Bartricks

Why would God, who is perfectly good, make us live our lives here over and over? Also the proposal seems incoherent. I cannot live 'this' life again, ...

Well, I take a 'neutral act' to be one that is neither morally good or bad - such as choosing to have parsnips rather than swede. Positively deciding ...

This is a response to your opening post. It seems to me that 'time' is playing no real role in the argument. All that is needed is the principle that ...

I do not see how anything in your opening post provides evidence in support of the thesis that I am eternal (I believe I am eternal - but I don't see ...

They can 'say' it, but it won't be true. And in calling me a pessimist - which is not true, I'm not pessimistic - they'd be committing the ad hominem ...

I think the free will defence is a partial success. It is very plausible that free will essentially involves not being under the control of another be...

This is a response to the criticism mentioned in the opening post and is addressed to procreators. I do not see it in any real challenge to the credib...

We're going in circles. I have explained why it is reasonable to think the god is benevolent to some extent. And I explained why a benevolent person w...

You're seeing inconsistency where there is none. Starting with 'best' - by a 'best' explanation I mean the most reasonable one. I do not mean 'the onl...

I don't really understand your question. If Reason is a person, then by definition she has the power and knowledge of Reason. What does that consist o...

But I didn't say 'reason is a prescription'. Reason is the prescriber. Big difference. I am a prescriber. I am not a prescription! There are prescript...

I don't think they're spoilt. Parents owe their children everything. I didn't choose to be born. My parents should pay for everything. They had me, th...

First, you are changing the example and attacking a straw man. By hypothesis the amounts of happiness and suffering are equal in both worlds. So it is...

er, where? No, the fact procreative acts are ones that those who are created by then have not consented to is a fact that makes them 'prima facie' wro...

That's not a reliable source. It isn't peer reviewed. He could be anyone. It's really no different to using a post here as a source.

This misses the point. I have already explained that our faculty of reason does indeed operate differently to our sight. It is a 'faculty' like our si...

You can't just ask anyone these questions and cultural variation is to be expected to some extent. But among analytic philosophers the overwhelming co...

A 'concept' is just another word for 'idea'. Concepts (ideas) are always 'about' things (their 'objects'). So, the concept of cheese is about cheese. ...

That's question begging. They're not 'deeper' - I don't know what that means in this context. There are just rational intuitions. Some are suspect, so...

The 'processes' you talk about are referred to not as 'reason' but as 'reasoning'. We use our 'reason' - and in this context the word refers to a facu...

Circularity is not always a problem. For instance, I - Bartricks - exist, and I am a person. Are you now justified in believing that there is a person...

The term 'reason' is multiply ambiguous. For it is sometimes used as a synonym for 'explanation' (for instance "what's the reason this is happening?")...

I like the way you don't actually address the point I was making. There's nothing wrong with using thousands of words to make a case. But there is som...

They do exist simultaneously. The act of procreation is the act of bringing into being a person - so the person exists at the same time as the act doe...

No, something non-existent cannot be affected by someone else. But if you create someone, then that person exists. So, although the non-existent canno...

Yes, I do. The argument is simple: there are prescriptions of Reason; only an agent can make a prescription; therefore Reason is an agent. And that ag...

No, that's an absurd suggestion. To make a cumulative case one would need to show that each argument had some probative force, and that would require ...

I can - and have - defended each one! But all you do, when I make one argument, is point out that the argument does not entail that procreation is wro...

But that's surely not what your intuitions say? Even if it is, it is certainly not what most people's intuitions say. It is normally far, far worse to...

In answer to 1, the god is Reason (moral imperatives and values are imperatives and values of Reason - it is just that Reason is a person), and I thin...

I have replied to your replies in the wrong order, as I read the last one without realizing there was one before it. Anyway, I still do not know what ...

This misses the point. For nothing is blue rather than another colour due to these things, and thus you cannot get any principle from them. I mean, on...

Yes, I agree with all of that. But I said that if the 'sole' explanation for why we get a moral intuition is an evolutionary one, then that debunks th...

I am not assuming that morality is patterned, but my approach is one that can recognise a pattern if pattern there be. So, there certainly appears to ...

Because the only rational basis upon which one could distrust the catalogue, is on the basis of something in the catalogue. All cases for anything and...

To say too much on this would be off topic, but there are all manner of debunking explanations possible, not just evolutionary ones. For instance, if ...

A mental representation 'represents' something to be the case, and is thereby capable of being accurate or inaccurate. By contrast 'disliking' somethi...

but "there is no answer" is quite different from "there is no way of knowing the answer". There are answers to all of them. Some are clear, some not. ...

First, I'd want to say that I think slavery has probably never been morally ok, but as I take the point and do not want emotive issues to get in the w...

Well the 'controversial' cases are, by their very nature, ones about which we have conflicting moral intuitions. For example, torturing an innocent pe...

I do not see any reason to think that's true. You're assuming from the get go that morality is 'measurable'. Why make that assumption? Is it a self-ev...

Er, no there aren't. I mean, what's a 'prescription of shit'? Have you been hitting the home brew again? (But on a positive note, that argument was va...

Not many things and not most people. I believe in free will. So do most people. I believe in the soul. So do most people. I believe in a god. So do mo...

But where is your argument? It sounds like an article of faith. When it comes to any normative ethical theory, its credibility depends on how well it ...

you keep attacking a straw man. Where on earth - where - did I say, or imply, that my intuitions are more plausible than anyone else's? That's clearly...

That's not the example I gave. Preventing suffering is different to promoting happiness and is typically much more important (which is partly why anti...

Yes. Moral questions have correct answers (the proposition "This act is morally right" is either true or false) . But I am sceptical that there are an...

I don't rule it out, I'm just sceptical that there is any such rule. I mean, I take it that a 'rule' that ends up just describing what is right or wro...

What's the difference between an explanatory reason and a normative reason? Come on know it all - what's the difference?

Where have I equivocated over the term reason? Don't tell me what equivocation involves - I know what it involves. Locate where I have done so. (you c...