EclecticIdealist

I did listen to approximately the first hour of the Jian Ghomeshi pod cast, and it was as I expected from what I'd read in other sources; the witnesses against him all appeared to have made false claims and their testimony impeached by evidence proving they lied and directly implying they lied about the claims as well. This supports the notion that you might have been influenced to be biased against the witnesses against Brock Turner. You indicate you don't care that the police and Swedes were biased against him, and yet i don't believe you based on your terming what they did as "white-knighting" in what seemed to be a pejorative way. You say that if his story is plausible, and there's insufficient evidence to disprove it then it would make a conviction on more serious charges more difficult, and the sentencing lighter; and yet the jury did not find his story plausible, and the judge did not vacate the jury's verdicts or find the verdicts unwarranted. The prosecution felt that the seriousness of the charges for which he was convicted warranted at least 6 years and potentially as much as 14 years or more, but it looks like he may only serve 3 months because the Judge was extremely lenient... so much so it's a wonder he didn't sentence him to probation and time served. Was the judge biased? Why yes, I think he was, as do so many others. As to the questions about bias, again you presume way too much. These are simply the types of questions one might find on a prospective juror questionnaire. I never suggested, nor meant to suggest that many, and certainly not all of the questions applied to you. I simply tried to provide some questions that might reveal a person's potential bias in such a case. So yes, the questions were in complete ignorance to your history and background. I know very little about you, and I suspect you know as much or less about me. I never pretended or presumed to know your history or background. My estimation of your bias was based on that single post you made.

Just curious, why did you use the term "Type" instead of the word Gender? I mean, it's almost obvious that you simply changed the word after the fact. Secondly, I thought Patriarchy theory came from the Old Testament where women and female children were considered only a little better than chattel. Thirdly, the "natural bifurcation" of male and female has existed for thousands upon thousands of years. Do you know what else has existed for thousands upon thousands of years (in all likelihood, but at least thousands of years)? Non-gender conforming people. Sure they were a minority back then just as they are today. In some societies they were more accepted than in other societies. All of the society's woes and ills were often erroneously blamed on them from time to time as well. Seems like little has changed in that respect. Are you suggesting that sexual deviation should not be accepted and tolerated as a natural part of society? I'm not suggesting anyone should be forced to do anything, including celebrate it, but shouldn't non-heteronormative people at least be accepted as members of society and not ostracized for being different? Or does their existence somehow threaten your own fragile sense of Gender? Also, what is Satanic about "do what thou wilt?" unless it harms other people? Or is the very fact that people are not obeying the religious views and morals you seem to hold somehow threatening to your fragile sense of faith? Have you ever stopped to ask the question, why aren't schools more conservative in their teaching? Might it have anything to do with the lack of conservatives selflessly going into education? And then you have the nerve to complain about what those who do believe and attempt to teach? Personally, I think the whole system is hopelessly corrupt and beyond systemic repair and ought to be scrapped on the national and state levels. Let the local school boards set the standards and curriculum, and if they don't like the teachers, let them fire them and hire ones they do like or step up and take the jobs themselves. Just don't hypocritically do the same thing as they are doing and teach your own potentially alienating views to the liberal parents' children. When you talk about "racial consciousness, you mean the Human Race, right? When you refer to critical thinking, you mean the kind of thinking that not only challenges political and media orthodoxy, but also challenges religious orthodoxy, right? As to just how strong is gender? I would say it's as strong or as weak as your hormones, brain chemistry, and psychology and beliefs make it to be. As to what it takes to break it? Hormones, drugs, and brainwashing will superficially suppress it. breaking it, however, likely takes a combination of these and probably a decade or more to really break it to the point it won't spontaneously return.

You're supposing that consent is permission that is only given prior to action; not an on-going permission to act that may be retracted. As Jefferson penned it in the Declaration of Independence, "Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." It is the People's silent consent to tyranny which allows the tyrants to act as they do. It is not dissimilar to reason why some have said, "the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." The actors of government are acting on the premise of the prior consent of our forefathers and our current lack of objection to their rule. If we don't like the governance, we can leave or we can persuade the whole of the nation to throw off the oppressive rule and establish new guardians of our liberty and freedom as we see fit as our forefathers did Now you might suggest that all government that does not obtain the specific consent of each person it governs is exercising illegitimate jurisdictional authority over that person. That is like saying a person is not allowed to presume authority over their children as they are born for as long as they live under their roof, that they must formally request and obtain such permission from them. But of course this is not possible at the time of their birth as they are incapable of granting informed consent. By the time they are able to grant informed consent, they are adults (or emancipated minors), and can be forcibly ejected from the home if they do not agree to such governance. Perhaps the same rule should apply in the case of US and State citizenship while such governance continues?

Yup, the Constitution only matters when people are willing and able to hold those acting under color of law to account for their extra-Constitutional and unConstitutional actions.

That's fair. As to the "serious skeptical arguments", there really is only one significant epistemological hurdle regarding knowledge and certainty--solipsism, and that question simply cannot be conclusively resolved. One cannot ever know whether everything one experiences is manufactured by one's own imagination, or imposed upon one in some sort of matrix-like fashion, or actually the result of sensory input in the manner that appears self-evident. One can only reason and act according to the perceptions we have and the subsequent conceptions we form about reality. We cannot be absolutely certain that what we remember ever actually occurred, we only have our memory of the past which might only be our imagination in the present moment. We cannot be absolutely certain about anything but the definitions we create in our mind, and even these we cannot be absolutely certain of from one moment to the next. The best we can do is to choose to act pragmatically--to "act as if". Now we do know that our senses are not perfect, and we know that our reasoning may at times be flawed. That is why it is useful to check our observations and reasoning against the observations and reasoning of others in an attempt to eliminate the potential errors of subjectivity that may create an erroneous conception of reality. We know that at best, we can only hope to eliminate the subjectivity of our perceptions and subsequent conceptions and reasoning to a reasonably strong cogent certainty, but never to an absolute certainty. Most of the time, this lack of absolute certainty isn't even recognized as such; we simply act as though something is absolutely true because we are reasonably certain that it is. Life would be needlessly anxiety producing if we were to concern ourselves with the uncertainty that remains when we consider the actual degree of certainty we really have about everything in life. In the law, our court system recognizes that we can never be absolutely certain about the innocence or guilt of anyone. Instead we are asked to make decisions on criminal matters only to the degree of certainty that is beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond ALL possible doubt. All possible doubt could allow for all kinds of unreasonable potential circumstances that might exonerate the perpetrator of a crime, such as a doppelganger which there exists no evidence for who impersonated the perpetrator, or a master hypnotist who manipulated peoples memories and expertly altered video evidence, without leaving a trace of evidence, etc. In life we must act with at least a minimum level of pragmatism that accepts the fact that we cannot know anything empirically with absolute certainty, nor are we able to predict the future with absolute certainty. We delude ourselves either through ignorance or arrogance into believing otherwise.

You're so certain I don't know what I'm talking about, really? It seems pretty clear from the podcast and various media reports that there was some question as to whether or not Jian Ghomeshi did what he was accused of doing, especially in light of the lack of any bystander witnesses and no physical evidence of a violent assault. Things which, incidentally, were present in the case of Brock Turner. As to your charges of "white-knighting" on the part of the Swedes, I really don't understand what your complaint is. It almost sounds as if you think they were "too noble" in their intervention. Some clarification is in order I think, lest one think you actually believe Brock's 2nd BS stories about what actually happened (which asks the question, which of his two stories do you believe, the one he told the cops the night he was arrested or the one he told his probation officer?) As to the charges that the police are biased against the alleged perpetrator, that is a given. Why would they not suppose that the person is guilty of the charges leveled against them. It is the Judge and Jury who are obligated to presume the innocence of the accused, not the officers who arrive on scene to detain the alleged perpetrator of a crime. Then I suggest you get your "vision" checked, or better yet, take a remedial course in reading comprehension and more importantly, check your own bias against me.

From the way you posted the convicted criminal's story, and the way you depicted the police and witnesses to the sexual assault as demonizing him, the way you referred to his sexual assault in quotes suggesting you did not consider what he did to be a crime but that is was simply being called a crime, and the fact that you referenced a man (Jian Ghomeshi) who was exonerated of sexual crimes suggested a bias against the victim and possibly in favor of the perpetrator. As I said, I might be mistaken in this regard, but that is what suggested to me that you may have a bias if not in favor of the perpetrator, at least against the victim and the perpetrator's accusers. I'm not asking you to share your answers to the following questions, just use them to check yourself for bias in this instance... Have you or anyone you know and respect ever engaged in sexual activity with someone who was highly intoxicated to the point that they were cognitively impaired? Did they remember what happened afterward? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever engaged in sexual activity with someone while highly intoxicated to the point that you (or they) were cognitively impaired or don't remember details afterward? To the point of not remembering anything? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever been accused of sexual assault? Convicted? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever been sexually assaulted? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever been falsely accused of sexual assault? Convicted? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever falsely accused someone of sexual assault, or any other crime? Were they convicted? Have you or anyone you know or respect ever done something which you judged them less harshly than you judged another because of how well you know them? More harshly? Do you believe people of specific socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to commit crimes than others? Less likely? Do you believe people of specific intelligence are more likely to commit certain crimes than others? Less likely? Do you believe people of specific race are more likely to commit certain crimes than others? Less likely? Do you believe people of specific age are more likely to commit certain crimes than others? Less likely? Do you believe people of a specific sex are more likely to commit certain crimes than others? Less likely? Do you believe authorities such as police officers are more reliable, about equally reliable, or less reliable than the average person in telling the truth? In being fair? In being impartial? Do you believe witnesses are generally more reliable than forensic evidence, about as reliable, or less reliable? Do you believe the people you know personally are generally representative of persons of that race, age, sex, socio-economic background, etc., or are they generally exceptional in a positive way? in a negative way? Have you or anyone you know and respect ever done something which, if it were know, you would be convicted of a felony? a serious felony? Have you or anyone you know been a victim of a felony crime that went unpunished? These questions are not meant to be accusatory in any way. I don't expect you or anyone to answer these questions, especially if they feel uncomfortable doing so. They are only meant for self-reflection to determine if you are conscious of any biases you might have, or possibly unconscious of biases you might have.

The prosecution was recommending 6 years. Assuming the homeless woman wasn't mentally ill or otherwise incapable of making moral distinctions, and 6 years is a fairly consistent sentence for crimes of this severity and seriousness, I'd abide by that recommendation.

I admit I'm biased. I'm biased towards supporting the weak and the few who are oppressed and victimized by the many and strong. I'm biased against the guilty who show no evidence of remorse for the harm they caused, but only the consequences of being caught doing something wrong. I make no apologies for those biases. You seemed to be revealing a bias yourself with your first post in this thread; but maybe I'm mistaken in that regard.

Analytic claims are the only thing one can rightly claim absolute certainty over since they are definitive, that is to say, they rationally define and divide ideas deductively. One cannot claim certain knowledge of propositions that are inductively rationalized because synthetic propositions are inherently probabilistic, not definitive; instead, at best one may have relative or approximate certainty. Now Stefan claims there is no real distinction or dichotomy between analytic and synthetic because we would not have analytical concepts and propositions without first relying upon empirical synthetic propositions and concepts. I think this is an imprecise way of regarding knowledge and truth, because it essentially dissolves the distinction between empirical concepts based on precepts and rational concepts which laws, principles, relationships and entities that have been abstracted from empirical concepts. I believe the reason why he denies the distinction is because the distinction has been used historically to create moral justification contrary to the anarchist ideology he professes.

From the report, "to be fair", it was likely only digital penetration, which, even if it was "only" digital penetration still constitutes rape and not simple sexual assault (such as groping) as far as most people are concerned; but it is at least good to know that he likely never got as far as penetrating her with any other part of his body.

When did I say I was making an argument. I was simply pointing out that a person caught in the act of raping someone will always claim consent. It's their only potentially viable defense. Everything else was simply sarcastic commentary. As for the bias, yeah, I tend to be biased against rapists caught in the act of engaging in intercourse with girls incapable of giving consent, and a criminal justice system that routinely gives people heavier or lighter sentences for the same crime based on their sex, the color of their skin, and any other excuse for unjustly extending special privileges to some and negatively discriminating against others.

The principles of logic and reason (as well as other philosophical truths) have reasonable justification for their trustworthiness not only from empirical observation and comparison, but internal consistency as well. It seems to me to be special pleading to suggest they cannot be justified by an appeal to empirical observation. Probably. I cannot say with certainty as i never met Hume or asked him specifically how he reached his conclusion. Nevertheless, one can use reason alone to identify the fact that aesthetic and ethical judgments are products of a function of the mind different from the conception of individual or abstracted empirical truths, from empirical facts. It is a question of analysis--"What precisely does the term 'moral' refer to? What are its inherent characteristics and qualities? From whence do morals arise?" and so on. If I were to answer, "No", then we start dropping further down the proverbial rabbit hole of epistemology and reason. Nevertheless, Your question is actually self-defeating. How can I provide you an answer to such a question which does not rely upon your senses to receive it? How can you evaluate the validity of my answer without relying upon reason? If you don't accept that their reliability has already been proven based on past experience, or must at least be taken as a priori assumptions, then you cannot use the sense or reason to judge any answer I might provide; you can't be sure of anything at all! I note that you completely left out the part where I explained why it was self-evident (although I didn't say that's what I was doing), that it is impossible to do otherwise than trust that the senses and reason are reliable. You cannot even retreat into solipsism because you cannot trust reason itself. It seems for you, philosophy is nothing more than mental masturbation, since you're attempting to study the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence while simultaneously maintaining the belief or position that you cannot ever come to a knowledge about anything, much less the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality or existence. In order to know or do anything, you must rely upon these unreliable faculties of the senses and reason. To deny this is to demonstrate you are irrational. How about you demonstrate precisely why I cannot and should not trust my senses or reason; but you must do so without either you or I using the sense or reason, since, if what you claim is true, then I cannot reasonably be expected by you to accept any answer you might provide using either my senses or reason, so you'll have to convince me using some other method. Good luck with that. No, it is not dogmatism, it is at worst pragmatism, and at best reason which ought to be common sense, but it seems to be a bit uncommon if you are lacking in it. You know whenever a person starts creating strawman arguments about what the other person is claiming, they're coming up short on their end of the debate. The actual core and basic principle of rational philosophical and scientific thinking since the time of Aristotle has been: Things are what they are. And if they are what they are, then it should be self-evident to the senses and to reason that they are what they are. It is dogmatic mysticism which teaches that nothing is self-evident, that all things must be revealed by teachers endowed with special knowledge with which they have been uniquely or divinely inspired. So now you're suggesting that an objective morality exists that proceeds from non-objective facts? Can you show ANYTHING AT ALL in the way of objective truths which proceed from non-objective facts? I'll settle for just one. If you cannot, then you are still engaging in sophistry, and it's getting very tiring. I understand that you are either incapable or unwilling to accept the fact that I am not obligated to accept your specious claim of objective morality when there isn't a shred of evidence for it; and that one is thus compelled rationally to conclude based on the only evidence that does exist that aesthetic and ethical norms are not objective truths, but subjective judgments. I also understand that you dogmatically maintain the position that for moral norms to not be objective truths, there can be no objective physical truths which again is patently absurd and based upon nothing but your irrational commitment to your dogmatic assertion that morality is necessarily objective based on objective moral facts which you likewise have no evidence of, not a commitment to discovering the true nature of morality (that it is the collective ethical judgments of a society). No, we're stopping here because you can rationally go no further. I am willing to discuss any rational points you make, but when you start arguing that one cannot trust the senses and reason as a basis for knowledge, then there's no point moving forward because your argument is intellectually and philosophically unworkable as you've removed all common ground, means of communication, acquiring knowledge, and reason itself.

"And despite hiring some great attorneys, I was still convicted of three counts of sexual battery. By all acocunts I should have received a 15 year sentence, but owing to the fact that the Judge presiding over my sentencing was an alumnus from my School, as well as being blessed to have European Ancestry, I got a slap on the wrist, and with good behavior, I'll only spend as much time in jail for raping a drunk girl as that Black girl will for trying to pull her friend away from the Police at a BLM rally. SWEET! Horray for White Male Privilege".

Actually, the debate would be over whether physicality that is experienced by the senses is an actual separate and objective reality and not a projection of the mind. But as others have previously pointed out, the question is moot and irrelevant as what we can know with a high degree of certainty is the best we can ever hope to come to. Even our perceptions and conceptions are not 100% reliable, but are generally reliable enough.

Of course that's his story. It's certainly a better story than, "I took a drunk girl from a party who was barely conscious, walked her outside, took her behind a dumpster and began raping her, and continued raping her after she fell unconscious, and would have continued raping her had two Swedes riding by on their bikes not stopped me."

I think the judge needs some nice middle-eastern refugees to come pay him a visit and thank him for seeing that justice was done, by robbing him at gun-point while taunting him with phrases like, "Don't point your knife at my more vital parts!"

No you don’t. It is not only self-evident, not to mention pragmatic given my 40+ years of successfully continuing to exist by doing so, but no one can even question it without relying upon the senses you have relied upon for years but now ridiculously call into question as a source of information about the physical world. Furthermore, in absence of any evidence to the contrary, it is the most rational and probable scenario. I admit other unlikely alternatives exist, but these are largely irrelevant to me as they are unprovable and provide no material benefit to my life or well-being. I agree that what I termed “Rational Truths” might better be termed “Empirical Laws” (which are general abstractions from the observation of physical phenomena); the term is better as it is more accurately descriptive. What I meant by “sometimes philosophical truths” is truths such as the principles of logic and reason, objectivity and subjectivity, and so on. On the contrary, if we do not make this presumption, then in order to be thorough in our scientific and philosophical explorations and proofs, we must not only explore the known and established observable reality and philosophical truths, but we must also explore the infinite alternative explanations for which there is no evidence in order to conclusively rule them out as well. We might as well suggest that Dinosaurs are the source of moral truth and Love is what makes the Sun shine since we can’t even treat these premise with the credulity they deserve if we go by your standard that the absence of evidence does not allow us to reasonably rule it out as a possibility. The problem with relying upon reason alone has already been explored by countless philosophers who have gone before, notably including Hume, as I mentioned, to whom is attributed the maxim, one cannot derive an ought (moral imperative) from an is (reality) by reason alone. That sounds like dogmatism to me. Who are you to define what “true morality” is and isn’t, can or can’t be? As for a non-empirical source of morality, You are responding to a post that posits such a source. So I guess you’ve changed your mind now about the Dinosaurs possibly being the source of morality? That was fast. Now if you will only apply that same reasoning to your notion objective moral facts and truths. I’m sorry but that just isn’t going to fly. Your devotion to something you cannot prove sounds to me like nothing more than dogmatic religious belief; and it’s your arguments which are weak and do not show what you want them to show. You seem to want to give an objective empirically existential answer that you admit you’re unable to provide. Now you’re just grasping at straw. Your claim is that my argument is either not strong enough or too strong because I shouldn’t be able to arrive at the conclusion I have since it contradicts your dogmatic belief in something you cannot prove.

Actually, that was an inductive argument you just made, not a deductive one. If you wanted to make a deductive argument, you would say something like: "If a person accepts the synthetic/analytic distinction, they will not openly reject or discount it. Stefan openly refutes or discounts this distinction in his podcast on the subject. Therefore, Stefan rejects the synthetic/analytic distinction. I realize I'm just quibbling here, but if you're going to talk about these distinctions, then you should be clear about whether you're making an inductive or deductive argument. Yes, it is quite evident that Stefan is a radical empiricist. He denies the obvious differences between rational truths and the empirical truths from which they are abstracted are of any significance or importance in the grand scheme of things. While he is probably correct that our understanding of the principles of logic are the result of inductive abstractions from empirical observation of the consistency of physical phenomena, it doesn't change the fact that there is a significant difference between the truth claims based on inductive reasoning and empiricism (which are relative probabilities) and the absolute truth claims based on deductive reasoning and abstracted laws, principles and relationships. This is especially the case when it comes to discussing things like ethics and aesthetics; since if one does not know and cannot rationally prove the source of ethics, one may be led to making erroneous statements like "there are objective moral truths." If it were true in the past (who's to say it wasn't when the Big Bang that is said to have occurred at the beginning of time took place?) it wouldn't change anything in my life at all. I'm more concerned about things that are likely to happen, especially in the immediate or near future, that may affect my life and the lives of those around me, especially those I love and care about; and those that have influence for good or ill in my life.

No. The argument from morality does not concern itself with consequence of action or "effect", it is only concerned with the characteristic of action (moral or immoral). As others have mentioned, an argument from morality is nothing more than question begging, as morality concerns itself with answering the question as to why one should do something. Consequently, it seeks to end the question without answering the question by implying that the morality should be adhered to for its own sake and not for any effect it might have. Why be moral seeks to understand the benefits of moral action which may not include the direct consequences of the action itself which is what arguing from effect addresses. In essence, one might ask, "Why should one push other peoples' cars out of ditches?" The answer to such a question arguing from effect would be, "because the cars would remain in ditches if one did not", or, "in order engender favor with the drivers, passengers, and owners of the vehicles and ditches", or even, "in order to build strong muscles." The argument from morality would be, "because it's good to help others."

If such a time occurred in the near future, in all probability, your life and the life of everyone else in the universe would come to an immediate and abrupt end as the gasses of the stars suddenly and violently dispersed, and the rotational inertia of the rotating planets cause their respective masses to go flying off into space in parallel to the plane of rotation about the axis. Just saying.

Those who cannot afford it must either increasing their ability to pay or settle for lower quality food. Oftentimes, what may appear to be of inferior quality may turn out to be good quality food of commensurate value to their ability to pay, but locating such food takes effort. There are many who are looking for the best of the worst, and when the price is the same, though the value may be greater, there is competition in obtaining it. The truth, however, is that most men who are truly interested in higher quality food are simply unwilling to pay for it, or unwilling to increase their ability to pay for it and simply feel entitled to it and angry that it is not readily given to them. Many men that rate themselves a 7 or 8 and lament they are only able to attract 5s and 6s women fall into one of three categories. Men who are actually 7 or 8 in but projecting themselves as a 5 or 6 (which asks the question, are they really a 7 or 8?), men who are really 5 or 6 that are rating themselves higher than they actually are, or men who are 7 or 8 but are simply having trouble finding similar 7s and 8s. Such men need to realize that if they are only attracting 5s and 6s or below who are willing to take them, then they are only projecting a worth of a 6 or a 7 at best. These individuals need to up their game such that they are at least projecting their actual worth, if not better. Furthermore, such men need to realize that if they are not ever seeking to increase their worth, that entropy and age will drag them back. a 7 at age 25 will almost always be a 6 at age 30 and a 5 at 35 unless they do something to increase their worth over the space of 10 years. No quality woman wants a man who isn't constantly seeking to improve themselves, or their worth; that's part of being a quality man. It's not what you believe or know that's important, but what you apply.

Actually, that's an example of inductive reasoning, where a likely conclusion is drawn from multiple facts but an alternative conclusion cannot be completely ruled out. More precislely, analytic propositions are those whose truth value is arrived at deductively; whereas synthetic propositions are those whose truth value is arrived at inductively. Absolutely correct. The truth value of analytic propositions can be known with certainty becasue they are arrived at through deduction. The truth value of synthetic propositions cannot be known with certainty because they are arrived at through induction. I cannot speak for Stefan in this regard, but I would suspect from what I have read that it is a matter of "close enough". In other words, the relative certainty that one may have with respect to conclusions carefully drawn from inductive reasoning serve to be close enough to merit confidence when making even life-altering decisions.

We discern facts about the physical world (empirical truths) through our senses. Our conceptions of the physical world come largely as a consequence of the perceptions of our senses, but they are also formed on the basis of laws, principles and relationships which we have abstracted rationally from previous observations. These abstractions are what we refer to as rational or sometimes philosophical truths. Lastly, there are Sentiments. Sentiments are also a product of the mind (the brain, and perhaps other parts of the body, perhaps more). Sentiments are akin to emotions in that they are in response to our mental evaluations (conceptions) or experiences (perceptions). When it comes to moral judgements, we either learn them by rote from our elders and peers, inductively infer them by their similarity to situations moral judgements we are already familiar with, or we arrive at ethical judgements as a consequence of evaluating a situation and paying attention to our feelings or sentiments about the situation as a consequence of empathy and sympathy (or the lack thereof) for the parties involved. However, If we attempt to discern the source of all moral judgments, we are compelled to disregard any source we are unable to validate and verify, which eliminates any customs or traditions of objective moral judgments having a supernatural origin. This leaves us with only two possible origins: observations of physical phenomena and their resultant truths, (Objective, empirical truths, or their abstracted, objective, rational truths), or individual emotion and sentiment (Subjective preferences). So again, if we are ever to find any objective moral truths, we must look to see if we can identify any objective moral facts, i.e. moral facts which are derived from observation of empirical moral phenomena; or, we must identify moral facts derived from such observations of empirical phenomena in the sense of laws, principles, and relationships. Absent the evidence for any such moral facts or derivative abstracted moral laws, principles, and relationships, we must conclude that such moral facts do not in fact exist. This leaves only subjective moral sentiment, which is why I say that it is the only self-evident source of moral judgments. This does not exclude the possibility of moral facts, but absent any evidence that such facts exist, any claims to their existence can be disregarded as unsupported and warrantless assertions. If we were to presume the proposition "murder is wrong" is a derivative or abstracted moral truth, then we ought to be able to point to the moral fact or facts from which the moral truth is abstracted from, just as when we can abstract the law of universal gravitation from the observations of falling bodies and orbiting planets, or the principles of mathematics from the grouping of various objects. If "murder is wrong" is an abstracted moral truth, where are the moral facts providing the empirical moral observations this abstraction is based upon? What would they even look like? I refer you back to Hume, you cannot get an ought from an is through reason alone. That moral judgements come from individual subjective sentiment is self-evidently true. That they come from anywhere else is not. In absence of the evidence that something exists, one may conclude until such evidence comes forth that it does not. The burden of proof is always on the affirmative claim of existence. The fact that moral judgments are usually universalized does not make them objective truths. That moral judgements are purported to be objective truths is a custom or tradition causing them to appear to have greater weight in the minds of those who hear them. The reason moral judgments are purported to be objective truths is because objective truths must be obeyed. A rock must fall to the ground (because of gravity). An sufficiently light airplane moving through the air must fly (because of Bernoulli's principle). Therefore, you must not Murder (because murder is wrong). While there is a difference between the expression of admiration or enjoyment "I like...", and the statement of aesthetic judgement "... is (beautiful/ugly...)", such wording of moral judgements does not prove the existence of an objective moral fact any more than the aesthetic judgement is proof of the existence of an objective aesthetic fact (such as beauty). Moral judgments are more closely related to aesthetic judgments than to expressions of enjoyment. There is an old and common expression that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The same can be said of morality, or as the bard proclaimed, "Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." There are no objective aesthetic standards of politeness or beauty (or any other aesthetic value), and there are no objective moral standards of good or evil. And yet, despite the lack of an objective standard for either of these, there exists a pronounced commonality from one person to the next on certain basic characteristics for various aesthetics, such as symmetry and the golden ratio or proportion, which are almost universally shared preferences pertaining to beauty. The fact that there is a strong correlation of agreement between aesthetic judgments of beauty from one person to the next, and of moral goodness from one person to the next suggests that aesthetics and morals are not wholly arbitrary, but largely informed by a common source. Nevertheless, many studies upon the aesthetic of beauty indicate a variation of aesthetic ideal from individual to individual and even strong cultural aesthetic preferences with respect to skin color, tone, hair color and style, body size and shape, and so on when it comes to physical beauty of people. Such aesthetics, it has been hypothesized, may exist because of their ability to help us identify the most advantageous mate for reproduction. Likewise, there are similar preferences for beauty in other areas unrelated to that of the human form or fashion; and, while there are aesthetic preferences for various non-moral behaviors across many cultures, there are also various differences in preferences between cultures that are nevertheless shared by most members of a culture. It seems likely that the commonality of natural aesthetic and moral judgments in addition to those which appear to be learned from our culture help us to be better members of a community, perhaps making it more likely for ourselves and our offspring to survive and pass on our genes to future generations. No, I do not have to show any such thing as I have not asserted that moral judgements are the same or markedly similar to judgements about one's own feelings in the manner you have suggested. What I have shown is that individuals appear to be almost universally disposed to make natural or instinctual aesthetic and moral judgements, but that aesthetic judgments and moral judgements also appear to be largely informed by the society or culture in which a person resides or identifies with. You, on the other hand, if you wish to assert that there exists some objective moral truth or objective moral standard of behavior do have the burden of proving that such a thing(s) actually exists. We know that such a standard would necessarily be an objective truth analogous to the objective empirical truths about reality which are based on existential, physical phenomena as the Platonists might have us believe; or these objective truths must be analogous to the objective rational truths which are abstracted from the physical truths, akin to the Laws of Physics or the Principles of Mathematics or Logic. If you are unable to demonstrate the existence of such empirical moral facts which these truths are necessarily derived from, your assertion must be considered to be warrantless and gratuitous, and any furtherance of an argument defending such a position which does not address this glaring absence must properly be regarded as sophistry.

I can't believe you are actually asking this question. Yes. Shall we say that a person in jail for 24 hours is not imprisoned? What about 25 hours? 26 hours? At what point does it become imprisonment? The moment the person becomes aware that the person is locked in the room and can immediately, and without incurring any cost to the host, be released but the host chooses not to without extorting money from them. It's not a matter of whether the person was intentionally trapped or unintentionally trapped as to once the entrapment has been discovered by an individual capable of effecting their immediate release, it becomes imprisonment if they refuse to immediately release them. It doesn't matter where the location happens to be. Unless the person deliberately trapped them in a third party-owned location for the purpose of extorting money for their release from them, they cannot be considered guilty of wrongful imprisonment. Nevertheless, such a person is morally obligated to at least attempt to let the owners of the property know of the person trapped in their facility, or to alert personnel able to effect their release. In such an instance, the person thus trapped may bear the responsibility for the cost of their release; depending of course upon the circumstances of their predicament (i.e., did they ignore signs warning of the danger, or worse circumvent any contrivance made to prevent entrapment inside (such as breaking into the bathroom in the first place). I would tend to agree with this; however, person B should be considered under a moral obligation to inform the host of the party of person A's predicament; especially if not willing to assist person A personally without the aforementioned extortion of money.