Wolfgang Schwarz

Oh, some rather uncanny move from "what happens if my mereological counterpart twin has not enough space between his toes?" to the rather worldly topic of ethics? ( :))

Perhaps have a look at Singer and Hondrich about what everyone has to give, --> tithing . Also see "demands of morality"-discussion and in the German literature: "moralische ?berforderung", for instance Tugendhat.

M.

Yeah, I admit that I'm completely illiterate on this subject. Most seminars on pratical philosophy I've attended (or tried to attend) have been unbearable, but maybe I would enjoy reading stuff. Though I guess I'll do some more counterpart theory first...

Moorean facts are an interesting and very plausible approach to divide mankind in good and evil. Of course, we and our friends are not evil. But if we compared our actions with those of others, one could find it questionable to make that division on this basis. For example, the Chinese censor the internet. But so does Chalmers on his blog. Is he evil? Of course not, even though regarding the actions gives no clear answer. This demonstrates the use of Moorean facts.

Do we really need Moorean Facts in order zo explain why Chalmers is not so bad after all?
I conjecture that something in the ballpark of Ethical Relativism
might do the trick:
Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.

I do not see why one should fall back upon ethical relativism. David Lewis said Moorean facts do the job, so there is no need to apply ethical relativism.
Furthermore I have some doubts that ethical relativism is suitable to differ between Chalmers and the Chinese because both act according to their values. But it is a Moorean fact that the Chinese are evil such as it is that Chalmers, the highly respected philosopher, is not evil. So, what does it help?

Wow, that`s quite a mouthful.
I am really puzzled now.
But maybe ethical relativism can still be put to work.
When Lewis says that something is a Moorean fact, all he means is that something is true relative to standards of assessment relevantly similar to those embraced by Moore(which might be considerably low-key).
Such an interpretation of Lewis would fit quite smoothly with another tenet of Schwarzian philosophy, namely that all we are doing in philosophy is figuring our broadly logical relationships of the kind "if you accept A,B,C and D, then you also have to accept either E and F or G".
A principle that is moreover eminently plausible in philosophy of ethics or how would you like the job of telling some dictator that`s his ways of acting are wrong.
So ethcial absoultism would be in bad shape sooner or later, right?

I am dismayed by the poor quality of reasoning exhibited in this thread.

It is just crystal clear that Chalmers is a wrongdoer if he censors his blog.
Censorship is censorship and cannot be excused.
Moorean facts are employed iff one runs out of arguments.

@Frank and Jens
Wtf?
Just because Chalmers is a popstar doesn´t mean he is beyond criticsm.
And invoking the man is also not very helpful.
Lewis is not the pope.

Ethical relativism strikes me as an especially myopic and irresponsible position.
Claiming that Hitler`s ethical outlook is right though not Right
is an indefensible position.

N.B. Philosophy is also about what is right and what is wrong and not just about consequence.

KJ: "It is just crystal clear that Chalmers is a wrongdoer if he censors his blog."

It's his personal blog, his property, he pays for his internet space, and censors whoever he wants to (if he does). Chinese people, the BBC, or the NY Times website are not the Chinese government's property.

I myself censor the youtube comments I get for my music videos. When someone gets nasty, I send a very impolite email to that person, after which I block that person forever. There is nothing evil about this: blogs, youtube, etc. are not to be used for insulting people who share their ideas, music, etc. with the internet community. That's why on youtube there is a button called "report inappropriate content", and a button called "report spam", and the button called "block user".

Istvan, you have missed the topic. This thread is about Moorean facts and not about youtube. Who cares about the music videos of hobby musicians?

To return to the issue: There might still be a problem with Moorean facts. One can construct a Sorites argument: Let Chalmers be a friend of f1, this one a friend of f2, ... , until fn. However, fn is a Chinese internet censor. We have stated Chalmers and his friends are good and Chinese internet censors are evil. The question now is: Is fn a friend of Chalmers? If he is then we have the contradictory statement that fn is both good and evil. So one is inclined to assume that fn is not a friend of Chalmers. But transitivity is in this context quite plausible. What do you think: How can one evade the problem?

Frank:

(1)If you go back to my post, you will see that I replied to someone called "KJ", who thinks it's "crystal clear" that one is wrongdoer, if one blocks some user on one's own private blog.

(2)Regarding the topic, I tend not to care about any argument that wants to tell me that we are all criminals because we don't help God-knows-who. Such arguments have created some very fashionable philosophers nowadays, whom I completely neglect. So I'm not philosophically interested in such topics, I only wanted to point out that censorship on a private blog is not to be put in the same category as censorship by the state against its citizens. The blog is like my house, almost, I will kick out any guest who does not conform to the rules I set up for my guests.

(3) If we talk about censorship, then just go back to classical liberal thinking, like Locke, Mill, Constant, and the Founding Fathers. Then you will realize the difference between China and a private blog.

(4)(a)Your "sorites" argument is not based on a sorites sequence. (b)It would lead to some kind of puzzle, if, for instance, "being a friend of" were transitive, and fn were clearly judged as not a friend of f1. (c) "being a friend of" is not transitive, unless you believe that you can't be enemies with, or not even know, or never have met some of your friends' friends. For instance, I have recently heard that my best friend's friend is a very good friend of the French actor Jean Reno. But, unfortunately, I have never met Jean Reno, so I can't tell whether we would be friends or not, if we met.

How low can you go?
@Frank, there is no Sorites whatsoever in your "argument" if one can call such rubbish an argument.
@Istvan, your musical dilettantism is anathema here.
If your surreptitious advertising would be deleted, I would be delighted.
No censorship here.
But if Chalmers censors criticisms of his work, it remains the case that he is a misdemeanant.
Again, I am not opposed to banning spammers like Istvan, but deleting serious criticism is a "crime".

I am not pleased at the manner of discussing here. One ought to keep in certain standards which are usual in philosophical blogs. KJ, you should take Istvan as an example - he at least tries to give arguments against my sorites argument and does not insult me.

@ Istvan: I do not think my sorites argument be in that bad condition. You challenge that there is a sorites sequence. But I think there is one. In the chain of friendship the degree of "friendshipness" lessens. f1 is a friend of mine, but f2 is only a friend of a friend of mine, and so on. I have stable intuitions about the notion of friendshipness, so there is reason to find it plausible to endorse it into my sorites argument.
However, you do not only challenge the sorites chain but also the transitivity as such. How then do you explain uses like "The friend of my friend is my friend" and "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"? They are proven elements of linguistical praxis, so this is an experiential fact one cannot neglect.
Furthermore, the problem of rule following forces us to acknowledge the transitivity of friendshipness. How can one learn what friendship is if I observe two guys playing the friendship role and only have one of them as a friend?
Last but not least, one can draw a conclusion from ehtical considerations. It is a moral duty to have only friends who do not have bad guys as friends or who do not have friends who have friends who have bad guys as friends and so on. We philosophers and our friends are not bad guys so there will not be any bad guy in the friendshipness chain. But it is conceivable that Chalmers be concatenated with a Chinese internet censor via a friendshipness chain.
As a result we can conclude: The problem does not vanish - on the contrary, it even reveals as harder to solve than before.

so much strong feeling in response to a blog entry that's over 3 years old. Wow!

One often praises the internet for its possibilities of expressing one's opinion. But the medal has to sides: The bright one is: You can write everything. The dark one is: You can erase everything.

In a democracy, no state has the right to censor. If one finds political philosophy best elaborated in the Founding Fathers' time (as Istvan seems to do) there is a clearly strict seperation between what is private and what is public.
But the borders become indistinct. Not only public media but also private blogs etc. have an important role in the process of formation of opinion. So it is in important aspect of freedom of speech that one cannot erase articles just as you like. This gives some pressure to think of whether one should protect the freedom of speech in the internet by law. If one deletes any article just because one cannot bear criticism the freedom of speech or even of science (think of the role which has a blog like umsu in scientific community!) is in danger.
One cannot object against this view that Chalmers pays money for his blog. In a modern state under the rule of law, no enterpriser can do whatever he wants although it is him who pays the party.

Thomas:

I’m indeed most sympathetic to classical liberalism, and especially to a later development, namely the Austrian School of von Mises, von Hayek; and I even sympathize with Walter Block. As a consequence I’m very much against “regulitis”, the obsession to regulate as much as possible, for instance, the internet.

I don’t think regulating the internet, in the direction you mentioned, namely, in order to allow free speech even on private blogs, is necessary (If I were a better arguer, probably I could even come up with an argument that is not a good idea). Suppose I have a blog and I delete comments that are perfectly reasonable, not insulting, civilised (unlike the ones made by one of the persons who has commented in this thread before), just because they are critical of my position on some issue. I believe there is a spontaneous and natural processs by which sooner or later my blog will lose credibility completely (more and more people will publicly point out on other media what I am doing). By losing credibility, my blog will lose its previous importance for the community. So there is no need to worry about the interest of the public: there will be a natural selection, based on credibility, by which such a blog will not be important anymore for the community, so it will not matter what the owner of the blog does in terms of censorship.

Similar things would happen to a philosophy journal that applies professionally unjustified censorship: sooner or later it would be excluded from ISI and various citation indexes, then probably APA, AAP etc. would issue negative statements regarding that journal. All this is enough from the point of view of the public interest, and there is no need to regulate anything.

At least Istvan seems to have learned his lesson.
@Frank
Since you are such a worshipper of Moorean facts, you should know why I can`t argue with you.
Your arguments are so rotten, that I feel unable to make up some
argument from shared premisses which might foster your understanding.
Our Moorings are your Poorings.
But I have one objection to offer:
Have you ever considerated folk platitudes like "Jesus loves everyone" or "I love you all"?
If love entails frienship, you are in big trouble.
Beware, a contradiction may wreck havoc.
Do not tell me anything about quantifier restriction.
We ain't wimps, are we?
@ThomasR
I agree almost entirely with you.
Good work!

Originally, I was full of hope that there might be a way the sorites argument could reveal as false. But there seems to be no way it could and even Istvan has given up resistance. So there is no way except to recognize its truth and the falsehood of Moorean facts. I also do not have stable intuitions about how to rate Chalmers any longer.

I could simply ignore the ridiculous Jesus-argument of KJ, but it would be against the way one should act on a blog. The mistake is that love does not entail friendship. It is correct that if two guys love each other they are in the friendship relation. But friendship is symmetrical, but love is not. So there is no reason to be worried about the Jesus-argument.

Thanks everyone for the lively discussion! Please try to keep your comments friendly and to the point. We don't need to insult one another here.

For the record, I get about 1800 comments per day here, and I delete almost all of them. Otherwise the site would drown in bot tests and spam. I want my comment sections to be a place for civilized philosophical discussion, so I delete the comments that don't fit. Is that like what the Chinese government does? In some respects yes, in others not. A raven is like a writing desk.

Anyway, I think the discussion here has drifted away from the topic of my post. So if you don't mind, I'd rather we let it fade out or move it elsewhere, okay? Thanks.

Frank,
you have surmounted brilliant arguments against taking Moorean facts as fundamental.
On the argument from Ethics:
Maybe one could argue that from the perspective of ethics it is a conceputal truth that one could have only friends that are good.
If they were not good, why should we decorate them with a term that has positive connotations.
No good reasons for such a view, I guess.
On the sorites:
I think the sorites is there and it is real.
But how are we to explain it?
My best guess is that friendship has a hidden variable built into it to the effect that x is a friend of y means roughly something like x and y have resembling pro-attitudes.
Maybe anti-symmetry has to be rejected after all.
The deepest problem in the vicinity seems to be that even if ethical relativism is true, there might still be some vagueness in our judgements about ethical matters.
But very plausibly the Good is as clear-cut as can be, even though
it is not a priori for some actions that they are good nor that they are bad.
How do we decide?
I think experimental philosophy comes to the rescue.
If you want to know which if any of the acts of censorship supposedly done by Chalmers were wrong, just set up an experiment aka write a crtical blog entry and see if Censorship in this circumstances instantiates the Bad.
If it does, you have your answer plus you have learned something about your attitudes.
I owe this experimental set-up in its spirit to Albert Newen.
If I have misundertood the spirit of his philosophy, the fault is all mine.
N.B.Don´t miss the superb conference "Are Thoughts Motor Processes?" sponsored by the Volkswagenstiftung in Bochum next month.
Kennst du das Land, wo die Motoren brummen? Brumm, Brumm.

Great idea! But how can we carry out the experiment?

Well,
I have two proposals at hand.

1.You might write some pamphlet against ethical relativism a la KJ on "fragments of consciousness" under "conference wrap-up", telling him how irresponsible etc.pp. ER is.
Of course, I don´t have a business with that as I endorse ER myself.

2.You might critize Chalmers and his friends for having created the by far longest thread ever by listing so called "philosophy teams".

I considered almost every post as not even a bit funny except for this one, which didn´t make it long though:

Beer Philosophers:
David Chalmers, John Hawthorne, Jonathan Schaffer

Sloppy Philosophers:
David Chalmers, Jonathan Schaffer,
Ted Sider, Frank "the godfather of sloppiness" Jackson

Say-it-like-Lewis Philosophers:
Frank Jackson, Andy Egan, Ted Sider, Robbie Williams, Wolfgang Schwarz

Say-it-like-the-scientists Philosophers:
David Papineau,Daniel Dennett,Michael Devitt,
Jonathan Schaffer,Jerry Fodor,Hilary Kornblith

I-don´t-believe-my-own-preachings Philosophers:
John Searle,Frank Jackson,David "The Man" Lewis(nod to KJ?),
Hilary Putnam

I-don´t-understand-my-own-preachings Philosophers:
David Papineau,Scott Soames,John Searle,

I would further recommend to shut down our discussion until the experient has been carried out.
My theory? I am not committed to that Philosophers:
David Chalmers,Saul Kripke

Copy-and-paste Philosophers:
German Philosophers

As a bonus, this entry would also ridicule descriptivism for names.

Furthermore, I´d recommend to let our discussion calm down until the experiment has been carried out so as to conform to Wo´s plea.

I cannot find such an entry within the "philosophy teams", but in another thread chalmers undoubtedly has instantiated the Good.
Just look at these harsh critics of his extended-mind-paper and, above all, the ridiculous photos of Chalmers' birthday party:

http://fragments.consc.net/djc/2008/03/supersizing-the.html

Chalmers did not delete the priceless commments of Jacob Freeze. I hope for more of this guy!