I am completely baffled by Michael Lind. He’s some think-tank scholar who regularly publishes in Salon, and somehow in all of his writings he’s managed to avoid clearly stating any principle he stands for. I understand he’s some kind of center leftist, he’s no fan of right-wing demagoguery, but then he publishes strange articles arguing that we shouldn’t mock Glenn Beck, or now, an article pissing on secular humanism. Why, I don’t know, and what he’d offer as an alternative is missing from his diatribe.
He has a peculiar view of the American condition, too. Apparently, the liberal/progressive element in the US is suffering from a “religious vacuum”, which he claims is being filled by three “new creeds”.
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“Radical environmentalism”. Oh, really? This is a significant influence in US politics? Total nonsense. There are damned few radical environmentalists doing anything nowadays, and we need more of them: Edward Abbey is dead, and even there, he was afflicted with the curse of being called a radical, militant environmentalist (like the New Atheists are called radical and militant) just because he was passionate and eloquent. What Lind calls “radical”, I call “common sense” — a proponent of the basic changes we need to make in our culture in order to maintain a stable, sustainable society. And I see no sign that the environment is taken at all seriously by either the left or the right.
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“New Atheism”. Again, let’s trot out the tired adjectives: The New Atheism, according to Lind, is simply “militantly anticlerical”, and the same old stuff served up by Madalyn Murray O’Hare. He completely misses the boat here; I think the primary attribute of the New Atheism is not anti-clericalism, which is merely a side-effect of its primary impetus, its emphasis on science and evidence-based reasoning.
Now here’s the thing: Lind claims that there are 3 “creeds” propelling the American left, but these first two he simply dismisses in a couple of sentences, so he must not think they can be that important. He’s really just setting up the object of his animus, the third “creed”.
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“Secular humanism”. Oh, man, he doesn’t like humanism at all.
With less fanfare and more tact than the new atheists, “secular humanists” have attempted to provide an all-encompassing public philosophy based on science, as an alternative to moralities and political programs justified by supernatural religion. While the scientific naturalism that inspires it is true, American “secular humanism” is a naive and sentimental creed that, ironically, is too unworldly to serve as a practical guide to ethics and politics on this, the real planet of the apes.
And then he’s off. Most of his article is entirely about how impractical and foolish humanism is.
The bulk of the article involves taking a hatchet to Paul Kurtz, which is amusingly off the mark. Kurtz is an influential figure in the history of humanism, but…well, I just spent a fair amount of time with representatives from over 60 countries at the World Humanist Congress, and let’s just say he isn’t regarded with warm and loving admiration by a majority. That’s not to say he hasn’t made a contribution to humanist thought, but there are a great many humanists who would show up at a roast of Paul Kurtz with daggers and eager grins. Flail away at Kurtz all you want, Mr Lind! It just shows how unaware of contemporary humanism you are.
After beating on Kurtz for a while, the next phase of Lind’s criticism involves the whipping of straw men. How many times have you heard this before:
For all the variations, the common theory of human nature underlying contemporary secular humanism seems to be cosmopolitan utilitarianism, the conviction that human beings, if liberated from superstition by science, would behave less like selfish, scheming social apes and more like self-sacrificing social insects, giving their all for the good of the 7 billion members of the global human hive.
I don’t know any atheists or humanists who believe that religion is the sole source of all of our problems, and that abolishing it will usher in a new era of total peace and cooperation. We also don’t believe that philosophy risks changing all of human nature. We also don’t regard humans as purely rational actors who make decisions based on an intellectual and careful weighing of the alternatives.
Lind constantly harps on the fact that we’re all a bunch of apes, which is true, but he treads awfully close to the naturalistic fallacy — give up, he says, embrace your inner brute, or rather, his caricature of all apes as scheming, selfish creatures who care nothing for common causes. He insists that Hume is right and we cannot derive an ought from an is — and I agree — but that does not mean that “oughts” are illusory and to be ignored. He dismisses humanist goals as unrealistic fantasies, insisting that we should regard ourselves as nothing more than “half-crazed hooting howler monkeys”. He doesn’t seem to understand the difference between what is — a recognition of our true animal natures — and what we ought to do — aspire to be something better and greater than what we are now.
But here’s what bugs me about Lind. He claims at the outset that there is a “vacuum” at the heart of American liberalism, and implies that it is inadequately filled by his three “creeds”…but his entire essay is about tearing down these philosophies, and he offers nothing as an alternative. Well, except for his notion that we ought to treat the citizenry as a mob of monkeys.
I tried to dig deeper. He’s one of the founders of some think-tank called the New America Foundation, and I dare you to read their website and come back with a clear idea of what, exactly, the New America Foundation stands for — other than harvesting funding from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. Here, apparently, is what they do:
With an emphasis on big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions, New America invests in outstanding individuals whose ability to communicate to wide and influential audiences can change the country’s policy discourse in critical areas, bringing promising new ideas and debates to the fore.
Good luck filling our purported vacuum with that. It’s purpose seems to be to pay pundits, which I guess is fairly typical for thinktanks. Contrast that with the purpose of the IHEU:
Our vision is a Humanist world; a world in which human rights are respected and everyone is able to live a life of dignity. The mission of IHEU is to build and represent the global Humanist movement that defends human rights and promotes Humanist values world-wide.
And the AHA:
We strive to bring about a progressive society where being good without gods is an accepted way to live life. We are accomplishing this through our defense of civil liberties and secular governance, by our outreach to the growing number of people without traditional religious faith, and through a continued refinement and advancement of the humanist worldview.
Humanism encompasses a variety of nontheistic views (atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, naturalism, secularism, and so forth) while adding the important element of a comprehensive worldview and set of ethical values—values that are grounded in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, informed by scientific knowledge, and driven by a desire to meet the needs of people in the here and now.
There is no illusion that human dignity will magically appear once we get rid of religion; it’s something we all have to work towards. But they also have ambitious goals and a world-wide network of organizations working — emphasis on actually working — to improve the human condition, which I think is a far better aim than promoting one parochial little thinktank thriving on corporate largesse and promoting yet more nationalism.
We’re also left with another interesting question. Why is Salon publishing this strangely nebulous agent of a mysteriously vague thinktank in the first place?
Is the NewAmerica made up of something other than scheming social apes? Because if is, then what’s the formula for the magic serum they have that all others have yet failed to discover? If it is not, then what’s Lind’s fucking point?
Well, that is pretty damn baffling, isn’t it? Is no one involved with the publication of the article thinking at all, or is it all cleverly engineered to produce some odd effect? (You’re confused, you say? I guess my job is done here.)
But isn’t it obvious? They’re in favor of Mom, God and apple pie and against the man-eating shark! How could they be plainer? Rah rah sis boom bah! We will now have a rousing chorus of “God Bless the USA!”
Didn’t you know that it’s uncool to actually articulate a position? This guy most likely just seems himself as “above the fray” and “an impartial observer.” I’d put good money that he also thinks that “both sides do it,” and “we’re really not all that different.” You know what? It seems to me he also “believes in belief.” How “reasonable” of him.
Somewhat off topic, but Jon Stewart started pulling this shit a few months ago about the anti-Scott Walker protests in February and it really turned me off to him.
He’s obviously got an idealistic view of what democracy is supposed to be about:
Why is democracy set up to be confrontational and competitive, but tempered by rational processes and, one hopes, at least some reasoned discussion?
There are naive models of democracy, but they’re not the democracies that were set up by people who knew damned well how selfish we actually are.
So other than propping up his own ego at the expense of the supposedly naive and “other-worldly,” I can’t see that he has anything much to say.
Glen Davidson
Lind has always been a party of one and a wackaloon. Best ignored.
Ing Translation: “We are dedicated to concern trolling for the purpose of presenting our overlords ideas and implanting them as memes into the liberal intellectual arena”
Salon has a well-established track record of publishing liberalish, progressive-sounding take-downs of non-theist philosophies. I suppose they must think there’s a market among people who oppose the crazy/religious tendency in US politics, but feel uncomfortable with nasty prickly atheism.
In other words, his recipe for…whatever it is that he’s offering…is based on excluding things he doesn’t like for one reason or another and dishing up what’s left. As you point out, what’s left is precious little.
McWaffle
I personally don’t mind people who provide observation without being terribly invested or interested (sometimes this is incredibly useful), but if the observer completely sucks at observing or interpreting, there is a problem. (Not that I necessarily buy that Lind is “just observing”, albeit poorly, here.)
This organization appears to be full of waffling, nonsensical bureaucratic paper-shufflers. Or is it just me?
Lind –
The brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God? Tell that to (amongst others) the Amalekites (the aboriginal inhabitants of the Negev).
Oh, you can’t. They’re all dead. Nice show of brotherly love there, King David.
If it’s not perfect, strive instead for the absolute worst, I guess.
Darwinism doesn’t insist on anything…it notes the distant cousinhood and informs you of it. If you don’t like it complain to God, cause that’s how it is.
@F
I don’t mind legitimately impartial analysis either. I guess my point is Lind (along with a great number of American journalists) seems to have decided that the most reasonable position in an argument is exactly halfway between the two other sides. And they get some kind of elitist kick from their neutrality.
Ask him, “Does 2 plus 2 equal 4 or 5?” and he’ll answer: “Anybody who says 5 is foolishly ignorant and anybody who says 4 is foolishly sure of mathematics. I guess we damned dirty apes will never quite know for certain.”
Unsound generalisation from his own case, perhaps?
Being a howler monkey is something to be proud of.
Ever notice how Xians mostly quote the humanist Sermon-on-the-Mount Jesus and downplay the cultish “leave your families and follow me” stuff?
Humanism is very universal — bits and pieces found in all religions. We just leave out the stupid and crazy. Smart people like Thomas Jefferson figured this out long before Darwin.
LOLwhut? has he ever MET any theists?
Brownian I suspect that the point if there is one is to be an important person and get money and fame for what he says.
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With an emphasis on big ideas, impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions, New America invests in outstanding individuals whose ability to communicate to wide and influential audiences can change the country’s policy discourse in critical areas, bringing promising new ideas and debates to the fore.
====================
what a bunch of opaque blather. sounds like something written by someone on the “B Ark”.
that whole idea and thrust of all of that is to me the thing with “liberal thought”. These days it is why what is seen as liberal today sounds like Nixon republicanism?
it is so “fucking objective” and impartial that it is almost completely disconnected from reality.
a totally useless trained monkey who is apparently and unfortunately still being listened to
uncle frogy
I have no familiarity with this writer beyond PZ’s excerpts, but the thing that catches my eye is the “big ideas” part. In real life, it usually works out that the “big ideas” don’t work, unless composed of a whole lot of “little ideas” imagined and accomplished by the “little people”. As in people who aren’t corporate astroturfing. And who usually get no credit. YMMV.
As I wrote on the Salon thread, reading Lind is like reading David Brooks: so full of strawmen and convoluted arguments railing against the poor buggers, that although it takes very little mental effort to reveal his drivel for the sheer nonsense it is, it takes far too much time that could be better spent elsewhere. I did it once and found the exercise so tedious I vowed never to waste time on him again. Yet today I just could not let Lind’s straw humanist burn without dousing it with some cold water.
For a start: humanism is not some Spock-like worship of reason. It also encompasses empathy, and therefore the desire to reduce suffering — which is unequivocally a bad thing. This really isn’t difficult, and one does not need to read a stack of philosophical tomes to understand it. Connect the dots, and see where environmentalism (“radical” or otherwise) fits into a humanist paradigm. Humans are obviously not rational: pick up any newspaper and that fact is blindingly obvious. The point is that we can be rational, at the very least more so, and that it’s worthwhile to nudge ourselves in that direction as a species and deploy reason in the service of empathy.
Critical, clear thinking is a necessary start — Lind might want to look into it sometime.
Shorter Iris: Lind is an idiot.
@PZ
Pure projection: Lind is a scheming, selfish creature conservative.
The “why,” according to http://letters.salon.com/politics/war_room/2011/08/23/lind_humanism/permalink/20e9487602db5971b1c11d64dda9a388.html on the Salon thread:
People are all irrational monkeys so we shouldn’t have a democracy, rather we should have a dictatorship of the intellectuals because that worked so well when it was tried fffffffffffff
I think Salon exists solely to give MRA and similarly bright trolls a place to blather. This article is no exception. Stopped reading comment threads there when they stopped being moderated, and read precious little content these days. Makes me sad, because it used to be an interesting place…
Me fail HTML. “scheming, selfish creature” in 22 was supposed to be struck through. (Not sure if that’s an allowed tag here?)
My link in 23 works, but should have appeared as the words “this comment.”
I blame the earthquake.
It does it by narrowing the definition of “man”.
Iris Vander Pluym
FtB’s html has a quirk. Most html-using sites allow <s> to be used for strike-throughs. This site requires <strike> to give
strike-throughs. Don’t forget to close the strike-through you need </strike>.I thought maybe Nietzsche was on his mind. It makes sense of a world where everyone is a stupid sub-human compared to you.
Shorter article: “Please don’t throw yourselves in that brier patch”
ThanksThank you, ‘Tis.There is something missing among those on the left. They lack the passion for their causes that we see coming from the right.
If they could at least find it important enough to get out and vote at every election, they would be a lot more effective.
@Neil
And vote for who?
There was a precedent.
Adam Eve
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Cain.
Abel.Atheist Punching: It’s like Hippie Punching, but more fashionable.
It’s worth asking who Michael Lind thinks of as a “radical environmentalist”. He has published several articles filled with misinformation about both climate science and clean energy; see here, or here (His response to these articles was a giant strawman.) He’s fond of pushing anti-environmentalist fear-mongering fantasies like this:
The idea that GHG emissions reductions legislation will necessarily result in “A brutal, nepotistic nomenklatura” is a key piece of Cato Institute propaganda. It is also used by conspiracy theorists who argue GHG emissions reductions legislation is intended to install such a state. Lind doesn’t agree with those people, but by spreading a false component of their bad ideas, he helps them.
(Also, I can’t help but be reminded of the anti-environmentalist cornucopianism promoted by Julian Simon.)
(Interestingly, he spends most of the linked article hotly insisting he is “not a “global warming denialist”” … yet it is a response to an article which never accuses him of being a global warming denialist.)
At this point, you’ve lost your battle. because the entire state of the universe, including all our memories, our brain states, and so on, is but one big is. yet we derive from it what we should do next, all the time. Which is an ought. So if you admit that that is impossible, then you have only a few options left. to declare that it works by magic, or to deny that it works at all. If you do, then you can either walk the walk, and cease any willful action. Or you can keep hypocritically doing a thing that is not possible according to you. Either way, you lose.
Sadly, Lind’s version of GPS is the one that came out “before” it took into account traffic reports, or let you search for the nearest hardware store, or Italian restaurant. You know, the one where you have to know ***precisely*** where you where going, instead of just having a semi-vague idea, and letting your tools help you figure out the exact destination, and how *best* to get there, while avoiding construction, high traffic, slow paths, or wandering around the long way, because the computer was too stupid to figure out that just because you could drive 50 on a freeway, doesn’t mean that, during rush hour, you wouldn’t be better off taking surface streets.
In short, Lind’s GPS is an idiot, and he is damn glad for it. Because there is, apparently, just something “wrong” about having his tools *help* him figure out where the destination should be, or how best to reach it.
Needless to say, at about that point in the so called article I had already concluded: “Either an asshole, or a clueless idiot.”, and stopped reading… Probably the sort of person that also thinks, “Wow!”, every time he sees things like a, “combination blender and interstellar communicator”. Because, you know, the later is *real* just like the blender part of it..
If only dolphins had evolved to be the dominant species on the planet instead of apes, they just spend all their time mucking about in the water having a good time instead of scheming, warring, and being selfish. ;o
Ing:
Why, me, of course.
No, no, no. Don’t thank me. Granting me complete and utter control of all I survey is thanks enough.
Duth Olec @ #38
I think that illustrates pretty clearly which one is the smartest species. :D
@Duth Olec (#38),
I hate to break it to you, but it recent years it has come to light that dolphins are often violent and unsavory beings who enjoy taking sh-t out on their fellow aquatic mammals.
Nope. Dolphins have been observed engaging in senseless cruelty with dolphins of other as well as their own species.
I’m glad to see that I wasn’t the only one a little baffled by this guy’s article. It made so little sense that my mind just kept drifting to more important things like organizing my pencil holder or refilling the complimentary candy dish on my desk.
Any chance we can palm the Elevator Dudes off on this guy?
Abrahamic monotheism insists on the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God.
women need not apply.
I hate to break it to you, but it recent years it has come to light that dolphins are often violent
depends on the species. Bottlenose dolphins have been noted to have quite violent behaviors, others not so much.
they vary between species just like most mammal orders do.
There is something missing among those on the left. They lack the passion for their causes that we see coming from the right.
that is not accurate at all.
the difference between left and right is that the left realizes that most issues require careful thought, while the right KNOWS the “right” answer and just goes ahead and tries to force it.
here, for simpletons like yourself, try this example:
the left, when presented with a box with a round hole in it and 3 differently shaped pegs, will carefully try to elucidate which is the best fit for the box.
the right, when presented with the same choice, will choose the “square” peg and just attempt to make it fit, because they KNOW the square peg is the right one, no thought necessary.
you think that means passion.
I think that means something else, entirely…
This was one of those rare times where I actually read an article before it got torn apart here. If I had written a critique of the article, it would have been slightly more succinct: “WTF?”
Before I clicked “Read on”, I said to myself “this should be good”.
I wasn’t disappointed.
But corporations are humans, my friend.
That’s not just a good idea – it’s the law!
Yeah, basically what Iris quoted. Lind’s a former rightist who couldn’t stomach Pat Buchanan but feels the need to show he’s not completely down with the Left. As for the New America thing, it’s a weird mix: Steve Coll’s written some good books and articles (ditto Gawande and Fallows); but they also have wingers like Robert Kaplan and Reihan Salam, and weird agendas like “stop the falling birthrate.”
Is that possibly because bottlenoses got so good at it that it just ceased to be an effective strategy for the others? Are you referring to dolphin-on-dolphin violence or dolphin-on-whatever?
(not being a wiseass; I am genuinely curious)
the difference between left and right is that the left realizes that most issues require careful thought, while the right KNOWS the “right” answer and just goes ahead and tries to force it.
I think this is quite a generalization. Left doesn’t lack extremists who thinks they just “know” the right answer. Maybe there’s none in the US, but there are plenty in the world.
Hey, I know what they specialize in! The statement makes it quite clear that their area of focus is in verbal fapping!
As I’ve learned from reading the Other Side, “big ideas” is code for “religious metaphysicalism”. See for example the Templeton Foundation’s ‘Big Ideas Online’ near-defunct website. (See it before it’s gone.)
My impression is that “impartial analysis and pragmatic solutions” is code for accommodationism.
Is that possibly because bottlenoses got so good at it that it just ceased to be an effective strategy for the others?
not likely, there are large degrees of separation between many species.
In cases where bottlenose food interests overlap with others, their larger size tends to make it easier for them to use it to intimidate, or even remove, competitors.
think:
Lions and hyenas.
moreover, there is likely female mate choice for aggressive individuals in bottlenose dolphins, and this too could be related to the issue of competition with other species, and/or it could be related to aggressive individuals simply managing to rape more females, and thus increase the frequency of aggressive genes within the populations.
OTOH, that is just as likely to be speculation; it’s notoriously difficult to work comprehensively with far-ranging marine species, especially wrt to behavior.
I’ve read a few papers on this subject, but I haven’t seen anything conclusive as yet.
try this one for a fairly recent review:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159106001158
Some decades from now, they may know this era as the Shrill Age. Everybody in The Media has to be shrill. It’s a fad, a style. You see it in lots of right-wing commentators (Beck, Rush, ad nauseum) thanks to Rupert, but it’s elsewhere. Yap, yap, flap tongue, beat chest. Pontificate! Tales, idiots, sound, fury, and signifying…well, you know. Whatever sells space/time. Whether it’s the right or the left, it’s just sloganeering. It probably gives some folks the illusion of thinking.
Our simian psychology has obvious implications for naive models of democracy
‘And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to
remind them that as a trusted
TV personalityphilosopher‘think tank scholar’bullshit artist, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.’*looks for actual thought in robro’s rant*
Yap, yap, flap tongue, beat chest. Pontificate! Tales, idiots, sound, fury, and signifying…well, you know.
self fulfilling prophecy?
Lions and hyenas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ALsvU50wQ
the complimentary candy dish on my desk
It’s the only candy that flatters your figure!
(Not trying to be a spelling nazi but couldn’t resist the gag…)
Allow me to introduce you to Bob Avakian – a Maoist lunatic for whose unpleasant and nutty “Revolutionary Communist Party, USA” PZ has an inexplicable tolerance.
Tosh. We don’t “derive” what we should do in the sense of a logical derivation of a conclusion from premises, which is what is meant by saying that an “ought” cannot be derived from an “is”.
“Revolutionary Communist Party, USA”
yes, because the communist party is entirely relevant to the current political situation in the US.
*shakes head sadly*
Last time I checked, the RCP doesn’t have a 30% support rating like the Tea Party.
icthyic, Midnight Rambler,
So what? I was giving a specific example of a leftist US loony. Did I say anything about the extent of Avakian’s support, other than noting PZ’s inexplicable willingness to associate with his groupies?
*Looks back*
No, I didn’t. I thought not.
I’m not sure if PZ has ever mentioned Avakian. He was very chummy with Sunsara Taylor, one of Avakian’s chief minions.
‘Tis Himself@66,
Yes, that’s what I’m referring to; I couldn’t recall the name. Avakian is an avowed anti-democrat, and admits to deliberately producing a cult of personality around himself. He’s someone who really does want, and have, minions.
Sorry, I should not have used the term “groupies” @65. It suggests that Avakian’s relationship with them is a sexual one, which AFAIK, it is not. Avakian has “minions”, not “groupies”.
They will if you keep writing.
[citation needed]
No, Frank, no citation is needed, because KG is doing no more than pointing out that you’re equivocating, humorously enough on the word ‘is’ in the general terms of what is called the “is/ought” problem.
‘Is’ here refers not just to the state of the universe at any one time but to descriptive statements about that state. What is problematic is straightforwardly deriving a prescriptive statement from such a descriptive statement, not the fact that the state of the universe obviously constrains our abilities and dispositions in making prescriptive statements or taking any other action. The error you’re making is in thinking that those constraints are effective only insofar as the agent has explicitly cognitively represented them as descriptive statements from which actions or prescriptive statements are then derived. The overwhelming majority of the influences on our attitudes and behavior are not represented in any such way and are invisible to introspection.
This guy is an idiot.
Creed sucks.
2CJO. This does not help you at all. All your knowledge, all your memories, perceptions, feelings will still fall in the category ‘descriptive statements’. yet you can still derive prescriptive statements from them – your intentions, goals, desires, etc… whether the process is visible to your introspection, is utterly irrelevant. Unless there is some kind of magic at work, it can be still considered a form of derivation because the brain is from information-theoretic point of view just a pink gooey computer :)
No they don’t. Sometimes descriptive statements can be made about them, of course, and as with any other such statements there is no general and unproblematic way to derive prescriptive (“ought”) statements from those statements.
You’re making a basic category error, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the truth or falsehood of the proposition that “[the brain is] from information-theoretic point of view just a pink gooey computer”.
[citation needed]
Or just one example of one of them that can not be considered a descriptive statement.
“I feel like eating babies” is a descriptive statement.
“I should eat babies” is a prescriptive statement.
“It is a fact that I should eat babies” is a descriptive statement. The problem is establishing the factual or logically true nature of it. What evidence is there that this is a fact? How do you know it is true that you should eat babies or that you should not?
@consciousness razor
Even if the exact inference rules we are using were/are unknown, that does not mean that there aren’t any.
The evidence for their existence is the very fact that we can make a decision at all.
Look up “deontic logic”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a primer here.
And do stop being such an idiot if you possibly can. As CJO points out, none of these things are descriptive statements, so nothing can be “derived” from them in the normal meaning of that word, which was the one PZ was using. Nor are intentions presecriptive statements. The fact that feelings give rise to intentions is utterly uncontroversial, and goes no way whatever to establishing the existence of moral facts, which is what I guess you are trying, in your blitheringly incompetent way, to establish. If you want to say intentions are “derived” from feelings, no-one can stop you, but that’s not how the word is normally used, and is fuck all to do with PZ’s claim.
No, but you should be telling all of this to the invisible dragon in your garage. It is also not known whether anything that establishes norms would actually be an “inference rule” of any kind.
You don’t understand the problem. Very few would contend that people do not make moral judgments and decisions. However, many would contend that people have no rigorous way to derive them only from what is known, because people have assumed in advance certain values (i.e. prescriptive statements).
It is a fact that eating babies will have some consequences. You have to have certain values from which you decide eating babies is wrong inherently no matter what the consequences. Or if those consequences are negative according to what you value then you might say eating babies is wrong.
There might yet be a way to do it with only descriptive statements, but that is no help to us if no one knows how. If you don’t know which “rules” to use, if there even are such rules, then you clearly aren’t using them.
@KG
Providing an example of something that lacks the desired property is not a proof that all inference systems lack it too.
there can be a 1:1 mapping factdescriptive statement and intentionprescriptive statement so you are making a distinction without difference here.
Wait a minute. we are at descriptive->prescriptive yet. feelings+perceptions+memories-> “what I should do next” is a descriptive statements->prescriptive statement inference.Moral facts will come later.
Just after you stop succumbing to the dunning-kruger effect ;)
Hey ! I am not the one who is talking invisible dragons here ! There are inputs, there are outputs, so either there is some sort of computation(=inference by other name) in between, or there is no computation inside, and the thing works purely by magic. Guess what hypothesis I consider more probable.
assuming certain values is still a decision. so you would need to assume other values too, leading to an infinite regress.
You asked for a citation, I gave you one. I can’t prove there is not way of inferring the existence of God from the fact that 1+1=2 either. So what?
This doesn’t even make sense. What are you trying to say?
No, it isn’t. It isn’t any sort of inference at all.
On the contrary, that is exactly what you are doing.
So is digestion inference, or does it work purely by magic? After all, there are certainly inputs and outputs.
Mathematical operations are inferences?
Lind is indeed a wacky guy. In his book Vietnam: THe Necessary War, he says that although the war was basically unwinable and the cost terrible it was necessary because if the US hadn’t fought it it would have lost credibility. Thus it was a necessary war, the lives lost in consequence are nothing compared to keeping credibility. The same arguement can be made for Russia in Afganistan of course.
Because you see Imperial powers have needs one of them being that others do their bidding and they lose credibility if other powers dpn’t accept their needs. WE should thus recognize the “right” of Imperial powers to bomb, pulverize, slaughter others to get their “needs” satisfied and the third world detrius that suffers and dies is so so much collateral damage, unimportant, to getting Imperial needs satisfied. Not surprisingly Lind ignored how this arguement fitted excellently with the Russian invasion and devastation of Afganistan.