I don't think those people aren't religious, I'm just saying that religious ethics [i]need not [/i] be justified in that way. They aren't the people I'm talking about because they aren't part of the system of jsutification I'm talking about. "Theistic ethics are about fear of hell" is wrong in the same way that "Atheistic ethics are about fear of prison" is wrong. I'm sure there are people who fall into those mindsets on both sides, but they aren't our exemplars.
We've got a few understandings of 'want' going on here. Surely I've done things for people that I love, that I didn't [i]want[/i] to do. I can think of several. Now, I 'wanted' (in the sense of willed) to do them, or else they wouldn't have happened. But I think that you equivocate two very different usages of 'want' to say that because we 'want' to do everything we do, we must do it to give ourselves pleasure.
No, I don't think it's reasonable (though it's not [i]impossible[/i]), I think it's a huge stretch in order to justify your assumption that pleasure/pain are the only forces at work here. I think it's much more natural and easy to believe that Jesus was suffering terribly, and not experiencing any kind of pleasure at all while on the cross (not in any useful sense of the word 'pleasure'), but rather, He did what He did because of a sense of duty and obligation. Now, if you want to define that sense of duty as a kind of 'pleasure', you certainly can, but then it's just a matter of defining your position into correctness. What is the justification for considering sensations of duty, obligation, mercy, and such things as varieties of 'pleasure', instead of considering them as other sensations altogether?
What I mean is, with the exception of a few deists, to believe in God is to love/respect God. You can't say the same thing about belief in one's fellow humans. It could be as simple as the way "God" is defined- if you believe there is such a thing as God, then respecting Him is only natural.
I understand that, I was just illustrating what I would consider rational and what I would not. Your examplars are not rational, because when we analyze their reasons we finally arrive at “just because”. However, your examplars are not, and could never be, real people. Why? Because real people have only one fundamental reason for doing something, because they want to – or at an even deeper level, because they do. Perhaps it sounds silly to put it this way, but that’s only because it is to simple for most people to accept.
Ok, let’s forget about “want” and “pleasure” for now. My point is simply that whatever the reason for doing something, that reason is always within you. Therefore any external reason can only be an illusion. How can any rule be absolute if it does not affect you? How can it be wrong to kill if you don’t suffer the consequences? If it makes no difference in the real world, how can it be said to be real? What I mean here by ‘the real world’ is the world as you experience it. Why can’t all christians simply say that it’s wrong to kill because it will get you to hell? Why complicate matters so much?
Let me put it differently. He was probably feeling more pleasure thinking about the millions of saved souls than he was feeling pain when thinking about the sacrifice. I agree that while hanging on the cross, he was probably feeling more pain than pleasure. But the thought of using his supernatural power to rescue himself from the cross, and deny his number one task in life, was even more painful for him.
I continue to think that pleasure is the driving force in any person. But my main point is that whatever the reason may be, it exist only within that person and nowhere else.
I don’t see why I should respect God more than man, unless there is a good reason for doing so. I would respect God out of fear if he could hurt me, the same I would do for any man who could do the same. I would respect God if he was wise, as I would respect any wise person. God would probably be stronger and wiser than any man, and that’s the only reason I would respect him more – not because his name is “God”. To respect God only by definition would be irrational.
Your 'because they want do' sounds broad enough that it could surely be applied to my examplars as well. I'm not saying that your 'people do stuff because they want to' idea is wrong, I'm saying it's too general, and leads to incorrect assumptions about behavior. People who behave ethically out of love for a God whom they believe has given them moral guidelines [i]are[/i] real people. Are they dishonest, confused, or is your concept of 'want' just broad enough to include them somehow?
Well, that's true almost by definition, insofar as if I give a 'reason' for something, it is based on [i]my reasoning[/i]. Of course my reasoning can take into account all sorts of outside factors. In the religious example we've been using, a desire to please the God you love is certainly 'within you', however God's communicating His desire for you to follow certain principals certainly counts as an 'external reason' as far as I can tell.
Some do say that. Others say they do what's right because they want to please God, and doing what displeases God is wrong, because they love God. It's not a matter of 'complicating matters', it's simply the fact of how they construct their ethics.
What reason is there to suppose this, other than the assumption that people always do the least painful of their apparent options? As far as I can tell, that's the very thing we're disagreeing about. The way I see it, the idea of rescuing Himself could have seemed very compelling and appealing, and He could still not have done it because He knew He oughten't. There are certainly mirrors of that in my own life- for example, considering whether or not to eat my girlfriend's pizza in the fridge while she's at work. Certainly I'm hungry, and certainly I want it. Now, I know it will upset her if I eat it, and that it would be wrong of me to eat it. But I can't say that acknowledgement of those facts equates to anything like a [i]pain[/i], or that doing the right thing (in itself, not considering for the moment any rewards which may follow) equates to anything like a pleasure.
Do you believe there is a God? I have met plenty of atheists who would say what you say above, but you would be the first theist. Even as a theist, it may the be the case that you respect God and man equally. My point was only that respect and love of God seems to flow naturally from believing He exists, where as respect and love of one's fellow man doesn't seem nearly as prevalent among people who believe other humans exist.
Well, that’s kind of what I mean- I’m considering “stronger and wiser than any man” as part of his definition, certainly. That’s what I mean when I say people respect God by definition- part of what it means to be God in the first place commands respect, and the same is not true of humans.
My concept is broad enough to account for any action of man. Almost every person would agree with my concept – but still they look at their beloved abstractions as more real. “The love of God”, “ethics” and so on are simply abstractions, and not the fundamental reasons for their behaviour. But how is that a problem? Because it leads to the assumption that anything but oneself matters. My argument is so simple that it sounds stupid: We can’t care about other people, because we are only ourselves. Therefore there is no reason we should care about other people. Why should we want to do anything we can’t? It’s entirely futile. When we say that we love or care about someone, that “someone” is nothing but an image in our mind.
If God says I should do something, he better reward me if I do or punish me if I don’t. If not, his commandments are nothing but words – because there will be no difference for me if I follow them or not. In other words, following his words would not be rational.
Exactly. But this is more significant than you think.
We are looking at different levels. The external reason is simply an abstraction. The thing that you consider must have become part of you for you to consider it – how it got there is irrelevant. You are not following Gods desire for you to follow him, only your own desire to do the same. And that is an entirely selfish act, as every act must be unless you are a puppet (which you are by the way, but that’s on an even deeper level ).
Yes, they are not willingly complicating matters.
I see that people have troubles with the consept of pleasure and pain, and define it differently than I do – and I can’t really blame them. It would perhaps be better if I refrain from using them, or attempt to define them better. Let’s forget pleasure and pain for now, as it shouldn’t really be necessary in order to convey my ideas.
No, I don’t believe in God. However, I did until quite recently. Anyway, the point is that I find it irrational to love and respect God for no other reason than he being God. For it to be rational to love and respect God, I require the same things that I would require from a person. I’m not saying that people think that way, I’m saying they should.
Alright, that’s reasonable.
I think one of our main difference is that I require a reason at the most fundamental level, and you don’t. It’s enough for you to say: “you should”, but I have to ask “why?”. You may define some absolute ethics as the fundamental reason, but that is not self-evident. My fundamental reason is action itself, which is evident by its very nature. Abstractions are often useful, but even more so when you know how they are constructed – and what significance the building blocks hold.
I hope I’m not putting you off with my direct style of approach. It may seem like I believe I have all the answers, but I’m simply conveying beliefs that I have yet to see any convincing counter-arguments for. I’m guessing that you are a theist, and even a Christian. In which case I’m impressed by your level of non-bias (based on former experience of Christians). If you are able to put yourself into my line of thinking, you would be able to understand the devil himself (just kidding).
According to atheism (or materialism) there is nothing that can be more important for an individual than his own life. It is irrational to seek the others’ happiness at the expense of one’s own happiness, a fortiori at the expense of one’s existence. So you can work for the others’ good, but just as long as it does not hinder your welfare or threaten your existence.
What you are traying to “pin down as atheist philosophy” is just one version of wild naturalistic individualism which advocates for instant Hobbes. which pays for his philosophic consistence a high price.: “To affirm a right for man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. Other widely claimed rights, like freedom, enter only as means to these basic ones. If one is a monster of (at least attemted) consistency, like Hobbes, then one will be willing to stick to this exiguous conception of rights regardeless of the consequences. But even then the question will arise of what on this view is the value of human as against animal life…” (Charles taylor: Atomism, Communitarianism and Individualism)
If you are an atheist that doesn’t automatically menas that you are indivudualust . Many atheist belives in enlightenment and communitarian values such as freedom, science, knowledge, equality.
Because I am fond of contractualistic etic (J. Rawls) I agree with Norberto Bobbio: Moral or Etics is a matter of agreement and first time in history humankind ( diferent religions and nations) have such an agreement on what are the fundamental etic norms are and it calls "The UN Declaration of Hman Rights " and its been signed by allmost every country in the world even the Pope.
All right, it’s a long tread but let me just reply to the first few post.
I’ve seen this all too often. I don’t trust religionist as a group, because many of them are egoist, and expect others to be the same. Doing good things because they will get you into heaven is not doing good things at all. For one to really do good they must do good for the sake of doing good, and believe me this is entirely possible.
Moral duty is and can only be seperate from a deity. Supplicateing to a deity for one’s own sake is not good at all.
Also, this applies to the state. Supplicateing to the state in order to avoid punishment is moral equivilent to doing so for a god. They are both forms of authoritianism.
Morality has to be derived rationally to be worth a salt.
I'm not a very reductionist person at heart. To say that the reasons a person gives for their actions are abstractions, and not fundamental, and to say that a vague sense of 'self interest' is the real and the fundamental, sounds at best arbitrary, and at worst, completely backwards. It is a good thing to find something unique or interesting about human behavior- "In a sense, we all act according to our own interests, since we don't do anything unless we want to in some respect". That is significant, but to say that it's 'how it is', and that anything else is mere illusion...well, why?
I assume this goes back to your general metaphysics, whatever they may be. Now, you'll have a lot of support in this view of 'images', but It's not a concept that's popular with me. We don't see (or care about) images, we care about external things, and the creation of an image may be a part of that process.
As far as I'm concerned, the self can be deconstructed in just the way that you imply about the outside world above. For example, the self isn't anything we hear, see, or otherwise sense. It's not our memory. It's not anything about which we can say "We experience X". My point is this: It sounds like you're saying that anything real to us is ultimately internal. I'm saying that the whole concept of 'internal' can be disposed of just as easily, if one turns a critical eye to it.
Case in point. It seems that that would be the case, when you approach it reductively. Nevertheless, the fact remains that many (perhaps most) mature theists don't view their ethics in this way. You could say that they are behaving irrationally, but it sounds to me like you want to argue that your take on things is inevitable in some sense, and it seems clear to me that it's not.
This still seems like a circularity to me. It sounds like you are defining 'what is rational' as 'what's in it for me'. For one thing, I don't see a [i]need[/i] to define it that way- it hasn't been argued as necessary. For another, plenty of people don't define ethics that way, and for a third, there are already plenty of good definitions for 'rational' out there, such as coherent, consistant, etc.
Why? You have a person's internal decisions to act, and you have the external factors that lead them to their decisions. What is the purpose in calling one 'abstract' or 'irrelevant', and the other 'how it is'. Under a certain understanding of determinism, I could just as easily flip it around and say that the external factors are the only thing that's real or fundamental, and your own sense of 'consideration' or 'becoming a part of yourself' is the real abstraction. That's just how reduction goes- we axiomatically pick one thing to be 'the real deal', and try to boil the rest of the universe down into terms of that one thing.
I think our most basic difference is that I don’t believe in a ‘most fundamental level’, or if I do, it’s in the exact reverse of you. When doing philosophy, I consider the basic experience of ‘everyman’ to be the most fundamental level, and these efforts of micro-analysis to be the abstractions. To the extent that they help us understand the ‘fundamental’, they are a tool. To the extent that they confuse us or render obvious truths of human existence (like freewill) impossible to believe in, I consider them problematic. I would never consider statements like “the wall is composed of sparks of energy and empty space” or 'the wall is an image in our mind" to be more true or closer to reality than ‘the wall is blue’, for example.
Not at all, you exhibit several very common tendencies in philosophy that I find myself at odds with, it’s good for me to bounce my fledgling ideas off of you. BTW, I’m sorry for my late response- you will find I’m not around on Mon, Tues, and Wed. with a few exceptions.
I think you have constructed a model of ethics (and reality, if I’m not mistaken) that is internally coherent, that’s a good thing, of course. I’m just naturally skeptical of models that result in skepticism towards fundamental aspects of the human experience (free will, altruism, and etc.). In order for a model like that to be useful, it must be explaining some other equally fundamental side of humanity that cannot be explained in any other way. Which is why I’m a theist, by the way.
Why? In what way do you find the reductionist view lacking?
I agree that it may sound that way, but is it? If it is, then why?
Because I have found the reductionist view to be the most successfull and logical coherent way of analyzing the world – that’s why I use it when doing philosophy. I’m still able to get angry at someone, or love someone – and I use those words because I know how they feel and others do as well. This is where abstractions are useful. However, in philosophy I seek to understand, and then it’s best to analyze from the most fundamental reasons and up trough the various abstractions, to gain the best possible understanding. I’m not sure I would call these abstractions illusions, I guess it depends on how “illusions” are defined.
In what way do we care about external things? Physically? Spiritually? Sure, we feel that we care about external things. But how can we care directly about it, when the external thing first has to “become” an image in our mind? We recieve input from the external world, the brain analyze that input, and an image is created in our mind – we care, directly, about that image.
I actually believe that the most meaningful way of defining the self is as the very perceptions you talk about – I literally am(/define myself as) my perceptions. I’m not my body, because my body is a stranger to me. I’m not my brain, because I can’t sense its operations. I am my perceptions, because they are the only things I know.
It’s not inevitable as a “take on things”, there are many who disagree. But as the truth, it seems inevitable to me, as I really see no valid alternatives. But my beliefs are always subject to change, so perhaps you can convince me of my errors.
Yes, that’s pretty much what I define it as in practice. For something to be rational, it has to be rational for me – because it is I who define it as rational. For me, the only thing that matters is what pertains to me – it can’t possibly be any other way, by definition. Why should I care about something that has no practical relevance?
I’m not calling external factors for irrelevant, nor am I calling them abstractions. It’s the notion that we act on the external factors themselves that I call an abstraction. We act on the messages that enter our brain, but not before they have become part of our mind.
The self, as in our perceptions, are not abstractions. They are our perceptions and can not themselves be broken further down (I don’t see how, anyway). They may come from external sources, but are themselves real on a fundamental level. But our “considerations” and our mind are probably caused by “external” things, as in physical laws. I mentioned a puppet in my last post, and this is what I meant.
If we simply pick a thing, we are biased. If we find a thing, using logic or experiments, we have a reason for our belief. Has the scientists simply “picked” quarks or strings as fundamental building-blocks of physics? No, they have mathematical and experimental reasons for their beliefs. They may be wrong, of course, but so may all of us – regardless of our methods. I have found my fundamental building blocks using logic. My current logic may be flawed, but I have not simply picked something because I like the sound of it.
The individuals are parts of ‘everyman’, are they not? Do you believe that ‘everyman’ is also a part of the individual? If not, how can it affect the individual? Is it not the individuals that affect the ‘everyman’? Micro-analysis is simply looking at the parts, as it is the parts who must affect the whole.
Obvious truths? By your definition, an obvious truth would be one that God or evolution has provided us with – I would trust neither of them with a matter as important as the truth. I trust logic, which is also given me by the same – but sound logic seem to work just about every time, unlike subjective human beliefs.
Satements are never real, only the wall is real. Descriptions such as “blue”, “an image in our mind” etc. are simply abstractions of the real wall. For anyone to know the reality of the wall, they would have to become it, the entirety of it – which is impossible.
That can only be a good thing, I feel much the same about you.
I can understand that (on an emotional level), but you can never be sure that your internal “feelings” speak the truth – is it even likely?
If I wanted to explain everything, I would say: “God did it”. My goal is not to explain things that others have not, but to explain them better. As for the “fundamental sides” of humanity, they must themselves be defined using a model. Anyway, which “fundamental side” of humanity would you like me to attempt explaining?
It semms that i must first explain that I am tryin to comment shamkyas “pin down of atheist philosophy” as is described in her first contribution.
What you are traying to “pin down as atheist philosophy” is just one version of wild naturalistic individualism which advocates for instant Hobbes. which pays for his philosophic consistence a high price.: “To affirm a right for man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. Other widely claimed rights, like freedom, enter only as means to these basic ones. If one is a monster of (at least attemted) consistency, like Hobbes, then one will be willing to stick to this exiguous conception of rights regardeless of the consequences. But even then the question will arise of what on this view is the value of human as against animal life…” (Charles taylor: Atomism, Communitarianism and Individualism)
If you are an atheist that doesn’t automatically menas that you are indivudualust . Many atheist belives in enlightenment and communitarian values such as freedom, science, knowledge, equality.
Because I am fond of contractualistic etic (J. Rawls) I agree with Norberto Bobbio: Moral or Etics is a matter of agreement and first time in history humankind ( diferent religions and nations) have such an agreement on what are the fundamental etic norms are and it calls "The UN Declaration of Hman Rights " and its been signed by allmost every country in the world even the Pope.
It semms that i must first explain that I am tryin to comment shamkyas “pin down of atheist philosophy” as is described in her first contribution.
What you are traying to “pin down as atheist philosophy” is just one version of wild naturalistic individualism which advocates for instant Hobbes. which pays for his philosophic consistence a high price.: “To affirm a right for man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. Other widely claimed rights, like freedom, enter only as means to these basic ones. If one is a monster of (at least attemted) consistency, like Hobbes, then one will be willing to stick to this exiguous conception of rights regardeless of the consequences. But even then the question will arise of what on this view is the value of human as against animal life…” (Charles taylor: Atomism, Communitarianism and Individualism)
If you are an atheist that doesn’t automatically menas that you are indivudualust . Many atheist belives in enlightenment and communitarian values such as freedom, science, knowledge, equality.
Because I am fond of contractualistic etic (J. Rawls) I agree with Norberto Bobbio: Moral or Etics is a matter of agreement and first time in history humankind ( diferent religions and nations) have such an agreement on what are the fundamental etic norms are and it calls "The UN Declaration of Hman Rights " and its been signed by allmost every country in the world even the Pope.
It looks that i must first explain that I am tryin to comment shamkyas “pin down of atheist philosophy” as is described in her first contribution.
What you are traying to “pin down as atheist philosophy” is just one version of wild naturalistic individualism which advocates for instant Hobbes. which pays for his philosophic consistence a high price.: “To affirm a right for man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. Other widely claimed rights, like freedom, enter only as means to these basic ones. If one is a monster of (at least attemted) consistency, like Hobbes, then one will be willing to stick to this exiguous conception of rights regardeless of the consequences. But even then the question will arise of what on this view is the value of human as against animal life…” (Charles taylor: Atomism, Communitarianism and Individualism)
If you are an atheist that doesn’t automatically menas that you are indivudualust . Many atheist belives in enlightenment and communitarian values such as freedom, science, knowledge, equality.
Because I am fond of contractualistic etic (J. Rawls) I agree with Norberto Bobbio: Moral or Etics is a matter of agreement and first time in history humankind ( diferent religions and nations) have such an agreement on what are the fundamental etic norms are and it calls "The UN Declaration of Hman Rights " and its been signed by allmost every country in the world even the Pope.
Looking from an other angle, individualism.
Let us examine a Christian. The main purpose of being one is to get to haven, not at all selfish.
My version of an atheist is someone not believing in an all mighty supernatural being they have never seen. Totally unreasonable!
The naturalist on the other hand is someone who believes in nature and I assume evolution. In evolutionary measures the most important and absolute purpose of life is survival and not the self.
If you want to blame atheists for the ethical black hole of our western society, becouse in your beleif that will open the holy gates for you, you should join the senate comite of the oil for food program or move to Salem.
Well said Greg, thank you. Now we just have to make sure that the Colin Powell wont become the new UN secretary soon.
The point is simple: I don’t agree with Sâmkhya’s portrait of an atheists as a young man and my argumenr are :
Sâmkhya writes: “According to atheism (or materialism) there is nothing that can be more important for an individual than his own life.â€
To define man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. This is philosophical picture of man which advocates T. Hobbes. According to this definition is atheist a man who lives in a state of nature natural state and is an egoist because his primal drive is self-preservation so he fights with everybody and everyone in some kind of last man standing battle and he will probably died out if his instinct of self preservation would not urge him to make contract with his enemies and create the state.
The Argumentum ad silentuim (silent presupposition) here is that everyone without fate or better without lofty values lives like as an animal in some kind of state of nature and fights his last desperate battle for survival.
But atheist is not just that : “ It is irrational to seek the others’ happiness at the expense of one’s own happiness, a fortiori at the expense of one’s existence. So you can work for the others’ good, but just as long as it does not hinder your welfare or threaten your existence.â€
According to second definition atheist also live his life according to principle or law of self interest or as benthamist call it “hedonistic ruleâ€. According to J.S. Mill everybody seeks for himself god - and goods – and trays to avoid evil – effort i.e. he trays with minimum possible effort to achieve maximal god. Atheist is therefore an egoist who is incapable of self-sacrifice.
The problem is that this philosophical picture of man as homo oeconomicus applays to all modern man who lives in market economies and not just for atheists. I agree all modern man who lives in modern market economies are to some existent secularised because they must in everyday lives live like an egoists. It is also true that economical egoism goes along with ethical egoism.
So we can pose to ourselves a following question: are the Christians who lives in market economy also ethical egoists or it is more reasonable to suppose that the Hobbe’s and Mill’s philosophical picture of a man simply doesn’t give us the whole truth about human nature. We have public and private lives and public homo ecoenomicus can be easily in private life Christian or Atheist, or Buddhist or Environmentalists.
I can easily imagine a man who is an atheist and fanatical follower of Kantian ethics and who believes that he should treat all humans equal and never use them as an end and lives in London. He is probably in free profession and not so much exposed to the market laws. He could be also fanatical environmentalists and prepared to die for (the rights of inanimate nature) his conviction. London is big city. We can hardly accuse them that her values are egoistic and that are not communitarian. (in the benefit of all society).
We can pose to ourselves also a question: was the rebelion of chinese students in Tienanmen square (who was raised up in communist china during the cultural revolution and for that reason most of them was probably atheists) and who attcked thanks whit bare hands an egoistic act ?
My second point is: it is hardly true that only moral grounded in fait contains non-egoistic or if you want communitarian values. or better that only religious or methaphysical founded moral systems can contain communitarian values.
If you are contractualists then you would agree that values are the matter of agreement ( like in law). What is good and what is bad is a matter of agreement.
I also agree with N. Bobbio that metaphysics is nowadays dead and that our goal in moral issues shouldn’t be dedicated to the foundation or demonstration of methaphysical values or moral systems but should be orientated more political to the ethics of everyday life i.e., our task nowadays is to implementation of human rights.
The blueprint or core of secular ethics represents conventions which is agreed by the most part of humankind. Nowadays we don’t have just general convention of Human Rights we have also conventions about rights of women, children, infirm persons, animals and we have also contentions about environment (inanimate nature). Most of that conventions just can’t be accused because of (economical or ethical) egoism . So we can’t pretend that we don’t know what is permissible and what not or that that there doesn’t exist any valid ethical values etc. or that atheists doesn’t have any higher values.
The point is simple: I don’t agree with Sâmkhya’s portrait of an atheists as a young man and my argumenr are :
Sâmkhya writes: “According to atheism (or materialism) there is nothing that can be more important for an individual than his own life.â€
To define man merely qua desiring being, or a being feeling pleasure and pain, is to restrict his rights to those of life, desire-fulfilment, and freedom and pain. This is philosophical picture of man which advocates T. Hobbes. According to this definition is atheist a man who lives in a state of nature natural state and is an egoist because his primal drive is self-preservation so he fights with everybody and everyone in some kind of last man standing battle and he will probably died out if his instinct of self preservation would not urge him to make contract with his enemies and create the state.
The Argumentum ad silentuim (silent presupposition) here is that everyone without fate or better without lofty values lives like as an animal in some kind of state of nature and fights his last desperate battle for survival.
But atheist is not just that : “ It is irrational to seek the others’ happiness at the expense of one’s own happiness, a fortiori at the expense of one’s existence. So you can work for the others’ good, but just as long as it does not hinder your welfare or threaten your existence.â€
According to second definition atheist also live his life according to principle or law of self interest or as benthamist call it “hedonistic ruleâ€. According to J.S. Mill everybody seeks for himself god - and goods – and trays to avoid evil – effort i.e. he trays with minimum possible effort to achieve maximal god. Atheist is therefore an egoist who is incapable of self-sacrifice.
The problem is that this philosophical picture of man as homo oeconomicus applays to all modern man who lives in market economies and not just for atheists. I agree all modern man who lives in modern market economies are to some existent secularised because they must in everyday lives live like an egoists. It is also true that economical egoism goes along with ethical egoism.
So we can pose to ourselves a following question: are the Christians who lives in market economy also ethical egoists or it is more reasonable to suppose that the Hobbe’s and Mill’s philosophical picture of a man simply doesn’t give us the whole truth about human nature. We have public and private lives and public homo ecoenomicus can be easily in private life Christian or Atheist, or Buddhist or Environmentalists.
I can easily imagine a man who is an atheist and fanatical follower of Kantian ethics and who believes that he should treat all humans equal and never use them as an end and lives in London. He is probably in free profession and not so much exposed to the market laws. He could be also fanatical environmentalists and prepared to die for (the rights of inanimate nature) his conviction. London is big city. We can hardly accuse them that her values are egoistic and that are not communitarian. (in the benefit of all society).
We can pose to ourselves also a question: was the rebelion of chinese students in Tienanmen square (who was raised up in communist china during the cultural revolution and for that reason most of them was probably atheists) and who attcked thanks whit bare hands an egoistic act ?
My second point is: it is hardly true that only moral grounded in fait contains non-egoistic or if you want communitarian values. or better that only religious or methaphysical founded moral systems can contain communitarian values.
If you are contractualists then you would agree that values are the matter of agreement ( like in law). What is good and what is bad is a matter of agreement.
I also agree with N. Bobbio that metaphysics is nowadays dead and that our goal in moral issues shouldn’t be dedicated to the foundation or demonstration of methaphysical values or moral systems but should be orientated more political to the ethics of everyday life i.e., our task nowadays is to implementation of human rights.
The blueprint or core of secular ethics represents conventions which is agreed by the most part of humankind. Nowadays we don’t have just general convention of Human Rights we have also conventions about rights of women, children, infirm persons, animals and we have also contentions about environment (inanimate nature). Most of that conventions just can’t be accused because of (economical or ethical) egoism . So we can’t pretend that we don’t know what is permissible and what not or that that there doesn’t exist any valid ethical values etc. or that atheists doesn’t have any higher values.
Insofar as it puts a thing's components forward as a more accurate model of what a thing is. That is, I disagree with all statements like this: "A painting [i]is really [/i] just smears of pigment on a canvass. " The 'is really' is the part that is wrong- a painting 'is really' an image of a woman's face, as much as it is smears on paper.
Alright. Yes, putting a person's self interest forward as real causes for behavior, and external forces as abstractions is [i]abitrary[/i], because it could just as easily be argued (in good reductive form) that external causes are entirely responsible for everything we do, and the notions of 'desire' are the abstractions- they are a part of the way the brain tabulates external forces, and nothing more. I see no reason to choose your system over the one I suggest here- and as it happens, I reject them both.
This here is where we differ, you approach the issue from metaphysics, it seems, and I from epistemology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would consider atoms to be fundamental, and chairs to be an abstraction from that fundamental. If I was forced to choose, I would consider it just the opposite- chairs are a fundamental because [i]we know chairs[/i], and atoms are an abstraction because they are a very vague 'placeholder' concept for a reality we barely understand. Concievably, something about chairs could disprove the existence of atoms (as we understand them), but nothing in our theory of atoms could ever disprove the existence of chairs- not, at least, without reference to some other fundamental like extension or mind.
In other words, things like "People love other people" and "People make free choices" are fundamental things that we know about the human condition, and must be our starting points (which is not to say that they cannot be examined). Statements like "all actions are a result of an interplay of desires" are themselves abstractions, because they seek to account for the existence and relations of fundamental concepts like the ones I list above. An abstraction that leads to refuting the existence of the fundamentals leaves itself no reason to be believed: That was Berkeley's problem.
My reponse here will make sense to you in light of what I said above. When I see a tree, one of the things I see is that it is at some distance from myself. I see this just as well as I see that it's green, or that it has leaves. I don't take the tree to be in my eyes, or in my brain. Now, you could say that due to what we know about science or philosophy or whatever, we now know that all seeing is of images. If that's the case, then, I'm left in the curious position of saying that I've really never seen anything [i]but[/i] images. I only see two choices from that point. Either begin to doubt that there is such a thing as invisible, inscrutable matter, or else believe that 'seeing an image of a tree' is actually a redundancy. Part of what it means to see a tree (a real, external tree, and not a tree of the mind) [i]is[/i] the forming of an image. To say that we see images is an unfortunate slip of wording that allows for all sorts of unnessecary skepticism. To say 'all we see are images' is a mistake in the same way that saying 'all we see are retinas' would be a mistake.
Now, if you ask me, with my eyes closed, to conjure up an [i]image[/i] of a tree, I can do so. But I immediately know that it's only an image. The act of seeing a tree, and of seeing an image of a tree, are two different things insofar as I have any understanding of them. Likewise, the act of caring about a person, and caring about my image of a person are two different acts that I can comprehend a difference between. So then, I can say that I care about external people, and that part of that caring involves holding an image of them. Saying that I only care about my image of a person has a big problem, and a little one:
Big.) It denies one of those fundamental things we know about the human condition (that we have the capacity to care about others), and it does it for no good reason. A good reason would be in order to bring an equally fundamental thing into a greater clarity than was lost by the denial.
Little.) It seems to be based on careless wording, of the same type as ‘we do not see things, we see images of things’.
To my way of thinking, you’re talking about two slightly different things here. I define the ‘I’ in almost the same way you do here. Not quite my peceptions, what whatever it is that beholds them (as I acknowledge that experiences need a beholder). That only exists in an instant, though, and I define the self as broader than that- the self is a particular chain of states of affairs. Uccisore is not a body, or a mind, so much as a series of events.
I think the stuff I’ve said here ‘takes the train of the tracks’ for most of what follows, so I’ll leave it here save for this one thing, that relates to my points above:
Well, all philosophers deal with that. Part of my non-reductionist view is the belief that the internal 'feelings' that lead to beliefs like "I love my mother, who is a real being external to myself" and "I had bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning" are fundamentally the same as the 'feeling' that a rational argument or mathematical equation is sound. I see no reason to prioritize one such that it has the authority to evaluate (much less dismiss) the others. Rather, they should all be in sync if I'm doing things right.
I believe in both, and the “external forces”-system as the most fundamental. That doesn’t make the other false, only more of an abstraction. The important thing is to know that it is an abstraction. Not to say that the abstraction is not real. Only that it can be described using its component parts, and that therefore the components are more fundamental. I believe in them, but can’t know that they are real. I only know my own perceptions, and everything else must be “found” or “guessed” using the best tools I know, logic and reason.
In physics, yes. As concepts, no. “Chairs” and “atoms” can be so many different things:
Our perception of the chair: Not real as a chair in objective reality, but as the perception it is. This is the only chair we can know to be real. Real because we percieve it.
The consept of a chair: Exist in our mind, and is real as a consept – again, not as a chair in objective reality. This could be said to be more fundamental than the consept of atoms, because it is “closer” to us and we understand it better. Real because we define it as such.
The atom as defined in physics: Real as a consept of physics. Tries to explain objective reality – probably an abstraction of it, but not objective reality itself. In this system the atom is more fundamental than the chair, because a chair can be built using atoms. Real because we define it as such.
The atom and the chair in objective reality: Real and defined only by their own reality. Unknowable by anything external, and only approachable trough abstractions. Our perceptions are probably a reflection of this. Real because it exist in objective reality.
They must be our starting point in the same sense that, in physics, a chair must be studied before we can find it consist of atoms. The chair exist, but its physical properties can be entirely described using atoms. Therefore, in this sense, the atoms are more fundamental. “Love” is just a word, and what it describes is a perception defined as a feeling. When we see another person, be that as a reflection of reality or an illusion in our mind, we might feel what we define as “love”. We may have already defined what we are now perceiving as “another person”, or more specifically, “Jane”. We put these perceptions together and construct a sentence: “I love Jane”. The “love”-perception is real, the “Jane”-perception is real – but do we “love” objective reality-“Jane” or perception-“Jane”? The only thing we know is perception-“Jane”, because only the real Jane define objective reality-“Jane” – and we are not her. That’s why we can’t directly love objective reality-“Jane”, and why I say we love an “image” or rather a perception.
It does not lead to the refutation of the “fundamentals”, as you call them, it simply tries to explain them. They may be abstractions on some level, but they help define the consepts just the same.
What you see is a perception that you call “tree”. It may reflect a tree in objective reality, or it may be an image sent from a computer, or perhaps an image created by your imagination. You may think of it as a tree existing in an external objective reality, but your perception is still just a perception. I guess what I’ve been trying to say all along is that a thing is only what it is, and that any external representation therefore must be an abstraction.
If I ask you to imagine a real tree and you do so, believing that it is in fact real, would the tree then be any more real than if you didn’t believe that it was? You would believe and define it as real, just as you would with your “real” perception of a tree – to you there would be no difference. Are you saying that everything we imagine to be real, actually are real? In a sense it is, but only real as a perception. Is a perception of a real tree more than a perception? You may say yes, because it is caused by something external. But “caused by” is not the same as “is”. A perception is always caused by something (I would think). You may define “tree in objective reality” as meaning “a perception of a tree that is caused by a tree in objective reality”, and perhaps that’s what you do – but that’s not as descriptive as the latter, and people could be led to believe that you were talking about the actual objective reality-tree itself.
If your brain were connected to a computer simulation, and you came to love one of the simulated characters, do you then love the lines of computer code that defines this person? Do you love the signals that the computer sends to your brain? Or do you love your perception of the person? If the person exist in objective reality, then how is that any different? Loving that person directly would be the same as loving the computer code in the simulation.
It does not deny that we care about other people, it simply tries to define what “care” and “other people” are. What is often lost by thinking that you care about a person in objective reality, is the understanding that he can, and should, only matter to you to the extend that he affects you.
Words can be very subjective. I’m working on it, but making oneself understood is not always easy…
I used to define myself in the same way. But then I thougt about it, and came to the conclusion that a perfect description of anything can only be the thing itself. The only thing I perfectly describe, that is know, are my own perceptions – and therefore that is what I am. But it’s really a question of definitions, I just find mine more meaningful.
Can anything exist in a time-line? Must not something that exist, by definition, exist now? I define myself as, not a series of, but a continious perception of the now. States and events sounds like they are defined from the “outside”, I define myself from within.
They are real as experiences. Math is a system created by man, 1+1=2 is real by definition. Logic and reason are just ways of looking at the world, given to us by evolution or God – I only trust them because of their proven usefulness. I generally don’t trust subjective human experiences to give me any answers, beyond the reality of the experiences themselves. They often contradict logic, and logic has a better track-record.
It seems like we're in agreement here- I acknowledge that things like love or chairs might have component parts (which you would call fundamental), and you seem to agree that we know love and chairs better than we know their components (which is what I call fundamental).
You say that you believe in both understandings as true, and that by 'abstraction' you don't mean 'falsehood', but you've also said this:
Which seems like a prime example of what I'm talking about. Taking the notion of 'images in the mind' as fundamental, and human interaction as abstract, it's a simple thing to use one to show that the other isn't real. An model that leads to the conclusion "People don't actually care about other people" had better be absolutely necessary for explaining some other fundamental like free will or the existence of one's own mind. An ad absurdium is what you need, in other words. Without something like that, one ought to be skeptical of an argument that says "People don't actually care about each other" for the same reason that they are skeptical of an argument that says "3+3 = 9 sometimes" or "nobody knows what they had for breakfast this morning".
It's important to note that we aren't dealing with terse arguments here (at least, none that I'm aware of). What we're dealing with is model building, or a broad way of integrating and understanding many different things. As far as I know, a philosophical model is something that is judged by it's ability to interpret and make sense of difficult things around us. If I had a model that included the notion (for example) "There is no such thing as right and wrong", my model [i]had better[/i] explain other aspects of reality in a darned convincing way, because the apparent normative value of things in the world is one of the very things that make us do philosophy in the first place.
No doubt. But the physical properties of a chair are not only a mere portion of the total properties of a chair, but not even the most important ones- at least, not important in terms of why we call something a 'chair' and not a 'log' or a 'rock'. Why do I bring this up? Because it's part of why I don't care for reductionism- you have to decide (or take for granted) what aspects of a chair are important in order to decide what it's fundamentals are. If we were discussing what makes a chair comfortable or pleasing to the eye, I doubt atoms would come up at all, the fundamentals would be something else entirely. I think a greater understanding of a chair can be had by taking it as a whole [i]first[/i], and going into detail about whatever it is we want to emphasize.
In other words, it boils down to the metaphysical vs. epistemology again. I can understand a chair better than any human ever has, without ever having heard of atoms.
Explain them [i]away[/i] in this case.
I say that we see trees. You say that we see perceptions (which may or may not be 'of' something, I'm not sure how you feel about that) . A third party could say that we see images of perceptions, and a fourth that we see visions of images of perceptions, and so on. There has to be some clear point where the infinite regress can be cut off, and the only place I can think of to look is with the definition of 'see'. When I see a tree, I am aware of nothing in my eyes or in my mind, I am aware of something 20 yards off sticking out of the ground. Now, certainly there being a tree in front of me in certain light with my eyes open causes an experience of a certain sort. "I am appeared to treely" one could say.* What I don't see is the necessity of introducing another object, these 'perceptions' or 'images' as you say, to be the actual subject of perception. What explanatory purpose do they serve?
No, I certainly acknowledge that our senses can be fooled. There are even cases like dreams, in which we have a sensory experience and there is nothing with the qualities we sense causing it. What I deny is that there is any intermediate object that is the true subject of our awareness. Insofar as perception involves awareness, there is nothing between the tree and me that is the thing I am ‘actually’ seeing. Think of it this way- when we see a tree, we are aware of one thing, not two- in other words, neither of us thinks we’re seeing both external objects and perceptions at once. If we believe in both, then one or the other must be invisible. We have Kant and others to tell us what the invisible external world must be like, so I see your position. But what on earth is an invisible image? That’s my position.
A define a tree as something with leaves, bark, and all that jazz. I define 'the perception of a tree' as 'the characteristic way one is appeared to when confronted with a tree in a certain way'.
Either I would love an image in my mind, and [i]be aware of that fact[/i], or else I would take myself to be loving an external being, while in fact loving nothing at all. The machine has conjured up in me a sensation that has no object. If that sounds odd to you, replace "loving a simulated character" with "eating a simulated cheeseburger", and it will sound more sensible.
It may feel the same, certainly.
Ok now, this seems a little sketchy to me. What is the difference to the laymen between saying "We don't really care about other people" and saying "We do care about other people, where 'other people' is defined as "a particular image in our own minds". I could as well say "God exists, where "God" is defined as a big mountain with the faces of 4 US Presidents carved on it". Have I really said anything useful about theology?
You have a point there. I think we can [i]dimly[/i] know of our existence as being apart from our perceptions- of ourselves as a [i]perciever[/i]. I don't think anything else can be said about the "I", because it would involve reflecting on a perception.
I think the past exists, but not the future. I'm not a materialist, so I have no problem saying that states of affairs in the past exist- but not as physical things. And yes, I do think the self should be defined in part from the outside. Thinking of the self as a state of affairs basically serves to say, "The 'Uccisore' that celox knows of relates to the "I" in a special way that 'Thirst4Metal' does not". I don't think a purely internal definition of the self can account for that.
My point is that the appeal of logic [i]is[/i] a subjective human experience, and that we have to have some faith in the human 'gut' or 'intuition' in order to trust it.
*- I haven’t put on my ‘direct realism’ hat in public before. I hope I’m doing the position justive.
We know about our percieved reality, and we think there is an objective reality. The objective reality can only be known trough our perceptions, which is at best a reflection of it. If objective reality is not a part of us, we can not know it, because we can not percieve it. We are our perceptions. Our only way to know anything about somthing, without the thing having to become a part of us, is if the thing sends us a “message”. We recieve the message, and the message becomes part of our perception. We see a person because we recieve a message, perhaps originating from that person. We know the message, but not the person. We “love” the message, but not the person. We love the person directly as a reality in our mind, but can never love the person directly as an objective and external reality. You can argue that we are all one – but I do not percieve all, and therefore I am only me.
Well, you have to. Because the chair is all you see at first. You have to study it to find the atoms. But in objective reality, which we can not directly percieve, there are no chair. To the best of our understanding, there are only various configurations of fundamental particles. The consept of a chair requires a mind, and it is in the mind that the chair exist. The reality that we percieve is more real to us than the objective reality that we can’t, but that is not the same chair as the configuration of particles in objective reality.
You understand your own mental image of the chair as completely as possible, but you do not understand the chair in objective reality. Would you understand the objective reality chair if you knew about atoms, no. They to are abstractions, although they can be argued to be “closer” to objective reality (if our models of physics are accurate).
We certainly see “trees”, because we define and recognize certain perceptions as such. However, we do not, and can not, see the objective reality of the trees. The perceptions are (probably) always caused by something, and we often define them as “of” something.
We do not see perceptions, what we see are perceptions.
Your awareness is a perception. Your perception is a “tree 20 yards away”, because you define your perception as such. You perception is however not a tree in objective reality.
The tree in objective reality is “invisible”. We can’t know it, because it’s not us. The tree in our mind is visible, because we percieve what we call a tree. We may percieve it as “external”, but it’s still a perception, and internal.
Again an internal representation, not something in objective reality.
The difference is that “other people” may imply that we care about actual, objective reality people – which is impossible. Just as you have defined a God that I believe in (altough I do not call it “God”), I have defined a “care for other people” that, to me, makes logical sense (although we could more accurately call it something else).
Sounds mystical to me, are you able to explain? What does it mean that the past exist?
They are two different “self”. The “Uccisore” that I know is a mental image that I have constructed from your posts on this forum. The words may come by you, but they certainly are not who you are. I don’t know you, because I am not you. Again, to know is to be.
True, but not blind faith. I have good reasons for believing in logic.
What we see are real, in that they are “parts” or “messages” of objective reality that become part of us. But that is also all of reality we can know. If direct realism says that we percieve what does not become part of us, it is illogical. I think the argument here, as with so much of philosophy, is over definitions.
If you believe and think about the ideas of “percieved” and “objective” reality, I think it should be possible to understand what I’ve been trying to say all this time. There must be a “connection” for one to “know” about the other, and the connections/messages are not the objects themselves.
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