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Enough with the gobbledygook. Wholly in sync with human behaviors? Fully described? What is fully described? What is an existential variable?

You are missing my point. People aren’t out there (in this country) stoning adultresses or cutting off the hands of a thief. We, almost all of us, have already subscribed to certain ways in which we settle disputes. We don’t have to invent the wheel every time Joey and Suzy have an argument about a publicly defined and publicly experienced issue.

We just do not include the Bible in public debate - not where it counts. SCOTUS doesn’t. Laws that do are regularly knocked down as unconstitutional. This is exactly what the Religious Right is screaming about. Those who insist regularly lose. Again, we have a previously accepted method for settling these disputes. And this method has already been infused with moral reasoning. Read Roe if you won’t read Rawls.

I am answering your questions, but you are ignoring the answers. Just flat out ignoring them. Politics and law are as practical as you’re going to get. Joey and Suzy having it out over the kitchen table is not more practical, and injecting Existential mumbo-jumbo is not more practical. Just because it doesn’t work for a fractured “I” doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. There just aren’t that many fractured "I"s out there.

People may have different understandings, but there is no point in including the incoherent, the ignorant and the stupid. If you can’t distinguish English Common Law from a tarot card reading, you don’t belong in the conversation. Distributive justice is not effective or ineffective. it’s an analysis of what we actually do. Again, if you don’t like analysis, philosophy just isn’t for you.

People insist they are human beings because the soul enters the body at conception.

Seriously?

So, moral disagreements are not fundamental. Take the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments that follow in the Bible (there are a lot of them). This was fundamentally law. Law. These were laws for the people of the tribe, for the “citizens”. They…were…laws. They did of course have a moral content. But these commandments spell out what individuals can do and what the government can. So, you shall not kill, but the government can, by stoning an adultress, for instance. These were political arrangements. More important than Rachel and Hezekiah’s particular views on abortion.

There is nothing that is not patently obvious about this.

All we can do in regards to our reactions to human behaviors that come into conflict over value judgments [as philosophers or otherwise] is to describe [as best we can] what we perceive a particular situation to be.

There are those who insist that one’s value judgments [and thus behaviors] ought to be in sync with God, or Marx, or Freud, or Hitler, or Mao, or Kant, or Nietzsche or Rorty.

As for the descriptions we give, the language we use can only be more or less connected precisely to the world we live in, the behaviors we choose. Thus the doctor performing an abortion has a considerably more exact vocabulary than the ethicist attempting to describe the pregnant woman’s moral obligation.

As for gobbledygook, some insist that this revolves more around the didactic intellectual contraptions some “serious philosophers” employ when they take their “technically correct” “analyses” out into the world of actual human interactions.

What on earth does that have to with this:

We? What “we” do here and now is to be the default in evaluating what others have done, do otherwise or ever will do? You simply exclude any and all religious or political or philosophical narratives that don’t overlap with the U.S. Constitution? And what does this document tell us about the existential relationship between “distributive justice” and abortion? Or, say, the Second Amendment. How might Rawls’s “methods” be applicable here?

Politics and law have ever and always been embedded in political economy. Such that “distributive justice” will always be more in sync with the interests of the nihilists who own and operate the global economy re “the class struggle”, than anything Rawls might have proposed. Imagine, for example, a champion of John Rawls addressing the folks at the upcoming Bilderberg Group enclave.

And the answers that you give to my questions bear almost no resemblance to answers that seem reasonable to me. It’s just that I have no illusions that my own answers here [with respect to conflicting goods] are anything other than existential contraptions rooted in dasein.

Of course there aren’t. Who would willingly prefer to view conflicting goods as I do? Who would actually choose to reject the comforting and consoling idea that I am in sync with the real me in sync with the right thing to do? Whether as an objectivists or otherwise.

This is precisely the sort of smug, arrogant rejoinder I would get from Satyr over at KT. Only for him [of course] the “incoherent, the ignorant, and the stupid” people are all those who don’t share his own hopelessly didactic “general descriptions” of human interactions: as either wholly in sync with his own rendition of nature or not. He’d have as much contempt for you as you apparently have for me.

Whereas I suspect this contempt resides more in the manner in which I view human motivation [re value judgments] here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

The psychology of objectivism indeed!

Yeah, he would often go here as well. Huffing and puffing and making me the issue. Insisting that “analysis” – a particular world of words – is what philosophy is really all about.

Yes, many believe that. And while, like you, I don’t take it seriously, that doesn’t necessarily exclude it as one possible explanation taking us all the way back to a complete and unerring understanding of existence itself.

Indeed, how might Rawls have intertwined “distributive justice” into an “analysis” of that?

My point above was that, ultimately, governments and laws and constitutions and such revolve precisely around whch “rules of behaviors” will be either prescribed or proscribed in any particular community.

Thus when you noted…

I reacted this way…

These commandments revolved first and foremost around “rules of behavior”. And one’s behaviors on this side of the grave only takes any particular mere mortals as far as Judgement Day. There their behaviors would be judged by God as…as what exactly?

I mean how did that work? If, in rendering unto Caesar, you broke one of God’s Commandments…then what?

Those who are thought to be immoral for committing adultery and those who are shown to be lawful in stoning the adulterer to death…how does that work at the Pearly Gates?

From my frame of mind, laws eventually get around to the part where your behaviors are judged to be either the right thing to do or the wrong thing. As a part of what is good or a part of what is evil.

It’s just that the laws are [hopefully] applicable to all – true believer or not. At least on this side of the grave.

“or Nietzsche”

Now here I must protest. In what way is Nietzsche an objectivist? In what way does anybody use him that way? To indicate what the ‘right thing to do’ is?

With Nietzsche I was thinking more in the way in which many construe the meaning of the “uberman” exercising his “will to power”.

In other words, in a world “beyond good and evil”, “distributive justice” would reside more in the noble and sophisticated strong prescribing their own “rules of behavior” so as to be considerably apart from [and far, far above] that of the sheep.

Then your own behaviors [here and now] are deemed to be either more or less in sync with this frame of mind.

But, from my frame of mind, this is just one more “existential contraption” rooted historically in the assumption that we live in a No God world and that the rights of the individual take precedence over the rights of the community as a whole.

As though [philosophically or otherwise] this can actually be demonstrated.

Iam, you’re spinning this. And making a category error. Christians don’t believe that our value judgments should be “in sync” with God. That’s vague language designed to give wiggle room. Christians belive that we should live according to received (dictated) values.

What are “existential variables”?

The doctor’s language is not more precise than the ethicist. The difference is not in the precision, but in what they are describing. There is such a thing as descriptive ethics. It’s different than normative ethics.

And as for the gobbledygook, you have not even attempted to address my points.

Asking what a point I have made “has to do with” a point that my point does not address is just more chaff.

I am not excluding religion - again you miss my point. I fear you are incapable of discerning it. You would be capable if you read Rawls. He wrote volumes. I can’t summarize everything in a forum post. You argue with philosophy, which is fine, but you’d have a better argument if you knew something about philosophy. Reading Sartre’s girlish whining is not enough.

Everyone, everyone who ever put pen to paper regarding morality knew and knows that we live in a world of conflicting goods. This is not a great revelation. Children know this before they know how to articulate it. It is not a great philosophical discovery - it’s a basic, obvious, incontrovertible fact of life. It adds nothing to the conversation.

I’m not calling you incpherent, ignorant or stupid. I am saying that it is not the case that everyone’s opinion counts. Or that those who do count, count equally. That Joey and Suzy can’t figure it out means nothing. How would I resolve their kitchen table argument? I wouldn’t. Who gives a fuck about Joey and Suzy?

It is not correct that all ideas are good, that all philosophy is sound or that all laws are just. What is difficult about this?

An understanding of existence itself? This is soooooooooo absolutist, rationalist, objectivist.

There is no answer to this because it’s a dumbass question. Now, don’t take offense - lots of famous philosophers have asked this question. But if this is what you’re looking for, there is no wonder that you cannot find the answer.

The question is incoherent. I tell you this not to insult you. But you must some day realize that you are using the objectivists questions to criticise objectivists. This is just a bad question.

I’ll respond to your next post after I get high.

Jus’ sayin’.

Getouttahere iambiguous, I have never read anyone make those connections you just made. You’re just making stuff up now.

I need a concrete example from you of people using Nietzsche for an objectivist agenda.

There is a reason the Church considers him a nihilist.

No. The commandments don’t “revolve around” rules of behavior. They are rules of behavior. You’re changing the scope of my statement to support your second sentence, which does not follow from the first, either way. My claim had nothing to do with metaphsyics. You introduced that. You do this all the time - you do not respond to my posts, or anyone’s post, because you address those posts from within a different paradigm. Any paradigm, as long as it’s a different one, so that you’re not expose to, or by, anything anyone else is saying.

That’s anti-communication.

My main aim here is to nudge – spin – the discussion in this direction:

How might Rawls’s “method” be applicable with respect to the killing of the unborn? While I don’t pretend to understand metaphysically how any particular abortion is related to a complete understanding of existence itself, it seems reasonable to me to suggest that with respect to the law, political power and moral narratives, “distributive justice” is either more or less effective in responding to my point that value judgments are rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

We? What “we” do here and now is to be the default in evaluating what others have done, do otherwise or ever will do? You simply exclude any and all religious or political or philosophical narratives that don’t overlap with the U.S. Constitution? And what does this document tell us about the existential relationship between “distributive justice” and abortion? Or, say, the Second Amendment. How might Rawls’s “methods” be applicable here?

Which is clearly not your aim.

And how are these “received [dictated] values” not in sync with their own understanding of how they are expected to behave on this side of the grave in order to be judged by God as worthy of both immortality and salvation on the other side of it? It is all about coordinating their existing life – the behaviors they choose – with their own particular religious assumptions about sin.

They are the particular factors in your life that predispose you to one rather than another set of value judgments. They range from the historical and cultural context in which you are born and raised to the actual personal experiences, relationships and access to ideas that shape and mold any particular “I” out in a particular world.

They are encompassed in more detail in my contributions on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

The difference clearly revolves around the precision. The language that the doctor uses in performing the abortion is wholly in sync with human biology, human sexuality and an unwanted pregnancy. What of the language that Rawls might use in describing the abortion wars in terms of “distributive justice”?

So you keep insisting. But from my frame of mind you are just one more didacticist aiming to steer the discussion up into the clouds of “analysis”. To address your points is basically to go there with you. And, to the extent that you are adament that your points reflect philosophy at its finest, one must also agree with your points.

I’ve adressed this before. Show me how Rawls’s “method” would be instructive in regard to the components of my own narrative here. And bring that “method” down to earth by focusing in on how “for all practical purposes” “distributive justice” is relevant to an issue like abortion or gun control or gender norms or the role of government. I don’t want a summary, I want the text to be illustrated.

Okay, so how does Rawls’s methods [and his conclusions] effectively work to resolve them? And my chief aim in discussions like this has always revolved around objectivism. And the hole that I am in given the manner in which I construe “I” at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy.

Aside from the thousands upon thousands of them out in the world that we actually live in? And who are we with respect to conflicting goods but two more of them. Your intellectual contraptions and “general descriptions” may be of no use to them, but this tells us more about you than them in my view.

As yet another general description of “serious philosophy”? No doubt nothing at all in the hallowed halls. But what on earth [aside from logic and rationality relating strictly to the rules of language] does that really have to do with a “sound argument” made to those outside the abortion clinic exchanging their own rendtions of “the good”?

Are you actually going to argue that any discussion/debate we have here is not profoundly embedded in a whole and complete understanding of existence itself?!

That Rumsfelds observation…

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

…is irrelevant to which of us comes closest here to pinning “the human condition” down?!!

I’m more than willing to leave that up to others. Let them make up their own mind regarding the best way to connect the dots between “I” and “all there is”. Or to simply dismiss it as…trivial?

Sure, maybe that will help. :wink:

There’s the general and there’s the specific. Sophisticated analysis of any idea requires facility with both. If you can’t manage that, you can’t really even think.

“Then your own behaviors [here and now] are deemed to be either more or less in sync with this frame of mind.”

By who iambiguous? By who?

Let’s bring this motherfucker down to Earth.

I agree, I’ve noticed a lack in ability to notice this distinction and shift one’s frame accordingly. Every thought or idea or problem has its proper contexts, so attempts to address it without those proper contexts will always skew something.

For all practical purposes, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

And what supports my second statement is the fact that literally millions upon millions of people around the globe believe that God’s Commandments are a fundamental part of their own lives. Why? Because it is believed by them that their behaviors on this side of the grave will be judged by God. You may not believe this, I may not believe it, John Rawls may not have believed it, but “distributive justice” either takes this frame of mind into account or it doesn’t.

What on earth does noting this…

[i]My main aim here is to nudge – spin – the discussion in this direction:

How might Rawls’s “method” be applicable with respect to the killing of the unborn? While I don’t pretend to understand metaphysically how any particular abortion is related to a complete understanding of existence itself, it seems reasonable to me to suggest that with respect to the law, political power and moral narratives, “distributive justice” is either more or less effective in responding to my point that value judgments are rooted in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

We? What “we” do here and now is to be the default in evaluating what others have done, do otherwise or ever will do? You simply exclude any and all religious or political or philosophical narratives that don’t overlap with the U.S. Constitution? And what does this document tell us about the existential relationship between “distributive justice” and abortion? Or, say, the Second Amendment. How might Rawls’s “methods” be applicable here?[/i]

…have to do with metaphysics?!

Unbelievable. Is it even possible to take philosophy further away from the world that we actually live in?

What in general? What specifically?

Bring Rawls’s “method” and his “conclusions” down to earth with respect to a particular set of conflicting goods that most here will be familiar with.

We can explore the extent to which the components of his own moral narrative are more or less relevant to such things as “the abortion wars” than the components of mine.

Choose a set of conflicting goods. Note your own moral narrative at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments and political power.

I’ll respond to that.

Again, what on earth does this mean?

One’s “frame of mind” in regard to what set of conflicting goods?

Or, as I suggested to Pedro above:

[i]Choose a set of conflicting goods. Note your own moral narrative at the existential intersection of identity, value judgments and political power.

I’ll respond to that.[/i]

I will if you promise to tell me how

Gets

On my honor.

Note to others:

Kidstuff. About what you figured, right?

In context, no.

The topic was Nietsche. He asked a for specifics from you…

and here, in response to your response to Faust.

Without responding to his requests for specifics or concrete examples, you throw the onus over to him…

IOW you just ignored explaining your conclusions about N and ignore his second request regarding whoever is using or misusing N’s ideas.

You make claims. When asked for concrete examples of claims you make, you ignore them. You ask him to now answer your age old question - as if this had relevence regarding your position on N and also yours on those who use his ideas.

IOW you 1) shift the context.
2)Do not consider you own assertions in need of any support
3) Find a way, relevent or not, to challenge other people with your habitual issue, even though this is not your thread, as if it was a response to what they wrote.

When, in your estimation, not adequately responded to, you insult him, despite not even managing a childish response to his requests, you simply ignore them.