Terrapin Station

I'm not saying this is a "good argument" to dismiss the above, but whenever I encounter someone talking about "the infinite" in this sense, I don't ev...

Part of my issue with the distinction is due to this. Does the distinction require that we're realists on physical law? I'm not sure.

I've never really been convinced that the physical/metaphysical/logical distinction with respect to modality makes much sense. And "true in an impossi...

It wasn't an argument. Just a further explanation. I also didn't say that I'm only against mob mentality with respect to reactions against speech, but...

When I say that morality is mere preference, what I'm saying is that "x is good" and the like are mental phenomena and do not occur elsewhere. That's ...

So that's what I'm talking about re mob mentality.

What kind of ontology is that, though? Why would naming/defining rights fall on temporal priority, so that that act determines what something is in pe...

Yeah, it's probably too much to go through due to very different paradigms or something . . . but that's one reason I prefer to keep posts short.

In the bit we were just talking about, I was pointing out that the facts you're talking about have nothing to do with ethics. I wasn't saying anything...

The context was social pressure against speech, wasn't it? (I would hope there wouldn't be a requirement to specify the context in every sentence, bec...

It's difficult to agree with something if I'm not sure what it's claiming, and I'm not sure if you're just using words in different ways than I would ...

?? I'm referring to stances a la "x is good/right conduct," "x is bad/wrong conduct," "x is morally permissible," "x is morally obligatory" etc. So no...

First, I wouldn't say that anything is objectively true. I see that as a category error. There are objective facts (states of affairs) in my view, but...

But all we'd have to do is point out that that's rather a matter of whether we're matching some objective state of affairs. The problem with morality ...

That's one sense of the term "opinion."

In other words, it was basically just some poorly thought-out rationalization to be anti-Islam. Nothing novel there.

If we discover the standards of reasoning by reasoning, how does that help us in the example, because again, both sides claim to be reasoning, claim t...

Even if literally no one ever felt otherwise, what would that have to do with the issue? Are you saying that it has something to do with how common a ...

Again, the problem here isn't that people can be correct or incorrect about the effectiveness, the dangers, etc. of vaccination versus foregoing vacci...

The problem is that in the example at hand, both sides claim to be applying reason and claim that they are correct. So if there's no other arbiter, we...

Since there are religious believers who don't engage in terrorism, violence towards or oppression of women, etc., then it would seem that believing in...

What would justify that we're not just making up a story, so to speak, in this? In other words, it seems like an arbitrary model.

I'll remember that in the future for posts back and forth with you. I can type anything and claim that I answered a question you asked, "just not in t...

The person you were discussing this with should have had an argument re why believing in something, without question, with no room for rational argume...

It's true or false that they have that opinion, yes. It's not true or false that cauliflower is good, which is another way of stating the same opinion...

Unlike the essay written in 1995, I'm guessing you wrote this one in the early to mid-70s?

So the standard isn't established by any consensus. What's it established by? (Note that I'm not arguing pro consensuses or anything like that. The ai...

None of this answers any of the questions I asked you. Do you need me to go into detail why it doesn't answer the questions I asked?

If someone likes cauliflower, they're going to say that cauliflower is better than some food they don't like. "In my opinion, x is better than y" is a...

So if it's not determined by consensus what is it determined by? You say that some claim doesn't make sense and isn't reasonable. The other guy says i...

How can opinions in the sense of "I like cauliflower," "I prefer Evil Dead to Casablanca," etc. be wrong? Or are you only talking about opinions in th...

(3) is relevant because what I'm referring to with the phrase "social pressure" and the like is more often than not a factor of many people acting in ...

Plenty of people--almost everyone to some extent, values etiquette, too. The distinction from etiquette is simply because there are two different clas...

So the guy who is contradicting himself says that he is being reasonable. You and almost everyone else says he is not, and says that he's not followin...

People can get wrong just will achieve some particular state, but that does no work to make the moral part more or less objective. "It is right to pro...

And usually the parties on each side are adamant that the fact of the matter about what is reasonable is on their side. ("But it really is on my side"...

Since I'm someone who I'm sure comes across that way at times, I can tell you that: (1) Sometimes I don't read a whole post, especially: (a) if it's l...

They are both applying reason, though. Re a standard--so some consensus? (Hence my initial question.)

As soon as you introduce bad/good, better/worse, etc. you've left the objective realm, though. So you can focus on something objective like "Doing x s...

No one says it's personal preferences unqualified, as if whether someone prefers Cap'n Crunch to Count Chocula might be a moral issue. They're prefere...

We could say that "not molesting Billy serves Billy's (and whoever else's when it comes to Billy) preference to not molest Billy," but then if we're c...

Belief = simply some degree of acceptance (there's a continuum) that such and such is the case.

First, how in the world would you be going: X is only a mental phenomenon, therefore there is no x?

I don't know, because I don't know the scope of the term "systems" in your usage. You'd have to detail that better. But I do know that societies/cultu...

I'm not a fan of a "principles" approach--I think it inevitably leads to absurdities to make principles a trump card. But in general, it's related to ...

Societies/cultures having values is really just a loose manner of speaking. It's individuals who have values. Individuals interact and can influence e...

I don't revile them, and certainly not because they sound religious. The problem I have with them is the same problem I have with the notion of object...

Unsurprisingly if one knows much about my views, I see "conceivability" as primarily telling us about an individual's psychology, knowledge, biases, e...

I have no idea what you're referring to here, so I suppose I have no option at the moment aside from "ignoring" it.

Right. "It's possible that my car is parked on Main Street, given the city it's parked in, as the city is now, etc." There's no way to know that witho...