Questions for the moral atheist

Originally posted by vistesd
Good and thoughtful post. I’ll just make a couple of comments, and then I’ll digest it for awhile.

What is the difference, re this discussion, between universalities and absolutes? I might agree that there is no universal “redness” absent instantiation of a certain wavelength of light, etc. I doubt that one can speak of “absolute red” except by fiat—“W ...[text shortened]... toward ill-being.

Okay, that was more than “a couple comments”—just stream of consciousness…

I agree with much of that, although I don't think it goes to the heart of what I'm saying (I understand it was mostly comments). So a few comments of my own.

That you can find propensities useful for many types of analysis, does not immediately translate directly into non-subjective moral truths. You can argue that it does (propensities ARE features of the world, independent of me for all practical purposes), but then I must ask the question: What happens when you find yourself in the tails? What happens if something you find immoral is the norm? Do you accept you're wrong? Does your belief that child rape is wrong depend on where the central tendency is?
So is it you or the central tendency the one responsible?

It's easy to agree when you are near the central tendency. It's easy to agree when there is no conflict between individual and collective. But morality must deal with such deviations and such conflicts, right? I think it's exactly when we are put face to face with very hard choices (remember the trolley problem?) that we can understand morality.

Originally posted by Palynka
I agree with much of that, although I don't think it goes to the heart of what I'm saying (I understand it was mostly comments). So a few comments of my own.

That you can find propensities useful for many types of analysis, does not immediately translate directly into non-subjective moral truths. You can argue that it does (propensities ARE features of th ce with very hard choices (remember the trolley problem?) that we can understand morality.

I agree with much of that, although I don't think it goes to the heart of what I'm saying.

🙂

I think I allowed for those comments (though maybe not clearly): I did, for example, discuss the tails. I do not support a "moral hegemony" of the area of central tendency (or dominant propensity). [NOTE: See my post to pyx on my undertsanding of ethics versus morality.]

I think to defeat my position, you really have to mount an argument that ill-being makes sense as an ethical "ought" as a general propensity, and not just examples from the tails. Otherwise, I don't see how your objections go "to the heart" of flourishing well-being as the end toward which the ethical "ought" is ultimately directed. Especially since I have at least recognized (again, perhaps not clearly) the (certainly multivariate) relationship between the individual and "the commons".

I don't know if this has to do with objectivity. But it might have to do with rationality: how could one reasonably subscribe an "ought" to behavior that is both irrational and harmful (irrationally harmful)?

An ethical sceptic will argue that no ethical "ought" is possible. A non-cognitivist, as I understand it, would argue that such "oughts" simply are not cognitively derived. I challenge that. I think that eudaimonia is (a) cognitively derived, and (b) is an ethical proposition that stands in need of a defeater in order to be rejected. (And, yes, I think it is a robust enough proposition that the burden of proof lies with the opposition, with respect to both (a) and (b).) Of course, if you disagree with (a), then (b) is moot.

As a final note, I don't think that complexity (wide tails, fat tails, multi-modal distributions, whatever) is itself a defeater for ethical cognitivism, nor virtue ethics. It may well be a defeater for any strict moral codification. I don't think that complexity is an argument against objectivity either, but i'm not taking a stand for ethical objectivity--at least if that means something located outside the mind.

Listen, if it will help, I'll revisit Aristotle, and see if i can't put my argument into some kind of inferential form, that at least opens it to the possibility of a specific defeater. I'm not very good at that, but it helps me to clear my own thinking. May take me a couple of days, though...

LATE EDIT: I do not think that a claim that a practical ethical proposition can be cognitively derived need dismiss emotions (or intuition); and I think this is especially the case for something like the well-being of the organism--cognition and emotion can stand in mutual support (and I think there is brain research, such as by Antonio Damasio, that supports that idea).

Originally posted by vistesd
Listen, if it will help, I'll revisit Aristotle, and see if i can't put my argument into some kind of inferential form, that at least opens it to the possibility of a specific defeater. May take me a couple of days, though...

I now have the feeling that maybe I am not understanding your position well enough, let me reread our exchange and get back to this before you do that. Seems we're talking across each other now, I don't think I argued that complexity was a defeater...

Originally posted by Palynka
I now have the feeling that maybe I am not understanding your position well enough, let me reread our exchange and get back to this before you do that. Seems we're talking across each other now, I don't think I argued that complexity was a defeater...

I am thinking (and writing) far too quickly! Let me see if I can simplify my position to get some clarity on it. As I say, might take a bit of time...

However, it strikes me that we may well just be at a kind of impasse, if I take cognitive derivation of ethical propositions as a premise; and you take non-cognitivism as a premise. But I still think that the claim of well-being as the ultimate behavioral good that merits an ethical "ought" is robust enough (even claimed as an "intrinsic good", per bbarr) to claim the need for a defeater. I might be able to make a self-evidence argument, but I need to think it through.


EDIT: I don't recall you making a particular "complexity" argument, but it seems to me that both you and pyx (though I may be conflating your posts) are making some kind of argument that the human condition, and human subjectivity, are just too complex to support any general ethical (or moral?) propositions.

Originally posted by vistesd
I am thinking (and writing) far too quickly! Let me see if I can simplify my position to get some clarity on it. As I say, might take a bit of time...

However, it strikes me that we may well just be at a kind of impasse, if I take cognitive derivation of ethical propositions as a premise; and you take non-cognitivism as a premise. But I still think tha bjectivity, are just too complex to support any general ethical (or moral?) propositions.

But what's well-being? Aren't you defining it based on your preferences? It's true that one can derive cognitively ethical propositions from some primitive, but I don't see how one can escape that those primitives must ultimately be preferences. Eudaimonia, in the end, seems a way to encode/translate those preferences onto a clear target or onto how to act.

It seems to me that virtue ethics is at a different layer of analysing morality. We are no longer concerned with the truth values of moral statements but mostly with what makes an action moral or not.

Originally posted by Palynka
But what's well-being? Aren't you defining it based on your preferences? It's true that one can derive cognitively ethical propositions from some primitive, but I don't see how one can escape that those primitives must ultimately be preferences. Eudaimonia, in the end, seems a way to encode/translate those preferences onto a clear target or onto how to act. ...[text shortened]... with the truth values of moral statements but mostly with what makes an action moral or not.

I have started to look at my Aristotle stuff (I know that bbarr already has a well-formed, “neo-Aristotlean” virtue ethics worked out).

I think that Aristotle argues (does not just assume) that eudaimonia is what you are calling a primitive—although he would call it the ultimate end. Aristotle I believe (just got into him again, not much more than minutes ago) would call appropriate preferences “virtues” and inappropriate ones “vices”. He does not deny the role of emotions (whether “natural” or learned) in virtuous behavior.

But he does think that one can “level-up”, so to speak, and provide a cognitive derivation for ethical principles. That is particularly needed when our non-cognitive tendencies or responses seem questionable to us on reflection. His answer to that is eudaimonia.

Now, I don’t see “preferences” as adding any explanatory consideration to non-cognitivism; in fact, it seems to me a bit tautological. I don’t think it offers an argument for non-cognitivism at all. The child-rape example was deliberately chosen: it evokes from you a strong “virtuous” (in Aristotle’s sense) response; and that is part of virtue ethics, that such a response flows spontaneously from your character. But you really don’t seem to be able to get beyond that at all while retaining a non-cognitive position—and that may be your whole point, that I am missing. Adding “preferences” doesn’t do it (I don’t see that it does anyway)—but if it did, you would now be making a cognitive analysis of your virtuous non-cognitive response; and that is exactly what I think non-cognitivism claims you cannot do. You are left with “Boo^10,000”, period; that does seem to be the “primitive” for non-cognitivism. (Maybe I’m wrong.)

I disagree. I think that that “Boo^10000” can be reflectively considered and found to have a cognitively derivable foundation. The fact that the act of reflection comes after does not change that—and the results can be factored into future incidents, especially those where the emotive signals are not so clear or strong. The foundation of eudaimonia can serve as a standard for those cases where ethical reflection is possible and called for. And it seems so clear to me that such cognitive reflection is possible and relevant, that I have difficulty seeing any counter-argument. At one level, I could simply offer the fact that Aristotle carried out such a reflection to a reasonable end as evidence; then, I think, the only counter-argument is Aristotle’s reflection and reasoned argument were—not merely incorrect in conclusion, but deluded in the attempt. I’m not trying to shoot you with “the big gun Aristotle” here; my own attempt has to be seen as fundamentally deluded, I think, from a non-cognitivist point of view.

So, there are really two issues: (a) can guiding ethical principles be cognitively derived upon reflection; and (b) how does eudaimonic virtue ethics stand up as such a guiding principle?

You might be right about the "truth values of moral statements", but I want to think about it. But, I repeat, I think once you talk about "translating" non-cognitive "preferences" into "a clear target" or standard, you have already left the realm of non-cognitivism and entered the realm of reasoned reflection.

BTW: This is the best discussion I've had on here in a long, long time.

Originally posted by vistesd
I have started to look at my Aristotle stuff (I know that bbarr already has a well-formed, “neo-Aristotlean” virtue ethics worked out).

I think that Aristotle argues (does not just assume) that eudaimonia is what you are calling a primitive—although he would call it the ultimate end. Aristotle I believe (just got into him again, not much more than ...[text shortened]... reflection.

BTW: This is the best discussion I've had on here in a long, long time.

I'll reply properly tomorrow. 🙂

Just a word, when I argue for morality being preference based, I'm arguing against moral realism not for non-cognitivism per se. There are cognitivist anti-realist views (cognitive subjectivism, for example). But I think that there's no point in arguing for non-cognitivism if we haven't even agreed on anti-realism.

Originally posted by Palynka
Went to re-read this:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/#2

And this passage strikes me as explaining much better what I was trying to say

It is all too easy for me to be mistaken about whether or not my life is eudaimon (the adjective from eudaimonia) not simply because it is easy to deceive oneself, but because it is easy to have ...[text shortened]... tandard on which, despite their different views, the parties to the disagreement concur.

We cross-posted, but I think that quote illustrates why happiness is not such a good rendering of eudaimonia. I think that is why some translate as “flourishing”, others as “well-being”, and my sometimes redundant use of both tbhose terms. I would say that happiness derives from well-being (and that we would normally say that deriving happiness from ill-being is pathological).

I think that well-being is certainly less value-laden—for example, as I have said, including both physical and mental health; and the opposite is ill-being, also not so value laden. To be hyperbolic: one would not expect medical practice, or health maintenance, to be practiced noncognitively—with regard to either physical or mental health.

Originally posted by Palynka
I'll reply properly tomorrow. 🙂

Just a word, when I argue for morality being preference based, I'm arguing against moral realism not for non-cognitivism per se. There are cognitivist anti-realist views (cognitive subjectivism, for example). But I think that there's no point in arguing for non-cognitivism if we haven't even agreed on anti-realism.

Cross-posted again. 🙂 Yeah, I'm going to stop now to gather my thoughts. I'm going to try to pull together an argument for eudaimonic virtue ethics, rather than argue against something else. Until I do that, I feel at loose ends. But I will also read the section on moral realism in the CDP.

EDIT: A quick skim indicates three "components" of moral realism: metaphysical, semantic, and epistemological. It seems to be, at first blush, that one could be an epistemological ethical realist without being a metaphysical ethical realist. But I still think that bbarr is right in that one may have to simply claim, at some level, that flourishing well-being is an "intrinsic good"; I don't know if that's an argument for self-evidence, and the fact that it seems self-evident to me does not make it so.

Originally posted by Palynka
A little birdie told me I missed this post...

I think your (1) and (2) are not descriptions that are accurate enough. Expressing my preferences can be done in a descriptive way (statement of fact "I prefer X" ) or in a non-cognitive way ("Hooray for X!" ). These latter expressions of preferences are non-cognitive, but they reveal them indirectly, nonethe ...[text shortened]... out my own positions or about competing alternatives.

Right, so (1) and (2) in my post above are intended to be read as specifications of the preferences that are manifested by sincerely uttering some moral claim. I am construing you as claiming that we should read "X is good" as, in essence, a verbal manifestation of twin preferences. It is not that moral claims are translatable into two propositions regarding your preferences, or that they are ellipitical descriptions of preferences, or that moral claims are made true by the presence of these preferences. Rather, moral claims are, at bottom, displays of present preferences. I am clear here about the distinction between ethical subjectivism and expressivism/non-cognitivism.

The relevance of the examples and the point of the objections above may be clearer if we pause for a moment to discuss the typical motivations of the non-cognitivist position. There are three basic motivations: (a) explaining the connection between moral judgments and motivation, (b) explaining the apparent intractability of moral disagreement, and (c) avoiding the apparent metaphysical queerness of moral properties.

First, there is a pretty tight connection between sincere moral judgments and motivations. If S sincerely judges, all things considered, that he should X, S will typically be motivated to X (barring akrasia). If you think that beliefs can’t motivate alone, then this connection will have to be explained by the presence of some motivational state. Desires are such states. There are a variety of theoretical options here. Non-cognitivism explains the connection by construing moral judgments as expressions or manifestations of preferences, desires, etc. The connection could not be tighter. When S sincerely judges that he should X, he thereby expresses his preference that he X (and, perhaps, the preference that others in his situation also X). Since preferences are motivational states, the relation between moral judgments and motivations is one of identity.

Second, there are any number of cases where parties disagree about moral claims, where their respective arguments are found mutually unpersuasive and question-begging, where debates founder on fundamental normative premises that conflict, etc. But we don’t see intractable disagreement in deductive disciplines, and we rarely see it in science. Even seemingly intractable disagreements about climate change or evolution seem like cases where one party argues in bad faith, or has anti-scientific theistic commitments, or is ignorant about the data. One might explain the difference between moral and scientific debates by reference to a basic difference in the subject matter. Scientific debates concern matters of fact, and we can converge on scientific consensus precisely because there is something objective, “out-there” that we can investigate. That we can construct experiments to settle scientific matters, but (allegedly) not experiments to settle moral matters is an indication of this difference. Non-cognitivism explains disagreement as, essentially, a result confusion about moral judgments. Moral claims present themselves in the material mode: ‘X is solid’, ‘X is red’, ‘X is good’, all have the same surface grammar, analyzable as the predication of some property to an object. So, we’re inclined to think we should be able to settle moral disagreements by investigation into the property. If we can’t, then either there is something mysterious about moral epistemology, or something mysterious about the property. If non-cognitivism is right, though, moral disagreements are intractable because they’re not disagreements at all, strictly speaking. In actual disagreements, it’s possible for somebody to be wrong. In moral disputes, it seems like we’re making claims we could be wrong about. But, actually, we’re merely manifesting preferences. If moral claims admit of neither truth nor falsity, then nobody can be right or wrong. No wonder the confusion!

Third, ever since G.E. Moore, there have been a bevy of worries regarding the metaphysics of Moral Realism. Famously, Moore claimed that Goodness was an un-analyzable non-natural property we could detect via rational intuition. By ‘non-natural’ he didn’t mean supernatural, he just meant that Goodness was not identical to any physical property of the sort empirically investigable by science. I won’t bore you with the details of his argument (I’ll bore you with my own!). Suffice it to say that every attempt to reduce/analyze normative properties in terms of physical properties has failed. There are always really obvious counter-examples. But it’s pretty clear that normative properties, if there are any, at least supervene on non-normative properties. Imagine two worlds, W1 and W2. Suppose some moral proposition P is true in W1. It’s hard to imagine P being false in W2 unless there is some difference in non-normative fact between W1 and W2. But, then, what’s the deal? What constellation of non-normative facts makes P true in W1 and false in W2? More generally, what in the world makes some moral propositions true? Non-cognitivism promises to avoid this whole mess. Since moral utterances don’t have truth-values (they don’t express propositions), we don’t have to worry about their truth-conditions.

Related to this third motivation is the apparent difficulty of the task substantive moral realists have set for themselves. We really do want an account of the truth-conditions for moral propositions such that their truth ends up an objective matter (in some relevant sense of ‘objective&rsquo😉? But can such an account avoid collapsing into either naïve egoism or relativism? Can such an account explain why normal, non-skeptical or sociopathic people should care about morality, pay attention to it in their deliberations and act accordingly? Can such an account do justice to the sense that morality is in some deep sense connected to human nature; to our concerns and frailties, our rationality, sociability and creativity, etc.?

Now, I think the moral realist can address these issues. I don’t think there is any good reason to be a non-cognitivist. In fact, I think non-cognitivism is pretty much equivalent to giving up on morality specifically and (if pressed) normativity generally. But here I’m going to take a little break, and then I’ll write more. Next I’ll come back to those questions I put to you originally, and address more fully your responses. My hope is that our discussion can reign in some of the other discussions in this thread.

Originally posted by bbarr
Right, so (1) and (2) in my post above are intended to be read as specifications of the preferences that are manifested by sincerely uttering some moral claim. I am construing you as claiming that we should read "X is good" as, in essence, a verbal manifestation of twin preferences. It is not that moral claims are translatable into two propositions regarding ...[text shortened]... es. My hope is that our discussion can reign in some of the other discussions in this thread.

Excellent post. I'm with you so far, looking forward to the sledgehammer. 🙂

I already have some comments, but I really want to see the continuation without dispersing into tangents so I'll bite my tongue for now (out of pure selfishness, of course).

Originally posted by sonhouse
Actually, the tree, lacking vocal chords, cannot make a sound, so no.

I stand corrected. 🙂
Kelly

Originally posted by Palynka
Excellent post. I'm with you so far, looking forward to the sledgehammer. 🙂

I already have some comments, but I really want to see the continuation without dispersing into tangents so I'll bite my tongue for now (out of pure selfishness, of course).

O.K., back to the action:

According to the view you’ve articulated here, sincere moral judgments are identical to expressions of constellations of preferences (i.e., “X is good” expresses your preferences that X & that others prefer X). Of course, there is room for refinement here. You could construe moral judgments as expressions of personal preferences and of imperatives (e.g., “X is good” expresses your preference that X & something like a command that others also prefer X). Eventually you’ll have to settle on some or other analysis of the content of moral judgments. This will require some work, for a few related reasons. First, different moral judgments use different evaluative terminology. “X is good”, “A is obligatory”, “C is virtuous”, etc. are all used in moral discourse, but it is far from clear that there is a basic set of preferences that could serves as the basis for a non-cognitivist analysis of each of these types of expressions. Second, there is a broader set of normative judgments that are not distinctively forms of moral judgment. “Vitamins are good for you”, “You should serve and volley more often”, “You ought not believe in ghosts”, are normative judgments. But these simply won’t admit of the same type of non-cognitivist analysis I sketched for you initially. Third, there is an even broader set of judgments that employ thick ethical concepts (concepts that have both normative and descriptive content, like ‘compassionate’, ‘greedy’, ‘gracious’, ‘callous’, etc.). Judgments employing these concepts are typically evaluative, but also serve to describe things in ways that can be more or less accurate. “At the party, S was tactless”, “S is a loyal friend”, “She left because S treated her cruelly”, “S is gullible” etc. all function as normative evaluations of S. But they are also judgments that describe typical patterns of behavior, and that can often be disputed and settled as (at least apparent) matter of fact. I am deeply skeptical of the availability of non-cognitivist analyses of the evaluative components of such judgments, but I would love to see attempts.

These, of course, are general concerns. But they're relevant to the examples I gave in my initial post: The Chess Example and the Smith Example.

The Chess Example

The basic question that informs this example is whether the non-cognitivist has any principled reason not to extend the analysis of moral judgments to other, similarly structured but non-moral normative or evaluative judgments. On the surface, “S should tell the truth” and “S should take the rook” have the same structure. Similarly for “It is good to tell the truth” and “It is good to take opponents’ rooks”. But is there any reason why the motivations for non-cognitivism don’t apply equally to both moral and non-moral normative or evaluative judgments? The ‘should’ in both statements is prescriptive. The ‘good’ in both statements seems to indicate the presence of some mysterious property.

Now, your response to this example relies on distinguishing sharply between moral and non-moral judgments, and you claim to see no reason for extending the non-cognitivist analysis of moral judgments to similarly structured non-moral but normative or evaluative judgments. You would construe, apparently, “S should take the rook” and “It is good to take opponents’ rooks” as, respectively “If S wants to win, it would be efficient to take the rook” and “If checkmate is the goal, it is typically efficient to take opponents’ rooks”, or something along those lines… (I will leave aside the worry that ‘efficient’ is itself an evaluative term). That is, you’re providing a means-ends or instrumentalist analysis of the normative/evaluative terminology in these statements. This is a cognitivist analysis, and a realist one. You would probably agree that claims such as these are capable of being true or false, and that they are sometimes true. But there are two worries about this response.

First, you’ll need some principled way to distinguish between moral and non-moral claims, and this is really hard. One benefit of virtue ethics is that the moral category is typically dispensed with in favor of the broadly ethical; there are practical reasons, and some are more important or weighty than others, but there is no sharply distinguishable category of special, moral reasons. We can treat practical reasons the same way across the board, and construe their importance or weight by reference to the goodness of the objects at which they aim. You, however, do not have access to this strategy. You want a non-cognitivist analysis of some normative claims (and some types of reasons), and a cognitivist analysis of other normative claims (and other types of reasons). So, how do you distinguish between the categories?

This leads to the second worry. Pace your response to the chess example, you will be tempted to distinguish between moral and non-moral categories in the following way: You’ll want to say that chess has a determinable point, and that this point can serve to anchor claims about efficient means to the satisfaction of the given aim to win. It is the presence of clear success conditions for the practice of chess that can make certain claims true or false regarding how one should play if one wants to win. But why can’t the moral realist adopt a similar strategy? On my view, normal adults have a broadly shared conception of human flourishing and virtuous character. The details may vary, but at bottom we want social intimacy, respect, care, success in the endeavors we value, opportunities for recreation, freedom from typical physical and psychological harms, autonomy, and so on. We also, and correspondingly, value traits like compassion, lovingness, generosity, loyalty, honesty, courage, temperance, etc. And we tend to value these traits both for their own sake (we find them admirable and noble) and for their conduciveness to other goods that we value and take to be partially constitutive of flourishing. But if all this is essentially the point of morality, and if normal adults broadly overlap in caring about flourishing, then I am able to analyze moral judgments in precisely the same way that you analyze judgments about how one should play chess. And if a cognitivist analysis is unproblematic in the chess case, then it should be similarly unproblematic for morality as I construe it.

Perhaps, though, there remains some crucial disanalogy between the practical domains of chess and morality (or ethics, on my view). You could respond that the success conditions for chess can be specified in purely descriptive terms. Checkmate can be fully described without recourse to normative or evaluative terminology. If we suppose that ‘efficiency’ can be characterized purely descriptively, then we can translate normative/evaluative claims about playing chess into claims about the most efficient way to checkmate. If efficient means-ends relations between moves and checkmate just are the truth-conditions for normative/evaluative claims about playing chess, then you would be able to jettison all normative terminology in the final analysis of such claims. You could argue that a cognitivist analysis of these claims is appropriate precisely because of the availability of this translation from normative/evaluative to purely descriptive terminology. You could then claim that non-cognitivist analyses are appropriate in practical domains where the success conditions are irreducibly normative; that is, when the truth-conditions of normative/evaluative claims about action in that domain will always make references to normative/evaluative facts (or putative facts, or “facts” with scare-quotes). In short, you could claim that non-cognitivist analyses are appropriate whenever we’re dealing with a practical domain for which we are unable to dispel the normative/evaluative in an account of what makes claims in that domain true or false, or in an account of what counts as acting correctly or well within that domain.

But think about what this position would rule out. Claims about good chess play get a cognitivist analysis (if we ignore aesthetic judgments regarding, e.g., beautiful play, and if there is, in fact, some purely descriptive account of efficiency&hellip😉. But what about claims that concern good parenting, as addressed to people we can assume want to be good parents? “You should encourage your child to do well in school”, “It is good that your child eats healthily”, etc. Are these moral claims? It should be clear that the success conditions for parenting will bleed over into the broadly ethical domain at least, and very likely into the narrower domain of the moral, which means they will be irreducibly normative. Facts about human flourishing will, after all, form at least part of the basis for an account of good parenting. So, if you choose this tack, then you’ll be forced to give a non-cognitive analysis of these claims. It will turn out that there is simply no fact of the matter, no true or false claims, about good parenting. Pop psychology will be in a shambles! What about claims about good gardening, as addressed to aspiring gardeners? “You should make sure your plants are adequately watered”, “It is good to keep this plant out of direct sunlight”, etc. These don’t qualify as moral claims on any reasonable analysis, but the success conditions for gardening will employ some notion of health or flourishing, and it is profoundly unlikely that these notions can be analyzed in purely descriptive terms. So it looks like the normative/evaluative claims relevant to gardening will also require non-cognitive analyses, and it will bizarrely turn out neither true nor false that, e.g., a good gardener adequately waters his plants.

Later I'll go over the Smith example, and some other worries. Now I'm off with the girlfriend...