99Percent

Sorry again for the delay. I have been quite busy lately (thanks to the new competition at my business ) Anyway I have been giving Koy's post a lot of thought. I think I have figured out a way to explain to him, what the objectivity of objective morality is. BD, Alonzo and Anticris I will get to your posts later (hopefully soon).

Koyaanisqatsi: MORE: Morality only applies to human beings,
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Because human beings created it and selectively applied it only to human beings based upon our entrenched homocentricity, thereby establishing unquestionably the subjective quality of morality?

It doesn't follow. Just because morality is an invention of humanity it doesn't mean it must be of subjective quality.

Lets suppose morality is an invention of humanity such as a table. A table objectively exists right? If I point to you this object where my computer is sitting on, and ask you what it is you would immediately reply that it is obviously a table, no doubt about it. Likewise if we both go to a restaurant and ask me what is the object where our coffee mugs are standing you would answer that it is a table, and I would completely agree.

But by your logic, the table is subjective, because if no humans existed the table would just be a piece of wood, or simply a bunch of matter arranged in such a way that only a human can understand that it is a table.

That is why I say that objective morality is objective within the realm of human understanding. Your insistence that morality must be subjective is nothing but self defeating.

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

This is a reply to your longer June 9 post.

1. On morals and atoms

In response to my argument that your “atoms” analogy is irrelevant and misleading you said:

It appears from your comments following this that the “factual” content of your proposal that parallels the scientist’s discovery that the smallest units of elements have “parts” is the “discovery” that there is no such thing as an intrinsic property of “ought-to-be-doneness”. There are two problems with this:

(1) The “fact” that there is no such property is not an empirical fact about the universe. There is no conceivable universe in which such a property could exist; there is no conceivable experiment or observation which could in principle have any bearing on the question of whether such a property exists. The fact that there is no such property is a logical fact; the “discovery” that there is no such property is a result of careful philosophical/logical analysis of the concept.

(2) More importantly, my whole argument takes it for granted that there is no such property. When I talk about other possible moral theories, I take it for granted that theories that involve the assumption that such a property exists are out of court from the start, on the grounds that they are logically incoherent.

This seems to be a major reason why we often seem to be talking past one another. You seem to be intent on refuting “intrinsic property” moral theories, whereas I have no interest in them. You seem to repeatedly mistake my questions about why your theory is preferable to or superior to others as questions about in what sense your theory is preferable or superior to “intrinsic property” theories, whereas what I’m really interested in is on what basis (if any) you consider your theory preferable or superior to other non-intrinsic-property theories.

Just to put an exclamation point on what I’ve said above: The kind of “morals talk” that you seem to be referring to here (i.e., talk which assumes the existence of an intrinsic property of “ought-to-be-doneness&#8221 would not be legitimate in any universe. Why don’t we just stop talking about it?

This seems to be the heart of your argument that there is actually some fact about the real world that plays a role analogous to the fact that the smallest units of elements have parts in “justifying” adoption of your theory. But as I pointed out before, this is not an empirical fact at all, but a tautology. To say that someone acted intentionally (which is a necessary condition for saying that he “should” or “shouldn’t” have done it) is to say that he had a purpose. To say that he had a purpose is to say that he desired to bring about certain results. These are facts about the English language, not facts about the “real world”.

That shouldn’t be a big surprise, because BDI theory is not a psychological theory, but a philosophical one, which is to say that it is an analysis of the language involved. Or if you prefer, a proposal to use it in a certain way.

Since BDI theory has no factual content, the right lesson to draw is that we should be careful to use moral language (like any other language) in a way that is logically coherent. I do not agree that common moral usage is logically incoherent in the sense that it cannot be construed in a logically coherent way. To put it another way, I do not agree that the logic of moral discourse presumes that there is an intrinsic property of “ought-to-be-doneness”. In fact, very few moral philosophers do agree with this. You’re out on a very shaky limb with Mackie on this.

2. “Reasons” and hanging Jones

Yes, I was a bit sloppy here. I should have said “a reason that the agent has for not doing it” rather than “a reason for the agent not to do it”. But an ambiguity exists only when the term “reason” is interpreted in your peculiar fashion, which I discuss below.

Now let’s look at your discussion with Jones about your reasons for hanging him.

What I was pointing out is that you cannot (under your theory) offer the fact that what Jones did was wrong as a justification for hanging him. I’m well aware that you agree with this, but other readers might not be. And in any case it’s a serious point. Under your theory, the only kind of meaningful reason that you can give for hanging him is that doing so will satisfy more (or stronger) desires that you have than not hanging him. You can use the term “moral-ought” in your sense in the course of explaining just what desires that you have are satisfied by hanging him, but that’s the only role that “moral-ought” can play in any explanation.

Sure, but this meaning of “good desires” is transparently derived from your meaning of “should”, “wrong”, and other moral terms. These definitions form a consistent set. So do lots of other sets of definitions of moral terms.

You continue:

True enough. In reality it’s the other way around. You defined “moral-ought” and “best reasons” the way you did because for you the fact that an act best satisfies the aggregate of all relevant desires is a motive for doing it.

Nice equivocation.

To clarify, let’s call the desires of everyone other than the agent “external desires”, and the agent’s desires “internal desires”. According to your terminology, the fact that either type of desire will be satisfied by an act is a “reason” for doing it. But this language conceals a question-begging assumption concealed by an equivocation.

Consider how you justified calling a “desire” a “reason for action”. You began by saying that the only “values” that really “exist” are values that derive from desire, because only such “values” are “capable of causing muscles to move”. The next step was to say that the only sort of thing that can be properly called a “reason for action” is something that can actually cause action – i.e., a desire. This makes sense if you are using “value” in the sense of “something that someone desires” (which of course makes the first statement a tautology) and “reason” in the sense of “cause” or “motive”.

But the next step was to refer to external desires as “reasons for action” as well, even though they cannot possibly be a cause or motive for the agent – they cannot cause his muscles to move. (A desire on the part of the agent to satisfy someone else’s desire can of course be a cause or motive, but that’s a horse of a different color.) Yet this step looks superficially plausible, because there is another sense of “reason for action”, namely, a justification for the action. And of course we are used to thinking of the fact that someone has a desire that will be satisfied by an action as a “justification,” in the moral sense, for doing it, and hence as a “reason” for doing it. But this is a very different sense of “reason” than the original sense of being something that can cause muscles to move.

Thus the maneuver of calling external desires “reasons for action” smuggled the concept of moral justification into the very vocabulary that you use to discuss moral questions. But this is begging the very question at issue. The effect is to make the all-things-considered sense of “should” appear to be the only “natural” or “reasonable” one. As you put it later:

Of course, no moral theory ever uses a subset of all the “reasons that exist” to determine what one “should” do, if by “reasons” one means moral justifications. But lots of moral theories do not treat every possible desire on anyone’s part for something that will be produced by an action as a morally relevant consideration. Of course your moral theory may be preferable or superior to, or more “reasonable” than such theories in some sense, but these kinds of verbal tricks are irrelevant to this question (assuming that it’s even a meaningful question).

You now introduce the final non sequitur:

Thus you attempt segue smoothly from the suggestion that external desires are the same kinds of reasons for action as internal desires to the suggestion that it is a perfectly natural expectation that they will motivate the agent to act in such a way as to satisfy them. But this is exactly what you have repeatedly denied. Thus you said earlier:

What’s more, you have said repeatedly that whether you morally-ought to do something has nothing to do with whether it is rational for you to do it, or indeed whether you have any reason at all to do it. For example:

So (on your showing) the transition from “I morally-ought to hang you” to “Prepare to be hanged” is a complete mystery. Given that whether you morally-ought to hang Jones has nothing to do with the reasons you have for hanging Jones, and whether you hang Jones depends entirely on whether you have enough reasons for hanging him to motivate you to do it, whence the “so” in “So, prepare to be hanged”?

This is what I meant when I said that you cannot offer the fact that what Jones did was wrong as a reason for hanging him. By the very nature of your definition of “wrong” it cannot be a reason in the sense of being a cause or motive. And since your definition of “wrong” is essentially arbitrary (a fact that was somewhat obscured by the equivocation described earlier) it is a moral justification only in the trivial sense that it is “justified” according to your theory’s arbitrary set of definitions of moral terms.

By the way, although you’ve finally answered all of the questions at the end of my June 4 post, you never really responded to it. I spent a lot of time preparing this post, and I was looking forward to your comments.

P.S.: Another weekend is approaching, so I’ll probably have much less time to hang out here until Monday.

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

I am heading out in a couple of hours for two weeks in the wilderness.

Before I left, I wanted to contribute something to the debate between BD and 99percent.

In my younger days, I was an Ayn Rand sort of objectivist, using much the same arguments that 99percent uses. But I was bothered by the fact
that Ayn Rand's philosophy was given so little respect among professional philosophers. So I asked, "What's wrong with it?"

My fellow Objectivists snorted some derisive comments, but one of them pointed me to an article. Unfortunately, I do not remember the article, but I remember the argument contained within. That argument convinced me that the Ayn Rand style of objectivism makes some serious mistakes.

The most significant mistake is a fallacy pointed out by David Hume. Ayn Rand barely gets two steps away from the gate before falling over this piece of logic.

Man is a rational animal
Therefore, man ought to act rationally.

It does not follow. It is no more logical than saying "My car is green, therefore my car ought to be green."

I have seen objectivists introduce epicycles upon epicycles to fill the logical gap in this line of reasoning, yet the gap remains -- because "is" means one thing, "ought" means something else, and the only type of premises that will fill the gap are those that explain some sort of equality between "is" and "ought", which remains lacking in Ayn Rand objectivism.

Also, I noticed that my Objectivist friends would always say that the virtue of capitalism was not its capacity to produce great conseqeunces. Like Ayn Rand herself, they condemned utilitarian capitalists for building capitalism on the uncertain foundation of "best consequences" rather than the more solid foundation of "natural rights."

Yet, they all believed that unfettered capitalism would, in fact, bring about a golden age. Was this golden age really just an accidental and unimportant side-effect of obeying natural rights? Listening to them talk, I found this hard to accept after a while. If one were to provide evidence that Objectivism would spread misery and poverty, then these people would in fact suddenly see the is-ought fallacy.

In short, a longing for the promised "golden age" of unfettered capitalism blinded them to the huge logical crack in its foundation.

Anyway, 99percent, what BD is trying to point out to you is that all of your arguments contain a logical gap like that described above.

Now, I think that, ultimately, there must be some sort of bridge across the is/ought gap. Fact/value dualism has the same problem as mind/value dualism -- if these different types of entities exist then how do they interact to influence things in the real world? Values must be real, must exist in some way in the world of "is", or they are irrelevant in making real-world decisions.

But I do not see any bridge across the fact/value gap that patches the crack in the logical foundation of Ayn Rand objectivism.

Alonzo Fyfe

I will be leaving shortly, so I have time for only a few quick comments.

This seems to be a major reason why we often seem to be talking past one another. You seem to be intent on refuting "intrinsic property" moral theories, whereas I have no interest in them.

Your protestations here seem to me like that of the man who pounds his fists on the table and shouts with reddened face, "I AM NOT ANGRY!"

Though you say that you do not believe that intrinsic moral properties exist, most of your objections to my theory are objections that seem to require their existence in order to make sense. Your two most common objections are:

(1) When I and the KKK supporter apply the term "moral right" in different ways, you argue that there must be an objective reason for deciding between our two definitions. The best way to understand this objection is a demand for an objective reason to believe that one set of referants have an intrinsic value property that the other does not have. Failure to provide justification for believing in such a property means that the attribution of such a property is subjective. What is this "something more" if it is not an intrinsic value property?

(2) You assert that somehow a person who has a "sufficient knowledge and understanding" of certain states of affairs will value it in a particular way. The most common way to link knowledge and understanding on the one hand, and valuing something on the other, is through an intrinsic value property. If you were to answer that value simply in what knowledge and understanding would cause them to value, then value itself does not exist.

In short, though you claim that there are no intrinsic values, I find no way to make sense of your objections other than as presupposing their existence. Against which, my claim that there are no intrinsic values provides sufficient reason to reject those objections.

If there is a sense to be made of your objections consistent with your claim that no intrinsic values exist, it is a sense that I yet have not been able to grasp.


...BDI theory is not a psychological theory, but a philosophical one, which is to say that it is an analysis of the language involved. Or is you prefer, a proposal to use it in a certain way. To say that someone acted intentionally (which is a necessary condition for saying that he "should" or "shouldn't" have done it) is to say that he had a purpose. To say that he had a purpose is to say that he desired to bring about certain results.

I am afraid that many people in the field of cognative science disagree with your theory. The following is a quote from <a href="http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/ArchiveFolder/Research%20Group/Publications/Sim1/sim1.html" target="_blank">Folk Psychology: Simulation or Tacit Theory</a>.

Among the many cognitive capacities that people manifest, there is one cluster that holds a particular fascination for philosophers. Included in this cluster is the ability to describe people and their behavior (including their linguistic behavior) in intentional terms - or to "interpret" them, as philosophers sometimes say. We exercise this ability when we describe John as believing that the mail has come, or when we say that Anna wants to go to the library. By exploiting these intentional descriptions, people are able to offer explanations of each other's behavior (Susan left the building because she believed that it was on fire) and to predict each other's behavior, often with impressive accuracy. Since the dominant strategy for explaining any cognitive capacity is to posit an internally represented theory, it is not surprising that in this area, too, it is generally assumed that a theory is being invoked. [Churchland 1981 & 1989, Fodor 1987, Sellars 1963. See also Olson et. al. 1988] The term "folk psychology" has been widely used as a label for the largely tacit psychological theory that underlies these abilities. During the last decade or so there has been a fair amount of empirical work aimed at describing or modeling folk psychology and tracking its emergence and development in the child. [D'Andrade 1987, Leslie 1987, Astington et. al. 1988]

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

The AntiChris

bd-from-kg

I've been following this thread with great interest (although this shouldn't be taken as any indication that I fully understand all the issues being debated here ).

Well, that's a relief. I was afraid my tenuous grasp on this subject was about to slip completely!

While Alonzo's away, I'd like to pick your brain.

I'd be interested to know in what "sense" you believe there is an "objective" morality. I'd particularly like to know how you justify your theory (above other theories) without recourse to intrinsic moral properties or, as Alonzo puts it, "something moreness".

Chris

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

This is a response to your latest post. Later I plan to answer the June 11 post (finally) and then sketch out my own moral theory.

More like a guy who gets annoyed at a child who keeps asking “Are we there yet”? After a while it gets tiresome.

You know better than that. Unlike the other posters here, you have some idea of what my moral theory is.

Not so. I argue that for your theory to qualify as an objective morality in any serious sense there must be such a reason. Since you have said several times by now that there isn’t, yours is just another subjective theory.

That may be the most common way, but it’s not my way.

OK, you have no idea how there could be a nontheistic objective morality. No problem. Now would you please stop calling yourself an objectivist?

The article you linked to is really interesting, and there does seem to be some actual science involved. (Section 5 was especially interesting.) However, the eliminativist position that there are no such things as beliefs, desires, purposes, intentions, etc. seems to me to be patently ridiculous, But maybe that’s just me. Maybe when Susie goes to Friendly’s, buys a banana split and eats it with obvious enjoyment I am wrong in thinking that she desired to eat a delicious banana split, that she believed that she could get one at Friendly’s, that she went to Friendly’s for the purpose of doing so, and that she bought it with the intention of eating it. And maybe every thought that I’ve had in my entire life is nonsense. Maybe.

In any case, the relationships that I mentioned are indeed tautological. This is true regardless of whether they correspond to anything in the real world. It simply does not make sense to say that an intentional action does not have a purpose, or that a purpose does not involve a desire. For example, if Susie’s purpose in heading for Friendly’s was to get a banana split, by definition she intended to get a banana split, and desired to get a banana split. This has nothing to do with BDI theory or any other theory. It is simply a matter of how these words are used in the English language.

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

dk--

I found your post to be yet another largely unintelligible hodge podge of pointless, esoteric ramblings. I was going to go through them all as I usually do point-by-point and began only to then realize it was ultimately hopeless to attempt to reign all of that in to anywhere near a coherent central argument, so I have decided to break with my normal procedure and just ignore your post entirely.

I don't think either of us will lose any sleep over that decision, but I do apologize because it was clear you spent some time in your "response."

Excellent!

If it is "objectively immoral" to kill, then that immorality must apply to anything that kills, since the immorality--in order for it to be considered "objective"--must, in turn, be an intrinsic element to the act itself.

There just is no way around this, other than redefining the term "objective" to mean "subjective," which is, again, all I see being done here without justification.

I certainly hope this will represent justification, yes...?

A table is tangible, not an abstract concept such as morality.

Also, the question of morality is not a fixed number like a table is a fixed number; the question of morality is a judgment call; a determination of "rightness" as opposed to "wrongness" and therefore hopelessly comparative at all times, which, in turn, mandates subjectivity.

This is precisely why bd's analogy was invalid.

Yes, because the table exists independently of our perceptions, which is the primary defining quality of "objective."

Morality--as everyone in here agrees--does not exist independently of human perception, so if immorality is not intrinsic in the act it cannot be said to be objective, just as the abstract quality of the "concept of a table" is instrinsic in the actuality of the table.

This is the distinction I have repeatedly made and no one has addressed.

A table is a tangible, objective "thing" because the "concept of tableness" is intrinsic in the construction of the table; it contains itself.

Morality, however, does not "contain" itself. That act is what is judged, but the act is not intrinsically "right" or "wrong." That is a judgment that is made by an individual; a comparative judgment that does not exist in the case of the table.

One cannot look at a table and say, "That's not a table" (in any relevant way).

One can, however, look at the manner of killing and say, "That's not immoral," because the immorality is not intrinsic within the action, so there is nothing to establish an objective quality to the action or the morality.

No, "it" is not, just our perceptions of certain attributes, such as the color of paint, the type of wood; aka, trivial matters.

Well, technically that's correct since without humans no table would ever have been formed out of wood to begin with (or stone or concrete, etc.), but, once the table is constructed and can therefore be said to exist as a "table," then it intrinsically contains the "concept of tableness" the carpenter had as his meta blueprint, if you will.

Technically, it can be said that it is this "concept of tableness" contained within the meta structure of the physical object that mandates objectivity. It is therefore said to be a "table" by every human being who views it and would still be "considered" a table even after a nuclear blast destroyed all humanity, because it contains and conveys, ultimately, the intrinsic "concept of tableness."

This cannot be said for acts judged by morality. The "wrongness" or "rightness" is not intrinsic in the act being so judged.

Further, it is the judgment that is the ultimate action in regard to morality; a comparative decision which is impossible to be said to be objectively determined for humans (if that determination is not intrinsic in the act) or by humans, unless it can be established that every single human being that has ever existed concurs without question or comment that a certain action is immoral.

This condition, however, is necessarily and ultimately subjective precisely because it depends entirely upon consensus.

One dissenting vote renders the entirety subjective and therefore, it cannot be said to be objectively determined, nor, for that matter "objective."

Thus, there is no such thing as "objectively wrong" or "objectively right" for all humans, much less for all existence, which, for no justifiable reason, everyone has simply discounted from the equation anyway.

The "concept of tableness."

Non sequitur.

Your inability to see that an analogy that involves a tangible object cannot be equally applied to an abstract comparative judgement (other than in the manner I turned it around to demonstrate your fallacious reasoning), or the fact that the crux of the entire argument is in the action of judgment and that "judgment" will always be a necessarily subjective decision is impossible to reconcile.

If the "wrongness" or "rightness" is not intrinsic in the act itself, then whence "objectivity?"

(edited to include the word "whence" - )

[ June 18, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

dk

Hey Koya: In defense of us both, non-theistic morality pits the necessity of human life against a suitable purpose. The gaps (or rift) between what “is” and what “ought” to be hobbles sentinel logics with an imperfect reality. You find the rational nature of people a non-sequitur, and I find skepticism absurd. In the mean time we all languish under the (mis)understandings demanded by a unified theory of science, efficient cause, Strong AI, and the theory-theory of psychosocial metaphysics. I submit the gap between human knowledge and understanding predicts people will act upon what they (mis)understand in lieu of what they ought to know. hehehehe

dk

You’ve violated the premise of objective non-theistic morality(ONM) to entail everlasting life. Theistic beliefs state that the creative source of mankind is one God; hence everlasting life is a straw man. The ONM is only contingent upon a pluralistic reality rendered intelligible by rational processes (as opposed to extreme monism). <a href="http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=553340&secid=.-" target="_blank">The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, © Oxford University Press 1995 </a> says, “The adjective 'rational' is used to characterize both agents and specific beliefs. In both cases rationality can be contrasted with either non-rationality or irrationality.”; then concludes “These considerations suggest that our ability to be rational depends on a basic ability to exercise intelligent judgement that cannot be completely captured in systems of rules.”

bd-from-kg

Alonzo Fyfe:

This is a reply to your June 11 post.

If any difference between two kinds of things invalidates any parallel or analogy between them, all parallels and analogies are invalid by definition. The question is whether the differences you mention between desires and beliefs invalidate my argument. I don’t see how they’re even relevant.

In case you didn’t understand it, my point was that very few beliefs are logically entailed by things that we know. A very large, important case is beliefs about the future, which are not logically entailed by any knowledge or beliefs about the past and present. Yet few people would agree that all beliefs about the future are equally rational. For example, given that the sun has risen in the east every morning since time immemorial, it seems more rational to believe that it will rise in the east tomorrow morning than to believe that it will rise in the west, or that it won’t appear at all.

True as far as it goes, but even in the case of strictly rigorous logical arguments things are seldom this simple. Let’s look at a slightly more realistic case:

A believes that P1, A believes that P2, A believes that P3, and A believes that P4.
A believes that P1, P2, P3 and P4 imply Q.
A rationally-ought to believe that Q.

Here the conclusion does not follow. For example, say that I know that John, Sally, Ted, and Paula have drawn straws to decide who is going to clean up in the kitchen after dinner. I believe that John didn’t draw the short straw, that Sally didn’t draw it, that Ted didn’t draw it, and that Paula didn’t draw it. And these four beliefs logically entail that none of them drew it. Yet I believe that one of them did draw it. And all of these beliefs are rational even though they are logically inconsistent. This is a simple example of the fact that an ensemble of beliefs does not have to be logically consistent to be rational.

And in this sense of “generate” (i.e., in the sense of “logically entail”) all of the knowledge and understanding in the world about any state of affairs in the past or present cannot generate any conclusion about the future.

Or about the past. This is especially clear in the case of theories, like evolution, that deal primarily with the distant past, which no person could have observed directly. All such theories are based on inferences which rest on premises that are simply assumed to be true.

But actually even your “knowledge” about what happened to you yesterday is based on assumptions that cannot be rationally justified. For example, you believe that you were at such-and-such a place yesterday afternoon because you remember being there. But on what grounds do you believe that your memory provides an accurate representation of what happened? Because it has done so in the past? But how do you know this? Why, you remember its doing so! This is transparently circular.

In short, all of our supposed knowledge about the “real world” rests on foundations that cannot be justified logically. As Hume pointed out., not only can we not know that the sun will come up in the east tomorrow, but there are no logical grounds even for believing that it is probable that it will do so (or for that matter, that it has done so in the past). Any attempt to justify the Principle of Induction inevitably invokes the Principle of Induction.

Similarly, there is no logical justification for believing in any scientific theory or hypothesis. Although it is generally understood that scientific theories can’t be proved, it is less well understood that there are no logical grounds for saying that one theory that fits the facts is preferable to another. An especially good example is quark theory. Quarks can’t be “observed” in any sense; they don’t even appear in bubble chamber images. The only evidence that they exist is that a quark theory gives accurate predictions. (In reality this sort of thing is true of all scientific theories; it’s just more obvious in the case of quark theory.) But isn’t quark theory the only theory that “predicts” all of the results that have been obtained to date? No at all. There are lots of other ones that do, but the vast majority of them are incredibly complicated. Thus quark theory “wins” on the basis of Occam’s Razor. Now I consider Occam’s Razor to be a good criterion for preferring one theory rather than another, but there is no logical justification for this. Moreover, no sane person believes that the “simplest” theory (whatever that means exactly) is necessarily the correct one; the principle says only that a rational person will prefer a relatively simple theory to a much more complicated one (if both fit the facts). It appears that the best that can be said is that consistent application of Occam’s Razor yields simpler theories, but this is a point in its favor only if you subscribe to the principle of Occam’s Razor.

And of course, even if one accepts the Principle of Induction and Occam’s Razor as “valid” in some sense, there is absolutely no logical basis for determining at what point the evidence (e.g., for evolution or quark theory) is strong enough to justify rational belief, or for considering it irrational not to accept it (at least provisionally). This sort of thing is purely a judgment call, not a matter of logical entailment.

The sad truth is that logic is a very weak tool for inferring conclusions from the evidence. If I see a robin in the yard, that does not logically entail that it’s spring, or even that there are likely to be other robins around. It doesn’t even logically entail that there’s a robin in the yard. The actual process of acquiring beliefs is very complex, with logic playing a very subsidiary role.

Our belief systems rest on a whole network of assumptions that cannot be logically justified. But we believe them anyway. The human brain is programmed to operate on certain fundamental principles; to reject them is rightly considered irrational to the point of insanity. I can’t prove that rejecting them is irrational, but I’m absolutely convinced that it is anyway.

As we have seen, logical implication doesn’t “work” either in the sense that it yields only a tiny, insignificant fraction of what’s needed to function in the real world. So you have a choice: accept beliefs that are caused but not logically entailed by what we know (i.e., our immediate, current perceptions), or reject virtually all beliefs as invalid and unjustified.

Thus, while it is true, as you observe, that “There is no set of facts ... true of Jones murdering Smith that entails a desire for Jones not to murder Smith,” it is equally true that there is no set of facts that Jones can possibly know that entails that killing Smith will accomplish any goal or purpose, or even that any specific thing that he might try to do would have the result of killing Smith. We must accept beliefs that are caused but not logically implied as “valid” in some sense or our thinking collapses into incoherence. This way lies insanity.