Bitterroot has been giving you well-founded and thought out reasons for his stance,
What the hell are you talking about? Bitterroot has given no rationale for his stance. His sole response has been dodging the question. "We both seem to agree that lying is wrong, so I don't have to justify it," is not an argument but avoidance.
I'm trying to get him to justify his rationale for why lying is morally wrong, especially when he seems to believe that the truth has no actual value in-and-of itself and that someone believing something false is actually beneficial.
He has given reasons (Society deems it wrong,
That's not a reason. "Why do you believe something?" "Everybody else does." Again, not an argument but the absence of an argument.
the general intent of telling a lie is to deceive someone for your own gain).
Except he also argued that this isn't necessarily harmful. And if it's not harmful, so what?
and the entirety of your response is "why is telling a lie morally wrong?"
First of all, factually false. My posts have been significantly longer than seven words.
Second of all, it is perfectly valid to ask someone to justify their assertions. bitterroot has not done this.
and I am asking why you say that you believe lying is morally acceptable. I am doing the exact same thing you are doing with Bitterroot: asking you to justify your stance. why is that wrong? why is it acceptable when you do it, but not me?
I also notice that you have nothing to say on me stating you actually haven't made an argument, just a contradiction.
and I am asking why you say that you believe lying is morally acceptable. I am doing the exact same thing you are doing with Bitterroot: asking you to justify your stance. why is that wrong? why is it acceptable when you do it, but not me?
I also notice that you have nothing to say on me stating you actually haven't made an argument, just a contradiction.
Second, as I've stated before, the entire point of this line of dialogue is that bitterroot's own logic justifies lying. bitterroot has said himself that he does not agree that truth has any inherent value in-and-of itself, and as such lying to someone does them no harm in-and-of them believing a lie. Moreover, bitterroot has said that lies can, in fact, actually be beneficial to the person lied to.
If this is correct, then it logically follows that we should lie constantly, at least in ways that result in the benefits of others, yet bitterroot objects on the grounds that lying is morally wrong. For some reason. Despite his repeated claims that it is not inherently harmful and actually beneficial. And his defense of prayer to a false deity, which is also not inherently harmful and actually beneficial.
When pressed for a rationale for this, bitterroot has repeatedly declined any justification. He's none nothing but repeat what is essentially, "Lying is morally wrong for reasons I don't have to explain to you but totally exist." Meanwhile, he has repeatedly defended prayer to a false deity on the grounds of it causing no harm and its benefits.
Thus, burden of proof requires bitterroot actually justify his grounds for declaring lying morally wrong, because by his own logic, lying is a thing to benefit others. Maybe he believes that benefiting others is wrong? I don't know. He refuses to explain it, yet expects us all to accept it as fact.
what he is ACTUALLY saying (if you would have bothered to read the content of his posts) is that BELIEVING a lie can be a net benefit. He has said that the act of TELLING a lie is morally wrong, but that there is nothing morally wrong with BELIEVING a lie, so long as that lie is not, in fact, proven to be a lie.
And, if I may extrapolate a bit, if you truly believe something (i.e. prayer) and you tell someone else that thing, then you are not lying, because you believe what you are telling them is the truth. You are not lying to them, you are just wrong, if it comes out that what you are telling them is in fact inaccurate.
I most certainly do not think there is a 99% chance God exists. I am certain God exists. Insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything, I know God exists.
Since you clearly do not know that God exists (unless of course He has entered a science lab and submitted Himself to testing and no one told me), it appears that you have been harmed.
what he is ACTUALLY saying (if you would have bothered to read the content of his posts) is that BELIEVING a lie can be a net benefit. He has said that the act of TELLING a lie is morally wrong, but that there is nothing morally wrong with BELIEVING a lie, so long as that lie is not, in fact, proven to be a lie.
But then why is telling a lie morally wrong?
You just said believing a lie can have a net benefit, right? Is it morally wrong or morally correct to benefit people? So if it's morally right to benefit people, and it is not morally wrong to believe a lie, and it's not harmful to a believe a lie in-and-of it being untrue, and it's beneficial to a person to believe the lie, then from whence is it morally wrong to tell someone a lie?
Simple logic. If I have a lie that benefits people, then by bitterroot's reasoning, I should lie as much as possible to as many people as possible, right?
But bitterroot seems to disagree. I want to know why, which is why I've been asking, because it doesn't seem to make any sense. Yet, bitterroot doesn't seem to want to share this reason, instead preferring to avoid it.
Indeed, by Walker Boh's reasoning, bitterroot's avoidance would indicate he has no reason and is making "just a contradiction" without it being founded upon anything.
And, if I may extrapolate a bit, if you truly believe something (i.e. prayer) and you tell someone else that thing, then you are not lying, because you believe what you are telling them is the truth. You are not lying to them, you are just wrong, if it comes out that what you are telling them is in fact inaccurate.
I know. I have, in fact, said exactly this in the thread. (Which you must surely know since you, given what you posted above, definitely would have bothered to read the content of my posts, right? )
The problem is bitterroot is quick to defend prayer to a god that doesn't exist, but quick to condemn Scientology for it not being true, calling it "fraud" or something at least similar to fraud. This is contradictory, and has lead me to ask him why prayer gets a pass and Scientology gets condemnation.
Since you clearly do not know that God exists (unless of course He has entered a science lab and submitted Himself to testing and no one told me), it appears that you have been harmed.
Since you clearly do not know that God exists (unless of course He has entered a science lab and submitted Himself to testing and no one told me), it appears that you have been harmed.
Demonstrate God's existence is false.
I don't want to put words in rockondon's mouth, but it sounds like the thing he's saying is not that god doesn't exist, it's that you can't know god exists. He points out that there is no evidence for god which would satisfy the prerequisites for knowing that god exists. Asking him to prove god's existence is false is a non-sequitur.
Since you clearly do not know that God exists (unless of course He has entered a science lab and submitted Himself to testing and no one told me), it appears that you have been harmed.
Demonstrate God's existence is false.
I don't want to put words in rockondon's mouth, but I don't think he's saying that god definitely doesn't exist. He's saying you can't actually know god does exist. He demonstrates this by pointing out that there does not exist any evidence which would justify that knowledge. So, if you believe you know god exists, then you are operating under a false belief. You just think god exists, but lack the evidence to truly know it.
well, let's approach the problem from the assumption that both prayer and scientology are wrong. I've usually found that the best way to evaluate harms (both actual and potential) is to look at the worst case scenario:
In prayer's case, you have a placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and gives you the feeling that someone is listening to you.
In Scientology's case, you have given thousands of dollars to an organization that actively tells you to ostracize yourself from your friends and family, and you have told every dirty secret you have to said organization so that they can blackmail you into following them some more. Plus the fact of what you have heard happens to people HAVE left: harassment, public humiliation, and attempted kidnappings. And, yes, the placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and the feeling that someone is listening to you.
Now, then, going from the premise that both are wrong, what actual harm does prayer cause, compared to Scientology?
Onto the subject of lying being moral or not, what makes something moral? Well, since we can't give a deity the credit (as you would then ask us to prove said deity's existence) we can only go by what Society has told us: that lying is morally wrong.
If your going to continue to say that is a stupid reason, then I have one question: if believing something solely because society says it is, why do we believe anything society tells us?
I have a theory: Societies of the past have found that lying to someone causes them harm, and as such created moral codes that included not lying to people, codes that we have continued to this day.
Question: Do you feel the need to contradict someone that you feel agrees with you?
Now, if you can give an example of a lie that a) you know for a fact to be a lie, b) will not be reasonably discovered by other people to be a lie, and c) has absolutely zero downsides and in fact helps people, then we can contend further on that subject.
well, let's approach the problem from the assumption that both prayer and scientology are wrong. I've usually found that the best way to evaluate harms (both actual and potential) is to look at the worst case scenario:
In prayer's case, you have a placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and gives you the feeling that someone is listening to you.
This is not a fair accounting. People who pray will generally agree that the act reinforces and affirms their faith. Because people who pray to a variety of gods report this, and because at least all but one of those gods and possibly all of those gods are fictional, we can conclude that the act of prayer harms the individual by reinforcing false beliefs in the vast majority or potentially all cases. Having entrenched false beliefs makes it more difficult to discover the correct alternative. Not only that, but many faiths contend that worship of a false god is a grave sin. If one of those alternate faiths is correct, you are not only inhibiting yourself from discovering that fact, but also angering the god to whom you are not praying.
Even if there is no alternate god to discover or anger, most if not all people care about truth. They seek to establish real relationships, not phony hallucinated ones. Anything that reinforces a false relationship is therefore a harm.
In the very worst case, praying sends you to eternal hell, because you, like the majority of people who pray, have chosen to pray to the wrong god. More realistically, the worst case is that the act reinforces false beliefs.
well, let's approach the problem from the assumption that both prayer and scientology are wrong. I've usually found that the best way to evaluate harms (both actual and potential) is to look at the worst case scenario:
In prayer's case, you have a placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and gives you the feeling that someone is listening to you.
In Scientology's case, you have given thousands of dollars to an organization that actively tells you to ostracize yourself from your friends and family, and you have told every dirty secret you have to said organization so that they can blackmail you into following them some more. Plus the fact of what you have heard happens to people HAVE left: harassment, public humiliation, and attempted kidnappings. And, yes, the placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and the feeling that someone is listening to you.
Now, then, going from the premise that both are wrong, what actual harm does prayer cause, compared to Scientology?
Tiax's response to this is a pretty good start, and my mind's a bit divided right now on other things, so let me focus on the second part of your post and come back to this when I can write a more suitable response.
Onto the subject of lying being moral or not, what makes something moral? Well, since we can't give a deity the credit (as you would then ask us to prove said deity's existence) we can only go by what Society has told us: that lying is morally wrong.
But that doesn't answer the question. "People have argued that lying is wrong" does not answer, "Why is lying wrong?" It only prompts the question.
If your going to continue to say that is a stupid reason,
It's not a reason period. It does nothing to answer the question, "Why is lying wrong?"
Moreover, it's not acknowledging the other obvious question, "Is society CORRECT in saying that lying is morally wrong?"
then I have one question: if believing something solely because society says it is, why do we believe anything society tells us?
I don't believe that's a grammatically correct sentence. Did you mean to say, "If we shouldn't believe something solely because society says it is so, why do we believe anything society tells us?"
Why we DO believe anything anybody tells us can be summed up in one of two ways:
1. We have assessed the reasons why that person believes and propagates his/her belief in that thing being so, and we agree with the reasons.
2. We just assume that person has valid reasons, and believe it without questioning what these reasons are or whether they are actually valid.
However, the whole point of philosophy is that, while those two reasons can answer the question of why we DO believe things people tell us, number 1 is the only reason we SHOULD believe things people tell us. You may recall Plato's dialogues in which Socrates repeatedly tells people to question all things.
We especially should not blindly trust what anyone tells us because we know that people can be wrong. Also that societies can be wrong. I have the feeling you don't believe that raping and pillaging other villages is correct, nor that slavery is a proper institution that any moral person would agree with. Thus, you must acknowledge that there is a need to question why things are stated to be moral, and just because other people say they are does not mean they are.
I have a theory: Societies of the past have found that lying to someone causes them harm,
Wait, whoa there.
You said lying can benefit someone. It says so right here in post #55:
Quote from Walker Boh »
what he is ACTUALLY saying (if you would have bothered to read the content of his posts) is that BELIEVING a lie can be a net benefit.
So a lie need not necessarily cause a person harm, and in fact could benefit them.
and as such created moral codes that included not lying to people, codes that we have continued to this day.
But if those codes are saying that lying is immoral on the grounds that it is harmful, then any lie that benefits cannot logically be immoral, right?
Do you see the problem? bitterroot is saying that:
1. A lie can beneficial without being harmful.
2. Something can be immoral regardless of whether or not it is harmful. Thus, morality has nothing to do with whether or not the thing causes harm.
For these reasons, your rationale for why society believes lying is wrong disagrees with bitterroot.
So do you not agree that bitterroot must provide his rationale for why lying is wrong?
Question: Do you feel the need to contradict someone that you feel agrees with you?
Except that's just it, bitterroot clearly does not agree with me. Nor does he agree with you, as evidenced above.
Imagine if a person came around here saying gravity does not exist. I would respond to that person asking him, "If gravity does not exist, then why do things fall to the earth when dropped?" Imagine if that person then responded, "I don't think that's relevant to our discussion. If you actually believe things don't fall to the earth when dropped, then we can debate that. If you believe things fall to the earth when dropped, then we shouldn't waste time discussing why."
That person would be in the wrong, because WHY things fall to the earth is extremely important and relevant to the discussion. If a person were to proclaim gravity to not exist, but that things fall to the earth, that person must explain why things fall to the earth. He must reconcile his contradictory viewpoints.
Likewise, bitterroot is in the wrong by saying he does not need to justify his belief that lying is wrong. Quite the contrary, he does, not only because that's what the burden of proof is, but because it is central to the discussion. He is saying that lying is wrong, despite believing that there's nothing fundamentally harmful about believing an untruth, and that lying can be beneficial to the person.
Thus, I ask why lying is wrong.
Now, if you can give an example of a lie that a) you know for a fact to be a lie, b) will not be reasonably discovered by other people to be a lie, and c) has absolutely zero downsides and in fact helps people, then we can contend further on that subject.
Hasn't the whole point of this discussion been that bitterroot is claiming a prayer to a false deity is exactly such a lie?
I don't want to put words in rockondon's mouth, but it sounds like the thing he's saying is not that god doesn't exist, it's that you can't know god exists. He points out that there is no evidence for god which would satisfy the prerequisites for knowing that god exists. Asking him to prove god's existence is false is a non-sequitur.
Oh don't hide behind a non-sequitur; you're better than that.
You've made so many posts trying to get bitterroot to admit to his mistake and it seems that the two of you have something in common - you don't want to admit when you're wrong. But who cares, we're all like that. Let's move on to something more interesting.
I most certainly do not think there is a 99% chance God exists. I am certain God exists. Insofar as it is possible for a human being to know anything, I know God exists.
The fact that you don't know this for certain is obvious and I don't think I need to explain why. I'm hoping you don't pretend otherwise and force me to patronize you by having to explain the obvious.
The last sentence is equally false – insofar as a human being can know anything? Really? Clearly something that we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is known to exist to a much higher degree of certainty than a purported deity that does not have this body of evidence to support its existence.
So what you said was wrong. And you know it’s wrong. And you probably won’t admit it and I won’t ask you to. I won’t repeat myself for pages insisting that you admit your mistake though...because that’s annoying, just so you know.
Oh don't hide behind a non-sequitur; you're better than that.
I wasn't aware it was a non-sequitur at the time, although I now believe I misinterpreted what you were trying to say.
The fact that you don't know this for certain is obvious and I don't think I need to explain why. I'm hoping you don't pretend otherwise and force me to patronize you by having to explain the obvious.
I mean, I've already said I have no idea whether anything can be known with 100% certainty. I don't even know that with 100% certainty. That is why I said insofar as I can know anything, I know that God exists.
The last sentence is equally false – insofar as a human being can know anything?
I don't see the problem.
So what you said was wrong. And you know it’s wrong.
No, I legitimately do not know what I said was wrong.
Bitterroot wrote this:
Quote from bitterroot »
So let's say you think there's a 99% chance God exists and a 1% chance he doesn't.
And I responded that he is incorrect: I do not believe that there is a 99% chance God exists, I believe God exists. Full stop. I am certain God exists, insofar as any human being can be certain of anything.
I really don't see what the problem of me saying that is.
Take a position and I will structure my argument accordingly: is telling a lie morally wrong, or morally acceptable?
If we agree that telling a lie is morally wrong, I do not need to prove to you that telling a lie is morally wrong. Stop wasting my time.
Alright: I disagree that telling a lie is morally wrong.
Now, are you going to pony up, or are you going to continue to dodge the question?
Ok, I'll concede this point for the sake of argument. I think my argument wins whether lying is right or wrong. If you wish to take the position that lying is morally right, go for it.
Because let's remember the statement I'm trying to disprove here:
No, either God exists or he isn't. If he doesn't, there is no benefit to praying to God. Trying to give an atheist reasons to think prayer is valuable is doing it wrong.
All I'm trying to prove is that prayer can be beneficial if God doesn't exist. If I establish any realistic set of conditions where prayer to a false God is beneficial, I've established what I set out to prove.
I'm not making any of the following claims:
1. I'm not claiming prayer is always beneficial. I'm just challenging your statement that there is "no benefit," under any circumstances, to praying to a God that doesn't exist.
2. I'm not making any claims about the morality of lying. I personally believe lying is wrong, but as I said I think my argument succeeds even if lying is morally right.
3. I'm not making claims about anything beyond prayer, like other religious practices and beliefs. My claim is only about prayer in a vacuum. It's quite possible that false religious practices (other than prayer) are always harmful.
I also want to address why I brought up the (im)morality of lying issue in the first place. This was a response to your statement that "All lies cause harm by their being lies." The way you phrased this statement is an attempt to make it seem like I'm endorsing the act of telling a lie. I'm not doing that, and I explained this by noting I believe lying is morally wrong.
This was an attempt on my part to prevent the argument from straying off course. But you seized onto that statement and demanded I establish that lying is wrong. I can only think of two reasons why you'd care about my personal views on the issue, since bitterroot's personal views on anything are by definition irrelevant to this argument. I think either you're hoping my explanation will provide fertile ground for an ad hominem, or you're hoping you can win some kind of side-debate on lying to make it seem like you've won the actual argument. Neither of these things are legitimate debate tactics, and I won't humor them.
You are faced with the choice of doing action X or not doing action X. If the following two conditions are satisfied, you should definitely do action X.
1. Action X is not immoral.
2. Action X will benefit you, and will not cause harm to you or anyone.
Agree or disagree?
I don't know if you should definitely do action X, but it seems like a logical thing to do.
I just want to make sure I fully understand this response, since you're qualifying it. Under the set of conditions I described above, is there any reason for a rational person not to do X?
(To make sure I'm being totally clear, we're measuring "benefit" and "harm" as compared with the alternative. In other words, the benefit represents the positives gained by doing X instead of not-X.)
well, let's approach the problem from the assumption that both prayer and scientology are wrong. I've usually found that the best way to evaluate harms (both actual and potential) is to look at the worst case scenario:
In prayer's case, you have a placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and gives you the feeling that someone is listening to you.
This is not a fair accounting. People who pray will generally agree that the act reinforces and affirms their faith. Because people who pray to a variety of gods report this, and because at least all but one of those gods and possibly all of those gods are fictional, we can conclude that the act of prayer harms the individual by reinforcing false beliefs in the vast majority or potentially all cases. Having entrenched false beliefs makes it more difficult to discover the correct alternative. Not only that, but many faiths contend that worship of a false god is a grave sin. If one of those alternate faiths is correct, you are not only inhibiting yourself from discovering that fact, but also angering the god to whom you are not praying.
Even if there is no alternate god to discover or anger, most if not all people care about truth. They seek to establish real relationships, not phony hallucinated ones. Anything that reinforces a false relationship is therefore a harm.
In the very worst case, praying sends you to eternal hell, because you, like the majority of people who pray, have chosen to pray to the wrong god. More realistically, the worst case is that the act reinforces false beliefs.
I think you're making two points here.
The first is "what if you pray to the wrong God?" This is not an argument against prayer, because presumably a God will punish you the same for not praying as he would for praying to the wrong God. This is an argument that you should pray to the right God.
This rebuttal is also irrelevant to my argument, because the point I'm trying to prove is: "Prayer can be beneficial even if God does not exist." If a God or Gods does exist, then I make no claims about the benefits or harms of prayer. In fact, it kind of reinforces my point. If a God does exist, prayer might be harmful because you might pray to the wrong God. But if there is no God, then prayer is safe. No one will punish you for it.
The second point is, "the act reinforces false beliefs." But if a false belief only benefits you and never causes harm, in what sense is it bad? Perhaps you've already written your response to this question:
There doesn't need to be an impact, because the state of believing a true statement is itself a benefit.
If I say "I award you 5,000 Magic Unicorn Points," have you benefited? Of course not, Magic Unicorn Points are some ephemeral imaginary thing. They have zero real-world impact on your life. You only care about being 5,000 MUP richer if it actually impacts you in some way.
Something can only be a "benefit" if it's actually relevant to the real world in some way. Maybe the benefit is joy, maybe it's money, maybe it's friendship, love, comfort, or even a feeling of moral superiority. It can be anything, but it has to be perceived in some way.
How can something be a benefit if it has no impact? If it's never perceived or perceptible?
If I say "I award you 5,000 Magic Unicorn Points," have you benefited? Of course not, Magic Unicorn Points are some ephemeral imaginary thing. They have zero real-world impact on your life. You only care about being 5,000 MUP richer if it actually impacts you in some way.
Something can only be a "benefit" if it's actually relevant to the real world in some way. Maybe the benefit is joy, maybe it's money, maybe it's friendship, love, or comfort. It can be anything, but it has to be perceived in some way.
How con something be a benefit if it has no impact? If it's never perceived or perceptible?
If I value Magic Unicorn Points, then I benefit if I acquire them. Just as if I value truth, then I benefit if I know true things.
If I say "I award you 5,000 Magic Unicorn Points," have you benefited? Of course not, Magic Unicorn Points are some ephemeral imaginary thing. They have zero real-world impact on your life. You only care about being 5,000 MUP richer if it actually impacts you in some way.
Something can only be a "benefit" if it's actually relevant to the real world in some way. Maybe the benefit is joy, maybe it's money, maybe it's friendship, love, or comfort. It can be anything, but it has to be perceived in some way.
How con something be a benefit if it has no impact? If it's never perceived or perceptible?
If I value Magic Unicorn Points, then I benefit if I acquire them. Just as if I value truth, then I benefit if I know true things.
We need to clarify what you mean when you say you "value" them. Normally when I say I value something, it means I expect to get a benefit from it. In other words, I don't benefit from something because I value that thing. It's the other way around. I value the thing because I benefit from it.
If we stipulate that you can't redeem Magic Unicorn Points for anything, then the only benefit you could possibly get from them is psychological or emotional. Ok, fair enough. Now what if I award you the Points without telling you? I secretly "give you" 5,000 MUP and you never find out. What benefit do you get? None, of course.
Let's say I value the Magic card Jace, the Mindsculptor. In the middle of the night, you sneak into my house and sew a Jace into the lining of one of my jackets. I never discover this and it never affects my life in any way. Did I benefit from receiving this thing I value? Again, no. I never knew about it, it never affected my life.
Likewise, if I value truth, I still only benefit from believing true things if: (1) I know the belief is true, or (2) the belief has an impact on my life. What other possible benefit could I receive?
So you don't really value truth, you value the subset of truth that you can cash out for other benefits?
This is unhelpful. You're still not being clear about what it means to "value" something. Again, a typical definition would be to "consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial." This is what you get when you type "value" into Google. When I say "I value truth" it means I expect truth to be important or beneficial in some way. I hold truth in high esteem.
But the fact that I value truth doesn't mean that valuation is always correct under every circumstance. If the truth/falsehood of a particular statement is unknown or unknowable and the truth/falsehood of the statement is irrelevant to the real world, then the truth of that statement (by definition) cannot be important or beneficial to me or anyone. There is no mechanism by which it could affect anyone in any way.
This is unhelpful. You're still not being clear about what it means to "value" something. Again, a typical definition would be to "consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial." This is what you get when you type "value" into Google. When I say "I value truth" it means I expect truth to be important or beneficial in some way. I hold truth in high esteem.
But the fact that I value truth doesn't mean that valuation is always correct under every circumstance. If the truth value of a particular statement is unknown or unknowable and the truth value is irrelevant to the real world, then the truth value of that statement (by definition) cannot be important or beneficial to me or anyone. There is no mechanism by which it could affect anyone in any way.
If your valuing truth is contingent on being able to extract some outside benefit, then you don't value truth, you value that other benefit. The things you value are the things which are benefits in and of themselves. If I "value" Magic Unicorn Points because they make me happy, then the thing I actually value is happiness.
That's how I read the word "beneficial". It -is- the benefit. Not that it leads to some other thing which is beneficial.
This is unhelpful. You're still not being clear about what it means to "value" something. Again, a typical definition would be to "consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial." This is what you get when you type "value" into Google. When I say "I value truth" it means I expect truth to be important or beneficial in some way. I hold truth in high esteem.
But the fact that I value truth doesn't mean that valuation is always correct under every circumstance. If the truth value of a particular statement is unknown or unknowable and the truth value is irrelevant to the real world, then the truth value of that statement (by definition) cannot be important or beneficial to me or anyone. There is no mechanism by which it could affect anyone in any way.
If your valuing truth is contingent on being able to extract some outside benefit, then you don't value truth, you value that other benefit. The things you value are the things which are benefits in and of themselves. If I "value" Magic Unicorn Points because they make me happy, then the thing I actually value is happiness.
Most people value money, but they don't care about having little green pieces of paper in their pocket. They value what they can do with money.
You're welcome to redefine the word "value" more narrowly if you want, but doing so eviscerates the word's normal meaning. If you do redefine the word "value," you need to explain how truth can have value under your new definition.
That's how I read the word "beneficial". It -is- the benefit. Not that it leads to some other thing which is beneficial.
Certainly there are things which are beneficial in and of themselves. There is not an endless chain where everything is only beneficial because it produces some other effect, which itself produces another effect, and so on. So what do you call those ends? If you have different terminology that would better capture that concept, I'm happy to adjust. I'm not really interested in arguing about what shade of definition various words have.
Certainly there are things which are beneficial in and of themselves. There is not an endless chain where everything is only beneficial because it produces some other effect, which itself produces another effect, and so on.
I'm not sure whether such things exist. It's certainly possible that striving for "good" or "beneficial" outcomes is a continuous chain like what you describe, with no particular endpoint, in much the same way that biological evolution has no particular endpoint or goal.
If there is an endpoint to the chain, it probably terminates with achieving a particular brain state. Happiness, a feeling of love or of being loved, a sense of accomplishment or achievement, a feeling of honor, vindication, contentedness, altruism, etc. It's possible these things are beneficial in-and-of-themselves or that these are the ultimate goals we strive for when trying to obtain benefits and avoid harms.
So what do you call those ends? If you have different terminology that would better capture that concept, I'm happy to adjust. I'm not really interested in arguing about what shade of definition various words have.
For the purposes of my argument (and for the purposes of most practical discussions) the distinction between things that cause benefits and things that are themselves benefits is generally irrelevant. I call money a "benefit" even though little green pieces of paper are not inherently beneficial. I'm not aware of any term in the English language for what you're describing.
If such ends do exist, let's call them "ultimate benefits" or "endpoint benefits" for the purpose of this discussion.
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I'm not sure whether such things exist. It's certainly possible that striving for "good" or "beneficial" outcomes is a continuous chain like what you describe, with no particular endpoint, in much the same way that biological evolution has no particular endpoint or goal.
If there is an endpoint to the chain, it probably terminates with achieving a particular brain state. Happiness, a feeling of love or of being loved, a sense of accomplishment or achievement, a feeling of honor, vindication, contentedness, altruism, etc. It's possible these things are beneficial in-and-of-themselves or that these are the ultimate goals we strive for when trying to obtain benefits and avoid harms.
And knowledge is not a brain state?
If there is no end point, and nothing that is beneficial in its own right, what distinguishes things that are beneficial and things that are harmful? Is each just a set of arbitrarily categorized states that lead to one another?
For the purposes of my argument (and for the purposes of most practical discussions) the distinction between things that cause benefits and things that are themselves benefits is generally irrelevant. I call money a "benefit" even though little green pieces of paper are not inherently beneficial. I'm not aware of any term in the English language for what you're describing.
If such ends do exist, let's call them "ultimate benefits" or "endpoint benefits" for the purpose of this discussion.
My argument is that for many people, knowledge of truth is an endpoint benefit.
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I'm not sure whether such things exist. It's certainly possible that striving for "good" or "beneficial" outcomes is a continuous chain like what you describe, with no particular endpoint, in much the same way that biological evolution has no particular endpoint or goal.
If there is an endpoint to the chain, it probably terminates with achieving a particular brain state. Happiness, a feeling of love or of being loved, a sense of accomplishment or achievement, a feeling of honor, vindication, contentedness, altruism, etc. It's possible these things are beneficial in-and-of-themselves or that these are the ultimate goals we strive for when trying to obtain benefits and avoid harms.
And knowledge is not a brain state?
Of course it is. But my point (as I've reiterated several times) is that "true knowledge" and "false knowledge" are not distinguishable brain states to the person experiencing them, unless a time comes when the knowledge is proven false.
For example: Highroller "knows" God exists. Bitterroot "knows" God does not exist (I'm more of an agnostic, really, but let's say I'm a hard atheist for the sake of argument).
Both bitterroot and Highroller think their knowledge is true. We're both experiencing the subjective brain state of "true knowledge."
But we can't both be right, at least one of us is objectively incorrect. That fact, however, is irrelevant to our subjective brain states. We both think we're right.
Since the question of God's existence is so complex and controversial, it's quite likely that neither of us will ever have our beliefs about God disproved, and we'll both live out our entire lives believing our respective "knowledge" about God is true. Both of us will live our whole lives maintaining the subjective brain state of "true knowledge" even though at least one of us is unquestionably wrong.
That's my point. The subjective brain state of "true knowledge" can exist and persist independent of whether the knowledge is actually true.
If there is no end point, and nothing that is beneficial in its own right, what distinguishes things that are beneficial and things that are harmful? Is each just a set of arbitrarily categorized states that lead to one another?
I'm not saying there is or isn't an endpoint, I'm saying I don't know if there is. And I haven't been persuaded that this question is relevant to the debate we're having.
But whether there is or isn't an endpoint, it's very easy to distinguish between benefits and harms. "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as beneficial. In other words, Thing X is a benefit to me if it's something from which I obtain net positive utility. It's a harm to me if the opposite is true.
We can determine total benefit or total harm of Thing X by summing over all the subjective benefits and harms perceived by everyone who is affected by it.
For the purposes of my argument (and for the purposes of most practical discussions) the distinction between things that cause benefits and things that are themselves benefits is generally irrelevant. I call money a "benefit" even though little green pieces of paper are not inherently beneficial. I'm not aware of any term in the English language for what you're describing.
If such ends do exist, let's call them "ultimate benefits" or "endpoint benefits" for the purpose of this discussion.
My argument is that for many people, knowledge of truth is an endpoint benefit.
Again, the issue is how can one distinguish between "I think this belief is true" and "this belief is actually true" if the belief is never proven false.
I don't see the relevance of the objection that you won't find out whether you were right or not. If I value true knowledge for its own sake, it doesn't matter if it's indistinguishable from false knowledge. That would matter if I instead valued, for example, the psychological satisfaction of having true knowledge. In that case, I'd certainly get the satisfaction either way, and it would be just as good to be convincingly fooled as to be right.
If I value true knowledge for its own sake, I should avoid actions that have a high chance of reinforcing a false belief. If I instead just value the psychological satisfaction or other secondary effects, I have no reason to avoid such actions in the case where the belief is unlikely to be disproven (or impossible to disprove).
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I'm trying to get him to justify his rationale for why lying is morally wrong, especially when he seems to believe that the truth has no actual value in-and-of itself and that someone believing something false is actually beneficial.
That's not a reason. "Why do you believe something?" "Everybody else does." Again, not an argument but the absence of an argument.
Except he also argued that this isn't necessarily harmful. And if it's not harmful, so what?
First of all, factually false. My posts have been significantly longer than seven words.
Second of all, it is perfectly valid to ask someone to justify their assertions. bitterroot has not done this.
I also notice that you have nothing to say on me stating you actually haven't made an argument, just a contradiction.
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
Second, as I've stated before, the entire point of this line of dialogue is that bitterroot's own logic justifies lying. bitterroot has said himself that he does not agree that truth has any inherent value in-and-of itself, and as such lying to someone does them no harm in-and-of them believing a lie. Moreover, bitterroot has said that lies can, in fact, actually be beneficial to the person lied to.
If this is correct, then it logically follows that we should lie constantly, at least in ways that result in the benefits of others, yet bitterroot objects on the grounds that lying is morally wrong. For some reason. Despite his repeated claims that it is not inherently harmful and actually beneficial. And his defense of prayer to a false deity, which is also not inherently harmful and actually beneficial.
When pressed for a rationale for this, bitterroot has repeatedly declined any justification. He's none nothing but repeat what is essentially, "Lying is morally wrong for reasons I don't have to explain to you but totally exist." Meanwhile, he has repeatedly defended prayer to a false deity on the grounds of it causing no harm and its benefits.
Thus, burden of proof requires bitterroot actually justify his grounds for declaring lying morally wrong, because by his own logic, lying is a thing to benefit others. Maybe he believes that benefiting others is wrong? I don't know. He refuses to explain it, yet expects us all to accept it as fact.
what he is ACTUALLY saying (if you would have bothered to read the content of his posts) is that BELIEVING a lie can be a net benefit. He has said that the act of TELLING a lie is morally wrong, but that there is nothing morally wrong with BELIEVING a lie, so long as that lie is not, in fact, proven to be a lie.
And, if I may extrapolate a bit, if you truly believe something (i.e. prayer) and you tell someone else that thing, then you are not lying, because you believe what you are telling them is the truth. You are not lying to them, you are just wrong, if it comes out that what you are telling them is in fact inaccurate.
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
You just said believing a lie can have a net benefit, right? Is it morally wrong or morally correct to benefit people? So if it's morally right to benefit people, and it is not morally wrong to believe a lie, and it's not harmful to a believe a lie in-and-of it being untrue, and it's beneficial to a person to believe the lie, then from whence is it morally wrong to tell someone a lie?
Simple logic. If I have a lie that benefits people, then by bitterroot's reasoning, I should lie as much as possible to as many people as possible, right?
But bitterroot seems to disagree. I want to know why, which is why I've been asking, because it doesn't seem to make any sense. Yet, bitterroot doesn't seem to want to share this reason, instead preferring to avoid it.
Indeed, by Walker Boh's reasoning, bitterroot's avoidance would indicate he has no reason and is making "just a contradiction" without it being founded upon anything.
I know. I have, in fact, said exactly this in the thread. (Which you must surely know since you, given what you posted above, definitely would have bothered to read the content of my posts, right? )
The problem is bitterroot is quick to defend prayer to a god that doesn't exist, but quick to condemn Scientology for it not being true, calling it "fraud" or something at least similar to fraud. This is contradictory, and has lead me to ask him why prayer gets a pass and Scientology gets condemnation.
Demonstrate God's existence is false.
I don't want to put words in rockondon's mouth, but it sounds like the thing he's saying is not that god doesn't exist, it's that you can't know god exists. He points out that there is no evidence for god which would satisfy the prerequisites for knowing that god exists. Asking him to prove god's existence is false is a non-sequitur.
I don't want to put words in rockondon's mouth, but I don't think he's saying that god definitely doesn't exist. He's saying you can't actually know god does exist. He demonstrates this by pointing out that there does not exist any evidence which would justify that knowledge. So, if you believe you know god exists, then you are operating under a false belief. You just think god exists, but lack the evidence to truly know it.
In prayer's case, you have a placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and gives you the feeling that someone is listening to you.
In Scientology's case, you have given thousands of dollars to an organization that actively tells you to ostracize yourself from your friends and family, and you have told every dirty secret you have to said organization so that they can blackmail you into following them some more. Plus the fact of what you have heard happens to people HAVE left: harassment, public humiliation, and attempted kidnappings. And, yes, the placebo effect that has you feel good about yourself and the feeling that someone is listening to you.
Now, then, going from the premise that both are wrong, what actual harm does prayer cause, compared to Scientology?
Onto the subject of lying being moral or not, what makes something moral? Well, since we can't give a deity the credit (as you would then ask us to prove said deity's existence) we can only go by what Society has told us: that lying is morally wrong.
If your going to continue to say that is a stupid reason, then I have one question: if believing something solely because society says it is, why do we believe anything society tells us?
I have a theory: Societies of the past have found that lying to someone causes them harm, and as such created moral codes that included not lying to people, codes that we have continued to this day.
Question: Do you feel the need to contradict someone that you feel agrees with you?
Now, if you can give an example of a lie that a) you know for a fact to be a lie, b) will not be reasonably discovered by other people to be a lie, and c) has absolutely zero downsides and in fact helps people, then we can contend further on that subject.
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
This is not a fair accounting. People who pray will generally agree that the act reinforces and affirms their faith. Because people who pray to a variety of gods report this, and because at least all but one of those gods and possibly all of those gods are fictional, we can conclude that the act of prayer harms the individual by reinforcing false beliefs in the vast majority or potentially all cases. Having entrenched false beliefs makes it more difficult to discover the correct alternative. Not only that, but many faiths contend that worship of a false god is a grave sin. If one of those alternate faiths is correct, you are not only inhibiting yourself from discovering that fact, but also angering the god to whom you are not praying.
Even if there is no alternate god to discover or anger, most if not all people care about truth. They seek to establish real relationships, not phony hallucinated ones. Anything that reinforces a false relationship is therefore a harm.
In the very worst case, praying sends you to eternal hell, because you, like the majority of people who pray, have chosen to pray to the wrong god. More realistically, the worst case is that the act reinforces false beliefs.
But that doesn't answer the question. "People have argued that lying is wrong" does not answer, "Why is lying wrong?" It only prompts the question.
It's not a reason period. It does nothing to answer the question, "Why is lying wrong?"
Moreover, it's not acknowledging the other obvious question, "Is society CORRECT in saying that lying is morally wrong?"
I don't believe that's a grammatically correct sentence. Did you mean to say, "If we shouldn't believe something solely because society says it is so, why do we believe anything society tells us?"
Why we DO believe anything anybody tells us can be summed up in one of two ways:
1. We have assessed the reasons why that person believes and propagates his/her belief in that thing being so, and we agree with the reasons.
2. We just assume that person has valid reasons, and believe it without questioning what these reasons are or whether they are actually valid.
However, the whole point of philosophy is that, while those two reasons can answer the question of why we DO believe things people tell us, number 1 is the only reason we SHOULD believe things people tell us. You may recall Plato's dialogues in which Socrates repeatedly tells people to question all things.
We especially should not blindly trust what anyone tells us because we know that people can be wrong. Also that societies can be wrong. I have the feeling you don't believe that raping and pillaging other villages is correct, nor that slavery is a proper institution that any moral person would agree with. Thus, you must acknowledge that there is a need to question why things are stated to be moral, and just because other people say they are does not mean they are.
Wait, whoa there.
You said lying can benefit someone. It says so right here in post #55:
So a lie need not necessarily cause a person harm, and in fact could benefit them.
But if those codes are saying that lying is immoral on the grounds that it is harmful, then any lie that benefits cannot logically be immoral, right?
Do you see the problem? bitterroot is saying that:
1. A lie can beneficial without being harmful.
2. Something can be immoral regardless of whether or not it is harmful. Thus, morality has nothing to do with whether or not the thing causes harm.
For these reasons, your rationale for why society believes lying is wrong disagrees with bitterroot.
So do you not agree that bitterroot must provide his rationale for why lying is wrong?
Except that's just it, bitterroot clearly does not agree with me. Nor does he agree with you, as evidenced above.
Imagine if a person came around here saying gravity does not exist. I would respond to that person asking him, "If gravity does not exist, then why do things fall to the earth when dropped?" Imagine if that person then responded, "I don't think that's relevant to our discussion. If you actually believe things don't fall to the earth when dropped, then we can debate that. If you believe things fall to the earth when dropped, then we shouldn't waste time discussing why."
That person would be in the wrong, because WHY things fall to the earth is extremely important and relevant to the discussion. If a person were to proclaim gravity to not exist, but that things fall to the earth, that person must explain why things fall to the earth. He must reconcile his contradictory viewpoints.
Likewise, bitterroot is in the wrong by saying he does not need to justify his belief that lying is wrong. Quite the contrary, he does, not only because that's what the burden of proof is, but because it is central to the discussion. He is saying that lying is wrong, despite believing that there's nothing fundamentally harmful about believing an untruth, and that lying can be beneficial to the person.
Thus, I ask why lying is wrong.
Hasn't the whole point of this discussion been that bitterroot is claiming a prayer to a false deity is exactly such a lie?
You've made so many posts trying to get bitterroot to admit to his mistake and it seems that the two of you have something in common - you don't want to admit when you're wrong. But who cares, we're all like that. Let's move on to something more interesting.
The fact that you don't know this for certain is obvious and I don't think I need to explain why. I'm hoping you don't pretend otherwise and force me to patronize you by having to explain the obvious.
The last sentence is equally false – insofar as a human being can know anything? Really? Clearly something that we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell is known to exist to a much higher degree of certainty than a purported deity that does not have this body of evidence to support its existence.
So what you said was wrong. And you know it’s wrong. And you probably won’t admit it and I won’t ask you to. I won’t repeat myself for pages insisting that you admit your mistake though...because that’s annoying, just so you know.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.
I mean, I've already said I have no idea whether anything can be known with 100% certainty. I don't even know that with 100% certainty. That is why I said insofar as I can know anything, I know that God exists.
I don't see the problem.
No, I legitimately do not know what I said was wrong.
Bitterroot wrote this:
And I responded that he is incorrect: I do not believe that there is a 99% chance God exists, I believe God exists. Full stop. I am certain God exists, insofar as any human being can be certain of anything.
I really don't see what the problem of me saying that is.
Ok, I'll concede this point for the sake of argument. I think my argument wins whether lying is right or wrong. If you wish to take the position that lying is morally right, go for it.
Because let's remember the statement I'm trying to disprove here:
All I'm trying to prove is that prayer can be beneficial if God doesn't exist. If I establish any realistic set of conditions where prayer to a false God is beneficial, I've established what I set out to prove.
I'm not making any of the following claims:
1. I'm not claiming prayer is always beneficial. I'm just challenging your statement that there is "no benefit," under any circumstances, to praying to a God that doesn't exist.
2. I'm not making any claims about the morality of lying. I personally believe lying is wrong, but as I said I think my argument succeeds even if lying is morally right.
3. I'm not making claims about anything beyond prayer, like other religious practices and beliefs. My claim is only about prayer in a vacuum. It's quite possible that false religious practices (other than prayer) are always harmful.
I also want to address why I brought up the (im)morality of lying issue in the first place. This was a response to your statement that "All lies cause harm by their being lies." The way you phrased this statement is an attempt to make it seem like I'm endorsing the act of telling a lie. I'm not doing that, and I explained this by noting I believe lying is morally wrong.
This was an attempt on my part to prevent the argument from straying off course. But you seized onto that statement and demanded I establish that lying is wrong. I can only think of two reasons why you'd care about my personal views on the issue, since bitterroot's personal views on anything are by definition irrelevant to this argument. I think either you're hoping my explanation will provide fertile ground for an ad hominem, or you're hoping you can win some kind of side-debate on lying to make it seem like you've won the actual argument. Neither of these things are legitimate debate tactics, and I won't humor them.
I just want to make sure I fully understand this response, since you're qualifying it. Under the set of conditions I described above, is there any reason for a rational person not to do X?
(To make sure I'm being totally clear, we're measuring "benefit" and "harm" as compared with the alternative. In other words, the benefit represents the positives gained by doing X instead of not-X.)
I think you're making two points here.
The first is "what if you pray to the wrong God?" This is not an argument against prayer, because presumably a God will punish you the same for not praying as he would for praying to the wrong God. This is an argument that you should pray to the right God.
This rebuttal is also irrelevant to my argument, because the point I'm trying to prove is: "Prayer can be beneficial even if God does not exist." If a God or Gods does exist, then I make no claims about the benefits or harms of prayer. In fact, it kind of reinforces my point. If a God does exist, prayer might be harmful because you might pray to the wrong God. But if there is no God, then prayer is safe. No one will punish you for it.
The second point is, "the act reinforces false beliefs." But if a false belief only benefits you and never causes harm, in what sense is it bad? Perhaps you've already written your response to this question:
If I say "I award you 5,000 Magic Unicorn Points," have you benefited? Of course not, Magic Unicorn Points are some ephemeral imaginary thing. They have zero real-world impact on your life. You only care about being 5,000 MUP richer if it actually impacts you in some way.
Something can only be a "benefit" if it's actually relevant to the real world in some way. Maybe the benefit is joy, maybe it's money, maybe it's friendship, love, comfort, or even a feeling of moral superiority. It can be anything, but it has to be perceived in some way.
How can something be a benefit if it has no impact? If it's never perceived or perceptible?
If I value Magic Unicorn Points, then I benefit if I acquire them. Just as if I value truth, then I benefit if I know true things.
We need to clarify what you mean when you say you "value" them. Normally when I say I value something, it means I expect to get a benefit from it. In other words, I don't benefit from something because I value that thing. It's the other way around. I value the thing because I benefit from it.
If we stipulate that you can't redeem Magic Unicorn Points for anything, then the only benefit you could possibly get from them is psychological or emotional. Ok, fair enough. Now what if I award you the Points without telling you? I secretly "give you" 5,000 MUP and you never find out. What benefit do you get? None, of course.
Let's say I value the Magic card Jace, the Mindsculptor. In the middle of the night, you sneak into my house and sew a Jace into the lining of one of my jackets. I never discover this and it never affects my life in any way. Did I benefit from receiving this thing I value? Again, no. I never knew about it, it never affected my life.
Likewise, if I value truth, I still only benefit from believing true things if: (1) I know the belief is true, or (2) the belief has an impact on my life. What other possible benefit could I receive?
This is unhelpful. You're still not being clear about what it means to "value" something. Again, a typical definition would be to "consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial." This is what you get when you type "value" into Google. When I say "I value truth" it means I expect truth to be important or beneficial in some way. I hold truth in high esteem.
But the fact that I value truth doesn't mean that valuation is always correct under every circumstance. If the truth/falsehood of a particular statement is unknown or unknowable and the truth/falsehood of the statement is irrelevant to the real world, then the truth of that statement (by definition) cannot be important or beneficial to me or anyone. There is no mechanism by which it could affect anyone in any way.
If your valuing truth is contingent on being able to extract some outside benefit, then you don't value truth, you value that other benefit. The things you value are the things which are benefits in and of themselves. If I "value" Magic Unicorn Points because they make me happy, then the thing I actually value is happiness.
That's how I read the word "beneficial". It -is- the benefit. Not that it leads to some other thing which is beneficial.
Most people value money, but they don't care about having little green pieces of paper in their pocket. They value what they can do with money.
You're welcome to redefine the word "value" more narrowly if you want, but doing so eviscerates the word's normal meaning. If you do redefine the word "value," you need to explain how truth can have value under your new definition.
Again, "beneficial" normally means something like "producing good or helpful results or effects : producing benefits." A beneficial thing need only "produce" beneficial "results."
Again, feel free to redefine "beneficial," but you still need to provide logical support for your position under the new definition.
I'm not sure whether such things exist. It's certainly possible that striving for "good" or "beneficial" outcomes is a continuous chain like what you describe, with no particular endpoint, in much the same way that biological evolution has no particular endpoint or goal.
If there is an endpoint to the chain, it probably terminates with achieving a particular brain state. Happiness, a feeling of love or of being loved, a sense of accomplishment or achievement, a feeling of honor, vindication, contentedness, altruism, etc. It's possible these things are beneficial in-and-of-themselves or that these are the ultimate goals we strive for when trying to obtain benefits and avoid harms.
For the purposes of my argument (and for the purposes of most practical discussions) the distinction between things that cause benefits and things that are themselves benefits is generally irrelevant. I call money a "benefit" even though little green pieces of paper are not inherently beneficial. I'm not aware of any term in the English language for what you're describing.
If such ends do exist, let's call them "ultimate benefits" or "endpoint benefits" for the purpose of this discussion.
And knowledge is not a brain state?
If there is no end point, and nothing that is beneficial in its own right, what distinguishes things that are beneficial and things that are harmful? Is each just a set of arbitrarily categorized states that lead to one another?
My argument is that for many people, knowledge of truth is an endpoint benefit.
Of course it is. But my point (as I've reiterated several times) is that "true knowledge" and "false knowledge" are not distinguishable brain states to the person experiencing them, unless a time comes when the knowledge is proven false.
For example: Highroller "knows" God exists. Bitterroot "knows" God does not exist (I'm more of an agnostic, really, but let's say I'm a hard atheist for the sake of argument).
Both bitterroot and Highroller think their knowledge is true. We're both experiencing the subjective brain state of "true knowledge."
But we can't both be right, at least one of us is objectively incorrect. That fact, however, is irrelevant to our subjective brain states. We both think we're right.
Since the question of God's existence is so complex and controversial, it's quite likely that neither of us will ever have our beliefs about God disproved, and we'll both live out our entire lives believing our respective "knowledge" about God is true. Both of us will live our whole lives maintaining the subjective brain state of "true knowledge" even though at least one of us is unquestionably wrong.
That's my point. The subjective brain state of "true knowledge" can exist and persist independent of whether the knowledge is actually true.
I'm not saying there is or isn't an endpoint, I'm saying I don't know if there is. And I haven't been persuaded that this question is relevant to the debate we're having.
But whether there is or isn't an endpoint, it's very easy to distinguish between benefits and harms. "Thing X" is a benefit to me if I subjectively perceive the sum total of its effects as beneficial. In other words, Thing X is a benefit to me if it's something from which I obtain net positive utility. It's a harm to me if the opposite is true.
We can determine total benefit or total harm of Thing X by summing over all the subjective benefits and harms perceived by everyone who is affected by it.
Again, the issue is how can one distinguish between "I think this belief is true" and "this belief is actually true" if the belief is never proven false.
If I value true knowledge for its own sake, I should avoid actions that have a high chance of reinforcing a false belief. If I instead just value the psychological satisfaction or other secondary effects, I have no reason to avoid such actions in the case where the belief is unlikely to be disproven (or impossible to disprove).