is sometimes called the Age of Unflagging Rhythm. It just goes on and on, driving, breathless. I'm not rationalizing my love of Bach's music with these things, and I'd love it without them. They are the reasons I love it - the things my mind is drawn to/resonates with - and I'm describing them.
Frankly, I did leave out a big aspect of my regard for human consciousness. It blows my mind that a clump of matter is aware of its own existence, its own awareness, its own thoughts. We are aware of some things that no other species is. There are also many things we are aware of that other species are also aware of, but which we are aware of to a much greater degree. We think in ways, and about things, nothing else we know of does. We can have end goals that can only be years or decades off, which require various components that, individually, don't have any obvious connection to them, and that will never exist anywhere in the universe but for us. And we bring them into being. The blind laws of physics do not bring about everything that can exist. We are doing things that the universe cannot do without us. Knowingly and intentionally, which are qualities no other part of the universe possesses. Absolutely mind blowing to me.
But I know there are any number of people who don't feel that way.
Hardly highly unlikely. "In the 21st century, hudud, including amputation of limbs, is part of the legal systems of Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen" (www.studycountry.com)
Quoting Corvus
Direct Realists may reject the Argument from Hallucination, but many Indirect Realists accept it as a valid argument.
Not quite sure on these countries at all, as my interest is not in legalities. But let us think this way. They have very harsh punishment in the legal system which will protect the innocent normal folks from the crimes.
You may live in some western country with very lenient or loose legal system, which let the criminals over power the society. You and your family are not protected well from the criminals. You or your family could easily become victim of the crimes, and suffer horrendous harm or damage from the crimes. So, it is not bad thing to have the strict legal system in some aspect, would you not agree?
Quoting RussellA
Hallucination is not extreme case. It is a subjective case.
I agree, as long as society thinks that a strict legal system is moral.
Quoting Corvus
The Argument from Hallucination against Direct Realism is making an objective case against Direct Realism.
:ok:
Quoting RussellA
The contents and states of one's subjective and private mental experience cannot be presented as the basis of the objective evidence in the arguments. It could only be suggested as a possible point of consideration.
Luckily, the picture is never a perfect representation, and that other yardstick, the one which is neither a copy or a copy of a copy, resides in the mismatch between the two. Nature determines the truth of things because what it means to decide the truth of judgements is to hold them up to nature, and not our {implicit} judgements of our {explicit} judgements. Even though the latter judgements of our judgements count as nature, until we inevitably realise otherwise.
If in a room of 100 people, 1 person says that they see the ghost of Napoleon, but the other 99 say that they don't, then this is objective evidence that that 1 person is suffering an hallucination.
I agree that the subjective mental experience of a single person cannot be presented as objective evidence, but the subjective mental experience of 99 people in agreement can be presented as objective evidence.
The more people in agreement, the less subjective the evidence and the more objective.
But if you gather up 100 blinded folks in the room of 1 sighted person, then the darkness would be the reality of the world. Hence the reason why you should keep distance from the fallacy of authority or majority. Truth exists under the light of reason and logic, not in the crowd of the blind folks' shouting. :)
Well, depends on who those 99 folks are. Of course if they are the same type of folks who cannot see what objectivity is, then their subjectivity would be objectivity.
The will of the majority is the worst form of government there is apart from for all the other systems of government which have been tried.
"Democracy Is the Worst Form of Government Except For All Others Which Have Been Tried"
Winston Churchill 1947:
Quoting Patterner
I agree it is a source of wonderment. I'm glad to see you are apparently not one of those who go on to insist there must be something more than the merely material going on.
But then this makes me wonder about that: Quoting Patterner
Why could not mind be an emergent material phenomenon? I agree that mind cannot be explained in terms of physics, but then neither can geology, chemistry, biology, ethology, ethnology, economics, psychology, the arts and so on.
It is one thing to say that there are many things which cannot be explained in terms of physics and another to say that those things are therefore the result of something beyond the physical or material.
Quoting JanusNo, I'm one of those. :grin: I agree with Chalmers that there needs to be an explanation for why the physical processes don't take place without subjective experience. As Chalmers puts it:
Quoting David Chalmers[Url=https://youtu.be/ynTqCFBhRmw]At 7:00 of this video[/url], Donald Hoffman says it well, while talking about the neural correlates of consciousness, and ions flowing through holes in membranes:
So the physical activity of matter doesn't have any connection to consciousness that we can see.
I've quoted Brian Greene in [I]Until the End of Time[/I] before. Here it is again;And the physical properties of matter don't have any connection to consciousness that we can see.
Maybe we should consider the idea that this macro thing that isn't explained by any theory of physical activity is made possible by a micro property unlike those that a leading expert in the field says don't even hint at it.
Property dualism.
Genuine practice of democracy is rare. Due to the fact, most preachers of democracy give impressions of false pretense and their ignorance. Countless injustice and wrong doings have been carried out by the rouge regimes under the disguise of democracy.
Yes, on the one hand Keir Starmer said 4 January 2024 that he would clean up politics.
On the other hand, he accepted gifts from Labour peer Lord Alli.
The case of the high calibre politicians involved in accepting bribes seems to be viewed differently from country to country. For example in countries like China, or South Korea, it would be regarded as serious failing of the politician's moral integrity, and be judged as highly serious crime, which will get the politician sacked, or even jailed.
But in UK, the public and the law seem to regard them as just usual perks of the job. Would it be the case?
In case a moderator is reading this, the OP needs an understanding of what is true and what is false, what is better and what is worse. The OP is about the morality of man's behaviour. The following is an example of morality.
The politicians always argue that these perks are within the "law" which may well be the case, but I am sure that the public find such behaviour disgraceful.
Who would not buy their own glasses!
That being legal doesn't make it moral.