Terrapin Station

Only rarely will I do anything that I think is immoral. There have to be significant balancing pressures--concessions for loved ones, livelihood neces...

There has to be something more than possibility to warrant belief. That's because for any proposal like brains in a vat, both "We are brains in a vat"...

Is it immoral to do illegal drugs? No. Is it immoral for any drugs to be illegal? Yes.

Yeah, it's suggesting that prior to birth, there are people in some state. Even though you keep denying that you're suggesting that. This analogy woul...

What's inconsistent there in your view?

If you have reasons that support your beliefs, then I'd say that there's (at least putatively) a rational basis for them.

Yes, they all have the property of being brain phenomena. Brain phenomena with the property of being mental is a subset, and "brain phenomena" is a su...

Again, why would you believe any claim whatsoever about God then? Why not simply move on to something you can make a rational/supported claim about?

Not all brain phenomena have identical properties. Some have property M. Some do not have that property. The brain phenomena with property M are "subj...

Here's what's required for objective morality to exist in my view: the world apart from minds has to somehow have moral stances embedded in it. They'd...

Wake me when we find the religious claim that's coherent.

Right, I'm aware of that and I'm not a fan of it, but I'm just adding/broadening it out to note that I'm not a fan of people moralizing or being negat...

That part is definitely not right. That seems to be taking me for an idealist (at least an epistemological idealist). And I'm not at all an idealist. ...

I'm not a fan of people moralizing or being negatively judgmental/self-righteous in general, whatever corner it's coming from.

So see what I said right after that above: So re the brain phenomenon in question. Ask the question, "Is this a mental phenomenon?" If the answer is "...

I don't even understand exactly what you're referring to by an argument.

All this hemming and hawing over the word "seems." Sometimes it seems like some of the regulars here must be social misfits who have zero to no intera...

Re the way I use the terms, the subset of brain phenomena that have the property of mentality is NOT objective. I use the terms so that they're necess...

It's not a big deal. I just became curious because you were using the terms in a way that I wouldn't use them. I'd never say that subjectivity is a su...

I'm using "sems to be" to refer to our beliefs, what we think is the case, however we've arrived at that conclusion.

At least for now social security won't be affected: https://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-2018-social-security-checks-still-paid-2018-1

Yes, of course to the first two. Re the last question, yes, although valuing things is subjective.

I said, "different than some conventional usages, although of course you don't have to care about that." You said, "And I do have to care about that i...

Logic convinces us that p. Therefore, p seems to be the case, no? "I've been convinced that this actually is the case." Well, that means that it seems...

What do you assert is the case, what doesn't seem to be the case? That would be a novel approach, at least.

Had I suggested that a definition might be both idiosyncratic and in the dictionary?

One thing I'd say I believe about the universe is this: it's big.

Sure. And you're pointing that out because?

Let's just do one thing at a time and see if we can get past anything: Physicalists are asserting what seems to be the case in the world in their view...

The word "some" is different than the word "all." The definition I'm using isn't different than all conventional usages. It's also different than some...

I can't say I've knowingly run into that, but maybe some people do that. I don't know.

The point for me was simply to understand HarryHindu's usage. But I'm also going to note my own different usage. I'd not at all push for everyone to a...

I wasn't saying anything about popularity or idiosyncrasy, and I especially wasn't implying anything normative about that or implying a value judgment...

I was talking about my usage of subjective/objective, not your usage. We use different definitions of the terms.

It's not that everything is physical because it's an assumption of physicalism. Physicalists are physicalists because everything seems to be physical ...

Re my usage, it's not possible for someone to have an "objective view"--that's an oxymoron on my usage.

Yeah, I agree that it's almost always used with a religious connotation, but it wouldn't have to be. Simply arguing for a necessary being shouldn't be...

Duplicate

First let me clarify what I was disagreeing with: One, I was disagreeing with the idea of supporters defining physicalism as "that which is studied by...

Yeah, the paragraph after the one you quoted sorts that out.

It's not the tu quoque fallacy--that's basically the "hypocrisy fallacy." No one is claiming hypocrisy here. And no one is saying that just in case so...

On HarryHindu's view, subjectivity is a subset of objectivity. Anything subjective is also objective. And in his view, objective things are the same a...

Feser (after Aristotle) isn't using the terms "potential" and "actual" in any novel manner. The sticking point is that there are some unclear metaphys...

Again, I wouldn't even say that that is a moral stance. But sure, we can just state it as "It is morally obligatory (or whatever one would want to say...

First, it's not a matter of valuing conceivability or coherence. You couldn't choose to engage with something that's inconceivable or incoherent to yo...

Okay, so normatives. Normatives are preferences, yes. The problem is this: Where is anyone "essentially" saying that? Can you give an example maybe? I...

You were going good until the Kant fetish emerged. ;-)

That simply depends on the liar's comment. It depends on how they're thinking about it. The liar could easily be thinking about their own benefit just...

Insofar as you're making value judgments about those things. That's what I'm talking about--value judgments. Ethics and aesthetics are the two major f...

I not only think that some lies are permissible, in some cases I think it's much better to lie than to be honest. Re the neutral comment, it can be ne...