If natural laws are only good insofar as they are efficacious they are not self evident and are not immutable. They're just strictly utilitarian. And further, there is no evidence whatsoever that maximizing utility should be done with consideration to all versus a few. 100*1 is the same as 10*10 or 1*100. And there's actually no longer even any reason that we should bother to maximize utility for all versus our own selves. This is a very poor plan. I am actually not describing a utilitarian position. It is actually quite the opposite. Utility tempered with, subordinate to, a qualitative and unchanging valuation of certain natural rights.


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No, Logos is not the same as person. It is a property, it is an activity that is evidence of the nature. We know that a human is a human because humans exhibit these properties. We can discuss what is the best arbiter of what is human, and I would certainly argue that the ability to reason is not a good one (kids are dumb and bad at reasoning but they're definitely still humans).

And no, you've got this pretty well fouled up. Person is not a category. We don't say, how do you know it's a human? Because it's a person. We say, how do you know it's a person? Because it's human. A person is a specific instance of humanity. It is not a category of being, it is a specific unique physical instance of humanity. A category answers "what is it" and a person is "which one". Now, we could say that other things besides homosapiens can have personhood. I'm fine with that. I think dogs have personhood. I know which dog is mine. She is particular and I could pick her out by her unique mode of being a dog, and no other dog is quite like her. But her personhood is in accordance with what she is, which is a dog. Just like my person hood is an instance of human-ness, provided you believe that I am a human and not AI. Which you probably do. Sucker.

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You're not following. I didn't say "a" social contract. I said "social contract," short hand for "the philosophical concept termed social contract." Yes, you can have "a" social contract without natural law. You cannot have the moral and ethical philosophical framework from which our system of governance is derived, which we call the concept of social contract, without having a previously defined system of natural law. The former refers to and is dependent upon the latter.

Your system has no foundation, at least not one you've defined other than simple utility. As in, "the best government is that which governs best." But that just opens up to questions. What is best? And Lenin's famous "who? Whom?" Utility needs a reference in itself, and so we're back to even "what does happiness mean?" Because if it just means personal pleasure as defined by the individual, and our entire framework of what is right and moral and true is rooted in that, then in no way can we make categorical statements about "best" or "just" or even "utility."

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You can't have any of that without some kind of thing that exists higher in moral authority than humans.

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You can have exactly that if nothing exists higher in moral authority than humans.

That we are all human and capable of reason is all we need to arrive at inalienable rights.

Psst what's reason

Reason is the ball field you choose to play on when you ask "where do rights come from and what are they?"

If our moral authority requires reason, then reason is the arbiter, no?

We have a mutually agreed-upon standard for the kilogram. It's a piece of platinum, and whatever it is, is a kilogram.

Where is reason that I can go measure it to make sure I'm in line?

We have mutually agreed upon standards for reason as well.

If we agree on what the concept of the number 1 is. And the concept of what the number 2 is. We can reach a mutually agreed upon fact that 1 plus 1 equals 2 without ever writing anything down, without using props or fingers. We could reason to the understanding that 1 + 1 = 2 in actuality.

This is because we, as humans, share the trait of reason, which is simply the ability to have logical thoughts that translate to a shared truth.

Texaggie7nine said:

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We have mutually agreed upon standards for reason as well.

If we agree on what the concept of the number 1 is. And the concept of what the number 2 is. We can reach a mutually agreed upon fact that 1 plus 1 equals 2 without ever writing anything down, without using props or fingers. We could reason to the understanding that 1 + 1 = 2 in actuality.

This is because we, as humans, share the trait of reason, which is simply the ability to have logical thoughts that translate to a shared truth.

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Mutually agreed upon standards for reason? So, then, there should be a unified moral theory that is objectively measurable, right? Like the metric system. A law is either unjust or just, because it complies with Reason. Do you have a NIST standard for Reason?

And then - wait, now we're talking about truth? You know there's significant issues within the philosophy of math and truth, right?

You can't just jump around with this stuff willy-nilly, there are significant epistemological hurdles.

What makes a thought logical or not? Who decides what is reasonable and what isn't? Is it majority rules?

You then do not believe it is possible to arrive at a mutually agreed fact that 1 + 1 = 2 without tangible measurables and through reason alone?

I think that saying 1+1=2 carries with it several pretty significant assumptions. For starters, it requires the concept of an axiom, a starting point or a foundation of reasoning. To do arithmetic or basic algebra we need several non-logical axioms which are not self-evident truths in and of themselves, but are logical expressions that "work" within the confines of the rules of the system. In other words, 1+1=2 is an expression that is true given the axiomatic framework of arithmetic.

But is it true outside of this framework? Is it a self-evident truth? To believe that you'd have to resort to some kind of mathematical platonism, to say that math is a metaphysical structure that has its own existence, its own kind of truth, and it is discovered, not created by humans. At this point, you'll notice, you're back to appealing to something metaphysical that is greater than (or at least not dependent upon) humans.

All that being said, I would be very interested to see you independently derive the concept of 1 and 2 without resorting to physical demonstration or analogs (i.e., tangible measurables).

Texaggie7nine said:

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You then do not believe it is possible to arrive at a mutually agreed fact that 1 + 1 = 2 without tangible measurables and through reason alone?

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Not to butt in, but the ideas underpining 1+1=2, such as unity and multiplicity and the grouping of unities to form multiplicities, can get pretty complicated.

Yeah, I saw that in the news. Kinda funny, in a way...we made a thing and measured it, then measured a physical constant using the original thing, then redefined the original thing in terms of the constant.

I put forward those assumptions in the post. That a mutually agreed upon concept of the number 1 and the number 2 existed.

This is not rocket science, and you do not need to bring in theoretical math into this equation. The concept of number is objectionably exemplified across our entire reality. Every mentally capable human throughout history understood the concept of number before arithmetic was even contemplated as a subject. Any mentally capable human from any point in our existence would understand that 2 apples are more than 1 apple, especially when all of them are of the same size.

If we broach the topic of the right to life. Life is a pretty damn mutually agreed upon concept across the entire planet. Every reason capable human understands the distinct difference of alive and dead as a concept. You can try to cloud the waters all you want with questions of states of consciousness and health conditions details, but you aren't going to change the fact that the 2 states of being are universally accepted and reason based as 2 separate things.

It can, but in rationality 101, it doesn't.

Texaggie7nine said:

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I put forward those assumptions in the post. That a mutually agreed upon concept of the number 1 and the number 2 existed.

This is not rocket science, and you do not need to bring in theoretical math into this equation. The concept of number is objectionably exemplified across our entire reality. Every mentally capable human throughout history understood the concept of number before arithmetic was even contemplated as a subject. Any mentally capable human from any point in our existence would understand that 2 apples are more than 1 apple, especially when all of them are of the same size.

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Saying "well, if we all agree that 1 and 2 exist, and that 1+1 can be something, and that something is 2, then we all agree that 1+1=2 right?" is a complete waste of time. You just made a big tautological loop.

But any way, you didn't say are 2 apples more than 1 apple. You said 1+1=2. Why are two apples grouped together ((two apples)), and not ((one apple)) and ((one apple))? When do they become two apples? How close do they have to be to comprise a set? When do we know that they are one two, and not two ones?

It's no good to say that we don't need to bring in theory to discuss something as abstract as reason. The only way you're able to do this is because you have a functioning definition of reason that you're starting with as an axiom. You're making axiomatic assumptions, you just don't realize it. But that's the whole issue - why are you axiomatic assumptions valid?

Even in the simplest case you can think of, it is not as simple as you thought. And you want to say that we can use reason to agree on everything in a holistic way? Come on.

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If we broach the topic of the right to life. Life is a pretty damn mutually agreed upon concept across the entire planet. Every reason capable human understands the distinct difference of alive and dead as a concept. You can try to cloud the waters all you want with questions of states of consciousness and health conditions details, but you aren't going to change the fact that the 2 states of being are universally accepted and reason based as 2 separate things.

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This is just silly. There are all manner of nuances for the concept of life, and even then the concept of life wasn't dropped from heaven into man's head but arrived at by experience. It's an axiom - life - defined by some other axioms. And even then, no, not everyone agrees on the definition. People don't think a fetus is alive. They have to have their own definition of alive to do so, but they do. That doesn't make them "un-reason capable" it just means they don't agree with other people.

"Reason" is like handwaving at something you don't have the ability to further break down or really understand and calling it magic. Which I'm fine with, by the way - that's metaphysics, you know? At some point it is just "something else" and "magic". But don't scoff at my metaphysical construct while invoking your own. At least I admit mine is there.

Reason does not dictate that everything imaginable is knowable or factual and true or false. Reason is simply how we humans come to know our reality and truths.

Because it is a common tool among us, we are capable of arriving at many axiomatic truths that we all agree upon. Even within your metaphysical source for truth and morality, reason is a required component once you attach it to humanity. If humanity was not capable of reason, there would be no point in even trying to point out if there is a god or what it wants.

As your above joke about the current state of the basis of a kilogram, you are utilizing a human source of measurement to measure a constant and then saying that your measurement is now grounded in a non human reliant constant that you arrived at using that very human measurement.

When talking to a caveman, why would you ask. "how are you grouping these apples as more than 1? Why not 1 apple and 1 apple, what is you basis for grouping?" He would hit you over the head with a stick and take both apples because the only grouping he needs is "what is his" and "what isn't". And within that very reason based grouping, there is an easily arrived at concept of 1 and 2 and 1 apple being added to the 1 apple he already has, makes 2 apples.

I have a problem with giving a name to my "first principles" when discussing this because I want to use "nature: or "natural law", however that is taken and applied to a more "way of being" of nature and not a "way it is". "Reality" I guess I could call it. You see because I could say, "groupings exist in nature, such as a bird may have 2 eggs rather than 1", but that isn't really natural law. Natural law, as most used in philosophical and political discussion is more of a "birds tend to do X".

Reality can be questioned, sure, but the vast majority of reality can be easily agreed upon through our common senses and reason. So while we still cannot fully explain what causes us humans to have a subjective experience we call consciousness, we can all agree that it is part of being alive. So the nuances you want to bring up in regards to the difference in life and death are inconsequential in this conversation. The very concepts of life and of death are two very distinguishable concepts that you can travel anywhere in the world and arrive an an agreement with every reason capable human where there may be some disagreement at the extreme edges or in the experience within each state.

Arriving at reason derived rights is not something that requires complicated epistemological or intricate equations or anything of the sort. And simply because humans did not come to the this conclusion en masse in any time in the known history of man before modern times does not prove otherwise. Sometimes the most simple of ideas are the most difficult to establish.

Throughout history the method by which the sun traveled across the sky each day has been theorized as countless of different methods and pretty much all of them were far more complicated than the sun being a ball of light with the earth being another ball that rotated and orbited the sun.

lol of course there can be objective morals.....1+1 not being 2 doesn't seem like a good argument
if u don't believe 1+1=2 your being intentionally dense.

It's not that it doesn't seem like it's a good argument. It's not a good argument. At all. There is 0 reasonable backing of it when discussing what 1 + 1 is when 1 and 2 are both agreed upon concepts.

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Reason does not dictate that everything imaginable is knowable or factual and true or false.

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Ok. I never said it did.

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Reason is simply how we humans come to know our reality and truths.

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This seems suspect to me. If reason is a mechanism to know, it is either sense or interpretation of sense perception. Either way, this is something that isn't unique to humans. By this metric, earthworms have reason, dogs have reason, even trees have reason.

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Because it is a common tool among us, we are capable of arriving at many axiomatic truths that we all agree upon. Even within your metaphysical source for truth and morality, reason is a required component once you attach it to humanity. If humanity was not capable of reason, there would be no point in even trying to point out if there is a god or what it wants.

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That's a common tool for all creatures. Do you think dogs agree with your axiomatic truths? Why not?

And further, how are you defining axiomatic truth? Self-evident truth? But self-evidence is in and of itself based in experience, empirical evidence, right? If reason is how each person knows reality, and each person has different reason, then the only way to share axioms or truths is to have common experience, and common interpretation of those experience. Nothing is self-evident in your system: its empirical information combined with a rational interpretation. And so nothing is truly axiomatic.

I'm not arguing against reason, or saying that human beings don't have it or shouldn't use it. I'm saying reason in and of itself is not a valid root for a moral or ethical system -- unless, we create a type of reason which is true, and reliable. Call it right reason (as did Aristotle). Then you're fine. But that's not what you're talking about.

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When talking to a caveman, why would you ask. "how are you grouping these apples as more than 1? Why not 1 apple and 1 apple, what is you basis for grouping?" He would hit you over the head with a stick and take both apples because the only grouping he needs is "what is his" and "what isn't". And within that very reason based grouping, there is an easily arrived at concept of 1 and 2 and 1 apple being added to the 1 apple he already has, makes 2 apples.

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I dont know what you're trying to show here. That even if a caveman can't count, you can?

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I have a problem with giving a name to my "first principles" when discussing this because I want to use "nature: or "natural law", however that is taken and applied to a more "way of being" of nature and not a "way it is". "Reality" I guess I could call it. You see because I could say, "groupings exist in nature, such as a bird may have 2 eggs rather than 1", but that isn't really natural law. Natural law, as most used in philosophical and political discussion is more of a "birds tend to do X".

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So you're a mathematical platonist? Because countable things exist in nature, the concept of integers is inherently real? I'm cool with that. It's still an appeal to metaphysics. There's no physical thing that corresponds to an integer. It is inherently abstract.

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Reality can be questioned, sure, but the vast majority of reality can be easily agreed upon through our common senses and reason. So while we still cannot fully explain what causes us humans to have a subjective experience we call consciousness, we can all agree that it is part of being alive. So the nuances you want to bring up in regards to the difference in life and death are inconsequential in this conversation. The very concepts of life and of death are two very distinguishable concepts that you can travel anywhere in the world and arrive an an agreement with every reason capable human where there may be some disagreement at the extreme edges or in the experience within each state.

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In this framework what is reasonable is defined merely as the mean of human opinion on a topic. You don't see the problem with that? This is no standard at all, other than saying "humans all have reason therefore what they do on average is reasonable."

This is literally a moral system based on the logical fallacy of argumentum ad populum, appeal to the crowd.

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Arriving at reason derived rights is not something that requires complicated epistemological or intricate equations or anything of the sort. And simply because humans did not come to the this conclusion en masse in any time in the known history of man before modern times does not prove otherwise. Sometimes the most simple of ideas are the most difficult to establish.

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The average opinion was right, so before the average opinion was what it is now, it was reasonable. So its not any more Right now than it was then, and if the mean changes, it will be wrong.

In your system, the bold statement is completely unworkable. If humans everywhere have reason therefore their actions are by definition reasonable, then the lack of consensus is prima facie evidence that the system is not inherently reasonable. Perhaps we can say, by experience (or reality) then it wasn't reasonable. Experience changed, so reasonable interpretation changed. Ok. But this is no system at all.

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Throughout history the method by which the sun traveled across the sky each day has been theorized as countless of different methods and pretty much all of them were far more complicated than the sun being a ball of light with the earth being another ball that rotated and orbited the sun.

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Yup, according to your model the agreed-upon model to describe reality was eminently reasonable and therefore axiomatically true, using the criterion of truth you've created.

The argument has been made several times over and gone unanswered. Let me try. Imagine me showing a paper saying "1+1=2" to someone who is illiterate or uses a language that does not use Arabic, such as Japanese. It would be gibberish, far from anything self evident. So you try to explain this verbally. You have to start with the concept of "one". In it's base form, one is an adjective. It describes a count of an object or instance, such as an apple. Specifically that apple is unique and isolated/ungrouped. Then you need to introduce another apple that is also isolated/ungrouped and unique. Then you need to explain that despite their uniqueness you want to group them together for some reason. Then you go down the entire rabbit hole of what features and similarities you are using to group the two apples together, and why you are making a conscious choice to group them together based on similarities and not keep them isolated based on differences. Once you have that established, then you can say you have taken "one apple" and "one apple" and grouped them together into "two apples".

But you're still not there yet. You need to further abstract the concept of counts of physical things into the concept of numbers. So you have a count of one of apple/pear/grape/star/drop/cougar/grain and you're referring to the count and not the object. The count can be anything. Then you add that to another abstracted count and end up with an abstracted group. Again, the implication is that you are taking something isolated and unique and using some criteria to get past it's uniqueness and place it in a group. In this case an abstract group of two things. You may just think I'm being "dense", but there are records of just these kinds of discussions going back to Pythagoras and the dawn of modern mathematics. Though the Pythagoreans thought these numbers were universally applicable and true, because to them numbers were divine.

So you've asserted a statement based on thousands of years of philosophical thought that is still not settled. Just google the Problem of Many, and the trouble in trying to define what exactly "one" of something is. It's fascinating. Yet you asserted this statement as a self-evident truth. You've made the same mistake about the power of reason to establish fundamental human rights. You were born at the summit of a mountain built of Judeo-Christian thinking, Roman Civil Law, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and British common law and 18th/19th Century French philosophy, but you're acting like you stand at the bedrock of the whole thing. It only takes a cursory glance at Chinese culture, African culture, Japanese culture, Indian culture, Arabic culture, or any culture not dominated by the European and near Eastern offspring of the Roman Empire to see that "universal fundamental rights" are certainly not made so because they are worldwide self-evident truths. Even in our own culture there are plenty, such as Nietzsche, who argue that this Judeo-Christian ethos is outdated and people should abandon them to will themselves to power.

What seems to me to be an obvious self-evident truth is that rights are granted by those with power, be it military power, economic power, religious power, or political power. It think the modern world and all of human history backs that up in practice. The problem with this is that means rights are mutable. As soon as power shifts, rights suddenly change. If you want to talk about fundamental, universal, immutable rights, then you need to attribute them to a fundamental, universal, immutable power. God certainly fits that bill, and that makes it obvious why the Founders referred their rights as coming from the Creator. Reason does not fit that bill. If reasonable people can disagree about whether something is a right and both still be considered reasonable, then that right can't be fundamental. And if my life has taught me anything, it's that reasonable people can disagree about anything. So reason is an unsuitable standard.

Rendered it latin... I was trying to make it pithy...

rationabile est dissentio, or "it is reasonable to disagree"

or maybe

rationabile semper dissentio est "always reasonable to disagree"]

or maybe just

ratione et dissentiant -- "reason and dissent"

The ability of people to see only what they want to see is something I am just starting to appreciate.

Keeping an actual open mind may be impossible.

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This seems suspect to me. If reason is a mechanism to know, it is either sense or interpretation of sense perception. Either way, this is something that isn't unique to humans. By this metric, earthworms have reason, dogs have reason, even trees have reason.

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Animals do not posess reason. Reason is what seperates us from the rest of our animal ancestors. An easy way to look at it is, most all of our animal brains evolved mainly as pattern recognizing machines, and while the rest of the advanced animals recognize patterns, our brains have evolved to be so powerful at it that we also can comprehend the REASON for the patterns. So, while dogs or monkeys can comprehend something like "X will do Y", humans are able to comprehend "X will do Y because of Z, and if Z doesn't happen then X will do C because of A. "

Reason requires complex language and concepts that other animals do not have.

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And further, how are you defining axiomatic truth? Self-evident truth? But self-evidence is in and of itself based in experience, empirical evidence, right? If reason is how each person knows reality, and each person has different reason, then the only way to share axioms or truths is to have common experience, and common interpretation of those experience. Nothing is self-evident in your system: its empirical information combined with a rational interpretation. And so nothing is truly axiomatic.

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Self-evident truth is a product of reason. Now we can get into the distinction between empirical truth and practical truth in a Sam Harris vs Jordan Peterson kind of way, but for the sake of basic moral principles, we don't need practicality. Principle is all we need.

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I'm saying reason in and of itself is not a valid root for a moral or ethical system

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This is where I think we might be getting off into the rough from the fairway and not speaking about the same ideas. I'm saying reason is the tool we use to identify the root for a moral system. At least the very basics of it. But what you are doing is claiming the same. The god you use as the root of your moral principles is something you arrived at utilizing your reasoning. So, at the end of it all, "reason" is at the very foundation of both of our systems.

This is perfectly ok, because, if a creator exists and wants us to live a certain way, as you believe, then you are perfectly within reason to believe what you do. If there is no god, or if god isn't the god of religious writings then I'm perfectly within reason in finding an objective moral basis of rights without invoking a higher power.

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I dont know what you're trying to show here. That even if a caveman can't count, you can?

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I'm pointing out that a caveman, who is devoid of any arithmatic training, can fully understand the concept of 1 and 2 and grouping.

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So you're a mathematical platonist? Because countable things exist in nature, the concept of integers is inherently real? I'm cool with that. It's still an appeal to metaphysics. There's no physical thing that corresponds to an integer. It is inherently abstract.

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Countable things can exist solely in our minds as concepts. "I can distinguish 2 seperate thoughts". That is 2 things that exist outside of nature. The intiger is a representation of the concept. 1 being the representation of a singular in contrast to plural. 2 being the representation of 1 more than 1, ect.

If we were minds floating in a vacuume devoid of any physical matter to reference, but were able to communicate, we could still reach the concept of numbers and counting.

Numbers exist in reality.

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In this framework what is reasonable is defined merely as the mean of human opinion on a topic. You don't see the problem with that? This is no standard at all, other than saying "humans all have reason therefore what they do on average is reasonable."

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It is not the agreement upon concepts that make something true. The agreement is simply a helpful test to find what is true. The trueness exists regardless of how many people believe it or reason it to be. 1 thing plus 1 thing equalling 2 things has always existed as a truth in this universe long before there was ever any intellect to grasp it as a concept.

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The average opinion was right, so before the average opinion was what it is now, it was reasonable. So its not any more Right now than it was then, and if the mean changes, it will be wrong.

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The average opinion could be right, it could be wrong. The average opinion on why the sun moved across the sky was wrong for most of human existence.

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Yup, according to your model the agreed-upon model to describe reality was eminently reasonable and therefore axiomatically true, using the criterion of truth you've created.

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Again, being agreed upon does not MAKE something true. It is just a helpful way to measure the likeliness of it being true if everyone is sharing their first principles.

This is silly. Go back to my caveman example. I don't need any of this explanation. I give the caveman 1 apple and I keep 3. Caveman hits me over the head because he fully understands 3 is more than 1. He also understands if I took 1 from my 3 and added to his 1 he would have 2.

He may not be able to articulate it scientifically or arithmetically, but he grasps the full concept.

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What seems to me to be an obvious self-evident truth is that rights are granted by those with power, be it military power, economic power, religious power, or political power. It think the modern world and all of human history backs that up in practice. The problem with this is that means rights are mutable. As soon as power shifts, rights suddenly change. If you want to talk about fundamental, universal, immutable rights, then you need to attribute them to a fundamental, universal, immutable power. God certainly fits that bill, and that makes it obvious why the Founders referred their rights as coming from the Creator. Reason does not fit that bill. If reasonable people can disagree about whether something is a right and both still be considered reasonable, then that right can't be fundamental. And if my life has taught me anything, it's that reasonable people can disagree about anything. So reason is an unsuitable standard.

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It's really quite simple. With no higher power, there can be no default authority. Not by reason alone. You have no right over me, nor I over you. This is self evident as the consciousness you experience. It was not found in any of the past cultures because they were built upon preconceived believes of reality and how we came to be.

chimpanzee said:

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The ability of people to see only what they want to see is something I am just starting to appreciate.

Keeping an actual open mind may be impossible.

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This is probably the truest thing of all.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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If you want to talk about fundamental, universal, immutable rights, then you need to attribute them to a fundamental, universal, immutable power. God certainly fits that bill, and that makes it obvious why the Founders referred their rights as coming from the Creator. Reason does not fit that bill. If reasonable people can disagree about whether something is a right and both still be considered reasonable, then that right can't be fundamental. And if my life has taught me anything, it's that reasonable people can disagree about anything. So reason is an unsuitable standard.

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Should we also say that the act of attributing fundamental, universal, immutable rights to a fundament, universal and immutable entity like God (because the human application of those 'laws' requires intervention of human bias, reason, and imperfection) is no more useful than reason?

Indeed, reasonable people can disagree about anything. And, I would add that there are far more intelligent and reasonable people than myself in this world who fail to reach agreement.

You've given two definitions for reason: how we come to know our reality and truths, and being able to comprehend the reason for a pattern.

I don't see any real difference between the capacity for pattern recognition and the secondary ability to recognize patterns of patterns. It's all empirical experience, resulting in predictive posits, which are then refined or rejected. Calling one thing a "pattern" and the other thing a "reason for a pattern" is just making a distinction between two kinds of patterns. Patterns are abstract, and further abstraction is just more patterning.

As for reason requiring complex language, that's kind of interesting because it hearkens to the Greek's use of the word logos for this concept. In other words, it isn't enough to know, or even to speak, but to be able to syllogize. But that's not really consistent with your previous definitions. It's a better one, actually. Now there are three requirements: being able to experience reality, being able to abstract that experience, and being able to express the abstraction with representative abstract symbols. I think this is an iron-clad approach.

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Self-evident truth is a product of reason. ...Principle is all we need.

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Ridiculous. Reason being the ability to express abstraction with abstract symbols doesn't in any way guarantee the ability to reason well. The expression of an idea of truth is the product of reason. Whether the reasoning is right or not is another thing entirely. What is self-evident to some is not to others.

I'm fine with a principle governing. We can call that principle right reason, following Aristotle (orthos logos). So it isn't enough to reason, but to reason well - which means doing the right thing, for the right reason, and I believe with the right understanding (i.e., having a correct corresponding syllogism).

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I'm saying reason is the tool we use to identify the root for a moral system.

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Ha! Ok. So what is the root then?

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The god you use as the root of your moral principles is something you arrived at utilizing your reasoning. So, at the end of it all, "reason" is at the very foundation of both of our systems...

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It's not quite the same, but we're getting closer to understanding each other. I don't believe come to know truth by reason alone. I think the street runs the other way. What is right and true is not dependent on human action, even human reasoning. The reason isn't the foundation in your system either - you just said it is the way to get to the foundation.

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Numbers exist in reality...It is not the agreement upon concepts that make something true. The agreement is simply a helpful test to find what is true. The trueness exists regardless of how many people believe it or reason it to be. 1 thing plus 1 thing equalling 2 things has always existed as a truth in this universe long before there was ever any intellect to grasp it as a concept.

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Numbers exist...hm. How much do they weigh? What physical properties do they have?

This whole thing is an argument for some form of Platonism - that there are metaphysical things that are Real, regardless of human discovery or thought. What is True and what is Right, is then external to and distinct from what humans believe is true and right.

Consider the difficulty in these two statements:

• if god isn't the god of religious writings then I'm perfectly within reason in finding an objective moral basis of rights without invoking a higher power.
  
• The trueness exists regardless of how many people believe it or reason it to be...[it] has always existed as a truth in this universe long before there was ever any intellect to grasp it as a concept.

But what are Truth and Real metaphysical constructs if not higher powers? You are arguing for something under one name, and arguing against it under another.

Let's go with the idea that you've said here, which is that there is Truth, and trueness exists as an expression of that Truth, and we don't get to decide what is True, we just participate in it insofar as the things we reason are true. Therefore when we reason well, we reason truly; if we reason poorly, we reason against Truth itself. The standard, then, is Truth, which exists prior to and above human reason. Human reason is then an effort to grasp this Truth that exists.

But, I don't think then you can ever say we can reason to Truth without Truth being involved. In other words, if we are trying to get to Truth, to arrive at it, and the way we journey is by reasoning, and reasoning is nothing more than reconciling experience into an expression of what is True, then reason itself is participatory in Truth. Truth, then, guides and informs our reasoning on every step of the way. You can't get there without it being there with you. It's not just us, if the external reality is the standard.

And so, then, I agree. Except Truth is God. Reason is God. And things are only true, and good, and reasonable insofar a they participate in what is True and Good and Reasonable, the source of all of those things, and the reference we inherently participate in when struggling towards them.

You see? We agree.

If you're trying to attributes rights (or anything else really) to a universal, immutable, fundamental power such as God, then I think you open a different can of worms. I would say universal, immutable, fundamental rights cannot exist without a universal, immutable, fundamental power. However, the mere existence of such a power does not cause those rights to exist. The power in question has to actually grant those rights. So the question of which rights are granted is certainly fair game. As is question of knowing the will of this power. At that point you get into human experience, or at least the human interpretation of divine experience. In the case of God, most of us think of this process as self-correcting, ie God transmits His Will, we follow, we mess it up, He corrects us. Though often we disagree at every step of that process. I'm not sure how that would work for any other kind of non-diety fundamental power.

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You've given two definitions for reason: how we come to know our reality and truths, and being able to comprehend the reason for a pattern.

I don't see any real difference between the capacity for pattern recognition and the secondary ability to recognize patterns of patterns. It's all empirical experience, resulting in predictive posits, which are then refined or rejected. Calling one thing a "pattern" and the other thing a "reason for a pattern" is just making a distinction between two kinds of patterns. Patterns are abstract, and further abstraction is just more patterning.

As for reason requiring complex language, that's kind of interesting because it hearkens to the Greek's use of the word logos for this concept. In other words, it isn't enough to know, or even to speak, but to be able to syllogize. But that's not really consistent with your previous definitions. It's a better one, actually. Now there are three requirements: being able to experience reality, being able to abstract that experience, and being able to express the abstraction with representative abstract symbols. I think this is an iron-clad approach.

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Within that use of symbols representing abstract ideas, our human minds are able to understand that deer go to the water when they are thirsty, and that thirst is caused by lack of water and that water is needed for cellular integrity. However a lion would just know that at x time the deer show up at x water. And even that is probably just instinctual behavior that doesn't really even utilize much cognitive processes. While, we as humans understand the reasoning behind it all.

Whereas a dog might know that a car is something that moves and when he gets in it, he gets out somewhere else. A human intellect understands that cars are inventions of human innovation utilized to transport people and things from one place to another and that the locomotion is caused by an engine driving wheels that were all created for the purpose of making the car do what it was invented to do. It is not just recognizing a pattern of cars take people and dogs places, and when people want to go places they get in cars, and people make things that help them.

It is forming an intellectual understanding of purpose and motivation, of utility and cause and effect. It can ultimately be pattern recognition all the way down but it is at a level of complexity that it truly is something in and of itself.

No animal could ever begin to even understand the very concept of a "right".

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Ridiculous. Reason being the ability to express abstraction with abstract symbols doesn't in any way guarantee the ability to reason well. The expression of an idea of truth is the product of reason. Whether the reasoning is right or not is another thing entirely. What is self-evident to some is not to others.

I'm fine with a principle governing. We can call that principle right reason, following Aristotle (orthos logos). So it isn't enough to reason, but to reason well - which means doing the right thing, for the right reason, and I believe with the right understanding (i.e., having a correct corresponding syllogism).

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Truth is truth. If they are reasoning wrong then they are not identifying what is true. We do not need a logos principal.

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Ha! Ok. So what is the root then?

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Truth :-D

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It's not quite the same, but we're getting closer to understanding each other. I don't believe come to know truth by reason alone. I think the street runs the other way. What is right and true is not dependent on human action, even human reasoning. The reason isn't the foundation in your system either - you just said it is the way to get to the foundation.

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Exactly. Your truth is a god. Mine is basic concepts that are true just as 1+1=2 is true.

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Numbers exist...hm. How much do they weigh? What physical properties do they have?

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They exist as a concept of reality. We simply recognize reality. The concept of 1 idea being less than 2 ideas existed as a reality before ideas even existed. We just were the first to recognize it.

A tennis ball would have always run downhill on earth before tennis balls ever existed. (leave out any exceptions of wind and other forces) You don't need to invent tennis balls and experimentally prove it for it to be true. It was true always.

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This whole thing is an argument for some form of Platonism - that there are metaphysical things that are Real, regardless of human discovery or thought. What is True and what is Right, is then external to and distinct from what humans believe is true and right.

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Yep

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But what are Truth and Real metaphysical constructs if not higher powers? You are arguing for something under one name, and arguing against it under another.

Let's go with the idea that you've said here, which is that there is Truth, and trueness exists as an expression of that Truth, and we don't get to decide what is True, we just participate in it insofar as the things we reason are true. Therefore when we reason well, we reason truly; if we reason poorly, we reason against Truth itself. The standard, then, is Truth, which exists prior to and above human reason. Human reason is then an effort to grasp this Truth that exists.

But, I don't think then you can ever say we can reason to Truth without Truth being involved. In other words, if we are trying to get to Truth, to arrive at it, and the way we journey is by reasoning, and reasoning is nothing more than reconciling experience into an expression of what is True, then reason itself is participatory in Truth. Truth, then, guides and informs our reasoning on every step of the way. You can't get there without it being there with you. It's not just us, if the external reality is the standard.

And so, then, I agree. Except Truth is God. Reason is God. And things are only true, and good, and reasonable insofar a they participate in what is True and Good and Reasonable, the source of all of those things, and the reference we inherently participate in when struggling towards them.

You see? We agree.

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We don't agree though. I agree in that, if god is real, then your truth is real and you are right, sure. However, you believe that without a god, there can be no truth.

If we agreed then we would simply just say that we have different truths that are both possible.

Let me lay out a thought experiment.

Obviously this is the rational of Negative Rights, but it is easy to get to and utilize.

Let us imagine that there is such a technology that can erase all memories from human memory while still allowing perfect function of language and reason.
We apply this technology to two men and then place them upon an uninhabited island and leave no trace of any existence of any other humans or intelligence beyond these two men.
So all these men know is they currently exist on an island but have no idea of anything in the past, how they got there, why they are there, that such a thing as other humans exist, ect.

Now, let us imagine that these two men decide to go about living on this island and they want to come to an understanding of what rights each of them have in regards to each other and everything on the island.

Neither one can make any rational case for ownership of anything or each other over the other because they have no "higher authority" to appeal to. They have no religious texts, no mutually agreed upon belief of higher powers.
Therefore neither one can make a rational case for being any more important that the other one. Sure they could contest each other physically and try to force each other's will upon one another, in which case the more physcially capable one would triumph, but again, they have agreed to try to arrive at a reason based premise on who has the right to do what.

Through reason alone, with what little they know, they can establish very basic rights.

They both have the right to life because neither one has the right, by default, to kill the other one, because there is nothing based on reason giving either one that right. Of course you can add on complications of situational issues that can give way to arguments for this right. For instance, if one were trying to kill the other, then one could argue the one being attacked had a right to kill the other in defense of their own life. Or if there were a known amount of resources to survive on the island and there was only enough to support one of them. However, by default, neither can make any reasonable claim to having a right to kill the other.

Logically they both would have the right to do do whatever they wanted so long as they did not violate any known rights of the other. Again, you can add complications and "what if"s, but we are speaking of default rights. Not situational rights.

Logically, if one of them had a right to own property, so would the other. Neither would have a default claim to ownership of anything on that island, so by default they can rationally arrive at a logical conclusion that they equally have the right to own property and then they can complicate it from there on how they agree to divy it up.

The overarching theme here is that without a higher authority to appeal to, all they have is truth arrived at by reason. And through reason they can only arrive at the conclusion that they are equal in rights by default. We might have placed the men on the island in their state for the purpose of observing which one would overcome the other and rule the island. Or to see how they got along. None of that matters though because in the minds of the two guys, they have no idea why they were put there, or even how they got to be there. They can only reason from what they know to be true. That they exist there, and that they have no idea why or how.

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Let us imagine that there is such a technology that can erase all memories from human memory while still allowing perfect function of language and reason.
We apply this technology to two men and then place them upon an uninhabited island and leave no trace of any existence of any other humans or intelligence beyond these two men.
So all these men know is they currently exist on an island but have no idea of anything in the past, how they got there, why they are there, that such a thing as other humans exist, ect.

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I case you think presuppositions and culture aren't important, Avicenna (an Aristotilian Muslim) wrote this exact same thought experiment a thousand years ago and the isolated person on the island independently became a Aristotilian Muslim. You think those people would come to the same conclusions as you. Funny how that works.

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We don't agree though. I agree in that, if god is real, then your truth is real and you are right, sure. However, you believe that without a god, there can be no truth.

If we agreed then we would simply just say that we have different truths that are both possible.

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You're appealing to a metaphysical construct that pre-exists humans and calling it Truth, and saying that we reason well when we reason in accordance with Truth. Without this metaphysical reality, there can be no Truth - the concept of truth would be arbitrary and meaningless. You're also linking reality with this Truth.

It isn't about agreeing or not, or even what is possible. If truth simply IS, then possible or no it doesn't matter; all things may be possible, but only what actually exists or happens is true.

I agree with all of this. I agree that there is a principle that is Truth. So do you. You don't want to call it God, and that's fine. But you're appealing to it, and it is the reference point for your system, not reason. There is absolutely no difference between our two frames of reference, except that when I find someone to be unreasonable I say, this is wrong because God has revealed it to us to be wrong. You say, this is wrong because Truth has revealed it to us to be wrong.

Empiricism cannot derive Truth or God other than as metaphysical realities. But empiricism is inherently personal, we experience things completely individually. So empiricism cannot address Truth or God as such, just like it can't address reality as such (for example, Kant's explanation of noumena and phenomena is a good representation of this).

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Your long explanation presupposes that both people have a similar experience or grasp of truth. It doesn't matter what they reason or don't - if one disagrees with the other and kills him, that would still be wrong. If they both come up with some really stupid unreasonable rules for interacting, those would still be unreasonable. It doesn't matter what they say or do, because truth pre-exists. You keep getting stuck in saying that because I can make an empirical case for Truth based on my experience, empiricism itself derives Truth. That is absolutely impossible.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Let us imagine that there is such a technology that can erase all memories from human memory while still allowing perfect function of language and reason.
We apply this technology to two men and then place them upon an uninhabited island and leave no trace of any existence of any other humans or intelligence beyond these two men.
So all these men know is they currently exist on an island but have no idea of anything in the past, how they got there, why they are there, that such a thing as other humans exist, ect.

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I case you think presuppositions and culture aren't important, Avicenna (an Aristotilian Muslim) wrote this exact same thought experiment a thousand years ago and the isolated person on the island independently became a Aristotilian Muslim. You think those people would come to the same conclusions as you. Funny how that works.

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I already pointed out the preconceived notions of past cultures. And they are demonstrably false in at least the idea that we can know for a fact that there is a god and what he/she/it wants.

Avicenna used a very simple preconceived notion that only a powerful god could create the world. His first principles were wrong from the start.

Cultures all over the world get it wrong because they accept axioms that are unproven. There is no indisputable truth of class, of one family being better than another by default.

2 men alone on an island and have no memory, therefore no culture have no way to say with any reason that a god in fact exists and says one has the right to kill the other. Of course I'm not saying that is the conclusion these men would come to. Human reasoning is always clouded by biases.

I'm pointing out the intellectual truths of the matter.

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2 men alone on an island and have no memory, therefore no culture have no way to say with any reason that a god in fact exists and says one has the right to kill the other. Of course I'm not saying that is the conclusion these men would come to. Human reasoning is always clouded by biases.

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I think you missed my entire point. Neither Avicenna's man on an island nor your 2 men on an island are supposed to have cultural preconceptions. That's part of the basis of the thought experiment. However, somehow your men and Avicenna's men both end up with the same conclusions as the originator of the thought experiment. What I'm saying is that no matter how hard you try, you and Avicenna both are imparting your own biases and presuppositions on your thought experiement. Therefore it is no surprise that when you and Avicenna disagree, then your island men disagree in the exact same way.