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A couple random issues: (1) Lots of confounding factors can arise when conducting an IQ test. For example, low socioeconomic status will likely correlate with poor performance. Environments which are less stimulating, for lack of resources, or homes in which parents have to work 24/7 will...

Do atheists get to meet the pope? EDIT: From the WYD2008 site " 1. I am not a Catholic - can I still take part? World Youth Day is an invitation from the Pope to all the youth of the world without discrimination. While World Youth Day celebrates the Catholic faith, its message is...

If you have found a way to do so I will be very impressed. I'm resigned to the view that morality is a social construction on par with beauty and other aesthetic values. His questions aren't unreasonable. What you think is important, in this instance, because he is trying to interpret your...

I understand your personal need for objective 'right' and 'wrong' and the moral weight such objectivity gives to our actions in the world. However, the fact that you desire that there exist divine law from which this objectivity might be derived does not entail that such a law exists. Wishing...

The statistics I have seen regarding ecstasy generally suggest that it is a relatively safe drug - certainly comparable to acohol (for example). It strikes me as hypocritical to speak out against ecstasy without also condeming cigarettes and alcohol (of course, why would they given the amount of...

It depends on their individual subjective preferences. What of it? First off, the point is not what I believe. Yes, I could make an argument against the existence of moral facts but thus far I have chosen not to do so. All I claimed above was that it is perfectly consistent to say that...

Haha, fair call Po1nty :p.

We have to main tools, roughly speaking, that we use to determine objective truth: logic and the scientific method. Molyneux characterises the requirements of a scientific theory as follows: "...any valid scientific theory must be (a) universal, (b) logical, (c) empirically verifiable, (d)...

I geuss part of my issue is that I am still not convinced that moral theories admit of scientific treatment, largely because I don't think you have established that objective moral facts exist (as above). I certainly think that this approach is useful in delineating useful or workable...

I agree with your last statement, and I think that the same holds of morality. Essentially I was parodying the reasoning which says that "If a preference leads to some event which is objective and measureable, then the preference itself is objectively true" --> an argument which I feel is false...

You ask: "how would these two people decide which decision is correct?" The point I am pushing is that there does not exist a way to decide whether a moral belief is correct. In fact, my claims are stronger than this. I do not simply believe that we 'just happen' to lack a decision procedure...

In what sense can UPB disprove a moral belief?

The previous math love letter thread reminded of this song someone once sent me the link to on youtube: The path of love is never smooth But mine's continuous for you You're the upper bound in the chains of my heart You're my Axiom of Choice, you know it's true But lately our relation's...

An example restriction would be to limit the price of pharmaceuticals in relation to their production cost - where the relation is guaged in such a way that it ensures a financial gain for the company. You say that "by not regulating we might have achieved more". It is worth asking what you...

Aye, fair call dhj. I geuss I was tacitly assuming the difference in objectives between a government and private companies such as found in the tobacco industry. (edit: thanks for pointing that out)

It seems as though a lot of equivocation goes on in the use of the term 'universal'. Here are two importantly different uses, where I use '*' to indicate different useage ('universal', versus 'universal-star'): (1) A moral principle can be universal in that it applies to all people, e.g...

Hey, I'll try and come back and adress some of your other points later on this evening. As to the above, I would argue that things like cigarettes show that it isn't as simple as 'capitalist devices get us towards knowing what the consumers want'. Those involved in marketing are very good at...

First off, was your above link (to the UPB thingo) a proof of this, or do you have another proof elsewhere? To be bluntly honest, I think that the argument that guy made for UPB is quite terrible. In the above post it seems that you have misinterpreted the part of argument where he argues...

Hmm, I wish I'd been following this debate from the start. I've been waiting for someone to say exactly what you said above dhj --> hear, hear.

Realistically people don't get to vote for specific health policies (as far as I am aware??). At best we get to vote for a given party's broad approach to healthcare, but even then we are balancing our healthcare preferences with those in other spheres. What can the government do with tax payers...