Is that your reasoned opinion? Are you more sure of that than the opposite view? I'm not being a dick here. I'm trying to show you that this is circular reasoning. No matter what you say on the subject, it's an opinion you've arrived at, presumably relinquishing other opinions to do so.

It's not a bad thing to have well-thought out opinions. I don't know why you'd try to make it look otherwise.


Yes they are. But we have objective ways of evaluating opinions, such as evidence, likelihood, falsifiability, etc.

I agree that the ability or concious freedom to hold an opinion is independent of its value - (actually I think I'm the one that raised that insight) Anyway, yes the matter of what those opinions are based on , is usually a function of some type of training in critical thinking- be it formal or informal, and not just evidence, but what KIND of evidence, likihood with the boundary of the exception...meh -I just live life knowing that as soon as I "say what it is" - the exception will come along and look at me like

"It's not a bad thing to have well-thought out opinions. I don't know why you'd try to make it look otherwise."

Some people apply deception... Taking a safe approach and giving an opinion they think the others in the 'group' will like.

From observation a lot of people do this... Not because they don't have an opinion but because they prefere to keep their actual opinion private.

Holy balls. I never thought of that. You're right. I know people who admit to doing that all the time.

That's one of the great things about internet message boards, though. That sort of problem is minimised. So I very much think that it's not what's going on here.

If by 'that' you mean the preceding 4 word sentence, then:

No, that is actually a great example of what I'm talking about. That not a reasoned opinion at all, like most human speech is too ambiguous to be the true product of reason - its a collection of words intended to suggest, maybe, that I might not fully approve of your point of view, but that at that time, and in response to those words, it didn't seem worthy of further discussion, and that I recognize a value in not concerning myself overmuch with other people's points of views.


Or, maybe, as I said earlier - all of that might be rationalization. It might have simply been a collection of words motivated by the twin influence of laziness and desire to acknowledge your statement.




I hope its clear by now that the phrase doesn't map to one particular view.



I believe you have now shown that you presume circular reasoning.



I really don't give a **** what I "make things look like" when I'm making a solid effort to establish something as a clear falsehood. "What things look like" is up to the viewer, their knowledge, experience, prejudices, level of depth, etc.

The idea that 'having well thought out opinions is bad' doesn't even follow, at all, in any way, from anything that I've said. If you think so, maybe you think I'm saying something that I'm not. I will say that lying to yourself and thinking that your opinions are well thought out is often not good.

Are you sure that's your position? How do you know you're not wrong about that?

You don't think you have any responsibility to communicate something when you're trying to communicate something? You think it's entirely up to the recipient to interpret you correctly, and any error in doing so is HIS fault and not yours?

I'll be honest, I don't know what we are talking about in this thread. But apparently that alone is not a valid thing to stop anyone from contributing.

So I would like to say a few words in the defence of circular reasoning.

First of all, a circle is a nice shape. It resembles so many beautiful things that occur freely in nature, or more expensively in nature, like a nice breast.

But more importantly, a line of thinking which goes around and around in a circle, or a train of thought on a circular track, is not the worst. It is one of the only two ways of doing futile thinking the wrong way. The other way of thinking is straight-line thinking, which has two problems, unlike the circular thinking: One at each end.

At the far end, where a thinker makes his point and calls it a conclusion, it is really a point on line that continues on, and that point is only where the thinker thought it would be nice to sit down and have a smoke and few laughs before getting up and continuing.

At the close end, you need some starting point, some premiss, some origo. But there ain't none, in a thinkers world. Every line of thinking has some axioms and they are not only unprovable, but they are not necessarily intuitive, either. They are just the way they are.

There is one sure point, only one, from which a thinker can get off of and go in confidence that his premiss is irrefutable, but that basis yields no chance of further advance. It is of course the "cogito ergo sum".

So in straight-line thinking you don't know where to stop once you have got going, and you have the other problem of knowning you came from nowhere, or from artificially established and perhaps agreed-upon rules and bases, that don't mean anything to anyone outside the circle of those who accept them.

In a circular thinking mode the biggest difference from the straight line thinking is that the axioms are the same as the end of the line. Your conclusion is your axioms. In this aspect, any point on the circle of reasons can be called origin and end, or axiom and conclusion.

So these two thinking modes are horrible. They can lead to nowhere useful or beautiful, or to a stoppage, at least not validly.

Unfortunately for us, these two thinking patterns are the only ones available to man. No more. No others. Nada.

You can't get out of this pit, of our designer's intelligent set-up. This is what we have, circular reasoning that goes from its self back to itself, and straight line reasoning, that starts at a point which is fantasy or imagination, and makes sense of it as it chugs along, but never makes complete sense of it.

"Well, if you go to the bother of putting together an opinion on some issue, then the chances are that you think that opinion is better than the alternatives. Surely that's just natural? "

I think when you put together an opinion you think that that's the best opinion on the subject. That is why it is your opinion. No person would create or make an opinion on the basis that "That's a bad idea, a really stupid thing to say or do, so let's do it, I think it's what we must do."

When a person makes an opinion at first, he or she really believes that that's the best opinion.

The opinion-elites or -snobs or -nazis are named that because they are people who want to make their opinions stick with others.

Their will to do so can come from two sources:
1. They think their opinion is better or superior to others'.
2. They don't necessarily think of whose is better, but they want everyone to accept their opinion for whatever reason.

If one believes 1., he must be able to defend his opinion against others' opinions who are attacking him for this opinion.

If one believes 2., he must not only defend his opinion, but he must also strive to make others accept his opinion too.

Most all people in the world have both cases, 1. and 2., imbedded in their attitude when it comes to evaluating opinions and making them pervasive.

So... have you ever met a person whith controlling personality? He or she will be the first to accuse you of being stubborn and controlling, for not doing the would-be controller's bidding.

People who call others' opinions and their attitudes about them "bad", and "vain", respectively, are mostly people who are emotionally very attached to their own and are very likely very reluctant to change their own opinions.

To make this quagmire even worse, if a person has the support of a community for his opinion, then his community will praise him, and each other, as "steadfast", "a person of principles", etc. etc., for the same thing, for exactly the same thing as the other group will call the members support and the man's attitude "obstinate", 'stubborn', etc. This is reciprocal, as if a mirror was put up between the two groups.

I don't know where to take this from here. I fell into the trap of going on a straight-line mode of thinking. Me, the fool.

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Look at Vegans who want meat outlawed

Their jobs would be much easier if they shot everything that moves, but people. No more animals, everyone's a vegan. Simple, painless, irrevokable moral victory over a dietary issue.

"That's a bad idea, a really stupid thing to say or do, so let's do it, I think it's what we must do."

Almost forgot: that is an absurd statement, and it can be made into a non-absurd statement, creating a valid exeption, but that exception is not really a validly pointed out exception.

The quote can be made non-absurd if the goal is to create an absurdity. That happens sometimes, that a group, like anarchists or terrorists or humorists and Hollywood scriptwriters have the objective to create an absurd scene; and in that case their goal is accomplished if they create an absurd scene; but from their point of view, their goal is not absurd, but the goal must, outside its own self, create something absurd.

So the criticism does not really stick when and if someone comes and says "hey, that situation you created and called absurd, happens sometimes, with sincere honesty and not through the ineptitude of and by the holders of the opinion."

Their jobs would be much easier if they shot everything that moves, but people. No more animals, everyone's a vegan. Simple, painless, irrevokable moral victory over a dietary issue.

Déjà vu. This brings us back to the fact that you are just so certain of your position, that you aren't looking at it. This is boring. The fact that you are 'trying to show' me something I already fully understand is lame.

If you fail to understand the difference between a member of a set having a quality, and all members of the set having a quality, thats not much for us to talk about here.

I have never met a human being who was even consciously aware of every opinion that they've had, much less consciously chose it.



Your questions are unrelated to my statements. Why are you asking me questions that are unrelated to my statements? If you had some difficulty understanding my statements, maybe you could examine that, and explain a bit better how you understood my statements. I'd be happy to clarify to anyone who is willing to think, first, before asking unrelated questions.

I didn't state a position at all. I asked you a question.

And if I was discussing that, you might be onto something.

Your questions are unrelated to my statements. Why are you asking me questions that are unrelated to my statements? If you had some difficulty understanding my statements, maybe you could examine that, and explain a bit better how you understood my statements. I'd be happy to clarify to anyone who is willing to think, first, before asking unrelated questions.

I'm establishing a relationship between "what things look like", which was a clear reference to how your posts are read by others, and how you feel about how your communications are understood by others.

To be honest, I'm not sure how this is in any way unrelated to your statements. If anything, it's too relevant, as it covers no new ground at all. Please advise.

I take offence to this.
It may be how you read his posts, but in no way should it include "others".

"Others"(myself), have their own minds and do not support that position.

As for the OP, I'll state my opinion on that...


I beleive the main problem with "ethical and moral superiority" stems from a person who deems their subjective opinion as an objective one.
Once a person assumes this position, they can easily support the premise that others are illogical, inferior, morraly bankrupt and more in need of being "corrected" or "protected"...

Again, I fail to see how these two correct observations move the conversation forward in a way that is related to the comments immediately preceding them. I never believed nor implied that you stated a position in that question, and it doesn't matter that you didn't state a position in that question; that you have a position has been made clear elsewhere. You've given me cause to believe that a similar, earlier question was motivated by your desire to demonstrate the accuracy of that position, its not unreasonable to conclude (provisionally) that nearly identical continued behavior in the same conversation has similar motivations.

I find these frequent non-sequiturs (in the colloquial, not formal logic, sense)to be trollish. Next time, I'm just going to say "True, but irrelevant" or similar. This is tiresome.

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Lets recap. You believe:



You don't qualify your words here, but overall you seem to imply 'all' of your opinions are better than 'all of the alternatives known to you'. (You do later qualify with 'prepared to defend', but given the entirely of your statements it seems very unlikely that you believe 'those statements which you are not prepared to defend' lack the quality 'best available opinion in your estimation'...otherwise, why would you have them as your opinions, right? Seriously, do you believe that you have opinions, defensible or not, which are not chosen by you as the best of the available options? )

You seem to think everyone, almost by definition, must feel the same way (or would reasonably conclude that they should feel the same way, if they looked at your argument). You state:




Now, somehow you seem to have co-mingled the question (A) of whether each of a person's opinions are actually the result of a process of choosing that opinion over other opinions - with the question (B) of whether one opinion can, empirically, be 'better' than another opinion.

If you are only talking about the second topic, we have no disagreement, and you would be correct to say that my statements about degree of conscious choice are unrelated.

As I hope I've made clear earlier, I am talking about (A). Do you disagree that the existence of unconsciously held and chosen opinions is relevant to a discussion of whether all of each persons' opinions are, by definition, deemed 'best' by that person?

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I'm establishing a relationship between "what things look like", which was a clear reference to how your posts are read by others, and how you feel about how your communications are understood by others.

Is how you 'establish relationships'? By asking 'questions' (which, oddly, use the grammatically structure of statements) about an absurdly extreme position which is not at all implied by the previous words? Are you paying attention to the question of degree, to false dilemma, to the extreme man fallacy?

To me, your nonsensically exaggerated response is not how one establishes something, its how one derails a reasonable conversation. Are you intending to troll?




You words are both related and unrelated in the sense that these sentences are both related and unrelated:

1: "I like pie."
2: "Why is pie your absolute most favorite dish in the world?"