I’m thinking of starting to read some philosophy. I’ve read a chapter or two of Leviathan and some Aristotle in college.
I’m thinking of reading Immanuel Kant or some philosopher on the discussion of morals. I’m at an intersection in my belief if I should live a life amorally (doing what is necessary) or “try to be the good I want to see in others.”
I need some help in figuring what to do. I wish i had a mentor.
I hear Kant is difficult. You may try looking into also getting a book by someone else about Kant if you go that route.
Reading Kant probably won’t help you with your dilemma though. I’d suggest The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James Rachels as an introduction to moral theory. It’s a pretty short and easy read. Also, one of my favorite books in general is Irrational Man by William Barrett, which was one of the first American books to seriously study the currents of existentialist thought.
Question: If you take an amoral approach to life (I don’t even think this is really a tenable view in the first place) how is anything necessary? Living seems to be no more necessary than dying when things are considered amorally. For something to be “necessary” there has to be either 1. a moral claim behind it or 2. it has to be impossible for things to be any other way.
P.S. Kant would probably encourage you to “try to be the good you want to see in others.”
download some documentaries, watch videos on youtube, read some biographies, articles on the internet and histories on philosophy like Bertrand Russell, “A History of Western Philosophy”. You will get a basic unerstanding of philosophy, and you will separate what you like from what you dont like…
I think amorality is usually misundertood to mean ‘do evil things.’ That is not what it is, at least in my experience. I can consider myself amoral for the previous two years before this one, and I have to say it is not what moralists make it out to be. Just because you’re amoral does not mean that you’re gonna rape or murder people - it just means that you get to do what you really want, within the bounds of your own character. If you’re not inclined to do bad things, then you won’t.
I only stopped considering myself amoral when I saw some other people existing in a practically amoral state… I did not want to live like that. The results are not to my liking. I still hesitate to call myself moral; it conjures images of saints and sinners and religion, and I’m just not into that anymore. Hence, I now base my acts on my own, my private method of discerning what is good and bad. In a sense, I created my own version of morality. I like it so far.
How in an amoral life can one think of anything as ‘good’ or ‘bad’? Furthermore, it seems to me that since human beings have the capacity to value, and thus we have opinions of what “ought to be,” being human precludes the condition of being amoral.
I have a sneaking suspicion that “amoralists” are those who pretend not to have moral opinions. I simply don’t believe that adult human beings functioning at usual levels can be amoral.
I don’t think amoral being what is good and bad. I believe doing things that are the best for my personal well-being.
Amoral being an animal in the wild like a bear killing another bear for food. Neither action is good nor bad. It just is. Both animals doing what it needs to do.
Unfortunately for me I have instincts but I have thoughts that can force me not to act upon instincts. I wonder if I should be more of doing what’s best for me. In some sense I do. Although, I could do things like, for example, a company that sells fake penis enlarging pills, i won’t name any companies cough extenZe cough. Companies like that only seek to better themselves at the expense of others. Our capitalist country tends to promote companies like that. Maybe amoral is the wrong word for me. Maybe a bit more Machiavellian…