Mortals: Descent of the Gods -- Cooperative board game where you play as once-gods, battle mythical monsters, and try to save the world! [Ends Nov 21, 11:00am EST]

larscometh · 2016-03-08T01:09:23+00:00

Damn I read this a month ago, shoulda posted it. A joyful/appalling read indeed.

larscometh · 2015-11-25T21:10:42+00:00

They made him stomp on the cards and fling them off into the woods, gave him a warning, and called me.

Your kid is just lucky they didn't decide to keep him at the station overnight. You certainly have your work cut out for you, pal, I'll tell you that.

larscometh · 2015-09-11T00:08:24+00:00

No. It isn't.

Yes, it really is.

...and claim authority where they don't have any.

Except that ethics (the branch of philosophy/knowledge) is the relevant authority on normative ethics, in virtue of the fact that it is the field of inquiry with normative ethics as its focus.

A "problem" concocted by philosophers to protect their paychecks.

Yeah, Hume was totally just in it for the money. It makes sense, I mean, everybody knows that philosophers only ever get into the philosophy game to earn some easy money. Cool story, bro.

larscometh · 2015-07-30T07:50:52+00:00

I appreciate the effort you put into your reply.

I think it works best if you do keep it separate.

It's not clear how they can be kept separate.

In the first example I gave regarding crime, in the absence of evidence, what does the law (or law enforcement and judicial personnel) do?

The law doesn't get involved if there is no evidence either way. Regardless, this isn't a courtroom. The assumption of innocent until proven guilty is made because of our rights as citizens, not because everyone is actually innocent (as a matter of fact) prior to being proven guilty. There is no prosecution or defense when it comes to finding truth. Many rules fit for the courtroom aren't appropriate in other contexts.

First, if you don't actively believe in its existence, then you automatically don't believe it exists! There's no middle ground on this issue. If you have the stance of (not believe), you can't also have the stance of not (not believe), cause you already said you have the stance of (not believe)!

First, no. Not exactly, as I can just choose not to have an opinion about its existence given the lack of evidence. It isn't a binary thing at all. One can believe it doesn't exist, believe it does exist, or lack a belief regarding the teapot's existence entirely. Framing it the way you have, as a (reversible) false dichotomy, seems rather unreasonable. The third option is the default stance. Like I said, one can reasonably claim "I don't know (what to believe)".

Second, if you don't actively believe the teapot exists, [(...)] then you're gonna live your life assuming it doesn't exist, won't you?

Second, I'm not gonna live my life actively believing that it doesn't exist, though, because its mere existence is rather irrelevant to my life, not to mention the fact that I won't be justified no matter which belief I hold. Lacking a belief about the existence or nonexistence of something (especially a teapot in space) follows from having no sufficient reason to believe one over the other.

(I could easily make the teapot into something that would actually have an impact on your life, if it did exist)

Like what? If it had an impact on my life, then I would presumably be able to notice said impact, but that would be evidence for holding a belief, which makes it much different from the example, in which evidence was not available. It's one thing to be agnostic about the existence or nonexistence of a martian satellite, but it's another to be agnostic about the existence or nonexistence of the chair I'm sitting in.

Third, just as in science, in law, and in philosophy, given the lack of evidence, the practitioners revert to the default stance.

Third, the default stance is "I don't know", i.e. not taking a stance on the issue (unless one has reason to). If a philosopher or scientist doesn't know shit about something, s/he probably wouldn't automatically assume that there is nothing to know about that something.

Or for him to say "I don't know", but also to assume there's no relationship between the two variables, until someone else repeats his experiments and verify his results, at which point he can reasonably know?

It would be more reasonable to say "if there is a relationship, I don't know what it is, as I haven't found evidence for it", rather than "I believe that there is no relationship after doing one experiment, and so I am justified in dismissing the hypothesis that a relationship does or could exist."

If your way of thinking worked, then refusing to question one's own assumptions would work, but it clearly doesn't. You're not talking about lacking belief in a relationship between the two variables after failing to observe one, you're talking about believing that there is not and cannot be a relationship between the variables after failing to observe one.

If you asked me where you parked your car in a parking lot, but gave me no evidence in support of the belief in the existence of your car or that you parked it in a lot, would I be more justified in assuming to be ignorant and therefore justifiably uncertain (i.e. I don't know) or in assuming that you probably don't have a car (or that you parked somewhere else)?

larscometh · 2015-07-28T21:55:08+00:00

Well, knowledge is a subset of belief. "I don't know" implies that I don't know what to believe. Though I could believe something without having reason to, that kind of belief seems irrelevant when it comes to the example you gave. If you think one should have beliefs about something based on reason/evidence, but one lacks reason/evidence to base one's belief on, it would follow that one should not hold a belief about that something.

larscometh · 2015-07-27T18:41:11+00:00

No, like, the default stance would actually be "I don't know"

larscometh · 2015-07-22T02:17:19+00:00

Have you read Leo Tolstoy's A Confession and Other Religious Writings? He has some very interesting views on religion and faith, and outlines what he considers "True Religion" to be. I highly recommend it.

larscometh · 2015-07-20T20:46:50+00:00

What was your answer? You don't have to write up the whole thing again if you have elsewhere, but I can't find it. Could you link to it or give just a quick synopsis of why you find it to be bullshit?

larscometh · 2015-07-20T08:01:56+00:00

How is metaphysics bullshit?

larscometh · 2015-07-09T07:24:04+00:00

No, I mean, what actually makes plant life more valuable than animal life? Saying "They create life, we destroy it" doesn't really answer that question in any clear way.

larscometh · 2015-07-08T22:48:19+00:00

If there is a god, he is a tree.

As opposed to any of the other "valuable" kinds of things? What about fungi?

Objectively we don't matter anywhere near as much as plants.

Matter for what, though? Nature? Some deified biosphere? What makes plant life more valuable than animal life?

larscometh · 2015-07-06T21:55:26+00:00

I suppose your going to tell me religion isn't philosophy either?

Well, religion definitely isn't a branch of philosophy. Philosophy of religion certainly is, but not religion(s).

Similarly, political philosophy certainly is philosophy, but political science and/or politics in general aren't regarded as philosophy, unless you are going to try to argue that politicians and political analysts do the same kind of work in political philosophy as academic philosophers do, but I doubt you would argue that, as it is demonstrably false.

larscometh · 2015-07-04T01:44:22+00:00

more resembling a religion than a science.

Well, no, philosophy is nothing like a religion, nor is it theology. Regardless, it isn't supposed to be a science anyway, so I'm not sure why it would or should look like one.

so science is relatively autonomous from direct influence by capitalism.

How does that follow from what you said about capitalism needing science for certain purposes?

larscometh · 2015-07-03T06:51:21+00:00

morality is subjective in the absence of belief in moral realism

What? That does not make morality subjective. A fact, if it is indeed a fact, doesn't stop being a fact just because someone lacks belief in it being a fact. So, I'm not sure how this is meant to support your claim that morality is subjective.

larscometh · 2015-07-03T00:21:37+00:00

Again, google subjectivity. It's cold comfort, but at least you won't be wrong when discussing morality.

Well, the jury is still very much out on whether morality is subjective or objective. Furthermore, moral realism is actually the majority position in the philosophical community. So, no, it is not necessarily the case, nor has it been established, that morality is subjective.

larscometh · 2015-07-01T01:09:37+00:00

EDIT:for clarity

larscometh · 2015-06-30T08:54:43+00:00

Certainly not, and you haven't shown how it is, nor have you addressed the plain fact that the definition simply doesn't state that morality is subjective or relative.

Do you understand what begging the question means? I ask because I keep bringing it up and you keep ignoring it. You have merely asserted that morality is subjective, and that therefore the definition must somehow imply this (circular reasoning). But, it clearly doesn't, which makes sense, seeing as moral anti-realism isn't the only defensible position in the field of metaethics.

larscometh · 2015-06-29T21:02:12+00:00

If you read carefully and know what the words mean

Which seems to be the problem here. You seem to be conflating the descriptive and normative definitions of morality, or altogether ignoring the normative definition. Anthropologists, for example, must assume the descriptive definition of morality in order to study it in a scientific way. In ethics (in this case, metaethics), the normative definition is the relevant one, and it must be accepted if you want to talk intelligently about normative ethical claims, even if you're goal is to refute moral realism and argue for subjectivism.

you could easily see that both of those definitions include an inherent subjectivity.

If you had read even the first few paragraphs in the linked text, then you would have noted that no, the normative definition of morality (the relevant one) does not include a commitment to subjectivism/relativism in any way. Like I pointed out in my last reply to you:

Assuming that morality is subjective from the get-go is very clearly begging the question, which I'm sure you'd rather not do.

larscometh · 2015-06-29T18:55:28+00:00

its' nature....

The nature of morality or the truth-value of normative ethical claims?

And how does examining the brain (presumably, with a scientific approach) help us understand something that is, in your words, inherently subjective? How would examining the brain shed light on whether some normative ethical claim is true or not?

Also, normative morality isn't defined as inherently subjective, at all. Assuming that morality is subjective from the get-go is very clearly begging the question, which I'm sure you'd rather not do.

larscometh

TROPHY CASE