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Post by THawk on May 12, 2018 12:18:43 GMT
All of this is just evidence that people can't own up to the logistical ends of their beliefs. Atheists in this case, can't face the music of naturalism, but so it is with some religious beliefs. Mental Olympics.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 12:23:29 GMT
All of this is just evidence that people can't own up to the logistical ends of their beliefs. Atheists in this case, can't face the music of naturalism, but so it is with some religious beliefs. Mental Olympics. Just what is "The music of naturalism" in this case?
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Post by THawk on May 12, 2018 12:29:10 GMT
All of this is just evidence that people can't own up to the logistical ends of their beliefs. Atheists in this case, can't face the music of naturalism, but so it is with some religious beliefs. Mental Olympics. Just what is "The music of naturalism" in this case? The first quoted post is perfectly in tune with naturalism, and the views supportive of it that people are finding to lack empathy.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 12:42:07 GMT
All of this is just evidence that people can't own up to the logistical ends of their beliefs. Atheists in this case, can't face the music of naturalism, but so it is with some religious beliefs. Mental Olympics. Or it's evidence that the "logistical" ends of their beliefs aren't what you think they are. I'm betting it's that.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 12:51:40 GMT
Just what is "The music of naturalism" in this case? The first quoted post is perfectly in tune with naturalism, and the views supportive of it that people are finding to lack empathy. Are you referring to mic's antinatalism? That's consistent with naturalism, but so is every conceivable ethical stance, including stances contradictory to mic's. That's because the only part of nature that has ethical stances is individual persons, and no natural facts imply any ethical stances.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 20:15:22 GMT
Procreation can never be rationally justified by appealing to the needs/interests/desires of someone who doesn't yet exist. Therefore, assuming that the birth is planned, it can only be done to serve the interests of people already existing, but with most of the risk falling on someone whose needs/interests/desires did not justify the action and who could not consent. Right, so that step is a big problem, because "X can not be rationally justified" is never a true statement, for any x. This is because, a fortiori, rationality and justification are noncognitive. So "X can be rationally justified" is never a true statement either. (I'm using "noncognitive" in the sense of philosophical noncognitivism, by the way. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism)Aside from that, with any statement of the form, "S is doing y for H interests," we can only know what H is via asking S. H could be anything conceivable, and S can't be wrong in their answer re H. In other words, we can't deduce what H must be, we can't say, "No, you're really doing y for G interests," etc. This is because "Doing y for H interests" is about how S is thinking about y. You could simply be referring to H as an entity here, and then he making a possessive statement (who do the interests belong to?), but that would be irrelevant to why S is doing y, which is still about how they're thinking about it. Next, the idea of risk quantification isn't supportable (re "most of the risk" ). And re "someone whose needs/desires did not justify or who did not consent," let's say that's a fact. Well, if so, it has zero ethical (or moral) implication, because you can never derive any ought from any is. So there are a bunch of problems with each of those ideas. I've just stated, and you've agreed, that the needs, interests and desires of a non-existent being do not exist. Therefore there is never any factual argument that can be made with respect to what a non-existent person wants or needs. The non-existent person can't 'want' or 'need', therefore any claim that is made on behalf of the non-existent person is categorically false. Whether you think that it's not supportable to quantify the risk, if the child gets a disease, then it will be the child dealing with the effects of the disease and the parent merely inconvenienced by it. Even if the risk can't be quantified, there is still a measure of unnecessary risk that is being imposed upon someone who cannot consent to the proposition and could not lose out if the parents refrained from taking the risk. Hammering a nail through your eye would cause you pain, but since it's not possible to derive an 'ought' from an 'is', I suppose you wouldn't support laws preventing people from doing that?
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 20:25:21 GMT
Right, so that step is a big problem, because "X can not be rationally justified" is never a true statement, for any x. This is because, a fortiori, rationality and justification are noncognitive. So "X can be rationally justified" is never a true statement either. (I'm using "noncognitive" in the sense of philosophical noncognitivism, by the way. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cognitivism)Aside from that, with any statement of the form, "S is doing y for H interests," we can only know what H is via asking S. H could be anything conceivable, and S can't be wrong in their answer re H. In other words, we can't deduce what H must be, we can't say, "No, you're really doing y for G interests," etc. This is because "Doing y for H interests" is about how S is thinking about y. You could simply be referring to H as an entity here, and then he making a possessive statement (who do the interests belong to?), but that would be irrelevant to why S is doing y, which is still about how they're thinking about it. Next, the idea of risk quantification isn't supportable (re "most of the risk" ). And re "someone whose needs/desires did not justify or who did not consent," let's say that's a fact. Well, if so, it has zero ethical (or moral) implication, because you can never derive any ought from any is. So there are a bunch of problems with each of those ideas. I've just stated, and you've agreed, that the needs, interests and desires of a non-existent being do not exist. Therefore there is never any factual argument that can be made with respect to what a non-existent person wants or needs. The non-existent person can't 'want' or 'need', therefore any claim that is made on behalf of the non-existent person is categorically false. Wait a minute. You used the words "rational" and "justified." But now you're not using those words at all. Are you changing your argument (which is fine, I'd just ask that you state the modified argument instead), or are you mentally connecting your comment here to the notions of rationality and justification in some way that you're not making explicit?
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 20:34:33 GMT
I've just stated, and you've agreed, that the needs, interests and desires of a non-existent being do not exist. Therefore there is never any factual argument that can be made with respect to what a non-existent person wants or needs. The non-existent person can't 'want' or 'need', therefore any claim that is made on behalf of the non-existent person is categorically false. Wait a minute. You used the words "rational" and "justified." But now you're not using those words at all. Are you changing your argument (which is fine, I'd just ask that you state the modified argument instead), or are you mentally connecting your comment here to the notions of rationality and justification in some way that you're not making explicit? If you're attributing needs and desires to someone that doesn't exist, that is not "rational" and cannot ever be rational.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 20:38:43 GMT
All of this is just evidence that people can't own up to the logistical ends of their beliefs. Atheists in this case, can't face the music of naturalism, but so it is with some religious beliefs. Mental Olympics. Or it's evidence that the "logistical" ends of their beliefs aren't what you think they are. I'm betting it's that. Atheism does lead to a more rational appraisal of what life is. An understanding of evolution ought to lead towards an understanding of what life is. Unfortunately, a lot of atheists retain many of the narratives of Christianity (that life is profoundly meaningful and sacred in some objective sense that justifies forcing other people to walk a tightrope above a pit of daggers), only with God extracted from them. Cognitive dissonance.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 20:52:43 GMT
Wait a minute. You used the words "rational" and "justified." But now you're not using those words at all. Are you changing your argument (which is fine, I'd just ask that you state the modified argument instead), or are you mentally connecting your comment here to the notions of rationality and justification in some way that you're not making explicit? If you're attributing needs and desires to someone that doesn't exist, that is not "rational" and cannot ever be rational. It's not true or false that anything in particular is or is not rational. I already talked about that. Rationality is noncognitive.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 20:58:48 GMT
If you're attributing needs and desires to someone that doesn't exist, that is not "rational" and cannot ever be rational. It's not true or false that anything in particular is or is not rational. I already talked about that. Rationality is noncognitive. So you think that there's nothing wrong with an argument that invokes the alleged needs and desires of an entity that doesn't exist? There's no reason why such an argument shouldn't be the main pillar of justifying harm and risk to actual conscious entities?
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 21:14:10 GMT
It's not true or false that anything in particular is or is not rational. I already talked about that. Rationality is noncognitive. So you think that there's nothing wrong with an argument that invokes the alleged needs and desires of an entity that doesn't exist? There's no reason why such an argument shouldn't be the main pillar of justifying harm and risk to actual conscious entities? I wouldn't agree with the argument, but that would just be my opinion (and the opinion of anyone who feels the same way). That doesn't make it wrong. Such things are not wrong or right. There is no wrong or right in this sense when it comes to ethics, justification, etc. in general. There are simply ways that people feel. Feeling some way doesn't make it right, and that's the case regardless of however many people feel some way, however many people agree with each other. It's also not wrong of course. Wrong and right in this sense (which is different than yay/boo emotivist sense) are category errors.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 21:27:33 GMT
So you think that there's nothing wrong with an argument that invokes the alleged needs and desires of an entity that doesn't exist? There's no reason why such an argument shouldn't be the main pillar of justifying harm and risk to actual conscious entities? I wouldn't agree with the argument, but that would just be my opinion (and the opinion of anyone who feels the same way). That doesn't make it wrong. Such things are not wrong or right. There is no wrong or right in this sense when it comes to ethics, justification, etc. in general. There are simply ways that people feel. Feeling some way doesn't make it right, and that's the case regardless of however many people feel some way, however many people agree with each other. It's also not wrong of course. Wrong and right in this sense (which is different than yay/boo emotivist sense) are category errors. If the entity they're speaking for, then how is it not 'wrong' to be claiming to do something on behalf of that entity? If that's the reason given for why they need to procreate, then they are at best mistaken, because there is no disembodied soul urging them from the void. So it would be equally as 'wrong' to claim that as to claim possession by the devil. Suffering is something that exists universally in conscious entities (even if everyone has a slightly different subjective experience of suffering). Do you think that it is nonsensical for human societies to develop codes of conduct that take suffering into account? I'm wanting to know whether you think that there should be no enforced code of morals in society, or whether you think that it ought to be every man, woman and child for themselves. If you think that there's no reason to discourage taking unnecessary and dangerous gambles with the plight of harmable and vulnerable entities, I'm interested in exactly where you would draw the line with respects to what is accepted conduct.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 21:48:48 GMT
I wouldn't agree with the argument, but that would just be my opinion (and the opinion of anyone who feels the same way). That doesn't make it wrong. Such things are not wrong or right. There is no wrong or right in this sense when it comes to ethics, justification, etc. in general. There are simply ways that people feel. Feeling some way doesn't make it right, and that's the case regardless of however many people feel some way, however many people agree with each other. It's also not wrong of course. Wrong and right in this sense (which is different than yay/boo emotivist sense) are category errors. If the entity they're speaking for, then how is it not 'wrong' to be claiming to do something on behalf of that entity? If that's the reason given for why they need to procreate, then they are at best mistaken, because there is no disembodied soul urging them from the void. So it would be equally as 'wrong' to claim that as to claim possession by the devil. There is a difference between these two utterances: "I killed all of the people in that restaurant as an offering to the demon who lives in my socks." "There is a demon who lives in my socks." One, the second utterance, is an existential claim. The truthmaker is something external to the person. The first is not an existential claim. The first is a motivational claim. It's connected to a belief the person has, and that belief could fuel an existential claim, but a motivational claim is not an existential claim, and neither is the person's belief qua their belief. The "truthmaker" for the first claim is the person's mental content. Just in case that was really their motivation, and that's really their belief, then that's really why they're acting as they are. In other words, all we can say is true of false in that case is whether that was really their thinking, whether those are really their beliefs. You can't say that It's right to act for one set of reasons and beliefs contra some other set of reasons and beliefs, because there are no facts to that effect. There would be no truthmaker for that claim. It would just be a matter of whether you personally feel that people should act for one set of reasons versus another.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 22:15:40 GMT
If the entity they're speaking for, then how is it not 'wrong' to be claiming to do something on behalf of that entity? If that's the reason given for why they need to procreate, then they are at best mistaken, because there is no disembodied soul urging them from the void. So it would be equally as 'wrong' to claim that as to claim possession by the devil. There is a difference between these two utterances: "I killed all of the people in that restaurant as an offering to the demon who lives in my socks." "There is a demon who lives in my socks." One, the second utterance, is an existential claim. The truthmaker is something external to the person. The first is not an existential claim. The first is a motivational claim. It's connected to a belief the person has, and that belief could fuel an existential claim, but a motivational claim is not an existential claim, and neither is the person's belief qua their belief. The "truthmaker" for the first claim is the person's mental content. Just in case that was really their motivation, and that's really their belief, then that's really why they're acting as they are. In other words, all we can say is true of false in that case is whether that was really their thinking, whether those are really their beliefs. You can't say that It's right to act for one set of reasons and beliefs contra some other set of reasons and beliefs, because there are no facts to that effect. There would be no truthmaker for that claim. It would just be a matter of whether you personally feel that people should act for one set of reasons versus another. Well in that case, the people who know that, by definition, non-existent people don't exist (and thus don't have any interests, needs or desires) should set out rules that prevent people from harming real people (or bringing real people into the world to be harmed) via their deluded 'motivational claims'.
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Post by Terrapin Station on May 12, 2018 22:18:08 GMT
There is a difference between these two utterances: "I killed all of the people in that restaurant as an offering to the demon who lives in my socks." "There is a demon who lives in my socks." One, the second utterance, is an existential claim. The truthmaker is something external to the person. The first is not an existential claim. The first is a motivational claim. It's connected to a belief the person has, and that belief could fuel an existential claim, but a motivational claim is not an existential claim, and neither is the person's belief qua their belief. The "truthmaker" for the first claim is the person's mental content. Just in case that was really their motivation, and that's really their belief, then that's really why they're acting as they are. In other words, all we can say is true of false in that case is whether that was really their thinking, whether those are really their beliefs. You can't say that It's right to act for one set of reasons and beliefs contra some other set of reasons and beliefs, because there are no facts to that effect. There would be no truthmaker for that claim. It would just be a matter of whether you personally feel that people should act for one set of reasons versus another. Well in that case, the people who know that, by definition, non-existent people don't exist (and thus don't have any interests, needs or desires) should set out rules that prevent people from harming real people (or bringing real people into the world to be harmed) via their deluded 'motivational claims'. They should set out those rules per what? I don't feel that same way.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 22:24:59 GMT
Well in that case, the people who know that, by definition, non-existent people don't exist (and thus don't have any interests, needs or desires) should set out rules that prevent people from harming real people (or bringing real people into the world to be harmed) via their deluded 'motivational claims'. They should set out those rules per what? I don't feel that same way. Per the fact that non-existent people don't exist, and therefore you cannot be serving the interests of someone who doesn't exist. Very few people would be happy to be put in danger for the sake of appeasing an entity that doesn't exist (by definition), so it makes sense to protect actual people over people's feelings that they are taking risks to serve the presumed wants or needs an entity that doesn't exist. I mean, would you not agree that it's a bad idea to have laws based on the Bible? If you would agree that we shouldn't be harming real people for the sake of appeasing a god that doesn't exist; then why would it be acceptable to harm real people for the sake of people who don't exist?
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Post by Lugh on May 12, 2018 22:46:58 GMT
They should set out those rules per what? I don't feel that same way. Per the fact that non-existent people don't exist, and therefore you cannot be serving the interests of someone who doesn't exist. Very few people would be happy to be put in danger for the sake of appeasing an entity that doesn't exist (by definition), so it makes sense to protect actual people over people's feelings that they are taking risks to serve the presumed wants or needs an entity that doesn't exist. I mean, would you not agree that it's a bad idea to have laws based on the Bible? If you would agree that we shouldn't be harming real people for the sake of appeasing a god that doesn't exist; then why would it be acceptable to harm real people for the sake of people who don't exist? So what about stopping a potential holocaust? If I could have pressed a button in the year 1456 that would have stopped the holocaust before it started would I not be serving the interests of anyone because the people did not exist yet that would experience the holocaust?
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 22:57:03 GMT
Per the fact that non-existent people don't exist, and therefore you cannot be serving the interests of someone who doesn't exist. Very few people would be happy to be put in danger for the sake of appeasing an entity that doesn't exist (by definition), so it makes sense to protect actual people over people's feelings that they are taking risks to serve the presumed wants or needs an entity that doesn't exist. I mean, would you not agree that it's a bad idea to have laws based on the Bible? If you would agree that we shouldn't be harming real people for the sake of appeasing a god that doesn't exist; then why would it be acceptable to harm real people for the sake of people who don't exist? So what about stopping a potential holocaust? If I could have pressed a button in the year 1456 that would have stopped the holocaust before it started would I not be serving the interests of anyone because the people did not exist yet that would experience the holocaust? How would you have known in 1456 which button would have stopped the holocaust occurring hundreds of years later? If it were possible and the people who existed in that timeline were the same as those who would exist in the future timeline, then you'd be benefiting people who were inevitably going to exist (as opposed to people who would never exist because you decided against bringing them into existence). That's a completely different scenario from parents who are deciding whether or not to have a child or not. If they decide not to have the child, then there is no future in which that child could suffer or be deprived as a consequence of their decision. If they do have the child, then upon being born, the child will have to start enduring the consequences of that decision. If there is a nuclear holocaust that puts an end to all life on Earth, then the only sentient organisms that could suffer are the ones who already existed at the time of the blast (assuming that it was a swift death and not something that lingered on for a long time).
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2018 23:26:00 GMT
Or it's evidence that the "logistical" ends of their beliefs aren't what you think they are. I'm betting it's that. Atheism does lead to a more rational appraisal of what life is. Perhaps, for some. Not for others, though. Atheism in no way equates to an understanding of evolution. Plenty of theists understand evolution just fine. And indeed most people who understand evolution are theists. It's perfectly possible for an atheist to view life as profoundly meaningful or as meaningless. Atheism doesn't inherently lead to any view on any other subject. Atheism is not a worldview and doesn't lead to any worldview; it is a group of responses to a particular claim., and nothing more
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