csekavec

You wrote that instead of starting with reality one should start from logic. Do you then think that logic is separate from reality? Or 'above' reality? Or any other nonsense? You wrote that I don't bring evidence. The evidence is in UPB. But as you wrote, somehow my UPB book is different from yours? Perhaps reread the book in light of these criticisms instead relying on your emotional memory. You appear to ignore my plain categorical complaint. Again: In UPB no single agent can possibly be moral. Just because the book makes attempt to define away the problem (p. 64+) doesn't actually address the problem. You attack my understanding of metaphysics and epistemology. I haven't got perfect knowledge of those subjects. Clearly neither do you else you would have grasped my point regarding concept formation. Integrate and abstract are indeed intermediate-level epistemological terms with relevant meanings. It is for these reasons that I think this shall be my last response to you. My experience of reading your replies has been that you aren't comprehending my sentences. You saying I'm 'making shit up' by which I understand that you are offended because you think I'm putting forth falsehoods and you want me to 'shut up' as a result. All this, I think, because you lack curiosity and want me to persuade you. I'm not responsible for whether your view of reality is accurate, neither you mine. Good day.

A thing is what it is. Opinion doesn't alter reality. Morality based on opinion isn't objective. Subjective + subjective =/= objective. I doubt I'm alone in saying that to steal the candy is immoral. But also accurate to say stealing the candy is preferred. But in that its proper to address values, not ethics. This all ties back to each criticism. Without being comprehensive, I humbly suggest the statement: "only steal when doing so preserves a 'higher' moral value" or the general case: "Only act when the cost of action is less than the result of action." A separate discussion of this topic are those contained in the legal and ethical arguments surrounding the invalidity of the Nuremberg defense. My American Law Encyclopedia has hundreds of pages on this so I really can't succinctly put it all down. Suffice it to say that the legal system generally agrees with the values precept I outlined. Doesn't mean it's true, of course.

I agree. You bring up Einstein. Have you read Einstein's book on relativity written for the general populace? You will find a well ordered precept upon precept construction, where each part is clearly and concisely stated and may be tested individually and as a whole. Compare that to UPB where it begins with a hodgepodge of accepting and rejecting ideas from contradictory metaphysical and epistemology systems without integrating them into a cohesive whole. Then a masturbatory attempt at romantic fiction. And the 'truths' section is this mix of asserted values with unsupported metaphysics with the only validation the epistemology of instinct. It all might be true but that it is true is not established by the book. Far better to argue from reality. Which eventually UPB somewhat does, but mostly in the second half. Putting metaphysics many pages after chapters called 'proof' is what I'm talking about. There might be a good reason to do all this that I miss, and since it only alters the readability not the content of the book I put this under "opinion." After all this is a philosophy book for a general audience. Maybe it wasn't intended to be rigidly digested and if so everything else I say is superfluous. Yes, exactly. This is my complaint. UPB asserts but without sound foundation makes no case. I am wondering a thing. Are you not aware that a criticism is not an argument, nor is it a pejorative? If you chose to ignore my statement of deficiency because you don't like the descriptor I use please don't hope to make it seem incumbent upon me to cite or persuade you. A modest suggestion to you or anyone else evaluating a criticism is this. Perhaps read the criticism and determine its predicates and implications. Then one could read applicable parts of UPB in full context testing the criticism against the framework. Ok I'll unpack this a bit, and make an argument. Identity axiom might be stated: A thing is what it is. Or as UPB puts it when it finally discusses metaphysics at the back of the book, "opinions don't change reality." To be a thing is to be a specific thing, else nothing. Now if we use epistemology to slice up the concept 'person' the abstract attribute is that of 'reason.' A thing without agency can't properly be called an animal; a thing without reason can't be called a person. Now integrating the concept 'person' with the axiom of identity we find (among other things) that wearing an army uniform, being under duress/coercion, being intoxicated, choosing not to think, or indeed any thing save actual loss of mind does not alter what it is to be a person. The declaration of independence uses the word inalienable instead of epistemological abstract. But all this and more can be derived from my OP. I haven't read those. I don't disagree with anything you wrote. I have added those authors to my reading list. If you have a specific work to recommend, I'd find it helpful.

Agency and life qua man are inseverable.

There are many concrete examples in the book. I'd rather not repeat them since this isn't my argument. UPB posits that there are circumstances where your statement is true. I'm saying the exact opposite.

.... second criticism

Totally feasible. Paying down the debt doesn't stop growth nor take from developing countries. I can demonstrate briefly why. If one took the $500b of the $600b U.S. military budget and put it towards domestic debt the result is $500b into the economy. As banks and insurance companies scramble to find investments to fund their annuities and keep their balance sheets in the black they will have to invest elsewhere. With Trump banning foreign investment from banks this means capital improvements for domestic companies. The higher productivity means increase exports and lower prices everywhere. A tariff war could only be good for USA. We just stop exporting fiery death and murder and start exporting desalination plants, agriculture equipment, industrial control systems, and nuclear power stations. We could end war in Africa in 5 years. Anyway, if I were a statist that is what I'd do....

I have made every effort to be laconic but exceedingly precise. If I have made an error in grammar please forgive. If it is in reasoning, please be explicit. Thank you. An opinion. Proof is a high standard. The book righteously compares its effort to physics. In physics true data that contradicts old data results in a revision of the theory. But first that theory must be known, in order to test the new data against it. UPB doesn't state upon what foundation it is built. It is true that these foundation principles may be inferred by testing the set of all principles against UPB. This is awkward. Foundation, then structure. UPB does it backwards. The first criticism In UPB aesthetics is used to definitionally remove the vast majority of action from the realm of morality. This foil reduces the falsify-ability of UPB to nearly zero. It's dishonest to use the page 40 definition while maintaining the page 64 limits. Carl Sagan has a pet dragon. Just look at all the ways you can't test if the dragon is real, therefore it must exist. I'm not arguing that UPB isn't real. But like the dragon it does not predict. And otherwise valid tests are made invalid by removing them from UPB under the label of 'aesthetics.' The second criticism Under the rules of proposed by UPB no single agent can possibly be moral. An imaginary person possessing every conceivable excellence requires at minimum the most vile personage to validate their status as a moral actor. This problem is easily fixed. Properly ascribe morality to those things upon which moral action is dependent instead of to the action itself. The third criticism UPB (the negative actions defined as moral) and UPB (the subjective view defined by the book as aesthetic) are used incredibly sloppily and interchangeably. Definitional slip are inexcusable if we are to esteem UPB with the seriousness of a physical theory, or indeed as a proof. The fourth criticism UPB doesn't account for mental illness except to assert that to hold a view contrary to UPB is to be ill. This is only true internal to UPB and thus reveals the definition error. Aquinas dealt with this so I'm not going into detail here. The fifth criticism While defining moral action as a negative is common it has been shown by others to be incomplete. Very tersely, "thou shalt not murder" and its inverse is insufficient and not testable. "Thou shalt murder when X" is testable and superior. A summary UPB is in its own words by its own definitions "necessary but not sufficient" in defining morality. The moral actions defined by UPB are at best a sub-set of the set of all moral action. Attempting to reconcile reality to UPB without correcting UPB may lead to error. My opinion is that the most egregious error is that of removing moral culpability from a moral agent. And a non critical look at UPB might lead one to just that conclusion. Thank you for your time reading this, for your responses if any, and your (down?) votes if any.

OP I know just what you mean. But still with only a little rules rework and a proper campaign setting things get more natural quickly. My peeve is the insane alignment system. I always want to side with the 'evil' instead of the paladin. The bugbear usually just wants to be left alone in his mountains. The paladin lawful nature means he must violently force others to accept his view - or die.

There is tons of legit stuff if you look for it. Even subtle things like when researchers find evidence that contradicts the orthodoxy they write things like: SIM measures sol's spectra. The total energy output of the sun is nearly constant however the spectra changes dramatically. Some frequencies are easily absorbed by earth, some aren't. Because the data seems to contradict orthodox opinion that greenhouse gasses are the source of climate change the authors of that paper chose to disavow their findings saying: In my book data trumps hypothesis. But the climate people can't get funding unless they publicly disavow data that contradicts their model. They have to call the data 'unrealistic' and their faulty prediction 'real' it is insanity. Anyway, I've written reams on this stuff over the years. Check out the book 'skeptical environmentalist' if you want even more criticisms.

unseen.is

And if one still doubts it's real footage then can calculate when the ISS will be overhead when it's night in the region and signal it using a power enough light source. The strobes will show up on the online stream. You might need to travel into a rural area. My friend and I did just that using his home made laser rig shortly after the stream started. Alcohol and hilarity was involved.

So far as I'm aware there is no virtue that cannot be expressed as a mean. Also recall the context. Aristotle devised the mean as a way of saying, "I can't write down every circumstance. Instead I'll write the most relevant things for my time, and put forth the general case of how to find what is virtuous. I'll call this method choosing the mean."

Are you naturally this moronic or do you have to make an effort?

Matt Slick vs Matt Dillahunty presuppositionism is a joke.

My opinion: Keep writing. Don't send anything. Don't talk on the phone. Especially when there is court custody fight. Don't claim to love those who wronged you. Give them the treatment they deserve and you'll feel better because you accept justice. Don't treat your son as a possession. He has nothing to do with your well being. To hold otherwise is to put an untrue onus upon him. Don't require action from your abusers as requirement for your health.

Because he told me when I asked him. Why does it matter if a person is talked about? Isn't normativity the whole point of being trans?

Great video! Very snazzy. Suggestion: use Audacity to run a high pass filter on the audio to remove the low frequency noise.

I agree with both of you so far as your presumed context. My argument is that context is insufficient to completely describe ethics. I've wrote on this elsewhere and am working on an essay for these forums that I'll post soon. (Honestly I supposed that I should find more agreement than I so far have seen) Since no one yet touched on the Nuremburg Defense argument contradicting OP position, is this point conceded? Also can anyone recall the original author of the three party aggression argument? Rothbard?

I wouldn't yet presume to represent UPB. I will say this. That the best man can't be moral without even the most vile man who must act as the foil against the dignity of the best man is atrocious. And fortunately, wrong. The major flaw of UPB is that unnecessary presumption.

Toilet paper

There is a trans man that works the window at my local McDonalds. He's great.

Well there you are. That a man alone on a desert island can't be good is a flaw.

Great video, +1 for you sir. I disagree with almost everything. Nice to see the return of the A->C->B aggression problem. It's formal name escapes me at the moment. There are other questions from it that you didn't touch on but are relevant. There are very lengthy arguments for and against the Nuremberg Defense. Owning a desire to initiate force is both immoral and a NAP violation.

By Seldon this is valuable work. Well done sir! Not yet unique but keep at it and you'll be breaking new ground very soon. Also, I'm very sorry to say that a i /= p i. You halved the problem by making that limitation which is fine but you left out most kinds of coerced action. But then so does UPB. I think this might be what you were covering a few sentences later when discussing (3)? This issue also re-emerges later on. The establishment of universality is fine. I complain that it doesn't make prediction yet. For example a(P sub i) contains those that pertain only to self and also those that pertain to others. But only one part is covered. Also the same weakness of UPB is shared by effort, namely, that the end must be presupposed. So here then are some questions. Can you accurately predict set of moral actions of one individual where those actions are neutral in regards to another but good in regards to self? And the contriwise set? I know already you can get at least a partial set as your logic stands but how to go farther I am not yet sure I have suggestions. Can you account for [ (a 1 (p 2), a 2 (p 2) ]?