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@secularmerlin
Ants have a similar biological disposition but I do not consider them moral agents. Do you consider ants moral agents?
I would say that ants have their own morality based off their biological cues. My morals aren't really about right and wrong, but rather about what drives us to do what we think is right and wrong. For most organisms, it's generally group survival.
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@secularmerlin
Well there is definitely a difference in intensity but isn't lokeing the color red also (albeit a less visceral) feeling? Am I missing something?
No a feeling is a mental disposition your have about something. Color is a sensation. People call senses "feelings" but it's not the same feelings as your opinion about something. Opinion aren't sensations.
Ok I actually meant that if people can come to different moral conclusions based on the same information (or biological cue) then it is likely subjective
I can show that's false. People could disagree on objective things. That just means there opinion isn't objective anymore.
Some one could state "2 + 2 doesn't equal four" maybe because their parents taught them math wrong or they just don't believe it for whatever reason. Even though that person disagrees, it doesn't change the fact this is true.
More complex example. People come to different conclusions about the earth being round, doesn't that make it subjective?
The point isn't that they follow the cues. The point is that the cues make us want to follow them so we gravitate toward that behavior naturally. So people "tend" to follow the cue and this is what we see in societies. The part where morals gets involved is after this. People made up the word "moral" to judge right and wrong. Just like any other word, we can trace back it's usage to see what people mean when they say it. When we do this, it generally comes back to group survival of some kind. Even the loose morals in holy books show some group survival, albeit from primitive times. That's why I think it makes the best standard.
Morals are our judgements
No. If that was true, we wouldn't call them "moral judgements' The moral isn't the judgement, it's the standard of your judgement. That's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless. ALL judgements are subjective and if the judgement also meets the standard, then it's subjective and objective at the same time. The goes for any adjective in speech. when you say something is "moral" that's an adjective and based off the two components of a judgement and a standard. So hot, cold, tall, short. Those are all objective assuming they use objective standards. Things like happy, sad, beautiful, etc. Those things have subjective standards, so they objectively true, but only insofar as it's true that it's your opinion.
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@disgusted
I never said I had an objective view regarding abortion, I said that if we look at a specific case of abortion, we can draw objectively from it using the facts of the situation.
Everything people say is technically an opinion. Opinions can match things that are truth and that's why we call them objective. If you're point is that every statement is subjective then you're just being vacuous.
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@Greyparrot
It doesn't matter why I'm favoring the group, I'm still favoring the group.
Fighting overpopulation is still a group behavior. If it was left unchecked, it would increase our chances of wholesale extinction. Cutting back on the population is a small price to pay and is a group behavior in the long run.
That last statement is a bold assertion that you have no evidence for. You're simply taking to separate trends and conflating them.
correlation is not causation.
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@secularmerlin
I think I might have realized one of our confusions here.
I think when you say morality. You're talking about moral judgements we make correct?
When I say morality, I'm talking about a biological disposition we have towards beneficial group behaviors.
If you're talking about the first thing. I acknowledge those as being subjective.
So the statement "if we follow statement 2, then X is moral" is objectively true based off what we agreed about earlier about have an objective standard off of something else.
Note that in this case. Us calling it "morality" could be considered a subjective decision.
My argument is that while that may be a subjective decision. We can tell that these dispositions come out of biology and that when we look at group behaviors in humans an animals apart from their subjective assessments, that they do indeed seem to follow these cues for the most part.
So I think the issue here is that you think I'm trying to say that the assessments have to be objective no matter what. That's not it at all. I'm trying to pin down the source of what it is that we're really talking about when people say "morality" If we don't try to use science to understand this, then it's just a word game and whoever defines morality the right way wins. You see what I'm getting at?
I know I got impatient earlier. It's because I can tell that you kind of understand this but there's something causing us to miscommunicate.
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@disgusted
My vies are always subjective btw. If my subjective view matches something that's objectively true. Then it's both subjective and objective at the same time.
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@disgusted
You do realise that most humans don't have your "objective" view regarding abortion. Your morality is as you have stated very subjective. You are anti woman btw.
Yeah, which is why theirs is subjective. Duh. I swear nobody in this forum knows how to use words properly
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@secularmerlin
okay this is what I mean by you gluing the words together
You say "A moral opinion "
How's that differen from "a game opinoin"
or a "color opinion"
Just because you have an opinion about morals doesn't mean they morals are opinions.
Let's take red is my favourite color since it was an example you offered. Now if red is your favorite color it may be an objective fact that red is your favorite color but it is still just your opinion and it is based on your feeling thay red is the best. I am just struggling with the idea that morality works any differently.
omg, listen. you need to make a better effort to understand this because you're not even trying. my opinion that my favorite color is red is not the same as a feeling that automatically hits me when I see someone die. It's a non sequitur. You simply don't understand words is what it is.
I agree that an opinion being universal does not make it objective. I'm just wondering in that case what exactly does makes morality objective.
Really? Because that's not what you said earlier. you said "it's not objective because everybody doesn't believe it." so you're just proving my point that the problem is your lack of understanding the words. Objective = true apart from opinion. That's it!! You've fallen into the same trap that theists have fell into by thinking that objective morals have to be grounded in something that's not humans. You're thinking like a theist right now.
Furthermore, you seem to have trouble with the word "opinion" You think every feeling a person has is an opinion it seems. Is hunger an opinion? Is thirst an opinion? No. They're biological cues that are objectively true. So if you think morality is subjective, then you also think eating and drinking are subjective.
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@disgusted
n the case of abortion what is the objective morality?
Depends on the situation. I'm a moral particularlist. So I don't say X thing is immoral. I say X situation is immoral.
In general, it tends to be immoral.
There are very few exceptions. Rape(maybe) non viable babies. Suffering babies with lifetime illnesses(maybe) and anytime the mother's safety or life is in danger then it's mostly likely moral.
I'm pro life btw
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@dave2242
Same here. spoken Spanish is more difficult if the person I'm talking to isn't talking slowly. One thing I noticed is that if you go out of your way to think about what they're saying, it will mess you up and it's better to just let the whole sentence flow into your ears and you'll be surprised how fast your brain will translate some of it.
This obviously doesn't help with subtle phrases. But it helps pick out the big complicated words.
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@Greyparrot
Morals are a survival calculus and not based in any sort of mysticism.
I could jump on that. Do you think moral decisions for survival are objective? and do you mean personal survival or group survival? (obviously we exercise both at some time or another)
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@Outplayz
If i watched someone like Jeffrey Dahmer get shot in the head in front of me... i wouldn't feel anything. I would think that murder was right.
If i watch a little girl's cat (innocent human) get shot... i'd be pissed. That would be wrong.
Is that what you're saying? Does that make me a moral particularist too?
More or less. The feeling itself doesn't necessarily matter. It's more about harnessing what we tend to feel and why (harm or benefit response) and then we acknowledge that our cue can only take us so far and we have to devise some kind or protocol for which morals get prioritized and why.
Also, while you might not feel bad for JD getting shot. You'd still get some kind of cue. It might feel less like outrage and more like adrenaline. The cue itself isn't emotional but becomes as such once you reflect on it subjectively
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@mustardness
I would probably use different words, but I agree.
On the metaphysical 1 statement. I see you make that a lot.
What are the other metaphysical types? Are you just denoting a dictionary usage number?
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I think its relevant to trying to understand what Mr. Peterson is conveying, and ultimately being able to critique his philosophy.
If we're gonna interlock thought. Then I'm gonna have to drop the atheist thing because I'm not going to argue something that's a matter of societal usage. If you want to hang on to a 1,000 year old definition, that's your problem. Moving on.
So your above response, I say "what philosophy?"
JP isn't a philosopher, he's a psychologist. He doesn't know squat about philosophy accept for whatever he might have picked up in a side class in college.
Real philosophers actually define things. It doesn't matter what their field of philosophy is.
I agree that we should try to understand what JP says. That's the problem. He's not speaking clearly. He only makes sense to theists who's brains are already jumbled by confusing theist speech.(not talking about all theists)
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@Snoopy
So much wrong.
Agnosticism is to not know "something"
I can be agnostic about if there is money in my pocket.
I can be agnostic about if I will win the lottery when I play it.
it has nothing to do with atheism what so ever.
without god belief is pretty straight forward. If you're not a theist, you're an atheist, there's no in between. You either have god belief, or you're without it. A rejection of god COULD be atheism because it will leaves you "without god belief" but it's gnostic atheism because gnostic implies to know.
Honestly, this might be the last response you get because if this is all you have to say then you're just a troll.
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@secularmerlin
See, this is the problem. it's like you've glued the words "opinion" and "moral" together. You have to know that opinions aren't morals right? Otherwise my opinion that red is my favorite color would be a moral.
I'll try to show the difference, but really, you just need to look up those three words to understand.
Murder is wrong!! (Opinion)
*Feeling you get from seeing a murder* (Objective) (Your opinion doesn't matter here, which is the definition of objective.)
*everybody's opinion that the earth is flat" (Universal and subjective) (There is no exception to the behavior, so it's universal)
My opinion that 2 + 2 = 4 (subjective and objective)
(It's my opinion so it's subjective, but it's also objectively true even if this wasn't my opinion, therefore it's both.)
Everybody's opinion that murder is wrong (Subjective and Universal) (Looks a lot like flat earth right? That's why people agreeing universally on morals doesn't make them objective, this is my key critique right here.)
Everybody's opinion that 2 + 2 = 4 (Universal, subjective, and objective) Everybody agrees so it's universal, it's their opinion, so it's subjective, and it's also true regardless of their opinion so it's also objective.
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@Snoopy
a = without
the = god
ism = belief.
It means without god belief. That can be interpreted many ways.
an agnostic for instance counts as an atheist and that's not a fallacious position to take.
an antitheist (which is what you're talking about) also counts as an atheist and could be called a gnostic atheist as well, although the term antitheist gets conflated with people who are against religion so a lot of people avoid it because of this.
You don't get to walk up to an atheist and tell them how they define their own word. Even the word roots prove you wrong here and it's the fastest way to make yourself look like you don't know what you're talking about. Nothing makes an atheist's eyes glaze over faster than the "suppressing atheism" argument. It's so silly that arguing it should be illegal in all states. (joking about the illegal part obviously)
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@mustardness
well as you've pointed out, spiritual has a bunch of definitions. So maybe. but moral is always referring to group well being. No matter how you slice it. Only false morals like that which come from holy books ever show non well being related morals.
Taking into account that I don't always understand you properly. I think we agree on this one. I judge morals by the state of affairs they happen in. So Situation X always applies moral X. after considering all analytical factors.
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@Snoopy
Just because he defines one word doesn't mean he defines the rest. by the way. He never actually defines atheist. He "defines" it by comparing an atheist to a character from a novel who is a murderer.
He might be using the suppression claim (which is fallacious by the way) but that doesn't change anything. Telling somebody they're not an atheist when they are is just plain foolishness. You might as well just say I'm a liar and that you don't want to debate me at that point.
He might be a Christian, don't you find it troubling that we don't know the answer to that question? Certainly nobody asks this question of other Christian apologists because they make it clear they believe in God.
JP presents God as metaphorical truth. Which is true, but then goes onto say that it's within our genes to believe in god which is false and his way of trying to smuggle god in.
Do you really think that atheists "know god" How stupid do you think we are? Do you think I would risk my soul going to hell if I knew god existed? Come on now. If you really believe that then you need to open an epistemology book please. I don't say that to be mean. I'm serious.
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@Snoopy
Following a defined set of step by steps could be doing it wrong depending on the context. We just have to leave some things open ended when it comes to life and social relations. A philosophy that doesn't account for that may necessitate a controlled environment, and that could get ugly, which if I understand is something that Jordan Peterson has had to confront from time to time.
What does this have to do with him not defining things. I've never met a philosopher that doesn't define their words. When I say he doesn't define things. I mean you ask him if god exist and he literally will not answer. He'll say "that's a 4 hours answer" on a yes or no question. We didn't ask the reason why he believes yes or no. We asked if and he still dodges. Because he's not arguing for literal god but he wants people to think that he is.
Furthermore, can you justify your claim that we should "leave knowledge open ended." None of what you're telling me sounds like philosophy but rather the opposite actually.
Could you elaborate on this
Yeah, he thinks that atheists are basically nihilist who will perform any evil act because they have every objective reason to do so. Oh but don't worry, he doesn't think the actual atheists are atheists. He thinks they're just suppressing their need for the "God archetype".
He'll claim he never met a real atheist while standing in front of one. He has done it before. He did it to Matt Dillahunty.
HIs just a false Guru selling snake oil. and he's good at it. That's all the truth behind the JP experience.
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@secularmerlin
actually, my opinions are not the same as my morals. I could have an opinion that is counter to my morals without even realizing it because while I believe all of my beliefs, I don't necessarily use them all at once.
But if you really think definitions are not our problem here, then do me a favor. Go hit a dictionary and bring me back these three words and then tell me I'm wrong.
Subjective.
Objective.
Universal.
I'd do it myself, but you'll just deny it so I'd rather have you see it for yourself.
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@secularmerlin
I enjoyed our conversation, but it's clear that it was going in circles. Nothing personal. I will add on my way out that one look in a dictionary can confirm what I'm telling you.
I understand WHY you confuse universal with objective. They have some of the same qualities. But in this case, it's causing problems with our communication.
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@secularmerlin
This all stems from you not understanding what objective means.
I'm sorry, but this conversation is over. You argue in bad faith.
Please stop playing word games and you are free to come back when you realize why you're speaking incoherently right now.
In the mean time, I'm not sitting here arguing basic definitions with you. This conversation should have gotten passed definitions a while ago, but you have COMPLETELY ignored the definition of objectivity after I stated it several times and you could have grabbed a dictionary and verified what I said in two seconds, but you didn't.
Instead, you keep confusing it with the word universal and you're making your arguments incoherent because of it.
Have a good day.
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@TheRealNihilist
Is it not always true apart from our opinion?What do you mean by opinion?What do you mean by true?
Alright, I'll do it again just for the sake of completeness. This was my question and these were your clarification questions, so this means that after I clarify, you should be able to answer the question.
Opinion = How I think or feel about something.
True = That which is conforms with reality.
Now your answer good sir.
No but what you interpret from that is your opinion. I can say x people in this study didn't like chocolate. My opinion is most people don't like chocolate.
It doesn't matter what my opinion of my senses is. I might have an opinion about my sense of touch, but my opinion does not change what I experienced. That's the part you're missing. You think the things we're sensing start out subjective but they don't. They start out objective, and then we can make a subjective assessment about that which we sensed. However, If my subjective assessment matches what I sense, then it's also objective because they're identical. I want to stop here and ask you. You do know that in some cases the subjective and objective can be the same thing right?
When people use subjective the way you are, what' they're usually trying to say is that I'm expressing my feelings about something rather than describing it. Now those two statements you made right there. The first one is objective and therefore true, the second one is your opinion. Nothing about your senses forced you to arrive at that opinion. Your senses gave you objective information and you took it beyond the information and made it subjective. If you had only made the first claim as your opinion. "It is my opinion that x people in this study didn't like the chocolate" it turns out in that case that your opinion also happens to be objectively true.
It's like if I say "it is my opinion that 2 + 2 = 4" Cool.. That's subjective, but it's also objective at the same time.
Also, the fact that you have an opinion is also objective.
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@secularmerlin
So here's where I get confused.
You agree that we can make objective assessments off of subjective things.
You agree that the cues themselves are objective.
Why do you not think we can make objective assessments from objective things?
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@TheRealNihilist
asked two question and do use speech marks so that it less time for to know what you are talking about. I would still like definitions
and I gave you two answers.
That information is out of our reach. We are perceiving our reality using our mind which is subjective. We require it to understand the world so we can't just remove and replace it with something that is not subjective.
We think with our minds and that is subjective. We perceive with our senses and those are not subjective because my senses happen regardless of my opinion. Therefore, your claim is invalid. Would you like to revise it?
I'll be away from computer for a bit.
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@TheRealNihilist
to the second point.
Is it true regardless of what I think?.
Please don't ask for the definition of true. There's only one.
to third point.
Fine, you claim we can't know, what's your justification for that claim?
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@TheRealNihilist
You're being too black and white about it. Things can have net effects you know.
I'm certainly not making a case for anybody to become a JP follower (please think for yourself), however, if we're not going to be honest about his real weak points, then we're doing ourselves a disserve by both misunderstanding and underestimating him. You assume everyone on the left hates him for instance. How do you know that? Things are not this simple. Political parties are not hive minds. This is why I'm non partisan
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@TheRealNihilist
Is the meaning of motion not objective?
Is it not always true apart from our opinion?
To say we can't know it would be skepticism on top of nihilism. If so, what is the reason for your skepticism in this case?
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@TheRealNihilist
Ah! but why do we have to accept everything he says. Can we not acknowledge a truth he speaks while denying the falsehoods?
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@TheRealNihilist
indeed. meaning can be found in nature. Humans tend to ignore this, because it doesn't seem meaningful to them.
Motion has meaning because it means that thing will change space and interact.
Stasis has meaning because it means that the object is occupying space.
Collision has meaning because I means a physical interaction.
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@TheRealNihilist
That's his style, he doesn't like to explain things. Also, he's not unreasonable, that's why he's so popular. there's truth behind his madness. To deny that makes you susceptible to it.
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@Danielle
JP has some okay views politically speaking. But philosophically, he's a nut job. He thinks atheists are serial killers and he goes out of his way to never actually define anything.
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@Stronn
I would say it depends on the reason. Racism is all in the intention.
If you're not dating them because a particular physical features Is unattractive, then it's not necessarily racist. But if the reason has to do with the race itself regardless of attractiveness factors, then I'd say it's racist.
One example of racism would be not wanting to have mixed babies for instance.
One example of not racism would be finding bright red hair unattractive.
Note that in the second example, there could be cases where you still might date someone of that race because they might not have red hair.
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@That1User
Because people can still believe in it if it's false.
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@That1User
Discussing nihilism is pointless
Only if it's true.
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@mustardness
The lab studies are indicative of what is common to most humans. Ex double blind lab studies show that a placebo effect occurs 10% of the time.So you can argue with some lab studies,but eventually if we trust in their intentions, and they come to the same conclusion then go with their flow of common sense and common to all people.
Well, I completely agree with the studies on this one. I only seen the Cambridge study, I'm sure there were more. I was merely pointing out that not every human has the ability to read like that. Namely dyslexics.
Meainings are definitions and they give usage in a sentence. Context of sentence changes influences their meaning.
Well would you say that's the same "meaning" that people are talking about in nihilism? After all, the word "meaning" could change in context ;)
Yeah and I have made this clear for by stating for many years now that soul and spirit have perhaps more definitions than most other words
Hmm. That's a noteworthy observation. How would you say one handled that in an academic setting when we need words to have clear meanings? Surely you don't think a dictionary could fix the word soul do you?
Here is my methodology, come to agreement on a definition first,and foremost --- ex God is a big one--- irrespective of if its in a dictionary or how is defined in various dictionaries.
I agree and this is actually one of my motivations for not using a dictionary. lol, guess we both took a different fork in the road there.
This is mostly just wishful thinking on my part. But I think conversations would be a lot easier if dictionaries were replaced by books filled with non equivocated tautologies. Which is to say each word has a single rigid definition. Philosophers do this obviously, but every philosopher has a different book.
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@secularmerlin
It seems like most of our contention is over how we define things, So I'll just grant this:
Cues are objective.
We can assess them subjectively or objectively.
You might disagree with the second point, but for the purposes of what I'm going into, I'll say that objectivity is not important for me, because it's really not but I'm a stickler for fleshing out definitions, lol.
I'm a moral particularist and here's my basic model for morality.
After looking at moral behaviors it seems that the underline theme is harm vs benefit. (whether Subj or Obj)
We can make objective decisions off of this standard.
I believe there are no absolute morals, but rather every situation has an absolute answer.
For example, Murder is not absolutely wrong nor is execution, however, we could say that in situation X, murder and execution are always absolutely wrong based on how we prioritize morals from the harm/benefit standard.
What I am willing to agree upon is that once we add the harm/benefit standard, we will necessarily have to add some extra subjective standards to harm/benefit in order to have a way of prioritizing our moral cues.
For instance, we can't say loss of life is the highest priority based off harm/benefit alone because we don't really know the implications of death for the individual after the fact.
So we have to make a subjective assessment, that people generally don't want to find out what's on the other end right away.
So ultimately, there is a subjective element involved. My main point was simply that the root CAUSE of morals is actually objective and that subjective things "like holy books" are simply piggybacking onto it. However, Objectivity is not required for my moral system.
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@mustardness
Priorities need to be considered within context of the degree of moral judgement, when feasiible. Ex most often genetics --fight or flight--- activate the emergency responses, that, override { prioritize } all that may come into consideration over time.
I believe in moral particularism, so I agree with this. wholeheartedly
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@mustardness
Side note, have you ever heard of propositional logic? specifically, do you know what a logical negation is? I was curious what you thought about them assuming you know what I'm talking about.
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@mustardness
Okay, I'm going to translate that into you saying that our senses are physical and not part of our consciousness correct?
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@secularmerlin
You do realize that for it to be morality, there has to be somebody not following the rule right? That's the whole point of it. If everybody universally followed morality then there wouldn't even be need for the word morality. It would just be "stuff that everybody does for some reason"
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@secularmerlin
If I'm watching it happen right in front of me and I know it's real, yes.
If I see it on TV and I don't know it's real, then no but I also wouldn't react to a fake TV murder either.
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I believe There is Male jail and there is Female jail.
Those two things do exist, yes.
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@secularmerlin
Sure, you could do it like that, but now they're not the same thing. They're 4a and 4b because they're not logically equivalent. This is exactly what happens with morality.
You have to main usages for morality A and B and then you make C equal to both and since you want them to say in proper sets and the fact that we can't have category erros, we have to make Morality A and Morality B which do not count as the same thing regardless of their label. I'm arguing for Morality B which happens on it's own. Do we have to follow it? No, but it still happens and it explains why people have the morals they do.
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@secularmerlin
Is it objectively true that if I have a negative cue for murder, it will trigger when I witness a murder?
Is it objectively true that this cue will trigger, even if I agree with murder?
Okay, so you answered yes. Congratulations, you just agreed to a logical contradiction. The statement 1 and 2 = 4 violates the law of noncontradiction because 4 would have to have the value of 2 and 1 simultaneously which is impossible because it can't be itself and not itself at the same time. Now you try to play a word trick and say "it depends on my meaning" this is vacuous, I made a logical statement that can only be meant one way. Here's I'll do it like this
A and B = C
A = 1
B = 2
C = 4.
1 is defined by having a value of 1 and 2 is defined as having a value of 2. 4 is equal therefore it simultaneously has the value of 2 and 1 and the same time so if you make the equation. 4 + 4 = ? they will simultaneously equal 2 3 and 4 all at the same time. This is what you're doing with the word morals.
A = Edicts
B = Biological Cue.
C = Morality.
A and B = C. So now Morality is simultaneously a prescriptive edict that's an abstract and a description of a physical thing. This is a contradiction.
The proper way to do it is.
A or B = C Meaning that morality can equal B or A at different times and they both count as different words.
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@secularmerlin
You even went as far as to dodge a yes or no question because you knew the answer disproves you. spouting off a deflection about efficacy when my question had nothing to do with efficacy.
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