Do a search on "the whole God issue so far" quotes included. The arguments for utilitarianism, have a utility problem themselves, much like all moral theorizing has the problem of whether one is morally obligated to pay any attention to any moral theorizing in the first place. If not, then you can just ignore all theories of ethical and moral obligation--and with moral imunity due to the consequent irrelevance. If there is a moral obligation to pay attention to moral theorizing, then there's already an unargued, unelaborated, and unmentioned moral obligation running in the background of cognition itself.
Be glad to talk about this with you on video or livestream, youtube, zoom, whatsapp, any platform is fine.
"Do a search on "the whole God issue so far" quotes included. "
I have no idea what it means.
I disagree with your second claim -- morality isn't intrinsically motivating; neither is rationality. That doesn't mean that rationality has a "rationality problem." If you want to convince everyone to be moral, that's clearly impossible, but you have no reason to expect it to be available.
Oh, sorry, I just meant a general search on the internet for the phrase, double quotes included. I don't like to post links. The brief three essays cover the same thing with regard to evil and general morality at my blog at metatheoreticmachine.blogspot.com
Anyway, I'm still interested in discussing the matter further if you ever have an interest.
1) I didn't say morality is motivating, although there must be some motivation for thinking about it. If it's just a matter of motivation, I don't see any basis for either argumentation in relation to it, or a basis for motivation itself, except a vicious motivation to be motivated, etc.
2) What is the basis for agreement or disagreement? If there is none, it's difficult to see what the utility is for anything including the notion of utility itself.
3) Nothing I said implied that rationality has a rationality problem, unless I'm missing something. Buf if you want to specify the remarks I made that gave that impression, I'll be glad to take a look.
4) The truth of a statement can be its utility only by already assuming truths about utility. But that brings up the same utility-criterion problem about the assumed truths about utility. So the truth of the knowledge of utility must be determined by some other criterion than utilty itself. But in that case, the claim that the truth of a statement is its utility would be false. So the claim that the truth of a statement is its utility is self-contradictory, not to mention that statement's own utility.
If the true is the useful, what does useful itself mean? Or maybe even what's the use of the useful? Well, you can't say without the same question arising for the usefulness of any definition of usefulness.
Note that none of this is to deny that utility or practicality is absent or irrelevant, and in tandem with theorizing itself, but as a standard for truth or as a standalone self-exempting ideal, it has the following problems:
Either we have a true knowledge of utility itself or we do not, however you may want to define utility. If we do not have a true knowledge of utility, then the utilitarian theory is unintelligible, in spite of any utility assumptions (of thinking and theorizing) that may (and I think are) necessarily held in tandem with theorizing about it.
But if we do have a true knowledge of utility, then utility itself cannot be the standard for defining truth as the useful. "Is utilitarianism itself useful or have some kind of practical utility?" "No, it's just useful." "Is it true that it's useful?" "No it's just useful to say it's useful, because true means useful."
So whether we do or do not have a true knowledge of utility, the claim that the true is the useful or the utilizable is contravened. Utility as a test for truth necessarily transcends itself in a higher definition of the meaning of truth, and in a higher-level system for testing for both truth generally and utility specifically, prior to adjudicating the issue.
If utility is defined as what is utilizable, then the truth of the knowledge of utility (or satisfactory adjustment or whatever) must be determined by some other criterion than utility itself.
And all the same questions can be asked about any substitutions or equivalent terms for utility, and then the utility of any arguments or premises in arguments for utility as an ideal standard and so on, even though some sense of the usefulness and value is in tandem with any kind of theorizing.
So the intelligibility of the utilitarian theory eliminates its own sufficiency in a quagmire of questions about what the utility is of anything provided to support it. Even "support" and "justification" run into the same utility problem on that view.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what this means, but couldn't this easily be generalized into the age-old stock of arguments against any objective truth at all?
Can't be mapped 1-to-1, but most of academia and the intellectual world generally runs on giving self-reference issues a pass. Self-referring universals, supervisory criteria, and just plain selectivity. An example of selectivity of implications would be: if the problem of evil is legit, is anyone--not just God--evil who brings sentient beings into a world that contains evil and will eventually cause their suffering and death?
But yes, it's not limited to, for example, the question of whether utilitarianism itself is merely useful for being happy, and not even a theory.
Generally it would apply to the status of any denial that denies objective truth or objectivity itself in relation to adjudicating truth. I call that the self-referential algorithm of deception, exposed by questions. Specifically, how can one claim that any of the following theories themselves are true, when, by their own assertions, truth is merely the cognitive product of the comprehensively explaining and determining factors that those theories specify?
Is the belief that naturalism is true itself completely determined by natural causes and laws, merely the function of our adjustment as organisms to our environment?
If physical matter is the only reality, how can materialism itself be true, in addition to being merely a physical object or merely a function of physical objects?
Is relativism itself relative? (Made fun of but still never answered.)
Is social constructivism itself merely a social construct?
Is subjectivism itself subjective? How could the term even have meaning if we're locked inside our own subjective experience, much less the question of its truth?
And so on:
Is Marxism itself merely an economically determined set of brain actions?
Is behaviorism itself merely an observable and quantifiable product of environmental conditioning?
Is psychologism itself merely the product of psychological factors?
Is skepticism itself and its challenges and requirements as uncertain and unknowable as all the other items of possible knowledge it denies?
Does empiricism itself have any empirical evidence or sense experience that justifies believing it?
Is existentialism itself unexplainable and absurd?
Is idealism itself a mere mental construct about alleged objects of external perception?
Is logical positivism itself meaningless because it can't be logically analyzed into elementary tautologies or empirically verifiable statements?
Is pragmatism itself true, or merely practical? How could anyone know it's practical without the fact of its practicality itself being merely practical and in that way merely repeating the problem of truth beyond sheer practicality?
Is there a +rational* argument for why pure rationalism excludes empirical factors in knowing?
Does hedonism contradict its own criterion of pleasure/pain by having theoretic justifications instead of just advocating it because--consistent with its claimed pleasure/pain criterion--it simply feels good to believe it?
Is Quine's holistic naturalized epistemology itself even a theory, when the revisability principle that maintains the hierarchical network of beliefs cannot itself survive its own revision as just another belief in the network?
Does anti-foundationalism treat its own assumptions as having all the characteristics of the grounding assumptions claimed by foundationalism to be irreducibly basic?
Does nominalism use its own assumptions and basic concepts as having all the characteristics of the universal abstract objects it denies?
And on and on and on it goes. lol
Thanks for your responses. They have forced me to do a good bit of clarifying.
That was a very long walk of text with very little purpose. You can declare Marxism defeated because it’s just a set of brain states that self-references, but Communist China will still persist… same thing with the 500 other random doctrines you mentioned.
Again, you are basically saying that we have to reject all systems of truth, which is an utterly useless argument
I'm not sure why you would think either of those things from what I said, but if you just point out the specifics I'll be glad to address them.
People can do what they want like China does in spite of any and all theories, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the truth or falsity of the theories themselves.
Do a search on "the whole God issue so far" quotes included. The arguments for utilitarianism, have a utility problem themselves, much like all moral theorizing has the problem of whether one is morally obligated to pay any attention to any moral theorizing in the first place. If not, then you can just ignore all theories of ethical and moral obligation--and with moral imunity due to the consequent irrelevance. If there is a moral obligation to pay attention to moral theorizing, then there's already an unargued, unelaborated, and unmentioned moral obligation running in the background of cognition itself.
Be glad to talk about this with you on video or livestream, youtube, zoom, whatsapp, any platform is fine.
"Do a search on "the whole God issue so far" quotes included. "
I have no idea what it means.
I disagree with your second claim -- morality isn't intrinsically motivating; neither is rationality. That doesn't mean that rationality has a "rationality problem." If you want to convince everyone to be moral, that's clearly impossible, but you have no reason to expect it to be available.
Oh, sorry, I just meant a general search on the internet for the phrase, double quotes included. I don't like to post links. The brief three essays cover the same thing with regard to evil and general morality at my blog at metatheoreticmachine.blogspot.com
Anyway, I'm still interested in discussing the matter further if you ever have an interest.
1) I didn't say morality is motivating, although there must be some motivation for thinking about it. If it's just a matter of motivation, I don't see any basis for either argumentation in relation to it, or a basis for motivation itself, except a vicious motivation to be motivated, etc.
2) What is the basis for agreement or disagreement? If there is none, it's difficult to see what the utility is for anything including the notion of utility itself.
3) Nothing I said implied that rationality has a rationality problem, unless I'm missing something. Buf if you want to specify the remarks I made that gave that impression, I'll be glad to take a look.
4) The truth of a statement can be its utility only by already assuming truths about utility. But that brings up the same utility-criterion problem about the assumed truths about utility. So the truth of the knowledge of utility must be determined by some other criterion than utilty itself. But in that case, the claim that the truth of a statement is its utility would be false. So the claim that the truth of a statement is its utility is self-contradictory, not to mention that statement's own utility.
If the true is the useful, what does useful itself mean? Or maybe even what's the use of the useful? Well, you can't say without the same question arising for the usefulness of any definition of usefulness.
Note that none of this is to deny that utility or practicality is absent or irrelevant, and in tandem with theorizing itself, but as a standard for truth or as a standalone self-exempting ideal, it has the following problems:
Either we have a true knowledge of utility itself or we do not, however you may want to define utility. If we do not have a true knowledge of utility, then the utilitarian theory is unintelligible, in spite of any utility assumptions (of thinking and theorizing) that may (and I think are) necessarily held in tandem with theorizing about it.
But if we do have a true knowledge of utility, then utility itself cannot be the standard for defining truth as the useful. "Is utilitarianism itself useful or have some kind of practical utility?" "No, it's just useful." "Is it true that it's useful?" "No it's just useful to say it's useful, because true means useful."
So whether we do or do not have a true knowledge of utility, the claim that the true is the useful or the utilizable is contravened. Utility as a test for truth necessarily transcends itself in a higher definition of the meaning of truth, and in a higher-level system for testing for both truth generally and utility specifically, prior to adjudicating the issue.
If utility is defined as what is utilizable, then the truth of the knowledge of utility (or satisfactory adjustment or whatever) must be determined by some other criterion than utility itself.
And all the same questions can be asked about any substitutions or equivalent terms for utility, and then the utility of any arguments or premises in arguments for utility as an ideal standard and so on, even though some sense of the usefulness and value is in tandem with any kind of theorizing.
So the intelligibility of the utilitarian theory eliminates its own sufficiency in a quagmire of questions about what the utility is of anything provided to support it. Even "support" and "justification" run into the same utility problem on that view.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what this means, but couldn't this easily be generalized into the age-old stock of arguments against any objective truth at all?
Can't be mapped 1-to-1, but most of academia and the intellectual world generally runs on giving self-reference issues a pass. Self-referring universals, supervisory criteria, and just plain selectivity. An example of selectivity of implications would be: if the problem of evil is legit, is anyone--not just God--evil who brings sentient beings into a world that contains evil and will eventually cause their suffering and death?
But yes, it's not limited to, for example, the question of whether utilitarianism itself is merely useful for being happy, and not even a theory.
Generally it would apply to the status of any denial that denies objective truth or objectivity itself in relation to adjudicating truth. I call that the self-referential algorithm of deception, exposed by questions. Specifically, how can one claim that any of the following theories themselves are true, when, by their own assertions, truth is merely the cognitive product of the comprehensively explaining and determining factors that those theories specify?
Is the belief that naturalism is true itself completely determined by natural causes and laws, merely the function of our adjustment as organisms to our environment?
If physical matter is the only reality, how can materialism itself be true, in addition to being merely a physical object or merely a function of physical objects?
Is relativism itself relative? (Made fun of but still never answered.)
Is social constructivism itself merely a social construct?
Is subjectivism itself subjective? How could the term even have meaning if we're locked inside our own subjective experience, much less the question of its truth?
And so on:
Is Marxism itself merely an economically determined set of brain actions?
Is behaviorism itself merely an observable and quantifiable product of environmental conditioning?
Is psychologism itself merely the product of psychological factors?
Is skepticism itself and its challenges and requirements as uncertain and unknowable as all the other items of possible knowledge it denies?
Does empiricism itself have any empirical evidence or sense experience that justifies believing it?
Is existentialism itself unexplainable and absurd?
Is idealism itself a mere mental construct about alleged objects of external perception?
Is logical positivism itself meaningless because it can't be logically analyzed into elementary tautologies or empirically verifiable statements?
Is pragmatism itself true, or merely practical? How could anyone know it's practical without the fact of its practicality itself being merely practical and in that way merely repeating the problem of truth beyond sheer practicality?
Is there a +rational* argument for why pure rationalism excludes empirical factors in knowing?
Does hedonism contradict its own criterion of pleasure/pain by having theoretic justifications instead of just advocating it because--consistent with its claimed pleasure/pain criterion--it simply feels good to believe it?
Is Quine's holistic naturalized epistemology itself even a theory, when the revisability principle that maintains the hierarchical network of beliefs cannot itself survive its own revision as just another belief in the network?
Does anti-foundationalism treat its own assumptions as having all the characteristics of the grounding assumptions claimed by foundationalism to be irreducibly basic?
Does nominalism use its own assumptions and basic concepts as having all the characteristics of the universal abstract objects it denies?
And on and on and on it goes. lol
Thanks for your responses. They have forced me to do a good bit of clarifying.
That was a very long walk of text with very little purpose. You can declare Marxism defeated because it’s just a set of brain states that self-references, but Communist China will still persist… same thing with the 500 other random doctrines you mentioned.
Again, you are basically saying that we have to reject all systems of truth, which is an utterly useless argument
I'm not sure why you would think either of those things from what I said, but if you just point out the specifics I'll be glad to address them.
People can do what they want like China does in spite of any and all theories, but I'm not sure what that has to do with the truth or falsity of the theories themselves.