No it's not. It's do what you want most. I.e. do what you want unless there's something that you want more. That's summed up by 'Do what you want most' with no exceptions. Examples? Right. And nothing can be settled that way. That's a scepticism that just says "moral problems can't be solved, just do what you think is right". You also didn't adequately answer my point about predictions. You say that all our decisions are based on subjective feelings, but we also make decisions based on feelings that we expect to have. We cannot have this justification without some kind of knowledge about our nature, detached from what we are feeling at that moment in time, i.e. objective. Can we make such predictions or not?
And what if what you want most at a particular time isn't what will benefit you most? Should children stay at home eating ice cream instead of going to school? Should the temporarily deranged murder people? Obviously not. I can't be bothered to search though the thread, but did you not say that rationality isn't the only component to our decision making? No objective answer can be found to them. It is not a matter of looking at a moral problem and saying "this is too difficult, I don't think I can solve it"; if you understand what is happening you realise that it doesn't make any sense to try and find objective answers to moral questions. In the future people will probably have difficulty even trying to understand what we mean by looking for an answer to moral questions. I didn't say we have no knowledge of ourselves. We just cannot deduce any moral facts from our nature.
Yeah. We're not always being rational. But you're trying to say that we can't be rational in our decision making. That's a much bigger claim. Maybe. Maybe not. Even if I'm right that there's an objectivity to morality, it might still be that it's not a good way to look at it. Well think about it, you say that morality has foundations in our feelings and they are clearly founded in our nature. Sometimes we act on what we're feeling that moment in time, sometimes we can abstract the situation from what we're feeling and work on predictions based on facts about our nature. Once we do that we've put our subjectivity aside in favour of an objective approach. I'm not saying that it's always the best way to approach morality - I personally think that to always treat it this way would be to miss the point to a large degree, just that it can be treated this way and sometimes it is appropiate, like when we are facing a dilemna that our intuitions bring up or when we want to make decisions that we don't have 'immediate feelings' to follow on.
So you agree that some aspects of our decision making process contradict your first premise? You've completely missed the point. Two people can come to different conclusions about how they should act by observing the world and neither would be objectively right or wrong. I could say that it is better to achieve personal success and another might say it is more important to live in a country where the average man is better off. Although you can use objective facts in achieving both of these goals, you cannot objectively say that we SHOULD do one or the other, that is a matter of subjectivity. You seem to be equating my idea of a subjective emotional decision to an impulsive choice, lacking any foresight. Although the decisions are ultimately dependent upon ourselves, they still are informed and affected by the outside world. If I wanted to have a Communist revolution I would act in a certain way. If I wanted to be a business man I would act in a certain way. Both the ways of acting would involve foresight and reacting to the world around us, but ultimately they would be decided by my personal decision. You cannot deduce from the world whether either ways of live are inherently better, you can only decide what you think is better (and that does not necessarily mean 'will make you more happy', it is something that , I believe, only makes sense in a subjective context).
I'd say that we have different decision making processes. Atleast one of them could be described as rational. Dude, you're strawmanning me here. Sure there are examples of things that are completely subjective. That doesn't mean some things can't be objective. And objective doesn't have to mean absolute. "Dogs are likely to hunt in packs" is an objective claim, even though it doesn't make absolute claims about all dogs. Not really. Just making the point - if you're relying purely on subjective feelings then you have less grounds to make predictions. On the other hand, if you take on board objective facts about human nature, you can make decisions without being limited to what your feelings tell you that moment in time. Not Yes, and there are grounds to judge whether that personal decision is a rational or irrational one. There are reasons why people are attracted to communism or business. There are psychological and anthropological facts that can explain these things. You appear to want to ignore these. Then you will say "Well, I accept the facts but I don't see why I should base my decisions around them". Then I will point out that atleast one mode of our decision making language allows for rational decision making, and it can allow us to make rational decisions about what to aim for based on these facts.
I think you're oversimplifying our decision making process into several separate processes. How do you actually think decision making works? I would also like to know what you think the word "should" actually means? I'm not strawmanning you at all. I was showing how we could use objective facts to make subjective decisions. I haven't said that objective facts are absolute and I'd agree that "dogs are likely to hunt in pakcs" is an objective statement. When did I even deny that we can acknowledge objective facts? Never. You seem to consider actions without an anthropological basis irrational and ones with an anthropological basis rational. You seems to have a pretty simplistic and, more importantly, deeply wrong idea of morality. You can only show this by using words incorrectly. Why don't you give a precise definition of the word "should" and we'll see if anything you say actually makes any sense.
I think you're assuming that there's one overall decision process. The decision-making language I've used certainly reflects atleast one mode of our decision making practice. The 'if you want to then you ought to'. It recognises that happiness tends to have a place in our this language where it's the aim. Then it's hard to see what your objections are coming from. "Dogs are likely to hunt in packs" and "Men will want to eat atleast once a day" are objective facts. The latter can be used in a decision. A person might usually eat when they're hungry, but perhaps they recognise that they have one chance to get food one day. So although they are not hungry at that moment in time (i.e. they don't have a subjective feeling to work on) they know, through facts of their own nature, that they are likely to be feeling hungry later and will want to eat something. So they can make the decision to save the food on a purely objective basis. Not at all. I'm simply showing how morality can be treated rationally. I've given you examples already. We've boiled enough eggs to make a generation of chickens extint! The word is too fundamental to be defined by other words. I've given you examples to show how it can be used as the 'should' of practical reason. What's more, you seem to change you mind about practical reason from post to post. Sometimes you are only partially sceptical when other times you are completely sceptical. The difficulty with arguing with you is that whenever I make headway on a point you jump to a different one and then when I make a point on that one you jump back to the old one. Sometimes you agree that there's some kind of practical reason and other times you don't. If, for this post, you are accepting that there is some kind of practical reason then you agree that there's a rational and irrational way to achieve an aim. (If I want a boiled egg then... etc) It ought to be common sense that lesser aims can be judged in terms of greater aims. (i.e. I might desire a cake but if I know it is poisoned then I do not want to fail my greater desire to stay alive) All we'd need now is to determine what are our greater desires that the lesser ones are judged by. Yes, one source of knowledge is our feelings. However, our feelings clearly aren't perfect guides else we wouldn't feel regret for things that felt right at the time. Another source is that we can look at our nature objectively and try and find out what our key desires are through observation. And from these objective facts about what we are aiming for, we can objectively work out how to achieve these aims, thereby appeasing our nature without having to learn the hard way through regrets. I am not claiming that morality should always be treated rationally. If you take feelings out of the equation and try to work purely rationally then it is garaunteed to go wrong. That doesn't mean that there's aren't objective facts about morality that can be applied when it's appropiate.
Right in principle, S - but it's worth thinking about the details.... for example, what evidence do you have that there even is a subjective view? Subjective experience?? Better to say, in my view, that we can establish conceptually that "judgment" is artificial, and that beyond it, well, there's an equinimity - no thing is "better" or "worse" than anything, not because of subjective standpoints, but because judgment is an artificial conceptual creation. Reason for nit-picking that is that "subjective" itslef is an ideological conceit. The "I" that has the subjective experience, in my view, is "installed" via language and conceptual structures that come from society - so a purely subjective judgment is impoosible - we use the words, concepts, and ideas, for the most part, of our society. As forthe original point - bravo! Religionists only use their superior morality as prop for their ego anyway. "Evil" is an idea created out of self pity. And humans, for the most part, get on ok, regardless of whether they have religion or not. It's lack of social cohesion - obviosuly - that causes all the probelms associated with, ta dah - lack of social cohesion!
Your whole view of morality and decision making is completely incoherent. Can you tell you me how you think we do make decisions? How we should make decisions? How one decision making process is logically better than another (and by logically better, I do not just mean "looks like it's been thought about", I mean something that you can show is always better to follow, regardless of your perspective and that we can't simply choose to ignore.) No. I can't believe you still don't see why that doesn't make sense. Give me a precise definition of the word "should". It is not a word that can be defined in objective terms. You're trying to make a logical argument using words that cannot even be logically defined. You use an example of it and treat it as though it was a definition. It is equivalent to my painting analogy. The reason why the word cannot be defined in terms of other words is because it isn't logical. There is nothing that follows from it's definition. It can't even be precisely defined. It is something that that we only understand emotionally, instinctively and subjectively. Trying to extrapolate a precise definition from certain usage is deeply misguided in my opinion. Would you agree that the beauty of a painting is something that is only experienced subjectively? If so, where do you think the difference between your argument and my analogy are? As far as I remember, I haven't changed my opinion before. I'd personally consider it sensible to act morally, but I don't believe it has anything to do with logic. I agree with practical reason to some extent, but I don't think it logically follows from it that we 'ought' to do anything. I agree with the first half of the argument: that different actions have different outcomes and it is an objective fact that certain outcomes are more likely to follow from certain acts than other acts. We can then use the objective facts to deduce which act will follow which actions and, thus, we can know which actions (hypothetically at least) will cause a certain consequence. I have always admitted this and have never tried to deny it. What I do disagree with is that we can jump from this knowledge to objective knowledge of how we should behave. The first premise alone cannot tell us how we should act and when you add the second premise, the objectivity of the argument falls down, as you're applying personal (even though they may be shared across the species) preferences. Why should we aim for X not Y? Errr...we just do. This is ok if 'should' only refers to the best way to achieve an aim, but it doesn't; it isn't defined in terms of any objective states at all.
I don't make any claims of this nature. Just that some modes of decision making we call 'rational' and others that we don't. Obviously we can't rationally justify rationality, as such a justification would only mean anything to someone who had already accepted rationality. Who says that the words need to be logically defined? We need to understand the words, yes. Precise definition allows for more precise arguments, indeed. However, meaning starts at how we use words in everyday life. You agree that we can use practical reason, right? We have a mode of language that uses the word 'should' in that way. No, I cannot define it in terms of other words. I instead rely on the fact that you use it yourself. And you do. The different is that your painting analogy clearly misunderstood the phrase. I was giving an example of language how we do use it. We do make decisions where we decide that we 'ought' to do something based on rational considerations. We don't always use 'ought' in this way but we do. You're strawmanning logic again. You're assuming that logic is has to be precise. While logical argument favours precision, we can still have logic without absolute precision, it just means that our arguments are also less absolute. I think that the difference is that aesthetics are determined purely by taste of the moment. What is 'good' for a person is different to what they have taste in. This is something I need to think more on though. It appears that you're getting hung up over the word 'ought' again. You accuse me of re-defining ought, but I recognise that we use it in a variety of ways, and one of these ways is in the context of practical reason. You, on the other hand, seem to want to stick to one use of 'ought' and declare it the only one. Why should we aim for X not Y? There are two possibilities: 1) We just do. It's a natural fact that we aim for X and not Y You'd be right that this has nothing to do with rationality, and is just a fact about our nature. 2) It's a natural fact that Z is what we aim for most, so we can make a rational observation that aiming for X helps us achieve Z while Y doesn't. So given that we have greater aim Z, we can make rational judgements between lesser aims. Then all we'd need to make judgements between X's and Y's would be to determine what our Z's are, and the Z's are what I call needs - the things we naturally aim for. So practical reason is about achieve what we naturally aim for. We work out what our most fundamental aims are and how to achieve them.
Well what do you mean by someone that has accepted rationality? Someone that has decided to do what is good for them? I think you're right that a word does not need to be precisely defined to be used correctly. I do not use the word should in the way you think I do. I may use that particular sentence, but the meaning is not the same as you are suggesting. If by 'practical reason' you mean being sensible, then I agree with it. If you mean that we can deduce an objective standard by which out actions are measured, I disagree. That is the exact accusation I am making of you. You have misunderstood the phrase in the same way as the person in the analogy. But we are arguing about what we "should" do, so the fact that you seem to have a pretty vague definition of the word should is a bit worrying if you're deducing your consequences from it's definition. I think you've misunderstood the meaning of the word 'should'. Out of interest, do you think the word 'should' in "you should not kill him" is the same as in "you should get a job to pay for the wii"? Why is it any different? The only difference is that we happen to share our natural drives. If we all liked the same art and music, you'd probably think there was an objective standard by which it can be judged. You may even say, "good art is the kind of art that causes X chemical to be released in the brain" and try to define it by that. But it really misses the point of what it means for a piece of art to be "good" or "beautiful". In all fairness, the meaning of the word ought is of central importance to this debate. The way I see it, you have made the mistake of defining the word 'ought' as a set of separate words, so that according practical reason "if x is blah..we 'ought' to blah", however in some other decision making process "if X is blah..we ought to do something else". In my opinion this is just trying to fit precise definition to an imprecise, subjective term. Going back to my painting analogy, I would say you were doing the equivalent of saying one use of "good" is that "art that causes X chemical to be released is good', another usage is "art that causes X electrical impulses to fire is good" etc. While they both my correspond to when we use the words, so that when we say something is good happens to coincide with a certain release of chemicals, they do not really describe what we mean by "good". 2) is just as irrational as 1), it just happens to reach it's conclusion through more steps. There is point where we suddenly gain knowledge of an objective truth. Why is it not logical to say we just happen to aim for X rather than Y, but it is logical to say we just happen to aim for X, rather than Y and Z helps us get X. You're just adding in another layer. There is still no rational reason to pick X over Y. The fact that you perform one action with another in mind doesn't make it logical all of a sudden.
That someone is using a rational process/language to make their decisions. Otherwise you cannot rationally convince them of something as reason can only convince them of something if they are already using the decision-making process that is affected by reason. I know that's the accusation you were making. The thing is, you refute yourself by using the word 'should' in a similar way in the next paragraph: Can be. Might not be. Let's look at the possible contexts: "You should not kill him. We can manipulate him to help us kill the prime minister." - That's clearly the same rational 'should' as the Wii sentence, thinking purely in terms of reason to achieve the aim. You agree with that, right? You were perhaps thinking more along the lines of: "You should not kill him! That's a horrific thing to do!" I agree with you that's a different 'should'. I have said many times in this thread that we don't always treat morality rationally, and I don't think that we should always treat morality rationally, but that we can treat morality rationally and that there is practical application for this. That is, although the person in the above sentence wasn't making a rational argument against murder, a rational argument against murder was potentially possible. My claim isn't centred around the word 'should'. My claim is that decision making can be treated rationally and there is potential for objective facts about morality. I agree that aesthetics are purely subjective Not really. I've simply contrasted two separate ways we use ought in real life. Another point I should make is that if you reject my usage of ought then you reject all practical reason. You reject the very language that makes practical language. No philosopher has ever gone that far. This is why you come across as having scepticism for the sake of scepticism, and it works because this is an issue I can't prove you on. You either have this grasp of language or you don't. I can see you have this grasp of language could you make examples, and sometimes you even accept a certain level of practical reason, but then you say something else that denies it all. Do you accept that we can use 'ought' in the context of practical reason or not? Not really. (2) Needs (1) in place, i.e. that we just happen to value Z most of all, but once we have in place the premise "We value Z most of all", all lesser desires can be judged in terms of Z. So I start with the following foundations: The rational ought is to do what will achieve the needs. Through anthropology we observe facts about what a person's needs. From here, lesser desires can be rationally evaluated in terms of what our needs are. Yes there is. Start with the following premises: 1) I ought to achieve my most important aim (claim of practical reason) 2) My most important aim is Z (claim about human nature) 3) Choosing X over Y will help me achieve Z while choosing Y over X will hinder it. (fact about the consequences of indulging desires X and Y) It follows logically that I ought to choose X over Y. I think that this argument could even be translated into first order logic and proven analytically.
The point is that I don't consider the different uses of the word should to be using different definition of the word should. I think the fact that you consider them to be separate is the mistake you're making. Well I think morality is just aesthetics. Any usage of the word 'ought' in practical reason is a value judgment . Nothing is really gained in the second example. It's simply a red herring. "I ought to achieve my most important claim"- not objectively true; value judgment; nothing to do with facts. In the philosophy of science today we started learning about a philosopher called Kuhn. He seems to agree with me even more than I do, so you might want to check him out. My teacher said that some of his ideas go back to Hume's is-ought problem which you seemed to ignore when I brought it up earlier. Have a look at him and see what you think.
The take of Islam on morality... I know there are many Islam haters from many ideologies(mostly because of serious lack of knowledge about that religion; taking info from TV), but may i post here the concept of morality in Islam? First of all, the prophet Mohammad(p&pbuh) said:"Verily, i was sent to fulfill the nobility of character." Which makes morality an axis of Islam. Now how to acquire morality? We in Islam have 2 ways to accomplish that: 1- Mental. 2- Spiritual. 1- The mental one. It is a reward/punishment system. In Islam, we believe that all our deeds are recorded, in a scroll, that we will receive at the judgment day, and our deeds will be balanced: if the pan of goodness is heavier, you go to heaven, and if not, you go to hell. I should also mention, that one good deed, counts as 10, and God multiplies for whom he the almighty thinks he deserves more. So if you did one goodness, you need to do 10 bad things to balance it out(if you are stupid). And of course there are many degrees. Like if someone's good pan was way too heavier than the bad one: he will go to a higher status heaven, with Jesus(p&pbuh) for example. It is a simple sort of a "deal". You do an moral act, you have your reward, in these 2 images together(not one of them): a) You get to have a blessed life. Like for example, having the love of people, live peacefully with your family, you don't get sick a lot, you know what i mean? Some good life! Happy life! b) He will get his reward as a form of a pleasure in heaven. Like i said: degrees. And you and your will to build your own heaven. You can make it bigger, build more castles, according to how much moral acts you did. 16:97:"Whosoever doeth right, whether male or female, and is a believer, him verily We shall quicken with good life, and We shall pay them a recompense in proportion to the best of what they used to do." You do an immoral act, you get one of these two(except for some really bad deeds that you get punished in life and in the hell, like wronging someone badly with bad intent): a) Either that something bad that happens to you in this world, like having your car bumped, or losing a little bit of money in your business, you get a sprain ankle, etc.. And it's always as the size of what you did. If you screwed up big time, you will get punished big time. And vice versa. And this punishment isn't really like, instantaneous, no, God gives you a chance to repent, and another, and another, until you are like:"Man i am a jackass! I should stop what i am doing!" And when you repent, and do good deeds, the immoral things you did in the past, will turn to good deeds in your scroll. b) Or if your balance pan of badness was heavier, so you go to hell, until you pay for the bad immoral things you did, then you go to heaven with the good things you did. And they all come in like a test: God puts you in a situation of choice: which one are you going to do? The moral or immoral act? 2- Spiritual. In Islam, we believe that to the spiritual rituals we do, not only they get us rewards and fill up our scrolls, but they also improve ourselves from inside spiritually, to get us more pure. And we believe Islam is the religion of "instinct", which means that a person with pure heart, will feel comfortable with the teachings of Islam. And being moral, is one of Islam teachings. And not only that, it makes us loath the immoral doings, not just stop them but still wanting them. Conclusion: Now you manage yourself with both ways. Sometimes, you are weak to perform rituals which improve the spirit, so you depend on thinking logically:"I shouldn't be doing this! It's bad!" Or sometimes, when your spirit is high, you act with your pure instinct. And you keep working that way, until both ways are impregnated inside you: you feel hate towards doing an immoral act, and it's logical for you not to make it Notes: 1- It is also down to how much you love God. If you love God, you won't disobey him, you will obey with love, and you will get your reward in this life and the hereafter. 2- Following God's rules always - even if seemed illogical sometimes - gets you to safe places, and it always carries a wisdom, why God made it that way, why God made this forbidden, and this allowed, or do this, or do that. It always become clear, when you perform your duty and apply teachings, why were they made. I hope you understand me. Cheers,,, Out...
This is something I can't argue against. Consider the two statements with 'ought' in, would you really react to them or use them in the same circumstances? If not then it proves you are wrong because both version have slightly different uses. If so then it's not a point I can prove against you. I just think you'd need to think again. I'm fine with that. The thing is, what is value if it doesn't cohere with my model of decision making? I would like to see a coherent definition from you. It completely refuted the point you were making. It showed how lesser desires can be judged rationally in terms of a greater one, so a person could make a rational decision to suppress one and indulge the other. So given we have greater desires we are aware of, we can make rational judgements about our lesser ones. Or maybe it's a fact about how we use a certain kind of language and how we can make decisions. Look, even if it's just possible for there to be a language game that has the rules that I have described then my position holds. Why? Because if it is possible for there to be that language game then it is possible to make decisions in a rational way. Then we have ground for rational decision making. Your claim that we never use language in that way (and it must be your claim otherwise it contradicts your conclusion!) is pretty far fetched and everyone who has debated you in this topic seems to have use language in this way from time to time. You also seem to implicitly understand this mode of language from time to time which means that you might as well. I liked Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science. I'm not sure what you're talking about ignoring the 'is ought' problem. This whole topic is dedicated to the 'is ought' problem, we just haven't been calling it that name.
Make the question more clear. I don't believe the argument you are making holds. Values only exist in our mental reception of the world. There is no deduction of the objective world that we can make from them. No. The point is that you agree that it is irrational to do X if we just do prefer X over Y, yet it somehow becomes rational if we include a trivial third alternative Z that allows us to obtain X. I agree, yet I don't believe that it is possible to define a word in such a way that it can be recognised in terms of objective fact and still have a certain action follow definitionally from it. They seem to use language in this way from time to time, but I do not think they really do. Take then sentence "Stafio wants a Wii, so Strafio should save up for a Wii". Everyone else seems to believe that this is a logical argument demonstrating an objective truth and that this argument has the form "If you want X and Y allows you to have X, you should do Y". However, I disagree. I think the word 'should' is not defined in such terms and is in fact a far more vague concept that actually makes more sense in our inner values and feelings. So when someone says "Strafio should save up for a Wii", I may agree with statement, but I would not think that I have found an objective truth. I would realize that in my wider idea of what the word 'should' means, I instinctively feel that Strafio should save up for a Wii. If however the question asked was "should Strafio mug this old lady in order to buy a Wii, even if it will have no negative consequences for him", I would say no. Even though it disagrees with your logical understanding of what the word 'should' means, I feel the word should is a more subtle complex word that cannot be defined in such terms. Again, I feel I should make the same analogy as before. If I said "the Mona Lisa is a beautiful", it might make sense to interpret that as that by understanding the word 'beautiful' to mean 'contains a woman facing to our left', without any contradictions. However, if we truly understand what the word beautiful means, we know that it means something very different. What you are doing is exactly the same. While I may agree that someone should do something when your logic agrees, that doesn't mean that I believe you have made a valid argument. I think you brush it under the carpet somewhat. You make a somewhat complicated argument where words are confused and the real issue gets buried somewhat. If you think carefully about it it seems absurd to suggest that you can gain an ought from an is. How about we take a different approach to this question: instead of saying why what you believe is right and then assuming that the is-ought problem is solved as a by-product, try to look at where the is-ought problem is wrong.
