elzoog

Yes, the key phrase in my OP is "you would also have to concern yourself" Which of course means that you can consider universals, but you would also have to concern yourself with things that are not universal. As to the earlier post about the analogy of the cave, to be honest, my thinking is kind of more aligned with Nagarjuna's "Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way" Means the same thing as "Philosophers should solve how to eat pee and drink poop." It's an argument that I never made to begin with. For example, "I am lazy" or "Microsoft is an unethical company" Sorry, I should have titled this thread more carefully

Yes, but for Brian to become good, the concept of "Brian is evil" can't be a universal. I would say that it's fine if philosophers consider universals but that only non-universals can be acted on. If X is universal, then it will be true no matter what you do.

To be a philosopher like Stefan, you would also have to concern yourself with things that are NOT universal because ONLY those kinds of things are actionable. Consider for example, I am an evil person so that the statement "Brian Dean is evil" is true. If "Brian Dean is evil" is universal, then I will always be evil. However, if "Brian Dean is evil" is not universal, then it's possible I could change. Thoughts?

Stef, you might be interested in the following scientific study that shows that men also pair bond with their sexual partner. http://www.pnas.org/content/105/37/14153.full A little bit interesting Catholic take on this can be heard here: http://www.catholicradiointernational.com/abodyoftruth/mp3/abot_111008.mp3 The basic gist, according to my understanding, is that when men have sex they can produce a chemical called vasopressin, which causes them to bond with their partner. In other words, men don't necessarily go around screwing any woman they can. Or if they do so, it harms them. Let me know if you find this useful.

Not only that, but if I let you borrow my car for a day, you control that car but you don't own it. I knew the argument I made in the OP was bogus, but I wanted to get some good arguments against it.

How would you guys respond to this argument against self ownership? A person owns a thing if he buys it (i.e. I give money to the computer shop so now I own a computer). When I was born, my parents bought me by going to the hospital and paying them to give birth to me. Otherwise, I would not exist. Therefore, I am owned by my parents. Response?

In the video "A Dishonest Conversation About Evolution" Stefan talks to a creationist. I wanted to make some comments about this because I have studied the same kind of Christian theology the caller has studied. It may, or may not be worth Stefan's time to consider it, but I will make the case that it may be worth his time (only he can judge that) on the basis that. 1) This kind of theology has had a MAJOR influence on western culture, which Stefan can research himself. 2) It may help him if he meets callers of this ilk in the future. Basically, this caller has been very heavily influenced by Calvinism. I have read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (a really lengthy tome) but Calvinism can be summerized by TULIP, which is T - Total depravity (i.e. that we are totally evil and that any good we do is because of God and not us) U - Unconditional election (meaning that if God has decided that you are saved, you have no choice in the matter) L - Limited atonement (meaning that Jesus's sacrifice only saved the elect) I - Irresistible grace (meaning that if you are saved, you can't resist God's grace) P - Perseverance of the saints (meaning that if you are saved, you will persevere to the end) See for example: http://www.calvinistcorner.com/tulip.htm As to the caller having no free will, that is addressed here: http://www.calvinistcorner.com/free-will.htm Before anyone gets on my case, I am not a Calvinist. The reason I know about the topic is I once had a serious relationship with someone who was Calvinist who believed that she was one of those who was predestined by God to be eternally damned. Personally, I would simply tell a Calvinist that if his theology is true, then I can't really choose it and therefore, my hearing about it or debating it is pointless. But I would be a bit interested in other people's opinion of this.

Also, those interested can see Aaron Clarey's response to this called "The Truth about the Daily Show" Since China has upped it's Internet censorship, I can't get to YouTube. So I can't copy and paste the URL. So if Mike (or somebody) do a quick one minute search for it and edit this post WITH the URL, I would appreciate it.

To be honest Mike, I kind of hope not. Although I will have to admit that US politics is bad enough that someone like Trump can become president. My main problems with him are: 1) He has changed his positions on a few things. This wouldn't be bad if he changed his position because he has considered the evidence. I myself, changed my position on the war on drugs once I examined the evidence. However, in Trump's case it seems like he changes his position based on political expediency. This kind of puts him slightly above Hillary Clinton in terms of scummy 2) The wall between the US and Mexico is a stupid idea. It would be expensive. And in the future Mexicans might develop the technology to make ladders, shovels, and metal cutters which would make the wall obsolete. I know that such things are on the same scale as the Star Trek replicator in terms of the technological advancement you would need to make such things, but still.. It also won't stop the many people who are in the US illegally, who got here by overstaying their visa (i.e. they get a student visa and simply don't go home once the student visa has expired).

This one doesn't seem to be stupid. What do you guys think though? Even though it comes from a left wing source, the little bit of investigation I put into it seems to verify it. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/donald-trump-outsourcing-flip-flop#testa

Mike, if you want to make a deal with me, that I pay you $100/hr to duplicate the same research I did, I would be willing to take that deal. Even at a $100/hr rate, I'm pretty confident that I'm only going to end up owing you a few dollars, if that. Since I couldn't stand to listen to more than 6 minutes of the actual video, if anyone here has more stomach than me and has actually bothered to listen to the whole thing, let me know. I would like to see a list of all of the stupid things he says in the video.

If this video becomes popular enough, I would love Stefan to do a response to it. I don't think it's currently important enough for Stefan to bother with, but who knows the future? There's A LOT of really stupid stuff in that video besides what I mentioned. To be honest, I couldn't listen to more than 6 minutes of it (and was falling asleep in the middle of that six minutes). I stopped listening at about the time he misquotes Trump saying that because he's rich he's honest (which is pretty obviously NOT what he said). If Stef does bother with it, it would be great if he reworded (in his own words) the following: I'm sure Donald Trump, before he was born, went around the Earth and was watching various people fucking. He narrowed it down to about 10 possible families that he wanted to be born in. Then after doing further research, he finds that the Trump family changed their name back in 1612 from Drumpf to Trump and he thought "Man this family changed their name 400 years ago! That does it! I'm gonna choose THIS family!" Stef can probably do a better job of making that sound totally ridiculous than I just did.

Recently, I read the following stupid article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-drumpf-john-oliver_us_56d40adee4b0bf0dab32a73c So, let me get this straight. The article's source, which involved the really hard work of me opening up one more link (that the original article links to, imagine how much work that took for me to do), says "Trump’s German wine-growing ancestors were named Drumpf, according to journalist Gwenda Blair’s book “The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.” The family changed the name at some point during the Thirty Years’ War." Now, it took the really hard work of looking up the "Thirty Years War" in Wikipedia, which everybody knows takes a hell of a lot of hard work, to find the following: "The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648." In other words, Donald Trump and/or his supporters, is supposed to take seriously, a family name change that happened 400 years ago. It's not like this was really hard. I bet Mike could research this in like, 15 seconds? In other words, Stefan is right. Donald Trump is succeeding in making the left look really stupid and petty.

If you think it doesn't, then that answers my question doesn't it? So there is no moral component to deciding to stay alive, or deciding to exit out.

So since locking you in a basement is both voluntary and binding, that makes it moral? What if I give you a pen on the condition that you give me 50 cents in exchange? You have the choice of accepting or refusing such a deal right. Since there is no binding aspect to it, does that make the deal amoral? If I decide to give a homeless guy $10, that was voluntary on my part. Also, there is no binding on what the homeless person does with the money. He could burn it so that he can light his cigarette more efficiently, or buy booze or a porn magazine with it. Since there's nothing binding in giving him the $10, does that mean that giving him the $10 is also amoral? Is giving a poor person food without binding him to anything amoral, whereas giving him food under the condition that he listens to a 1 hour sermon about Jesus (i.e. he is BOUND by that) moral? I really don't see how "voluntary and binding on another person" works as a moral system. Please explain.

How can something be both voluntary and binding?

Yes, but is that moral? Maybe it's more moral to let someone else who can do a better job do it?

Sure, a broken clock might still tell the correct time once in awhile. But wouldn't it be better to buy another clock? In other words, maybe a person is so broken that checking out (dying) might be the best option. That way, whatever needs to get done in terms of value, can be done by someone who will do a better job.

Is that anywhere near the MK Hotel?

If you are damaged beyond repair, then wouldn't your existence be immoral? In other words, you would be a burden on others to maintain since you can't offer anything of value yourself.

In regular economics, if something is damaged to the point where repairing it would be more expensive than replacing it, you replace it. So, given that, what if you are damaged to the point where fixing yourself, or self-help, or whatever, would cost more than it's worth? Or maybe you are damaged to the point you can't be repaired?

Actually, ditching guilt is recommended by some psychologists. If you want, I can try to find some links for you.

If this is the inappropriate forum to post this, please move it to the appropriate subheading. http://www.psypost.org/2014/03/study-finds-less-cooperation-among-women-than-among-men-where-hierarchy-is-involved-23351 ___________________________________ Study finds less cooperation among women than among men where hierarchy is involved It’s long been a popular stereotype: Men are hugely competitive, meaning cooperative effort is the exception rather than the norm, while women have a tendency to nurture relationships with others, making them much more likely to cooperate with one another. A new Harvard study, however, is turning that cliché on its head. In fact, within academic departments women of different social or professional “ranks” cooperate with each other less well than men do, according to Joyce Benenson, an Associate of Harvard’s Human Evolutionary Biology Department and Professor of Psychology at Emmanuel College, Richard Wrangham, the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology and Henry Markovits, from the University of Quebec at Montreal, the study’s co-authors. With full professors of the same sex, they said, the study found men and women cooperated equally well. The study is described in a March 3 paper published in Current Biology. “The question we wanted to examine was: Do men or women cooperate better with members of their own sex?” Wrangham said. “The conventional wisdom is that women cooperate more easily, but when you look at how armies or sports teams function, there is evidence that men are better at cooperating in some ways. Because there is so much conventional wisdom and general impressions on these issues, I think it’s helpful for this paper to focus on a very clear result, which has to do with the differences in cooperation when rank is involved.” To get at whether – and why – those differences in cooperation might exist, Benenson and Wrangham set out to understand how often faculty at dozens of universities collaborate on academic papers. They began by identifying 50 institutions from across the U.S. and Canada with at least two male and female full professors, and two male and female assistant professors in their Psychology Departments. Researchers then set about identifying papers written by senior faculty from 2008 to 2012, and tracking how often senior faculty worked with other senior faculty, and how often they worked with junior faculty. While the study focused on the world of higher education, Benenson explained that the notion of differences between how men and women cooperate was first planted during her work studying children. “When I studied young children, I noticed that boys were typically interacting in groups, and girls tended to focus on one-on-one relationships,” said Benenson, the study’s lead author, who explored similar questions in her book Warriors and Worriers. “There is even evidence that these differences exist in six-month-olds – but you can see it with the naked eye by about five or six years old, where boys form these large, loose groups, and girls tend to pair off into more intense, close friendships.” What makes those differences particularly provocative, Benenson said, is that chimpanzees organize their relationships in nearly identical ways. “Chimpanzee males usually have another individual they’re very close with, and they may constantly battle for dominance, but they also have a larger, loose group of allies,” Benenson said. “When it comes to defeating other groups, everybody bands together. I would argue that females don’t have that biological inclination, and they don’t have the practice.” That’s not to suggest women are inherently flawed when it comes to cooperation. In fact, Benenson said, women are often thought of as being more egalitarian than men, “but there’s a flip side no one thinks about, which is what happens when they’re with someone who isn’t the same rank?” While their study offers evidence that women, in some situations, may not cooperate as well as men, Wrangham emphasized that a host of questions about why those differences exist are still to be answered. “There is cross-cultural evidence for this phenomenon, you see it in early development, and in one of our closest relatives,” said Wrangham, whose outlined similar findings in his book Demonic Males. “That pushes us into thinking that there is a strong biological influence here, but we would never suggest this is impervious to environmental and cultural influences as well. “Nevertheless these are the kinds of fascinating questions about fundamental sex differences in social relationships that would be tremendously important to recognize if you want to change the way in which women’s access to higher ranks happens,” he added. “What we need to know, now that we have recognized these patterns, is what can we do to ameliorate them?” ____________________________________________________

Cynicyst, suicide may be irrational. Also, getting addicted to cocaine or having sex with random people 5 times a day (men and women) might also be irrational. Question is, to what degree should others try to talk someone out of such irrational decisions?

My views on it are that you ultimately own your own body and therefore, your own life, so you can dispose of it if you don't like it anymore.Although ending your life would also end your ability to make decisions, by telling you that you are NOT ALLOWED to commit suicide, isn't that ALSO, limiting your ability to make decisions?I think however, that the best way to deal with suicide is to be above board with it. For example, "I don't know if they like me at my job or not so I don't know if they will fire me. If they fire me, I might not be able to find another job, and therefore won't be able to support myself. Then I will be homeless, or a ward of the state, and my options and life will be over. Should I kill myself now before all this shit happens?" In other words, describe your situation and ask someone if suicide is rational at this point. Then the following can happen.1) "Your situation doesn't warrant suicide. Have you tried YYY?" where YYY is some suggestion the person might not have considered.2) "You are not thinking rationally. You need to do YYY to relieve the stress and clear your head so you can think better about it."3) "Yeah, your situation really sucks. Suicide is a good idea for you dude. Let's see if we can do this in such a way that you can go out peacefully and maybe even life the rest of the few days you have left as happy as you can be."I think that 3 is KEY to a society that treats suicide better. That way, there's no stigma about suicide that it's "crazy" and everyone can think about the person in situation 3 that, at least he isn't in pain anymore. Not only that, but we did our best to make his life good instead of making him suffer out of some misplaced notion that his life is "sacred". Yeah, but wouldn't it have been nice if instead of "If you are thinking about suicide you are crazy." which encourages you to be quiet about it, we say "If you are thinking of suicide, you might be crazy or you might be rational. Let's talk about it."? Okay, let's pick an irrational reason for suicide. Let's say, I want to kill myself because bees make honey. The usual argument against me killing myself for that reason is that everybody knows that bees make honey. However, everyone else doesn't commit suicide over that so why should I? I happen to not like the band KISS. Would it be rational to argue with me by saying that "Other people like the band KISS. Therefore, you should like that band too."?The thing is, my bad feeling about the fact that bees make honey, is something I am actually experiencing whereas you can only imagine being upset about that in an abstract kind of way. So, in reality, you really can't experience how much it sucks that bees make honey as much, or in the same way, as I experience it.Maybe in the future, I could change my mind and not be so bothered by the fact that bees make honey. The problem though is, that's a MAYBE, not a certainty.So, if we really do believe in self ownership, then yes I would have to say that the person committing suicide because bees make honey has a right to do so. You have the right to try to talk him out of it, but I don't think you have the right to force him to not do it. Besides, if someone gets suicidally upset over the fact that bees make honey, what kind of a life do you honestly think that person could have anyway? Yeah, Shelly's answer was kind of weak. Makes me wonder about the actual quality of someone that becomes an Ivy league philosophy professor.