Enlighten us, please.

> You're still basically just re-definining "science" into "good way of gaining knowledge". Saying a method is "more scientific" is then just a way of saying "better".

I actually differentiated science vs knowledge. Science is a process, knowledge is a potential result. I am not defining all good ways of gaining knowledge as scientific, I am claiming that science includes all the component steps of the process. You can't do science without deductive reasoning, so either we claim deductive reasoning is scientific, or we claim it is necessary but insufficient.

So why would I go with a more permissive definition? Because the alternative requires some arbitrary threshold, a point at which logic and observation and pattern recognition switches from "not science" to "science". I do not believe that threshold is well defined, science has been performed in many different ways across different fields and across history. For example, plenty of science was done before the invention of statistics or double blind trials. defining science as a scale is a way to acknowledge that there isn't any threshold point, and yet still have a way to describe things as more scientific, less scientific, or unscientific.

So I didn't invent this definition to win an argument, but to better reflect how I do not view science as a binary concept. It is far too broad a term, encompassing too many factors to be so simplistically divided.

The ancient philosophers didn't like intellectual laziness. The idea is that you don't just live your life doing what seems best, you have to constantly examine your own behaviour, assumptions and attitudes to be as sure as you can be that you are living the "best" life possible. To many people that seems pointless in itself, you know what you want to do so you do it.

> If determinism is true, then if S can do A, S does A. (premise)

This does not follow. As I understand it, the definition of hard determinism says "If determinism is true, then if S does A, S did so because of the interaction of physical laws on the prior state of the universe."

This renders Premise 5 ("So if determinism is true, then we believe only the truth. (from 1, 4)") nonsensical, because, from the reformulated #3: "If determinism is true, then we believe what the interaction of physical laws on the prior state of the universe result in us believing."

Therefore "I believe I have free will. (empirical premise)" is meaningless, as while the state of the universe creates that belief, there is no mechanism that allows belief to influence the past state of the universe.

So I'm not sure I understand where this is supposed to lead.

A logical proof only works if your premises are acceptable. To say that "people can argue with anything" is to admit that logical proofs are worthless. If logical proofs are worthless, why are you making one?

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I read most of the article, not too deeply, and found myself wondering: IS this what the ancients thought, or is it the blogger's interpretation of what the ancients thought?

I've read a bit of Plato's works, through which I was introduced to Socrates, and I've dabbled in the Stoics, among others. Not a philosopher at heart, my soul argues against most of what's written about the meaning of life.

My life means something to me, and could just as easily mean something else to another observer. My opinion is all that matters, to my way of thinking.

We each live in this silo of our own making, and we act in accordance with our biorhythms, and external stimuli. We do not have the option of straying far from the path our feet take us over. Our life is experiential and we rarely get to choose our experiences.

You can read about the lives and words of these philosophers. The meaning of being alive is being alive.

What is the meaning? You define this by everything you do. If you spend your time reading ancient philosophy, that becomes the meaning. You define your life.

Wow. It’s striking how many commenters here are just not understanding the argument. Most of these criticisms are just missing the point.

Well, no advocate of any position believes the arguments against their view are correct. There's still value in explaining why their views are wrong so that others don't make the same mistake they did.

The argument does not follow:

​

>We should believe only the truth. (premise)

If S should do A, then S can do A. (premise)

If determinism is true, then if S can do A, S does A. (premise)

So if determinism is true, then if S should do A, S does A. (from 2, 3)

So if determinism is true, then we believe only the truth. (from 1, 4)

I believe I have free will. (empirical premise)

So if determinism is true, then it is true that I have free will. (from 5, 6)

So determinism is false. (from 7)

​

Just because you should believe the truth is does not mean you can only believe the truth.

This seems like a phrasing trick. By this logic you can justify any belief as true, determinism does not mean everything you believe is true.

This argument ignores that there is such a thing as a mistaken belief.

Huemer keeping that consistency in being the worst big name in philosophy. What kind of a crap argument is that? Like someone pointed in the comment, depending on the notion of "can" premise 2 or 3 are clearly false.

If logical possibility, clearly 2 is false. This necessitarian type of hard determinism is a metaphysical thesis. It restrics metaphysical possibility. It's just false that anything logically possible will be done by agents

But if we switch to metaphysical possibility 2 is just clearly false. Child murderer S could have murdered the child, and so they did (necessitarianism). Obviously they shouldn't have. This should be especially clear considering Huemer is a realist. The moral truth that S shouldn't have done that is presumably true independently. Clearly 'ought implies can' just fails on this necessitarian hard determinism.

No determinist alive believes that determinism implies that all of our beliefs are true. Hence it's a useless argument.

The argument demonstrates one way in which determinism is incompatible with standard assumptions of epistemology and moral responsibility. Also, "ought implies can" is about free will, no matter how much silly compatibilists want to pretend otherwise.

What of the influence you can have on habits that constitute the 30-70% of our daily unconscious behavior ?

In one way, life makes me a little bit sad because of the philosophical nature of truth and reasoning. All truth and reasoning, whether you like it or not or admit it or not, is based on assumptions that may be true but cannot be proven true outside your blind acceptance. That's just how it is. And since we are known to be wrong about things sometimes, why should I have any faith in what I believe? Haven't you had moments where you thought you knew something but it turned out later to be false?

Such a confused argument. The "can" in "ought implies can" is about ability, not free will. This guy's argument arrives at the conclusion that "if determinism is true, then all of our beliefs are true", and he still doesn't understand why it kept getting rejected?

It seems tht even just 1 and 2 together are self defeating.

1. We should believe only the truth. (premise)
2. If S should do A, then S can do A. (premise)

Can't we then say:

Conclusion: We can only believe the truth. Nothing we believe is false.

EDIT: Instead of downvoting, I'd love to hear why this is wrong.

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This article starts out shaky for me, and never really finds its footing. Consider the following passages:

> On one level, we can ask whether human life is valuable in the sense of having inviolable moral status: life is worth living always and unconditionally.

and,

> One may believe that terminally ill patients ought to stay alive and yet maintain – without inconsistency – that their life is not worth living for them.

An obligation to life, whether one understands that as lives ought not be taken by others for any reason, that everyone alive has an affirmative duty to maintain their lives regardless of their circumstances or both, has nothing to do with whether a life is worth living. It's trivially easy to have an obligation to some task that is broadly, or even unanimously, understood as valueless.

If the claim that...

> If your character and intellect are irreparably corrupt, you should hasten to exit life no matter what other goods, including bodily health, you may happen to enjoy. The reason is not that you do not deserve to live, from the legal or moral point of view, but that such living is bad for you – whether you are aware of it or not.

...is to be evaluated, any idea of life having some "inviolable moral status" must be moot. Not in the sense that it's potentially wrong, but in that is irrelevant. Because whether one believes that this status renders "life is worth living always and unconditionally" or simply that it must always be lived worthwhile or not, then what is the point of examining whether it is in fact, worthwhile, if the answer to the question cannot or need not be acted upon?

If a philosopher concludes that someone's isn't worth living because it blatantly betrays their station in society and the Universe at large, what next? If the person disagrees, the philosopher is free to decree that they pity the person all the more for being somehow "not aware of their misery". But what good does that do? (Although there are some definitions of meaning that posit understanding the self to be better than others plays a role.) If the person agrees, and seeks to end their life, life's inviolable moral status prevents them for having a socially-sanctioned means of doing so. (And should they do so anyway, and the philosopher's involvement is learned of, they will likely have a lawsuit on their hands.) Because of this it's understood that should the person simply tell the philosopher to "get bent," the philosopher has no recourse. So the invocation of life's infinite value due to its "inviolable moral status," and further discussion of same, is a digression that adds nothing to the piece.

Devoting those portions of the article to laying out (and perhaps making the case for) how Mr. Machek believes "the ancient philosophers" would have defined a given person's "station in society and the Universe at large" (and/or how Mr. Machek believes modern people should define them) would have been more useful. Those criteria must relate to the individual in question (or their circumstances), or the second half of the title: "For the ancients, it depends" is inaccurate.

I think this would have been especially useful in the sense that a human has a station in "the Universe at large," given how debatable a point that is. As far as many people are concerned, any given, or even all, human life is absolutely irrelevant in the Universe at large. If the argument here is that this viewpoint is fundamentally unsound to the point that it can render one's life not worth living for holding it, direct support for that, even in brief would have enhanced the article.

Disability spawns adjusted arguments about the matter because the life value criteria changes depending on the disability and the individual perception of limitations experienced.

They want it to apply for all people, most ancient western philosophers thought what separates all people from animals is our capacity for rational thinking.

You're still basically just re-definining "science" into "good way of gaining knowledge". Saying a method is "more scientific" is then just a way of saying "better".

No offense, but this just seems like an ad hoc redefining of terms to preserve the idea that "science" is the be-all-end-all of everything. Why do that?

"What flying and hunting are for the eagle, reflection and morality are for humans."

All, some, or just people who are interested in philosophy?