Vent

I consider the contradictions in science and between different theories as due to the approximate nature of our theories. They are all a work in progress. Does this model work to a useful degree in this area? Yes? Then use it. But it contradicts another theory... so? Some models that are more accurate are actually thrown out because they are too complicated (in economics with rational agent models being a good example), and simpler ones are used instead. The simplest argument for the benefit of science is that it works. I don't think contradictions are something to be too worried about, just cross them off as we go.

Why are you guys giving the church a special status? If they want to be non-profit they need to split for legal clarity and declare themselves charity, not church or religion. Tax exemption for the church is an historical contingency, there's no reason to continue to honour it (religious apologetics not-withstanding). Changing the church to charity and removing all religious benefits that are given for religious status reasons sounds like a good idea to me.

Yes i think the exemptions should be ended. Why not? Listening to the people's opinion on the tooth fairy and then making policy that affects everyone in a nation because of it? /boggle.

Do cows 'deserve' to die because we need to eat them? Should we remain perplexed because we can't come up with an objective answer to our need for sustenance? Like the camel who dies of dehydration because it can't decide on the utility between two identical watering holes? Philosophers have been searching for millennia for this 'objective standard of human value' and all have failed, finding themselves muddled up in mysticism. If you continue searching, good luck (and that's sincere, not rhetorical). All rigourous ethics is logical in its argument. But does it try to be objective in its initial conditions? No. Parfit's object-given reasons (On What Matters), tries to come close, but fails to be honest due to making an arbitrary division and chimerical antagonism between object-given and subject-given. In the words of Hume, our passions are just a part of our mental state that comes about when we find ourselves taking something that matters to us. Form follows function, especially in ethics, or should do, it's what it's there for and why we argue about it after all. Edit: can't spell.

Oh for heavens sake. The idea of being conscious is not the same as explaining how consciousness arises in the first place, which was determined by prior causes. You forget or deliberately omit that we live in a cause and effect universe (unless we're talking about the physics of nothing, which we're not). You are being fallacious. You are talking about ethics. You gave a definition of ethics that deals with human value. You stated that ethics comes from emotions. You refuse to change your definition. You refuse to change your assumption. Now because you cannot objectify either you are declaring propositions based on emotion towards human value null because they are not objective. Your assumptions cannot possibly give you the answer you're looking for. Look at your argument before you look for something you won't find due to the conditions you are imposing.

So therefore they have a cause. Regress to the beginning of the universe if you wish, even though it makes no sense to do so with regard to ethics and human sentiment towards them. I don't consider the idea of being conscious tricky at all. To remind you, i took both the adjective and noun out because you didn't like them. The argument remains the same. The state of your brain right now, is a state, and is "determined" by many things, vis-à-vis, it has a specific cause. You're making it more complicated than it needs to be. Assume the brain is in a vat or that we're a computer program if it makes it easier for you, the conditions give synonymous results of experience (because irrespective of either idea being true our experience is still our experience), and the argument is again the same. Emotions also do correlate directly to any question of morality and ethics, assuming ethics to be based off of emotions (your argument), if they are concerned with human value. One necessarily implies the other, under the definition you gave and the assumptions you are using. I'm sorry, but your argument still just sounds like Plato's Form of the Good or something, and it's just as elusive.

I didn't say emotions (necessarily), determine anything, but rather emotions are determined by a state of a brain (this is the third time). To make it more explicit, a particular emotion is determined to be that emotion by a particular state of a brain. Invoking specifics like chemicals, probability and 'certain signals' doesn't change the fact that they have a cause, and therefore determined to be what they are. Whatever emotion arises is determined to be that emotion by whatever is its cause. As an aside, if "Emotions aren't the product of a ....brain", what are they the product of? Granted, you didn't say universal, my bad, but you do maintain a requirement for objectivity, so i ask how can you expect an objective initial condition for ethics under the definition you have taken? The definition is concerned with human value, yet when human value is used as an argument for an initial condition you declare it null because it's not objective. Like i said before it's not going to be, is it? This idea of objective conditions, unconcerned with human value, honestly makes no sense to me at all and i maintain it seems completely incompatible. Please explain to me where i'm going wrong as in my eyes you require a different definition of ethics for your argument. The first sentence of my post 49 may clarify a bit.

Your dictionary link is inconsistent with your argument. You are asking for objective and universal statements for ethics yet you assent to a definition of ethics that deals with humans, their values, their culture and their conduct? It's an incoherent stance, no wonder it's leading to confusion. To repeat what i said about emotions because you seemed to read something that wasn't there. Emotions are the product of a brain [of a] conscious being. I never said they were the product of consciousness, but rather the brain. Replace conscious with sentient if you wish, or just remove the adjective and noun altogether if it sits better with you. Emotions are determined by a state of the brain, to say that they have no cause is non-nonsensical.

Well i can't say i can relate to that argument i'm sorry. Emotions are the product of a brain of a conscious being that's grounded in a cause and effect universe governed by physical laws, they therefore must correlate to reality because cause and effect determined their very existence. Many ethical values are also shared throughout the world so they also have a kind of global, although not universal, consistency and regularity which allows us to infer that they are likely something more than the product of a rugged individualism. Just because we're an objectively arbitrary species in the arse end of nowhere doesn't mean our ethics don't matter. They are important and valued by "us", the only known originators of the concept. In fact, we, and by extension our feelings and emotions towards ethical arguments, and the only things that do matter because they deal with what we value and are important to us. We (which of course includes our thoughts, feelings and emotions), are the purpose. Since you say neither side of an ethics argument really matters i'm wondering what is your definition of ethics? ...is this definition consistent with the argument you are presenting here?

Logic doesn't have a part to play in the construction of the statements, only the deductions from those statements. Asking for objectivity in the premises themselves is asking for an objective ethical standard for the purpose of (supposedly), validation. We can attempt to get around it with semantics by, for example, stating that ethics deals with human values and human values are concerned with the well being of humans. Taken as a given we can then validate or invalidate a given ethical proposition, but since there's nothing in logic that necessitates this inherency in ethics it's therefore subjective (from a logical standpoint). Ethics and objectivity seem to remain at odds with each other, but personally i see no problem with this and it actually seems a good thing to me because we are the ones that hold the values after all.

What has non-contradiction got to do with objectivity?

because it's never going to be 'objective', is it?

Requiring strict objectivity throws ethics out the window because asking for an ethical answer found only by objective logic invalidates the ethical stance held by the being doing the reasoning.

The logic of the question is inductive, so any possible consequence is an argument to consider. The probability of the consequence is then a continuation of the same argument. We can't deduct because we only know a single, initial condition (the eradication of mosquitoes). We can't abduct because it hasn't happened yet. The idea that "if the mosquitoes were gone another species could rise of to take its place but not be so annoying", is a valid argument, but so therefore is the idea that if mosquitoes were gone another species could rise up to take its place and be twice as bad. I don't think logic is a good place to start the approach to the question to be honest, but rather approach it from chaos theory or something, and then after probable assumptions have been made it then becomes one for ethics.

I don't think there'd be much incentive to do much involving capitalism if equality was enforced from the top down. Inequality, in other things besides wealth, seems to me to be the precursor to progress, from an individual scale as well as societal. Equal opportunities sound good but they've been messed up in practice if you ask me. They seem to enforce genetic and racial favouritism rather than equality.