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Truth is subjective!

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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by smr   » Tue Jan 29, 2019 12:54 pm

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Gcomeau, they displayed the sign for a 3 point shot...that's basketball shot that is worth 3 points. Oh Lord are you this brain dead? Did your mother drop you on your head? Did you even do any research other than read some tweets and CNN?

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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Michael Everett   » Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:56 pm

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...smr, I don't see any links between your post and the one you seem to be referencing.
Are you sure you posted in the right thread and if you did, what the bejabbers are you referring to?
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Imaginos1892   » Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:03 am

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gcomeau wrote:
Imaginos1892 wrote:LIFE HAS VALUE

Even you recognize that that principle is dependent on your personal opinion. It is YOUR principle because YOU value life.

It is not everyone's principle, because not everyone does.

Tell me how you would organize a functional society without that principle. I do not believe it is possible.

There are a few dysfunctional groups that seem to lack it…

Even slavery is based on an assumption that the slaves have value.

If life does not have value, is there any purpose in discussing morality?
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by gcomeau   » Wed Jan 30, 2019 12:42 am

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Imaginos1892 wrote:
gcomeau wrote:Even you recognize that that principle is dependent on your personal opinion. It is YOUR principle because YOU value life.

It is not everyone's principle, because not everyone does.

Tell me how you would organize a functional society without that principle. I do not believe it is possible.

There are a few dysfunctional groups that seem to lack it…


We were not discussing practical utility. We were discussing universality.

The existence of those groups you refer to is the refutation of any claim that that principle is universal. It is rather a matter of personal judgement. Not objective truth.

A very popular and useful personal judgement, but a personal judgement all the same. As all value judgements are, by their very nature.
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Daryl   » Wed Jan 30, 2019 1:04 am

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My definition of good and bad is based on - does an action cause more benefit or more harm to those it affects?

Can get bogged down in detail. A classic example is "given a time machine and a rifle would you go back and kill Hitler when he was young?" A couple of problems with this are- 1 as he is now dead there is no proof that all those bad things might have happened and you just killed an innocent youth - 2 and Hitler rode the sentiment of the time and place to gain power, and later on he did greatly hinder their war effort with stupid decisions. The next demagogue may have been more competent and caused more suffering.

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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by The E   » Wed Jan 30, 2019 10:31 am

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Imaginos. Mate. Friend. Fellow airbreathing mammal.

You seem to have lost the thread of the argument. Let's go back to the beginning, to be precise, this statement of yours:

What is so special about morality that it can't be analyzed scientifically? That is to say, using logic and reason? Any morality that can't be justified by logic and reason is unlikely to be a good one.


You can start from a simple axiom like "life has value", and through application of logic and reason, arrive at diametrically opposed positions, i.e. "abortion must be forbidden" and "abortion must be allowed".
Philosophy and Ethics are not exact sciences, not in the way the physical sciences are. The governing ethics of the day will always be heavily informed by a multitude of factors; what is good and proper now may not be so anymore 100 years in the future, and probably wasn't 100 years in the past.

I think the main issue is that you have the relationship between philosophy and science backwards: Science is a subset of philosophy, not the other way around. The way we gather scientific knowledge, how we do it and why, isn't generally applicable to philosophy.
As a result, we can use science to quantify and analyze ethics, we can use the various tools of sociology to make comparisons between different viewpoints and their effect on society, but we can not settle ethics the way we can newtonian physics.

To stick to the original starting point: We cannot use statistics and experiments to figure out whether or not abortion is ethically acceptable. We can certainly take those results into account when making our decisions about the matter, but that decision is ultimately an individual one. For some, statistics showing that women who have full access to all options of reproductive health care lead happier lives is enough to tilt the balance in favour of allowing such options. For others, no evidence will ever be enough: The sheer act of ending a (potential) human life is so abhorrent that no justification can ever be sufficient.
Your position, that
But that is a question that can only be answered through scientific knowledge and understanding. It certainly can't be answered by those who choose not to learn the facts, or seek to deny the facts.

is quite wrong: You can accept the facts in the above hypothetical just fine and still decide that the underlying axiom of life having value overrides the science.
It doesn't mean that the person who goes along the "ban abortion" route is making an objectively wrong decision, just as the person going the opposite way isn't objectively right.

Science seeks objective truth. Ethics and Philosophy seek subjective truth. Using tools of one to get results applicable for the other is objectively wrong.
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Imaginos1892   » Wed Jan 30, 2019 11:17 pm

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gcomeau wrote:We were not discussing practical utility. We were discussing universality.

The only reason for having moral principles and rules is to organize a functional society.

The application of moral principles is far too complex to be dictated by a few short, dogmatic rules.

You want morality to be simple, to be reduced to a few simple rules you can memorize, and never have to think again.

Well, it ain't simple. Deal with it.

The E wrote:We cannot use statistics and experiments to figure out whether or not abortion is ethically acceptable.

But that does not seem to be the question you are interested in. You have been discussing whether it is right for some stranger, or group of them, to expropriate a woman’s right to make that decision by claiming that they are acting in the interest of the embryo.

Your answer appears to be an unconditional NO!

My answer is, ‘It depends.’

Here is how I see it:

A fertilized egg has very little value. Barely more than the value of the two cells before they combined. DO NOT start singing ‘Every Sperm Is Sacred’!

A baby, seconds after birth, has the value of a human life, and the rights that go with it.

I think it is a reasonable conjecture that the value of the developing embryo gradually increases over the course of that development, from almost zero to very high.

Now, birth is a rather arbitrary threshold. Infants are born premature, or late, all the time. Birth can be induced or delayed medically. Thus, the frequently cited ‘can survive outside the womb’ criterion.

So, the reason for the woman seeking an abortion should be balanced against the current value of the embryo. Very early in the process, the reason need be no more than personal choice. Close to term, the reason had better be a very important one.

If the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life, her decision should be final. Nobody should be allowed to second-guess her desire to live.

If the pregnancy is nearly complete, she has to have a much better reason than convenience.
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Daryl   » Fri Feb 01, 2019 7:52 am

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Imaginos1892. I don't always agree with you but you nailed it well here.
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Annachie   » Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:04 am

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Bluesqueak wrote:The pro-choice movement would argue that any zygote, embryo or foetus which can't survive outside the maternal life-support system isn't yet a separate being and doesn't deserve those legal protections. It's still part of the mother's body, and the mother has sole control over it.


Actually, that is wrong.

The Pro-Choice movement argues that it is the woman's choice, no-one elses.
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Re: Truth is subjective!
Post by Annachie   » Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:22 am

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smr wrote:The Catholics do not believe in abortions


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



:mrgreen:

I'm not sure when the anti-abortion stance entered the Catholic Church. 2nd century I think, maybe late 1st.
Because among other things, the Bible gives instructions how how to perform an abortion, and that a monetary damages are payable for accidentally causing one. (Monetary damages for accidentally killing a person are strictly forbidden, ergo fetus' aren't people.)
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