Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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GE Morton
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 12:34 pm
Nothing intrinsically right or wrong about a sensation? Well, you have arrived. Why not test this hypothesis. Put your finger right above a live flame and keep in there.
There is nothing morally, ethically, right or wrong about a sensation. It may be pleasant on unpleasant; if the former we call it "good;" if the latter we call it "bad." But it raises no ethical questions or issues unless I, without your consent, thrust your finger into the flame. That action of mine is the subject matter of ethics, not the sensation. Nor is any ethical issue raised if you freely thrust your own finger into the flame.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Gertie wrote: January 9th, 2022, 9:00 am
And it is in this interaction with others, none of them identical to us, that the challenge of creating appropriate morality lies. Weighing the competing interests (which foundationally justify oughts) in appropriate ways, when there is no weighing machine.

The underlying foundation of nice v nasty experience isn't itself morality imo, there's nothing intrinsically right or wrong about a sensation, it just IS. Morality enters in the form of subsequent OUGHTS, decisions and actions which bring about nice or nasty states of affairs. Morality manifests in the doing, not the feeling, in the contingent circumstances which are present, and how we respond.
Yes indeed. :-)
GE Morton
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

Post by GE Morton »

Belindi wrote: January 9th, 2022, 6:08 am
Philosophers' criteria are Platonic transcendent Forms. These transcendent Forms are normally called Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. All philosophers either explicitly or implicitly try to pin them down, define and measure them, and describe the three Forms.
Platonic philosophers, perhaps. Certainly not all philosophers.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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GE Morton wrote
There is nothing morally, ethically, right or wrong about a sensation. It may be pleasant on unpleasant; if the former we call it "good;" if the latter we call it "bad." But it raises no ethical questions or issues unless I, without your consent, thrust your finger into the flame. That action of mine is the subject matter of ethics, not the sensation. Nor is any ethical issue raised if you freely thrust your own finger into the flame.
But at this point I suspect you are being somewhat willfully intractable. I did say up front that this examination of ethics is not a discussion about ethical relations and their complications. I did say this many times. I am very aware that cases are not solved by this analysis, and this is not the point at ll. Not clear why you insist on going here. Actions, I did say, are the business of ethics, but now look into it. What is the nature of actions, that is, to what end (lest we have the actions of the wind or rain). What does one think about? I shouldn't harm another, let's say, is a defeasible moral principle. Why not? The matter turns INSTANTLY to value. The discursive process of determining right actions yields in the most final analysis to the giveness of the pain. Ethics turns on value; value is the essence of ethical thinking like the beloved is the essence of loving: Loving is a complicated matter, relationships, that is. But love, the blissful state, the pure happiness unengaged, is a presence, a "good in itself".

That there is no ethical issue raised if I harm myself is debatable, since one can argue about the inclusiveness of "ethics" till the cows come home (dogs, cats, squirrels?); but such a debate matters not at all. It would be an interesting discussion, for the self is a temporal composite, is it not? I could be harming my future self by making bad judgments in the present. Arguments about self harm, depression and suicide can reason this way. But none of this effects the argument here. (Though, it might be raised that IF value is as I claim, then a, call it, wanton act of self harm --an indeterminate term, granted, for one person's passion is another's poison--has its offending reach beyond what I call me.)
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 12:34 pmWhat is there is always a caring, an interest, a terror, a bliss, SOMETHING valuative is always there. Without it, not only no ethics, but we would all be like fence posts and nothing would matter. This is not simply important to inquiry, it is the most important thing imaginable: all other inquiries beg this foundational question: why bother? Why bother making cells phones if nothing matters? The rub is in the mattering for every possible encounter conceivable.
Why isn't "value"/"mattering" just another qualia, that's usually not there?
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 2:17 pm I am very aware that cases are not solved by this analysis, and this is not the point at ll. Not clear why you insist on going here. Actions, I did say, are the business of ethics, but now look into it. What is the nature of actions, that is, to what end (lest we have the actions of the wind or rain). What does one think about? I shouldn't harm another, let's say, is a defeasible moral principle. Why not? The matter turns INSTANTLY to value.
No, it doesn't. It turns only on the fact that Alfie values X (e.g., being free from pain). It doesn't matter what X is, where it comes from, or why Alfie values it. The value Alfie places on X is a "black box" that ethics need not open.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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GE Morton wrote
No, it doesn't. It turns only on the fact that Alfie values X (e.g., being free from pain). It doesn't matter what X is, where it comes from, or why Alfie values it. The value Alfie places on X is a "black box" that ethics need not open.
Oh yes it does. The fact that Alfie's values are something of a black box, hidden to public view, does not one whit change the analysis of the ethics. Ethics ASSUMES value. Then we ask what value is, not what is specifically in Alfie's black box. Think of Kant and what he did with reason. The arguments and judgments in my head are in a black box or sorts, but this has no bearing on an analysis of the structure of reason and logic at all.

Really not clear on where you are in this, because the logic moves naturally toward the value. This defeasible rule that says I should not harm others: Then, why not? Not because Alfie hates fast cars or country settings, for the principle is not about these contingencies. These are dismissible. You shouldn't harm others, generally speaking, because harm hurts. What is hurting? Now you are in meta ethics.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Atla wrote
Why isn't "value"/"mattering" just another qualia, that's usually not there?
Not there??
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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GE Morton wrote: January 9th, 2022, 1:34 pm
Belindi wrote: January 9th, 2022, 6:08 am
Philosophers' criteria are Platonic transcendent Forms. These transcendent Forms are normally called Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. All philosophers either explicitly or implicitly try to pin them down, define and measure them, and describe the three Forms.
Platonic philosophers, perhaps. Certainly not all philosophers.
What is your criterion?
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 2:49 pm
Atla wrote
Why isn't "value"/"mattering" just another qualia, that's usually not there?
Not there??
Not there. For example it seems like yellow or pain are quale that occur often in human consciousness, and here they are often integral parts of human consciousness. Sometimes they are present sometimes they are not. And we can probably assume that their occurance in the rest of the world is rarer and more random, and the existence of these quale doesn't really have universal implications.

Why would the case with value/mattering be different? That value/mattering have a special status, seems to be the axiom that this entire school of philosophy is built upon, but what is the justification for this axiom?
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 2:48 pm
Oh yes it does. The fact that Alfie's values are something of a black box, hidden to public view, does not one whit change the analysis of the ethics.
You're right, in that what's in the black box is irrelevant to ethics.
Ethics ASSUMES value. Then we ask what value is, not what is specifically in Alfie's black box.
We may ask that, but then we're no longer doing ethics, we're doing axiology. Ethics is only concerned with what Alfie DOES in his efforts to secure X.

And we've already answered that question: What value is, is a measure of the strength of Alfie's desire for X, relative to his other desires. It is nothing more than that.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Belindi wrote: January 9th, 2022, 2:50 pm
What is your criterion?
For ethics, whether a given act, or moral principle or rule, does or does not further the goal of maximizing well-being for moral agents and other sentient creatures they value, as each such agent defines or understands "well-being." There is nothing "transcendental" about it.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Hereandnow wrote: January 9th, 2022, 2:48 pmThe arguments and judgments in my head are in a black box of sorts...
You can say that again! :D
Really not clear on where you are in this, because the logic moves naturally toward the value. This defeasible rule that says I should not harm others: Then, why not? Not because Alfie hates fast cars or country settings, for the principle is not about these contingencies. These are dismissible. You shouldn't harm others, generally speaking, because harm hurts. What is hurting? Now you are in meta ethics.
One can analyze harm in two ways. First, you could analyze harm in a way that supports the ethical premise, "Do not cause harm." That is, you could assess the experience of harm in itself, and use this assessment as a way to support that ethical premise. Second, you could analyze harm in a way that altogether prescinds from ethics. For example, you could assess the experience of harm in itself and draw no inference between that assessment and the ethical premise in question.

If a phenomenologist is analyzing harm in the first way he could be said to be doing ethics. If he is analyzing harm in the second way then he cannot be said to be doing ethics. By and large, you seem to be interested in the second route, which does not bear on ethics.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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Atla wrote
Not there. For example it seems like yellow or pain are quale that occur often in human consciousness, and here they are often integral parts of human consciousness. Sometimes they are present sometimes they are not. And we can probably assume that their occurance in the rest of the world is rarer and more random, and the existence of these quale doesn't really have universal implications.

Why would the case with value/mattering be different? That value/mattering have a special status, seems to be the axiom that this entire school of philosophy is built upon, but what is the justification for this axiom?
Think of qualia as pure phenomena, free of anything else but presence. Here is cup on the table. The calling it a cup, the use it has, the many contexts one can conceive a cup being in are dismissed from the apprehending the cup-presence. So there you sit, almost childlike staring at what-was-a-cup, but is now only a bundle of sensory impressions; but they are not sense impressions at all, for using this kind of language is exactly what has to be dismissed. Then, all language that could be used to affirm it is even there at all is inherently contextual, and so there really is nothing to say as the moment an utterance comes to mind, the phenomenological purity is vitiated. And really, it doesn't have to be an object like this. It can be an eidetic object. There is an idea of a camel. How can one isolate this from possible interpretative contexts? Well, there is a camel and I know there is a camel, so dismiss the image and other sensory presences, and "observe" the camel-not-present idea. We certainly talk about camels without images of camels, and do this comfortably, the sensory references simply being in the background.
If none of this seems possible, then I agree. One cannot acknowledge the presence of anything without interpretation. But value: this is very different. There is a presence to the understanding that is not interpretative, but intuitive. Consider that the color red has an intuitive nature, you could argue, and we all know this is true, for our conversations about the world are not just about other conversations, you know, words are not just about other words. There are things out there. But they are unspeakable, for the reasons just mentioned. But being in love, say, "speaks" in a qualitatively distinct way, and the word we have for this is the word 'good'. This is an aesthetic/ethical good. Red as a quale, does not "speak" this word at all.
Of course, it would be best to read previous posts in this discussion to get a handle on this. Perhaps some of the instant objections can be forestalled.
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Re: Rorty's Liberal Ironist

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GE Morton wrote
You're right, in that what's in the black box is irrelevant to ethics.
????
We may ask that, but then we're no longer doing ethics, we're doing axiology. Ethics is only concerned with what Alfie DOES in his efforts to secure X.

And we've already answered that question: What value is, is a measure of the strength of Alfie's desire for X, relative to his other desires. It is nothing more than that.
But a desire is not a desire, nor a want a want, nor a need a need, unless analysis reveals value. This is simply an analytical truth. Shall I consider this your "kitchen sick" premise of exhausted thinking?
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