What is some good Veeky Forums on Natural Law...

What is some good Veeky Forums on Natural Law? I had a conversation where I tried to convince someone that it's the most retarded idea imaginable, and is basically self-contradictory, but I figure it might make sense for me to read some other arguments for or against it in order to better understand my own position.

Any suggestions?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law#Cumberland.27s_rebuttal_of_Hobbes
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand
reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2v4qsu/what_are_the_arguments_against_reality_being_an/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>Xavier

Patrician detected

Can you clarify exactly what you mean by "Natural Law?" Just to make sure I'm not replying or answering to some other view that you weren't talking about.

To be honest, I don't think I completely understood it, since every one of my criticisms was considered off-point.

As far as I can tell, we were talking about the same concept discussed here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law#Cumberland.27s_rebuttal_of_Hobbes

and further, this person considered there to be a universal moral compass that is inherent in all "sane" human beings.

Well, I'm asking because Natural Law in philosophy discussions today generally refers to a kind of theologically-informed ethics, most notably to those held by Aquinas and Hobbes, but lay people often use the term to refer to moral realism/objective morality in general.

I'm going to take this to mean you're referring to any kind of objective (mind-independent) morality. What are your objections?

I mostly tried to make the point that everyone inherently has their own moral compass, which is exemplified by moral disagreements people have.

For example, Eye for an Eye is morally wrong in my mind, but to other people it's morally justified.

Another extreme argument would be that if, Godwin forgive me, Hitler took over the world and bred a superior race of German socialists and genocided everyone else, we wouldn't have the same moral compass. By the same token, if the Chinese or the Zoroastrians did the same thing, they'd have totally different "universal" moral compass.

Keep in mind, I'm not very smart or well-read.

Well, what about moral disagreements is problematic for objective morality? People disagree about things all the time, for example about the flatness of the earth or answer to a mathematics problem. Doesn't necessarily mean one side isn't wrong, though, due to there being a 'correct' truth resolution to the matter.

but how could a "correct" moral truth exist if people disagree on it?

if all the people who hold the correct belief were killed, and none of the people who do not hold the belief continue to never hold the belief, would it still be correct?

The difference between what you could call factual truths and moral truths, is that most people agree on how to determine these kinds of truths, and agree on them. As long as we both belief in Empiricism and the scientific method, we can agree that the earth is flat. As long as we both agree on the same basic mathematical axioms, we can both agree that a mathematical statement is true or false.

With moral disagreements, there's no such system we can agree on. I'm not an expert, but that seems like the whole field of philosophy. And the fact that clearly nobody agrees on which framework to use shows that their can't be an objective sense of ought.

I think we only agree on moral beliefs as groups. It makes no sense to me to suggest a correct moral belief, but I can't really articulate why.

earth is not flat*

you talking about objective things, user.
there is an objective answer to "is the earth round?" or "what is the answer to this math problem?"

The earth either is, or isnt round. The math solution either is, or isnt correct.

Your argument is flawed. use subjective examples instead, ill follow user's post here about hitler:
If Germans did indeed genocide eveyrone and bred a race which is physically and mentally superior to what they killed, was it really a bad thing?

this is a moral disagreement which has no objectively correct answer

>The difference between what you could call factual truths and moral truths, is that most people agree on how to determine these kinds of truths, and agree on them.
>With moral disagreements, there's no such system we can agree on.

I absolutely agree with this.

there is no objective way to measure a moral truth, which is something natural law, mentioned by OP, attempts to reconcile

oh well maybe I totally misunderstand it. How does natural law reconcile our disagreements?

i didnt say it DOES reconcile, I said it ATTEMPTS to reconcile.

It describes morals/virtues as being able to be derived from human reasoning.

literally read the first sentence about natural law on wikipedia

or ill save you the trouble since you obviously need a little push in the right direction

>Natural law (Latin: ius naturale, lex naturalis) is a philosophy that certain rights are inherent by virtue of human nature and can be understood universally through human reason. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The law of nature, as determined by nature, is universal

but that's stupid and wrong.

The earth is sort of round tho

>but how could a "correct" moral truth exist if people disagree on it?

The same way I could say we're posting on reddit right now, but the correct website is Veeky Forums.

>if all the people who hold the correct belief were killed, and none of the people who do not hold the belief continue to never hold the belief, would it still be correct?

Well, keep in mind this all ultimately depends on your metaphysical and epistemological views. If all truth is merely interpretation, if you're a subjectivist/relativist when it comes to many other things as well, then I don't believe you will find any of the arguments for moral realism convincing. My point doesn't really hold if you don't believe the Earth is flat whether or not the people who live on it have ventured further than the acre they were born on and believe the Earth to be unlimited or something.

So if you think all truth is interpretation, then you're just being consistent, and if your friend wanted to convince you they should start with convincing you of a general 'realism' (the outside world is real) to start.

>you talking about objective things, user.

The point is disagreement alone isn't enough to claim morality isn't objective, because people disagree about all kinds of things, things accepted as objective by those who don't believe morality is.

>Your argument is flawed. use subjective examples instead,

OP wanted arguments for moral realism, user...

lmao totally dismantled

>Earth is flat

isn't flat*

Appears we both made the same error, hah.

>but that's stupid and wrong.
thats what you think, but thats not what others may think. Once again, there is no objective way to measure morality.

>The earth is sort of round tho
its roundness can be measured, and I assure you, it is much more round than flat when measured.

>The point is disagreement alone isn't enough to claim morality isn't objective
Can morality be measured? If it cant, you cannot describe it objectively.

well I'm a subjectivist, but we can still find ways to agree on things.

For example, I look at my URL bar and it says Veeky Forums so I tell you. If you say the same thing, then we're definitely on Veeky Forums as far as we both can tell.

If you say we're on reddit, and I say we're on Veeky Forums, then there's no way to know for sure what's "real", because one of us could be hallucinating.

I don't understand how anyone can be a realist.

>it is much more round than flat when measured.
Yeah but it has degrees of flatness and roundness which contradicts "it either is or it isn't" as it is and it isn't.

>Your argument is flawed. use subjective examples instead
>Oh, trying to argue that morality is objective?
>Please start with the supposition that morality is subjective, thanks
>Wow, all your arguments suck
tickled my thinkbox there, user

So you think that if I just think REALLY REALLY hard, I'll come up with an inherent right that all people have? Is this actually what these tards believe?

I am not understanding how you guys are seeing a societal lack of objective morality as evidence that objective morality does not exist, or rather could not exist.

because people will always disagree.

>Yeah but it has degrees of flatness and roundness which contradicts "it either is or it isn't" as it is and it isn't.
your wrong.
8 can be composed of 5+3, but does that make it 5 or 3? no. it makes it 8.

also, in terms of your flatness and roundness,
the earth has 360 degrees of meeasurment when measured from its center, thus it is round even if places on it are flat

a flat object will only have 180 degrees of measurement when measured from its center, even if parts of it are curved

there is a fundamental difference here user you are failing to grasp

>So you think that if I just think REALLY REALLY hard, I'll come up with an inherent right that all people have? Is this actually what these tards believe?
more or less, yes.

that reasoning can be used to deduce what is 'good' and what is 'bad'

Right but "round" is not a number, it's a largely subjective adjective.

ok both of you are actually retarded holy shit.

It's neither round nor flat.

>Right but "round" is not a number, it's a largely subjective adjective.
round is an adjective which describes the measurement of 360 degrees which describes the earth.

the earth is round

Cubes have 360 degrees of measurement from the centre too, what're you trying to say?

but then what if someone disagrees with my assertion that X is an inherent right? Is it still an inherent right? How do we reconcile THOSE differences?

i dunno. im not sticking up for natural law, im just saying what it is.

ask a natural lawyer

I know, it's sort of pear or tear-drop shape with billions of lumps and crevices and other imperfections. I'm not saying it's flat, I'm saying it's only a bit round.

it could be conceptualized as a round object with flat surfaces

You're defining "round" as literally any three dimensional shape, which is obviously silly.

The Earth is really fucking round. It appears flat on small scales. That holds for any spherish object.

>Can morality be measured? If it cant, you cannot describe it objectively.

That's an epistemic issue, isn't it? Whether or not I have access to moral truths is separate from whether they exist, but I get what you're saying. What do you mean by 'measured?' How would you measure the axioms of logic (e.g. law of excluded middle), history, foundations of truth, the meaning of 'objectivity,' etc.?

Well, I can sympathize with being confused by moral realists (for the record, over half of all professional philosophers are moral realists!), but just realism in general? I think most people intuitively believe the world is in some sense mind-independently real, and don't have any real skepticism to it. Makes sense to me how one could hold that position.

Just so you know, I'm not a moral realist, but they have some strong arguments---maybe you have to not already be an anti-realist when it comes to truth and reality first, though!

>round
>flat
>moral
>good
>bad

Fuck I hate philosophers.

Shall we debate the meaning of the word 'meaning' next?

how about we all just argue semantics for the next foew hours or so

Guys, can we just assume the cow is a sphere and move on holy shit

I don't think you understood me, yes people will always disagree, this does not inherently mean that there is no solution to the problem on which they are disagreeing. To use an example from this thread, some people believe the earth is flat, others believe it is round, their disagreement does not mean that the earth is not objectively either round or flat or something else.

I don't believe in objective truths, I think the truth can only be achieved within limitations (ie: systems of thought), and these limitations innately render them nonobjective. With that said, Our inability to find objective truths does not prove that they don't exist. Although ultimately the issue is a linguistic one, we are not searching for truth in the world we are searching for truth in the language systems we use to describe the world, as the disagreement in this thread has evinced.

tldr

>spherish
Lol. It's an oblate spheroid and as not a perfect sphere is therefore only a bit round.

>It's an oblate spheroid and as not a perfect sphere is therefore only a bit round.
Sounds like Hegel.

this is fundamental to the idea of Idealism. A perfect sphere cannot exist in reality, there will always be imperfections. a perfect sphere can only exist within our minds as a concpet

this implies that nothing in reality is a sphere, a sphere is a conceptual construct of man

maybe I'm just too agnostic about things. But how do realists make the Jump from "I perceive this" to "everyone perceives this"

Who are some good realist vs subjectivist philosophers I should read?

Yes, perfects generally do not exist which is why I'm saying the other guy is wrong to say it either is or isn't round, as spheres being impossible, things only can approach it but never be it. It is only a bit round.

I can't see the diversity of values as a good objection against any kind of objective morality. For me the true and main objection is the is-ought problem.
As for Veeky Forums sources, I haven't read any book about it, but can say it is addressed by Aquinas, Rousseau, Hobbes, Spinoza. Usually people here (better speaking: a samefag) bring up Lewis, but I find his reasoning weak.

I agree with this, that perfect shapes do not exist in reality, but does this mean we should never describe a real object as a shape?

should we always describe the earth as the semantically heavy term "slightly oblate spherish object"? or a pencil as an "imperfect pentagonal lenght of wood?"

or what about a tire as being an "imperfect somewhat torroidal shape missing the inside wall"?

isnt it just easier to just say sphere, or round or whatever?

Absolutely, but in that case you still have to be aware that asserting the earth either is round or isn't, is foolishness. When discussing real objects, "round" is an approximation, the Earth is only approximately round. Unless you mean that it's either perfectly round or it isn't, in which case it's absolutely not.

Also, if we really want to get down to the nitty gritty, can words ever accuratly describe reality 100% or arent they just approximations to begin with that can never perfectly describe reality?

thus, why try to describe the earth as anything other than round, when it is, indeed, mostly round, and only add the extra details when needed?

I understand what your saying user, but if we go down that road, I argue that words are insufficient to describe any natural object, and just like something being 'round' words are only approximations used to convey concepts to another person.

Thus, no words are sufficient for anything in reality, which makes arguing about the proper use of words when describing real objects meaningless

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_is_one_hand

It really just boils down to intuitions, and most people don't have any real skepticism or problem toward reality *actually* existing mind-independently.

Hume's 'is-ought problem' isn't an argument against moral realism in a broad sense, just a certain kind of reasoning and perhaps moral naturalism. We can still have objective morality without having to 'resolve' the is-ought gap.

>which makes arguing about the proper use of words when describing real objects meaningless
Thus, discourse as a whole is meaningless. We will never accurately describe "real objects", we know this and we try anyways, and as long as we are trying it is to our benefit to be specific.

>We can still have objective morality without having to 'resolve' the is-ought gap.
How?

>It's a conflating objective and true thread

that argument sucks though. It requires the same Jump from "I perceive this" to "everyone perceives this"

was Moore autistic or just too stupid to understand skepticism?

There's some extremely plebian philosophizing going on itt

Think about this moral relativists, you make the assertion: "there are no objective truths, only subjective truths." Let's call this axiom A.

If I take that as given that Axiom A exists, I can use Axiom A to prove that axiom A is false (if there are no moral truths, the axiom that there are no moral truths is invalid -- it's self-contradictory).

Thus, if you're a moral relativist, you can't criticize me for being a moral objectivist, since your philosophy holds at its core that there is no inherent "better" or "worse" normative judgement.

And yes, I believe in natural law, you heathens

once again I agree with you, (maybe not "discourse is meaningless", as concepts are still transferred between persons during discourse).

We can never accurately describe real objects, but you talk about being in our benefit for specificity. If specificity can never be achieved, isnt this an exercise in futility?

I argue that what is most in our benefit is they conveyance of the idea between the persons during discourse, not the accuracy of the words used.

sometimes it may be in your benefit to use a greater degree of accuracy in your discourse, as we are doing now, but in day-to-day living, it would not be beneficial for anyone for me to walk into a tire shop and as for a "imperfect mostly toroidal synthesized ring of polymer lacking the inside wall suitable as a component of my means of transportation"

in this case, the unspecific term "tire" is preferred most definitely and this increased level of accuracy has only served to deter from the idea which I am trying to convey

Depends who you ask, Some would say we don't have to resolve the gap because we already have direct epistemic access to normative facts already (e.g. we start with "I ought not to murder babies" instead of having to begin with some descriptive fact that latter have to logically entail the ought).

I agree, it's just the starter argument for people newer to philosophy. For more in-depth and substantive arguments, check out this thread: reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2v4qsu/what_are_the_arguments_against_reality_being_an/

you can have objective Truths, but not objective moral Truths.


and by Objective Truths, I mean something that everyone involved in the discussion can agree on. If we all agree on the principles of logic, then the statement "There are no objective moral truths" is a sound logical statement, and it doesn't disprove itself.

OK so Moore is for plebs, but reddit is where the real stuff happens. Thanks for the heads up.

/r/askphilosophy is basically a forum for people to ask questions for academics and professionals to answer. So yeah, if you want more robust arguments, then that forum is much better than some quick wikipedia article or simple argument from intuition.

I teach philosophy.

public discourse style, a la Socrates

right here on Veeky Forums

Ya, we are on the same page. I should have been clearer when I said
>as long as we are trying
I meant that literally, what I should have said was this >when we are trying to describe the world it is to our benefit to be specific.
Basically drawing a line between philosophical inquiry and everyday conversation, as you have. Good chat user

yes, it was a good chat.
Dialectic discourse triumphs again.

To what end do you teach?

to what end?
simply to advance conversation and make people think as well as be made to think.

And what is the value in thought?

what doth life?

>Talks about plebian philosophising
>Does plebian philosophising

>Think about this moral relativists, you make the assertion: "there are no objective truths, only subjective truths."
I don't make such assertion, for it has no meaning to me.
>If I take that as given that Axiom A exists, I can use Axiom A to prove that axiom A is false
That's babby's first realism-tier reasoning.
>
Thus, if you're a moral relativist, you can't criticize me for being a moral objectivist, since your philosophy holds at its core that there is no inherent "better" or "worse" normative judgement.
I don't criticise anyone for being a moral realist, as if saying they're "morally wrong", I just say moral realism doesn't make sense and is nothing but rhetoric.

>Some would say we don't have to resolve the gap because we already have direct epistemic access to normative facts already
The problem is that I can't see "normative fact" as not being a contradictio in adjecto. A fact is something indifferent to me, independent of me; but something can only be "normative" if someone obeys it and can't do otherwise. If someone can't be otherwise because he fears the consequences of doing so, the imperative isn't cathegorical, but hypothetical, it isn't a fact, but a subjective exigence. If someone can't do otherwise simply because he can't, then there is no need to enforce it as a law: it would simply be a natural necessity.

I just ate the heart of an explosion

Are you so dumb you even answer rhetorical questions?

>but something can only be "normative" if someone obeys it and can't do otherwise.

I get where you're coming from. What is your position on epistemic norms, then? A common argument popular in the moral realism debate these days is what's called the 'normative web.' Basically, if moral (and aesthetic, but that's for another day) norms seem odd or contradictory to you, how do you feel about epistemic norms? aka, norms about justified belief or foundational evidence? For proposition "there is a dog outside," it seems prima facie true the act of seeing the dog is 'better' evidence than my toaster going off, for example. What about moral norms makes them different?

look up a feller by the name of "Mark Passio" whatonearthishappeningnow freeyourmind etc


frittata

It's good to see folks appreciating XRA
Seriously I've brought it up on Veeky Forums for fucking years and see no one else mention it.
It's fucking Jodorowsky Machinima, maaaan

Xavier is the purple pill my dudes

A similar problem in the field of epistemology is that I only have access to _my_ experiences. Saying something is "real" is saying: it's part of my understanding of the world and I can't do anything to make it otherwise. About empirical things we can have no certainty.
About mathematics, I believe its independence of empirical data is due to its objects being the very conditions of experience. So talking about "reality" in this field is actually talking about the conditions of your experience (and believing that, probably, other people have the same conditions).
My stance on morality is that it's based on the will, that is, on desires, interests, and that every imperative is hypothetical, that the only categorical imperative is necessity or "destiny" (that is, something you really can't disobey). "Right" and "wrong" as things absolute are completely devoid of meaning to me. Even in Christianity, for instance, even though they talk about "absolute values", they actually embrace relativism, unconsciously: their actions are based on the hypothetical, "If I want to go to Heaven instead of going to Hell, then I have to ...".

More important question: What doth life?

If you've seen all of Xavier you already have all the answers you need in this regard.