the psychology of objectivism - one possible narrative

There were no “productive old times” between us. I was merely keeping you distracted and occupied while other things were going on. You proved to be entirely disingenuous, so discussion beyond that wasn’t appropriate … much like now.

You really don’t have an ironic bone in your body, do you? It’s a wonder you don’t have 19,797 posts at the Know Thyself forum by now.

Anyway, I’ll start the new thread, okay? Look for it.

But, in being a realist, I’ll start it up in the rant forum. :wink:

Someone gives you an apple. Are you going to argue that they cheated you – that they only gave you 0.999~ of an apple instead? Sure you can take mathematics out into the more speculative realms. But most of us are quite content in accepting that the laws of mathematics and science really do seem to transcend dasein.

But what of moral and political agendas? How are they not bursting at seams with the manner in which I construe dasein and conflicting goods?

Why don’t you focus instead on why my argument here is less reasonable than yours?

But only pertaining to an actual moral conflict that we are all familiar with. What is your argument “down here”?

You, I am actually curious about your answers to the questions in my previous post.

Here, the distinction I make is between language able to denote the objective truth and language rooted more or less in personal opinion.

If a doctor is performing an abortion there may be different words used to describe the operation as a medical procedure. But then it is only a matter of learning the sounds invented in different parts of the world to encompass the words used in order to communicate coherently with the pregnant woman or with other doctors.

But the medical procedure itself transcends gender or race or ethnicity or sexual preference or religious convictions or political values.

It is only when we shift gears and the language used focuses instead on the morality of abortion, that objectivity [eventually] gives why to the subjective/subjunctive parameters of value judgments.

And it is here that we bump into the manner in which I construe dasein and conflicting goods.

I would only suggest that, again, with respect to those relationships that language can in fact denote objectively [the laws of math and science, empirical fact, the logical rules of language etc], there is a right word and a wrong word. But with respect to identity and value judgments, right and wrong can always be rationalized by making certain assumptions about what is true or false.

Thus there are folks who insist that abortion is immoral because it results in the killing of innocent human life. Meanwhile there are other folks who insist that abortion is moral because otherwise women will be forced to give birth against their will. And that is immoral.

Thus conflicting goods. Both sides have arguments that the other side is unable to make go away. But we can’t live in a world where both sides prevail.

The same is true with all other moral conflicts that make the headlines day after day after day.

Even extreme behavior like rape can be rationalized. If one starts from the premise that, morally, personal gratification is the center of the universe [in a world sans God] anything can be justified if one is willing to accept the consequences of living with those who will punish such behavior. And then with God, all bets are off, right? What monstrosity has not been rationalized through religion? Or, for the secularists, through ideology [Reason].

What is crucial though is that behaviors must be fitted into one or another legal and political contraption. And here that can revolve around either God or ideology or democracy. What’s important to me is in recognizing that if there be no deontological agenda open to us, the only recourse is moderation, negotiation and compromise. But that will always be fluid and unstable and problematic.

But at least most folks are able to make their own existential leap to a frame of mind they deem the most rational/moral. Instead, I’m rather hopelessly entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

My point is that the scholastic/didactic “reasoning” that folks like Satyr and Lyssa employ revolves largely around the definitions that they give to words such that the meaning of the words used in their [largely] abstract arguments is necessarily true because it is predicated on the internal logic derived from the definition/meaning they give to the words.

And, in fact, it is when you take that circular logic down here and plug it into actual moral and political conflicts that you begin to ascertain the limitations of their serial assertions.

Almost all of the objectivists focus the beam on these clouds of abstraction over there.

And, with Satyr and Lyssa and Magnum, I have asked them repeatedly to give us examples of how they actually do walk the talk in their interactions with others. But that necessarily does involve bringing their theoretical jargon down to earth and [so far] they won’t go there.

Moral decisions have real life consequences and it is through these consequences that one determines their value.

Furthermore, one has to learn how to separate the genesis of a decision with its value.

I can decide using a dice throw, or using my “dasein”, and still be correct because the genesis of a decision is separate from its value.

In short, the quality of a decision should be measured against reality, against its real life consequences.

Because we all see from different perspectives. Brain matter does that to us. lol And we would prefer to be stubborn and/or right in our assumptions than to simply come to creating synthesis.

iambiguous

So, what is it that you are asking for here? That people reveal particular things within their own private lives that would point to their relationships with others - how objective they are capable of being or how subjectivity rules their lives. That would be an interesting thing to indulge in and as you say it would bring anything being discussed more down to earth - kind of getting into the nitty gritty.
But it’s safe not doing that. That requires a certain degree of self-trust and discernment.
But in the name of clarification and synthesis, gee how good it would be.

Just more of the same.

You make a series of didactic assertions. I respond to them, probing the extent to which they may or may not be applicable to actual conflicting behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.

You ignore the probe and just make new assertions.

Now, I’m not saying that what you assert to be true is not true. I am simply asking you to situate the assertions in a moral conflict we are all familiar with and/or or in personal experiences you have had in confronting the odious “liberals” who just don’t get it.

I have gone down this road so many times …

For example, abortion.

Up to a certain point in the gestation period, the fetus cannot live outside of the woman’s womb. Before week 22, there is no chance of survival outside the womb.
Up to a certain point in the gestation period, the fetus does not have a developed brain or body and cannot be considered as a conscious human being.
Scientifically documented.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viab … thresholds
Therefore, it is moral to abort a fetus before week 22. Objective reasoning.

“But how on Earth can you make an argument to convince someone who believes that the fetus is a human being at conception, that it is moral to abort before week 22?”

I just did. Off the skyhooks. No abstract words. No theoretical assertions.

And when he responds that some people will not be convinced, this would be making into a kind of criterion for knowledge ‘no one is unconvinced by the argument’.
No such argument can exist, including scientific ones. Even mathematical proofs and proofs in symbolic logic - iow objectively infallible and/or by definition - will not convince everyone.

Just to avoid a repeated muddle.

Keep begging me.

Maybe it will work.

Wow! I didn’t even know I was begging!!

Yes, some folks are uncomfortable divulging personal information online. Either about themselves or others. And that’s not exactly an irrational point of view, is it?

But there are ways to do this without naming names.

For example, on other threads I have divulged an experience I had with “John” and “Mary”. John impregnated Mary. Mary chose to abort the baby. This led to the disintegration of their impending marriage. Why? Because John was infuriated that Mary would do this without first discussing it with him. And John was opposed to abortion.

John and Mary are not their real names. And the episode did not unfold on a college campus. I respected their privacy but choose to use this particular example as the manner in which I first came to piece together the manner in which I construe dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

It was a truly profound experience for me because up until then I had always viewed moral issues like this from the perspective of either/or. In other words, As a Christian, as an Objectivist, as a Marxist, as a Feminist. As an objectivist.

And it was around this time that I bumped into William Barrett’s The Irrational Man. And from that I bumped into this:

For the choice in…human [moral conflicts] is almost never between a good and an evil, where both are plainly marked as such and the choice therefore made in all the certitude of reason; rather it is between rival goods, where one is bound to do some evil either way, and where the ultimate outcome and even—or most of all—our own motives are unclear to us. The terror of confronting oneself in such a situation is so great that most people panic and try to take cover under any universal rules that will apply, if only to save them from the task of choosing themselves.

And it was when I situated Barrett’s argument here in the experience I had with John and Mary, that I began to truly grasp what philosophers like Wittgenstein were suggesting: that there were profound limitations to language and logic pertaining to actual human interactions. Especially when they come into conflict over value judgments.

Besides, I offer didacticists like Magnus, Satyr and Lyssa the option of framing their argument by situating it instead in a moral issue that clearly precipitates conflicting moral and political agendas. I like to use abortion becasue that is the issue that first prompted me to explore these relationships existentially. But they are certainly welcome to choose any other issue.

Huh? Are you telling me that if others propose arguments [as they have] that human life begins as far back as conception itself they are necessarily wrong? And that if they choose an abortion after the 22nd week, they are necessarily immoral?

Do you even think through what you are proposing?

In other words, are you suggesting that those who do not think as you do here are necessarily irrational? You actually believe that?!

Here, read this: princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

Oh, and by the way, as I have asked you time and time again, how do you integrate your moral “objectivism” here with your belief in God?

Talk about the psychology of objectivism!!

No, my point is that folks on both sides of the abortion conflagration accumulate criteria that is linked to the assumptions they make as to when a human life begins. In other words, given those assumptions, both sides are able to make convincing arguments. Either using the tools of philosophy or science.

Then what?

It is precisely the “muddle” that the objectivists seek to avoid by insisting that they have arrived at a set of premises/assumptions that makes their own moral agenda necessarily rational. And then if others do not share it, they are necessarily irrational.

Alas, you are becoming more and more like Magnus. You pop into threads where I post, level your criticisms, and then after I respond, you disappear. Only to come back later with yet more assertions about how I’ve got it all wrong.

And yet, ironically, the point I keep trying to make is that my own arguments, in being rooted existentially in dasein, can never be more than my own personal opinions here and now. Opinions that over the years [in a world bursting at the seams with contingency chance and change] have evolved profoundly as I acquired new experiences, new relationships and new sources of information.

Just like you, right?

I test moral decisions against reality, I don’t test them against other people.

Do you understand that, you retard?

You are asking me to discuss John and Mary . . . but that is pointless, you idiot. I don’t want to discuss John and Mary, I want to discuss John and reality, or Mary and reality.

Do you get that, you imbecile?

John wants Mary to abort because he does not want a child . . . he is not ready for a child, he cannot raise a child, he does not want a dysfunctional family.

Mary refuses to do so because Mary is incapable of controlling her emotions.

Her interests are short-term. She only wants to feel okay. This comes at the cost of long-term interests, at the cost of family.

John’s interests are long-term. He does not care about feeling bad in the present if that is going to save him from feeling terrible in the future.

Do you get that!?

They have different priorities. John prioritizes family, Mary prioritizes her feelings.

Mary is the stupid one, selfish one.

She wants the baby, cause she’s too weak to kill it. She will raise a retard thinking she’s raising a genius . . . she will use denial to hide the fact that he is turning out a retard.

Or are you going to tell me that prioritizing feelings is just as okay as prioritizing family?

Think about it, retard.

I was using language as a metaphor for morals. Certainly within a language there is a right and a wrong, just as there is a right and a wrong within one particular set of morals. Calling a potato an apple is incorrect… unless you’re French :wink:
But there are many languages, as there are many sets of morals. You can call a potato potato, you can call it batata, you can call it patata, you can call it papas, you can call it pomme-de-terre, and in all three cases you are correct.
Your choice to use one of these words is not only dependent on your preference, or your ability, or your knowledge. It is also dependent on the context. When you leave your country and you go to a distant place, you can yell “I want a goddamn potato!” all you want, and that will take you nowhere.
Similarly, if I go to one of those extremely islamic countries, I will be expected to cover my hair. I may insist that I will not cover my hair because it is my way and my way is the right thing, and break a law, end up in prison or stoned to death or whatever those ass-backwards people do to cheeky chicks.
So is demanding that women be covered right, or wrong? It’s right and wrong, depending on where you are and depending on who you are.
To me it’s wrong, still I’d cover my hair because I value my life more than I would value making some kind of statement about women’s rights, but there are plenty of stories of people to whom making that sort of statement is more important than their own personal safety.
Just an example.
Anyway, too much typing… basically, when in France, eat your damn ground apples with mayonnaise.

There isn’t with language, a right and a wrong. There are many rights, and many wrongs.
Why can we not live in a world where both sides prevail?

I recognize that as well, and that it being fluid, unstable and problematic is a given.
What I am asking you is why do you think it must not be so. What is your end-game here, peace on earth? Some sort of utopia where nobody fights about anything because everyone thinks the same… everyone is the same?

Don’t you know who you are?

Here is an anecdote.
On that thread that Lyssa linked you, about whether or not one would save a drowning child, when pressed for an answer, she said she would flip a coin. Later on, she seems to have inconspicuously removed that post.
You can read this as a metaphor as well, if you want to.

Your starting premise is that there is no right and wrong in morality. Your conclusions easily follow.
If this was a questions about mathematics, like 0.99999…=1, then you would dismiss some arguments as academic, or one of the participants did not understand the context, or one of the participants is an imbecile.
But when it comes to morality, then you become paralyzed. You can’t reason about morality. Nobody can be wrong.

But you want to have a discussion about it. You want to read arguments presented about real-life situations.

No you don’t.

There is no necessary right and wrong … but when I present an argument, then I am ‘not thinking it through’, I am an idiot and I am wrong.

Do you bother to think any more? Or is your hypocrisy so ingrained that there is no longer any point?

You can’t discuss it sans God. Adding God to the mix would just add useless complications.

Yeah, people thinking about stuff that happens in life and presenting arguments. And then deciding which argument is right and which argument is wrong. Reasoning.

First, answer my questions, please.

Now, my starting premise is that, in the absense of a demonstrable God or a demonstrable deontological moral argument, right and wrong is rooted in dasein; and that individuals can provide reasonable arguments from both sides of any particular issue merely by making certain assumptions about what is true or false. You seem to be arguing that your own rendition of what constitutes prenatal human life is true objectively. And, therefore, anyone who obtains/performs an abortion after the 22nd week, is necessarily behaving immorally. Why? Because you insist that science has established that after the 22nd week, the fetus become a human being.

You know, objectively.

By the way, did you read my link or not? Is that not science?

Yes, I have acknowledged any number of times that, when it comes to morality, I am entangled in this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

What I am interested in from folks like you then are arguments that show this is not a reasonable point of view. And I agree it would not be if it could be established that a particular omniscient/omnipotent God does in fact exist. Or if, philosophically, a deontological argument can be established such that the conflicting goods rooted in abortion dissolve and all rational men and women are able to discern their one true moral obligation when confronted with any particular abortion.

You seem to argue that both are within our grasp. But, in my opinion, you do not demonstrate why others should share your point of view.

When have I resorted to name-calling in discussing these relationships with you? Sure, sometimes I don my polemicist persona and push folks really hard. But I almost never resort to the sort of declamatory rhetoric the KTS crowd is famous for. Well, sans the occasional really shitty mood.

I’m back to this: Huh?

Do you believe in the Christian God or not? And, if you do, how, as a Christian, do you address the question of abortion as it pertains to your argument above and as it pertains to Judgment Day. God either provides the faithful with an obligatory moral agenda re abortion or any particular Christian is able to rationalize it so as to embrace either pro or anti choice political factions. And that would seem to make a mockery of Judgment Day.