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[Torco]

Unrelated to the current discussion, I have a question:

Apparently, for quite a while, philosophers - and, sometimes, also non-philosophers - have argued over whether "the end justifies the means" or not. But my own impression is that basically everyone agrees that some ends justify some means, while basically no one agrees that all ends justify all means, so the real question is not whether "the end" justifies "the means", but which ends justify which means.

Now, what I want to know is, is there any position in established philosophy that says more or less what I have just said?

i think that's just politics. at least, in politics, we're doing that half the time. the other half, we're arguing about what ends are worth pursuing.

[rotting bones]

no. the question was What Is This Called?

Talking to you is like talking to an alien.

Fully naturalized nativeborn of alien descent..

I don't agree with any of your presuppositions or any of your conclusions.

1. No, I don't think it was just a reference point for deontology vs. consequentialism for the reason I just told you: I have discussed it with Raphael in the past.

I have no idea whether or not you have discussed Deontology and Consequentialism in the past, and I don't care - it has nothing to do with the question here, so far as I can tell. And I still can't tell because you haven't answered the question, not even in the sense of typing out 'this is a subcategory of deontologytialism' or something.

I'll even underscore it. I love underscoring.

Unrelated to the current discussion, I have a question:

Apparently, for quite a while, philosophers - and, sometimes, also non-philosophers - have argued over whether "the end justifies the means" or not. But my own impression is that basically everyone agrees that some ends justify some means, while basically no one agrees that all ends justify all means, so the real question is not whether "the end" justifies "the means", but which ends justify which means.

Now, what I want to know is, is there any position in established philosophy that says more or less what I have just said?

I feel like you are just saying words at me.

Dear ghods, I iz committing language!

I have tried to explain my positions to you in the past through a great deal of text. I can never remember it working. My position is that I have answered the question to the best of my ability at the moment.

[rotting bones]

i think that's just politics. at least, in politics, we're doing that half the time. the other half, we're arguing about what ends are worth pursuing.

I think the question is about the general position about specific means and specific ends. The contents of which means and which ends is consequentialist ethics. Peter Singer is famous for giving out prescriptions like that.

[zompist]

It's perfectly rational to say "Even if death camps would solve some problem, we should not build death camps." And at the same time to say "Though such-and-such a rule is generally good, blindly following it causes too much misery."

I don't know if it's rational to say this. It's probably rational to say, "Death camps should not be built because they bring misery."

The worry about consequentialists is that the person eventually adds a disclaimer "...unless we really really need them for the greater good." This is hardly an abstract worry, that is in fact how people justified building death camps.

There is something to be said for a "no death camps ever, period" point of view. Some moral lines shouldn't be crossed.

But, eh, there's no magic moral algorithm. If you're an honest deontologist, you have to balance moral values. If you're an honest consequentialist, you have to balance differing outcomes. I feel I'd trust someone more who thinks about both, but even that is no guarantee.

[keenir]

I have tried to explain my positions to you in the past through a great deal of text. I can never remember it working. My position is that I have answered the question to the best of my ability at the moment.

The question was not "what is your position, in relation to this word I'm looking for?"....if you don't know what the word is, there is no shame in admitting it; I don't know it either...and its my fault that I did not say so earlier.

[Raphael]

Wow, I didn't expect to trigger such a long discussion! (I haven't read all of it yet.)

[Torco]

i think that's just politics. at least, in politics, we're doing that half the time. the other half, we're arguing about what ends are worth pursuing.

I think the question is about the general position about specific means and specific ends. The contents of which means and which ends is consequentialist ethics. Peter Singer is famous for giving out prescriptions like that.

every moral philosopher is like that, i think. even kant, famously inflexible, would agree that some ends are a valid way to achieve some means. I think deontologists just like to list the cases where some mean can be justified by no end, because that makes things simpler, so it's like geometry: any line can be of any length, and any corner any angle, except this is a triangle here, so the interior angles have to sum 180, and then this other angle is 45 so the third one has to be 135, and then if we know the length of this side we can blablablabla... they ultimately hope to solve problems... or, well, the good ones do anyway.

[Raphael]

I have never seen anyone propose strict deontology as an alternative to the ends justifying the means.

Sure you have; it's the position of many religions. Morality comes from God, or is inherently evident, and doing right is more important than doing good (if these conflict).

The thing is, outside of philosophy class, everyone takes both positions.

Does that mean that inside philosophy class, no one does?

[zompist]

The thing is, outside of philosophy class, everyone takes both positions.

Does that mean that inside philosophy class, no one does?

In philosophy class, people take all positions.

I suggest reading through the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy articles I linked to get an idea of how philosophers explore these ideas. Strictly speaking, those named positions are supposed to be exclusive, but there's also a dozen sub-ideas within each position...

[keenir]

The thing is, outside of philosophy class, everyone takes both positions.

Does that mean that inside philosophy class, no one does?

all i can think of is "outside of a dog, a book is mans best friend; inside of a dog, its too dark to read" by Groucho Marx.

(sorry for the bad joke)

[bradrn]

I’ve been more busy the past few days, and as such haven’t gotten around to posting in the politics threads. On reflection, it’s probably better for my mental health this way. I’ve decided to continue not-posting unless I have anything positive to say.

(That’s the theory, at least. We’ll see how long it lasts…)

[Raphael]

I might already have asked a version of this question before on the ZBB, but I thought I could re-phrase it a bit, and perhaps make my intent a bit clearer in the process. So:

A while ago - actually more than 15 years ago by now - I changed my opinion on a serious political issue in a major way. In the years since that happened, I've sometimes have dreams while asleep where, in the dreams, I still had my old views on that issue. So I wonder: how common is that kind of thing? And what, if anything, does it mean? Does it simply mean that my change of opinion never made it all the way to my subconsciousness?

[Ares Land]

I might already have asked a version of this question before on the ZBB, but I thought I could re-phrase it a bit, and perhaps make my intent a bit clearer in the process. So:

A while ago - actually more than 15 years ago by now - I changed my opinion on a serious political issue in a major way. In the years since that happened, I've sometimes have dreams while asleep where, in the dreams, I still had my old views on that issue. So I wonder: how common is that kind of thing? And what, if anything, does it mean? Does it simply mean that my change of opinion never made it all the way to my subconsciousness?

No idea how common this is. I don't think I ever had political dreams, so to speak.
As far as I know, there's no real consensus on what dreams mean. I'm suspicious of psychoanalysis, but I'm inclined to think they're almost entirely meaningless.

[malloc]

No idea how common this is. I don't think I ever had political dreams, so to speak.

It seems like I have political dreams all the time, myself. Donald Trump, Ayn Rand, and Mencius Moldbug have all appeared as villains in my dreams at one point or another.

[Raholeun]

Genuinely curious how somebody could think that dreams are meaningless. Even at their most basic level, they are stories for us to relate to. That should be enough ground to be meaningful.

[linguistcat]

One theory about dreams is that they are (very disjointed) what if scenarios, and that they help us work through problems. So I'd think it's just your brain going over "What if we had never changed our opinion on this? Or changed it back?"

Do you have them more often when you think more about politics? Or when things are generally stressful? If neither of those, is there any pattern you can discern about when you have these dreams?

[Ares Land]

Genuinely curious how somebody could think that dreams are meaningless. Even at their most basic level, they are stories for us to relate to. That should be enough ground to be meaningful.

'Meaningless' may be too strong? Though many of my dreams are incoherent, there's an interesting story once in a while.
But I don't think there's that much depth to them, and I don't think that they really reflect much about how I feel subconsciously. (I often have unpleasant dreams when I'm stressed out about something... but I know how I feel even without the dreams!)

[Raphael]

Do you have them more often when you think more about politics? Or when things are generally stressful? If neither of those, is there any pattern you can discern about when you have these dreams?

I can't really think of any pattern. I've only had dreams along those lines a couple of times so far, I think.

More generally, sometimes I have dreams connected to what I've been thinking about recently, but at other times, I don't.

[Man in Space]

I am firmly in the camp of “dreams mean things”. Just what they mean is up for debate.

I’ve dreamed entire mornings—and I think an entire day at least once, back in high school—before, realistic to the degree that I would get profoundly confused upon waking…or even not until several hours thereafter, when my mistaken memory has caused issues with actual events.

Dreams have been credited to a number of inventions (the sewing machine mechanism is the story that immediately springs to mind). Those of you familiar with my religious views should likely understand that aspect of it. Lucid dreaming can be hacked; I knew a guy in college who claimed he’d work on advanced math problems while he slept (given what I knew of the guy so claiming, I have no trouble believing he was serious).

More pertinently to my own anecdotal experience: I got over two major life events, I think, via dreams about them. One was an event (series) from my younger days that I’d rather not go into detail about; the second was the death of my dog.

That was…she could talk. First thing she said was, “Tickle my feet.” Even in the dream I was surprised. But we spent one last afternoon together, hanging out, remembering the good times. But I remember towards the end of it, she kind of…sadly announced it was time to go. In the dream it was like, well, time’s up, we all knew it had to come. So, I took her collar off one last time and she ran to join the other dogs. There were parting words, though I can’t quite remember them. It was love, and not hate—of that I am sure.

I remember when I awoke, I felt a profound sadness mixed with happiness mixed with gratitude mixed with acceptance. That’s when I finally accepted it, I think.

[Torco]

I intuitively default to "dreams don't mean anything". what does it mean, precisely, for dreams to mean things anyway? what does mean mean here? like, sure, they tells us something about, so to speak, the unconscious, but back pain also tells us something about the health of the skeleto-muscular system: does back pain mean something? and yeah, they can be profound experiences, but... okay, in that sense, they can mean a lot, but not epistemically, right?