That’s like saying cannibalism is a conflicting good,
because some people in some cultures eat each other.
Now, all rational and virtuous men and woman can mostly agree that cannibalism is bad.
But there is a minority that say it is good.
Don’t you see?
People can disagree about anything under the sun.
This doesn’t disprove objectivity.
Your arguments imo have been crappy.
It is clear to most people that eating babies is wrong.
That is because they were right.
Abortionists are assholes.
I was in an unfamiliar restaurant the other night and I asked the waitress what she might suggest. She has this creepy smile, leans in close and goes ‘the baby back ribs… it’s my favorite.’ So I’m like holy fuck what is this. I started getting nervous so I said ‘yeah sure that sounds great’. She collected my menu and walked away. So now I’m scared to death but I can’t leave and I can’t call the cops because the host guy at the door is watching me. Fuck. I get up an act like I’m going to the restroom to rest in the room, and on the way I see the entrance to the kitchen… so I kinda stop at the payphone and pretend like I’m looking through the phone book. I peek through the entry way and see all the Mexicans… but I think they’re really Aztecs bro doing some sacrifice shit back there in the kitchen. My fucking hearts pounding and I’m like I gotta get outta here. So in a mad dash I break for the fire exit and get away. It was crazy dude. I called the cops and told em to investigate but I think they’re in on it.
And there was this little Jewish boy who met am old man.
It was not original the persona that is.
Reversely, ’ The Old Man and The See that showed them in a different light.
The sea was coral and the sky hue. The fragmented horizon could not but put frear into his soul, so he could not dive for fear of a dyed black see.
The sea’s blackness came from the abyss the green coral the tip layered playfulness of the gods of the sun’s measure of frivality for the sake of his son, the son the old man lost.
He could not help his divisiveness because he could not transcend that optically allusive fear that would have excluded him from a wide gaping coral reef that he saw far away as his last hope of rescue.
This far longing hope for some reprieve bothered his sense of the illusiveness of the horizon, he remained convinced that the horizon was moving away from him.
Why?
The little Jewish boy could have been the one to save him. To fill the void of his Robinson Crusoe existence, and then he thought maybe Friday he will come back, bouncing along the steep trails of the outlines of the precipice haloing-the outline of his happy little face, as frascoed outlines in the days when the golden age transpired into. Shades of Grey and the dark ages
The little man boy may again come back, but by the time of reaching the illuminated shores by the last vestiges of twilit outlines of faintly receding shores, he would have forgot him and his resemblance to the one he lost.
The schism, weirdly and Catholic in all aspects, remained as a sign whose imprimatur will never fail to remind him not to venture to those tried . perilous shores again, for it would be hard to forgive one and all, the danger lurking there.
He could never think outside of that box again, he simply could not exclude himself surrounded by the howl that destroyed so many of the best minds , seeping through the foam of the ebbing tide, for that would result his fracturing the very source of his conscious guilt to abandon his island. and with his light vessel -a ship of fools-venture out alone seeking some faint glimmer that three kings have found through perhaps as perplexing as the desert’s charming mirage.
And he said, i’m so thirsty now.
As his real father assumed the sign of being nailed to it, as he took his last beat.
Perhaps he was sailing abandoning all hope now, toward something that he may yet discover, in a far away galaxy, maybe the closest one.
Maybe Andrameda.~ end drama~dah
And d’Ramada-n
No. It’s Andromeda idiot!
Hey everyone, great responses.
Biggy, I haven’t abandoned this thread. Like you, I’ve been busy, but I’ve got a response almost ready to post. It’s gonna come in two posts actually–one a response to your latest response to me, the other more a set of some very interesting insights I’ve come to about the way you respond (to me and everyone else on this board). So stay tuned.
Okay, then back to this:
No problem.
Besides, from my frame of mind, I always have the advantage in exchanges like this. I acknowledge right from the start that in regard to my own arguments pertaining to “I” in the is/ought world, they are no less existential contraptions rooted subjectively in dasein than yours or others are. I’m not here arguing that if you don’t share my own conclusions about this or that moral and political conflagration than you are wrong. Necessarily so, as it were. No caustic “Coalition of Truth” from me.
My main interest with you then revolves mostly around the extent to which your own moral and political prejudices are understood by you to be existential prejudices…and not the “one of us” [the good guys] vs. “one of them” [the evil guys] mentality.
Biggy quotes Dan saying:
“I’ve tried that with you, Dan. And the conclusion I came to [and noted to you] was that our understanding of the existential relationship between identity, value judgments and political power is so far apart, a “failure to communicate” is basically inevitable”
me no says:
Now this is really true, nothing ambiguous about it, and surprisingly of the kind that would not fit with being earth-bound.
So contradictions need not , or should not exclude a middle, after all! That is, what transcendence is all about.In fact they can’t. ( exclude the middle)
Think about it.
No, it’s just not my kind of political prejudice. I’d imagine life being miserable married to a feminist.
I’ll let you be the judge of that, Biggy.
Well, you said it–it depends existentially in sets of circumstances.
So then let’s drop this line in the argument. I don’t know what you’re asking of me (if anything) and you won’t tell me, so I guess the best response is silence.
Well, these would be the times when I am the lesser self, succumbing to hypocrisy–and perhaps I can’t help it, perhaps I shouldn’t help it–but like I said in the OP, these are the moments I feel least enlightened.
I take it then that your answer is it doesn’t matter. I can choose what you’re challenging me on–judging others, abortion, both, or neither–as long as I believe the views I hold are not routed in dasein. So I’ll stick with the issue I started with: judging other people. And so the challenge is: how can I claim that one should not judge others given that this is a political prejudice routed in dasein–meaning that I could just as well have gone the other way and believed wholeheartedly in judging others?
And I guess the appropriate response is that you’re right–this view is routed in dasein (coupled with certain genetic predispositions I suppose). But that doesn’t make it go away. I still find it repugnant when I see others arrogantly judging others because they think they’re in a position to know everything about the person being judged. This, then, becomes an emotional predisposition, or a reaction, rather than an ideological stance I take on the morality of judging others. And no matter how much we put this through the nihilistic ringer of dasein, this will always be the way I feel emotionally.
Again, not really an answer to my question, so I’ll have to decide for myself, and I’d like to stick with my original discussion topic: judging others. And the way I would defend it is the same way I did above–recognize that the points you make do apply to me while noting that this doesn’t make my feelings on (emotional reaction to) judgments of others out of arrogance go away.
No, just the one under discussion (abortion)–focus, Biggy, focus–and note what you’re saying we can’t clear up: what you mean by “context”–do you mean a specific situation or a topic to discuss? If we can’t clear this up–and further, if we must bring in philosophy, science, theology, your “gap” going all the way down to the root of existence (basically intermixing everything)–then I don’t know how we can have a discussion at all. One would think you’d know what you mean by “context”–you’re the one persistently saying we need one, that we can’t have a discussion without one–and so if you can’t clear up what you mean by it then not even you understand what you’re asking for, and you’re essentially saying a discussion can’t happen.
Well, fuck them. Are you one of them? Are you saying morality can’t come but from God? Surely you realize there are also hundreds of millions of atheists around the world who believe we can have morality without God (well, it might not be hundreds of millions). I know at least Richard Dawkins does. Why not take their point of view?
But you’re the one saying it is. You’re the one constantly saying you could have just as well gone in the other direction (remember?)–whatever rationalization a sociopath comes up with for raping children, he could have gone in the other direction, inventing a rationalization for protecting children and punishing the sociopaths who wish to harm them. ← Seems pretty arbitrary to me.
Already I’m finding this discussion to be (ironically) quite fruitful. My goal here was to go through the ringer with you once more and carefully note how the discussion unfolds if I play your game–give you a context based on a morality I genuinely believe in–and this last post of yours reveals some very interesting things. To wit:
^ What do all these have in common? They are all attempts on my part to clear things up in order to move on with the discussion, to ask you what you mean by the points you make and the questions you ask–something anyone else would want to accommodate if only to have a better chance of convincing me of their point–but your responses seem to do the exact opposite, they seem to be designed to add more confusion and less clarity than I had when I asked the question.
I always knew that we had been through this before. I knew there were plenty of times when I asked you questions to get clarity on your meaning and you refused to answer. There were also times when you made your typical request for a context and I gave you one, but I’ve had difficulty remembering the outcome (or knowing what to make of the outcome when I did remember). And there were times when I would give you responses to the things you’d say only to get back from you a point that had absolutely nothing to do with what I said. You’re a confusing man, Biggy. But now I think I see what you’re doing. I opened this thread to get back into this kind of exchange with you in order to see if I could figure this confusion out and I think I succeeded.
Most people strive to make their point understood–to help the other understand what they’re saying so that the other will (hopefully) be convinced of their point. But for you, that would defeat the purpose. What you’re trying to do is create as much confusion in the other person’s mind as possible–a state of “I don’t know how to respond to this”–to make them feel lost in the discussion, or “quartered” in your words, such as to feel defenseless and in the dark. This is how you felt when confronted by Mary and John’s conflicting justifications about the abortion–both seeming to make sense yet making no sense from the other’s point of view–and if experiences like this are what lead you to your nihilistic outlook of today, what snapped you out of your objectivist framework, then you’re trying to bring the rest of us into that same state of mind in the hopes of snapping us out of our objectivism. Your game is not the usual game of philosophical debate–you’re not trying to convince anyone of your point, of any point–you’re trying to bring us into a particular state of mind, one in which there is no point to be understood.
This is why you refuse to answer my questions. To answer my questions would only bring clarity to the discussion, a path forward down which we might make progress. But you don’t want progress, you want chaos.
This is also why you respond with points that seem completely irrelevant to the points others make (like the point about smears having certain “political prejudices” as a response to my question about his owning a motorbike). It compels one to look for the relevance of your point to the context of the discussion not realizing there isn’t one (deliberately) and therefore left wanting for a response.
This is why when one gives you a context like you ask for, the discussion still goes nowhere. One gets the impression you need a context in order to move forward with the discussion, but what ends up happening is one just gets confused by what you do with the context, what the point actually was. You ask for a context, not because you want to use it to give the discussion substance or a point of reference from which to continue, you ask for a context just to blow it up. A context to you is an example of an objectivist’s picture of a situation in which his moral/political prejudices apply. Once given, you just destroy it–and not by exposing the holes and the flaws in it, like an opposing objectivist might do, but by turning it into confusion and unclarity, something that one can no longer work with, that can’t be used to further the discussion.
And this is why you resort to the excuse of not being able to act differently or saying anything differently in a universe where you were only ever going to act or speak the way you did–even in response to the mere suggestion that you might change your mind in the future, or be persuaded like the billions of other people on this planet (as if changing your mind or being persuaded goes against a fundamental law of the universe that only applies to you). It isn’t that you really believe this, it’s that this is the form your response takes when your goal is to hit the other person with the confusion and unclarity that his point requires. I point out that you have a choice (which can be defined in a compatibilistic way with determinism and can be applied to future choices if not past choices) and the obvious (opposing) remark is to point out that in a deterministic universe, you in fact don’t have a choice.
And finally, this is why I made the comment about how you don’t actually participate in discussions (even though you make it look like you do), you simply react to the things other people say (remember the difference I pointed out between a response and a reaction?). You’re not trying to say something to me, you’re trying to do something to me. You use what I say as a mechanism with which to create this state of confusion and unclarity in my mind. It’s this state of mind you’re trying to induce in everyone, a state of mind you call your “hole” and into which you are trying to drag others so that they might “sympathize”. For most people, having a discussion is the goal, an end in itself. Mind games, on the other hand, use discussion as a means, the end being to manipulate the unsuspecting person into a particular state of mind, one they didn’t see coming. This is why manipulators seem to be having a discussion, but to them it is no more a discussion than programming is a “discussion” being had with a computer.
This state of mind defines your nihilism. It is a state of mind in which you see no objective truth, you just see the chaos and contradiction that, to you, is the ultimate reality, a reality in which John and Mary are both right and both wrong, in which any objectivism one might draw out is only possible by ignoring the opposite objectivisms that exists in the mix just the same. It’s a deeper nihilism than the classic kind according to which all meaning and value are simply made up. According to your nihilism, the world is made of contradictory meaning and value which, if we are to ultimately say annihilate, are the equivalent of nothing.
Gib wrote:
“According to your (iambiguous’) nihilism, the world is made of contradictory meaning and value which, if we are to ultimately say annihilate, are the equivalent of nothing.”
Existence is always asymmetrical. If there were an anti particle for every particle, it would be impossible for existence to exist at all. Because existence DOES exist, we know for a fact that there are more positive particles than negative particles.
This seems to be a fundamentally basic truth lost on iambiguous.
Okay, but, again, my point is not that some find it liberating and others find it oppressive, but that the manner in which each of us as indiviuals come to the conclusions that we do about feminists is rooted more existentially in dasein than in anything that philosophers or ethicists or political scientists can tell us regarding the obligation of all rational human beings in assessing feminism.
In other words, the part the objectivists among us steer clear of because then they can’t feel superior to those who don’t think about feminists exactly as they do.
For them, it’s not only that they find not being married to a feminist liberating but that those who find being married to them liberating instead are fools: “one of them”. They don’t get feminism the way it’s supposed to be gotten.
Okay, then back to this:
As a baby, Mom and Pop die, and you are sent to live with another family. You come to live a completely different life. And, in this life, your indoctrination as a child and the aggregate experiences you accumulate as an adult result in you whole-heartedly embracing feminism.
Again, that’s why places like this are around. To take these subjective “existential contraption” value judgments and test them against the value judgments of others. To see if, using the tools of philosophy – epistemology, logic – we can come to know more “wisely” how reasonable men and women are obligated to think and to feel about feminism.
Okay, but in regard to my own is/ought world value judgements, let me remind you:
In any event, I suspect that how we think about feminism at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy is very, very different.
Then I’m just back to suggesting that each of us as individuals come to accept/champion laws that allow abortions or reject/seek to overturn them based on the manner in which I construe value judgments as political prejudices rooted in dasein.
And that, of course, not doing anything is doing that. The laws remain on the books or they don’t…depending on how many on either side are able to elect the most “one of us” politicians. But none of that makes my argument above go away.
Torn definitely because I am able to see that both sides make perfectly reasonable arguments given the initial assumptions they make about starting with the rights of the unborn or with the rights of the pregnant woman. And caring here is ultimately moot because however much I do care doesn’t make the quandary I note go away.
Yeah. Or explain to me how your own views on the morality of abortion are not the embodiment of dasein. How, instead, for example, you deem them to be, say, philosophically or scientifically sound. Or, if you are a religious person, theologically sound.
No, it’s not just the sets of circumstances, but how you have come to construe them in terms of your own value judgments. Then back to how I see individuals acquiring them re the OP on these threads:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=176529
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=194382
And then how the moral objectivists among us come to embody what I call the “psychology of objectivism” re the OP on this thread:
ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
Look, in regard to your political agenda here, you either embrace the “one of us” [the good guys] vs. “one of them” [the evil guys] or you don’t. That’s what I’m curious about myself. Not what you believe but how you think about the manner in which you came to believe this instead of that.
I have absolutely no idea what you mean by this. How would you rephrase it in regard to your views on abortion?
What matters when you are interacting with others in a community and you become part of a context which involves an abortion is the back and forth between you and them. That and the law which invokes actual consequences for what you choose. Some will insist that the abortion is, objectively, either right or wrong based on one or another religious or ideological and deontological font. Others, like me, will be drawn and quartered. Then there’s you. Maybe you can get away with not judging anyone at all. Or maybe others will insist that you are either one of us here or one of them.
It’s all about context and dasein to me…
Me, any repugnance I might feel is no less just another subjective reaction rooted in dasein. Had things been very different in my life I might feel just the opposite of repulsed. And then the part where there does not appear to be a way [philosophically or otherwise] to determine if rational men and women ought to feel repulsed given that particular abortion in that particular context.
On the contrary, there are countless men and women out there arguing about the morality of abortion who haven’t the vaguest understanding at all about philosophy. It’s all about God or some other font they use to divide the world up between the good ones and the bad ones. And even when it is a philosophical discussion there are those like me far, far more concerned with bringing any sophisticated technical understanding down out of the intellectual clouds and connecting their “worlds of words” with particular contexts.
I’ve given you my own argument regarding the judgments we make about others. And it includes both intellectual and emotional reactions. Both being derived largely from dasein. Which then [to me] make both profoundly problematic…either in regard to the past predisposing you to think and to feel this instead of that about the morality of abortion, or how given new experiences you can never really predict what you might think and feel in the future.
Yes, that’s the quandary. Akin to the quandary that revolves around determinism and free will. We don’t really know for certain if we have any free will at all. And we certainly don’t have a fucking clue as to how “I” ultimately fits into the staggering vastness of “all there is”. But given the absolute necessity of coming up with something meaningful when we choose to interact with others, we all take our existential leaps.
I just make the distinction between I in the either/or world and “i” in the is/ought world.
Are you kidding me?! The contexts are everywhere. The Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, the events at Waukesha parade tragedy, the imminent verdict in the Arbery killing trial. People weighing in on them here either as fulminating fanatic objectivists or not. But how many think about morality here as “I” do?
And to those atheists the same thing: choose a context, a conflicting good, note their own moral narrative and political agenda and explain to me why 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.”
…is not applicable to them.
On the other hand, unlike most religious folks, who have as their moral foundation the omniscient and omnipotent Creator Himself, what do the secular “mere mortal” folks have? Some Kantian intellectual contraption [that is still rooted to a transcending font], an ideological dogma? a “my way or the highway” account of genes > memes?
So, sure, let them pick this context, this moral conflagration and go up against my own arguments here.
The part you left out…
"It’s nowhere near entirely arbitrary. [i]It starts with all of the basic needs we share in common given particular historic and cultural contexts that can drag out for years, decades, and even centuries. Re the assessments of those like Marx and Engels.
Or the all-knowing philosophers like Plato and Aristotle and Descartes and Kant. But even they rooted the a priori in the transcending God.
Only in our profoundly problematic and particularly precarious “post-modern” world, that sort of “Meaning and Purpose” meets, among other things, the internet and mass media; and then, well, let a “thousand hopelessly conflicting and contradictory One True Paths bloom”?"[/i]
What is arbitrary of course is the part where we don’t get to choose what historical and cultural context into which we are born. We don’t get to choose what others brainwash us into believing about the world we live in. We don’t choose the color of our skin or [at birth] our gender or innate intelligence and any number of personality/psychological traits that will follow us all the way to the grave. Or our congenital health. Maia didn’t choose to be blind at birth.
But any number of components that go into making us who we become as adults are at least partly within our reach [in a free will world].
I didn’t choose to be drafted in the Army. I didn’t choose to go to Vietnam. I didn’t choose to be sent to that hell hole MACV at Song Be.
But I did meet soldiers there who completely turned my conservative religious and political values upside down.
Dasein can be arbitrary. But nowhere near entirely.
On the other hand, the confusion may well revolve instead around your own inability to understand the points I make about “I” in the is/ought world…when attempting to explain to others why I believe this about the morality of abortion instead of that.
All I can do here is to note in some detail the manner in which my arguments played themselves out existentially…given both my personal experience with a particular abortion, and the manner in which my philosophical and political convictions evolved in turn.
This:
1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
And then to ask you and others to note how your own thoughts and feelings about abortion managed as well to intertwine both “theory and practice”.
You’ll either attempt that or you won’t.
Or if you had no personal experiences with abortion note an issue that you did have experience regarding.
[b]And of course the moral objectivists among us here are confused. They are so used to dividing up their black and white world between “us” and “them”, that the thought that 1] this is philosophically futile and 2] that their own value judgments are just subjective, existential fabrications is what disturbs them most about me. I’m not like the liberals and conservatives arguing back and forth about how demented conservatives and liberals are, but argue instead that both sets of political dogmas are the embodiment of dasein. The thought that a “fractured and fragmented” sense of identity pertaining to their own value judgments might be applicable to them is what most freaks them out.
Think about it. The liberals and the conservatives here go at each other tooth and nail. But: they both share in common the belief that at least there is an optimal moral narrative and political agenda: it just happens to be their own.
[/b]
But “I” call into question even that. “No fucking way!”, they all bellow at me.
Of course, the truth can never be that I answered you but you didn’t like the answer I gave. It always has to come back to some defect on my part.
Well, here all we can do is to try, try again. Focus in on a new context and, as I commit all of these misdeeds, you point them out on the spot.
Same thing. New discussion. New context. And, as I confirm what you are saying here, you nail me.
No, up to a point, they both recognized that the other’s frame of mind was not necessarily unreasonable. Only that their own was more reasonable. My frame of mind was just all the more ambiguous/ambivalent because I was taking in at the time the philosophical argument made by Barrett in Irrational Man:
“For the choice in…human [moral conflicts] is almost never between a good and an evil, where both are plainly marked as such and the choice therefore made in all the certitude of reason; rather it is between rival goods, where one is bound to do some evil either way, and where the ultimate outcome and even—or most of all—our own motives are unclear to us. The terror of confronting oneself in such a situation is so great that most people panic and try to take cover under any universal rules that will apply, if only to save them from the task of choosing themselves.”
I merely went on further to incorporate Nietzsche’s idea of being “beyond good and evil” as a “fractured and fragmented” self in the is/ought world.
A path forward to what…an objective moral narrative and political agenda? Progress from what…the perspective of the liberals or the conservatives?
The rest is just more of the same. The problem is me. All of the things you accuse me of:
Thus, only in sustaining our discussion about abortion [or a context more to your own liking] given your own sense of self at the existential juncture of identity, value judgments and political economy, will you be able to note particular instances of all these foolish things I do. Otherwise, in ways I may or may not be able to encompass in an effable manner this is all just more or less psychobabble to me.
This is complete bullshit from my perspective. Never, ever have I argued that there is no objective truth. On the contrary, over and again I note that, in regard to the preponderance of the things we do in interacting with others the objective truth is everywhere. Let’s call it the either/or world. Encompassed in, among other things, mathematics, the laws of nature, the rules of logic, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, meteorology and on and on and on.
Even within the so-called “soft sciences” there are any number of facts that all sides can agree on.
As for John and Mary, how is John’s point that the unborn fetus — his son or daughter – has a natural right to life beyond the womb necessarily either right or wrong? How is Mary’s point that her political right to choose abortion is necessarily right or wrong?
Same with the moral conflagrations that revolve around things like gun control and animal rights and the role of government. As though both sides don’t have reasonable arguments that the other side can’t just make go away.
This is a typical response from you. I’ve seen you respond in this way for years, and I still have no idea what you think it proves. Would I have embraced feminism if I had been raised differently? If I had different life experience? Sure, absolutely–if the way I was raised and the experiences I had were conducive to that–but how does that change anything about the actual life I’m living? It doesn’t matter one iota how many different ways I could have been raised, how many different life experiences I could have had, how many different political prejudices I may have acquired–we’re talking about actuality, the real world, how things stand here and now–and in that context, feminism is just not my kind of political prejudice.
Let’s say you got through to me with this response. Let’s say it changed my mind in exactly the way you were hoping/intending. What would that look like? What would you expect me to say?
It’s funny how you think this is an advantage. An advantage in what game? Can I do the same? Can I say, from the start, that in regard to my arguments, they are no less existential contraptions rooted in dasein? Would that make us equal in terms of having the advantage? How would that change the way you respond to me?
Ok, so you would just lump them back together, reverting to the dichotomy you’re enamoured by. I really don’t care. You do you.
In my opinion, each side makes reasonable arguments to the exclusion of the other side’s argument:
pro-life advocate: Abortion should be abolished because it is murder.
pro-choice advocate: Abortion should be legalized because a woman has a right to her own body.
^ Each side, while making a good point (IMNSHO), completely ignores that the other is also making a good point–as if the other never spoke a word of sense at all–as if the one side’s argument stands alone in a vaccuum.
In my not so humble opinion, I think the tell tale sign of a truly reasonable and enlightened person is to weigh both sides for what they’re worth and conclude the only thing one can conclude on matters like these: it’s a quandry, a tragic dilemma. Whatever decision is made in the end–whether to abort the baby or suppress the woman’s right–it’s going to be unfair–there is no “right” decision, but we live in a world where we are faced with decisions like this every day and sooner or later that decision must be made. You don’t have to go into denial about the validity of one side’s point of view to embrace this. You just have to swallow the fact that we live in a tragic world.
Just to be clear, this is what I was saying “I do?” to:
You’re always very cryptic, Biggy, so I had to ask. But reading over it again, I gather you mean that we both seem to acknowledge that our points of view on issues like abortion or whatever are far more influences/determined by dasein (<-- look at that, I’m using your terminology) than any all-seeing-eye that apprehends the unvarnished truth with crystal clear objectivity. Only you remain stuck between the choices, unable to take a side, while I seem untroubled with going with which ever side I feel most strongly about. ← Did I get that right?
Huh? I thought we were talking about judging people. What does that have to do with abortion? But okay, I’ll try:
For me, this is the pivotal point in the discussion (or one of them). It is the point where I give my response to your arguments about dasein in the context I provided (the morality of judging others). And your reaction is this ^–to point out that repugnance is no less routed in dasein than any other intellectual or emotional position one might take on any issue. So fair enough–repugnance is too routed in dasein. Is this the end of the line? The end of the discussion? Are you expecting a response to this as well? Are you thinking of this as a counter-point to what I said (because I don’t)? For me, there’s really not much more that can come out of this. So this is what happens when I provide a context: you provide your dasein argument, I admit that yes it all comes out of dasein (though it doesn’t change anything), and you point out that even that comes out of dasein. All this really doesn’t amount to much. And I do recall similar discussions with you meeting similar ends. This time, however, I’m taking the opportunity to mark it in my mind as “the results of playing Biggy’s game” so that I have an answer to the question: where does a discussion with Biggy go when playing his game? I think if I actually was an objectivist, or just disagreed with your dasein argument, this might have gotten a little more interesting, but alas, I get the answer I get.
Well, if all they’re saying is “Abortion is wrong 'cause God says so,” then I agree, that’s not philosophy (I’m not sure what the dogmatic equivalent is on the side of pro-choice… natural right?). But even the most staunch believers usually give reason and argumentation an honest college try. And your question was what would I do if I were Mary or John? I would try to make rational arguments in favor of my position, and that’s philosophy–all the more so if, in your words, they’re eyeball to eyeball with birth and death.
So what is your point then? That your argument does make the way I feel about judging others (or abortion) go away? That it should? Are you saying that once a person understands the truth of your argument, they have an obligation to disregard their emotions? I just don’t see how your dasein argument changes anything.
I’m sure they are, but the question is: what do you mean by “context”–not: do contexts exist? But to be fair, pointing to examples is one way of clarifying your meaning (I guess you’re just trying to avoid intellectual contraptions). And the examples you gave seem to suggest that a context (to you) is a specific situation (real or hypothetical). Which is great! It means we can stay with my topic of discussion (judging others) while bringing in a specific concrete example in which judging others plays out as the context (though I get the impression you really want to stick with abortion).
I just wonder why getting you to clarify what you mean by the words you use, the statements you make, is like pulling teeth. If all you needed to do was to give a handful of examples, why wasn’t that the first thing you did? Is it because the options I gave you–a context is either a specific situation or a topic for discussion–are too much “intellectual contraptions”? I mean, the examples you gave seem to me to be specific situations, but you said we cannot separate them from topics for discussion, so I was lead to believe it’s both. But the examples you gave, though related to topics of discussion, can clearly be distinguish from them. If in response to your request for a context, I said “How bout gay rights?” that wouldn’t satisfy according to you. But if I sited a specific court case in which a gay person’s right to be married (let’s say) was at stake, that would satisfy. No matter what concrete, real world example we go with, it will always be related to some topic for discussion, so you need not fret about talking about a context separately from the topic, and for the purposes of clarity, you very much can explain that what you mean by “context” is a specific situation without fearing we’ll lose sight of the topic. ← I just don’t get why acknowledging that distinction is so hard for you. Why are you so loathed to admit it can be done?
Right, and I thought that’s what we’re talking about.
I never used the word ‘entirely’.
Of course that’s possible… but some things are only possible in principle… in practice, things can be clear enough to take a gamble and say “You know what, I’m 99% certain. I’m gonna round that up to 100% and draw my conclusions.” Just as I’m 99% certain I know you believe our political prejudices are rooted in dasein, even though (in principle) I may have misunderstood you all these years. Maybe you’re speaking a language that only sounds like English but unbeknownst to me “I believe our political prejudices are rooted in dasein” means something as mundane as “I like chives on my baked potatoes.”
If that’s a defect, it’s the least of your worries.
I think that’s exactly what you’re afraid of. Any clarity brought to the discussion brings things into focus, makes us more certain about what we’re talking about, and therefore commits us to the things we say, and makes it all the easier to show why we’re wrong when we make mistakes. It’s just a small leap from this to objectivism. Clarity is the groundwork to start building objective arguments and arriving at objective conclusions. If we can say with certainty that we are discussing this and not that then there are definitely things that can be said about this that cannot be said about that. It even becomes objectively true. Even if it’s within a “world or words” as you often put it, things can be objectively true, as objectively true as 2 + 2 = 4 or that all circles are round. So long as you keep the object of the conversation from becoming clearly defined, you get to stay clear from a context in which you’re forced to start making objective statements, a context in which–dare I say it–you could be wrong (gasp). You thrive in confusion and unclarity–it is your sanctuary, your happy place from which you can drive the conversation wherever you want, from which it is you who has control and your opponent is hopelessly at your mercy. So yeah, a path forward in discussions with you blazed by clarity and understanding is your worst nightmare.
Yes! The problem is you! You’re your own worst enemy.
It would be.
The point is, your agenda goes beyond the mere fact of the subjectivity of these issues, it reaches for the state of mind I just described. You talk as if you are troubled by the lack of an objective path towards the truth on these matters, but the more one argues with you, the more one gets the impression you wish only that there was more of a lack. You have claimed your willingness to die on the hill of dasein for so long, that you’ve invested all your self worth and personal identity into it, and have become proud of the fact that you recognize this lack. You’re driven to defend it and uphold it. Arguments with you tend to go in the opposite direction of trying to resolve this issue, of trying to work out a possible closure to the gap between the subjectivity of these issues and a means by which to arrive at objective answers. You push for as much despair and hopelessness as you can, for making things as unclear and confusing as you can, because that is how you will drag people down into your hole with you, to put them in the state of mind you struggle with. Obviously, the objectivity of the either/or world brings you no solace–otherwise, why put all your life’s efforts into this campaign–so I don’t buy this appeal to the objectivity of the either/or world as your way of demonstrating that you indeed believe in objective clarity. You know as well as I do, you want to steer as far away from that world as possible. Instead, you want to steer into madness. Rather than grab a helping hand trying to pull you out of your hole, you’d prefer to drag it down into the hole with you. Rather than cooperate with members on ILP to help you out of the madness of your dilemma, you wish to spread your madness to everyone.
Unbelievable. If I do say so myself.
You admit that your thinking about feminism is as a result of the life you lived. As though just because your life unfolded as it did, there was never any possibility that it might have unfolded otherwise. Your own rendition of my own Song Be Syndrome.
Also, given all of the variables in your life that you did not either fully grasp or control. Also, if how you think about feminism now is as a result of the life you lived existentially in the past, then, existentially, the life that you live in the future might involve new experiences, new relationships and new information and knowledge that result in you embracing feminism instead.
Which is why in a philosophy venue, we can acknowledge the existential parameters of “I” in the world of moral and political value judgments, and ask ourselves, “okay, using the tools of philosophy and ethics and political science, is there a way to determine how all rational men and women are obligated to think about feminism?” For example, Ayn Rand’s “metaphysical” conclusions: atlassociety.org/post/femin … spectively.
Or how about Satyr’s genes > memes dogma?
Or your own?
Yes, but this is precisely the frame of mind I would expect from an objectivist. Fuck all that dasein shit if there is any possibility that dasein, being a reasonable assessment of “I” in the is/ought world, might interfere with my being able to hold in contempt anyone who doesn’t share my own mocking assessment of feminism.
Political prejudice? No way! Feminism is inherently irrational no matter what life you live.
Hell, most objectivists at ILP, can’t even recognize themselves in the OP here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
That feminism can only be understood more fully existentially…as the manifestation of human interactions at a particular historical, cultural and experiential juncture. There is no “epistemological or logical” argument that philosophers have come up with to establish once and for all the most rational and virtuous assessment. Or, rather, none that “here and now” I am familiar with.
Okay, do you say it? Do you acknowledge that your views on feminism are far removed from the arrogant and self-righteous bluster of those like Satyr? Gender roles embedded in genes ever and always trumping memes and thus feminism being wholly Unnatural"?
At least didactically up in his intellectual contraption clouds.
Okay, so how in the real world, does each side manage to exclude the other side’s own political prejudice [rooted in dasein] other than by insisting that their own political prejudice [rooted in dasein] is more rational and virtuous? And how would either side go about demonstrating that their own priorities must prevail as the optimal or the only rational political agenda?
If you demand that it is most rational and virtuous for the unborn to be brought into this world then you are creating situations where any number of women will be forced to give birth against their will. And if you demand that it is most rational and virtuous for women to have the right to choose an abortion then the unborn are destroyed. It’s all intertwined in one gut-wrenching conundrum.
Same with all the other moral conflagrations that beset us. Both sides have reasonable arguments merely by starting out from different initial sets of assumptions regarding the behaviors themselves.
That’s why in most modern democracies “moderation, negotiation and compromise” still prevails. Each side’s point of view is recognized as reasonable. Up to a point. So the law takes both narratives into consideration. Abortion, yes. But with any number of restrictions and prohibitions.
Exactly. William Barrett’s “rival goods”. Only for the objectivists on both sides of the ideological spectrum it becomes “abortion on demand!” or “stop abortions now!”. For some even in regard to rape or incest or actual danger to the pregnant woman’s health.
Yeah, pretty much. On the other hand, I would never argue that there is no font to embed objective morality in. How on earth would infinitesimally insignificant specks of existence that each of us are get a handle on that going back to, well, wherever you want to take it. No, instead, I merely point out that “here and now” no one has managed of late to convince me that their own particular font does in fact exist to provide humankind with its very own “Coalition of Truth”.
As for what you feel strongly about, that merely confirms just how intently some can cling to political prejudices rooted in dasein. And then the extent to which they have an experience like I did in Song Be. An experience so riveting that all that I once believed about God and morality is turned upside down. Though not really. Why? Because I merely traded in God for Marx. No, the real epiphany came for me with John and Mary and William Barrett. That’s when objective morality itself crumbled all around me. And philosophically no less in a No God world. That’s when I recognized the extent to which experiences in life can take you in directions that you might never have thought were even possible.
You have things you “feel strongly about”. And feeling as you do this then grounds you in a frame of mind that allows you to feel superior to those who don’t share your own strong feeling about things like feminism. Again, however, from my frame of mind, what you believe [rooted existentially in dasein] pales next to the psychological comfort and consolation of being able to convince yourself that, in regard to feminism, you are “one of us” and not “one of them”.
So, perhaps some day you will have a close encounter with that pivotal experience that turns it all around. Either in reconfiguring your “strong feelings” in just another objectivist direction…or in bringing them crashing down altogether.
Okay, then it just comes down to the gap between your “strong feelings rooted in political prejudices” lesser self and my own “fractured and fragmented” existential self.
You admit that had your life been different your “strong feelings” might have revolved instead around defending just the opposite of what you believe now. But it wasn’t different. The experiences you in fact had brought you to the value judgments you have now. And that’s good enough for you in scoffing at the liberals who in turn came to their own frame of mind as a result of the experiences that they had. Enabling them to scoff at you.
To me, it’s like Maia’s “strong feelings” about Paganism and the Goddess. Okay, she admits, they are in large part an existential fluke, a result of the particular life she lived that might have been such that she was here instead mocking and ridiculing Pagans and Goddesses. But she just shrugs that part off. Almost as if [to her] our lives are entirely determined by fate or destiny. By nature. Period.
Which may well be the case.
It’s more a “game” here, sure, but only because all we are exchanging are “worlds of words” more or less brought down to earth and situated in particular contexts.
But: just follow the news day after day after day for all of the endless examples of just how serious things can get when value judgments do collide. Here at one end are the moral objectivists with their “one of us”/“one of them” mentality. And at the other end those like me who are “fractured and fragmented”. And up to a point paralyzed. It all coming down basically to whether others give you the option to be that way.
And then you with your “strong feelings”. Somewhere in the middle? You recognize the existential factors merely predisposing you to one point of view rather than another but unlike me that doesn’t stop you from feeling considerably more comfortable with the existential leap you take.
And, beyond that, you tell me. I can’t offer any definitive conclusions here. Not even close to it.
Okay, if you ever come upon a situation like that, let me know how it all unfolded. Perhaps differently for you. Perhaps your argument might come closer than mine to a more philosophically sound and sophisticated assessment. There may well be “strong feelings” in regard to abortion that bring the conflagration down a few notches.
We have thoughts about our value judgments and we have emotional reactions to them. We think this about Mary’s abortion and we have feelings about it. We think this about feminism and we have our feelings about it. How are the two not interwined existentially in dasein? Given the life we lived. Given all the experiences we had. Meaning, in turn, given all the experiences we did not have. Expereinces that others did have.
We come into the world hard-wired to both think and feel. How exactly would we go about discarding that? But what we think and feel about in regard to the morality or abortion or the political correctness of feminism either can be fully demonstrated using the tools of philosophy or partly demonstrated or not demonstrated at all as other than a personal/political prejudice. Thus Wittgenstein suggesting here that perhaps we not speak of these things at all. Right. As though that has anything to do with the real world.
Here’s a “context” coming up: the omicron variant.
And you can bet the political objectivists here will be in full throttle when the discussions possibly move back around to new vaccinations and masking up and lockdowns. Some will argue it’s just a furtherance of the “hoax” that covid itself is. Some will link it to their dogmatic political prejudices regarding government and capitalism and “I” vs. “we”. Other will insist we leave it up to the scientists to tell us what to do.
Okay, how much of that is rooted subjectively in dasein and how much in the absolute 100% objective truth?
There’s your understanding of this distinction and mine.
Okay, in regard to abortion or feminism or any other political conflagration of note, let’s pin down what either is or is not clear. Let’s grapple with pinning down what all of us are obligated as rational human beings to agree on. Should we focus more on the fetus or the pregnant woman? Should we focus more on the women’s movement or the men’s movement? Who makes the most mistakes here and what are they?
The 2 + 2 = 4 equivalent in the is/ought world.
And how could the nightmare aspect of my point of view here really get much worse? I have thought myself into believing that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless. That “I” will one day tumble over into the abyss that is oblivion. That in regard to moral and political value judgments, “I” am “fractured and fragmented”.
Instead, I cling to the upside: that, given whatever time I do have left, I have accumulated any number of fulfilling distractions and in not being anchored to the Right Thing To Do, I have that many more options open up for me.
And, other than in believing that to be the case “in your head” – by assuming all the points you make about me are true – how exactly would you go about actually demonstrating that more, say, substantively?
Then let’s go there.
On the contrary, when, over the years, any number of members have accused me of denying there is any objective truth – nihilism on steroids? – I have [repeatedly] had to make the distinction I do between the either/or and the is/ought world.
How so? It is in fact a crucial reality embedded in the world we live and interact in.
Help me? They don’t. But others are out there insisting that in regard to biology here, they can pin down the precise moment when the zygote, embryo or fetus becomes a bona-fide human being. Many go back to the point of conception itself. And that’s crucial for them because it’s one thing to be morally appalled at shredding a “clump of cells” and another thing altogether when shredding a human being just like all the rest of us.
Not at all sure what your point is here. Other than that you seem determined to explain my agenda to me in a way that, because I don’t agree with your agenda, I’m not able to grasp how much more reasonable it is.
What I am most troubled by is not my lack of an objective path but those God and No God autocrats/objectivists among us who gain power and insist that everyone else must think and feel exactly as they do. Or else.
Now, in a philosophy venue that can be Postmodern Beatnik “banning me for life” at The Philosophy Forum or Satyr sending me to the Dungeon at Know Thyself [and then “disappearing” me altogether]. Or, here, imagine if one of the right-wing fulminating fanatics were to gain control over ILP? What of my fate then?
And then back to what from my subjective frame of mind is more psychobabble:
Me, I still find myself here coming back to this:
“He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest.” John Fowles
And then coming back to this: Whatever that means.
A context, followed by your submission to my definition and understanding of Daeisn, followed by ten years of nonsense - at least - followed by frustration, followed by your surrender, followed by my victory.
Followed by…nothing
See, philosophy is at an end, when this passes for philosophy.
When you, for instance, subjectivized all terminology and refuse to “;bring them down to earth” - anchored them on the soil where both can be held to account.
But if you give in to a moron and a hypocrite…he wins.
Have you never argued with a woman?
Sheesh…these are classic feminine word-games.
Reason and logic don’t work, here.
You have to come down to their level.
Note to Gib:
See what we’re up against?
Tell me this sort of buffoonish tirade is not a key element in explaining what ILP has turned into over the years.
And, again, the sheer irony embedded in the fact that this particular buffoon literally “disappeared” me from his own clique/claque.
I am more than willing to dispense with the huffing and puffing and discuss his arguments intelligently and civilly in the philosophy forum. But the Chickenshit won’t go there because when we were in the general vicinity of that in the agora at KT, I made such a fool of him that he almost immediately booted me into the dungeon. Now even the dungeon itself is gone.
It’s like at KT, I never even existed at all. 
Note to Others
Does this even make sense?
What does it even mean?
Question stands…
In a no god, amoral universe, why OUGHT I to help Mary remain a slut, or why OUGHT I step in and absorb the negative consequences of Mary’s poor judgements and wrong choices?
Nothing has determined me to do so…in a no free-will world…so why OUGHT I to feel responsible or guilty, for her predicament?
Has it not been determined that Mary suffer or not suffer?
Why OUGHT I protect Mary from the negative consequence of her poor judgements and bad choices, in a no god world?
why you hiding?
This is about Biggy giving me a lesson.
I’ll get to you elsewhere…you needy biatch.
One at a time…you horny cunts.