Given two ways to treat the cat which achieve the same expected result, most people would consider causing it less suffering to be the wiser choice.
That a particular cat exists and that a particular person has a relationship with that cat is in fact true or it is not. Now, sure, technically serious philosophers can squabble over whether this demonstrable fact is an objective truth or a universal truth.
But, for most of us, the fact that it can be demonstrated to be true works fine. For example, Miley Cyrus exists. She owns a “fluffy white kitty Shanti Om Bb”. Does that qualify as an objective truth? a universal truth?
Are there in turn things that she can do or not do with this cat that qualify – objectively? universally? – as immoral behavior.
How would an ethicist go about demonstrating it?
If, for whatever personal reason, someone abuses or kills a cat, are philosophers able to establish this as either objectively immoral or universally immoral?
In a No God world?
In other words, if someone agrees with you regarding the correct course of action here, they are being logical and rational.
Trust me, I get that part. Just as if someone agrees with you in regard to abortion or Communism they are being logical and rational. They are “one of us”.
How come whenever I see biggy in a thread, I also see phyllo?
He’s a fascinating set of contradictions …
- a nihilist who moralizes
- an atheist obsessed with God and salvation
- a fractured “I” who displays an unchanging set of beliefs
- supposedly interested in “how ought one live?”, he never discusses it or pursues any advice offered to him
- he asks for contexts to discuss, but never discusses them in any detail
- he claims to believe in dasein, that one is the product of time and place, but acts incredulous when someone presents a POV different from his own
- goes talks about the gap in knowledge, but he also understands all sort of things about you and objectivists in general
- he mocks people who present “serious philosophy”, and also those “kids” who avoid “serious philosophy”
- he doubts the effectiveness of “the tools of philosophy” but he keeps asking for arguments based on those tools
and the list goes on.
However, my fascination is not endless.
This is just : “Girl owns cat” and a sudden jump to a a bunch of questions about morality.
No steps. No process. No method. No tools applied. No analysis. Not even an argument.
A classic example of how the objectivist mind needs to see everything in terms of stark contractions. Either/or.
No, what I do is to explore human morality as an existential contraption rooted in dasein.
No, what preoccupies me from time to time, is the fact that oblivion is right around the corner. I wonder what is to become of “I” when I die. I don’t want it to revolve around the abyss that is nothingness; and, to the best of my knowledge, God and religion are the only andidotes.
No, an “I” that is fractured and fragmented only in regard to conflicting goods derived from dasein; and an “I” that over the years has embraced many conflicting objectivist moral narrative and political agendas.
And on and on and from my end too.
For each accusation, he states it as though the manner in which he construes me reflects not just another existential contraption embedded in his own subjective rendition of “I”, but as though this captures me in a manner in which all rational men and women are are obligated to in turn.
Meanwhile, he is still on track to go all the way to the grave convinced that how he views things like Communism and abortion is in sync with how he views things like objective morality and God.
And I’m still thinking how comforting and consoling that must feel.
Okay, and on your part: “Girl owns cat” and a sudden jump to a bunch of answers about morality.
Rooted somehow in moral objectivism and God.
Note to others:
Let him provide us with the steps, method, process, tools, analysis and arguments he used to reach those answers.
I do make an argument regarding that crucial distinction between facts able to be accumulated about cats and the people that own them, and our reaction to those who [for whatever personal reason] choose to abuse or kill them.
It’s embedded throughout the points I raise in my signature threads.
Where is his own equivalent of that?
All you do is sit on your throne and say “NO”.
I have better things to do than trying to show you anything.
Do I reduce you down to “retorts” like this more or less than you allow me to do it?
A new thread perhaps?
You’re not “reducing” me to anything. I gave you some feedback.
There are reasons why almost nobody here wants to talk to you any more.
A new thread will end up like all your threads.
Yes, for someone who thinks there is no way, that he knows of, to resolve disputes over values, he hasn’t the slightest concern about turning threads dealing with what other people value into threads that (SHOULD) deal with what he values. And if they don’t, he gives them pejorative labels, and then goes on hijacking. It’s trolling, and he got happy when you gave him arguments he is very comfortable dealing with since they allow him to repeat himself.
Fine. We can leave it to others to decide for themselves which seems more reasonable. And then the extent to which reason of this sort reflects [technically] a universal truth.
Indeed, and this is as close as I have come to understanding it:
On the other hand, talk about an existential contraption!! 
I would certainly hope so. 
We’ll need a context of course. =D>
[size=50][like shooting fish in a barrel, he mused][/size]
Which says that you don’t understand it at all.
It has almost nothing to do with your philosophy and almost everything to do with how you post.
You are the issue.
In that case, note a particular post of mine that best exemplfies this in regard to examining “universal truth” on this thread.
What exactly are you saying here about “how” I post?
After all, from my point of view, those points have everything to do with my philosophy.
And, it seems to me, how I am posting them is by way of examining determinism, the ontology of existentence and “I” in the is/ought world re the actual points I make about them in my posts.
No, I think that what perturbs you most are the arguments that I make. The closer I come to convincing you that they may well be applicable to you, the more perturbed you get.
If, for no other reason, that has been my experience with objectivists of your ilk going back to long ago.
In any event, as Gib pointed out, you’ve been going after me for years now. You keeping huffing and puffing about me, yet continue to respond to my posts.
You know what they say. If you’re down in a hole [philosophically or otherwise] stop digging.
Only that’s not really an option for me. “I” am the hole.
You ask for answers but as soon as someone responds, it’s …
- general
- an existential contraption
- words defending words
Or you ignore what they wrote and repeat your own points.
The possibility that someone is correct about something is strictly forbidden:
And you think that you are having a discussion when you respond like this?? A discussion about philosophy??
It’s a farce.
Did I mention that you stereotype people?
Not surprising since you appear to have no interest what they have to say.
Note top others
He calls ‘objectivists’ anyone who thinks his own perspective is superior to another.
The only acceptable answer is we:
We are all equally ignorant - replacing the Abrahamic ‘we are all equally sinful’ or the Marxist ‘we are all equally poor’ (or ought to be so) - and we must stop fighting and collectively come to mutually beneficial compromises.
This is the Utopia he promotes with nihilism
He chips away at confidence, cultivating - he imagines - uncertainty so as to produce a surrender to the collective project.
His psychology is based on his own loss of trust in his own senses and judgments. He wants to make this universal.
He is the one who wants to ‘change the world’.
It’s anyone who thinks that there are answers that “mere mortals” can figure out.
He insists that knowledge and understanding are always out of reach. We must admit to a collective ignorance and incompetence.
When he throws in determinism, control and guidance are also out of reach. We must admit to a collective powerlessness.
Exactly. He wants to make his own weakness into a universal truth.
He’s been disillusioned by the Abrahamic one-god, and then Marxism - its secular form - and has lost all trust in others, as an expression of his loss of confidence in his own judgments.
He concludes with a defensive annihilation of all ideas as equally in error, and because there are no absolutes he easily finds a gap to exploit and to dismiss all ideas.
He concludes, because someone else taught him how, that the only ‘solution’ to bring about the utopia the other ideologies failed to bring about, si to admit that we all are equally ignorant - emphasis on the ‘equally’.
Nihilism reduces all to parity - no distinctions, no variations, no gradations, no superior/inferior.
Either all are one, or all are nil.
With no god - absolute oneness - then nil.
Like I said…any expression of confidence and certainty, is ‘objectivism’ in his demented mind. the only acceptable attitude is humility, admittance that nobody knows the truth, and a surrender to the collective.
We are all proletariats, or we are all sinners.
Salvation can be found in the collective.
A neurotic.
You are wasting your time with him.
Every time you pay attention to him he considers ti a victory - like he is making a difference, bringing about this ‘better world’ he imagines.
He is beyond reason, and help.
He was told of the power of the nil, and he yields it passionately. Waiting for the final nil - Godot.
This is his final retribution against existence that failed to deliver what he once considered inevitable.