Philosophy Now Forum

But you offered no actual evidence to falsify my theory (that you can think for yourself). I didn't even say that. I cannot imagine where you got it from. I have no idea how you read text. You seem to believe that a) there are no definitions of words that mediate between communicators, and b) that ...

I too bet on nature. It's the nature of men to be social animals who live in societies. Men in societies have common technologies and meanings and they have to trust each other or else the society would be ungovernable. Murder is antisocial , it would destroy mutual trust unless murderers were brou...

Back in the same obtuse circle: murder is wrong, because I'll be arrested if I commit murder. Why will I be arrested if I commit murder? Because people think murder is wrong, and have laws to punish it. Substitute 'a homosexual act' for 'murder', and see how that works out. Your counter-argument is...

We obviously disagree that moral things are features of that reality, though I agree we can assess the consequences of people's moral opinions. In my opinion, there's no foundation, for what we say, beneath our linguistic practices, which is why classical foundationalism (including empiricism) misf...

Just asking - genuine interest and not to be contrarian - if there's no foundation beneath empirical / scientific claims, what value or purpose do you think they have? What information or knowledge can testing them provide? They are strictly pragmatic/instrumental. They allow us to predict events a...

On this, you and I agree completely, because we share the moral opinion that murder is wrong. Peace, perfect peace. All foundational philosophy ends up here. Because all foundational philosophy ends up making inconsequential (e.g untestable) claims. And empiricism/science only works in scenarios wh...

It is for me and you. But not for everyone e.g. religious fundamentalists who believe that God has revealed truth once and for all time and all peoples. From a consequentialist/empirical point of view - it's immaterial how you justify the wrongness of murder as long as you commit to it in practice....

Immanuel Can

I'm content. Others can assess our arguments. Thanks.

Immanuel Can We've been here before, many times. If you accept Hume's claim - an 'is' can't entail and 'ought' - then that is true whether or not there's a god with moral opinions. So your position is hopeless for two reasons: you can't show there is a god, let alone which one is the right one, let...

Immanuel Can We've been here before, many times. If you accept Hume's claim - an 'is' can't entail and 'ought' - then that is true whether or not there's a god with moral opinions. So your position is hopeless for two reasons: you can't show there is a god, let alone which one is the right one, let ...

A reservation. The factual claim 'the earth is flat' turned out to be wrong (false), because it isn't. But the claim 'murder is wrong' can't turn out to be wrong (false), because it isn't a factual claim in the first place. It just expresses a moral opinion. Reservation noted. However, if all human...

What makes you think that I think that science is not mere opinion? The very fact that any scientific claim is only that if and only if it has a potential to be proven wrong, makes all scientific findings absolutely into opinions. That's A. B. is that by putting "objectivity" in quotes, you remove ...

My argument is simply that the claim 'murder is wrong' is not and can't be a fact - true independent of opinion. Then how do you explain the 700+ years of reduction in murders? To what cause do you attribute that effect? That's easy, Univalence. People have formed the same, recurring, subjective op...

Peter Holmes wrote: I disagree. Lightwaves and brain-processing (electrical and chemical) to produce perception are real things we can measure. The expression 'the nature of [a particular situation's] morality' begs the question: in what way does a particular situation 'have' a moral value? (And wh...

Peter Holmes wrote: I disagree. Lightwaves and brain-processing (electrical and chemical) to produce perception are real things we can measure. The expression 'the nature of [a particular situation's] morality' begs the question: in what way does a particular situation 'have' a moral value? (And wh...