Originally posted by AThousandYoungFirst, Wikipedia is horrible on philosophical matters. Second, I am not talking about the term "intrinsic", I am talking about the term "intrinsic value", which is defined above. Third, I was only using secondary properties as an analogy to intrinsic properties so as to address your desire for some sort of physical analogy.
Intrinsic describes a characteristic or property of some thing or action which is essential and specific to that thing or action, and which is wholly independent of any other object, action or consequence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic
Secondary qualities do not exist in things themselves. They depend on a perceiver's y" and the other says "this quality is always independent of any third party". Paradox!
Secondary properties are subjective in that can only exist if there are minds to perceive them. Secondary properties are objective in that the truth of claims about them does not depend upon the beliefs and desires of perceivers. It is the same with the intrinsically valuable.
Originally posted by bbarrOK. I guess I'm just not going to get it at this time. I'll go over the thread again and see if I can make sense of all this.
First, Wikipedia is horrible on philosophical matters. Second, I am not talking about the term "intrinsic", I am talking about the term "intrinsic value", which is defined above. Third, I was only using secondary properties as an analogy to intrinsic properties so as to address your desire for some sort of physical analogy.
Secondary properties are subjec ...[text shortened]... upon the beliefs and desires of perceivers. It is the same with the intrinsically valuable.
But you're also talking about "intrinsic properties".
Originally posted by AThousandYoungJust so we're clear, I do not think that there are states of affairs, properties, traits, etc. that are intrinsically valuable in that they are valuable independently of anybody that does the valuing. Value is mind-dependent for its existence. I do think, however, that people can be wrong about what is valuable. Indeed, I think it is logically possible that we are all wrong about what is valuable. That is, I do not think that the truth of claims like "X is valuable" of necessity depend on the beliefs and desires of actual persons. I hope this makes it clearer why I claim that value is subjective in one sense (its existence is dependent on the existence of minds) but objective in a different sense (whether something is valuable is not dependent on what we believe or desire about that something). If value was objective in both senses, it would make sense to compare value with the primary properties of physical objects. Since it is only objective in the second sense, it only makes sense to compare value with the secondary properties of physical objects, and then only if you really need a physical analogue to understand the claims about value that I've been making throughout this discussion.
OK. I guess I'm just not going to get it at this time. I'll go over the thread again and see if I can make sense of all this.
But you're also talking about "intrinsic properties".
Originally posted by bbarrOut of interest, if all sentient beings in the universe were wiped out today, would the proposition:
Just so we're clear, I do not think that there are states of affairs, properties, traits, etc. that are intrinsically valuable in that they are valuable independently of anybody that does the valuing. Value is mind-dependent for its existence. I do think, however, that people can be wrong about what is valuable. Indeed, I think it is logically possible that logue to understand the claims about value that I've been making throughout this discussion.
Taking an innocent life is wrong
Be false or meaningless tomorrow?
Originally posted by bbarrI'm in agreement with you on the error of with holding compassion
People who restrict the scope of their compassion to those in some preferred "in-group" make a moral error. They are racist, sexist, elitist, or whatever. We can discuss just what these sorts of errors consist in, but my hope is that it is fairly clear to you why these discriminatory attitudes are wrong. Roughly, the bigot takes as a criterion for full mora ...[text shortened]... beliefs in question. We can use this knowledge to inform our practices of educating children.
and so on to the preferred group. I wonder is this error something
that we should have known all along, or is it a learned position of
moral fact in your opinion? The reason I ask this is because of
justice in the universe both methods of knowledge be it learned or
the innate knowledge sort of tell us something about us and the
universe we are in. If it is a learned knowledge due to the nature
of actions and preferences exactly why are our conclusions the right
ones verses someone who believes their preferences are just and
ours are flawed, because we do not value what they do? If it is
innate knowledge that leads to quite a statement about the universe.
Kelly
Originally posted by KellyJayDo you think women deserve the same moral consideration as men?
I'm in agreement with you on the error of with holding compassion
and so on to the preferred group.
Do you think gays deserve the same moral consideration as straights?
Do you think the Sodomites, Midianites, Canaanites, and Jerichoites were treated with due inter-group moral consideration by God's people?
Originally posted by DoctorScribblesYes to women and men, but I'm sure like all things due to the
Do you think women deserve the same moral consideration as men?
Do you think gays deserve the same moral consideration as straights?
Do you think the Sodomites, Midianites, Canaanites, and Jerichoites were treated with due inter-group moral consideration by God's people?
differences between the sexes there will be things that those
differences may cause issues.
No to gays because I see that more of defining a person by their
sexual tastes and actions not their person-hood so it is justifying
an action or desire not a person in my opinion.
Are you now asking about God's judgment over a people, because if
you are you should also realize that God is going to judge everyone
even His people. If you asking about God's people being perfect
in how they treated others, I'd still say people are people we are all
guilty of doing wrong among us there is none whose walk is without
blame.
Let me ask you something now.
In the Beginning should God have just blasted evil as soon as it
showed itself without giving it the right to show itself better than
what God said was good? How would the angels or we for that
matter know that with holding compassion from just a select few
was not as good as sharing it with everyone unless we got to see
it played out in life first. Should God have told everyone to just
take His Word for it?
Kelly
Originally posted by dottewellWell, I guess if the proposition had the structure of a universally quantified conditional, then it would be vacuously true, since nothing in the world would satisfy the antecedent (ie., nothing would qualify as "the taking of an innocent life" ).
Out of interest, if all sentient beings in the universe were wiped out today, would the proposition:
Taking an innocent life is wrong
Be false or meaningless tomorrow?
Originally posted by KellyJayThis question central to the theme of Orson Scott Card's "The Warrington Chronicle" (or something similar to that). An excellent sci-fi novel, as is anything written by the man.
Yes to women and men, but I'm sure like all things due to the
differences between the sexes there will be things that those
differences may cause issues.
No to gays because I see that more of defining a person by their
sexual tastes and actions not their person-hood so it is justifying
an action or desire not a person in my opinion.
Are you now as ...[text shortened]... layed out in life first. Should God have told everyone to just
take His Word for it?
Kelly
Basically, super psychics evolve, and the theme is their struggle with whether they should deny mankind pain or not when mankind begs for this release. The fact that they themselves refuse to give up their deepest, most traumatic memories shows their hypocrisy in taking these traumatic memories from the people under their care.
Note to forum participants: The following is part of an exchange between myself and A Thousand Young, following my inquiry into the cryptic "U SHUD BELEEV Q!!!" message under his name in his forum posts. He suggested I should post it here, so here it is.
* * *
Without seeing the specific details of your argument with Bbarr, one might at first glance distinguish two different forms of action by Franklin: rejecting that P implies Q because he doesn't understand the proof (assuming for the sake of argument that the proof is sound); and rejecting that P implies Q because he simply doesn't want to accept the conclusion (again, assuming that the proof is sound). However, these are really statements about the internal psychological states of Franklin, not about the logical implication of Q by P or the soundness of the alleged proof. One state is incomprehension; the other state is stubborn refusal to accept a conclusion for reasons independent of the proof. But I wouldn't call incomprehension (assuming a genuine, good faith attempt) "irrationality".
You didn't mention cases where, if P implies Q (whether or not through any number of intermediary steps) Franklin may fail to accept Q simply because the proof has yet to be developed. A given set of mathematical premises might, for instance, imply a large number of startling and as yet unconsidered conclusions, but either the arguments are so obscure or the conclusions so remote in the chain of reasoning, that the conclusions are thus far not evident from the premises. I wouldn't call it "irrational" not to be able to see, at a glance, all that is implied by a set of such premises.
Finally, I think the most trouble I would have here is the concept of P implying Q. Often, such arguments are abused. What Bbarr and yourself may intend is that, given certain premises and accepted modes of reasoning from them, Q can be shown to follow from P. But one need not accept the premises (P, for example).
All proofs are finite, because if they weren't the conclusion would never be reached. (Please note that inductive mathematical arguments are NOT an exception: the arguments themselves are finite.) But that implies that all proofs depend on premises that are unproven (i.e., either arbitrary or else self-evidently true). Insofar as, by the term "true", one means a conclusion which is factual and not merely stipulated or conditional, logic must clearly depend, ultimately, on non-logical elements. This could be called direct insight in some cases (e.g., if I "feel hot" I don't need a proof -- I experience it directly), and intuition in others.
Edit: It is very seldom the case, in ordinary (or even scholarly) discussions of empirical statements, that Q is *of necessity* implied by P. Frequently, even using the terms P and Q involves a host of tacit premises that permit the interpretation of certain phenomena within the framework of a particular worldview. One of the most important contributions of philosophy is to make tacit premises explicit, and to identify the degree to which arguments between two groups can or cannot be resolved simply because they use incommensurate frameworks of interpretation.
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsWithout seeing the specific details of your argument with Bbarr, one might at first glance distinguish two different forms of action by Franklin: rejecting that P implies Q because he doesn't understand the proof (assuming for the sake of argument that the proof is sound); and rejecting that P implies Q because he simply doesn't want to accept the conclusion (again, assuming that the proof is sound). However, these are really statements about the internal psychological states of Franklin, not about the logical implication of Q by P or the soundness of the alleged proof. One state is incomprehension; the other state is stubborn refusal to accept a conclusion for reasons independent of the proof. But I wouldn't call incomprehension (assuming a genuine, good faith attempt) "irrationality".
Note to forum participants: The following is part of an exchange between myself and A Thousand Young, following my inquiry into the cryptic "U SHUD BELEEV Q!!!" message under his name in his forum posts. He suggested I should post it here, so here it is.
* * *
Without seeing the specific details of your argument with Bbarr, one might at first glan e resolved simply because they use incommensurate frameworks of interpretation.
In the example as given, the subject believes P, understands the deduction from P to Q, and yet fails to believe Q. The only point of the example was to show that there are clear cases where we can say truly of somebody that they should A (in this case, they should believe Q). Regardless of this, however, the term “irrational” is not applied univocally. We call people irrational when they form beliefs irresponsibly or when they lack epistemic virtues. But we also call people irrational when, despite their best efforts, their processes of belief formation are insenstive to the reasons they have at their disposal. The first use embodies a form of criticism of the agent and is tied up with considerations of the agent’s will. The second use emobies an assessment of defect, perhaps, but not an assessment of the agent’s will.
You didn't mention cases where, if P implies Q (whether or not through any number of intermediary steps) Franklin may fail to accept Q simply because the proof has yet to be developed. A given set of mathematical premises might, for instance, imply a large number of startling and as yet unconsidered conclusions, but either the arguments are so obscure or the conclusions so remote in the chain of reasoning, that the conclusions are thus far not evident from the premises. I wouldn't call it "irrational" not to be able to see, at a glance, all that is implied by a set of such premises.
Why would I mention cases that were irrelevant to the point I was making? The whole point of this tangential discussion was to try and address ATY’s misunderstanding of how the term “should” can be used. Apparently you haven’t read the thread. I was not out to give a complete account of inferential relations and human rationality. I am out simply to show that we can say truly of people that there are cases where they should believe a proposition, and that we can explicate this "should" be reference to the epistemic reasons they have at their disposal, or are in a position to have at their disposal. That you think I was after something more ambitious than this indicates to me that your discussion with ATY was deeply inaccurate, and that he continues to fail to grasp the content of my posts.
Regardless of this, I completely agree that there are cases where one may have sufficient evidence for P, have a valid deduction from P to Q, and yet fail to have sufficient reason to believe that Q. In such cases one will not have grasped or understood the deduction (which is why cases like this are irrelevant to my point. My example stipulated that the deduction was understood). If one has a 10,000 step deduction, one may have more reason to doubt one’s memory of previous steps than to believe that the deduction shows Q. Of course these sorts of failures do not show that one is irrational. They may show that one is less than perfectly rational, or that one is merely finite.
Finally, I think the most trouble I would have here is the concept of P implying Q. Often, such arguments are abused. What Bbarr and yourself may intend is that, given certain premises and accepted modes of reasoning from them, Q can be shown to follow from P. But one need not accept the premises (P, for example).
Right, so you haven’t read the thread. The claim, again, was that if one believes P, and one understands a deduction from P to Q, then one has sufficient reason to believe Q. It is a stipulation of the thought experiment that P is taken by the subject to be true, and that the subject understands the deduction to Q. If you have a problem with P implying Q, then you obviously haven’t taken first-order logic. Entailment is not some mysterious notion.
The rest of your post (though interesting) simply misunderstands the content of the discussion in this thread.
This was my response to his inquiry about my Location. I'm in italics, responding to Mark who's in bold. Hope you don't mind me showing this PM of yours, Mark. Any misunderstanding of Mark's is probably caused by my own misunderstanding and Mark's failure to read the thread before posting.
>Regarding epistemology, A.J. Ayer's "The Problem of Knowledge" is pretty good.
As for "Q", I'm having trouble even parsing that one. Should I believe Q? (If so, who or what is Q, and what statement has (s)he/it made that I should accept?) Or are...
This is the thread that that title came from:
http://www.playtheimmortalgame.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=83391
I don't know if you saw it or not.
Q is some abstract concept that one either believes or does not believe. P is some other abstract concept. In that thread, we accept that a person (call him Franklin) believes P. For example, one could say that P might be "Carbon-14 dating is trustworthy and accurate".
Bbarr wrote that if the evidence is sufficient for Franklin to believe that P's truth logically leads to Q's truth, than Franklin "should" believe Q. I argued with him about it. He's very intelligent and this is his field so he probably knows what he's talking about, but I don't understand.
For example; Franklin believes in P (carbon dating). Franklin understands that P means Q. Q might be the idea that...I don't know...Homo Sapiens coexisted with Neanderthal for long periods of time in the same area. It doesn't matter.
So Franklins understands P. Bbarr says that if "the evidence is sufficient" then Franklin SHOULD believe Q, and if he doesn't he's being irrational. My position is that if Franklin understands that the evidence is sufficient he cannot help but to believe Q, and the irrationality shows up because he cannot understand that if P, then Q. Bbarr claims irrationality is a refusal to accept evidence, while I say that it's a failure to understand or to even try to understand the logic.
Since you're suggesting epistimology books I guess you may have seen the thread, but I'm not sure. Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know if I have time for that (I have sooo many little projects like this and I am lazy) but I'll keep my eye out.
Originally posted by AThousandYoungO.K., this is helpful. Variables like 'P' and 'Q' stand in for claims that can be true or false (e.g., 'everything is identical with itself', 'snow is white', 'there are two cats in my living room', etc.). To say "S believes that P' is to say of S that he believes the claims that 'P' stands in for, whatever that may be. In the hypothetical example I gave above, I was just using 'P' to stand in for some claim or other that one believed, and 'Q' to stand in for some claim or other that was entailed by whatever claim 'P' stands for. If one claim entails another, then if the first claim is true, the other claim must also be true. The claim 'John is taller than Mary', for instance, entails that 'Mary is shorter than John'. The claim that 'John is a bachelor', for instance, entails that 'John is unmarried', and so on.
This was my response to his inquiry about my Location. I'm in italics, responding to Mark who's in bold. Hope you don't mind me showing this PM of yours, Mark. Any misunderstanding of Mark's is probably caused by my own misunderstanding and Mark's failure to read the thread before posting.
>Regarding epistemology, A.J. Ayer's "The Problem of projects like this and I am lazy) but I'll keep my eye out. [/i]
I do not think that if there is sufficient evidence for P, then one necessarily should believe P. Suppose that there is sufficient evidence for the claim that my cat is a robot, but it is not evidence to which I have access or know about or whatever. Then it seems mistaken that given the evidence I actually have I should believe that my cat is a robot. Suppose, however, that I have access to this evidence (autopsy reveal tangled circuits and servomotors). In this case I should believe that my cat is a robot. That is I should believe those claims that I have sufficient reason to believe are true.
People do not invariably believe in accord with the evidence there is. People do not invariably believe even in accord with the evidence they themselves possess. There may be some thin sense in which people should believe claims for which there is sufficient evidence, but I am not making that claim here. Rather, I am claiming that people should believe claims for which they have sufficient reason. This is why it is crucial to understanding the original example both that one believe P and that one believe that P entails Q. These conditions give one sufficient reason to believe Q. But it is simply false that people invariably believe that for which they have sufficient evidence. In simple cases like modus ponens style inferences (inferences of the form of the original example), of course people generally make the proper inference. That is, people in general believe as they should in cases like these. But this is not always the case. If it were, then it wouldn't be so damnably difficult to teach first-order logic to undergrads.
Originally posted by bbarrMakes sense, of course, from the point of view of logic; yet to me that is deeply unsatisfactory as an account of such "post Holocaust" moral statements.
Well, I guess if the proposition had the structure of a universally quantified conditional, then it would be vacuously true, since nothing in the world would satisfy the antecedent (ie., nothing would qualify as "the taking of an innocent life" ).
Originally posted by dottewellYour satisfaction is important to me, so let me try again:
Makes sense, of course, from the point of view of logic; yet to me that is deeply unsatisfactory as an account of such "post Holocaust" moral statements.
We should distinguish between two classes of propositions the surface grammar of which suggests universal quantification. There are those that would be shown false by a single counterexample, and those that would not. These second sorts of propositions include tacit ceteris paribus clauses; they are empirical generalizations, or natural categoricals. I take the truth of the proposition "taking an innocent life is wrong" to be of this second sort. In other words, I think it is generally the case that taking an innocent life is wrong, although there certainly may be cases where it is permissible (e.g., one takes one's own innocent life to save others). Providing these sorts of counterexamples leads to a refined understanding of the proposition. This is one way we can go about unpacking just what we mean by expressions of the sort you're interested in. Once we get clear on what we really mean by claims like 'taking an innocent life is wrong', we will be in a position to construct a proposition that would be true even post-Holocaust. We will have to understand 'taking' in terms of an agent's intentionally taking, we will have to specify in broad terms the sorts of motivations an agent could have for the taking that would be insufficient to justify the taking, we would have to understand 'life' in terms of lives that meet certain minimal conditions, etc. There is no reason to think that we can codify all this, and this follows I think just from the holistic nature of reasons. We would still be able to say, even of the post-Holocaust world, that were their creatures of a certain sort, they will be subject to moral constraints of the sort expressed by the refined proposition. I do not think, however, that the truth of the propositions you're interested in are built into the very fabric of the universe. Moral claims are about us, and the content of morality determined by the sorts of creatures we are, by our capacities, our frailties, our social nature, our rationality.
Also, I think I was too quick above. In a universe where there are still elements in the domain of discourse, it would be a substantial truth there were any element in the domain an entity like us, it would be bound by moral norms. Above I was considering a case where there were literally no elements in the domain, though this was not an entailment of your description of the case as merely lacking sentient entities.