Whoever has the most power is inevitably going to get to say what is right, and have people do what they say, because that's what having power is. Tha...
That's what I was looking for, thanks :-) (I disagree with the characterization of rhetoric as being entirely about prescriptive persuasion about cont...
You’re just re-emphasizing that this power can be used for bad, which I’m not contesting at all. I’m only saying it can also be used for good. Communi...
@"tim wood" maybe you would like to tell @"apokrisis" about your distinction between rhetoric and sophistry that you mentioned to me before, since it ...
Yes, I was saying that good rhetoric is not determined by the truth of its contents, but by its effectiveness at delivering them. Rhetoric isn't entir...
I'm not sure if you took me to be saying that rhetoric is a kind of logic. I wasn't; I was separating them as different aspects of communication, "str...
My understanding of the causes behind that accords with those of thinkers like Chomsky: people with bad intentions have gotten very skilled at generat...
Whether a democracy is in effect or not is itself a product of people’s political views. You could plop Charlemagne down in modern France and he would...
Just to note, I am definitely not a Realist about abstract objects in the usual sense (a Platonist), and feel much more sympathy for nominalism among ...
That’s exactly what I said. So advocating that those people in power use a particular method isn’t any more authoritarian than literally any other pos...
As opposed to... everyone just putting up with whoever happens to have the power deems is right? That’s what’s going to be the case one way or another...
Yes, so long as it's understood that this change over time can embody genuine progress and not just be arbitrary change. It's not just that slavery is...
Where reaching agreement is unimportant, I don’t preach that we ought to bang our heads against that wall in pursuit of it, to the detriment of other ...
Maybe "sure" was a bit too strong of language on my part, because I didn't actually mean to imply anything about certainty. I agree completely that bo...
I do think the political process is a major part of the social moral methodology, but what makes for a legitimate political process depends largely on...
Mathematical objects are all hypothetical objects, and the inferences about them are all hypothetical. When we lay out some axioms, we're basically sa...
Yeah, I suppose you have a point. Questions about free will seem to cause the same existential angst in people, too. But those, at least, are question...
I think you're thinking of "morality" in a much narrower sense than I am. All of those "should" questions are moral questions in the sense I mean. You...
Because that is just to summarily dismiss that x, y, and z are good reasons at all. If they both agree that they are good reasons, but they still don'...
On that superficial a level, you'd think we would be unable to have a scientific method (the ordinary one about descriptive facts) too. These two peop...
That was aimed at Isaac, whom I was responding to. Sorry our argument has derailed your thread. Though I guess the "throw up your hands" thing is rele...
My method is explicitly formulated as just whatever is entailed by rejecting those two options. I don't start with a complete idea of how to do things...
You’re projecting “moral hellscape”; I never said that. At the borders between groups who already have moral agreement within themselves, we do see ex...
http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/deontology.php and http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/politics.php I haven't gone into details on those yet here becaus...
I don't think I just came up with it, I think my views are an elaboration of common-sense views shored up to defend against bad philosophy. I'm pretty...
Thanks to @"Avery" for digging this up: http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/factual/papers/HorganNondescriptive.html That paper (from 2000) isn...
Found time to read like a quarter to a third of that tonight and so far it sounds almost exactly like my own model, modulo a few insignificant termino...
Thanks! I have already self-published, inasmuch as putting something on the web counts as self-publishing (link in my profile if you're interested), b...
That's fine, but FWIW, I'm arguing against nihilism generally, not you specifically, since you asked why I think nihilism is so indefensible. If what ...
I'm just one person, but for my part I think you've been one of the nicer new additions to this forum. I also have a lot of apprehensive feelings towa...
That's why right after that I wrote "at most, the nihilist can express their opinion that nihilism is true, but to be consistent, must agree to disagr...
I know that feeling, and it makes me sad and anxious on your behalf to imagine being in such a position, but it's your life and I'm just some rando on...
As someone with a philosophy degree, I strongly recommend against getting one. Also, in general regarding financial planning, be very aware of the cos...
Also, on the scale from the Planck length to the observable universe, a “medium-sized” thing is about the size of a large cell, like neuron. So compar...
In short, because moral nihilism amounts to just assuming that moral questions are unanswerable out of the gate, and merely not even trying to answer ...
“Teleology”, in the sense of “teleological ethics”, a synonym for “consequentialism”. Because while deontology is about just means, this is about good...
Yes precisely. I actually break up normalized ethics into two separate fields, analogous to ontology and epistemological, and I call the field that’s ...
Thank you for finding that. I think that is the one article on the topic that I ran across once and never had time to read more than a bit of. My own ...
I never say that anyone actually does, or even can do, a completely exhaustive accounting of everything, either in factual or normative matters. I’m n...
I was thinking nihilism until you got to this part: Which seems to put it squarely as a form of egotism. “The good is whatever I want”. Which is almos...
This is the attitude that I place at the foundation of my entire philosophy, always rejecting both such optimism as makes our efforts seem unnecessary...
I don’t think he’s trying to fit them all together, but rather pairing individual rights with Kant (the CI), and greatest good with Mill (utilitariani...
It's clear here that you're talking specifically about libertarianism as understood in the United States since the 1970s, which in academia and intern...
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