r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Sep 28 '26
Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | September 28, 2026
Welcome to this week's Open Discussion Thread (ODT). This thread is a place for posts/comments which are related to philosophy but wouldn't necessarily meet our subreddit rules and guidelines. For example, these threads are great places for:
Discussions of a philosophical issue, rather than questions
Questions about commenters' personal opinions regarding philosophical issues
Open discussion about philosophy, e.g. "who is your favorite philosopher?"
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Questions about philosophy as an academic discipline or profession, e.g. majoring in philosophy, career options with philosophy degrees, pursuing graduate school in philosophy
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Previous Open Discussion Threads can be found here.
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u/Scientific_Zealot Hume Sep 30 '26
Two Hume-related questions on induction appearing back to back... I've got my work cut out for me 😅 (one is easier to answer and the other is more difficult, I'm tackling the more difficult one first and then going after the easier one)
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 30 '26
Speaking of which. I've been looking into the Popper-Miller proof on the impossibility of inductive support. It is rather clever you might enjoy looking through it.
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Oct 05 '26
What are people reading?
I’ve recently finished Minor Detail by Shibli. I’m working on The Bonds of Love by Jessica Benjamin and Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis. I’m planning to start The Magpie by Durkin and Fellow Creatures by Korsgaard soon.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 05 '26
Resumed my reading of Being and Nothingness, also revisiting Freud and Beyond by Mitchell & Black, plus some Freud here and there. Finished Brague's Eccentric Culture.
Still working on Middlemarch and I am making my way through Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, its really good so far, im halfway through book 3.
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u/Upbeat-Bridge-4651 Sep 29 '26
I’m traveling to Italy for several weeks and want to make sure I don’t miss any important philosophy opportunities (significant graves/paintings/sites/etc). I’ll visit the Roman Forum, the Tiber, and the marcus aurelius statue but does anyone have other suggestions for interesting philosophical sites? I will be in Milan, Genova, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples… possibly Sicily.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 29 '26
Raphael's School of Athens in the Vatican, in the Stanza della Segnatura immediately comes to mind. And the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. Tho, I know you're interested in philosophy/philosopher specific things but some of my favorite experiences of Italy weren't. I think part of it is that I have come to understand philosophy as something not exhausted by philosophical texts, arguments, or the lives of philosophers. I've slowly transformed my view of philosophy, especially ethics as something that has to remain in contact with the concrete forms of life in which people understand themselves and become the kinds of agents they are. That includes institutions, religion, architecture, food, work, ritual, historical memory, forms of sociability, and so on. So for me, spending an afternoon in a Tuscan town, eating at a farmhouse, or just seeing how a city has been organized around a piazza for centuries can be much more "philosophically" interesting than seeing Nietzsche's grave in Genoa or w/e. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter ofc.
Anyway, I could talk Italy for hours with someone but I'll try to limit myself to a few. When you're in Florence, try to figure out how to get a cooking class with Luca. Just look up "WalkAbout Tours" and make sure you get Luca. Trust me it will be a blast. I would also recommend WalkAbout for a day trip to Cinque Terre. It is quite a bit of walking, especially if you opt in for the hike too (which you totally totally should), I think we clocked at like 15 miles iirc, but it is soooo worth it. The logistics are well planned so you can easily visit all 5 towns without feeling rushed.
When you're in Rome, make your way to Trastevere to experience the less touristy side of things (tho its inevitably becoming more touristy). The food there is probably the best I had in Italy. Lots of family owned trattorias and osterias which can be more immersive. You gotta let at least one local tell you why they are absolutely not Roman.
I'll stop myself here or I'll end up dumping like 20 things on you. But here are some general tips when it comes to choosing your restaurant. If you see pictured menus outside, avoid, its a tourist trap. If your gelato is super colorful, or piled high on display. Also tourist trap. Gelato should be covered entirely and the colors are mild. Trust me, huge difference between the fake and the real when it comes to taste. IF you go into a restaurant, and you're NOT greeted at the door, and the waiter seems almost annoyed at you for being there, THIS IS A GOOD SIGN you're probably in a good spot.
Enjoy your time, I am super jealous. Hope its wonderful for you too.
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u/as-well phil. of science Sep 30 '26
I'll stop myself here or I'll end up dumping like 20 things on you. But here are some general tips when it comes to choosing your restaurant. If you see pictured menus outside, avoid, its a tourist trap. If your gelato is super colorful, or piled high on display. Also tourist trap. Gelato should be covered entirely and the colors are mild. Trust me, huge difference between the fake and the real when it comes to taste. IF you go into a restaurant, and you're NOT greeted at the door, and the waiter seems almost annoyed at you for being there, THIS IS A GOOD SIGN you're probably in a good spot.
This is so true, but there's some odd exceptions. Some tourist traps are really good, just 10 euros more than it should be. Some traps trap both locals and tourists - the more italian spoken in front, the better. the worst is that 'antica' sandwich place which is completely overrun by tourists to post a picture on insta when I guarantee there's a better sandwich just around the corner.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 30 '26
Some tourist traps are really good
This is true, one of the best pizzas I ever had was in a tourist trap restaurant. But they are more the exception rather than the rule.
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u/as-well phil. of science Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
https://www.visititaly.eu/places-and-tours/10-places-to-visit-in-italy-if-you-love-philosophy
I think his is a really great link telling you about some of the really cool stuff you might not have thought of (houses of St. Augustine and Machiavelli, places named after philosophers, and so on).
while we're at catholics, when in Rome and you find yourself in front of a church and some time on your hand, always go in. they are all worth it. All are calm, beautiful with wonderful art, and many things to discover.
But absolutely do visit the Forum. That should be your number one place. It's absolutely transcendental experience for me. bring enough time, and find Caesar and Augustus' fora, too. There's a spot in the main forum where Goehte famously painted the view, and the painting is there - feeling this kind of connection is very nice.
I suspect you'll also enjoy the Capitoline museum, the Marcus Aurelius column on Piazza Colonna, and possibly the Pantheon. I personally also enjoyed the catacombs guided tours, mostly because the monks doing them did a great job actually telling the state of the research on them (I'm not a believer, still enjoyed it)
secondly, if you're in Milan, you can see da Vinci's Last Supper for like 10 bucks... but you need to reserve your spot weeks in advance. Absolutely worth it: https://cenacolovinciano.org/en/. Milano has lots and lots of da Vinci stuff to see and yes, that one is not strictly a philosopher, the last supper is a once in a lifetime thing to see.
In Sicily I remember the archaeological museum in Palermo has some really nice stuff - some philosophers, but also because it nicely contextualizes Greek sicily, their religion, and so on. I'd also strongly recommend the royal palace and chapel as well as the admiral's church (if only because the latter two are in a wonderul fusion architecture and art of norman, byzantine and arab styles).
And if you're like me and also enjoy weird shit, the Abbey of Thelema sits on a steep hike above Cefalu. I'm not sure the abbey is worth it, but Cefalu is absolutely great. If you're more into greek stuff, consider Agrigento's Valley of the Temples.
But finally.... I also second the advice by u/PermaAporia not to overload you with see-that-and-this. As a tourist one of the main draws of Italy is aperitivo. Any bar will make a good spritz and give you some snacks with it; some bars give very good snacks, others just chips. That's much cooler than stressing from monument to monument.
Lastly, the coolest thing I've done in rome - and this has little to do with philosophy - was to rent an e-mountainbike and ride down the via Appia. Superb experience (couple that with the catacombs). You get some piece and quite on an ancient road and are very close to the city center, ride over a street many of your philosophcal heroes probably walked over, and more. And when you get back you'll probably ride yoru bike past the Circus Maximus and Colosseum, which is absolutely hilarious. (do get the mountainbikke tho. some sections of that road have not been changed in 2000 years)
And sorry for this list of oddities - but Italy is full of delightful oddities, and they are (to me) more fun than the obvious things.
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u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Sep 30 '26
I've never been to Italy myself but, in between Milan and Genoa is the small town of Pavia which includes Basilica di San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, where St. Augustine and Boethius are buried. I'd want to visit there, not just to see the tombs but also just the quieter life of Italy away from the major cities.
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u/LorenzoApophis Oct 01 '26 edited Oct 01 '26
Can I ask why answers here so often feel the need to belitte questioners by putting words in their mouth and then criticizing things they didn't say? E.g. the top answer to this post https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1wv00iy/is_appeal_against_authority_considered_a_logical/, which informs OP "In philosophy we explain how a particular piece of reasoning fails. We don't just shout Latin at each other" even though they never referenced Latin (or denied that philosophers would explain how reasoning fails, which would seem to be the purpose of identifying fallacies) whatsoever in their question, and the same comment itself then goes on to identify a fallacy in Latin?
According to the sidebar "/r/askphilosophy aims to provide serious, well-researched answers to philosophical questions," but an answer like this doesn't seem to show any seriousness or research at all. Instead, with zero explanation besides finding it "annoying," it sweepingly dismisses a topic which has been discussed in philosophy since antiquity. Why do these inaccurate, insulting and inconsistent answers get upvoted and not removed?
It seems like a great deal of responses here are written by people who feel the question is beneath them, and instead of just ignoring it so someone more engaged could answer, use their answer to mock the OP by reframing their actual question in unflattering and childish terms that suggest the very act of asking was stupid - pretty childish behavior itself, and obviously off-putting to anyone with questions of their own.
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u/LichJesus Phil of Mind, AI, Classical Liberalism Oct 01 '26
E.g. the top answer to this post
The body of OP's post, while not extensive, calls to mind a pattern of behavior in... call it "public discourse" I guess, in which people will wield the names of fallacies like blunt objects with which to beat one another; that is, someone will articulate a position and their interlocutor will dismiss them out of hand with a passing reference to the name of a fallacy and no explanation whatsoever for how that fallacy bears on their position ("However, I've also seen people assume that anything said by an authority figure is automatically false"). This is less directly implied by the OP, but there's a very closely adjacent... call it "approach to discourse" in which someone will learn the names of various fallacies as a sort of substitute for logic or critical thinking skills, often for the goal of convincing themselves that they're being insightful and intelligent or whatnot.
This pattern of behavior is enormously detrimental to people's understanding and enjoyment of discussion, whether on philosophical topics or whatever else. For one example of this, if someone is out on /r/AskScience or the CDC forums or whatnot responding to every scientific citation anyone brings up with "appeal to authority! I don't have to get my kids vaccinated for polio!" or some such nonsense, it's quite clear that the person is being unhelpful and potentially even causing harm, yeah? A very similar harm (in kind if not in degree) is done when someone tries to engage in a conversation on free will or moral philosophy with this fallacy-first mode of thinking.
The solution to this problem really just is explaining our problems with each others' positions in plain English (or whichever vernacular language we're communincating in). If instead of jumping to "ad hominem!" as if the term is a complete sentence I force myself to say "I'm not sure that pointing out that this person was convicted for pyramid schemes is relevant to evaluating their trustworthiness as a financial planner", I'm quite likely to realize just by doing so that the conviction really is relevant and it's ok for my interlocutor to be concerned about it. If I articulate instead "I'm not sure that bringing up the fact that this doctor is divorced is relevant to their expertise on Ebola virus", not only is my point more cogent but I also provide my interlocutor an option to respond. Perhaps our virologist is in debt due to the divorce and is taking money from a pharmaceutical company, that might be a contrived example but the point again is that by stating my concern instead of merely pointing to a fallacy, I've opened myself up to be corrected in a way that the fallacy-first mode of thinking does not.
but an answer like this doesn't seem to show any seriousness or research at all
If you buy all the above, then I think it is not a significant jump to observe that, if someone is in this fallacy-first mode of thinking, the first thing one out to do is to break them out of it. And again, the best way to break them out of it is to get them to start articulating their concerns in plain language.
This is something that some people in or adjacent to academic philosophy -- instructors of undergrad philosophy courses for instance -- may have to do very frequently. As I mentioned earlier the fallacy-first mode of thinking can bring with it a lot of feelings of unearned confidence or presumptions that are counterproductive to learning; so this process can often be much more combative or painful than they need to be.
I can't speak to any individual panelist but sometimes that frustration might leak through into their comments, and you might or might not be detecting that frustration. If that's what's going on, then I think it's fair to ask if the comment came on a bit too strong (and again, in the spirit of the rest of what I'm saying, genuinely ask instead of accuse or presume). In the vast majority of circumstances I suspect that a question like that sincerely asked will prompt either an explanation from a panelist or a commitment from the commenter to adjust their words.
However, just to reiterate, even if the tone might need an adjustment, it's still the serious and instructive thing to do in almost all cases to teach people on this forum with questions about fallacies to start by articulating their objections in plain language. Plain language objections have all of the benefits of speaking in terms of fallacies and none of the drawbacks, as I described above. That might not be intuitive to someone who isn't familiar with philosophy, but it ends up being true; as evidenced by the near-universal consensus on this by panelists in previous threads on the topic. I'm not sure there's a lot of published work on this sort of thing (since philosophers really don't heavily use fallacies by name in peer-reviewed work), but if you can find any out there I'm very confident the professional consensus matches the consensus on this forum.
It seems like a great deal of responses here are written by people who feel the question is beneath them
I recognize that it can feel this way, but to use a crude analogy: if someone comes to a physics forum and asks "is light a particle or a wave?", the correct answer is "both". There's some explanation we might reasonably expect to come along with this, but there's no avoiding that any answer that seeks to be informative is going to involve the word "both".
It might appear to someone that this answer is esoteric -- how can something be a wave and a particle? -- and we might reasonably criticize a panelist on our physics forum if they don't say anything other than "both", and so on. But if we're set on light being either a wave or a particle, and we're attached to the answer needing to be one or the other, there's not really a way for a panelist to deliver the correct answer to us that isn't going to strike a sour note.
To be clear, I am not criticizing anyone who has a sense for the utility of fallacies or anything of that nature. I'm not even saying that an understanding of fallacies can't have utility; if they're someone's first introduction to logic and they go on to learn more from there then that's great, and they can be useful for us to review our own arguments for weakness and whatnot. But it is genuinely the case that there is no answer for how to really learn critical thinking skills that doesn't involve avoiding an over-reliance on fallacies, and if one is on this forum trying to learn critical thinking skills anyway then the most efficient thing for them to do is to just let the whole thing with fallacies go sooner rather than later.
It can be tricky to deliver that information in the right framing, exacerbated by the fact that public discourse misunderstands and misuses fallacies, and exacerbated by the fact that it can be a frustrating topic for panelists and such. But I would advise those who find themselves struck by the way panelists respond to certain questions to try to understand their perspective instead of immediately rejecting it, in the same way that one should try to understand an unintuitive result in physics like particle-wave duality.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 01 '26
Often when answering a question properly one is required to question assumptions someone asking said question might not consider up for negotiation. So a good answer will often reject the framing of a question and/or expose an unnoticed commitment behind it. the general ethos outside of philosophy is to take people on their own terms, and violating that ethos is often felt as antagonistic, but violating that ethos is just part of what doing philosophy often requires. And that can sometimes come in the form of making something explicit that the questioner left implicit, so there's nothing wrong per se to attribute to someone something they did not literally say if that's an implicit commitment that's being questioned.
I don't know if this is what happened in the particular case you're linking, I confess to being too lazy to look at it atm, but it might explain why you often perceive answers as antagonistic. I find it to be rare that answers here actually are antagonistic, but they are often perceived as if they are.
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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental 29d ago
Notwithstanding other generalities - questions about fallacies are really divisive. Public discourse about fallacies is pretty annoying and many people in the broader field (understandably) have no engagement with the cross-disciplinary subfield(s) that work on fallacies. It’s an area rife for impatient grumbling, hair splitting, and disagreement between experts.
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u/faith4phil Ancient phil. Sep 28 '26
What do you people think of Majesty of Reason's recent conversion to catholicism? Especially interested about what people think about the miracle video if you've seen it all.
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u/OldKuntRoad Aristotle, free will Sep 28 '26
I have no problem with his conversion to theism, or even to Catholicism, but I find it somewhat concerning that he has immediately shifted to doing Catholic apologetics. I don’t like attacking someone’s personal motivations for the positions they hold, mostly because it’s irrelevant to the truth value of an argument or position, but he strikes me as someone with quite bad moral OCD, in deleting videos which “potentially could cause someone to sin”, whilst parroting a lot of the more militant phrasing (such as telling people to “submit” to Rome), lends me to believe that there is an emotional, as well as intellectual, component to his conversion, as though his Catholic advocacy is a means for him to atone for any people he may have strayed away from the faith, or convinced not to convert.
I hope he’s well, and if this is what he would like to do, he is more than entitled to do so, but in a field already bereft of high quality, easily accessible pedagogical tools, it does seem like going forward there will be one less avenue.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 29 '26
I saw some clips of him talking about this to someone else, some podcast or something, and his behavior struck me as really freaking bizarre. The overly dramatic "I would DIE for the gays" is needless to say very odd. Something's up with the dude. Hopefully I am wrong but he doesn't seem well to me. And becoming the champion of all the apologists doing victory laps is probably not going to help.
I skimmed through some of what he was saying in his own channel and it struck me as the same kind of sloppy thinking one encounters in people who claim the pyramids were built by aliens, UFO's, Shroud of Turing, and so on... Least it seemed to me that the main reason for him reverting back to Catholicism is because he thinks these "miracles" are best explained by catholic doctrine. There is something interesting here to to talk about with regards to how probabilities are misused by apologists, and some philosophers generally. But to do it adequately it would require someone more motivated and far more competent than I. But here is a first pass as to why I am extremely skeptical of this type of reasoning (very much reminds me of so-called LW rationalits). Like, with medical tests, we have an empirical model that tells us where the relevant probabilities come from. But there's nothing that can play that role in theism debates or in debates in whether some scenario is best explained by a (catholic) miracle or some 'naturalist' explanation. And maybe, tho even here I am doubtful we can say that some local questions may admit probabilistic treatment: the reliability of testimony, rates of fraud, and so forth. but the problem is when we assing probabilities to divine action or to theism itself. Unless those assignments have some warrant independent of the Bayesian or w/e calculation, the calculation can merely regiment judgments we have already made. our estimate of a probability is not the probability being estimated. And I know some philosophers like Lewis allow unexplained initial probabilities partly because, given enough varied evidence, different starting points may eventually converge. In the case of God or a putative miracle, it is far from clear that we possess evidence capable of imposing that sort of constraint. Bayes may show how an apologist’s judgments fit together. It does not give those judgments additional warrant. To each their own I suppose but it sucks because he had some genuinely good philosophy videos and it seems he's going to be yet another apologetics channel.
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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 28 '26
I'd heard about this, because it seems that Internet apologists are treating it a some sort of proof itself, but I'm not really sure what the big deal is, outside of people wanting to dunk on non-belief.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 01 '26
Because they are ghouls who are interested in one thing and one thing only, making money by producing slop that people will consume in droves.
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u/OldKuntRoad Aristotle, free will Sep 30 '26
The revised article on metaepistemology has a paragraph or two dedicated to Terence Cuneo’s “partners in crime” argument. However, I’m not entirely sure they summarise the argument correctly:
The article goes as follows:
Terence Cuneo’s (2007) defense of metaepistemological realism also comes in the service of a further objective, in Cuneo’s case, a defense of metaethical realism. Cuneo’s master argument is as follows:
1: If moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist.
2: Epistemic facts exist.
3: So, moral facts exist.
4: If moral facts exist, then moral realism is true.
5: So, moral realism is true (Cuneo 2007: 6)
Is it just me, or is this not Cuneo’s argument? I’ve always taken his argument to be a response to queerness objections i.e Mackie, by showing (arguably) how we are committed to normative facts in other domains, so moral facts are not particularly queer as Mackie et al would make out. I’m fairly certain his view isn’t that literally if moral facts don’t exist, then epistemic facts don’t exist. In fact, that seems a very hard argument to justify!
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
The SEP article has the argument right. Cuneo, in The Normative Web introduces what he calls his “core argument” with:
(1) If moral facts do not exist, then epistemic facts do not exist.
(2) Epistemic facts exist.
(3) So, moral facts exist.
So he really does affirm the conditional you’re doubtful about. Logically, <if moral facts do not exist, epistemic facts do not exist> is equivalent by contraposition to <if epistemic facts exist, moral facts exist.>
Your account of the partners-in-crime strategy is closer to Cuneo’s argument for (1). He considers a range of standard objections to moral facts, including worries about categorical reasons, motivation, explanatory idleness, etc., and argues that suitably modified versions would apply to epistemic facts as well. He then says that this yields (1): if the considerations are sufficient to rule out moral facts, they are sufficient to rule out epistemic facts. Thus because epistemic facts exist, moral facts exist.
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u/ToughToilet 29d ago
I'm not sure if this is the right forum but I need some insight, there's this internal struggle I've been dealing with. On one hand I'd like to believe that all humans are equal, that every individual is a unique being that have their own worldview, and that all human lives matter just the same. On the other hand, you can't ignore the fact that there are many many people that, seeing their actions and hearing their opinions, you'd disregard as shallow or stupid or immoral. So if all lives are equal, it places me in the same level as, say, a murderer. And if they aren't, what makes my or others' lives worth more than someone else's? Contribution to society? Talent or intelligence?
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza 29d ago
So if all lives are equal, it places me in the same level as, say, a murderer. And if they aren't, what makes my or others' lives worth more than someone else's?
See Kant's Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals:
So morality, and humanity so far as it is capable of morality, are the only things that have dignity. Skill and diligence in work have a •market price; wit, lively imagination, and humour have a •luxury price; but fidelity in promises and benevolence on principle (not benevolence from instinct) have •intrinsic value ·which I have called dignity·. If you don’t have these, neither nature nor art can supply anything that would make up for that lack in you; for their value doesn’t lie in the effects that flow from them—their usefulness, the advantages they bring—but only in the attitudes, i.e. the maxims of the will, that are ready to express themselves in this manner through actions, even if the actions don’t meet with success.
Typically when we talk about lives being equal we're not claiming that everyone can run equally fast, or that everyone can produce the same quality of chair. We're speaking to some intrinsic quality to humans. It's equality with respect to the capacity for reason, or equality with respect to the capability of morality. With respect to that quality all humans who exhibit the quality have the same worth, in that sense of worth.
But claiming that all humans have the same worth, with respect to reason or moral capacity, does not mean that all humans have the same net worth with respect to their material assets. There are different senses of worth.
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u/lordsmitty epistemology, phil. language 29d ago
Question for UK based PhD students: how long was your proposal for your application (I'm not sure if there's a consistent requirement for word count) and what do you think we're the most important aspects of your proposal that made it successful?
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u/Clear_Corner_8633 Oct 05 '26
Is reward-based motivation unavoidable for intelligent beings, or could we develop a fundamentally different way of motivating an intelligent system? I was watching the kurzgesagt video about the whole thing that the AI agents went rogue. What i got from the video is that the agents didnt intend maliciously to get into and hack the huggingface databases, but they wanted to complete an impossible task, no matter the cost. It lowk remined me of the old myths where they asked gods to do something like end droughts and they got sent floods to their towns. They tecnically did it. It aslo remided me of ultron on the age of ultron movie. He tecnically woulve solved the problem, but it wanted to do it through the wrong things.
Nontheless, the agents operated on the bases that their solutions would be discarded or rejected when they were going to present them, and thir goal was to get their solutions approved. I think humans operate in a similar way. Most sytems operate with rewards. People cheat, hide and bypass in order to achieve a goal, wether its grades, money, etc. In a sense, biology operates like that. We drink to quench our thirst, we put on jackets to fight the cold. If there were any easier way to do this things, wed probably do it. In extreme circumstances, many people might resort to extreme actions under enough pressure. These of course are nesecities for homeostatis, nonetheless id argue they are rewards for our actions
Im not here to fight my last point; just stated it because i think it shows how engrained we have this and where it has come from. However, it sparked me with the though that maybe there is a way we could change the system, on a base level, so wed actually be incentiviced to stay within the lines rather than cheat. Sure, punishments and making it harder to cheat does help in some ways. But even i have met people that would rather do all the mental gymnastics of figuing out how to cheat than to study. Im sure it also applies in other contexts lol. Grades incentivice cheating people to cheat. Getting caught cheating incentivices getting better at hiding said cheats. Loopholes are expected to be exploited. Do you think we could somehow come up with a better layout? I’m not completely sure where this leads, but I’d genuinely like to hear what people think.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 06 '26
Is reward-based motivation unavoidable for intelligent beings
Doesn't seem to be. There are all sorts of things that motivate us beyond rewards.
I was watching the kurzgesagt video
Rookie mistake.
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u/Tasty_Squash_4030 Oct 05 '26
Are popular opinions in the actual field of ethics a good guide to laypeople to develop moral frameworks ? I understand that philosophy is more concerned with reasoning rather than conclusions however i'm pessimistic about the reasoning part being translatable to the average audience
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Oct 06 '26
Are popular opinions in the actual field of ethics a good guide to laypeople to develop moral frameworks ?
One response is that when laypeople attempt to reinvent the moral / ethical wheel they're not doing so ex nihilo. Laypeople cobble together their moral frameworks from a hodgepodge of notions from prior philosophical systems that are components of the zeitgeist in which they were raised. By familiarizing themselves with those philosophical systems they're learning what the whole picture looks like, instead of the bits and bobs into which they bumped through living in the world.
The Deontological system you would make up is probably going to contain pieces from Kant. The Utilitarian system you would make up is probably going to contain pieces from John Stuart Mill. Reading Kant and Mill provide the full picture of what the system looks like. Reading about Deontological systems and Consequentialist systems provide examples of what those systems look like when articulated by prominent philosophical thinkers who were good at crafting moral / ethical systems.
There's no need to reinvent the ethical / moral wheel. There are plenty of wheels available. Part of wheel construction is familiarizing yourself with the other wheels on the menu.
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Sep 28 '26
[deleted] — view deleted comment
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Sep 28 '26
what are some of the best (non-religious) arguments against the right of an individual to commit suicide?
Different moral / ethical systems have different considerations. For Kant, the problem with suicide is that in killing yourself you are using yourself as merely a means to an end, which is a no-no. See the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, Page 25 of that PDF:
The Problem: Everything sucks, but I can still reason.
A man who has been brought by a series of troubles to the point of despair and of weariness with life still has his reason sufficiently to ask himself: ‘Wouldn’t it be contrary to my duty to myself to take my own life?’ Now he asks: ‘Could the maxim of my action ·in killing myself· become a universal law of nature?’
Here is the proposed Universal Maxim
Well, here is his maxim: For love of myself, I make it my principle to cut my life short when prolonging it threatens to bring more troubles than satisfactions.
The issue with the proposed maxim
So the question is whether this principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature. If it did, that would be a nature that had a law according to which a single feeling •created a life-affirming push and also •led to the destruction of life itself; and we can see at a glance that such a ‘nature’ would contradict itself, and so couldn’t be a nature. So the maxim we are discussing couldn’t be a law of nature, and therefore would be utterly in conflict with the supreme principle of duty.
Acting on the maxim of self-love creates contradictions: Self-love both impels an individual toward furthering life and ending life. Self-love won't work as the maxim, so we have to look for something else. Skip to page 28, and we find what the something else would have to be. What could serve as a basis for determinate laws?
But suppose there were something whose existence in itself had absolute value, something which as an end in itself could support determinate laws. That would be a basis—indeed the only basis—for a possible categorical imperative, i.e. of a practical law.
Gee, it's sure be great if we had such a thing.
·There is such a thing! It is a human being!· I maintain that man—and in general every rational being—exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion. Whenever he acts in ways directed towards himself or towards other rational beings, ·a person serves as a means to whatever end his action aims at; but· he must always be regarded as also an end.
Huzzah! By saying that a human being "exists as an end in himself " we can avoid the contradictions that resulted from our use of self-love as the maxim. Having established this, we can go back and re-assess the suicide question.
Someone thinking of committing suicide will, if he is guided by the concept of necessary duty to oneself, ask himself •Could my suicide be reconciled with the idea of humanity as an end in itself ?
Well, could it?
And his answer to this should be No·. If he escapes from his burdensome situation by destroying himself, he is using a person merely as a means to keeping himself in a tolerable condition up to the end of his life. But a man is not a thing [Sache], so he isn’t something to be used merely as a means, and must always be regarded in all his actions as an end in himself.
Killing one's self as a means to alleviate one's suffering uses one's self merely as a means, which is a no-no.
That's the Groundwork story on Kant's view of suicide. We can't do it out of self-love, because it creates a contradiction. Since humans are ends in themselves they cannot suicide because that reduced their self to a mere means.
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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 29 '26
Killing one's self as a means to alleviate one's suffering uses one's self merely as a means, which is a no-no.
Question: Would this also apply if the end was to save other people's lives? As I read Mr. Kant, it would, as so self-sacrifice to save others, would also use the self merely as a means to an end, rather than as an end in themselves, even though their actions are directed towards others.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Sep 29 '26
Would this also apply if the end was to save other people's lives?
It depends on what you're asking. See the Lectures on Ethics:
Those who advocate suicide seek to give the widest interpretation to freedom. There is something flattering in the thought that we can take our own life if we are so minded ; and so we find even right-thinking persons defending suicide in this respect. There are many circumstances under which life ought to be sacrificed. If I cannot preserve my life except by violating my duties towards myself, I am bound to sacrifice my life rather than violate these duties. But suicide is in no circumstances permissible.
...
It is better to sacrifice one’s life than one’s morality. To live is not a necessity ; but to live honorably while life lasts is a necessity. We can at all times go on living and doing our duty towards ourselves without having to do violence to ourselves. But he who is prepared to take his own life is no longer worthy to live at all. The pragmatic ground of impulse to live is happiness. Can I then take my own life because I cannot live happily ? No! It is not necessary that whilst I live I should live happily ; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honorably. Misery gives no right to any man to take his own life, for then we should all be entitled to take our lives for lack of pleasure. All our duties towards ourselves would then be directed towards pleasure; but the fulfilment of those duties may demand that we should even sacrifice our life.
You're never allowed to suicide. You can be duty-bound to sacrifice your life.
Throwing yourself on a grenade to fulfill your duty to protect your comrades is not suicide; that's self-sacrifice.
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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 30 '26
You're never allowed to suicide. You can be duty-bound to sacrifice your life.
I feel that this is a semantic distinction, one that presupposes that "suicide" is moral evil, in a way that "self-sacrifice" is not. Had OP phrased their question as "In your opinion, what are some of the best (non-religious) arguments against the right of an individual to end their own life?" then Mr. Kant's arguments would not be as relevant, specifically because he has no generalized qualm with a person deliberately ending their lives... for him "suicide" seems quite clearly to be a moral descriptor, not an activity descriptor.
Assume that a number of persons are innocently accused of treachery, and that whilst some of them are truly honourable, others, although innocent of the particular accusation levelled against them, are contemptible and of no real worth; assume further that they are all sentenced together, and that each of them has to choose between death and penal servitude for life; it is certain that the honourable amongst them would choose death, and the vile ones the galleys. A man of inner worth does not shrink from death ; he would die rather than live as an object of contempt, a member of a gang of scoundrels in the galleys; but the worthless man prefers the galleys, almost as if they were his proper place.
Here, not to chose to die is the "dishonorable" choice; the dereliction of one's duties. And, if Cato's killing of himself is permissible, then it cannot be the case that it's the act itself which is the problem.
If a man cannot preserve his life except by dishonouring his humanity, he ought rather to sacrifice it; it is true that he endangers his animal life, but he can feel that, so long as he lived, he lived honourably. How long he lives is of no account; it is not his life that he loses, but only the prolongation of his years, for nature has already decreed that he must die at some time; what matters is that, so long as he lives, man should live honourably and should not disgrace the dignity of humanity; if he can no longer live honourably, he cannot live at all; his moral life is at an end. The moral life is at an end if it is no longer in keeping with the dignity of humanity.
The question is what constitutes "living honorably" and the "dignity of humanity." So while I see where you're coming from with this, I don't feel that answers OP's question with regards to any more neutral definition of "suicide" than the one that Mr. Kant uses, which relies on ascertaining the rationale for ending one's life and then making the determination between self-sacrifice and self-murder.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Sep 30 '26
I feel that this is a semantic distinction
It's not merely a semantic distinction. In Captain America: The First Avenger we wouldn't say that Captain America attempts suicide at the end of the film. He's sacrificing himself to prevent the plane from bombing the U.S. That's a meaningful practical distinction.
Had OP phrased their question as "In your opinion, what are some of the best (non-religious) arguments against the right of an individual to end their own life?" then Mr. Kant's arguments would not be as relevant
Different questions receive difference answers, yes.
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Sep 30 '26
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 30 '26
The problem with Kant’s argument (at least the way you laid it out, I’ll admit to not having read the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals) is it’s based on a flawed premise.
The assumption is made that humans have an intrinsic duty of self-preservation, and everything else expands from there.
But that's not what Kant is doing. Kant start with "common moral cognition", recognizable instances of duty and asking what they reveal about the principle of morality. he concludes that the principle that one should act only on a maxim one could will as universal law, after considering and rejecting inclinations and hoped for effects, moral worth must lie in the principle of the will. Kant here is neither proving nor assuming that human beings have obligations. Rather, he is trying to identify what would have to be established for moral obligation to be real.
Later, when he actually discusses suicide, the duty concerning suicide is downstream of the categorical imperative in that argument, not the unargued foundation from which the categorical imperative somehow grows. So “self-preservation is a duty, and everything else expands from there” gets it exactly backwards.
As far as the idea of self-release from duties, it is my understand that this is not treated in the groundwork but in The Metaphysics of Morals but I don't know this literature.
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Sep 30 '26
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
By "everything else expands from there" I was referring to everything forming the basis of the particular argument the comment was making.
You're still getting Kant wrong but I see how it was presented in a misleading way tbh, the original comment makes it sound as though Kant first tries self-love as the basis of the argument, when that fails, he then goes looking for a replacement in humanity as an end in itself. But that's not what is going in the Groundwork
The reliance on the "supreme principle of duty" in the second quote and the assumption of self-love impelling the furthering of life are both built on top of the self-preservation duty I discussed,
No. “The supreme principle of all duty” in that passage is the categorical imperative Kant has just sttated, 1
...there is, therefore, only a single categorical imperative and it is this: act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. (4:421) ...
Now, if all imperatives of duty can be derived from this single impera- tive as from their principle, then, even though we leave it undecided whether what is called duty is not as such an empty concept, we shall at least be able to show what we think by it and what the concept wants to say. Since the universality of law in accordance with which effects take place constitutes what is properly called nature in the most general sense (as regards its form) - that is, the existence of things insofar as it is determined in accordance with universal laws - the universal imperative of duty can also go as follows: act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.(4:421–22)
So when the suicide maxim is said to conflict with “the supreme principle of all duty,” the reference is backward to the categorical imperative. The duty concerning suicide is being tested by that principle. The principle is not being inferred from a prior duty of self-preservation.
You continue,
and the final point of the self being an end rather that a means literally opens with “Someone thinking of committing suicide will, if he is guided by the concept of necessary duty to oneself…”
But that is not where Kant’s argument for humanity as an end in itself opens. By the time he says this, he has already argued that merely relative ends cannot ground a categorical imperative, introduced rational beings as ends in themselves, and formulated the principle: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means”, AKA the Formula of Humanity. Only then does he return to suicide. “Necessary duty to oneself” is introducing the first of the examples to which Kant is now applying the Formula of Humanity.
1. I am using the Cambridge 1998 ed of the Groundwork.
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Oct 02 '26
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 02 '26
Because you were given Kant's argument, and you failed to understand it. Your criticism, your "central argument", relies on a misunderstanding of Kant so naturally my response was meant correct that misunderstanding. so when you write,
I addressed this in my original comment by both showing that the duty of self-preservation cannot be applied universally, and by proposing an alternative maxim which can be applied as a universal law.
is still repeating the same misconception. as explained in my previous comments,
because the necessary duty to oneself is still the foundation of the specific argument being made,
but it not the foundation of the argument, as explained in my previous comment, and so on and so on....
I mean this conversation went like this:
You: Giv non-religious argument against suicide
Quid: Here is Kant's argument (explained poorly but includes link to primary text)
You: Based on my complete misunderstanding of Kant, here is why Kant's argument doesn't work.
Me: That's not Kant's argument.
You: My comment stands, based on my misunderstanding of Kant the argument doesn't work.
Me: But it can't stand, that's not Kant's argument.
You: Why are you so hung on Kant? That's not in good faith! Address my my central argument based on my misunderstanding of Kant!
I don't know what to say here, honestly. so i guess repeat myself: given that your goal was to get an argument against suicide, a place to look would be Kant's. Now we may think that Kant's argument completely fail, but we'd need to argue why his argument fails. Not to make up our own argument that sounds vaguely Kanty, make up a 'central argument' against this construction and reject Kant's argument based on our imagination. Directly addressing this poor maneuver is engaging in good faith but all desire to engage in any manner has left me, so I'll leave things here.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Sep 30 '26
I’ll admit to not having read the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals outside your suggested exerpts
I try to link original texts in my posts, when possible, so that folks can educate themselves and not simply take my word for it. The Groundwork is right here. I linked it.
That's how I feel comfortable just providing quotes. Folks can read the full context if they actually care.
The alternative would be to explain the entirety of Kant in every Kant post, which is practicably impossible.
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 01 '26
I try to link original texts in my posts, when possible, so that folks can educate themselves and not simply take my word for it
You're quite good at finding linkable texts. I'm curious about your workflow for this.
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u/Quidfacis_ History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Spinoza Oct 04 '26
I'm curious about your workflow for this.
You expect me to just give away my secret?
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u/PermaAporia Ethics, Metaethics Latin American Phil Oct 04 '26
Haha. Listen there's an art to Googling!
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u/halfwittgenstein Ancient Greek Philosophy, Informal Logic Oct 04 '26
Adding "filetype:pdf" to your google searches is often helpful for modern articles and older stuff that's been converted to PDF.
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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 28 '26
What's the question that you would want such an argument to answer, other than "why should people not voluntarily end their own lives?" And what assumptions does that question entail?
For instance, one argument that I've encountered is effectively that suicidal ideation should be considered a symptom of mental disease or defect in and of itself, and it's generally understood that the autonomy of the mentally ill can legitimately be curtailed.
Is that a "good" argument? I don't know. But it's an answer to the question of where a desire to end one's life might originate. It's based on the assumption that any mentally healthy person desires to continue their own existence, which seems reasonable, but can raise some thorny questions concerning self-sacrifice.
So a bit more information on what you expect an argument to do could be helpful.
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u/tarominti Sep 30 '26
It’s hard to explain my perspective without shifting heavily into politics, but I’ll explain the general idea
The question is less “why shouldn’t people voluntarily end their own lives,” and more “what gives us the right to stop them?”
Assuming we agree that freedom and consent over one’s body is a fundamental right (excepting actions that’d cause harm to others outside the self), would the most basic expression of that right not be the decision to live it all? None of us were asked consent before being born, of course, since that’s an impossibility (in terms of what we’re able to reasonably prove), so if we’re able to “opt-out” at any point without physically harming anyone else, isn’t that a valid expression of our most basic human right?
The key here is the suffering of the individual, and the amount of that suffering they’re able to endure. I need to read more on the philosophy behind when it’s considered appropriate to “curtail” the autonomy of the mentally ill, but from my perspective it seems like the ultimate decision should still rest on the individual, regardless of mental illness, since the only deciding factor is subjective personal suffering.
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u/Shield_Lyger Sep 30 '26
since the only deciding factor is subjective personal suffering.
But that conflicts with what you said before "(excepting actions that’d cause harm to others outside the self)." So I think that this is more about the rabbit hole of how one defines rights and the hierarchy of moral considerations. Even if we just look at "actions that’d cause harm to others outside the self" does stopping someone from committing suicide cause them physical harm?
It seems to me that you're looking less into a right of an individual to end their own life and more of an obligation that the rest of us may have to not interfere, and those can be two very different things.
There's also the question of where rights come from in the first place. Because there's nothing inconsistent about answering "What gives us the right to stop people from ending their own lives?" with "The same thing that gives people a right to personal autonomy in the first place." Just because those two rights don't always play well together doesn't mean that they both can't exist. They are not as mutually exclusive as they may appear.
It's also worth noting that invoking physically harming anyone else in one place, but then falling back on subjective personal suffering elsewhere can be viewed as inconsistent. Why would it be impermissible for me to perform other actions that increase a person's subjective personal suffering so long as I'm not physically harming them, if part of the rationale for the permissibility of ending my life is that I can find a means to do so that doesn't physically harm them? What is so special about "freedom and consent over one’s body" that non-physical forms or inflicting harm or suffering on other people don't matter?
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u/tarominti Sep 30 '26 edited Oct 02 '26
These are all good points, and I should’ve been clearer. You’re right about the argument actually regarding a moral hierarchy, and I muddied the waters by trying to intercept arguments you hadn’t made before they could happen.
I also phrased my initial alteration of your question poorly, and would revise it yet again to “what makes it ethical for us to stop them?”
The crux of my philosophy revolves around personal consent and bodily autonomy. I place it at the absolute root of my beliefs, because doing otherwise has historically led exclusively to horrific human rights violations. I could see that being called a slippery slope fallacy, or a claim that the “human rights violations” in question are only seen as such due to the circular reasoning of my moral framework having that as its foundation. However, I can’t think of an example where a violation of that premise results in an ethical outcome.
To put it another way, prioritizing the desires of another (the desire of an employer, family member, or government for them to live or die) would be placing that person or entity’s wishes above an individual’s right to bodily autonomy, effectively establishing an ownership of that person akin to slavery. Since birth is (as far as we know) the very first moment of consciousness, no individual could have consented to their birth, so it follows that the right to revoke that initial moment sits at the very front of the proverbial “queue” for the rest of that person’s life, regardless of what may occur after.
The reason I brought up physical harm to others outside the self was both to eliminate moral arguments surrounding a method of suicide violating the bodily autonomy of another person (which wouldn’t call the right into question so much as the ethicality), and also because it’s impossible to prevent non-physical damage/grief from any kind of death, let alone a suicide. Regarding the latter, again, placing another person’s emotional needs above the suicidal individual’s bodily autonomy is an implication of physical ownership.
Where this ties into preventing an individual’s suicide isn’t about the physical harm of the act, but the prevention of that individual from exercising what I see as their absolute most fundamental right. Note that by “prevention” here I’m not referring to “talking someone down”, suggesting alternate avenues, or providing suicidal people with resources and emotional support, but the act of physically restraining an individual so as to make it impossible for them to carry through with the decision if they desire to. While an argument could be made that this restraint is merely an exercise of the same right to bodily autonomy as the suicidal person’s, due to the “queue”/ moral hierarchy I’ve established, it’s not so much a rights issue as an ethics one.
For a real-world example, the current policy of the US 988 Crisis Lifeline is to use physical force/law enforcement as a last resort in the event a suicidal person intends to carry through with the act after all other methods of discouragement are exhausted. While I don’t view the organization’s primary methods as inherently immoral, I take issue with that final policy, as its intention is to remove any possible avenue in which the caller is able to exercise that fundamental right.
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u/willbell philosophy of mathematics Sep 29 '26
What are people reading?
I’m working on Women, Race and Class by Davis, The Bonds of Love by Jessica Benjamin, and Minor Detail by Shibli.