When people say they “believe in God” they mean something trivial: that they have an idea of true God. Another way, they assert what They subjectively conceive of, hence there is no need for any external validation/proof, just like expressing that they feel warm or cold. There is nothing wrong with this expression, provided it does not assume that everyone else has the same idea, just like it would be false to assume that everyone ‘feels’ cold just because you do. It is inconsequential whether a believer ascribes objectivity to their idea by saying that they believe in God as revealed in the Bible or another holy text, since it is still just their idea of how the holy text ought to be interpreted, hence the argument is moot. Objectivity begins with demonstrating what the idea of true God ought to be as a matter of logical consistency, which is no longer a matter of belief but knowledge, which requires the attitude of good faith.

When people ask “what does a word mean in a particular context” they more accurately mean “what context does this word mean?”.

A large proportion of human behaviour is irrational, typically violating the principle of sufficient reason, which can be reduced to the law of non-contradiction. In practical terms, we claim to know a lot of things that we do not know.
The largest proportion of human behaviour is possibly unconscious, consisting not of intentional actions, not of what we Do, but deterministic tendencies that ‘happen to us’. As such they are not subject to Our rationality, although it is rational to aim to manage any unconscious tendencies since they are contrary to our agency.
Subjective preferences are rational if they intentionally serve/support our conscious agency, because the value of conscious agency is affirmed in every action, in every choice, including our contingent choices of any secondary values. We can evaluate the rationality of our preferences by scrutinising the logical consistency of our explanations and justifications of those choices. Our behaviour may be unconsciously determined and our explanations of that behaviour may be irrational.

If I am mistaken, then it is my loss. If you are mistaken, then it is your loss. When people insist on being mistaken, it is their prerogative.

Moral anti-realists engage in a strange, overtly trivial pursuit: arguing that there are no universal moral laws. They invoke images of the king of the jungle devouring its prey, safe in its dominance over other beasts, but they are not a tiger or lion, they are fragile and insecure, living at the mercy of the power that dominates them, in fear of being stabbed to death by a mugger in a dark alley, dwelling literary at the bottom of the moral anti-realist food chain, bellow the street mugger or a military thug. If they are right then why bother, reality does not change, people still do what they do, each with their own moral point of view, the predator still a predator and prey still just prey; their arguments have no hope of any constructive effect on the conditions of their existence. I can think of only one rational motive for their apparently irrational behaviour: they do not really believe what they claim to believe but seek to confuse and disrupt the existing moral norms for some other reason, possibly to stimulate and improve our comprehension of objective moral norms by applying reverse psychology.

False flag operations are an extremely effective strategy for legitimising the use of force to destroy, kill and occupy other countries or to subjugate minority groups. The effectiveness of false flag operations hinges on strict denial that such strategies are ever used.

Michael Gill https://philpapers.org/rec/GILIAV-2 argued that the common usage of moral terms may not be uniform and determinate enough for it to make sense to analyse moral language. Others argue that if Gill is correct then no objective moral norms are possible, since they too would be non-uniform and non-determinate. I argue that for objective moral norms to be universally true it is not necessary for the common usage of moral terms to be uniform and determinate, but only that some moral terms can be determined as logically necessary and provable, for any rational agent.

A further problem with Gill’s argument is that it is unclear why moral terms should be differentiated from non-moral terms, since both can be related to phenomenological associations: ‘to kill a human’ is as phenomenologically meaningful as ‘to cut down a tree’. Gill’s argument therefore attaches to all claims of objectivity, all possible norms, including the meaning of reality, truth, sense, and language itself. Nevertheless, if we can relate to one another, perceive one another, communicate using language and associate our speech with common phenomenological associations, then at least some moral terms must be universally comprehensible too.

Finally, as Simon Engström argues, Gills argument implies that since we understand moral concepts differently then our disagreements about moral norms are only ostensible (which contradicts his premise that our disagreements are real). Inexplicably, Gill assumes that his terms ‘indeterminacy’ and ‘variability’ are not affected by indeterminacy and variability, which permits him to draw a normative conclusion for other moral agents.

Those who deny moral realism, deny the reality of moral status, therefore renounce their moral status. I accept their choice.

‘Meaning’ is akin to mutually facing mirrors, whereby relations between the reflection and the reflected are reciprocally contextualised as selfhood and otherness. A single mirror cannot do this, but mutually facing mirrors cannot evade it.

New paper against compulsory vaccination, BMJ: https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2024/10/28/jme-2024-110236.abstract Prof. Steinhoff makes several fine distinctions to counter the arguments defending vaccine mandates and gives favourable consideration to my arguments that were presented in the same journal.

Here’s a conspiracy theory. One guy strikes up a friendly conversation with you on your vacation, offers to show you around, very friendly. His co-conspirator sneaks up behind you and snatched your passport, phone and wallet, then rides off on his scooter. The friendly accomplice yells at him, calls him a thief, and chases him until both disappear from sight. This is roughly how governments work, but on industrial scale.

An alternative framing for the problem of a self-defined moral standard is whether the something you believe is your highest value is actually what you value the most. You could be mistaken in interpreting the hierarchy of your own values, and engage in what is called a performative contradiction: acting in a way that implies that you value X more than Y but believe that you value Y more than X. For example, in everything that you do you desire for your agential capacities to succeed, to fulfil your intentions, but not being aware of how your agential capacities are intertwined with those of other agents you commit to values that harm your agential capacities and interests.
The concept of ‘my own standard’ does not capture the errors of our own reasoning, and this alone suffices to defeat moral subjectivism.

Another framing for the argument why ideology or ‘my values’ cannot possibly justify our actions, especially when those actions purport to be moral, is that belief cannot even hypothetically ground a normative principle (Setiya, Kieran. Explaining Action. The Philosophical Review, 2003). Setiya shows that beliefs provide only the explanation of our reasons to act, not their justification; explanations are not ‘reasons’, let alone valid (logically consistent) reasons. Another way, beliefs (about values) require justification on the basis of logically consistent reasons, and the appeal to validity/consistency is engaging with a principle that is independent of subjective beliefs.

There is critical difference between the statement “I value X” and “X is valuable”; the former is explanatory, the latter is normative.

When we choose/agree to obey a rule, we are responsible to others for obeying the rule. The obeying action is our action and as such it invokes our responsibility to determine whether the rule is morally right for ourselves and for others. This creates a problem for moral subjectivists/relativists: if we make our own rules (as subjectivists claim) then we are morally responsible to others for obeying those rules, both according to our own moral standard and according to their moral standard, and if these standards are different then the subjectivist is faced with a moral contradiction. If a moral subjectivist would claim that his moral standard should have priority over those of others when he acts with respect to others, this would imply that the moral standard of others also has priority when they act to enforce the responsibility they are owed by the subjectivist, which brings us to the same impasse, making moral responsibility for action contradictory and indeterminate. Another way, the moral subjectivist is logically inconsistent in believing that his moral standard should determine his responsibility to others because responsibility implicates multiple parties and, still on the subjectivist view, this implies mutually exclusive (inconsistent) moral standards.

This reminds me of the news bites during Covid vaccine rollout showing top athletes dropping dead on the field while the official narrative was Safe & Effective, Safe & Effective.

“if the vaccination enthusiasts call for mandatory vaccination, an apposite reply of a vaccine refuser would be: ‘Let me get this straight: You want to intentionally coerce me into definitely accepting a foreign substance into my body that I would like to keep out of it, so that you can avoid merely accidental or likely contact with a substance you would like to keep out of yours? You are a true paragon of autonomy and fairness, aren’t you?’” From the paper cited above, by Uwe Steinhoff

Mandatory or coerced vaccination is a form of physical assault, rationalised as prevention of harm. According to Uwe Steinhoff this does not negate the right of the person who is preventively assaulted from self-defence against the preventive assault: “while there is no justified self-defence against justified self-defence, there is justified self-defence against justified preventive attack.” jme.bmj.com/content/ear…
Mask mandates, coercing people to cover their nasal openings and mouth with a mask, is also a type of (allegedly) preventive assault, which does not negate the person’s right to self-defence against this assault.

The strategic purpose of every provocation is to protect (or advance) the most valuable asset, the primary purpose, the ultimate vulnerability.

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