As soon as I read your thread title, this is the saying that immediately came to my mind!
The next one that I though of is from Schopenhauer: "A man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." It only sounds true when we confuse intention with desire. (Lars Hetzberg explains best what's wrong with this saying, without mentioning it specifically, in his paper On Being Moved by Desire.)
Pierre-NormandOctober 29, 2018 at 03:32#2231350 likes
Yes, it is misleading but it does have a point, though, which is to warn against the naturalistic fallacy.
Pierre-NormandOctober 29, 2018 at 03:37#2231360 likes
Here is another one: "No man ever steps in the same river twice..." ascribed to Heraclitus by Plato.
David Wiggins(*) has argued that Heraclitus likely never held the misconception about identity and material constitution that grounds this attribution to him.
* See his Heraclitus’ Conceptions of Flux, Fire, and Material Persistence, reprinted in Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity: Twelve Essays.
I don't know where the boundaries of philosophy are, so I've included some common sayings from IRL 'meaningful conversations':
Things which are almost certainly wrong:
Commonplace:
Opinions are subjective.
Art is subjective, science is objective.
You can't doubt it, it's scientific fact.
Atheists must be immoral.
Abortion contradicts the sanctity of life.
Islam is a religion of violence/peace.
Christianity is a religion of violence/peace
Judaism is a religion of violence/peace.
The left has cultural hegemony.
Naziism was a form of socialism/communism.
Because (group X) has the same legal status as (group Y) systematic injustices regarding X and Y do not exist.
Scandinavian countries are socialist.
China is communist.
Bitches be crazy.
More academic:
Moral responsibility is undermined by determinism.
The invisible hand serves the common good.
Quantum mechanics proves free will.
Rationality is just maximising a utility function.
Human learning is governed by stimulus/response correlation over time (operant conditioning).
Things which aren't necessarily wrong but are often crackpot dogwhistles:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
That's just your opinion.
Let's agree to disagree.
It is what it is.
Damn, Fdrake you ended the thread in one post. :gasp:
SophistiCatOctober 29, 2018 at 07:26#2231510 likes
Most such sayings are neither true nor false. They require some (or a lot of) unpacking before we can make an informed judgment. And much will then depend on what meaning (if any!) was packed into them.
Take this one, for instance, from fdrake's "academic" pile:
Moral responsibility is undermined by determinism.
Quite a lot of thoughtful and nuanced arguments have been offered in defense of this position, so it can't simply be dismissed as a settled matter. While I mostly disagree, I do believe that there is some truth to it - but much more needs to be said for there to be a meaningful debate over it.
Here is an example of a different kind:
Nothing comes from nothing.
This is something that is usually taken as unquestionably true. And yet, when you ask to unpack its meaning, people are either stumped by the request, or else it turns out that the adage is not fit to do the work for which it was brought up.
Because people disagree over moral issues, then morality must be subjective.
Right, but I think it's more that because different cultures disagree on moral issues, and there is no confirmed commandments from on high, therefore morality is culturally determined, instead of some external objective reality.
LD SaundersOctober 29, 2018 at 19:46#2232490 likes
Marchesk: One cannot rule out the existence of an objective morality no matter how many people disagree over moral issues. The reasons for this are quite simple --- everyone could be wrong, or one person could be wrong, and the others right, or more than one person could be objectively right. There is nothing about an objective morality that rules out more than one morally right answer, nor would it rule out disagreement. In fact, recall that there was a time that everyone thought Newtonian mechanics was right, and it turned out everyone was wrong. Did that rule out objective knowledge regarding the laws of physics?
The reasons for this are quite simple --- everyone could be wrong, or one person could be wrong, and the others right, or more than one person could be objectively right.
Alright, but I don't know what it would mean for everyone to be wrong about morality. What would the right morality consist of independent of human beings, or some other social animal with moral views?
My argument would be that morality is whatever rules we adopt in order to cooperate as social animals. We can and do argue over which rules to uphold, which to change, and which to get rid of over time, but there isn't anything beyond those rules, our biological needs and desires, and our social existence.
LD SaundersOctober 29, 2018 at 19:57#2232570 likes
Marchesk: Are you saying that if a society adopted rules that allowed for legalized child-rape that you would consider that society as equally moral to one that outlawed child-rape? I don't, and the reason why is because I view morality as a way of people being able to flourish and how we can get along with one another to do so. Therefore, there would have to be better and worse answers on how to achieve that flourishing among people. This is an idea going back to Aristotle. Setting up a society along the lines of Nazism is objectively worse than establishing a society along the lines of the current US Constitution. The Nazi society will crumble and kill many millions in the process of doing so.
don't, and the reason why is because I view morality as a way of people being able to flourish and how we can get along with one another to do so.
And I happen to agree with you, but then that's the version of morality that's generally accepted today. We were born into cultures that tend to value equality and tolerance. But if we had been born into Sparta or Rome, we might not think so.
The problem is locating that objective moral view point which can be the arbiter between different cultural views on morality.
Setting up a society along the lines of Nazism is objectively worse than establishing a society along the lines of the current US Constitution. The Nazi society will crumble and kill many millions in the process of doing so.
I don't know what makes it objectively worse. Many people agree that it's a lot worse, and the bloodiest war in history was partly fought over that. But where outside of human opinion can we locate that?
The difference with physics is that the world determines how right or wrong we are. But it doesn't do that for morality, because the world isn't moral. Biology isn't moral either.
I find that Existential Nihilism, on a whole is generally fundamentally misunderstood.
LD SaundersOctober 30, 2018 at 17:08#2234300 likes
Marchesk: Nazism is objectively worse, because it can't function. It's not a method of having people flourish, and that's what morality is all about. If you want to say morality means something different, then I have no idea what you mean by morality, and nor do I care. I'm sticking with the real world issues, and as a practical matter if morality does not deal with how people can flourish and get along well with others, then it is simply a meaningless term.
As far as your claim it's merely a human opinion, so it can't be objective, that argument is not a very good one. It's also a human opinion that the laws of physics exist, after all, if we didn't exist, there is no evidence that anyone would know anything about the laws of physics.
Comments (26)
You can't derive an ought from an is.
Banno is as smart as me. :gasp:
As soon as I read your thread title, this is the saying that immediately came to my mind!
The next one that I though of is from Schopenhauer: "A man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." It only sounds true when we confuse intention with desire. (Lars Hetzberg explains best what's wrong with this saying, without mentioning it specifically, in his paper On Being Moved by Desire.)
Yes, it is misleading but it does have a point, though, which is to warn against the naturalistic fallacy.
David Wiggins(*) has argued that Heraclitus likely never held the misconception about identity and material constitution that grounds this attribution to him.
* See his Heraclitus’ Conceptions of Flux, Fire, and Material Persistence, reprinted in Continuants: Their Activity, Their Being, and Their Identity: Twelve Essays.
Agreed.
Things which are almost certainly wrong:
Commonplace:
Opinions are subjective.
Art is subjective, science is objective.
You can't doubt it, it's scientific fact.
Atheists must be immoral.
Abortion contradicts the sanctity of life.
Islam is a religion of violence/peace.
Christianity is a religion of violence/peace
Judaism is a religion of violence/peace.
The left has cultural hegemony.
Naziism was a form of socialism/communism.
Because (group X) has the same legal status as (group Y) systematic injustices regarding X and Y do not exist.
Scandinavian countries are socialist.
China is communist.
Bitches be crazy.
More academic:
Moral responsibility is undermined by determinism.
The invisible hand serves the common good.
Quantum mechanics proves free will.
Rationality is just maximising a utility function.
Human learning is governed by stimulus/response correlation over time (operant conditioning).
Things which aren't necessarily wrong but are often crackpot dogwhistles:
Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
That's just your opinion.
Let's agree to disagree.
It is what it is.
Take this one, for instance, from fdrake's "academic" pile:
Quoting fdrake
Quite a lot of thoughtful and nuanced arguments have been offered in defense of this position, so it can't simply be dismissed as a settled matter. While I mostly disagree, I do believe that there is some truth to it - but much more needs to be said for there to be a meaningful debate over it.
Here is an example of a different kind:
Nothing comes from nothing.
This is something that is usually taken as unquestionably true. And yet, when you ask to unpack its meaning, people are either stumped by the request, or else it turns out that the adage is not fit to do the work for which it was brought up.
Like aging after 25, which I guess does eventually kill you, if nothing else does it first.
Or like AIDS.
Because people disagree over moral issues, then morality must be subjective.
Right, but I think it's more that because different cultures disagree on moral issues, and there is no confirmed commandments from on high, therefore morality is culturally determined, instead of some external objective reality.
Alright, but I don't know what it would mean for everyone to be wrong about morality. What would the right morality consist of independent of human beings, or some other social animal with moral views?
My argument would be that morality is whatever rules we adopt in order to cooperate as social animals. We can and do argue over which rules to uphold, which to change, and which to get rid of over time, but there isn't anything beyond those rules, our biological needs and desires, and our social existence.
And I happen to agree with you, but then that's the version of morality that's generally accepted today. We were born into cultures that tend to value equality and tolerance. But if we had been born into Sparta or Rome, we might not think so.
The problem is locating that objective moral view point which can be the arbiter between different cultural views on morality.
Quoting LD Saunders
I don't know what makes it objectively worse. Many people agree that it's a lot worse, and the bloodiest war in history was partly fought over that. But where outside of human opinion can we locate that?
The difference with physics is that the world determines how right or wrong we are. But it doesn't do that for morality, because the world isn't moral. Biology isn't moral either.
;)
I disagree with that common saying!
And I nearly put 'God exists' in the academic list, you lot won't let me get away with anything. ;)
As far as your claim it's merely a human opinion, so it can't be objective, that argument is not a very good one. It's also a human opinion that the laws of physics exist, after all, if we didn't exist, there is no evidence that anyone would know anything about the laws of physics.