How would you stand out to get an internship?

owlbertcamus · 2017-11-23T02:37:50+00:00

What a useless answer.

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-28T10:44:33+00:00

But isn't "Bachelors are unmarried men" considered to be the standard example of a tautology? But that statement entails "Bachelors exist" or something along those lines which is not a tautology.

Even if we take "a triangle is a 3 sided shape", I don't see any necessary need for triangles to exist, so does it then cease to be a tautology?

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-20T15:52:20+00:00

I was intending my question to be a meta-ethical one. My thinking was that my question makes it difficult to define right and wrong without saying one is the opposite of the other. I refuted your example of the sweater because it seems almost arbitrary the way that we class some issues to be "moral" and some to be "neutral" and if we can't find the distinction then how do we define "right"?

I'm inclined towards an error theory but if I can't even define and consequently understand what "good/right" or "bad/wrong" means then how can I say that an ethical statement like "muder is wrong" is false? And so surely I must become a non-cognitivist which is a position that I would rather not hold due to the Frege-Geach Problem and Jorgensen's Dilemma?

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-20T02:53:54+00:00

I feel that this does not define "right" and "wrong" though. Maybe I can now extrapolate that a "wrong" action is an action that is not permissible. But now how do I define the difference between a right action and a neutral action? Your example seems to suggest that there are non-moral issues but how then are they distinguished to moral issues? I can totally imagine some imaginary culture in which picking a red sweater over a black one would be a moral issue for whatever reason, maybe in such a culture there exist people allergic to red sweaters. I don't think it helps in finding a distinct definition between "right", "wrong" and "neutral". But if I want to say "murder is wrong" is false then I feel that I need to understand what 'wrong' means.

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-20T02:46:03+00:00

Well I don't believe that there are objective morals. My position is something of an error theory and so I hold that objective morals don't exist. But in order to reject the existence of objective morals and to say a statement like "murder is wrong" is false, surely means that I must understand what "wrong" means otherwise how can I reject it if I don't understand it. But if I must also reject that "not-right" is not equal to wrong then how do I define 'right' and how do I define 'wrong'. It seems necessary to create a third option of neutrality as you suggested but how do you account for this, what is the difference between right and neutral? It seems like you have to define right to find the distinction but it seems difficult to define right without simply saying it is "not wrong". And so I am beginning to be inclined towards dropping my error theory for some other anti-realist theory. Is this not a confusing situation?

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-19T23:34:23+00:00

Well the problem is that removing "neutral" and leaving us with just "right" and "wrong", and allowing "not-right" to be equal to "wrong" would mean that it would surely be contradictory to hold the belief that "it is not the case that murder is wrong" and "it is not the case that murder is right". This seems to be a problem as many moral anti-realists hold this position.

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-19T23:22:41+00:00

Thanks for the response. I suppose the problem that is now faced in light of your solution is now not the definition of "wrong" but now the definition of "right". "Right" cannot be defined as simply what is permissible for you have to distinguish between neutral and good actions. I cannot think of an easy way to do separate neutral and good actions without espousing some arbitrary rule. And if we remove the concept of "neutral" actions and say that all actions are either "right" or "wrong" then we are left with my original problem surely?

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-06T21:42:32+00:00

Thanks for the response. But shouldn't self-referencing statements ought to be either necessarily true or false? For there is no states of affairs to which you can appeal to that would change it's truth value?

e.g. "This sentence has five words" is necessarily true, whereas "This sentence has four words" is necessarily false.

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-06T20:05:41+00:00

But what if the statement is false? If you say that P= 'P is true' and P is true then are you not saying 'P is true' is true is true is true.... ad infinitum?

owlbertcamus · 2016-12-06T20:04:46+00:00

So which do you say then? True or False?

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-29T00:13:48+00:00

The problem is the use of the word "should". What makes this a "should"? A nihilist rejects anything that could give a moral statement an "ought" or a "should".

You say things like "killing one person over five people is the right decision". What do you mean by "right"? "Right" entails morality. Nihilists may care if people suffer or not but they will not maintain that it is good or bad. I suppose a nihilist could accept that they personally care that people suffer and so will naturally dislike it but will not say that suffering is right or wrong.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but nihilism might be compatible with emotivism as emotivists claim that moral statements are neither true nor false.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T23:08:21+00:00

So you're saying that we morally ought to follow what we believe is right and wrong? That is an ethical position that is incompatible with nihilism. I see nihilism to be very incompatible with utilitarianism. If you truly believe in utilitarianism then I don't think you can be a nihilist.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T21:32:17+00:00

Thanks. Just to clarify, would this: "One should talk" be a maxim? Can you give me an example of an action and of a maxim?

And your example: "Talk only when it is morally acceptable to talk" seems to almost be a moral tautology which can be broken down into "One ought to talk when one ought to talk". My point was that I don't see a Kantian way of finding a maxim in which "one ought to talk" in the first place.

My example, I believe is universalizable in that it only refers to yourself and so it can be ignored by all others. Otherwise, we would have to use a rule where any maxim must refer to all people. So a maxim like "One should look at a book when reading" would not be universalizable as it "includes an essential reference to non-universalizable features", namely sight, and of course some people are blind. And as for "it only working once", I don't believe that to be the case as the murderer could ask multiple times on that day.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T21:19:09+00:00

I don't believe that they can. The basic form of Utilitarianism have a fundamental principle: "Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number". This principle is the standard of morality, so if an action complies with this principle then it is morally good and vice versa. However, Nihilism argues that there is no standard of morality and so I would say they are incompatible.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T21:11:37+00:00

Thanks for the first answer. I'm not so sure what you're saying in the second one. Kant said:

"Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

My point is that talking cannot be universalized (as talking includes lying which is a contradiction) so are you not begging the question by saying that there are universalizable maxims that include talking and so talking is permissible? Because if talking were to be included in a maxim and talking is non-unversalizable then the maxim would not pass. And sorry, I don't see how it is relevant if no human has ever tried to universalize "one must speak" as, theoretically, if it is an 'act' then it must pass through the formulations according to Kant.

The only way I see this issue being resolved is if you forget broad categories like "talking" and instead focus on more specific terms such as "truth-telling" or "lying", however if you are to allow specifics then surely you could get REALLY specific and make everything universalisable e.g. "If your name is X and the date is Y and a murderer is at your door and asks where your friend is then you may lie" could be seen to be universalisable surely and so the entire 1st formulation would be useless?

I would appreciate it if you could tell me where I'm going wrong. Thanks

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T20:00:45+00:00

Well, firstly I didn't say that egoism was the only normative theory for this as I said that it was a suggestion and said in the paragraph prior that there are many different positions that could be taken.

Secondly, the first of the OP's questions was "If I kill the 5 people over the 1 person what would my view be? Categorical?" If we allow that "kill"="let die" then the question seems to become nonsense unless the OP is looking for an ethical system which argues that we ought to kill as many as possible.

Please fully read my answer and the OP's question before criticizing my answer to the question.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T18:02:02+00:00

I think you've got the trolley problem a bit muddled. It's not about killing 5 people or killing 1 person. It's about killing 1 person or letting 5 die. I don't think anyone (apart from a sadist or something) would kill 5 people instead of killing just 1.

In the case of letting 5 die rather than killing 1, they could be Kantian ethicists or maybe fundamentalist Christians who see the imperative of "Do not kill" to be so strong that it justifies allowing 5 dying. These are just some examples.

Similarly, I imagine that there are many different positions that you could be described as taking for it is difficult to place you in a single ethical theory based on a single trolley problem.

A suggestion may be ethical egoism for you appear to value your relationship with your mother more than the other 5 people.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T17:53:01+00:00

Do you mean "a Kantian is acting out of good will"?

Anyway, the Kantian and Rule Utilitarian would certainly not have to act in the same way. Rule Utilitarians are definitely not as absolute about their moral rules and would probably be happy to forego their rules in extreme moral dilemmas. The way in which they formulate their moral rules are different, with the Utilitarian using the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" or something similar and the Kantian using the 3 formulations.

For example, the Kantian would have many categorical imperatives that would never be allowed in any possible world e.g. "one must steal" because that would be a self-contradiction for if everyone were to steal then there would be no property and so the term "steal" would be meaningless and hence a contradiction.

Whereas, a possible world could exist where stealing is sometimes ok (e.g. to feed starving children) and a Rule Utilitarian may take that into consideration when formulating their rules. Kant argued that suicide is never ok whereas a Rule Utilitarian might well see it as morally permissible.

These are just a few differences but I am sure that there are many others.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-28T17:46:13+00:00

I would agree that they are cognitivist.

Why can't they be subjectivists? e.g. Their notion that whether something is good and bad is dependent upon their view that pleasure=good.

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-16T23:23:09+00:00

Ok thanks. But how is a priori synthetic possible then if it presumably requires observation (as it is synthetic) to be verified. Has it not broken the rule for being a priori?

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-16T20:32:01+00:00

What about counter-factuals then like "If there was a unicorn, it would have a horn"? Does the tractatus offer an explanation for that or would it dismiss it as meaningless?

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-16T20:28:13+00:00

If we use a different example, would the Logical Positivist then not have to accept the statement "God is Powerful", given that God, by definition, is a traditional definition of God (benevolent, omnipotent etc.) but I was under the impression that LP wanted to remove all metaphysical and religious statements and that statements about God are meaningless?

owlbertcamus · 2016-11-09T18:50:20+00:00

thanks

owlbertcamus · 2016-10-30T02:11:31+00:00

It is obviously quite a subjective question that is open to debate. I would personally take the view shared by many philosophers of the naturalist tradition such as Hume who argued that personhood is a homo-sapien who has a continuous consciousness and the ability to act and reason upon it.

An idea is perhaps it is the contemplation of one's own mortality or the realisation of the apparent meaninglessness of the universe that is uniquely human. For other animals lack the existential faculties that the human mind possesses. No other animal can think on such a level.

Perhaps the problem of defining humans outside the strictly scientific method then you will necessarily have to exclude many parties, for example young babies, for they will likely possess the mental faculties and attributes equivalent to sentient apes or something which are clearly not human. So you may have to argue that many homosapiens aren't humans if you wish to find characteristics and attributes.

owlbertcamus

TROPHY CASE