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No problem. Yes, that wasn’t my point at all.

Posting here is not imprudent, nor is it immoral (whatever you think the distinction is). If you can’t control your language, then posting here is both imprudent and immoral—i.e., something you ought not do. If you get into a conversation knowing you can’t always control your language, then posting here is both imprudent and immoral. You haven’t explained whatever you take the distinction to be. I’ve feigned that there is a distinction in what I just wrote—but there actually is none to be had, at least not one that you’ve made clear.

Your example is a bad one. And if you had spent some time reading past posts, you’d have realized that I’ve already dealt with bad examples. Perhaps you could just say what you think the distinction is…

Let me repeat what I’ve already said, for you:

Being prudent is never immoral, and being immoral is never prudent. They are not just conceptually linked, they are two concepts for the same thing (i.e., what you ‘ought’ to do). Your intelligence has been bewitched and confused by means of an error in language. I can tell you how it happened, if you want. The error, at least, reached prominence when Kant divorced empirical self-interest (‘happiness’) from morality, in order to find a non-contingent, universal ground of morality. He rendered the concept unintelligible when he placed its necessary postulates in the unintelligible realm—the noumenal realm. When he tried to solve the problem of motivation (i.e., “Why be moral?”), that answer, too, was likewise placed in the unanswerable category. This is all fundamentally religious thinking. You can separate prudence from morality if you say “prudence is this-worldly self-interest”, and “morality is other-worldly self-interest” (i.e., getting into heaven, and not hell)… but there is no other-world. I don’t make a fiction and a show of my concepts, and neither should you. You can always uphold a distinction when you render one half of it meaningless—but it’ll be a meaningless distinction.

Thus I’m in the tradition of the philosophical greats… Socrates, Nietzsche, Hobbes, and Dan~

Another thing you’ll surely be tempted to do (as others have), is to say things like, “So brushing your teeth is something moral”? And my answer is clearly yes. You ought to take care of yourself. But don’t mistake degrees of importance (e.g., brushing your teeth vs. saving a life) with a fundamental difference in concepts.

This is the idea that each person ‘creates’ their own morality. Mo has been criticizing you for having this position. I think that morality is set by the group. An individual may act morally or immorally with respect to the group standard. The Prince is not ignorant of morality but merely uses it to attain his own goals. Success is based on prudent action which may be saintly piety or ruthless brutality.

ROFL

But if my post here is morally positive, then how could you say it is morally wrong? You can’t. What is wrong about it? Should I always assume I won’t be able to handle myself appropriately in some particular person’s presence? How do you ever know, if you don’t try? In fact, you may have to be imprudent in order to cultivate moral character. You’ve got to be daring, and do something positive in the world.

If you can’t distinguish different kinds of actions because you insist on their connections to each other, then you can’t talk about anything at all, let alone morality or prudence. You can’t talk about what you ought to do, at all. You can’t talk about necks, and you can’t talk about heads.

Anyway, let’s stick with this concept you just brought up - “degrees of importance”. So there is a spectrum, and prudence is to the left, while morality is to the right. It’s all the same thing, but it’s a matter of degree of “oughtness”. Just like the difference between the neck and the head, in Loki’s case. Where is the line drawn? Inability to draw a clear line doesn’t mean there is no difference between “neck” and “head”. Same with prudence and morality, given your own definitions.

I can, and just did. If you do something that does not seem morally wrong, but you know it’ll lead to something morally wrong (or at least that likelihood), then what you did initially is in fact morally wrong. That’s clear. Buying a gun is not morally wrong, but buying a gun when I know I have an uncontrollable temper makes buying the gun morally wrong. It’s something I ought not do.

Your example simply begs the question of what you think the distinction is. You should just state it. Because your example itself shows no distinction.

Wrong.

There is a spectrum of the force that an ‘ought’ claim has. On one end, you really really ought to do that. On the other end, yea, you sort of ought to do it. Perhaps on one end is brushing your teeth, and on the other end is saving a life. Neither side is prudence or morality, one and not the other. I’ve already told you there is no distinction there. If you think there is, it is incumbent on you to FOR ONCE EXPLAIN THE DISTINCTION.

Otherwise, you should more or less agree with me. Prudence and morality are linked. As with many philosophical puzzles and problems, the problem itself is with language and the way the problem is stated. I’m clarifying it. The distinction above is a relic of old religious thinking, which no longer makes sense… just as it didn’t make sense pre-middle ages, to the Greeks. I am a Greek in spirit. Ironically, Ambigui, Faust and phyllo represent the Kantian priesthood.

My point is this: We only have so much understanding of and control over all the myriad variables that come together – and then evolve over the years – as or into “I”. Likewise the “group” is always situated problematically out in a particular historical and cultural context.

Mo is perturbed mostly by the suggestion that particular behaviors are rooted inextricably and inexplicably in dasein. And, thus, in the enormously complex labyrinths that are contingency, chance and change. He refuses to accept there is no way for philosophers to yank Virtue objectively out of all the many, many, many social, political and economic permutations possible “out in the world” of actual human interaction.

So he does it “in his head” instead. He creates an argument [a world of words] that is true only because he claims the meaning he gives to all the words in the argument are true. Morality and prudence are what he says they are. Basically, the same thing.

And, if you insist on being the sole arbiter regarding what either does or does not contribute “scientifically” to the “well-being” of the human race, I suppose they are just different facets of the same thing.

Is this in fact true though? I don’t think so. But, more to the point, I don’t think we can know for sure because facts pertaining to the behaviors precipitated by conflicting value judgments can distinguish what did from what did not happen but not what should from what should not happen.

And calling yourself “a river” instead of a “philosopher-king” here doesn’t change that.

To paraphrase myself, “A prudent and objective morality isn’t true or false unless you believe it is.”

For, among other things, all practical purposes.

How can they be linked if they’re the same thing?

Game over.

By the way, according to your logic the only proper moral decision is to not engage with others at all. Absolute prudence. 'Cause I might fuck up.

I’m not the least bit Kantian. :unamused:

Correct. They differ only in letters.

You’re welcome, btw.

You should probably hide yourself away if you know you’re going to end up behaving like I usually see you do. I don’t have that problem though.

If I stop posting it’s not because I’m hiding. It’s because I can’t find a single interesting thread to engage in recently.

Apologies, I’ve missed a couple of days due to real life popping up unexpectedly.

Time to lock this thread, as it’s going nowhere fast. This post gets Monooq a warning.

deleted.

Let me a take a different tack here.

It seems to me an assumption in your position, Mo, is that, really, with some quantitative variation, we are all the same. Culture and ignorance can make it seem like we are vastly more different than each other, but at root we really want the same things, and thus we can come up with a morality based on pain and other measurable neurological reactions, a morality that works for everyone, in fact, even if their culture and ignorace of cause and effect, make it hard for them to realize.

I used to think something like this. In any case that we are all, really, pretty much the same.

It doesn’t really fit my experience.

There seem to be a lot of people who like to be under authority. Who may like the idea of freedom in the abstract, but seek to place themselves under authority as much as possible and do seem happier there than I ever would. They made the transition from royalty based governments to republics and democracies without really granting themselves or seeming to be very attracted to utilizing freedoms I like to and would like to. They conform because it is normal. And they dislike the not normal because it is not normal. They may at times weigh in with arguments about why normal is better, but often, in fact, they can come right out and say the issue is simply that being normal is good, period.

I can think, oh, I know how they really would like to live. If I could teach them critical thinking, and perhaps undo some of the judgments and fear that lock them into these places. If they could be encouraged to experience freedom, creativity, individuality - rather than thinking that Nike and Chanel will give them individuality - they would realize they are like me, not in specifics, but in the general urges.

How…presumptuous.

What if there are people who simply do not thrive in the same ways? They are not really at root like you, Mo. It seems clear to me that some people actually want there to be strife, war, conflict, dog eat god environments, harsh interpersonal dynamics. (this is not necessarily at all the same group as the conformists I mentioned above) It is not an us them, I see a number of groups out there.

I spent a long time thinking, really, they differed with me over what was a necessary evil. Or they did not know there might be ways to mitigate some of this. Or that their upbringing distorted their real selves.

I don’t buy that at all, now.

It seems to me your sense of morality is based on this general unity of humankind. (if that does not seem like the case to you, then we need to focus there and perhaps I am wrong about this implication)

Yes, I think this is fair. Culture is a surface phenomenon—a way of expressing the sort of impulses that all creatures of our type hold in common. They get expressed in different ways, through culture… but at a deeper level, it’s possible to judge culture because at the deeper level there are commonalities.

What is the problem here? I am one of those people.

That would be surprising indeed. Are they from an alien planet? Do they not share hundreds of thousands of years of the same forging as me? Are we not from the same place, in Africa? Are we not virtual genetic identicals? I’d say, let them thrive as they see fit. At this point, you might want to say that torturing and slavery are thriving, and ask what my response is. It’s clear, while there may be many different ways of thriving and flourishing, there are at least some ways of getting it wrong. I know that because I am from the same place as you, and your virtual genetic identical. There are surface variations. You want love, and that urge expresses itself in different ways. Why should I care? You want to avoid pain, and that urge expresses itself in different ways. Why should I care? You want pleasure, and that urge expresses itself in different ways. Why should I care? There can be different ways of expressing yourself, but there are clearly some ways of getting it wrong.

No there isn’t. People only fight for a reason. People only have conflict in order to settle something. People only hurt to get something. Nobody does these things for no reason. These things aren’t inherently good, they’re means.

OK, good.

Well, you seemed to describe yourself in libertarian terms. You did not use that term, so I may be way off, but I somehow got that impression. That position has a lot of trouble with authority, compared to many conservatives who are not libertarians, for example.

Those surface variation seem to run deep. You ask a lot of questions and I think essentially I had to run through the ideas in those questions like a gauntlet as I more and more decided I actually believed people when they said what they wanted, even if it was nothing like what I wanted. I am not saying that culture and, cough, cough, brainwashing, do not have effects, but it no longer seemed to match my reality this idea that really we are all the same. If nothing else, even if you are correct about morality and our sameness, you are going to meet one hell of backlash when you start telling people that really they are like you and don’t realize that what you are saying is objectively good, they like, deep down also. But that’s a practical issue you may already know is there.

I simply don’t find that other people all really deep down are like me in important ways. They seem to have other needs, other modes of life that make them comfortable and also, seem to have very little interest extricating themselves from what I might decide is causing them pain or keeping them from a life that I would find more fulfilling or interesting or whatever. IOW I do see people shift from their family/group cultures. I see people who decide that there is something wrong - even that in itself is to some degree unique, even if on the specifics they may disagree with others in this category - and they question and probe their training and upbringing and whatever cultural truths once seemed a given to them. I do see this happens. I am not ruling out the possibility that someone who seems to have what you would call surface differences might shift to not having these and even that discussions of morality might be part of such a shift. But I see others, most in fact, who seem not likely to ever shift. Not having trouble around the edges of their cultures and not at all like me.

It may seem logical to point at genetics, but even amongst animals raised in the same litters and herds I have seen radically different lifestyle needs and choices.

But perhaps we are even more variable than other social mammals even. I don’t know. But your logical or perhaps ‘logical’ argument doesn’t shift in the slightest my day to day experience. It seems to me it bears the burden of empirical evidence. Not merely deductive arguments. I need to see this deep down reallly all the sameness. Can you do this?

It seems to me a very large percentage of the population thinks what I call wrong is something good. I see this in child rearing, for example. I suppose I used to feel superior, they don’t know any better. I know what they would really want to do if they really knew themselves and their children and well, life. But I am no longer sure that is the case. That seems like a ghost of an idea.

AGain that is not my experience. The reasons seem to be in part enjoying conflict and even war. Enjoying levels of competition, say in a workplace, that seem hostile to me, and not mildly. I am not saying they have no reasons. I am sayhing that a society that met their needs would not meet mine and vice versa. I am not saying they are stupid or random. In fact presuming that there seeking out conflict, finding reasons, not being satisfied with enough, pride in provoking and so on are some distortion of what their real needs are seems just that a presumption and a judgment that their choices are stupid or to put it in more nicey nice terms, not ideal.

As it is now we have different groups whose surface differences would lead them to have societies in which members from other groups would at the very least be under the illusion they were suffering immensely. Not because we can’t solve all the problems in these different cultures, but because of how these different groups want to live. Or at least think they want to live.

Brethren, I have no idea where you’re getting this from. If it’s key to a point you want to make, let me know—and I’ll think harder about it. Most people think I’m too authoritarian it seems, you know, telling people there are such things as wrong answers, and other ghastly things.

I think this is overblown, because I think the agreements among base values across cultures are very similar. That’d be a factual claim. Take a vague example… Just imagine, hypothetically, that one culture seems to value “equality” above all else… and for an arbitrary designation, just call them “the communists”—you know, just to give them a name. And one culture seems to value “freedom” above all else, just for the sake of also giving them a name, call them “the capitalists”. These names are arbitrary; you can call them X and Y if you prefer. But if ever there was a hypothetical example that bore out the deep variation that you’re talking about, it would be this one. But I have a hunch… My hunch is the allegedly chief values among these cultures are surface varations that grow out of deeper common base values. What would make my hunch look plausible? Well, suppose that the culture we’ve arbitrarily decided to call “the communists” started to see their society perfectly equal in every respect—but it was equally poor in every social/economic category (like quality of food, income, leisure time, etc). My hunch is that they would drift from their prizing the value of “equality”, and my suspicion is that this would be done by the felt infringement of a deeper value they hold. Now, take the culture that just for the sake of a name we’ve called “the capitalists”… Suppose that everyone had perfect freedom to do whatever they wanted, but this led some having everything, and others having nothing, of those same social/economic categories. My hunch is that they’d also start to change, for the same general reason. I suppose we’ll never know if something like this is born out by reality, you know, in the real world. But alas… we can hypothesize…

Anyways, why don’t we just, for the time being, create a bucket term for a collection of values the proper ordering of which these cultures would move toward, if indeed they move anywhere. Call it “well-being”. If something like this were happening, it’d cast doubt on how deep your surface variations run. Perhaps you also have an entirely hypothetical example with no bearing in the real world that you’d like to use to make your view more plausible…?

Examples, brethren?

Dude, that’s suggestive of an objective standard on which you’d base morality, right? It simply wouldn’t happen if cultures actually were the generators of normative force, and nothing else was.

Explain. Give the example some concrete features. It seems pretty clear to me that I was were you said you were. I mean, it seems pretty clear to me that there’s at least a wrong way to raise a kid, which might involve regular verbal/physical abuse, social isolation, lack of education, and dismissal, at 7 years old. Of course, sans God, how can we say… No wait, wait, I’ll have empirical evidence for that if you want the empirical thing…

Well what if I said that a society was intolerant about either of your needs could objectively be improved by removing its intolerance, and allowing plural ways of living…? If morality is objective, it’s possible that one objective moral truth is to allow for people to walk down different paths as they see fit at different stages.

I got if from what you said about taxation, how you seem not to care how people get pleasure as long it seems as they do not hurt other non-consentors. One can pontificate and be utterly sure one is right without wanting a society based on a dictator, or even wanting a democratically elected set of representative dictate about many areas of life. But if libertarian is a poor fit that’s fine. You can be part of the group that has a different set of needs and desires for their day to day life than I have. The only important point is that there seem to be differences and not superficial ones. (brethren? I am just one guy. though maybe you meant that a bunch of us misunderstand you)

There are large swathes of the country that are very concerned both with following religious norms and social norms - based on their ideas of what normal is. They tolerate and seem upset by things that are not what they would call normal. They also seem to want very strong guidelines for much of their own behavior and pass this on to their children, who are tightly kept within norms - dress, gender norms, even down to how one crosses one’s legs, walks and the length of your hair. Doesn’t matter if you are in this group or not. Just that this group and whatever group I would get lumped in would each say we want certain things and these things would be significantly different. Such that to live in each others society would cause regular pain.

It seems to me your position works only if all this is superficial and at least one group is confused about what it really needs and wants and how it would thrive.

Sure, I catch the sarcasm, but I wasnt really thinking of political groups, though the groups I notice would have some tendencies towards political positions. For example the group that seems to like what I would call excessive competition, conflict, personal facades, display of strength, clear domination and submission dynamics or at least a lot of room to play these things out
function quite well in both capitalist and communist countries. (and note submissives can also like these cultures and call for their strenghtening or return)

Again, the real world makes my view vastly more plausible. And the testimony of most people would also run counter to your case.

Me just one guy. I hope the one earlier in this post counts.

No, its not. I think this can move away from what I think is good and certainly away from what I think is good for me. I have seen the children of people whose values I share question those values and move away. My point was merely that I do see the possibility for some people to decide to move away from their culture to what they feel feels better. I am not ruling that out. But there certainly seems to be a vast group of people - who come from all groups - who don’t have this quality or interest. In fact this is also a group division. There are those who side with authority, be it Muslim, Communist, Neo Con, whatever. And there are those who are raised in these environments who question the values. Who somehow constitutionally want to feel and think there way to something that feels better. This latter group may end up with different solutions, but they seem constitutionally different from the former group. And the former group, if they were born as Jews not in Jesus’s circle, go with the authority rabbis and call for him to die. If born in a Christian society/group worship Jesus. I don’t see them having moved an inch through all their incarnations. Try telling them that they really will feel better with the whatever values you think are objective.

There can be the highly authoritarian, very control based household. Where even questioning the ideas of, often, the father is seen as problematic. Corporal punishment is more likely here, though not what is considered physical abuse legally - in the US. Often reference to authority is seen as a full explanation. The range of choices of the children say for interests or career or friends is limited at least until they leave home. However they certainly can have friends and a social life. A lot of things are simply not to be discussed. There is often a strong religious component to all this but it is not necessary.

For me that’s hell.

Others claim to have thrived and recreate it with their own children.

You’ll have an easier time selling that to my group then to others and man that sure does sound libertarian, brethren. There are other groups that will not accept this currently. And will not think you are connected to what is objective. Further, this means there are no objective values, but one single meta value. And it is sort of like Alistair Crowley’s one law.

Further given the enmeshment of modern life, this isn’t reallly possible.

Right. It’s possible to get worked up about stuff that doesn’t matter upon reflection. I’m not saying etiquette or social rules all fall in this category necessarily. But yea, you ought to reflect on the things that get you worked up and why they do—that’s a moral imperative. Just because someone causes you pain doesn’t mean he should stop what he’s doing—it may be that the best course is just for you to change, if intolerance toward the other person caused greater pain, while yours was easily changed by reflection. Something like interracial marriages might fit this. Yea, it might cause some racists a deal of pain to see it. But the solution is obviously not banning interracial marriages.

In my example, I took those values (“equality” and “freedom” to be moral values, and for those values to be the moral values of society). But sarcasm aside, I made the example for a reason. You want to say that cultural differences cut to the core—let’s have an example, already. You might be right…

That’s patently false. And the example to establish my case (freedom vs equality)was the central value conflict of recent decades. You haven’t fleshed out a single example for thinking what you do. You should think it would be easy, going by what you’ve said. Is the point of what follows that you’re going to argue that conservatives and progressives (in any walk of life) have the deeply divided separate values? Let me know if this is what you are suggesting, please. But pick an actual value difference in your example. The same aversion that a conservative feels about some value of a progressive is what the progressive feels about some value of a conservative. Get at a value difference and let’s see what you have.

If it’d be hell for you, then you ought not raise the kid that way. I’ve never said that in a conflict of values, there’s one right answer. I’ve just said that sometimes there’s a wrong answer. And I don’t even see a conflict of values here… My guess is that the parent who is an authoritarian wants similar things to the hippie parent. They want a happy kid, who grows up to stand on his own feet, is able to respect others, and move through the world independently somehow.

Yea, well recognize this: There are some groups who are wrong about morality. One option that my position leaves me, is to say to someone that they’re wrong. Suppose I’m talking to leadership of the KKK about values and so on. Guess what I can tell them?

Btw, have you seen The Master? You remind me of the character played by Hoffman, who is the master guy.