Life of the Indirect Skeptic

An explication of a way to live without beliefs, including an explication of proclivities.
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!
Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and more!

[@GainingUnderstanding]

Tamar Gendler (Ph.D., Harvard) is the Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy/Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at Yale University. Her work entitled "Alief and Belief", as published in _The Journal of Philosophy_ in 2008, argues for the distinction between beliefs and what she calls alief. Aliefs are _affective_, _associative_, _automatic_, and _arrational_. Perhaps Carneades in on to something here on how we can just live on aliefs while suspending beliefs.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Gaining Understanding That's a cool idea. I'll have to check out the paper.

[@shawn.brumfield]

Thanks for suggesting this. It's a great read and the ideas put forth in the work make sense of quite a number things that the typical notion of belief just seems unfit for.

[@polemizator723]

Notes 3 11:06 15:07 It is possible to have unconscious beliefs? Video - Objection to scepticism 4:47. Why belief is exeption from other attitude?

[@polemizator723]

Notes 2 It's a language thing. whether it is more useful to describe something as unconscious beliefs (something like Peterson) or as tendencies. I think description 1 is much more useful. allows you to distinguish a special category of actions that require something more than inclinations. For example, I believe that text communicates something. Although you can say that I have a tendency to push buttons. however, if this text is only the effect of inclination, then you can not talk about communication and text. it's just random letters. 16:18 But there is language and culture bias. Metanarrative ect.

[@Paradoxarn.]

Such a convincing argument, it seems things can be done without beliefs. Too bad that no one were seriously arguing that you can't do anything without beliefs. Did you really think that people were saying that insects and plants were acting on their beliefs? Did you not suspect, even for a moment, that what those who claimed a connection between belief and action, were referring to rational action, such as planning to make a video? You chose the examples which are most advantageous to your argument. You don't need beliefs to eat or get out of the way of a car because to do these things you need only to act on instinct. When you chose to read a book, do you just feel like reading it? No, you believe that this is a book worth reading, or in your case you believe that you ought to act as if you believed that the book is worth reading. It seems then that your answer to the first objection is lacking. A "proclivity" that you are aware of and assent to seems to be what most people would call a belief. Actions are part of the world so you can't say proclivities don't have a relation to the world. Your response to objection 3 and 4 expose a big problem of your position. You are giving the expression to normative values, beliefs without which your position wouldn't even exist. You believe that one ought to be rational, otherwise you wouldn't have a problem with holding contradictory viewpoints. You believe that believing falsehoods is bad, so bad, in fact, that you think that to believe even one falsehood negates the value of believing countless truths. The ataraxia of the skeptic can only be the result of the delusion that he doesn't actually defend the indefensible. I personally don't believe that there is a more indefensible claim than that one believes nothing nor knows anything. Skepticism is the belief that one lack beliefs, sounds like a bad joke.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Paradoxarn Often I deal with the objection that beliefs are required for action. Simply because you don't believe it, does not mean that no one does. And do you think that every time that you are lying in bed about to go to sleep and you pick up a book to read, you form and assent to the belief "this is a good book, I should read it"? Perhaps you do, but I don't. In fact without reading a book, it seem premature to even assent to the conclusion that it is a good book. To prove your case you must show that there exists some action that requires belief, not some action that may often contain belief. . Note the difference between claims made within and without an indirect proof. I am not making the claim (or at least not intending to) that it is good to believe things that avoid contradictions or are rational, the dogmatist is. If you are someone that confidently believes in contradictions and sees no problem with this, that is another conversation. I have not ever seen anyone put forward a cohesive version of this, so I don't argue against it. Rather I argue against those that claim that rationality is good and contradictions are bad, by showing them that their own methods lead to contradictions, which they themselves disallow. If the dogmatist claims that contradictions are allowed, then the skeptic has no problem with them. . .Also you conflate normative belief with subjective preference. I am not claiming that avoiding falsehoods is good (or at least I do not mean to). I am not claiming that error is bad. I am merely stating some things that appear to be consequences of skepticism. It seems that if you lack beliefs, that you cannot believe any falsehood. If this is something you desire or have a proclivity towards, then that might be a reason that you would follow the path of skepticism. That does not mean that you assent to any claim, merely that such a proclivity might lead you to skepticism in response to the claim that there is no reason to want to be a skeptic.

[@Paradoxarn.]

Carneades.org "Often I deal with the objection that beliefs are required for action. Simply because you don't believe it, does not mean that no one does." - You're twisting what I said, I'm saying you're being uncharitable to those who give that objection. That's what upset me. "And do you think that every time that you are lying in bed about to go to sleep and you pick up a book to read, you form and assent to the belief "this is a good book, I should read it"? Perhaps you do, but I don't." - You seem to have a very strange notion of what a belief is. Just because you don't think it it means you don't believe it? Am I a skeptic when I'm asleep? It seems to me that belief is a concept which is referring to hypothetical assent to a proposition not necessarily an active one. "In fact without reading a book, it seem premature to even assent to the conclusion that it is a good book." - You're being quite uncharitable, I obviously referred to whether it is worth to start reading the book, not if it is good as a whole. "To prove your case you must show that there exists some action that requires belief, not some action that may often contain belief." - It seems to me that my book example should suffice. Picking up a book and reading it seems to be impossible if it is not the result of a cognitive process. Even if explicit assent to some proposition which implies that one ought to read the book is not required, it seems to me that hypothetical assent is required. This seems to me to be a case where without the cognitive process associated with a hypothetical assent to a proposition (a belief), a specific action would not be taken. "Note the difference between claims made within and without an indirect proof. I am not making the claim (or at least not intending to) that it is good to believe things that avoid contradictions or are rational, the dogmatist is." - Why do you assume that they are dogmatists? Making claims doesn't make you dogmatic, does it? If you aren't thinking non-contradiction is good, then why don't you believe contradictions? Why aren't you a skeptic and a non-skeptic at the same time? Because you want to? Why not do both what you want and what you don't want at the same time? It seems to me that even if you refuse to assent to some idea of non-contradiction, you're assenting implicitly. It seems to me that if you lacked your negative disposition to saying "I believe..." you would at least say that you believed in non-contradiction. Is it really then that you don't believe or is it that you just don't want to believe? "Also you conflate normative belief with subjective preference." - I don't think I do, as I see belief as hypothetical not explicit assent to a proposition. Which seem to me to be closer to how "belief" is generally used. I think most people believe that purple giraffes don't exist but I don't think that most people have even thought about purple giraffes and I think that most people would agree with that assessment. Unless your subjective preferences make you do something against your will, I don't see how they can so easily be separated. It seem to me that you're defense of skepticism isn't very free of bias in the way you frame the arguments. Be careful that you aren't being uncharitable and arguing against a strawman.

[@_VISION.]

I know this is from 6 years ago but I'd like to point out that this is his own form of skepticism. If we look at the Sextan-Pyrrhonian skepticism. It doesn't mean a skeptic doesn't have beliefs. It just doesn't seek to claim that what appears to them is an absolute. That the conclusions that they come to are not going to apply to everyone and they expect disagreement. Based on the way that they see the nature of things, truth, and knowledge. Ataraxia is suspending -- not judgement for oneself -- judgement for others. Which is what a dogmatists does in my opinion. They go around telling people what things are, what truth is, what knowledge is, and what the criterion for truth and knowledge should be for everyone. If a skeptic responds to arguments, they are only giving their account of their perspective. So the ataraxia is from realizing that everyone is going to have their own perspective and they have theirs. So suspending absolute claims frees oneself from needing to know the absolute truth that traditional or exoteric philosophers and scientists claim to be achieving.

[@DrDress]

8:59 I'll take that position! Me: Flies and grasshoppers don't move. Carneades: You are wrong. Me: ...Good point.

[@niboe1312]

Seems to me that we can ascribe proclivities to inanimate objects as well, which further distances them from belief. For example, if I put 2+2 into a calculator it will give me the answer 4. But it doesn't make sense to say the calculator really believes that 2+2 equals 4. If I roll a die and I get a 3, it seems that my die had a proclivity to roll a 3 when thrown in the way it was. If we anthropomorphize a bit, we could say it acted as if it should roll a 3. But it would make no sense to say the die believes it should roll a 3 when thrown that way.

[@paranor001]

Well done. I use a similar approach to the claim "everything is a choice", where our decisions are a mix of choice & compulsion (proclivity), with this statement: If everything is a choice, then choose to hold your breath. The decision becomes clear eventually.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

paranor001 Thanks. That's an interesting theory of choice.

[@paranor001]

Carneades.org Choice, in my understanding, is a cognitive selection with a known set. Compulsion, a selection without a cognitive awareness of the set. Decisions, as I defined earlier is a mix of both, and to expand, an extreme of either, which i assumed earlier others would assume. It does kinda state free-will is a fleeting thing as well, for that would be the very definition of an extreme decision without compulsion.

[@TheTonihawksktr]

paranor001 Actually it would seem to me you align yourself with the compatibilist camp. Where you define freedom to do what you want on your own volition.

[@paranor001]

Johnathon Diaz Unsure of the definition of "compatibilist camp", I'll research, so I won't agree or disagree atm. Freedom to me, is only within the self where one is free from their knee-jerk compulsions ruling their life (in general cause nobody's perfect), not free to do what one wants. I know I have no right to impose on another person without permission, so that kinda stops me "doing whatever I want". EDIT: btw, how did I even imply that I thought I could "do whatever I want"? Seems you're imposing that upon my words.

[@paranor001]

Johnathon Diaz I looked up "compatibilist" and I say an outright no, I think nothing like that.

[@Hesse3]

Cognitive therapists like Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis tend to use the term "belief" in the same way that you use "proclivity" here. At least to the extent that it refers to a state of mind that will guide actions and emotional reactions, but may or may not refer to anything real. They are not skeptics, but I just thought it was an interesting observation. Aron Beck sometimes refers to himself as a stoic.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Interesting. I get the definition of belief used here from the general philosophy community, but that can be very different from the way that psychologists think about these things. As for stoics, stay tuned for a video on Stoicism going up in the next few weeks!

[@Hesse3]

I will watch it for sure!

[@danielcappell]

In Objection II, you give a reason for doubting "good" and "bad" regarding whether or not to get hit by a car: that there is doubt that the car even exists in the first place. It seems like you are still compelled to assent to the following hypothetical: "if the car exists, and death is bad, I ought to avoid the car." So to doubt that hypothetical, I suppose it would require doubting the law of identity and modus ponens, probably with evil demons etc..

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

I don't think that a deer assents to a hypothetical that if the car exists, then death is bad when it jumps out of the way of a car. I don't think deer have language, and so I'm skeptical that they can assent to anything. It seems to me that the deer just jumps. Similarly, I don't think that humans go through a logical argument when a car speeds towards them. I think they jump, and then, if they are a dogmatist, go back and form beliefs to justify that jump. I just don't think that we think that fast.

[@shawn.brumfield]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene I agree with you here. Not everything is a thinking process - if by thinking we mean some form of consciousness deliberation involving the application of inference rules, etc. I remember years ago I was having a friend teach me to play tennis. After I consistently missed the ball for a bit, he told me to stop trying to think through where to swing. He said simply focus on following the ball with your eyes and while doing so, swing with the intent to hit it. I was *amazed* at how effective this was! My aim immediately increased simply by *not* thinking about beliefs of where the ball was going to be or trying to predict where I would need to swing. I thought about the results later that day and figured this indicated there were, in addition to rational processes, some set of cognitive processes going on that did not nearly fit under the conceptions of "thinking" and "belief" I had at the time.

[@rodrimaux1128]

another benefit of being that kind of skeptic is that you can piss ppl of with your viewpoints xD

[@shashvatshukla]

I feel as though these are just word games with the goal of making the assertion (in mere words, and for cosmetic purposes) that the sceptic is making no error. Sure, no error is being made so far as beliefs are defined as such. However this seems to lack any practical value. A skeptic might still end up making choices that lead to a worse life compared to a naive realist.

[@polemizator723]

Notes 3:30 I hope that breakfast exist. But I hope that i have brekfast near my bed. What is a difference? Why I have to go to kitchen, to get breaktfast? Why act in this way to get what i desire Actions is depends on desire but also on hope, but not all kind of hope. This kind of,,hipe" wchich is reason for action seems like belief. Is there a difference between Belief ot Proclivity? (Language game, Form of living, second wittgenstein) From third person looks the same. Is sounds like language trick. But Does proclivity explain sytuations when someone change his proclivity after discussion? Is proclivity result of belief? If I am in dream and know it, I have proclivity to run from monster, but i can stay because i don' t belive that monster exist and can hurt me. I can let car hit me, if am concinced that the car dont exist even if i have proclivity to run (Kahneman. System 1 and system2) But some Animals can communicate that there is danger. And can lie about it. Why belife must be result of reasoning or thinking? Negation in P2. (11:05 Why?) Another topic. What is Action based on belives gives advantage? (Is more efficient?) Is proclivity reserved for simpler actions? Do belives can shape proclivities? (Throught education. Yes. Someone can act based on proclivities but this proclivities is a produkt or ideolu, religion or proclivities of others) The Claim is not ,,all actions requires beliefs. But some actions requires belives) The case is not that somethink can act without belives. But if Sceptic can act (if they action looks like them belive in somethink) without belives. Proclivity seems like adding ,,act if...+ naming a belief" 15:07 Wait... now is possible to hava unintentionality propositions 16:00 Calling cawordness. Mayby if dont have belief, you dont understand someone with belief. When judge say ,,guilty" he or she claim that has proclivity to send him to jail? It is intwrwsting. Can change our social provlivity in Justice system Paradox. Is I have proclivity to have beliefs es and i know it, am I a sceptic? If I negate this beliefs i am against of proclivity and I have beliefs about it. (Jugment of procvlilities) If i stay with my procvilities I also have beliefs. (For example. People have tendention to religious faith. They have natural proclivity) Can I say that I am not writing, I am not using language right now. I have proclivity to push button on screen. Can you belive me?

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

"suspending action is still an action" Like Rush say, "if you choose not to decide you'll still have made a choice"... ... _however_, there still is the belief that not choosing is optimal to choosing. In other words, why do you _believe_ that not acting is preferable or optimal or applicable to this instant in time to acting? Or why do you _believe_ that not acting the more rational choice than acting? A reliance on action only shifts the burden of proof from belief to action but doesn't remove the original "belief" based objection since I do hold the belief that everyone of my actions was based on a prior belief. Now, if you are talking about instinct as a form of "choice without belief", that you "act without thinking", then I daresay that is not a choice at all since choice implies that your will affects your actions while instinct is the very denial that your will affects your actions. 14:26 "It seems..." is just another way of saying "I believe it is...". 15:00 If not believing anything at all is the endpoint, what is keeping anyone from achieving this endpoint at will? Whether rationally or irrationally, I can doubt everything all the time and be functionally equivalent to a Skeptical Sage (who also doubts everything all the time) regardless of our differing reasons. 16:00 In the same sense that by not playing baseball you can never commit an error in baseball. This is a circular argument since the Skeptical Sage will clearly _never_ be in error since by definition they never take a belief to be true such that it can be erred against!

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

13:00 I wanted to share a personal note. I'm working on a personal philosophy that doesn't use the good or bad qualifiers. I find them to be the most subjective qualifiers in use by humanity and, IMO, the source of most of our misunderstandings. I've had great success, in my eyes, in this effort. I find that abiding by *a **_consistent_** set of rules, not **_good_** or **_bad_** ones,* tends to lead me towards a natural equilibrium with my environment, be it natural or man made, and that is generally deemed as "good" from others outside of me. Thus, my actions are not guided by the question "Is this a good choice or a bad one?" but rather by "Is this a consistent choice with my principles or not?". Further, consistency to principles should not be seen as obligation to it; "I will not kill another human" is a very strong principle I held true up until now though I make no assertion that I won't break it in the future.

[@Rithmy]

Isn't that just another way of defining "good" and "bad"? To me it seems that you define good as being consistent with your principles. Which in fact was declared a virtue by some positions.

[@HarryTheGreat666]

Imagine, there is a row of 1*10^1000 people and you are at the most behind. As people come by, they talk to a man who asks them "Do you want to live?" If someone says "yes", all you can see is that the person who said "yes" is free to go but if someone says anything but "yes" or they try to do something like to escape, they die instantly. When there is going to be your turn (you have your time to think and understand that you don't believe any of this), are you going to say "yes" on the question or do anything else? Consider the fact that from all you options, saying "yes" is one of million other possibilities.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+Roger Bacon I don't know what I would do. It seems that I have a proclivity towards self preservation, and it seems that I have a proclivity towards acting as others do when acting that way appears to allow them to achieve a proclivity that I have. So I would probably say yes. But that does not mean that I would believe it, or even believe anything.

[@HarryTheGreat666]

:D

[@herbiepop]

Thus a skeptic may have a proclivity towards adultery or paedophilia and would require a belief to restrain himself from acting on his proclivity.

[@gayjesus7607]

That doesn't follow. Only that one would require a proclivity to act in accordance with the well being of other people and society. This doesn't establish the acceptance that it's absolutely true an external world exists.

[@xenoblad]

What of inputs? Appearance(as any sense), however it appears, whatever it is, is an absolute for an observer.

[@DJK5364]

12:51 I would potentially disagree with depending on what exactly you mean here. I would say that we can decide which proclivities we think are best to follow, and make justifications for them, just that all cases we would make would be based on some abstract subjective goal and not on any 'real' mandate.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

+DJK5364 I'm not sure that multiple level proclivities will not collapse into just one proclivity. In other words, if I have the proclivity to choose to act by a certain second proclivity, don't I just have the second proclivity? Maybe you could have a proclivity to choose to act by proclivities that do not include killing people, but while this action might be conscious, it does not need be. Frankly it is an area of the philosophy that I have not fleshed out as much, so I'm not sure what I would answer.

[@DJK5364]

+Carneades.org It's an area I'm interested in. I think it's possible to form a meaningful conception without that conception being necessarily accurate.

[@grantstrachan488]

+Carneades, what would be your response to definition of faith as a kind of hope? Someone might say you have faith that the floor will still be there for you feet to meet it as you step out of bed. Obviously some people use faith as a justification for knowledge but they also seem to get off on claiming that everyone uses faith when their use of to justify their knowledge claims are questioned.

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

There are many definitions of faith, I generally use the definition that it is belief based on assumptions. However, I do not claim that is the only definition, or the sole correct one. If you defined faith as more of a desire or a hope than a belief, I think that it will not require the same justification as a belief. Surely one does not need at least need an internal justification for things that one wants.

[@Elgeneralsimo69]

"faith [...] is belief based on assumptions. " I would modify that as belief based on _inaccessible_ assumptions. For example, the assumption that the floor is still there is not inaccessible; short of actually putting your feet down, you have access to several other pieces of evidence that can confirm or deny the floor's current existence. Thus, you may have doubt that the floor is there, but you don't have to take it on faith that it is or isn't, you can actually validate or invalidate your doubt. On the other hand, a religious use of faith is based on is based on inaccessible assumptions; I have no or little access to any other piece of evidence that I can use to confirm or deny my religion. At that point, my assumptions are unfounded AND inaccessible and thus to continue to use my religion with certainty means my religion is founded on faith that my unfounded and inaccessible assumptions are what I say they are.

[@andystitt3887]

Are definitions a proclivity?

[@tgenov]

I have no beliefs - I have methods in servitude of my goals and desires.

[@polemizator723]

It just sounds like beliefs with extra steps.

[@tgenov]

@@polemizator723 Does it? Your choosing to believe that I have beliefs seems like an extra step.

[@eyeoftrends9490]

Isn’t believing you have no beliefs a belief?

[@tgenov]

@@eyeoftrends9490 Is it? Is the sentence "This sentence is false." true, or false? It's whatever you want it to be...

[@yunoewig3095]

Do you have any words of comfort for my despair in not being able to explore (resp. read) but a minute fraction of the mysteries of the world (resp. books that have been written)?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio You are better off than the one fourth of the world's adult population that UNESCO estimates are illiterate and will never explore any of it's mysteries. Maybe that's not comforting, but it is something to think about.

[@oversoon5576]

Let’s say you have a “suspected proposition” to suspect anything would be from gathering information about a thing and suspecting its outcome, existence, or anything other thing that we are suspecting at. Doesn’t this act of suspecting something lead us to assert that the thing in which we suspect has a kind of reasoning behind it? And if anything has a reasoning behind it then can we draw a conclusion that we may not believe x to be true but we suspect x to be true but we can never know x to be true although we arrive at our suspicion of x through reasoning that x is reasonable enough to suspect therefore a skeptic acting in suspicion of x to be true uses reasoning therefore if all else seems to be wholly unknowable in terms of x fully, reason is still true. And if reason is needed for any suspicion of a skeptic then reason cannot be suspected at and therefore must be before anything can be suspected at and therefore is a necessary primal to suspicion? And if it is primal and necessary for there to be suspicion of any one thing but suspicion is not against a skeptical view point then isn’t reason also not against a skeptical view therefore it is true or at least without problem causing it to be false? And if we say we can only suspect that there is reason then this would lead to a circular fallacy in which to suspect reason to be possible we use reason itself?

[@andystitt3887]

What if the exsistance of action is an illusion?

[@dewinthemorning]

This seems to me to be correct philosophizing. :-) From 8:20 to 8:50, this thought about young children and animals not having beliefs but proclivities, reminded me of Alvin Plantinga's argument against naturalism and for supernaturalism (god). He asserts that evolution and naturalism cannot be true together, cannot both be true. He says that in evolution not the truth of beliefs is important, but survival. He gives an example of a frog (according to him frogs have beliefs) may not have the belief that the black spot flying by is a fly, it may believe something that is not true, but it catches and eats the fly. Plantinga's conclusion is that those who believe that evolution and naturalism are true, are wrong, because they have evolved, evolution hasn't given them true beliefs, therefore their belief that naturalism is true, is actually false... and they should believe that god has created them... ready-made with true beliefs! (???!)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

***** I'm worried about a number of things (including frogs having beliefs). The biggest problem seems to be that even if Plantinga can call into doubt that there is a correlation between true belief and survival, this only means that we should doubt it, and be skeptics, not that we should deny evolution all together. The frog might believe something true, it might not. We have no way of showing either that a correlation does or does not exist between true belief and survival, and therefore, we can't conclude either way. We surely can't conclude that naturalism is false and theism is true.

[@dewinthemorning]

***** Plantinga quoted a famous neuroscientist (I've forgotten the name, was it Churchland (?) or something with "church" in her name, btw, iianm, her husband is a well-known neuroscientist as well) saying something like "It's not the business of evolution to give us truths, but adaptations that make living organisms survive, are preserved". So, Plantinga says, if evolution has made us, we can't be sure that our beliefs are true, therefore we can't be certain that a belief in naturalism is true... forgetting that if he is right, that goes for any other belief, theism included... Well, he has an answer - if god has made us, he has given us true beliefs (our cognitive faculties can be relied upon), therefore, a belief in god is true. And, he adds, those who believe in naturalism, have their cognitive faculties wrong - why - because of SIN! Therefore, atheists are atheists because they are sinful (bad, bad people).

[@dewinthemorning]

***** "I deny that evolution cannot account for rationality - of course it can." I agree. Plantinga's argument is ridiculous, but he gives big lectures on it, and is famous for it, his students are repeating it! He is a philosopher in some theological university.

[@dewinthemorning]

***** Plantinga tries to deny either evolution or naturalism, or both, because he knows they go together. He also knows that they refute his theism.

[@jocr1971]

it is not possible as a human to live without beliefs completely. at the very least we must have the belief that our actions are efficacious to achieving the ends we desire. even my dog believes thus.

[@yunoewig3095]

Would you mind giving me a hint on how one could begin to develop ethics and law from a skeptic standpoint?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio Those seem like very different questions, so I'll address them each individually. First, I see no reason to believe in ethics. It's like a theist asking, but how do you account for God as a skeptic. I don't any more than I do Santa Clause. When you have an answer to Moore's Open Question, (kzbin.info/www/bejne/lXisYn6pn6eEj9U) I might consider that ethics exist, but to me they are not terribly substantive. I see no reason to develop this false enterprise. I think that emotivism could be construed in terms of proclivities, and this would be the closest I'll even come to a meta-ethical position for now. Hopefully in the future, I'll have more videos on the subject and present a more concrete skeptical meta-ethics. . As for law, it seems that we would develop law as we always have done. Some people have a desire for laws to be one way. Others have a desire for laws to be another way. The most common or most powerful desires generally win. Beliefs need not enter into it.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org Surely ethics and law are very different things, and this is a point that I find very important to stress. I am sorry if I gave the impression that I regard them as the same thing by putting both at the same sentence. Ethics, as I view it, aims to answer the question "how should I act?" and as such is much more basic and fundamental than law. The problem regarding ethics seems to be that people who claim to be acting ethically usually seem to tend to believe that they are right, or on the side of reason, and everyone who oppose them is wrong, or without reason, in a very deep, fundamental, absolute sense, not merely subjective or personal. For instance, people who fought against slavery tended to believe that they were in the side of reason, while slave-owners were doing completely unjustified and preposterous things; feminists often believed - and often still do - that they were absolutely right in fighting for the "supposed"(??) rights of women, while men were absolutely wrong in taking control of the society and depriving women of their rights; soldiers who fought against the nazis often genuinely believed that they were fighting for the good and against evil, in an absolute sense; environmentalists and animal rights activists also many times believe that they are fundamentally right and that the ones they are fighting against are fundamentally wrong in their actions. What you seem to be saying is that the abolitionists and feminists won because they were stronger and their arguments were more able to convince people by appealing to their emotions, not because they were right or on the side of reason, in a very absolute, fundamental sense. What you seem to be basically saying is that I am in the right to do anything I want provided I have the power to do so. Now let us suppose that I am an "evil" genius that is capable of manipulating tens of millions of people to do exactly what I want and to always agree with me in everything, while at the same time enslaving, torturing and murdering millions of others (if the existence of such geniuses seems unlikely, one merely has to look at history to encounter many examples, from the kings and emperors of the ancient world to the dictators of the modern world, including Hitler). Let us assume that I have both the capability and willingness to do so, but also I care deeply and genuinely about truth and good. So if someone could dissuade me from attempting such an "evil" plan based on such principles, then I would give them up and live a "decent" life instead. From what you are saying, it seems impossible for anyone to lay any convincing argument against my plan, so that I am perfectly justified in carrying it out. There is no cosmic, fundamental, or essential reason why I should not do so. Of course, there may still be resistance, and the resistance may in the end be stronger than me and succeed in removing me from power, thwarting my plans of world domination and cutting my dreams short. However, if they do win, it will only have been because they are stronger, and not because they were right and on the side of good, and I am evil and in the side of wrong. Their victory has no more intrinsic value than mine, it seems. If I had succeeded in crushing the resistance and dominating the world, and establishing my absolute supremacy over every single human being, this would have been essentially no better and no worse than if the resistance had won. Their claims to be liberators of the world carry no more weight than mine.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org As for law, you may of course argue that it is in essence a mutual agreement (a contract, as Rousseau puts it) where the strongest voices carry more weight and the weaker ones carry less weight. The problem with this is that it makes it seem that laws are essentially arbitrary and so does not allow us to distinguish between "good" and "bad" systems of law. Is democracy in any essential way any better than tyranny? Are egalitarian laws necessarily better than laws that establish privileges of certain groups over others, in a fundamental sense? It would seem that any law is good as long as everyone agrees with it, or as long the people who agree with it are able to establish their supremacy over the ones that do not. This situation seems quite unsatisfactory. Suppose I am accused of a crime and condemned to spend some time (or a long time) in jail. Is the State/Government/System of Law justified in doing so? You may answer this in a number of ways; you may say: "it does not matter; they control the police; they control everything; they have the power to put you in jail, so they need not offer justifications in order to do so"; but then they could as well arrest random people in the streets, which does not seem to be a very happy situation… or you may want to argue that they are justified in doing so, but there does not seem to be any justification other than something essentially arbitrary, such as "people have agreed that this should be punishable by law"; then I could rightly say: "I was never asked; when I was born, there was a ready made set of laws that I had to follow; nobody ever asked my opinion". What if I disagree with that particular law? If you say that my disagreement is irrelevant because I lack the power to oppose the established system of laws, why then is this system any better than a completely arbitrary system where the police can arrest anyone they want because they have the power to do so? We are then back to the first case, where justification is irrelevant and power alone counts… Consider a country where people value their freedom to do anything they want more than the protection offered by law against the actions of others. Should there be no laws in such a country? Perhaps those people are wrong to think to that way… Should they be allowed to devolve to a state of anarchy where anyone can kill his neighbour and long feuds take place just because that is what they want/ have agreed to? Perhaps someone should come and show them that there are ways to live which are fundamentally better than their current one. (Before you say it, in this particular society, people have not "evolved" to the point of being able to "respect their neighbours" out of their own initiative without necessitating the force of law; all they want is to eliminate anyone that gets in their way, and are perfectly prepared and willing to live in a dangerous place if need be).

[@lavabeard5939]

@@CarneadesOfCyrene how do you know if someone has a desire one way or another?

[@encouraginglyauthentic43]

​@@lavabeard5939You can't, but my answer is still an unknown. I hope you asked that question out if curiosity and not in malice.

[@andystitt3887]

If you claim no beliefs is that a belief in itself?

[@jocr1971]

yes. it's a belief that we can live without beliefs.

[@yunoewig3095]

We could surely go about and live our own personal lives without too much difficulty while being skeptics. It seems to be rather difficult to exercise certain professions, however. For the artist, it is easy to be a skeptic, for his work requires no epistemic justification. A businessman would also probably have no problem being a skeptic. For a mathematician or scientist, it might be a little more difficult if they wish to insist that their work is a pursuit of truth and knowledge, but the difficulty disappears if they regard their work not as a pursuit of truth but rather as an aesthetic endeavour, in which case they retreat to the category of artists. Many other professions that involve no epistemic foundation but only skills would seem not to have too much trouble either. The real problem seems to be for professions such as judges, doctors and engineers. For on what basis should a skeptic doctor perform a diagnosis or give medical advice to his patients? And on what basis should a skeptic magistrate judge someone who is being accused of a crime? And how can a skeptic engineer perform, for instance, a structural calculation, if he can never be sure that it is correct? If there are errors in the calculation this could result in the deaths of thousands of people. Wouldn't it be irresponsible to base your entire work on calculations that you never know to be correct? - Especially if the lives of a great number of people are at play?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio It seems to me that there are two good responses to your points. First it is best to remember that there is a difference between belief and action. A doctor can make a statement without believing it. A judge can give a prisoner a sentence without believing that he is either guilty or innocent. An engineer can do calculations that he thinks might be wrong. We often must and do act without belief. In fact, I strongly doubt that any of these people are certain in their calculations or claims. It seems that things are misdiagnosed all the time, and any doctor that is 100% certain of any claim that he makes to a patient, is simply overconfident. There are possibilities of false positives, diseases that disguise themselves as other diseases. If you find the drama, "House" in any way representative of the reality of the medical practice, it would seem that there are many conditions that can sneak past doctors, and fool them at least often enough to have a cliffhanger before every commercial break. It seems to me that judges are often in the same position. They cannot be sure of whether someone is guilty, and most court systems have some standard of "reasonable doubt" that must be overcome, as they understand that if you allowed all doubt in, nothing could be believed. However while we can suspend belief about what is true, we cannot suspend action. We must choose to convict or acquit. As for the engineer, it seems to me that this is something of a case of the paradox of the preface (kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZOulmqapteEhsk). Engineering a building, for example, takes a huge number of calculations. There is no way that anyone could be sure that all of them are correct. There is no way to know for sure how the structure will behave if unpredictable natural disasters hit. You cannot be certain, but you must act, or live in mud block huts for the rest of your life. You strive towards certainty, but in action you cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good. . My second point would be that in fact, skeptics make better doctors, engineers, judges, scientists and mathematicians. I don't that that we need relegate science and math to the world of aesthetics to allow a skeptic to perform them. Science is not in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. It cannot be. I have a number of videos on the subject (kzbin.info/aero/PLz0n_SjOttTenxXXdML7fOu1og3D9LaME and kzbin.info/aero/PLz0n_SjOttTftBrmbis4_lLR-6dISD4KL). The point of science is to challenge assumptions and preconceived notions, not to create them. I would rather have a doctor, that tried to be certain, that attempted to get to that unattainable certainty than one that just took the first answer available and did not question it. I hope that our judges and juries are able to look past the stories that they are fed, and search rigorously for the truth. I want to live in a building by someone that thought, but what if this happens, that tried to make it perfect, not someone that never questioned themselves. Not only would a world of skeptics be less dogmatic. It seems to me that it would be safer too.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org Your videos, albeit extremely interesting, seem to deal only with the inductive sciences. How would you describe the activity of a mathematician?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio I'm always worried about mathematicians, in the same way that I am worried about logicians. It seems for their enterprise to start, they need to make certain assumptions, or invest in some axioms. These axioms cannot be proven and must be assumed. Beyond this there is of course the problem of Godel's incompleteness theorems, which mean that even with these unproven axioms, we cannot prove all of the truths in a system. kzbin.info/www/bejne/inPFfHeoqrmKiJY

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org Who would expect any reasonable theory of mathematics to be complete?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio Because if a system is not complete, that means that there are things that are true that cannot be proven. There are truths that cannot be shown to be so by rational argument. Some truths cannot be justified, and therefore they cannot be known. Therefore omniscience is impossible. There's other consequences. But that's just one of them.

[@yunoewig3095]

I do not like brushing my teeth. It is boring and takes time and removes the good aftertaste of the food you ate and replaces it by the bad taste of the toothpaste… Why then should I bother to brush if I have no reason to believe that not doing so is harmful to my health? (By the way, I am quite sure Pyrrho didn't brush his teeth either, so as a good disciple I should follow the master and stop brushing as well! For a world free of toothbrushes and toothpastes!)

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio Note that proclivities are not the same as desires. I may not desire to pick at a scab, snore, or munch on the bag of chips in front of me while watching TV, but I may have a proclivity to do so. It might be the case that you brush your teeth because you believe that it will make you healthy. Skeptics brush their teeth (or don't in the case of Pyrrho) if they have a proclivity to do so. And note, that while this is more like Pyrrhonian Skepticism than any other, indirect skepticism is not trying to perfect mimic Pyrrho.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org By what means should I acquire a proclivity to do something?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio I don't know. I don't know if we have proclivist voluntarism any more than we have doxastic voluntarism.

[@yunoewig3095]

Carneades.org If proclivities need not any justification, then it seems that they are arbitrary, in the sense that I could just as well have or not have any proclivity you name. For instance, could a skeptic have a proclivity to act as if God existed - and therefore pray, attend church, etc.? Would that make any sense?

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Daniel Sampaio I'm not claiming that proclivities are rationally justified. I'm not claiming that they aren't arbitrary. If the skeptic has shown that nothing can be rationally justified, then of course anything that they do can have no rational justification. Also, by the definition of proclivity, inorganic objects have proclivities. It's just a pattern of action, nothing more.

[@kx7500]

I can just say you aren’t doing the proclivity. Your body including your brain is.

[@gdn5001]

I find this incredibly unconvincing

[@CarneadesOfCyrene]

Why?