[Livemike]

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Livemike Is the act I just witnessed moral or immoral? Is the person I might be about to deal with someone who generally acts morally or not? It's real useful to know this. If you can't figure out why you're not too smart. Hint: the immoral/amoral person might not screw you over, the moral person probably won't. Fine then, name a philosopher that one should listen to in regards to morality?

Well let's see now, Ayn Rand (not all the time but she has some good points. Jeffrey Snyder's "A Nation of Cowards". is a must read, Objectivity and Truth by Ronald Dworkin http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/f...jectivity.html, and a piece whose authorship I'm not sure about but I think is by http://www.jim.com/moralfac.htm James A. Donald. Oh and anything by Lysander Spooner is good.

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Livemike Sure it has a way to check it's philosophies against what's real. It's called "logic". And you think that I am not too smart?

I didn't say that. I said you weren't that smart if you can't figure out why it's real useful to know if the person you might be about to deal with someone who generally acts morally or not. So tell me, can you figure out why that's important? It's not a hard question and if you can answer it you should be able to figure out why moral philosophy is important and what relation it has to reality.

Quote by: Starboy Logic is not a check against reality. At best all it can do is indicated if a given philosophy is self consistent with itself. That doesn't mean that the philosophy has anything at all to do with reality.

Which is one of the reasons why I recommend Ayn Rand (conditionally). She stresses the importance of the moral premise. If the philosophy is not consistent with moral axioms then it's wrong. If you can't figure out what the moral axioms are then that's probably not anyone else's fault.

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Starboy In fact if you talk to those that are paid to be philosophers and claim to be proficient in the philosophies and philosophers of the past and present the vast majority of them will tell you that a philosopher has no duty, responsibly, requirement or need to try to make sure that their philosophies have anything at all to do with reality. Quote by: Livemike I'm not sure if that's true but if so, so what? They're wrong. So dang funny. You have no idea if they do or don't. Apparently it is important to you that they do but it never occurred to you to see what they actually do to try to test their philosophies against actual reality.

It's not at all important to me what the majority of people paid to be philosophers and claiming to be proficient at it think. If it were any credible philosopher would point out that I'm committing a combination of the Argumentum ad numerum http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#numerum and the Argumentum ad verecundiam http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism...html#authority. The fact is that some philosophers do check their conclusions against reality and others are crap.

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Livemike Only if the philosopher is deeply stupid. As far as I can tell they are all deeply stupid because in the field of philosophy they all are still being taught all the philosophies from over two millinia ago. It would be as if you were still studying the basic humors in a biology class. Science has moved on because it has methods to prefer one theory over another, but philosophy has not moved on because there is no such thing in philosophy.

You're still being taught Newtonian physics aren't you? The humor theory of biology and medicine was rejected because it was wrong and dangerous. At least some of what the ancient philosophers wrote is not.

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Livemike That's not even close to true. Did St. Thomas Aquineas say "what he said" and point to Aristotle? No. You are such a moron. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#A4

The link you give clearly states that St. Thomas Aquineas didn't say "What he said" and point to Aristotle. He used Aristotle, Plato and others to form a philosophy which wasn't just "What he said". So why claim I'm a moron for saying what your post proves right?

Quote by: Starboy Quote by: Livemike So your "most astute" philosopher couldn't give a definitive answer to whether killing to protect your child from a murderer is more moral than the murderer killing your child? Well I can. So obviously I'm more astute than him. No argument from me. Philosophy is for idiots.

Ok, so it's idiotic to know if a person acts moral or not? Great. So when you're deciding who to have run your financial affairs you won't find out if any of the applicants acted in ways that might be considered immoral? You know a certain kind of people and their money are soon parted.
BTW by admitting that I'm more astute than the philosopher you claim is "most astute" you implictly admit that my philosophy makes more sense than his. And since I based that claim on an instance that very much relates to reality you implictedly admit that moral arguments based on realitycan be valid. Yet you still cling to the idea that none of it relates to reality. Why?