4 ms·

It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong, or to imply that everyone thinks it's fine to have pets/eat animals, or tha

by Trundle 10y ago

It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong, or to imply that everyone thinks it's fine to have pets/eat animals, or that aliens would follow our ethical guidelines. Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics, and even then I highly doubt that those that do actually support those positions do so because of any argument involving being a cluster of elementary particles. It's like you worked out that the intuitive emotional response that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out, googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought. You're not going to learn anything, nor teach anyone anything, by asking a bunch of silly comparison questions in a tech forum. Any response short enough for anybody to bother writing is going to need to take a whole bunch of premises as givens and rely on definitions for words you don't agree with. It'll just keep leading to chains of posts like this where you just keep asking stupid comparison questions like you're some form of internet Socrates, and being pleased when people don't reply adequately/at all because you're the one with the negative claim and consider anything other than a full argument from them as a default win for yourself.

hamana 10y ago
It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong The bar for what? If you mean the bar for a good explanation of what morality is, then the conclusion that it's an objective feature of the world is certainly not necessary. or to imply that everyone thinks it's fine to have pets/eat animals Come on, there is obviously a tiny minority of people who don't think that. Just like in the Muslim countries, there is a tiny percentage of non-muslims. Majority, however, have conformed to what is accepted by people around them. Same with views on slavery of non-human animals today. or that aliens would follow our ethical guidelines. Hmm, what is 'our ethical guidelines'? If emotivism is true and if you look around you and throughout the history, there are no 'our (human) guidelines'. For almost any moral issue, there will be people who like it and those that don't like it. Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics. I don't care what is currently popular in academic philosophy. There are many views in ethical philosophy, so it's unlikely that any of them will be the dominant view. Emotivism seems to be a good description of what moral sentences actually are. You have to differentiate between 'what moral sentences actually are' and 'what people think they are'. So, it's possible to say that emotivism/nihilism is true, while at the same time say that most people think that moral realism is true. It's like you worked out that the emotivism that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out, googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought. People don't use 'emotivism' for their moral compass, since most people don't even know what it is! How can ethical views and theories influence moral compass of regular people? Your reference to nihilism is very typical. Most people use it almost as an insult. There are strong religious and political interests in society and nihilism bursts their bubbles and questions fundamental assumptions, so the way they cope is by contaminating the word and using it as an insult. Any response short enough for anybody to bother writing is going to need to take a whole bunch of premises as givens and rely on definitions for words you don't agree with. haha then there is no point in replying. If you're going to redefine words and make arbitrary assumptions, then why bother talking about anything with anyone? It'll just keep leading to chains of posts like this where you just keep asking stupid comparison questions like you're some form of internet Socrates, and being pleased when people don't reply adequately, or at all, because you're the one with the negative claim and consider anything other than a full argument from them as a default win for yourself. This really ends with insults. You're labeling what I wrote as 'silly' and 'stupid' and trying to insult me by saying I'm wanna be internet Socrates. You've hit rock bottom with the insults.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hamena 10y ago
It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong '...set the bar' for what? -------------------------- The rest of your comment is filled with insults, empty psychoanalysis, guesses and other attacks, so I'm not going to reply to that.
Hondor 10y ago
He's thinking philosophically, not politically (trying to influence people). We should be quite free to think and discuss things in an objective way without having to continuously show that we agree with contemporary morals. It might turn out that such a line of reasoning leads to the useless conclusion of "nothing is wrong" but it's certainly worth trying nonetheless. What we do know is that our current set of morals is somewhat arbitrary and could easily be full of "evil" things that make us no better than slaver owners. We just don't know because everyone agrees with us.
- Trundle 10y ago
  >He's thinking philosophically He's not thinking, he's typing. What he's typing is not a stream of consciousness nor shared with only himself, so he's obviously looking for some form of discussion (whether that's primarily because he wants to influence others is hard to say). However he's doing it while being combative and insulting. If that's what he wants then I'm here to provide. >We should be quite free to think and discuss things in an objective way without having to continuously show that we agree with contemporary morals. I agree completely however taking up this cause in the comment section of a tech forum, without putting any substantial argument down first, and then resorting to calling people brainwashed is a poor way to go about it. In fact by doing so that seems to be him saying he not only doesn't agree with contemporary morals but looks down on those that do. >What we do know is that our current set of morals is somewhat arbitrary and could easily be full of "evil" things that make us no better than slaver owners. I acknowledged in the post you're replying to that the conventional source of morality is intuitive emotion not well thought out concepts.
godembodied 10y ago
It's like you worked out that the intuitive emotional response that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out... If I understood this correctly, you want me to take emotional outrage as seriously as well thought out propositions. Are you joking? Of course emotional outbursts aren't though out. Do you know what these emotional outrages presented as moral judgements (Emotivism) are similar to? Sneezing and farting. They have few things in common with them: 1. It's meaningless noise (kinda like sneezing as a reaction to allergy) 2. You can't argue with it (can you argue with farts?) 3. You can't criticize it 4. You can't take it seriously and analyze it, since it meaningless rambling 5. No progress can be made It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong I assume by 'setting the bar' you mean bar for taking something seriously. Correct? You are criticizing me for asking from people well though out (which can be subjective) or objective facts about the world. Why don't you then criticize construction workers and architects for having well thought out plans, based on objective laws of physics, when building a house. Tell them to just go by the flow and let their emotions decide. If you want me to take something seriously, then it's gotta be more than an empty, personal emotional outburst (chemical process resulting in meaningless sounds, similar to coughing, sneezing, moaning, farting etc.). Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics Wrong [1]. Majority of philosophers are moral realists. ...googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought. Emotivism is not an established school of thought. It's largely abandoned by most philosophers. There are many criticisms of it without good counter-arguments. How does guessing what I did make my arguments or questions any less valid? You'd have to give some arguments in favor of Emotivism and aginst nihilism, realism etc. Not just write insults here and label my statements and questions as 'silly' or 'stupid'. [1] http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP - page 15, question 14.

by Trundle 10y ago

hamana 10y ago

It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong The bar for what? If you mean the bar for a good explanation of what morality is, then the conclusion that it's an objective feature of the world is certainly not necessary. or to imply that everyone thinks it's fine to have pets/eat animals Come on, there is obviously a tiny minority of people who don't think that. Just like in the Muslim countries, there is a tiny percentage of non-muslims. Majority, however, have conformed to what is accepted by people around them. Same with views on slavery of non-human animals today. or that aliens would follow our ethical guidelines. Hmm, what is 'our ethical guidelines'? If emotivism is true and if you look around you and throughout the history, there are no 'our (human) guidelines'. For almost any moral issue, there will be people who like it and those that don't like it. Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics. I don't care what is currently popular in academic philosophy. There are many views in ethical philosophy, so it's unlikely that any of them will be the dominant view. Emotivism seems to be a good description of what moral sentences actually are. You have to differentiate between 'what moral sentences actually are' and 'what people think they are'. So, it's possible to say that emotivism/nihilism is true, while at the same time say that most people think that moral realism is true. It's like you worked out that the emotivism that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out, googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought. People don't use 'emotivism' for their moral compass, since most people don't even know what it is! How can ethical views and theories influence moral compass of regular people? Your reference to nihilism is very typical. Most people use it almost as an insult. There are strong religious and political interests in society and nihilism bursts their bubbles and questions fundamental assumptions, so the way they cope is by contaminating the word and using it as an insult. Any response short enough for anybody to bother writing is going to need to take a whole bunch of premises as givens and rely on definitions for words you don't agree with. haha then there is no point in replying. If you're going to redefine words and make arbitrary assumptions, then why bother talking about anything with anyone? It'll just keep leading to chains of posts like this where you just keep asking stupid comparison questions like you're some form of internet Socrates, and being pleased when people don't reply adequately, or at all, because you're the one with the negative claim and consider anything other than a full argument from them as a default win for yourself. This really ends with insults. You're labeling what I wrote as 'silly' and 'stupid' and trying to insult me by saying I'm wanna be internet Socrates. You've hit rock bottom with the insults.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

hamena 10y ago

It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong '...set the bar' for what? -------------------------- The rest of your comment is filled with insults, empty psychoanalysis, guesses and other attacks, so I'm not going to reply to that.

Hondor 10y ago

He's thinking philosophically, not politically (trying to influence people). We should be quite free to think and discuss things in an objective way without having to continuously show that we agree with contemporary morals. It might turn out that such a line of reasoning leads to the useless conclusion of "nothing is wrong" but it's certainly worth trying nonetheless. What we do know is that our current set of morals is somewhat arbitrary and could easily be full of "evil" things that make us no better than slaver owners. We just don't know because everyone agrees with us.

Trundle 10y ago
>He's thinking philosophically He's not thinking, he's typing. What he's typing is not a stream of consciousness nor shared with only himself, so he's obviously looking for some form of discussion (whether that's primarily because he wants to influence others is hard to say). However he's doing it while being combative and insulting. If that's what he wants then I'm here to provide. >We should be quite free to think and discuss things in an objective way without having to continuously show that we agree with contemporary morals. I agree completely however taking up this cause in the comment section of a tech forum, without putting any substantial argument down first, and then resorting to calling people brainwashed is a poor way to go about it. In fact by doing so that seems to be him saying he not only doesn't agree with contemporary morals but looks down on those that do. >What we do know is that our current set of morals is somewhat arbitrary and could easily be full of "evil" things that make us no better than slaver owners. I acknowledged in the post you're replying to that the conventional source of morality is intuitive emotion not well thought out concepts.

godembodied 10y ago

It's like you worked out that the intuitive emotional response that most people use for their moral compass isn't exactly well thought out... If I understood this correctly, you want me to take emotional outrage as seriously as well thought out propositions. Are you joking? Of course emotional outbursts aren't though out. Do you know what these emotional outrages presented as moral judgements (Emotivism) are similar to? Sneezing and farting. They have few things in common with them: 1. It's meaningless noise (kinda like sneezing as a reaction to allergy) 2. You can't argue with it (can you argue with farts?) 3. You can't criticize it 4. You can't take it seriously and analyze it, since it meaningless rambling 5. No progress can be made It's either disingenuous or just plain ignorant to set the bar at objectively wrong I assume by 'setting the bar' you mean bar for taking something seriously. Correct? You are criticizing me for asking from people well though out (which can be subjective) or objective facts about the world. Why don't you then criticize construction workers and architects for having well thought out plans, based on objective laws of physics, when building a house. Tell them to just go by the flow and let their emotions decide. If you want me to take something seriously, then it's gotta be more than an empty, personal emotional outburst (chemical process resulting in meaningless sounds, similar to coughing, sneezing, moaning, farting etc.). Neither moral universalism nor realism have a dominance in the philosophy of ethics Wrong [1]. Majority of philosophers are moral realists. ...googled some phrase sceptical of ethics as a whole, found nihilism, potentially with a detour through scientism, and then burrowed down that rabbit hole without considering any other established school of thought. Emotivism is not an established school of thought. It's largely abandoned by most philosophers. There are many criticisms of it without good counter-arguments. How does guessing what I did make my arguments or questions any less valid? You'd have to give some arguments in favor of Emotivism and aginst nihilism, realism etc. Not just write insults here and label my statements and questions as 'silly' or 'stupid'. [1] http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP http://philpapers.org/archive/BOUWDP - page 15, question 14.