tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post6990932904194213315..comments2023-12-24T16:36:39.633-05:00Comments on V = I·R: The Golden RuleAnarchist Chossidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-75628874775734457512010-06-23T13:24:12.589-04:002010-06-23T13:24:12.589-04:00You are right that conscience is unreliable becaus...You are right that conscience is unreliable because of timtum etc. But it is there, and it is connected to something very big and very real. <br />Meaning, obviously revelation is better.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-28278070805988324722010-06-23T13:19:30.068-04:002010-06-23T13:19:30.068-04:00My biggest problem with conscience and morality ar...My biggest problem with conscience and morality are not the above arguments, but that there doesn’t seem to be a consistent, coherent definition of what “good” and “bad” morally is, and any strong argument why I should do this good or bad.<br /><br />In fact, I don’t even agree with what I said in this post about the Golden Rule. I said: once I assumed that absolute good exists, I can just try some action on myself — if it feels good to me (if I would categorize it as good regarding myself), it’s good regarding others (correcting for different effects that an action can have on different people — using the famous example of pain being unpleasant to some, but pleasant to others; but feeling something that causes pleasure is equally good to all).<br /><br />But that does not necessarily follow. First of all, I am equating my subjective feeling of good with the absolute good. But who says what feels good to me is actually absolutely morally good? Maybe something is morally good even if it feels bad to me? Also, just because something is good when applied to me, who says that automatically means that it is an objective moral good when applied to others? There seems to be a non sequitur here that is easy to overlook.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-25094095794458262042010-06-23T13:15:06.244-04:002010-06-23T13:15:06.244-04:00Chesterton is responding to somebody who claimed t...Chesterton is responding to somebody who claimed that the fact that different people have different views of what is moral proves that people have no built-in sense of morality and that morality does not exist. He was a religious Christian, so I think that he would agree with you that operating just based on conscience is not the best option. He is just trying to prove that people have moral senses that are real, and that there is a concept called morality that is real, and that talking about variations between cultures has no bearing on that. <br />I would expand that to say that if they refine themselves enough then they can intuit the truth about Hashem's will (like Avraham avinu). So different people see morality in different ways because of more or less timtum hanefesh and/or more or less education. <br />Rachels is the last name of the guy quoted by e.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-31171699786419838672010-06-23T13:13:43.801-04:002010-06-23T13:13:43.801-04:00Not that I agree with Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb’s argum...Not that I agree with Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb’s argument either. He says: sometimes doing X over Y seems the proper action for you intuitively. But then, with passage of time, you look back and realize: hmm, I should’ve done Y. (For instance, when you give an advice to your friend, and then, with passage of time, you realize that the advice was not nice. :) So, how can you rely on this built-in intuition?<br /><br />Well, that’s ridiculous. Sometimes I take a rational decision to take a highway exit. And then sometimes I realize I made a mistake. (In fact, when I was just driving to NYC, I stopped at a gas station off I-91 to get something. Then I started driving back and completely rationally took an exit to go north. Only after a while I realized that NYC is south of Boston.) Does this mean my sense of direction is unreliable in principle? Maybe, but more likely it means sometimes people make mistakes.<br /><br />Also, I’ve done thousands of mistakes in Math problems. Sometimes in basic addition or multiplication. I would write something to the extent of 4 + 10 = 40, stare at the problem and have no idea why the final answer makes no sense. I think most Math students have done that. It doesn’t mean that we cannot rely on mathematical logic; it means, sometimes we will make mistakes.<br /><br />Besides mistakes, sometimes there is ambiguity. Sometimes people completely rationally decide that it’s better to take one course of action vs. another. For example, doctors disagree on their patients’ treatment (just watch Dr. House). It doesn’t mean they are using emotions to make a decision. They have limited information and their brains use slightly different logic to come up with different answers.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-39403961497193610112010-06-23T12:59:10.127-04:002010-06-23T12:59:10.127-04:00It seems to me that Chesterton is making a straw-m...It seems to me that Chesterton is making a straw-man argument. For instance, Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb does not say that we have no conscience. But that conscience cannot be relied upon. If to some people their built-in sense of self-preservation tells that cherry is good for them and to others (under exactly same circumstances, including state of health, quality of cherry, influence of cherry on one’s body, etc.) it says that cherry is bad for them, then this built-in sense is useless. The best way to figure out if cherry is really good or bad for them is define objectively what “good” or “bad” means (e.g., improving or damaging health), and determine through scientific method the causal relationship between cherry and the phenomena that may be “good” or “bad”.<br /><br />The fact that to me human sacrifice seems subjectively repulsive, but to Aztecs it was a righteous act means that we cannot rely on our built-in intuition about what is righteousness. How am I supposed to tell, objectively, who is right? Note that I am not talking about something subjective, like taste. If fish tastes good to me, but tastes bad to you, well, we got our answers: I should eat fish, and you shouldn’t. But with objective characteristics, relying on subjective response seems unwarranted.<br /><br />I do agree with him that just because Muslims believe in one thing and Christians believe in another that by itself does not discount the concept of absolute morality (he didn’t say that, but I assume he would agree). But it does discount the concept of following one’s “belief” to get to the absolute morality.<br /><br />Who is Rachel?Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-90351008370026577892010-06-23T12:38:23.581-04:002010-06-23T12:38:23.581-04:00Rachels equals Freud. That people like this should...Rachels equals Freud. That people like this should have the chutzpa to call anything else pseudo-science...<br />http://www.algemeiner.com//generic.asp?ID=6613Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-65766734064447428512010-06-21T12:45:50.861-04:002010-06-21T12:45:50.861-04:00Of course, this does not disprove Rachel's ass...Of course, this does not disprove Rachel's assertion that human beings are merely animals, and every part of the moral sense is merely a species survival instinct. <br />From my perspective, nobody who has received a real education could have the hava amina that Rachels is right, but whatever.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-60616117579268430002010-06-21T12:30:50.781-04:002010-06-21T12:30:50.781-04:00Excerpts from an amusing essay by Chesterton calle...Excerpts from an amusing essay by Chesterton called "The Pseudo-Scientific Books."<br />But I am no more awed by the flying fashions among prigs than I am by the flying fashions among snobs. Snobs say they have the right kind of hat; prigs say they have the right kind of head. But in both cases I should like some evidence beyond their own habit of staring at themselves in the glass. ...Where this sort of scientific writer is seen in all his glory is in his first abstract arguments about the nature of morality. He is immense; he is at once simple and monstrous, like a whale. He always has one dim principle or prejudice: to prove that there is nothing separate or sacred about the moral sense. Professor Forel holds this prejudice with all possible decorum and propriety. He always trots out three arguments to prove it; like three old broken-kneed elephants. Professor Forel duly trots them out. They are supposed to show that there is no such thing positively existing as the conscience; and they might just as easily be used to show that there are no such things as wings or whiskers, or toes or teeth, or boots or books, or Swiss Professors.<br />The first argument is that man has no conscience because some men are quite mad, and therefore not particularly conscientious. The second argument is that man has no conscience because some men are more conscientious than others. And the third is that man has no conscience because conscientious men in different countries and quite different circumstances often do very different things. Professor Forel applies these arguments eloquently to the question of human consciences; and I really cannot see why I should not apply them to the question of human noses. Man has no nose because now and then a man has no nose—I believe that Sir William Davenant, the poet, had none. Man has no nose because some noses are longer than others or can smell better than others. Manhas no nose because not only are noses of different shapes, but (oh, piercing sword of scepticism!) some men use their noses and find the smell of incense nice, while some use their noses and find it nasty. Science therefore declares that man is normally noseless; and will take this for granted for the next four or five hundred pages, and will treat all the alleged noses of history as the quaint legends of a credulous age.<br />I do not mention these views because they are original, but exactly because they are not. They are only dangerous in Professor Forel's book because they can be found in a thousand books of our epoch. This writer solemnly asserts that Kant's idea of an ultimate conscience is a fable because Mohammedans think it wrong to drink wine, while English officers think it right. Really he might just as well say that the instinct of self-preservation is a fable because some people avoid brandy in order to live long, and some people drink brandy in order to save their lives. Does Professor Forel believe that Kant, or anybody else, thought that our consciences gave us direct commands about the details of diet or social etiquette? Did Kant maintain that, when we had reached a certain stage of dinner, a supernatural voice whispered in our ear " asparagus "; or that the marriage between almonds and raisins was a marriage that was made in heaven? Surely it is plain enough that all these social duties are deduced from primary moral duties—and may be deduced wrong. Conscience does not suggest " asparagus," but it does suggest amiability, and it is thought by some to be an amiable act to accept asparagus when it is offered to you. Conscience does not respect fish and sherry; but it does respect any innocent ritual that will make men feel alike. Conscience does not tell you not to drink your hock after your port. But it does tell you not to commit suicide; and your mere naturalistic reason tells you that the first act may easily approximate to the second.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-81943392133517855122010-06-08T12:46:51.075-04:002010-06-08T12:46:51.075-04:00An emotional reaction is subjective. It cannot be ...An emotional reaction is subjective. It cannot be a rational/logical foundation of an objective phenomenon. For instance, I put sushi in my mouth, and it tastes good. When somebody asks me: "Why would you eat cold rice with raw fish?", there is only one answer: "Because it tastes good." It produces a feeling of pleasure in my brain when I put it in my mouth. That's it.<br /><br />Now, if sushi tastes bad for someone (not that it is likely, since normal people like sushi, but let's imagine such a fantastic scenario :), such a person is not "wrong". Simply, because of a number of complex variables that created the person's detailed anatomy and physiology, the person's brain's circuitry produces a feeling of disgust in response to sushi. What is the person supposed to do?<br /><br />Whether sushi is tasty or not has to do with the person, not with the little blob of rice and fish itself.<br /><br />Now, it happens that many people have similar tastes, and as a result, it is possible to classify them and produce cookbooks. But not everything in every cookbook will taste good for everyone.<br /><br />The same with art and music. You can classify the rules. And some rules are more common than others. The major triad of notes will sound pleasant when played together -- the notes will "harmonize" -- for almost every single ear on the planet. But saying that the notes harmonize merely describes the subjective reaction that each human's brain has to the notes. It doesn't describe the intrinsic properties of the notes. You can imagine a brain circuitry of an alien that will respond with pleasure to other combinations of ntoes. For him, those notes will harmonize. (Also, as my chavrussa says, if a contemporary of Chopin listened to Tchaykovsky, it would sound like terrible noise for him. But for a contemporary of Bach, Beethoven or Mozart would sound like a terrible noise. It doesn't mean that the nature of the sounds themselves changed. The brains of people and their reactions to the music changed -- not necc. as a result of changing genetics, but as a result of changing culture and common experience which changed the circuitry of the brain appropriately.)Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-86241815476084595312010-06-08T00:58:00.626-04:002010-06-08T00:58:00.626-04:00and therefore what?and therefore what?Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-37581744920259956822010-06-08T00:45:26.072-04:002010-06-08T00:45:26.072-04:00Repulsion is just an emotional reaction.Repulsion is just an emotional reaction.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-67042913850222408412010-06-07T23:29:52.599-04:002010-06-07T23:29:52.599-04:00c.s. lewis: "I am not trying to prove [the] v...c.s. lewis: "I am not trying to prove [the] validity [of the Tao] by the argument from common consent. For those who do not perceive its rationality, even universal consent could not prove it."<br />The point is that you cannot disprove that there is such a thing as objective morality. Certainly, simply stating that it does not exist multiple times accomplishes nothing.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-64171664279607607222010-06-07T23:19:41.151-04:002010-06-07T23:19:41.151-04:00It is also convenient that everyone perceives line...It is also convenient that everyone perceives lines in the same way. Imagine what a silly world we would live if different people perceived the contours of highways in different ways. Just because it happens to be convenient that everyone shares a perception, it does not follow that the curve of the highway is not actually there.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-71371128177466694572010-06-07T22:42:16.777-04:002010-06-07T22:42:16.777-04:00Point is: just because we all agree on some scrupl...Point is: just because we all agree on some scruple, that doesn't mean that the scruple has an objective existence. It may just be that it's always expedient to adopt this scruple.ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04376537400767851942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-89871590678982550072010-06-07T22:41:21.511-04:002010-06-07T22:41:21.511-04:00A quote from James Rachels' "The Challeng...A quote from James Rachels' "The Challenge of Moral Relativism" which may be useful:<br /><br />2.6 How All Cultures Have Some Values in Common<br />It should not be surprising that, despite appearances, the Eskimos are protective of their children. How could it be otherwise? How could a group survive that did not value its young? It is easy to see that, in fact, all cultural groups must protect their infants:<br />1. Human infants are helpless and cannot survive if they are not given extensive care for a period of years.<br />2. Therefore, if a group did not care for its young, the young would not survive, and the older members of the group would not be replaced. After a while the group would die out.<br />3. Therefore, any cultural group that continues to exist must care for its young. infants that are not cared for must be the exception rather than the rule.<br />Similar reasoning shows that other values must be more or less universal. Imagine what it would be like for a society to place no value at all on truth telling. When one person spoke to another, there would be no presumption at all that he was telling the truth for he could just as easily be speaking falsely. Within that society, there would be no reason to pay attention to what anyone says. (I ask you what time it is, and you say "Four o'clock:' But there is no presumption that you<br />are speaking truly; you could just as easily have said the first thing that came into your head. So I have no reason to pay attention to your answer; in fact, there was no point in my asking you in the first place.) Communication would then be extremely difficult, if not impossible. And because complex societies cannot exist without communication among their members, society would become impossible. It follows that in any complex society there must be a presumption in favor of truthfulness. There may of course be exceptions to this rule: There may be situations in which it is thought to be permissible to lie. Nevertheless, there will be exceptions to a rule that is in force in the society.<br />Here is one further example of the same type. Could a society exist in which there was no prohibition on murder? What would this be like? Suppose people were free to kill other people at will, and no one thought there was anything wrong with it. In such a "society," no one could feel secure. Everyone would have to be constantly on guard. People who wanted to survive would have to avoid other people as much as possible. This would inevitably result in individuals trying to become as self-sufficient as possible— after all, associating with others would be dangerous. Society on any large scale would collapse. Of course, people might band together in smaller groups with others that they could trust not to harm them. But notice what this means: They would be forming smaller societies that did acknowledge a rule against murder: The prohibition of murder, then, is a necessary feature of all societies.<br /><br />http://faculty.www.umb.edu/steven.levine/courses/Spring%202010/Intro/Rachels.pdfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04376537400767851942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-3808027619613785972010-06-07T19:47:10.880-04:002010-06-07T19:47:10.880-04:00If being repulsed by rotten meat is subjective, th...If being repulsed by rotten meat is subjective, then so is the perception of the color blue. We assume that because everybody shares an experience, they are all perceiving the same reality. Therefore, that reality must be outside of them. In other words, objective.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-1166746326004186212010-06-07T19:34:57.377-04:002010-06-07T19:34:57.377-04:00But if repulsion is subjective, how do we figure i...But if repulsion is subjective, how do we figure it objective morality from it?Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-55575119284987826282010-06-07T19:08:50.598-04:002010-06-07T19:08:50.598-04:00Our innate repulsion leads us to discover objectiv...Our innate repulsion leads us to discover objective morality which has always existed.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-88482211451955027062010-06-07T17:24:35.482-04:002010-06-07T17:24:35.482-04:00I see non-sequitur between being repulsed by somet...I see non-sequitur between being repulsed by something and calling it immoral as a result. How does the first lead to the second?<br /><br />Also, aderabe, we’re repulsed because it’s immoral. Not that we claim that it’s immoral because we are repulsed. I am repulsed (believe it or not) by killing a person. But I would kill a person in self-defense (or defense of another person), and I think it’s a moral thing to do.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-21835073020046614412010-06-07T17:17:22.001-04:002010-06-07T17:17:22.001-04:00You are carrying the mashal too far.
Just as ever...You are carrying the mashal too far. <br />Just as everyone (to some degree) is repulsed by rotten meat, so too everyone (to some degree) is repulsed by the idea of becoming a murderer. <br />I don't think it is being brainwashed. I am certain that Lord of the Flies would never happen in real life. When somebody is completely missing the "sixth sense" we call him a sociopath. Since the disease is organic, it makes sense to say the trait itself is organic. (right?)Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-34038012999083355412010-06-07T17:07:50.127-04:002010-06-07T17:07:50.127-04:00Sorry, I mean I wouldn’t murder a person.Sorry, I mean I wouldn’t murder a person.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-81913423638645520702010-06-07T17:07:23.356-04:002010-06-07T17:07:23.356-04:00I know people who don’t like chocolate.
If I was ...I know people who don’t like chocolate.<br /><br />If I was starving, chv"sh, I might. But under no circumstances, starving or not, would I kill a person (I hope).<br /><br />What and who is “normal” is again subjective. Maybe most people were just brainwashed into believing this is right. You could say that no one normal today could imagine a society without a government — or no one normal could imagine a stable society without a king in 1775 (although you think that Revolution was a mistake, so maybe it’s a wrong moshol). Even if that was the case, so what? Ad numerum is not a good argument.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-4222339614969171252010-06-07T16:59:39.507-04:002010-06-07T16:59:39.507-04:00But everybody likes chocolate...
Really, the point...But everybody likes chocolate...<br />Really, the point is that there are variations but at the end of the day everyone can perceive something in common. I think that nobody normal would pull a piece of cooked meat out of a garbage dump where it had been for two days and eat it. <br />Similarly, nobody normal would say that it is not objectively wrong to steal. But different people in different cultures and even with within one culture might have different ideas about what constitutes stealing.Mornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-71564839569282067112010-06-07T16:54:14.861-04:002010-06-07T16:54:14.861-04:00(There is a video with Gordon Ramsey and James May...(There is a video with Gordon Ramsey and James May, but I can’t post it, because before they eat shark’s meat, they eat something much more untzniusdik.)Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-924316815185498346.post-71319750597839863652010-06-07T16:49:30.840-04:002010-06-07T16:49:30.840-04:00Most people like fish, but only if it’s fresh. I k...Most people like fish, but only if it’s fresh. I know some people who don’t like fish at all (shocking, I know). On the other hand, in Finland, shark meat that was allowed to “ripen” a bit is a delicacy. What is garbage for most people is a delicacy for Fins. (Also, I like caviar, for example.)<br /><br />So, just like there is no “objectively” good tasting food, there is (acc. to this argument) no “objectively” proper way to act. You can act (or eat) to maximize your self-preservation or pleasure, but it is subjective.Anarchist Chossidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129716759837282565noreply@blogger.com