Vent

I consider the contradictions in science and between different theories as due to the approximate nature of our theories. They are all a work in progress. Does this model work to a useful degree in this area? Yes? Then use it. But it contradicts another theory... so? Some models that are more accurate are actually thrown out because they are too complicated (in economics with rational agent models being a good example), and simpler ones are used instead. The simplest argument for the benefit of science is that it works. I don't think contradictions are something to be too worried about, just cross them off as we go.

Why are you guys giving the church a special status? If they want to be non-profit they need to split for legal clarity and declare themselves charity, not church or religion. Tax exemption for the church is an historical contingency, there's no reason to continue to honour it (religious apologetics not-withstanding). Changing the church to charity and removing all religious benefits that are given for religious status reasons sounds like a good idea to me.

Yes i think the exemptions should be ended. Why not? Listening to the people's opinion on the tooth fairy and then making policy that affects everyone in a nation because of it? /boggle.

Do cows 'deserve' to die because we need to eat them? Should we remain perplexed because we can't come up with an objective answer to our need for sustenance? Like the camel who dies of dehydration because it can't decide on the utility between two identical watering holes? Philosophers have been searching for millennia for this 'objective standard of human value' and all have failed, finding themselves muddled up in mysticism. If you continue searching, good luck (and that's sincere, not rhetorical). All rigourous ethics is logical in its argument. But does it try to be objective in its initial conditions? No. Parfit's object-given reasons (On What Matters), tries to come close, but fails to be honest due to making an arbitrary division and chimerical antagonism between object-given and subject-given. In the words of Hume, our passions are just a part of our mental state that comes about when we find ourselves taking something that matters to us. Form follows function, especially in ethics, or should do, it's what it's there for and why we argue about it after all. Edit: can't spell.

Oh for heavens sake. The idea of being conscious is not the same as explaining how consciousness arises in the first place, which was determined by prior causes. You forget or deliberately omit that we live in a cause and effect universe (unless we're talking about the physics of nothing, which we're not). You are being fallacious. You are talking about ethics. You gave a definition of ethics that deals with human value. You stated that ethics comes from emotions. You refuse to change your definition. You refuse to change your assumption. Now because you cannot objectify either you are declaring propositions based on emotion towards human value null because they are not objective. Your assumptions cannot possibly give you the answer you're looking for. Look at your argument before you look for something you won't find due to the conditions you are imposing.

So therefore they have a cause. Regress to the beginning of the universe if you wish, even though it makes no sense to do so with regard to ethics and human sentiment towards them. I don't consider the idea of being conscious tricky at all. To remind you, i took both the adjective and noun out because you didn't like them. The argument remains the same. The state of your brain right now, is a state, and is "determined" by many things, vis-à-vis, it has a specific cause. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. Assume the brain is in a vat or that we're a computer program if it makes it easier for you, the conditions give synonymous results of experience (because irrespective of either idea being true our experience is still our experience), and the argument is again the same. Emotions also do correlate directly to any question of morality and ethics, assuming ethics to be based off of emotions (your argument), if they are concerned with human value. One necessarily implies the other, under the definition you gave and the assumptions you are using. I'm sorry, but your argument still just sounds like Plato's Form of the Good or something, and it's just as elusive.

I didn't say emotions (necessarily), determine anything, but rather emotions are determined by a state of a brain (this is the third time). To make it more explicit, a particular emotion is determined to be that emotion by a particular state of a brain. Invoking specifics like chemicals, probability and 'certain signals' doesn't change the fact that they have a cause, and therefore determined to be what they are. Whatever emotion arises is determined to be that emotion by whatever is its cause. As an aside, if "Emotions aren't the product of a ....brain", what are they the product of? Granted, you didn't say universal, my bad, but you do maintain a requirement for objectivity, so i ask how can you expect an objective initial condition for ethics under the definition you have taken? The definition is concerned with human value, yet when human value is used as an argument for an initial condition you declare it null because it's not objective. Like i said before it's not going to be, is it? This idea of objective conditions, unconcerned with human value, honestly makes no sense to me at all and i maintain it seems completely incompatible. Please explain to me where i'm going wrong as in my eyes you require a different definition of ethics for your argument. The first sentence of my post 49 may clarify a bit.

Your dictionary link is inconsistent with your argument. You are asking for objective and universal statements for ethics yet you assent to a definition of ethics that deals with humans, their values, their culture and their conduct? It's an incoherent stance, no wonder it's leading to confusion. To repeat what i said about emotions because you seemed to read something that wasn't there. Emotions are the product of a brain [of a] conscious being. I never said they were the product of consciousness, but rather the brain. Replace conscious with sentient if you wish, or just remove the adjective and noun altogether if it sits better with you. Emotions are determined by a state of the brain, to say that they have no cause is non-nonsensical.

Well i can't say i can relate to that argument i'm sorry. Emotions are the product of a brain of a conscious being that's grounded in a cause and effect universe governed by physical laws, they therefore must correlate to reality because cause and effect determined their very existence. Many ethical values are also shared throughout the world so they also have a kind of global, although not universal, consistency and regularity which allows us to infer that they are likely something more than the product of a rugged individualism. Just because we're an objectively arbitrary species in the arse end of nowhere doesn't mean our ethics don't matter. They are important and valued by "us", the only known originators of the concept. In fact, we, and by extension our feelings and emotions towards ethical arguments, and the only things that do matter because they deal with what we value and are important to us. We (which of course includes our thoughts, feelings and emotions), are the purpose. Since you say neither side of an ethics argument really matters i'm wondering what is your definition of ethics? ...is this definition consistent with the argument you are presenting here?

Logic doesn't have a part to play in the construction of the statements, only the deductions from those statements. Asking for objectivity in the premises themselves is asking for an objective ethical standard for the purpose of (supposedly), validation. We can attempt to get around it with semantics by, for example, stating that ethics deals with human values and human values are concerned with the well being of humans. Taken as a given we can then validate or invalidate a given ethical proposition, but since there's nothing in logic that necessitates this inherency in ethics it's therefore subjective (from a logical standpoint). Ethics and objectivity seem to remain at odds with each other, but personally i see no problem with this and it actually seems a good thing to me because we are the ones that hold the values after all.

What has non-contradiction got to do with objectivity?

because it's never going to be 'objective', is it?

Requiring strict objectivity throws ethics out the window because asking for an ethical answer found only by objective logic invalidates the ethical stance held by the being doing the reasoning.

The logic of the question is inductive, so any possible consequence is an argument to consider. The probability of the consequence is then a continuation of the same argument. We can't deduct because we only know a single, initial condition (the eradication of mosquitoes). We can't abduct because it hasn't happened yet. The idea that "if the mosquitoes were gone another species could rise of to take its place but not be so annoying", is a valid argument, but so therefore is the idea that if mosquitoes were gone another species could rise up to take its place and be twice as bad. I don't think logic is a good place to start the approach to the question to be honest, but rather approach it from chaos theory or something, and then after probable assumptions have been made it then becomes one for ethics.

I don't think there'd be much incentive to do much involving capitalism if equality was enforced from the top down. Inequality, in other things besides wealth, seems to me to be the precursor to progress, from an individual scale as well as societal. Equal opportunities sound good but they've been messed up in practice if you ask me. They seem to enforce genetic and racial favouritism rather than equality.

Athena, Forgive me if i'm wrong, but this "X factor" that you speak of is your idea of an objective standard that we can use for testing our actions against in order to build a future that is "good for us". Yes? Yet this idea you have has no substance as of now. It is something that you are wishing to find so that you "know" you are right, moral, sensible and forthright in your decisions towards the future that you seek. It would a tool that we could use to convince people of the legitimacy of various actions. You have also created a target for action it seems, the target of liberty, and are convinced of its righteousness as a goal and believe there is this X factor that will prove to us that it was the true path of our race after all. I don't believe in the X factor i'm sorry. I think humans make their own standards and try and move in a direction that satisfies them. Even a standard such as happiness with its mundane chemical causes and gordian social causes is still a standard that various individual's [decide?] upon. Of course, there's nothing wrong with arguing for liberty (or happiness), but this X factor is the weakest point of your argument. It is baseless at present and belongs in the realm of mysticism. Inciting it as a reason that people 'should' believe in it due to then being able to assent to the ideal of liberty more readily makes it more so. Solid arguments are built on solid foundations. Apologies if i offend, and like i said, forgive me if i'm wrong

I don't think religion should be in politics or law at all, either for or against, so its freedom is protected by default. Same with freedom of speech. So my answers on these grounds would be no no Culture is important in some places, UK for example. Parliament is bound by customs in a lot of things; as in there is a customary way of doing certain things so there is no legislature binding them (half or more of our constitution is unwritten for example). I'd say this was quite cultural as opposed to legal. There's pluses and minuses for customs though, like there is for written constitutions also.

I think health care is one of the best uses. I don't tend to agree with subsidisation (in general) as even though small firms may need it to get into a market, particularly when there are high barriers to entry, they haven't shown a long term benefit to society yet, through their product or, due to shareholder returns being paramount, that the owners are worthy of the subsidy (considering who's funding them). Large firms shouldn't need it, and if they do i tend to agree with the argument that they're therefore not efficient enough in their resource management and other entrepreneurs should have an easier time of challenging their market position and competing for their network. On the other hand i do agree with investment, particularly in innovation and high contestable markets where firms don't have an incentive to innovate. The government could be the holder of "patents" for a quick concrete idea and put them in the public domain (energy being a good example i think). Of course, the argument for the government then becoming a player in the market needs discussion. I think education has fair arguments also. I'm actually not sure of what else as the arguments become complicated i find. I actually like the idea of minimising taxes as far as possible in an attempt to make people richer so as to allow them to fund things which are important to them. Too many people are poor and, in the UK for example, 50%+ (assuming only 20% for consumption), of all money received goes to the government. I don't see people getting this value of service in return. An overhaul or accountability would be nice. Sorry for long post.

Joatmon, my first sentence in post 70 answers your post 71. As an aside, i never said they weren't human beings, but rather said that they are a disciplined and obedient unit of soldiers. Rigney, post 58 precedes 61 so no, i ran with nothing. You began with Military personnel and claimed they give us moral posterity. I then suggested that it should be the commanders you need to look to for moral posterity if you want the military to be involved and concerned with the action. You then restated this assertion of mine by highlighting that Roosevelt was a commander as if this is not what i said in the first place. You are now trying to teach me to suck eggs instead of remaining consistent with your original assertion. If you actually did mean that the military personnel have commanders and that it's these we need to look to for moral posterity and that this was actually your original intent then you should have said so rather than saying something completely different and then changing it.

The situation of war is not the same as the situation of society. We are all brought up within society, not war. We rely on our experience of social norms to inform us how to behave, we have learned no such norms for war. If you want to believe that any given soldier will act with an individual morality in times of war by all means do so, but you are mistaken. Rigney, you've just rephrased the question i told you to ask instead of asking the one you originally asked. I'm glad you've changed it. Good luck.

Moral courage to stand your ground? You've moved from military to philosophy. Moral responsibility is deferred to those who are perceived to be in charge. Officers are trained on situational influence. They know, for example, that the perception of them as an authority figure is, in the vast majority of cases, adequate in seeing that a particular task is done. This was shown to us in the 60's by Milgram and repeatedly since. As an aside, how is a foot soldier to decide what is lawful or not? Legal education? Surely not. Their sense of right or wrong (i.e. appealing to their morality in a war zone)? We could use many examples to question this sense of morality, even with only Iraq and Afghanistan throughout the past decade, such as the irradiating of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the melting of people, many of which are innocent, by dropping napalm on them (different classification due to burning temperature is mostly irrelevant). The military is not full of moral philosophers but rather those who are disciplined and obedient. It's a large reason for its effectiveness. One legal scholar among a thousand hardened military matters little to what unfolds.

President Roosevelt was a commander. The chain will often, but not always, go all the way up. My argument stands.

Many people have this view. It comes from the idea that, for example, the US has the moral high ground with regard to ethical conduct in various cultures and countries and therefore it's justified in using military might for ensuring that other cultures value what the US values. With regard to your question, and your assumed assent to the above paragraph of mine, the military is a vehicle for a commanders' opinions and decisions. The guy following orders will follow the orders the vast majority of the time irrespective of the ethical nature of the act. Moral responsibility is deferred to those higher up the chain. So the 'how' of your question (assuming military action is a given in the endeavour), is to make sure our commanders are ethical, and further that they have the guts to act on it. It would seem to ring true that most people are ethical, but just rather lack the guts to act in various matters due to vested interests in other matters, especially policy matters, which is your real question that needs answering. Since it wold appear troublesome to remove the sense of personal identity from our commanders the military seems a poor choice for moral posterity. Although hey, maybe i'm wrong.

This is a nationalist viewpoint, but often times you hold an individualist viewpoint in your posts. This makes your philosophy contradictory. Having a contradictory philosophy doesn't bode well for ethics because it allows you to hold a certain opinion in a particular situation because you have a vested interest to hold it, and then to hold a complete different even opposite opinion in another situation because you have a vested interest in holding it. The holders' opinion becomes spurious by default.

Yes, but above you said you "believed the weakest link was rationality -> empathy" and said that you think you should have titled the thread "rational basis for empathy". How do we get empathy from being rational? Later you've taken empathy as a given in Hank and asked how "he can justify attempting to arrange the universe in the way that he likes", i.e. 'how does Hank justify his actions as moral when they are based on empathy?', but i didn't think we were discussing this as i didn't think empathy was a given in Hank, but rather only rationality was.