personhood

[commonsense]

I would like some clarification, please.

Flash & Henry:
Can there be personhood without morality?

IC, Belinda, Seeds:
Can there be personhood without God?

Well, I suggest that if we view God and the universe from the perspective of a Berkeleyan form of idealism and Panentheism - as is metaphorically represented in my little illustration,...



...then clearly, without God, not only would there be no such thing as personhood, but the entire universe would be nonexistent.

Does that at least clarify my stance on the issue?
_______

Yes. Thanks.

[commonsense]

Can there be personhood without morality?

I don't think so

Can there be personhood without God?

I don't think so

I don’t think so either but I wonder. Thanks for answering.

[commonsense]

I would like some clarification, please.

Flash & Henry:
Can there be personhood without morality?

IC, Belinda, Seeds:
Can there be personhood without God?

The morality thing is a side issue, although I believe this whole thing started in a ethics dispute about that and so perhaps the personhood thing is the side issue...

The fundamentals of this are basically a rehash of the endless nonsense that went on the gender sub last year with a similar cast list presenting similar stuff, so underneath all the fluff this is a dispute about essentialism, and by extension, what things can change and which can never change. Whether beings, actions and so on all belong in supernatural unchanging categories that grant them an eternal essence that defines them perfectly, versus a less rigid view of matters where assignment of particulars to some universal category is very much in the eye of the beholder. Which object you are currently categorising isn't going to make a significant dent on any of that, today it's persons and how we decide what a person is, last year it was chicks with dicks ... are they more chick or more dick. While for ever and ever and ever amen, it's always rape, genocide, murder and slavery.

Thank you for clearing up a lot for me.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't deem moral attitudes to be irrelevant. I don't ignore them. I don't reject them.

You deny they refer to anything. They're just "attitudes," so far as you're concerned, it seems. And "attitudes" are not of any particular durability or merit. A person can have a "bad attitude" to a "good" thing, or the reverse. So the issue of attitudes is so light and unimportant, it can't even touch this issue.

All that is happening here is that I am dipsuting that they are founded upon any particular objective fact...

Yeah, but here's the two impossible things you're thinking before lunchtime:

1. There IS, objectively, such a thing as morality.

2. Morality refers to no objective reality.

"Is," in sentence 1 means "exists." It means "objective reality." So you're flatly self contradictory, unless you let go of one of those claims. The only "saving move" you can do, which you've tried already, is to say, essentially, "Morality exists as a social fiction." But that's also silly, because "exists as a fiction" is trivial. Pixies exist as fiction. Unicorns exist as fiction. Hogwarts exists as fiction. But here's the problem with that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAfi0X-cJag

Is that you?

Which one, #1 or #2, do you drop?

[henry quirk]

it seems in your zeal to engage the more worthy opponent, you overlooked my picayune question

an oversight that grieves you, I'm certain

so, here it is again...

The truth is that I believe dishonesty is bad

why?

...and...

you just refuse the honest answer because you want a different one.

no sir, that is not the case: I'll accept any (direct, non-distractive) answer you care to give

[henry quirk]

...this...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/

...belongs in this thread

did this link not interest anyone?

should I copy/paste the text of it to make it easier for you?

[FlashDangerpants]

I don't deem moral attitudes to be irrelevant. I don't ignore them. I don't reject them.

You deny they refer to anything. They're just "attitudes," so far as you're concerned, it seems. And "attitudes" are not of any particular durability or merit. A person can have a "bad attitude" to a "good" thing, or the reverse. So the issue of attitudes is so light and unimportant, it can't even touch this issue.

My bad. In response to the claim that I hold "the doctrine or attitude that ignores or rejects moral values, or deems them to be irrelevant" I wrote 'moral attitudes' where I meant to write moral values aren't irrelevant to me, and I don't ignore them, and I don't reject them. So I am still not an amoralist.

All that is happening here is that I am dipsuting that they are founded upon any particular objective fact...

Yeah, but here's the two impossible things you're thinking before lunchtime:

1. There IS, objectively, such a thing as morality.

2. Morality refers to no objective reality.

The first proposition you put there is somewhat carelessly worded. We can remove some ambiguity with more accurate restatement thus: Objectively there are observable human practises and beliefs of morality. That way we can avoid accidentally entailing anything we didn't specifically mean and as an added bonus we no longer have the hangover of that supposed quandry.

[FlashDangerpants]

it seems in your zeal to engage the more worthy opponent, you overlooked my picayune question

an oversight that grieves you, I'm certain

so, here it is again...

The truth is that I believe dishonesty is bad

why?

Acquired preference. You're fooling yourself if you imagine that you didn't get the same preference in the same way as I did; your parents told you not to tell lies when you were a very small child, and you believed it long before you could possibly have used your self-ownership to logically arrive at the the conclusion you already believed.

...and...

you just refuse the honest answer because you want a different one.

no sir, that is not the case: I'll accept any (direct, non-distractive) answer you care to give

Well consider this then. Which of you moral realists has ever once in your entire life followed the logic of your own moral reasoning to discover a moral truth that was unintuitive to you? Have you genuinely yet to notice that Vestibule follows his arguments to the conclusion he already believed, and Mannie cracks open his Bible just to discover that he's been right all along and God agrees with every belief Mannie already holds, and you do that too?

All that anyone ever does with their moral realist arguments is reverse engineer an explanation to justify whatever it is they already believe.

[FlashDangerpants]

...this...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/

...belongs in this thread

did this link not interest anyone?

should I copy/paste the text of it to make it easier for you?

It's not hard to understand, the issue really is that the best place to link this would be that other discussion where somebody was complaining that every time he sees scientists trying to do metaphysics the results are very poor. This is just the tale of some guy who prodded some brains and hey, what do you know? He didn't find a part of the brain labelled "free will", so with that as his evidence base, he decided to believe in celestial immaterial substances. It's just not good.

[Immanuel Can]

So I am still not an amoralist.

Actually, the conclusion that follows from that is that you are inclined to believe in things you don't believe exist ...which, of course, makes no sense at all.

Objectively there are observable human practises and beliefs of morality.

Heh. So what? All that says is, "Objectively some people believe in things that don't actually exist." Are you really suggesting that that is a good idea?

You've still got no legitimative basis for even one moral claim. So you would either have to admit that morality is entirely fictitious, or else that you are prepared to convince people to believe in something you do not believe has any substance behind it...that is, to be a propagandist for morality, all the while knowing you were only being a propagandist.

Which way do you go?

[FlashDangerpants]

So I am still not an amoralist.

Actually, the conclusion that follows from that is that you are inclined to believe in things you don't believe exist ...which, of course, makes no sense at all.

This point continues your theme of just assuming moral realism and the implications thereof in a circular effort to defend moral realism and the implications thereof.

Objectively there are observable human practises and beliefs of morality.

Heh. So what? All that says is, "Objectively some people believe in things that don't actually exist." Are you really suggesting that that is a good idea?

This point continues your theme of just assuming moral realism and the implications thereof in a circular effort to defend moral realism and the implications thereof.

You've still got no legitimative basis for even one moral claim. So you would either have to admit that morality is entirely fictitious, or else that you are prepared to convince people to believe in something you do not believe has any substance behind it...that is, to be a propagandist for morality, all the while knowing you were only being a propagandist.

Which way do you go?

This point continues your theme of just assuming moral realism and the implications thereof in a circular effort to defend moral realism and the implications thereof.

[Atla]

So I am still not an amoralist.

Actually, the conclusion that follows from that is that you are inclined to believe in things you don't believe exist ...which, of course, makes no sense at all.

Objectively there are observable human practises and beliefs of morality.

Heh. So what? All that says is, "Objectively some people believe in things that don't actually exist." Are you really suggesting that that is a good idea?

You've still got no legitimative basis for even one moral claim. So you would either have to admit that morality is entirely fictitious, or else that you are prepared to convince people to believe in something you do not believe has any substance behind it...that is, to be a propagandist for morality, all the while knowing you were only being a propagandist.

Which way do you go?

Just curious. Has it never really dawned on you that you are a sociopath, and that this morality, moral drive thing that most people talk about, is in fact a natural part of their being, whereas it is not part of your being? Or do you know this, and just ignore it, or what? I'm just asking because most of the sociopaths I've known, had this figured out without effort.

[henry quirk]

Acquired preference.

now, was that so hard?

you were taught; you haven't seen fit to question the learnin', to suss out the possible underlyin' principle; as a wee lad, an adult informed you and that's good enough for you

okay, good deal

your morality is transmitted culture; thank goodness you weren't raised by christians or deists, yeah?


All that anyone ever does with their moral realist arguments is reverse engineer an explanation to justify whatever it is they already believe.

that indeed may be the case

I can only speak for me: I was an anti-realist (for a long time), now I'm a realist; I believe I have good cause for the shift

[Immanuel Can]

So I am still not an amoralist.

Actually, the conclusion that follows from that is that you are inclined to believe in things you don't believe exist ...which, of course, makes no sense at all.

This point continues your theme of just assuming moral realism

I'll do this slowly, so you can grasp it: not...assuming...moral...realism. Assuming what you believe: anti-realism.

Got it, chief?

[henry quirk]

...this...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/

...belongs in this thread

did this link not interest anyone?

should I copy/paste the text of it to make it easier for you?

It's not hard to understand, the issue really is that the best place to link this would be that other discussion where somebody was complaining that every time he sees scientists trying to do metaphysics the results are very poor. This is just the tale of some guy who prodded some brains and hey, what do you know? He didn't find a part of the brain labelled "free will", so with that as his evidence base, he decided to believe in celestial immaterial substances. It's just not good.

no, this is the best place for the link, and other such links

this thread is about personhood (what is it? who is it?)

as I see it, mind is integral to the topic

and -- yes --it's an excellent lil piece: it encapsulates exactly what's on the table

if, however, such offerings are beneath you, there's a big old forum for you to meander 'round in

ain't no reason I can see for you to expend yourself here, in this thread