Basic Human Rights

How should society be organised, if at all?

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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 2:18 am It is not possible to have an idea and not be conscious of it.
It's called a "presupposition." So yeah, it is.
There can be no single supposition for all reasoning.
Now you've got it.

Reason is not a set of beliefs: it's a method. It does not conduce to just one conclusion, but to many. The presuppositions, the "premise 1" and "premise 2" of the syllogism determine the conclusion. Reason is just the mechanics of linking them together correctly.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:28 am
RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:47 pm Reason is the method by which an individual makes right choices
No, reason is the means by which a person makes choices that rationalize with their suppositions and goals.
For my record, would you please explain, if it is not reason one uses to make right choices, what do you use to make right choices?

Thanks!
Last edited by RCSaunders on Sat May 15, 2021 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 3:31 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:28 am
RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:47 pm Reason is the method by which an individual makes right choices
No, reason is the means by which a person makes choices that rationalize with their suppositions and goals.
For my record, would you please explain, if it is not reason one uses to make right choices, what do you use to make right choices?

Thank!
I'll say it again. Just as maths supplies us with the operations but leaves the quantities to be specified by us, reason provides us with the cognitive operations required to make sound judgments, but does not dictate to us our premises. Just as we can use any numbers we choose in maths, we can use any particular premises we want, and then use the rules and procedures of reason to process them...or choose to be irrational, of course.

An untrue premise can be treated rationally, or a true premise can be irrationally processed. Both are common in human experience. But the ideal is to have true premises, and then to process them by way of reason.

And if one's premises are false, then processing them by reason will often expose their falsehood, because they will lead to unsavoury or impossible conclusions.

"What do you use to make right choices," you ask? I aspire to use true premises and rational processing of them.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 3:47 pm "What do you use to make right choices," you ask? I aspire to use true premises and rational processing of them.
That's what being a,"rational individual," means. Thank you!
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 1:15 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 3:47 pm "What do you use to make right choices," you ask? I aspire to use true premises and rational processing of them.
That's what being a,"rational individual," means. Thank you!
Yes. But the difference between your position and mine, at the moment, seems to be that you appear to suppose that "reason" can demand particular conclusions, regardless of the premises adopted prior to those particular conclusions. I think that's not only impossible, but that reason itself has no view of what one's premises are going to be.

One's premises are a matter of truth or falsehood; that's quite different from rational-irrational. The former describes the reality of one's premises; the latter only describes the thought-mechanics one employs to get from those premises to some conclusions.

One's premises are matters of evidence and belief; one's rationality is a question of one's cognitive processing of those evidences and beliefs so as to render conclusions from them.
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henry quirk
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 1:43 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 1:15 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 3:47 pm "What do you use to make right choices," you ask? I aspire to use true premises and rational processing of them.
That's what being a,"rational individual," means. Thank you!
Yes. But the difference between your position and mine, at the moment, seems to be that you appear to suppose that "reason" can demand particular conclusions, regardless of the premises adopted prior to those particular conclusions. I think that's not only impossible, but that reason itself has no view of what one's premises are going to be.

One's premises are a matter of truth or falsehood; that's quite different from rational-irrational. The former describes the reality of one's premises; the latter only describes the thought-mechanics one employs to get from those premises to some conclusions.

One's premises are matters of evidence and belief; one's rationality is a question of one's cognitive processing of those evidences and beliefs so as to render conclusions from them.
👍

As I say: one can reason out tyranny is permissible, slavery is permissible; the absolute subjugation of human beings can be exceedingly rational if, as your start, man is just a smart ape.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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henry quirk wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 2:32 pm As I say: one can reason out tyranny is permissible, slavery is permissible; the absolute subjugation of human beings can be exceedingly rational if, as your start, man is just a smart ape.
Absolutely. And not merely "permissible," but even "most rational," if we mean, "the most functional, direct and dispassionately effective proposal for the achieving of X, Y or Z" -- X, Y and Z being proposals of highly dubious moral standing, of course.

The importation of slaves was a highly rational way of compensating for malarial rice paddies, for example, since they had some natural resistance and were much less valued than one's kin. That was one of the original rationales for the importation of slaves in the Carolinas, as a matter of fact.

Doesn't make it right.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 7:16 pm
henry quirk wrote: Sun May 16, 2021 2:32 pm As I say: one can reason out tyranny is permissible, slavery is permissible; the absolute subjugation of human beings can be exceedingly rational if, as your start, man is just a smart ape.
Absolutely. And not merely "permissible," but even "most rational," if we mean, "the most functional, direct and dispassionately effective proposal for the achieving of X, Y or Z" -- X, Y and Z being proposals of highly dubious moral standing, of course.

The importation of slaves was a highly rational way of compensating for malarial rice paddies, for example, since they had some natural resistance and were much less valued than one's kin. That was one of the original rationales for the importation of slaves in the Carolinas, as a matter of fact.

Doesn't make it right.
By looking for the positive aspects, you can find an excuse for any atrocity. Slavery, cannibalism, gas chambers, genocide and total humiliation can be justified. Only no one wants to be a victim in this situation, so that the "peculiarities of the regime of government" can be worked out on it.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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BeatriceMom wrote: Mon May 17, 2021 1:03 pm Slavery, cannibalism, gas chambers, genocide and total humiliation can be justified.
That was the point Jonathan Swift was trying to make, I think, in his famous essay "A Modest Proposal." Even cannibalism could be made to sound "reasonable." Reason is not, all alone, a hedge against barbarity. We need good premises, first.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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👍 to Bea and Mannie.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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'you', adult human beings, can 'reason out' absolutely any and every 'thing', to "yourselves", but that does NOT mean that any of those 'things' are able to be 'reasoned out' to EVERY one.

As can be EVIDENCED and PROVEN throughout this forum.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Well, for something to be "rational," all that has to happen is a proper connection between means and ends. What those ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you.

It's not "irrational" to want to be the Tyrant of Russia. Reason qua reason has no opinion about whether or not you should be. It has no opinions at all, in fact; it only points to instrumental connections between here and the goal you've chosen.

Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there. Reason can tell you that a revolution will serve your purposes most expeditiously, so that becomes the "rational" solution. It can't tell you you "shouldn't" want to be a Russian Tyrant.
I've been going over some of my notes and see I neglected to ask you about this.

If you do not use reason to discover what is right to want, what you, "should," pursue, what faculty do you use?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Well, for something to be "rational," all that has to happen is a proper connection between means and ends. What those ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you.

It's not "irrational" to want to be the Tyrant of Russia. Reason qua reason has no opinion about whether or not you should be. It has no opinions at all, in fact; it only points to instrumental connections between here and the goal you've chosen.

Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there. Reason can tell you that a revolution will serve your purposes most expeditiously, so that becomes the "rational" solution. It can't tell you you "shouldn't" want to be a Russian Tyrant.
I've been going over some of my notes and see I neglected to ask you about this.

If you do not use reason to discover what is right to want, what you, "should," pursue, what faculty do you use?
Rationality tells you which strategy will "get you there," so to speak -- what will get you to the goal you happen to have. But rationality does not tell you which goal that is, or which it ought to be. It only suggests what means are likely to move you in that direction.

I would suggest that the goal is chosen as a consequence of other things: chiefly, your belief in the purpose of life and your sense of the moral order that flows from that. What I should want is a function of who I think I am, what I think I'm doing here, and where I think I ought to be going.

In other words (to put them in logical order) of anthropogeny first, then of teleology, and then of ethics.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:15 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Well, for something to be "rational," all that has to happen is a proper connection between means and ends. What those ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you.

It's not "irrational" to want to be the Tyrant of Russia. Reason qua reason has no opinion about whether or not you should be. It has no opinions at all, in fact; it only points to instrumental connections between here and the goal you've chosen.

Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there. Reason can tell you that a revolution will serve your purposes most expeditiously, so that becomes the "rational" solution. It can't tell you you "shouldn't" want to be a Russian Tyrant.
I've been going over some of my notes and see I neglected to ask you about this.

If you do not use reason to discover what is right to want, what you, "should," pursue, what faculty do you use?
Rationality tells you which strategy will "get you there," so to speak -- what will get you to the goal you happen to have. But rationality does not tell you which goal that is, or which it ought to be. It only suggests what means are likely to move you in that direction.

I would suggest that the goal is chosen as a consequence of other things: chiefly, your belief in the purpose of life and your sense of the moral order that flows from that. What I should want is a function of who I think I am, what I think I'm doing here, and where I think I ought to be going.

In other words (to put them in logical order) of anthropogeny first, then of teleology, and then of ethics.
Nice, but irrelevant to my question. I didn't ask you what you thought a goal ought to be, I asked how you arrived at it without reason, since you say, "Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there," not how to determine what you should to want.

If you say the way to find out what you should want is, "anthropogeny first, then of teleology, and then of ethics," instead of reason, "since you say, "what ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you," what faculty do you use for anthropogeny, teleology, and ethics?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:56 pm If you say the way to find out what you should want is, "anthropogeny first, then of teleology, and then of ethics," instead of reason, "since you say, "what ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you," what faculty do you use for anthropogeny, teleology, and ethics?
They can only be premised on what you actually believe to be true about those questions (anthropogeny, teleology, ethics). There can be no other grounds than reality itself.

Now, some such beliefs are more plausible, based the evidence reality provides, than are others. And some are not plausible at all, perhaps. But people are odd: sometimes, they insist on acting on a set of beliefs they may even secretly strongly suspect isn't true.

For example, Socialists today have every reason to know that their creed is contrary to the realities of human nature, sociology and history, but simply refuse to accept any data as sufficient evidence to abandon their Socialism. As you've probably seen, it won't matter how many cases of failed Socialist countries you cite, or how many people have died under such regimes, or the fact that not a single case of a successful Socialist economy has existed in human history; the Socialists will persist, saying that none of the former regimes are truly "Socialist," or that no country is a worthy exemplar, or that your anthropological analysis of why Socialism is doomed to fail is wrong, and the next regime will succeed...They continue to believe their dogma, despite all realities.

But there is a cost to fighting reality: it's called "delusion," and it leads to confusion and inability to address reality effectively. Sometimes, as in the case of Socialism, it even kills people. However, it seems these are prices the Socialists are willing to accept, in order to persist in their ideology. You can't always cure that.

Anthropogeny, teleology and ethics provide a "map" for rational behaviour. But they can't guarantee rational people. Some are just not, and prefer to live even with beliefs that are inconsistent or completely in defiance of the available data.

So it's not automatic. People can choose to accept what reality is telling them, or they can reject it.
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