To you it’s wrong, to others it’s right. And that’s because historically, culturally and experientially, any particular individual will have access to a set of experiences, a set of relationships and a set of ideas/ideals that will predispose him or her to think one way rather than another.
But is there a way [philosophically] to determine if women ought to cover their hair? No, not in my view. Instead, any particular individual will think what he or she does as it pertains to the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
Unless, of course, someone can persuade me that this is not the case at all.
How can we live in a world where the unborn are always brought to term and a world in which women are not forced to give birth?
There would appear to be three options:
1] a world where might makes right prevails
2] a world where moderation, negotiation and compromise prevail
3] a world where philosopher-kings are able to ascertain the one true objective moral obligation applicable to all rational men and women.
As was once suggested, “in the absense of God all things are permitted”. And they are permitted because virtually any human behavior imaginable can be rationalized. You simply have to be willing to accept the consequences of living in a world where others may not share your own point of view. They may punish you instead for doing what they construe to be immoral.
As for an “end-game”, that too will be rooted in dasein. My own is now more or less embedded in distractions. I am living as comfortably and rewardingly as possible waiting for the inevitable abyss. Some call it “waiting for godot”. That works for me. But what can this possibly mean to others who have no possible clue regarding the life that I’ve lived…or who live their own life in a set of circumstances far, far removed from mine?
And yet I still spend a lot of time in places like this looking for arguments that might allow me to extricate myself from my own “dasein dilemma”.
That you would even ask this question speaks volumes regarding the gap between my understanding of human identity and yours.
Of course I know who I am with respect to all the material, phonomenal, demographic etc., factors that everyone uses to situate themselves out in a particular world.
But I recognize the manner in which I come to have particular moral and political values as being largely existential constructions, deconstructions and reconstructions. I don’t believe there is a “real me”. I don’t believe that a “real me” has access to a deontological moral or political agenda. And, again, that is what the OP above focuses in on: the psychology of moral and political objectivism.
Lyssa aside, sure, you can flip a coin or you can try to invent/discover a philosophical argument that enables you to know for certain what your moral obligation is.
Now, in almost all cases most of us will save the drowning child. But is that the same thing as saying that we are morally obligated to save the child? I don’t think so. But I also don’t think that I can know so. Not objectively.
It always depends on the particular context and how any particular individual views it. One obvious example is a situation in which saving the drowning child puts your own life at risk.
You might change that word “obliged” to self-aware and a person may at that point want to become self-actualized or evolve.
This kind of reminds me of when an alcoholic or drug addict reaches rock bottom and recognizes his own inferiority OR better stated, his own inability to cope and to change his life. So he does at some point wake up even more and feel an obligation toward himself to do something about that…not to become superior but to become “real” and “sane” again. Superior may simply be one more perspective based on the desire to over-inflate one’s self to the one who thinks in terms of being superior. That could be construed as over compensating.
Someone who is/was self-aware would not speak in terms of superiority, would they? Would they compare their self to others or would they simply work at becoming what they could in an ongoing way?
But wanting to become “real” at first needs to be seen then I rather think it does become a choice, a willingness to become.
Overcompensation is a matter of not seeing the forest for the trees, of acting from unconscious need, like trying to fill a cup which has a hole in it.
Why would anyone want to accept their self as such when they could move forward? And if someone were so inferior, could they be blamed for that? But it would take others to help them along
One can’t know that til the end. But evolution also does move forward from error. We’re all a bunch of mutants who have adapted some more than others.
I don’t think that that is his point. I had the impression that his point was just the opposite of what you said above. We are not the herd or the Borg.
But that’s just the beginning of the discussion. That’s looking at the shell but that shell has to be cracked open to see what’s inside.
But didn’t you just say different strokes for different folks, different predisposiitons, different moralities.
When you say “moralities” are you speaking in terms of self responding to “real” though subjective human values which might include “to do no harm as much as possible” or simply that one’s OWN way of being moral is naturally higher than that of others? In other words “How could it possibly be any other way”?! That’s just narcissism I feel.
Can you define stupid as you mean it here? Can it simply mean a different perspective, looking at things from a different lens perhaps, remaining open without feeling a need to have answers to all the questions?
Medical science enables us to grasp objectively why women become pregnant. And it enables doctors to perform abortions based on an objective knowledge of human biology as it pertains to terminating a pregnancy.
But when it comes to pinning down precisely when, after conception, the unborn becomes a “human being”, science seems unable to determine beyond all doubt when this is. And they certainly seem unable to determine if abortion either is or is not moral.
Of course there are folks like Sam Harris who insist that science is able to determine this. But I don’t share his point of view. As I have noted on other threads.
No, what we have is you insisting that the “scientific facts” from your link, in being in alignment with your own moral convictions, have been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. What we don’t have is you demonstrating that the “scientific facts” from my link are necessarily wrong.
There you go again, avoiding the need to actually answer my questions by insisting that only you get to say if I am entitled to even raise them.
From my point of view, once one has committed himself to a particular denominational God, it is absurd to imagine that He can be excised from a discussion that revolves around the extent to which our moral agendas are said to be either true objectively or merely rooted subjectively in dasein.
Across town was an exaggeration. As I wrote in a previous post, the more distance you walk, then more differences you find.
I also would probably never stab someone on my front porch, im case you’re wondering
There is no objective morality. Not even one that you can anchor on organic causes… I want to believe that every mother loves her children, but alas.
I do think that you can attempt an appeal to a common sense toward any human being based on the fact that he is a human being. Our physical bodies are, after all made of all the same stuff. I can’t call that objectivity, though, as darling anfang pointed out once. That’s an inter-subjectivity. This is what we work with in order to make laws.
One can only convince oneself is what I said.
The whole point of the socratic method is to cause one to be convinced by one’s own reasoning.
I’m quite certain that you would stab someone on your porch. And depending on the context, it would be judged moral or immoral - objectively. If the mailman was trying to strangle you, then it would be moral to stab him. If the mailman was late with the mail, then it would be immoral to stab him.
Is that just my subjective opinion?
You guys are really stuck on that word ‘EVERY’.
What is the basis of inter-subjectivity if everyone is so unique and different? What would a group of people want to share these laws? Why are laws against murder, theft, incest, so common?
That’s why you are answering Socrates’ questions. But why is Socrates talking to you in the first place? What’s his motivation if not to convince you of some truth?
Sounds like what you call objective knowledge in science is narrowing. You seem to be saying that if there is some uncertainty or alternative interpretation then it qualifies as subjective. Even when the underlying mechanisms are objective.
Actually I did not insist on anything… I presented a way to approach a problem. An approach based on objective research.
You did not show that the research wrong but you instead linked to an alternative concept when a human being ‘begins existing’.
Let’s say that I accept your link as being correct. What are the consequences?
Clearly we still think that it is moral to end the existence of human beings under certain circumstances. It is done for comatose patients. So there have to other factors which play a role in determining the morality of the acts. My link, which shows that a fetus less than 22 weeks old cannot survive outside the womb, is such a factor. And it is not incompatible with the definition of humanness.
BTW, if a fetus is a human being at fertilization and that is the only factor to consider, then what should we do about spontaneous abortion? Spontaneous abortion happens to 30 to 40% of fetuses. Should not the women, who spontaneously abort, be charged with murder, manslaughter, assault or child abuse?
How are you going to solve any problem if you are unable or ‘unallowed’ to step out of your shoes and put on another person’s shoes?
The idea that one cannot drop a certain set of assumptions and look from an alternative POV is absurd.
Why do I refuse to bring God into it? Because I want you to drop your assumptions long enough to consider where objectivity of morality might be in the abortion problem. And that means getting down to bare minimums at least temporarily.
I still don’t think that you grasp what I am saying about objectivity. I’m probably not being clear but my only hope of becoming clear is to remove as much muddy water as possible.
The mentally stunted abortion of a child-fagot has been on this website since 2010. Has he been doing anything but tirelessly reasserting his didactic assertions?
Yes, but that would contradict your absurd and insulting statement that; “The retard wants me to accept his premises as true.”.
If that were the case, he’d hardly be ignoring you.
[b]With respect to moral and political value judgments [about which the OP is aimed], my argument [here and now] revolves around 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 curious about are arguments from others able to poke enough holes in it so that I might be able to reconsider it as perhaps a less than reasonable manner in which to construe the “human condition” sans God.
Instead, I tend to bump into the abstractionists like you and Lyssa and Satyr – scholastic sorts who spew out intellectual contraptions that have almost nothing whatsoever to do with the lives that we live.
All I am trying to do here is to actually engage your words down here. Why in the world is that something you always avoid?
Again, [size=200]you[/size] can pick the topic.[/b]
Even Lyssa [over at KTS] is now willing to scratch the surface in this regard.
There must be a God who will tell him “listen kid, do this, and you go to heaven, or do that, and you go to hell”.
Or if there is no God, then all is permissible.
Moral obligation, he calls it.
He does not understand that when I say that he’s an utter imbecile that does not mean that he is morally obliged to become an intelligent person.
He’s so stupid, for fuck’s sake!
The retard can’t stand social judgment!
He will even listen to me! if I were only convincing enough!
But I am not . . . And why am I not convincing enough?
Because people disagree . . .
He will do what I tell him to do and I’ll go like “good doggy!”
That would make happy.
But then, he will come across this other group of people who will make fun of him for doing what I told him to do . . .
So, in order to be convincing enough, I’d have to take him as my personal slave, lock him in one of my basements, so that he has no contact with other people, and so that the only judge on whether he is a good doggy or not would be ME.
But as an emancipated slave, out in the world of conflicting goods, freed from any kind of singular human authority, he does not find me convincing enough.
I must become popular first.
I must be aired on his big plasma TV.
Songs must be sang about me.
Girls must be crazy about me.
That kind of shit.
Since that’s not the case, I am just an objectivist who’s pretending to be an “alpha male” . . .
I am not saying you are stupid, phoneutria, I believe you are a very smart girl, beside being extremely sexy, of course, just that, I, me, Magnus, do not understand what you’re talking about . . . as usual.
No, I am merely pointing out the obvious. That with respect to the biology of human sexuality leading to a pregnancy leading to an abortion, there there objective truths that transcend dasein.
Facts, in other words, that are not predicated on a subjective interpretation. A man and a woman either engage in sexual copulation or they do not. The woman either becomes pregnant as a result of this or she does not. And if she does become pregnant and chooses an abortion, it is either successful or it is not.
But where is the same either/or denouement with respect to the precise moment when, after conception, a zygote, embryo or fetus becomes a “human being”. Some will even go further and make a distinction between a “human being” and a “human person”. That way they are even able to rationalize infanticide.
Therefore, I surmised that you surmised it is objectively moral to a abort the fetus because the science in the link had objectively established it. Then I provided you with a link that suggested this is not the case at all.
Then I acknowledged here that science does not seem able to establish beyond all doubt when in fact the unborn becomes a human being. Objectively.
I’m not trying to argue here that my point of view is right or that your point of view is wrong. I am only suggesting that it is a point of view that is predicated on certain conflicting assumptions that are made regarding when the unborn become human beings.
And even if that can be decided objectively, we are still stuck living in a world where if all unborn babies are required to be brought to term, then any number of women will be forced to give birth.
In other words, the part about conflicting goods doesn’t just go away.
You should take that up with God. Aren’t these God’s own abortions? And why should the women be held culpable when in most cases they do everything they possible can to secure the birth of their child. In fact, most are devastated when the baby dies.
But then God does work in mysterious ways, right?
But the thrust of the OP revolves precisely around the manner in which certain folks do embrace a particular religious or political narrative/agenda and then claim that moral certitude is derived from the assumption that their God or their Reason is there to back them up.
Now, in that respect, yours either is or is not. And you will either discuss that pertaining to an issue like abortion or you will not.
Come on, Phyllo, we know what the objectivists mean when they assert something like that. They mean that they have already assertained what the “bare minimums” are here and that this almost always revolves around agreeing with them that this is in fact what the bare minimums must be.
