Truth Seeker

If hard determinism is true, then all choices are inevitable, which means that no one could have chosen differently. It's impossible to know with 100%...

Ok, thank you. There is no rush.

Thank you, Constance. I can see how much care you’re taking to work these ideas through, and I appreciate the way you keep tying them back to phenomen...

Thank you, Constance, that was a fascinating tour through Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, and beyond. I think I see more clearly now what you mean when y...

Thank you again, Constance - I can see how much thought you’ve put into this, and it helps me clarify where my own sticking points are. On the “wholly...

I like how you put it that phenomenology resists deflationary “language game” talk and instead sees all knowledge as hermeneutical, including science ...

I think it’s important to distinguish between what happens in nature and what humans choose to do. Lions must eat other animals because they have no a...

I think I see what you’re saying, that what looks like a “collapse” isn’t a collapse at all, but an opening. If noumenality is internal to phenomena, ...

Thank you for taking the time to unpack all of that - it’s a lot to absorb, but I think I follow the thread. If I understand you, you’re saying that K...

That’s a fair question, and it touches on deep debates about consciousness and moral status. If plants or even rocks had experiences - if they could f...

I agree.

Thank you for this rich reply. I see more clearly now how you’re situating Kant’s “noumenon” inside the fabric of phenomenality itself - turning the s...

You may be right that there’s no absolute criterion. Every experience, whether sober perception or drug-induced vision, arrives through the same subje...

Why wouldn't the murder of 80 billion sentient land organisms and 1 to 3 trillion sentient aquatic organisms per year by non-vegans and for non-vegans...

Thank you, that’s a really thoughtful response. I like your idea that “reality-in-itself is not a thing” but rather a way of speaking about aspects, l...

Vegans say that veganism is right and non-veganism is wrong. Non-vegans say non-veganism is right and veganism is wrong. They can't both be right. How...

Thank you for the detailed response. I think I follow your point that science always already operates within experience, and that perception is not an...

I appreciate your honesty about not being entirely sure what “reality-in-itself” means - that’s partly why I asked the question, since the term itself...

That’s an intriguing way of putting it. If I understand you right, you’re linking “real” not so much to existence as to coherence - something is real ...

That’s a thoughtful response. I like your framing of limits not as static barriers but as moving frontiers that expand with discovery. It raises for m...

Thank you for laying this out. I see what you’re doing - pulling back from all cultural and contextual frames to speak about suffering as a pure pheno...

That’s a good point - experiences like thoughts, pain, anticipation, and caring aren’t 'things' in the same way molecules or neurons are. But they do ...

Humans and all the other living things are physical things. We are all made of molecules. Our subjective experiences are produced by the physical acti...

Thank you for unpacking your view - I see now you’re drawing on a phenomenological line of thought where ethics arises directly from Being, not from r...

Thank you again for such a detailed engagement with each of the positions I listed. I appreciate that you are trying to find a more holistic framework...

I appreciate the clarification, but it seems to me your reply doesn’t really answer the questions I raised. If “God” is simply another name for “the i...

If God is ethics, as you claim, why are at least 99.9% of all the species that have existed on Earth already extinct? Why do non-vegans cause pain and...

I like the way you frame suffering and well-being as the shared ground of our moral experience - I agree that this is where ethics takes root. Where I...

I appreciate the depth and range of your reflections. Where I find common ground is in the idea that ethics has to be grounded in something more than ...

That’s beautifully argued. I like how you’ve shown that some values are not arbitrary but built into what it means to be human. Just as “truth is bett...

That’s an interesting distinction. I agree that pain and suffering aren’t identical - pain can be a biological signal, while suffering often involves ...

That’s very well put. I think you’re right that suffering is not like the color red, which only becomes “red” in relation to our perceptual and lingui...

I agree with you that reducing right and wrong to “just my attitude” makes ethical reflection seem trivial and misses how we usually use those words. ...

That’s a beautifully put reflection. I think you’ve touched the heart of the matter: suffering is not merely a social construct or a linguistic conven...

Humans do evil things, such as murder other humans and other organisms. If human nature is good, why do they do evil things?

How do you define good and evil?

It’s true that “saving” by itself isn’t always ethical — saving a cup of coffee from being spilt doesn’t have moral weight. But when we talk about sav...

Please let me know what contradictions you see.

Thank you for the links and for the clarification.

I don’t see Compassionism as just “my personal template,” but as a principle anyone could adopt because it’s grounded in something universal: the capa...

On balance and relativism: I think balance isn’t the same as “anything goes.” Relativism says all views are equally valid, but Compassionism does not ...

Great questions. For me, sentience means the capacity to feel pain and pleasure. That usually includes humans and non-human animals, and possibly cons...

I can understand your frustration — every ethical system seems to run into problems: Deontology can feel too rigid or tied to belief. Utilitarianism c...

How would we know which is correct? The deontological approach contradicts the utilitarian approach.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I’d like to engage with both parts of what you said. On veganism: You’re right that lab-grown or 3D-printed meat ...

Good is saving and improving lives. Evil is deliberate harm and the murder of sentient beings. How do you define good and evil?

I am not measuring morality with veganism. Veganism is an example of a moral position.

I agree. Thank you for your detailed reply.

Albert defined good and evil. Veganism is good because it saves and improves lives. Vegans value all sentient lives - not just human lives.

"Ethics, too, are nothing but reverence for life. This is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaini...