Ancient Roman, Tacitus, describes ancient Pagan/Heathen Germans and German culture:
Was Wittgenstein Wrong on Ethics?
Author: STUART W. MIRSKY
at the Serious Philosophy website
Yo, Mr. Objectivist! Fulminating fanatically or otherwise. You’re up.
Pick your font. We’ll both pick a context. You to bring me up out of the hole, me to bring you down into it.
Hume and Wittgenstein. Both more or less backing me up and not you. And all I ask here is that I might at least feel challenged by you. 
On the other hand, as we must surely know by now, you don’t have to effectively challenge anyone. All you need do is to convince yourself that your own moral philosophy is the optimal narrative…and not the hundreds and hundreds of other objectivists out there who share your conviction that morality is objective. But that it’s their comforting and consoling spiel and not yours.
What neither Wittgenstein nor anyone else can accomplish is to make the need for one or another moral narrative and political agenda go away. We may not be able to demonstrate the most rational ethical philosophy but we can struggle to perhaps sustain the least dysfunctional ones?
Me, I’m sticking with “moderation, negotiation and compromise” as the least dysfunctional approach to prescribing and proscribing behaviors legally. What that comes down to “for all practical purposes” though is [obviously] beyond anything that a fractured and fragmented frame of mind can come up with.
Ah, that crucial distinction between essential/objective truth in the either/or world and existential/subjective personal opinions in the is/ought world.
Let’s just make that go away by – presto! – merely insisting “in our heads” that everyone is obligated embrace our own personal opinions or they become “retards”.
A homosexual Jew, undermining philosophy by attacking language, and a man who laid the groundwork for Marxism, by another Jew.
Congratulations moron…you picked the wasps nest of depravity to invest your deference upon.
You only offer words…texts…referring to more text…words referring to more words…and you then pretend to attack what?
Who?
Do you even, fuckin’ know what I am saying? Nope…I’m a caricature, an effigy you burn to deal with your castrated feebleness.
You go from circumcised Hebrew to Hebrew.,…Christianity…Marxism…Postmodernism - see Frankfurt School - and Wittgenstein…Ha!!!
A circumcised circle jerk - undermining, denouncing, seducing, bribing, coercing, negating, gossiping, slandering…insidiously destroying…leaving nothing in your wake.
Morality, imbecile is not a word…it is an act…a behaviour, you pathetic imbecilic hypocritical piece of human trash.
An ACT…not a word!!!
An act given a word to symbolize it, to refer to it…
Moron!!
You belong here…not on KTS. There you will fill it, as you did, with crap and faeces…every thread a trash heap…like you.
I will not let you destroy it as you’ve done ILP.
Don’t worry, faggot…I’ll be gone soon…my present to you.
Then you can share this trash with your fellow rats.
Bon apetit…
Ta, Ta,
What can I say?
Sure, if the “Mr. Fun” persona is what it is all about each and every festive holiday season, it’s not to be taken seriously. Or if he is only being ironic and comes here to put on a “show” for us each and every festive holiday. Or, as with ecmandu, it’s an honest to God “condition”. Or, as with Meno/Alan, he is mocking the “up in the clouds intellectual contraption” “serious philosophers” by going up there himself…
But, suppose – just suppose – he really, really does take himself seriously [wants us to take him seriously] and the “if it’s dreck, you must reject” drivel he posts here each and every festive holiday season is actually what he construes philosophy to be!!!
I mean, come on, how fucking dumb would you have to be not to grasp that Biggy is making a complete fool out of you. And has been now for weeks.
Yeah, maybe he actually is intent on leaving us soon. On the other hand, given what ILP has turned into over the past couple of years, what possible difference can that make? The pinheads, Kids, yak yak yakkers and fulminating fanatic objectivists now rule the roost here.
Hell, if I wasn’t taking orders from a godot, the godot, my godot himself, I’d have been long gone.
Patheos
RELIGION LIBRARY
Paganism
ETHICS AND COMMUNITY
Principles of Moral Thought and Action
As with other renditions of the Golden Rule, there are criticisms:
effectiviology.com/golden-rule/ … ily%20true.
From my frame of mind, however, the Golden Rule can only be construed realistically given an account of it out in a particular world, revolving around sets of circumstances understood from the subjective narratives rooted in dasein.
Then the part where those like Maia argue that each Pagan is on his or her own unique path to and from nature. And thus it is the case that each individual Pagan can come to embrace moral convictions that are entirely conflicting. For the life of me though I can’t understand how, in a community of Pagans, that cannot lead to endless disputes, squabbles, discord, antagonisms…even antipathy.
Here is one attempt to explain it: bishopinthegrove.com/how-do- … mmunities/
Unfortunately, to me, it is just another “general description spiritual assessment” that doesn’t really get down to the sort of existential conflicts that would arise in any community. And it certainly steers clear of the arguments that I make.
But [for me] the biggest mystery remains: how exactly does nature and Maia, along with other Pagans, come to acquire this “spiritual”/“moral”…guidance? By, in my view, not really spending a whole lot of time thinking it through. They just take their own more or less blind leap of faith like all the other religious folks do.
I react much the same to No God spiritual paths like Buddhism. Or to spiritual paths rooted in pantheism. Those who believe, what, that their spirit is somehow “at one with the universe”?
Is it all the equivalent then of a moral or an immoral soul?
With religions predicated on a God, the God, my God, morality is so much easier to grasp. It is Scripted in The Book.
“Thou shalt not…”
But with Pagans “thou shalt do or not do…”, well, whatever it is you happen to think yourself into believing your own “thing” with nature is.
And, as with all the many, many other “one true paths” there are to choose from, the bottom line [mine] is always the same. Not what you believe but that whatever it is you do believe comforts and consoles you all the way to the grave.
This is another aspect of human morality that is almost never not complex and convoluted. Whether the discussion revolves around war or gender roles or sexuality, who gets to decide which behaviors cause no harm [or the least harm] to others.
Aside from the military industry complex and the war economy, the Vietnam War revolved precisely around those who believed that Communism does result in enormous harm done to others. Just as the Communists believe that capitalism results in enormous harm done to others.
So, how do Pagans like Maia and others come to acquire a set of moral convictions in regard to conflicting goods of this sort?
Then that [to me] truly “mystical” component whereby a clearly amoral nature manages – re ritual and and ceremony and custom etc. – to “communicate” a moral path to each individual Pagan that is exclusively their own.
Patheos
RELIGION LIBRARY
Paganism
ETHICS AND COMMUNITY
Principles of Moral Thought and Action
Okay, but you can see its appeal. It basically becomes just another religious path.
Thus…
“The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the neopagan religion of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faith.” wiki
A statement not spread through a Bible perhaps but, really, how far removed from that can it be in “spreading the word”?
Though I can see why those like Maia might pull back from it. Too close to the sort of spiritual objectivism that can obligate someone to toe the line…or else. For Maia everything can revolve around her own personal experience with nature. It’s all her own nature so it is largely moot if others question it…or challenge her regarding it.
In an ironic sense it is not all that far removed from moral nihilism itself. Only for “I” it’s not a fractured and fragmented sense of reality but just the opposite. A “spiritual” whole that only has to be understood by you.
Just what one would expect. The “great myths and legends”, the “traditions” embedded in the culture that you were indoctrinated as a child to embody. The world you have always been a part of. A frame of mind that you are not likely to question in depth because it has always been a part of your reality.
Which is why the modern world begetting the postmodern world makes it all that much more problematic…trickier. Today you can be exposed to many, many other culture myths, legends and traditions. All around you [on the internet for example] you are exposed to others who re dasein think about morality in ways that would never even occur to you. Why? Because your own culture and personal experiences would never have predisposed you to think and feel that way.
So, communication often breaks down in places like this because, well, what would you expect?
Whit Gan Stein understood
Don’t you think it’s weird that the Golden Rule can be found (is found by) every one of those “myths”?
What if a myth turns out to be true? Does it break a law of nature? Do you believe in unbreakable laws?
That’s interesting. Do you have evidence for that assertion?
What particular myth pertaining to what particular set of circumstances?
And then given criticisms of the Golden Rule: effectiviology.com/golden-rule/
Clearly, those in different cultures will want to be treated in ways that those in other cultures might be appalled by.
And then when it percolates down to individual likes and dislikes…?
Again, what particular myth in what particular context did you have in mind? What particular law of nature? Unbreakable in what sense?
What assertion?
Wow. Got that down to an art, have you?
This would be very entertaining in a live debate. This must happen.
Patheos
RELIGION LIBRARY
Paganism
ETHICS AND COMMUNITY
Principles of Moral Thought and Action
This makes sense of course. Nature would seem to be the bottom line itself for Pagans. On the other hand, given Maia’s account of it, communing to and from nature actually isn’t an important factor embedded in the moral persuasions of individual Pagans. Also, nature itself in regard to the human species seems entirely amoral. It is bursting at the seams with those ominous “natural disasters” – even extinction events – that, for all practical purposes, over and over again, will squash us like so many bugs.
So, to say the least, “Pagan morality” remains pretty much a big mystery to me.
Even in regard to the politics of “climate change”, Pagans/Neo-Pagans fit into it given your own political axe to grind: dailysignal.com/2019/11/08/ … the-world/
So, as with non-Pagans, there are the facts that confirm your own point of view, and then your own subjective appraisal of those facts that form your value judgments. Again, we are all in the same boat here.
So, nature is linked to a “spiritual” sense of reality. But how does the spiritual Self come to embody one set of behaviors rather than another set?
Spiritually necessary or unnecessary. Okay, but how is that actually described to others such that it goes beyond merely whatever you happen to believe it is in your head? Or, again, as I noted on another thread, is that the beauty of embracing a Pagan narrative. You can simply shrug off or ignore those who question your faith by nestling in whatever it is that you do “just believe” to be true as an individual.
Some Pagans will go the political route, others the “magical”.
Now, I root this in dasein of course. But that doesn’t get me out of the boat either. None of us are actually able to either fully understand or control all of the factors in our life that result in our choosing one or another set of ethics. So, nothing ever gets resolved.
Perhaps never can be resolved. So, our own value judgments are always able to be rationalized in a No God world.
Sadly enough, the New ILP is now all that’s left of what used to be a thriving philosophy community.
Indeed, here we are in the philosophy forum itself.
And this is all she can “think up” in the way of contributing to a discussion of morality. [-o<
In general terms what people believe is of no consequence.
And, indeed this is such a case.
When a person resorts to “belief” instead of uses logic it is often because of some fundemental confusion or error in judgement.
You have presented two statments, and both are wrong in their own way.
- A foetus is no more a human being that an abortion and a wank rag.
- A woman has a natural right to choose what they do with their own body. The state has not yet managed to set up a police station insider her womb as so has little right to interfere.
It is of some irony that the same clowns that want to possess legal rights over the contents of a woman’s body also are the ones shouting loudest against vaccinations and mask wearing.
Now is you want to talk about legal rights, then the same lex americana that determines a woman’s right to her own womb is the same lex americana that determines the definition of what is and is not a “Human Being” with legal rights.
This the contradiction is simply in your own conception of the problem.
In general terms what could possibly be more preposterous?
Here in America, the nine Supremes may well render Roe v. Wade null and void. And they will do so depending on what they believe about abortion. Oh, sure, it will all be linked to the Constitution, but who is kidding whom. They all believe what they do about the morality of abortion. And based on that belief they will reconfigure it into the law of the land. And here of course the majority rules.
As for the morality of abortion and logic? Okay what might that be? How is it either logical or not logical to argue that “aborting a human fetus is the killing of an innocent human being”? How is it either logical or not logical to argue that “women should be afforded full legal rights to choose abortion”.
Oh, and here is an example of Sculptor’s logic:
And how does he go about demonstrating it? Well, he doesn’t. He just asserts it to be true and that makes it so. Just as those on the other side assert that human life begins at conception. That too makes it true. Just ask them.
Same here of course. No “political prejudices” for him. He just knows how rationally – logically – men and women are obligated to think: exactly as he does!!!
Then the ad homs of course:
Are you a clown? Don’t want to be? Then just agree to think exactly like he does about abortion. And [I suspect] about every other moral and political issue there is.
As for this…
…you tell me. It’s basically just MenoSpeak to me.
Note to gloominary:
See, I can pin the liberal/left-wing fulminating fanatic objectivists to the mat too.
Well, if I do say so myself.
Darwin On Moral Intelligence
Vincent di Norcia applies his mental powers to Darwin’s moral theory.
Endless forms, indeed: bbc.com/news/science-environment-14616161
[b]"The natural world contains about 8.7 million species, according to a new estimate described by scientists as the most accurate ever.
But the vast majority have not been identified - and cataloguing them all could take more than 1,000 years."[/b]
And that’s not even counting all of countless species that have gone extinct.
But one thing we can be certain of is that not one of those species comes even remotely close to our own when we speak of concocting “moral theories”.
And then [given my own assumptions] the great gaps that exist between moral theory and actual rules of behavior.
And moral practices? What are they embodied in if not hundreds and hundreds of years of actual/factual human history itself? Countless cultures around the globe evolving over the centuries given the parameters of what Karl Marx called “political economy”
Of course, the thing about focusing in on Darwin here is that we are immediately confronted with the enormous complexities embedded in human interactions in which we are never quite certain where nature ends and nurture begins. Where genes segue into memes.
Social instincts and well-developed mental powers. On the other hand, when it comes down to “particular contexts” I suspect that will still revolve largely around whether a moral philosopher is “one of us” or “one of them”.
Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American
This is morality that revolves by and large around what you believe in your head. Or around what the majority of citizens in any particular community believe in their heads. But here that can still be predicated on the assumption that what you and others do believe about permissible or impermissible behavior makes it moral. And how then is that different from someone like me who concludes that morality itself is beyond the reach of, among other things, philosophy.
Not only is morality relative historically, culturally and individually, but, in the absence of God, it can never be more than the existential embodiment of “moderation, negotiation and compromise” among and between mere mortals.
That’s the quandary that continues to impale me. Even in professing to be a moral relativist, some are able convince themselves that their own conclusions are still the optimal frame of mind…the “best of all possible worlds”.
On the other hand, moral relativism might be construed by some as downright constructive next to moral nihilism. The belief that morality itself is basically just a profoundly problematic [at times precarious] existential contraption rooted in the particular life that you lived and, given contingency, chance and change, always subject to reconfiguration given new experiences, new sets of circumstances.
Of course those like Paul Ryan then insist that what must replace moral relativism is moral objectivism. And that necessarily would revolve around what he and his own moral and political ilk deem to be The Right Thing To Do.
And here, as they say, the rest is history.
Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American
On the other hand, for moral relativism to be a potential solution, there must be people who believe in it. Many people.
In other words, if more and more people conclude that moral objectivism is the problem, then more and more people might be willing switch over from “right makes might” to “moderation, negotiation and compromise”.
Still, it can also be argued that neither moral relativism nor moral objectivism is actually the most potent problem we face. Instead, it’s the manner in which, through “pop culture” and “mindless consumerism”, we have created a population of millions who go about the business of living their lives from day to day more or less oblivious to what those who own and operate both the economy and the government sustain in the way of “policies” concocted “behind the curtains”. Let’s call it the Deep State Syndrome.
But here is where I come in. What I would seek to measure is the extent to which, whatever answers and “interpreted situations” are given, the answers and interpretations themselves are rooted subjectively in dasein. Rooted in the arguments I make regarding “I” at the existential juncture of identity, value judgments, conflicting goods and political economy. Out in a particular world, understood in a particular manner, given a particular set of circumstances. Same with respect to the answers/interpretations given regarding moral relativism.
It’s not the answers/interpretations given that most intrigue me. It’s how each of us as individuals come to acquire one frame of mind rather than another. And then the extent to which, using the tools of philosophy, the optimal – deontological? – truth can be established.
Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American
And I suspect that is because, the deeper you go down in thinking about it, the more moral relativism just seems to make sense. All one has to assume further is that there is no God.
But then the gap here that most intrigues me. The one between those who agree that morality is relative historically, culturally and in terms of individual experiences, but don’t take it so far as to think that they are “fractured and fragmented” like me.
It’s as though they reject universal morality but are still unable to abandon a belief that given particular sets of circumstances morality is at least in the general vicinity of being objective.
Especially in regard to extreme behaviors. Surely, the sexual abuse of children must be objectively immoral. God or No God. Or genocide. Or things like this: abcnews.go.com/US/11-mass-deadl … d=62494128
Yet in the absence of God how would philosophers come up with an argument able to establish that such things are necessarily immoral?
“Relative to their own beliefs and/or the dominant beliefs of their culture.”
So, are they supposing that while other individuals in other cultures may have conflicting moral value judgments, their own are at least superior to all others?
In regard to moral relativism, when then is there cause for concern? Perhaps it revolves around political power itself. Think the Second World War and the Cold War. In important respects, three very different assessments of what the world ought to be. Assessments deemed important enough to fight over.
But which assessment did in fact reflect the most rational and virtuous manner in which human beings should interact?
And what of those who abandon moral considerations altogether and make it all about “me, myself and I”? The “show me the money” global capitalists or the sociopaths.
What of their renditions of “moral relativism”?
Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American
Let’s be blunt…
To the extent that, in any given community, more and more people start to think like this, how can it not but become a very, very big problem.
Basically a community of sociopaths. Not only that but then it would all seem to come down to who has the actual power to make others do his or her own bidding.
That’s always been my own quandary here. I recognize that moral nihilism has the potential to be catastrophic in any community, but I don’t know how to think myself out of not accepting it as a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world.
Relevant studies? Theoretical assessments?
How about common sense.
If an individual rejects objective morality and is convinced that “in the absence of God, all things are permitted”, it then comes down to how far he or she takes that given a particular set of circumstances. And if those circumstances involve the possibility of them murdering or raping you in order to sustain what they perceive to be in their own best interest, “moral relativism” can be described in all the “studies” in the world and it doesn’t make your own gruesome fate go away.
No, I recognize the ominous “for all practical purposes” implications of moral relativism spreading more and more across the globe. I just can’t come up with an argument [philosophical or otherwise] that puts it in its place. That defeats it.
What if sometimes an idea doesn’t require an argument?
What if things don’t need proof before they can become true?
Is Moral Relativism Really a Problem?
Psychological research suggests it is not
By Thomas Pölzler at Scientific American
Okay, particular scientific investigations suggest this. Me, I’m sticking with my own rendition of common sense. How can the belief that morality is rooted subjectively in all of the many, many different lives lived out in all of the many, many different historical and cultural and individual contexts that have unfolded down through the ages not make morality profoundly problematic?!!
Cheating or stealing or assaulting or killing. Take away God or ideology or deontology or any other transcending font, and what else is there but how each of us, as individuals, given a specific trajectory of uniquely personal experiences, either choose to do these things or choose not to.
How is that not going to be a virtual certainty?
Here though the tolerance might revolve around someone being convinced that they can persuade the dissenting party to [eventually] see things their own way. Until [eventually] they come to realize that they can’t persuade them. That happens all the time in places like this, right? With me though moral relativism doesn’t revolve around “you’re right from your side and I’m right from mine…but in the end I’m righter” but given the assumption that right and wrong themselves are but historical and cultural and personal constructs rooted in dasein.
Trust me: that changes everything.