Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

[Seth_Gibson]

He basically does own me considering that I bend to his will so much when he wants a belly rub.

And yet you keep him imprisoned, and subject to your dictates? [ The issue of there being no 'natural' environment for a dog to live in is moot, as this applies to all animals these days. Their natural habitats are being flattened and covered in concrete, or mined. ] You may think that you make his slavery as pleasant as it could be, but it remains slavery. He is owned by you, in a much more real (human legal) sense than the opposite is the case....

Topic: Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

This is a philosophical enquiry, so let's pursue the truth, inasmuch as we can, and not misrepresent it for our own emotional comfort?

By all means, I would love to hear your argument in favor of giving animals autonomy, and if you convince me I will give up my dog Petey. The key is in whether there is a metaphysical distinction between humans and dogs, and between dogs and insects. The mouse who is ensnared by the cheese-covered trap is enslaved by its impulses, the same way my dog is enslaved by his instinct to lick his butt. One would not say those activities are governed by 'autonomy' in any real sense of the word, so Petey cannot complain either way. If you want, I can sign a contract with Petey saying that he chooses to live with me of his own free will. He might have a hard time signing the contract though.

Even if one grants that it is wrong to enslave an animal, can one say the same of insects? Would it be okay for me to own an ant farm?

[Seth_Gibson]

I do not want to conclude that we can objectively conclude the essence of an object as Aristotle would argue. I am curious to hear what your thoughts are because I am uncertain of the place of teleology within metaphysics.

You seem to want to add garbage on top of garbage. Imagining teleology in the world is imposing on the world human characteristics. It is anthropomorphizing the world. Primitive people do this all the time, imagining spirits inhabit everything. Modern people who have the same way of thinking do the same thing, only they pretend that they are not primitive.

I do not have a strong opinion either way here, but I think the word teleology came with some unanticipated baggage on my part. I will leave it at that.

It is not an objective basis for morality. As I said earlier, Nietzsche is a moral relativist, so the biographical facticity of an individual affects one's philosophy. Nietzsche would agree that we should not have the same preference as him just because he prefers those feelings. And yes, I think he would agree with your Hume statement if I understand it correctly. Here is the respective aphorism 6 from Beyond Good and Evil:
...
His metaphysics of the mind is relatively similar to Plato's tripartite mind minus the intellectual objectivity. One nuance to the distinction between the unegoistic creature of resentiment and the egoistic noble is that both of them are governed by the will to power. The creature of resentiment is not strong enough to inject values into society the same way the noble does, and it, therefore, relies on an inversion of values. The strong are immoral, and the weak are virtuous. A good example would be the new testament. Nietzsche thinks it is inferior to the old testament because "the meek shall inherit the earth" becomes "the meek shall dominate the earth," in the sense that the meek are manifesting will to power through subterfuge. Not all of the creature's powers are directed outwards, however.

Sometimes the creature's will to power is directed inwards. When Nietzsche says that "life is will to power" he means that the will to power is life-affirming, but not necessarily life-preserving. Every individual has a sort of will to cruelty towards others which Nietzsche argues even apes were akin to. Cruelty comes when others obstruct one's goals, and the cruelty towards another makes one feel better. Think of things like racism, for example, where superiority and cruelty makes one feel better than one actually is. When this will is obstructed, it turns inwards. This is demonstrated by aphorism 16 of the second essay:
...
If you want a better understanding of bad conscience, then I recommend reading aphorisms 16 through 18. They are definitely the most interesting parts of the second essay.

Bad conscience is important because it provides value for the unegoistic. The weakling rejects its individual in favor of a herd morality when it favors resentiment, as opposed to something a bit more authoritarian and individualistic. From the perspective of the weakling, it is perhaps logical to act in this way. This is why others speculate that he wrote the antichrist with the intention of putting-off Christians to keep them from coming to his side, all while manifesting the will to power with individuals who he really meant the message for. So really when I said Nietzsche is an egoist, I meant that even the unegoistic will is egoistic, for unegoism is an internalized will to power. This drive, this preference as you put it, is altogether something the individual favors for themselves, regardless of what is apparent on the surface. One cannot judge the actions of, say a criminal without looking under the surface and determining his intentions. To Nietzsche, Kant's deontology/virtue ethics is superior to a consequentialist morality, but his morality of intentions is inferior for determining the state of the individual. This is why Nietzsche regards any sort of legal system as doomed to fail from a so-called objective point of view.

You will have extrapolated from what was said earlier that all this speculation regarding resentiment, active noble morality, and bad conscience is an interpretation on Nietzsche's part. He would welcome any objections you have as a "free spirit". I have more, but I think I gave you enough to refute.

I do not think you will like my response to this.

Where are the arguments? What are the reasons for what he claims?

He seems to just be making a long string of unsupported assertions, and hopes the reader will be gullible enough to just accept what he is claiming.

Any fool can pontificate.

Really, you are reminding me of why I have never bothered to read more of him than I have read. It seems like useless rubbish, unsupported claims devoid of redeeming value.

This lack of arguments, this lack of reasoning, supports the statements of your Ph.D. graduate in philosophy quoted above. But this is not in Nietzsche’s favor.

I did not intend it to be in Nietzsche's favor, and I remember saying that I wanted to move on from reading him. I have no commend beyond that.

Yes, it was only after writing that quote that I realized reason could be governed by determinism. I honestly found your emotional argument more compelling than Plato's even though I had some objections. Hume's emotional argument is more in line with what we know today about the human mind. However, based on what I have read and consumed online--which is little--the free will debate is not yet empirically settled within the philosophy of psychology and neurology.

Nothing is ever really settled in philosophy. That is both a virtue and a vice. Mostly, it is a vice.

But you still have not given me a proper definition of free will. So I literally do not know what you are writing about, as different people have had different ideas about what "free will" is. If you doubt this, just do an online search for philosophy encyclopedias and look up "free will" in them. You might also just do a search for "free will" online, though I expect you will get a lot of useless crap that you will have to bypass for the bits that may be helpful on this.

And yes, you are right, that Hume's analysis is very much in line with scientific research on the human mind. I don't think that is a coincidence, as he was not trying to tell us what he wanted to be true of people, but was trying to tell us what people really do. Many people who pretend to love wisdom come up with some BS that they want to be true. That is an approach that will almost always lead to error.

You would easily shoot holes in my working definition of free will, so I should probably read more into it before discussing it further.

[Jack D Ripper]

He basically does own me considering that I bend to his will so much when he wants a belly rub.

And yet you keep him imprisoned, and subject to your dictates? [ The issue of there being no 'natural' environment for a dog to live in is moot, as this applies to all animals these days. Their natural habitats are being flattened and covered in concrete, or mined. ] You may think that you make his slavery as pleasant as it could be, but it remains slavery. He is owned by you, in a much more real (human legal) sense than the opposite is the case....

Topic: Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

This is a philosophical enquiry, so let's pursue the truth, inasmuch as we can, and not misrepresent it for our own emotional comfort?

I don't know about Seth's dog Petey, but I got my dog at an animal shelter. If I had not "rescued" her, either someone else would have taken her, or they would have killed her, or she would have spent the rest of her life there.

I try to give her the best life that I can give her. I don't think she has any better options than being with me. She loves me and I love her. I see that she has plenty of toys, several dog beds, high quality food, treats that she enjoys (but not too many, as I do not want her to get fat and unhealthy), I take her for walks most days (which she loves), I play with her, etc. I take her to the vet for checkups and vaccinations, and, if she ever becomes very ill or injured (so far, neither have happened), I will take her to the vet for that, too. On the walks, most of the time, I let her sniff many things, which makes it take a while to get very far. The walks are for her, not me (though they are good for my health). I arrange play dates with other dogs that she likes. She takes up a good deal of my time (several hours every day), which, if one is going to have a dog, one should be spending a good amount of time with the dog, as dogs are social animals and like company. In training, I use positive reinforcement. I have NEVER hit my dog, and I NEVER will.

I would not get a dog from a breeder. If I get another dog, it will be another "rescue".

Now, you can tell me that my dog's life is not perfect. Aside from the fact that no one's life is perfect, she has pretty much the best life possible. She has no better options.

[Jack D Ripper]

And yet you keep him imprisoned, and subject to your dictates? [ The issue of there being no 'natural' environment for a dog to live in is moot, as this applies to all animals these days. Their natural habitats are being flattened and covered in concrete, or mined. ] You may think that you make his slavery as pleasant as it could be, but it remains slavery. He is owned by you, in a much more real (human legal) sense than the opposite is the case....

Topic: Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

This is a philosophical enquiry, so let's pursue the truth, inasmuch as we can, and not misrepresent it for our own emotional comfort?

By all means, I would love to hear your argument in favor of giving animals autonomy, and if you convince me I will give up my dog Petey. The key is in whether there is a metaphysical distinction between humans and dogs, and between dogs and insects. The mouse who is ensnared by the cheese-covered trap is enslaved by its impulses, the same way my dog is enslaved by his instinct to lick his butt. One would not say those activities are governed by 'autonomy' in any real sense of the word, so Petey cannot complain either way. If you want, I can sign a contract with Petey saying that he chooses to live with me of his own free will. He might have a hard time signing the contract though.

Even if one grants that it is wrong to enslave an animal, can one say the same of insects? Would it be okay for me to own an ant farm?

Metaphysics has nothing to do with this. Take a look at my post above:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16950&start=90#p371709

That is what having a dog is about. It has nothing whatever to do with metaphysics. Not only is metaphysics not "key" to this, metaphysics is completely irrelevant.

[Jack D Ripper]

...
You would easily shoot holes in my working definition of free will, so I should probably read more into it before discussing it further.

If you read much about "free will", you will find that most of what is written is garbage. So if you had a ridiculous opinion on it, you would be in the majority.

You can start with various encyclopedia entries on this, particularly philosophy encyclopedias.

[Sy Borg]

And yet you keep him imprisoned, and subject to your dictates? [ The issue of there being no 'natural' environment for a dog to live in is moot, as this applies to all animals these days. Their natural habitats are being flattened and covered in concrete, or mined. ] You may think that you make his slavery as pleasant as it could be, but it remains slavery. He is owned by you, in a much more real (human legal) sense than the opposite is the case....

Topic: Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

This is a philosophical enquiry, so let's pursue the truth, inasmuch as we can, and not misrepresent it for our own emotional comfort?

I don't know about Seth's dog Petey, but I got my dog at an animal shelter. If I had not "rescued" her, either someone else would have taken her, or they would have killed her, or she would have spent the rest of her life there.

I try to give her the best life that I can give her. I don't think she has any better options than being with me. She loves me and I love her. I see that she has plenty of toys, several dog beds, high quality food, treats that she enjoys (but not too many, as I do not want her to get fat and unhealthy), I take her for walks most days (which she loves), I play with her, etc. I take her to the vet for checkups and vaccinations, and, if she ever becomes very ill or injured (so far, neither have happened), I will take her to the vet for that, too. On the walks, most of the time, I let her sniff many things, which makes it take a while to get very far. The walks are for her, not me (though they are good for my health). I arrange play dates with other dogs that she likes. She takes up a good deal of my time (several hours every day), which, if one is going to have a dog, one should be spending a good amount of time with the dog, as dogs are social animals and like company. In training, I use positive reinforcement. I have NEVER hit my dog, and I NEVER will.

I would not get a dog from a breeder. If I get another dog, it will be another "rescue".

Now, you can tell me that my dog's life is not perfect. Aside from the fact that no one's life is perfect, she has pretty much the best life possible. She has no better options.

Ah, the dynamics of power. The dynamic is set up for slavery, so it depends entirely on the adopted dog's human family. We can see from the above that Jack gets it. It's easy to bring a dog in as a fully fledged family member - play, walks, nice food, grooming, affection and, importantly IMO, respect. For example, with dogs and little boys, it's a standard move to ruffle their head with a "How ya goin', mate?" before moving on to talk with the adults.

It's good-natured, but it emphasises the power imbalance, eg. you don't do that with your spouse unless clowning around. Of course, in an abusive family, a cursory rub of the head would be met with delight by a dog or child. But in "normal" situations, having one's hair tousled can be a tad annoying, if overdone. Some dogs and kids downright resent it.

A slower approach, allowing the slower-thinking dog (or child) time to be an active player in the interaction is better recieved. Usually with dogs that means letting them sniff your hand; they enjoy that almost as much as sniffing other dog's mouth and backside, especially if you've been preparing food or patting other dogs.

Er, oh, and philosophical inquiry can bring us closer to truth, but it depends on the correctness of one's knowledge base (and we cannot ever be 100% certain about that). Starting with incorrect assumptions can lead to beliefs that become ever more removed from reality. As with pure mathematics and literature, it's very possible to create cohesive, realistic models that have no correlation in physical reality.

[Jack D Ripper]

I don't know about Seth's dog Petey, but I got my dog at an animal shelter. If I had not "rescued" her, either someone else would have taken her, or they would have killed her, or she would have spent the rest of her life there.

I try to give her the best life that I can give her. I don't think she has any better options than being with me. She loves me and I love her. I see that she has plenty of toys, several dog beds, high quality food, treats that she enjoys (but not too many, as I do not want her to get fat and unhealthy), I take her for walks most days (which she loves), I play with her, etc. I take her to the vet for checkups and vaccinations, and, if she ever becomes very ill or injured (so far, neither have happened), I will take her to the vet for that, too. On the walks, most of the time, I let her sniff many things, which makes it take a while to get very far. The walks are for her, not me (though they are good for my health). I arrange play dates with other dogs that she likes. She takes up a good deal of my time (several hours every day), which, if one is going to have a dog, one should be spending a good amount of time with the dog, as dogs are social animals and like company. In training, I use positive reinforcement. I have NEVER hit my dog, and I NEVER will.

I would not get a dog from a breeder. If I get another dog, it will be another "rescue".

Now, you can tell me that my dog's life is not perfect. Aside from the fact that no one's life is perfect, she has pretty much the best life possible. She has no better options.

Ah, the dynamics of power. The dynamic is set up for slavery, so it depends entirely on the adopted dog's human family. We can see from the above that Jack gets it. It's easy to bring a dog in as a fully fledged family member - play, walks, nice food, grooming, affection and, importantly IMO, respect. For example, with dogs and little boys, it's a standard move to ruffle their head with a "How ya goin', mate?" before moving on to talk with the adults.

It's good-natured, but it emphasises the power imbalance, eg. you don't do that with your spouse unless clowning around. Of course, in an abusive family, a cursory rub of the head would be met with delight by a dog or child. But in "normal" situations, having one's hair tousled can be a tad annoying, if overdone. Some dogs and kids downright resent it.

A slower approach, allowing the slower-thinking dog (or child) time to be an active player in the interaction is better recieved. Usually with dogs that means letting them sniff your hand; they enjoy that almost as much as sniffing other dog's mouth and backside, especially if you've been preparing food or patting other dogs.

Er, oh, and philosophical inquiry can bring us closer to truth, but it depends on the correctness of one's knowledge base (and we cannot ever be 100% certain about that). Starting with incorrect assumptions can lead to beliefs that become ever more removed from reality. As with pure mathematics and literature, it's very possible to create cohesive, realistic models that have no correlation in physical reality.

It is interesting that you discuss this as slavery and bring up children. It would be disastrous to let small children do whatever they want, and so there is the issue of control, which obviously involves power. Some have likened parental control to slavery, though I do not see what alternative would work.

As for getting the dog acclimated to one's family, we have had our dog for over a year, and we slowly integrated her, giving her space to be away from us if she wished, and provided a place for that. (She can still do that if she wishes, but mostly she likes being with us in the same room. As I type this, she is asleep next to me on a couch.) When we got her, she was afraid, as she did not have a good life before we adopted her. And "adopted" is very apt, as is your analogy with children, as we think of our dog as our daughter. We love her and care for her, and give her as much freedom as seems reasonably possible. She has been off lead out in the world, and she does not run away; part of that is training, but we also treat her well, so running away would likely give her a worse life rather than a better one. She is happy to come back to me, and I am happy that she does. We have trained her (again, with positive reinforcement; we want her to love us, not fear us), which one might think of in terms of slavery, but one can also think of it in terms of raising children, as one gets them to obey in some instances as well. Either that, or one is really doing them a disservice, as they will need to behave out in the world or they will have no end of trouble in life. Not to mention how sick the child would get from eating nothing but ice cream and candy.

As for respect, you are right, that one should adapt to the dog, to respect its wishes in many instances. Sometimes, a dog likes its neck rubbed, and other times, it does not. Really, though, I don't think there can be love without respect. If you love your dog, you will want it to have a good life, which involves it getting its way about some things on many occasions. And if someone is not going to give a dog a good life, it would be better for it to be put down instead of being with that person.

[Jack D Ripper]

He basically does own me considering that I bend to his will so much when he wants a belly rub.

And yet you keep him imprisoned, and subject to your dictates? [ The issue of there being no 'natural' environment for a dog to live in is moot, as this applies to all animals these days. Their natural habitats are being flattened and covered in concrete, or mined. ] You may think that you make his slavery as pleasant as it could be, but it remains slavery. He is owned by you, in a much more real (human legal) sense than the opposite is the case....

Topic: Does Philosophical Inquiry Lead to Truth?

This is a philosophical enquiry, so let's pursue the truth, inasmuch as we can, and not misrepresent it for our own emotional comfort?

I probably should have mentioned, in my first response to this, that Seth was evidently joking when he stated that the dog owned him. It is a common sort of joke for pet owners to say things like that.

[Jack D Ripper]

...

You did not complete that idea; the "If" is by itself; I did not cut it off. What is the problem to which you are referring?

The internet people call it "the hard problem of consciousness". It could be bologna, but I wanted to relate it to my rather imprecise concept of sentience in the 12-year-old. Do you think the concept of consciousness matters to humans? It is a hard notion to give up for me at least, but I am not well-read on the issue. I believed in solipsism for a short time.

...

To add to what I stated before, many philosophers want to pretend that everything is in their domain and best handled by themselves. Some philosophers and neuroscientists do not share that opinion:

https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/202 ... 09/5861711

Again, I am of the wait and see attitude on this. I expect that much more will be gained by actual scientific research than the navel gazing of some philosophers. As stated in my initial response in this thread, the track record of the average philosopher is pretty dismal. Plus, there is a lot to be learned from scientific examinations of human brains that is going on presently, and it is best to wait for actual evidence instead of just making stuff up without evidence.

We can see from this example why it is that the record for philosophers is so very bad, because so many of them want to judge things before the relevant facts are known. That naturally tends to lead to error.

[Sy Borg]

Ah, the dynamics of power. The dynamic is set up for slavery, so it depends entirely on the adopted dog's human family. We can see from the above that Jack gets it. It's easy to bring a dog in as a fully fledged family member - play, walks, nice food, grooming, affection and, importantly IMO, respect. For example, with dogs and little boys, it's a standard move to ruffle their head with a "How ya goin', mate?" before moving on to talk with the adults.

It's good-natured, but it emphasises the power imbalance, eg. you don't do that with your spouse unless clowning around. Of course, in an abusive family, a cursory rub of the head would be met with delight by a dog or child. But in "normal" situations, having one's hair tousled can be a tad annoying, if overdone. Some dogs and kids downright resent it.

A slower approach, allowing the slower-thinking dog (or child) time to be an active player in the interaction is better recieved. Usually with dogs that means letting them sniff your hand; they enjoy that almost as much as sniffing other dog's mouth and backside, especially if you've been preparing food or patting other dogs.

Er, oh, and philosophical inquiry can bring us closer to truth, but it depends on the correctness of one's knowledge base (and we cannot ever be 100% certain about that). Starting with incorrect assumptions can lead to beliefs that become ever more removed from reality. As with pure mathematics and literature, it's very possible to create cohesive, realistic models that have no correlation in physical reality.

It is interesting that you discuss this as slavery and bring up children. It would be disastrous to let small children do whatever they want, and so there is the issue of control, which obviously involves power. Some have likened parental control to slavery, though I do not see what alternative would work.

As for getting the dog acclimated to one's family, we have had our dog for over a year, and we slowly integrated her, giving her space to be away from us if she wished, and provided a place for that. (She can still do that if she wishes, but mostly she likes being with us in the same room. As I type this, she is asleep next to me on a couch.) When we got her, she was afraid, as she did not have a good life before we adopted her. And "adopted" is very apt, as is your analogy with children, as we think of our dog as our daughter. We love her and care for her, and give her as much freedom as seems reasonably possible. She has been off lead out in the world, and she does not run away; part of that is training, but we also treat her well, so running away would likely give her a worse life rather than a better one. She is happy to come back to me, and I am happy that she does. We have trained her (again, with positive reinforcement; we want her to love us, not fear us), which one might think of in terms of slavery, but one can also think of it in terms of raising children, as one gets them to obey in some instances as well. Either that, or one is really doing them a disservice, as they will need to behave out in the world or they will have no end of trouble in life. Not to mention how sick the child would get from eating nothing but ice cream and candy.

As for respect, you are right, that one should adapt to the dog, to respect its wishes in many instances. Sometimes, a dog likes its neck rubbed, and other times, it does not. Really, though, I don't think there can be love without respect. If you love your dog, you will want it to have a good life, which involves it getting its way about some things on many occasions. And if someone is not going to give a dog a good life, it would be better for it to be put down instead of being with that person.

Your dog was lucky - it was handed to a kind slave owner ;) Jokes aside, it's true that you have to lean on pets at times, just as you must do with kids. That's part of keeping them safe and ensuring enough calm when they socialise to not turn other dogs off. There are enormous similarities between dogs and children, the main difference seemingly morphology, senses and their future prospects. Dogs are mentally akin to small human children, occupying a similar world to dogs, for a time being more similar to each other than to adult humans.

Our dog is elderly and also reliable off-leash, though I am yelled at by animal haters for this a few times every year. One can't help wondering who is the more civilised as the old dog gently sniffs around and some hominid is red-faced, shouting and adopting dominant physical postures. It does concern me just how out of touch with nature people are becoming, unable to tolerate non-human animals, seeking only sterility like wannabe denizens of sets used for futurist sci fi, all white, crisp, sanitised and, well, dead.

I suppose I have betrayed myself as a relic of the past, unimpressed with a future to which I am not adapted.

[Seth_Gibson]

...

I do not know whether values are universal or relative,

I would say values are subjective (I don't like your terminology, or you are missing something from what is possible). In order for something to have value, something must value it. That is, a thing (like a person) must care about that thing, have feelings about that thing, or, if you prefer, values that thing.

In the case of morality, I agree with Hume that it is based on feelings of benevolence. I discuss this in this thread:


This gives morality a feeling as if it were more than subjective because it is shared feelings that are relevant. However, it is still just feelings, a subset of the totality of a person's feelings (except, of course, for sociopaths who have no feelings of benevolence).

I just finished reading all those quotes you put in your post and skimmed the replies, so I know where you are coming from when you say this now, whereas before I did not. I do not know if that makes me informed enough to disagree with Hume yet. I only want to verify something you said in the replies. Marvin says the following:

The sentiment in the southern states towards their negroes allowed them to enslave them. The sentiment towards gay men used to be such that it was not surprising to anyone when they were victimized and beaten. The sentiments with which Donald Trump was raised allowed him to spread rumors and lies about his political opponents.

To which you reply with this:

Hume is not saying that everyone's feelings are infallible (and, indeed, he said that not everyone had the appropriate feelings at all, though I suspect he would be unpleasantly surprised at modern research into how many people lack empathy). If one believes ridiculous fairy tales, then those fairy tales may influence one's feelings. The source of morality, though, is not those fairy tales.

I assume what you say follows from what Hume says here:

A speculative reasoner concerning triangles or circles considers the several known and given relations of the parts of these figures, and thence infers [290] some unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations, we must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects, and all their relations to each other

In other words, Marvin's example regarding racism did not hold up because southerners did not know that negroes were not inferior. Of course, the Monkish virtues come into play, as racism is never good in principle, regardless of whether someone is inferior. I would have to read more into monkish virtues because "fasting, penance, mortification, (and) self-denial" all sound very much like an unegoistic ideal, whereas racism would affirm a southerner's superiority. I would also need a more precise notion of Hume's idea of "common Humanity", or common human sentiments of morality which the individual references to make choices. Perhaps Hume can provide the structure for other philosophers to fill in the gaps in his system, and I wonder whether this has already happened.

but at the moment I regard relativism as an intellectually respectable position, regardless of whether Nietzsche himself is intellectually respectable. Nietzsche believed that there are no-self evident axioms, only fluid truths which the individual determines through an interpretation. I know Hume is a moral skeptic but is he a skeptic of the radical kind?

Hume describes himself as a "mitigated skeptic". However, he was far more skeptical than many people like. You would want to read An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding for more on that, as he is really quite skeptical of quite a few things.

I look forward to that.

Are there any self-evident axioms within philosophy?

I don't think there are any "self-evident" axioms within philosophy. To my way of thinking, calling something "self-evident" is just begging the question: ..."

It makes sense that you would say that because Hume is an empiricist. There can be no deductive, Platonic, "proofs" within philosophy assuming that Hume is right (At least concerning matters of ethics). That is an attractive prospect, although I can see how you would get tired of rubbish. Too many philosophers start with axioms. I know axiology is one of the four branches of philosophy, or that is what I read.

The internet people call it "the hard problem of consciousness". It could be bologna, but I wanted to relate it to my rather imprecise concept of sentience in the 12-year-old. Do you think the concept of consciousness matters to humans? It is a hard notion to give up for me at least, but I am not well-read on the issue. I believed in solipsism for a short time.

Yes, okay. I would say that I am unconvinced that it is really a problem. We are too far away from understanding how the brain works to know that we will not figure out consciousness with more research into brains. It is, in my opinion, judging the matter prematurely, before we have enough facts to make a proper judgment.

To give an analogy, primitive people regarded fire as a substance, as a thing. The modern view of what fire is that it is not a substance, but is a process, the rapid oxidation of a material.

The mind, too, seems like a process rather than a substance. It, like fire, is not a static thing.

Yes, and I suppose that combines with what you said about how philosophy should mimic science. I am sure you know better than I do that a large portion of Kant's metaphysics is utterly disproven by modern physics. One would think that geniuses could come up with something better, but I guess we overestimate ourselves as a species.

But some things are known. You might want to look at some neurobiology, of studies of people with brain damage and what this means for what they are. For a popular book on this sort of thing, you could look at a book by Oliver Sacks, like The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. So it very much appears to be the case that consciousness has to do with the processes of the brain, with different parts of the brain having different effects on consciousness.

I loved that book! I read it during my freshman year of high school. Books like that burn into my memory. There are so many things we take for granted like:

proprioception (body balance)
recognizing faces and scenery
remembering things from a few moments ago
The ability to sense one's body (Body disassociation)
forgetting things, unlike Hyperamnesiacs who remember everything
Having an IQ above 75
keeping thoughts to ourselves and controlling behavior (unlike Tourettes)

It makes me wonder how our experience of reality would change if biologists end up discovering designer babies, or the ability to improve the intelligence of current humans. Then we could design hyperempathetic/hyperintelligent superhumans that surpass us in every aspect of existence. I do not know what we would do then. If you had a computer that could let you change anything about yourself and your circumstances, would it be best to "improve" everything? Or is it necessary to strive toward a goal? I find it strange because this situation sounds so dystopian, and yet we strive to control our environment every day.

Thank you very much. He basically does own me considering that I bend to his will so much when he wants a belly rub. The point I was trying to make was that we need some way to categorize reality to have a coherent system of navigating ethics. When one reads "all men are created equal" the word "men" needs a working definition. In the context of the declaration of independence, the founding fathers obviously had a different idea of the word than we did. If the word "men" is to designate white men, then there needs to be a reason for thinking a white man is superior to a black woman, which the founders did not consider deeply. Similarly, the "great chain of being" has a grasp on the commonsense notions of modern people. There is a sense in which God is highest, angels follow, then humans, and then every other animal. We are concerned, however, with determining why there is an order of rank importance in the first place. For that, there needs to be something metaphysically different between man and God, or between man and animal.

See above comments about these things being subjective. I don't think one needs to have any metaphysical position at all.

Got it.

If you eat meat (imagine you do for this example) then you value animals less than you value humans.

I could be a cannibal or, if not, I may not value people at all, regarding them as completely worthless, not even worth eating. Frankly, I like my dog a lot more than a significant number of people.

You are basing that on Hume's empathetic argument, right? What one values depends on one's emotion and not logic. Keep in mind that I am restating your conclusions without excepting them because I need to read the book and ruminate.

If I ask you why you would be hard-pressed to make an ethical proclamation either way without distinguishing between animals and humans metaphysically. I await your response to see whether this is true or not.

No. One can distinguish between humans and dogs without having any metaphysical ideas about either. They look quite a bit different.

This is the same as the prior case with empathy. I meant distinguishing between dogs and humans based on ethical reasons. It is okay to own a dog but not a human. Why? Or perhaps such is not categorically true. Maybe owning a dog does go against moral sentiment. Why would it though? Like I said earlier, I need more information on Hume's conception of moral sentiment or I am missing something else.

I am out of my depth here, so I can only speculate. Imagine someone in your life that you love having his/her atoms completely ripped apart and put back together. In a word: teleportation. Would you consider it important to determine whether your loved one remains sentient after going through the endeavor (Even if the loved one thinks and acts the same)? So far neither of us has been through a teleporter, (right?) so there is no way to determine whether we would maintain our consciousness when going through one. I would hesitate to go through a teleporter since I know (or think at least) that I am sentient, so it seems counter-intuitive to posit that I should let my mother go through one, but not myself.

It is easy to say that "a difference that makes no difference is not a difference," in answering the teleportation question, but it seems like that is only a materialistic/scientific way of interpreting it. I am curious to hear what you think anyway.

That is all for now. I will get to the rest tomorrow.

I don't think the teleporter matters for the question. How do you know your mother, right now, has real consciousness and is not just a mindless biological machine? How do you know, of anyone other than yourself, that they are not simply mindless biological machines, that do not have minds at all?

I do not know.

[Pattern-chaser]

[my dog] has pretty much the best life possible. She has no better options.

Exactly. My point is the lack of options. We, humanity, have 'domesticated' (i.e. enslaved) dogs for many thousands of years. In the world we have built, there is no longer a 'natural' niche for animals, dogs included. But my main point is on-topic: the pursuit of truth. We ignore inconvenient or uncomfortable truths, like the enslavement of dogs, and maybe this avoidance is where we're going wrong?

[Pattern-chaser]

...Seth was evidently joking when he stated that the dog owned him. It is a common sort of joke for pet owners to say things like that.

It is. I say it about our three dogs. But do we say these things to distract ourselves from their situation?

[Pattern-chaser]

I suppose I have betrayed myself as a relic of the past, unimpressed with a future to which I am not adapted.

Perhaps that description applies to quite a few of us?

[Jack D Ripper]

I would say values are subjective (I don't like your terminology, or you are missing something from what is possible). In order for something to have value, something must value it. That is, a thing (like a person) must care about that thing, have feelings about that thing, or, if you prefer, values that thing.

In the case of morality, I agree with Hume that it is based on feelings of benevolence. I discuss this in this thread:


This gives morality a feeling as if it were more than subjective because it is shared feelings that are relevant. However, it is still just feelings, a subset of the totality of a person's feelings (except, of course, for sociopaths who have no feelings of benevolence).

I just finished reading all those quotes you put in your post and skimmed the replies, so I know where you are coming from when you say this now, whereas before I did not. I do not know if that makes me informed enough to disagree with Hume yet. I only want to verify something you said in the replies. Marvin says the following:

The sentiment in the southern states towards their negroes allowed them to enslave them. The sentiment towards gay men used to be such that it was not surprising to anyone when they were victimized and beaten. The sentiments with which Donald Trump was raised allowed him to spread rumors and lies about his political opponents.

To which you reply with this:

Hume is not saying that everyone's feelings are infallible (and, indeed, he said that not everyone had the appropriate feelings at all, though I suspect he would be unpleasantly surprised at modern research into how many people lack empathy). If one believes ridiculous fairy tales, then those fairy tales may influence one's feelings. The source of morality, though, is not those fairy tales.

I assume what you say follows from what Hume says here:

A speculative reasoner concerning triangles or circles considers the several known and given relations of the parts of these figures, and thence infers [290] some unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations, we must be acquainted beforehand with all the objects, and all their relations to each other

That is not what I was thinking of.

Hume does not focus on the practical aspects of being ethical; he is focused on what ethics is and what its foundation is, how it works. This makes him very different from some others, like the ancient stoic and Epicurean philosophers, who were more interested in practice than theory.

If we look at the first two specific examples you mention, of the enslavement of black people and the treatment of gays, we can say that the first of those was related to false beliefs about black people, about their abilities and characteristics. Which is what you state in your next sentence:

In other words, Marvin's example regarding racism did not hold up because southerners did not know that negroes were not inferior.

Regarding the treatment of gay people, that can be directly traced to religion. Since you and I are in America, I will focus on the dominant religion here, though this is not unique to Christianity. The traditional Christian view comes straight from the Bible:


Leviticus 18:

22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.


Leviticus 20:

13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.


There are other verses that have been used by Christians who denounce homosexuality, but Leviticus 20:13 is unambiguous about what should be done with people who engage in homosexual acts. So, if one believes that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, that God is always right, then following the Bible, one would believe that men who engage in homosexual acts should be put to death.

Now, that is not based on one's feelings of humanity or benevolence; it is based on a set of religious beliefs.


Of course, Hume does not discuss the specific issue of homosexuality; he was not interested in giving a practical guide to ethics, but was interested in discussing what ethics is and what its foundation is. He may well have had the common prejudice of his society on that, due to the influence of religion on society, but one does not get that from what Hume says is the foundation of morality. And, indeed, his rejection of the "monkish virtues" is giving a direct example of him saying that one should not be basing one's ethics on false religious beliefs, that it is going against the natural sentiments people have.


It has been common to try to manipulate people to get them to overcome their natural sentiments. For example, during wartime, it is common to demonize the enemy, to portray the enemy as less than human. This is so that the soldiers will be more willing to disregard any natural aversion to killing people. If they are not really fully human, then killing them isn't the same as killing their next-door neighbor.

Of course, the Monkish virtues come into play, as racism is never good in principle, regardless of whether someone is inferior.

I don't agree with that at all. If it were true that black people were all stupid, and could not be intelligent, then there would be nothing wrong with believing that they were all stupid and could not be intelligent. What makes that wrong is the fact that it is factually wrong. If, for example, it were true of all black people that they were not intelligent enough to be doctors, then there would be nothing wrong with preventing them from becoming doctors. What makes it wrong to prevent black people from becoming doctors is the fact that (among other things) it is false that they are all not intelligent enough to be doctors.

The reason why I give no consideration to how rocks feel is because I have no reason to believe that they feel anything. Change that fact (of having no reason to believe they feel anything) and then the treatment of rocks would become a different matter. (This is because I do not wish to cause unnecessary pain; I have empathy, without which, I would not care about the treatment of others, no matter what I believed about them.)

I would have to read more into monkish virtues because "fasting, penance, mortification, (and) self-denial" all sound very much like an unegoistic ideal, whereas racism would affirm a southerner's superiority. I would also need a more precise notion of Hume's idea of "common Humanity", or common human sentiments of morality which the individual references to make choices. Perhaps Hume can provide the structure for other philosophers to fill in the gaps in his system, and I wonder whether this has already happened.

I don't think Hume thought it very necessary to tell people what "benevolence" was. I don't think he was using such terms in any unusual way.

Your way of looking at this seems very alien to what Hume was up to. He did not think about this in terms that Nietzsche looked at things.

...

I don't think there are any "self-evident" axioms within philosophy. To my way of thinking, calling something "self-evident" is just begging the question: ..."

It makes sense that you would say that because Hume is an empiricist. There can be no deductive, Platonic, "proofs" within philosophy assuming that Hume is right (At least concerning matters of ethics). That is an attractive prospect, although I can see how you would get tired of rubbish. Too many philosophers start with axioms. I know axiology is one of the four branches of philosophy, or that is what I read.

My attitude on that has nothing to do with an appreciation for empiricism. Tell me, what is the difference between saying something is "self-evident" and begging the question?


Do not confuse this with the axioms in a system like Euclidian geometry. With that, one is dealing with a system, and for that, the axioms are defining the system one is discussing. How or even whether Euclidian geometry might apply to the real world is a separate matter from discussing the system itself.


Regarding axiology, you seem to not understand the meaning of the term:

axiology

NOUN

mass noun
1 Philosophy
The study of the nature of value and valuation, and of the kinds of things that are valuable.

Axiology is ethics and aesthetics and anything else (if there is anything else) that pertains to value.

Yes, okay. I would say that I am unconvinced that it is really a problem. We are too far away from understanding how the brain works to know that we will not figure out consciousness with more research into brains. It is, in my opinion, judging the matter prematurely, before we have enough facts to make a proper judgment.

To give an analogy, primitive people regarded fire as a substance, as a thing. The modern view of what fire is that it is not a substance, but is a process, the rapid oxidation of a material.

The mind, too, seems like a process rather than a substance. It, like fire, is not a static thing.

Yes, and I suppose that combines with what you said about how philosophy should mimic science.

It is good to try to discover truths rather than to just make wild guesses. In that sense, yes, philosophy should mimic science. There are some philosophers who agree with this idea (e.g., Hume), and many who do not.

I am sure you know better than I do that a large portion of Kant's metaphysics is utterly disproven by modern physics. One would think that geniuses could come up with something better, but I guess we overestimate ourselves as a species.

I am not sure what you have in mind regarding Kant's metaphysics. But, regardless, I do not think his approach to philosophy is right.

As you probably know, at least some of what Kant wrote was a reaction to Hume, of him not liking what Hume said.

But some things are known. You might want to look at some neurobiology, of studies of people with brain damage and what this means for what they are. For a popular book on this sort of thing, you could look at a book by Oliver Sacks, like The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. So it very much appears to be the case that consciousness has to do with the processes of the brain, with different parts of the brain having different effects on consciousness.

I loved that book! I read it during my freshman year of high school. Books like that burn into my memory. There are so many things we take for granted like:

proprioception (body balance)
recognizing faces and scenery
remembering things from a few moments ago
The ability to sense one's body (Body disassociation)
forgetting things, unlike Hyperamnesiacs who remember everything
Having an IQ above 75
keeping thoughts to ourselves and controlling behavior (unlike Tourettes)

It makes me wonder how our experience of reality would change if biologists end up discovering designer babies, or the ability to improve the intelligence of current humans. Then we could design hyperempathetic/hyperintelligent superhumans that surpass us in every aspect of existence. I do not know what we would do then. If you had a computer that could let you change anything about yourself and your circumstances, would it be best to "improve" everything? Or is it necessary to strive toward a goal? I find it strange because this situation sounds so dystopian, and yet we strive to control our environment every day.

It is the kind of thing that could be used either for creating a dystopian society or for doing much good. Power can be used for either good or evil or something neutral. But I don't think people will ever be able to just make what they want; there are limits to what a biological thing can be. By that I mean, improving intelligence is likely possible (theoretically at this point), but infinite intelligence is not possible.

...

I could be a cannibal or, if not, I may not value people at all, regarding them as completely worthless, not even worth eating. Frankly, I like my dog a lot more than a significant number of people.

You are basing that on Hume's empathetic argument, right? What one values depends on one's emotion and not logic. Keep in mind that I am restating your conclusions without excepting them because I need to read the book and ruminate.

No. You alternate between asking and writing about me and about Hume. When you ask or write about me, I respond about me, not Hume.

No. One can distinguish between humans and dogs without having any metaphysical ideas about either. They look quite a bit different.

This is the same as the prior case with empathy. I meant distinguishing between dogs and humans based on ethical reasons. It is okay to own a dog but not a human. Why? Or perhaps such is not categorically true. Maybe owning a dog does go against moral sentiment. Why would it though? Like I said earlier, I need more information on Hume's conception of moral sentiment or I am missing something else.

You are asking a question that involves a complicated answer. However, the answer has nothing to do with metaphysics. That is what I keep saying to you, that you keep refusing to accept.

When we distinguish between people and dogs, we can do that in very straightforward ways, in which we observe different appearances and different kinds of actions. This is all very ordinary, and is not dependent upon metaphysics.

I am not presently interested in arguing for whether it is right or wrong to own dogs, but it is more complicated than it appears at first, as "good" parents seem to treat their children in ways similar to how "good" pet owners treat their pets. In your question about whether it is right to own a human, what, exactly, is meant by that? And how is what is generally regarded as proper parenting different from owning children? One tells them what to do, controls what they eat, tells them when to sleep, etc. (One might, of course, say that children are not people, which one occasionally hears from parents regarding their troublesome offspring.)


Now, bad metaphysics could be improperly applied to such questions, and has been done in the past. For example, Descartes thought that animals were basically just biological machines that could not suffer, and consequently he acted accordingly. See:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cons ... ss-animal/

Hume, as usual, took a more reasonable approach, as one knows about other people feeling pain and so forth in exactly the same way one knows that non-human animals feel pain; you can get a start on that at the link above, too. Hume's approach, though, was not to make any metaphysical claim about animals, but simply noted how we know about these things, about our judgements about other people feeling pain, how we know that about people being in pain are the same things we observe in animals (like dogs, which is an example Hume uses). That is, Hume was concerned with epistemology, not metaphysics in this.

Prejudging the matter with some metaphysical gobbledygook, that is not supported by good reasoning, can lead to all sorts of horrors. One could, as suggested by examples already mentioned, come up with some metaphysical nonsense about black people, women, children, or any other group one wants to exclude from consideration of decent treatment.

I don't think the teleporter matters for the question. How do you know your mother, right now, has real consciousness and is not just a mindless biological machine? How do you know, of anyone other than yourself, that they are not simply mindless biological machines, that do not have minds at all?

I do not know.

I will refer you back to my original response to this:

...

As for consciousness, what sort of test do you really do to determine if someone is conscious? I will answer for you (though feel free to correct me if I get this wrong): You judge by behavior. You do not directly detect consciousness at all in anyone other than yourself. So whether someone else really has consciousness or not is irrelevant to how you deal with them.

...

I am confident of this as the right answer because there seems to be no alternative that has any plausibility at all.

Notice in this, my question was one of epistemology, of how you know something, rather than some attempt at doing metaphysical speculation. I think you should focus on epistemology, not metaphysics.