(January 25, 2019 at 5:05 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 25, 2019 at 11:27 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: You mean I don't believe in such a -spiritual- reality.  No, I don't.  I'm a moral realist, not a moral spiritualist.  

I don’t know what moral spiritualism is, since this appears to be a term you invented, since it didn’t correspond to any moral theories I could find online. I’m a moral realist. Our differences is in regards to the ontology of morality here.

Quote:Here's what I think. I think you should stop looking for ways that moral realism is somehow incoherent or contradictory. It's simply not. It may be wrong, that case can always be made, but it's coherence is not novel or based upon any novel thing.

Why would i stop focusing on incoherency and contradictions of the moral realism you’re advocating for? That the central focus, of what I am arguing about.

Quote:There is a spiritual world.
If x is bad
-and if y contains x
-and if we want to avoid the bad
Then we should not do y.

There is no spiritual world.
If x is bad
-and if y contains x
-and if we want to avoid the bad
Then we should not do y.

Can you identify any moral or deontological difference in the statements above on account of the empirical fact of a spiritual worlds existence being posited in either direction?

The problem with your equation, is that it can just as easily apply to moral subjectivism, moral relativism, or moral realism mines or yours. So yes there is no differences, across the moral perspectives.

But the point of my arguments is exactly about the distinctions, that your equation doesn’t account for, which is about the nature of x is bad. The ontology of badness or goodness.

The relativist, the subjectivist, as well as I can agree that x is bad, is an evaluative proposition. You on the other hand deny it’s an evaluative judgement all together. You refuse to acknowledge that calling the holocaust bad, is attaching a moral judgment to the holocaust, and this is by definition is an evaluative proposition. For you to deny this, is like sayings “It’s raining outside, but I don’t believe it”

The subjectivist would say its personal value judgment we individually attach to x, the relativist would say it’s cultural, social value judgment we attach to x. And it seems to me that your own views are along the lines of relativist here. You haven’t particularly made any real distinction between moral relativism, and the moral realism you seem to be advocating for, as evident in the equation you settled on, that lacks such a distinction.

^^^^^^ This, this right here is why I hate philosophy. 

Anything can be a philosophy. Economics, politics and religions all can be deemed "philosophies".

And what I have constantly noticed since 01 being on line. Is all of those labels more often than not, get tied to a religion and the apologist is ultimately trying to lead you to their club/deity/god. 

I have long since accepted that all 7 billion of us are the same species, and our "differences" are human invented constructs that do not change that fact that we are the same species. 

It does not take a "philosophy" to know you want to be safe and free from harm. It does not take a "philosophy" to know you want food and shelter and a means to survive.

The argument between humans is how to go about doing those things. But that does not change we are still the same species.

(January 25, 2019 at 5:05 pm)Acrobat Wrote: The problem with your equation, is that it can just as easily apply to moral subjectivism, moral relativism, or moral realism mines or yours. So yes there is no differences, across the moral perspectives.

But the point of my arguments is exactly about the distinctions, that your equation doesn’t account for, which is about the nature of x is bad. The ontology of badness or goodness.

There's immense difference across the moral perspectives.  There's difference within the varying moral perspectives, even, as my descriptions of natural and non natural realism go to demonstrate.  

The difference I asked you about, was what difference the addition or removal of a supernatural world made to my statement.

Quote:The relativist, the subjectivist, as well as I can agree that x is bad, is an evaluative proposition. You on the other hand deny it’s an evaluative judgement all together. You refuse to acknowledge that calling the holocaust bad, is attaching a moral judgment to the holocaust, and this is by definition is an evaluative proposition. For you to deny this, is like sayings “It’s raining outside, but I don’t believe it”

I already explained this to you, and there won't be a fourth time..nor will I be quoting myself again.  

Quote:The subjectivist would say its personal value judgment we individually attach to x, the relativist would say it’s cultural, social value judgment we attach to x. And it seems to me that your own views are along the lines of relativist here. You haven’t particularly made any real distinction between moral relativism, and the moral realism you seem to be advocating for, as evident in the equation you settled on, that lacks such a distinction.

The difference between moral relativism and moral realism is that moral realism asserts that there are moral facts of a matter x..whereas moral relativism asserts that there are facts of a culture x, which are taken to be morally true regarding some matter y.

So, properly;

Realist - Holocaust is wrong.
Relativist - Culture X believes that Holocaust is wrong, and people in this culture believe that their cultural pronouncements are true.

(January 25, 2019 at 5:15 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The difference I asked you about, was what difference the addition or removal of a supernatural world made to my statement.

You keep assigning concepts and beliefs to me that I’ve never claimed to hold, nor do I even know what you mean by the term “supernatural world”, or like when you made up the term “moral spiritualism”. You should perhaps try and stick with things I’ve said, the beliefs I indicated I hold, and use them.

I did say that reality possesses moral aims, intrinsic meaning, sort of like a novel does. The removal of such a transcend moral reality removes the ought. That I ought not do things that are bad, that I ought to do things that are good, I have no binding obligation to either.

As result the holocaust is not intrinsically bad or good. It’s just an event that happened in history that took the lives of millions.

There’s no goal to which any fact is oriented too, so good and bad can not be facts.

Quote:

Quote:The relativist, the subjectivist, as well as I can agree that x is bad, is an evaluative proposition. You on the other hand deny it’s an evaluative judgement all together. You refuse to acknowledge that calling the holocaust bad, is attaching a moral judgment to the holocaust, and this is by definition is an evaluative proposition. For you to deny this, is like sayings “It’s raining outside, but I don’t believe it”

I already explained this to you, and there won't be a fourth time..nor will I be quoting myself again.  

I explained to you numerous times why calling the holocaust bad is an evaluative proposition. I even broke it down for you, as simple as I could. Bad is a value judgement. Value judgements are evaluative propositions. Holocaust is bad is an evaluative propositions.

And you keep refusing to acknowledge this, there’s no real argument you can or have made to refute this, because it should be obvious to any reasonable person why value judgements, like the holocaust is bad, are evaluative propositions.

Quote:Realist - Holocaust is wrong.
Relativist - Culture X believes that Holocaust is wrong, and people in this culture believe that their cultural pronouncements are true.

The relativist statement indicates where the value judgement comes from, i.e from his culture, while you have yet to disclose where your come from, in fact you deny it’s a value judgement.

But you did previously indicate that moral aims and oughts are a human construct, ones we make.

So it seems to me that your moral judgement, of the holocaust being bad, is because “we” x believes the holocaust is bad.

You’re just a walking contradiction, your actual views are indistinguishable from relativism, and it just seems that you don’t like that label, so you dress it up as something else. You’re like those atheists on surveys, who indicate that they also believe in god.

You’re just operating on tons of cognitive dissonance, because a part of you wants to refuse to be a moral relativist, while another part of you can’t go far enough to support your desire for moral realism, so you keep contradicting yourself, in ways that are perhaps more obvious to others here than you think.

(January 25, 2019 at 6:16 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 25, 2019 at 5:15 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The difference I asked you about, was what difference the addition or removal of a supernatural world made to my statement.  

You keep assigning concepts and beliefs to me that I’ve never claimed to hold, nor do I even know what you mean by the term “supernatural world”, or like when you made up the term “moral spiritualism”. You should perhaps try and stick with things I’ve said, the beliefs I indicated I hold, and use them.

I did say that reality possesses moral aims, intrinsic meaning, sort of like a novel does. The removal of such a transcend moral reality removes the ought. That I ought not do things that are bad, that I ought to do things that are good, I have no binding obligation to either.

As result the holocaust is not intrinsically bad or good. It’s just an event that happened in history that took the  lives of millions.

There’s no goal to which any fact is oriented too, so  good and bad can not be facts.

Quote:I already explained this to you, and there won't be a fourth time..nor will I be quoting myself again.  

I explained to you numerous times why calling the holocaust bad is an evaluative proposition. I even broke it down for you, as simple as I could. Bad is a value judgement. Value judgements are evaluative propositions. Holocaust is bad is an evaluative propositions.

And you keep refusing to acknowledge this, there’s no real argument you can or have made to refute this, because it should be obvious to any reasonable person why value judgements, like the holocaust is bad, are evaluative propositions.  

Quote:Realist - Holocaust is wrong.
Relativist - Culture X believes that Holocaust is wrong, and people in this culture believe that their cultural pronouncements are true.

The relativist statement indicates where the value judgement comes from, i.e from his culture, while you have  yet to disclose where your come from, in fact you deny it’s a value judgement.

But you did previously  indicate that moral aims and oughts are a human construct, ones we make.

So it seems to me that your moral judgement, of the holocaust being bad, is because “we” x believes the holocaust is bad.

You’re just a walking contradiction, your actual views are indistinguishable from relativism, and it just seems that you don’t like that label, so you dress it up as something else. You’re  like those atheists on surveys, who indicate that they also believe in god.

You’re just operating on tons of cognitive dissonance, because a part of you wants to refuse to be a moral relativist, while another part of you can’t go far enough to support your desire for moral realism, so you keep contradicting yourself, in ways that are perhaps more obvious to others here than you think.

^^^^^^ In the end your goal is to defend, at least in your own mind, that a magical sky wizard is the root of human morality.

So it does not matter how many points you want to claim skeptics are contradicting themselves on. 

If your belief is that a super cognition is the creator of human morality, before you can argue what morality is, you have to prove that your God exists.

Cant put the cart before the horse.

(January 25, 2019 at 6:16 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 25, 2019 at 5:15 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The difference I asked you about, was what difference the addition or removal of a supernatural world made to my statement.  

You keep assigning concepts and beliefs to me that I’ve never claimed to hold, nor do I even know what you mean by the term “supernatural world”, or like when you made up the term “moral spiritualism”. You should perhaps try and stick with things I’ve said, the beliefs I indicated I hold, and use them.

I did say that reality possesses moral aims, intrinsic meaning, sort of like a novel does. The removal of such a transcend moral reality removes the ought. That I ought not do things that are bad, that I ought to do things that are good, I have no binding obligation to either.

As result the holocaust is not intrinsically bad or good. It’s just an event that happened in history that took the  lives of millions.

There’s no goal to which any fact is oriented too, so  good and bad can not be facts.

I shouldn't have to quote you.  

I appreciate that you've shared your thoughts on whether or not the holocaust is intrinsically bad or good, but what am I supposed to do with that?  We already knew that you and I don't share our moral position or system.  I've explained how a natural or non natural realist might end up making that statement.  

Quote:I explained to you numerous times why calling the holocaust bad is an evaluative proposition. I even broke it down for you, as simple as I could. Bad is a value judgement. Value judgements are evaluative propositions. Holocaust is bad is an evaluative propositions.

It may be in your moral system, but your moral system isn't the sum total of all moral systems, so...?

Quote:And you keep refusing to acknowledge this, there’s no real argument you can or have made to refute this, because it should be obvious to any reasonable person why value judgements, like the holocaust is bad, are evaluative propositions.  

What is there to acknowledge?  You have a moral system.  In your moral system the holocaust is neither good nor bad intrinsically, and moral facts are evaluative propositions.

So what?  

Quote:

Quote:Realist - Holocaust is wrong.
Relativist - Culture X believes that Holocaust is wrong, and people in this culture believe that their cultural pronouncements are true.

The relativist statement indicates where the value judgement comes from, i.e from his culture, while you have  yet to disclose where your come from, in fact you deny it’s a value judgement.

-again..the fundamental and defining difference between moral relaism and moral relativism is that moral realism posits the existence of moral facts of a matter x.  These facts, and not facts about a culture and it;s beliefs, are the facts to which realist refer.  

Quote:But you did previously  indicate that moral aims and oughts are a human construct, ones we make.

Because they are, regardless of the ontological status of morality.

Quote:So it seems to me that your moral judgement, of the holocaust being bad, is because “we” x believes the holocaust is bad.

We've already established that you have faulty perception.

Quote:You’re just a walking contradiction, your actual views are indistinguishable from relativism, and it just seems that you don’t like that label, so you dress it up as something else. You’re  like those atheists on surveys, who indicate that they also believe in god.

You’re just operating on tons of cognitive dissonance, because a part of you wants to refuse to be a moral relativist, while another part of you can’t go far enough to support your desire for moral realism, so you keep contradicting yourself, in ways that are perhaps more obvious to others here than you think.

If you say so, Heather.

Take some time, work out exactly what your objection to moral realism is, and when you can clearly articulate that, I'll head back around to the thread.

(January 25, 2019 at 6:53 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Take some time, work out exactly what your objection to moral realism is, and when you can clearly articulate that, I'll head back around to the thread.

I already did, I stated my objection to your moral realism.

Here’s the shortest version of it:

You yourself stated that evaluative propositions are not facts.

Calling the holocaust bad, is a value judgement, value judgements are evaluative propositions.

Therefore the claim that the holocaust or anything else being called morally bad, is a moral fact, is false.

(January 25, 2019 at 10:06 pm)Acrobat Wrote:

(January 25, 2019 at 6:53 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Take some time, work out exactly what your objection to moral realism is, and when you can clearly articulate that, I'll head back around to the thread.

I already did, I stated my objection to your moral realism.

Here’s the shortest version of it:

You yourself stated that evaluative propositions  are not facts.

I informed you that in no realist morality were the evaluative premises the moral facts.  They may be so in some other type of morality, in your morality, for example...but so what? Your moral system has jack shit to do with moral realism, why would you expect it to be the same?

Quote:Calling the holocaust bad, is a value judgement, value  judgements are evaluative propositions.

If you say so..but it isn't necesarrily so, and doesn't matter if it is so.  Why ask if you didn't want the answer?  

Quote:There for the claim that the holocaust or anything else being called morally bad, a moral fact, is false.

I think it's more likely that you don't know how to think or word good and stuff. All that you're telling me is that moral realism..what I'm describing to you, has nothing to do with what you want to bitch about. I see that it's starting to bleed over into other threads.

Why not just skip all this foreplay and shout whatever it is you really need atheists to know about how you feel into a frothing goodbye thread?

(January 23, 2019 at 8:48 pm)Acrobat Wrote: " the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed."

Do you believe as Plato did, that Good is the universal author of all things beautiful and right, the immediate source of reason and of reason and truth, etc...?

No, I do not.

But to conflate the form of the Good with a creator deity demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of the theory of forms and the excerpt from the Republic. Plato thought that the forms were fundamental to reality. He thought they were more real than material things. I'm not sure I agree with Plato there, but I'm not sure I disagree with him either. It depends on what he means. There is much debate in philosophy about how to interpret Plato's theory of forms.

Here is what I find compelling in Plato's theory of the forms:

Take a triangle, as understood by mathematicians, as an example. Any material approximation of a conceptual triangle is going to partake in features of "triangleness itself"-- that is-- any mathematical law that applies to distance between lines, degrees of the third angle etc. are going to be true for any material representation of a triangle. Therefore, if one wants to thoroughly understand triangles one finds in the world, one must understand "triangleness itself" or the form of the triangle.

Now let's return to goodness. Same principle here. Take three things:

1. Helping an old lady across the street

2. Preventing a murder

3. Creating a just and fair system of government

Let's assume that all three of these things are "good." But what makes all three good? They are each very different endeavors. So how do we discover what single thing makes them all good? Well, we do ethics! THAT is what Plato was doing, friend. He was doing metaphysics too (and epistemology and political philosophy, but also ethics). He was trying to discover the form of the Good (ie, asking what makes good things good?) via the Socratic dialectic. Ethicists are doing the same thing in modern and contemporary philosophy. Many philosophers, like GE. Moore (atheist!) were inspired by Plato's theory of forms when asking the question "What is good?" Moore accepted some of Plato's ideas and rejected others. (Not in a pick and choose way but in a this is logical to accept and this other is illogical way.) And guess what? That's exactly what Plato intended to accomplish with his work. He wanted to spark debate, not propagate ideas.

PLATO WAS NOT CREATING A BELIEF SYSTEM. HE WAS KICKSTARTING PHILOSOPHY.

And he did a damn fine job. I think you like Platonism more than you like Plato. Some scholars argue that Plato himself was not a Platonist. Whatever the case, it is probable that if Plato knew what we know today, he'd redact or adjust many of his ideas. That's Plato, though--not Platonism. Platonism can't adjust its ideas. They are affixed. We as philosophers can only analyze Platonism and see what parts might be true and which parts might be in error.

I saved as a draft the beginnings of a detailed analysis of the passage you quoted from the Republic. But I abandoned it because I've already explained things about my views concerning Plato in a lengthy post which you wholly ignored. I wonder if you really want to have a discussion about what Plato might have gotten right and what he might have gotten wrong. THAT'S the discussion I would like to have. To me, it's the only discussion worth having.

I'm no Plato scholar. I don't know Greek. But I've read the Republic four times. Some specific parts way more than that. The Republic was the subject of a semester-long independent research project that I completed under the supervision of two philosophy professors. I made a rigorous analysis of the ideas within it and had numerous errors in my understanding corrected by two professionals along the way. Because Plato is one of my faves, his work has been the subject of numerous research papers where I got to choose the subject, not to mention required work in other philosophy courses. Lump on top of that some more Plato that I read for pleasure in my spare time.

This doesn't make me an authority on Plato (far from it). But it does mean that I have a grasp of Plato. I'd like to reproduce several translations of the excerpt of the Republic you quoted and discuss (in depth) how they are to be interpreted given the context of the allegory. But I don't want to do that if you aren't interested. Perhaps you're just "trying to be right about Plato on the internet" and you aren't interested in parsing through the text and having a reasoned debate or looking at the work from angles other than neoplatonist doctrines.

Let me know. Because I can argue my point and defend my views concerning Plato. But I don't want to go through the effort for nothing.