"Bad" vs. "evil" vs. Moral absolutism

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DaShi


Laws aren't based on what is good or evil. But what is necessary for soceity to function.

I would say that laws make society function the way that it does, not that it makes it function period. I agree with you that they aren't based on what is good or evil, but I would add that they are merely a means to control others.

[Nubclear]

With no object to achieve it becomes mearly a discussion, with little or no implication.

That isn't necessarily true: I've had plenty of discussions were I come across new knowledge. I arrived at my present position regarding morality beacuse of discussion, and it has changed how I view the world.

You can make up any situation you want to support your theory and the opposition must accept it in order to progress.

Because if you assert something is categorically true, but I can find an instance that isn't so implausible as to where it isn't true...one must take a closer look at what you are asserting. If you have some sort of moral philosophy, but there are situations where it breaks down, then perhaps your philosophy needs re-examination.

Why must I imagine that there is someone like you propose?

You don't have to accept it - I would think that the existence of child rapists would indicate that such people exist, but if you would like to deny their existence, okay Would you like me to provide links to support their existence?

The point is that your statement, child rape is wrong, is not considered universally true by everyone. There are people out there who don't view it as wrong. To them, child molestation may not be an un-nice thing to do. It isn't as if your statement is true by its very definition.

Because people are very diverse when it comes to ideology, again, it isn't that difficult to see someone in the world adopting this position. But let us return to this debate, since the game at the end illustrates this better.

You may try and substitute religion, in which case you have all kinds of moral absolutes, but it has never really gone over well.

The postulation of moral absolutes didn't fail in this case because of religion, but because of its very nature: It is inflexible and subject to fanaticism. If you think that you have truth inherently on your side, you may act differently than if you realise that truth is not applicable to the discussion.

Why allow me to wander aimlessly through hours of rhetoric if you know the answer to be that you are, in point of fact, a person?

Because *you* cannot know that. You are asserting something as an "obvious truth" that really isn't. For all you know, again, the computer program has anticipated your response and has produced what I am typing right now.

I can't be sure of your existence. I can't be sure that you aren't just meant to constantly bring up this debate in my life over and over again It isn't as concrete as you seem to indicate.

You are trying to say their philosophy is wrong because their underlying assumption is wrong, when I'm demonstrating that it is entirely possible that they are correct, and that you shouldn't dismiss it categorically and out of hand because of its "obvious" failure.

To allow myself, and others participating in my system, the luxory of knowing what the heck is going on. If we have nothing to look to for guidance we are simply wandering about in anarchy?

You are looking for a destination that doesn't exist, though. You want to have a "good reason" to believe what you believe is right and wrong when reason is subject to the passions, not the other way around. We cannot have reason if we do not already have assumed values and morality.

You mentioned pie earlier, what if that was a very rude swear word to me? You've now offended me. You cannot interface with a person without having, at the very least, a mild grasp of a widely held moral standing. We, the people of the planet earth, must have at least a general set of moral absolutes in order to progress beyond mearly arguing about moral absolutes.

I think you are conflating "morality" with "moral absolutes". I operate such fine as an individual. I operate fine within society - I'm not sociopathic or whatnot. I have a moral system, I simply don't say it has a truth value. This does not impair me from functioning - it may moderate my actions a bit, but that is probably a good thing

Not so. Lack of impulse control is a sign of psychopathy. No want involved. The person simply does whatever pops into their heads at the time. no desire, no motive, no premeditation... nothing.

But to them it must have felt "good" to act on their impulses. Indeed, the fact that they had an impulse indicates that they had desire.
If a person does something they don't want to do, then they are no longer in control of their actions and are not moral agents. If there was no desire, there would be no motivation for them to expend energy acting, and thus they would remain still.

Can you provide an example to the contrary, a situation where a person does something they don't want to do?

On one hand if I say "yes" (in deference to my axiom), then I admit that my argument is flawed.

If I say "no" (in deference to my argument) then my axiom falls.

Yes, that would tend to be the situation
If you fall into something like that, if you essentially fall into a contradiction, that means that some aspect of your argument is flawed and needs to be reformed.

The odds against such are so stagering as to make it an impossibility.

But since the possibility is there, you must then necessarily admit that Ted Bundy's actions were not completely anti-rational, and thus he passes your little litmus test.

Hmm... I don't think this would be very productive. I have every reason to believe you would adopt ridiculous stances simply out of a desire to not adhere to my postulate.

Okay, here is the point I was trying to make:
I would deny every moral assumption that you make. Eventually you would be reduced to saying "Well, just because.". Because you would then be unable to provide a "good reason" for why we should value what you are valuing, it would then serve as a demonstration as to how such a thing is inherently impossible and absurd. I imagined the conversation going something like this:

We should provide healthcare for the sick because that benefits all of society!

/But I don't care about society.

Well, okay. It benefits you: If you someday become poor, wouldn't you want to have healthcare?

/No. I don't care about myself.

Well, everyone else does care about themselves, and thus we should value it.

/But I don't care what everyone else thinks. Why should I adopt your position?

etc etc
Until eventually, you are forced to say: "You should do it because its the right thing to do".

All of your actions and beliefs eventually rest upon a variable group of intrinsic moral determinations: You value some thing or another for its own sake, because "it itself is good". You might say that you value it because "It is obvious".
But you cannot "prove" or "disprove" these moral assumptions. You cannot show by way of logic and reason that some moral assumption is correct or incorrect because eventually you are reduced to saying "Well, you have to assume this for everything else to work. You have to assume that people's lives should be valued". The only way you can "prove" things about morality is if you have prior moral assumptions.

Ultimately since they rest upon your desires, which are subjective, your entire moral system will be subjective by its very nature. You will say things are good when you want to, and say things are bad when you want to. You may attempt to justify it using some third party ("Well, it is good because God said so") but then you are just making another artificial moral determination: You are making the determination that whatever God says is to be valued.
If you say that "well, society says so, therefore it is true", then you are just saying that whatever society says it to be valued. All of your moral system comes from your own arbitrary determinations, and thus they cannot be "true" or "false".

Because you cannot play this game with me, you cannot uphold moral absolutism. The stance, from your perspective, may be "ridiculous"...but as long as it isn't impossible, it accomplishes the goal. I find the stance of conservative Christians to be "ridiculous", too, but they still hold it.

If moral absolutism were true, then this game would be a trivial matter, since you could "prove" your system. If someone makes a factual statement, say, "Poland is a country in Asia", it is a trivial matter to disprove them because the facts are all right there: The government of Poland defines its borders within EUrope. Europe is defined as a different region than Asia. Etc etc...
But you cannot accomplish this. Thus, why do you continue to uphold the "truth" or moral absolutism?

---

Also, i've added you to MSN Messenger, if you use that.

[Elok]

I don't see any atheistrolling, so I assume I should stay out of this with my usual troublemaking?

[Kidlicious]

I'm sure you will keep your eye out though.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Tacc

I see moral debates as trivial brain exercises that accomplish nothing more than proving one person can be more esoteric than the next. (I have a dim view of argument for argument's sake.)

It isn't merely argument for arguments sake. The nature of morality has important implications on whether there is an "objective imperative" to various actions.

But without being able to conclude the debate it becomes worthless. With no object to achieve it becomes mearly a discussion, with little or no implication.

Your postulation at the end has a clearer merit.

I'm forced to wonder why a persons acceptance of a deffinition should invalidate the deffinition.

The definition itself is meaningless. If I define morality as "judgements made about the goodness or badness of a thing" and you define it as a block of cheese....Neither definition is correct or incorrect, they are merely different definitions.
Mine happens to be the one most people assume when discussing things, but we could just as easily endorse your definition and have a discussion about how to cook using morality.

Words themselves don't have meaning beyond the ones we ascribe to them

Yes, their definitions. We must, if we are to advance in any given debate, accept the definitions of words. If you define a word as X and I define it as Y then there is little sense in our continuing to converse. We will make little or no sense to each other and the subject will continue to get murky.

Child molestation is evil. That can be asserted without anyone needing to accept it.

*Everything* can be asserted without anyone needing to accept it.

Reffutation by any number of people would not make this a nice thing to do.

But what if someone doesn't value children? Doesn't value autonomy or freedom or life or whatever...then to them, the statement "Child molestation is evil" would not be true, and they wouldn't see it as a "mean" thing to do.

This example is one of the large reasons I don't like phylisophical debates. You can make up any situation you want to support your theory and the opposition must accept it in order to progress.

This is now becoming debate for debates sake. Why must I imagine that there is someone like you propose? Why can't you accept the reality that there is a world outside your window and it must be respected and adhered to.

I can't do this. I cannot find it in myself to reconcile a persons acceptance of child molestation. I'm sorry, I can only view this proposition as flawed in it's conception.

Why not assume that people had three feet? Why not assume we breath nitrogen? Why not assume we all speak Bulgarian?

What use is assuming a postulate that goes against my main argument? How could I possibly make progress by assuming the things I'm postulating as true are false?

I don't understand this function of phylosophy. You have proven to be more esoteric than I.

And I'm saying that to continue a discussion a given deffinition needs to be adhered to.

But the debate we are having is not one of a policy debate: There are no ramifications in that sense. Rather, we are having a morals debate: Can there be relative and absolute morality? Can we differentiate between something that is "bad" and something that is "evil" or not?
I'm saying that defining evil as "absolute moral badness" is absurd because there are no absolute morals, and the logical reasoning used here to attempt to prove that there are does not follow.

Then I'm sorry I've wasted your time. I was trying to support OzzyKP's deffinition of "bad" vs. "evil". I was trying to withdraw the Heros discussion from getting mired in a worthless phylosophical debate about the existentialism of the end of your nose.

Societies are too unstable to derive constant moral guidance from them.

They are, however, all we have at the moment. You may try and substitute religion, in which case you have all kinds of moral absolutes, but it has never really gone over well.

You can try and substitute geneology, but again, this has been tried and not gotten very far.

You can substitute age, sex, race, creed... any of a number of viable alternitives but thus far "truth by democracy" has shown to be the most widly accepted.

Those are both mental illnesses.

Ad hominem. Any association they may or may not have with mental illness is entirely irrelevant to their truth value.

If a schizophrenic says "My therapist is talking me", it is entirely possible that he is telling the truth. We need to evaluate the claim based on the evidence, not simply who is giving it.

Good point.

(like "other people do exist")

But let us say that this is an elaborate simulation. You can be sure that you "exist" in some sense because you are aware of your own consciousness, and for that to occur you must have some existence as a moral agent.
But you cannot be sure that *I* exist and that I am a moral agent: For all you know, I could be a computer algorithm that simulates a person debating. You cannot disprove this possibility.

Thus, it may not be true.

But is it? Then why postulate it? Why cause me to debate a situation you know to be patently false? Why allow me to wander aimlessly through hours of rhetoric if you know the answer to be that you are, in point of fact, a person?

Without at least the conviction of moral absolutism how can you so casually impose what you admit is a flawed morality on others?

"Flawed morality" comes close to asserting that there is "true and false" (flawed and notflawed) morality, which I deny.
why would I need moral absolutism in order to act?

To allow myself, and others participating in my system, the luxory of knowing what the heck is going on. If we have nothing to look to for guidance we are simply wandering about in anarchy?

You mentioned pie earlier, what if that was a very rude swear word to me? You've now offended me. You cannot interface with a person without having, at the very least, a mild grasp of a widely held moral standing. We, the people of the planet earth, must have at least a general set of moral absolutes in order to progress beyond mearly arguing about moral absolutes.

If that impetus is lacking then that action is evil. To kill simply for the sake of killing, nothing more (no value behind the killing), is evil.

But in order for a person to act, there has to be some sort of motivation to action. Perhaps they value death for its own sake (that is, they make death an intrinsic value)? Perhaps they enjoy the rush, or the sight, or some other component related to murder and determine that this value (that is, their enjoyment) is enough reason to action?
Nobody does a thing that they do not, on some level, want to do.

Not so. Lack of impulse control is a sign of psychopathy. No want involved. The person simply does whatever pops into their heads at the time. no desire, no motive, no premeditation... nothing.

The test of a person being rational falls outside of there support of the absolute.

So then it is theoretically possible for a rational person to defend Ted Bundy?

This is a dificult one to answer. On one hand if I say "yes" (in deference to my axiom), then I admit that my argument is flawed.

If I say "no" (in deference to my argument) then my axiom falls.

I will answer this way, it is possible (due to randomness of motion) for all the air molecules to coelesce in the bottom 2 inces of your room. The odds against such are so stagering as to make it an impossibility.

Let us play a small game on the side. Bring up some moral assertion that you have and then prove to me why it is true - why I should value it and act in accordance with that value.
Examples of moral assertions: We should provide healthcare for the sick, we should treat humans with dignity, we should protect the lives of children, etc.

Hmm... I don't think this would be very productive. I have every reason to believe you would adopt ridiculous stances simply out of a desire to not adhere to my postulate.

but at least this has more merit than what we've been doing.

With no object to achieve it becomes mearly a discussion, with little or no implication.

That isn't necessarily true: I've had plenty of discussions were I come across new knowledge. I arrived at my present position regarding morality beacuse of discussion, and it has changed how I view the world.

You can make up any situation you want to support your theory and the opposition must accept it in order to progress.

Because if you assert something is categorically true, but I can find an instance that isn't so implausible as to where it isn't true...one must take a closer look at what you are asserting. If you have some sort of moral philosophy, but there are situations where it breaks down, then perhaps your philosophy needs re-examination.

Why must I imagine that there is someone like you propose?

You don't have to accept it - I would think that the existence of child rapists would indicate that such people exist, but if you would like to deny their existence, okay Would you like me to provide links to support their existence?

The point is that your statement, child rape is wrong, is not considered universally true by everyone. There are people out there who don't view it as wrong. To them, child molestation may not be an un-nice thing to do. It isn't as if your statement is true by its very definition.

Because people are very diverse when it comes to ideology, again, it isn't that difficult to see someone in the world adopting this position. But let us return to this debate, since the game at the end illustrates this better.

You may try and substitute religion, in which case you have all kinds of moral absolutes, but it has never really gone over well.

The postulation of moral absolutes didn't fail in this case because of religion, but because of its very nature: It is inflexible and subject to fanaticism. If you think that you have truth inherently on your side, you may act differently than if you realise that truth is not applicable to the discussion.

Why allow me to wander aimlessly through hours of rhetoric if you know the answer to be that you are, in point of fact, a person?

Because *you* cannot know that. You are asserting something as an "obvious truth" that really isn't. For all you know, again, the computer program has anticipated your response and has produced what I am typing right now.

I can't be sure of your existence. I can't be sure that you aren't just meant to constantly bring up this debate in my life over and over again It isn't as concrete as you seem to indicate.

You are trying to say their philosophy is wrong because their underlying assumption is wrong, when I'm demonstrating that it is entirely possible that they are correct, and that you shouldn't dismiss it categorically and out of hand because of its "obvious" failure.

To allow myself, and others participating in my system, the luxory of knowing what the heck is going on. If we have nothing to look to for guidance we are simply wandering about in anarchy?

You are looking for a destination that doesn't exist, though. You want to have a "good reason" to believe what you believe is right and wrong when reason is subject to the passions, not the other way around. We cannot have reason if we do not already have assumed values and morality.

You mentioned pie earlier, what if that was a very rude swear word to me? You've now offended me. You cannot interface with a person without having, at the very least, a mild grasp of a widely held moral standing. We, the people of the planet earth, must have at least a general set of moral absolutes in order to progress beyond mearly arguing about moral absolutes.

I think you are conflating "morality" with "moral absolutes". I operate such fine as an individual. I operate fine within society - I'm not sociopathic or whatnot. I have a moral system, I simply don't say it has a truth value. This does not impair me from functioning - it may moderate my actions a bit, but that is probably a good thing

Not so. Lack of impulse control is a sign of psychopathy. No want involved. The person simply does whatever pops into their heads at the time. no desire, no motive, no premeditation... nothing.

But to them it must have felt "good" to act on their impulses. Indeed, the fact that they had an impulse indicates that they had desire.
If a person does something they don't want to do, then they are no longer in control of their actions and are not moral agents. If there was no desire, there would be no motivation for them to expend energy acting, and thus they would remain still.

Can you provide an example to the contrary, a situation where a person does something they don't want to do?

On one hand if I say "yes" (in deference to my axiom), then I admit that my argument is flawed.

If I say "no" (in deference to my argument) then my axiom falls.

Yes, that would tend to be the situation
If you fall into something like that, if you essentially fall into a contradiction, that means that some aspect of your argument is flawed and needs to be reformed.

The odds against such are so stagering as to make it an impossibility.

But since the possibility is there, you must then necessarily admit that Ted Bundy's actions were not completely anti-rational, and thus he passes your little litmus test.

Hmm... I don't think this would be very productive. I have every reason to believe you would adopt ridiculous stances simply out of a desire to not adhere to my postulate.

Okay, here is the point I was trying to make:
I would deny every moral assumption that you make. Eventually you would be reduced to saying "Well, just because.". Because you would then be unable to provide a "good reason" for why we should value what you are valuing, it would then serve as a demonstration as to how such a thing is inherently impossible and absurd. I imagined the conversation going something like this:

We should provide healthcare for the sick because that benefits all of society!

/But I don't care about society.

Well, okay. It benefits you: If you someday become poor, wouldn't you want to have healthcare?

/No. I don't care about myself.

Well, everyone else does care about themselves, and thus we should value it.

/But I don't care what everyone else thinks. Why should I adopt your position?

etc etc
Until eventually, you are forced to say: "You should do it because its the right thing to do".

All of your actions and beliefs eventually rest upon a variable group of intrinsic moral determinations: You value some thing or another for its own sake, because "it itself is good". You might say that you value it because "It is obvious".
But you cannot "prove" or "disprove" these moral assumptions. You cannot show by way of logic and reason that some moral assumption is correct or incorrect because eventually you are reduced to saying "Well, you have to assume this for everything else to work. You have to assume that people's lives should be valued". The only way you can "prove" things about morality is if you have prior moral assumptions.

Ultimately since they rest upon your desires, which are subjective, your entire moral system will be subjective by its very nature. You will say things are good when you want to, and say things are bad when you want to. You may attempt to justify it using some third party ("Well, it is good because God said so") but then you are just making another artificial moral determination: You are making the determination that whatever God says is to be valued.
If you say that "well, society says so, therefore it is true", then you are just saying that whatever society says it to be valued. All of your moral system comes from your own arbitrary determinations, and thus they cannot be "true" or "false".

Because you cannot play this game with me, you cannot uphold moral absolutism. The stance, from your perspective, may be "ridiculous"...but as long as it isn't impossible, it accomplishes the goal. I find the stance of conservative Christians to be "ridiculous", too, but they still hold it.

If moral absolutism were true, then this game would be a trivial matter, since you could "prove" your system. If someone makes a factual statement, say, "Poland is a country in Asia", it is a trivial matter to disprove them because the facts are all right there: The government of Poland defines its borders within EUrope. Europe is defined as a different region than Asia. Etc etc...
But you cannot accomplish this. Thus, why do you continue to uphold the "truth" or moral absolutism?

---

See, I can make long boringly unreadable posts too.

[Nubclear]

Away with you, TaShi.

[DaShi]

Do I know you?

[DinoDoc]

Question from the "Heroes" thread, why is intent relevent in your opinion? The actions themselves would seem to be the most important part of the equation.

[padillah]

I guess I am forced to acquiesce.

Since there is no real proof of anything there is no sense in continuing this.

You make the statement that it is simple to prove Poland is not in Asia, but, according to the ludicrous rules of philosophy, there is nothing to say that MY Poland isn't in Asia. If I alone define my existence then you are forced to structure your argument under the assumption that I may have a different view of reality than you. What is to keep me from simply saying "Nope. In my reality Poland is in Asia."? Nothing.

With this in mind there in no fact you could present to me that I could not simply refute by saying "Nope, not to me" and you're left with an empty argument. This is why most schools of philosophy are meaningless. Without a basis in reality there can be no establishment of fact.

Now, you appear to subscribe, at least in part, to Logical Positivism. As displayed by your acceptance of, supposedly, verifiable facts. With that in mind there is little that would allow you to even start down a road that would address a word so obviously cognitively meaningless as "evil". Words like this can only be defined if you accept, at least in part, some of the tenets of linguistic philosophy. Since linguistic philosophy and Logical Positivism are on almost opposite sides of the board, I don't see this happening.

Linguistic philosophy was developed because of situations just like this: philosophers had gotten so tied up in the existentialism of nose hair that they were never accomplishing anything. Try reading up on some linguistic philosophy. I would hope you begin to see the need for establishing concrete definitions in a socialistic world.

In answer to your game, you are right: I could never convince you of the need for moral absolutes. You're preconceived denouement of them denies me even the smallest opportunity to try. Did you ever think you'd hear someone say you are too open-minded?

Thank for the stimulating conversation. Sadly it could never be anything more.

Tom P.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Bad actions can be done with good intent. While I consider President Bush to be dumb, I don't consider him evil. He intended well in going into Iraq (at least I believe that to be the case).

I basically consider intent to be the key to the equation.

[LordShiva]

@ thread.

Somebody show it to Winston.

[padillah]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Question from the "Heroes" thread, why is intent relevent in your opinion? The actions themselves would seem to be the most important part of the equation.

Intent is relevant to me because I feel it is more indicative of a persons moral standing. For example, I understand that Mohinder believes he is helping by leading Sylar to the others. This belief leads me to clasify him in the "good" category even though he is currently leading a serial killer to his victims (generally regarded as a bad thing).

However, Linderman is a bad guy. Even though he got Nikki released from jail.

This presents problems however since I do not know the intentions of some of the characters: Nathan Petrelli and D.G.B. spring to mind. Without understanding the intent I am left with baseless actions and these are insufficient to draw a moral conclusion.

Tom P.

[Nubclear]

You make the statement that it is simple to prove Poland is not in Asia, but, according to the ludicrous rules of philosophy, there is nothing to say that MY Poland isn't in Asia.

We are using the commonly understood definition of Poland. If you were to define Poland as being "the headquarters of the Communist Party of China", then the statement "Poland is in Asia" would be true.

If I alone define my existence then you are forced to structure your argument under the assumption that I may have a different view of reality than you.

Only persons capable of great feats of self-delusion get to define their own reality (and whether they actually are or not is a question of some debate). There is a definite difference between a descriptive statement (one that describes "objective reality", if there is such a thing) and a normative statement (one that describes morality) and the reason the differentiation is made is because they are inherently two different things: One is capable of having truth values, and the other is not.

You may be able to "define" your reality in the sense that you are able to change the way you percieve or react to it, though this doesn't really define reality perse but instead your experience of it. If reality does not have an objective basis for existence, there is a stronger argument I guess for you defining it.
If reality is subjective, or if you are the only thing that actually "exists" in the universe, then yes, you may be able to simply will anything I say out of existence.

But my contention is not so much that you define reality as that you define *morality*. Reality is not inherently subjective, but morality is.

With this in mind there in no fact you could present to me that I could not simply refute by saying "Nope, not to me" and you're left with an empty argument. This is why most schools of philosophy are meaningless. Without a basis in reality there can be no establishment of fact.

Indeed. Thus, typically, an objective reality is simply assumed. I'm willing to assume it for the purposes of discussion, but your rather categorical assertion that the person who does not assume it is "wrong" is wrong

I would hope you begin to see the need for establishing concrete definitions in a socialistic world.

The problem in this whole debate is that you are defining "evil" in such a way that is logically absurd. I could define "socialism" to mean "A system of economics where the means of production are and are not owned by the State" but then what am I referring to when I say "I endorse socialism"? Since the definition itself is flawed,

When you define evil as "absolute moral negativity"

I would hope you begin to see the need for establishing concrete definitions in a socialistic world.

The problem here is not a failure to establish "concrete definitions". The only measure by which to judge a definition is how useful it is - and this is typically taken to mean "used by society". However, in some cases, society is too imprecise with its definitions - they work because society is not attempting to explain higher level concepts about ethics, but they fail when one attempts to because the definition was never adopted with that purpose in mind.

To make a statement about the existence of moral absolutism is to make a descriptive statement and is *not* merely another "definition" perse, since it makes a statement about something that actually exists or does not exist in the world. If I were to say "Poland is in Europe." but there was no Poland in Europe, I would be rightly called out. Having been disproven, I could not then hide behind the excuse that I was merely "redefining Poland" or Europe or whatnot, since my definition made a descriptive assumption about reality that was not warranted.

Our debate is not one of definitions.

You're preconceived denouement of them denies me even the smallest opportunity to try.

But if I have to assume moral absolutism in order for you to prove moral absolutism....Then essentially moral absolutism is reduced to an article of faith, not reason. If an independent standard of morality exists (and I still maintain that this is logically impossible, given the nature of morality) then you should be able to empirically and logically demonsrate it. The fact that I have to assume your position from the get-go does little to aid your position.

I can put forth a similar proof, then, for the statement "Tacc is a god.".
Step one: Assume Tacc is a god.
Therefore, Tacc is a god.
See? It doesn't work very well :\

You could very well assume I am a god, if you like. But I'd say such an assumption would be unwarranted and somewhat dishonest

Did you ever think you'd hear someone say you are too open-minded?

I've heard it many times, trust me

Thank for the stimulating conversation. Sadly it could never be anything more.

It could not be anything more because your position appears to be one of faith - you cannot rationally defend it (or, at the very least, you have provided no such defence) and my attacks against it have seemingly gone through.
While I can attack its correspondance to reality, as long as you continue to hold onto that position as you do, I will never be able to convince you out of it.

The problem is not with "philosophy" or with argumentation: The problem is that you are holding so tightly onto this that you reject anything that would seem to harm it. Which can be a perfectly consistent position to take: It requires a values-determination in order to say "Reality ought to be valued" or "Logic ought to be valued"

[padillah]

The problem is that you are holding so tightly onto this that you reject anything that would seem to harm it.

Funny but this is the same way I feel about your stand.

Fine, you win: whatever it is you are debating is correct. In the face of absolute denial of every argument presented to you, I must deffer. Not because I think you are right but simply becaus I lack the ability ( not the capability) to get past your sweeping denials.

It's amazing that after all this you still fail to understand what my argument is. I've tried and tried but you simply intelectually refuse to acknowledge it. You have yet to establish, in your own words, what I am asserting. And, in doing so, have willed yourself the upper hand.

I know some Portuguese, would it be easier to try it in Portuguese? Maybe that's what I should do, argue in a language you don't understand using rules and postulates you don't agree to and then maybe I can win too.

A while back you asked me if a rational person could defend Ted Bundy. At the time I was ill prepared and I apologise for that. I was trying to establish a basis for argument but you kept turning it around. I think I know how to address this issue now.

You accept math, right? You understand math works and is factual (abstract, but factual), right? OK. Do you understand the commutative law? It says addition and multiplication can be "turned around", subtraction and division may not. In other words 5*6 = 6*5 but 5-6 != 6-5, OK?

So can you then accept that there are some postulates that are commutative and some that are not? Yes, good. This is what I wish to enforce when you think of "right-thinking people can't defend Ted Bundy". This assertion is not commutative. You can't turn it around and say "therefore because you defend Ted Bundy you are not right-thinking". I can now assert that no, you will not find a right-thinking individual that will defend Ted Bundy's actions as sane and logical.

Is it possible to find a person with a third arm? Genetic abnormalities leave room for any number of diversions from the norm, so the answer should be "yes, it's theoretically possible". (Now, this is where reality kicks in) Is it a generally accepted state of being for humans to have three arms? The answer should be "no". Therefore the statement "people have two arms" can be held to be true (have truth-value) in normalistic reality. Even if there is some strech of the imagination that would allow for an alternate possiblity, the reality is people only have two arms.

There are several things that are theoretically possible, this does not make them so. If formulating a theory were all it took we'd be much further along in science than we are.

Now that postulate is commutative: just because you can decide on a reality that disproves a theory doesn't make it less sound. Mathmaticians have proved that if we could move in the 4th or 5th or some other level of dimensions than we could break the speed of light easily. Since we don't live in that reality, the law that you can't go faster than the speed of light still holds true.

You are more than welcome to believe that other people don't have value. You are more than welcome to believe children don't have value. You are more than welcome to believe any of the many things you have postulated in order to dissuade me. I will hold fast to my understanding that there is a right and wrong and that, like gravity, just because I don't understand how it works doesn't make it any less so.

It could not be anything more because your position appears to be one of faith - you cannot rationally defend it

Simply because you are better and more versed at this type of debate than I am doesn't make my argument any less valid nor does it allow you to redefine it as you see fit. Much like string theory, I could not even begin to explain to you how it works or even what it is, but that doesn't mean that branch of math stops existing. You have accomplished the philisophical equivelent of beating up a drunk. Whoopee.

Tom P.

[Pekka]

Jose, I never suggested anything else, except that imposing black and white world, which bad vs evil suggests, is stupid. That is all I suggested.

And life is nothing but a long dialogue. Sometimes it shifts into a monologue. It is a collection of moments, set together by the observer, the subject. That is why we are called individuals and it separates us from everyone else.

But if you wish to remain silent and not have a dialogue, it is your freedom to do so.