@Bagpuss Bagpuss Lets first be clear what issue I was addressing in the initial comment. Rejecting any ground of value and meaningful life external to the horizon circumscribed by the historical, political, linguistic, and essentially intersubjective human condition does not mean that anything goes or everything is so relative to human whims that no ground for collective moral life can obtain. Sartre, along with many other thinkers, reject just this source of external ground. Now to your criticism. You seem to read the comment as claiming that the two statements “no one has the right to…” and “commitment to bringing about…” are in a logical equivalence relation. Why would I make that claim? The relation rather is twofold. It is relation of entailment in one direction and relation of ground to grounded in the other. Saying “no one has right…” entails “I am committed to…” the same as if I say “it will rain and I don’t want to get wet” entails “I will bring an umbrella” (if a couple latent premises are also held). In the other direction, the statement “I am committed…” grounds the statement “no one has the right…” the way “there is gravity” grounds the statement “the ball will fall back down.” What is unique about value beliefs is precisely this combination of entailment and ground. This is possible because the grounds for our value beliefs are not so explicit for us. They are practical commitments--forms of life--that express themselves in speech in ways that are meant to support and maintain that form of life, not in order to be truthful in any absolute sense. In this light, your second criticism is closer to the mark, though it is hardly a criticism. It is indeed a truism to say that whenever one asserts a value claim, they are committed to bringing about that value. However, this is not trivial. The speech act and the commitment entail and ground one another respectively. The speech act is intended to persuade that a certain form life is best (or worst), but the ground for accepting the claim is the prior practical commitment to that form of life. This is why no form of life is merely chosen or decided upon in principle and then implemented, but rather arises out of the intersubjective practical order within a historical situation. All attempts to assert values are attempts to make explicit one own commitments and to persuade that the life one aspires to and already aims to live ought to be valued by others.

@Bagpuss Bagpuss you are saying that I said those were equivalent. I didn't. So whatever you think you are criticizing, it might stand against that, but not regarding what I said.

@Bagpuss Bagpuss You literally wrote: "this claim is definitely NOT equivalent to their saying that..." which attributes to me a claim about equivalency, with your dumb capitalization and bold shrift thrown for quadruple emphasis. The two statements are not equivalent logically, I agree. That is why I'm not claiming they are. The relationship is that of entailment, and in that case your criticism is incorrect. Because, as I've tried to explain, I think that is precisely what a moral claim entails--that one is committed to a certain form of life and to the actions as well as further beliefs that will promote and protect that form of life. A certain form of existence in the world grounds our deepest moral commitments and is entailed by their explicit assertions. That is my point. I though I was communicating with someone a bit more competent than what you're showing in your last two comments.

To another video

You can one of Peters talks about this here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ob2UgMyVmajMaac.html

Yes, absolutely!

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ob2UgMyVmajMaac.html

@@Philosophy_Overdose thx! I've already watched it several times. It's great!

@@valdemarsousa I mainly put it there for others to be honest. But yeah, it's a great talk!

I think that middle ground collapses inevitably. Simple argument: What are people? What is the Self? If we concede the Self to have some inherent Nature, then we implicitly generate constraints on our actions based on that Nature. It’s via arguments from shared, common nature that we typically argue the moral treatment of others and the world. We’re part of the world, people are alike, our obligations converge etc. Sartre argued the world was ultimately Nothing. So he was free to be consistent in his relativism. But then we have only two places left to go: either A) The Self is also Nothing, or B) The Self is something, which since the world is Nothing, makes the Self everything. In A) there’s no reason to do anything and we’re in the most abject of nihilism. In B) there is only Will to Power, psychopathy might reign were the most powerful Will a psychopath’s etc. The world would be subjected to the Nature of this Will.

It’s cute how you hide your self awareness of your irrational bias behind claims of siding with rationality. You had a decent chance with sleepy readers, except I expect the name calling will wake them. I’m curious: why would you listen to or read about morality? You risk finding out that voting based on morality is a fundamental strike against freedom. In other words, your actions as an adult undermine the thing that allows you to live as one. Weird, huh

@@thomaskilroy3199 I don't recall Sartre arguing that the world is nothing. He definitely claims that the self is nothing. But I see your point.

@mike souza what? I'm sure that barely coherent mess of words makes sense to you, but you might be alone in that. It sure as hell makes very little sense to me. Why would voting based on morality be a strike against freedom? "Hide my self awareness of my irrational bias" are there rational biases? Name one. How can anyone hide their self awareness of a bias? If I'm aware of it, then it's no longer a bias. And if I'm not aware of it, then it's not self-awareness. Before my brain melts from trying to decipher your muddled musings, answer one question, did you vote for Trump more than zero times in your life? If yes, please go fck yourself.

Yeah? What's your thesis on?

Human rights philosophy on cultural relativism...am so sorry. Even though I try to distance it from the postmodern attributes so deeply integrated with the perspective.

Lol

What?! I'm not sure where exactly you got that. Nothing here is about epistemic relativism.

@@Philosophy_Overdose That's my point. He is treating moral relativism as if it were epistemic relativism.

@@valdiviacchi No, he does no such thing. I think you're just confused about what the argument is and what is being claimed.

So the point Paul Boghossian is making is that as soon as one tries to relativize morality to moral codes - whether societal or individual codes - one ends up eliminating the normativity or moral content altogether, and one is left with mere facts and descriptive content, rather than anything like the normative or moral content one needs. Now, that's not some confusion on his part, that's precisely the problem with moral relativism! That's part of the argument against it. And again, none of this has anything at all to do with relativism about non-moral matters at all. The point is just there's no way to hang on to morality without also rejecting relativism. For moral relativism isn't a coherent position, but simply collapses into a kind of nihilist view which does away with morality and normativity altogether.

@@Philosophy_Overdose First, "normativity" can deal with rules and language that do not imply moral obligations, i.e. the pawn ought to move one square to take the bishop. Morality states rules or language of ultimate and categorical value; this is a substantively different type of normativity. When a moralist states it is immoral for a storekeeper to lie, they mean telling the truth is an end-in-itself. If a storekeeper tells the truth because it is good for business but would lie otherwise, the storekeeper is not moral but immoral. Moral relativism does not claim to state a language of ultimate and categorical value; it is as you say a description. Second, the fact that this description of relativism may lead to nihilism, a state in which one has no concepts of ultimate value is not an argument against it. Under classical concepts, you cannot be a "witch relativist" epistemically because witches either exist or do not exist. If one says the existence of witches is relative to social or individual constructs, one has made an epistemic statement about the nature of witches and still cannot claim their existence is relative or subjective. However, one can be a "witch relativist" normatively, because the word "witch" may or may not be used and be useful in a language to mean things or concepts that do not exist beyond language, i.e., "his girlfriend is a witch". In this case, one is a sound and valid witch relativist. A moral relativist is not adopting a morality, they are stating a description about the nature of morality in so far as it exists. Even a nihilist is free then to make up a morality, moral codes, or whatever gives meaning to their life as an act of will --- whatever they make up is subjective to whatever they make up but it is still a code or whatever of ultimate value, i.e. C.S. Lewis “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” Ultimately, morality is what gives meaning to your life. Ethics is the means by which social groups control morality conflicts among their individual members. This relativism in no way negates the truth or power of the ultimate values of the individual morality.

No.

@@Philosophy_Overdose Not a fan?

@@Philosophy_Overdose hahaha! Perfect answer!

Read Max Stirner

@@Romeo-le2ez Watched a video today on you recommendation of Stirner. Interesting. Is the characterization of his views correct? Link: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mZORZLpez9fWh40.html