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There is plenty of evidence to support the claim that most human beings can survive perfectly well without meat-this is especially the case in developed nations that have an ample supply of vegetarian and vegan alternatives to meet. Also, the entire “opinion vs fact” dichotomy is a complete misnomer; our opinions can correspond to the facts.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons humans can survive without meat. That's a fact. It is however, very different from "humans choose to eat meat for the taste".

I don’t see why you think this is a controversial claim, then. If humans in developed nations did not enjoy eating meat, then they wouldn’t choose to it given the number of meatless alternatives available.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons The reason speaks to the second point. "Humans can EASILY change their diet". In my opinion, that's tantamount to saying humans can easily lose weight, humans can easily quit addictions, humans can easily end war. All these things are possible, they are not easy. How is changing something as fundamental as diet easy? Relearning to shop, adapting to taste, learning how to add variety when the regular fare gets bland, learning the restaurants that cater to a specific diet, learning to improvise when the available restaurants do not cater to specific diets. It's incredibly hard to change one diet. Obesity would not be the problem it is if it were. The same industrialized factory farms basically control the food supply. I don't know but maybe there's a profit incentive in selling meat vs selling vegetables. It is basically forced onto society. I don't find it controversial, I find it to be opinion stated as fact.

When I say that individuals in developed nations can “easily” become vegans or vegetarians, what I primarily mean is that they have more than ample access to the *means* to change their diet. Whether or not individuals have the will power to change their diet is another matter. Sometimes it is difficult to do the right thing, but that doesn’t nullify our requirement to do what is right. I agree with everything you are saying about the nature of the meat industry, but being more morally conscious in our purchases is part of what it takes to change market pressures. Again, “opinion stated as fact” is meaningless. Our opinions can corrrespond to the facts, so pointing out that X is “someone’s opinion” doesn’t constitute an objection to X.

The facts you are pointing to regarding our digestive systems and the evolutionary history of our species is all covered by arguments from historical precedence. It is true that we have incisors and digestive systems that make us capable of having meat as part of our diets, and it is also true that our species would not have evolved the way that it did were it not for the fact that our humanoid ancestors were meat eaters. However, all of that is irrelevant to the question of whether factory farming and killing animals to eat them is immoral. Given our evolutionary history, our hands are well-suited for making fists to pummel people with, but it doesn't follow from that that it is morally permissible to pummel people with our fists simply because they are "well-suited" for such a purpose. If eating meat were a necessary staple of our diets, then there would not be any vegans or vegetarians at all, but it's simply an empirical fact that most people can survive perfectly well on a vegan or vegetarian diet. There are people who cannot survive without meat, but most people in developed nations can. In this day and age it is not difficult to supplement one's diet with alternative forms of protein to make up for what is lost by not eating meat. Vegans and vegetarians by and large actually have a larger presence of healthy gut microbes than meat eaters do, and a lot people become vegetarians or vegans due to *already having* certain digestive issues. So, even if it were true that vegans and vegetarians on the whole experience more digestive issues, it doesn't follow that they have digestive issues *in virtue of* being vegans or vegetarians. Whatever economic difficulties there are in becoming a vegan or vegetarian is simply an indication of how much of a stranglehold the meat industry has on the market. It is also financially difficult for individuals to find ethically-sourced meat. As I said in another comment below, the video does not argue that the act of eating meat is wrong, nor does it argue that hunting is wrong--hunting is necessary for environmental reasons, and if we are going to hunt animals it would be wasteful to not process the meat for eating.

This is addressed in the video; if animals have moral standing, they have it independently of whether or not we actually care about them. What we *actually* care about and what we *should* care about are two different things.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons good point

These are good points, but that is why I use the language of *most* in the video--*most* people in developed nations can easily become vegans and vegetarians, and *most* instances of killing animals to eat them--in terms of animals domesticated for such purposes--are morally wrong. I myself do think hunting is different, as hunting is necessary for environmental reasons. But in that case, it would be very wasteful to hunt and not prepare the meat for eating. I also think that if someone is not willing to kill an animal to eat it themselves, then they shouldn't be willing to let other people do it for them. I also think that we should extend moral consideration to plants and insects as well, but just because plants and insects warrant *some* consideration, it doesn't follow that they warrant *equal* consideration. I discuss these issues in these videos if you are interested: ruclips.net/video/Q6sOxm6NTyA/видео.html ruclips.net/video/Gabrn9pdhb0/видео.html ruclips.net/video/5vESIXQvnsA/видео.html

^ None of this has anything to do with the content of the video, so I suggest that you actually watch the video before posting comments.

A moral claim involves purporting that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world. “There are no objective moral facts” does not purport that there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world, so “there are no objective moral facts” is not a moral claim. The video does not explain error theory as the position that “moral statements must be literally true in order to be useful.” Error theory is the position that all moral statements are false. Whether they are useful or not is a separate issue-some error theorists are eliminativists about moral language, others (like Richard Joyce) are not. As such, the video is neither an oversimplication nor a mischaracterization of error theory. The same applies to your claims about expressivism. Whether moral language is useful is neither here nor there with respect to expressivism.

“Denying the existence of something is not the same thing as saying something is false.” The argument does not conflate those two things. What the argument is attempting to do is establish a *relationship* between those two things. If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value. There are some moral nihilists that think moral sentences have no truth value, but there are plenty of others-error theorists in particular-that think they do.

​@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons "If a sentence that denies the existence of certain features is true, that would mean that the sentence that it is denying would have to have a truth value. " If the denial sentence is true, that means the feature being denied does not exist. The truth value of the moral feature is a sub-property established on the existence of the moral content in the first place. For instance, "His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "It is false that his left arm is short". It appears to me the ambiguity resides on the subtle difference between a statement being morally false and the entirety of the system upon which the statement could be evaluated to false or any value being non-existent.

@@xunningliu "moral features" don't have truth values'; moral features either exist or don't exist. Again, the reasoning of the argument is not conflating existence claims with truth and falsity, but is merely pointing out a relationship between the two things. "His left arm does not exist" is not the same as "it is false that his left arm is short," but "his left arm does not exist" certainly *implies* "it is false that his left arm is short." If it is true that "there are no genuine moral features to the world" then "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" would be false. Therefore, if "there is at least one genuine moral feature to the world" is false, any statement that IMPLIES IT--such as "murder is morally wrong"--would also be false.

Maybe you should actually watch the video before commenting, as the problem with grounding a determinate gender binary in biology is actually addressed in the video.

For someone who claims to be countering “feelings and opinions”, your diatribe here was ironically lacking fact and replete with opinion. Furthermore, it did not even remotely address the central point being made in the video, which is that using only sex to derive a meaning of gender fails logical tests of doing so, when there are variations of sex and no clear way to define biological sex that doesn’t exclude individuals from the “binary”

Glad you found it informative!

Ah, another champion of misinformation emerges, eager to flaunt their ignorance. It's quite the spectacle, isn't it? Willingly recommending falsehoods over scientific truths, what a feat of cognitive dissonance. All you're really doing is spreading the harmful lies of popular ideologies like it's the latest gossip.. Bravo! Who needs facts when you've got a good ol' dose of denial, am I right?

Ah, another champion of misinformation emerges, eager to flaunt their ignorance. It's quite the spectacle, isn't it? Willingly recommending falsehoods over scientific truths, what a feat of cognitive dissonance. All you're really doing is spreading popular ideologies like it's the latest gossip. Bravo! Who needs facts when you've got a good ol' dose of denial, am I right?"

@@FairyWasabi and what "scientific truth" do you have that I have missed? And please do mention some proper studies that you think can debunk the video's assessment and conclusion.

Nihilists cannot base mental health on an objective measure. Nihilism needs to be subjective otherwise it falls apart. However, if mental health is subjective, there is no way to say if he has or has not poor mental health. On top of that, poor mental health is attributing a human condition, which is also anti nihilism. The idea of there being something inherently human that gives us meaning is very non nihilism.

@Vooodooolicious you are mixing up moral nihilism with nihilism, moral nihilism believes their is no such thing as morality, no such thing as good and evil.

@@BlackMantisRed Moral nihilists still say that mental health is a subjective measure so there is nothing to say that burning children is objectively wrong. They need to prove that suffering is a subjective thing that doesn't exist in the real world. I guess that people who believe in this follow Kant with his categorical imperatives.

@@Vooodooolicious Saying burning a child is objectively wrong and saying burning a child is mentally unhealthy are too different claims. "It is wrong to burn a child" is a prescriptive claim. Saying "burning a child is mentally unhealthy" is a descriptive claim. The fact you would mix these claims up tells me you don't know what you are talking about.

Given what we know about cosmology, the initial states of the universe had the potentiality to produce different effects. But if the initial states of the universe had the potential to produce different effects, the past could have been different. Even a compatibilist would agree that if someone is forcing your hand in the way you describe, your action is not free. But, if you are doing what you want to do, and no one is preventing you from doing it, the compatibilist would say your action is free *even if* your desires, motivations, and intentions are determined by things that are outside of your control.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Firstly, great video and channel 😄. I agree that our current cosmological theories do allow for multiple trajectories of the universe. Nevertheless, we do not have the final theory of physics yet and getting a universe with a single possible trajectory was the driving force behind a lot of work in string theory after its first revolution. It turned out not to work but it is still conceivable that a single trajectory could result there are issues about the meaningfulness of single event probabilities and measures here). Moreover, I can replace your “The universe could have been otherwise given the laws of physics” with “the universe could not have been otherwise given the laws of physics and its initial condition”. This is true in at least some models of the universe (for example if super determinism is true). Because the first premise is a definition with the “if” actually an “if and only if”, the conclusion is also negated. Why can we use the flexibility offered by having multiple solutions to the underlying laws of physics but not the regidity introduced by adding the initial state (or the constraints from the anthropic principle for that matter)? The incompatibilist’s thesis is of the form: if determinism is true then free well does not exist. We have to grant her her premise to argue for compatibility which means the only way the universe could have been otherwise is if the laws of physics are different (or the initial condition was different if you do not grant that the initial conditions is one. For my second point, maybe my example was bad. Let’s try to put it in the same form that you put it before. 1. You are free if you could have done otherwise. 2. If the button pressing monster did not force you to push the button, you would not have pressed the button. 3. The button pressing mobster could have not forced you to press the button. 4. Therefore, you freely pressed the button. I think this have the same form as the argument in the video but teaches what we agree to be an incorrect conclusion. There is no mention of intentions, or desires in the definition so I am not sure how can we use them to differentiate the two arguments. A solution may be to modify the definition to be “You are free if you could have done otherwise if you had different intentions, and desires”. This may defuse my second objection but I think the definition now is too week because the incompatibilist could say “my main point is that you could NOT have had different intentions or desires because these are fully determined by the physical laws of the universe and it’s initial conditions”. Finally, there is a third objection that the incompatibilist can employ: If the universe have been otherwise “you” could not have existed. Maybe someone similar who creates nice videos could have existed but how can you equate the two? This goes into comterfactuals and relevance of different possible worlds to the argument. We need to consider universes that are similar to ours enough that we can identify a unique person in each to be “you” but there is no clear way to find the relevant set which means we cannot really know whether in all of them you did the same action or not. Just a final note. I am a compatibilist but I think the best argument for it is the misuse of agent level concepts and physical level concepts together a la dennet.

How can you have a society build on that?

@@fij715 thats why we can say its convenient that most people have moral codes. but just because it is convenient that everyone has a moral code does not mean we absolutely need to have one too. I personally prefer moral nihilism since it gives me freedom while everyone around me still acts by the same rules.

Thanks for your comments! In what sense do you think that murder is "bad"? You are certainly correct that if people didn't exist then *morality* would not exist--if by "morality" you mean sets of beliefs, practices, things people value, and theories people construct regarding these things--but that is neither here nor there with respect to the existence of *moral facts.* It is also true that if people didn't exist that the sciences would not exist--there would be no systematized theories, hypotheses, experiments, data etc. of any kind--but it doesn't follow that the *objects studied by the sciences* would not exist. By the same token, it can still be the case that individual preferences ought to be given moral consideration even if there are no individuals that *actually* possess preferences.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Your analogy between the objects studied by sciences and morality doesn't quite hold up because of the fundamental difference in their objects of study. The sciences deal with empirical, observable phenomena that exist independently of human thought or behavior. These phenomena would continue to exist even if human beings and our scientific theories did not. Morality, on the other hand, is inextricably tied to conscious beings capable of making value judgments and ethical decisions. It is a conceptual framework that we use to guide and judge our actions. If there were no conscious beings, there would be no morality in any meaningful sense. Moral considerations require the existence of moral agents, while natural phenomena do not require observers to continue to exist.

Are you referring to the section of the video where I am talking about theoretical entities? There I am not drawing analogy between ethics and science. I’m only explaining what a theoretical entity is and using particles of physics as an *example* of a theoretical entity. If there are moral facts, they are obviously completely different *kinds of things* than particles of physics are, but that doesn’t mean that moral facts and particles of physics do not play similar *roles* in their respective theories. Also, it’s worth pointing out that moral objectivists would say that moral facts are mind-independent entities in the same way that particles of physics are.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons AAAAAAAAAAAARGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGHHHHHHHHH 😨🤕

What exactly do you contend misses the point?

If some of our moral sentences are true, then there are moral facts. Having reason to think that some of our moral sentences are true is not simply "presupposing a realist position." The considerations being made in the last section involve the notion that we can properly be blamed for failing to care about certain things. That is consistent with caring about things for prudential reasons. If it is true that ought to care about certain things--in a way that we can be properly blamed for failing to care--then there are relevant moral facts concerning those things. In that regard, I'm not sure what you mean here when you say "that is why there cannot be any objective/universal moral truth." How does the fact that we have prudential reasons for acting imply moral nihilism?

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons 1. Moral sentences can exist without "actual" morality really existing.. they can describe a phenomena or category of thought and can be linguistic.. yet this doesnt create a real objective phenomena of morality considering how i can postulate nearly any proposition in which i can at least find someone who disagrees on this or that topic based on some context.. so moral statements can exist as a "thought process/category of thinking" without any universal objective morality Being blamed for things just implies responsibility and has no implication of morality inherently.. for example someone moved a glass .. thats neuteral.. they are responsible.. then someone comes along who didnt want that glass moved and is now upset and "blames that person for acting wrongly and moving the glass" Its just responsibility it doesnt imply morality inherently Once responsiblity is assigned punishment can be administered by a person or mutual agreement.. and if moral nihlism is true that doesnt mean punishment cant be administered since no moral justification is required to punish.. also punishment itself is just a linguistic term like "blame" which implies some wrongdoing.. yet one mans punishment is another mans injustice .. so really were looking at more the "response" if we were to speak more objectively about it Also even IF we were to able to find a statement on which every man on earth agrees as wrong.. the actual amount of "morals" would be so small relative to the everyday constant decisions people ascribe ethics and morals to.. at that point it would just be more clear cut to say some unique circumstances have universal agreement than to keep clinging to this ever fracturing shrinking morality thing which always depends on just not finding someone who disagrees in some way I hope i was able to follow your logic and answer appropriately

@@WAKMM it’s plainly obvious that moral sentences can exist without their being moral facts. What I said is that if any of our moral sentences are *true* it follows that there are moral facts. Likewise, there is a difference between people *actually* blaming others for their actions and people being *blameworthy* for their actions. In the video and in my comment I am talking about blameworthiness. You are largely confusing issues here.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons i think by how youre framing or defining "true" i would have to take the position that no true moral statements can possibly exist Yet the "descriptor" of moral is a thought category that exists For example if we lived in an alternate universe where people spoke of "lightness and darkness" and said "he has the light " or "he has darkness" and then proceeded to ascribe many.. but oft debated things as to what is light or dark.. for example darkness could be everything from murder.. to having 4 sports cars if someone deems that "excessive".. they could say "he is in the darkness.. If everyone spoke like this then darkness and lightness would be "real" like socially real as a spoken subject/aspect of mentality and thought Yet no actual objective "true lightness or darkness statement" could be made by the way youre defining true as far as i can tell I guess im saying moral statements cant be "objectively true" while at the same time saying they arent an in valid thing to discuss simply by common subject matters and social understandings.. theoretically we can make nearly any arbitrary categorization meaningful

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons to give the extreme example.. if someone were to kidnap and terminate the lives of live babies from families we could say well everyone would say this is pure evil Yet lets look at a state policy like when china had their strict one child policies.. this is what the state often did.. yet many citizens considered it "their failing" to produce more than one child and therefore disobey the law and they were the imoral ones for bringing the child into the world.. while putting no blame on the state I would personally argue that the state was kidnapping and terminating babies.. Its these sorts of contextual shifts which can make nearly anything possible It can really be seen if anyone does some honest inquiry into how totalitarian regimes have sold their brutal agendas onto the populations as "the right thing"

Thanks so much for your comment! While there certainly *are* harms that are subjective--emotional and psychological harms would fall into this category--it doesn't follow that *all* harms are subjective. If a plant is deprived of sunlight and water, the plant will die, so depriving a plant of sunlight and water will harm the plant. The fact that a plant being deprived of sunlight and water will cause it harm is an objective fact and not a subjective one--this fact is not dependent upon any human attitudes, desires, or beliefs concern the nature of plants. There are some biocentrists--biocentric holists to be specific--who *do* think that rivers, oceans, mountains, and land formations are the kinds of things that we have direct obligations towards, given that those things are a part of a natural habitat or ecosystem. So, even if the fact that plants and insects can be harmed also implies that mineral deposits and land formations can be harmed, there are biocentrists who would just willingly accept that implication. However, I don't think it immediately follows from the fact that plants and insects can be harmed that land formations and the like can be harmed. Plants and insects are self-regulating and self-sustaining as biological organisms, which is why as biological organisms they have conditions of flourishing. Mineral deposits and piles of firewood do not likewise have conditions of flourishing. Notice in the video, I described "harm" as frustrating a living thing's conditions of flourishing. If part of your concern regarding harm is that "harms cannot be measured," the same issue would apply to pain as well. If a medical professional asks me "on a scale from one to ten, how high is your pain?" there isn't any reason to think that these units of measurement actually correspond to objective "units of pain" in the world. But that doesn't mean that it is meaningless to describe my pain level as an "8," even though it is an arbitrary signification. Lastly, the fact that cats are sentient and plants/insects are not is compatible with plants and insects having moral standing; it is just the case that cats can be wronged or violated in ways that plants/insects cannot be. Just because sentient beings can be wronged or violated in ways that non-sentient things cannot be, it doesn't follow that sentience is a necessary condition for moral standing. Sentience is a *sufficient* condition for moral standing, but not a necessary condition.

​​@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsonswhen you realize not everything can be given a situation without harm such as not every plant with have it needs met, You realize its not immoral but part of life nature itself, one must lose its ability of having its need met for another, a plant dying to give birth to it young so on an so forth. So if what your doing is interupting that natural cycle than its bad but if you are working with it then its fine.

But it can also be a lack of understand on the effects on the ecosystem, something may seem more moral on the surface but since its destructive to the ecosystem as a whole it isn't moral whatsoever

Thanks so much for your interest! One thing to keep in mind however is that *impact* will always be understood in relation to *something.* Even an anthropocentrist can be concerned with the sustainability of an ecosystem out of concern for fellow human beings in the present or future generations of human beings.

The only problem with this is we will feel bad for doing things that have a small effect meanwhile companies that do horrible things that have a large effect will distance themselves to make them feel better

Well, the video might be stellar, but it seems like they let a drunken parrot handle the text and audio.

It’s clear you didn’t watch the video at all, so I suggest that you go troll somewhere else

The claim is not made in the video that nihilists don’t ACTUALLY care about anything. The claim being made is that the nihilist cannot give any reasons why one *ought* to care about what is true or what can be supported by evidence.

Sorry if that got a bit dark!

Here I was speaking about Richard Joyce's moral error theory. Error theorists hold that our positive moral sentences genuinely attempt, and always fail, to describe the way things are morally--they always fail precisely because moral facts do not exist. Expressivists (non-cognitivists) on the other hand think that our moral sentences do not even *attempt* to describe the way things are. I have a video that addresses the differences here: ruclips.net/video/glGP-NlF1Jg/видео.html

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Thank you so much for the response!

The argument that I cover here does not depend upon the ability to "be our own cause," as you say. Also, you need to keep in mind that there is a difference between saying "given the actual past, I could not have done otherwise" and "I could not have done otherwise." Even if it is true that I could not have done otherwise given the actual past--which is what would be implied by determinism--it doesn't follow that I could not have done otherwise. If I would have done otherwise given a different past, as long as the past could have been different, I could have done otherwise.

Thanks for your interest! What you have in mind is more akin to existential nihilism than what I am talking about in this video. Generally speaking, nihilism about any given domain simply involves denying that there are any facts within that domain.

It's standard notation to use 1's and 0's for truth tables. The textbook I use for my logic courses also uses 1's and 0's.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Professor, I'm struggling with abbreviated truth tables beyond belief. Do you have any other videos that address this? I've watched over 10 different videos on this topic and each video is different from the last.

@@Brandon-wo2tz I go over an indirect truth table in this video--I'm going over the answers for a set of exercises for one of my courses ruclips.net/video/VIDfY41OTlk/видео.html

Thank you for your comment, but I am not sure what any of this has to do with what I discuss in the video? Even if it is true that gender is socially constructed--a claim I don't make in this video--it doesn't follow that gender "comes from nowhere."

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons This person has probably written this a thousand times on a hundred different RUclips videos. None of it supports an objective binary, and the invocation of Orwell almost assuredly confirms the angle from which the OC is approaching this issue: government revision of language as a means to control people.

The comparison between gender ideology and totalitarianism, particularly in terms of their use of forceful language and manipulation of perception, is indeed thought-provoking. The imposition of certain language and ideas under the umbrella of gender ideology can be seen as a form of intellectual control, where dissenting voices are often silenced or labelled as unacceptable. This echoes the tactics of totalitarian regimes, where dissent is not tolerated and deviation from the prescribed narrative is met with punishment or ostracism. By enforcing specific terms and concepts related to gender, proponents of this ideology may inadvertently limit free thought and expression, creating a climate where individuals feel pressured to conform to a particular viewpoint or risk being labelled as discriminatory or intolerant. In this light, the comparison to Orwell's "1984" becomes strikingly relevant. The use of language to shape thought and control perception is a hallmark of totalitarianism, and the cautionary tale of Orwell's dystopian world seems increasingly prescient in today's discourse surrounding gender and identity. Ultimately, the concern lies not with the exploration of diverse gender identities, but with the potential for dogma and ideological rigidity to stifle open dialogue and critical thinking. When language becomes a tool for coercion rather than communication, it raises important questions about the nature of freedom, expression, and the boundaries of acceptable discourse.

Thanks for your comment! I don't see what relevance the concept of original sin has to my argument? On the "Heart of It" slide, points 1-3 are as follows: 1) S trusts God to perform action A 2) God has the power to perform action A on behalf of S 3) To S, God's failure to perform A would be an apparently gratuitous or horrendous instance of evil You say that these things are "caused by original sin," but I am not sure how? That aside, I don't think bringing in original sin constitutes an objection to my argument anyways. If there is any such thing as original sin, that would be something that surely impacts S, but it would not at all be the sort of thing that S is responsible for or can really control for. Meaning, even if our inability to see that evils are not actually gratuitous or horrendous is explained by original sin, God still allows those things to happen to us knowing full well that we are not in an appropriate epistemic situation to see that those things are not actually gratuitous or horrendous due to the effects of original sin.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Hi, thanks for your reply to my comment. The argument presented identifies a "problem" where the goal is trust and counterproductive actions lead to distrust. Although this makes sense in itself, I found the point of view to be narrow and lacking which missed the bigger picture. If you look further back at the cause and further forward at the solution, you'll see that the "problem" is just part of a cyclical process. Yes, we [humans] are going into this without any of the necessary skills to navigate it. Yes, God is allowing this to happen knowing full well that our inability to see that evils are not actually gratuitous or horrendous will cause us to distrust him. So then, one might be quick to suggest "Why doesn't God enlighten us about the situation if he wants us to trust him and avoid this whole problem?". But this IS God enlightening us. This IS the process of us gaining that knowledge. This is literally the thing that's being suggested. If you follow through the path to the end, the "problem" gets resolved. This is the cyclical process: Begin: Ignorance (suffering) Middle: Hero's Journey (becoming intimate with suffering) End: Wisdom (end of ignorance and suffering) The argument was only looking at the middle of the path. Everything looks like a problem in the middle of the path, that's what makes it the Hero's Journey, it's the turning point between beginning and end. When S exhausts all other options to be free from suffering, they will take the last option available - giving up original sin. This leads to reduction in suffering, which leads to trust in God, which leads to path, which leads to liberation. This is how S comes to know what sin is and it's the only way S could ever truly make a choice between God and sin. It is all necessary.

@@bike4aday here is the point, though; if going from "the middle" to "the end" as you call it requires that one exercise trust in God, then to the extent that God makes it difficult for an individual to exercise trust, one cannot properly be blamed for failing to trust God and hence not secure whatever goods that God intends. This is specifically addressed in the paper and the lecture video. What you need to do is provide some reasons for thinking that one *is* blameworthy for failing to exercise trust.

@@PhilosophywithProfessorParsons Ahh I see your point. Why is one blameworthy? I think that's the punchline of the whole thing. There isn't anyone to blame. Is it a sprout's fault for not being a seedling seedling's fault for not being a plant? When we point at a person and say "this is your fault!", what are we pointing at? It is our interpretation that there is something in a person which is independent from the process, in control, and at fault for it. It is a reflection of how we see ourselves. But this is what Original Sin causes us to see. That's the ignorance. There isn't actually anything independent to blame. <-- this is what we find out towards the end, why we suffer less, and how we are capable of greater compassion. I appreciate the time you've invested to explain your points to me better. I hope I haven't misunderstood anything. Ultimately I don't think anyone is to blame; not a person and not God. I also think this is why the Abrahamic models can be very misleading.

It really isn't.