There Is Only One Is-Ought
In which I argue that an ought can be derived from an is, that such an ought claim may be correct or incorrect, and that such evaluation of a claim may be subjective or objective provided the circumstance. The argument therefore bridges both the gap between is-ought claims and the gap between the subjective-objective moral claims.
It all begins with getting an ought from an is. The first premise is this:
Consider Hume's Law with this example:
One can see how ridiculous this is, the ought is inherent in nature, what Steven Woodford has loosely coined an “axiomatic ought”. Human beings don't have a choice when it comes to acting on the desire that they believe will give the most happiness, it's a neurological function of the brain; taking action is predicated on the brain convincing you (via dopamine) that you’re on the right path. That behind all of our behaviour is the pursuit of happiness has long been debated but I ask you to consider this yourself. If you can think of an action that isn’t motivated by the belief that it will bring pleasure then please comment.
Because we naturally and inexorably value wellbeing it is always implied in is-ought statements. That we will do what we believe will give us the most pleasure is so intuitively known that linguistically we forgo the if by way of assumption:
In Philosophy Vibe’s presentation of the is-ought problem they use the example of a bottle of poison:
They say this is a valid statement because it is a non moral fact. Then they apply the same scenario but with the involvement of another agent:
But why is it morally wrong? How can a natural fact about the world - what is, tell us what ought to be? The problem here is that they are asking the wrong question. Reframing the question with our axiomatic ought it appears so:
The value of wellbeing is inherent in the situation. Here is the all important point though: The is-ought is still valid not because it is morally right or wrong but because it is simply predicated on the belief (of the agent) that it is right or wrong, and as importantly, such belief is rooted in the value of wellbeing. Whether it is actually morally right or wrong in this situation would require an investigation. The is-ought gap is bridged by understanding that all oughts relate to the fact that humans value wellbeing – we inexorably derive an ought from an is because nature, the physiology of the brain, compels us so. Whether your belief the ought is right or wrong morally speaking is a separate issue. Therefore, there is only one axiomatic and inexorable single is-ought:
Isn't this just hedonism? Human beings are a collective, the maxim applies to all; we value wellbeing. Studies in Positive Psychology tell us that we may derive more pleasure when we consider the wellbeing of others, possibly because of empathy born of the reasoning that others are the same as me. Is this not utilitarianism? Because the masses may hold erroneous beliefs about what will actually give themselves and others the most wellbeing (slavery, circumcision, burning witches, etc.) In some circumstances treating the individual as an end, the rights of the individual, may end up being the better path to wellbeing for all. Which brings us to bridging the subjective-objective gap and our second premise:
If I told you that placing crystals on your head was better for relieving the pain of your headache than paracetamol would you accept it? It wasn’t so long ago you might have heard a parent say, “It’s immoral not to spank your children, if you don’t they will grow up to be a menace to themselves and society!” This is a moral claim. Is it subjective or objective? Such a claim can be investigated like any other using empirical methods. It turns out, after numerous scientific studies and decades of research, corporal punishment in the home is a terrible detriment to the wellbeing of a child and has largely only a negative affect on their future. Such a moral claim can be debunked, objectively debunked.
What about the case of four men lost at sea who have to make a decision on who will be killed first so that the others may live? (R v Dudley and Stephens, 1884) A strict objectivist may argue there is always a right and wrong answer but for must of us I think we can agree such a situation is highly subjective. It draws on the conflict of Kant’s categorical imperative, the rights of the individual, and utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number.
In short therefore I am making the claim that whether ethics is subjective or objective depends on circumstance. There is a spectrum on the bridge with subjectivity and objectivity lying at either end. Moral claims and behaviour require as much empiricism as they do reason and sometimes the answer as to whether they are justified will be a fact as clear as day, and sometimes it will be grey and relative.
Whatever way you come at it, the simple fact is this: humans value wellbeing. Working together, and getting our beliefs correct about how to achieve the greatest wellbeing for all, is the grand project of morality.
Thoughts?
It all begins with getting an ought from an is. The first premise is this:
- Human beings have no choice but to act on the desire they are convinced will bring the most pleasure and least pain.
Consider Hume's Law with this example:
- Your hand IS in the fire therefore you OUGHT to pull it out
One can see how ridiculous this is, the ought is inherent in nature, what Steven Woodford has loosely coined an “axiomatic ought”. Human beings don't have a choice when it comes to acting on the desire that they believe will give the most happiness, it's a neurological function of the brain; taking action is predicated on the brain convincing you (via dopamine) that you’re on the right path. That behind all of our behaviour is the pursuit of happiness has long been debated but I ask you to consider this yourself. If you can think of an action that isn’t motivated by the belief that it will bring pleasure then please comment.
Because we naturally and inexorably value wellbeing it is always implied in is-ought statements. That we will do what we believe will give us the most pleasure is so intuitively known that linguistically we forgo the if by way of assumption:
- It is raining outside therefore [if you believe it would give you pleasure] you ought to take an umbrella
In Philosophy Vibe’s presentation of the is-ought problem they use the example of a bottle of poison:
- There is a bottle of poison therefore (if you want to stay healthy) you ought not to drink it
They say this is a valid statement because it is a non moral fact. Then they apply the same scenario but with the involvement of another agent:
- There is a bottle of poison therefore you ought not to put it another persons drink (it’s morally wrong)
But why is it morally wrong? How can a natural fact about the world - what is, tell us what ought to be? The problem here is that they are asking the wrong question. Reframing the question with our axiomatic ought it appears so:
- There is a bottle of poison therefore [if you believe it will harm (wellbeing value)] you ought not to put it in another persons drink
The value of wellbeing is inherent in the situation. Here is the all important point though: The is-ought is still valid not because it is morally right or wrong but because it is simply predicated on the belief (of the agent) that it is right or wrong, and as importantly, such belief is rooted in the value of wellbeing. Whether it is actually morally right or wrong in this situation would require an investigation. The is-ought gap is bridged by understanding that all oughts relate to the fact that humans value wellbeing – we inexorably derive an ought from an is because nature, the physiology of the brain, compels us so. Whether your belief the ought is right or wrong morally speaking is a separate issue. Therefore, there is only one axiomatic and inexorable single is-ought:
- [is statement:] One can not help but act on the desire they believe will bring the most pleasure and the least pain (one values wellbeing) therefore,[ought statement:] One ought to know if such a belief will bring the most pleasure and least pain is right or wrong
Isn't this just hedonism? Human beings are a collective, the maxim applies to all; we value wellbeing. Studies in Positive Psychology tell us that we may derive more pleasure when we consider the wellbeing of others, possibly because of empathy born of the reasoning that others are the same as me. Is this not utilitarianism? Because the masses may hold erroneous beliefs about what will actually give themselves and others the most wellbeing (slavery, circumcision, burning witches, etc.) In some circumstances treating the individual as an end, the rights of the individual, may end up being the better path to wellbeing for all. Which brings us to bridging the subjective-objective gap and our second premise:
- What is it about a moral claim that makes it different to any other?
If I told you that placing crystals on your head was better for relieving the pain of your headache than paracetamol would you accept it? It wasn’t so long ago you might have heard a parent say, “It’s immoral not to spank your children, if you don’t they will grow up to be a menace to themselves and society!” This is a moral claim. Is it subjective or objective? Such a claim can be investigated like any other using empirical methods. It turns out, after numerous scientific studies and decades of research, corporal punishment in the home is a terrible detriment to the wellbeing of a child and has largely only a negative affect on their future. Such a moral claim can be debunked, objectively debunked.
What about the case of four men lost at sea who have to make a decision on who will be killed first so that the others may live? (R v Dudley and Stephens, 1884) A strict objectivist may argue there is always a right and wrong answer but for must of us I think we can agree such a situation is highly subjective. It draws on the conflict of Kant’s categorical imperative, the rights of the individual, and utilitarianism, the greatest good for the greatest number.
In short therefore I am making the claim that whether ethics is subjective or objective depends on circumstance. There is a spectrum on the bridge with subjectivity and objectivity lying at either end. Moral claims and behaviour require as much empiricism as they do reason and sometimes the answer as to whether they are justified will be a fact as clear as day, and sometimes it will be grey and relative.
Whatever way you come at it, the simple fact is this: humans value wellbeing. Working together, and getting our beliefs correct about how to achieve the greatest wellbeing for all, is the grand project of morality.
Thoughts?
Comments (44)
Meh, this is basically epiphenomenalism.
In principle, but not without support. Hume said so himself:
“...For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it....”
(THU 3.1.1, 1739)
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Quoting Bert Newton
What is “it”, and how do rights, utilitarianism and greatest good relate to the Kantian C.I.?
I think he’s equating deontological ethics with individual rights, and equating utilitarianism with the greatest good.
Hmmm.....I sure hope not. I’m ok with utilitarianism equating to the greatest good, but I reject Kantian deontology, which is technically a metaphysical misnomer anyway, equating to individual rights or utilitarianism/greatest good.
Something else must be in the offing, in order for all those to fit together, seems like. Depends on what “it” is, and the conflict with the c.i.
Correct. Well, I'm saying it is a conflict of moral interests in the case of the boatmen and why the case is so subjective. The orphan's rights as an individual conflict with the greater good.
Quoting Mww
Yes. Hume was critical of moralists who jumped the is-ought gap without explanation. However, we know what that gap is. You can get an an ought from an is if you include the missing link of what you believe will give you the most pleasure. Therefore, strictly speaking the is-ought is actually an is-belief-ought.
We know that the gap is people acting on what they believe will give them the most pleasure. Of course most people have empathy born of reason, others are just like you, so what gives us pleasure is what gives others pleasure. There is only one ought:
The point is you could be wrong about what gives you and others the most pleasure, and there can be a conflict of interests in who's pleasure should succeed, therefore we can get an ought from your belief about what is. That ought could be objective or highly subjective depending on circumstance.
Quoting SophistiCat
Yes, and some.
An ought is possible from an is, yes, but not by means of beliefs. But if you wish to see it that way, have fun with it.
All oughts can be reduced to the belief they will lead to wellbeing.
There are better and worse ways to be. We ought to find the best ways to be. This means checking our beliefs.
Why?
Why take pain relief medicine to relieve a headache instead of placing crystals on your head?
Wrong question. Should be....to what ought my actions, comply?
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Quoting Bert Newton
Not in this neck of the woods. That to which the acts given from my moral disposition belong, are known to me, but there is no promise they lead to wellbeing, even if they are indisputably morally good in themselves. To be moral is to be true to one’s self, the effects be what they may.
I suppose, though, there is a sense of wellbeing for the agency that adheres to his moral disposition even at the expense of another’s. Still, such adherence is a form of knowledge given from pure practical reason and the principles in support of it, without any reduction to mere belief.
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Quoting Bert Newton
This presupposes both that there is a best way, and that it can be found, which implies both always seeking after it, and at the same time, never finding it, which in turn implies disregard for innate personal identity. No need for any of that, nor any need for beliefs, when one already knows what kind of person he is. And if he knows that, he consequently knows his moral inclinations, that is, what his response will be to any given moral dilemma.
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Quoting Bert Newton
Which makes explicit no possible moral action is determinable, if the wellbeing of the acting agent and wellbeing of those being acted upon, are not congruent. On the other hand, to give the “most wellbeing” is an altogether contingent criteria, requiring arbitrary compromise, which is anathema to morality itself. One cannot will according to mere desire, especially desires for which he is not responsible, but must remain a willful moral agent within the bounds of his own personal identity. Hence, the legislative authority of the categorical imperative in conjunction with respect for the principles of law.
You’re talking about not much more than just being nice, so sure....one ought to be nice, which reduces to mere etiquette. Or perhaps plain ol’ manners. My friends may very well say, awwww...how nice of you, when they hear I took the time to help the proverbial lil’ ol’ lady cross the street, but I dare say not a one of my friends will repeat the missive, upon hearing I intentionally put my arm between a child and a rabid dog’s teeth.
I think you’ve got a fairly decent preliminary examination of general human conduct, but I also think some ground for a strictly moral conduct, is missing. Maybe you hadn’t intended a true moral examination to begin with, in which case your “only one ought” may well hold. But for me, general conduct is governed by judicial code, in which the “only one ought” is simply ought to obey the law, whereas in moral conduct, there are no oughts at all. There is only and ever.....will this according to that obligation......oughts derived therefrom being irrelevant.
Isn't the moral conduct of everyday life and what goes on in the highest supreme court based on the same basic premise of wellbeing though? Isn't the law rooted in justice? Aren't our concepts of what is wrong and right based on harm?
Quoting Mww
I agree. I skimmed the surface. I have been reworking it and now think there is actually only one complete axiomatic is-ought statement regarding morality. I think the maxim holds:
Quoting Bert Newton
..but I didn't go into any lengths about how this is applied other than using empiricism and reason. I think if I made more of a point of "empathy born of the reasoning that others are the same", or as Joe Rogan puts it: "everyone else is yourself, living a different life." and direct you to the studies in Positive Psychology that show we are happier for helping others, I think then, people might swallow this better.
The fact is: humans value wellbeing. Working together, getting our beliefs about that correct, is the grand project of morality.
Thanks. :)
Not exclusively, or absolutely. Why pick out this one value out many others?
Yes. There are two "Oughts", the subjective conscience of each person, and the objective "Shoulds" of their community standards. Ancient divine Moral Law was essentially a formalization of traditional communal Ethics. :smile:
True. But only God's universal laws would be completely Objective & unbiased. So "community standards", such as those of empirical Science, are as close to objectively ethical as we can get. In effect, via the statistical effect of "The Wisdom of Crowds", impersonal collective standards tend to average out the various subjective biases of each citizen of a given culture. :smile:
Objective : not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.; impartial, non-partisan.
Wisdom of Crowds : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds
This seems like a meaningless formulation to me. Morality is intrinsically concerned with others; that's basically what it's all about. I'm not including all imposed moral norms in my conception of morality; the kind that condemn difference, for example; such prejudices are actually immoral because they are more concerned with protecting the self from what it fears than with the welfare of others.
:up:
As you are entitled.
So, what....being true to one’s self is meaningless, or, being true to one’s self is a valid concept but just needs a different name?
If morality is intrinsically concerned with others, what is the intrinsic concern of ethics?
As I see it morality is concerned with how we ought to behave in relation to the impact we think our behavior will have on others. Ethics is more broadly concerned with how to live, but given that we are generally social animals then others will most likely come into that.
So I should act according to what won’t piss you off (or will please you), rather than doing what I think best? What about the fact I may not know what angers/pleases you, in which case.....I shouldn’t act at all? But then, maybe not acting at all pisses you off. Or, if not you, the guy next to you.
Normative ethical behavior instructs me to stay on my side of the road, step aside for the guy with his arms full, keeping my mouth shut when others are speaking. Morality instructs me to accept a payment plan when selling my car to a desperate young mother as well as some mouthy, punk-ass dude.
Ethics: wherein the judgement of the quality of one’s extant conduct, what he has done, is other than his own because of what it is;
Morality: wherein the judgement of the quality of one’s possible conduct, what he is going to do, is his alone regardless of what it is.
No act can be judged by others before it has occurred, which means no act can be judged by others before it is judged by the actor himself. And any act can be judged as proper or improper by any number of other people, according to each of their respective moral standards, but any act of a single moral agent judged by himself, will always be proper only, for otherwise he is immoral, or, which is the same thing, he is untrue to himself.
No, you ought to act in a way which doesn't injure me, or detract from my well-being in some considerable way. Pissing me off doesn't count; it won't significantly affect me.
There are no certain rules which cover all cases, the point is merely that morality involves caring about how my actions affect others. Hegel wrote, if I remember correctly, that where there are rules, there is no morality; morality consisted, for him, in moral intuition. It's a subtle, not a rule-bound business, more like an art than a science. The basic thing is that you have to care.
Not necessarily. It doesn’t have to. It can be primarily concerned with how my actions affect me. If the broad goal of ethics is to live the good life, then assessing how one’s actions affect oneself is perfectly reasonable.
Additionally, it could also be argued that those moralities that give precedence to the affect our actions have on others only do so out of a desire for others to consider us, a fear of retaliation, so that it will benefit us, or some other sort of selfish/egotistical desire.
Quoting Janus
Yes, you have to care, but only about what you consider “good.” You can choose to care about yourself more than others if you believe doing so is good, or that it will enable you to live the best life possible.
Granting that there are no rules covering the cases themselves, which implies an inductive approach, there can still be rules from a deductive approach, covering the determination of acts in general, no matter the case to which particular acts apply. Deontological and virtue-based normative theories are predicated on rules, or indeed, law itself, however not covering the vast plurality of cases themselves, but covering moral actor himself, in his responses to cases. The focus then becomes not the act, which is always contingent on circumstance, but the ground for the determination of the act, which, if considered to be moral, can never be merely contingent.
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Quoting Janus
This almost looks like two different kinds of caring. I grant “the basic thing is you have to care”, which is reducible to a moral feeling seemingly inherent in autonomous willful agency. Not subscribed to so wholeheartedly, is the kind of caring concerning my actions with respect to their affect on others, for the impact on others may well conflict with the impact on myself. And if I am to remain moral in its truest sense, inward feelings must take precedence over outward, otherwise I become susceptible to conflicting with myself, which is the same as conflicting with my own moral constitution, which in turn relieves me of being a true autonomous agent moral, which in its turn, contradicts the predicates of Nature herself, for having evolved me into thinking myself as being one in the first place.
Still.....you know.....awful lot of unsubstantiated assumptions involved in moral philosophy. Nature of the apparently rational, thus ultimately subjective, human beast, I guess.
Sure, but as I said earlier I draw a distinction between moral thinking and ethical thinking; where moral thinking is concerned with the effects of action on others and ethical thinking is not necessarily confined to that.
I agree, and also have no problem with the rest of what you say. My only (simple) point is that the ground of moral thinking is concern for others. This ties in with the OP as saying something like "If I care about others, then I ought to consider, and be concerned about, how my actions might affect them". The corollary of this is that if I don't care about others, then I am amoral.
I suppose I can live with that. If morality stands as personality regulation, in which I do care about others, so then would amoral stand as a personality disorder, much as does psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism, and the like, in which I do not.
Still....metaphysics of the normative human condition on the one hand, psychology of the deranged human condition on the other. Not sure how much they should overlap.
It doesn't seem to me to be a matter of metaphysics, but of phenomenology. So, I would view it as phenomenology of what you are terming the "normative" and "deranged" human conditions, respectively. Regarding the latter not being a psychological claim; I say that because it is not an attempt at explanation, but merely a noting of behavior. How do we know someone doesn't care about others? Even if they tell us they don't care we likely won't believe them unless their behavior manifests a lack of care.
Do you treat phenomenology as a philosophy? If so, you don’t hold with the notion that metaphysics is the ground of all philosophies?
I do think of philosophy as being a matter of achieving clarity, rather than knowledge. What are we clarifying then? I'd say we clarify what we are doing. That is phenomenology. After that we attempt to explain why we are doing what we are doing. That is psychology. Or if we count metaphysics as a discipline which consists in something more than phenomenology (as, for example, Heidegger and Merleau Ponty do not) then we might speculate about how we come to be conscious entities in a physical world.
We can exercise our imaginations on that question utilizing as fuel the associations and accretions of our common language; but the danger will always be, as Kant indicated, unwarranted reification if we allow ourselves pretensions to knowledge. Accepting that I count metaphysics as rightly confining itself to science; i.e. physics and cosmology; or else it's flights of the poetic imagination, which may have their own beauty, but give us nothing we could rightly call knowledge. If it is insight it is insight into what language enables us to imagine.
That’s a pretty fair elucidation of why I never got into phenomenology, in that post-Kantians developed a novel thesis around the notion of phenomena different from a critical reason point of view. In other words, in some sense, phenomena became reified because they were given more importance and broader scope than originally thought. Phenomena as “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition” went on to become determined. But, that’s progress.....or something.
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Quoting Janus
Why wouldn’t natural evolution be sufficient explanation for becoming conscious entities? Metaphysics would be better served, I think, reconciling the existence of conscious entities, which are given because their non-existence is logically impossible, with what it is that facilitates being one.
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Quoting Janus
True enough. Experience gives a posteriori knowledge, pure thought gives a priori knowledge. The metaphysics of epistemological philosophy merely facilitates understanding the ways and means of the difference.
Could you explain some more what you mean here? I don't understand phenomena as being reified. I see them as the objects of sensory (mostly visual and tactile) experience (perception). To reify them would be to commit the sin of naive realism.
If they are said to be "undetermined objects of empirical intuition" would this not be to say that they are "things in themselves", since it would only be what we might think of as their "absolute nature" which remains indeterminable?
Quoting Mww
I accept natural evolution as the process by which conscious entities arose. Others don't and they evoke some wholly other spiritual process of evolution. It seems contradictory to say both that conscious entities arose and that their non-existence is impossible, unless perhaps you are invoking some spiritual process, whereby they are always "present" but only manifest historically (or prehistorically) as some point in the evolution of the physical cosmos.
Quoting Mww
Again, could you elaborate, as I'm not seeing what you are driving at here?
You said philosophy gives clarity rather than knowledge, phenomenology is a philosophy, so gives clarity to phenomena. Kantian phenomena are stated but unclear, re: undetermined objects of empirical intuition. Post-Kantians wishing to clarify the conception of phenomena tried to make them something knowable, hence reifying them as phenomena proper. The Kantian system leaves phenomena as object of intuition knowable, not as phenomena, but as cognitions, by synthesizing them with conceptions. In Kant, phenomena are representations in the unconscious part of the system, while conceptions, hence the cognitions arising from the synthesis, are members of the conscious part.
Dunno so much about the “sin of naive realism”, but I’d certainly go with the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. And I guess I can see why folks would want to examine phenomena a little more closely than Kant, who devoted a grand total of about two sentences....out of 800 pages....to what they are.
Disclaimer: I am not familiar with the particulars on phenomenology, merely the general idea, so if I got it wrong, don’t be too hard on me. But I have trouble with......
Quoting Janus
....which says the same thing as “Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty do not count metaphysics as anything more than phenomenology”, where metaphysics is the ground of philosophy in general, of which phenomenology is only a part.
All of which reflects back to my “metaphysics of the human conditions” with respect to morality = regulation/amoral = disorder, to which was substituted a discipline insufficient for the purpose, re: phenomenology, for metaphysics.
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Quoting Janus
No to “thing-in-themselves”, which are real physical objects in the world. Phenomena, on the other hand, are representations of sensations, sometimes interpreted as appearances, the matter of which is given to us by perception, but the arrangement of the matter, the form the representation will eventually assume and be presented to understanding, is the function of intuition. All of which is not in our conscious presence; we have no realization of the synthesis of intuition and conception, and, it happens all the time, with each and every perception. The form of the phenomena is given in intuition if the perceived object has been cognized before, in which case, understanding merely validates the arrangement, rather than creating it when the perceived object has yet to be cognized.
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Quoting Janus
Oh HELL no....homie don’t do no spirit stuff. I meant only that conscious entities do exist, otherwise there is no explanation for ourselves, therefore conscious entities cannot not exist.
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Quoting Janus
Just agreeing with your position that philosophy doesn't give knowledge, only clarity. Knowledge is obtained by other means.
The way you speak of phenomena here makes me think of science. We can say that science gives clarity to one general kind of phenomena; science deals with sensory phenomena, attempting to know what is going on with them. The goings on are further phenomena. Is science a kind of phenomenology then?
But science is only a part of human doings. Metaphysics is another part; except it deals with ideas not with sensory phenomena. How do we know our ideas, though? Do we not experience them just as (but, it seems obvious, not in the same way as) we experience sensory phenomena? This is why (I think) Heidegger subsumes metaphysics to phenomenology. I think the idea is also implicitly in Kant. When we do "a priori" reasoning are we not trying to see what is going on for us in our thinking of the most general ideas?
So when you say phenomena are knowable as cognition, is cognition itself not merely another human phenomenon to be known? But known by what? Cognition? Does cognition know itself?
So, we have these two ways of looking at sensory phenomena; as things outside us to be known in perception, and as mental or cognitive states. But are these not simply different perspectives from two different starting assumptions? Must we claim that one is true, and the other false?
There is a lot more in your post to respond to, but I fear becoming too complicated, so I've just attempted to deal with the above part first. It all seems to dovetail in together in any case. :smile:
Absolutely. All the good stuff is complicated. Which is most likely why it’s often rejected by those not willing to work that hard towards a possibly unsatisfying end. Or maybe they pick one complicated thing over its predecessor, just because it’s complicated more recently. Dunno.....don’t care.
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Quoting Janus
Not by me, favoring the notion of every named thing has its own place, pursuant to a specific epistemological methodology. As such, if cognitions are allowed to be phenomena, how phenomena were originally defined is destroyed, and thereby as well, originally purposed. Not to say it can’t be done, but if it is, as befitting a different methodology, then phenomena would have to be re-defined and re-purposed. Which is fine, as long as it works.
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Quoting Janus
Again, this is fine, for the numero uno predicate of investigation by means of the scientific method is observation of real physical objects, and phenomena are nothing but “appearances” thereof in the speculative epistemological method. Science lets phenomena be known pending experience of them as real objects, whereas speculative metaphysics lets them remain “undetermined”, because they have not yet met the criteria for being known. That is, they have not run the full gamut of cognitive procedure.
“....Small steps, Sparky. Small steps...”
(David Morse to Jodie Foster, “Contact”, 1997)
What needs to be born in mind, not by you personally perhaps, but in general, is that speculative metaphysics describes a system of thought itself, as opposed to describing a system of objective investigation. Thus, because the investigatory system must remain constant in order for it to be reliable, so too must the system of thought. From which it follows, that all the steps in both are always the same, regardless of how it seems. The problem of course, is that the constance of the scientific method is obvious, but the constance of the speculative system, is not. Why? Because of the vast difference between what we know from experience, and what we learn because of experience, yet being absolutely dependent on one and the same system for either. The conditioning factor being none other than time.
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Quoting Janus
Another reason to keep things where they belong. What does it mean to ask about that which is immediately present to our attention? We know an idea is present merely from the thinking of it, but that doesn’t imply knowledge of that which the idea represents. A square circle is an idea as much as human morality, the former is a self-contradictory hence an impossible conception, the latter is not. The former cannot have an object understanding thinks belongs to it in order to facilitate the cognition of it, the latter has a veritable plethora of them.
We don’t know our ideas; we think them. We think them because they are present and they are present because they are thought. The objects of ideas are known, or not.
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Quoting Janus
Hmmmm.....dunno. Before something can be deemed true or false, with respect to phenomena, it must be determined what it is, what it represents. Even then, it is not the truth of phenomena, but the judgement about it, that serves as true or false, insofar as the thing perceived is judged as certainly conforming to, or not conforming to, either experience or possible experience. Hence the definition, “truth is that in which a cognition conforms to its object”.
It’s complicated......you can drop out any time, without offending. This stuff is oh so unprovable, purely some arbitrary way of looking at stuff. A great big, gigantic to-each-his-own kinda thing.
What I meant though was that I don't want to complicate this exchange by dealing with too many issues at once.
Quoting Mww
Yes, if we employ different definitions of phenomena then we will be talking at cross-purposes.
Quoting Mww
Yes, but in common parlance "real physical objects" are also referred to as "natural phenomena". It is true that various kinds of idealists (in their different ways) take phenomena to be "appearances". But, as Kant said, if there are appearances there must be something that appears.
I acknowledge Kant's views remain controversial, even among Kant scholars; but it seems clear that to me, from what I have read, that he thought there are real physical objects and entities, things that are something in themselves; but that we only know them as they appear to us. For me this counts (or should count) as knowing real physical objects and entities, even though their "final", "absolute" or exhaustive nature is not certainly known to us.
Quoting Mww
We also know that sensory objects are present merely by the seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling of them in all but relatively rare cases (i.e. where they may be hallucinated). We know what we are thinking only by remembering what we just thought, or by saying the though to ourselves, so the difference doesn't seem as great to me as it perhaps does to some Kantians.
So, what I'm doing is not attempting to challenge your understanding, but rather to gain a lucid picture of just what it is that you think, and just how that thinking may differ from what I have in mind, for example in its basic assumptions and so on.
So you say "we don't know our ideas; we think them", and I can accept that with the caveat that it is an expression of just one way of looking at things. I could equally say that "we don't know physical objects; we see (or hear, etc.) them". But in both cases knowing objects or thoughts (or at least some aspects thereof) consists in, respectively, seeing or thinking them.
Knowing that are seeing objects or thinking thoughts is on explicit self-awareness in the moment of seeing or thinking. In the case of seeing it is just seeing with the accompanying thought "I am seeing".
In the case of thinking it is a bit more complicated, because we cannot simultaneously think a thought and the thought "I am thinking a thought" (or at least I cannot) unless I mentally verbalize the thought I am thinking so I can "hear" it as though it is being said (like I would if listening to another express a thought).
This noticing what we are doing when we see objects or think thoughts is a significant part of phenomenology.
Quoting Mww
No need to worry, I will drop out if I lose interest. I don't worry about being offended or offending on these forums (or very much in "real" life either :wink: ); this is just free discussion as far as I'm concerned, and if it ceases to be interesting, what would be the point in continuing?
Anyway I do agree with what you say here, so as I said earlier I am not trying to compare your way of understanding this with mine with a view to deciding which is better, per se, just trying to get a firmer grasp on your perspective, so I can understand as precisely as possible where it might differ from my perspective. :smile: :halo:
Although correct, it is somewhat superfluous to make such a statement, at least if it is meant to be an observation about how humans behave.
Human beings value well-being, animal beings value well-being, any beings imaginable value well-being.
It’s an a priori statement. Anything that is, wants to/strives to be well.
It’s not possible to do anything that you don’t consider, at least at the moment of action, to be good for yourself.
Suicidal people kill themselves because they think that’s the best thing to do.
Heroes sacrifice themselves (only seemingly giving up their well-being) because they consider it better for themselves, think it will make them happier to see other people happy, or just long for the happiness of martyrdom.
Since this IS the case, and it is so evident that it cannot even be empirically refuted, the SHOULD follows from the fact that it cannot be otherwise.
A carpenter IS someone who builds, therefore if someone wants to be a carpenter, he SHOULD build.
A being IS something which is, therefore if something wants to be, it SHOULD do what supports its being.
Everything that IS, participates in being, therefore everything SHOULD support being. (Supporting being means supporting well-being)
My modus operandi as well. Although, I admit to getting a little.....er, wordy sometimes. Most of the time. Almost always.
Quoting Janus
Ok, but if you do that, doesn’t knowledge become undefined? And there are inconsistencies, insofar as there can be no ideas whatsoever that are not thought, but there can be perceptions that are not known.
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Quoting Janus
Do you equate noticing and experiencing? How closely are they related, if at all?
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Quoting Janus
Yes to real physical objects; as you say...there must be something that appears. Appears herein meaning makes an appearance, or becomes present, as opposed to knowing them immediately by resemblance. The Kantian epistemological system is strictly representational, which makes explicit nothing in the system is the equivalent of that which is outside it, but can only, and must necessarily, relate to it. It follows that we don’t know the appearance, or, which is the same thing, the phenomenon representing the real object, but rather, we only know the precision of the relationship, which is itself predicated on the precision of our judgements about it.
Besides, if we can know the object by its appearance, its mere presence, why can we not know the object as it really is, in its exhaustive nature? To say an appearance is not a complete appearance such that exhaustive knowledge of it is impossible, implies the blame for being wrong about perceptions is possibly as much the fault of the object as it is our system for knowing it, which implies every appearance could be a sensory illusion. Now the argument is that no object ever gives us its complete appearance anyway, which only serves to justify a representational cognitive system in which the appearance of an object simply means its affect on our sensibility, rather than irreducible causality for our knowledge, which leaves us to figure out what it is possible to know it as, relieving the object itself of any fault.
Aristotle characterized your “counts (or should count) as knowing real physical objects and entities” as knowing that an object is present (epistêmê), as opposed to knowing what an object is, that is present (technê). In the former you’d be correct, in the latter, not so much. Knowing that we are affected doesn’t tell us what we are affected by.
By the way.....would you say phenomenology is a representational system?
For example, let's say that there are three people who each desire to eat an entire pie. There exists only one pie. It is not a matter of opinion how to best serve the needs of all three people; there is a definite point at which the desires of all parties can be maximized: the pie should be cut into thirds to achieve this. Any other denominator would fail to maximize the desire of one or more parties.
However, it is important to point out that the single-best compromise (for society) is still a compromise from the individual's original desire. But it would also be an oversight to say that the method for best-serving an individual's needs would be a matter of opinion. Here too, there is a single-best route that suits the individual the most. And the process for calculating the needs of the self also involves taking the needs of others into consideration; but for a different reason.
An individual's desires are tempered by the demands of empathy. For example, it would be difficult to enjoy eating the entire pie while you are looking at two other hungry people. Seeing their need would make it also become your need. To some extent, you would be happier sharing the pie; if only for the self-serving desire to ease your empathetic stress. This leads you to a similar destination as when you are calculating the way to best meet the needs of society. Yet, it is not actually identical to the method which best meets the needs of the self. The two answers are different from one another.
For example, if one person desires to eat a pie, and there are two hungry people completely hidden from the first person's point of view; their sense of empathy would not be triggered by the sight of two hungry individuals. This one person could enjoy the meal guilt-free, with no demands placed on their empathy. But this individual's experience would be different from the still-present conclusion that splitting the pie into thirds maximizes the desires of all three people as a whole.
So I would say that there is a single-best way to serve the needs of society. And there is another single-best way to serve the needs of the individual. But they are not the same thing, despite their similarities.
Is this right? I would have thought we can be unconscious of thoughts just as we can of perceptions.
Quoting Mww
So, what I meant here relates to the above. We can think without noticing that we are thinking, or have thought, just as we can perceive without noticing that we are perceiving or have perceived. And we only know that by noticing that we sometimes notice and other times don't. This "meta-noticing" is what constitutes phenomenology; it allows us to describe the nature of our general doings.
So, much of our experience, both perceiving and conceiving, is not noticed according to me.
I'm a bit short on time at the moment, so I'll try to address the rest of your post when I am able to.
If we think of perceptions as affects by objects giving us sensations, I don’t see how we can be not conscious of them. And by the same token, if there are thoughts of which we are unconscious, how would be be able to call them thoughts? Some things do happen of which we are not aware, but we can’t think of them as thoughts, so we think of them as....wait for iiittttt.....phenomena!!!
I admit to being somewhat less than clear, in that we may not be conscious of the act of perception itself, but we must be conscious of the affect the sensations which follows from them, have on us.
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Quoting Janus
Understood, thanks. Dunno what advantage this gives us, over and above the established epistemological metaphysics already in play. I guess I’d have to agree, that because I can already describe my general doings, I must be doing phenomenology, even if I don’t call it that. Which is fine....”a rose is a rose is a rose, by any other name is still a rose”, right?
I think one of stumbling blocks with discussion of these kinds of matters may be the indeterminate nature of the terms of discussion. So, the example here would be the term "consciousness". In the sense that we are (usually) awake when we are affected by objects of the senses, and that 'consciousness' can mean simply 'awake', I would agree with you here.
But I was equating the term with self-reflective consciousness, with not merely experiencing in an awake state but with actually noticing that we are experiencing in an awake state.
Right, but if thoughts are brain phenomena, neural processes, which some "overaching" executive function of the brain may be either aware of or not?
Again, it seems to me that, although we might say we must be conscious (awake) to be affected, we can be either conscious of the affects or not.
So, all I'm saying is that we always proceed by noticing what we are doing and what we can do, by what we are thinking and what we can (coherently) think. The essential idea of a priori understanding seems to be that it is that which is self-evident to us (and not merely in an analytic or tautologous sense). But how do we know this without noticing what we can coherently think or imagine?