Russell’s Moral Quandary
David Berman holds key oppositions in tension, including concerning morality.
No, seriously, how’s that working out for anyone here? What Good of late have you attained in your interactions with others? And pertaining to conflicting goods how would you differentiate the Platonic Good from that which Spinoza might deem to be perfect?
Over and over again: What on Earth does this mean “for all practical purposes” in regard to the actual behaviors that one chooses? And how is one’s “philosophical type” not rooted existentially in dasein? Which “one or the other of the theories” above do you embrace “in order to pursue what is good or perfect” in your life?
Perhaps you have to reflect on the fact that your conflict lies in an inability to embrace ambiguity, which is the nature of all of our perceptions. Life is a mystery despite us being able to describe how it appears to us or how it generally works. We don’t know much more, but we intuit that the mystery, growing immense in every way, must have a cause and that life – even intelligent life - is intended.
Because we need meaning in our lives, have imagination, and see the patterns of nature, we derive conclusions according to our ability to perceive. Early human beings felt immersed in cosmic drama and were inseparable from that, from which the mythical cosmologies arose. Then we stood back and started investigating, questioning our suppositions, and developing ideas and theories. But another step showed us how feelings and theories are a part of who we are, two sides of a coin, even if we habitually occupy one or the other sphere. The holistic view acknowledges the stories as how life feels and the facts as how life appears. The synthesis of these two gives us an idea of how life might be.
“Substantive proof” generally refers to evidence or proof that is substantial, meaningful, and relevant to the core issues or elements of a case, argument, or proposition. Substantive proof is not limited to a legal or scientific context but can be applied more broadly to any situation where evidence or proof is presented to support a claim, argument, or position. Whether in a legal case, a scientific study, a philosophical argument, or other fields, substantive proof refers to substantial, relevant evidence that directly addresses the core issues at hand.
I would judge the statement above as meaningful because it is evident that we have the two modes of perception in us and that the nature of reality is described as being much more complex than our brains can cope with, so our brains interpret the input that our senses provide. This means that in the interest of survival, we can’t see reality as it is unless perhaps the brain is hindered in its filtering of sensory input. This leaves us with a situation in which we must do with what we have, the stories describing how life feels and the facts describing how life appears, and form our conclusions from that.
Unfortunately, you are clinging to a perceived contradiction, but stories must be read in their context and not made into universal explanations. I know this is not your fault, but it is your fault for ignoring all evidence and remaining in a dilemma of your own making. You can only knock your head on a wall so many times before it numbs the brain.
Why Relativism is the Worst Idea Ever
Maarten Boudry at APA blog
How ridiculous is that?
In other words, if it is ridiculous.
You’re a student today. And, what, chances are you believe that truth is relative? Okay, which truth might that be? That the laws of nature and mathematics and logic and the material world around are not applicable to all? It all depends instead on what you believe about them? That gravity and electro-magnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces are just a matter of one’s personal opinion?
Or, instead, should we zero in on, say, Bloom’s moral and political convictions? His truth ought be your truth regarding, say, the closing of the American mind? That, as Martha Nussbaum once noted, “for Bloom, Nietzsche had been disastrously influential in modern American thought.”
Is that true for all of us?
Over and again here I come back to this: It’s not what you believe about the American mind or Nietzsche or moral and political convictions, it’s what you are actually able to demonstrate is in fact true about them for all those who wish to think of themselves as rational human beings.
Then the part that revolves around the limitations of language itself:
One thing, however, seems abundantly clear to me…that relativism pertaining to morality appears to be profoundly more problematic. How else to explain the utter failure of ethicists to concoct a moral philosophy that comes anywhere near to approaching the objective truths that science is able to provide us with.
On the other hand…?
Yes, up in the intellectual clouds, this makes sense. But down here on the ground, one way or another, “rules of behavior” have to be propounded, then legislated and then enforced in any human community. Then “for all practical purposes” everything comes to revolve around one or another intertwining of “might make right”, “right makes might” and “democracy and the rule of law”.
And, come on, get real, “cultural imperialism” has existed for centuries now. Alongside ethnocentrism and nationalism and global capitalism and totalitarianism and theocracy. What difference does it make to those living under them if philosophers can impugn it?
Again, this depends entirely on how relativism is understood by particular people in particular contexts.
Let’s examine one that is of particular interest to you.
What condition must you be in to make these comparisons? You must know that the claim that truth is relative is associated with matters of perspective, interpretation, and cultural context in human experience and belief systems. It applies to subjective or cultural truths, where different individuals or societies may have different perspectives or beliefs about a particular issue, and each perspective is considered valid within its own context.
It does not apply to the physical laws of the universe. The scientific understanding is based on empirical evidence, observation, and experimentation. Scientific truths are considered objective and not subject to individual perspectives or cultural variations. Physical laws are understood to be consistent and universal, regardless of individual beliefs or interpretations.
Did you read his book or only the cover? Allan Bloom was not a relativist. In fact, he was known for critiquing what he saw as a pervasive relativism in contemporary American culture and education. He argued that because Nietzsche’s philosophy includes ideas such as the rejection of traditional morality, the concept of the “will to power,” and scepticism toward objective truth, when adopted without a strong foundation in classical education and a deep understanding of philosophical traditions, they could contribute to moral relativism, intellectual shallowness, and a lack of appreciation for enduring values.
He argues that an excessive embrace of relativism leads to a lack of intellectual rigour and moral grounding, leaving individuals without a solid foundation for making meaningful judgments. Although Bloom recognises the need for contextual understanding and appreciates the complexity of ethical dilemmas, he is concerned that a wholesale acceptance of relativism can undermine the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, and moral clarity.
How do you demonstrate what is true? You apply it to the situation, but is it always true in every situation? We must distinguish between what we consider a “law” of nature because it is always true and the truth in a situation. Bloom isn’t complaining about this, but about the wholesale assumption that there is no objective truth.
Of course, moral standards must not be relativised, but this is an issue that I have come across regularly in nursing. You have a patient who is protected by the dignity that our moral standard gives him, but this includes his right to forego that dignity and request assisted killing or reject resuscitation or intensive care. His dignity requires that any invasive therapy be agreed upon by himself before implementation, but what about in a situation when he is unconscious and has left no instructions for that situation? Then, a medical professional applies invasive measures to save his life without permission.
Requiring objective truths that science can provide us with that we can apply in ethics completely ignores the context. You are virtually demanding a black-and-white solution, yes or no. I have had staff with a similar approach who refused a patient a palliative measure because they had a written declaration that said that they rejected it. However, the patient had said very clearly that this instruction did not apply in this situation. It isn’t black-and-white, except that the patient’s will is authoritative, and the last command is valid.
And your point is? The quote says that the postmodern stance uses the same standards it is criticising. He asks, if moral standards are relative, how can anything be bad? Ergo: self-defeating.
All vlaue-judgements, even those based on cultural indoctrination, have consequences that expose their validity and their objectives.
The objective is either within reality or it is projected without…
This does not mean all perspectives are equally valid.
The consequences always have real world effects, determined by objective reality, even those whose subjective objectives are projected outside reality, like Abrahamism.
Abortion is “bad” not because god said so - this is a method of imposing a rule…nor because someone else said so…it is so because of the example to sets and the demographic consequences that will severely affect a collective’s competitiveness.
Morality evolves to facilitate group dynamics - cooperative survival and reproductive strategies… and ethics are human amendments facilitating the development of civilizations which necessity the integration of large often racially/ethnically and culturally heterogenous populations into cohesive stable unities.
Morals = evolve and become genetically innate within social species.
Ethics = develop organically, over the centuries, establishing cultural norms imposed through institutions - law - and through the fear of divine law.
Both are necessary…the First for social behaviour to evolve and to impose limits on individual actions, and the Second for complex human societies to develop, imposing limits on individual actions.
These limits are not arbitrary…but are meant to preserve group cohesion, and health.
For example:
Thou shall not thieve, or kill, or be adulterous, are human ethical amendments maintaining social order.
The ethical rules against abortion, which some are obsessed with, is a particular example of what ethics want to prevent.
In nature there’s a limit to female sexual power (impregnation), but human technologies intervene and negate them, producing all sorts of issues that are detrimental to societies…promoting behaviors that eventually result in its degradation and destruction.
Contradicting moral & ethical rules will not only have individual consequences, but it will eventually have group consequences.
Morals are necessary for social cooperative unities to evolve.
Ethics - are human amendments, e.g., Mosaic Laws, also necessary for complex civilizations to emerge.
A society with no common ethical foundation disintegrates…see present day USA.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
Seriously though, if there is someone here who thinks they do grasp what he means by “permissibility rules” above, how would they be applicable “down here” out of the philosophical clouds when two or more people are very much at odds regarding the “correctness of all possible actions”.
Right, and then the socialists come around and react to that with their own set of assumptions regarding such rules. And it’s not as though ethicists can sit down with, say, liberals and conservatives, hear their own rendition of “correct actions”, and then come around with “rules of behavior” wholly in sync with the most rational value judgments. Precipitating social, political and economic interactions that both liberals and conservatves can accept as the…optimal resolutions? The “best of all possible worlds” that mere mortals in a No God universe must subscribe to.
Although, sure, I may well be misunderstanding what the author means by “permissibility rules”. It just seems reasonable to me to root such rules – mores, laws – in a world that is ever evolving historically, culturally and in terms of our own uniquely personal interactions with others.
This is all hopelessly…theoretical? Those on both sides – on all sides – in the abortion wars, in the presidential election here in America, in the conflicts in Ukraine, in Gaza get to insist that only their own permissibility rules encompass the most rational and virtuous interactions.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
Then the part where we attempt to explain what we mean by objectivist. My own description revolves around the assumption that moral objectivsts believe they are in touch with what some here call their intuitive or intrinsic Self. And that, in turn, this Real Me is able deontologically to “think up” the most rational and virtuous behaviors.
And, again, permissibility rules encompassing what set of circumstances? Why ours and not theirs? And how do those who subscribe to them explain the manner in which they embraced them other than as the existential embodiment of dasein.
Indeed, and many of them anchor such rules in one or another God or ideology or philosophy of life.
Dueling objectivists? What then? Each advocate is permitted to insist it really is only their own path that counts? They’re right from their side and we’re right from ours?
Then [in my view] around and around and around he goes…
How is this really all that different from Christians here arguing that God must exist because it says so in the Bible, and the Bible must be true because it is the world of God? Only instead of God others use political manifestos, or schools of philosophy, or books [Mein Kamph] or dogmatic assessments of “biological imperatives” [Satyr and his ilk] to “establish” their “natural morality”.
Yes, and if, over the years, as with science, all of this led to a general consensus among ethicists regarding the optimal “permissibility rules” with respect to conflicting goods of note, that would truly be impressive. Only we all know that has not even come close to happening regarding any number or moral and political conflagrations.
Unless, of course, your reasoning all unfolds up in the philosophical clouds…
Agree? Okay, then note how it is applicable to your own life in regard to conflicting goods.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
[quote] Explaining Morality
The acceptance of permissibility rules has many causes, as does determination of the specific content of the rules. [/quote]
Exactly my point. Historically and culturally human communities are confronted with the fact that over and over again what some construe to be permissible behaviors others are appalled by. Sometimes the communication breakdowns occur between communities and sometimes within communities.
Thus…
In fact, in my view, moral objectivism often revolves around the fact that it can sustain the psychological comfort and consolation that promps those on their own One True Path to to embrace it in the first place. “I think this…therefore you must think this too.” Then in any number of communities it is all passed down from generation to generation.
Okay, but how does that make my own frame of mind here go away? That “permissibility rules” evolve historiaclly and culturally; and that for each of us as individuals they are acquired in the form of childhood indoctrination and then sustained all the way to the grave as a result of our own uniquely personal experiences.
Also, in order move beyond the “law of the jungle”, where life for mere mortals can be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, human communities are sustained in attempts to keep that to a minimum. Some evolve around the assumption that right makes might while others are more inclined to prefer own or another rendition of democracy and the rule of law.
Thus…
See how it works? Some embrace “permissibility rules” predicated on the assumptions of those like Adam Smith and Ayn Rand, others on the conclusions of those like Marx and Engels. Or, psychologically, who comes closest to encompassing the “human condition”…Freud? Jung? Skinner? Reich? Pavlov? Frankl? Milgram? James?
Same with most other “disciplines”. Lots of different theories precipitating lots of different assessments of which behaviors ought to be either prescribed or proscribed.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
On the other hand, let’s not forget that children around globe have been indoctrinated down through the ages to embody the permissibility rules of those who were indocrinated before them to follow them. Only that went much smoother back when men and women lived in small communities – villages, hamlets, towns – and it was basically understood that there was a proper place for everyone and everyone was expected to embody that.
Or else?
And if only all the way to the grave?
The world today though is, well, you tell me.
Back again to "I just know deep down in my gut that bull-fighting is wrong. And then if you can convince others in the community to accept that as part of the community’s “permissibility rules”…that make it an objective morality? If only in that community “here and now”?
As though our emotions and intuitions “somehow” transcend the arguments I make regarding dasein.
Though, sure, I may well be misunderstanding what the author means by permissibility rules.
For me, the causal chain is rooted existentially out in a particular world understood in a particular way historically and culturally; and ever and always subject to change given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge.
Let’s run that by the meat eaters here. See if that persuades them to come over to Peta’s permissibility rules.
Eating meat is so epic. Tops for energy, protein, caloric efficiency (low glycemic), full of nutrients and minerals even more than veggies are. And makes me feel so good. And I have teeth designed specifically to tear meat flesh. So.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
[quote] Justifying Moral Judgments
An explanation provides an account of what something is or how something came about, and in theory anything can be explained; but an explanation is not a justification: a justification gives an account of why something is right, or why it’s right to believe something. [/quote]
Yes, that is basically how, for all practical purposes, one might go about making a distinction between the bahaviors they accept and the behaviors they reject. On the other hand, in regard to the objectivists among us, their explanation for why they do something becomes all the justification that is needed for them to insist that you are obligated to do the same thing. Well, if you wish to be thought of as a rational and virtuous man or woman. Like they are.
Again, what am I missing here? If Santa does exist and Mary’s been good, she gets her presents regardless of her parents’ bank account. But if he doesn’t exist? Same with immortality and salvation. If a God, the God, your God does exist and you’ve been good, they’re yours. And if He doesn’t?
Same with objective morality and whatever the author means by “permissibility rules”? Yes, for someone who believes in their own set of them, that explains their own behaviors. The rules might revolve around ideology or deontology or biological imperatives. But again and again and again: why one set of rules and not another? Why yours and not theirs?
That’s my point. Yes, you’re born and raised in a particular community historically and culturally. Yes, you acquired an education that more or less keeps you in sync with Mom and Dad and the neighbors. But how is this really an example of…objective morality?
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
This, in my view, is how some minds – click – are able reconcile all of this…
“Yes, my behaviors today are explained by my own particular upbringing but even so some of my acts reflect bevaviors that are justifified and others behaviors that are not. The assumption being that ‘somehow’ you are able – through an ‘intrinsic self’? – to ‘just know’ what deserves and what doesn’t deserve charity.”
The part about being “principled”? Back to the links above where many of the different folks on many of their different One True Paths are never not principled about their own dogmas.
Sure, most of us are able to explain why we do what we do. The part, hoverer, I root historically, culturally and interpersonally in dasein. And these explanations are often filled with easily communicated objective facts. It’s only when what we do come into conflict with what others that we attempt to justify our explanations. What of the “objective facts” then though?
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
I must be misconstruing his point regarding “permissibility rules” here. How is the above not just another rendition of, “the Bible is true because it is the word of God, and it must be the word of God because it says so in the Bible”? Each of us, as individuals, given the existential nature of “I” out in a particular world understood in a particular way, comes to acquire particular moral and political prejudices. Many, however, come to embody them as objectivists. They embrace this or that God/No God One True Path because they are convinced it really is the one true path to enlightenment. And it must be because, otherwise, why would they be on it?
From my frame of mind, permissibility rules still seem far, far removed from objective morality. How is accepting one set of such rules over others to be demonstrated in any actual community? How is this specifically reflected in your own community when conflicts occur? After all, what are traditions and customs and mores and folkways and laws predicated on if not the historical and cultural evolution of the community itself?
And non-moral permissibility rules are often accepted precisely because in the either/or world, objective communication is simply taken for granted regarding any number of human interactions.
But: in regard to the laws of nature, mathematics, and logic, the past, the present and the future are basically interchangeable. Certain beliefs either can or cannot be backed up empirically, scientifically, objectively. With Hume, this all gets problematic when some confuse correlation and causality. But who is really going to insist on that in regard to our either/or world relationships?
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
Here, again, I’m assuming I am either misunderstanding his points about permissibility rules or he keeps confusing permissibility rules with objective morality.
So, if there are some here who do more or less accept Silver’s assessment above, how might these rules be applicable to, say, the abortion wars…or in regard to any other moral conflagration that has rent the species now for millenia.
Ought to or ought not to do what though? And while some here no doubt will insist I am myself advocating that we ought not to accept oughts, I’m merely arguing instead that “here and now” in a No God universe, I have yet to come upon a demonstrable argument that ought and ought not do in fact revolve around one or another set of deontological prescriptions and proscriptions.
If a community rejects all permissibility rules and revolves instead around, say, survival of the fittest – those with all the gold rule? – the consequences become whatever those in power are likely to prefer. Or, for the sociopaths, they revolve around “what’s in it for me!”
But for the moral objectivists in that community? Well, once they attain power, the consequences will tend to reflect their very own One True Path value judgments. Then the part where “or else” becomes more or less draconian.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
All I can do here is to request of those who do embrace his assessment of permissibility rules to cite examples from their own life…examples encompassing the consequences they confronted when either accepting or rejecting them.
And how do they make their own distinction between permissibility rules and objective morality?
Yes, I’m one of them. But I’m also then quick to point out that moral relativists and moral nihilists, be they sociopaths or global capitalists, are also quite capable of precipitating and then sustaining all manner of human pain and suffering.
Same thing. Do you concur with this assessment? Are you “a liberal, sensitive, egalitarian consequentialist”? Then, given a moral conflagration we are all likely to be familiar with, describe, what, “the best of all possible worlds”?
Abortion and permissibility rules? gun ownership and permissibility rules? homosexuality and permissibility rules? Whose “rules of behavior” ought to prevail such that human suffering is kept to an absolute minimum? Are we embracing “moderation. negotiation and compromise” here? Another rendition of “you’re right from your side and I’m right from mine”?
Really, for those who embrace “permissibility rules” here, how exactly would “conflicting goods” be confronted in any particular community?
Well, this moral relativist/moral nihilist is still completely baffled regarding how permissibility rules themselves reflect an objective morality.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
Back to the part where I am simply not understanding the author’s own understanding of permissibility rules. How are they any less rooted historically and culturally in dasein? In any human community you are going to have prescribed and proscribed behaviors. You are rewarded for doing some things and punished for doing other things.
After all, in regard to objective morality, aren’t many on their own One True Path insisting that if you wish to be thought of as a rational and virtuous human being it is necessary to behave appropriately. In other words, to get on or stay on the One True Path.
As he notes…
I root this in the arguments I make in my signature threads. What is permitted or not permitted can vary greatly over time and around the globe.
Again, run this by the folks in the abortion wars or the folks in Gaza or Ukraine. Permissibility rules there.
Right. And then we come upon those from other communities [or even those from within our own community] who are very proud of and very loyal to their own permissibility rules. Think those on both sides of presidential campaigns here in America.
How then is objective morality being defended above? Or does this revolve around the distinction some make between objective morality and universal morality. In other words, we’re right from our side and you’re right from yours. I just don’t see how this is a defense of moral objectivism. If you can’t justify your value judgments other than to say in effect “this is what we believe in our own community” how is this not another way of accepting moral relativism.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
[quote]Metaethics and Moral Disagreement
Although it brings all possible actions under a single standard, a permissibility rule can be complex, and its application sensitive to circumstances. A permissibility rule may require that the time, place, effects, and the nature of the people involved be considered when evaluating an action. It may even take into account the acceptance of different permissibility rules by other people. [/quote]
For those who basically agree with the points being made here by the author, please take a stab at describing how, in your view, permissibility rules as encompassed above are a manifestation of objective morality.
This might make sense [to me] if there was in fact an objective morality and different people were able to grasp different parts of it. And then they were, in turn, able to come together and combine their insights into an actual deontological assessment of human interactions.
And with any luck [for us] they are willing to come down out of the theoretical clouds and, context by context, offer us what at least philosophically encompassed the One True Path to enlightenment.
See how it works? Hypothetically. Now, let’s take this advice to the folks fighting the abortion wars here in America, or actual wars in Gaza and Ukraine. See if they might be willing to exchange rules of behavior with those on the other side. If the rules are said to sustain, what, the best of all possible moral interactions?
Okay, but wouldn’t we have to first know what their own permissibility rules actually allow…or don’t allow.
Let’s start with, say, the permissibility rules of those communities that practice female genital mutilation.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
“Metaethics is a branch of analytic philosophy that explores the status, foundations, and scope of moral values, properties, and words. Whereas the fields of applied ethics and normative theory focus on what is moral, metaethics focuses on what morality itself is.” IEP
So, my own “metaethics” revolves around the assumption that given the gap, Rummy’s Rule and the Benjamin Button Syndrome there may well be no capacity on our part to grasp what morality itself is. Maybe it goes back to God, maybe it revolves around the Übermensch, maybe it revolves around dasein, maybe it goes back to Buddha.
In any event, what happens when the behaviors that you deem to be permissible are deemed to be taboo by others. Back to “might makes right”, “right makes might” or “democracy and the rule of law”. In other words, as we all well know, the rest is history.
All I can suggest here is that someone who agrees with this might want to note how they connect the dots themselves between permissibility rules, objective morality and their own interactions with others that involved conflicting value judgments. Rules of behaviors exist because they must exist. There are moral narratives [and political agendas] that clash given any number of circumstances. Those on both sides of the moral spectrum are able to make reasonable arguments. Just peruse examples of this here: https://www.procon.org/
Then the part where one side or the other is actually able to legislate and then enforce their own rendition of that. Or both sides come to a moral consensus or both sides agree to sustain a political process that involves moderation, negotiation and compromise.
Again, I’m still confused. The author is convinced that his own rendition of permissibility rules is compatible with objective morality.
But how “for all practical purposes” would that actually be demonstrated? Either pain here is defined in the optimal or the only rational manner, it is determined how much pain [if any] an 18-week-old fetus does feel when aborted and we can in fact finally determine whether a particular abortion is objectively moral or immoral, or things stay the way they are now…both sides assuming that their own assumptions reflect the objective truth.
Our Morality: A Defense of Moral Objectivism
After our recent ‘Death of Morality’ issue, Mitchell Silver replies to the amoralists.
Over and again…
Gather advocates from any number of folks…
…on their own One True Paths. What of instances where permissions are not granted because morally and politically, you’re accused of heading in the wrong direction? What of objective morality then?
Does this make sense to you? Who gets to decide what is permissible in any particular community? Now, if the community embraces a God, the God, they can fall back on Scripture. Or if the community embraces one or another ideological or deontological assessment of human interactions, they can refer back to that. But how is that the equivalent of objective morality? And how are the arguments that I make rooting morality in dasein rebutted?
This part…
A little help here please. Note how, given interactions with others in which conflicting goods abound – in Gaza for example or at an abortion clinic – this would be explained to everyone.
On the other hand, for any number of moral objectivists, that is precisely how they construe their own One True Path: totally in sync with rational and virtuous behavior. Then the part where some communities practice “or else” with a vengeance. There are even objectivists among us who insist there are very different permissibility rules for those of the wrong color or gender or sexual orientation or religion.
Same thing. Does this make sense to you? If so, please note experiences you have had as both a moral objectivist and an ethical pluralist.
Question of the Month
What Grounds or Justifies Morality?
Nella Leontieva
[quote]“Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature… Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me. Tell the truth.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov[/quote]
Then those like me who doubt that mere mortals have access to the truth in regard to “creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last.”
Instead, that mentality is embraced by and large by the objectivists among us. Only, for any number them, it’s not just my own moral philosophy they reject, but all of the other objectivist philosophers here who refuse to think about all of this only as they do.
Over and over again: that depends. Also, I suspect there might be more than just one volunteer? Sans the part about being tortured, say?
Still, if the context/situation/set of circumstances was such that it was “essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature” to create an optimal “fabric of reality” for all the rest of us? Well, what exactly does that mean? What actual explanation is given for why this is necessary? Why torture? How does our choice here impact the fate of “I” beyond the grave?
Then the part where it is merely assumed that we do have the autonomy necessary to choose of our own volition here.
Context please.
Context please.
Only with Kant, we arrive at those philosophers who posited a deontological moral philosophy. But: only by positing in turn a “transcending” font able “in thec end” to judge us…Divinely?
Only we are, in one respect, profoundly different: all the other animals by and large are not exploring their own interactions on philosophy boards.
In other words, the truly profound mystery embedded in how matter itself was able to become “alive”. Let alone able to invent philosophy.