Philosophy (Part 2)

[Asher]

Continued from: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=78264

[Jon Miller]

one thing that philosophy is good for

creating large piles of BS

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

BTW

I have a confession to make, I enjoyed the only philosophy class I ever took, The Philosophy of Time

wasn't useful though

Jon Miller

[Asher]

I absolutely detested the two Philosophy of Logic courses I took.

It felt like I was back in high school when they explained obvious things to you and the people around you act like it's so hard to understand and/or profound...

[KrazyHorse]

In response to jon from the other thread:

I was wondering if you meant in that sense or in another, more confused sense I've seen people use (for which I do believe in the "true ethics" idea)

I don't believe that there is an external mechanism or metric, since this would be equivalent to believing in a superior moral being.

But I think that while we come up with systems of ethics on our own, some do a better job than others.

[Seeker]

Ah, I see your problem Asher....you're cursed with genius........

[Asher]

Originally posted by Seeker
Ah, I see your problem Asher....you're cursed with genius........

I'm in computer science, I've always been into it, philosophy of logic is like CS-lite without the math, programming, or general usefulness.

People had trouble understanding truth tables in that class.

I'm not cursed with genius, I'm cursed with being required to take two classes aimed at the logically inept.

[Ben Kenobi]

Jon:

What about Theology? Are Theologians a waste of time and money?

Frogger:

legal, safe and cheap alternative.

Do you consider 400$ cheap?

Do you believe parents are responsible for their children?

Asher:

I'd wait for Agathon, but you've contradicted yourself.

If morals are merely beliefs, one is no more right then the other, why would your beliefs change? You base your changes on your experience, so clearly morality is related to how one works with the world, and with society.

[Agathon]

You said part of philosophy is to keep recursively asking why, and if Godel's incompletness theorem holds any water wouldn't we face an impasse eventually that would render the purpose of philosophy (to recursively ask why) useless?

You misunderstood my post. I will repeat and expand. I have two claims:

(1) It isn't clear that Godel's theorem applies to this sort of question (it may, but I'd need reasons to believe it).

(2) Even if it does it says nothing about where the limit to explantion lies (this was my last response).

As for true ethics, I am not sure I would use the term "true", I would tend to use the term "correct".

And there is no problem with teaching people how to make better moral arguments. We don't teach them which arguments to make or which arguments we think are correct, we teach them concepts and strategies they can use in moral argument. Of course when philosophers publish papers on applied ethics they use these tools to form arguments for specific moral views.

Anyway, I want to deal with Frogger's abortion claim.

[Asher]

I'd wait for Agathon, but you've contradicted yourself.

If morals are merely beliefs, one is no more right then the other, why would your beliefs change? You base your changes on your experience, so clearly morality is related to how one works with the world, and with society.

How is that contradictory?
I've stated that there is no right or wrong beliefs and morals, and in fact my beliefs and morals have changed over time. The contradiction is where?

[Agathon]

Other questions impossible to answer: positivism, realism, theism, etc.

You see a pattern? Every last fundamental divide of philosophy.

Philosophical questions are rather easy to unravel to their lowest point, and beyond that is a question of belief, not reason.

That may in fact be right, but the only way to find out for sure is to provide some argument for it.

[KrazyHorse]

Do you consider 400$ cheap?

When compared to the 200 000$ it will cost to raise a child, yes.

And I think the guy should be on the hook for 200$ of that.

BTW, before I get bashed, I would never abandon a girl I'd knocked up that way. But I don't think the government should be able to force me into taking care of a child that I didn't agree to have and took reasonable precautions against having, since it provides a much greater choice to the woman than the man.

[Agathon]

He's not being given an equal choice; he's being given an equal opportunity to opt out of the financial burden of raising an unwanted child.

That's not what you originally said. You said:

that men be given an equal choice in the decision to abort an unwanted fetus.

I don't think that they should be given any decision making power at all. If they did it would entail situations of coercive surgical procedures or coerced pregnancies. Talk of equal choice is silly anyway, since if the interests of both parties were counted equally no decision could be made unless they both agreed.

Why do you think that men should be given opportunity to get out of paying maintenance then? After all, men and women are in different situations - it is hardly as if the man has to endure the physical side of childbearing.

[KrazyHorse]

That may in fact be right, but the only way to find out for sure is to provide some argument for it.

You just keep searching for that sure way. But here's the question: where do your axioms come from? Or your manipulation rules? Because so far as I've seen, the only axiom which isn't arbitrary is the "I think therefore I am" one. And it's impossible to reason anywhere from there, given no knowledge of the nature of the "I" other than internal senses can provide (and even they aren't guaranteed).

And this even assumes that the rules of formal logic are self-consistent, which is demonstrably unprovable with any less powerful system, IIRC.

[KrazyHorse]

That's not what you originally said. You said:

I'm aware, but if you read the second part of that post I explained myself better...