"Reason" and "logic" are hilariously overrated. They are presented as the highest virtue and basis of a healthy society...

"Reason" and "logic" are hilariously overrated. They are presented as the highest virtue and basis of a healthy society, disregarding the fact that they can't be used to justify the most basic of things.
Morality can't be justified logically.
Good/bad value statements can't be justified logically.
Even your own continued existance can't.

People's actions, culture, morality, society are all built upon fundamentally unreasonable, illogical paradigms. Strict adherence to "logic" and "reason" will result in the purest forms of nihilism and relativism.

The alternative being?

Instinct, perhaps? The drive towards desire?

Logic can be applied only once you have an illogical paradigm already in place.
For example, if you assume that stealing is wrong, your paradigm is the sancity of private ownership.
However how do you justify taxes then? You need another paradigm, one of the "societal contract" and helping those in need.
Then you have to illogically balance your two contradicting paradigms to achieve a state that you consider "OK". Different people will place that point of balance in different positions for their own illogical reasons (opinions).

In other words: How do you justify that I shouldn't kill you? Your paradigm is that you want to live. You don't know why, but you do. All logic starts from here.

Morality can sometimes be described as applying logic in the evolutionary framework. Like not eating the babies of your tribe because of the net negative selection outcome.

By this logic we should kill off everyone who's a net detriment to society

>For example, if you assume that stealing is wrong, your paradigm is the sancity of private ownership.

>your paradigm is the sancity of private ownership.

Not really, some things belong to you not as a socially constructed idea of ''property'' but naturally ; say if nothing else were to exist it would still belong to you.

>However how do you justify taxes then? You need another paradigm, one of the "societal contract" and helping those in need.

I fail to see how taxes are in direct opposition to private property.

>Different people will place that point of balance in different positions for their own illogical reasons (opinions).

They probably will, but I fail to see how are opinions contrary to reason? Also, whether they place it at this or that point shouldn't concern us. The question that concerns us is : Where ought we to place that point of balance?

Perhaps we can't find the exact perfect point of balance, or truth period, for various reasons. Maybe because it's doesn't exist, maybe because it does but we cannot find it or access it, maybe it does exist and we could theoratically access it but it's unfeasible to make all humans agree.

The modern, neurofetishistic obsession with finding a logical cause for everything is the source of many bad things. I don't think this is enough to abandon reason, seeing as it has served us pretty well so far, and is part of what puts us above animals.

Logics just give you forms of purportedly sound arguments.

Logicians don't deal with content.

You can justify some moral proposition logically, if you derive it in a formally sound way from some premises.

The content of those premisses it's irrelevant to logic.

Unless it has drawbacks like making everyone feel unsafe. I doubt such a society is functional, too much bad blood from culling each others relatives. But we usually made reproduction harder for these people, at least until recently.

>Also, whether they place it at this or that point shouldn't concern us. The question that concerns us is : Where ought we to place that point of balance?
You can't anwer that question using logic. Your "ought" is not the same as my "ought" for reasons unrelated to logic.

Yes, once your "premises" (what I called "paradigms") are established, logic is a very useful tool. It's just a TOOL however, not a goal in on itself.

But how do you define "benefit" or "detriment" to the society? Is it a purely material calculation? OR maybe you also take mental/spiritual values into consideration?

You talk about the "evolutionary perspective". In nature, however, each individual has to balance the needs of the society against his own. There is hardly any altruism in animals - unless you're an asexual, sterile insect like bees and ants. Your paradigm of "social benefit" would make us into insects.

I'm not sure what you mean with 'just a tool'.

That sounds like a traditional, aristotelian, conception of logic.

Contemporary logicians care about finding out interesting properties of some formal system as much as mathematicians who are not doing their work just for the sake of some future application in physic or something.

Contemporary logicians are maybe 0.01% of the population

Sure, but if you want to know about a field you ask the experts. The scientific enterprise ain't a democracy.

OK, but for the other 99.99% of humanity logic is just a tool to achieve the goals dictated by their illogical, often subconscious/instinctual paradigms.

So you are saying that we didn't use complex logical arguments that lead to basic morality why defending the position that morality can't be justified logically without any reasoning. Morality however has been logically argumented for since the time of Socrates, if you decide to not look at it doesn't go away.

I always found this a weird phrasing: x to be something for someone. I guess, it just means that x believes something to be in some way.

Well, beliefs can be false and mos def the belief that logic is just a tool is a false belief shared by a lot of people.

The not justified premises don't have to be illogical.

You need a starting point, you can't justify everything. If they are not contradictions or supporting some absurd conclusion, in what way should they be illogical?

That there are objective good and bad for example are not, in any reasonable sense of the word I can grasp, illogical proposition.

>The not justified premises don't have to be illogical.
>You need a starting point, you can't justify everything.
This is what I've been saying all along - taking things (premises) as a priori true, without justification, is not the realm of logic.
Logic takes place AFTER those premises are already established, and most disagreements (political, ideological, social, philosophical) are not about logic, but about premises.

>So you are saying that we didn't use complex logical arguments that lead to basic morality
Yes, this is what I'm saying. Basic morality (including the basis for Socrates' arguments) is instinctual - based on feeling, not logic.
It's impossible to derive morality from thin air using just logical tools.

Actually ""[r]eason" and "logic"" pretty much get rid of the need for "justifications of morality". If something happens, then each event that led up to that something had to happen too; at no stage was choice involved.

>It's impossible to derive morality from thin air using just logical tools.
My post wasn't clear. You are rushing at the conclusion that any morality whatsoever cannot be a product of deductive reasoning. It's like saying 'deductive reasoning is essential thus morality is false' and 'no deductive reasoning is required to say that morality cannot be a logical conclusion'.

Basic morality has been argumented for since Socrates. If you want to prove morality isn't true, you have to go through each argument. If you want to prove morality is logically unprovable, then you are moving towards an even harder general goal: prove that X is unprovable. Saying something is instinctual amounts to no weight when deciding if it's true or false.

>You are rushing at the conclusion that any morality whatsoever cannot be a product of deductive reasoning.
No. The conclusion I'm rushing to is that the basic moral values, generally accepted by most of humanity (don't kill, don't steal, help those in need) are not derivable from scratch using pure logic.

To say ANY morality is silly.
Of course one can design a moral system in which the highest value is paperclips, and behaviors are good if they lead to production of more paperclips. Problem is that no one in their right mind will agree, because it goes against their basic, instinctual sense of right-wrong.

Yes, we should kill all niggers

So you think there are morality systems which come from deductive reasoning and give an example of a morality of paper clips while ignoring the rest of the post.

>ITT: People arguing about dictionary definitions without consulting their dictionaries prior to attempting to reach a shared understanding

The fact that you guys have words to begin with or have even evolved to the point of being able to engage in this kind of conversation is proof that 'working together benefits all'.

You guys are typing on computers. You can say words beyong 'ugg'.

If you have to psycho-jerk beyond that then you aren't really being logical.

This isn't complicated. Morality and ethics are 'radial concepts'.

Morality is from self directed to environment, ethics is environment directed to self.

It's called priority.

1 Morale = Self-Evaluation / Priority

The congruence/delta/agreeance between those two points is what makes society.

Why are these topics enjoyable for people to discuss when they are easily deduced?

I assume propagation of information is slow so I am just bumping into people who haven't figured it out yet.

>So you think there are morality systems which come from deductive reasoning
I don't. This is literally the opposite of what I've been trying to say this entire thread.

I will adress the rest of your previous post if you wish:

> If you want to prove morality isn't true
I don't, morality is obviously a very real and important concept.

>If you want to prove morality is logically unprovable, then you are moving towards an even harder general goal: prove that X is unprovable.
Is it not enough to point out that - throught centuries of philosophy - not one person managed to prove it?

>Infer that X is inferable
Done. Pulitzer please.

>Is it not enough to point out that - throught centuries of philosophy - not one person managed to prove it?
No, because that is not deductive reasoning, the very same thing you are asking, but is instead inductive reasoning eg: "I haven't seen a proof of morality I agree with therefore it's unprovable". Again, you are asking for deductive reasoning from others while throwing it out of the window yourself, an impossible situation.

>Formal logic is the only form of logic
That aside, Kiddo, the point is that, however justified you might be to hold on to your intuitions, those do not lend themselves to discussion. If you want to convince someone else, you have two means: force or reason. Empirically speaking, the latter has great value, as showed in part by our society's success over certain others.

>Is it not enough to point out that - throught centuries of philosophy - not one person managed to prove it?
>No, because that is not deductive reasoning

Fair enough.
So now I change my position from
>it's not possible to derive morality using only formal logic
to
>it may be possible to derive morality using only formal logic, but it hasn't been done yet
For all intents and purposes though, the conclusion is the same.

>If you want to convince someone else, you have two means: force or reason. Empirically speaking, the latter has great value, as showed in part by our society's success over certain others.
Empirically speaking, "my" society (the European whites) have for centuries engaged in behaviors that would be considered highly amoral.
>feudalism
>colonialism
>wars of conquest
>torture

Did I claim that we only used the latter?
Our society is capable of reasoning with eachother to a far higher degree than most historically, and this has been a great benefit. That is all I claimed.

*sigh* explain to me how it is 'your' society? As in what empowers you to address it in the possessive sense?

By what right or virtue is the possessive transferred to your language?

The crux of this thread seems to be human rights vs logic, but human rights (whatever these rights are) are definitely logical. The premise is really just: “I don’t want to die so let’s put in place some minimal rules so that I won’t die”. This is what the enlightenment was about; philosophy needed a basis to show monarchs that their oppressive tactics were just causing more chaos. Srsly just read Leviathan.

So let us get this straight, do you think not anyone attempted to derive morality ever? If not, why aren't you refuting at least a few of these here?

Dense? My family, my father, my neighbor etc. don't belong to me either, yet you wouldn't question me referring to them as I just did.
Another trip for the filter, I guess.

>They are presented as the highest virtue and basis of a healthy society
They're really not

Death > (You + I - Suffering) < Rape

There's your logic.

Or even simpler: ConvenienceRape

Structure shit around that and you're golden.

If it's that easy to get you to exclude an opinion then how exactly is it anything other than your opinion excluding another's based on predicate?

And, yes, I would question the fact that they are 'your' community in the possessive sense. The priority or precedent of what you have is what you are 'now', the argument of morals/ethics are essentially 'do you have the right to change what has worked for those that came before you, and it so, to what extent?'

If that's the question then you can never really be free of the bloodline aspect, so you are de facto tied to biology and geography.

So your basic logic predicates are biological/geographical/temporal.

If you don't agree with that then how is any argument a 'universally agreeable' one let alone a xeno-derived one?

And because most internet posters really don't have the mental fortitude to stick with a topic I actually invite anyone who has read this post to weigh in on the situation, seeing as the person I'm responding to chose to simply discard that which was not based on his understanding of familial hierarchy.

>Instinct, perhaps? The drive towards desire?
Dumb as fuck. Desires and instincts are not immediately accessible to us, they can only be interpreted through reason

Filtered

So I can at least get something from participating in this thread: Anyone want to fill me in on why people bother advertising this fact?

I mean in general. Even in online games people feel the need to advertise 'muted', when that act itself is purely for the 'self'. The person they are attempting to remove from their information stream they have already identified as 'indifferent' or harmful to continuation so I am unsure of how this is beneficial to a rational thinking mind.

I don't enjoy concluding that people just aren't taught how to communicate or the value of time-length based retention but it does seem to be the conclusion.

Perhaps some sort of grammar based text filter is required to make the internet make more sense. Basically filter webpages through something like grammarly and remove all the text blocks that can't conform to some fairly basic linguistic principles.

>tl;dr What Is A Fuck And How Could I Even Give One If I Had One?

n.b.
Ironically my minor exchange with this poster has provided the answer to OP's question.

I bet this poster is non-white and smells really bad

I wonder what I'm supposed to do with NPC's... is there a literally equivalent for characters that, despite all their efforts, just can't influence the overarching narrative?

Meh. I'll sleep on it I guess.

Thanks Veeky Forums. I'm happy that it still helps me to come here and 'think out loud' so to speak.

G'night.

lel struck a nerve

>The premise is really just: “I don’t want to die so let’s put in place some minimal rules so that I won’t die”.
Everytime someone brings up the "morality is self-protective" argument, I ask: would you kill an innocent for 10$, if you had 100% certainty no one will ever know? Most people wouldn't.

Who should I refute?

>Desires and instincts are not immediately accessible to us, they can only be interpreted through reason
What? What makes you think that? Have you never felt an impulse? An emotion?

>*sigh* explain to me how it is 'your' society? As in what empowers you to address it in the possessive sense?
"my society" is commonly used in the sense of "a society to which I belong".
You're trying to sound oh-so-smart, even thinking it justifies a tripcode, but all that comes out is autism.

>Have you never felt an impulse? An emotion?

Yeah and what are they on their own? They can't tell you what to do or what you want. Its just a nebulous suggestion that can do nothing but influence a chain of reason but is ultimately relient on reason to be translated into action

>Its just a nebulous suggestion that can do nothing but influence a chain of reason
That's quite the "nothing but"

Sure but the point is they are in the end of the day nothing to plant a flag on independent of reason. Interpretation decides the day

>uses reason to prove that reason is stupid

think harder about the basis of tht line of thought sport, you’ll want to stop posting for a bit

>the point is they are in the end of the day nothing to plant a flag on independent of reason. Interpretation decides the day
This is literally what I've been saying all along. Logic is used to analyze and implement instinctual moral values, but can't create any on its own.

stop posturing, you have nothing

>he didn’t think about the implications of what the presupposition was that led him to try to say something extremely stupid and thus has now demonstrated he’s a brain dead husk who has his professor’s cocks up his ass and their cum dribbling out of his nose.
>he can’t into intuitive understanding
>he’s an autistic ghoul
honestly you’re dead already, a walking corpse, that soul died sometime in hs

>Morality can't be justified logically.
KEK. READ MORE KANT GOYIM

And yet we it must be our modus operandum all the same

>durr you cant do strict logic without axioms
no shit

>prudence

Daysu

>They are presented as the highest virtue and basis of a healthy society
What the fuck are you talking about?

Any so-called instinct or drive towards desire can be expressed in logic. It is a virtue because logic displays exactly what something is, at least in relation to other objects. Instead of handwavey vague pseudo-rhetoric, that explicitly hides from looking deeper into something, or displaying it as is. Indeed, logic will indicate the truthful nuance and complexity that said handwavey vague pseudo-rhetoric, will avoid even acknowledging the existence of. I don't think you understand what logic and reason are, they can be used to a number of ends. Mathematics is so useful to almost everything because of this (it is fundamentally an extension of logic). Imagine attempting to express a physical state (often continuous), with anything else. It provides precision, convenience, and flawless reasoning in whatever you chose to apply it. The baser assumptions and applications are of no concern to logic, nor reason either.

correct me if i'm wrong but isn't innovative a correct adjective

>he thinks morality is arbitrary and subject to its suitability to society
get a load of this godless retard

magic unironically

>Morality can't be justified logically.

HOO boy you are going to have your mind rocked when you learn how to read