Daniel Peterson and Moral Philosophy

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

At the end of the day it’s all just projection on his part. DCP’s “philosophy” is a as if Pascal’s Wager was cross pollinated with an Appeal to Authority. It’s something akin to this:

“Oh, boy! When I die I’ll be the boss! I’ll be the Top Dog of my own kingdom! Oh, boy!”

“Well, what if that’s not true?”

“Oh, boy, you sure are missing out you silly heathen. If you just ask Elohim about it He’ll let you know! That’s my evidence!”

“Right, but what if you die and that’s that?”

“Oh boy, you sure are missing out. Just ask my eternal daddy and He’ll set you straight! You have nothing to lose by simply asking. Oh, boy!”

“I did ask. I got nothing.”

“Oh, boy! You sure are trouble!”

*Louis Midgley, Kiwi, and the zombie coterie enters chat*

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

- Doc

[Marcus]

I added a tiny bit in blue that I'm sure would also be part of the conversation, sort of a true Scotsman argument:

At the end of the day it’s all just projection on his part. DCP’s “philosophy” is a as if Pascal’s Wager was cross pollinated with an Appeal to Authority. It’s something akin to this:

“Oh, boy! When I die I’ll be the boss! I’ll be the Top Dog of my own kingdom! Oh, boy!”

“Well, what if that’s not true?”

“Oh, boy, you sure are missing out you silly heathen. If you just ask Elohim about it He’ll let you know! That’s my evidence!”

“Right, but what if you die and that’s that?”

“Oh boy, you sure are missing out. Just ask my eternal daddy and He’ll set you straight! You have nothing to lose by simly asking. Oh, boy!”

“I did ask. I got nothing.”

“Oh, boy! You sure are trouble!” "obviously you 'got nothing' because you didn't do it right."

*Louis Midgley, Kiwi, and the zombie coterie enters chat*

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I added a tiny bit in blue that I'm sure would also be part of the conversation, sort of a true Scotsman argument:

At the end of the day it’s all just projection on his part. DCP’s “philosophy” is a as if Pascal’s Wager was cross pollinated with an Appeal to Authority. It’s something akin to this:

“Oh, boy! When I die I’ll be the boss! I’ll be the Top Dog of my own kingdom! Oh, boy!”

“Well, what if that’s not true?”

“Oh, boy, you sure are missing out you silly heathen. If you just ask Elohim about it He’ll let you know! That’s my evidence!”

“Right, but what if you die and that’s that?”

“Oh boy, you sure are missing out. Just ask my eternal daddy and He’ll set you straight! You have nothing to lose by simply asking. Oh, boy!”

“I did ask. I got nothing.”

“Oh, boy! You sure are trouble!” "obviously you 'got nothing' because you didn't do it right."

*Louis Midgley, Kiwi, and the zombie coterie enters chat*

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

- Doc

It’s flawless. Unassailable even!

- Doc

[Moksha]

Superstitious stories have lists of correct behaviors
Correct behaviors are moral behaviors
Therefore, superstitious stories are required for moral behavior
-- Sic et Non Socratic Method

[DrStakhanovite]

Why does Fine use "either R or else not-R", as an example for "ground"?

It isn’t the example he is focusing on, because that is an obvious given. The intended example is ‘R’ being grounded in an ethical principle by being an instantiation of it. The result is that the relationships between the variables can just as easily be seen as being determinative and not the ethical principle.

It seems like a perverse choice of example because to me statements of the form "either A or else not-A" contain no information.

That is kind of the point when you want to talk about syntactic relationships.

Whatever "ground" may be (I've never been clear on that)

No one really is, and the paper is about exploring what a grounding relationship could look like in various contexts.

I could understand better if Fine had used something like "either A or B (or perhaps both)", where B was not simply "not-A". Then it's true that "either A or B" is implied by A. So if Fine were to tell me that A can be a ground for "either A or B", then I could understand that.

’

That is a function of bivalent values. If ‘A’ is true and then you use the disjunctive addition inference to tack on ‘B’, then yes ‘A v B’ is true because ‘A’ is true.

The grounding relationship isn’t concerned with truth preservation while manipulating well formed formulae. Grounding (as far as Fine is concerned) is an explanatory relationship; about A being the explanans and B being the explanandum.

[Physics Guy]

Hmmm. I can see that logical implication may not be the same as explanation. Sometimes, for example, it’s clearly kind of opposite. One can logically infer that it’s the broken cup that must have been dropped, but being broken does not explain why things fall.

If grounding is about some kind of explanation, rather than logical implication, though, then I wonder a bit at framing things in terms of logical propositions. When I want something explained, sometimes it may be a proposition, but it’s usually not.

[Rivendale]

At the end of the day it’s all just projection on his part. DCP’s “philosophy” is a as if Pascal’s Wager was cross pollinated with an Appeal to Authority. It’s something akin to this:

“Oh, boy! When I die I’ll be the boss! I’ll be the Top Dog of my own kingdom! Oh, boy!”

“Well, what if that’s not true?”

“Oh, boy, you sure are missing out you silly heathen. If you just ask Elohim about it He’ll let you know! That’s my evidence!”

“Right, but what if you die and that’s that?”

“Oh boy, you sure are missing out. Just ask my eternal daddy and He’ll set you straight! You have nothing to lose by simply asking. Oh, boy!”

“I did ask. I got nothing.”

“Oh, boy! You sure are trouble!”

*Louis Midgley, Kiwi, and the zombie coterie enters chat*

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

- Doc

His last stab at Gemli was , "at least believers live longer and happier lives".

[drumdude]

At the end of the day it’s all just projection on his part. DCP’s “philosophy” is a as if Pascal’s Wager was cross pollinated with an Appeal to Authority. It’s something akin to this:

“Oh, boy! When I die I’ll be the boss! I’ll be the Top Dog of my own kingdom! Oh, boy!”

“Well, what if that’s not true?”

“Oh, boy, you sure are missing out you silly heathen. If you just ask Elohim about it He’ll let you know! That’s my evidence!”

“Right, but what if you die and that’s that?”

“Oh boy, you sure are missing out. Just ask my eternal daddy and He’ll set you straight! You have nothing to lose by simply asking. Oh, boy!”

“I did ask. I got nothing.”

“Oh, boy! You sure are trouble!”

*Louis Midgley, Kiwi, and the zombie coterie enters chat*

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

- Doc

His last stab at Gemli was , "at least believers live longer and happier lives".

Says a lot, doesn’t it?

The old chestnut, “happy Mormon families” believing their noble lie.