(December 7, 2017 at 2:42 pm)Jehanne Wrote:

(December 7, 2017 at 12:16 pm)Tizheruk Wrote: It's fine CL

As long as she does not return to her role as forum comologist.

Nah even then 

(December 7, 2017 at 3:53 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:

(December 7, 2017 at 12:14 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Wanted to apologize real quick for calling y'all idiots. Abortion is a very personal issue for me and my family for several reasons. I have little patience with this issue and so can't talk about it civilly when there are downright bad arguments being made in favor of it.

CL, out.

OK.  Now suppose you had been kidnapped and kept confined for years and forced to give birth to a dozen kids.  Would you still be against abortion?  and to throw another wrinkle in it suppose you had been forced to eat each one of the babies?    In the Bible the God character forced people to engage in cannibalism and they liked it.

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(December 7, 2017 at 2:42 pm)Jehanne Wrote: As long as she does not return to her role as forum comologist.

What the heck is a "comologist"?

A clueless cosmologist but potential cosmopologist or at least cosmetologist.

(December 7, 2017 at 2:09 pm)Khemikal Wrote:

(December 7, 2017 at 2:03 pm)Grandizer Wrote: I don't understand Tizheruk's second sentence, but as for the first sentence, I don't see it as absurd. I don't necessarily fully agree with harm-based morality, but it is objective in the sense that if there is harm involved, then it's not a good thing. Harm, bad. No harm, not bad. Objective morality need not be grounded in a person, it can be grounded in concepts such as pain or harm. But I think harm-based system does pose a problem in that the perception of harm itself is subjective to the person upon which the supposed harmful action is being inflicted on.

A misapprehension of harm based moralities.  Harm based moral realism accepts that there are people who either fail to recognize that they are doing harm or do not think of what they are doing -as- harm.  Their perception thereof is not what a harm based moral realism derives from.  That -would- be a subjective morality. It works the other way as well...there are people who think that some x is harmful (homosex, lol)...but this perception is -also- not what a harm based moral realism derives from.

Let me look up moral realism then Ill get back to this thread.

Objective morality.  That hypothetical moral claims can be true or false and at least some of them are true, in the strongest sense of the term.

(December 7, 2017 at 5:53 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Objective morality.  That hypothetical moral claims can be true or false and at least some of them are true, in the strongest sense of the term.

I get the definition, but I didn't get how the determination of harm is derived if not from the perception of either the perpetrator or victim.

Can you ask an unconscious person who stabbed them, and whether or not they've been harmed?  Can you ask the person who stabbed them..who isn't there....whether or not they knew they harmed that person?

Can you determine..in the absence of so much as a whisper from either party, that the person has been harmed? Does a gaping wound not seem like an adequate indicator of harm? Long story short, while harm may be subjectively experienced..it can be and routinely is objectively demonstrated.

(December 7, 2017 at 2:28 pm)wallym Wrote: Do you think sharing a species designation is enough to objectively invest me in the well-being of 8 billion other humans?

This isn't about being emotionally invested in the well-being of all your fellow human beings. The discussion is about what morality should be like, regardless of whether you choose to invest in that or not.

Quote:Doesn't that seem silly? It seems silly to me. But you need that premise for harm being objectively bad.

Nah, I don't need that premise to be true. That's open to discussion. Just be real with me, and don't give me an explanation that involves a practically non-existent entity.

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(December 7, 2017 at 6:55 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Can you ask an unconscious person who stabbed them, and whether or not they've been harmed?  Can you ask the person who stabbed them..who isn't there....whether or not they knew they harmed that person?

Can you determine..in the absence of so much as a whisper from either party, that the person has been harmed?  Does a gaping wound not seem like an adequate indicator of harm?  Long story short, while harm may be subjectively experienced..it can be and routinely is objectively demonstrated.

Good point.

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(December 7, 2017 at 3:09 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(December 7, 2017 at 2:03 pm)Grandizer Wrote: I don't necessarily fully agree with harm-based morality, but it is objective in the sense that if there is harm involved, then it's not a good thing. Harm, bad. No harm, not bad. Objective morality need not be grounded in a person, it can be grounded in concepts such as pain or harm.

Mmmmm, no. You must ground the notions of pain and harm in some larger principle defining what constitutes harm and the circumstances that determine if pain is desirable (e.g. warning of injurious danger) or undesirable as unnecessary suffering.

I'm sure that's what moral philosophers do for a living. Nevertheless, we can have a chat about this without the need to invoke a practically useless entity just because you need to involve it in some way.

My list:

1) There are things we don't understand.


yep, that's about it.

(December 7, 2017 at 7:11 pm)bennyboy Wrote: My list:

1)  There are things we don't understand.


yep, that's about it.

Sounds more like a reason to believe that there are things we don;t understand. 

(December 7, 2017 at 7:47 pm)Khemikal Wrote:

(December 7, 2017 at 7:11 pm)bennyboy Wrote: My list:

1)  There are things we don't understand.


yep, that's about it.

Sounds more like a reason to believe that there are things we don;t understand. 

The only reason I need for that is the furrowed look on my brow whenever I think about anything more complicated than my breakfast cereal.

I do have another theory, though.  Sometimes things go so perfectly badly in life that you think, "Surely someone is fucking with me, because this can't be chance."  If you have to give a name to a cosmic fucker-with, then it would be God, no?

Or, on the other hand, there have been times when I've been so ineffective, so hopelessly self-centered and useless, and life has gone fantastically: rolling cars at high speed and walking away without a scratch, doubling down on video blackjack with a pair of kings because I was too drunk to realize that I wanted to "split," and drawing an ace next card. Surely, given how incredibly stupid and irresponsible I am, the fact that I am alive and relatively thriving cannot be coincidence?

(I'm not being satyrical, I kind of think that is how religious ideas form-- too many close calls start building the case for a superstitious view, and eventually to a belief in agency in the environment)