Originally posted by AThousandYoungIm not sure about that. Whats the use of a mosquito besides serving as food for other animals? I know its not transmitting diseases because they do not seem to transmit any aids or other deseases.
Then every animal has other functions besides being food. They host parasites, they fertilize the soil with their poop and pee, etc.
Originally posted by LordOfTheChessboardMosquito's don't transmit diseases?! LOL!
Im not sure about that. Whats the use of a mosquito besides serving as food for other animals? I know its not transmitting diseases because they do not seem to transmit any aids or other deseases.
You should read Mosquito: The Story of Man's Deadliest Foe by Andrew Spielman and Michael D'Antonio.
Mosquitos transmit malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever, dengue, filariasis...The list goes on and on. They are one of the most common disease carrying organisms on the planet.
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Originally posted by AThousandYoung😳 oops your right! 😀 Why did I not think of that. I thought that if they don't transmit aids they would probably not transmit any other diseases.
Mosquito's don't transmit diseases?! LOL!
You should read Mosquito: The Story of Man's Deadliest Foe by Andrew Spielman and Michael D'Antonio.
Mosquitos transmit malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever, dengue, filari ...[text shortened]... e one of the most common disease carrying organisms on the planet.
I wasn't even drunk when I wrote that🙄
Originally posted by AThousandYoungWell, if you don't have an argument, then I see no reason to take your claim seriously. You could just as easily claim that it seems obvious to you that there is no external world. So what? If you want to play the role of the moral skeptic, fine. But don't expect any further responses from me, I lack the time and inclination to play those games.
Bbarr -
[b]Do you have an argument in support of the claim of that the possession of rights and, correlatively, the obtaining of moral obligations is entirely subjective?
I don't think I need one. It's pretty obvious that it's subjective whether or not someone is due something. There's that famous polygamist who thinks he's due ...[text shortened]... those rights are is a judgement, just as it's not objectively true that some things are pretty.[/b]
The examples are indeed made to shock, and to point out to you that you don't even believe what you are saying. If you truly believe that no acts are objectively right or wrong, fine. It's a free country, you can believe what you want. But I won't waste my time on you. I am in this thread debating with somebody who is not a moral skeptic, and I find that infinitely more interesting than arguing with a skeptic.
Getting back to the debate about 'do foetuses have the right to life?', I believe there are several factors concerning moral rights which have so far been ignored.
1. Rights are reciprocal: In order to have rights, one must be capable of observing the rights of others.
Foetuses are not independant individuals and have formed no two way relationships with society and hence are not moral agents. Thus they do not have rights.
2. Any Entity possessing rights must be capable of renouncing those rights.
Hence a person suffering terribly from painful, terminal cancer has the ability to chose euthanasia. This rescinds their right to life, allowing others to legitimately ignore their right to life without approbation.
Clearly, foetues do not have rights on this ground either.
Interestingly, these criteria for rights possesion, bar animal rights too. I believe this is correct, and that rather than animals having rights, we should consider them in terms of having duties towards them. But this is a different story!
Originally posted by howardgeeYour two criteria entail that young children and the profoundly developmentally disabled do not have rights. Are you prepared to accept this entailment? If you respond that although these folk don't have rights, we have duties towards them, I ask: What is the difference between saying 1) that everyone has an obligation or duty not to kill a child for sport, and 2) a child has the right not to be killed for sport?
Getting back to the debate about 'do foetuses have the right to life?', I believe there are several factors concerning moral rights which have so far been ignored.
1. Rights are reciprocal: In order to have rights, one must be capable of observing the rights of others.
Foetuses are not independant individuals and have formed no two way relationship ...[text shortened]... we should consider them in terms of having duties towards them. But this is a different story!
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Bbarr -
Well, here's my perspective on morality, rights and obligations.
There is are two relevant emotions humans sometimes experience when observing or thinking about an action or idea; an emotion of 'moral wrongness' and an emotion of 'moral rightness'. If I were to see a man murdering a Jewish man simply because that man was Jewish, I'd have a strong emotional experience of 'moral wrongness'. This would cause me to label the action wrong.
However a paranoid white supremicist or a paranoid Arab could have a different world view in which he feels the Jews are evil, conniving competition trying to take over what his people controls. To such a person, loyalty to one's own people would feel right; and to such a mindset, the murder might be an act of war in defense of his family and the group he feels a part of and therefore totally justified and right.
The objective basis of morality would be that experience of moral rightness or moral wrongness, and it would be different for each person. Even for any one person this experience could change from time to time as life experience, deep thought, persuasion from other people, etc change his perspective.
The examples are indeed made to shock, and to point out to you that you don't even believe what you are saying.
Your example totally failed to point this out to me.
You don't have to debate with me, that's fine. However my perspective is very reasonable and hardly comparable to believing the external world does not exist. I have an objective basis for my moral view; your idea of moral absolutism does not.
EDIT - Oh yeah. Because morality is a subjective label dependent on an individual's emotional experiences, so are rights. Obligations are actions that must be taken if a consequence is to be avoided. That consequence can be as simple as feeling like an evil person or social ostracism.
If you wouldn't mind helping me out, Bbarr, suppose you or anyone did have a moral obligation to do something. What happens if the person didn't fulfil their moral obligation? Why should anyone care? What significance does this idea of 'moral obligation' have to you, and why is it important?
Also, according to your argument, it seems as though the capacity to suffer is not sufficient for something to have 'rights'. Does this mean it's ok to cause something to suffer if it lacks the capacity for rationality? I don't agree that such an act would be morally ok.
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Originally posted by AThousandYoungWell, here's my perspective on morality, rights and obligations.
Bbarr -
Well, here's my perspective on morality, rights and obligations.
There is are two relevant emotions humans sometimes experience when observing or thinking about an action or idea; an emotion of 'moral wrongness ...[text shortened]... rationality? I don't agree that such an act would be morally ok.
Fine, let’s do this thing.
There is are two relevant emotions humans sometimes experience when observing or thinking about an action or idea; an emotion of 'moral wrongness' and an emotion of 'moral rightness'.
This is false. There are a wide variety of emotive states that tend to come along with our moral judgments. Further, it is not necessary to make a moral judgment that one have any emotive state at all. I can completely not care that somebody has lied to another, and yet realize that it is wrong. Also, it is not sufficient for the making of a moral judgment that one have one of these emotions. I can experience any number of emotive states while recognizing that these states are irrational given the context, or that although I am enraged (or hurt, or disgusted, or jealous, or whatever), that the act of another that elicited this response was not morally in error. Regardless of this error on your part, it doesn’t follow that the truth of moral judgments depends upon, or is constituted by, any emotive state whatever. For that you would have to provide an argument.
If I were to see a man murdering a Jewish man simply because that man was Jewish, I'd have a strong emotional experience of 'moral wrongness'. This would cause me to label the action wrong.
This gets the order of explanation backwards. If you didn’t already believe that murder was objectively wrong, you would not have had the emotional experience. It is the fact that you moral outlook has a particular content that explains why you felt outrage or horror or whatever. Your explanation entails that your emotional response is just some brute arational habit, or reflex, perhaps the result of conditioning. What you are overlooking is that our emotional responses are often responses to reasons. I do not think that someone striking me is wrong because of, or in virtue of, or nothing over and above some emotional response on my part. I have the emotional response because I believe that folk ought not go around striking each other. For a thorough refutation of this view of yours, read Joel Feinberg’s article “Psychological Egoism”.
However a paranoid white supremicist or a paranoid Arab could have a different world view in which he feels the Jews are evil, conniving competition trying to take over what his people controls. To such a person, loyalty to one's own people would feel right; and to such a mindset, the murder might be an act of war in defense of his family and the group he feels a part of and therefore totally justified and right.
A better way of putting this point is that different people have different beliefs about what is right and wrong, and in virtue of these beliefs different emotive responses manifest in regard to common stimuli. This is a trivial point. This does nothing to show that moral judgments are nothing over and above the occurrence of feelings, nor that the truth conditions of moral judgments refer essentially to feelings.
The objective basis of morality would be that experience of moral rightness or moral wrongness, and it would be different for each person. Even for any one person this experience could change from time to time as life experience, deep thought, persuasion from other people, etc change his perspective.
A better way of putting this point is that people change their beliefs about what is morally right and morally wrong. You have still said nothing that indicates that moral judgments are nothing over and above the occurrence of a feeling. This subjectivism on your part is completely unargued for, and I still see no reason to accept it.
Your example totally failed to point this out to me.
Alas. Well, if you don’t think that rape is objectively wrong, then I can’t help you. Hopefully some day you will believe otherwise.
You don't have to debate with me, that's fine. However my perspective is very reasonable and hardly comparable to believing the external world does not exist. I have an objective basis for my moral view; your idea of moral absolutism does not.
It is exactly comparable to skepticism about the external world, as your view consists merely in the denial of the objectivity of some set of facts. You haven’t argued for your view, merely pointed out that emotive states and moral judgments arise together. You have given no argument for the claim that moral judgments are constituted by these states, nor that there exists any such emotive state like ‘the experience of moral wrongness’ or whatever. It is your impoverished moral psychology that leads you to these conclusions, I’m sure. We have a vast array of emotive responses that are elicited by events or by the acts of others, and our emotive responses make pretty fine discriminations (way more fine grained than your absurd view that we either emote ‘moral wrongness there’ or ‘moral rightness there’ or some such nonsense). If you took the complexity of human emotion seriously, you’d see your view was untenable.
Regardless of this, however, the main objections to your view are that it gets the order of explanation backwards (as above), it provides no standards for appropriate emoting, thus leading either to a vicious moral skepticism or individualistic relativism, depending on what you take the truth conditions of moral judgments to consist of. You remind me of the typical freshman in an intro class, who claims ‘X is right if I feel that it is right, X is morally right for me because I like X-ing, though it may be wrong for you if you don’t like X-ing’. Next time somebody punches you in the face and tells you that they really like punching you in the face, make sure you don’t tell them that they have done something wrong, else you will be contradicting yourself.
If you wouldn't mind helping me out, Bbarr, suppose you or anyone did have a moral obligation to do something. What happens if the person didn't fulfil their moral obligation?
They thereby would have acted wrongly.
Why should anyone care?
Well, presumably the victim has good reason to care about violation of moral obligations. Are you asking why you should care about fulfilling your moral obligations? My view is that if you act immorally you are thereby acting irrationally. You are violating principles of practical rationality. Perhaps some nice soul here in the forums will point you towards the proof I posted way back when.
What significance does this idea of 'moral obligation' have to you, and why is it important?
I care about my moral obligations because I care about the well being of persons, and I want to live virtuously. I have integrated my ethical framework with my motivational set. Being moral is part and parcel of what I take the good life to consist in. Of course, if you don’t believe these things, that is your business. As I said, I really don’t care about moral skepticism (or relativism, for that matter). There are no good arguments in support of either, and those who advocate these views tend not really to believe them anyway. The best I can do at a proof is to show that our nature as rational agents requires of us that if we value anything at all, we are committed to valuing the well being of other rational agents. If you think this is an insufficient basis for the objectivity of morality, then I’d like to know what would be required for showing that morality was objective.
Also, according to your argument, it seems as though the capacity to suffer is not sufficient for something to have 'rights'. Does this mean it's ok to cause something to suffer if it lacks the capacity for rationality? I don't agree that such an act would be morally ok.
Do you mean you don’t feel that such an act would be morally O.K.? If so, why do you feel this way? Is it perhaps because you believe that suffering is bad and that it is objectively true that we ought not cause undue suffering? You see, you really don’t believe any of what you are writing here. If you just stopped to reflect on what your view entailed, I fail to see how you could retain it. Anyway, I think that although we have a general obligation to minimize suffering in virtue of our recognition that it is generally bad for the sufferer, the mere capacity for suffering is insufficient for rights possession. This entails that not all moral obligations are obligations owed to persons, and that not all obligations are such that the entities to whom they are owed has a correlative right. I am fine with these entailments.
Originally posted by bbarrFirst you need to define just what you mean by "soul." What is this soul thingy, and how would I know whether I am/have one?
My view is that if you act immorally you are thereby acting irrationally. You are violating principles of practical rationality. Perhaps some nice soul here in the forums will point you towards the proof I posted way back when.
Just kidding...
Originally posted by bbarr
First, let us suppose:
(1) S is throughout a fully reflective agent.
This idea here in not that we are always fully reflective, nor that given limitations on information and time we ought to be. We are interested in what is involved in being fully reflective because the capacity for full reflection (or autonomy) is a basic feature of our being agents, or, in other words, creatures who form beliefs and intentions based upon reasons. Fully reflective activity is the paradigm case of human action. My argument will be that this reflectivity is the source of the categorical imperative.
Next, let us suppose that our fully reflective agent is confronted with some desire:
(2) S is faced with the desire, D, that favors his now performing action A. (I want now to flay Floyd)
Since S is fully reflective he is reflectively aware that (2). We understand S’s potential A-ing on the basis of his awareness that (2) to be an exercise of his agency, and not merely the output of some causal process. That is, we are assuming for this discussion that agent’s actions are explained by reference to their reasons for acting, and not by some third-person account of the causal processes eventuating in their action. Anyone who is not a thorough skeptic about morality will have to make a similar assumption. So, given that S’s sees the question of whether to A in virtue of (2) is an exercise in practical rationality, he needs to determine whether D provides him a good reason for A-ing. That is,
(3) S is faced with the question: Should he now act on D? Should he endorse his now acting on D? (Does wanting to flay Floyd give me a good reason to flay Floyd?)
As a fully reflective agent, S will only A because of D if he sees D as providing a good reason to A. That is, S must either endorse A-ing in virtue of D or not endorse A-ing in virtue of D. But what is involved in the endorsement of A-ing in virtue of D? Well, at a minimum, taking D to be a good reason for A-ing commits S to the endorsement of a general principle, a hypothetical imperative, that D is a good reason for A-ing. More specifically, endorsing A-ing in virtue of D commits an agent to endorsing A-ing in virtue of D in circumstances exactly like these. So,
(4) If S reflectively endorses A-ing in virtue of D now, then S endorses a general principle P, of hypothetical form, that endorses so acting. (Yes, my wanting to flay Floyd is a good reason to flay Floyd, so it’s a good rule that if someone (like me) wants to flay Floyd (in circumstances just like this) they ought to flay Floyd).
Now, since S is fully reflective, he is aware of both endorsing A-ing in virtue of D and the hypothetical imperative P. Also, since S is fully reflective, he is faced with the question of whether he ought to endorse being a person who endorses P. If he can’t endorse being that sort of person, the hypothetical imperative P will lose its endorsement as well, and this loss of endorsement will iterate to the desire, D, for A-ing. So, failing to endorse being a person who endorses P leaves one without any reason for A-ing.
The endorsement of being a person who endorses the hypothetical imperative P will commit him to an endorsement of some practical identity, or a description of himself under which he acts, trivially, the description of being a person who endorses the hypothetical imperative P. Notice that the reflective demands presented thus far apply to any desire for any end. So, if our fully reflective agent S is to ever act, he must endorse some practical identity. So,
(5) S must endorse some practical identity or other that grounds or supports the hypothetical imperative P and thus his A-ing in virtue of D. (I endorse being the type of person who thinks wanting to flay Floyd provides a good reason for flaying Floyd).
Since S is fully reflective, he is aware of this entire complex of reflective endorsement leading to his endorsement of a conception of himself; an endorsement of his practical identity. But this entire complex of reflective endorsement is itself is something that S can either endorse or reject. So, the demands of full reflection do not stop with (5). Again, if S rejects this complex, if he cannot endorse being the type of person who would through reflection be led to endorse being the type of person who would act according to the hypothetical imperative P and thus find D a good reason for A-ing, then he cannot A in virtue of D. To do so would be for S to act without a reason he ultimately endorses, and to act without a reason one endorses is not only irrational, it is a fundamental failure of agency. In fact, to act without a reason one ultimately endorses is to fail to act at all, for it is the having of reasons that distinguishes an agent’s actions from the mere moving of his body. To act, then, it is necessary for S to endorse his reflective nature as a deeper, or more fundamental conception of his practical identity. In other words, he must endorse his being essentially autonomous. So,
(6) S must endorse his reflectivity itself; his nature as a reflective or autonomous creature, as a conception of his practical identity. (I endorse being, fundamentally, a reflective or autonomous person).
Notice that (6) is not saying that S must only endorse his reflectivity on this particular occasion, but that he must endorse it generally. The reason for this is the same reason that took us from (3) to (4), namely that reflective endorsement as a matter of necessity involves endorsement of a general principle. Notice also that no further question can arise for the S about whether or not to endorse his endorsement of his reflectivity or autonomy. To raise such a question he would have to employ the very faculty at issue, so raising this question presupposes his endorsement of reflective endorsement itself, and hence his being a reflective or autonomous creature. So what has this shown? It has shown that in order for S to act at all he must endorse being a reflective creature, an autonomous creature; in short, he must endorse, and thereby value, his personhood. Now given that S has been led to valuing his personhood, what good reason does he have for not valuing it in that of another? How could S simultaneously value his own personhood and fail to value the personhood of another without being inconsistent? Any supposed difference between S and another in virtue of which one could claim that S’s failing to value another’s personhood was not inconsistent would have to be a merely contingent difference. And reflection upon that difference would lead S, via an argument similar to the one just presented, to realize that that difference can only be valued if personhood itself if already valued. So the value of personhood (reflectivity, autonomous agency) is fundamental, in that a fully reflective agent can value nothing unless he also values personhood. So failing to value personhood is to fail to be fully reflective, and failing to be fully reflective is to be, to that extent, irrational.
Originally posted by huntingbearWow, Larry, thanks a lot. I didn't recall where I had posted that. I was dreading having to summarize it.
First you need to define just what you mean by "soul." What is this soul thingy, and how would I know whether I am/have one?
Just kidding...
Originally posted by bbarr
[b]First, let us suppose:
(1) S is throughout a fully reflective agent.
This idea here in not that we are always fully reflective, nor that given limitations on infor ...[text shortened]... e fully reflective, and failing to be fully reflective is to be, to that extent, irrational.[/b]
I hope you and yours are doing well,
Bennett
Originally posted by bbarrBelieve it or not, I think its original posting predates the Debates forum!!
Wow, Larry, thanks a lot. I didn't recall where I had posted that. I was dreading having to summarize it.
I hope you and yours are doing well,
Bennett
I re-posted it once (now twice), and RC once, so it's been around.
RC described it to me as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen outside mathematics. Botvinnik said that chess is the art which expresses the science of logic; perhaps RC would say logic is the art which expresses the science of logic 🙂
We're well. My first day of school is tomorrow. See you around!
Originally posted by AThousandYoungServing as food is by far their most important role as I already knew:
Mosquito's don't transmit diseases?! LOL!
You should read Mosquito: The Story of Man's Deadliest Foe by Andrew Spielman and Michael D'Antonio.
Mosquitos transmit malaria, West Nile virus, yellow fever, dengue, filariasis...The list goes on and on. They are one of the most common disease carrying organisms on the planet.
http://www.ccmosquitoes.org/faq/4.html
But im sure some fish only live to reproduce themselves and to serve as food for others.
Originally posted by bbarrBbar,
Wow, Larry, thanks a lot. I didn't recall where I had posted that. I was dreading having to summarize it.
I hope you and yours are doing well,
Bennett
You should save that somewhere so you don't "lose" it again and have to redo it! Part of its elegance is that the whole thing rests on a single axiom: that of S being fully-reflective. A couple of small comments--
First, under (4), I think, as a technicality, the phrase “they ought to flay Floyd” would have to be replaced with something like “it is permissible for them to flay Floyd,” since D has been determined to be a sufficient, but not a necessary, reason to A in this example. This seems to be example-specific, in that the whole thing could surely be recast in terms that would allow the “ought.”
Second, it seems to me that certain exceptional cases where S does not engage in full reflection before acting in a given circumstance, such as a “survival response” (fight, flee or freeze) to an immediate threat, can also be subsumed under this model. [The survival-response situation being an example of a case where there is not enough time to fully reflect.] In such a case, S can reflect on his actions ex post facto (and as a fully-reflective being, would be expected to) in a manner similar to that in the model, in order to determine whether or not his response-behavior was really appropriate to the situation, and by extension, like-situations. In this way, one does not simply, or totally, “surrender” his identity as fully-reflective agent vis-à-vis instances of “purely instinctual” behavior. In fact, such reflection (perhaps only after it is reinforced by being “practiced” many times, perhaps not) may lead S to “short-circuit” the “instinctual” response in cases where his reflection upon previous like-cases has led him to the conclusion that he cannot endorse that response to that situation. Robert Ornstein, the brain-researcher, made a similar point in his "The Origins of Consciousness," his point being, if I remember correctly, that reasoning is neurologically a slower process than such things as the survival response. Ornstein speculated that, like other processes, that time could be decreased with continual practice, but probably not to the point of being as “quick” as conditioned or “instinctual” response. The example of non-violence training also comes to mind.
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Originally posted by vistesdIn (2), it says 'We understand S's potential A-ing on the basis of his awareness
Second, it seems to me that certain exceptional cases where S does not engage in full reflection before acting in a given circumstance, such as a “survival response” (fight, flee or freeze) to an immediate threat, can also be subsumed under ...[text shortened]... xample of a case where there is not enough time to fully reflect.]
that (2) to be an exercise of his agency, and not merely the output of some
causal process.'
Wouldn't relexes or instincts be the products of autonomic causal processes (i.e.,
the nervous system's automatic responses to danger) and as a result be inapplicable
in this discussion? Or have I misunderstood what the 'output of some causal process'
means?
Trying to more fully reflect,
Nemesio