johnny, i wrote a reply but it was lost somewhere in the "tubes" of the internet. here is my best effort at a rewrite: johnny, whenever someone assigns value to something as being either 'good' or 'bad' they are making a universal statement in one sense. if you feel that every time GT or others were saying something was 'good' or 'bad' that they merely meant "good or bad for me." then please pursue that line of reasoning. otherwise, i suspect that this is not a very useful argument to follow. you said:
so GT, what about someone who is taught the opposite? are they just as right as you? and if so, how can we pass laws to make protection of the environment a legal issue when everyone is just doing what they have been taught?
you guys are really arguing that we have no responsibility to the planet? ha. i think our work here is done GT.
johnny, that is a lame response which leaves me wondering if you don't have more to offer. no one (and i do mean no one) is arguing that we don't have a responsibility to take care of the planet. we have repeated that ad nauseum. we are exploring your and GT's reasoning abilities and philosophical presuppostions. at this point, they are looking suspiciously unexamined. now, i find you to be an overall reasonable and intelligent man. can you not respond with substance? are you going to bail in (faux?) indignation? don't copout on this discussion. try to face the tough questions and respond to them.
"we are exploring your and GT's reasoning abilities and philosophical presuppostions. at this point, they are looking suspiciously unexamined" The unbiased judgement you offer is much appreciated. More bluntly, a more pompous statement has rarely, perhaps, been uttered on this board, and that's saying something. Again: axiomatic reasoning to "prove" the value of an argument is a classic mode of philosophical thought, but normal humans are not morally bound to follow it in their human decision making process. In fact the normal mode of human decison making is otherwise. There is much research in this area, Mop, and humans decide based on values they are aware of and some they are not, that we get via cultural transmission, and our own process of sorting it all out, axiomatically or otherwise. Even advanced scientific societies like my own company use this general decision making process. Nowhere, in any scientific paper or business policiy decision making discussion have I seen anything like the type of approach you seem to insist is the only rightful way. The world says you are on the wrong track with this assertion. You are aware, I'm sure, that research shows that humans actually decide things before they are aware of the decision. The offshoot is that our concious reasoning is normally rationale ex post facto the decison event. So we have to have some hubris about all this. Or, we should. I believe it rude to chastize people for bringing their values into the decison making process, or for otherwise having a normal mode of thought as compared to your exceptional mode. You should not claim superiority in your mode of thought, as a matter of politeness if nothing else, and your efforts to position yourself thusly I find offensive. Thats my egalitarian values driving that last conclusion. Not everyone shares this, I accept.
NBMisha, I am sorry, but i think you misunderstand me. i am merely saying that it is reasonable to explore the basis for one's beliefs. it is similarly reasonable to ask others to explore with you. if the ultimate answer, as you seem to be suggesting, is merely "i believe this because i believe it but i don't know why nor do i care" that is problematic. if someone is not able to defend their values, then that is "unexamined" which is the only point i made. how that could possibly be the most pompous statement ever uttered on these boards is completely beyond me. i am left wondering if you understood the statement or if you are just offended because it applies to you as well. why is it such an absurd thing to ask someone to reasonably defend the basis for why they hold a value. is a child molester who was molested themselves, somehow off the hook for their ridiculously flawed value system? i agree with much of what you said about how we arrive at many of our values but that does not mean we should be permitted to hold clearly flawed or unreasonable values. instead it is right that we insist of ourselves and of others that their values be realigned with reality rather than merely accepting all values as somehow equal because they were arrived at unconsciously. i hope i am making sense. at any rate, i am sorry that you took such offense, but i don't think the level of your offense is consistent with what i said. someone SHOULD be able to defend their values. or, put more poignantly, if someone is not able to defend their values on reasonable grounds, they have no business telling others that they should share them.
A reasonable explanation is an ok expectation. But a repeated and iterative philosophical deconstruction is tiresome, and thread after thread, does not seem to have yielded much revelation of use to anyone. No one has said you must share their decision values. A number have presented their basis for decisons, it is you and C who have found them "lacking". I think your demands are unreasonable. As well, the implications of your language I found somewhat of a put down. But this is my reaction and this is about me.
but NBMisha, we have not gotten a remotely "reasonable" explanation by almost any standard. well, i suppose it is reasonable if your standard is someone merely telling you what their values are. but we are trying desperately to find out WHY their values are what they are. i have no idea why you find that to be so troubling....... the only reason we have resorted to what you have described as a "repeated and iterative philosophical deconstruction" is because the answers have merely been repitions of the values themselves rather than answer to the "why" question we are aiming at. i suppose you and they may merely resort to "because" but that is categorically unsatisfactory. furthermore, i would hold you to that in future discussions where you disagree with our values. after all, what basis do you have for disagreeing with anyone else's values if you can't put together a reasonable basis (ie foundation) for your own values? what would make your values more reasonable than the pedophile's? (as an aside, i DO believe your values are more reasonable than the pedophile's, but i am not convinced as to the basis for that fact). i am not trying to put you down, but i am trying to understand how you reason through to your values (whether or not it is after the fact). i have oftentimes in my own life found out that some values i hold are unreasonable and then subsequently dismissed them. i don't see why it is unreasonable to require this of you, but perhaps post-modernism has so poisoned the well that asking someone for their logic and reason is now perceived as a "put down?" that would be truly sad to me.... i do find GT's sudden silence interesting....but not surprising.
mop - you just flat proved what i said earlier. you want to back GT into a corner where you dismiss all the reasons behind his thinking and leave him with nothing left to say but "that's just what i believe". you then plan to use that same logic when people push you on your religious beliefs. you said it right there. this isn't a new technique, not even for you, but it is getting quite tiresome. GT believes we have a responsibility to planet. he believes this because of the way he was raised. there are no hard and fast reasons he could outline that would satisfy you, it just is what it is. you deem that unsatisfactory...but remember, you deeming something unsatisfactory does not make it so. i could ask you why you believe in God. you could give me reasons. i could tell you that those reasons are unsatisfactory. at some point you would say "well, that's just what i believe", because all other explanations, while some could be very reasonable, would have been dismissed already. this does not even mention the fact that you're arguing with someone over WHY they believe something without giving any kind of evidence on why his belief may be wrong. are you willing to argue why GT may be wrong and why we may not in fact owe any responsibility to the planet? C has already gone down this road, and i welcome you to join him. YOU are creating the situation where there is no other reasonable explanation for the values simply because you're deeming all of the already-given explanations as unsatisfactory. and again, there's a guy here who believes we have a responsibility to take care of the planet and you're pestering him because he cannot give you an answer as to WHY that satisfies you. your question, thus, is "why do we have a responsibility to the planet". GT has answered that question, yet you just deem his answers as unsatisfactory.
johnny, that is a very strange interpretion of what i said. you had some bizarre theory that we were trying to prove faith or something. that is not the case as i have explicitly stated. i am trying to understand why in the world GT believes what he believes. i am hoping for something more than "i was raised to believe this" because that answer justifies the pedophile, the murderer, the alcoholic and the abusive husband. you have to see that such an answer is profoundly unsatisfactory. you are right that "my deeming something unsatisfactory does not make it so." that is my point. in return, GT (or you or anyone else) who tells us that we "should" do anything at all does not "make it so." so what does? that is what i am driving at. does this question not interest you? if not, i can understand why. it sounds like you don't really have any good reasons for believing what you believe beyond merely stating that this is "how you were raised." but gosh...if that is truly the standard then how did we ever escape racism? sexism? etc etc i believe there have to be guiding principles for how we arrive at truth. if there is not, then there is not truth in any meaningful sense of the word, there is only opinion or socialization. but if that is true, why do you and GT and others speak about issues with such strong conviction as if your opinion is correct and we should all agree. this topic is a great example of this because we DO all agree that we should take care of the earth.
my reasoning could justify genocide? really? dude, you're off the f'ing reservation. i may respond later when i have more time, but i don't really know.
MOP wants to protect the world because he believes his God would want him to be a good steward. I want to protect the world because I have been taught that good stewardship is the right thing to do. If both causes lead to the same effect - great. But what if MOP loses his faith - will he then lose all sense of morality? If MOP decides he misinterpreted the word of God - then will he behave differently towards the earth? Behaviour based on fear of God may be channeled in good directions, but I would rather MOP wanted to save the world for its own sake, for his own sake, for his children's sake - but those are just my values coming out again.
maybe i'm missing something but is it that mop and coalaceth are inferring that gtwt and maybe nb/johhny can't argue against christianity/faith (on other threads) if he's using this logic on climate change? serious question, because it seems to me that there is something more that you guys (mop/coalaceth) are trying to get at?????
C - I've followed the argument fine, thanks. Mop is asking GT to explain WHY he believes the things he does. And he doesn't just want GT's reasons, he wants reasons that are satisfactory to him (mop). That is an unanswerable question.
give me time Johnny, i will answer your questions in full. my questions for GT are very reasonable..... but i have to agree, it doesn't seem like you have followed the argument.
mop - is what I said here fair: "Mop is asking GT to explain WHY he believes the things he does. And he doesn't just want GT's reasons, he wants reasons that are satisfactory to him (mop)" i think that's a pretty fair assessment of what you're trying to get out of GT.
no johnny, that is not a fair assessment. i am asking for a fairly universally accepted level of reasoning among those who think of such things. to simplify it in the way you have does damage to the discussion and misrepresents what is going on here. let me give you another example. if you were to ask me why i believed in legislation to make it illegal to do any work on Sunday....and my reason were "because this is the way i was raised"....would you find that to be a reasonable or satisfactory answer? because THAT is the answer that i find ridiculous and unsatisfactory. if i said "isn't it obvious to all that we should just rest one day a week?" would you be satisfied with that answer? come on...you guys are smarter than this and you are playing dumb. GT has given pitiful answers to the questions asked of him and that has little to do with my faith..... i still need to answer your other question....just in and out all day and about to head out for another 4 hours.
GT has gone much further than just "cuz i was raised that way". the fact that you boil all his posts down to that is pretty insulting to him. i'll wait to see what you think is an acceptable level of proof/reasoning for your own beliefs before i post any further.
let me put it a bit more bluntly......GT's answer, if used in a Freshmen level Philosophy class would have gotten him a failing grade. So, if you are ok with that level of reasoning and think I am being unfair or too demanding in my standards, so be it, but know that his (and your) reasons for believing we should protect the planet (something we all agree with on the surface), are not sophisticated enough to pass one of the lowest standards of reasoning (at the college level) of which i am aware. and no, his reasons have not got much further than my previous representation of them. if you feel they have, i would love to hear YOUR representation of them. heck, even his most recent installment pretty much reiterated that point.
