ambush80
Senior Member
Boy Howdy!!! these guys get in deep:
https://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/69255/
Posted: 30 January 2017 08:07
@ generationofvipers
I have watched with pained chagrin as a man who I used to admire has proven completely incapable of grasping the obvious and fundamental distinction between what is and what should be.
"I don’t interpret Sam’s words as dismissing the philosophical distinction. Rather, I hear his words as an attempt to push back against the use of the distinction as a way to derail substantive conversation. It happens all.the.time: someone engages in a conversation, availing themselves of all of the tools of operational definitions and rank-order position-taking to make their argument, only to play the ‘we really can’t *know* anything’ card once their argument is factually undermined.
To help clear up my possibly errant thinking here, perhaps you can answer a question for me: if we don’t grant the arbitrary assumption that there is in fact a divine artificer who has an opinion about how the world ‘ought’ to be, what’s left of the ‘ought/is’ distinction? "
https://www.samharris.org/forum/viewthread/69255/
Posted: 30 January 2017 08:07
@ generationofvipers
I have watched with pained chagrin as a man who I used to admire has proven completely incapable of grasping the obvious and fundamental distinction between what is and what should be.
"I don’t interpret Sam’s words as dismissing the philosophical distinction. Rather, I hear his words as an attempt to push back against the use of the distinction as a way to derail substantive conversation. It happens all.the.time: someone engages in a conversation, availing themselves of all of the tools of operational definitions and rank-order position-taking to make their argument, only to play the ‘we really can’t *know* anything’ card once their argument is factually undermined.
To help clear up my possibly errant thinking here, perhaps you can answer a question for me: if we don’t grant the arbitrary assumption that there is in fact a divine artificer who has an opinion about how the world ‘ought’ to be, what’s left of the ‘ought/is’ distinction? "
