/lit/ - Literature

>>10543434
If only Hume had a hot stove...

This changes everything...

>>10543434
What if I enjoy the pain of the stove Sammy boy, where is your Non God now

>>10543434
>hand on a hot stove
>get a free meal
>this sucks

Spoken like a true Phil 101 prof

>twitter philosophy

Ben Stiller is probably more adept at philosophy, this guy is just a joke. Why do people take him seriously?

>ought's
>should's
Isn't this incorrect use of apostrophes?

>>10543434
>I can't get an "ought" from an "is", but I CAN *ought* from an *is*

>>10543440
>tfw you don't understand utilitarianism because you only eat in restaurants

>>10543434
Uh, sorry christards but he already analyzed your brains and proved you're all stupid.

>>10543434
I'll never forget this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDQzijl6El4

>>10543434
>step five
>goes to the ought with no justification at all

wtf

>>10543543
is there an intellectual that has engaged with Sam Harris that hasn't completely annihilated him?

I literally cannot think of a single one.

>>10543543
>10 seconds in and he's already reduced Harris' stance to Nazism
How is this man not a complete hack

>>10543680
He didn't do that really, just used it as an example of universality vs objectivity and how we could arrive at a system of universally, but not objectively, true morality.

Some powerful worldly entity can enforce or educate a population into a universal system of morality, but only divinity can inform an objective system of morality.

He doesn't argue that atheists can't be good people even, but that you can't have an objective system of good and evil without something or someone who stands above/outside the system. To be fair, the stance that Harris takes was shitshattered by Hume like 250 years ago so Craig doesn't really even have to try. He could have just shut up after identifying the difference between universal and objective systems of morality and still have won the argument from a technical perspective.

good ol Sleepy Sam

>>10543664
Ironically, Big Daddy Peterson. He also got BTFO by a fucking anti-natalist. Now all he needs is to be BTFO by a PUA / evo-psych fanatic and he'll have won the complete-intellectual-failure award

>>10543718
Peterson was not btfo because neither were capable of reaching a mutual foundation.

>>10543498
scientism

>>10543728
Peterson was BTFO because he needs a whole snowflake onthology of his own which is ocmpletely unrelated to anything real for his jungian pap to work

>>10543434

>assume that there are no ought's or should's in this univerise
>5/ If we should to do anything...

>Let's Assume

This is what he should just call his entire philosophical system.

Can learning how to do the eidetic reduction be the sine qua non of being a philosopher already? How many years has it been since phenomenology revealed substance ontology to be naive? When will understanding this become the baseline?

>>10543718

>>10543664
San Harris got his shit wrecked by a fucking cartoonist and got completely chadded off the stage by Batman. This dude is in the intellectual backwoods trying to figure out WTF a pathos is.

>>10543734
How is it unrelated to anything 'real'?

If it is lightning, it ought to thunder.

>>10543434
At the end, he still has not found a way of empirically finding out (is) what sucks (ought) so he's literally back at square one with a retarded breaux slang.

Just as a reminder, here's the time he got eternally BTFO by Noam Chomsky and then published it for some reason.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse

>>10543434
>sucks
>suck
cringy idiot

The is/ought problem is solved if you take an evolutionary process into account. What it boils down to is a question of how patterns are found from data. We observed an event and its outcome. From memory, if we come across a similar event, we can make predictions on the outcome. We can then take actions that can benefit us. So what we should do comes from what have experience before. The main problem that people confused is arguing over what exactly we "should" do since there can be an infinite actions that one can take. For this we have to look at evolution. Not all actions are the same. Of all the probable actions one can take, only the ones that contribute to survival will be left. Thus it's stupid to put your hand on a hot stove since it will damage you and your potential at reproduction. It's funny because whatever it is that you "should" do is in someway always connected to survival or reproduction. Either your own, your family, or your people. No exceptions.

So this is clearly flawed. Among other things like the obvious petito principiis and dogmatic assertions, it is flawed in one way:

Seven.

He draws attention to people being selfish and then assumes that people will do something that sucks less for people overall. Unbelievable that someone like him would make a mistake this obvious. Clearly if these non-believing atheist humans are as cold and dark as he wants us to believe (doing things for themselves) they would NOT and even RESIST being forced into a utilitarian task if it netted them less utils overall. Just saying, this is exactly an explanation of why NO ONE does anything good for everyone, because everyone does nothing good for no one. In other words, if there is a way to exploit others in Sam Harris' materialist explanation of the universe, they will find it out and proceed to apply it. Congratulations Sam Harris, you are a fucking retard!

>>10543841
>>10543841
>The main problem that people confused is arguing over what exactly we "should" do since there can be an infinite actions that one can take.
No it's not. The main problem is that people don't agree about what benefit would look like. People want different things.

>>10543543
Craig is a textbook sophist. Harris's views on moral objectivity are wack, however.

>>10543883

>Craig is a textbook sophist

Does he teach kids rhetoric for money?

>>10543728
Peterson wanted to ground the entire discussion in a deliberate confusion of truth and fitness, which is plainly intellectually dishonest. If you doubt that, he himself refers to it as "playful" in their follow-up podcast--an admission that what he was saying shouldn't be taken seriously.

Of course, it's obvious why Peterson (and other religion apologists) want to conflate fitness and truth--because the only empirically supported arguments they can make are about the social and psychological effects of religious belief, and not the actual ontological content of those beliefs. It's all smoke and mirrors: they want to take the uncontentious fact that religious beliefs can modify your behavior "for the better" and dress it up in language that makes it sound almost like it's the hard claim their interlocutor actually objects to.

>>10543841
>Itz just evolutions bro
Anglos were a mistake

>>10543918
Hate to break it to you, anon, but nobody can prove any ontological suppositions.

>>10543915
You caught me, I meant to invoke their unfavorable reputation and not their literal occupation. I'll accept whatever punishment you think is appropriate.

>>10543543
>Utterly DESTROYS OMFG BTFO ARGUMENT SNOWFLAKES
Americans were also a mistake

>>10543927

The sophists generally had an unfavorable reputation because they were moral relativists. Is WLC a moral relativist?

>>10543434
>Leave the philosophical equivalent on shitposting to me

>>10543926
I agree, but we needn't prove them to reason about their predictive efficacy.

>>10543943
Like how psychologists study the predictive impacts of belief on behaviour?

>>10543938
That's not the entire truth. See the Euthydemus. They were concerned with rhetorical tricks at the expense of clear reasoning.

>>10543918
But Peterson was right. Harris was going for true and false, Peterson was arguing for truth. True and false is only relative to how accurate a representations is in its prediction of reality. Harris was looking at truth strictly from a mathematical point of view where things are either true or false. Unfortunately reality is not so neat. Reality is more concern with actions than how accurate a representation is. Religious truth is tied to the actions that it's believers takes and not necessarily to the literal word about how the world is created.
It's like genetics. What is the truth of a sequence of dna code? This is a legitimate question to ask since this is concern with life. Harris would say DNA contains no truth and he would be arguable wrong.

>>10543956
Yes, exactly like that. If you thought I would dispute that, read my post again--I said those effects are uncontentious.

>>10543964

Sure, they didn't care about clear reasoning because they didn't believe there was A truth. They were relativists.

>>10543966
So you agree that there is no true ontological position, but we can comparatively study the impact of ontological belief on behaviour. Therefore, the only real reason to hold an ontological belief is due to evidence of its beneficial impact on behaviour. i.e., we can only really decide on truth with fitness.

>>10543969
One needn't be a relativist to be dishonest, and there's nothing in the Euthydemus that I recall that suggests they were interested in anything other than social prestige. I doubt they had any kind of serious commitment even to relativism.

In any case, it's obvious what I meant by my original comment, and your attempt to "correct" me about sophists had led to you being embarrassed by my actually being familiar with them.

>>10543841
>whatever it is they you "should" do is in some way always connected to survival or reproduction

>you should not rape
>you should not abort fetuses
>if you have an infant who's mentally retarded you should not leave him on the edge of a mountain to starve to death
>you should be okay with gay people marrying
>monks should stay celibate
>a Hindu should be vegetarian
>a soldier should sacrifice himself for his country
>you should kys

>>10543979
>Therefore, the only real reason to hold an ontological belief is due to evidence of its beneficial impact on behaviour. i.e., we can only really decide on truth with fitness.

No, you've missed the point--I suspect deliberately.

We can also measure things like, for example, the effect of prayer on outcomes, and determine that the ontological belief of the rough form "God responds to earnest prayers" doesn't have predictive efficacy. (If you dispute that this can be measured, then explain why we can justify beliefs with measures of psychological effects.)

>>10544000
Sure, but other beliefs do have impact on behavioural outcomes. So you can refine which beliefs actually have a significant impact (for example, on prosocial behaviour). This argument for fitness can determine what ontological truths people should believe, seeing as any ACTUAL ontological truth is impossible to know.

>>10543981

You seem to be under the assumption that the Euthydemus is the only source of information on the sophists. You can pretend to know what you're talking about all you like but you misused the term and while initially you admitted as much, now you're doing this silly shit. Nobody claimed that you have to be a relativist in order to be dishonest, I have now idea where you got that idea from.

>>10543997
Process of elimination is not the same as process of choice.
You should do a billion different things.
All of them except those that are in some way connected to survival and reproduction will be eliminated by time and nature. What you should do is what remains.

Go back and learn evolution. There's a reason why its a major philosophical thought that sprung an entire field of its own.

>>10544014
>argument for fitness can determine what ontological truths people should believe

Only in a tortured defintion of "should believe."

The thrust of the argument I am making is this: The fact that we do not have access to proof (in the logical, not colloquial sense) of any ontological position does not mean that all ontological positions have equal empirical probability. (You could take the position that empirical probability is meaningless--this is fine, but it is the end of any discussion.) If you grant any merit to empirical probability--which you clearly do in citing observed psychological effects--then you can reason probabilistically about ontological truths. Which is to say, we can make probabilistic estimates on the ontological status of claims like "God exists," and not just claims about social effects.

>>10544017
It isn't the only source of information. Please inform me of your source on the Sophists being in disrepute because of moral relativism, rather than rhetorical fallacies.

(My original response was sarcasm at your pedantry, because sophist is a well-known insult meaning a person who reasons fallaciously.)

>>10544038
But why does teaching towards an unattainable ontological certainty have more importance to you than reaching towards improved social effects using ontological beliefs?

>>10544054
*reaching

>>10544054
Perhaps it doesn't, but that's immaterial to the question of what category these beliefs belong to.

>>10544019
>There's a reason why its a major philosophical thought that sprung an entire field of its own.
Yes because we live in an age of dogmatic atheists whose opinions of scientific understanding is so bloated and confused they can't tell fact from fiction. You base your faith wholeheartedly to what can be observed, but you rest your faith completely in a theory that can literally NEVER be observed, except in conjecture concerning sediment which is most likely incorrect.

>>10544074
I think peterson is pretty open to the two truths doctrine, and has often said he thinks there are different kind of truths (i.e., ontological and pragmatic). It's Harris that can't seem to admit the reality of the second one, and (look at the OP twitter bs) tries to conflate them.

>>10544052

It's a lazy insult for people simply looking to dismiss others without having to explain their reasoning. It is ironically a sophism. As far as reasons to believe the sophists were relativists you can read any of the Greeks. Plato's Republic, Cirto, the Apology, or Aristotle's Organon. There's a good write up on it here.

https://cameronscottkarl.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/socrates-and-the-sophists-relativism-versus-realism/

If the Romans are your thing see what Cicero or Marcus Aurelius has to say about them. It's not a controversial position to hold that the sophists were relativists.

>>10544019
how do I know right now in this life which options will be eliminated by time and nature? You're putting the cart a little bit ahead of the horse here

>>10544113
>listing a bunch of stuff I've read

I'm curious where you think the Sophists are mentioned in Crito.

>>10544106
Saying there are "pragmatic truths" is a category error, and I contend it's intentionally deceptive. To say that we can produce social effects by causing people to believe things is not controversial. Why use the word "truth" to describe this phenomenon? Why call the Santa Claus story a pragmatic truth rather than a valuable fiction? I suspect because the arguer would prefer that we mistake their argument for so-called pragmatic truth for ontological truth.

As for Harris's strangely assertive objective utilitarianism, I have little to say in defense of it.

>>10544136

I'll take your preference for bickering over irrelevant shit for acquiescence. If you read those books how come you didn't know the sophists were relativists?

>>10544166
Interesting point. I'm just about to read William James principles of psychology so I'll take your opinion going in. Thanks anon.

>>10543942
shitposting is far more self aware than harris' verbiage

>>10543434
>it's another "ought" episode

>>10544168
Because I don't believe Sophists were uniformly relativists. By my recollection Socrates almost everywhere (according to Plato) criticizes them primarily for their focus on "speaking well" rather than speaking truth. There's an entire dialogue about exactly this whose name currently escapes me.

Here is my question to you: why ask me if I thought WLC was a moral relativist if sophist is understood to mean someone who reasons fallaciously? I interpret it as you attempting to reveal that I didn't understand what I was saying--hence why I "bicker over irrelevent shit", ie point out that you are citing stuff that doesn't actually contain what you say.

>>10544190

The use of rhetoric in itself is not bad or immoral and this is obvious when Aristotle makes the distinction between good and bad uses in his Rhetoric. The problem the Greeks had with the sophists wasn't merely that they were rhetoricians, it was that they were amoral rhetoricians. That is why they were disreputable. The idea that the sophists were disreputable because they reasoned fallaciously is especially stupid because anybody who gets an argument wrong is reasoning fallaciously. That in itself is not immoral or worth disrepute.

I asked you a question to clarify what you meant by "textbook sophist" and you didn't answer. Instead you got offended and acted like I was trying to "get" you.

>>10543434
>begs the question
>"if you call this begging the question, it's not because hot stoves"
Modern "philosophers"

>>10544239
Well are stoves indeed, as they say, hot?

If you don't mind me saying I think it is you who has been proven wrong, he is right, and the genius of his argument is the use of the stove. Again, in numbers 3 and 5, (again he uses this argument often because it is something he relies on, because of his genius of course) he says that his argument is valid because if you were to put your hand on a stove that would hurt. GENIUS. COULD YOU THINK OF A BETTER SUPPORT FOR MORALITY. CLEARLY MORALITY IS DETERMINED BY PEOPLE COLLECTIVELY TRYING AS HARD AS POSSIBLE NOT TO PUT THEIR HANDS ON A STOVE.

YOU FOOL. WITH THIS ARGUMENT, WE HAVE MADE PROGRESS. THE STOVES ARE THE ENEMY, NOT WORDS OR IDEAS. CLEARLY AS LONG AS STOVES EXIST WE WILL NOT BE SAFE. THEN SAM HARRIS WOULD ARGUE WE HAD REACHED A PLATEAU OF HUMAN EXCELLENCE A SORT OF NIRVANA IF YOU WILL OF HUMAN REASONING. ONCE STOVES DO NOT EXIST PEOPLE COULD NEVER HAVE EXPERIENCES THAT ----------SUCKED---------- SO THEN WE WOULDNT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THEM ANYMORE.

I AWAIT SAM HARRIS' OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION OF FURTHER EVENTS THAT '''''''''''CLEARLY SUCK'''''''''.

NO THIS POST ISNT SARCASTIC AT ALL. NOT AT ALL

>>10543937
>OMG BOOK IS THE COVER ONLY HURDUR

>>10543754
links for both please
cartoony and batman

>>10543434
I don't know what I dislike more, this moron or people that think Hume's opinion on the is-ought gap is the the definite truth of the subject.
Ship captains ought to behave like ship captains.

>>10543434
It reads stupidly but most of meta-ethics can't come up with a better answer than that. Either it's hand-on-stove arguments, or it's assertions about nature, or it's literally just "ethical statements express emotional attitudes"

>>10544239
>>10543450
>>10543440
>>10544279

As much as I think Harris is wrong about objective utilitarianism, I think his argument is better than the literal zero credit it's gotten in this thread.

His observation is not that hurting your hand points to some objective moral truth "out there", but rather that there are things that can be empirically verified as a universal aversion among human beings. If the question is, "What objective metric could there be for human conduct?" then one can point to an actual, empirical difference between certain kinds of conduct--namely, some of them hurt. You may not call that a moral statement, but is that more than an argument over semantics?

>>10544303
Or it could be, you know, God.

There was a thread recently that showed how God must have created objective morality, otherwise subjective morality would literally have nothing to gauge itself against if trying to determine whether it's subjective or not.

But to say it is biologically determined is clearly impossible, as you can see here. Unless you want to rely on stating that certain things are Darwinian-ly unpleasant experiences. Which is just plain retarded, but you can see it's what he's trying to do here.

>>10544303
>it's literally just "ethical statements express emotional attitudes"

You're not supposed to spoil the end of the syllogism. Some people want to figure it out for themselves.

>>10544309
Yeah I'm the guy who made the sarcastic comment. I understand. In fact, I sarcastically debated most of your post before you even made it. It's an excellent comment. Of prime quality. Look when I start to write in caps. That point right there is perfect to show you why defining morality as empirically verified universal aversions is just plain dumb.

>>10544315
>Or it could be, you know, God.
God's existence doesn't resolve the problem unless you believe divine command theory.

>>10544319
I would prefer that over most of the meta-ethical theories anyway desu

>>10544320
>In fact, I sarcastically debated most of your post before you even made it. It's an excellent comment. Of prime quality. Look when I start to write in caps. That point right there is perfect to show you why defining morality as empirically verified universal aversions is just plain dumb.

I assure you it's funnier when you read it to yourself.

>>10544326
Right, like God came down and gave instruction to those who follow him? Yes I believe that.

But before you harp on that, lets say I believed in God indirectly communicating with his people. What would you say to that? Anything at all? When I go over the fact that God communicates to everyone that exist in extremely personalized ways that only they can typically understand? In this way, I can take a transcendentalist approach towards receiving messages AS WELL AS the literal. And this works, but even without the literal it's evidence that God could show us how objective morality exists and even define it. Through signs, parables, and tales without directly communicating to us.

>>10544329
No one laughed against the post I made retard. Although I can guarantee you it made many people realize how foolish Sam Harris was.

>>10544331
The method of communication isn't what I mean to describe by divine command theory. I mean the ethical system in which "right action" is defined to be actions that conform to divine will. That is to say, there is no such thing as good independent of what God intends, precisely because he intends it. In this system, "God is good" is a tautology, true by definition.

This is, in my view, equivalent to moral nihilism, and is actually the most sensible religious ethics.

>>10543754
He beat Affleck only because he had the rest of the panel and the host on his side.

>>10544331

>>10544343
>Divine command theory (also known as theological voluntarism)[1][2] is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God

>The method of communication isn't what I mean to describe by divine command theory

I will grant you that wasn't exactly the purpose of me delineating the two different communication styles in my post. But that's not really the point. I really wanted you to pick one of them to address so I would have something to work with. But lets move on.

>I mean the ethical system in which "right action" is defined to be actions that conform to divine will
That's correct, yes.

>That is to say, there is no such thing as good independent of what God intends, precisely because he intends it.
Incorrect of course, because we are always progressing with religion. In other words, let us say I am a Muslim. I believe that God continues to interact with humanity and will not stop doing so until his truth is permanently known in the hearts of all of us. Pretty nice philosophy right? Well lets see how this defeats your assertion of permanence in morality. I understand Jesus was born. And what did Jesus do? He rewrote morality significantly for the Jews. I understand Gabriel came down. And what did Gabriel do? He informed us of God's will further.

In both instances though, as has been discussed elsewhere recently, morality changed. And God oversaw it. We are to imply from this that the divine objective morality is determined by God and God alone. His signs and messages push us in the right direction. So morality is objectively defined, objectively pushed forward. As we progress towards understanding God exists, we go towards a sublime reality of peace and contemplation.

> "God is good" is a tautology, true by definition.

Correct.

>This is, in my view, equivalent to moral nihilism, and is actually the most sensible religious ethics.
You and Nietzsche, who inevitably had to take a chaotic, aphoristic stance on the theory of morality. Even Darwinian, frequently referencing Herbert Spencer. It's just not a philosophy that resonates with me. Nor does it make any sense.

Read Kierkegaard for some reliable interpretations of how your will affects reality.

>>10543434
>DAE pain is bad?

>>10543728
Because Peterson had no foundation to begin with

sam, we need to have a talk. you skipped your appointment last week

>>10543937
Anything from the reformation onwards was a mistake

>>10543754
>being against islam is racist

batman is a retard desu

hot stoves ought to burn your hand

>>10543434
Nietzsche already BTFO Hume during his discussions of the in-themselves in Will to Power.

>10 people stuck on an island
>9 guys and 1 girl
>Gang rape sucks for 1 girl,
>but 9 guys love it.

>>10543434
>avoid things that suck
>there's BDSM, suicide, extreme sports, extreme quests, addiction in the world
>there are people who are even willing to burn themselves to prove a point (Buddhists during Vietnam War)

His argument hold true if people are rational robots. Unfortunately, they are not.

>>10545522
please share a quote

>>10543543
WLC is still a hack.

But that was pretty funny.

>>10544385
>Agnostics are the same as atheists.
I'm sorry that doubt in a God makes you so angry. I'm sorry you can't comprehend apathy towards something without evidence. Nope. I always love the double-negative of questioning my DISBELIEF of every possible supernatural event in the universe.

The Earth is hollow btw.

>>10545542
>Man seeks "the truth": a world that is not self-contradictory, not deceptive, does not change, a true world—a world in which one does not suffer; contradiction, deception, change— causes of suffering! He does not doubt that a world as it ought to be exists; he would like to seek out the road to it. (Indian critique: e.g. the "ego" as apparent, as not real.) Whence does man here derive the concept reality— Why is it that he derives suffering from change, deception, contradiction? and why not rather his happiness?— Contempt, hatred for all that perishes, changes, varies— whence comes this valuation of that which remains constant? Obviously the will to truth is here merely the desire for a world of the constant. The senses deceive, reason corrects the errors; consequently, one concluded, reason is the road to the constant; the least sensual ideas must be closest to the "true world."— It is from the senses that most misfortunes come— they are deceivers, deluders, destroyers.— Happiness can be guaranteed only by being; change and happiness exclude one another. The highest desire therefore contemplates unity with what has being. This is the formula for: the road to the highest happiness. In summa: the world as it ought to be exists; this world, in which we live, is an error— this world of ours ought not to exist. Belief in what has being is only a consequence: the real primum mobile is disbelief in becoming, mistrust of becoming, the low valuation of all that becomes— What kind of man reflects in this way? An unproductive, suffering kind, a kind weary of life. If we imagine the opposite kind of man, he would not need to believe in what has being; more, he would despise it as dead, tedious, indifferent— The belief that the world as it ought to be is, really exists, is a belief of the unproductive who do not desire to create a world as it ought to be. They posit it as already available, they seek ways and means of reaching it. "Will to truth"— as the impotence of the will to create.

>>10545588
interesting thanks. i've read the work he published during his life but never really got to the nachlass

might get started on that

>>10545632
No problem. His note 552 (Sprinq-Fall 1887) in that book, "Against determinism and teleology," covers the thing-in-itself problem at full length and is worth a read.

>>10545541
>piano keys/10

>>10543502
It's.

>>10543793
Why would you make that level of ownage public of your own accord. That was brutal.

>>10543793
>and then published it for some reason.
autism

>>10543434

Wasn't his post 4/ precisely the thing Hume has done away with? He is basically trying induction on the hard problem of conscience in a single sentence using something as frail as "if we knew all of physics we would know conscience" as his evidence. This is so asinine to read as a physicist, because emergent properties of complex systems such as conscience are simply not that much treatable by our most developed logical systems.

In short, we can't actually claim consciousness lies inside the domain of physics until we expand on the mathematical basis to (analytically, not through statistics and importance sampling like we do today) include emergence. All we can do so far is automagically derive properties from sampling over millions and millions of "trial cases", with no way to say if we are actually poking at something meaningful or simply exhausting phase space to get what we want.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like he's just pulling a soft Leibniz-ish argument instead of actually making any claims about utilitarianism in itself. i.e to me he's saying something more like "lul conscience is natural phenomena guys there is an equation guise lets solve it pls". Conscience might (we have no way of knowing right now) be purely material, as it seems very much to be, but still fundamentally unsolvable, therefore forcing us to resort to the kind of things Hume loves and hard utilitarians abhor.

>>10543434
What a brainlet. I'm a masochist and I love pain. If people enjoy pleasure is only because they have been socially taught to do so. There's no inherent human nature.

>>10543434
this is funny because pain is meaningless and has no truth value. you can’t derive an ought from something that merely is. there are no sign posts in nature for this kind of empirical moralizing. and in fact what is bad for many is good for some, and what’s good for the few may in the long term benefit a great many or be more worthy than the many’s benefit. Harris is a typical parasite

>>10543543
After seeing this I watched some more WLC debates and came across something pretty interesting.

Here is WLC fuming and shivering his hands and body after listening to Lawrence Krauss call him a blatant and deliberate liar for 5 minutes straight: https://youtu.be/Qb1-F_UEtS4?t=25m6s
timestamp 25m6s

WLC proceeded to ignore all the accusations and simply gave the demonstration that he had prepared to give.
I'm not on either WLC's or Krauss' side here, just thought it was interesting.
Golly I want to thank all who read this for reading!! Gonna watch the rest of the debate and keep you up to date.

>>10544388
>Incorrect of course, because we are always progressing with religion. In other words, let us say I am a Muslim. I believe that God continues to interact with humanity and will not stop doing so until his truth is permanently known in the hearts of all of us. Pretty nice philosophy right? Well lets see how this defeats your assertion of permanence in morality. I understand Jesus was born. And what did Jesus do? He rewrote morality significantly for the Jews. I understand Gabriel came down. And what did Gabriel do? He informed us of God's will further.
>In both instances though, as has been discussed elsewhere recently, morality changed. And God oversaw it. We are to imply from this that the divine objective morality is determined by God and God alone. His signs and messages push us in the right direction. So morality is objectively defined, objectively pushed forward. As we progress towards understanding God exists, we go towards a sublime reality of peace and contemplation.

I'm extremely confused by this response. Where did I assert the "permanence in morality"? In the very quote you're responding to, the only thing I say is that a concept of good independent of what God intends does not exist according to divine command theory, because "good" := God's will. This is perfectly consistent with different actions being moral in different times, or a "significant rewriting of morality," as you put it, so long as the God issues temporally contingent commands. You're arguing against a position I never espoused.

>Read Kierkegaard for some reliable interpretations of how your will affects reality.
Is this not a non-sequitur? Nowhere did I talk about human will affecting reality.

>>10543434
>avoid suffering
impossible.
you mean confront?

>>10543434
>some things suck therefore there's things we should do
lol he couldve just mentioned the missing shade of blue if he wanted to btfo Hume

>>10543434
still smarter than JP

>>10546474
Not really, though.

Am I wrong to say his tweetstorm basically amounts to

>subjective like and dislike (the "is") forms the basis of objective good and bad (the "ought").

which is a slightly more sophisticated rendering of

"if it doesn't hurt anyone it isn't wrong"

which is the average teenager's understanding of decision making?


Without being too cute, I think one can make a serious argument (assuming Harris is correct) that the extinction of the species is preferable to its continued existence, since the former at least guarantees a cessation of pain at a future date.

>>10544128
How did you get here right now? You're parents must have survive and their parents must have survive. All your senses that you have, disgust, pleasure, and so on have been modulated by 3 billion years of evolution. It's a gamble for sure. You have to sort out what is useful from the past but also account for potential new ideas and behaviors that may also work. It's order and chaos and both are crucial to survive in this universe. The Taoist are right in this aspect. For example your children are similar to you but they are not an exact copy. Why would nature do this? If you manage to survive then why would nature not have your children be an exact copy of you instead of having you mix your genes, and mix it through the process of meiosis in which almost all sperms are genetically different, with another human being? The answer is that there is no permanence, the environment will change.

>>10546241
>Golly I want to thank all who read this for reading!!
ur welcome b :3

>>10543434
I can't believe there are people who take this man seriously. This is about as thought-provoking as a 20 year old college student rambling about the universe while high on weed.

Never forget Sammy got rekt by an antinatalist. He went up against the stupidest philosophy in the world and lost.

>>10543502
It's not incorrect if it's widespread.

>>10544309
>but is that more than an argument over semantics?
Yes.

>>10543434
*You* suck, you feggit.

>>10544293
cartoony is the dilbert guy, Scott Adams.

>>10543734
>>10543918
t. Brainlets who think they live in a linguistically constructed fantasy world devoid from their concious selves.

>>10543434
Serious question: what should science do now that it convinced us all not to touch hot stoves?

I never understood is from ought issue. I do it daily to improve things.

Wtf was Humes issue then

>>10543927
You have to nut in my mouth

>>10547569
You could answer this question by reading Hume

>>10546772
Saved. Where do these anti-Chomsky memes come from?

>>10546241

Wow. /lit/ still hasn't outgrown subjectivity/objectivity.

>>10547876
jesus christ

>>10547920

Pfft

He's not even real.

>>10543543
>TFW THE CAMERA CUTS TO SAM

J U S T

>>10547876
i read the betas comment as “as long as she’s not cheating on me”

>>10543434
>if you disagree with me put your hand on a hot stove
Can we really let utilitarians, of all people, get away with this?

>>10543793
404

>>10543793
Did Harris delete this because he realized he was raped?

>>10549377
>>10549388
http://archive.is/mIklC

>>10549409
>Two faggots having a pillow fight

>>10549409
>>10549388
>>10549377
https://samharris.org/the-limits-of-discourse/

This one was good too:
https://samharris.org/podcasts/112-intellectual-dark-web/

I'm still not sure if just Sam is pretending to be retarded to get that fedora reddit money or if he's for real.
Sometimes he's reasonable, but when it comes to morality and religion he can't seem to make any progress, he gets stuck on "b-but surely we KNOW that some things just suck, right?".

>>10546570
He addresses this

It seems the experience of existence is net positive even now, and who knows how good it could be, therefore sacrificing all future consciousness' that could experience these states would be bad.

If you practice meditation you can confirm this, pretty much no matter what's happening to you the raw experience of reality is pleasurable. That's why monks can burn themselves alive and it's still probably at least decent if one knows how to focus their attention.

>i-its just common sense!
This is how Sam Harris actually thinks. But what else can you expect from a bourgeois monkey of middling intellect?

>>10549512
>It seems the experience of existence is net positive even now, and who knows how good it could be, therefore sacrificing all future consciousness' that could experience these states would be bad.
Is this really his position? That's quite retarded.

>>10549512
>It seems the experience of existence is net negative even now, and who knows how bad it could be, therefore not sacrificing all future consciousness' that could experience these states would be bad

>If you are a starving 10 year old girl being raped in a third world country you can affirm this, pretty much no matter whats happening to you the raw experience of existence is suffering. Thats why people can even overcome their survival instinct and kill themselves.

>>10549553
You don't even have to go down that route. It's just internally inconsistent (or at least spotty) to posit that moral evaluation and "oughts" are derivable from certain mental states related to sensations (pleasure and pain, that is), and then go ahead and declare the total absence of mental states to *also* have a certain moral value.

"Nonexistence" as a net negative for the nonexistent makes no sense if your whole value system depends on experience.

You guys insult Harris but this is how many other philosophers operate. They don't get called out because they're leftists

>>10549584
But Sam is a leftist.

>>10549584
>You guys insult Harris but this is how many other philosophers operate.
They're shit too. Harris gets called out constantly because he's constantly fucking talking. Always. Everywhere.

>>10543434
You should also include this

>>10549633
So he solves the is/ought problem by saying 'we don't need to justify oughts'.

>>10549656
What if we don't?

He makes a good point when he says, if you had every single "Is" in the universe, you have every single fact about everything that could possibly be known, what more would you need to get an ought?

>>10549664
Well that's fair enough, but then you don't end up with a universal morality but just with a wide array of muh feels. You end up with Hume again.

>>10543680
He didn't do that at all you fucking moron.

>>10543918
>Know everything there is know to know about humans as evolved animals.
>Know all our directives and where they come from on the evolutionary scale (from being humans, mammals, what we were before we split from crustaceans, etc)
>Know what directives are most important and how to follow them to lead us to the most happy and fulfilled life.

It's amazing how much Sam would agree with Peterson if he got passed his religion apologist mental alarm portrayed by anon here >>10543918

They could have gone so much farther in their debates if Sam saw Peterson as a psychologist trying to interpret human myths to best understand human values instilled in us as evolved animals, rather than someone trying to redefine truth to save religion.

>>10549696
Meant to quote the op in my first quote.

>>10549633
1.
Nonsense. "People" who acknowledge the Is/Ought problem and move on from there, instead of being impossible faggots about it, are generally not opposed to normative ideas. They simply don't ground those ideas in moral realism.

2.
Well, good, shut the fuck up then. We already have enough coherent practical philosophy; no one needs your harebrained and consistently poorly worded garbage.

3.
Yeah, because "pointless misery" is bad by definition, you mongoloid. That's not what this whole debate is about. It's about whether or not normative truths can be derived from descriptive ones, something that you yourself are apparently denying. Just like the people you're arguing against. I hate you.

4.
No one imagines this. People who refer to the Is/Ought problem when it comes to the universality of ethics are not holding ethics to a higher standard than physics or mathematics. They're simply pointing out the observable fact that there *is* no universality outside of definitional tautologies like your retarded "Pointless misery is miserable and pointless" shit. There may be universality in *sensation* (the stove thing), but not in *evaluation*.


TL;DR, Harris sucks and his output causes pointless misery, therefore, he should be avoided.

>>10549696
>muh jung

this disqualifies peterson as anything but a hack no matter how much he talks about lobsters

>>10549709
What about how Peterson talks about Jung upsets you anon?

How can Sammie Stovetop be so universalist but also so exceptionalist?

>>10549726
the fact that he actually buys into that arbitrary nonsense. it's like freud for larpers instead of jewish perverts.

>>10549735
What arbitrary nonsense doe Jordan buy into?

>>10549756
jungian psychology

>>10543434
>Guys... Guys. Guys, listen to my podcast. Please.

>>10547818
fb dot com slash corpusmemes

>>10549771
What do actually know about Jungian psychology? Do you hate all philosophers anon?

>>10543793
My dear God, what was he thinking?

i obviously know who hume is but never heard of sam harris, who is he again?

Checkmate, boys.

>>10549728
Listening to the Sam Harris podcast at 1.25x speed, I drain my soylent in one chug before writing "palestine = stove?" in white permanent marker on my dorm room window.

>>10549588
No he's not, he's a 'classical liberal'

>>10551452
Sounds like you just want to smear people who call themselves that. Harris just refers to himself as a liberal.

>>10551501
liberal doesn't necessarily mean leftist you american faggot

>>10551196
>Jung
>philosopher
and this is why petersonfags are unbearable, do you also think clean your room kermit is a philosopher

>>10549664
um no sweetie... the whole point is that knowing how the universe is doesn't tell you how it ought to be.

>>10551540
I didn't say it does, you clown. I just corrected your lie. He doesn't call himself a QUOTEUNQUOTE classical liberal.

>>10543434
3 and 4 aren't remotely related

>>10551606
my bad, assumed you were somebody you weren't

>>10551562
puerile

>>10547876
>Giant spaghetti monster for life

>>10551562
I never said Jung was a philosopher you fucking moron. I asked two questions and you didn't answer either of them, instead slinging in ridiculous ad hominim nonsense.

>>10543793
Noam Chomsky came off as an asshole and full of himself here desu

>>10547876
>old testimony

>>10543543
>X COMPLETELY ANNIHILATES Y

Why are these videos a thing?

>>10551710
Americans

>>10551710
my internet dad can beat up your internet dad

>>10543731
this

>>10551688
>implying your question was addressed to me
welcome to 4chan btw

>>10551765
>implying
Kek, no I didn't. You might enjoy it here more if you can reign in the projections just a tad. Why focus on such petty nonsense?

>>10551790
>What do actually know about Jungian psychology? Do you hate all philosophers anon?
>I never said Jung was a philosopher

>>10551948
Just pre-empting the criticism of "unemperical".

>>10543793
>Imagine that al-Qaeda is filled, not with God-intoxicated sociopaths intent upon creating a global caliphate, but genuine humanitarians. Based on their research, they believe that a deadly batch of vaccine has made it into the U.S. pharmaceutical supply. They have communicated their concerns to the FDA but were rebuffed. Acting rashly, with the intention of saving millions of lives, they unleash a computer virus, targeted to impede the release of this deadly vaccine. As it turns out, they are right about the vaccine but wrong about the consequences of their meddling—and they wind up destroying half the pharmaceuticals in the U.S.
Keked audibly at this for some reason

The only thing that sucks is little Sammy H

>>10543793
>I doubt that we would have achieved this level of cantankerousness in a face-to-face exchange.
Holy shit who talks like this? wtf i hate Sam Harris now

>>10552083
congrats stiller, you've made the words "thought experiment" the sign of an idiot

>>10543434

I don't understand how did this thread spark so much discussion when Harris is either clearly trolling or clearly acting out of retard. Hume's guillotine has since long been derived as an important tenet of many instances of logic up to and including AI research. This is not an appeal to authority but rather, a statement about how much ground he will have to cover if he truly wants any of what he said to stand ground. And he didn't even start covering it with that silly naturalistic/moralist fallacy (a combo! Typical utilitarian).

>you should do what's good for yourself
That's self-evident because it is its own reward. Let's extend this proposition, not in Harris' way, but in the obvious one, and we arrive at the contrary to what he wants. My only code is to do what benefits me, even at the expense of my neighbor. It's logical for me to take his money if it will help me evade the hot stove of tedious labor and lost time.
>b-but you're more likely to be successful if you adhere to societal codes
Only because of and insofar as we live in a society designed to enforce what he considers moral. A common thief is probably less evil than many bankers and politicians, but he is much more likely to receive punishment for his acts.

>>10543793
>d then published it for some reason.
because faggots only think of winning and not about finding the truth

>>10553193
Well, Sam Harris is still a moron, so I don't suppose he took very much from this experience.

>>10553207
>projecting

>>10543434
I haven't tried forcing others to consult the oven yet. I bet I'd enjoy that experience, and eventually they'd stop suffering altogether in the eternal fashion, or at the very least in the provable ways.

I ought to try this, or not?

>>10543543
I used to think /lit/'s faith was a meme

>>10553252
I bet you were wrong about God, too.

>>10553274
which one

>>10543498
>wow this is one heck of a BIG IDIOT xD
There isn't even an attempt to legitimize this claim. This same critique could be applied to any individual throughout the history. This is a lazy, meaningless whine and a blemish on literary history that any reasonable mind would be ashamed of producing.

>>10553284
All of them, in all likelihood.

>>10553290
I don't have enough souls to suffer all those promised afterlives

>>10553288
Go away Sam

>>10551710
search engine optimization

>>10553295
>I know all about all the gods and explanations
Note that I didn't say all gods were speaking the truth, value truth or actually anything about them. I just said you are wrong about all of them.

In the reductionist world view they are merely memetic processes that control behavior of humans (and their environments through humans). Cogs in the grand process, similarly to you. So why go against them?

>>10543543
>if there's no god everything is pointless and meaningless
I swear Christians were the true nihilists all along.

>>10553312
>if there's no god everything is pointless and meaningless
Rather, you can not make truth claims about their positive values from an atheistic perspective. You can merely have opinions after that. Of course, different systems of belief can include transcendent and objective values, including many of those Christians deem holy.

How important is it that you care about this? Can you change the fact? Can I? What is the optimal stance, and in regards to what? You can not make objective claims after that point. Only temporary ones. All of your opinions will end with you, and you can be ended by others through a multitude of processes. The state can hate your opinions and lock you up to shut you up, to prevent the spread of your opinions. You won't like it, but those controlling the state will. So who is correct? You or them in this hypothetical? If it is neither, wouldn't you rather stay out of that prison?

>I swear Christians were the true nihilists all along.
Not at all. All good is simply founded in God in the truest sense to a Christian, including truth itself. Take God away, and all loses its meaning. Truth? Why bother! Alternatives might be far better to [whatever limited interpretation of anything my logical, stubborn or emotional nature dictate].

>>10553302
isn't it truly reductionist to say all gods are just metaphors for human behavior

>>10553347
I just used a reductionist model, and stated it. I don't think that's the limit of them, but it is the least we can objectively state about them. Least! Expanding on those claims goes along the lines of theology (of each school and possible school) and it can even change those claims ultimately, even through phases like 'That is an insult to God!' similarly as it is an insult to use reductionism on anything else. Art, people, experience...

>>10553333
Threes.

Nice post man. God bless.

>>10553347
Yes. But it is unifying, or even transcendent, to say all of reality is united by one God.

Essentially Polytheism is a very childish position, very chaotic. Truly, we have moved on from this concept culturally because we have grown as a civilization.

>>10553362
Polytheism is still pretty big, my dude.

>>10553367
No, it is illogical. It doesn't make sense to believe in Polythiesm.

There is evidence for monotheism, no such evidence for Polytheism.

>>10553362
>because we have grown as a civilization.
The idea grew us by changing our hearts. The new perspective gave way for new lands, dubbed 'the kingdom of God'. As a civilization we seem to have trouble staying there. The risk is between every generation, especially true today with mass media and government controlled public education.

>>10553370
>No, it is illogical.
Logic was invented by a pagan, my man :^)

>>10553378
The users of logic can make logical mistakes, but arguably not during the time they use it.

>>10553370
There is no evidence for monotheism that is not also for polytheism

>>10553438
The nature of time and the Universe leans towards a single cosmic creator and rule of law, rather than a competition. Though recently there have been a rising number of chaotic elements challenging this claim. Potentially resulting from Egregore (taught by Jesus Christ Himself).

>implying Harris' entire infantile philosophical system wasn't invalidated by a Real Humean Bean:

>skip to 27 minutes
https://samharris.org/podcasts/evolving-minds/

>>10553438
t. never even heard of aristotle

>>10543434
Masochists. What now, Sam Harris you big dumb retard?

>>10543434
>this guy is one of the modern era's most eminent intellectuals
holy fucking christ

What if what sucks for me doesn't suck for you? hurr durr why do people do bad things? Because they're GOOD for THEM. I am flabbergasted.

''April 27, 2015
From: Noam Chomsky
To: Sam Harris

Easy to know why you’re unaware of my having written about your work. I haven’t done so.''

Oh fuck

>>10543434
He's not wrong imo. I've never understood this "can't derive an ought from an is" shit, it sounding good doesn't necessarily make it true.

Assuming your goal is not to die, you ought not drink cyanide.
Assuming your goal is keeping your job, you ought to show up to work.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic here, please tell me the error of my thinking, why I can't use my personal goals as a basis for example. This is essentially what Harris is doing here too, "our goal should be to reduce the suffering of conscious creatures, because as conscious creatures we know suffering absolutely sucks and is something nobody would want." And I agree with him here too.

>>10553887
You're begging the question. How do you determine those "personal goals" in the first place? How do you know they are Good? If you had to set "societal goals" could you do it? How would you justify it, if so?

>>10549633
>>10543434
I think what's funny about his stove example, is that it disproves the exact point he's trying to make.

Yes, putting your hand on a stove is painful, but we don't consider it "evil" if someone were to deliberately put their hand on a stove. We don't arrest a guy who does this either.

This is so fucking funny to me, why does he not ask himself whether putting your hand on a stove is evil? It's an elementary question if you're going to give that example.
In fact it seems to me that he is stating in his tweets that putting your hand on a stove is an evil deed? I mean we fucking know it isn't lol

>>10543434
>Where were you when Sam Harris BTFO David Hume?
Not giving a slightest fuck, that's where.

>>10553972
Nvm I'm confusing is and ought myself I think.
Confusing terms

>>10553972

Evil isn't even a factor in his logic. The root of his morality is in pain (or suckiness) ie : ''what causes me pain suck''. Suppose it's true for all sentient beings, the moral imperative then becomes to reduce as much pain as possible. Evil then is simply the act of causing pain. Harris, I think, uses the stove example to discredit anyone who might say ''can you really demonstrate that pain is bad ?'' ; he argues that we cannot postulate against it because we ultimately rely on our sensations.

Since pain is a physical phenomenon, knowing all the natural laws and ways to affect the natural world would give us all the means to reach a world where there is the least possible pain.

Consequently morality is simply the application of ''facts'' generated by science to reduce the total sum of ''suckiness''.

Many ways to argue against this.

You could say that ''suckiness'' is not reducible to a physical phenomenon, or that it's mostly bound by conventions or norms etc...

You could say that we cannot have full knowledge of the natural world, or even that the natural world cannot really help us in determining a better morality.

You could say he's committing Moore's naturalistic fallacy by equating good with a natural property.

You could even argue that if the only moral imperative is to reduce suckiness, the only logical conclusion is to end all sentient life (ie antinatalism), something Harris would never admit.

The best course of action is probably to disregard this clown.

>>10543434
Exercise is painful. Does that make it wrong/evil?

Asking for a 300lb friend.

>>10553887
>I've never understood this "can't derive an ought from an is" shit, it sounding good doesn't necessarily make it true.
It is true, though. Your examples don't derive ought's from is's, they just present situations wherein goals (i.e., ought's) have already been established.

>>10553972

Also, another possible refutation is this

1) Harris places the lack of suckiness as the source of the ''good''

2) suckiness being a physical phenomenon can only be experienced by conscious subject

These two premises give us no imperative to act for others, since, as a result of his logic, your actions can only be positive if they have served to reduce your ''experience of suckiness'' (which can only be understood as a physical phenomenon) and that often acting for the sake of others will NOT make you feel good. In fact, his premises command to act out of self-interest only and not even for the sake of reciprocal advantages since the only criteria for what is good is what feels good (or rather what doesn't feel bad).

>>10543434
>Third fucking premise

>>10543434
>Fifth fucking premise

Does this nigga understand that he simply derived an "ought" from an "is".

>>10554050
That's not a refutation of his shit attempt at bridging the Is/Ought problem, though. It's just pointing at the (negative) logical consequences of his premises. Someone more committed than him could easily respond to your criticism by saying, "Yeah, it's a wholly egocentric system. So what?".

>>10553842
I read this in my head in his emotionless dry voice and my heart warms up

>>10554062
Nah more like he just popped an ought out of nowhere and assumed it to be valid

>>10554016
>Suppose it's true for all sentient beings, the moral imperative then becomes to reduce as much pain as possible.
Only for yourself or others in so much as it pains you. Really it's such a dumb suggestion that I'm baffled people take this moron seriously.

>>10543434
>tfw linked this to a friend who likes Harris as an example against his credibility, an instance of ridiculousness
>tfw he found the argument presented convincing and is now bombarding me with pejoratives for suggesting otherwise

>>10554151
Link your friend to this thread.

>>10554151
nu atheists should all be killed

>>10554175
not if we get you first, theist..

>>10554269

>>10544309
When you use the analogue of intentionality of sensation as a bedrock for the grounds of some sort of universal aversion, you've fucked yourself into a corner. And it's hard to care about the meat and potatoes when it's smeared with shit.

>>10554151
>>10554285
What about people who choose to live by the designs of an authority figure do atheists hate so damn much? Is it a deep seated insecurity, an incapacity to become a proper authority figure while being too defiant to accept another authority figure? Is it repressed homosexuality or just plain autism? I have more admiration for your average soldier than these twits.

>>10543434
>Harris on MY board
Did 15 year old Redditors suddenly migrate?

>>10543440
My first experience with Humes was his essay on niggers
Good shit

>>10554408
>My first experience with Humes was his essay on niggers
>essay
>literally a footnote

>>10554408
>In JAMAICA indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but 'tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.
top bantz

>>10553948
How am I begging the question?
The goal IS not to die, that's the is. So I ought not to drink cyanide (that'd breach that goal, in this example).

Good is irrelevant in these scenarios. If I had to set societal goals I'd set them to minimize human suffering as good as possible or something along those lines.

>>10554028
Ah, I see. So "my goal is X" isn't an is but an ought. Is "I want to avoid suffering" an is or an ought? It's innately human so where would it fall? Humans want to avoid suffering and death so they ought not drink cyanide or whip their balls all day long (for those who don't find that pleasurable).

>>10554016
>You could say that ''suckiness'' is not reducible to a physical phenomenon, or that it's mostly bound by conventions or norms etc...
Still sucky no matter what the cause. If we can fix the cause, great.

>You could say that we cannot have full knowledge of the natural world, or even that the natural world cannot really help us in determining a better morality.
I don't see how the former claim matters much and I don't see how the latter is justified. We don't have full knowledge of what constitutes health, but we know smoking is bad just like we know torturing people randomly for fun is bad for the individual being tortured. If we define morality as "maximizing human well-being" as he does then I don't see why we couldn't use the natural world to help us along in that pursuit.

>You could say he's committing Moore's naturalistic fallacy by equating good with a natural property.
You could say that, but that doesn't mean we should care about it. We can say our court system applies Moore's naturalistic fallacy by equating the pain an abused infant feels with "bad". So? We all agree it's bad and that's fine.

>You could even argue that if the only moral imperative is to reduce suckiness, the only logical conclusion is to end all sentient life (ie antinatalism), something Harris would never admit.
His argument is something like "the good of life outweigh non-life". Not sure, he had a podcast with some anti-natalist but I can't really remember that much of it.

>>10554497
When I say that someone is a good dancer, the word "good" in this sentence has a non-moral meaning.
When I say that dancing is good for your health, the word "good" still has a non-moral meaning. Here I can say: if you want to be healthy, you ought to dance. But this ought says nothing about how morally good or evil it is to dance.

When you say that you want to avoid suffering, you are stating an "is" statement. From this statement you can conclude that you ought to avoid suffering.
However, this ought has no moral connotations. Just because you want to avoid suffering, doesn't mean that suffering itself is evil.
In fact, this is evident: Placing your hand on a stove is a stupid deed, but not an evil deed. You can make no moral conclusion from the fact that your hand hurts when it's put on a hot stove.

>>10554557
>good or evil
I'm assuming you're going by the definition meaning approximately moral or immoral and I'd agree. You can't be moral to yourself, only others.

>When you say that you want to avoid suffering, you are stating an "is" statement. From this statement you can conclude that you ought to avoid suffering.
How so? Makes perfect sense to me, if I want to avoid it, I ought to avoid it. If I want to have food, I ought to go buy it, etc. Otherwise the stated goals, which I (or by extension, we, if we agree to them) want, won't be reached.

Right, suffering is neutral but it's something that nobody enjoys, and we're all humans and can band together and say, "right, fuck suffering. Let's work to alleviate that and label reducing suffering onto others moral and the opposite as immoral." By this definition, which is the only one I feel has any weight, evil (meaning immoral etc) wouldn't be a problem as you used the words in your examples. If you're using another definition of the word, feel free to state it so I know what you're talking about. Anyway, I have yet to see any better idea of what should constitute morality, if you have one, feel free to let me know.

Also, nobody said placing your hand on the stove is evil, I'm not sure where this is coming from. Just a strawman or am I missing something?

>>10554639
Sorry, I read "can" as "can't". The rest of my post still applies though. I suppose the main gist in any case is "if we want to care about something, and we have to due to society and blabla, this seems like it." To be clear, from my point of view morals are something we agree upon, we can agree we should center it on well-being and then act accordingly. Not everyone might agree, which is already the case with any moral framework. And that we should base it on well-being isn't objective either, just like any other moral framework.

>>10553296
nah he is right, provide counterarguments

>>10554663
>Right, suffering is neutral but it's something that nobody enjoys, and we're all humans and can band together and say, "right, fuck suffering. Let's work to alleviate that and label reducing suffering onto others moral and the opposite as immoral." By this definition, which is the only one I feel has any weight, evil (meaning immoral etc) wouldn't be a problem as you used the words in your examples

You may want to label suffering as immoral, but that doesn't make it so. As I showed, putting your hand on a stove is not an immoral act, even if Harris insists on assuming it to be so.

>Also, nobody said placing your hand on the stove is evil, I'm not sure where this is coming from. Just a strawman or am I missing something?

That's exactly the claim Harris is making (his conclusion in tweet 8). He is making a moral ought from an is. He is saying that the statement "you shouldn't put your hand on a stove" is equal to the statement "putting your hand on a stove is immoral'. Once again, I have no problem with the non-moral ought of not putting my hand on a stove. I have a problem with the moral ought.

>>10543434
>dualism

how did the thread get 200 replies without anyone pointing this out

>>10543740
Actually the mark of a true philosopher is surviving a war.

>>10554823
>You may want to label suffering as immoral, but that doesn't make it so. As I showed, putting your hand on a stove is not an immoral act, even if Harris insists on assuming it to be so.
Neither Harris nor anyone else is claiming this, this is simply a strawman /lit/ has built in this thread. Burning hand is an example of suffering, bestowing this upon others is what he would call immoral. That's it. Forcing someone else to have his/her hand on the stove would be immoral since morality is between you and someone else and not you and yourself. Why don't you just represent his argument accurately and then debunk it rather than attack a strawman?

>label suffering as immoral
No. Having this as the working definition of morality
>"imposing suffering onto others as immoral and the opposite as moral". Whether an act is or not follows. Hand on the stove wouldn't be, unless someone forced you against your will to have it there.

>>10544190
Sophists were sophists becuase they just wanted to win in a debate not arrive at any particular truth.
Calling someone a sophist is calling them philosophically disingenuous

>>10549664
Didnt hume btfo the principle in the uniformity of nature? Through the is/ought.
Like maybe it is semantics
Whats the difference between an assumption and an ought?

Is sam saying we should trust our assumptions?

>>10554918
I'm done I can't explain it any clearer. You're a retard

>>10554016
Pain is the product of a biological truth.
It isnt nessicarily the pain. But how the pain is caused.
Context seems to be very important to morality.

>>10555046
>can't explain
Maybe you're the retard.

>>10554918
Why should I care about not hurting other people? Harris says nothing to this effect.

>>10543434
>"Philosophy for Pseuds" the thread

>>10554856
>Conscious minds are a natural phenomena
seems more to imply the mind is a substance

>>10543434
>let's begin the argument by making a monumental assumption without any investigation or intellectual rigor whatsoever
>t. Harris, a brainlet champion for brainlets

>>10545588
How is this BTFO Hume? Hume saw that all Is-Ought bridgings were fallacious. But he didn't know why. Whereas Nietzsche realised why people try to bridge it in the first place, and that explains why it does appear falllacious to strong intellects (who decipher the projection of impotency into oughts).

tl;dr
Oughts in reality are just the commands of the strong men.
But the weak, the moralists, inverted this, believing oughts are prescriptions coming from nature/god (the slave perceives commands coming from outside, not inside)
Hume saw that their arguments were weak but didn't know why, that their concept of ought was itself a fiction, an inversion of reality.

>>10546471
>lol he couldve just mentioned the missing shade of blue if he wanted to btfo Hume
Is that not hume's epistemology rather than ethics? Basically the limit of empiricism before the Kantian turn in mind?

>>10543434
>you say that because there is no free will and all actions are pre-determined so therefore all things that happened couldn't have happened any other way but i don't like the way these things happen and sincerely try to avoid therefore there are things that ought to be a certain way even thou they couldn't be any other way

>>10543434

1. OK
2. OK
3. OK, but a sage might disagree.
4. Not good. Spurious logic. Conjecture.
5. Terrible. No logic again. Many religious traditions completely disagree.
6. Contradicts point 5
7. Conjecture.
8. Puerile dreck, and mere repetition.

Harris defeats himself. Hume doesn't notice.

>>10553887
if there is no free will and no ability to choose then all things that are, are the way that they are and there is nothing else to it. you may not like somethings and change them but you are just another phenomena among others without an ought. Ought to and Is an ultimatium isn't a matter of I don't like some things or somethings are bad it is are we capable of changing things or are all things simply destined to be. Sam completely misses this point and has despite studying it, pursuing it, giving away ten thousand dollars for it, and continually claiming to have solved it and being disproven he cannot grasp this basic concept and it is frustrating to watch him struggle

>>10543434
>hey i wrote this thing in a book that says morality is based on what feels good and not what feels bad and if anyone can prove it wrong they can have ten thousand dollars
>Ought to is appears
>fuck i lost ten thousand dollars and look like an idiot. I need to make a point and redeem my philosophy.
>I know I will claim that morality is based on what feels good and not what feels bad.

>>10554541

The cause matters because the helpfulness of the natural world depends on how reducible his idea of ''suckiness'' is.

I guess you're right, but why should Morality be ''maximizing human well-being''? Or rather, what is well-being exactly?

The court system is ultimately pragmatic. I don't think we can allow such leeway to something fundamental like the logic behind our conception of morality. There's also something dangerous in that, as we could all agree on something being bad, while it were in fact something neutral or even good. It's not rare for other cultures to have rituals or traditions which are opposite to our sensibilities...

I really don't think someone like Harris can answer anti-natalism. How does he justify life with his position?

>>10554066

It's not really meant to refute his logic, but show the absurdity it leads to. If X reasoning seems valid but leads (necessarily) to Y consequence, it can probably be dismissed on that ground. The egocentric aspect of utilitarian morality has always been a big problem for it.

>>10557721

>When Nabokov does Philosophy

>>10555944
Well, do you already? Most people do, and given this fact, this would be something most people can agree upon. I'm willing to concede that the basis is subjective, a subjectivity I hope can be shared by society as a whole as we've done with other things. Again, this would be no different from any other moral framework, except the thing in and of itself would be objective with the agreeing upon this thing still being subjective. That's fine, we don't need and possibly can't obtain full objectivity in both of these cases.

>>10557879
>The cause matters because the helpfulness of the natural world depends on how reducible his idea of ''suckiness'' is.
We're okay with health being somewhat vague but still graspable and not entirely deductible. This is no different.

>I guess you're right, but why should Morality be ''maximizing human well-being''? Or rather, what is well-being exactly?
Because everyone strongly subjectively prefers it to not being well, and generally it tends to produce cascade effects since we're social creatures. Well-being is approximately being content or more with life, I'm sure someone else could give a better definition. Eventually we'd want to be able to measure this more objectively through brain scans and whatnot, if not for this goal then just to figure out how we can increase it in spite of it.

Well, the court system is based on morals to a large extent, I don't take objection with anything you wrote there anyway.

>I really don't think someone like Harris can answer anti-natalism. How does he justify life with his position?
I -think- it was something along the lines of "without consciousness nothing matters" "living a good life is better than no life being lived". He does have a podcast with some prominent anti-natalist, I'd have to relisten to it though. Also, it'd be a separate topic albeit somewhat linked, given that we're already here and that it's unlikely we'll stop being here in any foreseeable time.