After going through the article slowly, this piece is amazing. I really liked section 6 talking about and outlining a deflationist account of reasons. Most of the issues in this space are likely a result of dubious and imprecise language paired with bad assumptions and poor methodology creating pseudo-problems.
It also strikes me as odd that people will look at another theory they disagree with, say something like “that just seems crazy” or give intuition pumps to think otherwise. As someone who holds the opposing view, it would be completely expected, trivially, that the view you’re attacking “seems wrong” to you. With that being said, I have great suspicion as to the leap that is then made to allegedly legitimate epistemic and argumentative weight they assign these incompatible “intuitions” as evidence that is supposed to undercut or rebut your theory.
This is a really great article, thank you for this!
I was toying with trying to write something about this Bentham post myself, though I'm much less familiar with the terrain. I'm curious if you think the following sketch of my first-order, not-fully-considered reaction is interesting or useful:
Intuitively (in the colloquial sense), I think I want to be what you might call a reasons maximalist or a reasons trivialist. I think there are -- in some sense -- "reasons" to do things "out there" objectively, but it's not very interesting because *everything* is a reason to do (or not do) *anything*.
For example: should I get the pickle jar out of my fridge right now and drink the brine? Well, pickle brine is very salty, which is a reason to drink it. But on the other hand, pickle brine is very salty, which is a reason not to drink it. The question will be whether its saltyness is a *salient* or *compelling* reason, in context.
*IF* I'm suffering acute hyponatremia, then its saltyness might be a reason *for me* to drink it, now. If I'm suffering chronic hypertension, its saltyness might be a reason for me *not* to drink it, in general. But until we know who I am and what's going on with me, we can't say whether there's reason *for me* to drink pickle brine. Still, I can say that its saltyness is *a* reason to drink it (or not drink it).
It seems to that the same kind of thing is true of "moral reasons." That something is injurious or beneficial to one's neighbors is a reason to do it (and a reason not to do it), which becomes salient based on your stance re: your neighbors. Same for higher-order moral constructs. That something is legal, illegal, customary, taboo, honorable, ignoble, or even "moral" or "immoral" would be *a* reason to do it or not to do it, but whether it's a reason *for you* to do it will depend on your stances.
Yea, reasons maximalism makes a certain amount of sense. I think it's a fun idea. I'd mostly reject such a view for being profligate. It goes against basic pragmatic precepts to favor a view when an alternative can get the same job done without positing a bunch of extra stuff with no benefit to do so. It'd be like adding extra steps to a recipe in cooking that didn't change the outcome.
Well, the pragmatic benefit would be that it gives interlocutors who feel tempted by moral realism a security blanket to hold onto. Sure, we can allow for you to have some kind of reasons "out there" as long as you'll concede that it's our own contexts and interests that make them relevant.
Outside of arguments with realists, you'd dispense with mentions of them just as you dispense with a lot of other philosophical niceties in ordinary speech.
There might be local benefits like that, but that's going to be true for any misguided or mistaken view. Either way, it's not the kind of pragmatic benefit I have in mind. I'm thinking of pragmatism in a broader sense. We don't include entities in scientific theories because e.g., they'd make some scientists feel better. The goal is to retain a notion when it fits well into a broader framework that is itself of greater overall pragmatic value.
Hmm. Perhaps I'm a philosophy doomer, but I'm not really confident such a broader framework is likely to emerge.
I get that when we talk about epistemological pragmatism, as applied to ordinary, non-spooky physical facts, that we're looking for a systematic way of thinking that results in a framework for determining what to believe about the world that is coherent and useful over-all, even though there might seem to be tactical benefits to holding rationally unsupportable beliefs about niche topics for local reasons.
But I'm not sure morality has enough substance to it that it makes sense to care too much about trying to make an overall truth-tracking systematic approach.
It seems to me that moral *discourse*, even among academics, is basically an activity aimed at solving various emotional and relational problems, and if we both agree that there aren't some kind of stance-independent moral facts out there, I don't see why we shouldn't adopt whatever verbal explanation of the moral domain happens to work out well for solving human problems.
If it's useful to talk as though moral reasons are "out there," I don't think it's the same kind of crime against Occam that postulating fairies or invisible dragons is. We've baked in the pre-commitment to remembering that there is something kind of fake about the abstract entities we refer to.
This stuff about "desire", "preference" “stance” is something I've been considering recently. Moral anti-realists say moral realism is gibberish - and that seems pretty much true. But moral anti-realism also just seems like gibberish. What the hell is a "desire", "stance” etc?
Nobody's ever given a clear meaning, and it seems like you get inconsistent answers from different psychologists. Psychology notoriously has huge methodological problems. It's no surprise it would produce pseudo-concepts. This "preference" stuff has been around for decades in psychology, and we've yet to see a clear empirical accounting. It would not surprise me if it turned out to be junk pseudo-science that disappears just like qualia will.
Moral antirealists don’t typically say that moral realism is gibberish. This claim is commonly associated with me, but it’s not even accurate in my case. My position is a trilemma: I argue that all forms of realism are trivial, unintelligible, or false. They aren’t all gibberish. Most antirealists, especially in academia, tend to regard moral realism as false, in particular, but not gibberish.
With respect to talk of desires or stances: moral antirealism only requires rejecting moral realism. The truth of antirealism doesn’t hinge on whether antirealists can offer a defensible account of stances or desires.
WRT your first comment, Sure I can appreciate that distinction.
WRT your second comment, I'm trying to make an independent observation that Anti-Realists are adding in unnecessary baggage to their replies, which is that they go beyond pointing out moral realism is nonsense, and start proposing alternative views which are similarly packed with mystery. Namely, this stuff about "desire", etc.
What's your position on the matter, if you don't mind my asking?
It think he's trying to ask you if you think such approach he described works. From what I understand, the approach he is describing starts with the non-natural moral realist holding that irreducible normativity exists. Then the anti-realist will respond by pointing out, among other things, that such notion is unintelligible or mysterious or something along those lines. Then, the anti-realist will not stop there (they will not stop at just showing there's something unintelligible about irreducible normativity), but will go ahead and try to offer an 'alternative' account based on notions like desires, stances, etc. I think he asking if you think that, at that point, that approach works or not, because the realist could also try to point out that the notion of "desire", "stance", etc. is mysterious or ultimately unintelligible depending on how it's construed. Wouldn't it be enough for the anti-realist to point out irreducible normativity is unintelligible without necessarily giving an alternative account of what's going on with action and motivation in real life that depends on somewhat underspecified theories about "desires", "stances", etc?
Great article, although I think it is a tad long to be fully enjoyable to read in digital format (I can concentrate better with paper than with pixels, but maybe that's just me). In the past I tended to get really frustrated with BB, as I felt whenever he talked about these issues, his responses consisted either of 1) ignoring counterarguments or 2) different rephrasings and restatements of 'I have these intuitions, and they are self-evidently true. Not sharing them means you're crazy and wrong'. And this has led me to just stop reading him altogether.
It really does seem to be his modus operandi to simply report intuitions about things, declare anyone who doesn't have those intuitions crazy, and then ignore or barely engage with anyone that raises substantive objections.
Perhaps I'm being unfair but I think your efforts go well beyond what the interaction deserves. I can't believe that Bentham is sincere: either they're trolling or they're refusing to participate on common ground with the terminology. The distinctions at hand are not that difficult.
I think there's a meta-issue here about the carrying on of amateur philosophy by people who are only willing to educate themselves so far and no further. It's demeaning to engage with such people (no criticism intended).
Bentham has over 10,000 subscribers and professional philosophers have declared him the greatest undergraduate (at the time) in the world. His way of framing things and arguing is also quite consistent with much of contemporary analytic metaethics, so it isn't even especially unusual as far as metaethics goes.
What an interesting set of reasons to not accept reasons, which makes the argument self-defeating.
See the below article on what a “reason” is (happy to address any questions or critiques). But in short, a reason is an objective explanation, they serve to reduce doubt of something for anyone who understood the relevant meanings.
Reasons, given by Lance from his perspective, considered by you from your perspective. At no point in Lance writing, or in you reading this article was a reason provided from a non-linguistic, non-standpoint perspective. That's not even meaningful or coherent.
That is a blog post written in ENGLISH language. How on earth is that a non-linguistic reason? You're telling me to READ WORDS on a page and then you're telling me to dupe myself that I didn't just read words.
Sure, once you argue that normative reasons as stance-dependent (grounded only on personal motivations and desires) then accepting this argument would itself be grounded on personal motivations or desires, and there would be no objective rationale to accept the argument independent of subjective desire.
Although reasons (including normative reasons) are stance independent, as the linked article shows, such that your arguments could be subject to disinterested scrutiny depending on its merits rather than anyone’s personal motivations.
"there would be no objective rationale" - why would that be a problem when that's the very point at issue.
If you assume it's a problem then you're question begging. From Lance's worldview, it obviously isn't a problem, given that the opposite is the conclusion of Lance's position.
You're saying this. "You argue for this conclusion. But if you're right, that would be in tension with the opposite of your conclusion!"
(1) Are you responding to my position? If so, which part? I don't recognize my position in your response.
(2) It's unclear how what you've described would show that my position is "self"-defeating. Perhaps you could explain what you have in mind by a position that is "self-defeating" and then show how my position is, in fact, self-defeating.
(3) The linked article does not "show" that there are stance-independent reasons. Bentham's only "argument" is that it seems to him that there are such reasons.
(1) if you have any quibbles with how I worded your position, then phrase it here and I’ll address it directly. I don’t play the “you didn’t state my position like how I wanted it stated” game.
(2) once you address (1) I’ll explain it more clearly
(3) the article I linked above certainly does, it defined what “reasons” are and this concept of reasons is stance-independent
I wrote a nearly 20,000 word article explaining my views which links to another 3000+ article detailing those views further. I will not rearticulate my position in my comment section. I've written enough already.
Now you come into my comment section confidently claiming my position is self-defeating and show no indication you even know what my position is. Then you react in a way that strikes me as haughty and demanding.
I don't like talking to be people with shitty attitudes. So you can either immediately engage in a friendlier way and do the work to accurately address my position based on what I've already written, or you can fuck off.
If you can’t summarize your thesis in the amount of time it took you to write all that, then your arguments are too diffuse to be coherent. This is why I don’t play the phrasing game. My argument above was based on my understanding and reading of your work and if you don’t believe it sufficiently captured your work, then maybe your work was unclear and sloppy.
Believe it or not but I had read your work in good faith and will not have bother commenting if I didn’t think a conversation would be worthwhile. But if you have no desire to engage with a good faith reader, then I’ll gladly fuck off. You win the argument, thanks for the great philosophical discussion.
What an interesting thing to say, considering you more than likely didn’t read the entirety of this article within just 10 minutes after it was posted. You must be Spencer Reid.
If you don't believe that I read and understood the piece before commenting, such that this comment responding to the argument is uninformed, then feel free to ignore and don't address the comment's merits. I don't know who that is.
The article was published at 11:12 ET. Your first comment appeared at 11:22 ET, 10 minutes after the post went live. Assuming you opened the article up and began reading it within one minute of publication, and assuming it took you one minute to write your post, that would give you 8 minutes to read the article.
The article is about 18000 words. The average person reads nonfiction at a rate of 240 WPM with a standard deviation of about 50 WPM. For you to read the whole article in that time would require a reading speed of 2,250 WPM, or about nine standard pages a minute. This would be about 40 standard deviations above the mean. The chances of this are effectively zero. It would not be physically possible for you to have read the entire article in that time.
You’d rather take the time to do the calculations than actually address the argument I’ve made or phrase your thesis in a way to ground a real discussion. You should be thanking your readers for taking the time to read your work, not scrutinizing them. If you don’t believe I read your article, then don’t. I’m not the one confused about the nature of reasons.
The preceding argument didn’t give any “reason” for believing I didn’t read your work, it was just a reflection of your own personal motivations and desires. Nothing stance independent that anyone is bound to accept.
They can say any of those things. What they shouldn't do is say those things in contexts or in ways that would imply or explicitly include philosophical commitments that their quietism rules out.
>>Similarly, are there no reasons to act whatsoever? Or that we do have reasons but they ultimately bottom out in statements like "because you desire to"?
"There are reasons to act" and "There are no reasons to act" are ambiguous. If one is using these phrases in ordinary language, they're entirely appropriate and meaningful. If these are being used in an analytic philosophy context that takes on board a philosopher's mistaken presuppositions, then the answer is no, there are no reasons to act whatsoever.
I draw a distinction between whether the same phrase is being uttered in a philosophical and ordinary context. A statement can be true in one and not in the other, because they mean different things.
The second quote you provide isn't a sentence, but a sentence fragment extracted from a longer sentence that qualifies the sense in which I am denying that we have reasons, and it is a specific sense of us having reasons. This should be quite clear from the sentence itself. By quoting a sentence fragment out of the context of the sentence, you are giving the false and misleading impression that I am asserting a claim and its contrary in the same respect and in the same sense. I am not.
>>These are both your own words. Saying we have colloquial reasons to act does not get around this contradiction in a meaningful way.
There is no contradiction in anything I said. This isn't very complicated:
A sentence using a given set of words can mean different things. It isn't the sentence itself that can be true or false, but what is meant by that sentence. So the same sentence can be true when it means one thing, and false when it means another thing. The quote you just offered was a snippet out of a sentence where I clearly conditionalized the meaning, after explaining that the remark is ambiguous and means different things in different contexts. Roughly, the format of what I said is this:
"If by reasons you mean X, we have reasons. If by reasons you mean Y, we don't have reasons."
What you did is effectively quote just the last part, "we don't have reasons," and somehow interpret this as me saying "we don't have reasons simpliciter." This isn't what I said, and isn't what my position is. I said this:
"If these are being used in an analytic philosophy context that takes on board a philosopher's mistaken presuppositions, then the answer is no, there are no reasons to act whatsoever."
Notice the word *IF*. The part you quoted out of context was part of this sentence, where what I said, in full, is that IF by "reason" you mean what philosophers do, THEN there are no reasons whatsoever. I didn't just say there are no reasons whatsoever without qualification. And the remark was part of a disambiguation where the VERY SENTENCE PRIOR TO THIS was:
"There are reasons to act" and "There are no reasons to act" are ambiguous. If one is using these phrases in ordinary language, they're entirely appropriate and meaningful."
In other words: "We have reasons to act" is true one context and false in another. We "have reasons" in the ordinary sense, but not in the technical, philosophical sense.
Sentences should be interpreted holistically. It makes no sense to amputate part of a sentence, remove that amputated string of words from the broader context it came from, and then interpret outside the sentence it came from.
After going through the article slowly, this piece is amazing. I really liked section 6 talking about and outlining a deflationist account of reasons. Most of the issues in this space are likely a result of dubious and imprecise language paired with bad assumptions and poor methodology creating pseudo-problems.
It also strikes me as odd that people will look at another theory they disagree with, say something like “that just seems crazy” or give intuition pumps to think otherwise. As someone who holds the opposing view, it would be completely expected, trivially, that the view you’re attacking “seems wrong” to you. With that being said, I have great suspicion as to the leap that is then made to allegedly legitimate epistemic and argumentative weight they assign these incompatible “intuitions” as evidence that is supposed to undercut or rebut your theory.
This is a really great article, thank you for this!
I was toying with trying to write something about this Bentham post myself, though I'm much less familiar with the terrain. I'm curious if you think the following sketch of my first-order, not-fully-considered reaction is interesting or useful:
Intuitively (in the colloquial sense), I think I want to be what you might call a reasons maximalist or a reasons trivialist. I think there are -- in some sense -- "reasons" to do things "out there" objectively, but it's not very interesting because *everything* is a reason to do (or not do) *anything*.
For example: should I get the pickle jar out of my fridge right now and drink the brine? Well, pickle brine is very salty, which is a reason to drink it. But on the other hand, pickle brine is very salty, which is a reason not to drink it. The question will be whether its saltyness is a *salient* or *compelling* reason, in context.
*IF* I'm suffering acute hyponatremia, then its saltyness might be a reason *for me* to drink it, now. If I'm suffering chronic hypertension, its saltyness might be a reason for me *not* to drink it, in general. But until we know who I am and what's going on with me, we can't say whether there's reason *for me* to drink pickle brine. Still, I can say that its saltyness is *a* reason to drink it (or not drink it).
It seems to that the same kind of thing is true of "moral reasons." That something is injurious or beneficial to one's neighbors is a reason to do it (and a reason not to do it), which becomes salient based on your stance re: your neighbors. Same for higher-order moral constructs. That something is legal, illegal, customary, taboo, honorable, ignoble, or even "moral" or "immoral" would be *a* reason to do it or not to do it, but whether it's a reason *for you* to do it will depend on your stances.
Yea, reasons maximalism makes a certain amount of sense. I think it's a fun idea. I'd mostly reject such a view for being profligate. It goes against basic pragmatic precepts to favor a view when an alternative can get the same job done without positing a bunch of extra stuff with no benefit to do so. It'd be like adding extra steps to a recipe in cooking that didn't change the outcome.
Well, the pragmatic benefit would be that it gives interlocutors who feel tempted by moral realism a security blanket to hold onto. Sure, we can allow for you to have some kind of reasons "out there" as long as you'll concede that it's our own contexts and interests that make them relevant.
Outside of arguments with realists, you'd dispense with mentions of them just as you dispense with a lot of other philosophical niceties in ordinary speech.
There might be local benefits like that, but that's going to be true for any misguided or mistaken view. Either way, it's not the kind of pragmatic benefit I have in mind. I'm thinking of pragmatism in a broader sense. We don't include entities in scientific theories because e.g., they'd make some scientists feel better. The goal is to retain a notion when it fits well into a broader framework that is itself of greater overall pragmatic value.
Hmm. Perhaps I'm a philosophy doomer, but I'm not really confident such a broader framework is likely to emerge.
I get that when we talk about epistemological pragmatism, as applied to ordinary, non-spooky physical facts, that we're looking for a systematic way of thinking that results in a framework for determining what to believe about the world that is coherent and useful over-all, even though there might seem to be tactical benefits to holding rationally unsupportable beliefs about niche topics for local reasons.
But I'm not sure morality has enough substance to it that it makes sense to care too much about trying to make an overall truth-tracking systematic approach.
It seems to me that moral *discourse*, even among academics, is basically an activity aimed at solving various emotional and relational problems, and if we both agree that there aren't some kind of stance-independent moral facts out there, I don't see why we shouldn't adopt whatever verbal explanation of the moral domain happens to work out well for solving human problems.
If it's useful to talk as though moral reasons are "out there," I don't think it's the same kind of crime against Occam that postulating fairies or invisible dragons is. We've baked in the pre-commitment to remembering that there is something kind of fake about the abstract entities we refer to.
This stuff about "desire", "preference" “stance” is something I've been considering recently. Moral anti-realists say moral realism is gibberish - and that seems pretty much true. But moral anti-realism also just seems like gibberish. What the hell is a "desire", "stance” etc?
Nobody's ever given a clear meaning, and it seems like you get inconsistent answers from different psychologists. Psychology notoriously has huge methodological problems. It's no surprise it would produce pseudo-concepts. This "preference" stuff has been around for decades in psychology, and we've yet to see a clear empirical accounting. It would not surprise me if it turned out to be junk pseudo-science that disappears just like qualia will.
Moral antirealists don’t typically say that moral realism is gibberish. This claim is commonly associated with me, but it’s not even accurate in my case. My position is a trilemma: I argue that all forms of realism are trivial, unintelligible, or false. They aren’t all gibberish. Most antirealists, especially in academia, tend to regard moral realism as false, in particular, but not gibberish.
With respect to talk of desires or stances: moral antirealism only requires rejecting moral realism. The truth of antirealism doesn’t hinge on whether antirealists can offer a defensible account of stances or desires.
WRT your first comment, Sure I can appreciate that distinction.
WRT your second comment, I'm trying to make an independent observation that Anti-Realists are adding in unnecessary baggage to their replies, which is that they go beyond pointing out moral realism is nonsense, and start proposing alternative views which are similarly packed with mystery. Namely, this stuff about "desire", etc.
What's your position on the matter, if you don't mind my asking?
My position on what, specifically?
It think he's trying to ask you if you think such approach he described works. From what I understand, the approach he is describing starts with the non-natural moral realist holding that irreducible normativity exists. Then the anti-realist will respond by pointing out, among other things, that such notion is unintelligible or mysterious or something along those lines. Then, the anti-realist will not stop there (they will not stop at just showing there's something unintelligible about irreducible normativity), but will go ahead and try to offer an 'alternative' account based on notions like desires, stances, etc. I think he asking if you think that, at that point, that approach works or not, because the realist could also try to point out that the notion of "desire", "stance", etc. is mysterious or ultimately unintelligible depending on how it's construed. Wouldn't it be enough for the anti-realist to point out irreducible normativity is unintelligible without necessarily giving an alternative account of what's going on with action and motivation in real life that depends on somewhat underspecified theories about "desires", "stances", etc?
Great article, although I think it is a tad long to be fully enjoyable to read in digital format (I can concentrate better with paper than with pixels, but maybe that's just me). In the past I tended to get really frustrated with BB, as I felt whenever he talked about these issues, his responses consisted either of 1) ignoring counterarguments or 2) different rephrasings and restatements of 'I have these intuitions, and they are self-evidently true. Not sharing them means you're crazy and wrong'. And this has led me to just stop reading him altogether.
It really does seem to be his modus operandi to simply report intuitions about things, declare anyone who doesn't have those intuitions crazy, and then ignore or barely engage with anyone that raises substantive objections.
Perhaps I'm being unfair but I think your efforts go well beyond what the interaction deserves. I can't believe that Bentham is sincere: either they're trolling or they're refusing to participate on common ground with the terminology. The distinctions at hand are not that difficult.
I think there's a meta-issue here about the carrying on of amateur philosophy by people who are only willing to educate themselves so far and no further. It's demeaning to engage with such people (no criticism intended).
Bentham has over 10,000 subscribers and professional philosophers have declared him the greatest undergraduate (at the time) in the world. His way of framing things and arguing is also quite consistent with much of contemporary analytic metaethics, so it isn't even especially unusual as far as metaethics goes.
What an interesting set of reasons to not accept reasons, which makes the argument self-defeating.
See the below article on what a “reason” is (happy to address any questions or critiques). But in short, a reason is an objective explanation, they serve to reduce doubt of something for anyone who understood the relevant meanings.
https://neonomos.substack.com/p/what-is-a-reason
Reasons, given by Lance from his perspective, considered by you from your perspective. At no point in Lance writing, or in you reading this article was a reason provided from a non-linguistic, non-standpoint perspective. That's not even meaningful or coherent.
That is my read of the article as well. See below for an account of non-linguistic, non-standpoint reasons
https://neonomos.substack.com/p/what-is-a-reason
That is a blog post written in ENGLISH language. How on earth is that a non-linguistic reason? You're telling me to READ WORDS on a page and then you're telling me to dupe myself that I didn't just read words.
Translate it into Thai or Russian if you want to then. The argument remains.
Those are languages. How do I translate it into language independent reasons? Can you just give me the language-independent reasons?
Use whatever set of symbols or representations you want to (language, mathematical notations, etc). The argument remains.
If you have an argument for why my views are "self-defeating" you're welcome to present it here.
Sure, once you argue that normative reasons as stance-dependent (grounded only on personal motivations and desires) then accepting this argument would itself be grounded on personal motivations or desires, and there would be no objective rationale to accept the argument independent of subjective desire.
Although reasons (including normative reasons) are stance independent, as the linked article shows, such that your arguments could be subject to disinterested scrutiny depending on its merits rather than anyone’s personal motivations.
"there would be no objective rationale" - why would that be a problem when that's the very point at issue.
If you assume it's a problem then you're question begging. From Lance's worldview, it obviously isn't a problem, given that the opposite is the conclusion of Lance's position.
You're saying this. "You argue for this conclusion. But if you're right, that would be in tension with the opposite of your conclusion!"
Obviously. That's the point.
(1) Are you responding to my position? If so, which part? I don't recognize my position in your response.
(2) It's unclear how what you've described would show that my position is "self"-defeating. Perhaps you could explain what you have in mind by a position that is "self-defeating" and then show how my position is, in fact, self-defeating.
(3) The linked article does not "show" that there are stance-independent reasons. Bentham's only "argument" is that it seems to him that there are such reasons.
(1) if you have any quibbles with how I worded your position, then phrase it here and I’ll address it directly. I don’t play the “you didn’t state my position like how I wanted it stated” game.
(2) once you address (1) I’ll explain it more clearly
(3) the article I linked above certainly does, it defined what “reasons” are and this concept of reasons is stance-independent
I wrote a nearly 20,000 word article explaining my views which links to another 3000+ article detailing those views further. I will not rearticulate my position in my comment section. I've written enough already.
Now you come into my comment section confidently claiming my position is self-defeating and show no indication you even know what my position is. Then you react in a way that strikes me as haughty and demanding.
I don't like talking to be people with shitty attitudes. So you can either immediately engage in a friendlier way and do the work to accurately address my position based on what I've already written, or you can fuck off.
If you can’t summarize your thesis in the amount of time it took you to write all that, then your arguments are too diffuse to be coherent. This is why I don’t play the phrasing game. My argument above was based on my understanding and reading of your work and if you don’t believe it sufficiently captured your work, then maybe your work was unclear and sloppy.
Believe it or not but I had read your work in good faith and will not have bother commenting if I didn’t think a conversation would be worthwhile. But if you have no desire to engage with a good faith reader, then I’ll gladly fuck off. You win the argument, thanks for the great philosophical discussion.
What an interesting thing to say, considering you more than likely didn’t read the entirety of this article within just 10 minutes after it was posted. You must be Spencer Reid.
If you don't believe that I read and understood the piece before commenting, such that this comment responding to the argument is uninformed, then feel free to ignore and don't address the comment's merits. I don't know who that is.
You definitely didn't understand it given that the question-begging phil-101 form of your response in the comments.
It's not clear how they could've understood it, given that they didn't read it.
The article was published at 11:12 ET. Your first comment appeared at 11:22 ET, 10 minutes after the post went live. Assuming you opened the article up and began reading it within one minute of publication, and assuming it took you one minute to write your post, that would give you 8 minutes to read the article.
The article is about 18000 words. The average person reads nonfiction at a rate of 240 WPM with a standard deviation of about 50 WPM. For you to read the whole article in that time would require a reading speed of 2,250 WPM, or about nine standard pages a minute. This would be about 40 standard deviations above the mean. The chances of this are effectively zero. It would not be physically possible for you to have read the entire article in that time.
You’d rather take the time to do the calculations than actually address the argument I’ve made or phrase your thesis in a way to ground a real discussion. You should be thanking your readers for taking the time to read your work, not scrutinizing them. If you don’t believe I read your article, then don’t. I’m not the one confused about the nature of reasons.
You didn't take the time to read my work, as I demonstrated in the preceding comment.
The preceding argument didn’t give any “reason” for believing I didn’t read your work, it was just a reflection of your own personal motivations and desires. Nothing stance independent that anyone is bound to accept.
They can say any of those things. What they shouldn't do is say those things in contexts or in ways that would imply or explicitly include philosophical commitments that their quietism rules out.
>>Similarly, are there no reasons to act whatsoever? Or that we do have reasons but they ultimately bottom out in statements like "because you desire to"?
"There are reasons to act" and "There are no reasons to act" are ambiguous. If one is using these phrases in ordinary language, they're entirely appropriate and meaningful. If these are being used in an analytic philosophy context that takes on board a philosopher's mistaken presuppositions, then the answer is no, there are no reasons to act whatsoever.
I draw a distinction between whether the same phrase is being uttered in a philosophical and ordinary context. A statement can be true in one and not in the other, because they mean different things.
What do you mean by "nihilism"?
>> If there are no reasons to do anything then nothing matters.
I do not accept the position that "there are no reasons to do anything," and said as much in the comment you are responding to.
>>These are both your own words.
The second quote you provide isn't a sentence, but a sentence fragment extracted from a longer sentence that qualifies the sense in which I am denying that we have reasons, and it is a specific sense of us having reasons. This should be quite clear from the sentence itself. By quoting a sentence fragment out of the context of the sentence, you are giving the false and misleading impression that I am asserting a claim and its contrary in the same respect and in the same sense. I am not.
>>These are both your own words. Saying we have colloquial reasons to act does not get around this contradiction in a meaningful way.
There is no contradiction in anything I said. This isn't very complicated:
A sentence using a given set of words can mean different things. It isn't the sentence itself that can be true or false, but what is meant by that sentence. So the same sentence can be true when it means one thing, and false when it means another thing. The quote you just offered was a snippet out of a sentence where I clearly conditionalized the meaning, after explaining that the remark is ambiguous and means different things in different contexts. Roughly, the format of what I said is this:
"If by reasons you mean X, we have reasons. If by reasons you mean Y, we don't have reasons."
What you did is effectively quote just the last part, "we don't have reasons," and somehow interpret this as me saying "we don't have reasons simpliciter." This isn't what I said, and isn't what my position is. I said this:
"If these are being used in an analytic philosophy context that takes on board a philosopher's mistaken presuppositions, then the answer is no, there are no reasons to act whatsoever."
Notice the word *IF*. The part you quoted out of context was part of this sentence, where what I said, in full, is that IF by "reason" you mean what philosophers do, THEN there are no reasons whatsoever. I didn't just say there are no reasons whatsoever without qualification. And the remark was part of a disambiguation where the VERY SENTENCE PRIOR TO THIS was:
"There are reasons to act" and "There are no reasons to act" are ambiguous. If one is using these phrases in ordinary language, they're entirely appropriate and meaningful."
In other words: "We have reasons to act" is true one context and false in another. We "have reasons" in the ordinary sense, but not in the technical, philosophical sense.
Sentences should be interpreted holistically. It makes no sense to amputate part of a sentence, remove that amputated string of words from the broader context it came from, and then interpret outside the sentence it came from.