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Isaac

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@"Terrapin Station" I'm presuming you accept the principle of joint causal responsibility? That if more than one factor jointly causes a consequence t...
August 19, 2019 at 13:10
So an instruction booklet on badminton would be a source of morals? Since it provides conditions under which a particular move is right or wrong? Badm...
May 17, 2019 at 20:31
Primarily, this is supposed to be a discussion about the source of morals. No one has defined either what is meant by 'source', nor what is meant by '...
May 17, 2019 at 19:52
Depends on whether some idiot has placed it in the middle of the motorway so that people can sycophantically discuss how smooth the ride is. I'm not s...
May 17, 2019 at 18:15
Yep. I don't think I've ever read such meaningless nonsense. I've been tempted a few times to try and ask for some clarity, but it's been like trying ...
May 17, 2019 at 17:24
No I'm still not understanding the link, I'm sorry. We have complex technology, right, I get that bit. So our methods for achieving a goal are very co...
May 17, 2019 at 17:18
I don't doubt it. I also don't doubt in a society authoritarian enough to totally suppress free-speech, the inability to tour a lecture series is prob...
May 17, 2019 at 17:05
This presumes there is a binomial {with freedom of speech/without freedom of speech}. It's that framing which I dispute. The 'freedom' to speak one's ...
May 17, 2019 at 12:15
Yes well, "framing issues about politics", should cover everything I've said... and everything I'm likely to say in this and any similar debate, so I'...
May 17, 2019 at 12:08
I was only joking. It amused me that you'd managed to summarise everyone else's position, as if you'd read mine and just shook your head slowly. There...
May 17, 2019 at 11:55
And I'm just shouting into the void...?
May 17, 2019 at 11:51
Then I'm not quite seeing the exhaustive link you're making. It seems like 'free-speech' is being presented as some kind of unique pre-requisite to so...
May 17, 2019 at 11:35
Wow, that's quite a substantial claim, given the overthrow of basically any authoritarian political regime I can think of has happened by at least phy...
May 17, 2019 at 10:58
Exactly, which is just your view of the moral framework. If my moral framework justifies the use of force in situations like this, that is wrong, but ...
May 17, 2019 at 07:26
This^ is the massive leap. That we have a very complex methodology for achieving goal (shelter, food, social cooperation...) and that we teach that me...
May 17, 2019 at 06:47
Thanks for posting those links. The Aleksandar Hemon was a really good read. I've read few such close-up stories about watching a descent into fascism...
May 16, 2019 at 09:49
Well then that's just begging the question. Your assertion that you could have just as easily not done so is without support.
May 16, 2019 at 08:21
...then ...would be exactly one of those "other" external causes.
May 16, 2019 at 07:10
That's just a slightly longer restatement of your position. I asked why. What is it about political favouritism that is unfair? What is it about banni...
May 16, 2019 at 07:04
Yes, seems to be a regular confusion around here where "made an argument" is taken as a synonym for "said some things about". An argument is a set of ...
May 16, 2019 at 06:07
The point is not for nominalism to deny the use of universal terms, it's to describe them accurately as being a mental construction within individual ...
May 16, 2019 at 06:03
In what way does that distinguish it from any other philosophical position? Or your own statement for that matter, which is based on the semantics of ...
May 15, 2019 at 16:53
I'm probably sticking my neck out too far in this, but there's a considerable amount of artificial constraints placed around Wittgenstein's comments i...
May 15, 2019 at 15:18
I'm not suggesting that your arguments are refuted by the evidence. I'm saying that they are not particularly implied by it either, which means that y...
May 15, 2019 at 13:14
You'll have to walk me through how any of what you quoted leads to... I've read through it a couple of times, including the article, but I'm not seein...
May 15, 2019 at 12:52
So your answer to the question "why do we need to invoke free-will here? " is "because its obvious"?
May 15, 2019 at 11:14
As I said, I don't read the OP as saying anything other than our biology determines how we respond. It would be insane to argue that our biology liter...
May 15, 2019 at 10:48
So, if you were to 'reason' that four is more than two, you're saying a computer couldn’t successfully agree or disagree with that notion on the basis...
May 15, 2019 at 10:34
I've a lot of sympathy for the the approach you've outlined there, but a lot if what Wittgenstein has to say about what philosophy consists in seems t...
May 15, 2019 at 10:28
Why do you say that Wittgenstein circumscribes what 'a theory' is in this way? Most exegesis assumes these sections refer to philosophy in general, bu...
May 15, 2019 at 09:50
Yeah, I've had a few discussions with CS before.. It's just a matter of presenting what I can until the argument gets dismissed with some one-line qui...
May 15, 2019 at 08:05
As I read it, the OP was referring to our biology defining how we respond. So if our biology determines that we will seek the most rational argument, ...
May 15, 2019 at 08:03
Yes. That's the bloody point of a discussion forum. It's not your personal blog. Yes, I'm aware that you think that, now try to reason that conclusion...
May 15, 2019 at 07:31
Those are consequences or troubles arising from your position. They are not consequences of a strict adherence to nominalism. You have a burden to def...
May 15, 2019 at 06:54
Who said anything about beliefs being determined by biology?
May 15, 2019 at 06:51
But now we're back to 'fairness' again. Why do you think it would not be 'fair'? One cannot argue morality, there are no moral facts, only opinions. E...
May 15, 2019 at 06:48
What have institutions of learning got to do with it? You asked about cognition. Yes, in principle those types of learning happen often in the animal ...
May 15, 2019 at 06:19
But that's not what you said is it. What you said was... Learning in humans is different than say, crows, parrots, apes, monkeys, dolphins, and whales...
May 14, 2019 at 16:56
As @"Pattern-chaser" has already outlined above, all your subsequent questions are technical ones about mechanisms. If you're just going to assume hum...
May 14, 2019 at 15:52
What evidence are you basing all this on?
May 14, 2019 at 13:26
How does having free will make one any more amenable to reason? With free wiil, you have two initial choices when presented with an argument in reason...
May 14, 2019 at 13:03
OK. When did the River Thames (for example) become 'that' river? It will have been a trickle at one point in the past. It would certainly have been in...
May 14, 2019 at 11:31
No. You have very clearly been arguing all along that morality (in respect of murder/rape/torture of members of your community) is near universal. I a...
May 14, 2019 at 08:43
But egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies have lasted for longer than any Western society by several hundred times. None of them had a hierarchical sy...
May 14, 2019 at 07:35
That's a very broad brush. Even Shapiro does not support zero welfare and he certainly claims to oppose fascism, so I think socialist leaning anti-fas...
May 14, 2019 at 07:11
As far as I'm aware, 9 people were arrested, so, pending further evidence we can only presume the actions of the remainder were considered by police t...
May 13, 2019 at 12:31
No, it's about the fact that when it comes to the right to speak at Berkeley, you play the nihilistic and say hat Berkeley is a private institution an...
May 13, 2019 at 07:02
Right, and yet you said that my position that there was no moral imperative to respect the law was "confused" and that... So, given your definition of...
May 13, 2019 at 06:25
Yes. Of course. How could I possibly know what is against the law unless I've researched the law? It's not generally written on signposts. And yes, of...
May 13, 2019 at 06:14